Merely Mary Ann

I >> Israel Zangwill >> Merely Mary Ann

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"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 foregoing 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."

"Please, sir, I thought it was the surest way for me to send them back."

"But what made you send them back at all?"

Mary Ann's lip quivered, her eyes were cast down. "Oh--Mr. Lancelot--you
know," she faltered.

"But I don't know," he said sharply.

"Please let me go downstairs, Mr. Lancelot. Missus must have heard me
come in."

"You shan't go downstairs till you've told me what's come over you. Come
upstairs to my room."

"Yessir."

She followed him obediently. He turned round brusquely, "Here, give me
your parcels." And almost snatching them from her, he carried them
upstairs and deposited them on his table on top of the comic opera.

"Now, then, sit down. You can take off your hat and jacket."

"Yessir."

He helped her to do so.

"Now, Mary Ann, why did you return me those gloves?"

"Please, sir, I remember in our village when--when"--she felt a
diffidence in putting the situation into words, and wound up
quickly--"something told me I ought to."

"I don't understand you," he grumbled, comprehending only too well. "But
why couldn't you come in and give them to me instead of behaving in that
ridiculous way?"

"I didn't want to see you again," she faltered.

He saw her eyes were welling over with tears.

"You were crying again last night," he said sharply.

"Yessir."

"But what did you have to cry about now? Aren't you the luckiest girl in
the world?"

"Yessir."

As she spoke a flood of sunlight poured suddenly into the room; the sun
had broken through the clouds, the worn dollar had become a dazzling
gold-piece. The canary stirred in its cage.

"Then what were you crying about?"

"I didn't want to be lucky."

"You silly girl--I have no patience with you. And why didn't you want to
see me again?"

"Please, Mr. Lancelot, I knew you wouldn't like it."

"What ever put that into your head?"

"I knew it, sir," said Mary Ann firmly. "It came to me when I was
crying. I was thinking all sorts of things--of my mother and our Sally,
and the old pig that used to get so savage, and about the way the organ
used to play in church, and then all at once somehow I knew it would be
best for me to do what you told me--to buy my dress and go back with the
vicar, and be a good girl, and not bother you, because you were so good
to me, and it was wrong for me to worry you and make you miserable."

"Tw-oo! Tw-oo!" It was the canary starting on a preliminary carol.

"So I thought it best," she concluded tremulously, "not to see you again.
It would only be two days, and after that it would be easier. I could
always be thinking of you just the same, Mr. Lancelot, always. That
wouldn't annoy you, sir, would it? Because you know, sir, you wouldn't
know it."

Lancelot was struggling to find a voice. "But didn't you forget
something you had to do, Mary Ann?" he said in hoarse accents.

She raised her eyes swiftly a moment, then lowered them again.

"I don't know; I didn't mean to," she said apologetically.

"Didn't you forget that I told you to come to me and get my answer to
your question?"

"No, sir, I didn't forget. That was what I was thinking of all night."

"About your asking me to marry you?"

"Yessir."

"And my saying it was impossible?"

"Yessir; and I said, 'Why is it impossible?' and you said, 'Because----'
and then you left off; but please, Mr. Lancelot, I didn't want to know
the answer this morning."

"But I want to tell you. Why don't you want to know?"

"Because I found out for myself, Mr. Lancelot. That's what I found out
when I was crying--but there was nothing to find out, sir. I knew it all
along. It was silly of me to ask you--but you know I am silly sometimes,
sir, like I was when my mother was dying. And that was why I made up my
mind not to bother you any more, Mr. Lancelot, I knew you wouldn't like
to tell me straight out."

"And what was the answer you found out? Ah, you won't speak. It looks
as if you don't like to tell me straight out. Come, come, Mary Ann, tell
me why--why--it is impossible."

She looked up at last and said slowly and simply, "Because I am not good
enough for you, Mr. Lancelot."

He put his hands suddenly to his eyes. He did not see the flood of
sunlight--he did not hear the mad jubilance of the canary.

"No, Mary Ann," his voice was low and trembling. "I will tell you why it
is impossible. I didn't know last night, but I know now. It is
impossible, because--you are right, I don't like to tell you straight
out."

She opened her eyes wide, and stared at him in puzzled expectation.

"Mary Ann"--he bent his head--"it is impossible--because I am not good
enough for you."

Mary Ann grew scarlet. Then she broke into a little nervous laugh. "Oh,
Mr. Lancelot, don't make fun of me."

"Believe me, my dear," he said tenderly, raising his head, "I wouldn't
make fun of you for two million million dollars. It is the truth--the
bare, miserable, wretched truth. I am not worthy of you, Mary Ann."

"I don't understand you, sir," she faltered.

"Thank Heaven for that!" he said, with the old whimsical look. "If you
did you would think meanly of me ever after. Yes, that is why, Mary Ann.
I am a selfish brute--selfish to the last beat of my heart, to the inmost
essence of my every thought. Beethoven is worth two of me, aren't you,
Beethoven?" The spaniel, thinking himself called, trotted over. "He
never calculates--he just comes and licks my hand--don't look at me as if
I were mad, Mary Ann. You don't understand me--thank Heaven again. Come
now! Does it never strike you that if I were to marry you, now, it would
be only for your two and a half million dollars?"

