"A DAY WILL COME"
They went into the house as though wafted--thus does a shining heart
deduct bodily weight from life's obstructions; they had their tea;
after tea they played games as usual, quite ordinary games; and in due
course they went to bed. That is, they followed a customary routine,
feeling it was safer. To do anything unusual just then might attract
attention to their infinite Discovery and so disturb its delicate
equilibrium. Its balance was precarious. Once an Authority got wind of
anything, the Extra Day might change its course and sail into another
port. Aunt Emily, even from a distance...! In any case, they behaved
with this intuitive sagacity which obviated every risk--by taking none.
Yet everything was different. Behind the routine lay the potent
emphasis of some strange new factor, as though a lofty hope, a brave
ideal, had the power of transmuting common duties into gold and
crystal. This new factor pushed softly behind each little customary
act, urging what was commonplace over the edge into the marvellous. The
habitual became wonderful. It felt like Christmas Eve, like the last
night of the Old Year, like the day before the family moved for the
holidays to the sea--only more so. Even To-morrow-will-be-Sunday had
entirely disappeared. A thrill of mysterious anticipation gilded
everything with wonder and beauty that were impossible, yet true. Some
Day, _the_ Thing that Nobody could Understand--Somebody--was coming at
last.
Uncle Felix was in an extraordinary state; his acts were normal enough,
but his speech betrayed him shamefully; they had to warn him more than
once about it. He seemed unable to talk ordinary prose, saying that
"Everything _ought_ to rhyme, At such a time," and, instead of walking
like other people, his feet tried to keep in time with his language.
"But you don't understand," he replied to Tim's grave warnings; "you
don't understand what a gigantic discovery it is. Why, the whole world
will thank us! The whole world will get its breath back! The one thing
it's always dreaded more than anything else--being too late--will come
to an end! We ought to dance and sing--"
"Oh, please hush!" warned Judy. "Aunt Emily, you know--" Even at
Tunbridge Wells Aunt Emily might hear and send a telegram with No in it.
"Has it lost its breath?" Tim asked, however. But, though it was in the
middle of tea, Uncle Felix could not restrain himself, and burst into
one of his ridiculous singing fits, instead of answering in a whisper
as he should have done. "Burst" described it accurately. And his feet
kept time beneath the table. It was the proper place for Time, he
explained.
The clocks are stopped, the calendars are wrong, Time holds gigantic
finger-hands Before his guilty face. Listen a moment! I can hear the
song That no one understands--
"It's the blue dragon-fly," interrupted Tim, remembering the story of
long ago.
"It's the Night-Wind--out by day," cried Judy.
"It's both and neither," sang the man,
"This song I hear. It first began
Before the hurrying race
Of ticking, and of tearing pages
Deafened the breathless ages:
It is the happy singing
Of wind among the rigging
Of our Extra Day!"
"It's something anyhow," decided Judy, rather impressed by her uncle's
fit of bursting.
And, somehow, Dawn was the password and Tomorrow the key. No one knew
more than that. It had to do with Time, for Uncle Felix had taken the
stopped clock to his room and hidden it there lest somebody like
Jackman or Thompson should wind it up. Later, however, he gave it for
safer keeping to Maria, because she moved so rarely and did so little
that was unnecessary that she seemed the best repository of all. Also,
this was _her_ particular adventure, and what risk there was belonged
properly to her. But beyond this they knew nothing, and they didn't
want to know. In the immediate future, just before the gateway of
To-morrow's dawn, a great gap lay waiting, a gap they had discovered
alone of all the world. The scientists had made a mistake, the
Government had been afraid to deal with it, the rest of the world lay
in ignorance of its very existence even. It satisfied all the
conditions of real adventure, since it was unique, impossible, and had
never happened to any one before. They, with Uncle Felix, had
discovered it. It belonged to them entirely--the most marvellous secret
that anybody could possibly imagine. Maria, they took for granted,
would share it with them. A hole in Time lay waiting to receive them. A
_Day Will Come_ at last was actually coming.
"We'd better pack up," said Judy after tea. She said it calmly, but the
voice had a whisper of intense expectancy in it.
"Pack up nothing," Uncle Felix reproved her quickly. "The important
thing is--don't wind up. Just go on as usual. It will be best," he
added significantly, "if you all hand over your timepieces to me at
once." And, without a word, they recognised his wisdom and put their
treasures into his waistcoat pockets--watches of silver, tin, and
gunmetal. His use of the strange word "timepieces" was convincing. The
unusual was in the air.
"There's Thompson's and Jackman's and Mrs. Horton's," Judy reminded
him, her eyes shining like polished door-knobs.
"Too wrong to matter," decided Uncle Felix. "They're always slow or
fast."
"Then there's the kitchen clock," Tim mentioned; "the grandfather
thing."
Uncle Felix reflected a moment. His reply was satisfactory and
conclusive:
"I'll go down to-night," he explained in a low voice, "when the
servants are in bed. I'll take the weights off."
Judy and Tim appreciated the seriousness of the occasion more than ever.
