The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER XXXVIII

JAEL

On the first of March, Con­way Dal­rym­ple’s easel was put up in Mrs Dobbs Broughton’s boudoir up­stairs, the can­vas was placed up­on it on which the out­lines of Jael and Sis­era had been al­ready drawn, and Mrs Broughton and Clara Van Siev­er and Con­way Dal­rym­ple were as­sem­bled with the view of steady art-​work. But be­fore we see how they be­gan their work to­geth­er, we will go back for a mo­ment to John Eames on his re­turn to his Lon­don lodg­ings. The first thing ev­ery man does when he re­turns home af­ter an ab­sence, is to look for his let­ters, and John Eames looked at his. There were not very many. There was a note marked im­me­di­ate from Sir Raf­fle Buf­fle, in which Sir R had scrawled in four lines a no­ti­fi­ca­tion that he should be driv­en to an ex­trem­ity of in­con­ve­nience if Eames were not at his post at half-​past nine on the fol­low­ing morn­ing. ‘I think I see my­self there at that hour,’ said John. There was a no­ti­fi­ca­tion of a house din­ner, which he was asked to join, at his club, and a card for an evening gath­er­ing at La­dy Glen­co­ra Pal­lis­er’s–pro­cured for him by his friend Con­way–and an in­vi­ta­tion for din­ner at the house of his un­cle Mr Too­good; and there was a scent­ed note in the hand­writ­ing of a la­dy, which he did not recog­nise. ‘My dear­est, dear­est friend, M D M,’ he said, as he opened the note and looked at the sig­na­ture. Then he read the let­ter from Miss De­mo­lines.

‘MY DEAR MR EAMES, ‘Pray come to me at once. I know that you are to be back to­mor­row. Do not lose an hour if you can help it. I shall be at home at half-​past five. I fear what you know of has be­gun. But it cer­tain­ly shall not go on. In one way or an­oth­er it must be pre­vent­ed. I won’t say an­oth­er word till I see you, but pray come at once–Yours al­ways,

‘Thurs­day.’ M D M’

‘Poor moth­er isn’t very well, so you had bet­ter ask for me.’

‘Beau­ti­ful!’ said John­ny, as he read the note. ‘There’s noth­ing I like so much as a mys­tery–es­pe­cial­ly if it’s about noth­ing. I won­der why she is so des­per­ate­ly anx­ious that the pic­ture should not be paint­ed. I’d ask Dal­rym­ple, on­ly I should spoil the mys­tery.’ Then he sat him­self down, and be­gan to think of Lily. There could be no trea­son to Lily in his amus­ing him­self with the freaks of such a wom­an as Miss De­mo­lines.

At eleven o’clock on the morn­ing of the first of March–the day fol­low­ing that on which Miss De­mo­lines had writ­ten her note–the easel was put up and the can­vas was placed on it in Mrs Broughton’s room. Mrs Broughton and Clara were both there, and when they had seen the out­lines as far as it had been drawn, they pro­ceed­ed to make ar­range­ments for their fu­ture op­er­ations. The pe­ri­od of work was to be­gin al­ways at eleven, and was to be con­tin­ued for an hour and a half or for two hours on the days on which they met. I fear that there was a lit­tle im­prop­er schem­ing in this against the two per­sons whom the ladies were bound to obey. Mr Dobbs Broughton in­vari­ably left his house af­ter ten in the morn­ing. It would some­times hap­pen, though not fre­quent­ly, that he re­turned home ear­ly in the day–at four per­haps, or even be­fore that; and should he chance to do so while the pic­ture was go­ing on, he would catch them at their work if the work were post­poned till af­ter lun­cheon. And then again Mrs Van Siev­er would of­ten go out in the morn­ing, and when she did so, would al­ways go with­out her daugh­ter. On such oc­ca­sion she went in­to the City, or to oth­er re­sorts of busi­ness, at which, in some man­ner quite un­in­tel­li­gi­ble to her daugh­ter, she looked af­ter her mon­ey. But when she did not go out in the morn­ing, she did go out in the af­ter­noon, and she would then re­quire her daugh­ter’s com­pa­ny. There was some place to which she al­ways went of a Fri­day morn­ing, and at which she stayed for two or three hours. Fri­day there­fore was a fit­ting day on which to be­gin the work at Mrs Broughton’s house. All this was ex­plained be­tween the three con­spir­ators. Mrs Dobbs Broughton de­clared that if she en­ter­tained the slight­est idea that her hus­band would ob­ject to the paint­ing of the pic­ture in her room, noth­ing on earth would in­duce her to lend her coun­te­nance to it; but yet it might be well not to tell him just at first, per­haps not till the sit­tings were over–per­haps not till the pic­ture was fin­ished; as oth­er­wise, tid­ings of the pic­ture might get round to ears which were not in­tend­ed to hear it. ‘Poor dear Dobbs is so care­less with a se­cret.’ Miss Van Siev­er ex­plained her mo­tives in a dif­fer­ent way. ‘I know mam­ma would not let me do it if she knew it; and there­fore I shall not tell her.’ ‘My dear Clara,’ said Mrs Broughton with a smile ‘you are so out­spo­ken!’ ‘And why not?’ said Miss Van Siev­er. ‘I am old enough to judge for my­self. If mam­ma does not want me to be de­ceived, she ought not to treat me as a child. Of course she’ll find it out soon­er or lat­er; but I don’t care about that.’ Con­way Dal­rym­ple said noth­ing as the two ladies were thus ex­cus­ing them­selves. ‘How de­light­ful it must be not to have a mas­ter,’ said Mrs Broughton, ad­dress­ing him. ‘But then a man has to work for his own bread,’ said he. ‘I sup­pose it comes about equal in the long run.’

