Fenwick's Career

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

CHAPTER II

Meanwhile Phoebe Fenwick was watching for her husband.

She had come out upon the green strip of ground in front of Green Nab Cottage, and was looking anxiously along the portion of high-road which was visible from where she stood.

The small, whitewashed house—on this May day, more than a generation ago—stood on a narrow shelf that juts out from the face of one of the eastern fells, bounding the valley of Great Langdale.

When Phoebe, seeing no one on the road, turned to look how near the sun might be to its setting, she saw it, as Wordsworth saw it of old, dropping between the peaks of those 'twin brethren' which to the northwest close in the green bareness of the vale. Between the two pikes the blaze lingered, enthroned; the far winding of the valley, hemmed in also by blue and craggy fells, was pierced by rays of sunset; on the broad side of the pikes the stream of Dungeon Ghyll shone full-fed and white; the sheep, with their new-born lambs beside them, studded the green pastures of the valley; and sounds of water came from the fell-sides. Everywhere lines of broad and flowing harmony, moulded by some subtle union of rock and climate and immemorial age into a mountain beauty which is the peculiar possession of Westmoreland and Cumberland. Neither awful, nor yet trivial; neither too soft for dignity, nor too rugged for delight. The Westmoreland hills are the remains of an infinitely older world—giants decayed, but of a great race and ancestry; they have the finish, the delicate or noble loveliness—one might almost say the manner—that comes of long and gentle companionship with those chief forces that make for natural beauty, with air and water, with temperate suns and too abundant rains. Beside them the Alps are inhuman; the Apennines mere forest-grown heaps—mountains in the making; while all that Scotland gains from the easy enveloping glory of its heather, Westmoreland, which is almost heatherless, must owe to an infinitude of fine strokes, tints, curves, and groupings, to touches of magic and to lines of grace, yet never losing the wild energy of precipice and rock that belongs of right to a mountain world.

To-day Langdale was in spring. The withered fern was still red on the sides of the pikes; there was not a leaf on the oaks, still less on the ashes; but the larches were green in various plantations, and the sycamores were bursting. Half a mile eastward the woods were all in soft bloom, carpeted with windflowers and bluebells. Here, but for the larches, and the few sycamores and yews that guard each lonely farm, all was naked fell and pasture. The harsh spring wind came rioting up the valley, to fling itself on the broad sides of the pikes; the lambs made a sad bleating; the water murmured in the ghyll beyond the house; the very sunshine was clear and cold.

Calculations quick and anxious passed through the young wife's brain. Debts here, and debts there; the scanty list of small commissions ahead, which she knew by heart; the uncertainty of the year before them; clothes urgently wanted for the child, for John, for herself. She drew a long and harassed breath.

Phoebe Fenwick was a tall, slender creature, very young; with a little golden head on a thin neck, features childishly cut, and eyes that made the chief adornment of a simple face. The lines of the brow, the lids and lashes, and the clear brown eye itself were indeed of a most subtle and distinguished beauty; they accounted, perhaps, for the attention with which most persons of taste and cultivation observed Fenwick's wife. For the eyes seemed to promise a character, a career; whereas the rest of the face was no more, perhaps, than a piece of agreeable pink-and-white.

She wore a dress of dark-blue cotton, showing the spring of her beautiful throat. The plain gown with its long folds, the uncovered throat, and rich simplicity of her fair hair had often reminded Fenwick and a few of his patrons of those Florentine photographs which now, since the spread of the later Pre-Raphaelites and the opening of the Grosvenor Gallery, were to be seen even in the shops of country towns. There was a literary gentleman in Kendal who said that Mrs. Fenwick was like one of Ghirlandajo's tall women in Santa Maria Novella. Phoebe had sometimes listened uncomfortably to these comparisons. She was a Cumberland girl, and had no wish at all to be like people in Italy. It seemed somehow to cut her off from her own folk.

'John is late!' said a voice beside her. An elderly woman had stepped out of the cottage porch. Miss Anna Mason, the head-mistress of an endowed girls school in Hawkshead, had come to spend a Saturday afternoon with her old pupil, Phoebe Fenwick. A masterful-looking woman—ample in figure, with a mouth of decision. She wore a grey alpaca dress, adorned with a large tatted collar, made by herself, and fastened by a brooch containing a true-lover's knot in brown hair.

