Poor Miss Finch
Page 31
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH
He sees Lucilla
THE first impression which poor Miss Finch produced on Nugent Dubourg,was precisely the same as the first impression which she had produced onme.
"Good Heavens!" he cried. "The Dresden Madonna! The Virgin of San Sisto!"
Lucilla had already heard from me of her extraordinary resemblance to thechief figure in Raphael's renowned picture. Nugent's blunt outburst ofrecognition passed unnoticed by her. She stopped short, in the middle ofthe room--startled, the instant he spoke, by the extraordinary similarityof his tone and accent to the tone and accent of his brother's voice.
"Oscar," she asked nervously, "are you behind me? or in front of me?"Oscar laughed, and answered "Here!"--speaking behind her. She turned herhead towards the place in front of her, from which Nugent had spoken."Your voice is wonderfully like Oscar's," she said, addressing himtimidly. "Is your face exactly like his face, too? May I judge for myselfof the likeness between you? I can only do it in one way--by my touch."
Oscar advanced, and placed a chair for his brother by Lucilla's side.
"She has eyes in the tips of her fingers," he said. "Sit down, Nugent,and let her pass her hand over your face."
Nugent obeyed him in silence. Now that the first impression of surprisehad passed away, I observed that a marked change was beginning to assertitself in his manner.
Little by little, an unnatural constraint got possession of him. Hisfluent tongue found nothing to talk about. His easy movements altered inthe strangest way, until they almost became the movements of a slowawkward man. He was more like his brother than ever, as he sat down inthe chair to submit himself to Lucilla's investigation. She had produced,at first sight--as well as I could judge--some impression on him forwhich he had not been prepared; causing some mental disturbance in himwhich he was for the moment quite unable to control. His eyes looked upat her, spell-bound; his color came and went; his breath quickenedaudibly when her fingers touched his face.
"What's the matter?" said Oscar, looking at him in surprise.
"Nothing is the matter," he answered, in the low absent tone of a manwhose mind was secretly pursuing its own train of thought.
Oscar said no more. Once, twice, three times, Lucilla's hand passedslowly over Nugent's face. He submitted to it, silently, gravely,immovably--a perfect contrast to the talkative, lively young man of halfan hour since. Lucilla employed a much longer time in examining him thanshe had occupied in examining me.
While the investigation was proceeding, I had leisure to think again overwhat had passed between Nugent and me on the subject of Lucilla'sblindness, before she entered the room. My mind had by this timerecovered its balance. I was able to ask myself what this young fellow'sdaring idea was really worth. Was it within the range of possibility thata sense so delicate as the sense of sight, lost for one-and-twenty years,could be restored by any means short of a miracle? It was monstrous tosuppose it: the thing could not be. If there had been the faintest chanceof giving my poor dear back the blessing of sight, that chance would havebeen tried by competent persons years and years since. I was ashamed ofmyself for having been violently excited at the moment by the new thoughtwhich Nugent had started in my mind; I was honestly indignant at hisuselessly disturbing me with the vainest of all vain hopes. The one wisething to do in the future, was to caution this flighty and inconsequentyoung man to keep his mad notion about Lucilla to himself--and to dismissit from my own thoughts, at once and for ever.
Just as I arrived at that sensible resolution, I was recalled to what wasgoing on in the room, by Lucilla's voice, addressing me by my name.
"The likeness is wonderful," she said. "Still, I think I can find adifference between them."
(The only difference between them was in the contrast of complexion andin the contrast of manner--both these being dissimilarities whichappealed more or less directly to the eye.)
"What difference do you find?" I asked.
She slowly came towards me, with an anxious perplexed face; pondering asshe advanced.
"I can't explain it," she answered--after a long silence.
When Lucilla left him, Nugent rose from his chair. He abruptly--almostroughly--took his brother's hand. He spoke to his brother in a strangelyexcited, feverish, headlong way.
"My dear fellow, now I have seen her, I congratulate you more heartilythan ever. She is charming; she is unique. Oscar! I could almost envyyou, if you were anyone else!"
