Another person appeared in the garden--the man-servant from Browndown; with a letter for his master in his hand.
"This has just come, sir," said the man, "by the afternoon post. It is marked 'Immediate.' I thought I had better bring it to you here."
Oscar took the letter, and looked at the address. "My brother's writing!" he exclaimed. "A letter from Nugent!"
He opened the letter--and burst out with a cry of joy which brought Lucilla instantly to his side.
"What is it?" she asked eagerly.
"Nugent is coming back! Nugent will be here in a week! Oh, Lucilla! my brother is coming to stay with me at Browndown!"
He caught her in his arms, and kissed her, in the first rapture of receiving that welcome news. She forced herself away from him without answering a word. She turned her poor blind face round and round, in the search for me.
"Here I am!" I said.
She roughly and angrily put her arm in mine. I saw the jealous misery in her face as she dragged me away with here to the house. Never yet had Oscar's voice, in her experience of him, sounded the note of happiness that she heard in it now! Never yet had she felt Oscar's heart on Oscar's lips, as she felt it when he kissed her in the first joy of anticipating Nugent's return!
"Can he hear me?" she whispered, when we had left the lawn, and she felt the gravel under her feet.
"No. What is it?"
"I hate his brother!"
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-SECOND
The Twin-Brother's Letter
LITTLE thinking what a storm he had raised, poor innocent Oscar--paternally escorted by the rector--followed us into the house, with his open letter in his hand.
Judging by certain signs visible in my reverend friend, I concluded that the announcement of Nugent Dubourg's coming visit to Dimchurch--regarded by the rest of us as heralding the appearance of a twin-brother--was regarded by Mr. Finch as promising the arrival of a twin-fortune. Oscar and Nugent shared the comfortable paternal inheritance. Finch smelt money.
"Compose yourself," I whispered to Lucilla as the two gentlemen followed us into the sitting-room. "Your jealousy of his brother is a childish jealousy. There is room enough in his heart for his brother as well as for you."
She only repeated obstinately, with a vicious pinch on my arm, "I hate his brother!"
"Come and sit down by me," said Oscar, approaching her on the other side. "I want to run over Nugent's letter. It's so interesting! There is a message in it to you." Too deeply absorbed in his subject to notice the sullen submission with which she listened to him, he placed her on a chair, and began reading. "The first lines," he explained, "relate to Nugent's return to England, and to his delightful idea of coming to stay with me at Browndown. Then he goes on: 'I found all your letters waiting for me on my return to New York. Need I tell you, my dearest brother----' "
Lucilla stopped him at those words by rising abruptly from her seat.
"What is the matter?" he asked.
"I don't like this chair!"
Oscar got her another--an easy-chair this time--and returned to the letter.
" 'Need I tell you, my dearest brother, how deeply you have interested me by the announcement of your contemplated marriage? Your happiness is my happiness. I feel with you; I congratulate you; I long to see my future sister-in-law----' "
Lucilla got up again. Oscar, in astonishment, asked what was wrong now?
"I am not comfortable at this end of the room."
She walked to the other end of the room. Patient Oscar walked after her, with his precious letter in his hand. He offered her a third chair. She petulantly declined to take it, and selected another chair for herself. Oscar returned to the letter:--
" 'How melancholy, and yet how interesting it is, to hear that she is blind! My sketches of American scenery happened to be lying about in the room when I read your letter. The first thought that came to me, on hearing of Miss Finch's affliction, was suggested by my sketches. I said to myself, "Sad! sad! my sister-in-law will never see my Works." The true artist, Oscar, is always thinking of his Works. I shall bring back, let me tell you, some very remarkable studies for future pictures. They will not be so numerous, perhaps, as you may expect. I prefer to trust to my intellectual perception of beauty, rather than to mere laborious transcripts from Nature. In certain moods of mine (speaking as an artist) Nature puts me out.' " There Oscar paused, and appealed to me. "What writing!--eh? I always told you, Madame Pratolungo, that Nugent was a genius. You see it now. Don't get up, Lucilla. I am going on. There is a message to you in this part of the letter. So neatly expressed!"
Lucilla persisted in getting up; the announcement of the neatly-expressed message to be read next, produced no effect on her. She walked to the window, and trifled impatiently with the flowers placed in it. Oscar looked in mild astonishment, first at me--then at the rector. Reverend Finch--listening thus far with the complimentary attention due to the correspondence of one young man of fortune with another young man of fortune--interfered in Oscar's interests, to secure him a patient hearing.
"My dear Lucilla, endeavor to control your restlessness. You interfere with our enjoyment of this interesting letter. I could wish to see fewer changes of place, my child, and a more undivided attention to what Oscar is reading to you."
"I am not interested in what he is reading to me." In the nervous irritation which produced this ungracious answer, she overthrew one of the flower-pots. Oscar set it up again for her with undiminished good-temper.
"Not interested!" he exclaimed. "Wait a little. You haven't heard Nugent's message yet. Listen to this! 'Present my best and kindest regards to the future Mrs. Oscar' (dear fellow!); 'and say that she has given me a new interest in hastening my return to England.' There! Isn't that prettily put? Come Lucilla! own that Nugent is worth listening to when he writes about you!"
She turned towards him for the first time. The charm of the tone in which he spoke those words subdued her, in spite of herself.
"I am much obliged to your brother," she answered gently, "and very much ashamed of myself for what I said just now." She stole her hand into his, and whispered, "You are so fond of Nugent--I begin to be almost afraid there will be no love left for me."
Oscar was enchanted. "Wait till you see him, and you will be as fond of him as I am," he said. "Nugent is not like me. He fascinates people the moment they come in contact with him. Nobody can resist Nugent."
She still held his hand, with a perplexed and saddened face. The admirable absence of any jealousy on his side--his large and generous confidence in her love for him--was just the rebuke to her that she could feel; just the rebuke also (in my opinion) that she had deserved.
"Go on, Oscar," said the rector, in his deepest notes of encouragement. "What next, dear boy? what next?"
"Another interesting bit, of quite a new kind," Oscar replied.