Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1178 page)

“It is most important that there should be no misunderstanding among us,” Mrs. Gallilee proceeded. “Let me set the example of speaking without reserve. We all three know that Ovid persists in remaining in London — ”

She paused, on the point of finishing the sentence. Although she
had
converted a Professor, Mrs. Gallilee was still only a woman. There did enter into her other calculations, the possibility of exciting some accidental betrayal of her governess’s passion for her son. On alluding to Ovid, she turned suddenly to Miss Minerva. “I am sure you will excuse my troubling you with family anxieties,” she said — ”especially when they are connected with the health of my son.”

It was cleverly done, but it laboured under one disadvantage. Miss Minerva had no idea of what the needless apology meant, having no suspicion of the discovery of her secret by her employer. But to feel herself baffled in trying to penetrate Mrs. Gallilee’s motives was enough, of itself, to put Mrs. Gallilee’s governess on her guard for the rest of the evening.

“You honour me, madam, by admitting me to your confidence” — was what she said. “Trip me up, you cat, if you can!” — was what she thought.

Mrs. Gallilee resumed.

“We know that Ovid persists in remaining in London, when change of air and scene are absolutely necessary to the recovery of his health. And we know why. Carmina, my child, don’t think for a moment that I blame you! don’t even suppose that I blame my son. You are too charming a person not to excuse, nay even to justify, any man’s admiration. But let us (as we hard old people say) look the facts in the face. If Ovid had not seen you, he would be now on the health-giving sea, on his way to Spain and Italy. You are the innocent cause of his obstinate indifference, his most deplorable and dangerous disregard of the duty which he owes to himself. He refuses to listen to his mother, he sets the opinion of his skilled medical colleague at defiance. But one person has any influence over him now.” She paused again, and tried to trip up the governess once more. “Miss Minerva, let me appeal to You. I regard you as a member of our family; I have the sincerest admiration of your tact and good sense. Am I exceeding the limits of delicacy, if I say plainly to my niece, Persuade Ovid to go?”

If Carmina had possessed an elder sister, with a plain personal appearance and an easy conscience, not even that sister could have matched the perfect composure with which Miss Minerva replied.

“I don’t possess your happy faculty of expressing yourself, Mrs. Gallilee. But, if I had been in your place, I should have said to the best of my poor ability exactly what you have said now.” She bent her head with a graceful gesture of respect, and looked at Carmina with a gentle sisterly interest while she stirred her tea.

At the very opening of the skirmish, Mrs. Gallilee was defeated. She had failed to provoke the slightest sign of jealousy, or even of ill-temper. Unquestionably the most crafty and most cruel woman of the two — possessing the most dangerously deceitful manner, and the most mischievous readiness of language — she was, nevertheless, Miss Minerva’s inferior in the one supreme capacity of which they both stood in need, the capacity for self-restraint.

She showed this inferiority on expressing her thanks. The underlying malice broke through the smooth surface that was intended to hide it. “I am apt to doubt myself,” she said; “and such sound encouragement as yours always relieves me. Of course I don’t ask you for more than a word of advice. Of course I don’t expect
you
to persuade Ovid.”

“Of course not!” Miss Minerva agreed. “May I ask for a little more sugar in my tea?”

Mrs. Gallilee turned to Carmina.

“Well, my dear? I have spoken to you, as I might have spoken to one of my own daughters, if she had been of your age. Tell me frankly, in return, whether I may count on your help.”

Still pale and downcast, Carmina obeyed. “I will do my best, if you wish it. But — ”

“Yes? Go on.”

She still hesitated. Mrs. Gallilee tried gentle remonstrance. “My child, surely you are not afraid of me?”

She was certainly afraid. But she controlled herself.

“You are Ovid’s mother, and I am only his cousin,” she resumed. “I don’t like to hear you say that my influence over him is greater than yours.”

It was far from the poor girl’s intention; but there was an implied rebuke in this. In her present state of irritation, Mrs. Gallilee felt it.

“Come! come!” she said. “Don’t affect to be ignorant, my dear, of what you know perfectly well.”

Carmina lifted her head. For the first time in the experience of the two elder women, this gentle creature showed that she could resent an insult. The fine spirit that was in her fired her eyes, and fixed them firmly on her aunt.

“Do you accuse me of deceit?” she asked.

“Let us call it false modesty,” Mrs. Gallilee retorted.

Carmina rose without another word — and walked out of the room.

In the extremity of her surprise, Mrs. Gallilee appealed to Miss Minerva. “Is she in a passion?”

“She didn’t bang the door,” the governess quietly remarked.

“I am not joking, Miss Minerva.”

“I am not joking either, madam.”

The tone of that answer implied an uncompromising assertion of equality. You are not to suppose (it said) that a lady drops below your level, because she receives a salary and teaches your children. Mrs. Gallilee was so angry, by this time, that she forgot the importance of preventing a conference between Miss Minerva and her niece. For once, she was the creature of impulse — the overpowering impulse to dismiss her insolent governess from her hospitable table.

“May I offer you another cup of tea?”

“Thank you — no more. May I return to my pupils?”

“By all means!”

Carmina had not been five minutes in her own room before she heard a knock at the door. Had Mrs. Gallilee followed her? “Who is there?” she asked. And a voice outside answered,

“Only Miss Minerva!”

CHAPTER XVI.