Oscar was radiant with delight. His brother's opinion ranked above allhuman opinions in his estimation. Before he could say a word in return,Nugent left him as abruptly as he had approached him; walking away byhimself to the window--and standing there, looking out.
Lucilla had not heard him. She was still pondering, with the sameperplexed face. The likeness between the twins was apparently weighing onher mind--an unsolved problem that vexed and irritated it. Withoutanything said by me to lead to resuming the subject, she returnedobstinately to the assertion that she had just made.
"I tell you again I am sensible of a difference between them," sherepeated--"though you don't seem to believe me."
I interpreted this uneasy reiteration as meaning that she was rathertrying to convince herself than to convince me. In her blind condition,it was doubly and trebly embarrassing not to know one brother from theother. I understood her unwillingness to acknowledge this--I felt (in herposition) how it would have irritated me. She was waiting--impatientlywaiting--for me to say something on my side. I am, as you know already,an indiscreet woman. I innocently said one of my rash things.
"I believe whatever you tell me, my dear," I answered. "You can find outa difference between them, I have no doubt. Still, I own I should like tosee it put to the proof."
Her color rose. "How?" she asked abruptly.
"Try your touch alternately on both their faces," I suggested, "withoutknowing beforehand which position they each of them occupy. Make threetrials--leaving them to change their places or not, between each trial,just as they please. If you guess which is which correctly three timesfollowing, there will be the proof that you can really lay your hand on adifference between them."
Lucilla shrank from accepting the challenge. She drew back a step, andsilently shook her head. Nugent, who had overheard me, turned roundsuddenly from the window, and supported my proposal.
"A capital notion!" he burst out. "Let's try it! You don't object,Oscar--do you?"
"_I_ object?" cried Oscar--amazed at the bare idea of his opposing anyassertion of his will to the assertion of his brother's will. "If Lucillais willing, I say Yes, with all my heart."
The two brothers approached us, arm in arm. Lucilla, very reluctantly,allowed herself to be persuaded into trying the experiment. Two chairs,exactly alike, were placed in front of her. At a sign from Nugent, Oscarsilently took the chair on her right. By this arrangement, the hand whichshe had used in touching Nugent's face, would be now the hand that shewould employ in touching Oscar's face. When they were both seated, Iannounced that we were ready. Lucilla placed her hands on their faces,right and left, without the faintest idea in her mind of the positionswhich the two relatively occupied.
After first touching them with both hands, and both together, she triedthem separately next, beginning with Oscar, and using her right handonly. She left him for Nugent; again using her right hand--then came backto him again--then returned to Nugent--hesitated---decided--tapped Nugentlightly on the head.
"Oscar!" she said.
Nugent burst out laughing. The laugh told her, before any of us couldspeak, that she had made a mistake at the first attempt.
"Try again, Lucilla," said Oscar kindly.
"Never!" she answered, angrily stepping back from both of them. "Onemystification is enough."
Nugent tried next to persuade her to renew the experiment. She checkedhim sternly at the first word.
"Do you think if I won't do it for Oscar," she said, "that I would do itfor you? You laughed at me. Wh
at was there to laugh at? Your brother'sfeatures are your features; your brother's hair is your hair; yourbrother's height is your height. What is there so very ridiculous--withsuch a resemblance as that--in a poor blind girl like me mistaking youone for the other? I wish to preserve a good opinion of you, for Oscar'ssake. Don't turn me into ridicule again--or I shall be forced to thinkthat your brother's good heart is not yours also!"
Nugent and Oscar looked at each other, petrified by this sudden outbreak;Nugent, of the two, being the most completely overwhelmed by it.
