Two days passed. In spite of the warnings that he had received, Ovid
remained in London.
The indisputable authority of Benjulia had no more effect on him than
the unanswerable arguments of Mrs. Gallilee. “Recent circumstances” (as
his mother expressed it) “had strengthened his infatuated resistance to
reason.” The dreaded necessity for Teresa’s departure had been hastened
by a telegram from Italy: Ovid felt for Carmina’s distress with
sympathies which made her dearer to him than ever. On the second morning
after the visit to the Zoological Gardens, her fortitude had been
severely tried. She had found the telegram under her pillow, enclosed in
a farewell letter. Teresa had gone.
“My Carmina,--I have kissed you, and cried over you, and I am writing
good-bye as well as my poor eyes will let me. Oh, my heart’s darling, I
cannot be cruel enough to wake you, and see you suffer! Forgive me for
going away, with only this dumb farewell. I am so fond of you--that is
my only excuse. While he still lives, my helpless old man has his claim
on me. Write by every post, and trust me to write back--and remember
what I said when I spoke of Ovid. Love the good man who loves _you;_ and
try to make the best of the others. They cannot surely be cruel to the
poor angel who depends on their kindness. Oh, how hard life is--”
The paper was blotted, and the rest was illegible.
The miserable day of Teresa’s departure was passed by Carmina in the
solitude of her room: gently and firmly, she refused to see anyone. This
strange conduct added to Mrs. Gallilee’s anxieties. Already absorbed in
considering Ovid’s obstinacy, and the means of overcoming it, she was
now confronted by a resolute side in the character of her niece, which
took her by surprise. There might be difficulties to come, in managing
Carmina, which she had not foreseen. Meanwhile, she was left to act on
her own unaided discretion in the serious matter of her son’s failing
health. Benjulia had refused to help her; he was too closely occupied
in his laboratory to pay or receive visits. “I have already given my
advice” (the doctor wrote). “Send him away. When he has had a month’s
change, let me see his letters; and then, if I have anything more to
say, I will tell you what I think of your son.”
Left in this position, Mrs. Gallilee’s hard self-denial yielded to the
one sound conclusion that lay before her. The only influence that could
be now used over Ovid, with the smallest chance of success, was the
influence of Carmina. Three days after Teresa’s departure, she invited
her niece to take tea in her own boudoir. Carmina found her reading. “A
charming book,” she said, as she laid it down, “on a most interesting
subject, Geographical Botany. The author divides the earth into
twenty-five botanical regions--but, I forget; you are not like Maria;
you don’t care about these things.”
“I am so ignorant,” Carmina pleaded. “Perhaps, I may know better when I
get older.” A book on the table attracted her by its beautiful binding.
She took it up. Mrs. Gallilee looked at her with compassionate good
humour.
“Science again, my dear,” she said facetiously, “inviting you in a
pretty dress! You have taken up the ‘Curiosities of Coprolites.’ That
book is one of my distinctions--a presentation copy from the author.”
“What are Coprolites?” Carmina asked, trying to inform herself on the
subject of her aunt’s distinctions.
Still good-humoured, but with an effort that began to appear, Mrs.
Gallilee lowered herself to the level of her niece.
“Coprolites,” she explained, “are the fossilised indigestions of extinct
reptiles. The great philosopher who has written that book has discovered
scales, bones, teeth, and shells--the undigested food of those
interesting Saurians. What a man! what a field for investigation! Tell
me about your own reading. What have you found in the library?”
“Very interesting books--at least to me,” Carmina answered. “I have
found many volumes of poetry. Do you ever read poetry?”
Mrs. Gallilee laid herself back in her chair, and submitted patiently
to her niece’s simplicity. “Poetry?” she repeated, in accents of
resignation. “Oh, good heavens!”
Unlucky Carmina tried a more promising topic. “What beautiful flowers
you have in the drawing-room!” she said.
“Nothing remarkable, my dear. Everybody has flowers in their
drawing-rooms--they are part of the furniture.”
“Did you arrange them yourself, aunt?”
Mrs. Gallilee still endured it. “The florist’s man,” she said, “does all
that. I sometimes dissect flowers, but I never trouble myself to arrange
them. What would be the use of the man if I did?” This view of the
question struck Carmina dumb. Mrs. Gallilee went on. “By-the-by, talking
of flowers reminds one of other superfluities. Have you tried the piano
in your room? Will it do?”
