Afternoon Tea Mysteries [Vol Three]

by Anthology

  September 2nd.—A rainy day. Very little said that is worth recording between Oscar and me.

  My aunt, whose spirits are always affected by bad weather, kept me a long time in her sitting-room, amusing herself by making me exercise my sight. Oscar was present by special invitation, and assisted the old lady in setting this new seeing-sense of mine all sorts of tasks. He tried hard to prevail on me to let him see my writing. I refused. It is improving as fast as it can; but it is not good enough yet.

  I notice here what a dreadfully difficult thing it is to get back—in such a case as mine—to the exercise of one’s sight.

  We have a cat and a dog in the house. Would it be credited, if I was telling it to the world instead of telling it to my Journal, that I actually mistook one for the other to-day?—after seeing so well, too, as I do now, and being able to write with so few false strokes in making my letters! It is nevertheless true that I did mistake the two animals; having trusted to nothing but my memory to inform my eyes which was which, instead of helping my memory by my touch. I have now set this right. I caught up puss, and shut my eyes (oh, that habit! when shall I get over it?) and felt her soft fur (so different from a dog’s hair!) and opened my eyes again, and associated the feel of the fur for ever afterwards with the sight of a cat.

  To-day’s experience has also informed me that I make slow progress in teaching myself to judge correctly of distances.

  In spite of this drawback, however, there is nothing I enjoy so much in using my sight as looking at a great wide prospect of any kind—provided I am not asked to judge how far or how near objects may be. It seems like escaping out of prison, to look (after having been shut up in my blindness) at the view over the town, and the bold promontory of the pier, and the grand sweep of the sea beyond—all visible from our windows.

  The moment my aunt begins to question me about distances, she makes a toil of my pleasure. It is worse still when I am asked about the relative sizes of ships and boats. When I see nothing but a boat, I fancy it larger than it is. When I see the boat in comparison with a ship, and then look back at the boat, I instantly go to the other extreme, and fancy it smaller than it is. The setting this right still vexes me almost as keenly as my stupidity vexed me some time since, when I saw my first horse and cart from an upper window, and took it for a dog drawing a wheelbarrow! Let me add in my own defence that both horse and cart were figured at least five times their proper size in my blind fancy, which makes my mistake, I think, not so very stupid after all.

  Well, I amused my aunt. And what effect did I produce on Oscar?

  If I could trust my eyes, I should say I produced exactly the contrary effect on him—I made him melancholy. But I don’t trust my eyes. They must be deceiving me when they tell me that he looked, in my company, a moping, anxious, miserable man.

  Or is it, that he sees and feels something changed in Me? I could scream with vexation and rage against myself. Here is my Oscar—and yet he is not the Oscar I knew when I was blind. Contradictory as it seems, I used to understand how he looked at me, when I was unable to see it. Now that I can see it, I ask myself, Is this really love that is looking at me in his eyes? or is it something else? How should I know? I knew when I had only my own fancy to tell me. But now, try as I may, I cannot make the old fancy and the new sight serve me in harmony both together. I am afraid he sees that I don’t understand him. Oh, dear! dear! why did I not meet my good old Grosse, and become the new creature that he has made me, before I met Oscar? I should have had no blind memories and prepossessions to get over then. I shall become used to my new self, I hope and believe, with time—and that will accustom me to my new impressions of Oscar—and so it may all come right in the end. It is all wrong enough now. He put his arm round me, and gave me a little tender squeeze, while we were following Miss Batchford down to the dining-room this afternoon. Nothing in me answered to it. I should have felt it all over me a few months since.

  Here is a tear on the paper. What a fool I am! Why can’t I write about something else?

  I sent my second letter to my father to-day; telling him of Oscar’s return from abroad, and taking no notice of his not having replied to my first letter. The only way to manage my father is not to take notice, and to let him come right by himself. I showed Oscar my letter—with a space left at the end for his postscript. While he was writing it, he asked me to get something which happened to be up-stairs in my room. When I came back, he had sealed the envelope—forgetting to show me his postscript. It was not worth while to open the letter again; he told me what he had written, and that did just as well.

  [Note.—I must trouble you with a copy of what Nugent really did write. It shows why he sent her out of the room, and closed the envelope before she could come back. The postscript is also worthy of notice, in this respect—that it plays a part in a page of my narrative which is still to come.

  Thus Nugent writes, in Oscar’s name and character, to the rector of Dimchurch. (I have already mentioned, as you will see in the twenty-second chapter, that a close similarity of handwriting was one among the other striking points of resemblance between the twins.)

  “DEAR MR. FINCH,

  “Lucilla’s letter will have told you that I have come to my senses, and that I am again paying my addresses to her as her affianced husband. My principal object in adding these lines is to propose that we should forget the past, and go on again as if nothing had happened.

