Chapter XII: Introduction: To the Snowdon Edition of 1901 (9)

'The fact is,' said I, in some confusion, 'I have been living with the Gypsies, and, you see, Mr. Wilderspin, the passage of time--'

'The son of Philip Aylwin a Gypsy!' murmured Wilderspin meditatively, and unconscious evidently that he was speaking aloud--'a Gypsy! Still it would surely be a mistake to suppose,' he continued, perfectly oblivious now of my presence, 'that the vagaries of his son can really bring shame upon the head of the father.'

'But, by God!' I cried, 'it is no mistake that the vagaries of the father can bring shame and sorrow and misery upon the child. I could name a couple of fathers--sleeping very close to each other now--whose vagaries--'

My sudden anger was carrying me away; but I stopped, recollecting myself.

'Doubtless,' said Wilderspin, 'there are fathers and fathers. The son of Philip Aylwin has assuredly a right to be critical in regard to all other fathers than his own.'

I looked in his face; the expression of solemn earnestness was quite unmistakable.

'It is not you,' I said, 'it is Heaven, or else it is the blind jester Circumstance, that is playing this joke upon me!'

'To your honoured father,' he continued, taking not the slightest notice of my interjection, 'I owe everything. From his grave he supports my soul; from his grave he gives me ideas; from his grave he makes my fame. How should I fail to honour his son, even though he--'

Of course he was going to add--'even though he be a vagabond associating with vagabonds,'--but he left the sentence unfinished.

'I confess, Mr. Wilderspin,' said I, 'that you speak in such enigmas that it would be folly for me to attempt to answer you.'

'I wish,' said Wilderspin, 'that all enigmas were as soluble as this. Let me ask you a question, sir. When you stood before my picture, "Faith and Love," in Bond Street, did you not perceive that both it and the predella were inspired entirely by your father's great work, _The Veiled Queen_, or rather that they are mere pictorial renderings and illustrations of that grand effort of man's soul in its loftiest development?'

I had never heard of the picture in question. As for the book, my father, perceiving my great dislike of mysticism, had always shrunk from showing me any effusion of his that was not of a simply antiquarian kind. In Switzerland, however, after his death, while waiting for the embalmer to finish his work, I had become, during a few days' reading, acquainted with _The Veiled Queen_. It was a new edition containing an 'added chapter,' full of subtle spiritualistic symbols. Amid what had seemed to me mere mystical jargon about the veil of Isis being uplifted, not by Man's reason, not by such researches as those of Darwin, Huxley, Spencer, and the continental evolutionists, but by Faith and Love, I had come across passages of burning eloquence.

'I am sorry to say,' I replied, 'that my Gypsy wanderings are again answerable for my shortcomings. I have not yet seen your picture. When I do see it I--'

'Not seen "Faith and Love" and the equally wonderful predella at the foot of it!' he exclaimed incredulously. 'Ah, but you have been living among the Gypsies. It is the greatest picture of the modern world; for, Mr. Aylwin, it renders in Art the inevitable attitude of its own time and country towards the unseen world, and renders it as completely as did the masterpiece of Polygnotus in the Lesche of the Cnidians at Delphi--as completely as did the wonderful frescoes of Andrea Orcagna on the walls of the Campo Santo at Pisa.'

'And you attribute your success to the inspiration you derived from my father's hook?'

'To that and to the spirit of Mary Wilderspin in heaven.'

'Then you are a Spiritualist?'

'I am an Aylwinian, the opposite (need I say?) of a Darwinian.'

'Of the school of Blake, perhaps?' I asked.

'Of the school of Blake? No. He was on the right road; but he was a writer of verses! Art is a jealous mistress, Mr. Aylwin: the painter who rhymes is lost. Even the master himself is so much the weaker by every verse he has written. I never could make a rhyme in my life, and have faithfully shunned printer's ink, the black blight of the painter. I am my own school; the school of the spirit world.'

'I am very curious,' I said, 'to know in what way my father and the spirits can have inspired a great painter. Of the vignette I may claim to know something. Of the spirits as artists I have of course no knowledge, but as regards my father, he, I am certain, could hardly have told a Raphael from a chromolithograph copy. He was, in spite of that same vignette, most ignorant of art. Raxton Hall possesses nothing but family portraits.'

IV

By this time we had reached the encampment, which was close by a waterfall among ferns and wild-flowers. Little Jerry Lovell, a child of about four years of age, came running to meet me with a dead water-wagtail in his hand which he had knocked down.

'Me kill de Romany Chiriklo,' said he, and then proceeded to tell me very gravely that, having killed the 'Gypsy magpie,' he was bound to have a great lady for his sweetheart.

'Jerry,' said I bitterly, 'you begin with love and superstition early; you are an incipient "Aylwinian": take care.'

When I explained to Wilderspin that this was one of the Romany beliefs, he said that he did not at present see the connection between a dead water-wagtail and a live lady, but that such a connection might doubtless exist. Panuel Lovell now came forward to greet and welcome Wilderspin. Sinfi and Cyril had evidently walked at a brisk rate, for already tea was spread out on a cloth. The fire was blazing beneath a kettle slung from the 'kettle-prop.' The party were waiting for us. Sinfi, however, never idle, was filling up the time by giving lessons in riding to Euri and Sylvester Lovell, two dusky urchins in their early teens, while her favourite bantam-cock Pharaoh, standing on a donkey's back, his wattles gleaming like coral in the sun, was crowing lustily. Cyril, who lay stretched among the ferns, his chin resting in his hands and a cigarette in his mouth, was looking on with the deepest interest. As I passed behind him to introduce Wilderspin to Videy Lovell (who was making tea), I heard Cyril say, 'Lady Sinfi, you must and shall teach me how to make an adversary's bed--the only really essential part of a liberal education.'

