The Moonstone
a new mixture to moisten paint with, which he described as a “vehicle.”
What it was made of, I don’t know. What it did, I can tell you in two
words—it stank. Miss Rachel being wild to try her hand at the new
process, Mr. Franklin sent to London for the materials; mixed them up,
with accompaniment of a smell which made the very dogs sneeze when they
came into the room; put an apron and a bib over Miss Rachel’s gown, and
set her to work decorating her own little sitting-room—called, for want
of English to name it in, her “boudoir.” They began with the inside of
the door. Mr. Franklin scraped off all the nice varnish with
pumice-stone, and made what he described as a surface to work on. Miss
Rachel then covered the surface, under his directions and with his
help, with patterns and devices—griffins, birds, flowers, cupids, and
such like—copied from designs made by a famous Italian painter, whose
name escapes me: the one, I mean, who stocked the world with Virgin
Maries, and had a sweetheart at the baker’s. Viewed as work, this
decoration was slow to do, and dirty to deal with. But our young lady
and gentleman never seemed to tire of it. When they were not riding, or
seeing company, or taking their meals, or piping their songs, there
they were with their heads together, as busy as bees, spoiling the
door. Who was the poet who said that Satan finds some mischief still
for idle hands to do? If he had occupied my place in the family, and
had seen Miss Rachel with her brush, and Mr. Franklin with his vehicle,
he could have written nothing truer of either of them than that.
The next date worthy of notice is Sunday the fourth of June.
On that evening we, in the servants’ hall, debated a domestic question
for the first time, which, like the decoration of the door, has its
bearing on something that is still to come.
Seeing the pleasure which Mr. Franklin and Miss Rachel took in each
other’s society, and noting what a pretty match they were in all
personal respects, we naturally speculated on the chance of their
putting their heads together with other objects in view besides the
ornamenting of a door. Some of us said there would be a wedding in the
house before the summer was over. Others (led by me) admitted it was
likely enough Miss Rachel might be married; but we doubted (for reasons
which will presently appear) whether her bridegroom would be Mr.
Franklin Blake.
That Mr. Franklin was in love, on his side, nobody who saw and heard
him could doubt. The difficulty was to fathom Miss Rachel. Let me do
myself the honour of making you acquainted with her; after which, I
will leave you to fathom for yourself—if you can.
My young lady’s eighteenth birthday was the birthday now coming, on the
twenty-first of June. If you happen to like dark women (who, I am
informed, have gone out of fashion latterly in the gay world), and if
you have no particular prejudice in favour of size, I answer for Miss
Rachel as one of the prettiest girls your eyes ever looked on. She was
small and slim, but all in fine proportion from top to toe. To see her
sit down, to see her get up, and specially to see her walk, was enough
to satisfy any man in his senses that the graces of her figure (if you
will pardon me the expression) were in her flesh and not in her
clothes. Her hair was the blackest I ever saw. Her eyes matched her
hair. Her nose was not quite large enough, I admit. Her mouth and chin
were (to quote Mr. Franklin) morsels for the gods; and her complexion
(on the same undeniable authority) was as warm as the sun itself, with
this great advantage over the sun, that it was always in nice order to
look at. Add to the foregoing that she carried her head as upright as a
dart, in a dashing, spirited, thoroughbred way—that she had a clear
voice, with a ring of the right metal in it, and a smile that began
very prettily in her eyes before it got to her lips—and there behold
the portrait of her, to the best of my painting, as large as life!
And what about her disposition next? Had this charming creature no
faults? She had just as many faults as you have, ma’am—neither more nor
less.
To put it seriously, my dear pretty Miss Rachel, possessing a host of
graces and attractions, had one defect, which strict impartiality
compels me to acknowledge. She was unlike most other girls of her age,
in this—that she had ideas of her own, and was stiff-necked enough to
set the fashions themselves at defiance, if the fashions didn’t suit
her views. In trifles, this independence of hers was all well enough;
but in matters of importance, it carried her (as my lady thought, and
as I thought) too far. She judged for herself, as few women of twice
her age judge in general; never asked your advice; never told you
beforehand what she was going to do; never came with secrets and
confidences to anybody, from her mother downwards. In little things and
great, with people she loved, and people she hated (and she did both
with equal heartiness), Miss Rachel always went on a way of her own,
sufficient for herself in the joys and sorrows of her life. Over and
over again I have heard my lady say, “Rachel’s best friend and Rachel’s
worst enemy are, one and the other—Rachel herself.”
Add one thing more to this, and I have done.
With all her secrecy, and self-will, there was not so much as the
shadow of anything false in her. I never remember her breaking her
word; I never remember her saying No, and meaning Yes. I can call to
mind, in her childhood, more than one occasion when the good little
soul took the blame, and suffered the punishment, for some fault
committed by a playfellow whom she loved. Nobody ever knew her to
confess to it, when the thing was found out, and she was charged with
it afterwards. But nobody ever knew her to lie about it, either. She
looked you straight in the face, and shook her little saucy head, and
said plainly, “I won’t tell you!” Punished again for this, she would
own to being sorry for saying “won’t;” but, bread and water
notwithstanding, she never told you. Self-willed—devilish self-willed
sometimes—I grant; but the finest creature, nevertheless, that ever
walked the ways of this lower world. Perhaps you think you see a
certain contradiction here? In that case, a word in your ear. Study
your wife closely, for the next four-and-twenty hours. If your good
lady doesn’t exhibit something in the shape of a contradiction in that
time, Heaven help you!—you have married a monster.
