Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (839 page)

After that, there was no more to be said. Zillah — disturbed over her domestic occupations and eager to get back to her kitchen — seized the first chance of leaving the room; going out in such a hurry that she forgot to close the door after her. We all looked at each other. To what conclusion did the nurse’s strange answers point? It was plainly impossible for Oscar (no matter how quick his temper might be) to feel jealous of a man of Grosse’s age and personal appearance. Still, the prolonged interview between patient and surgeon — after the decision had been pronounced and the trial of the eyes definitely deferred to a future day — had a strange appearance, to say the least of it.

Nugent returned to his place at the window — puzzled, suspicious, deep in his own thoughts. Reverend Finch, swelling with unspoken words, rose portentously from his chair by his wife’s side. Had he discovered another chance of inflicting his eloquence on us? It was only too evident that he had! He looked at us with his ominous smile. He addressed us in his biggest voice.

“My Christian friends —
 
— ”

Nugent, unassailable by eloquence, persisted in looking out of the window. Oscar, insensible to every earthly consideration except the one consideration of Lucilla, drew me aside unceremoniously out of the rector’s hearing. Mr. Finch resumed.

“My Christian friends, I could wish to say a few appropriate words.”

“Go to Lucilla!” whispered Oscar, taking me entreatingly by both hands. “
You
needn’t stand on ceremony with her. Do, do see what is going on in the next room!”

Mr. Finch resumed.

“The occasion seems to call upon one in my position for a little sustaining advice on Christian duty — I would say, the duty of being cheerful under disappointment.”

Oscar persisted.

“Do me the greatest of all favors! Pray find out what is keeping Lucilla with that man!”

Mr. Finch cleared his throat, and lifted his right hand persuasively by way of introduction to his next sentence.

I answered Oscar in a whisper.

“I don’t like intruding on them. Lucilla told the nurse they were to be left by themselves.”

Just as I said the words, I became aware of a sudden bump against me from behind. I turned, and discovered Jicks with the battering-ram-doll, preparing for a second plunge at me. She stopped, when she found that she had attracted my attention; and, taking hold of my dress, tried to pull me out of the room.

“Remove that child!” cried the rector, exasperated by this new interruption.

The child pulled harder and harder at my dress. Something had apparently happened outside the sitting-room which had produced a strong impression on her. Her little round face was flushed; her bright blue eyes were wide open and staring. “Jicks wants to speak to you,” she said — and pulled at me impatiently harder than ever.

I stooped down with the double purpose of obeying Mr. Finch’s commands and of humouring the child’s whim, by carrying Jicks out of the room, when I was startled by a sound from the bed-chamber — the sound, loud and peremptory, of Lucilla’s voice.

“Let go of me!” she cried. “I am a woman — I won’t be treated like a child.”

There was a moment of silence — followed by the rustling sound of her dress, approaching us along the corridor.

Grosse’s voice — unmistakably angry and excited — became audible at the same time. “No! Come back! come back!”

The rustling sound of the dress came nearer.

Nugent and Mr. Finch moved together closer to the door. Oscar caught me by the arm. He and I were on the left-hand side of the door: Nugent and the rector were on the right-hand side. It all happened with the suddenness of a flash of lightning. My heart stood still. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t move.

The half-closed door of the sitting-room was burst wide open — roughly, violently, as if a man, not a woman, had been on the other side. (The rector drew back; Nugent remained where he was.) Wildly groping her way with outstretched arms, as I had never seen her grope it in the time of her blindness, Lucilla staggered into the room. Merciful God! the bandage was off. The life, the new life of sight, was in her eyes. It transfigured her face: it irradiated her beauty with an awful and unearthly light. She saw! she saw!

For an instant she stopped at the door, swaying to and fro; giddy under the broad stare of daylight.

She looked at the rector — then at Mrs. Finch, who had followed her husband. She paused bewildered, and put her hands over her eyes. She slightly changed her position; turned her head, as if to look at me; turned it back sharply towards the right-hand side of the door again; and threw up her arms in the air, with a burst of hysterical laughter. The laughter ended in a scream of triumph, which rang through the house. She rushed at Nugent Dubourg, so blindly incapable of measuring her distance that she struck against him violently, and nearly threw him down. “I know him! I know him!” she cried — and flung her arms round his neck. “Oh, Oscar! Oscar!” She clasped him to her with all her strength as the name passed her lips, and dropped her head on his bosom in an ecstasy of joy.

It was done before any of us had recovered the use of our senses. The whole horrible scene must have begun and ended in less than half a minute of time. The surgeon, who had run into the room after her, empty-handed, turned suddenly, and left it again; coming back with the bandage, left forgotten in the bed-room. Grosse was the first among us to recover his presence of mind. He approached her in silence.

She heard him, before he could take her by surprise, and slip the bandage over her eyes. The moment when I turned, horror-struck, to look at Oscar, was also the moment when she lifted her head from Nugent’s bosom to look for the surgeon. Her eyes followed the direction taken by mine. They encountered Oscar’s face. She saw the blue-black hue of it in full light.

