Merely Mary Ann
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Israel Zangwill >> Merely Mary Ann
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7 MERELY MARY ANN
BY
ISRAEL ZANGWILL
AUTHOR OF "CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO," "THE MASTER," ETC.
POPULAR EDITION
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN
MCMXIII
First Impression, September, 1904
New Impressions, September, 1904 (twice).
POPULAR SHILLING CLOTH EDITION, 1913.
The wrapper design is reproduced, by special
permission, from a painting by Mr. Louis Loeb
of Miss Eleanor Robson, the original "Mary Ann."
MERELY MARY ANN
I
Sometimes Lancelot's bell rang up Mrs. Leadbatter herself, but far more
often merely Mary Ann.
The first time Lancelot saw Mary Ann she was cleaning the steps. He
avoided treading upon her, being kind to animals. For the moment she was
merely a quadruped, whose head was never lifted to the stars. Her faded
print dress showed like the quivering hide of some crouching animal.
There were strange irregular splashes of pink in the hide, standing out
in bright contrast with the neutral background. These were scraps of the
original material neatly patched in.
The cold, damp steps gave Lancelot a shudder, for the air was raw. He
passed by the prostrate figure as quickly as he could, and hastened to
throw himself into the easy-chair before the red fire.
There was a lamp-post before the door, so he knew the house from its
neighbours. Baker's Terrace as a whole was a defeated aspiration after
gentility. The more auspicious houses were marked by white stones, the
steps being scrubbed and hearthstoned almost daily; the gloomier
doorsteps were black, except on Sundays. Thus variety was achieved by
houses otherwise as monotonous and prosaic as a batch of fourpenny
loaves. This was not the reason why the little South London side-street
was called Baker's Terrace, though it might well seem so; for Baker was
the name of the builder, a worthy gentleman whose years and virtues may
still be deciphered on a doddering, round-shouldered stone in a deceased
cemetery not far from the scene of his triumphs.
The second time Lancelot saw Mary Ann he did not remember having seen her
before. This time she was a biped, and wore a white cap. Besides, he
hardly glanced at her. He was in a bad temper, and Beethoven was barking
terribly at the intruder who stood quaking in the doorway, so that the
crockery clattered on the tea-tray she bore. With a smothered oath
Lancelot caught up the fiery little spaniel and rammed him into the
pocket of his dressing-gown, where he quivered into silence like a struck
gong. While the girl was laying his breakfast, Lancelot, who was looking
moodily at the pattern of the carpet as if anxious to improve upon it,
was vaguely conscious of relief in being spared his landlady's
conversation. For Mrs. Leadbatter was a garrulous body, who suffered
from the delusion that small-talk is a form of politeness, and that her
conversation was a part of the "all inclusive" her lodgers stipulated
for. The disease was hereditary, her father having been a barber, and
remarkable for the coolness with which, even as a small boy whose
function was lathering and nothing more, he exchanged views about the
weather with his victims.
The third time Lancelot saw Mary Ann he noticed that she was rather
pretty. She had a slight, well-built figure, not far from tall, small
shapely features, and something of a complexion. This did not displease
him: she was a little aesthetic touch amid the depressing furniture.
"Don't be afraid, Polly," he said, more kindly. "The little devil won't
bite. He's all bark. Call him Beethoven and throw him a bit of sugar."
The girl threw Beethoven the piece of sugar, but did not venture on the
name. It seemed to her a long name for such a little dog. As she
timidly took the sugar from the basin by the aid of the tongs, Lancelot
saw how coarse and red her hand was. It gave him the same sense of
repugnance and refrigescence as the cold, damp steps. Something he was
about to say froze on his lips. He did not look at Mary Ann for some
days; by which time Beethoven had conquered his distrust of her, though
she was still distrustful of Beethoven, drawing her skirts tightly about
her as if he were a rat. What forced Mary Ann again upon Lancelot's
morose consciousness was a glint of winter sunshine that settled on her
light brown hair. He said: "By the way, Susan, tell your mistress--or is
it your mother?"
Mary Ann shook her head but did not speak.
"Oh: you are not Miss Leadbatter?"
"No; Mary Ann."
She spoke humbly; her eyes were shy and would not meet his. He winced as
he heard the name, though her voice was not unmusical.
"Ah, Mary Ann! and I've been calling you Jane all along. Mary Ann what?"
She seemed confused and flushed a little.
"Mary Ann!" she murmured.
"Merely Mary Ann?"
"Yessir."
He smiled. "Seems a sort of white Topsy," he was thinking.
She stood still, holding in her hand the tablecloth she had just folded.
