CHAPTER LVI.
On the next day, Mr. Mool--returning from a legal consultation to an appointment at his office--found a gentleman, whom he knew by sight, walking up and down before his door; apparently bent on intercepting him. "Mr. Null, I believe?" he said, with his customary politeness.
Mr. Null answered to his name, and asked for a moment of Mr. Mool's time. Mr. Mool looked grave, and said he was late for an appointment already. Mr. Null admitted that the clerks in the office had told him so, and said at last, what he ought to have said at first: "I am Mrs. Gallilee's medical attendant--there is serious necessity for communicating with her husband."
Mr. Mool instantly led the way into the office.
The chief clerk approached his employer, with some severity of manner. "The parties have been waiting, sir, for more than a quarter of an hour." Mr. Mool's attention wandered: he was thinking of Mrs. Gallilee. "Is she dying?" he asked. "She is out of her mind," Mr. Null answered. Those words petrified the lawyer: he looked helplessly at the clerk--who, in his turn, looked indignantly at the office clock. Mr. Mool recovered himself. "Say I am detained by a most distressing circumstance; I will call on the parties later in the day, at their own hour." Giving those directions to the clerk, he hurried Mr. Null upstairs into a private room. "Tell me about it; pray tell me about it. Stop! Perhaps, there is not time enough. What can I do?"
Mr. Null put the question, which he ought to have asked when they met at the house door. "Can you tell me Mr. Gallilee's address?"
"Certainly! Care of the Earl of Northlake--"
"Will you please write it in my pocket-book? I am so upset by this dreadful affair that I can't trust my memory."
Such a confession of helplessness as this, was all that was wanted to rouse Mr. Mool. He rejected the pocket-book, and wrote the address on a telegram. "Return directly: your wife is seriously ill." In five minutes more, the message was on its way to Scotland; and Mr. Null was at liberty to tell his melancholy story--if he could.
With assistance from Mr. Mool, he got through it. "This morning," he proceeded, "I have had the two best opinions in London. Assuming that there is no hereditary taint, the doctors think favourably of Mrs. Gallilee's chances of recovery."
"Is it violent madness?" Mr. Mool asked.
Mr. Null admitted that two nurses were required. "The doctors don't look on her violence as a discouraging symptom," he said. "They are inclined to attribute it to the strength of her constitution. I felt it my duty to place my own knowledge of the case before them. Without mentioning painful family circumstances--"
"I happen to be acquainted with the circumstances," Mr. Mool interposed. "Are they in any way connected with this dreadful state of things?"
He put that question eagerly, as if he had some strong personal interest in hearing the reply.
Mr. Null blundered on steadily with his story. "I thought it right (with all due reserve) to mention that Mrs. Gallilee had been subjected to--I won't trouble you with medical language--let us say, to a severe shock; involving mental disturbance as well as bodily injury, before her reason gave way."
"And they considered that to be the cause--?"
Mr. Null asserted his dignity. "The doctors agreed with Me, that it had shaken her power of self-control."
"You relieve me, Mr. Null--you infinitely relieve me! If our way of removing the children had done the mischief, I should never have forgiven myself."
He blushed, and said no more. Had Mr. Null noticed the slip of the tongue into which his agitation had betrayed him? Mr. Null did certainly look as if he was going to put a question. The lawyer desperately forestalled him.
"May I ask how you came to apply to me for Mr. Gallilee's address? Did you think of it yourself?"
Mr. Null had never had an idea of his own, from the day of his birth, downward. "A very intelligent man," he answered, "reminded me that you were an old friend of Mr. Gallilee. In short, it was Joseph--the footman at Fairfield Gardens."
Joseph's good opinion was of no importance to Mr. Mool's professional interests. He could gratify Mr. Null's curiosity without fear of lowering himself in the estimation of a client.
"I had better, perhaps, explain that chance allusion of mine to the children," he began. "My good friend, Mr. Gallilee, had his own reasons for removing his daughters from home for a time--reasons, I am bound to add, in which I concur. The children were to be placed under the care of their aunt, Lady Northlake. Unfortunately, her ladyship was away with my lord, cruising in their yacht. They were not able to receive Maria and Zoe at once. In the interval that elapsed--excuse my entering into particulars--our excellent friend had his own domestic reasons for arranging the--the sort of clandestine departure which did in fact take place. It was perhaps unwise on my part to consent--in short, I permitted some of the necessary clothing to be privately deposited here, and called for on the way to the station. Very unprofessional, I am aware. I did it for the best; and allowed my friendly feeling to mislead me. Can I be of any use? How is poor Miss Carmina? No better? Oh, dear! dear! Mr. Ovid will hear dreadful news, when he comes home. Can't we prepare him for it, in any way?"
Mr. Null announced that a telegram would meet Ovid at Queenstown--with the air of a man who had removed every obstacle that could be suggested to him. The kind-hearted lawyer shook his head.
"Is there no friend who can meet him there?" Mr. Mool suggested. "I have clients depending on me--cases, in which property is concerned, and reputation is at stake--or I would gladly go myself. You, with your patients, are as little at liberty as I am. Can't you think of some other friend?"
Mr. Null could think of nobody, and had nothing to propose. Of the three weak men, now brought into association by the influence of domestic calamity, he was the feeblest, beyond all doubt. Mr. Mool had knowledge of law, and could on occasion be incited to energy. Mr. Gallilee had warm affections, which, being stimulated, could at least assert themselves. Mr. Null, professionally and personally, was incapable of stepping beyond his own narrow limits, under any provocation whatever. He submitted to the force of events as a cabbage-leaf submits to the teeth of a rabbit.
After leaving the office, Carmina's medical attendant had his patient to see. Since the unfortunate alarm in the house, he had begun to feel doubtful and anxious about her again.
In the sitting-room, he found Teresa and the landlady in consultation. In her own abrupt way, the nurse made him acquainted with the nature of the conference.
"We have two worries to bother us," she said; "and the music-master is the worst of the two. There's a notion at the hospital (set agoing, I don't doubt, by the man himself), that I crushed his fingers on purpose. That's a lie! With the open cupboard door between us, how could I see him, or he see me? When I gave it a push-to, I no more knew where his hand was, than you do.