Fenwick's Career

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

Fenwick's face, which had become deathly pale, was suddenly overspread with a rush of crimson. More almost than by the revelation of his long deception as to his wife was he humiliated and tortured by these words relating to his debt to Morrison on Welby's lips. This successful rival, this fine gentleman!—admitted to his sordid affairs. He rose uncertainly, pulling himself passionately together.

'Now that she has reappeared, I shall pay my debt to Miss Morrison—if it exists,' he said, haughtily; 'she need be in no fear as to that. Well, now then'—he leaned heavily on the mantelpiece, his face still twitching—'you know, Mr. Welby—by this accident—the secret of my life. My wife left me—for the maddest, emptiest reasons—and she took our child with her. I did everything I could to discover them. It was all in vain—and if Miss Morrison cannot enlighten me, I am as much in the dark to-night as I was yesterday, whether my wife is alive—or dead. Is there anything more to be said?'

'By God, yes!' cried Welby, with a sudden gesture of passion, approaching Fenwick. 'There is everything to be said!'

Fenwick was silent. Their eyes met.

'When you first made acquaintance with Lord Findon,' said Welby, controlling himself, 'you made him—you made all of us—believe that you were an unmarried man?'

'I did. It was the mistake—the awkwardness of a moment. I hadn't your easy manners! I was a raw country fellow—and I hadn't the courage, the mere self-possession, to repair it.'

'You let Madame de Pastourelles sit to you,' said Welby, steadily—'week after week, month after month—you accepted her kindness—you became her friend. Later on, you allowed her to advise you—write to you—talk to you about marrying, when your means should be sufficient—without ever allowing her to guess for a moment that you had already a wife and child!'

'That is true,' said Fenwick, nodding. 'The second false step was the consequence of the first.'

'The consequence! You had but to say a word—one honest word! Then, when your conduct, I suppose—I don't dare to judge you—had driven your wife away—for twelve years'—he dragged the words between his teeth—'you masquerade to Madame de Pastourelles—and when her long martyrdom as a wife is at last over—when in the tenderness and compassion of her heart she begins to show you a friendship which—which those who know her'—he laboured for breath and words—'can only—presently—interpret in one way—you who owe her everything—everything!—you dare to play with her innocent, her stainless life—you dare to let her approach—to let those about her approach—the thought of her marrying you—while all the time you knew—what you know! If there ever was a piece of black cruelty in this world, it is you, you that have been guilty of it!'

The form of Arthur Welby, drawn to its utmost height, towered above the man he accused. Fenwick sat, struck dumb. Welby's increasing stoop, which of late had marred his natural dignity of gait; the slight touches of affectation, of the petit-maître, which were now often perceptible; the occasional note of littleness, or malice, such as his youth had never known:—all these defects, physical and moral, had been burnt out of the man, as he spoke these words, by the flame of his only, his inextinguishable passion. For his dear mistress—in the purest, loftiest sense of that word—he stood champion, denouncing with all his soul the liar who had deceived and endangered her; a stern, unconscious majesty expressed itself in his bearing, his voice; and the man before him—artist and poet like himself—was sensible of it in the highest, the most torturing degree.