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The Loss of the Diamond: 21
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
After Julia leaves the estate, Betteredge finds Cuff unwilling to keep talking about the case, and instead fixated yet again on the garden and its roses. Having decided to postpone his departure until he receives news of Julia’s confrontation with Rachel, Franklin wanders about the house, monologuing about his and Rachel’s failed relationship to Betteredge, the only person who will listen. Betteredge tries to offer advice from Robinson Crusoe, but Franklin simply insists his monologue not be interrupted and continues to speak contradictory nonsense. But when Franklin smells Betteredge’s pipe, he decides to take up smoking again and comes in to light up.
As during all his downtime at the Verinder estate, Cuff turns back to the rose garden that represents his aspiration to give up grimy detective work for a life of unproblematic beauty. Franklin, clearly scarred by his failed relationship with Rachel and self-indulgently intellectual, keeps the eternal bystander Betteredge entertained. His openly contradictory thoughts represent the tensions Collins sees in all his characters (like the apparently two-faced Rachel, the brilliant but unassuming Cuff, and the outwardly humble but inwardly hubristic Betteredge himself).
Themes
The carriage returns without Julia, who has decided to remain in town, but with two letters—one for Franklin and one for Betteredge, which explains that Cuff has officially been fired. Betteredge finds Cuff and reads him the letter, in which Julia claims that Rachel reacted to Rosanna’s suicide by swearing “she has never spoken a word in private to Rosanna.” Julia admits that Rachel is opening herself to suspicion, but reports that Rachel claims to have neither debts nor knowledge of the Moonstone’s whereabouts. Rachel refuses to speak further on the matter and explains that Julia will one day understand her “careless[ness].” At the end of the letter, Julia asks that Betteredge read the document to Cuff, give him his paycheck, and release him of his obligations. Julia believes “that the circumstances, in this case, have fatally misled him [Cuff].”
The letter to Franklin is another symbol of the limits of Betteredge’s narration: although he seems to know everyone and everything in the house, much remains hidden from him and the reader—here, specifically the dynamic encompassing Franklin, Rachel, Julia, and Godfrey, to which Betteredge is not privy. Rachel’s reaction either proves her even more heartless than anyone ever imagined, or else—astonishingly—proves Cuff wrong about his theory, which forces the reader to completely reconsider their picture of who does and does not have a reliable perspective on events, as well as perhaps go back and try to reinterpret all the clues Cuff has uncovered throughout his investigation.
Themes
Cuff declares he will no longer discuss the closed case, but promises to repay the “generous” check when the family’s conflict “bursts up again.” Clearly, he sees Rachel’s response as proof that she is “hardened enough to resist the strongest appeal” and willing to lie to her own mother. Betteredge says he considers this an insult—but Cuff says Betteredge should take it as a warning. As they bid goodbye (and Betteredge fails to keep himself from continuing to ask about the Diamond), Cuff proclaims Betteredge “as transparent as a child,” if not more, and he makes three predictions before departing: the Yollands will get in touch with him when Rosanna’s letter arrives on Monday, the three Indians will reemerge wherever Rachel happens to be, and the moneylender, Septimus Luker, will somehow come up as well.
Cuff seems unworried about apparently botching the case; perhaps, after all, he does have some important knowledge that has yet to come out, and he remains firm in his conviction that Rachel is lying. Cuff’s assessment of Betteredge again destabilizes Betteredge’s self-understanding and sense of worth; he considers himself refined and mature, intelligent and authoritative, the opposite of a child who easily shows its emotions. Cuff’s statement also encourages the reader to step out of Betteredge’s narration momentarily and consider what Betteredge’s style reveals about his blind spots, biases, and potential misinterpretations. And if Cuff’s specific predictions prove as astute as his earlier ones, the reader can also expect him to reemerge later on.
Themes
Literary Devices
Cuff mentions his “sincere personal liking” for Betteredge, whom he invites to visit him after retirement. He yells at the gardener about roses some more and then takes his leave. Betteredge explains that he still has only to narrate “Franklin’s departure” from that day, and then the “strange things that happened in the course of the new week.” He is very much looking forward to completing his portion of the narrative.
Just after insulting Betteredge, Cuff pays him a sincere compliment, thereby remaining an ambiguous and contradictory figure: one who simultaneously does and does not seem to understand the crime, who seems both on the family’s side and against them, and whose profound seriousness contrasts with his whimsical attraction to roses.
Themes
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