Trilby Part 45

As the graceful little lady came in, pale and trembling all over, Trilby rose from her chair to receive her, and rather timidly put out her hand, and smiled in a frightened manner. Neither could speak for a second.

Mrs. Bagot stood stock-still by the door gazing (with all her heart in her eyes) at the so terribly altered Trilby--the girl she had once so dreaded.

Trilby, who seemed also bereft of motion, and whose face and lips were ashen, exclaimed, "I'm afraid I haven't quite kept my promise to you, after all! but things have turned out so differently! anyhow, you needn't have any fear of me _now_."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'OH, MY POOR GIRL! MY POOR GIRL!'"]

At the mere sound of that voice, Mrs. Bagot, who was as impulsive, emotional, and unregulated as her son, rushed forward, crying, "Oh, my poor girl, my poor girl!" and caught her in her arms, and kissed and caressed her, and burst into a flood of tears, and forced her back into her chair, hugging her as if she were a long-lost child.

"I love you now as much as I always admired you--pray believe it!"

"Oh, how kind of you to say that!" said Trilby, her own eyes filling.

"I'm not at all the dangerous or designing person you thought. I knew quite well I wasn't a proper person to marry your son all the time; and told him so again and again. It was very stupid of me to say yes at last. I was miserable directly after, I a.s.sure you. Somehow I couldn't help myself--I was driven."

"Oh, don't talk of that! don't talk of that! You've never been to blame in any way--I've long known it--I've been full of remorse! You've been in my thoughts always, night and day. Forgive a poor jealous mother. As if _any_ man could help loving you--or any woman either. Forgive me!"

"Oh, Mrs. Bagot--forgive _you_! What a funny idea! But, anyhow, you've forgiven _me_, and that's all I care for now. I was very fond of your son--as fond as could be. I am now, but in quite a different sort of way, you know--the sort of way _you_ must be, I fancy! There was never another like him that I ever met--anywhere! You _must_ be so proud of him; who wouldn't? _n.o.body's_ good enough for him. I would have been only too glad to be his servant, his humble servant! I used to tell him so--but he wouldn't hear of it--he was much too kind! He always thought of others before himself. And, oh! how rich and famous he's become! I've heard all about it, and it did me good. It does me more good to think of than anything else; far more than if I were to be ever so rich and famous myself, I can tell you!"

This from la Svengali, whose overpowering fame, so utterly forgotten by herself, was still ringing all over Europe; whose lamentable illness and approaching death were being mourned and discussed and commented upon in every capital of the civilized world, as one distressing bulletin appeared after another. She might have been a royal personage!

Mrs. Bagot knew, of course, the strange form her insanity had taken, and made no allusion to the flood of thoughts that rushed through her own brain as she listened to this towering G.o.ddess of song, this poor mad queen of the nightingales, humbly gloating over her son's success....

Poor Mrs. Bagot had just come from Little Billee's, in Fitzroy Square, close by. There she had seen Taffy, in a corner of Little Billee's studio, laboriously answering endless letters and telegrams from all parts of Europe--for the good Taffy had const.i.tuted himself Trilby's secretary and _homme d'affaires_--unknown to her, of course. And this was no sinecure (though he liked it): putting aside the numerous people he had to see and be interviewed by, there were kind inquiries and messages of condolence and sympathy from nearly all the crowned heads of Europe, through their chamberlains; applications for help from unsuccessful musical strugglers all over the world to the pre-eminently successful one; beautiful letters from great and famous people, musical or otherwise; disinterested offers of service; interested proposals for engagements when the present trouble should be over; beggings for an interview from famous impresarios, to obtain which no distance would be thought too great, etc., etc., etc. It was endless, in English, French, German, Italian--in languages quite incomprehensible (many letters had to remain unanswered)--Taffy took an almost malicious pleasure in explaining all this to Mrs. Bagot.

Then there was a constant rolling of carriages up to the door, and a thundering of Little Billee's knocker: Lord and Lady Palmerston wish to know--the Lord Chief Justice wishes to know--the Dean of Westminster wishes to know--the Marchioness of Westminster wishes to know--everybody wishes to know if there is any better news of Madame Svengali!

These were small things, truly; but Mrs. Bagot was a small person from a small village in Devonshire, and one whose heart and eye had hitherto been filled by no larger image than that of Little Billee; and Little Billee's fame, as she now discovered for the first time, did not quite fill the entire universe.

And she mustn't be too much blamed if all these obvious signs of a world-wide colossal celebrity impressed and even awed her a little.

Madame Svengali! Why, this was the beautiful girl whom she remembered so well, whom she had so grandly discarded with a word, and who had accepted her conge so meekly in a minute; whom, indeed, she had been cursing in her heart for years, because--because what?

Poor Mrs. Bagot felt herself turn hot and red all over, and humbled herself to the very dust, and almost forgot that she had been in the right, after all, and that "la grande Trilby" was certainly no fit match for her son!

So she went quite humbly to see Trilby, and found a poor, pathetic, mad creature still more humble than herself, who still apologized for--for what?

A poor, pathetic, mad creature who had clean forgotten that she was the greatest singer in all the world--one of the greatest artists that had ever lived; but who remembered with shame and contrition that she had once taken the liberty of yielding (after endless pressure and repeated disinterested refusals of her own, and out of sheer irresistible affection) to the pa.s.sionate pleadings of a little obscure art student, a mere boy--no better off than herself--just as penniless and insignificant a n.o.body; but--the son of Mrs. Bagot.

All due sense of proportion died out of the poor lady as she remembered and realized all this!

