The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes

by Израэль Зангвилл

  Lancelot felt insulted, but retained enough mastery of himself to reply that he would think it over. As he gave no signs of life or thought, the popular composer then wrote to him at length on the subject, offering him fifty pounds for the job, half of it on account. Lancelot was in sore straits when he got the letter, for his stock of money was dwindling to vanishing point, and he dallied with the temptation sufficiently to take the letter home with him. But his spirit was not yet broken, and the letter, crumpled like a rag, was picked up by Mary Ann and straightened out, and carefully placed upon the mantel-shelf.

  Time did something of a similar service for Mary Ann herself, picking her up from the crumpled attitude in which Lancelot had detected her on the doorstep, straightening her out again, and replacing her upon her semi-poetic pedestal. But, as with the cream-laid note-paper, the wrinklings could not be effaced entirely; which was more serious for Mary Ann.

  Not that Mary Ann was conscious of these diverse humours in Lancelot. Unconscious of changes in herself she could not conceive herself related to his variations of mood; still less did she realise the inward struggle, of which she was the cause. She was vaguely aware that he had external worries, for all his grandeur, and if he was by turns brusque, affectionate, indifferent, playful, brutal, charming, callous, demonstrative, she no more connected herself with these vicissitudes than with the caprices of the weather. If her sun smiled once a day it was enough. How should she know that his indifference was often a victory over himself, as his amativeness was a defeat?

  If any excuse could be found for Lancelot, it would be that which he administered to his conscience morning and evening like a soothing syrup. His position was grown so desperate that Mary Ann almost stood between him and suicide. Continued disappointment made his soul sick; his proud heart fed on itself. He would bite his lips till the blood came, vowing never to give in. And not only would he not move an inch from his ideal, he would rather die than gratify Peter by falling back on him; he would never even accept that cheque which was virtually his own.

  It was wonderful how, in his stoniest moments, the sight of Mary Ann's candid face, eloquent with dumb devotion, softened and melted him. He would take her gloved hand and press it silently. And Mary Ann never knew one iota of his inmost thought! He could not bring himself to that; indeed, she never for a moment appeared to him in the light of an intelligent being; at her best she was a sweet, simple, loving child. And he scarce spoke to her at all now-theirs was a silent communion-he had no heart to converse with her as he had done. The piano too was almost silent; the canary sang less and less, though spring was coming, and glints of sunshine stole between the wires of its cage; even Beethoven sometimes failed to bark when there was a knock at the street door.

  And at last there came a day when-for the first time in his life-Lancelot inspected his wardrobe, and hunted together his odds and ends of jewelry. From this significant task he was aroused by hearing Mrs. Leadbatter coughing in his sitting-room.

  He went in with an interrogative look.

  "Oh, my chest!" said Mrs. Leadbatter, patting it. "It's no use my denyin' of it, sir, I'm done up. It's as much as I can do to crawl up to the top to bed. I'm thinkin' I shall have to make up a bed in the kitchen. It only shows 'ow right I was to send for my Rosie, though quite the lady, and where will you find a nattier nursemaid in all Bayswater?"

  "Nowhere," assented Lancelot, automatically.

  "Oh, I didn't know you'd noticed her running in to see 'er pore old mother of a Sunday arternoon," said Mrs. Leadbatter, highly gratified. "Well, sir, I won't say anything about the hextry gas, though a poor widder and sevenpence hextry on the thousand, but I'm thinkin' if you would give my Rosie a lesson once a week on that there pianner, it would be a kind of set-off, for you know, sir, the policeman tells me your winder is a landmark to 'im on the foggiest nights."

  Lancelot flushed, then wrinkled his brows. This was a new idea altogether. Mrs. Leadbatter stood waiting for his reply, with a deferential smile tempered by asthmatic contortions.

  "But have you got a piano of your own?"

  "Oh, no, sir," cried Mrs. Leadbatter, almost reproachfully.

  "Well; but how is your Rosie to practise? One lesson a week is of very little use anyway, but unless she practises a good deal it'll only be a waste of time."

