THE TRIALS OF TRIONA
InLocke Step
InLocke Step
In
Locke Step
“Why is it, mother?” asked Olivia, “that we have never associated with the county families? Why has the Squire never invited us to dinner? Why is informal tea at the vicarage the summit of our social attainment? Tell me, mother, tell me!”
Had Mrs. Gale lived the normal life of women—not only speaking, but being spoken to—she might have gone to her grave with her secret unrevealed. But infinite sorrow had weakened her and, in this, the last poignant intimacy of her deathbed, she disclosed it to her daughter.
“My dear,” she said, “I am a Bagshawe—with the final e—of that proud old Anglo-Indian family. My father was Bagshawe of the Indian Guides—not to be confounded with Bradshaw of the Railway Guides.Yourfather, my dear, was an excellent man in his way, whom I loved as fondly as was consistent with thedifference in our positions. But theyweredifferent, dearest Olivia. As Mrs. Bagshawe—with the final e—I associated with Generals, Colonels and Sirs—and with their wives, of course. As Mrs. Gale, only with trades-people, linen-drapers and haberdashers, tallow-chandlers and ironmongers, with an occasional fishmonger or drysalter, by way of variety.”
“But, why, mother? Why?” cried Olivia. “What did my father do to condemn us to such ignominy?”
“Your father, my dear,” faltered the dying woman, “yourfather dealt in—pigs.”
That was the skeleton in the cupboard. Stephen Gale had been a fine chap, but as someone—whose modest anonymity shall be respected—has so finely phrased it, pigs is pigs.”
After her mother’s death, Olivia rented the dear old place, the home of her ancestors for nearly twenty-five years, filled with the priceless possessions purchased from the proceeds of the preposterously profitable porcine proclivities of her papa, but haunted by the family ghosts of Berkshire and Chester White. She fled to London to escape her heritage of shame.
There she met Alexis Triona, the famous author ofRushing Through Russia. Withhis clean-shaven face, broad forehead, gray eyes, humorous mouth, he looked the hero that he wasn’t. He had faked his book from a stolen diary which he always carried about with him so that, at the proper moment, he might be found out.
He was a chauffeur, the son of a laborer, therefore his diction was faultless. “Diction” is the word. He employed it in ordinary conversation unsparingly—diction and contradiction—for he was a wonderful liar. Lacking all the advantages of birth and education, he had, nevertheless, achieved a mendacity of majestic grandeur and ravishing art.
It was not until after their marriage that Olivia discovered Triona’s essential greatness—and his essential and fatal defect.
He had taken two drinks of whisky and lay in a drunken slumber. Olivia found on the floor beside him the original notes of the stolen story, preserved for this dénouement. For the first time, she knew him for what he was—no mere recorder of his own experiences and observations, no mere note-book-and-camera author, but an imaginative artist of the first rank.
She was almost stunned by the greatness ofher discovery, the realization that he, her husband, was worthy to be placed on a pedestal beside the greatest writers of fictitious travels—Homer, Dante, Milton, Munchausen, Dr. Cook.
Then she made the second, the fatal discovery—that his real name was—John Briggs.
The ugly monosyllables struck her like a blow between the eyes. Alexis Triona!—John Briggs!Briggs!How had she labored, erecting her scaling ladders against the wall of exclusion, to enter the fortified city of the upper-classes, the county families! With what daring had she climbed the heights, bearing the banner with a strange device, “Triona”! And now—flat on her back outside the pale, she lay—hercartes de visitescattered confusedly on the ground, each inscribed “Mrs. John Briggs.”
The sound of the word, its assonance, its consonance, its dissonance, rang in her ears. What had she fled from? The supreme horror crashed in upon her consciousness.Briggs!—pigs!Now forever inescapable, her tragic heritage! No one would ever forget it—no one would ever try to forget it.
“Mrs. John Briggs’s father sold pigs!” She could hear the war cry of the aristocracy.
“Briggs—Briggs—pigs, pigs, pigs,” the drumbeat of her conquering enemies.
