Trilby Part 17

That is the very exclamation I wanted.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHRISTMAS EVE]

Christmas Eve came round. The pieces of resistance and plum-pudding and mince-pies had not yet arrived from London--but there was plenty of time.

Les trois Angliches dined at le pere Trin's, as usual, and played billiards and dominos at the Cafe du Luxembourg, and possessed their souls in patience till it was time to go and hear the midnight ma.s.s at the Madeleine, where Roucouly, the great barytone of the Opera Comique, was retained to sing Adam's famous Noel.

The whole quartier seemed alive with the reveillon. It was a clear, frosty night, with a splendid moon just past the full, and most exhilarating was the walk along the quays on the Rive Gauche, over the Pont de la Concorde and across the Place thereof, and up the thronged Rue de la Madeleine to the ma.s.sive Parthenaic place of worship that always has such a pagan, worldly look of smug and prosperous modernity.

They struggled manfully, and found standing and kneeling room among that fervent crowd, and heard the impressive service with mixed feelings, as became true Britons of very advanced liberal and religious opinions; not with the unmixed contempt of the proper British Orthodox (who were there in full force, one may be sure).

But their susceptible hearts soon melted at the beautiful music, and in mere sensuous _attendriss.e.m.e.nt_ they were quickly in unison with all the rest.

For as the clock struck twelve out pealed the organ, and up rose the finest voice in France:

"Minuit, Chretiens! c'est l'heure solennelle Ou l'Homme-Dieu descendit parmi nous!"

And a wave of religious emotion rolled over Little Billee and submerged him; swept him off his little legs, swept him out of his little self, drowned him in a great seething surge of love--love of his kind, love of love, love of life, love of death, love of all that is and ever was and ever will be--a very large order indeed, even for Little Billee.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'ALLONS GLYCeRE! ROUGIS MON VERRE....'"]

And it seemed to him that he stretched out his arms for love to one figure especially beloved beyond all the rest--one figure erect on high with arms outstretched to him, in more than common fellowship of need; not the sorrowful figure crowned with thorns, for it was in the likeness of a woman; but never that of the Virgin Mother of Our Lord.

It was Trilby, Trilby, Trilby! a poor fallen sinner and waif all but lost amid the sc.u.m of the most corrupt city on earth. Trilby weak and mortal like himself, and in woful want of pardon! and in her gray dovelike eyes he saw the shining of so great a love that he was abashed; for well he knew that all that love was his, and would be his forever, come what would or could.

"Peuple, debout! Chante ta delivrance!

_Noel! Noel! Voici le Redempteur!_"

So sang and rang and pealed and echoed the big, deep, metallic barytone ba.s.s--above the organ, above the incense, above everything else in the world--till the very universe seemed to shake with the rolling thunder of that great message of love and forgiveness!

Thus at least felt Little Billee, whose way it was to magnify and exaggerate all things under the subtle stimulus of sound, and the singing human voice had especially strange power to penetrate into his inmost depths--even the voice of man!

And what voice but the deepest and gravest and grandest there is can give worthy utterance to such a message as that, the epitome, the abstract, the very essence of all collective humanity's wisdom at its best!

Little Billee reached the Hotel Corneille that night in a very exalted frame of mind indeed, the loftiest, lowliest mood of all.

Now see what sport we are of trivial, base, ign.o.ble earthly things!

Sitting on the door-step and smoking two cigars at once he found Ribot, one of his fellow-lodgers, whose room was just under his own. Ribot was so tipsy that he could not ring. But he could still sing, and did so at the top of his voice. It was not the Noel of Adam that he sang. He had not spent his reveillon in any church.

With the help of a sleepy waiter, Little Billee got the baccha.n.a.lian into his room and lit his candle for him, and, disengaging himself from his maudlin embraces, left him to wallow in solitude.

As he lay awake in his bed, trying to recall the deep and high emotions of the evening, he heard the tipsy hog below tumbling about his room and still trying to sing his senseless ditty:

"Allons, Glycere!

