In Bohemia With Du Maurier Part 4

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A portrait he drew of the doctor was a great success. "I have done the old c.o.c.k's portrait stunningly," he says; "nine crosses of the Legion of Honour, &c. Not a sou into my pocket; all for poor-box. Fancy a fellow like me making presents to the poor-box (_vide_ sketch)! But as the portrait will be very much spilt about (_repandu_), I may fish a stray order or two. I have followed your advice for a whole week and done a magnificent Framboisy. Shall not attempt to go on until you are here to give me another stirring-up. Am going to Antwerp next week (always am). Shall you be moving too? Journey together--great fun.

Take care of my purse and pa.s.sport, and see my trunks are locked."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MEETING IN DuSSELDORF. WE SAT INTO THE SMALL HOURS OF THE MORNING, TALKING OF THE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SCENE FROM MACPHERSON'S OSSIAN:--

"Dark was the sun! Heavy the clouds on the cliffs of Oithona--when the fair-headed son of the Maurialva crossed his claymore with the stern dark-browed Bobthailva and swore friendship on the names of Carry and Damask."]

I was moving, and as du Maurier kept on being about to go to Antwerp, I went to pay him a flying visit at Dusseldorf on my way to Paris. We sat into the small hours of the morning (as he depicts us), talking of the past, present, and future, a long-necked Rhine-wine bottle and two green gla.s.ses beside us, our hopes and aspirations rising with the cloud that curled from my ever-glowing cigar. We talked till his fertile imagination took us across the sea, and "Ragmar of the Maurialva and Bobthailva, the son of Moscheles, swore eternal amity on their native heath."

Damask was another beauty whom we appreciated, perhaps all the more because we knew she was dying of consumption.

In Paris I was probably absorbed in some work I had in hand and must have neglected du Maurier, for he writes urging me to answer by return of post and give an account of myself. He had been visited, he says, by an alarming nightmare, which he forthwith sketches for my benefit.

Carry, the Circe, had captured the lion. The n.o.ble beast--that was me--had succ.u.mbed to the wiles of the enchantress, and submitted tamely to being combed and brushed and to having his claws clipped by her hand. Like birds of a feather, so do lions of a name, flock together. And so another n.o.ble beast--that was he--is seen approaching, presumably to claim his share of the combing and clipping and of whatever other favours may be forthcoming.

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Another time when, I suppose, I was again letting him wait for an answer, he writes from Dusseldorf: "DEAR BOBTAIL,--Est-ce que tu te donnes le genre de m'oublier par hazard? I have been expecting a letter from you every day, running thus: 'DEAR RAG,--Come to Paris _immediately_, to ill.u.s.trate thirty-six periodical papers which I have got for you. In haste, Bobtail.' My old pal, Tom Armstrong, is here, working hard; eyes the same as ever. Write soon and tell all about that portrait. Dusseldorf rencontre was jolly." The letter is headed by a drawing representing me soaring heavenwards, whilst he, chained to the spot, is philosophically consulting the cards on his prospects of release.

[Ill.u.s.tration] Then comes a postscript: "Going in for this sort of thing."

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"Will you come old fellow and be

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I suppose I answered saying that I only put off writing till I had mustered the full complement of periodicals. If I was in a prophetic mood I may have added that it was all right, and that very shortly thirty-six editors would be clamouring for his work, and perhaps thirty-six States hallooing for him to come over _immediately_. Hoping to be punch'd at an early date, I probably remained his, &c., &c.

The early date came, for, before his final return to England, we met once more in Antwerp and Malines. And that takes me back to Carry.

She was changed to her advantage, so, at least, the world of Malines thought. We were not quite so sure that the change would prove altogether to her advantage. She had been quite pretty enough before, and we thought she could well have done without developing further physical attractions. She had always known how to use her eyes, not unfrequently shedding their beneficent light on two persons at the same time, and we considered that that number should not be exceeded.

But now their activity seemed daily increasing, and it was not without concern that we noticed in her a certain restlessness and a growing tendency to discuss with the serpent questions relating to the acquisition of prohibited apples. After a while, and perhaps in consequence of the good advice we gave her, she sobered down and surprised us by her docility; but at best her moods were uncertain and she puzzled us much.

