Part 23
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!"
* * * * *
One day Mrs. Bagot told Trilby that her brother-in-law, Mr. Thomas Bagot, would much like to come and talk to her.
"Was that the gentleman who came with you to the studio in Paris?"
"Yes."
"Why, he's a clergyman, isn't he? What does he want to come and talk to _me_ about?"
"Ah! my dear child ..." said Mrs. Bagot, her eyes filling.
Trilby was thoughtful for a while, and then said: "I'm going to die, I suppose. Oh yes! oh yes! There's no mistake about that!"
"Dear Trilby, we are all in the hands of an Almighty Merciful God!" And the tears rolled down Mrs. Bagot's cheeks.
After a long pause, during which she gazed out of the window, Trilby said, in an abstracted kind of way, as though she were talking to herself: "Après tout, c'est pas déjà si raide, de claquer! J'en ai tant vus, qui ont passé par la! Au bout du fossé la culbute, ma foi!"
"What are you saying to yourself in French, Trilby? Your French is so difficult to understand!"
"Oh, I beg your pardon! I was thinking it's not so difficult to die, after all! I've seen such lots of people do it. I've nursed them, you know--papa and mamma and Jeannot, and Angèle Boisse's mother-in-law, and a poor casseur de pierres, Colin Maigret, who lived in the Impasse des Taupes St. Germain. He'd been run over by an omnibus in the Rue Vaugirard, and had to have both his legs cut off just above the knee. They none of them seemed to mind dying a bit. They weren't a bit afraid! _I'm_ not!
"Poor people don't think much of death. Rich people shouldn't either. They should be taught when they're quite young to laugh at it and despise it, like the Chinese. The Chinese die of laughing just as their heads are being cut off, and cheat the executioner! It's all in the day's work, and we're all in the same boat--so who's afraid!"
"Dying is not all, my poor child! Are you prepared to meet your Maker face to face? Have you ever thought about God, and the possible wrath to come if you should die unrepentant?"
"Oh, but I sha'n't! I've been repenting all my life! Besides, there'll be no wrath for any of us--not even the worst! _Il y aura amnistie générale!_ Papa told me so, and he'd been a clergyman, like Mr. Thomas Bagot. I often think about God. I'm very fond of Him. One _must_ have something perfect to look up to and be fond of--even if it's only an idea!
"Though some people don't even believe He exists! Le père Martin didn't--but, of course, _he_ was only a chiffonnier, and doesn't count.
"One day, though, Durien, the sculptor, who's very clever, and a very good fellow indeed, said:
"'Vois-tu, Trilby--I'm very much afraid He doesn't really exist, le bon Dieu! most unfortunately for _me_, for I _adore_ Him! I never do a piece of work without thinking how nice it would be if I could only please _Him_ with it!'
"And I've often thought, myself, how heavenly it must be to be able to paint, or sculpt, or make music, or write beautiful poetry, for that very reason!
"Why, once on a very hot afternoon we were sitting, a lot of us, in the court-yard outside la mère Martin's shop, drinking coffee with an old Invalide called Bastide Lendormi, one of the Vieille Garde, who'd only got one leg and one arm and one eye, and everybody was very fond of him. Well, a model called Mimi la Salope came out of the Mont-de-piété opposite, and Père Martin called out to her to come and sit down, and gave her a cup of coffee, and asked her to sing.
"She sang a song of Béranger's, about Napoleon the Great, in which it says:
"'Parlez-nous de lui, grandmère! Grandmère, parlez-nous de lui!'
I suppose she sang it very well, for it made old Bastide Lendormi cry; and when Père Martin _blaguè'd_ him about it, he said,
"'C'est égal, voyez-vous! to sing like that is _to pray_!'
"And then I thought how lovely it would be if _I_ could only sing like Mimi la Salope, and I've thought so ever since--just to _pray_!"
"_What!_ Trilby? if _you_ could only sing like--Oh, but never mind, I forgot! Tell me, Trilby--do you ever pray to Him, as other people pray?"
