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?”
Mr. Le Frank had again been baffled, so far as the confirmation of his own suspicions was concerned. But the time was not favourable to a confession of personal disappointment. He understood the situation; and made himself the hero of it, in three words.
“Judge for yourself,” he said—and held out the letter of warning from Father Patrizio.
In silence, Mrs. Gallilee read the words which declared her to be the object of Teresa’s inveterate resentment, and which charged Carmina with the serious duty of keeping the peace.
“Does it alarm you?” Mr. Le Frank asked.
“I hardly know what I feel,” she answered. “Give me time to think.”
Mr. Le Frank went back to his chair. He had reason to congratulate himself already: he had shifted to other shoulders the pecuniary responsibility involved in the failure of his Song. Observing Mrs. Gallilee, he began to see possibilities of a brighter prospect still. Thus far she had kept him at a certain distance. Was the change of mind coming, which would admit him to the position (with all its solid advantages) of a confidential friend?
She suddenly took up Father Patrizio’s letter, and showed it to him.
“What impression does it produce on you,” she asked, “knowing no more than you know now?”
“The priest’s cautious language, madam, speaks for itself. You have an enemy who will stick at nothing.”
She still hesitated to trust him.
“You see me here,” she went on, “confined to my room; likely, perhaps, to be in this helpless condition for some time to come. How would you protect yourself against that woman, in my place?”
“I should wait.”
“For what purpose?”
“If you will allow me to use the language of the card-table, I should wait till the woman shows her hand.”
“She has shown it.”
“May I ask when?”
“This morning.”
Mr. Le Frank said no more. If he was really wanted, Mrs. Gallilee had only to speak. After a last moment of hesitation, the pitiless necessities of her position decided her once more. “You see me too ill to move,” she said; “the first thing to do, is to tell you why.”
She related the plain facts; without a word of comment, without a sign of emotion. But her husband’s horror of her had left an impression, which neither pride nor contempt had been strong enough to resist. She allowed the music-master to infer, that contending claims to authority over Carmina had led to a quarrel which provoked the assault. The secret of the words that she had spoken, was the one secret that she kept from Mr. Le Frank.
“While I was insensible,” she proceeded, “my niece was taken away from me. She has been suffering from nervous illness; she was naturally terrified—and she is now at the nurse’s lodgings, too ill to be moved. There you have the state of affairs, up to last night.”
“Some people might think,” Mr. Le Frank remarked, “that the easiest way out of it, so far, would be to summon the nurse for the assault.”
“The easiest way compels me to face a public exposure,” Mrs. Gallilee answered. “In my position that is impossible.”
Mr. Le Frank accepted this view of the case as a matter of course. “Under the circumstances,” he said, “it’s not easy to advise you. How can you make the woman submit to your authority, while you are lying here?”
“My lawyers have made her submit this morning.”
In the extremity of his surprise, Mr. Le Frank forgot himself. “The devil they have!” he exclaimed.
“They have forbidden her, in my name,” Mrs. Gallilee continued, “to act as nurse to my niece. They have informed her that Miss Carmina will be restored to my care, the moment she can be moved. And they have sent me her unconditional submission in writing, signed by herself.”
She took it from the desk at her side, and read it to him, in these words:
“I humbly ask pardon of Mrs. Gallilee for the violent and unlawful acts of which I have been guilty. I acknowledge, and submit to, her authority as guardian of Miss Carmina Graywell. And I appeal to her mercy (which I own I have not deserved) to spare me the misery of separation from Miss Carmina, on any conditions which it may be her good will and pleasure to impose.”
“Now,” Mrs. Galilee concluded, “what do you say?”
Speaking sincerely for once, Mr. Le Frank made a startling reply.
“Submit on your side,” he said. “Do what she asks of you. And when you are well enough to go to her lodgings, decline with thanks if she offers you anything to eat or drink.”
