CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH
Good Papa again!
THE promise I had given did not expose me to the annoyance of being keptlong on the watch against accidents. If we could pass safely over thenext five days, we might feel pretty sure of the future. On the last dayof the old year, Lucilla was bound by the terms of the will to go toLondon, and live her allotted three months under the roof of her aunt.
In the brief interval that elapsed before her departure, she twiceapproached the dangerous subject.
On the first occasion, she asked me if I knew what medicine Oscar wastaking. I pleaded ignorance, and passed at once to other matters. On thesecond occasion, she advanced still further on the way to discovery ofthe truth. She now inquired if I had heard how the physic worked thecure. Having been already informed that the fits proceeded from a certaindisordered condition of the brain, she was anxious to know whether themedical treatment was likely to affect the patient's head. This question(which I was of course unable to answer) she put to both the doctors.Already warned by Oscar, they quieted her by declaring that the processof cure acted by general means, and did not attack the head. From thatmoment, her curiosity was satisfied. Her mind had other objects ofinterest to dwell on, before she left Dimchurch. She touched on theperilous topic no more.
It was arranged that I was to accompany Lucilla to London. Oscar was tofollow us, when the state of his health permitted him to take thejourney. As betrothed husband of Lucilla, he had his right of entry,during her residence in her aunt's house. As for me, I was admitted atLucilla's intercession. She declined to be separated from me for threemonths.
Miss Batchford wrote, most politely, to offer me a hospitable welcomeduring the day. She had no second spare-room at her disposal--so wesettled that I was to sleep at a lodging-house in the neighborhood. Inthis same house, Oscar was also to be accommodated, when the doctorssanctioned his removal to London. It was now thought likely--if all wentwell--that the marriage might be celebrated at the end of the threemonths, from Miss Batchford's residence in town.
Three days before the date of Lucilla's departure, these plans--so far asI was concerned in them--were all over-thrown.
A letter from Paris reached me, with more bad news. My absence hadproduced the worst possible effect on good Papa.
The moment my influence had been removed, he had become perfectlyunmanageable. My sisters assured me that the abominable woman from whom Ihad rescued him, would most certainly end in marrying him after all,unless I reappeared immediately on the scene. What was to be done?Nothing was to be done, but to fly into a rage--to grind my teeth, andthrow down all my things, in the solitude of my own room--and then to goback to Paris.
Lucilla behaved charmingly. When she saw how angry and how distressed Iwas, she suppressed all exhibition of disappointment on her side, withthe truest and kindest consideration for my feelings. "Write to meoften," said the charming creature, "and come back to me as soon as youcan." Her father took her to London. Two days before they left, I saidgood-bye at the rectory and at Browndown; and started--once more by theNewhaven and Dieppe route--for Paris.
I was in no humour (as your English saying is) to mince matters, incontrolling this new outbreak on the part of my evergreen parent. Iinsisted on instantly removing him from Paris, and taking him on acontinental tour. I was proof against his paternal embraces; I was deafto his noble sentiments. He declared he should die on the road. When Ilook back at it now, I am amazed at my own cruelty. I said, "En route,Papa!"--and packed him up, and took him to Italy.
He became enamored, at intervals, now of one fair traveler and now ofanother, all through the journey from Paris to Rome. (Wonderful old man!)Arrived at Rome--that hotbed of the enemies of mankind--I saw my way toputting a moral extinguisher on the author of my being. The Eternal Citycontains three hundred and sixty-five churches, and (say) three millionand sixty-five pictures. I insisted on his seeing them all--at theadvanced age of seventy-five years! The sedative result followed, exactlyas I had anticipated. I stupefied good Papa with churches andpictures--and then I tried him with a marble woman to begin with. He fellasleep before the Venus of the Capitol. When I saw that, I said tomyself, Now he will do; Don Juan is reformed at last.
Lucilla's correspondence with me--at first cheerful--gradually assumed adesponding tone.
Six weeks had passed since her departure from Dimchurch; and stillOscar's letters held out no hope of his being able to join her in London.His recovery was advancing, but not so rapidly as his medical adviser hadanticipated. It was possible--to look the worst in the face boldly--thathe might not get the doctor's permission to leave Browndown before thetime arrived for Lucilla's return to the rectory. In this event, he couldonly entreat her to be patient, and to remember that though he wasgaining ground but slowly, he was still getting on. Under thesecircumstances, Lucilla was naturally vexed and dejected. She had never(she wrote), from her girlhood upward, spent such a miserable time withher aunt as she was spending now.
On reading this letter, I instantly smelt something wrong.
I corresponded with Oscar almost as frequently as with Lucilla. His lastletter to me flatly contradicted his last letter to his promised wife. Inwriting to my address, he declared himself to be rapidly advancingtowards recovery. Under the new treatment, the fits succeeded each otherat longer and longer intervals, and endured a shorter and shorter time.Here then was plainly a depressing report sent to Lucilla, and anencouraging report sent to me.
What did it mean?
