Poor Miss Finch by Wilkie Collins (heaven official's blessing novel english txt) đ
- Author: Wilkie Collins
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Lucilla started. âAbout what?â she inquired eagerly.
âAbout business in London,â I answeredâand left her, before her curiosity could madden me (in the state I was in at that moment) with more questions.
I found the rector prepared to favor me with his usual flow of language. Fifty Mr. Finches could not have possessed themselves of my attention in the humour I was in at that moment. To the reverend gentlemanâs amazement, it was I who beganâand not he.
âI have just left Lucilla, Mr. Finch. I know what has happened.â
âWait a minute, Madame Pratolungo! One thing is of the utmost importance to begin with. Do you thoroughly understand that I am, in no sense of the word, to blameâ?â
âThoroughly,â I interposed. âOf course, they would not have gone to Browndown, if you had consented to let Nugent Dubourg into the house.â
âStop!â said Mr. Finch, elevating his right hand. âMy good creature, you are in a state of hysterical precipitation. I will be heard! I did more than refuse my consent. When the man GrosseâI insist on your composing yourselfâwhen the man Grosse came and spoke to me about it, I did more, I say, infinitely more, than refuse my consent. You know my force of languageâdonât be alarmed! I said, âSir! As pastor and parent, My Foot is downââ-â
âI understand, Mr. Finch. Whatever you said to Herr Grosse was quite useless; he entirely ignored your personal point of view.â
âMadame Pratolungoâ-!â
âHe found Lucilla dangerously agitated by her separation from Oscar: he asserted, what he calls, his professional freedom of action.â
âMadame Pratolungoâ-!â
âYou persisted in closing your doors to Nugent Dubourg. He persisted, on his sideâand took Lucilla to Browndown.â
Mr. Finch got on his feet, and asserted himself at the full pitch of his tremendous voice.
âSilence!â he shouted, with a smack of his open hand on the table at his side.
I didnât care. I shouted. I came down, with a smack of my hand, on the opposite side of the table.
âOne question, sir, before I leave you,â I said. âSince your daughter went to Browndown, you have had many hours at your disposal. Have you seen Mr. Nugent Dubourg?â
The Pope of Dimchurch suddenly collapsed, in full fulmination of his domestic Bulls.
âPardon me,â he replied, adopting his most elaborately polite manner. âThis requires considerable explanation.â
I declined to wait for considerable explanation. âYou have not seen him?â I said.
âI have not seen him,â echoed Mr. Finch. âMy position towards Nugent Dubourg is very remarkable, Madame Pratolungo. In my parental character, I should like to wring his neck. In my clerical character, I feel it incumbent on me to pauseâand write to him. You feel the responsibility? You understand the distinction?â
I understood that he was afraid. Answering him by an inclination of the head (I hate a coward!) I walked silently to the door.
Mr. Finch returned my bow with a look of helpless perplexity. âAre you going to leave me?â he inquired blandly.
âI am going to Browndown.â
If I had said that I was going to a place which the rector had frequent occasion to mention in the stronger passages of his sermons, Mr. Finchâs face could hardly have shown more astonishment and alarm than it exhibited when I replied to him in those terms. He lifted his persuasive right hand; he opened his eloquent lips. Before the coming overflow of language could reach me, I was out of the room, on my way to Browndown.
OSCARâS dismissed servant (left, during the usual month of warning, to take care of the house) opened the door to me when I knocked. Although the hour was already a late one in primitive Dimchurch, the man showed no signs of surprise at seeing me.
âIs Mr. Nugent Dubourg at home?â
âYes, maâam.â He lowered his voice, and added, âI think Mr. Nugent expected to see you tonight.â
Whether he intended it, or not, the servant had done me a good turnâhe had put me on my guard. Nugent Dubourg understood my character better than I had understood his. He had foreseen what would happen, when I heard of Lucillaâs visit on my return to the rectoryâand he had, no doubt, prepared himself accordingly. I was conscious of a certain nervous trembling (I own) as I followed the servant to the sitting-room. At the moment, however, when he opened the door, this ignoble sensation left me as suddenly as it had come. I felt myself Pratolungoâs widow again, when I entered the room.
A reading-lamp, with its shade down, was the only light on the table. Nugent Dubourg, comfortably reposing in an easychair, sat by the lamp, with a cigar in his mouth, and a book in his hand. He put down the book on the table as he rose to receive me. Knowing, by this time, what sort of man I had to deal with, I was determined not to let even the merest trifles escape me. It might have its use in helping me to understand him, if I knew how he had been occupying his mind while he was expecting me to arrive. I looked at the book. It was Rousseauâs Confessions.
He advanced with his pleasant smile, and offered his hand as if nothing had happened to disturb our ordinary relations towards each other. I drew back a step, and looked at him.
âWonât you shake hands with me?â he asked.
