GOOD FAIRIES

But what of the fairies?

So far the old witch had had it all her own way, and that she had done very badly, if not quite her worst, you will have to admit. She had David by day in a cubby-hole office adjoining a noisy throbbing shop, making drawings of mechanical devices out of Radbourne’s or an irritable foreman’s brain; by his easel in the lonesome apartment at night, working out on paper from Dick Holden’s notes the ideas of Dick’s clients, who knew exactly what they wanted but not how it would look; saying sadly but sternly, “Begone!” to ideas of his own (in ecclesiastic architecture) that might nevermore hope to have a real birth. She had taken from him what no one could restore, the fine silky bloom of his youth; and something worth even more, though that was a loss he was not yet ready to admit. Worst of all, she had him convinced that he was a failure, a weakling and misfit, a sort of green fool who had asked for the moon and been properly punished for his temerity. And that was a skein even fairies would find hard to unravel.

But there was one who was willing to try.

Who ever heard of a fairy with red Dundrearies? Nobody, of course, but you shall hear of one now. Although the whiskers are really beside the case; all a good fairy needs is a pair of keen eyes and a heart as big as a drum.

An odd fish, no doubt of it, was Jonathan Radbourne, though a good man to work for and, as Jim Blaisdell had said and David soon found, by no means a fool. There was no hint of masterfulness about him, which was because he never thought of himself as a master. He never gave orders and never reproved; he made polite requests and sometimes, gently and apologetically, he showed where mistakes had been made. If you happened to do about what you were paid for doing, he beamed with delight and thanked you as though you had done him a favor. He was always busy and nearly always on the move, flitting back and forth between office and shop with hopping little strides that made him more robin-like than ever, and really accomplished a great deal. But he often found time for friendly little chats with his employees on topics that had no connection with the business, such as the babies at home, the rheumatic old mother, the state of the heart or the lungs; he made it a specialty to know all their troubles. And he always was smiling on that mouth it was really a grin a crooked cheery smile that made others smile, too, and he never acknowledged bad weather.

From the first he made a habit of seeking out David. His manner on such occasions was one of shy wistful friendliness, not quite sure of its welcome, that gave David an impulse to pat him on the head and say, “There, there, little man! It’s all right. You’re my chief and my time is all yours though I’d rather use it for work.” However, he never said that, but was always respectful and polite. He took advantage of these chats to learn more of his duties. With unwearied patience Jonathan explained them, as well as other details of the business, expressing delight at David’s interest.

David saw that he had much to learn and he had grave doubts that he was earning his salary. He knew next to nothing of mechanics and did not always understand when Jonathan or Hegner, the foreman, explained some new device for which drawings were needed. But that wrought no change in Jonathan’s manner.

“I’m afraid,” he would say, “we weren’t very clear on that.” And he would go over the explanation once more.

When the drawings were correct: “Very good!” he would beam. “I wish I could draw as beautifully as you.”

“Do you think,” David asked on one such occasion, when he had been in the position nearly a month, “that I’m really the man you want? Sometimes I seem pretty slow.”

“Oh, you mustn’t think that,” Jonathan said warmly. “You’re catching on faster than I ever hoped for. You don’t know what a help you are to me. The draftsmen I’ve had before used only their hands. You use your head.”

“Thank you,” said David, grateful for the assurance, even if the good will behind it was a trifle obvious.

“And you find your work interesting, don’t you?”

“I’m learning to like it very much.”

He tried to make his answer convincing. But when he had left the office, Jonathan shook his head and sought out his bookkeeper.

“That’s a very nice young man, Miss Summers,” he said. “Mr. Quentin, I mean.”

Miss Summers agreed.

“But I’m afraid he’s pretty heartsore yet.”

Miss Summers looked a question.

“He’s a young architect,” Jonathan explained, “who didn’t make good. I’m afraid this work seems a come-down to him.”

“That’s too bad,” said Miss Summers.

