II

I hurried out of the house, and soon finding a cab I drove to Great

Queen Street.

My soul had passed now into another torture-chamber. It was being

torn between two warring, maddening forces--the passionate desire to

see her body, and the shrinking dread of undergoing the ordeal. At

one moment I felt--as palpably as I felt it, on the betrothal

night--her slim figure, soft as a twine of flowers in my arms: at the

next I was clasping a corpse--a rigid corpse in rags. And yet I can

scarcely say that I had any thoughts. At Great Queen Street I

dismissed the cab, and had some little difficulty in finding Primrose

Court, a miserable narrow alley. I knocked at a door which, even in

that light, I could see was a peculiarly wretched one. After a

considerable delay the door was opened and a face peered out--the

face of the woman whom I had seen in Cyril's studio. She did not at

first seem to recognise me. She was evidently far gone in liquor, and

looked at me, murmuring, 'You're one o' the cussed body-snatchers; I

know you: you belong to the Rose Alley "Forty Thieves." You'll

swing--every man Jack o' ye'll swing yet, mind if you don't.'

At the sight of the squalid house in which Winifred had lived and

died I passed into a new world of horror. Dead matter had become

conscious, and for a second or two it was not the human being before

me, but the rusty iron, the broken furniture, the great patches of

brick and dirty mortar where the plaster had fallen from the

walls,--it was these which seemed to have life--a terrible life--and

to be talking to me, telling me what I dared not listen to about the

triumph of evil over good. I knew that the woman was still speaking,

but for a time I heard no sound--my senses could receive no

impressions save from the sinister eloquence of the dead and yet

living matter around me. Not an object there that did not seem

charged with the wicked message of the heartless Fates.

At length, and as I stood upon the doorstep, a trembling, a mighty

expectance, seized me like an ague-fit; and I heard myself saying, 'I

am come to see the body, Mrs. Gudgeon.' Then I saw her peer,

blinking, into my face, as she said,

'Oh, oh, it's _you_, is it? It's one o' the lot as keeps the

studeros, is it?--the cussed Chelsea lot as killed her. I recklet yer

a-starin' at the goddess Joker! So you've come to see my poor

darter's body, are you? How werry kind, to be sure! Pray come in,

gentleman, an' pray let the beautiful goddess Joker be perlite an'

show sich a nice kind wisiter the way upstairs.'

She took a candle, and with a mincing, mocking movement, curtseying

low at every step, she backed before me, and then stood waiting at

the foot of the staircase with a drunken look of satire on her

features.

'Pray go upstairs fust, gentleman,' said she; 'I can't think o' goin'

up fust, an' lettin' my darter's kind wisiter foller behind like a

sarvint. I 'opes we knows our manners better nor that comes to in

Primrose Court.'

'None of this foolery now, woman,' said I. 'There's a time for

everything, you know.'

'How right he is!' she exclaimed, nodding to the flickering candle

in her hand. 'There's a time for everything an' this is the time for

makin' a peep-show of my pore darter's body. Oh, yes!'

I mounted a shaky staircase, the steps of which were, some of them,

so broken away that the ascent was no easy matter. The miserable

light from the woman's candle, as I entered the room, seemed suddenly

to shoot up in a column of dazzling brilliance that caused me to

close my eyes in pain, so unnaturally sensitive had they been

rendered by the terrible expectance of the sight that was about to

sear them.

When I re-opened my eyes, I perceived that in the room there was one

window, which looked like a trap-door; on the red pantiles of the

opposite roof lay a smoke-dimmed sheet of moonlight. On the floor at

the further end of the garret, where the roof met the boards at a

sharp angle, a mattress was spread. Then speech came to me.

'Not there!' I groaned, pointing to the hideous black-looking bed,

and turning my head away in terror. The woman burst into a cackling

laugh.

'Not there? Who said she _was_ there? _I_ didn't. If you can see

anythink there besides a bed an' a quilt, you've got eyes as can make

picturs out o' nothink, same as my darter's eyes could make 'em, pore

dear.'

'Ah, what do you mean?' I cried, leaping to the side of the mattress,

upon which I now saw that no dead form was lying.

For a moment a flash of joy as dazzling as a fork of lightning seemed

to strike through my soul and turn my blood into a liquid fire that

rose and blinded my eyes.

