Poor Miss Finch Part 44

"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 pa.s.sed," 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 b.u.t.toned 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 p.r.o.nouncing 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. n.o.body 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 p.r.o.nounced 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, una.s.sailable 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.

I answered Oscar in a whisper.

"I don't like intruding on them. Lucilla told the nurse they were to be left by themselves."