Peter Ibbetson Part 29

For I was soon back again in Pa.s.sy, where I spent every hour of my sleep, you may be sure, never very far from the old apple-tree, which went through all its changes, from bare bough to tender shoots and blossoms, from blossom to ripe fruit, from fruit to yellow falling leaf, and then to bare boughs again, and all in a few peaceful nights, which were my days. I flatter myself by this time that I know the habits of a French apple-tree, and its caterpillars!

And all the dear people I loved, and of whom I could never tire, were about--all but one. _The_ One!

At last she arrived. The garden door was pushed, the bell rang, and she came across the lawn, radiant and tall and swift, and opened wide her arms. And there, with our little world around us--all that we had ever loved and cared for, but quite unseen and unheard by them--for the first time in my life since my mother and Madame Seraskier had died I held a woman in my arms, and she pressed her lips to mine.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "AT LAST SHE ARRIVED."]

Round and round the lawn we walked and talked, as we had often done fifteen, sixteen, twenty years ago. There were many things to say. "The Charming Prince" and the "Fairy Tarapatapoum" were "prettily well together"--at last!

The time sped quickly--far too quickly. I said--

"You told me I should see your house--'Parva sed Apta'--that I should find much to interest me there." ...

She blushed a little and smiled, and said--

"You mustn't expect _too_ much," and we soon found ourselves walking thither up the avenue. Thus we had often walked as children, and once--a memorable once--besides.

There stood the little white house with its golden legend, as I had seen it a thousand times when a boy--a hundred since.

How sweet and small it looked in the mellow suns.h.i.+ne! We mounted the stone _perron_, and opened the door and entered. My heart beat violently.

Everything was as it had always been, as far as I could see. Dr.

Seraskier sat in a chair by the window reading Schiller, and took no notice of us. His hair moved in the gentle breeze. Overhead we heard the rooms being swept and the beds made.

I followed her into a little lumber-room, where I did not remember to have been before; it was full of odds and ends.

"Why have you brought me here?" I asked.

She laughed and said--

"Open the door in the wall opposite."

There was no door, and I said so.

Then she took my hand, and lo! there _was_ a door! And she pushed, and we entered another suite of apartments that never could have been there before; there had never been room for them--nor ever could have been--in all Pa.s.sy!

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'AND NEUHA LED HER TORQUIL BY THE HAND.'"]

"Come," she said, laughing and blus.h.i.+ng at once; for she seemed nervous and excited and shy--do you remember--

'And Neuha led her Torquil by the hand, And waved along the vault her flaming brand!'

--do you remember your little drawing out of _The Island_, in the green morocco Byron? Here it is, in the top drawer of this beautiful cabinet.

Here are all the drawings you ever did for me--plain and colored--with dates, explanations, etc., all written by myself--_l'alb.u.m de la fee Tarapatapoum_. They are only duplicates. I have the real ones at my house in Hamps.h.i.+re.

The cabinet also is a duplicate;--isn't it a beauty?--it's from the Czar's Winter Palace. Everything here is a duplicate, more or less. See, this is a little dining-room;--did you ever see anything so perfect?--it is the famous _salle a manger_ of Princesse de Chevagne. I never use it, except now and then to eat a slice of English household bread with French b.u.t.ter and 'ca.s.sonade.' Little Mimsey, out there, does so sometimes, when Gogo brings her one, and it makes big Mimsey's mouth water to see her, so she has to go and do likewise. Would you like a slice?

You see the cloth is spread, _deux couverts_. There is a bottle of famous champagne from Mr. De Rothschild's; there's plenty more where that came from. The flowers are from Chatsworth, and this is a lobster salad for _you_. Papa was great at lobster salads and taught me. I mixed it myself a fortnight ago, and, as you see, it is as fresh and sweet as if I had only just made it, and the flowers haven't faded a bit.

Here are cigarettes and pipes and cigars. I hope they are good. I don't smoke myself.

Isn't all the furniture rare and beautiful? I have robbed every palace in Europe of its very best, and yet the owners are not a penny the worse. You should see up-stairs.

Look at those pictures--the very pick of Raphael and t.i.tian and Velasquez. Look at that piano--I have heard Liszt play upon it over and over again, in Leipsic!

Here is my library. Every book I ever read is there, and every binding I ever admired. I don't often read them, but I dust them carefully. I've arranged that dust shall fall on them in the usual way to make it real, and remind one of the outer life one is so glad to leave. All has to be taken very seriously here, and one must put one's self to a little trouble. See, here is my father's microscope, and under it a small spider caught on the premises by myself. It is still alive. It seems cruel, doesn't it? but it only exists in our brains.

