Fenwick's Career Part 51

There was silence. Fenwick sat staring at her, his lips moving, angry sentences of authority and reproach forming themselves in his mind--but without coming to speech. It was intolerable, inhuman--that at this very moment, when he wanted her most, this threat of fresh loss should be sprung upon him. She was _his_--his property. He would not give her up to any Canadian fellow, and he altogether disapproved of such young love-affairs.

'Father,' said Carrie, after a moment, 'when George asked me--we didn't know--'

'About me? Well, now you do know,' said Fenwick, roughly. 'I'm here--and I have my rights.'

He put out his hand and seized her arm, looking at her, devouring her, in a kind of angry pa.s.sion.

Carrie grew a little pale, and, coming nearer, she laid her head against his knee.

'Father, you don't understand what we propose.'

'Well, out with it, then!'

'We wouldn't think about being married for three years. Why, of course we wouldn't! I don't want to be all settled that soon. And, besides, we're going abroad--you and mummy and I. I'm going to take you!' She sat up, tossing her pretty head, her eyes as bright as stars.

'And be thinking all the time of the Canadian chap?--bored with everything!' growled Fenwick.

Carrie surveyed him. A film of tears sparkled.

'I'm never bored. Father!'--she held herself erect, throwing all her soul into every word--'George is--_awfully--nice!_'

Ah! the 'life-force'! There it was before him, embodied in this light, ardent creature, on whose brown head and white dress the June sun streamed through the sycamore-leaves. With a groan--suddenly--Fenwick weakened.

'What's his horrid name?--who is he?--quick!'

Carrie gave a little crow--and began to talk, sitting there on the gra.s.s, with her hands round her knees. The interloper, it appeared, had every virtue and every prospect. What was to be done? Presently Carrie crept up to him again.

'Father!--he wants to come to Europe. When you've found a plan--if we let him come and hitch up alongside of us somewhere--why, he wouldn't be any trouble!--_I'd_ see to that! And you don't know whether--whether a son--mightn't suit you! Why!--you've never tried!'

He made an effort, and held her at arm's length.

'I tell you, I can say nothing about it--nothing--till George has written to _me_!'

'But he has--this mail!' And in triumph she hastily dragged a letter out of the little bag at her waist, and gave it him. 'It came this afternoon, only I didn't know if you might have it.'

He laughed excitedly, and took it.

An hour later Fenwick rose. The day had grown cool. A fresh breeze was blowing from the north down the fell-side. He put his arm round Carrie as she stood beside him, kissed her, and in a gruff, unintelligible voice, murmured something that brought the tears again to her eyes.

Then he announced that he was going for a short walk. Neither Phoebe nor Miss Anna were to be seen. Carrie protested on the score of his health.

'Nonsense! The doctor said I might do what I felt I could do.'

'Then you must say good-bye to me. For Miss Anna and I are going directly.'

Fenwick looked scared, but was soon reminded that Miss Anna was to drive the child that evening to Bowness, where Carrie was to be introduced to some old friends of Miss Anna's and stay with them a couple of days. He evidently did not like the prospect, but he made no audible protest against it, as he would perhaps have done a week before.

Carrie watched him go--followed his figure with her eyes along the road.

'And I'm glad _we're_ off!'--she said to herself, her small feet dancing--'we've been c.u.mbering this ground, Miss Anna and I--a deal too long!'

He was soon nearly a mile from home; rejoicing strangely in his recovered power of movement, and in the freshness of the evening air.

He found himself on a hill above Elterwater, looking back on the lake, and on a wide range of hills beyond, clothed, in all their lower slopes, with the full leaf of June. Wood rose above wood, in every gradation of tone and loveliness, creeping upwards through blue haze, till they suddenly lost hold on the bare peaks, which rose, augustly clear, into the upper sky. The lake with its deep or glowing reflexions--its smiling sh.o.r.e--the smoke of its few houses--lay below him; and between him and it, glistening sharply, in a sun-steeped magic, upon the blue and purple background of the hills and woods--a wild cherry, in its full mantle of bridal white.

