Eugénie, are you there?'
'Yes, papa.'
Lord Findon, peering short-sightedly into the big drawing-room,
obstructed by much furniture and darkened by many pictures, had not
at first perceived the slender form of his daughter. The April day
was receding, and Eugénie de Pastourelles was sitting very still, her
hands lightly clasped upon a letter which lay outspread upon her lap.
These moments of pensive abstraction were characteristic of her. Her
life was turned within; she lived more truly in thought than in speech
or action.
Lord Findon came in gaily. 'I say, Eugénie, that fellow's made a hit.'
'What fellow, papa?'
'Why, Fenwick, of course. Give me a cup of tea, there's a dear. I've
just seen Welby, who's been hob-nobbing with somebody on the Hanging
Committee. Both pictures accepted, and the portrait will be on the
line in the big room--the other very well hung, too, in one of
the later rooms. Lucky dog! Millais came up and spoke to me about
him--said he heard we had discovered him. Of course, there's lots
of criticism. Drawing and design, modern and realistic--the whole
_painting_ method, traditional and old-fashioned, except for some
wonderful touches of pre-Raphaelitism--that's what most people say. Of
course, the new men think it'll end in manner and convention; and the
old men don't quite know _what_ to say. Well, it don't much matter. If
he's genius, he'll do as he likes--and if he hasn't--'
Lord Findon shrugged his shoulders, and then, throwing back his head
against the back of his capacious chair, proceeded to 'sip' his tea,
held in both hands, according to an approved digestive method--ten
seconds to a sip--he had lately adopted. He collected new doctors with
the same zeal that he spent in pushing new artists.
Eugénie put out a hand and patted his shoulder tenderly. She and her
father were the best of comrades, and they showed it most plainly in
Lady Findon's absence. That lady was again on her travels, occupied
in placing her younger daughter for a time in a French family, with
a view to 'finishing.' Eugénie or Lord Findon wrote to her every day;
they discussed her letters when they arrived with all proper _égards_;
and, for the rest, enjoyed their _tête-à-tête,_ and never dreamed of
missing her. _Tête-à-tête_, indeed, it scarcely was; for there was
still another daughter in the house, whom Madame de Pastourelles--her
much older half-sister--mothered with great assiduity in Lady Findon's
absence; and the elder son also, who was still unmarried, lived mainly
at home. Nevertheless, it was recognised that 'papa' and Eugénie had
special claims upon each other, and as the household adored them both,
they were never interfered with.
On this occasion Eugénie was bent on business as well as affection.
She withdrew her hand from her father's shoulder in order to raise a
monitory finger.
'Genius or no, papa, it's time you paid him his money.'
'How you go on, Eugénie!' said Lord Findon, crossing his knees
luxuriously, as the tea filtered down. 'Pray, what money do I owe
him?'
'Well, of course, if you wait till he's made a hit, prices will go
up,' said Eugénie, calmly. 'I advise you to agree with him quickly,
while you are in the way with him.'
'I never asked him to paint you,' said Lord Findon, hastily,
swallowing a sip of tea under the regulation time, and frowning at the
misdeed.
'Oh, shuffling papa! Come--how much?--two hundred?'
'Upon my word! A painter shouldn't propose to paint a picture, my
dear, and then expect to get paid for it as if he'd been commissioned.
The girls might as well propose matrimony to the men.'
'Nobody need accept,' said Eugénie, slyly, replenishing his cup. 'I
consider, papa, that you have bolted that cup.'
'Then for goodness' sake, don't give me any more!' cried Lord Findon.
'It's no joke, Eugénie, this sipping business--Where were we? Oh,
well, of course I knew we should have to take it--and I don't say I'm
not pleased with it. But two hundred!'
'Not a penny less,' said Eugénie--'and the apotheosis of my frock
alone is worth the money. Two hundred for that--and two-fifty for the
other?'
'Welby told me that actually was the price he had put on it! The young
man won't starve, my dear, for want of knowing his own value.'
'I shouldn't wonder if he had been rather near starving,' said
Eugénie, gravely.
'Nothing of the kind, Eugénie,' said her father, testily. 'You think
everybody as sensitive as yourself. I assure you, young men are tough,
and can stand a bit of hardship.'
