Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (841 page)

He felt no such difficulty on his side. One of the strangest peculiarities in the humbler ranks of the English people, is the sort of solemn relish which they have for talking of their own misfortunes. To be the objects of a calamity of any kind, seems to raise them in their own estimations. With a dreary enjoyment of his miserable theme, the servant expatiated on his position as a man deprived of the best of masters; turned adrift again in the world to seek another service; hopeless of ever again finding himself in such a situation as he had lost. He roused me at last into speaking to him, by sheer dint of irritating my nerves until I could endure him no longer.

“Has Mr. Oscar gone away alone?” I asked.

“Yes, ma’am, quite alone.”

(What had become of Nugent? I was too much interested in Oscar to be able to put the question, at that moment.)

“When did your master go?” I went on.

“Better than two hours since.”

“Why didn’t I hear of it before?”

“I had Mr. Oscar’s orders not to tell you, ma’am, till this time in the evening.”

Wretched as I was already, my spirits sank lower still when I heard that. The order given to the servant looked like a premeditated design, not only to leave Dimchurch, but also to keep us in ignorance of his whereabouts afterwards.

“Has Mr. Oscar gone to London?” I inquired.

“He hired Gootheridge’s chaise, ma’am, to take him to Brighton. And he told me with his own lips that he had left Browndown never to come back. I know no more of it than that.”

He had left Browndown, never to come back! For Lucilla’s sake, I declined to believe that. The servant was exaggerating, or the servant had misunderstood what had been said to him. The letter in my hand reminded me that I had perhaps needlessly questioned him on matters which his master had confided to my own knowledge only. Before I dismissed him for the night, I made my deferred inquiry on the hateful subject of the other brother.

“Where is Mr. Nugent?”

“At Browndown.”

“Do you mean to say that he is going to stay at Browndown?”

“I don’t know, ma’am, for certain. I see no signs of his meaning to leave; and he has said nothing to that effect.”

I had the greatest difficulty to keep myself from breaking out before the servant. My indignation almost choked me. The best way was to wish him good night. I took the best way — only calling him back (as a measure of caution) to say one last word.

“Have you told anybody at the rectory of Mr. Oscar’s departure?” I asked.

“No, ma’am.”

“Say nothing, about it then, as you go out. Thank you for bringing me the letter. Good night.”

Having thus provided against any whisper of what had happened reaching Lucilla’s ears that evening, I returned to Herr Grosse to make my excuses, and to tell him (as I honestly could) that I was in sore need of being permitted to retire privately to my own room. I found my illustrious guest putting a plate over the final dish of the dinner, full of the tenderest anxiety to keep it warm on my account.

“Here is a lofely cheese-omelets,” said Grosse. “Two-thirds of him I have eaten my own self. The odder third I sweat with anxiety to keep warm for you. Sit down! sit down! Every moment he is getting cold.”

“I am much obliged to you, Herr Grosse. I have just heard some miserable news —
 
— ”

“Ach, Gott! don’t tell it to me!” the wretch burst out with a look of consternation. “No miserable news, I pray you, after such a dinner as I have eaten. Let me do my digestions! My goot-dear-creature, if you lofe me let me do my digestions!”

“Will you excuse me, if I leave you to your digestion, and retire to my own room?”

He rose in a violent hurry, and opened the door for me.

“Yes! yes! From the deep bottoms of my heart I excuse you. Goot Madame Pratolungo, retire! retire!”

I had barely passed the threshold, before the door was closed behind me. I heard the selfish old brute rub his hands, and chuckle over his success in shutting me and my sorrow both out of the room together.

Just as my hand was on my own door, it occurred to me that I should do well to make sure of not being surprised by Lucilla over the reading of Oscar’s letter. The truth is that I shrank from reading it. In spite of my resolution to disbelieve the servant, the dread was now growing on me that the letter would confirm his statement, and would force it on me as the truth that Oscar had left us never to return. I retraced my steps, and entered Lucilla’s room.

I could just see her, by the dim night-light burning in a cornet to enable the surgeon or the nurse to find their way to her. She was alone in her favorite little wicker-work chair, with the doleful white bandage over her eyes — to all appearance quite content, busily knitting!

“Don’t you feel lonely, Lucilla?”

She turned her head towards me, and answered in her gayest tones.

“Not in the least. I am quite happy as I am.

“Why is Zillah not with you?”

“I sent her away.”

“You sent her away?”

“Yes! I couldn’t enjoy myself thoroughly to-night, unless I felt that I was quite alone. I have seen him, my dear — I have seen him! How could you possibly think I felt lonely? I am so inordinately happy that I am obliged to knit to keep myself quiet. If you say much more, I shall get up and dance — I know I shall! Where is Oscar? That odious Grosse — no! it is too bad to talk of the dear old man in that way, after he has given me back my sight. Still it
is
cruel of him to say that I am overexcited, and to forbid Oscar to come and see me to-night. Is Oscar with you, in the next room? Is he very much disappointed at being parted from me in this way? Say I am thinking of him — since I have seen him — with such new thoughts!”

“Oscar is not here to-night, my dear.”

“No? then he is at Browndown of course with that poor wretched disfigured brother of his. I have got over my terror of Nugent’s hideous face. I am even beginning (though I never liked him, as you know) to pity him, with such a dreadful complexion as that. Don’t let us talk about it! Don’t let us talk at all! I want to go on thinking of Oscar.”

