Poor Miss Finch

by Wilkie Collins

  CHAPTER THE TWENTY-EIGHTH

  He crosses the Rubicon

  I WAS still in doubt, whether to enter the room, or to wait outside untilshe left Browndown to return to the rectory--when Lucilla's keen sense ofhearing decided the question which I had been unable to settle formyself. The door of the room opened; and Oscar advanced into the hall.

  "Lucilla insisted that she heard somebody outside," he said. "Who couldhave guessed it was you? Why did you wait in the hall? Come in! come in!"

  He held open the door for me; and I went in. Oscar announced me toLucilla. "It was Madame Pratolungo you heard," he said. She took nonotice either of him or of me. A heap of flowers from Oscar's garden layin her lap. With the help of her clever fingers, she was sorting them tomake a nosegay, as quickly and as tastefully as if she had possessed thesense of sight. In all my experience of that charming face, it had neverlooked so hard as it looked now. Nobody would have recognized herlikeness to the Madonna of Raphael's picture. Offended--mortally offendedwith me--I saw it at a glance.

  "I hope you will forgive my intrusion, Lucilla, when you know my motive,"I said. "I have followed you here to make my excuses."

  "Oh, don't think of making excuses!" she rejoined, giving three-fourthsof her attention to the flowers, and one-fourth to me. "It's a pity youtook the trouble of coming here. I quite agree with what you said in thegarden. Considering the object I had in view at Browndown, I could notpossibly expect you to accompany me. True! quite true!"

  I kept my temper. Not that I am a patient woman: not that I possess ameek disposition. Very far from it, I regret to say. Nevertheless, I keptmy temper--so far.

  "I wish to apologize for what I said in the garden," I resumed. "I spokethoughtlessly, Lucilla. It is impossible that I could intentionallyoffend you."

  I might as well have spoken to one of the chairs. The whole of herattention became absorbed in the breathless interest of making hernosegay.

  "_Was_ I offended?" she said, addressing herself to the flowers."Excessively foolish of me, if I was." She suddenly became conscious ofmy existence. "You had a perfect right to express your opinion," she saidloftily. "Accept _my_ excuses if I appeared to dispute it."

  She tossed her pretty head; she showed her brightest color; she tappedher nice little foot briskly on the floor. (Oh, Lucilla! Lucilla!) Istill kept my temper. More, by this time (I admit,) for Oscar's sake thanfor her sake. He looked so distressed, poor fellow--so painfully anxiousto interfere, without exactly knowing how.

  "My dear Lucilla!" he began. "Surely you might answer MadamePratolungo----"

  She petulantly interrupted him, with another toss of the head--a littlehigher than the last.

  "I don't attempt to answer Madame Pratolungo! I prefer admitting thatMadame Pratolungo may have been quite right. I dare say I am ready tofall in love with the first man who comes my way. I dare say--if I hadmet your brother before I met you--I should have fallen in love with_him._ Quite likely!"

  "Quite likely--as you say,"--answered poor Oscar, humbly. "I am sure Ithink it very lucky for _me,_ that you didn't meet Nugent first."

  She threw her lapful of flowers away from her on the table at which shewas sitting. She became perfectly furious with him for taking my side. Ipermitted myself (the poor child could not see it, remember), theharmless indulgence of a smile.

  "You agree with Madame Pratolungo," she said to him viciously. "MadamePratolungo thinks your brother a much more agreeable man than you."

  Humble Oscar shook his head in melancholy acknowledgment of thisself-evident fact. "There can be no two opinions about that," he saidresignedly.

  She stamped her foot on the carpet--and raised quite a little cloud ofdust. My lungs are occasionally delicate. I permitted myself anotherharmless indulgence--indulgence in a slight cough. She heard the secondindulgence--and suddenly controlled herself, the instant it reached herears. I am afraid she took my cough as my commentary on what was goingon.

  "Come here, Oscar," she said, with a complete change of tone and manner."Come and sit down by me."

  Oscar obeyed.

  "Put your arm round my waist."

