Angels & Insects: Two Novellas Read online

  Miss Mouffet’s reply was lost in the whirring of the great wings, as the Moth rose from the earth, with steady beats, and went swiftly out, over the wall, into the dark beyond.

  The journey was full of terrors and delights, which you may imagine for yourself. Sometimes the moon was obscured by great hooked leathery wings, and sometimes the earth shone silver and peaceful beneath. They flew on, and on, over oceans and cities, rivers and forests, and then began a long, slow descent in a ravine between rocks that went on, and on, so deep, that above them the stars appeared to vanish. And as the sky and the moon and the stars vanished, another world was revealed by another light, a black world washed by flickering silvery fires, and shot with rainbow colours whose source he could not see. And finally the Moth alighted on what seemed to be the steps of a temple cut in a rock face, surrounded by a thick grove of silent, watching black trees. On the step of the temple was a much smaller Hawk Moth, or Sphinx, grass-green in colour, with a gold underwing, and a look of earthly leaves in that dark place.

  ‘This is a relative of mine,’ whispered Acherontia Atropos. ‘Her name is Proserpinus Proserpina, and she and her family wait constantly upon the Lady. She will take you to the Cave, through the Garden, if you wish to go.’

  So Seth dismounted, and followed the small flying green moth. Inside the Temple gates was a closed and dreaming garden, where everything was asleep. Lawns of closed daisies lay in that strange even light surrounded by trellises of closed columbine where sleeping birds nested, and drowsy trees under which slept curled-up snakes, and lambs with their noses between their hooves, and many other creatures, all still and calmly waiting. Only the moths moved, silver wings, soft brown wings, chalky wings, visiting the flowers, stirring the quiet air with noiseless plumes.

  In the end they came to a cavern, out of which the light seemed to be flooding, now white, now broken into many colours. Moths danced before the light, and behind the moths was a thick veil of living silk threads, moving busily, about and about. And over the cavern was written, ‘I am all that hath been, and shall be, and my veil hath no mortal yet uncovered.’ And Proserpinus Proserpina danced before the golden silk which seemed to spin out of the light inside. And inside stood a Figure who held a high staff, or spindle, and who could not be seen because of all the living stuff She spun into the light. But Seth thought he saw a face of great beauty, illuminated with gold, and then he thought he saw a lion, hot and ruddy with snarling lip and bloody teeth. And he fell to the earth, and said, ‘I beg you to help me. I have come all the way to beg for help.’

  A small dusky brown moth, with what appeared to be hieroglyphic scribbles on its draggled forewing, said, ‘I am Noctua Caradrina Morpheus, and I serve the maker of dreams. You are commanded to lie down before the threshold and sleep in the dust, and take what dreams may come to you, good or ill.’

  And Seth said, ‘Sleep will be very welcome. I already feel drowsy. I should like to sleep here, even on the bare earth.’

  So he lay down in the dust, at the sill of the Fairy’s Cave, and Caradrina Morpheus flew heavily to and fro over his eyelids, dusting them with a brown, sooty dust, and he fell into a deep sleep. He dreamed of kind hands touching his brow, and of hot, bloody breath in his ears, and he heard a voice crying, ‘Fear no more,’ and another saying, ‘I care for nothing, all must go,’ and he saw in his dream everything that was, like a great river hurrying to the lip of a huge fall, and going over, in one great rush of mingled matter, liquids and solids, blood and fur and feather and leaf and stone, and he awoke with a terrible cry, and the even light was as it had been.

  And then the Figure behind the veil addressed him directly in a low voice, neither male nor female, which asked him who he was, and what he desired.

  So he explained, and asked for help for himself and his comrades.

  And the voice said, ‘Before you can be helped, you must answer my question.’

  And Seth said, ‘I will try. I can do no more.’

  ‘My question is: What is my name?’

  And many names murmured together in his mind, names of fairies and goddesses, and monsters too, like the sound of waters in his ear. And he could not choose. So he was dumb.

  ‘You must speak, Seth. You must name me.’

