Trilby Read online

  Part Fourth

  "Félicité passée Qui ne peux revenir, Tourment de ma pensée, Que n'ay-je, en te perdant, perdu le souvenir!"

  Mid-day had struck. The expected hamper had not turned up in the PlaceSt. Anatole des Arts.

  All Madame Vinard's kitchen battery was in readiness; Trilby and MadameAngèle Boisse were in the studio, their sleeves turned up, and ready tobegin.

  At twelve the trois Angliches and the two fair blanchisseuses sat downto lunch in a very anxious frame of mind, and finished a pâté de foiegras and two bottles of Burgundy between them, such was theirdisquietude.

  The guests had been invited for six o'clock.

  Most elaborately they laid the cloth on the table they had borrowed fromthe Hôtel de Seine, and settled who was to sit next to whom, and thenunsettled it, and quarrelled over it--Trilby, as was her wont in suchmatters, assuming an authority that did not rightly belong to her, andof course getting her own way in the end.

  And that, as the Laird remarked, was her confounded Trilbyness.

  Two o'clock--three--four--but no hamper! Darkness had almost set in. Itwas simply maddening. They knelt on the divan, with their elbows on thewindow-sill, and watched the street lamps popping into life along thequays--and looked out through the gathering dusk for the van from theChemin de Fer du Nord--and gloomily thought of the Morgue, which theycould still make out across the river.

  SOUVENIR]

  At length the Laird and Trilby went off in a cab to the station--a longdrive--and, lo! before they came back the long-expected hamper arrived,at six o'clock.

  And with it Durien, Vincent, Antony, Lorrimer, Carnegie,Petrolicoconose, Dodor, and l'Zouzou--the last two in uniform, as usual.

  And suddenly the studio, which had been so silent, dark, and dull, withTaffy and Little Billee sitting hopeless and despondent round thestove, became a scene of the noisiest, busiest, and cheerfulestanimation. The three big lamps were lit, and all the Chinese lanterns.The pieces of resistance and the pudding were whisked off by Trilby,Angèle, and Madame Vinard to other regions--the porter's lodge andDurien's studio (which had been lent for the purpose); and every one waspressed into the preparations for the banquet. There was plenty for idlehands to do. Sausages to be fried for the turkey, stuffing made, andsauces, salads mixed, and punch--holly hung in festoons all round andabout--a thousand things. Everybody was so clever and good-humored thatnobody got in anybody's way--not even Carnegie, who was in evening dress(to the Laird's delight). So they made him do the scullion'swork--cleaning, rinsing, peeling, etc.

  The cooking of the dinner was almost better fun than the eating of it.And though there were so many cooks, not even the broth was spoiled(cockaleekie, from a receipt of the Laird's).

  It was ten o'clock before they sat down to that most memorable repast.

  Zouzou and Dodor, who had been the most useful and energetic of all itscooks, apparently quite forgot they were due at their respectivebarracks at that very moment: they had only been able to obtain "lapermission de dix heures." If they remembered it, the certainty thatnext day Zouzou would be reduced to the ranks for the fifth time, andDodor confined to his barracks for a month, did not trouble them in theleast.

  The waiting was as good as the cooking. The handsome, quick,authoritative Madame Vinard was in a dozen places at once, and openlyprompted, rebuked, and ballyragged her husband into a proper smartness.The pretty little Madame Angèle moved about as deftly and as quietly asa mouse; which of course did not prevent them both from genially joiningin the general conversation whenever it wandered into French.

  Trilby, tall, graceful, and stately, and also swift of action, thoughmore like Juno or Diana than Hebe, devoted herself more especially toher own particular favorites--Durien, Taffy, the Laird, LittleBillee--and Dodor and Zouzou, whom she loved, and tutoyé'd en bonnecamarade as she served them with all there was of the choicest.

  The two little Vinards did their little best--they scrupulouslyrespected the mince-pies, and only broke two bottles of oil and one ofHarvey sauce, which made their mother furious. To console them, theLaird took one of them on each knee and gave them of his share ofplum-pudding and many other unaccustomed good things, so bad for theirlittle French tumtums.

  The genteel Carnegie had never been at such a queer scene in his life.It opened his mind--and Dodor and Zouzou, between whom he sat (the Lairdthought it would do him good to sit between a private soldier and ahumble corporal), taught him more French than he had learned during thethree months he had spent in Paris. It was a specialty of theirs. It wasmore colloquial than what is generally used in diplomatic circles, andstuck longer in the memory; but it hasn't interfered with his prefermentin the Church.

  He quite unbent. He was the first to volunteer a song (without beingasked) when the pipes and cigars were lit, and after the usual toastshad been drunk--her Majesty's health, Tennyson, Thackeray, and Dickens;and John Leech.

  He sang, with a very cracked and rather hiccupy voice, his only song (itseems)--an English one, of which the burden, he explained, was French:

  "Veeverler veeverler veeverler vee Veeverler companyee!"

  And Zouzou and Dodor complimented him so profusely on his French accentthat he was with difficulty prevented from singing it all over again.

  Then everybody sang in rotation.

  The Laird, with a capital barytone, sang

  "Hie diddle Dee for the Lowlands low,"

  which was encored.

  Little Billee sang "Little Billee."

  Vincent sang

  "Old Joe kicking up behind and afore. And the yaller gal a-kicking up behind old Joe."

  A capital song, with words of quite a masterly scansion.

  Antony sang "Le Sire de Framboisy." Enthusiastic encore.

  Lorrimer, inspired no doubt by the occasion, sang the "HallelujahChorus," and accompanied himself on the piano, but failed to obtain anencore.

  Durien sang

  "Plaisir d'amour ne dure qu'un moment; Chagrin d'amour dure toute la vie...."

  It was his favorite song, and one of the beautiful songs of the world,and he sang it very well--and it became popular in the quartier latinever after.

  The Greek couldn't sing, and very wisely didn't.

  Zouzou sang capitally a capital song in praise of "le vin à quat' sous!"

  Taffy, in a voice like a high wind (and with a very good imitation ofthe Yorkshire brogue), sang a Somersetshire hunting-ditty, ending:

  "Of this 'ere song should I be axed the reason for to show, I don't exactly know, I don't exactly know! But all my fancy dwells upon Nancy, And I sing Tally-ho!"

  It is a quite superexcellent ditty, and haunts my memory to this day;and one felt sure that Nancy was a dear and a sweet, wherever she lived,and when. So Taffy was encored twice--once for her sake, once for hisown.

  "MY SISTER DEAR"]

  And finally, to the surprise of all, the bold dragoon sang (in English)"My Sister Dear," out of _Masaniello_, with such pathos, and in a voiceso sweet and high and well in tune, that his audience felt almost weepyin the midst of their jollification, and grew quite sentimental, asEnglishmen abroad are apt to do when they are rather tipsy and hearpretty music, and think of their dear sisters across the sea, or theirfriends' dear sisters.

  Madame Vinard interrupted her Christmas dinner on the model-throne tolisten, and wept and wiped her eyes quite openly, and remarked to MadameBoisse, who stood modestly close by: "Il est gentil tout plein, cedragon! Mon Dieu! comme il chante bien! Il est Angliche aussi, ilparaît. Ils sont joliment bien élevés, tous ces Angliches--tous plusgentils les uns que les autres! et quant à Monsieur Litrebili, on luidonnerait le bon Dieu sans confession!"

