in the dark. No wonder Miss Rachel was fascinated: no wonder her cousins screamed. The Diamond laid such a hold on me that I burst out with as large an “O” as the Bouncers themselves. The only one of us who kept his senses was Mr. Godfrey. He put an arm round each of his sister’s waists, and, looking compassionately backwards and forwards between the Diamond and me, said, “Carbon Betteredge! mere carbon, my good friend, after all!”
His object, I suppose, was to instruct me. All he did, however, was to remind me of the dinner. I hobbled off to my army of waiters downstairs. As I went out, Mr. Godfrey said, “Dear old Betteredge, I have the truest regard for him!” He was embracing his sisters, and ogling Miss Rachel, while he honoured me with that testimony of affection. Something like a stock of love to draw on there! Mr. Franklin was a perfect savage by comparison with him.
At the end of half an hour, I presented myself, as directed, in my lady’s room.
What passed between my mistress and me, on this occasion, was, in the main, a repetition of what had passed between Mr. Franklin and me at the Shivering Sand – with this difference, that I took care to keep my own counsel about the jugglers, seeing that nothing had happened to justify me in alarming my lady on this head. When I received my dismissal, I could see that she took the blackest view possible of the Colonel’s motives, and that she was bent on getting the Moonstone out of her daughter’s possession at the first opportunity.
On my way back to my own part of the house, I was encountered by Mr. Franklin. He wanted to know if I had seen anything of his cousin Rachel. I had seen nothing of her. Could I tell him where his cousin Godfrey was? I didn’t know; but I began to suspect that cousin Godfrey might not be far away from cousin Rachel. Mr. Franklin’s suspicions apparently took the same turn. He tugged hard at his beard, and went and shut himself up in the library with a bang of the door that had a world of meaning in it.
I was interrupted no more in the business of preparing for the birthday dinner till it was time for me to smarten myself up for receiving the company. Just as I had got my white waistcoat on, Penelope presented herself at my toilet, on pretence of brushing what little hair I have got left, and improving the tie of my white cravat. My girl was in high spirits, and I saw she had something to say to me. She gave me a kiss on the top of my bald head, and whispered, “News for you, father! Miss Rachel has refused him.”
“Who’s ’him’?” I asked.
“The ladies’ committee-man, father,” says Penelope. “A nasty sly fellow! I hate him for trying to supplant Mr. Franklin!”
If I had had breath enough, I should certainly have protested against this indecent way of speaking of an eminent philanthropic character. But my daughter happened to be improving the tie of my cravat at that moment, and the whole strength of her feelings found its way into her fingers. I never was more nearly strangled in my life.
“I saw him take her away alone into the rose-garden,” says Penelope. “And I waited behind the holly to see how they came back. They had gone out arm-in-arm, both laughing. They came back, walking separate, as grave as grave could be, and looking straight away from each other in a manner which there was no mistaking. I never was more delighted, father, in my life! There’s one woman in the world who can resist Mr. Godfrey Ablewhite, at any rate; and, if I was a lady, I should be another!”
Here I should have protested again. But my daughter had got the hair-brush by this time, and the whole strength of her feelings had passed into that. If you are bald, you will understand how she sacrificed me. If you are not, skip this bit, and thank God you have got something in the way of a defence between your hair-brush and your head.
“Just on the other side of the holly,” Penelope went on, “Mr. Godfrey came to a standstill. ’You prefer,’ says he, ’that I should stop here as if nothing had happened?’ Miss Rachel turned on him like lightning. ’You have accepted my mother’s invitation,’ she said; ’and you are here to meet her guests. Unless you wish to make a scandal in the house, you will remain, of course!’ She went on a few steps, and then seemed to relent a little. ’Let us forget what has passed, Godfrey,’ she said, ’and let us remain cousins still.’ She gave him her hand. He kissed it, which I should have considered taking a liberty, and then she left him. He waited a little by himself, with his head down, and his heel grinding a hole slowly in the gravel walk; you never saw a man look more put out in your life. ’Awkward!’ he said between his teeth, when he looked up, and went on to the house – ’very awkward!’ If that was his opinion of himself, he was quite right. Awkward enough, I’m sure. And the end of it is, father, what I told you all along,” cries Penelope, finishing me off with a last scarification, the hottest of all. “Mr. Franklin’s the man!”
I got possession of the hair-brush, and opened my lips to administer the reproof which, you will own, my daughter’s language and conduct richly deserved.
Before I could say a word, the crash of carriage-wheels outside struck in, and stopped me. The first of the dinner-company had come. Penelope instantly ran off. I put on my coat, and looked in the glass. My head was as red as a lobster; but, in other respects, I was as nicely dressed for the ceremonies of the evening as a man need be. I got into the hall just in time to announce the two first of the guests. You needn’t feel particularly interested about them. Only the philanthropist’s father and mother – Mr. and Mrs. Ablewhite.
Chapter X
One on the top of the other the rest of the company followed the Ablewhites, till we had the whole tale of them complete. Including the family, they were twenty-four in all. It was a noble sight to see, when they were settled in their places round the dinner-table, and the Rector of Frizinghall (with beautiful elocution) rose and said grace.
There is no need to worry you with a list of the guests. You will meet none of them a second time – in my part of the story, at any rate – with the exception of two.
Those two sat on either side of Miss Rachel, who, as queen of the day, was naturally the great attraction of the party. On this occasion she was more particularly the centre-point towards which everybody’s eyes were directed; for (to my lady’s secret annoyance) she wore her wonderful birthday present, which eclipsed all the rest – the Moonstone. It was without any setting when it had been placed in her hands; but that universal genius, Mr. Franklin, had contrived, with the help of his neat fingers and a little bit of silver wire, to fix it as a brooch in the bosom of her white dress. Everybody wondered at the prodigious size and beauty of the Diamond, as a matter of course. But the only two of the company who said anything out of the common way about it were those two guests I have mentioned, who sat by Miss Rachel on her right hand and her left.
The guest on her left was Mr. Candy, our doctor at Frizinghall.
This was a pleasant, companionable little man, with the drawback, however, I must own, of being too fond, in season and out of season, of his joke, and of his plunging in rather a headlong manner into talk with strangers, without waiting to feel his way first. In society, he was constantly making mistakes, and setting people unintentionally by the ears together. In his medical practice he was a more prudent man; picking up his discretion (as his enemies said) by a kind of instinct, and proving to be generally right where more carefully conducted doctors turned out to be wrong. What he said about the Diamond to Miss Rachel was said, as usual, by way of a mystification or joke. He gravely entreated her (in the interests of science) to let him take it home and burn it. “We will first heat it, Miss Rachel,” says the doctor, “to such and such a degree; then we will expose it to a current of air; and, little by little – puff! – we evaporate the Diamond, and spare you a world of anxiety about the safe keeping of a valuable precious stone!” My lady, listening with rather a careworn expression on her face, seemed to wish that the doctor had been in earnest, and that he could have found Miss Rachel zealous enough in the cause of science to sacrifice her birthday gift.
The other guest, who sat on my young lady’s right hand, was an eminent public character – being no other than the celebrated Indian traveller, Mr. Murthwaite, who, at risk of his life, had penetrated in disguise where no European had ever set foot before.
This was a long, lean, wiry, brown, silent man. He had a weary look, and a very steady,