THE ENCHANTED MOMENT
MR. JOHN PARDOE was not an imaginative man, but—if the truth must be known—he had once been a child, and though, as Mr. Pardoe aged, the child grew smaller and smaller, it was not yet squeezed out of existence. The secret had been well kept. Plump, rosy, and forty-five years old, encased in patent-toe boots, doeskin spats, sleek morning coat, striped trousering, and silk hat—not to mention certain articles of underwear—Mr. Pardoe oscillated daily between his office in Cannon Street and his pleasant home at Putney, giving no cause to his dearest friend or his bitterest enemy to suspect him of having a secret hoard of youth. His waking mind was occupied exclusively by lighterage, freight duties, marine insurance, bus routes, time tables, foreign exchange rates, and the criminal ineptitude of the Government party; and his dreams, which rose only to the bait of cheese and spring onions for supper, reflected his general staidness of character witha minimum of humorous distortion. For more than a decade he had lived within half a mile of the house that held Swinburne, and he was still unaware of having anything in particular to thank God for.
But in his forty-sixth year, when he had already begun to cherish some of the idiosyncrasies proper to a much older man and to regard with complacency his shining porcelain pate and his fringe of greying hair, something happened to Mr. Pardoe that was the beginning of a spiritual revolution. The something was named Miss Adela Simpson, and it had for many years typed his business letters with an enthusiasm and a generous disregard for pedantry in spelling which would have been hard to match in any other city office. Perhaps it was Mr. Pardoe’s patience with these orthographical freedoms that won Adela’s affection, or perhaps she alone of all his acquaintances had divined the existence of that child in him which I have felt it my duty to mention. Whatever the cause, she married him; and, being herself a fluffy, golden-haired, and sentimental creature, with an unbounded capacity for enjoyment, she persuaded him that he was very happy with her. Had the matter ended there, all might have been well: Mr. Pardoe might have lived and died decorously,a plain man with no nonsense about him. The youth in him might have remained bottled and out of sight for ever, had not Adela tampered with the cork.
But destiny, in the person of Mrs. Pardoe, chose to play tricks on this excellent man. Some eighteen months after that rational registry wedding, the fluffy girl insisted on giving birth to a boy. The local doctor assisted its entry, and the local vicar declared its name to be Timothy. I have already said that Mr. Pardoe was not an imaginative man, and this event was quite outside his calculations. Being both by instinct and training a gentleman of considerable delicacy, he was embarrassed—as who would not be?—and quite unable to assume, at short notice, the rôle of fond parent. But as the weeks passed by and the red squeaking pudding called Timothy began to shew some traces of its humanity, began even to bear a slight resemblance to himself, a change more subtle but no less real occurred in the feelings of the reluctant father. For one thing, the preposterous littleness of the creature attracted his notice and excited his wonder. Sometimes when he looked at Timothy Mr. Pardoe’s face would break into a wholly irrational grin. Once or twice, when no one was near, he presented his index finger tobe enfolded in miniature hands of unparalleled clamminess, or played the fool with his watch; and once, once only, he blushed to find himself making ridiculous noises, noises not unlike those emitted habitually by the child’s agreeable but infatuated mother.
The translation of Mr. Pardoe from a serious man with business responsibilities and a taste for party politics into a kind of domestic pet, thinker of thoughts too deep for tears, and lover of children—this translation might have continued apace had not the cook suddenly, wantonly, left to get married. Adela, luxuriating in her new freedom, decided to manage without a cook; but Adela’s cooking was no more precise than her spelling. It played havoc with Mr. Pardoe’s digestive apparatus, and—by that transmutation of matter into spirit which is the most disconcerting fact in life—Mr. Pardoe’s digestive apparatus played havoc with Mr. Pardoe’s temper. He became angry with the world and with the life that crawled upon its surface.
Nevertheless the world continued to revolve, and life was not extinct. Timothy, in particular, was far from extinct. For five years he flourished, and on his fifth birthday, at an hour well past his bedtime, he entered Mr. Pardoe’s study and demanded to be told a story.
Mr. Pardoe, interrupted in the reading of his favourite periodical,The Bondholder’s Register, was annoyed. Birthday or no birthday, this was an outrage: the sanctuary violated, the high priest disturbed at his devotions. Yet, in spite of his dyspepsia, he exhibited an admirable restraint.
