The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes

by Израэль Зангвилл

  "But you love me," she said, unaffrighted.

  He started back perceptibly.

  After a moment, he replied, still playfully, "I never said so."

  "No, sir; but-but-" she lowered her eyes; a coquette could not have done it more artlessly-"but I-know it."

  The accusation of loving her set all his suppressed repugnances and prejudices bristling in contradiction. He cursed the weakness that had got him into this soul-racking situation. The silence clamoured for him to speak-to do something.

  "What-what were you crying about before?" he said abruptly.

  "I-I don't know, sir," she faltered.

  "Was it Tom's death?"

  "No, sir, not much. I did think of him black-berrying with me and our little Sally-but then he was so wicked! It must have been what missus said; and I was frightened because the vicar was coming to take me away-away from you; and then-oh, I don't know-I felt-I couldn't tell you-I felt I must cry and cry, like that night when-" she paused suddenly and looked away.

  "When," he said encouragingly.

  "I must go-Rosie," she murmured, and took up the tea-tray.

  "That night when-" he repeated tenaciously.

  "When you first kissed me," she said.

  He blushed. "That-that made you cry!" he stammered. "Why?"

  "Please, sir, I don't know."

  "Mary Ann," he said gravely, "don't you see that when I did that I was-like your brother Tom?"

  "No, sir. Tom didn't kiss me like that."

  "I don't mean that, Mary Ann; I mean I was wicked."

  Mary Ann stared at him.

  "Don't you think so, Mary Ann?"

  "Oh, no, sir. You were very good."

  "No, no, Mary Ann. Don't say good."

  "Ever since then I have been so happy," she persisted.

  "Oh, that was because you were wicked too," he explained grimly. "We have both been very wicked, Mary Ann; and so we had better part now, before we get more wicked."

  She stared at him plaintively, suspecting a lurking irony, but not sure.

  "But you didn't mind being wicked before!" she protested.

  "I'm not so sure I mind now. It's for your sake, Mary Ann, believe me, my dear." He took her bare hand kindly and felt it burning. "You're a very simple, foolish little thing, yes, you are. Don't cry. There's no harm in being simple. Why, you told me yourself how silly you were once when you brought your dying mother cakes and flowers to take to your dead little sister. Well, you're just as foolish and childish now, Mary Ann, though you don't know it any more than you did then. After all you're only nineteen-I found it out from the vicar's letter. But a time will come-yes, I'll warrant in only a few months' time you'll see how wise I am and how sensible you have been to be guided by me. I never wished you any harm, Mary Ann, believe me, my dear, I never did. And I hope, I do hope so much that this money will make you happy. So you see you mustn't go away with me now-you don't want everybody to talk of you as they did of your brother Tom, do you, dear? Think what the vicar would say."

  But Mary Ann had broken down under the touch of his hand and the gentleness of his tones.

  "I was a dead leaf so long, I don't care!" she sobbed passionately. "Nobody never bothered to call me wicked then. Why should I bother now?"

  Beneath the mingled emotions her words caused him was a sense of surprise at her recollection of his metaphor.

  "Hush! You're a silly little child," he repeated sternly. "Hush! or Mrs. Leadbatter will hear you." He went to the door and closed it tightly. "Listen, Mary Ann! Let me tell you once for all that even if you were fool enough to be willing to go with me, I wouldn't take you with me. It would be doing you a terrible wrong."

  She interrupted him quietly.

  "Why more now than before?"

  He dropped her hand as if stung, and turned away. He knew he could not answer that to his own satisfaction, much less to hers.

  "You're a silly little baby," he repeated resentfully. "I think you had better go down now. Missus will be wondering."

  Mary Ann's sobs grew more spasmodic. "You are going away without me," she cried hysterically.

  He went to the door again, as if apprehensive of an eavesdropper. The scene was becoming terrible. The passive personality had developed with a vengeance.

  "Hush, hush!" he cried imperatively.

  "You are going away without me. I shall never see you again."

  "Be sensible, Mary Ann. You will be-"

  "You won't take me with you."

