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The Nest Builder

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




He was backing shakily out when the doctor called to him.

"It will be born quite soon, now, Mr. Byrd," her cheery voice promised.

Trembling with relief, he stumbled downstairs. Farraday was standing
rigid before the fireplace, his face quite expressionless.

"She's having ether--I don't think she's suffering. The doctor says quite
soon, now," Stefan jerked out.

"I'm thankful," said Farraday, quietly.

He stooped and picked up his fallen pipe, but it took him a long time to
refill it--particles of tobacco kept showering to the rug from his
fingers. Stefan, with a new cigarette, resumed his prowl.

Midsummer dawn was breaking. The lamplight began to pale before the
glimmer of the windows. A sleepy bird chirped, the room became
mysterious.

There had been rapid steps overhead for some moments, and now the two men
became aware that the tiger-like sounds had quite ceased. The steps
overhead quieted. Farraday put out the lamp, and the blue light flooded
the room.

A bird called loudly, and another answered it, high, repeatedly. The
notes were right over their heads; they rose higher, insistent. They were
not the notes of a bird. The nurse appeared at the door and looked at
Stefan.

"Your son is born," she said.

Instantly to both men it was as if eerie bonds, drawn over-taut, had
snapped, releasing them again to the physical world about them. The high
mystery was over; life was human and kindly once again. Farraday dropped
into his chair and held a hand across his eyes. Stefan threw both arms
round Miss McCullock's shoulders and hugged her like a child.

"Oh, hurrah!" he cried, almost sobbing with relief. "Bless you, nurse. Is
she all right?"

"She's perfect--I've never seen finer condition. You can come up in a few
minutes, the doctor says, and see her before she goes to sleep."

"There's nothing needed, nurse?" asked Farraday, rising.

"Nothing at all, thank you."

"Then I'll be getting home, Byrd," he said, offering his hand to Stefan.
"My warmest congratulations. Let me know if there's anything I can do."

Stefan shook the proffered hand with a deeper liking than he had yet felt
for this silent man.

"I'm everlastingly grateful to you, Farraday, for helping me out, and
Mary will be, too. I don't know how I could have stood it alone."

Stefan mounted the stairs tremblingly, to pause in amazement at the door
of Mary's room. A second transformation had, as if by magic, taken place.
The lights were out. The dawn smiled at the windows, through which a
gentle breeze ruffled the curtains. Gone were all evidences of the
night's tense drama; tables and chairs were empty; the room looked calm
and spacious.

On the bed Mary lay quiet, her form hardly outlined under the smooth
coverlet. Half fearfully he let his eyes travel to the pillow, dreading
he knew not what change. Instantly, relief overwhelmed him. Her face was
radiant, her cheeks pink--she seemed to glow with a sublimated happiness.
Only in her eyes lay any traces of the night--they were still heavy from
the anaesthetic, but they shone lovingly on him, as though deep lights
were behind them.

"Darling," she whispered, "we've got a little boy. Did you worry? It
wasn't anything--only the most thrilling adventure that's ever happened
to me."

He looked at her almost with awe--then, stooping, pressed his face to the
pillow beside hers.

"Were they merciful to you, Beautiful?" he whispered back. Weakly, her
hand found his head.

"Yes, darling, they were wonderful. I was never quite unconscious, yet it
wasn't a bit bad--only as if I were in the hands of some prodigious
force. They showed me the baby, too--just for a minute. I want to see him
again now--with you."

Stefan looked up. Dr. Hillyard was in the doorway of the little room. She
nodded, and in a moment reappeared, carrying a small white bundle.

"Here he is," she said; "he weighs eight and a half pounds. You can both
look at him for a moment, and then Mrs. Byrd must go to sleep." She put
the bundle gently down beside Mary, whose head turned toward it.

Almost hidden in folds of flannel Stefan saw a tiny red face, its eyes
closed, two microscopic fists doubled under its chin. It conveyed nothing
to him except a sense of amazement.

"He's asleep," whispered Mary, "but I saw his eyes--they are blue. Isn't
he pretty?" Her own eyes, soft with adoration, turned from her son to
Stefan. Then they drooped, drowsily.

"She's falling off," said the doctor under her breath, recovering the
baby. "They'll both sleep for several hours now. Lily is getting us some
breakfast--wouldn't you like some, too, Mr. Byrd?"

Stefan felt grateful for her normal, cheery manner, and for Mary's sudden
drowsiness; they seemed to cover what he felt to be a failure in himself.
He had been unable to find one word to say about the baby.

