Лучшие романы Уилки Коллинза / The Best of Wilkie Collins. Уилки КоллинзЧитать онлайн книгу.
the first difficulty – which is tough enough. You will find the second tougher still. I have it on the authority of Lady Verinder herself, that her daughter was ready to marry Franklin Blake, before that infernal Indian Diamond disappeared from the house. She had drawn him on and put him off again, with the coquetry of a young girl. But she had confessed to her mother that she loved cousin Franklin, and her mother had trusted cousin Franklin with the secret. So there he was, Miss Clack, with his creditors content to wait, and with the certain prospect before him of marrying an heiress. By all means consider him a scoundrel; but tell me, if you please, why he should steal the Moonstone?”
“The human heart is unsearchable,” I said gently. “Who is to fathom it?”
“In other words, ma’am – though he hadn’t the shadow of a reason for taking the Diamond – he might have taken it, nevertheless, through natural depravity. Very well. Say he did. Why the devil —”
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Bruff. If I hear the devil referred to in that manner, I must leave the room.”
“I beg YOUR pardon, Miss Clack – I’ll be more careful in my choice of language for the future. All I meant to ask was this. Why – even supposing he did take the Diamond – should Franklin Blake make himself the most prominent person in the house in trying to recover it? You may tell me he cunningly did that to divert suspicion from himself. I answer that he had no need to divert suspicion – because nobody suspected him. He first steals the Moonstone (without the slightest reason) through natural depravity; and he then acts a part, in relation to the loss of the jewel, which there is not the slightest necessity to act, and which leads to his mortally offending the young lady who would otherwise have married him. That is the monstrous proposition which you are driven to assert, if you attempt to associate the disappearance of the Moonstone with Franklin Blake. No, no, Miss Clack! After what has passed here to-day, between us two, the dead-lock, in this case, is complete. Rachel’s own innocence is (as her mother knows, and as I know) beyond a doubt. Mr. Ablewhite’s innocence is equally certain – or Rachel would never have testified to it. And Franklin Blake’s innocence, as you have just seen, unanswerably asserts itself. On the one hand, we are morally certain of all these things. And, on the other hand, we are equally sure that somebody has brought the Moonstone to London, and that Mr. Luker, or his banker, is in private possession of it at this moment. What is the use of my experience, what is the use of any person’s experience, in such a case as that? It baffles me; it baffles you, it baffles everybody.”
No – not everybody. It had not baffled Sergeant Cuff. I was about to mention this, with all possible mildness, and with every necessary protest against being supposed to cast a slur upon Rachel – when the servant came in to say that the doctor had gone, and that my aunt was waiting to receive us.
This stopped the discussion. Mr. Bruff collected his papers, looking a little exhausted by the demands which our conversation had made on him. I took up my bag-full of precious publications, feeling as if I could have gone on talking for hours. We proceeded in silence to Lady Verinder’s room.
Permit me to add here, before my narrative advances to other events, that I have not described what passed between the lawyer and me, without having a definite object in view. I am ordered to include in my contribution to the shocking story of the Moonstone a plain disclosure, not only of the turn which suspicion took, but even of the names of the persons on whom suspicion rested, at the time when the Indian Diamond was believed to be in London. A report of my conversation in the library with Mr. Bruff appeared to me to be exactly what was wanted to answer this purpose – while, at the same time, it possessed the great moral advantage of rendering a sacrifice of sinful self-esteem essentially necessary on my part. I have been obliged to acknowledge that my fallen nature got the better of me. In making that humiliating confession, I get the better of my fallen nature. The moral balance is restored; the spiritual atmosphere feels clear once more. Dear friends, we may go on again.
Chapter IV
The signing of the Will was a much shorter matter than I had anticipated. It was hurried over, to my thinking, in indecent haste. Samuel, the footman, was sent for to act as second witness – and the pen was put at once into my aunt’s hand. I felt strongly urged to say a few appropriate words on this solemn occasion. But Mr. Bruff’s manner convinced me that it was wisest to check the impulse while he was in the room. In less than two minutes it was all over – and Samuel (unbenefited by what I might have said) had gone downstairs again.
Mr. Bruff folded up the Will, and then looked my way; apparently wondering whether I did or did not mean to leave him alone with my aunt. I had my mission of mercy to fulfil, and my bag of precious publications ready on my lap. He might as well have expected to move St. Paul’s Cathedral[69] by looking at it, as to move Me. There was one merit about him (due no doubt to his worldly training) which I have no wish to deny. He was quick at seeing things. I appeared to produce almost the same impression on him which I had produced on the cabman. HE too uttered a profane expression, and withdrew in a violent hurry, and left me mistress of the field.
As soon as we were alone, my aunt reclined on the sofa, and then alluded, with some appearance of confusion, to the subject of her Will.
“I hope you won’t think yourself neglected, Drusilla,” she said. “I mean to GIVE you your little legacy, my dear, with my own hand.”
Here was a golden opportunity! I seized it on the spot. In other words, I instantly opened my bag, and took out the top publication. It proved to be an early edition – only the twenty-fifth – of the famous anonymous work (believed to be by precious Miss Bellows), entitled THE SERPENT AT HOME. The design of the book – with which the worldly reader may not be acquainted – is to show how the Evil One[70] lies in wait for us in all the most apparently innocent actions of our daily lives. The chapters best adapted to female perusal are “Satan in the Hair Brush;” “Satan behind the Looking Glass;” “Satan under the Tea Table;” “Satan out of the Window’ – and many others.
“Give your attention, dear aunt, to this precious book – and you will give me all I ask.” With those words, I handed it to her open, at a marked passage – one continuous burst of burning eloquence! Subject: Satan among the Sofa Cushions.
Poor Lady Verinder (reclining thoughtlessly on her own sofa cushions) glanced at the book, and handed it back to me looking more confused than ever.
“I’m afraid, Drusilla,” she said, “I must wait till I am a little better, before I can read that. The doctor —”
The moment she mentioned the doctor’s name, I knew what was coming. Over and over again in my past experience among my perishing fellow-creatures, the members of the notoriously infidel profession of Medicine had stepped between me and my mission of mercy – on the miserable pretence that the patient wanted quiet, and that the disturbing influence of all others which they most dreaded, was the influence of Miss Clack and her Books. Precisely the same blinded materialism (working treacherously behind my back) now sought to rob me of the only right of property that my poverty could claim – my right of spiritual property in my perishing aunt.
“The doctor tells me,” my poor misguided relative went on, “that I am not so well to-day. He forbids me to see any strangers; and he orders me, if I read at all, only to read the lightest and the most amusing books. ‘Do nothing, Lady Verinder, to weary your head, or to quicken your pulse’ – those were his last words, Drusilla, when he left me to-day.”
There was no help for it but to yield again – for the moment only, as before. Any open assertion of the infinitely superior importance of such a ministry as mine, compared with the ministry of the medical man, would only have provoked the doctor to practise on the human weakness of his patient, and to threaten to throw up the case. Happily, there are more ways than one of sowing the good seed, and few persons are better versed in those ways than myself.
“You might feel stronger, dear, in an hour or two,” I said. “Or you might wake, to-morrow morning, with a sense of something wanting, and even this unpretending volume might be able to supply it. You will let me leave the book, aunt? The doctor can hardly object to that!”
I
St. Paul’s Cathedral – the cathedral of the Anglican Bish-op of London in central London, built in 17–18th centuries by Sir Christopher Wren (1632–1723), an outstanding English architect; the first cathedral dedicated to St. Paul was build there in 604 AD.
the Evil One – the Devil