Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1185 page)

If Mrs. Gallilee could have looked into her mind at that moment as well as into her face, she would have read Miss Minerva’s thoughts in these plain terms: “All this time, madam, you have been keeping up appearances in the face of detection. You are going to use Mr. Le Frank as a means of making mischief between Ovid and Carmina. If you had taken me into your confidence, I might have been willing to help you. As it is, please observe that I am not caught in the trap you have set for me. If Mr. Ovid discovers your little plot, you can’t lay the blame on your governess’s advice.”

Mrs. Gallilee felt that she had again measured herself with Miss Minerva, and had again been beaten. She had confidently reckoned on the governess’s secret feeling towards her son to encourage, without hesitation or distrust, any project for promoting the estrangement of Ovid and Carmina. There was no alternative now but to put her first obstacle in the way of the marriage, on her own sole responsibility.

“I don’t doubt that you have spoken sincerely,” she said; “but you have failed to do justice to my son’s good sense; and you are — naturally enough, in your position — incapable of estimating his devoted attachment to Carmina.” Having planted that sting, she paused to observe the effect. Not the slightest visible result rewarded her. She went on. “Almost the last words he said to me expressed his confidence — his affectionate confidence — in my niece. The bare idea of his being jealous of anybody, and especially of such a person as Mr. Le Frank, is simply ridiculous. I am astonished that you don’t see it in that light.”

“I should see it in that light as plainly as you do,” Miss Minerva quietly replied, “if Mr. Ovid was at home.”

“What difference does that make?”

“Excuse me — it makes a great difference, as I think. He has gone away on a long journey, and gone away in bad health. He will have his hours of depression. At such times, trifles are serious things; and even well-meant words — in letters — are sometimes misunderstood. I can offer no better apology for what I have said; and I can only regret that I have made so unsatisfactory a return for your flattering confidence in me.”

Having planted
her
sting, she rose to retire.

“Have you any further commands for me?” she asked.

“I should like to be quite sure that I have not misunderstood you,” said Mrs. Gallilee. “You consider Mr. Le Frank to be competent, as director of any young lady’s musical studies? Thank you. On the one point on which I wished to consult you, my mind is at ease. Do you know where Carmina is?”

“In her room, I believe.”

“Will you have the goodness to send her here?”

“With the greatest pleasure. Good-evening!”

So ended Mrs. Gallilee’s first attempt to make use of Miss Minerva, without trusting her.

CHAPTER XXIII.

The mistress of the house, and the governess of the house, had their own special reasons for retiring to their own rooms. Carmina was in solitude as a matter of necessity. The only friends that the poor girl could gather round her now, were the absent and the dead.

She had written to Ovid — merely for the pleasure of thinking that her letter would accompany him, in the mail-steamer which took him to Quebec. She had written to Teresa. She had opened her piano, and had played the divinely beautiful music of Mozart, until its tenderness saddened her, and she closed the instrument with an aching heart. For a while she sat by the window, thinking of Ovid. The decline of day has its melancholy affinities with the decline of life. As the evening wore on, her loneliness had become harder and harder to endure. She rang for the maid, and asked if Miss Minerva was at leisure. Miss Minerva had been sent for by Mrs. Gallilee. Where was Zo? In the schoolroom, waiting until Mr. Le Frank had done with Maria, to take her turn at the piano. Left alone again, Carmina opened her locket, and put Ovid’s portrait by it on the table. Her sad fancy revived her dead parents — imagined her lover being presented to them — saw him winning their hearts by his genial voice, his sweet smile, his wise and kindly words. Miss Minerva, entering the room, found her still absorbed in her own little melancholy daydream; recalling the absent, reviving the dead — as if she had been nearing the close of life. And only seventeen years old. Alas for Carmina, only seventeen!

“Mrs. Gallilee wishes to see you.”

She started. “Is there anything wrong?” she asked.

“No. What makes you think so?”

“You speak in such a strange way. Oh, Frances, I have been longing for you to keep me company! And now you are here, you look at me as coldly as if I had offended you. Perhaps you are not well?”

“That’s it. I am not well.”

“Have some of my lavender water! Let me bathe your forehead, and then blow on it to cool you this hot weather. No? Sit down, dear, at any rate. What does my aunt want with me?”

“I think I had better not tell you.”

“Why?”

“Your aunt is sure to ask you what I have said. I have tried her temper; you know what her temper is! She has sent me here instead of sending a maid, on the chance that I may commit some imprudence. I give you her message exactly as the servant might have given it — and you can tell her so with a safe conscience. No more questions!”

“One more, please. Is it anything about Ovid?”

“No.”

“Then my aunt can wait a little. Do sit down! I want to speak to you.”

“About what?”

“About Ovid, of course!”

Carmina’s look and tone at once set Miss Minerva’s mind at ease. Her conduct, on the day of Ovid’s departure, had aroused no jealous suspicion in her innocent rival. She refused to take the offered chair.

“I have already told you your aunt is out of temper,” she said. “Go to her at once.”

Carmina rose unwillingly. “There were so many things I wanted to say to you,” she began — and was interrupted by a rapid little series of knocks at the door. Was the person in a hurry? The person proved to be the discreet and accomplished Maria. She made her excuses to Carmina with sweetness, and turned to Miss Minerva with sorrow.

