Poor Miss Finch | Page 6

express myself) exactly fit each other, advertising for each other,
without knowing it. I had advertised myself as "accomplished musical
companion for a lady. With cheerful temper to match." And there
above me was my unknown necessitous fellow-creature, crying out in
printers' types:--"Wanted, a companion for a lady. Must be an
accomplished musician, and have a cheerful temper. Testimonials to
capacity, and first-rate references required." Exactly what I had offered!
"Apply by letter only, in the first instance." Exactly what I had said! Fie
upon me, I had spent three and sixpence for nothing. I threw down the
newspaper, in a transport of anger (like a fool)--and then took it up
again (like a sensible woman), and applied by letter for the offered
place.
My letter brought me into contact with a lawyer. The lawyer enveloped
himself in mystery. It seemed to be a professional habit with him to tell
nobody anything, if he could possibly help it.
Drop by drop, this wearisome man let the circumstances out. The lady
was a young lady. She was the daughter of a clergyman. She lived in a
retired part of the country. More even than that, she lived in a retired
part of the house. Her father had married a second time. Having only
the young lady as child by his first marriage, he had (I suppose by way
of a change) a large family by his second marriage. Circumstances
rendered it necessary for the young lady to live as much apart as she
could from the tumult of a houseful of children. So he went on, until
there was no keeping it in any longer--and then he let it out. The young
lady was blind!
Young--lonely--blind. I had a sudden inspiration. I felt I should love
her.
The question of my musical capacity was, in this sad case, a serious
one. The poor young lady had one great pleasure to illumine her dark
life--Music. Her companion was wanted to play from the book, and
play worthily, the works of the great masters (whom this young
creature adored)--and she, listening, would take her place next at the
piano, and reproduce the music morsel by morsel, by ear. A professor

was appointed to pronounce sentence on me, and declare if I could be
trusted not to misinterpret Mozart, Beethoven, and the other masters
who have written for the piano. Through this ordeal I passed with
success. As for my references, they spoke for themselves. Not even the
lawyer (though he tried hard) could pick holes in them. It was arranged
on both sides that I should, in the first instance, go on a month's visit to
the young lady. If we both wished it at the end of the time, I was to stay,
on terms arranged to my perfect satisfaction. There was our treaty!
The next day I started for my visit by the railway.
My instructions directed me to travel to the town of Lewes in Sussex.
Arrived there, I was to ask for the pony-chaise of my young lady's
father--described on his card as Reverend Tertius Finch. The chaise
was to take me to the rectory-house in the village of Dimchurch. And
the village of Dimchurch was situated among the South Down Hills,
three or four miles from the coast.
When I stepped into the railway carriage, this was all I knew. After my
adventurous life--after the volcanic agitations of my republican career
in the Doctor's time--was I about to bury myself in a remote English
village, and live a life as monotonous as the life of a sheep on a hill?
Ah, with all my experience, I had yet to learn that the narrowest human
limits are wide enough to contain the grandest human emotions. I had
seen the Drama of Life amid the turmoil of tropical revolutions. I was
to see it again, with all its palpitating interest, in the breezy solitudes of
the South Down Hills.
CHAPTER THE
SECOND
Madame Pratolungo makes a Voyage on Land
A WELL-FED boy, with yellow Saxon hair; a little shabby green
chaise; and a rough brown pony--these objects confronted me at the
Lewes Station. I said to the boy, "Are you Reverend Finch's servant?"
And the boy answered, "I be he."

We drove through the town--a hilly town of desolate clean houses. No
living creatures visible behind the jealously-shut windows. No living
creatures entering or departing through the sad-colored closed doors.
No theater; no place of amusement except an empty town-hall, with a
sad policeman meditating on its spruce white steps. No customers in
the shops, and nobody to serve them behind the counter, even if they
had turned up. Here and there on the pavements, an inhabitant with a
capacity for staring, and (apparently) a capacity for nothing else. I said
to