The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER XXVI

THE PIC­TURE

On that same af­ter­noon Con­way Dal­rym­ple rolled up his sketch of Jael and Sis­era, put it in­to his pock­et, dressed him­self with some con­sid­er­able care, putting on a vel­vet coat which he was in the habit of wear­ing out of doors when he did not in­tend to wan­der be­yond Kens­ing­ton Gar­dens, and the neigh­bour­hood and which was sup­posed to be­come him well, yel­low gloves, and a cer­tain Span­ish hat of which he was fond, and slow­ly saun­tered across to the house of his friend Mrs Dobbs Broughton. When the door was opened to him he did not ask if the la­dy were at home, but mut­ter­ing some word to the ser­vant, made his way through the hall, up­stairs, to a cer­tain small sit­ting-​room look­ing to the north which was much used by the mis­tress of the house. It was quite clear that Con­way Dal­rym­ple had ar­ranged his vis­it be­fore­hand, and that he was ex­pect­ed. He opened the door with­out knock­ing, and, though the ser­vant had fol­lowed him, he en­tered with­out be­ing an­nounced. ‘I’m afraid I’m late,’ he said, as he gave his hand to Mrs Broughton; ‘but for the life I could not get away soon­er.’

‘You are quite in time,’ said the la­dy, ‘for any good that you are like­ly to do.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means this, my friend, that you had bet­ter give the idea up. I have been think­ing of it all day, and I do not ap­prove of it.’

‘What non­sense!’

‘Of course you will say so, Con­way. I have ob­served of late that what­ev­er I say to you is called non­sense. I sup­pose it is the new fash­ion that gen­tle­men should so ex­press them­selves, but I am not quite sure that I like it.’

‘You know what I mean. I am very anx­ious about this pic­ture, and I shall be much dis­ap­point­ed if it can­not be done now. It was you put it in­to my head first.’

‘I re­gret it very much, I can as­sure you; but it will not be gen­er­ous in you to urge that against me.’

‘But why shouldn’t it suc­ceed?’

‘There are many rea­sons–some per­son­al to my­self.’

‘I do not know what they can be. You hint­ed at some­thing which I on­ly took as hav­ing been said in joke.’

‘If you mean about Miss Van Siev­er and your­self, I was quite in earnest, Con­way. I do not think you could do bet­ter, and I should be glad to see it of all things. Noth­ing would please me more than to bring Miss Van Siev­er and you to­geth­er.’

‘And noth­ing would please me less.’

‘But why so?’

‘Be­cause–be­cause–I can do noth­ing but tell you the truth, ca­ri­na; it is be­cause my heart is not free to present it­self at Miss Van Siev­er’s feet.’

‘It ought to be so, Con­way, and you must make it free. It will be well that you should be mar­ried, and well for oth­ers be­sides your­self. I tell you so as your friend, you have no truer friend. Sit where you are, if you please. You can say any­thing you have to say with­out stalk­ing about the room.’

‘I was not go­ing to stalk–as you call it.’

‘You will be safer and qui­eter while you are sit­ting. I heard a knock at the door, and I do not doubt that it will be Clara. She said she would be here.’

‘And you have told her about the pic­ture?’

‘Yes; I have told her. She said that it would be im­pos­si­ble, and that her moth­er would not al­low it. Here she is.’ Then Miss Van Siev­er was shown in­to the room, and Dal­rym­ple per­ceived that she was a girl the pe­cu­liar­ity of whose com­plex­ion bore day­light bet­ter even than can­dle­light. There was some­thing in her coun­te­nance which seemed to de­clare that she could bear any light to which it might be sub­ject­ed, with­out flinch­ing from it. And her bon­net, which was very plain, and her sim­ple brown morn­ing gown, suit­ed her well. She was one who re­quired none of the cir­cum­stances of stud­ied dress to car­ry off aught in her own ap­pear­ance. She could look her best when oth­er wom­en look their worst, and could dare to be seen at all times. Dal­rym­ple, with an artist’s eye, saw this at once, and im­me­di­ate­ly con­fessed to him­self that there was some­thing great about her. He could not de­ny her beau­ty. But there was ev­er present to him that look of hard­ness which had struck him when he first saw her. He could not but fan­cy that though at times she might be play­ful, and al­low the fur of her coat to be stroked with good-​hu­mour–she would be a dan­ger­ous play­thing, us­ing her claws un­pleas­ant­ly when the good-​hu­mour should have passed away. But not the less was she beau­ti­ful, and–be­yond that and bet­ter than that, for his pur­pose–she was pic­turesque.

‘Clara,’ said Mrs Broughton, ‘here is this mad painter, and he says that he will have you on his can­vas ei­ther with your will or with­out it.’

‘Even if he could do that, I am sure he would not,’ said Miss Van Siev­er.

