Mr. Fairfax

“ No man could connect him with the idea of greatness or success. Fairfax answered it would depend upon circumstances.
"I expect you are very much overrun with orders, Mr. Rainsford. I can understand that. I do not take up a newspaper without reading some appreciative criticism of your work." The Swedish sculptor removed his glasses and wiped his eyes with a fragrant silk handkerchief. Then carefully replacing his spectacles, begged Fairfax's pardon. ”

“ Fairfax are at home they hold hands and they read Shakespeare and Thomas a Kempis. When Mr. Fairfax ain’t at home Mrs. Fairfax does her housework, except the washin’ and scrubbin’, which ain’t in her line. When she ain’t doin’ her housework she’s paintin’ pictures and writin’ for college papers. The lad ‘Ferdinand’ is not a dago, at all, but an ugly brute of a Boston bull terrier with a pedigree. He loves his mistress, and it was on account of Svenska’s ‘mutt’ havin’ chewed off his tail that the ruction started. Let them that are without fault throw the first stone. ”

“ Fairfax and his cousin, Lord Fairfax, nor without their help could I have become employed in a way which brought about my service on the frontier and all that came after. Thus, in the providence of the Ruler of the events of this world, one step leads on to another, and we are always being educated for that which is to come.
At last, in September, Lawrence, who had been long ill of a phthisical complaint, asked me to go with him to the Barbados. Therefore, while Mr. Gist’s surveys on the Ohio went on, and both English and French [111] were making bids to secure the Indians, we were on the sea. ”

“ But you are a rising man; you have secured me against my will."
The reporter put up his pad. "Thank you, Mr. Rainsford; but this is so impersonal. I would like some of your views on art. They tell me you have had a tough fight for success and existence."
"Many of us have that," said Fairfax.
"Your ideals, sir?"
The young chap was only twenty-one. It was his first interview. Fairfax smiled.
"Downstairs in the hold are thirty cases of my work, the labour of the last six years. Go to my exposition, and you will see my ideals." ”

“ She talked to him of the master, Cedersholm, and Antony listened. She talked enthusiastically, admiringly, and he parried her questions as to when and where he had worked with the Swedish sculptor. The statuette lay on her lap.
At the studio door, when Fairfax left her, she said, taking up the self-same gold purse that he had restored to her in the Louvre seven months ago—
"I hope that I have enough money to pay for this treasure, Mr. Rainsford. It's so beautiful that it must be very dear. What is the price?" ”

“ Carew assured Antony, "at the door of death," and Bella had been sent away to the country. Mr. Carew lived at the Club, and Antony made daily visits and did countless errands for his aunt. One day, toward the end of the little boy's convalescence, Fairfax came in late and heard the sound of a sweet voice singing. He entered the drawing-room quietly and the song went on. Mrs. Carew had a lovely voice, one of those natural born voices, heart-touching, appealing; one of those voices that cause an ache and go to the very marrow, that make the eyes fill. ”

“ His blond hair was made into a club and tied with a black ribbon, while under his arm he carried a smart three-cornered hat—for the hat made a great figure in the ceremonious bows of the period. His dog; a beautiful creature, stood beside him.
Never in all his life had the Earl of Fairfax seen so noble [Pg 814] a boy. The sight of him smote the older man's heart; it flashed through him how easy it would be to exchange all his honors and titles for such a son. He rose and saluted him, as Madam Washington said, in a tone that had pride in every accent,
"My lord, this is my son, Mr. Washington." ”

“ I told him that I knew nothing whatever of my late husband's social position, nor whether he had a single relative in the world. On these two points I was desirous that Captain Lant should afford me some information, but he professed to be as ignorant in the matter as I was. Although Mr. Fairfax and he had been very good friends, their friendship was only a thing of three years' growth, and of my husband's antecedents he could say nothing with certainty. He himself believed him to have been the son of a small farmer in the south of England, and that his money had come to him from a rich uncle. ”