'Brother,' said Sinfi, turning to me, 'your thoughts are a-flyin' off agin; keep your spirits up afore all these.'

The leafy dingle was recalling Graylingham Wilderness and 'Fairy Dell,' where little Winifred used to play Titania to my childish Oberon, and dance the Gypsy 'shawl-dance' Sinfi's mother had taught her!

So much was I occupied with these reminiscences that I had not observed that during our absence our camp had been honoured by visitors. These were Jericho Boswell, christened, I believe, Jasper, his daughter Rhona, and James Herne, called on account of his accomplishments as a penman the Scollard. Although Jasper Boswell and Panuel Lovell were rival Griengroes, there was no jealousy between them--indeed, they were excellent friends.

There were many points of similarity between their characters. Each had risen from comparative poverty to what might be called wealth, and risen in the same way, that is to say, by straightforward dealing with the Gorgios, although as regarded Jericho, Rhona was generally credited with having acted as a great auxiliary in amassing his wealth. All over the country the farmers and horse-dealers knew that neither Jasper nor Panuel ever bishoped a gry, or indulged in any other horse-dealing tricks. Their very simplicity of character had done what all the crafty tricks of certain compeers of theirs had failed to do. They were also very much alike in their good-natured and humorous, way of taking all the ups and downs of life.

A very different kind of Romany was the Scollard--so different, indeed, that it was hard to think that he was of the same race: Romany guile incarnate was the Scollard. He suggested even in his personal appearance the typical Gypsy of the novel and the stage, rather than the true Gypsy as he lives and moves. The Scollard was well known to be half-crazed with a passion for Rhona Boswell, who was _the fiancée_ of that cousin of mine, Percy Aylwin, before mentioned. Percy was considered to be a hopelessly erratic character. Much against the wish of his parents, he had been brought up as a sailor; but on seeing Rhona Boswell he promptly fell in love with her, and quitted the sea in order to be near her. And no man who ever heard Rhona's laugh professed to wonder at Percy's infatuation. As a Griengro her father, Jericho Boswell, who had no son, was said to have owed his prosperity to Rhona's instinctive knowledge of horseflesh.

While our guests, Romany and Gorgio, were doing justice to the trout, Welsh brown bread and butter and jam which Videy had spread before them, Sinfi went to the back of the camp to look at the ponies, and I got into conversation with Rhona Boswell, whom I remembered so well as a child. At first she was shy and embarrassed, doubtful, as I perceived, whether or not she ought to talk about Winnie. She waited to see whether I introduced the subject, and finding that I did not, she began to talk about Sinfi and plied me with questions as to what we two had been doing and where we had been during our wanderings through Wales.

When tea was over and Cyril was in lively talk with Sinfi, Wilderspin grew restless, and I perceived that he wanted to resume his conversation with me about his picture. I said to him: 'This idea o f my father's which has inspired you, and resulted in such great work, what is its nature?'

'I am a painter, Mr. Aylwin, and nothing more,' he replied. 'I could only express Philip Aylwin's ideas by describing my picture and the predella beneath it. Will you permit me to do so?'

'May I ask you,' I said, 'as a favour to do so?'

Immediately his face became very bright, and into his eyes returned the far-off look already described.

'I will first take the predella, which represents Isis behind the Veil,' said he. 'Imagine yourself thousands of years away from this time. Imagine yourself thousands of miles away, among real Egyptians.'

'Real 'Gyptians!' cried Sinfi. 'Who says the Romanies ain't real 'Gyptians? Anybody as says my daddy ain't a real 'Gyptian duke'll ha' to set to with Sinfi Lovell.'

'Nonsense,' said Cyril, smiling, and playing idly with a coral amulet dangling from Sinfi's neck; 'he's talking about the ancient Egyptians: Egyptian mummies, you silly Lady Sinfi. You're not a mummy, are you?'

'Well, no, I ain't a mummy as fur as I knows on,' said Sinfi, only half-appeased; 'but my daddy's a 'Gyptian duke for all that,--ain't you, dad?'

'So it seems, Sin,' said Panuel, 'but I ommust begin to wish I worn't; it makes you feel so blazin' shy bein' a duke all of a suddent.'

'Dabla!' said the guest Jericho Boswell. 'What, Pan, has she made a dook on ye?'

The Scollard began to grin.

'Pull that ugly mug o' yourn straight, Jim Herne,' said Sinfi, 'else I'll come and pull it straight for you.'

Wilderspin took no notice of the interruption, but addressed me as though no one else were within earshot.

