Fenwick's Career Part 47

Eugenie paused just a moment; then said, steadily, 'He is coming here, because you are his wife--because he is faithful to you--because he wants you. Don't agitate him too much! He wants resting and healing.

And so do you!' She took Phoebe's hands again in hers. 'And how do you think anybody is to deny you anything, when you bring such a gift as that?'

Carrie and Miss Mason were entering the little garden. Eugenie's smile, as she motioned towards the girl, seemed to reflect the May sunshine and Carrie's young charm.

But after Madame de Pastourelles was gone, a cloud of nervous dread fell upon the little cottage and its inmates. Phoebe wandered restlessly about the garden, waiting--and listening--hour after hour.

The May evening drew towards sunset. Flame descended on the valley, striking athwart the opening which leads to its furthest recess, superbly guarded by the crags of Bowfell, and turning all the mountain-side above the cottage, still dyed with the fern of 'yesteryear,' to scarlet. A fresh breeze blew through the sycamore leaves, bringing with it the cool scents of rain-washed gra.s.s. All was hushed--richly hued--expectant--like some pageant waiting for its king.

Alas--poor king! In the full glory of the evening light, a man alighted from a wagonette at the foot of the cottage hill, and dragged his weary limbs up the steep ground. He opened the gate, looking round him slowly to right and left.

Then, in the porch, Fenwick saw his wife. He walked up to her, and gripped her wrists. She fell back with a stifled cry; and they stood there--speechless and motionless--looking into each other's eyes.

CHAPTER XIV

Phoebe first withdrew herself. In that first moment of contact, Fenwick's changed aspect had pierced her to the heart. But the shock itself brought self-control.

'Come in,' she said, mechanically; 'Miss Anna's gone out.'

'Where's Carrie?'

He followed her in, glancing from side to side.

'She--she'll be here directly.'

Phoebe's voice stumbled over the words.

Fenwick understood that the child and Anna Mason were leaving them to themselves, out of delicacy; and his exhaustion of mind and body recoiled impatiently from the prospect of a 'scene,' with which he felt himself wholly unable to cope. He had been sorely tempted to stay at Windermere, and telegraph that he was too ill to come that day.

Such a course would at least have given him the night's respite. But a medley of feelings had prevailed over the impulse; and here he was.

They entered the little parlour, and he looked round him in amazement, muttering, 'Why, it looks just as it did--not a thing changed.'

Phoebe closed the door, and then turned to him, trembling.

'Won't you--won't you say you're glad to see me, John?'

He looked at her fixedly, then threw himself down beside the table, and rested his head on his hands.

'It's no good to suppose we can undo these twelve years,' he said, roughly; 'it's no good whatever to suppose that.'

'No,' said Phoebe--'I know.'

She too sat down on the other side of the table, deadly pale, not knowing what to say or do.

Suddenly he raised his head and looked at her, with his searching painter's eyes.

'My G.o.d!' he said, under his breath. 'We are changed, both of us--aren't we?'

She too studied the face before her--the grey hair, the red-rimmed eyes, of which the lids fluttered perpetually, shrinking from the light, the sombre mouth; and slowly a look of still more complete dismay overspread her own; reflected, as it were, from that half-savage discouragement and weariness which spoke from the drawn features, the neglected dress, and slouching figure, and seemed to make of the whole man one sore, wincing at a touch. Her heart sank--and sank.

'Can't we begin again?' she said, in a low voice, while the tears rose in her eyes. 'I'm sorry for what I did.'

'How does that help it?' he said, irritably. 'I'm a ruined man.

I can't paint any more--or, at any rate, the world doesn't care a ha'p'orth _what_ I paint. I should be a bankrupt--but for Madame de Pastourelles--'

'John!' cried Phoebe, bending forward--'I've got a little money--I saved it--and there are some shares a friend advised me to buy, that are worth a lot more than I gave for them. I've got eight hundred pounds--and it's all yours, John,--it's all yours.' She stretched out her hands in a yearning anguish, and touched his.

'What friend?' he said, with a quick, suspicious movement, taking no notice of her statement; 'and where have you been--all these years?'

He turned and looked at her sharply.

'I've been in Canada--on a farm--near Montreal.'

She held herself erect, speaking slowly and carefully, as though a moment had arrived for which she had long prepared; through rebellion, and through yielding; now in defiance, and now in fear: the moment when she should tell John the story of her flight. Her manner, indeed--for one who could have understood it--proved a curious thing; that never, throughout their separation, had she ceased to believe that she should see her husband again. There had been no finality in her action. In her eyes the play had been always going on, the curtain always up.

