CHAPTER V
THE BIRTH OF WONDER
Meanwhile their father alone grew neither older nor larger. Hisappearance did not change. They could not imagine that he would everchange. He still went up to London in the morning, he still came downagain, he still continued to grind out stories which they thoughtwonderful, and he still, on occasions, said mysteriously, "A day willcome," or its variants, "Some day," and "A day is coming." Yet, thoughhe had Fancy, he had not Imagination. He did not satisfy them. Forwhile Fancy may attend the birth of Wonder, Imagination aloneaccompanies her growth. Daddy was too full of stationery andsealing-wax in his daily work to have got very far.
Aunt Emily also still was there, explaining everything and saying No,shaking her head at them, or holding up a warning finger. Their outwardlife, indeed, showed little change, but it included one importantnovelty that affected all their present and all their subsequentexistence, too. They made a new friend--their father's brother.
When first his visit was announced, they had their doubts abouthim--"your Uncle Felix" had a very questionable sound indeed, but thefact that he lived in Paris and was a writer of sea-stories andhistorical novels counterbalanced the handicap of the unpleasant"Felix." For to their ears Felix was not a proper sort of name at all;it was all right for a horse or a dog or even for a town, but for a manwho was also a relation it was a positive disaster. It would notshorten for one thing, and for another it reminded them of "a king, orsome one in a history book," and thus did not predispose them in hisfavour. It was simply what Tim called a "beastly name." Aunt Emily,however, was responsible for their biggest prejudice against him: "Youmust remember not to bother him, children; you must never disturb himwhen he's working." And as Uncle Felix was coming to stay for severalweeks in the Mill House, they regarded him in advance as some kind ofhorrible excitement they must put up with.
However, as most things in life go by contraries, this Uncle Felixperson turned out just the opposite. Within an hour of his arrival hewas firmly established as friend and ally, yet so quickly and easilywas this adjustment brought about that no one could say exactly how ithappened. They themselves said nothing--just stood and stared at him;Daddy and Mother said the expected things, and Aunt Emily, critical andexplanatory as usual, found it necessary to add: "You'll find it such aquiet house to work in, Felix, and the children will never interfere orget in your way." She was evidently proud of her relative and hisfamous books. "They'll be as good as gold--won't you, Judy?" by whichname she referred to the trio as a whole.
Whereupon Judy smiled and nodded shyly, Tim bent down and scratched hisstocking, and Maria, her face expressionless, merely stared at her auntas though she--Emily, that is--were a piece of inanimate furniture.
"I see," said Uncle Felix carelessly, and glanced down at the trio.
That was all he said. But it was the way he said it that instantlyexplained his position. He looked at them and said, "I see"; no morethan that--and it was done. They knew, he knew, Aunt Emily also knew.Two little careless words--and then continued to talk of Paris, theChannel crossing, and the weather.
"Didn't he squash her just!" remarked Tim, when they were alonetogether. "She expected him to thank her awfully and give her a kiss."And, accordingly, none of them were in the least surprised when hesuddenly poked his head inside the door as they lay in bed andexplained that he had just looked in to say good-night, and when heleft them a moment later added gravely from the door: "Mind, you neverdisturb me, children; because, if you do--!" He shook a warning fingerand was gone. He looked enormous in the doorway.
From that moment Uncle Felix became an important factor in their lives.The mysterious compact between them all was signed and sealed, yet nonecould say who drew it up and worded it. His duties became considerable.He almost took Daddy's place. The Study, indeed, at certain hours ofthe evening, became their recognised nesting place, and Daddy was aspleased as they themselves were. He seemed relieved. He rarely groundout epics now when his brain was tired and full of Governmentstationery and sealing-wax. Uncle Felix held the wizard's wand, andwhat he did with it was this: he raised the sense of wonder in them toa higher level. Daddy had awakened it, and fed it with specimens theycould understand. But Uncle Felix poked it into yet greater activity bygiving them something that no one could ever possibly understand! Hestimulated it so that it worked in them spontaneously and of its ownaccord. He made it _grow_. And no amount of Aunt Emilies in the worldcould stop him.
