The Beldonald Holbein | Page 6

Every one came, my big room was full, there was music and a modest spread; and I've not forgotten the light of admiration in Outreau's expressive face as at the end of half an hour he came up to me in his enthusiasm. "Bonte divine, mon cher--que cette vieille est donc belle!"
I had tried to collect all the beauty I could, and also all the youth, so that for a moment I was at a loss. I had talked to many people and provided for the music, and there were figures in the crowd that were still lost to me. "What old woman do you mean?"
"I don't know her name--she was over by the door a moment ago. I asked somebody and was told, I think, that she's American."
I looked about and saw one of my guests attach a pair of fine eyes to Outreau very much as if she knew he must be talking of her. "Oh Lady Beldonald! Yes, she's handsome; but the great point about her is that she has been 'put up' to keep, and that she wouldn't be flattered if she knew you spoke of her as old. A box of sardines is 'old' only after it has been opened, Lady Beldonald never has yet been--but I'm going to do it." I joked, but I was somewhat disappointed. It was a type that, with his unerring sense for the banal, I shouldn't have expected Outreau to pick out.
"You're going to paint her? But, my dear man, she is painted--and as neither you nor I can do it. Ou est-elle donc? He had lost her, and I saw I had made a mistake. She's the greatest of all the great Holbeins."
I was relieved. "Ah then not Lady Beldonald! But do I possess a Holbein of ANY price unawares?"
"There she is--there she is! Dear, dear, dear, what a head!" And I saw whom he meant--and what: a small old lady in a black dress and a black bonnet, both relieved with a little white, who had evidently just changed, her place to reach a corner from which more of the room and of the scene was presented to her. She appeared unnoticed and unknown, and I immediately recognised that some other guest must have brought her and, for want of opportunity, had as yet to call my attention to her. But two things, simultaneously with this and with each other, struck me with force; one of them the truth of Outreau's description of her, the other the fact that the person bringing her could only have been Lady Beldonald. She WAS a Holbein--of the first water; yet she was also Mrs. Brash, the imported "foil," the indispensable accent," the successor to the dreary Miss Dadd! By the time I had put these things together--Outreau's "American" having helped me--I was in just such full possession of her face as I had found myself, on the other first occasion, of that of her patroness. Only with so different a consequence. I couldn't look at her enough, and I stared and stared till I became aware she might have fancied me challenging her as a person unpresented. "All the same," Outreau went on, equally held, "c'est une tete a faire. If I were only staying long enough for a crack at her! But I tell you what and he seized my arm--"bring her over!"
"Over?"
"To Paris. She'd have a succes fou."
"Ah thanks, my dear fellow," I was now quite in a position to say; "she's the handsomest thing in London, and"--for what I might do with her was already before me with intensity--"I propose to keep her to myself." It was before me with intensity, in the light of Mrs. Brash's distant perfection of a little white old face, in which every wrinkle was the touch of a master; but something else, I suddenly felt, was not less so, for Lady Beldonald, in the other quarter, and though she couldn't have made out the subject of our notice, continued to fix us, and her eyes had the challenge of those of the woman of consequence who has missed something. A moment later I was close to her, apologising first for not having been more on the spot at her arrival, but saying in the next breath uncontrollably: "Why my dear lady, it's a Holbein!"
"A Holbein? What?"
"Why the wonderful sharp old face so extraordinarily, consummately drawn-- in the frame of black velvet. That of Mrs. Brash, I mean--isn't it her name?--your companion."
This was the beginning of a most odd matter--the essence of my anecdote; and I think the very first note of the oddity must have sounded for me in the tone in which her ladyship spoke after giving me a silent look. It seemed to come to me out of a