In the Land of Time

by Lord Dunsany

  “One day when Lucy was not in the room Meddin said to the satyr: ‘Were there any nymphs in the wood?’

  “ ‘Oh, yes,’ said the satyr.

  “‘What happened to them?’ asked Meddin.

  “ ‘They ran,’ said the satyr and began to cry, so that Meddin could get no more information about them.

  “It had dog-like gratitude and was perpetually willing, so that they were even able to teach it to make tea for them, though it was always afraid of fire. As for appearance, which counted so much in those days, as to some extent it does still, its clumsiness in boots, and the tight breeches, were drawbacks, but on the other hand its face was distinctly handsome, and its eyes were alert and so were most of its movements. With the beard gone and the ears clipped there was only the light-brown skin to hint that this was a creature of the woods, and it was barely a hint.

  “I gather there was tension and strain on the two Meddins for some time; and then one anxious day the Vicar’s wife called. They saw her at the door ringing the bell.

  “ ‘It is Mrs. Speldridge,’ said Lucy.

  “‘What shall we do?’ said Meddin.

  “ ‘Make it answer the door,’ said Lucy. ‘It’s got to start somewhere. And look here, we must stop calling it it.’

  “So the satyr opened the door and did it quite well, asking, as they had taught it to ask, ‘Who shall I say?’ in its forest accent. And then it brought in tea, carrying everything in with the grace which goes with strength.

  “ ‘Our man is always basking in the sun, Mrs. Speldridge,’ said Meddin.

  “ ‘Whenever we let him off for a moment,’ ” said Lucy, ‘he always goes out and basks.’

  “ ‘I haven’t seen him in church,’ said Mrs. Speldridge.

  “ ‘Of course he must go,’ said Meddin.

  “ ‘Yes, of couse,’ said Lucy.

  “ ‘I was wondering,’ said Mrs. Speldridge, and she launched out into a parochial matter, and the talk was for a while of bazaars and of Lady Rillswood, who ran them, and the satyr came in and out two or three times, doing just as he had been told; and everything went well. And when it showed Mrs. Speldridge out, always turning towards her, as one should to a lady, in spite of the tight breeches she saw no sign of a tail.

  “And so the Meddins were left over the remnants of tea in triumph. It was perhaps more wonderful that there had been no suspicion in their own kitchen; but they had not expected there would be, and they were right. They knew Mrs. Smew’s attitude to any man in the kitchen: with every odd man they had had, it was always the same.

  “‘What do you think of him?’ Lucy had asked her straight out, the day after the satyr came.

  “ ‘Looks like the devil, and probably is,’ said Mrs. Smew and went on with her work.

  “It was just the same attitude she had taken with Thomas, when he had worn those breeches; and Lucy was satisfied. That she was satisfied did not mean that the fear had entirely lifted. I think I mentioned that at the beginning of this century you could not possibly keep a satyr in your garden. They were keeping one in the house; and had he not been so docile, so grateful and so obedient, but had gone about in the village, as other odd men did, discovery would have come immediately. There is a great deal to be said for convention; and I am not at all sure that it would not save the world from the disasters that seem to be coming. There was only one convention in those days really; the convention that you did the thing that was done, and that nothing else was possible. But the convention grew old and wore out, or the world grew too strong for it. Of course there were exceptions, and here was one of them, two people on whom the Vicar’s wife called once a year hiding a common satyr in the house. Never a day passed but that the Meddins talked it all over; and they never found a way of getting rid of their satyr, and they never felt quite safe.”

  “I don’t know that people objected to satyrs so much at the end of the Victorian era,” said Terbut, who was quite as old as Jorkens. “You see satyrs in every kind of ornament, and in hundreds of pictures of that period. You mentioned Corot yourself.”

