King of Morning, Queen of Day (8 page)

“I blame it all on breeding, myself. You know, like cocker spaniels, inbreeding and all that. Congenital idiots. House of Lords is full of them. Educated idiots in ermine. No wonder old Maurice goes baying at the moon, or Bell’s Comet, or whatever.”

“It’ll be the ruination of him.”

“That it surely will. Do you know how much that floating pontoon thing is costing?”

“Wouldn’t like to guess.”

“Wouldn’t like to spoil your luncheon.”

“Still, I’d like to know how Desmond wangled that old bird into parting with the Clarenorris fortune for such a ludicrous scrape.”

“Ah, he has a silver tongue, has Dr. Edward Garret Desmond. Could charm the birds off the trees.”

“Certainly charmed that fine woman of his off the Barry family tree. He’s well in there, Barry linen fortunes and all that. No stone, our Edward.”

“Heh, heh. Fine woman she certainly is, that Caroline Desmond. Damn fine poetess, too. Read some of her stuff in
Eire Nua—
not, I hasten to add, that it’s the sort of thing I read regularly. This ‘Celtic Twilight’ stuff baffles me—woolly-minded mysticism—but what I read of her was excellent. She has the magic touch, right enough.”

“Well, Desmond’s old silver tongue let him down badly at that farce of a lecture.”

“Ah, that was O’Neill, wasn’t it? He’s a demon for the wit, is O’Neill.”

“He queerly sharpened it on the good Dr. Desmond.”

“A good thing, too, if you ask me. That lecture was the most ludicrous thing I have ever heard. Extrasolar civilizations, comet-riding star travellers…”

“Ridiculous. Tosh, gibberish, and flapdoodle.”

“Isn’t it? I do hear that he’s invited astronomers from all over Ireland, and beyond, to be present when he switches this pontoon thing on.”

“You going?”

“Fishing’s good, this time of year. You?”

“Wild horses, and all that.”

“Still…”

“Still what?”

“Still, what if he’s right?”

“Come now, you yourself checked his figures and proved beyond any shadow of a doubt there were errors in his mathematics you could drive the Ballybrack omnibus through.”

“Charlie, both you and I have been gentlemen of science long enough to know that mathematically proving or disproving something often has not the slightest effect on whether it actually happens or not. What if, I say, despite all the errors, the fantastic speculations, the astonishing expenditure, the ludicrous electrical signal—what if, after all, he is right?”

“Well, you don’t need me to tell you the consequences…”

“What little credibility the R.I.A.S. has managed to salvage from this fiasco would go straight out the window. We would be laughingstocks.”

“At least.”

“But now, consider this carefully. If he never gets to complete his experiment, then no one will ever know whether he was right or wrong, will they?”

“Are you implying what I think you’re implying?”

“Now, I’m not talking anything as unsubtle as a little judicious sabotage from the local Bould Fenian lads. Heavens, no. I’m not even talking troublesome and annoying labour disputes. No, a little economic leverage should do the necessary dirty work. His resources are, shall we say, stretched?”

“Short arms, long pockets.”

“Precisely. You know, I’ve been thinking, it’s been a devilish long time since you last had that admirable chap, the Marquis of Clarenorris, down at Temple Coole for a weekend wild-fowling. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t mind getting a little in myself, before all the good shooting’s done…”

August 2, 1913

Clarecourt

Ballisodare

County Sligo

My Dear Dr. Desmond,

I have searched for every possible alternative to this letter, delayed until the last possible moment in hope that it would not be necessary, but situations have developed in such a way as to leave me no other choice. Please, prepare yourself for the receipt of the worst possible news.

It is with the greatest sorrow that I inform you that I can no longer permit myself to be involved in, or associated with, Project Pharos. I regret further that I will be able to provide no additional funding for the completion of the stellagraph, or any other aspect of the project, and must insist that my name be withdrawn from all documents, accounts, communications, papers, etc., connected with it.

I am deeply sorry for this obvious dashing of all your bright hopes, and at the very least, I owe you the courtesy of an explanation for this decision.

