Time had advanced to midnight, after the reading of the Will--and Ovid
was at home.
The silence of the quiet street in which he lived was only disturbed by
the occasional rolling of carriage wheels, and by dance-music from the
house of one of his neighbours who was giving a ball. He sat at his
writing-table, thinking. Honest self-examination had laid out the
state of his mind before him like a map, and had shown him, in its true
proportions, the new interest that filled his life.
Of that interest he was now the willing slave. If he had not known
his mother to be with her, he would have gone back to Carmina when
the lawyer left the house. As it was, he had sent a message upstairs,
inviting himself to dinner, solely for the purpose of seeing Carmina
again--and he had been bitterly disappointed when he heard that Mr. and
Mrs. Gallilee were engaged, and that his cousin would take tea in her
room. He had eaten something at this club, without caring what it was.
He had gone to the Opera afterwards, merely because his recollections of
a favourite singing-lady of that season vaguely reminded him of Carmina.
And there he was, at midnight, on his return from the music, eager for
the next opportunity of seeing his cousin, a few hours hence--when he
had arranged to say good-bye at the family breakfast-table.
To feel this change in him as vividly as he felt it, could lead to
but one conclusion in the mind of a man who was incapable of purposely
deceiving himself. He was as certain as ever of the importance of rest
and change, in the broken state of his health. And yet, in the face of
that conviction, his contemplated sea-voyage had already become one of
the vanished illusions of his life!
His friend had arranged to travel with him, that morning, from London
to the port at which the yacht was waiting for them. They were hardly
intimate enough to trust each other unreservedly with secrets. The
customary apology for breaking an engagement was the alternative that
remained. With the paper on his desk and with the words on his mind, he
was yet in such a strange state of indecision that he hesitated to write
the letter!
His morbidly-sensitive nerves were sadly shaken. Even the familiar
record of the half-hour by the hall clock startled him. The stroke
of the bell was succeeded by a mild and mournful sound outside the
door--the mewing of a cat.
He rose, without any appearance of surprise, and opened the door.
With grace and dignity entered a small black female cat; exhibiting, by
way of variety of colour, a melancholy triangular patch of white over
the lower part of her face, and four brilliantly clean white paws. Ovid
went back to his desk. As soon as he was in his chair again, the cat
jumped on his shoulder, and sat there purring in his ear. This was the
place she occupied, whenever her master was writing alone. Passing one
day through a suburban neighbourhood, on his round of visits, the young
surgeon had been attracted by a crowd in a by-street. He had rescued his
present companion from starvation in a locked-up house, the barbarous
inhabitants of which had gone away for a holiday, and had forgotten the
cat. When Ovid took the poor creature home with him in his carriage,
popular feeling decided that the unknown gentleman was “a rum ‘un.” From
that moment, this fortunate little member of a brutally-slandered race
attached herself to her new friend, and to that friend only. If Ovid had
owned the truth, he must have acknowledged that her company was a relief
to him, in the present state of his mind.
When a man’s flagging purpose is in want of a stimulant, the most
trifling change in the circumstances of the moment often applies the
animating influence. Even such a small interruption as the appearance of
his cat rendered this service to Ovid. To use the common and expressive
phrase, it had “shaken him up.” He wrote the letter--and his patient
companion killed the time by washing her face.
His mind being so far relieved, he went to bed--the cat following him
upstairs to her bed in a corner of the room. Clothes are unwholesome
superfluities not contemplated in the system of Nature. When we are
exhausted, there is no such thing as true repose for us until we are
freed from our dress. Men subjected to any excessive exertion--fighting,
rowing, walking, working--must strip their bodies as completely as
possible, or they are nor equal to the call on them. Ovid’s knowledge
of his own temperament told him that sleep was not to be hoped for,
that night. But the way to bed was the way to rest notwithstanding, by
getting rid of his clothes.
With the sunrise he rose and went out.
He took his letter with him, and dropped it into the box in his friend’s
door. The sooner he committed himself to the new course that he had
taken, the more certain he might feel of not renewing the miserable and
useless indecision of the past night. “Thank God, that’s done!” he
said to himself, as he heard the letter fall into the box, and left the
house.
After walking in the Park until he was weary, he sat down by the
ornamental lake, and watched the waterfowl enjoying their happy lives.
