Poor Miss Finch Part 3

He gave me no time to recover myself. He proceeded with what he had to say--speaking, mind, in the tone of a perfectly well-bred man; with nothing wild in his look, and nothing odd in his manner.

"Excuse me, if I venture on asking you a very strange question," he went on. "Did you happen to be at Exeter, on the third of last month?"

(I must have been more or less than woman, if I had not recovered the use of my tongue now!)

"I never was at Exeter in my life, sir," I answered. "May I ask, on my side, why you put the question to me?"

Instead of replying, he looked at Lucilla.

"Pardon me, once more. Perhaps this young lady----?"

He was plainly on the point of inquiring next, whether Lucilla had been at Exeter--when he checked himself. In the breathless interest which she felt in what was going on, she had turned her full face upon him. There was still light enough left for her eyes to tell their own sad story, in their own mute way. As he read the truth in them, the man's face changed from the keen look of scrutiny which it had worn thus far, to an expression of compa.s.sion--I had almost said, of distress. He again took off his hat, and bowed to me with the deepest respect.

"I beg your pardon," he said, very earnestly. "I beg the young lady's pardon. Pray forgive me. My strange behavior has its excuse--if I could bring myself to explain it. You distressed me, when you looked at me. I can't explain why. Good evening."

He turned away hastily, like a man confused and ashamed of himself--and left us. I can only repeat that there was nothing strange or flighty in his manner. A perfect gentleman, in full possession of his senses--there is the unexaggerated and the just description of him.

I looked at Lucilla. She was standing, with her blind face raised to the sky, lost in herself, like a person wrapped in ecstasy.

"Who is that man?" I asked.

My question brought her down suddenly from heaven to earth. "Oh!" she said reproachfully, "I had his voice still in my ears--and now I have lost it! 'Who is he?'" she added, after a moment; repeating my question.

"n.o.body knows. Tell me--what is he like. Is he beautiful? He _must_ be beautiful, with that voice!"

"Is this the first time you have heard his voice?" I inquired.

"Yes. He pa.s.sed us yesterday, when I was out with Zillah. But he never spoke. What is he like? Do, pray tell me--what is he like?"

There was a pa.s.sionate impatience in her tone which warned me not to trifle with her. The darkness was coming. I thought it wise to propose returning to the house. She consented to do anything I liked, as long as I consented, on my side, to describe the unknown man.

All the way back, I was questioned and cross-questioned till I felt like a witness under skillful examination in a court of law. Lucilla appeared to be satisfied, so far, with the results. "Ah!" she exclaimed, letting out the secret which her old nurse had confided to me. "_You_ can use your eyes. Zillah could tell me nothing."

When we got home again, her curiosity took another turn. "Exeter?" she said, considering with herself. "He mentioned Exeter. I am like you--I never was there. What will books tell us about Exeter?" She despatched Zillah to the other side of the house for a gazetteer. I followed the old woman into the corridor, and set her mind at ease, in a whisper. "I have kept what you told me a secret," I said. "The man was out in the twilight, as you foresaw. I have spoken to him; and I am quite as curious as the rest of you. Get the book."

Lucilla had (to confess the truth) infected me with her idea, that the gazetteer might help us in interpreting the stranger's remarkable question relating to the third of last month, and his extraordinary a.s.sertion that I had distressed him when I looked at him. With the nurse breathless on one side of me, and Lucilla breathless on the other, I opened the book at the letter "E," and found the place, and read aloud these lines, as follows:--

"EXETER: A city and seaport in Devons.h.i.+re. Formerly the seat of the West Saxon Kings. It has a large foreign and home commerce. Population 33,738.

The a.s.sizes for Devons.h.i.+re are held at Exeter in the spring and summer."

"Is that all?" asked Lucilla.

I shut the book, and answered, like Finch's boy, in three monosyllabic words:

"That is all."

CHAPTER THE FIFTH

Candlelight View of the Man

THERE had been barely light enough left for me to read by. Zillah lit the candles and drew the curtains. The silence which betokens a profound disappointment reigned in the room.

"Who can he be?" repeated Lucilla, for the hundredth time. "And why should your looking at him have distressed him? Guess, Madame Pratolungo!"

The last sentence in the gazetteer's description of Exeter hung a little on my mind--in consequence of there being one word in it which I did not quite understand--the word "a.s.sizes." I have, I hope, shown that I possess a competent knowledge of the English language, by this time. But my experience fails a little on the side of phrases consecrated to the use of the law. I inquired into the meaning of "a.s.sizes," and was informed that it signified movable Courts, for trying prisoners at given times, in various parts of England. Hearing this, I had another of my inspirations. I guessed immediately that the interesting stranger was a criminal escaped from the a.s.sizes.

Worthy old Zillah started to her feet, convinced that I had hit him off (as the English saying is) to a T. "Mercy preserve us!" cried the nurse, "I haven't bolted the garden door!"

She hurried out of the room to defend us from robbery and murder, before it was too late. I looked at Lucilla. She was leaning back in her chair, with a smile of quiet contempt on her pretty face. "Madame Pratolungo,"

she remarked, "that is the first foolish thing you have said, since you have been here."

"Wait a little, my dear," I rejoined. "You have declared that nothing is known of this man. Now you mean by that--nothing which satisfies _you._ He has not dropped down from Heaven, I suppose? The time when he came here, must be known. Also, whether he came alone, or not. Also, how and where he has found a lodging in the village. Before I admit that my guess is completely wrong, I want to hear what general observation in Dimchurch has discovered on the subject of this gentleman. How long has he been here?"

Lucilla did not, at first, appear to be much interested in the purely practical view of the question which I had just placed before her.

"He has been here a week," she answered carelessly.

"Did he come, as I came, over the hills?"

"Yes."

"With a guide, of course?"

Lucilla suddenly sat up in her chair.

"With his brother," she said. "His _twin_ brother, Madame Pratolungo."

_I_ sat up in _my_ chair. The appearance of his twin-brother in the story was a complication in itself. Two criminals escaped from the a.s.sizes, instead of one!

"How did they find their way here?" I asked next.

"n.o.body knows."

"Where did they go to, when they got here?"

"To the Cross-Hands--the little public-house in the village. The landlord told Zillah he was perfectly astonished at the resemblance between them.

It was impossible to know which was which--it was wonderful, even for twins. They arrived early in the day, when the tap-room was empty; and they had a long talk together in private. At the end of it, they rang for the landlord, and asked if he had a bed-room to let in the house. You must have seen for yourself that The Cross-Hands is a mere beer-shop. The landlord had a room that he could spare--a wretched place, not fit for a gentleman to sleep in. One of the brothers took the room for all that."

"What became of the other brother?"

"He went away the same day--very unwillingly. The parting between them was most affecting. The brother who spoke to us to-night insisted on it--or the other would have refused to leave him. They both shed tears----"

"They did worse than that," said old Zillah, re-entering the room at the moment. "I have made all the doors and windows fast, downstairs; he can't get in now, my dear, if he tries."

"What did they do that was worse than crying?" I inquired.

"Kissed each other!" said Zillah, with a look of profound disgust. "Two men! Foreigners, of course."