Blind Love

by Wilkie Collins

  Condemned to inaction for the present, Lady Harry's maid walked irritably up and down the conservatory, forgetting the flowers. Through the open back door of the cottage the cheap clock in the hall poured its harsh little volume of sound, striking the hour. "I wonder," she said to herself, "if those two wicked ones have found their way to a hospital yet?" That guess happened to have hit the mark. The two wicked ones were really approaching a hospital, well known to the doctor by more previous visits than one. At the door they were met by a French physician, attached to the institution—the writer of the letter which had reached Mr. Vimpany in the morning.

  This gentleman led the way to the official department of the hospital, and introduced the two foreigners to the French authorities assembled for the transaction of business.

  As a medical man, Mr. Vimpany's claims to general respect and confidence were carefully presented. He was a member of the English College of Surgeons; he was the friend, as well as the colleague of the famous President of that College, who had introduced him to the chief surgeon of the Hotel Dieu. Other introductions to illustrious medical persons in Paris had naturally followed. Presented under these advantages, Mr. Vimpany announced his discovery of a new system of treatment in diseases of the lungs. Having received his medical education in Paris, he felt bound in gratitude to place himself under the protection of "the princes of science," resident in the brilliant capital of France. In that hospital, after much fruitless investigation in similar institutions, he had found a patient suffering from the form of lung disease, which offered to him the opportunity that he wanted. It was impossible that he could do justice to his new system, unless the circumstances were especially favourable. Air more pure than the air of a great city, and bed-room accommodation not shared by other sick persons, were among the conditions absolutely necessary to the success of the experiment. These, and other advantages, were freely offered to him by his noble friend, who would enter into any explanations which the authorities then present might think it necessary to demand.

  The explanations having been offered and approved, there was a general move to the bed occupied by the invalid who was an object of professional interest to the English doctor.

  The patient's name was Oxbye. He was a native of Denmark, and had followed in his own country the vocation of a schoolmaster. His knowledge of the English language and the French had offered him the opportunity of migrating to Paris, where he had obtained employment as translator and copyist. Earning his bread, poorly enough in this way, he had been prostrated by the malady which had obliged him to take refuge in the hospital. The French physician, under whose medical care he had been placed, having announced that he had communicated his notes enclosed in a letter to his English colleague, and having frankly acknowledged that the result of the treatment had not as yet sufficiently justified expectation, the officers of the institution spoke next. The Dane was informed of the nature of Mr. Vimpany's interest in him, and of the hospitable assistance offered by Mr. Vimpany's benevolent friend; and the question was then put, whether he preferred to remain where he was, or whether he desired to be removed under the conditions which had just been stated?

  Tempted by the prospect of a change, which offered to him a bed-chamber of his own in the house of a person of distinction—with a garden to walk about in, and flowers to gladden his eyes, when he got better—Oxbye eagerly adopted the alternative of leaving the hospital. "Pray let me go," the poor fellow said: "I am sure I shall be the better for it." Without opposing this decision, the responsible directors reminded him that it had been adopted on impulse, and decided that it was their duty to give him a little time for consideration.

  In the meanwhile, some of the gentlemen assembled at the bedside, looking at Oxbye and then looking at Lord Harry, had observed a certain accidental likeness between the patient and "Milord, the philanthropist," who was willing to receive him. The restraints of politeness had only permitted them to speak of this curious discovery among themselves. At the later time, however, when the gentlemen had taken leave of each other, Mr. Vimpany—finding himself alone with Lord Harry—had no hesitation in introducing the subject, on which delicacy had prevented the Frenchmen from entering.

  "Did you look at the Dane?" he began abruptly.

  "Of course I did!"

  "And you noticed the likeness?"

  "Not I!"

  The doctor's uproarious laughter startled the people who were walking near them in the street. "Here's another proof," he burst out, "of the true saying that no man knows himself. You don't deny the likeness, I suppose?"

  "Do you yourself see it?" Lord Harry asked.

  Mr. Vimpany answered the question scornfully: "Is it likely that I should have submitted to all the trouble I have taken to get possession of that man, if I had not seen a likeness between his face and yours?"

  The Irish lord said no more. When his friend asked why he was silent, he gave his reason sharply enough: "I don't like the subject."

  CHAPTER XLII

  THE METTLESOME MAID

  ON the evening of that day Fanny Mere, entering the dining-room with the coffee, found Lord Harry and Mr. Vimpany alone, and discovered (as soon as she opened the door) that they changed the language in which they were talking from English to French.

  She continued to linger in the room, apparently occupied in setting the various objects on the sideboard in order. Her master was speaking at the time; he asked if the doctor had succeeded in finding a bed-room for himself in the neighbourhood. To this Mr. Vimpany replied that he had got the bed-room. Also, that he had provided himself with something else, which it was equally important to have at his disposal. "I mean," he proceeded, in his bad French, "that I have found a photographic apparatus on hire. We are ready now for the appearance of our interesting Danish guest."

