Fenwick's Career

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

CHAPTER VIII

When Fenwick was alone, he walked to a chest of drawers in which he kept a disorderly multitude of possessions, and took out a mingled handful of letters, photographs, and sketches. Throwing them on a table, he looked for and found a photograph of Phoebe with Carrie on her knee, and a little sketch of Phoebe—one of the first ideas for the 'Genius Loci.' He propped them up against some books, and looked at them in a passion of triumph.

'It's all right, old woman—it's all right!' he murmured, smiling. Then he spread out Lord Findon's cheque before the photograph, as though he offered it at Phoebe's shrine.

Five hundred pounds! Well, it was only what his work was worth—what he had every right to expect. None the less, the actual possession of the money seemed to change his whole being. What would his old father say? He gave a laugh, half-scornful, half-good-humoured, as he admitted to himself that not even now—probably—would the old man relent.

And Phoebe!—he imagined the happy wonder in her eyes—the rolling away of all clouds between them. For six weeks now he had been a veritable brute about letters! First, the strain of his work (and the final wrestle with the 'Genius Loci,' including the misfortune of the paints, had really been a terrible affair!)—then—he confessed it—the intellectual excitement of the correspondence with Madame de Pastourelles: between these two obsessions, or emotions, poor Phoebe had fared ill.

'But you'll forgive me now, old girl—won't you?' he said, kissing her photograph in an effusion that brought the moisture to his eyes. Then he replaced it, with the sketches, in the drawer, forgetting in his excitement the letters which lay scattered on the table.

What should he do now? Impossible to settle down to any work! The North post had gone, but he might telegraph to Phoebe and write later. Meanwhile he would go over to Chelsea, and see Cuningham and Watson—repay Watson his debt!—or promise it at least for the morrow, when he should have had time to cash the cheque—perhaps even—pompous thought!—to open a banking account.

Suddenly a remembrance of Morrison crossed his mind and he stood a moment with bent head—sobered—as though a ghost passed through the room. Must he send a hundred pounds to Mrs. Morrison? He envisaged it, unwillingly. Already his treasure seemed to be melting away. Time enough, surely, for that. He and Phoebe had so much to do—to get a house and furnish it, to pay pressing bills, to provide models for the new picture! Why, it would be all gone directly!

He locked up the cheque safely, took his hat, and was just running out when his eye fell on the three-hours' sketch of Madame de Pastourelles, which had been the foundation of the portrait. He had recently framed it, but had not yet found a place for it. It stood on the floor, against the wall. He took it up, looked at it with delight—by Jove! it was a brilliant thing!—and placing it on a small easel, he arranged two lamps with moveable shades, which he often used for drawing in the evening, so as to show it off. There was in him more than a touch of theatricality, and as he stood back from this little arrangement to study its effect, he was charmed with his own fancy. There she queened it, in the centre of the room—his patron saint, and Phoebe's. He knew well what he owed her—and Phoebe should soon know. He was in a hurry to be off; but he could not make up his mind—superstitiously—to put out the lights. So, after lingering a few moments before her, in this tremor of imagination and of pleasure, he left her thus, radiant and haloed!—the patron saint in charge.

On his way out he found an anxious landlady upon his path. Mrs. Gibbs was soon made happy, so far as promises could do it, and in another minute he was in a hansom speeding westward. It was nearly seven o'clock on a mild April evening. The streets were full, the shops still open. As he passed along Oxford Street, monarch it seemed of all he beheld, his eyes fell on Peter Robinson's windows, glittering with lights, and gay with spring ribbons, laces, and bright silks. An idea rushed into his mind. Only the week before, on his first visit to the new Chelsea quarters whither Cuningham and Watson had betaken themselves, he had stumbled upon an odd little scene in the still bare, ungarnished studio. Cuningham, who had been making money with some rapidity of late, was displaying before the half-sympathetic, half-sarcastic eyes of Watson, some presents that he was just sending off to his mother and sisters in Scotland. A white dress, a lace shawl, some handkerchiefs, a sash, a fan—there they lay, ranged on brown paper on the studio floor. Cuningham was immensely proud of them, and had been quite ready to show them to Fenwick also, fingering their fresh folds, enlarging on their beauties. And Fenwick had thought sorely of Phoebe as he watched Cuningham turn the pretty things over. When had he ever been able to give her any feminine gauds? Always this damned poverty, pressing them down!

But now—by Jove!—

He made the hansom stop, rushed into Peter Robinson's, bought a dress-length of pink-and-white cotton, a blue sash for Carrie, and a fichu of Indian muslin and lace. Thrusting his hand into his pocket for money, he found only a sovereign—pretty nearly his last!—and some silver. 'That's on account,' he said loftily, giving the sovereign to the shopman; 'send the things home to-morrow afternoon—to-morrow afternoon, mind—and I'll pay for them on delivery.'

