The Moonstone
She declined both alternatives.
“Let my mother hear nothing from either of us, until she is better. I
wish it to be kept a secret for the present, Godfrey. Go now, and come
back this evening. We have been here alone together quite long enough.”
She rose, and, in rising, looked for the first time towards the little
room in which my martyrdom was going on.
“Who has drawn those curtains?” she exclaimed. “The room is close
enough, as it is, without keeping the air out of it in that way.”
She advanced to the curtains. At the moment when she laid her hand on
them—at the moment when the discovery of me appeared to be quite
inevitable—the voice of the fresh-coloured young footman, on the
stairs, suddenly suspended any further proceedings on her side or on
mine. It was unmistakably the voice of a man in great alarm.
“Miss Rachel!” he called out, “where are you, Miss Rachel?”
She sprang back from the curtains, and ran to the door.
The footman came just inside the room. His ruddy colour was all gone.
He said, “Please to come downstairs, Miss! My lady has fainted, and we
can’t bring her to again.”
In a moment more I was alone, and free to go downstairs in my turn,
quite unobserved.
Mr. Godfrey passed me in the hall, hurrying out, to fetch the doctor.
“Go in, and help them!” he said, pointing to the room. I found Rachel
on her knees by the sofa, with her mother’s head on her bosom. One look
at my aunt’s face (knowing what I knew) was enough to warn me of the
dreadful truth. I kept my thoughts to myself till the doctor came in.
It was not long before he arrived. He began by sending Rachel out of
the room—and then he told the rest of us that Lady Verinder was no
more. Serious persons, in search of proofs of hardened scepticism, may
be interested in hearing that he showed no signs of remorse when he
looked at Me.
At a later hour I peeped into the breakfast-room, and the library. My
aunt had died without opening one of the letters which I had addressed
to her. I was so shocked at this, that it never occurred to me, until
some days afterwards, that she had also died without giving me my
little legacy.
CHAPTER VI
(1.) “Miss Clack presents her compliments to Mr. Franklin Blake; and,
in sending him the fifth chapter of her humble narrative, begs to say
that she feels quite unequal to enlarge as she could wish on an event
so awful, under the circumstances, as Lady Verinder’s death. She has,
therefore, attached to her own manuscripts, copious Extracts from
precious publications in her possession, all bearing on this terrible
subject. And may those Extracts (Miss Clack fervently hopes) sound as
the blast of a trumpet in the ears of her respected kinsman, Mr.
Franklin Blake.”
(2.) “Mr. Franklin Blake presents his compliments to Miss Clack, and
begs to thank her for the fifth chapter of her narrative. In returning
the extracts sent with it, he will refrain from mentioning any personal
objection which he may entertain to this species of literature, and
will merely say that the proposed additions to the manuscript are not
necessary to the fulfilment of the purpose that he has in view.”
(3.) “Miss Clack begs to acknowledge the return of her Extracts. She
affectionately reminds Mr. Franklin Blake that she is a Christian, and
that it is, therefore, quite impossible for him to offend her. Miss C.
persists in feeling the deepest interest in Mr. Blake, and pledges
herself, on the first occasion when sickness may lay him low, to offer
him the use of her Extracts for the second time. In the meanwhile she
would be glad to know, before beginning the final chapters of her
narrative, whether she may be permitted to make her humble contribution
complete, by availing herself of the light which later discoveries have
thrown on the mystery of the Moonstone.”
(4.) “Mr. Franklin Blake is sorry to disappoint Miss Clack. He can only
repeat the instructions which he had the honour of giving her when she
began her narrative. She is requested to limit herself to her own
individual experience of persons and events, as recorded in her diary.
Later discoveries she will be good enough to leave to the pens of those
persons who can write in the capacity of actual witnesses.”
(5.) “Miss Clack is extremely sorry to trouble Mr. Franklin Blake with
another letter. Her Extracts have been returned, and the expression of
her matured views on the subject of the Moonstone has been forbidden.
Miss Clack is painfully conscious that she ought (in the worldly
phrase) to feel herself put down. But, no—Miss C. has learnt
Perseverance in the School of Adversity. Her object in writing is to
know whether Mr. Blake (who prohibits everything else) prohibits the
appearance of the present correspondence in Miss Clack’s narrative?
Some explanation of the position in which Mr. Blake’s interference has
placed her as an authoress, seems due on the ground of common justice.
And Miss Clack, on her side, is most anxious that her letters should be
produced to speak for themselves.”
(6.) “Mr. Franklin Blake agrees to Miss Clack’s proposal, on the
understanding that she will kindly consider this intimation of his
consent as closing the correspondence between them.”
(7.) “Miss Clack feels it an act of Christian duty (before the
correspondence closes) to inform Mr. Franklin Blake that his last
letter—evidently intended to offend her—has not succeeded in
accomplishing the object of the writer. She affectionately requests Mr.
Blake to retire to the privacy of his own room, and to consider with
himself whether the training which can thus elevate a poor weak woman
above the reach of insult, be not worthy of greater admiration than he
is now disposed to feel for it. On being favoured with an intimation to
that effect, Miss C. solemnly pledges herself to send back the complete
series of her Extracts to Mr. Franklin Blake.”
