Mrs. Finch hears the footsteps, and rejoices in them as I do. Reverend Hamlet hears nothing but his own voice. He begins the scene: "The air bites shrewdly. It is very cold." The door opens. The rector feels a gust of air, dramatically appropriate, just at the right moment. He looks round. If it is a servant, let that domestic person tremble! No--not a servant. Guests--heavens be praised, guests. Welcome, gentlemen--welcome!
No more Hamlet, tonight, thanks to You. Enter two Characters who must be instantly attended to:--Mr. Oscar Dubourg; introducing his twin-brother from America, Mr. Nugent Dubourg.
Astonishment at the extraordinary resemblance between them, was the one impression felt by all three of us, as the brothers entered the room.
Exactly alike in their height, in their walk, in their features, and in their voices. Both with the same colored hair and the same beardless faces. Oscar's smile exactly reflected on Nugent's lips. Oscar's odd little semi-foreign tricks of gesticulation with his hands, exactly reproduced in the hands of Nugent. And, to crown it all, there was the complexion which Oscar had lost for ever (just a shade darker perhaps) found again on Nugent's cheeks! The one difference which made it possible to distinguish between them, at the moment when they first appeared together in the room, was also the one difference which Lucilla was physically incapable of detecting--the terrible contrast of color between the brother who bore the blue disfigurement of the drug, and the brother who was left as Nature had made him.
"Delighted to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Finch--I have long wished for this pleasure. Thank you, Mr. Finch, for all your kindness to my brother.
Madame Pratolungo, I presume? Permit me to shake hands. It is needless to say, I have heard of your illustrious husband. Aha! here's a baby. Yours, Mrs. Finch? Girl or boy, ma'am? A fine child--if a bachelor may be allowed to pronounce an opinion. _Tweet--tweet--tweet!_"He chirruped to the baby, as if he had been a family man, and snapped his fingers gaily. Poor Oscar's blue face turned in silent triumph towards me. "What did I tell you?" his look asked. "Did I not say Nugent fascinated everybody at first sight?" Most true. An irresistible man. So utterly different in his manner from Oscar--except when he was in repose--and yet so like Oscar in other respects, I can only describe him as his brother completed. He had the pleasant lively flow of spirits, the easy winning gentleman-like confidence in himself, which Oscar wanted.
And, then, what excellent taste he possessed. He liked children! he respected the memory of my glorious Pratolungo!--In half a minute from the time when he entered the room, Nugent Dubourg had won Mrs. Finch's heart and mine.
He turned from the baby to Mr. Finch, and pointed to the open Shakespeare on the table.
"You were reading to the ladies?" he said. "I am afraid we have interrupted you."
"Don't mention it," said the rector, with his lofty politeness. "Another time will do. It is a habit of mine, Mr. Nugent, to read aloud in my family circle. As a clergyman and a lover of poetry (in both capacities)
I have long cultivated the art of elocution----"
"My dear sir, excuse me, you have cultivated it all wrong!"
Mr. Finch paused, thunderstruck. A man in his presence presuming to have an opinion of his own! a man in the rectory parlor capable of interrupting the rector in the middle of a sentence! guilty of the insane audacity of telling him, as a reader--with Shakespeare open before them--that he read wrong!
"Oh, we heard you as we came in!" proceeded Nugent, with the most undiminished confidence, expressed in the most gentlemanlike manner. "You read it like this." He took up _Hamlet_ and read the opening line of the Fourth Scene, ("The air bites shrewdly. It is very cold") with an irresistibly-accurate imitation of Mr. Finch. "That's nor the way Hamlet would speak. No man in his position would remark that it was very cold in that bow-wow manner. What is Shakespeare before all things? True to nature; always true to nature. What condition is Hamlet in when he is expecting to see the Ghost? He is nervous, and he feels the cold. Let him show it naturally; let him speak as any other man would speak, under the circumstances. Look here! Quick and quiet--like this. 'The air bites shrewdly'--there Hamlet stops and shivers--pur-rer-rer! 'it is very cold.' That's the way to read Shakespeare!"
Mr. Finch lifted his head into the air as high as it could possibly go, and brought the flat of his hand down with a solemn and sounding smack on the open book.
"Allow me to say, sir----!" he began.
Nugent stopped him again, more good-humouredly than ever.
"You don't agree with me? All right! Quite useless to dispute about it. I don't know what you may be--I am the most opinionated man in existence.
Sheer waste of time, my dear sir, to attempt convincing Me. Now, just look at that child!" Here Mr. Nugent Dubourg's attention was suddenly attracted by the baby. He twisted round on his heel, and addressed Mrs.