  “Nugent has behaved nobly. He absolves me from the engagements towards him into which I so rashly entered, at our last interview before I left Browndown. Most generously and amply he has redeemed his pledge to Madame Pratolungo to discover the place of my retreat and to restore me to Lucilla. For the present he remains abroad.

  “If you favour me with a reply to this, I must warn you to be careful how you write; for Lucilla is sure to ask to see your letter. Remember that she only supposes me to have returned to her after a brief absence from England, caused by a necessity for joining my brother on the Continent. It will be also desirable to say nothing on the subject of my unfortunate peculiarity of complexion. I have made it all right with Lucilla, and she is getting accustomed to me. Still, the subject is a sore one; and the less it is referred to the better.

  Truly yours,

  “OSCAR.”

  Unless I add a word of explanation here, you will hardly appreciate the extraordinary skilfulness with which the deception is continued by means of this postscript.

  Written in Oscar’s character (and representing Nugent as having done all that he had promised me to do) it designedly omits the customary courtesy of Oscar’s style. The object of this is to offend Mr. Finch—with what end in view you will presently see. The rector was the last man in existence to dispense with the necessary apologies and expressions of regret from a man engaged to his daughter, who had left her as Oscar had left her—no matter how the circumstances might appear to excuse him. The curt, off-hand postscript signed “Oscar” was the very thing to exasperate the wound already inflicted on Mr. Finch’s self-esteem, and to render it at least probable that he would reconsider his intention of himself performing the marriage ceremony. In the event of his refusal, what would happen? A stranger, entirely ignorant of which was Nugent and which was Oscar, would officiate in his place. Do you see it now?

  But even the cleverest people are not always capable of providing for every emergency. The completest plot generally has its weak place.

  The postscript, as you have seen, was a little masterpiece. But it nevertheless exposed the writer to a danger which (as the Journal will tell you) he only appreciated at its true value when it was too late to alter his mind. Finding himself forced, for the sake of appearances, to permit Lucilla to inform her father of his arrival at Ramsgate, he was now obliged to run the risk of having that important piece of domestic news communicated—either by Mr. Finch or by his wife—to no less a person than myself. You will remember that worthy Mrs. Finch, when we parted at the rectory, had asked me
to write to her while I was abroad—and you will see, after the hint I have given you, that clever Mr. Nugent is beginning already to walk upon delicate ground. I say no more: Lucilla’s turn now.—P.]

  September 3rd.—Oscar has (I suppose) forgotten something which he ought to have included in his postscript to my letter.

  More than two hours after I had sent it to the post, he asked if the letter had gone. For the moment, he looked annoyed when I said, Yes. But he soon recovered himself. It mattered nothing (he said); he could easily write again. “Talking of letters,” he added, “do you expect Madame Pratolungo to write to you?” (This time it was he who referred to her!) I told him that there was not much chance, after what had passed on her side and on mine, of her writing to me—and then tried to put some of those questions about her which he had once already requested me not to press yet. For the second time, he entreated me to defer the discussion of that unpleasant subject for the present—and yet, with a curious inconsistency, he made another inquiry relating to the subject in the same breath.

  “Do you think she is likely to be in correspondence with your father, or your stepmother, while she is out of England?” he asked.

  “I should doubt her writing to my father,” I said. “But she might correspond with Mrs. Finch.”

  He considered a little—and then turned the talk to the topic of our residence at Ramsgate next.

  “How long do you stay here?” he inquired.

  “It depends on Herr Grosse,” I answered. “I will ask him when he comes next.”

  He turned away to the window—suddenly, as if he was a little put out.

  “Are you tired of Ramsgate already?” I asked.

  He came back to me, and took my hand—my cold insensible hand that won’t feel his touch as it ought!

  “Let me be your husband, Lucilla,” he whispered; “and I will live at Ramsgate if you like—for your sake.”

  Although there was everything to please me in those words, there was something that startled me—I cannot describe it—in his look and manner when he said them. I made no answer at the moment. He went on.

  “Why should we not be married at once?” he asked. We are both of age. We have only ourselves to think of.”

  [Note.—Alter his words as follows: “Why should we not be married before Madame Pratolungo can hear of my arrival at Ramsgate?”—and you will rightly interpret his motives. The situation is now fast reaching its climax of peril. Nugent’s one chance is to persuade Lucilla to marry him before any discoveries can reach my ears, and before Grosse considers her sufficiently recovered to leave Ramsgate.—P.]

  “You forget,” I answered, more surprised than ever; “we have my father to think of. It was always arranged that he was to marry us at Dimchurch.”

  Oscar smiled—not at all the charming smile I used to imagine, when I was blind!

  “We shall wait a long time, I am afraid,” he said, “if we wait until your father marries us.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “When we enter on the painful subject of Madame Pratolungo,” he replied, “I will tell you. In the meantime, do you think Mr. Finch will answer your letter?”

  “I hope so.”

  “Do you think he will answer my postscript?”

  “I am sure he will!”

  The same unpleasant smile showed itself again in his face. He abruptly dropped the conversation, and went to play piquet with my aunt.

