BETWEEN five and six weeks passed. Oscar was out of his bed-room, and was
well of his wound.
During this lapse of time, Lucilla steadily pursued that process of her
own of curing him, which was to end in marrying him. Never had I seen
such nursing before--never do I expect to see such nursing again. From
morning to night, she interested him, and kept him in good spirits. The
charming creature actually made her blindness a means of lightening the
weary hours of the man she loved.
Sometimes, she would sit before Oscar's looking-glass, and imitate all
the innumerable tricks, artifices, and vanities of a coquette arraying
herself for conquest--with such wonderful truth and humour of mimicry,
that you would have sworn she possessed the use of her eyes. Sometimes,
she would show him her extraordinary power of calculating by the sound of
a person's voice, the exact position which that person occupied towards
her in a room. Selecting me as the victim, she would first provide
herself with one of the nosegays always placed by her own hands at
Oscar's bedside; and would then tell me to take up my position
noiselessly in any part of the room that I pleased, and to say "Lucilla."
The instant the words were out of my mouth, the nosegay flew from her
hand, and hit me on the face. She never once missed her aim, on any one
of the occasions when this experiment was tried--and she never once
flagged in her childish enjoyment of the exhibition of her own skill.
Nobody was allowed to pour out Oscar's medicine but herself. She knew
when the spoon into which it was to be measured was full, by the sound
which the liquid made in falling into it. When he was able to sit up in
his bed, and when she was standing at the pillow-side, she could tell him
how near his head was to hers, by the change which he produced, when he
bent forward or when he drew back, in the action of the air on her face.
In the same way, she knew as well as he knew, when the sun was out and
when it was behind a cloud--judging by the differing effect of the air,
at such times, on her forehead and on her cheeks.
All the litter of little objects accumulating in a sick-room, she kept in
perfect order on a system of her own. She delighted in putting the room
tidy late in the evening, when we helpless people who could see were
beginning to think of lighting the candles. The time when we could just
discern her, flitting to and fro in the dusk, in her bright summer
dress--now visible as she passed the window, now lost in the shadows at
the end of the room--was the time when she began to clear the tables of
the things that had been wanted in the day, and to replace them by the
things which would be wanted at night. We were only allowed to light the
candles when they showed us the room magically put in order during the
darkness as if the fairies had done it. She laughed scornfully at our
surprise, and said she sincerely pitied the poor useless people who could
only see!
The same pleasure which she had in arranging the room in the dark she
also felt in wandering all over the house in the dark, and in making
herself thoroughly acquainted with every inch of it from top to bottom.
As soon as Oscar was well enough to go down-stairs, she insisted on
leading him.
"You have been so long up in your bedroom," she said, "that you must have
forgotten the rest of the house. Take my arm--and come along. Now we are
out in the passage. Mind! there is a step down, just at this place. And
now a step up again. Here is a sharp corner to turn at the top of the
staircase. And there is a rod out of the stair-carpet, and an awkward
fold in it that might throw you down." So she took him into his own
drawing-room, as if it was he that was blind, and she who had the use of
her eyes. Who could resist such a nurse as this? Is it wonderful that I
heard a sound suspiciously like the sound of a kiss, on that first day of
convalescence, when I happened for a moment to be out of the room? I
strongly suspected her of leading the way in that also. She was so
wonderfully composed when I came back--and he was so wonderfully
flurried.
In a week from his convalescence, Lucilla completed the cure of the
patient. In other words, she received from Oscar an offer of marriage. I
have not the slightest doubt, in my own mind, that he required assistance
in bringing this delicate matter to a climax--and that Lucilla helped
him.
I may be right or I may be wrong about this. But I can at least certify
that Lucilla was in such mad high spirits when she told me the news out
in the garden, on a lovely autumn morning, that she actually danced for
joy--and, more improper still, she made me, at my discreet time of life,
dance too. She took me round the waist, and we waltzed on the grass--Mrs.
Finch standing by in the condemned blue merino jacket (with the baby in
one hand and the novel in the other), and warning us both that if we lost
half an hour out of our day, in whirling each other round the lawn, we
should never succeed in picking it up again in that house. We went on
whirling, for all that, until we were both out of breath. Nothing short
of downright exhaustion could tame Lucilla. As for me, I am, I sincerely
believe, the rashest person of my age now in existence. (What is my age?
Ah, I am always discreet about that; it is the one exception.) Set down
my rashness to my French nationality, my easy conscience, and my
excellent stomach--and let us go on with our story.
There was a private interview at Browndown, later on that day, between
Oscar and Reverend Finch.
Of what passed on that occasion, I was not informed. The rector came back
among us with his head high in the air, strutting magnificently on his
wizen little legs. He embraced his daughter in pathetic silence, and gave
me his hand with a serene smile of condescension worthy of the greatest
humbug (say Louis the Fourteenth) that ever sat on a throne. When he got
the better of his paternal emotion, and began to speak, his voice was so
big that I really thought it must have burst him. The vapor of words in
which he enveloped himself (condensed on paper) amounted to these two
statements. First, that he hailed in Oscar (not having, I suppose,
children enough already of his own) the advent of another son. Secondly,
that he saw the finger of Providence in everything that had happened.
Alas, for me! My irreverent French nature saw nothing but the finger of
Finch--in Oscar's pocket.
The wedding-day was not then actually fixed. It was only generally
arranged that the marriage should take place in about six weeks.
