The Moonstone
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.
CHAPTER IV
I am truly sorry to detain you over me and my beehive chair. A sleepy
old man, in a sunny back yard, is not an interesting object, I am well
aware. But things must be put down in their places, as things actually
happened—and you must please to jog on a little while longer with me,
in expectation of Mr. Franklin Blake’s arrival later in the day.
Before I had time to doze off again, after my daughter Penelope had
left me, I was disturbed by a rattling of plates and dishes in the
servants’ hall, which meant that dinner was ready. Taking my own meals
in my own sitting-room, I had nothing to do with the servants’ dinner,
except to wish them a good stomach to it all round, previous to
composing myself once more in my chair. I was just stretching my legs,
when out bounced another woman on me. Not my daughter again; only
Nancy, the kitchen-maid, this time. I was straight in her way out; and
I observed, as she asked me to let her by, that she had a sulky face—a
thing which, as head of the servants, I never allow, on principle, to
pass me without inquiry.
“What are you turning your back on your dinner for?” I asked. “What’s
wrong now, Nancy?”
Nancy tried to push by, without answering; upon which I rose up, and
took her by the ear. She is a nice plump young lass, and it is
customary with me to adopt that manner of showing that I personally
approve of a girl.
“What’s wrong now?” I said once more.
“Rosanna’s late again for dinner,” says Nancy. “And I’m sent to fetch
her in. All the hard work falls on my shoulders in this house. Let me
alone, Mr. Betteredge!”
The person here mentioned as Rosanna was our second housemaid. Having a
kind of pity for our second housemaid (why, you shall presently know),
and seeing in Nancy’s face, that she would fetch her fellow-servant in
with more hard words than might be needful under the circumstances, it
struck me that I had nothing particular to do, and that I might as well
fetch Rosanna myself; giving her a hint to be punctual in future, which
I knew she would take kindly from _me_.
“Where is Rosanna?” I inquired.
“At the sands, of course!” says Nancy, with a toss of her head. “She
had another of her fainting fits this morning, and she asked to go out
and get a breath of fresh air. I have no patience with her!”
“Go back to your dinner, my girl,” I said. “I have patience with her,
and I’ll fetch her in.”
Nancy (who has a fine appetite) looked pleased. When she looks pleased,
she looks nice. When she looks nice, I chuck her under the chin. It
isn’t immorality—it’s only habit.
Well, I took my stick, and set off for the sands.
No! it won’t do to set off yet. I am sorry again to detain you; but you
really must hear the story of the sands, and the story of Rosanna—for
this reason, that the matter of the Diamond touches them both nearly.
How hard I try to get on with my statement without stopping by the way,
and how badly I succeed! But, there!—Persons and Things do turn up so
vexatiously in this life, and will in a manner insist on being noticed.
Let us take it easy, and let us take it short; we shall be in the thick
of the mystery soon, I promise you!
Rosanna (to put the Person before the Thing, which is but common
politeness) was the only new servant in our house. About four months
before the time I am writing of, my lady had been in London, and had
gone over a Reformatory, intended to save forlorn women from drifting
back into bad ways, after they had got released from prison. The
matron, seeing my lady took an interest in the place, pointed out a
girl to her, named Rosanna Spearman, and told her a most miserable
story, which I haven’t the heart to repeat here; for I don’t like to be
made wretched without any use, and no more do you. The upshot of it
was, that Rosanna Spearman had been a thief, and not being of the sort
that get up Companies in the City, and rob from thousands, instead of
only robbing from one, the law laid hold of her, and the prison and the
reformatory followed the lead of the law. The matron’s opinion of
Rosanna was (in spite of what she had done) that the girl was one in a
thousand, and that she only wanted a chance to prove herself worthy of
any Christian woman’s interest in her. My lady (being a Christian
woman, if ever there was one yet) said to the matron, upon that,
“Rosanna Spearman shall have her chance, in my service.” In a week