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The Nest Builder

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




Luckily, the Sparrow took to Jensen at once, so there was nothing to fear
on that score. For the Sparrow was now a permanent part of Mary's life.
She had a small independent income, but no home--her widowed sister
having gone west to live with a daughter--and she looked upon herself as
the appointed guardian of the Byrdsnest. Not only did she relieve Mary of
the housekeeping, and help Lily with the household tasks, which she
adored, but she had practically taken the place of nurse to the children,
leaving Mary hours of freedom for her work which would otherwise have
been unattainable.

The competency of the two friends achieved the impossible in the next few
weeks, as it had done on the memorable first day of Mary's housekeeping.
Mr. Jensen, with his trained taste, was invaluable for shopping
expeditions, going back and forth to the city with catalogues, samples,
and orders.

In a little over three weeks Stefan's old studio had been transformed
into a bed-sitting-room, with every comfort that an invalid could desire,
and the further end of it had been partitioned into a bathroom and a
small bedroom for Mr. Jensen, with a separate outside entrance.

"Oh, if only I had the new wing," sighed Mary.

"This will be even quieter for him, Mrs. Byrd, and the chair can be
wheeled so quickly to the house," replied Mr. Jensen.

The back window of Mary's sitting room had been enlarged to glass doors,
and from these a concrete path ran to the studio entrance. Mary planned
to make it a covered way after the summer.

The day the wheeled chair arrived it was hard for her to keep back the
tears. It was a beautifully made thing of springs, cushions, and rubber
tires. It could be pushed, or hand-propelled by the occupant. It could be
lowered, heightened, or tilted. It was all that a chair could be--but how
to picture Stefan in it, he of the lithe steps and quick, agile
movements, the sudden turns, and the swift, almost running walk? Her
heart trembled with pity at the thought.

They had already received an "all well" cable from Paris, and three weeks
after be had sailed, James telegraphed that they were starting. He had
waited for the American line--he would have been gone a month.

As the day of landing approached, Mary became intensely nervous. She
decided not to meet the boat, and sent James a wireless to that effect.
She could not see Stefan first among all those crowds; her instinct told
her that he, too, would not wish it.

The ship docked on Saturday. The day before, the last touches had been
put to Stefan's quarters. They were as perfect as care and taste could
make them. Early on Saturday morning Mr. Jensen started for the city,
carrying a big bunch of roses--Mary's welcome to her husband. While the
Sparrow flew about the house gilding the lily of cleanliness, Mary, with
Elliston at her skirts, picked the flowers destined for Stefan's room.
These she arranged in every available vase--the studio sang with them.
Every now and then she would think of some trifle to beautify it further
--a drawing from her sitting room--her oldest pewter plate for another
ashtray--a pine pillow from her bedroom. Elliston's fat legs became so
tired with ceaselessly trotting back and forth behind her that he began
to cry with fatigue, and was put to bed for his nap. Rosamond waked,
demanding dinner and amusement.

The endless morning began to pass, and all this while Mary had not
thought!

At lunch time James telephoned. They would be out by three o'clock.
Stefan had stood the journey well, was delighted with the roses, and to
see Jensen. He was wonderfully brave and cheerful.

Mary was trembling as she hung up the receiver. He was here, he was on
the way; and still, she had not thought!

Both children asleep, the last conceivable preparation made, Mary settled
herself on the porch at last, to face what was coming.

The Sparrow peeped out at her.

"I guess you'd as soon be left alone, my dear," she said, tactfully.

"Yes, please, Sparrow," Mary replied, with a nervous smile. The little
spinster slipped away.

What did she feel for Stefan? Mary wondered. Pity, deep pity? Yes. But
that she would feel for any wounded soldier. Admiration for his courage?
That, too, any one of the war's million heroes could call forth.
Determination to do her full duty by this stricken member of her family?
Of course, she would have done that for any relative. Love? No. Mary felt
no love for Stefan. That had died, nearly a year ago, died in agony and
humiliation. She could not feel that her lover, her husband, was
returning to her. She waited only for a wounded man to whom she owed the
duty of all kindness.

