On entering the Zoological Gardens, Ovid turned at once to the right,
leading Carmina to the aviaries, so that she might begin by seeing the
birds. Miss Minerva, with Maria in dutiful attendance, followed them.
Teresa kept at a little distance behind; and Zo took her own erratic
course, now attaching herself to one member of the little party, and now
to another.
When they reached the aviaries the order of march became confused;
differences in the birds made their appeal to differences in the
taste of the visitors. Insatiably eager for useful information, that
prize-pupil Maria held her governess captive at one cage; while Zo
darted away towards another, out of reach of discipline, and good Teresa
volunteered to bring her back. For a minute, Ovid and his cousin were
left alone. He might have taken a lover’s advantage even of that small
opportunity. But Carmina had something to say to him--and Carmina spoke
first.
“Has Miss Minerva been your mother’s governess for a long time?” she
inquired.
“For some years,” Ovid replied. “Will you let me put a question on my
side? Why do you ask?”
Carmina hesitated--and answered in a whisper, “She looks ill-tempered.”
“She _is_ ill-tempered,” Ovid confessed. “I suspect,” he added with a
smile, “you don’t like Miss Minerva.”
Carmina attempted no denial; her excuse was a woman’s excuse all over:
“She doesn’t like _me.”_
“How do you know?”
“I have been looking at her. Does she beat the children?”
“My dear Carmina! do you think she would be my mother’s governess if she
treated the children in that way? Besides, Miss Minerva is too well-bred
a woman to degrade herself by acts of violence. Family misfortunes have
very materially lowered her position in the world.”
He was reminded, as he said those words, of the time when Miss Minerva
had entered on her present employment, and when she had been the object
of some little curiosity on his own part. Mrs. Gallilee’s answer, when
he once asked why she kept such an irritable woman in the house, had
been entirely satisfactory, so far as she herself was concerned: “Miss
Minerva is remarkably well informed, and I get her cheap.” Exactly
like his mother! But it left Miss Minerva’s motives involved in utter
obscurity. Why had this highly cultivated woman accepted an inadequate
reward for her services, for years together? Why--to take the event of
that morning as another example--after plainly showing her temper to her
employer, had she been so ready to submit to a suddenly decreed holiday,
which disarranged her whole course of lessons for the week? Little
did Ovid think that the one reconciling influence which adjusted these
contradictions, and set at rest every doubt that grew out of them, was
to be found in himself. Even the humiliation of watching him in his
mother’s interest, and of witnessing his devotion to another woman,
was a sacrifice which Miss Minerva could endure for the one inestimable
privilege of being in Ovid’s company.
Before Carmina could ask any more questions a shrill voice, at its
highest pitch of excitement, called her away. Zo had just discovered
the most amusing bird in the Gardens--the low comedian of the feathered
race--otherwise known as the Piping Crow.
Carmina hurried to the cage as if she had been a child herself. Seeing
Ovid left alone, the governess seized _her_ chance of speaking to him.
The first words that passed her lips told their own story. While Carmina
had been studying Miss Minerva, Miss Minerva had been studying Carmina.
Already, the same instinctive sense of rivalry had associated, on
a common ground of feeling, the two most dissimilar women that ever
breathed the breath of life.
“Does your cousin know much about birds?” Miss Minerva began.
The opinion which declares that vanity is a failing peculiar to the sex
is a slander on women. All the world over, there are more vain men in it
than vain women. If Ovid had not been one of the exceptions to a general
rule among men, or even if his experience of the natures of women had
been a little less limited, he too might have discovered Miss Minerva’s
secret. Even her capacity for self-control failed, at the moment when
she took Carmina’s place. Those keen black eyes, so hard and cold
when they looked at anyone else--flamed with an all-devouring sense of
possession when they first rested on Ovid. “He’s mine. For one golden
moment he’s mine!” They spoke--and, suddenly, the every-day blind
was drawn down again; there was nobody present but a well-bred woman,
talking with delicately implied deference to a distinguished man.
“So far, we have not spoken of the birds,” Ovid innocently answered.
“And yet you seemed to be both looking at them!” She at once covered
this unwary outbreak of jealousy under an impervious surface of
compliment. “Miss Carmina is not perhaps exactly pretty, but she is a
singularly interesting girl.”
Ovid cordially (too cordially) agreed. Miss Minerva had presented
her better self to him under a most agreeable aspect. She
tried--struggled--fought with herself--to preserve appearances. The
demon in her got possession again of her tongue. “Do you find the young
lady intelligent?” she inquired.
“Certainly!”
Only one word--spoken perhaps a little sharply. The miserable woman
shrank under it. “An idle question on my part,” she said, with the
pathetic humility that tries to be cheerful. “And another warning, Mr.
Vere, never to judge by appearances.” She looked at him, and returned to
the children.
Ovid’s eyes followed her compassionately. “Poor wretch!” he thought.
“What an infernal temper, and how hard she tries to control it!” He
joined Carmina, with a new delight in being near her again. Zo was still
in ecstasies over the Piping Crow. “Oh, the jolly little chap! Look
how he cocks his head! He mocks me when I whistle. Buy him,” cried Zo,
tugging at Ovid’s coat tails in the excitement that possessed her; “buy
him, and let me take him home with me!”