Very lit­tle draw­ing or paint­ing was done on that day. In the first place it was nec­es­sary that the ques­tion of cos­tume should be set­tled, and both Mrs Broughton and the artist had much to say on that sub­ject. It was con­sid­ered prop­er that Jael should be dressed as a Jew­ess, and there came to be much ques­tion how Jew­ess­es dressed them­selves in those very ear­ly days. Mrs Broughton had pre­pared her jew­els and rai­ment of many colours, but the painter de­clared that the wife of Heber the Ken­ite would have no jew­els. But when Mrs Broughton dis­cov­ered from her Bible that Heber had been con­nect­ed by fam­ily ties with Moses, she was more than ev­er sure that Heber’s wife would have much in her tent of the spoil­ings of the Egyp­tians. And when Clara Van Siev­er sug­gest­ed that at any rate she would not have worn them in a time of con­fu­sion when sol­diers were loose, fly­ing about the coun­try, Mrs Broughton was quite con­fi­dent that she would have put them on be­fore she in­vit­ed the cap­tain of the en­emy’s host in­to her tent. The artist at last took the mat­ter in­to his own hand, by declar­ing that Miss Van Siev­er would sit the sub­ject much bet­ter with­out jew­els, and there­fore all Mrs Broughton’s gew­gaws were put back in­to their box­es. And then on four dif­fer­ent times the two ladies had to re­tire in­to Mrs Broughton’s room in or­der that Jael might be ar­rayed in var­ious cos­tumes–and in each cos­tume she had to kneel down, tak­ing the ham­mer in her hand, and hold­ing the point­ed stick which had been pre­pared to do du­ty as the nail, up­on the fore­head of the dum­my Sis­era. At last it was de­cid­ed that her rai­ment should be al­to­geth­er white, and that she should wear, twist­ed round her head and falling over her shoul­der, a Ro­man silk scarf of var­ious colours. ‘Where Jael could have got­ten it I don’t know,’ said Clara. ‘You may be sure that there were lots of such things among the Egyp­tians,’ said Mrs Broughton, ‘and that Moses brought away all the best for his own fam­ily.’

‘And who is to be Sis­era?’ asked Mrs Broughton in one of the paus­es in their work.’

‘I’m think­ing of ask­ing my friend John Eames to sit.’

‘Of course we can­not sit to­geth­er,’ said Miss Van Siev­er.

‘There’s no rea­son why you should,’ said Dal­rym­ple. ‘I can do the sec­ond fig­ure in my own room.’ Then there was a bar­gain made that Sis­era should not be a por­trait. ‘It would nev­er do,’ said Mrs Broughton, shak­ing her head very grave­ly.

