Trilby · Part 5 (2/6)

But just such darlings, old or young, were to be found, with still higher ideals, in less exalted spheres; and were easier of access, with no impassable gulf between⁠—spheres where there was no patronizing, nothing but deference and warm appreciation and delicate flattery, from men and women alike⁠—and where the aged Venuses, whose prime was of the days of Waterloo, went with their historical remains duly shrouded, like ivy-mantled ruins (and in the middle distance!).

So he actually grew tired of the great before they had time to tire of him⁠—incredible as it may seem, and against nature; and this saved him many a heartburning; and he ceased to be seen at fashionable drums or gatherings of any kind, except in one or two houses where he was especially liked and made welcome for his own sake; such as Lord Chiselhurst’s in Piccadilly, where the Moon-Dial found a home for a few years, before going to its last home and final resting-place in the National Gallery (R.I.P.); or Baron Stoppenheim’s in Cavendish Square, where many lovely little watercolors signed W. B. occupied places of honor on gorgeously gilded walls; or the gorgeously gilded bachelor rooms of Mr. Moses Lyon, the picture-dealer in Upper Conduit Street⁠—for Little Billee (I much grieve to say it of a hero of romance) was an excellent man of business. That infinitesimal dose of the good old Oriental blood kept him straight, and not only made him stick to his last through thick and thin, but also to those whose foot his last was found to match (for he couldn’t or wouldn’t alter his last).

He loved to make as much money as he could, that he might spend it royally in pretty gifts to his mother and sister, whom it was his pleasure to load in this way, and whose circumstances had been very much altered by his quick success. There was never a more generous son or brother than Little Billee of the clouded heart, that couldn’t love any longer!

As a set-off to all these splendors, it was also his pleasure now and again to study London life at its lower end⁠—the eastest end of all. Whitechapel, the Minories, the Docks, Ratcliffe Highway, Rotherhithe, soon got to know him well, and he found much to interest him and much to like among their denizens, and made as many friends there among ship-carpenters, excisemen, longshoremen, jack-tars, and whatnot, as in Bayswater and Belgravia (or Bloomsbury).

He was especially fond of frequenting singsongs, or “free-and-easys,” where good, hardworking fellows met of an evening to relax and smoke and drink and sing⁠—round a table well loaded with steaming tumblers and pewter pots, at one end of which sits Mr. Chairman in all his glory, and at the other “Mr. Vice.” They are open to anyone who can afford a pipe, a screw of tobacco, and a pint of beer, and who is willing to do his best and sing a song.

No introduction is needed; as soon as anyone has seated himself and made himself comfortable, Mr. Chairman taps the table with his long clay pipe, begs for silence, and says to his vis-à-vis: “Mr. Vice, it strikes me as the gen’l’man as is just come in ’as got a singing face. Per’aps, Mr. Vice, you’ll be so very kind as juster harsk the aforesaid gen’l’man to oblige us with a ’armony.”

Mr. Vice then puts it to the newcomer, who, thus appealed to, simulates a modest surprise, and finally professes his willingness, like Mr. Barkis; then, clearing his throat a good many times, looks up to the ceiling, and after one or two unsuccessful starts in different keys, bravely sings “Kathleen Mavourneen,” let us say⁠—perhaps in a touchingly sweet tenor voice:

“Kathleen Mavourneen, the gry dawn is brykin’,

The ’orn of the ’unter is ’eard on the ’ill.”⁠ ⁠…

And Little Billee didn’t mind the dropping of all these aitches if the voice was sympathetic and well in tune, and the sentiment simple, tender, and sincere.

Or else, with a good rolling jingo bass, it was,

“ ’Earts o’ hoak are our ships; ’earts o’ hoak are our men;

And we’ll fight and we’ll conkwer agen and agen!”

And no imperfection of accent, in Little Billee’s estimation, subtracted one jot from the manly British pluck that found expression in these noble sentiments⁠—nor added one tittle to their swaggering, blatant, and idiotically aggressive vulgarity!

Well, the song finishes with general applause all round. Then the chairman says, “Your ’ealth and song, sir!” And drinks, and all do the same.

Then Mr. Vice asks, “What shall we ’ave the pleasure of saying, sir, after that very nice ’armony?”

And the blushing vocalist, if he knows the ropes, replies, “A roast leg o’ mutton in Newgate, and nobody to eat it!” Or else, “May ’im as is going up the ’ill o’ prosperity never meet a friend coming down!” Or else, “ ’Ere’s to ’er as shares our sorrers and doubles our joys!” Or else, “ ’Ere’s to ’er as shares our joys and doubles our expenses!” and so forth.

