Kitabı oku: «Fairfax and His Pride: A Novel», sayfa 12
CHAPTER XXIV
Death does not always make the deepest graves. His art was buried deepest of all, and there was just one interest in his life, and that was not his wife. He was kind to her, but if he had beaten her she would have kissed his hand; she could not have loved him better. Her life was "just wrapped round him." He treated her as a lady, and he was a gentleman. Her manners were always soft and gentle, coming from a sweet good heart. She grew thinner, and her pride in him and her love for him and her humility made Molly Fairfax beautiful. There was a great deal of cruelty in the marriage and in their mating. It was no one's fault, and the woman suffered the most. Their rooms were in a white frame building with green blinds, one of the old wooden houses that remained long in Albany. It did not overlook the yards, for Fairfax wanted a new horizon. From her window, Molly could see the docks, the river, the night and day boats as they anchored, and she had time to watch and know them all. Nothing in his working life or in his associations coarsened Antony Fairfax; it would have been better for him had it done so. She was not married to an engineer, but to a gentleman, and he was as chivalrous to her as though she had been the woman of his dreams; but she spent much of the time weeping and hiding the traces from him, and in the evenings, when he came home to the meal that she prepared each day with a greater skill and care, sometimes after greeting her he would not break the silence throughout the evening, and he did not dream that he had forgotten her. His new express engine became his life. He drove her, cared for her, oiled and tended her with art and passion. There were no bad notes against him at the office. His records were excellent, and Rainsford had the satisfaction of knowing that the man whom he had recommended was in the right place. The irony of it all was that his marrying Molly Shannon did not bring him peace, although it tranquillized him, and kept part of his nature silent. He had meditated as he drove his engine, facing the miles before him as the machine ate them up, and these miles began to take him into other countries. There was a far-awayness in the heavens to him now, and as he used to glance up at the telegraph wires and poles they became to him masts and riggings of vessels putting out to sea, and from his own window of his little tenement apartment of two bedrooms and a kitchen, he watched the old river boats and the scows and the turtle-like canal boats that hugged the shore, and they became vessels whose bows had kissed ports whose names were thrilling, and in the nest he had made his own, thinking to rest there, his growing wings began to unprison and the nest to be too small. There was no intoxication in the speed of his locomotive to him, and he felt a grave sense of power as he regulated and slowed and accelerated, and the smooth response of his locomotive delighted him. She flew to his hand, and the speed gave him joy.
At lunch time Falutini had told him of Italy, and the glow and the glamour, the cypress and the pines, the azure skies, olive and grape vines brought their enchantment around Fairfax, until No. 111 stood in an enchanted country, and not under the shed with whirling snows or blinding American glare without. He exchanged ideas with Rainsford. The agent became his friend, and one Sunday Fairfax led him into the Delavan House, and George Washington nearly broke his neck and spilled the soup on the shoulder of the uninteresting patron he was at the moment serving, in his endeavour to get across the floor to Antony.
"Yas, sah, Mistah Kunnell Fairfax, sah! Mighty glad to see yo', and the Capting? – Hyah in de window?"
"Rainsford," said the young man, "isn't it queer? I feel at home here. This dingy hotel and this smiling old nigger, they are joys to me – joys. To this very table I have brought my own bitter food to eat and bitter water to drink, and half forgotten their tastes as I have eaten the Delavan fare, and been cheered by this faithful old darkey. Perhaps all the chaps round here aren't millionaires or Depuysters, but there are no railroad men such as I am lunching here, and I breathe again."
The two ate their tomato soup with relish. Poor Molly was an indifferent cook, and the food at Rainsford's hash-house was horrible.
"Don't come here often now, Fairfax, do you?"
"Every Sunday."
"Really? And do you bring Mrs. Fairfax?"
"No," frowned the young man, "and I wonder you ask. Don't you understand that this is my holiday? God knows I earn it."
Rainsford finished his soup. The plate was whisked away, was briskly replaced by a quantity of small dishes containing everything on the bill of fare from chicken to pot-pie, and as Rainsford meditated upon the outlay, he said —
"She's a gentle, lovely creature, Fairfax. I don't wonder you were charmed by her. She has a heart and a soul."
Fairfax stared. "Why when did you see her?"
He had never referred to his wife since the day he had announced his marriage to his chief.
