The Stone Gryphon, Part 1: Oxfordshire 1942
Chapter 7
Argentum
In which Lucy and Edmund ruminate on the properties of silvery things.
Anglo-Saxon Seolfor or siolfur ; meaning 'silver', and Latin argentum meaning 'silver.' Silver is very ductile and malleable, and is exceeded in these properties only by gold and palladium. Excerpted from Silver Facts, Chemical & Physical Properties, A.M. Helmenstine, Ph.D.
The Silver Birch, Betula pendula, reaches a height of about 25m, with an age of about 60 - 80 years. The habitat of the Silver Birch is extensive as the tree tolerates a wide range of soils, but is best on dry sandy soils and can be found at higher altitudes than most of the broadleaved species. … The timber of the Silver Birch, is white to a pale fawn in colour and is very easily worked. It is a flexible and tough, but it is not very strong. Excerpted from The Native Trees of the Village of Euxton
"Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"
Lucy pulled her nose out of Alice's Adventures (Alice was struggling with her flamingo during the croquet game), and replied to her brother, "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."
"The dog did nothing in the night-time," Edmund continued.
"That was the curious incident," Lucy concluded. Through a mighty yawn, she added, "And why, dear brother, are we quoting from Silver Blaze, and are not asleep at this miserable hour? In fact," Lucy rolled over on her side to peer over the edge of her bed, "why is the floor of my bedroom covered with issues of the Journal Nature and Proceedings of the Royal Geography Society going back twenty years?"
Edmund stretched his neck and looked about, assessing the carnage with a campaigner's experienced eye. He had been lying on the hard floor (no carpets in the Scrubb home!) for several hours and would definitely feel it in the morning – which was not all that far away. "I suppose it is starting to look a bit like a library in here."
"No, it is looking rather like a dustbin. In my room, on my floor where I often prefer to walk, and where you are not going to spend another night."
"But Lu..." he started to whine. Heartless sister.
"If you were anything better than absolutely horrid to me on too little sleep, I would let you stay. But you aren't, so I won't."
She had a point. Edmund well knew it would be far worse if sleeping on the floor was compounded by too short a time on it. "Don't you want to know why I'm quoting Conan Doyle?"
"Well, you are likely doing so because you wish to draw my attention to the absence of something. As you are not quoting from the other stories, about the Naval Treaty or the Bruce-Partington plans, it's not about your and Peter's mad idea that our father is really spying on the Americans. I'm not saying you are wrong, understand, only that it is mad, but since the world has gone mad, might very well fit, if you follow me?"
Edmund nodded. He had no difficulty following Lucy's verbal loop de loops.
"So, it could be something about That Rotter Eustace and The Exceedingly Odd Harold and Alberta." He could hear how she capitalized their names. "But, there is nothing the least bit curious about them at all. Their tedium is all quite out and obvious."
Poor Lu. She really was getting the worse of it. Her goodness made such long exposure to banality a true trial.
"So, that leaves Peter and that you have observed something he is leaving out of his letters. Which is notable in itself given how often he is writing, and how very, very, very long those letters are."
"Capital, my dear Holmes! You really are brilliant!"
"No, Ed," she said with a tired smile. "You are brilliant. I am merely your not-quite-as-brilliant-but-more-intuitive younger sister. And those qualities tell me that you have been looking for something in those journals for the last three days, have finally found it, and cannot wait until a civilized hour tomorrow to share it with me." She put a ribbon in the book to mark her page, even though she knew every line by heart, and turned her full, if tired, attention to him.
Edmund rolled over from his stomach into a sitting position. "So, Peter has been writing about, what?"
"Everything. Every remarkable food he has tried, although I am really not too sure about the chicken feet and dried squid. He has complained that Duns Scotus is really boring. He has told us about termite mounds, and beaver dams, and something like an iguana that isn't with a broken tail, and bird nests, songbirds, eagles, hawks, great cats, moles and voles, foxes and hedgehogs and every animal in Oxfordshire. He is writing about British stone, corbels columns, glass ceilings, and bee hives. He is fascinated by owl pellets, which sound absolutely revolting, and colonies of leaf cutter ants that grow some weird fungus. She paused for a breath. "What else am I missing?"