Mrs. Gallilee raised herself on the sofa. “Are you insulting me, sir,” she asked, “by making this serious emergency the subject of a joke?”
“I never was more in earnest, madam, in my life.”
“You think—you really think—that she is capable of trying to poison me?”
“Most assuredly I do.”
Mrs. Gallilee sank back on the pillow. Mr. Le Frank stated his reasons; checking them off, one by one, on his fingers.
“Who is she?” he began. “She is an Italian woman of the lower orders. The virtues of the people among whom she had been born and bred, are not generally considered to include respect for the sanctity of human life. What do we know already that she has done? She has alarmed the priest, who keeps her conscience, and knows her well; and she has attacked you with such murderous ferocity that it is a wonder you have escaped with your life. What sort of message have you sent to her, after this experience of her temper? You have told the tigress that you have the power to separate her from her cub, and that you mean to use it. On those plain facts, as they stare us in the face, which is the soundest conclusion? To believe that she really submits—or to believe that she is only gaining time, and is capable (if she sees no other alternative) of trying to poison you?”
“What would you advise me to do?” In those words Mrs. Gallilee—never before reduced to ask advice of anybody—owned that sound reasoning was not thrown away on her.
Mr. Le Frank answered the demand made on him without hesitation.
“The nurse has not signed that act of submission,” he said, “without having her own private reasons for appearing to give way. Rely on it, she is prepared for you—and there is at least a chance that some proof of it may be found. Have all her movements privately watched—and search the room she lives in, as I searched Miss Carmina’s room last night.”
“Well?” said Mrs. Gallilee.
“Well?” Mr. Le Frank repeated.
She angrily gave way. “Say at once that you are the man to do it for me!” she answered. “And say next—if you can—how it is to be done.”
Mr. Le Frank’s manner softened to an air of gentle gallantry.
“Pray compose yourself!” he said. “I am so glad to be of service to you, and it is so easily done!”
“Easily?”
“Dear madam, quite easily. Isn’t the house a lodging-house; and, at this time of year, have I anything to do?” He rose, and took his hat.
“Surely, you see me in my new character now? A single gentleman wants a bedroom. His habits are quiet, and he gives excellent references. The address, Mrs. Gallilee—may I trouble you for the address?”
CHAPTER L.
Towards seven o’clock on the evening of Thursday, Carmina recognised Teresa for the first time.
Her half-closed eyes opened, as if from a long sleep: they rested on the old nurse without any appearance of surprise. “I am so glad to see you, my dear,” she said faintly. “Are you very tired after you journey?” None of the inquiries which might have been anticipated followed those first words. Not the slightest allusion to Mrs. Gallilee escaped her; she expressed no anxiety about Miss Minerva; no sign of uneasiness at finding herself in a. strange room, disturbed her quiet face. Contentedly reposing, she looked at Teresa from time to time and said, “You will stay with me, won’t you?” Now and then, she confessed that her head felt dull and heavy, and asked Teresa to take her hand. “I feel as if I was sinking away from you,” she said; “keep hold of my hand and I shan’t be afraid to go to sleep.” The words were hardly spoken, before she sank into slumber. Occasionally, Teresa felt her hand tremble and kissed it. She seemed to be conscious of the kiss, without waking—she smiled in her sleep.
But, when the first hours of the morning came, this state of passive repose was disturbed. A violent attack of sickness came on. It was repeated again and again. Teresa sent for Mr. Null. He did what he could to relieve the new symptom; and he despatched a messenger to his illustrious colleague.
Benjulia lost no time in answering personally the appeal that had been made to him.
Mr. Null said, “Serious derangement of the stomach, sir.” Benjulia agreed with him. Mr. Null showed his prescription. Benjulia sanctioned the prescription. Mr. Null said, “Is there anything you wish to suggest, sir?” Benjulia had nothing to suggest.
