Fenwick's Career Part 49

'I should have destroyed myself. That's what I mean. I had made up my mind. It was just touch and go.'

Phoebe sat speechless. It seemed as though her eyes--so wide and terrified--were fixed in their places, and could not release him. He moved impatiently; the appeal, the horror of them, were more than he could bear.

'And much better for you if I had!--and as for Carrie!--Ah!--good Heavens! there she is.'

He sprang up in agitation, looking through the open window, yet withdrawing from it. Phoebe too rose, the colour rushing back into her cheeks. This was to be her critical, her crucial moment. If she recovered him, she was to owe it to her child.

Carrie and Miss Mason came along the path together. They had been in a wood beside the Elterwater road; not knowing how to talk to each other; wandering apart, and gathering flowers idly, to pa.s.s the time.

Carrie held a large bunch of bluebells in her hand. She wore a cotton dress of greyish-blue, just such a dress as Phoebe might have worn in her first youth. The skirt was short, and showed her tripping feet.

Under her shady hat with its pink rose, her eyes glanced timidly towards the house, and then withdrew themselves again. Fenwick saw that the eyes were in truth darker than Phoebe's, and the hair much darker--no golden mist like her mother's, but nearer to his own--a warm brown, curly and vigorous. Her face was round and rosy, but so delicately cut and balanced, it affected him with a thrill of delight.

He perceived also that she was very small--smaller than he had thought, in the theatre. But at the same time, her light proportions had in them no hint of weakness or fragility. If she were a fairy, she was no twilight spirit, but rather a cheerful dawn-fairy--one of those happy household sprites that help the work of man.

He went and opened the door for them, trembling.

Carrie saw him there--paused--and then walked on quickly--ahead of Miss Mason.

'Father!' she said, gravely, and looking at him, she held out her hand.

He took it, and then, drawing her to him, he kissed her hurriedly.

Carrie's cheeks grew very red, and her eyes moist, for a moment. But she had long since determined not to cry--because poor mummy would be sure to.

'I guess you'll be wanting your tea,' she said, shyly, looking from him to her mother; 'I'll go and see to it.'

Miss Anna came up behind, concealing as best she could the impression made upon her by the husband and wife as they stood in the porch, under the full western light. Alack! here was no happy meeting!--and it was no good pretending.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Robin Ghyll Cottage_]

Fenwick greeted her with little or no demonstration of any sort, though he and she, also, had never met since the year of Phoebe's flight. His sunken eyes indeed regarded her with a look that seemed to hold her at bay--a strange look full of bitterness. She understood it to mean that he was not there to lend himself to any sham sentimental business; and that physically he was ill, and could stand no strain, whatever women might wish.

After a few questions about his journey, Miss Anna quietly begged him to come in and rest. He hesitated a moment, then with his hands in his pockets followed her to the parlour; while Phoebe, with Carrie's arm round her, went falteringly upstairs.

Miss Anna made no scene and asked for no information. She and Carrie bustled to and fro, preparing supper. Fenwick at his own request remained alone in the parlour. But when supper-time came, it was evident that he was too feeble to face an ordinary meal. He lay back in Miss Anna's armchair with closed eyes, and took no notice of Phoebe's timid summons. The women looked in upon him, alarmed and whispering together. Then Miss Anna drew Phoebe away, and mixing some milk and brandy sent Carrie in with it. 'He will go away to-morrow!'

she said, in Phoebe's ear, referring to a muttered saying of the patient,--'we shall see!'

As Carrie entered the parlour with the milk and brandy, Fenwick looked up.

'Where am I to sleep?' he asked her, abruptly, his eyes lingering on her.

'In my room,' she said, softly; 'I'm going in to Miss Anna. I've lengthened the bed!'

A faint smile flickered over his face.

'How did you do that?'

'I nailed on a packing-case. Isn't it queer?--Miss Anna hadn't any tools. I had to borrow some at the farm--and they were the poorest scratch lot you ever saw. Why, everybody in Canada has tools.'

He held her with a shaking hand, still looking intently at her bright face.

'Did you like Canada?'

She smiled.

