She was honestly grieved when she read it. For a moment--when she spoke
her few words of sympathy--the painful constraint in her manner towards
me passed away. It returned again, when I announced my intention of
starting for France that day, and expressed the regret I felt at being
obliged to defer our visit to Ramsgate for the present. She not only
answered restrainedly (forming, as I fancied, some thought at the moment
in her own mind)--she left me, with a commonplace excuse. "You must have
much to think of in this sad affliction: I won't intrude on you any
longer. If you want me, you know where to find me." With no more than
those words, she walked out of the room.
I never remember, at any other time, such a sense of helplessness and
confusion as came over me when she had closed the door. I set to work to
pack up the few things I wanted for the journey; feeling instinctively
that if I did not occupy myself in doing something, I should break down
altogether. Accustomed in all the other emergencies of my life, to decide
rapidly, I was not even clear enough in my mind to see the facts as they
were. As to resolving on anything, I was about as capable of doing that
as the baby in Mrs. Finch's arms.
The effort of packing aided me to rally a little--but did no more towards
restoring me to my customary tone of mind.
I sat down helplessly, when I had done; feeling the serious necessity of
clearing matters up between Lucilla and myself, before I went away, and
still as ignorant as ever how to do it. To my own indescribable disgust,
I actually felt tears beginning to find their way into my eyes! I had
just enough of Pratolungo's widow left in me to feel heartily ashamed of
myself. Past vicissitudes and dangers, in the days of my republican life
with my husband, had made me a sturdy walker--with a gypsy relish (like
my little Jicks) for the open air. I snatched up my hat, and went out, to
see what exercise would do for me.
I tried the garden. No! the garden was (for some inscrutable reason) not
big enough. I had still some hours to spare. I tried the hills next.
Turning towards the left, and passing the church, I heard through the
open windows the _boom-boom_ of Reverend Finch's voice, catechizing the
village children. Thank Heaven, he was out of my way at any rate! I
mounted the hills, hurrying on as fast as I could. The air and the
movement cleared my mind. After more than an hour of hard walking, I
returned to the rectory, feeling like my old self again.
Perhaps, there were some dregs of irresolution still left in me. Or,
perhaps, there was some enervating influence in my affliction, which made
me feel more sensitively than ever the change in the relations between
Lucilla and myself. Having, by this time, resolved to come to a plain
explanation, before I left her unprotected at the rectory, I shrank, even
yet, from confronting a possible repulse, by speaking to her personally.
Taking a leaf out of poor Oscar's book, I wrote what I wanted to say to
her in a note.