He waited, nevertheless, until Carmina was able to speak to him. Teresa and Mr. Null wondered what he would say to her. He only said, “Do you remember when you last saw me?” After a little consideration, she answered, “Yes, Zo was with us; Zo brought in your big stick; and we talked—” She tried to rouse her memory. “What did we talk about?” she asked. A momentary agitation brought a flush to her face. “I can’t remember it,” she said; “I can’t remember when you went away: does it matter?” Benjulia replied, “Not the least in the world. Go to sleep.”
But he still remained in the room—watching her as she grew drowsy. “Great weakness,” Mr. Null whispered. And Benjulia answered, “Yes; I’ll call again.”
On his way out, he took Teresa aside.
“No more questions,” he said—“and don’t help her memory if she asks you.”
“Will she remember, when she gets better?” Teresa inquired.
“Impossible to say, yet. Wait and see.”
He left her in a hurry; his experiments were waiting for him. On the way home, his mind dwelt on Carmina’s case. Some hidden process was at work there: give it time—and it would show itself. “I hope that ass won’t want me,” he said, thinking of his medical colleague, “for at least a week to come.”
The week passed—and the physiologist was not disturbed.
During that interval, Mr. Null succeeded in partially overcoming the attacks of sickness: they were less violent, and they were succeeded by longer intervals of repose. In other respects, there seemed (as Teresa persisted in thinking) to be some little promise of improvement. A certain mental advance was unquestionably noticeable in Carmina. It first showed itself in an interesting way: she began to speak of Ovid.
Her great anxiety was, that he should know nothing of her illness. She forbade Teresa to write to him; she sent messages to Mr. and Mrs. Gallilee, and even to Mr. Mool, entreating them to preserve silence.
The nurse engaged to deliver the messages—and failed to keep her word. This breach of promise (as events had ordered it) proved to be harmless. Mrs. Gallilee had good reasons for not writing. Her husband and Mr. Mool had decided on sending their telegram to the bankers. As for Teresa herself, she had no desire to communicate with Ovid. His absence remained inexcusable, from her point of view. Well or ill, with or without reason, it was the nurse’s opinion that he ought to have remained at home, in Carmina’s interests. No other persons were in the least likely to write to Ovid—nobody thought of Zo as a correspondent—Carmina was pacified.
Once or twice, at this later time, the languid efforts of her memory took a wider range.
She wondered why Mrs. Gallilee never came near her; owning that her aunt’s absence was a relief to her, but not feeling interest enough in the subject to ask for information. She also mentioned Miss Minerva. “Do you know where she has gone? Don’t you think she ought to write to me?” Teresa offered to make inquiries. She turned her head wearily on the pillow, and said, “Never mind!” On another occasion, she asked for Zo, and said it would be pleasant if Mr. Gallilee would call and bring her with him. But she soon dropped the subject, not to return to it again.
The only remembrance which seemed to dwell on her mind for more than a few minutes, was her remembrance of the last letter which she had written to Ovid.
She pleased herself with imagining his surprise, when he received it; she grew impatient under her continued illness, because it delayed her in escaping to Canada; she talked to Teresa of the clever manner in which the flight had been planned—with this strange failure of memory, that she attributed the various arrangements for setting discovery at defiance, not to Miss Minerva, but to the nurse.
Here, for the first time, her mind was approaching dangerous ground. The stealing of the letter, and the events that had followed it, stood next in the order of remembrance—if she was capable of a continued effort. Her weakness saved her. Beyond the writing of the letter, her recollections were unable to advance. Not the faintest allusion to any later circumstances escaped her. The poor stricken brain still sought its rest in frequent intervals of sleep. Sometimes, she drifted back into partial unconsciousness; sometimes, the attacks of sickness returned. Mr. Null set an excellent example of patience and resignation. He believed as devoutly as ever in his prescriptions; he placed the greatest reliance on time and care. The derangement of the stomach (as he called it) presented something positive and tangible to treat: he had got over the doubts and anxieties that troubled him, when Carmina was first removed to the lodgings. Looking confidently at the surface—without an idea of what was going on below it—he could tell Teresa, with a safe conscience, that he understood the case. He was always ready to comfort her, when her excitable Italian nature passed from the extreme of hope to the extreme of despair. “My good woman, we see our way now: it’s a great point gained, I assure you, to see our way.”
