“Leave it to me,” Ovid whispered. “We will come to you directly,” he called back.
Mrs. Gallilee was waiting for them at the gate. Ovid spoke, the moment they were within sight of each other. “You will have no more cause to complain of me,” he said cheerfully; “I am going away at the end of the week.”
Mrs. Gallilee’s answer was addressed to Carmina instead of to her son. “Thank you, my dear,” she said, and pressed her niece’s hand.
It was too dark to see more of faces than their shadowy outline. The learned lady’s tone was the perfection of amiability. She sent Ovid across the road to knock at the house-door, and took Carmina’s arm confidentially. “You little goose!” she whispered, “how could you suppose I was angry with you? I can’t even regret your mistake, you have written such a charming note.”
Ovid was waiting for them in the hall. They went into the library. Mrs. Gallilee enfolded her son in a fervent motherly embrace.
“This completes the enjoyment of a most delightful evening,” she said. “First a perfect lecture—and then the relief of overpowering anxiety about my son. I suppose your professional studies, Ovid, have never taken you as high as the Interspacial Regions? We were an immense audience to-night, to hear the Professor on that subject, and I really haven’t recovered it yet. Fifty miles above us—only fifty miles—there is an atmosphere of cold that would freeze the whole human family to death in a second of time. Moist matter, in that terrific emptiness, would explode, and become stone; and—listen to this, Carmina—the explosion itself would be frozen, and produce no sound. Think of serious people looking up in that dreadful direction, and talking of going to Heaven. Oh, the insignificance of man, except—I am going to make a joke, Ovid—except when he pleases his old mother by going away for the benefit of his health! And where are you going? Has sensible Carmina advised you? I agree with her beforehand, whatever she has said.”
Ovid informed his mother of Benjulia’s suggestion, and asked her what she thought of it.
Mrs. Gallilee’s overflowing geniality instantly flooded the absent doctor. He was rude, he was ugly; but what an inestimable friend! what admirable advice! In Ovid’s state of health he must not write letters; his mother would write and thank the doctor, and ask for introductions to local grandees who occupied a position in colonial society. She seized the newspaper: a steamer for Canada sailed from Liverpool on Saturday. Ovid could secure his cabin the next morning (“amidships, my dear, if you can possibly get it”), and could leave London by Friday’s train. In her eagerness to facilitate his departure, she proposed to superintend the shutting up of his house, in his absence, and to arrange the disposal of the servants, if he considered it worth while to keep them. She even thought of the cat. The easiest way to provide for the creature would be of course to have her poisoned; but Ovid was so eccentric in some things, that practical suggestions were thrown away on him. “Sixpence a week for cat’s meat isn’t much,” cried Mrs. Gallilee in an outburst of generosity. “We will receive the cat!”
Ovid made his acknowledgments resignedly. Carmina could see that Mrs. Gallilee’s overpowering vitality was beginning to oppress her son.
“I needn’t trouble you, mother,” he said. “My domestic affairs were all settled when I first felt the necessity of getting rest. My manservant travels with me. My housemaid and kitchenmaid will go to their friends in the country; the cook will look after the house; and her nephew, the little page, is almost as fond of the cat as I am. If you will send for a cab, I think I will go home. Like other people in my wretched state, I feel fatigued towards night-time.”
His lips just touched Carmina’s delicate little ear, while his mother turned away to ring the bell. “Expect me to-morrow,” he whispered. “I love you!—love you!—love you!” He seemed to find the perfection of luxury in the reiteration of those words.
When Ovid had left them, Carmina expected to hear something of her aunt’s discovery in the Square.
Mrs. Gallilee’s innocence was impenetrable. Not finding her niece in the house, she had thought of the Square. What could be more natural than that the cousins should take an evening walk, in one of the prettiest enclosures in London? Her anticipation of Ovid’s recovery, and her admiration of Carmina’s powers of persuasion appeared, for the time, to be the only active ideas in that comprehensive mind. When the servant brought in the tray, with the claret and soda-water, she sent for Miss Minerva to join them, and hear the good news; completely ignoring the interruption of their friendly relations, earlier in the evening. She became festive and facetious at the sight of the soda-water. “Let us imitate the men, Miss Minerva, and drink a toast before we go to bed. Be cheerful, Carmina, and share half a bottle of soda-water with me. A pleasant journey to Ovid, and a safe return!” Cheered by the influences of conviviality, the friend of Professors, the tender nurse of half-developed tadpoles, lapsed into learning again. Mrs. Gallilee improvised an appropriate little lecture on Canada—on the botany of the Dominion; on the geology of the Dominion; on the number of gallons of water wasted every hour by the falls of Niagara. “Science will set it all right, my dears; we shall make that idle water work for us, one of these days. Good-night, Miss Minerva! Dear Carmina, pleasant dreams!”
Safe in the solitude of her bedroom, the governess ominously knitted her heavy eyebrows.
“In all my experience,” she thought, “I never saw Mrs. Gallilee in such spirits before. What mischief is she meditating, when she has got rid of her son?”
The lapse of a few hours exercised no deteriorating influence on Mrs. Gallilee’s amiability.
On the next day, thanks to his mother’s interference, Ovid was left in the undisturbed enjoyment of Carmina’s society. Not only Miss Minerva, but even Mr. Gallilee and the children, were kept out of the way with a delicately-exercised dexterity, which defied the readiest suspicion to take offence. In one word, all that sympathy and indulgence could do to invite Ovid’s confidence, was unobtrusively and modestly done. Never had the mistress of domestic diplomacy reached her ends with finer art.
