The Box of Delights (16 page)

They slithered down and found themselves in another bare corridor, in which there was a strange droning noise, which the children took to be the wind in the boughs. There was a strong smell of
honey in the air. The mouse opened a little shutter and told them to look within to the hollow of a tree. They saw that within the tree there were a multitude of bees which had almost filled the
hollow with their honeycombs. Although it was winter they were moving there, making the place drone like a thrashing-machine. The place smelt as though all the summer was still there with
lime-blossom and bean-blossom. ‘This is a fine place on a cold winter night,’ the field mouse said, ‘curled up in a blanket and letting the bees drone you to sleep. And in any
place you can get a draught of honey. Lots of the tree is all blocked with very old honey which the bees will never get to now. And, of course, here and there in this part of the tree there are
woodpeckers, the green and the spotted. They’re very nice people, of course. The rooks are very nice people too: very wise. But all those chaps have got rather a snappy way. They don’t
mean anything, of course, but if you get one good snap with those great beaks I ask you, where are you? Oh, and then, of course,’ he said, ‘there are the jackdaws. Very odd chaps, the
jackdaws. If you will look in the corner here you’ll see the kind of things they bring.’

In a corner near an opening, where a knot in the wood had fallen, was a heap of stuff which sparkled. The children went to it and pulled the things over. There was a lady’s little, old
gold watch, two rings set with brilliants, a pin with a fox’s head top, a bit of quartz which gleamed, two scraps of Roman glass, iridescent from being in the earth for eighteen hundred
years, the red cut-glass stopper of a bottle, a broken glass marble with a coloured spiral in it, a bit of brass chain and a crystal seal set in gold. ‘They just bring these things in and
leave them,’ the mouse said. ‘Queer chaps.

‘But come on down now. Oh, before we go just come up this stair. You will see a sight.’ They crept up a little stair and looked into what seemed like a cavern. Within the cavern,
just below them, a big white owl was perched, fast asleep, gurgling and growling. Peter dropped a bit of bark on to him. He half opened an eye and gurgled back to sleep again. ‘He’s the
oldest thing around here,’ the field mouse said. ‘He’s ever so old: he remembers when this tree was a sprig and when the Very Good People were here. He makes my blood run cold,
he’s so old. But come on down. His place is a bit bony and birdy and he’s a graveyard of my relations, if the truth were known. I never come here except in winter,’ the field
mouse said, as he went down the little stair. ‘This is really the birds’ quarter. In the season there’ll be a matter of seventy or eighty young jackdaws in this tree first and
last, and about half that of young rooks. And they knock the place about and nothing’s safe from them.’

He opened another little door, a trapdoor in the floor. The children could see a long shoot leading downwards. ‘It’s perfectly safe,’ the mouse said, ‘if you just let
yourself go. Nothing but weed and moss to fall on to: you can’t hurt yourself.’ And with that he let himself drop and the children followed. ‘Now this,’ the field mouse
said, as they got on to their feet in a strange room, ‘this is a part of the tree that’s really worth seeing.’

The room in which they were had been a music-room. There was a stage still set with music-stands and torn music propped up: against the wall were old ’cellos and pretty little fiddles; a
drum with the end knocked in; and parts of brass trombones. It hadn’t been used for many years: it was dusty and cobwebby. ‘Now this, you see, is a part that was made by the Very Good
People, who don’t come here any more.’

‘D’you mean Fairies?’ Susan asked.

‘No, very, Very Good People,’ the field mouse said: ‘very clever, very beautiful and very wise. But they went away. It’s a long time ago,’ the field mouse added.
‘I don’t know the rights of it. It isn’t wise to talk about those People, but, of course, everybody knows they were very, very good.’

He led the way out of the music-room to a beautiful staircase hung with tapestries and lit still with glowing lights. The staircase was carpeted with scarlet. The banisters were beautifully
carved with flowers growing on stems. The tapestries showed countless little people carrying coloured baubles to a queen of extraordinary beauty who sat upon a mushroom.