“What do you mean by seeing your way?” said the downright nurse. “Tell me when Carmina will be well again.”
Mr. Null’s medical knowledge was not yet equal to this demand on it. “The progress is slow,” he admitted, “still Miss Carmina is getting on.”
“Is her aunt getting on?” Teresa asked abruptly. “When is Mistress Gallilee likely to come here?”
“In a few days—” Mr. Null was about to add “I hope;” but he thought of what might happen when the two women met. As it was, Teresa’s face showed signs of serious disturbance: her mind was plainly not prepared for this speedy prospect of a visit from Mrs. Gallilee. She took a letter out of her pocket.
“I find a good deal of sly prudence in you,” she said to Mr. Null. “You must have seen something, in your time, of the ways of deceitful Englishwomen. What does that palaver mean in plain words?” She handed the letter to him.
With some reluctance he read it.
“Mrs. Gallilee declines to contract any engagement with the person formerly employed as nurse, in the household of the late Mr. Robert Graywell. Mrs. Gallilee so far recognises the apology and submission offered to her, as to abstain from taking immediate proceedings. In arriving at this decision, she is also influenced by the necessity of sparing her niece any agitation which might interfere with the medical treatment. When the circumstances appear to require it, she will not hesitate to exert her authority.”
The handwriting told Mr. Null that this manifesto had not been written by Mrs. Gallilee herself. The person who had succeeded him, in the capacity of that lady’s amanuensis, had been evidently capable of giving sound advice. Little did he suspect that this mysterious secretary was identical with an enterprising pianist, who had once prevailed on him to take a seat at a concert; price five shillings.
“Well?” said Teresa.
Mr. Null hesitated.
The nurse stamped impatiently on the floor. “Tell me this! When she does come here, will she part me from Carmina? Is that what she means?”
“Possibly,” said prudent Mr. Null.
Teresa pointed to the door. “Good-morning! I want nothing more of you. Oh, man, man, leave me by myself!”
The moment she was alone, she fell on her knees. Fiercely whispering, she repeated over and over again the words of the Lord’s Prayer: “‘Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.’ Christ, hear me! Mother of Christ, hear me! Oh, Carmina! Carmina!”
She rose and opened the door which communicated with the bedroom. Trembling pitiably, she looked for a while at Carmina, peacefully asleep—then turned away to a corner of the room, in which stood an old packing-case, fitted with a lock. She took it up; and, returning with it to the sitting-room, softly closed the bedroom door again.
After some hesitation, she decided to open the case. In the terror and confusion that possessed her, she tried the wrong key. Setting this mistake right, she disclosed—strangely mingled with the lighter articles of her own dress—a heap of papers; some of them letters and bills; some of them faded instructions in writing for the preparation of artists’ colours.
She recoiled from the objects which her own act had disclosed. Why had she not taken Father Patrizio’s advice? If she had only waited another day; if she had only sorted her husband’s papers, before she threw the things that her trunk was too full to hold into that half-empty case, what torment might have been spared to her! Her eyes turned mournfully to the bedroom door. “Oh, my darling, I was in such a hurry to get to You!”
At last, she controlled herself, and put her hand into the case. Searching it in one corner, she produced a little tin canister. A dirty label was pasted on the canister, bearing this quaint inscription in the Italian language:
“If there is any of the powder we employ in making some of our prettiest colours, left in here, I request my good wife, or any other trustworthy person in her place, to put a seal on it, and take it directly to the manufactory, with the late foreman’s best respects. It looks like nice sugar. Beware of looks—or you may taste poison.”
On the point of opening the canister she hesitated. Under some strange impulse, she did what a child might have done: she shook it, and listened.
