Aylwin Part 68

'Until five o'clock I was quite alone, and wandered about the house and garden trying my memory as to whether I could recall something, but in vain. At any other time than this I should no doubt have found the old house a very fascinating one; but not for two minutes together could my mind dwell upon anything but the amazing situation in which I found myself. The house was, I saw, built of grey stone, and as it had seven gables it suggested to me Nathaniel Hawthorne's famous story, of which my aunt was so fond. Inside I found every room to be more or less interesting. But what attracted me most, I think, was a series of large attics in which was a number of enormous oak beams supporting the antique roof. With the sunlight pouring through the windows and illuminating almost every corner, the place seemed cheerful enough, but I could not help thinking how ghostly it must look on a moonlight night.

'While the thought was in my mind, a strangle sensation came upon me.

I seemed to hear a moan; it came through the door of the large attic adjoining the one in which I stood, and then I heard a voice that seemed familiar to me, and yet I could not recall it. It was repeating in a loud, agonised tone the words of that curse written on the parchment scroll which I picked up on Raxton sands. I was so astonished that for a long time I could think of nothing else.

IX

'At five o'clock I was going towards the studio to keep my appointment when I met Mr. D'Arcy in his broad-brimmed felt hat, ready and waiting for me to take the proposed walk with him.

'Oh, what a lovely afternoon it was! A Welsh afternoon could not have been lovelier. In fact, it carried my mind back here. The sun, s.h.i.+ning on the b.u.t.tercups and the grey-tufted standing gra.s.s, made the meadows look as though covered with a tapestry that s.h.i.+fted from grey to lavender, and then from lavender to gold, as the soft breeze moved over it. And many of the birds were still in full song; and brilliant as was the music of the skylarks, the blackbirds and thrushes were so numerous that the music falling from the sky seemed caught and swallowed up by the music rising from the hedgerows and trees.

'I lingered at one of the gates through which we pa.s.sed to enjoy the beauty undisturbed by the motion of my own body.

'"I have often wished," Mr. D'Arcy said, "that I had a t.i.the of your pa.s.sion for Nature, and all your knowledge of Nature. To have been born in London and to have pa.s.sed one's youth there is a great loss.

Nature has to be learnt, as art has to be learnt, in earliest youth."

'"What makes you know that my chief pa.s.sion is love of Nature?" I asked.

'"It was," he said, "the one thing you showed during your illness--during your unconscious condition."

'"And yet I remember nothing of that time," I said. "This gives me an opportunity of asking you something--an opportunity which I had determined to make for myself before another day went by."

'"And what is that?" he said, in a tone that betrayed some uneasiness.

'"You have told me how I came here. I now want you to tell me, too, what was my condition when I came and what was my course of life during all this long period. How did the time pa.s.s? What did I do? I remember nothing."

'"I am glad you are asking me these questions," he said, "for I believe that the more fully and more exactly I answer them, the better for you and the better for me. Victor Hugo, in one of his romances, speaks of the pensive somnambulism of the animals.

'Somnambulism,' sometimes pensive and sometimes playful, is the very phrase I should use in characterising your condition when you first came here and down to your recovery from that strange illness.

But this somnambulism would every now and then change and pa.s.s into a consciousness which I can only compare with that of a child. But no child that I have ever seen was so bewitchingly child-like as you were. It was this that made your presence such a priceless boon to me."

'"Priceless boon, Mr. D'Arcy!" I said. "How could such a being as you describe be a priceless boon to any one?"

'"I will tell you," he replied. "Even before that great sorrow which has made me the loneliest man upon the earth--even in the days when my animal spirits were considered at times almost boisterous, I was always at intervals subject to periods of great depression, or rather, I should say, to periods of _ennui_. I must either be painting or reading or writing. I had not the precious faculty of being able on occasions to sit and let the rich waters of life flow over me. I would yearn for amus.e.m.e.nt, and search in vain for some object to amuse me. When you first came I was deeply interested in so extraordinary a case as yours; and after a while, when the acuteness of my curiosity and the poignancy of my sympathy for you had abated, you became to me a joy, as a child is a joy in the eyes of its parents."

