Trilby Part 9

He was, however, much applauded at the end of each verse. When he had finished, he was asked if he were _quite_ sure there wasn't any more of it, and they expressed a deep regret; and then each student, straddling on his little thick-set chair as on a horse, and clasping the back of it in both hands, galloped round Little Billee's throne quite seriously--the strangest procession he had ever seen. It made him laugh till he cried, so that he couldn't eat or drink.

Then he served more punch and cake all round; and just as he was going to begin himself, Papelard said:

"Say, you others, I find that the Englishman has something of truly distinguished in the voice, something of sympathetic, of touching--something of _je ne sais quoi_!"

Bouchardy: "Yes, yes--something of _je ne sais quoi_! That's the very phrase--n'est-ce pas, vous autres, that is a good phrase that Papelard has just invented to describe the voice of the Englishman. He is very intelligent, Papelard."

Chorus: "Perfect, perfect; he has the genius of characterization, Papelard. Dites donc, l'Anglais! once more that beautiful song--hein?

Nous vous en prions tous."

Little Billee willingly sang it again, with even greater applause, and again they galloped, but the other way round and faster, so that Little Billee became quite hysterical, and laughed till his sides ached.

Then Dubosc: "I find there is something of very capitous and exciting in English music--of very stimulating. And you, Bouchardy?"

Bouchardy: "Oh, me! It is above all the _words_ that I admire; they have something of pa.s.sionate, of romantic--'ze-ese gla-aves, zese gla-aves--zey do not belong to me.' I don't know what that means, but I love that sort of--of--of--_je ne sais quoi_, in short! Just _once_ more, l'Anglais; only _once_, the _four_ couplets."

So he sang it a third time, all four verses, while they leisurely ate and drank and smoked and looked at each other, nodding solemn commendation of certain phrases in the song: "Tres bien!" "Tres bien!"

"Ah! voila qui est bien reussi!" "epatant, ca!" "Tres fin!" etc., etc.

For, stimulated by success, and rising to the occasion, he did his very utmost to surpa.s.s himself in emphasis of gesture and accent and histrionic drollery--heedless of the fact that not one of his listeners had the slightest notion what his song was about.

It was a sorry performance.

And it was not till he had sung it four times that he discovered the whole thing was an elaborate impromptu farce, of which he was the b.u.t.t, and that of all his royal spread not a crumb or a drop was left for himself.

It was the old fable of the fox and the crow! And to do him justice, he laughed as heartily as any one, as if he thoroughly enjoyed the joke--and when you take jokes in that way people soon leave off poking fun at you. It is almost as good as being very big, like Taffy, and having a choleric blue eye!

Such was Little Billee's first experience of Carrel's studio, where he spent many happy mornings and made many good friends.

No more popular student had ever worked there within the memory of the grayest graybeards; none more amiable, more genial, more cheerful, self-respecting, considerate, and polite, and certainly none with greater gifts for art.

Carrel would devote at least fifteen minutes to him, and invited him often to his own private studio. And often, on the fourth and fifth day of the week, a group of admiring students would be gathered by his easel watching him as he worked.

"C'est un rude lapin, l'Anglais! au moins il sait son orthographe en peinture, ce coco-la!"

Such was the verdict on Little Billee at Carrel's studio; and I can conceive no loftier praise.

Young as she was (seventeen or eighteen, or thereabouts), and also tender (like Little Billee), Trilby had singularly clear and quick perceptions in all matters that concerned her tastes, fancies, or affections, and thoroughly knew her own mind, and never lost much time in making it up.

On the occasion of her first visit to the studio in the Place St.

Anatole des Arts, it took her just five minutes to decide that it was quite the nicest, homeliest, genialest, jolliest studio in the whole quartier latin, or out of it, and its three inhabitants, individually and collectively, were more to her taste than any one else she had ever met.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE FOX AND THE CROW"]

In the first place, they were English, and she loved to hear her mother-tongue and speak it. It awoke all manner of tender recollections, sweet reminiscences of her childhood, her parents, her old home--such a home as it was--or, rather, such homes; for there had been many flittings from one poor nest to another. The O'Ferralls had been as birds on the bough.

She had loved her parents very dearly; and, indeed, with all their faults, they had many endearing qualities--the qualities that so often go with those particular faults--charm, geniality, kindness, warmth of heart, the constant wish to please, the generosity that comes before justice, and lends its last sixpence and forgets to pay its debts!

She knew other English and American artists, and had sat to them frequently for the head and hands; but none of these, for general agreeableness of aspect or manner, could compare in her mind with the stalwart and magnificent Taffy, the jolly fat Laird of c.o.c.kpen, the refined, sympathetic, and elegant Little Billee; and she resolved that she would see as much of them as she could, that she would make herself at home in that particular studio, and necessary to its "locataires"; and, without being the least bit vain or self-conscious, she had no doubts whatever of her power to please--to make herself both useful and ornamental if it suited her purpose to do so.

Her first step in this direction was to borrow Pere Martin's basket and lantern and pick (he had more than one set of these trade properties) for the use of Taffy, whom she feared she might have offended by the freedom of her comments on his picture.

