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The Nest Builder

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




Farraday helped her down.

"Mrs. Byrd," said he with his most kindly smile, "here is the key. Would
you like to unlock the door yourself?"

She blushed with pleasure. "Oh, yes!" she cried, and turned instinctively
to look for Stefan. He was standing at the plateau's edge, scrutinizing
the view. She called, but he did not hear. Then she took the key and,
hurrying up the little walk, entered the house alone.

A moment later Stefan, hailed stentoriously by McEwan, followed her.

She was standing in a long sitting-room, low-ceilinged and white-walled,
with window-seats, geraniums on the sills, brass andirons on the hearth,
an eight-day clock, a small old fashioned piano, an oak desk, a chintz-
covered grandmother's chair, a gate-legged table, and a braided rag
hearth-rug. Her hands were clasped, her eyes shining.

"Oh, Stefan!" she exclaimed as she heard his step. "Isn't it a darling?
Wouldn't it be simply ideal for us?"

"It seems just right, and the view is splendid. There's a good deal
that's paintable here."

"Is there? I'm so glad. That makes it perfect. Look at the furniture,
Stefan, every bit right."

"And the moldings," he added. "All handcut, do you see? The whole place
is actually old. What a lark!" He appeared almost as pleased as she.

"Here come the others. Let's go upstairs, dearest," she whispered.

There were four bedrooms, and a bathroom. The main room had a four-post
bed, and opening out of it was a smaller room, almost empty. In this Mary
stood for some minutes, measuring with her eye the height of the window
from the floor, mentally placing certain small furnishings. "It would be
ideal, simply ideal," she repeated to herself. Stefan was looking out of
the window, again absorbed in the view. She would have liked so well to
share with him her tenderness over the little room, but he was all
unmindful of its meaning to her, and, as always, his heedlessness made
expression hard for her. She was still communing with the future when he
turned from the window.

"Come along, Mary, let's go downstairs again."

They found the others waiting in the sitting-room, and Farraday detached
Stefan to show him a couple of old prints, while Mrs. Farraday led
Constance and Mary to an exploration of the kitchen. Chancing to look
back from the hall, Mary saw that McEwan had seated himself in the
grandmother's chair, and was holding the heavy shy Jamie at his knee, one
arm thrown round him. The boy's eyes were fixed in dumb devotion on his
father's face.

"The two poor lonely things," she thought.

The little kitchen was spotless, tiled shoulder-high, and painted blue
above. Against one wall a row of copper saucepans grinned their fat
content, echoed by the pale shine of an opposing row of aluminum. Snowy
larder shelves showed through one little door; through another, laundry
tubs were visible. There was a modern coal stove, with a boiler. The
quarters were small, but perfect to the last detail. Mrs. Farraday's
little face fairly beamed with pride as they looked about them.

"He did it all, bought every pot and pan, arranged each detail. There
were no modern conveniences until old Cotter died--_he_ would not
let James put them in. My boy loves this cottage; he sometimes spends
several days here all alone, when he is very tired. He doesn't even like
me to send Moses down, but of course I won't hear of that." She shook her
head with smiling finality. There were some things, her manner suggested,
that little boys could not be allowed.

"But, Mrs. Farraday," Mary exclaimed, "how can we possibly take the house
from him if he uses it?"

"My dear," the little lady's hand lighted on Mary's arm, "when thee knows
my James better, thee will know that his happiness lies in helping his
friends find theirs. He would be deeply disappointed if thee did not take
it," and her hand squeezed Mary's reassuringly.

"We are too wonderfully lucky--I don't know how to express my gratitude,"
Mary answered.

"I think the good Lord sends us what we deserve, my dear, whether of good
or ill," the little lady replied, smiling wisely.

Constance sighed contentedly. "Oh, Mrs. Farraday, you are so good for us
all. I'm a modern backslider, and hardly ever go to church, but you
always make me feel as if I had just been."

"Backslider, Constance? 'Thy own works praise thee, and thy children rise
up and call thee blessed--thy husband also,'" quoted their hostess.

"Well, I don't know if my boys and Theodore call me blessed, but I hope
the Suffragists will one day. Goodness knows I work hard enough for
them."

"I've believed in suffrage all my life, like all Friends," Mrs. Farraday
answered, "but where thee has worked I have only prayed for it."

"If prayers are heard, I am sure yours should count more than my work,
dear lady," said Constance, affectionately pressing the other's hand.

