To sleep, perchance to Dream; Aye, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause.
~Shakespeare
Once there were four children who were sent to the country because of the air-raids. They were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy and were, for the most part, quite well-mannered and properly brought up children.
"They'll be a breath of fresh air and no mistake," Mrs Berry commented to the gardener when she heard that they had arrived. She was a round, comfortable woman and did the cooking and mending for Professor Kirk. Her husband, Mr Berry was a bit of a handyman and did repair work around the great old house, which, so it happened, was always in need of repair.
The gardener tugged at his beard, "I would agree most heartily, Mrs Berry," he said. He had quite curly hair and a winning smile. He loved his flowers most dearly and was often seen staying up with them at night, playing a flute to keep them growing. "One never knows when they'll lose heart."
There had been a rush and a tumble about the children's coming for some time. Two guest rooms were aired out and the three maids were seen flapping linen in the garden.
"They're such slim creatures," Mrs Berry would say almost enviously about the maids. "Willow like. Their mother was very like that herself. Aye, she was tall like a birch."
"Aye, but it will be grand to have young things about again," Mr Berry said, not really hearing her. "I hear there's to be two boys and two girls."
Mrs Macready, the Professor's housekeeper was of a less charitable point-of-view.
"Children are nuisances, sir," she spoke her mind to the Professor, "And liable to break something."
"All will be well, Mrs Macready," he comforted her. "I would rather some of my things broken than four children needlessly exposed to bombing."
What Fenris, the brindle Mastiff thought about the goings on is unknown. He was asleep in the sun when they came and never woke.
~o*o~
Edmund was nursing a bad cold on arrival and was in a foul mood. Susan, as the second oldest, felt herself honour bound to behave with propriety, but on reaching the top of the steps of the grand old house and being faced with the venerable professor, she was quite tongue tied.
"We have come – sir," Peter said, trying to rally.
"He looks just like Father Christmas with that great, white beard," Edmund muttered to Lucy from lower down the steps. He blew his nose resoundingly and Lucy wondered if he was sniggering behind his hanky.
Lucy was quite frightened, but thinking about the Professor as looking like Father Christmas served to lesson her fear. She even managed to say her name when he asked it and decided that his smile was pleasant.
Mrs Macready met them in the entrance hall.
She was a tall woman, with very black hair and piercing eyes. If Lucy had been afraid of the Professor, she was twice afraid of the housekeeper, especially the fly swatter she had in her white hand. She looked them over one by one.
"Four of you?" she said stiffly. "I had expected less. Well, at least we will have enough chairs at the table. Come with me, then."
They followed her up the great staircase, clutching their boxes. Peter looked up at ornamental swords and great shields stretched with cowhide.
"The Professor owns this house," she said as soon as they were out of his hearing. "But this is my domain. Do you see those two doors at the end of the hallway? Those are the Professor's favourite rooms. Do not go near them."
She showed them to their rooms and told them not to wander.
"You can go down to the garden if you must, but do not go poking around the house."
They were all a bit demoralised as they stood around the girls' room, looking out the big leaded windows at the moor. Down the green slopes was a hedgerow and they could just see the antlered head of a red deer outlined in the autumn mist.
"We've landed on our feet and no mistake," Peter said, gesturing across the window. "Just look at it. There are even stables with horses behind the house."
"I'd like to go down and see the gardens," Lucy said. "Would anyone else like to?"
"No," Edmund said miserably. "This is turning out to be a perfectly horrid day."
"Don't make the rest of us miserable just because you are," Susan said. "Why don't you try to sleep?"
"I'm sure Mrs Macready wouldn't mind you sleeping in her domain," Peter said with a laugh. "Just don't wander."
"Oh, shut up," Edmund said and left the room.
~o*o~
The three of them went down to the garden quite merrily to walk up the pebbled paths and look at a clear pound that stretched at the end of the lawn. Peter was persuaded not to go rowing in the boat that was tied up at a small jetty and they all turned and went back towards the house.
"It's beginning to be so cold," Susan said, turning up her collar, "We could almost pretend we were arctic explorers."
"It's cold enough without pretending," Peter said, rubbing his hands.
They were just turning a corner in a bit of wilderness that had been allowed to grow free next to the garden when they saw a dark shape moving in the trees. Susan stopped them and they stood watching it intently.
