THE DIAMOND BRACELET.
But, as you have heard, there is something yet to relate of that hot
June day, or, rather, of its evening, when poor Selina Dalrymple had
applied for help, and unsuccessfully, to her sister Alice.
The great world of London was beginning to think of dinner. In a
well-furnished dressing-room, the windows being open for air, and the
blinds drawn down to exclude the sun, stood a tall, stately lady,
whose maid was giving the last touch to her rich attire. It was Lady
Sarah Hope.
"What bracelets, my lady?" asked the maid, taking a small bunch of
keys from her pocket.
"Not any, now: it is so very hot. Alice," added Lady Sarah, turning to
Alice, who was leaning back on a sofa, "will you put all my bracelets
out for me against I come up? I will decide then."
"_I_ put them out, Lady Sarah?" returned Alice. "Yes, certainly."
"If you will be so kind. Hughes, give the key to Miss Seaton." For
they did sometimes remember to address Alice by her adopted name.
Lady Sarah left the room, and the maid, Hughes, began taking one of
the small keys off the ring. "I have leave to go out, miss," she
explained, "which is the reason why my lady has asked you to see to
her bracelets. My mother is not well, and wants to see me. This is the
key, ma'am."
As Alice took it, Lady Sarah reappeared at the door. "Alice, you may
as well bring the bracelet-box down to the back drawing-room," she
said. "I shall not care to come up here after dinner: we shall be late
as it is."
"What's that about the bracelet-box?" inquired a pretty-looking girl,
who had come swiftly out of another apartment.
"Lady Sarah wishes me to bring her bracelets down to the drawing-room,
that she may choose which to put on. It was too hot to wear them to
dine in, she said."
"Are you not coming in to dinner, Alice?"
"No. I walked out, and it has tired me. I have had some tea instead.".
"I would not be you for all the world, Alice! To possess so little
capability of enjoying life."
"Yet, if you were as I am, weak in health and strength, your lot would
have been so soothed to you, Frances, that you would not repine at or
regret it."
"You mean I should be content," laughed Frances, upon whom the
defection of Mr. Gerard Hope earlier in the year did not appear to
have made much impression: though perhaps she did not know its
particulars. "Well, there is nothing like contentment, the sages tell
us. One of my detestable schoolroom copies used to be 'Contentment is
happiness.'"
"I can hear the dinner being taken in," said Alice. "You will be late
in the drawing-room."
Lady Frances Chenevix turned away to fly down the stairs. Her light,
rounded form, her elastic step, all telling of health and enjoyment,
presented a marked contrast to that of Alice Dalrymple. Alice's face
was indeed strangely beautiful, almost too refined and delicate for
the wear and tear of common life, but her figure was weak and
stooping, and her gait feeble.
Colonel Hope, thin and spare, with sharp brown eyes and sharp
features, sat at the foot of his table. He was beginning to look so
shrunk and short, that his friends jokingly told him he must have been
smuggled into the army, unless he had since been growing downwards,
for surely so little a commander could never expect to be obeyed. No
stranger could have believed him at ease in his circumstances, any
more than they would have believed him a colonel who had seen hard
service in India, for his clothes were frequently threadbare. A black
ribbon supplied the place of a gold chain as guard to his watch, and a
blue, tin-looking thing of a galvanized ring did duty for any other
ring on his finger. Yet he was rich; of fabulous riches, people said;
but he was of a close disposition, especially as regarded his personal
outlay. In his home and to his wife he was liberal. A good husband;
and, putting his crustiness and his crotchets aside, a good man. It
was the loss of his two boys that had so tried and changed him. His
large property was not entailed: it had been thought his nephew,
Gerard Hope, would inherit it, but Gerard had been turned from the
house. Lady Sarah remarked that it was too hot to dine; but the
colonel, in respect to heat, was a salamander.
Alice meanwhile lay on the sofa for half-an-hour; and then, taking the
bracelet-box in her hands, descended to the drawing-rooms. It was
intensely hot, she thought; a sultry, breathless heat; and she threw
open the back window. Which in truth made it hotter, for the sun
gleamed right athwart the leads which stretched themselves beyond the
windows over the outbuildings at the back of the row of houses.
Alice sat down near this back window, and began to put out some of the
bracelets on the table before it. They were rare and rich: of plain
gold, of silver, of pearl, of precious stones. One of them was of gold
links, studded with diamonds; it was very valuable, and had been the
present of Colonel Hope to his wife on her recent birthday. Another
diamond bracelet was there, but it was not so beautiful or so costly
as this. When her task was done, Alice passed into the front
drawing-room, and put up one of its large windows. Still there was no
air in the room.
