Aylwin

"It was the face of the kind, tender, and n.o.ble 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."

"G.o.d bless the hag, G.o.d 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.

XI

THE IRONY OF HEAVEN

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 G.o.d."