by R S Surtees
“Sivin and four’s elivin, and forty-three is fifty-four — that really looks as if the man has money,” mused old Hall, again wavering in his opinion. “Sivin and four’s elivin, and sivin is eighteen — I’ll take another ventur’.”
“It’ll be Mrs Blunt’s money, p’r’aps,” observed Hall, “as it’s so tight tied up?”
“Mrs Blunt’s money it is,” rejoined the colonel confidently—” Mrs Blunt’s money it is. She has it for fife, and when she damps off, it goes to my daughter.”
“Sivin and four’s elivin, and nine’s twenty — that’s more like the thing,” mused Hall.
“But you’ll have a fife interest, too, I s’pose?” observed the banker.
“No, I haven’t,” replied the colonel, with an air of indifference; “no, I haven’t,” repeated he; “goes to my daughter at once.”
“Sivin and four’s elivin, and twenty’s thirty-one — that’s all in favour of her husband,” thought Hall. “Sivin and four’s elivin, and seventeen’s twenty-eight — been a runaway match, p’r’aps,” thought he.
“Mrs Blunt was an heiress, I presume?” observed Hall, addressing the colonel.
“Heiress — great heiress,” assented the colonel, casting a sheep’s eye at the decanter. “Another glass,” thought he, “will just leave this old screw a pint for his dinner.” So saying, he proceeded to help himself. “Mrs Blunt married me for my looks,” said he as he sipped away at its contents. “I believe I may say, without vanity, that I was one of the handsomest men in the army. Mrs Blunt took a fancy to me, and I tell her I loved her for what she had; and if she’d had twice as much, I’d have loved her twice as well—” the colonel haw, haw, hawing — he, he, heing — ho, ho, hoing — amid exclamations of —
“Oh, fie, colonel! I wouldn’t have thought that of you!” from Mrs Hall.
“Well, but, however, I must be off,” continued the colonel, not liking the cross-examination to which he had been subjected. “I’ve paid you a longish mornin’ visit, but your company’s so agreeable (disagreeable, he thought) that there’s no tearin’ oneself away” — casting an anxious eye at the sherry, which he would fain have finished. “I like you Fleecyboroughites; there’s a deal more warmth and cheerability about you than there is about your fine, languishin’ die-away duchesses, who really seem as if life was a bore to them, and who, if they ask you to dine, give you nothin’ to eat, and send the footmen to sweep you out with the coffee things, just as you think you are goin’ to get somethin’ to drink. But the best friends must part,” continued the colonel, setting down his glass, and hoisting himself up with an effort; “I’ve a deal to do — must go and inspect our corn. That Mister Peter Seive of yours, I fear he’s what they call a rogue in grain; he’s sent in a lot of forage that would disgrace a poultry-yard. Quartermaster Diddle says he never saw such stuff — never,” muttered the colonel to himself, “unless it was accompanied by a fat turkey, a haunch of mutton, or somethin’ of that sort, to make it pass — the proper appendages, in short.”
“Well, mum, I must bid you good-mornin’,” continued he, advancing and seizing Mrs Hall’s retiring hand—” I must bid you good-mornin’ mum,” shaking it severely.
“Good-mornin’ to you, sir,” continued he, turning short round on Hall, waiting to see whether he would be more affable than he was on his entry.
But Hall was not a hand-shaking sort of man at all, at least not without due consideration, which the colonel’s movements did not allow time for; so with a “Your servant, colonel,” and an awkward thrust out behind, old Hall saw him pass on to his son.
“And now,” continued he, addressing our Tom, slipping a little three-cornered highly musked billet-doux into his hand, as he turned his broad back on the old people, “I’m very glad, indeed, to see you all safe and sound; we really had a very uncomfortable anxious night on your account — fearin’ all sorts of unpleasantnesses, not to say bedevilments. However, I’ll tell them you are all right; and,” added he, dropping his voice, “if you feel any little inconvenience from the saddle, diachylon plaister’s the best thing; get a whole sheet for a shillin’ at Rhubarb and Surfeit’s, round the marketplace corner.” So saying, the colonel struck out his right fin, and, getting under weigh, hobbled off on his heels, making the old passage and rickety staircase creak with his weight as he descended. Tom, having accompanied his father-in-law to the second landing, where he transferred him to Sarah the maid, now stood eagerly imbibing the contents of the note. The exact words are immaterial; suffice it to say that Tom speedily regained his bedroom, where, having hastily revised his toilet, he set off for Mr Ruddle, the portrait painter’s.