  "Ah, you don't know my Rosie," said Mrs. Leadbatter, shaking her head with sceptical pride. "You mustn't judge by other gels-the way that gel picks up things is-well, I'll just tell you what 'er school-teacher, Miss Whiteman said. She says-"

  "My good lady," interrupted Lancelot, "I practised six hours a day myself."

  "Yes, but it don't come so natural to a man," said Mrs. Leadbatter, unshaken. "And it don't look natural neither to see a man playin' the pianner-it's like seein' him knittin'."

  But Lancelot was knitting his brows in a way that was exceedingly natural. "I may as well tell you at once that what you propose is impossible. First of all, because I am doubtful whether I shall remain in these rooms; and secondly, because I am giving up the piano immediately. I only have it on hire, and I-I-" He felt himself blushing.

  "Oh, what a pity!" interrupted Mrs. Leadbatter. "You might as well let me go on payin' the hinstalments, instead of lettin' all you've paid go for nothing. Rosie ain't got much time, but I could allow 'er a 'our a day if it was my own pianner."

  Lancelot explained "hire" did not mean the "hire system." But the idea of acquiring the piano, having once fired Mrs. Leadbatter's brain, could not be extinguished. The unexpected conclusion arrived at was that she was to purchase the piano on the hire system, allowing it to stand in Lancelot's room, and that five shillings a week should be taken off his rent in return for six lessons of an hour each, one of the hours counterbalancing the gas grievance. Reviewing the bargain, when Mrs. Leadbatter was gone, Lancelot did not think it at all bad for him.

  "Use of the piano. Gas," he murmured, with a pathetic smile, recalling the advertisements he had read before lighting on Mrs. Leadbatter's. "And five shillings a week-it's a considerable relief! There's no loss of dignity either-for nobody will know. But I wonder what the governor would have said!"

  The thought shook him with silent laughter; a spectator might have fancied he was sobbing.

  But, after the lessons began, it might almost be said it was only when a spectator was present that he was not sobbing. For Rosie, who was an awkward, ungraceful young person, proved to be the dullest and most butter-fingered pupil ever invented for the torture of teachers; at least, so Lancelot thought, but then he had never had any other pupils, and was not patient. It must be admitted, though, that Rosie giggled perpetually, apparently finding endless humour in her own mistakes. But the climax of the horror was the attendance of Mrs. Leadbatter at the lessons, for, to Lancelot's consternation, she took it for granted that her presence was part of the contract. She marched into the room in her best cap, and sat, smiling, in the easy chair, wheezing complacently and beating time with her foot. Occasionally she would supplement Lancelot's critical observations.

  "It ain't as I fears to trust 'er with you, sir," she also remarked about three times a week, "for I knows, sir, you're a gentleman. But it's the neighbours; they never can mind their own business. I told 'em you was going to give my Rosie lessons, and you know, sir, that they will talk of what don't concern 'em. And, after all, sir, it's an hour, and an hour is sixty minutes, ain't it, sir?"

  And Lancelot, groaning inwardly, and unable to deny this chronometry, felt that an ironic Providence was punishing him for his attentions to Mary Ann.

  And yet he only felt more tenderly towards Mary Ann. Contrasted with these two vulgar females, whom he came to conceive as her oppressors, sitting in gauds and finery, and taking lessons which had better befitted their Cinderella-the figure of Mary Ann definitely reassumed some of its antediluvian poetry, if we may apply the adjective to that catastrophic washing of the steps. And Mary Ann herself had grown gloomier-once or twice he thought she had been crying, th
ough he was too numbed and apathetic to ask, and was incapable of suspecting that Rosie had anything to do with her tears. He hardly noticed that Rosie had taken to feeding the canary; the question of how he should feed himself was becoming every day more and more menacing. He saw starvation slowly closing in upon him like the walls of a torture-chamber. He had grown quite familiar with the pawn-shop now, though he still slipped in as though his goods were stolen.

