Either the words or the curtsey--or both together--brought him to his senses. He made me an apology--which I received. And he looked excessively foolish--which put me in an excellent humour again. "You stupid boy," I said, taking his arm, and leading him to the stairs. "When we first met at Dimchurch did you find me a suspicious woman or an inhuman woman? Answer me that!"
He answered frankly enough.
"I found you all that was kind and good. Still, it is surely only natural to want _some_ confirmation----" He checked himself there, and reverted abruptly to my letter to Mrs. Finch. The silence of the rector"s wife evidently alarmed him. "How long is it since you wrote?" he inquired.
"As long ago as the first of this month," I replied.
He fell into thought. We ascended the next flight of stairs in silence.
At the landing, he stopped me, and spoke again. My unanswered letter was still uppermost in his mind.
"Mrs. Finch loses everything that _can_ be lost," he said. "Is it not likely--with her habits--that when she had written her answer, and wanted your letter to look at to put the address on it, your letter was like her handkerchief or her novel, or anything else--not to be found?"
So far, no doubt, this was quite in Mrs. Finch"s character. I could see that--but my mind was too much pre-occupied to draw the inference that followed. Oscar"s next words enlightened me.
"Have you tried the Poste-Restante?" he asked.
What could I possibly have been thinking of! Of course, she had lost my letter. Of course, the whole house would be upset in looking for it, and the rector would silence the uproar by ordering his wife to try the Poste-Restante. How strangely we had changed places! Instead of my clear head thinking for Oscar, here was Oscar"s clear head thinking for Me. Is my stupidity quite incredible? Remember, if you please, what a weight of trouble and anxiety had lain on my mind while I was at Ma.r.s.eilles. Can one think of everything while one is afflicted, as I was? Not even such a clever person as You can do that. If, as the saying is, "Homer sometimes nods"--why not Madame Pratolungo?
"I never thought of the Poste-Restante," I said to Oscar. "If you don"t mind going back a little way, shall we inquire at once?"
He was perfectly willing. We went downstairs again, and out into the street. On our way to the post-office, I seized my first opportunity of making Oscar give me some account of himself.
"I have satisfied your curiosity, to the best of my ability," I said, as we walked arm-in-arm through the streets. "Now suppose you satisfy mine.
A report of your having been seen in a military hospital in Italy, is the only report of you which has reached me here. Of course, it is not true?"
"It is perfectly true."
"You, in a hospital, nursing wounded soldiers?"
"That is exactly what I have been doing."
No words could express my astonishment. I could only stop, and look at him.
"Was that the occupation which you had in view when you left England?" I asked.
"I had no object in leaving England," he answered, "but the object which I avowed to you. After what had happened, I owed it to Lucilla and I owed it to Nugent to go. I left England without caring where I went. The train to Lyons happened to be the first train that started on my arrival at Paris. I took the first train. At Lyons, I saw by chance an account in a French newspaper of the sufferings of some of the badly-wounded men, left still uncured after the battle of Solferino. I felt an impulse, in my own wretchedness, to help these other sufferers in _their_ misery. On every other side of it, my life was wasted. The one worthy use to which I could put it was to employ myself in doing good; and here was good to be done, I managed to get the necessary letters of introduction at Turin. With the help of these, I made myself of some use (under the regular surgeons and dressers) in nursing the poor mutilated, crippled men; and I have helped a little afterwards, from my own resources, in starting them comfortably in new ways of life."
In those manly and simple words, he told me his story.
Once more I felt, what I had felt already, that there were hidden reserves of strength in the character of this innocent young fellow, which had utterly escaped my superficial observation of him. In choosing his vocation, he was, no doubt, only following the conventional modern course in such cases. Despair has its fashions, as well as dress. Ancient despair (especially of Oscar"s sort) used to turn soldier, or go into a monastery. Modern despair turns nurse; binds up wounds, gives physic, and gets cured or not in that useful but nasty way. Oscar had certainly struck out nothing new for himself: he had only followed the fashion.
Still, it implied, as I thought, both courage and resolution to have conquered the obstacles which he must have overcome, and to have held steadily on his course after he had once entered it. Having begun by quarreling with him, I was in a fair way to end by respecting him. Surely this man was worth preserving for Lucilla, after all!
"May I ask where you were going, when we met at the port?" I continued.
"Have you left Italy because there were no more wounded soldiers to be cured?"
"There was no more work for me at the hospital to which I was attached,"
he said. "And there were certain obstacles in my way, as a stranger and a Protestant, among the poor and afflicted population outside the hospital.
I might have overcome those obstacles, with little trouble, among a people so essentially good-tempered and courteous as the Italians, if I had tried. But it occurred to me that my first duty was to my own countrymen. The misery crying for relief in London, is misery not paralleled in any city of Italy. When you met me, I was on my way to London, to place my services at the disposal of any clergyman, in a poor neighborhood, who would accept such help as I can offer him." He paused a little--hesitated--and added in lower tones:--"That was one of my objects in returning to England. It is only honest to own to you that I had another motive besides."
