The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER XXXIX

A NEW FLIR­TA­TION

John Eames sat at his of­fice on the day af­ter his re­turn to Lon­don, and an­swered the var­ious let­ters which he had found wait­ing for him at his lodg­ings on the pre­vi­ous evening. To Miss De­mo­lines he had al­ready writ­ten from his club, a sin­gle line, which he con­sid­ered to be ap­pro­pri­ate to the mys­te­ri­ous ne­ces­si­ties of the oc­ca­sion. ‘I will be with you at a quar­ter to six to­mor­row.–J E. Just re­turned.’ There was not an­oth­er word; and as he scrawled it at one of the club ta­bles while two or three oth­er men were talk­ing to him, he felt rather proud of his cor­re­spon­dence. ‘It was cap­ital fun,’ he said; ‘and af­ter all’–the ‘all’ on this oc­ca­sion be­ing Lily Dale, and the sad­ness of his dis­ap­point­ment at Alling­ton–’af­ter all, let a fel­low be ev­er so down in the mouth, a lit­tle amuse­ment should do him good.’ And he re­flect­ed fur­ther that the more a fel­low be ‘down in the mouth’, the more good the amuse­ment would do him. He sent off his note, there­fore, with some lit­tle in­ward re­joic­ing–and a word of two al­so of spo­ken re­joic­ing. ‘What fun wom­en are some­times,’ he said to one of his friends–a friend with whom he was very in­ti­mate, call­ing him al­ways Fred, and slap­ping his back, but whom he nev­er by any chance saw out of his club.

‘What up to now, John­ny? Some good for­tune?’

‘Good for­tune, no. I nev­er saw good for­tune of that kind. But I’ve got hold of a young wom­an–or rather a young wom­an has got hold of me, who in­sists on hav­ing mys­tery with me. In the mys­tery it­self there is not the slight­est in­ter­est. But the mys­te­ri­ous­ness of it is charm­ing. I have just writ­ten to her three words to set­tle an ap­point­ment for to­mor­row. We don’t sign our names lest the Post­mas­ter Gen­er­al should find out about it.’

‘Is she pret­ty?’

‘Well;–she isn’t ug­ly. She has just enough of good looks to make the sort of thing pass off pleas­ant­ly. A mys­tery with a down­right ug­ly young wom­an would be un­pleas­ant.’

Af­ter this fash­ion the note from Miss De­mo­lines had been re­ceived, and an­swered at once, but the oth­er let­ters re­mained in his pock­et till he reached his of­fice on the fol­low­ing morn­ing. Sir Raf­fle had begged him to be there at half-​past nine. This he had sworn he would not do; but he did seat him­self in his room at ten min­utes be­fore ten, find­ing of course the whole build­ing un­tenant­ed at that ear­ly hour–that un­earth­ly hour, as John­ny called it him­self. ‘I shouldn’t won­der if he re­al­ly is here this morn­ing,’ John­ny said, as he en­tered the build­ing, ‘just that he may have the op­por­tu­ni­ty of jump­ing on me.’ But Sir Raf­fle was not there, and then John­ny be­gan to abuse Sir Raf­fle. ‘If I ev­er come here ear­ly to meet him again, be­cause he says he means to be here him­self, I hope I may be–blessed.’ On that es­pe­cial morn­ing it was twelve be­fore Sir Raf­fle made his ap­pear­ance, and John­ny avenged him­self–I re­gret to have to tell it–by a fib. That Sir Raf­fle fibbed first, was no valid ex­cuse what­ev­er for Eames.

‘I’ve been at it ev­er since six o’clock,’ said Sir Raf­fle.

‘At what?’ said John.

‘Work, to be sure;–and very hard work too. I be­lieve the Chan­cel­lor of the Ex­che­quer thinks that he can call up­on me to any ex­tent that he pleas­es;–just any ex­tent that he pleas­es. He doesn’t give me cred­it for a de­sire to have a sin­gle hour to my­self.’

