Fairfax and His Pride: A Novel

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!"

CHAPTER XXVII

In the little room they used as parlour-kitchen and which to one of the inhabitants at least was lovely, Fairfax found Molly sitting by the window through which the spring light fell. The evening was warm. Molly wore a print dress, and in her bodice he saw that she had thrust a spray of pink geranium from the window-boxes that Antony had made and filled for her. Nothing that had claim to beauty failed to touch his senses, and he saw the charm of the picture in the pale spring light. He had softly turned the door-handle, and as there was a hand-organ playing without and Molly listening to the music, he entered without her hearing him.

"Is it yourself?" she exclaimed, startled. "You're home early, Tony."

He told her that he had come to take her for a little walk, and as she moved out of the light and came toward him, he thought he knew what Rainsford had meant. She was thin and yet not thin. The roundness had gone from her cheeks, and there was a mild sadness in her eyes. Reproached and impatient, suffering as keenly as she, he was nevertheless too kind of heart and nature not to feel the tragedy of her life. He drew her to him and kissed her. She made no response, and feeling her a dead weight he found that as he held her she had fainted away. He laid her on the bed, loosened her dress, and bathed her icy temples. Before she regained consciousness he saw her pallor, and that she had greatly changed. He was very gentle and tender with her when she came to herself; and, holding her, said —

"Molly, why didn't you tell me, dear? Why didn't you tell me?"

She had thought he would be angry with her.

He exclaimed, hurt: "Am I such a brute to you, Molly?"

Ah, no; not that. But two was all he could look out for.

He kneeled, supporting her. Oh, if he could only be glad of it, then she would be happy. She'd not let it disturb him. It would be sure to be beautiful and have his eyes and hair.

He listened, touched. There was a mystery, a beauty in her voice with its rich cadence, her trembling breath, her fast beating pulse, her excitement. Below in the street the organ played, "Gallagher's Daughter Belle," then changed to – ah, how could he bear it! – "My Old Kentucky Home." Tears sprang to his eyes. Motherhood was sacred to him. Was he to have a son? Was he to be a father? He must make her happy, this modest, undemanding girl whom he had made woman and a wife. He kissed her and she clung to him, daring to whisper something of her adoration and her gratitude.

When after supper he stood with her in the window and looked out over the river where the anchored steamers were in port for over Sunday, and the May sunset covered the crude brick buildings with a garment of glory, he was astonished to find that the stone at his heart which had lain there so long was rolled a little away. He picked up the geranium which Molly had worn at her breast and which had fallen when she fainted, and put it in his button-hole. It was crushed and sweet. Molly whispered that he would kill her with goodness, and that "she was heart happy."

"Are you, really?" he asked her eagerly. "Then we'll have old Rainsford to supper, and you must tell him so!"

CHAPTER XXVIII

Fairfax, stirred as he had been to the depths by his visit to New York, awake again to the voices of his visions, could give but little of himself to his home life or to his work. The greatest proof of his kindly heart was that he did not let Molly see his irritation or his agony of discontent. If he were only nothing but an engineer with an Irish wife! Why, why, was he otherwise? In his useless rebellion the visions came and told him why – told him that to be born as he was, gifted as he was, was the most glorious thing and the most suffering thing in the world.

To the agent who had accepted the Fairfax hospitality and come to supper, Tony said —

"To ease my soul, Peter, I want to tell you of something I did."

Molly had washed the dishes and put them away, and, with a delicate appreciation of her husband's wish to be alone with his friend, went into the next room.

"After mother died my old nigger mammy in New Orleans sent me a packet of little things. I could never open the parcel until the other day. Amongst the treasures was a diamond ring, Rainsford, one I had seen her wear when I was a little boy. I took it to a jeweller on Market Street, and he told me it was worth a thousand dollars."

Here Tony remained silent so long that his companion said —

"That's a lot of money, Tony."

"Well, it came to me," said the young man simply, "like a gift from her. I asked them to lend me five hundred dollars on it for a year. It seems that it's a peculiarly fine stone, and they didn't hesitate."

Rainsford was smoking a peaceful pipe, and he held the bowl affectionately in his hand, his attention fixed on the blond young man sitting in the full light of the evening. The night was warm, Fairfax was in snowy shirt-sleeves, his bright hair cropped close revealed the beautiful lines of his head; he was a powerful man, clean in habits of body and mind, and his expression as he talked was brilliant and fascinating, his eyes profound and blue. Around his knees he clasped the hands that drove an engine and ached to model in plaster and clay. His big shoe was a deformity, otherwise he was superb.

"I've taken a studio, Rainsford," he smiled. "Tito Falutini found it for me. It is a shed next to the lime-kiln in Canal Street. I've got my material and I'm going to begin my work for the California competition."

The older, to whom enthusiasm was as past a joy as success was a dim possibility, said thoughtfully —

"When will you work?"

"Sundays, half-holidays and nights. God!" he exclaimed in anticipation, holding out his strong arms, "it seems too good to be true!"

And Rainsford said, "I think I can contrive to get Saturdays off for you. The Commodore is coming up next week. He owes me a favour or two. I think I can make it for you, old man."

There was a little stir in the next room. Fairfax called "Molly!" and she came in. She might have been a lady. Long association with Fairfax and her love had taught her wonders. Her hair was carefully arranged and brushed until it shone like glass. Her dress was simple and refined; her face had the beauty on it that a great and unselfish love sheds.

"It means," said Rainsford to himself as he rose and placed a chair for her, "that Molly will be left entirely alone."

