“In the depths”
Mae goes out everywhere, often alone, finding the new ways and amusements of the city.
When she finds one she thinks I will enjoy, she hurries home all out of breath to take me or tell me.
She has been hunting around the halls to-day, as if there were hidden mysteries close by. I do believe she has found one. Her hair flying and eyes dancing, I go to meet her, to see what it is; getting some emotion in my own frame. “Come in here, Auntie.” In there I go, like a lamb.
It is a glass entry of some sort. (I will stop to explain what I call glass, as it is not exactly, but some transparency quite serving the purpose.) Mae pulls certain knobs and lets in what——water!
“Auntie, this is bathday. We have on bath rigs. Put on this helmet with its tubes above for breathing.”
I do so, as the water deepens. She opens a gate now, and a flood rushes in, and takes us off our feet, which we regain by use of our elastic breathing tubes.
We pass through the gate to all the glories of the sea. A sea bath—sea mosses under our feet, shells piled in heaps, fern trees waving.
Mae dashes out and hides from view. I discover her, but cannot hold her with my wet hands.
We hear a song. In the door of a crystal grotto stands a mermaid. “Come into my bower, and I will give you amber. I am a sister of seven who combs her long hair in the deep.”
Ascending steps of dainty harpshell, we tread an anemone carpet where is a crowd of people.
Games are in order on rock ruby stands, in which I become engrossed, as a “sister” plays a cameo-mandolin; another singing a rollicking song of the sea, ending in sobs, for those who come down in ships.
There is sea-dancing—liquid symphony. I see Charley in his native element, precluding tears or weeping for joy.
We round out on a tower top, and board a nautilus with unfurled sail. We ride over a gold fish “gilt-edged” school, and a bank of red sea berries that holly-like call up to us “Merry Christmas.”
Furling our sail, we drop down into the entry, which we empty, and strange, our garments are dry.
We emerge among our friends. A sweep of robes is so close passing me, I look up at the colossal face. It is Robet, but a strained, nervous look forbids me to follow.
Toppling upon the hem of her robe, I am carried perforce in her company. She stops in a conservatory, where one grand tree is growing, and bends down a branch. I look to see it and all the tree transcribed with names—a veritable family tree. More distraught, she speaks in a loud-pitched voice, down into the face of Charley, who has followed me (seeing him not), “Have you a pedigree?” He colors up in wrath, then takes a tablet from my chatelaine, and places it in her hand, which awakes her. Smiling, she says, “I did not mean you.” Charley reacting from anger to hilarity, seizes a twig, crying. “I will write a pedigree,” as a red pollen drops, touching up my cheeks. “They need it,” he says, and goes for Mae, who now comes, and soon she glows like an Indian.
When he is gone, Mae, in order for ablution, opens near by a door, that is outwardly a picture. (More mystery).
Can it be the secret sanctum of Savant, that I have so vainly hunted? Father sits in an easy chair deeply engaged with a pictured script. I look around but see no books or apparatus—a cheerful, cosy room only. I look over father’s shoulder as he turns the papyrus leaf, holding over it a microscope. I catch sight of the meaning. Giving a sudden cry, he arouses to my presence. He takes me on his knee, and we follow together the tiny pictured lines of a story.
Anon a kitten purrs by me; I look up and see the host intently reading my expression in his own absorbed, telepathic style. Genially smiling, he takes my two hands, and kneeling places them on his head, thus confessing his service to my will. Though in my new normal state, I feel to deprecate myself, and smile in humblest mode, as he rises and sits next us in similar seat.
Before we turn to our occupation, an incandescent glow falls upon the page, causing us to raise our eyes quite wonderingly. The light emanates quite mysteriously from Robet, whom I had not before observed as thus illumined. I see in her hand a lighted lantern, which she is studying, or the shining words upon it.
That these latter are possibly a code of rules is determined by her action. Sinking down at Savant’s feet, she asks, “Do give me some new plan for court to-day.”
“I will give you one,” speaks up father. She turns full to him.
“It is lawyer, a word signifying welfare.”
I was aware my English language was prolific of varied meanings. I am pleased to hear this development. “Law,” he continues, “transposed is ‘well;’ yer is ‘fare.’”
Miss Robet has caught his idea, and elaborates it. “When I go into court, the good word shall be welfare; when I come out—farewell,” and is gone.
Dear Robet, what is her secret sorrow, that she hides in her tender breast? Her genial soul should have no rebuff. Why is her intended away, as I have heard?
Quite changeable in mood, as is Show Off, her great chum, who gets it from his mother, the latter a triplet sister with Robet, and now on a visit to the other triplet sister.
We now give attention to the story before us, but so loudly sounds a refrain in my ears, “Savant before you is the greatest of living men,” until I become impatient, and ask, “how great?” “Ask him hidden knowledge,” refrains back to me.
What can it mean?
I will treat him to some unsettled points in spiritual doctrine to test his lore.