Читать книгу Fairfax and His Pride: A Novel - Van Vorst Marie - Страница 18

The four beasts were of heroic size. They came out of the moulds like creatures of a prehistoric age. Benvenuto Cellini, who was to have met his friend Antony at the foundry on the day Fairfax's first plaster cast was carried down, failed to put in an appearance, and Fairfax had the lonely joy, the melancholy, lonely joy, of assisting at the birth of one of his big creatures. All four of them were ultimately cast, but they were to remain in the foundry until Cedersholm's return.

His plans for the future took dignity, and importance, from the fact of his success, and he reviewed with joy the hard labour of the winter, for which in all he had been paid one hundred dollars. He was in need of everything new, from shoes up. He was a great dandy, or would have liked to have afforded to be. As for a spring overcoat – well, he couldn't bear to read the tempting advertisements, and even Gardiner's microscopic coat, chosen by Bella, caused his big cousin a twinge of envy. Bella's new outfit was complete, a deeper colour glowed on the robin-red dress she wore, and Fairfax felt shabby between them as he limped along into the Park under the budding trees, a child's hand on either arm.

"Cousin Antony, why are there such delicious smells to-day?"

Bella sniffed them. The spring was at work under the turf, the grass was as fragrant as a bouquet.

"Breathe it in, Cousin Antony! It makes you wish to do heaps of things you oughtn't to!"

On the pond the little craft of the school children flew about like butterflies, the sun on the miniature sails.

"What kind of things does the grass cutter, shearing off a few miserable dandelions, make you want to do, Bella? You should smell the jasmine and the oleanders of New Orleans. These are nothing but weeds."

"How can you say so?" she exclaimed; "besides, most of the things I want to do are wicked, anyhow."

"Jove!" exclaimed Fairfax. "That is a confession."

She corrected. "You ought not to say 'Jove' like that, Cousin Antony. You can cut it and make it sound like 'Jovah,' it sounds just like it."

"What wicked things do you want to do, Bella?"

She pointed to the merry-go-rounds, where the giraffes, elephants, and horses raced madly round to the plaintive tune of "Annie Laurie," ground out by a hurdy-gurdy.

"I'd love to go on."

Fairfax put his hand in his pocket, but she pulled it back.

"No, Cousin Antony, please. It's not the money that keeps me back, though I haven't any. It's Sunday, you know."

"Oh," her cousin accepted dismally.

And Bella indicated a small boy carrying a tray of sweets who had advanced towards the three with a hopeful grin.

"I'd perfectly love to have some of those lossingers, but mother says 'street candy isn't pure.' Besides, it's Sunday."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Fairfax. "Do you mean to say that out here in God's free air you are going to preach me a sermon?"

He beckoned the boy.

"Oh," cried Gardiner, "can't we choose, Cousin Antony?"

The little cousins bent above the tray and slowly and passionately selected, and their absorption in the essence of wintergreen, sassafras, and peppermint showed him how much this pleasure meant to these rich children. Their pockets full, they linked their arms in his again.

"I have never had such fun in all my life as I do with you, Cousin Antony," Bella told him.

"Then come along," he suggested, recklessly. "You must ride once on the merry-go-round." And before the little Puritans realized the extent of their impiety, Fairfax had lifted Bella on a horse and Gardiner on an elephant, paid their fare and started them away. He watched Bella, her hat caught by its elastic, fallen off her head on the first round, her cheeks flushed and her eyes like stars, and bravely her straight little arm stretched out to catch the ring. There was triumph in her cry, "Oh, Cousin Antony, Cousin Antony, I've won the ring!"

Such flash and sparkle as there was about her, with her teeth like grains of corn and her eyes dancing as she nodded and smiled at him! Poor little Gardiner! Antony paid for him again and patted him on the back. There was a pathos about the mild, sweet little face and in the timid, ineffectual arm, too short and too weak to snap the iron ring on to his sword. Bella rode till "Annie Laurie" changed to "Way down upon de Swanee river," and Fairfax's heart beat for Louisiana, and he had come to the end of his nickels. He lifted the children down.