'He'll have stayed on to finish,' said Phoebe, looking round. 'Where's
Carrie?'

Miss Mason replied that the child wouldn't wait any longer for her supper, and that Daisy, the little servant, was feeding her. Then, slipping her arm inside Mrs. Fenwick's, Miss Mason looked at the sunset.

'It's a sweet little cottage,' she said, shading her eyes from the fast-sinking orb, and then turning them on the tiny house—'but I dare say you'll not be here long, Phoebe.'

Mrs. Fenwick started.

'John told Mr. Harrock he'd pay him rent for it till next Easter.'

Miss Mason laughed.

'Are you going to let John go wasting his time here till next Easter?'

The arm she held moved involuntarily.

'He has several commissions—people not far from here,' said Mrs. Fenwick, hurriedly. 'And if the weather's too bad, we can always go to rooms in Kendal or Ambleside.'

'Well, if that's what you're thinking of, my dear, you'd better make a clerk of him at once and have done with it! He told me his uncle would always find him work in the upholstery business.'

Phoebe's soft cheeks trembled a little.

'Some day we'll have saved some money,' she said, in a low voice—'and then we'll go to London; and—and John will get on.'

'Yes—when you stop holding him back, Mrs. Phoebe Fenwick!'

'Oh! Miss Anna, I don't hold him back!' cried the wife, suddenly, impetuously.

Miss Mason shook an incredulous head.

'I haven't heard a single word of his bettering himself—of his doing anything but muddle on here—having a "crack" with this farmer and that—and painting pictures he's a sight too good for, since I came this morning; and we've talked for hours. No—I may as well have it out—I'm a one for plain speaking; I'm a bit disappointed in you both. As for you, Phoebe, you'll be precious sorry for it some day if you don't drive him out of this.'

'Where should I drive him to?' cried Mrs. Fenwick, stifled. She had broken a sycamore twig, and was stripping it violently of its buds.

Miss Anna looked at her unmoved. The grey-haired schoolmistress was a woman of ideas and ambitions beyond her apparent scope in life. She had read her Carlyle and Ruskin, and in her calling she was an enthusiast. But, in the words of the Elizabethan poet, she was perhaps 'unacquainted still with her own soul.' She imagined herself a Radical; she was in truth a tyrant. She preached Ruskin and the simple life; no worldling ever believed more fiercely in the gospel of success. But, let it be said promptly, it was success for others, rarely or never for herself; she despised the friend who could not breast and conquer circumstance; as for her own case, there were matters much more interesting to think of. But she was the gadfly, the spur of all to whom she gave her affection. Phoebe, first her pupil, then her under-mistress, and moulded still by the old habit of subordination to her, both loved and dreaded her. It was said that she had made the match between her protégée and old Fenwick's rebellious and gifted son. She had certainly encouraged it, and, whether from conscience or invincible habit, she had meddled a good deal with it ever since.

In reply to Phoebe's question, Miss Anna merely inquired whether Mrs. Fenwick supposed that George Romney—the Westmoreland artist—would have had much chance with his art if he had stayed on in Westmoreland? Why, the other day a picture by Romney had been sold for three thousand pounds! And pray, would he ever have become a great painter at all if he had stuck to Kendal or Dalton-in-Furness all his life?—if he had never been brought in contact with the influences, the money, and the sitters of London? Those were the questions that Phoebe had to answer. 'Would the beautiful Lady This and Lady That ever have come to Kendal to be painted?—would he ever have seen Lady Hamilton?'

At this Mrs. Fenwick flushed hotly from brow to chin.

'I rather wonder at you, Miss Anna!' she said, breathing fast; 'you think it was all right he should desert his wife for thirty years—so—so long as he painted pictures of that bad woman, Lady Hamilton, for you to look at!'

Miss Anna looked curiously at her companion. The schoolmistress was puzzled—and provoked.

'Well!—you don't suppose that John's going to desert you for thirty years!' said the other, with an impatient laugh. 'Don't be absurd, Phoebe.'

Phoebe said nothing. She heard a cry from the baby Carrie, and she hurried across the little garden to the house. At the same moment there was a shout of greeting from below, and Fenwick came into sight on the steep pitch of lane that led from the high-road to the cottage. Miss Anna strolled down to meet him.