Her eyes were downcast, and the glint of sunshine had leapt upon the long
lashes.
"Well, Mary Ann, tell your mistress there is a piano coming. It will
stand over there--you'll have to move the sideboard somewhere else."
"A piano!" Mary Ann opened her eyes, and Lancelot saw that they were
large and pathetic. He could not see the colour for the glint of
sunshine that touched them with false fire.
"Yes; I suppose it will have to come up through the window, these
staircases are so beastly narrow. Do you never have a stout person in
the house, I wonder?"
"Oh yes, sir. We had a lodger here last year as was quite a fat man."
"And did he come up through the window by a pulley?"
He smiled at the image, and expected to see Mary Ann smile in response.
He was disappointed when she did not; it was not only that her stolidity
made his humour seem feeble--he half wanted to see how she looked when
she smiled.
"Oh dear no," said Mary Ann; "he lived on the ground floor!"
"Oh!" murmured Lancelot, feeling the last sparkle taken from his humour.
He was damped to the skin by Mary Ann's platitudinarian style of
conversation. Despite its prettiness, her face was dulness incarnate.
"Anyhow, remember to take in the piano if I'm out," he said tartly. "I
suppose you've seen a piano--you'll know it from a kangaroo?"
"Yessir," breathed Mary Ann.
"Oh, come, that's something. There is some civilisation in Baker's
Terrace after all. But are you quite sure?" he went on, the teasing
instinct getting the better of him. "Because, you know, you've never
seen a kangaroo."
Mary Ann's face lit up a little. "Oh, yes I have, sir; it came to the
village fair when I was a girl."
"Oh, indeed!" said Lancelot, a little staggered; "what did it come there
for--to buy a new pouch?"
"No, sir; in a circus."
"Ah, in a circus. Then, perhaps, you can _play_ the piano, too."
Mary Ann got very red. "No, sir; missus never showed me how to do that."
Lancelot surrendered himself to a roar of laughter. "This is a real
original," he said to himself, just a touch of pity blending with his
amusement.
"I suppose, though, you'd be willing to lend a hand occasionally?" he
could not resist saying.
"Missus says I must do anything I'm asked," she said, in distress, the
tears welling to her eyes. And a merciless bell mercifully sounding from
an upper room, she hurried out.
How much Mary Ann did, Lancelot never rightly knew, any more than he knew
the number of lodgers in the house, or who cooked his chops in the
mysterious regions below stairs. Sometimes he trod on the toes of boots
outside doors and vaguely connected them with human beings, peremptory
and exacting as himself. To Mary Ann each of those pairs of boots was a
personality, with individual hours of rising and retiring, breakfasting
and supping, going out and coming in, and special idiosyncrasies of diet
and disposition. The population of 5 Baker's Terrace was nine, mostly
bell-ringers. Life was one ceaseless round of multifarious duties; with
six hours of blessed unconsciousness, if sleep were punctual. All the
week long Mary Ann was toiling up and down the stairs or sweeping them,
making beds or puddings, polishing boots or fire-irons. Holidays were
not in Mary Ann's calendar; and if Sunday ever found her on her knees, it
was only when she was scrubbing out the kitchen. All work and no play
makes Jack a dull boy; it had not, apparently, made Mary Ann a bright
girl.
The piano duly came in through the window like a burglar. It was a good
instrument, but hired. Under Lancelot's fingers it sang like a bird and
growled like a beast. When the piano was done growling Lancelot usually
started. He paced up and down the room, swearing audibly. Then he would
sit down at the table and cover ruled paper with hieroglyphics for hours
together. His movements were erratic to the verge of mystery. He had no
fixed hours for anything; to Mary Ann he was hopeless. At any given
moment he might be playing on the piano, or writing on the curiously
ruled paper, or stamping about the room, or sitting limp with despair in
the one easy-chair, or drinking whisky and water, or smoking a black
meerschaum, or reading a book, or lying in bed, or driving away in a
hansom, or walking about Heaven alone knew where or why. Even Mrs.
Leadbatter, whose experience of life was wider than Mary Ann's,
considered his vagaries almost unchristian, though to the highest degree
gentlemanly. Sometimes, too, he sported the swallow-tail and the
starched breast-plate, which was a wonder to Mary Ann, who knew that
waiters were connected only with the most stylish establishments.
Baker's Terrace did not wear evening dress.