'They seem to require butcher's meat, all the same,' said Eugénie.
'Do you know, papa, that I have been extremely uncomfortable about our
behaviour to Mr. Fenwick?'
'I entirely fail to see why,' said Lord Findon, absently. He was
holding his watch in his hand, and calculating seconds.
'We have let him paint my portrait without ever saying a word of
money--and you have always behaved as though you meant to buy the
"Genius Loci."'
'Well, so I do mean to buy it,' said Lord Findon, closing his watch
with a sigh of satisfaction.
'You should have told him so, papa, and advanced him some money.'
'It is an excellent thing, my dear Eugénie, for a young man to be kept
on tenterhooks. Otherwise they soon get above themselves.'
'You have driven him into debt, papa.'
'What on earth do you mean?'
'I have been questioning Mr. Cuningham. He doesn't know, but he
_thinks_ Mr. Watson has been lending him money.'
'Artists are always so good to one another,' said Lord Findon,
complacently. 'Nice fellow, Watson--but quite mad.'
'Papa, you are incorrigible. I tell you he has been in great straits.
He has not been able to buy a winter overcoat, and Mr. Cuningham
suspects he has often not had enough to eat. He does illustration-work
the greater part of the night--_et cetera_.'
'The way you pile on the agony, my dear!' said Lord Findon, rising.
'What I see you want is that I should write the check, and then go
with you to call on the young man?'
'Precisely!' said Eugénie, nodding.
Lord Findon looked at her.
'And that you suppose is your own idea?'
Eugénie waited--interrogatively.
'Do you know why I have never said a word to the young man about
money?'
'Because you forgot it,' said Eugénie, smiling.
'Not in the least,' said Lord Findon, flushing like a school-boy found
out; 'I wanted my little sensation at the end.'
'My very epicurean papa!' said Eugénie, caressing him. 'I see! Young
man in a garret--starving--_au désespoir._ Enter Providence, _alias_
my papa--with fame in one hand and gold in the other. Ah, _que tu es
comédien, mon père. A la bonne heure_!--I now order the carriage!'
She moved toward the bell, but paused suddenly:--
'I forgot--Arthur was to come before six.'
A slight silence fell between the father and daughter.
Lord Findon cleared his throat, took up the evening paper and laid it
down again.
'Eugénie!'
'Yes, papa.'
Lord Findon went up to her and took her hand. She stood with downcast
eyes, the other hand playing with the folds of her dress. Her father's
face was discomposed.
'Eugénie!' he broke out. 'I don't think he ought to come so much.
Forgive me, dear!'
'You only think what I have thought for a long time,' she said, in a
low voice, without raising her eyes. 'But to-day I sent for him.'
'Because?'--Lord Findon's face expressed a quick and tender anxiety.
'I want to persuade him--to marry Elsie Bligh.'
Lord Findon made a hurried exclamation, drew her to him, kissed her on
the brow, and then, releasing her, turned away.
'I might have known--what you would do,' he said, in a muffled voice.
'I ought to have done it long ago,' she said, passionately; then,
immediately curbing herself, she turned deliberately to a vase of
roses that stood near and began to rearrange them, picking out a few
faded blooms and throwing them on the wood-fire.
Lord Findon watched her, the delicate, drooping figure in its grey
dress, the thin hand among the roses.
'Eugénie!--tell me one thing!--you are in the same mind as ever about
the divorce?'
She made a sign of assent.
'Just the same. I am Albert's wife--unless he himself asks me to
release him--and then the release would only be--for him.'
'You are too hard on yourself, Eugénie!' cried Lord Findon. 'I vow you
are! You set an impossible standard.'
'I am his wife'--she repeated, gently--'while he lives. And if he sent
for me--at any hour of the day or night--I would go.'
Lord Findon gave an angry sigh.
'You can't wonder, Eugénie,' he said, impetuously, 'that I often wish
his death.'
A shudder ran through her.
'Don't, papa! Never, never wish that. He loves life so.'
'Yes!--now that he has ruined yours.'
'He didn't mean to,' she said, almost inaudibly. 'You know what I
think.'
