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Updated: May 17, 2025
It should perhaps be explained that some two years after Fenwick's arrival in London, Madame de Pastourelles had thought it best to establish a little ménage of her own, distinct from the household in St. James's Square. Her friends and her stepmother's were not always congenial to each other; and in many ways both Lord Findon and she were the happier for the change.
And through his rare stories of the Findon household and the Findon dinner-parties, the wife dimly perceived a formidable world, bristling with strange acquirements and accomplishments, in which he, perhaps, was beginning to find a place, thanks to his art; while she, his obscure and ignorant wife, must resign herself to being for ever shut out from it to knowing it from his report only.
Lord Findon followed her, tormented by a queer, unwelcome thought. Was it possible that Eugénie was now with her widowhood beginning to take a more than friendly interest in that strange fellow, Fenwick? If so, he would be tolerably punished for his meddling of long ago! To have snatched her from Arthur, in order to hand her to John Fenwick!
'Oh yes, it will, papa. For our sakes, Arthur would keep the peace. 'If the other will let him! I used to think, Eugénie, you had tamed the bear but, upon my soul! Lord Findon threw up his hands in protest. 'He's in low spirits, papa. It will be better soon, said Eugénie, softly, and as she spoke she rose and went down the steps to meet the Welbys.
Lady Findon, indeed, had been away, nursing an invalid father; Madame de Pastourelles filled her place. The old fellow would talk freely politics, connoisseurship, art. Fenwick too was allowed his head, and said his say; though always surrounded and sometimes chafing under that discipline of good society which is its only or its best justification.
She seemed a part of the fells; their silences, their breezes, their pure waters, had passed into her face. But it was the execution of the picture which perhaps specially arrested the attention of the men examining it. 'Eclectic stuff! said Watson to himself, presently, as he turned away 'seen with other men's eyes! But on Lord Findon and on Cuningham the effect was of another kind.
Amongst other complaints she expressed herself bitterly as to the appearance of Mr. Fenwick at Versailles. Arthur had been so taken aback Mr. Fenwick was always so atrociously rude to him! Arthur would have never come to Versailles had he known; but of course, as Uncle Findon and Eugénie liked Mr. Fenwick, as he was their friend, Arthur couldn't now avoid meeting him.
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.
'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?
Fenwick looked hastily, and saw a very handsome youth bending forward to answer a question which Lord Findon had addressed to him from across the table; a face in the 'grand style' almost the face of a Greek pure in outline, bronzed by foreign suns, and lit by eyes expressing so strong a force of personality that, but for the sweetness with which it was tempered, the spectator might have been rather repelled than won.
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