since he was alone in Egypt and was caring for himself. Similarly,
since she bravely kept her terror to herself, her mother had no inkling
of her own, aware merely that the disease was in her system and that
her orders were to be extremely cautious. This couple, therefore,
shared secretly together the two clearest glimpses of eternity life
has to offer to the soul. Side by side they looked into the splendid
eyes of Love and Death. Life, moreover, with its instinct for simple
and terrific drama, had produced this majestic climax, breaking with
pathos, at the very moment when it could not be developed--this side
of the stars. They stood together upon the stage, a stage emptied of
other human players; the audience had gone home and the lights were
being lowered; no music sounded; the critics were a-bed. In this great
game of Consequences it was known where he met her, what he said and
what she answered, possibly what they did and even what the world
thought. But "what the consequence was" would remain unknown, untold.
That would happen in the big spaces of which the desert in its silence,
its motionless serenity, its shelterless, intolerable vastness, is the
perfect symbol. And the desert gives no answer. It sounds no challenge,
for it is complete. Life in the desert makes no sign. It _is_.
4
In the hotel that night there arrived by chance a famous International
dancer, whose dahabîyeh lay anchored at San Giovanni, in the Nile below
Helouan; and this woman, with her party, had come to dine and take
part in the festivities. The news spread. After twelve the lights were
lowered, and while the moonlight flooded the terraces, streaming past
pillar and colonnade, she rendered in the shadowed halls the music of
the Masters, interpreting with an instinctive genius messages which are
eternal and divine.
Among the crowd of enthralled and delighted guests, the girl sat
on the steps and watched her. The rhythmical interpretation held a
power that seemed, in a sense, inspired; there lay in it a certain
unconscious something that was pure, unearthly; something that the
stars, wheeling in stately movements over the sea and desert know;
something the great winds bring to mountains where they play together;
something the forests capture and fix magically into their gathering
of big and little branches. It was both passionate and spiritual, wild
and tender, intensely human and seductively non-human. For it was
original, taught of Nature, a revelation of naked, unhampered life. It
comforted, as the desert comforts. It brought the desert awe into the
stuffy corridors of the hotel, with the moonlight and the whispering
of stars, yet behind it ever the silence of those grey, mysterious,
interminable spaces which utter to themselves the wordless song of
life. For it was the same dim thing, she felt, that had followed her
from the desert several hours before, halting just outside the streets
and houses as though blocked from further advance; the thing that
had stopped her foolish painting, skilled though she was, because it
hides behind colour and not in it; the thing that veiled the meaning
in the cryptic sentences she and he had stammered out together; the
thing, in a word, as near as she could approach it by any means of
interior expression, that the realisation of death for the first time
makes comprehensible--Immortality. It was unutterable, but it _was_.
He and she were indissolubly together. Death was no separation. There
was no death.... It was terrible. It was--she had already used the
word--awful, full of awe.
"In the desert," thought whispered, as she watched spellbound, "it
is impossible even to conceive of death. The idea is meaningless. It
simply is not."
The music and the movement filled the air with life which, being
there, must continue always, and continuing always can have never had
a beginning. Death, therefore, was the great revealer of life. Without
it none could realise that they are alive. Others had discovered this
before her, but she did not know it. In the desert no one can realise
death: it is hope and life that are the only certainty. The entire
conception of the Egyptian system was based on this--the conviction,
sure and glorious, of life's endless continuation. Their tombs and
temples, their pyramids and sphinxes surviving after thousands of
years, defy the passage of time and laugh at death; the very bodies
of their priests and kings, of their animals even, their fish, their
insects, stand to-day as symbols of their stalwart knowledge.
And this girl, as she listened to the music and watched the inspired
dancing, remembered it. The message poured into her from many sides,
though the desert brought it clearest. With death peering into her face
a few short weeks ahead, she thought instead of--life. The desert,
as it were, became for her a little fragment of eternity, focused
into an intelligible point for her mind to rest upon with comfort
and comprehension. Her steady, thoughtful nature stirred towards an
objective far beyond the small enclosure of one narrow lifetime. The
scale of the desert stretched her to the grandeur of its own imperial
meaning, its divine repose, its unassailable and everlasting majesty.
