IV

'Well, Mr. Aylwin,' said Wilderspin, 'when I first saw your father's

book, _The Veiled Queen_, it was the vignette on the title-page

that attracted me. In the eyes of that beautiful child-face, even as

rendered by a small reproduction, there was the very expression that

my soul had been yearning after--the expression which no painter of

woman's beauty had ever yet caught and rendered. I felt that he who

could design or suggest to a designer such a vignette must be

inspired, and I bought the book: it was as an artist, not as a

thinker, that I bought the book for the vignette. When, on reading

it, I came to understand the full meaning of the design, such sweet

comfort and hope did the writer's words give me, that I knew at once

who had impressed me to read it--I knew that my mission in life was

to give artistic development to the sublime ideas of Philip Aylwin.

I began the subject of "Faith and Love." But the more I tried to

render the expression that had fascinated me the more impossible did

the task seem to me. Howsoever imaginative may be any design, the

painter who would produce a living picture must paint from life, and

then he has to fight against his model's expression. Do you remember

my telling you the other day how the spirit of Mary Wilderspin in

heaven came upon me in my sore perplexity and blessed me--sent me a

spiritual body--led me out into the street, and--'

'Yes, yes, I remember; but what happened?'

'We will sit,' said Wilderspin.

He placed chairs for us, and I perceived that my mother did not

intend to go.

'Well,' he continued, 'on that sunny morning I was impressed to

leave my studio and go out into the streets. It was then that I found

what I had been seeking,--the expression in the beautiful child-face

off the vignette.'

'In the street!' I heard my mother say to herself. 'How did it come

about?' she asked aloud.

'It had long been my habit to roam about the streets of London

whenever I could afford the time to do so, in the hope of finding

what I sought, the fascinating and indescribable expression on that

one lovely child-face. Sometimes I believed that I had found this

expression. I have followed women for miles, traced them home,

introduced myself to them, told them of my longings; and have then,

after all, come away in bitter disappointment. The insults and

revilings I have, on these occasions, sometimes submitted to I will

narrate to no man, for they would bring me no respect in a cynical

age like this--an age which Carlyle spits at and the great and good

John Ruskin chides. Sometimes my dear friend Mr. Cyril has

accompanied me on these occasions, and he has seen how I have been

humiliated.'

An involuntary 'haw, haw!' came from Sleaford, but looking towards my

mother and perceiving that she was listening with intense eagerness,

he said: 'Ten thousand pardons, but Cyril Aylwin's droll

stories,--don't you know? they will--hang it all--keep comin' up and

makin' a fellow laugh.'

'Well,' continued Wilderspin, 'on that memorable morning I was

impressed to walk down the street towards Temple Bar. I was passing

close to the wall to escape the glare of the sun, when I was stopped

suddenly by a sight which I knew could only have been sent to me in

that hour of perplexity by her who had said that Jesus would let her

look down and watch her boy. Moreover, at that moment the noise of

the Strand seemed to cease in my ears, which were rilled with the

music I love best--the only music that I have patience to listen

to--the tinkle of a black-smith's anvil.'

'Blacksmith's anvil in the Strand?' said Sleaford.

'It was from heaven, my lord, that the music fell like rain; it was

a sign from Mary Wilderspin who lives there.'

'For God's sake be quick!' I exclaimed. 'Where was it?'

'At the corner of Essex Street. A bright-eyed, bright-haired girl in

rags was standing bare-headed, holding out boxes of matches for sale,

and murmuring words of Scripture. This she was doing quite

mechanically, as it seemed, and unobservant of the crowd passing

by,--individuals of whom would stop for a moment to look at her; some

with eyes of pure admiration and some with other eyes. The squalid

attire in which she was clothed seemed to add to her beauty.'

'My poor Winnie!' I murmured, entirely overcome.

'She seemed to take as little heed of the heat and glare as of the

people, but stood there looking before her, murmuring texts from

Scripture as though she were communing with the spiritual world. Her

eyes shook and glittered in the sunshine; they seemed to emit lights

from behind the black lashes surrounding them; the ruddy lips were

quivering. There was an innocence about her brow, and yet a mystic

wonder in her eyes which formed a mingling of the child-like with the

maidenly such as--'

'Man! man! would you kill me with your description?' I cried. Then

grasping Wilderspin's hand, I said, 'But,--but was she begging,

Wilderspin? Not literally begging! My Winnie! my poor Winnie!'

My mother looked at me. The gaze was full of a painful interest; but

she recognised that between me and her there now was rolling an

infinite sea or emotion, and her eyes drooped before mine as though

she had suddenly invaded the privacy of a stranger.

'She was offering matches for sale,' said Wilderspin.

'Winnie! Winnie! Winnie!' I murmured. 'Did she seem emaciated,

Wilderspin? Did she seem as though she wanted food?'

'Heaven, no!' exclaimed my mother.

'No,' replied Wilderspin firmly. 'On that point who is a better judge

than the painter of "Faith and Love"? She did not want food. The

colour of the skin was not--was not--such as I have seen--when a

woman is dying for want of food.'

'God bless you, Wilderspin, God bless you! But what then?--what

followed?'

'Well, Mr. Aylwin, I stood for some time gazing at her, muttering

thanks to my mother for what I had found. I then went up to her, and

asked her for a box of matches. She held me out a box, mechanically,

as it seemed, and, when I had taken it of her, she held out her hand

just as though she had been a real earthly beggar-girl; but that was

part of the beneficent illusion of Heaven.'

'That was for the price, don't you know?' said Sleaford. 'What did

you give her?'

'I gave her a shilling, my lord, which she looked at for some time in

a state of bewilderment. She then began to feel about her as if for

something.'

'She was feelin' for the change, don't you know?' said Sleaford, not

in the least degree perceiving how these interruptions of a prosaic

mind were maddening me.

'I told her that I wanted to speak to her,' continued Wilderspin,

'and asked her where she lived. She gave me the same bewildered,

other-world look with which she had regarded the shilling, a look

which seemed to say, "Go away now: leave me alone!" As I did not go,

she began to appear afraid of me, and moved away towards Temple Bar,

and then crossed the street. I followed, as far behind as I could

without running the danger of losing sight of her, to a wretched

place running out of Great Queen Street. Holborn, which I afterwards

found was called Primrose Court, and when I got there she had

disappeared in one of the squalid houses opening into the court. I

knocked at the first door once or twice before an answer came, and

then a tiny girl with the face of a woman opened it. "Is there a

beggar-girl living here?" I asked. "No," answered the child in a

sharp, querulous voice. "You mean Meg Gudgeon's gal wot sings and

does the rainy-night dodge. She lives next house." And the child

slammed the door in my face. I knocked at the next door, and after

waiting for a minute it was opened by a short, middle-aged woman,

with black eyes and a flattened nose, who stared at me, and then

said, "A Quaker, by the looks o' ye." She had the strident voice of a

raven, and she smelt, I thought, of gin.'

'But, Mr. Wilderspin, Mr. Wilderspin, you said the girl was safe!'

It was my mother's voice, but so loud, sharp, and agonised was it

that it did not seem to be her voice at all. In that dreadful moment,

however, I had no time to heed it. At the description of the hideous

den and the odious Mrs. Gudgeon, whose face as I had seen it in

Cyril's studio had haunted me in the crypt, a dreadful shudder

passed through my frame; an indescribable sense of nausea stirred

within me; and for a moment I felt as though the pains of

dissolution were on me. And there was something in Wilderspin's

face--what was it?--that added to my alarm. 'Stay for a moment,' I

said to him; 'I cannot yet bear to hear any more.'

'I know the dread that has come upon you, and upon your kind,

sympathetic mother,' said he; 'but she you are disturbed about was

not a prisoner in the kind of place my words seem to describe.'

'But the woman?' said my mother. 'How could she be safe in such

hands?'

'Has he not said she is safe?' I cried, in a voice that startled even

my own ears, so loud and angry it was, and yet I hardly knew why.

'You forget,' said Wilderspin, turning to my mother, 'that the whole

spiritual world was watching over her.'

'But was the place very--was it so very squalid?' said my mother.

'Pray describe it to us, Mr. Wilderspin; I am really very anxious.'

'No!' I said; 'I want no description: I shall go and see for myself.'

'But; Henry, I am most anxious to know about this poor girl, and I

want Mr. Wilderspin to tell us how and where he found her.'

