King of Morning, Queen of Day (7 page)

My dear Hanny, what can I say! I have seen the evidence myself and I am convinced of its veracity. Had it been presented by an accomplished photographer, I might have hesitations, but these are the handiwork of a fifteen-year-old girl!

Well, of course, Willie has been in a fine old flap ever since, and wants to arrange a series of interviews, preferably under hypnosis, with Emily to finally prove the existence of a mystical world apart from, but adjacent to, our own. Even before I heard the word
hypnosis
mentioned, I had thought of you, Hanny; after all, you are the country’s leading investigator of the strange and supernatural. Willie hasn’t the first idea about mesmerism, let alone how to go about an investigation scientifically, so I suggested you to him with a few of your credentials and he insisted that you be in attendance. I know you’ll hardly need asking twice, but please hold your horses one moment before throwing things into cases, telephoning the station, etc., and I’ll summarise the arrangements.

Caroline Desmond has suggested the weekend of the twenty-seventh of this month as a provisional date. Telegram me, will you, and let me know if it is acceptable. She’s offered to accommodate you, but I said there was more room at Rathkennedy, and anyway, we were old friends. Hanny, dearest, there’s too much we have to talk about!
Do
say you can make it—I’m dying to see you again. It must be over three years since our paths last crossed.

Erin Go Bragh!

Connie

(The first interview: 9:30
P.M.
, July 27. In attendance: Mr. W. B. Yeats, Mr. H. Rooke, Mrs. C. Desmond, Miss E. Desmond, Mrs. C. Booth-Kennedy, Mr. P. Driscoll. Weather, windy, with some rain.)

Yeats:
You are quite certain that Emily is in the hypnotic trance and receptive to my questioning, Mr. Rooke?

Rooke:
Quite sure, Mr. Yeats.

Yeats:
Very well, then. Emily, can you hear me?

Emily:
Yes, sir.

Yeats:
Tell me, Emily, have those photographs you have shown me been falsified in any way?

Emily:
No, sir.

Yeats:
The recorder will note that scientific research has proved that it is impossible for a subject to lie under hypnosis. So these are genuine pictures of faery folk, then?

(No reply.)

Rooke:
You must question the subject directly, Mr. Yeats.

Yeats:
Forgive me, a momentary lapse of memory. I repeat, Emily, are these photographs actual representations of supernatural beings? Faeries?

Emily:
Faeries? Of course they are faeries—the Old Folk, the Ever-Living Ones.

Yeats:
The recorder will let it show that the subject, on being questioned a second time on the veracity of the photographs, again verified their genuiness. Therefore, having established the validity of the photographs, could you tell me, Emily, on how many occasions these photographs were taken?

Emily:
Three occasions. Once in the morning. Twice in the early afternoon. Three days. Then—

Yeats:
Go on, Emily.

Emily:
It was as if they didn’t want me to take any more photographs of them. They were distant and aloof, like there was a cloud over the sun. They drew apart from me, hid themselves in the wood. I haven’t seen them now in many days, Oh, why do they hide themselves from me? I only want to be their friend.

Yeats:
Thank you, Emily. That will be all, for now.

Rooke:
Excuse me, Mr. Yeats, one moment. Might I ask a couple of questions before we close? Emily, on what date did the first manifestation occur?

Emily:
The first night was the sixth of July. I remember—I wrote it in my diary. It was the last night of the very hot weather. I’d been home from Cross and Passion about ten days. I heard them call my name, and when I went out to look, the garden was full of lights. They led me into the wood. I’d never imagined there were so many of them, or that they were so beautiful.

Rooke:
And can you remember what the state of the moon was that night?

Emily:
I remember it was very bright—just past full. But oh so bright!

Rooke:
July the sixth. I would estimate about thirty minutes past full. Hmm. And the dates of the subsequent manifestations, Emily?

Emily:
The eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth.

Rooke:
Thank you, Emily. Back to you, Mr. Yeats. I have no further questions.

(The second interview: 9:50
P.M.
, July 28. In attendance: as above. Weather wind gusting from the west, with showers.)

Yeats:
This encounter you mentioned yesterday
(consulting notes)
on the night of the sixth of July—was this your first experience of this nature?

