Edith Wharton - Novel 15 (8 page)

 
          
A
little girl was born at the end of the summer and christened Louisa; and when
she was a few weeks old the Lewis Raycies left the country for New York.

 
          
“
Now
!” thought Lewis, as they bumped over
the cobblestones of Tenth Street in the direction of Cousin Ebenezer’s house.

 
          
The
carriage stopped, he handed out his wife, the nurse followed with the baby, and
they all stood and looked up at the house-front.

 
          
“Oh,
Lewis—” Treeshy gasped; and even little Louisa set up a sympathetic wail.

 
          
Over
the door—over Cousin Ebenezer’s respectable, conservative and intensely private
front-door—hung a large sign-board bearing, in gold letters on a black ground,
the inscription:

 
          
Gallery of
Christian Art.
Open on Week-Days from 2 to 4.
Admission
25 Cents.
Children 10 Cents.

 
          
Lewis
saw his wife turn pale, and pressed her arm in his. “Believe me, it’s the only
way to make the pictures known. And they
must
be made known,” he said with a thrill of his old ardour.

 
          
“Yes, dear, of course.
But…to every one.
Publicly?”

 
          
“If
we showed them only to our friends, of what use would it be? Their opinion is
already formed.”

 
          
She
sighed
her acknowledgment. “But the…the entrance fee…”

 
          
“If
we can afford it later, the gallery will be free. But meanwhile—”

 
          
“Oh,
Lewis, I quite understand!” And clinging to him, the still-protesting baby in
her wake, she passed with a dauntless step under the awful sign-board.

 
          
“At
last I shall see the pictures properly lighted!” she exclaimed, and turned in
the hall to fling her arms about her husband.

 
          
“It’s
all they need…to be appreciated,” he answered, aglow with her encouragement.

 
          
Since
his withdrawal from the world it had been a part of Lewis’s system never to
read the daily papers. His wife eagerly conformed to his example, and they
lived in a little air-tight circle of aloofness, as if the cottage at Tarrytown
had been situated in another and happier planet.

 
          
Lewis,
nevertheless, the day after the opening of the Gallery of Christian Art, deemed
it his duty to derogate from this attitude, and sallied forth secretly to buy
the principal journals. When he re-entered his house he went straight up to the
nursery where he knew that, at that hour, Treeshy would be giving the little
girl her bath. But it was later than he supposed. The rite was over, the baby
lay asleep in its modest cot, and the mother sat crouched by the fire, her face
hidden in her hands. Lewis instantly guessed that she too had seen the papers.

 
          
“Treeshy—you
mustn’t…consider this of any consequence…,” he stammered.

 
          
She
lifted a tear-stained face.
“Oh, my darling!
I thought
you never read the papers.”

 
          
“Not
usually. But I thought it my duty—”

 
          
“Yes;
I see. But, as you say, what earthly consequence—?”

 
          
“None,
whatever; we must just be patient and persist.”

 
          
She
hesitated, and then, her arms about him, her head on his breast; “Only,
dearest, I’ve been counting up again, ever so carefully; and even if we give up
fires everywhere but in the nursery, I’m afraid the wages of the door-keeper
and the guardian…especially if the gallery’s open to the public every day…”

 
          
“I’ve
thought of that already, too; and I myself shall hereafter act as doorkeeper
and guardian.”

 
          
He
kept his eyes on hers as he spoke. “This is the test,” he thought. Her face
paled under its brown glow, and the eyes dilated in her effort to check her
tears. Then she said gaily: “That will be…very interesting, won’t it, Lewis?
Hearing what the people say…Because, as they begin to know the pictures better,
and to understand them, they can’t fail to say very interesting things…can
they
?” She turned and caught up the sleeping Louisa. “Can
they…oh, you darling—darling?”

 
          
Lewis
turned away too. Not another woman in New York would have been capable of that.
He could hear all the town echoing with this new scandal of his showing the
pictures himself—and she, so much more sensitive to ridicule, so much less
carried away by apostolic ardour, how much louder must that mocking echo ring
in her ears! But his pang was only momentary. The one thought that possessed
him for any length of time was that of vindicating himself by making the
pictures known; he could no longer fix his attention on lesser matters. The
derision of illiterate journalists was not a thing to wince at; once let the
pictures be seen by educated and intelligent people, and they would speak for themselves—especially
if he were at hand to interpret them.

 
          
  

 
          
For
a week or two a great many people came to the gallery; but, even with Lewis as
interpreter, the pictures failed to make themselves heard. During the first
days, indeed, owing to the unprecedented idea of holding a paying exhibition in
a private house, and to the mockery of the newspapers, the Gallery of Christian
Art was thronged with noisy curiosity-seekers; once the astonished metropolitan
police had to be invited in to calm their comments and control their movements.
But the name of “Christian Art” soon chilled this class of sightseer, and
before long they were replaced by a dumb and respectable throng, who roamed
vacantly through the rooms and out again, grumbling that it wasn’t worth the
money. Then these too diminished; and once the tide had turned, the ebb was
rapid. Every day from two to four Lewis still sat shivering among his
treasures, or patiently measured the length of the deserted gallery: as long as
there was a chance of any one coming he would not admit that he was beaten. For
the next visitor might always be the one who understood.