“If you get a chance, I wish you would try to make things cheerful for him here.”

“Of course,” said Miss Summers, who understood Jonathan quite well.

“We’ve got to try that. We must make a little conspiracy to that end. I’ll try to think up some details.”

Miss Summers smiled as though she liked making little conspiracies with Jonathan. “Of course,” she said again, and looked upon that as a promise.

Very quietly she set about keeping it. A little timidly, too; which was strange, since with others in the office and shop she was not in the least timid. She could do little, it is true a cheery “Good morning” and a friendly nod at evening, an occasional smile when something brought David into her office, once in a long while a brief little chat in which she, with a breath-taking sense of having an adventure, took the lead. Another young man might have detected her friendliness and considered his charms. But David, though his grave courtesy never failed, neither thought of his charms nor was conscious of hers. Her charms, to be sure, were not of a striking sort; at least at first glance. She was a frail-looking body whose face was nearly always pale and sometimes, toward evening of a hot day, rather pinched; her arms were too slender to be pretty and the cords of her broad white neck stood out. She was not very tall and, perched on her stool at the tall old-fashioned desk by the window, she seemed more girlish even than her years, which were four-and-twenty. She did not look at all like an iris, even a white iris girl; David would almost as soon have suspected Miss Brown.

“I might,” thought Miss Summers, “be a part of the furniture, for all he sees in me.” She did not think it resentfully, though with an odd little twinge of disappointment. She regarded him as a very superior young man, the sort she had always wanted to know. But she had made a promise and she would not desert the conspiracy.

She noticed that he never ate or went out at the noon hour, as if there were no such thing as an inner man demanding attention. Thereafter her luncheon, which was always carried in a dainty little basket, was seasoned with a conviction of gross selfishness. And one day, after she had eaten, she went, basket in hand, to the door of David’s little room.

“Mr. Quentin ” she began.

Instantly David was on his feet one of his habits she liked so well; other men in the office did not have it. “Yes, Miss Summers?”

She held out the basket. In the bottom reposed two fat cookies and a big apple whose ruddy cheeks had a rival in hers at the moment.

“My eyes were bigger than my appetite. Would you care for them?”

“Thank you, Miss Summers,” he said politely, “but I never eat at noon.”

“I wish you would,” she insisted. “If you don’t, they they’ll spoil.”

“By to-morrow? Hardly, I should think. Thank you, no,” he repeated. “I find it doesn’t agree ”

He saw her face fall.

“On second thought I believe I will. They look so tempting. It’s very good of you to think of it.”

He took the basket from her hands. But she did not leave. She stood, still hesitant, looking up at him. He motioned to his chair, the only one in the room.

“Won’t you sit down?”

“But where will you sit?”

He answered by brushing some papers from the corner of the table and seating himself there. She took the chair and the sense of adventure was very vivid.

David bit into a cooky. “Fine! This is good of you. Ordinarily I’m not hungry at all at noon habit, you know. But to-day I am. How did you happen to guess it?”

“I didn’t guess it. I just thought ” She looked up at him again, timidly. “Often I bring more than I can eat, and if ”

He had to smile at that. “Isn’t that a little obvious? I could go out if I wanted to, you know.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean that!” She was overcome by confusion.

“And I didn’t mean to snub you,” he smiled again. “You needn’t apologize. One need never be ashamed of a bit of hospitality, need one?” To give her time to recover, he went on, “There’s a good deal of that around here, isn’t there? Tell me something about Mr. Radbourne. You’ve been here some time, I believe.”

“Two years. He’s the best and kindest ”

She entered, eager to cover up her late awkwardness, upon a glowing history of their employer’s multifarious kindness. There was Miss Brown, the stenographer, rescued from the department store where she had been “dying on her feet,” sent to a commercial school and given a position she never could fill. And Blake, the collector, who had lung trouble and half the time was not able to report for duty. And Hegner, who was a genius but had a burning palate, picked up almost from the gutter and given an important place in the shop in the hope that responsibility would restore the shattered will. And Smith, the latest recruit, but recently out of the penitentiary.

