THE first impression which poor Miss Finch produced on Nugent Dubourg,
was precisely the same as the first impression which she had produced on
me.
"Good Heavens!" he cried. "The Dresden Madonna! The Virgin of San Sisto!"
Lucilla had already heard from me of her extraordinary resemblance to the
chief figure in Raphael's renowned picture. Nugent's blunt outburst of
recognition passed unnoticed by her. She stopped short, in the middle of
the room--startled, the instant he spoke, by the extraordinary similarity
of his tone and accent to the tone and accent of his brother's voice.
"Oscar," she asked nervously, "are you behind me? or in front of me?"
Oscar laughed, and answered "Here!"--speaking behind her. She turned her
head towards the place in front of her, from which Nugent had spoken.
"Your voice is wonderfully like Oscar's," she said, addressing him
timidly. "Is your face exactly like his face, too? May I judge for myself
of the likeness between you? I can only do it in one way--by my touch."
Oscar advanced, and placed a chair for his brother by Lucilla's side.
"She has eyes in the tips of her fingers," he said. "Sit down, Nugent,
and let her pass her hand over your face."
Nugent obeyed him in silence. Now that the first impression of surprise
had passed away, I observed that a marked change was beginning to assert
itself in his manner.
Little by little, an unnatural constraint got possession of him. His
fluent tongue found nothing to talk about. His easy movements altered in
the strangest way, until they almost became the movements of a slow
awkward man. He was more like his brother than ever, as he sat down in
the chair to submit himself to Lucilla's investigation. She had produced,
at first sight--as well as I could judge--some impression on him for
which he had not been prepared; causing some mental disturbance in him
which he was for the moment quite unable to control. His eyes looked up
at her, spell-bound; his color came and went; his breath quickened
audibly when her fingers touched his face.
"What's the matter?" said Oscar, looking at him in surprise.
"Nothing is the matter," he answered, in the low absent tone of a man
whose mind was secretly pursuing its own train of thought.
Oscar said no more. Once, twice, three times, Lucilla's hand passed
slowly over Nugent's face. He submitted to it, silently, gravely,
immovably--a perfect contrast to the talkative, lively young man of half
an hour since. Lucilla employed a much longer time in examining him than
she had occupied in examining me.
While the investigation was proceeding, I had leisure to think again over
what had passed between Nugent and me on the subject of Lucilla's
blindness, before she entered the room. My mind had by this time
recovered its balance. I was able to ask myself what this young fellow's
daring idea was really worth. Was it within the range of possibility that
a sense so delicate as the sense of sight, lost for one-and-twenty years,
could be restored by any means short of a miracle? It was monstrous to
suppose it: the thing could not be. If there had been the faintest chance
of giving my poor dear back the blessing of sight, that chance would have
been tried by competent persons years and years since. I was ashamed of
myself for having been violently excited at the moment by the new thought
which Nugent had started in my mind; I was honestly indignant at his
uselessly disturbing me with the vainest of all vain hopes. The one wise
thing to do in the future, was to caution this flighty and inconsequent
young man to keep his mad notion about Lucilla to himself--and to dismiss
it from my own thoughts, at once and for ever.
Just as I arrived at that sensible resolution, I was recalled to what was
going on in the room, by Lucilla's voice, addressing me by my name.
"The likeness is wonderful," she said. "Still, I think I can find a
difference between them."
(The only difference between them was in the contrast of complexion and
in the contrast of manner--both these being dissimilarities which
appealed more or less directly to the eye.)
"What difference do you find?" I asked.
She slowly came towards me, with an anxious perplexed face; pondering as
she advanced.
"I can't explain it," she answered--after a long silence.
When Lucilla left him, Nugent rose from his chair. He abruptly--almost
roughly--took his brother's hand. He spoke to his brother in a strangely
excited, feverish, headlong way.
"My dear fellow, now I have seen her, I congratulate you more heartily
than ever. She is charming; she is unique. Oscar! I could almost envy
you, if you were anyone else!"
Oscar was radiant with delight. His brother's opinion ranked above all
human opinions in his estimation. Before he could say a word in return,
Nugent left him as abruptly as he had approached him; walking away by
himself to the window--and standing there, looking out.
Lucilla had not heard him. She was still pondering, with the same
perplexed face. The likeness between the twins was apparently weighing on
her mind--an unsolved problem that vexed and irritated it. Without
anything said by me to lead to resuming the subject, she returned
obstinately to the assertion that she had just made.
"I tell you again I am sensible of a difference between them," she
repeated--"though you don't seem to believe me."
I interpreted this uneasy reiteration as meaning that she was rather
trying to convince herself than to convince me. In her blind condition,
it was doubly and trebly embarrassing not to know one brother from the
other. I understood her unwillingness to acknowledge this--I felt (in her
position) how it would have irritated me. She was waiting--impatiently
waiting--for me to say something on my side. I am, as you know already,
an indiscreet woman. I innocently said one of my rash things.
"I believe whatever you tell me, my dear," I answered. "You can find out
a difference between them, I have no doubt. Still, I own I should like to
see it put to the proof."
