they even recognized the peculiar twang of her old speaking voice in the
voice she now sang with, especially when she sang low down. And they all
three fell to discussing the wonders of her performance like everybody
else all round; Little Billee leading, with an eloquence and a seeming
of technical musical knowledge that quite impressed them, and made them
feel happy and at ease; for they were anxious for his sake about the
effect this sudden and so unexpected sight of her would have upon him
after all that had passed.
He seemed transcendently happy and elate--incomprehensibly so, in
fact--and looked at them both with quite a new light in his eyes, as if
all the music he had heard had trebled not only his joy in being alive,
but his pleasure at being with them. Evidently he had quite outgrown his
old passion for her, and that was a comfort indeed!
But Little Billee knew better.
He knew that his old passion for her had all come back, and was so
overwhelming and immense that he could not feel it just yet, nor yet the
hideous pangs of a jealousy so consuming that it would burn up his life.
He gave himself another twenty-four hours.
But he had not to wait so long. He woke up after a short, uneasy sleep
that very night, to find that the flood was over him; and he realized
how hopelessly, desperately, wickedly, insanely he loved this woman, who
might have been his, but was now the wife of another man; a greater than
he, and one to whom she owed it that she was more glorious than any
other woman on earth--a queen among queens--a goddess! for what was any
earthly throne compared to that she established in the hearts and souls
of all who came within the sight and hearing of her! beautiful as she
was besides--beautiful, beautiful! And what must be her love for the man
who had taught her and trained her, and revealed her towering genius to
herself and to the world!--a man resplendent also, handsome and tall and
commanding--a great artist from the crown of his head to the sole of his
foot!
And the remembrance of them--hand in hand, master and pupil, husband and
wife--smiling and bowing in the face of all that splendid tumult they
had called forth and could not quell, stung and tortured and maddened
him so that he could not lie still, but got up and raged and rampaged up
and down his hot, narrow, stuffy bedroom, and longed for his old
familiar brain-disease to come back and narcotize his trouble, and be
his friend, and stay with him till he died!
[Illustration: "AND THE REMEMBRANCE OF THEM--HAND IN HAND"]
Where was he to fly for relief from such new memories as these, which
would never cease; and the old memories, and all the glamour and grace
of them that had been so suddenly called out of the grave? And how could
he escape, now that he felt the sight of her face and the sound of her
voice would be a craving--a daily want--like that of some poor starving
outcast for warmth and meat and drink?
And little innocent, pathetic, ineffable, well-remembered sweetnesses of
her changing face kept painting themselves on his retina; and
incomparable tones of this new thing, her voice, her infinite voice,
went ringing in his head, till he all but shrieked aloud in his agony.
And then the poisoned and delirious sweetness of those mad kisses,
"by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others"!
And then the grewsome physical jealousy, that miserable inheritance of
all artistic sons of Adam, that plague and torment of the dramatic,
plastic imagination, which can idealize so well, and yet realize, alas!
so keenly. After three or four hours spent like this, he could stand it
no longer; madness was lying his way. So he hurried on a garment, and
went and knocked at Taffy's door.
"Good God! what's the matter with you?" exclaimed the good Taffy, as
Little Billee tumbled into his room, calling out:
"Oh, Taffy, Taffy, I've g-g-gone mad, I think!" And then, shivering all
over, and stammering incoherently, he tried to tell his friend what was
the matter with him, with great simplicity.
Taffy, in much alarm, slipped on his trousers and made Little Billee get
into his bed, and sat by his side holding his hand. He was greatly
perplexed, fearing the recurrence of another attack like that of five
years back. He didn't dare leave him for an instant to wake the Laird
and send for a doctor.
Suddenly Little Billee buried his face in the pillow and began to sob,
and some instinct told Taffy this was the best thing that could happen.
The boy had always been a highly strung, emotional, over-excitable,
over-sensitive, and quite uncontrolled mammy's-darling, a cry-baby sort
of chap, who had never been to school. It was all a part of his genius,
and also a part of his charm. It would do him good once more to have a
good blub after five years! After a while Little Billee grew quieter,
and then suddenly he said: "What a miserable ass you must think me, what
an unmanly duffer!"
"Why, my friend?"
"Why, for going on in this idiotic way. I really couldn't help it. I
went mad, I tell you. I've been walking up and down my room all night,
till everything seemed to go round."