“The tone is quite perfect!” Carmina answered with enthusiasm. “Did
you choose it?” Mrs. Gallilee looked as if she was going to say “Good
Heavens!” again, and perhaps to endure it no longer. Carmina was too
simple to interpret these signs in the right way. Why should her aunt
not choose a piano? “Don’t you like music?” she asked.
Mrs. Gallilee made a last effort. “When you see a little more of
society, my child, you will know that one _must_ like music. So again
with pictures--one _must_ go to the Royal Academy Exhibition. So
again--”
Before she could mention any more social sacrifices, the servant came in
with a letter, and stopped her.
Mrs. Gallilee looked at the address. The weary indifference of her
manner changed to vivid interest, the moment she saw the handwriting.
“From the Professor!” she exclaimed. “Excuse me, for one minute.” She
read the letter, and closed it again with a sigh of relief. “I knew
it!” she said to herself. “I have always maintained that the albuminoid
substance of frog’s eggs is insufficient (viewed as nourishment) to
transform a tadpole into a frog--and, at last, the Professor owns that
I am right. I beg your pardon, Carmina; I am carried away by a subject
that I have been working at in my stolen intervals for weeks past. Let
me give you some tea. I have asked Miss Minerva to join us. What is
keeping her, I wonder? She is usually so punctual. I suppose Zoe has
been behaving badly again.”
In a few minutes more, the governess herself confirmed this maternal
forewarning of the truth. Zo had declined to commit to memory “the
political consequences of the granting of Magna Charta”--and now stood
reserved for punishment, when her mother “had time to attend to it.”
Mrs. Gallilee at once disposed of this little responsibility. “Bread and
water for tea,” she said, and proceeded to the business of the evening.
“I wish to speak to you both,” she began, “on the subject of my son.”
The two persons addressed waited in silence to hear more. Carmina’s
head drooped: she looked down. Miss Minerva attentively observed Mrs.
Gallilee. “Why am I invited to hear what she has to say about her son?”
was the question which occurred to the governess. “Is she afraid
that Carmina might tell me about it, if I was not let into the family
secrets?”
Admirably reasoned, and correctly guessed!
Mrs. Gallilee had latterly observed that the governess was insinuating
herself into the confidence of her niece--that is to say, into the
confidence of a young lady, whose father was generally reported to
have died in possession of a handsome fortune. Personal influence, once
obtained over an heiress, is not infrequently misused. To check the
further growth of a friendship of this sort (without openly offending
Miss Minerva) was an imperative duty. Mrs. Gallilee saw her way to the
discreet accomplishment of that object. Her niece and her governess
were interested--diversely interested--in Ovid. If she invited them both
together, to consult with her on the delicate subject of her son,
there would be every chance of exciting some difference of opinion,
sufficiently irritating to begin the process of estrangement, by keeping
them apart when they had left the tea-table.
“It is most important that there should be no misunderstanding among
us,” Mrs. Gallilee proceeded. “Let me set the example of speaking
without reserve. We all three know that Ovid persists in remaining in
London--”
She paused, on the point of finishing the sentence. Although she _had_
converted a Professor, Mrs. Gallilee was still only a woman. There did
enter into her other calculations, the possibility of exciting some
accidental betrayal of her governess’s passion for her son. On alluding
to Ovid, she turned suddenly to Miss Minerva. “I am sure you will excuse
my troubling you with family anxieties,” she said--“especially when they
are connected with the health of my son.”
It was cleverly done, but it laboured under one disadvantage. Miss
Minerva had no idea of what the needless apology meant, having no
suspicion of the discovery of her secret by her employer. But to feel
herself baffled in trying to penetrate Mrs. Gallilee’s motives was
enough, of itself, to put Mrs. Gallilee’s governess on her guard for the
rest of the evening.
“You honour me, madam, by admitting me to your confidence”--was what she
said. “Trip me up, you cat, if you can!”--was what she thought.
Mrs. Gallilee resumed.
