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The Nest Builder

B >> Beatrice Forbes Robertson Hale >> The Nest Builder




"There's draughtsmanship in that," he said; "she might have made an
etcher. It's drawing, but it's certainly not handwriting."

On the evening of the party Stefan insisted on helping Mary to dress.
Together they opened the great green box and spread its contents on the
bed. The Creator of Raiment had not done things by halves. In addition to
the gown, she had supplied a wreath of pale white and gold metals,
representing two ears of wheat arranged to meet in a point over the brow,
and a pair of gilded shoes made on the sandal plan, with silver-white
buckles. Pinned to the gown was a printed green slip, reading "No
corsets, petticoats or jewelry may be worn with this garb."

The dress was of heavy gold tissue, magnificently draped in generous
classic folds. It left the arms bare, the drapery being fastened on
either shoulder with great brooches of white metal, reproduced, as Stefan
at once recognized, from Greek models. Along all the edges of the drapery
ran a border of ears of wheat, embroidered in deep gold and pale silver.
Mary, who had hitherto only peeped at the gown, felt quite excited when
she saw it flung across the bed.

"Oh, Stefan, I do think it will be becoming," she cried, her cheeks
bright pink. She had never dreamed of owning such a dress.

He was enchanted. "It's a work of art. Very few women could wear it, but
on you--! Well, it's worthy of you, Beautiful."

During the dressing he made her quite nervous by his exact attention to
every detail. The arrangement of her hair and the precise position of the
wreath had to be tried and tried again, but the result justified him.

"Olympian Deity," he cried, "I must kneel to you!" And so he did, gaily
adoring, with a kiss for the hem of her robe. They started in the highest
spirits, Stefan correct this time in an immaculate evening suit which
Mary had persuaded him to order. As they prepared to enter the drawing
room he whispered, "You'll be a sensation. I'm dying to see their faces."

"Don't make me nervous," she whispered back.

By nature entirely without self-consciousness, she had become very
sensitive since the Danaë publicity. But her nervousness only heightened
her color, and as with her beautiful walk she advanced into the room
there was an audible gasp from every side. Constance pounced upon her.

"You perfectly superb creature! You ought to have clouds rolling under
your feet. There, I can't express myself. Come and receive homage. Mr.
Byrd, you're the luckiest man on earth--I hope you deserve it all--but
then of course no man could. Mary, here are two friends of yours--Mr.
Byrd, come and be presented to Felicity."

Farraday and McEwan had advanced toward them and immediately formed the
nucleus of a group which gathered about Mary. Stefan followed his hostess
across the room to a green sofa, on which, cigarette in hand, reclined
Miss Berber, surrounded by a knot of interested admirers.

"Yes, Connie," that lady murmured, with the ghost of a smile, "I've met
Mr. Byrd. He brought his wife to the Studio." She extended a languid hand
to Stefan, who bowed over it.

"Ah! I might have known you had a hand in that effect," Constance
exclaimed, looking across the room toward Mary.

"Of course you might," the other sighed, following her friend's eyes.
"It's perfect, I think; don't you agree, Mr. Byrd?" and she actually rose
from the sofa to obtain a better view.

"Absolutely," answered Stefan, riveted in his turn upon her.

Miss Berber was clad in black tulle, so transparent as barely to obscure
her form. Sleeves she had none. A trifle of gauze traveled over one
shoulder, leaving the other bare save for a supporting strap of tiny
scarlet beads. Her triple skirt was serrated like the petals of a black
carnation, and outlined with the same minute beads. Her bodice could
scarcely be said to exist, so deep was its V. From her ears long
ornaments of jet depended, and a comb in scarlet bead-work ran wholly
across one side of her head. A flower of the same hue and workmanship
trembled from the point of her corsage. She wore no rings, but her nails
were reddened, and her sleek black hair and scarlet lips completed the
chromatic harmony. The whole effect was seductive, but so crisp as to
escape vulgarity.

"I must paint you, Miss Berber," was Stefan's comment.

"All the artists say that." She waved a faint expostulation.

Her hands, he thought, had the whiteness and consistency of a camelia.

"All the artists are not I, however," he answered with a smiling shrug.

"Greek meets Greek," thought Constance, amused, turning away to other
guests.

"I admit that." Miss Berber lit another cigarette. "I have seen your
Danaë. The people who have painted me have been fools. Obvious--treating
me like an advertisement for cold cream."

She breathed a sigh, and sank again to the sofa. Her lids drooped as if
in weariness of such banalities. Stefan sat beside her, the manner of
both eliminating the surrounding group.