  ‘How can I name you, who have more names than all the creatures, when they have so many each, and Elpenor is Elephant, Hawk, Pig, Twilight Lover and Sphinx and he is only one tiny rosy moth? How can I name you, when you are hidden behind a veil, and you spin your own hiding-place, and make your own light? What would any name I choose be, to you? I cannot name you, and yet I believe you will help me, for Mistress Mouffet said you would, if you wished to, and I do believe, I do believe you are kind—’

  And at that all the moths danced furiously and the light inside the silk moved with laughter, and the voice said, ‘You have solved the riddle most excellently, for I am indeed kind, and that is one of my names, one of the best of them. I am known as Dame Kind in many places, and you have answered my riddle by trusting me. So I will help you—I will send you back to Dame Cottitoe Pan Demos’s garden and I will send Caradrina Morpheus with you, who can creep into the palace and the garden and with his magic dust cast everyone into a deep sleep. And some of them will see sweet things and some of them will see terrors, for although Caradrina Morpheus appears to be an insignificant, dingy creature, he has another name, and another aspect, for he too is not what he seems, and is also Phobetor, the Terrifier. He is ally enough for you, although his power over Dame Cottitoe cannot last long, for she has great strength of will, and will snap his spell even within her dark dreams. So you must hurry to rescue the enchanted creatures, which you will do by touching them with this insignificant little herb, whose name is Moly. And you may restore yourself, on your return, by the same means. Here, as you may have noticed, you have many forms and many sizes, for you are what you are as reflected in the pupil of my Eye, which you cannot see, for it is behind the veil and shrinks and grows huge like a dark moon, like the pupil of a great cat. And what I see and what my Eye reflects is your outward case, containing what you may become, like Atropos’s pupa, which is named for a carved doll, or a small girl child, ready to grow. I hold you small in my gaze, Seth, and you may grow in it, or shrink in it, or vanish, if I blink. You may see my pupil, or my puppet, as you choose well or ill. Everything is single and double. Things are not what they seem.’

  And then the person behind the veils laughed briefly and gave a little sigh, and must have blinked, for Seth was able to turn his own gaze away, and there was soft, humming Atropos, waiting to bear him back, with Caradrina Morpheus flittering beside them.

  And it all fell out as Kind had predicted. They waited by the wall for the evening shadow, and then Morpheus fluttered away, like a blown leaf across the lawn, and over the threshold into the large salon, where he spread his wings, and became a monstrous creature, the size of a great eagle, and shook his wings and filled the room with a sifting cloud of dark brown dust. And the goat and the heifer and the spaniel stood like blocks of ice or marble where they were, and Dame Cottitoe stretched out her silver crook to strike at the monster, and sneezed on the dust, like an old woman taking too much snuff, and was frozen there. And Seth came in then, through a side door, and hurried to the Sties and released his comrades, who looked around and blinked and nearly killed him in their excitement for he had forgotten to restore his own shape. So he did this, appearing amongst them as if by magic, that is to say, by magic, to their great pleasure and amazement.

  And as they hurried away from the palace to begin a new adventure, Seth heard a buzzing in his ear, and there, floating on the end of a silver rope, no bigger than his little finger, was the long thin black figure of Mistress Mouffet, borne up by her grey silk cloak like wings, with her spectacles gleaming with pleasure. And Seth thanked her, and hurried on, for he needed to be miles away before the garden resounded to the wrath of Dame Cottitoe Pan Demos.

  William was much surprised by Mis
s Crompton’s flight of imagination. It made him uneasy, in ways he could not quite analyse, and at the same time his own imagination could not quite see her writing this story. She had always seemed dry, and this tale, however playful, was throbbing with some sort of emotion. He waited a day or two before giving it back to her; during this time, she appeared to be avoiding him. Finally he took his courage in his hands, along with her boldly written pages, and waylaid her in the morning-room.

  ‘I have been wanting to return your work to you. I am full of surprise and admiration. It is all very lively and vivid. Really very—full of surprises.’

  ‘Ah,’ she said. And then, ‘I am afraid I got rather carried away. Something that rarely happens to me, or never. I became intrigued by the caterpillars—do you remember little Amy bringing in the Large Elephant Hawk Moth and saying she thought it was some kind of lizard? And I thought that the thing was a kind of walking figure of speech—and began to look up the etymologies—and found it was all running away from me. It was as though I was dragged along willy-nilly—by the language, you know—through Sphinx and Morpheus and Thomas Mouffet—I suppose my Hermes was Linnaeus—who does not appear.’

