Part 21

Monsieur J---- was then seen to enter his box with a policeman and two or three other men, one of them in evening dress. He quickly drew the curtains to; then, a minute or two after, he reappeared on the platform, bowing and scraping to the audience, as pale as death, and called for silence, the gentleman in evening dress by his side; and this person explained that a very dreadful thing had happened--that Monsieur Svengali had suddenly died in that box--of apoplexy or heart-disease; that his wife had seen it from her place on the stage, and had apparently gone out of her senses, which accounted for her extraordinary behavior.

He added that the money would be returned at the doors, and begged the audience to disperse quietly.

Taffy, with his two friends behind him, forced his way to a stage door he knew. The Laird had no longer any doubts on the score of Trilby's identity--_this_ Trilby, at all events!

Taffy knocked and thumped till the door was opened, and gave his card to the man who opened it, stating that he and his friends were old friends of Madame Svengali, and must see her at once.

The man tried to slam the door in his face, but Taffy pushed through, and shut it on the crowd outside, and insisted on being taken to Monsieur J---- immediately; and was so authoritative and big, and looked such a swell, that the man was cowed, and led him.

They passed an open door, through which they had a glimpse of a prostrate form on a table--a man partially undressed, and some men bending over him, doctors probably.

That was the last they saw of Svengali.

Then they were taken to another door, and Monsieur J---- came out, and Taffy explained who they were, and they were admitted.

La Svengali was there, sitting in an arm-chair by the fire, with several of the band standing round gesticulating, and talking German or Polish or Yiddish. Gecko, on his knees, was alternately chafing her hands and feet. She seemed quite dazed.

But at the sight of Taffy she jumped up and rushed at him, saying: "Oh, Taffy dear--oh, Taffy! what's it all about? Where on earth am I? What an age since we met?"

Then she caught sight of the Laird, and kissed him; and then she recognized Little Billee.

She looked at him for a long while in great surprise, and then shook hands with him.

"How pale you are! and so changed--you've got a mustache! What's the matter? Why are you all dressed in black, with white cravats, as if you were going to a ball? Where's Svengali? I should like to go home!"

"Where--what do you call--home, I mean--where is it?" asked Taffy.

"C'est à l'hôtel de Normandie, dans le Haymarket. On va vous y conduire, madame!" said Monsieur J----.

"Oui--c'est ça!" said Trilby--"Hôtel de Normandie--mais Svengali--où est-ce qu'il est?"

"Hélas! madame--il est très malade!"

"Malade? Qu'est-ce qu'il a? How funny you look, with your mustache, Little Billee! dear, _dear_ Little Billee! so pale, so very pale! Are you ill too? Oh, I hope not! How _glad_ I am to see you again--you can't tell! though I promised your mother I wouldn't--never, never! Where are we now, dear Little Billee?"

Monsieur J---- seemed to have lost his head. He was constantly running in and out of the room, distracted. The bandsmen began to talk and try to explain, in incomprehensible French, to Taffy. Gecko seemed to have disappeared. It was a bewildering business--noises from outside, the tramp and bustle and shouts of the departing crowd, people running in and out and asking for Monsieur J----, policemen, firemen, and what not!

Then Little Billee, who had been exerting the most heroic self-control, suggested that Trilby should come to his house in Fitzroy Square, first of all, and be taken out of all this--and the idea struck Taffy as a happy one--and it was proposed to Monsieur J----, who saw that our three friends were old friends of Madame Svengali's, and people to be trusted; and he was only too glad to be relieved of her, and gave his consent.

Little Billee and Taffy drove to Fitzroy Square to prepare Little Billee's landlady, who was much put out at first at having such a novel and unexpected charge imposed on her. It was all explained to her that it must be so. That Madame Svengali, the greatest singer in Europe and an old friend of her tenant's, had suddenly gone out of her mind from grief at the tragic death of her husband, and that for this night at least the unhappy lady must sleep under that roof--indeed, in Little Billee's own bed, and that he would sleep at a hotel; and that a nurse would be provided at once--it might be only for that one night; and that the lady was as quiet as a lamb, and would probably recover her faculties after a night's rest. A doctor was sent for from close by; and soon Trilby appeared, with the Laird, and her appearance and her magnificent sables impressed Mrs. Godwin, the landlady--brought her figuratively on her knees. Then Taffy, the Laird, and Little Billee departed again and dispersed--to procure a nurse for the night, to find Gecko, to fetch some of Trilby's belongings from the Hôtel de Normandie, and her maid.