Believe me, Dr. Desmond, I have not chosen this course of action out of any lack of faith in your experiment or hypothesis—I remain firmly convinced that the object called Bell’s Comet is indeed a vehicle from another star. Rather, it is situations and events in your immediate household, over which you, unfortunately, have had no control, that have made it impossible for me to continue to be associated with you.

I refer, of course, to those recent events involving Mr. W. B. Yeats, the celebrated poet; one Mr. Hannibal Rooke, a so-called supernatural investigator; Constance Booth-Kennedy and your wife and daughter; in what the popular press is calling the Craigdarragh Case. I fully understand that these “faery photographs” and purported otherworldly encounters are as offensive and embarrassing to you as they are to me; however, please consider (and I can trust you that this will go no further) that I am already under considerable pressure from my peers because of my support for Project Pharos; the recent events threaten to damage my reputation to the point where I can no longer remain a credible figure in the fight for Irish nationalism in the House of Lords. There are issues at stake here larger even than the advancement of science and learning—issues with direct bearing upon the future of our nation. Permit me to be blunt: it is not seeming for the leader of the lobby for the Irish Home Rule Bill in the House of Lords (where, dear God, support is paltry enough) to be seen to be associating with people who believe there really are faeries at the bottom of the garden!

I had hoped that time would draw its veil over this Craigdarragh Case, but quite the reverse has happened—public and press interest, already high from the construction of the stellagraph, has been fanned into veritable incandescence by reports of photographs of faery folk, from within the same family. No; I am afraid only one course of action was open to me, which, loath though I was to exercise, I nonetheless have taken: I have had to resign from any involvement and association with Project Pharos.

I do sincerely hope, my dear Dr. Desmond, that even at this late stage, funds will be forthcoming (though, alas, I cannot foresee from where) for the completion of the project. Certainly, if successful, it will bring more lasting glory upon Craigdarragh than a whole legion of faeries.

Once again, I am most sincerely sorrowful that situations should have forced me to such a pass. Would it had been otherwise.

Faithfully,

Maurice: Clarenorris

August 3, 1913

Blessington & Weir, Ltd.

Commercial Bankers

119 Merrion Road

Dublin

Dear Dr. Desmond,

We have recently been in receipt of a letter from you requesting the creation of a mortgage facility for the completion of your project to the sum of £22,000 against the deeds of your property, Craigdarragh House.

We are pleased to inform you that your application has been successful; a meeting has been arranged between our Sligo representatives, Mooney, Talbot & O’Brien, Marine Finance, Ltd., and their solicitors, and yourself and your solicitors, to formalise the agreement. Please telephone us to confirm the date and the arrangements: our number is Dublin 3617.

We at Blessington & Weir are glad to have been able to aid you in the completion of your work, and we await your communication in the near future.

Sincerely,

Caius E. Blessington,

William Weir the Younger

T
HE HEADY SENSATION, LIKE
that of fine old claret, that comes when one plucks triumph from the very brink of disaster! I am not ashamed to say that I despaired when I received the news of Lord Fitzgerald’s withdrawal from the project for the flimsiest of motives. Thunderous words such as
treachery
and
betrayal
struggled with nobler sentiments more proper a member of the peerage as the thought churned over and over in my mind:
This is the end, Desmond—all come to naught and ashes.