  And at last there came a moment when Lancelot felt he could bear it no longer. And then he suddenly saw daylight. Why should he teach only Rosie? Nay, why should he teach Rosie at all? If he was reduced to giving lessons-and after all it was no degradation to do so, no abandonment of his artistic ideal, rather a solution of the difficulty so simple that he wondered it had not occurred to him before-why should he give them at so wretched a price? He would get another pupil, other pupils, who would enable him to dispense with the few shillings he made by Rosie. He would not ask anybody to recommend him pupils-there was no need for his acquaintances to know, and if he asked Peter, Peter would probably play him some philanthropic trick. No, he would advertise.

  After he had spent his last gold breast-pin in advertisements, he realised that to get pianoforte pupils in London was as easy as to get songs published. By the time he quite realised it, it was May, and then he sat down to realise his future.

  The future was sublimely simple-as simple as his wardrobe had grown. All his clothes were on his back. In a week or two he would be on the streets; for a poor widow could not be expected to lodge, partially board (with use of the piano, gas), an absolutely penniless young gentleman, though he combined the blood of twenty county families with the genius of a pleiad of tone poets.

  There was only one bright spot in the prospect. Rosie's lessons would come to an end.

  What he would do when he got on the streets was not so clear as the rest of this prophetic vision. He might take to a barrel-organ-but that would be a cruel waste of his artistic touch. Perhaps he would die on a doorstep, like the professor of many languages, whose starvation was recorded in that very morning's paper.

  Thus, driven by the saturnine necessity that sneers at our puny resolutions, Lancelot began to meditate surrender. For surrender of some sort must be-either of life or ideal. After so steadfast and protracted a struggle-oh, it was cruel, it was terrible; how noble, how high-minded he had been; and this was how the fates dealt with him-but at that moment-

  "Sw-eet," went the canary, and filled the room with its rapturous demi-semi-quavers, its throat swelling, its little body throbbing with joy of the sunshine. And then Lancelot remembered-not the joy of the sunshine, not the joy of life-no, merely Mary Ann.

  Noble! high-minded! No, let Peter think that, let posterity think that. But he could not cozen himself thus! He had fallen-horribly, vulgarly. How absurd of him to set himself up as a saint, a martyr, an idealist! He could not divide himself into two compartments like that and pretend that only one counted in his character. Who was he to talk of dying for art? No, he was but an everyday man. He wanted Mary Ann-yes, he might as well admit that to himself now. It was no use humbugging himself any longer. Why should he give her up? She was his discovery, his treasure-trove, his property.

  And if he could stoop to her, why should he not stoop to popular work, to devilling, to anything that would rid him of these sordid cares? Bah! away with all pretences!

  Was not this shamefaced pawning as vulgar, as wounding to the artist's soul as the turning out of tawdry melodies?

  Yes, he would escape from Mrs. Leadbatter and her Rosie; he would write to that popular composer-he had noticed his letter lying on the mantel-piece the other day-and accept the fifty pounds, and whatever he did he could do anonymously, so that Peter wouldn't know, after all; he would escape from this wretched den and take a flat far away, somewhere where nobody knew him, and there he would sit and work, with Mary Ann for his housekeeper. Poor Mary Ann! How glad she would be when he told her! The tears came into his eyes as he thought of her naive delight. He would rescue her from this horrid, monotonous slavery, and-happy thought-he would have her to give lessons to instead of Rosie.

  Yes, he would refine her; prune away all that reminded him of her wild growth, so that it might no longer humiliate him to think to what a companion he had sunk. How happy they would be! Of course the world would censure him if it knew, but the world was stupid and prosaic, and measured all things by its coarse rule of thumb. It was the best thing that could happen to Mary Ann-the best thing in the world. And then the world wouldn't know.

  "Sw-eet," went the canary. "Sw-eet."

  This time the joy of the bird penetrated to his own soul-the joy of life, the joy of the sunshine. He rang the bell violently, as though he were sounding a clarion of defiance, the trumpet of youth.

  Mary Ann knocked at the door, came in, and began to draw on her gloves.

  He was in a mad mood-the incongruity struck him so that he burst into a roar of laughter.

  Mary Ann paused, flushed, and bit her lip. The touch of resentment he had never noted before gave her a novel charm, spicing her simplicity.

