The Nest Builder Part 25

"I think the good Lord sends us what we deserve, my dear, whether of good or ill," the little lady replied, smiling wisely.

Constance sighed contentedly. "Oh, Mrs. Farraday, you are so good for us all. I'm a modern backslider, and hardly ever go to church, but you always make me feel as if I had just been."

"Backslider, Constance? 'Thy own works praise thee, and thy children rise up and call thee blessed--thy husband also,'" quoted their hostess.

"Well, I don't know if my boys and Theodore call me blessed, but I hope the Suffragists will one day. Goodness knows I work hard enough for them."

"I've believed in suffrage all my life, like all Friends," Mrs. Farraday answered, "but where thee has worked I have only prayed for it."

"If prayers are heard, I am sure yours should count more than my work, dear lady," said Constance, affectionately pressing the other's hand.

The little Quaker's eyes were bright as she looked at her friend.

"Ah, my dear, thee is too generous to an old woman."

Mary loved this little dialogue, "What dears all my new friends are,"

she thought; "how truly good." All the world seemed full of love to her in these days; her heart blossomed out to these kind people; she folded them in the arms of her spirit. All about, in nature and in human kind, she felt the spring burgeoning, and within herself she felt it most of all. But of this Mary could express nothing, save through her face--she had never looked more beautiful.

Coming into the dining room she found Farraday watching her. He seemed tired. She put out her hand.

"May we really have it? You are sure?"

"You like it?" he smiled, holding the hand.

She flushed with the effort to express herself. "I adore it. I can't thank you."

"Please don't," he answered. "You don't know what pleasure this gives me. Come as soon as you can; everything is ready for you."

"And about the rent?" she asked, hating to speak of money, but knowing Stefan would forget.

"Dear Mrs. Byrd, I had so much rather lend it, but I know you wouldn't like that. Pay me what you paid for your first home in New York."

"Oh, but that would be absurd," she demurred.

"Make that concession to my pride in our friends.h.i.+p," he smiled back.

She saw that she could not refuse without ungraciousness. Stefan had disappeared, but now came quickly in from the kitchen door.

"Farraday," he called, "I've been looking at the barn; you don't use it, I see. If we come, should you mind my having a north light cut in it?

With that it would make an ideal workshop."

"I should be delighted," the other answered; "it's a good idea and will make the place more valuable. I had the barn cleaned out thinking some one might like it for a garage."

"We shan't run to such an extravagance yet awhile," laughed Mary.

"A bicycle for me and the station hack for Mary," Stefan summed up. "I suppose there is such a thing at Crab's Bay?"

"She won't have to walk," Farraday answered.

Started on practical issues, Mary's mind had flown to the need of a telephone to link them to her doctor. "May we install a 'phone?" she asked. "I never lived with one till two months ago, but already it is a confirmed vice with me."

"Mayn't I have it put in for you--there should be one here," said he.

"Oh, no, please!"

"At least let me arrange for it," he urged.

"Now, son, thee must not keep Mrs. Byrd out too late. Get her home before sundown," Mrs. Farraday's voice admonished. Obediently, every one moved toward the hall. At a word from McEwan, the mute Jamie ran to open the tonneau door. Farraday stopped to lock the kitchen entrance and found McEwan on the little porch as he emerged, while the others were busy settling themselves in the car. As Farraday turned the heavy front door lock, his friend's hand fell on his shoulder.

"Ought ye to do it, James?" McEwan asked quietly.

Farraday raised his eyes, and looked steadily at the other, with his slow smile.

"Yes, Mac, it's a good thing to do. In any case, I shouldn't have been likely to marry, you know." The two friends took their places in the car.

IV

After much consideration from Mary, the Byrds decided to give up their recently acquired flat, but to keep the old studio. She felt they should not attempt to carry three rents through the summer, but, on the other hand, Stefan was still working at his Demeter, using an Italian model for the boy's figure, and could not finish it conveniently elsewhere.

Then, too, he expressed a wish for a pied-a-terre in the city, and as Mary had very tender a.s.sociations with the little studio she was glad to think of keeping it.

Stefan was working fitfully at this time. He would have spurts of energy followed by fits of depression and disgust with his work, during which he would leave the house and take long rides uptown on the tops of omnibuses. Mary could not see that these excursions in search of air calmed his nervousness, and she concluded that the spring fever was in his blood and that he needed a change of scene at least as much as she did.

About this time he sold his five remaining drawings of New York to the Pan-American Magazine, a progressive monthly. They gained considerable attention from the art world, and were seized upon by certain groups of radicals as a sermon on the capitalistic system. On the strength of them, Stefan was hailed as that rarest of all beings, a politically minded artist, and became popular in quarters from which his intolerance had hitherto barred him.

It entertained him hugely to be proclaimed as a champion of democracy, for he had made the drawings in impish hatred not of a cla.s.s but of American civilization as a whole.

Their bank account, in spite of much heightened living expenses, remained substantial by reason of this new sale, but Stefan was as indifferent as ever to its control, and Mary's sense of caution was little diminished. Her growing comprehension of him warned her that their position was still insecure; he remained, for all his success, an unknown quant.i.ty as a producer. She wanted him to a.s.sume some interest in their affairs, and suggested separate bank accounts, but he begged off.

"Let me have a signature at the bank, so that I can cash checks for personal expenses, but don't ask me to keep accounts, or know how much we have," he said. "If you find I am spending too much at any time, just tell me, and I will stop."

Further than this she could not get him to discuss the matter, and saw that she must think out alone some method of bookkeeping which would be fair to them both, and would establish a record for future use.

Ultimately she transferred her own money, less her private expenditures during the winter, to a separate account, to be used for all her personal expenses. The old account she put in both their names, and made out a monthly schedule for the household, beyond which she determined never to draw. Anything she could save from this amount she destined for a savings bank, but over and above it she felt that her husband's earnings were his, and that she could not in honor interfere with them.

Mary was almost painfully conscientious, and this plan cost her many heart-searchings before it was complete.

After her baby was born she intended to continue her writing; she did not wish ever to draw on Stefan for her private purse. So far at least, she would live up to feminist principles.

There was much to be done before they could leave the city, and Mary had practically no a.s.sistance from Stefan in her arrangements. She would ask his advice about the packing or disposal of a piece of furniture, and he would make some suggestion, often impracticable; but on any further questioning he would run his hands through his hair, or thrust them into his pockets, looking either vague or nervous. "Why fuss about such things, dear?" or "Do just as you like," or "I'm sure I haven't a notion," were his most frequent answers. He developed a habit of leaving his work and following Mary restlessly from room to room as she packed or sorted, which she found rather wearing.

On one such occasion--it was the day before they were to leave--she was carrying a large pile of baby's clothes from her bedroom to a trunk in the sitting-room, while Stefan stood humped before the fireplace, smoking. As she pa.s.sed him he frowned nervously.

"How heavily you tread, Mary," he jerked out. She stood stock-still and flushed painfully.

"I think, Stefan," she said, with the tears of feeling which came over-readily in these days welling to her eyes, "instead of saying that you might come and help me to carry these things."

He looked completely contrite. "I'm sorry, dearest, it was a silly thing to say. Forgive me," and he kissed her apologetically, taking the bundle from her. He offered to help several times that afternoon, but as he never knew where anything was to go, and fidgeted from foot to foot while he hung about her, she was obliged at last to plead release from his efforts.