The maid (the old German Jewess and Svengali's relative), distracted by the news of her master's death, had gone to the theatre. Gecko was in the hands of the police. Things had got to a terrible pass. But our three friends did their best, and were up most of the night.

So much for la Svengali's début in London.

The present scribe was not present on that memorable occasion, and has written this inadequate and most incomplete description partly from hearsay and private information, partly from the reports in the contemporary newspapers.

Should any surviving eye-witness of that lamentable fiasco read these pages, and see any gross inaccuracy in this bald account of it, the P. S. will feel deeply obliged to the same for any corrections or additions, and these will be duly acted upon and gratefully acknowledged in all subsequent editions; which will be numerous, no doubt, on account of the great interest still felt in "la Svengali," even by those who never saw or heard her (and they are many), and also because the present scribe is better qualified (by his opportunities) for the compiling of this brief biographical sketch than any person now living, with the exception, of course, of "Taffy" and "the Laird," to whose kindness, even more than to his own personal recollections, he owes whatever it may contain of serious historical value.

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Next morning they all three went to Fitzroy Square. Little Billee had slept at Taffy's rooms in Jermyn Street.

Trilby seemed quite pathetically glad to see them again. She was dressed simply and plainly--in black; her trunks had been sent from the hotel.

The hospital nurse was with her; the doctor had just left. He had said that she was suffering from some great nervous shock--a pretty safe diagnosis!

Her wits had apparently not come back, and she seemed in no way to realize her position.

"Ah! what it is to see you again, all three! It makes one feel glad to be alive! I've thought of many things, but never of this--never! Three nice clean Englishmen, all speaking English--and _such_ dear old friends! Ah! j'aime tant ça--c'est le ciel! I wonder I've got a word of English left!"

Her voice was so soft and sweet and low that these ingenuous remarks sounded like a beautiful song. And she "made the soft eyes" at them all three, one after another, in her old way; and the soft eyes quickly filled with tears.

She seemed ill and weak and worn out, and insisted on keeping the Laird's hand in hers.

"What's the matter with Svengali? He must be dead!"

They all three looked at each other, perplexed.

"Ah! he's dead! I can see it in your faces. He'd got heart-disease. I'm sorry! oh, very sorry indeed! He was always very kind, poor Svengali!"

"Yes. He's dead," said Taffy.

"And Gecko--dear little Gecko--is he dead too? I saw him last night--he warmed my hands and feet: where were we?"

"No. Gecko's not dead. But he's had to be locked up for a little while. He struck Svengali, you know. You saw it all."

"I? No! I never saw it. But I _dreamt_ something like it! Gecko with a knife, and people holding him, and Svengali bleeding on the ground. That was just before Svengali's illness. He'd cut himself in the neck, you know--with a rusty nail, he told me. I wonder how!... But it was wrong of Gecko to strike him. They were such friends. Why did he?"

"Well--it was because Svengali struck you with his conductor's wand when you were rehearsing. Struck you on the fingers and made you cry! don't you remember?"

"Struck _me_! _rehearsing?_--made me _cry_! what _are_ you talking about, dear Taffy? Svengali never _struck_ me! he was kindness itself! always! and what should _I_ rehearse?"

"Well, the songs you were to sing at the theatre in the evening."

"Sing at the theatre! _I_ never sang at any theatre--except last night, if that big place was a theatre! and they didn't seem to like it! I'll take precious good care never to sing in a theatre again! How they howled! and there was Svengali in the box opposite, laughing at me. Why was I taken there? and why did that funny little Frenchman in the white waistcoat ask me to sing? I know very well I can't sing well enough to sing in a place like that! What a fool I was! It all seems like a bad dream! What was it all about? _Was_ it a dream, I wonder!"

