Chapter THE TENTH: First Appearance of Jicks (7)

"Then why you ask me if you are blind for life? If you can see as much as that, you are not properly blind at all?"

She clasped her hands, with a low cry of delight. "Oh, where is Oscar?" she said softly. "Where is Oscar?" I looked round for him. He was gone. While his brother and I had been hanging spell-bound over the surgeon's questions and the patient's answers, he must have stolen silently out of the room.

Herr Grosse rose, and vacated the chair in favor of Mr. Sebright. In the ecstasy of the new hope now confirmed in her, Lucilla seemed to be unconscious of the presence of the English oculist, when he took his colleague's place. His grave face looked more serious than ever, as he too produced a magnifying glass from his pocket, and, gently parting the patient's eyelids, entered on the examination of her blindness, in his turn.

The investigation by Mr. Sebright lasted a much longer time than the investigation by Herr Grosse. He pursued it in perfect silence. When he had done he rose without a word, and left Lucilla as he had found her, rapt in the trance of her own happiness--thinking, thinking, thinking of the time when she should open her eyes in the new morning, and see!

"Well?" said Nugent, impatiently addressing Mr. Sebright. "What do you say?"

"I say nothing yet." With that implied reproof to Nugent, he turned to me. "I understand that Miss Finch was blind--or as nearly blind as could be discovered--at a year old?"

"I have always heard so," I replied.

"Is there any person in the house--parent, or relative, or servant--who can speak to the symptoms noticed when she was an infant?"

I rang the bell for Zillah. "Her mother is dead," I said. "And there are reasons which prevent her father from being present to-day. Her old nurse will be able to give you all the information you want."

Zillah appeared. Mr. Sebright put his questions.

"Were you in the house when Miss Finch was born?"

"Yes, sir."

"Was there anything wrong with her eyes at her birth, or soon afterwards?"

"Nothing, sir."

"How did you know?"

"I knew by seeing her take notice, sir. She used to stare at the candles, and clutch at things that were held before her, as other babies do."

"How did you discover it, when she began to get blind?"

"In the same way, sir. There came a time, poor little thing, when her eyes looked glazed-like, and try her as we might, morning or evening, it was all the same--she noticed nothing."

"Did the blindness come on gradually?"

"Yes, sir--bit by bit, as you may say. Slowly worse and worse one week after another. She was a little better than a year old before we clearly made it out that her sight was gone."

"Was her father's sight, or her mother's sight ever affected in any way?"

"Never, sir, that I heard of."

Mr. Sebright turned to Herr Grosse, sitting at the luncheon-table resignedly contemplating the Mayonnaise. "Do you wish to ask the nurse any questions?" he said.

Herr Grosse shrugged his shoulders, and pointed backwards with his thumb at the place in which Lucilla was sitting.

"Her case is as plain to me as twos and twos make fours. Ach Gott! what do I want with the nurse?" He turned again longingly towards the Mayonnaise. "My fine appetites is going! When shall we lonch?"

Mr. Sebright dismissed Zillah with a frigid inclination of the head. His discouraging manner made me begin to feel a little uneasy. I ventured to ask if he had arrived at a conclusion yet. "Permit me to consult with my colleague before I answer you," said the impenetrable man. I roused Lucilla. She again inquired for Oscar. I said I supposed we should find him in the garden--and so took her out. Nugent followed us. I heard Herr Grosse whisper to him piteously, as we passed the luncheon-table, "For the lofe of Heaven, come back soon, and let us lonch!" We left the ill-assorted pair to their consultation in the sitting-room.

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-FIRST

"Who Shall Decide when Doctors disagree?"

WE had certainly not been more than ten minutes in the garden, when we were startled by an extraordinary outbreak of shouting in broken English, proceeding from the window of the sitting-room. "Hi-hi-hoi! hoi-hi! hoi-hi!" We looked up, and discovered Herr Grosse, frantically waving a huge red silk handkerchief at the window. "Lonch! lonch!" cried the German surgeon. "The consultations is done. Come begin-begin."

Obedient to this peremptory summons, Lucilla, Nugent, and I returned to the sitting-room. We had, as I had foreseen, found Oscar wandering alone in the garden. He had entreated me, by a sign, not to reveal our discovery of him to Lucilla, and had hurried away to hide himself in one of the side-walks. His agitation was pitiable to see. He was totally unfit to be trusted in Lucilla's presence at that anxious moment.

When we had left the oculists together, I had sent Zillah with a little written message to Reverend Finch; entreating him (if it was only for form's sake) to reconsider his resolution, and be present on the all-important occasion to his daughter of the delivery of the medical opinions on her case. At the bottom of the stairs (on our return), my answer was handed to me on a slip of sermon-paper. "Mr. Finch declined to submit a question of principle to any considerations dictated by mere expediency. He desired seriously to remind Madame Pratolungo of what he had already told her. In other words, he would repeat, and he would beg her to remember this time, that his Foot was down."

On re-entering the room, we found the eminent oculists seated as far apart as possible one from the other. Both gentlemen were engaged in reading. Mr. Sebright was reading a book. Herr Grosse was reading the Mayonnaise.

I placed Lucilla close by me, and took her hand. It was as cold as ice. My poor dear trembled pitiably. For her, what moments of unutterable suffering were those moments of suspense, before the surgeons delivered their sentence! I pressed her little cold hand in mine, and whispered "Courage!" Truly I can say it (though I am not usually one of the sentimental sort), my heart bled for her.

