The clock on the mantelpiece struck six. Zo, turning suddenly from the
window, ran to the sofa. “Here’s the carriage!” she cried.
“Teresa!” Carmina exclaimed.
Zo crossed the room, on tiptoe, to the door of the bed-chamber. “It’s
mamma,” she said. “Don’t tell! I’m going to hide.”
“Why, dear?”
The answer to this was given mysteriously in a whisper. “She said I
wasn’t to come to you. She’s a quick one on her legs--she might catch me
on the stairs.” With that explanation, Zo slipped into the bedroom, and
held the door ajar.
The minutes passed--and Mrs. Gallilee failed to justify the opinion
expressed by her daughter. Not a sound was audible on the stairs. Not a
word more was uttered in the room. Benjulia had taken the child’s place
at the window. He sat there thinking. Carmina had suggested to him some
new ideas, relating to the intricate connection between human faith
and human happiness. Slowly, slowly, the clock recorded the lapse of
minutes. Carmina’s nervous anxiety began to forecast disaster to the
absent nurse. She took Teresa’s telegram from her pocket, and consulted
it again. There was no mistake; six o’clock was the time named for the
traveller’s arrival--and it was close on ten minutes past the hour.
In her ignorance of railway arrangements, she took it for granted that
trains were punctual. But her reading had told her that trains were
subject to accident. “I suppose delays occur,” she said to Benjulia,
“without danger to the passengers?”
Before he could answer--Mrs. Gallilee suddenly entered the room.
She had opened the door so softly, that she took them both by surprise.
To Carmina’s excited imagination, she glided into their presence like
a ghost. Her look and manner showed serious agitation, desperately
suppressed. In certain places, the paint and powder on her face had
cracked, and revealed the furrows and wrinkles beneath. Her hard eyes
glittered; her laboured breathing was audible.
Indifferent to all demonstrations of emotion which did not
scientifically concern him, Benjulia quietly rose and advanced towards
her. She seemed to be unconscious of his presence. He spoke--allowing
her to ignore him without troubling himself to notice her temper. “When
you are able to attend to me, I want to speak to you. Shall I wait
downstairs?” He took his hat and stick--to leave the room; looked at
Carmina as he passed her; and at once went back to his place at the
window. Her aunt’s silent and sinister entrance had frightened her.
Benjulia waited, in the interests of physiology, to see how the new
nervous excitement would end.
Thus far, Mrs. Gallilee had kept one of her hands hidden behind her. She
advanced close to Carmina, and allowed her hand to be seen. It held an
open letter. She shook the letter in her niece’s face.
In the position which Mrs. Gallilee now occupied, Carmina was hidden,
for the moment, from Benjulia’s view. Biding his time at the window, he
looked out.
A cab, with luggage on it, had just drawn up at the house.
Was this the old nurse who had been expected to arrive at six o’clock?
The footman came out to open the cab-door. He was followed by Mr.
Gallilee, eager to help the person inside to alight. The traveller
proved to be a grey-headed woman, shabbily dressed. Mr. Gallilee
cordially shook hands with her--patted her on the shoulder--gave her his
arm--led her into the house. The cab with the luggage on it remained
at the door. The nurse had evidently not reached the end of her journey
yet.
Carmina shrank back on the sofa, when the leaves of the letter touched
her face. Mrs. Gallilee’s first words were now spoken, in a whisper. The
inner fury of her anger, struggling for a vent, began to get the better
of her--she gasped for breath and speech.
“Do you know this letter?” she said.
Carmina looked at the writing. It was the letter to Ovid, which she had
placed in the post-basket that afternoon; the letter which declared that
she could no longer endure his mother’s cold-blooded cruelty, and that
she only waited Teresa’s arrival to join him at Quebec.
After one dreadful moment of confusion, her mind realised the outrage
implied in the stealing and reading of her letter.
In the earlier time of Carmina’s sojourn in the house, Mrs. Gallilee had
accused her of deliberate deceit. She had instantly resented the insult
by leaving the room. The same spirit in her--the finely-strung
spirit that vibrates unfelt in gentle natures, while they live in
peace--steadied those quivering nerves, roused that failing courage. She
met the furious eyes fixed on her, without shrinking; she spoke gravely
and firmly. “The letter is mine,” she said. “How did you come by it?”
“How dare you ask me?”
“How dare _you_ steal my letter?”
Mrs. Gallilee tore open the fastening of her dress at the throat, to get
breath. “You impudent bastard!” she burst out, in a frenzy of rage.
Waiting patiently at the window, Benjulia heard her. “Hold your damned
tongue!” he cried. “She’s your niece.”