"One must have subtlety, must one not?" she murmured.

How subtle she was, he thought; how mysterious, in spite of her obvious
posing! He could not even tell whether she was interested in him.

"I shall paint you, Miss Berber," he said, watching her, "as a Nixie.
Water creatures, you know, without souls."

"No soul?" she reflected, lingering on a puff of smoke. "How chic!"

Stefan was delighted. Hopefully, he broke into French. She replied with
fluent ease, but with a strange, though charming, accent. The exotic
French fitted her whole personality, he felt, as English could not do. He
was pricked by curiosity as to her origin, and did not hesitate to ask
it, but she gave her shadow of a smile, and waved her cigarette vaguely.
"Quién sabe?" she shrugged.

"Do you know Spanish?" he asked in French, seeking a clue.

"Only what one picks up in California." He was no nearer a solution.

"Were you out there long?"

She looked at him vaguely. "I should like some coffee, please."

Defeated, he was obliged to fetch a cup. When he returned, it was to find
her talking monosyllabic English to a group of men.

Farraday and McEwan had temporarily resigned Mary to a stream of
newcomers, and stood watching the scene from the inner drawing room.

"James," said McEwan, "get on to the makeup of the crowd round our lady,
and compare it with the specimens rubbering the little Berber."

Farraday smiled in his grave, slow way.

"You're right, Mac, the substance and the shadow."

Many of the women seated about the room were covertly staring at
Felicity, but so far none had joined her group. This consisted, besides
Stefan, of two callow and obviously enthralled youths, a heavy semi-bald
man with paunched eyes and a gluttonous mouth, and a tall languid person
wearing tufts of hair on unexpected parts of his face, and showing the
hands of a musician.

Round Mary stood half a dozen women, their host, the kindly and practical
Mr. Elliot, a white-haired man of distinguished bearing, and a gigantic
young viking with tawny hair and beard and powerful hands.

"That's Gunther, an A1 sculptor," said McEwan, indicating the viking, who
was looking at Mary as his ancestors might have looked at a vision of
Freia.

"They're well matched, eh, James?"

"As well as she could be," the other answered gravely. McEwan looked at
his friend. "Mon," he said, relapsing to his native speech, "come and hae
a drop o' the guid Scotch."

Constance had determined that Felicity should dance, in spite of her
well-known laziness. At this point she crossed the room to attack her,
expecting a difficult task, but, to her surprise, Felicity hardly
demurred. After a moment of sphinx-like communing, she dropped her
cigarette and rose.

"Mr. Byrd is going to paint me as something without a soul--I think I
will dance," she cryptically vouchsafed.

"Shall I play?" offered Constance, delighted.

Miss Berber turned to the languid musician.

"Have you your ocarina, Marchmont?" she breathed.

"I always carry it, Felicity," he replied, with a reproachful look,
drawing from his pocket what appeared to be a somewhat contorted
meerschaum pipe.

"Then no piano to-night, Connie. A little banal, the piano, perhaps." Her
hands waved vaguely.

A space was cleared; chairs were arranged.

Miss Berber vanished behind a portiere. The languid Marchmont draped
himself in a corner, and put the fat little meerschaum to his lips. A
clear, jocund sound, a mere thread of music, as from the pipe of some
hidden faun, penetrated the room. The notes trembled, paused, and fell to
the minor. Felicity, feet bare, toes touched with scarlet, wafted into
the room. Her dancing was incredibly light; she looked like some exotic
poppy swaying to an imperceptible breeze. The dance was languorously sad,
palely gay, a thing half asleep, veiled. It seemed always about to break
into fierce life, yet did not. The scent of mandragora hung over it--it
was as if the dancer, drugged, were dreaming of the sunlight.

When, waving a negligent hand to the applause, Felicity passed Stefan at
the end of her dance, he caught a murmured phrase from her.

"Not soulless, perhaps, but sleeping." Whether she meant this as an
explanation of her dance or of herself he was not sure.

Mary watched the dance with admiration, and wished to compare her
impressions of it with her husband's. She tried to catch his eye across
the room at the end, but he had drifted away toward the dining room.
Momentarily disappointed, she turned to find Farraday at her elbow, and
gladly let him lead her, also, in search of refreshments. There was a
general movement in that direction, and the drawing room was almost empty
as McEwan, purpose in his eye, strode across it to Constance. He spoke to
her in an undertone.