She looked beyond the wall.
Eternity! That which is endless; without pause, without beginning,
without divisions or boundaries. The fluttering of her brave yet
frightened spirit ceased, aware with awe of its own everlastingness.
The swiftest motion produces the effect of immobility; excessive
light is darkness; size, run loose into enormity, is the same as the
minutely tiny. Similarly, in the desert, life, too overwhelming and
terrific to know limit or confinement, lies undetailed and stupendous,
still as deity, a revelation of nothingness because it is all. Turned
golden beneath its spell that the music and the rhythm made even more
comprehensible, the soul in her, already lying beneath the shadow of
the great wave, sank into rest and peace, too certain of itself to
fear. And panic fled away. "I am immortal ... because I _am_. And what
I love is not apart from me. It is myself. We are together endlessly
because we _are_."
Yet in reality, though the big desert brought this, it was Love,
which, being of similar parentage, interpreted its vast meaning to her
little heart--that sudden love which, without a word of preface or
explanation, had come to her a short three weeks before.... She went
up to her room soon after midnight, abruptly, unexpectedly stricken.
Some one, it seemed, had called her name. She passed his door.
The lights had been turned up. The clamour of praise was loud round the
figure of the weary dancer as she left in a carriage for her dahabîyeh
on the Nile. A low wind whistled round the walls of the great hotel,
blowing chill and bitter between the pillars of the colonnades. The
girl heard the voices float up to her through the night, and once more,
behind the confused sound of the many, she heard her own name called,
but more faintly than before, and from very far away. It came through
the spaces beyond her open window; it died away again; then--but for
the sighing of that bitter wind--silence, the deep silence of the
desert.
And these two, Paul Rivers and the girl, between them merely a floor
of that stone that built the Pyramids, lay a few moments before the
Wave of Sleep engulfed them. And, while they slept, two shadowy forms
hovered above the roof of the quiet hotel, melting presently into
one, as dreams stole down from the desert and the stars. Immortality
whispered to them. On either side rose Life and Death, towering in
splendour. Love, joining their spreading wings, fused the gigantic
outlines into one. The figures grew smaller, comprehensible. They
entered the little windows. Above the beds they paused a moment,
watching, waiting, and then, like a wave that is just about to break,
they stooped....
And in the brilliant Egyptian sunlight of the morning, as she went
downstairs, she passed his door again. She had awakened, but he slept
on. He had preceded her. It was next day she learned his room was
vacant.... Within the month she joined him, and within the year the
cool north wind that sweetens Lower Egypt from the sea blew the dust
across the desert as before. It is the dust of kings, of queens, of
priests, princesses, lovers. It is the dust no earthly power can
annihilate. It, too, lasts for ever. There was a little more of it ...
the desert's message slightly added to: Immortality.
VI
THE OTHER WING
1
It used to puzzle him that, after dark, some one _would_ look in round
the edge of the bedroom door, and withdraw again too rapidly for him
to see the face. When the nurse had gone away with the candle this
happened: "Good night, Master Tim," she said usually, shading the light
with one hand to protect his eyes; "dream of me and I'll dream of you."
She went out slowly. The sharp-edged shadow of the door ran across the
ceiling like a train. There came a whispered colloquy in the corridor
outside, about himself, of course, and--he was alone. He heard her
steps going deeper and deeper into the bosom of the old country house;
they were audible for a moment on the stone flooring of the hall; and
sometimes the dull thump of the baize door into the servants' quarters
just reached him, too--then silence. But it was only when the last
sound, as well as the last sign of her had vanished, that the face
emerged from its hiding-place and flashed in upon him round the corner.
As a rule, too, it came just as he was saying, "Now I'll go to sleep. I
won't think any longer. Good night, Master Tim, and happy dreams." He
loved to say this to himself; it brought a sense of companionship, as
though there were two persons speaking.