"The Driver."
"Oh yes. Our brother has been going on at great length about the Arab Revolts, the Desert Fox, complaints about Eighth Army leadership, cheetahs and quicksand in the Qattara, how to sabotage a railway in the desert, and that camels have two stomachs and three toes, or is it three stomachs and two toes, and what he has learned about Islam, and about wickedly sharp knives of exquisite workmanship. He has become absorbed with how to accomplish swordplay with The Driver without giving away too much, although he also speculates that insofar as the Driver is concerned, it is rather too late. As of yesterday's letter, he had not yet solved this dilemma." As a final afterthought, Lucy added, "and, he is trying to master chopsticks."
"And what has he not written about?"
"His studying. Or his research for the Professor."
Edmund was abruptly and suddenly taken aback. More intuitive, indeed. "I..oh...you're right. He hasn't, has he?"
His sister frowned. "No. Not since the first week or so. He is enjoying himself so much with the Driver and the Russells..."
Lucy stopped in mid-sentence.
Now, she saw it too. "Oh dear."
Their brother was a master of the intentional omission. What Peter did not say was nearly always as significant, and sometimes more so, as what he did say. The omitted was not bad, necessarily, or even troublesome, but it always portended something of consequence to him.
"It's been bothering me," Edmund admitted. He was in between letters from Susan and all that involved and so had been fretting about Peter instead and spinning out all sorts of unpleasant scenarios. "Peter has been so effusive about everything else. Mrs. Russell must be there, yet he says nothing about her."
"He never even described her, did he? In that first letter?"
"No, and I did notice the absence, the dog that didn't bark, you know."
"But it was such a long letter. It's possible there were other things more interesting to him."
Edmund gave her a long, meaningful look and Lucy sighed resignedly. It was a particular sigh she reserved just for "Peter's doing it again."
"That's not very likely, I admit," she said, scrubbing her face. "Especially since he has not written much of anything else about her since."
"He did say she is researching gryphons."
"Might that be the reason?" Lucy asked hopefully. "Perhaps, he's worried she might deduce something, so he is avoiding her?"
"That is a reasonable conclusion, given how clever they all are. I thought it probable, at first." He worriedly picked at the edge of a 1927 journal. "But, don't you think, given the choice, Peter would rather research gryphon mythology? If he wanted to, he could find a way. That's when I started wondering if perhaps something was off."
"He would normally have said more about it as well," Lucy added thoughtfully. Gesturing expansively about the ruin of her room, she continued, "So, what are you looking for in all this paper? What do you think is going on?"
"I don't know what to think, Lu. But, I think I understand." Edmund pulled the carefully marked "Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Royal Geography Society - 1938" from the top of the closest tottering pile of magazines. He'd found it earlier in the day and had been looking ever since for something that might contradict it.
He leaned forward, offering the magazine to her. "Here, look at this photograph. It's of all the members of the Society who attended the meeting."
Lucy carefully took the article from him, and laid it out flat, smoothing the pages on her bed. "What am I looking for?"
"You will know when you see it."
Her finger began moving slowly across the two page photograph of the fifty-some Chartered Geographer members who had attended the meeting. Her finger stopped and Lucy inhaled sharply. She bent over the picture, studying it. "It can't be," she murmured.
"It's uncanny, isn't it?"
"It's…" Lucy was as lost as he'd been when first he saw the picture of Mrs. Russell. It was a hunch he had dearly wished to have been wrong about.
"They aren't the same person, are they, Edmund? That's not possible, is it?"
"We are hardly ones to speak of what is possible. But no, I'm sure they are not. If nothing else, Mary Anning Russell is a paleontologist. She writes papers and goes on expeditions to wild places. Reading what Mrs. Russell has written, it is plain that their profound similarities are only in appearance."
"Dinan never did have much interest in books," Lucy commented dryly. "Or writing."
"Could she even read? Dinan also never would have worn that much clothing, certainly not around so many…" Edmund was going to say, "men" but amended that to the more inclusive "people." Dinan had been broad-minded and indiscriminate even by the standards of Trees, which was saying something.