  Oscar looked at me. Having the use of his sight, he was sensible of theabsurd side of the demonstration required of him--in the presence of athird person. She, poor soul, strong in her blind insensibility to allshafts of ridicule shot from the eye, cared nothing for the presence of athird person. She repeated her commands, in a tone which said sharply,"Embrace me--I am not to be trifled with."

  Oscar timidly put his arm round her waist--with an appealing look at me.She issued another command instantly.

  "Say you love me."

  Oscar hesitated.

  "Say you love me!"

  Oscar whispered it.

  "Out loud!"

  Endurance has its limits: I began to lose my temper. She could not havebeen more superbly indifferent to my presence, if there had been a cat inthe room instead of a lady.

  "Permit me to inform you," I said, "that I have not (as you appear tosuppose) left the room."

  She took no notice. She went on with her commands, rising irrepressiblyfrom one amatory climax to another.

  "Give me a kiss!"

  Unhappy Oscar--sacrificed between us--blushed. Stop! Don't revelprematurely in the greatest enjoyment a reader has--namely, catching awriter out in a mistake. I have not forgotten that his disfiguredcomplexion would prevent his blush from showing on the surface. I beg tosay I saw it under the surface--saw it in his expression: I repeat--heblushed.

  I felt it necessary to assert myself for the second time.

  "I have only one object in remaining in the room, Miss Finch. I merelywish to know whether you refuse to accept my excuses.

  "Oscar! give me a kiss!"

  He still hesitated. She threw her arm round his neck. My duty to myselfwas plain--my duty was to go.

  "Good afternoon, Mr. Dubourg," I said--and turned to the door. She heardme cross the room, and called to me to stop. I paused. There was a glasson the wall opposite to me. On the authority of the glass, I beg tomention that I paused in my most becoming manner. Grace tempered withdignity: dignity tempered with grace.

  "Madame Pratolungo!"

  "Miss Finch?"

  "This is the man who is not half so agreeable as his brother. Look!"

  She tightened her hold round his neck, and gave him--ostentatiously gavehim--the kiss which he was ashamed to give _her._ I advanced, incontemptuous silence, to the door. My attitude expressed disgustaccompanied by sorrow: sorrow, accompanied by disgust.

  "Madame Pratolungo!"

  I made no answer.

  "This is the man whom I should never have loved if I had happened to meethis brother first. Look!"

  She put both arms round his neck; and gave him a shower of kisses all inone. I indignantly withdrew. The door had been imperfectly closed when Ihad entered the room: it was ajar. I pulled it open--and found myselfface to face with Nugent Dubourg, standing by the table, with his letterfrom Liverpool in his hand! He must have certainly heard Lucilla cast myown words back in my teeth--if he had heard no more.

  I stopped short; looking at him in silent surprise. He smiled, and heldout the open letter to me. Before we could speak, we heard the door ofthe room closed. Oscar had followed me out (shutting the door behind him)to apologize for Lucilla's behavior to me. He explained what had happenedto his brother. Nugent nodded, and tapped his open letter smartly. "Leaveme to manage it. I shall give you something better to do than quarrelingamong yourselves. You will hear what it is directly. In the meantime, Ihave got a message for our friend at the inn. Gootheridge is on his wayhere, to speak to me about altering the stable. Run and tell him I haveother business on hand, and I can't keep my appointment to-day. Stop!Give him this at the same time, and ask him to leave it at the rectory."

  He took one of his visiting cards out of the case, wrote a few lines onit in pencil, and handed it to his brother. Oscar (always ready to go onerrands for Nugent) hurried out to meet the
landlord. Nugent turned tome.

  "The German is in England," he said. "Now I may open my lips."

  "At once!" I exclaimed.

  "At once. I have put off my own business (as you heard) in favor of this.My friend will be in London to-morrow. I mean to get my authority toconsult him to-day, and to start tomorrow for town. Prepare yourself tomeet one of the strangest characters you ever set eyes on! You saw mewrite on my card. It was a message to Mr. Finch, asking him to join usimmediately (on important family business) at Browndown. As Lucilla'sfather, he has a voice in the matter. When Oscar comes back, and when therector joins us, our domestic privy council will be complete."

