It was on an evening towards the end of June, 1914, that Flight
Commander Raffleton, temporarily attached to the French Squadron then
harboured at Brest, received instructions by wireless to return at once
to the British Air Service Headquarters at Farnborough, in Hampshire.
The night, thanks to a glorious full moon, would afford all the light
he required, and young Raffleton determined to set out at once. He
appears to have left the flying ground just outside the arsenal at
Brest about nine o'clock. A little beyond Huelgoat he began to
experience trouble with the carburettor. His idea at first was to push
on to Lannion, where he would be able to secure expert assistance; but
matters only getting worse, and noticing beneath him a convenient
stretch of level ground, he decided to descend and attend to it
himself. He alighted without difficulty and proceeded to investigate.
The job took him, unaided, longer than he had anticipated. It was a
warm, close night, with hardly a breath of wind, and when he had
finished he was feeling hot and tired. He had drawn on his helmet and
was on the point of stepping into his seat, when the beauty of the
night suggested to him that it would be pleasant, before starting off
again, to stretch his legs and cool himself a little. He lit a cigar
and looked round about him.
The plateau on which he had alighted was a table-land standing high
above the surrounding country. It stretched around him, treeless,
houseless. There was nothing to break the lines of the horizon but a
group of gaunt grey stones, the remains, so he told himself, of some
ancient menhir, common enough to the lonely desert lands of Brittany.
In general the stones lie overthrown and scattered, but this particular
specimen had by some strange chance remained undisturbed through all
the centuries. Mildly interested, Flight Commander Raffleton strolled
leisurely towards it. The moon was at its zenith. How still the quiet
night must have been was impressed upon him by the fact that he
distinctly heard, and counted, the strokes of a church clock which must
have been at least six miles away. He remembers looking at his watch
and noting that there was a slight difference between his own and the
church time. He made it eight minutes past twelve. With the dying
away of the last vibrations of the distant bell the silence and the
solitude of the place seemed to return and settle down upon it with
increased insistence. While he was working it had not troubled him,
but beside the black shadows thrown by those hoary stones it had the
effect almost of a presence. It was with a sense of relief that he
contemplated returning to his machine and starting up his engine. It
would whir and buzz and give back to him a comfortable feeling of life
and security. He would walk round the stones just once and then be
off. It was wonderful how they had defied old Time. As they had been
placed there, quite possibly ten thousand years ago, so they still
stood, the altar of that vast, empty sky-roofed temple. And while he
was gazing at them, his cigar between his lips, struggling with a
strange forgotten impulse that was tugging at his knees, there came
from the very heart of the great grey stones the measured rise and fall
of a soft, even breathing.
Young Raffleton frankly confesses that his first impulse was to cut and
run. Only his soldier's training kept his feet firm on the heather.
Of course, the explanation was simple. Some animal had made the place
its nest. But then what animal was ever known to sleep so soundly as
not to be disturbed by human footsteps? If wounded, and so unable to
escape, it would not be breathing with that quiet, soft regularity,
contrasting so strangely with the stillness and the silence all round.
Possibly an owl's nest. Young owlets make that sort of noise--the
"snorers," so country people call them. Young Raffleton threw away his
cigar and went down upon his knees to grope among the shadows, and,
doing so, he touched something warm and soft and yielding.
But it wasn't an owl. He must have touched her very lightly, for even
then she did not wake. She lay there with her head upon her arm. And
now close to her, his eyes growing used to the shadows, he saw her
quite plainly, the wonder of the parted lips, the gleam of the white
limbs beneath their flimsy covering.
Of course, what he ought to have done was to have risen gently and
moved away. Then he could have coughed. And if that did not wake her
he might have touched her lightly, say, on the shoulder, and have
called to her, first softly, then a little louder, "Mademoiselle," or
"Mon enfant." Even better, he might have stolen away on tiptoe and
left her there sleeping.
This idea does not seem to have occurred to him. One makes the excuse
for him that he was but three-and-twenty, that, framed in the purple
moonlight, she seemed to him the most beautiful creature his eyes had
ever seen. And then there was the brooding mystery of it all, that
atmosphere of far-off primeval times from which the roots of life still
draw their sap. One takes it he forgot that he was Flight Commander
Raffleton, officer and gentleman; forgot the proper etiquette applying
to the case of ladies found sleeping upon lonely moors without a
chaperon. Greater still, the possibility that he never thought of
anything at all, but, just impelled by a power beyond himself, bent
down and kissed her.
