Aylwin Part 37

'I am.'

'You do not believe in a supernatural world?'

'My disbelief of it,' I said, 'is something more than an exercise of the reason. It is a pa.s.sion, an angry pa.s.sion. But what should you do with the cross if you were in my place?'

'Put it back in the tomb.'

I had great difficulty in suppressing my ridicule, but I merely said, 'That would be, as I have told you, to insure its being stolen again.'

'There is the promise to the dead man or woman on whose breast it lay.'

'This I intend to keep in the spirit like a reasonable man--not in the letter like--'

'Promises to the dead must be kept to the letter, or no peace can come to the bereaved heart. You are talking to a man who _knows_!'

'I will commit no such outrage upon reason as to place a priceless jewel in a place where I know it will be stolen.'

'You _will_ replace the cross in that tomb.'

As he spoke he shook my hands warmly, and said, '_Au revoir_.

Remember, I shall always be delighted to see you.'

It was not till I saw him disappear amongst the crowd that I could give way to the laughter which I had so much difficulty in suppressing. What a relief it was to be able to do this!

VI

THE SONG OF Y WYDDFA

I

After this I had one or two interviews with our solicitor in Lincoln's Inn Fields, upon important family matters connected with my late uncle's property.

I had been one night to the theatre with my mother and my aunt. The house had been unusually crowded. When the performance was over, we found that the streets were deluged with rain. Our carriage had been called some time before it drew up, and we were standing under the portico amid a crowd of impatient ladies when a sound fell or seemed to fall on my ears which stopped for the moment the very movements of life. Amid the rattle of wheels and horses' feet and cries of messengers about carriages and cabs, I seemed to distinguish a female voice singing:

'I met in a glade a lone little maid.

At the foot of y Wyddfa the white; Oh, lissom her feet as the mountain hind, And darker her hair than the night!'

It was the voice of Winifred singing as in a dream.

I heard my aunt say,

'Do look at that poor girl singing and holding out her little baskets! She must be crazed to be offering baskets for sale in this rain and at this time of night.'

I turned my eyes in the direction in which my aunt was looking, but the crowd before me prevented my seeing the singer.

'She is gone, vanished,' said my aunt sharply, for my eagerness to see made me rude.

'What was she like?' I asked.

'She was a young slender girl, holding out a bunch of small fancy baskets of woven colours, through which the rain was dripping. She was dressed in rags, and through the rags shone, here and there, patches of her shoulders; and she wore a dingy red handkerchief round her head. She stood in the wet and mud, beneath the lamp, quite unconscious apparently of the bustle and confusion around her.'

Almost at the same moment our carriage drew up. I lingered on the step as long as possible. My mother made a sign of impatience at the delay, and I got into the carriage. Spite of the rain, I put down the window and leaned out. I forgot the presence of my mother and aunt. I forgot everything. The carriage moved on.

'Winifred!' I gasped, as the certainty that the voice was hers came upon me.

And the dingy London night became illuminated with scrolls of fire, whose blinding, blasting scripture seared my eyes till I was fain to close them: 'Let his children be vagabonds, and beg their bread: let them seek it also out of desolate places.'

So rapidly had the carriage rolled through the rain, and so entirely had my long pain robbed me of all presence of mind, that, by the time I had recovered from the paralysing shock, we had reached Piccadilly Circus. I pulled the check-string.

'Why, Henry!' said my mother, who had raised the window, 'what are you doing? And what has made you turn so pale?'

My aunt sat in indignant silence. 'Ten thousand pardons,' I said, as I stepped out of the carriage, and shook hands with them. 'A sudden recollection--important papers unsecured at my hotel--business in--in Lincoln's Inn Fields. I will call on you in the morning.'

And I reeled down the pavement towards the Haymarket. When I was some little distance from the carriage, I took to my heels and hurried as fast as possible towards the theatre, utterly regardless of the people. I reached the spot breathless. I stood for a moment staring wildly to right and left of me. Not a trace of her was to be seen. I heard a thin voice from my lips, that did not seem my own, ask a policeman, who was now patrolling the neighbourhood, if he had seen a basket-girl singing.

'No,' said the man, 'but I fancy you mean the Ess.e.x Street Beauty, don't you? I haven't seen her for a long while now, but her dodge used to be to come here on rainy nights, and stand bare-headed and sing and sell just when the theatres was a-bustin'. She gets a good lot, I fancy, by that dodge.'

'The Ess.e.x Street Beauty?'

'Oh, I thought you know'd p'raps. She's a strornary pretty beggar-wench, with blue eyes and black hair, as used to stand at the corner of Ess.e.x Street, Strand, and the money as that gal got a-holdin' out her matches and a-sayin' texes out of the Bible must ha' been strornary. So the Ess.e.x Street Beauty's bin about here agin on the rainy-night dodge, 'es she? Well, it must have been the fust time for many a long day, for I've never seen her now for a long time. She couldn't ha' stood about here for many minutes; if she had I must ha' seen her.'

I staggered away from him, and pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed the spot many times. Then I extended my beat about the neighbouring streets, loitering at every corner where a basket-girl or a flower-girl might be likely to stand. But no trace of her was to be seen. Meantime the rain had ceased.

All the frightful stories that I had heard or read of the kidnapping of girls came pouring into my mind, till my blood boiled and my knees trembled. Imagination was stinging me to life's very core. Every few minutes I would pa.s.s the theatre, and look towards the portico.

The night wore on, and I was unconscious how the time pa.s.sed. It was not till daybreak that I returned to my hotel, pale, weary, bent.

I threw myself upon my bed: it scorched me.

I could not think. At present I could only see--see what? At one moment a squalid attic, the starlight shining through patched window-panes upon a lonely mattress, on which a starving girl was lying; at another moment a cellar damp and dark, in one corner of which a youthful figure was crouching; and then (most intolerable of all!) a flaring gin-palace, where, among a noisy crowd, a face was looking wistfully on, while coa.r.s.e and vulgar men were cl.u.s.tering with cruel, wolfish eyes around a beggar-girl. This I saw and more--a thousand things more.

It was insupportable. I rose and again paced the street.

When I called upon my mother she asked me anxious questions as to what had ailed me the previous night. Seeing, however, that I avoided replying to them, she left me after a while in peace.

'Fancy,' said my aunt, who was writing a letter at a little desk between two windows,--'fancy an Aylwin pulling the check-string, and then, with ladies in the carriage and the rain pouring--'

During that day how many times I pa.s.sed in front of the theatre I cannot say; but at last I thought the very men in the shops must be observing me. Again, though I half poisoned myself with my drug, I pa.s.sed a sleepless night. The next night was pa.s.sed in almost the same manner as the previous one.

II

From this time I felt working within me a great change. A horrible new thought got entire possession of me. Wherever I went I could think of nothing but--the curse. I scorned the monstrous idea of a curse, and yet I was always thinking about it. I was always seeking Winifred--always speculating on her possible fate. I saw no one in society.

My time was now largely occupied with wandering about the streets of London. I began by exploring the vicinity of the theatre, and day after day used to thread the alleys and courts in that neighbourhood.