left them, promising to come again that day.
They were utterly bewildered; and the Laird would have it that there was
another Madame Svengali somewhere, the real one, and that Trilby was a
fraud--self-deceived and self-deceiving--quite unconsciously so, of
course.
Truth looked out of her eyes, as it always had done--truth was in every
line of her face.
The truth only--nothing but the truth could ever be told in that "voice
of velvet," which rang as true when she spoke as that of any thrush or
nightingale, however rebellious it might be now (and forever perhaps) to
artificial melodic laws and limitations and restraints. The long
training it had been subjected to had made it "a wonder, a world's
delight," and though she might never sing another note, her mere speech
would always be more golden than any silence, whatever she might say.
Except on the one particular point of her singing, she had seemed
absolutely sane--so, at least, thought Taffy, the Laird, and Little
Billee. And each thought to himself, besides, that this last incarnation
of Trilbyness was quite the sweetest, most touching, most endearing of
all.
They had not failed to note how rapidly she had aged, now that they had
seen her without her rouge and pearl-powder; she looked thirty at
least--she was only twenty-three.
Her hands were almost transparent in their waxen whiteness; delicate
little frosty wrinkles had gathered round her eyes; there were gray
streaks in her hair; all strength and straightness and elasticity seemed
to have gone out of her with the memory of her endless triumphs (if she
really _was_ la Svengali), and of her many wanderings from city to city
all over Europe.
It was evident enough that the sudden stroke which had destroyed her
power of singing had left her physically a wreck.
But she was one of those rarely gifted beings who cannot look or speak
or even stir without waking up (and satisfying) some vague longing that
lies dormant in the hearts of most of us, men and women alike; grace,
charm, magnetism--whatever the nameless seduction should be called that
she possessed to such an unusual degree--she had lost none of it when
she lost her high spirits, her buoyant health and energy, her wits!
Tuneless and insane, she was more of a siren than ever--a quite
unconscious siren--without any guile, who appealed to the heart all the
more directly and irresistibly that she could no longer stir the
passions.
All this was keenly felt by all three--each in his different way--by
Taffy and Little Billee especially.
All her past life was forgiven--her sins of omission and commission! And
whatever might be her fate--recovery, madness, disease, or death--the
care of her till she died or recovered should be the principal business
of their lives.
Both had loved her. All three, perhaps. One had been loved by her as
passionately, as purely, as unselfishly as any man could wish to be
loved, and in some extraordinary manner had recovered, after many years,
at the mere sudden sight and sound of her, his lost share in our common
inheritance--the power to love, and all its joy and sorrow; without
which he had found life not worth living, though he had possessed every
other gift and blessing in such abundance.
"Oh, Circe, poor Circe, dear Circe, divine enchantress that you were!"
he said to himself, in his excitable way. "A mere look from your eyes, a
mere note of your heavenly voice, has turned a poor, miserable, callous
brute back into a man again! and I will never forget it--never! And now
that a still worse trouble than mine has befallen you, you shall always
be first in my thoughts till the end!"
And Taffy felt pretty much the same, though he was not by way of talking
to himself so eloquent about things as Little Billee.
* * * * *
As they lunched, they read the accounts of the previous evening's events
in different papers, three or four of which (including the _Times_) had
already got leaders about the famous but unhappy singer who had been so
suddenly widowed and struck down in the midst of her glory. All these
accounts were more or less correct. In one paper it was mentioned that
Madame Svengali was under the roof and care of Mr. William Bagot, the
painter, in Fitzroy Square.
The inquest on Svengali was to take place that afternoon, and also
Gecko's examination at the Bow Street Police Court, for his assault.
[Illustration: "TAFFY WAS ALLOWED TO SEE GECKO"]
Taffy was allowed to see Gecko, who was remanded till the result of the
post-mortem should be made public. But beyond inquiring most anxiously
and minutely after Trilby, and betraying the most passionate concern for
her, he would say nothing, and seemed indifferent as to his own fate.
When they went to Fitzroy Square, late in the afternoon, they found
that many people, musical, literary, fashionable, and otherwise (and
many foreigners), had called to inquire after Madame Svengali, but no
one had been admitted to see her. Mrs. Godwin was much elated by the
importance of her new lodger.
