CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH
Second Result of the Robbery
THE history of my proceedings in Paris can be dismissed in a very fewwords. It is only necessary to dwell in detail on one among the manyparticulars which connect themselves in my memory with the rescue of goodPapa.
The affair, this time, assumed the gravest possible aspect. The venerablevictim had gone the length of renewing his youth, in respect of histeeth, his hair, his complexion, and his figure (this last involving thepurchase of a pair of stays). I declare I hardly knew him again, he wasso outrageously and unnaturally young. The utmost stretch of my influencewas exerted over him in vain. He embraced me with the most touchingfervour; he expressed the noblest sentiments--but in the matter of hiscontemplated marriage, he was immovable. Life was only tolerable to himon one condition. The beloved object, or death--such was the programme ofthis volcanic old man.
To make the prospect more hopeless still, the beloved object proved, onthis occasion, to be a bold enough woman to play her trump card atstarting.
I give the jade her due. She assumed a perfectly unassailable attitude:we had her full permission to break off the match--if we could. "I referyou to your father. Pray understand that I don't wish to marry him, ifhis daughters object to it. He has only to say, 'Release me.' From thatmoment he is free." There was no contending against such a system ofdefence as this. We knew as well as she did that our fascinated parentwould not say the word. Our one chance was to spend money ininvestigating the antecedent indiscretions of the lady's life, and toproduce against her proof so indisputable that not even an old man'sinfatuation could say, This is a lie.
We disbursed; we investigated; we secured our proof. It took a fortnight.At the end of that time, we had the necessary materials in hand foropening the eyes of good Papa.
In the course of the inquiry I was brought into contact with many strangepeople--among others, with a man who startled me, at our first interview,by presenting a personal deformity, which, with all my experience of theworld, I now saw oddly enough for the first time.
The man's face, instead of exhibiting any of the usual shades ofcomplexion, was hideously distinguished by a superhuman--I had almostsaid a devilish--colouring of livid blackish _blue!_ He proved to be amost kind, intelligent, and serviceable person. But when we firstconfronted each other, his horrible color so startled me, that I couldnot repress a cry of alarm. He not only passed over my involuntary act ofrudeness in the most indulgent manner--he explained to me the cause whichhad produced his peculiarity of complexion; so as to put me at my easebefore we entered on the delicate private inquiry which had brought ustogether.
"I beg your pardon," said this unfortunate man, "for not having warnedyou of my disfigurement, before I entered the room. There are hundreds ofpeople discolored as I am, in the various parts of the civilized world;and I supposed that you had met, in the course of your experience, withother examples of my case. The blue tinge in my complexion is produced bythe effect on the blood of Nitrate of Silver--taken internally. It is theonly medicine which relieves sufferers like me from an otherwiseincurable malady. We have no alternative but to accept the consequencesfor the sake of the cure."
He did not mention what his malady had been; and I abstained, it isneedless to say, from questioning him further. I got used to hisdisfigurement in the course of my relations with him; and I should nodoubt have forgotten my blue man in attending to more absorbing mattersof interest, if the effects of Nitrate of Silver as a medicine had notbeen once more unexpectedly forced on my attention, in another quarter,and under circumstances which surprised me in no ordinary degree.
Having saved Papa on the brink of--let us say, his twentieth precipice,it was next necessary to stay a few days longer and reconcile him to thehardship of being rescued in spite of himself. You would have beengreatly shocked, if you had seen how he suffered. He gnashed hisexpensive teeth; he tore his beautifully manufactured hair. In thefervour of his emotions, I have no doubt he would have burst his newstays--if I had not taken them away, and sold them half-price, and made(to that small extent) a profit out of our calamity to set against theloss. Do what one may in the detestable system of modern society, thepivot on which it all turns is Money. Money, when you are saving Freedom!Money, when you are saving Papa! Is there no remedy for this? A word inyour ear. Wait till the next revolution!
During the time of my absence, I had of course corresponded with Lucilla.
Her letters to me--very sad and very short--reported a melancholy stateof things at Dimchurch. While I had been away, the dreadful epilepticseizures had attacked Oscar with increasing frequency and increasingseverity. The moment I could see my way to getting back to England, Iwrote to Lucilla to cheer her with the intimation of my return. Two daysonly before my departure from Paris, I received another letter from her.I was weak enough to be almost afraid to open it. Her writing to meagain, when she knew that we should be re-united at such an early date,suggested that she must have some very startling news to communicate. Mymind misgave me that it would prove to be news of the worst sort.