"Well--but don't you remember singing at Paris, in the Salle des Bashibazoucks--and at Vienna--St. Petersburg--lots of places?"

"What nonsense, dear--you're thinking of some one else! _I_ never sang anywhere! I've been to Vienna and St. Petersburg--but I never _sang_ there--good heavens!"

Then there was a pause, and our three friends looked at her helplessly.

Little Billee said: "Tell me, Trilby--what made you cut me dead when I bowed to you in the Place de la Concorde, and you were riding with Svengali in that swell carriage?"

"_I_ never rode in a swell carriage with Svengali! omnibuses were more in _our_ line! You're dreaming, dear Little Billee--you're taking me for somebody else; and as for my cutting _you_--why, I'd sooner cut myself--into little pieces!"

"_Where_ were you staying with Svengali in Paris?"

"I really forget. _Were_ we in Paris? Oh yes, of course. Hôtel Bertrand, Place Notre Dame des Victoires."

"How long have you been going about with Svengali?"

"Oh, months, years--I forget. I was very ill. He cured me."

"Ill! What was the matter?"

"Oh! I was mad with grief, and pain in my eyes, and wanted to kill myself, when I lost my dear little Jeannot, at Vibraye. I fancied I hadn't been careful enough with him. I was crazed! Don't you remember writing to me there, Taffy--through Angèle Boisse? Such a sweet letter you wrote! I know it by heart! And you too, Sandy"; and she kissed him. "I wonder where they are, your letters?--I've got nothing of my own in the world--not even your dear letters--nor little Billee's--such lots of them!

"Well, Svengali used to write to me too--and then he got my address from Angèle....

"When Jeannot died, I felt I must kill myself or get away from Vibraye--get away from the people there--so when he was buried I cut my hair short and got a workman's cap and blouse and trousers and walked all the way to Paris without saying anything to anybody. I didn't want anybody to know; I wanted to escape from Svengali, who wrote that he was coming there to fetch me. I wanted to hide in Paris. When I got there at last it was two o'clock in the morning, and I was in dreadful pain--and I'd lost all my money--thirty francs--through a hole in my trousers-pocket. Besides, I had a row with a carter in the Halle. He thought I was a man, and hit me and gave me a black eye, just because I patted his horse and fed it with a carrot I'd been trying to eat myself. He was tipsy, I think. Well, I looked over the bridge at the river--just by the Morgue--and wanted to jump in. But the Morgue sickened me, so I hadn't the pluck. Svengali used to be always talking about the Morgue, and my going there some day. He used to say he'd come and look at me there, and the idea made me so sick I couldn't. I got bewildered, and quite stupid.

"Then I went to Angèle's, in the Rue des Cloîtres Ste. Pétronille, and waited about; but I hadn't the courage to ring, so I went to the Place St. Anatole des Arts, and looked up at the old studio window, and thought how comfortable it was in there, with the big settee near the stove, and all that, and felt inclined to ring up Madame Vinard; and then I remembered Little Billee was ill there, and his mother and sister were with him. Angèle had written me, you know. Poor Little Billee! There he was, very ill!

"So I walked about the place, and up and down the Rue des Mauvais Ladres. Then I went down the Rue de Seine to the river again, and again I hadn't the pluck to jump in. Besides, there was a sergent de ville who followed and watched me. And the fun of it was that I knew him quite well, and he didn't know me a bit. It was Célestin Beaumollet, who got so tipsy on Christmas night. Don't you remember? The tall one, who was pitted with the small-pox.

"Then I walked about till near daylight. Then I could stand it no longer, and went to Svengali's, in the Rue Tire-Liard, but he'd moved to the Rue des Saints Pères; and I went there and found him. I didn't want to a bit, but I couldn't help myself. It was fate, I suppose! He was very kind, and cured me almost directly, and got me coffee and bread-and-butter--the best I ever tasted--and a warm bath from Bidet Frères, in the Rue Savonarole. It was heavenly! And I slept for two days and two nights! And then he told me how fond he was of me, and how he would always cure me, and take care of me, and marry me, if I would go away with him. He said he would devote his whole life to me, and took a small room for me, next to his.

"I stayed with him there a week, never going out or seeing any one, mostly asleep. I'd caught a chill.

