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The Nest Builder

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




By late afternoon they were in Shadeham, ensconced in a small wooden
hotel facing a silent beach and low cliffs shaded with scrub-oak. The
house was clean, and empty of other guests, and they were given a
pleasant room overlooking the water. From its windows they watched the
moon rise over the sea as they had watched her two nights before on deck.
She was the silver witness to their nuptials.




PART II

MATED

I


Mary found Stefan an ideal lover. Their marriage, entered into with such,
headlong adventurousness, seemed to unfold daily into more perfect bloom.
The difficulties of his temperament, which had been thrown into sharp
relief by the crowded life of shipboard, smoothed themselves away at the
touch of happiness and peace. No woman, Mary realized, could wish for a
fuller cup of joy than Stefan offered her in these first days of their
mating. She was amazed at herself, at the suddenness with which love had
transmuted her, at the ease with which she adjusted herself to this new
world. She found it difficult to remember what kind of life she had led
before her marriage--hardly could she believe that she had ever lived at
all.

As for Stefan, he wasted no moments in backward glances. He neither
remembered the past nor questioned the future, but immersed himself
utterly in his present joy with an abandonment he had never experienced
save in painting. Questioned, he would have scoffed at the idea that life
for him could ever hold more than his work, and Mary.

Thus absorbed, Stefan would have allowed the days to slip into weeks
uncounted. But on the ninth day Mary, incapable of a wholly carefree
attitude, reminded him that they had planned only a week of holiday.

"Let's stay a month," he replied promptly.

But Mary had been questioning her landlord about New York.

"It appears," she explained, "that every one moves on the first of
October, and that if one hasn't found a studio by then, it is almost
impossible to get one. He says he has heard all the artists live round
about Washington Square, but that even there rents are fearfully high.
It's at the foot of Fifth Avenue, he says, which sounds very fashionable
to me, but he explains it is too far 'down town.'"

"Yes, Fifth Avenue is the great street, I understand," said Stefan, "and
my dealer's address is on Fourth, so he's in a very good neighborhood. I
don't know that I should like Washington Square--it sounds so patriotic."

"Fanatic!" laughed Mary. "Well, whether we go there or not, it's evident
we must get back before October the first, and it's now September the
twenty-fourth."

"Angel, don't let's be mathematical," he replied, pinching the lobe of
her ear, which he had proclaimed to be entrancingly pretty. "I can't add;
tell me the day we have to leave, and on that day we will go."

"Three days from now, then," and she sighed.

"Oh, no! Not only three more days of heaven, Mary?"

"It will hurt dreadfully to leave," she agreed, "but," and she nestled to
him, "it won't be any less heaven there, will it, dearest?"

This spurred him to reassurance. "Of course not," he responded, quickly
summoning new possibilities of delight. "Imagine it, you haven't even
seen my pictures yet." They had left them, rolled, at Miss Mason's. "And
I want to paint you--really paint you--not just silly little sketches and
heads, but a big thing that I can only do in a studio. Oh, darling, think
of a studio with you to sit to me! How I shall work!" His imagination was
fired; instantly he was ready to pack and leave.

But they had their three days more, in the golden light of the Indian
summer. Three more swims, in which Stefan could barely join for joy of
watching her long lines cutting the water in her close English bathing
dress. Three more evening walks along the shimmering sands. Three more
nights in their moon-haunted room within sound of the slow splash of the
waves. And, poignant with the sadness of a nearing change, these days
were to Mary the most exquisite of all.

Their journey to the city, on the little, gritty, perpetually stopping
train was made jocund by the lively anticipations of Stefan, who was in a
mood of high confidence.

They had decided from the first to try their fortunes in New York that
winter; not to return to Paris till they had established a sure market
for Stefan's work. He had halcyon plans. Masterpieces were to be painted
under the inspiration of Mary's presence. His success in the Beaux Arts
would be an Open Sesame to the dealers, and they would at once become
prosperous,--for he had the exaggerated continental idea of American
prices. In the spring they would return to Paris, so that Mary should see
it first at its most beautiful. There they would have a studio, making it
their center, but they would also travel.

"Spain, Italy, Greece, Mary--we will see all the world's masterpieces
together," he jubilated. "You shall be my wander-bride." And he sang her
little snatches of gay song, in French and Italian, thrumming an
imaginary guitar or making castanets of his fingers.