Lord Findon restrained himself. In his eyes there was no excuse
whatever for his scoundrel of a son-in-law, who after six years of
marriage had left his wife for an actress, and was now living with
another woman of his own class, a Comtesse S., ten years older than
himself. He knew that Eugénie believed her husband to be insane;
as for him, he had never admitted anything of the kind. But if it
comforted her to believe it, let her, for Heaven's sake, believe
it--poor child!
So he said nothing--as he paced up and down--and Eugénie finished the
rearrangement of the roses. Then she turned to him, smiling.
'You didn't know I saw Elsie yesterday?'
'Did she confide in you?'
'Oh, that--long ago! The poor child's dreadfully in love.'
'Then it's a great responsibility,' said Lord Findon, gravely. 'How is
he going to satisfy her?'
'Only too easily. She would marry him blindly--on any terms.'
There was a short silence. Then Eugénie gathered up the letter she had
been reading when her father entered.
'Let's talk of something else, papa! Do you know that I've had a very
interesting letter from Mr. Fenwick this afternoon?'
Lord Findon stared.
'Fenwick? What on earth does he write to you about?'
'Oh! this is not the first time by a long way!' said Eugénie, smiling.
'He began it in March, when he thought he had offended me--by being
rude to Arthur.'
'So he was--abominably rude. But what can one expect? He hasn't had
the bringing-up of a gentleman--and there you are. That kind of thing
will out.'
'I wonder whether it matters--to a genius?' said Eugénie, musing.
'It matters to everybody!' cried Lord Findon. 'Gentlefolk, my dear,
say what you will, are the result of a long natural selection--and you
can't make 'em in a hurry.'
'And what about genius? You will admit, papa, that a good many
gentlefolk in the world go to one genius!'
The light was still good enough to show Lord Findon that, in spite of
her flicker of gaiety, Eugénie was singularly pale. And he knew
well that they were both listening for the same step on the stairs.
However, he tried to keep it up.
'Genius?' he said, humming and hawing--'genius? How do we know what it
is--or who has it? Everybody's so diabolically clever nowadays. Take
my advice, Eugénie--I know you want to play Providence to that young
fellow--you think you'll civilise him, and that kind of thing; but I
warn you--he hasn't got breeding enough to stand it.'
Eugénie drew a long breath.
'Well, don't scold me, papa--if I try--I must'--her voice escaped her,
and she began again, firmly--'I must have something to fill up.'
'Fill up what?'
She looked round to make sure that the servants had finished clearing
away the tea, and that they were alone.
'The days--and the hours,' she said, softly. 'One must have something
to think of.'
Lord Findon frowned.
'He will fall in love with you, Eugénie--and then where shall we be?'
He heard a laugh--very sweet--very feminine, yet, to his ear, very
forlorn.
'I'll take care of that. We'll find him a wife, too, papa--when he
"arrives." We shall be in practice--you and I.'
Lord Findon sprang up.
'Here he is!' he said, with very evident agitation.
The pronoun clearly had no reference to Fenwick. Eugénie sat
motionless, looking into the fire, her hands on her knee. Lord Findon
listened a moment.
'I'm going to my room. Eugénie!--if I could be the slightest use--'
'Dear papa!' she looked up, smiling. 'It's very simple.'
With a muttered exclamation, Lord Findon walked to the further end of
the drawing-room, and vanished through an inner door.
The footman announced 'Mr. Welby.'
As soon as the door was shut, Eugénie rose.
Welby hurriedly approached her. 'You say in your note that you have
something important to tell me?'
She made a sign of assent, and as he grasped her hand, she allowed
herself a moment's pause. Her eyes rested--just perceptibly--on the
face of the man whose long devotion to her, expressed through every
phase of delicate and passionate service, had brought them both at
last to that point where feeling knows itself--where illusions die
away--and the deep foundations of our life appear.
Welby's dark face quivered. In the touch of his friend's hand, in the
look of her eyes there was that which told him that she had bidden
him to no common meeting. The air between them was in an instant alive
with memories. Days of first youth; youth's high impressions of great
and lovely things; all the innocent, stingless joys of art and travel,
of happy talk and ripening faculty, of pure ambitions, hero-worships,
compassions, shared and mutually enkindled: these were for ever
intertwined with their thoughts of each other.
But much more than these!