In the afternoon, a messenger delivered Benjulia’s reply to Mrs. Gallilee’s announcement of her son’s contemplated journey—despatched by the morning’s post. The doctor was confined to the house by an attack of gout. If Ovid wanted information on the subject of Canada, Ovid must go to him, and get it. That was all.
“Have you ever been to Doctor Benjulia’s house?” Carmina asked.
“Never.”
“Then all you have told me about him is mere report? Now you will find out the truth! Of course you will go?”
Ovid felt no desire to make a voyage of exploration to Benjulia’s house—and said so plainly. Carmina used all her powers of persuasion to induce him to change his mind. Mrs. Gallilee (superior to the influence of girlish curiosity) felt the importance of obtaining introductions to Canadian society, and agreed with her niece. “I shall order the carriage,” she said, assuming a playfully despotic tone; “and, if you don’t go to the doctor—Carmina and I will pay him a visit in your place.”
Threatened, if he remained obstinate, with such a result as this, Ovid had no alternative but to submit.
The one order that could be given to the coachman was to drive to the village of Hendon, on the north-western side of London, and to trust to inquiries for the rest of the way. Between Hendon and Willesden, there are pastoral solitudes within an hour’s drive of Oxford Street—wooded lanes and wild-flowers, farms and cornfields, still unprofaned by the devastating brickwork of the builder of modern times. Following winding ways, under shadowing trees, the coachman made his last inquiry at a roadside public-house. Hearing that Benjulia’s place of abode was now within half a mile of him, Ovid set forth on foot; leaving the driver and the horses to take their ease at their inn.
He arrived at an iron gate, opening out of a lonely lane.
There, in the middle of a barren little field, he saw Benjulia’s house—a hideous square building of yellow brick, with a slate roof. A low wall surrounded the place, having another iron gate at the entrance. The enclosure within was as barren as the field without: not even an attempt at flower-garden or kitchen-garden was visible. At a distance of some two hundred yards from the house stood a second and smaller building, with a skylight in the roof, which Ovid recognised (from description) as the famous laboratory. Behind it was the hedge which parted Benjulia’s morsel of land from the land of his neighbour. Here, the trees rose again, and the fields beyond were cultivated. No dwellings, and no living creatures appeared. So near to London—and yet, in its loneliness, so far away—there was something unnatural in the solitude of the place.
Led by a feeling of curiosity, which was fast degenerating into suspicion, Ovid approached the laboratory, without showing himself in front of the house. No watch-dog barked; no servant appeared on the look-out for a visitor. He was ashamed of himself as he did it, but (so strongly had he been impressed by Carmina’s observation of the doctor) he even tried the locked door of the laboratory, and waited and listened! It was a breezy summer-day; the leaves of the trees near him rustled cheerfully. Was there another sound audible? Yes—low and faint, there rose through the sweet woodland melody a moaning cry. It paused; it was repeated; it stopped. He looked round him, not quite sure whether the sound proceeded from the outside or the inside of the building. He shook the door. Nothing happened. The suffering creature (if it was a suffering creature) was silent or dead. Had chemical experiment accidentally injured some living thing? Or—?
He recoiled from pursuing that second inquiry. The laboratory had, by this time, become an object of horror to him. He returned to the dwelling-house.
He put his hand on the latch of the gate, and looked back at the laboratory. He hesitated.
That moaning cry, so piteous and so short-lived, haunted his ears. The idea of approaching Benjulia became repellent to him. What he might afterwards think of himself—what his mother and Carmina might think of him—if he returned without having entered the doctors’ house, were considerations which had no influence over his mind, in its present mood. The impulse of the moment was the one power that swayed him. He put the latch back in the socket. “I won’t go in,” he said to himself.
It was too late. As he turned from the house a manservant appeared at the door—crossed the enclosure—and threw the gate open for Ovid, without uttering a word.
They entered the passage. The speechless manservant opened a door on the right, and made a bow, inviting the visitor to enter. Ovid found himself in a room as barren as the field outside. There were the plastered walls, there was the bare floor, left exactly as the builders had left them when the house was finished. After a short absence, the man appeared again. He might be depressed in spirits, or crabbed in temper: the fact remained that, even now, he had nothing to say. He opened a door on the opposite side of the passage—made another bow—and vanished.
“Don’t come near me!” cried Benjulia, the moment Ovid showed himself.
The doctor was seated in an inner corner of the room; robed in a long black dressing-gown, buttoned round his throat, which hid every part of him below his fleshless face, except his big hands, and his tortured gouty foot. Rage and pain glared in his gloomy gray eyes, and shook his clenched fists, resting on the arms of an easy chair. “Ten thousand red-hot devils are boring ten thousand holes through my foot,” he said. “If you touch the pillow on my stool, I shall fly at your throat.” He poured some cooling lotion from a bottle into a small watering-pot, and irrigated his foot as if it had been a bed of flowers. By way of further relief to the pain, he swore ferociously; addressing his oaths to himself, in thunderous undertones which made the glasses ring on the sideboard.