‘What would he do, Sir Raf­fle, if you were to get ill, or wear your­self out?’

‘He knows I’m not one of the wear­ing-​out sort of men. You got my note last night?’

‘Yes; I got your note.’

‘I’m sor­ry that I trou­bled you; but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t ex­pect to get a box full of pa­pers at eleven o’clock last night.’

‘You didn’t put me out, Sir Raf­fle; I hap­pened to have busi­ness of my own which pre­vent­ed the pos­si­bil­ity of my be­ing here ear­ly.’

This was the way in which John Eames avenged him­self. Sir Raf­fle turned his face up­on his pri­vate sec­re­tary, and his face was very black. John­ny bore the gaze with­out drop­ping an eye­lid. ‘I’m not go­ing to stand it, and he may as well know that at once,’ John­ny said to one of his friends in the of­fice af­ter­wards. ‘If he ev­er wants any­thing re­al­ly done, I’ll do it;–though it should take me twelve hours at a stretch. But I’m not go­ing to pre­tend to be­lieve all the lies he tells me about the Chan­cel­lor of the Ex­che­quer. If that is to be part of the pri­vate sec­re­tary’s busi­ness, he had bet­ter get some­body else.’ But now Sir Raf­fle was very an­gry, and his coun­te­nance was full of wrath as he looked down up­on his sub­or­di­nate min­is­ter. ‘If I had come here, Mr Eames, and had found you ab­sent, I should have been very much an­noyed, very much an­noyed in­deed, af­ter hav­ing writ­ten as I did.’

‘You would have found me ab­sent at the hour you named. As I wasn’t there then, I think it’s on­ly fair to say so.’

‘I’m afraid you be­grudge your time to the ser­vice, Mr Eames.’

‘I do be­grudge it when the ser­vice doesn’t want it.’

‘At your age, Mr Eames, that’s not for you to judge. If I had act­ed in that way when I was young I should nev­er have filled the po­si­tion I now hold. I al­ways re­mem­bered in those days that as I was the hand and not the head, I was bound to hold my­self in readi­ness whether work might be re­quired of me or not.’

‘If I’m want­ed as hand now, Sir Raf­fle, I’m ready.’

‘That’s all very well;–but why were you not here at the hour I named?’

‘Well, Sir Raf­fle, I can­not say that the Chan­cel­lor of the Ex­che­quer de­tained me;–but there was busi­ness. As I’ve been here for the last two hours, I am hap­py to think that in this in­stance the pub­lic ser­vice will not have suf­fered by my dis­obe­di­ence.’

Sir Raf­fle was still stand­ing with his hat on, and with his back to the fire, and his coun­te­nance was full of wrath. It was on his tongue to tell John­ny that he had bet­ter re­turn to his for­mer work in the out­er of­fice. He great­ly want­ed the com­fort of a pri­vate sec­re­tary who would be­lieve in him–or at least pre­tend to be­lieve in him. There are men who, though they have not sense enough to be true, have nev­er­the­less sense enough to know that they can­not ex­pect to be re­al­ly be­lieved in by those who are near enough to them to know them. Sir Raf­fle Buf­fle was such a one. He would have great­ly de­light­ed in the ser­vices of some­one who would trust him im­plic­it­ly–of some young man who would re­al­ly be­lieve all that he said of him­self and of the Chan­cel­lor of the Ex­che­quer; but he was wise enough to per­ceive that no such young man was to be had; or that any such man–could such a one be found–would be ab­so­lute­ly use­less for any pur­pos­es of work. He knew him­self to be a liar whom no­body trust­ed. And he knew him­self al­so to be a bul­ly–though he could not think so low of him­self as to be­lieve that he was a bul­ly whom no­body feared. A pri­vate sec­re­tary was at the least bound to pre­tend to be­lieve in him. There is a de­cen­cy in such things, and that de­cen­cy John Eames did not ob­serve. He thought that he must get rid of John Eames, in spite of cer­tain at­trac­tions which be­longed to John­ny’s ap­pear­ance and gen­er­al man­ners, and so­cial stand­ing, and re­put­ed wealth. But it would not be wise to pun­ish a man on the spot for break­ing an ap­point­ment which he him­self had not kept, and there­fore he would wait for an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty. ‘You had bet­ter go to your own room now,’ he said. ‘I am en­gaged on a mat­ter con­nect­ed with the Trea­sury, in which I will not ask for your as­sis­tance.’ He knew that Eames would not be­lieve a word as to what he said about the Trea­sury–not even some very tri­fling base of truth which did ex­ist; but the boast gave him an op­por­tu­ni­ty of putting an end to the in­ter­view af­ter his own fash­ion. Then John Eames went to his own room and an­swered the let­ters which he had in his pock­et.