'Why, it's _lovely_!'

Then her lips parted eagerly. She would have liked to go on talking, to make acquaintance. But she refrained. This man--this strange new father--was 'sick'--and must be kept quiet.

'Will you help me up to bed?' he murmured--as she was just going away.

She obeyed, and he leant on her shoulder as they mounted the steep cottage stair. Her physical strength astonished him--the amount of support that this child of seventeen was able to give him.

She led him into his room, where she had already brought his bag, and unpacked his things.

'Is it all right, father? Do you want anything else? Shall I send mother?'

'No, no,' he said, hastily--'I'm all right. Tell them I'm all right; I only want to go to sleep.'

She turned at the door, and looked at him wistfully.

'I did make that mattress over--part of it. But it's a real bad one.'

He nodded, and she went.

'A dream!' he said to himself--'_a dream_!'

He was thinking of the child as she stood bathed in the mingled glory of sunset and moonlight flowing in upon her from the open window; for the long day of northern summer was still lingering in the valley.

'Ah! if I could only _paint_!--oh, G.o.d, if I could _paint_!' he groaned aloud, rubbing his hands together in a fever of impotence and misery.

Then he tumbled into bed, and lay there weak and pa.s.sive, feeling the strangeness of the remembered room, of the open cas.e.m.e.nt window, of the sycamore outside, and the mountain forms beyond it; of this pearly or golden light in which everything was steeped.

In the silence he heard the voice of the beck, as it hurried down the ghyll. Twelve years since he had heard it last; and the eternal water 'at its priestlike task' still murmured with the rocks, still drank the rain, and fed the river. No rebellion there, no failure; no helpless will!

He tried to think of Phoebe, to remember what she had said to him. He wondered if he had been merely brutal to her. But his heart seemed a dry husk within him. It was, as it had been. He could neither think nor feel.

Next day he was so ill that a doctor was sent for. He prescribed long rest, said all excitement must be avoided, all work put away.

Four or five dreary weeks followed. Fenwick stayed in bed most of the day, struggled down to the garden in the afternoon, was nursed by the three women, and scarcely said a word from morning till night that was not connected with some bodily want or discomfort. He showed no repugnance to his wife, would let her wait upon him, and sit beside him in the garden. But he made no spontaneous movement towards her whatever; and the only person who evidently cheered him was Carrie.

He watched the child incessantly--in her housework, her sewing, her gardening, her coaxing of her pale mother, her fun with Miss Anna, who was by now her slave. There was something in the slight foreignness of her ways and accent, in her colonial resource and independence that delighted and amused him like a pleasant piece of acting. She had the cottage under her thumb. By now she had cleaned all the furniture, 'coloured' most of the walls, and mended all the linen, which had been in a sad condition--Miss Anna's powers being rather intellectual than practical. And through it all she kept a natural daintiness and refinement, was never clumsy, or loud, or untidy. She came and went so lightly--and always bringing with her the impression of something hidden and fragrant, a happiness within, that gave a dancing grace and perfume to all her life.

To her father she chattered mostly of Canada, and he would sit in the shade of the cottage, listening to her while she described their life; the big, rambling farm, the children she had been brought up with, the great lake with its ice and its storms, the apple-orchards, the sleighing in winter, the beauty of the fall, the splendour of the summers, the boom that was beginning 'up west.' Cunningly, in fact, she set the stage for an actor to come; but his 'cue' was not yet.

It was only from her, indeed, that he would hear of these things.

If Phoebe ventured on them his manner stiffened at once. Miss Anna's strong impression was, still, that with his wife he was always on his guard against demands he felt himself physically unable to meet. Yet it seemed to her, as time went on, that he was more and more aware of Phoebe, more sensitive to her presence, her voice.

She too watched Phoebe, and with a growing, involuntary respect.

This changed woman had endured 'hardness,' had at last followed her conscience; and, rebuffed and unforgiven as she seemed to be, she was clothed none the less in a new dignity, modest and sad, but real. She might be hopeless of recovering her husband; but all the same, the law which links that strange thing, spiritual peace, with certain surrenders, had already begun to work, unknown even to herself.