Chương Chương 36 · Chapter II

“Betteredge!” I said, pointing to the well-remembered book on his knee,

“has _Robinson Crusoe_ informed you, this evening, that you might

expect to see Franklin Blake?”

“By the lord Harry, Mr. Franklin!” cried the old man, “that’s exactly

what _Robinson Crusoe_ has done!”

He struggled to his feet with my assistance, and stood for a moment,

looking backwards and forwards between _Robinson Crusoe_ and me,

apparently at a loss to discover which of us had surprised him most.

The verdict ended in favour of the book. Holding it open before him in

both hands, he surveyed the wonderful volume with a stare of

unutterable anticipation—as if he expected to see Robinson Crusoe

himself walk out of the pages, and favour us with a personal interview.

“Here’s the bit, Mr. Franklin!” he said, as soon as he had recovered

the use of his speech. “As I live by bread, sir, here’s the bit I was

reading, the moment before you came in! Page one hundred and fifty-six

as follows:—‘I stood like one Thunderstruck, or as if I had seen an

Apparition.’ If that isn’t as much as to say: ‘Expect the sudden

appearance of Mr. Franklin Blake’—there’s no meaning in the English

language!” said Betteredge, closing the book with a bang, and getting

one of his hands free at last to take the hand which I offered him.

I had expected him, naturally enough under the circumstances, to

overwhelm me with questions. But no—the hospitable impulse was the

uppermost impulse in the old servant’s mind, when a member of the

family appeared (no matter how!) as a visitor at the house.

“Walk in, Mr. Franklin,” he said, opening the door behind him, with his

quaint old-fashioned bow. “I’ll ask what brings you here afterwards—I

must make you comfortable first. There have been sad changes, since you

went away. The house is shut up, and the servants are gone. Never mind

that! I’ll cook your dinner; and the gardener’s wife will make your

bed—and if there’s a bottle of our famous Latour claret left in the

cellar, down your throat, Mr. Franklin, that bottle shall go. I bid you

welcome, sir! I bid you heartily welcome!” said the poor old fellow,

fighting manfully against the gloom of the deserted house, and

receiving me with the sociable and courteous attention of the bygone

time.

It vexed me to disappoint him. But the house was Rachel’s house, now.

Could I eat in it, or sleep in it, after what had happened in London?

The commonest sense of self-respect forbade me—properly forbade me—to

cross the threshold.

I took Betteredge by the arm, and led him out into the garden. There

was no help for it. I was obliged to tell him the truth. Between his

attachment to Rachel, and his attachment to me, he was sorely puzzled

and distressed at the turn things had taken. His opinion, when he

expressed it, was given in his usual downright manner, and was

agreeably redolent of the most positive philosophy I know—the

philosophy of the Betteredge school.

“Miss Rachel has her faults—I’ve never denied it,” he began. “And

riding the high horse, now and then, is one of them. She has been

trying to ride over _you_—and you have put up with it. Lord, Mr.

Franklin, don’t you know women by this time better than that? You have

heard me talk of the late Mrs. Betteredge?”

I had heard him talk of the late Mrs. Betteredge pretty

often—invariably producing her as his one undeniable example of the

inbred frailty and perversity of the other sex. In that capacity he

exhibited her now.

“Very well, Mr. Franklin. Now listen to me. Different women have

different ways of riding the high horse. The late Mrs. Betteredge took

her exercise on that favourite female animal whenever I happened to

deny her anything that she had set her heart on. So sure as I came home

from my work on these occasions, so sure was my wife to call to me up

the kitchen stairs, and to say that, after my brutal treatment of her,

she hadn’t the heart to cook me my dinner. I put up with it for some

time—just as you are putting up with it now from Miss Rachel. At last

my patience wore out. I went downstairs, and I took Mrs.

Betteredge—affectionately, you understand—up in my arms, and carried

her, holus-bolus, into the best parlour where she received her company.

I said ‘That’s the right place for you, my dear,’ and so went back to

the kitchen. I locked myself in, and took off my coat, and turned up my

shirt-sleeves, and cooked my own dinner. When it was done, I served it

up in my best manner, and enjoyed it most heartily. I had my pipe and

my drop of grog afterwards; and then I cleared the table, and washed

the crockery, and cleaned the knives and forks, and put the things

away, and swept up the hearth. When things were as bright and clean

again, as bright and clean could be, I opened the door and let Mrs.

Betteredge in. ‘I’ve had my dinner, my dear,’ I said; ‘and I hope you

will find that I have left the kitchen all that your fondest wishes can

desire.’ For the rest of that woman’s life, Mr. Franklin, I never had

to cook my dinner again! Moral: You have put up with Miss Rachel in

London; don’t put up with her in Yorkshire. Come back to the house!”

