Heart and Science - Wilkie Collins (ebooks that read to you TXT) š
- Author: Wilkie Collins
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He had called at Mrs. Gallileeās house, after the concert, to get a little tea (with a large infusion of praise) in the schoolroom. A striking personal contrast confronted him, in the face of the lady who was dispensing the hospitalities of the table. Mr. Le Frankās plump cheeks were, in colour, of the obtrusively florid sort. The relics of yellow hair, still adhering to the sides of his head, looked as silkily frail as spun glass. His noble beard made amends for his untimely baldness. The glossy glory of it exhaled delicious perfumes; the keenest eyes might have tried in vain to discover a hair that was out of place. Miss Minervaās eager sallow face, so lean, and so hard, and so long, looked, by contrast, as if it wanted some sort of discreet covering thrown over some part of it. Her coarse black hair projected like a penthouse over her bushy black eyebrows and her keen black eyes. Oh, dear me (as they said in the servantsā hall), she would never be marriedāso yellow and so learned, so ugly and so poor! And yet, if mystery is interesting, this was an interesting woman. The people about her felt an uneasy perception of something secret, ominously secret, in the nature of the governess which defied detection. If Inquisitive Science, vowed to medical research, could dissect firmness of will, working at its steadiest repressive actionāthen, the mystery of Miss Minervaās inner nature might possibly have been revealed. As it was, nothing more remarkable exposed itself to view than an irritable temper; serving perhaps as safety-valve to an underlying explosive force, which (with strong enough temptation and sufficient opportunity) might yet break out.
āGently, Mr. Le Frank! The tea is hotāyou may burn your mouth. How am I to tell you what has happened?ā Miss Minerva dropped the playfully provocative tone, with infinite tact, exactly at the right moment. āJust imagine,ā she resumed, āa scene on the stage, occurring in private life. The lady who fainted at your concert, turns out to be no less a person that Mrs. Gallileeās niece!ā
The general folly which reads a prospectus and blindly speculates in shares, is matched by the equally diffused stupidity, which is incapable of discovering that there can be any possible relation between fiction and truth. Say itās in a novelāand you are a fool if you believe it. Say itās in a newspaperāand you are a fool if you doubt it. Mr. Le Frank, following the general example, followed it on this occasion a little too unreservedly. He avowed his doubts of the circumstance just related, although it was, on the authority of a lady, a circumstance occurring in real life! Far from being offended, Miss Minerva cordially sympathized with him.
āIt is too theatrical to be believed,ā she admitted; ābut this fainting young person is positively the interesting stranger we have been expecting from Italy. You know Mrs. Gallilee. Hers was the first smelling-bottle produced; hers was the presence of mind which suggested a horizontal position. āHelp the heart,ā she said; ādonāt impede it.ā The whole theory of fainting fits, in six words! In another moment,ā proceeded the governess making a theatrical point without suspecting itāāin another moment, Mrs. Gallilee herself stood in need of the smelling-bottle.ā
Mr. Le Frank was not a true believer, even yet. āYou donāt mean she fainted!ā he said.
Miss Minerva held up the indicative forefinger, with which she emphasized instruction when her pupils required rousing. āMrs. Gallileeās strength of mindāas I was about to say, if you had listened to meāresisted the shock. What the effort must have cost her you will presently understand. Our interesting young lady was accompanied by a hideous old foreign woman who completely lost her head. She smacked her hands distractedly; she called on the saints (without producing the slightest effect)ābut she mixed up a name, remarkable even in Italy, with the rest of the delirium; and that was serious. Put yourself in Mrs. Gallileeās placeāā
āI couldnāt do it,ā said Mr. Le Frank, with humility.
Miss Minerva passed over this reply without notice. Perhaps she was not a believer in the humility of musicians.
āThe young ladyās Christian name,ā she proceeded, āis Carmina; (put the accent, if you please, on the first syllable). The moment Mrs. Gallilee heard the name, it struck her like a blow. She enlightened the old woman, and asserted herself as Miss Carminaās aunt in an instant. āI am Mrs. Gallilee:ā that was all she said. The resultāāMiss Minerva paused, and pointed to the ceiling; āthe result is up there. Our charming guest was on the sofa, and the hideous old nurse was fanning her, when I had the honour of seeing them just now. No, Mr. Le Frank! I havenāt done yet. There is a last act in this drama of private life still to relate. A medical gentleman was present at the concert, who offered his services in reviving Miss Carmina. The same gentleman is now in attendance on the interesting patient. Can you guess who he is?ā
Mr. Le Frank had sold a ticket for his concert to the medical adviser of the familyāone Mr. Null. A cautious guess in this direction seemed to offer the likeliest chance of success.
āHe is a patron of music,ā the pianist began.
āHe hates music,ā the governess interposed.
āI mean Mr. Null,ā Mr. Le Frank persisted.
āI meanāā Miss Minerva paused (like the cat with the mouse again!)āāI mean, Mr. Ovid Vere.ā
What form the music-masterās astonishment might have assumed may be matter for speculation, it was never destined to become matter of fact. At the moment when Miss Minerva overwhelmed him with the climax of her story, a little, rosy, elderly gentleman, with a round face, a sweet smile, and a curly gray head, walked into the room, accompanied by two girls. Persons of small importanceāonly Mr. Gallilee and his daughters.
