LITTLE thinking what a storm he had raised, poor innocent
Oscar--paternally escorted by the rector--followed us into the house,
with his open letter in his hand.
Judging by certain signs visible in my reverend friend, I concluded that
the announcement of Nugent Dubourg's coming visit to Dimchurch--regarded
by the rest of us as heralding the appearance of a twin-brother--was
regarded by Mr. Finch as promising the arrival of a twin-fortune. Oscar
and Nugent shared the comfortable paternal inheritance. Finch smelt
money.
"Compose yourself," I whispered to Lucilla as the two gentlemen followed
us into the sitting-room. "Your jealousy of his brother is a childish
jealousy. There is room enough in his heart for his brother as well as
for you."
She only repeated obstinately, with a vicious pinch on my arm, "I hate
his brother!"
"Come and sit down by me," said Oscar, approaching her on the other side.
"I want to run over Nugent's letter. It's so interesting! There is a
message in it to you." Too deeply absorbed in his subject to notice the
sullen submission with which she listened to him, he placed her on a
chair, and began reading. "The first lines," he explained, "relate to
Nugent's return to England, and to his delightful idea of coming to stay
with me at Browndown. Then he goes on: 'I found all your letters waiting
for me on my return to New York. Need I tell you, my dearest brother----'"
Lucilla stopped him at those words by rising abruptly from her seat.
"What is the matter?" he asked.
"I don't like this chair!"
Oscar got her another--an easy-chair this time--and returned to the
letter.
"'Need I tell you, my dearest brother, how deeply you have interested me
by the announcement of your contemplated marriage? Your happiness is my
happiness. I feel with you; I congratulate you; I long to see my future
sister-in-law----'"
Lucilla got up again. Oscar, in astonishment, asked what was wrong now?
"I am not comfortable at this end of the room."
She walked to the other end of the room. Patient Oscar walked after her,
with his precious letter in his hand. He offered her a third chair. She
petulantly declined to take it, and selected another chair for herself.
Oscar returned to the letter:--
"'How melancholy, and yet how interesting it is, to hear that she is
blind! My sketches of American scenery happened to be lying about in the
room when I read your letter. The first thought that came to me, on
hearing of Miss Finch's affliction, was suggested by my sketches. I said
to myself, "Sad! sad! my sister-in-law will never see my Works." The true
artist, Oscar, is always thinking of his Works. I shall bring back, let
me tell you, some very remarkable studies for future pictures. They will
not be so numerous, perhaps, as you may expect. I prefer to trust to my
intellectual perception of beauty, rather than to mere laborious
transcripts from Nature. In certain moods of mine (speaking as an artist)
Nature puts me out.'" There Oscar paused, and appealed to me. "What
writing!--eh? I always told you, Madame Pratolungo, that Nugent was a
genius. You see it now. Don't get up, Lucilla. I am going on. There is a
message to you in this part of the letter. So neatly expressed!"
Lucilla persisted in getting up; the announcement of the neatly-expressed
message to be read next, produced no effect on her. She walked to the
window, and trifled impatiently with the flowers placed in it. Oscar
looked in mild astonishment, first at me--then at the rector. Reverend
Finch--listening thus far with the complimentary attention due to the
correspondence of one young man of fortune with another young man of
fortune--interfered in Oscar's interests, to secure him a patient
hearing.
"My dear Lucilla, endeavor to control your restlessness. You interfere
with our enjoyment of this interesting letter. I could wish to see fewer
changes of place, my child, and a more undivided attention to what Oscar
is reading to you."
"I am not interested in what he is reading to me." In the nervous
irritation which produced this ungracious answer, she overthrew one of
the flower-pots. Oscar set it up again for her with undiminished
good-temper.
"Not interested!" he exclaimed. "Wait a little. You haven't heard
Nugent's message yet. Listen to this! 'Present my best and kindest
regards to the future Mrs. Oscar' (dear fellow!); 'and say that she has
given me a new interest in hastening my return to England.' There! Isn't
that prettily put? Come Lucilla! own that Nugent is worth listening to
when he writes about _you!_"
She turned towards him for the first time. The charm of the tone in which
he spoke those words subdued her, in spite of herself.
