"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-eêt" 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 naïve 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-eêt," went the canary. "Sw-eêt."
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-eêt, sw-eêt," 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.