King of Morning, Queen of Day (2 page)

The track of Bell’s Comet was quite clear to see, arcing across the paths of the more familiar constellations. At regular intervals this arc was punctuated by what I can only describe, for want of a more elegant term, as blobs of light—concentrations of luminosity so intense they had actually burned away the photographic emulsion. Every other inch or so another of these blobs occurred at regular intervals along the comet’s track. For a full minute I was so astounded by my discovery as to be incapable of rational thought. Then I gathered my wits and concluded that Bell’s Comet must be emitting bursts of intense light. From the photographs, I calculated these to occur every twenty-eight minutes, a burst of light of such infinitesimally short duration and brilliance as to assume the luminosity of a major planet. Quite extraordinary!

Leafing through Hubbard Pierce Bell’s article, I was unable to find the slightest mention of any fluctuation in luminosity. Such a phenomenon could not have been overlooked; the only possible conclusion was that it had not
at that time occurred.

Delicious irony! That I, the last astronomer in Europe to observe Bell’s Comet, should be the discoverer of its most fascinating secret! I have dashed off a hasty letter to Sir Greville Adams at Dunsink Observatory claiming the discovery; this evening, God willing, I will observe again.

Is it unprofessional (and, more to the point, unscientific), I find myself asking, to feel elation at the possibility of being the discoverer of a major astronomical event? (Might even the comet be renamed Desmond’s Comet? I would even consider double-barrelling acceptable, but only as a last resort: Comet Bell-Desmond.) And there you have it. A quite inappropriately proprietorial attitude toward a lump of stellar matter! Terrible indeed to be reduced to an excitable schoolboy by the vainglorious thought of being the toast of the astronomical societies.

To matters more mundane, and sobering. Typical of Caroline to puncture my mood of ebullience by choosing luncheon today as her platform to raise the unpleasant issue of Emily’s schooling. Now, I do not deny that Emily’s problems at Cross and Passion are important, and that I, as a father, should be deeply concerned with the improvement of her academic standards; indeed, it is of paramount importance if daughter is to follow father down the noble highway of science. However, there is a time and a place for everything, and Caroline’s insistence that we discuss this at length over luncheon so soured my mood of geniality that it is quite impossible for me to develop the tranquility of mind necessary for the proper contemplation of the heavens.
Priorities!
Like mother, like daughter. Neither, alas, knows the importance of
priorities.

I
HEARD THEM AGAIN
last night, I’m sure I did—the Hounds of the Gods, out there among the trees. I heard them give tongue, like the baying of dire wolves it was, as they caught the scent of their quarry. I heard the cries of their faery master. Like the songs of nightingales they were, sweet and lovely. Rathfarnham Woods rang with their song. I imagined the woodland creatures fleeing from their footsteps:
Make way, make way, make way, for the Wild Hunt of the Ever-Living Ones!
But what could have been their quarry, out there in the rain-lashed wood? What was the scent the hounds tasted that set them baying so? Surely nothing so ignoble as the vulgar fox or badger that O’Byrne sometimes shoots when they raid the school chicken runs, nothing as common as that. Perhaps the noble stag. That would be quarry worthy of the Riders of the Sidhe. Maybe one of Lord Palmerstown’s herds, or, is it possible? a
faery
stag from the pages of legend and story, the stag that is hunted and killed each night by the Wild Hunt only to rise again with the morning sun? Or, most romantic of all, one of their own kind, a manhunt, a faery warrior fleet-footed and daring, laughing as he slips tirelessly between the trees of Rathfarnham, making sport of the hounds and the spearmen dogging his footsteps. Charlotte in the next bed asked what did I think I was doing, sitting up all hours of the night looking out the window, didn’t I know that I’d get in trouble if Sister Therese caught me? And just what, she asked, was I looking for out there in the pitch-blackness anyway?

“The hunt of the Ever-Living Ones, chasing a golden-antlered stag through the forest of the night with their red-eared hounds. Listen! Can you hear them, baying out there in the night? Can you hear the jingle of the silver bells on their horses’ harnesses?”

Charlotte scrambled out of the sheets and knelt beside me on my bed. We looked out through the barred window and listened as hard as we could. I was certain I heard the call of a hound, very far off, as if the Night Hunt had passed by and moved onward. I asked Charlotte if she had heard anything.

