The Moonstone Page 8

  CHAPTER V

  The first thing I did, after we were left together alone, was to make athird attempt to get up from my seat on the sand. Mr. Franklin stoppedme.

  "There is one advantage about this horrid place," he said; "we have gotit all to ourselves. Stay where you are, Betteredge; I have something tosay to you."

  While he was speaking, I was looking at him, and trying to see somethingof the boy I remembered, in the man before me. The man put me out. Lookas I might, I could see no more of his boy's rosy cheeks than of hisboy's trim little jacket. His complexion had got pale: his face, at thelower part was covered, to my great surprise and disappointment, with acurly brown beard and mustachios. He had a lively touch-and-go way withhim, very pleasant and engaging, I admit; but nothing to compare withhis free-and-easy manners of other times. To make matters worse, hehad promised to be tall, and had not kept his promise. He was neat, andslim, and well made; but he wasn't by an inch or two up to the middleheight. In short, he baffled me altogether. The years that had passedhad left nothing of his old self, except the bright, straightforwardlook in his eyes. There I found our nice boy again, and there Iconcluded to stop in my investigation.

  "Welcome back to the old place, Mr. Franklin," I said. "All the morewelcome, sir, that you have come some hours before we expected you."

  "I have a reason for coming before you expected me," answered Mr.Franklin. "I suspect, Betteredge, that I have been followed and watchedin London, for the last three or four days; and I have travelled bythe morning instead of the afternoon train, because I wanted to give acertain dark-looking stranger the slip."

  Those words did more than surprise me. They brought back to my mind, ina flash, the three jugglers, and Penelope's notion that they meant somemischief to Mr. Franklin Blake.

  "Who's watching you, sir,--and why?" I inquired.

  "Tell me about the three Indians you have had at the house to-day,"says Mr. Franklin, without noticing my question. "It's just possible,Betteredge, that my stranger and your three jugglers may turn out to bepieces of the same puzzle."

  "How do you come to know about the jugglers, sir?" I asked, putting onequestion on the top of another, which was bad manners, I own. But youdon't expect much from poor human nature--so don't expect much from me.

  "I saw Penelope at the house," says Mr. Franklin; "and Penelope told me.Your daughter promised to be a pretty girl, Betteredge, and she has kepther promise. Penelope has got a small ear and a small foot. Did the lateMrs. Betteredge possess those inestimable advantages?"

  "The late Mrs. Betteredge possessed a good many defects, sir," says I."One of them (if you will pardon my mentioning it) was never keeping tothe matter in hand. She was more like a fly than a woman: she couldn'tsettle on anything."

  "She would just have suited me," says Mr. Franklin. "I never settleon anything either. Betteredge, your edge is better than ever. Yourdaughter said as much, when I asked for particulars about the jugglers.'Father will tell you, sir. He's a wonderful man for his age; and heexpresses himself beautifully.' Penelope's own words--blushing divinely.Not even my respect for you prevented me from--never mind; I knew herwhen she was a child, and she's none the worse for it. Let's be serious.What did the jugglers do?"

  I was something dissatisfied with my daughter--not for letting Mr.Franklin kiss her; Mr. Franklin was welcome to THAT--but for forcing meto tell her foolish story at second hand. However, there was no help forit now but to mention the circumstances. Mr. Franklin's merriment alldied away as I went on. He sat knitting his eyebrows, and twisting hisbeard. When I had done, he repeated after me two of the questions whichthe chief juggler had put to the boy--seemingly for the purpose offixing them well in his mind.

  "'Is it on the road to this house, and on no other, that the Englishgentleman will travel to-day?' 'Has the English gentleman got It abouthim?' I suspect," says Mr. Franklin, pulling a little sealed paperparcel out of his pocket, "that 'It' means THIS. And 'this,' Betteredge,means my uncle Herncastle's famous Diamond."

  "Good Lord, sir!" I broke out, "how do you come to be in charge of thewicked Colonel's Diamond?"

  "The wicked Colonel's will has left his Diamond as a birthday presentto my cousin Rachel," says Mr. Franklin. "And my father, as the wickedColonel's executor, has given it in charge to me to bring down here."

  If the sea, then oozing in smoothly over the Shivering Sand, had beenchanged into dry land before my own eyes, I doubt if I could have beenmore surprised than I was when Mr. Franklin spoke those words.

  "The Colonel's Diamond left to Miss Rachel!" says I. "And your father,sir, the Colonel's executor! Why, I would have laid any bet you like,Mr. Franklin, that your father wouldn't have touched the Colonel with apair of tongs!"

