Poor Miss Finch Part 42

He looked up as suddenly as he had looked down.

"Do you and Oscar think me a stock or a stone?" he burst out angrily.

"What do you mean?"

"Who are you indebted to for what is going to happen to-day?" he went on, more and more pa.s.sionately. "You are indebted to Me. Who among you all stood alone in refusing to believe that she was blind for life? _I_ did!

Who brought the man here who has given her back her sight? _I_ brought the man! And I am the one person who is to be left in ignorance of how it ends. The others are to be present: I am to be sent away. The others are to see it: I am to hear by post (if any of you think of writing to me) what she does, what she says, how she looks, at the first heavenly moment when she opens her eyes on the world." He flung up his hand in the air, and burst out savagely with a bitter laugh. "I astonish you, don't I? I am claiming a position which I have no right to occupy. What interest can _I_ feel in it? Oh G.o.d! what do _I_ care about the woman to whom I have given a new life?" His voice broke into a sob at those last wild words.

He tore at the breast of his coat as if he was suffocating--and turned, and left me.

I stood rooted to the spot. In one breathless instant, the truth broke on me like a revelation. At last I had penetrated the terrible secret.

Nugent loved her.

My first impulse, when I recovered myself, hurried me at the top of my speed back to the rectory. For a moment or two, I think I must really have lost my senses. I felt a frantic suspicion that he had gone into the house, and that he was making his way to Lucilla at that moment. When I found that all was quiet--when Zillah had satisfied me that no visitor had come near our side of the rectory--I calmed down a little, and went back to the garden to compose myself before I ventured into Lucilla's presence.

After awhile, I got over the first horror of it, and saw my own position plainly. There was not a living soul at Dimchurch in whom I could confide. Come what might of it, in this dreadful emergency, I must trust in myself alone.

I had just arrived at that startling conclusion; I had shed some bitter tears when I remembered how hardly I had judged poor Oscar on more than one occasion; I had decided that my favorite Nugent was the most hateful villain living, and that I would leave nothing undone that the craft of a woman could compa.s.s to drive him out of the place--when I was forced back to present necessities by the sound of Zillah's voice calling to me from the house. I went to her directly. The nurse had a message for me from her young mistress. My poor Lucilla was lonely and anxious: she was surprised at my leaving her, she insisted on seeing me immediately.

I took my first precaution against a surprise from Nugent, as I crossed the threshold of the door.

"Our dear child must not be disturbed by visitors to-day," I said to Zillah. "If Mr. Nugent Dubourg comes here and asks for her--don't tell Lucilla; tell _me._"

This said, I went up-stairs, and joined my darling in the darkened room.

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-FIFTH

Lucilla tries her Sight

SHE was sitting alone in the dim light, with the bandage over her eyes, with her pretty hands crossed patiently on her lap. My heart swelled in me as I looked at her, and felt the horrid discovery that I had made still present in my mind. "Forgive me for leaving you," I said in as steady a voice as I could command at the moment--and kissed her.

She instantly discovered my agitation, carefully as I thought I had concealed it.

"You are frightened too!" she exclaimed, taking my hands in hers.

"Frightened, my love?" I repeated. (I was perfectly stupefied; I really did not know what to say!)

"Yes. Now the time is so near, I feel my courage failing me. I forbode all sorts of horrible things. Oh! when will it be over? what will Oscar look like when I see him?"

I answered the first question. Who could answer the second?

"Herr Grosse comes to us by the morning train," I said. "It will soon be over."

"Where is Oscar?"

"On his way here, I have no doubt."

"Describe him to me once more," she said eagerly. "For the last time, before I see. His eyes, his hair, his complexion--everything!"

How I should have got through the painful task which she had innocently imposed on me, if I had attempted to perform it, I hardly like to think.

To my infinite relief, I was interrupted at my first word by the opening of the door, and the sudden appearance of a family deputation in the room.

First, strutting with slow and solemn steps, with one hand laid pathetically on the breast of his clerical waistcoat, appeared Reverend Finch. After him, came his wife, shorn of all her proper accompaniments--except the baby. Without her novel, without her jacket, petticoat, or shawl, without even the handkerchief which she was always losing--clothed, for the first time in my experience, in a complete gown--the metamorphosis of damp Mrs. Finch was complete. But for the baby, I believe I should have taken her, in the dim light, for a stranger! She stood (apparently doubtful of her reception) hesitating in the doorway, and so hiding a third member of the deputation--who appealed piteously to the general notice in a small voice which I knew well, and in a form of address familiar to me from past experience.

"Jicks wants to come in."

The rector took his hand from his waistcoat, and held it up in faint protest against the intrusion of the third member. Mrs. Finch moved mechanically into the room. Jicks appeared, hugging her disreputable doll, and showing signs of recent wandering in the white dust which dropped on the carpet from her frock and her shoes, as she advanced towards the place in which I was sitting. Arrived in front of me, she peered quaintly up at my face, through the obscurity of the room; lifted her doll by the legs; hit me a smart rap with the head of it on my knee; and said--

"Jicks will sit here."

I rubbed my knee, and enthroned Jicks as ordered. At the same time Mr.

Finch solemnly stalked up to his daughter; laid his hands on her head; raised his eyes to the ceiling; and said in ba.s.s notes that rumbled with paternal emotion, "Bless you, my child!"

At the sound of her husband's magnificent voice, Mrs. Finch became herself again. She said meekly, "How d'ye do, Lucilla?"--and sat down in a corner, and suckled the baby.