"She came on the day of the blizzard to the office to bring a parcel for you. She wanted me to send it up the line by the Limited to catch you at Utica."
"My knit waistcoat," nodded Fairfax. "I remember. It saved my getting a chill. I had clean forgotten it. She's a good girl."
Rainsford chose amongst the specimens of food.
"She is a sweet woman."
Here George Washington brought Fairfax the Sunday morning Tribune, and folded it before his gentleman and presented it almost on his knees.
"Let me git ye a teenty weenty bit mo' salid, Kunnell?"
Fairfax unfolded the Tribune leisurely. "Bring some ice-cream, George, and some good cigars, and a little old brandy. Yes, Rainsford, it isn't poison."
Fairfax read attentively, and his companion watched him patiently, his own face lightened by the companionship of the younger man. Fairfax glanced at the headlines of the Tribune, said "By George!" under his breath, and bent over the paper. His face underwent a transformation; he grew pale, read fixedly, then laughed, said "By George!" again, folded the paper up and put it in his pocket.
The ice-cream was brought and described as "Panillapolitan cream, sah," and Fairfax lit a cigar and puffed it fast and then said suddenly —
"Do you know what hate is, Rainsford? I reckon you don't. Your face doesn't bear any traces of it."
"Yes, Fairfax," said the other, "I know what it is – it's a disease which means battle, murder, and sudden death."
The young man took the paper out of his pocket and unfolded it, and Rainsford was surprised to see his hands tremble, the beautiful clever hands with the stained finger ends and the clean, beautiful palm. Falutini did more work than Fairfax now. He slaved for his master.
"Read that, Rainsford." He tapped a headline with his forefinger. "It sounds like an event."
The Unveiling of the Abydos Sphinx in Central Park
Cedersholm's Wonderful Pedestal.
The Difficult Transportation of the Egyptian
Monument from the Port to the Park.
Unveiling to take place next Saturday.
The article went on to speak of the dignified marble support, and hinted at four prehistoric creatures in bronze which were supposed to be the masterpieces of modern sculpture.
Rainsford read it through. "Very interesting. An event, as you say, Tony. Cedersholm has made himself a great reputation."
"Damn him!" breathed the engineer. His heart was beating wildly, he felt a suffocation in his breast. A torrent of feeling swept up in him. No words could say what a storm and a tempest the notice caused.
"Jealous," Rainsford thought. "Cedersholm has all that poor Fairfax desires."
Overcome by the memories the headlines recalled, overcome by his anger and the injustice, Fairfax's face grew white.
"Take a little more coffee, Kunnell," said George Washington at his elbow.
"No." Antony repulsed him rudely. "Did you read it all, Rainsford?"
"I think so. I dare say this will bring Cedersholm close on a hundred thousand dollars."
"It will pave his way to hell one day, Rainsford," said the engineer, leaning across the table. "It will indeed! Why, it is a monument of injustice and dishonour. Do you know what that Sphinx rests on, Rainsford, do you know?"
For a moment the railroad agent thought his friend had lost his senses brooding over his discarded art, his spoiled life.
"Four huge prehistoric creatures," Rainsford read mildly.
Fairfax's lips trembled. "It rests on a man's heart and soul, on his flesh and blood, on his bleeding wounds, Rainsford. I worked in Cedersholm's studio, I slaved for him night and day for eighteen months. I spilled my youth and heart's blood there, I did indeed." His face working, he tapped his friend's arm with his hand. "I made the moulds for those beasts. I cast them in bronze, right there in his studio. Every inch of them is mine, Rainsford, mine. By … you can't take it in, of course, you don't believe me, nobody would believe me, that's why I can do nothing, can't say anything, or I'd be arrested as a lunatic. But Cedersholm's fame in this instance is mine, and he has stolen it from me and shut me out like a whipped dog. He thinks I am poor and unbefriended, and he knows that I have no case. Why, he's a hound, Rainsford, the meanest hound on the face of the earth."
Rainsford soothed his friend, but Fairfax's voice was low with passion, no one could overhear its intense tone.
"Don't for a moment think I have lost my senses. If you don't believe me, give me a pencil and paper and I'll sketch you what I mean."
Rainsford was very much impressed and startled. "If what you say is true," he murmured.