'You know I told you about Freddy--Freddy Tolson's--coming to see me--that night? Well, it was the things he said about Canada made me do it. Of course I didn't want to go where he was going. But he said that one could get to Canada for a few pounds, and it took about nine days. And it was a fine place, and any one could find work. He'd thought of it, he said, but as he had friends in Australia, he was going there. And so, when he'd left the cottage, I thought--if, when I came up to town--I--I did find what I expected--I'd take Carrie--and go to Canada.'

Fenwick rose, and, thrusting his hands into his pockets, began to walk up and down excitedly.

'And of course--as you expected it--you found it,' he said, bitterly.

'Who could ever have _conceived_ that a woman could act in such a way!

Why, I had been kissing your photograph the minute before! Lord Findon had been there, to tell me my pictures were in the Academy all right, and he'd given me five hundred pounds for them--and the cheque'--he stopped in front of her, rapping the table with his finger for emphasis--'the cheque was actually in the drawer!--under your hand--where I'd left it. It was too late to catch the North post for a letter to you, so I went out to tell one or two people, and on the way I bought some things for you at a shop--prettinesses that I'd never been able to give you. Why, I thought of nothing but you.'

His voice had risen to a cry. He stooped, bending over the table, his haggard face close to hers.

She recoiled, and burst into a wild sob:

'John, I--I couldn't know!'

'Well, go on,' he said, abruptly, raising himself--'go on. You found that picture in my room--I'll tell you about that presently--and you wrote me the letter. Well, then you went back to Euston, and you sent Daisy away. After that?'

His stern, sharp tone, which was really the result of a nerve-tension hardly to be borne, scared her. It was with painful difficulty that she collected her forces enough to meet his gaze and to reply.

'I took Carrie to Liverpool. We had to wait three days there. Then we got on a steamer for Quebec. The voyage was dreadful. Carrie was ill, and I was so--so miserable! We stopped at Quebec a little. But I felt so strange there, with all the people speaking French--so we went on to Montreal. And the Government people there who look after the emigrants found me a place. I got work in an hotel--a sort of housekeeper. I looked after the linen, and the servants, and after a bit I learnt how to keep the accounts. They paid me eight dollars a week, and Carrie and I had a room at the top of the hotel. It was awfully hard work. I was so dead tired at night, sometimes, I couldn't undress. I would sit down on the side of my bed to rest my feet; and then the next thing I'd know would be waking in the morning, just as I was, in my clothes. But so long as I slept, it was all right. It was lying awake--that killed me!'

The trembling of her lips checked her, and she began to play nervously with the fringe of the tablecloth, trying to force back emotion. He had again seated himself opposite to her, and was observing her with a half-frowning attention, as of one in whom the brain action is physically difficult. He led her on, however, with questions, seeing how much she needed the help of them.

From Montreal, it appeared, she had gone to a fruit-farm in the Hamilton district, Ontario, as housekeeper to a widower with a family of children varying in age from five to sixteen. She had made the acquaintance of this man--a decent, rough, good-tempered fellow, Canadian-born--through the hotel. He had noticed her powers of management, and her overwork; and had offered her equal pay, an easier task, and country air, instead of the rush of Montreal.

'I accepted for Carrie's sake. It was an apple-farm, running down to Lake Ontario. I had to look after the house and the children--and to cook--and wash--and bake--and turn one's hand to anything. It wasn't too hard--and Carrie went to school with the others--and used to run about the farm. Mr. Crosson was very kind. His old mother was living there--or I--wouldn't have gone'--she flushed deeply--'but she was very infirm, and couldn't do anything. I took in two English papers--and used to get along somehow. Once I was ill, with congestion of the lungs, and once I went to Niagara, with some people who lived near. And I can hardly remember anything else happening. It was all just the same--day after day--I just seemed to be half-alive.'

'Ah! you felt that?' he said, eagerly--'you felt that? There's a stuff they call curare. You can't move--you're paralysed--but you feel horrible pain. That's what I used to feel like--for months and months.

And then sometimes--it was different--as if I didn't care twopence about anything, except a little bit of pleasure--and should never vex myself about anything again. One was dead, and it didn't matter--was rather pleasant indeed.'

She was silent. Her seeking, pitiful eyes were on him perpetually, trying to make him out, to acquaint herself with this new personality, which spoke in these harsh staccato phrases--to reconcile it with the exciteable, sanguine, self-confident man whom she had deserted in his youth.