Fairfax had finished his lunch and was preparing to work again when, in
answer to a knock, he opened the door for Tito Falutini, who bore in in
his Sunday clothes, behind him a rosy, smiling, embarrassed lady, whom
Fairfax had not seen for a "weary while."
"_Mrs._ Falutini," grinned his fireman. "_I_ married! Shakka de han."
"Cora!" exclaimed Fairfax, kissing the bride on both her cheeks; "I
would have come to see your mother and you long ago, but I couldn't."
"Shure," said the Irish girl tenderly, her eyes full of tears. "I know,
Mr. Fairfax, dear, and so does the all of us."
He realized more and more how well these simple people knew and how
kindly is the heart of the poor, and he wondered if "Blessed are the
poor in spirit" that the Canon had spoken of in church on Sunday did not
refer to some peculiar kind of richness of which the millionaires of the
world are ignorant. He made Falutini and his bride welcome, and Cora's
brogue and her sympathy caused his grief to freshen. But their
boisterous happiness and their own content was stronger than all else,
and when at last Cora said, "Och, show us the statywary 't you're
makin', Misther Fairfax, dear," he languidly rose and uncovered again
his bas-relief. Then he watched curiously the Irish girl and the Italian
workman before his labour.
"Shure," Cora murmured, her eyes full of tears, "it's Molly herself, Mr.
Fairfax, dear. It's _living_."
He let the covering fall, and its folds suggested the garments of the
tomb.
The young couple, starting out in life arm-in-arm, had seen only life
in his production, and he was glad. He let them go without reluctance,
eager to return to his modelling, and to retouch a line in the woman's
figure, for the bas-relief was still warm clay, and had not been cast in
plaster, and he kept at his work until five o'clock in the afternoon,
when there was another knock at his door. He bade the intruder absently
"Come in," heard the door softly open and close, and the sound jarred
his nerves, as did every sound at that door, and with his scalpel in his
hand, turned sharply. In the door close to his shadow stood the figure
of a slender young girl. There was only the space of the room between
them, and even in his surprise he thought, "_Now_, there is nothing
else!"
"Cousin Antony," she said from the doorway where he had seen the vision,
"aren't you going to speak to me? Aren't you glad to see me?"
Her words were the first Fairfax had heard in the rich voice of a woman,
for the child tone had changed, and there was a "timbre" now in the tone
that struck the old and a new thrill. Her boldness, the bright assurance
seemed gone. He thought her voice trembled.
"Why don't you speak to me, Cousin Antony? Do you think I'm a _ghost_?"
(A ghost!)
Bella came forward as she spoke, and he saw that she wore a girlish
dress, a long dress, a womanly dress. With her old affectionate gesture
she held out her hand, and on her dark hair was a little red bonnet of
some fashion too modish for him to find familiar, but very bewitching
and becoming, and he saw that she was a lovely woman, nearly seventeen.
"I lost the precious little paper you gave me, Cousin Antony, that day
at church, and I only found it to-day in packing. I'm going home for the
Easter holidays."
He realized that she was close to him, and that she innocently lifted up
her face. Fairfax bent and kissed her under the red hat on the hair.
"Now," she cried, nodding at him, "I've hunted you down, tracked you to
your lair, and you _can't_ escape. I want to see your work. Show me
everything."
But Fairfax put his hand up quickly, and before her eyes rested on the
bas-relief he had let the curtain fall.
"You're not an engineer any more, then, Cousin Antony?"
"No, Bella."
"Tell me why you ran away from us as you did? Oh!" she exclaimed,
clasping her pretty hands, "I've thought over and over the questions I
wanted to ask you, things I wanted to tell you, and now I forget them
all. Cousin Antony, it wasn't _kind_ to leave us as you did,--Gardiner
and me."
He watched her as she took a chair, half-leaning on its back before his
covered work. Bella's pose was graceful and elegant. Girl as she was,
she was a little woman of the world. She swung her gloves between her
fingers, looking up at him.
