The Moonstone

y hand dropped from the curtain. But don’t suppose—oh, don’t
suppose—that the dreadful embarrassment of my situation was the
uppermost idea in my mind! So fervent still was the sisterly interest I
felt in Mr. Godfrey, that I never stopped to ask myself why he was not
at the concert. No! I thought only of the words—the startling
words—which had just fallen from his lips. He would do it today. He had
said, in a tone of terrible resolution, he would do it today. What, oh
what, would he do? Something even more deplorably unworthy of him than
what he had done already? Would he apostatise from the faith? Would he
abandon us at the Mothers’-Small-Clothes? Had we seen the last of his
angelic smile in the committee-room? Had we heard the last of his
unrivalled eloquence at Exeter Hall? I was so wrought up by the bare
idea of such awful eventualities as these in connection with such a
man, that I believe I should have rushed from my place of concealment,
and implored him in the name of all the Ladies’ Committees in London to
explain himself—when I suddenly heard another voice in the room. It
penetrated through the curtains; it was loud, it was bold, it was
wanting in every female charm. The voice of Rachel Verinder.

“Why have you come up here, Godfrey?” she asked. “Why didn’t you go
into the library?”

He laughed softly, and answered, “Miss Clack is in the library.”

“Clack in the library!” She instantly seated herself on the ottoman in
the back drawing-room. “You are quite right, Godfrey. We had much
better stop here.”

I had been in a burning fever, a moment since, and in some doubt what
to do next. I became extremely cold now, and felt no doubt whatever. To
show myself, after what I had heard, was impossible. To retreat—except
into the fireplace—was equally out of the question. A martyrdom was
before me. In justice to myself, I noiselessly arranged the curtains so
that I could both see and hear. And then I met my martyrdom, with the
spirit of a primitive Christian.

“Don’t sit on the ottoman,” the young lady proceeded. “Bring a chair,
Godfrey. I like people to be opposite to me when I talk to them.”

He took the nearest seat. It was a low chair. He was very tall, and
many sizes too large for it. I never saw his legs to such disadvantage
before.

“Well?” she went on. “What did you say to them?”

“Just what you said, dear Rachel, to me.”

“That mamma was not at all well today? And that I didn’t quite like
leaving her to go to the concert?”

“Those were the words. They were grieved to lose you at the concert,
but they quite understood. All sent their love; and all expressed a
cheering belief that Lady Verinder’s indisposition would soon pass
away.”

“You don’t think it’s serious, do you, Godfrey?”

“Far from it! In a few days, I feel quite sure, all will be well
again.”

“I think so, too. I was a little frightened at first, but I think so
too. It was very kind to go and make my excuses for me to people who
are almost strangers to you. But why not have gone with them to the
concert? It seems very hard that you should miss the music too.”

“Don’t say that, Rachel! If you only knew how much happier I am—here,
with you!”

He clasped his hands, and looked at her. In the position which he
occupied, when he did that, he turned my way. Can words describe how I
sickened when I noticed exactly the same pathetic expression on his
face, which had charmed me when he was pleading for destitute millions
of his fellow-creatures on the platform at Exeter Hall!

“It’s hard to get over one’s bad habits, Godfrey. But do try to get
over the habit of paying compliments—do, to please me.”

“I never paid you a compliment, Rachel, in my life. Successful love
may sometimes use the language of flattery, I admit. But hopeless love,
dearest, always speaks the truth.”

He drew his chair close, and took her hand, when he said “hopeless
love.” There was a momentary silence. He, who thrilled everybody, had
doubtless thrilled her. I thought I now understood the words which
had dropped from him when he was alone in the drawing-room, “I’ll do it
today.” Alas! the most rigid propriety could hardly have failed to
discover that he was doing it now.

“Have you forgotten what we agreed on, Godfrey, when you spoke to me in
the country? We agreed that we were to be cousins, and nothing more.”

“I break the agreement, Rachel, every time I see you.”

“Then don’t see me.”