[To this letter no answer was received. Comment is needless.
(Signed) DRUSILLA CLACK.]
CHAPTER VII
The foregoing correspondence will sufficiently explain why no choice is
left to me but to pass over Lady Verinder’s death with the simple
announcement of the fact which ends my fifth chapter.
Keeping myself for the future strictly within the limits of my own
personal experience, I have next to relate that a month elapsed from
the time of my aunt’s decease before Rachel Verinder and I met again.
That meeting was the occasion of my spending a few days under the same
roof with her. In the course of my visit, something happened, relative
to her marriage-engagement with Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite, which is
important enough to require special notice in these pages. When this
last of many painful family circumstances has been disclosed, my task
will be completed; for I shall then have told all that I know, as an
actual (and most unwilling) witness of events.
My aunt’s remains were removed from London, and were buried in the
little cemetery attached to the church in her own park. I was invited
to the funeral with the rest of the family. But it was impossible (with
my religious views) to rouse myself in a few days only from the shock
which this death had caused me. I was informed, moreover, that the
rector of Frizinghall was to read the service. Having myself in past
times seen this clerical castaway making one of the players at Lady
Verinder’s whist-table, I doubt, even if I had been fit to travel,
whether I should have felt justified in attending the ceremony.
Lady Verinder’s death left her daughter under the care of her
brother-in-law, Mr. Ablewhite the elder. He was appointed guardian by
the will, until his niece married, or came of age. Under these
circumstances, Mr. Godfrey informed his father, I suppose, of the new
relation in which he stood towards Rachel. At any rate, in ten days
from my aunt’s death, the secret of the marriage-engagement was no
secret at all within the circle of the family, and the grand question
for Mr. Ablewhite senior—another confirmed castaway!—was how to make
himself and his authority most agreeable to the wealthy young lady who
was going to marry his son.
Rachel gave him some trouble at the outset, about the choice of a place
in which she could be prevailed upon to reside. The house in Montagu
Square was associated with the calamity of her mother’s death. The
house in Yorkshire was associated with the scandalous affair of the
lost Moonstone. Her guardian’s own residence at Frizinghall was open to
neither of these objections. But Rachel’s presence in it, after her
recent bereavement, operated as a check on the gaieties of her cousins,
the Miss Ablewhites—and she herself requested that her visit might be
deferred to a more favourable opportunity. It ended in a proposal,
emanating from old Mr. Ablewhite, to try a furnished house at Brighton.
His wife, an invalid daughter, and Rachel were to inhabit it together,
and were to expect him to join them later in the season. They would see
no society but a few old friends, and they would have his son Godfrey,
travelling backwards and forwards by the London train, always at their
disposal.
I describe this aimless flitting about from one place of residence to
another—this insatiate restlessness of body and appalling stagnation of
soul—merely with the view to arriving at results. The event which
(under Providence) proved to be the means of bringing Rachel Verinder
and myself together again, was no other than the hiring of the house at
Brighton.
My Aunt Ablewhite is a large, silent, fair-complexioned woman, with one
noteworthy point in her character. From the hour of her birth she has
never been known to do anything for herself. She has gone through life,
accepting everybody’s help, and adopting everybody’s opinions. A more
hopeless person, in a spiritual point of view, I have never met
with—there is absolutely, in this perplexing case, no obstructive
material to work upon. Aunt Ablewhite would listen to the Grand Lama of
Thibet exactly as she listens to Me, and would reflect his views quite
as readily as she reflects mine. She found the furnished house at
Brighton by stopping at an hotel in London, composing herself on a
sofa, and sending for her son. She discovered the necessary servants by
breakfasting in bed one morning (still at the hotel), and giving her
maid a holiday on condition that the girl “would begin enjoying herself
by fetching Miss Clack.” I found her placidly fanning herself in her
dressing-gown at eleven o’clock. “Drusilla, dear, I want some servants.
You are so clever—please get them for me.” I looked round the untidy
room. The church-bells were going for a week-day service; they
suggested a word of affectionate remonstrance on my part. “Oh, aunt!” I
said sadly. “Is _this_ worthy of a Christian Englishwoman? Is the
passage from time to eternity to be made in _this_ manner?” My aunt
answered, “I’ll put on my gown, Drusilla, if you will be kind enough to
help me.” What was to be said after that? I have done wonders with
murderesses—I have never advanced an inch with Aunt Ablewhite. “Where
is the list,” I asked, “of the servants whom you require?” My aunt
shook her head; she hadn’t even energy enough to keep the list. “Rachel
has got it, dear,” she said, “in the next room.” I went into the next
room, and so saw Rachel again for the first time since we had parted in
Montagu Square.
She looked pitiably small and thin in her deep mourning. If I attached
any serious importance to such a perishable trifle as personal
appearance, I might be inclined to add that hers was one of those
unfortunate complexions which always suffer when not relieved by a
border of white next the skin. But what are our complexions and our
looks? Hindrances and pitfalls, dear girls, which beset us on our way