Poor Miss Finch - Wilkie Collins (best books to read for beginners txt) 📗

CHAPTER THE FORTY-THIRD Lucilla’s Journal, continued

September 1st.

I AM composed enough to return to my Journal, and to let my mind dwell a little on all that I have thought and felt since Oscar has been here.

Now that I have lost Madame Pratolungo, I have no friend with whom I can talk over my little secrets. My aunt is all that is kind and good to me; but with a person so much older than I am—who has lived in such a different world from my world, and whose ideas seem to be so far away from mine—how can I talk about my follies and extravagances, and expect sympathy in return! My one confidential friend is my Journal—I can only talk about myself to myself, in these pages. My position feels sometimes like a very lonely one. I saw two girls telling all their secrets to each other on the sands to-day—and I am afraid I envied them.

Well, my dear Journal, how did I feel—after longing for Oscar—when Oscar came to me? It is dreadful to own it; but my book locks up, and my book can be trusted with the truth. I felt ready to cry—I was so unexpectedly, so horribly, disappointed.

No. “Disappointed” is not the word. I can’t find the word. There was a moment—I hardly dare write it: it seems so atrociously wicked—there was a moment when I actually wished myself blind again.

He took me in his arms; he held my hand in his. In the time when I was blind, how I should have felt it! how the delicious tingle would have run through me when he touched me! Nothing of the kind happened now. He might have been Oscar’s brother for all the effect he produced on me. I have myself taken his hand since, and shut my eyes to try and renew my blindness, and put myself back completely as I was in the old time. The same result still. Nothing, nothing, nothing!

Is it that he is a little restrained with me on his side? He certainly is! I felt it the moment he came into the room—I have felt it ever since.

No: it is not that. In the old time, when we were only beginning to love each other, he was restrained with me. But it made no difference then. I was not the insensible creature in those days that I have become since.

I can only account for it in one way. The restoration of my sight has made a new creature of me. I have gained a sense—I am no longer the same woman. This great change must have had some influence over me that I never suspected until Oscar came here. Can the loss of my sense of feeling be the price that I have paid for the recovery of my sense of sight?

When Grosse comes next, I shall put that question to him.

In the meanwhile, I have had a second disappointment. He is not nearly so beautiful as I thought he was when I was blind.

On the day when my bandage was taken off for the first time, I could only see indistinctly. When I ran into the room at the rectory, I guessed it was Oscar rather than knew it was Oscar. My father’s grey head, and Mrs. Finch’s woman’s dress, would no doubt have helped anybody in my place to fix as I did on the right man. But this is all different now. I can see his features in detail—and the result is (though I won’t own it to any of them) that I find my idea of him in the days of my blindness—oh, so unlike the reality! The one thing that is not a disappointment to me, is his voice. When he cannot see me, I close my eyes, and let my ears feel the old charm again—so far.

And this is what I have gained, by submitting to the operation, and enduring my imprisonment in the darkened room!

What am I writing? I ought to be ashamed of myself! Is it nothing to have had all the beauty of land and sea, all the glory of cloud and sunshine, revealed to me? Is it nothing to be able to look at my fellow-creatures—to see the bright faces of children smile at me when I speak to them? Enough of myself! I am unhappy and ungrateful when I think of myself.

Let me write about Oscar.

My aunt approves of him. She thinks him handsome, and says he has the manners of a gentleman. This last is high praise from Miss Batchford. She despises the present generation of young men. “In my time,” she said the other day, “I used to see young gentlemen. I only see young animals now; well-fed, well-washed, well-dressed; riding animals, rowing animals, betting animals—nothing more.”

Oscar, on his side, seems to like Miss Batchford on better acquaintance. When I first presented him to her, he rather surprised me by changing color and looking very uneasy. He is almost distressingly nervous, on certain occasions. I suppose my aunt’s grand manner daunted him.

