Merely Mary Ann
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Israel Zangwill >> Merely Mary Ann
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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, though 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 pawnshop 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 piano-forte pupils in London was as easy as to get
songs published. By the time he had 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
hum-bugging 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 out
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-bye to you as
well."
"Oh no, you mustn't leave us here!"
"And then," he said slowly, "it will not be good-bye--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-bye. See you again when I come
back; don't suppose I shall be away more than a month. Good-bye!" And,
having shaken Lancelot's 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.
His heart stood still. He went down a few stairs and listened.
"Not another stroke of work do you do in my house, Mary Ann!" Then there
was silence, save for the thumping of his own heart. What had happened?
He heard Mrs. Leadbatter mounting the kitchen stairs, wheezing and
grumbling: "Well, of all the sly little things!"
Mary Ann had been discovered. His blood ran cold at the thought. The
silly creature had been unable to keep the secret.
"Not a word about 'im all this time. Oh, the sly little thing. Who
would hever a-believed it?"
And then, in the intervals of Mrs. Leadbatter's groanings, there came to
him the unmistakable sound of Mary Ann sobbing--violently, hysterically.
He turned from cold to hot in a fever of shame and humiliation. How had
it all come about? Oh yes, he could guess. The gloves! What a fool he
had been! Mrs. Leadbatter had unearthed the box. Why did he give her
more than the pair that could always be kept hidden in her pocket? Yes,
it was the gloves. And then there was the canary. Mrs. Leadbatter had
suspected he was leaving her for a reason. She had put two and two
together, she had questioned Mary Ann, and the ingenuous little idiot had
naively told her he was going to take her with him. It didn't really
matter, of course; he didn't suppose Mrs. Leadbatter could exercise any
control over Mary Ann, but it was horrible to be discussed by her and
Rosie; and then there was that meddlesome vicar, who might step in and
make things nasty.
Mrs. Leadbatter's steps and wheezes and grumblings had arrived in the
passage, and Lancelot hastily stole back into his room, his heart
continuing to flutter painfully.
He heard the complex noises reach his landing, pass by, and move up
higher. She wasn't coming in to him, then. He could endure the suspense
no longer; he threw open his door and said, "Is there anything the
matter?"
Mrs. Leadbatter paused and turned her head.
"His there anything the matter!" she echoed, looking down upon him. "A
nice thing when a woman's troubled with hastmer, and brought 'ome 'er
daughter to take 'er place, that she should 'ave to start 'untin' afresh!"
"Why, is Rosie going away?" he said, immeasurably relieved.
"My Rosie! She's the best girl breathing. It's that there Mary Ann!"
"Wh-a-t!" he stammered. "Mary Ann leaving you?"
"Well, you don't suppose," replied Mrs. Leadbatter angrily, "as I can
keep a gel in my kitchen as is a-goin' to 'ave 'er own nors-end-kerridge!"
"Her own horse and carriage!" repeated Lancelot, utterly dazed. "What
ever are you talking about?"
"Well--there's the letter!" exclaimed Mrs. Leadbatter indignantly. "See
for yourself if you don't believe me. I don't know how much two and a
'arf million dollars is--but it sounds unkimmonly like a
nors-end-kerridge--and never said a word about 'im the whole time, the
sly little thing!"
The universe seemed oscillating so that he grasped at the letter like a
drunken man. It was from the vicar. He wrote:
"I have much pleasure in informing you that our dear Mary Ann is the
fortunate inheritress of two and a half million dollars by the death of
her brother Tom, who, as I learn from the lawyers who have applied to me
for news of the family, has just died in America, leaving his money to
his surviving relatives. He was rather a wild young man, but it seems he
became the lucky possessor of some petroleum wells, which made him
wealthy in a few months. I pray God Mary Ann may make a better use of
the money than he would have done, I want you to break the news to her,
please, and to prepare her for my visit. As I have to preach on Sunday,
I cannot come to town before, but on Monday (D.V.) I shall run up and
shall probably take her back with me, as I desire to help her through the
difficulties that will attend her entry into the new life. How pleased
you will be to think of the care you took of the dear child during these
last five years. I hope she is well and happy. I think you omitted to
write to me last Christmas on the subject. Please give her my kindest
regards and best wishes, and say I shall be with her (D.V.) on Monday."
The words swam uncertainly before Lancelot's eyes, but he got through
them all at last. He felt chilled and numbed. He averted his face as he
handed the letter back to Mary Ann's "missus."
"What a fortunate girl!" he said in a low, stony voice.
