Mr. Finch looked at his letter. All those pages of eloquence written for nothing? No! In the nature of things, _that_ could not possibly be. "You have done very well, Madame Pratolungo," he remarked, in his most patronizing manner. "Very well indeed, all things considered. _But,_ I don"t think I shall act wisely if I destroy this." He carefully locked up his ma.n.u.script, and turned to me again with a mysterious smile. "I venture to think," said Mr. Finch with mock humility, "My Letter will be wanted. Don"t let me discourage you about Nugent Dubourg. Only let me say:--Is he to be trusted?"
It was said by a fool: it would never have been said at all, if he had not written his wonderful letter. Still, it echoed, with a painful fidelity, the misgiving secretly present at that moment in my own mind--and, more yet, it echoed the misgiving in Nugent"s mind, the doubt of himself which his own lips had confessed to me in so many words. I wished the rector good night, and went upstairs.
Lucilla was in bed and asleep, when I softly opened her door.
After looking for awhile at her lovely peaceful face, I was obliged to turn away. It was time I left the bedside, when the sight of her only made my spirits sink lower and lower. As I cast my last look at her before I closed the door, Mr. Finch"s ominous question forced itself on me again. In spite of myself, I said to myself--
"Is he to be trusted?"
CHAPTER THE THIRTY-NINTH
She Learns to See
WITH the new morning, certain reflections found their way into my mind which were not of the most welcome sort. There was one serious element of embarra.s.sment in my position towards Lucilla, which had not discovered itself to me when Nugent and I parted at the rectory gate.
Browndown was now empty. In the absence of both the brothers, what was I to say to Lucilla when the false Oscar failed to pay her his promised visit that day?
In what a labyrinth of lies had the first fatal suppression of the truth involved us all! One deception after another had been forced on us; one disaster after another had followed retributively as the result--and, now that I was left to deal single-handed with the hard necessities of our position, no choice seemed left to me but to go on deceiving Lucilla still! I was weary of it and ashamed of it. At breakfast-time, I evaded all further discussion of the subject, after I had first ascertained that Lucilla did not expect her visitor before the afternoon. For some time after breakfast, I kept her at the piano. When she wearied of music, and began to talk of Oscar once more, I put on my hat, and set forth on a domestic errand (of the kind usually entrusted to Zillah), solely for the purpose of keeping out of the way, and putting off to the last moment the hateful necessity of telling more lies. The weather stood my friend. It threatened to rain; and Lucilla, on that account, refrained from proposing to accompany me.
My errand took me to a farm-house on the road which led to Brighton.
After settling my business, I prolonged my walk, though the rain was already beginning to fall. I had nothing on me that would spoil; and, in my present frame of mind, a wet gown was a preferable alternative to returning to the rectory.
After I had walked about a mile further on, the solitude of the road was enlivened by the appearance of an open carriage approaching me from the direction of Brighton. The hood was up to protect the person inside from the rain. The person looked out as I pa.s.sed, and stopped the carriage in a voice which I instantly recognized as the voice of Grosse. Our gallant oculist insisted (in the state of the weather) on my instantly taking shelter by his side and returning with him to the house.
"This is an unexpected pleasure," I said. "I thought you had arranged not to see Lucilla again till the end of the week."
Grosse"s eyes glared at me through his spectacles with a dignity and gravity worthy of Mr. Finch himself.
"Shall I tell you something?" he said. "You see sitting at your side a lost surgeon-optic. I shall die soon. Put on my tombs, if you please, The malady which killed this German mans was--Lofely Feench. When I am away from her--gif me your sympathies: I so much want it--I sweat with anxiousness for young Miss. Your d.a.m.n-mess-fix about those two brodders is a sort of perpetual blisters on my mind. Instead of snoring peaceably all night in my nice big English beds, I roll wide awake on my pillows, fidgeting for Feench. I am here to-day before my time. For what? For to try her eyes--you think? Goot Madam, you think wrong! It is not her eyes which troubles me. Her eyes will do. It is You--and the odders at your rectory-place. You make me nervous-anxious about my patients. I am afraid some of you will let the mess-fix of those brodder-twins find its way to her pretty ears, and turn her poor little mind topsy-turvies when I am not near to see to it in time. Will you let her be comfortable-easy for two months more? Ach Gott! if I could only be certain-sure of _that,_ I might leave those weak new eyes of hers to cure themselves, and go my ways back to London again."
I had intended to remonstrate with him pretty sharply for taking Lucilla to Browndown. After what he had now said, it was useless to attempt anything of that sort--and doubly useless to hope that he would let me extricate myself from my difficulties by letting me tell her the truth.
"Of course you are the best judge," I said. "But you little know what these precautions of yours cost the unfortunate people who are left to carry them out."
He took me up sharply at those words.
"You shall judge for yourself," he said, "if it is not worth the cost. If her eyes satisfy me--Feench shall learn to see to-day. You shall stand by, you obstinate womans, and judge if it is goot to add shock and agitation to the exhaustions and irritabilities and bedevilments of all sorts which our poor Miss must suffer in learning to see, after being blind for all her life. No more of it now, till we get to the rectory-place." By way of changing the subject for the present, he put a question to me which I felt it necessary to answer with some caution.
