She had never left his bedside for a moment, night or day, and when he died her grief was so terrible that people thought she would go out of her mind; and the day after he was buried she was not to be found anywhere—she had disappeared, taking nothing with her, not even her clothes—simply vanished and left no sign, no message of any kind.
All the ponds had been searched—all the wells, and the small stream that flows through Vibraye—and the old forest.
Taffy went to Vibraye, cross-examined everybody he could, communicated with the Paris police, but with no result, and every afternoon, with a beating heart, he went to the Morgue. …
The news was of course kept from Little Billee. There was no difficulty about this. He never asked a question, hardly ever spoke.
When he first got up and was carried into the studio he asked for his picture The Pitcher Goes to the Well, and looked at it for a while, and then shrugged his shoulders and laughed—a miserable sort of laugh, painful to hear—the laugh of a cold old man, who laughs so as not to cry! Then he looked at his mother and sister, and saw the sad havoc that grief and anxiety had wrought in them.
It seemed to him, as in a bad dream, that he had been mad for many years—a cause of endless sickening terror and distress; and that his poor weak wandering wits had come back at last, bringing in their train cruel remorse, and the remembrance of all the patient love and kindness that had been lavished on him for many years! His sweet sister—his dear, long-suffering mother! what had really happened to make them look like this?
And taking them both in his feeble arms, he fell a-weeping, quite desperately and for a long time.
And when his weeping-fit was over, when he had quite wept himself out, he fell asleep.
And when he awoke he was conscious that another sad thing had happened to him, and that for some mysterious cause his power of loving had not come back with his wandering wits—had been left behind—and it seemed to him that it was gone forever and ever—would never come back again—not even his love for his mother and sister, not even his love for Trilby—where all that had once been was a void, a gap, a blankness. …
Truly, if Trilby had suffered much, she had also been the innocent cause of terrible suffering. Poor Mrs. Bagot, in her heart, could not forgive her.
I feel this is getting to be quite a sad story, and that it is high time to cut this part of it short.
As the warmer weather came, and Little Billee got stronger, the studio became more pleasant. The ladies’ beds were removed to another studio on the next landing, which was vacant, and the friends came to see Little Billee, and make it more lively for him and his sister.
As for Taffy and the Laird, they had already long been to Mrs. Bagot as a pair of crutches, without whose invaluable help she could never have held herself upright to pick her way in all this maze of trouble.
Then M. Carrel came every day to chat with his favorite pupil and gladden Mrs. Bagot’s heart. And also Durien, Carnegie, Petrolicoconose, Vincent, Antony, Lorrimer, Dodor, and l’Zouzou; Mrs. Bagot thought the last two irresistible, when she had once been satisfied that they were “gentlemen,” in spite of appearances. And, indeed, they showed themselves to great advantage; and though they were so much the opposite to Little Billee in everything, she felt almost maternal towards them, and gave them innocent, good, motherly advice, which they swallowed avec attendrissement, not even stealing a look at each other. And they held Mrs. Bagot’s wool, and listened to Miss Bagot’s sacred music with upturned pious eyes, and mealy mouths that butter wouldn’t melt in!
It is good to be a soldier and a detrimental; you touch the hearts of women and charm them—old and young, high or low (excepting, perhaps, a few worldly mothers of marriageable daughters). They take the sticking of your tongue in the cheek for the wearing of your heart on the sleeve.
Indeed, good women all over the world, and ever since it began, have loved to be bamboozled by these genial, roistering daredevils, who haven’t got a penny to bless themselves with (which is so touching), and are supposed to carry their lives in their hands, even in piping times of peace. Nay, even a few rare bad women sometimes, such women as the best and wisest of us are often ready to sell our souls for!
“A lightsome eye, a soldier’s mien,
A feather of the blue,
A doublet of the Lincoln green—
No more of me you knew,
My love!
No more of me you knew. …”
As if that wasn’t enough, and to spare!
Little Billee could hardly realize that these two polite and gentle and sympathetic sons of Mars were the lively grigs who had made themselves so pleasant all round, and in such a singular manner, on the top of that St. Cloud omnibus; and he admired how they added hypocrisy to their other crimes!
Svengali had gone back to Germany, it seemed, with his pockets full of napoleons and big Havana cigars, and wrapped in an immense fur-lined coat, which he meant to wear all through the summer. But little Gecko often came with his violin and made lovely music, and that seemed to do Little Billee more good than anything else.
It made him realize in his brain all the love he could no longer feel in his heart. The sweet melodic phrase, rendered by a master, was as wholesome, refreshing balm to him while it lasted—or