The little Quaker's eyes were bright as she looked at her friend.

"Ah, my dear, thee is too generous to an old woman."

Mary loved this little dialogue, "What dears all my new friends are," she
thought; "how truly good." All the world seemed full of love to her in
these days; her heart blossomed out to these kind people; she folded them
in the arms of her spirit. All about, in nature and in human kind, she
felt the spring burgeoning, and within herself she felt it most of all.
But of this Mary could express nothing, save through her face--she had
never looked more beautiful.

Coming into the dining room she found Farraday watching her. He seemed
tired. She put out her hand.

"May we really have it? You are sure?"

"You like it?" he smiled, holding the hand.

She flushed with the effort to express herself. "I adore it. I can't
thank you."

"Please don't," he answered. "You don't know what pleasure this gives me.
Come as soon as you can; everything is ready for you."

"And about the rent?" she asked, hating to speak of money, but knowing
Stefan would forget.

"Dear Mrs. Byrd, I had so much rather lend it, but I know you wouldn't
like that. Pay me what you paid for your first home in New York."

"Oh, but that would be absurd," she demurred.

"Make that concession to my pride in our friendship," he smiled back.

She saw that she could not refuse without ungraciousness. Stefan had
disappeared, but now came quickly in from the kitchen door.

"Farraday," he called, "I've been looking at the barn; you don't use it,
I see. If we come, should you mind my having a north light cut in it?
With that it would make an ideal workshop."

"I should be delighted," the other answered; "it's a good idea and will
make the place more valuable. I had the barn cleaned out thinking some
one might like it for a garage."

"We shan't run to such an extravagance yet awhile," laughed Mary.

"A bicycle for me and the station hack for Mary," Stefan summed up. "I
suppose there is such a thing at Crab's Bay?"

"She won't have to walk," Farraday answered.

Started on practical issues, Mary's mind had flown to the need of a
telephone to link them to her doctor. "May we install a 'phone?" she
asked. "I never lived with one till two months ago, but already it is a
confirmed vice with me."

"Mayn't I have it put in for you--there should be one here," said he.

"Oh, no, please!"

"At least let me arrange for it," he urged.

"Now, son, thee must not keep Mrs. Byrd out too late. Get her home before
sundown," Mrs. Farraday's voice admonished. Obediently, every one moved
toward the hall. At a word from McEwan, the mute Jamie ran to open the
tonneau door. Farraday stopped to lock the kitchen entrance and found
McEwan on the little porch as he emerged, while the others were busy
settling themselves in the car. As Farraday turned the heavy front door
lock, his friend's hand fell on his shoulder.

"Ought ye to do it, James?" McEwan asked quietly.

Farraday raised his eyes, and looked steadily at the other, with his slow
smile.

"Yes, Mac, it's a good thing to do. In any case, I shouldn't have been
likely to marry, you know." The two friends took their places in the car.




IV


After much consideration from Mary, the Byrds decided to give up their
recently acquired flat, but to keep the old studio. She felt they should
not attempt to carry three rents through the summer, but, on the other
hand, Stefan was still working at his Demeter, using an Italian model for
the boy's figure, and could not finish it conveniently elsewhere. Then,
too, he expressed a wish for a pied-à-terre in the city, and as Mary had
very tender associations with the little studio she was glad to think of
keeping it.

Stefan was working fitfully at this time. He would have spurts of energy
followed by fits of depression and disgust with his work, during which he
would leave the house and take long rides uptown on the tops of
omnibuses. Mary could not see that these excursions in search of air
calmed his nervousness, and she concluded that the spring fever was in
his blood and that he needed a change of scene at least as much as she
did.

About this time he sold his five remaining drawings of New York to the
Pan-American Magazine, a progressive monthly. They gained considerable
attention from the art world, and were seized upon by certain groups of
radicals as a sermon on the capitalistic system. On the strength of them,
Stefan was hailed as that rarest of all beings, a politically minded
artist, and became popular in quarters from which his intolerance had
hitherto barred him.

It entertained him hugely to be proclaimed as a champion of democracy,
for he had made the drawings in impish hatred not of a class but of
American civilization as a whole.

Their bank account, in spite of much heightened living expenses, remained
substantial by reason of this new sale, but Stefan was as indifferent as
ever to its control, and Mary's sense of caution was little diminished.
Her growing comprehension of him warned her that their position was still
insecure; he remained, for all his success, an unknown quantity as a
producer. She wanted him to assume some interest in their affairs, and
suggested separate bank accounts, but he begged off.

