Introduction

Indian Diamonds 141
deliberately suppressed that Thomas Vandeleur desired the diamond and brought
it to London himself.
In The Moonstone, Colonel John Herncastle turns the curse of the diamond into
the weapon of his personal revenge on his sister. Yet, in the following, agency is
attributed to the diamond itself (Free 154). Betteredge exclaims: “I wish to God
the Diamond had never found its way into this house!” (Collins, Moonstone 147),
and “here was our quiet English house suddenly invaded by a devilish Indian
Diamond bringing after it a conspiracy of living rogues” (43), “blame the Diamond!”
(147). Even more explicitly, he accuses the diamond of deception: “That
cursed jewel has misguided everybody who has come near it” (300). Herncastle’s
malignant intentions are reflected onto the diamond and he, the actual agent,
seems to have no part in the events. In the same manner, Prince Florizel accuses
the Rajah’s Diamond of having “faithfully served the powers of hell” (Stevenson,
“Rajah’s” 131) with the same sense of independent agency which brings the diamond
from India to England. The Eustace Diamonds contains the same idea of the
diamonds as malevolent agents when Lizzy deplores that “[t]hose ill-starred jewels
have been almost as unkind to him [Benjamin] as to me” (Trollope 760).
The diamonds as agents and the covetous English as victims of the diamonds’
power cover the initial plundering in India. The crimes are imagined as emanating
from India in the form of Indian objects and infecting England so that “[t]he
crime of colonialism,” as Jaya Mehta argues, “is replaced by colonial crime” (634).
The assigning of an agency to the diamond also contributes to their perception
as an uncanny presence. Freud identifies the uncertainty whether an object is alive
or not as the point of departure for his own theory of the uncanny (Freud 157).
The descriptions of the diamonds as being uncannily alive and animated by a
curse illustrate this idea. Another source which feeds into their perception as animate
is the manner of their passage from one owner to the next.
Fetishes and Chance
The most prominent and unifying feature in the English main protagonists in The
Moonstone, “The Rajah’s Diamond” and also in The Datchet Diamonds is the almost
accidental acquisition of the diamonds. In “The Rajah’s Diamond”, Harry Hartley
carries a band-box without knowing what it actually contains and unwittingly becomes
an accomplice in Lady Vandeleur’s plot. Simon Rolles chances upon the
diamonds in a flower-bed, and Miss Vandeleur hands Francis Scrymgeour the
diamond wrapped in a handkerchief. When he unwraps it together with Prince
Florizel, he maintains that “I possess no stolen property” (Stevenson, “Rajah’s”
122).
In The Datchet Diamonds the initial innocence of the protagonist and the unpremeditated
theft of the diamonds are stressed through the mere coincidence of
the events. Cyril Paxton comes into the possession of the stones as he picks up