“Quite useless! I break the agreement every time I think of you. Oh,
Rachel! how kindly you told me, only the other day, that my place in
your estimation was a higher place than it had ever been yet! Am I mad
to build the hopes I do on those dear words? Am I mad to dream of some
future day when your heart may soften to me? Don’t tell me so, if I am!
Leave me my delusion, dearest! I must have that to cherish, and to
comfort me, if I have nothing else!”

His voice trembled, and he put his white handkerchief to his eyes.
Exeter Hall again! Nothing wanting to complete the parallel but the
audience, the cheers, and the glass of water.

Even her obdurate nature was touched. I saw her lean a little nearer
to him. I heard a new tone of interest in her next words.

“Are you really sure, Godfrey, that you are so fond of me as that?”

“Sure! You know what I was, Rachel. Let me tell you what I am. I have
lost every interest in life, but my interest in you. A transformation
has come over me which I can’t account for, myself. Would you believe
it? My charitable business is an unendurable nuisance to me; and when I
see a Ladies’ Committee now, I wish myself at the uttermost ends of the
earth!”

If the annals of apostasy offer anything comparable to such a
declaration as that, I can only say that the case in point is not
producible from the stores of my reading. I thought of the
Mothers’-Small-Clothes. I thought of the Sunday-Sweetheart-Supervision.
I thought of the other Societies, too numerous to mention, all built up
on this man as on a tower of strength. I thought of the struggling
Female Boards, who, so to speak, drew the breath of their business-life
through the nostrils of Mr. Godfrey—of that same Mr. Godfrey who had
just reviled our good work as a “nuisance”—and just declared that he
wished he was at the uttermost ends of the earth when he found himself
in our company! My young female friends will feel encouraged to
persevere, when I mention that it tried even my discipline before I
could devour my own righteous indignation in silence. At the same time,
it is only justice to myself to add, that I didn’t lose a syllable of
the conversation. Rachel was the next to speak.

“You have made your confession,” she said. “I wonder whether it would
cure you of your unhappy attachment to me, if I made mine?”

He started. I confess I started too. He thought, and I thought, that
she was about to divulge the mystery of the Moonstone.

“Would you think, to look at me,” she went on, “that I am the
wretchedest girl living? It’s true, Godfrey. What greater wretchedness
can there be than to live degraded in your own estimation? That is my
life now.”

“My dear Rachel! it’s impossible you can have any reason to speak of
yourself in that way!”

“How do you know I have no reason?”

“Can you ask me the question! I know it, because I know you. Your
silence, dearest, has never lowered you in the estimation of your true
friends. The disappearance of your precious birthday gift may seem
strange; your unexplained connection with that event may seem stranger
still——”

“Are you speaking of the Moonstone, Godfrey?”

“I certainly thought that you referred——”

“I referred to nothing of the sort. I can hear of the loss of the
Moonstone, let who will speak of it, without feeling degraded in my own
estimation. If the story of the Diamond ever comes to light, it will be
known that I accepted a dreadful responsibility; it will be known that
I involved myself in the keeping of a miserable secret—but it will be
as clear as the sun at noon-day that I did nothing mean! You have
misunderstood me, Godfrey. It’s my fault for not speaking more plainly.
Cost me what it may, I will be plainer now. Suppose you were not in
love with me? Suppose you were in love with some other woman?”

“Yes?”

“Suppose you discovered that woman to be utterly unworthy of you?
Suppose you were quite convinced that it was a disgrace to you to waste
another thought on her? Suppose the bare idea of ever marrying such a
person made your face burn, only with thinking of it.”

“Yes?”

“And, suppose, in spite of all that—you couldn’t tear her from your
heart? Suppose the feeling she had roused in you (in the time when you
believed in her) was not a feeling to be hidden? Suppose the love this
wretch had inspired in you? Oh, how can I find words to say it in! How
can I make a man understand that a feeling which horrifies me at
myself, can be a feeling that fascinates me at the same time? It’s the
breath of my life, Godfrey, and it’s the poison that kills me—both in
one! Go away! I must be out of my mind to talk as I am talking now. No!
you mustn’t leave me—you mustn’t carry away a wrong impression. I must
say what is to be said in my own defence. Mind this! He doesn’t
know—he never will know, what I have told you. I will never see him—I
don’t care what happens—I will never, never, never see him again! Don’t
ask me his name! Don’t ask me any more! Let’s change the subject. Are
you doctor enough, Godfrey, to tell me why I feel as if I was stifling
for want of breath? Is there a form of hysterics that bursts into words
instead of tears? I dare say! What does it matter? You will get over
any trouble I have caused you, easily enough now. I have dropped to my
right place in your estimation, haven’t I? Don’t notice me! Don’t pity
me! For God’s sake, go away!”

