Blind Love by Wilkie Collins (beginner reading books for adults txt) đ
- Author: Wilkie Collins
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âWhen am I to go, sir?â she asked, impassively.
âIn any other case I should have said, âStay a little longer, if you please. Use your own convenience.â In your case I must say, âGo to your mistress.â Her ladyship was reluctant to leave you behind. She will be glad to have you back again. How long will you take to get ready?â
âI could be ready in ten minutes, if it were necessary.â
âThat is not necessary. You can take the night mail via Dieppe and Newhaven. It leaves Paris at 9.50. Give yourself an hour to get from station to station. Any time, therefore, this evening before seven oâclock will do perfectly well. You will ask his lordship for any letters or messages he may have.â
âYes, sir,â Fanny replied. âWith your permission, sir, I will go at once, so as to get a whole day in Paris.â
âAs you please, as you please,â said the doctor, wondering why she wanted a day in Paris; but it could have nothing to do with his sick man. He left the room, promising to see the Dane again in an hour or two, and took up a position at the garden gate through which the nurse must pass. In about half an hour she walked down the path carrying her box. The doctor opened the gate for her.
âGoodbye, Fanny,â he said. âAgain, many thanks for your care and your watchfulnessâespecially the latter. I am very glad,â he said, with what he meant for the sweetest smile, but it looked like a grin, âthat it has been rewarded in such a way as you hardly perhaps expected.â
âThank you, sir,â said the girl. âThe man is nearly well now, and can do without me very well indeed.â
âThe box is too heavy for you, Fanny. Nay, I insist upon it: I shall carry it to the station for you.â
It was not far to the station, and the box was not too heavy, but Fanny yielded it. âHe wants to see me safe out of the station,â she thought.
âI will see her safe out of the place,â he thought.
Ten minutes later the doors of the salle dâattente were thrown open, the train rolled in, and Fanny was carried away.
The doctor returned thoughtfully to the house. The time was come for the execution of his project. Everybody was out of the way.
âShe is gone,â he said, when Lord Harry returned for breakfast at eleven. âI saw her safely out of the station.â
âGone!â his confederate echoed: âand I am alone in the house with you andâandâ-â
âThe sick manâhenceforth, yourself, my lord, yourself.â
THE doctor was wrong. Fanny Mere did return, though he did not discover the fact.
She went away in a state of mind which is dangerous when it possesses a woman of determination. The feminine mind loves to understand motives and intentions; it hates to be puzzled. Fanny was puzzled. Fanny could not understand what had been intended and what was now meant. For, first, a man, apparently dying, had been brought into the houseâwhy? Then the man began slowly to recover, and the doctor, whose attentions had always been of the most slender character, grew more morose every day. Then he suddenly, on the very day when he sent her away, became cheerful, congratulated the patient on his prospect of recovery, and assisted in getting him out of bed for a change. The cook having been sent away, there was now no one in the house but the Dane, the doctor, and Lord Harry.
Man hunts wild creatures; woman hunts man. Fanny was impelled by the hunting instinct. She was sent out of the house to prevent her hunting; she began to consider next, how, without discovery, she could return and carry on the hunt.
Everything conspired to drive her back: the mystery of the thing; the desire to baffle, or at least to discover, a dark design; the wish to be of service to her mistress; and the hope of finding out something which would keep Iris from going back to her husband. Fanny was unable to comprehend the depth of her mistressâs affection for Lord Harry; but that she was foolishly, weakly in love with him, and that she would certainly return to him unless plain proofs of real villainy were preparedâso much Fanny understood very well. When the omnibus set her down, she found a quiet hotel near the terminus for Dieppe. She spent the day walking aboutâto see the shops and streets, she would have explained; to consider the situation, she should have explained. She bought a new dress, a new hat, and a thick veil, so as to be disguised at a distance. As for escaping the doctorâs acuteness by any disguise should he meet her face to face, that was impossible. But her mind was made upâshe would run any risk, meet any danger, in order to discover the meaning of all this.
Next morning she returned by an omnibus service which would allow her to reach the cottage at about a quarter-past eleven. She chose this time for two reasons: first, because breakfast was sent in from the restaurant at eleven, and the two gentlemen would certainly be in the salle âa manger over that meal; and, next, because the doctor always visited his patient after breakfast. She could, therefore, hope to get in unseen, which was the first thing.
The spare bedroomâthat assigned to the patientâwas on the ground-floor next to the dining-room; it communicated with the garden by French windows, and by a small flight of steps.