As she stood at it, a handsome young man, tall and agile, who was
walking on the opposite side of the street, caught her eye. He nodded,
hesitated, and then crossed the street as if to enter.
"It is Gerard!" muttered Alice, under her breath. "Can he be coming
here?" She walked away from the window hastily, and sat down by the
bedecked table in the other room.
"Just as I supposed!" exclaimed Gerard Hope, entering, and advancing
to Alice with stealthy steps. "When I saw you at the window, the
thought struck me that you were alone here, and they at dinner. Thomas
happened to be airing himself at the door, so I crossed over, found I
was right, and came up. How are you, Alice?"
"Have you come to dinner?" inquired Alice, speaking at random, and
angry at her own agitation.
"_I_ come to dinner!" repeated Gerard. "Why, you know they'd as soon
sit down with the renowned Mr. Ketch."
"Indeed I know nothing about it: we have been away in Gloucestershire
for months, as I dare say you are aware: I was hoping that you and the
colonel might have been reconciled. Why did you come in, Gerard?
Thomas may tell them."
"Thomas won't. I charged him not to. The idea of your never coming up
till June! Some whim of Lady Sarah's, I suppose. Two or three times
a-week for the last month have I been marching past this house,
wondering when it was going to show signs of life. Frances is here
still?"
"Oh yes. She remains here altogether."
"To make up for---- Alice, was it not a shame to turn me out?"
"I was extremely sorry for what happened, Mr. Hope, but I knew nothing
of the details. Lady Sarah said you had displeased herself and the
colonel, and after that she never mentioned your name."
"What a show of smart things you have here, Alice! Are you going to
set up a bazaar?"
"They are Lady Sarah's bracelets."
"So they are, I see! This is a gem," added Gerard, taking up the fine
diamond bracelet already mentioned. "I don't remember this one."
"It is new. The colonel has just given it to her."
"What did it cost?"
Alice laughed. "Do you think it likely I have heard? I question if
Lady Sarah has."
"It never cost a farthing less than two hundred guineas," mused Gerard,
turning the bracelet in various directions, that its rich diamonds
might give out their gleaming light. "I wish it was mine."
"What should you do with it?" laughed Alice.
"Spout it."
"I do not understand," returned Alice. She really did not.
"I beg your pardon, Alice. I was thinking of the colloquial lingo
familiarly applied to such transactions, instead of to whom I was
talking. I mean raise money upon it."
"Oh, Mr. Hope!"
"Alice, that's twice you have called me 'Mr. Hope.' I thought I had
been 'Gerard' to you for many a year."
"Time changes things; and you seem more like a stranger than you
used to," returned Alice, a flush rising to her sensitive face.
"But you spoke of raising money: I hope you are not in temporary
embarrassment."
"A jolly good thing for me if it turns out only temporary," he
rejoined. "Look at my position! Debts hanging over my head--for you
may be sure, Alice, all young men, with a limited allowance and large
expectations, contract debts--and thrust out of my uncle's home with
just the loose cash I had in my pocket, and my clothes sent packing
after me."
"Has the colonel stopped your allowance?"
Gerard Hope laid down the bracelet from whence he had taken it, before
he replied.
"He stopped it then; it's months ago, you know; and I have not had a
shilling since, except from my own resources. I first went upon tick;
then I disposed of my watch and chain and all my other little matters
of value: and now I am upon tick again."
Alice did not answer. The light tone vexed her.
"Perhaps you don't understand these free terms, Alice," he said,
looking fondly at her, "and I hope you may never have occasion to.
Frances would: she has lived in their atmosphere."
"Yes, I know what an embarrassed man the earl often is. But I am
grieved to hear about yourself. Is the colonel implacable? What was
the cause of the quarrel?"
"You know I was to be his heir. Even if more children had come to him,
he undertook to provide amply for me. Last autumn he suddenly sent for
me to tell me it was his pleasure and Lady Sarah's that I should take
up my abode with them. So I did take it up, glad to get into such good
quarters; and stopped here like an innocent, unsuspicious lamb,
until--when was it, Alice? March? Then the plot came out."
"The plot," exclaimed Alice.
"It was nothing less. They had fixed upon a wife for me; and I was
ordered to hold myself in readiness to marry her at any given moment."
"Who was it?" inquired Alice, in a low tone, as she bent her head over
the bracelets.
"Never mind," laughed the young man; "it wasn't you. I said I would
not have her; and they both, he and Lady Sarah, pulled me and my want
of taste to pieces, assuring me I was a monster of ingratitude. It
provoked me into confessing that I liked some one else better. And
then the colonel turned me out."
Alice looked her sorrow, but she did not express it.
"Of course I saw the imprudence then of having thrown up my place in
the red-tape office; but it was done. And since then I have been
having a fight with my creditors, putting them off with fair words and
promises. But they have grown incredulous, and it has come to dodging.