I summoned courage to open the envelope. Ah, what fools we are! For oncethat our presentments come right, they prove a hundred times to be wrong.Instead of distressing me, the letter delighted me. Our gloomy prospectwas brightening at last.
Thus--feeling her way over the paper, in her large childishcharacters--Lucilla wrote:
"DEAREST FRIEND AND SISTER,--I cannot wait until we meet, to tell you mygood news. The Brighton doctor has been dismissed; and a doctor fromLondon has been tried instead. My dear! for intellect there is nothinglike London. The new man sees, thinks, and makes up his mind on the spot.He has a way of his own of treating Oscar's case; and he answers forcuring him of the horrible fits. There is news for you! Come back, andlet us jump for joy together. How wrong I was to doubt the future! Never,never, never will I doubt it again. This is the longest letter I haveever written.
"Your affectionate,
"LUCILLA."
To this, a postscript was added, in Oscar's handwriting, as follows:--
"Lucilla has told you that there is some hope for me at last. What Iwrite in this place is written without her knowledge--for your privateear only. Take the first opportunity you can find of coming to see me atBrowndown, without allowing Lucilla to hear of it. I have a great favorto ask of you. My happiness depends on your granting it. You shall knowwhat it is, when we meet.
"OSCAR."
This postscript puzzled me.
It was not in harmony with the implicit confidence which I had observedOscar to place habitually in Lucilla. It jarred on my experience of hischaracter, which presented him to me as the reverse of a reservedsecretive man. His concealment of his identity, when he first came amongus, had been a forced concealment--due entirely to his horror of beingidentified with the hero of the trial. In all the ordinary relations oflife, he was open and unreserved to a fault. That he could have a secretto keep from Lucilla, and to confide to me, was something perfectlyunintelligible to my mind. It highly excited my curiosity; it gave me anew reason for longing to get back.
I was able to make all my arrangements, and to bid adieu to my father andmy sisters on the evening of the twenty-third. Early on the morning ofthe twenty-fourth, I left Paris, and reached Dimchurch in time for thefinal festivities in celebration of Christmas Eve.
The first hour of Christmas Day had struck on the clock in our own prettysitting-room, before I could prevail upon Lucilla to let me rest, aftermy journey, in bed. She was now once more the joyous light-heartedcreature of our happier time; and she had so much to say to me, that noteven her father himself (on this occasion) could have talked her down.The next morning she paid the penalty of exciting herself over-night.When I went into her room, she was suffering from a nervous head-ache,and was not able to rise at her usual hour. She proposed of her ownaccord that I should go alone to Browndown to see Oscar on my return. Itis only doing common justice to myself to say that this was a relief tome.
If she had had the use of her eyes, my conscience would have beeneasy enough--but I shrank from deceiving my dear blind girl, even in theslightest things.
So, with Lucilla's knowledge and approval, I went to Oscar alone.
I found him fretful and anxious--ready to flame out into one of hissudden passions, on the smallest provocation. Not the slightestreflection of Lucilla's recovered cheerfulness appeared in Lucilla'slover.
"Has she said anything to you about the new doctor?" were the first wordshe addressed to me.
"She has told me that she feels the greatest faith in him," I answered."She firmly believes that he speaks the truth in saying he can cure you."
"Did she show any curiosity to know _how_ he is curing me?"
"Not the slightest curiosity that I could see. It is enough for her thatyou _are_ to be cured. The rest she leaves to the doctor."
My last answer appeared to relieve him. He sighed, and leaned back in hischair. "That's right!" he said to himself. "I'm glad to hear that."
"Is the doctor's treatment of you a secret?" I asked.
"It must be a secret from Lucilla," he said, speaking very earnestly. "Ifshe attempts to find it out, she must be kept--for the present, atleast--from all knowledge of it. Nobody has any influence over her butyou. I look to you to help me."
"Is this the favor you had to ask me?"
"Yes."
"Am I to know the secret of the medical treatment?"
"Certainly! How can I expect you to help me unless you know what aserious reason there is for keeping Lucilla in the dark."
He laid a strong emphasis on the two words "serious reason. I began tofeel a little uneasy. I had never yet taken the slightest advantage of mypoor Lucilla's blindness. And here was her promised husband--of all thepeople in the world--proposing to me to keep her in the dark.