The room was on the top of the old house, a big, high-ceilinged room,
and his bed against the wall had an iron railing round it; he felt very
safe and protected in it. The curtains at the other end of the room
were drawn. He lay watching the firelight dancing on the heavy folds,
and their pattern, showing a spaniel chasing a long-tailed bird towards
a bushy tree, interested and amused him. It was repeated over and over
again. He counted the number of dogs, and the number of birds, and the
number of trees, but could never make them agree. There was a plan
somewhere in that pattern; if only he could discover it, the dogs and
birds and trees would "come out right." Hundreds and hundreds of times
he had played this game, for the plan in the pattern made it possible
to take sides, and the bird and dog were against him. They always won,
however; Tim usually fell asleep just when the advantage was on his own
side. The curtains hung steadily enough most of the time, but it seemed
to him once or twice that they stirred--hiding a dog or bird on purpose
to prevent his winning. For instance, he had eleven birds and eleven
trees, and, fixing them in his mind by saying, "that's eleven birds
and eleven trees, but only ten dogs," his eyes darted back to find the
eleventh dog, when--the curtain moved and threw all his calculations
into confusion again. The eleventh dog was hidden. He did not quite
like the movement; it gave him questionable feelings, rather, for the
curtain did not move of itself. Yet, usually, he was too intent upon
counting the dogs to feel positive alarm.
Opposite to him was the fireplace, full of red and yellow coals; and,
lying with his head sideways on the pillow, he could see directly in
between the bars. When the coals settled with a soft and powdery crash,
he turned his eyes from the curtains to the grate, trying to discover
exactly which bits had fallen. So long as the glow was there the sound
seemed pleasant enough, but sometimes he awoke later in the night, the
room huge with darkness, the fire almost out--and the sound was not so
pleasant then. It startled him. The coals did not fall of themselves.
It seemed that some one poked them cautiously. The shadows were very
thick before the bars. As with the curtains, moreover, the morning
aspect of the extinguished fire, the ice-cold cinders that made a
clinking sound like tin, caused no emotion whatever in his soul.
And it was usually while he lay waiting for sleep, tired both of the
curtain and the coal games, on the point, indeed, of saying, "I'll go
to sleep now," that the puzzling thing took place. He would be staring
drowsily at the dying fire, perhaps counting the stockings and flannel
garments that hung along the high fender-rail when, suddenly, a person
looked in with lightning swiftness through the door and vanished again
before he could possibly turn his head to see. The appearance and
disappearance were accomplished with amazing rapidity always.
It was a head and shoulders that looked in, and the movement combined
the speed, the lightness and the silence of a shadow. Only it was not
a shadow. A hand held the edge of the door. The face shot round, saw
him, and withdrew like lightning. It was utterly beyond him to imagine
anything more quick and clever. It darted. He heard no sound. It went.
But--it had seen him, looked him all over, examined him, noted what
he was doing with that lightning glance. It wanted to know if he were
awake still, or asleep. And though it went off, it still watched him
from a distance; it waited somewhere; it knew all about him. _Where_ it
waited no one could ever guess. It came probably, he felt, from beyond
the house, possibly from the roof, but most likely from the garden or
the sky. Yet, though strange, it was not terrible. It was a kindly and
protective figure, he felt. And when it happened he never called for
help, because the occurrence simply took his voice away.
"It comes from the Nightmare Passage," he decided; "but it's _not_ a
nightmare." It puzzled him.
Sometimes, moreover, it came more than once in a single night. He was
pretty sure--not _quite_ positive--that it occupied his room as soon
as he was properly asleep. It took possession, sitting perhaps before
the dying fire, standing upright behind the heavy curtains, or even
lying down in the empty bed his brother used when he was home from
school. Perhaps it played the curtain game, perhaps it poked the coals;
it knew, at any rate, where the eleventh dog had lain concealed. It
certainly came in and out; certainly, too, it did not wish to be seen.
For, more than once, on waking suddenly in the midnight blackness, Tim
knew it was standing close beside his bed and bending over him. He
felt, rather than heard, its presence. It glided quietly away. It moved
with marvellous softness, yet he was positive it moved. He felt the
difference, so to speak. It had been near him, now it was gone. It came
back, too--just as he was falling into sleep again. Its midnight coming
and going, however, stood out sharply different from its first shy,
tentative approach. For in the firelight it came alone; whereas in the
black and silent hours, it had with it--others.