"It's nearly five years, Cousin Antony."
"I know it."
She laughed and blushed. "I've been running after you, _shockingly_,
haven't I? I ran away from home and found you in the queer little street
in the queer little home with those _angel_ Irish people! How are they
all, Cousin Antony, and the freckled children?"
"Bella," her cousin asked, "haven't they nearly finished with you in
school? You are grown up."
She shook her head vehemently. "Nonsense, I'm a dreadful hoyden still.
Think of it! I've never been on the roll of honour yet at St. Mary's."
"No?" he smiled. "They were wrong not to put you there. How is Aunt
Caroline?"
The girl's face clouded, and she said half under her breath--
"_Why, don't you know?_"
Ah, there was another grave, then? What did Bella mean?
She exclaimed, stopped swinging her gloves, folded her hands gravely--
"Why, Cousin Antony, didn't you read in the papers?"
He saw a rush of colour fill her cheeks. It wasn't death, then? He
hadn't seen any papers for some time, and he never should have expected
to find his aunt's name in the papers.
"I don't believe I can tell you, Cousin Antony."
He drew up a chair and sat down by her. "Yes, you can, little cousin."
Her face was troubled, but she smiled. "Yes, that was what you used to
call me, didn't you? You see, I'm hardly supposed to know. It's not a
thing a girl _should_ know, Cousin Antony. Can't you guess?"
"Hardly, Bella."
Fairfax wiped his hands on a bunch of cloths, and the dry morsels of
clay fell to the floor.
"Tell me what it is about Aunt Caroline."
"She is not my mother any more, Cousin Antony, nor father's wife
either."
He waited. Bella's tone was low and embarrassed.
"I don't know how to tell it. She had a lovely voice, Cousin Antony."
"She had indeed, Bella."
"Well," slowly commented the young girl, "she took music lessons from a
teacher who sang in the opera, and I used to hear them at it until I
nearly lost my mind sometimes. I _hate music_--I mean that kind, Cousin
Antony."
"Well," he interrupted, impatient to hear the _denouement_. "What then,
honey?"
"One night at dinner-time mother didn't come home; but she is often
late, and we waited, and then went on without her.... She never came
home, and no one ever told me anything, not even old Ann. Father said I
was not to speak my mother's name again. And I never have, until now, to
you."
Fairfax took in his Bella's hands that turned the little rolled kid
gloves; they were cold. He bent his eyes on her. Young as she was, she
saw there and recognized compassion and human understanding, qualities
which, although she hardly knew their names, were sympathetic to her. He
bent his eyes on her.
"Honey," Fairfax said, "you have spoken your mother's name in the right
place. Don't judge her, Bella!"
"Oh!" exclaimed the young girl, crimsoning. She tossed her proud, dark
head. "I do judge her, Cousin Antony, I do."
"Hush!" he exclaimed sternly, "as you say, you are too young to
understand what she has done, but not too young to be merciful."
She snatched her hands away, and sprang up, her eyes rebellious.
"Why should I not judge her?" Her voice was indignant. "It's a disgrace
to my honourable father, to our name. How can you, Cousin Antony?"
Fairfax did not remove his eyes from her intense little face. "She was
never a mother to us," the young girl judged, with the cruelty of youth.
"Think how I ran wild! Do you remember my awful clothes? 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."
Fairfax understood. He thought how the way had opened to his weak,
sentimental aunt; he fancied that he saw again the doe at the gate of
the imposing park of the unreal forest; the gate had swung open, and,
her eyes as mild as ever, the doe had entered the mystic world. To him
this image of his aunt was perfect. Oh! mysterious, dreadful, wonderful
heart of woman!
Bella stood by his side, looking up at him. "Cousin Antony," she
breathed, "why do you take her part?"
"I want her daughter to take it, Bella, or say nothing."
Her dark eyes were on him intently, curiously. His throat was bare, his
blond hair cut close around his neck; the marks of his recent grief and
struggle had thinned and saddened his face. He had altered very much in
five years.