"I will paint you on the Acropolis, Mary, a new Pallas to guard the
Parthenon." His imagination leapt from vista to vista of the future, each
opening to new delights. Mary's followed, lured, dazzled, a little
hesitant. Her own visions, unformulated though they were, seemed of
somewhat different stuff, but she saw he could not conceive them other
than his, and yielded her doubts happily.

At the Pennsylvania Station they took a taxicab, telling the driver they
wanted a hotel near Washington Square. The amount registered on the meter
gave Mary an apprehensive chill, but Stefan paid it carelessly. A moment
later he was in raptures, for, quite unexpectedly, they found themselves
in a French hotel.

"What wonderful luck--what a good omen!" he cried. "Mary, it's almost
like Paris!" and he broke into rapid gesticulating talk with the desk
clerk. Soon they were installed in a bright little room with French
prints on the walls, a gay old-fashioned wall paper and patterned
curtains. Stefan assured her it was extraordinarily cheap for New York.
While she freshened her face and hair he dashed downstairs, ignoring the
elevator--which seemed to exist there only as an American afterthought
--in search of a packet of French cigarettes. Finding them, he was
completely in his element, and leant over the desk puffing luxuriously,
to engage the clerk in further talk. From him he obtained advice as to
the possibilities of the neighborhood in respect of studios, and armed
with this, bounded up the stairs again to Mary. Presently, fortified by a
pot of tea and delicious French rolls, they sallied out on their quest.

That afternoon they discovered two vacant studios. One was on a top floor
on Washington Square South, a big room with bathroom and kitchenette
attached and a small bedroom opening into it. The other was an attic just
off the Square. It had water, but no bathroom, was heated only by an open
fire, and consisted of one large room with sufficient light, and a large
closet in which was a single pane of glass high up. The studio contained
an abandoned model throne, the closet a gas ring and a sink. The rent of
the first apartment was sixty dollars a month; of the second, twenty-
five. Both were approached by a dark staircase, but in one case there was
a carpet, in the other the stairs were bare, dirty, and creaking, while
from depths below was wafted an unmistakable odor of onions and cats.

Mary, whose father's rambling sunny house in Lindum with its Elizabethan
paneling and carvings had been considered dear at ninety pounds a year,
was staggered at the price of these mean garrets, the better of which she
felt to be quite beyond their reach. Even Stefan was a little dashed, but
was confident that after his interview with Adolph's brother sixty
dollars would appear less formidable.

"You should have seen my attic in Paris, Mary--absolutely falling to
pieces--but then I didn't mind, not having a goddess to house," and he
pressed her arm. "For you there should be something spacious and bright
enough to be a fitting background." He glanced up a little ruefully at
the squalid house they had just left.

But she was quick to reassure him, her courage mounting to sustain his.
"We could manage perfectly well in the smaller place for a time, dearest,
and how lucky we don't have to take a lease, as we should in England."
Her mind jumped to perceive any practical advantage. Already, mentally,
she was arranging furniture in the cheaper place, planning for a screen,
a tin tub, painting the dingy woodwork. They asked for the refusal of
both studios till the next day, and for that evening left matters
suspended.

In the morning, Stefan, retrieving his canvases from Miss Mason's flat,
sought out the dealer, Jensen. Walking from Fifth Avenue, he was
surprised at the cheap appearance of the houses on Fourth, only one block
away. He had expected to find Adolph's brother in such a great stone
building as those he had just passed, with their show windows empty save
for one piece of tapestry or sculpture, or a fine painting brilliant
against its background of dull velvet. Instead, the number on Fourth
Avenue proved a tumbledown house of two stories, with tattered awnings
flapping above its shop-window, which was almost too grimy to disclose
the wares within. These were a jumble of bric-a-brac, old furniture of
doubtful value, stained prints, and one or two blackened oil paintings in
tarnished frames. With ominous misgivings, Stefan entered the half-opened
door. The place was a confused medley of the flotsam and jetsam of
dwelling houses, and appeared to him much more like a pawnbroker's than
the business place of an art dealer. From its dusty shadows a stooped
figure emerged, gray-haired and spectacled, which waited for Stefan to
speak with an air of patient humbleness.

"This isn't Mr. Jensen's, is it?" Stefan asked, feeling he had mistaken
the number.

"My name is Jensen. What can I do for you?" replied the man in a toneless
voice.

"You are Adolph's brother?" incredulously.

At the name the gray face flushed pathetically. Jensen came forward,
pressing his hands together, and peered into Stefan's face.

