"Would you like to see them?" she said to Miss Minerva. "My mother's likeness was painted for me by my father; and then he had his photograph taken to match it. I open my portraits and look at them, while I say my prayers. It's almost like having them alive again, sometimes. Oh, if I only had my father to advise me now--!" Her heart swelled--but she kept back the tears: she was learning that self-restraint, poor soul, already! "Perhaps," she went on, "I ought not to want advice. After that fainting-fit in the Gardens, if I can persuade Ovid to leave us, I ought to do it--and I will do it!"
Miss Minerva crossed the room, and looked out of window. Carmina had roused the dormant jealousy; Carmina had fatally weakened the good influences which she had herself produced. The sudden silence of her new friend perplexed her. She too went to the window. "Do you think it would be taking a liberty?" she asked.
"No."
A short answer--and still looking out of window! Carmina tried again. "Besides, there are my aunt's wishes to consider. After my bad behaviour--"
Miss Minerva turned round from the window sharply. "Of course! There can't be a doubt of it." Her tone softened a little. "You are young, Carmina--I suppose I may call you by your name--you are young and simple. Do those innocent eyes of yours ever see below the surface?"
"I don't quite understand you."
"Do you think your aunt's only motive in wishing Mr. Ovid Vere to leave London is anxiety about his health? Do you feel no suspicion that she wants to keep him away from You?"
Carmina toyed with her locket, in an embarrassment which she was quite unable to disguise. "Are you afraid to trust me?" Miss Minerva asked. That reproach opened the girl's lips instantly.
"I am afraid to tell you how foolish I am," she answered. "Perhaps, I still feel a little strangeness between us? It seems to be so formal to call you Miss Minerva. I don't know what your Christian name is. Will you tell me?"
Miss Minerva replied rather unwillingly. "My name is Frances. Don't call me Fanny!"
"Why not?"
"Because it's too absurd to be endured! What does the mere sound of Fanny suggest? A flirting, dancing creature--plump and fair, and playful and pretty!" She went to the looking-glass, and pointed disdainfully to the reflection of herself. "Sickening to think of," she said, "when you look at that. Call me Frances--a man's name, with only the difference between an i and an e. No sentiment in it; hard, like me. Well, what was it you didn't like to say of yourself?"
Carmina dropped her voice to a whisper. "It's no use asking me what I do see, or don't see, in my aunt," she answered. "I am afraid we shall never be--what we ought to be to each other. When she came to that concert, and sat by me and looked at me--" She stopped, and shuddered over the recollection of it.
Miss Minerva urged her to go on--first, by a gesture; then by a suggestion: "They said you fainted under the heat."
"I didn't feel the heat. I felt a horrid creeping all over me. Before I looked at her, mind!--when I only knew that somebody was sitting next to me. And then, I did look round. Her eyes and my eyes flashed into each other. In that one moment, I lost all sense of myself as if I was dead. I can only tell you of it in that way. It was a dreadful surprise to me to remember it--and a dreadful pain--when they brought me to myself again. Though I do look so little and so weak, I am stronger than people think; I never fainted before. My aunt is--how can I say it properly?--hard to get on with since that time. Is there something wicked in my nature? I do believe she feels in the same way towards me. Yes; I dare say it's imagination, but it's as bad as reality for all that. Oh, I am sure you are right--she does want to keep Ovid out of my way!"
"Because she doesn't like you?" said Miss Minerva. "Is that the only reason you can think of?"
"What other reason can there be?"
The governess summoned her utmost power of self-restraint. She needed it, even to speak of the bare possibility of Carmina's marriage to Ovid, as if it was only a matter of speculative interest to herself.
"Some people object to marriages between cousins," she said. "You are cousins. Some people object to marriages between Catholics and Protestants. You are a Catholic--" No! She could not trust herself to refer to him directly; she went on to the next sentence. "And there might be some other reason," she resumed.
"Do you know what that is?" Carmina asked.
"No more than you do--thus far."
She spoke the plain truth. Thanks to the dog's interruption, and to the necessity of saving herself from discovery, the last clauses of the Will had been read in her absence.
"Can't you even guess what it is?" Carmina persisted.
"Mrs. Gallilee is very ambitious," the governess replied: "and her son has a fortune of his own. She may wish him to marry a lady of high rank. But--no--she is always in need of money. In some way, money may be concerned in it."
"In what way?" Carmina asked.
"I have already told you," Miss Minerva answered, "that I don't know."
Before the conversation could proceed, they were interrupted by the appearance of Mrs. Gallilee's maid, with a message from the schoolroom. Miss Maria wanted a little help in her Latin lesson. Noticing Carmina's letter, as she advanced to the door, it struck Miss Minerva that the woman might deliver it. "Is Mrs. Gallilee at home?" she asked. Mrs. Gallilee had just gone out. "One of her scientific lectures, I suppose," said Miss Minerva to Carmina. "Your note must wait till she comes back."
The door closed on the governess--and the lady's-maid took a liberty. She remained in the room; and produced a morsel of folded paper, hitherto concealed from view. Smirking and smiling, she handed the paper to Carmina.
"From Mr. Ovid, Miss."
CHAPTER XVII.
"Pray come to me; I am waiting for you in the garden of the Square."
In those two lines, Ovid's note began and ended. Mrs. Gallilee's maid--deeply interested in an appointment which was not without precedent in her own experience--ventured on an expression of sympathy, before she returned to the servants' hall. "Please to excuse me, Miss; I hope Mr. Ovid isn't ill? He looked sadly pale, I thought. Allow me to give you your hat." Carmina thanked her, and hurried downstairs.
Ovid was waiting at the gate of the Square--and he did indeed look wretchedly ill.
It was useless to make inquiries; they only seemed to irritate him. "I am better already, now you have come to me." He said that, and led the way to a sheltered seat among the trees. In the later evening-time the Square was almost empty. Two middle-aged ladies, walking up and down (who considerately remembered their own youth, and kept out of the way), and a boy rigging a model yacht (who was too closely occupied to notice them), were the only persons in the enclosure besides themselves.
"Does my mother know that you have come here?" Ovid asked.
"Mrs. Gallilee has gone out. I didn't