Afternoon Tea Mysteries [Vol Three]

by Anthology

  We had just accounted in this way for the mysterious absence of Jicks, when we heard the bed-chamber door opened, and the surgeon’s voice calling for Zillah. In a minute more the nurse appeared, the bearer of a message from the next room.

  We all surrounded her, with one and the same question to ask. What had Herr Grosse decided to do? The answer informed us that he had decided on forbidding Lucilla to try her eyes that day.

  “Is she very much disappointed?” Oscar inquired anxiously.

  “I can hardly say, sir. She isn’t like herself. I never knew Miss Lucilla so quiet when she was crossed in her wishes, before. When the doctor called me into the room, she said: ‘Go in, Zillah, and tell them.’ Those words, sir, and no more.”

  “Did she express no wish to see me?” I inquired.

  “No, ma’am. I took the liberty of asking her if she wished to see you. Miss Lucilla shook her head, and sat herself down on the sofa, and made the doctor sit by her. ‘Leave us by ourselves.’ Those were the last words she said to me, before I came in here.”

  Reverend Finch put the next question. The Pope of Dimchurch was himself again: the man of many words saw his chance of speaking once more.

  “Good woman,” said the rector with ponderous politeness, “step this way. I wish to address an inquiry to you. Did Miss Finch make any remark, in your hearing, indicating a desire to be comforted by My Ministrations—as one bearing the double relation towards her of pastor and parent?”

  “I didn’t hear Miss Lucilla say anything to that effect, sir.”

  Mr. Finch waved his hand with a look of disgust, intimating that Zillah’s audience was over. Nugent, upon that, came forward, and stopped her as she was leaving the room.

  “Have you nothing more to tell us?” he asked.

  “No, sir.”

  “Why don’t they come back here? What are they doing in the other room?”

  “They were doing what I mentioned just now, sir—they were sitting side by side on the sofa. Miss Lucilla was talking, and the doctor was listening to her. And Jicks,” added Zillah, addressing herself confidentially to me, “was behind them, picking the doctor’s pocket.”

  Oscar put in a word there—by no means in his most gracious manner.

  “What was Miss Lucilla saying to the doctor?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I couldn’t hear, sir. Miss Lucilla was speaking to him in a whisper.”

  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 favours! 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 tur
ned, 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.

  It was too late now to regret what had happened. “Jicks has been good,” I said, patting my little friend on the head with a heavy heart. The child listened—considered with herself gravely—got off the window-seat—and claimed her reward for being good, with that excellent brevity of speech which so eminently distinguished her:

  “Jicks will go out.”

  With those words, she shouldered her doll; and walked off. The last I saw of her, she was descending the stairs as a workman descends a ladder, on her way to the garden—and from the garden (the first time the gate was opened) to the hills. If I could have gone out with her light heart, I would have joined Jicks.

  I had hardly lost sight of the child, before the door of Lucilla’s room opened, and Herr Grosse appeared in the corridor.

  “Soh!” he muttered with a gesture of relief, “the very womans I was looking for. A nice mess-fix we are in now! I must stop with Feench. (I shall end in hating Feench!) Can you put me into a beds for the night?”

  I assured him that he could easily sleep at the rectory. In answer to my inquiries after his patient, he gravely acknowledged that he was anxious about Lucilla. The varying and violent emotions which had shaken her (acting through her nervous system) might produce results which would imperil the recovery of her sight. Absolute repose was not simply necessary—it was now the only chance for her. For the next four-and-twenty hours, he must keep watch over her eyes. At the end of that time—no earlier—he might be able to say whether the mischief done would be fatal to her sight or not. I asked how she had contrived to get her bandage off, and to make her fatal entrance into the sitting-room.

  He shrugged his shoulders. “There are times,” he said cynically, “when every womans is a huss
y, and every mans is a fool. This was one of the times.”

  It appeared, on further explanation, that my poor Lucilla had pleaded so earnestly (after the nurse had left the room) to be allowed to try her eyes, and had shown such ungovernable disappointment when he persisted in saying No, that he had yielded—not so much to her entreaties, as to his own conviction that it would be less dangerous to humour her than to thwart her, with such a sensitive and irritable temperament as hers. He had first bargained however, on his side, that she should remain in the bed-chamber, and be content, for that time, with using her sight on the objects round her in the room. She had promised all that he asked—and he had been foolish enough to trust to her promise. The bandage once off, she had instantly set every consideration at defiance—had torn herself out of his hands like a mad creature—and had rushed into the sitting-room before he could stop her. The rest had followed as a matter of course. Feeble as it was at the first trial of it, her sense of sight was sufficiently restored to enable her to distinguish objects dimly. Of the three persons who had offered themselves to view on the right-hand side of the door, one (Mrs. Finch) was a woman; another (Mr. Finch) was a short, grey-headed, elderly man; the third (Nugent), in his height—which she could see—and in the color of his hair—which she could see-was the only one of the three who could possibly represent Oscar. The catastrophe that followed was (as things were) inevitable. Now that the harm was done, the one alternative left was to check the mischief at the point which it had already reached. Not the slightest hint at the terrible mistake that she had made must be suffered to reach her ears. If we any of us said one word about it before he authorized us to do so, he would refuse to answer for the consequences, and would then and there throw up the case.

  So, in his broken English, Herr Grosse explained what had happened, and issued his directions for our future conduct.

  “No person is to go into her,” he said, in conclusion, “but you and goot Mrs. Zillahs. You two watch her, turn-about-turn-about. In a whiles, she will sleep. For me, I go to smoke my tobaccos in the garden. Hear this, Madame Pratolungo. When Gott made the womens, he was sorry afterwards for the poor mens—and he made tobaccos to comfort them.”