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The Nest Builder

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




"I do, too," said he, "but I was so afraid it would seem cruel in me to
suggest it. I don't want to grow callous like my father." He shuddered.
"I want to do the decent thing, Mary." His eyes were pleading.

"I know, dearest, you've been very kind. But for both our sakes, it will
be far better if you go for a time." She rose, and, coming round the
table, kissed his rough hair. He caught her hand, and pressed it
gratefully. "You are good to me, Mary."

The matter settled, Stefan's spirit soared. He rang up the French Line
and secured one of the few remaining berths for their next sailing, which
was in three days. He telephoned an ecstatic cable to Adolph. Then,
hurrying to the attic, he brought down his friend's old Gladstone, and
his own suitcase, and began to sort out his clothes. Mary, anxious to
quell her heartache by action, came up to help him, and vetoed his idea
of taking only the barest necessities.

"I know," she said, "you want to get back to your old Bohemia. But
remember you are a well-known artist now--the celebrated Stefan Byrd,"
and she courtesied to him. "Suppose you were to meet some charming people
whom you wanted to see something of? Do take a dinner-jacket at least."

He grinned at her. "I shall live in a blouse and sleep in my old attic
with Adolph. That's the only thing I could possibly want to do. But I
won't be fractious, Mary. If it will please you to have me take dress
clothes I'll do it--only you must pack them yourself!"

She nodded smilingly. "All right, I shall love to." She had failed to
make her husband happy in their home, she thought; at least she would
succeed in her manner of speeding him from it. It was her tragedy that he
should want to go. That once faced, she would not make a second tragedy
of his going.

She spent the next morning, while he went to town to buy his ticket, in a
thorough overhauling of his clothes. She found linen bags to hold his
shoes and a linen folder for his shirts. She pressed his ties and brushed
his coats, packed lavender bags in his underwear, and slipped a framed
snapshot of herself and Elliston into the bottom of the Gladstone. With
it, in a box, she put the ring she had given him, with the winged head,
which he had ceased to wear of late. She found some new poems and a novel
he had not read, and packed those. She gave him her own soapbox and
toothbrush case. She cleaned his two bags with shoe polish. Everything
she could think of was done to show that she sent him away willingly, and
she worked so hard that she forgot to notice how her heart ached. In the
afternoon she met him in town and they had dinner together. He suggested
their old hotel, but she shook her head. "No dear, not there," she said,
smiling a little tremulously. They went to a theatre, and got home so
late that she was too tired to be wakeful.

"By the by," she said next morning at breakfast, "don't worry about my
being alone after you've gone. I thought it might be triste for the first
few days, so I've rung up the Sparrow, and she's coming to occupy your
room for a couple of weeks. She's off for her yearly trip abroad at the
end of the month. Says she can't abide the Dutch, but means to see what
there is to their old Rhine, and come back by way of Tuscany and France."
Mary gurgled. "Can't you see her in Paris, poor dear, 'doing' the Louvre,
with her nose in a guidebook. Why! Perhaps you may!"

"The gods forbid," said Stefan devoutly.

He had brought his paints and brushes home the night before, and after
breakfast Mary helped him stow them away in the Gladstone, showing him
smilingly how well she had done his packing. While he admired, she
remembered to ask him if he had obtained a letter of credit. He burst out
laughing.

"Mary, you wonder! I have about fifty dollars in my pocket, and should
have entirely forgotten to take more if you hadn't spoken of it. What a
bore! Can't I get it to-morrow?"

"You might not have time before sailing. I think you'd better go up
to-day, and then you could call on Constance to say good-bye."

"I don't like to leave you on our last day," he said uneasily,

"Oh, that will be all right, dear," she smiled, patting his hand. "I have
oceans to do, and I think you ought to see Constance. Get your letter of
credit for a thousand dollars, then you'll be sure to have enough."

"A thousand! Great Scott, Adolph would think I'd robbed a bank if I had
all that."

"You don't need to spend it, silly, but you ought to have it behind you.
You never know what might happen."

"Would there be plenty left for you?"

"Bless me, yes," she laughed; "we're quite rich."

While he was gone Mary arranged an impromptu farewell party for him, so
that instead of spending a rather depressing evening alone with her, as
he had expected, he found himself surrounded by cheerful friends--McEwan,
the Farradays, their next neighbors, the Havens, and one or two others.
McEwan was the last to leave, at nearly midnight, and pleading fatigue,
Mary kissed Stefan good night at the door of her room. She dared not
linger with him lest the stifled pain at her heart should clamor for
expression too urgently to be denied. But by this time he himself began
to feel the impending separation. Ready for bed, he slipped into her room
and found her lying wide-eyed in a swathe of moonlight. Without a word he
lay down beside her and drew her close. Like children lost in the dark,
they slept all night in each other's arms.

