The Nest Builder Part 24

Mary noticed her fine white skin, soft as a baby's, the thousand tiny lines round her gentle eyes, her simple dress of brown silk with a cameo at the neck, her little, blue-veined hands. No wonder the son of such a woman impressed one with his extraordinary kindliness.

The little lady slipped away, and Mary, feeling unexpected pleasure in the quiet room and the soft bed, closed her eyes gratefully.

At luncheon, or rather dinner, for it was obvious that Mrs. Farraday kept to the old custom of Sunday meals, a silent, shock-headed boy of about ten appeared, whom McEwan with touching pride introduced as his son. He was dressed in a kilt and small deerskin sporran, with the regulation heavy stockings, tweed jacket and Eton collar.

"For Sundays only--we have to be Yankees on school days, eh, Jamie?"

explained his father. The boy grinned in speechless a.s.sent, instantly looking a duplicate of McEwan.

Mary's heart warmed to him at once, he was so shy and clumsy; but Stefan, who detested the mere suspicion of loutishness, favored him with an absent-minded stare. Mary, who sat on Farraday's right, had the boy next her, with his father beyond, Stefan being between Mrs. Farraday and Constance. The meal was served by a gray-haired negro, of manners so perfect as to suggest the ideal southern servant, already familiar to Mary in American fiction. As if in answer to a cue, Mrs. Farraday explained across the table that Moses and his wife had come from Philadelphia with her on her marriage, and had been born in the South before the war. Mary's literary sense of fitness was completely satisfied by this remark, which was received by Moses with a smile of gentle pride.

"James," said Constance, "I never get tired of your mother's house; it is so wonderful to have not one thing out of key."

Farraday smiled. "Bless you, she wouldn't change a footstool. It is all just as when she married, and much of it, at that, belonged to her mother."

This explained what, with Mary's keen eye for interiors, had puzzled her when they first arrived. She had expected to see more of the perfect taste and knowledge displayed in Farraday's office, instead of which the house, though dignified and hospitable, lacked all traces of the connoisseur. She noticed in particular the complete absence of any color sense. All the woodwork was varnished brown, the hangings were of dull brown velvet or dark tapestry, the carpets toneless. Her bedroom had been hung with white dimity, edged with crochet-work, but the furniture was of somber cherry, and the chintz of the couch-cover brown with yellow flowers. The library, into which she looked from where she sat, was furnished with high gla.s.s-doored bookcases, turned walnut tables, and stuffed chairs and couches with carved walnut rims. Down each window the shade was lowered half way, and the light was further obscured by lace curtains and heavy draperies of plain velvet. The pictures were mostly family portraits, with a few landscapes of doubtful merit. There were no flowers anywhere, except one small vase of daffodils upon the dinner table. According to all modern canons the house should have been hideous; but it was not. It held garnered with loving faith the memories of another day, as a bowl of potpourri still holds the sun of long dead summers. It fitted absolutely the quiet kindliness, the faded face and soft brown dress of its mistress. It was keyed to her, as Constance had understood, to the last detail.

"Yes," said Farraday, smiling down the table at his mother, "she could hardly bring herself to let me build my picture gallery on the end of the house--nothing but Christian charity enabled her to yield."

The old lady smiled back at her tall son almost like a sweetheart. "He humors me," she said; "he knows I'm a foolish old woman who love, my nest as it was first prepared for me."

"Oh, I can so well understand that," said Mary.

"Do you mean to say, Mrs. Farraday," interposed Stefan, "that you have lived in this one house, without changing it, all your married life?"

She turned to him in simple surprise. "Why, of course; my husband chose it for me."

"Marvelous!" said Stefan, who felt that one week of those brown hangings would drive him to suicide.

"Nix on the home-sweet-home business for yours, eh, Byrd?" threw in McEwan with his glint of a twinkle.

"Boy," interposed their little hostess, "why will thee always use such shocking slang? How can I teach Jamie English with his father's example before him?" She shook a tiny finger at the offender.

"Ma'am, if I didn't sling the lingo, begging your pardon, in my office, they would think I was a highbrow, and then--good night Mac!"

"Don't believe him, Mother," said Farraday. "It isn't policy, but affection. He loves the magazine crowd, and likes to do as it does.

Besides," he smiled, "he's a linguistic specialist."

"You think slang is an indication of local patriotism?" asked Mary.

"Certainly," said Farraday. "If we love a place we adopt its customs."

"That's quite true," Stefan agreed. "In Paris I used the worst argot of the quarter, but I've always spoken straightforward English because the only slang I knew in my own tongue reminded me of a place I loathed."

"Stefan used to be dreadfully unpatriotic, Mrs. Farraday," explained Mary, "but he is outgrowing it."

"Am I?" Stefan asked rather pointedly.

"Art," said McEwan grandly, "is international; Byrd belongs to the world." He raised his gla.s.s of lemonade, and ostentatiously drank Stefan's health. The others laughed at him, and the conversation veered.

Mary absorbed herself in trying to draw out the bashful Jamie, and Stefan listened while his hostess talked on her favorite theme, that of her son, James Farraday.