“I regret to say that you are wanted in the schoolroom. Mr. Le Frank can do nothing with Zoe. Oh, dear!” She sighed over her sister’s wickedness, and waited for instructions.

To be called away, under any circumstances, was a relief to Miss Minerva. Carmina’s affectionate welcome had irritated her in the most incomprehensible manner. She was angry with herself for being irritated; she felt inclined to abuse the girl for believing her. “You fool, why don’t you see through me? Why don’t you write to that other fool who is in love with you, and tell him how I hate you both?” But for her self-command, she might have burst out with such mad words as those. Maria’s appearance was inexpressibly welcome. “Say I will follow you directly,” she answered.

Maria, in the language of the stage, made a capital exit. With a few hurried words of apology, Miss Minerva prepared to follow. Carmina stopped her at the door.

“Don’t be hard on Zo!” she said.

“I must do my duty,” Miss Minerva answered sternly.

“We were sometimes naughty ourselves when we were children,” Carmina pleaded. “And only the other day she had bread and water for tea. I am so fond of Zo! And besides — ” she looked doubtfully at Miss Minerva — ”I don’t think Mr. Le Frank is the sort of man to get on with children.”

After what had just passed between Mrs. Gallilee and herself, this expression of opinion excited the governess’s curiosity. “What makes you say that?” she asked.

“Well, my dear, for one thing Mr. Le Frank is so ugly. Don’t you agree with me?”

“I think you had better keep your opinion to yourself. If he heard of it — ”

“Is he vain? My poor father used to say that all bad musicians were vain.”

“You don’t call Mr. Le Frank a bad musician?”

“Oh, but I do! I heard him at his concert. Mere execution of the most mechanical kind. A musical box is as good as that man’s playing. This is how he does it!”

Her girlish good spirits had revived in her friend’s company. She turned gaily to the piano, and amused herself by imitating Mr. Le Frank.

Another knock at the door — a single peremptory knock this time — stopped the performance.

Miss Minerva had left the door ajar, when Carmina had prevented her from quitting the room. She looked through the open space, and discovered — Mr. Le Frank.

His bald head trembled, his florid complexion was livid with suppressed rage. “That little devil has run away!” he said — and hurried down the stairs again, as if he dare not trust himself to utter a word more.

“Has he heard me?” Carmina asked in dismay.

“He may only have heard you playing.”

Offering this hopeful suggestion, Miss Minerva felt no doubt, in her own mind, that Mr. Le Frank was perfectly well acquainted with Carmina’s opinion of him. It was easy enough to understand that he should himself inform the governess of an incident, so entirely beyond the reach of his own interference as the flight of Zo. But it was impossible to assume that the furious anger which his face betrayed, could have been excited by a child who had run away from a lesson. No: the vainest of men and musicians had heard that he was ugly, and that his pianoforte-playing resembled the performance of a musical box.

They left the room together — Carmina, ill at ease, to attend on her aunt; Miss Minerva, pondering on what had happened, to find the fugitive Zo.

The footman had already spared her the trouble of searching the house. He had seen Zo running out bare-headed into the Square, and had immediately followed her. The young rebel was locked up. “I don’t care,” said Zo; “I hate Mr. Le Frank!” Miss Minerva’s mind was too seriously preoccupied to notice this aggravation of her pupil’s offence. One subject absorbed her attention — the interview then in progress between Carmina and her aunt.

How would Mrs. Gallilee’s scheme prosper now? Mr. Le Frank might, or might not, consent to be Carmina’s teacher. Another result, however, was certain. Miss Minerva thoroughly well knew the vindictive nature of the man. He neither forgave nor forgot — he was Carmina’s enemy for life.

CHAPTER XXIV.

The month of July was near its end.

On the morning of the twenty-eighth, Carmina was engaged in replying to a letter received from Teresa. Her answer contained a record of domestic events, during an interval of serious importance in her life under Mrs. Gallilee’s roof. Translated from the Italian, the letter was expressed in these terms:

“Are you vexed with me, dearest, for this late reply to your sad news from Italy? I have but one excuse to offer.

“Can I hear of your anxiety about your husband, and not feel the wish to help you to bear your burden by writing cheerfully of myself? Over and over again, I have thought of you and have opened my desk. My spirits have failed me, and I have shut it up again. Am I now in a happier frame of mind? Yes, my good old nurse, I am happier. I have had a letter from Ovid.

“He has arrived safely at Quebec, and he is beginning to feel better already, after the voyage. You cannot imagine how beautifully, how tenderly he writes! I am almost reconciled to his absence, when I read his letter. Will that give you some idea of the happiness and the consolation that I owe to this best and dearest of men?

“Ah, my old granny, I see you start, and make that favourite mark with your thumb-nail under the word ‘consolation’! I hear you say to yourself, ‘Is she unhappy in her English home? And is Aunt Gallilee to blame for it?’ Yes! it is even so. What I would not for the whole world write to Ovid, I may confess to you. Aunt Gallilee is indeed a hard, hard woman.

“Do you remember telling me, in your dear downright way, that Mr. Le Frank looked like a rogue? I don’t know whether he is a rogue — but I do know that it is through his conduct that my aunt is offended with me.