The Moonstone

m indebted to my dear parents (both now in heaven) for having had
habits of order and regularity instilled into me at a very early age.

In that happy bygone time, I was taught to keep my hair tidy at all
hours of the day and night, and to fold up every article of my clothing
carefully, in the same order, on the same chair, in the same place at
the foot of the bed, before retiring to rest. An entry of the day’s
events in my little diary invariably preceded the folding up. The
“Evening Hymn” (repeated in bed) invariably followed the folding up.
And the sweet sleep of childhood invariably followed the “Evening
Hymn.”

In later life (alas!) the Hymn has been succeeded by sad and bitter
meditations; and the sweet sleep has been but ill exchanged for the
broken slumbers which haunt the uneasy pillow of care. On the other
hand, I have continued to fold my clothes, and to keep my little diary.
The former habit links me to my happy childhood—before papa was ruined.
The latter habit—hitherto mainly useful in helping me to discipline the
fallen nature which we all inherit from Adam—has unexpectedly proved
important to my humble interests in quite another way. It has enabled
poor Me to serve the caprice of a wealthy member of the family into
which my late uncle married. I am fortunate enough to be useful to Mr.
Franklin Blake.

I have been cut off from all news of my relatives by marriage for some
time past. When we are isolated and poor, we are not infrequently
forgotten. I am now living, for economy’s sake, in a little town in
Brittany, inhabited by a select circle of serious English friends, and
possessed of the inestimable advantages of a Protestant clergyman and a
cheap market.

In this retirement—a Patmos amid the howling ocean of popery that
surrounds us—a letter from England has reached me at last. I find my
insignificant existence suddenly remembered by Mr. Franklin Blake. My
wealthy relative—would that I could add my spiritually-wealthy
relative!—writes, without even an attempt at disguising that he wants
something of me. The whim has seized him to stir up the deplorable
scandal of the Moonstone: and I am to help him by writing the account
of what I myself witnessed while visiting at Aunt Verinder’s house in
London. Pecuniary remuneration is offered to me—with the want of
feeling peculiar to the rich. I am to re-open wounds that Time has
barely closed; I am to recall the most intensely painful
remembrances—and this done, I am to feel myself compensated by a new
laceration, in the shape of Mr. Blake’s cheque. My nature is weak. It
cost me a hard struggle, before Christian humility conquered sinful
pride, and self-denial accepted the cheque.

Without my diary, I doubt—pray let me express it in the grossest
terms!—if I could have honestly earned my money. With my diary, the
poor labourer (who forgives Mr. Blake for insulting her) is worthy of
her hire. Nothing escaped me at the time I was visiting dear Aunt
Verinder. Everything was entered (thanks to my early training) day by
day as it happened; and everything down to the smallest particular,
shall be told here. My sacred regard for truth is (thank God) far above
my respect for persons. It will be easy for Mr. Blake to suppress what
may not prove to be sufficiently flattering in these pages to the
person chiefly concerned in them. He has purchased my time, but not
even his wealth can purchase my conscience too.*

[*Note. Added by Franklin Blake.—Miss Clack may make her mind quite
easy on this point. Nothing will be added, altered or removed, in her
manuscript, or in any of the other manuscripts which pass through my
hands. Whatever opinions any of the writers may express, whatever
peculiarities of treatment may mark, and perhaps in a literary sense,
disfigure the narratives which I am now collecting, not a line will be
tampered with anywhere, from first to last. As genuine documents they
are sent to me—and as genuine documents I shall preserve them, endorsed
by the attestations of witnesses who can speak to the facts. It only
remains to be added that “the person chiefly concerned” in Miss Clack’s
narrative, is happy enough at the present moment, not only to brave the
smartest exercise of Miss Clack’s pen, but even to recognise its
unquestionable value as an instrument for the exhibition of Miss
Clack’s character.]

My diary informs me, that I was accidentally passing Aunt Verinder’s
house in Montagu Square, on Monday, 3rd July, 1848.

Seeing the shutters opened, and the blinds drawn up, I felt that it
would be an act of polite attention to knock, and make inquiries. The
person who answered the door, informed me that my aunt and her daughter
(I really cannot call her my cousin!) had arrived from the country a
week since, and meditated making some stay in London. I sent up a
message at once, declining to disturb them, and only begging to know
whether I could be of any use.