  “Yes,” said Jorkens. “But satyrs at a distance, satyrs far away among willows, as Corot painted them, satyrs high up on walls, or in poems or fanciful pictures, satyrs as fabulous things. But here was one in the house, opening the door for you, handing round plates. That is quite a different thing. There are many romantic things that cannot be tolerated for a moment in a parlour; certainly not in a parlour to which a vicar’s wife would ever come again if they were, or any of her husband’s parishioners. And, you know, there was a great deal to be said for their point of view. Well, here they were, Meddin and his sister, with their problem, and they would have done well to have concentrated all their attention on it, for to hide that satyr was not an easy problem. And for a while they did concentrate all their attention upon it; and then one day the artist broke out in Meddin and he insisted on painting the satyr. It was a risky business, whatever way you looked at it: first of all there was the danger of being found out while at it, for of course he stripped the satyr, and he painted it out in his orchard. And then there was the evidence that the picture provided against the Meddin household; for anybody could see that the picture was done from life, and quite close, and that it was no imaginary thing such as a fanciful painter might put into one of his landscapes. Lucy implored him not to do it, but Meddin was adamant: he had seen the light one day on the satyr’s skin, and had formed the idea that he must paint him at all costs. And paint him he did. He got him hidden by a trunk in the orchard, the great bole of an old tree, and only went out with the satyr to paint late in the evening. The little dark beard of course had to go in from memory, but the dim light on the satyr’s skin and on the mossy trunk beside him made a picture that would have been hung in any exhibition, had Meddin dared to show it. He noticed in those evenings that birds on their way home had no fear of the satyr, and would go as close to him as they would to a horse, and stay there undisturbed, till they saw Meddin.

  “To avoid tiring the satyr by keeping it standing too long Meddin used to allow it, or him, as they now called it, to grub up bulbs for a bit, so long as he kept himself hidden. Lucy all that time was full of alarm and implored her brother never to paint the satyr again, and when the picture was finished he gave the promise that she had found it impossible to cajole him to give her before.

  “The brother and sister discussed the question of food for the satyr.

  “ ‘I’d like to extend his range of diet a bit,’ said Meddin. ‘We owe him a bit more than tulip-bulbs for all the work he is doing for us.’

  “For he worked in the garden for them as well as in the house, and cut up wood for the fire and carried in buckets of water.

  “ ‘It’s not our tulip-bulbs that I grudge him,’ said Lucy. ‘It’s our respectability. It’s everything. Who would ever call on either of us again if they knew that we kept a satyr?’

  “‘Oh, that’s all right,’ said Meddin. ‘He isn’t a satyr any longer.’

  “ ‘Isn’t a satyr?’ said Lucy.

  “ ‘Not in those trousers,’ said Meddin. ‘And not unless Mrs. Speldridge says he is.’

  “ ‘Someone will see him one of these days,’ she said, ‘slinking about in the orchard, and they’ll see what he is, and say that we keep a satyr.’

  “ ‘No, no, they won’t,’ said Meddin reassuringly. But he felt the fear too.

  “Noticing some resemblance in the satyr’s habits to those of the badger, Meddin decided to try him with honey; and this, provided that it was offered him in the comb, the satyr ate with delight.

  “ ‘He must have a name, of course,’ said Meddin.

  “ ‘He has got Thomas’ clothes,’ said Lucy; ‘he can have his name too.’

  “ ‘I’ll tell him,’ said Meddin.

  “So the satyr became Thomas. He worked all day; he waited at table, cleaned up after, washed Meddin’s brushes in turpentine and then in soap and water, did everything that used to be done by t
he charwoman, looked after the garden; in fact did the work of two men and two women, and all for no wages. Yet Meddin had to work too. For instance he could not trust the thing with a razor, and dare not let its hair grow; so he shaved the satyr every morning himself. And all the while Meddin and Lucy were constantly inventing devices that should prevent the neighbours from finding out the secret their house hid. And it’s all very well to be critical of those people’s conventions, but I doubt if many of you would care to call at a house in which they kept a perfectly wild satyr; for, however much they had dressed him and shaved him, you don’t alter the character of any woodland thing by keeping it for a few days in a house. More than once during those days Lucy had said: ‘I only wish we could take him back to a wood.’

  “And Meddin had replied: ‘There aren’t any left.’

  “ ‘We could find one further off,’ insisted Lucy.

  “ ‘Oh, we can’t get rid of Thomas,’ Meddin said.

