The Last Chronicle of Barset

CHAPTER LI

MRS DOBBS BROUGHTON PILES HER FAG­GOTS

The pic­ture still pro­gressed up in Mrs Dobbs Broughton’s room, and the se­cret was still kept, or sup­posed to be kept. Miss Van Siev­er was, at any rate, cer­tain that her moth­er had heard noth­ing of it, and Mrs Broughton re­port­ed from day to day that her hus­band had not as yet in­ter­fered. Nev­er­the­less there was in these days a great gloom up­on the Dobbs Broughton house­hold, so much so that Con­way Dal­rym­ple had more than once sug­gest­ed to Mrs Broughton that the work should be dis­con­tin­ued. But the mis­tress of the house would not con­sent to this. In an­swer to these of­fers, she was wont to de­clare in some­what mys­te­ri­ous lan­guage, that any mis­ery com­ing up­on her­self was a mat­ter of mo­ment to no­body–hard­ly even to her­self, as she was quite pre­pared to en­counter moral and so­cial death with­out de­lay, if not an ab­so­lute phys­ical demise; as to which lat­ter al­ter­na­tive, she seemed to think that even that might not be so far dis­tant as some peo­ple chose to be­lieve. What was the cause of the gloom over the house nei­ther Con­way Dal­rym­ple nor Miss Van Siev­er un­der­stood, and to speak the truth Mrs Broughton did not quite un­der­stand the cause her­self. She knew well enough, no doubt, that her hus­band came home al­ways sullen, and some­times tip­sy, and that things were not go­ing well in the City. She had nev­er un­der­stood much about the City, be­ing sat­is­fied with an as­sur­ance that had come to her in the ear­ly days from her friends, that there was a mine of wealth in Hook Court, from whence would al­ways come for her use, house and fur­ni­ture, a car­riage and some hors­es, dress­es and jew­els, which lat­ter, if not quite re­al, should be man­ufac­tured with the best sham sub­sti­tute known. Soon af­ter her bril­liant mar­riage with Mr Dobbs Broughton, she had dis­cov­ered that the car­riage and hors­es, and the sham jew­els, did not lift her so com­plete­ly in­to a ter­res­tri­al par­adise as she had taught her­self to ex­pect that they would do. Her bril­liant draw­ing-​room, with Dobbs Broughton for a com­pan­ion, was not an ely­si­um. But though she had found out ear­ly in her mar­ried life that some­thing was still want­ing to her, she had by no means con­fessed to her­self that the car­riage and hors­es and sham jew­els were bad, and it can hard­ly be said that she had re­pent­ed. She had en­deav­oured to patch up mat­ters with a lit­tle ro­mance, and then had fall­en up­on Con­way Dal­rym­ple–mean­ing no harm. In­deed, love with her, as it nev­er could have meant much good, was not like­ly to mean much harm. That some­body should pre­tend to love her, to which pre­tence she might re­ply by a pre­tence of friend­ship–this was the lit­tle ex­cite­ment which she craved, and by which she had once flat­tered her­self that some­thing of an ely­si­um might yet be cre­at­ed for her. Mr Dobbs Broughton had un­rea­son­ably ex­pressed a dis­like to this in­no­cent amuse­ment–very un­rea­son­ably, know­ing, as he ought to have known, that he him­self did so very lit­tle to­wards pro­vid­ing the nec­es­sary ely­si­um by any qual­ities of his own. For a few weeks this in­ter­fer­ence from her hus­band had en­hanced the amuse­ment, giv­ing an ad­di­tion­al ex­cite­ment to the game. She felt her­self to be wom­an mis­un­der­stood and ill-​used; and to some wom­en there is noth­ing so charm­ing as a lit­tle mild ill-​us­age, which does not in­ter­fere with their crea­ture com­forts, with their clothes, or their car­riage, or their sham jew­els; but suf­fices to af­ford them the in­dul­gence of a grievance. Of late, how­ev­er, Mr Dobbs Broughton had be­come a lit­tle too rough in his lan­guage, and things had gone un­com­fort­ably. She sus­pect­ed that Con­way Dal­rym­ple was not the on­ly cause of all this. She had an idea that Mr Mus­sel­boro and Mrs Van Siev­er had it in their pow­er to make them­selves un­pleas­ant, and that they were ex­er­cis­ing this pow­er. Of his busi­ness in the City her hus­band nev­er spoke to her, nor she to him. Her own for­tune had been very small, some cou­ple of thou­sand pounds or so, and she con­ceived that she had no pre­text on which she could, unasked, in­ter­ro­gate him about his mon­ey. She had no knowl­edge that mar­riage of it­self had giv­en her the right to such in­ter­fer­ence; and had such knowl­edge been hers she would have had no de­sire to in­ter­fere. She hoped that the car­riage and sham jew­els would be con­tin­ued to her; but she did not know how to frame any ques­tion on the sub­ject. Touch­ing the oth­er dif­fi­cul­ty–the Con­way Dal­rym­ple dif­fi­cul­ty–she had her ideas. The ten­der­ness of her friend­ship had been trod­den up­on by and out­raged by the rough foot of an over­bear­ing hus­band, and she was ill-​used. She would obey. It was be­com­ing to her as a wife that she should sub­mit. She would give up Con­way Dal­rym­ple, and would in­duce him–in spite of his vi­olent at­tach­ment to her­self–to take a wife. She her­self would choose a wife for him. She her­self would, with sui­ci­dal hands, de­stroy the love of her own life, since an over­bear­ing, bru­tal hus­band de­mand­ed that it should be de­stroyed. She would sac­ri­fice her own feel­ings, and do all in her pow­er to bring Con­way Dal­rym­ple and Clara Van Siev­er to­geth­er. If, af­ter that, some po­et did not im­mor­talise her friend­ship in By­ron­ic verse, she cer­tain­ly would not get her due. Per­haps Con­way Dal­rym­ple would him­self be­come a po­et in or­der that this might be done prop­er­ly. For it must be un­der­stood that, though she ex­pect­ed Con­way Dal­rym­ple to mar­ry, she ex­pect­ed al­so that he should be By­ron­ical­ly wretched af­ter his mar­riage on ac­count of his love for her­self.