âI will answer that directly,â I said. âWhere is your brother?â
âI donât know.â
âWhen you do know, Mr. Nugent Dubourg, and when you have brought your brother back to this house, I will take your handânot before.â
He bowed resignedly, with a little satirical shrug of the shoulders, and asked if he might offer me a chair.
I took a chair for myself, and placed it so that I might be opposite to him when he resumed his seat. He checked himself in the act of sitting down, and looked towards the open window.
âShall I throw away my cigar?â he said.
âNot on my account. I have no objection to smoking.â
âThank you.â He took his chairâkeeping his face in the partial obscurity cast by the shade of the lamp. After smoking for a moment, he spoke again, without turning to look at me. âMay I ask what your object is in honoring me with this visit?â
âI have two objects. The first is to see that you leave Dimchurch tomorrow morning. The second is to make you restore your brother to his promised wife.â
He looked round at me quickly. His experience of my irritable temper had not prepared him for the perfect composure of voice and manner with which I answered his question. He looked back again from me to his cigar, and knocked off the ash at the tip of it (considering with himself) before he addressed his next words to me.
âWe will come to the question of my leaving Dimchurch presently,â he said. âHave you received a letter from Oscar?â
âYes.â
âHave you read it?â
âI have read it.â
âThen you know that we understand each other?â
âI know that your brother has sacrificed himselfâand that you have taken a base advantage of the sacrifice.â
He started, and looked round at me once more. I saw that something in my language, or in my tone of speaking, had stung him.
âYou have your privilege as a lady,â he said. âDonât push it too far. What Oscar has done, he has done of his own free will.â
âWhat Oscar has done,â I rejoined, âis lamentably foolish, cruelly wrong. Still, perverted as it is, there is something generous, something noble, in the motive which has led him. As for your conduct in this matter, I see nothing but what is mean, nothing but what is cowardly, in the motive which has led you.â
He started to his feet, and flung his cigar into the empty fireplace.
âMadame Pratolungo,â he said, âI have not the honor of knowing anything of your family. I canât call a woman to account for insulting me. Do you happen to have any man related to you, in or out of England?â
âI happen to have what will do equally well on this occasion,â I replied. âI have a hearty contempt for threats of all sorts, and a steady resolution in me to say what I think.â
He walked to the door, and opened it.
âI decline to give you the opportunity of saying anything more,â he rejoined. âI beg to leave you in possession of the room, and to wish you good evening.â
He opened the door. I had entered the house, armed in my own mind with a last desperate resolve, only to be communicated to him, or to anybody, in the final emergency and at the eleventh hour. The time had come for saying what I had hoped with my whole heart to have left unsaid.
I rose on my side, and stopped him as he was leaving the room.
âReturn to your chair and your book,â I said. âOur interview is at an end. In leaving the house, I have one last word to say. You are wasting your time in remaining at Dimchurch.â
âI am the best judge of that,â he answered, making way for me to go out.
âPardon me, you are not in a position to judge at all. You donât know what I mean to do as soon as I get back to the rectory.â
He instantly changed his position; placing himself in the doorway so as to prevent me from leaving the room.
âWhat do you mean to do?â he asked, keeping his eyes attentively fixed on mine.
âI mean to force you to leave Dimchurch.â
He laughed insolently. I went on as quietly as before. âYou have personated your brother to Lucilla this morning,â I said. âYou have done that, Mr. Nugent Dubourg, for the last time.â
âHave I? Who will prevent me from doing it again?â
âI will.â
This time he took it seriously.
âYou?â he said. âHow are you to control me, if you please?â
âI can control you through Lucilla. When I get back to the rectory, I can, and will, tell Lucilla the truth.â
He startedâand instantly recovered himself.
âYou forget something, Madame Pratolungo. You forget what the surgeon in attendance on her has told us.â
âI remember it perfectly. If we say or do anything to agitate his patient, in her present state, the surgeon refuses to answer for the consequences.â
âWell?â
âWellâbetween the alternative of leaving you free to break both their hearts, and the alternative of setting the surgeonâs warning at defianceâdreadful as the choice is, my choice is made. I tell you to your face, I would rather see Lucilla blind again than see her your wife.â
His estimate of the strength of the position on his side, had been necessarily based on one convictionâthe conviction that Grosseâs professional authority would tie my tongue. I had scattered his calculations to the winds. He turned so deadly pale that, dim as the light was, I could see the change in his face.
âI donât believe you!â he said.
âPresent yourself at the rectory tomorrow,â I answeredââand you will see. I have no more to say to you. Let me by.â
You may suppose I was only trying to frighten him. I was doing nothing of the sort. Blame me, or approve of me, as you please, I was expressing the resolution which I had in my mind when I spoke. Whether my courage would have held out through the walk from Browndown to the rectoryâwhether I should have shrunk from it when I actually found myself in Lucillaâs
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