Notes from a Mystic

“Mr. Rhys…Mr. Rhys, sir!” a voice said startling Richard from his hypnotic state.  “Are you all right?”

“Yes, Mr. Watkins.  Yes, I’m fine, thank you.” Richard replied.  As he looked around he discovered that they had found shelter in the old livery stable near Court Street.  He looked down to see Mr. Watkins with his fingers threaded ready to be a human stirrup.  Victoria was nestled against his chest half asleep. 

“Dear.  We have arrived in some form of civilization.” He whispered.  A delicate smile curled about her mouth as her eyes slowly adjusted to the stable’s lamplight.

“I thought for sure that mare had perished in the blizzard.”  Ned, the stableman said astonished.

“She’s been living in our kitchen.” Richard replied.

“And Mr. Jones?” He inquired.

Mr. Watkins turned and shook his head ‘no’.

“’Tis a pity.” Ned said as he helped Victoria down from Michelangelo’s back. 

“Not really.” Mr. Watkins whispered to himself.  It did not go unnoticed by Richard. With Henry’s help Richard slid down and felt his feet hit the dirt floor of the stable.

Victoria sat with her arms around Mrs. Hopkins who had taken to the comforts of a bail of hay.  She shivered under her black wool coat.

“Would the Inn have a room to let for this evening?” Mr. Watkins asked.

“T’was full earlier today.  I’ll inquire for ye.” Ned said as he led Michelangelo to a warm stall and regular feed.  The two women moved close to the barrel with the crackling fire.  Mrs. Hopkins unlaced her boots as Victoria gently pulled them away.  Her stockinged feet were wet and dreadfully cold. As Victoria rolled down the tights, Mrs. Watkins’ toes had turned blue and her feet stark white identical to Nell’s, the dead maid’s pallor.  An Irish stable boy looked down on the scene from his perch in the hayloft.

“Boy.  We need a bucket of water to heat.” Henry directed.  The boy got up and fetched the needed container and dipped it into the trough at the back of the building then brought the icy liquid to Mr. Watkins.

Victoria and Richard blew on their hands and rubbed Mrs. Hopkins feet in an effort to warm them up, but the pain of frostbite nullified their actions.

“The only room available next door is the attic.” Ned said as he re-entered the stable.

“Are there beds?” Henry asked.

“Two.” Ned replied.  “But there is no fireplace up there.”

“Hot water bottles?” Victoria asked.  Ned chuckled.  The Inn next door catered to the service industry and did not have amenities the upper class had grown accustomed to.

“I could pinch one for ye, sir.”  The boy said mischievously. Henry took the boy by his shoulder and led him to a corner where they could speak privately.

“If you can secure a hot water bottle then I will give you this.” Henry whispered and his hand revealed a coin worth more than the boy’s entire week’s wages. 

“Leave it to me.” The boy said and he disappeared into the shadows of the barn.

“We’ll take the attic.” Henry told Ned.  Ned nodded and disappeared to make the arrangements.  Henry pulled an old horse blanket from one of the stalls and held it close to the fire.

“We’ll wrap your frostbit feet in this until we get to the room upstairs.” Henry said gently.  Ned reentered the stable and nodded, signaling them to follow him.  Henry wrapped Miriam’s delicate limbs in the cloth and then both he and Richard carried her the five flights upstairs to the dusty attic. The gabled window looked out over a peaceful, sleepy Manhattan.  Firelight could be seen from the river and the faint glow of gas lamps and candles made the skyline seem warm and festive. The white tempest of a few days before was rendered a distant memory.  The sky was a brilliant deep Indigo and the stars twinkled calmly in their firmament.  The entire universe was spread out before them through that small window.  As Richard looked deeper into the constellations he could feel himself moving at a faster pace than the current time.  He could sense the future and yet it was now.

There was a soft tap on the door.  Henry opened it and the boy slid inside.  Under his shirt he revealed the hot water bottle filled with heated liquid.

“You have done a great thing.”  Henry whispered and placed the coin in his hand.

“Sir?  May I fetch the water bottle at dawn?  I pinched it from the bartender downstairs. That’s when he wakes.” He confessed.

“Certainly.” Henry said as Victoria took the apparatus and slid it next to Miriam’s feet under the blanket.

“Oooooooo.” She moaned.

