The Moonstone

he 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 tomorrow 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 remember 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 lawyer’s
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
conjurors, 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 me 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 today?”

The boy said, “It is on the road to this house, and on no other, that
the English gentleman will travel today.”

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 today.”

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 third 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.