Part 59 (1/2)
”Why should we spoil the pleasure of our first meeting by talking of her?” he said. ”It is so inexpressibly painful to you and to me. Let us return to it in a day or two. Not now, Lucilla--not now!”
His brother was the next subject in my mind. I was not at all sure how he would take my speaking about it. I risked a question however, for all that. He made another sign of entreaty, and looked distressed again.
”My brother and I understand each other, Lucilla. He will remain abroad for the present. Shall we drop that subject, too? Let me hear your own news--I want to know what is going on at the rectory. I have heard nothing since you wrote me word that you were here with your aunt, and that Madame Pratolungo had gone abroad to her father. Is Mr. Finch well?
Is he coming to Ramsgate to see you?”
I was unwilling to tell him of the misunderstanding at home. ”I have not heard from my father since I have been here,” I said. ”Now you have come back, I can write and announce your return, and get all the news from the rectory.”
He looked at me rather strangely--in a way which led me to fear that he saw some objection to my writing to my father.
”I suppose you would like Mr. Finch to come here?” he said--and then stopped suddenly, and looked at me again.
”There is very little chance of his coming here,” I answered.
Oscar seemed to be wonderfully interested about my father. ”Very little chance!” he repeated. ”Why?”
I was obliged to refer to the family quarrel--still, however, saying nothing of the unjust manner in which my father had spoken of my aunt.
”As long as I am with Miss Batchford,” I said, ”it is useless to hope that my father will come here. They are on bad terms; and I am afraid there is no prospect, at present, of their being friends again. Do you object to my writing home to say you have come to Ramsgate?” I asked.
”I?” he exclaimed, looking the picture of astonishment. ”What could possibly make you think that? Write by all means--and leave a little s.p.a.ce for me. I will add a few lines to your letter.”
It is impossible to say how his answer relieved me. It was quite plain that I had stupidly misinterpreted him. Oh, my new eyes! my new eyes!
shall I ever be able to depend on you as I could once depend on my touch?
[Note.--I must intrude myself again. I shall burst with indignation while I am copying the journal, if I don't relieve my mind at certain places in it. Remark, before you go any farther, how skillfully Nugent contrives to ascertain his exact position at Ramsgate--and see with what a fatal unanimity all the chances of his personating Oscar, without discovery, declare themselves in his favor! Miss Batchford, as you have seen, is entirely at his mercy. She not only knows nothing herself, but she operates as a check on Mr. Finch--who would otherwise have joined his daughter at Ramsgate, and have instantly exposed the conspiracy. On every side of him, Nugent is, to all appearance, safe. I am away in one direction. Oscar is away in another. Mrs. Finch is anch.o.r.ed immovably in her nursery. Zillah has been sent back from London to the rectory. The Dimchurch doctor (who attended Oscar, and who might have proved an awkward witness) is settled in India--as you will see, if you refer to the twenty-second chapter. The London doctor with whom he consulted has long since ceased to have any relations with his former patient. As for Herr Grosse, if he appears on the scene, he can be trusted to shut his eyes professionally to all that is going on, and to let matters take their course in the only interest he recognizes--the interest of Lucilla's health. There is literally no obstacle in Nugent's way--and no sort of protection for Lucilla, except in the faithful instinct which persists in warning her that this is the wrong man--though it speaks in an unknown tongue. Will she end in understanding the warning before it is too late? My friend, this note is intended to relieve my mind--not yours.
All you have to do is to read on. Here is the journal. I won't stand another moment in your way.--P.]
_September_ 2nd.--A rainy day. Very little said that is worth recording between Oscar and me.
My aunt, whose spirits are always affected by bad weather, kept me a long time in her sitting-room, amusing herself by making me exercise my sight.
Oscar was present by special invitation, and a.s.sisted the old lady in setting this new seeing-sense of mine all sorts of tasks. He tried hard to prevail on me to let him see my writing. I refused. It is improving as fast as it can; but it is not good enough yet.
I notice here what a dreadfully difficult thing it is to get back--in such a case as mine--to the exercise of one's sight.
We have a cat and a dog in the house. Would it be credited, if I was telling it to the world instead of telling it to my Journal, that I actually mistook one for the other to-day?--after seeing so well, too, as I do now, and being able to write with so few false strokes in making my letters! It is nevertheless true that I did mistake the two animals; having trusted to nothing but my memory to inform my eyes which was which, instead of helping my memory by my touch. I have now set this right. I caught up puss, and shut my eyes (oh, that habit! when shall I get over it?) and felt her soft fur (so different from a dog's hair!) and opened my eyes again, and a.s.sociated the feel of the fur for ever afterwards with the sight of a cat.
To-day's experience has also informed me that I make slow progress in teaching myself to judge correctly of distances.
In spite of this drawback, however, there is nothing I enjoy so much in using my sight as looking at a great wide prospect of any kind--provided I am not asked to judge how far or how near objects may be. It seems like escaping out of prison, to look (after having been shut up in my blindness) at the view over the town, and the bold promontory of the pier, and the grand sweep of the sea beyond--all visible from our windows.
The moment my aunt begins to question me about distances, she makes a toil of my pleasure. It is worse still when I am asked about the relative sizes of s.h.i.+ps and boats. When I see nothing but a boat, I fancy it larger than it is. When I see the boat in comparison with a s.h.i.+p, and then look back at the boat, I instantly go to the other extreme, and fancy it smaller than it is. The setting this right still vexes me almost as keenly as my stupidity vexed me some time since, when I saw my first horse and cart from an upper window, and took it for a dog drawing a wheelbarrow! Let me add in my own defence that both horse and cart were figured at least five times their proper size in my blind fancy, which makes my mistake, I think, not so very stupid after all.
Well, I amused my aunt. And what effect did I produce on Oscar?
If I could trust my eyes, I should say I produced exactly the contrary effect on _him_--I made him melancholy. But I don't trust my eyes. They must be deceiving me when they tell me that he looked, in my company, a moping, anxious, miserable man.
Or is it, that he sees and feels something changed in Me? I could scream with vexation and rage against myself. Here is my Oscar--and yet he is not the Oscar I knew when I was blind. Contradictory as it seems, I used to understand how he looked at me, when I was unable to see it. Now that I can see it, I ask myself, Is this really love that is looking at me in his eyes? or is it something else? How should I know? I knew when I had only my own fancy to tell me. But now, try as I may, I cannot make the old fancy and the new sight serve me in harmony both together. I am afraid he sees that I don't understand him. Oh, dear! dear! why did I not meet my good old Grosse, and become the new creature that he has made me, before I met Oscar? I should have had no blind memories and prepossessions to get over then. I shall become used to my new self, I hope and believe, with time--and that will accustom me to my new impressions of Oscar--and so it may all come right in the end. It is all wrong enough now. He put his arm round me, and gave me a little tender squeeze, while we were following Miss Batchford down to the dining-room this afternoon. Nothing in me answered to it. I should have felt it all over me a few months since.