"Hush!" he said. "Don"t let Lucilla hear you. Come down to me as soon as you can. I am waiting to speak to you."
When I joined him in the garden, I saw directly that something had gone wrong.
"Bad news from Browndown?" I asked.
"Nugent has disappointed me," he answered. "Do you remember the evening when you met me after my consultation with Mr. Sebright?"
"Perfectly."
"I told you that I meant to ask Nugent to leave Dimchurch, on the day when Lucilla tried her sight for the first time."
"Well?"
"Well--he refuses to leave Dimchurch."
"Have you explained your motives to him?"
"Carefully--before I asked him to go. I told him how impossible it was to say what might happen. I reminded him that it might be of the utmost importance to me to preserve the impression now in Lucilla"s mind--for a certain time only--after Lucilla could see. I promised, the moment she became reconciled to the sight of me, to recall him, and in his presence to tell her the truth. All that I said to him--and how do you think he answered me?"
"Did he positively refuse?"
"No. He walked away from me to the window, and considered a little. Then he turned round suddenly and said "What did you tell me was Mr.
Sebright"s opinion? Mr. Sebright thought she would be relieved instead of being terrified. In that case, what need is there for me to go away? You can acknowledge at once that she has seen your face, and not mine?" He put his hands in his pockets when he had said that (you know Nugent"s downright way)--and turned back to the window as if he had settled everything."
"What did you say, on your side?"
"I said, "Suppose Mr. Sebright is wrong?" He only answered, "Suppose Mr.
Sebright is right?" I followed him to the window--I never heard him speak so sourly to me as he spoke at that moment. "What is your objection to going away for a day or two?" I asked. "My objection is soon stated," he answered. "I am sick of these everlasting complications. It is useless and cruel to carry on the deception any longer. Mr. Sebright"s advice is the wise advice and the right advice. Let her see you as you are." With that answer, he walked out of the room. Something has upset him--I can"t imagine what it is. Do pray see what you can make of him! My only hope is in you."
I own I felt reluctant to interfere. Suddenly and strangely as Nugent had altered his point of view, it seemed to me undeniable that Nugent was right. At the same time, Oscar looked so disappointed and distressed, that it was really impossible, on that day above all others, to pain him additionally by roundly saying No. I undertook to do what I could--and I inwardly hoped that circ.u.mstances would absolve me from the necessity of doing anything at all.
Circ.u.mstances failed to justify my selfish confidence in them.
I was out in the village, after breakfast, on a domestic errand connected with the necessary culinary preparations for the reception of Herr Grosse--when I heard my name p.r.o.nounced behind me, and, turning round, found myself face to face with Nugent.
"Has my brother been bothering you this morning," he asked, "before I was up?"
I instantly noticed a return in him, as he said that, to the same dogged ungracious manner which had perplexed and displeased me at my last confidential interview with him in the rectory garden.
"Oscar has been speaking to me this morning," I replied.
"About me?"
"About you. You have distressed and disappointed him----"
"I know! I know! Oscar is worse than a child. I am beginning to lose all patience with him."
"I am sorry to hear you say that, Nugent. You have borne with him so kindly thus far--surely you can make allowances for him to-day? His whole future may depend on what happens in Lucilla"s sitting-room a few hours hence."
"He is making a mountain out of a mole-hill--and so are you."
Those words were spoken bitterly--almost rudely. I answered sharply on my side.
"You are the last person living who has any right to say that. Oscar is in a false position towards Lucilla, with your knowledge and consent. In your brother"s interests, you agreed to the fraud that has been practiced on her. In your brother"s interests, again, you are asked to leave Dimchurch. Why do you refuse?"
"I refuse, because I have come round to your way of thinking. What did you say of Oscar and of me, in the summer-house? You said we were taking a cruel advantage of Lucilla"s blindness. You were right. It was cruel not to have told her the truth. I won"t be a party to concealing the truth from her any longer! I refuse to persist in deceiving her--in meanly deceiving her--on the day when she recovers her sight!"
It is entirely beyond my power to describe the tone in which he made that reply. I can only declare that it struck me dumb for the moment. I drew a step nearer to him. With vague misgivings in me, I looked him searchingly in the face. He looked back at me, without shrinking.
"Well?" he asked--with a hard smile which defied me to put him in the wrong.
I could discover nothing in his face--I could only follow my instincts as a woman. Those instincts warned me to accept his explanation.
"I am to understand then that you have decided on staying here?" I said.
"Certainly!"
"What do you propose to do, when Herr Grosse arrives, and we a.s.semble in Lucilla"s room?"
"I propose to be present among the rest of you, at the most interesting moment of Lucilla"s life."
"No! you don"t propose that!"
"I do!"
"You have forgotten something, Mr. Nugent Dubourg."
"What is it, Madame Pratolungo?"
"You have forgotten that Lucilla believes the brother with the discolored face to be You, and the brother with the fair complexion to be Oscar. You have forgotten that the surgeon has expressly forbidden us to agitate her by entering into any explanations before he allows her to use her eyes.
You have forgotten that the very deception which you have just positively refused to go on with, will be nevertheless a deception continued, if you are present when Lucilla sees. Your own resolution pledges you not to enter the rectory doors until Lucilla has discovered the truth." In those words I closed the vice on him. I had got Mr. Nugent Dubourg!
He turned deadly pale. His eyes dropped before mine for the first time.
"Thank you for reminding me," he said. "I _had_ forgotten."
He p.r.o.nounced those submissive words in a suddenly-lowered voice.
Something in his tone, or something in the dropping of his eyes, set my heart beating quickly, with a certain vague expectation which I was unable to realize to myself.
"You agree with me," I said, "that you cannot be one amongst us at the rectory? What will you do?"
"I will remain at Browndown," he answered.
I felt he was lying. Don"t ask for my reasons: I have no reasons to give.
When he said "I will remain at Browndown," I felt he was lying.
"Why not do what Oscar asks of you?" I went on. "If you are absent, you may as well be in one place as in another. There is plenty of time still to leave Dimchurch."