“I know it is painful but you have to warm it up slowly.” Victoria said.  Richard took the blanket from the small double bed, fixed a twine clothesline and draped the blanket there for privacy.  Mrs. Hopkins assumed because of the close quarters that Victoria would sleep with her and the two men would bunk together.  Her face registered surprise when Richard held out his arm to fetch his wife.

“But…” Mrs. Hopkins began.  Then Henry slid in next to her.

“I won’t bite, Mrs. Hopkins.”  He said smiling.  Victoria kissed her governess goodnight and disappeared with Richard behind the curtain.  Snuggled deeply underneath the bison hide Richard let his hands slip beneath Victoria’s bodice and touch the skin of her belly.  She giggled when the baby moved and Richard could feel his heart jump.

“She is all right.” He said needing confirmation.

“She is just fine.” Victoria smiled and she cupped his face in her hands and kissed him deeply.  He could feel his child move inside of her and all the mysteries of life and the universe seemed to cascade down around him.  Even amid this dusty old attic he had found paradise and heaven had found him.  He pulled the orange thread from his pocket and wound an end about his finger.  The exhaustion of the day’s trials sent him tumbling into a deep sleep.  And as his mind weaved through his thoughts he recalled that Ansa had told him that she was him and he was her.  If she had sacrificed her existence in an earlier time, and given her force to ensure Victoria’s life…then…something inside of him had been sacrificed.  A small part of who he was had died in order to keep his wife and child alive.  The stars swirled above him in the midnight sky and he was part of that infinite, slumbering, deeply intuitive blue.  Turned upside down he realized he had been liberated from a part of himself in order to love more deeply.  

 

 

Chelsea Thornton Rhys had been born in 1913 to her mother Chelsea Victoria Rhys on October 25^th, the same day as her grandfather, in Manhattan at their home on Fifth Avenue and Thirty-sixth Street.  Her father was Junius Spencer Morgan of the J. P. Morgan family. Her earliest memories are of her Grandfather Rhys working in his large studio on Fifth Avenue and Twenty-fifth street.  Canvases had been stored and easels dotted the room but she had never actually seen him paint.  On his worktables were spools of celluloid, cogs, wheels and various tools, springs and gears.  Heavy Victorian curtains, racks of costumes and black velvet to cover the windows.  Her grandfather took a keen interest in the magic lanterns of the day and in Edison’s Kinetiscope.  Moving pictures, flickers or nickelodeons as they had been called fascinated Richard even as he lived in London in the 1880’s and was introduced to the photography of Edward Muybridge.

She was four years old and the Great War had been raging for three years.  She had not known a time of peace.  It was in that same year that Charles Chaplin had made The Tramp. On a trip to New York he stopped in to see Richard Rhys and their lunch with cigars and brandy lasted for hours. To see the great Charles Chaplin in person was a thrill.  He only existed on celluloid to her child's mind.  During this visit she came face to face with the real man. It was one of the first memories Chelsea had of her grandfather.  When she was older her mother took great amusement in recounting her and her father’s first meeting with the silent film star.  Richard and Victoria had gone to see the Fred Karno Troupe perform their act in one of the vaudevillian theatres in Manhattan.  Richard was so taken with the young actor that he invited the whole troupe back to his studio where the young men laughed, drank, smoked and talked for hours.  And when the young Chaplin asked to see her grandfather’s paintings he was shown the exact group of large sea works that currently hung in the Tate.  When Chelsea was a young lady and invited to the New York Premiere of City Lights in 1931 she recalled that Mr. Chaplin spoke very highly of her grandfather and remarked that as a young man standing before those amazing works of art, the alchemical effect of the work inspired him and gave him enough courage to seize his own power and creativity to become the incomparable silent legend that he was.