Relieved, in his present frame of mind, to have escaped the necessity of shaking hands, Ovid took a chair, and looked about him. Even here he discovered but little furniture, and that little of the heavy old-fashioned sort. Besides the sideboard, he perceived a dining-table, six chairs, and a dingy brown carpet. There were no curtains on the window, and no pictures or prints on the drab-coloured walls. The empty grate showed its bleak black cavity undisguised; and the mantelpiece had nothing on it but the doctor’s dirty and strong-smelling pipe. Benjulia set down his watering-pot, as a sign that the paroxysm of pain had passed away. “A dull place to live in, isn’t it?” In those words he welcomed the visitor to his house.
Irritated by the accident which had forced him into the repellent presence of Benjulia, Ovid answered in a tone which matched the doctor on his own hard ground.
“It’s your own fault if the place is dull. Why haven’t you planted trees, and laid out a garden?”
“I dare say I shall surprise you,” Benjulia quietly rejoined; “but I have a habit of speaking my mind. I don’t object to a dull place; and I don’t care about trees and gardens.”
“You don’t seem to care about furniture either,” said Ovid.
Now that he was out of pain for awhile, the doctor’s innate insensibility to what other people might think of him, or might say to him, resumed its customary torpor in its own strangely unconscious way. He seemed only to understand that Ovid’s curiosity was in search of information about trifles. Well, there would be less trouble in giving him his information, than in investigating his motives. So Benjulia talked of his furniture.
“I dare say you’re right,” he said. “My sister-in-law—did you know I had a relation of that sort?—my sister-in-law got the tables and chairs, and beds and basins. Buying things at shops doesn’t interest me. I gave her a cheque; and I told her to furnish a room for me to eat in, and a room for me to sleep in—and not to forget the kitchen and the garrets for the servants. What more do I want?”
His intolerable composure only added to his guest’s irritability.
“A selfish way of putting it,” Ovid broke out. “Have you nobody to think of but yourself?”
“Nobody—I am happy to say.”
“That’s downright cynicism, Benjulia!”
The doctor reflected. “Is it?” he said. “Perhaps you may be right again. I think it’s only indifference, myself. Curiously enough my brother looks at it from your point of view—he even used the same word that you used just now. I suppose he found my cynicism beyond the reach of reform. At any rate, he left off coming here. I got rid of him on easy terms. What do you say? That inhuman way of talking is unworthy of me? Really I don’t think so. I’m not a downright savage. It’s only indifference.”
“Does your brother return your indifference? You must be a nice pair, if he does!”
Benjulia seemed to find a certain dreary amusement in considering the question that Ovid had proposed. He decided on doing justice to his absent relative.
“My brother’s intelligence is perhaps equal to such a small effort as you suggest,” he said. “He has just brains enough to keep himself out of an asylum for idiots. Shall I tell you what he is in two words? A stupid sensualist—that’s what he is. I let his wife come here sometimes, and cry. It doesn’t trouble me; and it seems to relieve her. More of my indifference—eh? Well, I don’t know. I gave her the change out of the furniture-cheque, to buy a new bonnet with. You might call that indifference, and you might be right once more. I don’t care about money. Will you have a drink? You see I can’t move. Please ring for the man.”
Ovid refused the drink, and changed the subject. “Your servant is a remarkably silent person,” he said.
“That’s his merit,” Benjulia answered; “the women-servants have quarrelled with every other man I’ve had. They can’t quarrel with this man. I have raised his wages in grateful acknowledgment of his usefulness to me. I hate noise.”
“Is that the reason why you don’t keep a watch-dog?”
“I don’t like dogs. They bark.”
He had apparently some other disagreeable association with dogs, which he was not disposed to communicate. His hollow eyes stared gloomily into vacancy. Ovid’s presence in the room seemed to have become, for the time being, an impression erased from his mind. He recovered himself, with the customary vehement rubbing of his head, and turned the talk to the object of Ovid’s visit.
“So you have taken my advice,” he said. “You’re going to Canada, and you want to get at what I can tell you before you start. Here’s my journal. It will jog my memory, and help us both.”
His writing materials were placed on a movable table, screwed to his chair. Near them lay a shabby-looking book, guarded by a lock. Ten minutes after he had opened his journal, and had looked here and there through the pages, his hard intellect had grasped all that it required. Steadily and copiously his mind emptied its information into Ovid’s mind; without a single digression from beginning to end, and with the most mercilessly direct reference to the traveller’s practical wants. Not a word escaped him, relating to national character or to the beauties of Nature. Mrs. Gallilee had criticized the Falls of Niagara as a reservoir of wasted power. Doctor Benjulia’s scientific superiority over the woman asserted itself with magnificent ease. Niagara being nothing but useless water, he never mentioned Niagara at all.
“Have I served your purpose as a guide?” he asked. “Never mind thanking me. Yes or no will do. Very good. I have got a line of writing to give you next.” He mended his quill pen, and made an observation. “Have you ever noticed that women have one pleasure which lasts to the end of their lives?” he said. “Young and old, they have the same inexhaustible enjoyment of society; and, young and old, they are all alike incapable of understanding a man, when he says he doesn’t care to go to a party. Even your clever mother thinks you want to go to parties in Canada.” He tried his pen, and found it would do—and began his letter.
Seeing his hands at work, Ovid was again reminded of Carmina’s discovery. His eyes wandered a little aside, towards the corner formed by the pillar of the chimney-piece and the wall of the room. The big bamboo-stick rested there. A handle was attached to it, made of light-coloured horn, and on that handle there were some stains. Ovid looked at them with a surgeon’s practised eye. They were dry stains of blood. (Had he washed his hands on the last occasion when he used his stick? And had he forgotten that the handle wanted washing too?)