The rustle of the rising and falling powder—renewing her terror—seemed to exercise some irresistible fascination over her. “The devil’s dance,” she said to herself, with a ghastly smile. “Softly up—and softly down—and tempting me to take off the cover all the time! Why don’t I get rid of it?”
That question set her thinking of Carmina’s guardian.
If Mr. Null was right, in a day or two Mrs. Gallilee might come to the house. After the lawyers had threatened Teresa with the prospect of separation from Carmina, she had opened the packing-case, for the first time since she had left Rome—intending to sort her husband’s papers as a means of relief from her own thoughts. In this way, she had discovered the canister. The sight of the deadly powder had tempted her. There were the horrid means of setting Mrs. Gallilee’s authority at defiance! Some women in her place, would use them. Though she was not looking into the canister now, she felt that thought stealing back into her mind. There was but one hope for her: she resolved to get rid of the poison.
How?
At that period of the year, there was no fire in the grate. Within the limits of the room, the means of certain destruction were slow to present themselves. Her own morbid horror of the canister made her suspicious of the curiosity of other people, who might see it in her hand if she showed herself on the stairs. But she was determined, if she lit a fire for the purpose, to find the way to her end. The firmness of her resolution expressed itself by locking the case again, without restoring the canister to its hiding-place.
Providing herself next with a knife, she sat down in a corner—between the bedroom door on one side, and a cupboard in an angle of the wall on the other—and began the work of destruction by scraping off the paper label. The fragments might be burnt, and the powder (if she made a vow to the Virgin to do it) might be thrown into the fire next—and then the empty canister would be harmless.
She had made but little progress in the work of scraping, when it occurred to her that the lighting of a fire, on that warm autumn day, might look suspicious if the landlady or Mr. Null happened to come in. It would be safer to wait till night-time, when everybody would be in bed.
Arriving at this conclusion, she mechanically suspended the use of her knife.
In the moment of silence that followed, she heard someone enter the bedroom by the door which opened on the stairs. Immediately afterwards, the person turned the handle of the second door at her side. She had barely time enough to open the cupboard, and hide the canister in it—when the landlady came in.
Teresa looked at her wildly. The landlady looked at the cupboard: she was proud of her cupboard.
“Plenty of room there,” she said boastfully: “not another house in the neighbourhood could offer you such accommodation as that! Yes—the lock is out of order; I don’t deny it. The last lodger’s doings! She spoilt my tablecloth, and put the inkstand over it to hide the place. Beast! there’s her character in one word. You didn’t hear me knock at the bedroom door? I am so glad to see her sleeping nicely, poor dear! Her chicken broth is ready when she wakes. I’m late to-day in making my inquiries after our young lady. You see we have been hard at work upstairs, getting the bedroom ready for a new lodger. Such a contrast to the person who has just left. A perfect gentleman, this time—and so kind in waiting a week till I was able to accommodate him. My ground floor rooms were vacant, as you know—but he said the terms were too high for him. Oh, I didn’t forget to mention that we had an invalid in the house! Quiet habits (I said) are indeed an essential qualification of any new inmate, at such a time as this. He understood. ‘I’ve been an invalid myself’ (he said); ‘and the very reason I am leaving my present lodgings is that they are not quiet enough.’ Isn’t that just the sort of man we want? And, let me tell you, a handsome man too. With a drawback, I must own, in the shape of a bald head. But such a beard, and such a thrilling voice! Hush! Did I hear her calling?”
At last, the landlady permitted other sounds to be audible, besides the sound of her own voice. It became possible to discover that Carmina was now awake. Teresa hurried into the bedroom.
Left by herself in the sitting-room, the landlady—“purely out of curiosity,” as she afterwards said, in conversation with her new lodger—opened the cupboard, and looked in.