In favour with my uncle, and his acknowledged heir, they would have
given me unlimited time and credit, but the breach between us is
known, and it makes all the difference. With the value of that at my
disposal"--nodding at the bracelet--"I should stop a few pressing
personal trifles and go on again for a while. So you see, Alice, a
diamond bracelet may be of use to a gentleman, should some genial
fortune drop one into his hands."
"I sympathize with you very much," said Alice, "and I would I had it
in my power to aid you."
"Thank you for your kind wishes; I know they are genuine. When my
uncle sees the name of Gerard Hope figuring in the insolvent list, or
amongst the outlaws, he---- Hark! Can they be coming up from dinner?"
"Scarcely yet," said Alice, starting up simultaneously with himself,
and listening. "But they will not sit long today, because they are
going to the opera. Gerard, they must not find you here."
"It might get you turned out as well as myself! No, not if I can help
it. Alice!"--suddenly laying his hands upon her shoulders, and gazing
down into her eyes--"do you know who it was I had learnt to love,
instead of--of the other?"
She gasped for breath, and her colour went and came. "No--no; do not
tell me, Gerard."
"Why, no, I had better not, under present circumstances. But when the
good time comes--for all their high-roped indignation must and will
blow over--_then I will_; and here's the pledge of it." He bent his
head, took one long earnest kiss from her lips; and the next moment
was gone.
Agitated almost to sickness, trembling and confused, Alice stole to
look after him, terrified lest he might not escape unseen. She crept
partly down the stairs, so as to obtain sight of the hall-door, and
make sure that he got out in safety. As Gerard drew it quietly open,
there stood a lady just about to knock. It was Selina, waiting to
exchange a few words with Gerard. He waved his hand towards the
staircase. Alice met her, and took her into the front drawing-room.
"I cannot stay to sit down, Alice: I must hasten back to dress, for I
am engaged to three or four places tonight. Neither do I wish to
horrify Lady Sarah with a visit at this untoward hour. I had a request
to make to you, and thought to catch you in your room before you went
in to dinner."
"They are alone, and are dining earlier than usual. I was too tired to
appear. What can I do for you, Selina?"
Mrs. Oscar Dalrymple had come (as you have already heard) to try that
one hopeless task--the borrowing money of her sister.
"I am in pressing need of it, Alice," she said. "Can you lend it me?"
"I wish I could," returned Alice; "I am so very sorry. I sent all I
had to poor mamma the day before we came to town. It was only
twenty-five pounds."
"_That_ would have been of no use to me: I want more. I thought if you
had been misering up your salary, you might have had a hundred pounds,
or so, by you."
Alice shook her head. "I should be a long while saving up a hundred
pounds, even if dear mamma had no wants. But I send to her what I can
spare. Is it for--dresses, and that?"
"Yes," was Selina's laconic answer.
"I wish I had it to give you! Do not be in such a hurry," continued
Alice, as her sister was moving to the door. "At least wait one minute
while I fetch you a letter I received from mamma this morning, in
answer to mine. You will like to read it, for it is full of news of
the old place. You can take it home with you, Selina."
Alice left her sister standing in the front-room, and went upstairs.
But she was more than one minute away; she was three or four, for
she could not at first lay her hand upon the letter. When she
returned, her sister advanced to her from the back drawing-room, the
folding-doors between the two rooms being, as before, wide open.
"What a fine collection of bracelets, Alice!" she exclaimed, as she
took the letter. "Are they spread out for show?"
"No," laughed Alice; "Lady Sarah is going to the opera, and will have
no time to spare when she comes up from dinner. She asked me to bring
them all down, as she had not decided which to wear."
"I like to dress entirely before dinner on my opera nights."
"Oh, so of course does Lady Sarah," returned Alice, as her sister
descended the stairs; "but she said it was too hot to dine in
bracelets."
"It is fearfully hot. Good-bye, Alice. Don't ring: I will let myself
out."
Alice returned to the front-room and looked from the window, wondering
whether her sister had come in her carriage. No. A trifling evening
breeze was rising and beginning to move the curtains about. Gentle as
it was, it was grateful, and Alice sat down in it. In a very few
minutes the ladies came up from dinner.
"Have you the bracelets, Alice. Oh, I see."
Lady Sarah went into the back-room as she spoke, and stood before the
table, looking at the bracelets. Alice rose to follow her, when Lady
Frances Chenevix caught her by the arm, and began to speak in a covert
whisper.
"Who was that at the door just now? It was a visitor's knock. Do you
know, Alice, every hour, since we came to town, I have fancied Gerard
might be calling. In the country he could not get to us, but
here---- Was it Gerard?"