"He played in two concerts and made a lot of money; and then we went away to Germany together; and no one was a bit the wiser."

"And _did_ he marry you?"

"Well--no. He couldn't, poor fellow! He'd already got a wife living; and three children, which he declared were not his. They live in Elberfeld in Prussia; she keeps a small sweet-stuff shop there. He behaved very badly to them. But it was not through me! He'd deserted them long before; but he used to send them plenty of money when he'd got any; I made him, for I was very sorry for her. He was always talking about her, and what she said and what she did; and imitating her saying her prayers and eating pickled cucumber with one hand and drinking schnapps with the other, so as not to lose any time; till he made me die of laughing. He could be very funny, Svengali, though he _was_ German, poor dear! And then Gecko joined us, and Marta."

"Who's Marta?"

"His aunt. She cooked for us, and all that. She's coming here presently; she sent word from the hotel; she's very fond of him. Poor Marta! Poor Gecko! What _will_ they ever do without Svengali?"

"Then what did he do to live?"

"Oh! he played at concerts, I suppose--and all that."

"Did you ever hear him?"

"Yes. Sometimes Marta took me; at the beginning, you know. He was always very much applauded. He plays beautifully. Everybody said so."

"Did he never try and teach you to sing?"

"Oh, maïe, aïe! not he! Why, he always laughed when I tried to sing; and so did Marta; and so did Gecko! It made them roar! I used to sing 'Ben Bolt.' They used to make me, just for fun--and go into fits. _I_ didn't mind a scrap. I'd had no training, you know!"

"Was there anybody else he knew--any other woman?"

"Not that _I_ know of! He always made out he was so fond of me that he couldn't even _look_ at another woman. Poor Svengali!" (Here her eyes filled with tears again.) "He was always very kind! But I never could be fond of him in the way he wished--never! It made me sick even to think of! Once I used to hate him--in Paris--in the studio; don't you remember?

"He hardly ever left me; and then Marta looked after me--for I've always been weak and ill--and often so languid that I could hardly walk across the room. It was that walk from Vibraye to Paris. I never got over it.

"I used to try and do all I could--be a daughter to him, as I couldn't be anything else--mend his things, and all that, and cook him little French dishes. I fancy he was very poor at one time; we were always moving from place to place. But I always had the best of everything. He insisted on that--even if he had to go without himself. It made him quite unhappy when I wouldn't eat, so I used to force myself.

"Then, as soon as I felt uneasy about things, or had any pain, he would say, 'Dors, ma mignonne!' and I would sleep at once--for hours, I think--and wake up, oh, so tired! and find him kneeling by me, always so anxious and kind--and Marta and Gecko! and sometimes we had the doctor, and I was ill in bed.

"Gecko used to dine and breakfast with us--you've no idea what an angel he is, poor little Gecko! But what a dreadful thing to strike Svengali! _Why_ did he? Svengali taught him all he knows!"

"And you knew no one else--no other woman?"

"No one that I can remember--except Marta--not a soul!"

"And that beautiful dress you had on last night?"

"It isn't mine. It's on the bed up-stairs, and so's the fur cloak. They belong to Marta. She's got lots of them, lovely things--silk, satin, velvet--and lots of beautiful jewels. Marta deals in them, and makes lots of money.

"I've often tried them on; I'm very easy to fit," she said, "being so tall and thin. And poor Svengali would kneel down and cry, and kiss my hands and feet, and tell me I was his goddess and empress, and all that, which I hate. And Marta used to cry, too. And then he would say,

"'Et maintenant dors, ma mignonne!'

"And when I woke up I was so tired that I went to sleep again on my own account.

"But he was very patient. Oh, dear me! I've always been a poor, helpless, useless log and burden to him!

"Once I actually walked in my sleep--and woke up in the market-place at Prague--and found an immense crowd, and poor Svengali bleeding from the forehead, in a faint on the ground. He'd been knocked down by a horse and cart, he told me. He'd got his guitar with him. I suppose he and Gecko had been playing somewhere, for Gecko had his fiddle. If Gecko hadn't been there, I don't know what we should have done. You never saw such queer people as they were--such crowds--you'd think they'd never seen an Englishwoman before. The noise they made, and the things they gave me ... some of them went down on their knees, and kissed my hands and the skirts of my gown.

