Aylwin Part 6

Shortly after this my father and I spent the autumn in various parts of Switzerland. One night, when we were sitting outside the chalet in the full light of the moon, I was the witness of a display of pa.s.sion on the part of one whom I had always considered to be a dreamy book-worm--a pa.s.sionless, eccentric mystic--that simply amazed me. A flickering tongue from the central fires suddenly breaking up through the soil of an English vegetable garden could hardly have been a more unexpected phenomenon to me than what occurred on that memorable night.

The incident I am going to relate showed me how rash it is to suppose that you have really fathomed the personality of any human creature.

The mementos of his first wife, which accompanied him whithersoever he went, absorbed his attention in Switzerland, and especially in the little place where she was born, far more than they had done at home.

He was for ever peeping furtively into his escritoire to enjoy the sight of them, and then looking over his shoulder to see if he was being watched by my mother, though she was far away in Raxton Hall.

On the night in question he showed me the silver casket containing certain of these mementos--mementos which I felt to be almost too intimate to be shown even to his son.

'And now, Henry,' said he, 'I am going to show you something that no one else has ever seen since she died--the most sacred possession I have upon this earth.' He then opened his shirt and his vest, and showed me lying upon his naked bosom a beautiful jewelled cross of a considerable size. 'This,' said he, lifting it up, 'is an ancient Gnostic amulet. It is called the "Moonlight Cross" of the Gnostics. I gave it to her on the night of our betrothal. She was a Roman Catholic. It is made of precious stones cut in facets, with rubies and diamonds and beryls so cunningly set that, when the moonlight falls on them, the cross flashes almost as brilliantly as when the sunlight falls on them and is kindled into living fire. These deep-coloured crimson rubies--almost as clear as diamonds--are not of the ordinary kind. They are true "Oriental rubies," and the jewellers would tell you that the mine which produced them has been lost during several centuries. But look here when I lift it up; the most wonderful feature of the jewel is the skill with which the diamonds are cut. The only shapes generally known are what are called the "brilliant" and the "rose," but here the facets are arranged in an entirely different way, and evidently with the view of throwing light into the very hearts of the rubies, and producing this peculiar radiance.'

He lifted the amulet again (which was suspended from his neck by a beautifully worked cord made of soft brown hair) into the rays from the moon. The light the jewel emitted was certainly of a strange and fascinating kind. The cross had been worn with the jewelled front upon his bosom instead of the smooth back, and the sharp facets of the cross had lacerated the scarred flesh underneath in a most cruel manner. He saw me shudder and understood why.

'Oh, I like that!' he said, with an ecstatic smile. 'I like to feel it constantly on my bosom. It cannot cut deep enough for me. This is her hair,' he said, taking the hair-cord between his fingers and kissing it.

'How do you manage to exist, father,' I said, 'with that heavy sharp-edged jewel on your breast? you who cannot bear the gout with patience?'

'Exist? I could not exist _without_ it. The gout is pain--this is not pain; it is joy, bliss, heaven! When I am dead it must lie for ever on my breast as it lies now, or I shall never rest in my grave.' He had been talking about amulets in the most quiet and matter-of-fact way during that morning; but the I moment he produced this cross a strange change came over his face, something like the change that will come over a dull wood-fire when blown by the wind into a bright light of flame.

'Ha!' he muttered to himself, as his eyes widened and sparkled with a look of intense eagerness and his hand shook, sending the light of the beautiful jewel all about the room, 'it is a sad pity he was not her son. How I should have loved him then! I like him now very much; but how I should have loved him then, for he is a brave boy. Oh, if I had only been born brave like him!' Then, suddenly recollecting himself, he closed his vest, and said: 'Don't tell your mother, Hal; don't tell your mother that I have shown you this.' Then he took it out again. 'She who is dead cherished it,' he continued, half to himself--'she cherished it above all things. She died, boy, and I couldn't help her. She used to wear the cross in the bosom of her dress; and there she was in the cove kissing it when the tide swept over her. I ought to have jumped down and died with her. _You_ would have done it, Hal; your eyes say so. Oh, to be an Aylwin without the Aylwin courage!'

After a little time he said: 'This has lain on her bosom, Hal, her bosom! It has been kissed by her, Hal, oh, a thousand thousand times!

