Poor Miss Finch Part 56

"Have you attempted it already?" I inquired.

"I looked into a little book of engravings," she answered. "But I could distinguish nothing. The lines all mingled together and swam before my eyes."

"Have you tried to write?" I asked next. (I was ashamed of myself for laying that trap for her--although the serious necessity of discovering whether she was privately in correspondence with Nugent, might surely have excused it?)

"No," she replied. "I have not tried to write."

She changed color when she made that answer. It is necessary to own that, in putting my question, I was too much excited to call to mind, what I should have remembered in a calmer state. There was no necessity for her trying to use her eyes--even if she was really carrying on a correspondence which she wished to keep secret from me. Zillah had been in the habit of reading her letters to her, before I appeared at the rectory; and she could write short notes (as I have already mentioned) by feeling her way on the paper with her finger. Besides, having learnt to read by touch (that is to say with raised characters), just as she had learnt to write--even if her eyes had been sufficiently recovered to enable her to distinguish small objects, nothing but practice could have taught her to use them for purposes of correspondence.

These considerations, though they did not strike me at the time, occurred to me later in the day, and altered my opinion to a certain extent. I now interpreted the change of color which I had noticed in her as the outward sign of suspicion on her side--suspicion that I had a motive of my own in interrogating her. For the rest, my doubts of Nugent remained unmoved.

Try as I might, I could not divest my mind of the idea that he was playing me false, and that in one way or another he had contrived, not only to communicate with Lucilla, but to persuade her to keep me in ignorance of what he had done.

I deferred to the next day any attempt at making further discoveries.

The last thing at night, I had a momentary impulse to question Zillah.

Reflection soon checked it. My experience of the nurse's character told me that she would take refuge in flat denial--and would then inform her mistress of what had happened. I knew enough of Lucilla to know (after what had already pa.s.sed between us) that a quarrel with me would follow.

Things were bad enough already, without making them worse in that way.

When the morning came, I resolved to keep a watchful eye on the village post-office, and on the movements of the nurse.

When the morning came, there was a letter for me from abroad.

The address was in the handwriting of one of my sisters. We usually wrote to each other at intervals of a fortnight or three weeks. This letter had followed its predecessor after an interval of less than one week. What did it mean? Good news or bad?

I opened the letter.

It enclosed a telegram, announcing that my poor dear father was lying dangerously wounded at Ma.r.s.eilles. My sisters had already gone to him: they implored me to follow them without one moment of needless delay. Is it necessary to tell the story of this horrible calamity? Of course it begins with a woman and an elopement. Of course it ends with a young man and a duel. Have I not told you already?--Papa was so susceptible; Papa was so brave. Oh, dear, dear! the old story over again. You have an English proverb: "What is bred in the bone--" etcetera, etcetera. Let us drop the veil. I mean, let us end the chapter.

CHAPTER THE FORTY-FIRST

A Hard Time for Madame Pratolungo

OUGHT I to have been prepared for the calamity which had now fallen on my sisters and myself? If I had looked my own experience of my poor father fairly in the face, would it not have been plain to me that the habits of a life were not likely to be altered at the end of a life? Surely--if I had exerted my intelligence--I might have foreseen that the longer his reformation lasted, the nearer he was to a relapse, and the more obviously probable it became that he would fail to fulfill the hopeful expectations which I had cherished of his conduct in the future? I grant it all. But where are the pattern people who can exert their intelligence--when their intelligence points to one conclusion, and their interests to another? Ah, my dear ladies and gentlemen, there is such a fine strong foundation of stupidity at the bottom of our common humanity--if we only knew it!

I could feel no hesitation--as soon as I had recovered myself--about what it was my duty to do. My duty was to leave Dimchurch in time to catch the fast mail-train from London to the Continent, at eight o'clock that night.

And leave Lucilla?

Yes! not even Lucilla's interests--dearly as I loved her; alarmed as I felt about her--were as sacred as the interests which called me to my father's bedside. I had some hours to spare before it would be necessary for me to leave her. All I could do was to employ those hours in taking the strictest precautions I could think of to protect her in my absence.

I could not be long parted from her. One way or the other, the miserable doubt whether my father would live or die, would, at his age, soon be over.

I sent for her to see me in my room, and showed her my letter.

She was honestly grieved when she read it. For a moment--when she spoke her few words of sympathy--the painful constraint in her manner towards me pa.s.sed away. It returned again, when I announced my intention of starting for France that day, and expressed the regret I felt at being obliged to defer our visit to Ramsgate for the present. She not only answered restrainedly (forming, as I fancied, some thought at the moment in her own mind)--she left me, with a commonplace excuse. "You must have much to think of in this sad affliction: I won't intrude on you any longer. If you want me, you know where to find me." With no more than those words, she walked out of the room.

I never remember, at any other time, such a sense of helplessness and confusion as came over me when she had closed the door. I set to work to pack up the few things I wanted for the journey; feeling instinctively that if I did not occupy myself in doing something, I should break down altogether. Accustomed in all the other emergencies of my life, to decide rapidly, I was not even clear enough in my mind to see the facts as they were. As to resolving on anything, I was about as capable of doing that as the baby in Mrs. Finch's arms.

The effort of packing aided me to rally a little--but did no more towards restoring me to my customary tone of mind.