[Note.—I really must break in here. Her aunt’s “grand manner” makes me sick. It is nothing (between ourselves) but a hook-nose and a stiff pair of stays. What daunted Nugent Dubourg, when he first found himself in the old lady’s presence, was the fear of discovery. He would no doubt have learnt from his brother that Oscar and Miss Batchford had never met. You will see, if you look back, that it was, in the nature of things, impossible they should have met. But is it equally clear that Nugent could find out beforehand that Miss Batchford had been left in ignorance of what had happened at Dimchurch? He could do nothing of the sort—he could feel no assurance of his security from exposure, until he had tried the ground in his own proper person first. The risk here was certainly serious enough to make even Nugent Dubourg feel uneasy. And Lucilla talks of her aunt’s “grand manner!” Poor innocent! I leave her to go on.—P.]

As soon as my aunt left us together, the first words I said to Oscar, referred (of course) to his letter about Madame Pratolungo.

He made a little sign of entreaty, and looked distressed.

“Why should we spoil the pleasure of our first meeting by talking of her?” he said. “It is so inexpressibly painful to you and to me. Let us return to it in a day or two. Not now, Lucilla—not now!”

His brother was the next subject in my mind. I was not at all sure how he would take my speaking about it. I risked a question however, for all that. He made another sign of entreaty, and looked distressed again.

“My brother and I understand each other, Lucilla. He will remain abroad for the present. Shall we drop that subject, too? Let me hear your own news—I want to know what is going on at the rectory. I have heard nothing since you wrote me word that you were here with your aunt, and that Madame Pratolungo had gone abroad to her father. Is Mr. Finch well? Is he coming to Ramsgate to see you?”

I was unwilling to tell him of the misunderstanding at home. “I have not heard from my father since I have been here,” I said. “Now you have come back, I can write and announce your return, and get all the news from the rectory.”

He looked at me rather strangely—in a way which led me to fear that he saw some objection to my writing to my father.

“I suppose you would like Mr. Finch to come here?” he said—and then stopped suddenly, and looked at me again.

“There is very little chance of his coming here,” I answered.

Oscar seemed to be wonderfully interested about my father. “Very little chance!” he repeated. “Why?”

I was obliged to refer to the family quarrel—still, however, saying nothing of the unjust manner in which my father had spoken of my aunt.

“As long as I am with Miss Batchford,” I said, “it is useless to hope that my father will come here. They are on bad terms; and I am afraid there is no prospect, at present, of their being friends again. Do you object to my writing home to say you have come to Ramsgate?” I asked.

“I?” he exclaimed, looking the picture of astonishment. “What could possibly make you think that? Write by all means—and leave a little space for me. I will add a few lines to your letter.”

It is impossible to say how his answer relieved me. It was quite plain that I had stupidly misinterpreted him. Oh, my new eyes! my new eyes! shall I ever be able to depend on you as I could once depend on my touch?

[Note.—I must intrude myself again. I shall burst with indignation while I am copying the journal, if I don’t relieve my mind at certain places in it. Remark, before you go any farther, how skillfully Nugent contrives to ascertain his exact position at Ramsgate—and see with what a fatal unanimity all the chances of his personating Oscar, without discovery, declare themselves in his favor! Miss Batchford, as you have seen, is entirely at his mercy. She not only knows nothing herself, but she operates as a check on Mr. Finch—who would otherwise have joined his daughter at Ramsgate, and have instantly exposed the conspiracy. On every side of him, Nugent is, to all appearance, safe. I am away in one direction. Oscar is away in another. Mrs. Finch is anchored immovably in her nursery. Zillah has been sent back from London to the rectory. The Dimchurch doctor (who attended Oscar, and who might have proved an awkward witness) is settled in India—as you will see, if you refer to the twenty-second chapter. The London doctor with whom he consulted has long since ceased to have any relations with his former patient. As for Herr Grosse, if he appears on the scene, he can be trusted to shut his eyes professionally to all that is going on, and to let