Then he jumped into his hansom again, and for sheer excitement told the man to hurry, and he should have an extra shilling. On they sped down Park Lane. The beds of many-coloured hyacinths in the Park shone through the cheerful dusk; the street was crowded, and beyond, the railings, the seats under the trees were full of idlers. There was a sparkle of flowers in the windows of the Park Lane houses, together with golden sunset touches on the glass; and pretty faces wrapt in lace or gauze looked out from the hansoms as they passed him by. Again the London of the rich laid hold on him; not threateningly this time, but rather as though a door were opened and a hand beckoned. His own upward progress had begun; he was no longer jealous of the people who stood higher.

Dorchester House, Dudley House;—he looked at them with a good-humoured tolerance. After all, London was pleasant; there was some recognition of merit; and even something to be said for Academies.

Then his picture began to hover before him. It was a big thing; suppose it took him years? Well, there would be portraits to keep him alive. Meanwhile it was true enough what he had said to Madame de Pastourelles. As a painter he had never been properly trained. His values were uncertain; and he had none of the sureness of method which men with half his talent had got out of study under a man like, say, Carolus Duran.

Supposing now, he went to Paris for a year? No, no!—too many of the Englishmen who went to Paris lost their individuality and became third-rate Frenchmen. He would puzzle out things for himself—stick to his own programme and ideas.

English poetic feeling, combined with as much of French technique as it could assimilate—there was the line of progress. Not the technique of these clever madmen—Manet, Degas, Monet, and the rest—with the mean view of life of some, and the hideous surface of others. No!—but the Barbizon men—and Mother Nature, first and foremost! Beauty too, beauty of idea and selection—not mere beauty of paint, to which everything else—line, modelling, construction—was to be vilely sacrificed.

In his exaltation he began an imaginary article denouncing the Impressionists, spouting it aloud as he went along; so that the passers-by caught a word or two, through the traffic, now and then, and turned to look, astonished, at the handsome, gesticulating fellow in the hansom. Till he stopped abruptly, first to laugh at himself, and then to chuckle over the thought of Phoebe, and the presents he had just bought.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, at the very moment, probably, that Fenwick was in Peter Robinson's shop, an omnibus coming from Euston passed through Russell Square, and a woman, volubly advised by the conductor, alighted from it at the corner of Bernard Street. She was very tall and slender; her dress was dusty and travel-stained, and as she left the omnibus she drew down a thickly spotted veil over a weary face. She walked quickly down Bernard Street, looking at the numbers, and stopped before the door of Fenwick's lodgings.

The door was opened by Mrs. Gibbs, the landlady.

'Is Mr. Fenwick at home?'

'No; he's just this minute gone out. Did you want to see him, Miss?'

The young woman hung back a moment in hesitation. Then she advanced into the hall.

'I've got a parcel for him'—she showed it under her arm. 'If you'll allow me, I'll go up, and leave it in his room. It's important.'

'And what name, Miss—if I may ask?'

The visitor hesitated again—then she said, quietly:

'I am Mrs. Fenwick—Mr. Fenwick's wife.'

'His wife!' cried the other, startled. 'Oh no; there is some mistake—he hasn't got no wife!'

Phoebe drew herself up fiercely.

'You mustn't say such things to me, please! I am Mr. Fenwick's wife—and you must please show me his rooms.'

The emphasis and the passion with which these words were said left Mrs. Gibbs gaping. She was a worthy woman, for whom the world—so far as it could be studied from a Bernard Street lodging-house—had few surprises; and a number of alternative conjectures ran through her mind as she studied Phoebe's appearance.

'I'm sure, ma'am, I meant no offence,' she said, hurriedly; 'but, you see, Mr. Fenwick has never—as you might say—'

'No,' said Phoebe, proudly, interrupting her; 'there was no reason why he should speak of his private affairs. I have been in the country, waiting till he could make a home for me. Now will you show me his room?'

But Mrs. Gibbs did not move. She stood staring at Phoebe, irresolute—thinking, no doubt, of the penny novelettes on which she fed her leisure moments—till Phoebe impatiently drew a letter from her pocket.

'I see you doubt what I say. Of course it is quite right that you should be careful about admitting anybody to my husband's rooms in his absence. But here is the last letter I received from him a week or two ago.'

And, drawing it from its envelope, Phoebe showed first the signature,
'John Fenwick,' and then pointed to the address on the envelope—'Mrs.
John Fenwick, Green Nab Cottage, Great Langdale.'