Benjulia finished his letter, and wrote the address. He took up the envelope, to give it to Ovid—and stopped, as if some doubt tempted him to change his mind. The hesitation was only momentary. He persisted in his first intention, and gave Ovid the letter. It was addressed to a doctor at Montreal.
“That man won’t introduce you to society,” Benjulia announced, “and won’t worry your brains with medical talk. Keep off one subject on your side. A mad bull is nothing to my friend if you speak of Vivisection.”
Ovid looked at him steadily, when he uttered the last word. Benjulia looked back, just as steadily at Ovid.
At the moment of that reciprocal scrutiny, did the two men suspect each other? Ovid, on his side, determined not to leave the house without putting his suspicions to the test.
“I thank you for the letter,” he began; “and I will not forget the warning.”
The doctor’s capacity for the exercise of the social virtues had its limits. His reserves of hospitality were by this time near their end.
“Is there anything more I can do for you?” he interposed.
“You can answer a simple question,” Ovid replied. “My cousin Carmina—”
Benjulia interrupted him again: “Don’t you think we said enough about your cousin in the Gardens?” he suggested.
Ovid acknowledged the hint with a neatness of retort almost worthy of his mother. “You have your own merciful disposition to blame, if I return to the subject,” he replied. “My cousin cannot forget your kindness to the monkey.”
“The sooner she forgets my kindness the better. The monkey is dead.”
“I am glad to hear it.”
“Why?”
“I thought the creature was living in pain.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I heard a moaning—”
“Where?”
“In the building behind your house.”
“You heard the wind in the trees.”
“Nothing of the sort. Are your chemical experiments ever made on animals?”
The doctor parried that direct attack, without giving ground by so much as a hair’s breadth.
“What did I say when I gave you your letter of introduction?” he asked. “I said, A mad bull is nothing to my friend, if you speak to him of Vivisection. Now I have something more to tell you. I am like my friend.” He waited a little. “Will that do?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Ovid; “that will do.”
They were as near to an open quarrel as two men could be: Ovid took up his hat to go. Even at that critical moment, Benjulia’s strange jealousy of his young colleague—as a possible rival in some field of discovery which he claimed as his own—showed itself once more. There was no change in his tone; he still spoke like a judicious friend.
“A last word of advice,” he said. “You are travelling for your health; don’t let inquisitive strangers lead you into talk. Some of them might be physiologists.”
“And might suggest new ideas,” Ovid rejoined, determined to make him speak out this time.
Benjulia nodded, in perfect agreement with his guest’s view.
“Are you afraid of new ideas?” Ovid went on.
“Perhaps I am—in your head.” He made that admission, without hesitation or embarrassment. “Good-bye!” he resumed. “My sensitive foot feels noises: don’t bang the door.”
Getting out into the lane again, Ovid looked at his letter to the doctor at Montreal. His first impulse was to destroy it.
As Benjulia had hesitated before giving him the letter, so he now hesitated before tearing it up.
Contrary to the usual practice in such cases, the envelope was closed. Under those circumstances, Ovid’s pride decided him on using the introduction. Time was still to pass, before events opened his eyes to the importance of his decision. To the end of his life he remembered that Benjulia had been near to keeping back the letter, and that he had been near to tearing it up.
The wise ancient who asserted that “Time flies,” must have made that remarkable discovery while he was in a state of preparation for a journey. When are we most acutely sensible of the shortness of life? When do we consult our watches in perpetual dread of the result? When does the night steal on us unawares, and the morning take us by surprise? When we are going on a journey.
The remaining days of the week went by with a rush. Ovid had hardly time to ask himself if Friday had really come, before the hours of his life at home were already numbered.
He had still a little time to spare when he presented himself at Fairfield Gardens late in the afternoon. Finding no one in the library, he went up to the drawing-room. His mother was alone, reading.
“Have you anything to say to me, before I tell Carmina that you are here?” Mrs. Gallilee put that question quietly, so far as her voice was concerned. But she still kept her eyes on her book. Ovid knew that she was offering him his first and last chance of speaking plainly, before he went away. In Carmina’s interests he spoke.
“Mother,” he said, “I am leaving the one person in the world who is most precious to me, under your care.”
“Do you mean,” Mrs. Gallilee asked, “that you and Carmina are engaged to be married?”
“I mean that; and I am not sure that you approve of the engagement. Will you be plainer with me than you were on the last occasion when we spoke on this subject?”
“When was that?” Mrs. Gallilee inquired.
“When you and I were alone for a few minutes, on the morning when I breakfasted here. You said it was quite natural that Carmina should have attracted me; but you were careful not to encourage the idea of a marriage between us. I understood that you disapproved of it—but you didn’t plainly tell me why.”
“Can women always give their reason?”
“Yes—when they are women like you.”
“Thank you, my dear, for a pretty compliment. I can trust my memory. I think I hinted at the obvious objections to an engagement. You and Carmina are cousins; and you belong to different religious communities. I may add that a man with your brilliant prospects has, in my opinion, no reason to marry unless his wife is in a position to increase his influence and celebrity. I had looked forward to seeing my clever son rise more nearly to a level with persons of rank, who are members of our family. There is my confession, Ovid. If I did hesitate on the occasion to which you have referred, I have now, I think, told you why.”
“Am I to understand that you hesitate still?” Ovid asked.
