Mounting the broad old staircase, we found ourselves in the studio of
the famous spiritualist-painter--one of two studios; for Wilderspin
had turned two rooms communicating with each other by folding-doors
into a sort of double studio. One of these rooms, which was of
moderate size, fronted the north-east, the other faced the
south-west. There were (as I soon discovered) easels in both. It was
the smaller of these rooms into which we were now shown by the
servant. The walls were covered with sketches and drawings in various
stages, and photographs of sculpture.
'By Jove, that's dooced like!' said Sleaford, pointing to my mother's
portrait, which was standing on the floor, as though just returned
from the frame-maker's: 'ask Cyril Aylwin if it ain't when you see
him.'
It was a truly magnificent painting, but more full of imagination
than of actual portraiture.
One of the windows was open, and the noise of an anvil from a
blacksmith's shop in Maud Street came into the room.
'Do you know,' said my mother in an undertone, 'that this strange
genius can only, when in London, work to the sound of a blacksmith's
anvil? Nothing will induce him to paint a portrait out of his own
studio; and I observed, when I was sitting to him here, that
sometimes when the noise from the anvil ceased he laid down his brush
and waited for the hideous din to be resumed.
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