"Pray to Him? Well, no--not often--not in words and on my knees and with my hands together, you know! _Thinking's_ praying, very often--don't you think so? And so's being sorry and ashamed when one's done a mean thing, and glad when one's resisted a temptation, and grateful when it's a fine day and one's enjoying one's self without hurting any one else! What is it but praying when you try and bear up after losing all you cared to live for? And very good praying too! There can be prayers without words just as well as songs, I suppose; and Svengali used to say that songs without words are the best!
"And then it seems mean to be always asking for things. Besides, you don't get them any the faster that way, and that shows!
"La mère Martin used to be always praying. And Père Martin used always to laugh at her; yet he always seemed to get the things _he_ wanted oftenest!
"_I_ prayed once, very hard indeed! I prayed for Jeannot not to die!"
"Well--but how do you _repent_, Trilby, if you do not humble yourself, and pray for forgiveness on your knees?"
"Oh, well--I don't exactly know! Look here, Mrs. Bagot, I'll tell you the lowest and meanest thing I ever did...."
(Mrs. Bagot felt a little nervous.)
"I'd promised to take Jeannot on Palm-Sunday to St. Philippe du Roule, to hear l'abbé Bergamot. But Durien (that's the sculptor, you know) asked me to go with him to St. Germain, where there was a fair, or something; and with Mathieu, who was a student in law; and a certain Victorine Letellier, who--who was Mathieu's mistress, in fact. And I went on Sunday morning to tell Jeannot that I couldn't take him.
"He cried so dreadfully that I thought I'd give up the others and take him to St. Philippe, as I'd promised. But then Durien and Mathieu and Victorine drove up and waited outside, and so I didn't take him, and went with them, and I didn't enjoy anything all day, and was miserable.
"They were in an open carriage with two horses; it was Mathieu's treat; and Jeannot might have ridden on the box by the coachman, without being in anybody's way. But I was afraid they didn't want him, as they didn't say anything, and so I didn't dare ask--and Jeannot saw us drive away, and I _couldn't_ look back! And the worst of it is that when we were half-way to St. Germain, Durien said, 'What a pity you didn't bring Jeannot!' and they were all sorry I hadn't.
"It was six or seven years ago, and I really believe I've thought of it almost every day, and sometimes in the middle of the night!
"Ah! and when Jeannot was dying! and when he was dead--the remembrance of that Palm-Sunday!
"And if _that's_ not repenting, I don't know what is!"
"Oh, Trilby, what nonsense! _that's_ nothing; good heavens!--putting off a small child! I'm thinking of far worse things--when you were in the quartier latin, you know--sitting to painters and sculptors.... Surely, so attractive as you are...."
"Oh yes.... I know what you mean--it was horrid, and I was frightfully ashamed of myself; and it wasn't amusing a bit; _nothing_ was, till I met your son and Taffy and dear Sandy McAlister! But then it wasn't deceiving or disappointing anybody, or hurting their feelings--it was only hurting myself!
"Besides, all that sort of thing, in women, is punished severely enough down here, God knows! unless one's a Russian empress like Catherine the Great, or a grande dame like lots of them, or a great genius like Madame Rachel or George Sand!
"Why, if it hadn't been for that, and sitting for the figure, I should have felt myself good enough to marry your son, _although_ I was only a blanchisseuse de fin--you've said so yourself!
"And I should have made him a good wife--of that I feel sure. He wanted to live all his life at Barbizon, and paint, you know; and didn't care for society in the least. Anyhow, I should have been equal to such a life as that! Lots of their wives are blanchisseuses over there, or people of that sort; and they get on very well indeed, and nobody troubles about it!
"So I think I've been pretty well punished--richly as I've deserved to!"
"Trilby, have you ever been confirmed?"
"I forget. I fancy not!"
"Oh dear, oh dear! And do you know about our blessed Saviour, and the Atonement and the Incarnation and the Resurrection...."
"Oh yes--I _used_ to, at least. I used to have to learn the Catechism on Sundays--mamma made me. Whatever her faults and mistakes were, poor mamma was always very particular about _that_! It all seemed very complicated. But papa told me not to bother too much about it, but to be good. He said that God would make it all right for us somehow, in the end--all of us. And that seems sensible, _doesn't_ it?
"He told me to be good, and not to mind what priests and clergymen tell us. He'd been a clergyman himself, and knew all about it, he said.