Though there was re­al­ly very lit­tle done to the pic­ture on that day, the work was com­menced; and Mrs Broughton, who had at first ob­ject­ed strong­ly to the idea, and who had said twen­ty times that it was quite out of the ques­tion that it should be done her house, be­came very ea­ger in her de­light about it. No­body should know any­thing of the pic­ture till it should be ex­hib­it­ed. That would be best. And it should be the pic­ture of the year! She was a lit­tle heart-​bro­ken when Dal­rym­ple as­sured her that it could not pos­si­ble be fin­ished for ex­hi­bi­tion in that May; but she came to again when he de­clared that he meant to put out all his strength up­on it. ‘There will be five or six months’ work in it,’ he said. ‘Will there, in­deed? And how much work was there in “The Graces”?’ ‘The Graces’, as will per­haps be re­mem­bered, was the triple por­trait of Mrs Dobbs Broughton her­self. This ques­tion the artist did not an­swer with ab­so­lute ac­cu­ra­cy, but con­tent­ed him­self with declar­ing that with such a mod­el as Mrs Broughton the pic­ture had been com­par­ative­ly easy,

Mrs Broughton, hav­ing no doubt that ul­ti­mate ob­ject of which she had spo­ken to her friend Con­way steadi­ly in view, took oc­ca­sion be­fore the sit­ting was over to leave the room, so that the artist might have an op­por­tu­ni­ty of speak­ing a word in pri­vate to his mod­el–if he had any such word to speak. And Mrs Broughton, as she did this, felt that she was do­ing her du­ty as a wife, a friend, and a Chris­tian. She was do­ing her du­ty as a wife, be­cause she was giv­ing the clear­est proof in the world–the clear­est at any rate to her­self–that the in­ti­ma­cy be­tween her­self and her friend Con­way had in it noth­ing that was im­prop­er. And she was do­ing her du­ty as a friend, be­cause Clara Van Siev­er, with her large ex­pec­ta­tions, would be an el­igi­ble wife. And she was do­ing her du­ty as a Chris­tian, be­cause the whole thing was in­tend­ed to be moral. Miss De­mo­lines had de­clared that her friend Maria Clut­ter­buck–as Miss De­mo­lines de­light­ed to call Mrs Broughton, in mem­ory of dear old in­no­cent days–had high prin­ci­ples; and the read­er will see that she was jus­ti­fied in her dec­la­ra­tion. ‘It will be bet­ter so,’ said Mrs Broughton, as she sat up­on her bed and wiped a tear from the cor­ner of her eye. ‘Yes; it will be bet­ter so. There is a pang. Of course there’s a pang. But it will be bet­ter so.’ Act­ing up­on this high prin­ci­ple, she al­lowed Con­way Dal­rym­ple five min­utes to say what he had to say to Clara Van Siev­er. Then she al­lowed her­self to in­dulge in some very sav­age feel­ings in ref­er­ence to her hus­band–ac­cus­ing her hus­band in her thoughts of great cru­el­ty–nay, of bru­tal­ity, be­cause of cer­tain sharp words that he had said as to Con­way Dal­rym­ple. ‘But of course he can’t un­der­stand,’ said Mrs Broughton to her­self. ‘How is it to be ex­pect­ed that he should un­der­stand?’

But she al­lowed her friend on this oc­ca­sion on­ly five min­utes, think­ing prob­ably that so much time might suf­fice. A wom­an, when she is jeal­ous, is apt to at­tribute to oth­er wom­an with whom her jeal­ousy is con­cerned, both weak­ness and timid­ity, and to the man both au­dac­ity and strength. A wom­an who has her­self tak­en per­haps twelve months in the win­ning, will think that an­oth­er wom­an is to be won in five min­utes. It is not to be sup­posed that Mrs Dobbs Broughton had ev­er been won by any­one ex­cept Mr Dobbs Broughton. At least, let it not be sup­posed that she had ev­er ac­knowl­edged a spark of love for Con­way Da­lym­ple. But nev­er­the­less there was enough of jeal­ousy in her present mood to make her think poor­ly of Miss Van Siev­er’s ca­pac­ity for stand­ing a siege against the artist’s elo­quence. Oth­er­wise, hav­ing left the two to­geth­er with the ob­ject which she had ac­knowl­edged to her­self, she would hard­ly have re­turned to them af­ter so short an in­ter­val.

‘I hope you won’t dis­like the trou­ble of all this?’ said Dal­rym­ple to his mod­el, as soon as Mrs Broughton was gone.