"So have I."
"You? What for?"
"The very same reason."
"_What!_"
"I was just as fond of Trilby as you were. Only she happened to prefer
_you_."
"_What!_" cried Little Billee again. "_You_ were fond of Trilby?"
"I believe you, my boy!"
"In _love_ with her?"
"I believe you, my boy!"
"She never knew it, then!"
[Illustration: "'I BELIEVE YOU, MY BOY!'"]
"Oh yes, she did."
"She never told me, then!"
"Didn't she? That's like her. _I_ told _her_, at all events. I asked her
to marry me."
"Well--I _am_ damned! When?"
"That day we took her to Meudon, with Jeannot, and dined at the Garde
Champêtre's, and she danced the cancan with Sandy."
"Well--I _am_--And she _refused_ you?"
"Apparently so."
"Well, I--Why on earth did she refuse you?"
"Oh, I suppose she'd already begun to fancy _you_, my friend. _Il y en a
toujours un autre!_"
"Fancy _me_--prefer _me_--to _you_?"
"Well, yes. It _does_ seem odd--eh, old fellow? But there's no
accounting for tastes, you know. She's built on such an ample scale
herself, I suppose, that she likes little uns--contrast, you see. She's
very maternal, I think. Besides, you're a smart little chap; and you
ain't half bad; and you've got brains and talent, and lots of cheek, and
all that. I'm rather a _ponderous_ kind of party."
"Well--I _am_ damned!"
"_C'est comme ça!_ I took it lying down, you see."
"Does the Laird know?"
"No; and I don't want him to--nor anybody else."
"Taffy, what a regular downright old trump you are!"
"Glad you think so; anyhow, we're both in the same boat, and we've got
to make the best of it. She's another man's wife, and probably she's
very fond of him. I'm sure she ought to be, cad as he is, after all he's
done for her. So there's an end of it."
"Ah! there'll never be an end of it for _me_--never--never--oh, never,
my God! She would have married me but for my mother's meddling, and that
stupid old ass, my uncle. What a wife! Think of all she must have in her
heart and brain, only to _sing_ like that! And, O Lord! how beautiful
she is--a goddess! Oh, the brow and cheek and chin, and the way her
head's put on! did you _ever_ see anything like it! Oh, if only I hadn't
written and told my mother I was going to marry her! why, we should have
been man and wife for five years by this time--living at
Barbizon--painting away like mad! Oh, what a heavenly life! Oh, curse
all officious meddling with other people's affairs! Oh! oh!..."
"There you go again! What's the good? and where do _I_ come in, my
friend? _I_ should have been no better off, old fellow--worse than ever,
I think."
Then there was a long silence.
At length Little Billee said:
"Taffy, I can't tell you what a trump you are. All I've ever thought of
you--and God knows that's enough--will be nothing to what I shall always
think of you after this."
"All right, old chap."
"And now I think _I_'m all right again, for a time--and I shall cut back
to bed. Good-night! Thanks more than I can ever express!" And Little
Billee, restored to his balance, cut back to his own bed just as the day
was breaking.
Part Seventh
"The moon made thy lips pale, beloved;
The wind made thy bosom chill;
The night did shed
On thy dear head
Its frozen dew, and thou didst lie
Where the bitter breath of the naked sky
Might visit thee at will."
Next morning our three friends lay late abed, and breakfasted in their
rooms.
They had all three passed "white nights"--even the Laird, who had tossed
about and pressed a sleepless pillow till dawn, so excited had he been
by the wonder of Trilby's reincarnation, so perplexed by his own doubts
as to whether it was really Trilby or not.
And certain haunting tones of her voice, that voice so cruelly sweet
(which clove the stillness with a clang so utterly new, so strangely
heart-piercing and seductive, that the desire to hear it once more
became nostalgic--almost an ache!), certain bits and bars and phrases of
the music she had sung, unspeakable felicities and facilities of
execution; sudden exotic warmths, fragrances, tendernesses, graces,
depths, and breadths; quick changes from grave to gay, from rough to
smooth, from great metallic brazen clangors to soft golden suavities;
all the varied modes of sound we try so vainly to borrow from vocal
nature by means of wind and reed and string--all this new "Trilbyness"
kept echoing in his brain all night (for he was of a nature deeply
musical), and sleep had been impossible to him.
