The Dedalus Book of British Fantasy

by Brian Stableford

  “My dear Nephew,” it said, - “I have deferred until a late - perhaps the last moment, writing to you. I have long felt that you are ardently desirous of ascertaining what I have and what I should leave to you. In the first place, there is the Grange. You can always, I should think, let that very old and picturesque building for a sum which will give you the rent of your chambers, pay your club subscriptions and your dinners. You have, besides, your clerkship, which ought to pay your tailor’s bill. I do not advise you as regards the conduct of your life. My own, it is true, has been chiefly guided by the precepts of the great and good Lord Chesterfield; but I refrain from pressing my examples upon you.

  “There is, however, a very curious family possession which I am able to leave you. I am sure you will value it highly, if only on account of its history. It has been in the possession of the chief of our race for five hundred and fifty years and more. Sir Jocelyn de Haultegresse, your ancestor, being one of the later Crusaders under Richard Coeur de Lion, received it for some friendly services, the nature of which is unknown, from his noble and learned friend, the Saracen Sorcerer, Ali Ibn Yûssûf, commonly called Khanjar ed Dîn, or the Ox Goad of Religion. This invaluable cap confers on its possessor the power of having whatever he wishes for. Armed with this talisman, and being all, like myself, men of moderate ambitions, anxious chiefly to get through life as pleasantly as possible, we have not incurred odium by amassing broad lands and great possessions. I bequeath, therefore, to you this cap, in the hope that you will use it with moderation. Ponder carefully before expressing a desire, even in your own mind, the effect of making a wish which will be construed into an order. I must also give you a word of warning. I have observed for some time, to my great regret” - here the page was partly and irregularly burned - “to my very great regret… on many occasions to carry out my wishes promptly … desirable to exercise modera…no excuse for other than prompt…not fall to pieces, or there may may be alleged some pretext for crying off…ments have long been lost, and it might be difficult in court of law to recover… Well, my nephew, this talisman kept me in luxury for sixty years; perhaps it may yet …regain, so to speak, its old tone. At least, I hope so.

  “Your affect…”

  “By Jove!” said Jocelyn.

  He might have gone on to ask if anybody had ever seen the like, or if one could have expected it, or if one was really living in an age when such things are discredited. But he did not. He only said “By Jove!” and looked about the room, and at the cap, and at the letter, with bewildered eyes. At last he understood the meaning of this very plain letter. He pushed back his chair and sprang to his feet, crying, “Christopher Columbus! I’ve got a WISHING CAP!”

  II

  He stood looking at the faded old cap. The thing fascinated him; the gold embroidery flickered, and seemed to send out sparks and tiny gleams of fire. The rusty stuff glowed and became ruddy again. Could the thing be true? But his uncle was a sober man and a truthful; his narrative had nothing wild or enthusiastic about it.

  “My ancestor, Sir Jocelyn de Haultegresse,” the young man repeated. “Yes; the one who lies with crossed legs in the old church. I wish I knew how he got the cap.”

  His eyes fell upon a picture. Why, he had seen that picture a hundred times, and never thought what it might mean, or if it had any meaning at all. It hung, among others, on the wall, and represented a Crusader in full armour conversing with a Moslem. The former was a young man; the latter was old, with a long grey beard - an old man who looked impossibly wise.

  They were not only conversing, but Jocelyn heard what they were saying.

  “I understand, Venerable Ox Goad of Religion,” said the Christian, “that with this thing in my possession I can ask for and obtain anything I want.”

  “Anything in reason,” replied Khanjar ed Dîn. “You cannot, for instance, walk dry-shod from Palestine to Dover, but you can sail in safety through a storm.”

  “And not be sea-sick?”

  “Certainly not, if you command it.”

  “Suppose, for instance - a valiant knight would not ask such a thing - but suppose, for illustration, one were to ask for - say the absence of the enemy when one lands, eh? - terror of the enemy at one’s approach - flight of the enemy when one charges - safety when the arrows are rattling about one’s armour - eh?”

  “All these things,” replied the wise man, “you can command and ensure.”

  “Ha!” Sir Jocelyn smiled. “It rejoices me,” he said piously, “that I came a-crusading. All Christendom - ay! and Islam too - shall ring with my prowess.”

