The Children's Book - A. S. Byatt [157]
23
Tom sat in the sombre library of the British Pavilion, in the late afternoon, when it was closed to the public. Guests of the Special Keeper of Precious Metals at the Victoria and Albert Museum were allowed in. Tom could imagine himself in the seventeenth century, surrounded by leather books and glowing tapestries of the Quest of the Grail. In front of him was Burne-Jones’s painting of Lancelot’s dream at the Grail chapel. The clearing in the forest was desolate and moonlit. The light was pale moony-gold, shining on the rump of the tethered horse, and the faces of the sleeping knight and watching angel. The knight was half-recumbent, his elegant mailed feet crossed like an effigy, his young, fine face expressing not rest, but absolute exhaustion. His shield was propped in a twisted, leafless bush: the moon glinted on his long sword and the helmet on the ground by his feet. The expression on the angel’s concerned little white face was almost one of terror or horror. Thorns grew round the foot of the chapel wall. Tom was deeply moved by all this. He wanted to go home. He took the latest instalment of Underground out of his bookbag, and wrote a letter.
My dearest Mother,
Thank you for sending the unwrapping of the Silf. It is one of the best things you have done, I think, very exciting and disturbing. I hope we shall see a lot more of the Silf—is it a “she” or an “it”—you seem undecided. I think you are quite right about the spelling. Silf is much more mysterious than sylph, and gets rid of all sorts of airy-fairy associations.
I am having a very good time here, seeing lots and lots of amazing things, some entertaining, some instructive, some beautiful too. I have been up the Eiffel Tower and on the Great Wheel and have ventured into the new Underground Railway, the Métro, which has gates like the gates of fairyland. Everything is driven by electricity—it all hums and buzzes—and there are forests of lights twinkling and glittering everywhere. I don’t know if it is more like Vanity Fair or Camelot or even at times Pandemonium. I am not very good at living in all this noise, I really am not, I think often of a quiet walk on the Downs in the early morning, with the dew on the turf and the sun rising. I really do wish you were here. You would make more of all this enchantment and artifice than I can. It is like that story you wrote of the palace inside the palace inside the palace. You could make stories out of almost everything.
Julian is very good to me, and I hope we are really friends. But he is so sophisticated and so—I can’t find a word—sardonic? Not quite—you will know what I mean—that I’m never quite at ease with him, and daren’t say what I feel, in case he thinks it’s silly. Major Cain has been wonderfully kind, and explains the art objects to us. You would love to see the jewellery. Mr. Fludd is a bit mysterious—he seems to stay in bed a lot—Philip looks after him, I suppose. We hope to see someone called Loïe Fuller dance. I think there is all sorts of food for your imagination here. As for me, sometimes I really enjoy things like moving pavements, and sherbet in little glasses, and the Russian diorama. But sometimes—mostly I think—I do want to be at home and sit in the garden with lemonade, and read about the Silf.
Your loving son
Tom.
Prosper Cain came to the modest hotel where Benedict Fludd and Philip were staying. He found Philip, who said that Benedict Fludd was still in bed and had said he was not to be disturbed. Cain said he was to be disturbed, and immediately. He was to visit the Lalique stand, and he was to lunch with Siegfried Bing in the Pavillon Bleu, as he knew very well. Philip said drily that he did not think he dared disturb Fludd.
“I dare,” said Major Cain. He considered Philip. “How are you finding the Exposition?”
Philip detailed his visits