Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1209 page)

“We must act!” Mr. Gallilee repeated — and feebly clenched his fist, and softly struck the table.

“I think I have an idea,” the lawyer proceeded; “suggested by something said to me by Miss Carmina herself. May I ask if you are in her confidence?”

Mr. Gallilee’s face brightened at this. “Certainly,” he answered. “I always kiss her when we say good-night, and kiss her again when we say good-morning.”

This proof of his friend’s claims as Carmina’s chosen adviser, seemed rather to surprise Mr. Mool. “Did she ever hint at an idea of hastening her marriage?” he inquired.

Plainly as the question was put, it thoroughly puzzled Mr. Gallilee. His honest face answered for him — he was
not
in Carmina’s confidence. Mr. Mool returned to his idea.

“The one thing we can do,” he said, “is to hasten Mr. Ovid’s return. There is the only course to take — as I see it.”

“Let’s do it at once!” cried Mr. Gallilee.

“But tell me,” Mr. Mool insisted, greedy for encouragement — ”does my suggestion relieve your mind?”

“It’s the first happy moment I’ve had to-day!” Mr. Gallilee’s weak voice piped high: he was getting firmer and firmer with every word he uttered.

One of them produced a telegraph-form; the other seized a pen. “Shall we send the message in your name?” Mr. Mool asked.

If Mr. Gallilee had possessed a hundred names he would have sent them (and paid for them) all. “John Gallilee, 14 Fairfield Gardens, London, To — ” There the pen stopped. Ovid was still in the wilds of Canada. The one way of communicating with him was through the medium of the bankers at Quebec, To the bankers, accordingly, the message was sent. “Please telegraph Mr. Ovid Vere’s address, the moment you know it.”

When the telegram had been sent to the office, an interval of inaction followed. Mr. Gallilee’s fortitude suffered a relapse. “It’s a long time to wait,” he said.

His friend agreed with him. Morally speaking, Mr. Mool’s strength lay in points of law. No point of law appeared to be involved in the present conference: he shared Mr. Gallilee’s depression of spirits. “We are quite helpless,” he remarked, “till Mr. Ovid comes back. In the interval, I see no choice for Miss Carmina but to submit to her guardian; unless — ” He looked hard at Mr. Gallilee, before he finished his sentence. “Unless,” he resumed, “you can get over your present feeling about your wife.”

“Get over it?” Mr. Gallilee repeated.

“It seems quite impossible now, I dare say,” the worthy lawyer admitted. “A very painful impression has been produced on you. Naturally! naturally! But the force of habit — a married life of many years — your own kind feeling — ”

“What do you mean?” asked Mr. Gallilee, bewildered, impatient, almost angry.

“A little persuasion on your part, my good friend — at the interesting moment of reconciliation — might be followed by excellent results. Mrs. Gallilee might not object to waive her claims, until time has softened existing asperities. Surely, a compromise is possible, if you could only prevail on yourself to forgive your wife.”

“Forgive her? I should be only too glad to forgive her!” cried Mr. Gallilee, bursting into violent agitation. “How am I to do it? Good God! Mool, how am I to do it?
You
didn’t hear those infamous words.
You
didn’t see that dreadful death-struck look of the poor girl. I declare to you I turn cold when I think of my wife! I can’t go to her when I ought to go — I send the servants into her room. My children, too — my dear good children — it’s enough to break one’s heart — think of their being brought up by a mother who could say what she said, and do — What will they see, I ask you what will they see, if she gets Carmina back in the house, and treats that sweet young creature as she
will
treat her? There were times last night, when I thought of going away for ever — Lord knows where — and taking the girls with me. What am I talking about? I had something to say, and I don’t know what it is; I don’t know my own self! There, there; I’ll keep quiet. It’s my poor stupid head, I suppose — hot, Mool, burning hot. Let’s be reasonable. Yes, yes, yes; let’s be reasonable. You’re a lawyer. I said to myself, when I came here, ‘I want Mool’s advice.’ Be a dear good fellow — set my mind at ease. Oh, my friend, my old friend, what can I do for my children?”

Amazed and distressed — utterly at a loss how to interfere to any good purpose — Mr. Mool recovered his presence of mind, the moment Mr. Gallilee appealed to him in his legal capacity. “Don’t distress yourself about your children,” he said kindly. “Thank God, we stand on firm ground, there.”

“Do you mean it, Mool?”

“I mean it. Where your daughters are concerned, the authority is yours. Be firm, Gallilee! be firm!”

“I will! You set me the example — don’t you?
You’re
firm — eh?”

“Firm as a rock. I agree with you. For the present at least, the children must be removed.”

“At once, Mool!”

“At once!” the lawyer repeated.

They had wrought each other up to the right pitch of resolution, by this time. They were almost loud enough for the clerks to hear them in the office.

“No matter what my wife may say!” Mr. Gallilee stipulated.

“No matter what she may say,” Mr. Mool rejoined, “the father is master.”

“And
you
know the law.”

“And I know the law. You have only to assert yourself.”

“And
you
have only to back me.”

“For your children’s sake, Gallilee!”

“Under my lawyer’s advice, Mool!”

The one resolute Man was produced at last — without a flaw in him anywhere. They were both exhausted by the effort. Mr. Mool suggested a glass of wine.

Mr. Gallilee ventured on a hint. “You don’t happen to have a drop of champagne handy?” he said.

