_East Cliff Ramsgate, August_ 28th.--A fortnight to-day since my aunt and
I arrived at this place. I sent Zillah back to the rectory from London.
Her rheumatic infirmities trouble her tenfold, poor old soul, in the
moist air of the seaside.
How has my writing got on for the last week? I am becoming a little
better satisfied with it. I use my pen more easily; my hand is less like
the hand of a backward child than it was. I shall be able to write as
well as other ladies do when I am Oscar's wife.
[Note.--She is easily satisfied, poor dear. Her improved handwriting is
sadly crooked. Some of the letters embrace each other at close quarters
like dear friends; and some start asunder like bitter enemies. This is
not to reflect on Lucilla--but to excuse myself, if I make any mistakes
in transcribing the Journal. Now let her go on.--P.]
Oscar's wife! when shall I be Oscar's wife? I have not so much as seen
him yet. Something--I am afraid a difficulty with his brother--still
keeps him on the Continent. The tone in which he writes continues to have
a certain reserve in it which disquiets and puzzles me. Am I quite as
happy as I expected to be when I recovered my sight? Not yet!
It is not Oscar's fault, if I am out of spirits every now and then. It is
my own fault. I have offended my father; and I sometimes fear I have not
acted justly towards Madame Pratolungo. These things vex me.
It seems to be my fate to be always misunderstood. My sudden flight from
the rectory meant no disrespect to my father. I left as I did, because I
was quite incapable of facing the woman whom I had once dearly
loved--thinking of her as I think now. It is so unendurable to feel that
your confidence is lost in a person whom you once trusted without limit,
and to go on meeting that person every hour in the day with a smooth
face, as if nothing had happened! The impulse to escape more meetings
(when I discovered that she had left the house for a walk) was
irresistible. I should do it again, if I was in the same position again.
I have hinted at this in writing to my father; telling him that something
unpleasant had happened between Madame Pratolungo and me, and that I went
away so suddenly, on that account alone. No use! He has not answered my
letter. I have written since to my step-mother. Mrs. Finch's reply has
informed me of the unjust manner in which he speaks of my aunt. Without
the slightest reason for it, he is even more deeply offended with Miss
Batchford than he is with me!
Sad as this estrangement is, there is one consolation--so far as I am
concerned, it will not last. My father and I are sure, sooner or later,
to come to an understanding together. When I return to the rectory, I
shall make my peace with him, and we shall get on again as smoothly as
ever.
But how will it end between Madame Pratolungo and me?
She has not answered the letter I wrote to her. (I begin to wish I had
never written it, or at least some of it--the latter part I mean.) I have
heard absolutely nothing of her since she has been abroad. I don't know
when she will return--or if she will ever return, to live at Dimchurch
again. Oh, what would I not give to have this dreadful mystery cleared
up! to know whether I ought to fall down on my knees before her and beg
her pardon? or whether I ought to count among the saddest days of my life
the day which brought that woman to live with me as companion and friend?
Have I acted rashly? or have I acted wisely?
There is the question which always comes to me and torments me, when I
wake in the night. Let me look again (for the fiftieth time at least) at
Oscar's letter.
[Note.--I copy the letter. Other eyes than hers ought to see it in this
place. It is Nugent, of course, who here writes in Oscar's character and
in Oscar's name. You will observe that his good resolutions, when he left
me, held out as far as Paris--and then gave way as follows.--P.]
"MY OWN DEAREST,--I have reached Paris, and have found my first
opportunity of writing to you since I left Browndown. Madame Pratolungo
has no doubt told you that a sudden necessity has called me to my
brother. I have not yet reached the place at which I am to meet him.
Before I meet him, let me tell you what the necessity which has parted us
really is. Madame Pratolungo no longer possesses my confidence. When you
have read on a little farther, she will no longer possess yours.
"Alas, my love, I must amaze you, shock you, grieve you--I who would lay
down my life for your happiness! Let me write it in the fewest words. I
have made a terrible discovery. Lucilla! you have trusted Madame
Pratolungo as your friend. Trust her no longer. She is your enemy, and
mine.