"Sing? Does she? I had no idea! She never tells one such things," his
hostess replied. "Do you think she would? But she has no music. You could
play for her? How splendid, Mr. McEwan. How perfectly lovely of you. I'll
arrange it." She hurried out, leaving McEwan smiling at nothing in
visible contentment. In a few minutes she returned with Mary.

"Of course I will if you wish it," the latter was saying, "but I've no
music, and only know foolish little ballads."

"Mr. McEwan says he can vamp them all, and it will be too delightful to
have something from each of my women stars," Constance urged. "Now I'll
leave you two to arrange it, and in a few minutes I'll get every one back
from the dining room," she nodded, slipping away again.

"Cruel man, you've given me away," Mary smiled.

"I always brag about my friends," grinned McEwan. They went over to the
piano.

"What price the Bard! Do you know this?" His fingers ran into the old air
for "Sigh No More, Ladies." She nodded.

"Yes, I like that."

"And for a second," he spun round on his stool, "what do you say to a
duet?" His candid blue eyes twinkled at her.

"A duet!" she exclaimed in genuine surprise. "Do you sing, Mr. McEwan?"

"Once in a while," and, soft pedal down, he played a few bars of
Marzials' "My True Love Hath My Heart," humming the words in an easy
barytone.

"Oh, what fun!" exclaimed Mary. "I love that." They tried it over, below
their breaths.

The room was filling again. People began to settle down expectantly;
McEwan struck his opening chords.

Just as Mary's first note sounded, Stefan and Felicity entered the room.
He started in surprise; then Mary saw him smile delightedly, and they
both settled themselves well in front.

"'Men were deceivers ever,'" sang Mary, with simple ease, and "'Hey
nonny, nonny.'" The notes fell gaily; her lips and eyes smiled.

There was generous applause at the end of the little song. Then McEwan
struck the first chords of the duet.

"'My true love hath my heart,'" Mary sang clearly, head up, eyes shining.
"'My true love hath my heart,'" replied McEwan, in his cheery barytone.

"'--And I have his,'" Mary's bell tones announced.

"'--And I have his,'" trolled McEwan.

"'There never was a better bargain driven,'" the notes came, confident
and glad, from the golden figure with its clear-eyed, glowing face. They
ended in a burst of almost defiant optimism.

Applause was hearty and prolonged. McEwan slipped from his stool and
sought a cigarette in the adjoining room. There was a general
congratulatory movement toward Mary, in which both Stefan and Felicity
joined. Then people again began to break into groups. Felicity found her
sofa, Mary a chair. McEwan discovered Farraday under the arch between the
two drawing-rooms, and stood beside him to watch the crowd. Stefan had
moved with Felicity toward her sofa, and, as she disposed herself, she
seemed to be talking to him in French. McEwan and Farraday continued
their survey. Mary was surrounded by people, but her eyes strayed across
the room. Felicity appeared almost animated, but Stefan seemed
inattentive; he fidgeted, and looked vague.

A moment more, and quite abruptly he crossed the room, and planted
himself down beside Mary.

"Ah," sighed McEwan, apparently à propos of nothing, and with a trace of
Scotch, "James, I'll now hae another whusky."




PART III

THE NESTLING

I


Stefan's initial and astonishing success was not to be repeated that
winter. The great Constantine, anxious to benefit by the flood tide of
his client's popularity, had indeed called at the studio in search of
more material, but after a careful survey, had decided against exhibiting
"Tempest" and "Pursuit." Before these pictures he had stood wrapped in
speculation for some time, pursing his lips and fingering the over-heavy
seals of his fob. Mary had watched him eagerly, deeply curious as to the
effect of the paintings. But Stefan had been careless to the point of
rudeness; he had long since lost interest in his old work. When at last
the swarthy little dealer, who was a Greek Jew, and had the keen,
perceptions of both races, had shaken his head, Mary was not surprised,
was indeed almost glad.

"Mr. Byrd," Constantine had pronounced, in his heavy, imperfect English,
"I think we would make a bad mistake to exhibit these paintings now.
Technically they are clever, oh, very clever indeed, but they would be
unpopular; and this once," he smiled shrewdly, "the public would be right
about it. Your Danaë was a big conception as well as fine painting; it
had inspiration--feeling--" his thick but supple hands circled in
emphasis--"we don't want to go back simply to cleverness. When you paint
me something as big again as that one I exhibit it; otherwise," with a
shrug, "I think we spoil our market."

After this visit Stefan, quite unperturbed, had turned the two fantasies
to the wall.

"I dare say Constantine is right about them," he said; "they are rather
crazy things, and anyhow, I'm sick of them."

Mary was quite relieved to have them hidden. The merman in particular had
got upon her nerves of late.

