Fairfax and His Pride: A Novel

"Goats, Bella! I see a pedestal some ten feet high, and on it at its four corners, before they poise the Sphinx – what do you think I see, Bella?"

"… Cousin Antony, that boy there has the sweetest goats. They're almost clean! Too dear for anything! With such cunning noses!"

He dropped his arm and put his hand on the little girl's shoulder and turned her round.

"I'm disappointed in you for the first time, honey," he said.

"Oh, Cousin Antony."

"Little cousin, this is where my creatures, my beautiful bronze creatures, are to be eternally set – there, there before your eyes." He pointed to the blue May air.

"Cousin Antony," said Gardiner's slow voice, "the only thing I'm not too tired to do is to wide in a goat carwage."

Fairfax lifted the little boy in his arms. "If I lift you, Gardiner, like this, high in my arms, you could just about see the top of the pedestal. Wait till it's unveiled, my hearties! Wait – wait!"

He put Gardiner down with a laugh and a happy sigh, and then he saw the goats.

"Do you want a ride, children?"

"Did they!"

He ran his hands through the pockets that had been wantonly emptied.

"Not a picayune, honey. Your poor old cousin is dead broke."

"Then," said Bella, practically, "let's go right away from here, Cousin Antony. I can't bear to look at those goats another minute. It hurts."

Fairfax regarded her thoughtfully. "Bella the Desirous," he murmured. "What are you going to be when you grow up, little cousin?"

They started slowly away from temptation, away from the vision of the pedestal and the shadowy creatures, and the apparition of the Sphinx seemed to brood over them as they went, and nothing but a Sphinx's wisdom could have answered the question Fairfax put: "What are you going to be when you grow up, little Bella?"

Fairfax soon carried the little boy, and Bella in a whisper said —

"He is almost too small for our parties, Cousin Antony."

"Not a bit," said the limping cousin, stoically. "We couldn't get on without him, could we, old chap?"

But the old chap didn't answer, for he had fallen asleep as soon as his head touched his cousin's shoulder.

When Fairfax left them at their door, he was surprised at Bella's melancholy. She held out to him the sticky remnant of the roll of lozenges.

"Please take it. I shouldn't be allowed to eat it."

"But what on earth's the matter?" he asked.

"Never mind," she said heroically, "you don't have to bear it. You're Episcopalian; but I've got to tell!" She sighed heavily. "I don't care; it was worth it!"

As the door clicked behind the children, Fairfax laughed.

"What a little trump she is! She thinks the game is worth the candle!"

CHAPTER XIX

That miserable foot of his gave him pain. The unusual strain of standing long at his work, the tramps he took to save car-fare, wearied him, and he was finally laid up for ten days. No one missed him, apparently, and the long, painful hours dragged, and he saw no one but his little landladies. His mother, as if she knew, sent him extra money and wonderful letters breathing pride in him and confidence in his success. When he was finally up and setting forth again to the studio, a visitor was announced. 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. He eagerly leaned forward and kissed his visitor.

"It's mighty good of you, Auntie."

"No, my dear boy, it isn't! I really didn't know you were ill. We would have sent you things from the Buckingham. Our own cook is so poor."

She couldn't sit down, she had just run in on her way to shop. She had something to say to him…

"What's wrong, Aunt Caroline?"

His aunt took a seat beside him on the bed. Her dove-like eyes wandered about his room, bare save for the drawings on the walls and on a chair in the corner, a cast covered by a wet cloth. Mrs. Carew's hands clasped over her silk bead purse hanging empty between the rings.

"I have come to ask a great favour of you, Antony."

He repeated, in astonishment, "Of me– why, Auntie, anything that I can do…"

Mrs. Carew's slender figure undulated, the sculptor thought. She made him think of a swan – of a lily. Her pale, ineffectual features had an old-fashioned loveliness. He put his hand over his aunt's. He murmured devotedly —

"You must let me do anything there is to do."

"I am in debt, Tony," she murmured, tremulously. "Your uncle gives me so little money – it's impossible to run the establishment."

He exclaimed hotly, "It's a shame, Aunt Caroline."

"Henry thinks we spend a great deal of money, but I like to dress the children well."

Her nephew recalled Bella's wardrobe. Mrs. Carew, as though she confessed a readily-forgiven fault, whispered —

"I am so fond of bric-à-brac, Antony."

He could not help smiling.

"Down in Maiden Lane last week I bought a beautiful lamp for the front hall. I intended paying for it by instalments; but I've not been able to save enough – the men are waiting at the house. I can't tell your uncle, I really can't. He would turn me out of doors."

Over Fairfax's mind flashed the picture of the "Soul of honour" confronted by a debt to a Jew ironmonger. His aunt's daily pilgrimage began to assume a picturesqueness and complexity that were puzzling.

"Carew's a brute," he said, shortly. "I can't see why you married him."