"Well, gentlemen," said Nugent, "what is the result? Are you both agreed?"

"No," said Mr. Sebright, putting aside his book.

"No," said Herr Grosse, ogling the Mayonnaise. Lucilla turned her face towards me; her color shifting and changing, her bosom rising and falling more and more rapidly. I whispered to her to compose herself. "One of them, at any rate," I said, "thinks you will recover your sight." She understood me, and became quieter directly. Nugent went on with his questions, addressed to the two oculists.

"What do you differ about?" he asked. "Will you let us hear your opinions?"

The wearisome contest of courtesy was renewed between our medical advisers. Mr. Sebright bowed to Herr Grosse:

"You first." Herr Grosse bowed to Mr. Sebright: "No--you!" My impatience broke through this cruel and ridiculous professional restraint. "Speak both together, gentlemen, if you like!" I said sharply. "Do anything, for God's sake, but keep us in suspense. Is it, or is it not, possible to restore her sight?"

"Yes," said Herr Grosse.

Lucilla sprang to her feet, with a cry of joy.

"No," said Mr. Sebright.

Lucilla dropped back again into her chair, and silently laid her head on my shoulder.

"Are you agreed about the cause of her blindness?" asked Nugent.

"Cataracts is the cause," answered Herr Grosse.

"So far, I agree," said Mr. Sebright. "Cataract is the cause.

"Cataracts is curable," pursued the German.

"I agree again," continued the Englishman--"with a reservation. Cataract is _sometimes_ curable."

"This cataracts is curable!" cried Herr Grosse.

"With all possible deference," said Mr. Sebright, "I dispute that conclusion. The cataract, in Miss Finch's case, is _not_ curable."

"Can you give us your reasons, sir, for saying that?" I inquired.

"My reasons are based on surgical considerations which it requires a professional training to understand," Mr. Sebright replied. "I can only tell you that I am convinced--after the most minute and careful examination--that Miss Finch's sight is irrevocably gone. Any attempt to restore it by an operation, would be, in my opinion, an unwarrantable proceeding. The young lady would not only have the operation to undergo, she would be kept secluded afterwards, for at least six weeks or two months, in a darkened room. During that time, it is needless for me to remind you that she would inevitably form the most confident hope of her restoration to sight. Remembering this, and believing as I do that the sacrifice demanded of her would end in failure, I think it most undesirable to expose our patient to the moral consequences of a disappointment which must seriously try her. She has been resigned from childhood to her blindness. As an honest man, who feels bound to speak out and to speak strongly, I advise you not further to disturb that resignation. I declare it to be, in my opinion, certainly useless, and possibly dangerous, to allow her to be operated on for the restoration of her sight."

In those uncompromising words, the Englishman delivered his opinion.

Lucilla's hand closed fast on mine. "Cruel! cruel!" she whispered to herself angrily. I gave her a little squeeze, recommending patience--and looked in silent expectation (just as Nugent was looking too) at Herr Grosse. The German rose deliberately to his feet, and waddled to the place in which Lucilla and I were sitting together.

"Has goot Mr. Sebrights done?" he asked.

Mr. Sebright only replied by his everlasting never-changing bow.

"Goot! I have now my own word to put in," said Herr Grosse. "It shall be one little word--no more. With my best compliments to Mr. Sebrights, I set up against what he only thinks, what I--Grosse--with these hands of mine have done. The cataracts of Miss there, is a cataracts that I have cut into before, a cataracts that I have cured before. Now look!" He suddenly wheeled round to Lucilla, tucked up his cuffs, laid a forefinger of each hand on either side of her forehead, and softly turned down her eyelids with his two big thumbs. "I pledge you my word as surgeon-optic," he resumed, "my knife shall let the light in here. This lofable-nice girls shall be more lofable-nicer than ever. My pretty Feench must be first in her best goot health. She must next gif me my own ways with her--and then one, two, three--ping! my pretty Feench shall see!" He lifted Lucilla's eyelids again as he said the last word--glared fiercely at her through his spectacles--gave her the loudest kiss, on the forehead, that I ever heard given in my life--laughed till the room rang again--and returned to his post as sentinel on guard over the Mayonnaise. "Now," cried Herr Grosse cheerfully, "the talkings is all done. Gott be thanked, the eatings may begin!"

Lucilla left her chair for the second time.

"Herr Grosse," she said, "where are you?"

"Here, my dears!"

She crossed the room to the table at which he was sitting, already occupied in carving his favorite dish.

"Did you say you must use a knife to make me see?" she asked quite calmly.

"Yes, yes. Don't you be frightened of that. Not much pains to bear--not much pains."

She tapped him smartly on the shoulder with her hand.

"Get up, Herr Grosse," she said. "If you have your knife about you, here am I--do it at once!"

Nugent started. Mr. Sebright started. Her daring amazed them both. As for me, I am the greatest coward living, in the matter of surgical operations performed on myself or on others. Lucilla terrified me. I ran headlong across the room to her. I was even fool enough to scream.

Before I could reach her, Herr Grosse had risen, obedient to command, with a choice morsel of chicken on the end of his fork. "You charming little fools," he said, "I don't cut into cataracts in such a hurry as that. I perform but one operations on you to-day. It is this!" He unceremoniously popped the morsel of chicken into Lucilla's mouth. "Aha! Bite him well. He is nice-goot! Now then! Sit down all of you. Lonch! lonch!"

He was irresistible. We all sat down at table.

The rest of us ate. Herr Grosse gobbled. From Mayonnaise to marmalade tart. From marmalade tart back again to Mayonnaise. From Mayonnaise, forward again to ham sandwiches and blancmange; and then back once more (on the word of an honest woman) to Mayonnaise! His drinking was on the same scale as his eating. Beer, wine, brandy--nothing came amiss to him; he mixed them all. As for the lighter elements in the feast--the almonds and raisins, the preserved ginger and the crystallized fruits, he ate them as accompaniments to everything. A dish of olives especially won his favor. He plunged both hands into it, and deposited his fists-full of olives in the pockets of his trousers. "In this ways," he explained, "I shall trouble nobody to pass the dish--I shall have by me continually all the olives that I want." When he could eat and drink no more, he rolled up his napkin into a ball, and became devoutly thankful. "How goot of Gott," he remarked, "when he invented the worlds to invent eatings and drinkings too! Ah!" sighed Herr Grosse, gently laying his outspread fingers on the pit of his stomach, "what immense happiness there is in This!"

Mr. Sebright looked at his watch.

"If there is anything more to be said on the question of the operation," he announced, "it must be said at once. We have barely five minutes more to spare. You have heard my opinion. I hold to it."

Herr Grosse took a pinch of snuff. "I also," he said, "hold to mine."

Lucilla turned towards the place from which Mr. Sebright had spoken.

"I am obliged to you, sir, for your opinion," she said, very quietly and firmly. "I am determined to try the operation. If it does fail, it will only leave me what I am now. If it succeeds, it gives me a new life. I will bear anything, and risk anything, on the chance that I may see."

So, she announced her decision. In those memorable words, she cleared the way for the coming Event in her life and in our lives, which it is the purpose of these pages to record.

Mr. Sebright answered her, in Mr. Sebright's discreet way.

"I cannot affect to be surprised at your decision," he said. "However sincerely I may regret it, I admit that it is the natural decision, in your case."

Lucilla addressed herself next to Herr Grosse.

"Choose your own day," she said. "The sooner, the better. To-morrow, if you can."

"Answer me one little thing, Miss," rejoined the German, with a sudden gravity of tone and manner which was quite new in our experience of him. "Do you mean what you say?"

She answered him gravely on her side. "I mean what I say."

"Goot. There is times, my lofe, to be funny. There is also times to be grave. It is grave-times now. I have my last word to say to you before I go."

With his wild black eyes staring through his owlish spectacles at Lucilla's face, speaking earnestly in his strange broken English, he now impressed on his patient the necessity of gravely considering, and preparing for, the operation which he had undertaken to perform.

I was greatly relieved by the tone he took with her. He spoke with authority: she would be obliged to listen to him.

In the first place, he warned Lucilla, if the operation failed, that there would be no possibility of returning to it, and trying it again. Once done, be the results what they might, it was done for good.

In the second place, before he would consent to operate, he must insist on certain conditions, essential to success, being rigidly complied with, on the part of the patient and her friends. Mr. Sebright had by no means exaggerated the length of the time of trial which would follow the operation, in the darkened room. Under no circumstances could she hope to have her eyes uncovered, even for a few moments, to the light, after a shorter interval than six weeks. During the whole of that time, and probably during another six weeks to follow, it was absolutely necessary that she should be kept in such a state of health as would assist her, constitutionally, in her gradual progress towards complete restoration of sight. If body and mind both were not preserved in their best and steadiest condition, all that his skill could do might be done in vain. Nothing to excite or to agitate her, must be allowed to find its way into the quiet daily routine of her life, until her medical attendant was satisfied that her sight was safe. The success of Herr Grosse's professional career had been due, in no small degree, to his rigid enforcement of these rules: founded on his own experience of the influence which a patient's general health, moral as well as physical, exercised on that patient's chance of profiting under an operation--more especially under an operation on an organ so delicate as the organ of sight.

Having spoken to this effect, he appealed to Lucilla's own good sense to recognize the necessity of taking time to consider her decision, and to consult on it with relatives and friends. In plain words, for at least three months the family arrangements must be so shaped, as to enable the surgeon in attendance on her to hold the absolute power of regulating her life, and of deciding on any changes introduced into it. When she and the members of her family circle were sure of being able to comply with these conditions, Lucilla had only to write to him at his hotel in London. On the next day he would undertake to be at Dimchurch. And then and there (if he was satisfied with the state of her health at the time), he would perform the operation.

After pledging himself in those terms, Herr Grosse puffed out his remaining breath in one deep guttural "Hah!"--and got briskly on his short legs. At the same moment, Zillah knocked at the door, and announced that the chaise was waiting for the two gentlemen at the rectory-gate.

Mr. Sebright rose--in some doubt, apparently, whether his colleague had done talking. "Don't let me hurry you," he said. "I have business in London; and I must positively catch the next train."

