Family Troubles

IN four or five days more, Lucilla’s melancholy doubts about Oscar were confirmed. He was attacked by a second fit.

The promised consultation with the physician from Brighton took place. Our new doctor did not encourage us to hope. The second fit following so close on the first was, in his opinion, a bad sign. He gave general directions for the treatment of Oscar; and left him to decide for himself whether he would or would not try change of scene. No change, the physician appeared to think, would exert any immediate influence on the recurrence of the epileptic attacks. The patient’s general health might be benefited, and that was all. As for the question of the marriage, he declared without hesitation that we must for the present dismiss all consideration of it from our minds.

Lucilla received the account of what passed at the visit of the doctors with a stubborn resignation which it distressed me to see. “Remember what I told you when the first attack seized him,” she said. “Our summer-time is ended; our winter is come.”

Her manner, while she spoke, was the manner of a person who is waiting without hope — who feels deliberately that calamity is near. She only roused herself when Oscar came in. He was, naturally enough, in miserable spirits, under the sudden alteration in all his prospects. Lucilla did her best to cheer him, and succeeded. On my side, I tried vainly to persuade him to leave Browndown and amuse himself in some gayer place. He shrank from new faces and new scenes. Between these two unelastic young people, I felt even my native good spirits beginning to sink. If we had been all three down in the bottom of a dry well in a wilderness, we could hardly have surveyed a more dismal prospect than the prospect we were contemplating now. By good luck, Oscar, like Lucilla, was passionately fond of music. We turned to the piano as our best resource in those days of our adversity. Lucilla and I took it in turns to play, and Oscar listened. I have to report that we got through a great deal of music. I have also to acknowledge that we were very dull.

As for Reverend Finch, he talked his way through his share of the troubles that were trying us now, at the full compass of his voice.

If you had heard the little priest in those days, you would have supposed that nobody could feel our domestic misfortunes as he felt them, and grieve over them as he grieved. He was a sight to see, on the day of the medical consultation; strutting up and down his wife’s sitting-room, and haranguing his audience — composed of his wife and myself. Mrs. Finch sat in one corner, with the baby and the novel, and the petticoat and the shawl. I occupied the other corner; summoned to “consult with the rector.” In plain words, summoned to hear Mr. Finch declare that he was the person principally overshadowed by the cloud which hung on the household.

“I despair, Madame Pratolungo — I assure you, I despair — of conveying any idea of how I feel under this most melancholy state of things. You have been very good; you have shown the sympathy of a true friend. But you cannot possibly understand how this blow has fallen on Me. I am crushed. Madame Pratolungo!” (he appealed to me, in my corner); “Mrs. Finch!” (he appealed to his wife, in her corner)—“I am crushed. There is no other word to express it but the word I have used. Crushed.” He stopped in the middle of the room. He looked expectantly at me — he looked expectantly at his wife. His face and manner said plainly, “If both these women faint, I shall consider it a natural and becoming proceeding on their parts, after what I have just told them.” I waited for the lead of the lady of the house. Mrs. Finch did not roll prostrate, with the baby and the novel, on the floor. Thus encouraged, I presumed to keep my seat. The rector still waited for us. I looked as miserable as I could. Mrs. Finch cast her eyes up reverentially at her husband, as if she thought him the noblest of created beings, and silently put her handkerchief to her eyes. Mr. Finch was satisfied; Mr. Finch went on. “My health has suffered — I assure you, Madame Pratolungo, MY health has suffered. Since this sad occurrence, my stomach has given way. My balance is lost — my usual regularity is gone. I am subject — entirely through this miserable business — to fits of morbid appetite. I want things at wrong times — breakfast in the middle of the night; dinner at four in the morning. I want something now!” Mr. Finch stopped, horror-struck at his condition; pondering with his eyebrows fiercely knit, and his hand pressed convulsively on the lower buttons of his rusty black waistcoat. Mrs. Finch’s watery blue eyes looked across the room at me, in a moist melancholy of conjugal distress. The rector, suddenly enlightened after his consultation with his stomach, strutted to the door, flung it wide open, and called down the kitchen stairs with a voice of thunder, “Poach me an egg!” He came back into the room — held another consultation, keeping his eyes severely fixed on me — strutted back in a furious hurry to the door — and bellowed a counter-order down the kitchen-stairs, “No egg! Do me a red herring!” He came back for the second time, with his eyes closed and his hand laid distractedly on his head. He appealed alternately to Mrs. Finch and to me. “See for yourselves — Mrs. Finch! Madame Pratolungo! — see for yourselves what a state I am in. It’s simply pitiable. I hesitate about the most trifling things. First, I think I want a poached egg — then, I think I want a red herring — now I don’t know what I want. Upon my word of honor as a clergyman and a gentleman, I don’t know what I want! Morbid appetite all day; morbid wakefulness all night — what a condition! I can’t rest. I disturb my wife at night. Mrs. Finch! I disturb you at night. How many times — since this misfortune fell upon us — do I turn in bed before I fall off to sleep? Eight times? Are you certain of it? Don’t exaggerate! Are you certain you counted! Very well: good creature! I never remember — I assure you, Madame Pratolungo, I never remember — such a complete upset as this before. The nearest approach to it was some years since, at my wife’s last confinement but four. Mrs. Finch! was it at your last confinement but four? or your last but five? Your last but four? Are you sure. Are you certain you are not misleading our friend here? Very well: good creature! Pecuniary difficulties, Madame Pratolungo, were at the bottom of it on that last occasion. I got over the pecuniary difficulties. How am I to get over this? My plans for Oscar and Lucilla were completely arranged. My relations with my wedded children were pleasantly laid out. I saw my own future; I saw the future of my family. What do I see now? All, so to speak, annihilated at a blow. Inscrutable Providence!” He paused, and lifted his eyes and hands devotionally to the ceiling. The cook appeared with the red herring. “Inscrutable Providence”— proceeded ............