How their cross reached Fourth Avenue one may only surmise, but there
surely was knavery at some point of its transit. It was too splendid in
its enamelling, too subtle in the chiselling of its gilded silver to have
slipped into the byways of the antiquary's trade with the consent of the
Tuscan bishop who controlled or should have controlled its sale. For the
matter of that, it still contained one of St. Lucy's knuckles, which in
case of a regular transaction would have been transferred to a less
precious reliquary. No, there must have been a pilfering sacristan, or
worse, a faithless priest, to explain its translation from the Chianti
hills to Novelli's shop in Fourth Avenue.
Once there it was certain that one day or another John Baxter must find
it. How he became infected with the collector's greed and acquired the
occult knowledge that feeds that malady it would take too long to tell.
Yet it may be said that the yearning amateur was about the only potent
ingredient in the mild composite that was John Baxter. His eyes, skin,
hair, and raiment had never seemed of any particular colour, nor did he
as a whole seem of any especial size. His parents, who were neither rich
nor poor, cultured nor the contrary, had sent him to an indifferent
school and college. In the latter he had joined a middling chapter of a
poorish fraternity, and, was graduated with a rank that was neither high
nor low. During those four easy going years he had played halfhearted
baseball and football, and had all but made the "Literary Monthly."
On entering the world, as the phrase goes, he came into possession of a
small patrimony and accepted a minor editorial position on a feeble
religious monthly. For the ensuing fifteen years John Baxter overtly read
manuscripts, composed headlines for edifying extracts, even wrote
didactic little articles on his own account. Secretly, meanwhile, the
lust of the eye was claiming him, and he was becoming surcharged with a
single great passion.
His ascent through books, prints, Colonial furniture, miniatures, rugs,
and European porcelain to the dizzy heights of Chinese porcelain and
Japanese pottery and painting, it would be tedious and unprofitable to
follow. It is enough to say that all along the course his dull grey eye
emphatically proved itself the one thing not mediocre about him. It
grasped the quality of a fine thing unerringly; it sensed a stray good
porcelain from the back row of the auction room. How he knew without
knowing why was a mystery to his fellows and even to himself. For if he
frequented the museums of New York, and had made one memorable pilgrimage
to the Oriental collections of Boston, he was quite without travel, and
his education had been chiefly that of the shops and salesrooms. Thus his
finds represented less knowledge than an active faith which served as
well. A Gubbio lustre jug of museum rank had been bought before he knew
the definition of majolica. Before he had learned the peril of such a
hazard he had fearlessly rescued a real Kirman mat from an omnibus sale.
His scraps of old Chinese bronze and stoneware represented the promptings
of a demon who had yet to discover the difference between Sung and
Yungching.
These achievements gave John Baxter a certain notoriety in his world and
the unusual luxury of self esteem. What brought him the scorn of blunter
associates, who openly derided him as a crank, assured him a certain
deference from the _cognoscenti_. The small dealers respected him as an
authority; the auctioneers greeted him by name as he slipped into his
chair, and appealed to him personally when a fine lot hung shamefully. He
had the entrée at two or three of the more discerning among the great
dealers, who occasionally asked his opinion or gave him a bargain. In
short a really impressive John as he sees himself was growing up within
the skin of poor John Baxter, feeble scribbler for the weak-kneed
religious press. As he looked about his cluttered room of an evening he
could whisper proudly, "No, it's not a collection, but I can wait. And
there is meanwhile nothing in this room that is not good, very good of
its type." Sometimes in more expansive musings he would take out of its
brocaded bag a wooden tobacco box artfully incrusted with lacquer,
pewter, and mother of pearl, the work of the great Kôrin, and would
declare aloud, "Nobody has anything better than this, no museum,
certainly no mere millionaire."
Such days and nights had fed an already inordinate craving. He burned
for the beautiful things just beyond his grasp, suffered for them amid
his morning moralisings, dreamt of them at night. His was never the
disinterested love of the beautiful that certain lucky collectors retain
through all the sordidness of the quest. Had you observed John in the
auction room you would have felt something concentratedly feline in his
attitude and would hardly have been surprised had he pounced bodily upon
a fine object as it passed near him down the aisle. No other ghost of
the auction rooms--and strange enthusiasts they are, had an eye that
gleamed with so ominous a fire. There is peril in turning even a weak
will into a narrow channel. It may exert amazing pressures--like the
slender column of mere water that lifts a loaded car to, or with bad
direction, through, the roof.
* * * * *
Whether we should call John Baxter's courtship and marriage a digression
or the culmination of his career as a collector might have remained
doubtful were it not for the cross in Fourth Avenue. When he found it,
hardly a week before he met Miriam Trent, he naturally did not take it
for a touchstone. That it was in a manner such, may be inferred from the
fact that the anxious morning before the wedding, he stopped at Novelli's
for a last look, a ceremony strangely parodying the bachelor supper of
more ordinary bridegrooms. After a lingering survey of its deep
translucent enamels penned within crisply chiselled silver, like tiny
lakes rimmed by ledges, he handed the cross back to the reverent Novelli.
It had never looked more desirable, he barely heard Novelli's genial
congratulation on the coming of the great day, as he wondered how so
splendid a rarity had stayed in that little shop for two years. On
reflection the reason was simple. The price, six hundred dollars, was a
shade high for another dealer to pay, while the cross itself was so fine
an object as merely to excite the distrust of Novelli's average
customers. "Fools," muttered John, "how little they know," and hurried
towards the florist's. As he made his way back towards an impressive
frock-coat, his first, he found himself recalling with a certain
satisfaction that even if this were not his wedding day, he really never
could have hoped to buy the cross.
What Miriam Trent would have thought had she learned that her bridegroom
waived all comparison between herself and the cross only because it was
unattainable, one may hardly surmise. But as a sensible person who
already knew John's foible and was accustomed to making allowances, she
possibly would have been amused and just a bit relieved. She was
everything that he was not. Where one passion absorbed him, she gave
herself gladly to many interests and duties. A second mother to her
numerous small brothers and sisters, and to her amiable inefficient
father as well, she had somehow managed school and college for herself,
and in accepting John and his worldly goods she gave up a decently paid
library position. The insides of books were also familiar to her, in
impersonal concerns she had a shrewd sense of people, in general she
faced the world with a brave and delicate assurance. Finally she believed
with fervour the creed and ethics that John happened to inculcate every
week, and it is to be feared that she took him for a prophet of
righteousness. Armed at all points that did not involve her personal
interests, there was she peculiarly vulnerable. She must have accepted
John, aside from the glamour of his edifying articles, simply because of
his evident and plaintively reasserted need of her.
Yet they were very happy together, as people who marry on this unequal
basis often are. After their panoramic week at Niagara, along the St.
Lawrence, and home by the two lakes and the Hudson, they settled down in
John's room, which by the addition of two more had been promoted to being
the living room of an apartment. Her few personal possessions made a
timid, tolerated appearance between his gilt Buddhas and pewter jugs. But
she herself queened it easily over the bizarre possessions now become
hers. Had you seen her of an evening, alert, fragile, golden under the
lamp, and had you seen John's vague glance turn from a moongrey row of
Korean bowls to her deeper eyes, you would have been convinced not merely
that he regarded her as the finest object in his collection, but also
that he was right. It would be intrusive to dwell upon the joys and
sorrows of light housekeeping in New York on a small income. Enough to
say that the joys preponderated in this case. They read much together, he
gradually cultivated an awkward acquaintance with her friends--he had
practically none, and at times she made the rounds of the curiosity shops
and auctions with him. Here, she explained, her part was that of
discourager of enthusiasm, but repression was never practised in a more
sympathetic and discerning spirit. Her taste became hardly inferior to
his, and their barren quests together established a new comradeship
between them. It was probably, then, merely an accident that he never
included Novelli's in these aimless rounds, and so never showed her the
enamelled cross.
In the long run their imaginary foraging, always a recreation to her,
became a sore trial to him. With the demonstration that two really cannot
live cheaper than one, the old covetousness smouldering for want of an
outlet once more burned hotly within. It expressed itself outwardly in a
general uneasiness and irritability. The little fund, her money and his,
that lay in savings bank began to spend itself fantastically. One day he
reckoned that two-thirds of the cross had been put by, and banished the
disloyal thought with difficulty. Visionary plans of selling something
and making the collection pay for itself were entertained, but when it
came to the point nothing could be spared. Perhaps the gnawings of this
hunger might have been controlled, had he thought to confide in Miriam.
More likely yet, a system of rare and strictly limited indulgence might
have banked the fires between times. However that be, the thwarted
collector was to be sunk for a time in the devoted husband. Miriam lay
ill of a wasting fever.
After a two days' trial of the rooms, the doctor and the trained nurse,
who scornfully slept amid the collection, regarding it as a permanent
centre of infection, declared the situation impossible, and with the
slightest preliminary consultation of bewildered John, white-coated men
were sent for, who carried Miriam to the hospital. About her door John
hung like a miserable debarred ghost, for after the first few days her
mind wandered painfully, and his presence excited her dangerously. For
weeks he vacillated between perfunctory work at the office,
unsatisfactory talks with busy doctors and impatient nurses, and long
apprehensive hours in what had been home. In "Little Venice," in the best
powder-blue jar and the rest, he found no solace, on the contrary, the
occasion of revolting suggestions. There was an imp that whispered that
she must die and that he should resume collecting. With horror he fled
the evil place, and spent an endless night on tolerance within hearing of
her moanings.
Fevers have this of merciful, that a term is set for them. Her malady
though it often maims cruelly rarely kills. The temperature line on the
chart, which for days had described a Himalaya, dwindled suddenly to a
Sierra, as quickly to an Appalachian, and then became a level plain.
Terribly wracked by the ordeal but safe they pronounced her. The visiting
physician occasionally omitted her in his daily round. But convalescence
was more trying than the struggle with the fever. The lethargic hours
seldom brought either sleep or rest. Beset by nervous fears, the
collective suffering of the giant building weighed upon her, and she
begged to be taken home.
It was a pathetic triumphal entry that she made among their household
gods. The sheer grotesqueness of her home struck her painfully for the
first time, as she was helped to an ancient chair that stood before the
suspended Kirman rug--her throne John had always called it. As she once
more occupied it, there came a curious revulsion against her gorgeously
shabby domain. Other women, she reflected, had neat places, cool expanses
of wallpaper, furniture seemly set apart. She resented the stuffiness of
it all, the air of musty preciousness that pervaded the room. And when
John took both her hands and said: "Now the collection is itself again;
the queen has come home," she broke down and cried. She did much of that
in the weeks that followed. You would have supposed her another person
than plucky Miriam Baxter. But the situation hardly made for
cheerfulness. Light housekeeping being no longer practicable, they
depended on the unwilling ministrations of a slovenly maid. John, who, to
do him justice, had never boasted much surplus vitality, felt vaguely
that something was now due from him that he could not supply. To escape
an inadequacy that was painful he drifted back to the exhibitions and
sales, this time alone. He never bought anything, for he was saving
manfully for a purpose that daily increased in his mind. He would pay
with his pocketbook what with his person he could not.
His always modest luncheon reduced itself to a sandwich, he walked to
save carfares, cut off two Sunday newspapers, wore a threadbare spring
overcoat into the winter. Then one day he took Miriam to a famous
specialist from whom they learned very much what they already knew, but
with the advantage of working orders. The great man told John in brief
that it was a bad recovery which might readily become worse. A change and
open air life were imperative; a sea voyage would be best. If such a
change were not made, and soon, he would not be answerable for the
consequences.
All this John retold in softened form to Miriam in the waiting room. "We
might as well give it up," she said resignedly. "Of course we can't
travel. We haven't the money, and you can't get away." With the nearest
approach to pride he had ever shown in a nonaesthetic matter John
protested that he could get away, and better yet that there was money,
five hundred good dollars, more than enough for a glimpse at the Azores
and Gibraltar, a hint of rocky Sardinia, a day at Naples, a quiet
fortnight on the sunny Genoese Riviera, and then home again by the long
sea route. His thin voice rose as he pictured the voyage. Even she
caught something of his spirits, and as they got off the car near
Novelli's, by a sudden inspiration John said, "Now for being a good
girl, and doing what the doctor says, you shall see the most beautiful
thing in New York."
In a minute Novelli was carefully taking the precious thing from its
drawer and solemnly unfolding the square of ruby velvet in which it lay.