"Soh! I have my business in London, too," answered his brother-oculist--"the business of pleasure." (Mr. Sebright looked scandalized at the frankness of this confession, coming from a professional man). "I am so passion-fond of musics," Herr Grosse went on--"I want to be in goot times for the opera. Ach Gott! musics is expensive in England! I climb to the gallery, and pay my five silver shillingses even there. For five copper pences, in my own country, I can get the same thing--only better done. From the deep bottoms of my heart," proceeded this curious man, taking a cordial leave of me, "I thank you, dear madam, for the Mayonnaise. When I come again, I pray you more of that lofely dish." He turned to Lucilla, and popped his thumb on her eyelids for the last time at parting. "My sweet-Feench, remember what your surgeon-optic has said to you. I shall let the light in here--but in my own way, at my own time. Pretty lofe! Ah, how infinitely much prettier she will be, when she can see!" He took Lucilla's hand, and put it sentimentally inside the collar of his waistcoat, over the region of the heart; laying his other hand upon it as if he was keeping it warm. In this tender attitude, he blew a prodigious sigh; recovered himself, with a shake of his shock-head; winked at me through his spectacles, and waddled out after Mr. Sebright, who was already at the bottom of the stairs. Who would have guessed that this man held the key which was to open for my blind Lucilla the gates of a new life!

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-SECOND

Alas for the Marriage!

WE were left together; Nugent having accompanied the two oculists to the garden-gate.

Now that we were alone, Oscar's absence could hardly fail to attract Lucilla's attention. Just as she was referring to him in terms which made it no easy task for me to quiet her successfully, we were interrupted by the screams of the baby, ascending from the garden below. I ran to the window, and looked out.

Mrs. Finch had actually effected her desperate purpose of waylaying the two surgeons in the interests of "baby's eyes." There she was, in a skirt and a shawl--with her novel dropped in one part of the lawn, and her handkerchief in the other--pursuing the oculists on their way to the chaise. Reckless of appearances, Herr Grosse had taken to his heels. He was retreating from the screeching infant (with his fingers stuffed into his ears), as fast as his short legs would let him. Nugent was ahead of him, hurrying on to open the garden-gate. Respectable Mr. Sebright (professionally incapable of running) brought up the rear. At short intervals, Mrs. Finch, close on his heels, held up the baby for inspection. At short intervals, Mr. Sebright held up his hands in polite protest. Nugent, roaring with laughter, threw open the garden-gate. Herr Grosse rushed through the opening, and disappeared. Mr. Sebright followed Herr Grosse; and Mrs. Finch attempted to follow Mr. Sebright--when a new personage appeared on the scene. Startled in the sanctuary of his study by the noise, the rector himself strutted into the garden, and brought his wife to a sudden standstill, by inquiring in his deepest base notes, "What does this unseemly disturbance mean?"

The chaise drove off; and Nugent closed the garden-gate.

Some words, inaudible to my ears, passed between Nugent and the rector--referring, as I could only suppose, to the visit of the two departing surgeons. After awhile, Mr. Finch turned away (to all appearance offended by something which had been said to him), and addressed himself to Oscar, who now reappeared on the lawn; having evidently only waited to show himself, until the chaise drove away. The rector paternally took his arm; and, beckoning to his wife with the other hand, took Mrs. Finch's arm next. Majestically marching back to the house between the two, Reverend Finch asserted himself and his authority alternately, now to Oscar and now to his wife. His big booming voice reached my ears distinctly, accompanied in sharp discord by the last wailings of the exhausted child.

In these terrible words the Pope of Dimchurch began:--"Oscar! you are to understand distinctly, if you please, that I maintain my protest against this impious attempt to meddle with my afflicted daughter's sight.--Mrs. Finch! _you_ are to understand that I excuse your unseemly pursuit of two strange surgeons, in consideration of the state that I find you in at this moment. After your last confinement but eight you became, I remember, hysterically irresponsible. Hold your tongue. You are hysterically irresponsible now.--Oscar! I decline, in justice to myself, to be present at any discussion which may follow the visit of those two professional persons. But I am not averse to advising you for your own good. My Foot is down. Put your foot down too.--Mrs. Finch! how long is it since you ate last? Two hours? Are you sure it is two hours? Very good. You require a sedative application. I order you, medically, to get into a warm bath, and stay there till I come to you.--Oscar! you are deficient, my good fellow, in moral weight. Endeavor to oppose yourself resolutely to any scheme, on the part of my unhappy daughter or of those who advise her, which involves more expenditure of money in fees, and new appearances of professional persons.--Mrs. Finch! the temperature is to be ninety-eight, and the position partially recumbent.--Oscar! I authorize you (if you can't stop it in any other way) to throw My moral weight into the scale. You are free to say 'I oppose This, with Mr. Finch's approval: I am, so to speak, backed by Mr. Finch.'--Mrs. Finch! I wish you to understand the object of the bath. Hold your tongue. The object is to produce a gentle action on your skin. One of the women is to keep her eye on your forehead. The instant she perceives an appearance of moisture, she is to run for me.--Oscar! you will let me know at what decision they arrive, up-stairs in my daughter's room. Not after they have merely heard what you have to say, but after My Moral Weight has been thrown into the scale.--Mrs. Finch! on leaving the bath, I shall have you only lightly clothed. I forbid, with a view to your head, all compression, whether of stays or strings, round the waist. I forbid garters--with the same object. You will abstain from tea and talking. You will lie, loose, on your back. You will----"

What else this unhappy woman was to do, I failed to hear. Mr. Finch disappeared with her, round the corner of the house. Oscar waited at the door of our side of the rectory, until Nugent joined him, on their way back to the sitting-room in which we were expecting their return.