  And Madame Boisse agreed.

  Then Svengali and Gecko came, and the table had to be laid and decoratedanew, for it was supper-time.

  Supper was even jollier than dinner, which had taken off the kee
n edgeof the appetites, so that every one talked at once--the true test of asuccessful supper--except when Antony told some of his experiences ofbohemia; for instance, how, after staying at home all day for a month toavoid his creditors, he became reckless one Sunday morning, and went tothe Bains Deligny, and jumped into a deep part by mistake, and was savedfrom a watery grave by a bold swimmer, who turned out to be hisboot-maker, Satory, to whom he owed sixty francs--of all his duns theone he dreaded the most--and who didn't let him go in a hurry.

  Whereupon Svengali remarked that he also owed sixty francs toSatory--"Mais comme che ne me baigne chamais, che n'ai rien àcraindre!"

  Whereupon there was such a laugh that Svengali felt he had scored offAntony at last and had a prettier wit. He flattered himself that he'dgot the laugh of Antony _this_ time.

  And after supper Svengali and Gecko made such lovely music thateverybody was sobered and athirst again, and the punch-bowl, wreathedwith holly and mistletoe, was placed in the middle of the table, andclean glasses set all round it.

  A DUCAL FRENCH FIGHTING-COCK]

  Then Dodor and l'Zouzou stood up to dance with Trilby and Madame Angèle,and executed a series of cancan steps, which, though they were soinimitably droll that they had each and all to be encored, were suchthat not one of them need have brought the blush of shame to the cheekof modesty.

  Then the Laird danced a sword-dance over two T squares and broke themboth. And Taffy, baring his mighty arms to the admiring gaze of all, diddumb-bell exercises, with Little Billee for a dumb-bell, and all butdropped him into the punch-bowl; and tried to cut a pewter ladle in twowith Dodor's sabre, and sent it through the window; and this made himcross, so that he abused French sabres, and said they were made of worsepewter than even French ladles; and the Laird sententiously opined thatthey managed these things better in England, and winked at LittleBillee.

  Then they played at "cock-fighting," with their wrists tied across theirshins, and a broomstick thrust in between; thus manacled, you are placedopposite your antagonist, and try to upset him with your feet, and heyou. It is a very good game. The cuirassier and the Zouave playing atthis got so angry, and were so irresistibly funny a sight, that theshouts of laughter could be heard on the other side of the river, sothat a sergent de ville came in and civilly requested them not to makeso much noise. They were disturbing the whole quartier, he said, andthere was quite a "rassemblement" outside. So they made him tipsy, andalso another policeman, who came to look after his comrade, and yetanother; and these guardians of the peace of Paris were trussed and madeto play at cock-fighting, and were still funnier than the two soldiers,and laughed louder and made more noise than any one else, so that MadameVinard had to remonstrate with them; till they got too tipsy to speak,and fell fast asleep, and were laid next to each other behind thestove.

  The _fin de siècle_ reader, disgusted at the thought of such an orgy asI have been trying to describe, must remember that it happened in thefifties, when men calling themselves gentlemen, and being called so,still wrenched off door-knockers and came back drunk from the Derby, andeven drank too much after dinner before joining the ladies, as is allduly chronicled and set down in John Leech's immortal pictures of lifeand character out of _Punch_.

  * * * * *

  Then M. and Mme. Vinard and Trilby and Angèle Boisse bade the companygood-night, Trilby being the last of them to leave.

  Little Billee took her to the top of the staircase, and there he said toher:

  "Trilby, I have asked you nineteen times, and you have refused. Trilby,once more, on Christmas night, for the twentieth time--_will_ you marryme? If not, I leave Paris to-morrow morning, and never come back. Iswear it on my word of honor!"

  Trilby turned very pale, and leaned her back against the wall, andcovered her face with her hands.

  Little Billee pulled them away.

  "Answer me, Trilby!"

  "God forgive me, _yes!_" said Trilby, and she ran down-stairs, weeping.

  * * * * *

  It was now very late.

  It soon became evident that Little Billee was in extraordinary highspirits--in an abnormal state of excitement.

  He challenged Svengali to spar, and made his nose bleed, and frightenedhim out of his sardonic wits. He performed wonderful and quiteunsuspected feats of strength. He swore eternal friendship to Dodor andZouzou, and filled their glasses again and again, and also (in hisinnocence) his own, and trinquéd with them many times running. They werethe last to leave (except the three helpless policemen); and at aboutfive or six in the morning, to his surprise, he found himself walkingbetween Dodor and Zouzou by a late windy moonlight in the Rue Vieilledes Mauvais Ladres, now on one side of the frozen gutter, now on theother, now in the middle of it, stopping them now and then to tell themhow jolly they were and how dearly he loved them.

  Presently his hat flew away, and went rolling and skipping and boundingup the narrow street, and they discovered that as soon as they let eachother go to run after it, they all three sat down.

  So Dodor and Little Billee remained sitting, with their arms round eachother's necks and their feet in the gutter, while Zouzou went after thehat on all fours, and caught it, and brought it back in his mouth like atipsy retriever. Little Billee wept for sheer love and gratitude, andcalled him a cary_hat_ide (in English), and laughed loudly at his ownwit, which was quite thrown away on Zouzou! "No man ever _had_ suchdear, dear frenge! no man ever _was_ s'happy!"

  After sitting for a while in love and amity, they managed to get up ontheir feet again, each helping the other; and in some never-to-be-rememberedway they reached the Hôtel Corneille.

  "'ANSWER ME, TRILBY!'"]

  There they sat little Billee on the door-step and rang the bell, andseeing some one coming up the Place de l'Odéon, and fearing he might bea sergent de ville, they bid Little Billee a most affectionate but hastyfarewell, kissing him on both cheeks in French fashion, and contrivingto get themselves round the corner and out of sight.

  Little Billee tried to sing Zouzou's drinking-song:

  "Quoi de plus doux Que les glougloux-- Les glougloux du vin à quat' sous...."

  The stranger came up. Fortunately, it was no sergent de ville, butRibot, just back from a Christmas-tree and a little family dance at hisaunt's, Madame Kolb (the Alsacian banker's wife, in the Rue de laChaussée d'Antin).

  A CARY_HAT_IDE]

  Next morning poor Little Billee was dreadfully ill.

  He had passed a terrible night. His bed had heaved like the ocean, withoceanic results. He had forgotten to put out his candle, but fortunatelyRibot had blown it out for him, after putting him to bed and tucking himup like a real good Samaritan.

  And next morning, when Madame Paul brought him a cup of tisane dechiendent (which does not happen to mean a hair of the dog that bithim), she was kind, but very severe on the dangers and disgrace ofintoxication, and talked to him like a mother.

  "If it had not been for kind Monsieur Ribot" (she told him), "thedoor-step would have been your portion and who could say you didn'tdeserve it? And then think of the dangers of fire from a tipsy man allalone in a small bedroom with chintz curtains and a lighted candle!"

  "Ribot was kind enough to blow out my candle," said Little Billee,humbly.

  "Ah, Dame!" said Madame Paul, with much meaning--"au moins il a _boncœur_, Monsieur Ribot!"