It had her last kiss. When I took it from the cold body which had been recovered, this cross seemed to be warm with her life and love.'

And then he wept, and his tears fell thick upon his bosom and upon the amulet. The truth was clear enough now. The appalling death of his first wife, his love for her, and his remorse for not having jumped down the cliff and died with her, had affected his brain. He was a monomaniac, and all his thoughts were in some way cl.u.s.tered round the dominant one. He had studied amulets because the 'Moonlight Cross' had been cherished by her; he came to Switzerland every year because it was a.s.sociated with her; he had joined the spiritualist body in the mad hope that perhaps there might be something in it, perhaps there might be a power that could call her back to earth.

Even the favourite occupation of his life, visiting cathedrals and churches and taking rubbings from monumental bra.s.ses, had begun after her death; it had come from the fact (as I soon learned) that she had taken interest in monumental bra.s.ses, and had begun the collection of rubbings.

And yet this martyr to a mighty pa.s.sion bore the character of a dreamy student; and his calm, un-furrowed face, on common occasions, expressed nothing but a rather dull kind of content! Here was a revelation of what, afterwards, was often revealed to me, that human personality is the crowning wonder of this wonderful universe, and that the forces which turn fire-mist into stars are not more inscrutable than is human character. He lifted up his head and gazed at me through his tears.

'Hal,' he said, 'do you know why I have shown you this? It _must_, MUST be buried with me at my death; and there is no one upon whose energy, truth, courage, and strength of will I can rely as I can upon yours. You must give me your word, Hal, that you will see it and this casket containing her letters buried with me.'

I hesitated to become a party to such an undertaking as this. It savoured of superst.i.tion, I thought. Now, having at that very time abandoned all the superst.i.tions and all the mystical readings of the universe which as a child I had inherited from ancestors, Romany and English, having at that very time begun to take a delight in the wonderful revelations of modern science, my att.i.tude towards superst.i.tion--towards all super-naturalism--oscillated between anger and simple contempt.

'But,' I said, 'you surely will not have this beautiful old cross buried?' And as I looked at it, and the light fell upon it, there came from it strange flashes of fire, showing with what extraordinary skill the rubies and diamonds had been adjusted so that their facets should catch and concentrate the rays of the moon.

'Yes,' he said, taking the cross again in his hand and fondling it pa.s.sionately, 'it must never be possessed by any one after me.'

'But it might be stolen, father--stolen from your coffin.'

'That would indeed he a disaster,' he said with a shudder. Then a look of deadly vengeance overspread his face and brought out all its Romany characteristics as he said: 'But with it there will be buried a curse written in Hebrew and English--a curse upon the despoiler, which will frighten off any thief who is in his senses.'

And he showed me a large parchment scroll, folded exactly like a t.i.tle-deed, with the following curse and two verses from the 109th Psalm written upon it in Hebrew and English. The English version was carefully printed by himself in large letters:--

'He who shall violate this tomb.--he who shall steal this amulet, hallowed as a love-token between me and my dead wife,--he who shall dare to lay a sacrilegious hand upon this cross, stands cursed by G.o.d. cursed by love, and cursed by me. Philip Aylwin, lying here.

"Let there be no man to pity him, nor to have compa.s.sion upon his fatherless children.... Let his children be vagabonds, and beg their bread; let them seek it also out of desolate places." Psalm cix. So saith the Lord. Amen.'

'I have printed the English version in large letters,' he said, 'so that any would-be despoiler must see it and read it at once by the dimmest lantern light.'

'But, father,' I said, 'is it possible that you, an educated man, really believe in the efficacy of a curse?'

'If the curse comes straight from the heart's core of a man, as this curse comes from mine, Hal, how can it fail to operate by the mere force of will? The curse of a man who loved as I love upon the wretch who should violate a love-token so sacred as this--why, the disembodied spirits of all who have loved and suffered would combine to execute it!'

'Spirits!' I said. 'Really, father, in times like these to talk of spirits!'

