Poor Miss Finch Page 16

  CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH

  Discoveries at Browndown

  IT is needless to tell you at what conclusion I arrived, as soon as I wassufficiently myself to think at all.

  Thanks to my adventurous past life, I have got the habit of decidingquickly in serious emergencies of all sorts. In the present emergency--asI saw it--there were two things to be done. One, to go instantly withhelp to Browndown: the other, to keep the knowledge of what had happenedfrom Lucilla until I could get back again, and prepare her for thediscovery.

  I looked at Mrs. Finch. She had dropped helplessly into a chair. "Rouseyourself!" I said--and shook her. It was no time for sympathizing withswoons and hysterics. The child was still in my arms; fast yielding, poorlittle thing, to the exhaustion of fatigue and terror. I could do nothinguntil I had relieved myself of the charge of her. Mrs. Finch looked up atme, trembling and sobbing. I put the child in her lap. Jicks feeblyresisted being parted from me; but soon gave up, and dropped her wearylittle head on her mother's bosom. "Can you take off her frock?" I asked,with another shake--a good one, this time. The prospect of a domesticoccupation (of any sort) appeared to rouse Mrs. Finch. She looked at thebaby, in its cradle in one corner of the room, and at the novel, reposingon a chair in another corner of the room. The presence of these twofamiliar objects appeared to encourage her. She shivered, she swallowed asob, she recovered her breath, she began to undo the frock.

  "Put it away carefully," I said; "and say nothing to anybody of what hashappened, until I come back. You can see for yourself that the child isnot hurt. Soothe her, and wait here. Is Mr. Finch in the study?"

  Mrs. Finch swallowed another sob, and said, "Yes." The child made a lasteffort. "Jicks will go with you," said the indomitable little Arabfaintly. I ran out of the room, and left the three babies--big, little,and least--together.

  After knocking at the study door without getting any reply, I opened itand went in. Reverend Finch, comfortably prostrate in a large arm-chair(with his sermon-paper spread out in fair white sheets by his side),started up, and confronted me in the character of a clergyman that momentawakened from a sound sleep.

  The rector of Dimchurch instantly recovered his dignity.

  "I beg your pardon, Madame Pratolungo, I was deep in thought. Pleasestate your business briefly." Saying those words, he waved his handmagnificently over his empty sheets of paper, and added in his deepestbass: "Sermon-day."

  I told him in the plainest words what I had seen on his child's frock,and what I feared had happened at Browndown. He turned deadly pale. If Iever yet set my two eyes on a man thoroughly frightened, Reverend Finchwas that man.

  "Do you anticipate danger?" he inquired. "Is it your opinion thatcriminal persons are in, or near, the house?"

  "It is my opinion that there is not a moment to be lost," I answered. "Wemust go to Browndown; and we must get what help we can on the way."

  I opened the door, and waited for him to come out with me. Mr. Finch(still apparently pre-occupied with the question of the criminal persons)looked as if he wished himself a hundred miles from his own rectory atthat particular moment. But he was the master of the house; he was theprincipal man in the place--he had no other alternative, as matters nowstood, than to take his hat and go.

  We went out together into the village. My reverend companion was silentfor the first time in my limited experience of him. We inquired for theone policeman who patrolled the district. He was away on his rounds. Weasked if anybody had seen the doctor. No: it was not the doctor's day forvisiting Dimchurch. I had heard the landlord of the Gross Hands describedas a capable and respectable man; and I suggested stopping at the inn,and taking him with us. Mr. Finch instantly brightened at that proposal.His sense of his own importance rose again, like the mercury in athermometer when you put it into a warm bath.

  "Exactly what I was about to suggest," he said. "Gootheridge of the GrossHands is a very worthy person--for his station in life. Let us haveGootheridge, by all means. Don't be alarmed, Madame Pratolungo. We areall in the hands of Providence. It is most fortunate for you that I wasat home. What would you have done without me? Now don't, pray don't, bealarmed. In case of criminal persons--I have my stick, as you see. I amnot tall; but I possess immense physical strength. I am, so to speak, allmuscle. Feel!"

  He held out one of his wizen little arms. It was about half the size ofmy arm. If I had not been far too anxious to think of playing tricks, Ishould certainly have declared that it was needless, with such a tower ofstrength by my side, to disturb the landlord. I dare not assert that Mr.Finch actually detected the turn my thoughts were taking--I can onlydeclare that he did certainly shout for Gootheridge in a violent hurry,the moment we were in sight of the inn.

  The landlord came out; and, hearing what our errand was, instantlyconsented to join us.

  "Take your gun," said Mr. Finch.

  Gootheridge took his gun. We hastened on to the house.

  "Were Mrs. Gootheridge or your daughter at Browndown today?" I asked.

  "Yes, ma'am--they were both at Browndown. They finished up their work asusual--and left the house more than an hour since."

  "Did anything out of the common happen while they were there?"

  "Nothing that I heard of, ma'am."

  I considered with myself for a minute, and ventured on putting a few morequestions to Mr. Gootheridge.

  "Have any strangers been seen here this evening?" I inquired.

  "Yes, ma'am. Nearly an hour ago two strangers drove by my house in achaise."

  "In what direction?"

  "Coming from Brighton way, and going towards Browndown."

  "Did you notice the men?"

  "Not particularly, ma'am. I was busy at the time."

  A sickening suspicion that the two strangers in the chaise might be thetwo men whom I had seen lurking under the wall, forced its way into mymind. I said no more until we reached the house.