Some visitors within hearing began to laugh. Miss Minerva opened her
lips; Maria opened her lips. To the astonishment of both of them the
coming rebuke proved to be needless.
A sudden transformation to silence and docility had made a new creature
of Zo, before they could speak--and Ovid had unconsciously worked the
miracle. For the first time in the child’s experience, he had suffered
his coat tails to be pulled without immediately attending to her. Who
was he looking at? It was only too easy to see that Carmina had got
him all to herself. The jealous little heart swelled in Zo’s bosom.
In silent perplexity she kept watch on the friend who had never
disappointed her before. Little by little, her slow intelligence began
to realise the discovery of something in his face which made him look
handsomer than ever, and which she had never seen in it yet. They all
left the aviaries, and turned to the railed paddocks in which the larger
birds were assembled. And still Zo followed so quietly, so silently,
that her elder sister--threatened with a rival in good behaviour--looked
at her in undisguised alarm.
Incited by Maria (who felt the necessity of vindicating her character)
Miss Minerva began a dissertation on cranes, suggested by the birds with
the brittle-looking legs hopping up to her in expectation of something
to eat. Ovid was absorbed in attending to his cousin; he had provided
himself with some bread, and was helping Carmina to feed the birds. But
one person noticed Zo, now that her strange lapse into good behaviour
had lost the charm of novelty. Old Teresa watched her. There was
something plainly troubling the child in secret; she had a mind to know
what it might be.
Zo approached Ovid again, determined to understand the change in him if
perseverance could do it. He was talking so confidentially to Carmina,
that he almost whispered in her ear. Zo eyed him, without daring to
touch his coat tails again. Miss Minerva tried hard to go on composedly
with the dissertation on cranes. “Flocks of these birds, Maria, pass
periodically over the southern and central countries of Europe”--Her
breath failed her, as she looked at Ovid: she could say no more.
Zo stopped those maddening confidences; Zo, in desperate want of
information, tugged boldly at Carmina’s skirts this time.
The young girl turned round directly. “What is it, dear?”
With big tears of indignation rising in her eyes, Zo pointed to Ovid. “I
say!” she whispered, “is he going to buy the Piping Crow for you?”
To Zo’s discomfiture they both smiled. She dried her eyes with her
fists, and waited doggedly for an answer. Carmina set the child’s mind
at ease very prettily and kindly; and Ovid added the pacifying influence
of a familiar pat on her cheek. Noticed at last, and satisfied that
the bird was not to be bought for anybody, Zo’s sense of injury
was appeased; her jealousy melted away as the next result. After a
pause--produced, as her next words implied, by an effort of memory--she
suddenly took Carmina into her confidence.
“Don’t tell!” she began. “I saw another man look like Ovid.”
“When, dear?” Carmina asked--meaning, at what past date.
“When his face was close to yours,” Zo answered--meaning, under what
recent circumstances.
Ovid, hearing this reply, knew his small sister well enough to foresee
embarrassing results if he allowed the conversation to proceed. He took
Carmina’s arm, and led her a little farther on.
Miss Minerva obstinately followed them, with Maria in attendance, still
imperfectly enlightened on the migration of cranes. Zo looked round, in
search of another audience. Teresa had been listening; she was present,
waiting for events. Being herself what stupid people call “an oddity,”
her sympathies were attracted by this quaint child. In Teresa’s opinion,
seeing the animals was very inferior, as an amusement, to exploring Zo’s
mind. She produced a cake of chocolate, from a travelling bag which she
carried with her everywhere. The cake was sweet, it was flavoured with
vanilla, and it was offered to Zo, unembittered by advice not to
be greedy and make herself ill. Staring hard at Teresa, she took an
experimental bite. The wily duenna chose that propitious moment to
present herself in the capacity of a new audience.
“Who was that other man you saw, who looked like Mr. Ovid?” she asked;
speaking in the tone of serious equality which is always flattering to
the self-esteem of children in intercourse with elders. Zo was so proud
of having her own talk reported by a grown-up stranger, that she even
forgot the chocolate. “I wanted to say more than that,” she announced.
“Would you like to hear the end of it?” And this admirable foreign
person answered, “I should very much like.”
Zo hesitated. To follow out its own little train of thought, in
words, was no easy task to the immature mind which Miss Minerva had so
mercilessly overworked. Led by old Dame Nature (first of governesses!)
Zo found her way out of the labyrinth by means of questions.
“Do you know Joseph?” she began.
Teresa had heard the footman called by his name: she knew who Joseph
was.
“Do you know Matilda?” Zo proceeded.
Teresa had heard the housemaid called by her name: she knew who Matilda
was. And better still, she helped her little friend by a timely guess
at what was coming, presented under the form of a reminder. “You saw Mr.
Ovid’s face close to Carmina’s face,” she suggested.
Zo nodded furiously--the end of it was coming already.
“And before that,” Teresa went on, “you saw Joseph’s face close to
Matilda’s face.”
“I saw Joseph kiss Matilda!” Zo burst out, with a scream of triumph.
“Why doesn’t Ovid kiss Carmina?”
A deep bass voice, behind them, answered gravely: “Because the governess
is in the way.” And a big bamboo walking-stick pointed over their heads
at Miss Minerva. Zo instantly recognised the stick, and took it into her
own hands.
Teresa turned--and found herself in the presence of a remarkable man.