'Not dead,' I cried; 'no, no, no! The pitiful heavens would have

rained blood and tears at such a monstrous tragedy. She is not

dead--not dead after all! The hideous dream is passing.'

'Oh, ain't she dead, pore dear?--ain't she? She's dead enough for

one,' said the woman; 'but 'ow can she be there on that mattress,

when she's buried, an' the prayers read over her, like the darter of

the most 'spectable mother as ever lived in Primrose Court! That's

what the neighbours say o' me. The most 'spectable mother as

ever--'

'Buried!' I said, 'who buried her?'

'Who buried her? Why the parish, in course.'

Despair then again seemed to send a torrent of ice-water through my

veins. But after a time the passionate desire to see her body leapt

up within my heart.

At this moment Wilderspin, who had evidently followed me with

remarkable expedition, came upstairs and stood by my side.

'I must go and see the grave,' I said to him. 'I must see her face

once more. I must petition the Home Secretary. Nothing can and

nothing shall prevent my seeing her--no, not if I have to dig down to

her with my nails.'

'An' who the dickens are you as takes on so about my darter?' said

the woman, holding the candle to my face.

'Drunken brute!' said I. 'Where is she buried?'

'Well, I'm sure!' said the woman in a mincing, sarcastic voice. 'How

werry unperlite you is all at wonst! how werry rude you speaks to

such a werry 'spectable party as I am! You seem to forgit who I am.

Ain't I the goddess as likes to 'ave 'er little joke, an' likes to

wet both eyes, and as plays sich larks with her flummeringeroes and

drumming-dairies an' ring-tailed monkeys an' men?'

When I saw the creature whip up the quilt from the mattress, and,

holding it over her head like a veil, leer hideously in imitation of

Cyril's caricature, a shudder went again through my frame--a strange

kind of dementia came upon me; my soul again seemed to leave my

body--seemed to be lifted through the air and beyond the stars,

crying, in agony, 'Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath

not done it?' Yet all the while, though my soul seemed fleeing

through infinite space, where a pitiless universe was waltzing madly

round a ball of cruel fire--all the while I was acutely conscious of

looking down upon the dreadful dream-world below, looking down into a

frightful garret where a dialogue between two dream-figures was going

on--a dialogue between Wilderspin and the woman, each word of which

struck upon my ears like a sharp-edged flint, though it seemed

millions of miles away.

* * * * *

'What made you trick me like this? Where is the money I gave you for

the funeral?'

'That's werry true, about that money, an' where is it? The orkerdest

question about money allus is--"Where is it?" The money for that

funeral I 'ad, I won't deny that. The orkard question ain't that:

it's "Where is it?" But you see, arter I left your studero I sets on

that pore gal's bed a-cryin' fit to bust; then I goes out into

Clement's Alley, and I calls on Mrs. Mix--that's a werry dear friend

of mine, the mother o' seven child'n as are allus a-settin' on my

doorstep, an' she comes out of Yorkshire you must know, an' she's bin

a streaker in her day (for she was well off wonst was Mrs. Mix afore

she 'ad them seven dirty-nosed child'n as sets on her neighbours'

doorsteps)--an' she sez, sez she, "My pore Meg" (meanin' me), "I've

bin the mother o' fourteen beautiful clean-nosed child'n, an' I've

streaked an' buried seven on 'em, so I ought to know somethink about

corpuses, an' I tell you this corpse o' your darter's must be

streaked an' buried at wonst, for she died in a swownd. An' there's

nothink like the parishes for buryin' folk quick, an' I dessay the

coffin's ordered by this time, an' I dessay the gent gev you that

money just to make you comforble like, seein' as he killed your

darter." That's what Mrs. Mix says to me. So the parish comed an'

brought a coffin an' tookt her, pore dear. And I've cried myself

stupid-like, bein' her pore mother as 'es lost her on'y darter--an'

I was just a-tryin' to make myself comfable when this 'ere young toff

as seems so werry drunk comes a-rappin' at my door fit to rap the

'ouse down.'

'Has she been buried at all? How can a spiritual body be buried?'

