The Last Chronicle of Barset (97 page)

It was clear to him that at this present time he could not make any special terms with her as to Clara Van Siever. At such a moment as this he could hardly ask her to keep out of the way, in order that he might have his opportunity. But when he suggested that probably it might be better, in the present emergency, to give up the idea of any further sitting in her room, and proposed to send for his canvas, colour-box, and easel, she told him that, as far as she was concerned, he was welcome to have that one other sitting for which they had all bargained. ‘You had better come tomorrow, as we had agreed,' she said; ‘and unless I shall have been turned out into the street by the creditors, you may have the room as you did before. And you must remember, Conway, that though Mrs Van says that Musselboro is to have Clara, it doesn't follow that Clara should give way.' When we consider everything, we must acknowledge that this was, at any rate, good-natured. Then there was a tender parting, with many tears, and Conway Dalrymple escaped from the house.

He did not for a moment doubt the truth of the story which Mrs Broughton had told, as far, at least, as it referred to the ruin of Dobbs Broughton. He had heard something of this before, and for some weeks had expected that a crash was coming. Broughton's rise had been very sudden, and Dalrymple had never regarded his friend as firmly placed in the commercial world. Dobbs was one of those men who seem born to surprise the world by a spurt of prosperity, and might, perhaps, have a second spurt, or even a third, could he have kept himself from drinking in the morning. But Dalrymple, though he was hardly astonished by the story, as it regarded Broughton, was put out by that part of it which had reference to Musselboro. He had known that Musselboro had been introduced to Broughton by Mrs Van Siever, but, nevertheless, he had regarded the man as being no more than Broughton's clerk. And now he was told that Musselboro was to marry Clara Van Siever, and have all Mrs Van Siever's money. He resolved, at last, that he would run his risk about the money, and take Clara either with or without it, if she would have him. And as for that difficulty in asking her, if Mrs Broughton would give him no opportunity of putting the question behind her back, he would put it before her face. He had not much leisure for consideration on these points, as the next day was the day for the last sitting.

On the following morning he found Miss Van Siever already seated in Mrs Broughton's room when he reached it. And at the moment Mrs Broughton was not there. As he took Clara's hand he could not prevent himself from asking her whether she had heard anything? ‘Heard what?' asked Clara. ‘Then you have not,' said he. ‘Never mind now, as Mrs Broughton is here.' Then Mrs Broughton had entered the room. She seemed to be quite cheerful, but Dalrymple perfectly understood, from a special glance which she gave to him, that he was to perceive that her cheerfulness was assumed for Clara's benefit. Mrs Broughton was showing how great a heroine she could be on behalf of her friends. ‘Now, my dear,' she said, ‘do remember that this is the last day. It may be all very well, Conway, and, of course, you know best; but as far as I can see, you have not made half as much progress as you ought to have done.' ‘We shall do excellently well,' said Dalrymple. ‘So much the better,' said Mrs Broughton; ‘and now,
Clara, I'll place you.' And so Clara was placed on her knees, with the turban on her head.

Dalrymple began his work assiduously, knowing that Mrs Broughton would not leave the room for some minutes. It was certain that she would remain for a quarter of an hour, and it might be as well that he should really use that time on the picture. The peculiar position in which he was placed probably made his work difficult to him. There was something perplexing in the necessity which bound him to look upon the young lady before him both as Jael and as the future Mrs Conway Dalrymple, knowing as he did that she was at present simply Clara Van Siever. A double personification was not difficult to him. He had encountered it with every model that had sat to him, and with every young lady he had attempted to win – if he had ever made such an attempt before. But the triple character, joined to the necessity of the double work, was distressing to him. ‘The hand a little further back, if you don't mind,' he said, ‘and the wrist more turned towards me. That is just it. Lean a little more over him. There – that will do exactly.' If Mrs Broughton did not go very quickly, he must begin to address his model on a totally different subject, even while she was in the act of slaying Sisera.

‘Have you made up your mind who is to be Sisera?' asked Mrs Broughton.

‘I think I shall put in my own face,' said Dalrymple; ‘if Miss Van Siever does not object.'

