Fairfax and His Pride Part 36

"I know it."

She laughed and blushed. "I've been running after you, _shockingly_, haven't I? I ran away from home and found you in the queer little street in the queer little home with those _angel_ Irish people! How are they all, Cousin Antony, and the freckled children?"

"Bella," her cousin asked, "haven't they nearly finished with you in school? You are grown up."

She shook her head vehemently. "Nonsense, I'm a dreadful hoyden still.

Think of it! I've never been on the roll of honour yet at St. Mary's."

"No?" he smiled. "They were wrong not to put you there. How is Aunt Caroline?"

The girl's face clouded, and she said half under her breath--

"_Why, don't you know?_"

Ah, there was another grave, then? What did Bella mean?

She exclaimed, stopped swinging her gloves, folded her hands gravely--

"Why, Cousin Antony, didn't you read in the papers?"

He saw a rush of colour fill her cheeks. It wasn't death, then? He hadn't seen any papers for some time, and he never should have expected to find his aunt's name in the papers.

"I don't believe I can tell you, Cousin Antony."

He drew up a chair and sat down by her. "Yes, you can, little cousin."

Her face was troubled, but she smiled. "Yes, that was what you used to call me, didn't you? You see, I'm hardly supposed to know. It's not a thing a girl _should_ know, Cousin Antony. Can't you guess?"

"Hardly, Bella."

Fairfax wiped his hands on a bunch of cloths, and the dry morsels of clay fell to the floor.

"Tell me what it is about Aunt Caroline."

"She is not my mother any more, Cousin Antony, nor father's wife either."

He waited. Bella's tone was low and embarra.s.sed.

"I don't know how to tell it. She had a lovely voice, Cousin Antony."

"She had indeed, Bella."

"Well," slowly commented the young girl, "she took music lessons from a teacher who sang in the opera, and I used to hear them at it until I nearly lost my mind sometimes. I _hate music_--I mean that kind, Cousin Antony."

"Well," he interrupted, impatient to hear the _denouement_. "What then, honey?"

"One night at dinner-time mother didn't come home; but she is often late, and we waited, and then went on without her.... She never came home, and no one ever told me anything, not even old Ann. Father said I was not to speak my mother's name again. And I never have, until now, to you."

Fairfax took in his Bella's hands that turned the little rolled kid gloves; they were cold. He bent his eyes on her. Young as she was, she saw there and recognized compa.s.sion and human understanding, qualities which, although she hardly knew their names, were sympathetic to her. He bent his eyes on her.

"Honey," Fairfax said, "you have spoken your mother's name in the right place. Don't judge her, Bella!"

"Oh!" exclaimed the young girl, crimsoning. She tossed her proud, dark head. "I do judge her, Cousin Antony, I do."

"Hus.h.!.+" he exclaimed sternly, "as you say, you are too young to understand what she has done, but not too young to be merciful."

She s.n.a.t.c.hed her hands away, and sprang up, her eyes rebellious.

"Why should I not judge her?" Her voice was indignant. "It's a disgrace to my honourable father, to our name. How can you, Cousin Antony?"

Fairfax did not remove his eyes from her intense little face. "She was never a mother to us," the young girl judged, with the cruelty of youth.

"Think how I ran wild! Do you remember my awful clothes? My things that never met, the b.u.t.tons off my shoes? Think of darling little Gardiner, Cousin Antony...!"

Her cousin again bade her be silent. She stamped her foot pa.s.sionately.

"But I will speak! Why should you take her part?"

With an expression which Bella felt to be grave, Fairfax repeated--

"You must not speak her name, as your father told you. It's a mighty hard thing for one woman to judge another, little cousin. Wait until you are a woman yourself."

Fairfax understood. He thought how the way had opened to his weak, sentimental aunt; he fancied that he saw again the doe at the gate of the imposing park of the unreal forest; the gate had swung open, and, her eyes as mild as ever, the doe had entered the mystic world. To him this image of his aunt was perfect. Oh! mysterious, dreadful, wonderful heart of woman!

Bella stood by his side, looking up at him. "Cousin Antony," she breathed, "why do you take her part?"

"I want her daughter to take it, Bella, or say nothing."

Her dark eyes were on him intently, curiously. His throat was bare, his blond hair cut close around his neck; the marks of his recent grief and struggle had thinned and saddened his face. He had altered very much in five years.

"I remember," Bella said sharply, "you used to seem fond of her;" and added, "I loved my father best."

Fairfax made no reply, and Bella walked slowly across the studio, and started to sit down under the green lamp.

"No," cried Fairfax, "not there, Bella!"

Her hand on the back of the chair, the young girl paused in surprise.

"Why, why not, Cousin Antony?"

Why not, indeed! He had not prevented Rainsford from sitting there.

"Is the chair weak in its legs?" she laughed. "I'm light--I'll risk it,"

and, half defiantly, she seated herself by the table, leaning both elbows on it. She looked back at him. "Now, make a little drawing of me as you used to do. I'll show it to the girls in school to prove what a genius we have in the family; and I must go back, too, or I'll have more bad marks than ever."

Fairfax did not obey her. Instead, he looked at her as though he saw through her to eternity.

Bella sprang up impulsively, and came toward him. "Cousin Antony," she murmured, "I'm perfectly dreadful. I'm selfish and inconsiderate. It's only because I'm a little wild. I don't mean it. You've told me nothing." She lifted his cravat from the chair. "You wear a black cravat and your clothes are black. Is it for Aunt Arabella still?"

Fairfax seemed to himself to look down on her from a height. Her brilliance, her sparkle and youth were far away. His heart ached within him.