For him, the unspoken agony of loss suffered when she married; for
her, the memories of her marriage, of the dreary languor into which
its wreck had plunged her, and of the gradual revival in her of the
old intellectual pleasures, the old joys of the spirit, under the
influence of Arthur's life and Arthur's companionship. How simply he
had offered all that his art, his tact, his genius had to give!--and
how pitifully, how hungrily she had leaned upon it! It had seemed so
natural. Her own mind was clear, her own pulses calm; their friendship
had appeared a thing apart, and she was able to feel, with sincerity
and dignity, that if she received much, she also gave much--the hours
of relief and pleasure which ease the labour, the inevitable torment
of the artist, all that protecting environment which a woman's sweet
and agile wit can build around a man's taxed brain or ruffled nerves.
To chat with her, in success or failure; to be sure of her welcome,
her smile at all times; to ask her sympathy in matters where he had
himself trained in her the faculty of response; to rouse in her the
gentle, diffident humour which seemed to him a much rarer and more
distinguished thing than other women's brilliance; to watch the ways
of a personality which appeared to many people a little cold, pale,
and over-refined, and was to him supreme distinction; to search for
pleasures for her, as a botanist hunts rare flowers; to save her from
the most trifling annoyance, if time and brains could do it;--these
things, for three years, had made the charm of Welby's life. And
Eugénie knew it--knew it with an affectionate gratitude that had
for long seemed both to her and to the world the last word of their
situation on both sides--a note, a tone, which could always be evoked
from it, touch or strike it where you would.
And now?
Through what subtle phases and developments had time led them to
this moment of change and consciousness?--representing in her, sharp
recoil, an instant girding of the will--and in him a new despair,
which was also a new docility, a readiness to content and tranquillise
her at any cost. As they stood thus, for these few seconds, amid the
shadows of the rich encumbered room, the picture of the weeks
and months they had just passed through flashed through both
minds--illuminated--thrown into true relation with surrounding and
irrevocable fact. Both trembled--she under the admonition of her own
higher life--he, because existence beside her could never again be as
sweet to him to-morrow as it had been yesterday.
She moved. The trance was broken.
'I do, indeed, want to talk to you,' she said, in her gentlest voice.
'We shan't have very long. Papa wants me in half an hour.'
She motioned to the seat beside her; and their talk began.
* * * * *
Lord Findon sat alone in his study on the ground-floor, balancing
a paper-knife on one finger, fidgeting with a newspaper of which he
never read a word, and otherwise beguiling the time until the sound of
Welby's step on the stairs should tell him that the interview upstairs
was over.
His mind was full of disagreeable thoughts. Eugénie was dearer to him
than any other human being, and Welby--his ward, the orphan child of
one of his oldest friends--had been from his boyhood almost a son of
the house. Eight years before, what more natural than that these two
should marry? Welby had been then deeply in love; Eugénie in her first
maiden bloom had been difficult to read, but a word from the father
she adored would probably have been enough to incline her towards
her lover, to transform and fire a friendship which was already more
romantic than she knew. But Lord Findon could not make up his mind to
it. Arthur was a dear fellow; but from the worldly point of view it
was not good enough. Eugénie was born for a large sphere; it was her
father's duty to find it for her if he could.
Hence the French betrothal--the crowning point of a summer visit to
a French château where Eugénie had been the spoiled child of a party
containing some of the greatest names in France. It flattered both
Lord Findon's vanity and imagination to find himself brought into
connexion with historic families all the more attractive because
of that dignified alienation from affairs, imposed on them by their
common hatred of the Second Empire. Eugénie, too, had felt the romance
of the _milieu_; had invested her French suitor with all that her
own poetic youth could bring to his glorification; had gone to him a
timid, willing, and most innocent bride.
Ah, well! it did not do to think of the sequel. Perhaps the man was
mad, as Eugénie insisted; perhaps much was due to some obscure brain
effects of exposure and hardship during the siege of Paris--for the
war had followed close on their honeymoon. But, madness or wickedness,
it was all the same; Eugénie's life was ruined, and her father could
neither mend it nor avenge it.