‘To prove to you that I can, I think I need on­ly show you the sketch,’ said Dal­rym­ple, tak­ing the draw­ing out of his pock­et. ‘As re­gards the face, I know it so well by heart al­ready, that I feel cer­tain I could pro­duce a like­ness with­out even a sit­ting. What do you think of it, Mrs Broughton?’

‘It is clever,’ said she, look­ing at it with all the en­thu­si­asm which wom­en are able to throw in­to their eyes on such oc­ca­sions; ‘very clever. The sub­ject would just suit her. I have nev­er doubt­ed that.’

‘Eames says that it is con­fused,’ said the artist.

‘I don’t see that at all,’ said Mrs Broughton.

‘Of course a sketch must be rough. This one has been rubbed about and al­tered–but I think there is some­thing in it.’

‘An im­mense deal,’ said Mrs Broughton. ‘Don’t you think so, Clara?’

‘I am not a judge.’

‘But you can see the wom­an’s fixed pur­pose; and her stealth­iness as well;–and the man sleeps like a log. What is that dim out­line?’

‘Noth­ing in par­tic­ular,’ said Dal­rym­ple. But the dim out­line was in­tend­ed to rep­re­sent Mrs Van Siev­er.

‘It is very good–un­ques­tion­ably good,’ said Mrs Dobbs Broughton. ‘I do not for a mo­ment doubt that you will make a great pic­ture of it. It is just the sub­ject for you, Con­way; so much imag­ina­tion, and yet such a scope for por­trai­ture. It would be full of ac­tion, and yet such per­fect re­pose. And the lights and shad­ows would be ex­act­ly in your line. I can see at a glance how you would man­age the light in the tent, and bring it down just on the nail. And then the pose of the wom­an would be so good, so much strength, and yet such grace! You should have the bowl he drank the milk out of, so as to tell the whole sto­ry. No painter liv­ing tells a sto­ry so well as you do, Con­way.’ Con­way Dal­rym­ple knew that the wom­an was talk­ing non­sense to him, and yet he liked it, and liked her for talk­ing it.

‘But Mr Dal­rym­ple can paint his Sis­era with­out mak­ing me Jael,’ said Miss Van Siev­er.

‘Of course he can,’ said Mrs Broughton.

‘But I nev­er will,’ said the artist. ‘I con­ceived the sub­ject as con­nect­ed with you, and I will nev­er dis­join the two ideas.’

‘I think it no com­pli­ment, I can as­sure you,’ said Miss Van Siev­er.

‘And none was in­tend­ed. But you may ob­serve that artists in all ages have sought for high­er types of mod­els in paint­ing wom­en who have been vi­olent or crim­inal, than have suf­ficed for them in their por­trai­tures of gen­tle­ness and virtue. Look at all the Ju­diths and the Lu­cre­tias, and the Char­lotte Cor­days; how much fin­er the wom­en are than the Madon­nas and the Saint Ce­cil­ias.’

‘Af­ter that, Clara, you need not scru­ple to be a Jael,’ said Mrs Broughton.

‘But I do scru­ple–very much; so strong­ly that I know I nev­er shall do it. In the first place I don’t know why Mr Dal­rym­ple wants it.’

‘Want it!’ said Con­way. ‘I want to paint a strik­ing pic­ture.’

‘But you can do that with­out putting me in­to it.’

‘No;–not this pic­ture. And why should you ob­ject? It is the com­mon­est thing in the world for ladies to sit to artists in that man­ner.’

‘Peo­ple would know it.’

‘No­body would know it, so that you need care about it. What would it mat­ter if ev­ery­body knew it? We are not propos­ing any­thing im­prop­er;–are we, Mrs Broughton?’

‘She shall not be pressed if she does not like it,’ said Mrs Broughton. ‘You know I told you be­fore Clara came in, that I was afraid it could not be done.’

‘And I don’t like it,’ said Miss Van Siev­er, with some lit­tle hes­ita­tion in her voice.

‘I don’t see any­thing im­prop­er in it, if you mean that,’ said Mrs Broughton.

‘But, mam­ma!’

‘Well yes; that is the dif­fi­cul­ty, no doubt. The on­ly ques­tion is, whether your moth­er is not so very sin­gu­lar, as to make it im­pos­si­ble that you should com­ply with her in ev­ery­thing.’

‘I am afraid that I do not com­ply with her in very much,’ said Miss Van Siev­er in her gen­tlest voice.

‘Oh, Clara!’

‘You drive me to say so, oth­er­wise I should be a hyp­ocrite. Of course I ought not to have said it be­fore Mr Dal­rym­ple.’

‘You and Mr Dal­rym­ple will un­der­stand all about that, I dare­say, be­fore the pic­ture is fin­ished,’ said Mrs Broughton.