Lucy stifled the giggle. Dinan had had a very limited range of interests, and, save for one particular activity at which she had been extraordinarily skilled and thoroughly relentless, had really been quite dull.
The glee slowly faded from his sister's face. "How was it," Lucy hesitated, bit her lip, and Edmund knew the source of her reluctance. His sister was dancing around some things that were very complex and painful. Carefully she continued, "Between them, I mean, at the end? I never have asked him. They had been together for so many years, longer even then you or I..."
He interrupted her before Lucy could dredge up what was not good for either of them and that this exercise had brought him far too close to. "They were together until the very end. She saw Peter the night before we returned. She told him about the White Stag."
"But it was Mr. Tumnus who told us of the rumor," Lucy injected. "Although…" Her mouth formed a wordless "oh," as she answered her own question. "He probably heard of it from the Western Wood Dryads."
Edmund nodded. "We did not ask about it at the time, but yes, I suspect so."
Lucy studied the picture again and then with finality, closed the magazine. She pulled herself upright on the bed, closed her eyes, and sat very still. Edmund gently withdrew the journal from the bed and returned it to the stack.
He remained on the floor, quietly waiting for her. He'd seen Peter among the Dryads after Caspian's coronation and had known why his brother had gone. Silver birch dryads weren't even especially long lived, but Peter would have checked, just to make sure if she and any of their other subjects were still alive. If Dinan had still been alive, they would have known it. Everyone would have known. She would have made a point of exposing herself in some remarkable and memorable way, like spreading pollen and catkins all over the place.
"Alright," Lucy eventually said. "I'm ready to discuss this a bit more."
"Did Aslan have anything to say to you?"
"He is very concerned that neither of us is sleeping enough and cautions you particularly that it will impair your judgment."
Edmund acted his physical age and stuck his tongue out at his cheeky sister. This was so much better than the alternative. He knew what he would have done if he had seen in a magazine an image of... He shoved the thought brutally aside. Not relevant.
Lucy giggled then schooled herself to a more serious posture. "Edmund, you understand Peter's attachment to Dinan better than I do, how do you think he is reacting to this?"
"First off, I think that attachment is an overstatement. It was not, oh, just shoot me for saying, it. By Aslan, I thought I'd never have to have one of these awkward discussions again. For all that it went on for years, their arrangement was never intended to be permanent. It was committed, at least on Peter's side, but it was never serious."
"I don't have a bow, so I couldn't shoot you, and I will not borrow one of Alberta's knives now to make the point. Besides, I would only do so if you said something really stupid, which you didn't, because, really, how could anyone have ever been serious about Dinan?"
"You couldn't. Peter wasn't. It was practically the only thing about him that wasn't serious. That surety has been the only thing preventing me from hopping a train and haring off to Oxford to find out what is going on." Edmund knew he was projecting what he himself would have done. If there had been the chance, just the slimmest of chances... Not relevant.
Lucy reached down and squeezed his clenched hand. "Don't get that ticket yet, brother. We need to think this through." Releasing the reassuring hold, she settled back on her bed. "While I cannot replace the sort of clear assessment that Susan could offer, if it is any consolation, I do agree with you. I think one reason it went on for so long was that it was so uncomplicated. Peter was always wary of the women who came to Cair."
"He had reason to be. How many of them thought she would become High Queen? Was there one who comprehended going in that that was not going to happen? Having to negotiate those bloody treaties for every damn would be lover of his …"
"Tut tut, brother. Language!" But, Lucy was smiling.
"You may laugh," Edmund grumbled. He couldn't help it. "I had to deal with them. The contractual provisions regarding authority, issue and succession went on for pages. Titles. Allowances. Warranties as to health; grounds for dissolution. Peter's were even worse than Susan's, you know. At least her suitors did not automatically assume entitlement to Narnian authority."
"Well, not additional authority, perhaps. Most of them did think they could assume her place on the dais."
"How did I get back on the subject of Narnian courtship contracts?" Edmund muttered through a yawn. They'd learned early on and painfully the need to manage the situation; and if it involved ink and treaties, it fell to him to do it. He still had nightmares about the weeks of negotiation that preceded the arrival of every princess, empress, dowager, and some queen's charming cousin/daughter/sister/niece who so wanted to be a lady at Cair Paravel and "learn the business of governance from the Narnian monarchs."