I attempted to interfere and put things right. My easy philosophy and myvolatile French nature, failed to see any adequate cause for thisvehement exhibition of resentment on Lucilla's part. Something in mytone, as I suppose, only added to her irritation. I, in my turn, waschecked sternly at the first word. "You proposed it," she said; "You arethe most to blame." I hastened to make my apologies (inwardly remarkingthat the habit of raising a storm in a tea-cup is a growing habit withthe rising generation in England). Nugent followed me with more apologieson his side. Oscar supported us with his superior influence. He tookLucilla's hand--kissed it--and whispered something in her ear. The kissand the whisper acted like a charm. She held out her hand to Nugent, sheput her arm round my neck and embraced me, with all her own grace andsweetness. "Forgive me," she said to us gently. "I wish I could learn tobe patient. But, oh, Mr. Nugent, it is sometimes so hard to be blind!" Ican repeat the words; but I can give no idea of the touching simplicitywith which they were spoken--of her innocently earnest anxiety to win herpardon. She so affected Nugent that he too--after a look at Oscar whichsaid, "May I?"--kissed the hand that she offered to him. As his lipstouched her, she started. The bright flush which always indicated thesudden rising of a thought in her mind, flew over her face. Sheunconsciously held Nugent's hand in her own, absorbed in the interest ofrealizing the new thought. For a moment, she stood, still as a statue,consulting with herself. The moment passed, she dropped Nugent's hand,and turned gaily to me.
"Will you think me very obstinate?" she asked.
"Why, my love?"
"I am not satisfied yet. I want to try again."
"No! no! At any rate not to-day."
"I want to try again," she repeated. "Not in your way. In a way of my ownthat has just come into my head." She turned to Oscar. "Will you humourme in this?" It is needless to set down Oscar's reply. She turned toNugent. "Will you?"
"Only say what you wish me to do!" he answered.
"Go with your brother," she said, "to the other end of the room. I knowwhere you are each of you standing, at this end. Madame Pratolungo willlead me to the place, and will put me just within reach of both yourhands. I want each of you in turn (arrange by a sign between yourselveswhich is to begin) to take my hand, and hold it for a moment, and thendrop it. I have an idea that I can distinguish between you, in thatway--and I want very much to try it."
The brothers went silently to the other end of the room. I led Lucilla,after them, to the place in which they stood. At my suggestion, Nugentwas the first to take her hand, as she had requested; to hold it for amoment, and then to drop it.
"Nugent!" she said, without the slightest hesitation.
"Quite right," I answered.
She laughed gaily. "Go on! Puzzle me if you possibly can."
The brothers noiselessly changed places. Oscar took her hand, standingexactly where Nugent had stood.
"Oscar!" she said.
"Right again," I told her.
At a sign from Nugent, Oscar took her hand for the second time. Sherepeated his name. At a sign from me, the brothers noiselessly placedthemselves, one on either side of her--Oscar on the left; Nugent on theright. I gave them the signal; and they each took one of her hands at thesame moment. This time, she waited a little longer before she spoke. Whenshe did speak, she was right once more. She turned smiling, towards theleft side, pointed to him as he stood by her, and said, "Oscar!"
We were all three equally surprised. I examined Oscar's hand and Nugent'shand alternately. Except the fatal difference in the color, they were, toall intents and purposes, the same hands--the same size, the same shape,the same texture of skin; no scar or mark on the hand of one todistinguish it from the hand of the other. By what mysterious process ofdivination had she succeeded in discovering which was which?
She was unwilling, or unable, to reply to that question plainly.
"Something in me answers to one of them and not to the other," she said.
"What is it?" I asked.
"I don't know. It answers to Oscar. It doesn't answer to Nugent--that'sall."
She stopped any further inquiries by proposing that we should finish theevening with some music, in her own sitting-room, on the other side ofthe house. When we were seated together at the pianoforte--with thetwin-brothers established as our audience at the other end of theroom--she whispered in my ear:
"I'll tell _you!_"
"Tell me what?"
"How I know which is which when they both of them take my hand. WhenOscar takes it, a delicious tingle runs from his hand into mine, andsteals all over me. I can't describe it any better than that."
"I understand. And when Nugent takes your hand, what do you feel?"
"Nothing!"
"And that is how you found out the difference between them down-stairs?"
"That is how I shall always find out the difference between them. IfOscar's brother ever attempts to play tricks upon my blindness (he isquite capable of it--he laughed at my blindness!), that is how I shallfind him out. I told you before I saw him that I hated him. I hate himstill."
"My dear Lucilla!"
"I hate him still!"
She struck the first chords on the piano, with an obstinate frown on herpretty brow. Our little evening concert began.