Fairfax and His Pride Part 19

She held out a yellow envelope, but even though she knew she brought him news and that he would not think of her, her big eyes fastened on him were eloquent. Fairfax did not answer their appeal. He tore open the telegram.

"I brought it myself," she murmured. "I hope it ain't bad news."

He tore it open with hands stained with grease and oil. He read it in the light of his cab lamp, read it twice, and a man who was hanging around for a job felt the fireman of Number Forty-one grasp his arm.

"Tell Joe Mead to take you to-night to fire for him--tell him I've got bad news. I'm going to New York."

"It's too bad," said the other cheerfully. "I'll tell him."

Fairfax had gone flying on his well foot and his lame foot like a jackdaw. He was out of the shed without a word to Molly Shannon.

"Your felly's got bad news," said the man, and, keenly delighted with his sudden luck, climbed agilely into the cab of Number Forty-one, and, leaning out of the window, looked down on Molly.

"He ain't my felly," she responded heavily, "he boards to Kenny's. I just brought him the despatch, but I think it's bad news, sure enough."

And wrapping the shawl closer over her head, she pa.s.sed out into the storm whose fringe was deepening on the cow-catchers of Number Ten and Number Forty-one.

Sanders' big locomotive ran in from the side to the main track as smoothly as oil, and backed up the line to the cars of the night mail.

Sanders was to start at eight o'clock, and it was a minute before the hour. The ringing of his bell and the hiss of the steam were in his ears. He was just about to open the throttle when a voice on the other side called to him, and Fairfax climbed up into the cab.

"Take me in, Sanders, old man; let me hang on here, will you? I've got to get to New York as fast as you can take me."

Sanders nodded, the station signal had been given. He started out, and Antony made himself as small as possible in the only available place between the fireman, who was one of his special pals, and the engineer.

Sanders' face was towards his valves and brakes. He pulled out into the driving sleet, scanning the tracks under the searchlight.

"What's up, Tony?" the fireman at his side asked him as they rolled out into the night to the ringing of the bell. Fairfax handed him his despatch and the fireman read it, and Fairfax answered him--

"A little cousin. One of my little cousins. What time are we due in New York?"

CHAPTER VII

It was past midnight when Antony rushed out of the Forty-second Street station into a blizzard of sleet and snow. He stood a second looking up and down Madison Avenue, searching vainly for a car. There were no cabs at the station, there was nothing in sight but the blinding storm, and he began on foot to battle his way with the elements. It had been snowing in New York for twelve hours. The same fierce challenge met him that he had received the year before, and he pushed his way through the dim streets where the storm veils wrapped the gas lamps like shrouds. He had been on duty since six that morning, except for a few hours in the afternoon. Every now and then he had to stop for breath and to shake the weight of snow off his collar. He was white as wool. The houses on either side were dark with a stray light here and there, but he knew that farther on he should find one house lit with the light that burns for watchers. He glowed like a gladiator, panted like a runner, and he reached the door and leaned for breath and waited for an answer to his ring. Like a gladiator! How he had mouthed Spartacus for them! He could see the dancing eyes, and little Gardiner touched the muscles of his arm.

"Feel mine, Cousin Antony."

Heart of steel! Well, he would need it now.

The door was opened, he never knew by whom, and a silence met him that was profound after the voices of the storm. He stamped his feet and shook off the drift from without, threw off his coat, caked thick and fairly rattling with its burden, threw off his hat, heavy and dripping, and as he was, his heart of steel beating in him like a tender human heart, he limped up the quiet stairs. Even then he noticed that there were signs of a feast in the house. It should have been the annual dinner of Mr. Carew. The odours of flowers that had died were sickening in the heat. Smilax twisted around the bal.u.s.trade of the stairs met his work-stained hand that trembled in the leaves. On the second floor, some one, he was not clear, but afterwards he thought it must have been Miss Eulalie, met him and took him in.

In the feeble sick-room light, grouped a few people whose forms and faces go to make part of the sombre pictures of watchers; that group in which at some time or other each inhabitant of the world takes his place. There was one kneeling figure; the others stood round the bed.

The little bark, quite big enough to carry such a small freight thus far on the voyage, was nearly into port.

Bella lay close to her little brother, her dark hair and dress the only shadow on the white bed covers. Gardiner's hair was brushed back from his brow, he looked older, but still very small to go so far alone.

