VII.
Mr. Raycie did not die till nearly a year later; but New York agreed it was the affair of the pictures that had killed him.
The day after his first and only sight of them he sent for his lawyer, and it became known that he had made a new will. Then he took to his bed with a return of the gout, and grew so rapidly worse that it was thought “only proper” to postpone the party Mrs. Raycie was to have given that autumn to inaugurate the gallery. This enabled the family to pass over in silence the question of the works of art themselves; but outside of the Raycie house, where they were never mentioned, they formed, that winter, a frequent and fruitful topic of discussion.
Only two persons besides Mr. Raycie were known to have seen them. One was Mr. Donaldson Kent, who owed the privilege to the fact of having once been in Italy; the other, Mr. Reedy, the agent, who had unpacked the pictures. Mr. Reedy, beset by Raycie cousins and old family friends, had replied with genuine humility: “Why, the truth is, I never was taught to see any difference between one picture and another, except as regards the size of them; and these struck me as smallish…on the small side, I would say…”
Mr. Kent was known to have unbosomed himself to Mr. Raycie with considerable frankness—he went so far, it was rumoured, as to declare that he had never seen any pictures in Italy like those brought back by Lewis, and begged to doubt if they really came from there. But in public he maintained that noncommittal attitude which passed for prudence, but proceeded only from timidity; no one ever got anything from him but the guarded statement: “The subjects are wholly inoffensive.”
It was believed that Mr. Raycie dared not consult the Huzzards. Young John Huzzard had just brought home a Raphael; it would have been hard not to avoid comparisons which would have been too galling. Neither to them, nor to anyone else, did Mr. Raycie ever again allude to the Raycie Gallery. But when his will was opened it was found that he had bequeathed the pictures to his son. The rest of his property was left absolutely to his two daughters. The bulk of the estate was Mrs. Raycie’s; but it was known that Mrs. Raycie had had her instructions, and among them, perhaps, was the order to fade away in her turn after six months of widowhood. When she had been laid beside her husband in Trinity church-yard her will (made in the same week as Mr. Raycie’s, and obviously at his dictation) was found to allow five thousand dollars a year to Lewis during his life-time; the residue of the fortune, which Mr. Raycie’s thrift and good management had made into one of the largest in New York, was divided between the daughters. Of these, the one promptly married a Kent and the other a Huzzard; and the latter, Sarah Ann (who had never been Lewis’s favourite), was wont to say in later years: “Oh, no, I never grudged my poor brother those funny old pictures. You see, we have a Raphael.”
The house stood on the corner of Third Avenue and Tenth Street. It had lately come to Lewis Raycie as his share in the property of a distant cousin, who had made an “old New York will” under which all his kin benefited in proportion to their consanguinity. The neighbourhood was unfashionable, and the house in bad repair; but Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Raycie, who, since their marriage, had been living in retirement at Tarrytown, immediately moved into it.
Their arrival excited small attention. Within a year of his father’s death, Lewis had married Treeshy Kent. The alliance had not been encouraged by Mr. and Mrs. Kent, who went so far as to say that their niece might have done better; but as that one of their sons who was still unmarried had always shown a lively sympathy for Treeshy, they yielded to the prudent thought that, after all, it was better than having her entangle Bill.
The Lewis Raycies had been four years married, and during that time had dropped out of the memory of New York as completely as if their exile had covered half a century. Neither of them had ever cut a great figure there. Treeshy had been nothing but the Kent’s Cinderella, and Lewis’s ephemeral importance, as heir to the Raycie millions, had been effaced by the painful episode which resulted in his being deprived of them.
So secluded was their way of living, and so much had it come to be a habit, that when Lewis announced that he had inherited Uncle Ebenezer’s house his wife hardly looked up from the baby-blanket she was embroidering.
“Uncle Ebenezer’s house in New York?”
He drew a deep breath. “Now I shall be able to show the pictures.”
“Oh, Lewis—” She dropped the blanket. “Are we going to live there?”
“Certainly. But the house is so large that I shall turn the two corner rooms on the ground floor into a gallery. They are very suitably lighted. It was there that Cousin Ebenezer was laid out.”
“Oh, Lewis—”
If anything could have made Lewis Raycie believe in his own strength of will it was his wife’s attitude. Merely to hear that unquestioning murmur of submission was to feel something of his father’s tyrannous strength arise in him; but with the wish to use it more humanely.
“You’ll like that, Treeshy? It’s been dull for you here, I know.”
She flushed up. “Dull? With you, darling. Besides, I like the country. But I shall like Tenth Street too. Only—you said there were repairs?”
He nodded sternly. “I shall borrow money to make them. If necessary—” he lowered his voice—“I shall mortgage the pictures.”
He saw her eyes fill. “Oh, but it won’t be! There are so many ways still in which I can economize.”
He laid his hand on hers and turned his profile toward her, because he knew it was so much stronger than his full face. He did not feel sure that she quite grasped his intention about the pictures; was not even certain that he wished her to. He went in to New York every week now, occupying himself mysteriously and importantly with plans, specifications and other business transactions with long names; while Treeshy, through the hot summer months, sat in Tarrytown and waited for the baby.
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 se
cretly 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.
VIII.
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.
“I’m very g
lad to see you here, Sarah Anne,” Mary Adeline answered with simplicity.
“Ah, it’s not for want of wishing that I haven’t come before! Treeshy knows that, I hope. But the cares of a household like mine…”
“Yes, and it’s been so difficult to get about in the bad weather,” Treeshy suggested sympathetically.
Mrs. Huzzard lifted the Raycie eyebrows. “Has it really? With two pairs of horses one hardly notices the weather…Oh, the pretty, pretty, pretty, baby!…Mary Adeline,” Sarah Anne continued, turning severely to her sister, “I shall be happy to offer you a seat in my carriage if you’re thinking of leaving.”
But Mary Adeline was a married woman too. She raised her mild head and her glance crossed her sister’s quietly. “My own carriage is at the door, thank you kindly, Sarah Anne,” she said; and the baffled Sarah Anne withdrew on Lewis’s arm. But a moment later the old habit of subordination reasserted itself. Mary Adeline’s gentle countenance grew as timorous as a child’s, and she gathered up her cloak in haste.
“Perhaps I was too quick…I’m sure she meant it kindly,” she exclaimed, overtaking Lewis as he turned to come up the stairs; and with a smile he stood watching his two sisters drive off together in the Huzzard coach.
He returned to the nursery, where Treeshy was still crooning over her daughter.
“Well, my dear,” he said, “what do you suppose Sarah Anne came for?” And, in reply to her wondering gaze: “To buy me off from showing the pictures!”
His wife’s indignation took just the form he could have wished. She simply went on with her rich cooing laugh and hugged the baby tighter. But Lewis felt the perverse desire to lay a still greater strain upon her loyalty.
“Offered to double my allowance, she and John, if only I’ll take down the sign!”
“No one shall touch the sign!” Treeshy flamed.
Edith Wharton - Novel 15 Page 5
