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The Nest Builder

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







III


The next morning Stefan started immediately after his premier déjeuner of
rolls and coffee in quest of the less important dealers, taking with him
only his smaller canvases. "I'll stay away till five o'clock, not a
minute longer," he admonished. Mary, still seated in the dining-room over
her English bacon and eggs--she had smilingly declined to adopt his
French method of breakfasting--glowed acquiescence, and offered him a
parting suggestion.

"Be sure to show them the baby in the wood."

"Why that one?" he questioned. "You admit it isn't the best."

"Perhaps, but neither are they the best connoisseurs. You'll see." She
nodded wisely at him.

"The oracle has spoken--I will obey," he called from the door, kissing
his fingers to her. She ventured an answering gesture, knowing the room
empty save for waiters. She was almost as unselfconscious as he, but had
her nation's shrinking from any public expression of emotion.

Hardly had he gone when the faithful Miss Mason arrived, her mild eyes
almost youthful with enthusiasm. Prom a black satin reticule of
dimensions beyond all proportion to her meager self she drew a list of
names on which she discoursed volubly while Mary finished her breakfast.

"You'll get most everything at this first place," she said. "It's pretty
near the biggest department store in the city, and only two blocks from
here--ain't that convenient? You can deal there right along for
everything in the way of dry goods."

Mary had no conception of what either a department store or dry goods
might be, but determined not to confound her mentor by a display of such
ignorance.

"Seemed to me, though, you might get some things second hand, so I got a
list of likely places from my sister, who's lived in New York longer'n I
have. I thought mebbe--" her tone was tactful--"you didn't want to waste
your money any?"

Mary was impressed again, as she had been before her wedding, by the
natural good manners of this simple and half educated woman. "Why is it,"
she wondered to herself, "that one would not dream of knowing people of
her class at home, but rather likes them here?" She did not realize as
yet that for Miss Mason no classes existed, and that consequently she was
as much at ease with Mary, whose mother had been "county," as she would
be with her own colored "help."

"You guessed quite rightly, Miss Mason," Mary smiled. "I want to spend as
little as possible, and shall depend on you to prevent my making
mistakes."

"I reckon I know all there is t' know 'bout economy," nodded Miss Mason,
and, as if by way of illustration, drew from her bag a pair of cotton
gloves, for which she exchanged her kid ones, rolling these carefully
away. "They get real mussed shopping," she explained.

Within half an hour, Mary realized that she would have been lost indeed
without her guide. First they inspected the studio. Mary had had a vague
idea of cleaning it herself, but Miss Mason demanded to see the
janitress, and ascended, after a ten minutes' emersion in the noisome
gloom of the basement, in high satisfaction. "She's a dago," she
reported, "but not so dirty as some, and looks a husky worker. It's her
business to clean the flats for new tenants, but I promised her fifty
cents to get the place done by noon, windows and all. She seemed real
pleased. She says her husband will carry your coal up from the cellar for
a quarter a week; I guess it will be worth it to you. You don't want to
give the money to him though," she admonished, "the woman runs
everything. I shouldn't calc'late," she sniffed, "he does more'n a couple
of real days' work a month. They mostly don't."

So the first problem was solved, and it was the same with all the rest.
Many dollars did Miss Mason save the Byrds that day. Mary would have
bought a bedstead and screened it, but her companion pointed out the
extravagance and inconvenience of such a course, and initiated her
forthwith into the main secret of New York's apartment life.

"You'll want your divan new," she said, and led her in the great
department store to a hideous object of gilded iron which opened into a
double bed, and closed into a divan. At first Mary rejected this Janus-
faced machine unequivocally, but became a convert when Miss Mason showed
her how cretonne (she pronounced it "_cree_ton") or rugs would
soften its nakedness to dignity, and how bed-clothes and pillows were
swallowed in its maw by day to be released when the studio became a
sleeping room at night.