  "And when the man comes," Lord Harry added, "what am I to say to my wife? How am I to find an excuse, when she hears of a hospital patient who has taken possession of your bed-room at the cottage—and has done it with my permission, and with you to attend on him?"

  The doctor sipped his coffee. "We have told a story that has satisfied the authorities," he said coolly. "Repeat the story to your wife."

  "She won't believe it," Lord Harry replied.

  Mr. Vimpany waited until he had lit another cigar, and had quite satisfied himself that it was worth smoking.

  "You have yourself to thank for that obstacle," he resumed. "If you had taken my advice, your wife would have been out of our way by this time. I suppose I must manage it. If you fail, leave her ladyship to me. In the meanwhile, there's a matter of more importance to settle first. We shall want a nurse for our poor dear invalid. Where are we to find her?"

  As he stated that difficulty, he finished his coffee, and looked about him for the bottle of brandy which always stood on the dinner-table. In doing this, he happened to notice Fanny. Convinced that her mistress was in danger, after what she had already heard, the maid's anxiety and alarm had so completely absorbed her that she had forgotten to play her part. Instead of still busying herself at the sideboard, she stood with her back to it, palpably listening. Cunning Mr. Vimpany, possessing himself of the brandy, made a request too entirely appropriate to excite suspicion.

  "Some fresh cold water, if you please," was all that he said.

  The moment that Fanny left the room, the doctor addressed his friend in English, with his eye on the door: "News for you, my boy! We are in a pretty pickle—Lady Harry's maid understands French."

  "Quite impossible," Lord Harry declared.

  "We will put that to the test," Mr. Vimpany answered. "Watch her when she comes in again."

  "What are you going to do."

  "I am going to insult her in French. Observe the result."

  In another minute Fanny returned with the fresh water. As she placed the glass jug before Mr. Vimpany he suddenly laid his hand on her arm and looked her straight in the face. "Vous nous avez mis dedans, drolesse!"* he said.

  * I
n English: "You have taken us in, you jade!"

  An uncontrollable look of mingled rage and fear made its plain confession in Fanny's face. She had been discovered; she had heard herself called "drolesse;" she stood before the two men self-condemned. Her angry master threatened her with instant dismissal from the house. The doctor interfered.

  "No, no," he said; "you mustn't deprive Lady Harry, at a moment's notice, of her maid. Such a clever maid, too," he added with his rascally smile. "An accomplished person, who understands French, and is too modest to own it!"

  The doctor had led Fanny through many a weary and unrewarded walk when she had followed him to the hospitals; he had now inflicted a deliberate insult by calling her "drolesse" and he had completed the sum of his offences by talking contemptuously of her modesty and her mastery of the French language. The woman's detestation of him, which under ordinary circumstances she might have attempted to conceal, was urged into audaciously asserting itself by the strong excitement that now possessed her. Driven to bay, Fanny had made up her mind to discover the conspiracy of which Mr. Vimpany was the animating spirit, by a method daring enough to be worthy of the doctor himself.

  "My knowledge of French has told me something," she said. "I have just heard, Mr. Vimpany, that you want a nurse for your invalid gentleman. With my lord's permission, suppose you try Me?"

  Fanny's audacity was more than her master's patience could endure. He ordered her to leave the room.

  The peace-making doctor interfered again: "My dear lord, let me beg you will not be too hard on the young woman." He turned to Fanny, with an effort to look indulgent, which ended in the reappearance of his rascally smile. "Thank you, my dear, for your proposal," he said; "I will let you know if we accept it, to-morrow."

  Fanny's unforgiving master pointed to the door; she thanked Mr. Vimpany, and went out. Lord Harry eyed his friend in angry amazement. "Are you mad?" he asked.

  "Tell me something first," the doctor rejoined. "Is there any English blood in your family?"

  Lord Harry answered with a burst of patriotic feeling: "I regret to say my family is adulterated in that manner. My grandmother was an Englishwoman."

  Mr. Vimpany received this extract from the page of family history with a coolness all his own.

  "It's a relief to hear that," he said. "You may be capable (by the grandmother's side) of swallowing a dose of sound English sense. I can but try, at any rate. That woman is too bold and too clever to be treated like an ordinary servant—I incline to believe that she is a spy in the employment of your wife. Whether I am right or wrong in this latter case, the one way I can see of paring the cat's claws is to turn her into a nurse. Do you find me mad now?"

  "Madder than ever!"

  "Ah, you don't take after your grandmother! Now listen to me. Do we run the smallest risk, if Fanny finds it her interest to betray us? Suppose we ask ourselves what she has really found out. She knows we have got a sick man from a hospital coming here—does she know what we want him for? Not she! Neither you nor I said a word on that subject. But she also heard us agree that your wife was in our way. What does that matter? Did she hear us say what it is that we don't want your wife to discover? Not she, I tell you again! Very well, then—if Fanny acts as Oxbye's nurse, shy as the young woman may be, she innocently associates herself with the end that we have to gain by the Danish gentleman's death! Oh, you needn't look alarmed! I mean his natural death by lung disease—no crime, my noble friend! no crime!"