In the eyes of his old friend, John Fenwick made a very handsome figure as he approached her, his painter's wallet slung over his shoulder. That something remarkable had happened to him she divined at once. In moments of excitement a certain foreign look—as some people thought, a gypsyish look—was apt to show itself. The roving eyes, the wild manner, the dancing step betrayed the in most man—banishing altogether the furtive or jealous reserve of the North-Countryman, which were at other times equally to be noticed. Miss Anna had often wondered how the same man could be so shy—and so vain!

However, though elation of some sort was uppermost, he was not at first inclined to reveal himself. He told Miss Anna as they walked up together that he had done with Miss Bella; that old Morrison praised the portrait, and the girl hated it; that she was a vulgar, conceited creature, and he was thankful to have finished.

'If I were to show it at Manchester next month, you'd see what the papers would say. But I suppose Miss Bella would sooner die than let her father send it. Silly goose! Powdering every time—and sucking her lips to make them red—and twisting her neck about—ugh! I've no patience with women like that! When I get on a bit, I'll paint nobody I don't want to paint.'

'All right—but get on first,' said Miss Anna, patting him on the arm.
'What next, John—what next?'

He hesitated. His look grew for a moment veiled and furtive. 'Oh, there's plenty to do,' he said, evasively.

They paused on the green ledges outside the cottage.

'What—portraits?'

He nodded uncertainly.

'You'll not grow fat on Great Langdale,' said Miss Anna, waving an ironical hand towards the green desolation of the valley.

He looked at her, walked up and down a moment, then said with an outburst, though in a low tone, and with a look over his shoulder at the open window of the cottage, 'Morrison's lent me a hundred pounds. He advises me to go to London at once.'

Miss Anna raised her eyebrows. 'Oh—oh!' she said—'that's news!
What do you mean by "at once"?—September?'

'Next week—I won't lose a day.'

Miss Anna pondered.

'Well, I dare say Phoebe can hurry up.'

'Oh! I can't take Phoebe,' he said, in a hasty, rather injured voice.

'Not take Phoebe!' cried the other under her breath, seeming to hear around her the ghosts of words which had but just passed between her and Phoebe—'and what on earth are you going to do with her?'

He led her away towards the edge of the little garden—arguing, prophesying, laying down the law.

While he was thus engaged came Phoebe's silver voice from the parlour:

'Is that you, John? Supper's ready.'

He and Miss Anna turned.

'Hush, please!' said Fenwick to his companion, finger on lip; and they entered.

'You'll have got the money from Mr. Morrison, John?' said Phoebe, presently, when they were settled to their meal.

'Aye,' said Fenwick, 'that's all right. Phoebe, that's a real pretty dress of yours.'

Soft colour rose in the wife's cheeks.

'I'm glad you like it,' said Phoebe, soberly. Then looking up—

'John—don't give Carrie that!—it'll make her sick.'

For Fenwick was stealthily feeding the baby beside him with morsels from his own plate. The child's face—pink mouth and blue eyes, both wide open—hung upon him in a fixed expectancy.

'She does like it so—the little greedy puss! It won't do her any harm.'

But the mother persisted. Then the child cried, and the father and mother wrangled over it, till Fenwick caught up the babe by Phoebe's peremptory directions and carried it away upstairs. At the door of the little parlour, while Phoebe was at his shoulder, wiping away the child's tears and cooing to it, Fenwick suddenly turned his head and kissed his wife's cheek, or rather her pretty ear, which presented itself. Miss Anna, still at table, laughed discreetly behind their backs—the laugh of the sweet-natured old maid.