So maybe they all did not arrive with designs on something, or someone. But, eventually, invariably, Peter, or the thrones, or both, would catch her fancy and inflame her … whatever. He knew far too much about his brother's suitors because he had been the one to approve every single one of them. In advance. Preservation of Narnian sovereignty had required it and on that point they and their subjects permitted no ambiguity.
Ultimately, plainly delineating just what her Narnian authority could be (virtually none) had deterred all but the most determined, or brazen. Which, all things considered, hadn't been much of an improvement, either. At least it had cut down on the sheer numbers of dropped towels, twisted ankles, and plunging necklines. It had been titillating at first, he had to admit. But, then it had become silly, and then really and truly tiresome. Exasperated by the uplifted breasts thrust about at every turn, Edmund had tried to issue an edict banning all corsets in Narnia. At least the termination clauses in the courtship contracts were succinct. At will, by either party, without cause, no notice required.
There had only been one instance in which the painful process had ended well and even in that instance, the consequences had not been foreseen ... Edmund again shoved the inconvenient thoughts aside. He did not want Lucy's sympathetic looks when they both had a history of regret and loss. Not relevant.
Peter had become so impervious to seduction that he had eventually become almost, but never quite, cynical. He just patiently tolerated the coy requests for dancing/archery/sword/swimming/riding lessons. (By the Lion, could they not come up with anything more original? And why didn't they ever improve?) Their brother endured it long past the point when his three siblings would have just run a sword, arrow, or dagger through the giggles. Peter, though, had persevered through it all, steadfast in his self-imposed duty, in addition to everything else, to assure a stable future for Narnia.
That had been, and would always be, the way of his older brother. Responsibility. Loyalty. Constancy. Selflessness. An all encompassing, unconditional love for his People, his Country, his Family.
"Edmund!" Lucy was snapping fingers at him. "You're nodding off."
He blinked, momentarily awash in parchment, foolishness, and copious female flesh too obviously displayed like wares at a market. "Sorry." He found he was speaking through clenched teeth. He would have a sore jaw tomorrow, too. "It's the subject matter, you know." It led to places he could not go, places filled with regret.
"You were raving about corsets again, weren't you?"
"Honestly, Lucy, a chap couldn't get through breakfast without…"
"Edmund!" Lucy interrupted his burgeoning tirade a bit sharply. "Our brother? Peter? Remember? His confounding situation about which he has chosen to keep us ignorant?"
"Right." Edmund took a deep, cleansing breath and let the summer breeze wafting through the always open windows settle upon him and clear his fretting mind.
Flatly, he announced, "I don't think Peter will do anything foolish."
Lucy just snorted. "Edmund, really. This is our brother of whom we are speaking; the man who is morally incapable of a self-interested act. You should be getting more sleep or reading fewer books censored for indecency if you are worried about that."
He shrugged. Maybe he had been overly concerned about that particular angle, but then, he had been the one to negotiate all the damn treaties to avoid those angles in the first place. It had been his job to defend Their Sovereignty against any who might try to lay claim to a piece of it. He, better than anyone, understood how Jadis' deception concerning her own origins had legitimized her corrupt rule. He had owed their people that much.
"I am guessing Peter is thinking tactically and has settled on a strategy of suppressive avoidance. This is consistent with his omission of any reference to her in his letters, and a sound move, since he knows he will be leaving at the end of the summer."
Lucy rolled her eyes at the stratagem, but on this, Edmund knew better than she how their brother dealt with an unplanned or inconvenient feminine presence.
"Oh, and he's probably talking to Aslan a lot about it," Edmund added as an afterthought.
"I'm sure he is. But, is Peter listening to what Aslan is trying to tell him?"
Edmund froze, stunned, stranded and drowning in fatigue, longing, stress and paper. He could but marvel, again, at how Lucy so effortlessly confounded and moved. He found his throat suddenly constricting in profound gratitude for what Aslan's Grace had bestowed. Barely, he choked out, "This, Lucy, is the part where you say something so astounding, I am ashamed to have even bothered you with my venal conjectures."