At breakfast, served by the sleepy but beaming Lily, Stefan was dazed by
the bearing of doctor and nurse. These two women, after a night spent in
work of an intensity and scope beyond his powers to gage, appeared as
fresh and normal as if they had just risen from sleep, while he, unshaved
and rumpled, could barely control his racked nerves and heavy head,
across which doctor and nurse discussed their case with animation.

"We are all going to bed, Mr. Byrd," said the doctor at last, noting his
exhausted aspect. "I shall get two or, three hours' nap on the sofa
before going back to town, and I hope you will take a thorough rest."

Stefan rose rather dizzily from his unfinished meal.

"Please take my room," he said, "I couldn't stay in the house--I'm going
out." He found the atmosphere of alert efficiency created by these women
utterly insupportable. The house stifled him with its teeming feminine
life. In it he felt superfluous, futile. Hurrying out, he stumbled down
the slope and, stripping, dived into the water. Its cold touch robbed him
of thought; he became at once merely one of Nature's straying children
returned again to her arms.

Swimming back, he drew on his clothes, and mounting to the garden, threw
himself face down upon the grass, and fell asleep under the morning sun.

He dreamed that a drum was calling him. Its beat, muffled and irregular,
yet urged him forward. A flag waved dazzlingly before his eyes; its folds
stifled him. He tried to move, yet could not--the drum called ever more
urgently. He started awake, to find himself on his back, the sun beating
into his face, and the doctor's machine chugging down the lane.




VII


The little June baby at the Byrdsnest was very popular with the
neighborhood. During the summer it seemed to Stefan that the house was
never free of visitors who came to admire the child, guess his weight,
and exclaim at his mother's health.

As a convalescent, Mary was, according to Constance Elliot, a complete
fraud. Except for her hair, which had temporarily lost some of its
elasticity, she had never looked so radiant. She was out of bed on the
ninth day, and walking in the garden on the twelfth. The behavior of the
baby--who was a stranger to artificial food--was exemplary; he never
fretted, and cried only when he was hungry. But as his appetite troubled
him every three hours during the day, and every four at night, he
appeared to Stefan to cry incessantly, and his strenuous wail would drive
his father from house to barn, and from barn to woods. Lured from one of
these retreats by an interval of silence, Stefan was as likely as not to
find an auto at the gate and hear exclamatory voices proceeding from the
nursery, when he would fade into the woods again like a wild thing
fearful of the trap.

His old dislike of his kind reasserted itself. It is one thing to be
surrounded by pretty women proclaiming you the greatest artist of your
day, and quite another to listen while they exclaim on the perfections of
your offspring and the health of your wife. For the first type of
conversation Stefan had still an appetite; with the second he was quickly
surfeited.

Nor were women his only tormentors. The baby spent much of its time in
the garden, and every Sunday Stefan would find McEwan planted on the
lawn, prodding the infant with a huge forefinger, and exploding into
fatuous mirth whenever he deluded himself into believing he had made it
smile. Of late Stefan had begun to tolerate this man, but after three
such exhibitions decided to blacklist him permanently as an insufferable
idiot. Even Farraday lost ground in his esteem, for, though guilty of no
banalities, he had a way of silently hovering over the baby-carriage
which Stefan found mysteriously irritating. Jamie alone of their
masculine friends seemed to adopt a comprehensible attitude, for he
backed away in hasty alarm whenever the infant, in arms or carriage, bore
down upon him. On several occasions when the Farraday household invaded
the Byrdsnest Stefan and Jamie together sneaked away in search of an
environment more seemly for their sex.

"You are the only creature I know just now, Jamie," Stefan said, "with
any sense of proportion;" and these two outcasts from notice would tramp
moodily through the woods, the boy faithfully imitating Stefan's slouch
and his despondent way of carrying his hands thrust in his pockets.

There were no more tales of Scotland for Jamie in these days, and as for
Stefan he hardly saw his wife. True, she always brightened when he came
in and mutely evinced her desire that he should remain, but she was never
his. While he talked her eye would wander to the cradle, or if they were
in another room her ear would be constantly strained to catch a cry. In
the midst of a pleasant interlude she would jump to her feet with a
murmured "Dinner time," or "He must have some water now," and be gone.

Stefan did not sleep with her--as he could not endure being disturbed at
night--and she took a long nap every afternoon, so that at best the hours
available for him were few. Any visitor, he thought morosely, won more
attention from her than he did, and this was in a sense true, for the
visitors openly admired the baby--the heart of Mary's life--and he did
not.