“No.” With that brief reply she rose to put away her book.
Ovid followed her to the bookcase. “Has Carmina conquered you?” he said.
She put her book back in its place. “Carmina has conquered me,” she answered.
“You say it coldly.”
“What does that matter, if I say it truly?”
The struggle in him between hope and fear burst its way out. “Oh, mother, no words can tell you how fond I am of Carmina! For God’s sake take care of her, and be kind to her!”
“For your sake,” said Mrs. Gallilee, gently correcting the language of her excitable son, from her own protoplastic point of view. “You do me an injustice if you feel anxious about Carmina, when you leave her here. My dead brother’s child, is my child. You may be sure of that.” She took his hand, and drew him to her, and kissed his forehead with dignity and deliberation. If Mr. Mool had been present, during the registration of that solemn pledge, he would have been irresistibly reminded of the other ceremony, which is called signing a deed.
“Have you any instructions to give me?” Mrs. Gallilee proceeded. “For instance, do you object to my taking Carmina to parties? I mean, of course, parties which will improve her mind.”
He fell sadly below his mother’s level in replying to this. “Do everything you can to make her life happy while I am away.” Those were his only instructions.
But Mrs. Gallilee had not done with him yet. “With regard to visitors,” she went on, “I presume you wish me to be careful, if I find young men calling here oftener than usual?”
Ovid actually laughed at this. “Do you think I doubt her?” he asked. “The earth doesn’t hold a truer girl than my little Carmina!” A thought struck him while he said it. The brightness faded out of his face; his voice lost its gaiety. “There is one person who may call on you,” he said, “whom I don’t wish her to see.”
“Who is he?”
“Unfortunately, he is a man who has excited her curiosity. I mean Benjulia.”
It was now Mrs. Gallilee’s turn to be amused. Her laugh was not one of her foremost fascinations. It was hard in tone, and limited in range—it opened her mouth, but it failed to kindle any light in her eyes. “Jealous of the ugly doctor!” she exclaimed. “Oh, Ovid, what next?”
“You never made a greater mistake in your life,” her son answered sharply.
“Then what is the objection to him?” Mrs. Gallilee rejoined.
It was not easy to meet that question with a plain reply. If Ovid asserted that Benjulia’s chemical experiments were assumed—for some reason known only to himself—as a cloak to cover the atrocities of the Savage Science, he would only raise the doctor in his mother’s estimation. If, on the other hand, he described what had passed between them when they met in the Zoological Gardens, Mrs. Gallilee might summon Benjulia to explain the slur which he had indirectly cast on the memory of Carmina’s mother—and might find, in the reply, some plausible reason for objecting to her son’s marriage. Having rashly placed himself in this dilemma, Ovid unwisely escaped from it by the easiest way. “I don’t think Benjulia a fit person,” he said, “to be in the company of a young girl.”
Mrs. Gallilee accepted this expression of opinion with a readiness, which would have told a more suspicious man that he had made a mistake. Ovid had roused the curiosity—perhaps awakened the distrust—of his clever mother.
“You know best,” Mrs. Gallilee replied; “I will bear in mind what you say.” She rang the bell for Carmina, and left the room. Ovid found the minutes passing slowly, for the first time since the day had been fixed for his departure. He attributed this impression to his natural impatience for the appearance of his cousin—until the plain evidence of the clock pointed to a delay of five endless minutes, and more. As he approached the door to make inquiries, it opened at last. Hurrying to meet Carmina, he found himself face to face with Miss Minerva!
She came in hastily, and held out her hand without looking at him.
“Forgive me for intruding on you,” she said, with a rapidity of utterance and a timidity of manner strangely unlike herself. “I’m obliged to prepare the children’s lessons for to-morrow; and this is my only opportunity of bidding you good-bye. You have my best wishes—my heartfelt wishes—for your safety and your health, and—and your enjoyment of the journey. Good-bye! good-bye!”
After holding his hand for a moment, she hastened back to the door. There she stopped, turned towards him again, and looked at him for the first time. “I have one thing more to say,” she broke out. “I will do all I can to make Carmina’s life pleasant in your absence.” Before he could thank her, she was gone.
In another minute Carmina came in, and found Ovid looking perplexed and annoyed. She had passed Frances on the stairs—had there been any misunderstanding between Ovid and the governess?
“Have you seen Miss Minerva?” she asked.
He put his arm round her, and seated her by him on the sofa. “I don’t understand Miss Minerva,” he said. “How is it that she came here, when I was expecting You?”
“She asked me, as a favour, to let her see you first; and she seemed to be so anxious about it that I gave way. I didn’t do wrong, Ovid—did I?”
“My darling, you are always kind, and always right! But why couldn’t she say good-bye (with the others) downstairs? Do you understand this curious woman?”
“I think I do.” She paused, and toyed with the hair over Ovid’s forehead. “Miss Minerva is fond of you, poor thing,” she said innocently.
“Fond of me?”
The surprise which his tone expressed, failed to attract her attention. She quietly varied the phrase that she had just used.
“Miss Minerva has a true regard for you—and knows that you don’t return it,” she explained, still playing with Ovid’s hair. “I want to see how it looks,” she went on, “when it’s parted in the middle. No! it looks better as you always wear it. How handsome you are, Ovid! Don’t you wish I was beautiful, too? Everybody in the house loves you; and everybody is sorry you are going away. I like Miss Minerva, I like everybody, for being so fond of my dear, dear hero. Oh, what shall I do when day after day passes, and only takes you farther and farther away from me? No! I won’t cry. You shan’t go away with a heavy heart, my dear one, if I can help it. Where is your photograph? You promised me your photograph. Let me look at it. Yes! it’s like you, and yet not like you. It will do to think over, when I am alone. My love, it has copied your eyes, but it has not copied the divine kindness and goodness that I see in them!” She paused, and laid her head on his bosom. “I shall cry, in spite of my resolution, if I look at you any longer. We won’t look—we won’t talk—I can feel your arm round me—I can hear your heart. Silence is best. I have been told of people dying happily; and I never understood it before. I think I could die happily now.” She put her hand over his lips before he could reprove her, and nestled closer to him. “Hush!” she said softly; “hush!”
They neither moved nor spoke: that silent happiness was the best happiness, while it lasted. Mrs. Gallilee broke the charm. She suddenly opened the door, pointed to the clock, and went away again.
The cruel time had come. They made their last promises; shared their last kisses; held each other in the last embrace. She threw herself on the sofa, as he left her—with a gesture which entreated him to go, while she could still control herself. Once, he looked round, when he reached the door—and then it was over.
Alone on the landing, he dashed the tears away from his eyes. Suffering and sorrow tried hard to get the better of his manhood: they had shaken, but had not conquered him. He was calm, when he joined the members of the family, waiting in the library.
Perpetually setting an example, Mrs. Gallilee ascended her domestic pedestal as usual. She favoured her son with one more kiss, and reminded him of the railway. “We understand each other, Ovid—you have only five minutes to spare. Write, when you get to Quebec. Now, Maria! say good-bye.”
Maria presented herself to her brother with a grace which did honour to the family dancing-master. Her short farewell speech was a model of its kind.
“Dear Ovid, I am only a child; but I feel truly anxious for the recovery of your health. At this favourable season you may look forward to a pleasant voyage. Please accept my best wishes.” She offered her cheek to be kissed—and looked like a young person who had done her duty, and knew it.
Mr. Gallilee—modestly secluded behind the window curtains—appeared, at a sign from his wife. One of his plump red hands held a bundle of cigars. The other clutched an enormous new travelling-flask—the giant of its tribe.
“My dear boy, it’s possible there may be good brandy and cigars on board; but that’s not my experience of steamers—is it yours?” He stopped to consult his wife. “My dear, is it yours?” Mrs. Gallilee held up the “Railway Guide,” and shook it significantly. Mr. Gallilee went on in a hurry. “There’s some of the right stuff in this flask, Ovid, if you will accept it. Five-and-forty years old—would you like to taste it? Would you like to taste it, my dear?” Mrs. Gallilee seized the “Railway Guide” again, with a terrible look. Her husband crammed the big flask into one of Ovid’s pockets, and the cigars into the other. “You’ll find them a comfort when you’re away from us. God bless you, my son! You don’t mind my calling you my son? I couldn’t be fonder of you, if I really was your father. Let’s part as cheerfully as we can,” said poor Mr. Gallilee, with the tears rolling undisguisedly over his fat cheeks. “We can write to each other—can’t we? Oh dear! dear! I wish I could take it as easy as Maria does. Zo! come and give him a kiss, poor fellow. Where’s Zo?”
Mrs. Gallilee made the discovery—she dragged Zo into view, from under the table. Ovid took his little sister on his knee, and asked why she had hidden herself.
“Because I don’t want to say good-bye!” cried the child, giving her reason with a passionate outbreak of sorrow that shook her from head to foot. “Take me with you, Ovid, take me with you!” He did his best to console her, under adverse circumstances. Mrs. Gallilee’s warning voice sounded like a knell—“Time! time!” Zo’s shrill treble rang out louder still. Zo was determined to write to Ovid, if she was not allowed to go with him. “Pa’s going to write to you—why shouldn’t I?” she screamed through her tears. “Dear Zoe, you are too young,” Maria remarked. “Damned nonsense!” sobbed Mr. Gallilee; “she shall write!” “Time, time!” Mrs. Gallilee reiterated. Taking no part in the dispute, Ovid directed two envelopes for Zo, and quieted her in that way. He hurried into the hall; he glanced at the stairs that led to the drawing-room. Carmina was on the landing, waiting for a farewell look at him. On the higher flight of stairs, invisible from the hall, Miss Minerva was watching the scene of departure. Reckless of railways and steamers, Ovid ran up to Carmina. Another and another kiss; and then away to the house-door, with Zo at his heels, trying to get into the cab with him. A last kind word to the child, as they carried her back to the house; a last look at the familiar faces in the doorway; a last effort to resist that foretaste of death which embitters all human partings—and Ovid was gone!
On the afternoon of the day that followed Ovid’s departure, the three ladies of the household were in a state of retirement—each in her own room.
The writing-table in Mrs. Gallilee’s boudoir was covered with letters. Her banker’s pass-book and her cheque-book were on the desk; Mr. Gallilee’s affairs having been long since left as completely in the hands of his wife, as if Mr. Gallilee had been dead. A sheet of paper lay near the cheque-book, covered with calculations divided into two columns. The figures in the right-hand column were contained in one line at the top of the page. The figures in the left-hand column filled the page from top to bottom. With her fan in her hand, and her pen in the ink-bottle, Mrs. Gallilee waited, steadily thinking.