Mr. Finch set in for one of his harangues.

"My advice has been neglected, Lucilla. My paternal influence has been repudiated. My Moral Weight has been, so to speak, set aside. I don't complain. Understand me--_I_ simply state sad facts." (Here he became aware of my existence.) "Good morning, Madame Pratolungo; I hope I see you well?--There has been variance between us, Lucilla. I come, my child, with healing on my wings (healing being understood, for present purposes, as reconciliation)--I come, and bring Mrs. Finch with me--don't speak, Mrs. Finch!--to offer my heartfelt wishes, my fervent prayers, on this the most eventful day in my daughter's life. No vulgar curiosity has turned my steps this way. No hint shall escape my lips, touching any misgivings which I may still feel as to this purely worldly interference with the ways of an inscrutable Providence. I am here as parent and peacemaker. My wife accompanies me--don't speak, Mrs. Finch!--as step-parent and step-peacemaker. (You understand the distinction, Madame Pratolungo? Thank you. Good creature.) Shall I preach forgiveness of injuries from the pulpit, and not practice that forgiveness at home? Can I remain, on this momentous occasion, at variance with my child? Lucilla!

I forgive you. With full heart and tearful eyes, I forgive you. (You have never had any children, I believe, Madame Pratolungo? Ah! you cannot possibly understand this. Not your fault. Good creature. Not your fault.) The kiss of peace, my child; the kiss of peace." He solemnly bent his bristly head, and deposited the kiss of peace on Lucilla's forehead. He sighed superbly, and in a burst of magnanimity, held out his hand next to me. "My Hand, Madame Pratolungo. Compose yourself. Don't cry. G.o.d bless you. Mrs. Finch, deeply affected by her husband's n.o.ble conduct, began to sob hysterically. The baby, disarranged in his proceedings by the emotions of his mama, set up a sympathetic scream. Mr. Finch crossed the room to them, with domestic healing on his wings. "This does you credit, Mrs. Finch; but, under the circ.u.mstances, it must not be continued.

Control yourself, in consideration of the infant. Mysterious mechanism of Nature!" cried the rector, raising his prodigious voice over the louder and louder screeching of the baby. "Marvelous and beautiful sympathy which makes the maternal sustenance the conducting medium, as it were, of disturbance between the mother and child. What problems confront us, what forces environ us, even in this mortal life! Nature! Maternity!

Inscrutable Providence!"

"Inscrutable Providence" was the rector's fatal phrase--it always brought with it an interruption; and it brought one now. Before Mr. Finch (brimful of pathetic apostrophes) could burst into more exclamations, the door opened, and Oscar walked into the room.

Lucilla instantly recognized his footstep.

"Any signs, Oscar, of Herr Grosse?" she asked.

"Yes. His chaise has been seen on the road. He will be here directly."

Giving that answer, and pa.s.sing by my chair to place himself on the other side of Lucilla, Oscar cast at me one imploring look--a look which said plainly, "Don't desert me when the time comes!" I nodded my head to show that I understood him and felt for him. He sat down in the vacant chair by Lucilla, and took her hand in silence. It was hard to say which of the two felt the position, at that trying moment, most painfully. I don't think I ever saw any sight so simply and irresistibly touching as the sight of those two poor young creatures sitting hand in hand, waiting the event which was to make the happiness or the misery of their future lives.

"Have you seen anything of your brother?" I asked, putting the question in as careless a tone as my devouring anxiety would allow me to a.s.sume.

"Nugent has gone to meet Herr Grosse."

Oscar's eyes once more encountered mine, as he replied in those terms; I saw again the imploring look more marked in them than ever. It was plain to him, as it was plain to me, that Nugent had gone to meet the German, with the purpose of making Herr Grosse the innocent means of bringing him into the house.

Before I could speak again, Mr. Finch, recovering himself after the interruption which had silenced him, saw his opportunity of setting in for another harangue. Mrs. Finch had left off sobbing; the baby had left off screaming; the rest of us were silent and nervous. In a word, Mr.

Finch's domestic congregation was entirely at Mr. Finch's mercy. He strutted up to Oscar's chair. Was he going to propose to read _Hamlet?_ No! He was going to invoke a blessing on Oscar's head.

"On this interesting occasion," began the rector in his pulpit tones; "now that we are all united in the same room, all animated by the same hope--I could wish, as pastor and parent (G.o.d bless you, Oscar: I look on you as a son. Mrs. Finch, follow my example, look on him as a son!)--I could wish, as pastor and parent, to say a few pious and consoling words----"

The door--the friendly, admirable, judicious door--stopped the coming sermon, in the nick of time, by opening again. Herr Grosse's squat figure and owlish spectacles appeared on the threshold. And behind him (exactly as I had antic.i.p.ated) stood Nugent Dubourg.

Lucilla turned deadly pale: she had heard the door open, she knew by instinct that the surgeon had come. Oscar got up, stole behind my chair, and whispered to me, "For G.o.d's sake, get Nugent out of the room!" I gave him a rea.s.suring squeeze of the hand, and, putting Jicks down on the floor, rose to welcome our good Grosse.

The child, as it happened, was beforehand with me. She and the ill.u.s.trious oculist had met in the garden at one of the German's professional visits to Lucilla, and had taken an amazing fancy to each other. Herr Grosse never afterwards appeared at the rectory without some unwholesome eatable thing in his pocket for Jicks; who gave him in return as many kisses as he might ask for, and further distinguished him as the only living creature whom she permitted to nurse the disreputable doll.