The canister stood straight before her, on an upper shelf. Did Miss Carmina’s nurse take snuff? She examined the canister: there was a white powder inside. The mutilated label spoke in an unknown tongue. She wetted her finger and tasted the powder. The result was so disagreeable that she was obliged to use her handkerchief. She put the canister back, and closed the cupboard.
“Medicine, undoubtedly,” the landlady said to herself. “Why should she hurry to put it away, when I came in?”
CHAPTER LI.
In eight days from the date of his second interview with Mrs. Gallilee, Mr. Le Frank took possession of his new bedroom.
He had arranged to report his proceedings in writing. In Teresa’s state of mind, she would certainly distrust a fellow-lodger, discovered in personal communication with Mrs. Gallilee. Mr. Le Frank employed the first day after his arrival in collecting the materials for a report. In the evening, he wrote to Mrs. Gallilee—under cover to a friend, who was instructed to forward the letter.
“Private and confidential. Dear Madam,—I have not wasted my time and my opportunities, as you will presently see.
“My bedroom is immediately above the floor of the house which is occupied by Miss Carmina and her nurse. Having some little matters of my own to settle, I was late in taking possession of my room. Before the lights on the staircase were put out, I took the liberty of looking down at the next landing.
“Do you remember, when you were a child learning to write, that one of the lines in your copy-books was, ‘Virtue is its own reward’? This ridiculous assertion was actually verified in my case! Before I had been five minutes at my post, I saw the nurse open her door. She looked up the staircase (without discovering me, it is needless to say), and she looked down the staircase—and, seeing nobody about, returned to her rooms.
“Waiting till I heard her lock the door, I stole downstairs, and listened outside.
“One of my two fellow-lodgers (you know that I don’t believe in Miss Carmina’s illness) was lighting a fire—on such a warm autumn night, that the staircase window was left open! I am absolutely sure of what I say: I heard the crackle of burning wood—I smelt coal smoke.
“The motive of this secret proceeding it seems impossible to guess at. If they were burning documents of a dangerous and compromising kind, a candle would have answered their purpose. If they wanted hot water, surely a tin kettle and a spirit lamp must have been at hand in an invalid’s bedroom? Perhaps, your superior penetration may be able to read the riddle which baffles my ingenuity.
“So much for the first night.
“This afternoon, I had some talk with the landlady. My professional avocations having trained me in the art of making myself agreeable to the sex, I may say without vanity that I produced a favourable impression. In other words, I contrived to set my fair friend talking freely about the old nurse and the interesting invalid.
“Out of the flow of words poured on me, one fact of very serious importance has risen to the surface. There is a suspicious canister in the nurse’s possession. The landlady calls the powder inside, medicine. I say, poison.
“Am I rushing at a fanciful conclusion? Please wait a little.
“During the week of delay which elapsed, before the lodger in possession vacated my room, you kindly admitted me to an interview. I ventured to put some questions, relating to Teresa’s life in Italy and to the persons with whom she associated. Do you remember telling me, when I asked what you knew of her husband, that he was foreman in a manufactory of artists’ colours? and that you had your information from Miss Carmina herself, after she had shown you the telegram announcing his death?
“A lady, possessed of your scientific knowledge, does not require to be told that poisons are employed in making artists’ colours. Remember what the priest’s letter says of Teresa’s feeling towards you, and then say—Is it so very unlikely that she has brought with her to England one of the poisons used by her husband in his trade? and is it quite unreasonable to suppose (when she looks at her canister) that she may be thinking of you?
“I may be right or I may be wrong. Thanks to the dilapidated condition of a lock, I can decide the question, at the first opportunity offered to me by the nurse’s absence from the room.
“My next report shall tell you that I have contrived to provide myself with a sample of the powder—leaving the canister undisturbed. The sample shall be tested by a chemist. If he pronounces it to be poison, I have a bold course of action to propose.
“As soon as you are well enough to go to the house, give the nurse her chance of poisoning you.