'"Then your interest in me," I said, with a smile, "was that which you would feel towards a puppy or a kitten."

'"I perceive that you have a turn for satire," he said, laughing.

"I will not deny that I have an extraordinarily strong pa.s.sion for watching the movements of animals. I have, to the sorrow of my neighbours, filled my garden in London with all kinds of purchases from Jamrach's. But from the moment that I knew you, who combined the fascination of a fawn and a child with that of a sylph or a fairy, my poor little menagerie was neglected, and what became of its members I scarcely know. I suppose I am very uncomplimentary to you, but you would have the truth. The moment that I felt myself threatened by the fiend _Ennui_ I used to tell Mrs. t.i.twing, who was in the habit of calling you her baby, to bring you into the studio, and at once the fiend fled. At last I grew so attached to you that your presence was a positive necessity of my life. Unless I knew that you were in the studio I could not paint. It was necessary for me at intervals to look across the room at that divan and see you there amusing yourself--playing with yourself, so to speak, sometimes like a kitten, sometimes like a child. I would not have parted with you for the world."

'He did not say he would not now part with me for the world, Henry, and I thought I understood the meaning of that expression of disappointment which I had observed in his eyes when I first saw them looking into mine. I thought I understood this extraordinary man--so unlike all others; I thought I knew why my eyes lost the charm he was now so eloquently describing to me the moment that they became lighted with what he called self-consciousness.

'After a while I said, "But as I was in such an unconscious state as you describe, how could you possibly know that a speciality of mine is a love of Nature?"

'"It was only when you were out in the open air that the condition which I have compared to somnambulism seemed at times to disappear.

Then your consciousness seemed to spring up for a moment and to take heed of what was pa.s.sing around you. You would sometimes scamper through the meadows, pluck the wild-flowers and weave them into wreaths round your head, or stand listening to the birds, or hold out your hands as if to embrace the sunny wind. One day when a friend of mine, an enthusiastic angler, who comes here, was going down to the river to fish, you showed the greatest interest in what was going on.

The fis.h.i.+ng tackle seemed so familiar to you that my friend put a fis.h.i.+ng rod into your hand and you went with him to the river. I do not myself care for angling, and I was at the time very busy with a picture, but I could not resist the temptation to follow you. You skipped into the punt with the greatest glee, baited your hook, adjusted your float on the line, cast it into the water and fished with such skill that you caught two fish to my friend's one.

Observing all these things, I came to the conclusion that you had lived much in the open air, and other incidents made me know that you were a great lover of Nature."

'"And you," I said, "must also be a lover of Nature, or you could not find such delight in watching animals."

'"No," he said, "the interest I take in animals has nothing whatever to do with love of Nature or study of Nature. They interest me by that unconsciousness of grace which makes them such a contrast to man."

'We then went into the house. Our talk during our ramble in the fields seemed to remove effectually all awkwardness and restraint between us.

X

'That day,' said Winnie, 'a determination which had been caused by many a reflection during the last few hours induced me at dinner to lead the conversation to the subject of pictures and models. In a few minutes Mr. D'Arcy launched out in an eloquent discourse upon a subject which was so new to me and so familiar to him.

'"You were saying this morning, Mr. D'Arcy," I urged me to tell her what had befallen myself since we had parted at the cottage door at Raxton. Even had it been possible for me to talk about myself without touching upon some dangerous incident or another, my impatience to get at the mystery of mysteries in connection with her and her rescue from Primrose Court was so great that I could only implore her to tell me what had occurred down to her leaving Hurstcote Manor, and also what had been the cause of her leaving.

