"Well, anyway, he can take it back," said the girl. "Mother wouldn"t let me destroy it, but she said I might give it back; so there it is.
We kept the frame--that"s decent--that might do for something else."
Phoebe"s eyes flashed.
"Thank you, Miss Morrison. It would, indeed, be a great pity to waste my husband"s work on some one who couldn"t appreciate it." She took the roll and stood with her hand upon it, protecting it. "I"ll tell him what you"ve done."
"Oh, then, you do know where he is!" said Bella, with a laugh.
"What do you mean?"
"What I say." The eyes of the two women met across the table. A flash of cruelty showed itself in those of the girl. "I thought, perhaps, you mightn"t--as he"s been pa.s.sing in London for an unmarried man."
There was a pause--a moment"s dead silence.
"That, of course, is a lie!" said Phoebe at last, drawing in her breath--and then, restraining herself, "or else a silly mistake."
"It"s no mistake at all," said Bella, with a toss of the head. "I thought you ought to know, and mother agreed with me. The men are all alike. There"s a letter I got the other day from a friend of mine."
She drew a letter from a stringbag on her wrist, and handed it to Phoebe.
Phoebe made no motion to take it. She stood rigid, her fierce, still look fixed on her visitor.
"You"d better," said Bella; "I declare you"d better. If my husband had been behaving like this, I should want to know the truth--and pay him out."
Phoebe took the letter, opened it with steady fingers, and read it.
While she was reading it the baby Carrie, escaped from the little servant"s tutelage, ran in and hid her face in her mother"s skirts, peering sometimes at the stranger.
When she had finished the letter, Phoebe handed it back to its owner.
"Who wrote that?"
"A friend of mine who"s working at South Kensington. You can see--she knows a lot about artists."
"And what she doesn"t know she makes up," said Phoebe, with slow contempt. "You tell her, Miss Morrison, from me, she might be better employed than writing nasty, lying gossip about people she never saw."
She caught up her child, who flung her arms round her mother"s neck, nestling on her shoulder.
"Oh, well, if you"re going to take it like that--" said the other, with a laugh.
"I _am_ taking it like that, you see," said Phoebe, walking to the door and throwing it wide. "You"d better go, Miss Morrison. I am sure I can"t imagine why you came. I should have thought you"d have had sorrow enough of your own, without trying to make it for other people."
The other winced.
"Well, of course, if you don"t want to know the truth, you needn"t."
Phoebe laughed.
"It isn"t truth," she said. "But if it was--Did you want to know the truth about your father?" Her white face, encircled by the child"s arms, quivered as she spoke.
"Don"t you abuse my father," cried Bella, furiously.
Phoebe"s eyes wavered and fell.
"I wasn"t going to abuse him," she said, in a choked voice. "I was sorry for him--and for your mother. But _you"ve_ got a hard, wicked heart--and I hope I"ll never see you again, Miss Morrison. I"ll thank you, please, to leave my house."
The other drew down her veil with an affected smile and shrug.
"Good-bye, Mrs. Fenwick. Perhaps you"ll find out before long that my friend wasn"t such a fool to write that letter--and I wasn"t such a beast to tell you--as you think now. Good-bye!"
Phoebe said nothing. The girl pa.s.sed her insolently, and left the house.
Phoebe put the child to bed, sat without touching a morsel while Daisy supped, and then shut herself into the parlour, saying that she was going to sit up over her work, to which only a few last touches were wanting. It had been her intention to go with the carrier to Windermere the following day in order to hand it over to the shop that had got her the commission, and ask for payment.
But as soon as she was alone in the room, with her lamp and her work, she swept its silken, many-coloured ma.s.s aside, found a sheet of paper, and began to write.
She was trying to write down, as nearly as she could remember, the words of the letter which Bella had shown her.
"Didn"t you tell me about a man called John Fenwick, who painted your portrait?--a beastly thing you couldn"t abide? Well, they say he"s going to be awfully famous soon, and make a pile of money. I don"t know him, but I have a friend who knows one of the two men who used to lodge in the same house with him--I believe they"ve just moved to Chelsea. He says that Mr. Fenwick will have two ripping pictures in the Academy, and is sure to get his name up. And, besides that, there is some lord or other who"s wild about him--and means to buy everything he can paint. But I thought you said your man was married?--do you remember I chaffed you about him when he began, and you said, "No fear--he is married to a school-teacher," or something of that sort? Well, I asked about the wife, and my friend says, "Nonsense! he isn"t married--nothing of the sort--or, at any rate, if he is, he makes everybody believe he isn"t--and there must be something wrong somewhere." By the way, one of the pictures he"s sending in is a wonderful portrait. An awfully beautiful woman--with a white _velvet_ dress, my dear--and they say the painting of the dress is marvellous. She"s the daughter of the Lord Somebody who"s taken him up. They"ve introduced him to all sorts of smart people, and, as I said before, he"s going to have a _tremendous_ success. Some people have luck, haven"t they?"
She reproduced it as accurately as she could, read it through again, and then pushed it aside. With set lips she resumed her work, and by midnight she had put in the last st.i.tch and fastened the last thread.
That she should do so was essential to the plan she had in her mind.
For she had already determined what to do. Within forty-eight hours she would be in London. If he had really disowned and betrayed her--or if he had merely grown tired of her and wished to be quit of her--in either case she would soon discover what it behoved her to know.
When at last, in the utter silence of midnight, she took up her candle to go to bed, its light fell, as she moved towards the door, on the portrait of himself that Fenwick had left with her at Christmas. She looked at it long, dry-eyed. It was as though it began already to be the face of a stranger.
CHAPTER VII
Eugenie, 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 Eugenie 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, Eugenie, 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-n.o.bbing 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.
Eugenie 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." Eugenie or Lord Findon wrote to her every day; they discussed her letters when they arrived with all proper _egards_; and, for the rest, enjoyed their _tete-a-tete,_ and never dreamed of missing her. _Tete-a-tete_, 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 a.s.siduity 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 Eugenie had special claims upon each other, and as the household adored them both, they were never interfered with.
On this occasion Eugenie was bent on business as well as affection.
She withdrew her hand from her father"s shoulder in order to raise a monitory finger.