Fenwick's Career Part 36

Fumbling, Fenwick put back the letter in his pocket-book--thrust it again into his coat. Never once did the thought cross Eugenie's mind that he had probably worn it there, through these last days, while their relation had grown so intimate, so dear. All recollection of herself had left her. She was possessed with Phoebe. Nothing else found entrance.

At last, after much more questioning--much more difficult or impetuous examination--she rose feebly.

'I think I understand. Now--we have to find her!'

She stood, her hands loosely clasped, her eyes gazing into the sunny vacancy of sky, above the rock.

Fenwick advanced a step. He felt that he must speak, must grovel to her--repeat some of the things he had said in his letter. But here, in her presence, all words seemed too crude, too monstrous. His voice died away.

So there was no repet.i.tion of the excuses, the cry for pardon he had spent the night on; and she made no reference to them.

They walked back to the hotel, talking coldly, precisely, almost as strangers, of what should be done. Fenwick--whose work indeed was finished--would return to England that night. After his departure, Madame de Pastourelles would inform her father of what had happened; a famous solicitor, Lord Findon's old friend, was to be consulted; all possible measures were to be taken once more for Phoebe's discovery.

At the door of the hotel, Fenwick raised his hat. Eugenie did not offer her hand; but her sweet face suddenly trembled afresh--before her will could master it. To hide it, she turned abruptly away; and the door closed upon her.

CHAPTER XI

After a moderately bright morning, that after-breakfast fog which we owe to the British kitchen and the domestic hearth was descending on the Strand. The stream of traffic, on the roadway and the pavements, was pa.s.sing to and fro under a yellow darkness; the shop-lights were beginning to flash out here and there, but without any of their evening cheerfulness; and on the pa.s.sing faces one saw written the inconvenience and annoyance of the fog--the fear, too, lest it should become worse and impenetrable.

Fenwick was groping his way along, eastward; one moment feeling and hating the depression of the February day, of the grimy, overcrowded street; the next, responsive to some dimly beautiful effect of colour or line--some quiver of light--some grouping of phantom forms in the gloom. Halfway towards the Law-Courts he was hailed and overtaken by a tall, fair-haired man.

'Hallo, Fenwick!--just the man I wanted to see!'

Fenwick, whose eyes--often very troublesome of late--were smarting with the fog, peered at the speaker, and recognised Philip Cuningham.

His face darkened a little as they shook hands.

'What did you want me for?'

'Did you know that poor old Watson had come back to town--ill?'

'No!' cried Fenwick, arrested. 'I thought he was in Algiers.'

Cuningham walked on beside him, telling what he knew, Fenwick all the time dumbly vexed that this good-looking, prosperous fellow, this Academician in his new fur coat, breathing success and commissions, should know more of his best friend's doings than he.

Watson, it appeared, had been seized with hemorrhage at Ma.r.s.eilles, and had thereupon given up his winter plans, and crawled home to London, as soon as he was sufficiently recovered to bear the journey.

Fenwick, much troubled, protested that it was madness to have come back to the English winter.

'No,' said Cuningham, looking grave. 'Better die at home than among strangers. And I'm afraid it's come to that, dear old fellow!'

Then he described--with evident self-satisfaction--how he had heard, from a common friend, of Watson's arrival, how he had rescued the invalid from a dingy Bloomsbury hotel, and settled him in some rooms in Fitzroy Square, with a landlady who could be trusted.

'We must have a nurse before long--but he won't have one yet. He wants badly to see you. I told him I'd look you up this evening. But this'll do instead, won't it? You'll remember?--23, Fitzroy Square. Shall I tell him when he may expect you? Every day we try to get him some little pleasure or other.'

Fenwick's irritation grew. Cuningham was talking as though the old relation between him and Richard Watson were still intact; while Fenwick knew well how thin and superficial the bond had grown.

'I shall go to-day,' he said, rather shortly. 'I have two or three things to do this morning, but there'll be time before my rehearsal this afternoon.'

'Your rehearsal?' Cuningham looked amiably curious.

Fenwick explained, but with fresh annoyance. The papers had been full enough of this venture on which he was engaged; Cuningham's ignorance offended him.

'Ah, indeed--very interesting,' said Cuningham, vaguely. 'Well, good-bye. I must jump into a hansom.'

'Where are you off to?'

'The Goldsmiths' Company are building a new Hall, and they want my advice about its decoration. Precious difficult, though, to get away from one's pictures, this time of year, isn't it?'

He hailed a hansom as he spoke.

'That's not a difficulty that applies to me,' said Fenwick, shortly.

Cuningham stared--frowned--and remembered.

'Oh, my dear fellow--what a mistake that was!--if you'll let me say so. Can't we put it right? Command me at any time.'

'Thank you. I prefer it as it is.'

'We'll talk it over. Well, good-bye. Don't forget old d.i.c.k.'

Fenwick walked on, fuming. Cuningham, he said to himself, was now the type of busy, pretentious mediocrity, the type which eternally keeps English art below the level of the Continent.

'I say--one moment! Have you had any news of the Findons lately?'

Fenwick turned sharply, and again saw Cuningham, whose hansom had been blocked by the traffic, close to the pavement. He was hanging over the door, and smiling.

In reply to the question, Fenwick merely shook his head.

'I had a capital letter from her ladyship a week or two ago,' said Cuningham, raising his voice, and bringing himself as near to Fenwick as his position allowed. 'The old fellow seems to be as fit as ever.

But Madame de Pastourelles must be very much changed.'

Fenwick said nothing. It might have been thought that the traffic prevented his hearing Cuningham's remark. But he had heard distinctly.

'Do you know when they'll be home?' he asked, reluctantly, walking beside the hansom.

'No--haven't an idea. I believe I'm to go to them for Easter. Ah!--now we go on. Ta-ta!'

He waved his hand, and the hansom moved away.

Fenwick pursued his walk plunged in disagreeable thought. 'Much changed?' What did that mean? He had noticed no such change before the Findons left London. The words fell like a fresh blow upon a wound.

He turned north, toward Lincoln's Inn Fields, called at the offices of Messrs. Butlin & Forbes, the well-known solicitors, and remained there half an hour. When he emerged from the old house, he looked, if possible, more harried and cast down than when he had entered it.

They had had a letter to show him, but in his opinion it contributed nothing. There was no hope--and no clue! How could there be? He had never himself imagined for a moment that any gain would come of these new researches. But he had been allowed no option with regard to them.

Immediately after his return to London from Versailles he had received a stern letter from Lord Findon, insisting--as his daughter had already done--that the only reparation he, Fenwick, could make to the friends he had so long and cruelly deceived, was to allow them a free hand in a fresh attempt to discover his wife, and so to clear Madame de Pastourelles from the ridiculous suspicions that Mrs. Fenwick had been led so disastrously to entertain. 'Most shamefully and indefensibly my daughter has been made to feel herself an accomplice in Mrs. Fenwick's disappearance,' wrote Lord Findon; 'the only amends you can ever make for your conduct will lie in new and vigorous efforts, even at this late hour, to find and to undeceive your wife.'