A FAIRY-DUET.
The year—what an eventful year it had been for me!—was drawing to a
close, and the brief wintry day hardly gave light enough to recognise
the old familiar objects, bound up with so many happy memories, as the
train glided round the last bend into the station, and the hoarse cry of
“Elveston! Elveston!” resounded along the platform.
It was sad to return to the place, and to feel that I should never again
see the glad smile of welcome, that had awaited me here so few months
ago. “And yet, if I were to find him here,” I muttered, as in solitary
state I followed the porter, who was wheeling my luggage on a barrow,
“and if he _were_ to ‘_strike a sudden hand in mine, And ask a thousand
things of home_,’ I should not—no, ‘_I should not feel it to be
strange_’!”
Having given directions to have my luggage taken to my old lodgings, I
strolled off alone, to pay a visit, before settling down in my own
quarters, to my dear old friends—for such I indeed felt them to be,
though it was barely half a year since first we met—the Earl and his
widowed daughter.
The shortest way, as I well remembered, was to cross through the
churchyard. I pushed open the little wicket-gate and slowly took my way
among the solemn memorials of the quiet dead, thinking of the many who
had, during the past year, disappeared from the place, and had gone to
‘join the majority.’ A very few steps brought me in sight of the object
of my search. Lady Muriel, dressed in the deepest mourning, her face
hidden by a long crape veil, was kneeling before a little marble cross,
round which she was fastening a wreath of flowers.
The cross stood on a piece of level turf, unbroken by any mound, and I
knew that it was simply a memorial-cross, for one whose dust reposed
elsewhere, even before reading the simple inscription:—
_In loving Memory of_
ARTHUR FORESTER, M.D.
_whose mortal remains lie buried by the sea:
whose spirit has returned to God who gave it_.
_“Greater love hath no man than this, that
a man lay down his life for his friends.”_
She threw back her veil on seeing me approach, and came forwards to meet
me, with a quiet smile, and far more self-possessed than I could have
expected.
“It is quite like old times, seeing _you_ here again!” she said, in
tones of genuine pleasure. “Have you been to see my father?”
“No,” I said: “I was on my way there, and came through here as the
shortest way. I hope he is well, and you also?”
“Thanks, we are both quite well. And you? Are you any better yet?”
“Not much better, I fear: but no worse, I am thankful to say.”
“Let us sit here awhile, and have a quiet chat,” she said. The
calmness—almost indifference—of her manner quite took me by surprise. I
little guessed what a fierce restraint she was putting upon herself.
“One can be so quiet here,” she resumed. “I come here every—every day.”
“It is very peaceful,” I said.
“You got my letter?”
“Yes, but I delayed writing. It is so hard to say—on _paper_—”
“I know. It was kind of you. You were with us when we saw the last of——”
She paused a moment, and went on more hurriedly. “I went down to the
harbour several times, but no one knows which of those vast graves it
is. However, they showed me the house he died in: that was some comfort.
I stood in the very room where—where——.” She struggled in vain to go on.
The flood-gates had given way at last, and the outburst of grief was the
most terrible I had ever witnessed. Totally regardless of my presence,
she flung herself down on the turf, burying her face in the grass, and
with her hands clasped round the little marble cross, “Oh, my darling,
my darling!” she sobbed. “And God meant your life to be so beautiful!”
[Illustration: IN THE CHURCH-YARD]
I was startled to hear, thus repeated by Lady Muriel, the very words of
the darling child whom I had seen weeping so bitterly over the dead
hare. Had some mysterious influence passed, from that sweet
fairy-spirit, ere she went back to Fairyland, into the human spirit that
loved her so dearly? The idea seemed too wild for belief. And yet, are
there not ‘_more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our
philosophy_’?
“God _meant_ it to be beautiful,” I whispered, “and surely it _was_
beautiful? God’s purpose never fails!” I dared say no more, but rose and
left her. At the entrance-gate to the Earl’s house I waited, leaning on
the gate and watching the sun set, revolving many memories—some happy,
some sorrowful—until Lady Muriel joined me.