To the club din­ner he would not go. ‘What’s the use of pay­ing two guineas for a din­ner with fel­lows you see ev­ery day of your life?’ he said. To La­dy Glen­co­ra’s he would go, and he wrote a line to his friend Dal­rym­ple propos­ing that they should go to­geth­er. And he would dine with his cousin Too­good in Tavi­stock Square. ‘One meets the queer­est peo­ple in the world there,’ he said; ‘but Tom­my Too­good is such a good fel­low him­self!’ Af­ter that he had his lunch. Then he read the pa­per, and be­fore he went away he wrote a dozen or two of pri­vate notes, pre­sent­ing Sir Raf­fle’s com­pli­ments right and left, and giv­ing in no one note a sin­gle word of in­for­ma­tion that could be of any use to any per­son. Hav­ing thus earned his salary by half-​past four o’clock he got in­to a han­som cab and had him­self driv­en to Porch­ester Ter­race. Miss De­mo­lines was at home, of course, and he soon found him­self clos­et­ed with that in­ter­est­ing young wom­an.

‘I thought you nev­er would have come.’ These were the first words she spoke.

‘My dear Miss De­mo­lines, you must not for­get that I have my bread to earn.’

‘Fid­dle­sticks!–Bread! As if I didn’t know that you can get away from your of­fice when you choose.’

‘But, in­deed, I can­not.’

‘What is there to pre­vent you, Mr Eames?’

‘I’m not tied up like a dog, cer­tain­ly; but who do you sup­pose will do my work if I do not do it my­self? It is a fact, though the world does not be­lieve it, that men in pub­lic of­fices have some­thing to do.’

‘Now you are laugh­ing at me, I know; but you are wel­come, if you like it. It’s the way of the world just at present that ladies should sub­mit to that sort of thing from gen­tle­men.’

‘What sort of thing, Miss De­mo­lines?’

‘Chaff, as you call it. Cour­tesy is out of fash­ion, and gal­lantry has come to sig­ni­fy quite a dif­fer­ent kind of thing from what it used to do.’

‘The Sir Charles Gran­di­son busi­ness is done and gone. That’s what you mean, I sup­pose? Don’t you think we should find it very heavy if we tried to get it back again?’

‘I’m not go­ing to ask you to be a Sir Charles Gran­di­son, Mr Eames. But nev­er mind all that now. Do you know that that girl has ab­so­lute­ly had her first sit­ting for the pic­ture?’

‘Has she, in­deed?’

‘She has. You may take my word for it. I know it as a fact. What a fool that young man is!’

‘Which young man?’

‘Which young man! Con­way Dal­rym­ple to be sure. Artists are al­ways weak. Of all men in the world they are the most sub­ject to flat­tery from wom­en; and we all know that Con­way Dal­rym­ple is very vain.’

‘Up­on my word I didn’t know it,’ said John­ny.

‘Yes, you do. You must know it. When a man goes about in a pur­ple vel­vet coat of course he is vain.’

‘I cer­tain­ly can­not de­fend a pur­ple vel­vet coat.’