As the winter advanced, the Byrds' circle of acquaintances grew, and many
visitors dropped into the studio for tea. These showed much interest in
Stefan's new picture, a large study of Mary in the guise of Demeter, for
which she was posing seated, robed in her Berber gown. Miss Mason in
particular was delighted with the painting, which she dubbed a "companion
piece" to the Danaë. The story of Constantine's decision against the two
salon canvases got about and, amusingly enough, heightened the Byrds'
popularity. The Anglo-Saxon public is both to take its art neat,
preferring it coated with a little sentiment. It now became accepted that
Stefan's genius was due to his wife, whose love had lighted the torch of
inspiration.

"Ah, Mr. Byrd," Miss Mason had summed up the popular view, in one of her
rare romantic moments, "the love of a good woman--!" Stefan had looked
completely vague at this remark, and Mary had burst out laughing.

"Why, Sparrow," for so, to Miss Mason's delight, she had named her,
"don't be Tennysonian, as Stefan would say. It was Stefan's power to feel
love, and not mine to call it out, that painted the Danaë," and she
looked at him with proud tenderness.

But the Sparrow was unconvinced. "You can't tell me. If 'twas all in him,
why didn't some other girl over in Paris call it out long ago?"

"Lots tried," grinned Stefan, with his cheeky-boy expression.

"Ain't he terrible," Miss Mason sighed, smiling. She adored Mary's
husband, but consistently disapproved of him.

Try as she would, Mary failed to shake her friends' estimate of her share
in the family success. It became the fashion to regard her as a muse, and
she, who had felt oppressed by Stefan's lover-like deification, now found
her friends, too, conspiring to place her on a pedestal. Essentially
simple and modest, she suffered real discomfort from the cult of
adoration that surrounded her. Coming from a British community which she
felt had underestimated her, she now found herself made too much of. A
smaller woman would have grown vain amid so much admiration; Mary only
became inwardly more humble, while outwardly carrying her honors with
laughing deprecation.

For some time after the night of Constance's reception, Stefan had shown
every evidence of contentment, but as the winter dragged into a cold and
slushy March he began to have recurrent moods of his restless
irritability. By this time Mary was moving heavily; she could no longer
keep brisk pace with him in his tramps up the Avenue, but walked more
slowly and for shorter distances. She no longer sprang swiftly from her
chair or ran to fetch him a needed tool; her every movement was matronly.
But she was so well, so entirely normal, as practically to be unconscious
of a change to which her husband was increasingly alive.

Another source of Stefan's dissatisfaction lay in the progress of his
Demeter. This picture showed the Goddess enthroned under the shade of a
tree, beyond which spread harvest fields in brilliant sunlight. At her
feet a naked boy, brown from the sun, played with a pile of red and
golden fruits. In the distance maids and youths were dancing. The Goddess
sat back drowsily, her eyelids drooping, her hands and arms relaxed over
her chair. She had called all this richness into being, and now in the
heat of the day she rested, brooding over the fecund earth. So far, the
composition was masterly, but the tones lacked the necessary depth; they
were vivid where they should have been warm, and he felt the deficiency
without yet having been able to remedy it.

"Oh, damn!" said Stefan one morning, throwing down his brush. "This
picture is architectural, absolutely. What possessed me to try such a
conception? I can only do movement. I can't be static. Earth! I don't
understand it--everything good I've done has been made of air and fire,
or water." He turned an irritable face to Mary.

"Why did you encourage me in this?"

She looked up in frank astonishment, about to reply, but he forestalled
her.

"Oh, yes, I know I was pleased with the idea--it isn't your fault, of
course, and yet--Oh, what's the use!" He slapped down his pallette and
made for the door. "I'm off to get some air," he called.

Mary felt hurt and uneasy. The nameless doubts of the autumn again
assailed her. What would be the end, she wondered, of her great
adventure? The distant prospect vaguely troubled her, but she turned
easily from it to the immediate future, which held a blaze of joy
sufficient to obliterate all else.