"As when we dwell upon a word we know,
Repeating, till the word we know so well
Becomes a wonder, and we know not why,"
so dwelt the Laird upon the poor old tune "Ben Bolt," which kept singing
itself over and over again in his tired consciousness, and maddened him
with novel, strange, unhackneyed, unsuspected beauties such as he had
never dreamed of in any earthly music.
It had become a wonder, and he knew not why!
They spent what was left of the morning at the Louvre, and tried to
interest themselves in the "Marriage of Cana," and the "Woman at the
Well," and Vandyck's man with the glove, and the little princess of
Velasquez, and Lisa Gioconda's smile: it was of no use trying. There was
no sight worth looking at in all Paris but Trilby in her golden raiment;
no other princess in the world; no smile but hers, when through her
parted lips came bubbling Chopin's Impromptu. They had not long to stay
in Paris, and they must drink of that bubbling fountain once
more--_coûte que coûte!_ They went to the Salle des Bashibazoucks, and
found that all seats all over the house had been taken for days and
weeks; and the "queue" at the door had already begun! and they had to
give up all hopes of slaking this particular thirst.
Then they went and lunched perfunctorily, and talked desultorily over
lunch, and read criticisms of la Svengali's début in the morning
papers--a chorus of journalistic acclamation gone mad, a frenzied eulogy
in every key--but nothing was good enough for them! Brand-new words were
wanted--another language!
Then they wanted a long walk, and could think of nowhere to go in all
Paris--that immense Paris, where they had promised themselves to see so
much that the week they were to spend there had seemed too short!
Looking in a paper, they saw it announced that the band of the Imperial
Guides would play that afternoon in the Pré Catelan, Bois de Boulogne,
and thought they might as well walk there as anywhere else, and walk
back again in time to dine with the Passefils--a prandial function which
did not promise to be very amusing; but still it was something to kill
the evening with, since they couldn't go and hear Trilby again.
Outside the Pré Catelan they found a crowd of cabs and carriages,
saddle-horses and grooms. One might have thought one's self in the
height of the Paris season. They went in, and strolled about here and
there, and listened to the band, which was famous (it has performed in
London at the Crystal Palace), and they looked about and studied life,
or tried to.
Suddenly they saw, sitting with three ladies (one of whom, the eldest,
was in black), a very smart young officer, a guide, all red and green
and gold, and recognized their old friend Zouzou. They bowed, and he
knew them at once, and jumped up and came to them and greeted them
warmly, especially his old friend Taffy, whom he took to his mother--the
lady in black--and introduced to the other ladies, the younger of whom,
strangely unlike the rest of her countrywomen, was so lamentably, so
pathetically plain that it would be brutal to attempt the cheap and easy
task of describing her. It was Miss Lavinia Hunks, the famous American
millionairess, and her mother. Then the good Zouzou came back and talked
to the Laird and Little Billee.
Zouzou, in some subtle and indescribable way, had become very ducal
indeed.
He looked extremely distinguished, for one thing, in his beautiful
guide's uniform, and was most gracefully and winningly polite. He
inquired warmly after Mrs. and Miss Bagot, and begged Little Billee
would recall him to their amiable remembrance when he saw them again. He
expressed most sympathetically his delight to see Little Billee looking
so strong and so well (Little Billee looked like a pallid little
washed-out ghost, after his white night).
They talked of Dodor. He said how attached he was to Dodor, and always
should be; but Dodor, it seemed, had made a great mistake in leaving the
army and going into a retail business (_petit commerce_). He had done
for himself--_dégringolé!_ He should have stuck to the _dragons_--with a
little patience and good conduct he would have "won his epaulet"--and
then one might have arranged for him a good little marriage--_un parti
convenable_--for he was "très joli garçon, Dodor! bonne tournure--et
très gentiment né! C'est très ancien, les Rigolot--dans le Poitou, je
crois--Lafarce, et tout ça; tout à fait bien!"
It was difficult to realize that this polished and discreet and somewhat
patronizing young man of the world was the jolly dog who had gone after
Little Billee's hat on all fours in the Rue Vieille des Mauvais Ladres
and brought it back in his mouth--the Caryhatide!
