IN four or five days more, Lucilla's melancholy doubts about Oscar were
confirmed. He was attacked by a second fit.
The promised consultation with the physician from Brighton took place.
Our new doctor did not encourage us to hope. The second fit following so
close on the first was, in his opinion, a bad sign. He gave general
directions for the treatment of Oscar; and left him to decide for himself
whether he would or would not try change of scene. No change, the
physician appeared to think, would exert any immediate influence on the
recurrence of the epileptic attacks. The patient's general health might
be benefited, and that was all. As for the question of the marriage, he
declared without hesitation that we must for the present dismiss all
consideration of it from our minds.
Lucilla received the account of what passed at the visit of the doctors
with a stubborn resignation which it distressed me to see. "Remember what
I told you when the first attack seized him," she said. "Our summer-time
is ended; our winter is come."
Her manner, while she spoke, was the manner of a person who is waiting
without hope--who feels deliberately that calamity is near. She only
roused herself when Oscar came in. He was, naturally enough, in miserable
spirits, under the sudden alteration in all his prospects. Lucilla did
her best to cheer him, and succeeded. On my side, I tried vainly to
persuade him to leave Browndown and amuse himself in some gayer place. He
shrank from new faces and new scenes. Between these two unelastic young
people, I felt even my native good spirits beginning to sink. If we had
been all three down in the bottom of a dry well in a wilderness, we could
hardly have surveyed a more dismal prospect than the prospect we were
contemplating now. By good luck, Oscar, like Lucilla, was passionately
fond of music. We turned to the piano as our best resource in those days
of our adversity. Lucilla and I took it in turns to play, and Oscar
listened. I have to report that we got through a great deal of music. I
have also to acknowledge that we were very dull.
As for Reverend Finch, he talked his way through his share of the
troubles that were trying us now, at the full compass of his voice.
If you had heard the little priest in those days, you would have supposed
that nobody could feel our domestic misfortunes as _he_ felt them, and
grieve over them as _he_ grieved. He was a sight to see, on the day of
the medical consultation; strutting up and down his wife's sitting-room,
and haranguing his audience--composed of his wife and myself. Mrs. Finch
sat in one corner, with the baby and the novel, and the petticoat and the
shawl. I occupied the other corner; summoned to "consult with the
rector." In plain words, summoned to hear Mr. Finch declare that he was
the person principally overshadowed by the cloud which hung on the
household.
"I despair, Madame Pratolungo--I assure you, I despair--of conveying any
idea of how _I_ feel under this most melancholy state of things. You have
been very good; you have shown the sympathy of a true friend. But you
cannot possibly understand how this blow has fallen on Me. I am crushed.
Madame Pratolungo!" (he appealed to me, in my corner); "Mrs. Finch!" (he
appealed to his wife, in _her_ corner)--"I am crushed. There is no other
word to express it but the word I have used. Crushed." He stopped in the
middle of the room. He looked expectantly at me--he looked expectantly at
his wife. His face and manner said plainly, "If both these women faint, I
shall consider it a natural and becoming proceeding on their parts, after
what I have just told them." I waited for the lead of the lady of the
house. Mrs. Finch did not roll prostrate, with the baby and the novel, on
the floor. Thus encouraged, I presumed to keep my seat. The rector still
waited for us. I looked as miserable as I could. Mrs. Finch cast her eyes
up reverentially at her husband, as if she thought him the noblest of
created beings, and silently put her handkerchief to her eyes. Mr. Finch
was satisfied; Mr. Finch went on. "My health has suffered--I assure you,
Madame Pratolungo, MY health has suffered. Since this sad occurrence, my
stomach has given way. My balance is lost--my usual regularity is gone. I
am subject--entirely through this miserable business--to fits of morbid
appetite. I want things at wrong times--breakfast in the middle of the
night; dinner at four in the morning. I want something now!" Mr. Finch
stopped, horror-struck at his condition; pondering with his eyebrows
fiercely knit, and his hand pressed convulsively on the lower buttons of
his rusty black waistcoat. Mrs. Finch's watery blue eyes looked across
the room at me, in a moist melancholy of conjugal distress. The rector,
suddenly enlightened after his consultation with his stomach, strutted to
the door, flung it wide open, and called down the kitchen stairs with a
voice of thunder, "Poach me an egg!" He came back into the room--held
another consultation, keeping his eyes severely fixed on me--strutted
back in a furious hurry to the door--and bellowed a counter-order down
the kitchen-stairs, "No egg! Do me a red herring!" He came back for the
second time, with his eyes closed and his hand laid distractedly on his
head. He appealed alternately to Mrs. Finch and to me. "See for
yourselves--Mrs. Finch! Madame Pratolungo!--see for yourselves what a
state I am in. It's simply pitiable. I hesitate about the most trifling
things. First, I think I want a poached egg--then, I think I want a red
herring--now I don't know what I want. Upon my word of honor as a
clergyman and a gentleman, I don't know what I want! Morbid appetite all
day; morbid wakefulness all night--what a condition! I can't rest. I
disturb my wife at night. Mrs. Finch! I disturb you at night. How many
times--since this misfortune fell upon us--do I turn in bed before I fall
off to sleep? Eight times? Are you certain of it? Don't exaggerate! Are
you certain you counted! Very well: good creature! I never remember--I
assure you, Madame Pratolungo, I never remember--such a complete upset as
this before. The nearest approach to it was some years since, at my
wife's last confinement but four. Mrs. Finch! was it at your last
confinement but four? or your last but five? Your last but four? Are you
sure. Are you certain you are not misleading our friend here? Very well:
good creature! Pecuniary difficulties, Madame Pratolungo, were at the
bottom of it on that last occasion. I got over the pecuniary
difficulties. How am I to get over this? My plans for Oscar and Lucilla
were completely arranged. My relations with my wedded children were
pleasantly laid out. I saw my own future; I saw the future of my family.
