"All neglect, too," he added; then vehemently, "I don't believe, no I don't, there is any pauper's son in the parish that would have been so used!"
Her voice was low with fright: "But, Lionel, what has happened? Let me see you. Is it worse? can't you see?"
"O yes, I can see now, after a fashion, at least, but that is soon to go, they say, and then--They have done it themselves, and they may have that satisfaction!" added he, with a fearful bitterness in his tone. "Elections, and parliament, and dinners, and that Faulkner,--that is what they have given my sight for." He withdrew his hand, and turned his shoulder from Marian, as if resolute not to be comforted; and again he shook with agony.
"O, don't say such dreadful things, dear Lionel! O, if I could but do anything for you!" she cried, in a tone of heartfelt grief, which seemed to soften the poor boy a little; for he twisted round, so that his face, still pillowed on one arm, was half raised to her, and she could see how flushed it was, and that the eyelids were inflamed, though not with tears, and the eyes themselves had not altered from their former appearance.
"'Tis not your fault," he said. "If my mother had cared for me one quarter--"
"Don't blame anybody, pray!" interrupted Marian: "it only makes it worse. Only tell me all about it. Did the occulist say--"
"Not to me," answered Lionel; "not the worst, at least. He examined my eyes very closely, and asked me all manner of questions about what I could see, and what I could not, and what things hurt them, and how long it had been going on, and how I had been using them. Then he told me that it was impossible for him to do anything for them as yet, till the disease had made more progress; that most likely I should quite lose my sight this winter, and then I must come to him again. So that was bad enough, but I could have made up my mind to that, and they sent me away. Then it seems that, after I was gone, he went on about it to papa, and told him that the mischief had been brewing time out of mind, and some time ago it might have been stopped; but all that straining of my eyes at Eton, last half, had done immense harm, and confirmed the disease; and it is of a kind that--that--there is no cure for!" He buried his face again.
"Did Mr. Lyddell tell you this?"
"No, he only told me we were to go home directly, and wrote to Gerald to send my things from Eton. He hardly spoke a word all the way,--only led me about, and poked me in and out of the carriage, as if I was blind already; it put me almost in a rage. Then as soon as we came home,--about half an hour ago, I should think,--he told it all straight out to my mother, did not mince matters, I assure you: indeed, I believe they both forgot I was there. They are apt to forget me, you know. He regularly stormed about the neglect, and told her it was all her fault; and while this was going on, I found I had heard the worst, and I did not want to be pitied, so I came out here. And so there is the whole story for you, Marian, and a pretty one it is! A fine sort of life I shall have instead--"
"Well but, Lionel," cried Marian, eagerly, "are you sure that be said _for certain_ that it was hopeless? for it seems so odd that he should have told you one thing, and Mr. Lyddell another."
"Pshaw! I suppose he had got some consideration, and did not want to knock me down with the worst at once."
"I should think it was more comfortable to know the worst at once!" said Marian, meditatively, "so as to be able to settle one's mind to it."
"A pretty thing to settle one's mind to," said Lionel, "to know I must be a good-for-nothing, dependent wretch all my days! As well be a woman, or an idiot at once! There, I shall never see that tree green again; no, and spring--I have seen my last of that! and I may look my last at all your faces. Johnny I shall never see again."
Ho was crying bitterly now,--almost choking with tears; and Marian's were flowing too. She was much distressed at the present moment; for though the weeping was likely to relieve him, she feared it might be doing harm to his eyes, and she did not know in the least whether it ought to be checked, or, indeed, how to check it. Grieved and in great consternation she was, in truth, for she was very fond of Lionel, and full of such strong sympathy and compassion, as to be perfectly incapable of expressing it, in the slightest degree. But he knew her; she had been the only person who had ever been uneasy about his sight, and this went for a great deal with him: so that, with all her undemonstrativeness, there was no one whom he could have liked so well to have near him in that moment of dire despair. "O, I am so sorry!" expressed infinitely more than the simple words.
"You see, Marian," said he, raising himself, and struggling with the sobs of which he was ashamed, "I could bear it better if I had not had such a scheme for my life, and my father consenting too. Australia, and those wild cattle, and that glorious Bush life, always galloping in the plains; and now to be condemned to be moping about here, for ever, in darkness and helplessness. O, to think of the plans we have made, all come to an end for ever!" and again he was weeping violently.
"They might have been stopped otherwise," said Marian, catching at any possible idea that might answer, or seem to console him; "you know you might have been ill, or met with an accident, and had a great deal to suffer."
"I would suffer anything rather than lose my eyesight! You don't know what you are talking of."
"Then just suppose this complaint had come on, in some lonely place out in the wilds, with no one to take care of you."
"It would not, I should have had no Greek to put my eyes out."
"And after all, dear Lionel, you know----;" there she was choked--"you know that--" and she was choked again--"you know where it comes from."
"I know what you mean," he said; "and if it did--But it is my mother's neglect; there is the bitterness of it. Why, you and my father tried to stir her up to it in the spring, and she would not; and then, when for very shame she must attend, what does she do but let me go muddling on with that old woman Wells! She has regularly thrown my sight away, as much as if she had pulled my eyes out and thrown them over the hedge."
"No one could ever have guessed--"
"I tell you she might have guessed. Any other mother in the world would have been frightened years ago, long before I went to school. If it had been Elliot or Johnny, wouldn't she have had half the doctors in London? but what did she ever trouble her head about _me?_"
"Now, Lionel, that must not be said. You know it is wrong, and I am sure you will see how sorry she is, and how it was really not having time."
"I dare say she is sorry--I should hope so--now it is too late, and she has done it."
"But why will you accuse any one?" said Marian, sorely perplexed, and secretly sharing all his indignation against Mrs. Lyddell. "You know it only embitters you and makes it all worse; and after all, even if man had actually done the mischief, it still would ultimately be sent from Heaven."
"I don't see that that makes it any better," murmured Lionel.
"O don't you, Lionel?" said she earnestly; "doesn't it make you sure it is for the best?"
"I don't know what I have done to be so punished," went on Lionel to himself; "I have not always been good, but I have tried, and more lately, to do right; there are many much less steady than I, who--"
"Yes, yes, Lionel, but perhaps it is not as good for them to be prosperous. Indeed, indeed I am quite sure, though I don't understand it all, or see the way, that if you will but bear it rightly, you will be glad, if not before, yet at least when you die, even of this terrible affliction."
"I almost wish I was dying now!" said Lionel gloomily, "if I could but die the last day that I am to see the sky and everything, instead of droning on in the dark, a burthen to myself and every one else, for I don't know how long, forty, fifty, sixty years perhaps. You know, Marian, I am only sixteen--"