04| Promises Fulfilled (But, Perhaps, to Adverse Effect)
Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.
(Plato)
Lady Verinder's carriage was already waiting when Margaret stepped outside the front door shortly before noon. She was just about to get in when two grooms turned the corner, leading several saddled horses. A chattering of voices from inside the hall informed Margaret that their riders were approaching; they were Mr Blake and all three Ablewhite siblings.
"Miss Hale," Mr Blake greeted her. "Wouldn't you like to come riding with us into town?"
"Thank you, sir, but I'm not much of a horsewoman, I'm afraid," Margaret replied. "I'd be sadly slowing you down."
"Oh! What a shame! It's such a fine day for riding... We're about to pay a visit to my father's bank!" the elder Miss Ablewhite exclaimed. "But we may see you later in town—" The riding party jauntily waved her off, and then went to claim their horses.
Margaret doubted very much that they would come across each other again in town; she was headed straight for the station, and then would spend the remainder of the afternoon with John before it was time for her to return for a change of dress and having her hair done ahead of the dinner party.
The riders overtook her—with much ado—just as she was passing the lodge, and they were speeding around the corner and out of sight within moments. The carriage followed them at a more leisurely pace. There was no hurry; Margaret was in good time to meet the train.
There he was! At last.
Margaret swiftly peeled off her gloves and shoved them into the pocket of her coat as she waited for the train to come to a full stop. Then she stepped forward, beaming up at him as he alighted.
"Margaret, my darling," he said softly, taking both of her hands and placing a quick kiss on them.
"I have missed you," she replied just as softly, her eyes shining with sudden tears. As always it had seemed an eternity to be apart, even though John had visited her in London only at the beginning of December.
John stopped a passing porter and gave him orders to take his suitcase to the hotel, then, turning back to Margaret, he said, "Let's get you out of the cold." Though not frosty there was a bracing wind blowing in from the east. "How about some tea?"
"I believe there is a tearoom on the way to the hotel," Margaret said. "It's not very far... but then, nothing's very far in Frizinghall, as you shall see." She laughed, blinking away the remainder of the moisture in her eyes.
"You might better put your gloves back on; your hands must be freezing," he said with a knowing smile.
"What about your hands?" she asked.
"I must admit I haven't given a thought to gloves—"
Less than two hundred yards down the main street saw them in front of a surprisingly elegant tearoom. It was not very busy at this time of day, and they were given a good table by the bay window.
After they had ordered tea, Margaret said, "Before I forget... Lady Verinder is inviting you to her daughter's birthday dinner tonight. She kindly asked me to forward her invitation." She gave him a small lavender envelope.
Thornton frowned, reading the card inside. "How did this come about? I assumed we were keeping ourselves separate from the house party while I was here."
"It is on Miss Verinder's insistence, and it is a rather long—and essentially inconsequential—story," Margaret replied. "I might tell it to you sometimes... Please, don't be cross with me for very much liking the idea of spending the evening in your company." She smiled at him.
"I'm not going to shoot the messenger, if that's what you fear," he said, smiling back at her. "And I don't mind coming... I was simply surprised that the Verinders would take notice of me—"
Class. So much in their lives still came down to class... Yet Margaret was not inclined to open that particular can of worms. "What is the news from Milton?" she asked instead. "And how is your mother?—and your sister?"
John assured her that both were very well, even though Fanny was making the most of her 'particular circumstances' and 'delicate constitution', and was causing as much fuss as she possibly could. But then, this was only to be expected—
"And how is mill business?" Margaret asked matter-of-factly.
She had made a point of it early in their engagement not to exclude the fact from their conversations that—for the time being—she was his landlord at Marlborough Mills. And even though it had been awkward at first, they had discussed settlements at length, and how the wealth Margaret had inherited from her godfather Mr Bell was to be dealt with, and eventually they had come to as close a mutually satisfactory solution as their peculiar situation would allow.
