Уилки Коллинз - Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time

Carmina looked at her—and rose in alarm. “Are you in pain?” she asked.

“Yes—neuralgia, I think. I have the remedy in my room. Don’t keep me, my dear. Mrs. Gallilee mustn’t find me here again.”

The paroxysm of pain which Carmina had noticed, passed over her face once more. She subdued it, and left the room. The pain mastered her again; a low cry broke from her when she closed the door. Carmina ran out: “Frances! what is it?” Frances looked over her shoulder, while she slowly ascended the stairs. “Never mind!” she said gently. “I have got my remedy.”

Carmina advanced a step to follow her, and drew back.

Was that expression of suffering really caused by pain of the body? or was it attributable to anything that she had rashly said? She tried to recall what had passed between Frances and herself. The effort wearied her. Her thoughts turned self-reproachfully to Ovid. If he had been speaking to a friend whose secret sorrow was known to him, would he have mentioned the name of the woman whom they both loved? She looked at his portrait, and reviled herself as a selfish insensible wretch. “Will Ovid improve me?” she wondered. “Shall I be a little worthier of him, when I am his wife?”

Luncheon time came; and Mrs. Gallilee sent word that they were not to wait for her.

“She’s studying,” said Mr. Gallilee, with awe-struck looks. “She’s going to make a speech at the Discussion to-morrow. The man who gives the lecture is the man she’s going to pitch into. I don’t know him; but how do you feel about it yourself, Carmina?—I wouldn’t stand in his shoes for any sum of money you could offer me. Poor devil! I beg your pardon, my dear; let me give you a wing of the fowl. Boiled fowl—eh? and tongue—ha? Do you know the story of the foreigner? He dined out fifteen times with his English friends. And there was boiled fowl and tongue at every dinner. The fifteenth time, the foreigner couldn’t stand it any longer. He slapped his forehead, and he said, ‘Ah, merciful Heaven, cock and bacon again!’ You won’t mention it, will you?—and perhaps you think as I do?—I’m sick of cock and bacon, myself.”

Mr. Null’s medical orders still prescribed fresh air. The carriage came to the door at the regular hour; and Mr. Gallilee, with equal regularity, withdrew to his club.

Carmina was too uneasy to leave the house, without seeing Miss Minerva first. She went up to the schoolroom.

There was no sound of voices, when she opened the door. Miss Minerva was writing, and silence had been proclaimed. The girls were ready dressed for their walk. Industrious Maria had her book. Idle Zo, perched on a high chair, sat kicking her legs. “If you say a word,” she whispered, as Carmina passed her, “you’ll be called an Imp, and stuck up on a chair. I shall go to the boy.”

“Are you better, Frances?”

“Much better, my dear.”

Her face denied it; the look of suffering was there still. She tore up the letter which she had been writing, and threw the fragments into the waste-paper basket.

“That’s the second letter you’ve torn up,” Zo remarked.

“Say a word more—and you shall have bread and water for tea!” Miss Minerva was not free from irritation, although she might be free from pain. Even Zo noticed how angry the governess was.

“I wish you could drive with me in the carriage,” said Carmina. “The air would do you so much good.”

“Impossible! But you may soothe my irritable nerves in another way, if you like.”

“How?”

“Relieve me of these girls. Take them out with you. Do you mind?”

Zo instantly jumped off her chair; and even Maria looked up from her book.

“I will take them with pleasure. Must we ask my aunt’s permission?”

“We will dispense with your aunt’s permission. She is shut up in her study—and we are all forbidden to disturb her. I will take it on myself.” She turned to the girls with another outbreak of irritability. “Be off!”

Maria rose with dignity, and made one of her successful exits. “I am sorry, dear Miss Minerva, if I have done anything to make you angry.” She pointed the emphasis on “I,” by a side-look at her sister. Zo bounced out of the room, and performed the Italian boy’s dance on the landing. “For shame!” said Maria. Zo burst into singing. “Yah yah-yah-bellah-vitah-yah! Jolly! jolly! jolly!—we are going out for a drive!”

Carmina waited, to say a friendly word, before she followed the girls.

“You didn’t think me neglectful, Frances, when I let you go upstairs by yourself!” Miss Minerva answered sadly and kindly. “The best thing you could do was to leave me by myself.”

Carmina’s mind was still not quite at ease. “Yes—but you were in pain,” she said.

“You curious child! I am not in pain now.”

“Will you make me comfortable, Frances? Give me a kiss.”

“Two, my dear—if you like.”

She kissed Carmina on one cheek and on the other. “Now leave me to write,” she said.

Carmina left her.

The drive ought to have been a pleasant one, with Zo in the carriage. To Marceline, it was a time of the heartiest enjoyment. Maria herself condescended to smile, now and then. There was only one dull person among them. “Miss Carmina was but poor company,” the maid remarked when they got back.

Mrs. Gallilee herself received them in the hall.

“You will never take the children out again without my leave,” she said to Carmina. “The person who is really responsible for what you have done, will mislead you no more.” With those words she entered the library, and closed the door.

Maria and Zo, at the sight of their mother, had taken flight. Carmina stood alone in the hall. Mrs. Gallilee had turned her cold. After awhile, she followed the children as far as her own room. There, her resolution failed her. She called faintly upstairs—“Frances!” There was no answering voice. She went into her room. A small paper packet was on the table; sealed, and addressed to herself. She tore it open. A ring with a spinel ruby in it dropped out: she recognised the stone—it was Miss Minerva’s ring.

Some blotted lines were traced on the paper inside.

“I have tried to pour out my heart to you in writing—and I have torn up the letters. The fewest words are the best. Look back at my confession—and you will know why I have left you. You shall hear from me, when I am more worthy of you than I am now. In the meantime, wear my ring. It will tell you how mean I once was. F. M.”

Carmina looked at the ring. She remembered that Frances had tried to make her accept it as security, in return for the loan of thirty pounds.

She referred to the confession. Two passages in it were underlined: “The wickedness in me, on which Mrs. Gallilee calculated, may be in me still.” And, again: “Even now, when you have found me out, I love him. Don’t trust me.”

Never had Carmina trusted her more faithfully than at that bitter moment!

The ordinary aspect of the schoolroom was seen no more.

Installed in a position of temporary authority, the parlour-maid sat silently at her needlework. Maria stood by the window, in the new character of an idle girl—with her handkerchief in her hand, and her everlasting book dropped unnoticed on the floor. Zo lay flat on her back, on the hearth-rug, hugging the dog in her arms. At intervals, she rolled herself over slowly from side to side, and stared at the ceiling with wondering eyes. Miss Minerva’s departure had struck the parlour-maid dumb, and had demoralized the pupils.

Maria broke the silence at last. “I wonder where Carmina is?” she said.

“In her room, most likely,” the parlour-maid suggested.