The Moonstone
As for myself, after some little remission of my pains for the last two
days I had an attack this morning, of which I shall say nothing but
that it has decided me to return to the opium. I shall close this book,
and take my full dose—five hundred drops.
June 22nd.—Our prospects look better today. Mr. Blake’s nervous
suffering is greatly allayed. He slept a little last night. _My_ night,
thanks to the opium, was the night of a man who is stunned. I can’t say
that I woke this morning; the fitter expression would be, that I
recovered my senses.
We drove to the house to see if the refurnishing was done. It will be
completed tomorrow—Saturday. As Mr. Blake foretold, Betteredge raised
no further obstacles. From first to last, he was ominously polite, and
ominously silent.
My medical enterprise (as Betteredge calls it) must now, inevitably, be
delayed until Monday next. Tomorrow evening the workmen will be late in
the house. On the next day, the established Sunday tyranny which is one
of the institutions of this free country, so times the trains as to
make it impossible to ask anybody to travel to us from London. Until
Monday comes, there is nothing to be done but to watch Mr. Blake
carefully, and to keep him, if possible, in the same state in which I
find him today.
In the meanwhile, I have prevailed on him to write to Mr. Bruff, making
a point of it that he shall be present as one of the witnesses. I
especially choose the lawyer, because he is strongly prejudiced against
us. If we convince _him_, we place our victory beyond the possibility
of dispute.
Mr. Blake has also written to Sergeant Cuff; and I have sent a line to
Miss Verinder. With these, and with old Betteredge (who is really a
person of importance in the family) we shall have witnesses enough for
the purpose—without including Mrs. Merridew, if Mrs. Merridew persists
in sacrificing herself to the opinion of the world.
June 23rd.—The vengeance of the opium overtook me again last night. No
matter; I must go on with it now till Monday is past and gone.
Mr. Blake is not so well again today. At two this morning, he confesses
that he opened the drawer in which his cigars are put away. He only
succeeded in locking it up again by a violent effort. His next
proceeding, in case of temptation, was to throw the key out of window.
The waiter brought it in this morning, discovered at the bottom of an
empty cistern—such is Fate! I have taken possession of the key until
Tuesday next.
June 24th.—Mr. Blake and I took a long drive in an open carriage. We
both felt beneficially the blessed influence of the soft summer air. I
dined with him at the hotel. To my great relief—for I found him in an
over-wrought, over-excited state this morning—he had two hours’ sound
sleep on the sofa after dinner. If he has another bad night, now—I am
not afraid of the consequences.
June 25th, Monday.—The day of the experiment! It is five o’clock in the
afternoon. We have just arrived at the house.
The first and foremost question, is the question of Mr. Blake’s health.
So far as it is possible for me to judge, he promises (physically
speaking) to be quite as susceptible to the action of the opium tonight
as he was at this time last year. He is, this afternoon, in a state of
nervous sensitiveness which just stops short of nervous irritation. He
changes colour readily; his hand is not quite steady; and he starts at
chance noises, and at unexpected appearances of persons and things.
These results have all been produced by deprivation of sleep, which is
in its turn the nervous consequence of a sudden cessation in the habit
of smoking, after that habit has been carried to an extreme. Here are
the same causes at work again, which operated last year; and here are,
apparently, the same effects. Will the parallel still hold good, when
the final test has been tried? The events of the night must decide.
While I write these lines, Mr. Blake is amusing himself at the billiard
table in the inner hall, practising different strokes in the game, as
he was accustomed to practise them when he was a guest in this house in
June last. I have brought my journal here, partly with a view to
occupying the idle hours which I am sure to have on my hands between
this and tomorrow morning; partly in the hope that something may happen
which it may be worth my while to place on record at the time.
Have I omitted anything, thus far? A glance at yesterday’s entry shows
me that I have forgotten to note the arrival of the morning’s post. Let
me set this right before I close these leaves for the present, and join
Mr. Blake.
I received a few lines then, yesterday, from Miss Verinder. She has
arranged to travel by the afternoon train, as I recommended. Mrs.
Merridew has insisted on accompanying her. The note hints that the old
lady’s generally excellent temper is a little ruffled, and requests all
due indulgence for her, in consideration of her age and her habits. I
will endeavour, in my relations with Mrs. Merridew, to emulate the
moderation which Betteredge displays in his relations with me. He
received us today, portentously arrayed in his best black suit, and his
stiffest white cravat. Whenever he looks my way, he remembers that I
have not read _Robinson Crusoe_ since I was a child, and he
respectfully pities me.
Yesterday, also, Mr. Blake had the lawyer’s answer. Mr. Bruff accepts
the invitation—under protest. It is, he thinks, clearly necessary that
a gentleman possessed of the average allowance of common sense, should
accompany Miss Verinder to the scene of, what we will venture to call,
the proposed exhibition. For want of a better escort, Mr. Bruff himself
will be that gentleman.—So here is poor Miss Verinder provided with two
“chaperones.” It is a relief to think that the opinion of the world
must surely be satisfied with this!
Nothing has been heard of Sergeant Cuff. He is no doubt still in
Ireland. We must not expect to see him tonight.