'Well, I never!' said Mrs. Gibbs, staring still more widely, and slowly retreating—'and he never lettin' me post a letter since he came here—not once—no confidence nowhere—and I'm sure I have been his good friend!'

Phoebe moved towards the staircase.

'Is Mr. Fenwick's room on the first floor or the second?'

Lost in protesting wonder, Mrs. Gibbs wheezily mounted the stairs far enough to point to the door of Fenwick's room.

'Here's matches'—she fumbled in her apron-pocket. 'There's a candle on the mantelpiece. Though I dare say he's left his lamp going. He generally does—he don't take no account of what I says to him about it.'

Phoebe passed on. Mrs. Gibbs called after her:

'So I'm to say "Mrs. Fenwick," am I, madam—when Mr. Fenwick gets back?'

She stood leaning against the banisters, one hand behind her, looking her visitor up and down with impertinent eyes.

'Certainly,' said Phoebe. Then she put her hand to her head, and said, in a low, bewildered voice, 'At least, if I'm here—if he comes back soon—but I can't stay.'

Mrs. Gibbs went downstairs again, consumed with conjecture and excitement.

'Wife indeed!—that's what they all say—bound to. But of all the cool young women! I hope I haven't done no harm, letting her into the studio. But that letter and all—it was enough to make a jelly of you things a-turnin' out like this. And me all a-tremblin', and givin' in!'

* * * * *

Phoebe opened the studio door, noticed the bright light with amazement, and shut the door behind her. She stood there, with her back to it, sharply arrested, her eyes held by the spectacle before her.

Close to her, in the centre of the freest portion of the floor, rose the sketch of Eugénie de Pastourelles, lit by the two lamps, which threw a concentrated glow upon the picture, and left all the rest of the room shadowy. Nothing could have been more strange than the aspect of the drawing, thus solitary, and brightly illuminated. Phoebe looked at it in bewilderment, then round the littered studio. Beyond the lamps, she saw the large new canvas, showing dimly the first 'laying-in' of its important subject. On the floor, and running round the walls, was a thin line of sketches and canvases. The shallow, semi-circular window at the further end of the room was not yet curtained, and the branches of the still leafless plane-tree outside showed darkly in the gathering dusk. The room, apart from its one spot of light, struck bare and chill. Except for the 'throne' and a few chairs, it contained scarcely any furniture. But, for Phoebe, it was held by two presences. Everything around her spoke of John. Here was his familiar belongings—his clothes that she had mended—his books—his painting-things. And over John's room—her husband's room—the woman in the picture held sway.

She slowly approached the drawing, while a sob mounted in her throat. She was still in the grip of that violent half-hysterical impulse which had possessed her since the evening of Bella Morrison's visit. Nights almost sleepless, arrangements made and carried out in a tumult of excitement, a sense of impending tragedy, accepted, and almost welcomed, as the end of long weeks of doubt and self-torment, which had become at last unbearable—into this fatal coil of actions and impressions, the young wife had been sinking deeper and deeper with each successive hour. She had neither friend nor adviser. Her father, a weak inarticulate man, was dying; her stepmother hated her; and she had long ceased to write to Miss Anna, because it was she who had urged John to go to London! All sane inference and normal reasoning were now indeed, and had been for some time, impossible to her. Fenwick, possessed by the imaginations of his art, had had no imagination—alack!—to spend upon his wife's case, and those morbid processes of brain developed in her by solitude, and wounded love, and mortified vanity. One hour with him!—one hour of love, scolding, tears—would have saved them both. Alone, she was incapable of the merest common sense. She came prepared to discover the worst—to find evidence for all her fears. And for the worst she had elaborately laid her plans. Only if it should turn out that she had been an unkind, unreasonable wife, wrongly suspicious of her husband, was she uncertain what she would do.

With dry, reddened eyes, she stared at the portrait of the woman who must have stolen John from her. The mere arrangement of the room seemed to her excited nerves a second outrage;—Mrs. Gibbs's reception of her and all that it had implied, had been the first. What could this strange illumination mean but that John's thoughts were taken up with his sitter in an unusual and unlawful way? For weeks he could leave his wife without a letter, a word of affection. But before going out for an hour, he must needs light these lamps and place them so—in order that this finicking lady should not feel herself deserted, that he should still seem to be admiring and adoring her!

And after all, was she so pretty? Phoebe looked at the pale and subtle face, at the hair and eyes so much less brilliant than her own, at the thin figure, and the repose of the hands. Not pretty at all!—she said to herself, violently—but selfish, and artful, and full, of course, of all the tricks and wiles of 'society people.' Didn't she know that John was married? Phoebe scornfully refused to believe it. Such women simply didn't care what stood in their way. If they took a fancy to a man, what did it matter whether he were married or no?

