CHAPTER IV

von Wilkie Collins

I couldn’t find the words to express what I was feeling.

It was as if the shock I had just experienced had completely shut down my ability to think or feel. I had no idea what I was doing when Betteredge joined me. He later told me that I laughed when he asked what was wrong and handed him the nightgown, telling him to figure it out for himself.

I couldn’t remember a thing about our conversation on the beach. The first moment I could clearly see myself again was in the plantation of fir trees. Betteredge and I were walking back to the house, and he was reassuring me that we would be able to handle everything after we had a glass of grog.

Suddenly, we were in Betteredge’s cozy little sitting room. My earlier resolution to avoid Rachel’s house slipped from my mind. I felt grateful for the coolness, shade, and quiet of the room. I sipped the grog—something I had never indulged in at that hour—mixed with icy-cold water from the well by my good old friend. Under normal circumstances, the drink would have dulled my senses, but instead, it sharpened my nerves. I began to “face it,” just as Betteredge had suggested. And Betteredge, in turn, started to “face it” as well.

I realize that the picture I’m painting of myself might seem quite strange. In a situation that felt utterly unique, what was my first response? Did I isolate myself from everyone? Did I try to analyze the horrifying impossibility that confronted me? Did I rush back to London to consult experts and launch a thorough investigation? No. I took refuge in a house I had vowed never to enter again and sat there, sipping spirits and water with an old servant at ten in the morning. Is this how someone in my dreadful position was expected to behave? I can only say that seeing Betteredge’s familiar face was an immense comfort, and drinking his grog helped me in a way that nothing else could have, given my state of complete physical and mental exhaustion. I can only offer that as my excuse and admire the unwavering dignity and logical consistency that I’m sure every reader possesses in their own emergencies, from birth to death.

“Now, Mr. Franklin, there’s one thing we can agree on,” Betteredge said, tossing the nightgown onto the table between us and gesturing at it as if it were alive. “He’s a liar, plain and simple.”

That comforting perspective wasn’t how I saw things.

“I’m just as clueless about the Diamond as you are,” I said. “But there’s evidence against me! The paint on the nightgown and the name on it are undeniable facts.”

Betteredge lifted my glass and placed it gently in my hand.

“Facts?” he echoed. “Take another sip of grog, Mr. Franklin, and you’ll shake off that weakness of believing in facts! Foul play, sir!” he continued, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “That’s how I interpret the riddle. There’s foul play involved, and we need to uncover it. Was there anything else in the tin case when you reached in?”

His question reminded me of the letter in my pocket. I pulled it out and opened it. It was a lengthy letter, filled with tightly written pages. I impatiently searched for the signature at the end. “Rosanna Spearman.”

As I read the name, a sudden memory sparked in my mind, and a new suspicion emerged.

“Wait!” I exclaimed. “Rosanna Spearman came to my aunt from a reformatory? She had been a thief?”

“There’s no denying that, Mr. Franklin. What’s your point?”

“What’s my point? How do we know she didn’t steal the Diamond after all? How do we know she didn’t deliberately smear my nightgown with paint?”

Betteredge placed a hand on my arm, stopping me before I could say more.

“You will be cleared of this, Mr. Franklin, without a doubt. But I hope it won’t be in that way. Please, read the letter. In fairness to the girl’s memory, see what it says.”

I could feel the sincerity in his voice—it felt like a gentle reprimand. “You can form your own opinion about her letter,” I replied. “I’ll read it out loud.”

I began and read these lines:

“Sir—I have something to confess to you. A confession that brings much sorrow can sometimes be expressed in just a few words. This confession can be summed up in three words: I love you.”

The letter slipped from my fingers, and I glanced at Betteredge. “What does this mean?” I asked, my voice trembling.

He hesitated, as if the answer weighed heavily on him.

“You and Limping Lucy were alone together this morning, sir,” he said carefully. “Did she say anything about Rosanna Spearman?”

“She didn’t mention Rosanna’s name at all.”

“Please, Mr. Franklin, go back to the letter. I can’t bear to distress you after everything you’ve been through. Let her speak for herself. And for your own sake, drink your grog.”

I picked up the letter again, my heart racing.

“It would be shameful for me to tell you this if I were alive when you read it. But I’ll be dead and gone by the time you find my letter. That’s what gives me courage. Not even my grave will remain to tell my story. I can finally speak the truth, knowing the quicksand waits to swallow me when the words are out.

“Besides, you’ll find your nightgown in my hiding place, stained with paint. You’ll want to know how it ended up hidden by me and why I never mentioned it while I was alive. I have only one reason: I did these strange things because I loved you.

