第 七 章 · Chapter VII

While I was in this bewildered frame of mind, sorely needing a little

quiet time by myself to put me right again, my daughter Penelope got in

my way (just as her late mother used to get in my way on the stairs),

and instantly summoned me to tell her all that had passed at the

conference between Mr. Franklin and me. Under present circumstances,

the one thing to be done was to clap the extinguisher upon Penelope’s

curiosity on the spot. I accordingly replied that Mr. Franklin and I

had both talked of foreign politics, till we could talk no longer, and

had then mutually fallen asleep in the heat of the sun. Try that sort

of answer when your wife or your daughter next worries you with an

awkward question at an awkward time, and depend on the natural

sweetness of women for kissing and making it up again at the next

opportunity.

The afternoon wore on, and my lady and Miss Rachel came back.

Needless to say how astonished they were, when they heard that Mr.

Franklin Blake had arrived, and had gone off again on horseback.

Needless also to say, that _they_ asked awkward questions directly, and

that the “foreign politics” and the “falling asleep in the sun”

wouldn’t serve a second time over with _them_. Being at the end of my

invention, I said Mr. Franklin’s arrival by the early train was

entirely attributable to one of Mr. Franklin’s freaks. Being asked,

upon that, whether his galloping off again on horseback was another of

Mr. Franklin’s freaks, I said, “Yes, it was;” and slipped out of it—I

think very cleverly—in that way.

Having got over my difficulties with the ladies, I found more

difficulties waiting for me when I went back to my own room. In came

Penelope—with the natural sweetness of women—to kiss and make it up

again; and—with the natural curiosity of women—to ask another question.

This time she only wanted me to tell her what was the matter with our

second housemaid, Rosanna Spearman.

After leaving Mr. Franklin and me at the Shivering Sand, Rosanna, it

appeared, had returned to the house in a very unaccountable state of

mind. She had turned (if Penelope was to be believed) all the colours

of the rainbow. She had been merry without reason, and sad without

reason. In one breath she asked hundreds of questions about Mr.

Franklin Blake, and in another breath she had been angry with Penelope

for presuming to suppose that a strange gentleman could possess any

interest for her. She had been surprised, smiling, and scribbling Mr.

Franklin’s name inside her workbox. She had been surprised again,

crying and looking at her deformed shoulder in the glass. Had she and

Mr. Franklin known anything of each other before today? Quite

impossible! Had they heard anything of each other? Impossible again! I

could speak to Mr. Franklin’s astonishment as genuine, when he saw how

the girl stared at him. Penelope could speak to the girl’s

inquisitiveness as genuine, when she asked questions about Mr.

Franklin. The conference between us, conducted in this way, was

tiresome enough, until my daughter suddenly ended it by bursting out

with what I thought the most monstrous supposition I had ever heard in

my life.

“Father!” says Penelope, quite seriously, “there’s only one explanation

of it. Rosanna has fallen in love with Mr. Franklin Blake at first

sight!”

You have heard of beautiful young ladies falling in love at first

sight, and have thought it natural enough. But a housemaid out of a

reformatory, with a plain face and a deformed shoulder, falling in

love, at first sight, with a gentleman who comes on a visit to her

mistress’s house, match me that, in the way of an absurdity, out of any

story-book in Christendom, if you can! I laughed till the tears rolled

down my cheeks. Penelope resented my merriment, in rather a strange

way. “I never knew you cruel before, father,” she said, very gently,

and went out.

My girl’s words fell upon me like a splash of cold water. I was savage

with myself, for feeling uneasy in myself the moment she had spoken

them—but so it was. We will change the subject, if you please. I am

sorry I drifted into writing about it; and not without reason, as you

will see when we have gone on together a little longer.

The evening came, and the dressing-bell for dinner rang, before Mr.

Franklin returned from Frizinghall. I took his hot water up to his room

myself, expecting to hear, after this extraordinary delay, that

something had happened. To my great disappointment (and no doubt to

yours also), nothing had happened. He had not met with the Indians,

either going or returning. He had deposited the Moonstone in the

bank—describing it merely as a valuable of great price—and he had got

the receipt for it safe in his pocket. I went downstairs, feeling that

this was rather a flat ending, after all our excitement about the

Diamond earlier in the day.

How the meeting between Mr. Franklin and his aunt and cousin went off,

is more than I can tell you.

I would have given something to have waited at table that day. But, in

my position in the household, waiting at dinner (except on high family

festivals) was letting down my dignity in the eyes of the other

servants—a thing which my lady considered me quite prone enough to do

already, without seeking occasions for it. The news brought to me from

the upper regions, that evening, came from Penelope and the footman.

Penelope mentioned that she had never known Miss Rachel so particular

about the dressing of her hair, and had never seen her look so bright

and pretty as she did when she went down to meet Mr. Franklin in the

drawing-room. The footman’s report was, that the preservation of a

respectful composure in the presence of his betters, and the waiting on

Mr. Franklin Blake at dinner, were two of the hardest things to

reconcile with each other that had ever tried his training in service.

Later in the evening, we heard them singing and playing duets, Mr.

Franklin piping high, Miss Rachel piping higher, and my lady, on the

piano, following them as it were over hedge and ditch, and seeing them

safe through it in a manner most wonderful and pleasant to hear through

the open windows, on the terrace at night. Later still, I went to Mr.

Franklin in the smoking-room, with the soda water and brandy, and found

that Miss Rachel had put the Diamond clean out of his head. “She’s the

most charming girl I have seen since I came back to England!” was all I

could extract from him, when I endeavoured to lead the conversation to

more serious things.

Towards midnight, I went round the house to lock up, accompanied by my

second in command (Samuel, the footman), as usual. When all the doors

were made fast, except the side door that opened on the terrace, I sent

Samuel to bed, and stepped out for a breath of fresh air before I too

went to bed in my turn.

The night was still and close, and the moon was at the full in the

heavens. It was so silent out of doors, that I heard from time to time,

very faint and low, the fall of the sea, as the ground-swell heaved it

in on the sand-bank near the mouth of our little bay. As the house

stood, the terrace side was the dark side; but the broad moonlight

showed fair on the gravel walk that ran along the next side to the

terrace. Looking this way, after looking up at the sky, I saw the

shadow of a person in the moonlight thrown forward from behind the

corner of the house.

Being old and sly, I forbore to call out; but being also,

unfortunately, old and heavy, my feet betrayed me on the gravel. Before

I could steal suddenly round the corner, as I had proposed, I heard

lighter feet than mine—and more than one pair of them as I

thought—retreating in a hurry. By the time I had got to the corner, the

trespassers, whoever they were, had run into the shrubbery at the off

side of the walk, and were hidden from sight among the thick trees and

bushes in that part of the grounds. From the shrubbery, they could

easily make their way, over our fence into the road. If I had been

forty years younger, I might have had a chance of catching them before

they got clear of our premises. As it was, I went back to set a-going a

younger pair of legs than mine. Without disturbing anybody, Samuel and

I got a couple of guns, and went all round the house and through the

shrubbery. Having made sure that no persons were lurking about anywhere

in our grounds, we turned back. Passing over the walk where I had seen

the shadow, I now noticed, for the first time, a little bright object,

lying on the clean gravel, under the light of the moon. Picking the

object up, I discovered it was a small bottle, containing a thick

sweet-smelling liquor, as black as ink.

I said nothing to Samuel. But, remembering what Penelope had told me

about the jugglers, and the pouring of the little pool of ink into the

palm of the boy’s hand, I instantly suspected that I had disturbed the

three Indians, lurking about the house, and bent, in their heathenish

way, on discovering the whereabouts of the Diamond that night.