She resumed her knitting, and shut herself up luxuriously in her own happy thoughts. Knowing what I knew, it was nothing less than heart-breaking to see her and hear her. Afraid to trust myself to say another word, I softly closed the door, and charged Zillah (when her mistress rang her bell) to say for me that I was weary after the events of the day, and had gone to rest in my bed-room.

At last, I was alone. At last I was at the end of my maneuvers to spare myself the miserable necessity of opening Oscar’s letter. After first locking my door, I broke the seal, and read the lines which follow.

“KIND AND DEAR FRIEND, — Forgive me: I am going to surprise and distress you. My letter thanks you gratefully; and bids you a last farewell.

“Summon all your indulgence for me. Read these lines to the end: they will tell you what happened after I left the rectory.

“Nothing had been seen of Nugent, when I reached this house. It was not till a quarter of an hour later that I heard his voice at the door, calling to me, and asking if I had come back. I answered, and he joined me in the sitting-room. Nugent’s first words to me were these: — ” ‘Oscar, I have come to ask your pardon, and to bid you good-bye.’

“I can give you no idea of the tone in which he spoke to me: it would have gone straight to your heart, as it went straight to mine. For the moment, I was not able to answer him. I could only offer him my hand. He sighed bitterly, and refused to take it.

“‘I have something still to tell you,’ he said. ‘Wait till you have heard it; and give me your hand afterwards — if you can.’

“He even refused to take the chair to which I pointed. He distressed me by standing in my presence as if he was my inferior. The next words that he said to me —

“No! I have need of all my calmness and all my courage. It shakes both to recall what he said to me. I sat down to write this, intending to repeat to you everything that passed between us. Another of my weaknesses! another of my failures! The tears come into my eyes again, when my mind attempts to dwell on the details. I can only tell you the result. My brother’s confession may be summed up in three words. Prepare yourself to be startled; prepare yourself to be grieved.

“Nugent loves her.

“Think of this discovery falling on me, after I had seen my innocent Lucilla’s arms round his neck — after my own eyes had shown me how she rejoiced over her first sight of
him;
how she shuddered at her first sight of
me!
Need I tell you what I suffered? No.

“Nugent held out his hand, when he had done — as I had held out mine before he began.

“‘The one atonement I can make to you and to her,’ he said, ‘is never to let either of you set eyes on me again. Shake hands, Oscar; and let me go.’

“If I had willed it so — so it might have ended. I willed it differently. It has ended differently. Can you guess how?”

I laid down the letter for a moment. It cut me with such keen regret; it fired me with such hot rage — that I was within a hairsbreadth of tearing the rest of it up unread, and trampling it under my feet. I took a turn in the room. I dipped my handkerchief in water, and bound it round my head. In a minute or two I was myself again — I could force my mind away from my poor Lucilla, and return to the letter. It proceeded thus:

“I can write calmly of what I have next to tell you. You shall hear what I have decided, and what I have done.

“I told Nugent to wait in the room, while I went away, and thought over what he had said to me, by myself. He attempted to resist this. I insisted on his yielding. For the first time in our lives, we changed places. It was I who took the lead, and he who followed. I left him and went out into the valley alone.

“The heavenly tranquillity, the comforting solitude helped me. I saw my position and his, in their true light. Before I got back, I had decided (cost me what it might) on myself making the sacrifice to which my brother had offered to submit. For Lucilla’s sake, and for Nugent’s sake, I felt the certain assurance in my own mind that it was
my
duty, and not
his,
to go.

“Don’t blame me; don’t grieve for me. Read the rest. I want you to think of this with my thoughts — to feel about it as I feel at this moment.

“Bearing in mind what Nugent has confessed, and what I have myself seen, have I any right to hold Lucilla to her engagement? I am firmly persuaded that I have no right. After inspiring her with terror and disgust at the moment when her eyes first looked at me; after seeing her innocently happy in Nugent’s arms — how, in God’s name, can I claim her as mine? Our marriage has become an impossibility. For her own sake, I cannot, I dare not, appeal to our engagement. The wreck of
my
happiness is nothing. The wreck of
her
happiness would be a crime. I absolve her from her engagement. She is free.

“There is my duty towards Lucilla — as I see it.

“As to Nugent next. I owe it entirely to my brother (at the time of the Trial) that the honour of our family has been saved, and that I have escaped a shameful death on the scaffold. Is there any limit to the obligation that he has laid on me, after doing me such a service as this? There is no limit. The man who loves Lucilla and the brother who has saved my life are one. I am bound to leave him free — I do leave him free — to win Lucilla by open and loyal means, if he can. As soon as Herr Grosse considers that she is fit to bear the disclosure, let her be told of the error into which she has fallen (through my fault) — let her read these lines, purposely written to meet her eye as well as yours — and let my brother tell her afterwards what has passed to-night in this house between himself and me. She loves him now, believing him to be Oscar. Will she love him still, after she has learnt to know him under his own name? The answer to that question rests with Time. If it is an answer in Nugent’s favor, I have already arranged to set aside from my income a sufficient yearly sum to place my brother in a position to begin his married life. I wish to leave his genius free to assert itself, untrammeled by pecuniary cares. Possessing, as I do, far more than enough for my own simple wants, I can dedicate my spare money to no better and nobler use than this.