“I won’t burden you with too much about my life before you came to my lady’s house. Lady Verinder rescued me from a reformatory. I ended up there after serving time in prison. I was in prison because I was a thief. I became a thief because my mother turned to the streets when I was just a little girl. She went to the streets because the man who was my father abandoned her. There’s no need to dwell on such a common story; it’s told often enough in the newspapers.

“Lady Verinder was very kind to me, and Mr. Betteredge was kind too. Those two, along with the matron at the reformatory, are the only good people I’ve ever known. I might have managed to get by—not happily, but I could have made it—if you hadn’t come to visit. I don’t blame you, sir. It’s my fault—all my fault.

“Do you remember that morning when you appeared out of the sandhills looking for Mr. Betteredge? You looked like a prince from a fairy tale, like a lover from a dream. You were the most beautiful person I had ever seen. In that moment, something inside me stirred, something that felt like the happy life I had never known. Please don’t laugh at this; it’s serious to me.

“I went back to my room and wrote your name and mine in my workbox, drawing a true lovers’ knot beneath them. Then, some devil—or perhaps a good angel—whispered to me, ‘Go look in the mirror.’ The mirror revealed something I won’t share. I was too foolish to heed the warning. I kept falling deeper for you, as if I belonged to your world, as if I were the most beautiful woman your eyes had ever seen. I tried—oh, how I tried—to get you to notice me. If you had known how many nights I cried from the misery of your indifference, you might have felt pity and given me a glance to hold onto.

“Perhaps it wouldn’t have been a kind glance, especially since I hated Miss Rachel. I believe I realized you were in love with her before you even knew it yourself. She used to give you roses to wear in your buttonhole. Ah, Mr. Franklin, you wore my roses more often than either of you realized! The only comfort I had at that time was secretly replacing her rose with mine in your glass of water and tossing hers away.

“If she had been as pretty as you thought, I might have accepted it more easily. No, I think I would have been even more spiteful. Imagine putting Miss Rachel in a servant’s dress, stripping her of her ornaments. I don’t know why I’m writing this. It’s undeniable that she had a poor figure; she was too thin. But who knows what men find attractive? Young ladies can act in ways that would cost a servant her job. It’s none of my business. I can’t expect you to read my letter if I write like this. But it stirs something in me to hear Miss Rachel called pretty when I know it’s just her clothes and her confidence that make her seem so.

“Please try to be patient with me, sir. I’ll get to the part that will surely interest you—the moment when the Diamond was lost.

“But first, there’s something I need to tell you.”

My life wasn’t particularly hard when I was a thief. It was only after I was sent to the reformatory, where they taught me to recognize my own shame and strive for something better, that my days became long and exhausting. Thoughts of the future began to invade my mind. I felt the heavy judgment of honest people— even the kindest among them—bearing down on me. A heart-wrenching sense of loneliness followed me everywhere, no matter where I went or whom I encountered.

I knew I should try to get along with my fellow workers at my new job, but for some reason, I just couldn’t connect with them. They looked at me—at least, that’s how I felt—as if they suspected my past. I didn’t regret being pushed to become a better person, but it was undeniably a tiring existence. You had come into my life like a ray of sunshine at first, but then you too let me down. I was foolish enough to fall in love with you, yet I couldn’t even catch your attention. That brought me a deep, real misery.

Now, let me get to the point of what I wanted to share with you. During those bitter days, I went a few times, whenever it was my turn to go out, to my favorite spot—the beach above the Shivering Sand. I told myself, “I think it will end here. When I can’t take it anymore, I believe it will end here.” You need to understand, sir, that the place had already cast a spell on me before you arrived. I always had a feeling that something significant would happen to me at the quicksand. But it wasn’t until that time I’m writing about now that I considered it as a way to escape my life. In that moment, I thought this could be the place to end all my troubles and hide me forever.

That’s all I have to say about myself, from the morning I first saw you to the morning the alarm was raised in the house about the missing diamond.

I was so frustrated by the silly gossip among the women servants, all speculating about who would be the first suspect. I was also angry with you—though I didn’t know better at the time—for the effort you put into searching for the jewel and calling the police. I kept to myself as much as possible until later that day when the officer from Frizinghall arrived.

Mr. Seegrave started, as you might remember, by putting a guard on the women’s bedrooms. The women followed him upstairs in a fury, demanding to know what he meant by such an insult. I went along with them because I knew that if I acted differently, Mr. Seegrave would suspect me right away. We found him in Miss Rachel’s room. He told us he didn’t want a bunch of women around and pointed to a smear on the painted door, claiming some of our skirts had caused the mess, and sent us all back downstairs.