And then Trilby's pathetic beauty, so touching, so winning, in its rapid decay; the nameless charm of look and voice and manner that was her special apanage, and which her malady and singular madness had only increased; her childlike simplicity, her transparent forgetfulness of self--all these so fascinated and entranced Mrs. Bagot, whose quick susceptibility to such impressions was just as keen as her son's, that she very soon found herself all but worshipping this fast-fading lily--for so she called her in her own mind--quite forgetting (or affecting to forget) on what very questionable soil the lily had been reared, and through what strange vicissitudes of evil and corruption it had managed to grow so tall and white and fragrant!

Oh, strange compelling power of weakness and grace and prettiness combined, and sweet, sincere unconscious natural manners! not to speak of world-wide fame!

For Mrs. Bagot was just a shrewd little conventional British country matron of the good upper middle-cla.s.s type, bristling all over with provincial proprieties and respectabilities, a philistine of the philistines, in spite of her artistic instincts; one who for years had (rather unjustly) thought of Trilby as a wanton and perilous siren, an unchaste and unprincipled and most dangerous daughter of Heth, and the special enemy of her house.

And here she was--like all the rest of us monads and nomads and bohemians--just sitting at Trilby's feet.... "A washer-woman! a figure model! and Heaven knows what besides!" and she had never even heard her sing!

It was truly comical to see and hear!

Mrs. Bagot did not go back to Devonshire. She remained in Fitzroy Square, at her son's, and spent most of her time with Trilby, doing and devising all kinds of things to distract and amuse her, and lead her thoughts gently to heaven, and soften for her the coming end of all.

Trilby had a way of saying, and especially of looking, "Thank you" that made one wish to do as many things for her as one could, if only to make her say and look it again.

And she had retained much of her old, quaint, and amusing manner of telling things, and had much to tell still left of her wandering life, although there were so many strange lapses in her powers of memory--gaps--which, if they could only have been filled up, would have been full of such surpa.s.sing interest!

Then she was never tired of talking and hearing of Little Billee; and that was a subject of which Mrs. Bagot could never tire either!

Then there were the recollections of her childhood. One day, in a drawer, Mrs. Bagot came upon a faded daguerreotype of a woman in a Tam o' Shanter, with a face so sweet and beautiful and saint-like that it almost took her breath away. It was Trilby's mother.

"Who and what was your mother, Trilby?"

"Ah, poor mamma!" said Trilby, and she looked at the portrait a long time. "Ah, she was ever so much prettier than that! Mamma was once a demoiselle de comptoir--that's a bar-maid, you know--at the Montagnards ecossais, in the Rue du Paradis Poissonniere--a place where men used to drink and smoke without sitting down. That was unfortunate, wasn't it?

"Papa loved her with all his heart, although, of course, she wasn't his equal. They were married at the Emba.s.sy, in the Rue du Faubourg St.

Honore.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'AH, POOR MAMMA! SHE WAS EVER SO MUCH PRETTIER THAN THAT!'"]

"_Her_ parents weren't married at all. Her mother was the daughter of a boatman on Loch Ness, near a place called Drumnadrockit; but her father was the Honorable Colonel Desmond. He was related to all sorts of great people in England and Ireland. He behaved very badly to my grandmother and to poor mamma--his own daughter! deserted them both! Not very _honorable_ of him, _was_ it? And that's all I know about him."

And then she went on to tell of the home in Paris that might have been so happy but for her father's pa.s.sion for drink; of her parents' deaths, and little Jeannot, and so forth. And Mrs. Bagot was much moved and interested by these nave revelations, which accounted in a measure for so much that seemed unaccountable in this extraordinary woman; who thus turned out to be a kind of cousin (though on the wrong side of the blanket) to no less a person than the famous d.u.c.h.ess of Towers.

With what joy would that ever kind and gracious lady have taken poor Trilby to her bosom had she only known! She had once been all the way from Paris to Vienna merely to hear her sing. But, unfortunately, the Svengalis had just left for St. Petersburg, and she had her long journey for nothing!

Mrs. Bagot brought her many good books, and read them to her--Dr.

c.u.mmings on the approaching end of the world, and other works of a like comforting tendency for those who are just about to leave it; the _Pilgrim's Progress_, sweet little tracts, and what not.

Trilby was so grateful that she listened with much patient attention.

Only now and then a faint gleam of amus.e.m.e.nt would steal over her face, and her lips would almost form themselves to e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e, "Oh, mae, ae!"

Then Mrs. Bagot, as a reward for such winning docility, would read her _David Copperfield_, and that was heavenly indeed!

But the best of all was for Trilby to look over John Leech's _Pictures of Life and Character_, just out. She had never seen any drawings of Leech before, except now and then in an occasional _Punch_ that turned up in the studio in Paris. And they never palled upon her, and taught her more of the aspect of English life (the life she loved) than any book she had ever read. She laughed and laughed; and it was almost as sweet to listen to as if she were vocalizing the quick part in Chopin's Impromptu.

One day she said, her lips trembling: "I can't make out why you're so wonderfully kind to me, Mrs. Bagot. I hope you have not forgotten who and what I am, and what my story is. I hope you haven't forgotten that I'm not a respectable woman?"

"Oh, my dear child--don't ask me.... I only know that you are you!...

and I am I! and that is enough for me ... you're my poor, gentle, patient, suffering daughter, whatever else you are--more sinned against than sinning, I feel sure! But there.... I've misjudged you so, and been so unjust, that I would give worlds to make you some amends ... besides, I should be just as fond of you if you'd committed a murder, I really believe--you're so strange! you're irresistible! Did you ever, in all your life, meet anybody that _wasn't_ fond of you?"

Trilby's eyes moistened with tender pleasure at such a pretty compliment. Then, after a few minutes' thought, she said, with engaging candor and quite simply: "No, I can't say I ever did, that I can think of just now. But I've forgotten such lots of people!"