She was quite calm again now. “Do come in,” she said. “My father will be
so pleased to see you!”
The old man rose from his chair, with a smile, to welcome me; but his
self-command was far less than his daughter’s, and the tears coursed
down his face as he grasped both my hands in his, and pressed them
warmly.
My heart was too full to speak; and we all sat silent for a minute or
two. Then Lady Muriel rang the bell for tea. “You _do_ take five o’clock
tea, I know!” she said to me, with the sweet playfulness of manner I
remembered so well, “even though you _ca’n’t_ work your wicked will on
the Law of Gravity, and make the teacups descend into Infinite Space, a
little faster than the tea!”
This remark gave the tone to our conversation. By a tacit mutual
consent, we avoided, during this our first meeting after her great
sorrow, the painful topics that filled our thoughts, and talked like
light-hearted children who had never known a care.
“Did you ever ask yourself the question,” Lady Muriel began, _à propos_
of nothing, “what is the _chief_ advantage of being a Man instead of a
Dog?”
“No, indeed,” I said: “but I think there are advantages on the _Dog’s_
side of the question, as well.”
“No doubt,” she replied, with that pretty mock-gravity that became her
so well: “but, on _Man’s_ side, the chief advantage seems to me to
consist in _having pockets_! It was borne in upon me—upon _us_, I should
say; for my father and I were returning from a walk—only yesterday. We
met a dog carrying home a bone. What it wanted it for, I’ve no idea:
certainly there was no _meat_ on it——”
A strange sensation came over me, that I had heard all this, or
something exactly like it, before: and I almost expected her next words
to be “perhaps he meant to make a cloak for the winter?” However what
she really said was “and my father tried to account for it by some
wretched joke about _pro bono publico_. Well, the dog laid down the
bone—_not_ in disgust with the pun, which would have shown it to be a
dog of taste—but simply to rest its jaws, poor thing! I _did_ pity it
so! Won’t you join my _Charitable Association for supplying dogs with
pockets_? How would _you_ like to have to carry your walking-stick in
your mouth?”
Ignoring the difficult question as to the _raison d’être_ of a
walking-stick, supposing one had no _hands_, I mentioned a curious
instance, I had once witnessed, of reasoning by a dog. A gentleman, with
a lady, and child, and a large dog, were down at the end of a pier on
which I was walking. To amuse his child, I suppose, the gentleman put
down on the ground his umbrella and the lady’s parasol, and then led the
way to the other end of the pier, from which he sent the dog back for
the deserted articles. I was watching with some curiosity. The dog came
racing back to where I stood, but found an unexpected difficulty in
picking up the things it had come for. With the umbrella in its mouth,
its jaws were so far apart that it could get no firm grip on the
parasol. After two or three failures, it paused and considered the
matter.
Then it put down the umbrella and began with the parasol. Of course that
didn’t open its jaws nearly so wide, and it was able to get a good hold
of the umbrella, and galloped off in triumph. One couldn’t doubt that it
had gone through a real train of logical thought.
“I entirely agree with you,” said Lady Muriel: “but don’t orthodox
writers condemn that view, as putting Man on the level of the lower
animals? Don’t they draw a sharp boundary-line between Reason and
Instinct?”
“That certainly _was_ the orthodox view, a generation ago,” said the
Earl. “The truth of Religion seemed ready to stand or fall with the
assertion that Man was the only reasoning animal. But that is at an end
now. Man can still claim _certain_ monopolies—for instance, such a use
of _language_ as enables us to utilise the work of many, by ‘division of
labour.’ But the belief, that we have a monopoly of _Reason_, has long
been swept away. Yet no catastrophe has followed. As some old poet says,
‘_God is where he was_.’”
“Most religious believers would _now_ agree with Bishop Butler,” said I,
“and not reject a line of argument, even if it led straight to the
conclusion that animals have some kind of _soul_, which survives their
bodily death.”
“I _would_ like to know _that_ to be true!” Lady Muriel exclaimed. “If
only for the sake of the poor horses. Sometimes I’ve thought that, if
anything _could_ make me cease to believe in a God of perfect justice,
it would be the sufferings of horses—without guilt to deserve it, and
without any compensation!”
