Towards seven o’clock on the evening of Thursday, Carmina recognised
Teresa for the first time.
Her half-closed eyes opened, as if from a long sleep: they rested on the
old nurse without any appearance of surprise. “I am so glad to see you,
my dear,” she said faintly. “Are you very tired after you journey?” None
of the inquiries which might have been anticipated followed those first
words. Not the slightest allusion to Mrs. Gallilee escaped her; she
expressed no anxiety about Miss Minerva; no sign of uneasiness
at finding herself in a. strange room, disturbed her quiet face.
Contentedly reposing, she looked at Teresa from time to time and said,
“You will stay with me, won’t you?” Now and then, she confessed that her
head felt dull and heavy, and asked Teresa to take her hand. “I feel as
if I was sinking away from you,” she said; “keep hold of my hand and I
shan’t be afraid to go to sleep.” The words were hardly spoken, before
she sank into slumber. Occasionally, Teresa felt her hand tremble and
kissed it. She seemed to be conscious of the kiss, without waking--she
smiled in her sleep.
But, when the first hours of the morning came, this state of passive
repose was disturbed. A violent attack of sickness came on. It was
repeated again and again. Teresa sent for Mr. Null. He did what he
could to relieve the new symptom; and he despatched a messenger to his
illustrious colleague.
Benjulia lost no time in answering personally the appeal that had been
made to him.
Mr. Null said, “Serious derangement of the stomach, sir.” Benjulia
agreed with him. Mr. Null showed his prescription. Benjulia sanctioned
the prescription. Mr. Null said, “Is there anything you wish to suggest,
sir?” Benjulia had nothing to suggest.
He waited, nevertheless, until Carmina was able to speak to him. Teresa
and Mr. Null wondered what he would say to her. He only said, “Do
you remember when you last saw me?” After a little consideration, she
answered, “Yes, Zo was with us; Zo brought in your big stick; and we
talked--” She tried to rouse her memory. “What did we talk about?”
she asked. A momentary agitation brought a flush to her face. “I can’t
remember it,” she said; “I can’t remember when you went away: does it
matter?” Benjulia replied, “Not the least in the world. Go to sleep.”
But he still remained in the room--watching her as she grew drowsy.
“Great weakness,” Mr. Null whispered. And Benjulia answered, “Yes; I’ll
call again.”
On his way out, he took Teresa aside.
“No more questions,” he said--“and don’t help her memory if she asks
you.”
“Will she remember, when she gets better?” Teresa inquired.
“Impossible to say, yet. Wait and see.”
He left her in a hurry; his experiments were waiting for him. On the way
home, his mind dwelt on Carmina’s case. Some hidden process was at work
there: give it time--and it would show itself. “I hope that ass won’t
want me,” he said, thinking of his medical colleague, “for at least a
week to come.”
The week passed--and the physiologist was not disturbed.
During that interval, Mr. Null succeeded in partially overcoming the
attacks of sickness: they were less violent, and they were succeeded by
longer intervals of repose. In other respects, there seemed (as Teresa
persisted in thinking) to be some little promise of improvement. A
certain mental advance was unquestionably noticeable in Carmina. It
first showed itself in an interesting way: she began to speak of Ovid.
Her great anxiety was, that he should know nothing of her illness.
She forbade Teresa to write to him; she sent messages to Mr. and Mrs.
Gallilee, and even to Mr. Mool, entreating them to preserve silence.
The nurse engaged to deliver the messages--and failed to keep her word.
This breach of promise (as events had ordered it) proved to be harmless.
Mrs. Gallilee had good reasons for not writing. Her husband and Mr.
Mool had decided on sending their telegram to the bankers. As for
Teresa herself, she had no desire to communicate with Ovid. His absence
remained inexcusable, from her point of view. Well or ill, with or
without reason, it was the nurse’s opinion that he ought to have
remained at home, in Carmina’s interests. No other persons were in
the least likely to write to Ovid--nobody thought of Zo as a
correspondent--Carmina was pacified.
Once or twice, at this later time, the languid efforts of her memory
took a wider range.
She wondered why Mrs. Gallilee never came near her; owning that her
aunt’s absence was a relief to her, but not feeling interest enough in
the subject to ask for information. She also mentioned Miss Minerva. “Do
you know where she has gone? Don’t you think she ought to write to me?”
Teresa offered to make inquiries. She turned her head wearily on the
pillow, and said, “Never mind!” On another occasion, she asked for Zo,
and said it would be pleasant if Mr. Gallilee would call and bring her
with him. But she soon dropped the subject, not to return to it again.
The only remembrance which seemed to dwell on her mind for more than
a few minutes, was her remembrance of the last letter which she had
written to Ovid.