And Fairfax, who had regained some of his control – he knew better than any one the futility of his miserable adventure – exclaimed —
"Oh, it's true enough; but there is nothing to do about it. Cedersholm knows that better than any one else."
He sat back, and his face grew dark and heavy with its brooding. His companion watched him helplessly, only half convinced of the truth of the statement. Fairfax lifted his eyes and naïvely exclaimed —
"Isn't it cruel, Rainsford? You speak of failures; did you ever see such a useless one as this? Cedersholm and his beasts which they say right here are the best things in modern sculpture, and me with my engine and my – " He stopped. "Give me the bill," he called to George Washington.
The old darkey, used as he was to his gentleman's moods, found this one stranger than usual.
"Anythin' wrong with the dinner, Kunnell?" he asked tremulously. "Very sorry, Capting. Fust time yo' – "
Fairfax put the money in his hand. "All right, George," he assured kindly, "your dinner's all right – don't worry. Good-bye." And he did not say as he usually did, "See you next Sunday." For he had determined to go down to New York for the unveiling of the monument.
CHAPTER XXV
The May afternoon, all sunshine and sparkle, had a wine to make young hope spring from old graves and age forget its years, and youth mad with its handicaps; a day to inspire passion, talent, desire, and to make even goodness take new wings.
With the crowd of interested and curious, Antony Fairfax entered Central Park through the Seventy-second Street gate. Lines of carriages extended far into Fifth Avenue, and he walked along by the side of a smart victoria where a pretty woman sat under her sunshade and smiled on the world and spring. Fairfax saw that she was young and worldly, and thought for some time of his mother, of women he might have known, and when the victoria passed him, caught the lady's glance as her look wandered over the crowd. A May-day party of school children spread over the lawn at his left, the pole's bright streamers fluttering in the breeze. The children danced gaily, too small to care for the unveiling of statues or for ancient Egypt. The bright scene and the day's gladness struck Antony harsh as a glare in weakened eyes. He was gloomy and sardonic, his heart beating out of tune, his genial nature had been turned to gall.
The Mall was roped off, and at an extempore gate a man in uniform received the cards of admission. Fairfax remembered the day he had endeavoured to enter the Field Palace and his failure.
"I'm a mechanic," he said hastily to the gateman, "one of Mr. Cedersholm's workmen."
The man pushed him through, and he went in with a group of students from Columbia College.
In a corner of the Mall, on the site he had indicated to the little cousins, rose a white object covered by a sheeting, which fell to the ground. Among the two hundred persons gathered were people of distinction. There was to be speech-making. Fairfax did not know this or who the speakers were to be. All that he knew or cared was that at three o'clock of this Saturday his Beasts – his four primitive creatures – were to be unveiled. He wore his workday clothes, his Pride had led him to make the arrogant display of his contempt of the class he had deserted. His hat was pushed back on his blond head. His blue eyes sparkled and he thrust his disfigured hands into his pockets to keep them quiet. The lady beside whose carriage he had stood came into the roped-off enclosure, and found a place opposite Fairfax. Once more her eyes fell on the workman's handsome face. He looked out of harmony with the people who had gathered to see the unveiling of Mr. Cedersholm's pedestal.
For the speakers, a desk and platform had been arranged, draped with an American flag. Antony listened coldly to the first address, a résumé of the dynasty in whose dim years the Abydos Sphinx was hewn, and the Egyptologist's learning, the dust he stirred of golden tombs, and the perfumes of the times that he evoked, were lost to the up-state engineer who only gazed on the veiled monument.
His look, however, returned to the desk, when Cedersholm took the place, and Fairfax, from the sole of his lame foot to his fair head, grew cold. His bronze beasts were not more hard and cold in their metallic bodies, nor was the Sphinx more petrified. Cedersholm had aged, and seemed to Fairfax to have warped and shrunk and to stand little more than a pitiful suit of clothes with a boutonnière in the lapel of the pepper-and-salt coat. There was nothing impressive about the sleek grey head, though his single eye-glass gave him distinction. The Columbia student next to Fairfax, pushed by the crowd, touched Antony Fairfax's great form and felt as though he had touched a colossus.