‘I can­not say that I like it very much,’ said Miss Van Siev­er.

‘I’m afraid it will be a bore;–but I hope you’ll go through with it.’

‘I shall if I am not pre­vent­ed,’ said Miss Van Siev­er. ‘When I’ve said that I’ll do a thing, I like to do it.’

There was a pause in the con­ver­sa­tion which took up a con­sid­er­able por­tion of the five min­utes. Miss Van Siev­er was not hold­ing her nail dur­ing those mo­ments, but was sit­ting in a com­mon­place way on her chair, while Dal­rym­ple was scrap­ing his palette. ‘I won­der what it was that first in­duced you to sit?’ said he.

‘Oh, I don’t know. I took a fan­cy for it.’

‘I’m very glad you did take the fan­cy. You’ll make an ex­cel­lent mod­el. If you won’t mind pos­ing again for a few min­utes–I will not weary you to­day. Your right arm a lit­tle more for­ward.’

‘But I should tum­ble down.’

‘Not if you lean well on the nail.’

‘But that would have wo­ken Sis­era be­fore she had struck a blow.’

‘Nev­er mind. Let us try it.’ Then Mrs Broughton re­turned, with that pleas­ant feel­ing in her bo­som of hav­ing done her du­ty as a wife, friend, and a Chris­tian. ‘Mrs Broughton,’ con­tin­ued the painter, ‘just steady Miss Van Siev­er’s shoul­der with your hand; and now bring the arm and the el­bow a lit­tle more for­ward.’

‘But Jael did not have a friend to help her in that way,’ said Miss Van Siev­er.

At the end of an hour and a half the two ladies re­tired, and Jael dis­robed her­self, and Miss Van Siev­er put on her cus­tom­ary rai­ment. It was agreed among them that they had com­menced their work aus­pi­cious­ly, and that they would meet again on the fol­low­ing Mon­day. The artist begged to be al­lowed an hour to go on with his work in Mrs Broughton’s room, and thus the hour was con­ced­ed to him. It was un­der­stood that he could not take the can­vas back­wards and for­wards with him to his own house, and he point­ed out that no progress what­ev­er could be made, un­less he were oc­ca­sion­al­ly al­lowed some such grace as this. Mrs Broughton doubt­ed and hes­itat­ed, made dif­fi­cul­ties, and lift­ed up her hands in de­spair. ‘It is easy for you to say, Why not? but I know very well why not?’ But at last she gave way. ‘Honi soit qui mal y pense,’ she said; ‘that must be my pro­tec­tion.’ So she fol­lowed Miss Van Siev­er down­stairs, leav­ing Mr Dal­rym­ple in pos­ses­sion of her boudoir. ‘I shall give you just one hour,’ she said, ‘and then I shall come and turn you out.’ So she went down, and, as Miss Van Siev­er would not stay to lunch with her, she ate her lunch by her­self, send­ing a glass of sher­ry and a bis­cuit up to the poor painter at his work.

Ex­act­ly at the end of the hour she re­turned to him. ‘Now, Con­way, you must go,’ she said.

‘But why in such a hur­ry?’

‘Be­cause I say that it must be so. When I say so, pray let that be suf­fi­cient.’ But still Dal­rym­ple went on paint­ing.

‘Con­way,’ she said, ‘how can you treat me with such dis­dain?’

‘Dis­dain, Mrs Broughton!’

‘Yes, dis­dain. Have I not begged you to un­der­stand that I can­not al­low you to re­main here, and yet you pay no at­ten­tion to my wish­es.’

‘I have done now’; and he be­gan to put his brush­es and paints to­geth­er. ‘I sup­pose all these things may re­main here?’

‘Yes; they may re­main. They must do so, of course. There; if you will put the easel in the cor­ner, with the can­vas be­hind it, they will not be seen if he should chance to come in­to the room.’

‘He would not be an­gry, I sup­pose, if he should see them?’

‘There is no know­ing. Men are so un­rea­son­able. All men are, I think. All those are whom I have had the for­tune to know. Wom­en gen­er­al­ly say that men are self­ish. I do not com­plain so much that they are self­ish as that they are thought­less. They are head­strong and do not look for­ward to re­sults. Now you–I do not think you would will­ing­ly do me an in­jury?’

‘I do not think I would.’

