บทที่ บทที่ 24 · Chapter I

I am indebted to my dear parents (both now in heaven) for having had

habits of order and regularity instilled into me at a very early age.

In that happy bygone time, I was taught to keep my hair tidy at all

hours of the day and night, and to fold up every article of my clothing

carefully, in the same order, on the same chair, in the same place at

the foot of the bed, before retiring to rest. An entry of the day’s

events in my little diary invariably preceded the folding up. The

“Evening Hymn” (repeated in bed) invariably followed the folding up.

And the sweet sleep of childhood invariably followed the “Evening

Hymn.”

In later life (alas!) the Hymn has been succeeded by sad and bitter

meditations; and the sweet sleep has been but ill exchanged for the

broken slumbers which haunt the uneasy pillow of care. On the other

hand, I have continued to fold my clothes, and to keep my little diary.

The former habit links me to my happy childhood—before papa was ruined.

The latter habit—hitherto mainly useful in helping me to discipline the

fallen nature which we all inherit from Adam—has unexpectedly proved

important to my humble interests in quite another way. It has enabled

poor Me to serve the caprice of a wealthy member of the family into

which my late uncle married. I am fortunate enough to be useful to Mr.

Franklin Blake.

I have been cut off from all news of my relatives by marriage for some

time past. When we are isolated and poor, we are not infrequently

forgotten. I am now living, for economy’s sake, in a little town in

Brittany, inhabited by a select circle of serious English friends, and

possessed of the inestimable advantages of a Protestant clergyman and a

cheap market.

In this retirement—a Patmos amid the howling ocean of popery that

surrounds us—a letter from England has reached me at last. I find my

insignificant existence suddenly remembered by Mr. Franklin Blake. My

wealthy relative—would that I could add my spiritually-wealthy

relative!—writes, without even an attempt at disguising that he wants

something of me. The whim has seized him to stir up the deplorable

scandal of the Moonstone: and I am to help him by writing the account

of what I myself witnessed while visiting at Aunt Verinder’s house in

London. Pecuniary remuneration is offered to me—with the want of

feeling peculiar to the rich. I am to re-open wounds that Time has

barely closed; I am to recall the most intensely painful

remembrances—and this done, I am to feel myself compensated by a new

laceration, in the shape of Mr. Blake’s cheque. My nature is weak. It

cost me a hard struggle, before Christian humility conquered sinful

pride, and self-denial accepted the cheque.

Without my diary, I doubt—pray let me express it in the grossest

terms!—if I could have honestly earned my money. With my diary, the

poor labourer (who forgives Mr. Blake for insulting her) is worthy of

her hire. Nothing escaped me at the time I was visiting dear Aunt

Verinder. Everything was entered (thanks to my early training) day by

day as it happened; and everything, down to the smallest particular,

shall be told here. My sacred regard for truth is (thank God) far above

my respect for persons. It will be easy for Mr. Blake to suppress what

may not prove to be sufficiently flattering in these pages to the

person chiefly concerned in them. He has purchased my time, but not

even _his_ wealth can purchase my conscience too.*

[*Note. _Added by Franklin Blake._—Miss Clack may make her mind quite

easy on this point. Nothing will be added, altered or removed, in her

manuscript, or in any of the other manuscripts which pass through my

hands. Whatever opinions any of the writers may express, whatever

peculiarities of treatment may mark, and perhaps in a literary sense,

disfigure the narratives which I am now collecting, not a line will be

tampered with anywhere, from first to last. As genuine documents they

are sent to me—and as genuine documents I shall preserve them, endorsed

by the attestations of witnesses who can speak to the facts. It only

remains to be added that “the person chiefly concerned” in Miss Clack’s

narrative, is happy enough at the present moment, not only to brave the

smartest exercise of Miss Clack’s pen, but even to recognise its

unquestionable value as an instrument for the exhibition of Miss

Clack’s character.]

My diary informs me, that I was accidentally passing Aunt Verinder’s

house in Montagu Square, on Monday, 3rd July, 1848.

Seeing the shutters opened, and the blinds drawn up, I felt that it

would be an act of polite attention to knock, and make inquiries. The

person who answered the door, informed me that my aunt and her daughter

(I really cannot call her my cousin!) had arrived from the country a

week since, and meditated making some stay in London. I sent up a

message at once, declining to disturb them, and only begging to know

whether I could be of any use.