‘Not in the least,' said Clara, speaking without moving her face – almost without moving her lips.

‘That will be excellent,' said Mrs Broughton. She was still quite cheerful, and really laughed as she spoke. ‘Shall you like the idea, Clara, of striking the nail right through his head?'

‘Oh, yes; as well his head as another's. I shall seem to be having my revenge for all the trouble he has given me.'

There was a slight pause, and then Dalrymple spoke. ‘You have had that already, in striking me right through the heart.'

‘What a very pretty speech! Was it not, my dear?' said Mrs Broughton. And then Mrs Broughton laughed. There was something slightly hysterical in her laugh which grated on Dalrymple's ears – something
which seemed to tell him that at the present moment his dear friend was not going to assist him honestly in his effort.

‘Only that I should put him out, I would get up and make a curtsey,' said Clara. No young lady could ever talk of making a curtsey for such a speech if she supposed it to have been made in earnestness. And Clara, no doubt, understood that a man might make a hundred such speeches in the presence of a third person without any danger that they would be taken as meaning anything. All this Dalrymple knew, and began to think that he had better put down his palette and brush, and do the work which he had before him in the most prosaic language that he could use. He could, at any rate, succeed in making Clara acknowledge his intention in this way. He waited still for a minute or two, and it seemed to him that Mrs Broughton had no intention of piling her fagots on the present occasion. It might be that the remembrance of her husband's ruin prevented her from sacrificing herself in the other direction also.

‘I am not very good at pretty speeches, but I am good at telling the truth,' said Dalrymple.

‘Ha, ha, ha!' laughed Mrs Broughton, still with a touch of hysterical action in her throat. ‘Upon my word, Conway, you know how to praise yourself.'

‘He dispraises himself most unnecessarily in denying the prettiness of his language,' said Clara. As she spoke she hardly moved her lips, and Dalrymple went on painting from the model. It was clear that Miss Van Siever understood that the painting, and not the pretty speeches, was the important business on hand.

Mrs Broughton had now tucked her feet up on the sofa, and was gazing at the artist as he stood at his work. Dalrymple, remembering how he had offered his purse – an offer which, in the existing crisis of her affairs, might mean a great deal – felt that she was ill-natured. Had she intended to do him a good turn, she would have gone now; but there she lay, with her feet tucked up, clearly purposing to be present through the whole of that morning's sitting. His anger against her added something to his spirit, and made him determine that he would carry out his purpose. Suddenly, therefore, he prepared himself for action.

He was in the habit of working with a Turkish cap on his head, and with a short apron tied round him. There was something picturesque about the cap, which might not have been incongruous with lovemaking. It is easy to suppose that Juan wore a Turkish cap when he sat with Haidee in Lambro's island.
¹
But we may be quite sure that he did not wear an apron. Now Dalrymple had thought of all this, and had made up his mind to work today without his apron; but when arranging his easel and his brushes, he had put it on from force of habit, and was now disgusted with himself as he remembered it. He put down his brush, divested his thumb of his palette, then took off his cap, and after that untied the apron.

‘Conway, what are you going to do?' said Mrs Broughton.

‘I am going to ask Clara Van Siever to be my wife,' said Dalrymple. At that moment the door was opened, and Mrs Van Siever entered the room.

Clara had not risen from her kneeling posture when Dalrymple began to put off his trappings. She had not seen what he was doing as plainly as Mrs Broughton had done, having her attention naturally drawn towards her Sisera; and, besides this, she understood that she was to remain as she was placed till orders to move were given to her. Dalrymple would occasionally step aside from his easel to look at her in some altered light, and on such occasions she would simply hold her hammer somewhat more tightly than before. When, therefore, Mrs Van Siever entered the room Clara was still slaying Sisera, in spite of the artist's speech. The speech, indeed, and her mother both seemed to come to her at the same time. The old woman stood for a moment holding the open door in her hand. ‘You fool!' she said, ‘What are you doing there, dressed up in that way like a guy?' Then Clara got up from her feet and stood before her mother in Jael's dress and Jael's turban. Dalrymple thought that the dress and turban did not become her badly. Mrs Van Siever apparently thought otherwise. ‘Will you have the goodness to tell me, miss, why you are dressed up after that Mad Bess of Bedlam
²
fashion?'