Trilby had been writing to Angèle Boisse, at her old address in the Rue
des Cloîtres Ste. Pétronille, in the hope that this letter would find
her still there. She was anxious to go back and be a _blanchisseuse de
fin_ with her friend. It was a kind of nostalgia for Paris, the quartier
latin, her clean old trade.
This project our three heroes did not think it necessary to discuss with
her just yet; she seemed quite unfit for work of any kind.
The doctor, who had seen her again, had been puzzled by her strange
physical weakness, and wished for a consultation with some special
authority; Little Billee, who was intimate with most of the great
physicians, wrote about her to Sir Oliver Calthorpe.
She seemed to find a deep happiness in being with her three old friends,
and talked and listened with all her old eagerness and geniality, and
much of her old gayety, in spite of her strange and sorrowful position.
But for this it was impossible to realize that her brain was affected in
the slightest degree, except when some reference was made to her
singing, and this seemed to annoy and irritate her, as though she were
being made fun of. The whole of her marvellous musical career, and
everything connected with it, had been clean wiped out of her
recollection.
She was very anxious to get into other quarters, that Little Billee
should suffer no inconvenience, and they promised to take rooms for her
and Marta on the morrow.
They told her cautiously all about Svengali and Gecko; she was deeply
concerned, but betrayed no such poignant anguish as might have been
expected. The thought of Gecko troubled her most, and she showed much
anxiety as to what might befall him.
Next day she moved with Marta to some lodgings in Charlotte Street,
where everything was made as comfortable for them as possible.
Sir Oliver saw her with Dr. Thorne (the doctor who was attending her)
and Sir Jacob Wilcox.
Sir Oliver took the greatest interest in her case, both for her sake and
his friend Little Billee's. Also his own, for he was charmed with her.
He saw her three times in the course of the week, but could not say for
certain what was the matter with her, beyond taking the very gravest
view of her condition. For all he could advise or prescribe, her
weakness and physical prostration increased rapidly, through no cause he
could discover. Her insanity was not enough to account for it. She lost
weight daily; she seemed to be wasting and fading away from sheer
general atrophy.
Two or three times he took her and Marta for a drive.
On one of these occasions, as they went down Charlotte Street, she saw a
shop with transparent French blinds in the window, and through them some
French women, with neat white caps, ironing. It was a French
_blanchisserie de fin_, and the sight of it interested and excited her
so much that she must needs insist on being put down and on going into
it.
"Je voudrais bien parler à la patronne, si ça ne la dérange pas," she
said.
[Illustration: A FAIR BLANCHISSEUSE DE FIN]
The patronne, a genial Parisian, was much astonished to hear a great
French lady, in costly garments, evidently a person of fashion and
importance, applying to her rather humbly for employment in the
business, and showing a thorough knowledge of the work (and of the
Parisian work-woman's colloquial dialect). Marta managed to catch the
patronne's eye, and tapped her own forehead significantly, and Sir
Oliver nodded. So the good woman humored the great lady's fancy, and
promised her abundance of employment whenever she should want it.
Employment! Poor Trilby was hardly strong enough to walk back to the
carriage; and this was her last outing.
But this little adventure had filled her with hope and good spirits--for
she had as yet received no answer from Angèle Boisse (who was in
Marseilles), and had begun to realize how dreary the quartier latin
would be without Jeannot, without Angèle, without the trois Angliches in
the Place St. Anatole des Arts.
She was not allowed to see any of the strangers who came and made kind
inquiries. This her doctors had strictly forbidden. Any reference to
music or singing irritated her beyond measure. She would say to Marta,
in bad German:
"Tell them, Marta--what nonsense it is! They are taking me for
another--they are mad. They are trying to make a fool of me!"
And Marta would betray great uneasiness--almost terror--when she was
appealed to in this way.
Part Eighth
"La vie est vaine:
Un peu d'amour,
Un peu de haine....
Et puis--bonjour!
"La vie est brève:
Un peu d'espoir,
Un peu de rève....
Et puis--bonsoir."
Svengali had died from heart-disease. The cut he had received from Gecko
had not apparently (as far as the verdict of a coroner's inquest could
be trusted) had any effect in aggravating his malady or hastening his
death.