Her color rose. "How?" she asked abruptly.
"Try your touch alternately on both their faces," I suggested, "without
knowing beforehand which position they each of them occupy. Make three
trials--leaving them to change their places or not, between each trial,
just as they please. If you guess which is which correctly three times
following, there will be the proof that you can really lay your hand on a
difference between them."
Lucilla shrank from accepting the challenge. She drew back a step, and
silently shook her head. Nugent, who had overheard me, turned round
suddenly from the window, and supported my proposal.
"A capital notion!" he burst out. "Let's try it! You don't object,
Oscar--do you?"
"_I_ object?" cried Oscar--amazed at the bare idea of his opposing any
assertion of his will to the assertion of his brother's will. "If Lucilla
is willing, I say Yes, with all my heart."
The two brothers approached us, arm in arm. Lucilla, very reluctantly,
allowed herself to be persuaded into trying the experiment. Two chairs,
exactly alike, were placed in front of her. At a sign from Nugent, Oscar
silently took the chair on her right. By this arrangement, the hand which
she had used in touching Nugent's face, would be now the hand that she
would employ in touching Oscar's face. When they were both seated, I
announced that we were ready. Lucilla placed her hands on their faces,
right and left, without the faintest idea in her mind of the positions
which the two relatively occupied.
After first touching them with both hands, and both together, she tried
them separately next, beginning with Oscar, and using her right hand
only. She left him for Nugent; again using her right hand--then came back
to him again--then returned to Nugent--hesitated---decided--tapped Nugent
lightly on the head.
"Oscar!" she said.
Nugent burst out laughing. The laugh told her, before any of us could
speak, that she had made a mistake at the first attempt.
"Try again, Lucilla," said Oscar kindly.
"Never!" she answered, angrily stepping back from both of them. "One
mystification is enough."
Nugent tried next to persuade her to renew the experiment. She checked
him sternly at the first word.
"Do you think if I won't do it for Oscar," she said, "that I would do it
for you? You laughed at me. What was there to laugh at? Your brother's
features are your features; your brother's hair is your hair; your
brother's height is your height. What is there so very ridiculous--with
such a resemblance as that--in a poor blind girl like me mistaking you
one for the other? I wish to preserve a good opinion of you, for Oscar's
sake. Don't turn me into ridicule again--or I shall be forced to think
that your brother's good heart is not yours also!"
Nugent and Oscar looked at each other, petrified by this sudden outbreak;
Nugent, of the two, being the most completely overwhelmed by it.
I attempted to interfere and put things right. My easy philosophy and my
volatile French nature, failed to see any adequate cause for this
vehement exhibition of resentment on Lucilla's part. Something in my
tone, as I suppose, only added to her irritation. I, in my turn, was
checked sternly at the first word. "You proposed it," she said; "You are
the most to blame." I hastened to make my apologies (inwardly remarking
that the habit of raising a storm in a tea-cup is a growing habit with
the rising generation in England). Nugent followed me with more apologies
on his side. Oscar supported us with his superior influence. He took
Lucilla's hand--kissed it--and whispered something in her ear. The kiss
and the whisper acted like a charm. She held out her hand to Nugent, she
put her arm round my neck and embraced me, with all her own grace and
sweetness. "Forgive me," she said to us gently. "I wish I could learn to
be patient. But, oh, Mr. Nugent, it is sometimes so hard to be blind!" I
can repeat the words; but I can give no idea of the touching simplicity
with which they were spoken--of her innocently earnest anxiety to win her
pardon. She so affected Nugent that he too--after a look at Oscar which
said, "May I?"--kissed the hand that she offered to him. As his lips
touched her, she started. The bright flush which always indicated the
sudden rising of a thought in her mind, flew over her face. She
unconsciously held Nugent's hand in her own, absorbed in the interest of
realizing the new thought. For a moment, she stood, still as a statue,
consulting with herself. The moment passed, she dropped Nugent's hand,
and turned gaily to me.
"Will you think me very obstinate?" she asked.
"Why, my love?"
"I am not satisfied yet. I want to try again."
"No! no! At any rate not to-day."
"I want to try again," she repeated. "Not in your way. In a way of my own
that has just come into my head." She turned to Oscar. "Will you humour
me in this?" It is needless to set down Oscar's reply. She turned to
Nugent. "Will you?"
"Only say what you wish me to do!" he answered.
"Go with your brother," she said, "to the other end of the room. I know
where you are each of you standing, at this end. Madame Pratolungo will
lead me to the place, and will put me just within reach of both your
hands. I want each of you in turn (arrange by a sign between yourselves
which is to begin) to take my hand, and hold it for a moment, and then
drop it. I have an idea that I can distinguish between you, in that
way--and I want very much to try it."
The brothers went silently to the other end of the room. I led Lucilla,
after them, to the place in which they stood. At my suggestion, Nugent
was the first to take her hand, as she had requested; to hold it for a
moment, and then to drop it.
"Nugent!" she said, without the slightest hesitation.
"Quite right," I answered.