After an interval of a few minutes, the brothers appeared.

Throughout the whole of the time during which the surgeons had been in the house, I had noticed that Nugent persisted in keeping himself scrupulously in the background. Having assumed the responsibility of putting the serious question of Lucilla's sight scientifically to the test, he appeared to be resolved to pause there, and to interfere no further in the affair after it had passed its first stage. And now again, when we were met in our little committee to discuss, and possibly to combat, Lucilla's resolution to proceed to extremities, he once more refrained from interfering actively with the matter in hand.

"I have brought Oscar back with me," he said to Lucilla; "and I have told him how widely the two oculists differ in opinion on your case. He knows also that you have decided on being guided by the more favorable view taken by Herr Grosse--and he knows no more."

There he stopped abruptly and seated himself apart from us, at the lower end of the room.

Lucilla instantly appealed to Oscar to explain his conduct.

"Why have you kept out of the way?" she asked. "Why have you not been with me, at the most important moment of my life?"

"Because I felt your anxious position too keenly," Oscar answered. "Don't think me inconsiderate towards you, Lucilla. If I had not kept away, I might not have been able to control myself."

I thought that reply far too dexterous to have come from Oscar on the spur of the moment. Besides, he looked at his brother when he said the last words. It seemed more than likely--short as the interval had been before they appeared in the sitting-room--that Nugent had been advising Oscar, and had been telling him what to say.

Lucilla received his excuses with the readiest grace and kindness.

"Mr. Sebright tells me, Oscar, that my sight is hopelessly gone," she said. "Herr Grosse answers for it that an operation will make me see. Need I tell you which of the two I believe in? If I could have had my own way, Herr Grosse should have operated on my eyes, before he went back to London."

"Did he refuse?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

Lucilla told him of the reasons which the German oculist had stated as unanswerable reasons for delay. Oscar listened attentively, and looked at his brother again, before he replied.

"As I understand it," he said, "if you decide on risking the operation at once, you decide on undergoing six weeks' imprisonment in a darkened room, and on placing yourself entirely at the surgeon's disposal for six weeks more, after that. Have you considered, Lucilla, that this means putting off our marriage again, for at least three months?"

"If you were in my place, Oscar, you would let nothing, not even your marriage, stand in the way of your restoration to sight. Don't ask me to consider, love. I can consider nothing but the prospect of seeing You!"

That fearlessly frank confession silenced him. He happened to be sitting opposite to the glass, so that he could see his face. The poor wretch abruptly moved his chair, so as to turn his back on it.

I looked at Nugent, and surprised him trying to catch his brother's eye. Prompted by him, as I could now no longer doubt, Oscar had laid his finger on a certain domestic difficulty which I had had in my mind, from the moment when the question of the operation had been first agitated among us.

(The marriage of Oscar and Lucilla--it is here necessary to explain--had encountered another obstacle, and undergone a new delay, in consequence of the dangerous illness of Lucilla's aunt. Miss Batchford, formally invited to the ceremony as a matter of course, had most considerately sent a message begging that the marriage might not be deferred on her account. Lucilla, however, had refused to allow her wedding to be celebrated, while the woman who had been a second mother to her, lay at the point of death. The rector having an eye to rich Miss Batchford's money--not for himself (Miss B. detested him), but for Lucilla--had supported his daughter's decision; and Oscar had been compelled to submit. These domestic events had taken place about three weeks since; and we were now in receipt of news which not only assured us of the old lady's recovery, but informed us also that she would be well enough to make one of the wedding party in a fortnight's time. The bride's dress was in the house; the bride's father was ready to officiate--and here, like a fatality, was the question of the operation unexpectedly starting up, and threatening another delay yet, for a period which could not possibly be shorter than a period of three months! Add to this, if you please, a new element of embarrassment as follows. Supposing Lucilla to persist in her resolution, and Oscar to persist in concealing from her the personal change in him produced by the medical treatment of the fits, what would happen? Nothing less than this. Lucilla, if the operation succeeded, would find out for herself--before instead of after her marriage--the deception that had been practiced on her. And how she might resent that deception, thus discovered, the cleverest person among us could not pretend to foresee. There was our situation, as we sat in domestic parliament assembled, when the surgeons had left us!)

Finding it impossible to attract his brother's attention, Nugent had no alternative but to interfere actively for the first time.

"Let me suggest, Lucilla," he said, "that it is your duty to look at the other side of the question, before you make up your mind. In the first place, it is surely hard on Oscar to postpone the wedding-day again. In the second place, clever as he is, Herr Grosse is not infallible. It is just possible that the operation may fail, and that you may find you have put off your marriage for three months, to no purpose. Do think of it! If you defer the operation on your eyes till after your marriage, you conciliate all interests, and you only delay by a month or so the time when you may see."

Lucilla impatiently shook her head.

