The Moonstone
Mr. Blake’s report of the night is the same as before. He has had some
intervals of broken sleep, and no more. But he feels it less today,
having slept after yesterday’s dinner. This after-dinner sleep is the
result, no doubt, of the ride which I advised him to take. I fear I
shall have to curtail his restorative exercise in the fresh air. He
must not be too well; he must not be too ill. It is a case (as a sailor
would say) of very fine steering.
He has not heard yet from Mr. Bruff. I found him eager to know if I had
received any answer from Miss Verinder.
I told him exactly what I was permitted to tell, and no more. It was
quite needless to invent excuses for not showing him the letter. He
told me bitterly enough, poor fellow, that he understood the delicacy
which disinclined me to produce it. “She consents, of course, as a
matter of common courtesy and common justice,” he said. “But she keeps
her own opinion of me, and waits to see the result.” I was sorely
tempted to hint that he was now wronging her as she had wronged him. On
reflection, I shrank from forestalling her in the double luxury of
surprising and forgiving him.
My visit was a very short one. After the experience of the other night,
I have been compelled once more to give up my dose of opium. As a
necessary result, the agony of the disease that is in me has got the
upper hand again. I felt the attack coming on, and left abruptly, so as
not to alarm or distress him. It only lasted a quarter of an hour this
time, and it left me strength enough to go on with my work.
Five o’clock.—I have written my reply to Miss Verinder.
The arrangement I have proposed reconciles the interests on both sides,
if she will only consent to it. After first stating the objections that
there are to a meeting between Mr. Blake and herself, before the
experiment is tried, I have suggested that she should so time her
journey as to arrive at the house privately, on the evening when we
make the attempt. Travelling by the afternoon train from London, she
would delay her arrival until nine o’clock. At that hour, I have
undertaken to see Mr. Blake safely into his bedchamber; and so to leave
Miss Verinder free to occupy her own rooms until the time comes for
administering the laudanum. When that has been done, there can be no
objection to her watching the result, with the rest of us. On the next
morning, she shall show Mr. Blake (if she likes) her correspondence
with me, and shall satisfy him in that way that he was acquitted in her
estimation, before the question of his innocence was put to the proof.
In that sense, I have written to her. This is all that I can do today.
Tomorrow I must see Mr. Betteredge, and give the necessary directions
for re-opening the house.
June 18th.—Late again, in calling on Mr. Franklin Blake. More of that
horrible pain in the early morning; followed, this time, by complete
prostration, for some hours. I foresee, in spite of the penalties which
it exacts from me, that I shall have to return to the opium for the
hundredth time. If I had only myself to think of, I should prefer the
sharp pains to the frightful dreams. But the physical suffering
exhausts me. If I let myself sink, it may end in my becoming useless to
Mr. Blake at the time when he wants me most.
It was nearly one o’clock before I could get to the hotel today. The
visit, even in my shattered condition, proved to be a most amusing
one—thanks entirely to the presence on the scene of Gabriel Betteredge.
I found him in the room, when I went in. He withdrew to the window and
looked out, while I put my first customary question to my patient. Mr.
Blake had slept badly again, and he felt the loss of rest this morning
more than he had felt it yet.
I asked next if he had heard from Mr. Bruff.
A letter had reached him that morning. Mr. Bruff expressed the
strongest disapproval of the course which his friend and client was
taking under my advice. It was mischievous—for it excited hopes that
might never be realised. It was quite unintelligible to _his_ mind,
except that it looked like a piece of trickery, akin to the trickery of
mesmerism, clairvoyance, and the like. It unsettled Miss Verinder’s
house, and it would end in unsettling Miss Verinder herself. He had put
the case (without mentioning names) to an eminent physician; and the
eminent physician had smiled, had shaken his head, and had
said—nothing. On these grounds, Mr. Bruff entered his protest, and left
it there.
My next inquiry related to the subject of the Diamond. Had the lawyer
produced any evidence to prove that the jewel was in London?
No, the lawyer had simply declined to discuss the question. He was
himself satisfied that the Moonstone had been pledged to Mr. Luker. His
eminent absent friend, Mr. Murthwaite (whose consummate knowledge of
the Indian character no one could deny), was satisfied also. Under
these circumstances, and with the many demands already made on him, he
must decline entering into any disputes on the subject of evidence.
Time would show; and Mr. Bruff was willing to wait for time.
It was quite plain—even if Mr. Blake had not made it plainer still by
reporting the substance of the letter, instead of reading what was
actually written—that distrust of _me_ was at the bottom of all this.
Having myself foreseen that result, I was neither mortified nor
surprised. I asked Mr. Blake if his friend’s protest had shaken him. He
answered emphatically, that it had not produced the slightest effect on
his mind. I was free after that to dismiss Mr. Bruff from
consideration—and I did dismiss him accordingly.
A pause in the talk between us, followed—and Gabriel Betteredge came
out from his retirement at the window.
“Can you favour me with your attention, sir?” he inquired, addressing
himself to me.
“I am quite at your service,” I answered.
Betteredge took a chair and seated himself at the table. He produced a
huge old-fashioned leather pocket-book, with a pencil of dimensions to
match. Having put on his spectacles, he opened the pocket-book, at a
blank page, and addressed himself to me once more.