"It--it was my sister," carelessly answered Alice. It was not a true
answer, for her sister had not knocked, and she did not know who had.
But it was the readiest that rose to her lips, and she wished to
escape the questioning, for more reasons than one.
"Only your sister," replied Frances, turning to the window with a
gesture of disappointment.
"Which have you put on?" inquired Alice, going towards Lady Sarah.
"Those loose, fancy things; they are the coolest. I really am so hot:
the soup was that favourite soup of the colonel's, all capsicums and
cayenne, and the wine was hot; there had been a mistake about the ice.
Gill trusted to the new man, and he did not understand it. It was all
hot together. What the house will be tonight, I dread to think of."
Lady Sarah, whilst she spoke, had been putting the bracelets into the
jewel-box, with very little care.
"I had better put them straight," remarked Alice, when she reached the
table.
"Do not trouble," returned Lady Sarah, shutting down the lid. "You are
looking flushed and feverish, Alice; you were wrong to walk so far
today. Hughes will set them to rights tomorrow morning; they will do
until then. Lock them up, and take possession of the key."
Alice did as she was bid. She locked the case and put the key in her
pocket. "Here is the carriage," exclaimed Lady Frances. "Are we to
wait for coffee?"
"Coffee in this heat!" retorted Lady Sarah; "it would be adding fuel
to fire. We will have some tea when we return. Alice, you must make
tea for the colonel; he will not come out without it. He thinks this
weather just what it ought to be: rather cold, if anything."
Alice had taken the bracelet-box in her hands as Lady Sarah spoke;
when they had departed, she carried it upstairs to its place in Lady
Sarah's bedroom. The colonel speedily rose from table, for his wife
had laid her commands on him to join them early. Alice helped him to
his tea, and as soon as he was gone she went upstairs to bed.
To bed, but not to sleep. Tired as she was, and exhausted in frame,
sleep would not come to her. She was living over again her interview
with Gerard Hope. She could not, in her conscious heart, affect to
misunderstand his implied meaning--that she had been the cause of his
rejecting the union proposed to him. It diffused a strange rapture
within her; and, though she had not perhaps been wholly blind and
unconscious during the period of Gerard's stay with them, and for some
time before that, she now kept repeating the words, "Can it be that he
loves me? can it be?"
It certainly was so. Love plays strange pranks. There was Gerard
Hope--heir to the colonel's fabulous wealth, consciously proud of his
handsome person, his height and strength--called home and planted down
by the side of a pretty and noble lady on purpose that he might fall
in love with her: the Lady Frances Chenevix. And yet, the well-laid
project failed: failed because there happened to be another at that
young lady's side: a sad, quiet, feeble-framed girl, whose very
weakness may have seemed to others to place her beyond the pale of
man's love. But love thrives by contrasts; and it was the feeble girl
who won the love of the strong man.
Yes; the knowledge diffused a strange rapture within her, Alice
Dalrymple, as she lay that night; and she may be excused if, for a
brief period, she allowed range to the sweet fantasies it conjured up.
For a brief period only. Too soon the depressing consciousness
returned to her, that these thoughts of earthly happiness must be
subdued: for she, with her confirmed ailments and conspicuous
weakness, must never hope to marry, as did other women. She had long
known--her mother had prepared her for it--that one so afflicted and
frail as she, whose tenure of existence was likely to be short, ought
not to become a wife; and it had been her earnest hope to pass through
life unloving, in that one sense, and unloved. She had striven to arm
herself against the danger, against being thrown into the perils of
temptation. Alas! it had come insidiously upon her; all her care had
been set at naught; and she knew that she loved Gerard Hope with a
deep and fervent love. "It is but another cross," she sighed, "another
burden to surmount and subdue, and I will set myself from this night
to the task. I have been a coward, shrinking from self-examination;
but now that Gerard has spoken out, I can deceive myself no longer. I
wish he had spoken more freely, that I might have told him it was
useless."
It was only towards morning that Alice dropped asleep: the consequence
was that long after her usual hour for rising she was still sleeping.
The opening of her door awoke her. It was Lady Sarah's maid who stood
there.
"Why, miss; are you not up? Well, I never! I wanted the key of the
small jewel-box; but I'd have waited, had I known."
"What do you say you want?" returned Alice, whose ideas were confused;
as is often the case on being suddenly awakened.
"The key of the bracelet-box, if you please."
"The key?" repeated Alice. "Oh, I remember," she added, recollection
returning to her. "Be at the trouble, will you, Hughes, of taking it
out of my pocket: it is on that chair, under my clothes."
The servant came to the pocket, and speedily found the key. "Are you
worse than usual, Miss Seaton, this morning," asked she, "or have you
overslept yourself?"
"I have overslept myself. Is it late?"