Mrs. Gallilee turned on him: her fury broke into a screaming laugh. “My
niece?” she repeated. “You lie--and you know it! She’s the child of an
adulteress! She’s the child of her mother’s lover!”
The door opened as those horrible words passed her lips. The nurse and
her husband entered the room.
She was in no position to see them: she was incapable of hearing them.
The demon in her urged her on: she attempted to reiterate the detestable
falsehood. Her first word died away in silence. The lean brown fingers
of the Italian woman had her by the throat--held her as the claws of
a tigress might have held her. Her eyes rolled in the mute agony of an
appeal for help. In vain! in vain! Not a cry, not a sound, had drawn
attention to the attack. Her husband’s eyes were fixed, horror-struck,
on the victim of her rage. Benjulia had crossed the room to the sofa,
when Carmina heard the words spoken of her mother. From that moment, he
was watching the case. Mr. Gallilee alone looked round--when the nurse
tightened her hold in a last merciless grasp; dashed the insensible
woman on the floor; and, turning back, fell on her knees at her
darling’s feet.
She looked up in Carmina’s face.
A ghastly stare, through half-closed eyes, showed death in life, blankly
returning her look. The shock had struck Carmina with a stony calm. She
had not started, she had not swooned. Rigid, immovable, there she sat;
voiceless and tearless; insensible even to touch; her arms hanging down;
her clenched hands resting on either side of her.
Teresa grovelled and groaned at her feet. Those ferocious hands that had
laid the slanderer prostrate on the floor, feebly beat her bosom and
her gray head. “Oh, Saints beloved of God! Oh, blessed Virgin, mother of
Christ, spare my child, my sweet child!” She rose in wild despair--she
seized Benjulia, and madly shook him. “Who are you? How dare you touch
her? Give her to me, or I’ll be the death of you. Oh, my Carmina, is it
sleep that holds you? Wake! wake! wake!”
“Listen to me,” said Benjulia, sternly.
She dropped on the sofa by Carmina’s side, and lifted one of the cold
clenched hands to her lips. The tears fell slowly over her haggard face.
“I am very fond of her, sir,” she said humbly. “I’m only an old woman.
See what a dreadful welcome my child gives to me. It’s hard on an old
woman--hard on an old woman!”
His self-possession was not disturbed--even by this.
“Do you know what I am?” he asked. “I am a doctor. Leave her to me.”
“He’s a doctor. That’s good. A doctor’s good. Yes, yes. Does the old
man know this doctor--the kind old man?” She looked vacantly for Mr.
Gallilee. He was bending over his wife, sprinkling water on her deathly
face.
Teresa got on her feet, and pointed to Mrs. Gallilee. “The breath of
that She-Devil poisons the air,” she said. “I must take my child out of
it. To my place, sir, if you please. Only to my place.”
She attempted to lift Carmina from the sofa--and drew back, breathlessly
watching her. Her rigid face faintly relaxed; her eyelids closed, and
quivered.
Mr. Gallilee looked up from his wife. “Will one of you help me?” he
asked. His tone struck Benjulia. It was the hushed tone of sorrow--no
more.
“I’ll see to it directly.” With that reply, Benjulia turned to Teresa.
“Where is your place?” he said. “Far or near?”
“The message,” she answered confusedly. “The message says.” She signed
to him to look in her hand-bag--dropped on the floor.
He found Carmina’s telegram, containing the address of the lodgings. The
house was close by. After some consideration, he sent the nurse into the
bedroom, with instructions to bring him the blankets off the bed. In the
minute that followed, he examined Mrs. Gallilee. “There’s nothing to be
frightened about. Let her maid attend to her.”
Mr. Gallilee again surprised Benjulia. He turned from his wife, and
looked at Carmina. “For God’s sake, don’t leave her here!” he broke out.
“After what she has heard, this house is no place for her. Give her to
the old nurse!”
Benjulia only answered, as he had answered already--“I’ll see to it.”
Mr. Gallilee persisted. “Is there any risk in moving her?” he asked.
“It’s the least of two risks. No more questions! Look to your wife.”
Mr. Gallilee obeyed in silence.
When he lifted his head again, and rose to ring the bell for the maid,
the room was silent and lonely. A little pale frightened face peeped out
through the bedroom door. Zo ventured in. Her father caught her in his
arms, and kissed her as he had never kissed her yet. His eyes were wet
with tears. Zo noticed that he never said a word about mamma. The child
saw the change in her father, as Benjulia had seen it. She shared one
human feeling with her big friend--she, too, was surprised.