The Last Chronicle of Barset (59 page)

‘You won't understand anything from that,' said he, pushing the book over to her.

‘You can explain it to me.'

‘That's all straight sailing, that is.'

‘And where does he keep the figures that ain't straight sailing? That's the book I want to see.'

‘There is no such book.'

‘Look here, Gus – if I find you deceiving me I'll throw you overboard as sure as I'm a living woman. I will indeed. I'll have no mercy. I've stuck to you, and made a man of you, and I expect you to stick to me.'

‘Not much of a man,' said Musselboro, with a touch of scorn in his voice.

‘You've never had a shilling yet but what I gave you.'

‘Yes; I have. I've had what I've worked for – and worked confounded hard too.'

‘Look here, Musselboro; if you're going to throw me over, just tell me so, and let us begin fair.'

‘I'm not going to throw you over. I've always been on the square with you. Why don't you trust me out and out, and then I could do a deal better for you. You ask me now about your money. I don't know about your money, Mrs Van Siever. How am I to know anything about your money, Mrs Van Siever? You don't give me any power of keeping a hand upon Dobbs Broughton. I suppose you have security from Dobbs Broughton, but I don't know what security you have, Mrs Van Siever. He owes you now £915 16s. 2d. on last year's account!'

‘Why doesn't he give me a cheque for the money?'

‘He says he can't spare it. You may have £500, and the rest when he can give it to you. Or he'll give you his note-of-hand at fourteen days for the whole.'

‘Bother his note-of-hand. Why should I take his note-of-hand?'

‘Do as you like, Mrs Van Siever.'

‘It's the interest on my own money. Why don't he give it me? I suppose he has had it.'

‘You must ask him that, Mrs Van Siever. You're in partnership with him, and he can tell you. Nobody else knows anything about it. If you were in partnership with me, then of course I could tell you. But you're not. You've never trusted me, Mrs Van Siever.'

The lady remained there closeted with Mr Musselboro for an hour after that, and did, I think, at length learn something more as to the details of her partner's business, than her faithful servant Mr Musselboro had at first found himself able to give to her. And at last they came to friendly and confidential terms, in the midst of which the personal welfare of Mr Dobbs Broughton was, I fear, somewhat forgotten. Not that Mr Musselboro palpably and plainly threw his friend overboard. He took his friend's part – alleging excuses for him, and pleading some facts. ‘Of course, you know, a man like that is fond of pleasure, Mrs Van Siever. He's been at it more or less all his life. I don't suppose he ever missed a Derby or an Oaks, or the cup at Ascot, or the Goodwood in his life.' ‘He'll have to miss them before long, I'm thinking,' said Mrs Van Siever. ‘And as to not cashing up, you must remember, Mrs Van Siever, that ten per cent. won't come in quite as regularly as four or five. When you go for high interest, there must be hitches here and there. There must, indeed, Mrs Van Siever.' ‘I know all about it,' said Mrs Van Siever. ‘If he gave it me as soon as he got it himself, I shouldn't complain. Never mind. He's only got to give me my little bit of money out of the business, and then he and I will be all square. You come and see Clara this evening, Gus.'

Then Mr Musselboro put Mrs Van Siever into another cab, and went out upon 'Change – hanging about the Bank, and standing in Threadneedle Street, talking to other men just like himself. When he saw Dobbs Broughton he told that gentleman that Mrs Van Siever had been in her tantrums, but that he had managed to pacify her before she left Hook Court. ‘I'm to take her the cheque for the five hundred tonight,' he said.

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 at 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 to 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 nearest and 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.

‘M
Y
D
EAR
M
R
E
AMES
,

‘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 been 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,      

     ‘M. D. M.'

‘Thursday'
.

‘Poor Mamma 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 1st 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 soon 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 occasions 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 very 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 to be deceived, she ought not to treat me like 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 in her tent much 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 a 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 in 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 possibly 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?'