The Moonstone

by Wilkie Collins

  CHAPTER XVII

  Nothing happened in the night; and (I am happy to add) no attempt atcommunication between Miss Rachel and Rosanna rewarded the vigilance ofSergeant Cuff.

  I had expected the Sergeant to set off for Frizinghall the first thingin the morning. He waited about, however, as if he had something elseto do first. I left him to his own devices; and going into the groundsshortly after, met Mr. Franklin on his favourite walk by the shrubberyside.

  Before we had exchanged two words, the Sergeant unexpectedly joinedus. He made up to Mr. Franklin, who received him, I must own, haughtilyenough. "Have you anything to say to me?" was all the return he got forpolitely wishing Mr. Franklin good morning.

  "I have something to say to you, sir," answered the Sergeant, "on thesubject of the inquiry I am conducting here. You detected the turnthat inquiry was really taking, yesterday. Naturally enough, in yourposition, you are shocked and distressed. Naturally enough, also, youvisit your own angry sense of your own family scandal upon Me."

  "What do you want?" Mr. Franklin broke in, sharply enough.

  "I want to remind you, sir, that I have at any rate, thus far, not beenPROVED to be wrong. Bearing that in mind, be pleased to remember, atthe same time, that I am an officer of the law acting here under thesanction of the mistress of the house. Under these circumstances, is it,or is it not, your duty as a good citizen, to assist me with any specialinformation which you may happen to possess?"

  "I possess no special information," says Mr. Franklin.

  Sergeant Cuff put that answer by him, as if no answer had been made.

  "You may save my time, sir, from being wasted on an inquiry at adistance," he went on, "if you choose to understand me and speak out."

  "I don't understand you," answered Mr. Franklin; "and I have nothing tosay."

  "One of the female servants (I won't mention names) spoke to youprivately, sir, last night."

  Once more Mr. Franklin cut him short; once more Mr. Franklin answered,"I have nothing to say."

  Standing by in silence, I thought of the movement in the swing-dooron the previous evening, and of the coat-tails which I had seendisappearing down the passage. Sergeant Cuff had, no doubt, just heardenough, before I interrupted him, to make him suspect that Rosanna hadrelieved her mind by confessing something to Mr. Franklin Blake.

  This notion had barely struck me--when who should appear at the end ofthe shrubbery walk but Rosanna Spearman in her own proper person! Shewas followed by Penelope, who was evidently trying to make her retraceher steps to the house. Seeing that Mr. Franklin was not alone, Rosannacame to a standstill, evidently in great perplexity what to do next.Penelope waited behind her. Mr. Franklin saw the girls as soon as Isaw them. The Sergeant, with his devilish cunning, took on not to havenoticed them at all. All this happened in an instant. Before either Mr.Franklin or I could say a word, Sergeant Cuff struck in smoothly, withan appearance of continuing the previous conversation.

  "You needn't be afraid of harming the girl, sir," he said to Mr.Franklin, speaking in a loud voice, so that Rosanna might hear him. "Onthe contrary, I recommend you to honour me with your confidence, if youfeel any interest in Rosanna Spearman."

  Mr. Franklin instantly took on not to have noticed the girls either. Heanswered, speaking loudly on his side:

  "I take no interest whatever in Rosanna Spearman."

  I looked towards the end of the walk. All I saw at the distance wasthat Rosanna suddenly turned round, the moment Mr. Franklin had spoken.Instead of resisting Penelope, as she had done the moment before, shenow let my daughter take her by the arm and lead her back to the house.

  The breakfast-bell rang as the two girls disappeared--and even SergeantCuff was now obliged to give it up as a bad job! He said to me quietly,"I shall go to Frizinghall, Mr. Betteredge; and I shall be back beforetwo." He went his way without a word more--and for some few hours wewere well rid of him.

  "You must make it right with Rosanna," Mr. Franklin said to me, when wewere alone. "I seem to be fated to say or do something awkward, beforethat unlucky girl. You must have seen yourself that Sergeant Cuff laida trap for both of us. If he could confuse ME, or irritate HER intobreaking out, either she or I might have said something which wouldanswer his purpose. On the spur of the moment, I saw no better way outof it than the way I took. It stopped the girl from saying anything,and it showed the Sergeant that I saw through him. He was evidentlylistening, Betteredge, when I was speaking to you last night."

  He had done worse than listen, as I privately thought to myself. He hadremembered my telling him that the girl was in love with Mr. Franklin;and he had calculated on THAT, when he appealed to Mr. Franklin'sinterest in Rosanna--in Rosanna's hearing.

