The Moonstone Page 29

  CHAPTER III

  Consideration for poor Lady Verinder forbade me even to hint that I hadguessed the melancholy truth, before she opened her lips. I waitedher pleasure in silence; and, having privately arranged to say a fewsustaining words at the first convenient opportunity, felt prepared forany duty that could claim me, no matter how painful it might be.

  "I have been seriously ill, Drusilla, for some time past," my auntbegan. "And, strange to say, without knowing it myself."

  I thought of the thousands and thousands of perishing human creatureswho were all at that moment spiritually ill, without knowing itthemselves. And I greatly feared that my poor aunt might be one of thenumber. "Yes, dear," I said, sadly. "Yes."

  "I brought Rachel to London, as you know, for medical advice," she wenton. "I thought it right to consult two doctors."

  Two doctors! And, oh me (in Rachel's state), not one clergyman! "Yes,dear?" I said once more. "Yes?"

  "One of the two medical men," proceeded my aunt, "was a stranger to me.The other had been an old friend of my husband's, and had always felta sincere interest in me for my husband's sake. After prescribing forRachel, he said he wished to speak to me privately in another room.I expected, of course, to receive some special directions for themanagement of my daughter's health. To my surprise, he took me gravelyby the hand, and said, 'I have been looking at you, Lady Verinder, witha professional as well as a personal interest. You are, I am afraid, farmore urgently in need of medical advice than your daughter.' He put somequestions to me, which I was at first inclined to treat lightly enough,until I observed that my answers distressed him. It ended in his makingan appointment to come and see me, accompanied by a medical friend, onthe next day, at an hour when Rachel would not be at home. The resultof that visit--most kindly and gently conveyed to me--satisfied both thephysicians that there had been precious time lost, which could never beregained, and that my case had now passed beyond the reach of their art.For more than two years I have been suffering under an insidious form ofheart disease, which, without any symptoms to alarm me, has, by littleand little, fatally broken me down. I may live for some months, or I maydie before another day has passed over my head--the doctors cannot, anddare not, speak more positively than this. It would be vain to say, mydear, that I have not had some miserable moments since my real situationhas been made known to me. But I am more resigned than I was, and I amdoing my best to set my worldly affairs in order. My one great anxietyis that Rachel should be kept in ignorance of the truth. If she knewit, she would at once attribute my broken health to anxiety about theDiamond, and would reproach herself bitterly, poor child, for what is inno sense her fault. Both the doctors agree that the mischief begantwo, if not three years since. I am sure you will keep my secret,Drusilla--for I am sure I see sincere sorrow and sympathy for me in yourface."

  Sorrow and sympathy! Oh, what Pagan emotions to expect from a ChristianEnglishwoman anchored firmly on her faith!

  Little did my poor aunt imagine what a gush of devout thankfulnessthrilled through me as she approached the close of her melancholy story.Here was a career of usefulness opened before me! Here was a belovedrelative and perishing fellow-creature, on the eve of the great change,utterly unprepared; and led, providentially led, to reveal her situationto Me! How can I describe the joy with which I now remembered that theprecious clerical friends on whom I could rely, were to be counted, notby ones or twos, but by tens and twenties. I took my aunt in my arms--myoverflowing tenderness was not to be satisfied, now, with anything lessthan an embrace. "Oh!" I said to her, fervently, "the indescribableinterest with which you inspire me! Oh! the good I mean to do you, dear,before we part!" After another word or two of earnest prefatory warning,I gave her her choice of three precious friends, all plying the workof mercy from morning to night in her own neighbourhood; all equallyinexhaustible in exhortation; all affectionately ready to exercise theirgifts at a word from me. Alas! the result was far from encouraging. PoorLady Verinder looked puzzled and frightened, and met everything I couldsay to her with the purely worldly objection that she was not strongenough to face strangers. I yielded--for the moment only, of course. Mylarge experience (as Reader and Visitor, under not less, first andlast, than fourteen beloved clerical friends) informed me that this wasanother case for preparation by books. I possessed a little library ofworks, all suitable to the present emergency, all calculated to arouse,convince, prepare, enlighten, and fortify my aunt. "You will read, dear,won't you?" I said, in my most winning way. "You will read, if I bringyou my own precious books? Turned down at all the right places, aunt.And marked in pencil where you are to stop and ask yourself, 'Does thisapply to me?'" Even that simple appeal--so absolutely heathenising isthe influence of the world--appeared to startle my aunt. She said, "Iwill do what I can, Drusilla, to please you," with a look of surprise,which was at once instructive and terrible to see. Not a moment was tobe lost. The clock on the mantel-piece informed me that I had justtime to hurry home; to provide myself with a first series of selectedreadings (say a dozen only); and to return in time to meet the lawyer,and witness Lady Verinder's Will. Promising faithfully to be back byfive o'clock, I left the house on my errand of mercy.