‘Now, this place,’ the mouse said, when they reached the foot of the stairs, ‘this place I don’t quite like going into, but it’s so beautiful I can’t keep
from it.’ He opened a big door, so that they pressed into a great room which seemed to fill the whole hollow of the tree. The walls were hung with banners and with portraits of
extraordinarily brilliant people, whose eyes seemed to move in their painted heads. This room was lit like the staircase with a soft, glowing light: it was carpeted with scarlet: at the end of the
room was a dais with a throne, and in front of the throne a table on which lay an ivory horn. Underneath the horn, written in letters of flame which flickered to and fro, were the words:

‘Oh, I would love to blow,’ Kay said, ‘just to see what would happen. What is a cockatrice?’

‘Oh, don’t,’ Susan said. ‘Anything might happen. A cockatrice is a fearful thing, like a cock and a cobra mixed.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t touch the thing, sir,’ the field mouse said. ‘Oh no, you mustn’t think of doing that. Nobody’s done that: even the Owl wouldn’t dare do
a thing like that: why, the Fox wouldn’t.’

‘Do blow it, Kay,’ Peter said. ‘Just for a lark.’

‘Oh, don’t, don’t!’ the mouse said. ‘You don’t know what they are. Of course, they’re awfully Good People; very beautiful and very good and very, very
clever and wise, but that’s why I wouldn’t like to hurt their feelings.’

‘Oh, if they’re beautiful and good and clever and wise,’ Kay said, ‘their feelings wouldn’t be hurt.’

‘Oh, but you don’t know,’ the field mouse said. ‘Remember I’m not saying anything against them.’

They could see that the mouse was in a twitter with terror, but Kay picked up the horn, put it to his lips and blew. He had had a little practice in the blowing of horns. He had an old
hunting-horn that had belonged to his father and sometimes the Police Inspector had let him try an old coach-horn, so that he could blow without fear of splitting his lips. He blew once and a
strange noise as sweet as the winter singing of the storm-cock came from the ivory. With a little tinkle and clack all the frames fell from the portraits on the walls. The little mouse shrieked
with terror and got underneath the table.

Kay blew a second time. This time the note was louder and stronger: it was like the first calling of the cuckoo when he comes in April. The children heard a sort of gasp of breath from the
portraits on the walls and all the figures of the portraits turned their heads and looked at Kay.

‘Oh, Kay, they’re looking at you,’ Susan said.

‘Never mind,’ Kay said. The mouse had by this time got his head underneath the carpet.

Kay blew a third blast, and at this all the lights in the room burned out a thousand-fold more brightly, and the blast of the horn became like the song of all the birds in June singing together,
with a noise of the little silver bells that had hung on the sleeves of Herne the Hunter. And at this all the beautiful people in the portraits stepped down into the room. The air became fragrant
as though all the flowers and spices of the world had come suddenly together there. The glorious creatures formed in two lines. The portraits over the door by which they had entered the room were
those of a King and a Queen. As the children turned, they saw this King and Queen advancing through the company towards the throne. They took their seats upon the throne and all the company burst
out into singing. The children stared in amazement, for they had never seen people so beautiful as these: all were exquisitely lovely and so delicate and so swift. Some were winged, but all could
move with the speed of thought, and they were clad in the colours of the dewdrops in the sun. And as they sang, countless other marvellous people of the sort thronged in through the doors and at
once they fell to dancing to music so beautiful, so moving, that to listen to it was almost too great a joy. Some beautiful little men moved up to Jemima and Susan and asked them to dance;
beautiful princesses caught Kay and Peter by the hand and swept them into the dance; and as they danced they all seemed to understand what it is that makes the planets dance about the sun and the
great stars keep their place in the constellations as they move for ever in the heavens. Kay, as he danced, could not help the thought that the field mouse might be a little out of it, but as he
came round a second time he saw that someone had placed the field mouse in a corner near the band, where he was eating what looked like wedding-cake with Hundreds and Thousands on it. When the
dance ended seven exquisite little fiery horses came into the room and galloped round and round; and all those who cared could run after the horses, leap on their backs and dance upon them as they
galloped, and leap from horse to horse. Kay couldn’t resist these beautiful galloping horses. He leapt into the ring with them and found that he could spring upon their backs and leap from
horse to horse. Then, presently, the horses trotted out of the room and were gone. Then out of the ceiling little coloured flowers began to fall, and these the Fairies caught as they fell and put
to their lips. Kay did as they did: a little white violet fell into his hand and when he put it to his lips it was as though all the honey and every sweetmeat that he had ever tasted were pressed
into his mouth at once. A joy thrilled through him such as he had never before known. Then the King of the Fairies said, ‘Friends, the long enchantment has been brought to an end. What can we
do to Kay, who has ended it for us?’

