"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 recognized 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."
"Of course I believe you!" I answered. "It is useless to dispute the
surgeon's orders at such a time as this."
With that, I left him; showing just as much annoyance as an unsuspecting
woman, in my position, might have naturally betrayed--and no more.
Knowing, as I did, what was going on under the surface, I understood only
too plainly what had happened. Nugent had caught at the opportunity which
the surgeon had innocently offered to him, as a means of misleading
Lucilla at the moment, and (possibly) of taking some base advantage of
her afterwards. I trembled inwardly with rage and fear, as I turned my
back on him. Our one chance was to make sure of his absence, at the
critical moment--and, cudgel my brains as I might, how to reach that end
successfully was more than I could see.
When I returned to the other persons in the room, Oscar and Lucilla were
still occupying the same positions. Mr. Finch had presented himself (at
full length) to Herr Grosse. And Jicks was established on a stool in a
corner: devouring a rampant horse, carved in bilious-yellow German
gingerbread, with a voracious relish wonderful and terrible to see.
"Ah, my goot Madame Pratolungo!" said Herr Grosse, stopping on his way to
Lucilla to shake hands with me. "Have you made anodder lofely Mayonnaise?
I have come on purpose with an empty-stomachs, and a wolf's-appetite in
fine order. Look at that little Imps," he went on, pointing to Jicks.
"Ach Gott! I believe I am in lofe with her. I have sent all the ways to
Germany for gingerbreads for Jick. Aha, you Jick! does it stick in your
tooths? Is it nice-clammy-sweet?" He glared benevolently at the child
through his spectacles; and tucked my hand sentimentally into the breast
of his waistcoat. "Promise me a child like adorable Jick," he said
solemnly, "I will marry the first wife you bring me--nice womans, nasty
womans, I don't care which. Soh! there is my domestic sentiments laid
bare before you. Enough of that. Now for my pretty-Feench!
Come-begin-begin!"
He crossed the room to Lucilla, and called to Nugent to follow him.
"Open the shutters," he said. "Light-light-light, and plenty of him, for
my lofely Feench!"
Nugent opened the shutters, beginning with the lower window, and ending
with the window at which Lucilla was sitting. Acting on this plan, he had
only to wait where he was, to place himself close by her--to be the first
object she saw. He did it. The villain did it. I stepped forward,
determined to interfere--and stopped, not knowing what to say or do. I
could have beaten my own stupid brains out against the wall. There stood
Nugent right before her, as the surgeon turned his patient towards the
window. And not the ghost of an idea came to me!
The German stretched out his hairy hands, and took hold of the knot of
the bandage to undo it.
Lucilla trembled from head to foot.
Herr Grosse hesitated--looked at her--let go of the bandage-and lifting
one of her hands, laid his fingers on her pulse.
In the moment of silence that followed, I had one of my inspirations. The
missing idea turned up in my brains at last.
"Soh!" cried Grosse, dropping her hand with a sudden outbreak of
annoyance and surprise. "Who has been frightening my pretty Feench? Why
these cold trembles? these sinking pulses? Some of you tell me--what does
it mean?"
Here was my opportunity! I tried my idea on the spot.
"It means," I said, "that there are too many people in this room. We
confuse her, and frighten her. Take her into her bedroom, Herr Grosse;
and only let the rest of us in, when you think right--one at a time."
Our excellent surgeon instantly seized on my idea, and made it his own.
"You are a phenix among womens," he said, paternally patting me on the
shoulder. "Which is most perfectest, your advice or your Mayonnaise, I am
at a loss to know." He turned to Lucilla, and raised her gently from her
chair. "Come into your own rooms with me, my poor little Feench. I shall
see if I dare take off your bandages to-day."
Lucilla clasped her hands entreatingly.
"You promised!" she said. "Oh, Herr Grosse, you promised to let me use my
eyes to-day!"
"Answer me this!" retorted the German. "Did I know, when I promised, that
I should find you all shaky-pale, as white as my shirts when he comes
back from the wash?"
"I am quite myself again," she pleaded faintly. "I am quite fit to have
the bandage taken off."
"What! you know better than I do? Which of us is surgeon-optic--you or
me? No more of this. Come under my arms! Come into the odder rooms!"