  "As to listening, sir," I remarked (keeping the other point to myself),"we shall all be rowing in the same boat if this sort of thing goeson much longer. Prying, and peeping, and listening are the naturaloccupations of people situated as we are. In another day or two, Mr.Franklin, we shall all be struck dumb together--for this reason, thatwe shall all be listening to surprise each other's secrets, and all knowit. Excuse my breaking out, sir. The horrid mystery hanging over us inthis house gets into my head like liquor, and makes me wild. I won'tforget what you have told me. I'll take the first opportunity of makingit right with Rosanna Spearman."

  "You haven't said anything to her yet about last night, have you?" Mr.Franklin asked.

  "No, sir."

  "Then say nothing now. I had better not invite the girl's confidence,with the Sergeant on the look-out to surprise us together. My conductis not very consistent, Betteredge--is it? I see no way out of thisbusiness, which isn't dreadful to think of, unless the Diamond is tracedto Rosanna. And yet I can't, and won't, help Sergeant Cuff to find thegirl out."

  Unreasonable enough, no doubt. But it was my state of mind as well. Ithoroughly understood him. If you will, for once in your life, rememberthat you are mortal, perhaps you will thoroughly understand him too.

  The state of things, indoors and out, while Sergeant Cuff was on his wayto Frizinghall, was briefly this:

  Miss Rachel waited for the time when the carriage was to take her toher aunt's, still obstinately shut up in her own room. My lady and Mr.Franklin breakfasted together. After breakfast, Mr. Franklin took one ofhis sudden resolutions, and went out precipitately to quiet his mindby a long walk. I was the only person who saw him go; and he told me heshould be back before the Sergeant returned. The change in the weather,foreshadowed overnight, had come. Heavy rain had been followed soonafter dawn, by high wind. It was blowing fresh, as the day got on. Butthough the clouds threatened more than once, the rain still held off.It was not a bad day for a walk, if you were young and strong, and couldbreast the great gusts of wind which came sweeping in from the sea.

  I attended my lady after breakfast, and assisted her in the settlementof our household accounts. She only once alluded to the matter of theMoonstone, and that was in the way of forbidding any present mention ofit between us. "Wait till that man comes back," she said, meaning theSergeant. "We MUST speak of it then: we are not obliged to speak of itnow."

  After leaving my mistress, I found Penelope waiting for me in my room.

  "I wish, father, you would come and speak to Rosanna," she said. "I amvery uneasy about her."

  I suspected what was the matter readily enough. But it is a maxim ofmine that men (being superior creatures) are bound to improve women--ifthey can. When a woman wants me to do anything (my daughter, or not, itdoesn't matter), I always insist on knowing why. The oftener you makethem rummage their own minds for a reason, the more manageable youwill find them in all the relations of life. It isn't their fault (poorwretches!) that they act first and think afterwards; it's the fault ofthe fools who humour them.

  Penelope's reason why, on this occasion, may be given in her own words."I am afraid, father," she said, "Mr. Franklin has hurt Rosanna cruelly,without intending it."

  "What took Rosanna into the shrubbery walk?" I asked.
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  "Her own madness," says Penelope; "I can call it nothing else. She wasbent on speaking to Mr. Franklin, this morning, come what might of it. Idid my best to stop her; you saw that. If I could only have got her awaybefore she heard those dreadful words----"

  "There! there!" I said, "don't lose your head. I can't call to mind thatanything happened to alarm Rosanna."

  "Nothing to alarm her, father. But Mr. Franklin said he took no interestwhatever in her--and, oh, he said it in such a cruel voice!"

  "He said it to stop the Sergeant's mouth," I answered.

  "I told her that," says Penelope. "But you see, father (though Mr.Franklin isn't to blame), he's been mortifying and disappointing her forweeks and weeks past; and now this comes on the top of it all! She hasno right, of course, to expect him to take any interest in her. It'squite monstrous that she should forget herself and her station inthat way. But she seems to have lost pride, and proper feeling, andeverything. She frightened me, father, when Mr. Franklin said thosewords. They seemed to turn her into stone. A sudden quiet came over her,and she has gone about her work, ever since, like a woman in a dream."