His valiant, irrepressible, marvelous sister slid from her bed to the floor with a smile that would melt the most hardened soul. She took both his hands in hers.
"This is not a trial, or a trick, or temptation. Aslan would never do that. He loves Peter. Aslan wants Peter's full attention. 'Mind me, Son of Adam,' he is saying. 'Listen to me.' When you listen, Edmund, you hear him too."
"You are right, of course." He bent his face over her hands, feeling tears smart in his eyes, that weren't entirely due to the fact that they had been up almost all night. How could he ever deserve to know so well someone so very loved by God? The loss felt very fresh so late at night and Lucy understood and, thankfully, did not point out that he was very much projecting what he would have done had he seen a familiar face staring out from the pages of an academic accounting journal.
"Oh, my dear brother," Lucy whispered. "You have been so worried for Peter. You fret over us so thoroughly, and see trouble and deception in every shadow."
"Not without reason," Edmund murmured.
"I know and I love you for it. You help us avoid some truly spectacular messes." He felt her cool hands on his head, soothing, strengthening, reassuring. "But, Edmund, sometimes, they are just shadows. Sometimes, the very simplest of explanations is the right one."
Edmund couldn't help the laugh that bubbled out, and he sat up, wiping his eyes.
"I did not mean to be humorous," she retorted with a touch of asperity.
"I am sorry, Lu. It's not you. Or well, it is. You have just spouted a version of Occam's Razor which, if Peter had actually been paying attention to his work on Duns Scotus, he should have realized himself."
He let out another deep breath, willing away the tension that had been eating him. "So, I'm venal, you're amazing, and Peter is thick?"
"Well, you are not venal, just suspicious, and Peter is not always so thick, but yes, I am usually quite amazing."
He shifted, feeling a bit uncomfortable under his sister's knowing gaze, realizing he should say what she had certainly already divined. "I admit I have been envious of the fabulous things Peter is experiencing."
She took his hands in hers again. "I am as well, Edmund. It's natural to feel that way."
"I know what I would be getting out of it. But, what of Peter? Is he supposed to be neglecting his studies? Or, is Aslan trying to get him to focus upon them? What is Aslan trying to tell him?"
"He told me that was Peter's story; not mine. Nor yours."
"But…"
Lucy looked at him very firmly and Edmund swallowed the question. He would have to think about it later and, as he was not on the scene, all he had to go on were Peter's carefully written letters. Back to Silver Blaze, he supposed, and the dogs that weren't barking. What could Aslan want? It could not be an accident that Peter had found himself in an amazing building with a window devoted to cats.
"If you have been worried about Peter, I admit, brother, I have been uneasy for Susan."
Aslan, guide me here. "Why?"
"You really believe that Father has gone to America because he is spying?"
"It is hard to know for certain, Lucy. I don't have a network of my own anymore, only hunches and research." With Lucy asking so plainly, he had to say more. "I do believe espionage is a reasonable assumption based upon the facts as we know them."
"Your hunches are usually spot on, Edmund, particularly when you start talking like Sherlock Holmes." Lucy yawned. "I am concerned for Susan because in the past when we dealt with such things, the two of you were always in concert and of one mind. She will sorely miss your counsel if they have, as you are trying very hard not to say, sailed into intrigue."
For a second time that night, Edmund was dumbstruck. He really should know better by now. Lucy patted his cheek. "Close your mouth, brother. We've already established I'm amazing."
"But…"
"Is what you are sitting on. Go to bed, Edmund."
"I shall, my Great Souled sister." He kissed her forehead and she squeezed his hands in return.
"Try not to yell too loudly at Eustace when he wakes you in two hours."
His dreams, predictably, were not at all restful as, trailing parchment, quills, and ink, Edmund chased barely clothed ladies throughout Cair Paravel with demands that they sign Clause 34 and Addendum F before being permitted in the presence of the High King.
Chapter 8 - Lions' Business
In which there is a look back and Susan and Edmund discuss posh frocks and foggy bottoms in the swamp.