Bella now wound both arms firmly in her cousin's, and clung to him.

"Think of it, I never rode before, never! All the children on the block have, though. Isn't it perfectly delightful, Cousin Antony? I wish your legs weren't so long."

"Cousin Antony," asked little Gardiner, "couldn't we go over to the animals and see the seals fall off and dwown themselves?"

They saw the lion in his lair and the "tiger, tiger burning bright," and the shining, slippery seals, and they made an absorbed group at the nettings where Antony discoursed about the animals as he discoursed about art, and Spartacus talked to them about the wild beast show in Cæsar's arena. His audience shivered at his side.

They walked up the big driveway, and Fairfax saw for the first time the Mall, and observed that the earth was turned up round a square some twelve feet by twelve. He half heard the children at his side; his eyes were fastened on the excavation for the pedestal of the Sphinx; the stone base would soon be raised there, and then his beasts would be poised.

"Let's walk over to the Mall, children."

Along the walk the small goat carriages were drawn up with their teams; little landaus, fairy-like for small folk to drive in. Fairfax stood before the cavity in the earth and the scaffolding left by the workmen. He was conscious of his little friends at length by the dragging on his arms of their too affectionate weight. "Cousin Antony."

Fairfax waved to the vacant spot. "Oh, Egypt, Egypt," he began, in his "recitation voice," a voice that promised treats at home, but that palled in the sunny open, with goat rides in the fore-ground.

"Bella, do you see that harmonious square?"

"Yes," she answered casually, with a lack lustre. "And do you see the goats?"

"Goats, Bella! I see a pedestal some ten feet high, and on it at its four corners, before they poise the Sphinx – what do you think I see, Bella?"

"… Cousin Antony, that boy there has the sweetest goats. They're almost clean! Too dear for anything! With such cunning noses!"

He dropped his arm and put his hand on the little girl's shoulder and turned her round.

"I'm disappointed in you for the first time, honey," he said.

"Oh, Cousin Antony."

"Little cousin, this is where my creatures, my beautiful bronze creatures, are to be eternally set – there, there before your eyes." He pointed to the blue May air.

"Cousin Antony," said Gardiner's slow voice, "the only thing I'm not too tired to do is to wide in a goat carwage."

Fairfax lifted the little boy in his arms. "If I lift you, Gardiner, like this, high in my arms, you could just about see the top of the pedestal. Wait till it's unveiled, my hearties! Wait – wait!"

He put Gardiner down with a laugh and a happy sigh, and then he saw the goats.

"Do you want a ride, children?"

"Did they!"

He ran his hands through the pockets that had been wantonly emptied.

"Not a picayune, honey. Your poor old cousin is dead broke."

"Then," said Bella, practically, "let's go right away from here, Cousin Antony. I can't bear to look at those goats another minute. It hurts."

Fairfax regarded her thoughtfully. "Bella the Desirous," he murmured. "What are you going to be when you grow up, little cousin?"

They started slowly away from temptation, away from the vision of the pedestal and the shadowy creatures, and the apparition of the Sphinx seemed to brood over them as they went, and nothing but a Sphinx's wisdom could have answered the question Fairfax put: "What are you going to be when you grow up, little Bella?"

Fairfax soon carried the little boy, and Bella in a whisper said —

"He is almost too small for our parties, Cousin Antony."

"Not a bit," said the limping cousin, stoically. "We couldn't get on without him, could we, old chap?"

But the old chap didn't answer, for he had fallen asleep as soon as his head touched his cousin's shoulder.

When Fairfax left them at their door, he was surprised at Bella's melancholy. She held out to him the sticky remnant of the roll of lozenges.

"Please take it. I shouldn't be allowed to eat it."

"But what on earth's the matter?" he asked.

"Never mind," she said heroically, "you don't have to bear it. You're Episcopalian; but I've got to tell!" She sighed heavily. "I don't care; it was worth it!"

As the door clicked behind the children, Fairfax laughed.

"What a little trump she is! She thinks the game is worth the candle!"