"Sleep as much as you can. I am giving you gentle opiates. When you can sleep no longer, let Mrs. Shelfer talk or read to you, and have a little music. I will lend you my musical box, which plays twenty-four tunes: have it in the next room, not to be too loud. And then play on the musical gla.s.ses, not too long at a time: you will soon find out how to do that in the dark."
He most kindly sent us both the boxes that very day; and many a weary hour they lightened of its load. Poor Isola came every day to inquire, and several times she had her brother with her. She made an entire conquest of Mrs. Shelfer, who even gave her a choice canary bird. I was never tired of hearing the little woman"s description of her beauty, and her visit to the kitchen formed the chief event of the day. Mrs.
Shelfer (who had Irish blood in her veins) used to declare that the ground was not good enough for them to walk on.
"Such a pair, Miss! To see her so light, and soft, and loving, tripping along, and such eyes and such fur; and him walking so straight, and brave, and n.o.ble. I am sure you"d go a mile, Miss, to see him walk."
"You forget, Mrs. Shelfer, I may never enjoy that pleasure."
"No, no. Quite true, my good friend. But then we may, all the same."
Exactly so. There lay all the difference to me, but none to any other.
This set me moralising in my shallow way, a thing by no means natural to me, who was so concentrated and subjective. But loss of sight had done me good, had turned the mind"s eye inward into the darkness of myself.
I think the blind, as a general rule, are less narrow-minded than those endowed with sight. Less inclined, I mean, to judge their neighbours harshly, less arrogant in exacting that every pulse keep time with their own. If eyes are but the c.h.i.n.ks through which we focus on our brain censoriousness and bigotry, if rays of light are shafts and lances of ill will; then better is it to have no crystalline lens. Far better to be blind, than print the world-distorted puppets of myself. I, that smallest speck of dust, blown upon the sh.o.r.e of time, blown off when my puff shall come; a speck ignored by moon and stars; too small (however my ambition leap) for earth to itch, whate"er I suck; and yet a speck that is a mountain in the telescope of G.o.d; shall I never learn that His is my only magnitude; shall I wriggle to be all in all to my own corpuscle?
CHAPTER IV.
Is there any Mocha stone, fortification agate, or Scotch pebble, with half the veins and mottlings, angles, flux and reflux, that chequer one minute of the human mind? Was ever machine invented to throw so many shuttles?
At present I am gauged for little threads of thought--two minutes since, the smallest thing I could think of was myself. Now it is the largest.
Must I grope from room to room, shall I never be sure where the table is, where my teacup stands; never read, or write, or draw; never tell when my hands are clean, except by smelling soap; never know (though small the difference) how my dress becomes me, or when my hair is right; never see my own sad face, in which I have been fool enough to glory, never--and this is worst of all--never catch another"s smile?
Here am I, a full-grown girl, full of maiden"s thoughts and wonderings, knowing well that I am shaped so but to be a link in life; must I never think of loving or of being loved, except with love like Isola"s; sweet affection, very sweet; but white sugar only?
When my work is over, and my object gained, when my father"s spirit knows the wrong redeemed, as a child I used to think I would lay me down and die. But since I came to woman"s fulness, since I ceased to look at men and they began to look at me, some soft change, I know not what, has come across my dream.
Is my purpose altered? Is my tenor broken? Not a whit of either.
Rather are they stronger set and better led, as my heart and brain enlarge. Yet I see beyond it all, a thing I never used to see, a glow above the peaks of hate, a possibility of home. "Saw" I should have said, for now what have I to do with seeing?
On the fourteenth morning, I had given up all hope. They told me it was bright and sunny; for I always asked about the weather, and felt most cruelly depressed upon a sunny day. By this time I had learned to dress without Mrs. Shelfer"s aid. Still, from force of habit I went to the gla.s.s to do my hair, and still drew back, as far as was allowed, the window curtain.
Off with my wet bandage, I am sick of it; let me try no longer to delude myself.
Suddenly a gleam of light, I am sure of it; faint indeed, and like a Will of the Wisp; but I am quite sure it was a gleam of light. I go nearer the window and try again. No, there is no more for the present, it was the sudden change produced it. Never mind; I know what I have seen, a thing that came and cheated me in dreams; this time it has not cheated me; it was a genuine twinkle of the sun.
I can do nothing more. I cannot put another st.i.tch upon me. I am thrilling with the sun, like Memnon. I fall upon my knees, and thank the Father of light.
When the Doctor came that day, and looked into my eyes, he saw a decided change.
"Miss Valence, the crisis is over. With all my heart I congratulate you. Another fortnight, and you will see better than ever."
