The Last Chronicle of Barset Part 39

"So Mrs. Broughton told me."

"I am not asking for a job, you know."

"I am quite sure of that."

"But I should have thought you would have been sure to have sat to somebody."

"I never did. I never thought of doing so. One does those things at the instigation of one's intimate friends,--fathers, mothers, uncles, and aunts, and the like."

"Or husbands, perhaps,--or lovers?"

"Well, yes; my intimate friend is my mother, and she would never dream of such a thing. She hates pictures."

"Hates pictures!"

"And especially portraits. And I'm afraid, Mr. Dalrymple, she hates artists."

"Good heavens; how cruel! I suppose there is some story attached to it. There has been some fatal likeness,--some terrible picture,--something in her early days?"

"Nothing of the kind, Mr. Dalrymple. It is merely the fact that her sympathies are with ugly things, rather than with pretty things. I think she loves the mahogany dinner-table better than anything else in the house; and she likes to have everything dark, and plain, and solid."

"And good?"

"Good of its kind, certainly."

"If everybody was like your mother, how would the artists live?"

"There would be none."

"And the world, you think, would be none the poorer?"

"I did not speak of myself. I think the world would be very much the poorer. I am very fond of the ancient masters, though I do not suppose that I understand them."

"They are easier understood than the modern, I can tell you. Perhaps you don't care for modern pictures?"

"Not in comparison, certainly. If that is uncivil, you have brought it on yourself. But I do not in truth mean anything derogatory to the painters of the day. When their pictures are old, they,--that is the good ones among them,--will be nice also."

"Pictures are like wine, and want age, you think?"

"Yes, and statues too, and buildings above all things. The colours of new paintings are so glaring, and the faces are so bright and self-conscious, that they look to me when I go to the exhibition like coloured prints in a child's new picture-book. It is the same thing with buildings. One sees all the points, and nothing is left to the imagination."

"I find I have come across a real critic."

"I hope, at any rate, I am not a sham one;" and Miss Van Siever as she said this looked very savage.

"I shouldn't take you to be a sham in anything."

"Ah, that would be saying a great deal for myself. Who can undertake to say that he is not a sham in anything?"

As she said this the ladies were getting up. So Miss Van Siever also got up, and left Mr. Conway Dalrymple to consider whether he could say or could think of himself that he was not a sham in anything.

As regarded Miss Clara Van Siever, he began to think that he should not object to paint her portrait, even though there might be no sugar-plum. He would certainly do it as Jael; and he would, if he dared, insert dimly in the background some idea of the face of the mother, half-appearing, half-vanis.h.i.+ng, as the spirit of the sacrifice. He was composing his picture, while Mr. Dobbs Broughton was arranging himself and his bottles.

"Musselboro," he said, "I'll come up between you and Crosbie. Mr.

Eames, though I run away from you, the claret shall remain; or, rather, it shall flow backwards and forwards as rapidly as you will."

"I'll keep it moving," said Johnny.

"Do; there's a good fellow. It's a nice gla.s.s of wine, isn't it? Old Ramsby, who keeps as good a stock of stuff as any wine-merchant in London, gave me a hint, three or four years ago, that he'd a lot of tidy Bordeaux. It's '41, you know. He had ninety dozen, and I took it all."

"What was the figure, Broughton?" said Crosbie, asking the question which he knew was expected.

"Well, I only gave one hundred and four for it then; it's worth a hundred and twenty now. I wouldn't sell a bottle of it for any money.

Come, Dalrymple, pa.s.s it round; but fill your gla.s.s first."

"Thank you, no; I don't like it. I'll drink sherry."

"Don't like it!" said Dobbs Broughton.

"It's strange, isn't it? but I don't."

"I thought you particularly told me to drink his claret?" said Johnny to his friend afterwards.

"So I did," said Conway; "and wonderfully good wine it is. But I make it a rule never to eat or drink anything in a man's house when he praises it himself and tells me the price of it."

"And I make it a rule never to cut the nose off my own face," said Johnny.

Before they went, Johnny Eames had been specially invited to call on Lady Demolines, and had said that he would do so. "We live in Porchester Gardens," said Miss Demolines. "Upon my word, I believe that the farther London stretches in that direction, the farther mamma will go. She thinks the air so much better. I know it's a long way."

"Distance is nothing to me," said Johnny; "I can always set off over night."

Conway Dalrymple did not get invited to call on Mrs. Van Siever, but before he left the house he did say a word or two more to his friend Mrs. Broughton as to Clara Van Siever. "She is a fine young woman,"

he said; "she is indeed."

"You have found it out, have you?"

"Yes, I have found it out. I do not doubt that some day she'll murder her husband or her mother, or startle the world by some newly-invented crime; but that only makes her the more interesting."

"And when you add to that all the old woman's money," said Mrs. Dobbs Broughton, "you think that she might do?"

"For a picture, certainly. I'm speaking of her simply as a model.

Could we not manage it? Get her once here, without her mother knowing it, or Broughton, or any one. I've got the subject,--Jael and Sisera, you know. I should like to put Musselboro in as Sisera, with the nail half driven in." Mrs. Dobbs Broughton declared that the scheme was a great deal too wicked for her partic.i.p.ation, but at last she promised to think of it.

"You might as well come up and have a cigar," Dalrymple said, as he and his friend left Mr. Broughton's house. Johnny said that he would go up and have a cigar or two. "And now tell me what you think of Mrs. Dobbs Broughton and her set," said Conway.

"Well; I'll tell you what I think of them. I think they stink of money, as the people say; but I'm not sure that they've got any all the same."

"I should suppose he makes a large income."

"Very likely, and perhaps spends more than he makes. A good deal of it looked to me like make-believe. There's no doubt about the claret, but the champagne was execrable. A man is a criminal to have such stuff handed round to his guests. And there isn't the ring of real gold about the house."