After leaving Miss Rachel’s room, I paused on one of the landings to check if I had accidentally gotten any paint on my gown. Penelope Betteredge, the only one of the women I was friendly with, walked by and noticed what I was doing.

“You don’t need to worry, Rosanna,” she said. “The paint on Miss Rachel’s door has been dry for hours. If Mr. Seegrave hadn’t been watching our bedrooms, I might have told him that. I’ve never felt so insulted in my life!”

Penelope had a fiery temper. I calmed her down and brought her back to what she had said about the paint being dry.

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“I was with Miss Rachel and Mr. Franklin all yesterday morning,” Penelope replied, “mixing the colors while they finished the door. I heard Miss Rachel ask if the door would be dry by that evening for the birthday guests. Mr. Franklin shook his head and said it wouldn’t be dry for at least twelve hours. It was long past lunchtime; they didn’t finish until three o’clock. What does your math say, Rosanna? Mine says the door was dry by three this morning.”

“Did any of the ladies go upstairs yesterday evening to see it?” I asked. “I thought I heard Miss Rachel warning them to stay clear of the door.”

“None of the ladies made that smear,” Penelope answered. “I left Miss Rachel in bed at midnight last night. I checked the door then, and it was perfectly fine.”

“Shouldn’t you tell Mr. Seegrave about this, Penelope?”

“I wouldn’t say a word to help Mr. Seegrave, no matter what was offered to me!”

She went off to her work, and I returned to mine.

"My job, sir, was to make your bed and tidy your room. It was the happiest hour of my day. I used to kiss the pillow where your head had rested all night. No matter who has done it since, no one has ever folded your clothes as neatly as I did. Of all the little trinkets in your dressing case, not one had a speck of dust on it. You never noticed that, just like you never noticed me. I apologize; I’m getting carried away. I’ll hurry and continue.

That morning, I walked into your room to do my work. Your nightgown was tossed across the bed, just as you had thrown it off. I picked it up to fold it—and I saw the paint stain from Miss Rachel’s door!

I was so shocked by what I found that I ran out with the nightgown in my hand, hurried down the back stairs, and locked myself in my room to examine it where no one could interrupt me.

Once I caught my breath, I remembered my conversation with Penelope, and I thought, ‘Here’s the proof that you were in Miss Rachel’s sitting room between midnight and three in the morning!’

I won’t tell you exactly what the first suspicion that crossed my mind was when I made that discovery. You’d only get angry—and if you were angry, you might tear up my letter and stop reading.

Let’s just say this: after thinking it over, I concluded that the situation wasn’t likely for one reason I’ll explain. If you had been in Miss Rachel’s sitting room at that hour with her knowledge (and if you had been foolish enough to forget about the wet door), she would have reminded you—she would never have let you carry away such evidence against her, like the evidence I was holding now! Still, I admit I wasn’t completely sure I had disproved my own suspicion. You must remember that I’ve confessed to hating Miss Rachel. Try to understand that a bit of that hatred influenced my thoughts. In the end, I decided to keep the nightgown and wait, to see what I could do with it. At that moment, I had no idea that you had stolen the Diamond."

I paused in reading the letter for the second time.

I had read the parts of that miserable woman’s confession that related to me with genuine surprise and, I can honestly say, with sincere distress. I truly regretted the accusation I had carelessly made against her before I had seen a word of her letter. But when I reached the passage I just quoted, I felt my bitterness toward Rosanna Spearman growing as I continued. “Read the rest for yourself,” I said, handing the letter to Betteredge across the table. “If there’s anything I absolutely need to see, you can tell me as you go.”

“I understand you, Mr. Franklin,” he replied. “It’s natural, sir, for you. And, God help us all!” he added in a lower tone, “it’s no less natural for her.”

I now continue to copy the rest of the letter from my own possession:

"Having decided to keep the nightgown and see what use my love—or my revenge (I hardly know which)—could make of it in the future, the next thing was to figure out how to keep it without the risk of being discovered.

There was only one way—to make another nightgown exactly like it before Saturday arrived, bringing the laundry woman and her inventory to the house.

I was afraid to wait until the next day (Friday), worried that something might happen in the meantime. I decided to make the new nightgown that very day (Thursday), while I could count on having time to myself. The first thing to do (after locking your nightgown in my drawer) was to return to your bedroom—not just to tidy up (Penelope would have done that for me if I had asked), but to see if you had wiped any of the paint stain from your nightgown onto the bed or any furniture in the room.