‘I am sure you would not;–but yet you would for­get to save me from one.’

‘What in­jury?’

‘Oh, nev­er mind. I am not think­ing of any­thing in par­tic­ular. From my­self, for in­stance. But we will not talk about that. That way mad­ness lies. Tell me, Con­way;–what do you think of Clara Van Siev­er?’

‘She is very hand­some, cer­tain­ly.’

‘And clever?’

‘De­cid­ed­ly clever. I should think she has a tem­per of her own.’

‘What wom­an is there worth a straw that has not? If Clara Van Siev­er were ill-​used, she would re­sent it. I do not doubt that for a mo­ment. I should not like to be the man who would do it.’

‘Nor I, ei­ther,’ said Con­way.

‘But there is plen­ty of fem­inine soft­ness in that char­ac­ter, if she were treat­ed with love and kind­ness. Con­way, if you will take my ad­vice you will ask Clara Van Siev­er to be your wife. But per­haps you have al­ready.’

‘Who; I?’

‘Yes; you.’

‘I have not done it yet, cer­tain­ly, Mrs Broughton.’

‘And why should you not do it?’

‘There are two or three rea­sons;–but per­haps none of any great im­por­tance. Do you know of none, Mrs Broughton?’

‘I know of none,’ said Mrs Broughton in a very se­ri­ous–in al­most a trag­ic tone;–’of none that should weigh for a mo­ment. As far as I am con­cerned, noth­ing would give me more plea­sure.’

‘That is so kind of you!’

‘I mean to be kind. I do, in­deed, Con­way. I know it will be bet­ter for you that you should be set­tled–very much bet­ter. And it will be bet­ter for me. I do not mind ad­mit­ting that;–though in say­ing so I trust great­ly to your gen­eros­ity to in­ter­pret my words prop­er­ly.’

‘I shall not flat­ter my­self, if you mean that.’

‘There is no ques­tion of flat­tery, Con­way. The ques­tion is sim­ply of truth and pru­dence. Do you not know that it would be bet­ter for your­self that you should be mar­ried?’

‘Not un­less a cer­tain gen­tle­man were to die first,’ said Con­way Dal­rym­ple, as he de­posit­ed the last of his paint­ing para­pher­na­lia in the re­cess which had been pre­pared for them by Mrs Broughton.

‘Con­way, how can you speak in that wicked, wicked way?’

‘I can as­sure that I do not wish the gen­tle­man in ques­tion the slight­est harm in the world. If his wel­fare de­pend­ed on me, he should be safe as the Bank of Eng­land.’

‘And you will not take my ad­vice?’

‘What ad­vice?’

‘About Clara?’

‘Mrs Broughton, mat­ri­mo­ny is a very im­por­tant thing.’

‘In­deed, it is;–oh, who can say how im­por­tant! There was a time, Con­way, when I thought that you had giv­en your heart to Madeli­na De­mo­lines.’

‘Heav­en for­bid!’

‘And I grieved, be­cause I thought that she was not wor­thy of you.’

‘There was nev­er any­thing in that, Mrs Broughton.’

‘She thought that there was. At any rate, she said so. I know that for cer­tain. She told me so her­self. But let that pass. Clara Van Siev­er is in ev­ery re­spect very dif­fer­ent from Madali­na. Clara, I think, is wor­thy of you. And Con­way–of course it is not for me to dic­tate to you; but this I must tell you–’

‘What must you tell me?’

‘I will tell you noth­ing more. If you can­not un­der­stand what I have said, you must be more dull of com­pre­hen­sion than I be­lieve you to be. Now go. Why are you not gone this half-​hour?’

‘How could I go while you were giv­ing me all this good ad­vice?’

‘I have not asked you to stay. Go now, at any rate. And, re­mem­ber, Con­way, if this pic­ture is to go on, I will not have you re­main­ing here af­ter the work is done. Will you re­mem­ber that?’ And she held him by the hand while he de­clared that he would re­mem­ber it.