The person who answered the door, took my message in insolent silence,
and left me standing in the hall. She is the daughter of a heathen old
man named Betteredge—long, too long, tolerated in my aunt’s family. I
sat down in the hall to wait for my answer—and, having always a few
tracts in my bag, I selected one which proved to be quite
providentially applicable to the person who answered the door. The hall
was dirty, and the chair was hard; but the blessed consciousness of
returning good for evil raised me quite above any trifling
considerations of that kind. The tract was one of a series addressed to
young women on the sinfulness of dress. In style it was devoutly
familiar. Its title was, “A Word With You On Your Cap-Ribbons.”

“My lady is much obliged, and begs you will come and lunch tomorrow at
two.”

I passed over the manner in which she gave her message, and the
dreadful boldness of her look. I thanked this young castaway; and I
said, in a tone of Christian interest, “Will you favour me by accepting
a tract?”

She looked at the title. “Is it written by a man or a woman, Miss? If
it’s written by a woman, I had rather not read it on that account. If
it’s written by a man, I beg to inform him that he knows nothing about
it.” She handed me back the tract, and opened the door. We must sow the
good seed somehow. I waited till the door was shut on me, and slipped
the tract into the letter-box. When I had dropped another tract through
the area railings, I felt relieved, in some small degree, of a heavy
responsibility towards others.

We had a meeting that evening of the Select Committee of the
Mothers’-Small-Clothes-Conversion-Society. The object of this excellent
Charity is—as all serious people know—to rescue unredeemed fathers’
trousers from the pawnbroker, and to prevent their resumption, on the
part of the irreclaimable parent, by abridging them immediately to suit
the proportions of the innocent son. I was a member, at that time, of
the select committee; and I mention the Society here, because my
precious and admirable friend, Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite, was associated
with our work of moral and material usefulness. I had expected to see
him in the boardroom, on the Monday evening of which I am now writing,
and had proposed to tell him, when we met, of dear Aunt Verinder’s
arrival in London. To my great disappointment he never appeared. On my
expressing a feeling of surprise at his absence, my sisters of the
Committee all looked up together from their trousers (we had a great
pressure of business that night), and asked in amazement, if I had not
heard the news. I acknowledged my ignorance, and was then told, for the
first time, of an event which forms, so to speak, the starting-point of
this narrative. On the previous Friday, two gentlemen—occupying
widely-different positions in society—had been the victims of an
outrage which had startled all London. One of the gentlemen was Mr.
Septimus Luker, of Lambeth. The other was Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite.

Living in my present isolation, I have no means of introducing the
newspaper-account of the outrage into my narrative. I was also
deprived, at the time, of the inestimable advantage of hearing the
events related by the fervid eloquence of Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite. All I
can do is to state the facts as they were stated, on that Monday
evening, to me; proceeding on the plan which I have been taught from
infancy to adopt in folding up my clothes. Everything shall be put
neatly, and everything shall be put in its place. These lines are
written by a poor weak woman. From a poor weak woman who will be cruel
enough to expect more?

The date—thanks to my dear parents, no dictionary that ever was written
can be more particular than I am about dates—was Friday, June 30th,
1848.

Early on that memorable day, our gifted Mr. Godfrey happened to be
cashing a cheque at a banking-house in Lombard Street. The name of the
firm is accidentally blotted in my diary, and my sacred regard for
truth forbids me to hazard a guess in a matter of this kind.
Fortunately, the name of the firm doesn’t matter. What does matter is a
circumstance that occurred when Mr. Godfrey had transacted his
business. On gaining the door, he encountered a gentleman—a perfect
stranger to him—who was accidentally leaving the office exactly at the
same time as himself. A momentary contest of politeness ensued between
them as to who should be the first to pass through the door of the
bank. The stranger insisted on making Mr. Godfrey precede him; Mr.
Godfrey said a few civil words; they bowed, and parted in the street.

Thoughtless and superficial people may say, Here is surely a very
trumpery little incident related in an absurdly circumstantial manner.
Oh, my young friends and fellow-sinners! beware of presuming to
exercise your poor carnal reason. Oh, be morally tidy. Let your faith
be as your stockings, and your stockings as your faith. Both ever
spotless, and both ready to put on at a moment’s notice!

I beg a thousand pardons. I have fallen insensibly into my
Sunday-school style. Most inappropriate in such a record as this. Let
me try to be worldly—let me say that trifles, in this case as in many
others, led to terrible results. Merely premising that the polite
stranger was Mr. Luker, of Lambeth, we will now follow Mr. Godfrey home
to his residence at Kilburn.