  "How can I take you with me?" he cried brutally, losing every vestige of tenderness for this distressful vixen. "Don't you understand that it's impossible-unless I marry you," he concluded contemptuously.

  Mary Ann's sobs ceased for a moment.

  "Can't you marry me, then?" she said plaintively.

  "You know it is impossible," he replied curtly.

  "Why is it impossible?" she breathed.

  "Because-" He saw her sobs were on the point of breaking out, and had not the courage to hear them afresh. He dared not wound her further by telling her straight out that, with all her money, she was ridiculously unfit to bear his name-that it was already a condescension for him to have offered her his companionship on any terms.

  He resolved to temporise again.

  "Go downstairs now, there's a good girl; and I'll tell you in the morning. I'll think it over. Go to bed early and have a long, nice sleep-missus will let you-now. It isn't Monday yet; we have plenty of time to talk it over."

  She looked up at him with large appealing eyes, uncertain, but calming down.

  "Do, now, there's a dear." He stroked her wet cheek soothingly.

  "Yessir," and almost instinctively she put up her lips for a good-night kiss. He brushed them hastily with his. She went out softly, drying her eyes. His own grew moist-he was touched by the pathos of her implicit trust. The soft warmth of her lips still thrilled him. How sweet and loving she was! The little dialogue rang in his brain.

  "Can't you marry me, then?"

  "You know it is impossible."

  "Why is it impossible?"

  "Because-"

  "Because what?" an audacious voice whispered. Why should he not? He stilled the voice but it refused to be silent-was obdurate, insistent, like Mary Ann herself. "Because-oh, because of a hundred things," he told it. "Because she is no fit mate for me-because she would degrade me, make me ridiculous-an unfortunate fortune-hunter, the butt of the witlings. How could I take her about as my wife? How could she receive my friends? For a housekeeper-a good, loving housekeeper-she is perfection, but for a wife-my wife-the companion of my soul-impossible!"

  "Why is it impossible?" repeated the voice, catching up the cue. And then, from that point, the dialogue began afresh.

  "Because this, and because that, and because the other-in short, because I am Lancelot and she is merely Mary Ann."

  "But she is not merely Mary Ann any longer," urged the voice.

  "Yes, for all her money, she is merely Mary Ann. And am I to sell myself for her money-I who have stood out so nobly, so high-mindedly, through all these years of privation and struggle? And her money is all in dollars. Pah! I smell the oil. Struck ile! Of all things in the world, her brother should just go and strike ile!" A great shudder traversed his form. "Everything seems to have been arranged out of pure cussedness, just to spite me. She would have been happier without the money, poor child-without the money, but with me. What will she do with all her riches? She will only be wretched-like me."

  "Then why not be happy together?"

  "Impossible."

  "Why is it impossible?"

  "Because her dollars would stick in my throat-the oil would make me sick. And what would Peter say, and my brother (not that I care what he says), and my acquaintances?"

  "What does that matter to you? While you were a dead leaf nobody bothered to talk about you; they let you starve-you, with your genius-now you can let them talk-you, with your heiress. Five hundred thousand pounds. More than
you will make with all your operas if you live a century. Fifteen thousand a year. Why, you could have all your works performed at your own expense, and for your own sole pleasure if you chose, as the King of Bavaria listened to Wagner's operas. You could devote your life to the highest art-nay, is it not a duty you owe to the world? Would it not be a crime against the future to draggle your wings with sordid cares, to sink to lower aims by refusing this Heaven-sent boon?"

  The thought clung to him. He rose and laid out heaps of muddled manuscript-opera disjecta-and turned their pages.

  "Yes-yes-give us life!" they seemed to cry to him. "We are dead drops of ink, wake us to life and beauty. How much longer are we to lie here, dusty in death? We have waited so patiently-have pity on us, raise us up from our silent tomb, and we will fly abroad through the whole earth, chanting your glory; yea, the world shall be filled to eternity with the echoes of our music and the splendour of your name."

  But he shook his head and sighed, and put them back in their niches, and placed the comic opera he had begun in the centre of the table.

  "There lie the only dollars that will ever come my way," he said aloud. And, humming the opening bars of a lively polka from the manuscript, he took up his pen and added a few notes. Then he paused; the polka would not come-the other voice was louder.

