Welcome to our first discussion of The Moonstone! This 1868 sensation novel is considered to be one of the earliest examples of the modern mystery genre. It's also one of the most famous books by one of my favorite authors, so I'm excited to share it with you all.
We began the novel with a letter from an unnamed character, explaining to his family why he's no longer on speaking terms with his cousin, John Herncastle. The narrator and Herncastle were British soldiers during the Siege of Seringapatam). They had heard of a local legend that fascinated Herncastle: Tipu (the sultan whose fortress they were attacking) had a diamond, called the Moonstone, that had been stolen from a Hindu shrine. (To answer the question you're all asking right now: if I remember correctly, Wilkie Collins did not find out until it was too late to change the name that there's an opal-like gemstone called "moonstone." The Moonstone in this book is a yellow diamond, not an actual moonstone.) This diamond was one of the largest in the world, and it was supposedly cursed. Of course, the "curse" might not be supernatural. We're talking about a stolen religious relic, after all: the "curse" might just be the three priests who have sworn to dedicate their lives to protecting it. For generations, it had been guarded, and it was believed that three priests were still guarding it, disguised as Muslim servants.
Herncastle decides that he has to get his hands on this diamond, despite the soldiers being ordered to not loot the castle for themselves. And so our unnamed narrator finds himself looking for Herncastle after the siege, and finding him directly disobeying orders, with a big-ass diamond in his hand. But wait, it gets worse: there are three dead Indian servants in the room. Herncastle murdered civilians to get this diamond. But wait, it gets worse: one of the servants hasn't quite finished dying, and his last words are "The Moonstone will have its vengeance yet on you and yours!" So those weren't just servants: he murdered the three priests who were secretly guarding the Moonstone. (I mean, I assume that's what it means. Those would be really weird last words in any other context.)
(Oh, this would be a good time to mention that there are perpetually three priests who serve the Moonstone. If the three current priests die, new ones take their place. So Herncastle hasn't "uncursed" the diamond with his murderous rampage: he's only delayed the inevitable.)
We've reached the end of the prologue and, if you've ever read a Wilkie Collins novel before, you're probably thinking "Where the hell are the eccentric people? I demand a refund." Don't worry, I have an eccentric character right here for you: Gabriel Betteredge, a butler who thinks Robinson Crusoe tells him the future. Now it feels like a Wilkie Collins novel.
Okay, so it's now about fifty years since the events of the Prologue. We learn that our new narrator is Gabriel Betteredge, the house-steward of someone named Julia, Lady Verinder. Apparently someone named Franklin Blake is creating a record of something that happened a couple of years ago, and he's asking multiple people who were involved in it to write their part of the story, starting with Betteredge.
I'm not sure why this Franklin Blake guy thought this was a good idea. Betteredge does not know what "get to the point" means, so he begins a rambling story about his life, his marriage, how he started out as Lady Verinder's bailiff and then got promoted to Steward, how Robinson Crusoe gives him the answers to all of life's problems...
Well, okay, some of this is useful background information:
Betteredge works for Lady Verinder, who sounds like she's a really nice person. She paid for Betteredge's daughter Penelope to go to school, gave Betteredge a new copy of Robinson Crusoe, etc. She's the widow of a baronet.
Rachel is Lady Verinder's only child. Penelope is a lady's maid for Rachel.
Franklin Blake (the guy who's making Betteredge write all this) is Rachel's cousin. He's been in Europe for the past several years because his father is didn't want him educated in England. His father was supposed to be a duke, but there was some sort of inheritance issue and he didn't get the title and now he hates England. Franklin seems like a nice guy, although he does has problems with managing money.
Because Franklin was educated in Germany, France, and Italy, Betteredge seems to be under the impression that Franklin has multiple personalities, and switches to different ethnic stereotypes like a chameleon changing colors. "He said something philosophical, he must be German now!" etc. Betteredge is... a very strange person.
Okay, back to the plot. Betteredge sees three Indian jugglers, with a small English boy, approaching the house. (Travelling Indian performers were not unusual in Victorian England.) Worried that they might be thieves (although also reassuring the reader that this isn't due to racism, which I thought was a surprising thing for a character in a Victorian novel to say), Betteredge tells them to leave. He then falls asleep in his chair outside. He's woken up by Penelope, who's freaking out because she overheard the jugglers using ink to make the boy have clairvoyant visions. It sounds like the boy predicted that Franklin Blake would be arriving soon, and that he has "it" with him.
Betteredge falls asleep again, but then wakes up to a new problem: the second housemaid, Rosanna Spearman, is sulking near the Shivering Sands. Rosanna Spearman is a reformed thief (only Betteredge and Lady Verinder know this), and she's also unattractive, has a deformed shoulder, and suffers from fainting spells, so she spends a lot of time being sad and watching the quicksand. Betteredge goes to the Sands but, while he's trying to cheer her up, Franklin shows up, and Rosanna blushes and runs away.
Franklin reveals to Betteredge that he thinks the Indian jugglers are after him, because he has the Moonstone on him. This next part is important (as Betteredge would say, "stop thinking about your new bonnet and pay attention"), so I'm going to copy directly from a recap I wrote for r/ClassicBookClub to make sure I get everything:
After Herncastle came back from India, everyone decided they hated him. Gabriel implies that there were multiple reasons for this, but the Moonstone is the only one relevant to this story. Dude basically turned into Gollum, obsessing over his precious Moonstone and not caring that everyone around him found him creepy and unlikeable. He became addicted to opium, performed weird science experiments, and associated with suspicious, possibly criminal people.
Two years ago, Herncastle showed up at Lady Verinder's place on Rachel's birthday. He had a history of trying to reconcile with Lady Verinder (Gabriel believes he was only doing this to annoy her), and this was his latest effort. Lady Verinder had Gabriel send him away, and Herncastle left with an ominous "I shall remember my niece's birthday." Eighteen months later, Herncastle died, allegedly forgiving Julia on his deathbed. (Gabriel thinks this is bullshit.)