  And the crulest sting of all was when the good-natured and incorrigiblyfestive Ribot came and sat by his bedside, and was kind and tenderlysympathetic, and got him a pick-me-up from the chemist's (unbeknown toMadame Paul).

  "Credieu! vous vous êtes crânement bien amusé, hier soir! quelle bosse,hein! je parie que c'était plus drôle que chez ma tante Kolb!"

  All of which, of course, it is unnecessary to translate; except,perhaps, the word "bosse," which stands for "noce," which stands for a"jolly good spree."

  In all his innocent little life Little Billee had ne
ver dreamed of suchhumiliation as this--such ignominious depths of shame and misery andremorse! He did not care to live. He had but one longing: that Trilby,dear Trilby, kind Trilby, would come and pillow his head on herbeautiful white English bosom, and lay her soft, cool, tender hand onhis aching brow, and there let him go to sleep, and sleeping, die!

  He slept and slept, with no better rest for his aching brow than thepillow of his bed in the Hôtel Corneille, and failed to die this time.And when, after some forty-eight hours or so, he had quite slept off thefumes of that memorable Christmas debauch, he found that a sad thing hadhappened to him, and a strange!

  It was as though a tarnishing breath had swept over the reminiscentmirror of his mind and left a little film behind it, so that no pastthing he wished to see therein was reflected with quite the old pristineclearness. As though the keen, quick, razorlike edge of his power toreach and re-evoke the by-gone charm and glamour and essence of thingshad been blunted and coarsened. As though the bloom of that special joy,the gift he unconsciously had of recalling past emotions and sensationsand situations, and making them actual once more by a mere effort of thewill, had been brushed away.

  And he never recovered the full use of that most precious faculty, theboon of youth and happy childhood, and which he had once possessed,without knowing it, in such singular and exceptional completeness. Hewas to lose other precious faculties of his over-rich and complexnature--to be pruned and clipped and thinned--that his one supremefaculty of painting might have elbow-room to reach its fullest, or elseyou would never have seen the wood for the trees (or _vice versa_--whichis it?).

  "'LES GLOUGLOUX DU VIN À QUAT' SOUS....'"]

  On New-year's Day Taffy and the Laird were at their work in the studio,when there was a knock at the door, and Monsieur Vinard, cap in hand,respectfully introduced a pair of visitors, an English lady andgentleman.

  The gentleman was a clergyman, small, thin, round-shouldered, with along neck; weak-eyed and dryly polite. The lady was middle-aged, thoughstill young looking; very pretty, with gray hair; very well dressed;very small, full of nervous energy, with tiny hands and feet. It wasLittle Billee's mother; and the clergyman, the Rev. Thomas Bagot, washer brother-in-law.

  Their faces were full of trouble--so much so that the two painters didnot even apologize for the carelessness of their attire, or for the odorof tobacco that filled the room. Little Billee's mother recognized thetwo painters at a glance, from the sketches and descriptions of whichher son's letters were always full.

  They all sat down.

  After a moment's embarrassed silence, Mrs. Bagot exclaimed, addressingTaffy: "Mr. Wynne, we are in terrible distress of mind. I don't know ifmy son has told you, but on Christmas Day he engaged himself to bemarried!"

  "To--be--_married!_" exclaimed Taffy and the Laird, for whom this wasnews indeed.

  "Yes--to be married to a Miss Trilby O'Ferrall, who, from what heimplies, is in quite a different position in life to himself. Do youknow the lady, Mr. Wynne?"

  "Oh yes! I know her very well indeed; we _all_ know her."

  "Is she English?"

  "She's an English subject, I believe."

  "Is she a Protestant or a Roman Catholic?" inquired the clergyman.

  "A--a--upon my word, I really don't know!"

  "You know her very well indeed, and you _don't_--_know_--_that_, Mr.Wynne!" exclaimed Mr. Bagot.

  "Is she a _lady_, Mr. Wynne?" asked Mrs. Bagot, somewhat impatiently, asif that were a much more important matter.

  By this time the Laird had managed to basely desert his friend; had gothimself into his bedroom, and from thence, by another door, into thestreet and away.

  "A lady?" said Taffy; "a--it so much depends upon what that word exactlymeans, you know; things are so--a--so different here. Her father was agentleman, I believe--a fellow of Trinity, Cambridge--and a clergyman,if _that_ means anything!... he was unfortunate and allthat--a--intemperate, I fear, and not successful in life. He has beendead six or seven years."

  "And her mother?"

  "I really know very little about her mother, except that she was veryhandsome, I believe, and of inferior social rank to her husband. She'salso dead; she died soon after him."

  "What is the young lady, then? An English governess, or something ofthat sort?"

  "Oh, no, no--a--nothing of _that_ sort," said Taffy (and inwardly, "Youcoward--you cad of a Scotch thief of a sneak of a Laird--to leave allthis to me!").

  "What? Has she independent means of her own, then?"

  "A--not that I know of; I should even say, decidedly not!"

  "What _is_ she, then? She's at least respectable, I hope!"

  "At present she's a--a blanchisseuse de fin--that is consideredrespectable here."

  "Why, that's a washer-woman, isn't it?"

  "Well--rather better than that, perhaps--_de fin_, you know!--things areso different in Paris! I don't think you'd say she was very much like awasher-woman--to look at!"

  "Is she so good-looking, then?"

  "Oh yes; extremely so. You may well say that--very beautiful,indeed--about that, at least, there is no doubt whatever!"

  "And of unblemished character?"

  Taffy, red and perspiring as if he were going through his Indian-clubexercise, was silent--and his face expressed a miserable perplexity. Butnothing could equal the anxious misery of those two maternal eyes, sowistfully fixed on his.

  After some seconds of a most painful stillness, the lady said, "Can'tyou--oh, _can't_ you give me an answer, Mr. Wynne?"

  "Oh, Mrs. Bagot, you have placed me in a terrible position! I--I loveyour son just as if he were my own brother! This engagement is acomplete surprise to me--a most painful surprise! I'd thought of manypossible things, but never of _that!_ I cannot--I really _must_ notconceal from you that it would be an unfortunate marriage for yourson--from a--a worldly point of view, you know--although both I andMcAllister have a very deep and warm regard for poor TrilbyO'Ferrall--indeed, a great admiration and affection and respect! Shewas once a model."

  "A _model_, Mr. Wynne? What _sort_ of a model--there are models andmodels, of course."

  "'IS SHE A _LADY_, MR. WYNNE?'"]

  "Well, a model of every sort, in every possible sense of the word--head,hands, feet, everything!"

  "A model for the _figure?_"

  "Well--yes!"

  "Oh, my God! my God! my God!" cried Mrs. Bagot--and she got up andwalked up and down the studio in a most terrible state of agitation,her brother-in-law following her and begging her to control herself. Herexclamations seemed to shock him, and she didn't seem to care.

  "Oh, Mr. Wynne! Mr. Wynne! If you only _knew_ what my son is to me--toall of us--always has been! He has been with us all his life, till hecame to this wicked, accursed city! My poor husband would never hear ofhis going to any school, for fear of all the harm he might learn there.My son was as innocent and pure-minded as any girl, Mr. Wynne--I couldhave trusted him anywhere--and that's why I gave way and allowed him tocome _here_, of all places in the world--all alone. Oh! I should havecome with him! Fool--fool--fool that I was!...

