Fenwick's Career Part 6

'Yes,' said Phoebe, slowly, 'Yes, of course you'll succeed--if you don't quarrel with people.'

'Quarrel,' he repeated, angrily. 'You're always harping on that--you're always so _afraid_ of people. It does a man no harm, I tell you, to be a bit quick-tempered. I shan't be a fool.'

'No, but--I could warn you often. And then you know,' she said, slowly, caressing his shoulder with her hand--'I could look after money. You're dreadfully bad about money, John. Directly you've got it, you spend it--and sometimes when you borrow you forget all about paying it back.'

He was struck dumb for a moment with astonishment; feeling at the same time the trembling of the form which his arm still encircled.

'Well, Phoebe,' he said, at last, 'you seem determined to say disagreeable things to me to-night. I suppose I might remind you that you're much younger than I; and that of course a man knows much more about business than a young thing like you can. How, I should like to know, could we have done any better than we have done, since we married? As far as money goes, we've had a h.e.l.l of a time, from first to last!'

'It would have been much worse,' said Phoebe, softly, 'if I hadn't been there--you know it would. You know last year when we were in such straits, and all our things were nearly sold up, you let me take over things, and keep the money. And I went to see all the people we owed money to--and--and it's pretty bad--but it isn't as bad as it was--'

She hid her face on her knees, choked by the sob she could no longer repress.

'Well, of course it's better,' said Fenwick, ungraciously; 'I don't say you haven't got a head, Phoebe--why, I know you have! You did first-rate! But, after all, I had to earn the money.'

She looked up eagerly.

'That's what I say. You'd never be able to think about little things--you'd have to be painting always--and going about--and--'

He bit his lip.

'Why, I could manage for myself--for a bit,' he said, with a laugh.

'I'm not such an idiot as all that. Old Morrison's lent me a hundred pounds, Phoebe!'

He enjoyed her amazement.

'A hundred pounds!' she repeated, faintly. 'And however are we going to repay all that?'

He drew her back to him triumphantly.

'Why, you silly child, I'm going to earn it, of course--and a deal more. Don't you hinder me, Phoebe! and I shall be a rich man before we can look round, and you'll be a lady--with a big house--and your carriage, perhaps!'

He kissed her vehemently, as though to coerce her into agreeing with him.

But she released herself.

'You and I'll _never_ be rich. We don't know how.'

'Speak for yourself, please.' He stretched out his right hand, laughing. 'Look at that hand. If it gets a fair chance it's got money in it--and fame--and happiness for us both! _Don't_ you believe in me, Phoebe? Don't you believe I shall make a painter?'

He spoke with an imperious harshness, repeating his query. It was evident, curiously evident, that he cared for her opinion.

'Of course I believe in you,' she said, her chest heaving.

'It's--it's--other things.'

Then, coming to him again, she flung her arms piteously round him.

'Oh, John, John--for a year past--and more--you've been sorry you married me!'

'What on earth's the matter with you?' he cried, half in wrath, half astonished. 'What's come to you, Phoebe?'

'Oh! I know,' she said, withdrawing herself and speaking in a low current of speech. 'You were very fond of me when we married--and--and I dare say you're fond of me now--but it's different. You were a boy then--and you thought you'd get drawing-lessons in Kendal, and perhaps a place at a school--and you didn't seem to want anything more. And now you're so ambitious--so ambitious, John--I'--she turned her head away--'I sometimes feel when I'm with you--I can't breathe--it's just burning you away--and me too. You've found out what you can do--and people tell you you're so clever--and then you think you've thrown yourself away--and that I'm a clog on you. John'--she approached him suddenly, panting--'John, do you mean that baby and I are to stay all the winter alone in that cottage?' She motioned towards it.

He protested that he had elaborately thought out all that she must do.

She must go to her father at Keswick for the summer and possibly for the winter, till he had got a footing. He would come up to see her as often as work and funds would permit. She must look after the child, make a little money perhaps by her beautiful embroidery.

'I'll not go to my father,' she said, with energy.

'But why not?'

'You seem to forget that he married a second wife, John, last year.'

'I'm sure Mrs. Gibson was most friendly when we were there last month.

And we'd _pay_, of course--we'd pay.'

'I'm not going to plant myself and Carrie down on Mrs. Gibson for six months and more, John, so don't ask me. No, we'll stay here--we'll stay here!'

She began to pluck at the gra.s.s with her hand, staring before her at the moonlit stream like one who sees visions of the future. The beauty of her faintly visible head and neck suddenly worked on John Fenwick's senses. He threw his arm round her.

'And I shall soon be back. You little silly, can't you understand that I shall always be wanting you?'

'We'll stay here,' she repeated, slowly. 'And you'll be in London making smart friends--and dining with rich folk--and having ladies to sit to you--'

'Phoebe, you're not jealous of me?' he cried, with a great, good-humoured laugh--'that would be the last straw.'

'Yes, I am jealous of you!' she said, with low-voiced pa.s.sion; 'and you know very well that I've had some cause to be.'

He was silent. Through both their minds there pa.s.sed the memory of some episodes in their married life--slight, but quite sufficient to show that John Fenwick was a man of temperament inevitably attracted by womankind.

He murmured that she had made mountains out of mole-hills. She merely raised his hand and kissed it. 'The women make a fool of you, John,'

she said, 'and I ought to be there to protect you--for you do love me, you know--you do!'

And then with tears she broke down and clung to him again, in a mood that was partly the love of wife for husband and partly an exquisite maternity--the same feeling she gave her child. He responded with eagerness, feeling indeed that he had won his battle.

For she lay in his arms--weak--protesting no more. The note of anguish, of deep, incalculable foreboding, which she had shown, pa.s.sed away from her manner and words; while on his side he began to draw pictures of the future so full of exultation and of hope that her youth presently could but listen and believe. The sickle moon descended behind the pikes; only the stars glimmered on the great side of the fell, on solitary yews black upon the night, on lines of wall, on dim, mysterious paths, old as the hills themselves, on the softly chiding water. The May night breathed upon them, calmed them, brought out the better self of each. They returned to the cottage like children, hand in hand, talking of a hundred practical details, thankful that the jarring moment had pa.s.sed away, each refraining from any word that could wound the other. Nor was it till Fenwick was sound asleep beside her that Phoebe, replunged in loneliness and dread, gave herself in the dawn-silence to a pa.s.sion of unconquerable tears.

PART II

LONDON

'Was _that_ the landmark? What,--the foolish well Whose wave, low down, I did not stoop to drink, But sat and flung the pebbles from its brink In sport to send its imaged skies pell-mell, (And mine own image, had I noted well!) Was that my point of turning? I had thought The stations of my course should rise unsought, As altar-stone, or ensigned citadel.'

CHAPTER III