SECOND NARRATIVE
Contributed by MATHEW BRUFF, Solicitor, of Gray's Inn Square
CHAPTER I
My fair friend, Miss Clack, having laid down the pen, there are two
reasons for my taking it up next, in my turn.
In the first place, I am in a position to throw the necessary light on
certain points of interest which have thus far been left in the dark.
Miss Verinder had her own private reason for breaking her marriage
engagement--and I was at the bottom of it. Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite had his
own private reason for withdrawing all claim to the hand of his charming
cousin--and I discovered what it was.
In the second place, it was my good or ill fortune, I hardly know which,
to find myself personally involved--at the period of which I am now
writing--in the mystery of the Indian Diamond. I had the honour of an
interview, at my own office, with an Oriental stranger of distinguished
manners, who was no other, unquestionably, than the chief of the three
Indians. Add to this, that I met with the celebrated traveller, Mr.
Murthwaite, the day afterwards, and that I held a conversation with him
on the subject of the Moonstone, which has a very important bearing on
later events. And there you have the statement of my claims to fill the
position which I occupy in these pages.
The true story of the broken marriage engagement comes first in point of
time, and must therefore take the first place in the present narrative.
Tracing my way back along the chain of events, from one end to the
other, I find it necessary to open the scene, oddly enough as you will
think, at the bedside of my excellent client and friend, the late Sir
John Verinder.
Sir John had his share--perhaps rather a large share--of the more
harmless and amiable of the weaknesses incidental to humanity. Among
these, I may mention as applicable to the matter in hand, an invincible
reluctance--so long as he enjoyed his usual good health--to face the
responsibility of making his will. Lady Verinder exerted her influence
to rouse him to a sense of duty in this matter; and I exerted my
influence. He admitted the justice of our views--but he went no further
than that, until he found himself afflicted with the illness which
ultimately brought him to his grave. Then, I was sent for at last, to
take my client's instructions on the subject of his will. They proved
to be the simplest instructions I had ever received in the whole of my
professional career.
Sir John was dozing, when I entered the room. He roused himself at the
sight of me.
"How do you do, Mr. Bruff?" he said. "I sha'n't be very long about this.
And then I'll go to sleep again." He looked on with great interest while
I collected pens, ink, and paper. "Are you ready?" he asked. I bowed and
took a dip of ink, and waited for my instructions.
"I leave everything to my wife," said Sir John. "That's all." He turned
round on his pillow, and composed himself to sleep again.
I was obliged to disturb him.
"Am I to understand," I asked, "that you leave the whole of the
property, of every sort and description, of which you die possessed,
absolutely to Lady Verinder?"
"Yes," said Sir John. "Only, I put it shorter. Why can't you put it
shorter, and let me go to sleep again? Everything to my wife. That's my
Will."
His property was entirely at his own disposal, and was of two kinds.
Property in land (I purposely abstain from using technical language),
and property in money. In the majority of cases, I am afraid I should
have felt it my duty to my client to ask him to reconsider his Will. In
the case of Sir John, I knew Lady Verinder to be, not only worthy of the
unreserved trust which her husband had placed in her (all good wives
are worthy of that)--but to be also capable of properly administering a
trust (which, in my experience of the fair sex, not one in a thousand of
them is competent to do). In ten minutes, Sir John's Will was drawn, and
executed, and Sir John himself, good man, was finishing his interrupted
nap.
Lady Verinder amply justified the confidence which her husband had
placed in her. In the first days of her widowhood, she sent for me, and
made her Will. The view she took of her position was so thoroughly sound
and sensible, that I was relieved of all necessity for advising her. My
responsibility began and ended with shaping her instructions into the
proper legal form. Before Sir John had been a fortnight in his grave,
the future of his daughter had been most wisely and most affectionately
provided for.
The Will remained in its fireproof box at my office, through more years
than I Like to reckon up. It was not till the summer of eighteen hundred
and forty-eight that I found occasion to look at it again under very
melancholy circumstances.
