TWELFTH-NIGHT had come and gone, and life next morning seemed a trifle
flat and purposeless. But yester-eve, and the mummers were here! They
had come striding into the old kitchen, powdering the red brick floor
with snow from their barbaric bedizenments; and stamping, and crossing,
and declaiming, till all was whirl and riot and shout. Harold was
frankly afraid: unabashed, he buried himself in the cook’s ample bosom.
Edward feigned a manly superiority to illusion, and greeted these awful
apparitions familiarly, as Dick and Harry and Joe. As for me, I was
too big to run, too rapt to resist the magic and surprise. Whence came
these outlanders, breaking in on us with song and ordered masque and
a terrible clashing of wooden swords? And after these, what strange
visitants might we not look for any quiet night, when the chestnuts
popped in the ashes, and the old ghost stories drew the awe-stricken
circle close? Old Merlin, perhaps, ‘all furred in black sheep-skins,
and a russet gown, with a bow and arrows, and bearing wild geese in his
hand!’ Or stately Ogier the Dane, recalled from Faëry, asking his way
to the land that once had need of him! Or even, on some white night,
the Snow-Queen herself, with a chime of sleigh-bells and the patter
of reindeer’s feet, halting of a sudden at the door flung wide, while
aloft the Northern Lights went shaking attendant spears among the quiet
stars!
This morning, house-bound by the relentless indefatigable snow, I
was feeling the reaction. Edward, on the contrary, being violently
stage-struck on this his first introduction to the real Drama, was
striding up and down the floor, proclaiming ‘Here be I, King Gearge
the Third,’ in a strong Berkshire accent. Harold, accustomed, as the
youngest, to lonely antics and to sports that asked no sympathy, was
absorbed in ‘clubmen’: a performance consisting in a measured progress
round the room arm-in-arm with an imaginary companion of reverend
years, with occasional halts at imaginary clubs, where—imaginary
steps being leisurely ascended—imaginary papers were glanced at,
imaginary scandal was discussed with elderly shakings of the head,
and—regrettable to say—imaginary glasses were lifted lipwards. Heaven
only knows how the germ of this dreary pastime first found way
into his small-boyish being. It was his own invention, and he was
proportionately proud of it. Meanwhile Charlotte and I, crouched in
the window-seat, watched, spell-stricken, the whirl and eddy and drive
of the innumerable snow-flakes, wrapping our cheery little world in an
uncanny uniform, ghastly in line and hue.
Charlotte was sadly out of spirits. Having ‘countered’ Miss Smedley at
breakfast, during some argument or other, by an apt quotation from her
favourite classic (the _Fairy Book_), she had been gently but firmly
informed that no such things as fairies ever really existed. ‘Do you
mean to say it’s all lies?’ asked Charlotte bluntly. Miss Smedley
deprecated the use of any such unladylike words in any connexion at
all. ‘These stories had their origin, my dear,’ she explained, ‘in a
mistaken anthropomorphism in the interpretation of nature. But though
we are now too well informed to fall into similar errors, there are
still many beautiful lessons to be learned from these myths——’
[Illustration: “MEANWHILE CHARLOTTE AND I CROUCHED IN THE
WINDOW-SEAT....”]
‘But how can you learn anything,’ persisted Charlotte, ‘from what
doesn’t exist?’ And she left the table defiant, howbeit depressed.
‘Don’t you mind _her_,’ I said consolingly; ‘how can she know anything
about it? Why, she can’t even throw a stone properly!’
‘Edward says they’re all rot, too,’ replied Charlotte doubtfully.
‘Edward says everything’s rot,’ I explained, ‘now he thinks he’s going
into the Army. If a thing’s in a book it _must_ be true, so that
settles it!’