'Imagine yourself standing in an Egyptian city, where innumerable lamps of every hue are shining. It is one of the great lamp-fêtes of Sais, which all Egypt has come to see. There, in honour of the feast, sits a tall woman, covered by a veil. But the painting is so wonderful, Mr. Aylwin, that, though you see a woman's face expressed behind the veil--though you see the warm flesh-tints and the light of the eyes through the aerial film--you cannot judge of the character of the face--you cannot see whether it is that of woman in her noblest, or woman in her basest, type. The eyes sparkle, but you cannot say whether they sparkle with malignity or benevolence--whether they are fired with what Philip Aylwin calls "the love-light of the seventh heaven," or are threatening with "the hungry flames of the seventh hell"! There she sits in front of a portico, while, asleep, with folded wings, is crouched on one side of her the figure of Love, with rosy feathers, and on the other the figure of Faith, with plumage of a deep azure. Over her head, on the portico, are written the words:--"I am all that hath been, is, and shall be, and no mortal hath uncovered my veil." The tinted lights falling on the group are shed, you see, from the rainbow-coloured lamps of Sais, which are countless. But in spite of all these lamps, Mr. Aylwin, no mortal can see the face behind that veil. And why? Those who alone could uplift it, the figures with folded wings--Faith and Love--are fast asleep at the great Queen's feet. When Faith and Love are sleeping there, what are the many-coloured lamps of science?--of what use are they to the famished soul of man?'

'A striking idea!' I exclaimed.

'Your father's,' replied Wilderspin, in a tone of such reverence that one might have imagined my father's spectre stood before him. 'It symbolises that base Darwinian cosmogony which Carlyle spits at, and the great and good John Ruskin scorns. But this design is only the predella beneath the picture "Faith and Love." Now look at the picture itself, Mr. Aylwin,' he continued, as though it were upon an easel before me. 'You are at Sais no longer: you are now, as the architecture around you shows, in a Greek city by the sea. In the light of innumerable lamps, torches, and wax tapers, a procession is moving through the streets. You see Isis, as Pelagia, advancing between two ranks, one of joyous maidens in snow-white garments, adorned with wreaths, and scattering from their bosoms all kinds of dewy flowers; the other of youths, playing upon pipes and flutes, mixed with men with shaven shining crowns, playing upon sistra of brass, silver, and gold. Isis wears a Dorian tunic, fastened on her breast by a tasselled knot,--an azure-coloured tunic bordered with silver stars,--and an upper garment of the colour of the moon at moonrise. Her head is crowned with a chaplet of sea-flowers, and round her throat is a necklace of seaweeds, wet still with sea-water, and shimmering with all the shifting hues of the sea. On either side of her stand the awakened angels, uplifting from her face a veil whose folds flow soft as water over her shoulders and over the wings of Faith and Love. A symbol of the true cosmogony which Philip Aylwin gave to the world!'

'Why, that's esackly like the wreath o' seaweeds as poor Winnie Wynne used to make,' said Rhona Boswell.

'The photograph of Raxton Fair!' I cried. 'Frank and Winnie, and little Bob Milford, and the seaweeds!' The terrible past came upon my soul like an avalanche, and I leapt up and walked frantically towards my own waggon. The picture, which was nothing but an idealisation of the vignette upon the title-page of my father's book--the vignette taken from the photograph of Winnie, my brother Frank, and one of my fisher-boy playmates--brought back upon me--all!

Sinfi came to me.

'What is it, brother?' said she.

'Sinfi,' I cried, 'what was that saying of your mother's about fathers and children?'

'My poor mammy's daddy, when she wur a little chavi, beat her so cruel that she was a ailin' woman all her life, and she used to say, "For good or for ill, you must dig deep to bury your daddy."'

I went back and resumed my seat by Wilderspin's side, while Sinfi returned to Cyril.

Wilderspin evidently thought that I had been overcome by the marvellous power of his description, and went on as though there had been no interruption.

'Isis,' said he,' stands before you; Isis, not matronly and stern as the mother of Horus, nor as the Isis of the licentious orgies; but (as Philip Aylwin says) "Isis, the maiden, gazing around her, with pure but mystic eyes."'

'And you got from my father's book,--_The Veiled Queen_, all this'--I was going to add--'jumble of classic story and mediæval mysticism,'--but I stopped short in time.

'All this and more--a thousand times more than could be rendered by the art of any painter. For the age that Carlyle spits at and the great and good John Ruskin scorns is gross, Mr. Aylwin; the age is grovelling and gross. No wonder, then, that Art in our time has nothing but technical excellence; that it despises conscience, despises aspiration, despises soul, despises even ideas--that it is worthless, all worthless.'

'Except as practised in a certain temple of art in a certain part of London that shall be nameless, whence Calliope, Euterpe, and all the rhythmic sisters are banished,' interposed Cyril.

'But how did you attain to this superlative excellence, Mr. Wilderspin?' I asked.

'That would indeed be a long story to tell,' said he. 'Yet Philip Aylwin's son has a right to know all that I can tell. My dear friend here knows that, though famous now, I climbed the ladder of Art from the bottom rung; nay, before I could even reach the bottom rung, what a toilsome journey was mine to get within sight of the ladder at all! The future biographer of the painter of "Faith and Love" will have to record that he was born in a hovel; that he was nursed in a smithy; that his cradle was a piece of board suspended from the smithy ceiling by a chain, which his mother--his widowed mother--kept swinging by an occasional touch in the intervals of her labours at the forge.'

I did not even smile at this speech, so entirely was the effect of its egotism killed by the wonderful way of pronouncing the word 'mother.'