"I am much obliged to your brother," she answered gently, "and very much
ashamed of myself for what I said just now." She stole her hand into his,
and whispered, "You are so fond of Nugent--I begin to be almost afraid
there will be no love left for me."
Oscar was enchanted. "Wait till you see him, and you will be as fond of
him as I am," he said. "Nugent is not like me. He fascinates people the
moment they come in contact with him. Nobody can resist Nugent."
She still held his hand, with a perplexed and saddened face. The
admirable absence of any jealousy on his side--his large and generous
confidence in _her_ love for _him_--was just the rebuke to her that she
could feel; just the rebuke also (in my opinion) that she had deserved.
"Go on, Oscar," said the rector, in his deepest notes of encouragement.
"What next, dear boy? what next?"
"Another interesting bit, of quite a new kind," Oscar replied. "There is
a little mystery to stir us up on the last page of the letter. Nugent
says:--'I have become acquainted (here, in New York) with a very
remarkable man, a German who has made a great deal of money in the United
States. He proposes visiting England early in the present year; and he
will write and let me know when he has arrived. I shall feel particular
pleasure in presenting him to you and your future wife. It is quite
possible that you may have special reason to congratulate yourselves on
making his acquaintance. For the present, no more of my new friend until
we meet at Browndown.'--'Special reason to congratulate ourselves on
making his acquaintance.'" repeated Oscar, folding up the letter.
"Nugent never writes in that way without a reason for it. Who can the
German gentleman be?"
Mr. Finch suddenly lifted his head, and looked at Oscar with a certain
appearance of alarm.
"Your brother mentions that he has made his fortune in America," said the
Reverend gentleman. "I hope he is not connected with the money-market. He
might infect Mr. Nugent with the spirit of reckless speculation which is,
so to speak, the national sin of the United States. Your brother, having
no doubt the same generous disposition as yours----"
"A far finer disposition than mine, Mr. Finch," interposed Oscar.
"Possessed, like you, of the gifts of fortune," proceeded the rector,
with mounting enthusiasm.
"Once possessed of them," said Oscar. "Far from being overburdened with
the gifts of fortune, now!"
"What!!!" cried Mr. Finch, with a start of consternation.
"Nugent has run through his fortune," proceeded Oscar, quite composedly.
"I lent him the money to go to America. My brother is a genius, Mr.
Finch. When did you ever hear of a genius who could keep within limits?
Nugent is not content to live in my humble way. He has the tastes of a
prince--money is nothing to him. It doesn't matter. He will make a new
fortune Out of his pictures; and, in the meantime, you know, I can always
lend him something to go on with."
Mr. Finch rose from his seat, with the air of a man whose just
anticipations have not been realized--whose innocent confidence has been
scandalously betrayed. Here was a prospect! Another person in perpetual
want of money, going to settle under the shadow of the rectory! Another
man likely to borrow of Oscar--and that man his brother!
"I fail to take your light view of your brother's extravagance," said the
rector, addressing Oscar with his loftiest severity of manner, at the
door. "I deplore and reprehend Mr. Nugent's misuse of the bounty bestowed
on him by an all-wise Providence. You will do well to consider, before
you encourage your brother's extravagance by lending him money. What does
the great poet of humanity say of lenders? The Bard of Avon tells us,
that 'loan oft loses both itself and friend.' Lay that noble line to
heart, Oscar! Lucilla, be on your guard against that restlessness which I
have already had occasion to reprove. I find I must leave you, Madame
Pratolungo. I had forgotten my parish duties. My parish duties are
waiting for me. Good day! good day!"
He looked round on us all three, in turn, with a very sour face, and
walked out. "Surely," I thought to myself, "this brother of Oscar's is
not beginning well! First, the daughter takes offense at him, and now the
father follows her example. Even on the other side of the Atlantic, Mr.