  All was quiet. The one sign of anything unusual was in the plain tracesof the passage of wheels over the turf in front of Browndown. Thelandlord was the first to see them. "The chaise must have stopped at thehouse, sir," he said, addressing himself to the rector.

  Reverend Finch was suffering under a second suspension of speech. All hecould say as we approached the door of the silent and solitarybuilding--and he said that with extreme difficulty--was, "Pray let us becareful!"

  The landlord was the first to reach the door. I was behind him. Therector--at some little distance--acted as rear-guard, with the SouthDowns behind him to retreat upon. Gootheridge rapped smartly on the door,and called out, "Mr. Dubourg!" There was no answer. There was only adreadful silence. The suspense was more than I could endure. I pushed bythe landlord, and turned the handle of the unlocked door.

  "Let me go first, ma'am," said Gootheridge.

  He pushed by me, in his turn. I followed him close. We entered the house,and called again. Again there was no answer. We looked into the littlesitting-room on one side of the passage, and into the dining-room on theother. Both were empty. We went on to the back of the house, where theroom was situated which Oscar called his workshop. When we tried the doorof the workshop it was locked.

  We knocked, and called again. The horrid silence was all thatfollowed--as before.

  I tried the keyhole with my finger. The key was not in the lock. I kneltdown, and looked through the keyhole. The next instant, I was up again onmy feet, wild and giddy with horror.

  "Burst open the door!" I screamed. "I can just see his hand lying on thefloor!"

  The landlord, like the rector, was a little man; and the door, likeeverything else at Browndown, was of the clumsiest and heaviestconstruction. Unaided by instruments, we should all three together havebeen too weak to burst it open. In this difficulty, Reverend Finch provedto be--for the first time, and also for the last--of some use.

  "Stay!" he said. "My friends, if the back garden gate is open, we can getin by the window."

  Neither the landlord nor I had thought of the w
indow. We ran round to theback of the house; seeing the marks of the chaise-wheels leading in thesame direction. The gate in the wall was wide open. We crossed the littlegarden. The window of the workshop--opening to the ground--gave usadmission as the rector had foretold. We entered the room.

  There he lay--poor harmless, unlucky Oscar--senseless, in a pool of hisown blood. A blow on the left side of his head had, to all appearance,felled him on the spot. The wound had split the scalp. Whether it hadalso split the skull was more than I was surgeon enough to be able tosay. I had gathered some experience of how to deal with wounded men, whenI served the sacred cause of Freedom with my glorious Pratolungo. Coldwater, vinegar, and linen for bandages--these were all in the house; andthese I called for. Gootheridge found the key of the door flung aside ina corner of the room. He got the water and the vinegar, while I ranup-stairs to Oscar's bedroom, and provided myself with some of hishandkerchiefs. In a few minutes, I had a cold water bandage over thewound, and was bathing his face in vinegar and water. He was stillinsensible; but he lived. Reverend Finch--not of the slightest help toanybody--assumed the duty of feeling Oscar's pulse. He did it as if,under the circumstances, this was the one meritorious action that couldbe performed. He looked as if nobody could feel a pulse but himself."Most fortunate," he said, counting the slow, faint throbbing at the poorfellow's wrist--"most fortunate that I was at home. What would you havedone without me?"

  The next necessity was, of course, to send for the doctor, and to gethelp, in the meantime, to carry Oscar up-stairs to his bed.

  Gootheridge volunteered to borrow a horse, and to ride off for thedoctor. We arranged that he was to send his wife and his wife's brotherto help me. This settled, the one last embarrassment left to deal with,was the embarrassment of Mr. Finch. Now that we were free from all fearof encountering bad characters in the house, the _boom-boom_ of thelittle man's big voice went on unintermittingly, like a machine at workin the neighborhood. I had another of my inspirations--sitting on thefloor with Oscar's head on my lap. I gave my reverend companion somethingto do. "Look about the room!" I said. "See if the packing-case with thegold and silver plates is here or not."

  Mr. Finch did not quite relish being treated like an ordinary mortal, andbeing told what he was to do.

  "Compose yourself, Madame Pratolungo," he said. "No hysterical activity,if you please. This business is in My hands. Quite needless, ma'am, totell Me to look for the packing-case."

  "Quite needless," I agreed. "I know beforehand the packing-case is gone."

  That answer instantly set him fussing about the room. Not a sign of thecase was to be seen.

  All doubt in my mind was at an end now. The two ruffians lounging againstthe wall had justified, horribly justified, my worst suspicions of them.

  On the arrival of Mrs. Gootheridge and her brother, we carried him up tohis room. We laid him on the bed, with his neck-tie off, and his throatfree, and the air blowing over him from the open window. He showed nosign yet of coming to his senses. But still the pulse went faintly on. Nochange was discernible for the worse.

  It was useless to hope for the doctor's arrival, before another hour atleast. I felt the necessity of getting back at once to the rectory, so asto be able to tell Lucilla (with all needful preparation) the melancholytruth. Otherwise, the news of what had happened would get abroad in thevillage, and might come to her ears, in the worst possible way, throughone of the servants. To my infinite relief, Mr. Finch, when I rose to go,excused himself from accompanying me. He had discovered that it was hisduty, as rector, to give the earliest information of the outrage atBrowndown to the legal authorities. He went his way to the nearestmagistrate. And I went mine--leaving Oscar under the care of Mrs.Gootheridge and her brother--back to the house. Mr. Finch's last words atparting reminded me, once more, that we had one thing at least to bethankful for under the circumstances--sad as they otherwise were.

  "Most fortunate, Madame Pratolungo, that I was at home. What would youhave done without me?"