Marie Van Vorst - Fairfax and His Pride - A Novel

"Oh, I'll do Gardiner one of these days, but I reckon I'll make another study to-day."

"Me?" Bella shook back her mane.

Her cousin considered her with an impersonal eye, whose expression she did not understand to be the artist's gauge and measure.

"Bella," he said shortly, "I'm going to make a cast of your foot."

She was sitting on the sofa and drew her feet under her.

"Only just my foot, Cousin Antony, not all of me?"

"Come now," said the sculptor, "it won't take long. It's heaps of sport."

He unrolled the paper parcel he had brought, unfolding a mass of snowy, delectable looking powder.

"Ask old Ann to fetch us a couple of basins, deep ones, some water and a little oil and salt."

When after toilsome journeys up and down the stairs of the four-storied house, the things had been fetched, Fairfax mixed his plaster, eagerly watched by the children. Perched on the edge of the divan, Bella brooded over the foaming, marvellous concoction, into whose milky bubbles she saw art fall like a star – a genius blossom like a flower. She gazed at Antony's hands as they plunged in and came out dripping; gazed as though she expected him to bring forth some peerless image his touch had called to life. His shirt sleeves rolled up over his fine arms, his close high-cropped and sunny hair warm upon his brow, his eyes sparkling, he bent an impassioned face over the milky plaster.

"Now," Fairfax said, "hurry along, Bella, I'm ready!"

She responded quietly. "I'm here. It's like a snow pie, Cousin Antony."

"Take off your shoe and stocking."

"Cousin Antony!"

A painful flush of red, the drawing under her more closely of the little legs, showed how far she had been from comprehending.

"Casts are taken from life, Bella," informed her cousin practically, "you'll see. I'm going to make a model from life, then watch what happens. I reckon you're not afraid, honey?"

Gardiner kicked his foot out from under the rugs. "Do mine."

With the first timidity Antony had seen her display, Bella divested herself of her shoe and drew off her dark stocking, and held him out the little naked foot, a charming, graceful concession to art.

"It's clean," she said simply.

He took it in his big hand and it lay like a pearl and coral thing in his palm. Bella did not hear his murmured artistic ecstasies. Fairfax deftly oiled the foot, kneeling before it as at a shrine of beauty. He placed it in one of the basins and poured the plaster slowly over it, sternly bidding her to control her giggles and her "ouches" as it could not harm.

"Keep perfectly still. Do not budge till the plaster sets."

"Oh, it's setting already," she told him, " hard ! You won't break off my foot, Cousin Antony?"

"Nonsense."

Whilst the cast set he recited for them "St. Agnes's Eve," a great favourite with the children, beyond their comprehension, but their hearts nevertheless stirred to the melody. As Fairfax leant down to break the model Bella helped him bravely.

" Now , might I put on my stocking, Cousin Antony?"

He had been pouring the warm plaster into the mould and had forgotten her, and was reproached.

The twilight gathered and made friends with the storm as they waited for the cast to harden. Old Ann came in and lighted the gas above the group on the old divan.

"Be the hivenly powers! Mr. Fairfax, ye've here a power of a dirt."

Fairfax, who had taken a fancy to the patient old creature, who had' known his mother and was really more a slave to the children than his own black Mammy, bore the scolding peacefully.

"Ye're the childest of the three, sor."

Antony caught her arm. "Wait and see, old Ann," and he kneeled before the cooled plaster and broke his model, released his work and held up the cast.

"For the love of hiven, Mr. Antony, it's Miss Bella's foot ye've got, sor."

She stared as at a miracle, then at her little lady as though she expected to see a missing member. Bella danced around it, pleaded for it, claimed it. Gardiner was allowed to feel how cold it was, and Fairfax took it home in his overcoat pocket, anxious to get safely away with it before his uncle came and smashed it, as he had the feeling that Mr. Carew would some day smash everything for him. That night when she undressed Bella regarded with favour the foot that had been considered worthy of a cast and extracted sacredly a bit of plaster which she found between the toes, and Antony Fairfax limped home to the House that Jack Built, his heavy step lighter for the fairy foot, the snow-white, perfect little foot he carried triumphantly in his pocket.

He was too sincerely an artist not to make pictures of all he saw, and, being sincere, he made his lines true, and then outlined the sketch, softening, moulding, moulding… His aunt's gentle inefficiency (she was kind to him, affectionate, and called him "her dear boy") was to Fairfax only charming, feminine softness, and he grew fond of Mrs. Carew, indulgent to her faults, listened half convinced to her arguments, admired her in her multitudinous toilettes, in all of which she was original, found her lovely and graceful. Her eyes were deer-like – not those of a startled fawn, but like a doe's who stands gazing at a perfect park, whose bosks she takes to be real forests. Mrs. Carew knew absolutely nothing of life. Fairfax at twenty-three, knew less of it, and he could not criticize her vision. He saw his uncle through Bella's eyes, but he never passed the master of the house in the halls, taking good care to escape him. It was not easy to associate fear with Bella; her father had not impressed her free mind with this sentiment.

"Father," she told Antony, "is the most important man in New York City, the cook said so. He might be President, but he doesn't want to; he likes his own work best. Father's work is making money, and he quite understands how hard such a thing is. That is why there is so little in the house, Cousin Antony. Even the cook hadn't a cent when I asked her to lend me a penny. We used to have five cents a week, but now mother has to be so careful that we're hard up. It's awful when there are treats on, Cousin Antony, because you see, you ought to do your share. That is why Gardiner and I always stick around together and say we don't like children… No," she said firmly, "I really couldn't take five cents, Cousin Antony; thank you ever so much. We're bound in honour not to; we promised never to take from a stranger; yes, I know you're not a stranger, and I forget to whom we promised, but I really couldn't, Cousin Antony."

Mrs. Carew could, however. One day, on her way to the magic car, as it waited with its lean horses and jingle-jangle to take the lady "sharping," that day she borrowed two dollars from Fairfax, who, being a pauper, had always money in his pocket; having in reality nowhere else to keep it – and having none to keep elsewhere. The two dollar bill went to join ghostly company with the drawing lessons money, and fluttered away to the country of unpaid bills, of forgotten obligations, of benefits forgot, and it is to be wondered if souls are ever at peace there.

"Father," said Bella, "is the 'soul of honour.' When Ann comes to rub Gardiner's feet at night (they are so often tired, Cousin Antony), she told me about father's character. She's awfully Irish, you wouldn't understand her. Father goes to 'board meetings' (I don't know what they are, but they're very important) and they call him 'your honour,' and Ann says it's all because of his soul. He never breaks his word , and when the bills come in…"

The drawing lessons went bravely and wearily on day after day. Because his aunt wished it, Fairfax guided Gardiner's inert fingers across the page and almost tied Bella to her chair. On drawing days he lunched with the household, and honestly earned his food. Half fed, keen with a healthy appetite, he ate gratefully. They had been pausing at the end of a half-hour's torture when Bella took up her monologue on her father's character.