Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. Heart and Science by Wilkie Collins (best new books to read TXT) 📖
- Author: Wilkie Collins
- Performer: -
Book online «Heart and Science by Wilkie Collins (best new books to read TXT) 📖». Author Wilkie Collins
As the doubt crossed her mind, she heard the boards creak on the floor above. Mr. Le Frank was in his room.
Did this mean that her well-laid plan had failed? Or did it mean that he was really changing his shoes and stockings? The last inference was the right one.
He had made no mere excuse downstairs. The serious interests that he had at stake, were not important enough to make him forget his precious health. His chest was delicate; a cold might settle on his lungs. The temptation of the half-open door had its due effect on this prudent man; but it failed to make him forget that his feet were wet.
The boards creaked again; the door of his room was softly closed—then there was silence. Teresa only knew when he had entered the sitting-room by hearing him try the bolted baize door. After that, he must have stepped out again. He next tried the door of the bedchamber, from the stairs.
There was a quiet interval once more. Teresa noiselessly drew back the bolt; and, opening the baize door by a mere hair’s-breadth, admitted sound from the sitting-room. She now heard him turning the key in a chiffonier, which only contained tradesmen’s circulars, receipted bills, and a few books.
(Even with the canister in the cupboard, waiting to be opened, his uppermost idea was to discover Carmina’s vindictive motive in Carmina’s papers!)
The contents of the chiffonier disappointed him—judging by the tone in which he muttered to himself. The next sound startled Teresa; it was a tap against the lintel of the door behind which she was standing. He had thrown open the cupboard.
The rasping of the cover, as he took it off, told her that he was examining the canister. She had put it back on the shelf, a harmless thing now—the poison and the label having been both destroyed by fire. Nevertheless, his choosing the canister, from dozens of other things scattered invitingly about it, inspired her with a feeling of distrustful surprise. She was no longer content to find out what he was doing by means of her ears. Determined to see him, and to catch him in the fact, she pulled open the baize door—at the moment when he must have discovered that the canister was empty. A faint thump told her he had thrown it on the floor.
The view of the sitting-room was still hidden from her. She had forgotten the cupboard door.
Now that it was wide open, it covered the entrance to the bedroom, and completely screened them one from the other. For the moment she was startled, and hesitated whether to show herself or not. His voice stopped her.
“Is there another canister?” he said to himself. “The dirty old savage may have hidden it—”
Teresa heard no more. “The dirty old savage” was an insult not to be endured! She forgot her intention of stealing on him unobserved; she forgot her resolution to do nothing that could awaken Carmina. Her fierce temper urged her into furious action. With both hands outspread, she flew at the cupboard door, and banged it to in an instant.
A shriek of agony rang through the house. The swiftly closing door had caught, and crushed, the fingers of Le Frank’s right hand, at the moment when he was putting it into the cupboard again.
Without stopping to help him, without even looking at him, she ran back to Carmina.
The swinging baize door fell to, and closed of itself. No second cry was heard. Nothing happened to falsify her desperate assertion that the shriek was the delusion of a vivid dream. She took Carmina in her arms, and patted and fondled her like a child. “See, my darling, I’m with you as usual; and I have heard nothing. Don’t, oh, don’t tremble in that way! There—I’ll wrap you up in my shawl, and read to you. No! let’s talk of Ovid.”
Her efforts to compose Carmina were interrupted by a muffled sound of men’s footsteps and women’s voices in the next room.
She hurriedly opened the door, and entreated them to whisper and be quiet. In the instant before she closed it again, she saw and heard. Le Frank lay in a swoon on the floor. The landlady was kneeling by him, looking at his injured hand; and the lodgers were saying, “Send him to the hospital.”
CHAPTER LIV.
On Monday morning, the strain on Mrs. Gallilee’s powers of patient endurance came to an end. With the help of Mr. Null’s arm, she was able to get downstairs to the library. On Tuesday, there would be no objection to her going out for a drive. Mr. Null left her, restored to her equable flow of spirits. He had asked if she wished to have somebody to keep her company—and she had answered briskly, “Not on any account! I prefer being alone.”
On the morning of Saturday, she had received Mr. Le Frank’s letter; but she had not then recovered sufficiently to be able to read it through. She could now take it up again, and get to the end.
Other women might have been alarmed by the atrocious wickedness of the conspiracy which the music-master had planned. Mrs. Gallilee was only offended. That he should think her capable—in her social position—of favouring such a plot as he had suggested, was an insult which she was determined neither to forgive nor forget. Fortunately, she had not committed herself in writing; he could produce no proof of the relations that had existed between them. The first and best use to make of her recovery would be to dismiss him—after paying his expenses, privately and prudently, in money instead of by cheque.
In the meantime, the man’s insolence had left its revolting impression on her mind. The one way to remove it was to find some agreeable occupation for her thoughts.
