Trilby

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.

As they lunched, they read the accounts of the previous evening's events in different papers, three or four of which (including the Times) had already got leaders about the famous but unhappy singer who had been so suddenly widowed and struck down in the midst of her glory. All these accounts were more or less correct. In one paper it was mentioned that Madame Svengali was under the roof and care of Mr. William Bagot, the painter, in Fitzroy Square.

The inquest on Svengali was to take place that afternoon, and also Gecko's examination at the Bow Street Police Court, for his assault.

Taffy was allowed to see Gecko, who was remanded till the result of the post-mortem should be made public. But beyond inquiring most anxiously and minutely after Trilby, and betraying the most passionate concern for her, he would say nothing, and seemed indifferent as to his own fate.

When they went to Fitzroy Square, late in the afternoon, they found that many people, musical, literary, fashionable, and otherwise (and many foreigners), had called to inquire after Madame Svengali, but no one had been admitted to see her. Mrs. Godwin was much elated by the importance of her new lodger.

Trilby had been writing to Angèle Boisse, at her old address in the Rue des Cloîtres Ste. Pétronille, in the hope that this letter would find her still there. She was anxious to go back and be a blanchisseuse de fin with her friend. It was a kind of nostalgia for Paris, the quartier latin, her clean old trade.

This project our three heroes did not think it necessary to discuss with her just yet; she seemed quite unfit for work of any kind.

The doctor, who had seen her again, had been puzzled by her strange physical weakness, and wished for a consultation with some special authority; Little Billee, who was intimate with most of the great physicians, wrote about her to Sir Oliver Calthorpe.

She seemed to find a deep happiness in being with her three old friends, and talked and listened with all her old eagerness and geniality, and much of her old gayety, in spite of her strange and sorrowful position. But for this it was impossible to realize that her brain was affected in the slightest degree, except when some reference was made to her singing, and this seemed to annoy and irritate her, as though she were being made fun of. The whole of her marvellous musical career, and everything connected with it, had been clean wiped out of her recollection.

She was very anxious to get into other quarters, that Little Billee should suffer no inconvenience, and they promised to take rooms for her and Marta on the morrow.

They told her cautiously all about Svengali and Gecko; she was deeply concerned, but betrayed no such poignant anguish as might have been expected. The thought of Gecko troubled her most, and she showed much anxiety as to what might befall him.

Next day she moved with Marta to some lodgings in Charlotte Street, where everything was made as comfortable for them as possible.

Sir Oliver saw her with Dr. Thorne (the doctor who was attending her) and Sir Jacob Wilcox.

Sir Oliver took the greatest interest in her case, both for her sake and his friend Little Billee's. Also his own, for he was charmed with her. He saw her three times in the course of the week, but could not say for certain what was the matter with her, beyond taking the very gravest view of her condition. For all he could advise or prescribe, her weakness and physical prostration increased rapidly, through no cause he could discover. Her insanity was not enough to account for it. She lost weight daily; she seemed to be wasting and fading away from sheer general atrophy.

Two or three times he took her and Marta for a drive.

On one of these occasions, as they went down Charlotte Street, she saw a shop with transparent French blinds in the window, and through them some French women, with neat white caps, ironing. It was a French blanchisserie de fin, and the sight of it interested and excited her so much that she must needs insist on being put down and on going into it.

"Je voudrais bien parler à la patronne, si ça ne la dérange pas," she said.

The patronne, a genial Parisian, was much astonished to hear a great French lady, in costly garments, evidently a person of fashion and importance, applying to her rather humbly for employment in the business, and showing a thorough knowledge of the work (and of the Parisian work-woman's colloquial dialect). Marta managed to catch the patronne's eye, and tapped her own forehead significantly, and Sir Oliver nodded. So the good woman humored the great lady's fancy, and promised her abundance of employment whenever she should want it.

Employment! Poor Trilby was hardly strong enough to walk back to the carriage; and this was her last outing.

But this little adventure had filled her with hope and good spirits – for she had as yet received no answer from Angèle Boisse (who was in Marseilles), and had begun to realize how dreary the quartier latin would be without Jeannot, without Angèle, without the trois Angliches in the Place St. Anatole des Arts.

She was not allowed to see any of the strangers who came and made kind inquiries. This her doctors had strictly forbidden. Any reference to music or singing irritated her beyond measure. She would say to Marta, in bad German:

"Tell them, Marta – what nonsense it is! They are taking me for another – they are mad. They are trying to make a fool of me!"

And Marta would betray great uneasiness – almost terror – when she was appealed to in this way.

Part Eighth

"La vie est vaine:Un peu d'amour,Un peu de haine…Et puis – bonjour!"La vie est brève:Un peu d'espoir,Un peu de rève…Et puis – bonsoir."

SVENGALI had died from heart-disease. The cut he had received from Gecko had not apparently (as far as the verdict of a coroner's inquest could be trusted) had any effect in aggravating his malady or hastening his death.

But Gecko was sent for trial at the Old Bailey, and sentenced to hard labor for six months (a sentence which, if I remember aright, gave rise to much comment at the time). Taffy saw him again, but with no better result than before. He chose to preserve an obstinate silence on his relations with the Svengalis and their relations with each other.

When he was told how hopelessly ill and insane Madame Svengali was, he shed a few tears, and said: "Ah, pauvrette, pauvrette – ah! monsieur – je l'aimais tant, je l'aimais tant! il n'y en a pas beaucoup comme elle, Dieu de misère! C'est un ange du Paradis!"

And not another word was to be got out of him.

It took some time to settle Svengali's affairs after his death. No will was found. His old mother came over from Germany, and two of his sisters, but no wife. The comic wife and the three children, and the sweet-stuff shop in Elberfeld, had been humorous inventions of his own – a kind of Mrs. Harris!

He left three thousand pounds, every penny of which (and of far larger sums that he had spent) had been earned by "la Svengali," but nothing came to Trilby of this; nothing but the clothes and jewels he had given her, and in this respect he had been lavish enough; and there were countless costly gifts from emperors, kings, great people of all kinds. Trilby was under the impression that all these belonged to Marta. Marta behaved admirably; she seemed bound hand and foot to Trilby by a kind of slavish adoration, as that of a plain old mother for a brilliant and beautiful but dying child.

It soon became evident that, whatever her disease might be, Trilby had but a very short time to live.

She was soon too weak even to be taken out in a Bath-chair, and remained all day in her large sitting-room with Marta; and there, to her great and only joy, she received her three old friends every afternoon, and gave them coffee, and made them smoke cigarettes of caporal as of old; and their hearts were daily harrowed as they watched her rapid decline.