  He spoke with his customary spirit; he moved with his customarybriskness--he had become quite himself again, since I had seen him last.

  "I am stagnating in this place," he went on, seeing that I noticed thechange in him. "It puts me in spirits again, having something to do. I amnot like Oscar--I must have action to stir my blood--action to keep mefrom fretting over my anxieties. How do you think I found the witness tomy brother's innocence at the Trial? In that way. I said to myself, 'Ishall go mad if I don't do something.' I did something--and saved Oscar.I am going to do something again. Mark my words! Now I am stirring in it,Lucilla will recover her sight."

  "This is a serious matter," I said. "Pray give it serious consideration."

  "Consideration?" he repeated. "I hate the word. I always decide on theinstant. If I am wrong in my view of Lucilla's case, consideration is ofno earthly use. If I am right, every day's delay is a day of sight lostto the blind. I'll wait for Oscar and Mr. Finch; and then I'll open thebusiness. Why are we talking in the hall? Come in!"

  He led the way to the sitting-room. I had a new interest, now, in goingback. Still, Lucilla's behavior hung on my mind. Suppose she treated mewith renewed coldness and keener contempt? I remained standing at thetable in the hall. Nugent looked back at me, over his shoulder.

  "Nonsense!" he said. "I'll set things right. It's beneath a woman likeyou to take notice of what a girl says in a pet. Come in!"

  I doubt if I should have yielded to please any other living man. But,there is no denying it, some people have a magnetic attracting power overothers. Nugent had that power over me. Against my own will--for I wasreally hurt and offended by her usage of me--I went back with him intothe room.

  Lucilla was still sitting in the place which she had occupied when Iwithdrew. On hearing the door open, and a man's footsteps entering, sheof course assumed that the man was Oscar. She had penetrated his objectin leaving her to follow me out, and it had not improved her temper.

  "Oh?" she said. "You have come back at last? I thought you had offeredyourself as Madame Pratolungo's escort to the rectory." She stopped, witha sudden frown. Her quick ears had detected my return into the room."Oscar!" she exclaimed, "what does this mean? Madame Pratolungo and Ihave nothing more to say to each other. What has she come back for? Whydon't you answer? This is infamous! I shall leave the room!"

  The utterance of that final threat was followed so rapidly by itsexecution that, before Nugent (standing between her and the door) couldget out of her way, she came in violent contact with him. She instantlycaught him by the arm, and shook him angrily. "What does your silencemean? Is it at Madame Pratolungo's instigation that you are insultingme?"

  I had just opened my lips to make one more attempt at reconciliation, bysaying some pacifying words to her--when she planted that last sting inme. French flesh and blood (whatever English flesh and blood might havedone) could bear no more. I silently turned my back on her, in a rage.

  At the same moment, Nugent's eyes brightened as if a new idea had struckhim. He gave me one significant look--and answered her in his brother'scharacter. Whether he was possessed at the moment by some demon ofmischief; or whether he had the idea of trying to make Oscar's peace forhim, before Oscar returned--was more than I could say at the time. Iought to have stopped it--I know. But my temper was in a flame. I was asspiteful as a cat and as fierce as a bear. I said to myself (in yourEnglish idiom), She wants taking down a peg; quite right, Mr. Nugent; doit. Shocking! shameful! no words are bad enough for me: give it me well.Ah, Heaven! what is a human being in a rage? On my sacred word of honor,nothing but a human beast! The next time it happens to You, look atyourself in the glass; and you will find your soul gone out of you atyour face, and nothing left but an animal--and a bad, a villainous badanimal too!

  "You ask what my silence means?" said Nugent.

  He had only to model his articulation on his brother's slower manner ofspeaking as distinguished from his own, to be his brother himself. Insaying those few first words, he did it so dexterously that I could havesworn--if I had not seen him standing before me--Oscar was in the room.

  "Yes," she said, "I ask that."

  "I am silent," he answered, "because I am waiting."

  "What are you waiting for?"

  "To hear you make your apologies to Madame Pratolungo."

  She started back a step. Submissive Oscar was taking a peremptory tonewith her for the first time in his life. Submissive Oscar, instead ofgiving her time to speak, sternly went on.