"If you were blind," she answered, "you would not willingly delay by a single hour the time when you might see. You ask me to think of it. I ask _you_ to think of the years I have lost. I ask _you_ to think of the exquisite happiness I shall feel, when Oscar and I are standing at the altar, if I can _see_ the husband to whom I am giving myself for life! Put it off for a month? You might as well ask me to die for a month. It is like death to be sitting here blind, and to know that a man is within a few hours' reach of me who can give me my sight! I tell you all plainly, if you go on opposing me in this, I don't answer for myself. If Herr Grosse is not recalled to Dimchurch before the end of the week--I am my own mistress; I will go to him in London!"

Both the brothers looked at me.

"Have you nothing to say, Madame Pratolungo?" asked Nugent.

Oscar was too painfully agitated to speak. He softly crossed to my chair; and, kneeling by me, put my hand entreatingly to his lips.

You may consider me a heartless woman if you will. I remained entirely unmoved even by this. Lucilla's interests and my interests, you will observe, were now one. I had resolved, from the first, that she should not be married in ignorance of which was the man who was disfigured by the blue face. If she took the course which would enable her to make that discovery for herself, at the right time, she would spare me the performance of a very painful and ungracious duty--and she would marry, as I was determined she should marry, with a full knowledge of the truth. In this position of affairs, it was no business of mine to join the twin-brothers in trying to make her alter her resolution. On the contrary, it was my business to confirm her in it.

"I can't see that I have any right to interfere," I said. "In Lucilla's place--after one and twenty years of blindness--I too should sacrifice every other consideration to the consideration of recovering my sight."

Oscar instantly rose, offended with me, and walked away to the window. Lucilla's face brightened gratefully. "Ah!" she said, "_you_ understand me!" Nugent, in his turn, left his chair. He had confidently calculated, in his brother's interests, on Lucilla's marriage preceding the recovery of Lucilla's sight. That calculation was completely baffled. The marriage would now depend on the state of Lucilla's feelings, after she had penetrated the truth for herself. I saw Nugent's face darken, as he walked to the door.

"Madame Pratolungo," he said, "you may, one day, regret the course that you have just taken. Do as you please, Lucilla--I have no more to say."

He left the room, with a quiet submission to circumstances which became him admirably. Now, as always, it was impossible not to compare him advantageously with his vacillating brother. Oscar turned round at the window, apparently with the idea of following Nugent out. At the first step he checked himself. There was a last effort still left to make. Reverend Finch's "moral weight" had not been thrown into the scale yet.

"There is one thing more, Lucilla," he said, "which you ought to know before you decide. I have seen your father. He desires me to tell you that he is strongly opposed to the experiment which you are determined to try."

Lucilla sighed wearily. "It is not the first time that I find my father failing to sympathize with me," she said. "I am distressed--but not surprised. It is _you_ who surprise me!" she added, suddenly raising her voice. "You, who love me, are not one with me, when I am standing on the brink of a new life. Good Heavens! are my interests not your interests in this? Is it not worth your while to wait till I can _look at you_ when I vow before God to love, honor, and obey you? Do you understand him?" she asked, appealing abruptly to me. "Why does he try to start difficulties? why is he not as eager about it as I am?"

I turned to Oscar. Now was the time for him to fall at her feet and own it! Here was the golden opportunity that might never come again. I signed to him impatiently to take it. He tried to take it--let me do him the justice now, which I failed to do him at the time--he tried to take it. He advanced towards her; he struggled with himself; he said, "There is a motive for my conduct, Lucilla----" and stopped. His breath failed him; he struggled again; he forced out a word or two more: "A motive," he went on, "which I have been afraid to confess----" he paused again, with the perspiration pouring over his livid face.

Lucilla's patience failed her. "What is your motive?" she asked sharply.

The tone in which she spoke broke down his last reserves of resolution. He turned his head suddenly so as not to see her. At the final moment--miserable, miserable man!--at the final moment, he took refuge in an excuse.

"I don't believe in Herr Grosse," he said faintly, "as you believe in him."

Lucilla rose, bitterly disappointed, and opened the door that led into her own room.

"If it had been you who were blind," she answered, "_your_ belief would have been _my_ belief, and _your_ hope _my_ hope. It seems I have expected too much from you. Live and learn! live and learn!"

She went into her room, and closed the door on us. I could bear it no longer. I got up, with the firm resolution in me to follow her, and say the words which he had failed to say for himself. My hand was on the door, when I was suddenly pulled back from it by Oscar. I turned, and faced him in silence.

"No!" he said, with his eyes fixed on mine, and his hand still on my arm. "If I don't tell her, nobody shall tell her for me."

"She shall be deceived no longer--she must, and shall, hear it," I answered. "Let me go!"

"You have given me your promise to wait for my leave before you open your lips. I forbid you to open your lips."

I snapped the fingers of my hand that was free, in his face. "_That_ for my promise!" I said. "Your contemptible weakness is putting her happiness in peril as well as yours." I turned my head towards the door, and called to her. "Lucilla!"

His hand closed fast on my arm. Some lurking devil in him that I had never seen yet, leapt up and looked at me out of his eyes.

"Tell her," he whispered savagely between his teeth; "and I will contradict you to your face! If you are desperate, I am desperate too. I don't care what meanness I am guilty of! I will deny it on my honor; I will deny it on my oath. You heard what she said about you at Browndown. She will believe _me_ before _you._"

Lucilla opened her door, and stood waiting on the threshold.

"What is it?" she asked quietly.