  "It would be a degradation," he repeated, to silence it. "It would be merely for her money. I don't love her."

  "Are you so sure of that?"

  "If I really loved her I shouldn't refuse to marry her."

  "Are you so sure of that?"

  "What's the use of all this wire-drawing?-the whole thing is impossible."

  "Why is it impossible?"

  He shrugged his shoulders impatiently, refusing to be drawn back into the eddy, and completed the bar of the polka.

  Then he threw down his pen, rose and paced the room in desperation.

  "Was ever any man in such a dilemma?" he cried aloud.

  "Did ever any man get such a chance?" retorted his silent tormentor.

  "Yes, but I mustn't seize the chance-it would be mean."

  "It would be meaner not to. You're not thinking of that poor girl-only of yourself. To leave her now would be more cowardly than to have left her when she was merely Mary Ann. She needs you even more now that she will be surrounded by sharks and adventurers. Poor, poor Mary Ann! It is you who have the right to protect her now; you were kind to her when the world forgot her. You owe it to yourself to continue to be good to her."

  "No, no, I won't humbug myself. If I married her it would only be for her money."

  "No, no, don't humbug yourself. You like her. You care for her very much. You are thrilling at this very moment with the remembrance of her lips to-night. Think of what life will be with her-life full of all that is sweet and fair-love and riches, and leisure for the highest art, and fame and the promise of immortality. You are irritable, sensitive, delicately organised; these sordid, carking cares, these wretched struggles, these perpetual abasements of your highest self-a few more years of them-they will wreck and ruin you, body and soul. How many men of genius have married their housekeepers even-good, clumsy, homely bodies, who have kept their husband's brain calm and his pillow smooth. And again, a man of genius is the one man who can marry anybody. The world expects him to be eccentric. And Mary Ann is no coarse city weed, but a sweet country bud. How splendid will be her blossoming under the sun! Do not fear that she will ever shame you; she will look beautiful, and men will not ask her to talk. Nor will you want her to talk. She will sit silent in the cosy room where you are working, and every now and again you will glance up from your work at her and draw inspiration from her sweet presence. So pull yourself together, man; your troubles are over, and life henceforth one long blissful dream. Come, burn me that tinkling, inglorious comic opera, and let the whole sordid past mingle with its ashes."

  So strong was the impulse-so alluring the picture-that he took up the comic opera and walked towards the fire, his finger itching to throw it in. But he sat down again after a moment and went on with his work. It was imperative he should make progress with it; he could not afford to waste his time-which was money-because another person-Mary Ann to wit-had come into a superfluity of both. In spite of which the comic opera refused to advance; somehow he did not feel in the mood for gaiety; he threw down his pen in despair and disgust. But the idea of not being able to work rankled in him. Every hour seemed suddenly precious-now that he had resolved to make money in earnest-now that for a year or two he could have no other aim or interest in life. Perhaps it was that he wished to overpower the din of contending thoughts. Then a happy thought came to him. He rummaged out Peter's ballad. He would write a song on the model of that, as Peter had recommended-something tawdry and sentimental, with a cheap accompaniment. He placed the ballad on the rest and started going through it to get himself in the vein. But to-night the air seemed to breathe an ineffable melancholy, the words-no longer mawkish-had grown infinitely pathetic:-

  "Kiss me, good-night, dear love,

  Dream of the old delight;

  My spirit is summoned above,

  Kiss me, dear love, good-night!"

  The hot tears ran down his cheeks, as he touched the keys softly and lingeringly. He could go no farther than the refrain; he leant his elbows on the keyboard, and dropped his head upon his arms. The clashing notes jarred like a hoarse cry, then vibrated slowly away into a silence that was broken only by his sobs.

  He rose late the next day, after a sleep that was one prolonged nightmare, full of agonised, abortive striving after something that always eluded him, he knew not what. And when he woke-after a momentary breath of relief at the thought of the unreality of these vague horrors-he woke to the heavier nightmare of reality. Oh, those terrible dollars!