"Let me have a signature at the bank, so that I can cash checks for
personal expenses, but don't ask me to keep accounts, or know how much we
have," he said. "If you find I am spending too much at any time, just
tell me, and I will stop."

Further than this she could not get him to discuss the matter, and saw
that she must think out alone some method of bookkeeping which would be
fair to them both, and would establish a record for future use.
Ultimately she transferred her own money, less her private expenditures
during the winter, to a separate account, to be used for all her personal
expenses. The old account she put in both their names, and made out a
monthly schedule for the household, beyond which she determined never to
draw. Anything she could save from this amount she destined for a savings
bank, but over and above it she felt that her husband's earnings were
his, and that she could not in honor interfere with them. Mary was almost
painfully conscientious, and this plan cost her many heart-searchings
before it was complete.

After her baby was born she intended to continue her writing; she did not
wish ever to draw on Stefan for her private purse. So far at least, she
would live up to feminist principles.

There was much to be done before they could leave the city, and Mary had
practically no assistance from Stefan in her arrangements. She would ask
his advice about the packing or disposal of a piece of furniture, and he
would make some suggestion, often impracticable; but on any further
questioning he would run his hands through his hair, or thrust them into
his pockets, looking either vague or nervous. "Why fuss about such
things, dear?" or "Do just as you like," or "I'm sure I haven't a
notion," were his most frequent answers. He developed a habit of leaving
his work and following Mary restlessly from room to room as she packed or
sorted, which she found rather wearing.

On one such occasion--it was the day before they were to leave--she was
carrying a large pile of baby's clothes from her bedroom to a trunk in
the sitting-room, while Stefan stood humped before the fireplace,
smoking. As she passed him he frowned nervously.

"How heavily you tread, Mary," he jerked out. She stood stock-still and
flushed painfully.

"I think, Stefan," she said, with the tears of feeling which came over-
readily in these days welling to her eyes, "instead of saying that you
might come and help me to carry these things."

He looked completely contrite. "I'm sorry, dearest, it was a silly thing
to say. Forgive me," and he kissed her apologetically, taking the bundle
from her. He offered to help several times that afternoon, but as he
never knew where anything was to go, and fidgeted from foot to foot while
he hung about her, she was obliged at last to plead release from his
efforts.

"Stefan dear," she said, giving him rather a harassed smile, "you
evidently find this kind of thing a bore. Why don't you run out and leave
me to get on quietly with it?"

"I know I've been rotten to you, and I thought you wanted me to help," he
explained, in a self-exculpatory tone.

She stroked his cheek maternally. "Run along, dearest. I can get on
perfectly well alone."

"You're a brick, Mary. I think I'll go. This kind of thing--" he flung
his arm toward the disordered room--"is too utterly unharmonious." And
kissing her mechanically he hastened out.

That night for the first time in their marriage he did not return for
dinner, but telephoned that he was spending the evening with friends.
Mary, tired out with her packing, ate her meal alone and went to bed
immediately afterwards. His absence produced in her a dull heartache, but
she was too weary to ponder over his whereabouts.

Early next morning Mary telephoned Miss Mason. Stefan, who had come home
late, was still asleep when the Sparrow arrived, and by the time he had
had his breakfast the whole flat was in its final stage of disruption. A
few pieces of furniture were to be sent to the cottage, a few more
stored, and the studio was to be returned to its original omnibus status.
Mrs. Corriani, priestess of family emergencies, had been summoned from
the depths; the Sparrow had donned an apron, Mary a smock; Lily, the
colored maid, was packing china into a barrel, surrounded by writhing
seas of excelsior. For Stefan, the flat might as well have been given
over to the Furies. He fetched his hat.

"Mary," he said, "I'm not painting again until we have moved. Djinns,
Afrits and Goddesses should be allowed to perform their spiritings unseen
of mortals. I shall go and sit in the Metropolitan and contemplate
Rodin's Penseur--he is so spacious."

"Very well, dearest," said Mary brightly. She had slept away her low
spirits. "Don't forget Mr. Farraday is sending his car in for us at three
o'clock."

He looked nonplused. "You don't mean to say we are moving to-day?"

"Yes, you goose," she laughed, "don't you remember?"

"I'm frightfully sorry, Mary, but I made an engagement for this evening,
to go to the theatre. I knew you would not want to come," he added.