Look at the dress I've got on--feel it; how every detail is worked out.

And you have unconsciously done the same: that's the suit you wore that morning at Cray under the ash-tree--the nicest suit I ever saw. Here is a spot of ink on your sleeve as real as can be (bravo!). And this b.u.t.ton is coming off--quite right; I will sew it on with a dream needle, and dream thread, and a dream thimble!

This little door leads to every picture-gallery in Europe. It took me a long time to build and arrange them all by myself--quite a week of nights. It is very pleasant to walk there with a good catalogue, and make it rain cats and dogs outside.

Through this curtain is an opera box--the most comfortable one I've ever been in; it does for theatres as well, and oratorios and concerts and scientific lectures. You shall see from it every performance I've ever been at, in half a dozen languages; you shall hold my hand and understand them all. Every singer that I ever heard, you shall hear.

Dear Giulia Grisi shall sing the 'Willow Song' again and again, and you shall hear the applause. Ah, what applause!

Come into this little room--my favorite; out of _this_ window and down these steps we can walk or drive to any place you or I have ever been to, and other places besides. Nothing is far, and we have only to go hand in hand. I don't know yet where my stables and coach-houses are; you must help me to find out. But so far I have never lacked a carriage at the bottom of those steps when I wanted to drive, nor a steam-launch, nor a gondola, nor a lovely place to go to.

Out of _this_ window, from this divan, we can sit and gaze on whatever we like. What shall it be? Just now, you perceive, there is a wild and turbulent sea, with not a s.h.i.+p in sight. Do you hear the waves tumbling and splas.h.i.+ng, and see the albatross? I had been reading Keats's 'Ode to the Nightingale,' and was so fascinated by the idea of a lattice opening on the foam

'_Of perilous seas by faery lands forlorn_'

that I thought it would be nice to have a lattice like that myself. I tried to evolve that sea from my inner consciousness, you know, or rather from seas that I have sailed over. Do you like it? It was done a fortnight ago, and the waves have been tumbling about ever since. How they roar! and hark at the wind! I couldn't manage the 'faery lands.' It wants one lattice for the sea, and one for the land, I'm afraid. You must help me. Mean while, what would you like there tonight--the Yosemite Valley? the Nevski Prospect in the winter, with the sledges?

the Rialto? the Bay of Naples after sunset, with Vesuvius in eruption?...

--"Oh Mary--Mimsey--what do I care for Vesuvius, and sunsets, and the Bay of Naples ... _just now_? ... Vesuvius is in my heart!"

Thus began for us both a period of twenty-five years, during which we pa.s.sed eight or nine hours out of the twenty-four in each other's company--except on a few rare occasions, when illness or some other cause prevented one of us from sleeping at the proper time.

Mary! Mary!

I idolized her while she lived; I idolize her memory.

For her sake all women are sacred to me, even the lowest and most depraved and G.o.d-forsaken. They always found a helping friend in _her_.

How can I pay a fitting tribute to one so near to me--nearer than any woman can ever have been to any man?

I know her mind as I know my own! No two human souls can ever have interpenetrated each other as ours have done, or we should have heard of it. Every thought she ever had from her childhood to her death has been revealed--every thought of mine! Living as we did, it was inevitable.

The touch of a finger was enough to establish the strange circuit, and wake a common consciousness of past and present, either hers or mine.

And oh, how thankful am I that some lucky chance has preserved me, murderer and convict as I am, from anything she would have found it impossible to condone!

I try not to think that shyness and poverty, ungainliness and social imbecility combined, have had as much to do as self-restraint and self-respect in keeping me out of so many pitfalls that have been fatal to so many men better and more gifted than myself.

I try to think that her extraordinary affection, the chance result of a persistent impression received in childhood, has followed me through life without my knowing it, and in some occult, mysterious way has kept me from thoughts and deeds that would have rendered me unworthy, even in her too indulgent eyes.

Who knows but that her sweet mother's farewell kiss and blessing, and the tender tears she shed over me when I bade her good-bye at the avenue gate so many years ago, may have had an antiseptic charm? Mary! I have followed her from her sickly, suffering childhood to her girlhood--from her half-ripe, gracefully lanky girlhood to the day of her retirement from the world of which she was so great an ornament. From girl to woman it seems like a triumphal procession through all the courts of Europe--scenes the like of which I have never even dreamed--flattery and strife to have turned the head of any princess! And she was the simple daughter of a working scientist and physician--the granddaughter of a fiddler.