But there was cer­tain­ly some­thing wrong over and be­yond the Dal­rym­ple dif­fi­cul­ty. The ser­vants were not as civ­il as they used to be, and her hus­band, when she sug­gest­ed to him a lit­tle din­ner-​par­ty, snubbed her most un­mer­ci­ful­ly. The giv­ing of din­ner-​par­ties had been his glo­ry, and she had made the sug­ges­tion sim­ply with the view of pleas­ing him. ‘If the world were go­ing round, the wrong way, a wom­an would still want a par­ty,’ he had said, sneer­ing at her. ‘It was of you I was think­ing, Dobbs,’ she replied; ‘not of my­self. I care lit­tle for such gath­er­ings.’ Af­ter that she re­tired to her own room with a ro­man­tic tear in each eye, and told her­self that, had chance thrown Con­way Dal­rym­ple in­to her way be­fore she had seen Dobbs Broughton, she would have been the hap­pi­est wom­an in the world. She sat for a while look­ing in­to va­can­cy, and think­ing that it would be very nice to break her heart. How should she set about it? Should she take to her bed and grow thin? She would be­gin by eat­ing no din­ner for ev­er so may days al­to­geth­er. At lunch her hus­band was nev­er present, and there­fore the bro­ken heart could be dis­played at din­ner with­out much pos­itive suf­fer­ing. In the mean­time she would im­plore Con­way Dal­rym­ple to get him­self mar­ried with as lit­tle de­lay as pos­si­ble, and she would lay up­on him her pos­itive or­der to re­strain him­self from any word of af­fec­tion ad­dressed to her­self. She, at any rate, would be pure, high-​mind­ed, and self-​sac­ri­fic­ing–al­though ro­man­tic and po­et­ic al­so, as was her na­ture.

The pic­ture was pro­gress­ing, and so al­so, as it had come about, was the love-​af­fair be­tween the artist and his mod­el. Con­way Dal­rym­ple had be­gun to think that he might, af­ter all, do worse than make Clara Van Siev­er his wife. Clara Van Siev­er was hand­some, and un­doubt­ed­ly clever, and Clara Van Siev­er’s moth­er was cer­tain­ly rich. And, in ad­di­tion to this, the young la­dy her­self be­gan to like the man in­to whose so­ci­ety she was thrown. The af­fair seemed to flour­ish, and Mrs Dobbs Broughton should have been de­light­ed. She told Clara, with a very se­ri­ous air, that she was de­light­ed, bid­ding Clara, at the same time, to be very cau­tious, as men were so fick­le, and as Con­way Dal­rym­ple, though the best fel­low in the world, was not, per­haps, al­to­geth­er free from that com­mon vice of men. In­deed, it might have been sur­mised, from a word or two which Mrs Broughton al­lowed to es­cape, that she con­sid­ered poor Con­way to be more than or­di­nar­ily af­flict­ed in that way. Miss Van Siev­er at first on­ly pout­ed, and said that there was noth­ing in it. ‘There is some­thing in it, my dear, cer­tain­ly,’ said Mrs Dobbs Broughton; ‘and there can be no earth­ly rea­son why there should not be a great deal in it.’ ‘There is noth­ing in it,’ said Miss Van Siev­er, im­petu­ous­ly; ‘and if you will con­tin­ue to speak of Mr Dal­rym­ple in that way, I must give up the pic­ture.’ ‘As for that,’ said Mrs Broughton, ‘I con­ceive that we are both of us bound to the young man now, see­ing that he has giv­en so much time to the work.’ ‘I am not bound to him at all,’ said Miss Van Siev­er.