Next day Mary saw him off. New York ended at the gangway. Across it, they
were in France. French decorations, French faces, French gaiety, the
beloved French tongue, were everywhere.

"Listen to it, Mary," he cried exultingly, and she smiled a cheerful
response.

When the warning bell sounded he suddenly became grave.

"Say good-bye again to Elliston for me, dear," he said, holding her hand
close. "I hope he grows up like you."

Her eyes were swimming now, in spite of herself. "Mary," he went on,
"this separation makes or mars us. I hope, dear, I believe, it will make
us. God bless you." He kissed her, pressed her to him. Suddenly they were
both trembling.

"Why are we parting?" he cried, in a revulsion of feeling.

She smiled at him, wiping away her tears. "It's better, dearest," she
whispered; "let me go now." They kissed again; she turned hurriedly away.
He watched her cross the gangway--she waved to him from the dock--then
the crowd swallowed her.

For a moment he felt bitterly bereaved. "How ironic life is," he thought.
Then a snatch of French chatter and a gay laugh reached him. The gangway
lifted, water widened between the bulwarks and the dock. As the ship
swung out he caught the sea breeze--a flight of gulls swept by--he was
outbound!

With a deep breath Stefan turned a brilliant smile upon the deck ...
Freedom!

Mary, hurrying home with aching heart and throat, let the slow tears run
unheeded down her cheeks. From the train she watched the city's outskirts
stream by, formless and ugly. She was very desolate. But when, tired out,
she entered her house, peace enfolded her. Here were her child, the
things she loved, her birds, her pleasant, smiling servant. Here were
white walls and gracious calm. Her mate had flown, but the nest remained.
Her heart ached still, but it was no longer torn.




X


The day after Stefan sailed Felicity Berber returned from Louisiana. The
South had bored her, without curing her weariness of New York. She drove
from the Pennsylvania Station to her studio, looked through the books,
overhauled the stock, and realized with indifference that her business
had suffered heavily through her absence. She listened lazily while her
lieutenants, emphasizing this fact, implored her to take up the work
again.

"What does it matter," she murmured through her smoke. "The place still
pays. Your salaries are all secure, and I have plenty of money. I may
come back, I may not. In any event, I am bored." She rippled out to her
landaulette, and drove home. At her apartment, her Chinese maid was
already unpacking her trunks.

"Don't unpack any more, Yo San. I may decide to go away again--abroad
perhaps. I am still very bored--give me a white kirtle and telephone Mr.
Marchmont to call in an hour."

With her maid's help she undressed, pinned her hair high, and slipped on
a knee-high tunic of heavy chiffon. Barefooted, she entered a large room,
walled in white and dull silver--the end opposite the windows filled by a
single mirror. Between the windows stood a great tank of gold and silver
fish swimming among water lilies.

Two enormous vases of dull glass, stacked with lilies against her
homecoming, stood on marble pedestals. The floor was covered with a
carpeting of dead black. A divan draped in yellow silk, a single ebony
chair inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and a low table in teakwood were the
sole furniture. Here, quite alone, Felicity danced away the stiffness of
her journey, danced away the drumming of the train from her ears, and its
dust from her lungs. Then she bathed, and Yo San dressed her in a loose
robe of silver mesh, and fastened her hair with an ivory comb carved and
tinted to the model of a water lily. These rites complete, Felicity
slowly partook of fruit, coffee and toast. Only then did she re-enter the
dance room, where, on his ebony chair, the dangling Marchmont had been
uncomfortably waiting for half an hour.

She gave him her hand dreamily, and sank full length on the divan.

"You are more marvelous than ever, Felicity," said he, with an adoring
sigh.

She waved her hand. "For all that I am not in the mood. Tell me the news,
my dear Marchmont--plays, pictures, scandals, which of my clients are
richer, which are bankrupt, who has gone abroad, and all about my
friends."

Marchmont leant forward, and prepared to light a cigarette, his thin
mouth twisted to an eager smile, his loose hair wagging.

"Wait," she breathed, "I weary of smoke. Give me a lily, Marchmont." He
fetched one of the great Easter lilies from its vase. Placing this on her
bosom, she folded her supple hands over it, closed her eyes, and lay
still, looking like a Bakst version of the Maid of Astolat. Felicity's
hints were usually sufficient for her slaves. Marchmont put away his
cigarette, and proceeded with relish to recount the gossip with which, to
his long finger-tips, he was charged.

