Poor Miss Finch, Wilkie Collins [the little red hen read aloud TXT] 📗

I HAVE thus far quite inadvertently omitted to mention one of the prominent virtues of Reverend Finch. He was an accomplished master of that particular form of human persecution which is called reading aloud; and he inflicted his accomplishment on his family circle at every available opportunity. Of what we suffered on these occasions, I shall say nothing. Let it be enough to mention that the rector thoroughly enjoyed the pleasure of hearing his own magnificent voice.

There was no escaping Mr. Finch when the rage for “reading” seized on him. Now on one pretense, and now on another, he descended on us unfortunate women, book in hand; seated us at one end of the room; placed himself at the other; opened his dreadful mouth; and fired words at us, like shots at a target, by the hour together. Sometimes he gave us poetical readings from Shakespeare or Milton; and sometimes Parliamentary speeches by Burke or Sheridan. Read what he might, he made such a noise and such a fuss over it; he put his own individuality so prominently in the foremost place, and he kept the poets or the orators whom he was supposed to be interpreting so far in the back ground, that they lost every trace of character of their own, and became one and all perfectly intolerable reflections of Mr. Finch. I date my first unhappy doubts of the supreme excellence of Shakespeare’s poetry from the rector’s readings; and I attribute to the same exasperating cause my implacable hostility (on every question of the time) to the policy of Mr. Burke. On the evening when Nugent Dubourg was expected at Browndown—and when we particularly wanted to be left alone to dress ourselves, and to gossip by anticipation about the expected visitor—Mr. Finch was seized with one of his periodical rages for firing off words at his family, after tea. He selected Hamlet as the medium for exhibiting his voice, on this occasion; and he declared, as the principal motive for taking his elocutionary exercise, that the object he especially had in view was the benefit of poor Me!

“My good creature, I accidentally heard you reading to Lucilla, the other day. It was very nice, as far as it went—very nice indeed. But you will allow me—as a person, Madame Pratolungo, possessing considerable practice in the art of reading aloud—to observe that you might be benefited by a hint or two. I will give you a few ideas. (Mrs. Finch! I propose giving Madame Pratolungo a few ideas.) Pay particular attention, if you please, to the Pauses, and to the management of the Voice at the end of the lines. Lucilla, my child, you are interested in this. The perfecting of Madame Pratolungo is a matter of considerable importance to you. Don’t go away.”

Lucilla and I happened, on that evening, to be guests at the rectory table. It was one of the regular occasions on which we left our own side of the house, and joined the family at (what Mr. Finch called) “the pastor’s evening meal.” He had got his wife; he had got his eldest daughter; he had got your humble servant. A horrid smile of enjoyment overspread the reverend gentleman’s face, as he surveyed us from the opposite end of the room, and opened his vocal fire on his audience of three.

“Hamlet: Act the First; Scene the First. Elsinore. A Platform before the Castle. Francisco on his post” (Mr. Finch). “Enter to him Bernardo” (Mr. Finch). “Who’s there?” “Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself.” (Mrs. Finch unfolds herself—she suckles the baby, and tries to look as if she was having an intellectual treat.) “Francisco and Bernardo converse in bass—Boom-boom-boom. Enter Horatio and Marcellus” (Mr. Finch and Mr. Finch.) “Stand! Who’s there?” “Friends to this ground.” “And liegemen to the Dane.” (Madame Pratolungo begins to feel the elocutionary exposition of Shakespeare, where she always feels it, in her legs. She tries to sit still on her chair. Useless! She is suffering under the malady known to her by bitter experience of Mr. Finch, as the Hamlet-Fidgets.) Bernardo and Franciso, Horatio and Marcellus, converse—Boom-boom-boom. “Enter Ghost of Hamlet’s Father.” Mr. Finch makes an awful pause. In the supernatural silence, we can hear the baby sucking. Mrs. Finch enjoys her intellectual treat. Madame Pratolungo fidgets. Lucilla catches the infection, and fidgets too. Marcellus-Finch goes on. “Thou art a scholar, speak to it, Horatio.” Bernardo-Finch backs him: “Looks it not like the King? Mark it, Horatio.” Lucilla-Finch inserts herself in the dialogue: “Papa, I am very sorry; I have had a nervous headache all day; please excuse me if I take a turn in the garden.” The rector makes another awful pause, and glares at his daughter. (Exit Lucilla.) Horatio looks at the Ghost, and takes up the dialogue: “Most like; it harrows me “—Boom-boom-boom. The baby is satiated. Mrs. Finch wants her handkerchief. Madame Pratolungo seizes the opportunity of moving her distracted legs, and finds the handkerchief. Mr. Finch pauses—glares–goes on again—reaches the second scene. “Enter the King, Queen, Hamlet, Polonius, Laertes, Voltimand, Cornelius, and Lords Attendant.” All Mr. Finch! oh, my legs! my legs! all Mr. Finch, and Boom-boom-boom. Third scene. “Enter Laertes and Ophelia.” (Both Rectors of Dimchurch; both with deep bass voices; both about five feet high, pitted with the small-pox, and adorned round the neck with dingy white cravats.) Mr. Finch goes on and on and on. Mrs. Finch and the baby simultaneously close their eyes in slumber. Madame Pratolungo suffers such tortures of restlessness in her lower limbs, that she longs for a skilled surgeon to take out his knife and deliver her from her own legs. Mr. Finch advances in deeper and deeper bass, in keener and keener enjoyment, to the Fourth Scene. (“Enter Hamlet, Horatio, and Marcellus.”) Mercy! what do I hear? Is relief approaching to us from the world outside? Are there footsteps in the hall? Yes! Mrs. Finch opens her eyes; 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