These trappings they purchased at first hand, and obliging salesmen
promised Miss Mason with their lips, but Mary with their eyes, that they
should go out on the noon delivery. For other things, however, the two
searched the second-hand stores which stand in that district like logs in
a stream, staying abandoned particles of the city's ever moving current.
Here they bought a high, roomy chest of drawers of painted pine, a Morris
chair, three single chairs, and a sturdy folding table in cherry, quite
old, which Mary felt to be a "find," and which she destined for Stefan's
paints. Miss Mason recommended a "rocker," and Mary, who had had visions
of stuffed English easy chairs, acquiesced on finding in the rocker and
Morris types the only available combinations of cheapness and comfort. A
second smaller table of good design, two brass candlesticks, and a little
looking-glass in faded greenish gilt, rejoiced Mary's heart, without
unreasonably lightening her pocket. During these purchases Miss Mason's
authority paled, but she reasserted herself on the question of iceboxes.
One dealer's showroom was half full of them, and Miss Mason pounced on a
small one, little used, marked six dollars. "That's real cheap--you
couldn't do better--it's a good make, too." Mary had never seen an ice-
box in her life, and said so, striking Miss Mason almost dumb.

"I'm sure we shouldn't need such a thing," she demurred.

Recovering speech, Miss Mason launched into the creed of the ice-box--its
ubiquity, values and economies. Mary understood she was receiving her
second initiation into flat life, and mentally bracketed this new cult
with that of the divan.

"All right, Miss Mason. In Rome, et cetera," she capitulated, and paid
for the ice-box.

Thanks to her friend, their shopping had been so expeditious that the day
was still young. Mary was fired by the determination to have some sort of
nest for her tired and probably disheartened husband to return to that
evening, and Miss Mason entered whole-heartedly into the scheme. The
transportation of their scattered purchases was the main difficulty, but
it yielded to the little spinster's inspiration. A list of their
performances between noon and five o'clock would read like the
description of a Presidential candidate's day. They dashed back to the
studio and reassured themselves as to the labors of the janitress. Miss
Mason unearthed the lurking husband, and demanded of him a friend and a
hand-cart. These she galvanized him into producing on the spot, and sent
the pair off armed with a list of goods to be retrieved. In the midst of
this maneuver the department store's great van faithfully disgorged their
bed and bedding. Hardly waiting to see these deposited, the two hurried
out in quest of sandwiches and milk.

"I guess we're the lightning home-makers, all right," was Miss Mason's
comment as they lunched.

Returning to the department store they bought and brought away with them
a kettle, a china teapot ("Fifteen cents in the basement," Miss Mason
instructed), three cups and saucers, six plates, a tin of floor-polish
and a few knives, forks, and spoons. Meanwhile they had telephoned the
hotel to send over the baggage. When the street car dropped them near the
studio they found the two Italians seated on the steps, the furniture and
baggage in the room, and Mrs. Corriani wiping her last window pane. "I
shall want your husband again for this floor," commanded the
indefatigable Miss Mason, opening her tin of polish, "and his friend for
errands." They fell upon their task.

An hour later the spinster dropped into the rocking chair. "Well, we've
done it," she said, "and I don't mind telling you I'm tuckered out."

Mary's voice answered from the sink, where she was sluicing her face and
arms.

"You've been a marvel--the whole thing has been Napoleonic--and I simply
don't know how to thank you." She appeared at the door of the closet,
which was to serve as kitchenette and bathroom, drying her hands.

"My, your face is like a rose! _You_ don't look tired any!"
exclaimed the spinster. "As for thanks, why, it's been a treat to me.
I've felt like I was a girl again. But we're through now, and I've got to
go." She rose. "I guess I'll enjoy my sleep to-night."

"Oh, don't go, Miss Mason, stay for tea and let my husband thank you
too."

But the little New Englander again showed her simple tact. "No, no, my
dear, it's time I went, and you and Mr. Byrd will want to be alone
together your first evening," and she pulled on her cotton gloves.

At the door Mary impulsively put her arms round Miss Mason and kissed
her.

"You have been good to me--I shall never forget it," she whispered,
almost loath to let this first woman friend of her new life go.

Alone, Mary turned to survey the room.

The floor, of wide uneven planks, was bare, but it carried a dark stain,
and this had been waxed until it shone. The walls, painted gray, had
yielded a clean surface to the mop. The grate was blackened. On either
side of it stood the two large chairs, and Mary had thrown a strip of
bright stuff over the cushions of the Morris. Beside this chair stood the
smaller table, polished, and upon it blue and white tea things. Near the
large window stood the other table, with Stefan's palette, paint tubes,
and brushes in orderly array, and a plain chair beside it, while centered
at that end was the model-throne. Opposite the fireplace the divan
fronted the wall, obscured by Mary's steamer rug and green deck cushion.
At the end of the room the heavy chest of drawers, with its dark walnut
paint, faced the window, bearing the gilded mirror and a strip of
embroidery. On the mantlepiece stood Mary's traveling clock and the two
brass candlesticks, and above it Stefan's pastoral of the stream and the
dancing faun was tacked upon the wall. She could hear the kettle singing
from the closet, through the open door of which a shaft of sunlight fell
from the tiny window to the floor.