Cedersholm spoke on art, on the sublimity of plastic expression. He spoke rapidly and cleverly. His audience interrupted him by gratifying whispers of "Bravo, bravo," and the gentle tapping of hands. He was clearly a favourite, a great citizen, a great New Yorker, and a great man. Directly opposite the desk was a delegation from the Century Club, Cedersholm's friends all around him. To Fairfax, they were only brutes, black and white creatures, no more – mummers in a farce. Cedersholm did not speak of his own work. With much delicacy he confined his address to the past. And his adulation of antiquity showed him to be a real artist, and he spoke with love of the relics of the perfect age. In closing he said —
"Warm as may be our inspirations, great as may be any modern genius, ardent as may be our labour, let each artist look at the Abydos Sphinx and know that the climax has been attained. We can never touch the antique perfection again."
Glancing as he did from face to face, Cedersholm turned toward the Columbia students who adored him and whose professor in art he was. Searching the young faces for sympathy, he caught sight of Fairfax. He remembered who he was, their eyes met. Cedersholm drank a glass of water at his hand, bowed to his audience, and stepped down. He moved briskly, his head a little bent, crossed the enclosure, and joined the lady whom Fairfax had observed.
"That," Fairfax heard one of his neighbours say, "is Mr. Cedersholm's fiancée, Mrs. Faversham."
Fairfax raised his eyes to the statue. There was a slight commotion as the workmen ranged the ropes. Then, very gracefully, evidently proud as a queen, the lady, followed by Mr. Cedersholm, went up to the pedestal, took the ropes in her gloved hands, and there was a flutter and the conventional covering slipped and fell to the earth. There was an exclamation, a murmur, the released voices murmured their praise, Cedersholm was surrounded. Fairfax, immovable, stood and gazed.
The pedestal was of shell-pink marble, carved in delicate bas-relief. Many of the drawings Antony had made. Isis with her cap of Upper and Lower Egypt, Hathor with the eternal oblation – the Sphinx… God and the Immortals alone knew who had made it.
On its great, impassive face, on its ponderous body, there was no signature, no name. Under the four corners, between Sphinx and pedestal, crouched four bronze creatures, their forms and bodies visible between the stones of the pink pedestal and the soft blue of the Egyptian granite. The bold, severe modelling, their curious primitive conception, the life and realism of the creatures were poignant in their suggestion of power. The colour of the bronze was beautiful, would be more beautiful still as the years went on. The beasts supported the Egyptian monument. They rested between the pedestal and the Sphinx; they were the support and they were his. They seemed, to the man who had made them, beautiful indeed. Forgetting his outrage and his revenge, in the artist, Fairfax listened timidly, eagerly, for some word to be murmured in the crowd, some praise for his Beasts.
He heard many.
The students at his side were enthusiastic, they had made studies from the moulds; moulds of the Beasts were already in the Metropolitan Museum. The young critics were lavish, profuse. They compared the creatures with the productions of the Ancients.
"Cedersholm is a magician, he is one of the greatest men of his time…"
The man in working clothes smiled, but his expression was gentler than it had been hitherto. He lifted his soft hat and ran his fingers through his blond hair and remained bareheaded in the May air that blew about him; his fascinated eyes were fastened on the Abydos Sphinx, magnetized by the calm, inscrutable melancholy, by the serene indifference. The stony eyes were fixed on the vistas of the new world, the crude Western continent, as they had been fixed for centuries on the sands of the pathless desert, on the shifting sands that relentlessly effaced footsteps of artist and Pharaoh, dynasty and race.
Who knew who had made this wonder?
How small and puny Cedersholm seemed in his pepper-and-salt suit, his boutonnière and single eye-glass, his trembling heart. His heart trembled, but only Fairfax knew it; he felt that he held it between his hands. "He must have thought I was dead," he reflected. "What difference did it make," Fairfax thought, "whether or not the Egyptian who had hewn the Sphinx had murdered another man for stealing his renown? After four thousand years, all the footsteps were effaced." His heart grew somewhat lighter, and between himself and the unknown sculptor there seemed a bond of union.
The students and the master had drifted away. Cedersholm was in the midst of his friends. Fairfax would not have put out his hand to take his laurel. His spirit and soul had gone into communion with a greater sculptor of the Sphinx, the unknown Egyptian. Standing apart from the crowd where Cedersholm was being congratulated, Fairfax remarked the lady again, and that she stood alone as was he. She seemed pensive, turning her lace parasol between her hands, her eyes on the ground. The young man supposed her to be dreaming of her lover's greatness. He recalled the day, two years ago, when with Bella and Gardiner he had come up before the opening in the earth prepared for the pedestal. "Wait, wait, my hearties!" he had said.