This interval was intended to serve a double purpose. It was to give the
lawyers time to prepare the marriage settlements, and to give Oscar time
to completely recover his health. Some anxiety was felt by all of us on
this latter subject. His wound was well, and his mind was itself again.
But still there was something wrong with him, for all that.
Those curious contradictions in his character which I have already
mentioned, showed themselves more strangely than ever. The man who had
found the courage (when his blood was up) to measure himself alone and
unarmed against two robbers, was now unable to enter the room in which
the struggle had taken place, without trembling from head to foot. He,
who had laughed at me when I begged him not to sleep in the house by
himself, now had two men (a gardener and an indoor servant) domiciled at
Browndown to protect him--and felt no sense of security even in that. He
was constantly dreaming that the ruffian with the "life-preserver" was
attacking him again, or that he was lying bleeding on the floor and
coaxing Jicks to venture within reach of his hand. If any of us hinted at
his occupying himself once more with his favorite art, he stopped his
ears, and entreated us not to renew his horrible associations with the
past. He would not even look at his box of chasing tools. The
doctor--summoned to say what was the matter with him--told us that his
nervous system had been shaken, and frankly acknowledged that there was
nothing to be done but to wait until time set it right again.
I am afraid I must confess that I myself took no very indulgent view of
the patient's case.
It was his duty to exert himself--as I thought. He appeared to me to be
too indolent to make a proper effort to better his own condition. Lucilla
and I had more than one animated discussion about him. On a certain
evening when we were at the piano gossiping, and playing in the
intervals, she was downright angry with me for not sympathizing with her
darling as unreservedly as she did. "I have noticed one thing, Madame
Pratolungo," she said to me, with a flushed face and a heightened tone.
"You have never done Oscar justice from the first."
(Mark those trifling words. The time is coming when you will hear of them
again.)
The preparations for the contemplated marriage went on. The lawyers
produced their sketch of the settlement; and Oscar wrote (to an address
in New York, given to him by Nugent) to tell his brother of the
approaching change in his life, and of the circumstances which had
brought it about.
The marriage settlement was not shown to me; but, from certain signs and
tokens, I guessed that Oscar's perfect disinterestedness on the question
of money had been turned to profitable account by Oscar's future
father-in-law. Reverend Finch was reported to have shed tears when he
first read the document. And Lucilla came out of the study, after an
interview with her father, more thoroughly and vehemently indignant than
I had ever seen her yet. "Don't ask what is the matter!" she said to me
between her teeth. "I am ashamed to tell you." When Oscar came in, a
little later, she fell on her knees--literally on her knees--before him.
Some overmastering agitation was in possession of her whole being, which
made her, for the moment, reckless of what she said or did. "I worship
you!" she burst out hysterically, kissing his hand. "You are the noblest
of living men. I can never, never be worthy of you!" The interpretation
of these high-flown sayings and doings was, to my mind, briefly this:
Oscar's money in the rector's pocket, and the rector's daughter used as
the means.
The interval expired; the weeks succeeded each other. All had been long
since ready for the marriage--and still the marriage did not take place.
Far from becoming himself again, with time to help him--as the doctor had
foretold--Oscar steadily grew worse. All the nervous symptoms (to use the
medical phrase) which I have already described, strengthened instead of
loosening their hold on him. He grew thinner and thinner, and paler and
paler. Early in the month of November, we sent for the doctor again. The
question to be put to him this time, was the question (suggested by
Lucilla) of trying as a last remedy change of air.
Something--I forget what--delayed the arrival of our medical man. Oscar
had given up all idea of seeing him that day, and had come to us at the
rectory--when the doctor drove into Dimchurch. He was stopped before he
went on to Browndown; and he and his patient saw each other alone in
Lucilla's sitting-room.
They were a long time together. Lucilla, waiting with me in my
bed-chamber, grew impatient. She begged me to knock at the sitting-room
door, and inquire when she might be permitted to assist at the
consultation.
I found doctor and patient standing together at the window, talking
quietly. Evidently, nothing had passed to excite either of them in the
smallest degree. Oscar looked a little pale and weary--but he, like his
medical adviser, was perfectly composed.
"There is a young lady in the next room," I said, "who is getting anxious
to hear what your consultation has ended in."
The doctor looked at Oscar, and smiled.
"There is really nothing to tell Miss Finch," he said. "Mr. Dubourg and I
have gone all over the case again--and nothing new has come of it. His
nervous system has not recovered its balance so soon as I expected. I am
sorry--but I am not in the least alarmed. At his age, things are sure to
come right in the end. He must be patient, and the young lady must be
patient. I can say no more."
"Do you see any objection to his trying change of air?" I inquired.
"None, whatever! Let him go where he likes, and amuse himself as he
likes. You are all of you a little disposed to take Mr. Dubourg's case
too seriously. Except the nervous derangement (unpleasant enough in
itself, I grant), there is really nothing the matter with him. He has not
a trace of organic disease anywhere. The pulse," continued the doctor,
laying his fingers lightly on Oscar's wrist, "is perfectly satisfactory.
I never felt a quieter pulse in my life."
As the words passed his lips, a frightful contortion fastened itself on
Oscar's face.
His eyes turned up hideously.
From head to foot his whole body was wrenched round, as if giant hands
had twisted it, towards the right.
Before I could speak, he was in convulsions on the floor at his doctor's
feet.
"Good God, what is this!" I cried out.
The doctor loosened his cravat, and moved away the furniture that was
near him. That done, he waited--looking at the writhing figure on the
floor.
"Can you do nothing more?" I asked.