The Moonstone
wrong. The truth is, I was angry and suspicious—and I insisted on
knowing more. Worse still, I declined to consider any additional
information offered me, as a secret placed in my keeping: I claimed
perfect freedom to use my own discretion. Worse even than that, I took
an unwarrantable advantage of my position. “Choose, sir,” I said to Mr.
Smalley, “between the risk of losing your client’s business and the
risk of losing Mine.” Quite indefensible, I admit—an act of tyranny,
and nothing less. Like other tyrants, I carried my point. Mr. Smalley
chose his alternative, without a moment’s hesitation.
He smiled resignedly, and gave up the name of his client:
Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite.
That was enough for me—I wanted to know no more.
Having reached this point in my narrative, it now becomes necessary to
place the reader of these lines—so far as Lady Verinder’s Will is
concerned—on a footing of perfect equality, in respect of information,
with myself.
Let me state, then, in the fewest possible words, that Rachel Verinder
had nothing but a life-interest in the property. Her mother’s excellent
sense, and my long experience, had combined to relieve her of all
responsibility, and to guard her from all danger of becoming the victim
in the future of some needy and unscrupulous man. Neither she, nor her
husband (if she married), could raise sixpence, either on the property
in land, or on the property in money. They would have the houses in
London and in Yorkshire to live in, and they would have the handsome
income—and that was all.
When I came to think over what I had discovered, I was sorely perplexed
what to do next.
Hardly a week had passed since I had heard (to my surprise and
distress) of Miss Verinder’s proposed marriage. I had the sincerest
admiration and affection for her; and I had been inexpressibly grieved
when I heard that she was about to throw herself away on Mr. Godfrey
Ablewhite. And now, here was the man—whom I had always believed to be a
smooth-tongued impostor—justifying the very worst that I had thought of
him, and plainly revealing the mercenary object of the marriage, on his
side! And what of that?—you may reply—the thing is done every day.
Granted, my dear sir. But would you think of it quite as lightly as you
do, if the thing was done (let us say) with your own sister?
The first consideration which now naturally occurred to me was this.
Would Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite hold to his engagement, after what his
lawyer had discovered for him?
It depended entirely on his pecuniary position, of which I knew
nothing. If that position was not a desperate one, it would be well
worth his while to marry Miss Verinder for her income alone. If, on the
other hand, he stood in urgent need of realising a large sum by a given
time, then Lady Verinder’s Will would exactly meet the case, and would
preserve her daughter from falling into a scoundrel’s hands.
In the latter event, there would be no need for me to distress Miss
Rachel, in the first days of her mourning for her mother, by an
immediate revelation of the truth. In the former event, if I remained
silent, I should be conniving at a marriage which would make her
miserable for life.
My doubts ended in my calling at the hotel in London, at which I knew
Mrs. Ablewhite and Miss Verinder to be staying. They informed me that
they were going to Brighton the next day, and that an unexpected
obstacle prevented Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite from accompanying them. I at
once proposed to take his place. While I was only thinking of Rachel
Verinder, it was possible to hesitate. When I actually saw her, my mind
was made up directly, come what might of it, to tell her the truth.
I found my opportunity, when I was out walking with her, on the day
after my arrival.
“May I speak to you,” I asked, “about your marriage engagement?”
“Yes,” she said, indifferently, “if you have nothing more interesting
to talk about.”
“Will you forgive an old friend and servant of your family, Miss
Rachel, if I venture on asking whether your heart is set on this
marriage?”
“I am marrying in despair, Mr. Bruff—on the chance of dropping into
some sort of stagnant happiness which may reconcile me to my life.”
Strong language! and suggestive of something below the surface, in the
shape of a romance. But I had my own object in view, and I declined (as
we lawyers say) to pursue the question into its side issues.
“Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite can hardly be of your way of thinking,” I said.
“_His_ heart must be set on the marriage at any rate?”
“He says so, and I suppose I ought to believe him. He would hardly
marry me, after what I have owned to him, unless he was fond of me.”
Poor thing! the bare idea of a man marrying her for his own selfish and
mercenary ends had never entered her head. The task I had set myself
began to look like a harder task than I had bargained for.
“It sounds strangely,” I went on, “in my old-fashioned ears——”
“What sounds strangely?” she asked.
“To hear you speak of your future husband as if you were not quite sure
of the sincerity of his attachment. Are you conscious of any reason in
your own mind for doubting him?”
Her astonishing quickness of perception, detected a change in my voice,
or my manner, when I put that question, which warned her that I had
been speaking all along with some ulterior object in view. She stopped,
and taking her arm out of mine, looked me searchingly in the face.
“Mr. Bruff,” she said, “you have something to tell me about Godfrey
Ablewhite. Tell it.”
I knew her well enough to take her at her word. I told it.
She put her arm again into mine, and walked on with me slowly. I felt
her hand tightening its grasp mechanically on my arm, and I saw her
getting paler and paler as I went on—but, not a word passed her lips
while I was speaking. When I had done, she still kept silence. Her head
drooped a little, and she walked by my side, unconscious of my
presence, unconscious of everything about her; lost—buried, I might
almost say—in her own thoughts.
