The Moonstone
“You had better not pursue the subject, my dear,” he said. “And Miss
Clack had better not explain herself.”
If I had been a stock or a stone, such an interference as this must
have roused me into testifying to the truth. I put Mr. Bruff aside
indignantly with my own hand, and, in solemn and suitable language, I
stated the view with which sound doctrine does not scruple to regard
the awful calamity of dying unprepared.
Rachel started back from me—I blush to write—with a scream of horror.
“Come away!” she said to Mr. Bruff. “Come away, for God’s sake, before
that woman can say any more! Oh, think of my poor mother’s harmless,
useful, beautiful life! You were at the funeral, Mr. Bruff; you saw how
everybody loved her; you saw the poor helpless people crying at her
grave over the loss of their best friend. And that wretch stands there,
and tries to make me doubt that my mother, who was an angel on earth,
is an angel in heaven now! Don’t stop to talk about it! Come away! It
stifles me to breathe the same air with her! It frightens me to feel
that we are in the same room together!”
Deaf to all remonstrance, she ran to the door.
At the same moment, her maid entered with her bonnet and shawl. She
huddled them on anyhow. “Pack my things,” she said, “and bring them to
Mr. Bruff’s.” I attempted to approach her—I was shocked and grieved,
but, it is needless to say, not offended. I only wished to say to her,
“May your hard heart be softened! I freely forgive you!” She pulled
down her veil, and tore her shawl away from my hand, and, hurrying out,
shut the door in my face. I bore the insult with my customary
fortitude. I remember it now with my customary superiority to all
feeling of offence.
Mr. Bruff had his parting word of mockery for me, before he too hurried
out, in his turn.
“You had better not have explained yourself, Miss Clack,” he said, and
bowed, and left the room.
The person with the cap-ribbons followed.
“It’s easy to see who has set them all by the ears together,” she said.
“I’m only a poor servant—but I declare I’m ashamed of you!” She too
went out, and banged the door after her.
I was left alone in the room. Reviled by them all, deserted by them
all, I was left alone in the room.
Is there more to be added to this plain statement of facts—to this
touching picture of a Christian persecuted by the world? No! my diary
reminds me that one more of the many chequered chapters in my life ends
here. From that day forth, I never saw Rachel Verinder again. She had
my forgiveness at the time when she insulted me. She has had my
prayerful good wishes ever since. And when I die—to complete the return
on my part of good for evil—she will have the _Life, Letters, and
Labours of Miss Jane Ann Stamper_ left her as a legacy by my will.
SECOND NARRATIVE.
_Contributed by Mathew Bruff, Solicitor, of Gray’s Inn Square._
CHAPTER I
My fair friend, Miss Clack, having laid down the pen, there are two
reasons for my taking it up next, in my turn.
In the first place, I am in a position to throw the necessary light on
certain points of interest which have thus far been left in the dark.
Miss Verinder had her own private reason for breaking her marriage
engagement—and I was at the bottom of it. Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite had his
own private reason for withdrawing all claim to the hand of his
charming cousin—and I discovered what it was.
In the second place, it was my good or ill fortune, I hardly know
which, to find myself personally involved—at the period of which I am
now writing—in the mystery of the Indian Diamond. I had the honour of
an interview, at my own office, with an Oriental stranger of
distinguished manners, who was no other, unquestionably, than the chief
of the three Indians. Add to this, that I met with the celebrated
traveller, Mr. Murthwaite, the day afterwards, and that I held a
conversation with him on the subject of the Moonstone, which has a very
important bearing on later events. And there you have the statement of
my claims to fill the position which I occupy in these pages.
The true story of the broken marriage engagement comes first in point
of time, and must therefore take the first place in the present
narrative. Tracing my way back along the chain of events, from one end
to the other, I find it necessary to open the scene, oddly enough as
you will think, at the bedside of my excellent client and friend, the
late Sir John Verinder.
Sir John had his share—perhaps rather a large share—of the more
harmless and amiable of the weaknesses incidental to humanity. Among
these, I may mention as applicable to the matter in hand, an invincible
reluctance—so long as he enjoyed his usual good health—to face the
responsibility of making his will. Lady Verinder exerted her influence
to rouse him to a sense of duty in this matter; and I exerted my
influence. He admitted the justice of our views—but he went no further
than that, until he found himself afflicted with the illness which
ultimately brought him to his grave. Then, I was sent for at last, to
take my client’s instructions on the subject of his will. They proved
to be the simplest instructions I had ever received in the whole of my
professional career.
Sir John was dozing, when I entered the room. He roused himself at the
sight of me.
“How do you do, Mr. Bruff?” he said. “I sha’n’t be very long about
this. And then I’ll go to sleep again.” He looked on with great
interest while I collected pens, ink, and paper. “Are you ready?” he
asked. I bowed and took a dip of ink, and waited for my instructions.
“I leave everything to my wife,” said Sir John. “That’s all.” He turned
round on his pillow, and composed himself to sleep again.
I was obliged to disturb him.