"I haven't been very good--there's not much doubt about that, I'm afraid. But God knows I've repented often enough and sore enough; I do now! But I'm rather glad to die, I think; and not a bit afraid--not a scrap! I believe in poor papa, though he _was_ so unfortunate! He was the cleverest man I ever knew, and the best--except Taffy and the Laird and your dear son!
"There'll be no hell for any of us--he told me so--except what we make for ourselves and each other down here; and that's bad enough for anything. He told me that _he_ was responsible for me--he often said so--and that mamma was too, and his parents for _him_, and his grandfathers and grandmothers for _them_, and so on up to Noah and ever so far beyond, and God for us all!
"He told me always to think of other people before myself, as Taffy does, and your son; and never to tell lies or be afraid, and keep away from drink, and I should be all right. But I've sometimes been all wrong, all the same; and it wasn't papa's fault, but poor mamma's and mine; and I've known it, and been miserable at the time, and after! and I'm sure to be forgiven--perfectly certain--and so will everybody else, even the wickedest that ever lived! Why, just give them sense enough in the next world to understand all their wickedness in this, and that'll punish them enough for anything, I think! That's simple enough, _isn't_ it? Besides, there may be _no_ next world--that's on the cards too, you know!--and that will be simpler still!
"Not all the clergymen in all the world, not even the Pope of Rome, will ever make me doubt papa, or believe in any punishment after what we've all got to go through here! _Ce serait trop bête!_
"So that if you don't want me to very much, and he won't think it unkind, I'd rather not talk to Mr. Thomas Bagot about it. I'd rather talk to Taffy if I must. He's very clever, Taffy, though he doesn't often say such clever things as your son does, or paint nearly so well; and I'm sure he'll think papa was right."
And as a matter of fact the good Taffy, in his opinion on this solemn subject, was found to be at one with the late Reverend Patrick Michael O'Ferrall--and so was the Laird--and so (to his mother's shocked and pained surprise) was Little Billee.
And so were Sir Oliver Calthorpe and Sir Jacob Wilcox and Doctor Thorne and Antony and Lorrimer and the Greek!
And so--in after-years, when grief had well pierced and torn and riddled her through and through, and time and age had healed the wounds, and nothing remained but the consciousness of great inward scars of recollection to remind her how deep and jagged and wide the wounds had once been--did Mrs. Bagot herself!
* * * * *
Late on one memorable Saturday afternoon, just as it was getting dusk in Charlotte Street, Trilby, in her pretty blue dressing-gown, lay on the sofa by the fire--her head well propped, her knees drawn up--looking very placid and content.
She had spent the early part of the day dictating her will to the conscientious Taffy.
It was a simple document, although she was not without many valuable trinkets to leave: quite a fortune! Souvenirs from many men and women she had charmed by her singing, from royalties downward.
She had been looking them over with the faithful Marta, to whom she had always thought they belonged. It was explained to her that they were gifts of Svengali's; since she did not remember when and where and by whom they were presented to her, except a few that Svengali had given her himself, with many passionate expressions of his love, which seems to have been deep and constant and sincere; none the less so, perhaps, that she could never return it!
She had left the bulk of these to the faithful Marta.
But to each of the trois Angliches she had bequeathed a beautiful ring, which was to be worn by their brides if they ever married, and the brides didn't object.
To Mrs. Bagot she left a pearl necklace; to Miss Bagot her gold coronet of stars; and pretty (and most costly) gifts to each of the three doctors who had attended her and been so assiduous in their care; and who, as she was told, would make no charge for attending on Madame Svengali. And studs and scarf-pins to Antony, Lorrimer, the Greek, Dodor, and Zouzou; and to Carnegie a little German-silver vinaigrette which had once belonged to Lord Witlow; and pretty souvenirs to the Vinards, Angèle Boisse, Durien, and others.
And she left a magnificent gold watch and chain to Gecko, with a most affectionate letter and a hundred pounds--which was all she had in money of her own.
She had taken great interest in discussing with Taffy the particular kind of trinket which would best suit the idiosyncrasy of each particular legatee, and derived great comfort from the business-like and sympathetic conscientiousness with which the good Taffy entered upon all these minutiæ--he was so solemn and serious about it, and took such pains. She little guessed how his dumb but deeply feeling heart was harrowed!