A moment's glance at Oscar warned me that he would do what he had threatened, if I persisted in my resolution. The desperation of a weak man is, of all desperations, the most unscrupulous and the most unmanageable--when it is once roused. Angry as I was, I shrank from degrading him, as I must now have degraded him, if I matched my obstinacy against his. In mercy to both of them, I gave way.

"I may be going out, my dear, before it gets dark," I said to Lucilla. "Can I do anything for you in the village?"

"Yes," she said, "if you will wait a little, you can take a letter for me to the post."

She went back into her room, and closed the door.

I neither looked at Oscar, nor spoke to him, when we were alone again. He was the first who broke the silence.

"You have remembered your promise to me," he said. "You have done well."

"I have nothing more to say to you," I answered. "I shall go to my own room."

His eyes followed me uneasily as I walked to the door.

"I shall speak to her," he muttered doggedly, "at my own time."

A wise woman would not have allowed him to irritate her into saying another word. Alas! I am not a wise woman--that is to say, not always.

"Your own time?" I repeated with the whole force of my contempt. "If you don't own the truth to her before the German surgeon comes back, your time will have gone by for ever. He has told us in the plainest terms--when once the operation is performed, nothing must be said to agitate or distress her, for months afterwards. The preservation of her tranquillity is the condition of the recovery of her sight. You will soon have an excuse for your silence, Mr. Oscar Dubourg!"

The tone in which I said those last words stung him to some purpose.

"Spare your sneers, you heartless Frenchwoman!" he broke out angrily. "I don't care how I stand in _your_ estimation. Lucilla loves me. Nugent feels for me."

My vile temper instantly hit on the most merciless answer that I could make to him in return.

"Ah, poor Lucilla!" I said. "What a much happier prospect hers might have been! What a thousand pities it is that she is not going to marry your brother, instead of marrying _you!_"

He winced under that reply, as if I had cut him with a knife. His head dropped on his breast. He started back from me like a beaten dog--and suddenly and silently left the room.

I had not been a minute by myself, before my anger cooled. I tried to keep it hot; I tried to remember that he had aspersed my nation in calling me a "heartless Frenchwoman." No! it was not to be done. In spite of myself, I repented what I had said to him.

In a moment more, I was out on the stairs to try if I could overtake him.

I was too late. I heard the garden-gate bang, before I was out of the house. Twice I approached the gate to follow him. And twice I drew back, in the fear of making bad worse. It ended in my returning to the sitting-room, very seriously dissatisfied with myself.

The first welcome interruption to my solitude came--not from Lucilla--but from the old nurse. Zillah appeared with a letter for me: left that moment at the rectory by the servant from Browndown. The direction was in Oscar's handwriting. I opened the envelope, and read these words:--

"MADAME PRATOLUNGO,--YOU have distressed and pained me more than I can say. There are faults, and serious ones, on my side, I know. I heartily beg your pardon for anything that I may have said or done to offend you. I cannot submit to your hard verdict on me. If you knew how I adore Lucilla, you would make allowances for me--you would understand me better than you do. I cannot get your last cruel words out of my ears. I cannot meet you again without some explanation of them. You stabbed me to the heart, when you said to me this evening that it would be a happier prospect for Lucilla if she had been going to marry my brother instead of marrying me. I hope you did not really mean that? Will you please write and tell me whether you did or not?

"OSCAR."

Write and tell him? It was absurd enough--when we were within a few minutes' walk of each other--that Oscar should prefer the cold formality of a letter, to the friendly ease of a personal interview. Why could he not have called, and spoken to me? We should have made it up together far more comfortably in that way--and in half the time. At any rate, I determined to go to Browndown, and be good friends again, viva-voce, with this poor, weak, well-meaning, ill-judging boy. Was it not monstrous to have attached serious meaning to what Oscar had said when he was in a panic of nervous terror! His tone of writing so keenly distressed me that I resented his letter on that very account. It was one of the chilly evenings of an English June. A small fire was burning in the grate. I crumpled up the letter, and threw it, as I supposed, into the fire. (After-events showed that I only threw it into a corner of the fender instead.) Then, I put on my hat, without stopping to think of Lucilla, or of what she was writing for the post, and ran off to Browndown.

Where do you think I found him? Locked up in his own room! His insane shyness--it was really nothing less--made him shrink from that very personal explanation which (with such a temperament as mine) was the only possible explanation under the circumstances. I had to threaten him with forcing his door, before I could get him to show himself, and take my hand.

Once face to face with him, I soon set things right. I really believe he had been half mad with his own self-imposed troubles, when he had declared he would give me the lie at the door of Lucilla's room.

It is needless to dwell on what took place between us. I shall only say here that I had serious reason, at a later time--as you will soon see--to regret not having humoured Oscar's request that I should reconcile myself to him by writing, instead of by word of mouth. If I had only placed on record, in pen and ink, what I actually said in the way of making atonement to him, I might have spared some suffering to myself and to others. As it was, the only proof that I had absolved myself in his estimation consisted in his cordially shaking hands with me at the door, when I left him.

"Did you meet Nugent?" he asked, as he walked with me across the enclosure in front of the house.

I had gone to Browndown by a short cut at the back of the garden, instead of going through the village. Having mentioned this, I asked if Nugent had returned to the rectory.

"He went back to see you," said Oscar.

"Why?"