When the child was asleep upstairs, Phoebe and the little servant cleared away while Fenwick and Miss Anna read the newspaper, and talked on generalities. In this talk Phoebe had no share, and it might have been noticed by one who knew them well, that in his conversation with Miss Mason, Fenwick became another man. He used tones and phrases that he either had never used, or used no longer, with Phoebe. He showed himself, in fact, intellectually at ease, expansive, and, at times, amazingly arrogant. For instance, in discussing a paragraph about the Academy in the London letter of the Westmoreland Gazette, he fired up and paced the room, haranguing his listener in a loud, eager voice. Of course she knew—every one knew—that all the best men and all the coming forces were now outside the Academy. Millais, Leighton, Watts—spent talents, extinct volcanoes!—Tadema a marvellous mechanic, without ideas!—the landscape men, chaotic,—no standard anywhere, no style. On the other hand, Burne-Jones and the Grosvenor Gallery group—ideas without drawing, without knowledge, feet and hands absurd, muscles anyhow. While as for Whistler and the Impressionists—a lot of maniacs, running a fad to death—but clever—by Jove!—

No!—there was a new art coming!—the creation of men who had learnt to draw, and could yet keep a hold on ideas—

'Character!—that's what we want!' He struck the table; and finally with a leap he was at the goal which Miss Anna—sitting before him, arms folded, her strong old face touched with satire—had long foreseen. 'By George, I'd show them!—if I only had the chance.'

He threw the pictures back into the cupboard.

'No doubt,' said Miss Anna, dryly. 'I think you are a great man,
John, though you say it. But you've got to prove it.'

He laughed uncomfortably.

'I've written a good many of these things to the Gazette,' he said, evading her direct attack. 'They'll put them in next week.'

'I wish you hadn't, John!' said Phoebe, anxiously. She was sitting under the lamp with her needlework.

He turned upon her aggressively.

'And why, please?'

'Because the last article you wrote lost you a commission. Don't you remember—that gentleman at Grasmere—what he said?'

She nodded her fair head gravely. It struck Miss Anna that she was looking pale and depressed.

'Old fool!' said Fenwick. 'Yes, I remember. He wouldn't ask anybody to paint his children who'd written such a violent article. As if I wanted to paint his children! Besides, it was a mere excuse—to save the money.'

'I don't think so,' murmured Phoebe. 'And oh, I had counted on that five pounds!'

'What does five pounds matter, compared to speaking to one's mind?' said Fenwick, roughly.

There was a silence. Fenwick, looking at the two women, felt them unsympathetic, and abruptly changed the subject.

'I wish you'd give us some music, Phoebe.'

Phoebe rose obediently. He opened the little pianette for her, and lit the candles.

She played some Irish and Scotch airs, in poor settings, and with much stumbling. After a little, Fenwick listened restlessly, his brow frowning, his fingers drumming on the arm of his chair. They were all glad when it was over.

Phoebe, hearing a whimper from the child, went upstairs. The two others were soon in hushed but earnest conversation.

Miss Anna had gone to bed. Fenwick was sitting with a book before him—lost in anxious and exciting calculations—when Phoebe entered the room.

'Is that you?' he said, jumping up. 'That's all right. I wanted to talk to you.'

'I thought you did,' she said, with a very quiet, drooping air; then going to the window, which was open, she leaned out into the May night. 'Where shall we go? It's warmer.'

'Let's go to the ghyll,' said Fenwick; 'I'll fetch you a shawl.'

For, as both remembered, Miss Anna was upstairs, and in that tiny cottage all sounds were audible.

Fenwick wrapt a shawl round his companion, and they sallied forth.

The valley lay below them. A young moon was near its setting over the farthest pike, and the fine lines of the mountain rose dimly clear, from its base on the valley floor to the dark cliffs of Pavey Ark. Not a light was visible anywhere. Their little cottage on its shelf, with the rays of its small lamp shining through the window, seemed to be the only spectator of the fells; it talked with them in a lonely companionship.

They passed through the fence of the small garden out on to the fell-side. Dim forms of sheep rose in alarm as they came near, and bleating lambs hurried beside them. Soft sounds of wind, rising and falling along the mountain or stirring amid last year's bracken, pursued them, till they reached the edge of the ghyll, and, descending its side, found the water murmuring among the stones, the only audible thing in a deep shade and silence.

They sat down by the stream, and Fenwick, taking up some pebbles, began to drop them nervously into the water. Phoebe, beside him, clasped her hands round her knees; in a full light it would have been seen that the hands were trembling.

'Phoebe—old Morrison's offered to lend me some money.'

Phoebe started.

'I—I thought perhaps he had.'

'And he wants me to go to London at once.'

'You've got the money?'

'In my pocket'—he laid his hand upon it. Then he laughed: 'He didn't pay me for the portrait, though. That's like him. And of course I couldn't ask for it.'