  All this happened yesterday evening. I went to bed, sadly dissatisfied with somebody. Was it with Oscar? or with myself? or with both? I fancy with both.

  To-day, we went out together for a walk on the cliffs. What a delight it was to move through the fresh briny air, and see the lovely sights on every side of me! Oscar enjoyed it too. All through the first part of our walk, he was charming, and I was more in love with him than ever. On our return, a little incident occurred which altered him for the worse, and which made my spirits sink again.

  It happened in this manner.

  I proposed returning by the sands. Ramsgate is still crowded with visitors; and the animated scene on the beach in the later part of the day has attractions for me, after my blind life, which it does not (I dare say) possess for people who have always enjoyed the use of their eyes. Oscar, who has a nervous horror of crowds, and who shrinks from contact with people not so refined as himself, was surprised at my wishing to mix with what he called “the mob on the sands.” However, he said he would go, if I particularly wished it. I did particularly wish it. So we went.

  There were chairs on the beach. We hired two, and sat down to look about us.

  All sorts of diversions were going on. Monkeys, organs, girls on stilts, a conjurer, and a troop of negro minstrels, were all at work to amuse the visitors. I thought the varied color and bustling enjoyment of the crowd, with the bright blue sea beyond, and the glorious sunshine overhead, quite delightful—I declare I felt as if two eyes were not half enough to see with! A nice old lady, sitting near, entered into conversation with me; hospitably offering me biscuits and sherry out of her own bag. Oscar, to my disappointment, looked quite disgusted with all of us. He thought my nice old lady vulgar; and he called the company on the beach “a herd of snobs.” While he was still muttering under his breath about the “mixture of low people,” he suddenly cast a side-look at some person or thing—I could not at the moment tell which—and, rising, placed himself so as to intercept my view of the promenade on the sands immediately before me. I happened to have noticed, at the same moment, a lady approaching us in a dress of a peculiar color; and I pulled Oscar on one side, to look at her as she passed in front of me. “Why do you get in my way?” I asked. Before he could answer the question the lady passed, with two lovely children, and with a tall man at her side. My eyes, looking first at the lady and the children, found their way next to the gentleman—and saw repeated in his face, the same black-blue complexion which had startled me in the face of Oscar’s brother, when I first opened my eyes at the rectory! For the moment I felt startled again—more, as I believe, by the unexpected repetition of the blue face in the face of a stranger, than by the ugliness of the complexion itself. At any rate, I was composed enough to admire the lady’s dress, and the beauty of the children, before they had passed beyond my range of view. Oscar spoke to me, while I was looking at them, in a tone of reproach for which, as I thought, there was no occasion and no excuse.

  “I tried to spare you,” he said. “You have yourself to thank, if that man has frightened you.”

  “He has not frightened me,” I answered—sharply enough.

  Oscar looked at me very attentively; and sat down again, without saying a word more.

  The good-humoured old woman, on my other side, who had seen and heard all that had passed, began to talk of the gentleman with the discolored face, and of the lady and the children who accompanied him. He was a retired Indian officer, she said. The lady was his wife, and the two beautiful children were his own children. “It seems a pity that such a handsome man should be disfigured in that way,” my new acquaintance remarked. “But still, it don’t matter much, after all. There he is, as you see, with a fine woman for a wife, and with two lovely children. I know the landlady of the house where they lodge—and a happier family you couldn’t lay your hand on in all England. That is my friend’s account of them. Even a blue face don’t seem such a dreadful misfortune, when you look at it in that light—does it, Miss?”

  I entirely agreed with the old lady. Our talk seemed, for some incomprehensible reason, to irritate Oscar. He got up again impatiently, and looked at his watch.

  “Your aunt will be wondering what has become of us,” he said. “Surely you have had enough of the mob on the sands, by this time?”

  I had not had enough of it, and I should have been quite content to have made one of the mob for some time longer. But I saw that Oscar would be seriously vexed if I persisted in keeping my place. So I took leave of my nice old lady, and left the pleasant sands�
�not very willingly.

  He said nothing more, until we had threaded our way out of the crowd. Then he returned, without any reason for it that I could discover, to the subject of the Indian officer, and to the remembrance which the stranger’s complexion must have awakened in me of his brother’s face.

  “I don’t understand your telling me you were not frightened when you saw that man,” he said. “You were terribly frightened by my brother, when you saw him.”

  “I was terribly frightened by my own imagination, before I saw him,” I answered. “After I saw him, I soon got over it.”

  “So you say!” he rejoined.

  There is something excessively provoking—at least to me—in being told to my face that I have said something which is not worthy of belief. It was not a very becoming act on my part (after what he had told me in his letter about his brother’s infatuation) to mention his brother. I ought not to have done it. I did it, for all that.

  “I say what I mean,” I replied. “Before I knew what you told me about your brother, I was going to propose to you, for your sake and for his, that he should live with us after we were married.”