Mrs. Fairfax

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When he reappeared with the volumes of dog-eared school books, she fingered them gingerly, fell on his drawing portfolio and opened it.
"Who drew these for you, Tony?"
"Mother, no one. I did them. They are rotten."
Mrs. Fairfax exclaimed with excitement: "Why, they are quite extraordinary! You must study with some one."
Blushing, enraptured, Antony was tongue-tied, although a host of things rushed to his lips that now he might be permitted to speak to her he longed to tell everything that was on his heart. ”

“ Emmeline had fastened the shoe and lagged away with southern negligence, leaving Antony's books as he had flung them on the porch, and though it was an effort to lean over, Mrs. Fairfax did so, picked up the drawing-book and studied it again.
"Talented little monkey," she mused, "he has my gift, my looks too, I think. How straight he walks! He has 'l'élégance d'un homme du monde.'"
She called herself Creole and prided herself on her French and her languor. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The mysterious lodger enclosed, moreover, a week's board in advance, but no address; nor had the coloured man any information for Nut Street, and a decided antipathy existed between George Washington and Mary Kenny. She was pale when she packed up Fairfax's belongings and cried into his trunk, as she laid the drawing of Bella Carew next to the unopened packet of his mother's treasures. She was unconscious of what sacred thing she touched, but she was cut to the heart, as was poor Falutini. Peter Rainsford, who had not gone far in his friendship with the elusive Fairfax, was only disappointed. ”

“ She had been in grey when he had first seen her on the day of the unveiling of the monument. Fairfax passed his hand across his eyes, as though to brush away a vision which, like a mist, was still between them. He put his hand down over hers on the pedestal.
"I love you," he said very low. "That is the matter. That is the trouble. I love you. I want you to know it. I dare love you. I am perfectly penniless and I am glad of it. I want to owe everything to my art, to climb through the thorns to where I shall some day reach. ”

“ Mrs. Fairfax and her girl are penniless, and I came so near marrying Claire. I have found this thing out quite in the nick of time. The girl is clever enough, but it takes money, and plenty of it, to make me put my head into the yoke of matrimony.
"I must find this will he speaks of. It will be here unless the woman has been shrewd enough to destroy it, and women never are clever enough to burn their telltale bridges which lie behind them, and that's how they get found out—at last.
"I see through the whole thing now. Mrs. Fairfax trumped up a will in favor of herself, a brilliant scheme. ”

“ As Fairfax leant down to break the model Bella helped him bravely.
"Now, might I put on my stocking, Cousin Antony?"
He had been pouring the warm plaster into the mould and had forgotten her, and was reproached.
The twilight gathered and made friends with the storm as they waited for the cast to harden. Old Ann came in and lighted the gas above the group on the old divan.
"Be the hivenly powers! Mr. Fairfax, ye've here a power of a dirt." ”

“ He knew that such peace could only come to him through the companionship of a woman.
No commonplace woman would satisfy Fairfax now.
Money and position meant absolutely nothing to him. If Bella Carew were a rich and brilliant heiress it would probably alienate him from her. His need called for a woman who could work at his side with a kindred interest, a woman who knew beauty, who loved art, whose appreciation and criticism could not leave him cold. ”

“ Carew came in and his wife presented. "My dear, this is Antony Fairfax, my sister Bella's only child, you know. You remember Bella, Henry."
A wave of red, which must have been vigorous in order to sweep in and under the ruddy colour already in Carew's cheeks, testified that he did remember the beautiful Mrs. Fairfax.
"I remember her very well," he returned; "is she as handsome as ever? You have chosen a cold day to land in the North. I presume you came by boat? We have been two hours coming up town. The cars are blocked by snow. It's ten degrees below zero to-night. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Carew's latchkey scratched in the door, Bella flew upstairs to the top story, Antony and Gardiner followed more slowly; Mrs. Carew shut her piano, and took the cars again to forget her restlessness in the purchase of silks and dry goods and house decorations, and was far from guessing the emotion she had aroused in the breast of her nephew—"Flow gently, sweet Afton." Nothing flowed gently in Fairfax's impetuous breast. Nothing flowed gently on the tide of events that drifted past slowly, leaving him unsuccessful, without any opening into fame. ”

“ Fairfax thought of Benvenuto— (he would have been welcome) —he thought of Bella, and not of his Aunt Caroline.
"My dear boy, why didn't you let us know you had been ill?"
There is something exquisite to a man in the presence of a woman in his sick-room, be she lovely or homely, old or young.
"This is awfully, awfully good of you, Auntie. I've had a mighty bad time with this foot of mine."
Mrs. Carew in her street dress, ready for an all-day's shopping, came airily in and laid her hand on her nephew's shoulder. Fairfax thought he saw a look of Bella, a look of his mother. ”

“ 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!" ”

“ My things that never met, the buttons off my shoes? Think of darling little Gardiner, Cousin Antony...!"
Her cousin again bade her be silent. She stamped her foot passionately.
"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." ”

“ As Fairfax mixed his clay in the silent room where he and Dearborn had half starved together, he said, "I have never yet become so frightfully rich as to imperil my soul."
In the declining spring light he began to model. He did not look like a happy man, like a happy lover, like a man destined to marry a beautiful woman with several millions of dollars. ”

“ When after toilsome journeys up and down the stairs of the four-storied house, the things had been fetched, Fairfax mixed his plaster, eagerly watched by the children. Perched on the edge of the divan, Bella brooded over the foaming, marvellous concoction, into whose milky bubbles she saw art fall like a star—a genius blossom like a flower. She gazed at Antony's hands as they plunged in and came out dripping; gazed as though she expected him to bring forth some peerless image his touch had called to life. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It was some time before Steepshire society realised the stupendous fact that “Fairfax was dancing with his [Pg 159] wife.” It was: “Who is the pretty girl dancing with Fairfax?” or, “Who is the hussar Lady Fairfax has got hold of?” But when they had taken the idea well into their minds they were dumbfounded. “Where was the divorcée? Where was the enraged husband? Above all, where was the idiot who had promoted such a scandal? The Fairfaxes were on the very best of terms. They were the handsomest couple in the room; they were devoted to each other.” ”

“ Molly would only stay till Monday.... Fairfax put her little bag on the kitchen table, where a coarse cloth was spread, and the steam greeted them of a real Irish stew, and the odour of less genuine coffee tickled their appetites.
Molly Shannon considered Fairfax in his new Easter Sunday spring clothes. From his high collar, white as Nut Street could white it, to his polished boots—he was a pleasant thing to look upon. His cravat was as blue as his eyes. His moustache was brushed carefully from his young, well-made mouth, and he beamed with good humour on every one. ”

“ Kenny cleared away the dishes, her husband lit his cigar and beamed. Sanders got his hat off the hook, put on his coat slowly, the cloud black on his face. Fairfax wanted to make the girl lift her eyes to him, he wanted to look into those grey eyes with the little black flecks along the iris. As the language of the street went, Molly was crazy about him. He wanted to feel the sensation that her lifted lashes and her Irish eyes would bring. Temptations are all of one kind; there are no different kinds. What they are and where they lead depends upon the person to whom they come. ”