  He drew the blind, and saw with a dull acquiescence that the brightness of May had fled. The wind was high-he heard it fly past, moaning. In the watery sky, the round sun loomed silver-pale and blurred. To his fevered eye it looked like a worn dollar.

  He turned away, shivering, and began to dress. He opened the door a little, and pulled in his lace-up boots, which were polished in the highest style of art. But when he tried to put one on, his toes stuck fast in the opening, and refused to advance. Annoyed, he put his hand in, and drew out a pair of tan gloves, perfectly new. Astonished, he inserted his hand again and drew out another pair, then another. Reddening uncomfortably, for he divined something of the meaning, he examined the left boot, and drew out three more pairs of gloves, two new and one slightly soiled.

  He sank down, half dressed, on the bed with his head on his breast, leaving his boots and Mary Ann's gloves scattered about the floor. He was angry, humiliated; he felt like laughing, and he felt like sobbing.

  At last he roused himself, finished dressing, and rang for breakfast. Rosie brought it up.

  "Hullo! Where's Mary Ann?" he said lightly.

  "She's above work now," said Rosie, with an unamiable laugh. "You know about her fortune."

  "Yes; but your mother told me she insisted on going about her work till Monday."

  "So she said yesterday-silly little thing! But to-day she says she'll only help mother in the kitchen-and do all the boots of a morning. She won't do any more waiting."

  "Ah!" said Lancelot, crumbling his toast.

  "I don't believe she knows what she wants," concluded Rosie, turning to go.

  "Then I suppose she's in the kitchen now?" he said, pouring out his coffee down the side of his cup.

  "No, she's gone out now, sir."

  "Gone out!" He put down the coffee-pot-his saucer was full. "Gone out where?"

  "Only to buy things. You know her vicar is coming to take her away the day after to-morrow, and mother wanted her to look tidy enough to travel with the vicar; so she gave her a sovereign."

  "Ah, yes; your mother said something about it."

  "And yet she won't answer the bells," said Rosie, "and mother's asthma is worse, so I don't know
whether I shall be able to take my lesson to-day, Mr. Lancelot. I'm so sorry, because it's the last."

  Rosie probably did not intend the ambiguity of the phrase. There was real regret in her voice.

  "Do you like learning, then?" said Lancelot, softened, for the first time, towards his pupil. His nerves seemed strangely flaccid to-day. He did not at all feel the relief he should have felt at forgoing his daily infliction.

  "Ever so much, sir. I know I laugh too much, sometimes; but I don't mean it, sir. I suppose I couldn't go on with the lessons after you leave here?" She looked at him wistfully.

  "Well"-he had crumbled the toast all to little pieces now-"I don't quite know. Perhaps I shan't go away after all."

  Rosie's face lit up. "Oh, I'll tell mother," she exclaimed joyously.

  "No, don't tell her yet; I haven't quite settled. But if I stay-of course the lessons can go on as before."

  "Oh, I do hope you'll stay," said Rosie, and went out of the room with airy steps, evidently bent on disregarding his prohibition, if, indeed, it had penetrated to her consciousness.

  Lancelot made no pretence of eating breakfast; he had it removed, and then fished out his comic opera. But nothing would flow from his pen; he went over to the window, and stood thoughtfully drumming on the panes with it, and gazing at the little drab-coloured street, with its high roof of mist; along which the faded dollar continued to spin imperceptibly. Suddenly he saw Mary Ann turn the corner, and come along towards the house, carrying a big parcel and a paper bag in her ungloved hands. How buoyantly she walked! He had never before seen her move in free space, nor realised how much of the grace of a sylvan childhood remained with her still. What a pretty colour there was on her cheeks, too!

  He ran down to the street door and opened it before she could knock. The colour on her cheeks deepened at the sight of him, but now that she was near he saw her eyes were swollen with crying.

  "Why do you go out without gloves, Mary Ann?" he inquired sternly. "Remember you're a lady now."

  She started and looked down at his boots, then up at his face.

  "Oh, yes, I found them, Mary Ann. A nice graceful way of returning me my presents, Mary Ann. You might at least have waited till Christmas. Then I should have thought Santa Claus sent them."