I sat down helplessly, when I had done; feeling the serious necessity of clearing matters up between Lucilla and myself, before I went away, and still as ignorant as ever how to do it. To my own indescribable disgust, I actually felt tears beginning to find their way into my eyes! I had just enough of Pratolungo's widow left in me to feel heartily ashamed of myself. Past vicissitudes and dangers, in the days of my republican life with my husband, had made me a st.u.r.dy walker--with a gypsy relish (like my little Jicks) for the open air. I s.n.a.t.c.hed up my hat, and went out, to see what exercise would do for me.

I tried the garden. No! the garden was (for some inscrutable reason) not big enough. I had still some hours to spare. I tried the hills next.

Turning towards the left, and pa.s.sing the church, I heard through the open windows the _boom-boom_ of Reverend Finch's voice, catechizing the village children. Thank Heaven, he was out of my way at any rate! I mounted the hills, hurrying on as fast as I could. The air and the movement cleared my mind. After more than an hour of hard walking, I returned to the rectory, feeling like my old self again.

Perhaps, there were some dregs of irresolution still left in me. Or, perhaps, there was some enervating influence in my affliction, which made me feel more sensitively than ever the change in the relations between Lucilla and myself. Having, by this time, resolved to come to a plain explanation, before I left her unprotected at the rectory, I shrank, even yet, from confronting a possible repulse, by speaking to her personally.

Taking a leaf out of poor Oscar's book, I wrote what I wanted to say to her in a note.

I rang the bell--once, twice. n.o.body answered it.

I went to the kitchen. Zillah was not there. I knocked at the door of her bed-room. There was no answer: the bed-room was empty when I looked in.

Awkward as it would be, I found myself obliged, either to give my note to Lucilla with my own hand, or to decide on speaking to her, after all.

I could not prevail on myself to speak to her. So I went to her room with my note, and knocked at the door.

Here again there was no reply. I knocked once more--with the same result.

I looked in. There was no one in the room. On the little table at the foot of the bed, there lay a letter addressed to me. The writing was in Zillah's hand. But Lucilla had written her name in the corner in the usual way, to show that she had dictated the letter to her nurse. A load was lifted off my heart as I took it up. The same idea (I concluded) had occurred to her which had occurred to me. She too had shrunk from the embarra.s.sment of a personal explanation. She too had written--and was keeping out of the way until her letter had spoken for her, and had united us again as friends before I left the house.

With these pleasant antic.i.p.ations, I opened the letter. Judge what I felt when I found what it really contained.

"DEAR MADAME PRATOLUNGO,--You will agree with me, that it is very important, after what Herr Grosse has said about the recovery of my sight, that my visit to Ramsgate should not be delayed. As you are unable, through circ.u.mstances which I sincerely regret, to accompany me to the sea-side, I have determined to go to London to my aunt, Miss Batchford, and to ask her to be my companion instead of you. I have had experience enough of her sincere affection for me to be quite sure that she will gladly take the charge of me off your hands. As no time is to be lost, I start for London without waiting for your return from your walk to wish you good-bye. You so thoroughly understand the necessity of dispensing with formal farewells, in cases of emergency, that I am sure you will not feel offended at my taking leave of you in this way. With best wishes for your father's recovery, believe me,

"Yours very truly,

"LUCILLA.

"P. S.--You need be under no apprehension about me. Zillah goes with me as far as London; and I shall communicate with Herr Grosse when I arrive at my aunt's house."

But for one sentence in it, I should most a.s.suredly have answered this cruel letter by instantly resigning my situation as Lucilla's companion.

The sentence to which I refer, contained the words which cast in my teeth the excuses that I had made for Oscar's absence. The sarcastic reference to my recent connection with a case of emergency, and to my experience of the necessity of dispensing with formal farewells, removed my last lingering doubts of Nugent's treachery. I now felt, not suspicion only, but positive conviction that he had communicated with her in his brother's name, and that he had contrived (by some means at which it was impossible for me to guess) so to work on Lucilla's mind--so to excite that indwelling distrust which her blindness had rooted in her character--as to destroy her confidence in me for the time being.

Arriving at this conclusion, I could still feel compa.s.sionately and generously towards Lucilla. Far from blaming my poor deluded sister-friend for her cruel departure and her yet crueler letter, I laid the whole fault on the shoulders of Nugent. Full as my mind was of my own troubles, I could still think of the danger that threatened Lucilla, and of the wrong that Oscar had suffered. I could still feel the old glow of my resolution to bring them together again, and still remember (and determine to pay) the debt I owed to Nugent Dubourg.

In the turn things had taken, and with the short time still at my disposal, what was I to do next? a.s.suming that Miss Batchford would accompany her niece to Ramsgate, how could I put the necessary obstacle in Nugent's way, if he attempted to communicate with Lucilla at the sea-side, in my absence?

It was impossible for me to decide this, unless I first knew whether Miss Batchford, as a member of the family, was to be confidentially informed of the sad position in which Oscar and Lucilla now stood towards each other.

The person to consult in this difficulty was the rector. As head of the household, and in my absence, the responsibility evidently rested with Reverend Finch.

I went round at once to the other side of the house. If Mr. Finch had returned to the rectory, after the catechizing was over, well and good.

If not, I should be obliged to inquire in the village and seek him at the cottages of his parishioners. His magnificent voice relieved me from all anxiety on this head. The _boom-boom_ which I had last heard in the church, I now heard again in the study.