John was to hold the deed of Marlborough Mills and would have the funds to run it at his disposal, but there would be a substantial settlement on Margaret which she—and she alone—controlled. In addition to this there would be a return on her initial loan; an independent fund dedicated to charitable works in Milton and supported by a small percentage off the mill profits.
"I managed to secure a new substantial deal with Anderson's in Birmingham, and there are a few more follow-up contracts with my current customers in the making... So, as of January, Marlborough Mills will be running at capacity. Hiring is going on as we speak—"
"This is excellent news!" Margaret enthused. "And rather earlier than you expected, isn't it?"
"In no small measure thanks to Harkness's ill-fated experiments with Indian raw cotton... He couldn't keep up quality, and as a result lost contracts—some of which came my way."
"Is the food scheme up and running again?"
"It is," Thornton assured her, suddenly grinning. "And I sometimes think that—no matter the other advantages of working at Marlborough Mills—the food scheme is the single best asset when it comes to hiring workers."
"Mary does cook a fabulous stew," Margaret agreed with an amused smile, "and I beg you to remember that it was my faithful maid Dixon who taught her, whenever next you're going to be cross at her interfering nature."
John laughed, promising that, henceforth, he would keep his thoughts about Margaret's maid—whom he indeed secretly thought of as a meddling old dragon—to himself.
"I have a Christmas present for you," Margaret ventured eventually. She had given this much thought; she didn't want to embarrass him with an expensive gift, but then, neither did she wish to leave their first holiday season as an engaged couple unacknowledged. She held out a small box wrapped in red paper.
"What is it?" John asked, intrigued.
"Open it—"
The box did, in fact, contain two items; one of them was a small leather-bound notebook written in Richard Hale's neat cursive. "It's my father's annotations to Plato," Margaret explained. "I didn't know such a thing existed in my father's library until I came across it a few weeks ago, when sorting through the books salvaged from the sale of my parents' belongings in Milton... I thought of you immediately, thinking it might help you continue with where you left off in your studies—"
"Thank you, my love," John said, his voice a little husky from emotion. He still felt the loss of his fatherly friend keenly. "This—together with the actual Plato you gave me—is the most wonderful gift imaginable."
The other item inside the box was enfolded in another layer of tissue paper, and when he unwrapped it he burst out laughing. "You are giving me my own gloves?" The worn black leather gloves, the ones he had forgotten on the study table at the day of his first ill-fated proposal, lay in front of him.
Margaret chuckled, a little ruefully. "I thought it about time to return them to you—"
"Well, I had a hunch that it might be prudent to come prepared," John said, rummaging in his holdall for a moment and then taking out a small square wooden box covered by a sealed letter and held together by a red ribbon. "Merry Christmas, my darling."
The box was fashioned like a cigar box, and when Margaret opened the tiny catch, a distinctive aroma wavered up from within. "Marzipan?" she asked.
He gave her a lopsided grin. "Sweet and bitter like this time of waiting before you are finally coming home with me for good." He knew, of course, that the scent she generally wore was sweet almond milk. Similar, but without the bitterness. "It's from Lübeck in Germany, and supposed to be the best. Made with rosewater—"
"And what about the letter?" she asked, inserting a finger under the flap, ready to break the seal.
His hand arrested hers. "You may want to read this later, at your leisure... It is for your eyes only."
Whatever could he mean by this?
When Margaret returned to the Verinders' house later in the afternoon, she at once became aware that something was going on. The excitement in the air was almost palpable, and before she was a few steps into the hall and had divested herself of her outer wear, the younger Miss Ablewhite rushed towards her.
"Oh! You must come at once, Miss Hale!" she exclaimed. "Come and see!" And off she went again through the library door. A clamour of voices from within told Margaret that this was where she would find the rest of the house party. Recognising in the screams more of the favourite large "Oh!" of the Miss Ablewhites, Margaret was not worried; however, she was intrigued to discover what was the reason for all the ruckus.