‘No, Timothy,’ he said, holding up a cautionary finger. ‘I shall not tell you a story. You know I do not like to be disturbed in the evening. You will go to bed, and at the proper moment I shall come to kiss you good night. But tell you a story I will not. I see your mother’s hand in this—this act of rebellion. If you wanted stories you could go to your toy-cupboard, where you would find several volumes of stories: ridiculous enough, no doubt, but suited to your age. Although you cannot yet read with facility you could easily amuse yourself with the pictures. Really, Timothy, I can’t imagine why you should suppose that I should tell you a story, a thing I have never done in my life.’
As a substitute for an applauding public meeting of the company’s shareholders, Timothy was not a success. He clung to his simple thesis with the brutal tenacity of the very young. ‘Mummy saysyouare to tell me a story.’
The fluffy girl appeared suddenly in the doorway. ‘Yes, John, you really might, this once. He’s tired of my stories. And it’s his birthday, after all, poor little thing!’
‘Poor little thing!’ sneered Mr. Pardoe. This was sheer domestic tyranny: he wouldn’t suffer it. ‘Let me tell you, Adela,’ he cried, pointing at her accusingly withThe Bondholder’s Register, ‘you are spoiling the poor little thing, as you call him. It’s eight o’clock, an hour past his bedtime. The way to bring a child up....’
But here Mr. Pardoe was interrupted, and a valuable homily on the training of children thereby lost to the world. The clock began striking. Now it was one of Mr. Pardoe’s nervous weaknesses, of which there were many, that he could never raise his voice above the sound of a striking clock. He disliked clocks. He resented their unmannerly habit of cutting his sentences in half and making him lose the thread of his discourse. And now he had to wait several seconds until that clock chose to let him proceed with what he was saying. Very well: he resigned himself to the delay. His face was that of a martyr too well-bred even to invoke his God. He mentally counted the strokes: ‘One, two, three, four, five, six, seven....’
‘Why!’ cried Mr. Pardoe, ‘that clock’s wrong. An hour slow. I’m sure it’s eight o’clock. I set my watch this morning by Greenwich Time....’
The words died on his lips, which remained open only because in his bewilderment Mr. Pardoe forgot to close them. He seemed to have stepped into the very heart of Spring. The sounds and colours and the rich earthy smell of the woods made him tingle with delight. Never before had he breathed such air. It was like strong wine in its effect, and that alarmed Mr. Pardoe, who dreaded nothing so much as to lose control of himself. For him the light of reason was the only legitimate light in the universe: moonlight, starlight, sunlight—these were merely decorative. ‘No wonder the fruit is so fine,’ he said to himself; and he plucked one of the golden apples from a laden branch that bowed towards him, and set his teeth in it with a disregard of the rights of property that was quite foreign to his principles. All round him tall grasses waved, and satin-skinned trees stretched out armfuls of treasure, their leaves luminously green, their fruit glowing like multi-coloured glass globes.Mr. Pardoe began to revise his first impression. It could hardly be Spring with all this fruit already ripe for eating, and in such abundance, such astonishing variety! Apple, pear, plum, greengage, lemon, pomegranate, quince—‘Why, with greengages at their present price, there’s a small fortune here!’ He wondered whether there was a market within easy distance. There was no sort of road within sight: there was only a long avenue of arched trees, in the branches of which birds sang with laughter as well as joy in their tumultuous music. At his feet, wherever he stepped, flowers sprang up as if to greet him: lilies lifted their pale faces towards him; roses red and blue rioted in the grass; pansies eyed him amorously. A sound that was like colour made audible, a deep golden sound, a singing dream, filled the forest till it brimmed over with loveliness. In the dim glowing air shot through by shafts of moonlight from the outer world, great dragonflies poised themselves, lost in trance. ‘A trifle theatrical, perhaps,’ said Mr. Pardoe, ‘but undeniably pretty.’
Moving slowly on, he racked his poor brains for a rational explanation of these phenomena. Nature, hitherto so circumspect, was behaving in a most unbridled way. A voice dropped out of the sky, like a bell: ‘Greenwich Time,my dear sir? Good stuff, isn’t it! Come and have some.’
‘Thank you. But I never drink between meals.’ The reply came from Mr. Pardoe’s lips before he could check it. This was absurd—he of all men to have an experience like this! Indignantly he stared in the direction of the voice that had hailed him. A little golden star appeared to be falling through the sky. It lodged in the lower branches of a tree, writhed brilliantly for a moment, and resolved itself into a human being: a creature about the size of a foot-rule with a round red baby-face. It jumped to the ground and shook lumps of starshine from the soles of its wooden boots. ‘Excuse me, won’t you. I’ve been shopping. A fellow gets simply smothered with this stuff in the Milky Way.’