He did not know how intensely she longed for this, how she ached to see
Stefan jab his finger at the baby as McEwan did, or watch it with the
tender smile of Farraday. She tried a thousand simple wiles to bring to
life the father in him. About to nurse the baby, she would call Stefan to
see his eager search for the comfort of her breast, looking up in proud
joy as the tiny mouth was satisfied.

At the very first, when the baby was newborn, Stefan had watched this
rite with some interest, but now he only fidgeted, exclaiming, "You are
looking wonderfully fit, Mary," or "Greedy little beggar, isn't he?" He
never spoke of his old idea of painting her as a Madonna. If she drew his
attention to the baby's tiny hands or feet, he would glance carelessly at
them, with a "They're all right," or "I'll like them better when they're
bigger."

Once, as they were going to bed, she showed Stefan the baby lying on his
chest, one fist balled on either side of the pillow, the downy back of
his head shining in the candle-light. She stooped and kissed it.

"His head is too deliciously soft and warm, Stefan; do kiss it good-
night."

His face contracted into an expression of distaste. "No," he said, "I
can't kiss babies," and left the room.

She felt terribly, unnecessarily hurt. It was so difficult for her to
make advances, so fatally easy for him to rebuff them.

After that, she did not draw the baby to his attention again.

Perhaps, had the child been a girl, Stefan would have felt more sentiment
about it. A girl baby, lying like a pink bud among the roses of the
garden, might have appealed to that elfin imagination which largely took
the place in him of romance--but a boy! A boy was merely in his eyes
another male, and Stefan considered the world far too full of men
already.

He sealed his attitude when the question of the child's name came up.
Mary had fallen into a habit of calling it "Little Stefan," or "Steve"
for short, and one morning, as the older Stefan crossed the lawn to his
studio her voice floated down from the nursery in an improvised song to
her "Stefan Baby." He bounded upstairs to her.

"Mary," he called, "you are surely not going to call that infant by my
name?"

Mary, her lap enveloped in aprons and towels, looked up from the bath in
which her son was practising tentative kicks.

"Why, yes, dear, I thought we'd christen him after you, as he's the
eldest. Don't you think that would be nice?" She looked puzzled.

"No, I do not!" Stefan snorted emphatically. "For heaven's sake give the
child a name of his own, and let me keep mine. My God, one Stefan Byrd is
enough in the world, I should think!"

"Well, dear, what shall we call him, then?" she asked, lowering her head
over the baby to hide her hurt.

"Give him your own name if you want to. After all, he's your child.
Elliston Byrd wouldn't sound at all bad."

"Very well," said Mary slowly. "I think the Dad would have been pleased
by that." In spite of herself, her voice trembled.

"Good Lord, Mary, I haven't hurt you, have I?" He looked exasperated.

She shook her head, still bending over the baby.

"It's all right, dear," she whispered.

"You're so soft nowadays, one hardly dare speak," he muttered. "Sorry,
dear," and with a penitent kiss for the back of her neck he hastened
downstairs again.

The christening was held two weeks later, in the small Episcopalian
church of Crab's Bay. Stefan could see no reason for it, as neither he
nor Mary was orthodox, but when he suggested omitting the ceremony she
looked at him wide-eyed.

"Not christen him, Stefan? Oh, I don't think that would be fair," she
said. Her manner was simple, but there was finality in her tone--it made
him feel that wherever her child was concerned she would be adamant.

The baby's godmother was, of course, Constance, and his godfathers,
equally obviously, Farraday and McEwan. Mary made the ceremony the
occasion of a small at-home, inviting the numerous friends from whom she
had received congratulations or gifts for the baby.

Miss Mason had insisted on herself baking the christening cake; Farraday
as usual supplied a sheaf of flowers. In the drawing room the little
Elliston's presents were displayed, a beautiful old cup from Farraday, a
christening robe, and a spoon, "pusher," and fork from Constance, a
silver bowl "For Elliston's porridge from his friend Wallace McEwan," and
a Bible in stout leather binding from Mrs. Farraday, inscribed in her
delicate, slanting hand. There was even a napkin ring from the baby's
aunt in England, who was much relieved that her too-independent sister
had married a successful artist and done her duty by the family so
promptly.

Mary was naively delighted with these offerings.

"He has got everything I should have liked him to have!" she exclaimed as
she arranged them.

