Mrs. Gallilee was as complete a mistress of the practice of domestic
virtue as of the theory of acoustics and fainting fits. At dressing
with taste, and ordering dinners with invention; at heading her table
gracefully, and making her guests comfortable; at managing refractory
servants and detecting dishonest tradespeople, she was the equal of
the least intellectual woman that ever lived. Her preparations for the
reception of her niece were finished in advance, without an oversight
in the smallest detail. Carmina’s inviting bedroom, in blue, opened
into Carmina’s irresistible sitting-room, in brown. The ventilation
was arranged, the light and shade were disposed, the flowers were
attractively placed, under Mrs. Gallilee’s infallible superintendence.
Before Carmina had recovered her senses she was provided with a second
mother, who played the part to perfection.
The four persons, now assembled in the pretty sitting-room upstairs,
were in a position of insupportable embarrassment towards each other.
Finding her son at a concert (after he had told her that he hated music)
Mrs. Gallilee, had first discovered him hurrying to the assistance of
a young lady in a swoon, with all the anxiety and alarm which he might
have shown in the case of a near and dear friend. And yet, when this
stranger was revealed as a relation, he had displayed an amazement equal
to her own! What explanation could reconcile such contradictions as
these?
As for Carmina, her conduct complicated the mystery.
What was she doing at a concert, when she ought to have been on her way
to her aunt’s house? Why, if she must faint when the hot room had not
overpowered anyone else, had she failed to recover in the usual way?
There she lay on the sofa, alternately flushing and turning pale when
she was spoken to; ill at ease in the most comfortable house in London;
timid and confused under the care of her best friends. Making all
allowance for a sensitive temperament, could a long journey from Italy,
and a childish fright at seeing a dog run over, account for such a state
of things as this?
Annoyed and perplexed--but yet far too prudent to commit herself
ignorantly to inquiries which might lead to future embarrassment--Mrs.
Gallilee tried suggestive small talk as a means of enlightenment. The
wrinkled duenna, sitting miserably on satin supported by frail gilt
legs, seemed to take her tone of feeling from her young mistress,
exactly as she took her orders. Mrs. Gallilee spoke to her in English,
and spoke to her in Italian--and could make nothing of the experiment in
either case. The wild old creature seemed to be afraid to look at her.
Ovid himself proved to be just as difficult to fathom, in another way
He certainly answered when his mother spoke to him, but always briefly,
and in the same absent tone. He asked no questions, and offered no
explanations. The sense of embarrassment, on his side, had produced
unaccountable changes. He showed the needful attention to Carmina,
with a silent gentleness which presented him in a new character. His
customary manner with ailing persons, women as well as men, was rather
abrupt: his quick perception hurried him into taking the words out of
their mouths (too pleasantly to give offence) when they were describing
their symptoms. There he sat now, contemplating his pale little cousin,
with a patient attention wonderful to see; listening to the commonplace
words which dropped at intervals from her lips, as if--in his state of
health, and with the doubtful prospect which it implied--there were no
serious interests to occupy his mind.
Mrs. Gallilee could endure it no longer.
If she had not deliberately starved her imagination, and emptied her
heart of any tenderness of feeling which it might once have possessed,
her son’s odd behaviour would have interested instead of perplexing her.
As it was, her scientific education left her as completely in the dark,
where questions of sentiment were concerned, as if her experience of
humanity, in its relation to love, had been experience in the cannibal
islands. She decided on leaving her niece to repose, and on taking her
son away with her.
“In your present state of health, Ovid,” she began, “Carmina must not
accept your professional advice.”
Something in those words stung Ovid’s temper.
“My professional advice?” he repeated. “You talk as if she was seriously
ill!”
Carmina’s sweet smile stopped him there.
“We don’t know what may happen,” she said, playfully.
“God forbid _that_ should happen!” He spoke so fervently that the women
all looked at him in surprise.
Mrs. Gallilee turned to her niece, and proceeded quietly with what she
had to say.
“Ovid is so sadly overworked, my dear, that I actually rejoice in his
giving up practice, and going away from us to-morrow. We will leave you
for the present with your old friend. Pray ring, if you want anything.”