They had coffee in the picture gallery, a beautiful room which Farraday had extended beyond the drawing-room, and furnished with perfect examples of the best Colonial period. It was hung almost entirely with the work of Americans, in particular landscapes by Inness, Homer Martin, and George Munn, while over the fireplace was a fine mother and child by Mary Ca.s.satt. For the first time since their arrival Stefan showed real interest, and leaving the others, wandered round the room critically absorbing each painting.

"Well, Farraday," he said at the end of his tour, "I must say you have the best of judgment. I should have been mighty glad to paint one or two of those myself." His tone indicated that more could not be said.

Meanwhile, Mary could hardly wait for the real object of their expedition, the little house. When at last the car was announced, Mrs.

Farraday's bonnet and cloak brought by a maid, and everybody, Jamie included, fitted into the machine, Mary felt her heart beating with excitement. Were they going to have a real little house for their baby? Was it to be born out here by the sea, instead of in the dusty, overcrowded city? She strained her eyes down the road. "It's only half a mile," called Farraday from the wheel, "and a mile and a half from the station." They swung down a hill, up again, round a bend, and there was a gra.s.sy plateau overlooking the water, backed by a tree-clad slope.

Nestling under the trees, but facing the bay, was just such a little house as Mary had admired along the road, low and snug, s.h.i.+ngled on walls and roof, painted white, with green shutters and a little columned porch at the front door. A small barn stood near; a little hedge divided house from lane; evidences of a flower garden showed under the windows.

"Oh, what a duck!" Mary exclaimed. "Oh, Stefan!" She could almost have wept.

Farraday helped her down.

"Mrs. Byrd," said he with his most kindly smile, "here is the key. Would you like to unlock the door yourself?"

She blushed with pleasure. "Oh, yes!" she cried, and turned instinctively to look for Stefan. He was standing at the plateau's edge, scrutinizing the view. She called, but he did not hear. Then she took the key and, hurrying up the little walk, entered the house alone.

A moment later Stefan, hailed stentoriously by McEwan, followed her.

She was standing in a long sitting-room, low-ceilinged and white-walled, with window-seats, geraniums on the sills, bra.s.s andirons on the hearth, an eight-day clock, a small old fas.h.i.+oned piano, an oak desk, a chintz-covered grandmother's chair, a gate-legged table, and a braided rag hearth-rug. Her hands were clasped, her eyes s.h.i.+ning.

"Oh, Stefan!" she exclaimed as she heard his step. "Isn't it a darling?

Wouldn't it be simply ideal for us?"

"It seems just right, and the view is splendid. There's a good deal that's paintable here."

"Is there? I'm so glad. That makes it perfect. Look at the furniture, Stefan, every bit right."

"And the moldings," he added. "All handcut, do you see? The whole place is actually old. What a lark!" He appeared almost as pleased as she.

"Here come the others. Let's go upstairs, dearest," she whispered.

There were four bedrooms, and a bathroom. The main room had a four-post bed, and opening out of it was a smaller room, almost empty. In this Mary stood for some minutes, measuring with her eye the height of the window from the floor, mentally placing certain small furnis.h.i.+ngs.

"It would be ideal, simply ideal," she repeated to herself. Stefan was looking out of the window, again absorbed in the view. She would have liked so well to share with him her tenderness over the little room, but he was all unmindful of its meaning to her, and, as always, his heedlessness made expression hard for her. She was still communing with the future when he turned from the window.

"Come along, Mary, let's go downstairs again."

They found the others waiting in the sitting-room, and Farraday detached Stefan to show him a couple of old prints, while Mrs. Farraday led Constance and Mary to an exploration of the kitchen. Chancing to look back from the hall, Mary saw that McEwan had seated himself in the grandmother's chair, and was holding the heavy shy Jamie at his knee, one arm thrown round him. The boy's eyes were fixed in dumb devotion on his father's face.

"The two poor lonely things," she thought.

The little kitchen was spotless, tiled shoulder-high, and painted blue above. Against one wall a row of copper saucepans grinned their fat content, echoed by the pale s.h.i.+ne of an opposing row of aluminum. Snowy larder shelves showed through one little door; through another, laundry tubs were visible. There was a modern coal stove, with a boiler. The quarters were small, but perfect to the last detail. Mrs. Farraday's little face fairly beamed with pride as they looked about them.

"He did it all, bought every pot and pan, arranged each detail. There were no modern conveniences until old Cotter died--_he_ would not let James put them in. My boy loves this cottage; he sometimes spends several days here all alone, when he is very tired. He doesn't even like me to send Moses down, but of course I won't hear of that." She shook her head with smiling finality. There were some things, her manner suggested, that little boys could not be allowed.

"But, Mrs. Farraday," Mary exclaimed, "how can we possibly take the house from him if he uses it?"

"My dear," the little lady's hand lighted on Mary's arm, "when thee knows my James better, thee will know that his happiness lies in helping his friends find theirs. He would be deeply disappointed if thee did not take it," and her hand squeezed Mary's rea.s.suringly.

"We are too wonderfully lucky--I don't know how to express my grat.i.tude," Mary answered.