Fenwick's Career Part 50

As she moved about the cottage and garden, indeed, new contacts, new relations, slowly established themselves, unseen and unexpressed, between her and the man who scarcely noticed her in words, from morning till night. 'I should offend you twenty times a day,' he had said to her--'and perhaps it might be the same with me!' But they did not offend each other!--that was the merciful new fact, a.s.serting itself through this silent, suspended time. She was still beautiful.

The mountain air restored her clear, pure colour; and what time had robbed her of in bloom it had given her back in _character_--the artist's supreme demand. Self-control, bitterly learnt--fresh capacities, moral or practical--these expressed themselves in a thousand trifles. Not only in her tall slenderness and fairness was she presently a challenge to Fenwick's sharpening sense; she began, in a wholly new degree, to interest his intelligence. Her own had blossomed; and in spite of grief, she had brought back with her some of the ways of a young and tiptoe world. Soon he was, in secret, hungry for her history--the history he had so far refused to hear.

Who was this man who had made love to her?--how far had it gone?--he tossed at nights thinking of it. There came a time when he would gladly have exchanged Carrie's gossip for hers; and through her soft silence, as she sat beside him, he would hear suddenly, in memory, the echoes of her girlish voice, and make a quick movement towards her--only to check himself in shyness or pride.

Meanwhile he could not know that he too had grown in her eyes, as she in his. In spite of all his errors and follies, he had not wrestled with his art, he had not lived among his intellectual peers, he had not known Eugenie de Pastourelles through twelve years, for nothing.

Embittered he was, but also refined. The nature had grown harsher and more rugged--but also larger, more complex, more significant, better worth the patiences of love. As for his failure, the more she understood it, the more it evoked in her an angry advocacy, a pa.s.sionate championship, a protesting faith--which she had much ado to hide.

And all this time letters came occasionally from Madame de Pastourelles--indifferently to her or to him--full of London artistic gossip, the season being now in full swim, of sly stimulus and cheer.

As they handed them to each other, without talking of them, it was as though the shuttle of fate flew from life to life--these in Langdale, and that in London--weaving the three into a new pattern which day by day replaced and hid away the old.

The days lengthened towards midsummer. After a spell of rain, June descended in blossom and sunshine on the Westmoreland vales. The hawthorns were out, and the wild cherries. The bluebells were fading in the woods, but in the cottage gardens the lilacs were all fragrance, and the crown-imperials showed their heads of yellow and red. Each valley and hillside was a medley of soft and shimmering colour, save in the higher, austerer dales, where, as in Langdale, the woods scarcely climb, and the bare pastures have only a livelier emerald to show, or the crags a warmer purple, as their testimony to the spring.

Fenwick was unmistakeably better. The signs of it were visible in many directions. His pa.s.sive, silent ways, so alien to his natural self and temperament, were at last breaking down.

One evening, Carrie, who had been to Elterwater, brought back some afternoon letters. They included a letter from Canada, which Carrie read over her mother's shoulder, laughing and wondering. Phoebe was sitting on a bench in the garden, an old yew-tree just above her on the slope. The heads of both mother and child were thrown out sharply on the darkness of the yew background--Phoebe's profile, upturned, and the abundant coils of her hair, were linked in harmonious line with the bending figure and beautiful head of the girl.

Suddenly Fenwick put down the newspaper which Carrie had brought him.

He rose, muttered something, and went into the house. They could hear him rummaging in his room, where Phoebe had lately unpacked some boxes forwarded from London. He had never so far touched brush or crayon during his stay at the cottage.

Presently he returned with a canvas and palette.

'Don't go!' he said, peremptorily, to Carrie, raising his hand. 'Stand as you were before.'

'You don't want me?' asked Phoebe, startled, her pale cheeks suddenly pink.

'Yes, yes, I do!' he said, impatiently. 'For G.o.d's sake, don't move, either of you!'

He went back for an easel, then sat down and began to paint.

They held themselves as still as mice. Carrie could see her mother's hands trembling on her lap.

Suddenly Fenwick said, in emotion:

'I don't know how it is--but I _see_ much better than I did.'

Miss Anna looked up from the low wall on which she was sitting.

'The doctor said you would, John, when you got strong,' she put in, quickly. 'He said you'd been suffering from your eyes a long time without knowing it. It was nerves like the rest.'

Fenwick said nothing. He went on painting, painting fast and freely--for nearly an hour. All the time Phoebe could hardly breathe.

It was as though she felt the doors opening upon a new room in the House of Life.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Fenwick stood looking at the canvas_]

Then the artist threw his canvas on the gra.s.s, and stood looking at it.

'By Jove!' he said, presently. 'By Jove!--that'll do.'

Phoebe said nothing. Carrie came up to him and put her hand in his arm.

'Father, that's enough. Don't do any more.'

'All right. Take it away--and all these things.'

She lifted the sketch, the palette and brushes, and carried them into the house.

Then Fenwick looked up irresolutely. His wife was still sitting on the bench. She had her sewing in her hands.

'Your hair's as pretty as ever, Phoebe,' he said, in a queer voice.

Phoebe raised her deep lids slowly, and her eyes spoke for her. She would offer herself no more--implore no more--but he knew in that moment that she loved him more maturely, more richly, than she had ever loved him in the old days. A shock, that was also a thrill, ran through him. They remained thus for some seconds gazing at each other.

Then, as Carrie returned, Phoebe went into the house.

Carrie studied her father for a little, and then came to sit down on the gra.s.s beside him. Miss Anna had gone for a walk along the fell.

'Are you feeling better, father?'

'Yes--a good deal.'

'Well, then--now--I can tell you _my_ news.'

And she deliberately drew out a photograph from her pocket, and held it up to him.

'Well'--said Fenwick, mystified. 'Who's the young man?'

'He's _my_ young man'--was Carrie's entirely self-possessed reply.

'I'm going to marry him.'

'_What_?' cried Fenwick. 'Show him to me.'

Carrie yielded up her treasure rather timidly.

Fenwick looked at the picture, then put it down angrily.

'What nonsense are you talking, Carrie! Why, you're only a baby. You oughtn't to be thinking of any such things.'

Carrie shook her head resolutely. 'I'm not a baby. I've been in love with him more than a year.'

'Upon my word!' said Fenwick; 'who allowed you to be in love with him?

And has it never occurred to you--lately--that you'd have to ask my leave?'

Carrie hesitated. 'In Canada I wouldn't have to,' she said, at last, decidedly.

'Oh! they've abolished the Fifth Commandment there, have they?'

'No, no. But the girls choose for themselves!' said Carrie, tossing back her brown curls with the slightest touch of defiance.

Fenwick observed her, his brow clouding.

'And you suppose that I'm going to say "Yes" at once to this mad proposal?--that I'm going to give you up altogether, just as I've got you back? I warn you at once, I shall not consent to any such thing!'