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

“Forgive her? I should be only too glad to forgive her!” cried Mr. Gallilee, bursting into violent agitation. “How am I to do it? Good God! Mool, how am I to do it? You didn’t hear those infamous words. You didn’t see that dreadful death-struck look of the poor girl. I declare to you I turn cold when I think of my wife! I can’t go to her when I ought to go—I send the servants into her room. My children, too—my dear good children—it’s enough to break one’s heart—think of their being brought up by a mother who could say what she said, and do—What will they see, I ask you what will they see, if she gets Carmina back in the house, and treats that sweet young creature as she will treat her? There were times last night, when I thought of going away for ever—Lord knows where—and taking the girls with me. What am I talking about? I had something to say, and I don’t know what it is; I don’t know my own self! There, there; I’ll keep quiet. It’s my poor stupid head, I suppose—hot, Mool, burning hot. Let’s be reasonable. Yes, yes, yes; let’s be reasonable. You’re a lawyer. I said to myself, when I came here, ‘I want Mool’s advice.’ Be a dear good fellow—set my mind at ease. Oh, my friend, my old friend, what can I do for my children?”

Amazed and distressed—utterly at a loss how to interfere to any good purpose—Mr. Mool recovered his presence of mind, the moment Mr. Gallilee appealed to him in his legal capacity. “Don’t distress yourself about your children,” he said kindly. “Thank God, we stand on firm ground, there.”

“Do you mean it, Mool?”

“I mean it. Where your daughters are concerned, the authority is yours. Be firm, Gallilee! be firm!”

“I will! You set me the example—don’t you? You’re firm—eh?”

“Firm as a rock. I agree with you. For the present at least, the children must be removed.”

“At once, Mool!”

“At once!” the lawyer repeated.

They had wrought each other up to the right pitch of resolution, by this time. They were almost loud enough for the clerks to hear them in the office.

“No matter what my wife may say!” Mr. Gallilee stipulated.

“No matter what she may say,” Mr. Mool rejoined, “the father is master.”

“And you know the law.”

“And I know the law. You have only to assert yourself.”

“And you have only to back me.”

“For your children’s sake, Gallilee!”

“Under my lawyer’s advice, Mool!”

The one resolute Man was produced at last—without a flaw in him anywhere. They were both exhausted by the effort. Mr. Mool suggested a glass of wine.

Mr. Gallilee ventured on a hint. “You don’t happen to have a drop of champagne handy?” he said.

The lawyer rang for his housekeeper. In five minutes, they were pledging each other in foaming tumblers. In five minutes more, they plunged back into business. The question of the best place to which the children could be removed, was easily settled. Mr. Mool offered his own house; acknowledging modestly that it had perhaps one drawback—it was within easy reach of Mrs. Gallilee. The statement of this objection stimulated his friend’s memory. Lady Northlake was in Scotland. Lady Northlake had invited Maria and Zo, over and over again, to pass the autumn with their cousins; but Mrs. Gallilee’s jealousy had always contrived to find some plausible reason for refusal. “Write at once,” Mr. Mool advised. “You may do it in two lines. Your wife is ill; Miss Carmina is ill; you are not able to leave London—and the children are pining for fresh air.” In this sense, Mr. Gallilee wrote. He insisted on having the letter sent to the post immediately. “I know it’s long before post-time,” he explained. “But I want to compose my mind.”

The lawyer paused, with his glass of wine at his lips. “I say! You’re not hesitating already?”

“No more than you are,” Mr. Gallilee answered.

“You will really send the girls away?”

“The girls shall go, on the day when Lady Northlake invites them.”

“I’ll make a note of that,” said Mr. Mool.

He made the note; and they rose to say good-bye. Faithful Mr. Gallilee still thought of Carmina. “Do consider it again!” he said at parting. “Are you sure the law won’t help her?”

“I might look at her father’s Will,” Mr. Mool replied.

Mr. Gallilee saw the hopeful side of this suggestion, in the brightest colours. “Why didn’t you think of it before?” he asked.

Mr. Mool gently remonstrated. “Don’t forget how many things I have on my mind,” he said. “It only occurs to me now that the Will may give us a remedy—if there is any open opposition to the ward’s marriage engagement, on the guardian’s part.”

There he stopped; knowing Mrs. Gallilee’s methods of opposition too well to reckon hopefully on such a result as this. But he was a merciful man—and he kept his misgivings to himself.

On the way home, Mr. Gallilee encountered his wife’s maid. Marceline was dropping a letter into the pillar-post-box at the corner of the Square; she changed colour, on seeing her master. “Corresponding with her sweetheart,” Mr. Gallilee concluded.

Entering the house with an unfinished cigar in his mouth, he made straight for the smoking-room—and passed his youngest daughter, below him, waiting out of sight on the kitchen stairs.

“Have you done it?” Zo whispered, when Marceline returned by the servants’ entrance.

“It’s safe in the post, dear. Now tell me what you saw yesterday, when you were hidden in Miss Carmina’s bedroom.”

The tone in which she spoke implied a confidential agreement. With honourable promptitude Zo, perched on her friend’s knee, exerted her memory, and rewarded Marceline for posting her letter to Ovid.

It was past the middle of the day, before Mr. Le Frank paid his promised visit to Mrs. Gallilee. He entered the room with gloomy looks; and made his polite inquiries, as became a depressed musician, in the minor key.

“I am sorry, madam, to find you still on the sofa. Is there no improvement in your health?”

“None whatever.”

“Does your medical attendant give you any hope?”

“He does what they all do—he preaches patience. No more of myself! You appear to be in depressed spirits.”

Mr. Le Frank admitted with a sigh that appearances had not misrepresented him. “I have been bitterly disappointed,” he said. “My feelings as an artist are wounded to the quick. But why do I trouble you with my poor little personal affairs? I humbly beg your pardon.”

His eyes accompanied this modest apology with a look of uneasy anticipation: he evidently expected to be asked to explain himself. Events had followed her instructions to Mr. Null, which left Mrs. Gallilee in need of employing her music-master’s services. She felt the necessity of exerting herself; and did it—with an effort.

“You have no reason, I hope, to complain of your pupils?” she said.

“At this time of year, madam, I have no pupils. They are all out of town.”

She was too deeply preoccupied by her own affairs to trouble herself any further. The direct way was the easy way. She said wearily, “Well, what is it?”

He answered in plain terms, this time.

“A bitter humiliation, Mrs. Gallilee! I have been made to regret that I asked you to honour me by accepting the dedication of my Song. The music-sellers, on whom the sale depends, have not taken a tenth part of the number of copies for which we expected them to subscribe. Has some extraordinary change come over the public taste? My composition has been carefully based on fashionable principles—that is to say, on the principles of the modern German school. As little tune as possible; and that little strictly confined to the accompaniment. And what is the result? Loss confronts me, instead of profit—my agreement makes me liable for half the expenses of publication. And, what is far more serious in my estimation, your honoured name is associated with a failure! Don’t notice me—the artist nature—I shall be better in a minute.” He took out a profusely-scented handkerchief, and buried his face in it with a groan.