Mrs. Gallilee turned swiftly and sternly to her son. “When I am dead and gone,” she said, “I look to you to defend my memory.”
“To defend your memory?” Ovid repeated, wondering what she could possibly mean.
“If I do become interested in the disposal of Robert’s fortune—which God forbid!—can’t you foresee what will happen?” his mother inquired bitterly. “Lady Northlake will say, ‘Maria intrigued for this!’”
Mr. Mool looked doubtfully at the ferns. No! His vegetable allies were not strong enough to check any further outpouring of such family feeling as this. Nothing was to be trusted, in the present emergency, but the superior authority of the Will.
“Pardon me,” he said; “there are some further instructions, Mrs. Gallilee, which, as I venture to think, exhibit your late brother’s well-known liberality of feeling in a very interesting light. They relate to the provision made for his daughter, while she is residing under your roof. Miss Carmina is to have the services of the best masters, in finishing her education.”
“Certainly!” cried Mrs. Gallilee, with the utmost fervour.
“And the use of a carriage to herself, whenever she may require it.”
“No, Mr. Mool! Two carriages—in such a climate as this. One open, and one closed.”
“And to defray these and other expenses, the Trustees are authorized to place at your disposal one thousand a year.”
“Too much! too much!”
Mr. Mool might have agreed with her—if he had nor known that Robert Graywell had thought of his sister’s interests, in making this excessive provision for expenses incurred on his daughter’s account.
“Perhaps, her dresses and her pocket money are included?” Mrs. Gallilee resumed.
Mr. Mool smiled, and shook his head. “Mr. Graywell’s generosity has no limits,” he said, “where his daughter is concerned. Miss Carmina is to have five hundred a year for pocket-money and dresses.”
Mrs. Gallilee appealed to the sympathies of her son. “Isn’t it touching?” she said. “Dear Carmina! my own people in Paris shall make her dresses. Well, Mr. Mool?”
“Allow me to read the exact language of the Will next,” Mr. Mool answered. “‘If her sweet disposition leads her into exceeding her allowance, in the pursuit of her own little charities, my Trustees are hereby authorized, at their own discretion, to increase the amount, within the limit of another five hundred pounds annually.’ It sounds presumptuous, perhaps, on my part,” said Mr. Mool, venturing on a modest confession of enthusiasm, “but one can’t help thinking, What a good father! what a good child!”
Mrs. Gallilee had another appropriate remark ready on her lips, when the unlucky dog interrupted her once more. He made a sudden rush into the conservatory, barking with all his might. A crashing noise followed the dog’s outbreak, which sounded like the fall of a flower-pot.
Ovid hurried into the conservatory—with the dog ahead of him, tearing down the steps which led into the back garden.
The pot lay broken on the tiled floor. Struck by the beauty of the flower that grew in it, he stooped to set it up again. If, instead of doing this, he had advanced at once to the second door, he would have seen a lady hastening into the house; and, though her back view only was presented, he could hardly have failed to recognize Miss Minerva. As it was, when he reached the door, the garden was empty.
He looked up at the house, and saw Carmina at the open window of her bedroom.
The sad expression on that sweet young face grieved him. Was she thinking of her happy past life? or of the doubtful future, among strangers in a strange country? She noticed Ovid—and her eyes brightened. His customary coldness with women melted instantly: he kissed his hand to her. She returned the salute (so familiar to her in Italy) with her gentle smile, and looked back into the room. Teresa showed herself at the window. Always following her impulses without troubling herself to think first, the duenna followed them now. “We are dull up here,” she called out. “Come back to us, Mr. Ovid.” The words had hardly been spoken before they both turned from the window. Teresa pointed significantly into the room. They disappeared.
Ovid went back to the library.
“Anybody listening?” Mr. Mool inquired.
“I have not discovered anybody, but I doubt if a stray cat could have upset that heavy flower-pot.” He looked round him as he made the reply. “Where is my mother?” he asked.
Mrs. Gallilee had gone upstairs, eager to tell Carmina of the handsome allowance made to her by her father. Having answered in these terms, Mr. Mool began to fold up the Will—and suddenly stopped.
“Very inconsiderate, on my part,” he said; “I forgot, Mr. Ovid, that you haven’t heard the end of it. Let me give you a brief abstract. You know, perhaps, that Miss Carmina is a Catholic? Very natural—her poor mother’s religion. Well, sir, her good father forgets nothing. All attempts at proselytizing are strictly forbidden.”
Ovid smiled. His mother’s religious convictions began and ended with the inorganic matter of the earth.
“The last clause,” Mr. Mool proceeded, “seemed to agitate Mrs. Gallilee quite painfully. I reminded her that her brother had no near relations living, but Lady Northlake and herself. As to leaving money to my lady, in my lord’s princely position—”
“Pardon me,” Ovid interposed, “what is there to agitate my mother in this?”
Mr. Mool made his apologies for not getting sooner to the point, with the readiest good-will. “Professional habit, Mr. Ovid,” he explained. “We are apt to be wordy—paid, in fact, at so much a folio, for so many words!—and we like to clear the ground first. Your late uncle ends his Will, by providing for the disposal of his fortune, in two possible events, as follows: Miss Carmina may die unmarried, or Miss Carmina (being married) may die without offspring.”
Seeing the importance of the last clause now, Ovid stopped him again. “Do I remember the amount of the fortune correctly?” he asked. “Was it a hundred and thirty thousand pounds?”
“Yes.”
“And what becomes of all that money, if Carmina never marries, or if she leaves no children?”
“In either of those cases, sir, the whole of the money goes to Mrs. Gallilee and her daughters.”’
CHAPTER IX.
Time had advanced to midnight, after the reading of the Will—and Ovid was at home.
The silence of the quiet street in which he lived was only disturbed by the occasional rolling of carriage wheels, and by dance-music from the house of one of his neighbours who was giving a ball. He sat at his writing-table, thinking. Honest self-examination had laid out the state of his mind before him like a map, and had shown him, in its true proportions, the new interest that filled his life.
Of that interest he was now the willing slave. If he had not known his mother to be with her, he would have gone back to Carmina when the lawyer left the house. As it was, he had sent a message upstairs, inviting himself to dinner, solely for the purpose of seeing Carmina again—and he had been bitterly disappointed when he heard that Mr. and Mrs. Gallilee were engaged, and that his cousin would take tea in her room. He had eaten something at this club, without caring what it was. He had gone to the Opera afterwards, merely because his recollections of a favourite singing-lady of that season vaguely reminded him of Carmina. And there he was, at midnight, on his return from the music, eager for the next opportunity of seeing his cousin, a few hours hence—when he had arranged to say good-bye at the family breakfast-table.
To