Moonstone E-book
Author: Wilkie Collins
Genre: Literature, Mystery
1868
THE MOONSTONE
by Wilkie Collins
Electronically Enhanced Text (c) Copyright 1996, World Library(R)
THE AUTHOR'S PREFACES
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June 30, 1868
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In some of my former novels, the object proposed has been to trace
the influence of circumstances upon character. In the present story
I have reversed the process. The attempt made here is to trace the
influence of character on circumstances. The conduct pursued, under
a sudden emergency, by a young girl, supplies the foundation on
which I have built this book.
The same object has been kept in view in the handling of the other
characters which appear in these pages. Their course of thought and
action under the circumstances which surround them is shown to be
(what it would most probably have been in real life) sometimes right
and sometimes wrong. Right or wrong, their conduct, in either event,
equally directs the course of those portions of the story in which
they are concerned.
In the case of the physiological experiment which occupies a
prominent place in the closing scenes of The Moonstone, the same
principle has guided me once more. Having first ascertained, not
only from books, but from living authorities as well, what the
result of that experiment would really have been, I have declined to
avail myself of the novelist's privilege of supposing something
which might have happened, and have so shaped the story as to make
it grow out of what actually would have happened- which, I beg to
inform my readers, is also what actually does happen, in these pages.
With reference to the story of the Diamond, as here set forth, I
have to acknowledge that it is founded, in some important particulars,
on the stories of two of the royal diamonds of Europe. The magnificent
stone which adorns the top of the Russian Imperial Sceptre was once
the eye of an Indian idol. The famous Koh-i-Noor is also supposed to
have been one of the sacred gems of India; and, more than this, to
have been the subject of a prediction which prophesied certain
misfortune to the persons who should divert it from its ancient uses.
GLOUCESTER PLACE, PORTMAN SQUARE
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May 1871
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THE circumstances under which The Moonstone was originally written
have invested the book- in the author's mind- with an interest
peculiarly its own.
While this work was still in course of periodical publication in
England and in the United States, and when not more than one-third
of it was completed, the bitterest affliction of my life and the
severest illness from which I have ever suffered fell on me
together. At the time when my mother lay dying in her little cottage
in the country, I was struck prostrate, in London- crippled in every
limb by the torture of rheumatic gout. Under the weight of this double
calamity, I had my duty to the public still to bear in mind. My good
readers in England and in America, whom I had never yet
disappointed, were expecting their regular weekly instalments of the
new story. I held to the story- for my own sake as well as for theirs.
In the intervals of grief, in the occasional remissions of pain, I
dictated from my bed that portion of The Moonstone which has since
proved most successful in amusing the public- the "Narrative of Miss
Clack." Of the physical sacrifice which the effort cost me I shall say
nothing. I only look back now at the blessed relief which my
occupation (forced as it was) brought to my mind. The Art which had
been always the pride and the pleasure of my life became now more than
ever "its own exceeding great reward." I doubt if I should have
lived to write another book, if the responsibility of the weekly
publication of this story had not forced me to rally my sinking
energies of body and mind- to dry my useless tears, and to conquer
my merciless pains.
The novel completed, I awaited its reception by the public with an
eagerness of anxiety which I have never felt before or since for the
fate of any other writings of mine. If The Moonstone had failed, my
mortification would have been bitter indeed. As it was, the welcome
accorded to the story in England, in America, and on the Continent
of Europe was instantly and universally favourable. Never have I had
better reason than this work has given me to feel gratefully to
novel-readers of all nations. Everywhere my characters made friends,
and my story roused interest. Everywhere the public favour looked over
my faults- and repaid me a hundredfold for the hard toil which these
pages cost me in the dark time of sickness and grief.
I have only to add that the present edition has had the benefit of
my careful revision. All that I can do towards making the book
worthy of the reader's continued approval has now been done.
W. C.
PROLOGUE
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THE STORMING OF SERINGAPATAM
1799
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Extracted from a family paper
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I address these lines- written in India- to my relatives in England.
My object is to explain the motive which has induced me to refuse
the right hand of friendship to my cousin, John Herncastle. The
reserve which I have hitherto maintained in this matter has been
misinterpreted by members of my family whose good opinion I cannot
consent to forfeit. I request them to suspend their decision until
they have read my narrative. And I declare, on my word of honour, that
what I am now about to write is, strictly and literally, the truth.
The private difference between my cousin and me took its rise in a
great public event in which we were both concerned- the storming of
Seringapatam, under General Baird, on the 4th of May 1799.
In order that the circumstances may be clearly understood, I must
revert for a moment to the period before the assault, and to the
stories current in our camp of the treasure in jewels and gold
stored up in the Palace of Seringapatam.
II
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One of the wildest of these stories related to a Yellow Diamond- a
famous gem in the native annals of India.
The earliest known traditions describe the stone as having been
set in the forehead of the four-handed Indian god who typifies the
Moon. Partly from its peculiar colour, partly from a superstition
which represented it as feeling the influence of the deity whom it
adorned, and growing and lessening in lustre with the waxing and
waning of the moon, it first gained the name by which it continues
to be known in India to this day- the name of THE MOONSTONE. A similar
superstition was once prevalent, as I have heard, in ancient Greece
and Rome; not applying, however (as in India), to a diamond devoted to
the service of a god, but to a semi-transparent stone of the
inferior order of gems, supposed to be affected by the lunar
influences- the moon, in this latter case also, giving the name by
which the stone is still known to collectors in our own time.
The adventures of the Yellow Diamond begin with the eleventh century
of the Christian era.
At that date, the Mohammedan conqueror, Mahmoud of Ghizni, crossed
India; seized on the holy city of Somnauth; and stripped of its
treasures the famous temple, which had stood for centuries- the shrine
of Hindoo pilgrimage, and the wonder of the Eastern world.
Of all the deities worshipped in the temple, the moon-god alone
escaped the rapacity of the conquering Mohammedans. Preserved by three
Brahmins, the inviolate deity, bearing the Yellow Diamond in its
forehead, was removed by night, and was transported to the second of
the sacred cities of India- the city of Benares.
Here, in a new shrine- in a hall inlaid with precious stones,
under a roof supported by pillars of gold- the moon-god was set up and
worshipped. Here, on the night when the shrine was completed, Vishnu
the Preserver appeared to the three Brahmins in a dream.
The deity breathed the breath of his divinity on the Diamond in
the forehead of the god. And the Brahmins knelt and hid their faces in
their robes. The deity commanded that the Moonstone should be watched,
from that time forth, by three priests in turn, night and day, to
the end of the generations of men. And the Brahmins heard, and bowed
before his will. The deity predicted certain disaster to the
presumptuous mortal who laid hands on the sacred gem, and to all of
his house and name who received it after him. And the Brahmins
caused the prophecy to be written over the gates of the shrine in
letters of gold.
One age followed another- and still, generation after generation,
the successors of the three Brahmins watched their priceless
Moonstone, night and day. One age followed another, until the first
years of the eighteenth Christian century saw the reign of Aurungzebe,
Emperor of the Moguls. At his command, havoc and rapine were let loose
once more among the temples of the worship of Brahmah. The shrine of
the four-handed god was polluted by the slaughter of sacred animals;
the images of the deities were broken in pieces; and the Moonstone was
seized by an officer of rank in the army of Aurungzebe.
Powerless to recover their lost treasure by open force, the three
guardian priests followed and watched it in disguise. The
generations succeeded each other; the warrior who had committed the
sacrilege perished miserably; the Moonstone passed (carrying its curse
with it) from one lawless Mohammedan hand to another; and still,
through all chances and changes, the successors of the three
guardian priests kept their watch, waiting the day when the will of
Vishnu the Preserver should restore to them their sacred gem. Time
rolled on from the first to the last years of the eighteenth Christian
century. The Diamond fell into the possession of Tippoo, Sultan of
Seringapatam, who caused it to be placed as an ornament in the
handle of a dagger, and who commanded it to be kept among the choicest
treasures of his armoury. Even then- in the palace of the Sultan
himself- the three guardian priests still kept their watch in
secret. There were three officers of Tippoo's household, strangers
to the rest, who had won their master's confidence by conforming, or
appearing to conform, to the Mussulman faith; and to those three men
report pointed as the three priests in disguise.
III
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So, as told in our camp, ran the fanciful story of the Moonstone. It
made no serious impression on any of us except my cousin- whose love
of the marvellous induced him to believe it. On the night before the
assault on Seringapatam, he was absurdly angry with me, and with
others, for treating the whole thing as a fable. A foolish wrangle
followed; and Herncastle's unlucky temper got the better of him. He
declared, in his boastful way, that we should see the Diamond on his
finger, if the English army took Seringapatam. The sally was saluted
by a roar of laughter, and there, as we all thought that night, the
thing ended.
Let me now take you on to the day of the assault.
My cousin and I were separated at the outset. I never saw him when
we forded the river; when we planted the English flag in the first
breach; when we crossed the ditch beyond; and, fighting every inch
of our way, entered the town. It was only at dusk, when the place
was ours, and after General Baird himself had found the dead body of
Tippoo under a heap of the slain, that Herncastle and I met.
We were each attached to a party sent out by the General's orders to
prevent the plunder and confusion which followed our conquest. The
camp-followers committed deplorable excesses; and, worse still, the
soldiers found their way, by an unguarded door, into the treasury of
the palace, and loaded themselves with gold and jewels. It was in
the court outside the treasury that my cousin and I met, to enforce
the laws of discipline on our own soldiers. Herncastle's fiery
temper had been, as I could plainly see, exasperated to a kind of
frenzy by the terrible slaughter through which we had passed. He was
very unfit, in my opinion, to perform the duty that had been entrusted
to him.
There was riot and confusion enough in the treasury, but no violence
that I saw. The men (if I may use such an expression) disgraced
themselves good-humouredly. All sorts of rough jests and catchwords
were bandied about among them; and the story of the Diamond turned
up again unexpectedly, in the form of a mischievous joke. "Who's got
the Moonstone?" was the rallying cry which perpetually caused the
plundering, as soon as it was stopped in one place, to break out in
another. While I was still vainly trying to establish order, I heard a
frightful yelling on the other side of the courtyard, and at once
ran towards the cries, in dread of finding some new outbreak of the
pillage in that direction.
I got to an open door, and saw the bodies of two Indians (by their
dress, as I guessed, officers of the palace) lying across the
entrance, dead.
A cry inside hurried me into a room, which appeared to serve as an
armoury. A third Indian, mortally wounded, was sinking at the feet
of a man whose back was towards me. The man turned at the instant when
I came in, and I saw John Herncastle, with a torch in one hand, and
a dagger dripping with blood in the other. A stone, set like a pommel,
in the end of the dagger's handle, flashed in the torchlight, as he
turned on me, like a gleam of fire. The dying Indian sank to his
knees, pointed to the dagger in Herncastle's hand, and said, in his
native language- "The Moonstone will have its vengeance yet on you and
yours!" He spoke those words, and fell dead on the floor.
Before I could stir in the matter, the men who had followed me
across the courtyard crowded in. My cousin rushed to meet them, like a
madman. "Clear the room!" he shouted to me, "and set a guard on the
door!" The men fell back as he threw himself on them with his torch
and his dagger. I put two sentinels of my own company, on whom I could
rely, to keep the door. Through the remainder of the night I saw no
more of my cousin.