  I began to feel a little uneasy. There was something in the way Penelopeput it which silenced my superior sense. I called to mind, now mythoughts were directed that way, what had passed between Mr. Franklinand Rosanna overnight. She looked cut to the heart on that occasion; andnow, as ill-luck would have it, she had been unavoidably stung again,poor soul, on the tender place. Sad! sad!--all the more sad because thegirl had no reason to justify her, and no right to feel it.

  I had promised Mr. Franklin to speak to Rosanna, and this seemed thefittest time for keeping my word.

  We found the girl sweeping the corridor outside the bedrooms, paleand composed, and neat as ever in her modest print dress. I noticed acurious dimness and dullness in her eyes--not as if she had been cryingbut as if she had been looking at something too long. Possibly, it wasa misty something raised by her own thoughts. There was certainly noobject about her to look at which she had not seen already hundreds onhundreds of times.

  "Cheer up, Rosanna!" I said. "You mustn't fret over your own fancies. Ihave got something to say to you from Mr. Franklin."

  I thereupon put the matter in the right view before her, in thefriendliest and most comforting words I could find. My principles, inregard to the other sex, are, as you may have noticed, very severe. Butsomehow or other, when I come face to face with the women, my practice(I own) is not conformable.

  "Mr. Franklin is very kind and considerate. Please to thank him." Thatwas all the answer she made me.

  My daughter had already noticed that Rosanna went about her work likea woman in a dream. I now added to this observation, that she alsolistened and spoke like a woman in a dream. I doubted if her mind was ina fit condition to take in what I had said to her.

  "Are you quite sure, Rosanna, that you understand me?" I asked.

  "Quite sure."

  She echoed me, not like a living woman, but like a creature moved bymachinery. She went on sweeping all the time. I took away the broom asgently and as kindly as I could.

  "Come, come, my girl!" I said, "this is not like yourself. You have gotsomething on your mind. I'm your friend--and I'll stand your friend,even if you have done wrong. Make a clean breast of it, Rosanna--make aclean breast of it!"

  The time had been, when my speaking to her in that way would havebrought the tears into her eyes. I could see no change in them now.

  "Yes," she said, "I'll make a clean breast of it."

  "To my lady?" I asked.

  "No."

  "To Mr. Franklin?"

  "Yes; to Mr. Franklin."

  I hardly knew what to say to that. She was in no condition to understandthe caution against speaking to him in private, which Mr. Franklin haddirected me to give her. Feeling my way, little by little, I only toldher Mr. Franklin had gone out for a walk.

  "It doesn't matter," she answered. "I shan't trouble Mr. Franklin,to-day."

  "Why not speak to my lady?" I said. "The way to relieve your mind is tospeak to the merciful and Christian mistress who has always been kind toyou."

  She looked at me for a moment with a grave and steady attention, as ifshe was fixing what I said in her mind. Then she took the broom out ofmy hands and moved off with it slowly, a little way down the corridor.

  "No," she said, going on with her sweeping, and speaking to herself; "Iknow a better way of relieving my mind than that."

  "What is it?"

  "Please to let me go on with my work."

  Penelope followed her, and offered to help her.

  She answered, "No. I want to do my work. Thank you, Penelope." Shelooked round at me. "Thank you, Mr. Betteredge."

  There was no moving her--there was nothing more to be said. I signedto Penelope to come away with me. We left her, as we had found her,sweeping the corridor, like a woman in a dream.

  "This is a matter for the doctor to look into," I said. "It's beyondme."

  My daughter reminded me of Mr. Candy's illness, owing (as you mayremember) to the chill he had caught on the night of the dinner-party.His assistant--a certain Mr. Ezra Jennings--was at our disposal, to besure. But nobody knew much about him in our parts. He had been engagedby Mr. Candy under rather peculiar circumstances; and, right or wrong,we none of us liked him or trusted him. There were other doctors atFrizinghall. But they were strangers to our house; and Penelope doubted,in Rosanna's present state, whether strangers might not do her more harmthan good.

  I thought of speaking to my lady. But, remembering the heavy weight ofanxiety which she already had on her mind, I hesitated to add to all theother vexations this new trouble. Still, there was a necessity for doingsomething. The girl's state was, to my thinking, downright alarming--andmy mistress ought to be informed of it. Unwilling enough, I went to hersitting-room. No one was there. My lady was shut up with Miss Rachel. Itwas impossible for me to see her till she came out again.

  I waited in vain till the clock on the front staircase struck thequarter to two. Five minutes afterwards, I heard my name called, fromthe drive outside the house. I knew the voice directly. Sergeant Cuffhad returned from Frizinghall.