“ Bella read ardently, her hand pressing a lock of her dark hair across her burning cheek. Gardiner, his eyes on his cousin, drank in, fascinated, the figure of the big, handsome young man.
"He's my relation," he said to himself. "He's one of our family. I know he can tell stories, and he's a traveller. He came in the fairy cars."
Mrs. Carew tapped her lip with her thimble. "So you will learn to model here," she murmured. "Now I wonder who would be the best man?"
And Fairfax responded quickly, "Cedersholm, auntie, he's the only man."
"My husband," his aunt began to blush, "your uncle knows Mr. ”

“ For Spenser and Fairfax both flourished in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; great masters in our language; and who saw much farther into the beauties of our numbers, than those who immediately followed them. Milton was the poetical son of Spenser, and Mr Waller of Fairfax; for we have our lineal descents and clans, as well as other families. Spenser more than once insinuates, that the soul of Chaucer was transfused into his body; and that he was begotten by him two hundred years after his decease. Milton has acknowledged to me, that Spenser was his original; ”

“ Why she did not like Jane Fairfax might be a difficult question to answer; Mr. Knightley had once told her it was because she saw in her the really accomplished young woman, which she wanted to be thought herself; and though the accusation had been eagerly refuted at the time, there were moments of self-examination in which her conscience could not quite acquit her. ”

“ Morgan's [Pg 59] son and the citizens of the Town, the Governor of Virginia, and others. The will now rests beside that of George Washington [Pg 60] in a glass enclosed case in the Clerk's Office of Fairfax Court House.
It is also well known that Washington's will barely escaped being burned in the fire at Richmond, where it had been sent for safe keeping. When Union forces took possession of Richmond, they went to the state library and scattered papers all over the floor, taking what they wanted. They overlooked Washington's will, however, and Mr. ”

“ The boss was a Massachusetts man and new to Nut Street, and Fairfax, when he took the paper with his orders from Rainsford's hand, saw for the first time in months a man of his own class, sitting in the revolving chair before the desk where his papers and schedules and ledgers were filed. The man's clothes were too thin for the season, his linen was old and his appearance meagre, and in his face with its sunken cheeks, the drooping of the eyes and the thinness of the brow, were the marks of the sea of life and its waste, and the scars of the storm. ”

“ Far down at the end of the alley they could see other strollers, but where they stood they were quite alone. The excitement of the unusual outing, the pleasure of companionship, brought the colour to their cheeks, a light to their eyes. The girl's helplessness, the human struggle so like to his own, her admiration and her frankness, appealed to him greatly. His late agitation, useless, hopeless, perilous moreover, and which he felt he must overcome because it could have neither issue nor satisfaction, made Fairfax turn here for satisfaction and repose. ”

“ He soothed her, made her sit on his bed and dried her tears, as he had dried them when she had cried over the blackbird.
"Who is with you, honey? Who brought you here?"
As though she had stored up all her sorrow, as though she had waited with a child's loyal tenderness for this moment, she wound her arms around Fairfax's neck and brought her face close to his cheek.
"I miss him perfectly dreadfully, Cousin Antony. Nobody took care of him much but me. Now father is broken-hearted. You loved him, didn't you? He perfectly worshipped you."
"There, Bella, you choke me, honey. I can't breathe. ”

“ The ringing of the bells, the crying note of the whistles, had become musical to Fairfax.
There was no reason why he should not marry the Irish girl who doled out coffee to railroad hands.... Was there none? The figure of his mother rose before him, beautiful, proud, ambitious Mrs. Fairfax. She was waiting for his brilliant success, she was waiting to crown [Pg 118] him when he should bring his triumphs home. The ugly yards blurred before his eyes, he almost fancied that a spray of jasmine blew across the pane. ”

“ His miserable reception in New York, the bruises inflicted upon him by Cedersholm and his uncle, had embittered Tony Fairfax to an extent of which his humble Nut Street friends were ignorant. He didn't do them any harm, however. If any harm were done at all—and there is a question even regarding that—it was done to himself, for he crushed down his ambitions, he thrust them out of his heart, and he bit the dust with a feeling of vengeance. He had been a gentleman with talent, and his own world had not wanted him; so he went down to the people. ”