Fanny walked cautiously along the road past the garden-gate; a rapid glance assured her that no one was there; she hastily opened the gate and slipped in. She knew that the windows of the sick-room were closed on the inner side, and the blinds were still down. The patient, therefore, had not yet been disturbed or visited. The windows of the dining-room were on the other side of the house. The woman therefore slipped round to the back, where she found, as she expected, the door wide open. In the hall she heard the voices of the doctor and Lord Harry and the clicking of knives and forks. They were at breakfast.
One thing moreâWhat should she say to Oxbye? What excuse should she make for coming back? How should she persuade him to keep silence about her presence? His passion suggested a plan and a reason. She had come back, she would tell him, for love of him, to watch over him, unseen by the doctor, to go away with him when he was strong enough to travel. He was a simple and a candid soul, and he would fall into such a little innocent conspiracy. Meantime, it would be quite easy for her to remain in the house perfectly undisturbed and unknown to either of the gentlemen.
She opened the door and looked in.
So far, no reason would be wanted. The patient was sleeping peacefully. But not in the bed. He was lying, partly dressed and covered with a blanket, on the sofa. With the restlessness of convalescence he had changed his couch in the morning after a wakeful night, and was now sleeping far into the morning.
The bed, as is common in French houses, stood in an alcove. A heavy curtain hung over a rod, also in the French manner. Part of this curtain lay over the head of the bed.
The woman perceived the possibility of using the curtain as a means of concealment. There was a space of a foot between the bed and the wall. She placed herself, therefore, behind the bed, in this space, at the head, where the curtain entirely concealed her. Nothing was more unlikely than that the doctor should look behind the bed in that corner. Then with her scissors she pierced a hole in the curtain large enough for her to see perfectly without the least danger of being seen, and she waited to see what would happen.
She waited for half an hour, during which the sleeping man slept on without movement, and the voices of the two men in the salle âa manger rose and fell in conversation. Presently there was silence, broken only by an occasional remark. âThey have lit their cigars,â Fanny murmured; âthey will take their coffee, and in a few minutes they will be here.â
When they came in a few minutes later, they had their cigars, and Lord Harryâs face was slightly flushed, perhaps with the wine he had taken at breakfastâperhaps with the glass of brandy after his coffee.
The doctor threw himself into a chair and crossed his legs, looking thoughtfully at his patient. Lord Harry stood over him.
âEvery day,â he said, âthe man gets better.â
âHe has got better every day, so far,â said the doctor.
âEvery day his face gets fatter, and he grows less like me.â
âIt is true,â said the doctor.
âThenâwhat the devil are we to do?â
âWait a little longer,â said the doctor.
The woman in her hiding-place hardly dared to breathe.
âWhat?â asked Lord Harry. âYou mean that the man, after allââ
âWait a little longer,â the doctor repeated quietly.
âTell meââLord Harry bent over the sick man eagerlyââyou thinkâ-â
âLook here,â the doctor said. âWhich of us two has had a medical educationâyou, or I?â
âYou, of course.â
âYes; I, of course. Then I tell you, as a medical man, that appearances are sometimes deceptive. This man, for instanceâhe looks better; he thinks he is recovering; he feels stronger. You observe that he is fatter in the face. His nurse, Fanny Mere, went away with the knowledge that he was much better, and the conviction that he was about to leave the house as much recovered as such a patient with such a disorder can expect.â
âWell?â
âWell, my lord, allow me to confide in you. Medical men mostly keep their knowledge in such matters to themselves. We know and recognise symptoms which to you are invisible. By these symptomsâby those symptoms,â he repeated slowly and looking hard at the other man, âI know that this manâno longer Oxbye, my patient, butâanotherâis in a highly dangerous condition. I have noted the symptoms in my bookââhe tapped his pocketââfor future use.â
âAnd whenâwhenâ-â Lord Harry was frightfully pale. His lips moved, but he could not finish the sentence. The Thing he had agreed to was terribly near, and it looked uglier than he had expected.
âOh! when?â the doctor replied carelessly. âPerhaps to-dayâperhaps in a week. Here, you see, Science is sometimes baffled. I cannot say.â
Lord Harry breathed deeply. âIf the man is in so serious a condition,â he said, âis it safe or prudent for us to be alone in the house without a servant and without a nurse?â
âI was not born yesterday, my lord, I assure you,â said the doctor in his jocular way. âThey have found me a nurse. She will come to-day. My patientâs life is, humanly speakingââLord Harry shudderedââperfectly safe until her arrival.â
âWellâbut she is a stranger. She must know whom she is nursing.â
âCertainly. She will be toldâI have
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