'"Buried at all?" What do you mean by insinivatin' to the pore gal's

conflicted mother as she p'raps ain't buried at all? You're a-makin'

me cry ag'in. She lays comfable enough underneath a lot of other

coffins, in the pauper part of the New North Cimingtary.'

'Underneath a lot of others; how can that be?'

'What! ain't you toffs never seed a pauper finneral? Now that's a

pity; and sich nice toffs as they are, a-settin' theirselves up to

look arter the darters o' pore folks. P'raps you never thought how we

was buried. We're buried, when our time comes, and then they're werry

kind to us, the parish toffs is:--It's in a lump--six at a time--as

they buries us, and sich nice deal coffins they makes us, the parish

toffs does, an' sich nice lamp-black they paints 'em with to make 'em

look as if they was covered over with the best black velvid; an' then

sich a nice sarmint--none o' your retail sarmints, but a hulsale

sarmint--they reads over the lot, an' into one hole they packs us one

atop o' the other, jest like a pile o' the werry best Yarmith

bloaters, an' that's a good deal more sociable an' comfable, the

parish toffs thinks, than puttin' us in single; so it is, for the

matter o' that.'

Then I heard no more; for at the intolerable picture called up by the

woman's words, my soul in its misery seemed to have soared, scared

and trembling, above and beyond the heavens at whose futile gates it

had been moaning, till at last it sank at the feet of the mighty

power that my love had striven with on the sands of Raxton when the

tide was coming in--some pale and cruel ruler whose brow I saw

wrinkled with the woman's mocking smile--some frightful

columbine-queen, wicked, bowelless, and blind, shaking a starry cap

and bells, and chanting--

I lent the drink of Day

To gods for feast;

I poured the river of Night

On gods surceased:

Their blood was Nin-ki-gal's.

And there, at the feet of the awful jesting hag, Circumstance, I

could only cry 'Winnie! my poor Winnie!' while over my head seemed to

pass Necessity and her black ages of despair.

When I came to myself I said to the woman,

'You can point out the grave?'

'Well, yes,' paid slip, turning round sharply; 'but may I ax who the

dickens you are?--an' what makes you so cut up about a pore woman's

darter? It's right-on beautiful to see how kind gentlemen is

nowadays': and she turned and tried, stumbling, to lead the way

downstairs.

As we left the room I turned round to look at it. The picture of the

mattress, now nearly hidden in the shadows--the picture of the other

furniture in the room--two chairs--or rather one and a part of a

chair, for the rails of the hack were gone--a table, a large brown

jug, the handle of which had been replaced by a piece of string, and

a white washhand-basin, with most of the rim broken away, and a

shallow tub apparently used for a bath--seemed to sink into my flesh

as though bitten in by the etcher's aquafortis. Winifred's

sleeping-room!

'Of course she wasn't her daughter,' said Wilderspin meditatively, as

we stood on the stairs.

'Not my darter! Why, in course she was. What an imperent thing to

say, sure_lie_!'

'There is one thing I wish to say to you,' said he to the woman.

'When I agreed with you as to the sum to be paid for the model's

sittings, it was clearly understood that she was to sit to no other

artist, and that the match-selling was to cease.

'Well, and 'ave I broke my word?'

'A person has heard her singing and seen her selling baskets,' I

said.

'The person tells a lie,' said the woman, with a dogged and sullen

look, and in a voice that grew thicker with every word. 'Ain't there

sich things as doubles?'

At these last words my heart gave a sudden leap. We left the house,

and neither of us spoke till we got into the Strand.

'Did you see the--body at all?' I asked Wilderspin.

'Oh, yes. After I gave her the money for the funeral I went to

Primrose Court. The woman took me upstairs, and there on the mattress

lay--what the poor woman believed to be the earthly body of an

earthly daughter. It was covered with a quilt. Over the face a ragged

shawl had been thrown.'

'Yes, yes. She raised the shawl?'

'Yes, the woman went and held the candle over the head of the

mattress and uncovered the face; and there lay she whom the woman

believed to be her daughter, and whom you believe to be the young

lady you seek, but whom I _know_ to be a spiritual body--the perfect

type that was sent to me in order that I might fulfil my mission. You

groan, Mr. Aylwin, but remember that you have lost only a dream, a

beautiful hallucination; I have lost a reality: there is nothing real

but the spiritual world.