“Dear madam, don’t be alarmed! I will accompany you; and I will answer for the result. We will pay our visit at tea-time. Let her offer you a cup—and let me (under pretence of handing it) get possession of the poisoned drink. Before she can cry Stop!—I shall be on my way to the chemist.
“The penalty for attempted murder is penal servitude. If you still object to a public exposure, we have the chemist’s report, together with your own evidence, ready for your son on his return. How will he feel about his marriage-engagement, when he finds that Miss Carmina’s dearest friend and companion has tried—perhaps, with her young lady’s knowledge—to poison his mother?
“Before concluding, I may mention that I had a narrow escape, only two hours since, of being seen by Teresa on the stairs.
“I was of course prepared for this sort of meeting, when I engaged my room; and I have therefore not been foolish enough to enter the house under an assumed name. On the contrary, I propose (in your interests) to establish a neighbourly acquaintance—with time to help me. But the matter of the poison admits of no delay. My chance of getting at it unobserved may be seriously compromised, if the nurse remembers that she first met with me in your house, and distrusts me accordingly. Your devoted servant, L. F.”
Having completed his letter, he rang for the maid, and gave it to her to post.
On her way downstairs, she was stopped on the next landing by Mr. Null. He too had a letter ready: addressed to Doctor Benjulia. The fierce old nurse followed him out, and said, “Post it instantly!” The civil maid asked if Miss Carmina was better. “Worse!”—was all the rude foreigner said. She looked at poor Mr. Null, as if it was his fault.
Left in the retirement of his room, Mr. Le Frank sat at the writing-table, frowning and biting his nails.
Were these evidences of a troubled mind connected with the infamous proposal which he had addressed to Mrs. Gallilee? Nothing of the sort! Having sent away his letter, he was now at leisure to let his personal anxieties absorb him without restraint. He was thinking of Carmina. The oftener his efforts were baffled, the more resolute he became to discover the secret of her behaviour to him. For the hundredth time he said to himself, “Her devilish malice reviles me behind my back, and asks me before my face to shake hands and be friends.” The more outrageously unreasonable his suspicions became, under the exasperating influence of suspense, the more inveterately his vindictive nature held to its delusion. After meeting her in the hall at Fairfield Gardens, he really believed Carmina’s illness to have been assumed as a means of keeping out of his way. If a friend had said to him, “But what reason have you to think so?”—he would have smiled compassionately, and have given that friend up for a shallow-minded man.
He stole out again, and listened, undetected, at their door. Carmina was speaking; but the words, in those faint tones, were inaudible. Teresa’s stronger voice easily reached his ears. “My darling, talking is not good for you. I’ll light the night-lamp—try to sleep.”
Hearing this, he went back to his bedroom to wait a little. Teresa’s vigilance might relax if Carmina fell asleep. She might go downstairs for a gossip with the landlady.
After smoking a cigar, he tried again. The lights on the staircase were now put out: it was eleven o’clock.
She was not asleep: the nurse was reading to her from some devotional book. He gave it up, for that night. His head ached; the ferment of his own abominable thoughts had fevered him. A cowardly dread of the slightest signs of illness was one of his special weaknesses. The whole day, to-morrow, was before him. He felt his own pulse; and determined, in justice to himself, to go to bed.
Ten minutes later, the landlady, on her way to bed, ascended the stairs. She too heard the voice, still reading aloud—and tapped softly at the door. Teresa opened it.
“Is the poor thing not asleep yet?”
“No.”
“Has she been disturbed in some way?”
“Somebody has been walking about, overhead,” Teresa answered.
“That’s the new lodger!” exclaimed the landlady. “I’ll speak to Mr. Le Frank.”
On the point of closing the door, and saying good-night, Teresa stopped, and considered for a moment.
“Is he your new lodger?” she said.
“Yes. Do you know him?”
“I saw him when I was last in England.”
“Well?”
“Nothing more,” Teresa answered. “Good-night!”
CHAPTER LII.