"Is the new doctor's treatment dangerous?" I inquired.
"Not in the least."
"Is it not so certain as he has led Lucilla to believe?"
"It is quite certain.
"Did the other doctors know of it?"
"Yes."
"Why did they not try it?"
"They were afraid."
"Afraid? What _is_ the treatment?"
"Medicine."
"Many medicines? or one?"
"Only one."
"What is the name of it?"
"Nitrate of Silver."
I started to my feet, looked at him, and dropped back into my chair.
My mind reverted, the instant I recovered myself, to the effect producedon me when the blue man in Paris first entered my presence. In informingme of the effect of the medicine, he had (you will remember) concealedfrom me the malady for which he had taken it. It had been left to Oscar,of all the people in the world, to enlighten me--and that by a referenceto his own case! I was so shocked that I sat speechless.
With his quick sensibilities, there was no need for me to express myselfin words. My face revealed to him what was passing in my mind.
"You have seen a person who has taken Nitrate of Silver!" he exclaimed.
"Have _you?_" I asked.
"I know the price I pay for being cured," he answered quietly.
His composure staggered me. "How long have you been taking this horribledrug?" I inquired.
"A little more than a week."
"I see no change in you yet."
"The doctor tells me there will be no visible change for weeks and weeksto come."
Those words roused a momentary hope in me. "There is time to alter yourmind," I said. "For heaven's sake reconsider your resolution before it istoo late!"
He smiled bitterly. "Weak as I am," he answered, "for once, my mind ismade up."
I suppose I took a woman's view of the matter. I lost my temper when Ilooked at his beautiful complexion and thought of the future.
"Are you in your right senses?" I burst out. "Do you mean to tell me thatyou are deliberately bent on making yourself an object of horror toeverybody who sees you?"
"The one person whose opinion I care for," he replied, "will never seeme."
I understood him at last. _That_ was the consideration which hadreconciled him to it!
Lucilla's horror of dark people and dark shades of color, of all kinds,was, it is needless to say, recalled to my memory by the turn theconversation was taking now. Had she confessed it to him, as she hadconfessed it to me? No! I remembered that she had expressly warned me notto admit him into our confidence in this matter. At an early period oftheir acquaintance, she had asked him which of his parents he resembled.This led him into telling her that his father had been a dark man.Lucilla's delicacy had at once taken the alarm. "He speaks very tenderlyof his dead father," she said to me. "It may hurt him if he finds out theantipathy I have to dark people. Let us keep it to ourselves." As thingsnow were, it was on the tip of my tongue to remind him, that Lucillawould hear of his disfigurement from other people; and then to warn himof the unpleasant result that might follow. On reflection, however, Ithought it wiser to wait a little and sound his motives first.
"Before you tell me how I can help you," I said, "I want to know onething more. Have you decided in this serious matter entirely by yourself?Have you taken no advice?"
"I don't want advice," he answered sharply. "My case admits of no choice.Even such a nervous undecided creature as I am, can judge for himselfwhere there is no alternative."
"Did the doctors tell you there was no alternative?" I asked.
"The doctors were afraid to tell me. I had to force it out of them. Isaid, 'I appeal to your honor to answer a plain question plainly. Isthere any certain prospect of my getting the better of the fits?' Theyonly said, 'At your time of life, we may reasonably hope so.' I pressedthem closer:--'Can you fix a date to which I may look forward as the dateof my deliverance?' They could neither of them do it. All they could saywas, 'Our experience justifies us in believing that you will grow out ofit; but it does _not_ justify us in saying when.' 'Then, I may be yearsgrowing out of it?' They were obliged to own that it might be so. 'Or Imay never grow out of it, at all?' They tried to turn the conversation. Iwouldn't have it. I said, 'Tell me honestly, is that one of thepossibilities, in my case?' The Dimchurch doctor looked at the Londondoctor. The London man said, 'If you will have it, it is one of thepossibilities.' Just consider the prospect which his answer placed beforeme! Day after day, week after week, month after month, always in danger,go where I may, of falling down in a fit--is that a miserable position?or is it not?"
How could I answer him? What could I say?
