The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes Part 55

"No, no, don't humbug yourself. You like her. You care for her very much.

You are thrilling at this very moment with the remembrance of her lips to-night. Think of what life will be with her--life full of all that is sweet and fair--love and riches, and leisure for the highest art, and fame and the promise of immortality. You are irritable, sensitive, delicately organised; these sordid, carking cares, these wretched struggles, these perpetual abas.e.m.e.nts of your highest self--a few more years of them--they will wreck and ruin you, body and soul. How many men of genius have married their housekeepers even--good, clumsy, homely bodies, who have kept their husband's brain calm and his pillow smooth.

And again, a man of genius is the one man who can marry anybody. The world expects him to be eccentric. And Mary Ann is no coa.r.s.e city weed, but a sweet country bud. How splendid will be her blossoming under the sun! Do not fear that she will ever shame you; she will look beautiful, and men will not ask her to talk. Nor will you want her to talk. She will sit silent in the cosy room where you are working, and every now and again you will glance up from your work at her and draw inspiration from her sweet presence. So pull yourself together, man; your troubles are over, and life henceforth one long blissful dream. Come, burn me that tinkling, inglorious comic opera, and let the whole sordid past mingle with its ashes."

So strong was the impulse--so alluring the picture--that he took up the comic opera and walked towards the fire, his finger itching to throw it in. But he sat down again after a moment and went on with his work. It was imperative he should make progress with it; he could not afford to waste his time--which was money--because another person--Mary Ann to wit--had come into a superfluity of both. In spite of which the comic opera refused to advance; somehow he did not feel in the mood for gaiety; he threw down his pen in despair and disgust. But the idea of not being able to work rankled in him. Every hour seemed suddenly precious--now that he had resolved to make money in earnest--now that for a year or two he could have no other aim or interest in life. Perhaps it was that he wished to overpower the din of contending thoughts. Then a happy thought came to him. He rummaged out Peter's ballad. He would write a song on the model of that, as Peter had recommended--something tawdry and sentimental, with a cheap accompaniment. He placed the ballad on the rest and started going through it to get himself in the vein. But to-night the air seemed to breathe an ineffable melancholy, the words--no longer mawkish--had grown infinitely pathetic:--

"Kiss me, good-night, dear love, Dream of the old delight; My spirit is summoned above, Kiss me, dear love, good-night!"

The hot tears ran down his cheeks, as he touched the keys softly and lingeringly. He could go no farther than the refrain; he leant his elbows on the keyboard, and dropped his head upon his arms. The clashing notes jarred like a hoa.r.s.e cry, then vibrated slowly away into a silence that was broken only by his sobs.

He rose late the next day, after a sleep that was one prolonged nightmare, full of agonised, abortive striving after something that always eluded him, he knew not what. And when he woke--after a momentary breath of relief at the thought of the unreality of these vague horrors--he woke to the heavier nightmare of reality. Oh, those terrible dollars!

He drew the blind, and saw with a dull acquiescence that the brightness of May had fled. The wind was high--he heard it fly past, moaning. In the watery sky, the round sun loomed silver-pale and blurred. To his fevered eye it looked like a worn dollar.

He turned away, shivering, and began to dress. He opened the door a little, and pulled in his lace-up boots, which were polished in the highest style of art. But when he tried to put one on, his toes stuck fast in the opening, and refused to advance. Annoyed, he put his hand in, and drew out a pair of tan gloves, perfectly new. Astonished, he inserted his hand again and drew out another pair, then another. Reddening uncomfortably, for he divined something of the meaning, he examined the left boot, and drew out three more pairs of gloves, two new and one slightly soiled.

He sank down, half dressed, on the bed with his head on his breast, leaving his boots and Mary Ann's gloves scattered about the floor. He was angry, humiliated; he felt like laughing, and he felt like sobbing.

At last he roused himself, finished dressing, and rang for breakfast.

Rosie brought it up.

"Hullo! Where's Mary Ann?" he said lightly.

"She's above work now," said Rosie, with an unamiable laugh. "You know about her fortune."

