Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (837 page)

SHE was sitting alone in the dim light, with the bandage over her eyes, with her pretty hands crossed patiently on her lap. My heart swelled in me as I looked at her, and felt the horrid discovery that I had made still present in my mind. “Forgive me for leaving you,” I said in as steady a voice as I could command at the moment — and kissed her.

She instantly discovered my agitation, carefully as I thought I had concealed it.

“You are frightened too!” she exclaimed, taking my hands in hers.

“Frightened, my love?” I repeated. (I was perfectly stupefied; I really did not know what to say!)

“Yes. Now the time is so near, I feel my courage failing me. I forbode all sorts of horrible things. Oh! when will it be over? what will Oscar look like when I see him?”

I answered the first question. Who could answer the second?

“Herr Grosse comes to us by the morning train,” I said. “It will soon be over.”

“Where is Oscar?”

“On his way here, I have no doubt.”

“Describe him to me once more,” she said eagerly. “For the last time, before I see. His eyes, his hair, his complexion — everything!”

How I should have got through the painful task which she had innocently imposed on me, if I had attempted to perform it, I hardly like to think. To my infinite relief, I was interrupted at my first word by the opening of the door, and the sudden appearance of a family deputation in the room.

First, strutting with slow and solemn steps, with one hand laid pathetically on the breast of his clerical waistcoat, appeared Reverend Finch. After him, came his wife, shorn of all her proper accompaniments — except the baby. Without her novel, without her jacket, petticoat, or shawl, without even the handkerchief which she was always losing — clothed, for the first time in my experience, in a complete gown — the metamorphosis of damp Mrs. Finch was complete. But for the baby, I believe I should have taken her, in the dim light, for a stranger! She stood (apparently doubtful of her reception) hesitating in the doorway, and so hiding a third member of the deputation — who appealed piteously to the general notice in a small voice which I knew well, and in a form of address familiar to me from past experience.

“Jicks wants to come in.”

The rector took his hand from his waistcoat, and held it up in faint protest against the intrusion of the third member. Mrs. Finch moved mechanically into the room. Jicks appeared, hugging her disreputable doll, and showing signs of recent wandering in the white dust which dropped on the carpet from her frock and her shoes, as she advanced towards the place in which I was sitting. Arrived in front of me, she peered quaintly up at my face, through the obscurity of the room; lifted her doll by the legs; hit me a smart rap with the head of it on my knee; and said —

“Jicks will sit here.”

I rubbed my knee, and enthroned Jicks as ordered. At the same time Mr. Finch solemnly stalked up to his daughter; laid his hands on her head; raised his eyes to the ceiling; and said in bass notes that rumbled with paternal emotion, “Bless you, my child!”

At the sound of her husband’s magnificent voice, Mrs. Finch became herself again. She said meekly, “How d’ye do, Lucilla?” — and sat down in a corner, and suckled the baby.

Mr. Finch set in for one of his harangues.

“My advice has been neglected, Lucilla. My paternal influence has been repudiated. My Moral Weight has been, so to speak, set aside. I don’t complain. Understand me —
I
simply state sad facts.” (Here he became aware of my existence.) “Good morning, Madame Pratolungo; I hope I see you well? — There has been variance between us, Lucilla. I come, my child, with healing on my wings (healing being understood, for present purposes, as reconciliation) — I come, and bring Mrs. Finch with me — don’t speak, Mrs. Finch! — to offer my heartfelt wishes, my fervent prayers, on this the most eventful day in my daughter’s life. No vulgar curiosity has turned my steps this way. No hint shall escape my lips, touching any misgivings which I may still feel as to this purely worldly interference with the ways of an inscrutable Providence. I am here as parent and peacemaker. My wife accompanies me — don’t speak, Mrs. Finch! — as step-parent and step-peacemaker. (You understand the distinction, Madame Pratolungo? Thank you. Good creature.) Shall I preach forgiveness of injuries from the pulpit, and not practice that forgiveness at home? Can I remain, on this momentous occasion, at variance with my child? Lucilla! I forgive you. With full heart and tearful eyes, I forgive you. (You have never had any children, I believe, Madame Pratolungo? Ah! you cannot possibly understand this. Not your fault. Good creature. Not your fault.) The kiss of peace, my child; the kiss of peace.” He solemnly bent his bristly head, and deposited the kiss of peace on Lucilla’s forehead. He sighed superbly, and in a burst of magnanimity, held out his hand next to me. “My Hand, Madame Pratolungo. Compose yourself. Don’t cry. God bless you. Mrs. Finch, deeply affected by her husband’s noble conduct, began to sob hysterically. The baby, disarranged in his proceedings by the emotions of his mama, set up a sympathetic scream. Mr. Finch crossed the room to them, with domestic healing on his wings. “This does you credit, Mrs. Finch; but, under the circumstances, it must not be continued. Control yourself, in consideration of the infant. Mysterious mechanism of Nature!” cried the rector, raising his prodigious voice over the louder and louder screeching of the baby. “Marvelous and beautiful sympathy which makes the maternal sustenance the conducting medium, as it were, of disturbance between the mother and child. What problems confront us, what forces environ us, even in this mortal life! Nature! Maternity! Inscrutable Providence!”

“Inscrutable Providence” was the rector’s fatal phrase — it always brought with it an interruption; and it brought one now. Before Mr. Finch (brimful of pathetic apostrophes) could burst into more exclamations, the door opened, and Oscar walked into the room.

Lucilla instantly recognised his footstep.

“Any signs, Oscar, of Herr Grosse?” she asked.

“Yes. His chaise has been seen on the road. He will be here directly.”