'Well,' said Winnie, 'I am now going to tell you of an extraordinary thing that happened. One fine night the moon was so brilliant that after I quitted Mr. D'Arcy I stole out of the side door into the garden, a favourite place of mine, for old English flowers were mixed with apple trees and pear trees. I was strolling about the garden, thinking over a thousand things connected with you, and myself, and Mr. D'Arcy, when I saw stooping over a flower-bed the figure of a tall woman. I could scarcely believe my eyes, for I had all the while supposed that, excepting Mr. D'Arcy, myself, and Mrs. t.i.twing, the servants were the only occupants of the place. I turned away, and walked silently through the little wicket into what is called the home close. As I pondered over the incident, I recalled certain things which singly had produced no effect on my mind, but which now fitted in with each other, and seemed to open up vistas of mystery and suspicion. Mysterious looks and gestures on the faces of the servants pointed to there being some secret that was to be kept from me. I had not given much heed to these things, but now I could not help connecting them with the appearance of the tall woman in the garden.

'Some guests arrived next day, and when I pleaded headache Mr. D'Arcy said, "Perhaps you would rather keep to your own room to-day."

'I told him I should, and I spent the day alone--spent it mainly in thinking about the tall woman. In the evening I went into the garden, and remained there for a long time, but no tall woman made her appearance.

'I pa.s.sed out through the wicket into the home close, and as I walked about in the gra.s.s, under the elms that sprang up from the tall hedge, I thought and thought over what I had seen, but could come to no explanation. I was standing under a tree, in the shadow which its branches made, when I became suddenly conscious that the tall woman was close to me. I turned round, and stood face to face with Sinfi Lovell. The sight of a spectre could not have startled me more, but the effect of my appearance upon her was greater still. Her face took an expression that seemed to curdle my blood, and she shrieked, "Father! the curse! Let his children be vagabonds and beg their bread; let them seek it also out of desolate places." And then she ran towards the house.

'In a few minutes Mr. D'Arcy came out into the field without his hat, and evidently much agitated.

'"Miss Wynne," he said, "I fear you must have been half frightened to death. Never was there such an unlucky _contretemps_."

'"But why is Sinfi Lovell here?" I said, "and why was I not told she was here?"

'"Sinfi is an old friend of mine," he said. "I have been in the habit of using her as a model for pictures. She came here to sit to me, when she was taken ill. She is subject to fits, as you have seen. The doctor believed that they were over and would not recur, and I had determined that to-morrow I would bring you together."

'I made no reply, but walked silently by his side across the field to the little wicket. The confidence I had reposed in Mr. D'Arcy had been like the confidence a child reposes in its father.

'"Miss Wynne," he said, in a voice full of emotion, "I feel that an unlucky incident has come between us, and yet if I ever did anything for your good, it was when I decided to postpone revealing the fact that Sinfi Lovell was under this roof until her cure was so complete and decisive that you could never by any chance receive the shock that you have now received."

'I felt that my resentment was melting in the music of his words.

'"What caused the fits?" I said. "She talked about being under a curse. What can it mean?"

'"That," he said, "is too long a story for me to tell you now."

'"I know," said I, "that some time ago the tomb of Mr. Aylwin's father was violated by some undiscovered miscreant, and I know that the words Sinfi uttered just now are the words of a curse written by the dead man on a piece of parchment, and stolen with a jewel from his tomb. I have seen the parchment itself, and I know the words well. Her father, Panuel Lovell, is as innocent of the crime of sacrilege as my poor father was. What could have made her suppose that she had inherited the curse from her father?"

'"I have no explanation to offer," he said. "As you know so much of the matter and I know so little, I am inclined to ask you for some explanation of the puzzle."

'I thought over the matter for a minute, and then I said to him, "Sinfi Lovell knows Raxton as well as Snowdon, and must have been very familiar with the crime. I can only suppose that she has brooded so long over the enormity of the offence and the appalling words of the curse that she has actually come at last to believe that poor, simple-minded Panuel Lovell is the offender, and that she, as his child, has inherited the curse."

'"A most admirable solution of the mystery," he said, his face beaming with delight.'

XII