Betteredge has just come in, to say that Mr. Blake has asked for me. I
must lay down my pen for the present.
Seven o’clock.—We have been all over the refurnished rooms and
staircases again; and we have had a pleasant stroll in the shrubbery,
which was Mr. Blake’s favourite walk when he was here last. In this
way, I hope to revive the old impressions of places and things as
vividly as possible in his mind.
We are now going to dine, exactly at the hour at which the birthday
dinner was given last year. My object, of course, is a purely medical
one in this case. The laudanum must find the process of digestion, as
nearly as may be, where the laudanum found it last year.
At a reasonable time after dinner I propose to lead the conversation
back again—as inartificially as I can—to the subject of the Diamond,
and of the Indian conspiracy to steal it. When I have filled his mind
with these topics, I shall have done all that it is in my power to do,
before the time comes for giving him the second dose.
Half-past eight.—I have only this moment found an opportunity of
attending to the most important duty of all; the duty of looking in the
family medicine chest, for the laudanum which Mr. Candy used last year.
Ten minutes since, I caught Betteredge at an unoccupied moment, and
told him what I wanted. Without a word of objection, without so much as
an attempt to produce his pocket-book, he led the way (making
allowances for me at every step) to the store-room in which the
medicine chest is kept.
I discovered the bottle, carefully guarded by a glass stopper tied over
with leather. The preparation which it contained was, as I had
anticipated, the common Tincture of Opium. Finding the bottle still
well filled, I have resolved to use it, in preference to employing
either of the two preparations with which I had taken care to provide
myself, in case of emergency.
The question of the quantity which I am to administer presents certain
difficulties. I have thought it over, and have decided on increasing
the dose.
My notes inform me that Mr. Candy only administered twenty-five minims.
This is a small dose to have produced the results which followed—even
in the case of a person so sensitive as Mr. Blake. I think it highly
probable that Mr. Candy gave more than he supposed himself to have
given—knowing, as I do, that he has a keen relish of the pleasures of
the table, and that he measured out the laudanum on the birthday, after
dinner. In any case, I shall run the risk of enlarging the dose to
forty minims. On this occasion, Mr. Blake knows beforehand that he is
going to take the laudanum—which is equivalent, physiologically
speaking, to his having (unconsciously to himself) a certain capacity
in him to resist the effects. If my view is right, a larger quantity is
therefore imperatively required, this time, to repeat the results which
the smaller quantity produced, last year.
Ten o’clock.—The witnesses, or the company (which shall I call them?)
reached the house an hour since.
A little before nine o’clock, I prevailed on Mr. Blake to accompany me
to his bedroom; stating, as a reason, that I wished him to look round
it, for the last time, in order to make quite sure that nothing had
been forgotten in the refurnishing of the room. I had previously
arranged with Betteredge, that the bedchamber prepared for Mr. Bruff
should be the next room to Mr. Blake’s, and that I should be informed
of the lawyer’s arrival by a knock at the door. Five minutes after the
clock in the hall had struck nine, I heard the knock; and, going out
immediately, met Mr. Bruff in the corridor.
My personal appearance (as usual) told against me. Mr. Bruff’s distrust
looked at me plainly enough out of Mr. Bruff’s eyes. Being well used to
producing this effect on strangers, I did not hesitate a moment in
saying what I wanted to say, before the lawyer found his way into Mr.
Blake’s room.
“You have travelled here, I believe, in company with Mrs. Merridew and
Miss Verinder?” I said.
“Yes,” answered Mr. Bruff, as drily as might be.
“Miss Verinder has probably told you, that I wish her presence in the
house (and Mrs. Merridew’s presence of course) to be kept a secret from
Mr. Blake, until my experiment on him has been tried first?”
“I know that I am to hold my tongue, sir!” said Mr. Bruff, impatiently.
“Being habitually silent on the subject of human folly, I am all the
readier to keep my lips closed on this occasion. Does that satisfy
you?”
I bowed, and left Betteredge to show him to his room. Betteredge gave
me one look at parting, which said, as if in so many words, “You have
caught a Tartar, Mr. Jennings—and the name of him is Bruff.”
It was next necessary to get the meeting over with the two ladies. I
descended the stairs—a little nervously, I confess—on my way to Miss
Verinder’s sitting-room.
The gardener’s wife (charged with looking after the accommodation of
the ladies) met me in the first-floor corridor. This excellent woman
treats me with an excessive civility which is plainly the offspring of
down-right terror. She stares, trembles, and curtseys, whenever I speak
to her. On my asking for Miss Verinder, she stared, trembled, and would
no doubt have curtseyed next, if Miss Verinder herself had not cut that
ceremony short, by suddenly opening her sitting-room door.
“Is that Mr. Jennings?” she asked.
Before I could answer, she came out eagerly to speak to me in the
corridor. We met under the light of a lamp on a bracket. At the first
sight of me, Miss Verinder stopped, and hesitated. She recovered
herself instantly, coloured for a moment—and then, with a charming
frankness, offered me her hand.
“I can’t treat you like a stranger, Mr. Jennings,” she said. “Oh, if
you only knew how happy your letters have made me!”