“It is only part of the great Riddle,” said the Earl, “why innocent
beings _ever_ suffer. It _is_ a great strain on Faith—but not a
_breaking_ strain, I think.”
“The sufferings of _horses_,” I said, “are chiefly caused by _Man’s_
cruelty. So _that_ is merely one of the many instances of Sin causing
suffering to others than the Sinner himself. But don’t you find a
_greater_ difficulty in sufferings inflicted by animals upon each other?
For instance, a cat playing with a mouse. Assuming it to have no _moral_
responsibility, isn’t that a greater mystery than a man over-driving a
horse?”
“I think it _is_,” said Lady Muriel, looking a mute appeal to her
father.
“What right have we to make that assumption?” said the Earl. “_Many_ of
our religious difficulties are merely deductions from unwarranted
assumptions. The wisest answer to most of them, is, I think, ‘_behold,
we know not anything_.’”
“You mentioned ‘division of labour,’ just now,” I said. “Surely it is
carried to a wonderful perfection in a hive of bees?”
“So wonderful—so entirely super-human—” said the Earl, “and so entirely
inconsistent with the intelligence they show in other ways—that I feel
no doubt at all that it is _pure_ Instinct, and _not_, as some hold, a
very high order of Reason. Look at the utter stupidity of a bee, trying
to find its way out of an open window! It _doesn’t_ try, in any
reasonable sense of the word: it simply bangs itself about! We should
call a puppy _imbecile_, that behaved so. And yet we are asked to
believe that its intellectual level is above Sir Isaac Newton!”
“Then you hold that _pure_ Instinct contains no _Reason_ at all?”
“On the contrary,” said the Earl, “I hold that the work of a bee-hive
involves Reason of the _highest_ order. But none of it is done by the
_Bee_. _God_ has reasoned it all out, and has put into the mind of the
Bee the _conclusions_, only, of the reasoning process.”
“But how do their minds come to work _together_?” I asked.
“What right have we to assume that they _have_ minds?”
“Special pleading, special pleading!” Lady Muriel cried, in a most
unfilial tone of triumph. “Why, you yourself said, just now, ‘the mind
of the Bee’!”
“But I did _not_ say ‘_minds_,’ my child,” the Earl gently replied. “It
has occurred to me, as the most probable solution of the ‘Bee’-mystery,
that a swarm of Bees _have only one mind among them_. We often see one
mind animating a most complex collection of limbs and organs, _when
joined together_. How do we know that any material connection is
necessary? May not mere neighbourhood be enough? If so, a swarm of bees
is simply a single animal whose many limbs are not quite close
together!”
“It is a bewildering thought,” I said, “and needs a night’s rest to
grasp it properly. Reason and Instinct _both_ tell me I ought to go
home. So, good-night!”
“I’ll ‘set’ you part of the way,” said Lady Muriel. “I’ve had no walk
to-day. It will do me good, and I have more to say to you. Shall we go
through the wood? It will be pleasanter than over the common, even
though it _is_ getting a little dark.”
We turned aside into the shade of interlacing boughs, which formed an
architecture of almost perfect symmetry, grouped into lovely groined
arches, or running out, far as the eye could follow, into endless
aisles, and chancels, and naves, like some ghostly cathedral, fashioned
out of the dream of a moon-struck poet.
“Always, in this wood,” she began after a pause (silence seemed natural
in this dim solitude), “I begin thinking of Fairies! May I ask you a
question?” she added hesitatingly. “Do you believe in Fairies?”
The momentary impulse was so strong to tell her of my experiences in
this very wood, that I had to make a real effort to keep back the words
that rushed to my lips. “If you mean, by ‘believe,’ ‘believe in their
_possible_ existence,’ I say ‘Yes.’ For their _actual_ existence, of
course, one would need _evidence_.”
“You were saying, the other day,” she went on, “that you would accept
_anything_, on good evidence, that was not _à priori_ impossible. And I
think you named _Ghosts_ as an instance of a _provable_ phenomenon.