'Ah, Henry!' he replied, 'I was like you once. I could once be content with Materialism--I could find it supportable once; but, should you ever come to love as I have loved (and, for your own happiness, child, I hope you never may), you will And that Materialism is intolerable, is h.e.l.l itself, to the heart that has known a pa.s.sion like mine. You will And that it is madness, Hal, madness, to believe in the word "never"! you will And that you _dare_ not leave untried any creed, howsoever wild, that offers the heart a ray of hope. Every object she cherished has become spiritualised, sublimated, has become alive--alive as this amulet is alive. See, the lights are no natural lights.' And again he held it up.

'If on my death-bed,' he continued, 'I thought that this beloved cross and these sacred relics would ever get into other hands--would ever touch other flesh--than mine, I should die a maniac, Hal, and my spirit would never be released from the chains of earth.' It was the superst.i.tious tone of his talk that irritated and hardened me. He saw it, and a piteous expression overspread his features.

'Don't desert your poor father,' he said. 'What I want is the word of an Aylwin that those beloved relics shall be buried with me. If I had _that_, I should be content to live, and content to die. Oh, Hal!'

He threw such an imploring gaze into my face as he said 'Oh, Hal!'

that, reluctant as I was to be mixed up with superst.i.tion, I promised to execute his wishes; I promised also to keep the secret from all the world during his life, and after his death to share it with those two only from whom, for family reasons, it could not be kept--my uncle Aylwin of Alvanley and my mother. He then put away the amulet, and his face resumed the look of placid content it usually wore. He was feeling the facets of the mysterious 'Moonlight Cross'!

The most marvellous thing is this, however: his old relations towards me were at once resumed. He never alluded to the subject of his first wife again, and I soon found it difficult to believe that the conversation just recorded ever took place at all. Evidently his monomania only rose up to a pa.s.sionate expression when fanned into sudden flame by talking about the cross. It was as though the shock of his first wife's death had severed his consciousness and his life in twain.

II

Naturally this visit to Switzerland cemented our intimacy, and it was on our return home that he suggested my accompanying him on one of his 'rubbing expeditions.'

'Henry,' he said, 'your mother has of late frequently discussed with me the question of your future calling in life. She suggests a Parliamentary career. I confess that I find questions about careers exceedingly disturbing.'

'There is only one profession I should like, father,' I said, 'and that is a painter's.' In fact, the pa.s.sion for painting had come on me very strongly of late. My dreams had from the first been of wandering with Winnie in a paradise of colour, and these dreams had of late been more frequent: the paradise of colour had been growing richer and rarer.

He shook his head gravely and said, 'No, my dear; your mother would never allow it.'

'Why not?' I said; 'is painting low too?'

'Cyril Aylwin is low, at least so your mother and aunt say, especially your aunt. I have not perceived it myself, but then your mother's perceptive faculties are extraordinary--quite extraordinary.'

'Did the lowness come from his being a painter, father?' I asked.

'Really, child, you are puzzling me. But I have observed you now for some weeks, and I quite believe that you would make one of the best rubbers who ever held a ball. I am going to Salisbury next week, and you shall then make your _debut_.'

This was in the midst of a very severe winter we had some years ago, when all Europe was under a coating of ice.

'But, father,' I said, 'shan't we find it rather cold?'

'Well,' said my father, with a bland smile, 'I will not pretend that Salisbury Cathedral is particularly warm in this weather, but in winter I always rub in knee-caps and mittens. I will tell Hodder to knit you a full set at once.'

'But, father,' I said, 'Tom Wynne tells me that rubbing is the most painful of all occupations. He even goes so far sometimes as to say that it was the exhaustion of rubbing for you which turned him to drink.'

'Nothing of the kind,' said my father. 'All that Tom needed to make him a good rubber was enthusiasm. I am strongly of opinion that without enthusiasm rubbing is of all occupations the most irksome, except perhaps for the quadrumana (who seem more adapted for this exercise), the most painful for the spine, the most cramping for the thighs, the most numbing for the fingers. It is a profession, Henry, demanding, above every other, enthusiasm in the operator. Now Tom's enthusiasm for rubbing as an art was from the first exceedingly feeble.'

I was on the eve of revolting, but I remembered what there was lacerating his poor breast, and consented. And when I heard hints of our 'working the Welsh churches' my sudden enthusiasm for the rubber's art astonished even my father.

'My dear,' he said to my mother at dinner one day, 'what do you think? Henry has developed quite a sudden pa.s.sion for rubbing.'