There stood Miss Verinder at the table, like a person fascinated, with a large sparkling gemstone in her hand. There, on either side of her, knelt the two Miss Ablewhites, devouring the jewel with their eyes, and screaming with ecstasy every time it flashed on them in a new light. There, at the opposite side of the table, stood their brother, clapping his hands like a large child, exclaiming, "Exquisite! Exquisite!" There sat Mr Blake in a chair by the book-case, tugging at his beard, and looking anxiously towards the window. And there, at the window, stood the object he was contemplating—Lady Verinder, reading a letter and keeping her back turned on the whole of the company.
"What is the matter?" Margaret asked Mrs Clack who, standing a little apart, was watching the whole scene with the occasional shake of the head.
"It's the colonel's diamond," she said, looking dazed. "Rachel's uncle, Colonel Herncastle, has bequeathed his unlucky diamond upon his niece for her eighteenth birthday—The miserable old..." She checked herself, then added, "Lady Verinder had a falling-out with her brother some years ago; and I'm afraid that he might be reaching out from beyond the grave to do some mischief, and—for all I can tell—cousin Julia might be thinking along the exact same lines." She nodded towards their hostess who, at this moment, was briskly leaving the room.
"What's wrong with Mr Blake?" Margaret asked. The young man kept himself conspicuously aloof from all the excitement.
"Cousin Franklin brought the diamond with him when he first came into Yorkshire at the beginning of the month and deposited it in the bank at Frizinghall; he retrieved it only this morning... He was entrusted by the colonel's will to deliver the diamond—I suppose, he wonders if he has been made executor of an evil prank—"
Margaret felt that she had little business in all of this, but as she was about to leave the room Miss Verinder stopped her. "Look, Miss Hale!—and Cousin Drusilla," she said with the guileless excitement of a young child, flashing the jewel before their eyes in a ray of sunlight that poured through the window.
And what a diamond it was!—as large, or nearly, as a plover's egg! The light that streamed from it was like the light of the harvest moon. Looking down into the stone was like looking into a yellow depth that drew the eyes into it so that nothing else was seen. It seemed unfathomable; this jewel, that one could hold between finger and thumb, seemed unfathomable as the heavens themselves.
No wonder Miss Verinder was fascinated; no wonder her cousins screamed. The diamond laid such a hold even on Margaret's sober mind that she burst out with almost as large an "Oh!" as the Miss Ablewhites, and Mrs Clack along with her.
The only one in the party who seemed to have come to his senses again was Mr Ablewhite. He put an arm round each of his sisters' waists and, looking compassionately backwards and forwards between the diamond and the assembly, said, "Carbon!—mere carbon, my dear friends, after all!" As if anyone was prepared to listen to reason...
"It even has a name—like all famous diamonds do!" one of the girls cried. "The Moonstone."
Eventually disengaging herself from the company in the library, Margaret rushed upstairs to her room, shaking her head in an effort to clear it. "Carbon!—mere carbon," she repeated in her head, chuckling wearily at her own enchantment, short-lived as it had been.
That evening Margaret took particular care dressing; not because of the grand dinner party, but because John would see her in all her finery. She knew that he admired her in silk...
When she went downstairs at the appropriate time, the whiff of solvent she encountered in passing Miss Verinder's private rooms informed her that the young lady's excitement had sufficiently abated to allow her to return to such mundane interests as decorating her door—probably with the support of Mr Blake. She wondered briefly if the great task was finished by then, as the young couple had vouched it would be on the day of Miss Rachel's birthday, and if they were ever to present it to the public.
A carriage had been sent into Frizinghall to pick up some guests, and John Thornton was to be amongst the passengers. Margaret, seeing the coach approach from the gate, quickly ran downstairs so that he would find her in the hall upon arrival.
He looked dashing in his evening frockcoat, cream waistcoat, and stock, as he politely greeted their hostess, being every inch as tall—but casting an infinitely more imposing figure—than Mr Ablewhite. Then he came over to where Margaret stood, greeting Mrs Clack, who had likewise arrived in the hall, on his way.