At five years old the death of Richard Rhys was one of the most memorable moments of her young life.  They had been called to the house on Grove Street.  Her grandmother Victoria had passed away only months before and Richard spoke to his daughter as if she were Victoria.  He was in bed riddled with fever and overcome with a cough that wreaked havoc on his lungs.  The Spanish flu began with one man in an army barracks in Kansas in 1917.  By the summer of 1918 it had grown in to a pandemic killing three percent of the world’s population. More devastating than the black death it killed millions attacking adults in their prime. And although Richard was in perfect health before being infected, the microbe ravaged his healthy immune system rendering him helpless.  He never recovered.  When the end finally came with the family gathered round it was a peaceful and quiet event. He slipped away uttering the words, “A gentleman always knows when to leave…”He died September 11^th, 1918.  Two months to the day was the official end of World War I and Armistice Day had been observed ever since as the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.  It was a week after the cease-fire in Europe that Chelsea Thornton Rhys and her family relocated to London.  From the age of five until she became an adult her home would be with her grandmother’s side of the family, the Thorntons.   September 3, 1939 when Chelsea was about to turn twenty six, the British government declared war on Nazi Germany.  Chelsea immediately volunteered with the Red Cross and found herself not only in London during the air raids but also on various tours of duty in France to help the resistance and the cause of freedom.  It was during one of these tours that she met her husband, a dashing American soldier from Omaha.  They married and honeymooned on the Seine while he was on leave.  He was killed on the beaches of Normandy during the D-day invasion.  Devastated, she returned to her mother’s house in London where she miscarried. Reverting to her maiden name to try and erase the painful past, she swore never to marry again.  After peace had been declared in the spring of 1945, Chelsea’s mother had Richard Rhys’s complete collection of works shipped from a warehouse in Brooklyn by steamer to their manor house in Northumberland.  The grand parlor in the East wing housed the Sea paintings and only privileged guests were allowed to view the art.  Chelsea moved from London into the Manor house in Northumberland and studied the paintings and her grandfather’s diaries for over five years.  Her discoveries prompted her to lobby to the family that the paintings were infused with a mystical aura and that the public should not be allowed to view them. Chelsea’s mother thought her daughter had gone mad until she spent an entire spring retreat at the Manor and found the paintings to have a strange power over her.  It was nothing malevolent, only inspiring.  But the intensity of the feelings that the paintings evoked prompted the viewer to delve deeply within themselves.  Visiting the Shadow was what Chelsea called it.  The brush strokes of the waves looked like lemniscates.  Other strokes in the impasto looked very much like the Hebrew letter ‘yod’ that begins the tetragrammaton, the sacred unspeakable name of God.  Chelsea did not know if these symbols were intentional or reflections of Richard’s subconscious mind. She made copious notes and sketches in her own small notebooks and then sought the help of various professors at Oxford and Cambridge to try and demystify the math and symbology of the work.  In any case the paintings transformed the viewer.  But since there were thirteen in all only Chelsea knew the order in which to view them for a true transformation to take place.  The rest of her grandfather’s paintings she bequeathed to various museums:  The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Louvre, The Prado, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, The Hermitage and The Nationalmuseum Sweden among others on the condition that if they were sold or auctioned that the entire proceeds of the sale of the paintings go to a trust fund set up to end poverty world wide.  Chelsea had experienced something deeply by spending those fateful years with her grandfather’s Sea Series.  Once the intention of her life had been fully formed and molded by the imagery of the work, she committed her full focus on achieving her goals.  In 60 years the foundation she had founded in 1950 had significantly reduced world poverty and, Ms. Rhys was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1990 for her indomitable spirit and charitable work. Her mother died in June of 1970 and the entire Thornton-Rhys estate passed into her hands as executor. She traveled the world visiting the most remote areas of Africa and Indonesia trying to ease the plight of famine, disease and poverty.  Her foundation was one of the first to make large operating contributions to Doctors Without Borders. Now at 98 she was frail and delicate needing the use of a wheelchair to move more than a few steps but her mind was sharp and present. 

Ashley and Chelsea had been invited back to Ms. Rhys’ private rooms and they spent almost five hours talking and drinking tea and looking through old scrapbooks, gleaning a lifetime of information.  Ms. Rhys continually referred to Ashley as Grandfather and to Chelsea as Grandmother only occasionally remembering to call them by their Christian names. 

“Ms. Rhys---“ Ashley began.

“Please call me Chelsea.  ‘Ms. Rhys’ sounds so old and formal.” The old woman interrupted.  Ashley exchanged a look with Chelsea Barrett.  It all seemed so surreal.

“I was wondering why the estate has stipulated that the Rhys paintings never be reproduced photographically or otherwise and why they are not open for the public to enjoy?” Ashley asked.

“Why, you told me yourself once that some of the imagery is potent.  I feel I have to act with discretion and responsibility.” Ms. Rhys replied forgetting herself.

“Was Richard Rhys a Freemason?” Chelsea asked.