"A motive connected with your brother and with Lucilla?" I suggested.
"Yes. Don"t misinterpret me! I am not returning to England to retract what I said to Nugent. I still leave him free to plead his own cause with Lucilla in his own person. I am still resolved not to distress myself and distress them, by returning to Dimchurch. But I have a longing that nothing can subdue, to know how it has ended between them. Don"t ask me to say more than that! In spite of the time that has pa.s.sed, it breaks my heart to talk of Lucilla. I had looked forward to a meeting with you in London, and to hearing what I longed to hear, from your lips. Judge for yourself what my hopes were when I first saw your face; and forgive me if I felt my disappointment bitterly, when I found that you had really no news to tell, and when you spoke of Nugent as you did." He stopped, and pressed my arm earnestly. "Suppose I am right about Miss Finch"s letter?"
he added. "Suppose it should really be waiting for you at the post?"
"Well?"
"The letter may contain the news which I most want to hear."
I checked him there. "I am not sure of that," I answered. "I don"t know what it is that you most want to hear."
I said those words with a purpose. What was the news he was longing for?
In spite of all that he had told me, my instincts answered: News that Lucilla is still a single woman. My object in speaking as I had just spoken, was to tempt him into a reply which might confirm me in this opinion. He evaded the reply. Was that confirmation in itself? Yes--as _I_ think!
"Will you tell me what there is in the letter?" he asked--pa.s.sing, as you see, entirely over what I had just said to him.
"Yes--if you wish it," I answered: not over well pleased with his want of confidence in me.
"No matter what the letter contains?" he went on, evidently doubting me.
I said Yes, again--that one word, and no more.
"I suppose it would be asking too much," he persisted, "to ask you to let me read the letter myself?"
My temper, as you are well aware by this time, is not the temper of a saint. I drew my arm smartly out of his arm; and I surveyed him with, what poor Pratolungo used to call, "my Roman look."
"Mr. Oscar Dubourg! say, in plain words, that you distrust me."
He protested of course that he did nothing of the kind--without producing the slightest effect on me. Just run over in your mind the insults, worries, and anxieties which had a.s.sailed me, as the reward for my friendly interest in this man"s welfare. Or, if that is too great an effort, be so good as to remember that Lucilla"s farewell letter to me at Dimchurch, was now followed by the equally ungracious expression of Oscar"s distrust--and this at a time when I had had serious trials of my own to sustain at my father"s bedside. I think you will admit that a sweeter temper than mine might have not unnaturally turned a little sour under present circ.u.mstances.
I answered not a word to Oscar"s protestations--I only searched vehemently in the pocket of my dress.
"Here," I said, opening my card-case, "is my address in this place; and here," I went on, producing the doc.u.ment, "is my pa.s.sport, if they want it."
I forced the card and the pa.s.sport into his hands. He took them in helpless astonishment.
"What am I to do with these?" he asked.
"Take them to the Poste-Restante. If there is a letter for me with the Dimchurch post-mark, I authorize you to open it. Read it before it comes into my hands--and then perhaps you will be satisfied?"
He declared that he would do nothing of the sort--and tried to force my doc.u.ments back into my own possession.
"Please yourself," I said. "I have done with you and your affairs. Mrs.
Finch"s letter is of no earthly consequence to me. If it _is_ at the Poste-Restante, I shall not trouble myself to ask for it. What concern have I with news about Lucilla? What does it matter to _me_ whether she is married or not? I am going back to my father and my sisters. Decide for yourself whether you want Mrs. Finch"s letter or not."
That settled it. He went his way with my doc.u.ments to the post-office; and I went mine back to the lodging.
Arrived in my room, I still held to the resolution which I had expressed to Oscar in the street. Why should I leave my poor old father to go back to England, and mix myself up in Lucilla"s affairs? After the manner in which she had taken her leave of me, had I any reasonable prospect of being civilly received? Oscar was on his way to England--let Oscar manage his own affairs; let them all three (Oscar, Nugent, Lucilla) fight it out together among themselves. What had I, Pratolungo"s widow, to do with this trumpery family entanglement? Nothing! It was a warm day for the time of year--Pratolungo"s widow, like a wise woman, determined to make herself comfortable. She unlocked her packed box; she removed her traveling costume, and put on her dressing-gown; she took a turn in the room--and, if you had come across her at that moment, I wouldn"t have stood in your shoes for something, I can tell you!
(What do you think of my consistency by this time? How often have I changed my mind about Lucilla and Oscar? Reckon it up, from the time when I left Dimchurch. What a picture of perpetual self-contradiction I present--and how improbable it is that I should act in this illogical way! _You_ never alter your mind under the influence of your temper or your circ.u.mstances. No: you are, what they call, a consistent character.