CHAPTER XXIX.
IN AN ARTIST’S STUDIO.
RUDDLE WAS A great artist, at least in his own estimation. He didn’t begin life as an artist, unless, indeed, modelling ornaments for confectioners’ cakes can be viewed in that light. However, he didn’t stay long with the confectioner — one Mr Queencake of Basinghall-street. Mr Queencake had a daughter, Alicia, on whom Ruddle cast a favourable eye, which the master-man resented as a piece of unpardonable impudence. He therefore picked a hole with poor Ruddle about a pan of preserves, and presently got rid of him. Ruddle, being surfeited with sweets — though not of the “sweet” he wanted — hung about town for some time; but Queencake, being more than a match for him, shifted his daughter from London to Gravesend, and from Gravesend to Margate, and from Margate to Herne Bay, and from Heme Bay back to Basinghall-street, till poor Ruddle’s finances were exhausted in following her. He then gave up the pursuit, being partly reconciled, perhaps, to his loss by meeting a very elegant young creature, half Dutch, half English, aboard a twopenny steamer.
This was in the heyday of railway times, when everybody with a “touch of lamin’,” as the country-people call it, could get employment either as secretaries or directors, or in surveying or pretending to survey lines, laying down plans, drawing prospectuses, checking estimates, conferring with engineers, down to folding, sealing, and delivering letters; and Ruddle carried on a very brisk trade for a time. He was a director of several imaginary lines, and having married his new inamorata on the strength of his prospects, he set her up a very pretty pea-green and straw-coloured cab phaeton, with a buttony boy to pick up her bag. He adorned himself with rings and brooches, and presented himself with a substantial large tasselled cane. The crash, however, soon after came, and boy and cab phaeton and cane were all swept away, leaving Mr and Mrs Ruddle high and dry on the strand. We meant to be allegorical there, but he really was left in the Strand, that being the locality in which he had established his quarters. He then tried his hand at confectionery, and set up a shop in Mayfair, relying upon Mrs Ruddle’s charms for attracting attention. Here, to a certain extent, he was right, though whether it was that the charms were so powerful as to take away appetite, or the cakes were so bad as not to be eatable, certain it is that the profits were so small as not to be appreciable; and when the landlord, Mr Grinder, walked in for his rent, Captain Mainchance walked off the charmer, leaving poor Ruddle to put up the shutters. He was, however, now free again, and felt so equal to anything that he didn’t know what to turn his hand to. At length he came to Fleecyborough, where he had an uncle, one Mr Stencil, a painter and glazier, with whom, having an unlimited run of the paint-pot, he soon began to vary the monotony of door and window priming and painting, by producing sundry surprising horses and other animals, that drew amazing custom to the public-houses at which they were put up.
The natives commended, nay, were astonished at his performances, and Stencil’s back-shop became the rendezvous of all the critics and connoisseurs of Fleecyborough, who assembled of an evening to glorify Ruddle’s performance, and stimulate him to deeds of immortality. We don’t know what wasn’t predicted of him, and Ruddle, notwithstanding the humiliations to which he had been subjected, being a most thoroughly self-sufficient dog, inhaled their adulation with the air of a professor.
There being nothing
in the shape of a man but what is acceptable to some woman or another, Jacky Ruddle, as they called him, was soon besieged by the most exigeante of the fair, which greatly contributed to his self-complacency; and as, first, Miss Catchside, and then Miss Balsam, and next Miss Fairfield, followed by the buxom widow, Mrs Winnington, respectively besieged him, driving the recollection of the frail fair one out of his mind, he began to reduce the impressions they respectively created to canvas, which greatly increased his reputation, and soon caused him to give up sign-painting altogether. The ladies then came trooping to have their portraits painted — some in silk, some in satin; some in wreaths, some in turbans; some with fans, some with bouquets in their hands; but all smiling, and looking very “What-do - you - think - of - me - ish.” Good, strong, bold, hard-featured, tea-boardy, stiff-ringleted things they were, with just that provoking degree of resemblance that enables a spectator to say, “Ah, I suppose that’s meant for Miss Nightingale”; or, “That’s not unlike Mrs Crossfinch.” His men, however, were worse, for they generally looked as if they were drunk, and going to be sick. Still, as this was not apparent until they were finished, Ruddle always acquired great credit as they proceeded; and as the roughly-chalked outline gradually advanced into coat, waistcoat, and cravat, with a face above, the fame of the progressing and outstripping-all-other pictures increased. It was not until they were finished and hung up that their defects became fully apparent. Still Ruddle was not dear in his charges — two pound ten for kit-kats, and five pounds for full-lengths, with miniatures on card or ivory at “from one pound and upwards,” as he ambiguously worded it. Sooner, however, than lose a sitter, Ruddle would take payment in kind — paint a tailor for a coat, an innkeeper for a dozen or two of wine, a butcher for his quarter’s bill, and so on — a moderation that was all the more commendable, inasmuch as he was without opposition.
