Part 13 (1/2)
She was more familiar with him than with the other two: it was impossible not to be familiar with the Laird if he liked one, as he was so easy-going and demonstrative, for all that he was such a canny Scot!
Then she had nursed him through his illness; she had often hugged and kissed him before the whole studio full of people--and even when alone with him it had always seemed quite natural for her to do so. It was like a child caressing a favorite young uncle or elder brother. And though the good Laird was the least susceptible of mortals, he would often find these innocent blandishments a somewhat trying ordeal! She had never taken such a liberty with Taffy; and as for Little Billee, she would sooner have died!
So she wrote to the Laird. I give her letter without the spelling, which was often faulty, although her nightly readings had much improved it:
”MY DEAR FRIEND,--I am very unhappy. I was sitting at Carrel's, in the Rue des Potirons, and Little Billee came in, and was so shocked and disgusted that he ran away and never came back.
”I saw it all in his face.
”I sat there because M. Carrel asked me to. He has always been very kind to me--M. Carrel--ever since I was a child; and I would do anything to please him, but never _that_ again.
”He was there too.
”I never thought anything about sitting before. I sat first as a child to M. Carrel. Mamma made me, and made me promise not to tell papa, and so I didn't. It soon seemed as natural to sit for people as to run errands for them, or wash and mend their clothes. Papa wouldn't have liked my doing that either, though we wanted the money badly. And so he never knew.
”I have sat for the altogether to several other people besides--M.
Gerome, Durien, the two Hennequins, and emile Baratier; and for the head and hands to lots of people, and for the feet only to Charles Faure, Andre Besson, Mathieu Dumoulin, and Collinet. n.o.body else.
”It seemed as natural for me to sit as for a man. Now I see the awful difference.
”And I have done dreadful things besides, as you must know--as all the quartier knows. Baratier and Besson; but not Durien, though people think so. n.o.body else, I swear--except old Monsieur Penque at the beginning, who was mamma's friend.
”It makes me almost die of shame and misery to think of it; for that's not like sitting. I knew how wrong it was all along--and there's no excuse for me, none. Though lots of people do as bad, and n.o.body in the quartier seems to think any the worse of them.
”If you and Taffy and Little Billee cut me, I really think I shall go mad and die. Without your friends.h.i.+p I shouldn't care to live a bit. Dear Sandy, I love your little finger better than any man or woman I ever met; and Taffy's and Little Billee's little fingers too.
[Ill.u.s.tration: REPENTANCE]
”What shall I do? I daren't go out for fear of meeting one of you.
Will you come and see me?
”I am never going to sit again, not even for the face and hands. I am going back to be a _blanchisseuse de fin_ with my old friend Angele Boisse, who is getting on very well indeed, in the Rue des Cloitres Ste. Petronille.
”You _will_ come and see me, won't you? I shall be in all day till you do. Or else I will meet you somewhere, if you will tell me where and when; or else I will go and see you in the studio, if you are sure to be alone. Please don't keep me waiting long for an answer.
”You don't know what I'm suffering.
”Your ever-loving, faithful friend,
”TRILBY O'FERRALL.”
She sent this letter by hand, and the Laird came in less than ten minutes after she had sent it; and she hugged and kissed and cried over him so that he was almost ready to cry himself; but he burst out laughing instead--which was better and more in his line, and very much more comforting--and talked to her so nicely and kindly and naturally that by the time he left her humble attic in the Rue des Pousse-Cailloux her very aspect, which had quite shocked him when he first saw her, had almost become what it usually was.
The little room under the leads, with its sloping roof and mansard window, was as scrupulously neat and clean as if its tenant had been a holy sister who taught the n.o.ble daughters of France at some Convent of the Sacred Heart. There were nasturtiums and mignonette on the outer window-sill, and convolvulus was trained to climb round the window.
As she sat by his side on the narrow white bed, clasping and stroking his painty, turpentiny hand, and kissing it every five minutes, he talked to her like a father--as he told Taffy afterwards--and scolded her for having been so silly as not to send for him directly, or come to the studio. He said how glad he was, how glad they would all be, that she was going to give up sitting for the figure--not, of course, that there was any real harm in it, but it was better not--and especially how happy it would make them to feel she intended to live straight for the future. Little Billee was to remain at Barbizon for a little while; but she must promise to come and dine with Taffy and himself that very day, and cook the dinner; and when he went back to his picture, ”Les Noces du Toreador”--saying to her as he left, ”a ce soir donc, mille sacres tonnerres de nong de Dew!”--he left the happiest woman in the whole Latin quarter behind him: she had confessed and been forgiven.
And with shame and repentance and confession and forgiveness had come a strange new feeling--that of a dawning self-respect.
Hitherto, for Trilby, self-respect had meant little more than the mere cleanliness of her body, in which she had always revelled; alas! it was one of the conditions of her humble calling. It now meant another kind of cleanliness, and she would luxuriate in it for evermore; and the dreadful past--never to be forgotten by her--should be so lived down as in time, perhaps, to be forgotten by others.