Fairfax and His Pride Part 6

"For the love of hiven, Mr. Antony, it's Miss Bella's foot ye've got, sor."

She stared as at a miracle, then at her little lady as though she expected to see a missing member. Bella danced around it, pleaded for it, claimed it. Gardiner was allowed to feel how cold it was, and Fairfax took it home in his overcoat pocket, anxious to get safely away with it before his uncle came and smashed it, as he had the feeling that Mr. Carew would some day smash everything for him. That night when she undressed Bella regarded with favour the foot that had been considered worthy of a cast and extracted sacredly a bit of plaster which she found between the toes, and Antony Fairfax limped home to the House that Jack Built, his heavy step lighter for the fairy foot, the snow-white, perfect little foot he carried triumphantly in his pocket.

CHAPTER X

He was too sincerely an artist not to make pictures of all he saw, and, being sincere, he made his lines true, and then outlined the sketch, softening, moulding, moulding.... His aunt's gentle inefficiency (she was kind to him, affectionate, and called him "her dear boy") was to Fairfax only charming, feminine softness, and he grew fond of Mrs.

Carew, indulgent to her faults, listened half convinced to her arguments, admired her in her mult.i.tudinous toilettes, in all of which she was original, found her lovely and graceful. Her eyes were deer-like--not those of a startled fawn, but like a doe's who stands gazing at a perfect park, whose bosks she takes to be real forests. Mrs.

Carew knew absolutely nothing of life. Fairfax at twenty-three, knew less of it, and he could not criticize her vision. He saw his uncle through Bella's eyes, but he never pa.s.sed the master of the house in the halls, taking good care to escape him. It was not easy to a.s.sociate fear with Bella; her father had not impressed her free mind with this sentiment.

"Father," she told Antony, "is the most important man in New York City, the cook said so. He might be President, but he doesn't want to; he likes his own work best. Father's work is making money, and he quite understands how hard such a thing is. That is why there is so little in the house, Cousin Antony. Even the cook hadn't a cent when I asked her to lend me a penny. We used to have five cents a week, but now mother has to be so careful that we're hard up. It's awful when there are treats on, Cousin Antony, because you see, you ought to do your share.

That is why Gardiner and I always stick around together and say we don't like children.... No," she said firmly, "I really _couldn't_ take five cents, Cousin Antony; thank you ever so much. We're bound in honour not to; we promised never to take from a stranger; yes, I know you're not a stranger, and I forget to whom we promised, but I really couldn't, Cousin Antony."

Mrs. Carew could, however. One day, on her way to the magic car, as it waited with its lean horses and jingle-jangle to take the lady "sharping," that day she borrowed two dollars from Fairfax, who, being a pauper, had always money in his pocket; having in reality nowhere else to keep it--and having none to keep elsewhere. The two dollar bill went to join ghostly company with the drawing lessons money, and fluttered away to the country of unpaid bills, of forgotten obligations, of benefits forgot, and it is to be wondered if souls are ever at peace there.

"Father," said Bella, "is the 'soul of honour.' When Ann comes to rub Gardiner's feet at night (they are so often tired, Cousin Antony), she told me about father's character. She's awfully Irish, you wouldn't understand her. Father goes to 'board meetings' (I don't know what they are, but they're very important) and they call him 'your honour,' and Ann says it's all because of his soul. _He never breaks his word_, and when the bills come in...."

The drawing lessons went bravely and wearily on day after day. Because his aunt wished it, Fairfax guided Gardiner's inert fingers across the page and almost tied Bella to her chair. On drawing days he lunched with the household, and honestly earned his food. Half fed, keen with a healthy appet.i.te, he ate gratefully. They had been pausing at the end of a half-hour's torture when Bella took up her monologue on her father's character.

"When the bills come in he shuts himself in the library. I hear him walk up and down; then he comes out with his face white, and once, long past dinner-time, when mother didn't come in, he said to me, 'Where in heaven's name is your mother? What can she find left in the shops to buy?' just that, he asked me that, Cousin Antony. I felt awfully sorry.