The person who answered the door, took my message in insolent silence,

and left me standing in the hall. She is the daughter of a heathen old

man named Betteredge—long, too long, tolerated in my aunt’s family. I

sat down in the hall to wait for my answer—and, having always a few

tracts in my bag, I selected one which proved to be quite

providentially applicable to the person who answered the door. The hall

was dirty, and the chair was hard; but the blessed consciousness of

returning good for evil raised me quite above any trifling

considerations of that kind. The tract was one of a series addressed to

young women on the sinfulness of dress. In style it was devoutly

familiar. Its title was, “A Word With You On Your Cap-Ribbons.”

“My lady is much obliged, and begs you will come and lunch tomorrow at

two.”

I passed over the manner in which she gave her message, and the

dreadful boldness of her look. I thanked this young castaway; and I

said, in a tone of Christian interest, “Will you favour me by accepting

a tract?”

She looked at the title. “Is it written by a man or a woman, Miss? If

it’s written by a woman, I had rather not read it on that account. If

it’s written by a man, I beg to inform him that he knows nothing about

it.” She handed me back the tract, and opened the door. We must sow the

good seed somehow. I waited till the door was shut on me, and slipped

the tract into the letter-box. When I had dropped another tract through

the area railings, I felt relieved, in some small degree, of a heavy

responsibility towards others.

We had a meeting that evening of the Select Committee of the

Mothers’-Small-Clothes-Conversion-Society. The object of this excellent

Charity is—as all serious people know—to rescue unredeemed fathers’

trousers from the pawnbroker, and to prevent their resumption, on the

part of the irreclaimable parent, by abridging them immediately to suit

the proportions of the innocent son. I was a member, at that time, of

the select committee; and I mention the Society here, because my

precious and admirable friend, Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite, was associated

with our work of moral and material usefulness. I had expected to see

him in the boardroom, on the Monday evening of which I am now writing,

and had proposed to tell him, when we met, of dear Aunt Verinder’s

arrival in London. To my great disappointment he never appeared. On my

expressing a feeling of surprise at his absence, my sisters of the

Committee all looked up together from their trousers (we had a great

pressure of business that night), and asked in amazement, if I had not

heard the news. I acknowledged my ignorance, and was then told, for the

first time, of an event which forms, so to speak, the starting-point of

this narrative. On the previous Friday, two gentlemen—occupying

widely-different positions in society—had been the victims of an

outrage which had startled all London. One of the gentlemen was Mr.

Septimus Luker, of Lambeth. The other was Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite.

Living in my present isolation, I have no means of introducing the

newspaper-account of the outrage into my narrative. I was also

deprived, at the time, of the inestimable advantage of hearing the

events related by the fervid eloquence of Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite. All I

can do is to state the facts as they were stated, on that Monday

evening, to me; proceeding on the plan which I have been taught from

infancy to adopt in folding up my clothes. Everything shall be put

neatly, and everything shall be put in its place. These lines are

written by a poor weak woman. From a poor weak woman who will be cruel

enough to expect more?

The date—thanks to my dear parents, no dictionary that ever was written

can be more particular than I am about dates—was Friday, June 30th,

1848.

Early on that memorable day, our gifted Mr. Godfrey happened to be

cashing a cheque at a banking-house in Lombard Street. The name of the

firm is accidentally blotted in my diary, and my sacred regard for

truth forbids me to hazard a guess in a matter of this kind.

Fortunately, the name of the firm doesn’t matter. What does matter is a

circumstance that occurred when Mr. Godfrey had transacted his

business. On gaining the door, he encountered a gentleman—a perfect

stranger to him—who was accidentally leaving the office exactly at the

same time as himself. A momentary contest of politeness ensued between

them as to who should be the first to pass through the door of the

bank. The stranger insisted on making Mr. Godfrey precede him; Mr.

Godfrey said a few civil words; they bowed, and parted in the street.

Thoughtless and superficial people may say, Here is surely a very

trumpery little incident related in an absurdly circumstantial manner.

Oh, my young friends and fellow-sinners! beware of presuming to

exercise your poor carnal reason. Oh, be morally tidy. Let your faith

be as your stockings, and your stockings as your faith. Both ever

spotless, and both ready to put on at a moment’s notice!

I beg a thousand pardons. I have fallen insensibly into my

Sunday-school style. Most inappropriate in such a record as this. Let

me try to be worldly—let me say that trifles, in this case as in many

others, led to terrible results. Merely premising that the polite

stranger was Mr. Luker, of Lambeth, we will now follow Mr. Godfrey home

to his residence at Kilburn.