“I think so,” she said. “Yes, I think I heard something, too.”

March 12, 1913

The Royal Irish Astronomical Society

Dunsink Observatory

County Dublin

My Dear Dr. Desmond,

A few lines of admiration and appreciation (and, I must admit, envy) on your success concerning the periodicity of Bell’s Comet. For once the quixotic climate of that wretched county of yours has done you a service: interest having waned while you languished beneath your blanket of Celtic mist, yours was indeed the sole eyepiece in the United Kingdom to be trained on the comet at the precise moment it began to display its unique behaviour. Some gossoon from some wretched little city-state university in Germany has lodged a counterclaim; quite frankly, I suspect it is purest jealousy. These Huns will attempt anything to outdo His Britannic Majesty. So, the claim is yours, indisputably and unequivocally, and as a result, all those telescopes that turned away in search of celestial pastures new are turning back with wonderful haste to Bell’s Comet. Alas, your name will not be joined with that of the comet’s discoverer, but your fame, I think, will be the more enduring for having disclosed an unprecedented astronomical phenomenon. A flashing comet! Quite remarkable!

I have checked your calculations of rotation, angular momentum, velocity, and periodicity against my own observations (forgive my presumption in so doing), and have found that my figures correspond with yours to a high degree of accuracy. However, I am at a loss to furnish some hypothesis which might account for a rotational period of twenty-eight minutes but a maximum luminosity period of only two and three-eighths seconds. In our orderly universe, as strictly controlled and timetabled as Great Southern Railways, such paradoxical behaviour is deeply offensive to we gentlemen of astronomy. Any hypothesis you might provide to explain this phenomenon would find wide general appreciation, and, should such a time arrive when you might wish to make it public, the lecture theatre at the Society is at your disposal. For the meantime I once again congratulate you on your achievement and encourage you to return to your studies.

Yours Sincerely,

Sir Greville Adams

A
LONE IN MY SMALL
bower, I write, a dell among the woods of Rathfarnham. A secret place, a private place, a place where I am enfolded by tree branches like caring arms. A woman in green; this is my leafy bower. It took me a long time to find my place among the trees on the hillside, so close to Cross and Passion that I can almost reach out to touch the chimney pots, yet whole worlds away from Latin and Greek and French irregular verbs. Here I can be on my own, all alone, and lie down on the soft green moss and let my mind roam. Out across the land it goes, ripping up the fields and farms and houses of Rathfarnham, sowing in their place tall green trees—noble oaks and beeches. Look! There goes Cross and Passion, chimney pots and all, torn up and thrown away. Where it was is a gentle glen lit by shafts of soft sunlight, and deer look up, startled nostrils twitching, sniffing the air for the scent of the hunter. And here in my green bower, I am the poet–queen, dreaming of odes and lays and love songs, idylls and elegies and laments for mighty sons fallen in gory battle.

If the Sisters ever found me here, there’d be such trouble. But then Emily’s always in trouble, isn’t she? Trouble trouble trouble. They just can’t leave me alone to be and do what I want. Well, only one more week in that cold old dormitory that smells funny, as if things have been locked up and–left to die and rot, and then I’ll be home for two weeks. Two weeks, such bliss! I know I’ll miss the other girls, but in Craigdarragh the daffodils will be tall and golden on the lawn and the blackthorn will be blooming, and the may, and the alder, there will be birds singing in Bridestone Wood and all the trees will be putting on their newest green, all for me. I’m glad I’m spring born, when the earth is being born, too. I love it the years when Easter falls so I can have my birthday at Craigdarragh. I wonder, will Mummy have a party for me? I wonder, if I asked her nicely, would she allow boys to come? Parties are no fun without boys.