  "Strong language, Betteredge! What was there against the Colonel. Hebelonged to your time, not to mine. Tell me what you know about him, andI'll tell you how my father came to be his executor, and more besides.I have made some discoveries in London about my uncle Herncastle and hisDiamond, which have rather an ugly look to my eyes; and I want you toconfirm them. You called him the 'wicked Colonel' just now. Search yourmemory, my old friend, and tell me why."

  I saw he was in earnest, and I told him.

  Here follows the substance of what I said, written out entirely for yourbenefit. Pay attention to it, or you will be all abroad, when we getdeeper into the story. Clear your mind of the children, or the dinner,or the new bonnet, or what not. Try if you can't forget politics,horses, prices in the City, and grievances at the club. I hope you won'ttake this freedom on my part amiss; it's only a way I have of appealingto the gentle reader. Lord! haven't I seen you with the greatest authorsin your hands, and don't I know how ready your attention is to wanderwhen it's a book that asks for it, instead of a person?

  I spoke, a little way back, of my lady's father, the old lord with theshort temper and the long tongue. He had five children in all. Two sonsto begin with; then, after a long time, his wife broke out breedingagain, and the three young ladies came briskly one after the other,as fast as the nature of things would permit; my mistress, as beforementioned, being the youngest and best of the three. Of the two sons,the eldest, Arthur, inherited the title and estates. The second, theHonourable John, got a fine fortune left him by a relative, and wentinto the army.

  It's an ill bird, they say, that fouls its own nest. I look on the noblefamily of the Herncastles as being my nest; and I shall take it as afavour if I am not expected to enter into particulars on the subjectof the Honourable John. He was, I honestly believe, one of the greatestblackguards that ever lived. I can hardly say more or less for him thanthat. He went into the army, beginning in the Guards. He had to leavethe Guards before he was two-and-twenty--never mind why. They are verystrict in the army, and they were too strict for the Honourable John. Hewent out to India to see whether they were equally strict there, and totry a little active service. In the matter of bravery (to give him hisdue), he was a mixture of bull-dog and game-cock, with a dash of thesavage. He was at the taking of Seringapatam. Soon afterwards he changedinto another regiment, and, in course of time, changed into a third. Inthe third he got his last step as lieutenant-colonel, and, getting that,got also a sunstroke, and came home to England.

  He came back with a character that closed the doors of all his familyagainst him, my lady (then just married) taking the lead, and declaring(with Sir John's approval, of course) that her brother should neverenter any house of hers. There was more than one slur on the Colonelthat made people shy of him; but the blot of the Diamond is all I needmention here.

  It was said he had got possession of his Indian jewel by means which,bold as he was, he didn't dare acknowledge. He never attempted to sellit--not being in need of money, and not (to give him his due again)making money an object. He never gave it away; he never even showed itto any living soul. Some said he was afraid of its getting him into adifficulty with the military authorities; others (very ignorant indeedof the real nature of the man) said he was afraid, if he sh
owed it, ofits costing him his life.

  There was perhaps a grain of truth mixed up with this last report. Itwas false to say that he was afraid; but it was a fact that his lifehad been twice threatened in India; and it was firmly believed that theMoonstone was at the bottom of it. When he came back to England, andfound himself avoided by everybody, the Moonstone was thought to be atthe bottom of it again. The mystery of the Colonel's life got in theColonel's way, and outlawed him, as you may say, among his own people.The men wouldn't let him into their clubs; the women--more thanone--whom he wanted to marry, refused him; friends and relations got toonear-sighted to see him in the street.

  Some men in this mess would have tried to set themselves right withthe world. But to give in, even when he was wrong, and had all societyagainst him, was not the way of the Honourable John. He had kept theDiamond, in flat defiance of assassination, in India. He kept theDiamond, in flat defiance of public opinion, in England. There you havethe portrait of the man before you, as in a picture: a character thatbraved everything; and a face, handsome as it was, that looked possessedby the devil.

  We heard different rumours about him from time to time. Sometimesthey said he was given up to smoking opium and collecting old books;sometimes he was reported to be trying strange things in chemistry;sometimes he was seen carousing and amusing himself among the lowestpeople in the lowest slums of London. Anyhow, a solitary, vicious,underground life was the life the Colonel led. Once, and once only,after his return to England, I myself saw him, face to face.

  About two years before the time of which I am now writing, and abouta year and a half before the time of his death, the Colonel cameunexpectedly to my lady's house in London. It was the night of MissRachel's birthday, the twenty-first of June; and there was a party inhonour of it, as usual. I received a message from the footman to saythat a gentleman wanted to see me. Going up into the hall, there I foundthe Colonel, wasted, and worn, and old, and shabby, and as wild and aswicked as ever.

  "Go up to my sister," says he; "and say that I have called to wish myniece many happy returns of the day."