“Oh, pigs is pigs and Briggs is Briggs,And never the twain we’ll meet”——
“Oh, pigs is pigs and Briggs is Briggs,And never the twain we’ll meet”——
“Oh, pigs is pigs and Briggs is Briggs,And never the twain we’ll meet”——
“Oh, pigs is pigs and Briggs is Briggs,
And never the twain we’ll meet”——
the chant of embattled dowagers.
“One little pig went to market—so two little Briggs stay home!” the warning, the command of the elect, the desired.
It was impossible. It was unthinkable. It was unendurable. All night she sat and kept a ghastly vigil, to confront him in his first awakening with proofs of his Briggishness.
Alexis took a ticket for Poland, fleeing the fury of a woman Briggsed. But at Victoria station, his talent for invention revived. He would pretend to be a traffic policeman. Up went his arms, semaphoring the traffic. A cold, incredulous motor lorry refused to believe him. He awoke in a hospital.
Olivia returned to her old home. Blaise Olifant, her tenant there, welcomed her, properly chaperoned by his sister, gave her a home. He was a one-armed man with a long, long nose.He had loved Olivia long. He longed for Olivia’s love. But he was a model of honorable circumspection, and for some time nothing happened to disturb the platonic calm of their relations.
Then the passion of Blaise Olifant suddenly flamed forth. (One is careful in the choice of a verb to describe the conflagration.) He flung his arms about her and kissed her passionately. She half-surrendered. She tried to respond to his kiss—but couldn’t.His long, long nose intervened.
How he managed to kiss her, she never knew. But there it was. His long, long nose. Impossible to love a man like that. Taper fingers, yes! Tapir nose, no. Olifant!—Elephant!—could he be? But, whether he was or not, she could not kiss him, try as she might. The obstacle was insurmountable, inevitable. So she gave it up and decided to be true to Alexis.
Myra Stebbings, Olivia’s maid, was, as her name implies, long, lean, angular and withered—had been so from the beginning of time.
She had been married but before the honeymoon was over she found her husband wasn’t in his right mind. His mother exonerated Myra, saying:
“’Tain’t your fault. I knowed he was crazy when he said he were goin’ to marry you.”
One day a woman called at the hospital to see John Briggs. They brought him the name:
“Miss Myra Stebbings.”
“Oh, my God!” said he, and fainted.
Myrahadthat effect upon sensitive natures.
When he had recovered from the effects of the motor lorry’s skepticism, and Myra’s visit, he got a job as chauffeur. Therefore he met his wife, walking along the road. So he ran right off a precipice. It was the only thing to do to keep up the interest.
But he could not escape her. She came down the precipice after him.
“What are you doing in that absurd livery?”
“Chauffeuring.”
He told her the simple truth. The shock was too great. She left him.
“Go to blazes!” he called after her.
“Blaise’s? It’s not,” she answered. “It’s my own home. I only rented it to him.”
But she thought it all over later. She was Mrs. Alexis Triona, spoken to, invited to manyof the homes of the gentry. Here was John Briggs, her husband, a chauffeur, likely to be arrested at any time for trespassing on private precipices. Then the truth might come out! What would the county families say to that? Something must be done.
She went out into the sweet-scented June night, to the highly perfumed garage, where he slept.
“Alexis!” she cried.
“Name of John Briggs,” he answered candidly.
“Never again!” she said. “Alexis Triona, when you try on a new name and it suits, wear it.”
She was so bright that her brilliance would have dimmed the Celestial Hierarchy or Broadway at midnight.
She clutched him tight. “Oh, my God, if you hadonlybeen killed!”
“Omit the ‘only’ and it goes,” said he.
So they talked through the sweet-scented June night into the equally deliciously odoriferous June dawn. And, of course, she, inadvertently, let slip—the pigs.Magna est lingua feminae et praevalebit.What to do, then? “Briggs” could be buried but the paternal pigs pursued her. Alexis rose to the occasion.
“Come, let’s go,” said he, “let us leave this snob-ridden island, populated by porcophobes. Let us go where pigs mean Ancestry, Honors, Family Portraits, High Society and Money in the Bank.”
“Where, oh, where is that delectable place?” she cried.
“Chicago,” he said simply.