Poor Miss Finch. Wilkie Collins Collins

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

      "OSCAR."

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

      Saturday came—making the tenth day since the memorable morning when I had forced Oscar to disclose himself to me in the little side-room at Browndown.

      In the forenoon we had a visit from him at the rectory. In the afternoon we went to Browndown, to see him begin a new piece of chasing in gold—a casket for holding gloves—destined to take its place on Lucilla's toilet-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 a visit by appointment to the rectory side of the house.

      Unhappy Mrs. Finch had determined to institute a complete reform of her wardrobe. She had entreated me to give her the benefit of "my French taste," in the capacity of confidential critic and adviser. "I can't afford to buy any new things," said the poor lady. "But a deal might be done in altering what I have got by me, if a clever person took the matter up." Who could resist that piteous appeal? I resigned myself to the baby, the novel, and the children in general; and (Reverend Finch being out of the way, writing his sermon) I presented myself in Mrs. Finch's parlor, full of ideas, with my scissors and my pattern-paper ready in my hand.

      We had only begun our operations, when one of the elder children arrived with 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 a trace of her was to be discovered in either quarter. Nobody was surprised or alarmed. We said, "Oh, dear, she has gone to Browndown again!"—and immersed ourselves once more in the shabby recesses of Mrs. Finch's wardrobe.

      I had just decided that the blue merino jacket was an article of wearing apparel which had done its duty, and earned its right to final retirement from the scene—when a plaintive cry reached my ear, through the open door 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 cry in a child's voice. The door of the room had been left ajar, when we sent the messenger back to the nursery. I threw it open, and found myself face to 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 incapable of uttering a word. When I knelt down to fondle and soothe her, she caught convulsively at my hand, and attempted to raise me. I got on my feet again. She repeated her dumb cry more loudly—and tried to drag me out of the house. She was so weak that she staggered under the effort. I took her up in my arms. One of my hands, as I embraced her, touched the top of her frock, just below the back of her neck. I felt something on my fingers. I looked at them. Gracious God! I was stained with blood!

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

      The dear little thing's white frock was spotted and splashed with wet blood. Not her own blood. There was not a scratch on her. I looked closer at the horrid marks. They had been drawn purposely on her—drawn, as it seemed, with a finger. I took her out into the light. It was writing! A word had been feebly traced on the back of her frock. I made out something like the letter "H." Then a letter which it was impossible to read.

      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 in blood—"HELP."

CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH

      Discoveries at Browndown

       Table of Contents

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

      Thanks to my adventurous past life, I have got the habit of deciding quickly in serious emergencies of all sorts. In the present emergency—as I saw it—there were two things to be done. One, to go instantly with help to Browndown: the other, to keep the knowledge of what had happened from Lucilla until I could get back again, and prepare her for the discovery.

      I looked at Mrs. Finch. She had dropped helplessly into a chair. "Rouse yourself!" I said—and shook her. It was no time for sympathizing with swoons and hysterics. The child was still in my arms; fast yielding, poor little thing, to the exhaustion of fatigue and terror. I could do nothing until I had relieved myself of the charge of her. Mrs. Finch looked up at me, trembling and sobbing. I put the child in her lap. Jicks feebly resisted being parted from me; but soon gave up, and dropped her weary little 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 domestic occupation (of any sort) appeared to rouse Mrs. Finch. She looked at the baby, in its cradle in one corner of the room, and at the novel, reposing on a chair in another corner of the room. The presence of these two familiar objects appeared to encourage her. She shivered, she swallowed a sob, she recovered her breath, she began to undo the frock.

      "Put it away carefully," I said; "and say nothing to anybody of what has happened, until I come back. You can see for yourself that the child is not hurt. Soothe her, and wait here. Is Mr. Finch in the study?"

      Mrs. Finch swallowed another sob, and said, "Yes." The child made a last effort. "Jicks will go with you," said the indomitable little Arab faintly. 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 it and 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 moment awakened from a sound sleep.

      The rector of Dimchurch instantly recovered his dignity.

      "I beg your pardon, Madame Pratolungo, I was deep in thought. Please state your business briefly." Saying those words, he waved his hand magnificently over his empty sheets of paper, and added in his deepest bass: "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 I ever yet set my two eyes on a man thoroughly frightened, Reverend Finch was that man.

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

      "It is my opinion that there is not a moment to be lost," I answered. "We must 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 at that particular moment. But he was the master of the house; he was the principal man in the place—he had no other alternative, as matters now stood, than to take his hat and go.

      We went out together into the village. My reverend companion was silent for the first time in my limited experience of him. We inquired for the one policeman who patrolled the district. He was away on his rounds. We asked if anybody had seen the doctor. No: it was not the doctor's day for visiting Dimchurch. I had heard the landlord of the Gross Hands described as a capable and respectable man; and I suggested stopping at the inn, and taking him with us.