Stefan, led to the font, showed all the nervousness he had omitted at the
altar, but looked very handsome in a suit of linen crash, while Mary, in
white muslin, was at her glowing best.

Constance was inevitably late, for, like most American women, she did not
carry her undeniable efficiency to the point of punctuality. At the last
moment, however, she dashed up to the church with the élan of a
triumphant general, bearing her husband captive in the tonneau, and no
less a person than Gunther, the distinguished sculptor, on the seat
beside her.

"I know you did not ask him, but he's so handsome I thought he ought to
be here," she whispered inconsequentially to Mary after the ceremony.

Of their many acquaintances few were unrepresented except Miss Berber, to
whom Mary had felt disinclined to send an invitation. She had sounded
Stefan on the subject, but had been answered by a "Certainly not!" so
emphatic as to surprise her.

At the house Gunther, with his great height and magnificent viking head,
was unquestionably the hit of the afternoon. Holding the baby, which lay
confidently in his powerful hands, he examined its head, arms and legs
with professional interest, while every woman in the room watched him
admiringly.

"This baby, Mrs. Byrd, is the finest for his age I have ever seen, and I
have modeled many of them," he pronounced, handing it back to Mary, who
blushed to her forehead with pleasure. "Not that I am surprised," he went
on, staring frankly at her, "when I look at his mother. I am doing some
groups for the Pan-American exhibition next year in San Francisco. If you
could give me any time, I should very much like to use your head and the
baby's. I shall try and arrange it with you," and he nodded as if that
settled the matter.

"Oh," gasped Constance, "you have all the luck. Mary! Mr. Gunther has
known me for years, but have _I_ had a chance to sit for him? I feel
myself turning green, and as my gown is yellow it will be most
unbecoming!" And seizing Farraday as if for consolation, she bore him to
the dining room to find a drink.

Stefan, who was interested in Gunther, tried to get him to the barn to
see his pictures; but the sculptor would not move his eyes from Mary, and
Stefan, considerably bored, was obliged to content himself with showing
the studio to some of his prettiest neighbors.

Nor did his spirits improve when the party came to an end.

"Bon Dieu!" he cried, flinging himself fretfully into a chair. "Is our
house never to be free of chattering women? The only person here to-day
who speaks my language was Gunther, and you never gave me a chance at
him."

Mary gasped, too astonished at this accusation to refute it.

"Ever since we came down here," he went on irritably, "the place has
seethed with people, and overflowed with domesticity. I never hear one
word spoken except on the subject of furniture, gardening and babies! I
can't work in such an environment; it stifles all imagination. As for
you, Mary--"

He looked up at her. She was standing, stricken motionless, in the center
of the room. Her hair, straighter than of old, seemed to droop over her
ears; her form under its loose muslin dress showed soft and blurred, its
clean-cut lines gone, while her face, almost as white as the gown, was
woe-begone, the eyes dark with tears. She stood there like a hurt child,
all her courageous gallantry eclipsed by this unkind ending to her happy
day. Stefan rose to his feet and faced her, searching for some phrase
that could express his sense of deprivation. He had the instinct to stab
her into a full realization of what she was losing in his eyes.

"Mary," he cried almost wildly, "your wings are gone!" and rushed out of
the room.




PART IV

WINGS

I


One evening early in October Mary telephoned Farraday to ask if she could
consult him with reference to the Byrdsnest. He walked over after dinner,
to find her alone in the sitting room, companioned by a wood fire and the
two sleeping lovebirds.

James had been very busy at the office for some time, and it was two or
three weeks since he had seen Mary. Now, as he sat opposite her, it
seemed to him that the leaping firelight showed unaccustomed shadows in
her cheeks and under her eyes, and that her color was less bright than
formerly. Was it merely the result of her care of her baby, he wondered,
or was there something more?

"I fear we've already outstayed our time here, Mr. Farraday," Mary was
saying, "and yet I am going to ask you for an extension."

Farraday lit a cigarette.

"My dear Mrs. Byrd, stay as long as you like."

"But you don't know the measure of my demands," she went on, with a
hesitating smile. "They are so extensive that I'm ashamed. I love this
little place, Mr. Farraday; it's the first real home I've ever had of my
own. And Baby does so splendidly here--I can't bear the thought of taking
him to the city. How long might I really hope to stay without
inconveniencing you? I mean, of course, at a proper rent."

"As far as I am concerned," he smiled back at her, "I shall be overjoyed
to have you stay as long as the place attracts you. If you like, I will
give you a lease--a year, two, or three, as you will, so that you could
feel settled, or an option to renew after the first year."