Mary looked blank. "But, Stefan," she exclaimed, "everything is arranged!
We are dining with the Farradays. I told you several times we were moving
on the fourth. You make it so difficult, dear, by not taking any
interest." Her voice trembled. She had worked and planned for their
flitting for a week past, was all eagerness to be gone, and now he, who
had been equally keen, seemed utterly indifferent.

He fidgeted uncomfortably, looking contrite yet rebellious. Mary was at a
loss. The Sparrow, however, promptly raised her crest and exhibited a
claw.

"Land sakes, Mr. Byrd," she piped, "you are a mighty fine artist, but
that don't prevent your being a husband first these days! Men are all
alike--" she turned to Mary--"always ready to skedaddle off when there's
work to be done. Now, young man--" she pointed a mandatory finger--"you
run and telephone your friends to call the party off." Her voice
shrilled, her beady eyes snapped; she looked exactly like one of her
namesakes, ruffled and quarreling at the edge of its nest.

Stefan burst out laughing. "All right, Miss Sparrow, smooth your
feathers. Mary, I'm a mud-headed idiot--I forgot the whole thing. Pay no
attention to my vagaries, dearest, I'll be at the door at three." He
kissed her warmly, and went out humming, banging the door behind him.

"My father was the same, and my brothers," the Sparrow philosophized.
"Spring-cleaning and moving took every ounce of sense out of them." Mary
sighed. Her zest for the preparations had departed.

Presently, seeing her languor, Miss Mason insisted Mary should lie down
and leave the remaining work to her. The only resting place left was the
old studio, where their divan had been replaced. Thither Mary mounted,
and lying amidst its dusty disarray, traced in memory the months she had
spent there. It had been their first home. Here they had had their first
quarrel and their first success, and here had come to her her
annunciation. Though they were keeping the room, it would never hold the
same meaning for her again, and though she already loved their new home,
it hurt her at the last to bid their first good-bye. Perhaps it was a
trick of fatigue, but as she lay there the conviction came to her that
with to-day's change some part of the early glamour of marriage was to
go, that not even the coming of her child could bring to life the
memories this room contained. She longed for her husband, for his voice
calling her the old, dear, foolish names. She felt alone, and fearful of
the future.

"My grief," exclaimed Miss Mason from the door an hour later. "I told you
to go to sleep 'n here you are wide awake and crying!"

Mary smiled shamefacedly.

"I'm just tired, Sparrow, that's all, and have been indulging in the
'vapors.'" She squeezed her friend's hand. "Let's have some lunch."

"It's all ready, and Lily with her hat 'n coat on. Come right downstairs
--it's most two o'clock."

Mary jumped up, amazed at the time she had wasted. Her spell of
depression was over, and she was her usual cheerful self when, at three
o'clock, she heard Stefan's feet bounding up the stairs for the last
time.

"Tra-la, Mary, the car is here!" he called. "Thank God we are getting out
of this city! Good-by, Miss Sparrow, don't peck me, and come and see us
at Crab's Bay. March, Lily. A riverderci, Signora Corriani. Come,
dearest." He bustled them all out, seized two suitcases in one hand and
Mary's elbow in the other, chattered his few words of Italian to the
janitress, chaffed Miss Mason, and had them all laughing by the time they
reached the street. He seemed in the highest spirits, his moods of the
last weeks forgotten.

As the car started he kissed his fingers repeatedly to Miss Mason and
waved his hat to the inevitable assemblage of small boys.

"The country, darling!" he cried, pressing Mary's hand under the rug.
"Farewell to ugliness and squalor! How happy we are going to be!"

Mary's hand pressed his in reply.




V


It was late April. The wooded slopes behind "The Byrdsnest," as Mary had
christened the cottage, were peppered with a pale film of green. The lawn
before the house shone with new grass. Upon it, in the early morning,
Mary watched beautiful birds of types unknown to her, searching for nest-
making material. She admired the large, handsome robins, so serious and
stately after the merry pertness of the English sort, but her favorites
were the bluebirds, and another kind that looked like greenish canaries,
of which she did not know the name. None of them, she thought, had such
melodious song as at home in England, but their brilliant plumage was a
constant delight to her.

Daffodils were springing up in the garden, crocuses were out, and the
blue scylla. On the downward slope toward the bay the brown furry heads
of ferns had begun to push stoutly from the earth. The spring was awake.