  When no interests but my own are involved, I am humbly content to getfrom place to place by the omnibus. Permit me to give an idea of mydevotion to my aunt's interests by recording that, on this occasion, Icommitted the prodigality of taking a cab.

  I drove home, selected and marked my first series of readings, and droveback to Montagu Square, with a dozen works in a carpet-bag, the like ofwhich, I firmly believe, are not to be found in the literature of anyother country in Europe. I paid the cabman exactly his fare. He receivedit with an oath; upon which I instantly gave him a tract. If I hadpresented a pistol at his head, this abandoned wretch could hardly haveexhibited greater consternation. He jumped up on his box, and, withprofane exclamations of dismay, drove off furiously. Quite useless, Iam happy to say! I sowed the good seed, in spite of him, by throwing asecond tract in at the window of the cab.

  The servant who answered the door--not the person with the cap-ribbons,to my great relief, but the foot-man--informed me that the doctor hadcalled, and was still shut up with Lady Verinder. Mr. Bruff, the lawyer,had arrived a minute since and was waiting in the library. I was showninto the library to wait too.

  Mr. Bruff looked surprised to see me. He is the family solicitor, andwe had met more than once, on previous occasions, under Lady Verinder'sroof. A man, I grieve to say, grown old and grizzled in the service ofthe world. A man who, in his hours of business, was the chosen prophetof Law and Mammon; and who, in his hours of leisure, was equally capableof reading a novel and of tearing up a tract.

  "Have you come to stay here, Miss Clack?" he asked, with a look at mycarpet-bag.

  To reveal the contents of my precious bag to such a person as this wouldhave been simply to invite an outburst of profanity. I lowered myself tohis own level, and mentioned my business in the house.

  "My aunt has informed me that she is about to sign her Will,"I answered. "She has been so good as to ask me to be one of thewitnesses."

  "Aye? aye? Well, Miss Clack, you will do. You are over twenty-one, andyou have not the slightest pecuniary interest in Lady Verinder's Will."

  Not the slightest pecuniary interest in Lady Verinder's Will. Oh, howthankful I felt when I heard that! If my aunt, possessed of thousands,had remembered poor Me, to whom five pounds is an object--if my name hadappeared in the Will, with a little comforting legacy attached to it--myenemies might have doubted the motive which had loaded me with thechoicest treasures of my library, and had drawn upon my failingresources for the prodigal expenses of a cab. Not the cruellest scofferof them all could doubt now. Much better as it was! Oh, surely, surely,much better as it was!

  I was aroused from these consoling reflections by the voice of Mr.Bruff. My meditative silence appeared to weigh upon the spirits of thisworldling, and to force him, as it were, into talking to me against hisown
will.

  "Well, Miss Clack, what's the last news in the charitable circles? Howis your friend Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite, after the mauling he got from therogues in Northumberland Street? Egad! they're telling a pretty storyabout that charitable gentleman at my club!"

  I had passed over the manner in which this person had remarked that Iwas more than twenty-one, and that I had no pecuniary interest in myaunt's Will. But the tone in which he alluded to dear Mr. Godfrey wastoo much for my forbearance. Feeling bound, after what had passed in mypresence that afternoon, to assert the innocence of my admirable friend,whenever I found it called in question--I own to having also felt boundto include in the accomplishment of this righteous purpose, a stingingcastigation in the case of Mr. Bruff.