Early in the morning, the plunder still going on, General Baird
announced publicly by beat of drum, that any thief detected in the
fact, be he whom he might, should be hung. The Provost-Marshal was
in attendance, to prove that the General was in earnest; and in the
throng that followed the proclamation, Herncastle and I met again.
He held out his hand, as usual, and said, "Good-morning."
I waited before I gave him my hand in return.
"Tell me first," I said, "how the Indian in the armoury met his
death, and what those last words meant, when he pointed to the
dagger in your hand."
"The Indian met his death, as I suppose, by a mortal wound," said
Herncastle. "What his last words meant I know no more than you do."
I looked at him narrowly. His frenzy of the previous day had all
calmed down. I determined to give him another chance.
"Is that all you have to tell me?" I asked.
He answered, "That is all."
I turned my back on him, and we have not spoken since.
IV
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I beg it to be understood that what I write here about my cousin
(unless some necessity should arise for making it public) is for the
information of the family only. Herncastle has said nothing that can
justify me in speaking to our commanding officer. He has been
taunted more than once about the Diamond, by those who recollect his
angry outbreak before the assault; but, as may easily be imagined, his
own remembrance of the circumstances under which I surprised him in
the armoury has been enough to keep him silent. It is reported that he
means to exchange into another regiment, avowedly for the purpose of
separating himself from me.
Whether this be true or not, I cannot prevail upon myself to
become his accuser- and I think with good reason. If I made the matter
public, I have no evidence but moral evidence to bring forward. I have
not only no proof that he killed the two men at the door; I cannot
even declare that he killed the third man inside for I cannot say that
my own eyes saw the deed committed. It is true that I heard the
dying Indian's words; but if those words were pronounced to be the
ravings of delirium, how could I contradict the assertion from my
own knowledge? Let our relatives, on either side, form their own
opinion on what I have written, and decide for themselves whether
the aversion I now feel towards this man is well or ill founded.
Although I attach no sort of credit to the fantastic Indian legend
of the gem, I must acknowledge, before I conclude, that I am
influenced by a certain superstition of my own in this matter. It is
my conviction, or my delusion, no matter which, that crime brings
its own fatality with it. I am not only persuaded of Herncastle's
guilt; I am even fanciful enough to believe that he will live to
regret it, if he keeps the Diamond; and that others will live to
regret taking it from him, if he gives the Diamond away.
THE STORY
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FIRST PERIOD
THE LOSS OF THE DIAMOND
1848
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THE EVENTS
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Related by Gabriel Betteredge, House-Steward in the
service of Julia, Lady Verinder.
-
In the first part of Robinson Crusoe, at page one hundred and
twenty-nine, you will find it thus written:
"Now I saw, though too late, the Folly of beginning a Work before we
count the Cost, and before we judge rightly of our own Strength to
go through with it."
Only yesterday I opened my Robinson Crusoe at that place. Only
this morning (May twenty-first, Eighteen hundred and fifty) came my
lady's nephew, Mr. Franklin Blake, and held a short conversation
with me, as follows:
"Betteredge," says Mr. Franklin, "I have been to the lawyer's
about some family matters; and, among other things, we have been
talking of the loss of the Indian Diamond, in my aunt's house in
Yorkshire, two years since. Mr. Bruff thinks, as I think, that the
whole story ought, in the interests of truth, to be placed on record
in writing- and the sooner the better."
Not perceiving his drift yet, and thinking it always desirable for
the sake of peace and quietness to be on the lawyer's side, I said I
thought so too. Mr. Franklin went on.
"In this matter of the Diamond," he said, "the characters of
innocent people have suffered under suspicion already- as you know.
The memories of innocent people may suffer, hereafter, for want of a
record of the facts to which those who come after us can appeal. There
can be no doubt that this strange family story of ours ought to be
told. And I think, Betteredge, Mr. Bruff and I together have hit on
the right way of telling it."
Very satisfactory to both of them, no doubt. But I failed to see
what I myself had to do with it, so far.
"We have certain events to relate," Mr. Franklin proceeded; "and
we have certain persons concerned in those events who are capable of
relating them. Starting from these plain facts, the idea is that we
should all write the story of the Moonstone in turn- as far as our own
personal experience extends, and no further. We must begin by
showing how the Diamond first fell into the hands of my uncle
Herncastle, when he was serving in India fifty years since. This
prefatory narrative I have already got by me in the form of an old
family paper, which relates the necessary particulars on the authority
of an eye-witness. The next thing to do is to tell how the Diamond
found its way into my aunt's house in Yorkshire, two years ago, and
how it came to be lost in little more than twelve hours afterwards.
Nobody knows as much as you do, Betteredge, about what went on in
the house at that time. So you must take the pen in hand, and start
the story."
In those terms I was informed of what my personal concern was with
the matter of the Diamond. If you are curious to know what course I
took under the circumstances, I beg to inform you that I did what
you would probably have done in my place. I modestly declared myself
to be quite unequal to the task imposed upon me- and I privately felt,
all the time, that I was quite clever enough to perform it, if I
only gave my own abilities a fair chance. Mr. Franklin, I imagine,
must have seen my private sentiments in my face. He declined to
believe in my modesty; and he insisted on giving my abilities a fair
chance.
Two hours have passed since Mr. Franklin left me. As soon as his
back was turned, I went to my writing-desk to start the story. There I
have sat helpless (in spite of my abilities) ever since; seeing what
Robinson Crusoe saw, as quoted above- namely, the folly of beginning a
work before we count the cost, and before we judge rightly of our
own strength to go through with it. Please to remember, I opened the
book by accident, at that bit, only the day before I rashly
undertook the business now in hand; and, allow me to ask- if that
isn't prophecy, what is?
I am not superstitious; I have read a heap of books in my time; I am
a scholar in my own way. Though turned seventy, I possess an active
memory, and legs to correspond. You are not to take it, if you please,
as the saying of an ignorant man, when I express my opinion that
such a book as Robinson Crusoe never was written, and never will be
written again. I have tried that book for years- generally in
combination with a pipe of tobacco- and I have found it my friend in
need in all the necessities of this mortal life. When my spirits are
bad- Robinson Crusoe. When I want advice- Robinson Crusoe. In past
times, when my wife plagued me; in present times, when I have had a
drop too much- Robinson Crusoe. I have worn out six stout Robinson
Crusoes with hard work in my service. On my lady's last birthday she
gave me a seventh. I took a drop too much on the strength of it; and
Robinson Crusoe put me right again. Price four shillings and sixpence,
bound in blue, with a picture into the bargain.
Still, this don't look much like starting the story of the
Diamond- does it? I seem to be wandering off in search of Lord knows
what, Lord knows where. We will take a new sheet of paper, if you
please, and begin over again, with my best respects to you.
Chapter II
-
I spoke of my lady a line or two back. Now the Diamond could never
have been in our house, where it was lost, if it had not been made a
present of to my lady's daughter; and my lady's daughter would never
have been in existence to have the present, if it had not been for
my lady who (with pain and travail) produced her into the world.
Consequently, if we begin with my lady, we are pretty sure of
beginning far enough back. And that, let me tell you, when you have
got such a job as mine in hand, is a real comfort at starting.
If you know anything of the fashionable world, you have heard tell
of the three beautiful Miss Herncastles, Miss Adelaide, Miss Caroline,
and Miss Julia- this last being the youngest and the best of the three
sisters, in my opinion; and I had opportunities of judging, as you
shall presently see. I went into the service of the old lord, their
father (thank God, we have got nothing to do with him, in this
business of the Diamond; he had the longest tongue and the shortest
temper of any man, high or low, I ever met with)- I say, I went into
the service of the old lord, as page-boy in waiting on the three
honourable young ladies, at the age of fifteen years. There I lived,
till Miss Julia married the late Sir John Verinder. An excellent
man, who only wanted somebody to manage him; and, between ourselves,
he found somebody to do it; and what is more, he throve on it, and
grew fat on it, and lived happy and died easy on it, dating from the
day when my lady took him to church to be married to the day when
she relieved him of his last breath and closed his eyes for ever.
I have omitted to state that I went with the bride to the bride's
husband's house and lands down here. "Sir John," she says, "I can't do
without Gabriel Betteredge." "My lady," says Sir John, "I can't do
without him either." That was his way with her- and that was how I
went into his service. It was all one to me where I went, so long as
my mistress and I were together.
Seeing that my lady took an interest in the out-of-door work, and
the farms, and such like, I took an interest in them too- with all the
more reason that I was a small farmer's seventh son myself. My lady
got me put under the bailiff, and I did my best, and gave
satisfaction, and got promotion accordingly. Some years later, on
the Monday as it might be, my lady says, "Sir John, your bailiff is
a stupid old man. Pension him liberally, and let Gabriel Betteredge
have his place." On the Tuesday as it might be, Sir John says, "My
lady, the bailiff is pensioned liberally; and Gabriel Betteredge has
got his place." You hear more than enough of married people living
together miserably. Here is an example to the contrary. Let it be a
warning to some of you, and an encouragement to others. In the
meantime, I will go on with my story.
Well, there I was in clover, you will say. Placed in a position of
trust and honour, with a little cottage of my own to live in, with
my rounds on the estate to occupy me in the morning, and my accounts
in the afternoon, and my pipe and my Robinson Crusoe in the evening-
what more could I possibly want to make me happy? Remember what Adam
wanted when he was alone in the Garden of Eden; and if you don't blame
it in Adam, don't blame it in me.
The woman I fixed my eye on, was the woman who kept house for me
at my cottage. Her name was Selina Goby. I agree with the late William
Cobbett about picking a wife. See that she chews her food well and
sets her foot down firmly on the ground when she walks, and you're all
right. Selina Goby was all right in both these respects, which was one
reason for marrying her. I had another reason, likewise, entirely of
my own discovering. Selina, being a single woman, made me pay so
much a week for her board and services. Selina, being my wife,
couldn't charge for her board, and would have to give me her
services for nothing. That was the point of view I looked at it
from. Economy- with a dash of love. I put it to my mistress, as in
duty bound, just as I had put it to myself.
"I have been turning Selina Goby over in my mind," I said, "and I
think, my lady, it will be cheaper to marry her than to keep her."
My lady burst out laughing, and said she didn't know which to be
most shocked at- my language or my principles. Some joke tickled
her, I suppose, of the sort that you can't take unless you are a
person of quality. Understanding nothing myself but that I was free to
put it next to Selina, I went and put it accordingly. And what did
Selina say? Lord! how little you must know of women, if you ask
that. Of course she said, Yes.
As my time drew nearer, and there got to be talk of my having a
new coat for the ceremony, my mind began to misgive me. I have
compared notes with other men as to what they felt while they were
in my interesting situation; and they have all acknowledged that,
about a week before it happened, they privately wished themselves
out of it. I went a trifle further than that myself; I actually rose
up, as it were, and tried to get out of it. Not for nothing! I was too
just a man to expect she would let me off for nothing. Compensation to
the woman when the man gets out of it, is one of the laws of
England. In obedience to the laws, and after turning it over carefully
in my mind, I offered Selina Goby a feather-bed and fifty shillings to
be off the bargain. You will hardly believe it, but it is nevertheless
true- she was fool enough to refuse.
After that it was all over with me, of course. I got the new coat as
cheap as I could, and I went through all the rest of it as cheap as
I could. We were not a happy couple, and not a miserable couple. We
were six of one and half a dozen of the other. How it was I don't
understand, but we always seemed to be getting, with the best of
motives, in one another's way. When I wanted to go upstairs, there was
my wife coming down; or when my wife wanted to go down, there was I
coming up. That is married life according to my experience of it.