Stefan seemed thoroughly contented again. He had his north light in the
barn, but seldom worked there, being absorbed in outdoor sketching. He
was making many small studies of the trees still bare against the gleam
of water, with a dust of green upon them. He could get a number of
valuable notes here, he told Mary.

During their first two weeks in the country his restlessness had often
recurred. He had gone back and forth to the city for work on his Demeter,
and had even slept there on several occasions. But one morning he wakened
Mary by coming in from an early ramble full of joy in the spring, and
announcing that the big picture was now as good as he could make it, and
that he was done with the town. He threw back the blinds and called to
her to look at the day.

"It's vibrant, Mary; life is waking all about us." He turned to the bed.

"You look like a beautiful white rose, cool with the dew."

She blushed--he had forgotten lately his old habit of pretty speech-
making. He came and sat on the bed's edge, holding her hand.

"I've had my restless devil with me of late, sweetheart," he said. "But
now I feel renewed, and happy. I shan't want to leave you any more." He
kissed her with a gravity at which she might have wondered had she been
more thoroughly awake. His tone was that of a man who makes a promise to
himself.

Since that morning he had been consistently cheerful and carefree, more
attentive to Mary than for some time past, and pleased with all his
surroundings. She was overjoyed at the change, and for her own part never
tired of working in the house and garden, striving to make more perfect
the atmosphere of simple homeliness which Farraday had first imparted to
them. Lily was fascinated by her kitchen and little white bedroom.

"This surely is a cute little house, yes, _ma'am_," she would
exclaim emphatically, with a grin.

Lily was a small, chocolate-colored negress, with a neat figure, and the
ever ready smile which is God's own gift to the race. Mary, who hardly
remembered having seen a negro till she came to America, had none of the
color-prejudice which grows up in biracial communities. She found Lily
civil, cheerful, and intelligent, and felt a sincere liking for her which
the other reciprocated with a growing devotion.

Often in these days a passerby--had there been any--could have heard a
threefold chorus rising about the cottage, a spring-song as unconscious
as the birds'. From the kitchen Lily's voice rose in the endless refrain
of a hymn; Mary's clear tones traveled down from the little room beside
her own, where she was preparing a place for the expected one; and
Stefan's whistle, or his snatches of French song, resounded from woods or
barn. Youth and hope were in the house, youth was in the air and earth.

Farraday's gardens were the pride of the neighborhood, these and the
library expressing him as the house did his mother. Several times he sent
down an armful of flowers to the Byrdsnest, and, one Sunday morning, Mary
had just finished arranging such a bunch in her vases when she heard the
chug of an automobile in the lane. She looked out to see Constance, a
veiled figure beside her, stopping a runabout at the gate. Delighted, she
hastened to the door. Constance hailed her.

"Mary, behold the charioteer! Theodore has given me this machine for
suffrage propaganda during the summer, and I achieved my driver's license
yesterday. I'm so vain I'm going to make Felicity design me a gown with a
peacock's tail that I can spread. I've brought her with me to show off
too, and because she needed air. How are you, bless you? May we come in?"

Not waiting for an answer, she jumped down and hugged Mary, Miss Berber
following in more leisurely fashion. Mary could not help wishing
Constance had come alone, as she now felt a little self-conscious before
strangers. However, she shook hands with Miss Berber, and led them both
into the sitting-room.

"Simply delicious!" exclaimed Constance, glancing eagerly about her, "and
how divinely healthy you look--like a transcendental dairy-maid! This
place was made for you, and how you've improved it. Look, Felicity, at
her chintz, and her flowers, and her _cunning_ pair of china
shepherdesses!" She ran from one thing to another, ecstatically
appreciative.

Mary had had no chance to speak yet, and, as Felicity was absorbed in the
languid removal of a satin coat and incredible yards of apple green
veiling, Constance held the floor.

"Look at her pair of love-birds sidling along the curtain pole, as tame
as humans! Where did you find that wooden cage? And that white cotton
dress? You smell of lavender and an ironing-board! Oh, dear," she began
again, "driving is very wearing, and I should like a cocktail, but I must
have milk. Milk, my dear Mary, is the only conceivable beverage in this
house. Have you a cow? You ought to have a cow--a brindled cow--also a
lamb; 'Mary had,' et cetera. My dear, stop me. Enthusiasm converts me
into an 'agreeable rattle,' as they used to call our great-grandmothers."

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