The reader will no doubt bear in mind that Clara had other words of which to think besides those which were addressed to her by her mother. Dalrymple had asked her to be his wife in the plainest
possible language, and she thought that the very plainness of the language became him well. The very taking off of his apron, almost as he said the words, though to himself the action had been so distressing as almost to overcome his purpose, had in it something to her of direct simple determination which pleased her. When he had spoken of having had a nail driven by her right through his heart, she had not been in the least gratified; but the taking off of the apron, and the putting down of the palette, and the downright way in which he had called her Clara Van Siever – attempting to be neither sentimental with Clara, nor polite with Miss Van Siever – did please her. She had often said to herself that she would never give a plain answer to a man who did not ask her a plain question – to a man who, in asking this question, did not say plainly to her, ‘Clara Van Siever, will you become Mrs Jones?' – or Mrs Smith, or Mrs Tomkins, as the case might be. Now Conway Dalrymple had asked her to become Mrs Dalrymple very much after this fashion. In spite of the apparition of her mother, all this had passed through her mind. Not the less, however, was she obliged to answer her mother, before she could give any reply to the other questioner. In the meantime Mrs Dobbs Broughton had untucked her feet.

‘Mamma,' said Clara, ‘who ever expected to see you here?'

‘I daresay nobody did,' said Mrs Van Siever; ‘But here I am, nevertheless.'

‘Madam,' said Mrs Dobbs Broughton, ‘you might at any rate have gone through the ceremony of having yourself announced by the servant.'

‘Madam,' said the old woman, attempting to mimic the tone of the other, ‘I thought that on such a very particular occasion as this I might be allowed to announce myself. You tomfool, you, why don't you take that turban off?' Then Clara, with slow and graceful motion, unwound the turban. If Dalrymple really meant what he had said and would stick to it, she need not mind being called a tomfool by her mother.

‘Conway, I am afraid that our last sitting is disturbed,' said Mrs Broughton, with her little laugh.

‘Conway's last sitting certainly is disturbed,' said Mrs Van Siever,
and then she mimicked the laugh. ‘And you'll all be disturbed – I can tell you that. What an ass you must be to go on with this kind of thing, after what I said to you yesterday! Do you know that he got beastly drunk in the City last night, and that he is drunk now, while you are going on with your tomfooleries?' Upon hearing this Mrs Dobbs Broughton fainted into Dalrymple's arms.

Hitherto the artist had not said a word, and had hardly known what part it would best become him now to play. If he intended to marry Clara – and he certainly did intend to marry her if she would have him – it might be as well not to quarrel with Mrs Van Siever. At any rate there was nothing in Mrs Van Siever's intrusion, disagreeable as it was, which need make him take up his sword to do battle with her. But now, as he held Mrs Broughton in his arms, and as the horrid words which the old woman had spoken rung in his ears, he could not refrain himself from uttering reproach. ‘You ought not to have told her in this way, before other people, even if it be true,' said Conway.

‘Leave me to be my own judge of what I ought to do, if you please, sir. If she had any feeling at all, what I told her yesterday would have kept her from all this. But some people have no feeling, and will go on being tomfools though the house is on fire.' As these words were spoken, Mrs Broughton fainted more persistently than ever – so that Dalrymple was convinced that whether she felt or not, at any rate she heard. He had now dragged her across the room, and laid her upon the sofa, and Clara had come to her assistance. ‘I daresay you think me very hard because I speak plainly, but there are things much harder than plain speaking. How much do you expect to be paid, sir, for this picture of my girl ?'

‘I do not expect to be paid for it at all,' said Dalrymple.

‘And who is it to belong to?'

‘It belongs to me at present.'

‘Then, sir, it mustn't belong to you any longer. It won't do for you to have a picture of my girl to hang up in your painting-room for all your friends to come and make their jokes about, nor yet to make a show of it in any of your exhibitions. My daughter has been a fool, and I can't help it. If you'll tell me what's the cost, I'll pay you; then I'll have the picture home, and I'll treat it as it deserves.'