Nugent Dubourg exercises a malignant influence, and disturbs the family
tranquillity before he has shown his nose in the house!"
Nothing more that is worth recording happened on that day. We had a very
dull evening. Lucilla was out of spirits. As for me, I had not yet had
time to accustom myself to the shocking spectacle of Oscar's discolored
face. I was serious and silent. You would never have guessed me to be a
Frenchwoman, if you had seen me for the first time on the occasion of my
return to the rectory.
The next day a small domestic event happened, which must be chronicled in
this place.
Our Dimchurch doctor, always dissatisfied with his position in an obscure
country place, had obtained an appointment in India which offered great
professional advantages to an ambitious man. He called to take leave of
us on his departure. I found an opportunity of speaking to him about
Oscar. He entirely agreed with me that the attempt to keep the change
produced in his former patient by the Nitrate of Silver from Lucilla's
knowledge, was simply absurd. The truth would reach her, he said, before
many days were over our heads. With that prediction, addressed to my
private ear, he left us. The removal of him from the scene was, you will
please to bear in mind, the removal of an important local witness to the
medical treatment of Oscar, and was, as such, an incident with a bearing
of its own on the future, which claims a place for it in the present
narrative.
Two more days passed, and nothing happened. On the morning of the third
day, the doctor's prophecy was all but fulfilled, through the medium of
the wandering Arab of the family, our funny little Jicks.
While Lucilla and I were strolling about the garden with Oscar, the child
suddenly darted out on us from behind a tree, and, seizing Oscar round
the legs, hailed him affectionately at the top of her voice as "The Blue
Man!" Lucilla instantly stopped, and said, "Who do you call 'The Blue
Man'?" Jicks answered boldly, "Oscar." Lucilla caught the child up in her
arms. "Why do you call Oscar 'The Blue Man'?" she asked. Jicks pointed to
Oscar's face, and then, remembering Lucilla's blindness, appealed to me.
"You tell her!" said Jicks, in high glee. Oscar seized my hand, and
looked at me imploringly. I determined not to interfere. It was bad
enough to remain passive, and to let her be kept in the dark. Actively, I
was resolved to take no part in deceiving her. Her color rose; she put
Jicks down on the ground. "Are you both dumb?" she asked. "Oscar! I
insist on knowing it--how have you got the nick-name of 'The Blue Man'?"
Left helpless, Oscar (to my disgust) took refuge in a lie--and, worse
still, a clumsy lie. He declared that he had got his nick-name in the
nursery, at the time of Lucilla's absence in London, by one day painting
his face in the character of Bluebeard to amuse the children! If Lucilla
had felt the faintest suspicion of the truth, blind as she was, she must
now have discovered it. As things were, Oscar annoyed and irritated her.
I could see that it cost her a struggle to suppress something like a
feeling of contempt for him. "Amuse the children, the next time, in some
other way," she said. "Though I can't see you, still I don't like to hear
of your disfiguring your face by painting it blue." With that answer, she
walked away a little by herself, evidently disappointed in her betrothed
husband for the first time in her experience of him.
He cast another imploring look at me. "Did you hear what she said about
my face?" he whispered.
"You have lost an excellent opportunity of speaking out," I answered. "I
believe you will bitterly regret the folly and the cruelty of deceiving
her."
He shook his head, with the immovable obstinacy of a weak man.
"Nugent doesn't think as you do," he said, handing me the letter. "Read
that bit there--now Lucilla is out of hearing."
I paused for a moment before I could read. The resemblance between the
twins extended even to their handwritings! If I had picked Nugent's
letter up, I should have handed it to Oscar as a letter of Oscar's own
writing.
The paragraph to which he pointed, only contained these lines:--"Your
last relieves my anxiety about your health. I entirely agree with you
that any personal sacrifice which cures you of those horrible attacks is
a sacrifice wisely made. As to your keeping the change a secret from the
young lady, I can only say that I suppose you know best how to act in
this emergency. I will abstain from forming any opinion of my own until
we meet."