Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1207 page)

“I meant well,” he said, “when I asked you to take her out of this house. It’s no wonder if
I
was wrong. What I am too stupid to understand is — why
you
allowed her to be moved.”

Benjulia listened with a grim smile; Mr. Gallilee’s presumption amused him.

“I wonder whether there was any room left for memory, when nature furnished your narrow little head,” he answered pleasantly. “Didn’t I say that moving her was the least of two risks? And haven’t I just warned you of what might have happened, if we had left your wife and her niece together in the same house? When I do a thing at my time of life, Mr. Gallilee — don’t think me conceited — I know why I do it.”

While he was speaking of himself in these terms, he might have said something more. He might have added, that his dread of the loss of Carmina’s reason really meant his dread of a commonplace termination to an exceptionally interesting case. He might also have acknowledged, that he was not yielding obedience to the rules of professional etiquette, in confiding the patient to her regular medical attendant, but following the selfish suggestions of his own critical judgment.

His experience, brief as it had been, had satisfied him that stupid Mr. Null’s course of action could be trusted to let the instructive progress of the malady proceed. Mr. Null would treat the symptoms in perfect good faith — without a suspicion of the nervous hysteria which, in such a constitution as Carmina’s, threatened to establish itself, in course of time, as the hidden cause. These motives — not only excused, but even ennobled, by their scientific connection with the interests of Medical Research — he might have avowed, under more favourable circumstances. While his grand discovery was still barely within reach, Doctor Benjulia stood committed to a system of diplomatic reserve, which even included simple Mr. Gallilee.

He took his hat and stick, and walked out into the hall. “Can I be of further use?” he asked carelessly. “You will hear about the patient from Mr. Null.”

“You won’t desert Carmina?” said Mr. Gallilee. “You will see her yourself, from time to time — won’t you?”

“Don’t be afraid; I’ll look after her.” He spoke sincerely in saying this. Carmina’s case had already suggested new ideas. Even the civilised savage of modern physiology (where his own interests are concerned) is not absolutely insensible to a feeling of gratitude.

Mr. Gallilee opened the door for him.

“By the-bye,” he added, as he stepped out, “what’s become of Zo?”

“She’s upstairs, in the schoolroom.”

He made one of his dreary jokes. “Tell her, when she wants to be tickled again, to let me know. Good-evening!”

Mr. Gallilee returned to the upper part of the house, with the papers left by Benjulia in his hand. Arriving at the dressing-room door, he hesitated. The papers were enclosed in a sealed envelope, addressed to his wife. Secured in this way from inquisitive eyes, there was no necessity for personally presenting them. He went on to the schoolroom, and beckoned to the parlour-maid to come out, and speak to him.

Having instructed her to deliver the papers — telling her mistress that they had been left at the house by Doctor Benjulia — he dismissed the woman from duty. “You needn’t return,” he said; “I’ll look after the children myself.”

Maria was busy with her book; and even idle Zo was employed!

She was writing at her own inky desk; and she looked up in confusion, when her father appeared. Unsuspicious Mr. Gallilee took if for granted that his favourite daughter was employed on a writing lesson — following Maria’s industrious example for once. “Good children!” he said, looking affectionately from one to the other. “I won’t disturb you; go on.” He took a chair, satisfied — comforted, even — to be in the same room with the girls.

If he had placed himself nearer to the desk, he might have seen that Zo had been thinking of Carmina to some purpose.

What could she do to make her friend and playfellow well and happy again? There was the question which Zo asked herself, after having seen Carmina carried insensible out of the room.

Possessed of that wonderful capacity for minute observation of the elder persons about them, which is one among the many baffling mysteries presented by the minds of children, Zo had long since discovered that the member of the household, preferred to all others by Carmina, was the good brother who had gone away and left them. In his absence, she was always talking of him — and Zo had seen her kiss his photograph before she put it back in the case.

Dwelling on these recollections, the child’s slowly-working mental process arrived more easily than usual at the right conclusion. The way to make Carmina well and happy again, was to bring Ovid back. One of the two envelopes which he had directed for her still remained — waiting for the letter which might say to him, “Come home!”

Zo determined to write that letter — and to do it at once.

She might have confided this design to her father (the one person besides Carmina who neither scolded her nor laughed at her) if Mr. Gallilee had distinguished himself by his masterful position in the house. But she had seen him, as everybody else had seen him, “afraid of mamma.” The doubt whether he might not “tell mamma,” decided her on keeping her secret. As the event proved, the one person who informed Ovid of the terrible necessity that existed for his return, was the little sister whom it had been his last kind effort to console when he left England.

When Mr. Gallilee entered the room, Zo had just reached the end of her letter. Her system of composition excluded capitals and stops; and reduced all the words in the English language, by a simple process of abridgment, to words of one syllable.

“dear ov you come back car is ill she wants you be quick be quick don’t say I writ this miss min is gone I hate books I like you zo.”

With the pen still in her hand, the wary writer looked round at her father. She had her directed envelope (sadly crumpled) in her pocket; but she was afraid to take it out. “Maria,” she thought, “would know what to do in my place. Horrid Maria!”