This document had been duly signed and witnessed and intrusted to his care; and Trilby lay tranquil and happy, and with a sense that nothing remained for her but to enjoy the fleeting hour, and make the most of each precious moment as it went by.
She was quite without pain of either mind or body, and surrounded by the people she adored--Taffy, the Laird, and Little Billee, and Mrs. Bagot, and Marta, who sat knitting in a corner with her black mittens on, and her brass spectacles.
She listened to the chat and joined in it, laughing as usual; "love in her eyes sat playing," as she looked from one to another, for she loved them all beyond expression. "Love on her lips was straying, and warbling in her breath," whenever she spoke; and her weakened voice was still larger, fuller, softer than any other voice in the room, in the world--of another kind, from another sphere.
A cart drove up, there was a ring at the door, and presently a wooden packing-case was brought into the room.
At Trilby's request it was opened, and found to contain a large photograph, framed and glazed, of Svengali, in the military uniform of his own Hungarian band, and looking straight out of the picture, straight at you. He was standing by his desk with his left hand turning over a leaf of music, and waving his bâton with his right. It was a splendid photograph, by a Viennese photographer, and a most speaking likeness; and Svengali looked truly fine--all made up of importance and authority, and his big black eyes were full of stern command.
Marta trembled as she looked. It was handed to Trilby, who exclaimed in surprise. She had never seen it. She had no photograph of him, and had never possessed one.
No message of any kind, no letter of explanation, accompanied this unexpected present, which, from the postmarks on the case, seemed to have travelled all over Europe to London, out of some remote province in eastern Russia--out of the mysterious East! The poisonous East--birthplace and home of an ill wind that blows nobody good.
Trilby laid it against her legs as on a lectern, and lay gazing at it with close attention for a long time, making a casual remark now and then, as, "He was very handsome, I think"; or, "That uniform becomes him very well. Why has he got it on, I wonder?"
The others went on talking, and Mrs. Bagot made coffee.
Presently Mrs. Bagot took a cup of coffee to Trilby, and found her still staring intently at the portrait, but with her eyes dilated, and quite a strange light in them.
"Trilby, Trilby, your coffee! What is the matter, Trilby?"
Trilby was smiling, with fixed eyes, and made no answer.
The others got up and gathered round her in some alarm. Marta seemed terror-stricken, and wished to snatch the photograph away, but was prevented from doing so; one didn't know what the consequences might be.
Taffy rang the bell, and sent a servant for Dr. Thorne, who lived close by, in Fitzroy Square.
Presently Trilby began to speak, quite softly, in French: "Encore une fois? bon! je veux bien! avec la voix blanche alors, n'est-ce pas? et puis foncer au milieu. Et pas trop vite en commençant! Battez bien la mesure, Svengali--que je puisse bien voir--car il fait déjà nuit! c'est ça! Allons, Gecko--donne-moi le ton!"
Then she smiled, and seemed to beat time softly by moving her head a little from side to side, her eyes intent on Svengali's in the portrait, and suddenly she began to sing Chopin's Impromptu in A flat.
She hardly seemed to breathe as the notes came pouring out, without words--mere vocalizing. It was as if breath were unnecessary for so little voice as she was using, though there was enough of it to fill the room--to fill the house--to drown her small audience in holy, heavenly sweetness.
She was a consummate mistress of her art. How that could be seen! And also how splendid had been her training! It all seemed as easy to her as opening and shutting her eyes, and yet how utterly impossible to anybody else!
Between wonder, enchantment, and alarm they were frozen to statues--all except Marta, who ran out of the room, crying: "Gott im Himmel! wieder zurück! wieder zurück!"
She sang it just as she had sung it at the Salle des Bashibazoucks, only it sounded still more ineffably seductive, as she was using less voice--using the essence of her voice, in fact--the pure spirit, the very cream of it.
There can be little doubt that these four watchers by that enchanted couch were listening to not only the most divinely beautiful, but also the most astounding feat of musical utterance ever heard out of a human throat.