Giving that answer, and passing by my chair to place himself on the other side of Lucilla, Oscar cast at me one imploring look — a look which said plainly, “Don’t desert me when the time comes!” I nodded my head to show that I understood him and felt for him. He sat down in the vacant chair by Lucilla, and took her hand in silence. It was hard to say which of the two felt the position, at that trying moment, most painfully. I don’t think I ever saw any sight so simply and irresistibly touching as the sight of those two poor young creatures sitting hand in hand, waiting the event which was to make the happiness or the misery of their future lives.

“Have you seen anything of your brother?” I asked, putting the question in as careless a tone as my devouring anxiety would allow me to assume.

“Nugent has gone to meet Herr Grosse.”

Oscar’s eyes once more encountered mine, as he replied in those terms; I saw again the imploring look more marked in them than ever. It was plain to him, as it was plain to me, that Nugent had gone to meet the German, with the purpose of making Herr Grosse the innocent means of bringing him into the house.

Before I could speak again, Mr. Finch, recovering himself after the interruption which had silenced him, saw his opportunity of setting in for another harangue. Mrs. Finch had left off sobbing; the baby had left off screaming; the rest of us were silent and nervous. In a word, Mr. Finch’s domestic congregation was entirely at Mr. Finch’s mercy. He strutted up to Oscar’s chair. Was he going to propose to read
Hamlet?
No! He was going to invoke a blessing on Oscar’s head.

“On this interesting occasion,” began the rector in his pulpit tones; “now that we are all united in the same room, all animated by the same hope — I could wish, as pastor and parent (God bless you, Oscar: I look on you as a son. Mrs. Finch, follow my example, look on him as a son!) — I could wish, as pastor and parent, to say a few pious and consoling words —
 
— ”

The door — the friendly, admirable, judicious door — stopped the coming sermon, in the nick of time, by opening again. Herr Grosse’s squat figure and owlish spectacles appeared on the threshold. And behind him (exactly as I had anticipated) stood Nugent Dubourg.

Lucilla turned deadly pale: she had heard the door open, she knew by instinct that the surgeon had come. Oscar got up, stole behind my chair, and whispered to me, “For God’s sake, get Nugent out of the room!” I gave him a reassuring squeeze of the hand, and, putting Jicks down on the floor, rose to welcome our good Grosse.

The child, as it happened, was beforehand with me. She and the illustrious oculist had met in the garden at one of the German’s professional visits to Lucilla, and had taken an amazing fancy to each other. Herr Grosse never afterwards appeared at the rectory without some unwholesome eatable thing in his pocket for Jicks; who gave him in return as many kisses as he might ask for, and further distinguished him as the only living creature whom she permitted to nurse the disreputable doll. Grasping this same doll now, with both hands, and using it head-foremost, as a kind of battering-ram, Jicks plunged in front of me, and butted with all her might at the surgeon’s bandy legs; insisting on a monopoly of his attention before he presumed to speak to any other person in the room. While he was lifting her to a level with his face, and talking to her in his wonderful broken English — while the rector and Mrs. Finch were making the necessary apologies for the child’s conduct — Nugent came round from behind Herr Grosse, and drew me mysteriously into a corner of the room. As I followed him, I saw the silent torture of anxiety expressed in Oscar’s face as he stood by Lucilla’s chair. It did me good; it strung up my resolution to the right pitch; it made me feel myself a match, and more than a match, for Nugent Dubourg.

“I am afraid I behaved in a very odd manner, when we met in the village?” he said. “The fact is, I am not at all well. I have been in a strange feverish state lately. I don’t think the air of this place suits me.” There he stopped; keeping his eyes steadily fixed on mine, trying to read my mind in my face.

“I am not surprised to hear you say that,” I answered. “I have noticed that you have not been looking well lately.”

My tone and manner (otherwise perfectly composed) expressed polite sympathy — and nothing more. I saw I puzzled him. He tried again.

“I hope I didn’t say or do anything rude?” he went on.

“Oh, no!”

“I was excited — painfully excited. You are too kind to admit it; I am sure I owe you my apologies?”

“No, indeed! you were certainly excited, as you say. But we are all in the same state to-day. The occasion, Mr. Nugent, is your sufficient apology.”

Not the slightest sign in my face of any sort of suspicion of him rewarded the close and continued scrutiny with which he regarded me. I saw in his perplexed expression, the certain assurance that I was beating him at his own weapons. He made a last effort to entrap me into revealing that I suspected his secret — he attempted, by irritating my quick temper, to take me by surprise.

“You are no doubt astonished at seeing me here,” he resumed. “I have not forgotten that I promised to remain at Browndown instead of coming to the rectory. Don’t be angry with me: I am under medical orders which forbid me to keep my promise.”

“I don’t understand you,” I said just as coolly as ever.

“I will explain myself,” he rejoined. “You remember that we long since took Grosse into our confidence, on the subject of Oscar’s position towards Lucilla?”

“I am not likely to have forgotten it,” I answered, “considering that it was I who first warned your brother that Herr Grosse might do terrible mischief by innocently letting out the truth.”

“Do you recollect how Grosse took the warning when we gave it to him?”

“Perfectly. He promised to be careful. But, at the same time, he gruffly forbade us to involve him in any more of our family troubles. He said he was determined to preserve his professional freedom of action, without being hampered by domestic difficulties which might concern
us,
but which did not concern
him.
Is my memory accurate enough to satisfy you?”

“Your memory is wonderful. You will now understand me when I tell you that Grosse asserts his professional freedom of action on this occasion. I had it from his own lips on our way here. He considers it very important that Lucilla should not be frightened at the moment when she tries her sight. Oscar’s face is sure to startle her, if it is the first face she sees. Grosse has accordingly requested me to be present (as the only other young man in the room), and to place myself so that I shall be the first person who attracts her notice. Ask him yourself, Madame Pratolungo, if you don’t believe me.”