Part 32 (1/2)

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 s.h.i.+ning. It is one of the great lamp-fetes 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 n.o.blest, 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 h.e.l.l”! 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 s.h.i.+ning crowns, playing upon sistra of bra.s.s, silver, and gold. Isis wears a Dorian tunic, fastened on her breast by a ta.s.selled 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 s.h.i.+mmering with all the s.h.i.+fting 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 t.i.tle-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 cla.s.sic story and mediaeval 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.