Wherever he went, whatever he did, Carmina was always with him. He
had seen thousands of girls, whose personal attractions were far more
remarkable--and some few among them whose manner was perhaps equally
winning. What was the charm in the little half-foreign cousin that had
seized on him in an instant, and that seemed to fasten its subtle hold
more and more irresistibly with every minute of his life? He was content
to feel the charm without caring to fathom it. The lovely morning light
took him in imagination to her bedside; he saw here sleeping peacefully
in her new room. Would the time come when she might dream of him?
He looked at his watch. It was seven o’clock. The breakfast-hour at
Fairfield Gardens had been fixed for eight, to give him time to catch
the morning train. Half an hour might be occupied in walking back to
his own house. Add ten minutes to make some change in his dress--and
he might set forth for his next meeting with Carmina. No uneasy
anticipation of what the family circle might think of his sudden change
of plan troubled his mind. A very different question occupied him. For
the first time in his life, he wondered what dress a woman would wear at
breakfast time.
He opened his house door with his own key. An elderly person, in a
coarse black gown, was seated on the bench in the hall. She rose,
and advanced towards him. In speechless astonishment, he confronted
Carmina’s faithful companion--Teresa.
“If you please, I want to speak to you,” she said, in her best English.
Ovid took her into his consulting-room. She wasted no time in apologies
or explanations. “Don’t speak!” she broke out. “Carmina has had a bad
night.”
“I shall be at the house in half an hour!” Ovid eagerly assured her.
The duenna shook her forefinger impatiently. “She doesn’t want a doctor.
She wants a friend, when I am gone. What is her life here? A new life,
among new people. Don’t speak! She’s frightened and miserable. So young,
so shy, so easily startled. And I must leave her--I must! I must! My old
man is failing fast; he may die, without a creature to comfort him, if
I don’t go back. I could tear my hair when I think of it. Don’t speak!
It’s _my_ business to speak. Ha! I know, what I know. Young doctor,
you’re in love with Carmina! I’ve read you like a book. You’re quick to
see, sudden to feel--like one of my people. _Be_ one of my people. Help
me.”
She dragged a chair close to Ovid, and laid her hand suddenly and
heavily on his arm.
“It’s not my fault, mind; _I_ have said nothing to disturb her. No! I’ve
made the best of it. I’ve lied to her. What do I care? I would lie like
Judas Iscariot himself to spare Carmina a moment’s pain. It’s such a
new life for her--try to see it for yourself--such a new life. You and I
shook hands yesterday. Do it again. Are you surprised to see me? I asked
your mother’s servants where you lived; and here I am--with the cruel
teeth of anxiety gnawing me alive when I think of the time to come. Oh,
my lamb! my angel! she’s alone. Oh, my God, only seventeen years old,
and alone in the world! No father, no mother; and soon--oh, too soon,
too soon--not even Teresa! What are you looking at? What is there so
wonderful in the tears of a stupid old fool? Drops of hot water. Ha! ha!
if they fall on your fine carpet here, they won’t hurt it. You’re a good
fellow; you’re a dear fellow. Hush! I know the Evil Eye when I see
it. No more of that! A secret in your ear--I’ve said a word for you
to Carmina already. Give her time; she’s not cold; young and innocent,
that’s all. Love will come--I know, what I know--love will come.”
She laughed--and, in the very act of laughing, changed again. Fright
looked wildly at Ovid out of her staring eyes. Some terrifying
remembrance had suddenly occurred to her. She sprang to her feet.
“You said you were going away,” she cried. “You said it, when you left
us yesterday. It can’t be! it shan’t be! You’re not going to leave
Carmina, too?”
Ovid’s first impulse was to tell the whole truth. He resisted the
impulse. To own that Carmina was the cause of his abandonment of the
sea-voyage, before she was even sure of the impression she had
produced on him, would be to place himself in a position from which
his self-respect recoiled. “My plans are changed,” was all he said to
Teresa. “Make your mind easy; I’m not going away.”
The strange old creature snapped her fingers joyously. “Good-bye! I
want no more of you.” With those cool and candid words of farewell, she
advanced to the door--stopped suddenly to think--and came back. Only a
moment had passed, and she was as sternly in earnest again as ever.
“May I call you by your name?” she asked.
“Certainly!”
“Listen, Ovid! I may not see you again before I go back to my husband.
This is my last word--never forget it. Even Carmina may have enemies!”
What could she be thinking of? “Enemies--in my mother’s house!” Ovid
exclaimed. “What can you possibly mean?”
Teresa returned to the door, and only answered him when she had opened
it to go.
“The Evil Eye never lies,” she said. “Wait--and you will see.”