Their father felt no jealousy. When the story-hour came round, heproduced a set of sentences he kept slyly up his sleeve for theoccasion. "Ask your Uncle Felix; he's better at stories and things thanI am. It's his business." This was the model. A variation ran: "Oh,don't bother me just now, children. I've got a lot of figures todigest." But the shortest version was simply, "Run and plague youruncle. I'm too busy."
"Try Mother" was used when Uncle Felix was in hiding. Only it had noresult. Mother's mind was too diffuse to carry conviction. It wassoaked in servants and things. In another sense it was too exact. Theingredients of her stories were like a cooking recipe. Besides, herswas the unpardonable fault of never forgetting the time. On the verystroke of the clock she broke off abruptly with "Now it's bed-time; youshall hear the rest another night." Daddy forgot, or pleaded for "tenminutes more." Uncle Felix, however, said flatly, "They can't go tillit's finished"--and he meant it. His voice was deep and gruff--"like adog's," according to Maria--and his laugh was like a horse's neigh; itmade the china rattle. He was "frightfully strong," too, stronger thanWeeden, for he could take a child under each arm and another on hisback--and run! He never smiled when he told his stories, and, thoughthis made them seem extra real, it also alarmed deliciously--in theterrible places. Perched on his gigantic knees, they felt "like up thecedar," and when he stretched an arm or leg it was the great cedarbranch swaying in the wind.
His manner, too, was stern to severity, and his voice was so deepsometimes that they could "feel it rumbling inside," as though he had"swallowed the dinner gong." He was a very important man somewhere;Daddy was just in the Stationery Office, but Uncle Felix was an author,and the very title necessarily included awe. He wrote"storical-novuls." His name was often in the newspapers. They connectedhim with the "Govunment." It had to do somewhere with the Police. Noone trifled with Uncle Felix. Yet, strange to say, the children nevercould be properly afraid of him, although they tried very hard. Theiraudacity, their familiarity, their daring astonished everybody. Thegardeners and coachmen, to say nothing of the indoor servants, treatedhim as though he was some awful emperor. But the children simply pushedhim about. He might have been a friendly Newfoundland dog that woretail-coats and walked on his hind legs, for all they feared reprisals.
He gave them a taste of his quality soon after his arrival.
"No, children, it's impossible now. I'm busy over a scene of mystoricalnovul. Ask your father." He growled it at them, frowning darkly.
The parental heels had just that instant vanished round the door.
"Father's got the figures and says he can't."
"Or your mother--" he said, gruffly.
"Mother's doing servants in the housekeeper's room."
"Take your foot out of my waistcoat pocket this instant," he roared.
"Why?" enquired Maria. "How else can I climb up?"
He shook and swayed like the cedar branch, but he did not shake heroff. "Because," he thundered, "there's money in it, and you've gotholes in your stockings, and toes with you are worse than fingers."
And he strode across the floor, Tim clinging to one leg with both feetoff the ground, and Judy pushing him behind as though he were a heavydoor that wouldn't open. He was very angry indeed. He told them plainlywhat he thought about them. He explained the philosophy of authors tothem in brutal sentences. "Leave me alone, you little botherations!" hecried. "I'm in the middle of a scene in a storicalnovul." It wasdisgraceful that a man could lose his temper so. "Leave me alone, orI'll ..."
In the corner of the b
ig nursery sofa there was sudden silence. It wasa chilly evening in early spring. Between the bars across the windowsthe wisteria leaves sifted the setting sunlight. The railway train laymotionless upon the speckled carpet. A cat, so fat it couldn't unroll,lay in a ball of mystery against the high guard of wire netting beforethe fire. Outside the wind went moaning.
And Time ran backwards, or else the clock stopped dead. Dusk slipped inbetween the window bars. The cedars on the lawn became gigantic. Theyheard the haystacks shuffling out of their tarpaulins. The whole houserose into the air and floated off. Mother, Daddy, Nurses, beds droppedfrom the windows as it sailed away. All were left behind, forgottendetails of some stupid and uncomfortable life elsewhere.
"Quite ready," sighed the top of one cedar to the other.
"And waiting, too," an answer came from nowhere.
And then the Universe paused and settled with a little fluttering soundof wonder. The onceuponatime Moment entered the room....