"Yes, I am," he answered, "and you are Mr. Byrd that he wrote to me
about. I'd hoped you weren't coming, after all. Well," and he waved his
hand, "you see how it is."

Stefan was completely dismayed. "Why," he stammered, "I thought you were
so successful--"

"I'm sorry." Jensen dropped his eyes, picking nervously at his coat. "You
see, I am the eldest brother; a man does not like to admit failure. I may
be sold up any time now. I wanted Adolph not to guess, so I--wrote--him
--differently." He flushed painfully again. Stefan was silent, too taken
aback for speech.

"I tell you, Mr. Byrd," Jensen stammered on, striking his hands together
impotently, "for all its wealth, this is a city of dead hopes. It's been
a long fight, but it's over now.... Yes, you are Adolph's friend, and I
can't so much as buy a sketch from you. It's quite, quite over." And
suddenly he sank his head in his hands, while Stefan stood, infinitely
embarrassed, clutching his roll of canvases. After a moment Jensen,
mastering himself, lifted his head. His lined, prematurely old face
showed an expression at once pleading and dignified.

"I didn't dream what I wrote would do any harm, Mr. Byrd, but now of
course you will have to explain to Adolph--?"

Stefan, moved to sympathy, held out his hand.

"Look here, Jensen, you've put me in an awful hole, worse than you know.
But why should I say anything? Let Adolph think we're both millionaires,"
and he grinned ruefully.

Jensen straightened and took the proffered hand in one that trembled.
"Thank you," he said, and his eyes glistened. "I'm grateful. If there
were only something I could do--"

"Well, give me the names of some dealers," said Stefan, to whom scenes
were exquisitely embarrassing, anxious to be gone.

Jensen wrote several names on a smudged half sheet of paper. "These are
the best. Try them. My introduction wouldn't help, I'm afraid," bitterly.

On that Stefan left him, hurrying with relief from the musty atmosphere
of failure into the busy street. Though half dazed by the sudden
subsidence of his plans, unable to face as yet the possible consequences,
he had his pictures, and the names of the real dealers; confidence still
buoyed him.




II


Three hours later Mary, anxiously waiting, heard Stefan's step approach
their bedroom door. Instantly her heart dropped like lead. She did not
need his voice to tell her what those dragging feet announced. She sprang
to the door and had her arms round his neck before he could speak. She
took the heavy roll of canvases from him and half pushed him into the
room's one comfortable arm-chair. Kneeling beside him, she pressed her
cheek to his, stroking back his heat-damped hair. "Darling," she said,
"you are tired to death. Don't tell me about your day till you've rested
a little."

He closed his eyes, leaning back. He looked exhausted; every line of his
face drooped. In spite of his tan, it was pale, with hollows under the
eyes. It was extraordinary that a few hours should make such a change,
she thought, and held him close, comfortingly.

He did not speak for a long time, but at last, "Mary," he said, in a flat
voice, "I've had a complete failure. Nobody wants my things. This is what
I've let you in for." His tone had the indifferent quality of extreme
fatigue, but Mary was not deceived. She knew that his whole being craved
reassurance, rehabilitation in its own eyes.

"Why, you old foolish darling, you're too tired to know what you're
talking about," she cried, kissing him. "Wait till you've had something
to eat." She rang the bell--four times for the waiter, as the card over
it instructed her. "Failure indeed!" she went on, clearing a small table,
"there's no such word! One doesn't grow rich in a day, you know." She
moved silently and quickly about, hung up his hat, stood the canvases in
a corner, ordered coffee, rolls and eggs, and finally unlaced Stefan's
shoes in spite of his rather horrified if feeble protest.

Not until she had watched him drink two cups of coffee and devour the
food--she guessed he had had no lunch--did she allow him to talk, first
lighting his cigarette and finding a place for herself on the arm of his
chair. By this time Stefan's extreme lassitude, and with it his despair,
had vanished. He brightened perceptibly. "You wonder," he exclaimed,
catching her hand and kissing it, "now I can tell you about it." With his
arm about her he described all his experiences, the fiasco of the Jensen
affair and his subsequent interviews with Fifth Avenue dealers. "They are
all Jews, Mary. Some are decent enough fellows, I suppose, though I hate
the Israelites!" ("Silly boy!" she interposed.) "Others are horrors. None
of them want the work of an American. Old masters, or well known
foreigners, they say. I explained my success at the Beaux Arts. Two of
them had seen my name in the Paris papers, but said it would mean nothing
to their clients. Hopeless Philistines, all of them! I do believe I
should have had a better chance if I'd called myself Austrian, instead of
American, and I only revived my American citizenship because I thought it
would be an asset!" He laughed, ironically. "They advised me to have a
one-man show, late in the winter, so as to get publicity."