I examined everything closely, and finally, I found a few streaks of paint on the inside of your dressing gown—not the linen one you usually wore that summer, but a flannel one you had with you too. I suppose you felt chilly after walking around in just your nightdress and put on the warmest thing you could find. At any rate, there were the stains, just barely visible, on the inside of the dressing gown. I easily got rid of them by scraping away the paint from the flannel. With that done, the only evidence left against you was the evidence locked away in my drawer.

I had just finished tidying up your room when I was called in for questioning by Mr. Seegrave, along with the other servants. Then came the search of our belongings. But the most shocking moment of the day for me was yet to come, and it all stemmed from the second round of questioning directed at Penelope Betteredge by Superintendent Seegrave.

When Penelope returned to us, she was practically shaking with anger over how Mr. Seegrave had treated her. He had made it clear, without a doubt, that he suspected her of being the thief. We were all taken aback by this accusation and immediately wondered why.

“Because the Diamond was in Miss Rachel’s sitting room,” Penelope replied. “And because I was the last person in there at night!”

As soon as she said that, I remembered someone else had been in the sitting room after Penelope. That someone was you. My mind spun, and I was engulfed in confusion. Amidst all this chaos, a thought crept into my mind: the stain on your nightgown might mean something entirely different than what I had assumed. If the last person in the room was the one to be suspected, then the thief wasn’t Penelope; it was Mr. Franklin Blake!

With any other gentleman, I would have felt ashamed for even considering such a thing, but the mere thought that you had stooped to my level, and that by having your nightgown, I held the key to protecting you from disgrace—it was overwhelming. The possibility of winning your favor seemed to open up before me, and I went from suspecting you to believing in your innocence almost instantly. I convinced myself that you had been the most active in calling the police, merely as a distraction, and that the hand that had taken Miss Rachel’s jewel could only belong to you.

I think the excitement of this revelation must have clouded my judgment for a moment. I felt an intense urge to see you, to say something about the Diamond, and to make you look at me and engage with me. So, I tidied my hair and dressed as nicely as I could, then headed to the library where I knew you were writing.

You had left one of your rings upstairs, which provided me with a perfect excuse for my intrusion. But, oh, sir! If you’ve ever been in love, you’ll understand how my courage faded the moment I stepped into the room and found you there. You looked up at me with such coldness, thanking me for finding your ring in a way that felt so indifferent, my knees nearly buckled beneath me. After you thanked me, you returned to your writing. Mortified by your treatment, I mustered enough courage to speak. “This is strange about the Diamond, sir,” I said. You looked up again and replied, “Yes, it is!” Your tone was polite, I can’t deny that, but you maintained a cruel distance between us.

Believing you had the lost Diamond hidden on you, your cool demeanor provoked me to take a risk. “They’ll never find the Diamond, will they? Nor the person who took it—I’ll guarantee that,” I said, nodding and smiling at you, as if to say, “I know!” This time, you looked at me with a flicker of interest in your eyes, and I felt that a few more words from both of us could lead to the truth. Just then, Mr. Betteredge ruined everything by appearing at the door. I recognized his footsteps and knew it was against the rules for me to be in the library at that time, especially with you. I barely managed to slip out before he could come in and send me away.

I was frustrated and disappointed, but I still held onto a glimmer of hope. The ice had been broken between us, and I resolved to ensure that Mr. Betteredge was out of the way next time.

When I returned to the servants’ hall, the dinner bell was ringing. Afternoon already! And I still needed to gather the materials for the new nightgown! There was only one way to manage it. I pretended to be ill at dinner, which gave me the entire time from then until tea to myself.

I won’t bother you with the details of what I was up to while everyone thought I was resting in my room. After pretending to be ill again at tea, I was sent to bed, and Sergeant Cuff figured out at least that much. I can imagine how he did it. I was caught—though I kept my veil down—at the draper’s shop in Frizinghall. There was a mirror at the counter where I was buying the longcloth, and in that mirror, I saw one of the shop assistants point at my shoulder and whisper to another. Later that night, while I was secretly working away, locked in my room, I could hear the women servants outside my door, breathing quietly, suspicious of me.

But it didn’t matter then, and it doesn’t matter now. On Friday morning, hours before Sergeant Cuff arrived, I had the new nightgown ready to replace the one I had taken. It was made, washed, dried, ironed, marked, and folded just like all the others, safely tucked away in your drawer. If anyone examined the linen in the house, they wouldn’t find anything suspicious about the new nightgown. All your underclothing had been replaced when you returned to our house—I assume after your time abroad.

Then came Sergeant Cuff, and the next big surprise was his take on the smear on the door.