"Into Mrs. Horton's kitchen?" they whispered.
"Into Mrs. Horton's kitchen," he agreed, beneath his breath.
Maria, meanwhile, said nothing. Her eyes kept open very wide, but no
audible remark got past her lips. She paid no attention to the singing
nor to the whispered conversation; she ate an enormous tea, finishing
up all the cakes that the others neglected in their excitement and
preoccupation; but she appeared as calm and unconcerned as the tea-cosy
that concealed the heated, stimulating teapot beneath it. She looked
more circular and globular than ever. Even the knowledge that this was
the eve of her own particular adventure did not rouse her. Her
expression seemed to say, "I never _have_ believed in Time; at the
centre where _I_ live, clocks and calendars are not recognised"; and
later, when Judy blew the candle out and asked as usual, "Are you all
right, Maria?" her reply came floating across the darkened room without
the smallest alteration in tone or accent: "I'm alright." The stopped
alarum-clock was underneath her pillow; Uncle Felix had tucked them up,
each in turn; everything was all right. She fell asleep, the others
fell asleep, Time also fell asleep.
And above the Old Mill House that warm June night the darkness kept the
secret faithfully, yet offered little signs and hints to those who did
not sleep too heavily. The feeling that something or somebody was
coming hung in the very air; there was a gentle haze beneath the stars;
and a breeze that passed softly through the lime trees dropped
semi-articulate warnings. There were curious, faint echoes flying
between the walls and the Wood without a Centre; the daisies heard them
and opened half an eyelid; the Night-Wind whispered and sighed as it
bore them to and fro. Maria's question entered the dream of the entire
garden: "Why not? Why not? Why not?"
An owl in the barn beyond the stables heard the call and took it up,
and told it to some swallows fast asleep below the eaves, who woke with
sudden chattering and mentioned it to a robin in the laurel shrubberies
below. The robin pretended not to be at all surprised, but felt it a
duty to inform a coot who lived a quarter of a mile away among the
reeds of the lower pond. When it returned from its five-minute flight,
the swallows had gone to sleep again, and only the owl went on hooting
softly through the summer darkness. "It really needn't go on so long
about it," thought the robin, then fell asleep again with its head
between exactly the same feathers as before. But the news had been
distributed; the garden was aware; the birds, as natural guardians of
the dawn, had delivered the message as their duty was. "Why not? Why
not?" hummed all night long through the dreams of the Mill House
garden. Weeden turned in his sleep and sighed with happiness.
Nothing could now prevent it; a day was coming at last, an extra,
unused, unrecorded day. The immemorial expectancy of childhood, the
universal anticipation, the promise that something or somebody was
coming--all this would be fulfilled. This promise is really but the
prelude to creation. God felt it before the world appeared. And
children have stolen it from heaven. Conceived of wonder, born of hope,
and realised by belief, it is the prerogative of all properly-beating
hearts. Everything living feels it, and--everything lives. The Postman;
the Figure coming down the road; the Visitor on the pathway; the Knock
upon the door; even the Stranger in the teacup--all are embodiments of
this exquisite scrap of heaven, divine expectancy. It may be Christmas,
it may be only To-morrow, but equally it may be the End of the World.
Something is coming--into the heart--something satisfying. It is the
eternal beginning. It is the--dawn.
Long after the children had retired to bed Uncle Felix sat up alone in
the big house thinking. He made himself cosy in the library, meaning to
finish a chapter of the historical novel he had sadly neglected these
past days, and he set himself to the work with a will. But, try as he
would, the story would not run; he fixed his mind upon the scene in
vain; he concentrated hard, visualised the place and characters as his
habit was, reconstructed the incidents and conversation exactly as
though he had seen them happen and remembered them--but the imagination
that should have given them life failed to operate. It became a mere
effort of invention. The characters would not talk of their own accord;
the incidents did not flow in a stream as when he worked successfully;
life was not in them. He began again, wrote and rewrote, but failed to
seize the atmosphere of reality that alone could make them interesting.
Interest--he suddenly realised it--had vanished. He felt no interest in
the stupid chapter. He tore it up--and knew it was the right thing to
do, because he heard the characters laughing.
"I'm not in the mood," he reflected. "It's artificial. William Smith of
Peckham would skip this chapter. There's something bigger in me. I
wonder...!"
He lit his pipe and sat by the open window, watching the stars and
sniffing the scented summer night. He let his thoughts go wandering as
they would, and the moment he relaxed attention a sense of pleasant
relief stole over him. He discovered how great the effort had been. He
also discovered the reason. It offered itself in a flash to his mind
that was no longer blocked by the effort and therefore unreceptive.
"A man can't live adventure and write it too," he, realised sharply.
"He writes what he would like to live. I'm living adventure. The desire
to live it vicariously by writing it has left me. Of course!"
It was a sweet and rich discovery--that the adventures of the last ten
days had been so real and meant so much to him. No man of action,
leading a deep, full life of actual experience, felt the need of
scribbling, painting, fiddling. "Glorious, by Jove!" he exclaimed
between great puffs of smoke. "I've struck a fact!" He had been so
busily creating these last days that he had lost the yearning to
describe merely what others did. The children had caught him body and
soul in their eternal world of wonder and belief. Judy and Tim had
taught him this.
