Previous
The Discovery of the Truth 1: 4
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Moonstone, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Detective Methods and Genre Standards
Intention, Identity, and Personality
Science and Religion
Gender and Victorian Morality
Class, Wealth, and Nobility
British Imperialism
Summary
Analysis
Still behind the drawing-room’s curtains, Clack contemplates Godfrey’s words and wonders what unholy thing he is planning to “do to-day.” She does not even remember until much later that Godfrey is supposed to be at a concert. Then, she hears Rachel ask Godfrey why he came upstairs instead of to the library—“Miss Clack is in the library,” he explains. Furious, Clack moves the curtains so she can see into Julia’s room as well as hear the conversation. Godfrey tells Rachel she is being missed at the concert, which he also skipped for her sake. They agree that Julia’s condition should improve soon.
Clack plays the secret eavesdropper, another important trope in mystery literature that gives the reader private information. As she realizes that Godfrey is avoiding her, she must at least subconsciously reconsider her reverence for him—or realize that her love for him is one-directional. The reader must, of course, reconsider Godfrey’s credibility, as well as Clack’s portrait of him. On another note, it is clear that Godfrey and Rachel do not yet know that Julia’s condition is terminal. Julia seems to have told Clack simply because (unlike Clack) she is honest and forthcoming.
Themes
Then, to Miss Clack’s surprise, Godfrey declares his “hopeless love” for Rachel, who protests that they “agreed […] to be cousins, and nothing more.” He proclaims that he hopes she will someday, somehow, grow to reciprocate it, and begins to cry as he admits he has “lost every interest in life, but [his] interest in [her].” He declares he even finds his charities “an unendurable nuisance” now, and Clack despairs for “the struggling Female Boards” that could not function without Mr. Godfrey. Rachel reveals that she has her own confession to make—Clack and Godfrey both think it will be about the Moonstone, but Rachel instead says that she is “the wretchedest girl living.”
Rachel and Godfrey’s apparent love also proves Miss Clack’s moral compass to be misguided: she cannot make sense of a man she considers exemplary falling in love with a woman she considers deficient. Unsurprisingly, she blames Rachel singlehandedly for Godfrey’s interest, portraying her as stealing him away from his rightful women (Clack and those at the charities—although, tellingly, Clack refers to the charities’ directors and not their beneficiaries).
Themes
Godfrey brings up the Moonstone, but Rachel says this is unrelated to her sentiment; instead, she asks Godfrey to imagine he “were in love with some other woman” who were “utterly unworthy of [him]” and unbearable to think about. She is, of course, talking about her own love for someone who “doesn’t know” about it; in fact, she “will never, never, never see him again.” She cries as Godfrey gets on his knees, holds her, and utters two words Miss Clack finds astonishing: “Noble creature!” He praises Rachel’s honesty and asks her to marry him. She replies with what Miss Clack considers her “first sensible words”: “You must be mad!”
Rachel is almost certainly alluding to Franklin Blake, whom she has come to hate ever since the Moonstone’s theft and is assuming she will “never, never, never see” in the future. Either Godfrey does not understand Rachel’s reference to Franklin or he does not care; he proposes for a second time, although this she has already rejected him once.
Themes
Literary Devices
Godfrey insists Rachel is wiser to choose a man who loves her than one who does not even recognize her love. He declares himself “content with [Rachel’s] affection and regard,” even if she does not grow to love him. Rachel warns Godfrey not to “tempt” her and Clack laments Rachel’s moral weakness. Godfrey insists that marriage is women’s “Refuge,” and that “respect and admir[ation]” are more important than love. He knows Rachel cannot “sentence [her]self to a single life,” and Rachel warns that he is beginning to change her mind before yielding to his pressure and accepting the proposal. Clack watches them kiss and is ashamed to reveal that she closed her eyes “just one moment too late.” Godfrey asks Rachel which of them should speak to Julia, and she insists they wait until Julia recovers from her illness.
Although Godfrey justifies his own position by claiming he loves Rachel, he also makes an argument against the necessity of love for marriage. Marriage based in love was not yet the norm at this time (since marriage was often a means of preserving a family’s social class or transferring property by establishing familial relations between men). Meanwhile, Rachel still has faith in love—much like Rosanna—but begins to see an apparently secure future with Godfrey as a reasonable replacement for genuine happiness with Franklin Blake. In this sense, while Rachel appears to grow joyous and enamored throughout the scene, she is also clearly taking a cynical stance, compromising her faith in love for the sake of security.
Themes
Get the entire The Moonstone LitChart as a printable PDF.
At once, Rachel notices that the curtains are out of place and begins to draw them apart—but then “a man in great alarm” comes to the steps and calls for Rachel, reporting that Julia fainted and will not recover. Clack escapes downstairs and Godfrey tells her to go help Julia while he finds the doctor. When she sees Julia’s face, Clack immediately recognizes “the dreadful truth.” The doctor arrives, sends Rachel away, and tells the rest that Julia has died. Clack is horrified to see that Julia has not opened any of her letters, and realizes some time later that Julia also never gave her the “little legacy” she was promised.
Clack’s near-discovery creates a momentary flood of suspense, but Julia’s death prevents her discovery—which is, of course, another instance of the family’s demise benefiting Clack. Indeed, Clack is less worried by Julia’s death than the fact that Julia never read her letters in her final hours. By proving such an irritant, Clack even forfeits the payment she was promised for simply being present at the signing of Julia’s will.
Themes