"I remember," Bella said sharply, "you used to seem fond of her;" and
added, "I loved my father best."
Fairfax made no reply, and Bella walked slowly across the studio, and
started to sit down under the green lamp.
"No," cried Fairfax, "not there, Bella!"
Her hand on the back of the chair, the young girl paused in surprise.
"Why, why not, Cousin Antony?"
Why not, indeed! He had not prevented Rainsford from sitting there.
"Is the chair weak in its legs?" she laughed. "I'm light--I'll risk it,"
and, half defiantly, she seated herself by the table, leaning both
elbows on it. She looked back at him. "Now, make a little drawing of me
as you used to do. I'll show it to the girls in school to prove what a
genius we have in the family; and I must go back, too, or I'll have more
bad marks than ever."
Fairfax did not obey her. Instead, he looked at her as though he saw
through her to eternity.
Bella sprang up impulsively, and came toward him. "Cousin Antony," she
murmured, "I'm perfectly dreadful. I'm selfish and inconsiderate. It's
only because I'm a little wild. I don't mean it. You've told me
nothing." She lifted his cravat from the chair. "You wear a black cravat
and your clothes are black. Is it for Aunt Arabella still?"
Fairfax seemed to himself to look down on her from a height. Her
brilliance, her sparkle and youth were far away. His heart ached within
him.
"One goes mighty far in five years, Bella.... One loses many things."
"I know--Gardiner and your mother. But who else?"
He saw her face sadden; the young girl extended her hand to him, her
eyes darkened.
"Who else?" she breathed.
Fairfax put out his arms toward her, but did not enfold her. He let his
hands rest on her shoulders and murmured, "Bella, little Bella," and
choked the other words back.
"No," she said, "I'm not little Bella any more. Please answer me, Cousin
Antony."
He could not have told her for his life. He could tell her nothing; her
charm, her lifted face, beautiful, ardent, were the most real, the most
vital things the world had ever held for him. The fascination found him
under his new grief. He exclaimed, turning brusquely toward his covered
scaffolding--
"Don't you want to see my work, Bella? I've been at it nearly a year."
He rapidly drew the curtain and exposed his bas-relief.
There was in the distance a vague indication of distant sky-line--a far
horizon--upon which, into which, a door opened, held ajar by a woman's
arm and hand. The woman's figure, draped in the clinging garment of the
grave, was passing through, but in going her face was turned, uplifted,
to look back at a man without, who, apparently unconscious of her, gazed
upon life and the world. That was all--the two figures and the feeling
of the vast illimitable far-away.
It seemed to Fairfax as he unveiled his work that he looked upon it
himself for the first time; it seemed to him finished, moreover,
complete. He knew that he could do nothing more with it. He heard Bella
ask, "Who is it, Cousin Antony? It is perfectly beautiful!" her old
enthusiasm soft and warm in her voice.
At her repeated question, "Who is it?" he replied, "A dream woman." And
his cousin said, "You have lovely dreams, but it is too sad."
He told her for what it was destined, and she listened, musing, and when
she turned her face to him again there were tears in her eyes. She
pointed to the panel.
"There should be a child there," she said, with trembling lips. "They go
in too, Cousin Antony."
"Yes," he responded, "they go in too."
He crossed the floor with her toward the door, neither of them speaking.
She drew on her gloves, but at the door he said--
"Stop a moment. I'm going a little way with you."
"No, Cousin Antony, you can't. Myra Scutfield, my best friend, is
waiting for me with her brother. I'm supposed to be visiting her for
Sunday. You mustn't come."
Her hand was on the door latch. He gently took her hand and pushed it
aside. He did not wish her to open that door or to go through it alone.
As they stood there silent, she lifted her face and said--
"I'm going away for the Easter holidays. Kiss me good-bye."
And he stooped and kissed her--kissed Bella, the little cousin, the
honey child--no, kissed Bella, the woman, on her lips.