Fenwick's Career Part 17

Fenwick listened greedily, and presently inquired whether Mr. Welby had shared in all these amus.e.m.e.nts.

'Oh yes. He was generally the life and soul of them.'

'I suppose he made lots of friends--and got on with everybody?'

Madame de Pastourelles a.s.sented--cautiously.

'That's all a question of manners,' said Fenwick, with sudden roughness.

She gave a vague 'Perhaps'--and he straightened himself aggressively.

'I don't think manners very important, do you?'

'Very!' She said it, with a gay firmness.

'Well, then, some of us will never get any,' his tone was surly--'we weren't taught young enough.'

'Our mothers teach us generally--all that's wanted!'

He shook his head.

'It's not as simple as that. Besides--one may lose one's mother.'

'Ah, yes!' she said, with quick feeling.

And presently a little tact, a few questions on her part had brought out some of his own early history--his mother's death--his years of struggle with his father. As he talked on--disjointedly--painting hard all the time, she had a vision of the Kendal shop and its customers--of the shrewd old father, moulded by the business, the avarice, the religion of an English country town, with a Calvinist contempt for art and artists--and trying vainly to coerce his sulky and rebellious son.

'Has your father seen these pictures?' She pointed to the 'Genius Loci' on its further easel--and to the portrait.

'My father! I haven't spoken to him or seen him for years.'

'Years!' She opened her eyes. 'Is it as bad as that?'

'Aye, that's North-Country. If you've once committed yourself, you stick to it--like death.'

She declared that it might be North-Country, but was none the less barbarous. However, of course it would all come right. All the interesting tales of one's childhood began that way--with a cruel father, and a rebellious son. But they came to magnificent ends, notwithstanding--with sacks of gold and a princess. Diffident, yet smiling, she drew conclusions. 'So, you see, you'll make money--you'll be an R.A.--you'll _marry_--and Mr. Fenwick will nurse the grandchildren. I a.s.sure you--that's the fairy-tale way.'

Fenwick, who had flushed hotly, turned away and occupied himself in replenis.h.i.+ng his palette.

'Papa, of course, would say--Don't marry till you're a hundred and two!' she resumed. 'But pray, don't listen to him.'

'I dare say he's right,' said Fenwick, returning to his easel, his face bent over it.

'Not at all. People should have their youth together.'

'That's all very well. But many men don't know at twenty what they'll want at thirty,' said Fenwick, painting fast.

Madame de Pastourelles laughed.

'The doctors say nowadays--it is papa's latest craze--that it doesn't matter what you eat--or how little--if you only chew it properly. I wonder if that applies to matrimony?'

'What's the chewing?'

'Manners,' she said, laughing--'that you think so little of. Whether the food's agreeable or not, manners help it down.'

'Manners!--between husband and wife?' he said, scornfully.

'But certainly!' She lifted her beautiful brows for emphasis. 'Show me any persons, please, that want them more!'

'The people I've been living among,' said Fenwick, with sharp persistence, 'haven't got time for fussing about manners--in the sense you mean. Life's too hard.'

A flush of bright colour sprang into her face. But she held her ground.

'What do you suppose I mean? I don't meant court trains and courtesies--I really don't.'

Fenwick was silent a moment, and then said--aggressively--' We can't all of us have the same chances--as Mr. Welby, for instance.'

Madame de Pastourelles looked at him in astonishment. What an extraordinary obsession! They seemed not to be able to escape from Arthur Welby's name: yet it never cropped up without producing some sign of irritation in this strange young man. Poor Arthur!--who had always shown himself so ready to make friends, whenever the two men met--as they often did--in the St. James's Square drawing-room.

Fenwick's antagonism, indeed, had been plain to her for some time.

It was natural, she supposed; he was clearly very sensitive on the subject of his own humble origin and bringing-up; but she sighed that a perverse youth should so mismanage his opportunities.

As to 'chances,' she declared rather tartly that they had nothing to do with it. It was natural to Arthur Welby to make himself agreeable.

'Yes--like all other kinds of aristocrats,' said Fenwick, grimly.

Madame de Pastourelles frowned.

'Of all the words in the dictionary--that word is the most detestable!' she declared. 'It ought to be banished. Well, thank goodness, it _is_ generally banished.'

'That's only because we all like to hide our heads in the sand--you who possess the privileges--and we who envy them!'

'I vow I don't possess any privileges at all,' she said, with defiance.

'You say so, because you breathe them--live in them--like the air--without knowing it,' said Fenwick, also trying to speak lightly.

Then he added, suddenly putting down his palette and brushes, while his black eyes lightened--'And so does Mr. Welby. You can see from his pictures that he doesn't know anything about common, coa.r.s.e people--_real_ people--who make up the world. He paints wax, and calls it life; and you--'

'Go on!--_please_ go on!'

'I shall only make a fool of myself,' he said, taking up his brushes again.

'Not at all. And I praise humbug?--and call it manners?'

He paused, then blurted out--'I wouldn't say anything rude to you for the world!'

She smiled--a smile that turned all the delicate severity of her face to sweetness. 'That's very nice of you. But if you knew Mr. Welby better, you'd never want to say anything rude to _him_ either!'

Fenwick was silent. Madame de Pastourelles, feeling that for the moment she also had come to the end of her tether, fell into a reverie, from which she was presently roused by finding Fenwick standing before her, palette in hand.

'I don't want you to think me an envious brute,' he said, stammering.