“I am afraid I have startled you?” said the governess, carefully closing the door.

“I thought it was my aunt,” Carmina answered, as simply as a child.

“Have you been crying?”

“I couldn’t help it, Miss Minerva.”

“Mrs. Gallilee spoke cruelly to you — I don’t wonder at your feeling angry.”

Carmina gently shook her head. “I have been crying,” she explained, “because I am sorry and ashamed. How can I make it up with my aunt? Shall I go back at once and beg her pardon? I think you are my friend, Miss Minerva. Will you advise me?”

It was so prettily and innocently said that even the governess was touched — for a moment. “Shall I prove to you that I am your friend?” she proposed. “I advise you not to go back yet to your aunt — and I will tell you why. Mrs. Gallilee bears malice; she is a thoroughly unforgiving woman. And I should be the first to feel it, if she knew what I have just said to you.”

“Oh, Miss Minerva! you don’t think that I would betray your confidence?”

“No, my dear, I don’t. I felt attracted towards you, when we first met. You didn’t return the feeling — you (very naturally) disliked me. I am ugly and ill-tempered: and, if there is anything good in me, it doesn’t show itself on the surface. Yes! yes! I believe you are beginning to understand me. If I can make your life here a little happier, as time goes on, I shall be only too glad to do it.” She put her long yellow hands on either side of Carmina’s head, and kissed her forehead.

The poor child threw her arms round Miss Minerva’s neck, and cried her heart out on the bosom of the woman who was deceiving her. “I have nobody left, now Teresa has gone,” she said. “Oh, do try to be kind to me — I feel so friendless and so lonely!”

Miss Minerva neither moved nor spoke. She waited, and let the girl cry.

Her heavy black eyebrows gathered into a frown; her sallow face deepened in colour. She was in a state of rebellion against herself. Through all the hardening influences of the woman’s life — through the fortifications against good which watchful evil builds in human hearts — that innocent outburst of trust and grief had broken its way; and had purified for a while the fetid inner darkness with divine light. She had entered the room, with her own base interests to serve. In her small sordid way she, like her employer, was persecuted by debts — miserable debts to sellers of expensive washes, which might render her ugly complexion more passable in Ovid’s eyes; to makers of costly gloves, which might show Ovid the shape of her hands, and hide their colour; to skilled workmen in fine leather, who could tempt Ovid to look at her high instep, and her fine ankle — the only beauties that she could reveal to the only man whom she cared to please. For the time, those importunate creditors ceased to threaten her. For the time, what she had heard in the conservatory, while they were reading the Will, lost its tempting influence. She remained in the room for half an hour more — and she left it without having borrowed a farthing.

“Are you easier now?”

“Yes, dear.”

Carmina dried her eyes, and looked shyly at Miss Minerva. “I have been treating you as if I had a sister,” she said; “you don’t think me too familiar, I hope?”

“I wish I was your sister, God knows!”

The words were hardly out of her mouth before she was startled by her own fervour. “Shall I tell you what to do with Mrs. Gallilee?” she said abruptly. “Write her a little note.”

“Yes! yes! and you will take it for me?”

Carmina’s eyes brightened through her tears, the suggestion was such a relief! In a minute the note was written: “My dear Aunt, I have behaved very badly, and I am very much ashamed of it. May I trust to your kind indulgence to forgive me? I will try to be worthier of your kindness for the future; and I sincerely beg your pardon.” She signed her name in breathless haste. “Please take it at once!” she said eagerly.

Miss Minerva smiled. “If I take it,” she said, “I shall do harm instead of good — I shall be accused of interfering. Give it to one of the servants. Not yet! When Mrs. Gallilee is angry, she doesn’t get over it so soon as you seem to think. Leave her to dabble in science first,” said the governess in tones of immeasurable contempt. “When she has half stifled herself with some filthy smell, or dissected some wretched insect or flower, she may be in a better humour. Wait.”

Carmina thought of the happy days at home in Italy, when her father used to laugh at her little outbreaks of temper, and good Teresa only shrugged her shoulders. What a change — oh, me, what a change for the worse! She drew from her bosom a locket, hung round her neck by a thin gold chain — and opened it, and kissed the glass over the miniature portraits inside. “Would you like to see them?” she said to Miss Minerva. “My mother’s likeness was painted for me by my father; and then he had his photograph taken to match it. I open my portraits and look at them, while I say my prayers. It’s almost like having them alive again, sometimes. Oh, if I only had my father to advise me now — !” Her heart swelled — but she kept back the tears: she was learning that self-restraint, poor soul, already! “Perhaps,” she went on, “I ought not to want advice. After that fainting-fit in the Gardens, if I can persuade Ovid to leave us, I ought to do it — and I will do it!”

Miss Minerva crossed the room, and looked out of window. Carmina had roused the dormant jealousy; Carmina had fatally weakened the good influences which she had herself produced. The sudden silence of her new friend perplexed her. She too went to the window. “Do you think it would be taking a liberty?” she asked.

“No.”

A short answer — and still looking out of window! Carmina tried again. “Besides, there are my aunt’s wishes to consider. After my bad behaviour — ”

Miss Minerva turned round from the window sharply. “Of course! There can’t be a doubt of it.” Her tone softened a little. “You are young, Carmina — I suppose I may call you by your name — you are young and simple. Do those innocent eyes of yours ever see below the surface?”