“Though I wish he hadn’t taken him in. He looks bad and has fishy eyes and is always so surly.”

“Is this a business or a sort of hospital for broken lives?” David inquired.

“I think in his heart Mr. Radbourne is more interested in the hospital.”

“It’s too bad he’s so homely, isn’t it? It’s rather hard to take him very seriously.”

“Yes.” She sighed, then caught herself up loyally. “No! Because when you get to know him you don’t think about his face at all.”

David was thinking he had not done full justice to her face. It was spirited and really intelligent, he decided, though its prettiness was as yet open to question. He perceived what hitherto he had missed: that she had hair and eyes quite worthy of consideration. Black as night the former was, and fine and rebellious, with little curling wisps about her ears and neck. The eyes were a peculiar slaty gray and had depths inviting inspection. He found himself wishing he could see them really alight.

“It would be something,” he said thoughtfully, going back to Jonathan, “to be able to run that sort of hospital. But what a crew of lame ducks we are! Except you, of course!”

She laughed. “Oh, you needn’t be polite. I’m one, too. Not a very big one or very tragic. A lame duckling, shall we say?”

He suggested that a lame duckling might grow up into a wonderful swan, and munched his apple ruminatively. Neither happened to think of a certain incident, much discussed, in which that edible figured prominently. And he did not ask a question.

“But how does he get his work done, with such a crew?”

“We’re not all lame ducks, you know. And you work hard, don’t you?”

“Of course. It would be only decent ”

“We all think that. Even the big strong ducks like to work for him.”

“I’m told he makes money.”

“A good deal more than he spends on himself. I keep his personal accounts and I know. Several of his specialties are very valuable, inventions of his father’s that are still in demand. He’d make more money if he had a better system. Hegner says he can’t accept all his orders. Maybe,” she suggested, “you could help him there?”

He shook his head. “I’m afraid, Miss Summers,” his laugh was not pleasant this time, “I don’t know much of anything useful.”

“You could learn, couldn’t you?” she asked quietly.

He flushed, because he had let himself whimper. “Why I suppose I could try.”

She left him then. And strangely how, he could not have
told soothing oil had been poured into his wounds.

By most rules set by most men he should have been happy enough. He had work, clean and honest, that he was learning to do well. He had paid a first installment on his debts. Dick Holden had been as good as his word, the evening hours were busy ones and Dick would soon cease to be a creditor. Shirley wrote daily. She was well, the good times had materialized, Davy Junior was learning a new word every day and they both were so homesick for him.

He was learning a new thing to work, not with the natural easy absorption in a well-loved calling, but with faculties through sheer force of will concentrated on tasks set by others, in which he had no heart; to shut out of mind and heart, while he was working, all other facts of his life. It is a good thing for a man to know.

But, let his will relax its grip, and instantly his hurts began to throb. His pride had suffered; he had proclaimed himself to his little world a failure in his chosen calling. The new work was not his work. Desire for that would not die, despite failure. His mind, once freed from his will’s leash, would leap, unwontedly active, into the old groove, setting before him creations that tantalized him with their beauty and vigor and made him yearn to be at work upon them. And that was a bad habit, he thought; if he was to learn content in the new work, he must first put off love for the old. When the debts were paid, the work for the successful uninspired Dick should cease.

And in idle moments, though they were few, and in sleepless hours, not so few, the incredible loneliness would rush upon him, not lessened by custom; and a more poignant sense of loss. To that vague sense he carefully denied words, lest definition add to the hurt.

Perhaps he was more than a little morbid. Men are apt to be so, when harassed overlong by care. And perhaps he made a mistake, shunning his friends and seeking an anodyne only in a wearying routine.

That afternoon the subject of the noon hour’s chat came into David’s quarters to ask a question about some drawings. The errand accomplished, he, too, lingered. He refused the chair David vacated and sat on the table.