Mrs Broughton al­so told Con­way Dal­rym­ple that she was de­light­ed–oh, so much de­light­ed! He had ob­tained per­mis­sion to come in one morn­ing be­fore the time of sit­ting, so that he might work at his can­vas in­de­pen­dent­ly of his mod­el. As was his cus­tom, he made his own way up­stairs and com­menced his work alone–hav­ing been ex­press­ly told by Mrs Broughton that she would not come to him till she brought Clara with her. But she did go up to the room in which the artist was paint­ing, with­out wait­ing for Miss Van Siev­er. In­deed, she was at this time so anx­ious as the fu­ture wel­fare of her two young friends that she could not re­strain her­self from speak­ing ei­ther to the one of to the oth­er, when­ev­er any op­por­tu­ni­ty for such speech came round. To have left Con­way Dal­rym­ple at work up­stairs with­out go­ing to him was im­pos­si­ble to her. So she went, and then took the op­por­tu­ni­ty of ex­press­ing to her friend her ideas as to his past and fu­ture con­duct.

‘Yes, it is very good; very good, in­deed,’ she said, stand­ing be­fore the easel, and look­ing at the half-​com­plet­ed work. ‘I do not know that you ev­er did any­thing bet­ter.’

‘I nev­er can tell my­self till a pic­ture is fin­ished whether it is go­ing to be good or not,’ said Dal­rym­ple, think­ing re­al­ly of his pic­ture and of noth­ing else.

‘I am sure this will be good,’ she said, ‘and I sup­pose it is be­cause you have thrown so much heart in­to it. It is not mere in­dus­try that will pro­duce good work, nor yet skill, nor even ge­nius; more than this is re­quired. The heart of the artist must be thrust with all its gush­ing tides in­to the per­for­mance.’ By this time he knew all the tones of her voice and their var­ious mean­ings, and im­me­di­ate­ly be­came aware that at the present mo­ment she was in­tent up­on some­thing be­yond the pic­ture. She was prepar­ing for a lit­tle scene, and was go­ing to give him some ad­vice. He un­der­stood it all, but as he was re­al­ly de­sirous of work­ing at his can­vas, and was rather averse to hav­ing a scene at the mo­ment, he made a lit­tle at­tempt to dis­con­cert her. ‘It is the heart that gives suc­cess,’ she said, he was con­sid­er­ing how he might best put an ex­tin­guish­er up­on her ro­mance for the oc­ca­sion.

‘Not at all, Mrs Broughton; suc­cess de­pends on el­bow-​grease.’

‘On what, Con­way?’

‘On el­bow-​grease–hard work, that is–and I must work hard now if I mean to take ad­van­tage of to­day’s sit­ting. The truth is, I don’t give enough hours work to it.’ And he leaned up­on his stick, and daubed away briskly at the back­ground, and then stood for a mo­ment look­ing at his can­vas with his head a lit­tle on one side, as though he could not with­draw his at­ten­tion for a mo­ment from the thing he was do­ing.

‘You mean to say, Con­way, that you would rather that I should not speak to you.’

‘Oh, no, Mrs Broughton, I did not mean that at all.’

‘I won’t in­ter­rupt you at your work. What I have to say is per­haps of no great mo­ment. In­deed, words be­tween you and me nev­er can have much im­por­tance now. Can they, Con­way?’

‘I don’t see that at all,’ said he, work­ing away at his brush.

‘Do you not? I do. They should nev­er amount to more–they can nev­er amount to more than the com­mon or­di­nary cour­te­sies of life; what I call the greet­ings and good-​bye­ings of con­ver­sa­tion.’ She said this in a low, melan­choly tone of voice, not in­tend­ing to be in any de­gree jo­cose. ‘How sel­dom is it that con­ver­sa­tion be­tween or­di­nary friends goes be­yond that.’

‘Don’t you think it does?’ said Con­way, step­ping back and tak­ing an­oth­er look at the pic­ture. ‘I find my­self talk­ing to all man­ner of peo­ple about all man­ner of things.’

‘You are dif­fer­ent from me. I can­not talk to all man­ner of peo­ple.’

‘Pol­itics, you know, and art, and a lit­tle scan­dal, and the wars, with a dozen oth­er things, make talk­ing easy enough, I think. I grant you this, that it is very of­ten a great bore. Hard­ly a day pass­es that I don’t wish to cut out some­body’s tongue.’

‘Do you wish to cut out my tongue, Con­way?’