For owing to some--in his eyes--quixotic tenderness of conscience on
Eugénie's part, she would not sue for her divorce. She believed that
Albert was not responsible--that he might return to her. And that
passionate spiritual life of hers, the ideas of which Lord Findon only
half understood, forbade her, it seemed, any step which would finally
bar the way of that return; unless Albert should himself ask her to
take it. But the Comte had never made a sign. Lord Findon could only
suppose that he found himself as free as he wished to be, that the
ladies he consorted with were equally devoid of scruples, and that he,
therefore, very naturally, preferred to avoid publicity.
So here was Eugénie, husbandless and childless at
eight-and-twenty--for the only child of the marriage had died within
a year of its birth; the heroine of an odious story which, if it had
never reached the law courts, was none the less perfectly well known
in society; and, in the eyes of those who loved her, one of the
bravest, saddest, noblest of women. Of course Welby had shared in the
immense effort of the family to comfort and console her. They had
been so eager to accept his help; he had given it with such tact and
self-effacement; and now, meanly, they must help Eugénie to dismiss
him! For it was becoming too big a thing, this devotion of his, both
in Eugénie's life and also in the eyes of the world. Lord Findon must
needs suppose--he did not choose to _know_--that people were talking;
and if Eugénie would not free herself from her wretched Albert, she
must not provide him--poor child!--with any plausible excuse.
All of which reasoning was strictly according to the canons as Lord
Findon understood them; but it did not leave him much the happier. He
was a sensitive, affectionate man, with great natural cleverness,
and much natural virtue--wholly unleavened by either thought or
discipline. He did the ordinary things from the ordinary motives; but
he suffered when the ordinary things turned out ill, more than another
man would have done. It would certainly have been better, he ruefully
admitted, if he had not meddled so much with Eugénie's youth. And
presently he supposed he should have to forgive Charlie!--(Charlie was
the son who had married his nurse)--if only to prove to himself that
he was not really the unfeeling or snobbish father of the story-books.
Ah! there was the upstairs door! Should he show himself, and make
Arthur understand that he was their dear friend all the same, and
always would be?--it was only a question of a little drawing-in.
But his courage failed him. He heard the well-known step come
downstairs and cross the hall. The front door closed, and Lord Findon
was still balancing the paper-knife.
Would he really marry that nice child Elsie? Elsie Bligh was a cousin
of the Findons; a fair-haired, slender slip of a thing, the daughter
of a retired Indian general. The Findons had given a ball the year
before for her coming-out, and she had danced through the season,
haloed, Euphrosyne-like, by a charm of youth and laughter--till she
met Arthur Welby. Since then Euphrosyne had grown a little white
and piteous, and there had been whisperings and shakings of the head
amongst the grown-ups who were fond of her.
Well, well; he supposed Eugénie would give him some notion of the way
things had gone. As to her--his charming, sweet-natured Eugénie!--it
comforted him to remember the touch of resolute and generally cheerful
stoicism in her character. If a hard thing had to be done, she would
not only do it without flinching, but without avenging it on the
bystanders afterwards. A quality rare in women!
* * * * *
'Papa!--is the carriage there?'
It was her voice calling. Lord Findon noticed with relief its even,
silvery note. The carriage was waiting, and in a few minutes she was
seated beside him, and they were making their way eastwards through
the sunset streets.
'Dear?' he said, with timid interrogation, laying his hand momentarily
on hers.
Eugénie was looking out of window with her face turned away.
'He was very--kind,' she said, rather deliberately. 'Don't let us talk
about it, papa--but wait--and see!'
Lord Findon understood that she referred to Elsie Bligh--that she had
sown her seed, and must now let it germinate.
But herself--what had it cost her? And he knew well that he should
never ask the question; and that, if he did, she would never answer
it.
By the time they were threading the slums of Seven Dials, she was
talking rather fast and flowingly of Fenwick.
'You have brought the cheque, papa?'
'I have my cheque-book.'
'And you are quite certain about the pictures?'
'Quite.'
'It will be nice to make him happy,' she said, softly. 'His letters
have been pretty doleful.'
'What has he found to write about?' exclaimed Lord Findon, wondering.
'Himself, mostly!' she laughed. 'He likes rhetoric--and he seems
to have found out that I do too. As I told you, he began with an
apology--and since then he writes about books and art--and--and the
evils of aristocracy.'