Well, one of them had gone on, impatient, to the unveiling of greater wonders, and Antony had come to his unclaimed festival alone…
CHAPTER XXVI
He said to Rainsford at luncheon, over nuts and raisins, and coffee as black as George Washington's smiling face —
"I reckon you think I've got a heart of cotton, don't you? I reckon you think I don't come up to the scratch, do you, old man? I assure you that I went down to New York seeing scarlet. I had made my plans. Afterward, mind you, Rainsford, not of course before a whole lot of people, – but in his own studio, I intended to tell Cedersholm a few truths. Upon my honour, I believe I could have killed him."
Rainsford held a pecan nut between the crackers which he pressed slowly as he listened to his friend. Antony's big hand was spread out on the table; its grip would have been powerful on a man's throat.
"We often get rid of our furies on the way," said Rainsford, slowly. "We keep them housed so long that they fly away unobserved at length. And when at last we open the door, and expect to find them ready with their poisons, they've gone, vanished every one."
"Not in this case," Fairfax shook his head. "I shall call on them all some day and they will all answer me. But yesterday wasn't the time. You'll think me poorer-spirited than ever, I daresay, but the woman he is going to marry was there, a pretty woman, and she seemed to love him."
Fairfax glanced up at the agent and saw only comprehension.
"Quite right, Tony." Rainsford returned Fairfax's look over his glistening eyeglasses, cracked the pecan nut and took out the meat. "I am not surprised."
Antony, who had taken a clipping from his wallet, held it out.
"Read this. I cut it out a week ago. Yesterday in the Central Park old ambitions struck me hard. Read it."
The notice was from a Western paper, and spoke in detail of a competition offered to American sculptors by the State of California, for the design in plaster of a tomb. The finished work was to be placed in the great new cemetery in Southern California. The prize to be awarded was ten thousand dollars and the time for handing in the design a year.
"Not a very cheerful or inspiring subject, Tony."
On the contrary, Fairfax thought so. He leaned forward eagerly, and Rainsford, watching him, saw a transfigured man.
"Death," said the engineer, "has taken everything from me. Life has given me nothing, old man. I have a feeling that perhaps now, through this, I may regain what I have lost… I long to take my chance."
The other exclaimed sympathetically, "My dear fellow, you must take it by all means."
Fairfax remained thoughtful a moment, then asked almost appealingly —
"Why, how can I do so? Such an effort would cost my living, her living, the renting of a place to work in…" As he watched Rainsford's face his eyes kindled.
"I offered to lend you money once, Tony," recalled his friend, "and I wish to God you'd taken the loan then, because just at present – "
The Utter Failure raised his near-sighted eyes, and the look of disappointment on the bright countenance of the engineer cut him to the heart.
"Never mind." Fairfax's voice was forced in its cheerfulness. "Something or other will turn up, I shall work Sundays and half-days, and I reckon I can put it through. I am bound to," he finished ardently, "just bound to."
Rainsford said musingly, "I made a little investment, but it went to pot. I hoped – I'm always hoping – but the money didn't double itself."
The engineer didn't hear him. He was already thinking how he could transform his kitchen into a studio, although it had an east light. Just here Rainsford leaned over and put his hand on Antony's sleeve. "I want to say a word to you about your wife. I don't think she's very well."
"Molly?" answered his companion calmly. "She's all right. She has a mighty fine constitution, and I never heard her complain. When did you see her, Rainsford?" He frowned.
"Saturday, when you were in New York. You forgot to send your pass-book, and I went for it myself."
"Well?" queried Antony. "What then?"
"Mrs. Fairfax gave me the book, and I stopped to speak with her for a few moments. I find her very much changed."
The light died from the young man's illumined face where his visions had kindled a sacred fire. The realities of life blotted it out.
"I'm not able to give Molly any distractions, that you know."
"She doesn't want them, Tony." Rainsford looked kindly and affectionately, almost tenderly, at him, and repeated gently: "She doesn't want amusement, Tony."
And Fairfax threw up his head with a sort of despair on his face —
"My God, Rainsford," he murmured, "what can I do?"
"I'm afraid she's breaking her heart," said the older man. "Poor little woman!"