As the Fairies didn’t answer, the Queen of the Fairies said, ‘We will grant him the power to come again into Fairyland on one day in every year.’

At this moment Kay heard again that heavy tread which had so disturbed him at lunch. ‘Kay’s enemies,’ the King of the Fairies said. At once the lights went out: the Fairies
vanished. Groping in the dark the children found each other. The field mouse, with chattering teeth, was saying to them, ‘Well, it ended all right, but I was never so scared, not even that
time with the sparrowhawk.’

He groped his way to the trapdoor, which he opened; and they slid back into his dining-room, where they heard the voice of a man saying, ‘Well, it’s no good waiting any longer.
Wherever they’ve gone they’ve got right away from us. Now, it’s my belief that they’ve been in the mill the whole time.’

‘How could they have been in the mill?’ another man said. ‘In all this mud their footprints would have shown. Inside the mill in all that flour their footprints would have
shown, too. They’ve beaten us, but how they beat us I’m blessed if I can think.’

‘I can’t think,’ another said.

‘Abner won’t be too pleased,’ another said, ‘when he hears the result of today. I told you one of the aeroplanes had better keep up in the air to observe.’

‘Oh, you told us a lot, didn’t you?’ another voice said.

‘Blessed if I haven’t got pins and needles all over me, crouching there by that bridge,’ one of the men said, as they moved off.

‘And I have,’ another said.

‘It isn’t pins and needles,’ Susan said; ‘the Fairies are pricking them. Look there.’

Indeed, down at the tree foot the children saw countless little Fairies jabbing and tweaking the men. They looked like little fireflies darting to and from the great dark figures.

‘Blest if we haven’t all got rheumatics waiting like this,’ a man growled. ‘Come on. We’ll get home before we’re paralysed.’

After this, the men hurried away.

‘I say,’ Kay said, ‘it’s quite dark. Whatever time is it? I say, mouse, I’m awfully sorry that we’ve stayed so long.’ By his watch, it was half-past
six.

When they had said goodbye, the field mouse opened the front door at the foot of the elm. The children joined hands, Kay pressed the button of his Box and they resumed their shapes and fished
out the boats from the hollow of the elm tree roots. ‘Come along,’ Kay said. ‘We’d better hurry.’

As they came into the garden of Seekings they saw that the house was lit up at every window: the doors were wide open. ‘Good heavens!’ Kay said, ‘look at this!’ While
they had been away the study and hall had been turned topsy-turvy: the carpets taken up and rolled back; every drawer and cupboard ransacked; every book moved on the shelves. The house had been
thoroughly searched. Susan and Jemima cried out that their rooms had been turned topsy-turvy, by someone who had smoked strong shag tobacco. While they were marvelling, Ellen and Jane came back.
They said that they had been called away to look to Ellen’s mother who was said to be very ill, but when they reached her mother they found her never better.

‘Well, while you’ve been away a gang’s ransacked the house,’ Kay said. ‘Do look at what they’ve done. They don’t seem to have taken much.’

‘Oh, Master Kay,’ Ellen said, ‘whatever shall we do? Whatever will your guardian think?’

‘This is more of Abner’s Routine,’ Kay thought. ‘I must go and find the Inspector,’ he said.

The Inspector was soon there with his notebook. ‘Ah,’ he said, looking at the study, ‘they’ve been in.’

While the Inspector began to examine the house for clues and fingerprints, Kay went to his room. That, too, reeked of strong plug tobacco. ‘I know who has been in here,’ he said.
‘Those Wolves of the Gulf have been in; that’s the plug tobacco they were smoking in the cellar there.’

Hanging on the bedpost of Peter’s bed was a dirty red bonnet or Cap of Liberty such as the pirates had worn at their carouse. It was very old and greasy. Inside it was stitched a piece of
card with the legend: