Fairfax and His Pride Part 32

"Sundays, half-holidays and nights. G.o.d!" he exclaimed in antic.i.p.ation, holding out his strong arms, "it seems too good to be true!"

And Rainsford said, "I think I can contrive to get Sat.u.r.days off for you. The Commodore is coming up next week. He owes me a favour or two. I think I can make it for _you_, old man."

There was a little stir in the next room. Fairfax called "Molly!" and she came in. She might have been a lady. Long a.s.sociation with Fairfax and her love had taught her wonders. Her hair was carefully arranged and brushed until it shone like gla.s.s. Her dress was simple and refined; her face had the beauty on it that a great and unselfish love sheds.

"It means," said Rainsford to himself as he rose and placed a chair for her, "that Molly will be left entirely alone."

CHAPTER XXIX

What Rainsford procured for him in the Sat.u.r.day holidays was worth the weight of its hours in gold. This, with Sundays, gave him two working days, and no lover went more eagerly to his mistress than Antony to the barracks where he toiled and dreamed. He began with too mad enthusiasm, lacking the patience to wait until his conceptions ripened. He roughly made his studies for an Angel of the Resurrection, inspired by the figure in the West Albany Cemetery. As he progressed he was conscious that his hand had been idle, as far as his art was concerned, too long; his fingers were blunted and awkward, and many an hour he paced his shed in agony of soul, conscious of his lack of technique. He was too engrossed to be aware of the pa.s.sing months, but autumn came again with its wonderful haze, veiling death, decay and destruction, and Fairfax found himself but little more advanced than in May, when he had shut himself in his studio, a happy man.

He grew moody and tried to keep his despair from his wife, for not the least of his unrest was caused by the knowledge that he was selfish with her for the sake of his art. By October he had destroyed a hundred little figures, crushed his abortive efforts to bits, and made a clean sweep of six months' work and stood among the ruins. He never in these moments thought of his wife as a comforter, having never opened his heart to her regarding his art. He shrank from giving her entrance into his sanctuaries. He was alone in his crisis of artistic infecundity.

On this Sunday morning he left his studio early, turned the key and walked up Eagle Street toward the church he had not entered since he was married. Led by discontent and by a hope that beneath the altar in his old place he might find peace and possibly hear a voice which would tell him as every creator must be told--HOW. He listened to the music and to the Litany, the rich, full voices singing their grave, solemn pagan appeal; but the sensuous ecstasy left Fairfax indifferent and cold.

To-day there were no visions around the altar through whose high windows came the autumn glory staining the chancel like the Grail. His glance wandered to the opposite side of the church where in the front pew were the young scholars of Canon's School, a bevy of girls; and he thought with a pang of Bella. She wouldn't be little Bella Carew much longer, for she was nearly sixteen, charming little Bella. He thought of the statue he had made and which had been so wantonly destroyed, and with this came the feeling that everything he touched had been warped and distorted. Ashamed of this point of view, he sighed and rose with the others at the Creed. He repeated it with conviction, and at the words, "Resurrection and the Life Everlasting," he dwelt upon "Everlasting Life" as though he would draw from the expression such consolation as should make him belittle the transient show with its ma.s.s of failures and unhappy things, and render immortal only that in him which was still aspiring, still his highest. He was glad to see instead of the curate a man with a red hood mount the pulpit steps, and he knew it was the Canon himself. With a new interest in his mind he sat erect.

For the first time since he had come to the North a man whom he could revere and admire stood before him. The Canon's clear-cut heavenly face, his gracious voice, his outstretched hand as he blessed his people, made an agreeable impression on the young man out of his element, nearly s.h.i.+pwrecked and entirely alone. It occurred to him to speak to the Canon after service; but what should he say? What appeal could he make? He was an engineer married to a Roman Catholic woman of the other cla.s.s, too poor a specimen of his own cla.s.s to remain in it. Since his marriage he had felt degraded in society, out of place. If the Canon had advice to give him, it would be to shut up his studio and devote himself to his wife.

