"Was there ever, since the world began, such a _muse en scène_, and for
such a meeting, Mr. Ibbetson? Think of it! Conceive it! _I_ arranged it
all. I chose a day when they were all together. As they would say in
America, _I_ am the boss of this particular dream."
And she laughed again, through her tears, that enchanting ripple of a
laugh that closed her eyes and made her so irresistible.
"Was there ever," said I--"ever since the world began, such ecstasy as I
feel now? After this what can there be for me but death--well earned and
well paid for? Welcome and lovely death!"
[Illustration]
"You have not yet thought, Mr. Ibbetson--you have not realized what life
may have in store for you if--if all you have said about your affection
for me is true. Oh, it is too terrible for me to think of, I know, that
you, scarcely more than a boy, should have to spend the rest of your
life in miserable confinement and unprofitable monotonous toil. But
there is _another_ side to that picture.
"Now listen to your old friend's story--poor little Mimsey's confession.
I will make it as short as I can.
"Do you remember when you first saw me, a sickly, plain, sad little
girl, at the avenue gate, twenty years ago?
"Le Père François was killing a fowl--cutting its throat with a
clasp-knife--and the poor thing struggled frantically in his grasp as
its blood flowed into the gutter. A group of boys were looking on in
great glee, and all the while Père François was gossiping with M. le
Curé, who didn't seem to mind in the least. I was fainting with pity and
horror. Suddenly you came out of the school opposite with Alfred and
Charlie Plunket, and saw it all, and in a fit of noble rage you called
Père François a 'sacred pig of assassin'--which, as you know, is very
rude in French--and struck him as near his face as you could reach.
"Have you forgotten that? Ah, _I_ haven't! It was not an effectual deed,
perhaps, and certainly came too late to save the fowl. Besides, Père
François struck you back again, and left some of the fowl's blood on
your cheek. It was a baptism! You became on the spot my hero--my angel
of light. Look at Gogo over there. Is he beautiful enough? That was
_you_, Mr. Ibbetson.
"M. le Curé said something about 'ces _Anglais_' who go mad if a man
whips his horse, and yet pay people to box each other to death. Don't
you really remember? Oh, the recollection to _me!_
"And that little language we invented and used to talk so fluently!
Don't you _rappel_ it to yourself? 'Ne le _récollectes_ tu pas?' as we
would have said in those days, for it used to be _thee_ and _thou_
with us then.
"Well, at all events, you must remember how for five happy years we were
so often together; how you drew for me, read to me, played with me; took
my part in everything, right or wrong; carried me pickaback when I was
tired. Your drawings--I have them all. And oh! you were so funny
sometimes! How you used to make mamma laugh, and M. le Major! Just look
at Gogo again. Have you forgotten what he is doing now? I haven't.... He
has just changed the _musée des familles_ for the _Penny Magazine_, and
is explaining Hogarth's pictures of the 'Idle and Industrious
Apprentices' to Mimsey, and they are both agreed that the idle one is
much the less objectionable of the two!
"Mimsey looks passive enough, with her thumb in her mouth, doesn't she?
Her little heart is so full of gratitude and love for Gogo that she
can't speak. She can only suck her thumb. Poor, sick, ungainly child!
She would like to be Gogo's slave--she would die for Gogo. And her
mother adores Gogo too; she is almost jealous of dear Madame Pasquier
for having so sweet a son. In just one minute from now, when she has
cut that last curl-paper, poor long-dead mamma will call Gogo to her and
give him a good 'Irish hug,' and make him happy for a week. Wait a
minute and see. _There!_ What did I tell you?
"Well, all that came to an end. Madame Pasquier went away and never came
back, and so did Gogo. Monsieur and Madame Pasquier were dead, and dear
mamma died in a week from the cholera. Poor heartbroken Mimsey was taken
away to St. Petersburg, Warsaw, Leipsic, Venice, all over Europe, by her
father, as heart-broken as herself.
"It was her wish and her father's that she should become a pianist by
profession, and she studied hard for many years in almost every capital,
and under almost every master in Europe, and she gave promise
of success.
"And so, wandering from one place to another, she became a young
woman--a greatly petted and spoiled and made-much-of young woman, Mr.
Ibbetson, although she says it who shouldn't; and had many suitors of
all kinds and countries.
"But the heroic and angelic Gogo, with his lovely straight nose, and his
hair _aux enfants d'Edouard_, and his dear little white silk chimney-pot
hat and Eton jacket, was always enshrined in her memory, in her inmost
heart, as the incarnation of all that was beautiful and brave and good.
But alas! what had become of this Gogo in the mean time? Ah, he was
never even heard of--he was dead!
"Well, this long-legged, tender-hearted, grown-up young Mimsey of
nineteen was attracted by a very witty and accomplished English attaché
at Vienna--a Mr. Harcourt, who seemed deeply in love with her, and
wished her to be his wife.
"He was not rich, but Dr. Seraskier liked and trusted him so much that
he dispossessed himself of almost everything he had to enable this young
couple to marry--and they did. And truth compels me to admit that for a
year they were very happy and contented with fate and each other.
"Then a great misfortune befell them both. In a most unexpected manner,
through four or five consecutive deaths in Mr. Harcourt's family, he
became, first, Lord Harcourt, and then the Duke of Towers. And since
then, Mr. Ibbetson, I have not had an hour's peace or happiness.
"In the first place a son was born to me--a cripple, poor dear! and
deformed from his birth; and as he grew older it soon became evident
that he was also born without a mind.
"Then my unfortunate husband changed completely; he drank and gambled
and worse, till we came to live together as strangers, and only spoke to
each other in public and before the world...."
"Ah," I said, "you were still a great lady--an English duchess!"
I could not endure the thought of that happy twelvemonth with that
bestial duke! I, sober, chaste, and clean--of all but blood, alas!--and
a condemned convict!
Oh, Mr. Ibbetson, you must make no mistake about _me_! I was never
intended by nature for a duchess--especially an English one. Not but
what, if dukes and duchesses are necessary, the English are the
best--and, of course, by dukes and duchesses I mean all that
upper-ten-thousand in England which calls itself 'society'--as if there
were no other worth speaking of. Some of them are almost angelic, but
they are not for outsiders like me. Perpetual hunting and shooting and
fishing and horseracing--eating, drinking, and killing, and making
love--eternal court gossip and tittle-tattle--the Prince--the
Queen--whom and what the Queen likes, whom and what she doesn't!--tame
English party politics--the Church--a Church that doesn't know its own
mind, in spite of its deans, bishops, archbishops, and their wives and
daughters--and all their silly, solemn sense of social rank and dignity!
Endless small-talk, dinners, and drums, and no society from year's end
to year's end but each other! Ah, one must be caught young, and put in
harness early, to lead such an existence as that and be content! And I
had met and known _such_ men and women with my father! They _were_
something to know!
There is another society in London and elsewhere--a freemasonry of
intellect and culture and hard work--_la haute bohême du talent_--men
and women whose names are or ought to be household words all over the
world; many of them are good friends of mine, both here and abroad; and
that society, which was good enough for my father and mother, is quite
good enough for me.