Poor Miss Finch

by Wilkie Collins

  On returning to the parlor, I found nobody there but Mrs. Finch. Therector's offended dignity had left the rector no honorable alternativebut to withdraw to his own room. I ate my supper in peace; and Mrs. Finch(rocking the cradle with her foot) chattered away to her heart's contentabout all that had happened in my absence.

  I gathered, here and there, from what she said, some particulars worthmentioning.

  The new disagreement between Mr. Finch and Miss Batchford, which haddriven the old lady out of the rectory almost as soon as she set foot init, had originated in Mr. Finch's exasperating composure when he heard ofhis daughter's flight. He supposed, of course, that Lucilla had leftRamsgate with Oscar--whose signed settlements on his future wife weresafe in Mr. Finch's possession. It was only when Miss Batchford hadcommunicated with Grosse, and when the discovery followed which revealedthe penniless Nugent as the man who had eloped with Lucilla, that Mr.Finch's parental anxiety (seeing no money likely to come of it) becameroused to action. He, Miss Batchford, and Grosse, had all, in theirvarious ways, done their best to trace the fugitives--and had all alikebeen baffled by the impossibility of discovering the residence of thelady mentioned in Nugent's letter. My telegram, announcing my return toEngland with Oscar, had inspired them with their first hope of being ableto interfere, and stop the marriage before it was too late.

  The occurrence of Grosse's name in Mrs. Finch's rambling narrative,recalled to my memory what the rector had told me at the garden gate. Ihad not yet received the letter which the German had sent to wait myarrival at Dimchurch. After a short search, we found it--where it hadbeen contemptuously thrown by Mr. Finch--on the parlor table.

  A few lines comprised the whole letter. Grosse informed me that he had sofretted himself about Lucilla, that he had been attacked by "a visitationof gouts." It was impossible to move his "foots" without instantlyplunging into the torture of the infernal regions. "If it is you, my gootdear, who are going to find her," he concluded, "come to me first inLondon. I have something most dismal-serious to say to you about our poorlittle Feench's eyes."

  No words can tell how that last sentence startled and grieved me. Mrs.Finch increased my anxiety and alarm by repeating what she had heard MissBatchford say, during her brief visit to the rectory, on the subject ofLucilla's sight. Grosse had been seriously dissatisfied with the state ofhis patient's eyes, when he had seen them as long ago as the fourth ofthe month; and, on the morning of the next day, the servant had reportedLucilla as being hardly able to distinguish objects in the view from thewindow of her room. Later on the same day, she had secretly leftRamsgate; and Grosse's letter proved that she had not been near hersurgical attendant since.

  Weary as I was after the journey, this miserable news kept me waking longafter I had gone to my bed. The next morning, I was up with theservants--impatient to start for London, by the first train.