He wandered slowly out of the building amongst the others into the golden autumn day, and the music of the organ rolled after him like a rich blessing. He waited to let the line of schoolgirls pa.s.s him, and all of a sudden as he looked at them their ranks broke, he heard a cry, an exclamation, and a call--

"_Cousin Antony!_"

Before she could be prevented she had flown to him. Not throwing herself against him in the old mad sweetness of her impulsive nature,--both pretty gloved hands were held out to him and her upturned face lifted all sparkle and brilliance, her red lips parted. "Oh, Cousin Antony!"

Both Fairfax's hands held hers.

"Quick!" she cried, "before Miss Jackson comes out. Where do you live?

When will you come to see me? But you can't come! We're not allowed to have gentlemen callers! When can I come to see you? Dear Cousin Antony, how glad I am!"

"Bella!" he murmured, and gazed at her.

The rank-and-file of schoolgirls, giggling, outraged and diverted, pa.s.sed them by, and the stiff teachers were the last to appear from the church.

"Tell me," Bella repeated, "where do you live? I'll write you. I've composed tons of letters, but I forgot the number in Nut Street. Here's Miss Jackson, the horrid thing! Hurry, Cousin Antony."

He said, "Forty, Ca.n.a.l Street," and wondered why he had told her.

Miss Jackson and Miss Teeter pa.s.sed the two, and were so absorbed in discussing the text of the sermon that neither saw Mistress Bella Carew.

"I'm safe," she cried, "the old cats! The girls will never tell--they're all too sweet. But I must go; I'll just say I've dropped my Prayer-book.

There, you take it!"

And she was gone.

Antony stood staring at the flitting figure as Bella ran after the others down the steps like an autumn leaf blown by a light wind. She wore a brown dress down to her boot tops (her boots too were brown with bows at the tops); her little brown gloves had held his hand in what had been the warmest, friendliest clasp imaginable. She wore a brown hat with a plume in it that drooped and dangled, and Antony had looked into her brown eyes and seen their bright affection once more.

Well, he had known that she was going to be like this! Not quite, though; no man ever knows what a woman can be, will be, or ever is. He felt fifty years old as he walked down the steps and turned towards Ca.n.a.l Street to the door he had fastened four hours before on his formless visions.

CHAPTER x.x.x

He did not go home that day.

Towards late evening he sat in the twilight, his head in his hands, a pile of smoked cigarettes and Bella's Prayer-book on the table before him.... In the wretched afternoon he had read, one after another, the services: Marriage ... for better or for worse, till death do us part.... The Baptismal service, and the Burial for the Dead.

At six he rose with a sigh, and, though it was growing dark, he began to draw aimlessly, and Rainsford, when he came in, found Tony sketching, and the young man said--

"You don't give a fellow much of your company these days, Peter. Have a cigarette? I've smoked a whole box myself."

"I'm glad to see you working, Fairfax."

"You don't know how glad I am," Fairfax exclaimed; "but the light's bad."

Putting aside his drawing-board, he turned to his friend, and, with an ardour such as he had not displayed since the old days at the Delavan, began to tell of his conception.

"I have given up my idea of a single figure. I shall make a bas-relief, a great circular tablet, if you understand, a wall with curving sides, and emblematic figures in high relief. It will be a mighty fine piece of work, Rainsford, if it's ever done."

"What will your figures be, Tony?"

"Ah, they won't let me see their forms or faces yet." He changed the subject. "What have you done with your Sunday, old man? Slept all day?"

"No, I've been sitting for an hour or two with Mrs. Fairfax."

Molly's husband murmured, "I'm a brute, and no one knows it better than I do."

Rainsford made no refutation of his friend's accusation of himself, but suggested--

"She might bring her sewing in the afternoons, Tony; it would be less lonely for her?"

Fairfax noticed the flush that rose along the agent's thin cheek.

"By Jove!" Fairfax reflected. "I wonder if old Rainsford is in love with Molly?" The supposition did not make him jealous.

The two men went home together, and Rainsford stayed to supper as he had taken a habit of doing, for Fairfax did not wish to be alone. But when at ten o'clock the guest had gone and the engineer and his wife were alone together in their homely room, Fairfax said--

"Don't judge me too harshly, Molly."

Judge him? Did he think she did?

"You might well, my dear."