  “‘I suppose not,’ said Lucy, and sighed. And the clouds of anxiety that hope had lifted for a few seconds came down upon her again. And Meddin was under the same cloud too. They did not often travel beyond the village of Rillswood, and had nowhere to go if they did. If Rillswood refused to call on them, they could be exiled as well in their garden as in the remote lands to which Romans or Greeks sent their exiles. And they knew well enough that a house that kept a satyr was not a house on which Rillswood people would call. And so things were for some days, uncertain and full of anxieties. Those warm Spring evenings, and the birds singing happily, gave no hint of the fears that hid in the hearts of the Meddins. And then one day the thunderbolt seemed to be over their heads. A note for Lucy came by hand after breakfast. It asked if Lady Rillswood would find them in, if she came to tea that afternoon. Lady Rillswood was the widow of the man who had bought the Rillswood estate, which she was now developing. She was good-looking and energetic; indeed she had ample energies for all the activities that the village of Rillswood needed, and all these she largely directed. She did not admit to being forty, nor did she look it. Rumour spoke often of her remarriage, but, with a curious deficiency in anything so well-informed as rumour, it had never yet named a new husband. She loomed as a thunderbolt threatening to ruin the Meddins, because not only had Lady Rillswood travelled widely, but she had actually all round her in her house all kinds of antique marbles; and Lucy knew well enough and so did Meddin, that, however simple Mrs. Speldridge might be, Lady Rillswood would know a satyr the moment she saw one. And if Lady, Rillswood gave up calling on them that would be the exile I spoke of. I do not mean that it would have mattered if she had not called on them for ten years, but if she had any reason for not doing so, that reason would get out, and no one else in Rillswood would go near them. Well, they drilled the satyr the whole morning, and after they had had lunch they felt more easy about him. So willing, alert and active was he, and even intelligent in a woodland sort of way, that but for the tight breeches and the very alien profile and the tanned skin, he would have seemed the perfect servant; and, after all, the profile was a very fine one and the sun-tanned skin was handsome, if only it did not remind people of a satyr. This is how Meddin summed it all up to Lucy as tea-time drew near: ‘She’s got to notice him first, then she’s got to see what he is, and then she’s got to prove it.’

  “But comfort that was not real was rejected by Lucy. ‘She’ll only have to say it,’ she said, ‘No one will ask Lady Rillswood to prove it.’

  “This was true, for it was not only that she owned all Rillswood, but she actively worked all its committees and leagues, so much that neither of the Meddins knew for what purpose she was coming to see them; nor did they ever find out for certain.

  “ ‘She’ll not notice Thomas,’ said Meddin again.

  “And then Lady Rillswood arrived. And the first thing they saw was that her eyes were fixed on the satyr, as it showed her into the parlour. Then it had to bring in the tea; but the moment that Lucy heard the step of the satyr she turned to Lady Rillswood and said, ‘We think that my brother does such clever pictures. But we are afraid that they might not interest you. But we would be so glad if you cared to look at them.’

  “Lady Rillswood did not run all Rillswood by not being interested in things that her neighbours had to show. She got up at once and was away with Meddin before the satyr returned to the room. Suddenly a dark thought came to Lucy: could Alfred (that was her brother) be trusted to keep the new picture hid? She rose, and hurried after them. Lady Rillswood was charmed with all the pictures she saw; and then she turned to one with its face to the wall saying, ‘And may I see that one?’

  “ ‘Oh, that one’s unfinished, Lady Rillswood,’ said Lucy.

  “And Lady Rillswood turned away, seeing by Lucy’s attitude, and hearing by the tone of her voice, before she had finished her sentence, that she did not want that picture to be looked at. She was walking out of the studio. And then Meddin blurted out: ‘Oh, that one. I really think you might like it. The light of a late evening on brown skin. And an apple-tree too, an old one with lichen on it. I think you might like it.’

  “And he went to the picture.

  “ ‘I think,’ said Lucy, but she found no more to say, and felt that she stood upon the edge of her world, and that the edge was crumbling. The words checked Meddin, but his hand had already gone to the canvas, and he saw no way of telling Lady Rillswood that he did not mean to show it her after all.