He put her arm in his, and walked with her to the door. There, her
variable humour suddenly changed. She rallied on the instant. Her face
flushed; her courage came back. To my horror, she snatched her arm away
from the surgeon, and refused to leave the room.
"No!" she said. "I am quite composed again; I claim your promise. Examine
me here. I must and will have my first look at Oscar in this room."
(I was afraid--literally afraid--to turn my eyes Oscar's way. I glanced
at Nugent instead. There was a devilish smile on his face that it nearly
drove me mad to see.)
"You must and weel?" repeated Grosse. "Now, mind!" He took out his watch.
"I give you one little minutes, to think in. If you don't come with me in
that time, you shall find it is I who must and weel. Now!"
"Why do you object to go into your room?" I asked.
"Because I want everybody to see me," she answered. "How many of you are
there here?"
"There are five of us. Mr. and Mrs. Finch; Mr. Nugent Dubourg; Oscar, and
myself."
"I wish there were five hundred of you, instead of five?" she burst out.
"Why?"
"Because you would see me pick out Oscar from all the rest, the instant
the bandage was off my eyes!"
Still holding to her own fatal conviction that the image in her mind of
Oscar was the right one! For the second time, though I felt the longing
in me to look at him, I shrank from doing it.
Herr Grosse put his watch back in his pocket.
"The minutes is passed," he said. "Will you come into the odder rooms?
Will you understand that I cannot properly examine you before all these
peoples? Say, my lofely Feench--Yes? or No?"
"No!" she cried obstinately, with a childish stamp of her foot. "I insist
on showing everybody that I can pick out Oscar, the moment I open my
eyes."
Herr Grosse buttoned his coat, settled his owlish spectacles firmly on
his nose, and took up his hat. "Goot morning," he said. "I have nothing
more to do with you or your eyes. Cure yourself, you
little-spitfire-Feench. I am going back to London."
He opened the door. Even Lucilla was obliged to yield, when the surgeon
in attendance on her threatened to throw up the case.
"You brute!" she said indignantly--and took his arm again.
Grosse indulged himself in his diabolical grin. "Wait till you are able
to use your eyes, my lofe. Then you will see what a brutes I am!" With
those words he took her out.
We were left in the sitting-room, to wait until the surgeon had decided
whether he would, or would not, let Lucilla try her sight on that day.
While the others were, in their various ways, all suffering the same
uneasy sense of expectation, I was as quiet in my mind as the baby now
sleeping in his mother's arms. Thanks to Grosse's resolution to act on
the hint that I had given to him, I had now made it impossible--even if
the bandage was removed on that day--for Nugent to catch Lucilla's first
look when she opened her eyes. Her betrothed husband might certainly, on
such a special occasion as this, be admitted into her bed-chamber, in
company with her father or with me. But the commonest sense of propriety
would dictate the closing of the door on Nugent. In the sitting-room he
must wait (if he still persisted in remaining at the rectory) until she
was allowed to join him there. I privately resolved, having the control
of the matter in my own hands, that this should not happen until Lucilla
knew which of the twins was Nugent, and which was Oscar. A delicious
inward glow of triumph diffused itself all through me. I resisted the
strong temptation that I felt to discover how Nugent bore his defeat. If
I had yielded to it, he would have seen in my face that I gloried in
having outwitted him. I sat down, the picture of innocence, in the
nearest chair, and crossed my hands on my lap, a composed and ladylike
person, edifying to see.
The slow minutes followed each other--and still we waited the event in
silence. Even Mr. Finch's tongue was, on this solitary occasion, a tongue
incapable of pronouncing a single word. He sat by his wife at one end of
the room. Oscar and I were at the other. Nugent stood by himself at one
of the windows, deep in his own thoughts, plotting how he could pay me
out.
Oscar was the first of the party who broke the silence. After looking all
round the room, he suddenly addressed himself to me.
"Madame Pratolungo!" he exclaimed. "What has become of Jicks?"
I had completely forgotten the child. I too looked round the room, and
satisfied myself that she had really disappeared. Mrs. Finch, observing
our astonishment, timidly enlightened us. The maternal eye had seen Jicks
slip out cunningly at Herr Grosse's heels. The child's object was plain
enough. While there was any probability of the presence of more
gingerbread in the surgeon's pocket, the wandering Arab of the family (as
stealthy and as quick as a cat) was certain to keep within reach of her
friend. Nobody who knew her could doubt that she had stolen into
Lucilla's bed-chamber, under cover of Herr Grosse's ample coat-tails.