  He came over to her and took her half-bare hands. No, they were not so terrible, after all. Perhaps she had awakened to her iniquities, and had been trying to wash them white. His last hesitation as to her worthiness to live with him vanished.

  "Mary Ann," he said, "I'm going to leave these rooms."

  The flush deepened, but the anger faded. She was a child again-her big eyes full of tears. He felt her hands tremble in his.

  "Mary Ann," he went on, "how would you like me to take you with me?"

  "Do you mean it, sir?" she asked eagerly.

  "Yes, dear." It was the first time he had used the word. The blood throbbed madly in her ears. "If you will come with me-and be my little housekeeper-we will go away to some nice spot, and be quite alone together-in the country if you like, amid the foxglove and the meadowsweet, or by the green waters, where you shall stand in the sunset and dream; and I will teach you music and the piano"-her eyes dilated-"and you shall not do any of this wretched nasty work any more. What do you say?"

  "Sw-eet, sw-eet," said the canary, in thrilling jubilation.

  Her happiness was choking her-she could not speak.

  "And we will take the canary, too-unless I say good-by to you as well."

  "Oh, no, you mustn't leave us here!"

  "And then," he said slowly, "it will not be good-by-nor good-night. Do you understand?"

  "Yes, yes," she breathed, and her face shone.

  "But think, think, Mary Ann," he said, a sudden pang of compunction shooting through his breast. He released her hands. "Do you understand?"

  "I understand-I shall be with you, always."

  He replied uneasily, "I shall look after you-always."

  "Yes, yes," she breathed. Her bosom heaved. "Always."

  Then his very first impression of her as "a sort of white Topsy" recurred to him suddenly and flashed into speech.

  "Mary Ann, I don't believe you know how you came into the world. I dare say you 'specs you growed."

  "No, sir," said Mary Ann, gravely; "God made me."

  That shook him strangely for a moment. But the canary sang on:-

  "Sw-eet. Sw-w-w-w-w-eet."

  III.

  And so it was settled. He wrote the long-delayed answer to the popular composer, found him still willing to give out his orchestration, and they met by appointment at the club.

  "I've got hold of a splendid book," said the popular composer. "Awfully clever; jolly original. Bound to go-from the French, you know. Haven't had time to set to work on it-old engagement to run over to Monte Carlo for a few days-but I'll leave you the book; you might care to look over it. And-I say-if any catchy tunes suggest themselves as you go along, you might just jot them down, you know. Not worth while losing an idea; eh, my boy! Ha! ha! ha! Well, good-by. See you again when I come back; don't suppose I shall be away more than a month. Good-by!" And, having shake
n his hand with tremendous cordiality, the popular composer rushed downstairs and into a hansom.

  Lancelot walked home with the libretto and the five five-pound notes. He asked for Mrs. Leadbatter, and gave her a week's notice. He wanted to drop Rosie immediately, on the plea of pressure of work, but her mother received the suggestion with ill grace, and said that Rosie should come up and practise on her own piano all the same, so he yielded to the complexities of the situation, and found hope a wonderful sweetener of suffering. Despite Rosie and her giggling, and Mrs. Leadbatter and her best cap and her asthma, the week went by almost cheerfully. He worked regularly at the comic opera, nearly as happy as the canary which sang all day long, and, though scarcely a word more passed between him and Mary Ann, their eyes met ever and anon in the consciousness of a sweet secret.

  It was already Friday afternoon. He gathered together his few personal belongings-his books, his manuscripts, opera innumerable. There was room in his portmanteau for everything-now he had no clothes. On the Monday the long nightmare would be over. He would go down to some obscure seaside nook and live very quietly for a few weeks, and gain strength and calm in the soft spring airs, and watch hand-in-hand with Mary Ann the rippling scarlet trail of the setting sun fade across the green waters. Life, no doubt, would be hard enough still. Struggles and trials enough were yet before him, but he would not think of that now-enough that for a month or two there would be bread and cheese and kisses. And then, in the midst of a tender reverie, with his hand on the lid of his portmanteau, he was awakened by ominous sounds of objurgation from the kitchen.