'You have heard,' he continued in a voice whose intense earnestness had an irresistible fascination for the ear, like that of a Hindoo charmer--'you have heard of the mother-bird who feeds her young from the blood of her own breast; that bird but feebly typifies her whom God, in His abundant love of me, gave me for a mother. There were ten of us--ten little children. My mother was a female blacksmith of Old Hill, who for four shillings and sixpence a week worked sixteen hours a day for the fogger, hammering hot iron into nails. The scar upon my forehead--look! it is shaped like the red-hot nail that one day leapt upon me from her anvil, as I lay asleep in my swing above her head. I would not lose it for all the diadems of all the monarchs of this world. She was much too poor to educate us. When the wolf is at the door, Mr. Aylwin, and the very flesh and blood of the babes in danger of perishing, what mother can find time to think of education, to think even of the salvation of the soul,--to think of anything but food--food? Have you ever wanted food, Mr. Aylwin?' he suddenly said, in a voice so magnetic from its very earnestness that I seemed for the moment to feel the faintness of hunger.

'No, no,' I said, a tide of grief rushing upon me; 'but there is one who perhaps--there is one I love more dearly than your mother loved her babes--'

Sinfi rose, and came and placed her hand upon my shoulder and whispered,

'She ain't a-starvin', brother; she never starved on the hills. She's only jest a-beggin' her bread for a little while, that's all.'

And then, after laying her hand upon my forehead, soft and soothing, she returned to Cyril's side.

'No one who has never wanted food knows what life is,' said Wilderspin, taking but little heed of even so violent an interruption as this.'No one has been entirely educated, Mr. Aylwin--no one knows the real primal meaning of that pathetic word Man--no one knows the true meaning of Man's position here among the other living creatures of this world, if he has never wanted food. Hunger gives a new seeing to the eyes.'

'That's as true as the blessed stars,' muttered old Mrs. Boswell, Rhona's beloved granny, who was squatting on a rug next to her son Jericho, with a pipe in her mouth, weaving fancy baskets, and listening intently. 'The very airth under your feet seems to be a-sinkin' away, and the sweet sunshine itself seems as if it all belonged to the Gorgios, when you're a-follerin' the patrin with the emp'y belly.'

'I thank God,' continued Wilderspin, 'that I once wanted food.'

'More nor I do,' muttered old Mrs. Boswell, as she went on weaving; 'no mammy as ever felt a little chavo [Footnote 1] a-suckin' at her burk [Footnote 2] never thanked God for wantin' food: it dries the milk, or else it sp'iles it.'

[Footnote 1: Child.]

[Footnote 2: Bosom.]

'In no way,' said Wilderspin, 'has the spirit-world neglected the education of the apostle of spiritual beauty. I became a "blower" in the smithy. As a child, from early sunrise till nearly midnight, I blew the bellows for eighteen pence a week. But long before I could read or write my mother knew that I was set apart for great things. She knew, from the profiles I used to trace with the point of a nail on the smithy walls, that, unless the heavy world pressed too heavily upon me, I should become a great painter. Except anxiety about my mother and my little brothers and sisters, I, for my part, had no thought besides this of being some day a painter. Except love for her and for them, I had no other passion. By assiduous attendance at night-schools I learnt to read and write. This enabled me to take a better berth in Black Waggon Street, where I earned enough to take lessons in drawing from the reduced widow of a once prosperous fogger. But ah! so eager was I to learn, that I did not notice how my mother was fading, wasting, dying slowly. It was not till too late that I learnt the appalling truth, that while the babes had been nourished, the mother had starved--starved! On a few ounces of bread a day no woman can work the Oliver and prod the fire. Her last whispers to me were, "I shall see you, dear, a great painter yet; Jesus will let me look down and watch my boy." Ah, Sinfi Lovell! that makes you weep. It is long, long since I ceased to weep at that. "Whatsoever is not of faith is sin."'

Rhona Boswell, down whose face also the tears were streaming, nodded in a patronising way to Wilderspin, and said, 'Reia, my mammy lives in the clouds, and I'll tell her to show you the Golden Hand, I will.'

'From the moment when I left my mother in the grave,' said Wilderspin, 'I had but one hope, that she who was watching my endeavours might not watch in vain. Art became now my religion: success in it my soul's goal. I went to London; I soon began to develop a great power of design, in illustrating penny periodicals. For years I worked at this, improving in execution with every design, but still unable to find an opening for a better class of work. What I yearned for was the opportunity to exercise the gift of colour. That I did possess this in a rare degree I knew. At last I got a commission. Oh! the joy of painting that first picture! My progress was now rapid. But I had few purchasers till Providence sent me a good man and great gentleman, my dear friend--'

'This is a long-winded speech of yours, _mon cher_,' yawned Cyril. 'Lady Sinfi is going to strike up with the Welsh riddle unless you get along faster.'

'Don't stop him,' I heard Sinfi mutter, as she shook Cyril angrily; 'he's mighty fond o' that mother o' his'n, an', if he's ever sich a horn nataral, I likes him.'

'I never exhibited in the Academy,' continued Wilderspin, without heeding the interruption, 'I never tried to exhibit; but, thanks to the dear friend I have mentioned, I got to know the Master himself. People came to my poor studio, and my pictures were bought from my easel as fast as I could paint them. I could please my buyers, I could please my dear friend, I could please the Master himself; I could please every person in the world but one--myself. For years I had been struggling with what cripples so many artists--with ignorance--ignorance, Mr. Aylwin, of the million points of detail which must be understood and mastered before ever the sweetness, the apparent lawlessness and abandonment of Nature can be expressed by Art. But it was now, when I had conquered these,--it was now that I was dissatisfied, and no man living was so miserable as I. I dare say you are an artist yourself, Mr. Aylwin, and will understand me when I say that artists--figure-painters, I mean,--are divided into two classes--those whose natural impulse is to paint men, and those who are sent into the world expressly to paint women. My mother's death taught me that my mission was to paint women, women whom I--being the son of Mary Wilderspin--love and understand better than other men, because my soul (once folded in her womb) is purer than other men's souls.'