"Only his usual kindness. He takes your views of things. He laughed when he heard I had sent a letter to you, and he ran off (dear fellow!) to see you on my behalf. You must have met him, if you had come here by the village."

On getting back to the rectory, I questioned Zillah. Nugent, in my absence, had run up into the sitting-room; had waited there a few minutes alone, on the chance of my return; had got tired of waiting, and had gone away again. I inquired about Lucilla next. A few minutes after Nugent had gone, she had left her room, and she too had asked for me. Hearing that I was not to be found in the house, she had given Zillah a letter to post--and had then returned to her bed-chamber.

I happened to be standing by the hearth, looking into the dying fire, while the nurse was speaking. Not a vestige of Oscar's letter to me (as I now well remember) was to be seen. In my position, the plain conclusion was that I had really done what I supposed myself to have done--that is to say, thrown the letter into the flames.

Entering Lucilla's room, soon afterwards, to make my apologies for having forgotten to wait and take her letter to the post, I found her, weary enough after the events of the day, getting ready for bed.

"I don't wonder at your being tired of waiting for me," she said. "Writing is long, long work for me. But this was a letter which I felt bound to write myself, if I could. Can you guess who I am corresponding with? It is done, my dear! I have written to Herr Grosse!"

"Already!"

"What is there to wait for? What is there left to determine on? I have told Herr Grosse that our family consultation is over, and that I am entirely at his disposal for any length of time he may think right. And I warn him, if he attempts to put it off, that he will be only forcing on me the inconvenience of going to him in London. I have expressed that part of my letter strongly--I can tell you! He will get it to-morrow, by the afternoon post. And the next day--if he is a man of his word--he will be here."

"Oh, Lucilla! not to operate on your eyes?"

"Yes--to operate on my eyes!"

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-THIRD

The Day Between

THE interval-day before the second appearance of Herr Grosse, and the experiment on Lucilla's sight that was to follow it, was marked by two incidents which ought to be noticed in this place.

The first incident was the arrival, early in the morning, of another letter addressed to me privately by Oscar Dubourg. Like many other shy people, he had a perfect mania, where any embarrassing circumstances were concerned, for explaining himself, with difficulty, by means of his pen, in preference to explaining himself, with ease, by means of his tongue.

Oscar's present communication informed me that he had left us for London by the first morning train, and that his object in taking this sudden journey was--to state his present position towards Lucilla to a gentleman especially conversant with the peculiarities of blind people. In plain words, he had resolved on applying to Mr. Sebright for advice.

"I like Mr. Sebright" (Oscar wrote) "as cordially as I detest Herr Grosse. The short conversation I had with him has left me with the pleasantest impression of his delicacy and his kindness. If I freely reveal to this skillful surgeon the sad situation in which I am placed, I believe his experience will throw an entirely new light on the present state of Lucilla's mind, and on the changes which we may expect to see produced in her, if she really does recover her sight. The result may be of incalculable benefit in teaching me how I may own the truth, most harmlessly to her, as well as to myself. Pray don't suppose I undervalue your advice. I only want to be doubly fortified, before I risk my confession, by the advice of a scientific man."

All this I took to mean, in plain English, that vacillating Oscar wanted to quiet his conscience by gaining time, and that his absurd idea of consulting Mr. Sebright was nothing less than a new and plausible excuse for putting off the evil day. His letter ended by pledging me to secrecy, and by entreating me so to manage matters as to grant him a private interview on his return to Dimchurch by the evening train.

I confess I felt some curiosity as to what would come of the proposed consultation between unready Oscar and precise Mr. Sebright--and I accordingly arranged to take my walk alone, towards eight o'clock that evening, on the road that led to the distant railway station.

The second incident of the day may be described as a confidential conversation between Lucilla and myself, on the subject which now equally absorbed us both--the momentous subject of her restoration to the blessing of sight.

She joined me at the breakfast-table with her ready distrust newly excited, poor thing, by Oscar. He had accounted to her for his journey to London by putting forward the commonplace excuse of "business." She instantly suspected (knowing how he felt about it) that he was secretly bent on interfering with the performance of the operation by Herr Grosse. I contrived to compose the anxiety thus aroused in her mind, by informing her, on Oscar's own authority, that he personally disliked and distrusted the German oculist. "Make your mind easy," I said. "I answer for his not venturing near Herr Grosse."

A long silence between us followed those words. When Lucilla next referred to Oscar in connection with the coming operation, the depressed state of her spirits seemed to have quite altered her view of her own prospects. She, of all the people in the world, now spoke in disparagement of the blessing conferred on the blind by the recovery of their sight!

"Do you know one thing?" she said. "If I had not been going to be married to Oscar, I doubt if I should have cared to put any oculist, native or foreign, to the trouble of coming to Dimchurch."

"I don't think I understand you," I answered. "You cannot surely mean to say that you would not have been glad, under any circumstances, to recover your sight?"

"That is just what I do mean to say."

"What! you, who have written to Grosse to hurry the operation, don't care to see?"

"I only care to see Oscar. And, what is more, I only care to see him because I am in love with him. But for that, I really don't feel as if it would give me any particular pleasure to use my eyes. I have been blind so long, I have learnt to do without them."

"And yet, you looked perfectly entranced when Nugent first set you doubting whether you were blind for life?"