Men are all alike incompetent to satisfy women, when the question between the sexes is a question of small details. A woman, in Oscar's position, would have been able to relate to us, not only the whole conversation with the rector, but every little trifling incident which had noticeably illustrated it. As things were, we could only extract from our unsatisfactory man the barest outline of the interview. The coloring and the filling-in we were left to do for ourselves.
Oscar had, on his own confession, acknowledged his visitor's kindness, by opening his whole heart to the sympathizing rector, and placing that wary priest and excellent man of business in possession of the completest knowledge of all his affairs. In return, Reverend Finch had spoken in the frankest manner, on his side. He had drawn a sad picture of the poverty-stricken condition of Dimchurch, viewed as an ecclesiastical endowment; and he had spoken in such feeling terms of the neglected condition of the ancient and interesting church, that poor simple Oscar, smitten with pity, had produced his cheque-book, and had subscribed on the spot towards the Fund for repairing the ancient round tower. They had been still occupied with the subject of the tower and the subscription, when we had opened the garden gate and had let them in. Hearing this, I now understood the motives under which our reverend friend was acting as well as if they had been my own. It was plain to my mind that the rector had taken his financial measure of Oscar, and had privately satisfied himself, that if he encouraged the two young people in cultivating each other's society, money (to use his own phrase) might come of it. He had, as I believed, put forward "the round tower," in the first instance, as a feeler; and he would follow it up, in due time, by an appeal of a more personal nature to Oscar's well-filled purse. Brief, he was, in my opinion, quite sharp enough (after having studied his young friend's character) to foresee an addition to his income, rather than a subtraction from it, if the relations between Oscar and his daughter ended in a marriage.
Whether Lucilla arrived, on her side, at the same conclusion as mine, is what I cannot venture positively to declare. I can only relate that she looked ill at ease as the facts came out; and that she took the first opportunity of extinguishing her father, viewed as a topic of conversation.
As for Oscar, it was enough for him that he had already secured his place as friend of the house. He took leave of us in the highest spirits. I had my eye on them when he and Lucilla said good-bye. She squeezed his hand. I saw her do it. At the rate at which things were now going on, I began to ask myself whether Reverend Finch would not appear at tea-time in his robes of office, and celebrate the marriage of his "sorely-tried" young friend between the first cup and the second.
At our little social assembly in the evening, nothing passed worthy of much remark.
Lucilla and I (I cannot resist recording this) were both beautifully dressed, in honor of the occasion; Mrs. Finch serving us to perfection, by way of contrast. She had made an immense effort—she was half dressed. Her evening costume was an ancient green silk skirt (with traces of past babies visible on it to an experienced eye), topped by the everlasting blue merino jacket. "I lose everything belonging to me," Mrs. Finch whispered in my ear. "I have got a body to this dress, and it can't be found anywhere." The rector's prodigious voice was never silent: the pompous and plausible little man talked, talked, talked, in deeper and deeper bass, until the very teacups on the table shuddered under the influence of him. The elder children, admitted to the family festival, ate till they could eat no more; stared till they could stare no more; yawned till they could yawn no more—and then went to bed. Oscar got on well with everybody. Mrs. Finch was naturally interested in him as one of twins—though she was also surprised and disappointed at hearing that his mother had begun and ended with his brother and himself. As for Lucilla, she sat in silent happiness, absorbed in the inexhaustible delight of hearing Oscar's voice. She found as many varieties of expression in listening to her beloved tones, as the rest of us find in looking at our beloved face. We had music later in the evening—and I then heard, for the first time, how charmingly Lucilla played. She was a born musician, with a delicacy and subtlety of touch such as few even of the greatest virtuosi possess. Oscar was enchanted. In a word, the evening was a success.
I contrived, when our guest took his departure, to say my contemplated word to him in private, on the subject of his solitary position at Browndown.
Those doubts of Oscar's security in his lonely house, which I have described as having been suggested to me by the discovery of the two ruffians lurking under the wall, still maintained their place in my mind; and still urged me to warn him to take precautions of some sort, before the precious metals which he had sent to London to be melted, came back to him again. He gave me the opportunity I wanted, by looking at his watch, and apologizing for protracting his visit to a terribly late hour, for the country—the hour of midnight.
"Is your servant sitting up for you?" I asked, assuming to be ignorant of his domestic arrangements.
He pulled out of his pocket a great clumsy key.
"This is my only servant at Browndown," he said. "By four or five in the afternoon, the people at the inn have done all for me that I want. After that time, there is nobody in the house but myself."
He shook hands with us. The rector escorted him as far as the front door. I slipped out while they were saying their last words, and joined Oscar, when he advanced alone into the garden.
"I want a breath of fresh air," I said. "I'll go with you as far as the gate."
He began to talk of Lucilla directly. I surprised him by returning abruptly to the subject of his position at Browndown.
"Do you think it's wise," I asked, "to be all by yourself at night in such a lonely house as yours? Why don't you have a manservant?"
"I detest strange servants," he answered. "I infinitely prefer being by myself."
"When do you expect your gold and silver plates to be returned to you?"
"In about a week."
"What would be the value of them, in money—at a rough guess?"
"At a rough guess—about seventy or eighty pounds."
"In a week's time then," I said, "you will have seventy or eighty pounds' worth of property at Browndown. Property which a thief need only put into the melting-pot, to have no fear of its being traced into his hands."
Oscar stopped, and looked at me.
"What can you be thinking of!" he asked. "There are no thieves in this primitive place."
"There are thieves in other places," I answered. "And they may come here. Have you forgotten those two men whom we caught hanging about Browndown yesterday?"
He smiled. I had recalled to him a humourous association—nothing more.
"It was not we who caught them," he said. "It was that strange child. What do you say to my having Jicks to sleep in the house and take care of me?"
"I am not joking," I rejoined. "I never met with two more ill-looking villains in my life. The window was open when you were telling me about the necessity for melting the plates again. They may know as well as we do, that your gold and silver will be returned to you after a time."
"What an imagination you have got!" he exclaimed. "You see a couple of shabby excursionists from Brighton, who have wandered to Dimchurch—and you instantly transform them into a pair of housebreakers in a conspiracy to rob and murder me! You and my brother Nugent would just suit each other. His imagination runs away with him, exactly like yours."
"Take my advice," I answered gravely. "Don't persist in sleeping at Browndown without a living creature in the house with you."
He was in wild good spirits. He kissed my hand, and thanked me in his voluble exaggerated way for the interest that I took in him. "All right!" he said, as he opened the gate. "I'll have a living creature in the house with me. I'll get a dog."
We parted. I had told him what was on my mind. I could do no more. After all, it might be quite possible that his view was the right one, and mine the wrong.
CHAPTER