Poor Miss Finch

by Wilkie Collins

  CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SIXTH

  He proves Equal to the Occasion

  AT that astounding confession, abruptly revealed in those plain words,even resolute Nugent lost all power of self-control. He burst out with acry which reached Lucilla's ears. She instantly turned towards us, andinstantly assumed that the cry had come from Oscar's lips.

  "Ah! there you are!" she exclaimed. "Oscar! Oscar! what is the matterwith you to-day?"

  Oscar was incapable of answering her. He had cast one glance of entreatyat his brother as Lucilla came nearer to us. The mute reproach which hadanswered him, in Nugent's eyes, had broken down his last reserves ofendurance. He was crying silently on Nugent's breast.

  It was necessary that one of us should make his, or her, voice heard. Ispoke first.

  "Nothing is the matter, my dear," I said, advancing to meet Lucilla. "Wewere passing the house, and Oscar ran out to stop us and bring us in."

  My excuses roused a new alarm in her.

  "Us?" she repeated. "Who is with you?"

  "Nugent is with me."

  The result of the deplorable misunderstanding which had taken place,instantly declared itself. She turned deadly pale under the horror offeeling that she was in the presence of the man with the blue face.

  "Take me near enough to speak to him, but not to touch him," shewhispered. "I have heard what he is like. (Oh, if you saw him, as I seehim, _in the dark!_) I must control myself. I must speak to Oscar'sbrother, for Oscar's sake."

  She seized my arm and held me close to her. What ought I to have said?What ought I to have done? I neither knew what to say or what to do. Ilooked from Lucilla to the twin brothers. There was Oscar the Weak,overwhelmed by the humiliating position in which he had placed himselftowards the woman whom he was to marry, towards the brother whom heloved! And there was Nugent the Strong, master of himself; with his armround his brother, with his head erect, with his hand signing to me tokeep silence. He was right. I had only to look back at Lucilla's face tosee that the delicate and perilous work of undeceiving her, was not workto be done at a moment's notice, on the spot.

  "You are not yourself to-day," I said to her. "Let us go home."

  "No!" she answered. "I must accustom myself to speak to him. I will beginto-day. Take me to him--but don't let him touch me!"

  Nugent disengaged himself from Oscar--whose unfitness to help us throughour difficulties was too manifest to be mistaken--as he saw usapproaching. He pointed to the low wall in front of the house, andmotioned to his brother to wait there out of the way before Lucilla couldspeak to him again. The wisdom of this proceeding was not long inasserting itself. Lucilla asked for Oscar the moment after he had leftus. Nugent answered that Oscar had gone back to the house to get his hat.

  The sound of Nugent's voice helped her to calculate her distance from himwithout assistance from me. Still holding my arm, she stopped and spoketo him.

  "Nugent," she said, "I have made Oscar tell me--what he ought to havetold me long since." (She paused between each sentence; painfullycontrolling herself, painfully catching her breath.) "He has discovered afoolish antipathy of mine. I don't know how; I tried to keep it a secretfrom him. I need not tell you what it is."

  She made a longer pause at those words, holding me closer and closer toher; struggling more and more painfully against the irresistible nervousloathing that had got possession of her.

  He listened, on his side, with the constraint which always fell upon himin her presence more marked than ever. His eyes were on the ground. Heseemed reluctant even to look at her.

  "I think I understand," she went on, "why Oscar was unwilling to tellme----" she stopped, at a loss how to express herself without running therisk of hurting his feelings--"to tell me," she resumed, "what it is inyou which is not like other people. He was afraid my stupid weaknessmight prejudice me against you. I wish to say that I won't let it dothat. I never was more ashamed of it than now. I, too, have mymisfortune. I ought to sympathize with you, instead of----"

  Her voice had been growing fainter and fainter as she proceeded. Sheleaned against me heavily. One glance at her told me that if I let it goon any longer she would fall into a swoon. "Tell your brother that wehave gone back to the rectory," I said to Nugent. He looked up at Lucillafor the first time.

  "You are right," he answered. "Take her home." He repeated the sign bywhich he had already hinted to me to be silent--and joined Oscar at thewall in front of the house.

  "Has he gone?" she asked.

  "He has gone."

  The moisture stood thick on her forehead. I passed my handkerchief overher face, and turned her towards the wind.

  "Are you better now?"

  "Yes."

  "Can you walk home?"

  "Easily."

  I put her arm in mine. After advancing with me a few steps, she suddenlystopped--with a blind apprehension, as it seemed, of something in frontof her. She lifted her little walking-cane, and moved it slowly backwardsand forwards in the empty air, with the action of some one who isclearing away an encumbrance to a free advance--say the action of aperson walking in a thick wood, and pushing aside the lower twigs andbranches that intercept the way.

  "What are you about?" I asked.

  "Clearing the air," she answered. "The air is full of him. I am in aforest of hovering figures, with faces of black-blue. Give me your arm.Come through!"

  "Lucilla!"

  "Don't be angry with me. I am coming to my senses again. Nobody knowswhat folly, what madness it is, better than I do. I have a will of myown: suffer as I may, I promise to break myself of it this time. I can't,and won't let Oscar's brother see that he is an object of horror to me."She stopped once more, and gave me a little propitiatory kiss. "Blame myblindness, dear, don't blame _me._ If I could only see--! Ah, how can Imake you understand me, you who don't live in the dark?" She went on afew paces, silent and thoughtful--and then spoke again. "You won't laughat me, if I say something?"

