Fairfax and His Pride Part 15

Fairfax said of her brother-in-law that he was a "vain creature whose pomposity stood in place of dignity." Carew, at all events, came upon a scene which he had never supposed would confront his eyes. Before him in his own drawing-room, a whipper-snapper from the South was kissing his wife's hands. To Carew the South was the heart of sedition, bad morals, lackadaisical indolence. What the South could not do for him in arousing his distaste, the word "artist" completed. He said to his wife--

"Is _this_ the way you pa.s.s your Sabbath afternoons, Mrs. Carew?"

And before she could murmur, "My _dear_ Henry--" he turned on Fairfax.

"Can't _you_ find anything better to do in New York, sir?" He could not finish.

Fairfax rose. "Don't say anything you will regret, sir. I kissed my aunt's hand as I would have kissed my mother's. Not that I need to make excuse."

Mr. Carew's idea of his own importance, of the importance of everything that belonged to him, was colossal, and it would have taken more than this spectacle, unpleasant as it was, to make him fancy his wife harboured a sentiment for her jackanapes of a nephew. If the tableau he had had time to observe on his way across the dining-room floor had aroused his jealousy, that sentiment was less strong that was his anger and his dislike. Young Fairfax had been a thorn in his side for several weeks.

"You are wise to make no excuses," he said coldly. "I could not understand your sentiments. I have my own ideas of how a young man should employ his time and carve out his existence. Your romantic ideas are as unsympathetic to me as was this exhibition."

Mrs. Carew, who had never been so terrified in her life, thought she should faint, but had presence of mind sufficient to realize that unconsciousness would be prejudicial to her, and by bending over the keys she kept her balance.

She murmured, "My dear, you are very hard on Antony."

Carew paid no attention to her. "Your career, sir, your manner of life, are no affair of mine. I am concerned in you as you fetch your point of view" (Carew was celebrated for his extempore speaking), "your customs and your morals into my house."

"Believe me," said Mrs. Fairfax's son, in a choked voice, "I shall take them out of it for ever."

Carew bowed. "You are at liberty to do so, Fairfax. You have not asked my advice nor my opinions. You have ingratiated yourself with my friends, to my regret and theirs."

Antony exclaimed violently, "Now, what do you mean by _that_, sir?"

"I am in no way obliged to explain myself to you, Fairfax."

"But you are!" fairly shouted the young man. "With whom have I ingratiated myself to your regret?"

"I speak of Cedersholm, the sculptor."

"Well, what does _he_ say of me?" pursued the poor young man.

"It seems you have had the liberty of his workshop for months--"

"Yes,"--Antony calmed his voice by great effort,--"I have, and I have slaved in it like a n.i.g.g.e.r--like a slave in the sugar-cane. What of that?"

The fact of the matter was that Cedersholm in the Century Club had spoken to Carew lightly of Fairfax, and slightingly. He had given the young sculptor scant praise, and had wounded and cut Carew's pride in a possession even so remote as an undesirable nephew by marriage. He could not remember what Cedersholm had really said, but it had been unfortunate.

"I don't know what Cedersholm has said to you," cried Antony Fairfax, "nor do I care. He has sapped my life's blood. He has taken the talent of me for three long months. He is keeping my drawings and my designs, and, by G.o.d--"

"Stop!" said Mr. Carew, sharply. "How _dare_ you use such language in my house, before my wife?"

Antony laughed shortly. He fixed his ardent blue eyes on the older man, and as he did so the sense of his own youth came to him. He was twenty years this man's junior. Youth was his, if he was poor and unlucky. The desire to say to the banker, "If I should tell you what I thought of _you_ as a husband and a father," he checked, and instead cried hotly--

"G.o.d's here, at all events, sir, and perhaps my way of calling on Him is as good as another."

He extended his hand. It did not tremble. "Good-bye, Aunt Caroline."

Hers, cold as ice, just touched his. "_Henry_," she gasped, "he's Arabella's son."

Again the scarlet Antony had seen, touched the banker's face. Fairfax limped out of the room. His clothes were so shabby (as he had said a few moments before, he had worked in them like a n.i.g.g.e.r), that, warm as it was, he wore his overcoat to cover his suit. The coat lay in the hall.

Bella and Gardiner had been busy during his visit on their own affairs.

They had broken open their bank. Bella's keen ears had heard Antony's remark to her mother about being down on his luck, and her tender heart had recognized the heavy note in his voice. The children's bank had been their greatest treasure for a year or two. It represented all the "serious" money, as Bella called it, that had ever been given them. The children had been so long breaking it open that they had not heard the scene below in the drawing-room.

As Fairfax lifted his coat quickly it jingled. He got into it, thrust his hands in the pockets. They were full of coin. His sorrow, anger and horror were so keen that he was guilty of the unkindest act of his life.