I had believed you were guilty—I've admitted that—more because I wanted you to be than for any other reason. And now, the Sergeant had arrived at the same conclusion about the nightgown, but from a completely different angle! I had the dress that was the only evidence against you, and not a single soul knew it—not even you! I’m afraid to tell you how I felt when I realized all this—you would despise my memory forever.

At that moment, Betteredge looked up from the letter.

“Not a hint of clarity so far, Mr. Franklin,” the old man said, removing his heavy tortoiseshell glasses and pushing Rosanna Spearman’s confession aside. “Have you reached any conclusions in your own mind while I’ve been reading?”

“Let’s finish the letter first, Betteredge. There might be something at the end that sheds some light. I’ll have a few words for you afterward.”

“Very well, sir. I’ll just rest my eyes for a moment, then I’ll continue. In the meantime, Mr. Franklin—I don’t want to rush you, but could you tell me, in one word, if you see a way out of this dreadful mess yet?”

“I see a way back to London,” I replied, “to consult Mr. Bruff. If he can’t help me—”

“Yes, sir?”

“And if the Sergeant won’t leave his retirement in Dorking—”

“He won’t, Mr. Franklin!”

“Then, Betteredge, as far as I can see right now, I’ve exhausted my resources. After Mr. Bruff and the Sergeant, I don’t know anyone else who could possibly help me.”

Just as those words left my lips, someone knocked at the door.

Betteredge looked both surprised and annoyed by the interruption.

“Come in,” he called out irritably, “whoever you are!”

The door opened, and in walked the most remarkable-looking man I had ever seen. He seemed young based on his figure and movements, but his face made him look older than Betteredge. His complexion was a deep, gipsy brown, and his cheeks were sunken, making his bones stand out sharply. His nose had the elegant shape often seen in ancient Eastern cultures, a rarity among modern Westerners. His forehead rose high and straight from his brow, marked with countless lines and wrinkles. From this unusual face, the softest brown eyes—dreamy and mournful, deeply set in their sockets—captivated my attention.

His hair was thick and tightly curled, but in a bizarre twist of nature, it had lost its color in a strikingly uneven way. The top of his head still bore the deep black of his natural color, while the sides had turned completely white, with no gradual transition to soften the stark contrast. In some places, the white hair blended into the black; in others, the black hair faded into the white. I couldn’t help but stare at him with an insatiable curiosity, and his gentle brown eyes met mine with an apology for my rudeness that I knew I didn’t deserve.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize Mr. Betteredge was busy.” He pulled a slip of paper from his pocket and handed it to Betteredge. “Here’s the list for next week,” he added. His gaze flicked back to me for a moment before he slipped out of the room as quietly as he had come in.

“Who was that?” I asked.

“Mr. Candy’s assistant,” Betteredge replied. “By the way, Mr. Franklin, you’ll be sorry to hear that the little doctor hasn’t fully recovered from the illness he caught on his way home from the birthday dinner. He’s in decent health now, but he lost his memory during the fever and has only managed to regain a fragment of it since. All the work falls on his assistant now. Not that there’s much to do, except for the poor. They can’t help themselves, you know. They have to make do with the man with the piebald hair and the gypsy complexion—or they wouldn’t get any medical care at all.”

“You don’t seem to have a high opinion of him, Betteredge.”

“Nobody likes him, sir.”

“Why is he so unpopular?”

“Well, Mr. Franklin, his looks don’t help. And there’s a rumor that Mr. Candy took him on despite a questionable background. Nobody knows who he really is, and he doesn’t have a friend in the place. How can you expect anyone to like him after that?”

“Quite impossible, of course! May I ask what he wanted with you when he handed you that paper?”

“Just to give me the weekly list of sick people around here who need a little wine. My lady always made sure to distribute good port and sherry among the infirm poor, and Miss Rachel wants to keep that tradition alive. Times have changed! I remember when Mr. Candy himself brought the list to my mistress. Now it’s Mr. Candy’s assistant who brings it to me. If you don’t mind, I’ll continue with the letter,” Betteredge said, pulling Rosanna Spearman’s confession back toward him. “I know it’s not exactly cheerful reading, but it helps keep me from dwelling too much on the past.” He adjusted his spectacles and shook his head gloomily. “There’s a certain wisdom in how we treat our mothers when they first bring us into this world. None of us really want to be born, and we’re all right to feel that way.”

Mr. Candy’s assistant had made too strong an impression on me to be easily forgotten. I brushed aside Betteredge’s last philosophical comment and returned to the topic of the man with the piebald hair.

“What’s his name?” I asked.

“As ugly a name as you could imagine,” Betteredge replied gruffly. “Ezra Jennings.”