She turned round on a sudden, and beat her hands wildly on the back of
the ottoman. Her head dropped on the cushions; and she burst out
crying. Before I had time to feel shocked, at this, I was horror-struck
by an entirely unexpected proceeding on the part of Mr. Godfrey. Will
it be credited that he fell on his knees at her feet?—on both knees,
I solemnly declare! May modesty mention that he put his arms round her
next? And may reluctant admiration acknowledge that he electrified her
with two words?

“Noble creature!”

No more than that! But he did it with one of the bursts which have made
his fame as a public speaker. She sat, either quite thunderstruck, or
quite fascinated—I don’t know which—without even making an effort to
put his arms back where his arms ought to have been. As for me, my
sense of propriety was completely bewildered. I was so painfully
uncertain whether it was my first duty to close my eyes, or to stop my
ears, that I did neither. I attribute my being still able to hold the
curtain in the right position for looking and listening, entirely to
suppressed hysterics. In suppressed hysterics, it is admitted, even by
the doctors, that one must hold something.

“Yes,” he said, with all the fascination of his evangelical voice and
manner, “you are a noble creature! A woman who can speak the truth, for
the truth’s own sake—a woman who will sacrifice her pride, rather than
sacrifice an honest man who loves her—is the most priceless of all
treasures. When such a woman marries, if her husband only wins her
esteem and regard, he wins enough to ennoble his whole life. You have
spoken, dearest, of your place in my estimation. Judge what that place
is—when I implore you on my knees, to let the cure of your poor wounded
heart be my care. Rachel! will you honour me, will you bless me, by
being my wife?”

By this time I should certainly have decided on stopping my ears, if
Rachel had not encouraged me to keep them open, by answering him in the
first sensible words I had ever heard fall from her lips.

“Godfrey!” she said, “you must be mad!”

“I never spoke more reasonably, dearest—in your interests, as well as
in mine. Look for a moment to the future. Is your happiness to be
sacrificed to a man who has never known how you feel towards him, and
whom you are resolved never to see again? Is it not your duty to
yourself to forget this ill-fated attachment? and is forgetfulness to
be found in the life you are leading now? You have tried that life, and
you are wearying of it already. Surround yourself with nobler interests
than the wretched interests of the world. A heart that loves and
honours you; a home whose peaceful claims and happy duties win gently
on you day by day—try the consolation, Rachel, which is to be found
there! I don’t ask for your love—I will be content with your
affection and regard. Let the rest be left, confidently left, to your
husband’s devotion, and to Time that heals even wounds as deep as
yours.”

She began to yield already. Oh, what a bringing-up she must have had!
Oh, how differently I should have acted in her place!

“Don’t tempt me, Godfrey,” she said; “I am wretched enough and reckless
enough as it is. Don’t tempt me to be more wretched and more wreckless
still!”

“One question, Rachel. Have you any personal objection to me?”

“I! I always liked you. After what you have just said to me, I should
be insensible indeed if I didn’t respect and admire you as well.”

“Do you know many wives, my dear Rachel, who respect and admire their
husbands? And yet they and their husbands get on very well. How many
brides go to the altar with hearts that would bear inspection by the
men who take them there? And yet it doesn’t end unhappily—somehow or
other the nuptial establishment jogs on. The truth is, that women try
marriage as a Refuge, far more numerously than they are willing to
admit; and, what is more, they find that marriage has justified their
confidence in it. Look at your own case once again. At your age, and
with your attractions, is it possible for you to sentence yourself to a
single life? Trust my knowledge of the world—nothing is less possible.
It is merely a question of time. You may marry some other man, some
years hence. Or you may marry the man, dearest, who is now at your
feet, and who prizes your respect and admiration above the love of any
other woman on the face of the earth.”