T
HE SPRING IN DUBLIN!
Most miraculous of seasons! Especially after the dreariness of February. Honestly, it never seemed to end this year. Twelve months of February; wind, cold, and sleet. Dismal. But how uplifting to see the early blossom in St. Stephen’s Green and the new, bold green on the trees along Merrion Road. Even that Dublin wind, which, blowing in off the Irish Sea in midwinter, can strip the black lead from the palings around Trinity College, seemed as gentle and refreshing as a zephyr. And I am glad to see that Caroline is as refreshed and renewed by the change of season and scenery as I. Her spirits visibly rose by the mile on the train to Amiens Street Station, and since arriving in the capital, why, what a transformation! Once again (and not before time, I think), she is the gay and vivacious creature I recall so well from school days. I know for a certainty she will be the toast of all Dublin at the reading tonight: here’s to Mrs. Caroline Desmond, the lady poetess of Drumcliffe! Her visit to the Gaelic Literary League is long overdue. Edward, though quite a dear in his own wee way, can be the most infuriating of men, especially when he goes into one of those trancelike states of his and, for days on end, shuffles around the house and gardens in carpet slippers muttering arcane
abracadabras
which we are meant to treat with a hushful reverence due deep musings upon the higher mysteries of the universe. This time it is some aery–faery nonsense about travellers from another star riding through space on the tail of a comet. No wonder poor Caroline was so easy to prise away from home. The man is getting worse, I declare.

A leisurely dinner at the hotel with a few friends from the Literary League, followed by a short, pleasant walk to University College, and finally, the triumphant reading of her latest collection, should restore a proper perspective to Caroline’s life. Willie will be there. I must introduce him to Caroline. I’m sure he’ll be quite entranced by her. Perhaps the next time he is over in the West I might arrange for a little soiree at Rathkennedy for Caroline, poet to poet. The atmosphere in Craigdarragh is so musty and stifling and
scientific.

March 29, 1913

Craigdarragh

Drumcliffe

County Sligo

My Dear Lord Fitzgerald,

Many thanks for your letter of congratulation. It is most gracious of you, especially as I consider myself to have, in a sense, robbed you of your dues; after all, but for your winter sojourn in Nice, it could as easily have been yourself observing through the Clarecourt telescope as I through the Craigdarragh.

Therefore, I feel it only politic to inform you, a fellow astronomer and close colleague, that I have developed a theory on the nature of Bell’s Comet which, I may say without fear of exaggeration, will rock the entire scientific community to its core, not merely the Irish Astronomical Society. Indeed, I have been invited to address my theories to that body on the eighteenth of April. However, with regard to the solidarity between us as brother astronomers in this benighted outpost of the Empire, I feel it is only proper that I should share this hypothesis with you before facing that lions’ den of whippersnappers and ossified intellects in Dublin. Might I therefore extend to you an invitation to visit us here at Craigdarragh; would the fifteenth of April allow sufficient time to amend diaries and make arrangements? Please let me know at your earliest convenience if this date will not serve; it will be no difficulty to arrange another.

I conclude by expressing my fondest hopes that you will be able to visit our humble home. Both Caroline and I extend the warmest welcome, and, as ever, our droughts and prayers are always for your good self and the Lady Alexandra, who is as close to our hearts as to yours,

I remain,

Your Obedient Servant,

Edward Garret Desmond, Ph.D.

C
RAIGDARRAGH. SINCE CROSSING THE
threshold I have gone around hugging every wall, window, and door in the place! Mrs. O’Carolan can hardly believe what she is seeing; she goes around muttering under her breath that she always knew it ran in families. Dear Mrs O’C! I almost hugged
her
when I saw her waiting on the platform at Sligo Station. Oh dear, the look she would have given me!

It is all as I imagined it on the train up from Dublin. Complete and perfect in every detail, the people, the faces, the places. The people: Mrs. O’Carolan fat and fusty and kind; Mummy a poet and an artist and a tragic queen out of legend all rolled into one; Daddy worried and hurried and so busy with his telescopes and sums I’m sure he’s already forgotten I’m here. And the places: the red of the early rhododendrons, the blue sea, and beyond it, like a cloud, purple Knocknarea. Woods, mountains, waterfall: wonderful! Today I visited the Bridestone up above the woods on the slopes of Ben Bulben. How good it was to be alone and at peace. Up there, with only the wind and the song of the blackbird for company, it is like nothing has changed for a thousand years. It was easy to imagine Finn MacCool and his grim Fianna warriors hunting the leaping stag with their red-eared hounds through the woodland glens, or the sunlight glinting from the spear points of the Red Branch Heroes as they marched to avenge a slain comrade.