Quite unanswerable! I could only assure my good friend that even _his_

powers of persuasion were, in this case, thrown away on me.

“It’s a lovely evening,” I said. “I shall walk to Frizinghall, and stay

at the hotel, and you must come tomorrow morning and breakfast with me.

I have something to say to you.”

Betteredge shook his head gravely.

“I am heartily sorry for this,” he said. “I had hoped, Mr. Franklin, to

hear that things were all smooth and pleasant again between you and

Miss Rachel. If you must have your own way, sir,” he continued, after a

moment’s reflection, “there is no need to go to Frizinghall tonight for

a bed. It’s to be had nearer than that. There’s Hotherstone’s Farm,

barely two miles from here. You can hardly object to _that_ on Miss

Rachel’s account,” the old man added slily. “Hotherstone lives, Mr.

Franklin, on his own freehold.”

I remembered the place the moment Betteredge mentioned it. The

farm-house stood in a sheltered inland valley, on the banks of the

prettiest stream in that part of Yorkshire: and the farmer had a spare

bedroom and parlour, which he was accustomed to let to artists,

anglers, and tourists in general. A more agreeable place of abode,

during my stay in the neighbourhood, I could not have wished to find.

“Are the rooms to let?” I inquired.

“Mrs. Hotherstone herself, sir, asked for my good word to recommend the

rooms, yesterday.”

“I’ll take them, Betteredge, with the greatest pleasure.”

We went back to the yard, in which I had left my travelling-bag. After

putting a stick through the handle, and swinging the bag over his

shoulder, Betteredge appeared to relapse into the bewilderment which my

sudden appearance had caused, when I surprised him in the beehive

chair. He looked incredulously at the house, and then he wheeled about,

and looked more incredulously still at me.

“I’ve lived a goodish long time in the world,” said this best and

dearest of all old servants—“but the like of this, I never did expect

to see. There stands the house, and here stands Mr. Franklin Blake—and,

Damme, if one of them isn’t turning his back on the other, and going to

sleep in a lodging!”

He led the way out, wagging his head and growling ominously. “There’s

only one more miracle that _can_ happen,” he said to me, over his

shoulder. “The next thing you’ll do, Mr. Franklin, will be to pay me

back that seven-and-sixpence you borrowed of me when you were a boy.”

This stroke of sarcasm put him in a better humour with himself and with

me. We left the house, and passed through the lodge gates. Once clear

of the grounds, the duties of hospitality (in Betteredge’s code of

morals) ceased, and the privileges of curiosity began.

He dropped back, so as to let me get on a level with him. “Fine evening

for a walk, Mr. Franklin,” he said, as if we had just accidentally

encountered each other at that moment. “Supposing you had gone to the

hotel at Frizinghall, sir?”

“Yes?”

“I should have had the honour of breakfasting with you, tomorrow

morning.”

“Come and breakfast with me at Hotherstone’s Farm, instead.”

“Much obliged to you for your kindness, Mr. Franklin. But it wasn’t

exactly breakfast that I was driving at. I think you mentioned that you

had something to say to me? If it’s no secret, sir,” said Betteredge,

suddenly abandoning the crooked way, and taking the straight one, “I’m

burning to know what’s brought you down here, if you please, in this

sudden way.”

“What brought me here before?” I asked.

“The Moonstone, Mr. Franklin. But what brings you now, sir?”

“The Moonstone again, Betteredge.”

The old man suddenly stood still, and looked at me in the grey twilight

as if he suspected his own ears of deceiving him.

“If that’s a joke, sir,” he said, “I’m afraid I’m getting a little dull

in my old age. I don’t take it.”

“It’s no joke,” I answered. “I have come here to take up the inquiry

which was dropped when I left England. I have come here to do what

nobody has done yet—to find out who took the Diamond.”

“Let the Diamond be, Mr. Franklin! Take my advice, and let the Diamond

be! That cursed Indian jewel has misguided everybody who has come near

it. Don’t waste your money and your temper—in the fine spring time of

your life, sir—by meddling with the Moonstone. How can _you_ hope to

succeed (saving your presence), when Sergeant Cuff himself made a mess

of it? Sergeant Cuff!” repeated Betteredge, shaking his forefinger at

me sternly. “The greatest policeman in England!”

“My mind is made up, my old friend. Even Sergeant Cuff doesn’t daunt

me. By-the-bye, I may want to speak to him, sooner or later. Have you

heard anything of him lately?”

“The Sergeant won’t help you, Mr. Franklin.”

“Why not?”

“There has been an event, sir, in the police-circles, since you went

away. The great Cuff has retired from business. He has got a little

cottage at Dorking; and he’s up to his eyes in the growing of roses. I

have it in his own handwriting, Mr. Franklin. He has grown the white

moss rose, without budding it on the dog-rose first. And Mr. Begbie the

gardener is to go to Dorking, and own that the Sergeant has beaten him

at last.”