And it was then he made up his mind that its swift and quiet movements
were due to the fact that it had wings. It flew. And the others that
came with it in the darkness were "its little ones." He also made up
his mind that all were friendly, comforting, protective, and that while
positively _not_ a Nightmare, it yet came somehow along the Nightmare
Passage before it reached him. "You see, it's like this," he explained
to the nurse: "The big one comes to visit me alone, but it only brings
its little ones when I'm _quite_ asleep."
"Then the quicker you get to sleep the better, isn't it, Master Tim?"
He replied: "Rather! I always do. Only I wonder where they come
_from_!" He spoke, however, as though he had an inkling.
But the nurse was so dull about it that he gave her up and tried his
father. "Of course," replied this busy but affectionate parent; "it's
either nobody at all, or else it's Sleep coming to carry you away to
the land of dreams." He made the statement kindly but somewhat briskly,
for he was worried just then about the extra taxes on his land, and
the effort to fix his mind on Tim's fanciful world was beyond him at
the moment. He lifted the boy on to his knee, kissed and patted him as
though he were a favourite dog, and planted him on the rug again with a
flying sweep. "Run and ask your mother," he added; "she knows all that
kind of thing. Then come back and tell me all about it--another time."
Tim found his mother in an arm-chair before the fire of another room;
she was knitting and reading at the same time--a wonderful thing the
boy could never understand. She raised her head as he came in, pushed
her glasses on to her forehead, and held her arms out. He told her
everything, ending up with what his father said.
"You see, it's _not_ Jackman, or Thompson, or any one like that," he
exclaimed. "It's some one real."
"But nice," she assured him, "some one who comes to take care of you
and see that you're all safe and cosy."
"Oh, yes, I know that. But----"
"I think your father's right," she added quickly. "It's Sleep, I'm
sure, who pops in round the door like that. Sleep _has_ got wings, I've
always heard."
"Then the other thing--the little ones?" he asked. "Are they just sorts
of dozes, you think?"
Mother did not answer for a moment. She turned down the page of her
book, closed it slowly, put it on the table beside her. More slowly
still she put her knitting away, arranging the wool and needles with
some deliberation.
"Perhaps," she said, drawing the boy closer to her and looking into his
big eyes of wonder, "they're dreams!"
Tim felt a thrill run through him as she said it. He stepped back a
foot or so and clapped his hands softly. "Dreams!" he whispered with
enthusiasm and belief; "of course! I never thought of that."
His mother, having proved her sagacity, then made a mistake. She noted
her success, but instead of leaving it there, she elaborated and
explained. As Tim expressed it she "went on about it." Therefore he did
not listen. He followed his train of thought alone. And presently, he
interrupted her long sentences with a conclusion of his own:
"Then I know where She hides," he announced with a touch of awe. "Where
She lives, I mean." And without waiting to be asked, he imparted the
information: "It's in the Other Wing."
"Ah!" said his mother, taken by surprise. "How clever of you,
Tim!"--and thus confirmed it.
Thenceforward this was established in his life--that Sleep and her
attendant Dreams hid during the daytime in that unused portion of the
great Elizabethan mansion called the Other Wing. This other wing was
unoccupied, its corridors untrodden, its windows shuttered and its
rooms all closed. At various places green baize doors led into it, but
no one ever opened them. For many years this part had been shut up; and
for the children, properly speaking, it was out of bounds. They never
mentioned it as a possible place, at any rate; in hide-and-seek it was
not considered, even; there was a hint of the inaccessible about the
Other Wing. Shadows, dust, and silence had it to themselves.
But Tim, having ideas of his own about everything, possessed special
information about the Other Wing. He believed it _was_ inhabited. Who
occupied the immense series of empty rooms, who trod the spacious
corridors, who passed to and fro behind the shuttered windows, he had
not known exactly. He had called these occupants "they," and the most
important among them was "The Ruler." The Ruler of the Other Wing was a
kind of deity, powerful, far away, ever present yet never seen.