He be­gan to per­ceive that she was de­ter­mined to talk about her­self, and that there was no rem­edy. He dread­ed it, not be­cause he did not like the wom­an, but from a con­vic­tion that she was go­ing to make some com­par­ison be­tween her and Clara Van Siev­er. In his or­di­nary hu­mour he liked a lit­tle pre­tence at ro­mance, and was rather good at that sort of love-​mak­ing which in truth means any­thing but love. But just now he was re­al­ly think­ing of mat­ri­mo­ny, and had on this very morn­ing ac­knowl­edged to him­self that he had be­come suf­fi­cient­ly at­tached to Clara Van Siev­er to jus­ti­fy him in ask­ing her to be his wife. In his present mood he was not anx­ious for one of those tilts with blunt­ed swords and half-​sev­ered lances in the list of Cu­pid of which Mrs Dobbs Broughton was so fond. Nev­er­the­less, if she in­sist­ed that he should now de­scend in­to the are­na and go through the para­pher­na­lia of a mock tour­na­ment, he must obey her. It is the hard­ship of men that when called up­on by wom­en for ro­mance, they are bound to be ro­man­tic, whether the op­por­tu­ni­ty serves them or not. A man must pro­duce ro­mance, or at least sub­mit to it, when du­ly sum­moned, even though he should have a sore throat or a headache. He is a brute if he de­cline such an en­counter–and feels that, should he so de­cline per­sis­tent­ly, he will ev­er af­ter be treat­ed as a brute. There are many Potiphar’s wives who nev­er dream of any mis­chief, and Josephs who are very anx­ious to es­cape, though they are asked to re­turn on­ly whis­per for whis­per. Mrs Dobbs Broughton had asked him whether he wished that her tongue should be cut out, and he had of course replied that her words had al­ways been a joy to him–nev­er a trou­ble. It oc­curred to him as he made his lit­tle speech that it would on­ly have served her right if he had an­swered her in quite an­oth­er strain; but she was a wom­an, and was young and pret­ty, and was en­ti­tled to flat­tery. ‘They have al­ways been a joy to me,’ he said, re­peat­ing his last words as he strove to con­tin­ue his work.

‘A dead­ly joy,’ she replied, not quite know­ing what she her­self meant. ‘A dead­ly joy, Con­way. I wish with all my heart that we had nev­er known each oth­er.’

‘I do not. I will nev­er wish away the hap­pi­ness of my life, even should it be fol­lowed by mis­ery.’

‘You are a man, and if trou­ble comes up­on you, you can bear it on your shoul­ders. A wom­an suf­fers more, just be­cause an­oth­er’s shoul­ders may have to bear the bur­den.’

‘When she has got a hus­band, you mean.’

‘Yes–when she has a hus­band.’

‘It’s the same with a man when he has a wife.’ Hith­er­to the con­ver­sa­tion had had so much of milk-​and-​wa­ter in its com­po­si­tion that Dal­rym­ple found him­self able to keep it up and go on with his back­ground at the same time. If she could on­ly be kept in the same dim cloud of sen­ti­ment, if the hot rays of the sun of ro­mance could be kept from break­ing through the mist till Miss Van Siev­er should come, it might still be well. He had known her to wan­der about with­in the clouds for an hour to­geth­er, with­out be­ing able to find her way in­to the light. ‘It’s all the same with a man when he has got a wife,’ he said. ‘Of course one has to suf­fer for two, when one, so to say, is two.’

‘And what hap­pens when one has to suf­fer for three?’ she asked.

‘You mean when a wom­an has chil­dren?’

‘I mean noth­ing of the kind, Con­way; and you must know that I do not, un­less your feel­ings are in­deed blunt­ed. But world­ly suc­cess has, I sup­pose, blunt­ed them.’

‘I rather fan­cy not,’ he said. ‘I think they are pret­ty near­ly as sharp as ev­er.’

‘I know mine are. Oh, how I wish I could rid my­self of them! But it can­not be done. Age will not blunt them–I am sure of that,’ said Mrs Broughton. ‘I wish it could.’

He had de­ter­mined not to talk about her­self if the sub­ject could be in any way avoid­ed; but now he felt that he was driv­en up in­to a cor­ner;–now he was forced to speak to her of her own per­son­al­ity. ‘You have no ex­pe­ri­ence yet as to that. How can you say what age will do?’

‘Age does not go by years,’ said Mrs Dobbs Broughton. ‘We all know that. “His hair was grey, but not with years.” Look here, Con­way,’ and she moved back her tress­es from off her tem­ples to show him that there were grey hairs be­hind. He did not see them; and had they been very vis­ible she might not per­haps have been so ready to ex­hib­it them. ‘No one can say that length of years has blanched them. I have no se­crets from you about my age. One should not be grey be­fore one has reached thir­ty.’

‘I did not see a changed hair.’

”Twas the fault of your eyes, then, for there are plen­ty of them. And what is it that has made them grey?’

‘They say hot rooms will do it.’

‘Hot rooms! No, Con­way, it does not come from heat­ed at­mo­sphere. It comes from a cold heart, a chilled heart, a frozen heart, a heart that is all ice.’ She was get­ting out of the cloud in­to the heat now, and he could on­ly hope that Miss Van Siev­er would come soon. ‘The world is be­gin­ning with you, Con­way, and you are as old as I am. It is end­ing with me, and yet I am as young as you are. But I do not know why I talk of this. It is sim­ply fol­ly–ut­ter fol­ly. I had not meant to speak of my­self; but I did wish to say a few words to you of your own fu­ture. I sup­pose I may still speak to you as a friend?’