Little Billee little knew that Monsieur le Duc de la
Rochemartel-Boisségur had quite recently delighted a very small and
select and most august imperial supper-party at Compiègne with this very
story, not blinking a single detail of his own share in it--and had
given a most touching and sympathetic description of "le joli petit
peintre anglais qui s'appelait Litrebili, et ne pouvait pas se tenir sur
ses jambes--et qui pleurait d'amour fraternel dans les bras de mon
copain Dodor!"
"Ah! Monsieur Gontran, ce que je donnerais pour avoir vu ça!" had said
the greatest lady in France; "un de mes zouaves--à quatre pattes--dans
la rue--un chapeau dans la bouche--oh--c'est impayable!"
Zouzou kept these blackguard bohemian reminiscences for the imperial
circle alone--to which it was suspected that he was secretly rallying
himself. Among all outsiders--especially within the narrow precincts of
the cream of the noble Faubourg (which remained aloof from the
Tuileries)--he was a very proper and gentlemanlike person indeed, as his
brother had been--and, in his mother's fond belief, "très bien pensant,
très bien vu, à Frohsdorf et à Rome."
_On lui aurait donné le bon Dieu sans confession_--as Madame Vinard had
said of Little Billee--they would have shriven him at sight, and
admitted him to the holy communion on trust!
He did not present Little Billee and the Laird to his mother, nor to
Mrs. and Miss Hunks; that honor was reserved for "the Man of Blood"
alone; nor did he ask where they were staying, nor invite them to call
on him. But in parting he expressed the immense pleasure it had given
him to meet them again, and the hope he had of some day shaking their
hands in London.
As the friends walked back to Paris together, it transpired that "the
Man of Blood" had been invited by Madame Duchesse Mère (Maman Duchesse,
as Zouzou called her) to dine with her next day, and meet the Hunkses at
a furnished apartment she had taken in the Place Vendôme; for they had
let (to the Hunkses) the Hôtel de la Rochemartel in the Rue de Lille;
they had also been obliged to let their place in the country, le château
de Boisségur (to Monsieur Despoires, or "des Poires," as he chose to
spell himself on his visiting-cards--the famous soap-manufacturer--"Un
très brave homme, à ce qu'on dit!" and whose only son, by-the-way, soon
after married Mademoiselle Jeanne-Adélaïde d'Amaury-Brissac de
Roncesvaulx de Boisségur de la Rochemartel).
"Il ne fait pas gras chez nous à présent--je vous assure!" Madame
Duchesse Mère had pathetically said to Taffy--but had given him to
understand that things would be very much better for her son, in the
event of his marriage with Miss Hunks.
"Good heavens!" said Little Billee, on hearing this; "that grotesque
little bogy in blue? Why, she's deformed--she squints--she's a dwarf,
and looks like an idiot! Millions or no millions, the man who marries
her is a felon! As long as there are stones to break and a road to break
them on, the able-bodied man who marries a woman like that for anything
but pity and kindness--and even then--dishonors himself, insults his
ancestry, and inflicts on his descendants a wrong that nothing will ever
redeem--he nips them in the bud--he blasts them forever! He ought to be
cut by his fellow-men--sent to Coventry--to jail--to penal servitude for
life! He ought to have a separate hell to himself when he dies. He ought
to--"
"Shut up, you little blaspheming ruffian!" said the Laird. "Where do
_you_ expect to go to, yourself, with such frightful sentiments? And
what would become of your beautiful old twelfth-century dukedoms, with a
hundred yards of back-frontage opposite the Louvre, on a beautiful
historic river, and a dozen beautiful historic names, and no money--if
_you_ had your way?" and the Laird wunk his historic wink.
"Twelfth-century dukedoms be damned!" said Taffy _au grand sérieux_, as
usual. "Little Billee's quite right, and Zouzou makes me sick! Besides,
what does she marry _him_ for--not for his beauty either, I guess! She's
his fellow-criminal, his deliberate accomplice, _particeps delicti_,
accessory before the act and after! She has no right to marry at all!
tar and feathers and a rail for both of them--and for Maman Duchesse
too--and I suppose that's why I refused her invitation to dinner! and
now let's go and dine with Dodor--...anyhow Dodor's young woman doesn't
marry him for a dukedom--or even his 'de'--_mais bien pour ses beaux
yeux!_ and if the Rigolots of the future turn out less nice to look at
than their sire, and not quite so amusing, they will probably be a great
improvement on him in many other ways. There's room enough--and to
spare!"