'Bless my soul, what the deuce does he know about it! And you answer
him?'
'Yes. You see he writes extremely well--and it amuses me.'
Privately, he thought that if she encouraged him beyond a very
moderate point, Fenwick would soon become troublesome. But whenever
she pleaded that anything 'amused' her, he could never find a word to
say.
Every now and then he watched her, furtively trying to pierce that
grey veil in which she had wrapt herself. To-morrow morning, he
supposed, he should hear her step on the stairs, towards eight
o'clock--should hear it passing his door in going, and an hour
later in coming back--and should know that she had been to a little
Ritualist church close by, where what Lady Findon called 'fooleries'
went on, in the shape of 'daily celebrations' and 'vestments' and
'reservation.' How lightly she stepped; what a hidden act it was;
never spoken of, except once, between him and her! It puzzled him
often; for he knew very well that Eugénie was no follower of things
received. She had been a friend of Renan and of Taine in her French
days; and he, who was a Gallic with a leaning to the Anglican Church,
had sometimes guessed with discomfort that Eugénie was in truth what
his Low Church wife called a 'free-thinker.' She never spoke of her
opinions, directly, even to him. But the books she ordered from Paris,
or Germany, and every now and then the things she let fall about them,
were enough for any shrewd observer. It was here too, perhaps, that
she and Arthur were in closest sympathy; and every one knew that
Arthur, poor old boy, was an agnostic.
And yet this daily pilgrimage--and that light and sweetness it
breathed into her aspect!--
So one day he had asked her abruptly why she liked the little church
so much, and its sacramental 'goings-on.'
'One wouldn't expect it, you know, darling--from the things you
read.'
Eugénie had coloured faintly.
'Wouldn't you, papa? It seems to me so simple. It's an _Action_--not
words--and an action means anything you like to put into it--one thing
to me--another to you. Some day we shall all be tired, shan't we?--of
creeds, and sermons, but never of "This _do,_ in remembrance of Me!'"
And she had put up her hand to caress his, with such a timid sweetness
of lip, and such a shining of the eye, that he had been silenced,
feeling himself indeed in the presence of something he was not
particularly well fitted to explore.
Well, if she was inconsequent, she was dear!--and if her mystical
fancies comforted and sustained her, nobody should ever annoy or check
her in the pursuit of them. He put a very summary stop to his wife's
'Protestant nonsense,' whenever it threatened to worry Eugénie; though
on other occasions it amused him.
* * * * *
The landlady in Bernard Street greeted them with particular effusion.
If they had only known, they represented to her--cautious yet not
unkindly soul!--the main security for those very long arrears of rent
she had allowed her lodger to run up. Were they now come--at this
unusual hour--to settle up with Mr. Fenwick? If so, her own settling
up--sweet prospect!--might be in sight. Cuningham and Watson had
recently left her, and taken a joint studio in Chelsea. Their rooms,
moreover, were still unlet. Her anxieties therefore were many, and it
was with lively expectation that she watched the 'swells' grope their
way upstairs to Mr. Fenwick's room. She always knew it must come right
some day, with people like that about.
Lord Findon and Eugénie mounted the stairs. The studio door was
half-open. As they approached the threshold they heard Fenwick
speaking.
'I say, hand me that rag--and look sharp and bring me some more
oil--quick! And where the devil is that sketch? Well, get the oil--and
then look for it--under that pile over there--No!--hi!--stand still
a moment--just where you are--I want to see the tone of your head
against this background! Hang it!--the light's going!'
The visitors paused--to see Fenwick standing between them and a large
canvas covered with the first 'laying-in' of an important subject. The
model, a thin, dark-faced fellow, was standing meekly on the spot to
which Fenwick had motioned him, while the artist, palette on thumb,
stood absorbed and frowning, his keen eye travelling from the man's
head to the canvas behind it.
Lord Findon smiled. He was a clever amateur, and relished the details
of the business.
'Smells good!' he said, in Eugénie's ear, sniffing the scents of the
studio. 'Looks like a fine subject too. And just now he's king of it.
The torments are all ahead. Hullo, Fenwick!--may we come in?'
Fenwick turned sharply and saw them in the doorway. He came to meet
them with mingled pleasure and embarrassment.