  “ ‘The light, you see,’ he said, ‘on . . .’

  “ ‘Yes, charming,’ said Lady Rillswood.

  “Then they came back to the parlour. Meddin watched his guest at the tea-table, and her eyes seemed full of thought. He could not make out whether she knew or not. But to Lucy one thing was certain, and that was that if Lady Rillswood saw the satyr again, after seeing that picture, any doubts that she might yet have would be gone for ever. And she could not think of any means of keeping Thomas out of the way in their little house. And so she sat there helpless. Meddin, from whom I had a full account of all this, has not the slightest remembrance of what they talked of all tea-time, but he remembers very vividly that all the time he was wondering when the satyr would next appear. And then Lady Rillswood said, ‘If I might ask for my carriage.’

  “And there was nothing to do but to ring the bell. And the satyr came hopping in. Lady Rillswood took one glance at him. Worse than that, it turned its back on her; or at any rate allowed her to see behind it, the tight breeches and the trace of its tail. Meddin saw that, and Lucy saw it, and both knew Lady Rillswood knew everything.

  “Lady Rillswood said goodbye to them both with all her usual charm. Then they sat there looking greyly into the future, barely speaking a word to each other.

  “I think it’s good for people to look at ruin sometimes, and then to turn away from the dark chasm to find all the world more radiant, as Alfred and Lucy did.”

  “What happened?” I asked Jorkens, for he was sitting quite silent.

  “She married it almost at once,” said Jorkens.

  “Who? What?” said Terbut.

  “Lady Rillswood married the satyr,” said Jorkens. “I believe she was extraordinarily happy with him, till she died three or four years ago. And, as for him, you saw it go by just now.”

  A Life’s Work

  Whatever actual fact there is in the following story, which Jorkens told in our club, however true it may ring, I must admit at the outset that he distinctly told us that not only names were fictitious, but whole incidents and all surrounding geography. This alteration of names and events he said was absolutely necessary, because he said that otherwise there were several people who would write to him, and even perhaps to the papers, to say that that was not the way they did things, or that things were done at all; and in that case, Jorkens said, he would be faced with the alternatives of proving that they were really done in that way, and always had been, or, by remaining silent, to allow the impression to gain currency that he had exaggerated, or even inve
nted. And, things being like that, the reader will probably suit himself in deciding whether the story is to be regarded as bearing the stamp of truth, or whether it should be classed with those anecdotes that tell of things which, in historical fact, have never really occurred. Be that as it may, Jorkens, one day in the Club, was asked, by one of our members, in a manner that appeared to make the question one put for mere information, whether he had not met several very interesting people.

  “Yes, at one time or another,” said Jorkens.

  I was afraid he was going to say no more, so I asked him who was the most interesting of all these.

  “Well, I don’t know,” said Jorkens. “That’s hard to say. You can say who does the most work, but you can’t always say he is more interesting than someone who may have done a good deal less.”

  “Who’s done the most work of all the people you’ve met, Jorkens?” I asked, for I was afraid he was evading the question, and that he might reveal to us none of his experiences at all.

  “That,” said Jorkens, “is more easily answered, I was passing once through a country whose name I will not give you, because the man I will tell you about was one of its most important citizens, and for various reasons I had better not identify him.”

  And he gave us some of the reasons that I have already mentioned.

  “I saw the man walking one day into the Royal Market Place: it was some sort of gala day. As a matter of fact it was Onion-selling Day, which doesn’t mean much to us, but it commemorated the opening of the market about a thousand years ago, and is the principal day of their year. Well, we won’t go into that. But it was a lovely bright summer day, and I saw this man walking slowly along in a dark blue tail-coat and wearing two huge silver stars, upon which I commented to the man who was showing me round. Well, I’m not especially observant, but my noticing those two stars evidently pleased my foreign friend a good deal, for he explained to me that I had noticed something that to them was quite memorable, and practically unique. There are only two parties in that country, and only two important decorations, one to each party, and this old fellow in the blue coat had both of them. ‘Very lucky,’ I said, for they were very fine stars, and I had to make some comment.