"Fortunate ain't the word for it. The mean, sly little cat. Fancy never
telling me a word about 'er brother all these years--me as 'as fed her,
and clothed her, and lodged her, and kepper out of all mischief, as if
she'd bin my own daughter, never let her go out Bankhollidayin' in loose
company--as you can bear witness yourself, sir--and eddicated 'er out of
'er country talk and rough ways, and made 'er the smart young woman she
is, fit to wait on the most troublesome of gentlemen. And now she'll go
away and say I used 'er 'arsh, and overworked 'er, and Lord knows what,
don't tell me. Oh, my poor chest!"
"I think you may make your mind quite easy," said Lancelot grimly. "I'm
sure Mary Ann is perfectly satisfied with your treatment."
"But she ain't--there, listen! don't you hear her going on?" Poor Mary
Ann's sobs were still audible, though exhaustion was making them momently
weaker. "She's been going on like that ever since I broke the news to
'er and gave her a piece of my mind--the sly little cat! She wanted to
go on scrubbing the kitchen, and I had to take the brush away by main
force. A nice thing, indeed! A gel as can keep a nors-end-kerridge down
on the cold kitchen stones! 'Twasn't likely I could allow that. 'No,
Mary Ann,' says I firmly, 'you're a lady, and if you don't know what's
proper for a lady, you'd best listen to them as does. You go and buy
yourself a dress and a jacket to be ready for that vicar, who's been a
real good kind friend to you. He's coming to take you away on Monday, he
is, and how will you look in that dirty print? Here's a suvrin,' says I,
'out of my 'ard-earned savin's--and get a pair o' boots, too; you can git
a sweet pair for 2s. 11d. at Rackstraw's afore the sale closes,' and with
that I shoves the suvrin into 'er hand instead o' the scrubbin' brush,
and what does she do? Why, busts out a-cryin', and sits on the damp
stones, and sobs, and sulks, and stares at the suvrin in her hand as if
I'd told her of a funeral instead of a fortune!" concluded Mrs.
Leadbatter alliteratively.
"But you did--her brother's death," said Lancelot. "That's what she's
crying about."
Mrs. Leadbatter was taken aback by this obverse view of the situation;
but, recovering herself, she shook her head. "_I_ wouldn't cry for no
brother that lef me to starve when he was rollin' in two and a 'arf
million dollars," she said sceptically. "And I'm sure my Rosie wouldn't.
But she never 'ad nobody to leave her money, poor dear child, except me,
please Gaud. It's only the fools as 'as the luck in _this_ world." And
having thus relieved her bosom, she resumed her panting progress upwards.
The last words rang on in Lancelot's ears long after he had returned to
his room. In the utter breakdown and confusion of his plans and his
ideas it was the one definite thought he clung to, as a swimmer in a
whirlpool clings to a rock. His brain refused to concentrate itself on
any other aspect of the situation--he could not, would not, dared not,
think of anything else. He knew vaguely he ought to rejoice with her
over her wonderful stroke of luck, that savoured of the fairy-story, but
everything was swamped by that one almost resentful reflection. Oh, the
irony of fate! Blind fate showering torrents of gold upon this foolish,
babyish household drudge, who was all emotion and animal devotion,
without the intellectual outlook of a Hottentot, and leaving men of
genius to starve, or sell their souls for a handful of it! How was the
wisdom of the ages justified! Verily did fortune favour fools. And
Tom--the wicked--he had flourished as the wicked always do, like the
green bay tree, as the Psalmist discovered ever so many centuries ago.
But gradually the wave of bitterness waned. He found himself listening
placidly and attentively to the joyous trills and roulades of the canary,
till the light faded and the grey dusk crept into the room and stilled
the tiny winged lover of the sunshine. Then Beethoven came and rubbed
himself against his master's leg, and Lancelot got up as one wakes from a
dream, and stretched his cramped limbs dazedly, and rang the bell
mechanically for tea. He was groping on the mantel-piece for the matches
when the knock at the door came, and he did not turn round till he had
found them. He struck a light, expecting to see Mrs. Leadbatter or
Rosie. He started to find it was merely Mary Ann.
But she was no longer merely Mary Ann, he remembered with another shock.
She loomed large to him in the match-light--he seemed to see her through
a golden haze. Tumultuous images of her glorified gilded future rose and
mingled dizzily in his brain.
And yet, was he dreaming? Surely it was the same Mary Ann, with the same
winsome face and the same large pathetic eyes, ringed though they were
with the shadow of tears. Mary Ann, in her neat white cap--yes--and in
her tan kid gloves. He rubbed his eyes. Was he really awake? Or--a
thought still more dizzying--had he been dreaming? Had he fallen asleep
and reinless fancy had played him the fantastic trick, from which,
cramped and dazed, he had just awakened to the old sweet reality.
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