He finds a Way out of it WE sat down at the piano, as Lucilla had proposed. She wished me to play first, and to play alone. I was teaching her, at the time, one of the _Sonatas_ of Mozart; and I now tried to go on with the lesson. Never before, or since, have I played so badly, as on that day! The divine serenity and completeness by which Mozart's music is, to my mind, raised above all other music that ever was written, can only be worthily interpreted by a player whose whole mind is given undividedly to the work. Devoured as I then was by my own anxieties, I might profane those heavenly melodies--I could not play them. Lucilla accepted my excuses, and took my place.
Half an hour passed, without news from Browndown.
Calculated by reference to itself, half an hour is no doubt a short space of time. Calculated by reference to your own suspense, while your own interests are at stake, half an hour is an eternity. Every minute that passed, leaving Lucilla still undisturbed in her delusion, was a minute that pricked me in the conscience. The longer we left her in ignorance, the more painful to all of us the hard duty of enlightening her would become. I began to get restless. Lucilla, on her side, began to complain of fatigue. After the agitation that she had gone through, the inevitable reaction had come. I recommended her to go to her room and rest. She took my advice. In the state of my mind at that time, it was an inexpressible relief to me to be left by myself.
After pacing backwards and forwards for some little time in the sitting-room, and trying vainly to see my way through the difficulties that now beset us, I made up my mind to wait no longer for the news that never came. The brothers were still at Browndown. To Browndown I determined to return.
I peeped quietly into Lucilla's room. She was asleep. After a word to Zillah, recommending her young mistress to her care, I slipped out. As I crossed the lawn, I heard the garden-gate opened. In a minute more, the man of all others whom I most wanted to see, presented himself before me, in the person of Nugent Dubourg. He had borrowed Oscar's key, and had set off alone for the rectory to tell me what had passed between his brother and himself.
"This is the first stroke of luck that has fallen to me to-day," he said.
"I was wondering how I should contrive to speak to you privately. And here you are--accessible and alone. Where is Lucilla? Can we depend on having the garden to ourselves?"
I satisfied him on both those points. He looked sadly pale and worn.
Before he opened his lips, I saw that he too had had his mind disturbed, and his patience tried, since I had left him. There was a summer-house at the end of the garden with a view over the breezy solitude of the Downs.
Here we established ourselves; and here, in my headlong way, I opened the interview with the one formidable question:--"Who is to tell her of the mistake she has made?"
"Nobody is to tell her."
That answer staggered me at the outset. I looked at Nugent in silent astonishment.
"There is nothing to be surprised at," he said. "Let me put my point of view before you in two words. I have had a serious talk with Oscar--"
Women are proverbially bad listeners--and I am no better than the rest of them. I interrupted him, before he could get any farther.
"I suppose Oscar has told you how the mistake happened?" I said.
"He has no idea how it happened. He owns--when he found himself face to face with her--that his presence of mind completely failed him: he didn't himself know what he was saying at the time. _He_ lost his head; and _she_ lost her patience. Think of his nervous confusion in collision with her nervous irritability--and the result explains itself: nothing _could_ come of it but misapprehension and mistake. I turned the thing over in my mind, after you had left us; and the one course to take that _I_ could see was to accept the position patiently, and to make the best instead of the worst of it. Having reached this conclusion, I settled the matter (as I settle most other difficulties)--by cutting the Gordian knot. I said to Oscar, 'Would it be a relief to your mind to leave her present impression undisturbed until you are married?' You know him--I needn't tell you what his answer was. 'Very well,' I said. 'Dry your eyes and compose yourself.
I have begun as Blue Face. As Blue Face I will go on till further notice.' I spare you the description of Oscar's gratitude. I proposed; and he accepted. There is the way out of the difficulty as I see it."
"Your way out of the difficulty is an unworthy way, and a false way," I answered. "I protest against taking that cruel advantage of Lucilla's blindness. I refuse to have anything to do with it."
He opened his case, and took out a cigar.
"Do as you please," he said. "You saw the pitiable state she was in, when she forced herself to speak to me. You saw how her disgust and horror overpowered her at the end. Transfer that disgust and horror to Oscar (with indignation and contempt added in _his_ case); expose him to the result of rousing those feelings in her, before he is fortified by a husband's influence over her mind, and a husband's place in her affections--if you dare. I love the poor fellow; and _I_ daren't. May I smoke?"
I gave him his permission to smoke by a gesture. Before I said anything more to this inscrutable gentleman, I felt the necessity of understanding him--if I could.