But Gecko was sent for trial at the Old Bailey, and sentenced to hard
labor for six months (a sentence which, if I remember aright, gave rise
to much comment at the time). Taffy saw him again, but with no better
result than before. He chose to preserve an obstinate silence on his
relations with the Svengalis and their relations with each other.
When he was told how hopelessly ill and insane Madame Svengali was, he
shed a few tears, and said: "Ah, pauvrette, pauvrette--ah! monsieur--je
l'aimais tant, je l'aimais tant! il n'y en a pas beaucoup comme elle,
Dieu de misère! C'est un ange du Paradis!"
And not another word was to be got out of him.
It took some time to settle Svengali's affairs after his death. No will
was found. His old mother came over from Germany, and two of his
sisters, but no wife. The comic wife and the three children, and the
sweet-stuff shop in Elberfeld, had been humorous inventions of his
own--a kind of Mrs. Harris!
He left three thousand pounds, every penny of which (and of far larger
sums that he had spent) had been earned by "la Svengali," but nothing
came to Trilby of this; nothing but the clothes and jewels he had given
her, and in this respect he had been lavish enough; and there were
countless costly gifts from emperors, kings, great people of all kinds.
Trilby was under the impression that all these belonged to Marta. Marta
behaved admirably; she seemed bound hand and foot to Trilby by a kind of
slavish adoration, as that of a plain old mother for a brilliant and
beautiful but dying child.
It soon became evident that, whatever her disease might be, Trilby had
but a very short time to live.
She was soon too weak even to be taken out in a Bath-chair, and remained
all day in her large sitting-room with Marta; and there, to her great
and only joy, she received her three old friends every afternoon, and
gave them coffee, and made them smoke cigarettes of caporal as of old;
and their hearts were daily harrowed as they watched her rapid decline.
Day by day she grew more beautiful in their eyes, in spite of her
increasing pallor and emaciation--her skin was so pure and white and
delicate, and the bones of her face so admirable!
[Illustration: A THRONE IN BOHEMIA]
Her eyes recovered all their old humorous brightness when les trois
Angliches were with her, and the expression of her face was so wistful
and tender for all her playfulness, so full of eager clinging to
existence and to them, that they felt the memory of it would haunt them
forever, and be the sweetest and saddest memory of their lives.
Her quick, though feeble gestures, full of reminiscences of the vigorous
and lively girl they had known a few years back, sent waves of pity
through them and pure brotherly love; and the incomparable tones and
changes and modulations of her voice, as she chatted and laughed,
bewitched them almost as much as when she had sung the "Nussbaum" of
Schumann in the Salle des Bashibazoucks.
Sometimes Lorrimer came, and Antony and the Greek. It was like a genial
little court of bohemia. And Lorrimer, Antony, the Laird, and Little
Billee made those beautiful chalk and pencil studies of her head which
are now so well known--all so singularly like her, and so singularly
unlike each other! _Trilby vue à travers quatre tempéraments!_
These afternoons were probably the happiest poor Trilby had ever spent
in her life--with these dear people round her, speaking the language she
loved; talking of old times and jolly Paris days, she never thought of
the morrow.
But later--at night, in the small hours--she would wake up with a start
from some dream full of tender and blissful recollection, and suddenly
realize her own mischance, and feel the icy hand of that which was to
come before many morrows were over; and taste the bitterness of death so
keenly that she longed to scream out loud, and get up, and walk up and
down, and wring her hands at the dreadful thought of parting forever!
But she lay motionless and mum as a poor little frightened mouse in a
trap, for fear of waking up the good old tired Marta, who was snoring at
her side.
And in an hour or two the bitterness would pass away, the creeps and the
horrors; and the stoical spirit of resignation would steal over her--the
balm, the blessed calm! and all her old bravery would come back.
And then she would sink into sleep again, and dream more blissfully than
ever, till the good Marta woke her with a motherly kiss and a fragrant
cup of coffee; and she would find, feeble as she was, and doomed as she
felt herself to be, that joy cometh of a morning; and life was still
sweet for her, with yet a whole day to look forward to.
* * * * *
One day she was deeply moved at receiving a visit from Mrs. Bagot, who,
at Little Billee's earnest desire, had come all the way from Devonshire
to see her.