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"Now, Bobtail," said Rag, as we walked along the sober old streets of Malines, discussing the state of Carry's mind and heart. (He has omitted the streets, but has put us into our very best mediaeval suit.) "Now, Bobtail, what do you think? Is she in love? And if so, with whom?"

"She may be, or she may be not," said Bobtail, with oracular discretion; "but, if she is, it can only be with one of us. She would not waste her sentiment on a native whilst we were within reach."

"But which of us is it?" asked Rag, somewhat alarmed.

"I know not; but I hope neither," answered the oracle thus appealed to; "but the state of her mind, I believe, is this: If she were to marry you, she would fall in love with me; and if she were to marry me, she would fall in love with you."

This dictum must have impressed du Maurier, for it started him on a series of drawings, with accompanying text in ill.u.s.tration of it.

There were to be two volumes. The first, in which I figure as the husband, was rapidly produced; the second, in which he was to be the husband, never saw the light of day. It was shelved _sine die_, a proceeding I always thought particularly unfair, as he never gave _me_ a chance of being loved. I am compensated, however, by the possession of the first volume of the "Noces de Picciola," or "Cari-catures," as they are called. On the t.i.tle-page Bobtail is made to say:--

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"If Carry were to marry one of us, I'd give thee any odds she would be safe, O Rag, to love the other--"

(_Shakespere_. "_Two Swells of Antwerp_.")

"Varium et mutabile semper femina," he adds, and his story ill.u.s.trates the truth of the poet's words. His points will be so much better understood later on, when some of the problems connected with our matrimonial laws have been solved, that it would be a pity to publish them prematurely. Suffice it to show how Felix and Georges produced the portrait of Picciola. "Felix put all his talent and Georges all his good will into it, for, once completed, Picciola was to select a husband from the two suitors. After much cogitation she decides for Felix, whilst offering her friendship to Georges, who seems but moderately satisfied with this arrangement; and then, when husband and wife leave for distant countries, Georges, who cannot bear the thought of being parted from his dear Picciola, enters the service of the young couple and accompanies them on their honeymoon." This mythical journey gives the author opportunities for the subtle psychological a.n.a.lysis of a young lady's heart, strongly inclined to revolt against some of the conventions laid down by Society for its regulation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PORTRAIT OF PICCIOLA.]

We had fondly hoped we might escort and protect her on the th.o.r.n.y path of life, as pertinently shown in the drawing,[3] where we are all three going along, our arms and hands fraternally intertwined and linked together in perfect symmetry, as if therewith to tie the knot of friendship and make it fast for ever and a day.

[Footnote 3: See Frontispiece.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "ON THEIR HONEYMOON."]

But it was not to be. A big wave intervened to separate us, and swept away all traces of the road before us. Poor Carry! Yes, she had a story. Sad. Bright. Then sad again. First she gave to Amor what was Amor's, and then to Hymen what was Hymen's. She tasted of the apple her friend the serpent had told her so much about. Then--"la femme a une chute est rare comme le Niagara"--and there are more apples than one in the Garden of Eden--she tried another; such a bad one unfortunately. It was a wonder it didn't poison her, body and soul, but it didn't. There was a moment when the Angel with the flaming sword threatened to cast her adrift, and it would have fared badly with her had not a helping hand come to save her. But sound as she was at the core, and true, she rallied and rose again to new life and unhoped-for happiness. It was a young doctor who came to the rescue; a mere boy he seemed to look at; but a man he was in deed and word. He worked hard and walked fast; he defied convention and challenged fate.

With a stout heart he laboured to raise Carry to the level of his affections, and with a strong hand he tightened his hold upon her. He loved her pa.s.sionately, devotedly, and she, clinging to him as to the instrument of her salvation, gradually regained her better self, and, slowly but surely, learnt to find in her own heart the greatest of treasures that woman can bestow upon man. But he was a Southerner of the French meridional type, excitable and impulsive, and, so, alas!

he was jealous of Carry's northern friends and snapped the thread asunder that bound her to them. We only knew, and that we learnt in a roundabout way, that she was the happiest little wife in Paris.