  "Oh, Mr. Wynne, he won't see either his mother or his uncle! I found aletter from him at the hotel, saying he'd left Paris--and I don't evenknow where he's gone!... Can't _you_, can't Mr. McAllister, do_anything_ to avert this miserable disaster? You don't know how he lovesyou both--you should see his letters to me and to his sister! they arealways full of you!"

  "Indeed, Mrs. Bagot--you can count on McAllister and me for doingeverything in our power! But it is of no use our trying to influenceyour son--I feel quite sure of _that_! It is to _her_ we must make ourappeal."

  "Oh, Mr. Wynne! to a washer-woman--a figure model--and Heaven knows whatbesides! and with such a chance as this!"

  "Mrs. Bagot, you don't know her? She may have been all that. Butstrange as it may seem to you--and seems to me, for that matter--she'sa--she's--upon my word of honor, I really think she's about the bestwoman I ever met--the most unselfish--the most-
-"

  "Ah! She's a _beautiful_ woman--I can well see _that!_"

  "She has a beautiful nature, Mrs. Bagot--you may believe me or not, asyou like--and it is to that I shall make my appeal, as your son'sfriend, who has his interests at heart. And let me tell you that deeplyas I grieve for you in your present distress, my grief and concern forher are far greater!"

  "What! grief for her if she marries my son!"

  "No, indeed--but if she refuses to marry him. She may not do so, ofcourse--but my instinct tells me she will!"

  "Oh! Mr. Wynne, is that likely?"

  "I will do my best to make it so--with such an utter trust in herunselfish goodness of heart and her passionate affection for your sonas--"

  "How do you know she has all this passionate affection for him?"

  "Oh, McAllister and I have long guessed it--though we never thought thisparticular thing would come of it. I think, perhaps, that first of allyou ought to see her yourself--you would get quite a new idea of whatshe really is--you would be surprised, I assure you."

  Mrs. Bagot shrugged her shoulders impatiently, and there was silence fora minute or two.

  And then, just as in a play, Trilby's "Milk below!" was sounded at thedoor, and Trilby came into the little antechamber, and seeingstrangers, was about to turn back. She was dressed as a grisette, in herSunday gown and pretty white cap (for it was New-year's Day), andlooking her very best.

  Taffy called out, "Come in, Trilby!"

  And Trilby came into the studio.

  As soon as she saw Mrs. Bagot's face she stopped short--erect, hershoulders a little high, her mouth a little open, her eyes wide withfright--and pale to the lips--a pathetic, yet commanding, magnificent,and most distinguished apparition, in spite of her humble attire.

  The little lady got up and walked straight to her, and looked up intoher face, that seemed to tower so. Trilby breathed hard.

  At length Mrs. Bagot said, in her high accents, "You are Miss TrilbyO'Ferrall?"

  "Oh yes--yes--I am Trilby O'Ferrall, and you are Mrs. Bagot; I can seethat!"

  A new tone had come into her large, deep, soft voice, so tragic, sotouching, so strangely in accord with the whole aspect just then--sostrangely in accord with the whole situation--that Taffy felt his cheeksand lips turn cold, and his big spine thrill and tickle all down hisback.

  "Oh yes; you are very, very beautiful--there's no doubt about _that_!You wish to marry my son?"

  "I've refused to marry him nineteen times for his own sake; he will tellyou so himself. I am not the right person for him to marry. I know that.On Christmas night he asked me for the twentieth time; he swore he wouldleave Paris next day forever if I refused him. I hadn't the courage. Iwas weak, you see! It was a dreadful mistake."

  "Are you so fond of him?"

  "_Fond_ of him? Aren't _you_?"

  "I'm his mother, my good girl!"

  To this Trilby seemed to have nothing to say.

  "You have just said yourself you are not a fit wife for him. If you areso _fond_ of him, will you ruin him by marrying him; drag him down;prevent him from getting on in life; separate him from his sister, hisfamily, his friends?"

  "'_FOND_ OF HIM? AREN'T _YOU_?'"]

  Trilby turned her miserable eyes to Taffy's miserable face, and said,"Will it really be all that, Taffy?"

  "Oh, Trilby, things have got all wrong, and can't be righted! I'm afraidit might be so. Dear Trilby--I can't tell you what I feel--but I can'ttell you lies, you know!"

  "Oh no--Taffy--you don't tell lies!"

  Then Trilby began to tremble very much, and Taffy tried to make her sitdown, but she wouldn't. Mrs. Bagot looked up into her face, herselfbreathless with keen suspense and cruel anxiety--almost imploring.

  Trilby looked down at Mrs. Bagot very kindly, put out her shaking hand,and said; "Good-bye, Mrs. Bagot. I will not marry your son. I _promise_you. I will never see him again."

  Mrs. Bagot caught and clasped her hand and tried to kiss it, and said:"Don't go yet, my dear good girl. I want to talk to you. I want to tellyou how deeply I--"

  "Good-bye, Mrs. Bagot," said Trilby, once more; and, disengaging herhand, she walked swiftly out of the room.

  Mrs. Bagot seemed stupefied, and only half content with her quicktriumph.

  "She will not marry your son, Mrs. Bagot. I only wish to God she'd marry_me_!"

  "Oh, Mr. Wynne!" said Mrs. Bagot, and burst into tears.

  "Ah!" exclaimed the clergyman, with a feebly satirical smile and alittle cough and sniff that were not sympathetic, "now if _that_ couldbe arranged--and I've no doubt there wouldn't be much opposition on thepart of the lady" (here he made a little complimentary bow), "it wouldbe a very desirable thing all round!"

  "It's tremendously good of you, I'm sure--to interest yourself in _my_humble affairs," said Taffy. "Look here, sir--I'm not a great geniuslike your nephew--and it doesn't much matter to any one but myself whatI make of my life--but I can assure you that if Trilby's heart were seton me as it is on him, I would gladly cast in my lot with hers for life.She's one in a thousand. She's the one sinner that repenteth, you know!"

  "Ah, yes--to be sure!--to be sure! I know all about that; still, factsare facts, and the world is the world, and we've got to live in it,"said Mr. Bagot, whose satirical smile had died away under the gleam ofTaffy's choleric blue eye.

  Then said the good Taffy, frowning down on the parson (who looked meanand foolish, as people can sometimes do even with right on their side):"And now, Mr. Bagot--I can't tell you how very keenly I have sufferedduring this--a--this most painful interview--on account of my very deepregard for Trilby O'Ferrall. I congratulate you and your sister-in-lawon its complete success. I also feel very deeply for your nephew. I'mnot sure that he has not lost more than he will gain by--a--bythe--a--the success of this--a--this interview, in short!"

  Taffy's eloquence was exhausted, and his quick temper was getting thebetter of him.

  Then Mrs. Bagot, drying her eyes, came and took his hand in a verycharming and simple manner, and said: "Mr. Wynne, I think I know whatyou are feeling just now. You must try and make some allowance for us.You will, I am sure, when we are gone, and you have had time to think alittle. As for that noble and beautiful girl, I only wish that she weresuch that my son _could_ marry her--in her past life, I mean. It is nother humble rank that would frighten me; _pray_ believe that I am quitesincere in this--and don't think too hardly of your friend's mother.Think of all I shall have to go through with my poor son--who is deeplyin love--and no wonder! and who has won the love of such a woman asthat! and who cannot see at present how fatal to him such a marriagewould be. I can see all the charm and believe in all the goodness, inspite of all. And, oh, how beautiful she is, and what a voice! All thatcounts for so much, doesn't it? I cannot tell you how I grieve for her.I can make no amends--who could, for such a thing? There are no amends,and I shall not even try. I will only write and tell her all I think andfeel. You will forgive us, won't you?"