Then, as often as she felt it to be discreet, she sounded her war-cry at the studio door and went in and made kind inquiries, and, sitting cross-legged on the model-throne, ate her bread and cheese and smoked her cigarette and "pa.s.sed the time of day," as she chose to call it; telling them all such news of the quartier as had come within her own immediate ken. She was always full of little stories of other studios, which, to do her justice, were always good-natured, and probably true--quite so, as far as she was concerned; she was the most literal person alive; and she told all these "ragots, cancans, et potins d'atelier" in a quaint and amusing manner. The slightest look of gravity or boredom on one of those three faces, and she made herself scarce at once.

She soon found opportunities for usefulness also. If a costume were wanted, for instance, she knew where to borrow it, or hire it or buy it cheaper than any one anywhere else. She procured stuffs for them at cost price, as it seemed, and made them into draperies and female garments of any kind that was wanted, and sat in them for the toreador's sweetheart (she made the mantilla herself), for Taffy's starving dress-maker about to throw herself into the Seine, for Little Billee's studies of the beautiful French peasant girl in his picture, now so famous, called "The Pitcher Goes to the Well."

Then she darned their socks and mended their clothes, and got all their was.h.i.+ng done properly and cheaply at her friend Madame Boisse's, in the Rue des Cloitres Ste. Petronille.

And then again, when they were hard up and wanted a good round sum of money for some little pleasure excursion, such as a trip to Fontainebleau or Barbizon for two or three days, it was she who took their watches and scarf-pins and things to the Mount of Piety in the Street of the Well of Love (where dwelt "ma tante," which is French for "my uncle" in this connection), in order to raise the necessary funds.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LATIN QUARTER]

She was, of course, most liberally paid for all these little services, rendered with such pleasure and good-will--far too liberally, she thought. She would have been really happier doing them for love.

Thus in a very short time she became a _persona gratissima_--a sunny and ever welcome vision of health and grace and liveliness and unalterable good-humor, always ready to take any trouble to please her beloved "Angliches," as they were called by Madame Vinard, the handsome shrill-voiced _concierge_, who was almost jealous; for she was devoted to the Angliches too--and so was Monsieur Vinard--and so were the little Vinards.

She knew when to talk and when to laugh and when to hold her tongue; and the sight of her sitting cross-legged on the model-throne darning the Laird's socks or sewing b.u.t.tons on his s.h.i.+rts or repairing the smoke-holes in his trousers was so pleasant that it was painted by all three. One of these sketches (in water-color, by Little Billee) sold the other day at Christie's for a sum so large that I hardly dare to mention it. It was done in an afternoon.

Sometimes on a rainy day, when it was decided they should dine at home, she would fetch the food and cook it, and lay the cloth, and even make the salad. She was a better saladist than Taffy, a better cook than the Laird, a better caterer than Little Billee. And she would be invited to take her share in the banquet. And on these occasions her tremulous happiness was so immense that it would be quite pathetic to see--almost painful; and their three British hearts were touched by thoughts of all the loneliness and homelessness, the expatriation, the half-conscious loss of caste, that all this eager childish clinging revealed.

And that is why (no doubt) that with all this familiar intimacy there was never any hint of gallantry or flirtation in any shape or form whatever--bonne camaraderie, voila tout. Had she been Little Billee's sister she could not have been treated with more real respect. And her deep grat.i.tude for this unwonted compliment transcended any pa.s.sion she had ever felt. As the good Lafontaine so prettily says,

"Ces animaux vivaient entre eux comme cousins; Cette union si douce, et presque fraternelle, Edifiait tous les voisins!"

And then their talk! It was to her as the talk of the G.o.ds in Olympus, save that it was easier to understand, and she could always understand it. For she was a very intelligent person, in spite of her wofully neglected education, and most ambitious to learn--a new ambition for her.

So they lent her books--English books: d.i.c.kens, Thackeray, Walter Scott--which she devoured in the silence of the night, the solitude of her little attic in the Rue des Pousse-Cailloux, and new worlds were revealed to her. She grew more English every day; and that was a good thing.

Trilby speaking English and Trilby speaking French were two different beings. Trilby's English was more or less that of her father, a highly-educated man; her mother, who was a Scotch woman, although an uneducated one, had none of the ungainliness that mars the speech of so many English women in that humble rank--no droppings of the h, no broadening of the o's and a's.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CUISINE BOURGEOISE EN BOHeME]

Trilby's French was that of the quartier latin--droll, slangy, piquant, quaint, picturesque--quite the reverse of ungainly, but in which there was scarcely a turn of phrase that would not stamp the speaker as being hopelessly, emphatically "no lady!" Though it was funny without being vulgar, it was perhaps a little _too_ funny!

And she handled her knife and fork in the dainty English way, as no doubt her father had done--and his; and, indeed, when alone with them she was so absolutely "like a lady" that it seemed quite odd (though very seductive) to see her in a grisette's cap and dress and ap.r.o.n. So much for her English training.

But enter a Frenchman or two, and a transformation effected itself immediately--a new incarnation of Trilbyness--so droll and amusing that it was difficult to decide which of her two incarnations was the most attractive.

It must be admitted that she had her faults--like Little Billee.

For instance, she would be miserably jealous of any other woman who came to the studio, to sit or scrub or sweep or do anything else, even of the dirty tipsy old hag who sat for Taffy's "found drowned"--"as if she couldn't have sat for it herself!"

And then she would be cross and sulky, but not for long--an injured martyr, soon ready to forgive and be forgiven.