Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (634 page)

He woke, instantly and quietly, like a dog, the moment I approached him.

“Good night, Mr. Betteredge,” he said. “And mind, if you ever take to growing roses, the white moss rose is all the better for not being budded on the dog-rose, whatever the gardener may say to the contrary!”

“What are you doing here?” I asked. “Why are you not in your proper bed?”

“I am not in my proper bed,” answered the Sergeant, “because I am one of the many people in this miserable world who can’t earn their money honestly and easily at the same time. There was a coincidence, this evening, between the period of Rosanna Spearman’s return from the Sands and the period when Miss Verinder stated her resolution to leave the house. Whatever Rosanna may have hidden, it’s clear to my mind that your young lady couldn’t go away until she knew that it WAS hidden. The two must have communicated privately once already to-night. If they try to communicate again, when the house is quiet, I want to be in the way, and stop it. Don’t blame me for upsetting your sleeping arrangements, Mr. Betteredge — blame the Diamond.”

“I wish to God the Diamond had never found its way into this house!” I broke out.

Sergeant Cuff looked with a rueful face at the three chairs on which he had condemned himself to pass the night.

“So do I,” he said, gravely.

CHAPTER XVII

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

I had expected the Sergeant to set off for Frizinghall the first thing in the morning. He waited about, however, as if he had something else to do first. I left him to his own devices; and going into the grounds shortly after, met Mr. Franklin on his favourite walk by the shrubbery side.

Before we had exchanged two words, the Sergeant unexpectedly joined us. He made up to Mr. Franklin, who received him, I must own, haughtily enough. “Have you anything to say to me?” was all the return he got for politely wishing Mr. Franklin good morning.

“I have something to say to you, sir,” answered the Sergeant, “on the subject of the inquiry I am conducting here. You detected the turn that inquiry was really taking, yesterday. Naturally enough, in your position, you are shocked and distressed. Naturally enough, also, you visit 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 been PROVED to be wrong. Bearing that in mind, be pleased to remember, at the same time, that I am an officer of the law acting here under the sanction 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 special information 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 a distance,” he went on, “if you choose to understand me and speak out.”

“I don’t understand you,” answered Mr. Franklin; “and I have nothing to say.”

“One of the female servants (I won’t mention names) spoke to you privately, 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-door on the previous evening, and of the coat-tails which I had seen disappearing down the passage. Sergeant Cuff had, no doubt, just heard enough, before I interrupted him, to make him suspect that Rosanna had relieved her mind by confessing something to Mr. Franklin Blake.

This notion had barely struck me — when who should appear at the end of the shrubbery walk but Rosanna Spearman in her own proper person! She was followed by Penelope, who was evidently trying to make her retrace her steps to the house. Seeing that Mr. Franklin was not alone, Rosanna came to a standstill, evidently in great perplexity what to do next. Penelope waited behind her. Mr. Franklin saw the girls as soon as I saw them. The Sergeant, with his devilish cunning, took on not to have noticed them at all. All this happened in an instant. Before either Mr. Franklin or I could say a word, Sergeant Cuff struck in smoothly, with an 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. “On the contrary, I recommend you to honour me with your confidence, if you feel any interest in Rosanna Spearman.”

Mr. Franklin instantly took on not to have noticed the girls either. He answered, 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 was that Rosanna suddenly turned round, the moment Mr. Franklin had spoken. Instead of resisting Penelope, as she had done the moment before, she now 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 Sergeant Cuff 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 before two.” He went his way without a word more — and for some few hours we were well rid of him.

“You must make it right with Rosanna,” Mr. Franklin said to me, when we were alone. “I seem to be fated to say or do something awkward, before that unlucky girl. You must have seen yourself that Sergeant Cuff laid a trap for both of us. If he could confuse ME, or irritate HER into breaking out, either she or I might have said something which would answer his purpose. On the spur of the moment, I saw no better way out of 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 evidently listening, Betteredge, when I was speaking to you last night.”

He had done worse than listen, as I privately thought to myself. He had remembered my telling him that the girl was in love with Mr. Franklin; and he had calculated on THAT, when he appealed to Mr. Franklin’s interest 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 goes on much longer. Prying, and peeping, and listening are the natural occupations of people situated as we are. In another day or two, Mr. Franklin, we shall all be struck dumb together — for this reason, that we shall all be listening to surprise each other’s secrets, and all know it. Excuse my breaking out, sir. The horrid mystery hanging over us in this house gets into my head like liquor, and makes me wild. I won’t forget what you have told me. I’ll take the first opportunity of making it 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 conduct is not very consistent, Betteredge — is it? I see no way out of this business, which isn’t dreadful to think of, unless the Diamond is traced to Rosanna. And yet I can’t, and won’t, help Sergeant Cuff to find the girl out.”

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

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

Miss Rachel waited for the time when the carriage was to take her to her aunt’s, still obstinately shut up in her own room. My lady and Mr. Franklin breakfasted together. After breakfast, Mr. Franklin took one of his sudden resolutions, and went out precipitately to quiet his mind by a long walk. I was the only person who saw him go; and he told me he should be back before the Sergeant returned. The change in the weather, foreshadowed overnight, had come. Heavy rain had been followed soon after dawn, by high wind. It was blowing fresh, as the day got on. But though 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 could breast the great gusts of wind which came sweeping in from the sea.

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

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 am very uneasy about her.”

I suspected what was the matter readily enough. But it is a maxim of mine that men (being superior creatures) are bound to improve women — if they can. When a woman wants me to do anything (my daughter, or not, it doesn’t matter), I always insist on knowing why. The oftener you make them rummage their own minds for a reason, the more manageable you will find them in all the relations of life. It isn’t their fault (poor wretches!) that they act first and think afterwards; it’s the fault of the 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.

“Her own madness,” says Penelope; “I can call it nothing else. She was bent on speaking to Mr. Franklin, this morning, come what might of it. I did my best to stop her; you saw that. If I could only have got her away before she heard those dreadful words —
 
— ”

“There! there!” I said, “don’t lose your head. I can’t call to mind that anything happened to alarm Rosanna.”

“Nothing to alarm her, father. But Mr. Franklin said he took no interest whatever 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 for weeks and weeks past; and now this comes on the top of it all! She has no right, of course, to expect him to take any interest in her. It’s quite monstrous that she should forget herself and her station in that way. But she seems to have lost pride, and proper feeling, and everything. She frightened me, father, when Mr. Franklin said those words. 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 Penelope put it which silenced my superior sense. I called to mind, now my thoughts were directed that way, what had passed between Mr. Franklin and Rosanna overnight. She looked cut to the heart on that occasion; and now, 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 the girl had no reason to justify her, and no right to feel it.

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

We found the girl sweeping the corridor outside the bedrooms, pale and composed, and neat as ever in her modest print dress. I noticed a curious dimness and dullness in her eyes — not as if she had been crying but as if she had been looking at something too long. Possibly, it was a misty something raised by her own thoughts. There was certainly no object about her to look at which she had not seen already hundreds on hundreds of times.

“Cheer up, Rosanna!” I said. “You mustn’t fret over your own fancies. I have got something to say to you from Mr. Franklin.”

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