A silence.

Fenwick turned round and took one of her hands.

'Well, little woman, what do you think? Are you going to let me go and make my fortune?—our fortune?'

'As if I could stop you!' she said, hoarsely. 'It's what you've wanted for months.'

[Illustration: Husband and Wife]

'Well, and if I have, where's the harm? We can't go on living like this!'

And he began to talk, with great rapidity, about the absurdity of attempting to make a living as an artist out of Westmoreland—out of any place, indeed, but London, the natural centre and clearing-house of talent.

'I could make a living out of teaching, I suppose, up here. I could get—in time—a good many lessons going round to schools. But that would be a dog's life. You wouldn't want to see me at that for ever, would you, Phoebe? Or at painting portraits at five guineas apiece? I could chuck it all, of course, and go in for business. But I can tell you, England would lose something if I did.'

And, catching up another stone, he threw it into the beck with a passion which made the clash of it, as it struck upon a rock, echo through the ghyll. There was something magnificent in the gesture, and a movement, half thrill, half shudder, ran through the wife's delicate frame. She clasped her hands round his arm, and drew close to him.

'John!—are you going to leave baby and me behind?'

Her voice, as she pressed towards him, her face upraised to his, rose from deep founts of feeling; but she kept the sob in it restrained. Fenwick felt the warmth and softness of her young body; the fresh face, the fragrant hair were close upon his lips. He threw both his arms round her and folded her to him.

'Just for a little while,' he pleaded—'till I get my footing. One year! For both our sakes—Phoebe!'

'I could live on such a little—we could get two rooms, which would be cheaper for you than lodgings.'

'It isn't that!' he said, impatiently, but kissing her. 'It is that I must be my own master—I must have nothing to think of but my art—I must slave night and day—I must live with artists—I must get to know all sorts of people who might help me on. If you and Carrie came up—just at first—I couldn't do the best for myself—I couldn't, I tell you. And of course I mean the best for you, in the long run. If I go, I must succeed. And if I can give all my mind, I shall succeed. Don't you think I shall?'

He drew away from her abruptly—holding her at arm's length, scrutinising her face almost with hostility.

'Yes,' said Phoebe, slowly, 'Yes, of course you'll succeed—if you don't quarrel with people.'

'Quarrel,' he repeated, angrily. 'You're always harping on that—you're always so afraid of people. It does a man no harm, I tell you, to be a bit quick-tempered. I shan't be a fool.'

'No, but—I could warn you often. And then you know,' she said, slowly, caressing his shoulder with her hand—'I could look after money. You're dreadfully bad about money, John. Directly you've got it, you spend it—and sometimes when you borrow you forget all about paying it back.'

He was struck dumb for a moment with astonishment; feeling at the same time the trembling of the form which his arm still encircled.

'Well, Phoebe,' he said, at last, 'you seem determined to say disagreeable things to me to-night. I suppose I might remind you that you're much younger than I; and that of course a man knows much more about business than a young thing like you can. How, I should like to know, could we have done any better than we have done, since we married? As far as money goes, we've had a hell of a time, from first to last!'

'It would have been much worse,' said Phoebe, softly, 'if I hadn't been there—you know it would. You know last year when we were in such straits, and all our things were nearly sold up, you let me take over things, and keep the money. And I went to see all the people we owed money to—and—and it's pretty bad—but it isn't as bad as it was—'

She hid her face on her knees, choked by the sob she could no longer repress.

'Well, of course it's better,' said Fenwick, ungraciously; 'I don't say you haven't got a head, Phoebe—why, I know you have! You did first-rate! But, after all, I had to earn the money.'

She looked up eagerly.

'That's what I say. You'd never be able to think about little things—you'd have to be painting always—and going about—and—'

He bit his lip.

'Why, I could manage for myself—for a bit,' he said, with a laugh. 'I'm not such an idiot as all that. Old Morrison's lent me a hundred pounds, Phoebe!'

He enjoyed her amazement.

'A hundred pounds!' she repeated, faintly. 'And however are we going to repay all that?'

He drew her back to him triumphantly.

'Why, you silly child, I'm going to earn it, of course—and a deal more. Don't you hinder me, Phoebe! and I shall be a rich man before we can look round, and you'll be a lady—with a big house—and your carriage, perhaps!'