'Is not modesty a Gorgio virtue, Lady Sinfi?' murmured Cyril.

'Nothin' like a painter for thinkin' strong beer of hisself,' she replied; 'but I likes him--oh, I likes him.'

'No man whose soul is stained by fleshly desire shall render in art all that there is in a truly beautiful woman's face,' said Wilderspin. 'I worked hard at imaginative painting; I worked for years and years, Mr. Aylwin, but with scant success. It shames me to say that I was at last discouraged. Hut, after a time, I began to feel that the spirit-world was giving me a strength of vision second only to the Master's own, and a cunning of hand greater than any vouchsafed to man since the death of Raphael. This was once stigmatised as egotism; but "Faith and Love," and the predella "Isis behind the Veil," have told another story. I did not despair, I say; for I knew the cause of my failure. Two sources of inspiration were wanting to me--that of a superlative subject and that of a superlative model. For the first I am indebted to Philip Aylwin; for the second I am indebted to--'

'A greater still, Miss Gudgeon, of Primrose Court,' interjected Cyril.

'For the second I'm indebted to my mother. And yet something else was wanting,' continued Wilderspin, 'to enable me for many months to concentrate my life upon one work--the self-sacrificing generosity of such a friend as I think no man ever had before.

'Wilderspin,' said Cyril, rising, 'the Duke of Little Egypt sleeps, as you see. His Grace of the Pyramids snores, as you hear. The autobiography of a man of genius is interesting; but I fear that yours will have to be continued in our next.'

'But Mr. Aylwin wants to hear--'

'He and our other idyllic friends are early to bed and early to rise; they have, in the morning, trout to catch for breakfast, and we have a good way to walk to-night.'

'That's just like my friend,' said Wilderspin. 'That's my friend all over.'

With this they left us, and we betook ourselves to our usual evening occupations.

Next morning the two painters called upon us. Wilderspin sketched alone, while Sinfi, Rhona, Cyril, and I went trout-fishing in one of the numerous brooks.

'What do you think of my friend by this time?' said Cyril to me.

'He is my fifth mystic,' I replied; 'I wonder what the sixth will be like. Is he really as great a painter as he takes himself to he, or does his art begin and end with flowery words?'

'I believe,' said Cyril, pointing across to where Wilderspin sat at work, 'that the strange creature under that white umbrella is the greatest artistic genius now living. The death of his mother by starvation has turned his head, poor fellow, but turned it to good purpose: "Faith and Love" is the greatest modern picture in Europe. To be sure, he has the advantage of painting from the finest model ever seen, the lovely, if rather stupid, Miss Gudgeon, of Primrose Court, whom he monopolises.'

Cyril had already, during the morning, told me that my mother, who was much out of health, was now staying in London, where he had for the first time in his life met her at Lord Sleaford's house. Notwithstanding their differences of opinion, my mother and he seemed to have formed a mutual liking. He also told me that my uncle Cecil Aylwin of Alvanley (who in this narrative must not, of course, be confounded with another important relative, Henry Aylwin, Earl of Aylwin) having just died and left me the bulk of his property, I had been in much request. I consequently determined to start for London on the following day, leaving my waggon in charge of Sinfi, who was to sit to Wilderspin in the open air.

During this conversation Sinfi was absorbed in her fishing, and wandered away up the brook, and I could see that Cyril's eyes were following her with great admiration.

Turning to me and looking at me, he said, 'Lucky dog!' and then, looking again across at Sinfi, he said, 'The finest girl in England.'

V

HAROUN-AL-RASCHID THE PAINTER

I

On reaching London and finding that it was necessary I should remain there for some little time, I wrote to Cyril to say so, sending some messages to Sinfi and her father about my own living-waggon.

My mother was now staying at my aunt's house, whither I went to call upon her shortly after my arrival in town.

Our meeting was a constrained and painful one. It was my mother's cruelty to Winifred that had, in my view, completely ruined two lives. I did not know then what an awful struggle was going on in her own breast between her pride and her remorse for having driven Winnie away, to be lost in Wales. Afterwards her sad case taught me that among all the agents of soul-torture that have ever stung mankind to madness the scorpion Remorse is by far the most appalling. But other events had to take place before she reached the state when the scorpion stings to death all other passions, even Pride and even Vanity, and reigns in the bosom supreme. We could hardly meet without softening towards each other. She was most anxious to know what had occurred to me since I left Raxton to search for Winnie. I gave her the entire story from my first seeing Winnie in the cottage, to my _rencontre_ with her at Knockers' Llyn. At this time she had accidentally been brought into contact with Miss Dalrymple, who had lately received a legacy and was now in better circumstances. Miss Dalrymple had spoken in high terms of Winnie's intelligence and culture, little thinking how she was making my mother feel more acutely than ever her own wrongdoing. Knowing that I was very fond of music, my mother persuaded me to take her on several occasions to the opera and the theatre. She with more difficulty persuaded me to consult a medical man upon the subject of my insomnia; and at last I agreed, though very reluctantly, to consult Dr. Mivart, late of Raxton, who was now living in London. Mivart attributed my ailment (as I, of course, knew he would) to hypochondria, and I saw that he was fully aware of the cause. I therefore opened my mind to him upon the subject. I told him everything in connection with Winifred in Wales.

