Chapter XVI: Miss Finch Follows a Classic Example

Zaida Finch was not ill-pleased at the prospect of a day to herself. Agatha's personality was distracting. It was next to impossible to concentrate your thoughts on your own affairs, however urgent the need, when Agatha was darting about like a bright-plumaged bird, saying things that interested you, even though you frequently found them shocking. "She's a dear girl," Miss Finch reflected, "but upsetting; and I need quiet."

She seated herself upon the broad porch, with the inevitable mending, and wearily began weighing the advantages of one suitor against those of his rival. There was the matter of health to be considered, an important factor in reaching a decision. Zaida remembered a spinster of forty married to a man considerably her senior, who had been a bride three weeks to a day when the bridegroom was smitten with paralysis.

"And poor Linda was nothing but a sick-nurse from that on," mused Miss Finch. "He must have lasted a good twenty years. I never was much of a hand in the sick-room. Nursing would wear me out in no time."

But though caution sharpened her natural acuteness, Miss Finch was unable to award to either of the gentlemen who had honored her, any advantage over the other in the matter of health. She could not remember that Deacon Wiggins had ever been ill, though sickness and death had been familiar guests in his household. James Doolittle frequently walked with a limp due to rheumatic trouble, but James came from long-lived stock, and gave a reassuring impression of toughness. As far as human judgment could play the prophet, she would not be called on to act as nurse to either aspirant, at least for a number of years.

Miss Finch's mending suffered. She found it difficult to employ her brain and her fingers in synchronous activities, and as selecting a husband naturally took precedence over stopping the holes in Howard's socks, she sat much of the morning with her hands lying idle in her lap, her countenance expressing a concentration almost tragic. By noon she was fairly limp from the strain and she went to the kitchen to ask Phemie for a cup of tea.

The sound of wheels recalled her to the porch before her modest luncheon was disposed of. Her first apprehension that either the deacon or James Doolittle was coming to insist on an immediate answer, vanished as she caught sight of two unmistakably feminine figures on the rear seat of the rickety vehicle approaching. But her feeling of reassurance was of brief duration. Almost immediately the conviction seized her that the women were strangers.

Miss Finch stood quaking. Her constitutional shyness had been so cultivated by a lifetime of keeping herself in the background that the prospect of an interview with the unknown women presented itself as an ordeal. It was probable, Miss Finch reflected, that they were city people looking for board. In that case it was only necessary to tell them that they did not wish any additional boarders, and they would have no alternative but to go away. Nevertheless she wished with illogical heartiness that Agatha were at home to assume the responsibility of the interview.

The creaking carryall came to a halt in front of the house. Miss Finch saw that of the two passengers, one was young and one elderly, while both were smartly dressed and formidable. It was the older woman who addressed her, eying her disapprovingly through her lorgnette, and speaking in a tone of incredulity that somehow was offensive.

"My good woman, kindly tell me whether this is Oak Knoll."

"Yes, it is," said Miss Finch, reduced by the lorgnette to abject helplessness.

The driver growled something from the front seat. Miss Finch understood him to say, "Next time maybe you'll believe me."

"And is Mr. Forbes, Mr. Burton Forbes, spending the summer here?" The incredulity was as marked as before and as disagreeable.

"Yes'm," replied Miss Finch faintly. "He is."

The driver growled again. The substance of his remark, as far as Miss Finch could grasp it in her confusion, seemed to be, "What did I tell you?"

But it mattered little to Miss Finch what the driver had to say. A deplorable certainty absorbed her. The women were preparing to alight. There was a trifling delay, owing to the fact they seemed to expect the driver to assist them, while he assured them that he did not dare to leave his horses. As the dejected steeds stood with hanging heads, apparently resigned to the prospect of dying in their traces, the indignation of the two passengers was amply justified.

They were out at last, and while the elderly lady haughtily paid the driver, Miss Finch's distended eyes were taking a rapid inventory of the younger. She was extremely handsome, Miss Finch saw, tall and slender and tremendously striking in her black and white costume. She stood looking about her with an evident disdain which the little spinster might have resented, had she not been chilled by an indefinable fear.

When the beautiful stranger spoke, her remark was a complete surprise. "Miss Kent, I suppose."

Zaida Finch became aware of an inexplicable hostility in the other's manner, of an arrogance that bordered on insolence. She found she was being scrutinized contemptuously. The little drab nonentity felt in her veins an unprecedented stirring of resentment.