“Gently, Godfrey! you are putting something into my head which I never
thought of before. You are tempting me with a new prospect, when all my
other prospects are closed before me. I tell you again, I am miserable
enough and desperate enough, if you say another word, to marry you on
your own terms. Take the warning, and go!”

“I won’t even rise from my knees, till you have said yes!”

“If I say yes you will repent, and I shall repent, when it is too
late!”

“We shall both bless the day, darling, when I pressed, and when you
yielded.”

“Do you feel as confidently as you speak?”

“You shall judge for yourself. I speak from what I have seen in my own
family. Tell me what you think of our household at Frizinghall. Do my
father and mother live unhappily together?”

“Far from it—so far as I can see.”

“When my mother was a girl, Rachel (it is no secret in the family), she
had loved as you love—she had given her heart to a man who was unworthy
of her. She married my father, respecting him, admiring him, but
nothing more. Your own eyes have seen the result. Is there no
encouragement in it for you and for me?”*

* See Betteredge’s Narrative, chapter viii.

“You won’t hurry me, Godfrey?”

“My time shall be yours.”

“You won’t ask me for more than I can give?”

“My angel! I only ask you to give me yourself.”

“Take me!”

In those two words, she accepted him!

He had another burst—a burst of unholy rapture this time. He drew her
nearer and nearer to him till her face touched his; and then—No! I
really cannot prevail upon myself to carry this shocking disclosure any
farther. Let me only say, that I tried to close my eyes before it
happened, and that I was just one moment too late. I had calculated,
you see, on her resisting. She submitted. To every right-feeling person
of my own sex, volumes could say no more.

Even my innocence in such matters began to see its way to the end of
the interview now. They understood each other so thoroughly by this
time, that I fully expected to see them walk off together, arm in arm,
to be married. There appeared, however, judging by Mr. Godfrey’s next
words, to be one more trifling formality which it was necessary to
observe. He seated himself—unforbidden this time—on the ottoman by her
side. “Shall I speak to your dear mother?” he asked. “Or will you?”

She declined both alternatives.

“Let my mother hear nothing from either of us, until she is better. I
wish it to be kept a secret for the present, Godfrey. Go now, and come
back this evening. We have been here alone together quite long enough.”

She rose, and, in rising, looked for the first time towards the little
room in which my martyrdom was going on.

“Who has drawn those curtains?” she exclaimed.

“The room is close enough, as it is, without keeping the air out of it
in that way.”

She advanced to the curtains. At the moment when she laid her hand on
them—at the moment when the discovery of me appeared to be quite
inevitable—the voice of the fresh-coloured young footman, on the
stairs, suddenly suspended any further proceedings on her side or on
mine. It was unmistakably the voice of a man in great alarm.

“Miss Rachel!” he called out, “where are you, Miss Rachel?”

She sprang back from the curtains, and ran to the door.

The footman came just inside the room. His ruddy colour was all gone.
He said, “Please to come downstairs, Miss! My lady has fainted, and we
can’t bring her to again.”

In a moment more I was alone, and free to go downstairs in my turn,
quite unobserved.

Mr. Godfrey passed me in the hall, hurrying out, to fetch the doctor.
“Go in, and help them!” he said, pointing to the room. I found Rachel
on her knees by the sofa, with her mother’s head on her bosom. One look
at my aunt’s face (knowing what I knew) was enough to warn me of the
dreadful truth. I kept my thoughts to myself till the doctor came in.
It was not long before he arrived. He began by sending Rachel out of
the room—and then he told the rest of us that Lady Verinder was no
more. Serious persons, in search of proofs of hardened scepticism, may
be interested in hearing that he showed no signs of remorse when he
looked at Me.

At a later hour I peeped into the breakfast-room, and the library. My
aunt had died without opening one of the letters which I had addressed
to her. I was so shocked at this, that it never occurred to me, until
some days afterwards, that she had also died without giving me my
little legacy.