I made no attempt to disturb her. My experience of her disposition
warned me, on this, as on former occasions, to give her time.
The first instinct of girls in general, on being told of anything which
interests them, is to ask a multitude of questions, and then to run
off, and talk it all over with some favourite friend. Rachel Verinder’s
first instinct, under similar circumstances, was to shut herself up in
her own mind, and to think it over by herself. This absolute
self-dependence is a great virtue in a man. In a woman it has a serious
drawback of morally separating her from the mass of her sex, and so
exposing her to misconstruction by the general opinion. I strongly
suspect myself of thinking as the rest of the world think in this
matter—except in the case of Rachel Verinder. The self-dependence in
_her_ character, was one of its virtues in my estimation; partly, no
doubt, because I sincerely admired and liked her; partly, because the
view I took of her connexion with the loss of the Moonstone was based
on my own special knowledge of her disposition. Badly as appearances
might look, in the matter of the Diamond—shocking as it undoubtedly was
to know that she was associated in any way with the mystery of an
undiscovered theft—I was satisfied nevertheless that she had done
nothing unworthy of her, because I was also satisfied that she had not
stirred a step in the business, without shutting herself up in her own
mind, and thinking it over first.
We had walked on, for nearly a mile I should say, before Rachel roused
herself. She suddenly looked up at me with a faint reflection of her
smile of happier times—the most irresistible smile I have ever seen on
a woman’s face.
“I owe much already to your kindness,” she said. “And I feel more
deeply indebted to it now than ever. If you hear any rumours of my
marriage when you get back to London, contradict them at once, on my
authority.”
“Have you resolved to break your engagement?” I asked.
“Can you doubt it?” she returned proudly, “after what you have told
me!”
“My dear Miss Rachel, you are very young—and you may find more
difficulty in withdrawing from your present position than you
anticipate. Have you no one—I mean a lady, of course—whom you could
consult?”
“No one,” she answered.
It distressed me, it did indeed distress me, to hear her say that. She
was so young and so lonely—and she bore it so well! The impulse to help
her got the better of any sense of my own unfitness which I might have
felt under the circumstances; and I stated such ideas on the subject as
occurred to me on the spur of the moment, to the best of my ability. I
have advised a prodigious number of clients, and have dealt with some
exceedingly awkward difficulties, in my time. But this was the first
occasion on which I had ever found myself advising a young lady how to
obtain her release from a marriage engagement. The suggestion I offered
amounted briefly to this. I recommended her to tell Mr. Godfrey
Ablewhite—at a private interview, of course—that he had, to her certain
knowledge, betrayed the mercenary nature of the motive on his side. She
was then to add that their marriage, after what she had discovered, was
a simple impossibility—and she was to put it to him, whether he thought
it wisest to secure her silence by falling in with her views, or to
force her, by opposing them, to make the motive under which she was
acting generally known. If he attempted to defend himself, or to deny
the facts, she was, in that event, to refer him to _me_.
Miss Verinder listened attentively till I had done. She then thanked me
very prettily for my advice, but informed me at the same time that it
was impossible for her to follow it.
“May I ask,” I said, “what objection you see to following it?”
She hesitated—and then met me with a question on her side.
“Suppose you were asked to express your opinion of Mr. Godfrey
Ablewhite’s conduct?” she began.
“Yes?”
“What would you call it?”
“I should call it the conduct of a meanly deceitful man.”
“Mr. Bruff! I have believed in that man. I have promised to marry that
man. How can I tell him he is mean, how can I tell him he has deceived
me, how can I disgrace him in the eyes of the world after that? I have
degraded myself by ever thinking of him as my husband. If I say what
you tell me to say to him—I am owning that I have degraded myself to
his face. I can’t do that. After what has passed between us, I can’t do
that! The shame of it would be nothing to _him_. But the shame of it
would be unendurable to _me_.”
Here was another of the marked peculiarities in her character
disclosing itself to me without reserve. Here was her sensitive horror
of the bare contact with anything mean, blinding her to every
consideration of what she owed to herself, hurrying her into a false
position which might compromise her in the estimation of all her
friends! Up to this time, I had been a little diffident about the
propriety of the advice I had given to her. But, after what she had
just said, I had no sort of doubt that it was the best advice that
could have been offered; and I felt no sort of hesitation in pressing
it on her again.
She only shook her head, and repeated her objection in other words.
“He has been intimate enough with me to ask me to be his wife. He has
stood high enough in my estimation to obtain my consent. I can’t tell
him to his face that he is the most contemptible of living creatures,
after that!”
“But, my dear Miss Rachel,” I remonstrated, “it’s equally impossible
for you to tell him that you withdraw from your engagement without
giving some reason for it.”
“I shall say that I have thought it over, and that I am satisfied it
will be best for both of us if we part.”