  "I live very much out of the world," I said; "and I don't possess theadvantage, sir, of belonging to a club. But I happen to know the storyto which you allude; and I also know that a viler falsehood than thatstory never was told."

  "Yes, yes, Miss Clack--you believe in your friend. Natural enough. Mr.Godfrey Ablewhite, won't find the world in general quite so easy toconvince as a committee of charitable ladies. Appearances are deadagainst him. He was in the house when the Diamond was lost. And he wasthe first person in the house to go to London afterwards. Those are uglycircumstances, ma'am, viewed by the light of later events."

  I ought, I know, to have set him right before he went any farther. Iought to have told him that he was speaking in ignorance of a testimonyto Mr. Godfrey's innocence, offered by the only person who wasundeniably competent to speak from a positive knowledge of thesubject. Alas! the temptation to lead the lawyer artfully on to hisown discomfiture was too much for me. I asked what he meant by "laterevents"--with an appearance of the utmost innocence.

  "By later events, Miss Clack, I mean events in which the Indians areconcerned," proceeded Mr. Bruff, getting more and more superior to poorMe, the longer he went on. "What do the Indians do, the moment they arelet out of the prison at Frizinghall? They go straight to London, andfix on Mr. Luker. What follows? Mr. Luker feels alarmed for the safetyof 'a valuable of great price,' which he has got in the house. He lodgesit privately (under a general description) in his bankers' strong-room.Wonderfully clever of him: but the Indians are just as clever on theirside. They have their suspicions that the 'valuable of great price' isbeing shifted from one place to another; and they hit on a singularlybold and complete way of clearing those suspicions up. Whom do theyseize and search? Not Mr. Luker only--which would be intelligibleenough--but Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite as well. Why? Mr. Ablewhite'sexplanation is, that they acted on blind suspicion, after seeing himaccidentally speaking to Mr. Luker. Absurd! Half-a-dozen other peoplespoke to Mr. Luker that morning. Why were they not followed home too,and decoyed into the trap? No! no! The plain inference is, that Mr.Ablewhite had his private interest in the 'valuable' as well as Mr.Luker, and that the Indians were so uncertain as to which of the twohad the disposal of it, that there was no alternative but to search themboth. Public opinion says that, Miss Clack. And public opinion, on thisoccasion, is not easily refuted."

  He said those last words, looking so wonderfully wise in his own worldlyconceit, that I really (to my shame be it spoken) could not resistleading him a little farther still, before I overwhelmed him with thetruth.

  "I don't presume to argue with a clever lawyer like you," I said. "Butis it quite fair, sir, to Mr. Ablewhite to pass over the opinion of thefamous London police officer who investigated this case? Not the shadowof a suspicion rested upon anybody but Miss Verinder, in the mind ofSergeant Cuff."

  "Do you mean to tell me, Miss Clack, that you agree with the Sergeant?"

  "I judge nobody, sir, and I offer no opinion."

  "And I commit both those enormities, ma'am. I judge the Sergeant tohave been utterly wrong; and I offer the opinion that, if he had knownRachel's character as I know it, he would have suspected everybody inthe house but HER. I admit that she has her faults--she is secret, andself-willed; odd and wild, and unlike other girls of her age. But trueas steel, and high-minded and generous to a fault. If the plainestevidence in the world pointed one way, and if nothing but Rachel's wordof honour pointed the other, I would take her word before the evidence,lawyer as I am! Strong language, Miss Clack; but I mean it."

  "Would you object to illustrate your meaning, Mr. Bruff, so that Imay be sure I understand it? Suppose you found Miss Verinder quiteunaccountably interested in what has happened to Mr. Ablewhite and Mr.Luker? Suppose she asked the strangest questions about this dreadfulscandal, and displayed the most ungovernable agitation when she foundout the turn it was taking?"

  "Suppose anything you please, Miss Clack, it wouldn't shake my belief inRachel Verinder by a hair's-breadth."