At the date I have mentioned, the doctors pronounced the sentence on
poor Lady Verinder, which was literally a sentence of death. I was the
first person whom she informed of her situation; and I found her anxious
to go over her Will again with me.
It was impossible to improve the provisions relating to her daughter.
But, in the lapse of time, her wishes in regard to certain minor
legacies, left to different relatives, had undergone some modification;
and it became necessary to add three or four Codicils to the original
document. Having done this at once, for fear of accident, I obtained
her ladyship's permission to embody her recent instructions in a
second Will. My object was to avoid certain inevitable confusions and
repetitions which now disfigured the original document, and which, to
own the truth, grated sadly on my professional sense of the fitness of
things.
The execution of this second Will has been described by Miss Clack, who
was so obliging as to witness it. So far as regarded Rachel Verinder's
pecuniary interests, it was, word for word, the exact counterpart of the
first Will. The only changes introduced related to the appointment of a
guardian, and to certain provisions concerning that appointment, which
were made under my advice. On Lady Verinder's death, the Will was placed
in the hands of my proctor to be "proved" (as the phrase is) in the
usual way.
In about three weeks from that time--as well as I can remember--the
first warning reached me of something unusual going on under the
surface. I happened to be looking in at my friend the proctor's office,
and I observed that he received me with an appearance of greater
interest than usual.
"I have some news for you," he said. "What do you think I heard at
Doctors' Commons this morning? Lady Verinder's Will has been asked for,
and examined, already!"
This was news indeed! There was absolutely nothing which could be
contested in the Will; and there was nobody I could think of who had
the slightest interest in examining it. (I shall perhaps do well if I
explain in this place, for the benefit of the few people who don't know
it already, that the law allows all Wills to be examined at Doctors'
Commons by anybody who applies, on the payment of a shilling fee.)
"Did you hear who asked for the Will?" I asked.
"Yes; the clerk had no hesitation in telling ME. Mr. Smalley, of the
firm of Skipp and Smalley, asked for it. The Will has not been copied
yet into the great Folio Registers. So there was no alternative but to
depart from the usual course, and to let him see the original document.
He looked it over carefully, and made a note in his pocket-book. Have
you any idea of what he wanted with it?"
I shook my head. "I shall find out," I answered, "before I am a day
older." With that I went back at once to my own office.
If any other firm of solicitors had been concerned in this unaccountable
examination of my deceased client's Will, I might have found some
difficulty in making the necessary discovery. But I had a hold over
Skipp and Smalley which made my course in this matter a comparatively
easy one. My common-law clerk (a most competent and excellent man) was a
brother of Mr. Smalley's; and, owing to this sort of indirect connection
with me, Skipp and Smalley had, for some years past, picked up the
crumbs that fell from my table, in the shape of cases brought to my
office, which, for various reasons, I did not think it worth while
to undertake. My professional patronage was, in this way, of some
importance to the firm. I intended, if necessary, to remind them of that
patronage, on the present occasion.
The moment I got back I spoke to my clerk; and, after telling him what
had happened, I sent him to his brother's office, "with Mr. Bruff's
compliments, and he would be glad to know why Messrs. Skipp and Smalley
had found it necessary to examine Lady Verinder's will."
This message brought Mr. Smalley back to my office in company with his
brother. He acknowledged that he had acted under instructions received
from a client. And then he put it to me, whether it would not be a
breach of professional confidence on his part to say more.
We had a smart discussion upon that. He was right, no doubt; and I
was wrong. The truth is, I was angry and suspicious--and I insisted
on knowing more. Worse still, I declined to consider any additional
information offered me, as a secret placed in my keeping: I claimed
perfect freedom to use my own discretion. Worse even than that, I took
an unwarrantable advantage of my position. "Choose, sir," I said to Mr.
Smalley, "between the risk of losing your client's business and the risk
of losing Mine." Quite indefensible, I admit--an act of tyranny, and
nothing less. Like other tyrants, I carried my point. Mr. Smalley chose
his alternative, without a moment's hesitation.
He smiled resignedly, and gave up the name of his client:
Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite.
That was enough for me--I wanted to know no more.
