Читать книгу Fairfax and His Pride: A Novel - Van Vorst Marie - Страница 14

The month was nearly at its end, and his money with it. Some time since, he had given up riding in the cars, and walked everywhere. This exercise was the one thing that tired him, because of his unequal stride. Nevertheless, he strode, and though it seemed impossible that a chap like himself could come to want, he finally reached his last "picayune," and at the same time owed the week's board and washing. The excitement of his new life thus far had stimulated him, but the time came when this stimulus was dead, and as he went up the steps of his uncle's house to be greeted on the stoop by a beggar woman, huddling by her basket under her old shawl, the sculptor looked sadly down at her greasy palm which she hopefully extended. Then, with a brilliant smile, he exclaimed —

"I wonder, old lady, just how poor you are?"

"Wurra," replied the woman, "if the wurrld was for sale for a cint, I couldn't buy it."

Beneath his breath he murmured, "Nor could I," and thought of his watch. Curiously enough, it had not occurred to him that he might pawn his father's watch.

He now looked forward with pleasure to the tri-weekly drawing lessons, for the friendly fires of his little cousins' hearts warmed his own. But on this afternoon they failed to meet him in the hall or to cry to him over the stairs or rush upon him like catapults from unexpected corners. As he went through the silent house its unusual quiet struck him forcibly, and he thought: "What a tomb it would be without the children!"

No one responded to his "Hello you," and at the entrance of the common play and study room Fairfax paused, to see Bella and Gardiner in their play aprons, their backs to the door, motionless before the table, one dark head and one light one bent over an object apparently demanding tender, reverent care.

At Fairfax's "Hello you all!" they turned, and the big cousin never forgot it as long as he lived – never forgot the Bella that turned, that called out in what the French call "a torn voice" —une voix dechirée. Afterwards it struck him that she called him "Antony" tout court, like a grown person as she rushed to him. He never forgot how the little thing flung herself at him, threw herself against his breast. For an answer to her appeal with a quick comprehension of grief, Antony bent and took her hand.

"Cousin Antony, Cousin Antony – "

"Why, Bella, Bella, little cousin, what's the matter?"

And above the sobs that he felt tremble through him, he asked of Gardiner – who, young as he was, stifled his tears back and gulped his own grief like a man —

"What's the row, old chap?"

But Bella told him passionately. "Jetty, Jetty's dead!"

Soothed by her cousin's hand on her head, she calmed, buried her face in the cool handkerchief with which he wiped her tears. In the circle of his arms Bella stood, tearful, sobbing, nothing but a child, and yet she appealed to Fairfax in her tears as she had not done before, and her abandon went to the core of his being and smote a bell which from thenceforth rang like her name – "Bella" – and he used to think that it was from that moment… Well, her tears at any rate stirred him as never did any tears in the world.

She wiped her eyes. "Jetty died last night; he sang himself to death. You should have heard him sing! This morning when they came to give him water and feed him, Jetty was dead."

Gardiner pointed to the table. "See, we've made him a coffin. We're going to his funewal now."

A discarded cigar box lined with cotton was the only coffin the children had found for the wild wood creature whose life had gone out in song.

"We don't know where to buwy him, Cousin Antony."

"I tried," Bella murmured, touching the blackbird's breast with gentle fingers, "I tried to write him a poem, an epitaph; but I cried so I couldn't."

She held Antony's handkerchief to her tear-stained cheek.

"May I keep your handkerchief for just this afternoon? It smells so delicious. You could make a cast of him, couldn't you? – like the death-mask of great men in father's books?"

Fairfax dissuaded them from the funeral, at which Gardiner was to say, "Now I lay me," and Fairfax had been elected to read the Lord's Prayer. He rolled the bird up in another handkerchief (he appeared to be rich in them) and put it reverently in his overcoat pocket, promising faithfully to see that Jetty should be buried in Miss Whitcomb's back yard, under the snow, and, moreover, to mark the place with a stick, so that the children could find it when spring came.

Then Bella, tear-stained but resigned, suggested that they should play "going to Siberia."

"I can't work to-day, Cousin Antony! Don't make me. It would seem like sewing on Sunday."

Without comment, Fairfax accepted the feminine inconsistency, and himself entered, with what spirit he might, into the children's game. "Going to Siberia" laid siege to all the rooms in the upper story. It was a mad rush on Fairfax's part, little Gardiner held in his arms, pursued by Bella as a wolf. It was a tear over beds and chairs, around tables, – a wild, screaming, excited journey, ending at last in the farthest room in the middle of the children's bed, where, one after another, they were thrown by the big cousin. The game was enriched by Fairfax's description of Russia and the steppes and the plains. But on this day Bella insisted that Gardiner, draped in a hearthrug, be the wolf, and that Fairfax carry her "because her heart ached." And if Gardiner's growls and baying failed to give the usual zest to the sport, the carrying by Fairfax of Bella was a new emotion! The twining round his neck of soft arms, the confusion of dark hair against his face, the flower-like breath on his cheeks, Bella's excitement of sighs and cries and giggles gave the game, for one player at least, fresh charm. Chased by Ann back into the studio, the play-mates fell on the sofa, worn out and happy; but, in the momentary calm, a little cousin on either side of him, the poor young man felt the cruel return of his own miseries and his own crisis.

"Misther Fairfax," said the Irish woman, "did the childhren give ye the letter what come to-day? I thawt Miss Bella'd not mind it, what wid funnerals and tearin' like a mad thing over the house!" (Ann's reproof was for Fairfax.) "Yez'll be the using up of little Gardiner, sir, the both of ye. The letther's forbye the clock. I putt it there m'self."

Fairfax, to whom no news could be but welcome, limped over to the mantel, where, by the clock, he perceived a letter addressed to him on big paper in a small, distinguished hand. He tore it open, Ann lit the gas, and he read —

Dear Mr. Fairfax,

"I have not answered your letter because I was so unfortunate as to have lost your address. Learning last night that you are a nephew of Mr. Carew, and sure of a response if I send this to his care, I write to ask that you will come in to see me to-day at three o'clock.

"Yours sincerely,

"Gunner Cedersholm."

Fairfax gave an exclamation that was almost a cry, and looked at the clock. It was past four!

"When did this letter come?" His nerves were on end, his cheeks pale.

Bella sat forward on the sofa. "Why, Mother gave it me to give to you when you should come to-day, Cousin Antony."

In the strain to his patience, Fairfax was sharp. He bit his lip, snatched up his coat and hat.

"You should have given it me at once." His blue eyes flashed. "You don't know what you may have done. This may ruin my career! I've missed my appointment with Cedersholm. It's too late now."

He couldn't trust himself further, and, before Bella could regain countenance, he was gone.

Cut to the heart with remorse, crimson with astonishment, but more deeply wounded in her pride, the child sat immovable on the sofa.

"Bella," whispered her little brother, "I don't like Cousin Antony, do you?"

She looked at her brother, touched by Gardiner's chivalry.

"I fink he's a mean man, Bella."

"He's dreadful," she cried, incensed; "he's just too horrid for anything. Anyhow, it was me made Cedersholm write that letter for him, and he didn't even say he was obliged."

She ran to the window to watch Antony go, as he always did, on the other side of the road, in order that the children might see him. She hoped for a reconcilement, or a soothing wave of his hand; but Antony did not pass, the window was icy cold, and she turned, discomfited. At her foot – for as Antony had snatched up his coat he had wantonly desecrated a last resting-place – at her foot lay the blackbird. With a murmured word Bella lifted Jetty in both hands to her cheek, and on the cold breast and toneless throat the tears fell – Bella's first real tears.