“I have lived,” said Betteredge, looking at me sternly, “nigh on fifty
years in the service of my late lady. I was page-boy before that, in
the service of the old lord, her father. I am now somewhere between
seventy and eighty years of age—never mind exactly where! I am reckoned
to have got as pretty a knowledge and experience of the world as most
men. And what does it all end in? It ends, Mr. Ezra Jennings, in a
conjuring trick being performed on Mr. Franklin Blake, by a doctor’s
assistant with a bottle of laudanum—and by the living jingo, I’m
appointed, in my old age, to be conjurer’s boy!”
Mr. Blake burst out laughing. I attempted to speak. Betteredge held up
his hand, in token that he had not done yet.
“Not a word, Mr. Jennings!” he said, “It don’t want a word, sir, from
you. I have got my principles, thank God. If an order comes to me,
which is own brother to an order come from Bedlam, it don’t matter. So
long as I get it from my master or mistress, as the case may be, I obey
it. I may have my own opinion, which is also, you will please to
remember, the opinion of Mr. Bruff—the Great Mr. Bruff!” said
Betteredge, raising his voice, and shaking his head at me solemnly. “It
don’t matter; I withdraw my opinion, for all that. My young lady says,
‘Do it.’ And I say, ‘Miss, it shall be done.’ Here I am, with my book
and my pencil—the latter not pointed so well as I could wish, but when
Christians take leave of their senses, who is to expect that pencils
will keep their points? Give me your orders, Mr. Jennings. I’ll have
them in writing, sir. I’m determined not to be behind ’em, or before
’em, by so much as a hair’s breadth. I’m a blind agent—that’s what I
am. A blind agent!” repeated Betteredge, with infinite relish of his
own description of himself.
“I am very sorry,” I began, “that you and I don’t agree——”
“Don’t bring _me_, into it!” interposed Betteredge. “This is not a
matter of agreement, it’s a matter of obedience. Issue your directions,
sir—issue your directions!”
Mr. Blake made me a sign to take him at his word. I “issued my
directions” as plainly and as gravely as I could.
“I wish certain parts of the house to be re-opened,” I said, “and to be
furnished, exactly as they were furnished at this time last year.”
Betteredge gave his imperfectly-pointed pencil a preliminary lick with
his tongue. “Name the parts, Mr. Jennings!” he said loftily.
“First, the inner hall, leading to the chief staircase.”
“‘First, the inner hall,’” Betteredge wrote. “Impossible to furnish
that, sir, as it was furnished last year—to begin with.”
“Why?”
“Because there was a stuffed buzzard, Mr. Jennings, in the hall last
year. When the family left, the buzzard was put away with the other
things. When the buzzard was put away—he burst.”
“We will except the buzzard then.”
Betteredge took a note of the exception. “‘The inner hall to be
furnished again, as furnished last year. A burst buzzard alone
excepted.’ Please to go on, Mr. Jennings.”
“The carpet to be laid down on the stairs, as before.”
“‘The carpet to be laid down on the stairs, as before.’ Sorry to
disappoint you, sir. But that can’t be done either.”
“Why not?”
“Because the man who laid that carpet down is dead, Mr. Jennings—and
the like of him for reconciling together a carpet and a corner, is not
to be found in all England, look where you may.”
“Very well. We must try the next best man in England.”
Betteredge took another note; and I went on issuing my directions.
“Miss Verinder’s sitting-room to be restored exactly to what it was
last year. Also, the corridor leading from the sitting-room to the
first landing. Also, the second corridor, leading from the second
landing to the best bedrooms. Also, the bedroom occupied last June by
Mr. Franklin Blake.”
Betteredge’s blunt pencil followed me conscientiously, word by word.
“Go on, sir,” he said, with sardonic gravity. “There’s a deal of
writing left in the point of this pencil yet.”
I told him that I had no more directions to give. “Sir,” said
Betteredge, “in that case, I have a point or two to put on my own
behalf.” He opened the pocket-book at a new page, and gave the
inexhaustible pencil another preliminary lick.
“I wish to know,” he began, “whether I may, or may not, wash my
hands——”
“You may decidedly,” said Mr. Blake. “I’ll ring for the waiter.”
“——of certain responsibilities,” pursued Betteredge, impenetrably
declining to see anybody in the room but himself and me. “As to Miss
Verinder’s sitting-room, to begin with. When we took up the carpet last
year, Mr. Jennings, we found a surprising quantity of pins. Am I
responsible for putting back the pins?”
“Certainly not.”
Betteredge made a note of that concession, on the spot.
“As to the first corridor next,” he resumed. “When we moved the
ornaments in that part, we moved a statue of a fat naked
child—profanely described in the catalogue of the house as ‘Cupid, god
of Love.’ He had two wings last year, in the fleshy part of his
shoulders. My eye being off him, for the moment, he lost one of them.
Am I responsible for Cupid’s wing?”
I made another concession, and Betteredge made another note.
“As to the second corridor,” he went on. “There having been nothing in
it, last year, but the doors of the rooms (to every one of which I can
swear, if necessary), my mind is easy, I admit, respecting that part of
the house only. But, as to Mr. Franklin’s bedroom (if _that_ is to be
put back to what it was before), I want to know who is responsible for
keeping it in a perpetual state of litter, no matter how often it may
be set right—his trousers here, his towels there, and his French novels