What do I see now? All, so to speak, annihilated at a blow. Inscrutable
Providence!" He paused, and lifted his eyes and hands devotionally to the
ceiling. The cook appeared with the red herring. "Inscrutable
Providence"--proceeded Mr. Finch, a tone lower. "Eat it, dear," said Mrs.
Finch, "while it's hot." The rector paused again. His unresting tongue
urged him to proceed; his undisciplined stomach clamored for the herring.
The cook uncovered the dish. Mr. Finch's nose instantly sided with Mr.
Finch's stomach. He stopped at "Inscrutable Providence"--and peppered his
herring.
Having reported how the rector spoke, in the presence of the disaster
which had fallen on the family, I have only to complete the picture by
stating next what he did. He borrowed two hundred pounds of Oscar; and
left off commanding red herrings in the day and disturbing Mrs. Finch at
night, immediately afterwards.
The dull autumn days ended, and the long nights of winter began.
No change for the better appeared in our prospects. The doctors did their
best for Oscar--without avail. The horrible fits came back, again and
again. Day after day, our dull lives went monotonously on. I almost began
now to believe, with Lucilla, that a crisis of some sort must be at hand.
"This cannot last," I used to say to myself--generally when I was very
hungry. "Something will happen before the year comes to an end."
The month of December began; and something happened at last. The family
troubles at the rectory were matched by family troubles of my own. A
letter arrived for me from one of my younger sisters at Paris. It
contained alarming news of a person very dear to me--already mentioned in
the first of these pages as my good Papa.
Was the venerable author of my being dangerously ill of a mortal disease?
Alas! he was not exactly that--but the next worst thing to it. He was
dangerously in love with a disreputable young woman. At what age? At the
age of seventy-five! What can we say of my surviving parent? We can only
say, This is a vigorous nature; Papa has an evergreen heart.
I am grieved to trouble you with my family concerns. But they mix
themselves up intimately, as you will see in due time, with the concerns
of Oscar and Lucilla. It is my unhappy destiny that I cannot possibly
take you through the present narrative, without sooner or later
disclosing the one weakness (amiable weakness) of the gayest and
brightest and best-preserved man of his time.
Ah, I am now treading on egg-shells, I know! The English specter called
Propriety springs up rampant on my writing-table, and whispers furiously
in my ear, "Madame Pratolungo, raise a blush on the cheek of Innocence,
and it is all over from that moment with you and your story." Oh,
inflammable Cheek of Innocence, be good-natured for once, and I will rack
my brains to try if I can put it to you without offense! May I picture
good Papa as an elder in the Temple of Venus, burning incense
inexhaustibly on the altar of love? No: Temple of Venus is Pagan; altar
of love is not proper--take them out. Let me only say of my evergreen
parent that his life from youth to age had been one unintermitting
recognition of the charms of the sex, and that my sisters and I (being of
the sex) could not find it in our hearts to abandon him on that account.
So handsome, so affectionate, so sweet-tempered; with only one fault--and
that a compliment to the women, who naturally adored him in return! We
accepted our destiny. For years past (since the death of Mamma), we
accustomed ourselves to live in perpetual dread of his marrying some one
of the hundreds of unscrupulous hussies who took possession of him: and,
worse if possible than that, of his fighting duels about them with men
young enough to be his grandsons. Papa was so susceptible! Papa was so
brave! Over and over again, I had been summoned to interfere, as the
daughter who had the strongest influence over him. I had succeeded in
effecting his rescue, now by one means, and now by another; ending
always, however, in the same sad way, by the sacrifice of money for
damages--on which damages, when the woman is shameless enough to claim
them, my verdict is, "Serve her right!"
On the present occasion, it was the old story over again. My sisters had
done their best to stop it, and had failed. I had no choice but to appear
on the scene--to begin, perhaps, by boxing her ears: to end, certainly,
by filling her pockets.
My absence at this time was something more than an annoyance--it was a
downright grief to my blind Lucilla. On the morning of my departure, she
clung to me as if she was determined not to let me go.
"What shall I do without you?" she said. "It is hard, in these dreary
days, to lose the comfort of hearing your voice. I shall feel all my
security gone, when I feel you no longer near me. How many days shall you
be away?"
"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!