Fenchurch Street

“ When his father's solicitor recommended a certain Islington boarding-house as an establishment where a man of means could be housed and fed for as little as thirty shillings a week, and a certain firm in Fenchurch Street as another establishment where a man of gifts could earn as much as forty shillings a week, George found out where Islington and Fenchurch Street were, and fell mechanically into the routine suggested for him. ”

“ His ideas are magnificent: he must have his trading palace and warehouses beetling, lofty, and of granite or Portland stone, a great arch or portal for the entrance; a sort of City architecture has been engendered specially to meet his wants.
Most “West-enders” rarely travel beyond the Exchange and the banking streets adjoining. But until Cornhill is passed, this peculiar aspect we have been describing is not met with. It is when we reach Mincing Lane, and Mark Lane, and Leadenhall, and Fenchurch Street, that we come upon these grand and endless ranges of business palaces. ”

“ They alighted at the Haymarket, and as they walked down the street Fenwick found himself in the midst of the evening whirl of the West End. The clubs were at their busiest; men passed them in dress-suits and overcoats like themselves, and the street was full of hansoms, whence the faces of well-dressed women, enveloped in soft silks and furs, looked out.
Fenwick felt himself treading a new earth. At such an hour he was generally wending his way to a Bloomsbury eating-house, where he dined for eighteenpence; he was a part of the striving, moneyless student-world. ”

“ He looked up.
'Well, why don't you?'
'Because—somehow—one has to live.'
Watson climbed on to his high stool, still observing his visitor. For a good many years now, Fenwick had been always well and carefully dressed—an evident Londoner, accustomed to drawing-rooms and frequenting expensive tailors. But to-day there was something in his tired, dishevelled look, and comparatively shabby coat, which reminded Watson of years long gone by—of a studio in Bernard Street, and a broad-browed, handsome fellow, with queer manners and a North-Country accent. ”

“ Presently, Fenwick began to talk gloomily of the death of his old Bernard Street landlady, who had become his housekeeper and factotum in the new Chelsea house and studio, which he had built for himself.
'I don't know what I shall do without her. For eleven years I've never paid a bill or engaged a servant for myself. She's done everything. ”

“ Half an hour later Lord Findon, who was traversing the drawing-rooms after having taken the Ambassadress to her carriage, found a regenerate and humanised Fenwick sitting beside his daughter; the centre, indeed, of a circle no less friendly to untutored talent than the circle of the dinner-table had been hostile. Lord Findon stopped to listen. Really the young man was now talking decently!—about matters he understood; Burne-Jones, Rossetti—some French pictures in Bond Street—and so forth. ”

“ Fenwick's lodgings in Drury Lane were such as any man might have. The Jesuit Fathers lived apart in London—Father Whitbread in the City, Father Ireland in Russell Street, and Father Harcourt, who was called the "Rector of London," I heard, in Duke Street, near the arch—lest too much attention should be drawn to them if they were all together. They were pleasant quiet men, and received me very kindly—for my cousin who had forgot some matter he had to do before he went into the country, was gone down into the City to see to it. ”

“ People going and coming through the arches are silhouettes. Overhead it is like the grumbling of a thunder storm. Wagons going over the stones rattle tremendously, and they carry lanterns swung beneath to be lighted at night. The streets have fine names: there is Gold Street, and then Jacob Street. Frankfort Street widens out and becomes a generous thoroughfare, all in sunlight. There is a huge, gay hoarding to the right as you go down. ”

“ But though no sign of rescue caught Frank’s eyes, he saw that the stationing of the dragoons to keep the way and the turning of the traffic out of the road had had their effect; for at every step the collection of people along the sides and at the windows increased, till, when the road changed to a busy London street, there was quite a crowd lining the sides. ”

“ Fenkle Street.—A street so called in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, lying in a part of the town formerly much occupied by garden ground, and in the immediate vicinity of the house of the Dominican Friars there. Also, a way or passage inside the town wall, and leading between that fortification and the house of the Carmelites or White Friars, was anciently called by the same name. The name of Fenkle or Finkle Street occurs in several old towns in the North, as Alnwick, Richmond, York, Kendal, &c. Fenol and finugl, as also finul, are Saxon words for fennel ”

