I CLOSED the First Part of my narrative on the day of the operation, the
twenty-fifth of June.
I open the Second Part, between six and seven weeks later, on the ninth
of August.
How did the time pass at Dimchurch in that interval?
Searching backwards in my memory, I call to life again the domestic
history of the six weeks. It looks, on retrospection, miserably dull and
empty of incident. I wonder when I contemplate it now, how we got through
that weary interval--how we bore that forced inaction, that unrelieved
oppression of suspense.
Changing from bed-room to sitting-room, from sitting-room back to
bed-room; with the daylight always shut out; with the bandages always on,
except when the surgeon looked at her eyes; Lucilla bore the
imprisonment--and worse than the imprisonment, the uncertainty--of her
period of probation, with the courage that can endure anything, the
courage sustained by Hope. With books, with music, with talk--above all,
with Love to help her--she counted her way calmly through the dull
succession of hours and days till the time came which was to decide the
question in dispute between the oculists--the terrible question of which
of the two, Mr. Sebright or Herr Grosse, was right.
I was not present at the examination which finally decided all doubt. I
joined Oscar in the garden--quite as incapable as he was of exerting the
slightest self-control. We paced silently backwards and forwards on the
lawn, like two animals in a cage. Zillah was the only witness present
when the German examined our poor darling's eyes; Nugent engaging to wait
in the next room and announce the result from the window. As the event
turned out, Herr Grosse was beforehand with him. Once more we heard his
broken English shouting, "Hi-hi-hoi! hoi-hi! hoi-hi!" Once more, we
beheld his huge silk handkerchief waving at the window. I turned sick and
faint under the excitement of the moment--under the rapture (it was
nothing less) of hearing those three electrifying words: "She will see!"
Mercy! how we did abuse Mr. Sebright, when we were all reunited again in
Lucilla's room!
The first excitement over, we had our difficulties to contend with next.
From the moment when she was positively informed that the operation had
succeeded, our once-patient Lucilla developed into a new being. She now
rose in perpetual revolt against the caution which still deferred the day
on which she was to be allowed to make the first trial of her sight. It
required all my influence, backed by Oscar's entreaties, and strengthened
by the furious foreign English of our excellent German surgeon (Herr
Grosse had a temper of his own, I can tell you!) to prevent her from
breaking through the medical discipline which held her in its grasp. When
she became quite unmanageable, and vehemently abused him to his face, our
good Grosse used to swear at her, in a compound bad language of his own,
with a tremendous aspiration at the beginning of it, which always set
matters right by making her laugh. I see him again as I write, leaving
the room on these occasions, with his eyes blazing through his
spectacles, and his shabby hat cocked sideways on his head. "Soh, you
little-spitfire-Feench! If you touch that bandages when I have put him
on--Ho-Damn-Damn! I say no more. Good-bye!"
From Lucilla I turn to the twin-brothers next.
Tranquilized as to the future, after his interview with Mr. Sebright,
Oscar presented himself at his best during the time of which I am now
writing. Lucilla's main reliance in her days in the darkened room, was on
what her lover could do to relieve and to encourage her. He never once
failed her; his patience was perfect; his devotion was inexhaustible. It
is sad to say so, in view of what happened afterwards; but I only tell a
necessary truth when I declare that he immensely strengthened his hold on
her affections, in those last days of her blindness when his society was
most precious to her. Ah, how fervently she used to talk of him when she
and I were left together at night! Forgive me if I leave this part of the
history of the courtship untold. I don't like to write of it--I don't
like to think of it. Let us get on to something else.
Nugent comes next. I would give a great deal, poor as I am, to be able to
leave him out. It is not to be done. I must write about that lost wretch,
and you must read about him, whether we like it or not.
The days of Lucilla's imprisonment, were also the days when my favorite
disappointed me, for the first time. He and his brother seemed to change
places. It was Nugent now who appeared to disadvantage by comparison with
Oscar. He surprised and grieved his brother by leaving Browndown. "All I
can do for you, I have done," he said. "I can be of no further use for
the present to anybody. Let me go. I am stagnating in this miserable
place--I must, and will, have change." Oscar's entreaties, in Nugent's
present frame of mind, failed to move him. Away he went one morning,
without bidding anybody goodbye. He had talked of being absent for a
week--he remained away for a month. We heard of him, leading a wild life,
among a vicious set of men. It was reported that a frantic restlessness
possessed him which nobody could understand. He came back as suddenly as
he had left us. His variable nature had swung round, in the interval, to
the opposite extreme. He was full of repentance for his reckless conduct;
he was in a state of depression which defied rousing; he despaired of
himself and his future. Sometimes he talked of going back to America; and
sometimes he threatened to close his career by enlisting as a private
soldier. Would any other person, in my place, have seen which way these
signs pointed? I doubt it, if that person's mind had been absorbed, as
mine was, in watching Lucilla day by day. Even if I had been a suspicious
woman by nature--which, thank God, I am not--my distrust must have lain
dormant, in the all-subduing atmosphere of suspense hanging heavily on me
morning, noon, and night in the darkened room.
So much, briefly, for the sayings and doings of the persons principally
concerned in this narrative, during the six weeks which separate Part the
First from Part the Second.