Is there no Excuse for Him?
OSCAR'S dismissed servant (left, during the usual month of warning, to take care of the house) opened the door to me when I knocked. Although the hour was already a late one in primitive Dimchurch, the man showed no signs of surprise at seeing me.
"Is Mr. Nugent Dubourg at home?"
"Yes, ma'am." He lowered his voice, and added, "I think Mr. Nugent expected to see you to-night."
Whether he intended it, or not, the servant had done me a good turn--he had put me on my guard. Nugent Dubourg understood my character better than I had understood his. He had foreseen what would happen, when I heard of Lucilla's visit on my return to the rectory--and he had, no doubt, prepared himself accordingly. I was conscious of a certain nervous trembling (I own) as I followed the servant to the sitting-room. At the moment, however, when he opened the door, this ignoble sensation left me as suddenly as it had come. I felt myself Pratolungo's widow again, when I entered the room.
A reading-lamp, with its shade down, was the only light on the table.
Nugent Dubourg, comfortably reposing in an easychair, sat by the lamp, with a cigar in his mouth, and a book in his hand. He put down the book on the table as he rose to receive me. Knowing, by this time, what sort of man I had to deal with, I was determined not to let even the merest trifles escape me. It might have its use in helping me to understand him, if I knew how he had been occupying his mind while he was expecting me to arrive. I looked at the book. It was _Rousseau's Confessions._
He advanced with his pleasant smile, and offered his hand as if nothing had happened to disturb our ordinary relations towards each other. I drew back a step, and looked at him.
"Won't you shake hands with me?" he asked.
"I will answer that directly," I said. "Where is your brother?"
"I don't know."
"When you _do_ know, Mr. Nugent Dubourg, and when you have brought your brother back to this house, I will take your hand--not before."
He bowed resignedly, with a little satirical shrug of the shoulders, and asked if he might offer me a chair.
I took a chair for myself, and placed it so that I might be opposite to him when he resumed his seat. He checked himself in the act of sitting down, and looked towards the open window.
"Shall I throw away my cigar?" he said.
"Not on my account. I have no objection to smoking."
"Thank you." He took his chair--keeping his face in the partial obscurity cast by the shade of the lamp. After smoking for a moment, he spoke again, without turning to look at me. "May I ask what your object is in honoring me with this visit?"
"I have two objects. The first is to see that you leave Dimchurch to-morrow morning. The second is to make you restore your brother to his promised wife."
He looked round at me quickly. His experience of my irritable temper had not prepared him for the perfect composure of voice and manner with which I answered his question. He looked back again from me to his cigar, and knocked off the ash at the tip of it (considering with himself) before he addressed his next words to me.
"We will come to the question of my leaving Dimchurch presently," he said. "Have you received a letter from Oscar?"
"Yes."
"Have you read it?"
"I have read it."
"Then you know that we understand each other?"
"I know that your brother has sacrificed himself--and that you have taken a base advantage of the sacrifice."
He started, and looked round at me once more. I saw that something in my language, or in my tone of speaking, had stung him.
"You have your privilege as a lady," he said. "Don't push it too far.
What Oscar has done, he has done of his own free will."
"What Oscar has done," I rejoined, "is lamentably foolish, cruelly wrong.
Still, perverted as it is, there is something generous, something noble, in the motive which has led _him._ As for your conduct in this matter, I see nothing but what is mean, nothing but what is cowardly, in the motive which has led _you._"
He started to his feet, and flung his cigar into the empty fireplace.
"Madame Pratolungo," he said, "I have not the honor of knowing anything of your family. I can't call a woman to account for insulting me. Do you happen to have any _man_ related to you, in or out of England?"
"I happen to have what will do equally well on this occasion," I replied.
"I have a hearty contempt for threats of all sorts, and a steady resolution in me to say what I think."
He walked to the door, and opened it.
"I decline to give you the opportunity of saying anything more," he rejoined. "I beg to leave you in possession of the room, and to wish you good evening."
He opened the door. I had entered the house, armed in my own mind with a last desperate resolve, only to be communicated to him, or to anybody, in the final emergency and at the eleventh hour. The time had come for saying what I had hoped with my whole heart to have left unsaid.
I rose on my side, and stopped him as he was leaving the room.
"Return to your chair and your book," I said. "Our interview is at an end. In leaving the house, I have one last word to say. You are wasting your time in remaining at Dimchurch."
"I am the best judge of that," he answered, making way for me to go out.
"Pardon me, you are not in a position to judge at all. You don't know what I mean to do as soon as I get back to the rectory."
He instantly changed his position; placing himself in the doorway so as to prevent me from leaving the room.
"What do you mean to do?" he asked, keeping his eyes attentively fixed on mine.
"I mean to force you to leave Dimchurch."
He laughed insolently. I went on as quietly as before. "You have personated your brother to Lucilla this morning," I said. "You have done that, Mr. Nugent Dubourg, for the last time."
"Have I? Who will prevent me from doing it again?"
"I will."
This time he took it seriously.
"You?" he said. "How are _you_ to control me, if you please?"
"I can control you through Lucilla. When I get back to the rectory, I can, and will, tell Lucilla the truth."
He started--and instantly recovered himself.