Part 18 (1/2)
Who would not have said that any disfigurement would be welcome as a refuge from this?
The servant ran in, and helped me to move the furniture to a safe distance from him, ”There won't be much more of it, ma'am,” said the man, noticing my agitation, and trying to compose me. ”In a month or two, the doctor says the medicine will get hold of him.” I could say nothing on my side--I could only reproach myself bitterly for disputing with him and exciting him, and leading perhaps to the hideous seizure which had attacked him in my presence for the second time.
The fit on this occasion was a short one. Perhaps the drug was already beginning to have some influence over him? In twenty minutes, he was able to resume his chair, and to go on talking to me.
”You think I shall horrify you when my face has turned blue,” he said with a faint smile. ”Don't I horrify you now when you see me in convulsions on the floor?”
I entreated him to dwell on it no more.
”G.o.d knows,” I said, ”you have convinced me--obstinate as I am. Let us try to think of nothing now but of the prospect of your being cured. What do you wish me to do?”
”You have great influence over Lucilla,” he said. ”If she expresses any curiosity, in future conversations with you, about the effect of the medicine, check her at once. Keep her as ignorant of it as she is now!”
”Why?”
”Why! If she knows what you know, how will she feel? Shocked and horrified, as you felt. What will she do? She will come straight here, and try, as you have tried, to persuade me to give it up. Is that true or not?”
(Impossible to deny that it was true.)
”I am so fond of her,” he went on, ”that I can refuse her nothing. She would end in making me give it up. The instant her back was turned, I should repent my own weakness, and return to the medicine. Here is a perpetual struggle in prospect, for a man who is already worn out. Is it desirable, after what you have just seen, to expose me to that?”
It would have been useless cruelty to expose him to it. How could I do otherwise than consent to make his sacrifice of himself--his _necessary_ sacrifice--as easy as I could? At the same time, I implored him to remember one thing.
”Mind,” I said, ”we can never hope to keep her in ignorance of the change in you, when the change comes. Sooner or later, some one will let the secret out.”
”I only want it to be concealed from her while the disfigurement of me is in progress,” he answered. ”When nothing she can say or do will alter it--I will tell her myself. She is so happy in the hope of my recovery!
What good can be gained by telling her beforehand of the penalty that I pay for my deliverance? My ugly color will never terrify my poor darling.
As for other persons, I shall not force myself on the view of the world.
It is my one wish to live out of the world. The few people about me will soon get reconciled to my face. Lucilla will set them the example. She won't trouble herself long about a change in me that she can neither feel nor see.”
Ought I to have warned him here of Lucilla's inveterate prejudice, and of the difficulty there might be in reconciling her to the change in him when she heard of it? I dare say I ought, I daresay I was to blame in shrinking from inflicting new anxieties and new distresses on a man who had already suffered so much. The simple truth is--I could not do it.
Would you have done it? Ah, if you would, I hope I may never come in contact with you. What a horrid wretch you must be! The end of it was that I left the house--pledged to keep Lucilla in ignorance of the cost at which Oscar had determined to purchase his cure, until Oscar thought fit to enlighten her himself.
CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH
Good Papa again!
THE promise I had given did not expose me to the annoyance of being kept long on the watch against accidents. If we could pa.s.s safely over the next five days, we might feel pretty sure of the future. On the last day of the old year, Lucilla was bound by the terms of the will to go to London, and live her allotted three months under the roof of her aunt.
In the brief interval that elapsed before her departure, she twice approached the dangerous subject.
On the first occasion, she asked me if I knew what medicine Oscar was taking. I pleaded ignorance, and pa.s.sed at once to other matters. On the second occasion, she advanced still further on the way to discovery of the truth. She now inquired if I had heard how the physic worked the cure. Having been already informed that the fits proceeded from a certain disordered condition of the brain, she was anxious to know whether the medical treatment was likely to affect the patient's head. This question (which I was of course unable to answer) she put to both the doctors.
Already warned by Oscar, they quieted her by declaring that the process of cure acted by general means, and did not attack the head. From that moment, her curiosity was satisfied. Her mind had other objects of interest to dwell on, before she left Dimchurch. She touched on the perilous topic no more.
It was arranged that I was to accompany Lucilla to London. Oscar was to follow us, when the state of his health permitted him to take the journey. As betrothed husband of Lucilla, he had his right of entry, during her residence in her aunt's house. As for me, I was admitted at Lucilla's intercession. She declined to be separated from me for three months.
Miss Batchford wrote, most politely, to offer me a hospitable welcome during the day. She had no second spare-room at her disposal--so we settled that I was to sleep at a lodging-house in the neighborhood. In this same house, Oscar was also to be accommodated, when the doctors sanctioned his removal to London. It was now thought likely--if all went well--that the marriage might be celebrated at the end of the three months, from Miss Batchford's residence in town.