Poor Miss Finch Read online

  CHAPTER THE THIRTEENTH

  Second Appearance of Jicks

  FIVE more days passed.

  During that interval, we saw our new neighbor constantly. Either Oscarcame to the rectory, or we went to Browndown. Reverend Finch waited, witha masterly assumption of suspecting nothing, until the relations betweenthe two young people were ripe enough to develop into relations ofacknowledged love. They were already (under Lucilla's influence)advancing rapidly to that point. You are not to blame my poor blind girl,if you please, for frankly encouraging the man she loved. He was the mostbackward man--viewed as a suitor--whom I ever met with. The fonder hegrew of her, the more timid and self-distrustful he became. I own I don'tlike a modest man; and I cannot honestly say that Mr. Oscar Dubourg, oncloser acquaintance, advanced himself much in my estimation. However,Lucilla understood him, and that was enough. She was determined to havethe completest possible image of him in her mind. Everybody in the housewho had seen him (the children included) she examined and cross-examinedon the subject of his personal appearance, as she had already examinedand cross-examined me. His features and his color, his height and hisbreadth; his ornaments and his clothes--on all these points she collectedevidence, in every direction and in the smallest detail. It was anespecial relief and delight to her to hear, on all sides, that hiscomplexion was fair. There was no reasoning with her against her blindhorror of dark shades of color, whether seen in men, women, or things.She was quite unable to account for it; she could only declare it.

  "I have the strangest instincts of my own about some things," she said tome one day. "For instance, I knew that Oscar was bright and fair--I meanI felt it in myself--on that delightful evening when I first heard thesound of his voice. It went straight from my ear to my heart; and itdescribed him, just as the rest of you have described him to me since.Mrs. Finch tells me his complexion is lighter than mine. Do you think sotoo? I am so glad to hear that he is fairer than I am! Did you ever meetbefore with a person like me? I have the oddest ideas in this blind headof mine. I associate life and beauty with light colors, and death andcrime with dark colors. If I married a man with a dark complexion, and ifI recovered my sight afterwards, I should run away from him."

  This singular prejudice of hers against dark people was a little annoyingto me on personal grounds. It was a sort of reflection on my own taste.Between ourselves, the late Doctor Pratolungo was of a fine mahoganybrown all over.

  As for affairs in general at Dimchurch, my chronicle of the five daysfinds little to dwell on that is worth recording.

  We were not startled by any second appearance of the two ruffians atBrowndown--neither was any change made by Oscar in his domesticestablishment. He was favored with more than one visit from our littlewandering Jicks. On each occasion, the child gravely reminded him of hisrash promise to appeal to the police, and visit with corporal punishmentthe two ugly strangers who had laughed at her. When were the men to bebeaten? and when was Jicks to see it? Such were the serious questionswith which this young lady regularly opened the proceedings, on eachoccasion when she favored Oscar with a morning call.

  On the sixth day, the gold and silver plates were returned to Browndownfrom the manufactory in London.

  The next morning a note arrived for me from Oscar. It ran thus:--

  "DEAR MADAME PRATOLUNGO,--I regret to inform you that nothing happened tome last night. My locks and bolts are in their usual good order; my goldand silver plates are safe in the workshop: and I myself am now eating mybreakfast with an uncut throat--Yours ever,

  "OSCAR."

  After this, there was no more to be said. Jicks might persist inremembering the two ill-looking strangers. Older and wiser peopledismissed them from all further consideration.

  Saturday came--making the tenth day since the memorable morning when Ihad forced Oscar to disclose himself to me in the little side-room atBrowndown.

  In the forenoon we had a visit from him at the rectory. In the afternoonwe went to Browndown, to see him begin a new piece of chasing in gold--acasket for holding gloves--destined to take its place on Lucilla'stoilet-table when it was done. We left him industriously at work;determined to go on as long as the daylight lasted.

  Early in the evening, Lucilla sat down at her pianoforte; and I paid avisit by appointment to the rectory side of the house.

  Unhappy Mrs. Finch had determined to institute a complete reform of herwardrobe. She had entreated me to give her the benefit of "my Frenchtaste," in the capacity of confidential critic and adviser. "I can'tafford to buy any new things," said the poor lady. "But a deal might bedone in altering what I have got by me, if a clever person took thematter up." Who could resist that piteous appeal? I resigned myself tothe baby, the novel, and the children in general; and (Reverend Finchbeing out of the way, writing his sermon) I presented myself in Mrs.Finch's parlor, full of ideas, with my scissors and my pattern-paperready in my hand.

  We had only begun our operations, when one of the elder children arrivedwith a message from the nursery.

  It was tea-time; and, as usual, Jicks was missing. She was searched for,first in the lower regions of the house; secondly in the garden. Not atrace of her was to be discovered in either quarter. Nobody was surprisedor alarmed. We said, "Oh, dear, she has gone to Browndown again!"--andimmersed ourselves once more in the shabby recesses of Mrs. Finch'swardrobe.

  I had just decided that the blue merino jacket was an article of wearingapparel which had done its duty, and earned its right to final retirementfrom the scene--when a plaintive cry reached my ear, through the opendoor which led into the back garden.

  I stopped, and looked at Mrs. Finch.

  The cry was repeated, louder and nearer: recognizable this time as a cryin a child's voice. The door of the room had been left ajar, when we sentthe messenger back to the nursery. I threw it open, and found myself faceto face with Jicks in the passage.

  I felt every nerve in my body shudder at the sight of the child.

  The poor little thing was white and wild with terror. She was incapableof uttering a word. When I knelt down to fondle and soothe her, shecaught convulsively at my hand, and attempted to raise me. I got on myfeet again. She repeated her dumb cry more loudly--and tried to drag meout of the house. She was so weak that she staggered under the effort. Itook her up in my arms. One of my hands, as I embraced her, touched thetop of her frock, just below the back of her neck. I felt something on myfingers. I looked at them. Gracious God! I was stained with blood!

  I turned the child round. My own blood froze. Her mother, standing behindme, screamed with horror.

  The dear little thing's white frock was spotted and splashed with wetblood. Not her own blood. There was not a scratch on her. I looked closerat the horrid marks. They had been drawn purposely on her--drawn, as itseemed, with a finger. I took her out into the light. It was writing! Aword had been feebly traced on the back of her frock. I made outsomething like the letter "H." Then a letter which it was impossible toread.

  Then another next to it, which might have been "L," or might have been"J." Then a last letter, which I guessed to be "P."

  Was the word--"Help"?

  Yes!--traced on the back of the child's frock, with a finger dipped inblood--"HELP."