It was the hottest day of the season. All the fat women in London fanned themselves on that sultry afternoon; and Mrs. Gallilee followed the general example. When she looked to the right, her calculations showed the balance at the bank. When she looked to the left, her calculations showed her debts: some partially paid, some not paid at all. If she wearied of the prospect thus presented, and turned for relief to her letters, she was confronted by polite requests for money; from tradespeople in the first place, and from secretaries of fashionable Charities in the second. Here and there, by way of variety, were invitations to parties, representing more pecuniary liabilities, incurred for new dresses, and for hospitalities acknowledged by dinners and conversaziones at her own house. Money that she owed, money that she must spend; nothing but outlay of money—and where was it to come from?
So far as her pecuniary resources were concerned, she was equally removed from hope and fear. Twice a year the same income flowed in regularly from the same investments. What she could pay at any future time was far more plainly revealed to her than what she might owe. With tact and management it would be possible to partially satisfy creditors, and keep up appearances for six months more. To that conclusion her reflections led her, and left her to write cheques.
And after the six months—what then?
Having first completed her correspondence with the tradespeople, and having next decided on her contributions to the Charities, this iron matron took up her fan again, cooled herself, and met the question of the future face to face.
Ovid was the central figure in the prospect.
If he lived devoted to his profession, and lived unmarried, there was a last resource always left to Mrs. Gallilee. For years past, his professional gains had added largely to the income which he had inherited from his father. Unembarrassed by expensive tastes, he had some thousands of pounds put by—for the simple reason that he was at a loss what else to do with them. Thus far, her brother’s generosity had spared Mrs. Gallilee the hard necessity of making a confession to her son. As things were now, she must submit to tell the humiliating truth; and Ovid (with no wife to check his liberal instincts) would do what Ovid’s uncle (with no wife living to check his liberal instincts) had done already.
There was the prospect, if her son remained a bachelor. But her son had resolved to marry Carmina. What would be the result if she was weak enough to allow it?
There would be, not one result, but three results. Natural; Legal; Pecuniary.
The natural result would be—children.
The legal result (if only one of those children lived) would be the loss to Mrs. Gallilee and her daughters of the splendid fortune reserved for them in the Will, if Carmina died without leaving offspring.
The pecuniary result would be (adding the husband’s income to the wife’s) about eight thousand a year for the young married people.
And how much for a loan, applicable to the mother-in-law’s creditors? Judging Carmina by the standard of herself—by what other standard do we really judge our fellow-creatures, no matter how clever we may be?—Mrs. Gallilee decided that not one farthing would be left to help her to pay debts, which were steadily increasing with every new concession that she made to the claims of society. Young Mrs. Ovid Vere, at the head of a household, would have the grand example of her other aunt before her eyes. Although her place of residence might not be a palace, she would be a poor creature indeed, if she failed to spend eight thousand a year, in the effort to be worthy of the social position of Lady Northlake. Add to these results of Ovid’s contemplated marriage the loss of a thousand a year, secured to the guardian by the Will, while the ward remained under her care—and the statement of disaster would be complete. “We must leave this house, and submit to be Lady Northlake’s poor relations—there is the price I pay for it, if Ovid and Carmina become man and wife.”
She quietly laid aside her fan, as the thought in her completed itself in this form.
The trivial action, and the look which accompanied it, had a sinister meaning of their own, beyond the reach of words. And Ovid was already on the sea. And Teresa was far away in Italy.
The clock on the mantelpiece struck five; the punctual parlour-maid appeared with her mistress’s customary cup of tea. Mrs. Gallilee asked for the governess. The servant answered that Miss Minerva was in her room.
“Where are the young ladies?”
“My master has taken them out for a walk.”
“Have they had their music lesson?”
“Not yet, ma’am. Mr. Le Frank left word yesterday that he would come at six this evening.”
“Does Mr. Gallilee know that?”
“I heard Miss Minerva tell my master, while I was helping the young ladies to get ready.”
“Very well. Ask Miss Minerva to come here, and speak to me.”
Miss Minerva sat at the open window of her bedroom, looking out vacantly at the backs of houses, in the street behind Fairfield Gardens.
The evil spirit was the dominant spirit in her again. She, too, was thinking of Ovid and Carmina. Her memory was busy with the parting scene on the previous day.
The more she thought of all that had happened in that short space of time, the more bitterly she reproached herself. Her one besetting weakness had openly degraded her, without so much as an attempt at resistance on her part. The fear of betraying herself if she took leave of the man she secretly loved, in the presence of his family, had forced her to ask a favour of Carmina, and to ask it under circumstances which might have led her rival to suspect the truth. Admitted to a private interview with Ovid, she had failed to control her agitation; and, worse still, in her ungovernable eagerness to produce a favourable impression on him at parting, she had promised—honestly promised, in that moment of impulse—to make Carmina’s happiness her own peculiar care! Carmina, who had destroyed in a day the hope of years! Carmina, who had taken him away from her; who had clung round him when he ran upstairs, and had kissed him—fervently, shamelessly kissed him—before the servants in the hall!
She started to her feet, roused to a frenzy of rage by her own recollections. Standing at the window, she looked down at the pavement of the courtyard—it was far enough below to kill her instantly if she fell on it. Through the heat of her anger there crept the chill and stealthy prompting of despair. She leaned over the window-sill—she was not afraid—she might have done it, but for a trifling interruption. Somebody spoke outside.
