Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (826 page)

I drew the inevitable conclusion. The German oculist was in England!

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-EIGHTH

He crosses the Rubicon

I WAS still in doubt, whether to enter the room, or to wait outside until she left Browndown to return to the rectory — when Lucilla’s keen sense of hearing decided the question which I had been unable to settle for myself. The door of the room opened; and Oscar advanced into the hall.

“Lucilla insisted that she heard somebody outside,” he said. “Who could have 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 to Lucilla. “It was Madame Pratolungo you heard,” he said. She took no notice either of him or of me. A heap of flowers from Oscar’s garden lay in her lap. With the help of her clever fingers, she was sorting them to make a nosegay, as quickly and as tastefully as if she had possessed the sense of sight. In all my experience of that charming face, it had never looked so hard as it looked now. Nobody would have recognised her likeness to the Madonna of Raphael’s picture. Offended — mortally offended with 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-fourths of her attention to the flowers, and one-fourth to me. “It’s a pity you took the trouble of coming here. I quite agree with what you said in the garden. Considering the object I had in view at Browndown, I could not possibly expect you to accompany me. True! quite true!”

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

“I wish to apologize for what I said in the garden,” I resumed. “I spoke thoughtlessly, Lucilla. It is impossible that I could intentionally offend you.”

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

“
Was
I offended?” she said, addressing herself to the flowers. “Excessively foolish of me, if I was.” She suddenly became conscious of my existence. “You had a perfect right to express your opinion,” she said loftily. “Accept
my
excuses if I appeared to dispute it.”

She tossed her pretty head; she showed her brightest colour; she tapped her nice little foot briskly on the floor. (Oh, Lucilla! Lucilla!) I still kept my temper. More, by this time (I admit,) for Oscar’s sake than for her sake. He looked so distressed, poor fellow — so painfully anxious to interfere, without exactly knowing how.

“My dear Lucilla!” he began. “Surely you might answer Madame Pratolungo —
 
— ”

She petulantly interrupted him, with another toss of the head — a little higher than the last.

“I don’t attempt to answer Madame Pratolungo! I prefer admitting that Madame Pratolungo may have been quite right. I dare say I am ready to fall in love with the first man who comes my way. I dare say — if I had met 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 I think 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 she was sitting. She became perfectly furious with him for taking my side. I permitted myself (the poor child could not see it, remember), the harmless indulgence of a smile.

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

Humble Oscar shook his head in melancholy acknowledgment of this self-evident fact. “There can be no two opinions about that,” he said resignedly.

She stamped her foot on the carpet — and raised quite a little cloud of dust. My lungs are occasionally delicate. I permitted myself another harmless indulgence — indulgence in a slight cough. She heard the second indulgence — and suddenly controlled herself, the instant it reached her ears. I am afraid she took my cough as my commentary on what was going on.

“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 the absurd side of the demonstration required of him — in the presence of a third person. She, poor soul, strong in her blind insensibility to all shafts of ridicule shot from the eye, cared nothing for the presence of a third 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 have been more superbly indifferent to my presence, if there had been a cat in the room instead of a lady.

“Permit me to inform you,” I said, “that I have not (as you appear to suppose) left the room.”

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

“Give me a kiss!”

Unhappy Oscar — sacrificed between us — blushed. Stop! Don’t revel prematurely in the greatest enjoyment a reader has — namely, catching a writer out in a mistake. I have not forgotten that his disfigured complexion would prevent his blush from showing on the surface. I beg to say I saw it under the surface — saw it in his expression: I repeat — he blushed.

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

“I have only one object in remaining in the room, Miss Finch. I merely wish 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 myself was plain — my duty was to go.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Dubourg,” I said — and turned to the door. She heard me cross the room, and called to me to stop. I paused. There was a glass on the wall opposite to me. On the authority of the glass, I beg to mention that I paused in my most becoming manner. Grace tempered with dignity: 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 gave him — the kiss which he was ashamed to give
her.
I advanced, in contemptuous silence, to the door. My attitude expressed disgust accompanied 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 meet his brother first. Look!”

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

I stopped short; looking at him in silent surprise. He smiled, and held out the open letter to me. Before we could speak, we heard the door of the room closed. Oscar had followed me out (shutting the door behind him) to apologize for Lucilla’s behavior to me. He explained what had happened to his brother. Nugent nodded, and tapped his open letter smartly. “Leave me to manage it. I shall give you something better to do than quarreling among yourselves. You will hear what it is directly. In the meantime, I have got a message for our friend at the inn. Gootheridge is on his way here, to speak to me about altering the stable. Run and tell him I have other 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 on it in pencil, and handed it to his brother. Oscar (always ready to go on errands for Nugent) hurried out to meet the landlord. Nugent turned to me.

“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 to consult him to-day, and to start tomorrow for town. Prepare yourself to meet one of the strangest characters you ever set eyes on! You saw me write on my card. It was a message to Mr. Finch, asking him to join us immediately (on important family business) at Browndown. As Lucilla’s father, he has a voice in the matter. When Oscar comes back, and when the rector joins us, our domestic privy council will be complete.”

He spoke with his customary spirit; he moved with his customary briskness — 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 the change in him. “It puts me in spirits again, having something to do. I am not like Oscar — I must have action to stir my blood — action to keep me from fretting over my anxieties. How do you think I found the witness to my brother’s innocence at the Trial? In that way. I said to myself, ‘I shall 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 the instant. If I am wrong in my view of Lucilla’s case, consideration is of no earthly use. If I am right, every day’s delay is a day of sight lost to the blind. I’ll wait for Oscar and Mr. Finch; and then I’ll open the business. Why are we talking in the hall? Come in!”

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

“Nonsense!” he said. “I’ll set things right. It’s beneath a woman like you 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 over others. Nugent had that power over me. Against my own will — for I was really hurt and offended by her usage of me — I went back with him into the room.

Lucilla was still sitting in the place which she had occupied when I withdrew. On hearing the door open, and a man’s footsteps entering, she of course assumed that the man was Oscar. She had penetrated his object in 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 offered yourself as Madame Pratolungo’s escort to the rectory.” She stopped, with a sudden frown. Her quick ears had detected my return into the room. “Oscar!” she exclaimed, “what does this mean? Madame Pratolungo and I have nothing more to say to each other. What has she come back for? Why don’t you answer? This is infamous! I shall leave the room!”

The utterance of that final threat was followed so rapidly by its execution that, before Nugent (standing between her and the door) could get out of her way, she came in violent contact with him. She instantly caught him by the arm, and shook him angrily. “What does your silence mean? Is it at Madame Pratolungo’s instigation that you are insulting me?”