Beldonald Holbein , livre ebook

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pubOne.info thank you for your continued support and wish to present you this new edition. Mrs. Munden had not yet been to my studio on so good a pretext as when she first intimated that it would be quite open to me - should I only care, as she called it, to throw the handkerchief - to paint her beautiful sister-in- law. I needn't go here more than is essential into the question of Mrs. Munden, who would really, by the way, be a story in herself. She has a manner of her own of putting things, and some of those she has put to me - ! Her implication was that Lady Beldonald hadn't only seen and admired certain examples of my work, but had literally been prepossessed in favour of the painter's personality. Had I been struck with this sketch I might easily have imagined her ladyship was throwing me the handkerchief. She hasn't done, my visitor said, what she ought.

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	23 octobre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819913139
Langue	English

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CHAPTER I
Mrs. Munden had not yet been to my studio on so gooda pretext as when she first intimated that it would be quite opento me - should I only care, as she called it, to throw thehandkerchief - to paint her beautiful sister-in- law. I needn't gohere more than is essential into the question of Mrs. Munden, whowould really, by the way, be a story in herself. She has a mannerof her own of putting things, and some of those she has put to me -! Her implication was that Lady Beldonald hadn't only seen andadmired certain examples of my work, but had literally beenprepossessed in favour of the painter's "personality." Had I beenstruck with this sketch I might easily have imagined her ladyshipwas throwing me the handkerchief. "She hasn't done," my visitorsaid, "what she ought."
"Do you mean she has done what she oughtn't?"
"Nothing horrid - ah dear no." And something in Mrs.Munden's tone, with the way she appeared to muse a moment, evensuggested to me that what she "oughtn't" was perhaps what LadyBeldonald had too much neglected. "She hasn't got on."
"What's the matter with her?"
"Well, to begin with, she's American."
"But I thought that was the way of ways to geton."
"It's one of them. But it's one of the ways of beingawfully out of it too. There are so many!"
"So many Americans?" I asked.
"Yes, plenty of THEM," Mrs. Munden sighed. "So manyways, I mean, of being one."
"But if your sister-in-law's way is to be beautiful- ?"
"Oh there are different ways of that too."
"And she hasn't taken the right way?"
"Well," my friend returned as if it were ratherdifficult to express, "she hasn't done with it - "
"I see," I laughed; "what she oughtn't!"
Mrs. Munden in a manner corrected me, but it WASdifficult to express. "My brother at all events was certainlyselfish. Till he died she was almost never in London; theywintered, year after year, for what he supposed to be his health -which it didn't help, since he was so much too soon to meet his end- in the south of France and in the dullest holes he could pickout, and when they came back to England he always kept her in thecountry. I must say for her that she always behaved beautifully.Since his death she has been more in London, but on a stupidlyunsuccessful footing. I don't think she quite understands. Shehasn't what I should call a life. It may be of course that shedoesn't want one. That's just what I can't exactly find out. Ican't make out how much she knows."
"I can easily make out," I returned with hilarity,"how much YOU do!"
"Well, you're very horrid. Perhaps she's tooold."
"Too old for what?" I persisted.
"For anything. Of course she's no longer even alittle young; only preserved - oh but preserved, like bottledfruit, in syrup! I want to help her if only because she gets on mynerves, and I really think the way of it would be just the rightthing of yours at the Academy and on the line."
"But suppose," I threw out, "she should give on mynerves?"
"Oh she will. But isn't that all in the day's work,and don't great beauties always - ?"
"YOU don't," I interrupted; but I at any rate sawLady Beldonald later on - the day came when her kinswoman broughther, and then I saw how her life must have its centre in her ownidea of her appearance. Nothing else about her mattered - one knewher all when one knew that. She's indeed in one particular, Ithink, sole of her kind - a person whom vanity has had the oddeffect of keeping positively safe and sound. This passion issupposed surely, for the most part, to be a principle of perversionand of injury, leading astray those who listen to it and landingthem sooner or later in this or that complication; but it haslanded her ladyship nowhere whatever- -it has kept her from thefirst moment of full consciousness, one feels, exactly in the sameplace. It has protected her from every danger, has made herabsolutely proper and prim. If she's "preserved," as Mrs. Mundenoriginally described her to me, it's her vanity that hasbeautifully done it - putting her years ago in a plate-glass caseand closing up the receptacle against every breath of air. Howshouldn't she be preserved when you might smash your knuckles onthis transparency before you could crack it? And she is - ohamazingly! Preservation is scarce the word for the rare conditionof her surface. She looks NATURALLY new, as if she took out everynight her large lovely varnished eyes and put them in water. Thething was to paint her, I perceived, in the glass case - a mosttempting attaching feat; render to the full the shining interposingplate and the general show-window effect.
It was agreed, though it wasn't quite arranged, thatshe should sit to me. If it wasn't quite arranged this was because,as I was made to understand from an early stage, the conditionsfrom our start must be such as should exclude all elements ofdisturbance, such, in a word, as she herself should judgeabsolutely favourable. And it seemed that these conditions wereeasily imperilled. Suddenly, for instance, at a moment when I wasexpecting her to meet an appointment - the first - that I hadproposed, I received a hurried visit from Mrs. Munden, who came onher behalf to let me know that the season happened just not to bepropitious and that our friend couldn't be quite sure, to the hour,when it would again become so. She felt nothing would make it sobut a total absence of worry.
"Oh a 'total absence,'" I said, "is a large order!We live in a worrying world."
"Yes; and she feels exactly that - more than you'dthink. It's in fact just why she mustn't have, as she has now, aparticular distress on at the very moment. She wants of course tolook her best, and such things tell on her appearance."
I shook my head. "Nothing tells on her appearance.Nothing reaches it in any way; nothing gets AT it. However, I canunderstand her anxiety. But what's her particular distress?"
"Why the illness of Miss Dadd."
"And who in the world's Miss Dadd?"
"Her most intimate friend and constant companion -the lady who was with us here that first day."
"Oh the little round black woman who gurgled withadmiration?"
"None other. But she was taken ill last week, and itmay very well be that she'll gurgle no more.

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