  "She is so absolutely to be relied on as that?"

  "So absolutely to be relied on as that."

  "Then permit me to inform you, Mr. Bruff, that Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite wasin this house not two hours since, and that his entire innocence of allconcern in the disappearance of the Moonstone was proclaimed by MissVerinder herself, in the strongest language I ever heard used by a younglady in my life."

  I enjoyed the triumph--the unholy triumph, I fear I must admit--ofseeing Mr. Bruff utterly confounded and overthrown by a few plain wordsfrom Me. He started to his feet, and stared at me in silence. I kept myseat, undisturbed, and related the whole scene as it had occurred."And what do you say about Mr. Ablewhite now?" I asked, with the utmostpossible gentleness, as soon as I had done.

  "If Rachel has testified to his innocence, Miss Clack, I don't scrupleto say that I believe in his innocence as firmly as you do: I have beenmisled by appearances, like the rest of the world; and I will make thebest atonement I can, by publicly contradicting the scandal which hasassailed your friend wherever I meet with it. In the meantime, allow meto congratulate you on the masterly manner in which you have opened thefull fire of your batteries on me at the moment when I least expectedit. You would have done great things in my profession, ma'am, if you hadhappened to be a man."

  With those words he turned away from me, and began walking irritably upand down the room.

  I could see plainly that the new light I had thrown on the subject hadgreatly surprised and disturbed him. Certain expressions dropped fromhis lips, as he became more and more absorbed in his own thoughts, whichsuggested to my mind the abominable view that he had hitherto taken ofthe mystery of the lost Moonstone. He had not scrupled to suspect dearMr. Godfrey of the infamy of stealing the Diamond, and to attributeRachel's conduct to a generous resolution to conceal the crime. On MissVerinder's own authority--a perfectly unassailable authority, as youare aware, in the estimation of Mr. Bruff--that explanation of thecircumstances was now shown to be utterly wrong. The perplexity intowhich I had plunged this high legal authority was so overwhelming thathe was quite unable to conceal it from notice. "What a case!" I heardhim say to himself, stopping at the window in his walk, and drumming onthe glass with his fingers. "It not only defies explanation, it's evenbeyond conjecture."

  There was nothing in these words which made any reply at all needful,on my part--and yet, I answered them! It seems hardly credible that Ishould not have been able to let Mr. Bruff alone, even now. It seemsalmost beyond mere mortal perversity that I should have discovered, inwhat he had just said, a new opportunity of making myself personallydisagreeable to him. But--ah, my friends! nothing is beyond mortalperversity; and anything is credible when our fallen natures get thebetter of us!

  "Pardon me for intruding on your reflections," I said to theunsuspecting Mr. Bruff. "But surely there is a conjecture to make whichhas not occurred to us yet."

  "Maybe, Miss Clack. I own I don't know what it is."

  "Before I was so fortunate, sir, as to convince you of Mr. Ablewhite'sinnocence, you mentioned it as one of the reasons for suspecting him,that he was in the house at the time when the Diamond was lost. Permitme to remind you that Mr. Franklin Blake was also in the house at thetime when the Diamond was lost."
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  The old worldling left the window, took a chair exactly opposite to mine,and looked at me steadily, with a hard and vicious smile.

  "You are not so good a lawyer, Miss Clack," he remarked in a meditativemanner, "as I supposed. You don't know how to let well alone."

  "I am afraid I fail to follow you, Mr. Bruff," I said, modestly.

  "It won't do, Miss Clack--it really won't do a second time. FranklinBlake is a prime favourite of mine, as you are well aware. But thatdoesn't matter. I'll adopt your view, on this occasion, before you havetime to turn round on me. You're quite right, ma'am. I have suspectedMr. Ablewhite, on grounds which abstractedly justify suspecting Mr.Blake too. Very good--let's suspect them together. It's quite in hischaracter, we will say, to be capable of stealing the Moonstone. Theonly question is, whether it was his interest to do so."

  "Mr. Franklin Blake's debts," I remarked, "are matters of familynotoriety."

