Of what was said between us on the beach, I have not the faintest recollection. The first place in which I can now see myself again plainly is the plantation of firs. Betteredge and I are walking back together to the house; and Betteredge is telling me that I shall be able to face it, and he will be able to face it, when we have had a glass of grog.
The scene shifts from the plantation, to Betteredge’s little sitting-room. My resolution not to enter Rachel’s house is forgotten. I feel gratefully the coolness and shadiness and quiet of the room. I drink the grog (a perfectly new luxury to me, at that time of day), which my good old friend mixes with icy-cold water from the well. Under any other circumstances, the drink would simply stupefy me. As things are, it strings up my nerves. I begin to ‘face it,’ as Betteredge has predicted. And Betteredge, on his side, begins to ‘face it,’ too.
The picture which I am now presenting of myself, will, I suspect, be thought a very strange one, to say the least of it. Placed in a situation which may, I think, be described as entirely without parallel, what is the first proceeding to which I resort? Do I seclude myself from all human society? Do I set my mind to analyse the abominable impossibility which, nevertheless, confronts me as an undeniable fact? Do I hurry back to London by the first train to consult the highest authorities, and to set a searching inquiry on foot immediately? No. I accept the shelter of a house which I had resolved never to degrade myself by entering again; and I sit, tippling spirits and water in the company of an old servant, at ten o’clock in the morning. Is this the conduct that might have been expected from a man placed in my horrible position? I can only answer that the sight of old Betteredge’s familiar face was an inexpressible comfort to me, and that the drinking of old Betteredge’s grog helped me, as I believe nothing else would have helped me, in the state of complete bodily and mental prostration into which I had fallen. I can only offer this excuse for myself; and I can only admire that invariable preservation of dignity, and that strictly logical consistency of conduct which distinguish every man and woman who may read these lines, in every emergency of their lives from the cradle to the grave.
‘Now, Mr. Franklin, there’s one thing certain, at any rate,’ said Betteredge, throwing the nightgown down on the table between us, and pointing to it as if it was a living creature that could hear him. ‘He’s a liar, to begin with.’
This comforting view of the matter was not the view that presented itself to my mind.
‘I am as innocent of all knowledge of having taken the Diamond as you are,’ I said. ‘But there is the witness against me! The paint on the nightgown, and the name on the nightgown are facts.’
Betteredge lifted my glass, and put it persuasively into my hand.
‘Facts?’ he repeated. ‘Take a drop more grog, Mr. Franklin, and you’ll get over the weakness of believing in facts! Foul play, sir!’ he continued, dropping his voice confidentially. ‘That is how I read the riddle. Foul play somewhere—and you and I must find it out. Was there nothing else in the tin case, when you put your hand into it?.
The question instantly reminded me of the letter in my pocket. I took it out, and opened it. It was a letter of many pages, closely written. I looked impatiently for the signature at the end. ‘Rosanna Spearman.’
As I read the name, a sudden remembrance illuminated my mind, and a sudden suspicion rose out of the new light.
‘Stop!’ I exclaimed. ‘Rosanna Spearman came to my aunt out of a reformatory? Rosanna Spearman had once been a thief?’
‘There’s no denying that, Mr. Franklin. What of it now, if you please?’
‘What of it now? How do we know she may not have stolen the Diamond after all? How do we know she may not have smeared my nightgown purposely with the paint—?’
Betteredge laid his hand on my arm, and stopped me before I could say any more.
‘You will be cleared of this, Mr. Franklin, beyond all doubt. But I hope you won’t be cleared in that way. See what the letter says, sir. In justice to the girl’s memory, see what it says.
I felt the earnestness with which he spoke—felt it as a friendly rebuke to me:’You shall form your own judgment on her letter,’ I said. ‘I will read it out.’
I began—and read these lines:
‘Sir—I have something to own to you. A confession which means much misery, may sometimes be made in very few words. This confession can be made in three words. I love you.
The letter dropped from my hand, I looked at Betteredge. ‘In the name of Heaven,’ I said, ‘what does it mean?’
He seemed to shrink from answering the question.
‘You and Limping Lucy were alone together this morning, sir,’ he said. ‘Did she say nothing about Rosanna Spearman?’
‘She never even mentioned Rosanna Spearman’s name.’
‘Please to go back to the letter, Mr. Franklin. I tell you plainly, I can’t find it in my heart to distress you, after what you have had to bear already. Let her speak for herself, sir. And get on with your grog. For your own sake, get on with your grog.
I resumed the reading of the letter.
‘It would be very disgraceful to me to tell you this, if I was a living woman when you read it. I shall be dead and gone, sir, when you find my letter. It is that which makes me bold. Not even my grave will be left to tell of me. I may own the truth—with the quicksand waiting to hide me when the words are written.
‘Besides, you will find your nightgown in my hiding-place, with the smear of the paint on it; and you will want to know how it came to be hidden by me? and why I said nothing to you about it in my life-time? I have only one reason to give. I did these strange things, because I loved you.
‘I won’t trouble you with much about myself, or my life, before you came to my lady’s house. Lady Verinder took me out of a reformatory. I had gone to the reformatory from the prison. I was put in the prison, because I was a thief. I was a thief, because my mother went on the streets when I was quite a little girl. My mother went on the streets, because the gentleman who was my father deserted her. There is no need to tell such a common story as this, at any length. It is told quite often enough in the newspapers.
‘Lady Verinder was very kind to me, and Mr. Betteredge was very kind to me. Those two, and the matron at the reformatory, are the only good people I have ever met with in all my life. I might have got on in my place—not happily—but I might have got on, if you had not come visiting. I don’t blame you, sir. It’s my fault—all my fault.
‘Do you remember when you came out on us from among the sand hills, that morning, looking for Mr. Betteredge? You were like a prince in a fairy-story. You were like a lover in a dream. You were the most adorable human creature I had ever seen. Something that felt like the happy life I had never led yet, leapt up in me at the instant I set eyes on you. Don’t laugh at this if you can help it. Oh, if I could only make you feel how serious it is to me!
‘I went back to the house, and wrote your name and mine in my work-box, and drew a true lovers’ knot under them. Then, some devil—no, I ought to say some good angel—whispered to me, “Go and look in the glass.” The glass told me—never mind what. I was too foolish to take the warning. I went on getting fonder and fonder of you, just as if I was a lady in your own rank of life, and the most beautiful creature your eyes ever rested on. I tried—oh, dear, how I tried—to get you to look at me. If you had known how I used to cry at night with the misery and the mortification of your never taking any notice of me, you would have pitied me perhaps, and have given me a look now and then to live on.
‘It would have been no very kind look, perhaps, if you had known how I hated Miss Rachel. I believe I found out you were in love with her, before you knew it yourself. She used to give you roses to wear in your button-hole. Ah, Mr. Franklin, you wore my roses oftener than either you or she thought! The only comfort I had at that time, was putting my rose secretly in your glass of water, in place of hers—and then throwing her rose away.