As the graceful little lady came in, pale and trembling all over, Trilby
rose from her chair to receive her, and rather timidly put out her hand,
and smiled in a frightened manner. Neither could speak for a second.
Mrs. Bagot stood stock-still by the door gazing (with all her heart in
her eyes) at the so terribly altered Trilby--the girl she had once so
dreaded.
Trilby, who seemed also bereft of motion, and whose face and lips were
ashen, exclaimed, "I'm afraid I haven't quite kept my promise to you,
after all! but things have turned out so differently! anyhow, you
needn't have any fear of me _now_."
[Illustration: "'OH, MY POOR GIRL! MY POOR GIRL!'"]
At the mere sound of that voice, Mrs. Bagot, who was as impulsive,
emotional, and unregulated as her son, rushed forward, crying, "Oh, my
poor girl, my poor girl!" and caught her in her arms, and kissed and
caressed her, and burst into a flood of tears, and forced her back into
her chair, hugging her as if she were a long-lost child.
"I love you now as much as I always admired you--pray believe it!"
"Oh, how kind of you to say that!" said Trilby, her own eyes filling.
"I'm not at all the dangerous or designing person you thought. I knew
quite well I wasn't a proper person to marry your son all the time; and
told him so again and again. It was very stupid of me to say yes at
last. I was miserable directly after, I assure you. Somehow I couldn't
help myself--I was driven."
"Oh, don't talk of that! don't talk of that! You've never been to blame
in any way--I've long known it--I've been full of remorse! You've been
in my thoughts always, night and day. Forgive a poor jealous mother. As
if _any_ man could help loving you--or any woman either. Forgive me!"
"Oh, Mrs. Bagot--forgive _you_! What a funny idea! But, anyhow, you've
forgiven _me_, and that's all I care for now. I was very fond of your
son--as fond as could be. I am now, but in quite a different sort of
way, you know--the sort of way _you_ must be, I fancy! There was never
another like him that I ever met--anywhere! You _must_ be so proud of
him; who wouldn't? _Nobody's_ good enough for him. I would have been
only too glad to be his servant, his humble servant! I used to tell him
so--but he wouldn't hear of it--he was much too kind! He always thought
of others before himself. And, oh! how rich and famous he's become! I've
heard all about it, and it did me good. It does me more good to think of
than anything else; far more than if I were to be ever so rich and
famous myself, I can tell you!"
This from la Svengali, whose overpowering fame, so utterly forgotten by
herself, was still ringing all over Europe; whose lamentable illness
and approaching death were being mourned and discussed and commented
upon in every capital of the civilized world, as one distressing
bulletin appeared after another. She might have been a royal personage!
Mrs. Bagot knew, of course, the strange form her insanity had taken, and
made no allusion to the flood of thoughts that rushed through her own
brain as she listened to this towering goddess of song, this poor mad
queen of the nightingales, humbly gloating over her son's success....
Poor Mrs. Bagot had just come from Little Billee's, in Fitzroy Square,
close by. There she had seen Taffy, in a corner of Little Billee's
studio, laboriously answering endless letters and telegrams from all
parts of Europe--for the good Taffy had constituted himself Trilby's
secretary and _homme d'affaires_--unknown to her, of course. And this
was no sinecure (though he liked it): putting aside the numerous people
he had to see and be interviewed by, there were kind inquiries and
messages of condolence and sympathy from nearly all the crowned heads of
Europe, through their chamberlains; applications for help from
unsuccessful musical strugglers all over the world to the pre-eminently
successful one; beautiful letters from great and famous people, musical
or otherwise; disinterested offers of service; interested proposals for
engagements when the present trouble should be over; beggings for an
interview from famous impresarios, to obtain which no distance would be
thought too great, etc., etc., etc. It was endless, in English, French,
German, Italian--in languages quite incomprehensible (many letters had
to remain unanswered)--Taffy took an almost malicious pleasure in
explaining all this to Mrs. Bagot.
Then there was a constant rolling of carriages up to the door, and a
thundering of Little Billee's knocker: Lord and Lady Palmerston wish to
know--the Lord Chief Justice wishes to know--the Dean of Westminster
wishes to know--the Marchioness of Westminster wishes to know--everybody
wishes to know if there is any better news of Madame Svengali!