Having reached this point in my narrative, it now becomes necessary
to place the reader of these lines--so far as Lady Verinder's Will is
concerned--on a footing of perfect equality, in respect of information,
with myself.
Let me state, then, in the fewest possible words, that Rachel Verinder
had nothing but a life-interest in the property. Her mother's excellent
sense, and my long experience, had combined to relieve her of all
responsibility, and to guard her from all danger of becoming the victim
in the future of some needy and unscrupulous man. Neither she, nor her
husband (if she married), could raise sixpence, either on the property
in land, or on the property in money. They would have the houses in
London and in Yorkshire to live in, and they would have the handsome
income--and that was all.
When I came to think over what I had discovered, I was sorely perplexed
what to do next.
Hardly a week had passed since I had heard (to my surprise and distress)
of Miss Verinder's proposed marriage. I had the sincerest admiration
and affection for her; and I had been inexpressibly grieved when I heard
that she was about to throw herself away on Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite. And
now, here was the man--whom I had always believed to be a smooth-tongued
impostor--justifying the very worst that I had thought of him, and
plainly revealing the mercenary object of the marriage, on his side! And
what of that?--you may reply--the thing is done every day. Granted, my
dear sir. But would you think of it quite as lightly as you do, if the
thing was done (let us say) with your own sister?
The first consideration which now naturally occurred to me was this.
Would Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite hold to his engagement, after what his
lawyer had discovered for him?
It depended entirely on his pecuniary position, of which I knew nothing.
If that position was not a desperate one, it would be well worth his
while to marry Miss Verinder for her income alone. If, on the other
hand, he stood in urgent need of realising a large sum by a given
time, then Lady Verinder's Will would exactly meet the case, and would
preserve her daughter from falling into a scoundrel's hands.
In the latter event, there would be no need for me to distress Miss
Rachel, in the first days of her mourning for her mother, by an
immediate revelation of the truth. In the former event, if I remained
silent, I should be conniving at a marriage which would make her
miserable for life.
My doubts ended in my calling at the hotel in London, at which I knew
Mrs. Ablewhite and Miss Verinder to be staying. They informed me
that they were going to Brighton the next day, and that an unexpected
obstacle prevented Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite from accompanying them. I at
once proposed to take his place. While I was only thinking of Rachel
Verinder, it was possible to hesitate. When I actually saw her, my mind
was made up directly, come what might of it, to tell her the truth.
I found my opportunity, when I was out walking with her, on the day
after my arrival.
"May I speak to you," I asked, "about your marriage engagement?"
"Yes," she said, indifferently, "if you have nothing more interesting to
talk about."
"Will you forgive an old friend and servant of your family, Miss Rachel,
if I venture on asking whether your heart is set on this marriage?"
"I am marrying in despair, Mr. Bruff--on the chance of dropping into
some sort of stagnant happiness which may reconcile me to my life."
Strong language! and suggestive of something below the surface, in the
shape of a romance. But I had my own object in view, and I declined (as
we lawyers say) to pursue the question into its side issues.
"Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite can hardly be of your way of thinking," I said.
"HIS heart must be set on the marriage at any rate?"
"He says so, and I suppose I ought to believe him. He would hardly marry
me, after what I have owned to him, unless he was fond of me."
Poor thing! the bare idea of a man marrying her for his own selfish and
mercenary ends had never entered her head. The task I had set myself
began to look like a harder task than I had bargained for.
"It sounds strangely," I went on, "in my old-fashioned ears----"
"What sounds strangely?" she asked.
"To hear you speak of your future husband as if you were not quite sure
of the sincerity of his attachment. Are you conscious of any reason in
your own mind for doubting him?"
Her astonishing quickness of perception, detected a change in my voice,
or my manner, when I put that question, which warned her that I had been
speaking all along with some ulterior object in view. She stopped, and
taking her arm out of mine, looked me searchingly in the face.
"Mr. Bruff," she said, "you have something to tell me about Godfrey
Ablewhite. Tell it."
I knew her well enough to take her at her word. I told it.