He pondered the subject carefully and then said:

'What you need is to escape from these terrible oscillations between hope and despair. Therefore I think it best to tell you frankly that Miss Wynne is certainly dead. Even suppose that she did not fall down a precipice in Wales, she is, I repeat, certainly dead. So severe a form of hysteria as hers must have worn her out by this time. It is difficult for me to think that any nervous system could withstand a strain so severe and so prolonged.'

I felt the terrible truth of his words, but I made no answer.

'But let this be your consolation,' said he. 'Her death is a blessing to herself, and the knowledge that she is dead will be a blessing to you.'

'A blessing to me?' I said.

'I mean that it will save you from the mischief of these alternations between hope and despair. You will remember that it was I who saw her in her first seizure and told you of it. Such a seizure having lasted so long, nothing could have given her relief but death or magnetic transmission of the seizure. It is a grievous case, but what concerns me now is the condition into which you yourself have passed. Nothing but a successful effort on your part to relieve your mind from the dominant idea that has disturbed it can save you from--from--'

'From what?'

'That drug of yours is the most dangerous narcotic of all. Increase your doses by a few more grains and you will lose all command over your nervous system--all presence of mind. Give it up, give it up and enter Parliament.'

I left Mivart in anger, and took a stroll through the streets, trying to amuse myself by looking at the shop windows and recalling the few salient incidents that were connected with my brief experiences as an art student.

Hours passed in this way, until one by one the shops were closed and only the theatres, public bars, and supper-rooms seemed to be open.

I turned into a restaurant in the Haymarket, for I had taken no dinner. I went upstairs into a supper-room, and after I had finished my meal, taking a seat near the window, I gazed abstractedly over the bustling, flashing streets, which to me seemed far more lonely, far more remote, than the most secluded paths of Snowdon. In a trouble such as mine it is not Man but Nature that can give companionship.

I was so absorbed in my thoughts that I did not observe whether I was or was not now alone in the room, till the name of Wilderspin fell on my ear and recalled me to myself. I started and looked round. At a table near me sat two men whom I had not noticed before. The face of the man who sat on the opposite side of the table confronted me.

If I had one tithe of that objective power and that instinct for description which used to amaze me in Winifred as a child, I could give here a picture of a face which the reader could never forget.

If it was not beautiful in detail it was illuminated by an expression that gave a unity of beauty to the whole. And what was the expression? I can only describe it by saying that it was the expression of genius; and it had that imperious magnetism which I had never before seen in any face save that of Sinfi Lovell. But striking as was the face of this man, I soon found that his voice was more striking still. In whatever assembly that voice was heard, its indescribable resonance would have marked it off from all other voices, and have made the ear of the listener eager to catch the sound. This voice, however, was not the one that had uttered the name of Wilderspin. It was from his companion, who sat opposite to him, with his great broad back, covered with a smart velvet coat, towards me, that the talk was now coming. This man was smoking cigarettes in that kind of furious sucking way which is characteristic of great smokers. Much smoking, however, had not dried up his skin to the consistence of blotting paper and to the colour of tobacco ash as it does in some cases, but tobacco juice, which seemed to ooze from his face like perspiration, or rather like oil, had made his complexion of a yellow green colour, something like a vegetable marrow. Although his face was as hairless as a woman's, there was not a feature in it that was not masculine. Although his cheek-bones were high and his jaw was of the mould which we so often associate with the prizefighter, he looked as if he might somehow be a gentleman. And when I got for a moment a full view of his face as he turned round, I thought it showed power and intelligence, although his forehead receded a good deal, a recession which was owing mainly to the bone above the eyes. Power and intelligence too were seen in every glance of his dark bright eyes. In a few minutes Wilderspin's name was again uttered by this man, and I found he was telling anecdotes of the eccentric painter--telling them with great gusto and humour, in a loud voice, quite careless of being overheard by me. Then followed other anecdotes of other people--artists for the most part--in which the names of Millais, Ruskin, Watts, Leighton, and others came up in quick succession.

That he was a professional anecdote-monger of extraordinary brilliancy, a _raconteur_ of the very first order, was evident enough. I found also that as a story-teller he was reckless and without conscience. He was, I thought, inventing anecdotes to amuse his companion, whose manifest enjoyment of them rather weakened the impression that his own personality had been making upon me.

After a while the name of Cyril Aylwin came up, and I soon found the man telling a story of Cyril and a recent escapade of his which I knew must be false. He then went rattling on about other people, mentioning names which, as I soon gathered, were those of female models known in the art world. The anecdotes he told of these were mostly to their disadvantage. I was about to move to another table, in order to get out of earshot of this gossip, when the name 'Lady Sinfi' fell upon my ears.

And then I heard the other man--the man of the musical voice--talk about Lady Sinfi with the greatest admiration and regard. He wound up by saying, 'By the bye, where is she now? I should like to use her in painting my new picture.'

'She's in Wales; so Kiomi told me.'

'Ah yes! I remember she has an extraordinary passion for Snowdon.'

'Her passion is now for something else, though.'