Once, and only once, she wrote to us, to tell us how complete was her happiness. A crowning glory had come; a little glory to nurse and fondle, to cry over--tears of joy; to smile to--the prettiest, foolishest of mother's smiles; to pray for and to worship from the bottom of her little blossoming soul. It was not till three years later that I was in Paris and succeeded in picking up the thread of Carry's story. Hale and hearty, overflowing with health and happiness, the young doctor had gone to his work at the hospital. He came home blood-poisoned, to die in his wife's arms. It was a case of self-sacrifice in the cause of science, of heroic devotion to a fellow-creature. And the young widow was left alone again, with none to weep over (tears of anguish this time) but the little glory, who, poor thing, could only wonder, but not soothe. What can have become of Carry once more cast adrift in Paris to fight the battle of life in this hard ever love-making world?

We never knew.

Back to England. The time had come when--

"Who was to be lucky and who to be rich, Who'd get to the top of the tree; Was a mystery which Dame Fortune, the witch, _Was_ to tell du Maurier and me."

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What with the boxing-gloves and one thing and another, he had been "getting English again by degrees." In a drawing he shows us how he is going through the process arm-in-arm with his old friend, Tom Armstrong, now the Art-Director of that very English inst.i.tution, the South Kensington Museum. Armstrong and T.R. Lamont, the man who to this day bears such a striking resemblance to our friend the Laird, had presented du Maurier with a complete edition of Edgar Allan Poe's works. His appreciation of that author is expressed in a letter which he addressed to Armstrong, and it needs not much reading between the lines to gather what was the literary diet best suited to his taste.

It is amusing, too, to notice the little shadows cast here and there by coming events.

(Billy Barlow was, I really don't know why, for the time being, synonymous with George du Maurier.)

"Gulielmus Barlow, Thomasino Armstrong, Whom we hope is 'gaillardement' getting along And salubrious, ave!

You'll wonder, I ween, At Barlow's turning topsy-tur--poet I mean.

I take odds you'll exclaim, 'twixt a grunt and a stare, 'Gottferdummi' the beggar's gone mad, I declare, And his wits must have followed his 'peeper'--not so; He will give you the wherefore, will William Barlow-- Viz: he's so seedy and blue, he's so deucedly triste, He's so d----d out of sorts, he's so d----d out of tune, That for mere consolation he cannot resist The temptation of holding with Tommy commune.

Then that _he_ should be bothered alone, isn't fair, So he'll just bother _you_ a bit, pour se distraire, This will partly account for the milk--then the fact is That some heavy swell says that it's deuced good practice, And then it's a natural consequence, too, Of the cla.s.sical culture he's just been put through.

I'll explain: T'other day the maternal did say, 'You are sadly deficient in reading, Bill; nay Do not wrinkle your forehead and turn up your nose (That elegant feature of William Barlow's!) You've read Thackeray, d.i.c.kens, I know; but it's fit You should study the _cla.s.sical_ authors a bit.

Heaven knows when your sight will be valid again, You may throw down the pencil and take up the pen, And you cannot have too many strings to your bow.'

--'A-a-amen!' says young William to Mrs. Barlow.

So we're treated (our feelings we needn't define) To a beastly slow book called the 'Fall and Decline'

By a fellow called Gibbon, be d----d to him; then Comes the 'Esprit des lois et des moeurs,' from the pen Of a chap hight _Voltaire_--un pedant--qui je crois Ne se fichait pas mal et des moeurs et des lois.

After which just to vary the pleasures, _Rousseau_ By Emile--no: Emile by _Rousseau_? Gad! I know That which ever it be it's infernally slow, And I'm glad Billy's neither Emile nor Rousseau-- Such my fate is to listen to, longing to slope-- Then come horrid long epics of Dryden and Pope, Which I mentally swear a big oath I'll confine To the tombs of the Capulets, every line-- Not but what the old beggars may do in their way, Gad! Uncommonly fine soporifics are they; But they seem after Tennyson, Sh.e.l.ley, and Poe Just a trifle _too_ Rosy for Billy Barlow-- Oh, dear Raggedy, oh!

Ulalume and aenone for William Barlow.