Part 10 (1/2)
”You are a fairly good draftsman?” Cedersholm asked. ”Have you any taste for decoration and applied design?”
”I think I have.”
The Master rose. ”Come to-morrow morning at ten and I'll give you something to do. I have just accepted a contract for interior decoration, a new house on Fifth Avenue. I might possibly make you useful there.”
Fairfax walked home on air. He walked from Ninth Street, where the studio was, to his boarding-house, in the cold, still winter night--a long tramp. In spite of his limp he swung along, his coat open, his hat on the back of his head, his cheeks bright, his lips smiling. As he pa.s.sed under the gas lamps they shone like Oriental stars. He no longer s.h.i.+vered at the cold and, warm with faith and confidence, his heart could have melted a storm. He fairly floated up Madison Avenue, and by his side the spirits of his ideals kept him company. Oh, he would do beautiful things for New York city. He would become great here. He would garland the metropolis with laurel, leave statues on its places, that should bear his name. At ten o'clock on the following day, he was to begin his apprentices.h.i.+p, and he would soon show his power to Cedersholm. He felt that power now in him like wine, like nectar, and in his veins the spirit of creation, the impulse to art, rose like a draught. His aunt should be proud of him, his uncle should cease to despise him, and the children--they would not understand--but they would be glad.
When he reached his boarding-house, Miss Eulalie opened the door and cried out at the sight of his face--
”Oh, Mr. Antony; you've had good news, sir.”
He put both hands on the thin shoulders, he kissed her roundly on both cheeks. The cold fresh air was on his cool fresh lips, and the kiss was as chaste as an Alpine breeze.
He cried: ”_Good_ news; well, I reckon I have! The great Mr. Cedersholm has given me a place in his studio.”
He laughed aloud as she hung up his coat. Miss Eulalie's gla.s.ses were pushed up on her forehead--she might have been his grandmother.
”The Lord be praised!” she breathed. ”I have been praying for you night and day.”
”I shall go to Cedersholm to-morrow. I have not spoken about terms, but that will be all right, and if you ladies will be so good as to wait until Sat.u.r.day----”
Of course they would wait. If it had not been that their means were so cruelly limited, they would never have spoken. Didn't he think?... He knew! he thought they were the best, dearest friends a young fortune hunter could have. Wait, wait till they could see his name in the papers--Antony Fairfax, the rising sculptor! Wait until they could go with him to the unveiling of his work in Central Park!
Supper was already on the table, and Antony talked to them both until they _could_ hardly wait for the wonders!
”When you're great you'll not forget us, Mr. Antony?”
”Forget them----!”
Over the cold mutton and the potato salad, Fairfax held out a hand to each, and the little old ladies each laid a fluttering hand in his. But it was at Miss Eulalie he looked, and the remembrance of his happy kiss on this first day of his good fortune, made her more maternal than she had ever hoped to be in her life.
There was a note for him on the table upstairs, a note in a big envelope with the business stamp of Mr. Carew's bank in the corner. It was addressed to him in red ink. He didn't know the handwriting, but guessed, and laughed, and drew the letter out.
”DEAR COUSIN ANTONY,
”I feel perfectly dreadful. How _could_ I do such a selfish thing?
I hope you will forgive me and come again. I drew two whole pages of parlel lines after you went away, some are nearly strait. I did it for punishment. You forgot the blackbird.
”Your little BELLA.”
What a cad he had been! He had forgotten the dead bird and been a brute to the little living cousin. As the remembrance of how she had flown to him in her tears came to him, a softer look crossed his face, fell like a veil over his eyes that had been dazzled by the visions of his art. He smiled at the childish signature, ”_Your little Bella._” ”Honey child!”
he murmured, and as he fell asleep that night the figure of the little cousin mourning for her blackbird moved before him down the halls of fame.
CHAPTER XVI
Before Fairfax became dead to the world he wrote his mother a letter that made her cry, reading it on her veranda in the gentle sunlight. Her son wrote her only good news, and when the truth was too black he disguised it. But after his interview with Cedersholm, with these first good tidings he had to send, he broke forth into ecstasy, and his mother, as she read, saw her boy successful by one turn of the wheel.