  “Certainly,” replied the Sage, “if you wish it.”

  “Can one also command the constancy of one’s mistress?”

  The magician hesitated.

  “You can command it,” he said. “But I know not the Frankish ladies. Perhaps they will not obey even the Slave of the Cap.”

  “One more question,” said Sir Jocelyn. “In my country they have a trick of burning those - even if they be knights, crusaders, and pious pilgrims - burning and roasting, I say, at slow fires those who become magicians, wizards, sorcerers, and those who employ the services of a devil.”

  “Keep your secret,” said the wizard. “Let no one know. And, that none may guess it, let your desires be moderate. Farewell, Sir Jocelyn.”

  The conversation ceased, but the picture remained. Pictures, in fact, last longer than conversations.

  “This is truly wonderful,” said Jocelyn.

  He threw open the windows and looked into the street. Below him, in Piccadilly, was the crowd of the early London season: the carriages and cabs rolled along the road; on the other side the trees were in their early foliage. It seemed impossible, in the very heart and centre of modern civilization and luxury, that such things as he had heard and witnessed should have happened. Yet, when he looked round the room again, there was the Cap, there was his uncle’s letter, and there the picture of Sir Jocelyn’s bargain. What had he given this Eastern wizard for a power so tremendous?

  Then the young man began to reflect upon the history of his House. They had for generations lived in the ease and affluence of English country gentlefolk: they had never, so far as he knew, turned out a spendthrift: they had not fooled away their small estate: they had neither distinguished nor disgraced themselves: in fact, there was no reason why they should try to distinguish themselves: they had all they wanted, because they could command it. Knowledge? they had the royal road to it: art - skill - strength? they had only to wish for it. Wealth? they could command it. Why, then, should they seek to show themselves better, more clever, stronger, or wiser than their fellows? It would have cost an infinity of trouble, and for no good end; because if they succeeded, how much better off would they have been? The knowledge of this secret made him understand his ancestors. As they had been, so should he be. Except for one thing. The four last baronets were unmarried; in each case the title descended to a nephew. As for himself - and here he murmured softly, “Eleanor” - and choked. Suppose you had set your heart wholly upon one thing, and that thing seemed impossible of attainment, so that the future loomed before you as dull and as grey as noon-tide at a foggy Christmas: and then suppose the clouds lifted, the sun shining, and that glorious, that beautiful Thing actually within your grasp. Anyone, under these circumstances, would choke.

  He returned to the table and contemplated the Cap, wondering if the Attendant of the Cap were actually at his elbow.

  “It might be awkward,” he said, “to wake at night and remember that the dev - I mean Monsieur the Jinn, the Minister of the Cap, was sitting beside one on the pillow. Would he come to church with one, I wonder? And would he be offended with remarks about him?” He half expected some reply, but there was none.

  “He was a very old fellow to look at,” he went on. “But in these cases age goes for nothing. I suppose he doesn’t know, himself, how old he is; as for the Cap, I wish it were a trifle less shabby.”

  Wonderful to relate, a
curious change came over the faded cloth. It looked bright again, and the gold embroidery smartened up; not to look fresh, but a good many years younger.

  “Sun came out”, said Sir Jocelyn, trying not to be too credulous. Then he thought he would test the powers of the Cap, as mathematicians test a theory, namely, with elementary cases. “I wish,” he said, “that my hat was new.” Why, as he looked at his hat, it suddenly struck him that it was not so very shabby after all: a mirror-like polish has a got-up look about it. This hat was one which had evidently been worn for a week or two, but was still quite good enough to be worn in the park or anywhere.

  “My gloves” - he stopped because, without formulating the wish in words, he instantly became aware that his gloves were by no means so bad as they had seemed a moment before. Not new certainly: but what is so horrid as a pair of brand-new gloves? He had overrated the faults of his gloves. They were an excellent pair of gloves, just worn long enough to make them fit the Fingers, and not make them look like glove-stretchers; the glove should look made for the fingers, in fact, not the fingers for the glove. To be sure, the gloves on the table were not those he had in his mind; and, in fact, he could not remember exactly how he came by those gloves. Later on, he discovered that he had taken up a wrong pair at the Club.