The reader will now have the kindness to consider Ruddle as having discarded his painter’s apron, and taken a first floor in Angel-court, with the privilege of displaying a gilt case full of specimens in Market-street, one of the most frequented thoroughfares in the good town of Fleecy borough. They will also have the kindness to consider us arrived at the period of time when our friend Tom goes to be “pinted,” in accordance with the oft-repeated recommendation, not to say injunctions, of Angelena.
Ruddle was dividing his time between the fat shoulders of Miss Rumbolde, who had been sitting for her portrait preparatory to her marriage with Mr Muffins, the baker, and a plate of boiled beef and peas-pudding from Tosswell’s eating-house hard by, when the laboured ascent of our Tom on the uncarpeted staircase caused Ruddle to pause and listen to the sound.
“That’s a strange foot,” said Ruddle, dashing his long light hair off a moderately high forehead, and taking a hasty glance at himself in a cracked looking-glass, behind a red screen, as he pulled a dirty dickey above a blue-and-white striped Joinville.
“Rap, tap, tap,” went Tom at the door.
“Come in!” cried Ruddle, whipping the half-finished plate of beef on to a chair behind the screen, and buckling his loose jean blouse about his waist.
“Your humble servant, Mr Hall,” said he, with a most reverent salaam.
“Yours,” replied Tom in an offhand sort of way, looking at the various finished and progressing portraits and artistic lumber scattered around; “I’ve come to see about being painted.”
“If you please, sir,” replied Ruddle, handing Tom a roomy rush-bottomed chair.
“Thank’ee, I’d rather stand,” replied Tom, who wasn’t at all comfortable after his walk, or rather limp.
“A full-length, will you, sir?” said Ruddle, jumping to a conclusion.
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” replied Tom; “I mean to say, I’ll stand while I talk.”
“If you please, sir,” said Ruddle, again bowing very low.
“Well, how do you think I should be taken?” asked Tom.
“Taken,” said Ruddle, stroking his imperial’d chin, and scrutinising Tom’s fat vacant face with a laughing blue eye. “Taken,” repeated he, adding, “You have a commanding presence, sir; yes, sir, a very commanding presence. Excuse me for saying of it, but if you hadn’t been a rich man, sir, you’d have been anything you turn’d your attention to — a general, a judge, a rear-admiral, an extraordinary master in the High Court of Chancery — anything, in short. Never saw so finely developed a head — quite a study for the classic authors.”
“Hem!” mused Hall, who was not at all averse to compliments.
“It’ll do me good to paint such a gent as you, sir,” continued Ruddle; “yes, sir, it will do me good, sir,” repeated he, wondering how much he could charge our hero. This consideration brought him back to the question how he would be taken. “You are in my Lord Lavender’s Hussars, if I mistake not?” observed the polite confectioner; “I suppose you will be taken in your uniform, with your horse — your charger — by your side?”
“W-h-y, I don’t know,” drawled Tom, thinking of Angelena’s injunctions—” I don’t know. I was thinking; of my hunting-dress; how would that do?”
“Very becoming, sir,” observed Ruddle—” very becoming. Scarlet looks well on canvas. Of course, you’d have a favourite horse introduced?” added Ruddle, wishing to make the picture as full as possible.
“How would it do to paint me jumping a gate?” asked Tom.