"How is my nice boys?--my bright-clever Nugent?" he asked.
"Very well."
There I stopped, not feeling at all sure of the ground I was treading on.
"Mind this!" Grosse went on. "My bright-boy-Nugent keeps her comfortable-easy. My bright-boy-Nugent is worth all the rest of you togedder. I insist on his making his visits to young Miss at the rectory-place, in spite of that windy-talky-puff-bag-Feench-father of hers. I say positively--Nugent shall come into the house."
There was no help for it now. I was obliged to tell him that Nugent had left Browndown, and that I was the person who had sent him away.
For a moment, I was really in doubt whether the skilled hand of the great surgeon would not be ign.o.bly employed in boxing my ears. No perversion of spelling can possibly report the complicated German-English jargon in which his fury poured itself out on my devoted head. Let it be enough to say that he declared Nugent"s abominable personation of his brother to be vitally important--so long as Oscar was absent--to his successful treatment of the sensitive and excitable patient whom we had placed under his care. I vainly a.s.sured him that Nugent"s object in leaving Dimchurch was to set matters right again by bringing his brother back. Grosse flatly declined to allow himself to be influenced by any speculative consideration of that sort. He said (and swore) that my meddling had raised a serious obstacle in his way, and that nothing but his own tender regard for Lucilla prevented him from "turning the coachmans back," and leaving us henceforth to shift for ourselves.
When we reached the rectory gate, he had cooled a little. As we crossed the garden, he reminded me that I stood pledged to be present when the bandage was taken off.
"Now mind!" he said. "You are going to see, if it is goot or bad to tell her that she has had those nice white arms of hers round the wrong brodder. You are going to tell me afterwards, if you dare say to her, in plain English words, "Blue-Face is the man.""
We found Lucilla in the sitting-room. Grosse briefly informed her that he had nothing particular to occupy him in London, and that he had advanced the date of his visit on that account. "You want something to do, my lofe, on this soaky-rainy day. Show Papa-Grosse what you can do with your eyes, now you have got them back again." With those words, he unfastened the bandage, and, taking her by the chin, examined her eyes--first without his magnifying gla.s.s; then with it.
"Am I going on well?" she asked anxiously.
"Famous-well! You go on (as my goot friends say in America) first-cla.s.s.
Now use your eyes for yourself. Gif one lofing look to Grosse first.
Then--see! see! see!"
There was no mistaking the tone in which he spoke to her.
He was not only satisfied about her eyes--he was triumphant. "Soh!" he grunted, turning to me. "Why is Mr. Sebrights not here to look at this?"
I eagerly approached Lucilla. There was still a little dimness left in her eyes. I noticed also that they moved to and fro restlessly, and (at times) wildly. But, oh, the bright change in her! the new life of beauty which the new sense had bestowed on her already! Her smile, always charming, now caught light from her lips, and spread its gentle fascination over all her face. It was impossible not to long to kiss her.
I advanced to congratulate, to embrace her. Grosse stepped forward, and checked me.
"No," he said. "Walk your ways to the odder end of the rooms--and let us see if _she_ can go to _you._"
Like all other people, knowing no more of the subject than I knew, I had no idea of the pitiably helpless manner in which the restored sense of sight struggles to a.s.sert itself, in persons who have been blind for life. In such cases, the effort of the eyes that are first learning to see, is like the effort of the limbs when a child is first learning to walk. But for Grosse"s odd way of taking it, the scene which I was now to witness would have been painful in the last degree. My poor Lucilla--instead of filling me with joy, as I had antic.i.p.ated--would I really believe have wrung my heart, and have made me burst out crying.
"Now!" said Grosse, laying one hand on Lucilla"s arm, while he pointed to me with the other. "There she stands. Can you go to her?"
"Of course I can!"
"I lay you a bet-wager you can _not!_ Ten thausand pounds to six pennies.
Done-done. Now try!"
She answered by a little gesture of defiance, and took three hasty steps forward. Bewildered and frightened, she stopped suddenly at the third step--before she had advanced half the way from her end of the room to mine.
"I saw her here," she said, pointing down to the spot on which she was standing; and appealing piteously to Grosse. "I see her now--and I don"t know where she is! She is so near, I feel as if she touched my eyes--and yet" (she advanced another step, and clutched with her hands at the empty air)--"and yet, I can"t get near enough to take hold of her. Oh! what does it mean? what does it mean?"
"It means--pay me my six pennies!" said Grosse. "The wager-bet is mine!"
She resented his laughing at her, with an obstinate shake of her head, and an angry knitting of her pretty eyebrows.
"Wait a little," she said. "You shan"t win quite so easily as that. I will get to her yet!"
She came straight to me in a moment--just as easily as I could have gone to her myself if I had tried.
"Another wager-bet!" cried Grosse, still standing behind her, and calling to me. "Twenty thousand pounds this time to a fourpennies-bit.
_She has shut her eyes to get to you._ Hey!"
It was true--she had blindfolded herself! With her eyes closed, she could measure to a hair"s breadth the distance which, with her eyes opened, she was perfectly incompetent to calculate! Detected by both of us, she sat down, poor dear, with a sigh of despair. "Was it worth while," she said to me sadly, "to go through the operation for _this?_"