Peter Ibbetson Part 17

His mania is arson, poor fellow; and when the terrible wish comes over him to set the place on fire he forgets his artistic conceit, and his mean, weak, silly face becomes almost grand.

And with the female inmates it is just the same. There is a lady who has spent twenty years of her life here. Her father was a small country doctor, called Snogget; her husband an obscure, hard-working curate; and she is absolutely normal, common-place, and even vulgar. For her hobby is to discourse of well-born and t.i.tled people and county families, with whom (and with no others) it has always been her hope and desire to mix; and is still, though her hair is nearly white, and she is still here.

She thinks and talks and cares about nothing else but "smart people,"

and has conceived a very warm regard for me, on account of Lieutenant-colonel Ibbetson, of Ibbetson Hall, Hops.h.i.+re; not because I killed him and was sentenced to be hanged for it, or because he was a greater criminal than I (all of which is interesting enough); but because he was my relative, and that through him I must be distantly connected, she thinks, with the Ibbetsons of Lechmere--whoever they may be, and whom neither she nor I have ever met (indeed, I had never heard of them), but whose family history she knows almost by heart. What can be tamer, duller, more prosaic, more sordidly humdrum, more hopelessly sane, more characteristic of common, under-bred, provincial feminine cackle?

And yet this woman, in a fit of conjugal jealousy, murdered her own children; and her father went mad in consequence, and her husband cut his throat.

In fact, during their lucid intervals it would never enter one's mind that they were mad at all, they are so absolutely like the people one meets every day in the world--such narrow-minded idiots, such deadly bores! One might as well be back in Pentonville or Hops.h.i.+re again, or live in Pa.s.sionate Brompton (as I am told it is called); or even in Belgravia, for that matter!

For we have a young lord and a middle-aged baronet--a shocking pair, who should not be allowed to live; but for family influence they would be doing their twenty years' penal servitude in jail, instead of living comfortably sequestered here. Like Ouida's high-born heroes, they "stick to their order," and do not mingle with the rest of us. They ignore us so completely that we cannot help looking up to them in spite of their vices--just as we should do outside.

And we, of the middle cla.s.s, we stick to our order, too, and do not mingle with the small shop-keepers--who do not mingle with the laborers, artisans, and mechanics--who (alas, for them!) have n.o.body to look down upon but each other--but they do not; and are the best-bred people in the place.

Such are we! It is only when our madness is upon us that we cease to be commonplace, and wax tragical and great, or else original and grotesque and humorous, with that true deep humor that compels both our laughter and our tears, and leaves us older, sadder, and wiser than it found us.

"_Sunt lacrimae rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt_."

(So much, if little more, can I recall of the benign Virgil.)

And now to my small beer again, which will have more of a head to it henceforward.

Thus did I pursue my solitary way, like Bryant's Water-fowl, only with a less definite purpose before me--till at last there dawned for me an ever-memorable Sat.u.r.day in June.

I had again saved up enough money to carry my long longed-for journey to Paris into execution. The _Seine's_ boiler got up its steam, the _Seine's_ white awning was put up for me as well as others; and on a beautiful cloudless English morning I stood by the man at the wheel, and saw St. Paul's and London Bridge and the Tower fade out of sight; with what hope and joy I cannot describe. I almost forgot that I was me!

And next morning (a beautiful French morning) how I exulted as I went up the Champs Elysees and pa.s.sed under the familiar Arc de Triomphe on my way to the Rue de la Pompe, Pa.s.sy, and heard all around the familiar tongue that I still knew so well, and rebreathed the long-lost and half-forgotten, but now keenly remembered, fragrance of the _genius loci_; that vague, light, indescribable, almost imperceptible scent of a place, that is so heavenly laden with the past for those who have lived there long ago--the most subtly intoxicating ether that can be!

When I came to the meeting of the Rue de la Tour and the Rue de la Pompe, and, looking in at the grocer's shop at the corner, I recognized the handsome mustachioed groceress, Madame Liard (whose mustache twelve prosperous years had turned gray), I was almost faint with emotion. Had any youth been ever so moved by that face before?

There, behind the window (which was now of plate-gla.s.s), and among splendid Napoleonic wares of a later day, were the same old India-rubber b.a.l.l.s in colored net-work; the same quivering lumps of fresh paste in brown paper, that looked so cool and tempting; the same three-sou boxes of water-colors (now marked seventy-five centimes), of which I had consumed so many in the service of Mimsey Seraskier! I went in and bought one, and resmelt with delight the smell of all my by-gone dealings there, and received her familiar sounding--

"Merci, monsieur! faudrait-il autre chose?" as if it had been a blessing; but I was too shy to throw myself into her arms and tell her that I was the "lone, wandering, but not lost" Gogo Pasquier. She might have said--

"Eh bien, et apres?"

The day had begun well.

