Trilby Part 21

Trilby looked down at Mrs. Bagot very kindly, put out her shaking hand, and said; "Good-bye, Mrs. Bagot. I will not marry your son. I _promise_ you. I will never see him again."

Mrs. Bagot caught and clasped her hand and tried to kiss it, and said: "Don't go yet, my dear good girl. I want to talk to you. I want to tell you how deeply I--"

"Good-bye, Mrs. Bagot," said Trilby, once more; and, disengaging her hand, she walked swiftly out of the room.

Mrs. Bagot seemed stupefied, and only half content with her quick triumph.

"She will not marry your son, Mrs. Bagot. I only wish to G.o.d she'd marry _me_!"

"Oh, Mr. Wynne!" said Mrs. Bagot, and burst into tears.

"Ah!" exclaimed the clergyman, with a feebly satirical smile and a little cough and sniff that were not sympathetic, "now if _that_ could be arranged--and I've no doubt there wouldn't be much opposition on the part of the lady" (here he made a little complimentary bow), "it would be a very desirable thing all round!"

"It's tremendously good of you, I'm sure--to interest yourself in _my_ humble affairs," said Taffy. "Look here, sir--I'm not a great genius like your nephew--and it doesn't much matter to any one but myself what I make of my life--but I can a.s.sure you that if Trilby's heart were set on me as it is on him, I would gladly cast in my lot with hers for life.

She's one in a thousand. She's the one sinner that repenteth, you know!"

"Ah, yes--to be sure!--to be sure! I know all about that; still, facts are facts, and the world is the world, and we've got to live in it,"

said Mr. Bagot, whose satirical smile had died away under the gleam of Taffy's choleric blue eye.

Then said the good Taffy, frowning down on the parson (who looked mean and foolish, as people can sometimes do even with right on their side): "And now, Mr. Bagot--I can't tell you how very keenly I have suffered during this--a--this most painful interview--on account of my very deep regard for Trilby O'Ferrall. I congratulate you and your sister-in-law on its complete success. I also feel very deeply for your nephew. I'm not sure that he has not lost more than he will gain by--a--by the--a--the success of this--a--this interview, in short!"

Taffy's eloquence was exhausted, and his quick temper was getting the better of him.

Then Mrs. Bagot, drying her eyes, came and took his hand in a very charming and simple manner, and said: "Mr. Wynne, I think I know what you are feeling just now. You must try and make some allowance for us.

You will, I am sure, when we are gone, and you have had time to think a little. As for that n.o.ble and beautiful girl, I only wish that she were such that my son _could_ marry her--in her past life, I mean. It is not her humble rank that would frighten me; _pray_ believe that I am quite sincere in this--and don't think too hardly of your friend's mother.

Think of all I shall have to go through with my poor son--who is deeply in love--and no wonder! and who has won the love of such a woman as that! and who cannot see at present how fatal to him such a marriage would be. I can see all the charm and believe in all the goodness, in spite of all. And, oh, how beautiful she is, and what a voice! All that counts for so much, doesn't it? I cannot tell you how I grieve for her.

I can make no amends--who could, for such a thing? There are no amends, and I shall not even try. I will only write and tell her all I think and feel. You will forgive us, won't you?"

And in the quick, impulsive warmth and grace and sincerity of her manner as she said all this, Mrs. Bagot was so absurdly like Little Billee that it touched big Taffy's heart, and he would have forgiven anything, and there was nothing to forgive.

"Oh, Mrs. Bagot, there's no question of forgiveness. Good heavens! it is all so unfortunate, you know! n.o.body's to blame that I can see.

Good-bye, Mrs. Bagot; good-bye, sir," and so saying, he saw them down to their "remise," in which sat a singularly pretty young lady of seventeen or so, pale and anxious, and so like Little Billee that it was quite funny, and touched big Taffy's heart again.

When Trilby went out into the court-yard in the Place St. Anatole des Arts, she saw Miss Bagot looking out of the carriage window, and in the young lady's face, as she caught her eye, an expression of sweet surprise and sympathetic admiration, with lifted eyebrows and parted lips--just such a look as she had often got from Little Billee! She knew her for his sister at once. It was a sharp pang.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SO LIKE LITTLE BILLEE"]

She turned away, saying to herself: "Oh no; I will not separate him from his sister, his family, his friends! That would _never_ do! _That's_ settled, anyhow!"

Feeling a little dazed, and wis.h.i.+ng to think, she turned up the Rue Vieille des Mauvais Ladres, which was always deserted at this hour. It was empty but for a solitary figure sitting on a post, with its legs dangling, its hands in its trousers-pockets, an inverted pipe in its mouth, a tattered straw hat on the back of its head, and a long gray coat down to its heels. It was the Laird.