"Between nine and ten. My lady is up, and at breakfast with the
Colonel and Lady Frances."
Alice rose the instant the maid left the room, and made haste to
dress, vexed with herself for sleeping so long. She was nearly ready
when Hughes came in again.
"If ever I saw such confusion as that jewel-case was in!" cried she,
in as pert and grumbling a tone as she dared to use. "The bracelets
were thrown together without law or order--just as if they had been so
much glass and tinsel from the Lowther Arcade."
"It was Lady Sarah," replied Alice. "I would have put them straight,
but she told me to leave it for you. I thought she might prefer that
you should do it."
"Of course her ladyship is aware there's nobody but myself knows their
right places in it," returned Hughes, consequentially. "I could go to
that or to the other jewel-box in the dark, ma'am, and take out any
one thing my lady wanted, without disturbing the rest."
"I have observed that you have the gift of order," remarked Alice,
with a smile. "It is very useful to those who possess it, and saves
them much trouble and confusion."
"So it do, ma'am," said Hughes. "But I came to ask you for the diamond
bracelet."
"The diamond bracelet!" echoed Alice. "What diamond bracelet! What do
you mean, Hughes?"
"It is not in the box."
"The diamond bracelets are both in the box," rejoined Alice.
"The old one is there; not the new one. I thought you might have taken
it out to show some one, or to look at yourself, ma'am, for it's just
a sight for pleasant eyes."
"I can assure you it is in the case," said Alice. "All are there,
except the pair Lady Sarah had on. You must have overlooked it."
"I am a great donkey if I have," grumbled the girl. "It must be at the
very bottom, amongst the cotton," she soliloquized, as she returned to
Lady Sarah's apartments, "and I have just got to take every individual
article out, to get to it. This comes of giving up one's keys to other
folks."
Alice entered the breakfast-room, begging pardon for her late
appearance. It was readily accorded. Her office in the house was
nearly a sinecure. When she had first entered upon it Lady Sarah was
ill, and required some one to sit with and read to her: now that she
was well again, Alice had little to do.
Breakfast was scarcely over when Alice was called from the room.
Hughes stood outside the door.
"Miss Seaton," said she, with a long face, "the diamond bracelet is
not in the box. I thought I could not be mistaken."
"But it must be in the box," said Alice.
"But it is _not_," persisted Hughes, emphasizing the negative. "Can't
you believe me, ma'am? I want to know where it is, that I may put it
up and lock the box."
Alice Seaton looked at Hughes with a puzzled, dreamy look. She was
thinking matters over. Her face soon cleared again.
"Then Lady Sarah must have kept it out when she put in the rest. It
was she who returned them to the case; I did not. Perhaps she wore it
last night."
"No, miss, that she didn't. She wore only those two----"
"I saw what she had on," interrupted Alice. "But she might also have
put on the other, without my noticing. Or she may have kept it out for
some other purpose. I will ask her. Wait here an instant, Hughes; for
of course you will like to be at a certainty."
"That's cool," thought Hughes, as Alice went into the breakfast-room,
and the colonel came out of it, with his _Times_. "I should have said
it was somebody else would like to be at a certainty, instead of me,"
continued the girl, indulging in soliloquy. "Thank goodness the box
wasn't in my charge last night, if anything dreadful has come to pass.
My lady don't keep out her bracelets for sport. Miss Seaton has left
the key about, that's what she has done, and it's hard to say who
hasn't been at it: I knew the box had been ransacked over."
"Lady Sarah," said Alice, "did you wear your new diamond bracelet last
night?"
"No."
"Then did you put it into the box with the others?"
"No," repeated Lady Sarah, who was languidly toying with a basket of
ferns.
"After you had chosen the bracelets you wished to wear, you put the
others into the box yourself," explained Alice, thinking she was not
understood. "Did you put in the new one, the diamond, or keep it out?"
"The new one was not there."
Alice stood confounded. "It was lying on the table, at the back of all
the rest, Lady Sarah," she presently said. "Next the window."
"I tell you, Alice, it was not there. I don't know that I should have
worn it if it had been, but I certainly looked for it. Not seeing it,
I supposed you had not put it out; and I did not care sufficiently to
ask for it."
Alice felt in a mesh of perplexity; curious thoughts, and very
unpleasing ones, were beginning to dawn upon her. "But indeed the
bracelet was there when you went to the table," she urged. "I put it
there."
"I can assure you that you labour under a mistake, as to its being
there when I came up from dinner," answered Lady Sarah. "Why do you
ask?"
"Hughes has come to say it is not in the case. She is outside,
waiting."
"Outside, now? Let her come in. What's this about my bracelet,
Hughes?"