"Yes; but your mother told me she insisted on going about her work till Monday."

"So she said yesterday--silly little thing! But to-day she says she'll only help mother in the kitchen--and do all the boots of a morning. She won't do any more waiting."

"Ah!" said Lancelot, crumbling his toast.

"I don't believe she knows what she wants," concluded Rosie, turning to go.

"Then I suppose she's in the kitchen now?" he said, pouring out his coffee down the side of his cup.

"No, she's gone out now, sir."

"Gone out!" He put down the coffee-pot--his saucer was full. "Gone out where?"

"Only to buy things. You know her vicar is coming to take her away the day after to-morrow, and mother wanted her to look tidy enough to travel with the vicar; so she gave her a sovereign."

"Ah, yes; your mother said something about it."

"And yet she won't answer the bells," said Rosie, "and mother's asthma is worse, so I don't know whether I shall be able to take my lesson to-day, Mr. Lancelot. I'm so sorry, because it's the last."

Rosie probably did not intend the ambiguity of the phrase. There was real regret in her voice.

"Do you like learning, then?" said Lancelot, softened, for the first time, towards his pupil. His nerves seemed strangely flaccid to-day. He did not at all feel the relief he should have felt at forgoing his daily infliction.

"Ever so much, sir. I know I laugh too much, sometimes; but I don't mean it, sir. I suppose I couldn't go on with the lessons after you leave here?" She looked at him wistfully.

"Well"--he had crumbled the toast all to little pieces now--"I don't quite know. Perhaps I shan't go away after all."

Rosie's face lit up. "Oh, I'll tell mother," she exclaimed joyously.

"No, don't tell her yet; I haven't quite settled. But if I stay--of course the lessons can go on as before."

"Oh, I _do_ hope you'll stay," said Rosie, and went out of the room with airy steps, evidently bent on disregarding his prohibition, if, indeed, it had penetrated to her consciousness.

Lancelot made no pretence of eating breakfast; he had it removed, and then fished out his comic opera. But nothing would flow from his pen; he went over to the window, and stood thoughtfully drumming on the panes with it, and gazing at the little drab-coloured street, with its high roof of mist; along which the faded dollar continued to spin imperceptibly. Suddenly he saw Mary Ann turn the corner, and come along towards the house, carrying a big parcel and a paper bag in her ungloved hands. How buoyantly she walked! He had never before seen her move in free s.p.a.ce, nor realised how much of the grace of a sylvan childhood remained with her still. What a pretty colour there was on her cheeks, too!

He ran down to the street door and opened it before she could knock. The colour on her cheeks deepened at the sight of him, but now that she was near he saw her eyes were swollen with crying.

"Why do you go out without gloves, Mary Ann?" he inquired sternly.

"Remember you're a lady now."

She started and looked down at his boots, then up at his face.

"Oh, yes, I found them, Mary Ann. A nice graceful way of returning me my presents, Mary Ann. You might at least have waited till Christmas. Then I should have thought Santa Claus sent them."

"Please, sir, I thought it was the surest way for me to send them back."

"But what made you send them back at all?"

Mary Ann's lip quivered, her eyes were cast down. "Oh--Mr. Lancelot--you know," she faltered.

"But I don't know," he said sharply.

"Please let me go downstairs, Mr. Lancelot. Missus must have heard me come in."

"You shan't go downstairs till you've told me what's come over you. Come upstairs to my room."

"Yessir."

She followed him obediently. He turned round brusquely, "Here, give me your parcels." And almost s.n.a.t.c.hing them from her, he carried them upstairs and deposited them on his table on top of the comic opera.

"Now, then, sit down. You can take off your hat and jacket."

"Yessir."

He helped her to do so.

"Now, Mary Ann, why did you return me those gloves?"

"Please, sir, I remember in our village when--when"--she felt a diffidence in putting the situation into words and wound up quickly, "something told me I ought to."

"I don't understand you," he grumbled, comprehending only too well. "But why couldn't you come in and give them to me instead of behaving in that ridiculous way?"

"I didn't want to see you again," she faltered.