Mr. Pardoe bowed. ‘It is for me to apologize, if you, as I surmise, are the proprietor of this valuable piece of orchard-land. I fear I am trespassing. I must have lost my way. To be perfectly frank with you, I’ve not the slightest idea how I got here; and let me hasten to add that I’m a strictly temperate man. I rather fancy that I’ve been made the victim of some clownish practical joke.’
The midget shed a scintillating tear, which made a circle of green light in the grass whereit fell. From his pocket he snatched a notebook. ‘I must make a note of that,’ he said.
‘Of what?’ inquired Mr. Pardoe.
‘That tear. I’ve got only six to last the whole evening. I limit myself to ten a day now. It’s bad to become a slave to pleasure.’
Mr. Pardoe coughed to hide his alarm and embarrassment. ‘Yes, yes. Quite so. Did you read your paper this morning, my dear sir? What a disgraceful Budget again!’
‘Ah,’ cried the midget, turning up his eyes; ‘what is there more enjoyable than a choking sob on a cold Wednesday morning before breakfast? And they ought not to have taken your clothes. I can’t allow that.’
‘My clothes!’ Mr. Pardoe blushed from top to toe, and that blush was the only thing that covered his nakedness. ‘Incredible! It had entirely escaped my notice. I really don’t know how to apologize. I am more ashamed than I can say. This is a disaster that has never happened before. Whatever am I to do?’
‘A happy encounter,’ chuckled the midget, rubbing his hands together. ‘I’m a tailor by trade. Fit you out in no time. Three yards of gossamer spun out of lovers’-dream. The finer the mesh the higher the price. Excusemy speaking commercially, but business is business, you know.’
For the first time Mr. Pardoe’s heart went out to this odd creature. ‘I share your admirable sentiments. Businessisbusiness. But I deplore this rather fanciful talk about dreams and gossamer, this—ah—second-rate poetry, if I may call it so. But there, I’m only a plain business man.’
‘Do you believe in God?’ asked the midget surprisingly.
Mr. Pardoe looked revolted. ‘A rather indelicate question, is it not? However, since you have seen fit to ask it, I will confess that I have never found any particular need for believing in the Person to whom you allude.’
The midget put out his tongue, looking inconceivably pert. ‘I’m God,’ said he.
‘Pardon me,’ Mr. Pardoe replied, with immense dignity. ‘I cannot stand here and listen to blasphemy. I am a member of the Church of England.’
‘Don’t know the name,’ said the midget. ‘If it’s an inn, take me to it, like a good fellow.’
‘Before we continue this conversation,’ said Mr. Pardoe, beginning to relish the sound of his own voice, ‘I feel it only fair to say that I entertain the gravest suspicionsof you. I suspect you of being a figment of my imagination, perhaps a mere dream. I am not aware of having eaten anything calculated to disagree with me, but that is what has probably happened. It’s a lesson to me, which I shall not easily forget, that one cannot be too careful about one’s diet.’
‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ remarked the midget. He paused to draw three circles in the grass with the point of his foot. ‘But if you want some Greenwich Time you’ve come to the right place. Slip these shoes on.’ In the centre of the middle circle was a pair of loose-fitting shoes, rather like goloshes, made of the skin of a green reptile. It seemed to be covered with eyes. Mr. Pardoe, convinced now that he was dreaming, obediently slipped his feet into these shoes, which immediately began to dance. He found it impossible to control them. That didn’t surprise him so much as did his enjoyment of the dance. ‘Come along,’ said the midget, kicking up his heels, and Mr. Pardoe, following in the wake of that preposterous figment of his imagination, danced down the avenues of Faery with a light heart. Something was released inside him. He felt himself shrink till he was scarcely bigger than his guide, and the loss of that frock coat and that pair ofnicely creased striped trousers distressed him no longer. Was it possible that the child he had secreted so long had at last broken out, and that the old John Pardoe, that bond-holding, cheque-endorsing animal, was no more? Was it possible that he had died, and that this was the glorious resurrection promised to the faithful? Mr. Pardoe’s thoughts buzzed in his brain like a hive of bees when he remembered this little tailor-fellow’s blasphemous claim to godhead.
Nothing more unlike Mr. Pardoe’s conception of God can be imagined than the ruddy-faced mischievous creature who stood in the doorway of his house to welcome his guest. The house bore a striking resemblance to a country inn, the best kind of country inn, and Mr. Pardoe fell instantly in love with it. The sight of it induced in him a thirst such as he had never in all his life experienced before.