He found waiting for him, in the hall, a poorly clad but delicate and

interesting-looking little boy. The boy handed him a letter, merely

mentioning that he had been entrusted with it by an old lady whom he

did not know, and who had given him no instructions to wait for an

answer. Such incidents as these were not uncommon in Mr. Godfrey’s

large experience as a promoter of public charities. He let the boy go,

and opened the letter.

The handwriting was entirely unfamiliar to him. It requested his

attendance, within an hour’s time, at a house in Northumberland Street,

Strand, which he had never had occasion to enter before. The object

sought was to obtain from the worthy manager certain details on the

subject of the Mothers’-Small-Clothes-Conversion-Society, and the

information was wanted by an elderly lady who proposed adding largely

to the resources of the charity, if her questions were met by

satisfactory replies. She mentioned her name, and she added that the

shortness of her stay in London prevented her from giving any longer

notice to the eminent philanthropist whom she addressed.

Ordinary people might have hesitated before setting aside their own

engagements to suit the convenience of a stranger. The Christian Hero

never hesitates where good is to be done. Mr. Godfrey instantly turned

back, and proceeded to the house in Northumberland Street. A most

respectable though somewhat corpulent man answered the door, and, on

hearing Mr. Godfrey’s name, immediately conducted him into an empty

apartment at the back, on the drawing-room floor. He noticed two

unusual things on entering the room. One of them was a faint odour of

musk and camphor. The other was an ancient Oriental manuscript, richly

illuminated with Indian figures and devices, that lay open to

inspection on a table.

He was looking at the book, the position of which caused him to stand

with his back turned towards the closed folding doors communicating

with the front room, when, without the slightest previous noise to warn

him, he felt himself suddenly seized round the neck from behind. He had

just time to notice that the arm round his neck was naked and of a

tawny-brown colour, before his eyes were bandaged, his mouth was

gagged, and he was thrown helpless on the floor by (as he judged) two

men. A third rifled his pockets, and—if, as a lady, I may venture to

use such an expression—searched him, without ceremony, through and

through to his skin.

Here I should greatly enjoy saying a few cheering words on the devout

confidence which could alone have sustained Mr. Godfrey in an emergency

so terrible as this. Perhaps, however, the position and appearance of

my admirable friend at the culminating period of the outrage (as above

described) are hardly within the proper limits of female discussion.

Let me pass over the next few moments, and return to Mr. Godfrey at the

time when the odious search of his person had been completed. The

outrage had been perpetrated throughout in dead silence. At the end of

it some words were exchanged, among the invisible wretches, in a

language which he did not understand, but in tones which were plainly

expressive (to his cultivated ear) of disappointment and rage. He was

suddenly lifted from the ground, placed in a chair, and bound there

hand and foot. The next moment he felt the air flowing in from the open

door, listened, and concluded that he was alone again in the room.

An interval elapsed, and he heard a sound below like the rustling sound

of a woman’s dress. It advanced up the stairs, and stopped. A female

scream rent the atmosphere of guilt. A man’s voice below exclaimed

“Hullo!” A man’s feet ascended the stairs. Mr. Godfrey felt Christian

fingers unfastening his bandage, and extracting his gag. He looked in

amazement at two respectable strangers, and faintly articulated, “What

does it mean?” The two respectable strangers looked back, and said,

“Exactly the question we were going to ask _you_.”

The inevitable explanation followed. No! Let me be scrupulously

particular. Sal volatile and water followed, to compose dear Mr.

Godfrey’s nerves. The explanation came next.

It appeared from the statement of the landlord and landlady of the

house (persons of good repute in the neighbourhood), that their first

and second floor apartments had been engaged, on the previous day, for

a week certain, by a most respectable-looking gentleman—the same who

has been already described as answering the door to Mr. Godfrey’s

knock. The gentleman had paid the week’s rent and all the week’s extras

in advance, stating that the apartments were wanted for three Oriental

noblemen, friends of his, who were visiting England for the first time.

