Heart and Science. Wilkie Collins

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ is to say, if you smoked, which of course you don’t. Be a good girl, Zo; attend to your lessons.”

      Zo’s perversity in the matter of lessons put its own crooked construction on this excellent advice. She answered in a whisper, “Give us a holiday.”

      The passing aspirations of idle minds, being subject to the law of chances, are sometimes fulfilled, and so exhibit poor human wishes in a consolatory light. Thanks to the conversation between Carmina and Ovid, Zo got her holiday after all.

      Mrs. Gallilee, still as amiable as ever, had joined her son and her niece at the aviary. Ovid said to his mother, “Carmina is fond of birds. I have been telling her she may see all the races of birds assembled in the Zoological Gardens. It’s a perfect day. Why shouldn’t we go!”

      The stupidest woman living would have understood what this proposal really meant. Mrs. Gallilee sanctioned it as composedly as if Ovid and Carmina had been brother and sister. “I wish I could go with you,” she said, “but my household affairs fill my morning. And there is a lecture this afternoon, which I cannot possibly lose. I don’t know, Carmina, whether you are interested in these things. We are to have the apparatus, which illustrates the conversion of radiant energy into sonorous vibrations. Have you ever heard, my dear, of the Diathermancy of Ebonite? Not in your way, perhaps?”

      Carmina looked as unintelligent as Zo herself. Mrs. Gallilee’s science seemed to frighten her. The Diathermancy of Ebonite, by some incomprehensible process, drove her bewildered mind back on her old companion. “I want to give Teresa a little pleasure before we part,” she said timidly; “may she go with us?”

      “Of course!” cried Mrs. Gallilee. “And, now I think of it, why shouldn’t the children have a little pleasure too? I will give them a holiday. Don’t be alarmed, Ovid; Miss Minerva will look after them. In the meantime, Carmina, tell your good old friend to get ready.”

      Carmina hastened away, and so helped Mrs. Gallilee to the immediate object which she had in view—a private interview with her son.

      Ovid anticipated a searching inquiry into the motives which had led him to give up the sea voyage. His mother was far too clever a woman to waste her time in that way. Her first words told him that his motive was as plainly revealed to her as the sunlight shining in at the window.

      “That’s a charming girl,” she said, when Carmina closed the door behind her. “Modest and natural—quite the sort of girl, Ovid, to attract a clever man like you.”

      Ovid was completely taken by surprise, and owned it by his silence. Mrs. Gallilee went on in a tone of innocent maternal pleasantry.

      “You know you began young,” she said; “your first love was that poor little wizen girl of Lady Northlake’s who died. Child’s play, you will tell me, and nothing more. But, my dear, I am afraid I shall require some persuasion, before I quite sympathize with this new—what shall I call it?—infatuation is too hard a word, and ‘fancy’ means nothing. We will leave it a blank. Marriages of cousins are debatable marriages, to say the least of them; and Protestant fathers and Papist mothers do occasionally involve difficulties with children. Not that I say, No. Far from it. But if this is to go on, I do hesitate.”

      Something in his mother’s tone grated on Ovid’s sensibilities. “I don’t at all follow you,” he said, rather sharply; “you are looking a little too far into the future.”

      “Then we will return to the present,” Mrs. Gallilee replied—still with the readiest submission to the humour of her son.

      On recent occasions, she had expressed the opinion that Ovid would do wisely—at his age, and with his professional prospects—to wait a few years before he thought of marrying. Having said enough in praise of her niece to satisfy him for the time being (without appearing to be meanly influenced, in modifying her opinion, by the question of money), her next object was to induce him to leave England immediately, for the recovery of his health. With Ovid absent, and with Carmina under her sole superintendence, Mrs. Gallilee could see her way to her own private ends.

      “Really,” she resumed, “you ought to think seriously of change of air and scene. You know you would not allow a patient, in your present state of health, to trifle with himself as your are trifling now. If you don’t like the sea, try the Continent. Get away somewhere, my dear, for your own sake.”

      It was only possible to answer this, in one way. Ovid owned that his mother was right and asked for time to think. To his infinite relief, he was interrupted by a knock at the door. Miss Minerva entered the room—not in a very amiable temper, judging by appearances.

      “I am afraid I disturb you,” she began.

      Ovid seized the opportunity of retreat. He had some letters to write—he hurried away to the library.

      “Is there any mistake?” the governess asked, when she and Mrs. Gallilee were alone.

      “In what respect, Miss Minerva?”

      “I met your niece, ma’am, on the stairs. She says you wish the children to have a holiday.”

      “Yes, to go with my son and Miss Carmina to the Zoological Gardens.”

      “Miss Carmina said I was to go too.”

      “Miss Carmina was perfectly right.”

      The governess fixed her searching eyes on Mrs. Gallilee. “You really wish me to go with them?” she said.

      “I do.”

      “I know why.”

      In the course of their experience, Mrs. Gallilee and Miss Minerva had once quarrelled fiercely—and Mrs. Gallilee had got the worst of it. She learnt her lesson. For the future she knew how to deal with her governess. When one said, “I know why,” the other only answered, “Do you?”

      “Let’s have it out plainly, ma’am,” Miss Minerva proceeded. “I am not to let Mr. Ovid” (she laid a bitterly strong emphasis on the name, and flushed angrily)—“I am not to let Mr. Ovid and Miss Carmina be alone together.”

      “You are a good guesser,” Mrs. Gallilee remarked quietly.

      “No,” said Miss Minerva more quietly still; “I have only seen what you have seen.”

      “Did I tell you what I have seen?”

      “Quite needless, ma’am. Your son is in love with his cousin. When am I to be ready?”

      The bland mistress mentioned the hour. The rude governess left the room.

      Mrs. Gallilee looked at the closing door with a curious smile. She had already suspected Miss Minerva of being crossed in love. The suspicion was now confirmed, and the man was discovered.

      “Soured by a hopeless passion,” she said to herself. “And the object is—my son.”

      CHAPTER XI.

      On entering the Zoological Gardens, Ovid turned at once to the right, leading Carmina to the aviaries, so that she might begin by seeing the birds. Miss Minerva, with Maria in dutiful attendance, followed them. Teresa kept at СКАЧАТЬ