At length I joined the others, who were standing before the easel,
looking at the predella which, as Wilderspin again took care to tell
us, had been removed from the famous picture of 'Faith and Love' we
were about to see in the next room--'the culmination and final
expression of the Renascence of Wonder in Art.'
'Perhaps it is fortunate,' said he, 'that I happen to be working at
this very time upon the predella, which acts as a key to the meaning
of the design. You will now have the advantage of seeing the predella
before you see the picture itself. And really it would be to the
advantage of the picture if every one could see it under like
circumstances; it would add immensely to the effect of the design.
Look well and carefully at the predella first. Try to imagine the
Oriental Queen behind that veil, then observe the way in which the
features are expressed through the veil; and then, but not till then,
come into the adjoining room and see the picture itself, see what
Isis really is (according to the sublime idea of Philip Aylwin) when
Faith and Love, the twin angels of all true art, upraise the veil.'
He then turned and passed through the folding-doors into a room of
great size, crowded with easels, upon which pictures were resting.
The predella before me seemed a miracle of imaginative power. At that
time I had not seen the work of the great poet-painter of modern
times whom Wilderspin called 'the Master,' and by whom he had been
unconsciously inspired.
'Most beautiful!' my mother ejaculated, as we three lingered before
the predella. 'Do look at the filmy texture of the veil.'
'Looks more like steam than a white veil, don't you know?' said
Sleaford.
'Like steam, my lord?' exclaimed Wilderspin from the next room. 'The
painter of that veil had peculiar privileges. As a child he had been
in the habit of watching a face through the curtain of steam around a
blacksmith's forge when hot iron is plunged into the water-trench,
and the face, my lord, though begrimed by earthly toil, was an
angel's. No wonder, then, that the painting in that veil is unique in
art. The flesh-tints that are pearly and yet rosy seem, as you
observe, to be breaking through it, and yet you cannot say what is
the actual expression on the face. But now come and see the picture
itself.'
My mother and Sleaford lingered for a moment longer, and then passed
between the folding-doors.
But I did not follow them; I could not. For now there was something
in the predella before me which fascinated me, I scarcely knew why.
It was the figure of the queen--the figure between the two sleeping
angels--the figure behind the veil, and expressed by the veil--that
enthralled me.
There was a turn about the outlined neck and head that riveted my
gaze; and, as I looked from these to the veil falling over the face,
a vision seemed to be rapidly growing before my eyes--a vision that
stopped my breath--a vision of a face struggling to express itself
through that snowy film--_whose_ face?
* * * * *
'In the crypt my senses had a kind of license to play me tricks,' I
murmured; 'but now and here my reason _shall_ conquer.'
And I stood and gazed at the veil. During all the time I could hear
every word of the talk between Wilderspin, Sleaford, and my mother
before the picture in the other room.
'Awfully fine picture,' said Sleaford, 'but the Queen there--Isis:
more like a European face than an Egyptian. I've been to Egypt a good
deal, don't you know?'
'This is not an historical painting, my lord. As Philip Aylwin says,
"the only soul-satisfying function of art is to give what Zoroaster
calls 'apparent pictures of unapparent realities.'" Perfect beauty
has no nationality; hers has none. All the perfections of woman
culminate in her. How can she then be disfigured by paltry
characteristics of this or that race or nation? In looking at that
group, my lord, nationality is forgotten, and should be forgotten.
She is the type of Ideal Beauty whose veil can never be raised save
by the two angels of all true art, Faith and Love. She is the type of
Nature, too, whose secret, as Philip Aylwin says, "no science but
that of Faith and Love can read."'
'Seems to be the type of a good deal; but it's all right, don't you
know? Awfully fine picture! Awfully fine woman!' said Sleaford in a
conciliatory tone. 'She's a good deal fairer, though, than any
Eastern women I've seen; but then I suppose she has worn a veil al
her life up to now. Most of 'em take sly peeps, and let in the hot
Oriental sun, and that tans 'em, don't you know?'
'And the original of this face?' I heard my mother say in a voice
that seemed agitated; 'could you tell me something about the original
of this remarkable face?' 'The model?' said Wilderspin. 'We are not
often asked about our models, but a model like that would endow
mediocrity itself with genius, for, though apparently, and by way of
beneficent illusion, the daughter of an earthly costermonger, she was
a wanderer from another and a better world. She is not more beautiful
here than when I saw her first in the sunlight on that memorable day,
at the corner of Essex Street, Strand, bare-headed, her shoulders
shining like patches of polished ivory here and there through the
rents in her tattered dress, while she stood gazing before her,
murmuring a verse of Scripture, perfectly unconscious whether she was
dressed in rags or velvet; her eyes--'
'The eyes--it _is_ the eyes, don't you know--it is the eyes that are
not quite right,' said Sleaford. 'Blue eyes with black eyelashes are
awfully fine; you don't see 'em in Egypt. But I suppose that's the
type of something too. Types always floor me, don't you know?'
'But the scene is no longer Egypt, my lord; it is Corinth,' replied
Wilderspin.
During this dialogue I stood motionless before the predella: I could
not stir; my feet seemed fixed in the floor by what can only be
described as a wild passion of expectation. As I stood there a
marvellous change appeared to be coming over the veiled figure of the
predella. The veil seemed to be growing more and more filmy--more and
more like the 'steam' to which Sleaford had compared it, till at last
it resolved itself into a veil of mist--into the rainbow-tinted
vapours of a gorgeous mountain sunrise--and looking straight at me
were two blue eyes sparkling with childish happiness and childish
greeting, through flushed mists across a pool on Snowdon.
That she was found at last my heart knew, though my brain was dazed.
That in the next room, within a few yards of me, my mother and
Sleaford and Wilderspin were looking at the picture of Winifred's
face unclouded by the veil, my heart knew as clearly as though my
eyes were gazing at it, and yet I could not stir. Yes, I knew that
she was now neither a beggar in the street, nor a prisoner in one of
the dens of London, nor starving in a squalid garret, but was safe
under the sheltering protection of a good man. I knew that I had only
to pass between those folding-doors to see her in Wilderspin's
picture--see her dressed in the 'azure-coloured tunic bordered with
stars,' and the upper garment of the 'colour of the moon at
moonrise,' which Wilderspin had so vividly described in Wales; and
yet, paralysed by expectation, I could not stir.