The thought of her baby was to Mary like the opening of the gates of
paradise to Christian the Pilgrim. Her heart shook with joy of it. She
passed through her days now only half conscious of the world about her.
She had, together with her joy, an extraordinary sense of physical well-
being, of the actual value of the body. For the first time she became
actively interested in her beauty. Even on her honeymoon she had never
dressed to please her husband with the care she now gave to the donning
of her loose pink and white negligées and the little boudoir caps she had
bought to wear with them. That Stefan paid her fewer compliments, that he
often failed to notice small additions to her wardrobe, affected her not
at all. "Afterwards he will be pleased; afterwards he will love me more
than ever," she thought, but, even so, knew that it was not for him she
was now fair, but for that other. She did not love Stefan less, but her
love was to be made flesh, and it was that incarnation she now adored. If
she had been given to self-analysis she might have asked what it boded
that she had never--save for that one moment's adoration of his genius
the day he completed the Danaë--felt for Stefan the abandonment of love
she felt for his coming child. She might have wondered, but she did not,
for she felt too intensely in these days to have much need of thought.
She loved her husband--he was a great man--they were to have a child. The
sense of those three facts made up her cosmos.

Farraday had asked her in vain on more than one occasion for another
manuscript. The last time she shook her head, with one of her rare
attempts at explanation, made less rarely to him than to her other
friends.

"No, Mr. Farraday, I can't think about imaginary children just now.
There's a spell over me--all the world waits, and I'm holding my breath.
Do you see?"

He took her hand between both his.

"Yes, my dear child, I do," he answered, his mouth twisting into its sad
and gentle smile. He had come bringing a sheaf of spring flowers,
narcissus, and golden daffodils, which she was holding in her lap. He
thought as he said good-bye that she looked much more like Persephone
than the Demeter of Stefan's picture.

In spite of her deep-seated emotion, Mary was gay and practical enough in
these late winter days, with her small household tasks, her occasional
shopping, and her sewing. This last had begun vaguely to irritate Stefan,
so incessant was it.

"Mary, do put down that sewing," he would exclaim; or "Don't sing the
song of the shirt any more to-day;" and she would laughingly fold her
work, only to take it up instinctively again a few minutes later.

One evening he came upon her bending over a table in their sitting room,
tracing a fine design on cambric with a pencil. Something in her pose and
figure opened a forgotten door of memory; he watched her puzzled for a
moment, then with a sudden exclamation ran upstairs, and returned with a
pad of paper and a box of water-color paints. He was visibly excited.
"Here, Mary," he said, thrusting a brush into her hand and clearing a
place on the table. "Do something for me. Make a drawing on this pad,
anything you like, whatever first comes into your head." His tone was
eagerly importunate. She looked up in surprise, "Why, you funny boy! What
shall I draw?"

"That's just it--I don't know. Please draw whatever you want to--it
doesn't matter how badly--just draw something."

Mystified, but acquiescent, Mary considered for a moment, looking from
paper to brush, while Stefan watched eagerly.

"Can't I use a pencil?" she asked.

"No, a brush, please, I'll explain afterwards."

"Very well." She attacked the brown paint, then the red, then mixed some
green. In a few minutes the paper showed a wobbly little house with a red
roof and a smudged foreground of green grass with the suggestion of a
shade-giving tree.

"There," she laughed, handing him the pad, "I'm afraid I shall never be
an artist," and she looked up.

His face had dropped. He was staring at the drawing with an expression of
almost comic disappointment.

"Why, Stefan," she laughed, rather uncomfortably, "you didn't think I
could draw, did you?"

"No, no, it isn't that, Mary. It's just--the house. I thought you might
--perhaps draw birds--or flowers."

"Birds?--or flowers?" She was at a loss.

"It doesn't matter; just an idea."

He crumpled up the little house, and closed the paintbox. "I'm going out
for awhile; good-bye, dearest"; and, with a kiss, he left the room.

Mary sat still, too surprised for remonstrance, and in a moment heard the
bang of the flat door.

"Birds, or flowers?" Suddenly she remembered something Stefan had told
her, on the night of their engagement, about his mother. So that was it.
Tears came to her eyes. Rather lonely, she went to bed.

Meanwhile Stefan, his head bare in the cold wind, was speeding up the
Avenue on the top of an omnibus.

"Houses are cages," he said to himself. For some reason, he felt
hideously depressed.

* * * * *

"I called on Miss Berber last evening," Stefan announced casually at
breakfast the next morning.

"Did you?" replied Mary, surprised, putting down her cup. "Well, did you
have a nice time?"

"It was mildly amusing," he said, opening the newspaper. The subject
dropped.




II


Mary, who had lived all her life in a small town within sight of the open
fields, was beginning to feel the confinement of city life. Even during
her year in London she had joined other girls in weekend bicycling
excursions out of town, or tubed to Golder's Green or Shepherd's Bush in
search of country walks. Now that the late snows of March had cleared
away, she began eagerly to watch for swelling buds in the Square, and was
dismayed when Stefan told her that the spring, in this part of America,
was barely perceptible before May.

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