Suddenly, her heart shook with fear. What if she were unable to show him
more than pity, more than kindness? What if he, stricken, helpless,
should feel her lack of warmth, and tenderness, should feel himself a
stranger here in this his only refuge? Oh, no, no! She must do better
than that. She must act a part. He must feel himself cared for, wanted.
Surely he, who had lost everything, could ask so much for old love's
sake? ... But if she could not give it? Terror assailed her, the terror of
giving pain; for she knew that of all women she was least capable of
insincerity. "I don't know how to act," she cried to herself, pitifully.

A car honked in the lane. They were here. She jumped up and ran to the
gate, wheeling the waiting chair outside it. Farraday's big car rounded
the bend--three men sat in the tonneau. Seeing them, Mary ran suddenly
back inside the gate; her eyes fell, she dared not look.

The car had stopped. Through half-raised lids she saw James alight. The
chauffeur ran to the chair. Jensen stood up in the car, and some one was
lifted from it. The chair wheeled about and came toward her. It was
through the gate--it was only a yard away.

"Mary," said a voice. She looked up.

There was the well-known face, strangely young, the eyes large and
shadowed. There was his smile, eager, and very anxious now. There were
his hands, those finely nervous hands. They lay on a rug, beneath which
were the once swift limbs that could never move again. He was all hers
now. His wings were broken, and, broken, he was returning to the nest.

"Mary!"

She made one step forward. Stooping, she gathered his head to her breast,
that breast where, loverlike, it had lain a hundred times. Her arms held
him close, her tears ran down upon his hair.

"My boy!" she cried.

Here was no lover, no husband to be forgiven. Cradled upon her heart
there lay only her first, her most wayward, and her best loved child.




III


Mary never told Stefan of those nightmare moments before his arrival.
From the instant that her deepest passion, the maternal, had answered to
his need, she knew neither doubt nor unhappiness.

She settled down to the task of creating by her labor and love a home
where her three dependents and her three faithful helpmates could find
the maximum of happiness and peace.

The life of the Byrdsnest centered about Stefan; every one thought first
of him and his needs. Next in order of consideration came Ellie and
little Rosamond. Then Lily had to be remembered. She must not be
overworked; she must take enough time off. Henrik, too, must not be over-
conscientious. He must allow Mary to relieve him often enough. As for the
Sparrow, she must not wear herself out flying in three directions at
once. She must not tire her eyes learning typewriting. But at this point
Mary's commands were apt to be met with contempt.

"Now, Mary Byrd," the Sparrow would chirp truculently, "you 'tend to your
business, and let me 'tend to mine. Anybody would think that we were all
to save ourselves in this house but you. As for my typing, it's funny if
I can't save you something on those miserable stenographers' bills."

Mary was wonderfully happy in these days--happier in a sense than she had
ever been, for she had found, beyond all question, the full work for
hands to do. And to her love for her children there was added not merely
her maternal tenderness for Stefan, but a deep and growing admiration.

For Stefan was changed not only in the body, but in the spirit. Everybody
remarked it. The fierce fires of war seemed to have burnt away his old
confident egotism. In giving himself to France he had found more than he
had lost; for, by a strange paradox, in the midst of death he had found
belief in life.

"Mary, my beautiful," he said to her one day in September, as he worked
at an adjustable drawing board which swung across his knees, "did you
ever wonder why all my old pictures used to be of rapid movement, nearly
all of running or flying?"

"Yes, dearest, I used to try often to think out the significance of it."

They were in the studio. Mary had just dropped her pencil after a couple
of hours' work on a new serial she was writing. She often worked now in
Stefan's room. He was busy with a series of drawings of the war. He had
tried different media--pastel, ink, pencils, and chalks--to see which
were the easiest for sedentary work.

"It's good-bye to oils," he had said, "I couldn't paint a foot from the
canvas."

Now he was using a mixture of chalk and charcoal, and was in the act of
finishing the sixth drawing of his series. The big doors of the barn were
opened wide to the sunny lawn, gay with a riot of multicolored dahlias.

"It's odd," said Stefan, pushing away his board and turning the wheels of
his chair so that he faced the brilliant stillness of the garden, "but I
seem never to have understood my work till now. I used always to paint
flight partly because it was beautiful in itself but also, I think, with
some hazy notion that swift creatures could always escape from the
ugliness of life."

Mary came and sat by him, taking his hand.