Mary Ann liked him best in black and white. She thought he looked like
the pictures in the young ladies' novelettes, which sometimes caught her
eye as she passed newsvendors' shops on errands. Not that she was read
in this literature--she had no time for reading. But, even when clothed
in rough tweeds, Lancelot had for Mary Ann an aristocratic halo; in his
dressing-gown he savoured of the grand Turk. His hands were masterful:
the fingers tapering, the nails pedantically polished. He had fair hair,
with moustache to match; his brow was high and white, and his grey eyes
could flash fire. When he drew himself up to his full height, he
threatened the gas globes. Never had No. 5 Baker's Terrace boasted of
such a tenant. Altogether, Lancelot loomed large to Mary Ann; she
dazzled him with his own boots in humble response, and went about sad
after a reprimand for putting his papers in order. Her whole theory of
life oscillated in the presence of a being whose views could so run
counter to her strongest instincts. And yet, though the universe seemed
tumbling about her ears when he told her she must not move a scrap of
manuscript, howsoever wildly it lay about the floor or under the bed, she
did not for a moment question his sanity. She obeyed him like a dog;
uncomprehending, but trustful. But, after all, this was only of a piece
with the rest of her life. There was nothing she questioned. Life stood
at her bedside every morning in the cold dawn, bearing a day heaped high
with duties; and she jumped cheerfully out of her warm bed and took them
up one by one, without question or murmur. They _were_ life. Life had
no other meaning any more than it has for the omnibus hack, which cannot
conceive existence outside shafts, and devoid of the intermittent flick
of a whip point. The comparison is somewhat unjust; for Mary Ann did not
fare nearly so well as the omnibus hack, having to make her meals off
such scraps as even the lodgers sent back. Mrs. Leadbatter was extremely
economical, as much so with the provisions in her charge as with those
she bought for herself. She sedulously sent up remainders till they were
expressly countermanded. Less economical by nature, and hungrier by
habit, Mary Ann had much trouble in restraining herself from
surreptitious pickings. Her conscience was rarely worsted; still there
was a taint of dishonesty in her soul, else had the stairs been less of
an ethical battleground for her. Lancelot's advent only made her
hungrier; somehow the thought of nibbling at _his_ provisions was too
sacrilegious to be entertained. And yet--so queerly are we and life
compounded--she was probably less unhappy at this period than Lancelot,
who would come home in the vilest of tempers, and tramp the room with
thunder on his white brow. Sometimes he and the piano and Beethoven
would all be growling together, at other times they would all three be
mute; Lancelot crouching in the twilight with his head in his hands; and
Beethoven moping in the corner, and the closed piano looming in the
background like a coffin of dead music.
One February evening--an evening of sleet and mist--Lancelot, who had
gone out in evening dress, returned unexpectedly, bringing with him for
the first time a visitor. He was so perturbed that he forgot to use his
latchkey, and Mary Ann, who opened the door, heard him say angrily,
"Well, I can't slam the door in your face, but I will tell you in your
face I don't think it at all gentlemanly of you to force yourself upon me
like this."
"My dear Lancelot, when did I ever set up to be a gentleman? You know
that was always your part of the contract." And a swarthy, thick-set
young man with a big nose lowered the dripping umbrella he had been
holding over Lancelot, and stepped from the gloom of the street into the
fuscous cheerfulness of the ill-lit passage.
By this time Beethoven, who had been left at home, was in full ebullition
upstairs, and darted at the intruder the moment his calves appeared.
Beethoven barked with short, sharp snaps, as became a bilious
liver-coloured Blenheim spaniel.
"Like master like dog," said the swarthy young man, defending himself at
the point of the umbrella. "Really your animal is more intelligent than
the overrated common or garden dog, which makes no distinction between
people calling in the small hours and people calling in broad daylight
under the obvious patronage of its own master. This beast of yours is
evidently more in sympathy with its liege lord. Down, Fido, down! I
wonder they allow you to keep such noisy creatures--but stay! I was
forgetting you keep a piano. After that, I suppose, nothing matters."
Lancelot made no reply, but surprised Beethoven into silence by kicking
him out of the way. He lit the gas with a neatly written sheet of music
which he rammed into the fire Mary Ann had been keeping up, then as
silently he indicated the easy-chair.
"Thank you," said the swarthy young man, taking it. "I would rather see
you in it, but as there's only one, I know you wouldn't be feeling a
gentleman; and that would make us both uncomfortable."
"'Pon my word, Peter," Lancelot burst forth, "you're enough to provoke a
saint."
"'Pon my word, Lancelot," replied Peter imperturbably, "you're more than
enough to provoke a sinner. Why, what have you to be ashamed of? You've
got one of the cosiest dens in London and one of the comfortablest
chairs. Why, it's twice as jolly as the garret we shared at Leipsic--up
the ninety stairs."
"We're not in Germany now. I don't want to receive visitors," answered
Lancelot sulkily.
"A visitor! you call me a visitor! Lancelot, it's plain you were not
telling the truth when you said just now you had forgiven me."
"I had forgiven--and forgotten you."
"Come, that's unkind. It's scarcely three years since I threw up my
career as a genius, and you know why I left you, old man. When the first
fever of youthful revolt was over, I woke to see things in their true
light. I saw how mean it was of me to help to eat up your wretched
thousand pounds. Neither of us saw the situation nakedly at first--it
was sicklied o'er with Quixotic foolishness. You see, you had the
advantage of me. Your governor was a gentleman. He says, 'Very well, if
you won't go to Cambridge, if you refuse to enter the Church as the
younger son of a blue-blooded but impecunious baronet should, and to step
into the living which is fattening for you, then I must refuse to take
any further responsibility for your future. Here is a thousand pounds;
it is the money I had set aside for your college course. Use it for your
musical tomfoolery if you insist, and then--get what living you can.'
Which was severe but dignified, unpaternal yet patrician. But what does
my governor do? That cantankerous, pig-headed old Philistine--God bless
him!--he's got no sense of the respect a father owes to his offspring.
Not an atom. You're simply a branch to be run on the lines of the old
business, or be shut up altogether. And, by the way, Lancelot, he hasn't
altered a jot since those days when--as you remember--the City or
starvation was his pleasant alternative. Of course, I preferred
starvation--one usually does at nineteen; especially if one knows there's
a scion of aristocracy waiting outside to elope with him to Leipsic."
"But you told me you were going back to your dad, because you found you
had mistaken your vocation."
"Gospel truth also! My heavens, shall I ever forget the blank horror
that grew upon me when I came to understand that music was a science more
barbarous than the mathematics that floored me at school, that the life
of a musical student, instead of being a delicious whirl of waltz tunes,
was 'one dem'd grind,' that seemed to grind out all the soul of the
divine art and leave nothing but horrid technicalities about consecutive
fifths and suspensions on the dominant? I dare say most people still
think of the musician as a being who lives in an enchanted world of
sound, rather than as a person greatly occupied with tedious feats of
penmanship; just as I myself still think of a _prima ballerina_ not as a
hard-working gymnast, but as a fairy, whose existence is all bouquets and
lime-light."
"But you had a pretty talent for the piano," said Lancelot in milder
accents. "No one forced you to learn composition. You could have learnt
anything for the paltry fifteen pounds exacted by the Conservatoire--from
the German flute to the grand organ; from singing to scoring band parts."
"No, thank you. _Aut Caesar aut nihil_. You remember what I always used
to say: 'Either Beethoven----' (The spaniel pricked up his ears.) --or
bust.' If I could not be a great musician it was hardly worth while
enduring the privations of one, especially at another man's expense. So
I did the Prodigal Son dodge, as you know, and out of the proceeds sent
you my year's exes in that cheque you with your damnable pride sent me
back again. And now, old fellow, that I have you face to face at last,
can you offer the faintest scintilla of a shadow of a reason for refusing
to take that cheque? No, you can't! Nothing but simple beastly
stuckuppishness. I saw through you at once; all your heroics were a
fraud. I was not your friend, but your protege--something to practise
your chivalry on. You dropped your cloak, and I saw your feet of clay.
Well, I tell you straight, I made up my mind at once to be bad friends
with you for life; only when I saw your fiery old phiz at Brahmson's I
felt a sort of something tugging inside my greatcoat like a thief after
my pocket-book, and I kinder knew, as the Americans say, that in half an
hour I should be sitting beneath your hospitable roof."
"I beg your pardon--you will have some whisky." He rang the bell
violently.
"Don't be a fool--you know I didn't mean that. Well, don't let us
quarrel. I have forgiven you for your youthful bounty, and you have
forgiven me for chucking it up; and now we are going to drink to the
_Vaterland_," he added, as Mary Ann appeared with a suspicious alacrity.
"Do you know," he went on, when they had taken the first sip of renewed
amity dissolved in whisky, "I think I showed more musical soul than you
in refusing to trammel my inspiration with the dull rules invented by
fools. I suppose you have mastered them all, eh?" He picked up some
sheets of manuscript. "Great Scot! How you must have schooled yourself
to scribble all this--you, with your restless nature--full scores, too!
I hope you don't offer this sort of thing to Brahmson."
"I certainly went there with that intention," admitted Lancelot. "I
thought I'd catch Brahmson himself in the evening--he's never in when I
call in the morning."
Peter groaned.
"Quixotic as ever! You can't have been long in London then?"