"No, sir," faltered Mary Ann.

"I thought not," he said triumphantly. "No, you will always remain a
fool, I am afraid, Mary Ann."

She met his contempt with an audacious glance.

"But I know it wouldn't be for that, Mr. Lancelot."

"No, no, of course it wouldn't be, not now. But it ought to strike you
just the same. It doesn't make you less a fool, Mary Ann. There!
There! I don't mean to be unkind, and, as I think I told you once
before, it's not so very dreadful to be a fool. A rogue is a worse
thing, Mary Ann. All I want to do is to open your eyes. Two and a half
million dollars are an awful lot of money--a terrible lot of money. Do
you know how long it will be before I make two million dollars, Mary Ann?"

"No, sir." She looked at him wonderingly.

"Two million years. Yes, my child, I can tell you now. You thought I
was rich and grand, I know, but all the while I was nearly a beggar.
Perhaps you thought I was playing the piano--yes, and teaching Rosie--for
my amusement; perhaps you thought I sat up writing half the night out
of--sleeplessness," he smiled at the phrase, "or a wanton desire to burn
Mrs. Leadbatter's gas. No, Mary Ann, I have to get my own living by hard
work--by good work if I can, by bad work if I must--but always by hard
work. While you will have fifteen thousand pounds a year, I shall be
glad, overjoyed, to get fifteen hundred. And while I shall be grinding
away body and soul for my fifteen hundred, your fifteen thousand will
drop into your pockets, even if you keep your hands there all day. Don't
look so sad, Mary Ann. I'm not blaming you. It's not your fault in the
least. It's only one of the many jokes of existence. The only reason I
want to drive this into your head is to put you on your guard. Though I
don't think myself good enough to marry you, there are lots of men who
will think they are . . . though they don't know you. It is you, not me,
who are grand and rich, Mary Ann . . . beware of men like me--poor and
selfish. And when you do marry----"

"Oh, Mr. Lancelot!" cried Mary Ann, bursting into tears at last, "why do
you talk like that? You know I shall never marry anybody else."

"Hush, hush! Mary Ann! I thought you were going to be a good girl and
never cry again. Dry your eyes now, will you?"

"Yessir."

"Here, take my handkerchief."

"Yessir. . . but I won't marry anybody else."

"You make me smile, Mary Ann. When you brought your mother that cake for
Sally you didn't know a time would come when----"

"Oh, please, sir, I know that. But you said yesterday I was a young
woman now. And this is all different to that."

"No, it isn't, Mary Ann. When they've put you to school, and made you a
ward in Chancery, or something, and taught you airs and graces, and
dressed you up"--a pang traversed his heart, as the picture of her in the
future flashed for a moment upon his inner eye--"why, by that time,
you'll be a different Mary Ann, outside and inside. Don't shake your
head; I know better than you. We grow and become different. Life is
full of chances, and human beings are full of changes, and nothing
remains fixed."

"Then, perhaps"--she flushed up, her eyes sparkled--"perhaps"--she grew
dumb and sad again.

"Perhaps what?"

He waited for her thought. The rapturous trills of the canary alone
possessed the silence.

"Perhaps you'll change, too." She flashed a quick deprecatory glance at
him--her eyes were full of soft light.

This time he was dumb.

"Sw--eet!" trilled the canary, "Sw--eet!" though Lancelot felt the
throbbings of his heart must be drowning its song.

"Acutely answered," he said at last. "You're not such a fool after all,
Mary Ann. But I'm afraid it will never be, dear. Perhaps if I also made
two million dollars, and if I felt I had grown worthy of you, I might
come to you and say--two and two are four--let us go into partnership.
But then, you see," he went on briskly, "the odds are I may never even
have two thousand. Perhaps I'm as much a duffer in music as in other
things. Perhaps you'll be the only person in the world who has ever
heard my music, for no one will print it, Mary Ann. Perhaps I shall be
that very common thing--a complete failure--and be worse off than even
you ever were, Mary Ann."

"Oh, Mr. Lancelot, I'm so sorry." And her eyes filled again with tears.

"Oh, don't be sorry for me. I'm a man. I dare say I shall pull through.
Just put me out of your mind, dear. Let all that happened at Baker's
Terrace be only a bad dream--a very bad dream, I am afraid I must call
it. Forget me, Mary Ann. Everything will help you to forget me, thank
Heaven; it'll be the best thing for you. Promise me now."

"Yessir . . . if you will promise me."

"Promise you what?"

"To do me a favour."

"Certainly, dear, if I can."

"You have the money, Mr. Lancelot, instead of me--I don't want it, and
then you could----"

"Now, now, Mary Ann," he interrupted, laughing nervously, "you're getting
foolish again, after talking so sensibly."

"Oh, but why not?" she said plaintively.

"It is impossible," he said curtly.

"Why is it impossible?" she persisted.

