Chapter 18

'Philip Aylwin's son!' said Wilderspin, staring at me. Then, raising his hat as reverentially to me as if I had been the son of Shakespeare himself, he said, 'Mr. Aylwin, since Mary Wilderspin went home to heaven, the one great event of my life has been the reading of _The Veiled Queen_, your father's book of inspired wisdom upon the modern Renascence of Wonder in the mind of Man. To apply his principles to Art, sir--to give artistic rendering to the profound idea hinted at in the marvellous vignette on the title-page of his third edition--has been, for some time past, the proud task of my life. And you are the great man's son! Astonishing! Although his great learning overwhelms my mind and appals my soul (whom, indeed, should it not overwhelm and appal?) there is not a pamphlet of his that I do not know intimately, almost by heart.'

'Including the paper on "Hamlet and Hamalet, and the wide region of Nowhere"?'

'Including that and everything.'

'Did you know him, Mr. Wilderspin?'

'Not in the flesh; in the spirit, who knows him so well? Your mother I have had the pleasure of meeting at the house of Lord Sleaford, and indeed I have had the distinguished honour of painting her portrait; but the great author of _The Veiled Queen_--the inspired designer of the vignette symbolical of the Renascence of Wonder in Art--I never had the rapture of seeing. This very day, the anniversary of his birth,' he continued, 'is a great day in the Aylwinian calendar.'

'My father's birthday? Why, so it is!'

'Mr. Aylwin, is it possible that the anniversary of a day so momentous for the world is forgotten--forgotten by the very issue of the great man's loins?'

'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 'Not in the flesh; in the spirit, who knows him so well? Your mother I have had the pleasure of meeting at the house of Lord Sleaford, and indeed I have had the distinguished honour of painting her portrait; but the great author of _The Veiled Queen_--the inspired designer of the vignette symbolical of the Renascence of Wonder in Art--I never had the rapture of seeing. This very day, the anniversary of his birth,' he continued, 'is a great day in the Aylwinian calendar.'

'My father's birthday? Why, so it is!'

'Mr. Aylwin, is it possible that the anniversary of a day so momentous for the world is forgotten--forgotten by the very issue of the great man's loins?'

'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.'