Suddenly Mary opened her arms. "Home," she whispered, "home." Tears
started to her eyes. With a caressing movement she leant her face against
the wall, as to the cheek of her lover.

But emotion lay deep in Mary--she was ashamed that it should rise to
facile tears. "Silly girl," she thought, and drying her eyes proceeded
more calmly to her final task, which was to change her dress for one
fitted to honor Stefan's homecoming.

Hardly was she ready when she heard his feet upon the stair. Her heart
leapt with a double joy, for he was springing up two steps at a time,
triumph in every bound. The door burst open; she was enveloped in a
whirlwind embrace. "Mary," he gasped between kisses, "I've sold the boy
--sold him for a hundred! At the very last place--just as I'd given up.
You beloved oracle!"

Then he held her away from him, devouring with his eyes her glowing face,
her hair, and her soft blue dress. "Oh, you beauty! The day has been a
thousand years long without you!" He caught her to him again.

Mary's heart was almost bursting with happiness as she clung to him.
Here, in the home she had prepared, he had brought her his success, and
their love glorified both. Her emotion left her wordless. Another moment,
and his eyes swept the room.

"Why, Mary!" It was a shout of joy. "You magician, you miracle-worker!
It's beautiful! Don't tell me how you did it--" hastily--"I couldn't
understand. It's enough that you waved your hand and beauty sprang up!
Look at my little faun dancing--we must dance too!" He lilted a swaying
air, and whirled her round the room with gipsy glee. His face looked like
the faun's, elfin, mischievous, happy as the springtime.

At last he dropped into a chair. Then Mary fetched her teakettle. They
quenched their thirst, she shared his cigarette, they prattled like
children. It was late before they remembered to go out in search of
dinner, hours later before they dropped asleep upon the gilded Janus-
faced couch that had become for Mary the altar of a sacrament.




IV


Mary's original furnishings had cost her less than a hundred dollars. In
the first days of their housekeeping she made several additions, and
Stefan contributed a large second-hand easel, a stool, and a piece of
strangely colored drapery for the divan. This he discovered during a walk
with Mary, in the window of an old furniture dealer, and instantly fell a
victim to. He was so delighted with it that Mary had not the heart to
veto its purchase, though it was a sad extravagance, costing them more
than a week's living expenses. The stuff was of oriental silk, shot with
a changing sheen, of colors like a fire burning over water, which made it
seem a living thing in their hands. The night they took it home Stefan
lit six candles in its honor.

In spite of these expenses Mary banked four hundred dollars, leaving
herself enough in hand for a fortnight to come, for she found that they
could live on twenty-five dollars a week. She calculated that they must
make, as an absolute minimum, to be safe, one hundred dollars a month,
for she was determined, if possible, not to draw further upon their
hoard. This was destined for a future use, the hope of which trembled
constantly in her heart. All her plans centered about this hope, but she
still forebore to speak of it to Stefan, even as she had done before
their marriage. Perhaps she instinctively feared a possible lack of
response in him. Meanwhile, she must safeguard her nest.

In spite of Stefan's initial success, Mary wondered if his art would at
first yield the necessary monthly income, and cast about for some means
by which she could increase his earnings. She had come to America to
attain independence, and there was nothing in her code to make dependence
a necessary element of marriage.

"Stefan," she said one morning, as she sat covering a cushion, while he
worked at one of the unfinished pastorals, "you know I sold several short
stories for children when I was in London. I think I ought to try my luck
here, don't you?"

"You don't need to, sweetheart," he replied. "Wait till I've finished
this little thing. You see if the man I sold the boy to won't jump at it
for another hundred." And he whistled cheerily.

"I'm sure he will," she smiled. "Still, I should like to help."

"Do it if you want to, Beautiful, only I can't associate you with pens
and typewriters. I'm sure if you were just to open your mouth, and sing,
out there in the square--" he waved a brush--"people would come running
from all over the city and throw yellow and green bills at you like
leaves, till you had to be dug out with long shovels by those funny
street-cleaners who go about looking dirty in white clothes. You would be
a nymph in a shower of gold--only the gold would be paper! How like
America!" He whistled again absently, touching the canvas with delicate
strokes.

"You are quite the most ridiculous person in the world," she laughed at
him. "You know perfectly well that my voice is much too small to be of
practical value."

"But I'm not being practical, and you mustn't be literal, darling
--goddesses never should."

"Be practical just for a moment then," she urged, "and think about my
chances of selling stories."

"I couldn't," he said absently, holding his brush suspended. "Wait a
minute, I've got an idea! That about the shower of gold--I know--Danaë!"
he shouted suddenly, throwing down his palette. "That's how I'll paint
you. I've been puzzling over it for days. Darling, it will be my chef
d'oeuvre!" He seized her hands. "Think of it! You standing under a great
shaft of sun, nude, exalted, your hands and eyes lifted. About you gold,
pouring down in cataracts, indistinguishable from the sunlight--a
background of prismatic fire--and your hair lifting into it like wings!"
He was irradiated.

She had blushed to the eyes. "You want me to sit to you--like that!" Her
voice trembled.

He gazed at her in frank amazement. "Should you mind?" he asked, amazed.
"Why, you rose, you're blushing. I believe you're shy!" He put his arms
around her, smiling into her face. "You wouldn't mind, darling, for me!"
he urged, his cheek to hers. "You are so glorious. I've always wanted to
paint your glory since the first day I saw you. You _can't_ mind!"

He saw she still hesitated, and his tone became not only surprised but
hurt. He could not conceive of shame in connection with beauty. Seeing
this she mastered her shrinking. He was right, she felt--she had given
him her beauty, and a denial of it in the service of his art would rebuff
the God in him--the creator. She yielded, but she could not express the
deeper reason for her emotion. As he was so oblivious, she could not
bring herself to tell him why in particular she shrank from sitting as
Danaë. He had not thought of the meaning of the myth in connection with
her all-absorbing hope.

"Promise me one thing," she pleaded. "Don't make the face too like me
--just a little different, dearest, please!"

This a trifle fretted him.

"I don't really see why; your face is just the right type," he puzzled.
"I shan't sell the picture, you know. It will be for us--our marriage
present to each other."

"Nevertheless, I ask it, dearest." With that he had to be content.

Stefan obtained that afternoon a full-length canvas, and the sittings
began next morning. He was at his most inspiring, laughed away Mary's
stage fright, posed her with a delight which, inspired her, too, so that
she stood readily as he suggested, and made half a dozen lightning
sketches to determine the most perfect position, exclaiming
enthusiastically meanwhile.

When absorbed, Stefan was a sure and rapid worker. Mary posed for him
every morning, and at the end of a week the picture had advanced to a
thing of wonderful promise and beauty. Mary would stand before it almost
awed. Was this she, she pondered, this aspiring woman of flame? It
troubled her a little that his ideal of her should rise to such splendor;
this apotheosis left no place for the pitying tenderness of love, only
for its glory. The color of this picture was like the sound of silver
trumpets; the heart-throb of the strings was missing. Mary was neither
morbid nor introspective, but at this time her whole being was keyed to
more than normal comprehension. Watching the picture, seeing that it was
a portrayal not of her but of his love for her, she wondered if any woman
could long endure the arduousness of such deification, or if a man who
had visioned a goddess could long content himself with a mortal.

The face, too, vaguely troubled her. True to his promise, Stefan had not
made it a portrait, but its unlikeness lay rather in the meaning and
expression than in the features. These differed only in detail from her
own. A slight lengthening of the corners of the eyes, a fuller and wider
mouth were the only changes. But the expression amidst its exaltation
held a quality she did not understand. Translated into music, it was the
call of the wood-wind, something wild and unhuman flowing across the
silver triumph of the horns.

Of these half questionings, however, Mary said nothing, telling Stefan
only what she was sure of, that the picture would be a masterpiece.

The days were shortening. Stefan found the light poor in the afternoons,
and had to take part of the mornings for work on his pastoral. This he
would have neglected in his enthusiasm for the Danaë, but for Mary's
urgings. He obeyed her mandates on practical issues with the
unquestioning acceptance of a child. His attitude suggested that he was
willing to be worldly from time to time if his Mary--not too often--told
him to.