CHAPTER XXIX

What Rainsford procured for him in the Saturday holidays was worth the weight of its hours in gold. This, with Sundays, gave him two working days, and no lover went more eagerly to his mistress than Antony to the barracks where he toiled and dreamed. He began with too mad enthusiasm, lacking the patience to wait until his conceptions ripened. He roughly made his studies for an Angel of the Resurrection, inspired by the figure in the West Albany Cemetery. As he progressed he was conscious that his hand had been idle, as far as his art was concerned, too long; his fingers were blunted and awkward, and many an hour he paced his shed in agony of soul, conscious of his lack of technique. He was too engrossed to be aware of the passing months, but autumn came again with its wonderful haze, veiling death, decay and destruction, and Fairfax found himself but little more advanced than in May, when he had shut himself in his studio, a happy man.

He grew moody and tried to keep his despair from his wife, for not the least of his unrest was caused by the knowledge that he was selfish with her for the sake of his art. By October he had destroyed a hundred little figures, crushed his abortive efforts to bits, and made a clean sweep of six months' work and stood among the ruins. He never in these moments thought of his wife as a comforter, having never opened his heart to her regarding his art. He shrank from giving her entrance into his sanctuaries. He was alone in his crisis of artistic infecundity.

On this Sunday morning he left his studio early, turned the key and walked up Eagle Street toward the church he had not entered since he was married. Led by discontent and by a hope that beneath the altar in his old place he might find peace and possibly hear a voice which would tell him as every creator must be told – HOW. He listened to the music and to the Litany, the rich, full voices singing their grave, solemn pagan appeal; but the sensuous ecstasy left Fairfax indifferent and cold. To-day there were no visions around the altar through whose high windows came the autumn glory staining the chancel like the Grail. His glance wandered to the opposite side of the church where in the front pew were the young scholars of Canon's School, a bevy of girls; and he thought with a pang of Bella. She wouldn't be little Bella Carew much longer, for she was nearly sixteen, charming little Bella. He thought of the statue he had made and which had been so wantonly destroyed, and with this came the feeling that everything he touched had been warped and distorted. Ashamed of this point of view, he sighed and rose with the others at the Creed. He repeated it with conviction, and at the words, "Resurrection and the Life Everlasting," he dwelt upon "Everlasting Life" as though he would draw from the expression such consolation as should make him belittle the transient show with its mass of failures and unhappy things, and render immortal only that in him which was still aspiring, still his highest. He was glad to see instead of the curate a man with a red hood mount the pulpit steps, and he knew it was the Canon himself. With a new interest in his mind he sat erect.

For the first time since he had come to the North a man whom he could revere and admire stood before him. The Canon's clear-cut heavenly face, his gracious voice, his outstretched hand as he blessed his people, made an agreeable impression on the young man out of his element, nearly shipwrecked and entirely alone. It occurred to him to speak to the Canon after service; but what should he say? What appeal could he make? He was an engineer married to a Roman Catholic woman of the other class, too poor a specimen of his own class to remain in it. Since his marriage he had felt degraded in society, out of place. If the Canon had advice to give him, it would be to shut up his studio and devote himself to his wife.

He wandered slowly out of the building amongst the others into the golden autumn day, and the music of the organ rolled after him like a rich blessing. He waited to let the line of schoolgirls pass him, and all of a sudden as he looked at them their ranks broke, he heard a cry, an exclamation, and a call —

"Cousin Antony!"

Before she could be prevented she had flown to him. Not throwing herself against him in the old mad sweetness of her impulsive nature, – both pretty gloved hands were held out to him and her upturned face lifted all sparkle and brilliance, her red lips parted. "Oh, Cousin Antony!"

Both Fairfax's hands held hers.

"Quick!" she cried, "before Miss Jackson comes out. Where do you live? When will you come to see me? But you can't come! We're not allowed to have gentlemen callers! When can I come to see you? Dear Cousin Antony, how glad I am!"

"Bella!" he murmured, and gazed at her.

The rank-and-file of schoolgirls, giggling, outraged and diverted, passed them by, and the stiff teachers were the last to appear from the church.

"Tell me," Bella repeated, "where do you live? I'll write you. I've composed tons of letters, but I forgot the number in Nut Street. Here's Miss Jackson, the horrid thing! Hurry, Cousin Antony."

He said, "Forty, Canal Street," and wondered why he had told her.

Miss Jackson and Miss Teeter passed the two, and were so absorbed in discussing the text of the sermon that neither saw Mistress Bella Carew.

"I'm safe," she cried, "the old cats! The girls will never tell – they're all too sweet. But I must go; I'll just say I've dropped my Prayer-book. There, you take it!"

And she was gone.

Antony stood staring at the flitting figure as Bella ran after the others down the steps like an autumn leaf blown by a light wind. She wore a brown dress down to her boot tops (her boots too were brown with bows at the tops); her little brown gloves had held his hand in what had been the warmest, friendliest clasp imaginable. She wore a brown hat with a plume in it that drooped and dangled, and Antony had looked into her brown eyes and seen their bright affection once more.

Well, he had known that she was going to be like this! Not quite, though; no man ever knows what a woman can be, will be, or ever is. He felt fifty years old as he walked down the steps and turned towards Canal Street to the door he had fastened four hours before on his formless visions.

CHAPTER XXX

He did not go home that day.

Towards late evening he sat in the twilight, his head in his hands, a pile of smoked cigarettes and Bella's Prayer-book on the table before him… In the wretched afternoon he had read, one after another, the services: Marriage … for better or for worse, till death do us part… The Baptismal service, and the Burial for the Dead.