After five years of misunderstandings on the stairs, it pleased an
all-wise Providence to relieve us of each other by taking my wife. I
was left with my little girl Penelope, and with no other child.
Shortly afterwards Sir John died, and my lady was left with her little
girl, Miss Rachel, and no other child. I have written to very poor
purpose of my lady, if you require to be told that my little
Penelope was taken care of, under my good mistress's own eye, and
was sent to school, and taught, and made a sharp girl, and promoted,
when old enough, to be Miss Rachel's own maid.
As for me, I went on with my business as bailiff year after year
up to Christmas 1847, when there came a change in my life. On that
day, my lady invited herself to a cup of tea alone with me in my
cottage. She remarked that, reckoning from the year when I started
as page-boy in the time of the old lord, I had been more than fifty
years in her service, and she put into my hands a beautiful
waistcoat of wool that she had worked herself, to keep me warm in
the bitter winter weather.
I received this magnificent present quite at a loss to find words to
thank my mistress with for the honour she had done me. To my great
astonishment, it turned out, however, that the waistcoat was not an
honour, but a bribe. My lady had discovered that I was getting old
before I had discovered it myself, and she had come to my cottage to
wheedle me (if I may use such an expression) into giving up my hard
out-of-door work as bailiff, and taking my ease for the rest of my
days as steward in the house. I made as good a fight of it against the
indignity of taking my ease as I could. But my mistress knew the
weak side of me; she put it as a favour to herself. The dispute
between us ended, after that, in my wiping my eyes, like an old
fool, with my new woollen waistcoat, and saying I would think about
it.
The perturbation in my mind, in regard to thinking about it, being
truly dreadful, after my lady had gone away, I applied the remedy
which I have never yet found to fail me in cases of doubt and
emergency. I smoked a pipe and took a turn at Robinson Crusoe.
Before I had occupied myself with that extraordinary book five
minutes, I came on a comforting bit (page one hundred and
fifty-eight), as follows: "To-day we love what to-morrow we hate." I
saw my way clear directly. To-day I was all for continuing to be
farm-bailiff; to-morrow, on the authority of Robinson Crusoe, I should
be all the other way. Take myself to-morrow while in to-morrow's
humour, and the thing was done. My mind being relieved in this manner,
I went to sleep that night in the character of Lady Verinder's
farm-bailiff, and I woke up the next morning in the character of
Lady Verinder's house-steward. All quite comfortable, and all
through Robinson Crusoe!
My daughter Penelope has just looked over my shoulder to see what
I have done so far. She remarks that it is beautifully written, and
every word of it true. But she points out one objection. She says what
I have done so far isn't in the least what I was wanted to do. I am
asked to tell the story of the Diamond, and, instead of that, I have
been telling the story of my own self. Curious, and quite beyond me to
account for. I wonder whether the gentlemen who make a business and
a living out of writing books, ever find their own selves getting in
the way of their subjects, like me? If they do, I can feel for them.
In the meantime, here is another false start, and more waste of good
writing-paper. What's to be done now? Nothing that I know of, except
for you to keep your temper, and for me to begin it all over again for
the third time.
Chapter III
-
The question of how I am to start the story properly I have tried to
settle in two ways. First, by scratching my head, which led to
nothing. Second, by consulting my daughter Penelope, which has
resulted in an entirely new idea.
Penelope's notion is that I should set down what happened, regularly
day by day, beginning with the day when we got the news that Mr.
Franklin Blake was expected on a visit to the house. When you come
to fix your memory with a date in this way, it is wonderful what
your memory will pick up for you upon that compulsion. The only
difficulty is to fetch out the dates, in the first place. This
Penelope offers to do for me by looking into her own diary, which
she was taught to keep when she was at school, and which she has
gone on keeping ever since. In answer to an improvement on this
notion, devised by myself, namely, that she should tell the story
instead of me, out of her own diary, Penelope observes, with a
fierce look and a red face, that her journal is for her own private
eye and that no living creature shall ever know what is in it but
herself. When I inquire what this means, Penelope says,
"Fiddlesticks!" I say, Sweethearts.
Beginning, then, on Penelope's plan, I beg to mention that I was
specially called one Wednesday morning into my lady's own
sitting-room, the date being the twenty-fourth of May, Eighteen
hundred and forty-eight.
"Gabriel," says my lady, "here is news that will surprise you.
Franklin Blake has come back from abroad. He has been staying with his
father in London, and he is coming to us to-morrow to stop till next
month, and keep Rachel's birthday."
If I had had a hat in my hand, nothing but respect would have
prevented me from throwing that hat up to the ceiling. I had not
seen Mr. Franklin since he was a boy, living along with us in this
house. He was, out of all sight (as I remembered him), the nicest
boy that ever spun a top or broke a window. Miss Rachel, who was
present, and to whom I made that remark, observed, in return, that she
remembered him as the most atrocious tyrant that ever tortured a doll,
and the hardest driver of an exhausted little girl in string harness
that England could produce. "I burn with indignation, and I ache
with fatigue," was the way Miss Rachel summed it up, "when I think
of Franklin Blake."
Hearing what I now tell you, you will naturally ask how it was
that Mr. Franklin should have passed all the years, from the time when
he was a boy to the time when he was a man, out of his own country.
I answer, because his father had the misfortune to be next heir to a
Dukedom, and not to be able to prove it.
In two words, this was how the thing happened:
-
My lady's eldest sister married the celebrated Mr. Blake- equally
famous for his great riches, and his great suit at law. How many years
he went on worrying the tribunals of his country to turn out the
Duke in possession, and to put himself in the Duke's place- how many
lawyers' purses he filled to bursting, and how many otherwise harmless
people he set by the ears together disputing whether he was right or
wrong- is more by a great deal than I can reckon up. His wife died,
and two of his three children died, before the tribunals could make up
their minds to show him the door and take no more of his money. When
it was all over, and the Duke in possession was left in possession,
Mr. Blake discovered that the only way of being even with his
country for the manner in which it had treated him, was not to let his
country have the honour of educating his son. "How can I trust my
native institutions," was the form in which he put it, "after the
way in which my native institutions have behaved to me?" Add to
this, that Mr. Blake disliked all boys, his own included, and you will
admit that it could only end in one way. Master Franklin was taken
from us in England, and was sent to institutions which his father
could trust, in that superior country, Germany; Mr. Blake himself, you
will observe, remaining snug in England, to improve his
fellow-countrymen in the Parliament House, and to publish a
statement on the subject of the Duke in possession, which has remained
an unfinished statement from that day to this.
There! thank God, that's told! Neither you nor I need trouble our
heads any more about Mr. Blake, senior. Leave him to the Dukedom;
and let you and I stick to the Diamond.
The Diamond takes us back to Mr. Franklin, who was the innocent
means of bringing that unlucky jewel into the house.
Our nice boy didn't forget us after he went abroad. He wrote every
now and then; sometimes to my lady, sometimes to Miss Rachel, and
sometimes to me. We had had a transaction together, before he left,
which consisted in his borrowing of me a ball of string, a four-bladed
knife, and seven-and-sixpence in money- the colour of which last I
have not seen, and never expect to see again. His letters to me
chiefly related to borrowing more. I heard, however, from my lady, how
he got on abroad, as he grew in years and stature. After he had learnt
what the institutions of Germany could teach him, he gave the French a
turn next, and the Italians a turn after that. They made him among
them a sort of universal genius, as well as I could understand it.
He wrote a little; he painted a little; he sang and played and
composed a little- borrowing, as I suspect, in all these cases, just
as he had borrowed from me. His mother's fortune (seven hundred a
year) fell to him when he came of age, and ran through him, as it
might be through a sieve. The more money he had, the more he wanted:
there was a hole in Mr. Franklin's pocket that nothing would sew up.
Wherever he went, the lively, easy way of him made him welcome. He
lived here, there, and everywhere; his address (as he used to put it
himself) being, "Post Office, Europe- to be left till called for."
Twice over, he made up his mind to come back to England and see us;
and twice over (saving your presence) some unmentionable woman stood
in the way and stopped him. His third attempt succeeded, as you know
already from what my lady told me. On Thursday, the twenty-fifth of
May, we were to see for the first time what our nice boy had grown
to be as a man. He came of good blood; he had a high courage; and he
was five-and-twenty years of age, by our reckoning. Now you know as
much of Mr. Franklin Blake as I did- before Mr. Franklin Blake came
down to our house.
-
The Thursday was as fine a summer's day as ever you saw; and my lady
and Miss Rachel (not expecting Mr. Franklin till dinner-time) drove
out to lunch with some friends in the neighbourhood.
When they were gone, I went and had a look at the bedroom which
had been got ready for our guest, and saw that all was straight. Then,
being butler in my lady's establishment, as well as steward (at my own
particular request, mind, and because it vexed me to see anybody but
myself in possession of the key of the late Sir John's cellar)-
then, I say, I fetched up some of our famous Latour claret, and set it
in the warm summer air to take off the chill before dinner. Concluding
to set myself in the warm summer air next- seeing that what is good
for old claret is equally good for old age- I took up my beehive chair
to go out into the back court, when I was stopped by hearing a sound
like the soft beating of a drum, on the terrace in front of my
lady's residence.
Going round to the terrace, I found three mahogany-coloured Indians,
in white linen frocks and trousers, looking up at the house.
The Indians, as I saw on looking closer, had small hand-drums
slung in front of them. Behind them stood a little delicate-looking
light-haired English boy carrying a bag. I judged the fellows to be
strolling conjurers, and the boy with the bag to be carrying the tools
of their trade. One of the three, who spoke English, and who
exhibited, I must own, the most elegant manners, presently informed me
that my judgment was right. He requested permission to show his tricks
in the presence of the lady of the house.
Now I am not a sour old man. I am generally all for amusement, and
the last person in the world to distrust another person because he
happens to be a few shades darker than myself. But the best of us have
our weaknesses- and my weakness, when I know a family plate-basket
to be out on a pantry table, is to be instantly reminded of that
basket by the sight of a strolling stranger whose manners are superior
to my own. I accordingly informed the Indian that the lady of the
house was out; and I warned him and his party off the premises. He
made a beautiful bow in return; and he and his party went off the
premises. On my side, I returned to my beehive chair, and set myself
down on the sunny side of the court, and fell (if the truth must be
owned), not exactly into a sleep, but into the next best thing to it.
I was roused up by my daughter Penelope running out at me as if
the house was on fire. What do you think she wanted? She wanted to
have the three Indian jugglers instantly taken up; for this reason,
namely, that they knew who was coming from London to visit us, and
that they meant some mischief to Mr. Franklin Blake.
Mr. Franklin's name roused me. I opened my eyes, and made my girl
explain herself.
It appeared that Penelope had just come from our lodge, where she
had been having a gossip with the lodge-keeper's daughter. The two
girls had seen the Indians pass out, after I had warned them off,
followed by their little boy. Taking it into their heads that the
boy was ill-used by the foreigners- for no reason that I could
discover, except that he was pretty and delicate-looking- the two
girls had stolen along the inner side of the hedge between us and
the road, and had watched the proceedings of the foreigners on the
outer side. Those proceedings resulted in the performance of the
following extraordinary tricks.