She pleased herself with imagining his surprise, when he received it;
she grew impatient under her continued illness, because it delayed her
in escaping to Canada; she talked to Teresa of the clever manner in
which the flight had been planned--with this strange failure of memory,
that she attributed the various arrangements for setting discovery at
defiance, not to Miss Minerva, but to the nurse.
Here, for the first time, her mind was approaching dangerous ground. The
stealing of the letter, and the events that had followed it, stood next
in the order of remembrance--if she was capable of a continued
effort. Her weakness saved her. Beyond the writing of the letter, her
recollections were unable to advance. Not the faintest allusion to any
later circumstances escaped her. The poor stricken brain still sought
its rest in frequent intervals of sleep. Sometimes, she drifted back
into partial unconsciousness; sometimes, the attacks of sickness
returned. Mr. Null set an excellent example of patience and resignation.
He believed as devoutly as ever in his prescriptions; he placed the
greatest reliance on time and care. The derangement of the stomach (as
he called it) presented something positive and tangible to treat: he had
got over the doubts and anxieties that troubled him, when Carmina
was first removed to the lodgings. Looking confidently at the
surface--without an idea of what was going on below it--he could tell
Teresa, with a safe conscience, that he understood the case. He was
always ready to comfort her, when her excitable Italian nature passed
from the extreme of hope to the extreme of despair. “My good woman, we
see our way now: it’s a great point gained, I assure you, to see our
way.”
“What do you mean by seeing your way?” said the downright nurse. “Tell
me when Carmina will be well again.”
Mr. Null’s medical knowledge was not yet equal to this demand on it.
“The progress is slow,” he admitted, “still Miss Carmina is getting on.”
“Is her aunt getting on?” Teresa asked abruptly. “When is Mistress
Gallilee likely to come here?”
“In a few days--” Mr. Null was about to add “I hope;” but he thought
of what might happen when the two women met. As it was, Teresa’s face
showed signs of serious disturbance: her mind was plainly not prepared
for this speedy prospect of a visit from Mrs. Gallilee. She took a
letter out of her pocket.
“I find a good deal of sly prudence in you,” she said to Mr. Null.
“You must have seen something, in your time, of the ways of deceitful
Englishwomen. What does that palaver mean in plain words?” She handed
the letter to him.
With some reluctance he read it.
“Mrs. Gallilee declines to contract any engagement with the person
formerly employed as nurse, in the household of the late Mr. Robert
Graywell. Mrs. Gallilee so far recognises the apology and submission
offered to her, as to abstain from taking immediate proceedings. In
arriving at this decision, she is also influenced by the necessity of
sparing her niece any agitation which might interfere with the medical
treatment. When the circumstances appear to require it, she will not
hesitate to exert her authority.”
The handwriting told Mr. Null that this manifesto had not been written
by Mrs. Gallilee herself. The person who had succeeded him, in the
capacity of that lady’s amanuensis, had been evidently capable of giving
sound advice. Little did he suspect that this mysterious secretary was
identical with an enterprising pianist, who had once prevailed on him to
take a seat at a concert; price five shillings.
“Well?” said Teresa.
Mr. Null hesitated.
The nurse stamped impatiently on the floor. “Tell me this! When she does
come here, will she part me from Carmina? Is that what she means?”
“Possibly,” said prudent Mr. Null.
Teresa pointed to the door. “Good-morning! I want nothing more of you.
Oh, man, man, leave me by myself!”
The moment she was alone, she fell on her knees. Fiercely whispering,
she repeated over and over again the words of the Lord’s Prayer: “‘Lead
us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.’ Christ, hear me!
Mother of Christ, hear me! Oh, Carmina! Carmina!”
She rose and opened the door which communicated with the bedroom.
Trembling pitiably, she looked for a while at Carmina, peacefully
asleep--then turned away to a corner of the room, in which stood an old
packing-case, fitted with a lock. She took it up; and, returning with it
to the sitting-room, softly closed the bedroom door again.
After some hesitation, she decided to open the case. In the terror and
confusion that possessed her, she tried the wrong key. Setting this
mistake right, she disclosed--strangely mingled with the lighter
articles of her own dress--a heap of papers; some of them letters and
bills; some of them faded instructions in writing for the preparation of
artists’ colours.
She recoiled from the objects which her own act had disclosed. Why had
she not taken Father Patrizio’s advice? If she had only waited another
day; if she had only sorted her husband’s papers, before she threw the
things that her trunk was too full to hold into that half-empty case,
what torment might have been spared to her! Her eyes turned mournfully
to the bedroom door. “Oh, my darling, I was in such a hurry to get to
You!”
At last, she controlled herself, and put her hand into the case.
