Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1168 page)

“With all possible respect, Mr. Gallilee, I venture to entreat that you will be a little more thoughtful, where the children are concerned. I beg your pardon, Mr. Le Frank, for interrupting you — but it is really a little too hard on Me. I am held responsible for the health of these girls; I am blamed over and over again, when it is not my fault, for irregularities in their diet — and there they are, at this moment, chilled with ices and cloyed with cakes! What will Mrs. Gallilee say?”

“Don’t tell her,” Mr. Gallilee suggested.

“The girls will be thirsty for the rest of the evening,” Miss Minerva persisted; “the girls will have no appetite for the last meal before bedtime. And their mother will ask Me what it means.”

“My good creature,” cried Mr. Gallilee, “don’t be afraid of the girls’ appetites! Take off their hats, and give them something nice for supper. They inherit my stomach, Miss Minerva — and they’ll ‘tuck in,’ as we used to say at school. Did they say so in your time, Mr. Le Frank?”

Mrs. Gallilee’s governess and vulgar expressions were anomalies never to be reconciled, under any circumstances. Miss Minerva took off the hats in stern silence. Even “Papa” might have seen the contempt in her face, if she had not managed to hide it in this way, by means of the girls.

In the silence that ensued, Mr. Le Frank had his chance of speaking, and showed himself to be a gentleman with a happily balanced character — a musician, with an eye to business. Using gratitude to Mr. Gallilee as a means of persuasion, he gently pushed the interests of a friend who was giving a concert next week. “We poor artists have our faults, my dear sir; but we are all earnest in helping each other. My friend sang for nothing at my concert. Don’t suppose for a moment that he expects it of me! But I am going to play for nothing at his concert. May I appeal to your kind patronage to take two tickets?” The reply ended appropriately in musical sound — a golden tinkling, in Mr. Le Frank’s pocket.

Having paid his tribute to art and artists, Mr. Gallilee looked furtively at Miss Minerva. On the wise principle of letting well alone, he perceived that the happy time had arrived for leaving the room. How was he to make his exit? He prided himself on his readiness of resource, in difficulties of this sort, and he was equal to the occasion as usual — he said he would go to his club.

“We really have a capital smoking-room at that club,” he said. “I do like a good cigar; and — what do
you
think Mr. Le Frank? — isn’t a pint of champagne nice drinking, this hot weather? Just cooled with ice — I don’t know whether you feel the weather, Miss Minerva, as I do? — and poured, fizzing, into a silver mug. Lord, how delicious! Good-bye, girls. Give me a kiss before I go.”

Maria led the way, as became the elder. She not only gave the kiss, but threw an appropriate sentiment into the bargain. “I do love you, dear papa!” said this perfect daughter — with a look in Miss Minerva’s direction, which might have been a malicious look in any eyes but Maria’s.

Mr. Gallilee turned to his youngest child. “Well, Zo — what do
you
say?”

Zo took her father’s hand once more, and rubbed her head against it like a cat. This new method of expressing filial affection seemed to interest Mr. Gallilee. “Does your head itch, my dear?” he asked. The idea was new to Zo. She brightened, and looked at her father with a sly smile. “Why do you do it?” Miss Minerva asked sharply. Zo clouded over again, and answered, “I don’t know.” Mr. Gallilee rewarded her with a kiss, and went away to champagne and the club.

Mr. Le Frank left the schoolroom next. He paid the governess the compliment of reverting to her narrative of events at the concert.

“I am greatly struck,” he said, “by what you told me about Mr. Ovid Vere. We may, perhaps, have misjudged him in thinking that he doesn’t like music. His coming to my concert suggests a more cheering view. Do you think there would be any impropriety in my calling to thank him? Perhaps it would be better if I wrote, and enclosed two tickets for my friend’s concert? To tell you the truth, I’ve pledged myself to dispose of a certain number of tickets. My friend is so much in request — it’s expecting too much to ask him to sing for nothing. I think I’ll write. Good-evening!”

Left alone with her pupils, Miss Minerva looked at her watch. “Prepare your lessons for to-morrow,” she said.

The girls produced their books. Maria’s library of knowledge was in perfect order. The pages over which Zo pondered in endless perplexity were crumpled by weary fingers, and stained by frequent tears. Oh, fatal knowledge! mercifully forbidden to the first two of our race, who shall count the crimes and stupidities committed in your name?

Miss Minerva leaned back in her easy-chair. Her mind was occupied by the mysterious question of Ovid’s presence at the concert. She raised her keenly penetrating eyes to the ceiling, and listened for sounds from above.

“I wonder,” she thought to herself, “what they are doing upstairs?”

CHAPTER VI.

Mrs. Gallilee was as complete a mistress of the practice of domestic virtue as of the theory of acoustics and fainting fits. At dressing with taste, and ordering dinners with invention; at heading her table gracefully, and making her guests comfortable; at managing refractory servants and detecting dishonest tradespeople, she was the equal of the least intellectual woman that ever lived. Her preparations for the reception of her niece were finished in advance, without an oversight in the smallest detail. Carmina’s inviting bedroom, in blue, opened into Carmina’s irresistible sitting-room, in brown. The ventilation was arranged, the light and shade were disposed, the flowers were attractively placed, under Mrs. Gallilee’s infallible superintendence. Before Carmina had recovered her senses she was provided with a second mother, who played the part to perfection.

The four persons, now assembled in the pretty sitting-room upstairs, were in a position of insupportable embarrassment towards each other.

Finding her son at a concert (after he had told her that he hated music) Mrs. Gallilee, had first discovered him hurrying to the assistance of a young lady in a swoon, with all the anxiety and alarm which he might have shown in the case of a near and dear friend. And yet, when this stranger was revealed as a relation, he had displayed an amazement equal to her own! What explanation could reconcile such contradictions as these?

As for Carmina, her conduct complicated the mystery.

What was she doing at a concert, when she ought to have been on her way to her aunt’s house? Why, if she must faint when the hot room had not overpowered anyone else, had she failed to recover in the usual way? There she lay on the sofa, alternately flushing and turning pale when she was spoken to; ill at ease in the most comfortable house in London; timid and confused under the care of her best friends. Making all allowance for a sensitive temperament, could a long journey from Italy, and a childish fright at seeing a dog run over, account for such a state of things as this?

Annoyed and perplexed — but yet far too prudent to commit herself ignorantly to inquiries which might lead to future embarrassment — Mrs. Gallilee tried suggestive small talk as a means of enlightenment. The wrinkled duenna, sitting miserably on satin supported by frail gilt legs, seemed to take her tone of feeling from her young mistress, exactly as she took her orders. Mrs. Gallilee spoke to her in English, and spoke to her in Italian — and could make nothing of the experiment in either case. The wild old creature seemed to be afraid to look at her.

Ovid himself proved to be just as difficult to fathom, in another way

He certainly answered when his mother spoke to him, but always briefly, and in the same absent tone. He asked no questions, and offered no explanations. The sense of embarrassment, on his side, had produced unaccountable changes. He showed the needful attention to Carmina, with a silent gentleness which presented him in a new character. His customary manner with ailing persons, women as well as men, was rather abrupt: his quick perception hurried him into taking the words out of their mouths (too pleasantly to give offence) when they were describing their symptoms. There he sat now, contemplating his pale little cousin, with a patient attention wonderful to see; listening to the commonplace words which dropped at intervals from her lips, as if — in his state of health, and with the doubtful prospect which it implied — there were no serious interests to occupy his mind.

Mrs. Gallilee could endure it no longer.

If she had not deliberately starved her imagination, and emptied her heart of any tenderness of feeling which it might once have possessed, her son’s odd behaviour would have interested instead of perplexing her. As it was, her scientific education left her as completely in the dark, where questions of sentiment were concerned, as if her experience of humanity, in its relation to love, had been experience in the cannibal islands. She decided on leaving her niece to repose, and on taking her son away with her.

“In your present state of health, Ovid,” she began, “Carmina must not accept your professional advice.”

Something in those words stung Ovid’s temper.

“My professional advice?” he repeated. “You talk as if she was seriously ill!”

Carmina’s sweet smile stopped him there.

“We don’t know what may happen,” she said, playfully.

“God forbid
that
should happen!” He spoke so fervently that the women all looked at him in surprise.

Mrs. Gallilee turned to her niece, and proceeded quietly with what she had to say.

“Ovid is so sadly overworked, my dear, that I actually rejoice in his giving up practice, and going away from us to-morrow. We will leave you for the present with your old friend. Pray ring, if you want anything.” She kissed her hand to Carmina, and, beckoning to her son, advanced towards the door.

Teresa looked at her, and suddenly looked away again. Mrs. Gallilee stopped on her way out, at a chiffonier, and altered the arrangement of some of the china on it. The duenna followed on tiptoe — folded her thumb and two middle fingers into the palm of her hand — and, stretching out the forefinger and the little finger, touched Mrs. Gallilee on the back, so softly that she was unaware of it. “The Evil Eye,” Teresa whispered to herself in Italian, as she stole back to her place.

Ovid lingered near his cousin: neither of them had seen what Teresa had done. He rose reluctantly to go. Feeling his little attentions gratefully, Carmina checked him with innocent familiarity as he left his chair. “I must thank you,” she said, simply; “it seems hard indeed that you, who cure others, should suffer from illness yourself.”

Teresa, watching them with interest, came a little nearer.

She could now examine Ovid’s face with close and jealous scrutiny. Mrs. Gallilee reminded her son that she was waiting for him. He had some last words yet to say. The duenna drew back from the sofa, still looking at Ovid: she muttered to herself, “Holy Teresa, my patroness, show me that man’s soul in his face!” At last, Ovid took his leave. “I shall call and see how you are to-morrow,” he said, “before I go.” He nodded kindly to Teresa. Instead of being satisfied with that act of courtesy, she wanted something more. “May I shake hands?” she asked. Mrs. Gallilee was a Liberal in politics; never had her principles been tried, as they were tried when she heard those words. Teresa wrung Ovid’s hand with tremulous energy — still intent on reading his character in his face. He asked her, smiling, what she saw to interest her. “A good man, I hope,” she answered, sternly. Carmina and Ovid were amused. Teresa rebuked them, as if they had been children. “Laugh at some fitter time,” she said, “not now.”

Descending the stairs, Mrs. Gallilee and Ovid met the footman. “Mr. Mool is in the library, ma’am,” the man said.

“Have you anything to do, Ovid, for the next half-hour?” his mother asked.

“Do you wish me to see Mr. Mool? If it’s law-business, I am afraid I shall not be of much use.”

“The lawyer is here by appointment, with a copy of your late uncle’s Will,” Mrs. Gallilee answered. “You may have some interest in it. I think you ought to hear it read.”

Ovid showed no inclination to adopt this proposal. He asked an idle question. “I heard of their finding the Will — are there any romantic circumstances?”

Mrs. Gallilee surveyed her son with an expression of good-humoured contempt. “What a boy you are, in some things! Have you been reading a novel lately? My dear, when the people in Italy made up their minds, at last, to have the furniture in your uncle’s room taken to pieces, they found the Will. It had slipped behind a drawer, in a rotten old cabinet, full of useless papers. Nothing romantic (thank God!), and nothing (as Mr. Mool’s letter tells me) that can lead to misunderstandings or disputes.”