It did not take much per­sua­sion on the part of Con­way Dal­rym­ple to get the con­sent of the younger la­dy to be paint­ed, or of the el­der to al­low the sit­ting to go on in her room. When the ques­tion of easels and oth­er ap­pa­ra­tus came to be con­sid­ered, Mrs Broughton was rather flus­tered, and again de­clared with en­er­gy that the whole thing must fall to the ground; but a few more words from the painter re­stored her, and at last the ar­range­ments were made. As Mrs Dobbs Broughton’s dear friend, Madali­na De­mo­lines had said, Mrs Dobbs Broughton liked a fevered ex­is­tence. ‘What will Dobbs Broughton say?’ she ex­claimed more than once. And it was de­cid­ed at last that Dobbs should know noth­ing about it as long as it could be kept from him. ‘Of course he shall be told at last,’ said his wife. ‘I wouldn’t keep any­thing from the dear fel­low for all the world. But if he knew it at first it would be sure to get through Mus­sel­boro to your moth­er.’

‘I cer­tain­ly shall beg that Mr Broughton may not be tak­en in­to con­fi­dence if Mr Mus­sel­boro is to fol­low,’ said Clara. ‘And it must be un­der­stood that I must cease to sit im­me­di­ate­ly, what­ev­er may be the in­con­ve­nience, should mam­ma speak to me about it.’

This stip­ula­tion was made and con­ced­ed, and then Miss Van Siev­er went away, leav­ing the artist with Mrs Dobbs Broughton. ‘And now, if you please, Con­way, you had bet­ter go too,’ said the la­dy, as soon as there had been time for Miss Van Siev­er to get down­stairs and out of the hall-​door.

‘Of course you are in a hur­ry to get rid of me.’

‘Yes, I am.’

‘A lit­tle while ago I im­prop­er­ly said that some sug­ges­tion of yours was non­sense and you re­buked me for my blunt in­ci­vil­ity. Might not I re­buke you now with equal jus­tice?’

‘Do so, if you will;–but leave me. I tell you, Con­way, that in these mat­ters you must ei­ther be guid­ed by me, or you and I must cease to see each oth­er. It does not do that you should re­main here with me longer than the time usu­al­ly al­lowed for a morn­ing call. Clara has come and gone, and you al­so must go. I am sor­ry to dis­turb you, for you seem to be so very com­fort­able in that chair.’

‘I am com­fort­able–and I can look at you. Come;–there can be no harm in say­ing that, if I say noth­ing else. Well;–there, now I am gone.’ Where­upon he got up from his arm-​chair.

‘But you are not gone while you stand there.’

‘And you would re­al­ly wish me to mar­ry this girl?’

‘I do–if you can love her.’

‘And what about her love?’

‘You must win it, of course. She is to be won, like any oth­er wom­an. The fruit won’t fall in­to your mouth mere­ly be­cause you open your lips. You must climb the tree.’

‘Still climb­ing trees in the Hes­perides,’ said Con­way. ‘Love does that, you know; but it is hard to climb the trees with­out the love. It seems to me that I have done my climb­ing–have clomb as high as I knew how, and that the boughs are break­ing with me, and that I am like­ly to get a fall. Do you un­der­stand me?’

‘I would rather not un­der­stand you.’

‘That is no an­swer to my ques­tion. Do you un­der­stand that at this mo­ment I am get­ting a fall which will break ev­ery bone in my skin and put any oth­er climb­ing out of the ques­tion as far as I am con­cerned? Do you un­der­stand that?’

‘No; I do not,’ said Mrs Broughton, in a tremu­lous voice.

‘Then I’ll go and make love at once to Clara Van Siev­er. There’s enough of pluck left in me to ask her to mar­ry me, and I sup­pose I could man­age to go through the cer­emo­ny if she ac­cept­ed me.’

‘But I want you to love her,’ said Mrs Dobbs Broughton.

‘I dare­say I should love her well enough af­ter a bit;–that is, if she didn’t break my head or comb my hair. I sup­pose there will be no ob­jec­tion to my say­ing that you sent me when I ask her?’

‘Con­way, you will of course not men­tion my name to her. I have sug­gest­ed to you a mar­riage which I think would tend to make you hap­py, and would give you a sta­bil­ity in life which you want. It is per­haps bet­ter that I should be ex­plic­it at once. As an un­mar­ried man I can­not con­tin­ue to know you. You have said words of late which have driv­en me to this con­clu­sion. I have thought about it much–too much per­haps, and I know that I am right. Miss Van Siev­er has beau­ty and wealth and in­tel­lect, and I think that she would ap­pre­ci­ate the love of such a man as you are. Now go.’ And Mrs Dobbs Broughton, stand­ing up­right, point­ed to the door. Con­way Dal­rym­ple slow­ly took his Span­ish hat from of the mar­ble slab on which he had laid it, and left the room with­out say­ing a word. The in­ter­view had been quite long enough, and there was noth­ing else which he knew how to say with ef­fect.