"So we will then," interposed Mary confidently.

"Good Lord, child," he exclaimed, half irritably, "you don't suppose I
could have a gallery for nothing, do you? God knows what it would cost.
Besides, I haven't enough pictures--and think of the frames!" He sat up,
fretfully.

She saw his nerves were on edge, and quickly offered a diversion.
"Stefan," she cried, jumping to her feet and throwing her arms back with
a gesture the grace of which did not escape him even in his impatient
mood, "I haven't even seen the pictures yet, you know, and can't wait any
longer. Let me look at them now, and then I'll tell you just how idiotic
those dealers were!" and she gave her bell-like laugh. "I'll undo them."
Her fingers were busy at the knots.

"I hate the sight of that roll," said Stefan, frowning. "Still--" and he
jumped up, "I do immensely want you to see them. I know _you'll_
understand them." Suddenly he was all eagerness again. He took the
canvases from her, undid them and, casting aside the smaller ones, spread
the two largest against the wall, propping their corners adroitly with
chairs, an umbrella, and a walking stick. "Don't look yet," he called
meanwhile. "Close your eyes." He moved with agile speed, instinctively
finding the best light and thrusting back the furniture to secure a
clearer view. "There!" he cried. "Wait a minute--stand here. _Now_
look!" triumphantly.

Mary opened her eyes. "Why, Stefan, they're wonderful!" she exclaimed.
But even as she spoke, and amidst her sincere admiration, her heart, very
slightly, sank. She knew enough of painting to see that here was genius.
The two fantasies, one representing the spirits of a wind-storm, the
other a mermaid fleeing a merman's grasp, were brilliant in color, line
and conception. They were things of beauty, but it was a beauty strange,
menacing, subhuman. The figures that tore through the clouds urged on the
storm with a wicked and abandoned glee. The face of the merman almost
frightened her; it was repellent in its likeness at once to a fish and a
man. The mermaid's face was less inhuman, but it was stricken with a
horrid terror. She was swimming straight out of the picture as if to
fling herself, shrieking, into the safety of the spectator's arms. The
pictures were imaginative, powerful, arresting, but they were not
pleasing. Few people, she felt, would care to live with them. After a
long scrutiny she turned to her husband, at once glorying in the strength
of his talent and troubled by its quality.

"You are a genius, Stefan," she said.

"You really like them?" he asked eagerly.

"I think they are wonderful!" He was satisfied, for it was her heart, not
her voice, that held a reservation.

Stefan showed her the smaller canvases, some unfinished. Most were of
nymphs and winged elves, but there were three landscapes. One of these, a
stream reflecting a high spring sky between banks of young meadow grass,
showed a little faun skipping merrily in the distance. The atmosphere was
indescribably light-hearted. Mary smiled as she looked at it. The other
two were empty of figures; they were delicately graceful and alluring,
but there was something lacking in them---what, she could not tell. She
liked best a sketch of a baby boy, lost amid trees, behind which wood-
nymphs and fauns peeped at him, roguish and inquisitive. The boy was
seated on the ground, fat and solemn, with round, tear-wet eyes. He was
so lonely that Mary wanted to hug him; instead, she kissed Stefan.

"What a duck of a baby, dearest!" she exclaimed.

"Yes, he was a nice kid--belonged to my concierge," he answered
carelessly. "The picture is sentimental, though. This is better," and he
pointed to another mermaid study.

"Yes, it's splendid," she answered, instinctively suppressing a sigh. She
began to realize a little what a strange being she had married. With an
impulsive need of protection she held him close, hiding her face in his
neck. The reality of his arms reassured her.

That day they decided, at Mary's urging, to take the smaller studio at
once, abandoning the extravagance of hotel life. In practical manners she
was already assuming a leadership which he was glad to follow. She
suggested that in the morning he should take his smaller canvases, and
try some of the less important dealers, while she made an expedition in
search of necessary furniture. To this he eagerly agreed.

"It seems horrible to let you do it alone, but it would be sacrilegious
to discuss the price of saucepans with a goddess," he explained. "Are you
sure you can face the tedium?"