The usual effect was produced. Tears were streaming down the cheeks of Mrs. Bagot and Little Billee. Tears were in the Laird's eyes, a tear on one of Taffy's whiskers--tears of sheer delight.
When she came back to the quick movement again, after the adagio, her voice grew louder and shriller, and sweet with a sweetness not of this earth; and went on increasing in volume as she quickened the time, nearing the end; and then came the dying away into all but nothing--a mere melodic breath; and then the little soft chromatic ascending rocket, up to E in alt, the last parting caress (which Svengali had introduced as a finale, for it does not exist in the piano score).
When it was over, she said: "Ça y est-il, cette fois, Svengali? Ah! tant mieux, à la fin! c'est pas malheureux! Et maintenant, mon ami, _je suis fatiguée--bon soir_!"
Her head fell back on the pillow, and she lay fast asleep.
Mrs. Bagot took the portrait away gently. Little Billee knelt down and held Trilby's hand in his and felt for her pulse, and could not find it.
He said, "Trilby! Trilby!" and put his ear to her mouth to hear her breathe. Her breath was inaudible.
But soon she folded her hands across her breast, and uttered a little short sigh, and in a weak voice said: "_Svengali.... Svengali.... Svengali!..._"
They remained in silence round her for several minutes, terror-stricken.
The doctor came; he put his hand to her heart, his ear to her lips. He turned up one of her eyelids and looked at her eye. And then, his voice quivering with strong emotion, he stood up and said, "Madame Svengali's trials and sufferings are all over!"
"Oh, good God! is she _dead_?" cried Mrs. Bagot.
"Yes, Mrs. Bagot. She has been dead several minutes--perhaps a quarter of an hour."
VINGT ANS APRÈS
PORTHOS-ATHOS, _alias_ Taffy Wynne, is sitting to breakfast (opposite his wife) at a little table in the court-yard of that huge caravanserai on the Boulevard des Capucines, Paris, where he had sat more than twenty years ago with the Laird and Little Billee; where, in fact, he had pulled Svengali's nose.
Little is changed in the aspect of the place: the same cosmopolite company, with more of the American element, perhaps; the same arrivals and departures in railway omnibuses, cabs, hired carriages; and, airing his calves on the marble steps, stood just such another colossal and beautiful old man in black cloth coat and knee-breeches and silk stockings as of yore, with probably the very same pinchbeck chain. Where do they breed these magnificent old Frenchmen? In Germany, perhaps, "where all the good big waiters come from!"
And also the same fine weather. It is always fine weather in the court-yard of the Grand Hôtel. As the Laird would say, they manage these things better there!
Taffy wears a short beard, which is turning gray. His kind blue eye is no longer choleric, but mild and friendly--as frank as ever; and full of humorous patience. He has grown stouter; he is very big indeed, in all three dimensions, but the symmetry and the gainliness of the athlete belong to him still in movement and repose; and his clothes fit him beautifully, though they are not new, and show careful beating and brushing and ironing, and even a faint suspicion of all but imperceptible fine-drawing here and there.
What a magnificent old man _he_ will make some day, should the Grand Hôtel ever run short of them! He looks as if he could be trusted down to the ground--in all things, little or big; as if his word were as good as his bond, and even better; his wink as good as his word, his nod as good as his wink; and, in truth, as he looks, so he is.
The most cynical disbeliever in "the grand old name of gentleman," and its virtues as a noun of definition, would almost be justified in quite dogmatically asserting at sight, and without even being introduced, that, at all events, Taffy is a "gentleman," inside and out, up and down--from the crown of his head (which is getting rather bald) to the sole of his foot (by no means a small one, or a lightly shod--_ex pede Herculem_)!
Indeed, this is always the first thing people say of Taffy--and the last. It means, perhaps, that he may be a trifle dull. Well, one can't be everything!
Porthos was a trifle dull--and so was Athos, I think; and likewise his son, the faithful Viscount of Bragelonne--_bon chien chasse de race_! And so was Wilfred of Ivanhoe, the disinherited; and Edgar, the Lord of Ravenswood! and so, for that matter, was Colonel Newcome, of immortal memory!
Yet who does not love them--who would not wish to be like them, for better, for worse!