Heart and Science

Wilkie Collins


Heart and Science Page 99

"Tell us about your cousins," he said, by way of effecting a diversion.

"The big ones?" Zo asked.

"No; the little ones, like you."

"Nice girls--they play at everything I tell 'em. Jolly boys--when they knock a girl down, they pick her up again, and clean her."

Carmina was once more in danger of passing the limit. Ovid made another attempt to effect a diversion. Singing would be comparatively harmless in its effect--as he rashly supposed. "What's that song you learnt in Scotland?" he asked.

"It's Donald's song," Zo replied. "He taught me."

At the sound of Donald's dreadful name, Ovid looked at his watch, and said there was no time for the song. Mr. Gallilee suddenly and seriously sided with his step-son. "How she got among the men after dinner," he said, "nobody knows. Lady Northlake has forbidden Donald to teach her any more songs; and I have requested him, as a favour to me, not to let her smack his legs. Come, my dear, it's time we were home again."

Well intended by both gentlemen--but too late. Zo was ready for the performance; her hat was cocked on one side; her plump little arms were set akimbo; her round eyes opened and closed facetiously in winks worthy of a low comedian. "I'm Donald," she announced: and burst out with the song: "We're gayly yet, we're gayly yet; We're not very fou, but we're gayly yet: Then sit ye awhile, and tipple a bit; For we're not very fou, but we're gayly yet." She snatched up Carmina's medicine glass, and waved it over her head with a Bacchanalian screech. "Fill a brimmer, Tammie! Here's to Redshanks!"

"And pray who is Redshanks?" asked a lady, standing in the doorway. Zo turned round--and instantly collapsed. A terrible figure, associated with lessons and punishments, stood before her. The convivial friend of Donald, the established Missus of Lord Northlake, disappeared--and a polite pupil took their place. "If you please, Miss Minerva, Redshanks is nickname for a Highlander." Who would have recognised the singer of "We're gayly yet," in the subdued young person who made that reply?

The door opened again. Another disastrous intrusion? Yes, another! Teresa appeared this time--caught Zo up in her arms--and gave the child a kiss that was heard all over the room. "Ah, mia Giocosa!" cried the old nurse--too happy to speak in any language but her own. "What does that mean?" Zo asked, settling her ruffled petticoats. "It means," said Teresa, who prided herself on her English, "Ah, my Jolly." This to a young lady who could slit a haggis! This to the only person in Scotland, privileged to smack Donald's legs! Zo turned to her father, and recovered her dignity. Maria herself could hardly have spoken with more severe propriety. "I wish to go home," said Zo.

Ovid had only to look at Carmina, and to see the necessity of immediate compliance with his little sister's wishes. No more laughing, no more excitement, for that day. He led Zo out himself, and resigned her to her father at the door of his rooms on the ground floor.

Cheered already by having got away from Miss Minerva and the nurse, Zo desired to know who lived downstairs; and, hearing that these were Ovid's rooms, insisted on seeing them. The three went in together.

Ovid drew Mr. Gallilee into a corner. "I'm easier about Carmina now," he said. "The failure of her memory doesn't extend backwards. It begins with the shock to her brain, on the day when Teresa removed her to this house--and it will end, I feel confident, with the end of her illness."

Mr. Gallilee's attention suddenly wandered. "Zo!" he called out, "don't touch your brother's papers."

The one object that had excited the child's curiosity was the writing-table. Dozens of sheets of paper were scattered over it, covered with writing, blotted and interlined. Some of these leaves had overflowed the table, and found a resting-place on the floor. Zo was amusing herself by picking them up. "Well!" she said, handing them obediently to Ovid, "I've had many a rap on the knuckles for writing not half as bad as yours."

Hearing his daughter's remark, Mr. Gallilee became interested in looking at the fragments of manuscript. "What an awful mess!" he exclaimed. "May I try if I can read a bit?" Ovid smiled. "Try by all means; you will make one useful discovery at least--you will see that the most patient men on the face of the civilised earth are Printers!"

Mr. Gallilee tried a page--and gave it up before he turned giddy. "Is it fair to ask what this is?"

"Something easy to feel, and hard to express," Ovid answered. "These ill-written lines are my offering of gratitude to the memory of an unknown and unhappy man."

"The man you told me of, who died at Montreal?"

"Yes."

"You never mentioned his name."

"His last wishes forbade me to mention it to any living creature. God knows there were pitiable, most pitiable, reasons for his dying unknown! The stone over his grave only bears his initials, and the date of his death. But," said Ovid, kindling with enthusiasm, as he laid his hand on his manuscript, "the discoveries of this great physician shall benefit humanity! And my debt to him shall be acknowledged, with the admiration and the devotion that I truly feel!"

"In a book?" asked Mr. Gallilee.

"In a book that is now being printed. You will see it before the New Year."

Finding nothing to amuse her in the sitting-room, Zo had tried the bedroom next. She now returned to Ovid, dragging after her a long white staff that looked like an Alpen-stock. "What's this?" she asked. "A broomstick?"

"A specimen of rare Canadian wood, my dear. Would you like to have it?"

Zo took the offer quite seriously. She looked with longing eyes at the specimen, three times as tall as herself--and shook her head. "I'm not big enough for it, yet," she said. "Look at it, papa! Benjulia's stick is nothing to this."

That name--on the child's lips--had a sound revolting to Ovid. "Don't speak of him!" he said irritably.

"Mustn't I speak of him," Zo asked, "when I want him to tickle me?" Ovid beckoned to her father. "Take her away now," he whispered--"and never let her see that man again."

The warning was needless. The man's destiny had decreed that he and Zo were never more to meet.

CHAPTER LXII.

Benjulia's servants had but a dull time of it, poor souls, in the lonely house. Towards the end of December, they subscribed among themselves to buy one of those wonderful Christmas Numbers--presenting year after year the same large-eyed ladies, long-legged lovers, corpulent children, snow landscapes, and gluttonous merry-makings-- which have become a national institution: say, the pictorial plum puddings of the English nation.

The servants had plenty of time to enjoy their genial newspaper, before the dining-room bell disturbed them.

For some weeks past, the master had again begun to spend the whole of his time in the mysterious laboratory. On the rare occasions when he returned to the house, he was always out of temper. If the servants knew nothing else, they knew what these signs meant--the great man was harder at work than ever; and in spite of his industry, he was not getting on so well as usual.

Wilkie Collins

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