She kissed her hand to Carmina, and, beckoning to her son, advanced
towards the door.
Teresa looked at her, and suddenly looked away again. Mrs. Gallilee
stopped on her way out, at a chiffonier, and altered the arrangement of
some of the china on it. The duenna followed on tiptoe--folded her thumb
and two middle fingers into the palm of her hand--and, stretching out
the forefinger and the little finger, touched Mrs. Gallilee on the back,
so softly that she was unaware of it. “The Evil Eye,” Teresa whispered
to herself in Italian, as she stole back to her place.
Ovid lingered near his cousin: neither of them had seen what Teresa
had done. He rose reluctantly to go. Feeling his little attentions
gratefully, Carmina checked him with innocent familiarity as he left his
chair. “I must thank you,” she said, simply; “it seems hard indeed that
you, who cure others, should suffer from illness yourself.”
Teresa, watching them with interest, came a little nearer.
She could now examine Ovid’s face with close and jealous scrutiny. Mrs.
Gallilee reminded her son that she was waiting for him. He had some last
words yet to say. The duenna drew back from the sofa, still looking at
Ovid: she muttered to herself, “Holy Teresa, my patroness, show me that
man’s soul in his face!” At last, Ovid took his leave. “I shall call and
see how you are to-morrow,” he said, “before I go.” He nodded kindly to
Teresa. Instead of being satisfied with that act of courtesy, she wanted
something more. “May I shake hands?” she asked. Mrs. Gallilee was a
Liberal in politics; never had her principles been tried, as they
were tried when she heard those words. Teresa wrung Ovid’s hand with
tremulous energy--still intent on reading his character in his face. He
asked her, smiling, what she saw to interest her. “A good man, I hope,”
she answered, sternly. Carmina and Ovid were amused. Teresa rebuked
them, as if they had been children. “Laugh at some fitter time,” she
said, “not now.”
Descending the stairs, Mrs. Gallilee and Ovid met the footman. “Mr. Mool
is in the library, ma’am,” the man said.
“Have you anything to do, Ovid, for the next half-hour?” his mother
asked.
“Do you wish me to see Mr. Mool? If it’s law-business, I am afraid I
shall not be of much use.”
“The lawyer is here by appointment, with a copy of your late uncle’s
Will,” Mrs. Gallilee answered. “You may have some interest in it. I
think you ought to hear it read.”
Ovid showed no inclination to adopt this proposal. He asked an idle
question. “I heard of their finding the Will--are there any romantic
circumstances?”
Mrs. Gallilee surveyed her son with an expression of good-humoured
contempt. “What a boy you are, in some things! Have you been reading a
novel lately? My dear, when the people in Italy made up their minds, at
last, to have the furniture in your uncle’s room taken to pieces, they
found the Will. It had slipped behind a drawer, in a rotten old cabinet,
full of useless papers. Nothing romantic (thank God!), and nothing
(as Mr. Mool’s letter tells me) that can lead to misunderstandings or
disputes.”
Ovid’s indifference was not to be conquered. He left it to his mother to
send him word if he had a legacy “I am not as much interested in it as
you are,” he explained. “Plenty of money left to you, of course?” He was
evidently thinking all the time of something else.
Mrs. Gallilee stopped in the hall, with an air of downright alarm.
“Your mind is in a dreadful state,” she said.
“Have you really forgotten what I told you, only yesterday? The Will
appoints me Carmina’s guardian.”
He had plainly forgotten it--he started, when his mother recalled the
circumstance. “Curious,” he said to himself, “that I was not reminded of
it, when I saw Carmina’s rooms prepared for her.” His mother, anxiously
looking at him, observed that his face brightened when he spoke of
Carmina. He suddenly changed his mind.
“Make allowances for an overworked man,” he said. “You are quite right.
I ought to hear the Will read--I am at your service.”
Even Mrs. Gallilee now drew the right inference at last. She made no
remark. Something seemed to move feebly under her powder and paint. Soft
emotion trying to find its way to the surface? Impossible!
As they entered the library together, Miss Minerva returned to the
schoolroom. She had lingered on the upper landing, and had heard the
conversation between mother and son.