But now, since the settlement of the mortgage (Blessed Muse, that touched me with such inspiration in my darkest hours) and the payment of all my most pressing creditors, everything is changed. It is like a particularly fine spring after a long and dismal winter. Amazing, the total change of mood and character effected by the deposit of a few pounds sterling in the vaults of the First Sligo Farmer’s Bank! Now work has resumed; the last of the 176 pontoon sections was completed in the shipyard today. Already the central cross is being assembled in Sligo Bay. Not being much a mariner myself, I made my inspection by telescope from the cupola atop the old Pollexfen Shipping Line office and was filled with a most immodest pride to see out there an object which, alone I think of all man’s achievements, will be visible from interplanetary distances. In addition to the work on the pontoons, a small steam tug has been chartered from the harbour commissioners to lay the electrical cable. Incredibly (normally, I would hesitate to use quite such hyperbolic language, but for once, I feel justified in its usage), the great task looks like it will be completed by the allotted date, despite a body blow that would have crippled any man of lesser conviction, lesser zeal, lesser evangelistic determination than I. Mr. Michael Barry has been in daily contact concerning the connection of the stellagraph to the county grid. I have had replies from many members of the astronomical community, both at home and from beyond our shores (though I will permit a small disappointment to cloud my general jubilation, for of those I invited, less than a third have bothered themselves to respond, either positively or negatively). The newspaper interest, already stoked up by the so-called Craigdarragh Case, is hungry for the least newsworthy morsel and I am making daily trips into Sligo to give progress reports to the assembled hacks and scribblers. In short, everything seems set for my triumph in every possible sphere—astronomical, personal, financial, social, public. If only the weather will hold!

S
OMETIMES THEY ARE DISTANT
; sometimes they are close. As our world and Otherworld turn within each other, so we pass into and out of contact with each other. For many days they were absent—the woods were empty of story and song; sea, stones, and sky were just those, lifeless things, the elemental spirit gone out of them. Each time they leave I am desolate. I fear that they will never return, but, for all their legendary fickleness and flightiness, they have kept faith with me. Again, they have returned from Otherworld to haunt Bridestone Wood. I can feel them; I can hear them, calling for me with harp and flute and the songs of summer, calling me away, away, away from the mortal world, into the dream and the never-ending dance.

But I am afraid, undecided. There is a part of me that wishes nothing more than to lose myself in the magic and the light of the world’s beginning, that would cast off all human restraints like an ugly garment and be the bride of the Bridestone. But there is also a part of me that holds back, that clings to this world, afraid of the light beyond the shadows. There is a part of me with the voice of a tiny devil that whispers, “But what do they want with you? Why do they trouble themselves to stir from the endless delights of the forests of Otherworld and make the crossing to this world? Why do they seek you, Emily Desmond? These are faery folk, the Sidhe, the Dwellers in the Hollow Hills—their motives are as inscrutable to you as the changing of the seasons or the tides of the sea. How can you be sure that they do not mean you ill? Can you trust them?”

There. That is the question that lies at the heart of all my doubts and fears, like the rotted kernel of a hazelnut.
Can I trust them?

I am torn; between caution and abandon, between mistrust and the call of the harps of Elfland. Do I go to them and let them do what they will? Do I stay, and perhaps with the turning of the years, lose even the memory of their music? My heart tells me go, my head cautions
stay.

In the end, I know my curiosity will drive me to find out what they want with me. To know the answer, I will have to go to them.

… On August 8 at 12:15
A.M.
it was observed that the transtellar vehicle had ceased generating explosions, having shed sufficient velocity to match the pedestrian pace of our solar system. Its final proper motion was approximated to be fifteen miles per second.

The vehicle maintained course and velocity over the days preceding perigee. It was not until the night of September 2 that conditions were suitable for the experiment to commence. That night the sky was clear, Sligo Bay uncommonly calm, and the extrasolar vehicle two days from perigee of 156,000 miles. At 9:25
P.M.
the signal was activated, and for a period of two hours the primary communication code was transmitted—that is,
pi
expressed as the approximate ratio of twenty-two over seven. This sequence was repeated every two hours for two hours until local dawn at 6:25
A.M.
Simultaneous with the operation of the stellagraph, the vessel was closely observed through the Craigdarragh eighteen-inch reflector telescope. No change in luminosity was observed.

After nightfall on the following day, September 3, it again being clear and calm, the floating stellagraph was again activated, transmitting the
pi
ratio for an hour, then changing to the natural exponent
e
expressed as the approximate fraction of nineteen over seven. As before, this cycle was repeated every two hours for two hours. As before, the spatial object was closely observed through telescopes—both those of the experimenter, and of the invited witnesses in Sligo town.

No response was observed from the transtellar vessel on these dates.

On the third night, September 4, communication was once again attempted.