"No, I'm not," she said with a flatness that seemed deliberately contradictive. "I'm Miss Finch."

"Be so kind as to call Miss Kent."

"She's out, I'm sorry to say," replied Miss Finch, and her regret was heart-felt. If only Agatha were on hand to give back this presumptuous girl stare for stare, to inquire her errand, in the chilling tone of which Agatha knew the secret, and finally to send her about her business.

"Call Mr. Forbes, then."

"Mr. Forbes is out, too," Miss Finch explained, and a little chill ran down her spine. She had forgotten how imperative it was that Agatha should not encounter any of Forbes' friends. If their unwelcome guests lingered, it would be necessary for Agatha to become Hephzibah again with all the inconveniences attendant on that incarnation. "I've got to get rid of 'em somehow," thought Miss Kent distractedly.

But apparently for the younger of the two strangers, Miss Finch had ceased to exist. She turned to her companion impatiently. "It's dreadfully boring, Aunt Estelle, but Burton is out at present. We'll have to sit on the porch and wait. Fortunately it is shady."

"Yes, it seems to be _shady_," admitted Aunt Estelle, with an emphasis indicating that as far as the porch was concerned, she could make no further concessions. She climbed the steps looking about her with multiplying evidences of disquiet. "Ask her when Burton will be back," she enjoined, exactly as if Miss Finch had spoken a foreign tongue, and could be addressed only through an interpreter.

Miss Finch did not wait to have the inquiry translated. "I don't know _when_ he'll be back," she said quickly. "Probably he'll be gone all day."

"He'll return for luncheon, I suppose," said Aunt Estelle, grudgingly acknowledging Miss Finch's ability to speak English, but apparently liking her no better on that account.

"No, he won't," declared Miss Finch, with unaccustomed positiveness. "They took sandwiches."

The two women exchanged glances. "Who is with Mr. Forbes?" asked the younger. Her manner implied her right to know.

"Ag--well, Miss Kent went with him." And to herself Miss Finch added wildly, "I can't have a lie on my conscience, even for Agatha."

"Who else was in the party, please?" The young woman in black and white had become a judge, and Miss Finch, the prisoner at the bar.

"There wasn't anybody else," gasped Miss Finch, with every indication of uttering a deliberate and premeditated falsehood.

"Where were they going?"

"I don't know exactly. They were going for a picnic somewhere, but I didn't hear 'em say where. I don't know as they knew themselves."

The judicial sternness became more marked as the prisoner's embarrassment increased. "You mean that Mr. Forbes and Miss Kent have gone off for the day with--sandwiches?" Something in her inflection made the mention of sandwiches the crowning insult to her intelligence.

"Yes," faltered Miss Finch guiltily. "They often take long walks, and carry a picnic lunch."

The older lady spoke with asperity. "It's a preposterous situation. I'm sorry to remind you, Julia, that I said at the start it would be better to telegraph."

Miss Finch started violently. She recalled Agatha's confidential assurance that Forbes was in love with a despicable young woman named Julia, but that the aforesaid Julia was to marry another man. Yet here she was, undeniably handsome, terrifyingly elegant, and worst of all, with no apparent doubt as to her right to be demanding the immediate producing of Mr. Forbes.

The two women had seated themselves, Aunt Estelle ostentatiously dusting the rocker she trusted with her ample person. Miss Finch proffered a belated and reluctant hospitality.

"If you're thinking of sitting here long, I'll see about getting you something to eat."

Julia brushed the offer aside without thanks. "We shall wait for Mr. Forbes."

"It is really absurd, you know," Aunt Estelle contributed, "for us to sit waiting indefinitely. Burton must be somewhere about. A blind man and an old woman can not possibly walk very far. Why are they not sent for?"

As her inquiry was addressed to Julia, Julia passed it on to Miss Finch, her extremely frigid tone indicating that Miss Finch should have thought of that herself.

"There's nobody to send except the hired girl," Miss Finch explained despairingly. "And she never was known to find anything, even if it was right under her nose. If only Howard--"

Miss Finch checked herself abruptly. A thought had flashed across her mind so dazzling in its brilliancy she could hardly believe herself capable of originating it. Indeed, the probability is that she had not done so, but that some extravagant fancy of Agatha's, falling like seed into her subconsciousness, had lain there dormant till the emergency brought it to swift germination. Zaida Finch had never heard of Victor Hugo's saintly nun, crowning a lifetime of sanctity by a devout and holy lie, but unconsciously she was inspired to emulate her example.