Would _Fairies_ be another instance?”
“Yes, I think so.” And again it was hard to check the wish to say more:
but I was not yet sure of a sympathetic listener.
“And have you any theory as to what sort of place they would occupy in
Creation? Do tell me what you think about them! Would they, for instance
(supposing such beings to exist), would they have any moral
responsibility? I mean” (and the light bantering tone suddenly changed
to one of deep seriousness) “would they be capable of _sin_?”
“They can reason—on a lower level, perhaps, than men and women—never
rising, I think, above the faculties of a child; and they have a moral
sense, most surely. Such a being, without _free will_, would be an
absurdity. So I am driven to the conclusion that they _are_ capable of
sin.”
“You believe in them?” she cried delightedly, with a sudden motion as if
about to clap her hands. “Now tell me, have you any reason for it?”
And still I strove to keep back the revelation I felt sure was coming.
“I believe that there is _life_ everywhere—not _material_ only, not
merely what is palpable to our senses—but immaterial and invisible as
well. We believe in our own immaterial essence—call it ‘soul,’ or
‘spirit,’ or what you will. Why should not other similar essences exist
around us, _not_ linked on to a visible and _material_ body? Did not God
make this swarm of happy insects, to dance in this sunbeam for one hour
of bliss, for no other object, that we can imagine, than to swell the
sum of conscious happiness? And where shall we dare to draw the line,
and say ‘He has made all these and no more’?”
“Yes, yes!” she assented, watching me with sparkling eyes. “But these
are only reasons for not _denying_. You have more reasons than this,
have you not?”
“Well, yes,” I said, feeling I might safely tell all now. “And I could
not find a fitter time or place to say it. I have _seen_ them—and in
this very wood!”
Lady Muriel asked no more questions. Silently she paced at my side, with
head bowed down and hands clasped tightly together. Only, as my tale
went on, she drew a little short quick breath now and then, like a child
panting with delight. And I told her what I had never yet breathed to
any other listener, of my double life, and, more than that (for _mine_
might have been but a noonday-dream), of the double life of those two
dear children.
And when I told her of Bruno’s wild gambols, she laughed merrily; and
when I spoke of Sylvie’s sweetness and her utter unselfishness and
trustful love, she drew a deep breath, like one who hears at last some
precious tidings for which the heart has ached for a long while; and the
happy tears chased one another down her cheeks.
“I have often longed to meet an angel,” she whispered, so low that I
could hardly catch the words. “I’m _so_ glad I’ve seen Sylvie! My heart
went out to the child the first moment that I saw her—— Listen!” she
broke off suddenly. “That’s Sylvie singing! I’m sure of it! Don’t you
know her voice?”
“I have heard _Bruno_ sing, more than once,” I said: “but I never heard
Sylvie.”
“I have only heard her _once_,” said Lady Muriel. “It was that day when
you brought us those mysterious flowers. The children had run out into
the garden; and I saw Eric coming in that way, and went to the window to
meet him: and Sylvie was singing, under the trees, a song I had never
heard before. The words were something like ‘I think it is Love, I feel
it is Love.’ Her voice sounded far away, like a dream, but it was
beautiful beyond all words—as sweet as an infant’s first smile, or the
first gleam of the white cliffs when one is coming _home_ after weary
years—a voice that seemed to fill one’s whole being with peace and
heavenly thoughts—— Listen!” she cried, breaking off again in her
excitement. “That _is_ her voice, and that’s the very song!”
I could distinguish no words, but there was a dreamy sense of music in
the air that seemed to grow ever louder and louder, as if coming nearer
to us. We stood quite silent, and in another minute the two children
appeared, coming straight towards us through an arched opening among the
trees. Each had an arm round the other, and the setting sun shed a
golden halo round their heads, like what one sees in pictures of saints.
They were looking in our direction, but evidently did not see us, and I
soon made out that Lady Muriel had for once passed into a condition
familiar to _me_, that we were both of us ‘eerie,’ and that, though we
could see the children so plainly, we were quite invisible to _them_.