He stopped a few paces in front of her to admire her in her entirety. Margaret knew that the rich teal-coloured silk set off her cream complexion and auburn hair to perfection. It was a simple cut, with low cleavage and tiny sleeves. Her hands and forearms were covered by long white gloves. On one of them she wore the gold bangle she knew John particularly liked—although he had never told her the reason for it.
"I shall be the envy of tonight's party," he announced with a proud loving smile. Then he stepped forward and raised her proffered hand to his lips.
"And I shall keep you firmly by my side tonight, lest the other young ladies set their sights on you," she smiled back. "Let's go to the library; there will be aperitifs."
The other houseguests arrived apace, and Margaret introduced him in turn to Mr Blake and all of the Ablewhites, and eventually to Dr Candy who arrived in his own gig. They were the extent of her own acquaintance with the present company.
John Thornton, although not in the habit of exerting himself in conversation with people he hardly knew, was by no means intimidated by the situation. On the contrary, he appeared to be rather more quietly amused than bemused. If anything, the giggling and gushing Miss Ablewhites bore a striking resemblance to his own sister Fanny, and therefore he would be quite unperturbed by their giddy behaviour.
Miss Verinder, as the queen of the day, was the last to arrive. She looked radiant in ivory silk, but the splendour of her dress paled in comparison to the Moonstone she wore pinned to her bosom. Was it the girl, or indeed the diamond she wore, that drew every eye like a magnet?—and who was to determine where the one attraction ended and the other started?
When it was time to take one's place at the dinner table, Miss Verinder, at Mr Murthwaite's arm as the guest of honour, led the party to the adjacent dining room. John Thornton, perhaps by Miss Verinder's insistence, was seated next to Margaret. Mr Blake, she realised with quiet amusement, was a good distance away. Margaret couldn't have cared less; what mattered was that John was right beside her, and for this she felt very much indebted to the daughter of the house.
As for the other guests; most of them held no particular interest for Margaret—and of some of them she didn't even catch the names.
The Rector of Frizinghall rose and said grace, and then an army of servants, under the close supervision of Betteredge who served as butler that night, brought in the first course.
As the pampered only child of the family, Miss Verinder had attended large gatherings from an early age; and even though she had never been quite as much the centre of attention as on this occasion, she headed the table with charm and poise.
The guest on her left was Dr Candy. He was the same pleasant, companionable little man as on the other night, but with the same drawback of plunging into talk in a headlong manner rather than waiting to feel his way first—just as had been the case with Mr Blake and the matter of his disrupted sleep.
What he said about the diamond to Miss Verinder was meant by way of a joke; how it was perceived, however, remained a bit of a mystery. 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," he said, "to a certain 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 safekeeping of a valuable precious stone!"
Lady Verinder—listening to the doctor's rambling—seemed rather inclined to have her daughter give it a try.
The other guest, who sat on the young lady's right hand, was Mr Murthwaite, the eminent traveller. He was a long, lean, wiry, deeply tanned man who didn't contribute much to the conversation. He had, however, a very steady, attentive eye. But except of what he said to Miss Verinder about her jewel, he hardly spoke above six words or drank above half a glass of wine all through dinner. The Moonstone was the only object that interested him in the smallest degree. The fame of it seemed to have reached him, in some of those perilous Indian places where his wanderings had taken him.
After looking at it silently for a long time, he said in his cool immovable way, "If you ever go to India, Miss Verinder, don't take your uncle's birthday gift with you. A Hindu diamond is sometimes part of a Hindu religion. I know a certain city, and a certain temple in that city, where, dressed as you are now, your life would not be worth five minutes' purchase."
Miss Verinder, safe in England, was quite delighted to hear of her danger in India. The Miss Ablewhites were more delighted still; they dropped their knives and forks with a crash, and burst out together vehemently, "Oh!—how interesting!"