'Come in, please! Hope you don't mind this get-up.' He pointed to his
shirt-sleeves.
'It's we who apologise!' smiled Eugénie. 'You are in a great moment!'
She glanced at the canvas, filled with a rhythmical group of dim
figures, already beautiful, though they had caught the artist and his
work in the very act of true creation--when after weeks or months
of brooding, of hard work, of searching study of this or that, of
inspiration tested and verified, of mechanical drudgery, of patient
construction, _birth_ begins--the birth of values, relations,
distances, the _drawing of colour_.
Fenwick shrugged his shoulders. His eyes sparkled in a strained
and haggard face, with such an ardour that Eugénie had the strange
impression of some headlong force, checked in mid-career, and filling
the quiet studio with the thrill of its sudden reining-up; and Lord
Findon's announcement was checked on his lips.
'Why, it is my subject!' she cried, looking again at the picture.
'Well, of course!' said Fenwick, flushing.
It was only a few weeks before that she had read him, from a privately
printed volume, a poem, of which the new, strange music was then
freshly in men's ears--suggesting that he should take it as a theme.
The poem is called 'An Elegy on a Lady, whom grief for the death of
her betrothed killed.' Its noble verse summons all true maids and
lovers to bear the dead company, in that burial procession which
should have been her bridal triumph. The priests go before,
white-robed; the 'dark-stoled minstrels follow'; then the bier with
the bride:--
And then the maidens in a double row,
Each singing soft and low,
And each on high a torch upstaying:
Unto her lover lead her forth with light,
With music, and with singing, and with praying.
'Here is the finished sketch,' he said, placing it in her hands and
watching her eagerly.
She bent over it in emotion, conscious of that natural delight of
woman when she has fired an artist.
'How fine!--and how you must have worked!'
'Night and day. It possessed me. I didn't want you to see it yet a
while. But you understand?--it is to be romantic--not sentimental.
Strong form. Every figure discriminated, and yet kept subordinate to
the whole. No monotony! Character everywhere--expressing grief--and
longing. An evening light-between sunset and moonrise. The sky
gold--and the torches. Then below--in the crowd, the autumn woods, the
distant River of Death, towards which the procession moves--a massing
of blues and purples'--his hand--pointing--worked rapidly over the
canvas; 'and here, some pale rose, black, emerald green, dimly woven
in--and lastly, the whites of the bride-maidens, and of the bride upon
her bier--towards which, of course, the whole construction mounts.'
'I see!--a sort of Mantegna Triumph--with a difference!'
'The drawing's all right,' said Fenwick, with a long breath, and
a stretch. 'If I can only get the paint as I want it'--he stooped
forward again peering into the canvas--'it's the _handling of the
paint_--that's what excites me! I want to get it broad and pure--no
messing--no working over!--a fine surface!--and yet none of your waxy
prettiness. The forms like Millet--simple--but full of knowledge.
_Ah!_'--he took up a brush, flung it down bitterly, and turned on his
heel--'I can draw!--but why did no one ever teach me to paint?'
Eugénie lifted her eyebrows--amused at the sudden despair. Lord Findon
laughed. He had restrained himself so far with difficulty while these
two romanced; and now, bursting with his tidings, he laid a hand on
Fenwick:--
'Look here, young man--we didn't come just on the loose--to bother
you. Have you heard--?'
Fenwick made a startled movement.
'Heard what?'
'Why, that your two pictures are _accepted_!--and will be admirably
hung--both on the line, and one in the big room.'
The colour rushed again into Fenwick's cheeks.
'Are you sure?' he stammered, looking from one to the other.
Lord Findon gave his authority, and then Eugénie held out her hand.
'We _are_ so glad!'
She had thrown back the gauze veil in which she had shrouded herself
during her drive with her father, and her charming face--still so
pale!--shone in sympathy.
Fenwick awkwardly accepted her congratulation, and shook the proffered
hand.
'I expect it's your doing,' he said, abruptly.
'Not in the least!' cried Lord Findon. His eye twinkled. 'My dear
fellow, what are you thinking of? These are the days of merit, and
publicity!--when every man comes to his own.' Fenwick grinned a
little. 'You've earned _your_ success anyway, and it'll be a thumper.