“ Clark street changed overnight, and became a business thoroughfare, lined with stately office buildings, boasting marble and gold-leaf banks, filled with hurrying clerks, stenographers, and prosperous bond salesmen. It was like a sporting man who, thriving in middle age, endeavors to live down his shady past.
Fanny discovered Cottage Grove avenue, and Halsted street, and Jefferson, and South State, where she should never have walked. There is an ugliness about Chicago's ugly streets that, for sheer, naked brutality, is equaled nowhere in the world. ”

“ Fenwick was comfortably settled in an apartment within a few minutes' walk of Krakatoa Villa; and all the incidents of his original appearance were getting merged in the insoluble, and would soon, no doubt, under the influence of a steady ever-present new routine of life, be completely absorbed in the actual past.
[Pg 44] CHAPTER V THE CHRISTMAS AFTER. OF THE CHURCH OF ST. SATISFAX, AND A YOUNG IDIOT WHO CAME THERE
When one is called away in the middle of a street-fight, and misses seeing the end of it, how embittered one's existence is, and continues for some time after! ”

“ He haunts the quieter streets of the West End, and when a woman alone meets him late at night, she will do well to make for the nearest policeman, the proper method being to ask the fern-seller to carry the ferns home for her: a policeman will doubtless be encountered on the way. I remember a fern-seller, who accosted me once in Portman Square. It was about six o’clock in the evening; I told the man that I wanted no ferns; he followed me, rumbling abuse which I could hardly hear. As it happened, I was looking for lodgings, and stopped at a likely house in Portman Street. ”

“ Few do turn down Frankfort Street, and I fear its admirable points are unappreciated. For one thing, it goes down, down, down a very steep incline; which is a spirited thing for a street to do, I think. ”

“ Fanny's mind leaped back to Winnebago, with its pleasant porches on which leisurely women sat stitching peacefully at a fine seam.
What was it she had said to Udell? “Can't you speed up the workroom? It's worth it.”
Fanny turned abruptly from the window as the door of the bronze and mirrored lift opened for her. She walked over to Fifth avenue again and up to Forty-fifth street. Then she scrambled up the spiral stairs of a Washington Square 'bus. The air was crisp, clear, intoxicating. To her Chicago eyes the buildings, the streets, the very sky looked startlingly fresh and new-washed. ”

“ The white houses, the wide avenues, the château on its hill, were steeped in light—a light golden, lavish, and yet melancholy, as though the autumn day still remembered the October afternoon when Marie Antoinette turned to look for the last time at the lake and the woods of Trianon.
As Fenwick crossed the Rue de la Paroisse, a lady on the other side of the road, who was hurrying in the opposite direction, stopped suddenly at sight of him, and stared excitedly. She was a woman no longer young, much sunburnt, with high cheek-bones and a florid complexion. ”

“ She walked back and forth in front of the drugstore. A hallucination, of course. But could she have seen him? Before she knew it she had called out: "Wenny!" People were looking at her. She walked hurriedly up the dark street, breathless, running away from them. She spun in the grip of a horrible nausea.
* * * *
"Why, Confucius looks sleeker than ever, Nan," said Fanshaw, and ran the tips of his fingers round the big blue teapot. They sat in the open window looking out at the misty russet trees of the Fenway, with the teatable between them.
"He never goes hungry, or rather thirsty." ”

“ Fenwick hoped nothing from them. Yet as he walked fast through the London streets, from which the fog was lifting, his mind wrestled with vague images of great lakes, and virgin forests, and rolling wheat-lands—of the streets of Montreal, or the Heights of Québec—and amongst them, now with one background, now with another, the slender figure of a fair-haired woman with a child beside her. And through his thoughts, furies of distress and fear pursued him—now as always.
'Well, this is a queer go, isn't it?' said Watson, in a half-whispering voice. 'Nature has horrid ways of killing you. ”

