Complete Works of Wilkie Collins (1215 page)

He left her instantly.

The change in her manner, the difficulty she found in expressing her thoughts, had even startled stupid Mr. Null. She had herself alluded to results of the murderous attack made on her by Teresa, which had not perhaps hitherto sufficiently impressed him. In the shock inflicted on the patient’s body, had there been involved some subtly-working influence that had disturbed the steady balance of her mind? Pondering uneasily on that question, he spoke to Joseph in the hall.

“Do you know about your master and the children?” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

“I wish you had told me of it, when you let me in.”

“Have I done any harm, sir?”

“I don’t know yet. If you want me, I shall be at home to dinner at seven.”

The next visitor was one of the partners in the legal firm, to which Mrs. Gallilee had applied for advice. After what Mr. Null had said, Joseph hesitated to conduct this gentleman into the presence of his mistress. He left the lawyer in the waiting-room, and took his card.

Mrs. Gallilee’s attitude had not changed. She sat looking down at the copied telegram and the letter from her husband, lying together on her lap. Joseph was obliged to speak twice, before he could rouse her.

“To-morrow,” was all she said.

“What time shall I say, ma’am?”

She put her hand to her head — and broke into anger against Joseph. “Settle it yourself, you wretch!” Her head drooped again over the papers. Joseph returned to the lawyer. “My mistress is not very well, sir. She will be obliged if you will call to-morrow, at your own time.”

About an hour later, she rang her bell — rang it unintermittingly, until Joseph appeared. “I’m famished,” she said. “Something to eat! I never was so hungry in my life. At once — I can’t wait.”

The cook sent up a cold fowl, and a ham. Her eyes devoured the food, while the footman was carving it for her. Her bad temper seemed to have completely disappeared. She said, “What a delicious dinner! Just the very things I like.” She lifted the first morsel to her mouth — and laid the fork down again with a weary sigh. “No: I can’t eat; what has come to me?” With those words, she pushed her chair away from the table, and looked slowly all round her. “I want the telegram and the letter.” Joseph found them. “Can you help me?” she said. “I am trying to find out who wrote my son. Say yes, or no, at once; I hate waiting.”

Joseph left her in her old posture, with her head down and the papers on her lap.

The appearance of the uneaten dinner in the kitchen produced a discussion, followed by a quarrel.

Joseph was of the opinion that the mistress had got more upon her mind than her mind could well bear. It was useless to send for Mr. Null; he had already mentioned that he would not be home until seven o’clock.. There was no superior person in the house to consult. It was not for the servants to take responsibility on themselves. “Fetch the nearest doctor, and let
him
be answerable, if anything serious happens.” Such was Joseph’s advice.

The women (angrily remembering that Mrs. Gallilee had spoken of sending for the police) ridiculed the footman’s cautious proposal — with one exception. When the others ironically asked him if he was not accustomed to the mistress’s temper yet, Mrs. Gallilee’s own maid (Marceline) said, “What do we know about it? Joseph is the only one of us who has seen her, since the morning.”

This perfectly sensible remark had the effect of a breath of wind on a smouldering fire. The female servants, all equally suspected of having assisted Mr. Gallilee in making up his parcels, were all equally assured that there was a traitress among them — and that Marceline was the woman. Hitherto suppressed, this feeling now openly found its way to expression. Marceline lost her temper; and betrayed herself as her master’s guilty confederate.

“I’m a mean mongrel — am I?” cried the angry maid, repeating the cook’s allusion to her birthplace in the Channel Islands. “The mistress shall know, this minute, that I’m the woman who did it!”

“Why didn’t you say so before?” the cook retorted.

“Because I promised my master not to tell on him, till he got to his journey’s end.”

“Who’ll lay a wager?” asked the cook. “I bet half-a-crown she changes her mind, before she gets to the top of the stairs.”

“Perhaps she thinks the mistress will forgive her,” the parlour-maid suggested ironically.

“Or perhaps,” the housemaid added, “she means to give the mistress notice to leave.”

“That’s exactly what I’m going to do!” said Marceline.