Now look here, where can we talk business?'
Fenwick put down his palette, and slipped his arms into his coat.
The model lit a lamp, and disappeared. Eugénie meanwhile withdrew
discreetly to the further end of the room, where she busied herself
with some wood-blocks on which Fenwick had been drawing. The two men
remained hidden behind the large canvas, and she heard nothing of
their conversation. She was aware, however, of the scratching of a
pen, and immediately after her father called to her.
'Eugénie, come!--we must get back for dinner.'
Fenwick, looking up, saw her emerging from the shadows of the further
room into the bright lamp-light, her grey veil floating cloudwise
round her. As she came towards him, he felt her once more the emblem
and angel of his good-fortune. All the inspiration she had been to
him, all that closer acquaintance, to which during the preceding weeks
she had admitted him, throbbed warm at his heart. His mind was full of
gratitude--full also of repentance!--towards Phoebe and towards her.
That very night would he write his confession to her, at last!--tell
all his story, beg her to excuse his foolish lack of frankness and
presence of mind to Lord Findon, and ask her kindness for Phoebe and
the child. He already saw little Carrie on her knee, and the _aegis_
of her protecting sweetness spread over them all.
Meanwhile the impression upon her was that he had taken the news of
his success with admirable self-restraint, that he was growing and
shaping as a human being, no less than as an artist, that his manner
to her father was excellent, neither tongue-tied nor effusive, and
his few words of thanks manly and sincere. She thought to herself
that here was the beginning of a great career--the moment when the
streamlet finds its bed, and enters upon its true and destined course.
And in the warm homage, the evident attachment she had awakened in
the man before her, there was for Eugénie at the moment a peculiar
temptation. Had she not just given proof that she was set apart--that
for her there could be no more thought of love in its ordinary sense?
In her high-strung consciousness of Welby's dismissal, she felt
herself not only secure against the vulgar snares of vanity and sex,
but, as it were, endowed with a larger spiritual freedom. She had sent
away the man of whom she was in truth afraid--the man whom she might
have loved. But in this distant, hesitating, and yet strong devotion
that Fenwick was beginning to show her, there was something that
appealed--and with peculiar force, in the immediate circumstances,--to
a very sore and lonely heart. Here was no danger to be feared!--nothing
but a little kind help to a man of genius, whose great gifts might be
so easily nullified and undone by his thorny vehemence of character,
his lack of breeding and education.
The correspondence indeed which had arisen between them out of
Fenwick's first remarkable letter to her, had led unconsciously to
a new attitude on the part of Madame de Pastourelles. That he was an
interesting and promising artist she knew; that on subjects connected
with his art he could talk copiously and well, that also, she
knew; but that he could write, with such pleasant life, detail, and
ingenuity, was a surprise, and it attracted her, as it would have
attracted a French-woman of the eighteenth century. Her maimed life
had made her perforce an 'intellectual'; and in these letters, the
man's natural poetry and force stirred her enthusiasm. Hence a new
interest and receptivity in her, quickened by many small and natural
incidents--books lent and discussed, meetings in picture-galleries,
conversations in her father's house, and throughout it that tempting,
dangerous pleasure of 'doing good,' that leads astray so many on whom
Satan has no other hold! She was introducing him every week to new
friends--her friends, the friends she wished him to have; she was
making his social way plain before him; she had made her father buy
his pictures; and she meant to look after his career in the future.
So that, quivering as she still was under the strain of her scene
with Welby--so short, so veiled, and at bottom so tragic!--she showed
herself glitteringly cheerful--almost gay--as she stood talking a
few minutes with her father and Fenwick. The restless happiness in
Fenwick's face and movements gave his visitors indeed so much pleasure
that they found it hard to go; several times they said good-bye, only
to plunge again into the sketches and studies that lay littered
about the room, to stand chatting before the new canvas, to laugh and
gossip--till Lord Findon remembered that Eugénie did not yet know
that he had offered Fenwick five hundred pounds for the two pictures
instead of four hundred and fifty pounds; and that he might have
the prompt satisfaction of telling her that he had bettered her
instructions, he at last dragged her away. On this day of all days,
did he wish to please her!--if it were only in trifles.