5 Back on This Side of the Door

BECAUSE the game of hide-and-seek was still going on, it

took Edmund and Lucy some time to find the others. But

when at last they were all together (which happened in the

long room, where the suit of armour was) Lucy burst out:

"Peter! Susan! It's all true. Edmund has seen it too. There is a

country you can get to through the wardrobe. Edmund and I both got

in. We met one another in there, in the wood. Go on, Edmund; tell

them all about it."

"What's all this about, Ed?" said Peter.

And now we come to one of the nastiest things in this story. Up to

that moment Edmund had been feeling sick, and sulky, and annoyed

with Lucy for being right, but he hadn't made up his mind what to do.

When Peter suddenly asked him the question he decided all at once

to do the meanest and most spiteful thing he could think of. He

decided to let Lucy down.

"Tell us, Ed," said Susan.

And Edmund gave a very superior look as if he were far older than

Lucy (there was really only a year's difference) and then a little

snigger and said, "Oh, yes, Lucy and I have been playing — pretending

that all her story about a country in the wardrobe is true. just for fun,

of course. There's nothing there really."

Poor Lucy gave Edmund one look and rushed out of the room.

Edmund, who was becoming a nastier person every minute, thought

that he had scored a great success, and went on at once to say, "There

she goes again. What's the matter with her? That's the worst of young

kids, they always -"

"Look here," said Peter, turning on him savagely, "shut up! You've

been perfectly beastly to Lu ever since she started this nonsense

about the wardrobe, and now you go playing games with her about it

and setting her off again. I believe you did it simply out of spite."

"But it's all nonsense," said Edmund, very taken aback.

"Of course it's all nonsense," said Peter, "that's just the point. Lu was

perfectly all right when we left home, but since we've been down here

she seems to be either going queer in the head or else turning into a

most frightful liar. But whichever it is, what good do you think you'll

do by jeering and nagging at her one day and encouraging her the

next?"

"I thought — I thought," said Edmund; but he couldn't think of

anything to say.

"You didn't think anything at all," said Peter; "it's just spite. You've

always liked being beastly to anyone smaller than yourself; we've

seen that at school before now."

"Do stop it," said Susan; "it won't make things any better having a

row between you two. Let's go and find Lucy."

It was not surprising that when they found Lucy, a good deal later,

everyone could see that she had been crying. Nothing they could say

to her made any difference. She stuck to her story and said:

"I don't care what you think, and I don't care what you say. You can

tell the Professor or you can write to Mother or you can do anything

you like. I know I've met a Faun in there and — I wish I'd stayed there

and you are all beasts, beasts."

It was an unpleasant evening. Lucy was miserable and Edmund was

beginning to feel that his plan wasn't working as well as he had

expected. The two older ones were really beginning to think that Lucy

was out of her mind. They stood in the passage talking about it in

whispers long after she had gone to bed.

The result was the next morning they decided that they really would

go and tell the whole thing to the Professor. "He'll write to Father if he

thinks there is really something wrong with Lu," said Peter; "it's getting

beyond us." So they went and knocked at the study door, and the

Professor said "Come in," and got up and found chairs for them and

said he was quite at their disposal. Then he sat listening to them with

the tips of his fingers pressed together and never interrupting, till they

had finished the whole story. After that he said nothing for quite a long

time. Then he cleared his throat and said the last thing either of them

expected:

"How do you know," he asked, "that your sister's story is not true?"

"Oh, but -" began Susan, and then stopped. Anyone could see from

the old man's face that he was perfectly serious. Then Susan pulled

herself together and said, "But Edmund said they had only been

pretending."

"That is a point," said the Professor, "which certainly deserves

consideration; very careful consideration. For instance — if you will

excuse me for asking the question — does your experience lead you

to regard your brother or your sister as the more reliable? I mean,

which is the more truthful?"

"That's just the funny thing about it, sir," said Peter. "Up till now, I'd

have said Lucy every time."

"And what do you think, my dear?" said the Professor, turning to

Susan.

"Well," said Susan, "in general, I'd say the same as Peter, but this

couldn't be true — all this about the wood and the Faun."

"That is more than I know," said the Professor, "and a charge of lying

against someone whom you have always found truthful is a very

serious thing; a very serious thing indeed."

"We were afraid it mightn't even be lying," said Susan; "we thought

there might be something wrong with Lucy."

"Madness, you mean?" said the Professor quite coolly. "Oh, you can

make your minds easy about that. One has only to look at her and talk

to her to see that she is not mad."