Lady Verinder, as Margaret noticed, fidgeted in her chair and quickly changed the subject.
As the dinner went on, it became apparent—little by little—that this party was not prospering as it ought to. There were uncomfortable gaps of silence in the talk, and when the guests did use their tongues again, they—more often than not—used them in the most unfortunate manner, and to the worst possible purpose imaginable. As happened with one of the ladies present, a Mrs Threadgall, widow of the late professor of that name.
Having talked with Mrs Clack about the guests, Margaret had been forewarned that this good lady tended to talk of her deceased husband perpetually, but never mentioned to strangers that he was, in fact, deceased. But, obviously, not everyone around the table shared this information. In one of the gaps of silence, somebody mentioned the subject of human anatomy; whereupon Mrs Threadgall straightaway brought in her late husband, but—as was her wont—without mentioning that he was dead. Anatomy she described as the professor's favourite recreation in his leisure hours.
Dr Candy, sitting opposite, heard her and, seizing the opportunity of assisting the professor's anatomical amusements on the spot, said in a loud cheerful voice, "They have got some remarkably fine skeletons lately at the College of Surgeons. I strongly recommend the professor, ma'am, when he next has an hour to spare, to pay them a visit."
One might have heard a pin fall. The company sat speechless. Mrs Threadgall, dropping her head, said in a very low voice, "My beloved husband is no more."
Unluckily Dr Candy, hearing nothing, and miles away from suspecting the truth, went on across the table louder and politer than ever. "The professor may not be aware," he said, "that the card of a member of the College will admit him, on any day but Sunday, between the hours of ten and four."
Mrs Threadgall dropped her head right into her tucker, and, in a lower voice still, repeated the solemn words, "My beloved husband is no more."
Miss Verinder touched the doctor's arm. Lady Verinder looked unutterable things at him—to no effect.
"I shall be delighted," he said, "to send the professor my card, if you will oblige me by mentioning his present address."
"His present address, sir, is the grave," Mrs Threadgall said, suddenly losing her temper, and speaking with an emphasis and fury that made the glasses ring. "The professor has been dead these ten years."
"Oh, good heavens!" Dr Candy exclaimed. Excepting the Miss Ablewhites, who burst out laughing, such a blank fell on the company that they might all have been going the way of the late professor, and hailing—as he did—from the direction of the grave.
Margaret heard a muted snort beside her, followed by John mumbling "Sorry" into his napkin. She valiantly stifled her own nervous smile.
As the evening progressed, Dr Candy wasn't the only one to make a faux pas. The rest of the dinner guests were nearly as provoking, each in their own different ways. When they ought to have spoken, they didn't speak; or when they did speak they were perpetually at cross purposes.
"Is this how conversation is supposed to flow at such an occasion?" John murmured into her ear at one point.
"Not at all," Margaret replied just as softly. "It is as if the evening is cursed—"
Mr Ablewite—though so eloquent in public—roundly declined to exert himself in private, keeping all his talk for the private ear of the lady who sat next to him. She was one of his wealthy committee-ladies, it transpired—a spiritually-minded person, with a fine show of collar-bone and a pretty taste in champagne.
Mr Blake, on the other hand, appeared to have recovered from his doubts regarding his role in the colonel's scheme, and he was in wonderful force and spirits. But, talk as he might, nine times out of ten he pitched on the wrong subject, or he addressed himself to the wrong person; the end of it being that he offended some, and puzzled all of them. Perhaps it was his foreign training shining through to the least advantage.
At one point he was discussing—and with the maiden aunt of the Vicar of Frizinghall, no less!—the lengths to which a married woman might let her admiration go for a man who was not her husband. How very French of him! Or he was telling the lord of Frizinghall Manor, a great authority on the breeding of cattle, that experience, properly understood, counted for nothing, and that the only way to breed bulls was to look deep into one's mind, evolve out of it the idea of a perfect bull, and produce him... much in the vein of a German philosopher.