'What's that?'

'A man.'

'I never saw a girl so indifferent to men as Lady Sinfi.'

'She is living at this moment as the mistress of a cousin of Cyril Aylwin.'

My blood boiled with rage. I lost all control of myself. I longed to feel his face against my knuckles.

'That's not true,' I said in a rather loud voice.

He started up, and turned round, saying in a hectoring voice, 'What was that you said to me? Will you repeat your words?'

'To repeat one's words,' I said quietly, 'shows a limited vocabulary, so I will put it thus,--what you said just now about Sinfi Lovell being the mistress of Cyril Aylwin's cousin is a lie.'

'You dare to give me the lie, sir? And what the devil do you mean by listening to our conversation?'

The threatening look that he managed to put into his face was so entirely histrionic that it made me laugh outright. This seemed to damp his courage more than if I had sprung up and shown fight. The man had a somewhat formidable appearance, however, as regards build, which showed that he possessed more than average strength. It was the manifest genuineness of my laugh that gave him pause. And when I sat with my elbows on the table and my face between my palms, taking stock of him quietly, he looked extremely puzzled. The man of the musical voice sat and looked at me as though under a spell.

'I am a young man from the country,' I said to him. 'To what theatre is your histrionic friend attached? I should like to see him in a better farce than this.'

'Do you hear that, De Castro?' said the other. 'What is your theatre?'

'If he is really excited,' I said, 'tell him that people at a public supper-room should speak in a moderate tone or their conversation is likely to be overheard.'

'Do you hear this young man from the country, De Castro?' said he. 'You seem to be the Oraculum of the hay-fields, sir,' he continued, turning to me with a delightfully humorous expression on his face. 'Have you any other Delphic utterance?'

'Only this,' I said, 'that people who do not like being given the lie should tell the truth.'

'May I be permitted to guess your Christian name, sir? Is it Martin, perchance?'

'Yes,' I replied, 'and my surname is Tupper.' He then got up and laid his hand on the _raconteur's_ shoulder, and said, 'Don't be a fool, De Castro. When a man looks at another as the author of the _Proverbial Philosophy_ is looking at you, he knows that he can use his fists as well as his pen.'

'He gave me the lie. Didn't you hear?'

'I did, and I thought the gift as entirely gratuitous, _mon cher_, as giving a scuttleful of coals to Newcastle.'

The anecdote-monger stood silent, quelled by this man's voice.

Then turning to me, the man of the musical voice said, 'I suppose you know something about my friend Lady Sinfi?'

'I do,' I said, 'and I am Cyril Aylwin's kinsman, whom you call his cousin, so perhaps, as every word your friend has said about Sinfi Lovell and me is false, you will allow me to call him a liar.'

A look of the greatest glee at the discomfiture of his companion overspread his face.

'Certainly,' he said with a loud laugh. 'You may call him that, you may even qualify the noun you have used with an adjective if the author of the _Proverbial Philosophy_ can think of one that is properly descriptive and yet not too unparliamentary. So you are Cyril Aylwin's kinsman. I have heard him,' he said, with a smile that he tried in vain to suppress, 'I have heard Cyril expatiate on the various branches of the Aylwin family.'

'I belong to the proud Aylwins,' I said.

The twinkle in his eye made me adore him as he said--'The proud Aylwins. A man who, in a world like this, is proud and knows it, and is proud of confessing his pride, always interests me, but I will not ask you what makes the proud Aylwins proud, sir.'

'I will tell you what makes me proud,' I said: 'my great-grandmother was a full-blooded Gypsy, and I am proud of the descent.'

He came forward and held out his hand and said, 'It is long since I met a man who interested me'--he gave a sigh--'very long; and I hope that you and I may become friends.'

I grasped his hand and shook it warmly.

The anecdote-monger began talking at once about Sinfi, Wilderspin, and Cyril Aylwin, speaking of them in the most genial and affectionate terms. In a few minutes, without withdrawing a word he had said about either of them, he had entirely changed the spirit of every word. At first I tried to resist his sophistry, but it was not to be resisted. I ended by apologising to him for my stupidity in misunderstanding him.

'My dear fellow,' said he, 'not a word, not a word. I admired the way in which you stood up for absent friends. Didn't you, D'Arcy?'

At this the other broke out into another mellow laugh. 'I did. How's your kinsman, and how's Wilderspin?' he said, turning to me. 'Did you leave them well?'

We soon began, all three of us, to talk freely together. Of course I was filled with curiosity about my new friends, especially about the liar. His extraordinary command of facial expression, coupled with the fact that he wore no hair on his face, made me at first think he was a great actor; but being at that time comparatively ignorant of the stage, I did not attempt to guess what actor it was. After a while his prodigious acuteness struck me more than even his histrionic powers, and I began to ask myself what Old Bailey barrister it was.

Turning at last to the one called D'Arcy, I said. 'You are an artist; you are a painter?'

'I have been trying for many years to paint,' he said.

'And you?' I said, turning to his companion.

'He is an artist too,' D'Arcy said, 'but his line is not painting--he is an artist in words.'

'A poet?' I said in amazement.

'A romancer, the greatest one of his time unless it be old Dumas.'

'A novelist?'

'Yes, but he does not write his novels, he speaks them.'

De Castro, evidently with a desire to turn the conversation from himself and his profession, said, pointing to D'Arcy, 'You see before you the famous painter Haroun-al-Raschid, who has never been known to perambulate the streets of London except by night, and in me you see his faithful vizier.'