He went on:--
"Add to that wretched state of things that I am engaged to be married.The hardest disappointment which can fall on a man, falls on me. Thehappiness of my life is within my reach--and I am forbidden to enjoy it.It is not only my health that is broken up, my prospects in life areruined as well. The woman I love is a woman forbidden to me while Isuffer as I suffer now. Realize that--and then fancy you see a mansitting at this table here, with pen, ink, and paper before him, who hasonly to scribble a line or two, and to begin the cure of you from thatmoment. Deliverance in a few months from the horror of the fits; marriagein a few months to the woman you love. That heavenly prospect in exchangefor the hellish existence that you are enduring now. And the one price topay for it, a discolored face for the rest of your life--which the oneperson who is dearest to you will never see? Would you have hesitated?When the doctor took up the pen to write the prescription--tell me, ifyou had been in my place, would you have said, No?"
I still sat silent. My obstinacy--women are such mules!--declined to giveway, even when my conscience told me that he was right.
He sprang to his feet, in the same fever of excitement which I rememberedso well, when I had irritated him at Browndown into telling me who hereally was.
"Would you have said, No?" he reiterated, stooping over me, flushed andheated, as he had stooped on that first occasion, when he had whisperedhis name in my ear. "Would you?" he repeated, louder and
louder--"wouldyou?"
At the third reiteration of the words, the frightful contortion that Iknew so well, seized on his face. The wrench to the right twisted hisbody. He dropped at my feet. Good God! who could have declared that hewas wrong, with such an argument in his favor as I saw at that moment?Who would not have said that any disfigurement would be welcome as arefuge from this?
The servant ran in, and helped me to move the furniture to a safedistance from him, "There won't be much more of it, ma'am," said the man,noticing my agitation, and trying to compose me. "In a month or two, thedoctor says the medicine will get hold of him." I could say nothing on myside--I could only reproach myself bitterly for disputing with him andexciting him, and leading perhaps to the hideous seizure which hadattacked him in my presence for the second time.
The fit on this occasion was a short one. Perhaps the drug was alreadybeginning to have some influence over him? In twenty minutes, he was ableto resume his chair, and to go on talking to me.
"You think I shall horrify you when my face has turned blue," he saidwith a faint smile. "Don't I horrify you now when you see me inconvulsions on the floor?"
I entreated him to dwell on it no more.
"God knows," I said, "you have convinced me--obstinate as I am. Let ustry to think of nothing now but of the prospect of your being cured. Whatdo you wish me to do?"
"You have great influence over Lucilla," he said. "If she expresses anycuriosity, in future conversations with you, about the effect of themedicine, check her at once. Keep her as ignorant of it as she is now!"
"Why?"
"Why! If she knows what you know, how will she feel? Shocked andhorrified, as you felt. What will she do? She will come straight here,and try, as you have tried, to persuade me to give it up. Is that true ornot?"
(Impossible to deny that it was true.)
"I am so fond of her," he went on, "that I can refuse her nothing. Shewould end in making me give it up. The instant her back was turned, Ishould repent my own weakness, and return to the medicine. Here is aperpetual struggle in prospect, for a man who is already worn out. Is itdesirable, after what you have just seen, to expose me to that?"
It would have been useless cruelty to expose him to it. How could I dootherwise than consent to make his sacrifice of himself--his _necessary_sacrifice--as easy as I could? At the same time, I implored him toremember one thing.
"Mind," I said, "we can never hope to keep her in ignorance of the changein you, when the change comes. Sooner or later, some one will let thesecret out."
"I only want it to be concealed from her while the disfigurement of me isin progress," he answered. "When nothing she can say or do will alterit--I will tell her myself. She is so happy in the hope of my recovery!What good can be gained by telling her beforehand of the penalty that Ipay for my deliverance? My ugly color will never terrify my poor darling.As for other persons, I shall not force myself on the view of the world.It is my one wish to live out of the world. The few people about me willsoon get reconciled to my face. Lucilla will set them the example. Shewon't trouble herself long about a change in me that she can neither feelnor see."
Ought I to have warned him here of Lucilla's inveterate prejudice, and ofthe difficulty there might be in reconciling her to the change in himwhen she heard of it? I dare say I ought, I daresay I was to blame inshrinking from inflicting new anxieties and new distresses on a man whohad already suffered so much. The simple truth is--I could not do it.Would you have done it? Ah, if you would, I hope I may never come incontact with you. What a horrid wretch you must be! The end of it wasthat I left the house--pledged to keep Lucilla in ignorance of the costat which Oscar had determined to purchase his cure, until Oscar thoughtfit to enlighten her himself.