With Miss Finch veracity was almost a mania. She was one of the tiresome people who are continually suspecting themselves of exaggeration or of misrepresentation of something absolutely without importance, and then bore their associates by insisting on their attention while they painstakingly correct their statements. Yet now she forgot her habitual dread of falsehood. If a lie were necessary to save Agatha, lie she must.

She resumed her interrupted sentence, pale but resolute. "If only Howard was well, he could look for 'em. He could find 'em if anybody could. But it'll be a good while before he does much running around, I guess."

The two visitors regarded her stonily. In her simplicity she had assumed their cooperation to the extent of a question or two. They would surely ask her who Howard was, or why he was incapacitated. But apparently these matters did not interest them in the slightest degree. It was necessary for Miss Finch to continue her career of mendacity unaided by so much as the lifting of an interrogative eye-brow.

Miss Finch rose to the occasion. "He's sick, you know," she confided to the two pairs of indifferent ears. "High fever, and considerable of a rash--if you'd call it a rash."

Aunt Estelle showed a slight uneasiness. "You've consulted a physician, I suppose."

"We're trying a kind of mental cure first," replied Miss Finch as glibly as if she had practised perjury from her childhood. "And then if that don't work, Ag--Miss Kent is going to call in the doctor. But she don't like to do it till she has to, for it would be awful inconvenient to be quarantined."

"Quarantined," exclaimed Aunt Estelle with fresh evidences of perturbation. "Have you any reason to think that it may be contagious?"

"Most of these rashy diseases are," Miss Finch replied. And though there was no malice in her composition, she was conscious of relishing Aunt Estelle's air of agitation. "I'm hoping it's nothing worse than scarlet fever, though there's been a good many cases of smallpox around here lately. And I don't know that Howard's ever been vaccinated."

Aunt Estelle rose from her chair with a little cry. In her palpitating pallor she reminded Miss Finch irresistibly of blanc-mange.

"Smallpox, Julia," she exclaimed. "Do you hear what the woman says--smallpox! Even if we escape with our lives, one's complexion--oh, my God! Why did I ever listen to this mad idea of yours!"

Julia's composure was in refreshing contrast to her aunt's excitement. She rose, it is true, but only to advance to the older woman's side and whisper in her ear. And having whispered, she calmly resumed her seat, and looked away toward the hills, apparently intensely interested in the scenery.

Aunt Estelle stood irresolute. "Do you really think so?"

"I'm absolutely sure of it," said Julia.

"I think I noticed a little wildness in the eye myself," Aunt Estelle conceded, with a return of her earlier conviction of Miss Finch's inability to understand English.

"Unmistakable," opined Julia.

Miss Finch looked blankly from one to the other and hope was at low ebb. They were going to stay. She had thrilled with childlike pride at the discovery of her own inventiveness, culpable though it might be. Complacency had whispered that Agatha herself could not have done better. And now she realized that her effort had failed. She had sacrificed her conscience to friendship, and the sacrifice had been in vain. Though not so quick-witted as many another, she had no difficulty in recognizing the conclusion these strangers had reached. To herself she said, "They think I'm crazy."

Miss Finch was not at the end of her resources. Her lapse from the path of rectitude had proved strangely stimulating to the imagination. She meant to get rid of these women before Agatha returned. Agatha would be equal to the emergency provided she were not taken by surprise. If Julia and her aunt were not afraid of smallpox, it was possible that they might be afraid of a crazy woman who showed signs of becoming violent.

"G-r-r-r-r--" said Miss Finch menacingly. Aunt Estelle jumped and took another chair. For the first time in her life, Miss Finch felt herself at no disadvantage because of her insignificant proportions. "G-r-r-r-r-r--" she said again.

"Julia," exclaimed Aunt Estelle nervously, "do you really think it's safe--"

The intrepidity of the modern young woman passes comprehension. "Harmless, I imagine," Julia said with nonchalance. "Otherwise Burton would hardly have remained."

"Why he should have remained in this place under any circumstances," declared Aunt Estelle, "passes my comprehension."

"There must be some reason we know nothing about. Burton will explain." Something in Julia's tone implied that Forbes would not find explanations altogether easy. She added with evident relief, "Here he comes now."

"Thank heaven!" cried Aunt Estelle piously.

Miss Finch looked wildly in the direction of Julia's steadfast gaze. All was over. Arm in arm across the grass, so absorbed in each other that the girl was as blind as the man to the audience on the porch, came Agatha and Forbes.