"What do you suppose it is?" Susan asked nervously.
"I saw a dam at the other end of the pond," Peter said. "Perhaps it's a beaver."
"Shhh," the shape said, gesturing at them. "Come further in."
Quietly they stepped forward, pushing through the branches of the trees until they saw a small, stocky man kneeling on the ground. Mr Berry, to be exact. Again, he gestured them to be quiet, then they saw what he was pointing at.
"There he is, then," Mr Berry breathed. "Just hopping about like he owns the place."
It was a fat Robin, industriously scratching up the leaves, searching for worms. His feathers were fluffed against the cold and as they looked at him, he looked back with a bright, onyx eye.
"Oh!" Lucy sighed. "How very darling!"
At last the Robin flew away and Mr Berry stood up stiffly and brushed himself off. "So, you'll be the children, then? I thought there were four of you?"
"Our brother is in the house," Peter explained.
"He has a cold," Susan added.
"Aye," Mr Berry said. "I saw him from down the end of the drive and I thought to myself, 'there's one who's not feeling himself'. You can always tell. Come up and meet the Missus?"
"We'd love to," Susan said politely.
Mr Berry led them quite quickly through the trees and back out into the garden. There was a small path that led around the house and towards the stables. The caretaker's house was a small cottage with a thatched roof just to the right of the stable yard. They took a peek as they passed and saw a groom brushing the gleaming sides of a horse that stood in the sun. A big brindle dog barked at them loudly and Susan jumped.
"It's only Fenris," Mr Berry said. "He'll not trouble you. He's chained during the day."
They followed Mr Berry under the low door of the cottage.
The room they found themselves in was large and cheerful with a fire roaring away on the hearth. In a corner, Mrs Berry sat at her sewing machine, busy mending one of Mr Kirk's shirts. She looked up eagerly when they came in.
"So, you've come at last!" she exclaimed as she rose to meet them. "I daresay I can put the kettle on. Will you stay for some tea?"
Though it wasn't nearly teatime (or even dinner) they all sat down around the roughhewn table and had tea. Mrs Berry cut a homemade loaf and served it with marmalade, which was eagerly eaten by the hungry travellers.
"It's been such a beautiful autumn," Mrs Berry commented and Lucy's mind wandered.
Somehow the conversation turned to war news. Lucy hated war news, especially what had been happening lately.
"How do they expect us to do Christmas baking with the rationing, I ask?" Mrs Berry complained. "It's like to send a body crazy with all their rules and regulations."
"Is something going to happen to Christmas?" Lucy asked, looking up. She had heard the word Christmas.
"We can't expect Christmas to be what we're used to," Susan said gently. "Surly you know that."
"I think it would be dreadful to have a winter without Christmas," Lucy said.
"We'll have Christmas," Peter said comfortingly. "It just won't be quite as splendid as usual."
They kept talking and Lucy grew tired of it. At last she stood up and waited to see if they'd notice. They didn't, so she walked resolutely to the door and slipped out. She had half a mind to find the Robin again, but after she had gone some distance down the path she realized she had taken the wrong one. She looked back and just saw the caretaker's cottage through the trees, "I can always get back again."
She heard the flute music not much later, twining like tendrils in the trees. It was wild and haunting and full of beauty and she was reminded of a picture she had seen once of a goat-footed god, playing twin pipes as he danced.
It was not a goat-footed god, but a gardener she saw through the trees. She crept much closer before he noticed her, then he started and stopped mid-measure.
"Goodness gracious me!" he exclaimed, his eyes wide. "But you gave me a turn."
"I beg your pardon," she said with a little curtsey. "But what a pretty tune you were playing. Did you make it up?"
The gardener stood with a smile and bowed, "No, my father taught it to be when I was a boy."
"Where did he learn it?" Lucy inquired.
"From his father, I would expect," the gardener replied. "He and I came across the ocean some years ago, all the way from Italy."
"You're from Italy!" Lucy exclaimed. "What's it like there?"
So he told her about the summers when the woods were green and how, when the winemaking was in full swing, the rivers would almost run with wine instead of water.
"It isn't so pleasant now," the gardener said with a sigh. "Now that the fascists have taken over…but let's talk of something else. Where are you from?"
"London," Lucy said.
