The Beldonald Holbein - Генри Джеймс

Henry James

The Beldonald Holbein

CHAPTER I

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 meshould I only care, as she called it, to throw the handkerchiefto paint her beautiful sister-in-law.  I neednt 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 hadnt only seen and admired certain examples of my work, but had literally been prepossessed in favour of the painters personality.  Had I been struck with this sketch I might easily have imagined her ladyship was throwing me the handkerchief.  She hasnt done, my visitor said, what she ought.

Do you mean she has done what she oughtnt?

Nothing horridah dear no.  And something in Mrs. Mundens tone, with the way she appeared to muse a moment, even suggested to me that what she oughtnt was perhaps what Lady Beldonald had too much neglected.  She hasnt got on.

Whats the matter with her?

Well, to begin with, shes American.

But I thought that was the way of ways to get on.

Its one of them.  But its one of the ways of being awfully out of it too.  There are so many!

So many Americans? I asked.

Yes, plenty of them, Mrs. Munden sighed.  So many ways, I mean, of being one.

But if your sister-in-laws way is to be beautiful?

Oh there are different ways of that too.

And she hasnt taken the right way?

Well, my friend returned as if it were rather difficult to express, she hasnt done with it

I see, I laughed; what she oughtnt!

Mrs. Munden in a manner corrected me, but it was difficult to express.  My brother at all events was certainly selfish.  Till he died she was almost never in London; they wintered, year after year, for what he supposed to be his healthwhich it didnt help, since he was so much too soon to meet his endin the south of France and in the dullest holes he could pick out, and when they came back to England he always kept her in the country.  I must say for her that she always behaved beautifully.  Since his death she has been more in London, but on a stupidly unsuccessful footing.  I dont think she quite understands.  She hasnt what I should call a life.  It may be of course that she doesnt want one.  Thats just what I cant exactly find out.  I cant make out how much she knows.

I can easily make out, I returned with hilarity, how much you do!

Well, youre very horrid.  Perhaps shes too old.

Too old for what? I persisted.

For anything.  Of course shes no longer even a little young; only preservedoh but preserved, like bottled fruit, in syrup!  I want to help her if only because she gets on my nerves, and I really think the way of it would be just the right thing of yours at the Academy and on the line.

But suppose, I threw out, she should give on my nerves?

Oh she will.  But isnt that all in the days work, and dont great beauties always?

You dont, I interrupted; but I at any rate saw Lady Beldonald later onthe day came when her kinswoman brought her, and then I saw how her life must have its centre in her own idea of her appearance.  Nothing else about her matteredone knew her all when one knew that.  Shes indeed in one particular, I think, sole of her kinda person whom vanity has had the odd effect of keeping positively safe and sound.  This passion is supposed surely, for the most part, to be a principle of perversion and of injury, leading astray those who listen to it and landing them sooner or later in this or that complication; but it has landed her ladyship nowhere whateverit has kept her from the first moment of full consciousness, one feels, exactly in the same place.  It has protected her from every danger, has made her absolutely proper and prim.  If shes preserved, as Mrs. Munden originally described her to me, its her vanity that has beautifully done itputting her years ago in a plate-glass case and closing up the receptacle against every breath of air.  How shouldnt she be preserved when you might smash your knuckles on this transparency before you could crack it?  And she isoh amazingly!  Preservation is scarce the word for the rare condition of her surface.  She looks naturally new, as if she took out every night her large lovely varnished eyes and put them in water.  The thing was to paint her, I perceived, in the glass casea most tempting attaching feat; render to the full the shining interposing plate and the general show-window effect.

It was agreed, though it wasnt quite arranged, that she should sit to me.  If it wasnt quite arranged this was because, as I was made to understand from an early stage, the conditions from our start must be such as should exclude all elements of disturbance, such, in a word, as she herself should judge absolutely favourable.  And it seemed that these conditions were easily imperilled.  Suddenly, for instance, at a moment when I was expecting her to meet an appointmentthe firstthat I had proposed, I received a hurried visit from Mrs. Munden, who came on her behalf to let me know that the season happened just not to be propitious and that our friend couldnt be quite sure, to the hour, when it would again become so. She felt nothing would make it so but 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 thatmore than youd think.  Its in fact just why she mustnt have, as she has now, a particular distress on at the very moment.  She wants of course to look 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 can understand her anxiety.  But whats her particular distress?

Why the illness of Miss Dadd.

And who in the worlds Miss Dadd?

Her most intimate friend and constant companionthe lady who was with us here that first day.

Oh the little round black woman who gurgled with admiration?

None other.  But she was taken ill last week, and it may very well be that shell gurgle no more.  She was very bad yesterday and is no better to-day, and Ninas much upset.  If anything happens to Miss Dadd shell have to get another, and, though she has had two or three before, that wont be so easy.

Two or three Miss Dadds? is it possible?  And still wanting another!  I recalled the poor lady completely now.  No; I shouldnt indeed think it would be easy to get another.  But why is a succession of them necessary to Lady Beldonalds existence?

Cant you guess?  Mrs. Munden looked deep, yet impatient.  They help.

Help what?  Help whom?

Why every one.  You and me for instance.  To do what?  Why to think Nina beautiful.  She has them for that purpose; they serve as foils, as accents serve on syllables, as terms of comparison.  They make her stand out.  Its an effect of contrast that must be familiar to you artists; its what a woman does when she puts a band of black velvet under a pearl ornament that may, require, as she thinks, a little showing off.