Look at your library table, learned lady, and take the appropriate means of relief that it offers. See the lively modern parasites that infest Science, eager to invite your attention to their little crawling selves. Follow scientific inquiry, rushing into print to proclaim its own importance, and to declare any human being, who ventures to doubt or differ, a fanatic or a fool. Respect the leaders of public opinion, writing notices of professors, who have made discoveries not yet tried by time, not yet universally accepted even by their brethren, in terms which would be exaggerated if they were applied to Newton or to Bacon. Submit to lectures and addresses by dozens which, if they prove nothing else, prove that what was scientific knowledge some years since; is scientific ignorance now—and that what is scientific knowledge now, may be scientific ignorance in some years more. Absorb your mind in controversies and discussions, in which Mr. Always Right and Mr. Never Wrong exhibit the natural tendency of man to believe in himself, in the most rampant stage of development that the world has yet seen. And when you have done all this, doubt not that you have made a good use of your time. You have discovered what the gentle wisdom of FARADAY saw and deplored, when he warned the science of his day in words which should live for ever: “The first and last step in the education of the judgment is—Humility.” Having agreeably occupied her mind with subjects that were worthy of it, Mrs. Gallilee rose to seek a little physical relief by walking up and down the room.
Passing and repassing the bookcases, she noticed a remote corner devoted to miscellaneous literature. A volume in faded binding of sky-blue, had been placed upside down. She looked at the book before she put it in its right position. The title was “Gallery of British Beauty.” Among the illustrations—long since forgotten—appeared her own portrait, when she was a girl of Carmina’s age.
A faintly contemptuous smile parted her hard lips, provoked by the recollections of her youth.
What a fool she had been, at that early period of her life! In those days, she had trembled with pleasure at the singing of a famous Italian tenor; she had flown into a passion when a new dress proved to be a misfit, on the evening of a ball; she had given money to beggars in the street; she had fallen in love with a poor young man, and had terrified her weak-minded hysterical mother, by threatening to commit suicide when the beloved object was forbidden the house. Comparing the girl of seventeen with the matured and cultivated woman of later years, what a matchless example Mrs. Gallilee presented of the healthy influence of education, directed to scientific pursuits! “Ah!” she thought, as she put the book back in its place, “my girls will have reason to thank me when they grow up; they have had a mother who has done her duty.”
She took a few more turns up and down the room. The sky had cleared again; a golden gleam of sunlight drew her to the window. The next moment she regretted even this concession to human weakness. A disagreeable association presented itself, and arrested the pleasant flow of her thoughts. Mr. Gallilee appeared on the door-step; leaving the house on foot, and carrying a large brown-paper parcel under his arm.
With servants at his disposal, why was he carrying the parcel himself? The time had been, when Mrs. Gallilee would have tapped at the window, and would have insisted on his instantly returning and answering the question. But his conduct, since the catastrophe in Carmina’s room, had produced a complete estrangement between the married pair. All his inquiries after his wife’s health had been made by deputy. When he was not in the schoolroom with the children, he was at his club. Until he came to his senses, and made humble apology, no earthly consideration would induce Mrs. Gallilee to take the slightest notice of him.
She returned to her reading.
The footman came in, with two letters—one arriving by post; the other having been dropped into the box by private messenger. Communications of this latter sort proceeded, not unfrequently, from creditors. Mrs. Gallilee opened the stamped letter first.
It contained nothing more important than a few lines from a daily governess, whom she had engaged until a successor to Miss Minerva could be found. In obedience to Mrs. Gallilee’s instructions, the governess would begin her attendance at ten o’clock on the next morning.
The second letter was of a very different kind. It related the disaster which had befallen Mr. Le Frank.
Mr. Null was the writer. As Miss Carmina’s medical attendant, it was his duty to inform her guardian that her health had been unfavourably affected by an alarm in the house. Having described the nature of the alarm, he proceeded in these words: “You will, I fear, lose the services of your present music-master. Inquiries made this morning at the hospital, and reported to me, appear to suggest serious results. The wounded man’s constitution is in an unhealthy state; the surgeons are not sure of being able to save two of the fingers. I will do myself the honour of calling to-morrow before you go out for your drive.”
The impression produced by this intelligence on the lady to whom it was addressed, can only be reported in her own words. She—who knew, on the best scientific authority, that the world had created itself—completely lost her head, and actually said, “Thank God!”
For weeks to come—perhaps for months if the surgeons’ forebodings were fulfilled—Mrs. Gallilee had got rid of Mr. Le Frank. In that moment of infinite relief, if her husband had presented himself, it is even possible that he might have been forgiven.
As it was, Mr. Gallilee returned late in the afternoon; entered his own domain of the smoking-room; and left the house again five minutes afterwards. Joseph officiously opened the door for him; and Joseph was surprised, precisely as his mistress had been surprised. Mr. Gallilee
Comments (0)