"What's this!" he cried, and emptied out his pockets on the floor. The precious coins fell and rolled on every side. Bella and her little brother, who had hid on the stairs in order to watch the effect of their surprise, saw the disaster, and heard the beloved cousin's voice in anger. The little girl flew down.

"Cousin _Antony_, how _could_ you? It was for _you_! Gardiner and I broke our bank for you. There were ten dollars there and fifty-nine cents."

There was nothing gracious in Fairfax's face as it bent on the excited child.

"Pick up your money," he said harshly, his hand on the door. "Good-bye."

"Oh," cried the child, "I didn't know you were proud like _that_. I didn't know."

"Proud," he breathed deeply. "I'd rather starve in the gutter than touch a penny in this house."

He saw the flaming cheeks and averted eyes, and was conscious of Gardiner's little steps running down the stairs, and he heard Bella call "Cousin _Antony_," in a heart-rent voice, as he opened the door, banged it furiously, and strode out into the street.

BOOK II

THE OPEN DOOR

CHAPTER I

He had slept all night in a strained position between a barrel of tallow candles and a bag of potatoes. In spite of the hardness of the potatoes on which he lay and the odour of the candles, he lost consciousness for a part of the night, and when he awoke, bruised and weary, he found the car stationary. As he listened he could not hear a sound, and crawling out from between the sacks in the car, he saw the dim light of early dawn through a crack in the door. Pus.h.i.+ng open the sliding door he discovered that the car had stopped on a siding in an immense railroad-yard and that he was the only soul in sight. He climbed out stiffly. On all sides of him ran innumerable lines of gleaming rails.

The signal house up high was alight and the green and yellow and white signal lamps at the switches shone bright as stars. Further on he could see the engine-house, where in lines, their cow-catchers at the threshold, a row of engines waited, sombre, inert horses of iron and steel, superb in their repose. Fairfax reckoned that it must be nearly four-thirty, and as he stood, heard a switch click, saw a light change from green to red, and with a rattle and commotion a train rolled in--along and away. On the other side of the tracks in front of him were barrack-like workshops, and over the closed station ran a name in black letters, but it did not inform Fairfax as to his whereabouts except that he was at "West Junction." He made his way across the tracks towards the workshops, every inch of him sore from his cramped ride.

He always thought that on that day he was as mentally unhinged as a healthy young man can be. Unbalanced by hunger, despair and rage, his kindly face was drawn and bore the pallor of death. He was dirty and unshaven, his heavy boot weighed on his foot like lead. Without any special direction he limped across the tracks and once, as he stopped to look up and down the rails on which the daylight was beginning to glimmer, in his eyes was the morbidness of despair. A signalman from his box could see him over the yards, and Fairfax reflected that if he lingered he might be arrested, and he limped away.

"Rome, Rome," he muttered under his breath, "thou hast been a tender nurse to me! Thou hast given to the timid shepherd-boy muscles of iron and a heart of steel."

The night before he had rushed headlong from his uncle's house, smarting under injustice, and had walked blindly until he came to the Forty-second Street station. His faint and wretched spirit longed for nothing but escape from the brutal city where he had squandered his talent, crushed his spirit and made a poor apprentices.h.i.+p to ingrat.i.tude. A baggage car on the main line, with an open door, was the only means of transportation of which Fairfax could avail himself, and he had crept into it undiscovered, stowed himself away, hoping that the train's direction was westward and expecting to be thrown out at any moment. Thus far his journey had been made undiscovered. He didn't wonder where he was--he didn't care. Any place was good enough to be penniless in and to jump off from! His one idea at the moment was food.

"G.o.d!" he thought to himself, "to be hungry like this and not be a beggar or a criminal, just a duffer of a gentleman of no account!"

He reached the engine-house and pa.s.sed before the line of iron locomotives, silent and vigorous in their quiescent might, and full of inert power. He set his teeth, for the locomotives made him think of his beloved beasts. A choking sensation came in his throat and tears to his blue eyes. He thrust his hands in the pockets of his overcoat and went on. In front of him a city street came down to the tracks, and sharp across it cut the swinging gates which fell as Fairfax approached.

Behind him the switches snapped; another train, this time a fast express, rushed past him. He watched it mutely; the flinging up of the dust around the wheels, the siss and roar and wind of its pa.s.sing smote through him. It was gone.

He limped on. The street leading down to the tracks was filthy with mud and with the effects of the late rain. It was to Fairfax an avenue into an empty and unknown town. Small, vile, cobbled with great stones, the alley ran between lines of two-storied frame buildings, tenement houses which were the home of the railroad employes. The shutters were all closed, there was not a sign of life. Fairfax came up with the signal-box by the swinging gate, and a man with a rolled red flag stood in the doorway. He looked at Fairfax with little curiosity and the young man decided not to ask him any questions for fear that his stolen ride should be discovered. As he pa.s.sed on and went into the empty street, he mused--