‘But what do you say of the padrona?’ said Laurie, kindling into a little subdued enthusiasm. ‘What else could she have done? What would have become of the children?’
‘They would have gone to the workhouse, sir, and there would have been an end,’ said the Academician, sternly. ‘The padrona, as you call her—and, by Jove! had I been Severn, I’d have shut her up sooner than let a parcel of young fellows talk of her like that. Well, then, Mrs. Severn—as we’ll call her, if you please—the young woman has a pretty talent, and her husband taught her after a fashion how to use it. And her pictures sell—at present. But how long do you think it will be before everybody is stocked with those pretty groups of children? They’re very pretty, I don’t deny; and sometimes there’s just a touch that shows, if she had time, if she had not to work for daily bread, if she wasn’t a woman, and could be properly educated, why that she might do something with it which——. But everything is against her, poor soul! and she’s not wise enough to make hay while the sun shines; and when the sun has done shining, I wish you would tell me what the poor thing is to do?’
‘I hope the sun will shine as long as she needs it,’ said Laurie, warmly.
‘Ah! hope, I dare say; so do I. But that’s as much as wishing she may die early, like him,’ said Mr. Welby, rubbing his eyelid. ‘It can’t last, my dear fellow; and that’s why I say the workhouse at once, and have done with it. But anyhow. Mrs. Severn is no example for you. She was made for work, that woman. As long as she has her baby to carry about at nights, and her boys to make a row, and that child Alice, with her curls—why the woman is a tiger for work, I tell you. But you are made of different matter. And besides,’ said the R.A., with the faintest twist of a smile about his lip, ‘a woman may content herself with the homely sort of work she can do; but a young fellow aims at high art—or he’s a muff if he don’t.’ The old man concluded with a little half-affectionate fierceness, softening towards Laurie, who was everybody’s favourite, and who was thus affronted, stimulated, and solaced in a breath.
‘Perhaps I am a muff,’ said Laurie, laughing. ‘I am inclined to think so, sometimes. I am not sure that I want to go in for high art. I want to master my profession as a profession, as I might go and eat in the Temple. I am not too old for that,’ he said, wistfully, giving his adviser one of those half-feminine, appealing glances which never come amiss from young eyes.
Once more the R.A. became pantomimically eloquent. He shrugged his shoulders, he shook his head, he delivered whole volumes of remonstrance from his eyebrows. Then, after a few minutes of this mute animadversion, suddenly put his head between his hands, and stared right into Laurie’s eyes across the table. ‘Let us hear what chances you have otherwise,’ he said. ‘I beg your pardon for insinuating such a thing, but hasn’t your family some sort of connexion with—trade?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Laurie. ‘You need not beg my pardon. It is too big a connexion to be ashamed of—Renton, Westbury, and Co., at Calcutta, and there’s a house in Liverpool, I believe. Ben ought to have been sent out, had we stuck to the traditions of the family. It has been in existence for a hundred and fifty years.’
‘Well, then, suppose you go out in place of Ben,’ said Mr. Welby, musingly, as he might have asked him to take physic; upon which Laurie laughed, and grew rather red.
‘My cousin, Dick Westbury, went in Ben’s place,’ he said;—‘the very sort of fellow to make a merchant of. You might as well tell me to go and stand on my head.’
‘If I could make all the money by it that those fellows do, I should not mind standing on my head,’ said Laurie’s counsellor, reprovingly. ‘Why shouldn’t you be “the very sort” as well? I don’t see that any particular talent is required. A good head, sir, and close attention, and a knowledge of the multiplication-table. But perhaps they did not teach you that at Eton?’ Mr. Welby added, with a gentle sneer, such as he loved.