The poor girl stood there, seething with passion, pluming herself on a knowledge of the world which enabled her to 'see through' these abominable great ladies.

But if she didn't know, if Bella Morrison's tale were true, then it was John, on whom Phoebe's rage returned to fling itself with fresh and maddened bitterness. That he should have thus utterly ignored her in his new surroundings—have never said a word about her to the landlady with whom he had lodged for nearly a year, or to any of his new acquaintances and friends—should have deliberately hidden the very fact of his marriage—could a husband give a wife any more humiliating proof of his indifference, or of her insignificance in his life?

[Illustration: Phoebe's Rival]

Meanwhile the picture possessed her more and more. Closer and closer she came, her chest heaving. Was it not as though John had foreseen her coming, her complaints—and had prepared for her this silent, this cruel answer? The big picture of course was gone in to the Academy, but his wife, if she came, was to see that he could not do without Madame de Pastourelles. So the sketch, with which he had finished, really, months ago, was dragged out, and made queen of all it surveyed, because, no doubt, he was miserable at parting with the picture. Ingenuity and self-torment grew with what they fed on. The burning lamps—the solitude—the graceful woman, with her slim, fine-lady hands—with every moment they became in Phoebe's eyes a more bitter, a more significant offence. Presently, in her foolish agony, she did actually believe that he had thought she might descend upon him, provoked beyond bearing by his silence and neglect, and had carefully planned this infamous way of telling her—what he wanted her to know!

Waves of unreasoning passion swept across her. The gentleness and docility of her youth had been perhaps mechanical, half-conscious; she came in truth of a hard stock, capable of violence. She put her hands to her face, trembled, and turned away. She began to be afraid of herself.

With a restless hand, as though she caught hold of anything that might distract her from the picture, she began to rummage among the papers on the table. Suddenly her attention pounced upon them; she bent her head, took up some and carried them to the lamp. Five or six large envelopes, bearing a crest and monogram, addressed in a clear hand, and containing each a long letter—she found a packet, of these, tied round with string. Throwing off her hat and veil, she sat down under the lamp, and, without an instant's demur, began to read.

First, indeed, she turned to the signature—'Eugénie de Pastourelles.' Why, pray, should Madame de Pastourelles write these long letters to another woman's husband? The hands which held them shook with anger and misery. These pages filled with discussion of art and books, which had seemed to the woman of European culture, and French associations, so natural to write, which had been written as the harmless and kindly occupation of an idle hour, with the shades of Madame de Sévigné and Madame du Deffand standing by, were messengers of terror and despair to this ignorant and yet sentimental Westmoreland girl. Why should they be written at all to her John, her own husband? No nice woman that she had ever known wrote long letters to married men. What could have been the object of writing these pages and pages about John's pictures and John's prospects?—affected stuff!—and what was the meaning of these appointments to see pictures, these invitations to St. James's Square, these thanks 'for the kind and charming things you say'—above all, of the constant and crying omission, throughout these delicately written sheets, of any mention whatever of Fenwick's wife and child? But of course for the two correspondents whom these letters implied, such dull, stupid creatures did not exist.

Ah! but wait a moment. Her eye caught a sentence—then fastened greedily on the following passage:

'I hardly like to repeat what I said the other day—you will think me a very intrusive person!—but when you talk of melancholy and loneliness, of feeling the strain of competition, and the nervous burden of work, so that you are sometimes tempted to give it up altogether, I can't help repeating that some day a wife will save you from all this. I have seen so much of artists!—they of all men should marry. It is quite a delusion to suppose that art—whatever art means—is enough for them, or for anybody. Imagination is the most exhausting of all professions!—and if we women are good for nothing else we can be cushions—we can "stop a chink and keep the wind away." So pay no attention, please, to my father's diatribes. You will very soon be prosperous—sooner perhaps than you think. A home is what you want.'

Kind and simple sentences!—written so innocently and interpreted so perversely! And yet the fierce and blind bewilderment with which Phoebe read or misread them was natural enough. She never doubted for a moment but that the bad woman who wrote them meant to offer herself to John. She was separated from her husband, John had said, declaring of course that it was not her fault. As if any one could be sure of that! But, at any rate, if she were separated, she might be divorced—some time. And then—then!—she would be so obliging as to make a 'cushion,' and a home, for Phoebe Fenwick's husband! As to his not being grand enough for her, that was all nonsense. When a man was as clever as John, he was anybodies equal—one saw that every day. No, this creature would make people buy his pictures—she would push him on—and after a while—

With a morbid and devastating rapidity, a whole scheme, by which the woman before her might possess herself of John, unfolded itself in Phoebe's furious mind.