"I suspected her some time since. My worst suspicions have been
confirmed.
"Long ere this, I ought to have told you, what I tell you now. But I
shrink from distressing you. To see a sad look on your dear face breaks
my heart. It is only when I am away from you--when I fear the
consequences if you are not warned of your danger--that I can summon the
courage to tear off the mask from that woman's false face, and show her
to you as she really is. It is impossible for me to enter into details in
the space of a letter; I reserve all particulars until we meet again, and
until I can produce, what you have a right to ask for--proof that I am
speaking the truth.
"In the meanwhile, I beg you to look back into your own thoughts, to
recall your own words, on the day when Madame Pratolungo offended you in
the rectory garden. On that occasion, the truth escaped the Frenchwoman's
lips--and she knew it!
"Do you remember what you said, after she had followed you to Browndown?
I mean, after she had declared that you would have fallen in love with my
brother if you had met him first--and after Nugent (at her instigation no
doubt) had taken advantage of your blindness to make you believe that you
were speaking to _me._ When you were smarting under the insult, and when
you had found out the trick, what did you say?
"You said these--or nearly these--words:
"'She hated you from the first, Oscar--she took up with your brother
directly he came here. Don't marry me at Dimchurch! Find out some place
that they don't know of! They are both in a conspiracy together against
you and against me. Take care of them! take care of them!'
"Lucilla! I echo your own words to you. I return the warning--the
prophetic warning--which you unconsciously gave me in that past time. I
am afraid my unhappy brother loves you--and I know for certain that
Madame Pratolungo feels the interest in _him_ which she has never felt in
_me._ What you said, I say. They are in a conspiracy together against us.
Take care of them! take care of them!
"When we meet again, I shall be prepared to defeat the conspiracy. Till
that time comes--as you value your happiness and mine, don't let Madame
Pratolungo suspect that you have discovered her. It is she, I firmly
believe, who is to blame. I am going to my brother--as you will now
understand--with an object far different to the object which I put
forward as an excuse to your false friend. Fear no dispute between Nugent
and me. I know him. I firmly believe I shall find that he has been
tempted and misled. I answer--now that no evil influences are at work on
him--for his acting like an honorable man, and deserving your pardon and
mine. The excuse I have made to Madame Pratolungo will prevent her from
interfering between us. That was my one object in making it.
"Keep me correctly informed of your movements and of hers. I enclose an
address to which you can write, with the certainty that your letters will
be forwarded.
"On my side, I promise to write constantly. Once more, don't trust a
living creature about you with the secret which this letter reveals!
Expect me back at the earliest possible moment, to free you--with a
husband's authority--from the woman who has so cruelly deceived
us.--Yours with the truest affection, the fondest love,
"OSCAR."
[Note.--It is quite needless for me to dwell here on the devilish
cunning--I can use no other phrase--which inspired this abominable
letter. Look back to the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth chapters, and
you will see how skillfully what I said in a moment of foolish
irritation, and what Lucilla said when she too had lost her temper, is
turned to account to poison her mind against me. We are made innocently
to supply our enemy with the foundation on which he builds his plot. For
the rest, the letter explains itself. Nugent still persists in
personating his brother. He guesses easily at the excuse I should make to
Lucilla for his absence; and he gets over the difficulty of appearing to
have confided his errand to a woman whom he distrusts, by declaring that
he felt it necessary to deceive me as to what the nature of that errand
really was. As the Journal proceeds, you will see how dexterously he
works the machinery which his letter has set in motion. All I need add
here, in the way of explanation, is--that the delay in his arrival at
Ramsgate of which Lucilla complains, was caused by nothing but his own
hesitation. His sense of honor--as I knew, from discoveries made at a
later time--was not entirely lost yet. The lower he sank, the harder his
better nature struggled to raise him. Nothing, positively nothing, but
his own remorse need have kept him at Paris (it is needless to say that
he never stirred farther, and never discovered the place of his brother's
retreat) after Lucilla had informed him by letter, that I had gone
abroad, and that she was at Ramsgate with her aunt. I have done: let
Lucilla go on again.--P.]