"He was ill in bed for a week after that, and I nursed him, and he was very grateful. Poor Svengali! God knows _I_ felt grateful to _him_ for many things! Tell me how he died! I hope he hadn't much pain."

They told her it was quite sudden, from heart-disease.

"Ah! I knew he had that; he wasn't a healthy man; he used to smoke too much. Marta used always to be very anxious."

Just then Marta came in.

Marta was a fat, elderly Jewess of rather a grotesque and ignoble type. She seemed overcome with grief--all but prostrate.

Trilby hugged and kissed her, and took off her bonnet and shawl, and made her sit down in a big arm-chair, and got her a footstool.

She couldn't speak a word of anything but Polish and a little German. Trilby had also picked up a little German, and with this and by means of signs, and no doubt through a long intimacy with each other's ways, they understood each other very well. She seemed a very good old creature, and very fond of Trilby, but in mortal terror of the three Englishmen.

Lunch was brought up for the two women and the nurse, and our friends left them, promising to come again that day.

They were utterly bewildered; and the Laird would have it that there was another Madame Svengali somewhere, the real one, and that Trilby was a fraud--self-deceived and self-deceiving--quite unconsciously so, of course.

Truth looked out of her eyes, as it always had done--truth was in every line of her face.

The truth only--nothing but the truth could ever be told in that "voice of velvet," which rang as true when she spoke as that of any thrush or nightingale, however rebellious it might be now (and forever perhaps) to artificial melodic laws and limitations and restraints. The long training it had been subjected to had made it "a wonder, a world's delight," and though she might never sing another note, her mere speech would always be more golden than any silence, whatever she might say.

Except on the one particular point of her singing, she had seemed absolutely sane--so, at least, thought Taffy, the Laird, and Little Billee. And each thought to himself, besides, that this last incarnation of Trilbyness was quite the sweetest, most touching, most endearing of all.

They had not failed to note how rapidly she had aged, now that they had seen her without her rouge and pearl-powder; she looked thirty at least--she was only twenty-three.

Her hands were almost transparent in their waxen whiteness; delicate little frosty wrinkles had gathered round her eyes; there were gray streaks in her hair; all strength and straightness and elasticity seemed to have gone out of her with the memory of her endless triumphs (if she really _was_ la Svengali), and of her many wanderings from city to city all over Europe.

It was evident enough that the sudden stroke which had destroyed her power of singing had left her physically a wreck.

But she was one of those rarely gifted beings who cannot look or speak or even stir without waking up (and satisfying) some vague longing that lies dormant in the hearts of most of us, men and women alike; grace, charm, magnetism--whatever the nameless seduction should be called that she possessed to such an unusual degree--she had lost none of it when she lost her high spirits, her buoyant health and energy, her wits!

Tuneless and insane, she was more of a siren than ever--a quite unconscious siren--without any guile, who appealed to the heart all the more directly and irresistibly that she could no longer stir the passions.

All this was keenly felt by all three--each in his different way--by Taffy and Little Billee especially.

All her past life was forgiven--her sins of omission and commission! And whatever might be her fate--recovery, madness, disease, or death--the care of her till she died or recovered should be the principal business of their lives.

Both had loved her. All three, perhaps. One had been loved by her as passionately, as purely, as unselfishly as any man could wish to be loved, and in some extraordinary manner had recovered, after many years, at the mere sudden sight and sound of her, his lost share in our common inheritance--the power to love, and all its joy and sorrow; without which he had found life not worth living, though he had possessed every other gift and blessing in such abundance.

"Oh, Circe, poor Circe, dear Circe, divine enchantress that you were!" he said to himself, in his excitable way. "A mere look from your eyes, a mere note of your heavenly voice, has turned a poor, miserable, callous brute back into a man again! and I will never forget it--never! And now that a still worse trouble than mine has befallen you, you shall always be first in my thoughts till the end!"

And Taffy felt pretty much the same, though he was not by way of talking to himself so eloquent about things as Little Billee.

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