Mrs Dobbs Broughton was no more in love with Con­way Dal­rym­ple than she was in love with King Charles on horse­back at Char­ing Cross. And, over and be­yond the pro­tec­tion which came to her in the course of na­ture from im­pas­sioned feel­ings in this spe­cial phase of her life–and in­deed, if I may say, in ev­ery phase of her life–it must be ac­knowl­edged on her be­half that she did en­joy that pro­tec­tion which comes from what we call prin­ci­ple–though the prin­ci­ple was not per­haps very high of its kind. Madali­na De­mo­lines had been right when she talked of her friend Maria’s prin­ci­ples. Dobbs Broughton had been so far lucky in that jump in the dark which he had made in tak­ing a wife to him­self, that he had not fall­en up­on a re­al­ly vi­cious wom­an, or up­on a wom­an of strong feel­ing. It had come to be the lot of Mrs Dobbs Broughton to have six hours’ work ev­ery day of her life, I think that the work would have been done bad­ly, but that it would have kept her free from all dan­ger. As it was she had noth­ing to do. She had no child. She was not giv­en to much read­ing. She could not sit with a nee­dle in her hand all day. She had no ap­ti­tude for May meet­ings, or the ex­cite­ment of char­ita­ble good works. Life with her was very dull, and she found no amuse­ment with­in her reach so easy and so pleas­ant as the amuse­ment of pre­tend­ing to be in love. If all that she did and all that she said could on­ly have been tak­en for its worth and for noth­ing more, by the dif­fer­ent per­sons con­cerned, there was very lit­tle in it to flat­ter Mr Dal­rym­ple or to give cause for tribu­la­tion to Mr Broughton. She prob­ably cared but lit­tle for ei­ther of them. She was one of those wom­en to whom it is not giv­en by na­ture to care very much for any­body. But, of the two, she cer­tain­ly cared the most for Mr Dobbs Broughton–be­cause Mr Dobbs Broughton be­longed to her. As to leav­ing Mr Dobbs Broughton’s house, and putting her­self in­to the hands of an­oth­er man–no Imo­gen of a wife was ev­er less like­ly to take step so wicked, so dan­ger­ous, and so gen­er­al­ly dis­agree­able to all the par­ties con­cerned.

But Con­way Dal­rym­ple–though now and again he had got a side glance at her true char­ac­ter with a clear-​see­ing eye–did al­low him­self to be flat­tered and de­ceived. He knew that she was fool­ish and ig­no­rant, and that she of­ten talked won­der­ful non­sense. He knew al­so that she was con­tin­ual­ly con­tra­dict­ing her­self–as when she would stren­uous­ly beg him to leave her, while she would con­tin­ue to talk to him in a strain that pre­vent­ed the pos­si­bil­ity of his go­ing. But, nev­er­the­less, he was flat­tered, and he did be­lieve that she loved him. As to his love for her–he knew very well that it amount­ed to noth­ing. Now and again, per­haps, twice a week, if he saw her as of­ten, he would say some­thing which would im­ply a dec­la­ra­tion of af­fec­tion. He felt that as much as that was ex­pect­ed from him, and that he ought not to hope to get off cheap­er. And now that this lit­tle play was go­ing on about Miss Van Siev­er, he did think that Mrs Dobbs Broughton was do­ing her very best to over­come an un­for­tu­nate at­tach­ment. It is so grat­ify­ing to a young man’s feel­ings to sup­pose that an­oth­er man’s wife has con­ceived an un­for­tu­nate at­tach­ment for him! Con­way Dal­rym­ple ought not to have been fooled by such a wom­an; but I fear that he was fooled by her.

As he re­turned home to­day from Mrs Broughton’s house to his own lodg­ings he ram­bled out for a while in­to Kens­ing­ton Gar­dens, and thought of his po­si­tion se­ri­ous­ly. ‘I don’t see why I should not mar­ry her,’ he said to him­self, think­ing of course of Miss Van Siev­er. ‘If Maria is not in earnest it is not my fault. And it would be my wish that she should be in earnest. If I sup­pose her to be so, and take her at her word, she can have no right to quar­rel with me. Poor Maria! At any rate it will be bet­ter for her, for no good can come of this kind of thing. And, by heav­ens, with a wom­an like that, of strong feel­ings, one nev­er knows what may hap­pen.’ And then he thought of the con­di­tion he would be in, if he were to find her some fine day in his own rooms, and if she were to tell him that she could not go home again, and that she meant to re­main with him!

In the mean­time Mrs Dobbs Broughton has gone down in­to her own draw­ing-​room, had tucked her­self up on the so­fa, and had fall­en fast asleep.