  The Irish lord, sitting near the doctor, drew his chair back in a hurry.

  "If there's English blood in my family," he declared, "I'll tell you what, Vimpany, there's devil's blood in yours!"

  "Anything you like but Irish blood," the cool scoundrel rejoined.

  As he made that insolent reply, Fanny came in again, with a sufficient excuse for her reappearance. She announced that a person from the hospital wished to speak to the English doctor.

  The messenger proved to be a young man employed in the secretary's office. Oxbye still persisting in his desire to be placed under Mr. Vimpany's care; one last responsibility rested on the official gentlemen now in charge of him. They could implicitly trust the medical assistance and the gracious hospitality offered to the poor Danish patient; but, before he left them, they must also be satisfied that he would be attended by a competent nurse. If the person whom Mr. Vimpany proposed to employ in this capacity could be brought to the hospital, it would be esteemed a favour; and, if her account of herself satisfied the physician in charge of Oxbye's case, the Dane might be removed to his new quarters on the same day.

  The next morning witnessed the first in a series of domestic incidents at the cottage, which no prophetic ingenuity could have foreseen. Mr. Vimpany and Fanny Mere actually left Passy together, on their way to Paris!

  CHAPTER XLIII

  FICTION: ATTEMPTED BY MY LORD

  THE day on which the doctor took his newly-appointed nurse with him to the hospital became an occasion associated with distressing recollections in the memory of Iris.

  In the morning, Fanny Mere had asked for leave to go out. For some time past this request had been so frequently granted, with such poor results so far as the maid's own designs were concerned, that Lady Harry decided on administering a tacit reproof, by means of a refusal. Fanny made no attempt at remonstrance; she left the room in silence.

  Half an hour later, Iris had occasion to ring for her attendant. The bell was answered by the cook—who announced, in explanation of her appearance, that Fanny Mere had gone out. More distressed than displeased by this reckless disregard of her authority, on the part of a woman who had hitherto expressed the most grateful sense of her kindness, Iris only said: "Send Fanny to me as soon as she comes back."

  Two hours passed before the truant maid returned.

  "I refused to let you go out this morning," Lady Harry said; "and you have taken the liberty of leaving the house for two hours. You might have made me understand, in a more becoming manner, that you intended to leave my service."

  Steadily respectful, Fanny answered: "I don't wish to leave your ladyship's service."

  "Then what does your conduct mean?"

  "It means, if you please, that I had a duty to do—and did it."

  "A duty to yourself?" Iris asked.

  "No, my lady; a duty to you."

  As she made that strange reply the door was opened, and Lord Harry entered the room. When he saw Fanny Mere he turned away again, in a hurry, to go out. "I didn't know your maid was with you," he said. "Another time will do."

  His permitting a servant to be an obstacle in his way, when he wished to speak to his wife, was a concession so entirely unbecoming in the master of the house, and so strangely contrary to his customary sense of what was due to himself, that Iris called him back in astonishment. She looked at her maid, who at once understood her, and withdrew. "What can you possibly be thinking of?" she said to her husband, when they were alone. Putting that question, she noticed an embarrassment in his manner, and an appearance of confusion in his face, which alarmed her. "Has something happened?" she asked; "and is it so serious that you hesitate to mention it to me?"

  He sat down by her and took her hand. The loving look in his eyes, which she knew so well, was not in them now; they expressed doubt, and something with it which suggested an effort at conciliation.

  "I am fearing I shall surprise you," he said.

  "Don't keep me in suspense!" she returned. "What is it?"

  He smiled uneasily: "It's something about Vimpany."

  Having got as far as that, he stopped. She drew her hand away from him. "I understand now," she said; "I must endeavour to control myself—you have something to tell me which will try my temper."

  He held up his hands in humorous protest: "Ah, my darling, here's your vivid imagination again, making mountains out of molehills, as they say! It's nothing half so serious as you seem to think; I have only to tell you of a little change."

  "A little change?" she
repeated. "What change?"

  "Well, my dear, you see—" He hesitated and recovered himself. "I mean, you must know that Vimpany's plans are altered. He won't any longer occupy his bedroom in the cottage here."

  Iris looked inexpressibly relieved. "Going away, at last!" she exclaimed. "Oh, Harry, if you have been mystifying me, I hope you will never do it again. It isn't like you; it's cruel to alarm me about nothing. Mr. Vimpany's empty bedroom will be the most interesting room in the house, when I look into it to-night."

  Lord Harry got up, and walked to the window. As a sign of trouble in his mind, and of an instinctive effort to relieve it, the object of this movement was well-known to Iris. She followed him and stood by his side. It was now plain to her that there was something more to be told—and that he was hesitating how to confide it to his wife.

  "Go on," she said resignedly.

  He had expected her to take his arm, or perhaps to caress him, or at least to encourage him by her gentlest words and her prettiest smiles. The steady self-restraint which she now manifested was a sign, as he interpreted it, of suppressed resentment. Shrinking, honestly shrinking, from the bare possibility of another quarrel, he confronted the hard necessities of further confession.