  And in the quick, impulsive warmth and grace and sincerity of her manneras she said all this, Mrs. Bagot was so absurdly like Little Billee thatit touched big Taffy's heart, and he would have forgiven anything, andthere was nothing to forgive.

  "Oh, Mrs. Bagot, there's no question of forgiveness. Good heavens! it isall so unfortunate, you know! Nobody's to blame that I can see.Good-bye, Mrs. Bagot; good-bye, sir," and so saying, he saw them down totheir "remise," in which sat a singularly pretty young lady of seventeenor so, pale and anxious, and so like Little Billee that it was quitefunny, and touched big Taffy's heart again.

  * * * * *

  When Trilby went out into the court-yard in the Place St. Anatole desArts, she saw Miss Bagot looking out of the carriage window, and in theyoung lady's face, as she caught her eye, an expression of sweetsurprise and sympathetic admiration, with lifted eyebrows and partedlips--just such a look as she had often got from Little Billee! She knewher for his sister at once. It was a sharp pang.

 
"SO LIKE LITTLE BILLEE"]

  She turned away, saying to herself: "Oh no; I will not separate him fromhis sister, his family, his friends! That would _never_ do! _That's_settled, anyhow!"

  Feeling a little dazed, and wishing to think, she turned up the RueVieille des Mauvais Ladres, which was always deserted at this hour. Itwas empty but for a solitary figure sitting on a post, with its legsdangling, its hands in its trousers-pockets, an inverted pipe in itsmouth, a tattered straw hat on the back of its head, and a long graycoat down to its heels. It was the Laird.

  As soon as he saw her he jumped off his post and came to her, saying:"Oh, Trilby--what's it all about? I couldn't stand it! I ran away!Little Billee's mother's there!"

  "Yes, Sandy dear, I've just seen her."

  "Well, what's up?"

  "I've promised her never to see Little Billee any more. I was foolishenough to promise to marry him. I refused many times these last threemonths, and then he said he'd leave Paris and never come back, and so,like a fool, I gave way. I've offered to live with him and take care ofhim and be his servant--to be everything he wished but his wife! But hewouldn't hear of it. Dear, dear Little Billee! he's an angel--and I'lltake precious good care no harm shall ever come to him through me! Ishall leave this hateful place and go and live in the country: I supposeI must manage to get through life somehow. I know of some poor peoplewho were once very fond of me, and I could live with them and help themand keep myself. The difficulty is about Jeannot. I thought it all outbefore it came to this. I was well prepared, you see."

  She smiled in a forlorn sort of way, with her upper lip drawn tightagainst her teeth, as if some one were pulling her back by the lobes ofher ears.

  "Oh! but Trilby--what shall we do without you? Taffy and I, you know!You've become one of us!"

  "Now how good and kind of you to say that!" exclaimed poor Trilby, hereyes filling. "Why, that's just all I lived for, till all this happened.But it can't be any more now, can it? Everything is changed for me--thevery sky seems different. Ah! Durien's little song--'_Plaisird'amour--chagrin d'amour_!' it's all quite true, isn't it? I shall startimmediately, and take Jeannot with me, I think."

  "But where do you think of going?"

  "Ah! I mayn't tell you that, Sandy dear--not for a long time! Think ofall the trouble there'd be-- Well, there's no time to be lost. I musttake the bull by the horns."

  She tried to laugh, and took him by his big side-whiskers and kissed himon the eyes and mouth, and her tears fell on his face.

  Then, feeling unable to speak, she nodded farewell, and walked quicklyup the narrow winding street. When she came to the first bend she turnedround and waved her hand, and kissed it two or three times, and thendisappeared.

  The Laird stared for several minutes up the emptythoroughfare--wretched, full of sorrow and compassion. Then he filledhimself another pipe and lit it, and hitched himself on to another post,and sat there dangling his legs and kicking his heels, and waited forthe Bagots' cab to depart, that he might go up and face the righteouswrath of Taffy like a man, and bear up against his bitter reproaches forcowardice and desertion before the foe.

  * * * * *

  Next morning Taffy received two letters: one, a very long one, was fromMrs. Bagot. He read it twice over, and was forced to acknowledge that itwas a very good letter--the letter of a clever, warm-hearted woman, buta woman also whose son was to her as the very apple of her eye. One feltshe was ready to flay her dearest friend alive in order to make LittleBillee a pair of gloves out of the skin, if he wanted a pair; but onealso felt she would be genuinely sorry for the friend. Taffy's ownmother had been a little like that, and he missed her every day of hislife.

  Full justice was done by Mrs. Bagot to all Trilby's qualities of headand heart and person but at the same time she pointed out, with all thecunning and ingeniously casuistic logic of her sex, when it takes tospecial pleading (even when it has right on its side), what theconsequences of such a marriage must inevitably be in a few years--evensooner! The quick disenchantment, the life-long regret, on both sides!

  He could not have found a word to controvert her arguments, save perhapsin his own private belief that Trilby and Little Billee were bothexceptional people; and how could he hope to know Little Billee's naturebetter than the boy's own mother!

  And if he had been the boy's elder brother in blood, as he already wasin art and affection, would he, should he, could he have given hisfraternal sanction to such a match?

  Both as his friend and his brother he felt it was out of the question.

  The other letter was from Trilby, in her bold, careless handwriting,that sprawled all over the page, and her occasionally imperfectspelling. It ran thus:

  "'I MUST TAKE THE BULL BY THE HORNS'"]

  "MY DEAR, DEAR TAFFY,--This is to say good-bye. I'm going away, to put an end to all this misery, for which nobody's to blame but myself.

  "The very moment after I'd said _yes_ to Little Billee I knew perfectly well what a stupid fool I was, and I've been ashamed of myself ever since. I had a miserable week, I can tell you. I knew how it would all turn out.

  "I am dreadfully unhappy, but not half so unhappy as if I married him and he were ever to regret it and be ashamed of me; and of course he would, really, even if he didn't show it--good and kind as he is--an angel!

  "Besides--of course I could never be a lady--how could I?--though I ought to have been one, I suppose. But everything seems to have gone wrong with me, though I never found it out before--and it can't be righted!

  "Poor papa!

  "I am going away with Jeannot. I've been neglecting him shamefully. I mean to make up for it all now.

  "You mustn't try and find out where I am going; I know you won't if I beg you, nor any one else. It would make everything so much harder for me.

  "Angèle knows; she has promised me not to tell. I should like to have a line from you very much. If you send it to her she will send it on to me.

  "Dear Taffy, next to Little Billee, I love you and the Laird better than any one else in the whole world. I've never known real happiness till I met you. You have changed me into another person--you and Sandy and Little Billee.

  "Oh, it _has_ been a jolly time, though it didn't last long. It will have to do for me for life. So good-bye. I shall never, never forget; and remain, with dearest love,

  "Your ever faithful and most affectionate friend,

  "TRILBY O'FERRALL.