What tranquillity!--what colour!--what infinite variety of beauty!

His heart swelled within him. Life of the body--and life of the soul--seemed to be flowing back upon him, lifting him on its wave, steeping him in its freshening strength. 'My G.o.d!' he thought, remembering the sketch he had just made, and the mastery with which he had worked--'if I am able to paint again!--if I am!'

An ecstasy of hope arose in him. What if really there had been something wrong with his eyes!--something that rest might set right?

What if he had wanted rest for years?--and had gone on defying nature and common sense?

And in a moment, as he sat there, looking out into the evening, the old whirl of images invaded him--the old tumult of ideas--clamouring for shape and form--flitting, phantom-like, along the woods and over the bosom of the lake. He let himself be carried along, urging his brain, his fancy, filled with indescribable happiness. It was years since the experience had last befallen him! Did it mean the return of youth?--conception?--creative power? What matter!--years, or hards.h.i.+p?--if the mind could still imagine, the hand still shape?

He thought of his own series of the 'Months'--which he had planned among these hills, and had carried out perfunctorily and vulgarly, in the city, far from the freshness and infinity of Nature. All the faults of his designs appeared to him, and the poverty of their execution. But he was only exultant, not depressed. Now that he could judge himself, now that his brain had begun to react once more, with this vigour, this wealth of idea--surely all would be well.

Then for the first time he thought of the money which Phoebe had saved. Abroad! Italy?--or France? To go as a wanderer and a student, on pilgrimage to the sources of beauty and power. What was old, or played out? Not Beauty!--not the mind within him--not his craftsman's sense. He threw himself on the gra.s.s, face downwards, praying as he had been wont to do in his youth, but in a far more mystical, more inward way; not to a far-off G.o.d, invited to come down and change or tamper with external circ.u.mstance; but to something within himself, identified with himself, the power of beauty in him, the resurgent forces of hope--and love.

At last, after a long time, as the summer twilight was waning, there struck through his dream the thought of Phoebe--alone in the cottage--waiting for him. He sprang up, and began to hurry down the hill.

Phoebe was quite alone. The little servant who only came for the day had gone back to the farm where she slept, and Carrie and Miss Anna had long since departed on their visit.

Carrie had told her mother that 'father' had gone for a walk. And strangely enough, though he was away two hours, and she knew him still far from his usual strength, Phoebe was not anxious. But she was mortally tired--as though of a sudden a long tension had been loosened, a long effort relaxed.

So she had gone upstairs to bed. But she had not begun to undress, and she sat in a low chair near the window, with the cas.e.m.e.nts wide open, and the twin-peaks visible through them under a starry sky. Her head had fallen back against the chair; her hands were folded on her lap.

Then she heard Fenwick come in and his step coming up the stairs.

It paused outside her door, and her heart beat so that she could hardly bear it.

'May I come in?'

It seemed to her that he did not wait for her low reply. He came in, and shut the door. There was a bright colour in his face, and his breath came fast, as he stood beside her, with his hands on his sides.

'Are you sure you like my coming?' he said, brusquely.

She did not answer in words, but she put out her hand, and drew him towards her.

He knelt down by her, and she flung an arm round his neck, and laid her fair head on his shoulder with a long sigh.

'You are very tired?'

'No. I knew you would come.'

A silence. Then he said, waveringly, stooping over her:

'Phoebe--I was very hard to you. But there was a black pall on me--and now it's lifting. Will you forgive me?--my dear--my dear!'

She clung to him with a great cry. And once more the torrent of love and repentance was unsealed, which had been arrested through all these weeks. In broken words--in mutual confession--each helping, each excusing the other--the blessed healing time pa.s.sed on its way; till suddenly, as her hand dropped again upon her knee, he noticed, as he had often bitterly noticed before, the sham wedding-ring on the third finger.

She saw his eyes upon it, and flushed.