"Well," said he, after an hour's general survey of New York as they both
knew it, "I think that about covers the ground. There is, as I said, no
question that Einsbacher is still devoted. My own opinion is he will
present you with the Nixie. I suppose you received the clippings I sent
about the picture? Constance Elliot has only ordered two gowns from the
studio since you left--but you will have seen that by the books. She says
she is saving her money for the Cause." He snickered. "The fact is, she
grows dowdy as she grows older. Gunther has gone to Frisco with his
group. Polly Thayer tells me his adoration of the beautiful Byrd is
pathetic. So much in love he nearly broke her neck showing off his
driving for her benefit." Marchmont snickered again. "As for your friend
Mr. Byrd--" he smiled with a touch of sly pleasure--"you won't see him,
he sailed for France yesterday, alone. His name is in this morning's list
of departures." And he drew a folded and marked newspaper from his
pocket.

A shade of displeasure had crept over the immobile features of Miss
Berber. She opened her eyes and regarded the lank Marchmont with
distaste. Her finger pressed a button on the divan. Slowly she raised
herself to her elbow, while he watched, his pale eyes fixed on her with
the expression of a ratting dog waiting its master's thanks after a
catch.

"All that you have told me," said Felicity at last, a slight edge to her
zephyr-like voice, "is interesting, but I wish you would remember that
while you are free to ridicule my clients, you are not free as regards my
friends. Your comment on Connie was in poor taste. I am not in the mood
for more conversation this morning. I am fatigued. Good-day, Marchmont."
She sank to her pillows again--her eyes closed.

"Oh, I say, Felicity, is that all the thanks I get?" whined her visitor.

"Good-day, Marchmont," she breathed again. The door opened, disclosing Yo
San. Marchmont's aesthetic veneer cracked.

"Oh, shucks," he said, "how mean of you!" and trailed out, his cutaway
seeming to hang limp like the dejected tail of a dog.

The door closed, Felicity bounded up and, running across the room,
invoked her own loveliness in the mirror.

"Alone," she whispered to herself, "alone." She danced a few steps,
swayingly. "You've never lived, lovely creature, you've never lived yet,"
she apostrophized the dancing vision in the glass.

Still swaying and posturing to some inward melody, she fluttered down the
passage to her bedroom. "Yo San," she called, her voice almost full, "we
shall go to Europe." The stolid little maid nodded acquiescence.

For the next three days Felicity Berber, creator of raiment, shut in her
pastoral fitting room and surrounded by her chief acolytes, sat at a
table opposite Stefan's dancing faun, and designed spring gowns. Felicity
the idle, the somnolent, the alluring, gave place to Felicity the
inventor, and again to Felicity the woman of business. Scissors clipped,
typewriters clicked, colored chalks covered dozens of sheets with
drawings.

The staff became first relieved, then enthusiastic. What a spring display
they were to have! On the third day hundreds of primrose-yellow
envelopes, inscribed in green ink to the studio's clients, poured into
the letter-chute. Within them an announcement printed in flowing green
script read, under Felicity's letterhead, "I offer twenty-one original
designs for spring raiment, created by me under the inspiration of a
sojourn in the South. Each will be modified to the wearer's personality,
and none will be duplicated. I am about to travel in Europe, there to
gain atmosphere for my fall creations." After her signature, was stamped,
by way of seal, a tiny woodcut of Stefan's faun.

The last design was complete by Friday, and on Saturday Felicity sailed
on the Mauretania, her suite of three rooms a wilderness of flowers.
Marchmont, calling at the apartment to escort her to the boat, found the
dance-room swathed in sheeting, its heavy carpet rolled into a corner.
Evidently, this was to be no brief "sojourn." The heavy Einsbacher was at
the dock to see her off, together with a small pack of nondescript young
men. Constance was not there, and Marchmont guessed that she had not been
told of her friend's departure.

Einsbacher had the last word with Felicity. "I hope you will like the
vlowers," he whispered gutturally. "Let me know if I may make you a
present of the Nixie," and he gave a thick smile.

"You know my rule," she murmured, her lids heavy, a bored droop at the
corners of her mouth. "Nothing worth more than five dollars, except
flowers. Why should I break it--" her voice hovered--"for you?"--it sank.
She turned away, melting into the crowd. Marchmont, with malicious
pleasure, watched Einsbacher's discomfited retreat.

