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CHAPTER XIII
The sculptor Cedersholm had come from Sweden himself a poor boy. He had worked his way into recognition and fame, but his experience in life had embittered rather than softened him. He early discovered that there is nothing but example that we can learn from the poor or take from the poor, and he avoided everything that did not add to his fame and everything that did not bring in immediate aids. It was only during the late years that he had made his name known in New York. He had been working in Rome, and during the past three years his expositions had made him enormously talked of. He would not have dined at the Carews' without a reason. Henry Carew was something of a figure in the Century Club. His pretence to dilettantism was not small. But Cedersholm had not foreseen what a wretched dinner he would be called on to eat. Cooked by a woman hired in for the day, half cold and wholly poor, Mr. Carew's banquet was far from being the magnificent feast it seemed in Bella's eyes. Somewhat cheered by his cigar and liqueur, Cedersholm found a seat in a small reception room out of earshot of his host and hostess, and, in company with Canon Prynne of Albany, managed to pass an agreeable half hour.
The Canon agreed with the Swede – he had never heard a bird sing so divinely.
"I told Mrs. Carew she should throw a scarf over the cage. The blackbird will sing his heart out."
The sculptor took up his conversation with his friend where he had left it in the dining-room. He had been speaking of a recent commission given him by the city for an important piece of work to be done for Central Park.
"You know, Canon, we have succeeded in bringing to the port of New York the Abydos Sphinx – a marvellous, gigantic creature. It is to be placed in Central Park, in the Mall."
This, Canon Prynne had heard. "The base pedestal and fixtures are to be yours, Cedersholm?"
The sculptor nodded. "Yes, and manual labour such as this is tremendous. If I were in France, now, or in Italy, I could find chaps to help me. As it is, I work alone." After a pause, he said, "However, I like the sole responsibility."
"Now, I am not sure," returned his companion, "whether it is well to like too sole a responsibility. As far as I am concerned, no sooner do I think myself important than I discover half a dozen persons in my environment to whom I am doing a wrong, if I do not invite them to share my glory."
There was no one in the small room to which the gentlemen had withdrawn, and their chat was suddenly interrupted by a small, clear voice asking, "Is this Mr. Cedersholm?" Neither guest had seen steal into the room and slip from the shadow to where they sat, a little girl, slender, overgrown, in a ridiculously short dress, ridiculous shoes and stockings, her arms full of treasures, her dark hair falling around her glowing cheeks, in terror of being caught and banished and punished; but ardent and determined, she had nevertheless braved her father's displeasure. Bella fixed her eyes on the sculptor and said rapidly —
"Excuse me for coming to father's party, but I am in a great hurry. I want to speak to you about my Cousin Antony. He is a great genius," she informed earnestly, "a sculptor, just like you, only he can't get any work. If he had a chance he'd make perfectly beautiful things."
The other gentleman put out his hand and drew the child to him. Unused to fatherly caress, Bella held back, but was soon drawn within the Canon's arm. She held out her treasures: "He did these," and she presented to Cedersholm the white cast of her own foot.
"Cousin Antony explained that it is only a cast, and that anybody could do it, but it is awfully natural, isn't it? only so deadly white."
She held out a sheet of paper Fairfax had left at the last lesson. It bore a sketch of Bella's head and several decorative studies. Cedersholm regarded the cast and the paper.
"Who is Cousin Antony, my child?" asked the Canon.
"Mother's sister's son, from New Orleans – Antony Fairfax."
Cedersholm exclaimed, "Fairfax; but yes, I have a letter from a Mr. Fairfax. It came while I was in France."
The drawing and the cast in Cedersholm's possession seemed to have found their home. Bella felt all was well for Cousin Antony.
"Oh, listen!" she exclaimed, eagerly, "listen to our blackbird. Isn't it perfectly beautiful?"
"Divine indeed," replied the clergyman. "Are you Carew's little daughter?"
"Bella Carew. And I must go now, sir. Arabella is my real name."
She slipped from under the detaining arm. "Nobody knows I'm up. I'll lend you those," she offered her treasures to Cedersholm, "but I am very fond of the foot."
It lay in Cedersholm's hand without filling it. He said kindly —
"I quite understand that. Will you tell your Cousin Antony that I shall be glad to see him?"
"Oh, thank you," she nodded. "And he'll be very glad to see you."
Cedersholm, smiling, put the cast and the bit of paper back in her hands.
"I won't rob you of these, Miss Bella. Your cousin shall make me others."
As the little girl ran quickly out it seemed to the guests as if the blackbird's song went with her, for in a little while Jetty stopped singing.