Emily:
No.

Yeats:
There have been— forgive me— have there been others?

Emily:
Yes. One other.

Yeats:
Would you tell us about it?

Emily:
It was at school, up in Rathfarnham Woods. I’d always felt that they were there, up in the woods. At night I could hear them hunting. I could hear their dogs hunting, I could hear the jingle of bells from their horse bridles and falcon jesses— hunting. It was up in the dell.

Yeats:
The dell?

Emily: (seeming to grow impatient)
Yes, the dell. My dell, my place, my private place where I could be alone with myself, where I could shut away Cross and Passion and the Teaching Sisters and be still enough to feel the magic.

Yeats:
Please, continue.

Emily:
There was danger there, from the one who had sent me letters, the one who said he loved me. They came and they drove him away before he could hurt me.

Yeats:
What—the faeries? I don’t understand. Emily?

Emily:
One was the archer woman, the one I took a photograph of. She was as close to me as you are. Her bow was taller than she was. She isn’t very big, you see, even smaller than I am, and I remember she had an arrow nocked. She fired it at him—not to hurt him, but to scare him—and he ran away. The other was the harper. The blind harper. It is as if he was born without any eyes. There is only blank skin where the eyes should be. He’s very tall and thin, and he has little rags and ribbons tied all over him—to his fingers, his beard, his hair, the strings of his harp, everywhere. I used to wonder why he had those little rags tied all over him, but now I see! They’re to help him see where he’s going. They’re like a cat’s whiskers—; they’re moved by the wind and the leaves and the branches and can feel the different movements and know where he is.
(Murmurs of amazement in the room. Here several persons began to speak at once but were hushed by Mr. H. Rooke.)

Rooke:
And could you possibly tell me upon what date this— ah— event occurred?

Emily:
It was the second of April.

Rooke:
I see. That’s most interesting. Excuse me, Mrs. Desmond, but I presume that your husband, being in the line of investigation that he is, would be in the possession of such a thing as an astronomical almanac or calendar? Could I possibly ask the loan of it for a minute or two?
(Here Mrs. C. Desmond retired to the library to fetch said almanac.)
Thank you. Let me see, the second of April, 1913— damnation, what’s happening?

C. Desmond:
I’m so sorry—it’s another of those pestilential electrical failures I mentioned to you yesterday. Mrs. O’Carolan— Mrs. O’Carolan, lamps, please. If you wish, we may continue by lamplight.

Rooke:
Thank you, Mrs. Desmond, but before I can further pursue my inquiries, I have a little research I need to do, and, unless Mr. Yeats has anything further he wants to ask, I rather think we have put poor Emily through quite enough for one evening.

(The third interview: 3:30 P.M., July 29, 1913. Present: as above, with the addition of Dr. E. G. Desmond. Weather cloudy, threatening rain from the West.)

Emily: (her face ecstatic)
Oh, can’t you hear them? Can’t you feel them? Oh, I thought I’d lost them, affronted them, and they’d hidden themselves away from me, but they’ve returned, they’ve come for me. Oh, can’t you hear them, calling through the woods and glens, across the mountainsides? They are the fairest of the fair, the sons of Danu; there are none to compare with the comeliness of the dwellers in the hollow hills: no son of Milesius, no daughter of proud Maeve aslumber on cold Knocknarea. Their cloaks are of scarlet wool, their tunics of fine Greek silk. Upon their breasts they wear the badge of the Red Branch Heros, upon their brows circlets of yellow gold; their skin is as white as the milk of mares, their hair as black as the raven’s wing. The glint of iron spear points is in their eyes and their lips are as red as blood. Fair they are, the sons of Danu, but none so fair or so noble as Lugh of the Long Hand. Strong-mewed he is, golden-maned, golden-skinned; clad in the green and the gold of the Royal Don of Brugh-na-Boinne. He is Lugh, King of the Morning, Master of the Thousand Skills. There is none to compare with him in music or archery, poetry or the feats of war, the hunt, or the tender accomplishments of love.
(Here Dr. Desmond blushed.)
We are riders on the wings of morning, he and I, dancers in the starlit halls of Tir Nan Og. And with the sun setting we rise in the shape of swans, joined at the necks by chains and collars of red red gold, and journey through the night to the Land of Sunrise where we embark again upon our wondrous journey of love. We have tasted the hazelnuts of the Tree of Wisdom. We have been many things, many shapes—wild swans upon the Lake of Code, two arbutuses twined together upon a bare mountainside, white birds upon the foam of the sea. We have been trees, leaping silver salmon, wild horses, red foxes, noble deer; brave warriors, proud kings, sage wizards—

