Fenwicks Career | Page 3

I placed
the sad second spring of the two marred lives under the dear shelter of
the fells.
MARY A. WARD.


PART I
WESTMORELAND
'Who can contemplate Fame through clouds unfold The star which rises
o'er her steep, nor climb?'
CHAPTER I
Really, mother, I can't sit any more. I'm that stiff!--and as cold as

anything.'
So said Miss Bella Morrison, as she rose from her seat with an affected
yawn and stretch. In speaking she looked at her mother, and not at the
painter to whom she had been sitting for nearly two hours. The young
man in question stood embarrassed and silent, his palette on his thumb,
brush and mahlstick suspended. His eyes were cast down: a flush had
risen in his cheek. Miss Bella's manner was not sweet; she wished
evidently to slight somebody, and the painter could not flatter himself
that the somebody was Mrs. Morrison, the only other person in the
room beside the artist and his subject. The mother looked up slightly,
and without pausing in her knitting--'It's no wonder you're cold,' she
said, sharply, 'when you wear such ridiculous dresses in this weather.'
It was now the daughter's turn to flush; she coloured and pouted. The
artist, John Fenwick, returned discreetly to his canvas, and occupied
himself with a fold of drapery.
'I put it on, because I thought Mr. Fenwick wanted something pretty to
paint. And as he clearly don't see anything in me!'--she looked over her
shoulder at the picture, with a shrug of mock humility concealing a
very evident annoyance--'I thought anyway he might like my best
frock.'
'I'm sorry you're not satisfied, Miss Morrison,' said the artist, stepping
back from his canvas and somewhat defiantly regarding the picture
upon it. Then he turned and looked at the girl--a coarsely pretty young
woman, very airily clothed in a white muslin dress, of which the
transparency displayed her neck and arms with a freedom not at all in
keeping with the nipping air of Westmoreland in springtime--going up
to his easel again after the look to put in another touch.
As to his expression of regret, Miss Morrison tossed her head.
'It doesn't matter to me!' she declared. 'It was father's fad, and so I sat.
He promised me, if I didn't like it, he'd put it in his own den, where my
friends couldn't see it. So I really don't care a straw!'

'Bella! don't be rude!' said her mother, severely. She rose and came to
look at the picture.
Bella's colour took a still sharper accent; her chest rose and fell; she
fidgeted an angry foot.
'I told Mr. Fenwick hundreds of times,' she protested, 'that he was
making my upper lip miles too long--and that I hadn't got a nasty
staring look like that--nor a mouth like that--nor--nor anything. It's--it's
too bad!'
The girl turned away, and Fenwick, glancing at her in dismay, saw that
she was on the point of indignant tears.
Mrs. Morrison put on her spectacles. She was a small, grey-haired
woman with a face, wrinkled and drawn, from which all smiles seemed
to have long departed. Even in repose, her expression suggested hidden
anxieties--fears grown habitual and watchful; and when she moved or
spoke, it was with a cold caution or distrust, as though in all directions
she was afraid of what she might touch, of possibilities she might set
loose.
She looked at the picture, and then at her daughter.
'It's not flattered,' she said, slowly. 'But I can't say it isn't like you,
Bella.'
'Oh, I knew you'd say something like that, mother!' said the daughter,
scornfully. She stooped and threw a shawl round her shoulders;
gathered up some working materials and a book with which she had
been toying during the sitting; and then straightened herself with an air
at once tragic and absurd.
'Well, good-bye, Mr. Fenwick.' She turned to the painter. 'I'd rather not
sit again, please.'
'I shouldn't think of asking you, Miss Morrison,' murmured the young
man, moving aside to let her pass.

'Hullo, hullo! what's all this?' said a cheery voice at the door. 'Bella,
where are you off to? Is the sitting done?'
'It's been going on two hours, papa, so I should think I'd had about
enough,' said Miss Bella, making for the door.
But her father caught her by the arm.
'I say, we are smart!--aren't we, mamma? Well, now then--let me have
a look.'
And drawing the unwilling girl once more towards the painter, he
detained her while he scrutinised the picture.
'Do I squint, papa?' said Miss Morrison, with her head haughtily turned
away.
'Wait a minute, my dear.'
'Have I got the colour of a barmaid, and a waist like Fanny's?' Fanny
was the Morrison's housemaid, and was not slim.
'Be