  He sat down to argue out this matter in his own mind. All young men try to do this: when they come to realize that “arguing out” leads to hopeless fogging, they give it up. Very few middle-aged men argue out a thing; mathematicians, sometimes; logicians, never; the intellectual ladies who contribute arguments on the intellect of the domestic cat to the Spectator, frequently. But the result is always more fog.

  A Wishing Cap, at this enlightened period, is absurd.

  But tables turn, furniture dances, men are “levitated,” thought is read, and there is a Psychical Society, with Fellows of Trinity and Doctors of Letters at the head of it. Nothing, at any time, is absurd.

  What evidence had he for the miraculous powers of the Cap? First, the word of his uncle, a most truthful and honourable gentleman. Next, the picture. Thirdly, the two remarkable Visions he had himself received. Fourthly, the gloves and the hat. Lastly, any further evidence the Cap itself might afford him.

  By this time he was hopelessly fogged. He began to remember Will, Magnetic Force, Psychic fluid, all the tags of the spiritualistic folk. These phrases are like spectres which come with fog and mist.

  Sir Jocelyn was then sensible enough to perceive that he had argued the matter thoroughly out. After all, there is nothing like experiment, especially, as the conjurors say, under “test conditions,” that is to say, where collusion, connivance, fraud, and deception of any kind are impossible. I have seen at a fair, under “test conditions,” a plum-cake made in a gentleman’s hat, and the hat none the worse.

  He lit a cigarette and tried to think of other things unconnected with a Wishing Cap. And first he reflected that, although it is bad to be a penniless Foreign Office clerk, with no other recommendations than that of being heir to a Baronet reputed well off, it is worse to have succeeded to the title and to have discovered that there is no money after all. “Hang it!” cried Jocelyn, “there might have been something. I do wish my uncle had left me something - even a single sixpence!” As he spoke a small coin, a sixpence in fact, tumbled out of a forgotten hole in his waistcoat pocket and fell clinking on the floor. At this point Jocelyn gave way to temper. “Damn the waistcoat!” he cried, and at the same moment dropped his cigarette and burnt an irreclaimable hole in the light stuff of which the waistcoat was made.

  Then he conceived a strange idea, a kind of trap to catch a demon, or at least to prove him. He leaned his elbows on the table and addressed the Cap.

  “You are a poor old moth-eaten thing,” he said. “That, so far as I know, you may have been when the Ox Goad of Religion gave you to my ancestor, Sir Jocelyn the Valiant. Now, you give me a test of your powers in a simple and unmistakable way. I am tired of the uniform London dinner. Cause me to have an entirely new dinner. There!” He expected some movement on the part of the Cap: a nod or inclination at least. Nothing of the kind. The Cap remained perfectly still.

  “A note for you, sir,” said the servant, bringing him a letter.

  It was from a man named Annesley, a friend of Jocelyn’s who had rooms in Sackville Street.

  “If by any lucky chance,” it said, “you are disengaged this evening, come here. The experiment in menus we have talked of comes off to-night. Courtland has been called away, so we must have it now or perhaps never.”

  Yes, there had been talk about variety in menus. Annesley, a man of invention and ideas, had promised something, vaguely. Well, he would go: he answered the note to that effect.

  “I suppose,” he said to the Cap, “that you have got something to do with this. I wished for a new kind of dinner, and here is one: on the other hand, Annesley hasn’t got a Cap, and I suppose he arranged his menu without reference to you. I will now give you another chance. I am going to the Park. I wish to meet the Stauntons. Do you know who the Stauntons are? Find out! Yah! You and your sixpence!”

  In spite of his bluster, he was rapidly acquiring confidence in his Cap. Before going out, he carefully placed it, with his uncle’s letter, in the secret drawer, which he closed. Then he looked at the picture of his ancestor and the Syrian magician.

  “Venerable Ox Goad of Religion!” he said, imitating his great ancestor, “can I command, in truth, all that I desire?”

  It seemed as if a voice spoke in answer, but whose voice, or whence it came, he knew not.

  “Command!”

  Jocelyn heard it and shuddered. Then he took his hat and gloves, and hurried forth.

  III

  When Jocelyn wished to meet the Stauntons, he should have explained that he wished to meet Nelly, or Eleanor Staunton. This might have saved him a good deal of annoyance. For, first there were Connie Staunton, the actress, and her sister Linda, both of the Gaiety. He met them, driving in a victoria, and heard two young gentlemen, as they lifted their hats, murmur their names in accents of idolatrous emotion.