They first looked up the road, and down the road, and made sure that
they were alone. Then they all three faced about, and stared hard in
the direction of our house. Then they jabbered and disputed in their
own language, and looked at each other like men in doubt. Then they
all turned to their little English boy, as if they expected him to
help them. And then the chief Indian, who spoke English, said to the
boy, "Hold out your hand."
On hearing those dreadful words, my daughter Penelope said she
didn't know what prevented her heart from flying straight out of
her. I thought privately, that it might have been her stays. All I
said, however, was, "You make my flesh creep." (Nota bene:- Women like
these little compliments.)
Well, when the Indian said, "Hold out your hand," the boy shrunk
back, and shook his head, and said he didn't like it. The Indian,
thereupon, asked him (not at all unkindly) whether he would like to be
sent back to London, and left where they had found him, sleeping in an
empty basket in a market- a hungry, ragged, and forsaken little boy.
This, it seems, ended the difficulty. The little chap unwillingly held
out his hand. Upon that, the Indian took a bottle from his bosom,
and poured out of it some black stuff, like ink, into the palm of
the boy's hand. The Indian- first touching the boy's head, and
making signs over it in the air- then said, "Look." The boy became
quite stiff, and stood like a statue, looking into the ink in the
hollow of his hand.
(So far, it seemed to me to be juggling, accompanied by a foolish
waste of ink. I was beginning to feel sleepy again, when Penelope's
next words stirred me up.)
The Indians looked up the road and down the road once more- and then
the chief Indian said these words to the boy: "See the English
gentleman from foreign parts?"
The boy said, "I see him."
The Indian said, "Is it on the road to this house, and on no
other, that the English gentleman will travel to-day?"
The boy said, "It is on the road to this house, and on no other,
that the English gentleman will travel to-day."
The Indian put a second question- after waiting a little first. He
said, "Has the English gentleman got It about him?"
The boy answered- also, after waiting a little first- "Yes."
The Indian put a third and last question: "Will the English
gentleman come here, as he has promised to come, at the close of day?"
The boy said, "I can't tell." The Indian asked why.
The boy said, "I am tired. The mist rises in my head, and puzzles
me. I can see no more to-day."
With that, the catechism ended. The chief Indian said something in
his own language to the other two, pointing to the boy, and pointing
towards the town, in which (as we afterwards discovered) they were
lodged. He then, after making more signs on the boy's head, blew on
his forehead, and so woke him up with a start. After that, they all
went on their way towards the town, and the girls saw them no more.
Most things they say have a moral, if you only look for it. What was
the moral of this?
The moral was, as I thought: First, that the chief juggler had heard
Mr. Franklin's arrival talked of among the servants out-of-doors,
and saw his way to making a little money by it. Second, that he and
his men and boy (with a view to making the said money) meant to hang
about till they saw my lady drive home, and then to come back, and
foretell Mr. Franklin's arrival by magic. Third, that Penelope had
heard them rehearsing their hocus-pocus, like actors rehearsing a
play. Fourth, that I should do well to have an eye, that evening, on
the plate-basket. Fifth, that Penelope would do well to cool down, and
leave me, her father, to doze off again in the sun.
That appeared to me to be the sensible view. If you know anything of
the ways of young women, you won't be surprised to hear that
Penelope wouldn't take it. The moral of the thing was serious,
according to my daughter. She particularly reminded me of the Indian's
second question, Has the English gentleman got It about him? "Oh,
father!" says Penelope, clasping her hands, "don't joke about this!
What does 'It' mean?"
"We'll ask Mr. Franklin, my dear," I said, "if you can wait till Mr.
Franklin comes." I winked to show I meant that in joke. Penelope
took it quite seriously. My girl's earnestness tickled me. "What on
earth should Mr. Franklin know about it?" I inquired. "Ask him,"
says Penelope. "And see whether he thinks it a laughing matter,
too." With that parting shot, my daughter left me.
I settled it with myself, when she was gone, that I really would ask
Mr. Franklin- mainly to set Penelope's mind at rest. What was said
between us, when I did ask him, later on that same day, you will
find set out fully in its proper place. But as I don't wish to raise
your expectations and then disappoint them, I will take leave to
warn you here- before we go any further- that you won't find the ghost
of a joke in our conversation on the subject of the jugglers. To my
great surprise, Mr. Franklin, like Penelope, took the thing seriously.
How seriously, you will understand, when I tell you that, in his
opinion, "It" meant the Moonstone.
Chapter IV
-
I am truly sorry to detain you over me and my beehive chair. A
sleepy old man, in a sunny back-yard, is not an interesting object,
I am well aware. But things must be put down in their places, as
things actually happened- and you must please to jog on a little while
longer with me, in expectation of Mr. Franklin Blake's arrival later
in the day.
Before I had time to doze off again, after my daughter Penelope
had left me, I was disturbed by a rattling of plates and dishes in the
servants' hall, which meant that dinner was ready. Taking my own meals
in my own sitting-room, I had nothing to do with the servants' dinner,
except to wish them a good stomach to it all round previous to
composing myself once more in my chair. I was just stretching my legs,
when out bounced another woman on me. Not my daughter again; only
Nancy, the kitchen-maid, this time. I was straight in her way out; and
I observed, as she asked me to let her by, that she had a sulky
face- a thing which, as head of the servants, I never allow, on
principle, to pass me without inquiry.
"What are you turning your back on your dinner for?" I asked.
"What's wrong now, Nancy?"
Nancy tried to push by without answering; upon which I rose up,
and took her by the ear. She is a nice plump young lass, and it is
customary with me to adopt that manner of showing that I personally
approve of a girl.
"What's wrong now?" I said once more.
"Rosanna's late again for dinner," says Nancy. "And I'm sent to
fetch her in. All the hard work falls on my shoulders in this house.
Let me alone, Mr. Betteredge!"
The person here mentioned as Rosanna was our second housemaid.
Having a kind of pity for our second housemaid (why, you shall
presently know), and seeing in Nancy's face that she would fetch her
fellow-servant in with more hard words than might be needful under the
circumstances, it struck me that I had nothing particular to do, and
that I might as well fetch Rosanna myself; giving her a hint to be
punctual in future, which I knew she would take kindly from me.
"Where is Rosanna?" I inquired.
"At the sands, of course!" says Nancy, with a toss of her head. "She
had another of her fainting-fits this morning, and she asked to go out
and get a breath of fresh air. I have no patience with her!"
"Go back to your dinner, my girl," I said. "I have patience with
her, and I'll fetch her in."
Nancy (who has a fine appetite) looked pleased. When she looks
pleased, she looks nice. When she looks nice, I chuck her under the
chin. It isn't immorality- it's only habit.
Well, I took my stick, and set off for the sands.
No! it won't do to set off yet. I am sorry again to detain you;
but you really must hear the story of the sands, and the story of
Rosanna- for this reason, that the matter of the Diamond touches
them both nearly. How hard I try to get on with my statement without
stopping by the way, and how badly I succeed! But, there!- Persons and
Things do turn up so vexatiously in this life, and will in a manner
insist on being noticed. Let us take it easy, and let us take it
short; we shall be in the thick of the mystery soon, I promise you!
Rosanna (to put the Person before the Thing, which is but common
politeness) was the only new servant in our house. About four months
before the time I am writing of, my lady had been in London, and had
gone over a Reformatory, intended to save forlorn women from
drifting back into bad ways, after they had got released from
prison. The matron, seeing my lady took an interest in the place,
pointed out a girl to her, named Rosanna Spearman, and told her a most
miserable story, which I haven't the heart to repeat here; for I don't
like to be made wretched without any use, and no more do you. The
upshot of it was, that Rosanna Spearman had been a thief, and not
being of the sort that get up Companies in the City, and rob from
thousands, instead of only robbing from one, the law laid hold of her,
and the prison and the reformatory followed the lead of the law. The
matron's opinion of Rosanna was (in spite of what she had done) that
the girl was one in a thousand, and that she only wanted a chance to
prove herself worthy of any Christian woman's interest in her. My lady
(being a Christian woman, if ever there was one yet) said to the
matron upon that, "Rosanna Spearman shall have her chance, in my
service." In a week afterwards, Rosanna Spearman entered this
establishment as our second housemaid.
Not a soul was told the girl's story, excepting Miss Rachel and
me. My lady, doing me the honour to consult me about most things,
consulted me about Rosanna. Having fallen a good deal latterly into
the late Sir John's way of always agreeing with my lady, I agreed with
her heartily about Rosanna Spearman.
A fairer chance no girl could have had than was given to this poor
girl of ours. None of the servants could cast her past life in her
teeth, for none of the servants knew what it had been. She had her
wages and her privileges, like the rest of them; and every now and
then a friendly word from my lady, in private, to encourage her. In
return, she showed herself, I am bound to say, well worthy of the kind
treatment bestowed upon her. Though far from strong, and troubled
occasionally with those fainting-fits already mentioned, she went
about her work modestly and uncomplainingly, doing it carefully, and
doing it well. But, somehow, she failed to make friends among the
other women servants, excepting my daughter Penelope, who was always
kind to Rosanna, though never intimate with her.
I hardly know what the girl did to offend them. There was
certainly no beauty about her to make the others envious; she was the
plainest woman in the house, with the additional misfortune of having
one shoulder bigger than the other. What the servants chiefly
resented, I think, was her silent tongue and her solitary ways. She
read or worked in leisure hours when the rest gossiped. And when it
came to her turn to go out, nine times out of ten she quietly put on
her bonnet, and had her turn by herself. She never quarrelled, she
never took offence; she only kept a certain distance, obstinately
and civilly, between the rest of them and herself. Add to this that,
plain as she was, there was just a dash of something that wasn't
like a housemaid, and that was like a lady, about her. It might have
been in her voice, or it might have been in her face. All I can say
is, that the other women pounced on it like lightning the first day
she came into the house, and said (which was most unjust) that Rosanna
Spearman gave herself airs.
Having now told the story of Rosanna, I have only to notice one of
the many queer ways of this strange girl to get on next to the story
of the sands.
Our house is high up on the Yorkshire coast, and close by the sea.
We have got beautiful walks all round us, in every direction but
one. That one I acknowledge to be a horrid walk. It leads, for a
quarter of a mile, through a melancholy plantation of firs, and brings
you out between low cliffs on the loneliest and ugliest little bay
on all our coast.
The sandhills here run down to the sea, and end in two spits of rock
jutting out opposite each other, till you lose sight of them in the
water. One is called the North Spit, and one the South. Between the
two, shifting backwards and forwards at certain seasons of the year,
lies the most horrible quicksand on the shores of Yorkshire. At the
turn of the tide, something goes on in the unknown deeps below,
which sets the whole face of the quicksand shivering and trembling
in a manner most remarkable to see, and which has given to it, among
the people in our parts, the name of the Shivering Sand. A great bank,
half a mile out, nigh the mouth of the bay, breaks the force of the
main ocean coming in from the offing. Winter and summer, when the tide
flows over the quicksand, the sea seems to leave the waves behind it
on the bank, and rolls its waters in smoothly with a heave, and covers
the sand in silence. A lonesome and a horrid retreat, I can tell
you! No boat ever ventures into this bay. No children from our
fishing-village, called Cobb's Hole, ever come here to play. The
very birds of the air, as it seems to me, give the Shivering Sand a
wide berth. That a young woman, with dozens of nice walks to choose
from, and company to go with her, if she only said "Come!" should
prefer this place, and should sit and work or read in it, all alone,
when it's her turn out, I grant you, passes belief. It's true,
nevertheless, account for it as you may, that this was Rosanna
Spearman's favourite walk, except when she went once or twice to
Cobb's Hole, to see the only friend she had in our neighbourhood, of
whom more anon. It's also true that I was now setting out for this
same place, to fetch the girl in to dinner, which brings us round
happily to our former point, and starts us fair again on our way to
the sands.