  "You know I won't."

  "Suppose yourself to be in bed at night."

  "Yes?"

  "I have heard people say that they have sometimes woke in the middle ofthe night, on a sudden, without any noise to disturb them. And they havefancied (without anything particular to justify it) that there wassomething, or somebody, in the dark room. Has that ever happened to you?"

  "Certainly, my love.--It has happened to most people to fancy what yousay, when their nerves are a little out of order."

  "Very well. There is _my_ fancy, and there are _my_ nerves. When ithappened to you, what did you do?"

  "I struck a light, and satisfied myself that I was wrong."

  "Suppose yourself without candle or matches, in a night without end, leftalone with your fancy in the dark. There you have Me! It would not beeasy, would it, to satisfy yourself; if you were in that helplesscondition? You might suffer under it--very unreasonably--and yet verykeenly for all that." She lifted her little cane, with a sad smile. "Youmight be almost as great a fool as poor Lucilla, and clear the air beforeyou with this!"

  The charm of her voice and her manner, added to the touching simplicity,the pathetic truth of those words. She made me realize, as I had neverrealized before, what it is to have, at one and the same time, theblessing of imagination, and the curse of blindness. For a moment, I wasabsorbed in my admiration and my love for her. For a moment, I forgot theterrible position in which we were all placed. She unconsciously recalledit to me when she spoke next.

  "Perhaps I was wrong to force the truth out of Oscar?" she said, puttingher arm again in mine, and walking on. "I might have reconciled myself tohis brother, if I had never known what his brother was like. And yet Ifelt there was something strange in him, without being told, and withoutknowing what it was. There must have been a reason in me for the dislikethat I felt for him from the first."

  Those words appeared to me to indicate the state of mind which had led toLucilla's deplorable mistake. I cautiously put some questions to her totest the correctness of my own id
ea.

  "You spoke just now of forcing the truth out of Oscar," I said, "Whatmade you suspect that he was concealing the truth from you?"

  "He was so strangely embarrassed and confused," she answered. "Anybody inmy place would have suspected him of concealing the truth."

  So far the answer was conclusive.

  "And how came you to find out what the truth really was?" I asked next.

  "I guessed at it," she replied, "from something he said in referring tohis brother. You know that I took a fanciful dislike to Nugent Dubourgbefore he came to Dimchurch?"

  "Yes."

  "And you remember that my prejudice against him was confirmed, on thefirst day when I passed my hand over his face to compare it with hisbrother's."

  "I remember."

  "Well--while Oscar was rambling and contradicting himself--he saidsomething (a mere trifle) which suggested to me that the person with theblue face must be his brother. There was the explanation that I hadsought for in vain--the explanation of my persistent dislike to Nugent!That horrid dark face of his must have produced some influence on me whenI first touched it, like the influence which your horrid purple dressproduced on me, when I first touched _that._ Don't you see?"

  I saw but too plainly. Oscar had been indebted for his escape fromdiscovery entirely to Lucilla's misinterpretation of his language. AndLucilla's misinterpretation now stood revealed as the natural product ofher anxiety to account for her prejudice against Nugent Dubourg. Althoughthe mischief had been done--still, for the quieting of my own conscience,I made an attempt to shake her faith in the false conclusion at which shehad arrived.

  "There is one thing I don't see yet," I said. "I don't understand Oscar'sembarrassment in speaking to you. As you interpret him, what had he to beafraid of?"

  She smiled satirically.

  "What has become of your memory, my dear?" she asked. "What were youafraid of? You certainly never said a word to me of this poor man'sdeformity. You felt yourself, I suppose, (just as Oscar felt himself),placed between a choice of difficulties. On one side, my dislike of darkcolors and dark people warned Oscar to hold his tongue. On the other, myhatred of having advantage taken of my blindness to keep things secretfrom me, pressed him to speak out. Isn't that enough--with his shydisposition, poor fellow--to account for his being embarrassed? Besides,"she added, speaking more seriously, "perhaps he saw in my manner towardshim that he had disappointed and pained me."

  "How?" I asked.

  "Don't you remember his once acknowledging in the garden that he hadpainted his face in the character of Bluebeard, to amuse the children? Itwas not delicate, it was not affectionate--it was not like him--to showsuch insensibility as that to his brother's shocking disfigurement. Heought to have remembered it, he ought to have respected it. There! wewill say no more. We will go indoors and open the piano and try toforget."

  Even Oscar's clumsy excuse in the garden--instead of confirming hersuspicion--had lent itself to strengthen the foregone conclusion rootedin her mind! At that critical moment--before I had consulted with thetwin-brothers as to what was to be done next--it was impossible to saymore. I felt seriously alarmed when I thought of the future. When she wastold--as told she must be--of the dreadful delusion into which she hadfallen, what would be the result to Oscar? what would be the effect onherself? I own I shrank from pursuing the inquiry.

  When we reached the turn in the valley, I looked back at Browndown forthe last time. The twin-brothers were still in the place at which we hadleft them. Though the faces were indistinguishable, I could still see thefigures plainly--Oscar sitting crouched up on the wall; Nugent erect athis side, with one hand laid on his shoulder. Even at that distance, thetypes of the two characters were expressed in the attitudes of the twomen. As we entered the new winding of the valley which shut them out fromview, I felt (so easy is it to comfort a woman!) that the commandingposition of Nugent had produced its encouraging impression on my mind."He will find a way out of it," I said to myself, "Nugent will help usthrough!"