‘You’d like to see my beard, I expect,’ remarked his host, as they stepped across the threshold. ‘Well, there it is.’ He waved a careless hand towards the centre of the oak-raftered room, where, in a flower-pot that stood in the middle of the table, a grey beard flourished.
Mr. Pardoe scratched his head: sure proofthat he was feeling more at home. ‘Now I can’t quite place that,’ he said, reverting to the idea that he was in a dream. ‘The dancing shoes were from Hans Andersen, but this for the moment eludes me.’
‘It’s a good growth,’ said the beard’s owner. ‘Never gives any trouble. Great advantage, not wearing it on the chin. Some of my clients don’t care about a bearded tailor. And to those who do, I say: Step inside. A place for everything and everything in its place, and the place for my beard is the parlour. Very quiet and well-behaved, and drinks far less water than an aspidistra. If it sings too loud I just snip it down a bit with me scissors.’
‘The Singing Beard,’ mused Mr. Pardoe. ‘That must be a public-house sign I’ve come across somewhere.’
‘Now,’ urged the genial tailor, ‘what about a little refreshment. Or would you rather I set about that suit of clothes first?’
The eyes of the abandoned Pardoe sparkled. He visioned a wineglass, the size of a milking-pail, filled with champagne. He felt it against his lips, felt it slip down his dry throat, and sink into his innermost being like a benediction.... He looked at his host with a little shamefaced smile. ‘Well, if it’s all thesame to you ... if you’ll excuse my rather unconventional appearance....’
‘Come down to the cellar,’ cried his friend, taking him by the arm, ‘the Cellar of a Thousand Bottles.’ Still gripping Mr. Pardoe, he stamped thirstily on the floor. A trapdoor opened. They shot into the cellar with lightning speed, and before he could remember his manners Mr. Pardoe was knocking the tops off bottles with a skill that in cooler moments would have astounded him.
‘There you are!’ cried the little tailor. ‘Greenwich Time on every label. Look for our trademark and refuse imitations.’ He drank copious draughts. He became confidential, even affectionate. ‘Now that’s the difference between you and me. Your name’s Pardoe. That just shews the difference between you and me. Now my name’s Dionysus,’ he went on, with a radiant smile. ‘It’s a good name. And me father’s name was Dionysus before me. But me grandfather—ah, that’s another story.’
‘And what, my little man, was your grandfather’s name?’ enquired Mr. Pardoe, waving his glass in air.
‘Oh, me grandfather? Were you asking after me grandfather? Ah,hisname, don’t you see, was Dionysus. They distinguishedus one from the other by our trades. We were tailors, you know, all three of us.’
Mr. Pardoe rose to his feet. The performance was a credit to him. He made a last effort to exorcise the demon of levity that possessed him. ‘My friend, you have had enough. More than enough. You are intoxicated.’
Dionysus paused in his drinking to fix a waggish eye on Mr. Pardoe. ‘Drunk. Drunk as a god. Aren’t you! Why the devil don’t you drink? Imprison you for sobriety.’
He held a brimming glass to the lips of Mr. Pardoe, and, as he drank, the poor bewitched gentleman saw his host swell till the house could no longer contain that vast bulk. Himself a flame of exultation, Mr. Pardoe stared until the eyes of Dionysus became fierce seas, sparkling with unearthly light, towering in storm, and the glory of his sunset-face filled the sky.
‘... eight.’ The last stroke of eight o’clock. Mr. Pardoe, rubbing his eyes, saw that his wife’s face still wore the expression of bored patience with which she was accustomed to receive his domestic sermons, and that Timothy, as before, balanced himself on oneleg and jerked his body backwards and forwards by way of passing time. They seemed to be waiting for him.
‘What’s this?’ cried Mr. Pardoe, staring at the paper in his hand. He recognizedThe Bondholder’s Register. An alarming idea visited him. ‘Am I...?’ He looked down at his legs, stroked his arms. Yes, he was. He breathed deeply in his relief. ‘My dear, did you notice anything, anything unusual?’
Blank faces greeted him.
‘Between the seventh and eighth stroke of the hour—did anything happen to me?’
His wife took a step towards him. Her eyes became anxious. ‘No, dear. Are you feeling ill?’
‘No, no. Perfectly well. Just a whim of mine. A mere fancy. Nothing at all. Nothing.’
‘Oh, father!’ said Timothy, for the fourth time, ‘youmighttell me a story.’
Mr. Pardoe turned to the boy with enthusiasm. He beamed paternal affection upon him. ‘Yes, old man. Come along. A story before we go to bed, eh?... Once upon a time there was a tailor who lived in the forest and kept a beard, a grey beard, which sang pretty tunes....’