I saw no sign of the girl in the plantation. When I got out, through
the sandhills, on to the beach, there she was, in her little straw
bonnet, and her plain grey cloak that she always wore to hide her
deformed shoulder as much as might be- there she was, all alone,
looking out on the quicksand and the sea.
She started when I came up with her, and turned her head away from
me. Not looking me in the face being another of the proceedings which,
as head of the servants, I never allow, on principle, to pass
without inquiry- I turned her round my way, and saw that she was
crying. My bandanna handkerchief- one of six beauties given to me by
my lady- was handy in my pocket. I took it out, and I said to Rosanna,
"Come and sit down, my dear, on the slope of the beach along with
me. I'll dry your eyes for you first, and then I'll make so bold as to
ask what you have been crying about."
When you come to my age, you will find sitting down on the slope
of a beach a much longer job than you think it now. By the time I
was settled, Rosanna had dried her own eyes with a very inferior
handkerchief to mine- cheap cambric. She looked very quiet, and very
wretched; but she sat down by me like a good girl, when I told her.
When you want to comfort a woman by the shortest way, take her on your
knee. I thought of this golden rule. But there! Rosanna wasn't
Nancy, and that's the truth of it!
"Now, tell me, my dear," I said, "what are you crying about?"
"About the years that are gone, Mr. Betteredge," says Rosanna
quietly. "My past life still comes back to me sometimes."
"Come, come, my girl," I said, "your past life is all sponged out.
Why can't you forget it?"
She took me by one of the lappets of my coat. I am a slovenly old
man, and a good deal of my meat and drink gets splashed about on my
clothes. Sometimes one of the women, and sometimes another, cleans
me of my grease. The day before, Rosanna had taken out a spot for me
on the lappet of my coat, with a new composition, warranted to
remove anything. The grease was gone, but there was a little dull
place left on the nap of the cloth where the grease had been. The girl
pointed to that place, and shook her head.
"The stain is taken off," she said. "But the place shows, Mr.
Betteredge- the place shows!"
A remark which takes a man unawares by means of his own coat is
not an easy remark to answer. Something in the girl herself, too, made
me particularly sorry for her just then. She had nice brown eyes,
plain as she was in other ways- and she looked at me with a sort of
respect for my happy old age and my good character, as things for ever
out of her own reach, which made my heart heavy for our second
housemaid. Not feeling myself able to comfort her, there was only
one other thing to do. That thing was- to take her in to dinner.
"Help me up." I said. "You're late for dinner, Rosanna- and I have
come to fetch you in."
"You, Mr. Betteredge!" says she.
"They told Nancy to fetch you," I said. "But I thought you might
like your scolding better, my dear, if it came from me."
Instead of helping me up, the poor thing stole her hand into mine
and gave it a little squeeze. She tried hard to keep from crying
again, and succeeded- for which I respected her. "You're very kind,
Mr. Betteredge," she said. "I don't want any dinner to-day- let me
bide a little longer here."
"What makes you like to be here?" I asked. "What is it that brings
you everlastingly to this miserable place?"
"Something draws me to it," says the girl, making images with her
finger in the sand. "I try to keep away from it, and I can't.
Sometimes," says she, in a low voice, as if she was frightened at
her own fancy, "sometimes, Mr. Betteredge, I think that my grave is
waiting for me here."
"There's roast mutton and suet-pudding waiting for you!" says I. "Go
in to dinner directly. This is what comes, Rosanna, of thinking on
an empty stomach!" I spoke severely, being naturally indignant (at
my time of life) to hear a young woman of five-and-twenty talking
about her latter end!
She didn't seem to hear me: she put her hand on my shoulder, and
kept me where I was, sitting by her side.
"I think the place has laid a spell on me," she said. "I dream of it
night after night; I think of it when I sit stitching at my work.
You know I am grateful, Mr. Betteredge- you know I try to deserve your
kindness, and my lady's confidence in me. But I wonder sometimes
whether the life here is too quiet and too good for such a woman as
I am, after all I have gone through, Mr. Betteredge- after all I
have gone through. It's more lonely to me to be among the other
servants, knowing I am not what they are, than it is to be here. My
lady doesn't know, the matron at the reformatory doesn't know, what
a dreadful reproach honest people are in themselves to a woman like
me. Don't scold me, there's a dear good man. I do my work, don't I?
Please not to tell my lady I am discontented- I am not. My mind's
unquiet, sometimes, that's all." She snatched her hand off my
shoulder, and suddenly pointed down to the quicksand. "Look!" she
said. "Isn't it wonderful? isn't it terrible? I have seen it dozens of
times, and it's always as new to me as if I had never seen it before!"
I looked where she pointed. The tide was on the turn, and the horrid
sand began to shiver. The broad brown face of it heaved slowly, and
then dimpled and quivered all over. "Do you know what it looks like to
me?" says Rosanna, catching me by the shoulder again. "It looks as
if it had hundreds of suffocating people under it- all struggling to
get to the surface, and all sinking lower and lower in the dreadful
deeps! Throw a stone in, Mr. Betteredge! Throw a stone in, and let's
see the sand suck it down!"
Here was unwholesome talk! Here was an empty stomach feeding on an
unquiet mind! My answer- a pretty sharp one, in the poor girl's own
interests, I promise you!- was at my tongue's end, when it was snapped
short off on a sudden by a voice among the sandhills shouting for me
by my name. "Betteredge!" cries the voice, "where are you?" "Here!"
I shouted out in return, without a notion in my mind of who it was.
Rosanna started to her feet, and stood looking towards the voice. I
was just thinking of getting on my own legs next, when I was staggered
by a sudden change in the girl's face.
Her complexion turned of a beautiful red, which I had never seen
in it before; she brightened all over with a kind of speechless and
breathless surprise. "Who is it?" I asked. Rosanna gave me back my own
question. "Oh! who is it?" she said softly, more to herself than to
me. I twisted round on the sand, and looked behind me. There, coming
out on us from among the hills, was a bright-eyed young gentleman,
dressed in a beautiful fawn-coloured suit, with gloves and hat to
match, with a rose in his button-hole, and a smile on his face that
might have set the Shivering Sand itself smiling at him in return.
Before I could get on my legs, he plumped down on the sand by the side
of me, put his arm round my neck foreign fashion, and gave me a hug
that fairly squeezed the breath out of my body. "Dear old Betteredge!"
says he. "I owe you seven-and-sixpence. Now do you know who I am?"
Lord bless us and save us! Here- four good hours before we
expected him- was Mr. Franklin Blake!
Before I could say a word, I saw Mr. Franklin, a little surprised to
all appearance, look up from me to Rosanna. Following his lead, I
looked at the girl too. She was blushing of a deeper red than ever,
seemingly at having caught Mr. Franklin's eye; and she turned and left
us suddenly, in a confusion quite unaccountable to my mind, without
either making her curtsey to the gentleman or saying a word to me.
Very unlike her usual self: a civiller and better-behaved servant,
in general, you never met with.
"That's an odd girl," says Mr. Franklin. "I wonder what she sees
in me to surprise her?"
"I suppose, sir," I answered, drolling on our young gentleman's
Continental education, "it's the varnish from foreign parts."
I set down here Mr. Franklin's careless question, and my foolish
answer, as a consolation and encouragement to all stupid people- it
being, as I have remarked, a great satisfaction to our inferior
fellow-creatures to find that their betters are, on occasions, no
brighter than they are. Neither Mr. Franklin, with his wonderful
foreign training, nor I, with my age, experience, and natural
mother-wit, had the ghost of an idea of what Rosanna Spearman's
unaccountable behaviour really meant. She was out of our thoughts,
poor soul, before we had seen the last flutter of her little grey
cloak among the sandhills. And what of that? you will ask, naturally
enough. Read on, good friend, as patiently as you can, and perhaps you
will be as sorry for Rosanna Spearman as I was, when I found out the
truth.
Chapter V
-
The first thing I did, after we were left together alone, was to
make a third attempt to get up from my seat on the sand. Mr.
Franklin stopped me.
"There is one advantage about this horrid place," he said; "we
have got it all to ourselves. Stay where you are, Betteredge; I have
something to say to you."
While he was speaking, I was looking at him, and trying to see
something of the boy I remembered, in the man before me. The man put
me out. Look as I might, I could see no more of his boy's rosy
cheeks than of his boy's trim little jacket. His complexion had got
pale: his face, at the lower part, was covered, to my great surprise
and disappointment, with a curly brown beard and mustachios. He had
a lively touch-and-go way with him, very pleasant and engaging, I
admit; but nothing to compare with his free-and-easy manners of
other times. To make matters worse, he had promised to be tall, and
had not kept his promise. He was neat, and slim, and well made; but he
wasn't by an inch or two up to the middle height. In short, he baffled
me altogether. The years that had passed had left nothing of his old
self, except the bright, straightforward look in his eyes. There I
found our nice boy again, and there I concluded to stop in my
investigation.
"Welcome back to the old place, Mr. Franklin," I said. "All the more
welcome, sir, that you have come some hours before we expected you."
"I have a reason for coming before you expected me," answered Mr.
Franklin. "I suspect, Betteredge, that I have been followed and
watched in London, for the last three or four days; and I have
travelled by the morning instead of the afternoon train because I
wanted to give a certain dark-looking stranger the slip."
Those words did more than surprise me. They brought back to my mind,
in a flash, the three jugglers, and Penelope's notion that they
meant some mischief to Mr. Franklin Blake.
"Who's watching you, sir- and why?" I inquired.
"Tell me about the three Indians you have had at the house to-day,"
says Mr. Franklin, without noticing my question. "It's just
possible, Betteredge, that my stranger and your three jugglers may
turn out to be pieces of the same puzzle."
"How do you come to know about the jugglers, sir?" I asked,
putting one question on the top of another, which was bad manners, I
own. But you don't expect much from poor human nature so don't
expect much from me.
"I saw Penelope at the house," says Mr. Franklin; "and Penelope told
me. Your daughter promised to be a pretty girl, Betteredge, and she
has kept her promise. Penelope has got a small ear and a small foot.
Did the late Mrs. Betteredge possess those inestimable advantages?"
"The late Mrs. Betteredge possessed a good many defects, sir,"
says I. "One of them (if you will pardon my mentioning it) was never
keeping to the matter in hand. She was more like a fly than a woman:
she couldn't settle on anything."
"She would just have suited me," says Mr. Franklin. "I never
settle on anything either. Betteredge, your edge is better than
ever. Your daughter said as much, when I asked for particulars about
the jugglers. 'Father will tell you, sir. He's a wonderful man for his
age; and he expresses himself beautifully.' Penelope's own words-
blushing divinely. Not even my respect for you prevented me from-
never mind; I knew her when she was a child, and she's none the
worse for it. Let's be serious. What did the jugglers do?"
I was something dissatisfied with my daughter- not for letting Mr.