Fortune, using the affairs of the household as an instrument, befriended Zo. In a minute more her opportunity arrived. The parlour-maid unexpectedly returned. She addressed Mr. Gallilee with the air of mystery in which English servants, in possession of a message, especially delight. “If you please, sir, Joseph wishes to speak to you.”

“Where is he?”

“Outside, sir.”

“Tell him to come in.”

Thanks to the etiquette of the servants’ hall — which did not permit Joseph to present himself, voluntarily, in the regions above the drawing-room, without being first represented by an ambassadress — attention was now diverted from the children. Zo folded her letter, enclosed it in the envelope, and hid it in her pocket.

Joseph appeared. “I beg your pardon, sir, I don’t quite know whether I ought to disturb my mistress. Mr. Le Frank has called, and asked if he can see her.”

Mr. Gallilee consulted the parlour-maid. “Was your mistress asleep when I sent you to her?”

“No, sir. She told me to bring her a cup of tea.”

On those rare former occasions, when Mrs. Gallilee had been ill, her attentive husband never left it to the servants to consult her wishes. That time had gone by for ever.

“Tell your mistress, Joseph, that Mr. Le Frank is here.”

CHAPTER XLVII.

The slander on which Mrs. Gallilee had reckoned, as a means of separating Ovid and Carmina, was now a slander refuted by unanswerable proof. And the man whose exertions had achieved this result, was her own lawyer — the agent whom she had designed to employ, in asserting that claim of the guardian over the ward which Teresa had defied.

As a necessary consequence, the relations between Mr. Mool and herself were already at an end.

There she lay helpless — her authority set at naught; her person outraged by a brutal attack — there she lay, urged to action by every reason that a resolute woman could have for asserting her power, and avenging her wrong — without a creature to take her part, without an accomplice to serve her purpose.

She got on her feet, with the resolution of despair. Her heart sank — the room whirled round her — she dropped back on the sofa. In a recumbent position, the giddiness subsided. She could ring the hand-bell on the table at her side. “Send instantly for Mr. Null,” she said to the maid. “If he is out, let the messenger follow him, wherever he may be.”

The messenger came back with a note. Mr. Null would call on Mrs. Gallilee as soon as possible. He was then engaged in attendance on Miss Carmina.

At that discovery, Mrs. Gallilee’s last reserves of independent resolution gave way. The services of her own medical attendant were only at her disposal, when Carmina had done with him! At the top of his letter the address, which she had thus far tried vainly to discover, stared her in the face: the house was within five minutes’ walk — and she was not even able to cross the room! For the first time in her life, Mrs. Gallilee’s imperious spirit acknowledged defeat. For the first time in her life, she asked herself the despicable question: Who can I find to help me?

Someone knocked at the door.

“Who is it?” she cried.

Joseph’s voice answered her. “Mr. Le Frank has called, ma’am — and wishes to know if you can see him.”

She never stopped to think. She never even sent for the maid to see to her personal appearance. The horror of her own helplessness drove her on. Here was the man, whose timely betrayal of Carmina had stopped her on her way to Ovid, in the nick of time! Here was the self-devoted instrument, waiting to be employed.

“I’ll see Mr. Le Frank,” she said. “Show him up.”

The music-master looked round the obscurely lit room, and bowed to the recumbent figure on the sofa.

“I fear I disturb you, madam, at an inconvenient time.”

“I am suffering from illness, Mr. Le Frank; but I am able to receive you — as you see.”

She stopped there. Now, when she saw him, and heard him, some perverse hesitation in her began to doubt him. Now, when it was too late, she weakly tried to put herself on her guard. What a decay of energy (she felt it herself) in the ready and resolute woman, equal to any emergency at other times! “To what am I to attribute the favour of your visit?” she resumed.

Even her voice failed her: it faltered in spite of her efforts to steady it. Mr. Le Frank’s vanity drew its own encouraging conclusion from this one circumstance.

“I am anxious to know how I stand in your estimation,” he replied. “Early this evening, I left a few lines here, enclosing a letter — with my compliments. Have you received the letter?”

“Yes.”

“Have you read it?”

Mrs. Gallilee hesitated. Mr. Le Frank smiled.

“I won’t trouble you, madam, for any more direct reply,” he said; “I will speak plainly. Be so good as to tell me plainly, on your side, which I am — a man who has disgraced himself by stealing a letter? or a man who has distinguished himself by doing you a service?”

An unpleasant alternative, neatly defined! To disavow Mr. Le Frank or to use Mr. Le Frank — there was the case for Mrs. Gallilee’s consideration. She was incapable of pronouncing judgment; the mere effort of decision, after what she had suffered, fatigued and irritated her. “I can’t deny,” she said, with weary resignation, “that you have done me a service.”

He rose, and made a generous return for the confidence that had been placed in him — he repeated his magnificent bow, and sat down again.

“Our position towards each other seems too plain to be mistaken,” he proceeded. “Your niece’s letter — perfectly useless for the purpose with which I opened it — offers me a means of being even with Miss Carmina, and a chance of being useful to You. Shall I begin by keeping an eye on the young lady?”

“Is that said, Mr. Le Frank, out of devotion to me?”