Searching it in one corner, she produced a little tin canister. A dirty
label was pasted on the canister, bearing this quaint inscription in the
Italian language:
“If there is any of the powder we employ in making some of our prettiest
colours, left in here, I request my good wife, or any other trustworthy
person in her place, to put a seal on it, and take it directly to the
manufactory, with the late foreman’s best respects. It looks like nice
sugar. Beware of looks--or you may taste poison.”
On the point of opening the canister she hesitated. Under some strange
impulse, she did what a child might have done: she shook it, and
listened.
The rustle of the rising and falling powder--renewing her terror--seemed
to exercise some irresistible fascination over her. “The devil’s dance,”
she said to herself, with a ghastly smile. “Softly up--and softly
down--and tempting me to take off the cover all the time! Why don’t I
get rid of it?”
That question set her thinking of Carmina’s guardian.
If Mr. Null was right, in a day or two Mrs. Gallilee might come to the
house. After the lawyers had threatened Teresa with the prospect of
separation from Carmina, she had opened the packing-case, for the first
time since she had left Rome--intending to sort her husband’s papers as
a means of relief from her own thoughts. In this way, she had discovered
the canister. The sight of the deadly powder had tempted her. There were
the horrid means of setting Mrs. Gallilee’s authority at defiance! Some
women in her place, would use them. Though she was not looking into the
canister now, she felt that thought stealing back into her mind. There
was but one hope for her: she resolved to get rid of the poison.
How?
At that period of the year, there was no fire in the grate. Within
the limits of the room, the means of certain destruction were slow
to present themselves. Her own morbid horror of the canister made her
suspicious of the curiosity of other people, who might see it in her
hand if she showed herself on the stairs. But she was determined, if she
lit a fire for the purpose, to find the way to her end. The firmness
of her resolution expressed itself by locking the case again, without
restoring the canister to its hiding-place.
Providing herself next with a knife, she sat down in a corner--between
the bedroom door on one side, and a cupboard in an angle of the wall on
the other--and began the work of destruction by scraping off the paper
label. The fragments might be burnt, and the powder (if she made a vow
to the Virgin to do it) might be thrown into the fire next--and then the
empty canister would be harmless.
She had made but little progress in the work of scraping, when it
occurred to her that the lighting of a fire, on that warm autumn day,
might look suspicious if the landlady or Mr. Null happened to come in.
It would be safer to wait till night-time, when everybody would be in
bed.
Arriving at this conclusion, she mechanically suspended the use of her
knife.
In the moment of silence that followed, she heard someone enter the
bedroom by the door which opened on the stairs. Immediately afterwards,
the person turned the handle of the second door at her side. She had
barely time enough to open the cupboard, and hide the canister in
it--when the landlady came in.
Teresa looked at her wildly. The landlady looked at the cupboard: she
was proud of her cupboard.
“Plenty of room there,” she said boastfully: “not another house in the
neighbourhood could offer you such accommodation as that! Yes--the lock
is out of order; I don’t deny it. The last lodger’s doings! She spoilt
my tablecloth, and put the inkstand over it to hide the place. Beast!
there’s her character in one word. You didn’t hear me knock at the
bedroom door? I am so glad to see her sleeping nicely, poor dear! Her
chicken broth is ready when she wakes. I’m late to-day in making my
inquiries after our young lady. You see we have been hard at work
upstairs, getting the bedroom ready for a new lodger. Such a contrast
to the person who has just left. A perfect gentleman, this time--and
so kind in waiting a week till I was able to accommodate him. My ground
floor rooms were vacant, as you know--but he said the terms were too
high for him. Oh, I didn’t forget to mention that we had an invalid in
the house! Quiet habits (I said) are indeed an essential qualification
of any new inmate, at such a time as this. He understood. ‘I’ve been an
invalid myself’ (he said); ‘and the very reason I am leaving my present
lodgings is that they are not quiet enough.’ Isn’t that just the sort of
man we want? And, let me tell you, a handsome man too. With a drawback,
I must own, in the shape of a bald head. But such a beard, and such a
thrilling voice! Hush! Did I hear her calling?”
At last, the landlady permitted other sounds to be audible, besides the
sound of her own voice. It became possible to discover that Carmina was
now awake. Teresa hurried into the bedroom.
Left by herself in the sitting-room, the landlady--“purely out of
curiosity,” as she afterwards said, in conversation with her new
lodger--opened the cupboard, and looked in.
The canister stood straight before her, on an upper shelf. Did Miss
Carmina’s nurse take snuff? She examined the canister: there was a
white powder inside. The mutilated label spoke in an unknown tongue. She
wetted her finger and tasted the powder. The result was so disagreeable
that she was obliged to use her handkerchief. She put the canister back,
and closed the cupboard.
“Medicine, undoubtedly,” the landlady said to herself. “Why should she
hurry to put it away, when I came in?”