Franklin kiss her; Mr. Franklin was welcome to that- but for forcing
me to tell her foolish story at second-hand. However, there was no
help for it now but to mention the circumstances. Mr. Franklin's
merriment all died away as I went on. He sat knitting his eyebrows and
twisting his beard. When I had done, he repeated after me two of the
questions which the chief juggler had put to the boy- seemingly for
the purpose of fixing them well in his mind.
"'Is it on the road to this house, and on no other, that the English
gentleman will travel to-day?' 'Has the English gentleman got It about
him?' I suspect," says Mr. Franklin, pulling a little sealed paper
parcel out of his pocket, "that 'It' means this. And 'this,'
Betteredge, means my uncle Herncastle's famous Diamond."
"Good Lord, sir!" I broke out, "how do you come to be in charge of
the wicked Colonel's Diamond?"
"The wicked Colonel's Will has left his Diamond as a birthday
present to my cousin Rachel," says Mr. Franklin. "And my father, as
the wicked Colonel's executor, has given it in charge to me to bring
down here."
If the sea, then oozing in smoothly over the Shivering Sand, had
been changed into dry land before my own eyes, I doubt if I could have
been more surprised than I was when Mr. Franklin spoke those words.
"The Colonel's Diamond left to Miss Rachel!" says I. "And your
father, sir, the Colonel's executor! Why, I would have laid any bet
you like, Mr. Franklin, that your father wouldn't have touched the
Colonel with a pair of tongs!"
"Strong language, Betteredge! What was there against the Colonel? He
belonged to your time, not to mine. Tell me what you know about him,
and I'll tell you how my father came to be his executor, and more
besides. I have made some discoveries in London about my uncle
Herncastle and his Diamond, which have rather an ugly look to my eyes;
and I want you to confirm them. You called him the 'wicked Colonel'
just now. Search your memory, my old friend, and tell me why."
I saw he was in earnest, and I told him.
Here follows the substance of what I said, written out entirely
for your benefit. Pay attention to it, or you will be all abroad
when we get deeper into the story. Clear your mind of the children, or
the dinner, or the new bonnet, or what not. Try if you can't forget
politics, horses, prices in the City, and grievances at the club. I
hope you won't take this freedom on my part amiss; it's only a way I
have of appealing to the gentle reader. Lord! haven't I seen you
with the greatest authors in your hands, and don't I know how ready
your attention is to wander when it's a book that asks for it, instead
of a person?
-
I spoke, a little way back, of my lady's father, the old lord with
the short temper and the long tongue. He had five children in all. Two
sons to begin with; then, after a long time, his wife broke out
breeding again, and the three young ladies came briskly one after
the other, as fast as the nature of things would permit; my
mistress, as before mentioned, being the youngest and best of the
three. Of the two sons, the eldest, Arthur, inherited the title and
estates. The second, the Honourable John, got a fine fortune left
him by a relative, and went into the army.
It's an ill bird, they say, that fouls its own nest. I look on the
noble family of the Herncastles as being my nest; and I shall take
it as a favour if I am not expected to enter into particulars on the
subject of the Honourable John. He was, I honestly believe, one of the
greatest blackguards that ever lived. I can hardly say more or less
for him than that. He went into the army, beginning in the Guards.
He had to leave the Guards before he was two-and-twenty- never mind
why. They are very strict in the army, and they were too strict for
the Honourable John. He went out to India to see whether they were
equally strict there, and to try a little active service. In the
matter of bravery (to give him his due) he was a mixture of bulldog
and gamecock, with a dash of the savage. He was at the taking of
Seringapatam. Soon afterwards he changed into another regiment, and in
course of time, changed again into a third. In the third he got his
last step as lieutenant-colonel, and, getting that, got also a
sunstroke, and came home to England.
He came back with a character that closed the doors of all his
family against him, my lady (then just married) taking the lead, and
declaring (with Sir John's approval, of course) that her brother
should never enter any house of hers. There was more than one slur
on the Colonel that made people shy of him; but the blot of the
Diamond is all I need mention here.
It was said he had got possession of his Indian jewel by means
which, bold as he was, he didn't dare acknowledge. He never
attempted to sell it- not being in need of money, and not (to give him
his due again) making money an object. He never gave it away; he never
even showed it to any living soul. Some said he was afraid of its
getting him into a difficulty with the military authorities; others
(very ignorant indeed of the real nature of the man) said he was
afraid, if he showed it, of its costing him his life.
There was perhaps a grain of truth mixed up with this last report.
It was false to say that he was afraid; but it was a fact that his
life had been twice threatened in India; and it was firmly believed
that the Moonstone was at the bottom of it. When he came back to
England, and found himself avoided by everybody, the Moonstone was
thought to be at the bottom of it again. The mystery of the
Colonel's life got in the Colonel's way, and outlawed him, as you
may say, among his own people. The men wouldn't let him into their
clubs; the women- more than one- whom he wanted to marry, refused him;
friends and relations got too near-sighted to see him on the street.
Some men in this mess would have tried to set themselves right
with the world. But to give in, even when he was wrong, and had all
society against him, was not the way of the Honourable John. He had
kept the Diamond, in flat defiance of assassination, in India. He kept
the Diamond, in flat defiance of public opinion, in England. There you
have the portrait of the man before you, as in a picture: a
character that braved everything; and a face, handsome as it was, that
looked possessed by the devil.
We heard different rumours about him from time to time. Sometimes
they said he was given up to smoking opium and collecting old books;
sometimes he was reported to be trying strange things in chemistry;
sometimes he was seen carousing and amusing himself among the lowest
people in the lowest slums of London. Anyhow, a solitary, vicious,
underground life was the life the Colonel led. Once, and once only,
after his return to England, I myself saw him, face to face.
About two years before the time of which I am now writing, and about
a year and a half before the time of his death, the Colonel came
unexpectedly to my lady's house in London. It was the night of Miss
Rachel's birthday, the twenty-first of June; and there was a party
in honour of it, as usual. I received a message from the footman to
say that a gentleman wanted to see me. Going up into the hall, there I
found the Colonel, wasted, and worn, and old, and shabby, and as
wild and as wicked as ever.
"Go up to my sister," says he; "and say that I have called to wish
my niece many happy returns of the day."
He had made attempts by letter, more than once already, to be
reconciled with my lady, for no other purpose, I am firmly
persuaded, than to annoy her. But this was the first time he had
actually come to the house. I had it on the tip of my tongue to say
that my mistress had a party that night. But the devilish look of
him haunted me. I went upstairs with his message, and left him, by his
own desire, waiting in the hall. The servants stood staring at him, at
a distance, as if he was a walking engine of destruction loaded with
powder and shot, and likely to go off among them at a moment's notice.
My lady had a dash- no more- of the family temper. "Tell Colonel
Herncastle," she said, when I gave her her brother's message, "that
Miss Verinder is engaged, and that I decline to see him." I tried to
plead for a civiller answer than that, knowing the Colonel's
constitutional superiority to the restraints which govern gentlemen in
general. Quite useless! The family temper flashed out at me
directly. "When I want your advice," says my lady, "you know that I
always ask for it. I don't ask for it now." I went downstairs with the
message, of which I took the liberty of presenting a new and amended
edition of my own contriving, as follows: "My lady and Miss Rachel
regret that they are engaged, Colonel; and beg to be excused having
the honour of seeing you."
I expected him to break out, even at that polite way of putting
it. To my surprise he did nothing of the sort; he alarmed me by taking
the thing with an unnatural quiet. His eyes, of a glittering bright
grey, just settled on me for a moment; and he laughed, not out of
himself, like other people, but into himself, in a soft, chuckling,
horridly mischievous way. "Thank you, Betteredge," he said. "I shall
remember my niece's birthday." With that, he turned on his heel and
walked out of the house.
The next birthday came round, and we heard he was ill in bed. Six
months afterwards- that is to say, six months before the time I am now
writing of- there came a letter from a highly respectable clergyman to
my lady. It communicated two wonderful things in the way of family
news. First, that the Colonel had forgiven his sister on his
death-bed. Second, that he had forgiven everybody else, and had made a
most edifying end. I have myself (in spite of the bishops and the
clergy) an unfeigned respect for the Church; but I am firmly
persuaded, at the same time, that the devil remained in undisturbed
possession of the Honourable John, and that the last abominable act in
the life of that abominable man was (saving your presence) to take the
clergyman in!
This was the sum-total of what I had to tell Mr. Franklin. I
remarked that he listened more and more eagerly the longer I went
on. Also, that the story of the Colonel being sent away from his
sister's door, on the occasion of his niece's birthday, seemed to
strike Mr. Franklin like a shot that had hit the mark. Though he
didn't acknowledge it, I saw that I had made him uneasy, plainly
enough, in his face.
"You have said your say, Betteredge," he remarked. "It's my turn
now. Before, however, I tell you what discoveries I have made in
London, and how I came to be mixed up in this matter of the Diamond, I
want to know one thing. You look, my old friend, as if you didn't
quite understand the object to be answered by this consultation of
ours. Do your looks belie you?"
"No, sir," I said. "My looks, on this occasion at any rate, tell the
truth."
"In that case," says Mr. Franklin, "suppose I put you up to my point
of view, before we go any further. I see three very serious
questions involved in the Colonel's birthday gift to my cousin Rachel.
Follow me carefully, Betteredge; and count me off on your fingers,
if it will help you," says Mr. Franklin, with a certain pleasure in
showing how clear-headed he could be, which reminded me wonderfully of
old times when he was a boy. "Question the first: Was the Colonel's
Diamond the object of a conspiracy in India? Question the second:
Has the conspiracy followed the Colonel's Diamond to England? Question
the third: Did the Colonel know the conspiracy followed the Diamond;
and has he purposely left a legacy of trouble and danger to his
sister, through the innocent medium of his sister's child? That is
what I am driving at, Betteredge. Don't let me frighten you."
It was all very well to say that, but he had frightened me.
If he was right, here was our quiet English house suddenly invaded
by a devilish Indian Diamond- bringing after it a conspiracy of living
rogues, set loose on us by the vengeance of a dead man. There was
our situation, as revealed to me in Mr. Franklin's last words! Whoever
heard the like of it- in the nineteenth century, mind; in an age of
progress, and in a country which rejoices in the blessings of the
British constitution? Nobody ever heard the like of it, and,
consequently, nobody can be expected to believe it. I shall go on with
my story, however, in spite of that.
When you get a sudden alarm, of the sort that I had got now, nine
times out of ten the place you feel it in is your stomach. When you
feel it in your stomach, your attention wanders, and you begin to
fidget. I fidgeted silently in my place on the sand. Mr. Franklin
noticed me, contending with a perturbed stomach or mind- which you
please; they mean the same thing- and, checking himself just as he was
starting with his part of the story, said to me sharply, "What do
you want?"
What did I want? I didn't tell him; but I'll tell you, in
confidence. I wanted a whiff of my pipe, and a turn at Robinson
Crusoe.
Chapter VI
-
Keeping my private sentiments to myself, I respectfully requested
Mr. Franklin to go on. Mr. Franklin replied, "Don't fidget,
Betteredge," and went on.
Our young gentleman's first words informed me that his discoveries
concerning the wicked Colonel and the Diamond had begun with a visit
which he had paid (before he came to us) to the family lawyer, at
Hampstead. A chance word dropped by Mr. Franklin, when the two were
alone, one day after dinner, revealed that he had been charged by
his father with a birthday present to be taken to Miss Rachel. One
thing led to another; and it ended in the lawyer mentioning what the
present really was, and how the friendly connexion between the late
Colonel and Mr. Blake, senior, had taken its rise. The facts here
are really so extraordinary, that I doubt if I can trust my own
language to do justice to them. I prefer trying to report Mr.