More drink, more applause, and many ’ear, ’ears. And Mr. Vice says to the singer: “You call, sir. Will you be so good as to call on some other gen’l’man for a ’armony?” And so the evening goes on.

And nobody was more quickly popular at such gatherings, or sang better songs, or proposed more touching sentiments, or filled either chair or vice-chair with more grace and dignity than Little Billee. Not even Dodor or l’Zouzou could have beaten him at that.

And he was as happy, as genial, and polite, as much at his ease, in these humble gatherings as in the gilded saloons of the great, where grand-pianos are, and hired accompanists, and highly-paid singers, and a good deal of talk while they sing.

So his powers of quick, wide, universal sympathy grew and grew, and made up to him a little for his lost power of being specially fond of special individuals. For he made no close friends among men, and ruthlessly snubbed all attempts at intimacy⁠—all advances towards an affection which he felt he could not return; and more than one enthusiastic admirer of his talent and his charm was forced to acknowledge that, with all his gifts, he seemed heartless and capricious; as ready to drop you as he had been to take you up.

He loved to be wherever he could meet his kind, high or low; and felt as happy on a penny steamer as on the yacht of a millionaire⁠—on the crowded knife-board of an omnibus as on the box-seat of a nobleman’s drag⁠—happier; he liked to feel the warm contact of his fellow-man at either shoulder and at his back, and didn’t object to a little honest grime! And I think all this genial caressing love of his kind, this depth and breadth of human sympathy, are patent in all his work.

On the whole, however, he came to prefer for society that of the best and cleverest of his own class⁠—those who live and prevail by the professional exercise of their own specially trained and highly educated wits, the skilled workmen of the brain⁠—from the Lord Chief-Justice of England downward⁠—the salt of the earth, in his opinion: and stuck to them.

There is no class so genial and sympathetic as our own, in the long-run⁠—even if it be but the criminal class! none where the welcome is likely to be so genuine and sincere, so easy to win, so difficult to outstay, if we be but decently pleasant and successful; none where the memory of us will be kept so green (if we leave any memory at all!).

So Little Billee found it expedient, when he wanted rest and play, to seek them at the houses of those whose rest and play were like his own⁠—little halts in a seeming happy life-journey, full of toil and strain and endeavor; oases of sweet water and cooling shade, where the food was good and plentiful, though the tents might not be of cloth of gold; where the talk was of something more to his taste than court or sport or narrow party politics; the new beauty; the coming match of the season; the coming ducal conversion to Rome; the last elopement in high life⁠—the next! and where the music was that of the greatest music-makers that can be, who found rest and play in making better music for love than they ever made for hire⁠—and were listened to as they should be, with understanding and religious silence, and all the fervent gratitude they deserved.

There were several such houses in London then⁠—and are still⁠—thank Heaven! And Little Billee had his little billet there⁠—and there he was wont to drown himself in waves of lovely sound, or streams of clever talk, or rivers of sweet feminine adulation, seas! oceans!⁠—a somewhat relaxing bath!⁠—and forget for a while his everlasting chronic plague of heart-insensibility, which no doctor could explain or cure, and to which he was becoming gradually resigned⁠—as one does to deafness or blindness or locomotor ataxia⁠—for it had lasted nearly five years! But now and again, during sleep, and in a blissful dream, the lost power of loving⁠—of loving mother, sister, friend⁠—would be restored to him; just as with a blind man who sometimes dreams he has recovered his sight; and the joy of it would wake him to the sad reality: till he got to know, even in his dream, that he was only dreaming, after all, whenever that priceless boon seemed to be his own once more⁠—and did his utmost not to wake. And these were nights to be marked with a white stone, and remembered!

And nowhere was he happier than at the houses of the great surgeons and physicians who interested themselves in his strange disease. When the Little Billees of this world fall ill, the great surgeons and physicians (like the great singers and musicians) do better for them, out of mere love and kindness, than for the princes of the earth, who pay them thousand-guinea fees and load them with honors.

And of all these notable London houses none was pleasanter than that of Cornelys the great sculptor, and Little Billee was such a favorite in that house that he was able to take his friends Taffy and the Laird there the very day they came to London.

First of all they dined together at a delightful little Franco-Italian pothouse near Leicester Square, where they had bouillabaisse (imagine the Laird’s delight), and spaghetti, and a poulet rôti, which is such a different affair from a roast fowl! and salad, which Taffy was allowed to make and mix himself; and they all smoked just where they sat, the moment they had swallowed their food⁠—as had been their way in the good old Paris days.

That dinner was a happy one for Taffy and the Laird, with their Little Billee apparently unchanged⁠—as demonstrative, as genial, and caressing as ever, and with no swagger to speak of; and with so many things to talk about that were new to them, and of such delightful interest! They also had much to say⁠—but they didn’t say very much about Paris, for fear of waking up Heaven knows what sleeping dogs!