Cro­quet is a pret­ty game out of doors, and chess is de­light­ful in a draw­ing-​room. Bat­tle­dore and shut­tle­cock and hunt-​the-​slip­per have al­so their at­trac­tions. Proverbs are good, and cross ques­tions with crooked an­swers may be made very amus­ing. But none of these games are equal to the game of love-​mak­ing–pro­vid­ing that the play­ers can be quite sure that there shall be no heart in the mat­ter. Any touch of heart not on­ly de­stroys the plea­sure of the game, but makes the play­er awk­ward and in­ca­pable and robs him of his skill. And thus it is that there are many peo­ple who can­not play the game at all. A de­fi­cien­cy of some need­ed in­ter­nal phys­ical strength pre­vents the own­ers of the heart from keep­ing a prop­er con­trol over its valves, and thus emo­tion sets in, and the puls­es are ac­cel­er­at­ed, and feel­ing su­per­venes. For such a one to at­tempt the game of love-​mak­ing, is as though your friend with the gout should in­sist on play­ing cro­quet. A sense of the ridicu­lous, if noth­ing else, should in ei­ther case de­ter the af­flict­ed one from the at­tempt. There was no such ab­sur­di­ty with our friend Mrs Dobbs Broughton and Con­way Dal­rym­ple. Their valves and puls­es were all right. They could play the game with­out the slight­est dan­ger of any in­con­ve­nient re­sult;–of any in­con­ve­nient re­sult, that is, as re­gard­ed their own feel­ings. Blind peo­ple can­not see and stupid peo­ple can­not un­der­stand–and it might be that Mr Dobbs Broughton, be­ing both blind and stupid in such mat­ters, might per­ceive some­thing of the play­ing of the game and not know that it was on­ly a game of skill.

When I say that as re­gard­ed these two lovers there was noth­ing of love be­tween them, and that the game was there­fore so far in­no­cent, I would not be un­der­stood as as­sert­ing that these peo­ple had no hearts in their bo­soms. Mrs Dobbs Broughton prob­ably loved her hus­band in a sen­si­ble, hum­drum way, feel­ing him to be a bore, know­ing him to be vul­gar, aware that he of­ten took a good deal more wine than was good for him, and that he was al­most as un­ed­ucat­ed as a hog. Yet she loved him, and showed her love by tak­ing care that he should have things for din­ner which he liked to eat. But in this alone there were to be found none of the charms of a fevered ex­is­tence, and there­fore, Mrs Dobbs Broughton, re­quir­ing those charms for her com­fort, played her lit­tle game with Con­way Dal­rym­ple. And as re­gard­ed the artist him­self let no read­er pre­sume him to have been heart­less be­cause he flirt­ed with Mrs Dobbs Broughton. Doubt­less he will mar­ry some day, and will have a large fam­ily for which he will work hard, and will make a good hus­band to some stout la­dy who will be care­ful in look­ing af­ter his linen. But on the present oc­ca­sion he fell in­to some slight trou­ble in spite of the in­no­cence of his game. As he quit­ted his friend’s room he heard the hall-​door slammed heav­ily; then there was a quick step on the stairs, and on the land­ing-​place above the first flight he met the mas­ter of the house, some­what flur­ried, as it seemed, and not look­ing com­fort­able, ei­ther as re­gard­ed his per­son or his tem­per. ‘By George, he’s been drink­ing!’ Con­way said to him­self, af­ter the first glance. Now it cer­tain­ly was the case that Dobbs Broughton would some­times drink at im­prop­er hours.

‘What the dev­il are you do­ing here?’ said Dobbs Broughton to his friend the artist. ‘You’re al­ways here. You’re here a doosed sight more than I like.’ Hus­bands when they have been drink­ing are very apt to make mis­takes as to the pur­port of the game.

‘Why Dobbs,’ said the painter, ‘there’s some­thing wrong with you.’

‘No, there ain’t. There’s noth­ing wrong; and if there was, what’s that to you? I shan’t ask you to pay any­thing for me, I sup­pose?’

‘Well;–I hope not.’

‘I won’t have you here, and let that be an end of it. It’s all very well when I choose to have a few friends to din­ner, but my wife can do very well with­out your fal-​lalling here all day. Will you re­mem­ber that, if you please?’

Con­way Dal­rym­ple, know­ing that he had bet­ter not ar­gue any ques­tion with a drunk­en man, took him­self out of the house, shrug­ging his shoul­ders as he thought of the mis­ery of which his poor dear playfel­low would now be called on to en­dure.