"I've always been hard up on geography," the gardener said with a smile. "But I do know where that is."
"Where are you from in Italy?" Lucy asked.
"Narni," he said. "In the mountains, was Narni."
"What a curious name," Lucy said. "But I think I quite like it."
"I'm glad you do," and that was the last he got to say, because Mrs Macready arrived just then.
"There you are!" she exclaimed, rather angrily and seizing Lucy's hand. "We've been searching everywhere for you. What were you thinking running off like that?"
"I'm- I'm sorry," Lucy stammered.
"That won't do," Mrs Macready railed. "I want a proper apology."
"I think she might have a touch of the sun," the gardener suggested, trying to save Lucy.
"You are out of line Thomas," Mrs Macready snapped. "You are not to speak to the Professor's guests. You ought to be let go for not bringing her to the house at once."
She stormed off then, dragging Lucy with her.
~o*o~
The Professor expressed an interest in eating dinner with his guests, "They can eat supper in their own rooms, but I would really prefer them eating dinner with me today."
Mrs Berry had cooked fish for dinner, with potatoes and greens and fresh baked bread. The children fell upon it eagerly and only after they had satisfied some of their hunger did they look around the great dining room.
The walls were panelled woodwork. There was something that looked remarkably like a painting by Constable over the fireplace and one wall was covered with a selection of swords ranging from the days of the joust to the years in which England battled with Napoleon. The first were huge meat cleavers, nearly as tall as Peter was, but as the years passed, the swords grew shorter, at first ornate, then elegantly simple.
The Professor noted the way Peter's eyes were shining and after dinner was over and dessert was brought in, he invited him to go and look at the swords that hung on the walls.
"What fun they would be for playacting," Lucy commented as she watched Peter gaze at them.
"These are tools, not toys," the Professor said sternly. "Unfortunately, the time to use them may be near at hand. These are desperate times."
"What do they feel like? When you hold them, I mean…" Peter trailed off and the Professor smiled faintly behind his great white beard. Carefully, he lifted one of the shorter ones from off its brackets and handed it to Peter.
"Keep well away from the table when you draw it," he suggested.
"You mean…?" Peter gasped. "You mean me to draw it?"
The sword was just the right size and weight for Peter to hold easily in one hand and with a smooth motion, he drew it free of the sheath and watched the light shine on the blade. He felt that it was a very serious and solemn moment.
"Edmund!" Susan exclaimed. "If you eat any more of that blackberry flan, you'll be sick!"
"I already feel sick," Edmund muttered.
"He's always loved flan," Lucy said in an attempt to apologize to the Professor.
For Peter, the moment had been broken and sadly, he sheathed the sword and hung it back on the wall.
~o*o~
The Professor suggested they go upstairs after dinner.
"My housekeeper is a very touchy creature who doesn't like children a great deal. She'll be dusting the statues in the Green Room today, so try to stay in your part of the house. You have my permission to explore as much as you would like there."
"Thank you very much, sir," Peter said. "But I think most of the doors are locked."
"Locks and bolts make no difference to me," the Professor said with a smile and drew something out of his breast pocket. "I have a master key. Return it to me tomorrow when you are done with it."
"Thank you, sir," Susan said.
It was a big old house, full of big old things and none of them thought they could ever get tired of wandering about, opening new doors and finding something unexpected. It turned out that Professor Kirk was a great collector of old things and there were things like suits of armour in odd corners and stuffed leopards leering at you from the sides of rooms.
But then they came to a particularly large and draughty room with very little in it, empty indeed, save for a great old wardrobe in a corner, the sort with a looking glass in the door.
"Nothing there!" said Peter and they all trooped out again – all except Lucy.
Lucy remained, staring at her reflection in the looking glass and not really seeing it. Hesitantly, she tried the door, certain it would be locked.
But it was not.
~o*o~
"Lucy!"
It was her name called from across what seemed a chasm that brought her to herself. One moment, she was pushing through branches, feeling them rake her face, the sharp smelling sap smeared across her outreached hands. Then she stumbled and fell and under her was a wooden floor and behind her was a wardrobe, a tall one with a looking glass in the door.
"I'm here!" she called, "I'm all right!"
"Lucy!" the door of the room was wrenched open and Peter, Susan and Edmund where there, all gathering around her, their faces drawn with worry.