"A year."
"I suppose you'd jump down my throat if I were to ask you how much is
left of that----" he hesitated, then turned the sentence facetiously--"of
those twenty thousand shillings you were cut off with?"
"Let this vile den answer."
"Don't disparage the den; it's not so bad."
"You are right--I may come to worse. I've been an awful ass. You know
how lucky I was while at the Conservatoire--no, you don't. How should
you? Well, I carried off some distinctions and a lot of conceit, and
came over here thinking Europe would be at my feet in a month. I was
only sorry my father died before I could twit him with my triumph.
That's candid, isn't it?"
"Yes; you're not such a prig after all," mused Peter; "I saw the old
man's death in the paper--your brother Lionel became the bart."
"Yes, poor beggar, I don't hate him half so much as I did. He reminds me
of a man invited to dinner which is nothing but flowers and serviettes
and silver plate."
"I'd pawn the plate, anyhow," said Peter, with a little laugh.
"He can't touch anything, I tell you; everything's tied up."
"Ah well, he'll get tied up, too. He'll marry an American heiress."
"Confound him! I'd rather see the house extinct first."
"Hoity, toity! She'll be quite as good as any of you."
"I can't discuss this with you, Peter," said Lancelot, gently but firmly.
"If there is a word I hate more than the word heiress, it is the word
American."
"But why? They're both very good words and better things."
"They both smack of the most vulgar thing in the world--money," said
Lancelot, walking hotly about the room. "In America there's no other
standard. To make your pile, to strike ile--oh, how I shudder to hear
these idioms! And can any one hear the word heiress without immediately
thinking of matrimony? Phaugh? It's a prostitution."
"What is? You're not very coherent, my friend."
"Very well, I am incoherent. If a great old family can only bolster up
its greatness by alliances with the daughters of oil-strikers, then let
the family perish with honour."
"But the daughters of oil-strikers are sometimes very charming creatures.
They are polished with their fathers' oil."
"You are right. They reek of it. Pah! I pray to Heaven Lionel will
either wed a lady or die a bachelor."
"Yes; but what do you call a lady?" persisted Peter.
Lancelot uttered an impatient snarl, and rang the bell violently. Peter
stared in silence. Mary Ann appeared.
"How often am I to tell you to leave my matches on the mantel-shelf?"
snapped Lancelot. "You seem to delight to hide them away, as if I had
time to play parlour games with you."
Mary Ann silently went to the mantel-piece, handed him the matches, and
left the room without a word.
"I, say, Lancelot, adversity doesn't seem to have agreed with you," said
Peter severely. "That poor girl's eyes were quite wet when she went out.
Why didn't you speak? I could have given you heaps of lights, and you
might even have sacrificed another scrap of that precious manuscript."
"Well, she has got a knack of hiding my matches all the same," said
Lancelot somewhat shamefacedly. "Besides, I hate her for being called
Mary Ann. It's the last terror of cheap apartments. If she only had
another name like a human being, I'd gladly call her Miss something. I
went so far as to ask her, and she stared at me in a dazed, stupid, silly
way, as if I'd asked her to marry me. I suppose the fact is, she's been
called Mary Ann so long and so often that she's forgotten her father's
name--if she ever had any. I must do her the justice, though, to say she
answers to the name of Mary Ann in every sense of the phrase."
"She didn't seem at all bad-looking, any way," said Peter.
"Every man to his taste!" growled Lancelot. "She's as _platt_ and
uninteresting as a wooden sabot."
"There's many a pretty foot in a sabot," retorted Peter, with an air of
philosophy.
"You think that's clever, but it's simply silly. How does that fact
affect this particular sabot?"
"I've put my foot in it," groaned Peter comically.
"Besides, she might be a houri from heaven," said Lancelot; "but a houri
in a patched print-frock----" He shuddered, and struck a match.
"I don't know exactly what houris from heaven are, but I have a kind of
feeling any sort of frock would be out of harmony----!"
Lancelot lit his pipe.
"If you begin to say that sort of thing, we must smoke," he said,
laughing between the puffs. "I can offer you lots of tobacco--I'm sorry
I've got no cigars. Wait till you see Mrs. Leadbatter--my landlady--then
you'll talk about houris. Poverty may not be a crime, but it seems to
make people awful bores. Wonder if it'll have that effect on me? _Ach
Himmel_! how that woman bores me. No, there's no denying it--there's my
pouch, old man--I hate the poor; their virtues are only a shade more
vulgar than their vices. This Leadbatter creature is honest after her
lights--she sends me up the most ridiculous leavings--and I only hate her
the more for it."
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