"But, Mr. Farraday, your mother told me that you used to use the place,
and in the face of that I don't know how I have the selfishness to ask
you for any time at all, to say nothing of a lease!"

"Mrs. Byrd." Farraday threw his cigarette into the fire, and, leaning
forward, stared at the flames, his hands clasped between his knees. "Let
me tell you a sentimental little story, which no one else knows except
our friend Mac." He smiled whimsically.

"When I was a young man I was very much in love, and looked forward to
having a home of my own, and children. But I was unfortunate--I did not
succeed in winning the woman I loved, and as I am slow to change, I made
up my mind that my dream home would never come true. But I was very fond
of my 'cottage in the air,' and some years later, when this little house
became empty, I arranged it to look as nearly as I could as that other
might have done. I used to sit here sometimes and pretend that my shadows
were real. You will laugh at me, but I even have in my desk plans for an
addition, an ell, containing a play room and nurseries."

Mary gave a little pitiful exclamation, and touched his clasped hands.
Meeting her eyes, he saw them dewy with sympathy.

"You are very gracious to a sentimental old bachelor," he said, with his
winning smile. "But these ghosts were bad for me. I was in danger of
becoming absurdly self-centered, almost morbidly introspective. Mac,
whose heart is the biggest I know, and who laughs away more troubles than
I ever dreamed of, rallied me about it, and showed me that I ought to
turn my disappointment to some use. This was about ten years ago, when
his own life fell to pieces. I had been associated with magazines for
some time, and knew how little that was really good found its way into
the plainer people's homes. At Mac's suggestion I bought an insolvent
monthly, and began to remodel it. 'You've got the home-and-children bug;
well, do something for other people's'--was the way Mac put it to me.
Later we started the two other magazines, always keeping before us our
aim of giving the average home the best there is. To-day, though I have
no children of my own, I like to think I'm a sort of uncle to thousands."

He leant back, still staring into the fire. There was silence for a
minute; a log fell with a crash and a flight of sparks--Farraday replaced
it.

"Well, Mrs. Byrd," he went on, "all this time the little ghost-house
stood empty. No one used it but myself. It was made for a woman and for
children, yet in my selfishness I locked its door against those who
should rightfully have enjoyed it. Mac urged me to use it as a holiday
house for poor mothers from the city, but, somehow, I could not bring
myself to evict its dream-mistress."

"Oh, I feel more than ever a trespasser!" exclaimed Mary.

He shook his head. "No, you have redeemed the place from futility--you
are its justification." He paused again, and continued in a lower tone,
"Mrs. Byrd, you won't mind my saying this--you are so like that lady of
long ago that the house seems yours by natural right. I think I was only
waiting for someone who would love and understand it--some golden-haired
young mother, like yourself, to give the key to. I can't tell you how
happy it makes me that the little house should at last fulfil itself.
Please keep it for as long as you need it--it will always need you."

Mary was much moved: "I can't thank you, Mr. Farraday, but I feel deeply
honored. Perhaps my best thanks lie just in loving the house, and I do
that, with all my heart. You don't mind my foolish little name for it?"

"The Byrdsnest? I think it perfect."

"And you don't mind either the alterations I have made?"

"My dear friend, while you keep this house I want it to be yours. Should
you wish to take a long lease, and enlarge it, I shall be happy. In fact,
I will sell it to you, if in the future you would care to buy. My only
stipulation would be an option to repurchase should you decide to give it
up." He took her hand. "The Byrdsnest belongs to Elliston's mother; let
us both understand that."

Her lips trembled. "You are good to me."

"No, it is you who are good to the dreams of a sentimentalist. And now--"
he sat back smilingly--"that is settled. Tell me the news. How is my
godson, how is Mr. Byrd, how fares the sable Lily?"

"Baby weighs fourteen and a half pounds," she said proudly; "he is simply
perfect. Lily is an angel." She paused, and seemed to continue almost
with an effort. "Stefan is very busy. He does not care to paint autumn
landscapes, so he has begun work again in the city. He's doing a
fantastic study of Miss Berber, and is very much pleased with it."

"That's good," said Farraday, evenly.

"But I've got more news for you," she went on, brightening. "I've had a
good deal more time lately, Stefan being so much in town, and Baby's
habits so regular. Here's the result."

She fetched from the desk a pile of manuscript, neatly penned, and laid
it on her guest's knee.

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