“ The ball-room was thronged, and the two without could hear, close to the casement, the swish of brocaded robes on the shining oaken floor. From the raised gallery came the slow air of a minuet, the fiddlers' strains blending with the tones of the flute and the sweet tinkle of a harp.
The loiterers on the terrace had not taken many turns before Sir John Fairfax joined them.
'I may but stay a moment,' he said. 'The house should not be left thus.'
'The house is very well, dear lad,' said his wife serenely. 'My guests are never dull, for the reason that dull folk are never my guests. ”

“ On the way out to Versailles from the top of the tram, lifted high above Paris and the river, alongside of the vulgar head, alongside of the strange little English girl, Fairfax listened to the outpouring of her heart. She took his interest for granted. With an appreciative understanding of human nature, and as though she had been bearing a burden for years which she had never let slip, she rested it now, and her blue eyes on his, her hands in the old woollen gloves, which she had slipped on before they started, clasped in her lap, she talked to Fairfax. ”

“ Fairfax laughed outright, and the choir-master watched him as others did as he limped away, his broad, fine back, his straight figure, and Fairfax's voice swelling out in the processional came to the musician's mind.
"There is a mystery about that chap," he thought. "He is a gentleman. The Bishop would be interested."
By contrast Sundays were delightful to Antony. Amusements possible to a workingman with the tastes of a gentleman were difficult to obtain. Church in the morning, a lazy stroll through the town, an excellent dinner at the Delavan House, set Fairfax up for the week. ”

“ Emmeline sent him her thimble, her lace collar, her wedding ring and a lock of her hair, shining still and without a touch of grey. The packet, wrapped up in soft paper and folded by jasmine leaves and buds, whose withered petals were like a faded dress, Fairfax put away in his trunk and did not untie; he did not wish to open his wound. And his face, thinner from his illness and his loss, looked ten years older. The early happy ecstasy of youth was gone, and a bitter, mature recklessness took its place, and there was no hand to soothe him but Molly's, and she had gone back to Troy. ”

“ If life as it went on chose with backward fling to close portals behind him of its own accord, he at least would not assist fate, and with both hands, generously, as his heart was generous, Fairfax threw all gates wide. ”

“ To Fairfax's senses it brought no consolation but the sharp suffering that any beauty brings to the poet and the seer. It was a new day—he was too young to be crushed out of life because he had an empty pocket, and faint as he was, hungry as he was, the visions began to rise again in his brain. The crimson glory, as it swam over the railroad yards, over the bridge, over the unsightly buildings, was peopled by his ideals—his breath came fast and his heart beat. ”

“ Her morning's outing, the tramp and the excitement, were an unusual strain to Molly, not to speak of her emotions, and she cried herself to sleep. [Pg 97]
Fairfax sat every Sunday in the same pew. The seat was to the left of the altar, and he sang with an ardour and a mellowness that was lost neither on the people near him nor on the choir-master. All arts were sympathetic to him: his ear was good and his voice agreeable. ”

“ Fairfax, who was not going slow over his breakfast, indicated the opera hat behind the door and the bromide.
"Hurrah for you and Alphonse," exclaimed the young fellow, who prepared himself a pick-me-up eagerly, and without invitation seated himself at Fairfax's table.
A good-looking young man of twenty-five, not more, with a cheerful, intelligent face in sober moments, now pale, with parched lips and eyes not clear yet. ”

“ Many's the time when there's a hard thing to do he seems to open the door and I go through, and it's not so hard."
She was imaginative, Fairfax knew it. She was superstitious, like the people of her country. The things she said were often full of fancy, like the legends and stories of the Celts; but now he hardly heard her, for he was working, and she went back to her task by the lamp, and, under the quiet of her presence and its companionship, his modelling grew. ”