He found waiting for him, in the hall, a poorly clad but delicate and
interesting-looking little boy. The boy handed him a letter, merely
mentioning that he had been entrusted with it by an old lady whom he
did not know, and who had given him no instructions to wait for an
answer. Such incidents as these were not uncommon in Mr. Godfrey’s
large experience as a promoter of public charities. He let the boy go,
and opened the letter.

The handwriting was entirely unfamiliar to him. It requested his
attendance, within an hour’s time, at a house in Northumberland Street,
Strand, which he had never had occasion to enter before. The object
sought was to obtain from the worthy manager certain details on the
subject of the Mothers’-Small-Clothes-Conversion-Society, and the
information was wanted by an elderly lady who proposed adding largely
to the resources of the charity, if her questions were met by
satisfactory replies. She mentioned her name, and she added that the
shortness of her stay in London prevented her from giving any longer
notice to the eminent philanthropist whom she addressed.

Ordinary people might have hesitated before setting aside their own
engagements to suit the convenience of a stranger. The Christian Hero
never hesitates where good is to be done. Mr. Godfrey instantly turned
back, and proceeded to the house in Northumberland Street. A most
respectable though somewhat corpulent man answered the door, and, on
hearing Mr. Godfrey’s name, immediately conducted him into an empty
apartment at the back, on the drawing-room floor. He noticed two
unusual things on entering the room. One of them was a faint odour of
musk and camphor. The other was an ancient Oriental manuscript, richly
illuminated with Indian figures and devices, that lay open to
inspection on a table.

He was looking at the book, the position of which caused him to stand
with his back turned towards the closed folding doors communicating
with the front room, when, without the slightest previous noise to warn
him, he felt himself suddenly seized round the neck from behind. He had
just time to notice that the arm round his neck was naked and of a
tawny-brown colour, before his eyes were bandaged, his mouth was
gagged, and he was thrown helpless on the floor by (as he judged) two
men. A third rifled his pockets, and—if, as a lady, I may venture to
use such an expression—searched him, without ceremony, through and
through to his skin.

Here I should greatly enjoy saying a few cheering words on the devout
confidence which could alone have sustained Mr. Godfrey in an emergency
so terrible as this. Perhaps, however, the position and appearance of
my admirable friend at the culminating period of the outrage (as above
described) are hardly within the proper limits of female discussion.
Let me pass over the next few moments, and return to Mr. Godfrey at the
time when the odious search of his person had been completed. The
outrage had been perpetrated throughout in dead silence. At the end of
it some words were exchanged, among the invisible wretches, in a
language which he did not understand, but in tones which were plainly
expressive (to his cultivated ear) of disappointment and rage. He was
suddenly lifted from the ground, placed in a chair, and bound there
hand and foot. The next moment he felt the air flowing in from the open
door, listened, and concluded that he was alone again in the room.

An interval elapsed, and he heard a sound below like the rustling sound
of a woman’s dress. It advanced up the stairs, and stopped. A female
scream rent the atmosphere of guilt. A man’s voice below exclaimed
“Hullo!” A man’s feet ascended the stairs. Mr. Godfrey felt Christian
fingers unfastening his bandage, and extracting his gag. He looked in
amazement at two respectable strangers, and faintly articulated, “What
does it mean?” The two respectable strangers looked back, and said,
“Exactly the question we were going to ask you.”

The inevitable explanation followed. No! Let me be scrupulously
particular. Sal volatile and water followed, to compose dear Mr.
Godfrey’s nerves. The explanation came next.

It appeared from the statement of the landlord and landlady of the
house (persons of good repute in the neighbourhood), that their first
and second floor apartments had been engaged, on the previous day, for
a week certain, by a most respectable-looking gentleman—the same who
has been already described as answering the door to Mr. Godfrey’s
knock. The gentleman had paid the week’s rent and all the week’s extras
in advance, stating that the apartments were wanted for three Oriental
noblemen, friends of his, who were visiting England for the first time.
Early on the morning of the outrage, two of the Oriental strangers,
accompanied by their respectable English friend, took possession of the
apartments. The third was expected to join them shortly; and the
luggage (reported as very bulky) was announced to follow when it had
passed through the Custom-house, late in the afternoon. Not more than
ten minutes previous to Mr. Godfrey’s visit, the third foreigner had
arrived. Nothing out of the common had happened, to the knowledge of
the landlord and landlady downstairs, until within the last five
minutes—when they had seen the three foreigners, accompanied by their
respectable English friend, all leave the house together, walking
quietly in the direction of the Strand. Remembering that a visitor had
called, and not having seen the visitor also leave the house, the
landlady had thought it rather strange that the gentleman should be
left by himself upstairs. After a short discussion with her husband,
she had considered it advisable to ascertain whether anything was
wrong. The result had followed, as I have already attempted to describe
it; and there the explanation of the landlord and the landlady came to
an end.