Watching through the night by Carmina’s bedside, Teresa found herself thinking of Mr. Le Frank. It was one way of getting through the weary time, to guess at the motive which had led him to become a lodger in the house.
Common probabilities pointed to the inference that he might have reasons for changing his residence, which only concerned himself. But common probabilities—from Teresa’s point of view—did not apply to Mr. Le Frank. On meeting him, at the time of her last visit to England, his personal appearance had produced such a disagreeable impression on her, that she had even told Carmina “the music-master looked like a rogue.” With her former prejudice against him now revived, and with her serious present reasons for distrusting Mrs. Gallilee, she rejected the idea of his accidental presence under her landlady’s roof. To her mind, the business of the new lodger in the house was, in all likelihood, the business of a spy.
While Mr. Le Frank was warily laying his plans for the next day, he had himself become an object of suspicion to the very woman whose secrets he was plotting to surprise.
This was the longest and saddest night which the faithful old nurse had passed at her darling’s bedside.
For the first time, Carmina was fretful, and hard to please: patient persuasion was needed to induce her to take her medicine. Even when she was thirsty, she had an irritable objection to being disturbed, if the lemonade was offered to her which she had relished at other times. Once or twice, when she drowsily stirred in her bed, she showed symptoms of delusion. The poor girl supposed it was the eve or her wedding-day, and eagerly asked what Teresa had done with her new dress. A little later, when she had perhaps been dreaming, she fancied that her mother was still alive, and repeated the long-forgotten talk of her childhood. “What have I said to distress you?” she asked wonderingly, when she found Teresa crying.
Soon after sunrise, there came a long interval of repose.
At the later time when Benjulia arrived, she was quiet and uncomplaining. The change for the worse which had induced Teresa to insist on sending for him, was perversely absent. Mr. Null expected to be roughly rebuked for having disturbed the great man by a false alarm. He attempted to explain: and Teresa attempted to explain. Benjulia paid not the slightest attention to either of them. He made no angry remarks—and he showed, in his own impenetrable way, as gratifying an interest in the case as ever.
“Draw up the blind,” he said; “I want to have a good look at her.”
Mr. Null waited respectfully, and imposed strict silence on Teresa, while the investigation was going on. It lasted so long that he ventured to say, “Do you see anything particular, sir?”
Benjulia saw his doubts cleared up: time (as he had anticipated) had brought development with it, and had enabled him to arrive at a conclusion. The shock that had struck Carmina had produced complicated hysterical disturbance, which was now beginning to simulate paralysis. Benjulia’s profound and practised observation detected a trifling inequality in the size of the pupils of the eyes, and a slightly unequal action on either side of the face—delicately presented in the eyelids, the nostrils, and the lips. Here was no common affection of the brain, which even Mr. Null could understand! Here, at last, was Benjulia’s reward for sacrificing the precious hours which might otherwise have been employed in the laboratory! From that day, Carmina was destined to receive unknown honour: she was to take her place, along with the other animals, in his note-book of experiments.
He turned quietly to Mr. Null, and finished the consultation in two words.
“All right!”
“Have you nothing to suggest, sir?” Mr. Null inquired.
“Go on with the treatment—and draw down the blind, if she complains of the light. Good-day!”
“Are you sure he’s a great doctor?” said Teresa, when the door had closed on him.
“The greatest we have!” cried Mr. Null with enthusiasm.
“Is he a good man?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I want to know if we can trust him to tell us the truth?”
“Not a doubt of it!” (Who could doubt it, indeed, after he had approved of Mr. Null’s medical treatment?)
“There’s one thing you have forgotten,” Teresa persisted. “You haven’t asked him when Carmina can be moved.”
“My good woman, if I had put such a question, he would have set me down as a fool! Nobody can say when she will be well enough to be moved.”
He took his hat. The nurse followed him out.
“Are you going to Mrs. Gallilee, sir?”
“Not to-day.”
“Is she better?”
“She is almost well again.”