Yet, somehow, it was the inactive, calm Maria who loomed up in his
thoughts as the principal enchantress. Maria's apparent inactivity was
a blind; she did not do very much in the sense of rushing
helter-skelter after desirable things, but she obtained them
nevertheless. She got in their way so that they ran into her--then she
claimed them. She knew beforehand, as it were, the way they would take.
She was always there when anything worth happening was about. And
though she spoke so little--during a general conversation, for
instance--she said so much. At the end of all the talk, it was always
Maria who had said the important thing. Her "why" and "why not" that
very afternoon were all that he remembered of the intricate and long
discussion. It left the odd impression on his mind that talk, all the
world over, said one thing only; that the millions of talkers on the
teeming earth, eagerly chattering in many languages, said one and the
same thing only. There _was_ only one thing to be said.
That is--they were all trying to say it. Maria _had_ said it....
A whirring moth flew busily past the open window and vanished into the
night. He thought of his own books; for writers, painters, preachers,
musicians, these were trying to say it too. "If I could describe that
moth exactly," he murmured to himself, "give the sensation of its
flight, its unconscious attraction to the light, its plunge back into
the darkness, its precise purpose in the universe, its marvellous aim
and balance--its life, I could--er--"
The thought broke off with a jagged end. With a leap then it went on
again:
"Touch reality," and he heard his own voice saying it. He had uttered
it aloud. The sound had an odd effect upon him. He realised the
uselessness of words. No words touched reality. To be known, reality
had to be lived, experienced. Maria managed this in some extraordinary
way. She had reality.... Time did not humbug her. Nor did space....
Goodness!
The moth whirred into the room, softly banging itself against the
ceiling, and through the smoke from his pipe he saw that a dozen more
were doing the same thing with tireless energy. They felt or saw the
light; all obeyed the one driving desire to get closer into it. He saw
millions and millions of people, the whole world over, rushing about on
two legs and behaving similarly. How they did run about and fuss, to be
sure! What was it all about? What were they after? People had to earn
their living, of course, but it seemed more than that, for all were
after something, and the faster they went the better pleased they were.
Apparently they thought speed was of chief importance--as though speed
killed Time. They banged themselves into obstacles everywhere; they
screamed and disagreed, and accused each other of lying and being
blind, but the thing they were after either hid itself remarkably well,
or went at incredible speed, for no one ever came up with it or found
it. Time invariably blocked them. Only one or two--Maria sort of
people--sat still and waited....
He watched them all and wondered. One rushed up to an office in a
train, while another built the train he rushed in; one wore black and
preached a sermon, another wore blue and guarded a street, a third wore
red and killed, a fourth wore very little and danced; all in the end
were nothing and--disappeared. Some lived in a room and read hundreds
of books; another wrote them; one spent his days examining the stars
through a telescope, another hurried off to find the Poles; hundreds
were digging into the ground, ferreting in the air or under the water.
A large number fed animals, then killed and cooked them when they had
been fed enough. Hens laid eggs and eggs produced hens that laid more
eggs. There were always thousands hurrying along the roads, then coming
back again. The millions of living beings were everywhere extremely
busy after something, yet hardly any two of them agreed exactly what it
was they sought. There were sects, societies, religions by the score,
each one cocksure it knew and had found Reality, yet proving by the
continuous busy searching that it had not found it. Yet all, oddly
enough, fitted in together fairly well, as in a gigantic Dance, though
obviously none knew exactly what the tune was, nor who played it. Would
they never know? Would all die before they found it? Were they all
after the same thing, or after a lot of different things? And why, in
the name of goodness, couldn't they all agree about it? Wasn't it,
perhaps, that they looked in different ways--all for the same thing?
Surely the world had existed long enough for _that_ to be settled
finally--Reality! Time prevented always....
A moth fell with a soft and disconcerting plop upon the top of his
head, cannonaded thence against the window-sill, and shot out into the
night again. He came back with a start to _his_ reality: that he had
promised the children an Extra Day, that for twenty-four hours, in
spite of the paradox, Time should cease its driving hurry--and that,
for the moment at any rate, he was very sleepy and must go upstairs to
bed.
He rose, shook himself free of the curious reverie with a mighty yawn,
and looked at the gold watch from his waistcoat pocket. Out came a
number of other timepieces with it! And it was then that the
personality of Maria entered the room, and stood beside him, and said
distinctly, "This is _my_ particular adventure, please remember."
And he understood that whatever happened, it would happen according to
the gospel of Maria. Getting behind Time meant getting a little nearer
to Reality, one stage nearer at any rate. It meant entering the region
where she dwelt so serenely. It was her doing, and not his. He realised
in a flash that in her quiet way she was responsible and had drawn them
in, seduced them. All gravitated to her and into her mysterious circle.
Maria claimed them. It was certainly her particular adventure. Only she
would share it with them all.