An investigation was next made in the room. Dear Mr. Godfrey’s property
was found scattered in all directions. When the articles were
collected, however, nothing was missing; his watch, chain, purse, keys,
pocket-handkerchief, note-book, and all his loose papers had been
closely examined, and had then been left unharmed to be resumed by the
owner. In the same way, not the smallest morsel of property belonging
to the proprietors of the house had been abstracted. The Oriental
noblemen had removed their own illuminated manuscript, and had removed
nothing else.

What did it mean? Taking the worldly point of view, it appeared to mean
that Mr. Godfrey had been the victim of some incomprehensible error,
committed by certain unknown men. A dark conspiracy was on foot in the
midst of us; and our beloved and innocent friend had been entangled in
its meshes. When the Christian hero of a hundred charitable victories
plunges into a pitfall that has been dug for him by mistake, oh, what a
warning it is to the rest of us to be unceasingly on our guard! How
soon may our own evil passions prove to be Oriental noblemen who pounce
on us unawares!

I could write pages of affectionate warning on this one theme, but
(alas!) I am not permitted to improve—I am condemned to narrate. My
wealthy relative’s cheque—henceforth, the incubus of my existence—warns
me that I have not done with this record of violence yet. We must leave
Mr. Godfrey to recover in Northumberland Street, and must follow the
proceedings of Mr. Luker at a later period of the day.

After leaving the bank, Mr. Luker had visited various parts of London
on business errands. Returning to his own residence, he found a letter
waiting for him, which was described as having been left a short time
previously by a boy. In this case, as in Mr. Godfrey’s case, the
handwriting was strange; but the name mentioned was the name of one of
Mr. Luker’s customers. His correspondent announced (writing in the
third person—apparently by the hand of a deputy) that he had been
unexpectedly summoned to London. He had just established himself in
lodgings in Alfred Place, Tottenham Court Road; and he desired to see
Mr. Luker immediately, on the subject of a purchase which he
contemplated making. The gentleman was an enthusiastic collector of
Oriental antiquities, and had been for many years a liberal patron of
the establishment in Lambeth. Oh, when shall we wean ourselves from the
worship of Mammon! Mr. Luker called a cab, and drove off instantly to
his liberal patron.

Exactly what had happened to Mr. Godfrey in Northumberland Street now
happened to Mr. Luker in Alfred Place. Once more the respectable man
answered the door, and showed the visitor upstairs into the back
drawing-room. There, again, lay the illuminated manuscript on a table.
Mr. Luker’s attention was absorbed, as Mr. Godfrey’s attention had been
absorbed, by this beautiful work of Indian art. He too was aroused from
his studies by a tawny naked arm round his throat, by a bandage over
his eyes, and by a gag in his mouth. He too was thrown prostrate and
searched to the skin. A longer interval had then elapsed than had
passed in the experience of Mr. Godfrey; but it had ended as before, in
the persons of the house suspecting something wrong, and going upstairs
to see what had happened. Precisely the same explanation which the
landlord in Northumberland Street had given to Mr. Godfrey, the
landlord in Alfred Place now gave to Mr. Luker. Both had been imposed
on in the same way by the plausible address and well-filled purse of
the respectable stranger, who introduced himself as acting for his
foreign friends. The one point of difference between the two cases
occurred when the scattered contents of Mr. Luker’s pockets were being
collected from the floor. His watch and purse were safe, but (less
fortunate than Mr. Godfrey) one of the loose papers that he carried
about him had been taken away. The paper in question acknowledged the
receipt of a valuable of great price which Mr. Luker had that day left
in the care of his bankers. This document would be useless for purposes
of fraud, inasmuch as it provided that the valuable should only be
given up on the personal application of the owner. As soon as he
recovered himself, Mr. Luker hurried to the bank, on the chance that
the thieves who had robbed him might ignorantly present themselves with
the receipt. Nothing had been seen of them when he arrived at the
establishment, and nothing was seen of them afterwards. Their
respectable English friend had (in the opinion of the bankers) looked
the receipt over before they attempted to make use of it, and had given
them the necessary warning in good time.