  "Madame Pratolungo has made her excuses to _you._ You ought to receivethem; you ought to reciprocate them. It is distressing to see you andhear you. You are behaving ungratefully to your best friend."

  She raised her face, she raised her hands, in blank amazement: she lookedas if she distrusted her own ears.

  "Oscar!" she exclaimed.

  "Here I am," said Oscar, opening the door at the same moment.

  She turned like lightning towards the place from which he had spoken. Shedetected the deception which Nugent had practiced on her, with a cry ofindignation that rang through the room.

  Oscar ran to her in alarm. She thrust him back violently.

  "A trick!" she cried. "A mean, vile, cowardly trick played upon myblindness! Oscar! your brother has been imitating you; your brother hasbeen speaking to me in your voice. And that woman who calls herself myfriend--that woman stood by and heard him, and never told me. Sheencouraged it: she enjoyed it. The wretches! take me away from them. Theyare capable of any deceit. She always hated you, dear, from thefirst--she took up with your brother the moment he came here. When youmarry me, it mustn't be at Dimchurch; it must be in some place they don'tknow of. There is a conspiracy between them against you and against me.Beware of them! beware of them! She said I should have fallen in lovewith your brother, if I had met him first. There is a deeper meaning inthat, my love, than you can see. It means that they will part us if theycan. Ha! I hear somebody moving! Has he changed places with you? Is it_you_ whom I am speaking to now? Oh, my blindness! my blindness! Oh, God,of all your creatures, the most helpless, the most miserable, is thecreature who can't see!"

  I never heard anything in all my life so pitiable and so dreadful as thefrantic suspicion and misery which tore their way out from her, in thosewords. She cut me to the heart. I had spoken rashly--I had behavedbadly--but had I deserved this? No! no! no! I had _not_ deserved it. Ithrew myself into a chair, and burst out crying. My tears scalded me; mysobs choked me. If I had had poison in my hand, I would have drunk it--Iwas so furious and so wretched: so hurt in my honor, so wounded at myheart.

  The only voice that answered her was Nugent's. Reckless what theconsequences might be--speaking, in his own proper person, from theopposite end of the room--he asked the all-important question which nohuman being had ever put to her yet.

  "Are you sure, Lucilla, that you are blind for life?"

  A dead silence followed the utterance of those words.

  I brushed away the tears from my eyes, and looked up.

  Oscar had been--as I supposed--holding her in his arms, silently soothingher, when his brother spoke. At the moment when I saw her, she had justdetached herself from him. She advanced a step, towards the part of theroom in which Nugent stood--and stopped, with her face turned towardshim. Every faculty in her seemed to be suspended by the silent passag
einto her mind of the new idea that he had called up. Through childhood,girlhood, womanhood--never once, waking or dreaming, had the prospect ofrestoration to sight presented itself within her range of contemplation,until now. Not a trace was left in her countenance of the indignationwhich Nugent had roused in her, hardly more than a moment since. Not asign appeared indicating a return of the nervous suffering which thesense of his presence had inflicted on her, earlier in the day. The oneemotion in possession of her was astonishment--astonishment that hadstruck her dumb; astonishment that waited, helplessly and mechanically,to hear more.

  I observed Oscar, next. His eyes were fixed on Lucilla--absorbed inwatching her. He spoke to Nugent, without looking at him; animated, as itseemed, by a vague fear for Lucilla, which was slowly developing into avague fear for himself.

  "Mind what you are doing!" he said. "Look at her, Nugent--look at her."

  Nugent approached his brother, circuitously, so as to place Oscar betweenLucilla and himself.

  "Have I offended you?" he asked.

  Oscar looked at him in surprise. "Offended with you," he answered, "afterwhat you have forgiven, and what you have suffered, for my sake?"

  "Still," persisted the other, "there is something wrong."

  "I am startled, Nugent."

  "Startled--by what?"

  "By the question you have just put to Lucilla."

  "You will understand me, and she will understand me, directly."

  While those words were passing between the brothers, my attentionremained fixed on Lucilla. Her head had turned slowly towards the newposition which Nugent occupied when he spoke to Oscar. With thisexception, no other movement had escaped her. No sense of what the twomen were saying to each other seemed to have entered her mind. To allappearance she had heard nothing, since Nugent had started the firstdoubt in her whether she was blind for life.

  "Speak to her," I said. "For God's sake, don't keep her in suspense,_now!_"

  Nugent spoke.

  "You have had reason to be offended with me, Lucilla. Let me, if I can,give you reason to be grateful to me, before I have done. When I was inNew York, I became acquainted with a German surgeon, who had made areputation and a fortune in America by his skill in treating diseases ofthe eye. He had been especially successful in curing cases of blindnessgiven up as hopeless by other surgeons. I mentioned your case to him. Hecould say nothing positively (as a matter of course) without examiningyou. All he could do was to place his services at my disposal, when hecame to England. I for one, Lucilla, decline to consider you blind forlife, until this skillful man sees no more hope for you than the Englishsurgeons have seen. If there is the faintest chance still left ofrestoring your sight, his is, I firmly believe, the one hand that can doit. He is now in England. Say the word--and I will bring him toDimchurch."

  She slowly lifted her hands to her head, and held it as if she washolding her reason in its place. Her color changed from pale to red--fromred to pale once more. She drew a long, deep, heavy breath--and droppedher hands again, recovering from the shock. The change that followed,held us all three breathless. It was beautiful to see her. It was awfulto see her. A mute ecstasy of hope transfigured her face; a heavenlysmile played serenely on her lips. She was among us, and yet apart fromus. In the still light of evening, shining in on her from the window, shestood absorbed in her own rapture--the silent creature of another sphere!There was a moment when she overcame me with admiration, and anothermoment when she overcame me with fear. Both the men felt it. Both signedto me to speak to her first.

  I advanced a few steps. I tried to consider with myself what I shouldsay. It was useless. I could neither think nor speak. I could only lookat her. I could only say, nervously--

  "Lucilla!"

  She came back to the world--she came back to _us_--with a little start,and a faint flush of color in her cheeks. She turned herself towards theplace from which I had spoken, and whispered----

  "Come!"

  In a moment, my arms were round her. Her head sank on my bosom. We werereconciled without a word. We were friends again, sisters again, in aninstant.

  "Have I been fainting? have I been sleeping?" she said to me in low,bewildered tones. "Am I just awake? Is this Browndown?" She suddenlylifted her head. "Nugent! are you there?"

  "Yes."

  She gently withdrew herself from me, and approached Nugent.

  "Did you speak to me just now? Was it you who put the doubt into my mind,whether I am really doomed to be blind for life? Surely, I have notfancied it? Surely, you said the man was coming, and the time coming?"Her voice suddenly rose. "The man who may cure me! the time when I maysee!"

  "I said it, Lucilla. I meant it, Lucilla."

  "Oscar! Oscar!! Oscar!!!"

  I stepped forward to lead her to him. Nugent touched me, and pointed toOscar, as I took her hand. He was standing before the glass--with anexpression of despair which I see again while I write these lines--he wasstanding close to the glass; looking in silence at the hideous reflectionof his face. In sheer pity, I hesitated to take her to him. She steppedforward, and, stretching out her hand, touched his shoulder. Thereflection of _her_ charming face appeared behind _his_ face in theglass. She raised herself on tiptoe, with both hands on him, and said,"The time is coming, my darling, when I may see You!"

  With a cry of joy, she drew his face to her, and kissed him on theforehead. His head fell on his breast when she released it: he coveredhis face with his hands, and stifled, for the moment, all outwardexpression of the pang that wrung him. I drew her rapidly away, beforeher quick sensibilities had time to warn her that something was wrong.Even as it was, she resisted me. Even as it was, she asked suspiciously,"Why do you take me away from him?"

  What excuse could I make? I was at my wits' end.

  She repeated the question. For once Fortune favored us. A timely knock atthe door stopped her just as she was trying to release herself from me."Somebody coming in," I said. The servant entered, as I spoke, with aletter from the rectory.