“Am I to understand,” I asked, “that you leave the whole of the
property, of every sort and description, of which you die possessed,
absolutely to Lady Verinder?”
“Yes,” said Sir John. “Only, _I_ put it shorter. Why can’t _you_ put it
shorter, and let me go to sleep again? Everything to my wife. That’s my
Will.”
His property was entirely at his own disposal, and was of two kinds.
Property in land (I purposely abstain from using technical language),
and property in money. In the majority of cases, I am afraid I should
have felt it my duty to my client to ask him to reconsider his Will. In
the case of Sir John, I knew Lady Verinder to be, not only worthy of
the unreserved trust which her husband had placed in her (all good
wives are worthy of that)—but to be also capable of properly
administering a trust (which, in my experience of the fair sex, not one
in a thousand of them is competent to do). In ten minutes, Sir John’s
Will was drawn, and executed, and Sir John himself, good man, was
finishing his interrupted nap.
Lady Verinder amply justified the confidence which her husband had
placed in her. In the first days of her widowhood, she sent for me, and
made her Will. The view she took of her position was so thoroughly
sound and sensible, that I was relieved of all necessity for advising
her. My responsibility began and ended with shaping her instructions
into the proper legal form. Before Sir John had been a fortnight in his
grave, the future of his daughter had been most wisely and most
affectionately provided for.
The Will remained in its fireproof box at my office, through more years
than I like to reckon up. It was not till the summer of eighteen
hundred and forty-eight that I found occasion to look at it again under
very melancholy circumstances.
At the date I have mentioned, the doctors pronounced the sentence on
poor Lady Verinder, which was literally a sentence of death. I was the
first person whom she informed of her situation; and I found her
anxious to go over her Will again with me.
It was impossible to improve the provisions relating to her daughter.
But, in the lapse of time, her wishes in regard to certain minor
legacies, left to different relatives, had undergone some modification;
and it became necessary to add three or four Codicils to the original
document. Having done this at once, for fear of accident, I obtained
her ladyship’s permission to embody her recent instructions in a second
Will. My object was to avoid certain inevitable confusions and
repetitions which now disfigured the original document, and which, to
own the truth, grated sadly on my professional sense of the fitness of
things.
The execution of this second Will has been described by Miss Clack, who
was so obliging as to witness it. So far as regarded Rachel Verinder’s
pecuniary interests, it was, word for word, the exact counterpart of
the first Will. The only changes introduced related to the appointment
of a guardian, and to certain provisions concerning that appointment,
which were made under my advice. On Lady Verinder’s death, the Will was
placed in the hands of my proctor to be “proved” (as the phrase is) in
the usual way.
In about three weeks from that time—as well as I can remember—the first
warning reached me of something unusual going on under the surface. I
happened to be looking in at my friend the proctor’s office, and I
observed that he received me with an appearance of greater interest
than usual.
“I have some news for you,” he said. “What do you think I heard at
Doctors’ Commons this morning? Lady Verinder’s Will has been asked for,
and examined, already!”
This was news indeed! There was absolutely nothing which could be
contested in the Will; and there was nobody I could think of who had
the slightest interest in examining it. (I shall perhaps do well if I
explain in this place, for the benefit of the few people who don’t know
it already, that the law allows all Wills to be examined at Doctors’
Commons by anybody who applies, on the payment of a shilling fee.)
“Did you hear who asked for the Will?” I asked.
“Yes; the clerk had no hesitation in telling _me_. Mr. Smalley, of the
firm of Skipp and Smalley, asked for it. The Will has not been copied
yet into the great Folio Registers. So there was no alternative but to
depart from the usual course, and to let him see the original document.
He looked it over carefully, and made a note in his pocket-book. Have
you any idea of what he wanted with it?”
I shook my head. “I shall find out,” I answered, “before I am a day
older.” With that I went back at once to my own office.
If any other firm of solicitors had been concerned in this
unaccountable examination of my deceased client’s Will, I might have
found some difficulty in making the necessary discovery. But I had a
hold over Skipp and Smalley which made my course in this matter a
comparatively easy one. My common-law clerk (a most competent and
excellent man) was a brother of Mr. Smalley’s; and, owing to this sort
of indirect connection with me, Skipp and Smalley had, for some years
past, picked up the crumbs that fell from my table, in the shape of
cases brought to my office, which, for various reasons, I did not think
it worth while to undertake. My professional patronage was, in this
way, of some importance to the firm. I intended, if necessary, to
remind them of that patronage, on the present occasion.
The moment I got back I spoke to my clerk; and, after telling him what
had happened, I sent him to his brother’s office, “with Mr. Bruff’s
compliments, and he would be glad to know why Messrs. Skipp and Smalley
had found it necessary to examine Lady Verinder’s will.”
This message brought Mr. Smalley back to my office in company with his
brother. He acknowledged that he had acted under instructions received
from a client. And then he put it to me, whether it would not be a
breach of professional confidence on his part to say more.
We had a smart discussion upon that. He was right, no doubt; and I was