‘That is what he wore when this girl sat to him this morn­ing.’

‘This morn­ing was it?’

‘Yes, this morn­ing. They lit­tle think that they can do noth­ing with­out my know­ing it. He was there for near­ly four hours, and she was dressed up in a white robe as Jael, with a tur­ban on her head. Jael in­deed! I call it very im­prop­er, and I am quite as­ton­ished that Maria Clut­ter­buck should have lent her­self to such a piece of work. That Maria was nev­er very wise, of course we all know; but I thought that she had prin­ci­ple enough to have kept her from this kind of thing.’

‘It’s her fevered ex­is­tence,’ said John­ny.

‘That’s just it. She must have ex­cite­ment. It is like dram-​drink­ing. And then, you know, they are al­ways liv­ing in the crater of a vol­cano.’

‘Who are liv­ing in the crater of a vol­cano?’

‘The Dobbs Broughtons are. Of course they are. There is no say­ing what day a smash may come. They City peo­ple get so used to it that they en­joy it. The risk is ev­ery­thing to them.’

‘They like to have a lit­tle cer­tain­ty be­hind the risk, I fan­cy.’

‘I’m afraid there is very lit­tle that’s cer­tain with Dobbs Broughton. But about this pic­ture, Mr Eames. I look to you to as­sist me there. It must be put a stop to. As to that I am de­ter­mined. It must be–put a–stop to.’ And as Miss De­mo­lines re­peat­ed these last words with a tremen­dous em­pha­sis she leant with both her el­bows on a lit­tle ta­ble that stood be­tween her and her vis­itor, and looked with all her eyes in­to his face. ‘I do hope that you agree with me in that,’ said she.

‘Up­on my word I do not see the harm of the pic­ture,’ said he.

‘You do not?’

‘In­deed no. Why should not Dal­rym­ple paint Miss Van Siev­er as well as any oth­er la­dy? It is his spe­cial busi­ness to paint ladies.’

‘Look here, Mr Eames–’ And now Miss De­mo­lines, as she spoke drew her own seat clos­er to that of her com­pan­ion and pushed away the lit­tle ta­ble. ‘Do you sup­pose that Con­way Dal­rym­ple, in the usu­al way of his busi­ness, paints pic­tures of young ladies of which their moth­ers know noth­ing? Do you sup­pose that he paints them in ladies’ rooms with­out their hus­bands’ knowl­edge? And in the com­mon way of his busi­ness does he not ex­pect to be paid for his pic­tures?’

‘But what is all that to you and me, Miss De­mo­lines?’

‘Is the wel­fare of your friend noth­ing to you? Would you like to see him be­come the vic­tim of the ar­ti­fice of such a girl as Clara Van Siev­er?’

‘Up­on my word I think he is very well able to take care of him­self.’

‘And would you wish to see that poor crea­ture’s do­mes­tic hearth ru­ined and bro­ken up?’

‘Which poor crea­ture?’

‘Dobbs Broughton, to be sure.’

‘I can’t pre­tend that I care very much for Dobbs Broughton,’ said John Eames; ‘and you see I know so lit­tle about his do­mes­tic hearth.’

‘Oh, Mr Eames!’

‘Be­sides, her prin­ci­ples will pull her through. You told me your­self that Mrs Dobbs Broughton had high prin­ci­ples.’

‘God for­bid that I should say a word against Maria Clut­ter­buck,’ said Miss De­mo­lines fer­vent­ly. ‘Maria Clut­ter­buck was my ear­ly friend, and though words have been spo­ken which nev­er should have been spo­ken, and though things have been done which nev­er should have been dreamed of, still I will not desert Maria Clut­ter­buck in her hour of need. No, nev­er!’

‘I’m sure you’re what one may call a trump to your friends, Miss De­mo­lines.’

‘I have en­deav­oured to be so, and al­ways shall. You will find me so;–that is if you and I ev­er be­come in­ti­mate enough to feel that sort of friend­ship.’

