"I don't like intruding on them. Lucilla told the nurse they were to be
left by themselves."
Just as I said the words, I became aware of a sudden bump against me from
behind. I turned, and discovered Jicks with the battering-ram-doll,
preparing for a second plunge at me. She stopped, when she found that she
had attracted my attention; and, taking hold of my dress, tried to pull
me out of the room.
"Remove that child!" cried the rector, exasperated by this new
interruption.
The child pulled harder and harder at my dress. Something had apparently
happened outside the sitting-room which had produced a strong impression
on her. Her little round face was flushed; her bright blue eyes were wide
open and staring. "Jicks wants to speak to you," she said--and pulled at
me impatiently harder than ever.
I stooped down with the double purpose of obeying Mr. Finch's commands
and of humouring the child's whim, by carrying Jicks out of the room,
when I was startled by a sound from the bed-chamber--the sound, loud and
peremptory, of Lucilla's voice.
"Let go of me!" she cried. "I am a woman--I won't be treated like a
child."
There was a moment of silence--followed by the rustling sound of her
dress, approaching us along the corridor.
Grosse's voice--unmistakably angry and excited--became audible at the
same time. "No! Come back! come back!"
The rustling sound of the dress came nearer.
Nugent and Mr. Finch moved together closer to the door. Oscar caught me
by the arm. He and I were on the left-hand side of the door: Nugent and
the rector were on the right-hand side. It all happened with the
suddenness of a flash of lightning. My heart stood still. I couldn't
speak. I couldn't move.
The half-closed door of the sitting-room was burst wide open--roughly,
violently, as if a man, not a woman, had been on the other side. (The
rector drew back; Nugent remained where he was.) Wildly groping her way
with outstretched arms, as I had never seen her grope it in the time of
her blindness, Lucilla staggered into the room. Merciful God! the bandage
was off. The life, the new life of sight, was in her eyes. It
transfigured her face: it irradiated her beauty with an awful and
unearthly light. She saw! she saw!
For an instant she stopped at the door, swaying to and fro; giddy under
the broad stare of daylight.
She looked at the rector--then at Mrs. Finch, who had followed her
husband. She paused bewildered, and put her hands over her eyes. She
slightly changed her position; turned her head, as if to look at me;
turned it back sharply towards the right-hand side of the door again; and
threw up her arms in the air, with a burst of hysterical laughter. The
laughter ended in a scream of triumph, which rang through the house. She
rushed at Nugent Dubourg, so blindly incapable of measuring her distance
that she struck against him violently, and nearly threw him down. "I know
him! I know him!" she cried--and flung her arms round his neck. "Oh,
Oscar! Oscar!" She clasped him to her with all her strength as the name
passed her lips, and dropped her head on his bosom in an ecstasy of joy.
It was done before any of us had recovered the use of our senses. The
whole horrible scene must have begun and ended in less than half a minute
of time. The surgeon, who had run into the room after her, empty-handed,
turned suddenly, and left it again; coming back with the bandage, left
forgotten in the bed-room. Grosse was the first among us to recover his
presence of mind. He approached her in silence.
She heard him, before he could take her by surprise, and slip the bandage
over her eyes. The moment when I turned, horror-struck, to look at Oscar,
was also the moment when she lifted her head from Nugent's bosom to look
for the surgeon. Her eyes followed the direction taken by mine. They
encountered Oscar's face. She saw the blue-black hue of it in full light.
A cry of terror escaped her: she started back, shuddering, and caught
hold of Nugent's arm. Grosse motioned sternly to him to turn her face
from the window; and lifted the bandage. She clutched at it with feverish
eagerness as he held it up. "Put it on again!" she said, holding by
Nugent with one hand, and lifting the other to point towards Oscar with a
gesture of disgust. "Put it on again. I have seen too much already."
Grosse fastened the bandage over her eyes, and waited a little. She still
held Nugent's arm. The sting of my indignation as I saw it, roused me
into doing something. I stepped forward to part them. Grosse stopped me.
"No!" he said. "Don't make bad worse." I looked at Oscar for the second
time. There he stood, as he had stood from the first moment when she
appeared at the door--his eyes staring wildly straight before him; his
limbs set and fixed. I went to him, and touched him. He seemed not to
feel it. I spoke to him. I might as well have spoken to a man of stone.
Grosse's voice drew my attention, for a moment, the other way.
"Come!" he said, trying to take Lucilla back into her own room.
She shook her head, and tightened her hold on Nugent's arm.
"_You_ take me," she whispered. "As far as the door."