I am doing nothing to compromise my position. My position is quite plain to me. I should have formally accepted your father's hospitality on the occasion of your wedding--if I had been well enough and if the wedding had taken place. It follows as a matter of course that I may formally report to your father what the medical opinion is of your health. However brutally it may have been given, it is a medical opinion--and as such I am bound to communicate it.
Knowing but too well how bitterly my aunt's aversion to him is reciprocated by my father, I did my best to combat Miss Batchford's resolution--without making matters worse by telling her what my motives really were. With some difficulty I prevailed on her to defer the proposed report of me for a day or two--and we parted for the night (the old lady's fits of temper are soon over) as good friends as usual.
This little episode in my narrative of events diverted my mind for the time from Oscar's strange conduct yesterday evening. But once up here by myself in my own room, I have been thinking of it, or dreaming of it (such horrid dreams--I cannot write them down!) almost incessantly from that time to this. When we meet again to-day--how will he look? what will he say?
He was right yesterday. I am cold to him; there is some change in me towards him, which I don't understand myself. My conscience accuses me, now I am alone--and yet, God knows, it is not my fault. Poor Oscar! Poor me! I have never longed to see him--since we met at this place--as I long now. He sometimes comes to breakfast. Will he come to breakfast to-day? Oh, how my eyes ache! and how obstinately the mist stops in the room! Suppose I close the window, and go back to bed again for a little while?
Nine o'clock.--The maid came in half an hour since, and woke me. She went to open the window as usual. I stopped her.
"Is the mist gone?" I asked.
The girl stared, "What mist, Miss?"
"Haven't you seen it?"
"No, Miss."
"What time did you get up?"
"At seven, Miss."
At seven I was still writing in my Journal, and the mist was still over everything in the room. Persons in the lower ranks of life are curiously unobservant of the aspects of Nature. I never (in the days of my blindness) got any information from servants or laborers about the views round Dimchurch. They seemed to have no eyes for anything beyond the range of the kitchen, or the ploughed field. I got out of bed, and took the maid myself to the window, and opened it.
"There!" I said. "It is not quite so thick as it was some hours since. But there is the mist as plain as can be!"
The girl looked backwards and forwards in a state of bewilderment between me and the view.
"Mist?" she repeated. "Begging your pardon, Miss, it's a beautiful clear morning--as I see it."
"Clear?" I repeated on my side.
"Yes, Miss!"
"Do you mean to tell me it's clear over the sea?"
"The sea is a beautiful blue, Miss. Far and near, you can see the ships."
"Where are the ships?"
She pointed, out of the window, to a certain spot.
"There are two of them, Miss. A big ship, with three masts. And a little ship just behind, with one."
I looked along her finger, and strained my eyes to see. All I could make out was a dim greyish mist, with something like a little spot or blur on it, at the place which the maid's finger indicated as the position occupied by the two ships.
The idea struck me for the first time that the dimness which I had attributed to the mist, was, in plain truth, the dimness in my own eyes. For the moment I was a little startled. I left the window, and made the best excuse that I could to the girl. As soon as it was possible to dismiss her, I sent her away, and bathed my eyes with one of Grosse's lotions, and then tried them again in writing this entry. To my relief, I can see to write better than I did earlier in the morning. Still, I have had a warning to pay a little more attention to Grosse's directions than I have hitherto done. Is it possible that he saw something in the state of my eyes which he was afraid to tell me of? Nonsense! Grosse is not the sort of man who shrinks from speaking out. I have fatigued my eyes--that is all. Let me shut up my book, and go down-stairs to breakfast.
Ten o'clock.--For a moment, I open my Journal again.
Something has happened which I must positively set down in the history of my life. I am so vexed and so angry! The maid, (wretched chattering fool!) has told my aunt what passed between us this morning at my window. Miss Batchford has taken the alarm, and has insisted on writing, not only to Grosse, but to my father. In the present embittered state of my father's feelings against my aunt, he will either leave her letter unanswered, or he will offend her by an angry reply. In either case, I shall be the sufferer: my aunt's sense of injury--which cannot address itself to my father--will find a convenient object to assail in me. I shall never hear the last of it. Being already nervous and dispirited, the prospect of finding myself involved in a new family quarrel quite daunts me. I feel ungratefully inclined to run away from Miss Batchford, when I think of it!
No signs of Oscar; and no news of Oscar--yet.
Twelve o'clock.--But one trial more was wanted to make my life here quite unendurable. The trial has come.
A letter from Oscar (sent by a messenger from his hotel) has just been placed in my hands. It informs me that he has decided on leaving Ramsgate by the next train. The next train starts in forty minutes. Good God! what am I to do?
My eyes are burning. I know it does them harm to cry. How can I help crying? It is all over between us, if I let Oscar go away alone--his letter as good as tells me so. Oh, why have I behaved so coldly to him? I ought to make any sacrifice of my own feelings to atone for it. And yet, there is an obstinate something in me that shrinks--What am I to do? what am I to do?
I must drop the pen, and try if I can think. My eyes completely fail me. I can write no more.
[Note.--I copy the letter to which Lucilla refers.
Nugent's own assertion is, that he wrote it in a moment of remorse, to give her an opportunity of breaking the engagement by which she innocently supposed herself to be held to him. He declares that he honestly believed the letter would offend her, when he wrote it. The other interpretation of the document is, that finding himself obliged to leave Ramsgate--under penalty (if he remained) of being exposed by Grosse as an impostor, when the surgeon visited his patient on the next day--Nugent seized the opportunity of making his absence the means of working on Lucilla's feelings, so as to persuade her to accompany him to London. Don't ask me which of these two conclusions I favor. For reasons which you will understand when you have come to the end of my narrative, I would rather not express my opinion, either one way or the other.
Read the letter--and determine for yourselves:
"MY DARLING,--After a sleepless night, I have decided on leaving Ramsgate, by the next train that starts after you receive these lines. Last night's experience has satisfied me that my presence here (after what I said to you on the pier) only distresses you.