I laughed, and wept, and, blind as I was, could hardly keep from dancing. Then I wanted to kiss the Doctor, but hearing Mrs. Shelfer"s step, made a reckless jump and had it out upon her.
"Bless me, why bless me, my good soul, if I was a young gentleman now--"
"Why, Miss Valence, I am perfectly astonished," said Doctor Franks, but I knew he was laughing; "if I had been requested, only two minutes ago, to pick out the most self-possessed, equable, and courageous young lady in London, I should have said, "I don"t want any looking, I know where to find her," but now, upon my word--"
"If you are asked to point out the most delighted, grateful, and happy girl in London, you know where to come for her. Let me kiss you, Dr.
Franks, only once. I won"t rob your daughters. It is to you I owe it all."
"No, to Providence, and yourself, and an uncommonly good conjunctiva.
Now be prudent, my dear child; a little ecstasy must be forgiven; but don"t imperil your cure by over-excitement. It is, as I hoped it would be, a case of epiphytic sloughing" (I think that was what he said), "and it may become chronic if precipitated. The longer and more thorough the process, the less chance of recurrence."
"Oh I am satisfied with one eye, or half an eye. Can you promise me that?"
"If you will only follow my directions, I can promise you both eyes, more brilliant than ever; and Mrs. Shelfer says they were wonderfully bright. But what I order must be done. Slow and sure."
He gave me short directions, all upon the same principle, that of graduation.
"And now, Miss Valence, good-bye. Henceforth I visit you only as a friend; in which I know you will indulge me, from the interest I feel in the case, and in yourself. Mrs. Shelfer"s wonderful young lady may be admitted on Thursday; but don"t let her look at your eyes. Girls are always inquisitive. If there is any young gentleman, lucky enough to explain your strange anxiety to see, you will make short work of him, when your sight returns. Your eyes will be the most brilliant in London; which is saying a great deal. But I fear he will hardly know you, till your lashes grow; and all your face and expression are altered for the time."
"One thing will never alter, though it can find no expression, my grat.i.tude to you."
"That is very pretty of you, my dear child. You kissed me just now.
Now let me kiss you."
He touched my forehead and was gone. He was the first true gentleman I had met with, since the loss of Farmer Huxtable.
CHAPTER V.
When Isola came on the Thursday, and I obtained some little glimpse of her, she expressed her joy in a thousand natural ways, well worth feeling and seeing, not at all worth telling. I loved her for them more and more. I never met a girl so warm of heart. Many women can sulk for days; most women can sulk for an hour; I believe that no provocation could have made Isola sulky for two minutes. She tried sometimes (at least she said so), but it was no good.
And yet she felt as keenly as any of the very sulkiest women can do; but she had too much warmth of heart and imagination to live in the folds of that cold-blooded snake. Neither had she the strong selfishness, on which that serpent feeds.
In the afternoon, as we still sat together, in rushed Mrs. Shelfer with her bonnet on, quite out of breath, and without her usual ceremony of knocking at the door. I could not think where she had been all the day; and she had made the greatest mystery of it in the morning, and wanted to have it noticed. Up she ran to me now, and pushed Isola out of the way.
"Got "em at last, Miss. Got "em at last, and no mistake. No more Dr.
Franks, nor bandages, nor curtains down, nor nothing. Save a deal of trouble and do it in no time. But what a job I had to get them to be sure; if the cook"s mate hadn"t knowed Charley, they would not have let me had "em, after going all the way to Wapping." She holds up something in triumph.
"What is it, Mrs. Shelfer? I am sorry to say I cannot see."
"And right down glad of it, I am, my good friend. Yes, yes. Or I should have had all my journey for nothing. But Miss Idols knows, I"ll be bound she does, or it"s no good going to College."
"Let me look at it first," says Isola, "we learn almost everything at college, Mrs. Shelfer; but even we senior sophists don"t know every thing without seeing it yet."
"Then put your pretty eyes on them, Miss Idols; I"ll be bound it will make them caper. I never see such fine ones, nor the cook"s mate either. Why they"re as big as young whelks."
"Mollusca, or Crustacea, or something!" exclaims Isola, with more pride than accuracy, "what queer little things. I must take them to my papa."
"Now, young ladies," cried Mrs. Shelfer in her grandest style, "I see I must explain them to you after all. Them"s the blessed sh.e.l.ls the poor sailors put in their eyes to scour them out, and keep them bright, and make them see in the dark against the wind. Only see how they crawls.
There now, Miss Valence, I"ll pick you out two big lively fellows, and pop one for you in the corner of each eye; the cook"s mate showed me how to lift your eyelids."