‘I hope you will al­ways do that.’

‘Nay–I will make no such promise. That I will al­ways have a friend’s feel­ing for you, a friend’s in­ter­est in your wel­fare, a friend’s tri­umph in your suc­cess–that I will promise. But friend­ly words, Con­way, are some­times mis­un­der­stood.’

‘Nev­er by me,’ said he.

‘No, not by you–cer­tain­ly not by you. I did not mean that. I did not ex­pect that you should mis­in­ter­pret them.’ Then she laughed hys­ter­ical­ly–a lit­tle low, gur­gling, hys­ter­ical laugh; and af­ter that she wiped her eyes, and then she smiled, and then she put her hand very gen­tly up­on his shoul­der. ‘Thank God, Con­way, we are quite safe there–are we not?’

He had made a blun­der, and it was nec­es­sary that he should cor­rect it. His watch was ly­ing in the trough of his easel, and he looked at it and won­dered why Miss Van Siev­er was not there. He had tripped, and he must make a lit­tle strug­gle and re­cov­er his step. ‘As I said be­fore, it shall nev­er be mis­un­der­stood by me. I have nev­er been vain enough to sup­pose for a mo­ment that there was any oth­er feel­ing–not for a mo­ment. You wom­en can be so care­ful, while we men are al­ways off our guard! A man loves be­cause he can­not help it; but a wom­an has been care­ful, and an­swers him–with friend­ship. Per­haps I am wrong to say that I nev­er thought of win­ning any­thing more; but I nev­er think of win­ning more now.’ Why the mis­chief didn’t Miss Van Siev­er come! In an­oth­er five min­utes, de­spite him­self, he would be on his knees, mak­ing a mock dec­la­ra­tion, and she would be pour­ing forth the vial of her mock wrath, or giv­ing him mock coun­sel as to the re­straint of his pas­sion. He had gone through it all be­fore, and was tired of it; but for his life he did not know how to help him­self.

‘Con­way,’ said she, grave­ly, ‘how dare you ad­dress me in such lan­guage.’

‘Of course it is very wrong, I know that.’

‘I’m not speak­ing of my­self now. I have learned to think so lit­tle of my­self, as even to be in­dif­fer­ent to the feel­ing of in­jury you are do­ing me. My life is a blank, and I al­most think that noth­ing can hurt me fur­ther. I have not heart left enough to break; no, not enough to be bro­ken. It is not of my­self that I am think­ing, when I ask you how do you dare to ad­dress my in such lan­guage. Do you not know that it is an in­jury to an­oth­er?’

‘To what oth­er?’ asked Con­way Dal­rym­ple, whose mind was be­com­ing rather con­fused, and who was not quite sure whether the oth­er one was Mr Dobbs Broughton, or some­body else.

‘To that poor girl who is com­ing here now, who is de­vot­ed to you, and to whom, I do not doubt, you have ut­tered words which ought to have made it im­pos­si­ble to speak to me as you spoke not a mo­ment since.’

Things were be­com­ing very grave and dif­fi­cult. They would have been very grave, in­deed, had not some god saved him by send­ing Miss Van Siev­er to his res­cue at this mo­ment. He was be­gin­ning to think what he would say in an­swer to the ac­cu­sa­tion now made, when his ea­ger ear caught the sound of her step up­on the stairs; and be­fore the pause in con­ver­sa­tion which the cir­cum­stances ad­mit­ted had giv­en place to the ne­ces­si­ty for fur­ther speech, Miss Van Siev­er had knocked at the door and had en­tered the room. He was re­joiced, and I think that Mrs Broughton did not re­gret the in­ter­fer­ence. It is al­ways well that these lit­tle dan­ger­ous scenes should be brought to sud­den ends. The last de­tails of such ro­mances, if drawn out to their nat­ural con­clu­sions, are apt to be un­com­fort­able, if not dull. She did not want him to go down on his knees, know­ing that the get­ting up again is al­ways awk­ward.

‘Clara, I be­gan to think you were nev­er com­ing,’ said Mrs Broughton, with her sweet­est smile.

‘I be­gan to think so my­self al­so,’ said Clara. ‘And I be­lieve this must be the last sit­ting, or, at any rate, the last but one.’

‘Is any­thing the mat­ter at home?’ said Mrs Broughton, clasp­ing her hands to­geth­er.

‘Noth­ing very much; mam­ma asked me a ques­tion or two this morn­ing, and I said I was com­ing here. Had she asked me why, I should have told her.’

‘But what did she ask? What did she say?’

‘She does not al­ways make her­self very in­tel­li­gi­ble. She com­plains with­out telling you what she com­plains of. But she mut­tered some­thing about artists which was not com­pli­men­ta­ry, and I sup­pose there­fore she has a sus­pi­cion. She stayed ev­er so late this morn­ing, and we left the house to­geth­er. She will ask some di­rect ques­tion tonight, or be­fore long, and then there will be an end of it.’

‘Let us make the best of our time, then,’ said Dal­rym­ple; and the sit­ting was ar­ranged; Miss Van Siev­er went down on her knees with her ham­mer in her hand, and the work be­gan. Mrs Broughton had twist­ed a tur­ban round Clara’s head, as she al­ways did on these oc­ca­sions, and as­sist­ed to ar­range the drap­ery. She used to tell her­self as she did so, that she was like Isaac, pil­ing the fagots for her own sac­ri­fice. On­ly Isaac had piled them in ig­no­rance, and she piled them con­scious of the sac­ri­fi­cial flames. And Isaac had been saved; where­as it was im­pos­si­ble that the catch­ing of any ram in any thick­et would save her. But, nev­er­the­less, she ar­ranged the drap­ery with all her skill, pil­ing the fagots ev­er so high for her own pyre. In the mean­time Con­way Dal­rym­ple paint­ed away, think­ing more of his pic­ture than he did of one wom­an or of the oth­er.

Af­ter a while when Mrs Broughton had piled the fagots as high as she could pile them, she got up from her seat and pre­pared to leave the room. Much of the pil­ing con­sist­ed, of course, in her own ab­sence dur­ing a por­tion of these sit­tings. ‘Con­way,’ she said, as she went, ‘if this is to be the last sit­ting, or the last but one, you should make the most of it.’ Then she threw up­on him a very pe­cu­liar glance over the head of the kneel­ing Jael, and with­drew. Jael, who in those mo­ments would be think­ing more of the fa­tigue of her po­si­tion than any­thing else, did not at all take home to her­self the pe­cu­liar mean­ing of her friend’s words. Con­way Dal­rym­ple un­der­stood them thor­ough­ly, and thought that he might as well take the ad­vice giv­en to him. He had made up his mind to pro­pose to Miss Van Siev­er, and why should he not do so now? He went on with his brush for a cou­ple of min­utes with­out say­ing a word, work­ing as well as he could work, and then re­solved that he would at once be­gin the oth­er task. ‘Miss Van Siev­er,’ he said, ‘I am afraid you are tired?’

‘Not more than usu­al­ly tired. It is fa­tigu­ing to be slay­ing Sis­era by the hour to­geth­er. I do get to hate this block.’ The block was the dum­my by which the form of Sis­era was sup­posed to be typ­ified.

‘An­oth­er sit­ting will about fin­ish it,’ said he, ’so that you need not pos­itive­ly dis­tress your­self now. Will you rest your­self for a minute or two?’ He had al­ready per­ceived that the at­ti­tude in which Clara was posed be­fore him was not one in which an of­fer of mar­riage could be re­ceived and replied to with ad­van­tage.

‘Thank you, I am not tired yet,’ said Clara, not chang­ing the fixed glance of na­tion­al wrath with which she re­gard­ed her wood­en Sis­era as she held her ham­mer on high.

‘But I am. There; we will rest for a mo­ment.’ Dal­rym­ple was aware that Mrs Dobbs Broughton, though she was very as­sid­uous in pil­ing her fagots, nev­er piled them for long to­geth­er. If he did not make haste she would be back up­on them be­fore he could get his word spo­ken. When he put down his brush, and got up from his chair, and stretched out his arm as a man does when he ceas­es for a mo­ment from his work, Clara of course got up al­so, and seat­ed her­self. She was used to her tur­ban and her drap­ery, and there­fore thought of it not at all; and he al­so was used to it, see­ing her in it two or three times a week; but now that he in­tend­ed to ac­com­plish a spe­cial pur­pose, the tur­ban and drap­ery seemed to be in the way. ‘I do so hope you will like the pic­ture,’ he said, as he was think­ing of this.

‘I don’t think I shall. But you will un­der­stand that it is nat­ural that a girl should not like her­self in such a por­trai­ture as that.’

‘I don’t know why. I can un­der­stand that you spe­cial­ly should not like the pic­ture; but I think that most wom­en in Lon­don in your place would at any rate say that they did.’

‘Are you an­gry with me?’

‘What; for telling the truth? No, in­deed.’ He was stand­ing op­po­site to his easel, look­ing at the can­vas, shift­ing his head about so as to change the lights, and ob­serv­ing crit­ical­ly this blem­ish and that; and yet he was all the while think­ing how he had best car­ry out his pur­pose. ‘It will have been a pros­per­ous pic­ture to me,’ he said at last, ‘if it leads to the suc­cess of which I am am­bi­tious.’

‘I am told that all you do is suc­cess­ful now–mere­ly be­cause you do it. That is the worst of suc­cess.’

‘What is the worst of suc­cess?’

‘That when won by mer­it it leads to fur­ther suc­cess, for the gain­ing of which no mer­it is nec­es­sary.’

‘It may be so in my case. If it is not, I shall have a very poor chance. Clara, I think you must know that I am not talk­ing about my pic­tures.’

‘I thought you were.’