"Why, I shall love it!" she cried, astonished at such an expression.

He regarded her whimsically. "Genius of efficiency, then I shall leave it
to you. Such things appal me. In Paris, my garret was furnished only with
pictures. I inherited the bed from the last occupant, and I think Adolph
insisted on finding a pillow and a frying-pan. He used to come up and
cook for us both sometimes, when he thought I had been eating too often
at restaurants. He approved of economy, did Adolph." Stefan was lounging
on the bed, with his perpetual cigarette.

"He must be a dear," said Mary. She had begun to make a shopping list.
"Tell me, absurd creature, what you really need in the studio. There is a
model throne, you will remember."

"Oh, I'll get my own easel and stool," he replied quickly. "There's
nothing else, except of course a table for my paints. A good solid one,"
he added with emphasis. "I'll tell you what," and he sat up. "I go out
early to-morrow on my dealer hunt. I force myself to stay out until late
afternoon. When I return, behold! The goddess has waved her hand, and
invisible minions--" he circled the air with his cigarette--"have
transported her temple across the square. There she sits enthroned,
waiting for her acolyte. How will that do?" He turned his radiant smile
on her.

"Splendid," she answered, amused. "I only hope the goddess won't get
chipped in the passage."

She thought of the dusty studio, of brooms and scrubbing brushes, but she
was already wise enough in wife-lore not to mention them. Mary came of a
race whose women had always served their men. It did not seem strange to
her, as it might have to an American, that the whole labor of their
installation should devolve on her.

With her back turned to him, she counted over their resources,
calculating what would be available when their hotel bill was paid.
Except for a dollar or two, Stefan had turned his small hoard over to
her. "It's all yours anyway, dearest," he had said, "and I don't want to
spend a cent till I have made something." They had spent very little so
far; she was relieved to realize that the five hundred dollars remained
almost intact. While Stefan continued to smoke luxuriously on the bed,
she jotted down figures, apportioning one hundred and fifty dollars for
six months' rent, and trying to calculate a weekly basis for their living
expenses. She knew that they were both equally ignorant of prices in New
York, and determined to call in the assistance of Miss Mason.

"Stefan," she said, taking up the telephone, "I'm going to summon a
minion." She explained to Miss Mason over the wire. "We are starting
housekeeping to-morrow, and I know absolutely nothing about where to
shop, or what things ought to cost. Would it be making too great demands
on your kindness if I asked you to meet me here to-morrow morning and
join me in a shopping expedition?"

The request, delivered in her civil English voice, enchanted Miss Mason,
who had to obtain all her romance vicariously. "I should just love to!"
she exclaimed, and it was arranged.

Mary then telephoned that they would take the studio--a technicality
which she knew Stefan had entirely forgotten--and notified the hotel
office that their room would be given up next morning.

"O thou above rubies and precious pearls!" chanted Stefan from the bed.

After dinner they sat in Washington Square. Their marriage moon was
waning, but still shone high and bright. Under her the trees appeared
etherealized, and her light mingled in magic contest with the white beams
of the arc lamps near the arch. Above each of these, a myriad tiny moths
fluttered their desirous wings. Under the trees Italian couples wandered,
the men with dark amorous glances, the girls laughing, their necks gay
with colored shawls. Brightly ribboned children, black-haired, played
about the benches where their mothers gossiped. There was enchantment in
the tired but cooling air.

Stefan was enthusiastic. "Look at the types, Mary! The whole place is
utterly foreign, full of ardor and color. I have cursed America without
cause--here I can feel at home." To her it was all alien, but her heart
responded to his happiness.

On the bench next them sat a group of Italian women. From this a tiny boy
detached himself, plump and serious, and, urged by curiosity, gradually
approached Mary, his velvet eyes fixed on her face. She lifted him,
resistless, to her knee, and he sat there contentedly, sucking a colored
stick of candy.

"Look, Stefan!" she cried; "isn't he a lamb?"

Stefan cast a critical glance at the baby. "He's paintable, but horribly
sticky," he said. "Let's move on before he begins to yell. I want to see
the effect from the roadway of these shifting groups under the trees. It
might be worth doing, don't you think?" and he stood up.

His manner slightly rebuffed Mary, who would gladly have nursed the
little boy longer. However, she gently lowered him and, rising, moved off
in silence with Stefan, who was ignorant of any offense. The rest of
their outing passed sweetly enough, as they wandered, arm in arm, about
the square.

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