"_I_ don't know, my lady. The bracelet is not in its place, so I asked
Miss Seaton for it. She thought your ladyship might have kept it out
yesterday evening."
"I neither touched it nor saw it," said Lady Sarah.
"Then we have had thieves at work," spoke Hughes, decisively; who had
been making up her mind to that as a fact.
"It must be in the box, Hughes," said Alice. "I laid it out on the
table in the back drawing-room; and it is impossible that thieves--as
you phrase it--could have come there."
"Oh yes, it is in the box, no doubt," said Lady Sarah, somewhat
crossly, for she disliked to be troubled, especially in hot weather.
"You have not searched properly, Hughes."
"My lady," answered Hughes, "I can trust my hands and I can trust my
eyes, and they have all four been into every hole and crevice of the
box."
Lady Frances Chenevix laid down the _Morning Post_, and advanced. "Is
the bracelet really lost?"
"It cannot be lost," returned Lady Sarah. "You are sure you put it
out, Alice?"
"I am quite sure of that. It was lying first in the case, and----"
"Yes, it was," interrupted Hughes. "That is its place."
"And was consequently the first that I took out," continued Alice. "I
put it on the table; and the others in a semicircle, nearer to me.
Why, as a proof that it lay there----"
What was Alice going to add? Was she going to adduce as a proof that
Gerard Hope had taken it up and made it a subject of conversation?
Recollection came to her in time; she faltered and abruptly broke off.
But a faint, horrible dread, to which she would not give a shape, came
stealing over her; her face turned white, and she sank on a chair,
trembling visibly.
"Now look at Alice!" uttered Frances Chenevix. "She is going into one
of her agitation fits."
"Do not agitate yourself, Alice," cried Lady Sarah; "that will do no
good. Besides, I feel sure the bracelet is all safe in the case: where
else can it be? Fetch the case, Hughes, and I will look for it
myself."
Hughes whirled out of the room, inwardly resenting the doubt cast on
her eyesight.
"It is so strange," mused Alice, "that you did not see the bracelet
when you came up from dinner."
"It was certainly not there to see," returned Lady Sarah. "Perhaps
you'll now look for yourself, my lady," cried Hughes, returning with
the jewel-box in her hands.
The box was well searched. The bracelet was not there.
"This is very strange, Hughes," exclaimed Lady Sarah.
"It's very ugly also, my lady," answered Hughes, in a lofty tone, "and
I'm thankful to the presiding genuses which rules such things, that I
was not in charge when it happened. Though maybe, if I had been, it
never would have took place, for I can give a guess how it was."
"Then you had better give it," said her mistress, curtly.
"If I do," returned Hughes, "I may offend Miss Seaton."
"No, you will not, Hughes," said Alice. "Say what you please: I have
need to wish this cleared up."
"Well, ma'am, if I may speak my thoughts, I think you must have left
the key about. And we have strange servants in the house, as my lady
knows. There's a kitchen-maid that only entered it when we came up;
and there's the new under-butler."
"Hughes, you are wrong," interrupted Alice. "The servants could not
have touched the box, for the key was never out of my possession, and
you know the lock is a Bramah. I locked the box last night in her
ladyship's presence, and the key was not out of my pocket afterwards,
until you took it from there this morning."
"The key seems to have had nothing to do with it," interposed Frances.
"Alice says she put the diamond bracelet on the table with the rest;
Lady Sarah says when she went to the table after dinner the bracelet
was not there. Were you in the room all the while, Alice?"
"Not quite. Very nearly. But no one could possibly have gone in
without my seeing them. The folding-doors were open."
"It is quite a mystery," cried Lady Sarah.
"It beats conjuring, my lady," said Hughes. "Did any visitor come
upstairs, I wonder?"
"I did hear a visitor's knock while we were at dinner," said Lady
Sarah. "Don't you remember, Fanny You looked up as if you noticed it."
"Did I?" answered Lady Frances, in a careless tone.
At that moment Thomas happened to enter with a letter; and his
mistress put the question to him: Who had knocked?
"Sir George Danvers, my lady," was the ready answer. "When I said the
colonel was at dinner, Sir George began to apologize for calling; but
I explained that you were dining earlier than usual, because of the
opera."
"No one else called?"
"Nobody knocked but Sir George, my lady."
"A covert answer," thought Alice. "But I am glad he is true to
Gerard."
"What an untruth!" thought Lady Frances, as she remembered hearing of
the visit of Alice's sister: "Thomas's memory must be short." In point
of fact, Thomas knew nothing of it.
All the talk--and it was much prolonged--did not tend to throw any
light upon the matter; and Alice, unhappy and ill, retired to her own
room. The agitation had brought on a nervous and violent headache; she
sat down in a low chair, and bent her forehead on her hands. One
belief alone possessed her: that the unfortunate Gerard Hope had
stolen the bracelet. Do as she would, she could not put it out of her
mind: she kept repeating that he was a gentleman, that he was
honourable, that he would never place her in so painful a position.