  "And Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite's debts have not arrived at that stage ofdevelopment yet. Quite true. But there happen to be two difficulties inthe way of your theory, Miss Clack. I manage Franklin Blake's affairs,and I beg to inform you that the vast majority of his creditors (knowinghis father to be a rich man) are quite content to charge intereston their debts, and to wait for their money. There is the firstdifficulty--which is tough enough. You will find the second tougherstill. I have it on the authority of Lady Verinder herself, that herdaughter was ready to marry Franklin Blake, before that infernal IndianDiamond disappeared from the house. She had drawn him on and put him offagain, with the coquetry of a young girl. But she had confessed to hermother that she loved cousin Franklin, and her mother had trustedcousin Franklin with the secret. So there he was, Miss Clack, with hiscreditors content to wait, and with the certain prospect before him ofmarrying an heiress. By all means consider him a scoundrel; but tell me,if you please, why he should steal the Moonstone?"

  "The human heart is unsearchable," I said gently. "Who is to fathom it?"

  "In other words, ma'am--though he hadn't the shadow of a reason fortaking the Diamond--he might have taken it, nevertheless, throughnatural depravity. Very well. Say he did. Why the devil----"

  "I beg your pardon, Mr. Bruff. If I hear the devil referred to in thatmanner, I must leave the room."

  "I beg YOUR pardon, Miss Clack--I'll be more careful in my choiceof language for the future. All I meant to ask was this. Why--evensupposing he did take the Diamond--should Franklin Blake make himselfthe most prominent person in the house in trying to recover it? You maytell me he cunningly did that to divert suspicion from himself. I answerthat he had no need to divert suspicion--because nobody suspected him.He first steals the Moonstone (without the slightest reason) throughnatural depravity; and he then acts a part, in relation to the loss ofthe jewel, which there is not the slightest necessity to act, and whichleads to his mortally offending the young lady who would otherwise havemarried him. That is the monstrous proposition which you are driven toassert, if you attempt to associate the disappearance of the Moonstonewith Franklin Blake. No, no, Miss Clack! After what has passed hereto-day, between us two, the dead-lock, in this case, is complete.Rachel's own innocence is (as her mother knows, and as I know) beyonda doubt. Mr. Ablewhite's innocence is equally certain--or Rachel wouldnever have testified to it. And Franklin Blake's innocence, as you havejust seen, unanswerably asserts itself. On the one hand, we are morallycertain of all these things. And, on the other hand, we are equally surethat somebody has brought the Moonstone to London, and that Mr. Luker,or his banker, is in private possession of it at this moment. What isthe use of my experience, what is the use of any person's experience,in such a case as that? It baffles me; it baffles you, it baffleseverybody."

  No--not everybody. It had not baffled Sergeant Cuff. I was about tomention this, with all possible mildness, and with every necessaryprotest against being supposed to cast a slur upon Rachel--when theservant came in to say that the doctor had gone, and that my aunt waswaiting to receive us.

  This stopped the discussion. Mr. Bruff collected his papers, looking alittle exhausted by the demands which our conversation had made on him.I took up my bag-full of precious publications, feeling as if Icould have gone on talking for hours. We proceeded in silence to LadyVerinder's room.

  Permit me to add here, before my narrative advances to other events,that I have not described what passed between the lawyer and me,without having a definite object in view. I am ordered to include in mycontribution to the shocking story of the Moonstone a plain disclosure,not only of the turn which suspicion took, but even of the names of thepersons on whom suspicion rested, at the time when the Indian Diamondwas believed to be in London. A report of my conversation in the librarywith Mr. Bruff appeared to me to be exactly what was wanted to answerthis purpose--while, at the same time, it possessed the great moraladvantage of rendering a sacrifice of sinful self-esteem essentiallynecessary on my part. I have been obliged to acknowledge that my fallennature got the better of me. In making that humiliating confession, Iget the better of my fallen nature. The moral balance is restored; thespiritual atmosphere feels clear once more. Dear friends, we may go onagain.