Franklin's discoveries, as nearly as may be, in Mr. Franklin's own
words.
"You remember the time, Betteredge," he said, "when my father was
trying to prove his title to that unlucky Dukedom? Well! that was also
the time when my uncle Herncastle returned from India. My father
discovered that his brother-in-law was in possession of certain papers
which were likely to be of service to him in his lawsuit. He called on
the Colonel, on pretence of welcoming him back to England. The Colonel
was not to be deluded in that way. "You want something," he said,
"or you would never have compromised your reputation by calling on
me." My father saw that the one chance for him was to show his hand:
he admitted, at once, that he wanted the papers. The Colonel asked for
a day to consider his answer. His answer came in the shape of a most
extraordinary letter, which my friend the lawyer showed me. The
Colonel began by saying that he wanted something of my father, and
that he begged to propose an exchange of friendly services between
them. The fortune of war (that was the expression he used) had
placed him in possession of one of the largest Diamonds in the
world; and he had reason to believe that neither he nor his precious
jewel was safe in any house, in any quarter of the globe, which they
occupied together. Under these alarming circumstances, he had
determined to place his Diamond in the keeping of another person. That
person was not expected to run any risk. He might deposit the precious
stone in any place especially guarded and set apart- like a banker's
or jeweller's strong-room- for the safe custody of valuables of high
price. His main personal responsibility in the matter was to be of the
passive kind. He was to undertake- either by himself, or by a
trustworthy representative- to receive at a pre-arranged address, on
certain pre-arranged days in every year, a note from the Colonel,
simply stating the fact that he was a living man at that date. In
the event of the date passing over without the note being received,
the Colonel's silence might be taken as a sure token of the
Colonel's death by murder. In that case, and in no other, certain
sealed instructions relating to the disposal of the Diamond, and
deposited with it, were to be opened, and followed implicitly. If my
father chose to accept this strange charge, the Colonel's papers
were at his disposal in return. That was the letter."
"What did your father do, sir?" I asked.
"Do?" says Mr. Franklin. "I'll tell you what he did. He brought
the invaluable faculty, called common sense, to bear on the
Colonel's letter. The whole thing, he declared, was simply absurd.
Somewhere in his Indian wanderings, the Colonel had picked up with
some wretched crystal which he took for a diamond. As for the danger
of his being murdered, and the precautions devised to preserve his
life and his piece of crystal, this was the nineteenth century, and
any man in his senses had only to apply to the police. The Colonel had
been a notorious opium-eater for years past; and, if the only way of
getting at the valuable papers he possessed was by accepting a
matter of opium as a matter of fact, my father was quite willing to
take the ridiculous responsibility imposed on him- all the more
readily that it involved no trouble to himself. The Diamond and the
sealed instructions went into his banker's strong-room, and the
Colonel's letters, periodically reporting him a living man, were
received and opened by our family lawyer, Mr. Bruff, as my father's
representative. No sensible person, in a similar position, could
have viewed the matter in any other way. Nothing in this world,
Betteredge, is probable unless it appeals to our own trumpery
experience; and we only believe in a romance when we see it in a
newspaper."
It was plain to me from this, that Mr. Franklin thought his father's
notion about the Colonel hasty and wrong.
"What is your own private opinion about the matter, sir?" I asked.
"Let's finish the story of the Colonel first," says Mr. Franklin.
"There is a curious want of system, Betteredge, in the English mind;
and your question, my old friend, is an instance of it. When we are
not occupied in making machinery, we are (mentally speaking) the
most slovenly people in the universe."
"So much," I thought to myself, "for a foreign education! He has
learned that way of girding at us in France, I suppose."
Mr. Franklin took up the lost thread, and went on.
"My father," he said, "got the papers he wanted, and never saw his
brother-in-law again from that time. Year after year, on the
pre-arranged days, the pre-arranged letter came from the Colonel,
and was opened by Mr. Bruff. I have seen the letters, in a heap, all
of them written in the same brief, business-like form of words: 'Sir,-
This is to certify that I am still a living man. Let the Diamond be.
John Herncastle.' That was all he ever wrote, and that came
regularly to the day; until some six or eight months since, when the
form of the letter varied for the first time. It ran now: 'Sir,-
They tell me I am dying. Come to me, and help me to make my Will.' Mr.
Bruff went, and found him, in the little suburban villa, surrounded by
its own grounds, in which he had lived alone ever since he had left
India. He had dogs, cats, and birds to keep him company; but no
human being near him, except the person who came daily to do the
house-work, and the doctor at the bedside. The Will was a very
simple matter. The Colonel had dissipated the greater part of his
fortune in his chemical investigations. His Will began and ended in
three clauses, which he dictated from his bed, in perfect possession
of his faculties. The first clause provided for the safe keeping and
support of his animals. The second founded a professorship of
experimental chemistry at a northern university. The third
bequeathed the Moonstone as a birthday present to his niece, on
condition that my father would act as executor. My father at first
refused to act. On second thoughts, however, he gave way, partly
because he was assured that the executorship would involve him in no
trouble; partly because Mr. Bruff suggested, in Rachel's interest,
that the Diamond might be worth something, after all."
"Did the Colonel give any reason, sir," I inquired, "why he left the
Diamond to Miss Rachel?"
"He not only gave the reason- he had the reason written in his
Will," said Mr. Franklin. "I have got an extract, which you shall
see presently. Don't be slovenly-minded, Betteredge! One thing at a
time. You have heard about the Colonel's Will; now you must hear
what happened after the Colonel's death. It was formally necessary
to have the Diamond valued, before the Will could be proved. All the
jewellers consulted, at once confirmed the Colonel's assertion that he
possessed one of the largest diamonds in the world. The question of
accurately valuing it presented some serious difficulties. Its size
made it a phenomenon in the diamond-market; its colour placed it in
a category by itself; and, to add to these elements of uncertainty,
there was a defect, in the shape of a flaw, in the very heart of the
stone. Even with this last serious drawback, however, the lowest of
the various estimates given was twenty thousand pounds. Conceive my
father's astonishment! He had been within a hair's-breadth of refusing
to act as executor, and of allowing this magnificent jewel to be
lost to the family. The interest he took in the matter now, induced
him to open the sealed instructions which had been deposited with
the Diamond. Mr. Bruff showed this document to me, with the other
papers; and it suggests (to my mind) a clue to the nature of the
conspiracy which threatened the Colonel's life."
"Then you do believe, sir," I said, "that there was a conspiracy?"
"Not possessing my father's excellent common sense," answered Mr.
Franklin, "I believe the Colonel's life was threatened, exactly as the
Colonel said. The sealed instructions, as I think, explain how it
was that he died, after all, quietly in his bed. In the event of his
death by violence (that is to say, in the absence of the regular
letter from him at the appointed date) my father was then directed
to send the Moonstone secretly to Amsterdam. It was to be deposited in
that city with a famous diamond-cutter, and it was to be cut up into
from four to six separate stones. The stones were then to be sold
for what they would fetch, and the proceeds were to be applied to
the founding of that professorship of experimental chemistry, which
the Colonel has since endowed by his Will. Now, Betteredge, exert
those sharp wits of yours, and observe the conclusion to which the
Colonel's instructions point!"
I instantly exerted my wits. They were of the slovenly English sort;
and they consequently muddled it all, until Mr. Franklin took them
in hand, and pointed out what they ought to see.
"Remark," says Mr. Franklin, "that the integrity of the Diamond,
as a whole stone, is here artfully made dependent on the
preservation from violence of the Colonel's life. He is not
satisfied with saying to the enemies he dreads, 'Kill me- and you will
be no nearer to the Diamond than you are now; it is where you can't
get at it- in the guarded strong-room of a bank.' He says instead,
'Kill me- and the Diamond will be the Diamond no longer; its
identity will be destroyed.' What does that mean?"
Here I had (as I thought) a flash of the wonderful foreign
brightness.
"I know," I said. "It means lowering the value of the stone, and
cheating the rogues in that way!"
"Nothing of the sort," says Mr. Franklin. "I have inquired about
that. The flawed Diamond, cut up, would actually fetch more than the
Diamond as it now is; for this plain reason- that from four to six
perfect brilliants might be cut from it, which would be, collectively,
worth more money than the large- but imperfect- single stone. If
robbery for the purpose of gain was at the bottom of the conspiracy,
the Colonel's instructions absolutely made the Diamond better worth
stealing. More money could have been got for it, and the disposal of
it in the diamond-market would have been infinitely easier, if it
had passed through the hands of the workmen of Amsterdam."
"Lord bless us, sir!" I burst out. "What was the plot, then?"
"A plot organized among the Indians who originally owned the jewel,"
says Mr. Franklin- "a plot with some old Hindoo superstition at the
bottom of it. That is my opinion, confirmed by a family paper which
I have about me at this moment."
I saw, now, why the appearance of the three Indian jugglers at our
house had presented itself to Mr. Franklin in the light of a
circumstance worth noting.
"I don't want to force my opinion on you," Mr. Franklin went on.
"The idea of certain chosen servants of an old Hindoo superstition
devoting themselves, through all difficulties and dangers, to watching
the opportunity of recovering their sacred gem, appears to me to be
perfectly consistent with everything that we know of the patience of
Oriental races, and the influence of Oriental religions. But then I am
an imaginative man; and the butcher, the baker, and the
tax-gatherer, are not the only credible realities in existence to my
mind. Let the guess I have made at the truth in this matter go for
what it is worth, and let us get on to the only practical question
that concerns us. Does the conspiracy against the Moonstone survive
the Colonel's death? And did the Colonel know it, when he left the
birthday gift to his niece?"
I began to see my lady and Miss Rachel at the end of it all, now.
Not a word he said escaped me.
"I was not very willing, when I discovered the story of the
Moonstone," said Mr. Franklin, "to be the means of bringing it here.
But Mr. Bruff reminded me that somebody must put my cousin's legacy
into my cousin's hands- and that I might as well do it as anybody
else. After taking the Diamond out of the bank, I fancied I was
followed in the streets by a shabby dark-complexioned man. I went to
my father's house to pick up my luggage, and found a letter there,
which unexpectedly detained me in London. I went back to the bank with
the Diamond, and thought I saw the shabby man again. Taking the
Diamond once more out of the bank this morning, I saw the man for
the third time, gave him the slip, and started (before he recovered
the trace of me) by the morning instead of the afternoon train. Here I
am, with the Diamond safe and sound- and what is the first news that
meets me? I find that three strolling Indians have been at the
house, and that my arrival from London, and something which I am
expected to have about me, are two special objects of investigation to
them when they believe themselves to be alone. I don't waste time
and words on their pouring the ink into the boy's hand, and telling
him to look in it for a man at a distance, and for something in that
man's pocket. The thing (which I have often seen done in the East)
is 'hocuspocus' in my opinion, as it is in yours. The present question
for us to decide is, whether I am wrongly attaching a meaning to a
mere accident? or whether we really have evidence of the Indians being
on the track of the Moonstone, the moment it is removed from the
safe keeping of the bank?"