He kissed her vehemently, as though to coerce her into agreeing with him.

But she released herself.

'You and I'll never be rich. We don't know how.'

'Speak for yourself, please.' He stretched out his right hand, laughing. 'Look at that hand. If it gets a fair chance it's got money in it—and fame—and happiness for us both! Don't you believe in me, Phoebe? Don't you believe I shall make a painter?'

He spoke with an imperious harshness, repeating his query. It was evident, curiously evident, that he cared for her opinion.

'Of course I believe in you,' she said, her chest heaving.
'It's—it's—other things.'

Then, coming to him again, she flung her arms piteously round him. 'Oh, John, John—for a year past—and more—you've been sorry you married me!'

'What on earth's the matter with you?' he cried, half in wrath, half astonished. 'What's come to you, Phoebe?'

'Oh! I know,' she said, withdrawing herself and speaking in a low current of speech. 'You were very fond of me when we married—and—and I dare say you're fond of me now—but it's different. You were a boy then—and you thought you'd get drawing-lessons in Kendal, and perhaps a place at a school—and you didn't seem to want anything more. And now you're so ambitious—so ambitious, John—I'—she turned her head away—'I sometimes feel when I'm with you—I can't breathe—it's just burning you away—and me too. You've found out what you can do—and people tell you you're so clever—and then you think you've thrown yourself away—and that I'm a clog on you. John'—she approached him suddenly, panting—'John, do you mean that baby and I are to stay all the winter alone in that cottage?' She motioned towards it.

He protested that he had elaborately thought out all that she must do. She must go to her father at Keswick for the summer and possibly for the winter, till he had got a footing. He would come up to see her as often as work and funds would permit. She must look after the child, make a little money perhaps by her beautiful embroidery.

'I'll not go to my father,' she said, with energy.

'But why not?'

'You seem to forget that he married a second wife, John, last year.'

'I'm sure Mrs. Gibson was most friendly when we were there last month.
And we'd pay, of course—we'd pay.'

'I'm not going to plant myself and Carrie down on Mrs. Gibson for six months and more, John, so don't ask me. No, we'll stay here—we'll stay here!'

She began to pluck at the grass with her hand, staring before her at the moonlit stream like one who sees visions of the future. The beauty of her faintly visible head and neck suddenly worked on John Fenwick's senses. He threw his arm round her.

'And I shall soon be back. You little silly, can't you understand that
I shall always be wanting you?'

'We'll stay here,' she repeated, slowly. 'And you'll be in London making smart friends—and dining with rich folk—and having ladies to sit to you—'

'Phoebe, you're not jealous of me?' he cried, with a great, good-humoured laugh—'that would be the last straw.'

'Yes, I am jealous of you!' she said, with low-voiced passion; 'and you know very well that I've had some cause to be.'

He was silent. Through both their minds there passed the memory of some episodes in their married life—slight, but quite sufficient to show that John Fenwick was a man of temperament inevitably attracted by womankind.

He murmured that she had made mountains out of mole-hills. She merely raised his hand and kissed it. 'The women make a fool of you, John,' she said, 'and I ought to be there to protect you—for you do love me, you know—you do!'

And then with tears she broke down and clung to him again, in a mood that was partly the love of wife for husband and partly an exquisite maternity—the same feeling she gave her child. He responded with eagerness, feeling indeed that he had won his battle.

For she lay in his arms—weak—protesting no more. The note of anguish, of deep, incalculable foreboding, which she had shown, passed away from her manner and words; while on his side he began to draw pictures of the future so full of exultation and of hope that her youth presently could but listen and believe. The sickle moon descended behind the pikes; only the stars glimmered on the great side of the fell, on solitary yews black upon the night, on lines of wall, on dim, mysterious paths, old as the hills themselves, on the softly chiding water. The May night breathed upon them, calmed them, brought out the better self of each. They returned to the cottage like children, hand in hand, talking of a hundred practical details, thankful that the jarring moment had passed away, each refraining from any word that could wound the other. Nor was it till Fenwick was sound asleep beside her that Phoebe, replunged in loneliness and dread, gave herself in the dawn-silence to a passion of unconquerable tears.