‘In­deed I am not. As for suc­cess in my pro­fes­sion, far as I am from think­ing I mer­it it, I feel tol­er­ably cer­tain that I shall ob­tain it.’

‘You have ob­tained it.’

‘I am in the way of do­ing so. Per­haps one out of ten strug­gling artists is suc­cess­ful, and for him the pro­fes­sion is very charm­ing. It is cer­tain­ly a sad feel­ing that there is so much of chance in the dis­tri­bu­tion of the prizes. It is a lot­tery. But one can­not com­plain of that when one has drawn the prize.’ Dal­rym­ple was not a man with­out self-​pos­ses­sion, nor was he read­ily abashed, but he found it eas­ier to talk of his pos­ses­sion than to make his of­fer. The tur­ban was his dif­fi­cul­ty. He had told him­self over and over again with­in the last five min­utes, that he would have long since said what he had to say had it not been for that tur­ban. He had been paint­ing all his life from liv­ing mod­els–from wom­en dressed up in this or that cos­tume, to suit the ne­ces­si­ties of his pic­ture–but he had nev­er made love to any of them. They had been sim­ply mod­els to him, and now he found that there was a dif­fi­cul­ty. ‘Of that prize,’ he said, ‘I have made my­self tol­er­ably sure; but as to the oth­er prize, I do not know. I won­der whether I am to have that.’ Of course Miss Van Siev­er un­der­stood well what was the prize of which he was speak­ing; and as she was a young wom­an with a will and pur­pose of her own, no doubt she was ready pre­pared with an an­swer. But it was nec­es­sary that the ques­tion should be put to her in prop­er­ly dis­tinct terms. Con­way Dal­rym­ple cer­tain­ly had not put his ques­tion in prop­er­ly dis­tinct terms at present. She did not choose to make any an­swer to his last words; and there­fore sim­ply sug­gest­ed that as time was press­ing he had bet­ter get on with his work. ‘I am quite ready now,’ said she.

‘Stop half a mo­ment. How much more you are think­ing of the pic­ture than I am! I do not care twopence for the pic­ture. I will slit the can­vas from top to bot­tom with­out a groan–with­out a sin­gle in­ner groan–if you will let me.’

‘For heav­en’s sake, do noth­ing of the kind! Why should you?’

‘Just to show you that it is not for the sake of the pic­ture that I come here. Clara–’ Then the door was opened, and Isaac ap­peared, na­ture could pile no more. Con­way Dal­rym­ple, who had made his way al­most up to Clara’s seat, turned round sharply to­wards his easel, in anger, at hav­ing been dis­turbed. He should have been more grate­ful for all that his Isaac had done for him, and have recog­nised the fact that the fault had been with him­self. Mrs Broughton had been twelve min­utes out of the room. She had count­ed them to be fif­teen–hav­ing no doubt made a mis­take as to three–and had told her­self that with such a one as Con­way Dal­rym­ple, with so much of the work ready done to his hand for him, fif­teen min­utes should have been am­ply suf­fi­cient. When we re­flect what her own thoughts must have been dur­ing the in­ter­val–what it is to have to pile up such fagots as those, how she was, as it were, giv­ing away a fresh morsel of her own heart dur­ing each minute that she al­lowed Clara and Con­way Dal­rym­ple to re­main to­geth­er, it can­not sur­prise us that her eyes should have be­come dizzy, and that she should not have count­ed the min­utes with ac­cu­rate cor­rect­ness. Dal­rym­ple turned to his pic­ture an­gri­ly, but Miss Van Siev­er kept her seat and did not show the slight­est emo­tion.

‘My friends,’ said Mrs Broughton, ‘this will not do. This is not work­ing; this is not sit­ting.’

‘Mr Dal­rym­ple had been ex­plain­ing to me the pre­car­ious na­ture of an artist’s pro­fes­sion,’ said Clara.

‘It is not pre­car­ious with him,’ said Mrs Dobbs Broughton, sen­ten­tious­ly.

‘Not in a gen­er­al way, per­haps; but to prove the truth of his words he was go­ing to treat Jael worse than Jael treats Sis­era.’

‘I was go­ing to slit the pic­ture from the top to the bot­tom.’

‘And why?’ said Mrs Broughton, putting her hands to heav­en in trag­ic hor­ror.

‘Just to show Miss Van Siev­er how lit­tle I care about it.’

‘And how lit­tle you care about her, too,’ said Mrs Broughton.