Early on the morning of the outrage, two of the Oriental strangers,

accompanied by their respectable English friend, took possession of the

apartments. The third was expected to join them shortly; and the

luggage (reported as very bulky) was announced to follow when it had

passed through the Custom-house, late in the afternoon. Not more than

ten minutes previous to Mr. Godfrey’s visit, the third foreigner had

arrived. Nothing out of the common had happened, to the knowledge of

the landlord and landlady downstairs, until within the last five

minutes—when they had seen the three foreigners, accompanied by their

respectable English friend, all leave the house together, walking

quietly in the direction of the Strand. Remembering that a visitor had

called, and not having seen the visitor also leave the house, the

landlady had thought it rather strange that the gentleman should be

left by himself upstairs. After a short discussion with her husband,

she had considered it advisable to ascertain whether anything was

wrong. The result had followed, as I have already attempted to describe

it; and there the explanation of the landlord and the landlady came to

an end.

An investigation was next made in the room. Dear Mr. Godfrey’s property

was found scattered in all directions. When the articles were

collected, however, nothing was missing; his watch, chain, purse, keys,

pocket-handkerchief, note-book, and all his loose papers had been

closely examined, and had then been left unharmed to be resumed by the

owner. In the same way, not the smallest morsel of property belonging

to the proprietors of the house had been abstracted. The Oriental

noblemen had removed their own illuminated manuscript, and had removed

nothing else.

What did it mean? Taking the worldly point of view, it appeared to mean

that Mr. Godfrey had been the victim of some incomprehensible error,

committed by certain unknown men. A dark conspiracy was on foot in the

midst of us; and our beloved and innocent friend had been entangled in

its meshes. When the Christian hero of a hundred charitable victories

plunges into a pitfall that has been dug for him by mistake, oh, what a

warning it is to the rest of us to be unceasingly on our guard! How

soon may our own evil passions prove to be Oriental noblemen who pounce

on us unawares!

I could write pages of affectionate warning on this one theme, but

(alas!) I am not permitted to improve—I am condemned to narrate. My

wealthy relative’s cheque—henceforth, the incubus of my existence—warns

me that I have not done with this record of violence yet. We must leave

Mr. Godfrey to recover in Northumberland Street, and must follow the

proceedings of Mr. Luker at a later period of the day.

After leaving the bank, Mr. Luker had visited various parts of London

on business errands. Returning to his own residence, he found a letter

waiting for him, which was described as having been left a short time

previously by a boy. In this case, as in Mr. Godfrey’s case, the

handwriting was strange; but the name mentioned was the name of one of

Mr. Luker’s customers. His correspondent announced (writing in the

third person—apparently by the hand of a deputy) that he had been

unexpectedly summoned to London. He had just established himself in

lodgings in Alfred Place, Tottenham Court Road; and he desired to see

Mr. Luker immediately, on the subject of a purchase which he

contemplated making. The gentleman was an enthusiastic collector of

Oriental antiquities, and had been for many years a liberal patron of

the establishment in Lambeth. Oh, when shall we wean ourselves from the

worship of Mammon! Mr. Luker called a cab, and drove off instantly to

his liberal patron.

Exactly what had happened to Mr. Godfrey in Northumberland Street now

happened to Mr. Luker in Alfred Place. Once more the respectable man

answered the door, and showed the visitor upstairs into the back

drawing-room. There, again, lay the illuminated manuscript on a table.

Mr. Luker’s attention was absorbed, as Mr. Godfrey’s attention had been

absorbed, by this beautiful work of Indian art. He too was aroused from

his studies by a tawny naked arm round his throat, by a bandage over

his eyes, and by a gag in his mouth. He too was thrown prostrate and

searched to the skin. A longer interval had then elapsed than had

passed in the experience of Mr. Godfrey; but it had ended as before, in

the persons of the house suspecting something wrong, and going upstairs

to see what had happened. Precisely the same explanation which the

landlord in Northumberland Street had given to Mr. Godfrey, the

landlord in Alfred Place now gave to Mr. Luker. Both had been imposed

on in the same way by the plausible address and well-filled purse of

the respectable stranger, who introduced himself as acting for his

foreign friends. The one point of difference between the two cases

occurred when the scattered contents of Mr. Luker’s pockets were being

collected from the floor. His watch and purse were safe, but (less

fortunate than Mr. Godfrey) one of the loose papers that he carried

about him had been taken away. The paper in question acknowledged the

receipt of a valuable of great price which Mr. Luker had that day left

in the care of his bankers. This document would be useless for purposes

of fraud, inasmuch as it provided that the valuable should only be

given up on the personal application of the owner. As soon as he

recovered himself, Mr. Luker hurried to the bank, on the chance that

the thieves who had robbed him might ignorantly present themselves with

the receipt. Nothing had been seen of them when he arrived at the

establishment, and nothing was seen of them afterwards. Their

respectable English friend had (in the opinion of the bankers) looked

the receipt over before they attempted to make use of it, and had given

them the necessary warning in good time.