She put her arm again into mine, and walked on with me slowly. I felt
her hand tightening its grasp mechanically on my arm, and I saw her
getting paler and paler as I went on--but, not a word passed her lips
while I was speaking. When I had done, she still kept silence. Her head
drooped a little, and she walked by my side, unconscious of my presence,
unconscious of everything about her; lost--buried, I might almost
say--in her own thoughts.
I made no attempt to disturb her. My experience of her disposition
warned me, on this, as on former occasions, to give her time.
The first instinct of girls in general, on being told of anything which
interests them, is to ask a multitude of questions, and then to run off,
and talk it all over with some favourite friend. Rachel Verinder's first
instinct, under similar circumstances, was to shut herself up in her own
mind, and to think it over by herself. This absolute self-dependence is
a great virtue in a man. In a woman it has a serious drawback of
morally separating her from the mass of her sex, and so exposing her
to misconstruction by the general opinion. I strongly suspect myself of
thinking as the rest of the world think in this matter--except in the
case of Rachel Verinder. The self-dependence in HER character, was one
of its virtues in my estimation; partly, no doubt, because I sincerely
admired and liked her; partly, because the view I took of her connexion
with the loss of the Moonstone was based on my own special knowledge of
her disposition. Badly as appearances might look, in the matter of the
Diamond--shocking as it undoubtedly was to know that she was associated
in any way with the mystery of an undiscovered theft--I was satisfied
nevertheless that she had done nothing unworthy of her, because I was
also satisfied that she had not stirred a step in the business, without
shutting herself up in her own mind, and thinking it over first.
We had walked on, for nearly a mile I should say before Rachel roused
herself. She suddenly looked up at me with a faint reflection of her
smile of happier times--the most irresistible smile I have ever seen on
a woman's face.
"I owe much already to your kindness," she said. "And I feel more deeply
indebted to it now than ever. If you hear any rumours of my marriage
when you get back to London contradict them at once, on my authority."
"Have you resolved to break your engagement?" I asked.
"Can you doubt it?" she returned proudly, "after what you have told me!"
"My dear Miss Rachel, you are very young--and you may find more
difficulty in withdrawing from your present position than you
anticipate. Have you no one--I mean a lady, of course--whom you could
consult?"
"No one," she answered.
It distressed me, it did indeed distress me, to hear her say that. She
was so young and so lonely--and she bore it so well! The impulse to help
her got the better of any sense of my own unfitness which I might have
felt under the circumstances; and I stated such ideas on the subject as
occurred to me on the spur of the moment, to the best of my ability. I
have advised a prodigious number of clients, and have dealt with some
exceedingly awkward difficulties, in my time. But this was the first
occasion on which I had ever found myself advising a young lady how to
obtain her release from a marriage engagement. The suggestion I
offered amounted briefly to this. I recommended her to tell Mr. Godfrey
Ablewhite--at a private interview, of course--that he had, to her
certain knowledge, betrayed the mercenary nature of the motive on
his side. She was then to add that their marriage, after what she had
discovered, was a simple impossibility--and she was to put it to him,
whether he thought it wisest to secure her silence by falling in with
her views, or to force her, by opposing them, to make the motive under
which she was acting generally known. If he attempted to defend himself,
or to deny the facts, she was, in that event, to refer him to ME.
Miss Verinder listened attentively till I had done. She then thanked me
very prettily for my advice, but informed me at the same time that it
was impossible for her to follow it.
"May I ask," I said, "what objection you see to following it?"
She hesitated--and then met me with a question on her side.
"Suppose you were asked to express your opinion of Mr. Godfrey
Ablewhite's conduct?" she began.
"Yes?"
"What would you call it?"
"I should call it the conduct of a meanly deceitful man."
"Mr. Bruff! I have believed in that man. I have promised to marry that
man. How can I tell him he is mean, how can I tell him he has deceived
me, how can I disgrace him in the eyes of the world after that? I have
degraded myself by ever thinking of him as my husband. If I say what you
tell me to say to him--I am owning that I have degraded myself to his
face. I can't do that. After what has passed between us, I can't do
that! The shame of it would be nothing to HIM. But the shame of it would
be unendurable to _me_."