"Because----" he began, and then he realised with a start that they had
come back again to that same old mechanical series of questions--if only
in form.

"Because there is only one thing I could ever bring myself to ask you for
in this world," he said slowly.

"Yes; what is that?" she said flutteringly.

He laid his hand tenderly on her hair.

"Merely Mary Ann."

She leapt up: "Oh, Mr. Lancelot, take me, take me! You do love me! You
do love me!"

He bit his lip. "I am a fool," he said roughly. "Forget me. I ought
not to have said anything. I spoke only of what might be--in the dim
future--if the--chances and changes of life bring us together again--as
they never do. No! You were right, Mary Ann. It is best we should not
meet again. Remember your resolution last night."

"Yessir." Her submissive formula had a smack of sullenness, but she
regained her calm, swallowing the lump in her throat that made her
breathing difficult.

"Good-bye, then, Mary Ann," he said, taking her hard red hands in his.

"Good-bye, Mr. Lancelot." The tears she would not shed were in her
voice. "Please, sir--could you--couldn't you do me a favour?--Nothing
about money, sir."

"Well, if I can," he said kindly.

"Couldn't you just play _Good-night and Good-bye_, for the last time?
You needn't sing it--only play it."

"Why, what an odd girl you are!" he said, with a strange, spasmodic
laugh. "Why, certainly! I'll do both, if it will give you any pleasure."

And, releasing her hands, he sat down to the piano, and played the
introduction softly. He felt a nervous thrill going down his spine as he
plunged into the mawkish words. And when he came to the refrain, he had
an uneasy sense that Mary Ann was crying--he dared not look at her. He
sang on bravely:

"Kiss me, good-night, dear love,
Dream of the old delight;
My spirit is summoned above,
Kiss me, dear love, good-night."

He couldn't go through another verse--he felt himself all a-quiver, every
nerve shattered. He jumped up. Yes, his conjecture had been right.
Mary Ann was crying. He laughed spasmodically again. The thought had
occurred to him how vain Peter would be if he could know the effect of
his commonplace ballad.

"There, I'll kiss you too, dear!" he said huskily, still smiling.
"That'll be for the last time."

Their lips met, and then Mary Ann seemed to fade out of the room in a
blur of mist.

An instant after there was a knock at the door.

"Forgot her parcels after a last good-bye," thought Lancelot, and
continued to smile at the comicality of the new episode.

He cleared his throat.

"Come in," he cried, and then he saw that the parcels were gone, too, and
it must be Rosie.

But it was merely Mary Ann.

"I forgot to tell you, Mr. Lancelot," she said--her accents were almost
cheerful--"that I'm going to church to-morrow morning."

"To church!" he echoed.

"Yes, I haven't been since I left the village, but missus says I ought to
go in case the vicar asks me what church I've been going to."

"I see," he said, smiling on.

She was closing the door when it opened again, just revealing Mary Ann's
face.

"Well?" he said, amused.

"But I'll do your boots all the same, Mr. Lancelot." And the door closed
with a bang.

They did not meet again. On the Monday afternoon the vicar duly came and
took Mary Ann away. All Baker's Terrace was on the watch, for her story
had now had time to spread. The weather remained bright. It was cold,
but the sky was blue. Mary Ann had borne up wonderfully, but she burst
into tears as she got into the cab.

"Sweet, sensitive little thing!" said Baker's Terrace.

"What a good woman you must be, Mrs. Leadbatter," said the vicar, wiping
his spectacles.

As part of Baker's Terrace, Lancelot witnessed the departure from his
window, for he had not left after all.

Beethoven was barking his short, snappy bark the whole time at the
unwonted noises and the unfamiliar footsteps; he almost extinguished the
canary, though that was clamorous enough.

"Shut up, you noisy little devils!" growled Lancelot. And taking the
comic opera he threw it on the dull fire. The thick sheets grew slowly
blacker and blacker, as if with rage; while Lancelot thrust the five
five-pound notes into an envelope addressed to the popular composer, and
scribbled a tiny note:

"DEAR PETER,--If you have not torn up that cheque I shall be glad of it
by return.

"Yours,
"LANCELOT.

"P.S.--I send by this post a Reverie, called 'Marianne,' which is the
best thing I have done, and should be glad if you could induce Brahmson
to look at it."

A big, sudden blaze, like a jubilant bonfire, shot up in the grate and
startled Beethoven into silence.

But the canary took it for an extra flood of sunshine, and trilled and
demi-semi-quavered like mad.

"Sw--eet! Sweet!"

"By Jove!" said Lancelot, starting up, "Mary Ann's left her canary
behind!"

Then the old whimsical look came over his face.

"I must keep it for her," he murmured. "What a responsibility! I
suppose I oughtn't to let Rosie look after it any more. Let me see, what
did Peter say? Canary seed biscuits . . . yes, I must be careful not to
give it butter. . . . Curious I didn't think of her canary when I sent
back all those gloves . . . but I doubt if I could have squeezed it
in--my boots are only sevens after all--to say nothing of the cage."

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