Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (831 page)

So, she announced her decision. In those memorable words, she cleared the way for the coming Event in her life and in our lives, which it is the purpose of these pages to record.

Mr. Sebright answered her, in Mr. Sebright’s discreet way.

“I cannot affect to be surprised at your decision,” he said. “However sincerely I may regret it, I admit that it is the natural decision, in your case.”

Lucilla addressed herself next to Herr Grosse.

“Choose your own day,” she said. “The sooner, the better. To-morrow, if you can.”

“Answer me one little thing, Miss,” rejoined the German, with a sudden gravity of tone and manner which was quite new in our experience of him. “Do you mean what you say?”

She answered him gravely on her side. “I mean what I say.”

“Goot. There is times, my lofe, to be funny. There is also times to be grave. It is grave-times now. I have my last word to say to you before I go.”

With his wild black eyes staring through his owlish spectacles at Lucilla’s face, speaking earnestly in his strange broken English, he now impressed on his patient the necessity of gravely considering, and preparing for, the operation which he had undertaken to perform.

I was greatly relieved by the tone he took with her. He spoke with authority: she would be obliged to listen to him.

In the first place, he warned Lucilla, if the operation failed, that there would be no possibility of returning to it, and trying it again. Once done, be the results what they might, it was done for good.

In the second place, before he would consent to operate, he must insist on certain conditions, essential to success, being rigidly complied with, on the part of the patient and her friends. Mr. Sebright had by no means exaggerated the length of the time of trial which would follow the operation, in the darkened room. Under no circumstances could she hope to have her eyes uncovered, even for a few moments, to the light, after a shorter interval than six weeks. During the whole of that time, and probably during another six weeks to follow, it was absolutely necessary that she should be kept in such a state of health as would assist her, constitutionally, in her gradual progress towards complete restoration of sight. If body and mind both were not preserved in their best and steadiest condition, all that his skill could do might be done in vain. Nothing to excite or to agitate her, must be allowed to find its way into the quiet daily routine of her life, until her medical attendant was satisfied that her sight was safe. The success of Herr Grosse’s professional career had been due, in no small degree, to his rigid enforcement of these rules: founded on his own experience of the influence which a patient’s general health, moral as well as physical, exercised on that patient’s chance of profiting under an operation — more especially under an operation on an organ so delicate as the organ of sight.

Having spoken to this effect, he appealed to Lucilla’s own good sense to recognise the necessity of taking time to consider her decision, and to consult on it with relatives and friends. In plain words, for at least three months the family arrangements must be so shaped, as to enable the surgeon in attendance on her to hold the absolute power of regulating her life, and of deciding on any changes introduced into it. When she and the members of her family circle were sure of being able to comply with these conditions, Lucilla had only to write to him at his hotel in London. On the next day he would undertake to be at Dimchurch. And then and there (if he was satisfied with the state of her health at the time), he would perform the operation.

After pledging himself in those terms, Herr Grosse puffed out his remaining breath in one deep guttural “Hah!” — and got briskly on his short legs. At the same moment, Zillah knocked at the door, and announced that the chaise was waiting for the two gentlemen at the rectory-gate.

Mr. Sebright rose — in some doubt, apparently, whether his colleague had done talking. “Don’t let me hurry you,” he said. “I have business in London; and I must positively catch the next train.”

“Soh! I have my business in London, too,” answered his brother-oculist — ”the business of pleasure.” (Mr. Sebright looked scandalized at the frankness of this confession, coming from a professional man). “I am so passion-fond of musics,” Herr Grosse went on — ”I want to be in goot times for the opera. Ach Gott! musics is expensive in England! I climb to the gallery, and pay my five silver shillingses even there. For five copper pences, in my own country, I can get the same thing — only better done. From the deep bottoms of my heart,” proceeded this curious man, taking a cordial leave of me, “I thank you, dear madam, for the Mayonnaise. When I come again, I pray you more of that lofely dish.” He turned to Lucilla, and popped his thumb on her eyelids for the last time at parting. “My sweet-Feench, remember what your surgeon-optic has said to you. I shall let the light in here — but in my own way, at my own time. Pretty lofe! Ah, how infinitely much prettier she will be, when she can see!” He took Lucilla’s hand, and put it sentimentally inside the collar of his waistcoat, over the region of the heart; laying his other hand upon it as if he was keeping it warm. In this tender attitude, he blew a prodigious sigh; recovered himself, with a shake of his shock-head; winked at me through his spectacles, and waddled out after Mr. Sebright, who was already at the bottom of the stairs. Who would have guessed that this man held the key which was to open for my blind Lucilla the gates of a new life!

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-SECOND

Alas for the Marriage!

WE were left together; Nugent having accompanied the two oculists to the garden-gate.

Now that we were alone, Oscar’s absence could hardly fail to attract Lucilla’s attention. Just as she was referring to him in terms which made it no easy task for me to quiet her successfully, we were interrupted by the screams of the baby, ascending from the garden below. I ran to the window, and looked out.