 
          
One
snowy February day he had thus paced the rooms in unbroken solitude for above
an hour when carriage-wheels stopped at the door. He hastened to open it, and
in a great noise of silks his sister Sarah Anne Huzzard entered.

 
          
Lewis
felt for a moment as he used to under his father’s glance. Marriage and
millions had given the moon-faced Sarah some of the Raycie awfulness; but her
brother looked into her empty eyes, and his own kept their level.

 
          
“Well,
Lewis,” said Mrs. Huzzard with a simpering sternness, and caught her breath.

 
          
“Well,
Sarah Anne—I’m happy that you’ve come to take a look at my pictures.”

 
          
“I’ve
come to see you and your wife.” She gave another nervous gasp, shook out her
flounces, and added in a rush: “And to ask you how much longer this…this
spectacle is to continue…”

 
          
“The exhibition?”
Lewis smiled. She signed a flushed assent.

 
          
“Well,
there has been a considerable falling-off lately in the number of visitors—”

 
          
“Thank
heaven!” she interjected.

 
          
“But
as long as I feel that any one wishes to come…I shall be here…to open the door,
as you see.”

 
          
She
sent a shuddering glance about her. “Lewis—I wonder if you realize…?”

 
          
“Oh, fully.”

 
          
“Then
why
do you go on? Isn’t it
enough—aren’t you satisfied?”

 
          
“With
the effect they have produced?”

 
          
“With
the effect
you
have produced—on your
family and on the whole of New York.
With a slur on poor
Papa’s memory.”

 
          
“Papa
left me the pictures, Sarah Anne.”

 
          
“Yes.
But not to make yourself a mountebank about them.”

 
          
Lewis
considered this impartially. “Are you sure? Perhaps, on the contrary, he did if
for that very reason.”

 
          
“Oh,
don’t heap more insults on our father’s memory! Things are bad enough without
that. How your wife can allow it I can’t see. Do you ever consider the
humiliation to
her
?”

 
          
Lewis
gave another dry smile. “She’s used to being humiliated. The Kents accustomed
her to that.”

 
          
Sarah
Anne reddened. “I don’t know why I should stay and be spoken to in this way.
But I came with my husband’s approval.”

 
          
“Do
you need that to come and see your brother?”

 
          
“I
need it to—to make the offer I am about to make; and which he authorizes.”

 
          
Lewis
looked at her in surprise, and she purpled up to the lace ruffles inside her
satin bonnet.

 
          
“Have
you come to make an offer for my collection?” he asked her humorously.

 
          
“You
seem to take pleasure in insinuating preposterous things. But anything is
better than this public slight on our name.” Again she ran a shuddering glance
over the pictures. “John and I,” she announced, “are prepared to double the
allowance mother left you on condition that this…this ends…for good. That that
horrible sign is taken down tonight.”

 
          
Lewis
seemed mildly to weigh the proposal. “Thank you very much, Sarah Anne,” he said
at length. “I’m touched…touched and…and surprised…that you and John should have
made this offer. But perhaps, before I decline it, you will accept
mine
: simply to show you my pictures. When
once you’ve looked at them I think you’ll understand—”

 
          
Mrs.
Huzzard drew back hastily, her air of majesty collapsing. “Look at the
pictures? Oh, thank you…but I can see them very well from here. And besides, I
don’t pretend to be a judge…”

 
          
“Then
come up and see Treeshy and the baby,” said Lewis quietly.

 
          
She
stared at him, embarrassed. “Oh, thank you,” she stammered again; and as she
prepared to follow him: “Then it’s
no
,
really no, Lewis? Do consider, my dear! You say yourself that hardly any one
comes. What harm can there be in closing the place?”

 
          
“What—when
tomorrow the man may come who understands?”

 
          
Mrs.
Huzzard tossed her plumes despairingly and followed him in silence.

 
          
“What—Mary
Adeline?” she exclaimed, pausing abruptly on the threshold of the nursery.
Treeshy, as usual, sat holding her baby by the fire; and from a low seat
opposite her rose a lady as richly furred and feathered as Mrs. Huzzard, but
with far less assurance to carry off her furbelows. Mrs. Kent ran to Lewis and
laid her plump cheek against his, while Treeshy greeted Sarah Anne.

 
          
“I
had no idea you were here, Mary Adeline,” Mrs. Huzzard murmured. It was clear
that she had not imparted her philanthropic project to her sister, and was
disturbed at the idea that Lewis might be about to do so. “I just dropped in
for a minute,” she continued, “to see that darling little pet of an angel
child—” and she enveloped the astonished baby in her ample rustlings and
flutterings.