We had just accounted in this way for the mysterious absence of Jicks,
when we heard the bed-chamber door opened, and the surgeon's voice
calling for Zillah. In a minute more the nurse appeared, the bearer of a
message from the next room.
We all surrounded her, with one and the same question to ask. What had
Herr Grosse decided to do? The answer informed us that he had decided on
forbidding Lucilla to try her eyes that day.
"Is she very much disappointed?" Oscar inquired anxiously.
"I can hardly say, sir. She isn't like herself. I never knew Miss Lucilla
so quiet when she was crossed in her wishes, before. When the doctor
called me into the room, she said: 'Go in, Zillah, and tell them.' Those
words, sir, and no more."
"Did she express no wish to see me?" I inquired.
"No, ma'am. I took the liberty of asking her if she wished to see you.
Miss Lucilla shook her head, and sat herself down on the sofa, and made
the doctor sit by her. 'Leave us by ourselves.' Those were the last words
she said to me, before I came in here."
Reverend Finch put the next question. The Pope of Dimchurch was himself
again: the man of many words saw his chance of speaking once more.
"Good woman," said the rector with ponderous politeness, "step this way.
I wish to address an inquiry to you. Did Miss Finch make any remark, in
your hearing, indicating a desire to be comforted by My Ministrations--as
one bearing the double relation towards her of pastor and parent?"
"I didn't hear Miss Lucilla say anything to that effect, sir."
Mr. Finch waved his hand with a look of disgust, intimating that Zillah's
audience was over. Nugent, upon that, came forward, and stopped her as
she was leaving the room.
"Have you nothing more to tell us?" he asked.
"No, sir."
"Why don't they come back here? What are they doing in the other room?"
"They were doing what I mentioned just now, sir--they were sitting side
by side on the sofa. Miss Lucilla was talking, and the doctor was
listening to her. And Jicks," added Zillah, addressing herself
confidentially to me, "was behind them, picking the doctor's pocket."
Oscar put in a word there--by no means in his most gracious manner.
"What was Miss Lucilla saying to the doctor?"
"I don't know, sir."
"You don't know?"
"I couldn't hear, sir. Miss Lucilla was speaking to him in a whisper."
After that, there was no more to be said. Zillah--disturbed over her
domestic occupations and eager to get back to her kitchen--seized the
first chance of leaving the room; going out in such a hurry that she
forgot to close the door after her. We all looked at each other. To what
conclusion did the nurse's strange answers point? It was plainly
impossible for Oscar (no matter how quick his temper might be) to feel
jealous of a man of Grosse's age and personal appearance. Still, the
prolonged interview between patient and surgeon--after the decision had
been pronounced and the trial of the eyes definitely deferred to a future
day--had a strange appearance, to say the least of it.
Nugent returned to his place at the window--puzzled, suspicious, deep in
his own thoughts. Reverend Finch, swelling with unspoken words, rose
portentously from his chair by his wife's side. Had he discovered another
chance of inflicting his eloquence on us? It was only too evident that he
had! He looked at us with his ominous smile. He addressed us in his
biggest voice.
"My Christian friends----"
Nugent, unassailable by eloquence, persisted in looking out of the
window. Oscar, insensible to every earthly consideration except the one
consideration of Lucilla, drew me aside unceremoniously out of the
rector's hearing. Mr. Finch resumed.
"My Christian friends, I could wish to say a few appropriate words."
"Go to Lucilla!" whispered Oscar, taking me entreatingly by both hands.
"_You_ needn't stand on ceremony with her. Do, do see what is going on in
the next room!"
Mr. Finch resumed.
"The occasion seems to call upon one in my position for a little
sustaining advice on Christian duty--I would say, the duty of being
cheerful under disappointment."
Oscar persisted.
"Do me the greatest of all favors! Pray find out what is keeping Lucilla
with that man!"
Mr. Finch cleared his throat, and lifted his right hand persuasively by
way of introduction to his next sentence.