Not a platonic kiss upon the brow, not a brotherly kiss upon the cheek,
but a kiss full upon the parted lips, a kiss of worship and amazement,
such as that with which Adam in all probability awakened Eve.
Her eyes opened, and, just a little sleepily, she looked at him. There
could have been no doubt in her mind as to what had happened. His lips
were still pressing hers. But she did not seem in the least surprised,
and most certainly not angry. Raising herself to a sitting posture,
she smiled and held out her hand that he might help her up. And, alone
in that vast temple, star-roofed and moon-illumined, beside that grim
grey altar of forgotten rites, hand in hand they stood and looked at
one another.
"I beg your pardon," said Commander Raffleton. "I'm afraid I have
disturbed you."
He remembered afterwards that in his confusion he had spoken to her in
English. But she answered him in French, a quaint, old-fashioned
French such as one rarely finds but in the pages of old missals. He
would have had some difficulty in translating it literally, but the
meaning of it was, adapted to our modern idiom:
"Don't mention it. I'm so glad you've come."
He gathered she had been expecting him. He was not quite sure whether
he ought not to apologise for being apparently a little late. True, he
had no recollection of any such appointment. But then at that
particular moment Commander Raffleton may be said to have had no
consciousness of anything beyond just himself and the wondrous other
beside him. Somewhere outside was moonlight and a world; but all that
seemed unimportant. It was she who broke the silence.
"How did you get here?" she asked.
He did not mean to be enigmatical. He was chiefly concerned with still
gazing at her.
"I flew here," he answered. Her eyes opened wider at that, but with
interest, not doubt.
"Where are your wings?" she asked. She was leaning sideways, trying to
get a view of his back.
He laughed. It made her seem more human, that curiosity about his back.
"Over there," he answered. She looked, and for the first time saw the
great shimmering sails gleaming like silver under the moonlight.
She moved towards it, and he followed, noticing without surprise that
the heather seemed to make no sign of yielding to the pressure of her
white feet.
She halted a little away from it, and he came and stood beside her.
Even to Commander Raffleton himself it looked as if the great wings
were quivering, like the outstretched pinions of a bird preening itself
before flight.
"Is it alive?" she asked.
"Not till I whisper to it," he answered. He was losing a little of his
fear of her. She turned to him.
"Shall we go?" she asked.
He stared at her. She was quite serious, that was evident. She was to
put her hand in his and go away with him. It was all settled. That is
why he had come. To her it did not matter where. That was his affair.
But where he went she was to go. That was quite clearly the programme
in her mind.
To his credit, let it be recorded, he did make an effort. Against all
the forces of nature, against his twenty-three years and the red blood
pulsing in his veins, against the fumes of the midsummer moonlight
encompassing him and the voices of the stars, against the demons of
poetry and romance and mystery chanting their witches' music in his
ears, against the marvel and the glory of her as she stood beside him,
clothed in the purple of the night, Flight Commander Raffleton fought
the good fight for common sense.
Young persons who, scantily clad, go to sleep on the heather, five
miles from the nearest human habitation, are to be avoided by
well-brought-up young officers of His Majesty's Aerial Service. The
incidence of their being uncannily beautiful and alluring should serve
as an additional note of warning. The girl had had a row with her
mother and wanted to get away. It was this infernal moonlight that was
chiefly responsible. No wonder dogs bayed at it. He almost fancied he
could hear one now. Nice, respectable, wholesome-minded things, dogs.
No damned sentiment about them. What if he had kissed her! One is not
bound for life to every woman one kisses. Not the first time she had
been kissed, unless all the young men in Brittany were blind or white
blooded. All this pretended innocence and simplicity! It was just put
on. If not, she must be a lunatic. The proper thing to do was to say
good-bye with a laugh and a jest, start up his machine and be off to
England--dear old practical, merry England, where he could get
breakfast and a bath.
It wasn't a fair fight; one feels it. Poor little prim Common Sense,
with her defiant, turned-up nose and her shrill giggle and her innate
vulgarity. And against her the stillness of the night, and the music
of the ages, and the beating of his heart.
So it all fell down about his feet, a little crumbled dust that a
passing breath of wind seemed to scatter, leaving him helpless,
spellbound by the magic of her eyes.
"Who are you?" he asked her.
"Malvina," she answered him. "I am a fairy."