The women all declined to believe her. She appealed to Joseph. “What did I tell you, when the mistress first sent me out in the carriage with poor Miss Carmina? Didn’t I say that I was no spy, and that I wouldn’t submit to be made one? I would have left the house — I would! — but for Miss Carmina’s kindness. Any other young lady would have made me feel my mean position.
She
treated me like a friend — and I don’t forget it. I’ll go straight from this place, and help to nurse her!”

With that declaration, Marceline left the kitchen.

Arrived at the library door, she paused. Not as the cook had suggested, to “change her mind;” but to consider beforehand how much she should confess to her mistress, and how much she should hold in reserve.

Zo’s narrative of what had happened, on the evening of Teresa’s arrival, had produced its inevitable effect on the maid’s mind. Strengthening, by the sympathy which it excited, her grateful attachment to Carmina, it had necessarily intensified her dislike of Mrs. Gallilee — and Mrs. Gallilee’s innocent husband had profited by that circumstance!

Unexpectedly tried by time, Mr. Gallilee’s resolution to assert his paternal authority, in spite of his wife, had failed him. The same timidity which invents a lie in a hurry, can construct a stratagem at leisure. Marceline had discovered her master putting a plan of escape, devised by himself, to its first practical trial before the open wardrobe of his daughters — and had asked slyly if she could be of any use. Never remarkable for presence of mind in emergencies, Mr. Gallilee had helplessly admitted to his confidence the last person in the house, whom anyone else (in his position) would have trusted. “My good soul, I want to take the girls away quietly for change of air — you have got little secrets of your own, like me, haven’t you? — and the fact is, I don’t quite know how many petticoats — .” There, he checked himself; conscious, when it was too late, that he was asking his wife’s maid to help him in deceiving his wife. The ready Marceline helped him through the difficulty. “I understand, sir: my mistress’s mind is much occupied — and you don’t want to trouble her about this little journey.” Mr. Gallilee, at a loss for any other answer, pulled out his purse. Marceline modestly drew back at the sight of it. “My mistress pays me, sir; I serve
you
for nothing.” In those words, she would have informed any other man of the place which Mrs. Gallilee held in her estimation. Her master simply considered her to be the most disinterested woman he had ever met with. If she lost her situation through helping him, he engaged to pay her wages until she found another place. The maid set his mind at rest on that subject. “A woman who understands hairdressing as I do, sir, can refer to other ladies besides Mrs. Gallilee, and can get a place whenever she wants one.”

Having decided on what she should confess, and on what she should conceal, Marceline knocked at the library door. Receiving no answer, she went in.

Mrs. Gallilee was leaning back in her chair: her hands hung down on either side of her; her eyes looked up drowsily at the ceiling. Prepared to see a person with an overburdened mind, the maid (without sympathy, to quicken her perceptions) saw nothing but a person on the point of taking a nap.

“Can I speak a word, ma’am?”

Mrs. Gallilee’s eyes remained fixed on the ceiling. “Is that my maid?” she asked.

Treated — to all appearance — with marked contempt, Marceline no longer cared to assume the forms of respect either in language or manner. “I wish to give you notice to leave,” she said abruptly; “I find I can’t get on with my fellow-servants.”

Mrs. Gallilee slowly raised her head, and looked at her maid — and said nothing.

“And while I’m about it,” the angry woman proceeded, “I may as well own the truth. You suspect one of us of helping my master to take away the young ladies’ things — I mean some few of their things. Well! you needn’t blame innocent people. I’m the person.”

Mrs. Gallilee laid her head back again on the chair — and burst out laughing.

For one moment, Marceline looked at her mistress in blank surprise. Then, the terrible truth burst on her. She ran into the hall, and called for Joseph.

He hurried up the stairs. The instant he presented himself at the open door, Mrs. Gallilee rose to her feet. “My medical attendant,” she said, with an assumption of dignity; “I must explain myself.” She held up one hand, outstretched; and counted her fingers with the other. “First my husband. Then my son. Now my maid. One, two, three. Mr. Null, do you know the proverb? ‘It’s the last hair that breaks the camel’s back.’“ She suddenly dropped on her knees. “Will somebody pray for me?” she cried piteously. “I don’t know how to pray for myself. Where is God?”

Bareheaded as he was, Joseph ran out. The nearest doctor lived on the opposite side of the Square. He happened to be at home. When he reached the house, the women servants were holding their mistress down by main force.

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 — ”