‘There is noth­ing on earth I should like bet­ter,’ said John­ny. As soon as these words were out of his mouth, he felt ashamed of him­self. He knew that he did not in truth de­sire the friend­ship of Miss De­mo­lines, and that any friend­ship with such a one would mean some­thing dif­fer­ent from friend­ship–some­thing that would be an in­jury to Lily Dale. A week had hard­ly passed since he had sworn a life’s con­stan­cy to Lily Dale–had sworn it, not to her on­ly, but to him­self; and now he was giv­ing way to a flir­ta­tion with this wom­an, not be­cause he liked it him­self, but be­cause he was too weak to keep out of it.’

‘If that is true–’ said Miss De­mo­lines.

‘Oh, yes; it is quite true,’ said John­ny.

‘Then you must earn my friend­ship by do­ing what I ask of you. That pic­ture must not be paint­ed. You must tell Con­way Dal­rym­ple as his friend that he must cease to car­ry on such an in­trigue in an­oth­er man’s house.’

‘You would hard­ly call paint­ing a pic­ture an in­trigue; would you?’

‘Cer­tain­ly I would when it’s kept a se­cret from the hus­band by the wife–and from the moth­er by the daugh­ter. If it can­not be stopped in any oth­er way, I must tell Mrs Van Siev­er;–I must, in­deed. I have such an ab­hor­rence of the old wom­an, that I could not bring my­self to speak to her–but I should write to her. That’s what I should do.’

‘But what’s the rea­son? You might as tell me the re­al rea­son.’ Had Miss De­mo­lines been chris­tened Mary, or Fan­ny, or Jane, I think that John Eames would now have called her by ei­ther of those names; but Madali­na was such a mouth­ful that he could not bring him­self to use it at once. He had heard that among her in­ti­mates she was called Mad­dy. He had an idea that he had heard Dal­rym­ple in old times talk of her as Mad­dy Mullins, and just at this mo­ment the idea was not pleas­ant to him; at any rate he could not call her Mad­dy as yet. ‘How am I to help you,’ he said, ‘un­less I know all about it?’

‘I hate that girl like poi­son!’ said Miss De­mo­lines, con­fi­den­tial­ly, draw­ing her­self very near to John­ny as she spoke.

‘But what has she done?’

‘What has she done? I can’t tell you what she has done. I could not de­mean my­self by re­peat­ing it. Of course we all know what she wants. She wants to catch Con­way Dal­rym­ple. That’s as plain as any­thing can be. Not that I care about that.’

‘Of course not,’ said John­ny.

‘Not in the least. It’s noth­ing to me. I have known Con­way Dal­rym­ple, no doubt, for a year or two, and I should be sor­ry to see a young man who has his good points sac­ri­ficed in that sort of way. But it is mere ac­quain­tance be­tween Mr Dal­rym­ple and me, and of course I can­not in­ter­fere.’

‘She’ll have a lot of mon­ey, you know.’

‘He thinks so; does he? I sup­pose that is what Maria has told him. Oh, Mr Eames, you don’t know the mean­ness of wom­en; you don’t in­deed. Men are so much more no­ble.’

‘Are they, do you think?’

‘Than some wom­en. I see wom­en do­ing things that re­al­ly dis­gust me; I do in­deed;–things that I wouldn’t do my­self, were it ev­er so;–striv­ing to catch men in ev­ery pos­si­ble way, and for such pur­pos­es! I wouldn’t have be­lieved it of Maria Clut­ter­buck. I wouldn’t in­deed. How­ev­er I will nev­er say a word against her, be­cause she has been my friend. Noth­ing shall ev­er in­duce me.’

John Eames be­fore he left Porch­ester Ter­race, had at last suc­ceed­ed in call­ing his fair friend Madali­na, and had promised that he would en­deav­our to open the artist’s eyes to the fol­ly of paint­ing his pic­ture in Broughton’s house with­out Broughton’s knowl­edge.