"What a quaint, old-fashioned little creature," Cedersholm mused.
"Charming," murmured Canon Prynne, "perfectly charming. Now, my dear Cedersholm, there's your fellow for the Central Park pedestal."
CHAPTER XIV
The month was nearly at its end, and his money with it. Some time since, he had given up riding in the cars, and walked everywhere. This exercise was the one thing that tired him, because of his unequal stride. Nevertheless, he strode, and though it seemed impossible that a chap like himself could come to want, he finally reached his last "picayune," and at the same time owed the week's board and washing. The excitement of his new life thus far had stimulated him, but the time came when this stimulus was dead, and as he went up the steps of his uncle's house to be greeted on the stoop by a beggar woman, huddling by her basket under her old shawl, the sculptor looked sadly down at her greasy palm which she hopefully extended. Then, with a brilliant smile, he exclaimed —
"I wonder, old lady, just how poor you are?"
"Wurra," replied the woman, "if the wurrld was for sale for a cint, I couldn't buy it."
Beneath his breath he murmured, "Nor could I," and thought of his watch. Curiously enough, it had not occurred to him that he might pawn his father's watch.
He now looked forward with pleasure to the tri-weekly drawing lessons, for the friendly fires of his little cousins' hearts warmed his own. But on this afternoon they failed to meet him in the hall or to cry to him over the stairs or rush upon him like catapults from unexpected corners. As he went through the silent house its unusual quiet struck him forcibly, and he thought: "What a tomb it would be without the children!"
No one responded to his "Hello you," and at the entrance of the common play and study room Fairfax paused, to see Bella and Gardiner in their play aprons, their backs to the door, motionless before the table, one dark head and one light one bent over an object apparently demanding tender, reverent care.
At Fairfax's "Hello you all!" they turned, and the big cousin never forgot it as long as he lived – never forgot the Bella that turned, that called out in what the French call "a torn voice" —une voix dechirée. Afterwards it struck him that she called him "Antony" tout court, like a grown person as she rushed to him. He never forgot how the little thing flung herself at him, threw herself against his breast. For an answer to her appeal with a quick comprehension of grief, Antony bent and took her hand.
"Cousin Antony, Cousin Antony – "
"Why, Bella, Bella, little cousin, what's the matter?"
And above the sobs that he felt tremble through him, he asked of Gardiner – who, young as he was, stifled his tears back and gulped his own grief like a man —
"What's the row, old chap?"
But Bella told him passionately. "Jetty, Jetty's dead!"
Soothed by her cousin's hand on her head, she calmed, buried her face in the cool handkerchief with which he wiped her tears. In the circle of his arms Bella stood, tearful, sobbing, nothing but a child, and yet she appealed to Fairfax in her tears as she had not done before, and her abandon went to the core of his being and smote a bell which from thenceforth rang like her name – "Bella" – and he used to think that it was from that moment… Well, her tears at any rate stirred him as never did any tears in the world.
She wiped her eyes. "Jetty died last night; he sang himself to death. You should have heard him sing! This morning when they came to give him water and feed him, Jetty was dead."
Gardiner pointed to the table. "See, we've made him a coffin. We're going to his funewal now."
A discarded cigar box lined with cotton was the only coffin the children had found for the wild wood creature whose life had gone out in song.
"We don't know where to buwy him, Cousin Antony."
"I tried," Bella murmured, touching the blackbird's breast with gentle fingers, "I tried to write him a poem, an epitaph; but I cried so I couldn't."
She held Antony's handkerchief to her tear-stained cheek.
"May I keep your handkerchief for just this afternoon? It smells so delicious. You could make a cast of him, couldn't you? – like the death-mask of great men in father's books?"
Fairfax dissuaded them from the funeral, at which Gardiner was to say, "Now I lay me," and Fairfax had been elected to read the Lord's Prayer. He rolled the bird up in another handkerchief (he appeared to be rich in them) and put it reverently in his overcoat pocket, promising faithfully to see that Jetty should be buried in Miss Whitcomb's back yard, under the snow, and, moreover, to mark the place with a stick, so that the children could find it when spring came.
Then Bella, tear-stained but resigned, suggested that they should play "going to Siberia."
"I can't work to-day, Cousin Antony! Don't make me. It would seem like sewing on Sunday."