  ‘It is all extremely ingenious, certainly.’

  ‘I am afraid,’ said Miss Crompton carefully, ‘that it is too didactic. That there is too much message. Did you find that there was too much message?’

  ‘I don’t think that is true, no. The impression I got from it was one of thickening mystery, like the riddle of the Sphinx herself, a most portentous person. I think childish readers will find both instruction and delight in it.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Miss Crompton. Then, ‘I had meant to write a fabulous Tale, not an allegory, it is true.’

  ‘I wondered if Dame Cottitoe was the Church, at one point. Bishops, you know, with crooks. There have been very pretty religious allegories using butterflies, since Psyche is the Soul and the Greek name for butterflies—’

  ‘I had no such grand aims, I assure you. My message was linked to my title.’

  ‘ “Things Are Not What They Seem,” ’ said William. ‘Well, that is certain at least. That is a good lesson. You could have included the mimicry of poisonous butterflies by harmless ones, observed by Bates—’

  ‘I could indeed. But the work was already too long for what it was. I am glad to have it back.’

  ‘I think you should write much more in that vein. Your imagination is most fertile.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Miss Crompton, with an inappropriate final sharpness.

  In the Spring of 1863 Eugenia was brought to bed with Meg and Arabella, two soft, pale little creatures, as like as two white peas in a pod. In the Summer, with scientific precision, William checked and elaborated his observations of the ant colonies, managing to observe the mating of the sanguinea this year, as well as that of the Wood Ants, which gave rise to the experiment which provided his coup de théâtre. He introduced into the glass nest of Wood Ants in the schoolroom two or three sanguinea Queens, presumably newly fertilised, which he had collected after their nuptial flight.

  What follows is a tale of patience and subterfuge, determination and racial power. The small Queen waited patiently outside the Nest, offering no resistance to workers of the Colony who attacked her, but bowing her head submissively and retiring from combat, returning only when the guardians of the city had gone about their business. Little by little she made her way along the narrow tunnels towards the centre of the Nest. Once or twice she was challenged and crouched back, like a rabbit before an oncoming hound. Once, a more agitated, or wiser defender of the city made a determined attack on her, grasping and biting, attempting to bring her sting to bear on the young Princess’s new ruddy armour. At this the young intruder roused herself, and fought back, seizing the head of her attacker, and severing it neatly with her jaws. What she did then was truly amazing, considering that she had barely emerged from the shelter of her cocoon and hardly had sight of other ants, friend or enemy. She gathered up the sad remains of her gallant opponent, and crept on her way, always inwards, bearing the dead body before her. This must so have confused the inhabitants of the nest—must so effectively have masked her strangeness, her foreign odour, that this Medea was able to insinuate herself into a crevice adjoining the very bedchamber of the Queens of the Glass Nest themselves. There she lay, with the enemy corpse across her door, motionless and watching. Hungry too, we fear—we did not observe her to feed during this time. And then one day she began to burrow again, obeying some inner informant as to what was beyond the thin wall of soil she was destroying, until finally she burst into the chamber of the Rulers, where their slaves were licking their large bodies, and carrying away their eggs to the nursery. The Red Queen looked about her, and advanced to the attack. The black Queens were swollen with eggs and sweltering in luxury in their harem. They did not expect to have to fight, and did not retaliate with any fury concomitant to the power put into the assault of the aggressor, who was soon straddling one unfortunate and cutting off her head with one exact movement of her mandibles. There was some confused agitation amongst the nurserymaids and the ladies’ maids, but no one confronted the regicide, who lay exhausted for a time, without relaxing her deadly hold on her adversary.