Miriam saw the rigid Christ, at the left Mary Mother in azure enamel, at
the right the Beloved Apostle in Crimson. From the top God Father sent
down the pearly dove through the blue. Below, a stately pelican offered
its bleeding breast to the eager bills of its young. And it all glowed
translucently within its sharp Gothic mouldings. Behind, the design was
simpler--in enamelled discs the symbols of the evangelists. St. Lucy's
knuckle lay visible under a crystal lens at the crossing, and surely
relic of a saint was seldom encased more splendidly. Even pathetic Miriam
kindled to it. "Yes, it is the most beautiful thing in New York," she
admitted. "I suppose it costs a fortune, Mr. Novelli." "No, a mere
nothing, for it, six hundred dollars." "Why, we might almost buy it," she
cried. "It's lucky you haven't saved more, John. I really believe you
would buy it." "I'd like to sell it to Mr. Baxter," said Novelli, "he
understands it," only to be cut short with a brusque, "No, it's out of
our class, but I wanted Mrs. Baxter to see it, and I wanted you to know
that she appreciates a fine object as much as I do." "Evidently," said
Novelli as they parted. "I hope she will do me the honour of coming in
often; there are few who understand, and whether they buy or not I am
always glad to have them in my place."
About a week later John Baxter closed and locked his office desk, hurried
down to the savings bank, and drew five hundred dollars. Most of it was
to go into steamer tickets forthwith, a little balance was to be changed
into Italian money. As he meditated a route downtown, he recalled the
only adieu still left unpaid. To be sure the cross had remained for three
years at Novelli's but it might go forever any day, and with it a great
resource for a weary moralist. Farewells were plainly in order, and with
no other thought he walked back to the shop and greeted Novelli, who
without waiting to be asked produced the crimson parcel that contained
the precious relic. As John looked it over from panel to panel, as if to
stamp every composition upon his memory, Novelli watched him, reflected,
hesitated, smiled benevolently, and spoke. "Mr. Baxter, I am in great
need of money and must sacrifice the cross. I want you to take it.
Vogelstein has offered me four hundred and fifty dollars for it but he
shall not have it if I can sell it to anybody who deserves it better and
will value it. It is yours at that price. What do you say?"
John tried for words that failed to come.
"It's a bargain, Mr. Baxter," pursued Novelli, "but of course if you
don't happen to have the money there's nothing more to say."
"But I have it right here," retorted John in perplexity, "only it's for
quite a different purpose."
"You know your own business, of course, and I don't urge you, but if you
have the money and don't take it, you make a great mistake. You know that
well enough, and then remember how Mrs. Baxter admired it the other day."
"Yes-s," faltered John dubiously.
"Then why do you hesitate? You know what it is, and what it is worth, as
an investment, I mean. By taking your time and selling it right you can
surely double your money."
"But"--
"No, there it is. I am honestly doing you a favour," and Novelli thrust
the swathed cross into the hands of his fairly hypnotised customer.
John's left hand clutched it instinctively, while with the frightened
fingers of his right he counted off nine fifty dollar bills.
"Thank you, Mr. Baxter, neither you nor your wife will ever regret it.
Nobody in America has anything finer, and that you know."
These words pounded terribly in John's brain as he found his way home,
stumbled up stairs, and boggled with the latchkey. All the way down,
unheeded passersby had wondered at the crimson burden (he had not waited
for a parcel to be made) hugged closely to the shabby black cutaway. The
danger signal smote Miriam in the eyes as she rose to be kissed. Standing
away from her, he placed the shrouded cross on the table and tried for
the confession that would not say itself.
"Why, it's our cross," she cried wonderingly. "Mr. Novelli has lent it to
us for a last look before we go where the lovely thing was made. But,
John, what's the matter? How you do look! Has something awful happened?"
"Yes," and the pale nondescript head sunk into his hands. "I have bought
it. I don't know how. I had the money, I was there, and I bought it."
She repressed the word that was on her lips, and the harder thought that
was in her mind, looked long at his humiliation until the pity of a
mother came over her tired face. She had mercifully escaped scorning him.
Then she spoke.
"It was a bad time to buy it, wasn't it, Dear, but it is a beautiful
thing, almost worth a real trip to Italy." She added with a curious air
of a suppliant, "And then perhaps we can sell it."
"Yes, that's so, perhaps we can sell it," echoed John listlessly,
wrapping the cross closely in its crimson cover and laying it in his most
treasured lacquer box. "Yes, perhaps we can sell it," he repeated, and
there was a long silence between them.