The weather had turned cool, and Mr. Corriani brought them up their first
scuttle of coal. They were glad to drink their morning coffee and eat
their lunch before the fire, and Mary's little sable neck-piece, relic of
former opulence, appeared in the evenings when they sought their dinner.
This they took in restaurants near by--quaint basements, or back parlors
of once fine houses, where they were served nutritious meals on bare
boards, in china half an inch thick. Autumn, New York's most beautiful
season, was in the air with its heart-lightening tang; energy seemed to
flow into them as they breathed. They took long walks in the afternoons
to the Park, which Stefan voted hopelessly banal; to the Metropolitan
Museum, where they paid homage to the Sorollas and the Rodins; to the
Battery, the docks, and the whole downtown district. This they found
oppressive at first, till they saw it after dark from a ferry boat, when
Stefan became fired by the towerlike skyscrapers sketched in patterns of
light against the void.

Immediately he developed a cult for these buildings. "America's one
creation," he called them, "monstrous, rooted repellently in the earth's
bowels, growing rank like weeds, but art for all that." He made several
sketches of them, in which the buildings seemed to sway in a drunken
abandonment of power. "Wicked things," he named them, and saw them
menacing but fascinating, titanic engines that would overwhelm their
makers. He and Mary had quite an argument about this, for she thought the
skyscrapers beautiful.

"They reach sunward, Stefan, they do not menace, they aspire," she
objected.

"The aspiration is yours, Goddess. They are only fit symbols of a super-
materialism. Their strength is evil, but it lures."

He was delighted with his drawings. Mary, who was beginning to develop
civic pride, told him they were goblinesque.

"Clever girl, that's why I like them," he replied.

Late in October Stefan sold his pastoral, though only for seventy-five
dollars. This disappointed him greatly. He was anxious to repay his debt
to Adolph, but would not accept the loan of it from his wife. Mary
renewed her determination to be helpful, and sent one of her old stories
to a magazine, but without success. She had no one to advise her as to
likely markets, and posted her manuscript to two more unsuitable
publications, receiving it back with a printed rejection slip.

Her fourth attempt, however, was rewarded by a note from the editor which
gave her much encouragement. Children's stories, he explained, were
outside the scope of his magazine, but he thought highly of Mrs. Byrd's
manuscript, and advised her to submit it to one of the women's papers--he
named several--where it might be acceptable. Mary was delighted by this
note, and read it to Stefan.

"Splendid!" he cried, "I had no idea you had brought any stories over
with you. Guarded oracle!" he added, teasingly.

"Oracles don't tell secrets unless they are asked," she rejoined.

"True. And now I do ask. Give me the whole secret--read me the story,"
he exclaimed, promptly putting away his brushes, lighting a cigarette,
and throwing himself, eagerly attentive, into the Morris chair.

Mary prepared to comply, gladly, if a little nervously. She had been
somewhat hurt at his complete lack of interest in her writing; now she
was anxious for his approbation. Seated in the rocking chair she read
aloud the little story in her clear low voice. When she had finished she
found Stefan regarding her with an expression affectionate but somewhat
quizzical.

"Mary, you have almost a maternal air, sitting there reading so lovingly
about a baby. It's a new aspect--the rocker helps. I've never quite liked
that chair--it reminds me of Michigan."

Mary had flushed painfully, but he did not notice it in the half light of
the fire. It had grown dark as she read.

"But the story, Stefan?" she asked, her tone obviously hurt. He jumped up
and kissed her, all contrition.

"Darling, it sounded beautiful in your voice, and I'm sure it is. In fact
I know it is. But I simply don't understand that type of fiction; I have
no key to it. So my mind wandered a little. I listened to the lovely
sounds your voice made, and watched the firelight on your hair. You were
like a Dutch interior--quite a new aspect, as I said--and I got
interested in that."

Mary was abashed and disappointed. For the first time she questioned
Stefan's generosity, contrasting his indifference with her own absorbed
interest in his work. She knew her muse trivial by comparison with his,
but she loved it, and ached for the stimulus his praise would bring.

Beneath the wound to her craftsmanship lay another, in which the knife
was turning, but she would not face its implication. Nevertheless it
oppressed her throughout the evening, so that Stefan commented on her
silence. That night as she lay awake listening to his easy breathing, for
the first time since her marriage her pillow was dampened by tears.

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