‘She might take that as she like.’ Af­ter this there was an­oth­er gen­uine sit­ting, and the re­al work went on as though there had been no episode. Jael fixed her face, and held her ham­mer as though her mind and heart were sole­ly bent on seem­ing to be slay­ing Sis­era. Dal­rym­ple turned his eyes from the can­vas to the mod­el, and from the mod­el to the can­vas, work­ing with his hand all the while, as though that last pa­thet­ic ‘Clara’ had nev­er been ut­tered; and Mrs Dobbs Broughton re­clined on a so­fa, look­ing at them and think­ing of her own sin­gu­lar­ly ro­man­tic po­si­tion, till her mind was filled with a po­et­ic fren­zy. In one mo­ment she re­solved that she would hate Clara as a wom­an was nev­er hat­ed by wom­an; and then there were dag­gers, and poi­son-​cups, and stran­gling cords in her eye. In the next she was as firm­ly de­ter­mined that she would love Mrs Con­way Dal­rym­ple as wom­an was nev­er loved by wom­an; and then she saw her­self kneel­ing by a cra­dle, and ten­der­ly nurs­ing a ba­by, of which Con­way was to be the fa­ther and Clara the moth­er. And so she went to sleep.

For some time Dal­rym­ple did not ob­serve this; but at last there was a lit­tle sound–even the ill-​na­ture of Miss De­mo­lines could hard­ly have called it a snore–and he be­came aware that for prac­ti­cal pur­pos­es he and Miss Van Siev­er were again alone to­geth­er. ‘Clara,’ he said in a whis­per. Mrs Broughton in­stant­ly aroused her­self from her slum­bers, and rubbed her eyes. ‘Dear, dear, dear,’ she said, ‘I de­clare it’s past one. I’m afraid I must turn you both out. One more sit­ting, I sup­pose, will fin­ish it, Con­way?’

‘Yes, one more,’ said he. It was al­ways un­der­stood that he and Clara should not leave the house to­geth­er, and there­fore he re­mained paint­ing when she left the room. ‘And now, Con­way,’ said Mrs Broughton, ‘I sup­pose that all is over?’

‘I don’t know what you mean by be­ing all over.’

‘No–of course not. You look at it in an­oth­er light, no doubt. Ev­ery­thing is be­gin­ning for you. But you must par­don me, for my heart is dis­tract­ed–dis­tract­ed–dis­tract­ed!’ Then she sat down up­on the floor, and burst in­to tears. What was he to do? He thought that the wom­an should ei­ther give him up al­to­geth­er, or not give him up. All this fuss about it was ir­ra­tional! He would not have made love to Clara Van Siev­er in her room if she had not told him to do so!

‘Maria,’ he said, in a very grave voice, ‘any sac­ri­fice that is re­quired on my part on your be­half I am ready to make.’

‘No sir; the sac­ri­fices shall all be made by me. It is the part of a wom­an to be ev­er sac­ri­fi­cial!’ Poor Mrs Dobbs Broughton! ‘You shall give up noth­ing. The world is at your feet, and you shall have ev­ery­thing–youth, beau­ty, wealth, sta­tion, love–love; friend­ship al­so, if you will ac­cept it from one so poor, so bro­ken, so se­clud­ed as I shall be.’ At each of the last words there had been a des­per­ate sob; and as she was still crouch­ing in the mid­dle of the room, look­ing up in­to Dal­rym­ple’s face while he stood over her, the scene was one which had much in it that tran­scend­ed the do­ings of ev­ery­day life, much that would be ev­er mem­orable, and much, I have no doubt, that was thor­ough­ly en­joyed by the prin­ci­pal ac­tor. As for Con­way Dal­rym­ple, he was so sec­ond-​rate a per­son­age in the whole thing, that it mat­tered lit­tle whether he en­joyed it or not. I don’t think he did en­joy it. ‘And now, Con­way,’ she said, ‘I will give you some ad­vice. And when in af­ter-​days you shall re­mem­ber this in­ter­view, and re­flect how that ad­vice was giv­en you–with what solem­ni­ty.’–here she clasped both her hands to­geth­er–’I think that you will fol­low it. Clara Van Siev­er will now be­come your wife.’

‘I do not know that at all,’ said Dal­rym­ple.

‘Clara Van Siev­er will now be­come your wife,’ re­peat­ed Mrs Broughton in a loud­er voice, im­pa­tient of op­po­si­tion. ‘Love her. Cleave to her. Make her flesh of your flesh and bone of your bone. But rule her! Yes, rule her! Let her be your sec­ond self, but not your first self. Rule her! Love her. Cleave to her. Do not leave her alone, to feed on her own thoughts as I have done–as I have been forced to do. Now go. No, Con­way, not a word; I will not hear a word. You must go, or I must.’ Then she rose quick­ly from her low­ly at­ti­tude, and pre­pared her­self for a dart to the door. It was bet­ter by far that he should go, and so he went.

An Amer­ican when he has spent a pleas­ant day will tell you that he has had a ‘good time’. I think that Mrs Dobbs Broughton, if she had ev­er spo­ken the truth of that day’s em­ploy­ment would have ac­knowl­edged that she had had a ‘good time’. I think that she en­joyed her morn­ing’s work. But as for Con­way Dal­rym­ple, I doubt whether he did en­joy his morn­ing’s work. ‘A man may have too much of this sort of thing, and then he be­comes very sick of his cake.’ Such was the na­ture of his thoughts as he re­turned to his own abode.