Mrs. Finch had actually effected her desperate purpose of waylaying the two surgeons in the interests of “baby’s eyes.” There she was, in a skirt and a shawl — with her novel dropped in one part of the lawn, and her handkerchief in the other — pursuing the oculists on their way to the chaise. Reckless of appearances, Herr Grosse had taken to his heels. He was retreating from the screeching infant (with his fingers stuffed into his ears), as fast as his short legs would let him. Nugent was ahead of him, hurrying on to open the garden-gate. Respectable Mr. Sebright (professionally incapable of running) brought up the rear. At short intervals, Mrs. Finch, close on his heels, held up the baby for inspection. At short intervals, Mr. Sebright held up his hands in polite protest. Nugent, roaring with laughter, threw open the garden-gate. Herr Grosse rushed through the opening, and disappeared. Mr. Sebright followed Herr Grosse; and Mrs. Finch attempted to follow Mr. Sebright — when a new personage appeared on the scene. Startled in the sanctuary of his study by the noise, the rector himself strutted into the garden, and brought his wife to a sudden standstill, by inquiring in his deepest base notes, “What does this unseemly disturbance mean?”

The chaise drove off; and Nugent closed the garden-gate.

Some words, inaudible to my ears, passed between Nugent and the rector — referring, as I could only suppose, to the visit of the two departing surgeons. After awhile, Mr. Finch turned away (to all appearance offended by something which had been said to him), and addressed himself to Oscar, who now reappeared on the lawn; having evidently only waited to show himself, until the chaise drove away. The rector paternally took his arm; and, beckoning to his wife with the other hand, took Mrs. Finch’s arm next. Majestically marching back to the house between the two, Reverend Finch asserted himself and his authority alternately, now to Oscar and now to his wife. His big booming voice reached my ears distinctly, accompanied in sharp discord by the last wailings of the exhausted child.

In these terrible words the Pope of Dimchurch began: — ”Oscar! you are to understand distinctly, if you please, that I maintain my protest against this impious attempt to meddle with my afflicted daughter’s sight. — Mrs. Finch!
you
are to understand that I excuse your unseemly pursuit of two strange surgeons, in consideration of the state that I find you in at this moment. After your last confinement but eight you became, I remember, hysterically irresponsible. Hold your tongue. You are hysterically irresponsible now. — Oscar! I decline, in justice to myself, to be present at any discussion which may follow the visit of those two professional persons. But I am not averse to advising you for your own good. My Foot is down. Put your foot down too. — Mrs. Finch! how long is it since you ate last? Two hours? Are you sure it is two hours? Very good. You require a sedative application. I order you, medically, to get into a warm bath, and stay there till I come to you. — Oscar! you are deficient, my good fellow, in moral weight. Endeavor to oppose yourself resolutely to any scheme, on the part of my unhappy daughter or of those who advise her, which involves more expenditure of money in fees, and new appearances of professional persons. — Mrs. Finch! the temperature is to be ninety-eight, and the position partially recumbent. — Oscar! I authorize you (if you can’t stop it in any other way) to throw My moral weight into the scale. You are free to say ‘I oppose This, with Mr. Finch’s approval: I am, so to speak, backed by Mr. Finch.’ — Mrs. Finch! I wish you to understand the object of the bath. Hold your tongue. The object is to produce a gentle action on your skin. One of the women is to keep her eye on your forehead. The instant she perceives an appearance of moisture, she is to run for me. — Oscar! you will let me know at what decision they arrive, up-stairs in my daughter’s room. Not after they have merely heard what you have to say, but after My Moral Weight has been thrown into the scale. — Mrs. Finch! on leaving the bath, I shall have you only lightly clothed. I forbid, with a view to your head, all compression, whether of stays or strings, round the waist. I forbid garters — with the same object. You will abstain from tea and talking. You will lie, loose, on your back. You will —
 
— ”

What else this unhappy woman was to do, I failed to hear. Mr. Finch disappeared with her, round the corner of the house. Oscar waited at the door of our side of the rectory, until Nugent joined him, on their way back to the sitting-room in which we were expecting their return.

After an interval of a few minutes, the brothers appeared.

Throughout the whole of the time during which the surgeons had been in the house, I had noticed that Nugent persisted in keeping himself scrupulously in the background. Having assumed the responsibility of putting the serious question of Lucilla’s sight scientifically to the test, he appeared to be resolved to pause there, and to interfere no further in the affair after it had passed its first stage. And now again, when we were met in our little committee to discuss, and possibly to combat, Lucilla’s resolution to proceed to extremities, he once more refrained from interfering actively with the matter in hand.

“I have brought Oscar back with me,” he said to Lucilla; “and I have told him how widely the two oculists differ in opinion on your case. He knows also that you have decided on being guided by the more favorable view taken by Herr Grosse — and he knows no more.”

There he stopped abruptly and seated himself apart from us, at the lower end of the room.

Lucilla instantly appealed to Oscar to explain his conduct.

“Why have you kept out of the way?” she asked. “Why have you not been with me, at the most important moment of my life?”

“Because I felt your anxious position too keenly,” Oscar answered. “Don’t think me inconsiderate towards you, Lucilla. If I had not kept away, I might not have been able to control myself.”

I thought that reply far too dexterous to have come from Oscar on the spur of the moment. Besides, he looked at his brother when he said the last words. It seemed more than likely — short as the interval had been before they appeared in the sitting-room — that Nugent had been advising Oscar, and had been telling him what to say.

Lucilla received his excuses with the readiest grace and kindness.

“Mr. Sebright tells me, Oscar, that my sight is hopelessly gone,” she said. “Herr Grosse answers for it that an operation will make me see. Need I tell you which of the two I believe in? If I could have had my own way, Herr Grosse should have operated on my eyes, before he went back to London.”

“Did he refuse?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Lucilla told him of the reasons which the German oculist had stated as unanswerable reasons for delay. Oscar listened attentively, and looked at his brother again, before he replied.