  “Your are a fool,” said Jocelyn, addressing the Cap. Then there came rolling along a great yellow chariot, with an old lady and still older gentleman in it.

  “That,” said one of two girls who were standing beside the railing, “that is Lady Staunton and Sir George - our Hemmer is her lady’s-maid. She’s a kind old thing.”

  “This is ridiculous,” said Jocelyn. Yet he was pleased to observe the activity of his new servant. Two sets of Stauntons already, though not yet the right set. “I mean the Howard Stauntons.”

  It was before him, slowly advancing with the throng. He could see the backs of two heads and the parasol of a third. Mrs. Staunton and Caroline, and - yes - Nelly! Hers was the parasol. He would walk on and meet them when they turned.

  He was conscious that he was regarded with no great favour by the young lady’s mamma. Still, he was now a Baronet, with a place in the country, and an income, counting his clerkship, of - Well - was it quite six hundred pounds a year? There was also the Cap, but of that he could say nothing. Yet, oh! the joy of wishing beautiful dresses for Nelly, when Nelly should be his own!

  There were two daughters: Caroline, the elder, was now seven-and-twenty years of age, and in her ninth season. As she was beautiful, accomplished, clever, and rich (by reason of a bequest from a rich uncle), it was to all women a most surprising thing that she did not marry. Men, who understand these things better, were not surprised. Her beauty was after the fine old Roman style, and accompanied by a more than classical coldness. She was an advocate of Woman’s Rights, an ardent politician, a student of logic, learned in many ways, but she was not, apparently, a devotee of Venus. That goddess loves her worshippers to be soft-eyed, smiling, caressing, lively, willing to be pleased and anxious to please. Caroline was chiefly anxious to be heard. There was also some talk about an early affair which ended badly. Some girls harden after such a disaster. Still,
there was no doubt that Caroline desired to convert men into listeners. Of the opposite school was Nelly - younger than her sister by seven good solid years. Not so beautiful - in fact, with irregular features - she was singularly taking, by reason principally of her sympathetic nature. She had no opinions at all of her own, but she was on the other hand very ready to hear those of other people, especially those of young men. That woman is certain to go far who thoroughly understands that young men - indeed, men of all ages - delight in nothing so much as to talk confidentially with women, and especially young women, about themselves. Many a most excellent chance has been lost through not observing and acting upon this principle. Nelly, her mother was resolved, should not be thrown away. As for Jocelyn, he had nothing, and she had nothing, therefore any little tenderness which might arise on the girl’s side should be instantly nipped in the bud. A resolute mother, when assisted by an elder daughter, is altogether too powerful for a detrimental. Therefore Jocelyn got next to no chances, and worshipped at a distance and sadly. Whether Nelly ever understood the meaning of his melancholy I know not. Meantime, the young man lost no opportunity of meeting the object of his hopeless passion, though he too often fell into the hands of the elder sister, who made him sit down and hear her opinions. Now, however, he repeated, he was a Baronet, and he had - he had a Wishing Cap.

  “I wish they would go slower,” he said. There was a block at Prince’s Gate, and the whole line was stopped.

  “Thank you,” said Jocelyn. In another moment he would have reached the carriage, when - oh! - he groaned deeply - as there met him the greatest bore of his acquaintance, a long-winded bore, a cheerful bore, a bore who laughs, a bore who tells very pointless stories, a bore at the sight of whom men fly, plead engagements, and for their sake break up clubs. This creature seized Jocelyn by the button, and told him how he had landed a good thing. And the block was removed and the carriages went on again. At last he broke away, still keeping the Stauntons in sight. But there was another diversion. This time it was a slight carriage accident, but as it happened to friends he could not in common decency pass on without tendering his assistance. Once more he got away, and saw the Stauntons’ carriage slowly making its way to the turning at Albert Gate. Then was his last chance: the crowd was thick, but he forced his way through, and was prepared with a ready smile just before the carriage turned homewards. In fact, he had already executed a beautiful bow before he perceived that the vehicle was empty. The ladies had got out without his seeing them. He turned, discomfited, and went home to dress for dinner.