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:
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.
8.
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.”