It soon became evident that D'Arcy, for some reason or other, had thoroughly taken to me--more thoroughly, I thought, than De Castro seemed to like, for whenever D'Arcy seemed to be on the verge of asking me to call at his studio, De Castro would suddenly lead the conversation off into another channel by means of some amusing anecdote. However, the painter was not to be defeated in his intention; indeed I noticed during the conversation that although D'Arcy yielded to the sophistries of his companion, he did so wilfully. While he forced his mind, as it were, to accept these sophistries there seemed to be all the while in his consciousness a perception that sophistries they were. He ended by giving me his address and inviting me to call upon him.

'I am only making a brief stay in London,' he said; 'I am working hard at a picture in the country, but business just now calls me to London for a short time.'

With this we parted at the door of the restaurant.

II

It was through the merest accident that I saw these two men again.

One evening I had been dining with my mother and aunt. I think I may say that I had now become entirely reconciled to my mother. I used to call upon her often, and at every call I could not but observe how dire was the struggle going on within her breast between pride and remorse. She felt, and rightly felt, that the loss of Winifred among the Welsh hills had been due to her harshness in sending the stricken girl away from Raxton, to say nothing of her breaking her word with me after having promised to take my place and watch for the exposure of the cross by the wash of the tides until the danger was certainly past.

But against my aunt I cherished a stronger resentment every day. She it was, with her inferior intellect and insect soul, who had in my childhood prejudiced my mother against me and in favour of Frank, because I showed signs of my descent from Fenella Stanley while Frank did not. She it was who first planted in my mother's mind the seeds of prejudice against Winnie as being the daughter of Tom Wynne.

The influence of such a paltry nature upon a woman of my mother's strength and endowments had always astonished as much as it had irritated me.

I had not learnt then what I fully learnt afterwards, that in this life it is mostly the dull and stupid people who dominate the clever ones--that it is, in short, the fools who govern the world.

I should, of course, never have gone to Belgrave Square at all had it not been to see my mother. Such a commonplace slave of convention was my aunt, that, on the evening I am now mentioning, she had scarcely spoken to me during dinner, because, having been detained at the solicitor's, I had found it quite impossible to go to my hotel to dress for her ridiculous seven o'clock dinner.

When I found that my mother had actually taken this inferior woman into her confidence in regard to my affairs and told her all about Winnie and the cross, my dislike of her became intensified, and on this evening my mother very much vexed me in the drawing-room by taking the cross from a cabinet and saying to me,

'What is now to be done with this? All along the coast there are such notions about its value that to replace it in the tomb would be simple madness.' I made no reply. 'Indeed,' she continued, looking at the amulet as she might have looked at a cobra uprearing its head to spring at her, 'it must really be priceless. And to think that all this was to be buried in the coffin of--! It is your charge, however, and not mine.'

'Yes, mother,' I said, 'it is my charge;' and taking up the cross I wrapped it in my handkerchief.

'Take the amulet and guard it well,' she said, as I placed it carefully in the breast pocket of my coat.

'And remember,' said my aunt, breaking into the conversation, 'that the true curses of the Aylwins are and always have been superstition and love-madness.'

'I should have added a third curse,--pride, aunt,' I could not help replying.

'Henry,' said she, pursing her thin lips, 'you have the obstinacy and the courage of your race, that is to say, you have the obstinacy and the courage of ten ordinary men, and yet a man you are not--a man you will never be, if strength of character, and self-mastery and power to withstand the inevitable trials of life, go to the making of a man.'

'Pardon me, aunt; but such trials as mine are beyond your comprehension.'

'Are they, boy?' said she. 'This fancy of yours for an insignificant girl--this boyish infatuation which with any other young man of your rank would have long ago exhausted itself and been forgotten--is a passion that absorbs your life. And I tremble for you: I tremble for the house you represent.'

But I saw by the expression on my mother's face that my aunt had now gone too far. 'Prue,' she said, 'your tremblings concerning my son and my family are, I assure you, gratuitous. Such trembling as the case demands you had better leave to me. My heart tells me I have been very wrong to that poor child, and I would give much to know that she was found and that she was well.'

I set out to walk to my hotel, wondering how I was to while away the long night until sleep should come to relieve me. Suddenly I remembered D'Arcy, and my promise to call upon him. I changed my course, and hailing a hansom drove to the address he had given me.

When I reached the door I found, upon looking at my watch, that it was late--so late that I was dubious whether I should ring the bell. I remembered, however, that he told me how very late his hours were, and I rang.

On sending in my card I was shown at once into the studio, and after threading my way between some pieces of massive furniture and pictures upon easels, I found D'Arcy lolling lazily upon a huge sofa. Seeing that he was not alone, I was about to withdraw, for I was in no mood to meet strangers. However, he sprang up and introduced me to his guest, whom he called Symonds, an elegant-looking man in a peculiar kind of evening dress, who, as I afterwards learned, was one of Mr. D'Arcy's chief buyers. This gentleman bowed stiffly to me.

He did not stay long; indeed, it was evident that the appearance of a stranger somewhat disconcerted him.

After he was gone D'Arcy said, 'A good fellow! One of my most important buyers. I should like you to know him, for you and I are going to be friends. I hope.'

He seems very fond of pictures,' I said. A man of great taste, with a real love of art and music.'