Yet, surely, it would only want one word from her—from her, his wife?—

She felt herself trembling. Her limbs began to sink under her. She dropped upon a chair, sobbing. What was the use of fighting, of protesting? John had forgotten her—John's heart had grown cold to her. She might dismay and trample on her rival—how would that give her back her husband?

Oh, how could he, how could he have treated her so! 'I know I was ill-tempered and cross, John,—I couldn't write letters like that—but I did, did love you—you know, you know—I did!'

It seemed as though she twined her arms round him, and he sat rigid as a stone, with a hard, contemptuous mouth. A lonely agony, a blackness of despair, seized on Phoebe, as she crouched there, the letters on her lap, her hands hanging, her beautiful eyes, blurred with tears and sleeplessness, fixed on the picture. What she felt was absurd; but how many tragedies—aye, the deepest—are at bottom ridiculous! She had lost him; he cared no more for her; he had passed into another world out of her ken; and what was to become of her?

She started up, goaded by a blind instinct of revenge, seizing she scarcely knew what. On the table lay a palette, laden with some dark pigment with which Fenwick had just been sketching in part of his new picture. In a pot beside it were brushes.

She caught up a large brush, dipped it in the paint, and going to the picture—panting and crimson—she daubed it from top to bottom, blotting out the eyes, the mouth, the beautiful outline of the head—above all, the hands, whose delicate whiteness specially enraged her.

When the work of wreck was done, she stood a moment gazing at it. Then, violently, she looked for writing-paper. She could see none: but there was an unused half-sheet at the back of one of Madame de Pastourelles' letters, and she roughly tore it off. Making use of a book held on her knee, and finding the pen and ink with which, only half an hour before, Lord Findon had written his cheque, she began to write:

Good-bye, John,—I have found out all I want to know, and you will never see me again. I will never be a burden on a man who is ashamed of me, and has behaved as though I were dead. It is no good wasting words—you know it's true. Perhaps you may think I have no right to take Carrie. But I can't be alone—and, after all, she is more mine than yours. Don't trouble about me. I have some money, and I mean to support myself and Carrie. It was only last night this idea came to me, though it was the night before that—Never mind—I can't write about it, it would take too long, and it doesn't really matter to either of us. I don't want you to find me here; you might persuade me to come back to you, and I know it would be for the misery of both of us. What was I saying?—oh, the money—Well, last night, a cousin of mine, from Keswick, perhaps you remember him—Freddie Tolson—came to see me. Father sent him. You didn't believe what I told you about father—you thought I was making up. You'll be sorry, I think, when you read this, for by now, most likely, father has passed away. Freddie told me the doctor had given him up, and he was very near going. But he sent Freddie to me, with some money he had really left me in his will—only he was afraid Mrs. Gibson would get hold of it, and never let me have it. So he sent it by hand, with his love and blessing—and Freddie was to say he was sorry you had left me so long, and he didn't think it was a right thing for a man to do. Never mind how much it was. It's my very own, and I'm glad it comes from my father, and not from you. I have my embroidery money too, and I shall be all right—though very, very miserable. The idea of what I would do came into my head while I was talking with Freddie—and since I came into this room, I have made up my mind. I'm sorry I can't set you free altogether. There's Carrie to think of, and I must live for her sake. But at any rate you won't have to look after me, or to feel that I'm disgracing you with the smart people who have taken you up—

Don't look for us, for you will never, never find us.

Good-bye, John. Do you remember that night in the ghyll, and all the things we said?

I've spoiled your sketch—I couldn't help it—and I'm not sorry—not yet, anyway. She has everything in the world, and I had nothing—but you. Why did you leave the lamps?—just to mock at me?

Good-bye. I have left my wedding-ring on this paper. You'll know I couldn't do that, if I ever meant to come back!

She rose, and moved a small table in front of the ruined picture. On it she placed, first, the parcel she had brought with her, which contained papers and small personal possessions belonging to her husband; in front of the packet she laid the five letters of Madame de Pastourelles, her own letter in an envelope addressed to him, and upon it her ring.

Then she put on her hat and veil, tying the veil closely round her face, and, with one last look round the room, she crept to the door and unlocked it. So quietly did she descend the stairs that Mrs. Gibbs, who was listening sharply, with the kitchen door open, for any sound of her departure, heard nothing. The outer door opened and shut without the smallest noise, and the slender, veiled figure was quickly lost in the darkness and the traffic of the street.