His coup-de-grace, however was dealt out over salad. The local county member, a known choleric, was getting het up about the spread of democracy in England, and thus burst out, "If we once lose our ancient safeguards, Mr Blake, I beg to ask you, what have we got left?" to which Mr Blake, in his most flippant Italian manner, replied, "We have got three things left, sir—love, music, and salad."
Margaret, a stout believer in the need for swift progression of democracy herself, almost choked on her wine.
And, finally, if all that hadn't been quite enough, both Dr Candy and Mr Blake were at each other's throats again over sleeplessness versus medicine, with the doctor eventually so completely losing his self-control, in defence of his profession, that Lady Verinder was obliged to interfere—again. She roundly forbade the dispute to go on.
"I shall prove it to you that I'm right," one could hear the doctor mutter darkly as he took his seat again. "Just so you'll see, young man... You'll see—"
Everyone gave a quiet sigh of relief when it was finally time for the ladies to retire to the drawing room.
Just as they were to rise, there came a sound from the terrace. It was the distinctive sound of an Indian drum and cymbals. Margaret remembered Mrs Clack jesting about the Magi, and she couldn't help wondering at the coincidence of a group of Indians coming to the house so closely following the arrival of an Indian jewel. She said as much to John.
"If one is so inclined to believe in coincidences," he murmured back.
As the small group of jugglers—because that was what they indeed appeared to be—rounded the corner of the terrace, and came in sight, Betteredge hobbled out to warn them off. But the Miss Ablewhites would have none of that! Regardless of the cold they whizzed out on to the terrace and beckoned the Indians into the festively decorated hall, wild to see them exhibit their tricks. The other ladies followed into the hall; the gentlemen came out on their side—and before another moment the show was to begin.
Margaret noticed Mr Blake staying very close on one side of Miss Verinder, with an air that spoke more of protection than regard, and Betteredge, the house-steward appeared to be doing the same. There she stood between them, innocent of all danger, showing those strangers the diamond in the bosom of her dress!
The tricks the three Indians performed were a bit of a disappointment; they were nothing that Margaret hadn't already seen—and better—in London. Therefore, the first thing of note was the sudden appearance on the scene of the Indian traveller, Mr Murthwaite. Skirting the half-circle in which the gentlefolk stood, he came quietly behind the jugglers and spoke to them in the language of their own country.
If he had pricked them with a needle, the Indians couldn't have started more violently, and turning on him in a flash, than they did on hearing the first words that passed his lips. The next moment all three of them were bowing to him in a most polite and subservient manner. After a few more words in the unknown tongue had passed on either side, Mr Murthwaite withdrew as quietly as he had approached. The chief Indian, who acted as interpreter, thereupon wheeled about again towards the gentlefolk. It appeared as if the fellow's dark complexion had turned ashen since Mr Murthwaite had spoken to him. He bowed to Lady Verinder and informed her that the exhibition was over.
One of them went round with a hat, and, despite the Miss Ablewhites' vocal disappointment, the show had come to an end. The ladies withdrew to the drawing room; and the gentlemen returned to their wine. Betteredge and one of the footman followed the Indians out of the hall and saw them safely off the premises.
Despite the draught from the open entrance door, Margaret and Thornton lingered a little over following the others back inside. Mr Blake and Mr Murthwaite had also remained behind, but, slowly walking towards the door of the dining room, they were soon turning around the corner and were out of earshot.
"What a strange evening," Margaret remarked quietly. "One might almost believe that the diamond has indeed cast a spell over it—"
"We should be careful to assign to evil forces what is, in fact, the deeds of man," John cautioned. "However, I wouldn't be altogether surprised if there was some hidden agenda at work." He gave Margaret a worried look. "Please, do me a favour and keep your bedroom door bolted and your window locked tonight."
"What do you fear?" His concern, rather than the chill from the door, made her shiver.