āHow dāye-do, Mr. Le Frank. I hope you got plenty of money by the concert. I gave away my own two tickets. You will excuse me, Iām sure. Music, I canāt think why, always sends me to sleep. Here are your two pupils, Miss Minerva, safe and sound. It struck me we were rather in the way, when that sweet young creature was brought home. Sadly in want of quiet, poor thingānot in want of us. Mrs. Gallilee and Ovid, so clever and attentive, were just the right people in the right place. So I put on my hatāIām always available, Mr. Le Frank; I have the great advantage of never having anything to doāand I said to the girls, āLetās have a walk.ā We had no particular place to go toāthatās another advantage of mineāso we drifted about. I didnāt mean it, but, somehow or other, we stopped at a pastry-cookās shop. What was the name of the pastry-cook?ā
So far Mr. Gallilee proceeded, speaking in the oddest self-contradictory voice, if such a description is permissibleāa voice at once high in pitch and mild in tone: in short, as Mr. Le Frank once professionally remarked, a soft falsetto. When the good gentleman paused to make his little effort of memory, his eldest daughterāaged twelve, and always ready to distinguish herselfāsaw her opportunity, and took the rest of the narrative into her own hands.
Miss Maria, named after her mother, was one of the successful new products of the age we live ināthe conventionally-charming child (who has never been smacked); possessed of the large round eyes that we see in pictures, and the sweet manners and perfect principles that we read of in books. She called everybody ādear;ā she knew to a nicety how much oxygen she wanted in the composition of her native air; andāalas, poor wretch!āshe had never wetted her shoes or dirtied her face since the day when she was born.
āDear Miss Minerva,ā said Maria, āthe pastry-cookās name was Timbal. We have had ices.ā
His mind being now set at rest on the subject of the pastry-cook, Mr. Gallilee turned to his youngest daughterāaged ten, and one of the unsuccessful products of the age we live in. This was a curiously slow, quaint, self-contained child; the image of her father, with an occasional reflection of his smile; incurably stupid, or incurably perverseāthe friends of the family were not quite sure which. Whether she might have been over-crammed with useless knowledge, was not a question in connection with the subject which occurred to anybody.
āRouse yourself, Zo,ā said Mr. Gallilee. āWhat did we have besides ices?ā
Zoe (known to her father, by vulgar abbreviation, as āZoā) took Mr. Gallileeās stumpy red hand, and held hard by it as if that was the one way in which a dull child could rouse herself, with a prospect of success.
āIāve had so many of them,ā she said; āI donāt know. Ask Maria.ā
Maria responded with the sweetest readiness. āDear Zoe, you are so slow! Cheesecakes.ā
Mr. Gallilee patted Zoeās head as encouragingly as if she had discovered the right answer by herself. āThatās rightāices and cheese-cakes,ā he said. āWe tried cream-ice, and then we tried water-ice. The children, Miss Minerva, preferred the cream-ice. And, do you know, Iām of their opinion. Thereās something in a cream-iceāwhat do you think yourself of cream-ices, Mr. Le Frank?ā
It was one among the many weaknesses of Mr. Gallileeās character to be incapable of opening his lips without, sooner or later, taking somebody into his confidence. In the merest trifles, he instinctively invited sympathy and agreement from any person within his reachāfrom a total stranger quite as readily as from an intimate friend. Mr. Le Frank, representing the present Court of Social Appeal, attempted to deliver judgment on the question of ices, and was interrupted without ceremony by Miss Minerva. She, too, had been waiting her opportunity to speak, and she now took itānot amiably.
āWith all possible respect, Mr. Gallilee, I venture to entreat that you will be a little more thoughtful, where the children are concerned. I beg your pardon, Mr. Le Frank, for interrupting youābut it is really a little too hard on Me. I am held responsible for the health of these girls; I am blamed over and over again, when it is not my fault, for irregularities in their dietāand there they are, at this moment, chilled with ices and cloyed with cakes! What will Mrs. Gallilee say?ā
āDonāt tell her,ā Mr. Gallilee suggested.
āThe girls will be thirsty for the rest of the evening,ā Miss Minerva persisted; āthe girls will have no appetite for the last meal before bedtime. And their mother will ask Me what it means.ā
āMy good creature,ā cried Mr. Gallilee, ādonāt be afraid of the girlsā appetites! Take off their hats, and give them something nice for supper. They inherit my stomach, Miss Minervaāand theyāll ātuck in,ā as we used to say at school. Did they say so in your time, Mr. Le Frank?ā
Mrs. Gallileeās governess and vulgar expressions were anomalies never to be reconciled, under any circumstances. Miss Minerva took off the hats in stern silence. Even āPapaā might have seen the contempt in her face, if she had not managed to hide it in this way, by means of the girls.
In the silence that ensued, Mr. Le Frank had his chance of speaking, and showed himself to be a gentleman with a happily balanced characterāa musician, with an eye to business. Using gratitude to Mr. Gallilee as a means of persuasion, he gently pushed the interests of a friend who was giving a concert next week. āWe poor artists have our faults, my dear sir; but we are all earnest in helping each other. My friend sang for nothing at my concert. Donāt suppose for a moment that he expects it of me! But I am
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