In her cabin Felicity collected all the donors' cards from her flowers
and, stepping outside, with a faint smile dropped them into the sea.




XI


It was the end of April, and Paris rustled gaily in her spring dress.
Stefan and Adolph, clad in disreputable baggy trousers topped in one case
by a painter's blouse and in the other by an infinitely aged alpaca
jacket, strolled homeward in the early evening from their favorite café.

Adolph was in the highest spirits, as he had been ever since Stefan's
arrival three weeks before, but the other's face wore a rather moody
frown. He had begun to weary a little of his good friend's ecstatic
pleasure in their reunion.

He was in Paris again, in his old attic; it was spring, and his beloved
city as beautiful as ever. He had expected a return of his old-time
gaiety, but somehow the charm lacked potency. He wanted to paint, but his
ideas were turgid and fragmentary. He wanted excitement, but the city
only seemed to offer memories. The lapse of a short eighteen months had
scattered his friends surprisingly. Adolph remained, but Nanette was
married. Louise had left Paris, and Giddens, the English painter, had
gone back to London. Perhaps it was the spring, perhaps it was merely the
law which decrees that the past can never be recaptured--whatever the
cause, Stefan's flight had not wholly assuaged his restlessness. Of
adventures in the hackneyed sense he had not thought. He was too
fastidious for the vulgar sort, and had hitherto met no women who stirred
his imagination. Moreover, he harbored the delusion that the failure of
his great romance had killed his capacity for love. "I am done with
women," he said to himself.

Mary seemed very distant. He thought of her with gratitude for her
generosity, with regret, but without longing.

"Never marry," he said to Adolph for the twentieth time, as they turned
into the rue des Trois Ermites; "the wings of an artist must remain
unbound."

"Ah, Stefan," Adolph replied, sighing over his friend's disillusionment,
"I am not like you. I should be grateful for a home, and children. I am
only a cricket scraping out my little music, not an eagle."

Stefan snorted. "You are a great violinist, but you won't realize it.
Look here, Adolph, chuck your job, and go on a walking tour with me.
Let's travel through France and along the Riviera to Italy. I'm sick of
cities. There's lots of money for us both, and if we run short, why,
bring your fiddle along and play it--why not?"

At their door the concierge handed Adolph some letters.

"My friend," said he, holding up a couple of bills, "one cannot slip away
from life so easily. How should I pay my way when we returned?"

"Hang it," said Stefan impatiently, "don't you begin to talk obligations.
I came to France to get away from all that. Have a little imagination,
Adolph. It would be the best thing that could happen to you to get shaken
out of that groove at the Opera--be the making of you."

They had reached the attic, and Adolph lit a lamp.

"We'll talk of it to-morrow, my infant, now I must dress--see, here is a
letter for you."

He handed Stefan a tinted envelope, and began leisurely to don his
conventional black. Holding the note under the lamp, Stefan saw with a
start that it was from Felicity, and had been left by hand. Excited, he
tore it open. It was written in ordinary ink, upon pale pink paper,
agreeably scented.

"My dear friend," he read in French, "I am in Paris, and
chancing to remember your old address--("I swear I never told
her the number," he thought)--send this in search of you.
How pleasant it would be to see you, and to have a little converse
in the sweet French tongue. You did not know that it
was my own, did you? But yes, I have French-Creole blood.
One is happy here among one's own kind. This evening I shall
be alone. Felicity."

So, she was a Creole--of the race of Josephine! His pulses beat. Cramming
the note into his pocket he whirled excitedly upon his friend.

"Adolph," he cried, "I'm going out--where are my clothes?" and began
hastily to rummage for his Gladstone amidst a pile of their joint
belongings. Throwing it open, he dragged out his dress suit--folded still
as Mary had packed it--and strewed a table with collars, ties, shirts,
and other accessories.

"Hot water, Adolph! Throw some sticks into the stove--I must shave," he
called, and Adolph, amazed at this sudden transformation, hastily obeyed.

"Where do you go?" he asked, as he filled the kettle.

"I'm going to see a very attractive young woman," Stefan grinned. "Wow,
what a mercy I brought some decent clothes, eh?" He was already stripped,
and shaking out a handful of silk socks. Something clicked to the floor,
but he did not notice it. The dressing proceeded in a whirl, Adolph much
impressed by the splendors of his friend's toilet. A fine shirt of tucked
linen, immaculate pumps, links of dull gold--his comrade in Bohemia had
completely vanished.

"O là, là!" cried he, beaming, "now I see it is true about all your
riches!"