Rougis mon verre Du jus divin dont mon cur est toujours jaloux ...

Et puis a table, Bacchante aimable!

Enivrons-nous (hic) Les g-glougloux sont des rendezvous!"...

Then the song ceased for a while, and soon there were other sounds, as on a Channel steamer. Glougloux indeed!

Then the fear arose in Little Billee's mind lest the drunken beast should set fire to his bedroom curtains. All heavenly visions were chased away for the night....

Our hero, half-crazed with fear, disgust, and irritation, lay wide awake, his nostrils on the watch for the smell of burning chintz or muslin, and wondered how an educated man--for Ribot was a law-student--could ever make such a filthy beast of himself as that! It was a scandal--a disgrace; it was not to be borne; there should be no forgiveness for such as Ribot--not even on Christmas Day! He would complain to Madame Paul, the patronne; he would have Ribot turned out into the street; he would leave the hotel himself the very next morning!

At last he fell asleep, thinking of all he would do; and thus, ridiculously and ignominiously for Little Billee, ended the reveillon.

Next morning he complained to Madame Paul; and though he did not give her warning, nor even insist on the expulsion of Ribot (who, as he heard with a hard heart, was "bien malade ce matin"), he expressed himself very severely on the conduct of that gentleman, and on the dangers from fire that might arise from a tipsy man being trusted alone in a small bedroom with chintz curtains and a lighted candle. If it hadn't been for himself, he told her, Ribot would have slept on the door-step, and serve him right! He was really grand in his virtuous indignation, in spite of his imperfect French; and Madame Paul was deeply contrite for her peccant lodger, and profuse in her apologies; and Little Billee began his twenty-first Christmas Day like a Pharisee, thanking his star that he was not as Ribot!

Part Fourth

"Felicite pa.s.see Qui ne peux revenir, Tourment de ma pensee, Que n'ay-je, en te perdant, perdu le souvenir!"

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

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

At twelve the trois Angliches and the two fair blanchisseuses sat down to lunch in a very anxious frame of mind, and finished a pate de foie gras and two bottles of Burgundy between them, such was their disquietude.

The guests had been invited for six o'clock.

Most elaborately they laid the cloth on the table they had borrowed from the Hotel de Seine, and settled who was to sit next to whom, and then unsettled it, and quarrelled over it--Trilby, as was her wont in such matters, a.s.suming an authority that did not rightly belong to her, and of 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. It was simply maddening. They knelt on the divan, with their elbows on the window-sill, and watched the street lamps popping into life along the quays--and looked out through the gathering dusk for the van from the Chemin de Fer du Nord--and gloomily thought of the Morgue, which they could still make out across the river.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SOUVENIR]

At length the Laird and Trilby went off in a cab to the station--a long drive--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, with Taffy and Little Billee sitting hopeless and despondent round the stove, became a scene of the noisiest, busiest, and cheerfulest animation. The three big lamps were lit, and all the Chinese lanterns.

The pieces of resistance and the pudding were whisked off by Trilby, Angele, and Madame Vinard to other regions--the porter's lodge and Durien's studio (which had been lent for the purpose); and every one was pressed into the preparations for the banquet. There was plenty for idle hands to do. Sausages to be fried for the turkey, stuffing made, and sauces, salads mixed, and punch--holly hung in festoons all round and about--a thousand things. Everybody was so clever and good-humored that n.o.body 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's work--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 (c.o.c.kaleekie, 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 its cooks, apparently quite forgot they were due at their respective barracks at that very moment: they had only been able to obtain "la permission de dix heures." If they remembered it, the certainty that next day Zouzou would be reduced to the ranks for the fifth time, and Dodor confined to his barracks for a month, did not trouble them in the least.

The waiting was as good as the cooking. The handsome, quick, authoritative Madame Vinard was in a dozen places at once, and openly prompted, rebuked, and ballyragged her husband into a proper smartness.

The pretty little Madame Angele moved about as deftly and as quietly as a mouse; which of course did not prevent them both from genially joining in the general conversation whenever it wandered into French.