Oscar's next letter to me answered the question.
"I told you in my last" (he wrote), "that the discoloration of my skinhad begun. The complexion which you were once so good as to admire, hasdisappeared for ever. I am now of a livid ashen color--so like death,that I sometimes startle myself when I look in the glass. In about sixweeks more, as the doctor calculates, this will deepen to a blackishblue; and then, 'the saturation' (as he calls it) will be complete.
"So far from feeling any useless regrets at having taken the medicinewhich is producing these ugly effects, I am more grateful to my Nitrateof Silver than words can say. If you ask for the secret of thisextraordinary exhibition of philosophy on my part, I can give it in oneline. For the last ten days, I have not had a fit. In other words, forthe last ten days, I have lived in Paradise. I declare I would havecheerfully lost an arm or a leg to gain the blessed peace of mind, theintoxicating confidence in the future--it is nothing less--that I feelnow.
"Still there is a drawback which prevents me from enjoying perfecttranquillity even yet. When was there ever a pleasure in this world,without a lurking possibility of pain hidden away in it somewhere?
"I have lately discovered a peculiarity in Lucilla which is new to me,and which has produced a very unpleasant impression on my mind. Myproposed avowal to her of the change in my personal appearance, has nowbecome a matter of far more serious difficulty than I had anticipatedwhen the question was discussed between you and me at Browndown.
"Have you ever found out that the strongest antipathy she has, is herpurely imaginary antipathy to dark people and to dark shades of color ofall kinds? This strange prejudice is the result, as I suppose, of somemorbid growth of her blindness, quite as inexplicable to herself as toother people. Explicable, or not, there it is in her. Read the extractthat follows from one of her letters to her father, which her fathershowed to me--and you will not be surprised to hear that I tremble formyself when the time comes for telling her what I have done.
"Thus she writes to Mr. Finch:--
"'I am sorry to say, I have had a little quarrel with my aunt. It is allmade up now, but it has hardly left us such good friends as we werebefore. Last week, there was a dinner-party here; and, among the guests,was a Hindoo gentleman (converted to Christianity) to whom my aunt hastaken a great fancy. While the maid was dressing me, I unluckily inquiredif she had seen the Hindoo--and, hearing that she had, I still moreunfortunately asked her to tell me what he was like. She described him asbeing very tall and l
ean, with a dark brown complexion and glitteringblack eyes. My mischievous fancy instantly set to work on this horridcombination of darknesses. Try as I might to resist it, my mind drew adreadful picture of the Hindoo, as a kind of monster in human form. Iwould have given worlds to have been excused from going down into thedrawing-room. At the last moment I was sent for, and the Hindoo wasintroduced to me. The instant I felt him approaching, my darkness waspeopled with brown demons. He took my hand. I tried hard to controlmyself--but I really could not help shuddering and starting back when hetouched me. To make matters worse, he sat next to me at dinner. In fiveminutes I had long, lean, black-eyed beings all round me; perpetuallygrowing in numbers, and pressing closer and closer on me as they grew. Itended in my being obliged to leave the table. When the guests were allgone, my aunt was furious. I admitted my conduct was unreasonable in thelast degree. At the same time, I begged her to make allowances for me. Ireminded her that I was blind at a year old, and that I had really noidea of what any person was like, except by drawing pictures of them inmy imagination, from description, and from my own knowledge obtained bytouch. I appealed to her to remember that, situated as I am, my fancy ispeculiarly liable to play me tricks, and that I have no sight to seewith, and to show me--as other people's eyes show _them_--when they havetaken a false view of persons and things. It was all in vain. My auntwould admit of no excuse for me. I was so irritated by her injustice,that I reminded her of an antipathy of her own, quite as ridiculous asmine--an antipathy to cats. She, who can see that cats are harmless,shudders and turns pale, for all that, if a cat is in the same room withher. Set my senseless horror of dark people against her senseless horrorof cats--and say which of us has the right to be angry with the other?'"
Such was the quotation from Lucilla's letter to her father. At the end ofit, Oscar resumed, as follows:--
"I wonder whether you will now understand me, if I own to you that I havemade the worst of my case in writing to Lucilla? It is the only excuse Ican produce for not joining her in London. Weary as I am of our longseparation, I cannot prevail on myself to run the risk of meeting her inthe presence of strangers, who would instantly notice my frightful color,and betray it to her. Think of her shuddering and starting back from myhand when it took hers! No! no! I must choose my own opportunity, in thisquiet place, of telling her what (I suppose) must be told--with timebefore me to prepare her mind for the disclosure (if it must come), andwith nobody but you near to see the first mortifying effect of the shockwhich I shall inflict on her.
"I have only to add, before I release you, that I write these lines inthe strictest confidence. You have promised not to mention mydisfigurement to Lucilla, unless I first give you leave. I now, more thanever, hold you to that promise. The few people about me here, are allpledged to secrecy as you are. If it is really inevitable that she shouldknow the truth--I alone must tell it; in my own way, and at my own time."