“Very fine attitude,” replied Ruddle; “very — on a white horse, a la Abraham Cooper, R.A.; respectable artist Abraham — done some goodish things. Or you might have a hunting scene altogether, with hounds and horses all grouped in the centre — such as Grant’s meet of the Queen’s stag-hounds on Ascot ‘eath; respectable artist Grant — done some passable things. Landseer’s not without merit. Indeed, there are some of the London gents who, in particular departments, are not altogether to be despised; the worst of them is, they are not general artists — not universal geniuses. Lee can paint a river, Pickersgill a portrait, Landseer a Scotch terrier, and so on; but they are not men-of-all-work. Put them down here and they’d be lost, totally lost. No; they may do well enough in London, but they wouldn’t succeed in the country. It’s only real merit that can get on here. I’ve no doubt they’d make me President of the Academy if I would go to London, but I won’t. Would send them a pictor, p’r’aps, if they’d hang it in a proper place; and why shouldn’t it be a pictor of you, sir? And that reminds me, sir, of the pint we were discussing, sir — how you should be taken. I really think, sir, a fullish subject, sir, would be the most satisfactory memorial — the most nationally interesting; of course, you would be the centre-piece — the Lord Chesterfield of the pictor; and you might have all your sporting chums around you, one asking you how you are, another admiring your horse, a third offering you a pinch of snuff, a fourth a cigar, a fifth a sugar-plum, and so on; or you might be on foot, like Count D’Orsay in Grant’s pictor, resting on your whip-stick, with a liberal allowance of turned-back wristband; or we might have you going full chivy after the fox, or—”
“How would it do to have me jumping a gate?” interrupted Tom.
“Nothing could be better,” replied Ruddle—” nothing could be better, or more natural.”
“It wouldn’t be absolutely necessary for me to be jumping a gate in order for you to paint me that way, would it?” asked Tom, who had no idea of doing anything of the sort.
“Oh, by no means,” replied Mr Ruddle—” by no means; imagination, sir — inspiration will do all that,” tapping his forehead with his forefinger.
“Well, then,” said Tom, who, like his father, always wanted an estimate, “what do you think you could do it for?”
“Do it for — do it for,” repeated Ruddle in an offhand sort of way—” do it for,” continued he, looking up at the ceiling. “Oh, sir, we shall not quarrel about that, sir — we shall not quarrel about that, sir.”
“Well, but I should like to know,” replied Tom, who knew that that sort of answer generally led to a wrangl
e—” I should like to know — to have an idea, at least. I don’t mean to tie you to a shillin’ or two; but still I should like an idea, you know.”
“Oh, why,” said Ruddle. “I could either take it at so much per head or so much per dozen, if you chose a full pictor; but the fact is, I don’t look so much to the matter of emolument as the credit and renown of painting such a gent as yourself,” the obsequious pastrycook bowing as he spoke. “Now if you want a grand national work,” continued he, again taking up the running, as our friend Tom stood mute, “a real, stunning, superlative pictor, that will grace the walls of the Royal Academy, and engrave after, I would say, by all manner of means, have a full one — either a military piece, with your regiment under arms, or marchin’ with their colours flying and band playing, bringing all the pretty gals to the winders, — or a hound piece — hunting piece, as they call them — with yourself and all the swells of the hunt countin’ the dogs, or lookin’ at the fox before they set him off; or you might have it, as I said before, all goin’ helter-skelter, in a devil-take-the-hindermost sort of way, over hedges, ditches, rails, gates, whatever comes in the way, yourself on a white barb, say, going what they call like a brick; or you might just have a single figure — yourself on a favourite horse, speakin’ to your servant, or adjustin’ your stirrup; or, again, you might be in the private individual style — quite plain and genteel — brown coat and a red velvet vest, with a gold curb chain to your watch, like this portrait of Mr Simpkinson, the gent who’s a-makin’ love to Miss Tiler,” continued Ruddle, pulling out a kit-kat of a very stiffly-curled gentleman, whose unfinished dress was assuming those colours; “or you might be in bottle-green, with a black satin weskit, or an embroidered weskit, or any sort of weskit. In fact, I feel, sir, that I could produce a great work, sir — a very great work,” continued Ruddle, eyeing Tom intently—” a work that would adorn the walls of the Royal Academy, and transmit our names to a grateful posterity. I feel that I could take the shine out of all those conceited A.’s and R.A.’s, who think there’s nobody like them. I feel, sir, that in painting you, sir, I could combine the expression of Raphael with the fire of Michael Angelo and the warmth of Titian, and put Reynolds and Lawrence and all of the modems to the blush,” friend Ruddle fairly blowing himself with the sublimity of this last effort, and now standing balancing the portrait of Mr Simpkinson on one corner, as if he was going to spin it.
