It was truly comical to see and hear!
Mrs. Bagot did not go back to Devonshire. She remained in Fitzroy Square, at her son’s, and spent most of her time with Trilby, doing and devising all kinds of things to distract and amuse her, and lead her thoughts gently to heaven, and soften for her the coming end of all.
Trilby had a way of saying, and especially of looking, “Thank you” that made one wish to do as many things for her as one could, if only to make her say and look it again.
And she had retained much of her old, quaint, and amusing manner of telling things, and had much to tell still left of her wandering life, although there were so many strange lapses in her powers of memory—gaps—which, if they could only have been filled up, would have been full of such surpassing interest!
Then she was never tired of talking and hearing of Little Billee; and that was a subject of which Mrs. Bagot could never tire either!
Then there were the recollections of her childhood. One day, in a drawer, Mrs. Bagot came upon a faded daguerreotype of a woman in a tam-o’-shanter, with a face so sweet and beautiful and saintlike that it almost took her breath away. It was Trilby’s mother.
“Who and what was your mother, Trilby?”
“Ah, poor mamma!” said Trilby, and she looked at the portrait a long time. “Ah, she was ever so much prettier than that! Mamma was once a demoiselle de comptoir—that’s a barmaid, you know—at the Montagnards Écossais, in the Rue du Paradis Poissonnière—a place where men used to drink and smoke without sitting down. That was unfortunate, wasn’t it?
“Papa loved her with all his heart, although, of course, she wasn’t his equal. They were married at the Embassy, in the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré.
“Her parents weren’t married at all. Her mother was the daughter of a boatman on Loch Ness, near a place called Drumnadrockit; but her father was the Honorable Colonel Desmond. He was related to all sorts of great people in England and Ireland. He behaved very badly to my grandmother and to poor mamma—his own daughter! deserted them both! Not very honorable of him, was it? And that’s all I know about him.”
And then she went on to tell of the home in Paris that might have been so happy but for her father’s passion for drink; of her parents’ deaths, and little Jeannot, and so forth. And Mrs. Bagot was much moved and interested by these naive revelations, which accounted in a measure for so much that seemed unaccountable in this extraordinary woman; who thus turned out to be a kind of cousin (though on the wrong side of the blanket) to no less a person than the famous Duchess of Towers.
With what joy would that ever kind and gracious lady have taken poor Trilby to her bosom had she only known! She had once been all the way from Paris to Vienna merely to hear her sing. But, unfortunately, the Svengalis had just left for St. Petersburg, and she had her long journey for nothing!
Mrs. Bagot brought her many good books, and read them to her—Dr. Cummings on the approaching end of the world, and other works of a like comforting tendency for those who are just about to leave it; the Pilgrim’s Progress, sweet little tracts, and whatnot.
Trilby was so grateful that she listened with much patient attention. Only now and then a faint gleam of amusement would steal over her face, and her lips would almost form themselves to ejaculate, “Oh, maïe, aïe!”
Then Mrs. Bagot, as a reward for such winning docility, would read her David Copperfield, and that was heavenly indeed!
But the best of all was for Trilby to look over John Leech’s Pictures of Life and Character, just out. She had never seen any drawings of Leech before, except now and then in an occasional Punch that turned up in the studio in Paris. And they never palled upon her, and taught her more of the aspect of English life (the life she loved) than any book she had ever read. She laughed and laughed; and it was almost as sweet to listen to as if she were vocalizing the quick part in Chopin’s Impromptu.
One day she said, her lips trembling: “I can’t make out why you’re so wonderfully kind to me, Mrs. Bagot. I hope you have not forgotten who and what I am, and what my story is. I hope you haven’t forgotten that I’m not a respectable woman?”
“Oh, my dear child—don’t ask me. … I only know that you are you! … and I am I! and that is enough for me … you’re my poor, gentle, patient, suffering daughter, whatever else you are—more sinned against than sinning, I feel sure! But there. … I’ve misjudged you so, and been so unjust, that I would give worlds to make you some amends … besides, I should be just as fond of you if you’d committed a murder, I really believe—you’re so strange! you’re irresistible! Did you ever, in all your life, meet anybody that wasn’t fond of you?”
Trilby’s eyes moistened with tender pleasure at such a pretty compliment. Then, after a few minutes’ thought, she said, with engaging candor and quite simply: “No, I can’t say I ever did, that I can think of just now. But I’ve forgotten such lots of people!”
One day Mrs. Bagot told Trilby that her brother-in-law, Mr. Thomas Bagot, would much like to come and talk to her.
“Was that the gentleman who came with you to the studio in Paris?”
“Yes.”
“Why, he’s a clergyman, isn’t he? What does he want to come and talk to me about?”
“Ah! my dear child …” said Mrs. Bagot, her eyes filling.
Trilby was thoughtful for a while, and then said: “I’m going to die, I suppose. Oh yes! oh yes! There’s no mistake about that!”
“Dear Trilby, we are all in the hands of