And about this Ruler he had a wonderful conception for a little boy;
he connected her, somehow, with deep thoughts of his own, the deepest
of all. When he made up adventures to the moon, to the stars, or to
the bottom of the sea, adventures that he lived inside himself, as it
were--to reach them he must invariably pass through the chambers of
the Other Wing. Those corridors and halls, the Nightmare Passage among
them, lay along the route; they were the first stage of the journey.
Once the green baize doors swung to behind him and the long dim passage
stretched ahead, he was well on his way into the adventure of the
moment; the Nightmare Passage once passed, he was safe from capture;
but once the shutters of a window had been flung open, he was free of
the gigantic world that lay beyond. For then light poured in and he
could see his way.
The conception, for a child, was curious. It established a
correspondence between the mysterious chambers of the Other Wing and
the occupied, but unguessed chambers of his Inner Being. Through these
chambers, through these darkened corridors, along a passage, sometimes
dangerous, or at least of questionable repute, he must pass to find all
adventures that were _real_. The light--when he pierced far enough to
take the shutters down--was discovery. Tim did not actually think, much
less say, all this. He was aware of it, however. He felt it. The Other
Wing was inside himself as well as through the green baize doors. His
inner map of wonder included both of them.
But now, for the first time in his life, he knew who lived there and
who the Ruler was. A shutter had fallen of its own accord; light poured
in; he made a guess, and Mother had confirmed it. Sleep and her Little
Ones, the host of dreams, were the daylight occupants. They stole out
when the darkness fell. All adventures in life began and ended by a
dream--discoverable by first passing through the Other Wing.
2
And, having settled this, his one desire now was to travel over the map
upon journeys of exploration and discovery. The map inside himself he
knew already, but the map of the Other Wing he had not seen. His mind
knew it, he had a clear mental picture of rooms and halls and passages,
but his feet had never trod the silent floors where dust and shadows
hid the flock of dreams by day. The mighty chambers where Sleep ruled
he longed to stand in, to see the Ruler face to face. He made up his
mind to get into the Other Wing.
To accomplish this was difficult; but Tim was a determined youngster,
and he meant to try; he meant, also, to succeed. He deliberated. At
night he could not possibly manage it; in any case, the Ruler and her
host all left it after dark, to fly about the world; the Wing would
be empty, and the emptiness would frighten him. Therefore he must
make a daylight visit; and it was a daylight visit he decided on.
He deliberated more. There were rules and risks involved: it meant
going out of bounds, the danger of being seen, the certainty of being
questioned by some idle and inquisitive grown-up: "Where in the world
have you been all this time"--and so forth. These things he thought out
carefully, and though he arrived at no solution, he felt satisfied that
it would be all right. That is, he recognised the risks. To be prepared
was half the battle, for nothing then could take him by surprise.
The notion that he might slip in from the garden was soon abandoned;
the red bricks showed no openings; there was no door; from the
courtyard, also, entrance was impracticable; even on tiptoe he could
barely reach the broad window-sills of stone. When playing alone,
or walking with the French governess, he examined every outside
possibility. None offered. The shutters, supposing he could reach them,
were thick and solid.
Meanwhile, when opportunity offered, he stood against the outside walls
and listened, his ear pressed against the tight red bricks; the towers
and gables of the Wing rose overhead; he heard the wind go whispering
along the eaves; he imagined tiptoe movements and a sound of wings
inside. Sleep and her Little Ones were busily preparing for their
journeys after dark; they hid, but they did not sleep; in this unused
Wing, vaster alone than any other country house he had ever seen,
Sleep taught and trained her flock of feathered Dreams. It was very
wonderful. They probably supplied the entire county. But more wonderful
still was the thought that the Ruler herself should take the trouble
to come to his particular room and personally watch over him all
night long. That was amazing. And it flashed across his imaginative,
inquiring mind: "Perhaps they take me with them! The moment I'm asleep!
That's why she comes to see me!"
Yet his chief preoccupation was, how Sleep got out. Through the green
baize doors, of course! By a process of elimination he arrived at a
conclusion: he, too, must enter through a green baize door and risk
detection.