The Moonstone

hile 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 returned 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 been surprised, smiling, and scribbling Mr.
Franklin’s name inside her workbox. She had been surprised again,
crying and looking at her deformed shoulder in the glass. Had she and
Mr. Franklin known anything of each other before today? Quite
impossible! Had they heard anything of each other? Impossible again! I
could speak to Mr. Franklin’s astonishment as genuine, when he saw how
the girl stared at him. Penelope could speak to the girl’s
inquisitiveness as genuine, when she asked questions about Mr.
Franklin. The conference between us, conducted in this way, was
tiresome enough, until my daughter suddenly ended it by bursting out
with what I thought the most monstrous supposition I had ever heard in
my life.

“Father!” says Penelope, quite seriously, “there’s only one explanation
of it. Rosanna has fallen in love with Mr. Franklin Blake at first
sight!”

You have heard of beautiful young ladies falling in love at first
sight, and have thought it natural enough. But a housemaid out of a
reformatory, with a plain face and a deformed shoulder, falling in
love, at first sight, with a gentleman who comes on a visit to her
mistress’s house, match me that, in the way of an absurdity, out of any
story-book in Christendom, if you can! I laughed till the tears rolled
down my cheeks. Penelope resented my merriment, in rather a strange
way. “I never knew you cruel before, father,” she said, very gently,
and went out.

My girl’s words fell upon me like a splash of cold water. I was savage
with myself, for feeling uneasy in myself the moment she had spoken
them—but so it was. We will change the subject, if you please. I am
sorry I drifted into writing about it; and not without reason, as you
will see when we have gone on together a little longer.

The evening came, and the dressing-bell for dinner rang, before Mr.
Franklin returned from Frizinghall. I took his hot water up to his room
myself, expecting to hear, after this extraordinary delay, that
something had happened. To my great disappointment (and no doubt to
yours also), nothing had happened. He had not met with the Indians,
either going or returning. He had deposited the Moonstone in the
bank—describing it merely as a valuable of great price—and he had got
the receipt for it safe in his pocket. I went downstairs, feeling that
this was rather a flat ending, after all our excitement about the
Diamond earlier in the day.

How the meeting between Mr. Franklin and his aunt and cousin went off,
is more than I can tell you.

I would have given something to have waited at table that day. But, in
my position in the household, waiting at dinner (except on high family
festivals) was letting down my dignity in the eyes of the other
servants—a thing which my lady considered me quite prone enough to do
already, without seeking occasions for it. The news brought to me from
the upper regions, that evening, came from Penelope and the footman.
Penelope mentioned that she had never known Miss Rachel so particular
about the dressing of her hair, and had never seen her look so bright
and pretty as she did when she went down to meet Mr. Franklin in the
drawing-room. The footman’s report was, that the preservation of a
respectful composure in the presence of his betters, and the waiting on
Mr. Franklin Blake at dinner, were two of the hardest things to
reconcile with each other that had ever tried his training in service.
Later in the evening, we heard them singing and playing duets, Mr.
Franklin piping high, Miss Rachel piping higher, and my lady, on the
piano, following them as it were over hedge and ditch, and seeing them
safe through it in a manner most wonderful and pleasant to hear through
the open windows, on the terrace at night. Later still, I went to Mr.
Franklin in the smoking-room, with the soda water and brandy, and found
that Miss Rachel had put the Diamond clean out of his head. “She’s the
most charming girl I have seen since I came back to England!” was all I
could extract from him, when I endeavoured to lead the conversation to
more serious things.

Towards midnight, I went round the house to lock up, accompanied by my
second in command (Samuel, the footman), as usual. When all the doors
were made fast, except the side door that opened on the terrace, I sent
Samuel to bed, and stepped out for a breath of fresh air before I too
went to bed in my turn.

The night was still and close, and the moon was at the full in the
heavens. It was so silent out of doors, that I heard from time to time,
very faint and low, the fall of the sea, as the ground-swell heaved it
in on the sand-bank near the mouth of our little bay. As the house
stood, the terrace side was the dark side; but the broad moonlight
showed fair on the gravel walk that ran along the next side to the
terrace. Looking this way, after looking up at the sky, I saw the
shadow of a person in the moonlight thrown forward from behind the
corner of the house.

Being old and sly, I forbore to call out; but being also,
unfortunately, old and heavy, my feet betrayed me on the gravel. Before
I could steal suddenly round the corner, as I had proposed, I heard
lighter feet than mine—and more than one pair of them as I
thought—retreating in a hurry. By the time I had got to the corner, the
trespassers, whoever they were, had run into the shrubbery at the off
side of the walk, and were hidden from sight among the thick trees and
bushes in that part of the grounds. From the shrubbery, they could
easily make their way, over our fence into the road. If I had been
forty years younger, I might have had a chance of catching them before
they got clear of our premises. As it was, I went back to set a-going a
younger pair of legs than mine. Without disturbing anybody, Samuel and
I got a couple of guns, and went all round the house and through the
shrubbery. Having made sure that no persons were lurking about anywhere
in our grounds, we turned back. Passing over the walk where I had seen
the shadow, I now noticed, for the first time, a little bright object,
lying on the clean gravel, under the light of the moon. Picking the
object up, I discovered it was a small bottle, containing a thick
sweet-smelling liquor, as black as ink.

I said nothing to Samuel. But, remembering what Penelope had told me
about the jugglers, and the pouring of the little pool of ink into the
palm of the boy’s hand, I instantly suspected that I had disturbed the
three Indians, lurking about the house, and bent, in their heathenish
way, on discovering the whereabouts of the Diamond that night.