“ At the same moment there was a shout of greeting from below, and Fenwick came into sight on the steep pitch of lane that led from the high-road to the cottage. Miss Anna strolled down to meet him.
In the eyes of his old friend, John Fenwick made a very handsome figure as he approached her, his painter's wallet slung over his shoulder. That something remarkable had happened to him she divined at once. In moments of excitement a certain foreign look—as some people thought, a gypsyish look—was apt to show itself. ”

“ Fenn turned after him. He had just time to recognise the street as his goal, the High Street, when somebody, walking unexpectedly out of the corner house, stood directly in his path. Fenn could not stop himself. He charged the man squarely, clutched him to save himself, and they fell in a heap on the pavement. ”

“ Fenwick turned away uneasily.
'So I did. But there was the new house and studio. I have been trying to sell the house. But it's a white elephant.'
'Building's the deuce,' said Watson, gloomily. 'It ruins everybody from Louis Quatorze and Walter Scott downward. Have no barns—that's my principle—and then you can't pull 'em down and build greater! But, you know, it's all great nonsense, your talking like this! You're as clever as ever—cleverer. You've only got to paint—and it'll be all right. ”

“ Fanshaw hastened his stride. His muscles were tense. A holdup.
"Walk slow like. Lemme walk between yez for crissake."
Fanshaw looked desperately up the long straight street towards the glare of Central Square. Not a policeman of course. The man walked panting between them with red sweating face stuck forward. Fanshaw dropped back a step and came up on the outside of Wenny. ”

“ Phoebe Fenwick, waiting and listening for the post in an upper room of Green Nab Cottage, ran hurriedly to the window several times in vain, drawn by the sound of wheels. The cart which clattered past was not that which bore Her Majesty's mails.
At the third of these false alarms she lingered beside the open casement window, looking out into the valley. It was a very weary woman who stood thus—motionless and drooping; a woman so tired, so conscious of wasted life and happiness, that although expectation held her in a grip of torture, there was in it little or nothing of hope. ”

“ Mrs. Flint, wavering between her dread of Fenwick's ill-humour and the impression produced upon her by the gentle decision of her visitor, retreated into the house. The lady followed.
'Well, if you'll wait there, ma'am'—the charwoman opened the door of the dismantled sitting-room—'I'll speak to Mr. Fenwick.'
She shuffled off. Eugénie de Pastourelles threw back her veil. She had arrived only that morning in London after a night journey, and her face showed deep lines of fatigue. But its beauty of expression had never been more striking. Animation—joy—spoke in the eyes, quivered in the lips. ”

“ Fenwick, much troubled, protested that it was madness to have come back to the English winter.
'No,' said Cuningham, looking grave. 'Better die at home than among strangers. And I'm afraid it's come to that, dear old fellow!'
Then he described—with evident self-satisfaction—how he had heard, from a common friend, of Watson's arrival, how he had rescued the invalid from a dingy Bloomsbury hotel, and settled him in some rooms in Fitzroy Square, with a landlady who could be trusted.
'We must have a nurse before long—but he won't have one yet. He wants badly to see you. ”

“ Fenwick cried. "It is all very well for you men, who don't care so long as you have something to eat and drink. You would be quite satisfied to sit like a lot of hogs in a sty in Le Fenu's house, but he'll certainly be back in the morning with some infernal scheme or other for getting the best of us. Don't you see it is impossible for me any longer to play the part of a tenant of a furnished house, now that the owner of the house is at large again? It is a very fortunate thing, too, in a way, that I can pass all you people off as my servants. ”

“ But after Madame de Pastourelles was gone, a cloud of nervous dread fell upon the little cottage and its inmates. Phoebe wandered restlessly about the garden, waiting—and listening—hour after hour.
The May evening drew towards sunset. Flame descended on the valley, striking athwart the opening which leads to its furthest recess, superbly guarded by the crags of Bowfell, and turning all the mountain-side above the cottage, still dyed with the fern of 'yesteryear,' to scarlet. A fresh breeze blew through the sycamore leaves, bringing with it the cool scents of rain-washed grass. ”