Fenwick's Career

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

The fact was he was overstrained—he knew it. The year had been the hardest of his life, and now that he was approaching the time of crisis—the completion of his two pictures, the judgement of the Academy and the public, his nerve seemed to be giving way. As he thought of all that success or failure might mean, he plunged into a melancholy no less extravagant than the passion of self-confidence from which he had emerged. Suppose that he fell ill before the pictures were finished—what would become of Phoebe and the child?

As he thought of Phoebe, suddenly his heart melted within him. Was she, too, hating the hours? As he bowed his head on his arms a few hot, unwilling tears forced themselves into his eyes. Had he been unkind and harsh to her?—his poor little Phoebe! An imperious impulse seemed to sweep him back into her arms. She was his own, his very own; one flesh with him; of the same clay, the same class, the same customs and ideals. Let him only recover her, and his child—and live his own life as he pleased. No more dependence on the moods of fine people. He hated them all! Clearly he had offended Madame de Pastourelles. Perhaps she would not sit again—the portrait would be thrown on his hands—because he had not behaved with proper deference to her spoilt and petted favourite.

Involuntarily he looked up. The lamp-light fell on the portrait.

There she sat, the delicate, ethereal being, her gentle brow bent forward, her eyes fixed upon him. He perceived, as though for the first time, what an image of melancholy grace it was which he had built up there. He had done it, as it were, without knowing—had painted something infinitely pathetic and noble without realising it in the doing.

As he looked, his irritation died away, and something wholly contradictory took its place. He felt a rush of self-pity, and then of trust. What if he called on her to help him—unveiled himself to this kind and charming woman—confessed to her his remorse about Phoebe—his secret miseries and anxieties—the bitterness of his envies and ambitions? Would she not rain balm upon him—quiet him—guide him?

He yearned towards her, as he sat there in the semi-darkness—seeking the ewig-weibliche in the sweetness of her face—without a touch of passion—as a Catholic might yearn towards his Madonna. Her slight and haughty farewell showed that he had tried her patience—had behaved like an ungenerous cur. But he must and would propitiate her—win her friendship for himself and Phoebe. The weakness of the man threw itself strangely, instinctively, on the moral strength of the woman; as though in this still young and winning creature he might recover something of what he had lost in childhood, when his mother died. He mocked at his own paradox, but it held him. That very night would he write to her; not yet about Phoebe—not yet!—but letting her understand, at least, that he was not ungrateful, that he valued her sympathy and good-will. Already the phrases of the letter, warm and eloquent, yet restrained, began to flow through his mind. It might be an unusual thing to do; but she was no silly conventional woman; she would understand.

By Jove! Welby was perfectly right. The hand was too big. It should be altered at the next sitting. Then he sprang up, found pen and paper, and began to write to Phoebe—still in the same softened and agitated state. He wrote in haste and at length, satisfying some hungry instinct in himself by the phrases of endearment which he scattered plentifully through the letter.

* * * * *

That letter found Phoebe on a mid-March morning, when the thrushes were beginning to sing, when the larches were reddening, and only in the topmost hollows of the pikes did any snow remain, to catch the strengthening sunlight.

As she opened it, she looked at its length with astonishment. Then the tone of it brought the rushing colour to her cheek, and when it was finished she kissed it and hid it in her dress. After weeks of barrenness, of stray post-cards and perfunctory notes, these ample pages, with their rhetorical and sentimental effusion, brought new life to the fretting, lonely woman. She went about in penitence. Surely she had done injustice to her John; and she dreaded lest any inkling of those foolish or morbid thoughts she had been harbouring should ever reach him.