A cry of terror escaped her: she started back, shuddering, and caught hold of Nugent’s arm. Grosse motioned sternly to him to turn her face from the window; and lifted the bandage. She clutched at it with feverish eagerness as he held it up. “Put it on again!” she said, holding by Nugent with one hand, and lifting the other to point towards Oscar with a gesture of disgust. “Put it on again. I have seen too much already.”

Grosse fastened the bandage over her eyes, and waited a little. She still held Nugent’s arm. The sting of my indignation as I saw it, roused me into doing something. I stepped forward to part them. Grosse stopped me. “No!” he said. “Don’t make bad worse.” I looked at Oscar for the second time. There he stood, as he had stood from the first moment when she appeared at the door — his eyes staring wildly straight before him; his limbs set and fixed. I went to him, and touched him. He seemed not to feel it. I spoke to him. I might as well have spoken to a man of stone.

Grosse’s voice drew my attention, for a moment, the other way.

“Come!” he said, trying to take Lucilla back into her own room.

She shook her head, and tightened her hold on Nugent’s arm.

“
You
take me,” she whispered. “As far as the door.”

I again attempted to stop it; and again the German put me back.

“Not to-day!” he said sternly. With that, he made a sign to Nugent, and placed himself on Lucilla’s other side. In silence, the two men led her out of the room. The door closed on them. It was over.

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-SIXTH

The Brothers Meet

A FAINT sound of crying found its way to my ears from the lower end of the room, and reminded me that the rector and his wife had been present among us. Feeble Mrs. Finch was lying back in her chair, weeping and wailing over what had happened. Her husband, with the baby in his arms, was trying to compose her. I ought perhaps to have offered my help — but, I own, poor Mrs. Finch’s distress produced only a passing impression on me. My whole heart was with another person. I forgot the rector and his wife, and went back to Oscar.

This time he moved — he lifted his head when he saw me. Shall I ever forget the silent misery in that face, the dull dreadful stare in those tearless eyes?

I took his hand — I felt for the poor disfigured, rejected man as his mother might have felt for him — I gave him a mother’s kiss. “Be comforted, Oscar,” I said. “Trust me to set this right.”

He drew a long trembling breath, and pressed my hand gratefully. I attempted to speak to him again — he stopped me by looking suddenly towards the door.

“Is Nugent outside?” he asked in a whisper.

I went into the corridor. It was empty. I looked into Lucilla’s room. She and Grosse and the nurse were the only persons in it. I beckoned to Zillah to come out and speak to me. I asked for Nugent. He had left Lucilla abruptly at the bed-room door — he was out of the house. I inquired if it was known in what direction he had gone. Zillah had seen him in the field at the end of the garden, walking away rapidly, with his back to the village, and his face to the hills.

“Nugent has gone,” I said, returning to Oscar.

“Add to your kindness to me,” he answered. “Let
me
go too.”

A quick fear crossed my mind, that he might be bent on following his brother.

“Wait a little,” I said, “and rest here.”

He shook his head.

“I must be by myself,” he said. After considering a little, he added a question. “Has Nugent gone to Browndown?”

“No. Nugent has been seen walking towards the hills.”

He took my hand again. “Be merciful to me,” he said. “Let me go.”

“Home? To Browndown?”

“Yes.”

“Let me go with you.”

He shook his head. “Forgive me. You shall hear from me later in the day.”

No tears! no flaming-up of the quick temper that I knew so well! Nothing in his face, nothing in his voice, nothing in his manner, but a composure miserable to see — the composure of despair.

“At least, let me accompany you to the gate,” I said.

“God bless and reward you!” he answered. “Let me go.”

With a gentle hand — and yet with a firmness which took me completely by surprise — he separated himself from me, and went out.

I could stand no longer — I dropped trembling into a chair. The conviction forced itself on me that there were worse complications, direr misfortunes, still to come. I was almost beside myself — I broke out vehemently with wild words spoken in my own language. Mrs. Finch recalled me to my senses. I saw her as in a dream, drying her tears, and looking at me in alarm. The rector approached, with profuse expressions of sympathy and offers of assistance. I wanted no comforting. I had served a hard apprenticeship to life; I had been well seasoned to trouble. “Thank you, sir,” I said. “Look to Mrs. Finch.” There was more air in the corridor. I went out again, to walk about, and get the better of it there.

A small object attracted my attention, crouched up on one of the window seats. The small object was — Jicks.

I suppose the child’s instinct must have told her that something had gone wrong. She looked furtively sideways at me, round her doll: she had grave doubts of my intentions towards her. “Are you going to whack Jicks?” asked the curious little creature, shrinking into her corner. I sat down by her, and soon recovered my place in her confidence. She began to chatter again as fast as usual. I listened to her as I could have listened to no grown-up person at that moment. In some mysterious way that I cannot explain, the child comforted me. Little by little, I learnt what she had wanted with me, when she had attempted to drag me out of the room. She had seen all that had passed in the bed-chamber; and she had run out to take me back with her, and show me the wonderful sight of Lucilla with the bandage off her eyes. If I had been wise enough to listen to Jicks, I might have prevented the catastrophe that had happened. I might have met Lucilla in the corridor, and have forced her back into her own room and turned the key on her.