I was just going to ask him for five cents, but I hadn't the heart."

That she had heart for her father, this child of twelve, and at so tender an age could see and comprehend, could pity, struck Fairfax, and on his part he began to see many things, but being a man and chivalrous, he pitied the woman as well.

"My aunt is out of her element," he decided; "she cannot be in love with her husband; no woman who loved anything on earth could gad about as she does," and he wondered, and the deer in the park gazing at an artificial wilderness became more and more of a symbol of her.

Regarding the man they called "his honour" Fairfax had not made up his mind.

Gardiner developed scarlet fever and lay, so Mrs. Carew a.s.sured Antony, "at the door of death," and Bella had been sent away to the country. Mr.

Carew lived at the Club, and Antony made daily visits and did countless errands for his aunt. One day, toward the end of the little boy's convalescence, Fairfax came in late and heard the sound of a sweet voice singing. He entered the drawing-room quietly and the song went on. Mrs.

Carew had a lovely voice, one of those natural born voices, heart-touching, appealing; one of those voices that cause an ache and go to the very marrow, that make the eyes fill. As though she knew Antony was there, and liked the entertainment, she sang him song after song, closing with "Oh, wert thou in the cold blast," then let her hands rest on the keys. Fairfax went over to the piano.

"Why didn't you tell me you sang like this, Aunt Caroline?" The emotion her songs had kindled remained in his voice.

"Oh, I never sing, my dear boy, your uncle doesn't like music."

"d.a.m.n," said the young man sharply; "I beg your pardon. You've got the family talent; your voice is divine."

She was touched but shook her head. "I might have sung possibly, if your uncle had ever cared for it. He'll be back to-morrow and I thought I'd just run these things over."

As she rose and left the piano he observed how young she was, how graceful in her trailing dress. The forced housing of these weeks of Gardiner's illness had quieted the restless spirit. Mrs. Carew was womanly to him, feminine for the first time since his arrival. It was at the end of his tongue to say, "Why did you ever marry that man?" He thought with keen dislike of the husband whose appearance would close the piano, silence the charming voice, and drive his aunt to find occupation in the shops and in charities. He became too chivalrous.

"Flow gently, sweet Afton," as sung by her, echoed thence afterwards in his mind all his life. The melody was stored in the chambers of his memory, and whenever, in later years, he tried not to recall 700 Madison Avenue, and the inhospitable home, maddeningly and plaintively these tunes would come: "Roll on, silver moon," that too. How that moon rolled and hung in the pale sky of remembrance, whose colour and hue is more enchanting than ever were Italian skies!

Mrs. Carew had an audience composed of two people. Little Gardiner, up and dressed in his flannel gown, and the big cousin fathering him with a protecting arm, both in the sofa corner. Mrs. Carew's mellow voice on those winter afternoons before Bella returned, before Mr. Carew came back from the Club, flowed and quavered and echoed sweetly through the room. In the twilight, before the gas came, with old-fashioned stars set in the candelabra, the touching pathos of the ballads spoke to the romantic Fairfax ... spoke to his twenty-three years and spoke dangerously. He became more and more chivalrous and considered his aunt a misunderstood and unloved woman. Long, long afterwards, a chord, a note, was sufficient to bring before him the square drawing-room with its columns, furnish with an agglomeration of gaudy, rich, fantastic things expressive of her uncertain taste. He saw again the long dark piano and the silhouette of the woman behind it, graceful, shadowy, and felt the pressure against his arm of little Gardiner, as they two sat sympathetically lifted to an emotional pitch, stirred as only the music of a woman's voice in love-songs can stir a man's heart.

Bella came back and there was an end of the concerts. A charm to keep Bella silent had not yet been found, unless that charm were a book. "She could not read when mother sang," she said, "and more than that, it made her cry." And when Mr. Carew's latchkey scratched in the door, Bella flew upstairs to the top story, Antony and Gardiner followed more slowly; Mrs. Carew shut her piano, and took the cars again to forget her restlessness in the purchase of silks and dry goods and house decorations, and was far from guessing the emotion she had aroused in the breast of her nephew--"Flow gently, sweet Afton." Nothing flowed gently in Fairfax's impetuous breast. Nothing flowed gently on the tide of events that drifted past slowly, leaving him unsuccessful, without any opening into fame.