  And for many days more, she did not relax her hold. She began to move more and more freely about the bedchamber, but always riding, as it were, upon the dead husk of her rival, as though she were a ghost, or a possessing demon, animating a puppet-queen. And then she laid her own first eggs, which were slavishly seized upon, and carried away to the cradle by the Wood Ant slaves, quite as though this cuckoo, this impostor, were a true heir to the slain. The eggs differ considerably in appearance from her rivals’, but this appears to make no difference to the nurses, who ‘recognise’ them by whatever traces of the scent of the poor dead mother still cling to her murderer. And the red children will spring up amongst the black, and for a time they will work together—and who knows, they will come to outnumber the Wood Ants, and the palace may change shape, and the colony die out in its present form. Or maybe the line will fail, and the Glass Nest will return to its previous rulers? We shall watch, year by year, season by season, for the Kingdom underground to give up its secret history—

  In the early days of that Autumn, as the activity in the nest died down, the book was brought to its end, and the pages, William’s science, William’s brooding, Miss Crompton’s exact demonstrative drawings, all neatly heaped together, and copied in Miss Crompton’s firm handwriting. William wrote to a friend in the British Museum asking casually about publishing houses for a possible future project, and Miss Crompton packed up the manuscript and went to the nearest market town with it, on the pretext of looking for new winter boots.

  ‘For I do not trust the village postmistress not to tell everyone that such and such a fat packet has gone off—to where it has gone—and we do not wish to attract attention to what may be a completely unfruitful endeavour, do we? When the book is handsomely bound, and ready for review, then we must be open. But that time is not come.’

  ‘I had thought we were to include some of your stories in the text. As it is, we have a few illustrative verses—Clare and Wordsworth and Milton and so on—but none of your fables.’

  ‘I was a little discouraged by the nature and length of “Things Are Not What They Seem”. And then I gathered myself, and thought I would try to put together a collection of such tales. I should dearly love to have an income of my own. Is that a shocking thing to say? I cannot tell you how dearly.’

  ‘I cannot help wishing—for your sake—you had taken up the pen a little earlier.’

  Oh, I waited for my Muse. Our ants, you know, were my muses. They inspired me.’

  When the letter from Mr Smith came, the time did not still seem quite ripe for explaining to the Alabasters that he had turned author. Matty Crompton brought the letter to him in his workroom, where he was mounting a very fiddly birdskin from Mexico. He had never seen her so full of life—
her sallow cheeks were hot, and her breath uneven. He realised she had been watching the postman come and go, like a hawk, for weeks. She stood in the doorway, her fists clenched in her skirts, all tense muscles and angles, whilst he read the letter, at first to himself, and then, in a half-whisper, aloud.

  Dear Mr Adamson,

  You are to be heartily congratulated upon your ingenious Natural History, which is just the kind of book of which the world of letters, at present, cannot have enough. It has everything that could be desired—facts in abundance, useful reflections, drama, humour, and fun. We are very happy you have chosen our house as its publishers and hope we may come to a happy arrangement for what will, I am quite sure, be a most fruitful partnership.

  Matty Crompton let out a great sigh, and leaned weakly against the doorpost.

  ‘I knew it. From the start, I knew it. But I was so afraid—’

  ‘I can hardly believe—’

  ‘You must not be over-sanguine. I have no idea of the profit from a successful book—’

  ‘Nor I. Nor I.’ He paused. ‘I hardly like to mention it to Sir Harald. He is in a very bad way with his own project. He has torn up several sheafs of writing, only yesterday. I feel I have not given him the support he needs—’

  ‘I understand—’

  ‘Perhaps, after all, it is not certain enough yet to be revealed? Perhaps we should keep our own counsel a little longer? We have done so well—so far—’

  ‘I am quite happy to go on as we are. The shock—the surprise, I should say—will be the more complete when we come to reveal what has been in the making—’

  There was also, though William could not mention this, the embarrassment, in Alabaster company, of his latest contretemps with Edgar. For he had noticed—it had impinged very slowly, too slowly, on his preoccupied consciousness—that his little beetle-sprite, Amy, was no longer trotting along the corridors with her buckets, no longer creeping out into the paddock on her day off. In fact, he slowly came to see, Amy was no longer there at all. He had asked Miss Crompton if she knew where Amy was, and Miss Crompton replied tersely that she believed Amy had been dismissed. William had not liked to investigate further, but casual questioning of Tom, the gardener’s boy, had produced a sudden outburst, choked off, equally suddenly, by caution.