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THE SUNSHINE.
As we were dressing, it came into my mind that I had forgotten to give him
a black-bordered letter which had arrived the night before. I commonly
opened his letters; but I had not opened this one, for it looked like a
business letter, and I feared it might be a demand for the rent of the
house, which was over due. Indeed, at this time I dreaded opening any
letter the writing on which I did not recognize.
"Here is a letter, Percivale," I said. "I'm sorry I forgot to give it you
last night."
"Who is it from?" he asked, talking through his towel from his
dressing-room.
"I don't know. I didn't open it. It looks like something disagreeable."
"Open it now, then, and see."
"I can't just at this moment," I answered; for I had my back hair half
twisted in my hands. "There it is on the chimney-piece."
He came in, took it, and opened it, while I went on with my toilet.
Suddenly his arms were round me, and I felt his cheek on mine.
"Read that," he said, putting the letter into my hand.
It was from a lawyer in Shrewsbury, informing him that his god-mother, with
whom he had been a great favorite when a boy, was dead, and had left him
three hundred pounds.
It was like a reprieve to one about to be executed. I could only weep
and thank God, once more believing in my Father in heaven. But it was a
humbling thought, that, if he had not thus helped me, I might have ceased
to believe in him. I saw plainly, that, let me talk to Percivale as I
might, my own faith was but a wretched thing. It is all very well to have
noble theories about God; but where is the good of them except we actually
trust in him as a real, present, living, loving being, who counts us of
more value than many sparrows, and will not let one of them fall to the
ground without him?
"I thought, Wynnie, if there was such a God as you believed in, and with
you to pray to him, we shouldn't be long without a hearing," said my
husband.
There was more faith in his heart all the time, though he could not profess
the belief I thought I had, than there ever was in mine.
But our troubles weren't nearly over yet. Percivale wrote, acknowledging
the letter, and requesting to know when it would be convenient to let him
have the money, as he was in immediate want of it. The reply was, that the
trustees were not bound to pay the legacies for a year, but that possibly
they might stretch a point in his favor if he applied to them. Percivale
did so, but received a very curt answer, with little encouragement to
expect any thing but the extreme of legal delay. He received the money,
however, about four months after; lightened, to the great disappointment of
my ignorance, of thirty pounds legacy-duty.
In the mean time, although our minds were much relieved, and Percivale
was working away at his new picture with great energy and courage, the
immediate pressure of circumstances was nearly as painful as ever. It was
a comfort, however, to know that we might borrow on the security of the
legacy; but, greatly grudging the loss of the interest which that would
involve, I would have persuaded Percivale to ask a loan of Lady Bernard.
He objected: on what ground do you think? That it would be disagreeable to
Lady Bernard to be repaid the sum she had lent us! He would have finally
consented, however, I have little doubt, had the absolute necessity for
borrowing arrived.
About a week or ten days after the blessed news, he had a note from Mr.
----, whom he had authorized to part with the picture for thirty guineas.
How much this was under its value, it is not easy to say, seeing the
money-value of pictures is dependent on so many things: but, if the fairy
godmother's executors had paid her legacy at once, that picture would not
have been sold for less than five times the amount; and I may mention that
the last time it changed hands it fetched five hundred and seventy pounds.
Mr. ---- wrote that he had an offer of five and twenty for it, desiring
to know whether he might sell it for that sum. Percivale at once gave
his consent, and the next day received a check for eleven pounds, odd
shillings; the difference being the borrowed amount upon it, its interest,
the commission charged on the sale, and the price of a small picture-frame.
The next day, Percivale had a visitor at the studio,--no less a person
than Mr. Baddeley, with his shirt-front in full blossom, and his diamond
wallowing in light on his fifth finger,--I cannot call it his little
finger, for his hands were as huge as they were soft and white,--hands
descended of generations of laborious ones, but which had never themselves
done any work beyond paddling in money.
He greeted Percivale with a jolly condescension, and told him, that, having
seen and rather liked a picture of his the other day, he had come to
inquire whether he had one that would do for a pendant to it; as he should
like to have it, provided he did not want a fancy price for it.
Percivale felt as if he were setting out his children for sale, as he
invited him to look about the room, and turned round a few from against the
wall. The great man flitted hither and thither, spying at one after another
through the cylinder of his curved hand, Percivale going on with his
painting as if no one were there.
"How much do you want for this sketch?" asked Mr. Baddeley, at length,
pointing to one of the most highly finished paintings in the room.
"I put three hundred on it at the Academy Exhibition," answered Percivale.
"My friends thought it too little; but as it has been on my hands a long
time now, and pictures don't rise in price in the keeping of the painter, I
shouldn't mind taking two for it."
"Two tens, I suppose you mean," said Mr. Baddeley.
"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 class,--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.
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