The Vicar's Daughter Part 47

"I gave him a look," said Percivale, as he described the interview to me; and I knew as well as if I had seen it what kind of a phenomenon that look must have been.

"Come, now," Mr. Baddeley went on, perhaps misinterpreting the look, for it was such as a man of his property was not in the habit of receiving, "you mustn't think I'm made of money, or that I'm a green hand in the market.

I know what your pictures fetch; and I'm a pretty sharp man of business, I believe. What do you really mean to say and stick to? Ready money, you know."

"Three hundred," said Percivale coolly.

"Why, Mr. Percivale!" cried Mr. Baddeley, drawing himself up, as my husband said, with the air of one who knew a trick worth two of that, "I paid Mr. ---- fifty pounds, neither more nor less, for a picture of yours yesterday--a picture, allow me to say, worth"--

He turned again to the one in question with a critical air, as if about to estimate to a fraction its value as compared with the other.

"Worth three of that, some people think," said Percivale.

"The price of this, then, joking aside, is--?"

"Three hundred pounds," answered Percivale,--I know well how quietly.

"I understood you wished to sell it," said Mr. Baddeley, beginning, for all his good nature, to look offended, as well he might.

"I do wish to sell it. I happen to be in want of money."

"Then I'll be liberal, and offer you the same I paid for the other. I'll send you a check this afternoon for fifty--with pleasure."

"You cannot have that picture under three hundred."

"Why!" said the rich man, puzzled, "you offered it for two hundred, not five minutes ago."

"Yes; and you pretended to think I meant two tens."

"Offended you, I fear."

"At all events, betrayed so much ignorance of painting, that I would rather not have a picture of mine in your house."

"You're the first man ever presumed to tell me I was ignorant of painting,"

said Mr. Baddeley, now thoroughly indignant.

"You have heard the truth, then, for the first time," said Percivale, and resumed his work.

Mr. Baddeley walked out of the study.

I am not sure that he was so very ignorant. He had been in the way of buying popular pictures for some time, paying thousands for certain of them. I suspect he had eye enough to see that my husband's would probably rise in value, and, with the true huckster spirit, was ambitious of boasting how little he had given compared with what they were really worth.

Percivale in this case was doubtless rude. He had an insuperable aversion to men of Mr. Baddeley's cla.s.s,--men who could have no position but for their money, and who yet presumed upon it, as if it were gifts and graces, genius and learning, judgment and art, all in one. He was in the habit of saying that the plutocracy, as he called it, ought to be put down,--that is, negatively and honestly,--by showing them no more respect than you really entertained for them. Besides, although he had no great favors for Cousin Judy's husband, he yet bore Mr. Baddeley a grudge for the way in which he had treated one with whom, while things went well with him, he had been ready enough to exchange hospitalities.

Before long, through Lady Bernard, he sold a picture at a fair price; and soon after, seeing in a shop-window the one Mr. ---- had sold to Mr.

Baddeley, marked ten pounds, went in and bought it. Within the year he sold it for a hundred and fifty.

By working day and night almost, he finished his new picture in time for the Academy; and, as he had himself predicted, it proved, at least in the opinion of all his artist friends, the best that he had ever painted. It was bought at once for three hundred pounds; and never since then have we been in want of money.

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

WHAT LADY BERNARD THOUGHT OF IT.

My reader may wonder, that, in my record of these troubles, I have never mentioned Marion. The fact is, I could not bring myself to tell her of them; partly because she was in some trouble herself, from strangers who had taken rooms in the house, and made mischief between her and her grandchildren; and partly because I knew she would insist on going to Lady Bernard; and, although I should not have minded it myself, I knew that nothing but seeing the children hungry would have driven my husband to consent to it.

One evening, after it was all over, I told Lady Bernard the story. She allowed me to finish it without saying a word. When I had ended, she still sat silent for a few moments; then, laying her hand on my arm, said,--

My dear child, you were very wrong, as well as very unkind. Why did you not let me know?"

"Because my husband would never have allowed me," I answered.

"Then I must have a talk with your husband," she said.

"I wish you would," I replied; "for I can't help thinking Percivale too severe about such things."

The very next day she called, and did have a talk with him in the study to the following effect:--

"I have come to quarrel with you, Mr. Percivale," said Lady Bernard.

"I'm sorry to hear it," he returned. "You're the last person I should like to quarrel with, for it would imply some unpardonable fault in me."

"It does imply a fault--and a great one," she rejoined; "though I trust not an unpardonable one. That depends on whether you can repent of it."

She spoke with such a serious air, that Percivale grew uneasy, and began to wonder what he could possibly have done to offend her. I had told him nothing of our conversation, wis.h.i.+ng her to have her own way with him.

When she saw him troubled, she smiled.

"Is it not a fault, Mr. Percivale, to prevent one from obeying the divine law of bearing another's burden?"

"But," said Percivale, "I read as well, that every man shall bear his own burden."

"Ah!" returned Lady Bernard; "but I learn from Mr. Conybeare that two different Greek words are there used, which we translate only by the English _burden_. I cannot tell you what they are: I can only tell you the practical result. We are to bear one another's burdens of pain or grief or misfortune or doubt,--whatever weighs one down is to be borne by another; but the man who is tempted to exalt himself over his neighbor is taught to remember that he has his own load of disgrace to bear and answer for. It is just a weaker form of the lesson of the mote and the beam. You cannot get out at that door, Mr. Percivale. I beg you will read the pa.s.sage in your Greek Testament, and see if you have not misapplied it. You _ought_ to have let me bear your burden."

"Well, you see, my dear Lady Bernard," returned Percivale, at a loss to reply to such a vigorous a.s.sault, "I knew how it would be. You would have come here and bought pictures you didn't want; and I, knowing all the time you did it only to give me the money, should have had to talk to you as if I were taken in by it; and I really could _not_ stand it."

"There you are altogether wrong. Besides depriving me of the opportunity of fulfilling a duty, and of the pleasure and the honor of helping you to bear your burden, you have deprived me of the opportunity of indulging a positive pa.s.sion for pictures. I am constantly compelled to restrain it lest I should spend too much of the money given me for the common good on my own private tastes; but here was a chance for me! I might have had some of your lovely pictures in my drawing-room now--with a good conscience and a happy heart--if you had only been friendly. It was too bad of you, Mr.

Percivale! I am not pretending in the least when I a.s.sert that I am really and thoroughly disappointed."

"I haven't a word to say for myself," returned Percivale.

"You couldn't have said a better," rejoined Lady Bernard; "but I hope you will never have to say it again."

"That I shall not. If ever I find myself in any difficulty worth speaking of, I will let you know at once."

"Thank you. Then we are friends again. And now I do think I am ent.i.tled to a picture,--at least, I think it will be pardonable if I yield to the _very_ strong temptation I am under at this moment to buy one. Let me see: what have you in the slave-market, as your wife calls it?"