The Moonstone - Page 268/404

"Now I am coming to what I wanted to tell you. In those days of

bitterness, I went two or three times, when it was my turn to go out,

to my favourite place--the beach above the Shivering Sand. And I said to

myself, 'I think it will end here. When I can bear it no longer, I think

it will end here.' You will understand, sir, that the place had laid

a kind of spell on me before you came. I had always had a notion that

something would happen to me at the quicksand. But I had never looked

at it, with the thought of its being the means of my making away with

myself, till the time came of which I am now writing. Then I did think

that here was a place which would end all my troubles for me in a moment

or two--and hide me for ever afterwards.

"This is all I have to say about myself, reckoning from the morning when

I first saw you, to the morning when the alarm was raised in the house

that the Diamond was lost.

"I was so aggravated by the foolish talk among the women servants, all

wondering who was to be suspected first; and I was so angry with you

(knowing no better at that time) for the pains you took in hunting for

the jewel, and sending for the police, that I kept as much as

possible away by myself, until later in the day, when the officer from

Frizinghall came to the house.

"Mr. Seegrave began, as you may remember, by setting a guard on the

women's bedrooms; and the women all followed him up-stairs in a rage,

to know what he meant by the insult he had put on them. I went with

the rest, because if I had done anything different from the rest, Mr.

Seegrave was the sort of man who would have suspected me directly. We

found him in Miss Rachel's room. He told us he wouldn't have a lot of

women there; and he pointed to the smear on the painted door, and

said some of our petticoats had done the mischief, and sent us all

down-stairs again.

"After leaving Miss Rachel's room, I stopped a moment on one of the

landings, by myself, to see if I had got the paint-stain by any chance

on MY gown. Penelope Betteredge (the only one of the women with whom I

was on friendly terms) passed, and noticed what I was about.

"'You needn't trouble yourself, Rosanna,' she said. 'The paint on Miss

Rachel's door has been dry for hours. If Mr. Seegrave hadn't set a watch

on our bedrooms, I might have told him as much. I don't know what you

think--I was never so insulted before in my life!' "Penelope was a hot-tempered girl. I quieted her, and brought her back

to what she had said about the paint on the door having been dry for

hours.