Gardiner was travelling, travelling--climbing steep mountains, white with snow, and his breath came in short laboured sighs, fast, fast--it was the only sound in the room. Bella had not left his side for hours, her cheek pressed the pillow by his restless head. Her tears had fallen and dried, fallen and dried. Bella alone knew what Gardiner tried to say. His faltering words, his halting English, were familiar to the sister and she interpreted to the others, to whom Gardiner, too small to reach them, had never been very near. Twenty times the kneeling figure had asked--

"What does he say, Bella? What does he want?"

"He thinks it is a game," the little sister said; "he says it's cold, he says he wants Cousin Antony."

Since his summons, when Gardiner found that he must gird his little loins for the journey, his mind had gone to the big cousin who had so triumphantly carried him over the imaginary steeps.

From the door, where he had been standing on the edge of the group, a tall figure in a red flannel shirt came forward, bent down, and before any one knew that he had come, or who he was, he was speaking to the sick child.

"Gardiner, little cousin, here's your old cousin Antony come back."

Gardiner was travelling hard, but his head stopped its restless turning.

He looked up into the beloved face, whose smile shone on him and lit his dark journey. Gardiner tried to answer the brightness of that smile, he tried to hold out his little arms. In a sob Bella whispered--

"He wants Cousin Antony to carry him."

Without removing his look of tender brightness from the traveller's face, Fairfax murmured--

"I reckon I'll take him in my arms, Aunt Caroline."

And as the steepest, coldest place came in sight to little Gardiner, he was lifted in a warm embrace. He opened his eyes upon Antony's and with a radiant look gave up the painful climbing to the rescuer.

CHAPTER VIII

Fairfax himself made many cruel Siberian journeys and voyages through h.e.l.lish tropics, on his own narrow bed in the hall room overlooking the New York Central yards. He had something close to pneumonia and turned and cried out on his bed, too small for his big form, and in his delirium he kicked away the footboard. His uncle's house, which he had left as brusquely this time as before, haunted him in his mind troubled by sickness. He cried out that it was a cursed place and that Gardiner had been killed by neglect, and that he shook the dust of New York from his feet. From wild blue eyes that flamed under his hair grown long, he stared into the s.p.a.ce peopled by delirium and called his solitary attendant "Bella," and begged her to come away with him before it was too late, for, as many sick people seem to be, he was travelling. In his case he journeyed back to his boarding-house and laid his visions down and waked up in the same old world that had treated him badly, but which he was not ready to leave.

It was a sunny, brilliant January day. The snow had frozen on his window and the light played upon gleaming bands, and through the dingy yellow shade the sunlight came determinedly. On the table by his bedside were his medicines and milk, and he was covered by counterpanes lent by the other lodgers.

He felt the perspiration pour off him as his mind found its balance, and he saw how weak he was; but though it hurt him to breathe, he could do so, and the crisis was past. He had fallen on his bed when he came from New York and here he had remained. He wet his cracked lips, said "Water," and from behind him, where she had been sitting, a girl came and held a gla.s.s to his lips. Fairfax drank, closed his eyes, made no sign of recognition, for he knew Molly Shannon. She wiped the sweat from his brow and face tenderly, and though her hand had not trembled before in her ministrations, it trembled now. Her heart was beating with grat.i.tude for she knew he was saved. She gave him milk and brandy, after a few moments, then sat down to her work. Fairfax, speaking each word distinctly, said--

"I reckon I've been pretty sick, haven't I?"

"You're all right now, Misther Fairfax."

He smiled faintly. He was indifferent, very weak, but he felt a kind of mild happiness steal over him as he lay there, a sense of being looked after, cared for, and of having beaten the enemy which had clutched his throat and chest. He heard the voices of Molly and the doctor, heard her pretty Irish accent, half-opened his eyes and saw her hat and plaid red-and-black shawl hanging by the window. The plaid danced before his eyes, became a signal flag, and, watching it, he drowsed and then fell into the profound sleep which means recovery.

CHAPTER IX

Fairfax took Molly Shannon's presence for granted, accepted her services, obeyed her docilely and thanked her with his smile which regained its old radiance as he grew stronger. Lying shaven, with his hair cut at last--for she had listened to his pleading and sent for a barber--in clean sheets and jacket, he looked boyish and thin, and to the Irish girl he was beautiful. She kept her eyes from him for fear that he should see her pa.s.sion and her adoration, and she effaced herself in the nurse, the mother, the sister, in the angel.

Sure, she hadn't sent word to any one. How should she? Sorry an idea she had where he came from or who were his folks.