Common sense replied that the temptation was suddenly laid before him,
and he had confessed his pecuniary difficulties to be great; nay, had
he not wished for this very bracelet, that he might make money----
A knock at the chamber-door. Alice lifted her sickly countenance, and
bade the intruder enter. It was Lady Frances Chenevix.
"I came to---- Alice, how wretched you look! You will torment yourself
into a fever."
"Can you wonder at my looking wretched?" returned Alice. "Place
yourself in my position, Frances: it must appear to Lady Sarah as if
I--I--had made away with the bracelet. I am sure Hughes thinks so."
"Don't you say unorthodox things, Alice. They would rather think that
I had done it, of the two, for I have more use for diamond bracelets
than you."
"It is kind of you to try to cheer me," sighed Alice.
"Just the thing
I came to do. And to have a bit of chat with you as well. If you will
let me."
"Of course I will let you."
"I wish to tell you I will not mention that your sister was here last
evening. I promise you I will not."
Alice did not immediately reply. The words and their hushed tone
caused a new trouble, a fresh thought, to arise within her, one which
she had not glanced at. Was it possible that Frances could imagine her
sister to be the----
"Lady Frances Chenevix!" burst forth Alice. "You cannot think it! She!
my sister!--guilty of a despicable theft! Have you forgotten that she
moves in your own position in the world? that our family is scarcely
inferior to yours?"
"Alice, I forgive you for so misjudging me, because you are not
yourself just now. Of course, your sister cannot be suspected; I know
that. But as you did not mention her when they were questioning
Thomas, nor did he, I supposed you had some reason for not wishing her
visit spoken of."
"Believe me, Selina is not the guilty person," returned Alice. "I have
more cause to say so than you think for."
"What do you mean by that?" briskly cried Lady Frances. "You surely
have no clue?"
Alice shook her head, and her companion's eagerness was lulled again.
"It is well that Thomas was forgetful," remarked Frances. "Was it
forgetfulness, Alice; or did you contrive to telegraph to him to be
silent?"
"Thomas only spoke truth, as regards Selina: he did not let her in.
She came but for a minute, to ask me about a private matter, and said
there was no need to tell Lady Sarah she had been."
"Then it is all quite easy; and you and I can keep our own counsel."
Quite easy, possibly, to the mind of Frances Chenevix. But anything
but easy to Alice Dalrymple: for the words of Lady Frances had
introduced an idea more repulsive, more terrifying even, than that of
suspecting Gerard Hope. Her sister acknowledged that she was in need
of money, "a hundred pounds, or so;" nay, Alice had only too good
cause to know that previously; and she had seen her come from the back
room where the jewels lay. Still--_she_ take a bracelet! Selina! It
was preposterous.
Preposterous or not, Alice's torment was doubled. Which of the two had
been the black sheep? One of them it must have been. Instinct,
sisterly relationship, reason, and common sense, all combined to turn
the scale against Gerard. But that there should be a doubt at all was
not pleasant, and Alice started up impulsively and put her bonnet on.
"Where now!" cried Lady Frances.
"I will go to Selina's and ask her--and ask her--if--she saw any
stranger here--any suspicious person in the hall or on the stairs,"
stammered Alice, making the best excuse she could make.
"But you know you were in or about the drawing-rooms all the time, and
no one came into them, suspicious or unsuspicious; so, how will that
aid you?"
"True," murmured Alice. "But it will be a relief to go somewhere or do
something."
Alice found her sister at home; had disturbed her, in fact, at a very
interesting employment, as the reader may remember. In spite of her
own emotional preoccupation, Selina instantly detected that something
was wrong; for the suspense, illness, and agitation had taken every
vestige of colour from Alice's cheeks and lips.
"What can be the matter, Alice?" was her greeting. "You look just like
a walking ghost."
"I feel that I do," breathed poor Alice, "and I kept my veil down in
the street, lest I might be taken for one and scare the people. A
great misfortune has fallen upon me, Selina. You saw those bracelets
last night, spread out on the table?"
"Yes."
"They were in my charge, and one of them has been abstracted. It was
of great value; gold links, holding diamonds."
"Abstracted!" repeated the elder sister, in both concern and surprise,
but certainly without the smallest indications of a guilty knowledge.
"How? In what manner?"
"It is a mystery. I only left the room when I met you on the
staircase, and when I went upstairs to fetch the letter for you.
Directly after you left, Lady Sarah came up from dinner, and the
bracelet was not there."