It was the parlour-maid. Instead of entering the room, she spoke through the open door. The woman was one of Miss Minerva’s many enemies in the house. “Mrs. Gallilee wishes to see you,” she said—and shut the door again, the instant the words were out of her mouth.
Mrs. Gallilee!
The very name was full of promise at that moment. It suggested hope—merciless hope.
She left the window, and consulted her looking-glass. Even to herself, her haggard face was terrible to see. She poured eau-de-cologne and water into her basin, and bathed her burning head and eyes. Her shaggy black hair stood in need of attention next. She took almost as much pains with it as if she had been going into the presence of Ovid himself. “I must make a calm appearance,” she thought, still as far as ever from suspecting that her employer had guessed her secret, “or his mother may find me out.” Her knees trembled under her. She sat down for a minute to rest.
Was she merely wanted for some ordinary domestic consultation? or was there really a chance of hearing the question of Ovid and Carmina brought forward at the coming interview?
She believed what she hoped: she believed that the time had come when Mrs. Gallilee had need of an ally—perhaps of an accomplice. Only let her object be the separation of the two cousins—and Miss Minerva was eager to help her, in either capacity. Suppose she was too cautious to mention her object? Miss Minerva was equally ready for her employer, in that case. The doubt which had prompted her fruitless suggestions to Carmina, when they were alone in the young girl’s room—the doubt whether a clue to the discovery of Mrs. Gallilee’s motives might not be found, in that latter part of the Will which she had failed to overhear—was as present as ever in the governess’s mind. “The learned lady is not infallible,” she thought as she entered Mrs. Gallilee’s room. “If one unwary word trips over her tongue, I shall pick it up!”
Mrs. Gallilee’s manner was encouraging at the outset. She had left her writing-table; and she now presented herself, reclining in an easy chair, weary and discouraged—the picture of a woman in want of a helpful friend.
“My head aches with adding up figures, and writing letters,” she said. “I wish you would finish my correspondence for me.”
Miss Minerva took her place at the desk. She at once discovered the unfinished correspondence to be a false pretence. Three cheques for charitable subscriptions, due at that date, were waiting to be sent to three secretaries, with the customary letters. In five minutes, the letters were ready for the post. “Anything more?” Miss Minerva asked.
“Not that I remember. Do you mind giving me my fan? I feel perfectly helpless—I am wretchedly depressed to-day.”
“The heat, perhaps?”
“No. The expenses. Every year, the demands on our resources seem to increase. On principle, I dislike living up to our income—and I am obliged to do it.”
Here, plainly revealed to the governess’s experienced eyes, was another false pretence—used to introduce the true object of the interview, as something which might accidentally suggest itself in the course of conversation. Miss Minerva expressed the necessary regret with innocent readiness. “Might I suggest economy?” she asked with impenetrable gravity.
“Admirably advised,” Mrs. Gallilee admitted; “but how is it to be done? Those subscriptions, for instance, are more than I ought to give. And what happens if I lower the amount? I expose myself to unfavourable comparison with other people of our rank in society.”
Miss Minerva still patiently played the part expected of her. “You might perhaps do with only one carriage-horse,” she remarked.
“My good creature, look at the people who have only one carriage-horse! Situated as I am, can I descend to that level? Don’t suppose I care two straws about such things, myself. My one pride and pleasure in life is the pride and pleasure of improving my mind. But I have Lady Northlake for a sister; and I must not be entirely unworthy of my family connections. I have two daughters; and I must think of their interests. In a few years, Maria will be presented at Court. Thanks to you, she will be one of the most accomplished girls in England. Think of Maria’s mother in a one-horse chaise. Dear child! tell me all about her lessons. Is she getting on as well as ever?”
“Examine her yourself, Mrs. Gallilee. I can answer for the result.”
“No, Miss Minerva! I have too much confidence in you to do anything of the kind. Besides, in one of the most important of Maria’s accomplishments, I am entirely dependent on yourself. I know nothing of music. You are not responsible for her progress in that direction. Still, I should like to know if you are satisfied with Maria’s music?”
“Quite satisfied.”
“You don’t think she is getting—how can I express it?—shall I say beyond the reach of Mr. Le Frank’s teaching?”
“Certainly not.”
“Perhaps you would consider Mr. Le Frank equal to the instruction of an older and more advanced pupil than Maria?”
Thus far, Miss Minerva had answered the questions submitted to her with well-concealed indifference. This last inquiry roused her attention. Why did Mrs. Gallilee show an interest, for the first time, in Mr. Le Frank’s capacity as a teacher? Who was this “older and more advanced pupil,” for whose appearance in the conversation the previous questions had so smoothly prepared the way? Feeling delicate ground under her, the governess advanced cautiously.
“I have always thought Mr. Le Frank an excellent teacher,” she said.
“Can you give me no more definite answer than that?” Mrs. Gallilee asked.
“I am quite unacquainted, madam, with the musical proficiency of the pupil to whom you refer. I don’t even know (which adds to my perplexity) whether you are speaking of a lady or a gentleman.”
“I am speaking,” said Mrs. Gallilee quietly, “of my niece, Carmina.”
Those words set all further doubt at rest in Miss Minerva’s mind. Introduced by such elaborate preparation, the allusion to Carmina’s name could only lead, in due course, to the subject of Carmina’s marriage. By indirect methods of approach, Mrs. Gallilee had at last reached the object that she had in view.