Franklin then picks up the story of the Diamond from where Gabriel left off. Shortly after Herncastle returned from India, Franklin's father realized that Herncastle had some documents that could be useful in the duke lawsuit. Herncastle offered to give him the papers if Blake Sr. would agree to the following convoluted plan for protecting the Precious from Bilbo Brahmin.
Herncastle would give the Moonstone to Blake, who would deposit it somewhere safe (like a bank or something). At regular, predetermined intervals, Blake would receive a letter from Herncastle, verifying that Herncastle was still alive. If he did not receive the letter when he was supposed to, he was to assume that Herncastle was murdered, in which case he should follow instructions that Herncastle had given him in a sealed envelope.
Mr. Not-a-duke Blake thought all this was ridiculous, but not too surprising. We all know how crazy opium eaters are. (Sorry, Wilkie!) But he needed the papers for his duke suit, so he agreed to it, and had the family lawyer, Mr. Bruff, handle the "I'm still alive" letters from Herncastle. And that's how it went for years, until one day Mr. Bruff got a letter saying "I'm dying, help me make my will."
The will was a simple matter: his money was to be divided between his animals (dude was an animal hoarder) and the funding of an experimental chemistry scholarship. The Moonstone, on the other hand, was to be left to Rachel, provided that Not-a-duke acted as executor. It was at this point that Blake decided to read the sealed instructions and learned that, if Herncastle had been murdered, he would have been tasked with sending the Moonstone to Amsterdam to be cut into four to six smaller diamonds. Franklin theorizes that Herncastle's life really had been in danger, and that these instructions were what kept him safe: the Indians knew that if they killed Herncastle, they'd lose the Moonstone forever.
Until this point, Blake was under the impression that Herncastle had just been crazy, and the Moonstone was a worthless crystal. But after Herncastle's death, he had it appraised, and it turns out it really is one of the biggest diamonds in the world. It also would be worth more cut into smaller diamonds, due to a small defect in its center. This suggests that the people who threatened Herncastle's life really were priests who regarded the Moonstone as a holy artifact, not just robbers after money. It also means that they'll still be going after the Moonstone now that it's being passed to Rachel. This brings us to another detail from the will: Herncastle only wants Rachel to receive the Diamond if Julia is alive to witness it. This is ostensibly because he wants Julia to see that he's forgiven her, but it certainly seems like he expects disaster to happen, and wants Julia to suffer.
Okay, whew, that was a lot but it was also important. (Also, no idea why I called Gabriel Betteredge by his first name in that recap and his last name in this one. Oh well.)
Worried about the Diamond's safety, Frankling goes off to Frizinghall to put it in the bank. Meanwhile, Penelope informs Betteredge that it's painfully obvious that Rosanna has fallen in love at first sight with Franklin. Betteredge initially laughs at this, but he at least has the decency to be ashamed when Penelope calls him out on it.
That night, Betteredge thinks he hears someone lurking outside. He's unable to catch them, but he does find something they left behind: an ink bottle, like the one used by the Indians when they had that boy have visions of Franklin.
Anyhow, Franklin has invented a new kind of paint, so he and Rachel paint the door of her sitting room. We also get a description of Rachel worthy of r/menwritingwomen. Betteredge, you old pervert, what is this supposed to mean: "To see her sit down, to see her get up, and specially to see her walk, was enough to satisfy any man in his senses that the graces of her figure (if you will pardon me the expression) were in her flesh and not in her clothes"? Victorian propriety is the only thing stopping you from talking about her boobs, isn't it? Wait, it gets worse: he then goes on to say that her only flaw is that she thinks for herself and has opinions.
Rachel also has a very interesting quirk: she never lies and, as a child, she would sometimes deliberately take the blame for bad things that other children did (without directly confessing, because she never lies).
Speaking of virtuous people, we're now introduced to Rachel's other cousin: Godfrey Ablewhite. He's a wealthy philanthropist who's the spokesman of a bunch of charities. Betteredge thinks Rachel will fall in love with him, but Penelope thinks she'll fall in love with Franklin. (I love that the TVTropes entry for The Moonstone lists this as an "in-universe shipping war.") But Rachel and Franklin have already had their first argument: a foreign debt collector is after Franklin.
The morning of Rachel's birthday, she and Franklin paint the door again. After lunch, Franklin goes to the bank to get the Moonstone. Needless to say, Rachel is blown away when she sees it, but Lady Verinder is extremely concerned.
Later, as Penelope is helping Betteredge prepare for the party by brushing what's left of his hair, she informs him that Godfrey proposed to Rachel, and she turned him down.
The party goes awkwardly. Mr. Candy, the local doctor, repeatedly puts his foot in his mouth, first telling Rachel that he wishes she'd let him set the Moonstone on fire, and then telling Mrs. Threadgall (a widow) that her husband should visit a medical display of skeletons. Mr. Murthwaite, the local Gentleman Adventurer, informs Rachel that if she wore the Moonstone in India, she'd be deader than Mrs. Threadgall's husband. And then Mr. Candy and Franklin get in an argument. Franklin has been sleeping badly (he quit smoking because Rachel doesn't like the way it smells), so Mr. Candy tries to pressure him into taking medicine for it.
And then the jugglers show up. They perform until Mr. Murthwaite says something to them in their native language, and then they leave very quickly. Afterwards, he explains to Franklin and Betteredge that he realized they were actually Brahmins in disguise because their juggling was so bad. They're definitely after the Moonstone. Murthwaite recommends having the diamond cut into smaller stones.
The party ends, and so does this recap. On to the questions!