The lawyer rang for his housekeeper. In five minutes, they were pledging each other in foaming tumblers. In five minutes more, they plunged back into business. The question of the best place to which the children could be removed, was easily settled. Mr. Mool offered his own house; acknowledging modestly that it had perhaps one drawback — it was within easy reach of Mrs. Gallilee. The statement of this objection stimulated his friend’s memory. Lady Northlake was in Scotland. Lady Northlake had invited Maria and Zo, over and over again, to pass the autumn with their cousins; but Mrs. Gallilee’s jealousy had always contrived to find some plausible reason for refusal. “Write at once,” Mr. Mool advised. “You may do it in two lines. Your wife is ill; Miss Carmina is ill; you are not able to leave London — and the children are pining for fresh air.” In this sense, Mr. Gallilee wrote. He insisted on having the letter sent to the post immediately. “I know it’s long before post-time,” he explained. “But I want to compose my mind.”

The lawyer paused, with his glass of wine at his lips. “I say! You’re not hesitating already?”

“No more than you are,” Mr. Gallilee answered.

“You will really send the girls away?”

“The girls shall go, on the day when Lady Northlake invites them.”

“I’ll make a note of that,” said Mr. Mool.

He made the note; and they rose to say good-bye. Faithful Mr. Gallilee still thought of Carmina. “Do consider it again!” he said at parting. “Are you sure the law won’t help her?”

“I might look at her father’s Will,” Mr. Mool replied.

Mr. Gallilee saw the hopeful side of this suggestion, in the brightest colours. “Why didn’t you think of it before?” he asked.

Mr. Mool gently remonstrated. “Don’t forget how many things I have on my mind,” he said. “It only occurs to me now that the Will may give us a remedy — if there is any
open
opposition to the ward’s marriage engagement, on the guardian’s part.”

There he stopped; knowing Mrs. Gallilee’s methods of opposition too well to reckon hopefully on such a result as this. But he was a merciful man — and he kept his misgivings to himself.

On the way home, Mr. Gallilee encountered his wife’s maid. Marceline was dropping a letter into the pillar-post-box at the corner of the Square; she changed colour, on seeing her master. “Corresponding with her sweetheart,” Mr. Gallilee concluded.

Entering the house with an unfinished cigar in his mouth, he made straight for the smoking-room — and passed his youngest daughter, below him, waiting out of sight on the kitchen stairs.

“Have you done it?” Zo whispered, when Marceline returned by the servants’ entrance.

“It’s safe in the post, dear. Now tell me what you saw yesterday, when you were hidden in Miss Carmina’s bedroom.”

The tone in which she spoke implied a confidential agreement. With honourable promptitude Zo, perched on her friend’s knee, exerted her memory, and rewarded Marceline for posting her letter to Ovid.

CHAPTER XLIX.

It was past the middle of the day, before Mr. Le Frank paid his promised visit to Mrs. Gallilee. He entered the room with gloomy looks; and made his polite inquiries, as became a depressed musician, in the minor key.

“I am sorry, madam, to find you still on the sofa. Is there no improvement in your health?”

“None whatever.”

“Does your medical attendant give you any hope?”

“He does what they all do — he preaches patience. No more of myself! You appear to be in depressed spirits.”

Mr. Le Frank admitted with a sigh that appearances had not misrepresented him. “I have been bitterly disappointed,” he said. “My feelings as an artist are wounded to the quick. But why do I trouble you with my poor little personal affairs? I humbly beg your pardon.”

His eyes accompanied this modest apology with a look of uneasy anticipation: he evidently expected to be asked to explain himself. Events had followed her instructions to Mr. Null, which left Mrs. Gallilee in need of employing her music-master’s services. She felt the necessity of exerting herself; and did it — with an effort.

“You have no reason, I hope, to complain of your pupils?” she said.

“At this time of year, madam, I have no pupils. They are all out of town.”

She was too deeply preoccupied by her own affairs to trouble herself any further. The direct way was the easy way. She said wearily, “Well, what is it?”

He answered in plain terms, this time.

“A bitter humiliation, Mrs. Gallilee! I have been made to regret that I asked you to honour me by accepting the dedication of my Song. The music-sellers, on whom the sale depends, have not taken a tenth part of the number of copies for which we expected them to subscribe. Has some extraordinary change come over the public taste? My composition has been carefully based on fashionable principles — that is to say, on the principles of the modern German school. As little tune as possible; and that little strictly confined to the accompaniment. And what is the result? Loss confronts me, instead of profit — my agreement makes me liable for half the expenses of publication. And, what is far more serious in my estimation, your honoured name is associated with a failure! Don’t notice me — the artist nature — I shall be better in a minute.” He took out a profusely-scented handkerchief, and buried his face in it with a groan.

Mrs. Gallilee’s hard common sense understood the heart-broken composer to perfection.

“Stupid of me not to have offered him money yesterday,” she thought: “this waste of time need never have happened.” She set her mistake right with admirable brevity and directness. “Don’t distress yourself, Mr. Le Frank. Now my name is on it, the Song is mine. If your publisher’s account is not satisfactory — be so good as to send it to
me.”
Mr. Le Frank dropped his dry handkerchief, and sprang theatrically to his feet. His indulgent patroness refused to hear him: to this admirable woman, the dignity of Art was a sacred thing. “Not a word more on that subject,” she said. “Tell me how you prospered last night. Your investigations cannot have been interrupted, or I should have heard of it. Come to the result! Have you found anything of importance in my niece’s room?”