"There was a thing that nobody could understand," began the deep, gruffvoice. "And this thing that nobody could understand was something noone understood at all."
"That's twice they couldn't understand it," observed Judy, in theslight pause he made for effect.
"It was alive," he went on, "and very beautiful, so beautiful, in fact,that people were astonished and felt rather ashamed because theycouldn't understand it. Some declared it wasn't worth understanding atall; others said it might be worth understanding if they had the timeto think about it; and the rest decided that it was nothing much, andpromptly forgot that it existed. Their lives grew rather dull inconsequence. A few, however, set to work to discover what it was. Forthe beauty of it set something in them strangely burning."
"It was a firework, I think," remarked Maria, then felt she had saidquite an awful thing. For Tim just looked at her. "It's alive, UncleFelix told you," he stated. She was obliterated--for the moment.
"Yes," resumed the story-teller, "it was alive, and its beauty set thehearts of a few people on fire to know what it meant. It was difficultto find, however, and difficult to see properly when found.
"These people tried to copy it, and couldn't. Though it looked sosimple it was impossible to imitate. It went about so quickly, too,that they couldn't catch hold of it and--"
"But have _you_ seen it?" asked Judy, her head bobbing up into his facewith eager curiosity.
It was a vital question. All waited anxiously for his reply.
"I have," he answered convincingly. "I saw it first when I was aboutyour age, and I've never forgotten it."
"But you've seen it since, haven't you? It's still in the world, isn'tit?"
"I've seen it since, and it's still in the world. Only no one knows tothis day why it's there. No one can explain it. No one can understandit. It's so beautiful that it makes you wonder, and it's so mysteriousthat it makes you--"
"What?" asked Tim for the others, while he paused a moment and staredinto their gazing faces.
"Wonder still more," he added.
Another pause followed.
"Then is your heart still burning, Uncle Felix?" Judy enquired,prodding him softly. "And does it matter much?"
"It matters a great deal, yes, because I want to find out, and cannot.And the burning goes on and on whenever I see thething-that-nobody-can-understand, and even when I don't see it but justthink about it--which is pretty often. Because, if I found out why it'sthere, I should know so much that I should give up writingstoricalnovuls and become a sort of prophet instead."
They stared in great bewilderment. Their curiosity was immense. Theywere dying to know what the thing was, but it was against the Rules toask outright.
"Were their lives _very_ dull?"--Maria set this problem, suddenlyrecalling something at the beginning of the story.
"Oh, very dull indeed. They had no sense of wonder--those who forgot."
"How awful for them!"
"Awful," he agreed, in a long-drawn whisper, shuddering.
And that shudder ran through every one. The children turned towards thedarkening room. The gloomy cupboard was a blotch of shadow. The tablefrowned. The bookshelves listened. The white face of the cuckoo clockpeered down upon them dimly from the opposite wall, and the chairs, itseemed, moved up a little closer. But through the windows the starswere beginning to peep, and they saw the crests of the friendly cedarswaving against the fading sky.
He pointed. High above the cedars, where the first stars twinkled, theblue was deep and exquisitely shaded from the golden streak below itinto a colour almost purple.
"The thing that nobody could understand was even more wonderful than_that_," he whispered. "But no one could tell why it was there; no onecould guess; no one could find out. And to this day--no one _can_ findout."
His voice grew lower and lower and lower still.
"To-morrow I'll show it to you. You shall see it for yourselves."
They hardly heard him now. The voice seemed far away. What could itbe--this very, very wonderful thing?
"We'll go out and find one...by the stream ...where the willowsbend...and shake their pointed leaves.... We'll go to-morrow...."
His voice died away inside his waistcoat. Not a sound was audible. Thechildren were very close against him. In his big hands he took eachface in turn and put his lips inside the rim of three small ears.
He told the secret then, while wonder filled the room and hoveredexquisitely above the crowded chair....
Awakened by the silence, presently, the ball of black unrolled itselfbeside the wire fender, it stretched its four black legs. And thechildren, hushed, happy, and with a mysterious burning in their hearts,went off willingly to bed, to dream of wonder all night long, and toask themselves in sleep, _"Why God has put blue dust upon the body of adragon-fly?"_