“It doesn’t much matter,” I said. “I must do without Sergeant Cuff’s

help. And I must trust to you, at starting.”

It is likely enough that I spoke rather carelessly.

At any rate, Betteredge seemed to be piqued by something in the reply

which I had just made to him. “You might trust to worse than me, Mr.

Franklin—I can tell you that,” he said a little sharply.

The tone in which he retorted, and a certain disturbance, after he had

spoken, which I detected in his manner, suggested to me that he was

possessed of some information which he hesitated to communicate.

“I expect you to help me,” I said, “in picking up the fragments of

evidence which Sergeant Cuff has left behind him. I know you can do

that. Can you do no more?”

“What more can you expect from me, sir?” asked Betteredge, with an

appearance of the utmost humility.

“I expect more—from what you said just now.”

“Mere boasting, Mr. Franklin,” returned the old man obstinately. “Some

people are born boasters, and they never get over it to their dying

day. I’m one of them.”

There was only one way to take with him. I appealed to his interest in

Rachel, and his interest in me.

“Betteredge, would you be glad to hear that Rachel and I were good

friends again?”

“I have served your family, sir, to mighty little purpose, if you doubt

it!”

“Do you remember how Rachel treated me, before I left England?”

“As well as if it was yesterday! My lady herself wrote you a letter

about it; and you were so good as to show the letter to me. It said

that Miss Rachel was mortally offended with you, for the part you had

taken in trying to recover her jewel. And neither my lady, nor you, nor

anybody else could guess why.

“Quite true, Betteredge! And I come back from my travels, and find her

mortally offended with me still. I knew that the Diamond was at the

bottom of it, last year, and I know that the Diamond is at the bottom

of it now. I have tried to speak to her, and she won’t see me. I have

tried to write to her, and she won’t answer me. How, in Heaven’s name,

am I to clear the matter up? The chance of searching into the loss of

the Moonstone, is the one chance of inquiry that Rachel herself has

left me.”

Those words evidently put the case before him, as he had not seen it

yet. He asked a question which satisfied me that I had shaken him.

“There is no ill-feeling in this, Mr. Franklin, on your side—is there?”

“There was some anger,” I answered, “when I left London. But that is

all worn out now. I want to make Rachel come to an understanding with

me—and I want nothing more.”

“You don’t feel any fear, sir—supposing you make any discoveries—in

regard to what you may find out about Miss Rachel?”

I understood the jealous belief in his young mistress which prompted

those words.

“I am as certain of her as you are,” I answered. “The fullest

disclosure of her secret will reveal nothing that can alter her place

in your estimation, or in mine.”

Betteredge’s last-left scruples vanished at that.

“If I am doing wrong to help you, Mr. Franklin,” he exclaimed, “all I

can say is—I am as innocent of seeing it as the babe unborn! I can put

you on the road to discovery, if you can only go on by yourself. You

remember that poor girl of ours—Rosanna Spearman?”

“Of course!”

“You always thought she had some sort of confession in regard to this

matter of the Moonstone, which she wanted to make to you?”

“I certainly couldn’t account for her strange conduct in any other

way.”

“You may set that doubt at rest, Mr. Franklin, whenever you please.”

It was my turn to come to a standstill now. I tried vainly, in the

gathering darkness, to see his face. In the surprise of the moment, I

asked a little impatiently what he meant.

“Steady, sir!” proceeded Betteredge. “I mean what I say. Rosanna

Spearman left a sealed letter behind her—a letter addressed to _you_.”

“Where is it?”

“In the possession of a friend of hers, at Cobb’s Hole. You must have

heard tell, when you were here last, sir, of Limping Lucy—a lame girl

with a crutch.”

“The fisherman’s daughter?”

“The same, Mr. Franklin.”

“Why wasn’t the letter forwarded to me?”

“Limping Lucy has a will of her own, sir. She wouldn’t give it into any

hands but yours. And you had left England before I could write to you.”

“Let’s go back, Betteredge, and get it at once!”

“Too late, sir, tonight. They’re great savers of candles along our

coast; and they go to bed early at Cobb’s Hole.”

“Nonsense! We might get there in half an hour.”

“_You_ might, sir. And when you did get there, you would find the door

locked.” He pointed to a light, glimmering below us; and, at the same

moment, I heard through the stillness of the evening the bubbling of a

stream. “There’s the Farm, Mr. Franklin! Make yourself comfortable for

tonight, and come to me tomorrow morning—if you’ll be so kind?”

“You will go with me to the fisherman’s cottage?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Early?”

“As early, Mr. Franklin, as you like.”

We descended the path that led to the Farm.