Here was another of the marked peculiarities in her character disclosing
itself to me without reserve. Here was her sensitive horror of the bare
contact with anything mean, blinding her to every consideration of what
she owed to herself, hurrying her into a false position which might
compromise her in the estimation of all her friends! Up to this time,
I had been a little diffident about the propriety of the advice I had
given to her. But, after what she had just said, I had no sort of doubt
that it was the best advice that could have been offered; and I felt no
sort of hesitation in pressing it on her again.
She only shook her head, and repeated her objection in other words.
"He has been intimate enough with me to ask me to be his wife. He has
stood high enough in my estimation to obtain my consent. I can't tell
him to his face that he is the most contemptible of living creatures,
after that!"
"But, my dear Miss Rachel," I remonstrated, "it's equally impossible for
you to tell him that you withdraw from your engagement without giving
some reason for it."
"I shall say that I have thought it over, and that I am satisfied it
will be best for both of us if we part.
"No more than that?"
"No more."
"Have you thought of what he may say, on his side?"
"He may say what he pleases."
It was impossible not to admire her delicacy and her resolution, and it
was equally impossible not to feel that she was putting herself in the
wrong. I entreated her to consider her own position I reminded her that
she would be exposing herself to the most odious misconstruction of her
motives. "You can't brave public opinion," I said, "at the command of
private feeling."
"I can," she answered. "I have done it already."
"What do you mean?"
"You have forgotten the Moonstone, Mr. Bruff. Have I not braved public
opinion, THERE, with my own private reasons for it?"
Her answer silenced me for the moment. It set me trying to trace the
explanation of her conduct, at the time of the loss of the Moonstone,
out of the strange avowal which had just escaped her. I might perhaps
have done it when I was younger. I certainly couldn't do it now.
I tried a last remonstrance before we returned to the house. She was
just as immovable as ever. My mind was in a strange conflict of feelings
about her when I left her that day. She was obstinate; she was wrong.
She was interesting; she was admirable; she was deeply to be pitied. I
made her promise to write to me the moment she had any news to send.
And I went back to my business in London, with a mind exceedingly ill at
ease.
On the evening of my return, before it was possible for me to receive
my promised letter, I was surprised by a visit from Mr. Ablewhite the
elder, and was informed that Mr. Godfrey had got his dismissal--AND HAD
ACCEPTED IT--that very day.
With the view I already took of the case, the bare fact stated in the
words that I have underlined, revealed Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite's motive
for submission as plainly as if he had acknowledged it himself. He
needed a large sum of money; and he needed it by a given time. Rachel's
income, which would have helped him to anything else, would not help him
here; and Rachel had accordingly released herself, without encountering
a moment's serious opposition on his part. If I am told that this is a
mere speculation, I ask, in my turn, what other theory will account for
his giving up a marriage which would have maintained him in splendour
for the rest of his life?
Any exultation I might otherwise have felt at the lucky turn which
things had now taken, was effectually checked by what passed at my
interview with old Mr. Ablewhite.
He came, of course, to know whether I could give him any explanation of
Miss Verinder's extraordinary conduct. It is needless to say that I
was quite unable to afford him the information he wanted. The annoyance
which I thus inflicted, following on the irritation produced by a recent
interview with his son, threw Mr. Ablewhite off his guard. Both his
looks and his language convinced me that Miss Verinder would find him
a merciless man to deal with, when he joined the ladies at Brighton the
next day.
I had a restless night, considering what I ought to do next. How my
reflections ended, and how thoroughly well founded my distrust of Mr.
Ablewhite proved to be, are items of information which (as I am told)
have already been put tidily in their proper places, by that
exemplary person, Miss Clack. I have only to add--in completion of her
narrative--that Miss Verinder found the quiet and repose which she sadly
needed, poor thing, in my house at Hampstead. She honoured us by making
a long stay. My wife and daughters were charmed with her; and, when the
executors decided on the appointment of a new guardian, I feel sincere
pride and pleasure in recording that my guest and my family parted like
old friends, on either side.