The next day, my superintendent honored me by a visit.
"Any news, sir?" I asked.
"News already, ma'am. The clerk at the steam-packet office perfectly well
remembers selling a ticket to a stranger with a terrible blue face.
Unhappily, his memory is not equally good, as to other matters. He cannot
accurately call to mind, either the name of the stranger, or the place
for which the stranger embarked. We know that he must either have gone to
some port in Italy, or to some port in the East. And, thus far, we know
no more.
"What are we to do next?" I inquired.
"I propose--with your permission--sending personal descriptions of the
gentleman, by telegraph, to the different ports in Italy first. If
nothing is heard of him in reply, we will try the ports in the East next.
That is the course which I have the honor of submitting to your
consideration. Do you approve of it?"
I cordially approved of it; and waited for the results with all the
patience that I could command.
The next day passed, and nothing happened. My unhappy father got on very
slowly. The vile woman who had caused the disaster (and who had run off
with his antagonist) was perpetually in his mind; disturbing him and
keeping him back. Why is a destroying wretch of this sort, a pitiless,
treacherous, devouring monster in female form, allowed to be out of
prison? You shut up in a cage a poor tigress, who only eats you when she
is hungry, and can't provide for her dear little children in any other
way--and you let the other and far more dangerous beast of the two range
at large under protection of the law! Ah, it is easy to see that the men
make the laws. Never mind. The women are coming to the front. Wait a
little. The tigresses on two legs will have a bad time of it when we get
into Parliament.
On the fourth of the month, the superintendent wrote to me. More news of
the lost Oscar already!
The blue man had disembarked at Genoa; and had been traced to the station
of the railway running to Turin. More inquiries had been, thereupon, sent
by telegraph to Turin. In the meantime, and in the possible event of the
missing person returning to England by way of Marseilles, experienced
men, provided with a personal description of him, would be posted at
various public places, to pass in review all travelers arriving either by
land or sea--and to report to me if the right traveler appeared. Once
more, my princely superintendent submitted this course to my
consideration--and waited for my approval--and got it, with my admiration
thrown in as part of the bargain.
The days passed--and good Papa still vacillated between better and worse.
My sisters broke down, poor souls, under their anxieties. It all fell as
usual on my shoulders. Day by day, my prospect of returning to England
seemed to grow more and more remote. Not a line of reply reached me from
Mrs. Finch. This in itself fidgeted and disturbed me. Lucilla was now
hardly ever out of my thoughts. Over and over again, my anxiety urged me
to run the risk, and write to her. But the same obstacle always raised
itself in my way. After what had happened between us, it was impossible
for me to write to her directly, without first restoring myself to my
former place in her estimation. And I could only do this, by entering
into particulars which, for all I knew to the contrary, it might still be
cruel and dangerous to reveal.
As for writing to Miss Batchford, I had already tried the old lady's
patience in that way, before leaving England. If I tried it again, with
no better excuse for a second intrusion than my own anxieties might
suggest, the chances were that this uncompromising royalist would throw
my letter in the fire, and treat her republican correspondent with
contemptuous silence. Grosse was the third, and last, person from whom I
might hope to obtain information. But--shall I confess it?--I did not
know what Lucilla might have told him of the estrangement between us, and
my pride (remember, if you please, that I am a poverty-stricken
foreigner) revolted at the idea of exposing myself to a possible repulse.
However, by the eleventh of the month, I began to feel my suspense so
keenly, and to suffer under such painful doubts of what Nugent might be
doing in my absence, that I resolved at all hazards on writing to Grosse.
It was at least possible, as I calculated--and the Journal will show you
I calculated right--that Lucilla had only told him of my melancholy
errand at Marseilles, and had mentioned nothing more. I had just opened
my desk--when our doctor in attendance entered the room, and announced
the joyful intelligence that he could answer at last for the recovery of
good Papa.
"Can I go back to England?" I asked eagerly.
"Not immediately. You are his favorite nurse--you must gradually accustom
him to the idea of your going away. If you do anything sudden you may
cause a relapse."
"I will do nothing sudden. Only tell me, when it will be safe--absolutely
safe--for me to go?"
"Say, in a week."
"On the eighteenth?"
"On the eighteenth."
I shut up my writing-desk. Within a few days, I might now hope to be in
England as soon as I could receive Grosse's answer at Marseilles. Under
these circumstances, it would be better to wait until I could make my
inquiries, safely and independently, in my own proper person. Comparison
of dates will show that if I _had_ written to the German oculist, it
would have been too late. It was now the eleventh; and Lucilla had left
Ramsgate with Nugent on the fifth.
All this time but one small morsel of news rewarded our inquiries after
Oscar--and even that small morsel seemed to me to be unworthy of belief.
It was said that he had been seen at a military hospital--the hospital of
Alessandria, in Piedmont, I think--acting, under the surgeons, as
attendant on the badly-wounded men who had survived the famous campaign
of France and Italy against Austria. (Bear in mind, if you please, that I
am writing of the year eighteen hundred and fifty-nine, and that the
peace of Villafranca was only signed in the July of that year.)
Occupation as hospital-man-nurse was, to my mind, occupation so utterly
at variance with Oscar's temperament and character, that I persisted in
considering the intelligence thus received of him to be on the face of it
false.
On the seventeenth of the month, I had got my passport regulated, and had
packed up the greater part of my baggage in anticipation of my journey
back to England on the next day.
Carefully as I had tried to accustom his mind to the idea, my poor father
remained so immovably reluctant to let me leave him, that I was obliged
to consent to a sort of compromise. I promised, when the business which
took me to England was settled, to return again to Marseilles, and to
travel back with him to his home in Paris, as soon as he was fit to be
moved. On this condition, I gained permission to go. Poor as I was, I
infinitely preferred charging my slender purse with the expense of the
double journey, to remaining any longer in ignorance of what was going on
at Ramsgate--or at Dimchurch, as the case might be. Now that my mind was
free from anxiety about my father, I don't know which tormented me
most--my eagerness to set myself right with my sister-friend, or my vague
dread of the mischief which Nugent might have done while my back was
turned. Over, and over again I asked myself, whether Miss Batchford had,
or had not, shown my letter to Lucilla. Over and over again, I wondered
whether it had been my happy privilege to reveal Nugent under his true
aspect, and to preserve Lucilla for Oscar after all.
Towards the afternoon, on the seventeenth, I went out alone to get a
breath of fresh air, and a look at the shop-windows. I don't care who or
what she may be--high or low; handsome or ugly; young or old--it always
relieves a woman's mind to look at the shop-windows.