"I'm going to take a taxi," Stefan announced as he slipped into his coat;
"can I drop you?"

He stood ready, having overtaken Adolph's sketchy but leisured dressing.

"What speed, my child! One moment!" Adolph shook on his coat, found his
glasses, and was crossing to put out the lamp when his foot struck a
small object.

"What is this, something of yours?" He stooped and picked up a framed
snapshot of a girl playing with a baby. "How beautiful!" he exclaimed,
holding it under the lamp.

"Oh, yes," said Stefan with a slight frown, "that's Mary. I didn't know I
had it with me. Come on, Adolph," and he tossed the picture back into the
open Gladstone.

While Adolph found a taxi, Stefan paused a moment to question the
concierge. Yes, monsieur's note had been left that afternoon, Madame
remembered, by une petite Chinoise, bien chic, who had asked if Monsieur
lived here. Madame's aged eyes snapped with Gallic appreciation of a
possible intrigue.

Stefan was glad when he had dropped Adolph. He stretched at ease along
the cushions of his open taxi, breathing in the warm, audacious air of
spring, and watched the faces of the crowds as they emerged under the
lights to be lost again mysteriously in the dusk.

Paris, her day's work done, was turning lightly, with her entrancing
smile, to the pursuit of friendship, adventure, and love. All through the
scented streets eyes sought eyes, voices rose in happy laughter or
drooped to soft allurement. Stefan thrilled to the magic in the air. He,
too, was seeking his adventure.

The taxi drew up in the courtyard of an apartment house. Giving his name,
Stefan entered a lift and was carried up one floor. A white door opened,
and the small Yo San, with a salutation, took his hat, and lifted a
curtain. He was in a long, low room, yellow with candlelight. Facing him,
open French windows giving upon a balcony showed the purpling dusk above
the river and the black shapes of trees. Lights trickled their reflection
in the water, the first stars shone, the scent of flowers was heavy in
the air.

All this he saw; then a curtain moved, and a slim form appeared from the
balcony as silently as a moth fluttering to the light.

"Ah, Stefan, welcome," a voice murmured.

The setting was perfect. As Felicity moved toward him--her gown
fluttering and swaying in folds of golden pink as delicately tinted as
the petals of a rose--Stefan realized he had never seen her so alluring.
Her strange eyes shone, her lips curved soft and inviting, her cheeks and
throat were like warm, white velvet.

He took her outstretched hand--of the texture of a camelia--and it pulsed
as if a heart beat in it.

"Felicity," he half whispered, holding her hand, "how wonderful you are!"

"Am I?" she breathed, sighingly. "I have been asleep so long, Stefan.
perhaps I am awake a little now."

Her eyes, wide and gleaming as he had never seen them, held him. A
mysterious perfume, subtle and poignant, hung about her. Her gauzy dress
fluttered as she breathed; she seemed barely poised on her slim feet. He
put out his arm as if to stay her from mothlike flight, and it fell about
her waist. He pressed her to him. Her lips met his--they were incredibly
soft and warm--they seemed to blossom under his kisses.

* * * * *

Adolph, returning from the opera at midnight, donned his old jacket and a
pair of slippers and, lighting his pipe, settled himself with a paper to
await Stefan's coming. Presently first the paper, then the burnt-out
pipe, fell from his hands--he dozed, started awake, and dozed again.

At last he roused himself and stretched stiffly. The lamp was burning
low--he looked at his watch--it was four o'clock. Stefan's Gladstone bag
still yawned on a chair beside the table. In it, the dull glow of the
lamp was reflected from a small silver object lying among a litter of
ties and socks. Adolph picked it up, and looked for some moments at the
face of Mary, smiling above her little son. He shook his head.

"Tch, tch! Quel dommage-what a pity!" he sighed, and putting down the
picture undressed slowly, blew out the lamp, and went to bed.




XII


On a Saturday morning at the end of June, Mary stood by the gate of the
Byrdsnest, looking down the lane. McEwan, who was taking a whole holiday
from the office, had offered to fetch her mail from the village. Any
moment he might be back. It was quite likely, she told herself, that
there would be a letter from France this morning--a steamer had docked on
Thursday, another yesterday. Surely this time there would be something
for her. Mary's eyes, as they strained down the lane, had lost some of
their radiant youth. A stranger might have guessed her older than the
twenty-six years she had just completed--she seemed grave and matronly--
her face had a bleak look. Mary's last letter from France had come more
than a month ago, and a face can change much in a month of waiting. She
knew that last letter--a mere scrap--by heart.

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