Part 60 (1/2)

He came back to me, and took my hand--my cold insensible hand that won't feel his touch as it ought!

”Let me be your husband, Lucilla,” he whispered; ”and I will live at Ramsgate if you like--for your sake.”

Although there was everything to please me in those words, there was something that startled me--I cannot describe it--in his look and manner when he said them. I made no answer at the moment. He went on.

”Why should we not be married at once?” he asked. ”We are both of age. We have only ourselves to think of.”

[Note.--Alter his words as follows: ”Why should we not be married before Madame Pratolungo can hear of my arrival at Ramsgate?”--and you will rightly interpret his motives. The situation is now fast reaching its climax of peril. Nugent's one chance is to persuade Lucilla to marry him before any discoveries can reach my ears, and before Grosse considers her sufficiently recovered to leave Ramsgate.--P.]

”You forget,” I answered, more surprised than ever; ”we have my father to think of. It was always arranged that he was to marry us at Dimchurch.”

Oscar smiled--not at all the charming smile I used to imagine, when I was blind!

”We shall wait a long time, I am afraid,” he said, ”if we wait until your father marries us.”

”What do you mean?” I asked.

”When we enter on the painful subject of Madame Pratolungo,” he replied, ”I will tell you. In the meantime, do you think Mr. Finch will answer your letter?”

”I hope so.”

”Do you think he will answer my postscript?”

”I am sure he will!”

The same unpleasant smile showed itself again in his face. He abruptly dropped the conversation, and went to play _piquet_ with my aunt.

All this happened yesterday evening. I went to bed, sadly dissatisfied with somebody. Was it with Oscar? or with myself? or with both? I fancy with both.

To-day, we went out together for a walk on the cliffs. What a delight it was to move through the fresh briny air, and see the lovely sights on every side of me! Oscar enjoyed it too. All through the first part of our walk, he was charming, and I was more in love with him than ever. On our return, a little incident occurred which altered him for the worse, and which made my spirits sink again.

It happened in this manner.

I proposed returning by the sands. Ramsgate is still crowded with visitors; and the animated scene on the beach in the later part of the day has attractions for me, after my blind life, which it does not (I dare say) possess for people who have always enjoyed the use of their eyes. Oscar, who has a nervous horror of crowds, and who shrinks from contact with people not so refined as himself, was surprised at my wis.h.i.+ng to mix with what he called ”the mob on the sands.” However, he said he would go, if I particularly wished it. I did particularly wish it. So we went.

There were chairs on the beach. We hired two, and sat down to look about us.

All sorts of diversions were going on. Monkeys, organs, girls on stilts, a conjurer, and a troop of negro minstrels, were all at work to amuse the visitors. I thought the varied color and bustling enjoyment of the crowd, with the bright blue sea beyond, and the glorious suns.h.i.+ne overhead, quite delightful--I declare I felt as if two eyes were not half enough to see with! A nice old lady, sitting near, entered into conversation with me; hospitably offering me biscuits and sherry out of her own bag. Oscar, to my disappointment, looked quite disgusted with all of us. He thought my nice old lady vulgar; and he called the company on the beach ”a herd of sn.o.bs.” While he was still muttering under his breath about the ”mixture of low people,” he suddenly cast a side-look at some person or thing--I could not at the moment tell which--and, rising, placed himself so as to intercept my view of the promenade on the sands immediately before me. I happened to have noticed, at the same moment, a lady approaching us in a dress of a peculiar color; and I pulled Oscar on one side, to look at her as she pa.s.sed in front of me. ”Why do you get in my way?” I asked. Before he could answer the question the lady pa.s.sed, with two lovely children, and with a tall man at her side. My eyes, looking first at the lady and the children, found their way next to the gentleman--and saw repeated in his face, the same black-blue complexion which had startled me in the face of Oscar's brother, when I first opened my eyes at the rectory! For the moment I felt startled again--more, as I believe, by the unexpected repet.i.tion of the blue face in the face of a stranger, than by the ugliness of the complexion itself. At any rate, I was composed enough to admire the lady's dress, and the beauty of the children, before they had pa.s.sed beyond my range of view. Oscar spoke to me, while I was looking at them, in a tone of reproach for which, as I thought, there was no occasion and no excuse.

”I tried to spare you,” he said. ”You have yourself to thank, if that man has frightened you.”

”He has _not_ frightened me,” I answered--sharply enough.

Oscar looked at me very attentively; and sat down again, without saying a word more.

The good-humoured old woman, on my other side, who had seen and heard all that had pa.s.sed, began to talk of the gentleman with the discolored face, and of the lady and the children who accompanied him. He was a retired Indian officer, she said. The lady was his wife, and the two beautiful children were his own children. ”It seems a pity that such a handsome man should be disfigured in that way,” my new acquaintance remarked. ”But still, it don't matter much, after all. There he is, as you see, with a fine woman for a wife, and with two lovely children. I know the landlady of the house where they lodge--and a happier family you couldn't lay your hand on in all England. That is my friend's account of them. Even a blue face don't seem such a dreadful misfortune, when you look at it in that light--does it, Miss?”

I entirely agreed with the old lady. Our talk seemed, for some incomprehensible reason, to irritate Oscar. He got up again impatiently, and looked at his watch.

”Your aunt will be wondering what has become of us,” he said. ”Surely you have had enough of the mob on the sands, by this time?”