"But then," said Susan, and stopped. She had never dreamed that a

grown-up would talk like the Professor and didn't know what to think.

"Logic!" said the Professor half to himself. "Why don't they teach

logic at these schools? There are only three possibilities. Either your

sister is telling lies, or she is mad, or she is telling the truth. You know

she doesn't tell lies and it is obvious that she is not mad For the

moment then and unless any further evidence turns up, we must

assume that she is telling the truth."

Susan looked at him very hard and was quite sure from the expression on his face that he was no making fun of them.

"But how could it be true, sir?" said Peter.

"Why do you say that?" asked the Professor.

"Well, for one thing," said Peter, "if it was true why doesn't everyone

find this country every time they go to the wardrobe? I mean, there

was nothing there when we looked; even Lucy didn't pretend the was."

"What has that to do with it?" said the Professor.

"Well, sir, if things are real, they're there all the time."

"Are they?" said the Professor; and Peter did'nt know quite what to

say.

"But there was no time," said Susan. "Lucy had no time to have

gone anywhere, even if there was such a place. She came running

after us the very moment we were out of the room. It was less than

minute, and she pretended to have been away for hours."

"That is the very thing that makes her story so likely to be true,"

said the Professor. "If there really a door in this house that leads to

some other world (and I should warn you that this is a very strange

house, and even I know very little about it) — if, I say, she had got into

another world, I should not be at a surprised to find that the other

world had a separate time of its own; so that however long you stay

there it would never take up any of our time. On the other hand, I don't

think many girls of her age would invent that idea for themselves. If

she had been pretending, she would have hidden for a reasonable time

before coming out and telling her story."

"But do you really mean, sir," said Peter, "that there could be other

worlds — all over the place, just round the corner — like that?"

"Nothing is more probable," said the Professor, taking off his spectacles and beginning to polish them, while he muttered to himself, "I

wonder what they do teach them at these schools."

"But what are we to do?" said Susan. She felt that the conversation

was beginning to get off the point.

"My dear young lady," said the Professor, suddenly looking up with

a very sharp expression at both of them, "there is one plan which no

one has yet suggested and which is well worth trying."

"What's that?" said Susan.

"We might all try minding our own business," said he. And that was

the end of that conversation.

After this things were a good deal better for Lucy. Peter saw to it that

Edmund stopped jeering at her, and neither she nor anyone else felt

inclined to talk about the wardrobe at all. It had become a rather

alarming subject. And so for a time it looked as if all the adventures

were coming to an end; but that was not to be.

This house of the Professor's — which even he knew so little about

— was so old and famous that people from all over England used to

come and ask permission to see over it. It was the sort of house that

is mentioned in guide books and even in histories; and well it might

be, for all manner of stories were told about it, some of them even

stranger than the one I am telling you now. And when parties of sightseers arrived and asked to see the house, the Professor always gave

them permission, and Mrs Macready, the housekeeper, showed them

round, telling them about the pictures and the armour, and the rare

books in the library. Mrs Macready was not fond of children, and did

not like to be interrupted when she was telling visitors all the things

she knew. She had said to Susan and Peter almost on the first

morning (along with a good many other instructions), "And please

remember you're to keep out of the way whenever I'm taking a party

over the house."

"Just as if any of us would want to waste half the morning trailing

round with a crowd of strange grown-ups!" said Edmund, and the

other three thought the same. That was how the adventures began for

the second time.

A few mornings later Peter and Edmund were looking at the suit of

armour and wondering if they could take it to bits when the two girls

rushed into the room and said, "Look out! Here comes the Macready

and a whole gang with her."

"Sharp's the word," said Peter, and all four made off through the

door at the far end of the room. But when they had got out into the

Green Room and beyond it, into the Library, they suddenly heard

voices ahead of them, and realised that Mrs Macready must be

bringing her party of sightseers up the back stairs — instead of up the

front stairs as they had expected. And after that — whether it was that

they lost their heads, or that Mrs Macready was trying to catch them,

or that some magic in the house had come to life and was chasing

them into Narnia they seemed to find themselves being followed

everywhere, until at last Susan said, "Oh bother those trippers! Here

— let's get into the Wardrobe Room till they've passed. No one will

follow us in there." But the moment they were inside they heard the

voices in the passage — and then someone fumbling at the door —

and then they saw the handle turning.

"Quick!" said Peter, "there's nowhere else," and flung open the

wardrobe. All four of them bundled inside it and sat there, panting, in

the dark. Peter held the door closed but did not shut it; for, of course,

he remembered, as every sensible person does, that you should never

never shut yourself up in a wardrobe.