Yeats:
Entrancing. Quite entrancing. Ah— thank you, Emily. That will suffice for the moment. Mr. Rooke, have you any questions you would like to put?

Rooke:
Just one or two, if you will indulge me. Emily, could you tell me, when did you start your last period?
(General consternation.)

Yeats:
Mr. Rooke. Please!

Rooke:
My apologies if I have offended any sensibilities, but this line of questioning is critical to my investigation of these manifestations. Emily, did you hear the question?

Emily:
The eighth of July.

Rooke:
And are they regular? I mean, is there a regular period of time between them?

Emily:
Always the same. Twenty-nine days.

Rooke:
So, the previous one would have begun about, say, the sixteenth of June?

Emily:
Yes.

Rooke:
And the next one would be due, then, in, let me think, eight days’ time, on the eighth of August? About the new moon?

Emily:
Yes.

Rooke:
And how long is it since you felt the returning presence of the faeries?

Emily:
Since last night. I felt them, in my sleep last night—their presence out there in the wood, calling to me.

Rooke:
Tell me, Emily, have you been feeling in any way physically out of sorts? Dizziness, light-headedness, stomach cramps, as if they were warning signs that a period is due? During a period, do you ever experience peculiar changes of mood and feeling? For example, have you ever felt sad and depressed and then, seemingly for no reason, found yourself suddenly buoyant and elated? When you become aware of the presence of the faeries, do you ever experience any kind of, how shall we put it, sensual, sexual excitement, or arousal?

E.G. Desmond:
I insist that this stop at once! I will tolerate no more of this humiliation, this prurient titillation! No, I will not tolerate it. My daughter is not some sideshow, some circus freak for your idle amusement! I will not stand for any more of this cheap and tawdry voyeurism masquerading in the guise of science and learning! Good Lord, we stand poised upon the brink of a new age, an age of communion with minds immeasurably superior to our own, and in my very home I am subjected to occult, superstitious bosh, and my daughter to the filthy indulgence of jaded appetites! My daughter’s adolescence will not be soiled and sullied with your gleeful prying into her most private intimacies! Good day to you, gentlemen. I wish for you all to leave. At once, if you please. Mrs. O’Carolan, be so good as to fetch these people their coats. Caroline, I wish to speak with you immediately, in the library.

“W
ELL, I SEE THE
papers have hold of it now.” “Yes, I picked it up in the
Irish Times
this morning. Full column, on the front page, by the Lord Harry.”

“You know, of course, what they’re calling it?”

“You mean, Desmond’s Downfall?”

“Haven’t heard that one. Heh, that’s a good one. Very good. Most droll. Where did you pick that one up?”

“The
Independent Irishman.
”

“That Fenian rag. Never read it myself. Mind you, Desmond’s Downfall, that is a good one. Another brandy?”

“Don’t mind if I do. Most civil of you. You know, it shouldn’t surprise me in the least if the English papers didn’t pick up on the story. ‘Eccentric Irish Astronomer Attempts Communication with Star Men.’ Love that sort of thing, the English. Could be circulating worldwide within the week.”

“God forfend. Imagine it, though—scruffy old Desmond with his eighteen-inch telescope on the front page of
Le Soir
or the
New York Times.
‘Desmond’s Downfall: Exposed.’”

“Don’t know how old Maurice ever got himself sucked into this one.”

“I’d have thought better of him myself. Mind you, Charlie, he’s always had a reputation for espousing weird and wonderful causes. What about all this lobbying for that Home Rule Bill and votes for women? A queer fish in the aristocratic goldfish pond is our Maurice Fitzgerald.”