Like an epicure, I deliberated whether I should walk to the old gate in the Rue de la Pompe, and up the avenue and back to our old garden, or make my way round to the gap in the park hedge that we had worn of old by our frequent pa.s.sage in and out, to and from the Bois de Boulogne.

I chose the latter as, on the whole, the more promising in exquisite gradations of delight.

The gap in the park hedge, indeed! The park hedge had disappeared, the very park itself was gone, cut up, demolished, all parcelled out into small gardens, with trim white villas, except where a railway ran through a deep cutting in the chalk. A train actually roared and panted by, and choked me with its filthy steam as I looked round in stupefaction on the ruins of my long-cherished hope.

If that train had run over me and I had survived it, it could not have given me a greater shock; it all seemed too cruel and brutal an outrage.

A winding carriage-road had been pierced through the very heart of the wilderness; and on this, neatly-paled little brand-new gardens ab.u.t.ted, and in these I would recognize, here and there, an old friend in the shape of some well-remembered tree that I had often climbed as a boy, and which had been left standing out of so many, but so changed by the loss of its old surroundings that it had a tame, caged, transplanted look--almost apologetic, and as if ashamed of being found out at last!

Nothing else remained. Little hills and cliffs and valleys and chalk-pits that had once seemed big had been levelled up, or away, and I lost my bearings altogether, and felt a strange, creeping chill of blankness and bereavement.

But how about the avenue and my old home? I hastened back to the Rue de la Pompe with the quick step of aroused anxiety. The avenue was gone--blocked within a dozen yards of the gate by a huge brick building covered with newly-painted trellis-work! My old house was no more, but in its place a much larger and smarter edifice of sculptured stone. The old gate at least had not disappeared, nor the porter's lodge; and I feasted my sorrowful eyes on these poor remains, that looked snubbed and shabby and out of place in the midst of all this new splendor.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Presently a smart concierge, with a beautiful pink ribboned cap, came out and stared at me for a while, and inquired if monsieur desired anything.

I could not speak.

"Est-ce que monsieur est indispose? Cette chaleur! Monsieur ne parle pas le Francais, peut-etre?"

When I found my tongue I explained to her that I had once lived there in a modest house overlooking the street, but which had been replaced by this much more palatial abode.

"O, oui, monsieur--on a balaye tout ca!" she replied.

"Balaye!" What an expression for _me_ to hear!

And she explained how the changes had taken place, and how valuable the property had become. She showed me a small plot of garden, a fragment of my old garden, that still remained, and where the old apple-tree might still have been, but that it had been sawed away. I saw the stump; that did duty for a rustic table.

Presently, looking over a new wall, I saw another small garden, and in it the ruins of the old shed where I had found the toy wheelbarrow--soon to disappear, as they were building there too.

I asked after all the people I could think of, beginning with those of least interest--the butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker.

Some were dead; some had retired and had left their "commerce" to their children and children-in-law. Three different school-masters had kept the school since I had left. Thank Heaven, there was still the school--much altered, it is true. I had forgotten to look for it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE OLD APPLE-TREE.]

She had no remembrance of my name, or the Seraskiers'--I asked, with a beating heart. We had left no trace. Twelve short years had effaced all memory of us! But she told me that a gentleman, _decore, mais tombe en enfance_, lived at a _maison de sante_ in the Chaussee de la Muette, close by, and that his name was le Major Duquesnois; and thither I went, after rewarding and warmly thanking her.

I inquired for le Major Duquesnois, and I was told he was out for a walk, and I soon found him, much aged and bent, and leaning on the arm of a Sister of Charity. I was so touched that I had to pa.s.s him two or three times before I could speak. He was so small--so pathetically small!

[Ill.u.s.tration: M. LE MAJOR.]

It was a long time before I could give him an idea of who I was--Gogo Pasquier!

Then after a while he seemed to recall the past a little.

"Ha, ha! Gogo--gentil pet.i.t Gogo!--oui--oui--l'exercice? Portez ...

arrrmes! arrmes ... bras? Et Mimse? bonne pet.i.te Mimse! toujours mal a la tete?"

He could just remember Madame Seraskier; and repeated her name several times and said, "Ah! elle etait bien belle, Madame Seraskier!"

In the old days of fairy-tale telling, when he used to get tired and I still wanted him to go on, he had arranged that if, in the course of the story, he suddenly brought in the word "Cric," and I failed to immediately answer "Crac," the story would be put off till our next walk (to be continued in our next!) and he was so ingenious in the way he brought in the terrible word that I often fell into the trap, and had to forego my delight for that afternoon.

I suddenly thought of saying "Cric!" and he immediately said "Crac!" and laughed in a touching, senile way--"Cric!--Crac! c'est bien ca!" and then he became quite serious and said--

"Et la suite au prochain numero!"

After this he began to cough, and the good Sister said--