"It seems to me," he went on, "that I spent my life flying from what I
thought was ugly. I always refused to face realities, Mary, unless they
were pleasant. I fled even from the great reality of our marriage because
it meant responsibilities and monotony, and they seemed ugly things to
me. And now, Mary," he smiled, "now that I can never shoulder
responsibilities again, and am condemned to lifelong monotony"--she
pressed his hand--"neither seems ugly any more. The truth is, I thought I
fled to get away from things, and it was really to get away from myself.
Now that I've seen such horrors, such awful suffering, and such
unbelievable sacrifice, I have something to think about so much more real
than my vain, egotistical self. I know what my work is now, something
much better than just creating beauty. I gave my body to France--that was
nothing. But now I have to give her my soul--I have to try and make it a
voice to tell the world a little of what she has done. Am I too vain,
dearest, in thinking that these really say something big?"

He nodded toward his first five drawings, which hung in a row on the
wall.

"Oh, Stefan, you know what I think of them," she said, her eyes shining.

"Would you mind pinning up the new one, Mary, so that we can see them all
together?"

She rose and, unfastening the drawing from its board, pinned it beside
the others. Then she turned his chair to face them, and they both looked
silently at the pictures.

They were drawings of the French lines, and the peasant life behind them.
Dead soldiers, old women by a grave, young mothers following the plow
--men tense, just before action. The subjects were already familiar enough
through the work of war correspondents and photographers, but the
treatment was that of a great artist. The soul of a nation was there
--which is always so much greater than the soul of an individual. The
drawings were not of men and women, but of one of the world's greatest
races at the moment of its transfiguration.

For the twentieth time Mary's eyes moistened as she looked at them.

The shadows began to lengthen. Shouts came from the slope, and presently
Ellie's sturdy form appeared through the trees, followed by the somewhat
disheveled Sparrow carrying Rosamond, who was smiting her shoulder and
crowing loudly.

"I'll come and help you in a few minutes, Sparrow," Mary called, as the
procession crossed the lawn, her face beaming love upon it.

"Can you spare the few minutes, dear?" Stefan asked, watching her.

"Yes, indeed, they won't need me yet."

The light was quite golden now; the dahlias seemed on fire under it.

"Mary," said Stefan, "I've been thinking a lot about you lately."

"Have you, dear?"

"Yes, I never tried to understand you in the old days. I had never met
your sort of woman before, and didn't trouble to think about you except
as a beautiful being to love. I was too busy thinking about myself," he
smiled. "I wondered, without understanding it, where you got your
strength, why everything you touched seemed to turn to order and
helpfulness under your hands. I think now it is because you are always so
true to life--to the things life really means. Every one always approves
and upholds you, because in you the race itself is expressed, not merely
one of its sports, as with me."

She looked a little puzzled. "Do you mean, dearest, because I have
children?"

"No, Beautiful, any one can do that. I mean because you have in perfect
balance and control all the qualities that should be passed on to
children, if the race is to be happy. You are so divinely normal, Mary,
that's what it is, and yet you are not dull."

"Oh, I'm afraid I am," smiled Mary, "rather a bromide, in fact."

He shook his head, with his old brilliant smile.

"No, dearest, nobody as beautiful and as vital as you can be dull to any
one who is not out of tune with life. I used to be that, so I'm afraid I
thought you so, now and then."

"I know you did," she laughed, "and I thought you fearfully erratic."

He laughed back. They had both passed the stage in which the truth has
power to hurt.

"I remember Mr. Gunther talking to me a little as you have been doing,"
she recalled, "when he came to model me. I don't quite understand either
of you. I think you're just foolishly prejudiced in my favor because you
admire me."

"What about the Farradays, and Constance, and the Sparrow and Lily and
Henrik and McEwan and the Havens and Madame Corriani and--"

"Oh, stop!" she laughed, covering his mouth with her hand.

"And even in Paris," he concluded, holding the hand, "Adolph, and--yes,
and Felicity Berber. Are they all 'prejudiced in your favor'?"

"Why do you include the last named?" she asked, rather low. It was the
first time Felicity had been spoken of between them.

"She threw me over, Mary, the hour she discovered how it was with you,"
he said quietly.

"That was rather decent of her. I'm glad you told me that," she answered
after a pause.

"All this brings me to what I really want to say," he continued, still
holding her hand in his. "You are so alive, you _are_ life; and yet
you're chained to a half-dead man."

"Oh, don't, dearest," she whispered, deeply distressed.