[Illustration: A FAIRY-DUET]
The song ceased just as they came into sight: but, to my delight, Bruno
instantly said “Let’s sing it all again, Sylvie! It _did_ sound so
pretty!” And Sylvie replied “Very well. It’s _you_ to begin, you know.”
So Bruno began, in the sweet childish treble I knew so well:—
“Say, what is the spell, when her fledgelings are cheeping,
That lures the bird home to her nest?
Or wakes the tired mother, whose infant is weeping,
To cuddle and croon it to rest?
What’s the magic that charms the glad babe in her arms,
Till it cooes with the voice of the dove?”
And now ensued quite the strangest of all the strange experiences that
marked the wonderful year whose history I am writing—the experience of
_first_ hearing Sylvie’s voice in song. Her part was a very short
one—only a few words—and she sang it timidly, and very low indeed,
scarcely audibly, but the _sweetness_ of her voice was simply
indescribable; I have never heard any earthly music like it.
“’Tis a secret, and so let us whisper it low—
And the name of the secret is Love!”
On me the first effect of her voice was a sudden sharp pang that seemed
to pierce through one’s very heart. (I had felt such a pang only once
before in my life, and it had been from _seeing_ what, at the moment,
realised one’s idea of perfect beauty—it was in a London exhibition,
where, in making my way through a crowd, I suddenly met, face to face, a
child of quite unearthly beauty.) Then came a rush of burning tears to
the eyes, as though one could weep one’s soul away for pure delight. And
lastly there fell on me a sense of awe that was almost terror—some such
feeling as Moses must have had when he heard the words “_Put off thy
shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy
ground_.” The figures of the children became vague and shadowy, like
glimmering meteors: while their voices rang together in exquisite
harmony as they sang:—
“For I think it is Love,
For I feel it is Love,
For I’m sure it is nothing but Love!”
By this time I could see them clearly once more. Bruno again sang by
himself:—
“Say, whence is the voice that, when anger is burning,
Bids the whirl of the tempest to cease?
That stirs the vexed soul with an aching—a yearning
For the brotherly hand-grip of peace?
Whence the music that fills all our being—that thrills
Around us, beneath, and above?”
Sylvie sang more courageously, this time: the words seemed to carry her
away, out of herself:—
“’Tis a secret: none knows how it comes, how it goes:
But the name of the secret is Love!”
And clear and strong the chorus rang out:—
“For I think it is Love,
For I feel it is Love,
For I’m sure it is nothing but Love!”
Once more we heard Bruno’s delicate little voice alone:—
“Say whose is the skill that paints valley and hill,
Like a picture so fair to the sight?
That flecks the green meadow with sunshine and shadow,
Till the little lambs leap with delight?”
And again uprose that silvery voice, whose angelic sweetness I could
hardly bear:—
“’Tis a secret untold to hearts cruel and cold,
Though ’tis sung, by the angels above,
In notes that ring clear for the ears that can hear—
And the name of the secret is Love!”
And then Bruno joined in again with
“For I think it is Love,
For I feel it is Love,
For I’m sure it is nothing but Love!”
“That _are_ pretty!” the little fellow exclaimed, as the children passed
us—so closely that we drew back a little to make room for them, and it
seemed we had only to reach out a hand to touch them: but this we did
not attempt.
“No use to try and stop them!” I said, as they passed away into the
shadows. “Why, they could not even _see_ us!”
“No use at all,” Lady Muriel echoed with a sigh. “One would _like_ to
meet them again, in living form! But I feel, somehow, _that_ can never
be. They have passed out of _our_ lives!” She sighed again; and no more
was said, till we came out into the main road, at a point near my
lodgings.
“Well, I will leave you here,” she said. “I want to get back before
dark: and I have a cottage-friend to visit, first. Good night, dear
friend! Let us see you soon—and often!” she added, with an affectionate
warmth that went to my very heart. “_For those are few we hold as
dear!_”
“Good night!” I answered. “Tennyson said that of a worthier friend than
me.”
“Tennyson didn’t know what he was talking about!” she saucily rejoined,
with a touch of her old childish gaiety; and we parted.