As soon as he saw her he jumped off his post and came to her, saying: "Oh, Trilby--what's it all about? I couldn't stand it! I ran away!

Little Billee's mother's there!"

"Yes, Sandy dear, I've just seen her."

"Well, what's up?"

"I've promised her never to see Little Billee any more. I was foolish enough to promise to marry him. I refused many times these last three months, and then he said he'd leave Paris and never come back, and so, like a fool, I gave way. I've offered to live with him and take care of him and be his servant--to be everything he wished but his wife! But he wouldn't hear of it. Dear, dear Little Billee! he's an angel--and I'll take precious good care no harm shall ever come to him through me! I shall leave this hateful place and go and live in the country: I suppose I must manage to get through life somehow. I know of some poor people who were once very fond of me, and I could live with them and help them and keep myself. The difficulty is about Jeannot. I thought it all out before it came to this. I was well prepared, you see."

She smiled in a forlorn sort of way, with her upper lip drawn tight against her teeth, as if some one were pulling her back by the lobes of her ears.

"Oh! but Trilby--what shall we do without you? Taffy and I, you know!

You've become one of us!"

"Now how good and kind of you to say that!" exclaimed poor Trilby, her eyes filling. "Why, that's just all I lived for, till all this happened.

But it can't be any more now, can it? Everything is changed for me--the very sky seems different. Ah! Durien's little song--'_Plaisir d'amour--chagrin d'amour_!' it's all quite true, isn't it? I shall start immediately, and take Jeannot with me, I think."

"But where do you think of going?"

"Ah! I mayn't tell you that, Sandy dear--not for a long time! Think of all the trouble there'd be-- Well, there's no time to be lost. I must take the bull by the horns."

She tried to laugh, and took him by his big side-whiskers and kissed him on the eyes and mouth, and her tears fell on his face.

Then, feeling unable to speak, she nodded farewell, and walked quickly up the narrow winding street. When she came to the first bend she turned round and waved her hand, and kissed it two or three times, and then disappeared.

The Laird stared for several minutes up the empty thoroughfare--wretched, full of sorrow and compa.s.sion. Then he filled himself another pipe and lit it, and hitched himself on to another post, and sat there dangling his legs and kicking his heels, and waited for the Bagots' cab to depart, that he might go up and face the righteous wrath of Taffy like a man, and bear up against his bitter reproaches for cowardice and desertion before the foe.

Next morning Taffy received two letters: one, a very long one, was from Mrs. Bagot. He read it twice over, and was forced to acknowledge that it was a very good letter--the letter of a clever, warm-hearted woman, but a woman also whose son was to her as the very apple of her eye. One felt she was ready to flay her dearest friend alive in order to make Little Billee a pair of gloves out of the skin, if he wanted a pair; but one also felt she would be genuinely sorry for the friend. Taffy's own mother had been a little like that, and he missed her every day of his life.

Full justice was done by Mrs. Bagot to all Trilby's qualities of head and heart and person; but at the same time she pointed out, with all the cunning and ingeniously casuistic logic of her s.e.x, when it takes to special pleading (even when it has right on its side), what the consequences of such a marriage must inevitably be in a few years--even sooner! The quick disenchantment, the life-long regret, on both sides!

He could not have found a word to controvert her arguments, save perhaps in his own private belief that Trilby and Little Billee were both exceptional people; and how could he hope to know Little Billee's nature better than the boy's own mother!

And if he had been the boy's elder brother in blood, as he already was in art and affection, would he, should he, could he have given his fraternal sanction to such a match?

Both as his friend and his brother he felt it was out of the question.

The other letter was from Trilby, in her bold, careless handwriting, that sprawled all over the page, and her occasionally imperfect spelling. It ran thus:

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'I MUST TAKE THE BULL BY THE HORNS'"]

"MY DEAR, DEAR TAFFY,--This is to say good-bye. I'm going away, to put an end to all this misery, for which n.o.body's to blame but myself.

"The very moment after I'd said _yes_ to Little Billee I knew perfectly well what a stupid fool I was, and I've been ashamed of myself ever since. I had a miserable week, I can tell you. I knew how it would all turn out.

"I am dreadfully unhappy, but not half so unhappy as if I married him and he were ever to regret it and be ashamed of me; and of course he would, really, even if he didn't show it--good and kind as he is--an angel!

"Besides--of course I could never be a lady--how could I?--though I ought to have been one, I suppose. But everything seems to have gone wrong with me, though I never found it out before--and it can't be righted!

"Poor papa!

"I am going away with Jeannot. I've been neglecting him shamefully.

I mean to make up for it all now.