"Yes, let me finish. I shan't last very long, my dear--two or three
years, perhaps--long enough to say what I must about France. I want you
to go on living to the full. I want you to marry again, Mary, and have
more beautiful, strong children."

"Oh, darling, don't! Don't speak of such things," she begged, her lips
trembling.

"I've finished, Beautiful. That's all I wanted to say. Just for you to
remember," he smiled.

Her arms went round him. "You're bad," she whispered, "I shan't
remember."

"Here comes Henrik," he replied. "Run in to your babies."

He watched her swinging steps as, after a farewell kiss, she sped down
the little path.




IV


Stefan's moods were not always calm. He had his hours of fierce
rebellion, when he felt he could not endure another moment with his
deadened carcass; when, without life, it seemed so much better to die. He
had days of passionate longing for the world, for love, for everything he
had lost. Mary fell into the habit of borrowing the Farradays' car when
she saw such a mood approaching, and sending Stefan for long drives
alone. The rushing flight seldom failed to carry him beyond the reach of
his black mood. Returning, he would plunge into work, and the next day
would find him calm and smiling once again. He suffered much pain from
his back, but this he bore with admirable patience.

"It's nothing," he would say, "compared to the black devils."

Stefan's courage was enormously fortified by the success of his drawings,
which created little less than a sensation. Reproductions of them
appeared for some weeks in The Household Review, and were recopied
everywhere. The originals were exhibited by Constantine in November.

"Here," wrote one of the most distinguished critics in New
York, himself a painter of repute, "we have work which outranks
even Mr. Byrd's celebrated Danaë, and in my judgment
far surpasses any of the artist's other achievements. I have
watched the development of this young American genius with
the keenest interest. I placed him in the first rank as a technichian,
but his work--with the exception of the Danaë--appeared
to me to lack substance and insight. It was brilliant,
but too spectacular. Even his Danaë, though on a surprising
inspirational plane, had a quality high rather than profound,
I doubted if Mr. Byrd had the stuff of which great art is made,
but after seeing his war drawings, I confess myself mistaken.
If I were to sum up my impression of them I should say that
on the battlefield Mr. Byrd has discovered the one thing his
work lacked--soul."

Stefan read this eulogy with a humorous grin.

"I expect the fellow's right," he said. "I don't think my soul was as
strong on wings in the old days as my brush was. Without joking, though,"
he went on, suddenly grave, "I don't know if there is such a thing as a
soul, but if there is, such splendid ones were being spilled out there
that I think, perhaps, Mary, I may have picked a bit of one up."

"Dearest," said Mary, with a kiss of comprehension, "I'm so proud of you.
You are great, a great artist, and a great spirit." And she kissed him
again, her eyes shining.

If the Byrdsnest was proud in November of its distinguished head, it
positively bristled with importance in December, when Constantine
telephoned that the trustees of the Metropolitan were negotiating for
Stefan's whole series. This possibility had already been spoken of in the
press, though the family had not dared hope too much from the suggestion.

The Museum bought the drawings, and Stefan took his place as one of
America's great artists.

"Mary, I'm so glad I can be useful again, as well as ornamental," he
grinned, presenting to her with a flourish a delightfully substantial
cheque.

His courage, and his happiness in his success, were an increasing joy to
Mary. She blossomed in her pride of him, and the old glowing look came
back to her face.

Only one thing--besides her anxiety for his health--troubled her. With
all his tenderness to her, and his renewed love, he still remained a
stranger to his children. He seemed proud of their healthy beauty, and
glad of Mary's happiness in them; but their nearness bored and tired him,
and they, quick to perceive this, became hopelessly unresponsive in his
presence. Ellie would back solemnly away from the approaching chair, and
Rosamond would hang mute upon her mother's shoulder. "It's strange,"
Mary said to the Sparrow, who was quick to notice any failure to
appreciate her adored charges; "they're his own, and yet he hasn't the
key to them. I suppose it's because he's a genius, and too far apart from
ordinary people to understand just little human babies."

The thought stirred faintly the memory of her old wound.




V


That Christmas, for the first time in its history, the Byrdsnest held
high festival. House and studio were decorated, and in the afternoon
there was a Christmas-tree party for all the old friends and their
children.

The dining-room had been closed since the night before in order to
facilitate Santa Clans' midnight spiritings.

When all the guests had arrived, and Stefan had been wheeled in from the
studio, the mysterious door was at last thrown open, revealing the tree
in all its glory, rooted in a floor of glittering snow, with its topmost
star scraping the ceiling.