"Oh Lucy!" Susan gasped.
"Are we back?" Lucy asked, somehow stunned. "Have we really come back?"
"Lucy?" Susan exclaimed, taking her hands, "Lucy, you've been missing for hours and hours! Where have you been?"
"There was a wood and a faun and a place where it was always winter and never Christmas. An evil witch kidnapped Edmund and Father Christmas gave us all gifts. But you were there yourselves, don't you remember? We were all kings and queens for years and years!"
"She must have been asleep," Peter said quietly. "Asleep in the wardrobe."
"But it's all true! It really happened!" Lucy cried.
There were voices in the hallway and as Susan knelt to hug her, everyone came through the door to speak with solemn and worried voices: the gardener, Mrs Macready, Mr and Mrs Berry, the three willowy maids and finally the Professor. They had all been looking for her high and low.
"What happened, my child?" the Professor asked, kneeling down and as Lucy looked up into his eyes, tears traced down her cheeks.
"But you were there!" she gasped. "You were all there!"
Edmund stepped down from exploring the Wardrobe and looked at Peter, but Peter shook his head.
~o*o~
Susan put her to bed.
"Would you like me to sing you a lullaby?" she asked softly. "The one mother always used to sing?"
Lucy nodded, tears still coursing down her cheeks and Susan softly began in the native tongue of her mother, "Holl amrantau'r sêr ddywedant, Ar hyd y nos, 'Dyma'r ffordd i fro gogoniant, Ar hyd y nos. Golau arall yw tywyllwch, I arddangos gwir brydferthwch Teulu'r nefoedd mewn tawelwch, Ar hyd y nos…"
Sleep my love, and peace attend thee
All through the night;
Guardian angels God will lend thee,
All through the night,
Soft the drowsy hours are creeping,
Hill and vale in slumber steeping,
I my loving vigil keeping,
All through the night.
Lucy slept at last, but in the quiet corridors of her dreams she saw those images she had seen before. Herself crowned on high, Peter High King of all Narnia, Susan with kings at her feet and Edmund, his faced lined with wisdom. They had all grown old as the years had passed. They had all been there.
In her tight clasped hand, she could almost feel the sharp angles of the healing cordial Father Christmas had given her, but in that place between waking and sleeping she knew it was only her fingernails digging into her sweaty palm.
"Perhaps it was all a dream," she said softly. "Perhaps it never happened."
Mr and Mrs Berry might have been mistaken for Mr and Mrs Beaver. The gardener might have been Mr Tumnus, the Professor might have been Father Christmas, even Fenris the Mastiff might have been Maugrim, chief of the secret Police, and Mrs Macready, though Lucy shuddered at the thought, might have been the White Witch. And with that realization, her tears came anew.
But then something else came stepping soft-footed across the floor, shining like moonbeams of gold, rippling with faerie magic and singing with the song of pipes and Lucy sat up in bed. There was only darkness, but she could just see Susan asleep across the room in the other bed.
"But Aslan was real!" she gasped.
~o*o~
Susan in her bed, was not asleep, or at least, not quite asleep. She thought about Lucy and all her wonderful adventures, till she too, began dreaming after a fashion. She saw Lucy herself, emblazoned in her memory, little Lucy with bright eyes and a little impatient toss of her head to keep back her unruly golden hair.
Lucy would grow and soon be a woman, but she would keep through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of a child and when she chanced to have children of her own, she would gather them around and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale. She would feel all their simple sorrows and delight in their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days of long ago.
The End
Author's Note:
And that is what happens when you cross the Wizard of Oz with Alice in Wonderland and add a dash of Narnia. This story was initially Rose's idea, as most of them are. It might come as a shock to you, but I'm always nervous about posting a new story. I've been putting this one off for weeks and weeks. Now you have it. I hope it makes sense, because my mental processes are not as acute as they were.
There's a two fold reason for not posting this story. I've finally had to admit to myself that I'm not well and am getting worse. For the past ten years I've been seeing doctors trying to convince them that something is wrong. Some are clueless, others are just rude. Several have told me never to come back to them again. Fortunately I seem to have found one that is at least willing to listen. I am to see her again Thursday and I would be very thankful if you'd pray for me.
Happy Autumn to all!
Regards,
~Psyche
PS: Anyone downloaded Windows 8.1? ;)