CHAPTER XI

Cedersholm returned to New York and Fairfax presented himself again at the studio, getting as far as the workroom of the great Swede who had started in life the son of a tinsmith in Copenhagen. The smell of the clay, the sight of the figures swathed in damp cloths, the shaded light, struck Fairfax deliciously as he waited for an audience with Cedersholm.

Fairfax drew his breath deep as though he were once again in his element. Cedersholm was out, and with no other encouragement than the sight of the interior of the four walls, Antony was turned away. His mother had added to his fast melting funds by a birthday gift, and Fairfax was nearly at the end of this.

Walking up from Cedersholm's to his uncle's house, a tramp of three miles, he limped into the children's room, on his usually bright face the first shadow they had seen. Bella was already seated at her table.

Her six weeks in the country had sent her back, longer, slimmer, her skirt let down at the hem an inch, and some pretence to order in her hair. The dark ma.s.s of her hair was lifted back, held by a round comb; Bella was much transformed.

"h.e.l.lo, honey," cried her cousin, "what have you been changing into?"

"What do you think of my back comb, Cousin Antony? It's the fourth. I've broken three. All cheap, luckily, not the best quality."

Bella took the comb from her hair and handed it to Antony, and, unprisoned, her locks fell triumphantly around her face.

"I like you better that way, little cousin," said Fairfax, "and,"

continued the drawing master, "you've a wonderful new pair of shoes, Bella!"

The little leg was encased in a light blue silk stocking, and the perfect little foot, whose rosy curves and lines Fairfax knew, was housed in a new blue kid shoe with shining white b.u.t.tons, entirely out of keeping with the dear old red dress which, to Fairfax, seemed part of Bella Carew.

"Dancing school," she said briefly; "mother promised us we might go ages ago, long before you came, Cousin Antony."

"About ten years ago, I fink," said Gardiner helpfully.

"Nonsense," corrected his sister sharply, "but long enough ago for _these_ to grow too small." She held up her pretty foot. "We got as far as the shoes and stockings (real silk, Cousin Antony, feel). Aren't they perfectly _beautiful_? We didn't _dare_, because of the bills, get the dress, you know, so I guess mother's been waiting for better times. But just as soon as I came back from the country and they let out the hem and bought the comb, I said to Gardiner, 'There, my dancing shoes will be too small.'" She leant down and pinched the toes. "They _do_ squeeze." She crinkled up her eyes and pursed up the little red mouth.

"They pinch awfully, but I'm going to wear them to drawing lessons, if I can't to dancing lessons. See," she smoothed out her drawing board and pointed to her queer lines, "I have drawn some old things for you, a couple of squares and a triangle."

Fairfax listened, amused; the problems of his life were vital, she could not distract him. He took the rubber, erasing her careless work, sat down by her and began to give her real instruction. Little Gardiner, excused from all study, amused himself after his own fashion in a corner of the sofa, and after a few moments of silence, Fairfax's pupil whispered to him in a low tone--

"I can't draw anything, Cousin Antony, when you've got that look on."

Fairfax continued his work.

"It's no use, you've got the heavy look like the heavy step. Are you angry with me?"

Not her words, but her voice made her cousin stop his drawing. In it was a hint of the tears she hated to shed. Bella leant her elbow on the table, rested her head in her hand and searched Fairfax's face with her eloquent eyes. They were not like her mother's, doe-like and patient; Bella's were dark eyes, superb and shadowy. They held something of the Spanish mystery, caught from the strain that ran through the Carew family from the Middle Ages, when the Carez were n.o.bles in Andalusia.

"I am angry with myself, Bella; I am a fool."

"Oh no, you're _not_," she breathed devotedly, "you're a genius."

The tension of Fairfax's heart relaxed. The highest praise that any woman could have found, this child, in her navete, gave him.