Without comment, Fairfax accepted the feminine inconsistency, and himself entered, with what spirit he might, into the children's game. "Going to Siberia" laid siege to all the rooms in the upper story. It was a mad rush on Fairfax's part, little Gardiner held in his arms, pursued by Bella as a wolf. It was a tear over beds and chairs, around tables, – a wild, screaming, excited journey, ending at last in the farthest room in the middle of the children's bed, where, one after another, they were thrown by the big cousin. The game was enriched by Fairfax's description of Russia and the steppes and the plains. But on this day Bella insisted that Gardiner, draped in a hearthrug, be the wolf, and that Fairfax carry her "because her heart ached." And if Gardiner's growls and baying failed to give the usual zest to the sport, the carrying by Fairfax of Bella was a new emotion! The twining round his neck of soft arms, the confusion of dark hair against his face, the flower-like breath on his cheeks, Bella's excitement of sighs and cries and giggles gave the game, for one player at least, fresh charm. Chased by Ann back into the studio, the play-mates fell on the sofa, worn out and happy; but, in the momentary calm, a little cousin on either side of him, the poor young man felt the cruel return of his own miseries and his own crisis.
"Misther Fairfax," said the Irish woman, "did the childhren give ye the letter what come to-day? I thawt Miss Bella'd not mind it, what wid funnerals and tearin' like a mad thing over the house!" (Ann's reproof was for Fairfax.) "Yez'll be the using up of little Gardiner, sir, the both of ye. The letther's forbye the clock. I putt it there m'self."
Fairfax, to whom no news could be but welcome, limped over to the mantel, where, by the clock, he perceived a letter addressed to him on big paper in a small, distinguished hand. He tore it open, Ann lit the gas, and he read —
Dear Mr. Fairfax,
"I have not answered your letter because I was so unfortunate as to have lost your address. Learning last night that you are a nephew of Mr. Carew, and sure of a response if I send this to his care, I write to ask that you will come in to see me to-day at three o'clock.
"Yours sincerely,"Gunner Cedersholm."
Fairfax gave an exclamation that was almost a cry, and looked at the clock. It was past four!
"When did this letter come?" His nerves were on end, his cheeks pale.
Bella sat forward on the sofa. "Why, Mother gave it me to give to you when you should come to-day, Cousin Antony."
In the strain to his patience, Fairfax was sharp. He bit his lip, snatched up his coat and hat.
"You should have given it me at once." His blue eyes flashed. "You don't know what you may have done. This may ruin my career! I've missed my appointment with Cedersholm. It's too late now."
He couldn't trust himself further, and, before Bella could regain countenance, he was gone.
Cut to the heart with remorse, crimson with astonishment, but more deeply wounded in her pride, the child sat immovable on the sofa.
"Bella," whispered her little brother, "I don't like Cousin Antony, do you?"
She looked at her brother, touched by Gardiner's chivalry.
"I fink he's a mean man, Bella."
"He's dreadful," she cried, incensed; "he's just too horrid for anything. Anyhow, it was me made Cedersholm write that letter for him, and he didn't even say he was obliged."
She ran to the window to watch Antony go, as he always did, on the other side of the road, in order that the children might see him. She hoped for a reconcilement, or a soothing wave of his hand; but Antony did not pass, the window was icy cold, and she turned, discomfited. At her foot – for as Antony had snatched up his coat he had wantonly desecrated a last resting-place – at her foot lay the blackbird. With a murmured word Bella lifted Jetty in both hands to her cheek, and on the cold breast and toneless throat the tears fell – Bella's first real tears.
CHAPTER XV
Fairfax went into the studio of the first sculptor in the United States with set determination to find work. Cedersholm was cool and absorbed, occupied and preoccupied, overburdened with orders, all of which meant money and fame, but required time. Fairfax was an hour and a half late, and, in spite of the refusal of the manservant, came limping in, and found the master taking a glass of hot milk and a biscuit. Cedersholm reposed on a divan in the corner of a vast studio giving on a less magnificent workroom. The studio was in semi-darkness, and a table near the sofa bore a lamp whose light lit the sculptor's face. To Fairfax, Cedersholm was a lion and wore a mane. In reality, he was a small, insignificant man who might have been a banker. The Southerner introduced himself, and when he was seated by the sculptor's side, began to expose his projects, to dream aloud. He could have talked for ever, but the sum of what he said was that he wanted to enter Cedersholm's studio.
"The old Italians took subordinates, sir," he pleaded.
"There are classes at Cooper Union," Cedersholm began.
But Fairfax, his clear eyes on the artist, said, "But I want to work under a genius."
The other, complimented, pushed his milk aside and wiped his lips.
"Well, of course, there is plenty of hard work to be done right here in this studio." He spoke cautiously and in a measured tone. "I have workmen with me, but no artists."
Fairfax patiently waited. He was as verdant as the young jasmine leaves, as inexperienced and guileless as a child.