I have now brought you acquainted with Miss Rachel, which you will find
puts us face to face, next, with the question of that young lady’s
matrimonial views.
On June the twelfth, an invitation from my mistress was sent to a
gentleman in London, to come and help to keep Miss Rachel’s birthday.
This was the fortunate individual on whom I believed her heart to be
privately set! Like Mr. Franklin, he was a cousin of hers. His name was
Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite.
My lady’s second sister (don’t be alarmed; we are not going very deep
into family matters this time)—my lady’s second sister, I say, had a
disappointment in love; and taking a husband afterwards, on the neck or
nothing principle, made what they call a misalliance. There was
terrible work in the family when the Honourable Caroline insisted on
marrying plain Mr. Ablewhite, the banker at Frizinghall. He was very
rich and very respectable, and he begot a prodigious large family—all
in his favour, so far. But he had presumed to raise himself from a low
station in the world—and that was against him. However, Time and the
progress of modern enlightenment put things right; and the misalliance
passed muster very well. We are all getting liberal now; and (provided
you can scratch me, if I scratch you) what do I care, in or out of
Parliament, whether you are a Dustman or a Duke? That’s the modern way
of looking at it—and I keep up with the modern way. The Ablewhites
lived in a fine house and grounds, a little out of Frizinghall. Very
worthy people, and greatly respected in the neighbourhood. We shall not
be much troubled with them in these pages—excepting Mr. Godfrey, who
was Mr. Ablewhite’s second son, and who must take his proper place
here, if you please, for Miss Rachel’s sake.
With all his brightness and cleverness and general good qualities, Mr.
Franklin’s chance of topping Mr. Godfrey in our young lady’s estimation
was, in my opinion, a very poor chance indeed.
In the first place, Mr. Godfrey was, in point of size, the finest man
by far of the two. He stood over six feet high; he had a beautiful red
and white colour; a smooth round face, shaved as bare as your hand; and
a head of lovely long flaxen hair, falling negligently over the poll of
his neck. But why do I try to give you this personal description of
him? If you ever subscribed to a Ladies’ Charity in London, you know
Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite as well as I do. He was a barrister by
profession; a ladies’ man by temperament; and a good Samaritan by
choice. Female benevolence and female destitution could do nothing
without him. Maternal societies for confining poor women; Magdalen
societies for rescuing poor women; strong-minded societies for putting
poor women into poor men’s places, and leaving the men to shift for
themselves;—he was vice-president, manager, referee to them all.
Wherever there was a table with a committee of ladies sitting round it
in council there was Mr. Godfrey at the bottom of the board, keeping
the temper of the committee, and leading the dear creatures along the
thorny ways of business, hat in hand. I do suppose this was the most
accomplished philanthropist (on a small independence) that England ever
produced. As a speaker at charitable meetings the like of him for
drawing your tears and your money was not easy to find. He was quite a
public character. The last time I was in London, my mistress gave me
two treats. She sent me to the theatre to see a dancing woman who was
all the rage; and she sent me to Exeter Hall to hear Mr. Godfrey. The
lady did it, with a band of music. The gentleman did it, with a
handkerchief and a glass of water. Crowds at the performance with the
legs. Ditto at the performance with the tongue. And with all this, the
sweetest tempered person (I allude to Mr. Godfrey)—the simplest and
pleasantest and easiest to please—you ever met with. He loved
everybody. And everybody loved _him_. What chance had Mr. Franklin—what
chance had anybody of average reputation and capacities—against such a
man as this?
On the fourteenth, came Mr. Godfrey’s answer.
He accepted my mistress’s invitation, from the Wednesday of the
birthday to the evening of Friday—when his duties to the Ladies’
Charities would oblige him to return to town. He also enclosed a copy
of verses on what he elegantly called his cousin’s “natal day.” Miss
Rachel, I was informed, joined Mr. Franklin in making fun of the verses
at dinner; and Penelope, who was all on Mr. Franklin’s side, asked me,
in great triumph, what I thought of that. “Miss Rachel has led _you_
off on a false scent, my dear,” I replied; “but _my_ nose is not so
easily mystified. Wait till Mr. Ablewhite’s verses are followed by Mr.
Ablewhite himself.”
My daughter replied, that Mr. Franklin might strike in, and try his
luck, before the verses were followed by the poet. In favour of this
view, I must acknowledge that Mr. Franklin left no chance untried of
winning Miss Rachel’s good graces.
Though one of the most inveterate smokers I ever met with, he gave up
his cigar, because she said, one day, she hated the stale smell of it
in his clothes. He slept so badly, after this effort of self-denial,
for want of the composing effect of the tobacco to which he was used,
and came down morning after morning looking so haggard and worn, that