[Illustration: "MAMAN DUCHESSE"]
"'Ear! 'ear!" said Little Billee (who always grew flippant when Taffy
got on his high horse). "Your 'ealth and song, sir--them's my sentiments
to a T! What shall we 'ave the pleasure of drinkin', after that wery nice
'armony?"
After which they walked on in silence, each, no doubt, musing on the
general contrariness of things, and imagining what splendid little
Wynnes, or Bagots, or McAlisters might have been ushered into a decadent
world for its regeneration if fate had so willed it that a certain
magnificent and singularly gifted grisette, etc., etc., etc....
Mrs. and Miss Hunks passed them as they walked along, in a beautiful
blue barouche with C springs--_un "huit-ressorts"_; Maman Duchesse
passed them in a hired fly; Zouzou passed them on horseback; "tout
Paris" passed them; but they were none the wiser, and agreed that the
show was not a patch on that in Hyde Park during the London season.
When they reached the Place de la Concorde it was that lovely hour of a
fine autumn day in beautiful bright cities when all the lamps are lit in
the shops and streets and under the trees, and it is still daylight--a
quickly fleeting joy; and as a special treat on this particular occasion
the sun set, and up rose the yellow moon over eastern Paris, and floated
above the chimney-pots of the Tuileries.
They stopped to gaze at the homeward procession of cabs and carriages,
as they used to do in the old times. Tout Paris was still passing; tout
Paris is very long.
They stood among a little crowd of sight-seers like themselves, Little
Billee right in front--in the road.
Presently a magnificent open carriage came by--more magnificent than
even the Hunkses', with liveries and harness quite vulgarly
resplendent--almost Napoleonic.
Lolling back in it lay Monsieur et Madame Svengali--he with his
broad-brimmed felt sombrero over his long black curls, wrapped in costly
furs, smoking his big cigar of the Havana.
By his side la Svengali--also in sables--with a large black velvet hat
on, her light brown hair done up in a huge knot on the nape of her neck.
She was rouged and pearl-powdered, and her eyes were blackened beneath,
and thus made to look twice their size; but in spite of all such
disfigurements she was a most splendid vision, and caused quite a little
sensation in the crowd as she came slowly by.
Little Billee's heart was in his mouth. He caught Svengali's eye, and
saw him speak to her. She turned her head and looked at him standing
there--they both did. Little Billee bowed. She stared at him with a cold
stare of disdain, and cut him dead--so did Svengali. And as they passed
he heard them both snigger--she with a little high-pitched, flippant
snigger worthy of a London bar-maid.
Little Billee was utterly crushed, and everything seemed turning round.
The Laird and Taffy had seen it all without losing a detail. The
Svengalis had not even looked their way. The Laird said:
"It's not Trilby--I swear! She could _never_ have done that--it's not
_in_ her! and it's another face altogether--I'm sure of it!"
[Illustration: THE CUT DIRECT]
Taffy was also staggered and in doubt. They caught hold of Little
Billee, each by an arm, and walked him off to the boulevards. He was
quite demoralized, and wanted not to dine at the Passefils'. He wanted
to go straight home at once. He longed for his mother as he used to long
for her when he was in trouble as a small boy and she was away from
home--longed for her desperately--to hug her and hold her and fondle
her, and be fondled, for his own sake and hers; all his old love for her
had come back in full--with what arrears! all his old love for his
sister, for his old home.
When they went back to the hotel to dress (for Dodor had begged them to
put on their best evening war-paint, so as to impress his future
mother-in-law), Little Billee became fractious and intractable. And it
was only on Taffy's promising that he would go all the way to Devonshire
with him on the morrow, and stay with him there, that he could be got to
dress and dine.
The huge Taffy lived entirely by his affections, and he hadn't many to
live by--the Laird, Trilby, and Little Billee.
Trilby was unattainable, the Laird was quite strong and independent
enough to get on by himself, and Taffy had concentrated all his
faculties of protection and affection on Little Billee, and was equal to
any burden or responsibility all this instinctive young fathering might
involve.
In the first place, Little Billee had always been able to do quite
easily, and better than any one else in the world, the very things Taffy
most longed to do himself and couldn't, and this inspired the good Taffy
with a chronic reverence and wonder he could not have expressed in
words.