"I had not thought of taking such an assistant as you represent, Mr. Fairfax." The older man fixed him with clever eyes. "A man must have no end of courage in him, no end of patience, no end of humility, to do what you say you want to do."
The young man bowed his head. "Courage, patience, and humility are the attributes of genius, sir."
"Yes," admitted Cedersholm, "they are, but ordinary talent will do very well in my workshop, and it is all that I need in a subordinate."
Fairfax smiled lightly. "I think I may say I am a good worker, Mr. Cedersholm. Any hod-carrier may say that without vanity, and if you turn me out, I'll take a mason's place at two dollars a day."
Cedersholm smiled. "You don't look like a mason," he said hesitatingly, "though you do appear muscular. What would be your suggestion with regard to our relations?"
(Fairfax's eager heart was saying, "Oh, teach me, Master, all you know; let me come and play with the clay, finger it, handle it; set me loose in that big, cool, silent room beyond there; let me wander where I can see the shadow of that cast and the white draped figure from where I sit.")
"You are a fairly good draftsman?" Cedersholm asked. "Have you any taste for decoration and applied design?"
"I think I have."
The Master rose. "Come to-morrow morning at ten and I'll give you something to do. I have just accepted a contract for interior decoration, a new house on Fifth Avenue. I might possibly make you useful there."
Fairfax walked home on air. He walked from Ninth Street, where the studio was, to his boarding-house, in the cold, still winter night – a long tramp. In spite of his limp he swung along, his coat open, his hat on the back of his head, his cheeks bright, his lips smiling. As he passed under the gas lamps they shone like Oriental stars. He no longer shivered at the cold and, warm with faith and confidence, his heart could have melted a storm. He fairly floated up Madison Avenue, and by his side the spirits of his ideals kept him company. Oh, he would do beautiful things for New York city. He would become great here. He would garland the metropolis with laurel, leave statues on its places, that should bear his name. At ten o'clock on the following day, he was to begin his apprenticeship, and he would soon show his power to Cedersholm. He felt that power now in him like wine, like nectar, and in his veins the spirit of creation, the impulse to art, rose like a draught. His aunt should be proud of him, his uncle should cease to despise him, and the children – they would not understand – but they would be glad.
When he reached his boarding-house, Miss Eulalie opened the door and cried out at the sight of his face —
"Oh, Mr. Antony; you've had good news, sir."
He put both hands on the thin shoulders, he kissed her roundly on both cheeks. The cold fresh air was on his cool fresh lips, and the kiss was as chaste as an Alpine breeze.
He cried: "Good news; well, I reckon I have! The great Mr. Cedersholm has given me a place in his studio."
He laughed aloud as she hung up his coat. Miss Eulalie's glasses were pushed up on her forehead – she might have been his grandmother.
"The Lord be praised!" she breathed. "I have been praying for you night and day."
"I shall go to Cedersholm to-morrow. I have not spoken about terms, but that will be all right, and if you ladies will be so good as to wait until Saturday – "
Of course they would wait. If it had not been that their means were so cruelly limited, they would never have spoken. Didn't he think?.. He knew! he thought they were the best, dearest friends a young fortune hunter could have. Wait, wait till they could see his name in the papers – Antony Fairfax, the rising sculptor! Wait until they could go with him to the unveiling of his work in Central Park!
Supper was already on the table, and Antony talked to them both until they could hardly wait for the wonders!
"When you're great you'll not forget us, Mr. Antony?"
"Forget them – !"
Over the cold mutton and the potato salad, Fairfax held out a hand to each, and the little old ladies each laid a fluttering hand in his. But it was at Miss Eulalie he looked, and the remembrance of his happy kiss on this first day of his good fortune, made her more maternal than she had ever hoped to be in her life.
There was a note for him on the table upstairs, a note in a big envelope with the business stamp of Mr. Carew's bank in the corner. It was addressed to him in red ink. He didn't know the handwriting, but guessed, and laughed, and drew the letter out.
"Dear Cousin Antony,
"I feel perfectly dreadful. How could I do such a selfish thing? I hope you will forgive me and come again. I drew two whole pages of parlel lines after you went away, some are nearly strait. I did it for punishment. You forgot the blackbird.
"Your little Bella."
What a cad he had been! He had forgotten the dead bird and been a brute to the little living cousin. As the remembrance of how she had flown to him in her tears came to him, a softer look crossed his face, fell like a veil over his eyes that had been dazzled by the visions of his art. He smiled at the childish signature, "Your little Bella." "Honey child!" he murmured, and as he fell asleep that night the figure of the little cousin mourning for her blackbird moved before him down the halls of fame.
