Kabanata Kabanata 20 · Chapter XX

Those in front had spread the news before us. We found the servants in

a state of panic. As we passed my lady’s door, it was thrown open

violently from the inner side. My mistress came out among us (with Mr.

Franklin following, and trying vainly to compose her), quite beside

herself with the horror of the thing.

“You are answerable for this!” she cried out, threatening the Sergeant

wildly with her hand. “Gabriel! give that wretch his money—and release

me from the sight of him!”

The Sergeant was the only one among us who was fit to cope with

her—being the only one among us who was in possession of himself.

“I am no more answerable for this distressing calamity, my lady, than

you are,” he said. “If, in half an hour from this, you still insist on

my leaving the house, I will accept your ladyship’s dismissal, but not

your ladyship’s money.”

It was spoken very respectfully, but very firmly at the same time—and

it had its effect on my mistress as well as on me. She suffered Mr.

Franklin to lead her back into the room. As the door closed on the two,

the Sergeant, looking about among the women-servants in his observant

way, noticed that while all the rest were merely frightened, Penelope

was in tears. “When your father has changed his wet clothes,” he said

to her, “come and speak to us, in your father’s room.”

Before the half-hour was out, I had got my dry clothes on, and had lent

Sergeant Cuff such change of dress as he required. Penelope came in to

us to hear what the Sergeant wanted with her. I don’t think I ever felt

what a good dutiful daughter I had, so strongly as I felt it at that

moment. I took her and sat her on my knee and I prayed God bless her.

She hid her head on my bosom, and put her arms round my neck—and we

waited a little while in silence. The poor dead girl must have been at

the bottom of it, I think, with my daughter and with me. The Sergeant

went to the window, and stood there looking out. I thought it right to

thank him for considering us both in this way—and I did.

People in high life have all the luxuries to themselves—among others,

the luxury of indulging their feelings. People in low life have no such

privilege. Necessity, which spares our betters, has no pity on _us_. We

learn to put our feelings back into ourselves, and to jog on with our

duties as patiently as may be. I don’t complain of this—I only notice

it. Penelope and I were ready for the Sergeant, as soon as the Sergeant

was ready on his side. Asked if she knew what had led her

fellow-servant to destroy herself, my daughter answered (as you will

foresee) that it was for love of Mr. Franklin Blake. Asked next, if she

had mentioned this notion of hers to any other person, Penelope

answered, “I have not mentioned it, for Rosanna’s sake.” I felt it

necessary to add a word to this. I said, “And for Mr. Franklin’s sake,

my dear, as well. If Rosanna _has_ died for love of him, it is not with

his knowledge or by his fault. Let him leave the house today, if he

does leave it, without the useless pain of knowing the truth.” Sergeant

Cuff said, “Quite right,” and fell silent again; comparing Penelope’s

notion (as it seemed to me) with some other notion of his own which he

kept to himself.

At the end of the half-hour, my mistress’s bell rang.

On my way to answer it, I met Mr. Franklin coming out of his aunt’s

sitting-room. He mentioned that her ladyship was ready to see Sergeant

Cuff—in my presence as before—and he added that he himself wanted to

say two words to the Sergeant first. On our way back to my room, he

stopped, and looked at the railway time-table in the hall.

“Are you really going to leave us, sir?” I asked. “Miss Rachel will

surely come right again, if you only give her time?”

“She will come right again,” answered Mr. Franklin, “when she hears

that I have gone away, and that she will see me no more.”

I thought he spoke in resentment of my young lady’s treatment of him.

But it was not so. My mistress had noticed, from the time when the

police first came into the house, that the bare mention of him was

enough to set Miss Rachel’s temper in a flame. He had been too fond of

his cousin to like to confess this to himself, until the truth had been

forced on him, when she drove off to her aunt’s. His eyes once opened

in that cruel way which you know of, Mr. Franklin had taken his

resolution—the one resolution which a man of any spirit _could_ take—to

leave the house.

What he had to say to the Sergeant was spoken in my presence. He

described her ladyship as willing to acknowledge that she had spoken

over-hastily. And he asked if Sergeant Cuff would consent—in that

case—to accept his fee, and to leave the matter of the Diamond where

the matter stood now. The Sergeant answered, “No, sir. My fee is paid

me for doing my duty. I decline to take it, until my duty is done.”

“I don’t understand you,” says Mr. Franklin.

“I’ll explain myself, sir,” says the Sergeant. “When I came here, I

undertook to throw the necessary light on the matter of the missing

Diamond. I am now ready, and waiting to redeem my pledge. When I have

stated the case to Lady Verinder as the case now stands, and when I

have told her plainly what course of action to take for the recovery of

the Moonstone, the responsibility will be off my shoulders. Let her

ladyship decide, after that, whether she does, or does not, allow me to

go on. I shall then have done what I undertook to do—and I’ll take my

fee.”

In those words Sergeant Cuff reminded us that, even in the Detective

Police, a man may have a reputation to lose.

The view he took was so plainly the right one, that there was no more

to be said. As I rose to conduct him to my lady’s room, he asked if Mr.

Franklin wished to be present. Mr. Franklin answered, “Not unless Lady

Verinder desires it.” He added, in a whisper to me, as I was following

the Sergeant out, “I know what that man is going to say about Rachel;

and I am too fond of her to hear it, and keep my temper. Leave me by

myself.”

I left him, miserable enough, leaning on the sill of my window, with

his face hidden in his hands and Penelope peeping through the door,

longing to comfort him. In Mr. Franklin’s place, I should have called

her in. When you are ill-used by one woman, there is great comfort in

telling it to another—because, nine times out of ten, the other always

takes your side. Perhaps, when my back was turned, he did call her in?

In that case it is only doing my daughter justice to declare that she

would stick at nothing, in the way of comforting Mr. Franklin Blake.

In the meantime, Sergeant Cuff and I proceeded to my lady’s room.

At the last conference we had held with her, we had found her not over

willing to lift her eyes from the book which she had on the table. On

this occasion there was a change for the better. She met the Sergeant’s

eye with an eye that was as steady as his own. The family spirit showed

itself in every line of her face; and I knew that Sergeant Cuff would

meet his match, when a woman like my mistress was strung up to hear the

worst he could say to her.