Neither he nor I seemed to fancy dealing with this part of the
inquiry. We looked at each other, and then we looked at the tide,
oozing in smoothly, higher and higher, over the Shivering Sand.
"What are you thinking of?" says Mr. Franklin suddenly.
"I was thinking, sir," I answered, "that I should like to shy the
Diamond into the quicksand, and settle the question in that way."
"If you have got the value of the stone in your pocket," answered
Mr. Franklin, "say so, Betteredge, and in it goes!"
It's curious to note, when your mind's anxious, how very far in
the way of relief a very small joke will go. We found a fund of
merriment, at the time, in the notion of making away with Miss
Rachel's lawful property, and getting Mr. Blake, as executor, into
dreadful trouble- though where the merriment was, I am quite at a loss
to discover now.
Mr. Franklin was the first to bring the talk back to the talk's
proper purpose. He took an envelope out of his pocket, opened it,
and handed to me the paper inside.
"Betteredge," he said, "we must face the question of the Colonel's
motive in leaving this legacy to his niece, for my aunt's sake. Bear
in mind how Lady Verinder treated her brother from the time when he
returned to England, to the time when he told you he should remember
his niece's birthday. And read that."
He gave me the extract from the Colonel's Will. I have got it by
me while I write these words; and I copy it, as follows, for your
benefit:
-
"Thirdly, and lastly, I give and bequeath to my niece, Rachel
Verinder, daughter and only child of my sister, Julia Verinder, widow-
if her mother, the said Julia Verinder, shall be living on the said
Rachel Verinder's next birthday after my death- the yellow Diamond
belonging to me, and known in the East by the name of the Moonstone:
subject to this condition, that her mother, the said Julia Verinder,
shall be living at the time. And I hereby desire my executor to give
my Diamond, either by his own hands or by the hands of some
trustworthy representative whom he shall appoint, into the personal
possession of my said niece Rachel, on her next birthday after my
death, and in the presence, if possible, of my sister, the said
Julia Verinder. And I desire that my said sister may be informed, by
means of a true copy of this, the third and last clause of my Will,
that I give the Diamond to her daughter Rachel, in token of my free
forgiveness of the injury which her conduct towards me has been the
means of inflicting on my reputation in my lifetime; and especially in
proof that I pardon, as becomes a dying man, the insult offered to
me as an officer and a gentleman, when her servant, by her orders,
closed the door of her house against me, on the occasion of her
daughter's birthday."
-
More words followed these, providing, if my lady was dead, or if
Miss Rachel was dead, at the time of the testator's decease, for the
Diamond being sent to Holland, in accordance with the sealed
instructions originally deposited with it. The proceeds of the sale
were, in that case, to be added to the money already left by the
Will for the professorship of chemistry at the university in the
north.
I handed the paper back to Mr. Franklin, sorely troubled what to say
to him. Up to that moment, my own opinion had been (as you know)
that the Colonel had died as wickedly as he had lived. I don't say the
copy from his Will actually converted me from that opinion: I only say
it staggered me.
"Well," says Mr. Franklin, "now you have read the Colonel's own
statement, what do you say? In bringing the Moonstone to my aunt's
house, am I serving his vengeance blindfold, or am I vindicating him
in the character of a penitent and Christian man?"
"It seems hard to say, sir," I answered, "that he died with a horrid
revenge in his heart, and a horrid lie on his lips. God alone knows
the truth. Don't ask me."
Mr. Franklin sat twisting and turning the extract from the Will in
his fingers, as if he expected to squeeze the truth out of it in
that manner. He altered quite remarkably, at the same time. From being
brisk and bright, he now became, most unaccountably, a slow, solemn,
and pondering young man.
"This question has two sides," he said. "An Objective side, and a
Subjective side. Which are we to take?"
He had had a German education as well as a French. One of the two
had been in undisturbed possession of him (as I supposed) up to this
time. And now (as well as I could make out) the other was taking its
place. It is one of my rules in life, never to notice what I don't
understand. I steered a middle course between the Objective side and
the Subjective side. In plain English I stared hard, and said nothing.
"Let's extract the inner meaning of this," says Mr. Franklin. "Why
did my uncle leave the Diamond to Rachel? Why didn't he leave it to my
aunt?"
"That's not beyond guessing, sir, at any rate," I said. "Colonel
Herncastle knew my lady well enough to know that she would have
refused to accept any legacy that came to her from him."
"How did he know that Rachel might not refuse to accept it, too?"
"Is there any young lady in existence, sir, who could resist the
temptation of accepting such a birthday present as the Moonstone?"
"That's the Subjective view," says Mr. Franklin. "It does you
great credit, Betteredge, to be able to take the Subjective view.
But there's another mystery about the Colonel's legacy which is not
accounted for yet. How are we to explain his only giving Rachel her
birthday present conditionally on her mother being alive?"
"I don't want to slander a dead man, sir," I answered. "But if he
has purposely left a legacy of trouble and danger to his sister, by
the means of her child, it must be a legacy made conditional on his
sister's being alive to feel the vexation of it."
"Oh! That's your interpretation of his motive, is it? The Subjective
interpretation again! Have you ever been in Germany, Betteredge?"
"No, sir. What's your interpretation, if you please?"
"I can see," says Mr. Franklin, "that the Colonel's object may,
quite possibly, have been- not to benefit his niece, whom he had never
even seen- but to prove to his sister that he had died forgiving
her, and to prove it very prettily by means of a present made to her
child. There is a totally different explanation from yours,
Betteredge, taking its rise in a Subjective-Objective point of view.
From all I can see, one interpretation is just as likely to be right
as the other."
Having brought matters to this pleasant and comforting issue, Mr.
Franklin appeared to think that he had completed all that was required
of him. He lay down flat on his back on the sand, and asked what was
to be done next.
He had been so clever, and clear-headed (before he began to talk the
foreign gibberish), and had so completely taken the lead in the
business up to the present time, that I was quite unprepared for
such a sudden change as he now exhibited in this helpless leaning upon
me. It was not till later that I learned- by assistance of Miss
Rachel, who was the first to make the discovery- that these puzzling
shifts and transformations in Mr. Franklin were due to the effect on
him of his foreign training. At the age when we are all of us most apt
to take our colouring, in the form of a reflection from the
colouring of other people, he had been sent abroad, and had been
passed on from one nation to another, before there was time for any
one colouring more than another to settle itself on him firmly. As a
consequence of this, he had come back with so many different sides
to his character, all more or less jarring with each other, that he
seemed to pass his life in a state of perpetual contradiction with
himself. He could be a busy man, and a lazy man; cloudy in the head,
and clear in the head; a model of determination, and a spectacle of
helplessness, all together. He had his French side, and his German
side, and his Italian side- the original English foundation showing
through, every now and then, as much as to say, "Here I am, sorely
transmogrified, as you see, but there's something of me left at the
bottom of him still." Miss Rachel used to remark that the Italian side
of him was uppermost, on those occasions when he unexpectedly gave in,
and asked you in his nice sweet-tempered way to take his own
responsibilities on your shoulders. You will do him no injustice, I
think, if you conclude that the Italian side of him was uppermost now.
"Isn't it your business, sir," I asked, "to know what to do next?
Surely it can't be mine?"
Mr. Franklin didn't appear to see the force of my question- not
being in a position, at the time, to see anything but the sky over his
head.
"I don't want to alarm my aunt without reason," he said. "And I
don't want to leave her without what may be a needful warning. If
you were in my place, Betteredge, tell me, in one word, what would you
do?"
In one word I told him: "Wait."
"With all my heart," says Mr. Franklin. "How long?"
I proceeded to explain myself.
"As I understand it, sir," I said, "somebody is bound to put this
plaguy Diamond into Miss Rachel's hands on her birthday- and you may
as well do it as another. Very good. This is the twenty-fifth of
May, and the birthday is on the twenty-first of June. We have got
close on four weeks before us. Let's wait and see what happens in that
time; and let's warn my lady or not, as the circumstances direct us."
"Perfect, Betteredge, as far as it goes!" says Mr. Franklin. "But,
between this and the birthday, what's to be done with the Diamond?"
"What your father did with it, to be sure, sir!" I answered. "Your
father put it in the safe keeping of a bank in London. You put it in
the safe keeping of the bank at Frizinghall." (Frizinghall was our
nearest town, and the bank of England wasn't safer than the bank
there.)
"If I were you, sir," I added, "I would ride straight away with it
to Frizinghall before the ladies come back."
The prospect of doing something- and, what is more, of doing that
something on a horse- brought Mr. Franklin up like lightning from
the flat of his back. He sprang to his feet, and pulled me up, without
ceremony, on to mine. "Betteredge, you are worth your weight in gold,"
he said. "Come along, and saddle the best horse in the stables
directly!"
Here (God bless it!) was the original English foundation of him
showing through all the foreign varnish at last! Here was the Master
Franklin I remembered, coming out again in the good old way at the
prospect of a ride, and reminding me of the good old times! Saddle a
horse for him? I would have saddled a dozen horses, if he could only
have ridden them all!
We went back to the house in a hurry; we had the fleetest horse in
the stables saddled in a hurry; and Mr. Franklin rattled off in a
hurry, to lodge the cursed Diamond once more in the strong-room of a
bank. When I heard the last of his horse's hoofs on the drive, and
when I turned about in the yard and found I was alone again, I felt
half inclined to ask myself if I hadn't woke up from a dream.
Chapter VII
-
While I was in this bewildered frame of mind, sorely needing a
little quiet time by myself to put me right again, my daughter
Penelope got in my way (just as her late mother used to get in my
way on the stairs), and instantly summoned me to tell her all that had
passed at the conference between Mr. Franklin and me. Under present
circumstances, the one thing to be done was to clap the extinguisher
upon Penelope's curiosity on the spot. I accordingly replied that
Mr. Franklin and I had both talked of foreign politics, till we
could talk no longer, and had then mutually fallen asleep in the
heat of the sun. Try that sort of answer when your wife or your
daughter next worries you with an awkward question at an awkward time,
and depend on the natural sweetness of women for kissing and making it
up again at the next opportunity.
The afternoon wore on, and my lady and Miss Rachel came back.
Needless to say, how astonished they were when they heard that Mr.
Franklin Blake had arrived, and had gone off again on horseback.
Needless also to say, that they asked awkward questions directly,
and that the "foreign politics" and the "falling asleep in the sun"
wouldn't serve a second time over with them. Being at the end of my
invention, I said Mr. Franklin's arrival by the early train was
entirely attributable to one of Mr. Franklin's freaks. Being asked,
upon that, whether his galloping off again on horseback was another of
Mr. Franklin's freaks, I said, "Yes, it was"; and slipped out of it- I
think very cleverly- in that way.
Having got over my difficulties with the ladies, I found more
difficulties waiting for me when I went back to my own room. In came
Penelope- with the natural sweetness of women- to kiss and make it
up again; and- with the natural curiosity of women- to ask another
question. This time she only wanted me to tell her what was the matter
with our second housemaid, Rosanna Spearman.
After leaving Mr. Franklin and me at the Shivering Sand, Rosanna, it
appeared, had turned to the house in a very unaccountable state of
mind. She had turned (if Penelope was to be believed) all the
colours of the rainbow. She had been merry without reason, and sad
without reason. In one breath she asked hundreds of questions about
Mr. Franklin Blake, and in another breath she had been angry with
Penelope for presuming to suppose that a strange gentleman could
possess any interest for her. She had |
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