And every now and again, in the midst of all this pleasant foregathering and communion of long-parted friends, the pangs of Little Billee’s miserable mind-malady would shoot through him like poisoned arrows.

He would catch himself thinking how fat and fussy and serious about trifles Taffy had become; and what a shiftless, feckless, futile duffer was the Laird; and how greedy they both were, and how red and coarse their ears and gills and cheeks grew as they fed, and how shiny their faces; and how little he would care, try as he might, if they both fell down dead under the table! And this would make him behave more caressingly to them, more genially and demonstratively than ever⁠—for he knew it was all a gruesome physical ailment of his own, which he could no more help than a cataract in his eye!

Then, catching sight of his own face and form in a mirror, he would curse himself for a puny, misbegotten shrimp, an imp⁠—an abortion⁠—no bigger, by the side of the herculean Taffy or the burly Laird of Cockpen, than six-pennorth o’ halfpence: a wretched little overrated follower of a poor trivial craft⁠—a mere light amuser! For what did pictures matter, or whether they were good or bad, except to the triflers who painted them, the dealers who sold them, the idle, uneducated, purse-proud fools who bought them and stuck them up on their walls because they were told!

And he felt that if a dynamite shell were beneath the table where they sat, and its fuse were smoking under their very noses, he would neither wish to warn his friends nor move himself. He didn’t care a d⁠⸺!

And all this made him so lively and brilliant in his talk, so fascinating and droll and witty, that Taffy and the Laird wondered at the improvement success and the experience of life had wrought in him, and marvelled at the happiness of his lot, and almost found it in their warm, affectionate hearts to feel a touch of envy!

Oddly enough, in a brief flash of silence, “entre la poire et le fromage,” they heard a foreigner at an adjoining table (one of a very noisy group) exclaim: “Mais quand je vous dis que j’l’ai entendue, moi, la Svengali! et même qu’elle a chanté l’Impromptu de Chopin absolument comme si c’était un piano qu’on jouait! voyons!⁠ ⁠…”

“Farceur! la bonne blague!” said another⁠—and then the conversation became so noisily general it was no good listening any more.

“Svengali! how funny that name should turn up! I wonder what’s become of our Svengali, by-the-way?” observed Taffy.

“I remember his playing Chopin’s Impromptu,” said Little Billee; “what a singular coincidence!”

There were to be more coincidences that night; it never rains them but it pours!

So our three friends finished their coffee and liqueured up, and went to Cornelys’s, three in a hansom⁠—

“Like Mars,

A-smokin’ their poipes and cigyars.”

Sir Louis Cornelys, as everybody knows, lives in a palace on Campden Hill, a house of many windows; and whichever window he looks out of, he sees his own garden and very little else. In spite of his eighty years, he works as hard as ever, and his hand has lost but little of its cunning. But he no longer gives those splendid parties that made him almost as famous a host as he was an artist.

When his beautiful wife died he shut himself up from the world; and now he never stirs out of his house and grounds except to fulfil his duties at the Royal Academy and dine once a year with the Queen.

It was very different in the early sixties. There was no pleasanter or more festive house than his in London, winter or summer⁠—no lordlier host than he⁠—no more irresistible hostesses than Lady Cornelys and her lovely daughters; and if ever music had a right to call itself divine, it was there you heard it⁠—on late Saturday nights during the London season⁠—when the foreign birds of song come over to reap their harvest in London Town.

It was on one of the most brilliant of these Saturday nights that Taffy and the Laird, chaperoned by Little Billee, made their début at Mechelen Lodge, and were received at the door of the immense music-room by a tall, powerful man with splendid eyes and a gray beard, and a small velvet cap on his head⁠—and by a Greek matron so beautiful and stately and magnificently attired that they felt inclined to sink them on their bended knees as in the presence of some overwhelming Eastern royalty⁠—and were only prevented from doing so, perhaps, by the simple, sweet, and cordial graciousness of her welcome.

And whom should they be shaking hands with next but Antony, Lorrimer, and the Greek⁠—with each a beard and mustache of nearly five years’ growth!

But they had no time for much exuberant greeting, for there was a sudden piano crash⁠—and then an immediate silence, as though for pins to drop⁠—and Signor Giuglini and the wondrous maiden Adelina Patti sang the Miserere out of Signor Verdi’s most famous opera⁠—to the delight of all but a few very superior ones who had just read Mendelssohn’s letters (or misread them) and despised Italian music; and thought cheaply of “mere virtuosity,” either vocal or instrumental.