“We know that Ovid persists in remaining in London, when change of air
and scene are absolutely necessary to the recovery of his health. And we
know why. Carmina, my child, don’t think for a moment that I blame you!
don’t even suppose that I blame my son. You are too charming a person
not to excuse, nay even to justify, any man’s admiration. But let us (as
we hard old people say) look the facts in the face. If Ovid had not seen
you, he would be now on the health-giving sea, on his way to Spain and
Italy. You are the innocent cause of his obstinate indifference, his
most deplorable and dangerous disregard of the duty which he owes to
himself. He refuses to listen to his mother, he sets the opinion of his
skilled medical colleague at defiance. But one person has any influence
over him now.” She paused again, and tried to trip up the governess once
more. “Miss Minerva, let me appeal to You. I regard you as a member of
our family; I have the sincerest admiration of your tact and good sense.
Am I exceeding the limits of delicacy, if I say plainly to my niece,
Persuade Ovid to go?”
If Carmina had possessed an elder sister, with a plain personal
appearance and an easy conscience, not even that sister could have
matched the perfect composure with which Miss Minerva replied.
“I don’t possess your happy faculty of expressing yourself, Mrs.
Gallilee. But, if I had been in your place, I should have said to the
best of my poor ability exactly what you have said now.” She bent her
head with a graceful gesture of respect, and looked at Carmina with a
gentle sisterly interest while she stirred her tea.
At the very opening of the skirmish, Mrs. Gallilee was defeated. She had
failed to provoke the slightest sign of jealousy, or even of
ill-temper. Unquestionably the most crafty and most cruel woman of the
two--possessing the most dangerously deceitful manner, and the most
mischievous readiness of language--she was, nevertheless, Miss Minerva’s
inferior in the one supreme capacity of which they both stood in need,
the capacity for self-restraint.
She showed this inferiority on expressing her thanks. The underlying
malice broke through the smooth surface that was intended to hide it.
“I am apt to doubt myself,” she said; “and such sound encouragement as
yours always relieves me. Of course I don’t ask you for more than a word
of advice. Of course I don’t expect _you_ to persuade Ovid.”
“Of course not!” Miss Minerva agreed. “May I ask for a little more sugar
in my tea?”
Mrs. Gallilee turned to Carmina.
“Well, my dear? I have spoken to you, as I might have spoken to one
of my own daughters, if she had been of your age. Tell me frankly, in
return, whether I may count on your help.”
Still pale and downcast, Carmina obeyed. “I will do my best, if you wish
it. But--”
“Yes? Go on.”
She still hesitated. Mrs. Gallilee tried gentle remonstrance. “My child,
surely you are not afraid of me?”
She was certainly afraid. But she controlled herself.
“You are Ovid’s mother, and I am only his cousin,” she resumed. “I don’t
like to hear you say that my influence over him is greater than yours.”
It was far from the poor girl’s intention; but there was an implied
rebuke in this. In her present state of irritation, Mrs. Gallilee felt
it.
“Come! come!” she said. “Don’t affect to be ignorant, my dear, of what
you know perfectly well.”
Carmina lifted her head. For the first time in the experience of the
two elder women, this gentle creature showed that she could resent an
insult. The fine spirit that was in her fired her eyes, and fixed them
firmly on her aunt.
“Do you accuse me of deceit?” she asked.
“Let us call it false modesty,” Mrs. Gallilee retorted.
Carmina rose without another word--and walked out of the room.
In the extremity of her surprise, Mrs. Gallilee appealed to Miss
Minerva. “Is she in a passion?”
“She didn’t bang the door,” the governess quietly remarked.
“I am not joking, Miss Minerva.”
“I am not joking either, madam.”
The tone of that answer implied an uncompromising assertion of equality.
You are not to suppose (it said) that a lady drops below your level,
because she receives a salary and teaches your children. Mrs. Gallilee
was so angry, by this time, that she forgot the importance of preventing
a conference between Miss Minerva and her niece. For once, she was the
creature of impulse--the overpowering impulse to dismiss her insolent
governess from her hospitable table.
“May I offer you another cup of tea?”
“Thank you--no more. May I return to my pupils?”
“By all means!”
Carmina had not been five minutes in her own room before she heard a
knock at the door. Had Mrs. Gallilee followed her? “Who is there?” she
asked. And a voice outside answered,
“Only Miss Minerva!”