  He had made attempts by letter, more than once already, to be reconciledwith my lady, for no other purpose, I am firmly persuaded, than to annoyher. But this was the first time he had actually come to the house. Ihad it on the tip of my tongue to say that my mistress had a party thatnight. But the devilish look of him daunted me. I went up-stairs withhis message, and left him, by his own desire, waiting in the hall. Theservants stood staring at him, at a distance, as if he was a walkingengine of destruction, loaded with powder and shot, and likely to go offamong them at a moment's notice.

  My lady had a dash--no more--of the family temper. "Tell ColonelHerncastle," she said, when I gave her her brother's message, "that MissVerinder is engaged, and that I decline to see him." I tried to pleadfor a civiller answer than that; knowing the Colonel's constitutionalsuperiority to the restraints which govern gentlemen in general. Quiteuseless! The family temper flashed out at me directly. "When I want youradvice," says my lady, "you know that I always ask for it. I don't askfor it now." I went downstairs with the message, of which I took theliberty of presenting a new and amended edition of my own contriving, asfollows: "My lady and Miss Rachel regret that they are engaged, Colonel;and beg to be excused having the honour of seeing you."

  I expected him to break out, even at that polite way of putting it.To my surprise he did nothing of the sort; he alarmed me by taking thething with an unnatural quiet. His eyes, of a glittering bright grey,just settled on me for a moment; and he laughed, not out of himself,like other people, but INTO himself, in a soft, chuckling, horridlymischievous way. "Thank you, Betteredge," he said. "I shall remember myniece's birthday." With that, he turned on his heel, and walked out ofthe house.

  The next birthday came round, and we heard he was ill in bed. Six monthsafterwards--that is to say, six months before the time I am now writingof--there came a letter from a highly respectable clergyman to my lady.It communicated two wonderful things in the way of family news. First,that the Colonel had forgiven his sister on his death-bed. Second, thathe had forgiven everybody else, and had made a most edifying end. I havemyself (in spite of the bishops and the clergy) an unfeigned respect forthe Church; but I am firmly persuaded, at the same time, that the devilremained in undisturbed possession of the Honourable John, and that thelast abominable act in the life of that abominable man was (saving yourpresence) to take the clergyman in!

  This was the sum-total of what I had to tell Mr. Franklin. I remarkedthat he listened more and more eagerly the longer I went on. Also, thatthe story of the Colonel being sent away from his sister's door, on theoccasion of his niece's birthday, seemed to strike Mr. Franklin like ashot that had hit the mark. Though he didn't acknowledge it, I saw thatI had made him uneasy, plainly enough, in his face.

  "You have said your say, Betteredge," he remarked. "It's my turn now.Before, however, I tell you what discoveries I have made in London, andhow I came to be mixed up in this matter of the Diamond, I want to knowone thing. You look, my old friend, as if you didn't quite understandthe object to be answered by this consultation of ours. Do your looksbelie you?"

  "No, sir," I said. "My looks, on this occasion at any rate, tell thetruth."

  "In that case," says Mr. Franklin, "suppose I put you up to my pointof view, before we go any further. I see three very serious questionsinvolved in the Colonel's birthday-gift to my cousin Rachel. Follow mecarefully, Betteredge; and count me off on your fingers, if it willhelp you," says Mr. Franklin, with a certain pleasure in showing howclear-headed he could be, which reminded me wonderfully of old timeswhen he was a boy. "Question the first: Was the Colonel's Diamond theobject of a conspiracy in India? Question the second: Has the conspiracyfollowed the Colonel's Diamond to England? Question the third: Did theColonel know the conspiracy followed the Diamond; and has he purposelyleft a legacy of trouble and danger to his sister, through the innocentmedium of his sister's child? THAT is what I am driving at, Betteredge.Don't let me frighten you."

  It was all very well to say that, but he HAD frightened me.

  If he was right, here was our quiet English house suddenly invaded bya devilish Indian Diamond--bringing after it a conspiracy of livingrogues, set loose on us by the vengeance of a dead man. There was oursituation as revealed to me in Mr. Franklin's last words! Who ever heardthe like of it--in the nineteenth century, mind; in an age of progress,and in a country which rejoices in the blessings of the Britishconstitution? Nobody ever heard the like of it, and, consequently,nobody can be expected to believe it. I shall go on with my story,however, in spite of that.

  When you get a sudden alarm, of the sort that I had got now, nine timesout of ten the place you feel it in is your stomach. When you feel itin your stomach, your attention wanders, and you begin to fidget. Ifidgeted silently in my place on the sand. Mr. Franklin noticed me,contending with a perturbed stomach or mind--which you please; they meanthe same thing--and, checking himself just as he was starting with hispart of the story, said to me sharply, "What do you want?"

  What did I want? I didn't tell HIM; but I'll tell YOU, in confidence. Iwanted a whiff of my pipe, and a turn at ROBINSON CRUSOE.