Charlotte looked almost reassured. The room was quieter now, for
Edward had got the dragon down and was boring holes in him with a
purring sound; Harold was ascending the steps of the Athenæum with
a jaunty air—suggestive rather of the Junior Carlton. Outside, the
tall elm-tops were hardly to be seen through the feathery storm. ‘The
sky’s a-falling,’ quoted Charlotte softly; ‘I must go and tell the
king.’ The quotation suggested a fairy story, and I offered to read to
her, reaching out for the book. But the Wee Folk were under a cloud;
sceptical hints had embittered the chalice. So I was fain to fetch
_Arthur_—second favourite with Charlotte for his dames riding errant,
and an easy first with us boys for his spear-splintering crash of
tourney and hurtle against hopeless odds. Here again, however, I proved
unfortunate; what ill-luck made the book open at the sorrowful history
of Balin and Balan? ‘And he vanished anon,’ I read: ‘and so he heard
an horne blow, as it had been the death of a beast. “That blast,” said
Balin, “is blowen for me, for I am the prize, and yet am I not dead.”’
Charlotte began to cry: she knew the rest too well. I shut the book in
despair. Harold emerged from behind the arm-chair. He was sucking his
thumb (a thing which members of the Reform are seldom seen to do),
and he stared wide-eyed at his tear-stained sister. Edward put off his
histrionics, and rushed up to her as the consoler—a new part for him.
‘I know a jolly story,’ he began. ‘Aunt Eliza told it me. It was when
she was somewhere over in that beastly abroad’—(he had once spent a
black month of misery at Dinan)—‘and there was a fellow there who had
got two storks. And one stork died—it was the she-stork.’—(‘What did
it die of?’ put in Harold.)—‘And the other stork was quite sorry, and
moped, and went on, and got very miserable. So they looked about and
found a duck, and introduced it to the stork. The duck was a drake,
but the stork didn’t mind, and they loved each other and were as jolly
as could be. By and by another duck came along—a real she-duck this
time—and when the drake saw her he fell in love, and left the stork,
and went and proposed to the duck: for she was very beautiful. But the
poor stork who was left, he said nothing at all to anybody, but just
pined and pined and pined away, till one morning he was found quite
dead! But the ducks lived happily ever afterwards!’
This was Edward’s idea of a jolly story! Down again went the corners
of poor Charlotte’s mouth. Really Edward’s stupid inability to see the
real point in anything was _too_ annoying! It was always so. Years
before, it being necessary to prepare his youthful mind for a domestic
event that might lead to awkward questionings at a time when there
was little leisure to invent appropriate answers, it was delicately
inquired of him whether he would like to have a little brother, or
perhaps a little sister? He considered the matter carefully in all its
bearings, and finally declared for a Newfoundland pup. Any boy more
‘gleg at the uptak’ would have met his parents half-way, and eased
their burden. As it was, the matter had to be approached all over
again from a fresh standpoint. And now, while Charlotte turned away
sniffingly, with a hiccup that told of an overwrought soul, Edward,
unconscious (like Sir Isaac’s Diamond) of the mischief he had done,
wheeled round on Harold with a shout.
‘I want a live dragon,’ he announced: ‘You’ve got to be my dragon!’
‘Leave me go, will you?’ squealed Harold, struggling stoutly. ‘I’m
playin’ at something else. How can I be a dragon and belong to all the
clubs?’
‘But wouldn’t you like to be a nice scaly dragon, all green,’ said
Edward, trying persuasion, ‘with a curly tail and red eyes, and
breathing real smoke and fire?’
Harold wavered an instant: Pall-Mall was still strong in him. The next
he was grovelling on the floor. No saurian ever swung a tail so scaly
and so curly as his. Clubland was a thousand years away. With horrific
pants he emitted smokiest smoke and fiercest fire.
‘Now I want a Princess,’ cried Edward, clutching Charlotte
ecstatically; ‘and _you_ can be the Doctor, and heal me from the
dragon’s deadly wound.’
Of all professions I held the sacred art of healing in worst horror
and contempt. Cataclysmal memories of purge and draught crowded thick
on me, and with Charlotte—who courted no barren honours—I made a
break for the door. Edward did likewise, and the hostile forces
clashed together on the mat, and for a brief space things were mixed
and chaotic and Arthurian. The silvery sound of the luncheon-bell
restored an instant peace, even in the teeth of clenched antagonisms
like ours. The Holy Grail itself, ‘sliding athwart a sunbeam,’ never
so effectually stilled a riot of warring passions into sweet and quiet
accord.
[Illustration]