Then he went straight to the other extreme, and became so loudly talkative, so obstreperously cheerful, that my aunt asked me privately whether I did not suspect (as she did) that he had been taking too much wine. It ended in his trying to sing to my accompaniment on the piano, and in his breaking down. He walked away to the other end of the room without explanation or apology. When I followed him there a little while after, he had a look that indescribably distressed me--a look as if he had been crying. Towards the end of the evening, my aunt fell asleep over her book, and gave us a chance of speaking to each other in a little second room which opens out of the drawing-room in this house. It was I who took the chance--not he. He was so incomprehensibly unwilling to go into the room and speak to me, that I had to do a very unladylike thing. I mean that I had to take his arm, and lead him in myself, and entreat him (in a whisper) to tell me what was the matter with him.
"Only the old complaint," he answered.
I made him sit down by me on a little couch that just held two.
"What do you mean by the old complaint?" I asked.
"Oh! you know!"
"I don't know."
"You would know if you really loved me."
"Oscar! it is a shame to say that. It is a shame to doubt that I love you!"
"Is it? Ever since I have been here, I have doubted that you love me. It is getting to be an old complaint of mine now. I still suffer a little sometimes. Don't notice it!"
He was so cruel and so unjust, that I got up to leave him, without saying a word more. But, oh! he looked so forlorn and so submissive--sitting with his head down, and his hands crossed listlessly over his knees--that I could not find it in my heart to treat him harshly. Was I wrong? I don't know! I have no idea how to manage men--and no Madame Pratolungo now to teach me. Right or wrong, it ended in my sitting down by him again in the place which I had just left.
"You ought to beg my pardon," I said, "for thinking of me as you think, and talking to me as you talk."
"I do beg your pardon," he answered humbly. "I am sorry if I have offended you."
How could I resist that? I put my hand on his shoulder, and tried to make him lift up his head and look at me.
"You will always believe in me in the future?" I went on. "Promise me that."
"I can promise to try, Lucilla. As things are now I can promise no more."
"As things are now? You are speaking in riddles to-night. Explain yourself."
"I explained myself this morning on the pier."
Surely, this was hard on me--after he had promised to give me till the end of the week to consider his proposal? I took my hand off his shoulder. He--who never used to displease or disappoint me when I was blind--had displeased and disappointed me for the second time in a few minutes!
"Do you wish to force me?" I asked, "after telling me this morning that you would give me time to reflect?"
He rose, on his side--languidly and mechanically, like a man who neither knew nor cared what he was doing.
"Force you?" he repeated. "Did I say that? I don't know what I am talking about; I don't know what I am doing. You are right and I am wrong. I am a miserable wretch, Lucilla--I am utterly unworthy of you. It would be better for you if you never saw me again!" He paused; and taking me by both hands, looked earnestly and sadly into my face. "Good night, my dear!" he said--and suddenly dropped my hands, and turned away to go out.
I stopped him. "Going already?" I said. "It is not late yet.
"It is best for me to go."
"Why?"
"I am in wretched spirits. It is better for me to be by myself."
"Don't say that! It sounds like a reproach to me."
"On the contrary, it is all my fault. Good night!"
I refused to say good night--I refused to let him go. His wanting to go was in itself a reproach to me. He had never done it before. I asked him to sit down again.
He shook his head.
"For ten minutes!"
He shook his head again.
"For five minutes!"
Instead of answering, he gently lifted a long lock of my hair, which hung at the side of my neck. (My head, I should add, had been dressed that evening on the old-fashioned plan, by my aunt's maid--to please my aunt.)
"If I stay for five minutes longer," he said, "I shall ask for something."
"For what?"
"You have beautiful hair, Lucilla."
"You can't want a lock of my hair, surely?"
"Why not?"
"I gave you a keepsake of that sort--ages ago. Have you forgotten it?"
[Note.--The keepsake had of course been given to the true Oscar, and was then, as it is now, still in his possession. Notice, when he recovers himself, how quickly the false Oscar infers this, and how cleverly he founds his excuse upon it.--P.]
His face flushed deep; his eyes dropped before mine. I could see that he was ashamed of himself--I could only conclude that he had forgotten it! A morsel of his hair was, at that moment, in a locket which I wore round my neck. I had more I think, to doubt him than he had to doubt me. I was so mortified that I stepped aside, and made way for him to go out.
"You wish to go away," I said; "I won't keep you any longer.
It was his turn now to plead with me.
"Suppose I have been deprived of your keepsake?" he said. "Suppose somebody whom I would rather not mention, has taken it away from me?"
I instantly understood him. His miserable brother had taken it. My work-basket was close by. I cut off a lock of my hair, and tied it at each end with a morsel of my favorite light-blue ribbon.
"Are we friends again, Oscar?" was all I said as I put it into his hand.
He caught me in his arms in a kind of frenzy--holding me to him so violently that he hurt me; kissing me so fiercely that he frightened me. Before I had recovered breath enough to speak to him, he had released me, and had gone out in such headlong haste that he knocked down a little round table with books on it, and woke my aunt.
The old lady called for me in her most formidable voice, and showed me the family temper in its sourest aspect. Grosse had gone back to London without making any apology to her; and Oscar had knocked down her books. The indignation aroused by these two outrages called loudly for a victim--and (no one else being near at the moment) selected Me. Miss Batchford discovered for the first time that she had undertaken too much in assuming the sole charge of her niece at Ramsgate.
"I decline to accept the entire responsibility," said my aunt. "At my age, the entire responsibility is too much for me. I shall write to your father, Lucilla. I always did, and always shall, detest him, as you know. His views on politics and religion are (in a clergyman) simply detestable. Still he is your father; and it is a duty on my part, after what that rude foreigner has said about your health, to offer to restore you to your father's roof--or, at least, to obtain your father's sanction to your continuing to remain under my care. This course, in either case you will observe, relieves me from the entire responsibility.