With shouts the older children surrounded it; Ellie followed more slowly,
awed by such splendor; and Rosamond crept after, drawn irresistibly by a
hundred glittering lures.

Crawling from guest to guest, her tiny hands clutching toys as big as
herself, her dark eyes brilliant, her small red mouth emitting coos of
rapture, she enchanted the men, and drew positive tears of delight from
Constance.

"Oh, Walter!" she cried, shaking her son with viciousness, "how could you
have been so monotonous as to be born a boy?"

After a time Mary noticed that Stefan was being tired by the hubbub, and
signaled an adjournment to the studio for tea and calm. The elders
trooped out; the children fell upon the viands; and Miss Mason caught
Rosamond by the petticoat as she endeavored to creep out after Gunther,
whose great size seemed to fascinate her.

The sculptor had given Mary a bronze miniature of his now famous
"Pioneers" group. It was a beautiful thing, and Constance and James were
anxious to know if other copies were to be obtained.

"No," Gunther answered them laconically, "I have only had three cast. One
the President wished to have, the second is for myself, and Mrs. Byrd, as
the original of the woman, naturally has the third."

"Couldn't you cast one or two more?" Constance pleaded.

"No," he replied, "I should not care to do so."

Stefan examined the bronze with interest, his keen eyes traveling from
the man's figure to the woman's.

"It's very good of you both," he said, looking from Gunther to Mary, with
a trace of his old teasing smile. Mary blushed slightly. For some reason
which she did not analyze she was a trifle embarrassed at seeing herself
perpetuated in bronze as the companion of the sculptor.

When the guests began to leave, Mary urged the Farradays to remain a
little longer. "It's only five o'clock," she reminded them.

Mrs. Farraday settled herself comfortably, and drew out her khaki-colored
knitting. James lit his pipe, and Stefan wheeled forward to the glow of
the fire, fitting a cigarette into his new amber holder.

"I have a letter from Wallace," said James, "that I've been waiting to
read you. Shall I do so now?"

"Oh, do!" exclaimed Mary, "we shall love to hear it. Wait a moment,
though, while I fetch Rosamond--the Sparrow can't attend to them both at
once _and_ help Lily."

She returned in a moment with the sleepy baby.

"I'll have to put her to bed soon," she said, settling into a low rocking
chair, "but it isn't quite time yet. I suppose Jamie has heard his
father's letter?"

"Oh, yes," said James, "and has dozens of his own, too."

"He's such a dear boy," Mary continued, "he's playing like an angel with
Ellie in there, while the Sparrow flits."

James unfolded Mac's closely written sheets, and read his latest accounts
of the officers' training corps with which he had been for the last six
months, the gossip that filtered to them from the front, and his
expectation of being soon gazetted to a Highland Regiment.

"The waiting is hard, but when once I get with our own
lads in the trenches I'll be the happiest man alive," wrote Mac.
"Meanwhile, I think a lot of all you dear people. I'm more
than happy in what you tell me of Byrd's success and of the
bairns' and Mary's well being. Give them all my love and
congratulations."

James turned the last page, and paused. "I think that's about all," he
said.

But it was not all. While the others sat silent for a minute, their
thoughts on the great struggle, Farraday's eyes ran again down that last
page.

"Poor Byrd," Mac wrote, "so you say he'll not last many
years. Well, life would have broken him anyway, and it's
grand he's found himself before the end. He's not the lasting
kind, there's too much in him, and too little. She wins, after
all, James; life won't cheat her as it has him. She is here just
to be true to her instincts--to choose the finest mate for her
nest-building. She'll marry again, though the dear woman
doesn't know it, and would be horrified at the thought. But
she will, and it won't be either of us--we are too much her kind.
It will be some other brilliant egoist who will thrill her, grind
her heart, and give her wonderful children. She is an instrument.
As I think I once heard poor Byrd say, she is not merely
an expression of life, she is life."

James folded the letter and slipped it into his pocket.

"Come, son, we must be going," murmured Mrs. Farraday, putting up her
knitting.

"Rosamond is almost asleep," smiled Mary.

"Don't rise, my dear," said the little lady, "we'll find our own way."

"Good-bye, Farraday," said Stefan, "and thank you for everything."

Mary held out her hand to them both, and they slipped quietly out.

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