Information of both outrages was communicated to the police, and the
needful investigations were pursued, I believe, with great energy. The
authorities held that a robbery had been planned, on insufficient
information received by the thieves. They had been plainly not sure
whether Mr. Luker had, or had not, trusted the transmission of his
precious gem to another person; and poor polite Mr. Godfrey had paid
the penalty of having been seen accidentally speaking to him. Add to
this, that Mr. Godfrey’s absence from our Monday evening meeting had
been occasioned by a consultation of the authorities, at which he was
requested to assist—and all the explanations required being now given,
I may proceed with the simpler story of my own little personal
experiences in Montagu Square.

I was punctual to the luncheon hour on Tuesday. Reference to my diary
shows this to have been a chequered day—much in it to be devoutly
regretted, much in it to be devoutly thankful for.

Dear Aunt Verinder received me with her usual grace and kindness. But I
noticed, after a little while, that something was wrong. Certain
anxious looks escaped my aunt, all of which took the direction of her
daughter. I never see Rachel myself without wondering how it can be
that so insignificant-looking a person should be the child of such
distinguished parents as Sir John and Lady Verinder. On this occasion,
however, she not only disappointed—she really shocked me. There was an
absence of all lady-like restraint in her language and manner most
painful to see. She was possessed by some feverish excitement which
made her distressingly loud when she laughed, and sinfully wasteful and
capricious in what she ate and drank at lunch. I felt deeply for her
poor mother, even before the true state of the case had been
confidentially made known to me.

Luncheon over, my aunt said: “Remember what the doctor told you,
Rachel, about quieting yourself with a book after taking your meals.”

“I’ll go into the library, mamma,” she answered. “But if Godfrey calls,
mind I am told of it. I am dying for more news of him, after his
adventure in Northumberland Street.” She kissed her mother on the
forehead, and looked my way. “Good-bye, Clack,” she said, carelessly.
Her insolence roused no angry feeling in me; I only made a private
memorandum to pray for her.

When we were left by ourselves, my aunt told me the whole horrible
story of the Indian Diamond, which, I am happy to know, it is not
necessary to repeat here. She did not conceal from me that she would
have preferred keeping silence on the subject. But when her own
servants all knew of the loss of the Moonstone, and when some of the
circumstances had actually found their way into the newspapers—when
strangers were speculating whether there was any connection between
what had happened at Lady Verinder’s country house, and what had
happened in Northumberland Street and Alfred Place—concealment was not
to be thought of; and perfect frankness became a necessity as well as a
virtue.

Some persons, hearing what I now heard, would have been probably
overwhelmed with astonishment. For my own part, knowing Rachel’s spirit
to have been essentially unregenerate from her childhood upwards, I was
prepared for whatever my aunt could tell me on the subject of her
daughter. It might have gone on from bad to worse till it ended in
Murder; and I should still have said to myself, The natural result! oh,
dear, dear, the natural result! The one thing that did shock me was
the course my aunt had taken under the circumstances. Here surely was a
case for a clergyman, if ever there was one yet! Lady Verinder had
thought it a case for a physician. All my poor aunt’s early life had
been passed in her father’s godless household. The natural result
again! Oh, dear, dear, the natural result again!

“The doctors recommend plenty of exercise and amusement for Rachel, and
strongly urge me to keep her mind as much as possible from dwelling on
the past,” said Lady Verinder.

“Oh, what heathen advice!” I thought to myself. “In this Christian
country, what heathen advice!”

My aunt went on, “I do my best to carry out my instructions. But this
strange adventure of Godfrey’s happens at a most unfortunate time.
Rachel has been incessantly restless and excited since she first heard
of it. She left me no peace till I had written and asked my nephew
Ablewhite to come here. She even feels an interest in the other person
who was roughly used—Mr. Luker, or some such name—though the man is, of
course, a total stranger to her.”

“Your knowledge of the world, dear aunt, is superior to mine,” I
suggested diffidently. “But there must be a reason surely for this
extraordinary conduct on Rachel’s part. She is keeping a sinful secret
from you and from everybody. May there not be something in these recent
events which threatens her secret with discovery?”

“Discovery?” repeated my aunt. “What can you possibly mean? Discovery
through Mr. Luker? Discovery through my nephew?”

As the word passed her lips, a special providence occurred. The servant
opened the door, and announced Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite.