I
As we stepped into the carriage, Sleaford, full of sympathy, jumped
in. This fortunately prevented a conversation that would have been
intolerable both to my mother and to me.
'Studio oppressively close,' said Sleaford; 'usual beastly smell of
turpentine and pigments and things. Why the dooce don't these fellows
ventilate their studios before they get ladies to go to see their
paintin's!' This he kept repeating, but got no response from either
of us.
As to me, let me honestly confess that I had but one thought: how
much time would be required to go to Belgrave Square and back to the
studio, to learn the whereabouts of Winifred. 'But she's safe,' I
kept murmuring, in answer to that rising dread: 'Wilderspin said she
was safe.'
During that drive to Belgrave Square, he whose bearing towards my
mother was that of the anxious, loving son was not I, the only living
child of her womb, but poor, simple, empty-headed Sleaford.
When we reached Belgrave Square my mother declared that she had
entirely recovered from the fainting fit, but I scarcely dared to
look into those haggard eyes of hers, which showed only too plainly
that the triumph of remorse in her bosom was now complete. My aunt,
who seemed to guess that something lowering to the family had taken
place, was impatient to get on board the yacht. I saw how my mother
now longed to remain and learn the upshot of events; but I told her
that she was far better away now, and that I would write to her and
keep her posted up in the story day by day. I bade them a hurried
'Good-bye.'
'How shall I be able to stay out of England until I know all about
her?' said my mother. 'Go back and learn all about her, Henry, and
write to me; and be sure to get and take care of that dreadful
picture, and write to me about that also.'
When the carriage left I walked rapidly along the Square, looking
for a hansom. In a second or two Sleaford was by my side. He took my
arm.
'I suppose you're goin' back to cane him, aren't you?' said he.
'Cane whom?' I said impatiently, for that intolerable thought which
I have hinted at was now growing within my brain, and I must, _must_
be alone to grapple with it.
'Cane the d----d painter, of course,' said Sleaford, opening his
great blue eyes in wonder that such a question should be asked.
'Awfully bad form that fellow goin' and puttin' your mother in the
picture. But that's just the way with these fellows.'
'What do you mean?' I asked again.
'What do I mean? The paintin' and writin' fellows. You can't make a
silk purse out of a sow's ear, as I've often and often said to Cyril
Aylwin; and by Jove, I'm right for once. I suppose I needn't ask you
if you're going back to cane him.'
'Wilderspin did what he did quite unconsciously,' I replied, as I
hailed a hansom. 'It was the finger of God.'
'The finger of--Oh come! That be hanged, old chap.'
'Good-bye,' I said, as I jumped into the hansom.
'But you don't mean to say you are goin' to let a man put your mother
into--'
I heard no more. The terrible idea which had been growing in my
brain, shaping itself out of a nebulous mass of reminiscences of what
had just occurred at the studio, was now stinging me to madness.
Wilderspin's extreme dejection, the strange way in which he had
seemed inclined to evade answering my question as to the safety of
Winifred, the look of pity on his face as at last he answered 'quite
safe'--what did all these indications portend? At every second the
thought grew and grew, till my brain seemed like a vapour of fire,
and my eyeballs seemed to scorch their sockets as I cried aloud:
'Have I found her at last to lose her?'
On reaching the studio door I rapped: before the servant had time to
answer my summons, I rapped again till the sounds echoed along the
street. When my summons was answered, I rushed upstairs. Wilderspin
stood at the studio door, listening, apparently, to the sound of the
blacksmith's anvil coming in from the back of Maud Street through the
open window. Though his sorrowful face told all, I cried out,
'Wilderspin, she's safe? You said she was safe?'
'My friend,' said Wilderspin solemnly, 'the news I have to give you
is news that I knew you would rather receive when you could hear it
alone.'
'You said she was safe!'
'Yes, safe indeed! She whom you, under some strange but no doubt
beneficent hallucination, believe to be the lady you lost in Wales,
is safe indeed, for she is in the spirit-land with her whose blessing
lent her to me--she has returned to her who was once a female
blacksmith at Oldhill, and is now the brightest, sweetest, purest
saint in Paradise.'
Dead! My soul had been waiting for the word--expecting it ever since
I left the studio with my mother--but now it sounded more dreadful
than if it had come as a surprise.
'Tell me all,' I cried, 'at once--at once. She did not return, you
say, on the day following the catastrophe--when did she return?--when
did you next see her?'
'I never saw her again alive,' answered Wilderspin mournfully; 'but
you are so pale, Mr. Aylwin, and your eyes are so wild, I had better
defer telling you what little more there is to tell until you have
quite recovered from the shock.'
'No; now, now.'
Wilderspin looked with a deep sigh at the picture of 'Faith and
Love,' fired by the lights of sunset, where Winnie's face seemed
alive.
'Well,' said he, 'as she did not come, I worked at my painting of
"Ruth" all day; and on the next morning, as I was starting for
Primrose Court to seek her, Mrs. Gudgeon came kicking frantically at
the street-door. When it was opened, she came stamping upstairs, and
as I advanced to meet her, she shook her fists in my face, shouting
out: "I could tear your eyes out, you vagabones." "Why, what is the
matter?" I asked in great surprise. "You've bin and killed her,
that's all," said the woman, foaming at the mouth. She then told me
that her daughter, almost immediately on reaching home after having
left the studio in the company of my servant, had fallen down in a
swoon. A succession of swoons followed. She never rallied. She was
then lying dead in Primrose Court.'
'And what then? Answer me quickly.'
'She asked me to give her money that her daughter might be buried
respectably and not by the parish. I told her it was all
hallucination about the girl being her daughter, and that a spiritual
body could not be buried, but she seemed so genuinely distressed that
I gave her the money.'
'Spiritual body! Hallucination!' I said. 'I heard her voice in the
London streets, and she was seen selling baskets at the theatre door.
Where shall I find the house?'
'It is of no use for you to go there,' he said.
'Nothing shall prevent my going at once.' A feverish yearning had
come upon me to see the body.
'If you _will_ go,' said Wilderspin, 'it is No. 2 Primrose Court,
Great Queen Street, Holborn.