'The "poor girl" concerns me alone, mother. Our calamities--Winnie's

and mine--are between us two and God....You engaged her, Wilderspin,

of the woman whom I saw at Cyril's studio, to sit as a model? What

passed when she came?'

'The woman brought her next day,' said Wilderspin, 'and I sketched in

the face of Pelagia as Isis at once. I had already taken out the face

of the previous model that had dissatisfied me. I now took out the

figure too, for the figure of this new model was as perfect as her

face.'

'Go on, go on. What occurred?'

'Nothing, save that she stood dumb, like one who had no language save

that of another world. But at the second sitting she had a fit of a

most dreadful kind.'

'Ah! Tell me quickly,' I said. Her face became suddenly distorted by

an expression of terror such as I had never seen and never imagined

possible. I have caught it exactly in my picture "Christabel." She

revived and tried to run out of the studio. Her mother and I seized

her, and she then fell down insensible.'

'What occasioned the fit? What had frightened her?'

'That is what I am not quite certain about. When she entered the

studio she fixed her eyes upon a portrait which I had been working

upon; but that must have been merely a coincidence.'

'A portrait!' I cried. And Winifred's scared expression when she

encountered my mother's look of hate in the churchyard came back to

me like a scene witnessed in a flash of lightning. 'The portrait was

my mother's?'

'It was the face of the kind, tender, and noble lady your mother,'

said Wilderspin gently.

I gave a hurried glance at my mother, and saw the pallor of her

face,--but to me the world held now only two realities, Winifred and

Wilderspin; all other people were dreams, obtrusive and irritating

dreams. 'Go on, go on,' I said.

'She recovered,' continued Wilderspin, 'and seemed to have forgotten

all about the portrait, which I had put away.'

'Did she talk?'

'Never, Mr. Aylwin,' said Wilderspin solemnly. 'Nor did I invite her

to talk, knowing whence she came--from the spirit-world. At the first

few sittings Mrs. Gudgeon came with her, and would sit looking on

with the intention of seeing that she came to no harm. She said her

daughter was very beautiful, and she, her mother, never trusted her

with men.'

'God bless the hag, God bless her; but go on!'

'Gradually Mrs. Gudgeon seemed to acquire more confidence in me; and

one day, on leaving, she lingered behind the girl, and told me that

her daughter, though uncommonly stupid and a little touched in the

head, had now learnt her way to my studio, and that in future she

should let her come alone, as she believed that she could trust her

with me. She warned me earnestly, however, not to "worrit" the girl

by asking her all sorts of questions.'

'And there she was right,' I cried. 'But you did ask her

questions,--I see you did, you asked her about her father and brought

on another catastrophe.'

'No,' said Wilderspin with gentle dignity; 'I was careful not to ask

her questions, for her mother told me that she was liable to fits.'

'Mr. Wilderspin, I beg your pardon,' I said.

'I see you are deeply troubled,' said he; 'but, Mr. Aylwin, you need

not beg my pardon. Since I saw Mary Wilderspin, my mother, die for

her children, no words of mere Man have been able to give me pain.'

'Go on, go on. What did the woman say to you?'

'She said, "The fewer questions you ask her the better, and don't pay

her any money. She'd only lose it; I'll come for it at the proper

times." From that day the model came to the sittings alone, and Mrs.

Gudgeon came at the end of every week for the money.'

'And did the model maintain her silence all this time?'

'She did. She would, every few minutes, sink into a reverie, and

appear to be stone-deaf. But sometimes her face would become suddenly

alive with all sorts of shifting expressions. A few days ago she had

another fit, exactly like the former one. That was on the day

preceding my call at your hotel with your father's books. This time

we had much more difficulty in bringing her round. We did so at last;

and when she was gone I gave the final touch to my picture of "The

Lady Geraldine and Christabel." I was at the moment, however, at work

upon "Ruth and Boaz," which I had painted years before--removing the

face of Ruth originally there. I worked long at it; and as she was

not coming for two days I kept steadily at the picture. This was the

day on which I called upon you, wishing you to postpone your visit,

lest you should interrupt me while at work upon the head of Ruth,

which I was hoping to paint. On Thursday I waited for her at the

appointed hour, but she did not come, and I saw her no more.'

V

'Mr. Wilderspin,' I said, as I rose hurriedly, with the intention of

going at once in search of Winifred, 'let me see the picture you

allude to--"Christabel," and then tell me where to find her.'

'Better not see it!' said Wilderspin solemnly; 'there's something to

tell you yet, Mr. Aylwin.'

'Yes, yes; but let me see the picture first. I can bear anything now.

Howsoever terrible it may be, I can bear it now; for she's

found--she's safe.' And I rushed into the next room, and began

turning round in a wild manner one after another some dozens of

canvases that were standing on the floor and leaning against the

wall.

Half the canvases had been turned, and then I came upon what I

sought.

I stood petrified. But I heard Wilderspin's voice at my side say, 'Do

not let an imaginary scene distress you, Mr. Aylwin. The picture

merely represents the scene in Coleridge's poem where the Lady

Christabel, having secretly and in pity brought to her room to share

her bed the mysterious lady she had met in the forest at midnight,

watches the beautiful witch undress, and is spell-bound and struck

dumb by some "sight to dream of, not to tell," which she sees at the

lady's bosom.'

* * * * *

Christabel! It was Winifred sitting there upright in bed, confronted

by a female figure--a tall lady, who with bowed head was undressing

herself beneath a lamp suspended from the ceiling. Christabel! It was

Winifred gazing at this figure--gazing as though fascinated; her dark

hair falling and tumbling down her neck, till it was at last partly

lost between her shining bosom and her nightdress. Yes, and in her

blue eyes there was the same concentration of light, there was the

same uprolling of the lips, there was the same dreadful gleaming of

the teeth, the same swollen veins about the throat that I had seen in

Wales. No wonder that at first I could see only the face and figure

of Winifred. My consciousness had again dwindled to a single point.

In a few seconds, however, I perceived that the scene was an antique

oak-panelled chamber, corniced with large and curiously-carven

figures, upon which played the warm light from a silver lamp

suspended from the middle of the ceiling by a twofold silver chain

fastened to the feet of an angel, quaintly carved in the dark wood of

the ceiling. It was beneath this lamp that stood the majestic figure

of the beautiful stranger, the Lady Geraldine. As she bent her head

to look at her bosom, which she was about fully to uncover, the

lamp-light gleaming among the gems and flashing in her hair and down

her loosened white silken robe to her naked feet, shining,

blue-veined and half-hidden in the green rushes that covered the

floor, she seemed to be herself the source from which the lurid light

was shed about the room. But her eyes were brighter than all. They

were more dreadful by far to look at than Winifred's own--they were

rolling wildly as if in an agony of hate, while she was drawing in

her breath till that marble throat of hers seemed choking. It was not

upon her eyes, however, that Winifred's were fixed: it was upon the

lady's bosom, for out from beneath the partially-loosened robes that

covered that bosom a tiny fork of flame was flickering like a

serpent's tongue ruddy from the fires of a cruel and monstrous hate

within.

This sight was dreadful enough; but it was not the terror on

Winifred's face that now sent me reeling against Sleaford, who with

my mother had followed me into the smaller room. Whose figure was

that, and whose was the face which at first I had half-recognised in

the Lady Geraldine? My mother's!

In painting this subject Wilderspin had, without knowing it, worked

with too strong a reminiscence of my mother's portrait, unconscious

that he was but giving expression to the awful irony of Heaven.

I turned round. Wilderspin was supporting with difficulty my mother's

dead weight. For the first time (as I think) in her life, she whom,

until I came to know Sinfi Lovell, I had believed to be the

strongest, proudest, bravest woman living, had fainted.

'Dear me!' said Wilderspin, 'I had no idea that Christabel's terror

was so strongly rendered,--no idea! Art should never produce an

effect like this. Romantic art knows nothing of a mere sensational

illusion. Dear me!--I must soften it at once.'

He was evidently quite unconscious that he had given my mother's

features to Geraldine, and attributed the effect to his own

superlative strength as a dramatic artist.

I ran to her: she soon recovered, but asked to be taken to Belgrave

Square at once. Wild as I was with the desire to go in quest of

Winifred; goaded as I was by a new, nameless, shapeless dread which

certain words of Wilderspin's had aroused, but which (like the dread

that had come to me on the night of my father's funeral) was too

appalling to confront, I was obliged to leave the studio and take my

mother to the house of my aunt, who was, I knew, waiting to start for

the yacht.