  "P.S.--When it has all blown over and settled again, if it ever does, I shall come back to Paris, perhaps, and see you again some day."

  The good Taffy pondered deeply over this letter--read it half a dozentimes at least; and then he kissed it, and put it back into its envelopeand locked it up.

  He knew what very deep anguish underlay this somewhat trivial expressionof her sorrow.

  He guessed how Trilby, so childishly impulsive and demonstrative in theordinary intercourse of friendship, would be more reticent than mostwomen in such a case as this.

  He wrote to her warmly, affectionately, at great length, and sent theletter as she had told him.

  The Laird also wrote a long letter full of tenderly worded friendshipand sincere regard. Both expressed their hope and belief that they wouldsoon see her again, when the first bitterness of her grief would beover, and that the old pleasant relations would be renewed.

  And then, feeling wretched, they went and silently lunched together atthe Café de l'Odéon, where the omelets were good and the wine wasn'tblue.

  Late that evening they sat together in the studio, reading. They foundthey could not talk to each other very readily without Little Billee tolisten--three's company sometimes and two's none!

  Suddenly there was a tremendous getting up the dark stairs outside in aviolent hurry, and Little Billee burst into the room like a smallwhirlwind--haggard, out of b
reath, almost speechless at first withexcitement.

  "Trilby? where is she?... what's become of her?... She's run away ...oh! She's written me such a letter!... We were to have been married ...at the Embassy ... my mother ... she's been meddling; and that cursedold ass ... that beast ... my uncle!... They've been here! I know allabout it.... Why didn't you stick up for her?..."

  "I did ... as well as I could. Sandy couldn't stand it, and cut."

  "_You_ stuck up for her ... _you_--why, you agreed with my mother thatshe oughtn't to marry me--you--you false friend--you.... Why, she's anangel--far too good for the likes of _me_ ... you know she is. As ... asfor her social position and all that, what degrading rot! Her father wasas much a gentleman as mine ... besides ... what the devil do I care forher father?... it's _her_ I want--_her_--_her_--_her_, I tell you.... Ican't _live_ without her.... I must have her _back_--I must have her_back_ ... do you _hear_? We were to have lived together at Barbizon ...all our lives--and I was to have painted stunning pictures ... likethose other fellows there. Who cares for _their_ social position, Ishould like to know ... or that of their wives? _Damn_ socialposition!... we've often said so--over and over again. An artist's lifeshould be _away_ from the world--above all that meanness and paltriness... all in his work. Social position, indeed! Over and over again we'vesaid what fetid, bestial rot it all was--a thing to make one sick andshut one's self away from the world.... Why say one thing and actanother?... Love comes before all--love levels all--love and art ... andbeauty--before such beauty as Trilby's rank doesn't exist. Such rank asmine, too! Good God! I'll never paint another stroke till I've got herback ... never, never, I tell you--I can't--I won't!..."

  "'TRILBY! WHERE IS SHE?'"]

  And so the poor boy went on, tearing and raving about in his rampage,knocking over chairs and easels, stammering and shrieking, mad withexcitement.

  They tried to reason with him, to make him listen, to point out that itwas not her social position alone that unfitted her to be his wife andthe mother of his children, etc.

  It was no good. He grew more and more uncontrollable, became almostunintelligible, he stammered so--a pitiable sight and pitiable to hear.

  "Oh! oh! good heavens! are you so precious immaculate, you two, that youshould throw stones at poor Trilby! What a shame, what a hideous shameit is that there should be one law for the woman and another for theman!... poor weak women--poor, soft, affectionate things that beasts ofmen are always running after and pestering and ruining and tramplingunderfoot.... Oh! oh! it makes me sick--it makes me sick!" And finallyhe gasped and screamed and fell down in a fit on the floor.

  The doctor was sent for; Taffy went in a cab to the Hôtel de Lille etd'Albion to fetch his mother; and poor Little Billee, quite unconscious,was undressed by Sandy and Madame Vinard and put into the Laird's bed.

  The doctor came, and not long after Mrs. Bagot and her daughter. It wasa serious case. Another doctor was called in. Beds were got and made upin the studio for the two grief-stricken ladies, and thus closed the eveof what was to have been poor Little Billee's wedding-day, it seems.

  Little Billee's attack appears to have been a kind of epileptic seizure.It ended in brain-fever and other complications--a long and tediousillness. It was many weeks before he was out of danger, and hisconvalescence was long and tedious too.

  His nature seemed changed. He lay languid and listless--never evenmentioned Trilby, except once to ask if she had come back, and if anyone knew where she was, and if she had been written to.

  She had not, it appears. Mrs. Bagot had thought it was better not, andTaffy and the Laird agreed with her that no good could come of writing.

  Mrs. Bagot felt bitterly against the woman who had been the cause of allthis trouble, and bitterly against herself for her injustice. It was anunhappy time for everybody.

  * * * * *

  There was more unhappiness still to come.

  One day in February Madame Angèle Boisse called on Taffy and the Lairdin the temporary studio where they worked. She was in terribletribulation.

  LA S?'UR DE LITREBILI]

  Trilby's little brother had died of scarlet-fever and was buried, andTrilby had left her hiding-place the day after the funeral and had nevercome back, and this was a week ago. She and Jeannot had been living at avillage called Vibraye, in la Sarthe, lodging with some poor people sheknew--she washing and working with her needle till her brother fell ill.

  She had never left his bedside for a moment, night or day, and when hedied her grief was so terrible that people thought she would go out ofher mind; and the day after he was buried she was not to be foundanywhere--she had disappeared, taking nothing with her, not even herclothes--simply vanished and left no sign, no message of any kind.

  All the ponds had been searched--all the wells, and the small streamthat flows through Vibraye--and the old forest.

  Taffy went to Vibraye, cross-examined everybody he could, communicatedwith the Paris police, but with no result, and every afternoon, with abeating heart, he went to the Morgue....

  * * * * *

  The news was of course kept from Little Billee. There was no difficultyabout this. He never asked a question, hardly ever spoke.

  When he first got up and was carried into the studio he asked for hispicture "The Pitcher Goes to the Well," and looked at it for a while,and then shrugged his shoulders and laughed--a miserable sort of laugh,painful to hear--the laugh of a cold old man, who laughs so as not tocry! Then he looked at his mother and sister, and saw the sad havoc thatgrief and anxiety had wrought in them.

  It seemed to him, as in a bad dream, that he had been mad for manyyears--a cause of endless sickening terror and distress; and that hispoor weak wandering wits had come back at last, bringing in their traincruel remorse, and the remembrance of all the patient love and kindnessthat had been lavished on him for many years! His sweet sister--hisdear, long-suffering mother! what had really happened to make them looklike this?

  And taking them both in his feeble arms, he fell a-weeping, quitedesperately and for a long time.

  And when his weeping-fit was over, when he had quite wept himself out,he fell asleep.

  "HE FELL A-WEEPING, QUITE DESPERATELY"]

  And when he awoke he was conscious that another sad thing had happenedto him, and that for some mysterious cause his power of loving had notcome back with his wandering wits--had been left behind--and it seemedto him that it was gone for ever and ever--would never come backagain--not even his love for his mother and sister, not even his lovefor Trilby--where all _that_ had once been was a void, a gap, ablankness....