"Nothing definite, my love." Shrugging out of his frockcoat he wrapped her into its large warm folds and smiled down at her. "But a great fortune—and this Moonstone presents a very large fortune—begets desire... perhaps even in the most unexpected quarters. Hindu temple guards might not be the only ones to covet it."
"Is this what you think these Indian jugglers were?"
"How am I to know?" He shrugged. "But I daresay that Mr Murthwaite might have his own views... However, to return to the subject of desire—" John quickly looked around; the hall lay deserted. He drew her close. "I've been waiting to do this all day," he murmured against her lips.
As the evening commenced there was coffee and music in the drawing room, and the party returned to some semblance of normalcy. Every now and then a spark of its earlier oddness flared up—such as Miss Verinder vehemently declining to store the diamond in the safe, but rather keep it in an Indian cabinet in her own room; a cabinet with no lock, as Lady Verinder pointed out, but to no avail.
The strange, overwrought atmosphere never entirely went away, and Margaret was under the impression that, by the end of the evening, everyone heaved a small sigh of relief.
"I'll be seeing you tomorrow at lunch at your hotel," Margaret promised to John. They were bidding each other good night just inside the front entrance. Outside one of the Verinders' carriages was waiting to take him—together with the Rector and his aunt—back into Frizinghall.
Dr Candy, having indulged in rather too many of the after-dinner drinks, clambered onto his gig, boisterously brushing off any concerns as to his safe return on a winter's night, and with a white frost about to glaze over the road.
Mr Blake, on the other hand, seemed to have finally succumbed to the after effects of his insomnia. He sat in a stupor, slumped over in a chair in the hall, with his eyelids drooping, and looking ready to tumble over into sleep at any moment—until Betteredge entreated him to retire to his room. How he eventually managed to navigate the stairs, Margaret couldn't say.
When she was in her room at last, Dixon was just drawing the curtains. "Looks like Betteredge let the dogs loose... That's a first," the maid said, speaking to herself.
While helping Margaret undress Dixon provided her with the information—as yet unverified—that Mr Ablewhite had proposed to Miss Verinder before dinner, and had been rejected. Pondering the possibility Margaret came to the conclusion that this might go some way to explain the strange behaviour of some during dinner, although, by no means, of all of them.
Shortly after midnight the house turned quiet and Margaret, in the privacy of her room after Dixon had left, opened John's letter.
It was a love letter. It was the first and only letter, speaking of nothing but a man's most fervent feelings, she had ever received—by him or anyone else.
And it was quintessentially John. A man of few words.
But true of heart.
A/N:
Wilkie Collins's 'The Moonstone' it is indeed!—as some of you have already pointed out in the reviews. So, now that the cat's out of the bag (plus, I've got some time at hand today), I thought that I might just as well give you the next chapter already... where John is finally back!
It is also time for a confession—or two...
Firstly, the large host of characters you have met in the last two chapters is by no means my own but entirely Mr Collins's, as is the setting and the plot of everything taking place in Yorkshire at this point of the story. In fact, I only inserted Margaret, and now John into it. However, those of you familiar with the novel 'The Moonstone' might be aware that the reader has more information about the mystery surrounding the diamond at this point than I, writing from Margaret's PoV, have been able to give you.
Secondly, chapter 4 is—in large parts—a copy/paste job. *hangs head in shame* Both the presentation of the diamond and the ensuing dinner party are taken from the novel—often verbatim... except where I had to exclude the original narrator (Betteredge). However, thanks to our favourite couple entering the fray, we will diverge again pretty quickly.
The most substantial liberties I have taken up to this point—apart from introducing Margaret and John into an entirely different story—have been with regard to Drusilla Clack. In Collins's novel she is an unpleasant hypocritical bigot and meddler; and, besides, she doesn't get introduced into the story until much later.
And finally... Although published in 1868, the plot of 'The Moonstone' is actually set in 1848, so it's a similar period to N&S.