“Oh, no, no, no.” Ms. Rhys chuckled.  “No.  Grandfather was not part of any brotherhood or fraternity.  He was simply a mystic.” She beamed.

“Are you a mystic?” Ashley asked.

“Oh, I wouldn’t know about that.  All I know is that I have tried to fulfill my highest potential.  That’s what he did. That’s what you would have wanted.” Ms. Rhys said enigmatically.

“Yes, yes.  That is exactly what I would want.” Ashley said playing along.  Chelsea shot her a look.

“You mentioned that there is an alchemical order to the paintings.”  Ashley began.

“Yes, yes.  Don’t you remember?” Ms. Rhys asked a bit incredulous.

“No.  I seem to have forgotten.  I’ve been away so long.” Ashley replied.

“Yes, you have!  I guess that is par for the course. You see, Grandfather, I wrote down everything you told me and I studied your very own notes about the paintings.”  She began. “Anything is possible.”

“Yes, that’s true.” Ashley concurred.

“That includes phenomena that we do not understand on this physical plane.” Ms. Rhys said guardedly. Her eyes sparkled and pierced with knowing.  “That includes things like levitation, bilocation and even…immortality.”

There was a long silence as the seriousness of the moment hovered over them.

“You must commit your belief one thousand times one thousand percent…You understand?” She instructed and her voice changed as if she was aware she was talking to a young woman.  Ashley nodded her head.  Chelsea took in every nuance.

“I shall give you the order.  But…You must spend at least three days to a week in front of each painting in their correct order or the magic of your work will only be superficial.  They are exquisite paintings and important works of art in their own right, but the spiritual qualities will only be revealed in meditation.” She instructed.  Then she wrote down the titles in order of viewing and handed the slip of paper to Ashley.

“Thank you very much for this.” Ashley said.

“I was wondering who else has seen the work in the order you suggested?” Chelsea asked.

“Oh, my…lots of people.  Let me see.  Winston Churchill, President Roosevelt, The Queen, of course.  Eh, John Logie Baird—the original inventor of television, you see.  Sir Laurence Olivier, The Great Sarah Bernhardt, Sir Alexander Fleming and John Lennon.  Those are the most memorable ones.” She answered.   Just then the antique clock struck ten.

“We should really be going---“ Ashley said as Chelsea rose simultaneously.

“Oh, no.  Must you?” Ms. Rhys said deflated.

“Yes, yes, we have quite a ride to get back to our hotel.” Chelsea said softly.

“Why on earth are you staying in a hotel when the residences are on Hyde Park?” Ms. Rhys inquired confused.

“It’s been arranged that way.  Thank you so much for a wonderful evening.” Ashley said. as she took Ms. Rhys’ hand and gave it a heartfelt gentle squeeze.

“You’ll come back and visit me, won’t you?” Ms. Rhys asked reluctant to release Ashley’s hand.

“Of course.  We shall be delighted.” Ashley replied and she was taken aback by how her Southern accent shifted spontaneously into perfect British.  Chelsea studied Ashley for a moment unsure of what was happening.

“Perhaps next week we shall have proper tea?  I shall make the arrangements.” Ms. Rhys said as she slowly released Ashley’s hand.

“Good night.” Chelsea said as she led the way across the threshold.

“Good night.” Ms. Rhys said as she peered from her apartment door down the long elegant corridor.

“You know we have to make good on that promise.” Chelsea whispered as they walked.

“Yes, I know.  I plan to fulfill my obligations.” Ashley said and her speech was exquisitely British.

“You don’t have to keep doing that.” Chelsea added.

“I’m not doing it on purpose. I swear.”  Ashley said and her speech slowly resumed its characteristic Southern drawl.

“You know she is one of the richest women in the world.  She ranks just below J.K. Rowling.” Chelsea commented.

“Well, with the Thornton fortune it’s no surprise.” Ashley replied.  Chelsea took her arm.

“Her fortune is self-made.  She only had a small allowance against her inheritance when she began.” Chelsea said.  “I did some reading on Wikipedia and Google.” She shrugged her shoulders and exited the building.  Ashley looked back and locked eyes with Delilah.

“We’ll be back.” She said sweetly.

“Over my dead body.” Delilah hissed.

“If that’s the way you want it.” Ashley demurred as Chelsea pulled her through the doors into the parking lot.