  Truly, if Trilby had suffered much, she had also been the innocent causeof terrible suffering. Poor Mrs. Bagot, in her heart, could not forgiveher.

  I feel this is getting to be quite a sad story, and that it is high timeto cut this part of it short.

  As the warmer weather came, and Little Billee got stronger, the studiobecame more pleasant. The ladies' beds were removed to another studio onthe next landing, which was vacant, and the friends came to see LittleBillee, and make it more lively for him and his sister.

  As for Taffy and the Laird, they had already long been to Mrs. Bagot asa pair of crutches, without whose invaluable help she could never haveheld herself upright to pick her way in all this maze of trouble.

  Then M. Carrel came every day to chat with his favorite pupil andgladden Mrs. Bagot's heart. And also Durien, Carnegie, Petrolicoconose,Vincent, Antony, Lorrimer, Dodor, and l'Zouzou; Mrs. Bagot thought thelast two irresistible, when she had once been satisfied that they were"gentlemen," in spite of appearances. And, indeed, they showedthemselves to great advantage; and though they were so much the oppositeto Little Billee in everything, she felt almost maternal towards them,and gave them innocent, good, motherly advice, which they swallowed_avec attendrissement_, not even stealing a look at each other. And theyheld Mrs. Bagot's wool, and listened to Miss Bagot's sacred music withupturned pi
ous eyes, and mealy mouths that butter wouldn't melt in!

  It is good to be a soldier and a detrimental; you touch the hearts ofwomen and charm them--old and young, high or low (excepting, perhaps, afew worldly mothers of marriageable daughters). They take the stickingof your tongue in the cheek for the wearing of your heart on the sleeve.

  Indeed, good women all over the world, and ever since it began, haveloved to be bamboozled by these genial, roistering dare-devils, whohaven't got a penny to bless themselves with (which is so touching), andare supposed to carry their lives in their hands, even in piping timesof peace. Nay, even a few rare _bad_ women sometimes, such women as thebest and wisest of us are often ready to sell our souls for!

  "A lightsome eye, a soldier's mien, A feather of the blue, A doublet of the Lincoln green-- No more of me you knew, My love! No more of me you knew...."

  As if that wasn't enough, and to spare!

  Little Billee could hardly realize that these two polite and gentle andsympathetic sons of Mars were the lively grigs who had made themselvesso pleasant all round, and in such a singular manner, on the top of thatSt. Cloud omnibus; and he admired how they added hypocrisy to theirother crimes!

  Svengali had gone back to Germany, it seemed, with his pockets full ofnapoleons and big Havana cigars, and wrapped in an immense fur-linedcoat, which he meant to wear all through the summer. But little Geckooften came with his violin and made lovely music, and that seemed to doLittle Billee more good than anything else.

  It made him realize in his brain all the love he could no longer feel inhis heart. The sweet melodic phrase, rendered by a master, was aswholesome, refreshing balm to him while it lasted--or as manna in thewilderness. It was the one good thing within his reach, never to betaken from him as long as his ear-drums remained and he could hear amaster play.

  Poor Gecko treated the two English ladies _de bas en haut_ as if theyhad been goddesses, even when they accompanied him on the piano! Hebegged their pardon for every wrong note they struck, and adopted their"tempi"--that is the proper technical term, I believe--and turnedscherzos and allegrettos into funeral dirges to please them; and agreedwith them, poor little traitor, that it all sounded much better likethat!

  O Beethoven! O Mozart! did you turn in your graves?

  Then, on fine afternoons, Little Billee was taken for drives to the Boisde Boulogne with his mother and sister in an open fly, and generallyTaffy as a fourth; to Passy, Auteuil, Boulogne, St. Cloud, Meudon--thereare many charming places within an easy drive of Paris.

  "THE SWEET MELODIC PHRASE"]

  And sometimes Taffy or the Laird would escort Mrs. and Miss Bagot to theLuxembourg Gallery, the Louvre, the Palais Royal--to the ComédieFrançaise once or twice; and on Sundays, now and then, to the Englishchapel in the Rue Marbœuf. It was all very pleasant; and Miss Bagotlooks back on the days of her brother's convalescence as among thehappiest in her life.

  And they would all five dine together in the studio, with Madame Vinardto wait, and her mother (a cordon bleu) for cook; and the whole aspectof the place was changed and made fragrant, sweet, and charming by allthis new feminine invasion and occupation.

  And what is sweeter to watch than the dawn and growth of love's youngdream, when strength and beauty meet together by the couch of a belovedinvalid?

  Of course the sympathetic reader will foresee how readily the stalwartTaffy fell a victim to the charms of his friend's sweet sister, and howshe grew to return his more than brotherly regard! and how, one lovelyevening, just as March was going out like a lamb (to make room for thefirst of April), little Billee joined their hands together, and gavethem his brotherly blessing!

  As a matter of fact, however, nothing of this kind happened. Nothingever happens but the _un_foreseen. Pazienza!

  * * * * *

  Then at length one day--it was a fine, sunny, showery day in April,by-the-bye, and the big studio window was open at the top and let in apleasant breeze from the northwest, just as when our little storybegan--a railway omnibus drew up at the porte cochère in the Place St.Anatole des Arts, and carried away to the station of the Chemin de Ferdu Nord Little Billee and his mother and sister, and all theirbelongings (the famous picture had gone before); and Taffy and the Lairdrode with them, their faces very long, to see the last of the dearpeople, and of the train that was to bear them away from Paris; andLittle Billee, with his quick, prehensile, æsthetic eye, took many along and wistful parting gaze at many a French thing he loved, from thegray towers of Notre Dame downward--Heaven only knew when he might seethem again!--so he tried to get their aspect well by heart, that hemight have the better store of beloved shape and color memories to chewthe cud of when his lost powers of loving and remembering clearly shouldcome back, and he lay awake at night and listened to the wash of theAtlantic along the beautiful red sandstone coast at home.

  He had a faint hope that he should feel sorry at parting with Taffy andthe Laird.

  But when the time came for saying good-bye he couldn't feel sorry in theleast, for all he tried and strained so hard!

  So he thanked them so earnestly and profusely for all their kindness andpatience and sympathy (as did also his mother and sister) that theirhearts were too full to speak, and their manner was quite gruff--it wasa way they had when they were deeply moved and didn't want to show it.

  And as he gazed out of the carriage window at their two forlorn figureslooking after him when the train steamed out of the station, his sorrowat not feeling sorry made him look so haggard and so woe-begone thatthey could scarcely bear the sight of him departing without them, andalmost felt as if they must follow by the next train, and go and cheerhim up in Devonshire, and themselves too.

  They did not yield to this amiable weakness. Sorrowfully, arm in arm,with trailing umbrellas, they recrossed the river, and found their wayto the Café de l'Odéon, where they ate many omelets in silence, anddejectedly drank of the best they could get, and were very sad indeed.

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  Nearly five years have elapsed since we bade farewell and _au revoir_ toTaffy and the Laird at the Paris station of the Chemin de Fer du Nord,and wished Little Billee and his mother and sister Godspeed on their wayto Devonshire, where the poor sufferer was to rest and lie fallow for afew months, and recruit his lost strength and energy, that he mightfollow up his first and well-deserved success, which perhaps contributedjust a little to his recovery.