These were small things, truly; but Mrs. Bagot was a small person from a
small village in Devonshire, and one whose heart and eye had hitherto
been filled by no larger image than that of Little Billee; and Little
Billee's fame, as she now discovered for the first time, did not quite
fill the entire universe.
And she mustn't be too much blamed if all these obvious signs of a
world-wide colossal celebrity impressed and even awed her a little.
Madame Svengali! Why, this was the beautiful girl whom she remembered so
well, whom she had so grandly discarded with a word, and who had
accepted her congé so meekly in a minute; whom, indeed, she had been
cursing in her heart for years, because--because what?
Poor Mrs. Bagot felt herself turn hot and red all over, and humbled
herself to the very dust, and almost forgot that she had been in the
right, after all, and that "la grande Trilby" was certainly no fit match
for her son!
So she went quite humbly to see Trilby, and found a poor, pathetic, mad
creature still more humble than herself, who still apologized for--for
what?
A poor, pathetic, mad creature who had clean forgotten that she was the
greatest singer in all the world--one of the greatest artists that had
ever lived; but who remembered with shame and contrition that she had
once taken the liberty of yielding (after endless pressure and repeated
disinterested refusals of her own, and out of sheer irresistible
affection) to the passionate pleadings of a little obscure art student,
a mere boy--no better off than herself--just as penniless and
insignificant a nobody; but--the son of Mrs. Bagot.
All due sense of proportion died out of the poor lady as she remembered
and realized all this!
And then Trilby's pathetic beauty, so touching, so winning, in its rapid
decay; the nameless charm of look and voice and manner that was her
special apanage, and which her malady and singular madness had only
increased; her childlike simplicity, her transparent forgetfulness of
self--all these so fascinated and entranced Mrs. Bagot, whose quick
susceptibility to such impressions was just as keen as her son's, that
she very soon found herself all but worshipping this fast-fading
lily--for so she called her in her own mind--quite forgetting (or
affecting to forget) on what very questionable soil the lily had been
reared, and through what strange vicissitudes of evil and corruption it
had managed to grow so tall and white and fragrant!
Oh, strange compelling power of weakness and grace and prettiness
combined, and sweet, sincere unconscious natural manners! not to speak
of world-wide fame!
For Mrs. Bagot was just a shrewd little conventional British country
matron of the good upper middle-class type, bristling all over with
provincial proprieties and respectabilities, a philistine of the
philistines, in spite of her artistic instincts; one who for years had
(rather unjustly) thought of Trilby as a wanton and perilous siren, an
unchaste and unprincipled and most dangerous daughter of Heth, and the
special enemy of her house.
And here she was--like all the rest of us monads and nomads and
bohemians--just sitting at Trilby's feet.... "A washer-woman! a figure
model! and Heaven knows what besides!" and she had never even heard her
sing!
It was truly comical to see and hear!
* * * * *
Mrs. Bagot did not go back to Devonshire. She remained in Fitzroy
Square, at her son's, and spent most of her time with Trilby, doing and
devising all kinds of things to distract and amuse her, and lead her
thoughts gently to heaven, and soften for her the coming end of all.
Trilby had a way of saying, and especially of looking, "Thank you" that
made one wish to do as many things for her as one could, if only to make
her say and look it again.
And she had retained much of her old, quaint, and amusing manner of
telling things, and had much to tell still left of her wandering life,
although there were so many strange lapses in her powers of
memory--gaps--which, if they could only have been filled up, would have
been full of such surpassing interest!
Then she was never tired of talking and hearing of Little Billee; and
that was a subject of which Mrs. Bagot could never tire either!
Then there were the recollections of her childhood. One day, in a
drawer, Mrs. Bagot came upon a faded daguerreotype of a woman in a Tam
o' Shanter, with a face so sweet and beautiful and saint-like that it
almost took her breath away. It was Trilby's mother.
"Who and what was your mother, Trilby?"
"Ah, poor mamma!" said Trilby, and she looked at the portrait a long
time. "Ah, she was ever so much prettier than that! Mamma was once a
demoiselle de comptoir--that's a bar-maid, you know--at the Montagnards
Écossais, in the Rue du Paradis Poissonnière--a place where men used to
drink and smoke without sitting down. That was unfortunate, wasn't it?