Information of both outrages was communicated to the police, and the

needful investigations were pursued, I believe, with great energy. The

authorities held that a robbery had been planned, on insufficient

information received by the thieves. They had been plainly not sure

whether Mr. Luker had, or had not, trusted the transmission of his

precious gem to another person; and poor polite Mr. Godfrey had paid

the penalty of having been seen accidentally speaking to him. Add to

this, that Mr. Godfrey’s absence from our Monday evening meeting had

been occasioned by a consultation of the authorities, at which he was

requested to assist—and all the explanations required being now given,

I may proceed with the simpler story of my own little personal

experiences in Montagu Square.

I was punctual to the luncheon hour on Tuesday. Reference to my diary

shows this to have been a chequered day—much in it to be devoutly

regretted, much in it to be devoutly thankful for.

Dear Aunt Verinder received me with her usual grace and kindness. But I

noticed, after a little while, that something was wrong. Certain

anxious looks escaped my aunt, all of which took the direction of her

daughter. I never see Rachel myself without wondering how it can be

that so insignificant-looking a person should be the child of such

distinguished parents as Sir John and Lady Verinder. On this occasion,

however, she not only disappointed—she really shocked me. There was an

absence of all lady-like restraint in her language and manner most

painful to see. She was possessed by some feverish excitement which

made her distressingly loud when she laughed, and sinfully wasteful and

capricious in what she ate and drank at lunch. I felt deeply for her

poor mother, even before the true state of the case had been

confidentially made known to me.

Luncheon over, my aunt said: “Remember what the doctor told you,

Rachel, about quieting yourself with a book after taking your meals.”

“I’ll go into the library, mamma,” she answered. “But if Godfrey calls,

mind I am told of it. I am dying for more news of him, after his

adventure in Northumberland Street.” She kissed her mother on the

forehead, and looked my way. “Good-bye, Clack,” she said, carelessly.

Her insolence roused no angry feeling in me; I only made a private

memorandum to pray for her.

When we were left by ourselves, my aunt told me the whole horrible

story of the Indian Diamond, which, I am happy to know, it is not

necessary to repeat here. She did not conceal from me that she would

have preferred keeping silence on the subject. But when her own

servants all knew of the loss of the Moonstone, and when some of the

circumstances had actually found their way into the newspapers—when

strangers were speculating whether there was any connection between

what had happened at Lady Verinder’s country house, and what had

happened in Northumberland Street and Alfred Place—concealment was not

to be thought of; and perfect frankness became a necessity as well as a

virtue.

Some persons, hearing what I now heard, would have been probably

overwhelmed with astonishment. For my own part, knowing Rachel’s spirit

to have been essentially unregenerate from her childhood upwards, I was

prepared for whatever my aunt could tell me on the subject of her

daughter. It might have gone on from bad to worse till it ended in

Murder; and I should still have said to myself, The natural result! oh,

dear, dear, the natural result! The one thing that _did_ shock me was

the course my aunt had taken under the circumstances. Here surely was a

case for a clergyman, if ever there was one yet! Lady Verinder had

thought it a case for a physician. All my poor aunt’s early life had

been passed in her father’s godless household. The natural result

again! Oh, dear, dear, the natural result again!

“The doctors recommend plenty of exercise and amusement for Rachel, and

strongly urge me to keep her mind as much as possible from dwelling on

the past,” said Lady Verinder.

“Oh, what heathen advice!” I thought to myself. “In this Christian

country, what heathen advice!”

My aunt went on, “I do my best to carry out my instructions. But this

strange adventure of Godfrey’s happens at a most unfortunate time.

Rachel has been incessantly restless and excited since she first heard

of it. She left me no peace till I had written and asked my nephew

Ablewhite to come here. She even feels an interest in the other person

who was roughly used—Mr. Luker, or some such name—though the man is, of

course, a total stranger to her.”

“Your knowledge of the world, dear aunt, is superior to mine,” I

suggested diffidently. “But there must be a reason surely for this

extraordinary conduct on Rachel’s part. She is keeping a sinful secret

from you and from everybody. May there not be something in these recent

events which threatens her secret with discovery?”

“Discovery?” repeated my aunt. “What can you possibly mean? Discovery

through Mr. Luker? Discovery through my nephew?”

As the word passed her lips, a special providence occurred. The servant

opened the door, and announced Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite.