Poor Miss Finch Part 16

"A day to get to Paris," I answered; "and a day to get back--two. Five days (if I can do it in the time) to thunder-strike the hussy, and to rescue Papa--seven. Let us say, if possible, a week."

"You must be back, no matter what happen, before the new year."

"Why?"

"I have my yearly visit to pay to my aunt. It has been twice put off. I must absolutely go to London on the last day of the old year, and stay there my allotted three months in Miss Batchford's house. I had hoped to be Oscar's wife before the time came round again----" she waited a moment to steady her voice. "That is all over now. We must be parted. If I can't leave you here to console him and to take care of him, come what may of it--I shall stay at Dimchurch."

Her staying at Dimchurch, while she was still unmarried, meant (under the terms of her uncle's will) sacrificing her fortune. If Reverend Finch had heard her, he would not even have been able to say "Inscrutable Providence"--he would have lost his senses on the spot.

"Don't be afraid," I said; "I shall be back, Lucilla, before you go.

Besides, Oscar may get better. He may be able to follow you to London, and visit you at your aunt's."

She shook her head, with such a sad, sad doubt of it, that the tears came into my eyes. I gave her a last kiss--and hurried away.

My route was to Newhaven, and then across the Channel to Dieppe. I don't think I really knew how fond I had grown of Lucilla, until I lost sight of the rectory at the turn in the road to Brighton. My natural firmness deserted me; I felt torturing presentiments that some great misfortune would happen in my absence; I astonished myself--I, the widow of the Spartan Pratolungo!--by having a good cry, like any other woman.

Sooner or later, we susceptible people pay with the heartache for the privilege of loving. No matter: heartache or not, one must have something to love in this world as long as one lives in it. I have lived in it--never mind how many years--and I have got Lucilla. Before Lucilla I had the Doctor. Before the Doctor--ah, my friends, we won't look back beyond the Doctor!

CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH

Second Result of the Robbery

THE history of my proceedings in Paris can be dismissed in a very few words. It is only necessary to dwell in detail on one among the many particulars which connect themselves in my memory with the rescue of good Papa.

The affair, this time, a.s.sumed the gravest possible aspect. The venerable victim had gone the length of renewing his youth, in respect of his teeth, his hair, his complexion, and his figure (this last involving the purchase of a pair of stays). I declare I hardly knew him again, he was so outrageously and unnaturally young. The utmost stretch of my influence was exerted over him in vain. He embraced me with the most touching fervour; he expressed the n.o.blest sentiments--but in the matter of his contemplated marriage, he was immovable. Life was only tolerable to him on one condition. The beloved object, or death--such was the programme of this volcanic old man.

To make the prospect more hopeless still, the beloved object proved, on this occasion, to be a bold enough woman to play her trump card at starting.

I give the jade her due. She a.s.sumed a perfectly una.s.sailable att.i.tude: we had her full permission to break off the match--if we could. "I refer you to your father. Pray understand that I don't wish to marry him, if his daughters object to it. He has only to say, 'Release me.' From that moment he is free." There was no contending against such a system of defence as this. We knew as well as she did that our fascinated parent would not say the word. Our one chance was to spend money in investigating the antecedent indiscretions of the lady's life, and to produce against her proof so indisputable that not even an old man's infatuation could say, This is a lie.

We disbursed; we investigated; we secured our proof. It took a fortnight.

At the end of that time, we had the necessary materials in hand for opening the eyes of good Papa.

In the course of the inquiry I was brought into contact with many strange people--among others, with a man who startled me, at our first interview, by presenting a personal deformity, which, with all my experience of the world, I now saw oddly enough for the first time.

The man's face, instead of exhibiting any of the usual shades of complexion, was hideously distinguished by a superhuman--I had almost said a devilish--colouring of livid blackish _blue!_ He proved to be a most kind, intelligent, and serviceable person. But when we first confronted each other, his horrible color so startled me, that I could not repress a cry of alarm. He not only pa.s.sed over my involuntary act of rudeness in the most indulgent manner--he explained to me the cause which had produced his peculiarity of complexion; so as to put me at my ease before we entered on the delicate private inquiry which had brought us together.

"I beg your pardon," said this unfortunate man, "for not having warned you of my disfigurement, before I entered the room. There are hundreds of people discolored as I am, in the various parts of the civilized world; and I supposed that you had met, in the course of your experience, with other examples of my case. The blue tinge in my complexion is produced by the effect on the blood of Nitrate of Silver--taken internally. It is the only medicine which relieves sufferers like me from an otherwise incurable malady. We have no alternative but to accept the consequences for the sake of the cure."

He did not mention what his malady had been; and I abstained, it is needless to say, from questioning him further. I got used to his disfigurement in the course of my relations with him; and I should no doubt have forgotten my blue man in attending to more absorbing matters of interest, if the effects of Nitrate of Silver as a medicine had not been once more unexpectedly forced on my attention, in another quarter, and under circ.u.mstances which surprised me in no ordinary degree.

Having saved Papa on the brink of--let us say, his twentieth precipice, it was next necessary to stay a few days longer and reconcile him to the hardship of being rescued in spite of himself. You would have been greatly shocked, if you had seen how he suffered. He gnashed his expensive teeth; he tore his beautifully manufactured hair. In the fervour of his emotions, I have no doubt he would have burst his new stays--if I had not taken them away, and sold them half-price, and made (to that small extent) a profit out of our calamity to set against the loss. Do what one may in the detestable system of modern society, the pivot on which it all turns is Money. Money, when you are saving Freedom!

Money, when you are saving Papa! Is there no remedy for this? A word in your ear. Wait till the next revolution!

During the time of my absence, I had of course corresponded with Lucilla.

Her letters to me--very sad and very short--reported a melancholy state of things at Dimchurch. While I had been away, the dreadful epileptic seizures had attacked Oscar with increasing frequency and increasing severity. The moment I could see my way to getting back to England, I wrote to Lucilla to cheer her with the intimation of my return. Two days only before my departure from Paris, I received another letter from her.

I was weak enough to be almost afraid to open it. Her writing to me again, when she knew that we should be re-united at such an early date, suggested that she must have some very startling news to communicate. My mind misgave me that it would prove to be news of the worst sort.

I summoned courage to open the envelope. Ah, what fools we are! For once that our presentments come right, they prove a hundred times to be wrong.

Instead of distressing me, the letter delighted me. Our gloomy prospect was brightening at last.

Thus--feeling her way over the paper, in her large childish characters--Lucilla wrote:

"DEAREST FRIEND AND SISTER,--I cannot wait until we meet, to tell you my good news. The Brighton doctor has been dismissed; and a doctor from London has been tried instead. My dear! for intellect there is nothing like London. The new man sees, thinks, and makes up his mind on the spot.

He has a way of his own of treating Oscar's case; and he answers for curing him of the horrible fits. There is news for you! Come back, and let us jump for joy together. How wrong I was to doubt the future! Never, never, never will I doubt it again. This is the longest letter I have ever written.

"Your affectionate,

"LUCILLA."

To this, a postscript was added, in Oscar's handwriting, as follows:--

"Lucilla has told you that there is some hope for me at last. What I write in this place is written without her knowledge--for your private ear only. Take the first opportunity you can find of coming to see me at Browndown, without allowing Lucilla to hear of it. I have a great favor to ask of you. My happiness depends on your granting it. You shall know what it is, when we meet.

"OSCAR."

This postscript puzzled me.

It was not in harmony with the implicit confidence which I had observed Oscar to place habitually in Lucilla. It jarred on my experience of his character, which presented him to me as the reverse of a reserved secretive man. His concealment of his ident.i.ty, when he first came among us, had been a forced concealment--due entirely to his horror of being identified with the hero of the trial. In all the ordinary relations of life, he was open and unreserved to a fault. That he could have a secret to keep from Lucilla, and to confide to me, was something perfectly unintelligible to my mind. It highly excited my curiosity; it gave me a new reason for longing to get back.

I was able to make all my arrangements, and to bid adieu to my father and my sisters on the evening of the twenty-third. Early on the morning of the twenty-fourth, I left Paris, and reached Dimchurch in time for the final festivities in celebration of Christmas Eve.

The first hour of Christmas Day had struck on the clock in our own pretty sitting-room, before I could prevail upon Lucilla to let me rest, after my journey, in bed. She was now once more the joyous light-hearted creature of our happier time; and she had so much to say to me, that not even her father himself (on this occasion) could have talked her down.

The next morning she paid the penalty of exciting herself over-night.

When I went into her room, she was suffering from a nervous head-ache, and was not able to rise at her usual hour. She proposed of her own accord that I should go alone to Browndown to see Oscar on my return. It is only doing common justice to myself to say that this was a relief to me. If she had had the use of her eyes, my conscience would have been easy enough--but I shrank from deceiving my dear blind girl, even in the slightest things.

So, with Lucilla's knowledge and approval, I went to Oscar alone.

I found him fretful and anxious--ready to flame out into one of his sudden pa.s.sions, on the smallest provocation. Not the slightest reflection of Lucilla's recovered cheerfulness appeared in Lucilla's lover.

"Has she said anything to you about the new doctor?" were the first words he addressed to me.

"She has told me that she feels the greatest faith in him," I answered.

"She firmly believes that he speaks the truth in saying he can cure you."

"Did she show any curiosity to know _how_ he is curing me?"

"Not the slightest curiosity that I could see. It is enough for her that you _are_ to be cured. The rest she leaves to the doctor."

My last answer appeared to relieve him. He sighed, and leaned back in his chair. "That's right!" he said to himself. "I'm glad to hear that."

"Is the doctor's treatment of you a secret?" I asked.

"It must be a secret from Lucilla," he said, speaking very earnestly. "If she attempts to find it out, she must be kept--for the present, at least--from all knowledge of it. n.o.body has any influence over her but you. I look to you to help me."

"Is this the favor you had to ask me?"