  Many of my readers will remember his splendid début at the Royal Academyin Trafalgar Square with that now so famous canvas "The Pitcher Goes tothe Well," and how it was sold three times over on the morning of theprivate view, the third time for a thousand pounds--just five times whathe got for it himself. And that was thought a large sum in those daysfor a beginner's picture, two feet by four.

  "SORROWFULLY, ARM IN ARM"]

  I am well aware that such a vulgar test is no criterion whatever of apicture's real merit. But this picture is well known to all the world bythis time, and sold only last year at Christy's (more than thirty-sixyears after it was painted) for three thousand pounds.

  Thirty-six years! That goes a long way to redeem even three thousandpounds of all their cumulative vulgarity.

  "The Pitcher" is now in the National Gallery, with that other canvas bythe same hand, "The Moon-Dial." There they hang together for all whocare to see them, his first and his last--the blossom and the fruit.

  He had not long to live himself, and it was his good-fortune, so rareamong those whose work is destined to live forever, that he succeeded athis first go-off.

  And his success was of the best and most flattering kind.

  It began high up, where it should, among the masters of his own craft.But his fame filtered quickly down to those immediately beneath, andthrough these to wider circles. And there was quite enough of oppositio
nand vilification and coarse abuse of him to clear it of any suspicion ofcheapness or evanescence. What better antiseptic can there be than thephilistine's deep hate? What sweeter, fresher, wholesomer music than thesound of his voice when he doth so furiously rage?

  Yes! That is "good production." As Svengali would have said, "C'est uncri du cœur!"

  And then, when popular acclaim brings the great dealers and the bigcheques, up rises the printed howl of the duffer, the disappointed one,the "wounded thing with an angry cry"--the prosperous and happy bagmanthat _should_ have been, who has given up all for art, and finds hecan't paint and make himself a name, after all, and never will, so fallsto writing about those who can--and what writing!

  To write in hissing dispraise of our more successful fellow-craftsman,and of those who admire him! that is not a clean or pretty trade. Itseems, alas! an easy one, and it gives pleasure to so many. It does noteven want good grammar. But it pays--well enough even to start and run amagazine with, instead of scholarship and taste and talent! humor,sense, wit, and wisdom! It is something like the purveying ofpornographic pictures: some of us look at them and laugh, and even buy.To be a purchaser is bad enough; but to be the purveyor thereof--ugh!

  A poor devil of a cracked soprano (are there such people still?) who hasbeen turned out of the Pope's choir because he can't sing in tune,_after all_!--think of him yelling and squeaking his treble rage atSantley--Sims Reeves--Lablache!

  Poor, lost, beardless nondescript! why not fly to other climes, where atleast thou might'st hide from us thy woful crack, and keep thy miserablesecret to thyself! Are there no harems still left in Stamboul for thelikes of thee to sweep and clean, no women's beds to make and slops toempty, and doors and windows to bar--and tales to carry, and the pasha'sconfidence and favor and protection to win? Even _that_ is a bettertrade than pandering for hire to the basest instinct of all--the dirtypleasure we feel (some of us) in seeing mud and dead cats and rotteneggs flung at those we cannot but admire--and secretly envy!

  All of which eloquence means that Little Billee was pitched into rightand left, as well as overpraised. And it all rolled off him like wateroff a duck's back, both praise and blame.

  * * * * *

  It was a happy summer for Mrs. Bagot, a sweet compensation for all theanguish of the winter that had gone before, with her two belovedchildren together under her wing, and all the world (for her) ringingwith the praise of her boy, the apple of her eye, so providentiallyrescued from the very jaws of death, and from other dangers almost asterrible to her fiercely jealous maternal heart.

  And his affection for her _seemed_ to grow with his returning health;but, alas! he was never again to be quite the same light-hearted,innocent, expansive lad he had been before that fatal year spent inParis.

  One chapter of his life was closed, never to be reopened, never to bespoken of again by him to her, by her to him. She could neither forgivenor forget. She could but be silent.

  Otherwise he was pleasant and sweet to live with, and everything wasdone to make his life at home as sweet and pleasant as a loving mothercould--as could a most charming sister--and others' sisters who werecharming too, and much disposed to worship at the shrine of this youngcelebrity, who woke up one morning in their little village to findhimself famous, and bore his blushing honors so meekly. And among themthe vicar's daughter, his sister's friend and co-teacher at theSunday-school, "a simple, pure, and pious maiden of gentle birth,"everything he once thought a young lady should be; and her name it wasAlice, and she was sweet, and her hair was brown--as brown!...

  And if he no longer found the simple country pleasures, the junketingsand picnics, the garden-parties and innocent little musical evenings,quite so exciting as of old, he never showed it.

  Indeed, there was much that he did not show, and that his mother andsister tried in vain to guess--many things.

  And among them one thing that constantly preoccupied and distressedhim--the numbness of his affections. He could be as easily demonstrativeto his mother and sister as though nothing had ever happened tohim--from the mere force of a sweet old habit--even more so, out ofsheer gratitude and compunction.

  But, alas! he felt that in his heart he could no longer care for them inthe least!--nor for Taffy, nor the Laird, nor for himself; not even forTrilby, of whom he constantly thought, but without emotion and of whosestrange disappearance he had been told, and the story had been confirmedin all its details by Angèle Boisse, to whom he had written.

  It was as though some part of his brain where his affections were seatedhad been paralyzed, while all the rest of it was as keen and as activeas ever. He felt like some poor live bird or beast or reptile, a partof whose cerebrum (or cerebellum, or whatever it is) had been dug out bythe vivisector for experimental purposes; and the strongest emotionalfeeling he seemed capable of was his anxiety and alarm about thiscurious symptom, and his concern as to whether he ought to mention it ornot.

  He did not do so, for fear of causing distress, hoping that it wouldpass away in time, and redoubled his caresses to his mother and sister,and clung to them more than ever; and became more considerate of othersin manner, word, and deed than he had ever been before, as though byconstantly assuming the virtue he had no longer he would gradually coaxit back again. There was no trouble he would not take to give pleasureto the humblest.

  Also, his vanity about himself had become as nothing, and he missed italmost as much as his affection.

  Yet he told himself over and over again that he was a great artist, andthat he would spare no pains to make himself a greater. But that was nomerit of his own.

  2+2=4, also 2×2=4; that peculiarity was no reason why 4 should beconceited; for what was 4 but a result, either way?

  Well, he was like 4--just an inevitable result of circumstances overwhich he had no control--a mere product or sum; and though he meant tomake himself as big a 4 as he could (to cultivate his peculiar_fourness_), he could no longer feel the old conceit andself-complacency; and they had been a joy, and it was hard to do withoutthem.

  At the bottom of it all was a vague, disquieting unhappiness, a constantfidget.

  And it seemed to him, and much to his distress, that such mildunhappiness would be the greatest he could ever feel henceforward--butthat, such as it was, it would never leave him, and that his moralexistence would be for evermore one long, gray, gloomy blank--theglimmer of twilight--never glad, confident morning again!

  So much for Little Billee's convalescence.

  Then one day in the late autumn he spread his wings and flew away toLondon, which was very ready with open arms to welcome William Bagot,the already famous painter, _alias_ Little Billee!

  Part Fifth