“I heard you and Miss Summers talking a while ago,” he said abruptly.

“You said you heard ” David looked up, self-conscious.

“I heard you laughing.” Radbourne’s eyes twinkled keenly down on his draftsman. “So you were talking about me?”

“There was nothing you couldn’t have heard without offense, sir.”

“I know that. Miss Summers is a loyal friend.”

“I hope the same can be said of me, sir.”

“Would you mind,” Jonathan asked, “not sirring me like that? That’s a very fine young lady, Mr. Quentin.”

“Evidently,” said David, though with something less than his employer’s enthusiasm.

“An inspiration to any man,” Jonathan continued.

“I have no doubt.”

Jonathan smiled. “Meaning you do doubt it? But I forgot you probably don’t know. She had a disappointment, Mr. Quentin, a heavy one, and she bore it as as you and I would have been proud to. She had a voice. And just as she was beginning to make her living out of it and getting ready for bigger things, she took diphtheria. It left her throat so weak that she had to give up singing, altogether for a while, professionally for good.”

“Why, that was too bad!”

“It was very bad. But she didn’t whine. Just put it behind her. Since she had to make her own living somehow, she went to a commercial school and studied bookkeeping. I was lucky enough to get her.”

“She could really sing?”

“She would have gone far, very far. I had happened to hear her and I followed her progress closely enough to know. I have never been reconciled ”

Jonathan broke off sharply, staring hard at a crack in the wall. The little blue eyes were very sad. David, too, fell into a long thoughtful silence.

He broke it at last. “As you say ”

Jonathan started, as if he had forgotten David’s presence.

“As you say, it called for more courage, because she was a real artist and not a proven failure.”

“But I didn’t say that.”

“You had it in mind when you told me that. You are quite right. Thank you for telling me.”

“There!” Jonathan beamed happily. “I said she was an inspiration to any man.”

“At least,” said David grimly, “she is a good example.”

Jonathan left. But in a moment he returned.

“Do you like music?”

“Very much.”

“Then one of these evenings we’ll go out to my house, we three, and have some, if you’d care for it.”

“I should be glad to.”

“Next Saturday, perhaps?”

David repeated his polite formula.

Jonathan eyed him wistfully. “You know, you’re not obliged to say that if there is something else you would rather do. I shouldn’t care to take advantage of my position to force my company and and my friendship upon you.”

“I should be very glad to have them.” And when he had said it, David knew he had meant it. “Both of them,” he added.

The little man’s face lighted up eagerly. “You really mean that?”

“I certainly do.”

“I am very happy to hear you say so. You see,” Jonathan explained, “I lead a rather lonely life of it, away from the shop. I am not equipped for social life. People of talent and agreeable manners and taste do not seem to care for my company. They are not to be blamed, of course.”

The homely face was sad again. David was uncomfortable and silent.

“However,” Jonathan’s smile reappeared, “I am fortunate to have found congenial friends here. Miss Summers is one. And now I add you to the list. With two friends a man ought to count himself rich, don’t you think?”

David agreed smilingly.

Jonathan started away for the second time, then caught himself. “I forgot. I am ashamed to have forgotten. Perhaps you ought to be with your family Saturday evening. I should hate to feel ”

“My family is away.”

If David’s voice had become suddenly curt, Jonathan did not seem to perceive it.

“Then we’ll consider it settled.”

This time his departure was final. And the cloud, lifted a little by the efforts of a white-faced bookkeeper and a comically ugly manikin, settled upon David once more. He bent grimly to his interrupted work.

At that moment Radbourne was obtaining Miss Summers’ assent to the occasion of Saturday. It was not hard to obtain.

“I like that young man,” he confided. “I think we’re going to be very good friends.”

“I hope so.”

“Yes. It would mean much to me, Miss Summers.”

“But I was thinking of him,” she said gravely.

And the slate-gray eyes, as they rested on the little man, were very gentle. . . . .