"It is incredible, Alice. And no one else entered the room at all, you
say? No servant? no----"
"Not any one," interrupted Alice, determined not to speak of Gerard
Hope.
"Then, child, it is simply impossible," was the calm rejoinder. "It
must have fallen on the ground; or been mislaid in some way."
"It is hopelessly gone. Do you remember seeing it?"
"I do remember seeing amidst the rest a bracelet set with diamonds;
but only on the clasp, I think. It----"
"That was another; that one is safe," interrupted Alice. "The one
missing is of fine gold links studded with brilliants. Did you see
it?"
"Not that I remember. I was there scarcely a minute, for I had only
strolled into the back-room just before you came down. To tell you the
truth, Alice, my mind was too fully occupied with other things, to
take much notice even of jewels. Do not look so perplexed: it will be
all right. Only you and I were in the room, you say; and we could not
take it."
"Oh!" exclaimed Alice, clasping her hands, and lifting her white,
beseeching face to her sister's, "did you take it? In--in sport; or
in---- Oh, surely you were not tempted to take it for anything else?
Forgive me, Selina! you said you had need of money."
"Alice, are we going to have one of your old scenes of excitement?
Strive for calmness. I am sure you do not know what you are implying.
My poor child, I would rather help you to jewels than take them from
you."
"But look at the mystery."
"It does appear to be a mystery, but it will no doubt be cleared up,"
was the reply, calm and equable. "Alice, what could you have been
dreaming of, to suspect me? Have we not grown up together in our
honourable home? You ought to know me, if any one does."
"And you really saw nothing of it!" moaned Alice, with a sobbing of
the breath.
"Indeed I did not. In truth, I did not. If I could help you out of
your perplexity I would thankfully do it. Shall I return with you and
assist you to search for the bracelet?"
"No, thank you. Every search has been made."
"You have not told me what could induce you to suspect me?"
"I think--it was the impossibility of suspecting any one else,"
breathed poor Alice, with hesitation. "And you told me, you know,
Selina, how very badly you wanted money."
"So I do; far more badly than you have any idea of, child. So badly
that the thought crossed me for a moment of applying to that
dreadfully rich fifteenth cousin of papa's in Liverpool, Benjamin
Dalrymple, who estranged himself from us years ago; but I knew he
would only growl out a 'No' if I did apply. But not badly enough,
Alice, to bring me to stealing a diamond bracelet," emphatically
concluded Selina.
Not only was the denial fervent and calm, but Selina's manner and
countenance conveyed the impression of truth. Alice left her,
inexpressibly relieved; though the conviction, that it must have been
Gerard, returned to her in full force. "I wish I could see him!" was
her mental exclamation.
And, for once, fortune favoured her wish. As she was dragging her
weary limbs along, he came right upon her at the corner of a street.
"I am so thankful!" she exclaimed. "I wanted to see you."
"I think you most want to see a doctor, Alice. How ill you look!"
"I have cause," she returned. "That bracelet has been stolen."
"Which bracelet?" asked Gerard.
"That valuable one. The diamond. It was taken from the room."
"Taken when?" he rejoined, looking her full in the face--as a guilty
man would scarcely dare to look.
"Then; or within a few minutes of that time. When Lady Sarah came up
from dinner it was not there. She came up almost immediately."
"Who took it?" he repeated, not yet recovering his surprise.
"I don't know," she faintly said. "It was under my charge. No one else
was there."
"You do not wish me to understand that _you_ are suspected?" he burst
forth with genuine feeling. "Their unjust meanness cannot have gone
that length!"
"I trust not, but I am very unhappy. It is true I left the room when
you did, but I only lingered outside on the stairs, watching--if I may
tell the truth--whether you got out safely, and then I returned to it.
Yet when Lady Sarah came up from dinner it was gone."
"And did no one else go into the room?" he repeated. "Did Selina? I
met her at the door, and sent her upstairs."
"She went in for a minute. But she would not touch the jewels,
Gerard."
"Of course not. She counts as ourselves in this. The bracelet was in
the room when I left it----"
"You are sure of that?" interrupted Alice.
"I am. When I reached the door, I turned round to take a last look at
you, and the diamonds of that particular bracelet gleamed at me from
its place on the table."
"Oh, Gerard! Is this the truth?"
"It is the truth, on my sacred word of honour," he replied, looking at
her agitated face and wondering at her words. "Why else should I say
it? Good-bye, Alice; I cannot stay another moment, for there's
somebody yonder I don't want to meet."
He was off like a shot. But his words and manner had conveyed a
conviction of innocence to the mind of Alice, just as those of her
sister had done. She stood still, looking after him in her dreamy
wonder, and was jostled by the passers-by, mentally asking herself
_which_ of the two was the real delinquent? One of them it must have
been.