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THE END OF THIS STORY AND THE BEGINNING OF ALL THE OTHERS:
"You need no rings when I am with you," said the voice of Aslan. The children
blinked and looked about them. They were once more in the Wood between the
Worlds; Uncle Andrew lay on the grass, still asleep; Aslan stood beside them.
"Come," said Aslan; "it is time that you went back. But there are two things to
see to first; a warning, and a command. Look here, children."
They looked and saw a little hollow in the grass, with a grassy bottom, warm and
dry.
"When you were last here," said Aslan, "that hollow was a pool, and when you
jumped into it you came to the world where a dying sun shone over the ruins of
Charn. There is no pool now. That world is ended, as if it had never been. Let
the race of Adam and Eve take warning."
"Yes, Aslan," said both the children. But Polly added, "But we're not quite as
bad as that world, are we, Aslan?"
"Not yet, Daughter of Eve," he said. "Not yet. But you are growing more like it.
It is not certain that some wicked one of your race will not find out a secret
as evil as the Deplorable Word and use it to destroy all living things. And
soon, very soon, before you are an old man and an old woman, great nations in
your world will be ruled by tyrants who care no more for joy and justice and
mercy than the Empress Jadis. Let your world beware. That is the warning. Now
for the command. As soon as you can, take from this Uncle of yours his magic
rings and bury them so that no one can use them again."
Both the children were looking up into the Lion's face as he spoke these words.
And all at once (they never knew exactly how it happened) the face seemed to be
a sea of tossing gold in which they were floating, and such a sweetness and
power rolled about them and over them and entered them that they felt they had
never really been happy or wise or good, or even alive and awake, before. And
the memory of that moment stayed with them always, so that as long as they both
lived, if ever they were sad or afraid or angry, the thought of all that golden
goodness, and the feeling that it was still there, quite close, just round some
corner or just behind some door, would come back and make them sure, deep down
inside, that all was well. Next minute all three of them (Uncle Andrew now
awake) came tumbling into the noise, heat, and hot smells of London.
They were on the pavement outside the Ketterleys' front door, and except that
the Witch, the Horse, and the Cabby were gone, everything was exactly as they
had left it. There was the lamp-post, with one arm missing; there was the wreck
of the hansom cab; and there was the crowd. Everyone was still talking and
people were kneeling beside the damaged policeman, saying things like, "He's
coming round" or "How do you feel now, old chap?" or "The Ambulance will be here
in a jiffy."
"Great Scott!" thought Digory, "I believe the whole adventure's taken no time at
all."
Most people were wildly looking round for Jadis and the horse. No one took any
notice of the children for no one had seen them go or noticed them coming back.
As for Uncle Andrew, what between the state of his clothes and the honey on his
face, he could not have been recognized by anyone. Fortunately the front door of
the house was-open and the housemaid was standing in the doorway staring at the
fun (what a day that girl was having!) so the children had no difficulty in
bustling Uncle Andrew indoors before anyone asked any questions.
He raced up the stirs before them and at first they were very afraid he was
heading for his attic and meant to hide his remaining magic rings. But they
needn't have bothered. What he was thinking about was the bottle in his
wardrobe, and he disappeared at once into his bedroom and locked the door. When
he came out again (which was not for a long time) he was in his dressinggown and
made straight for the bathroom.
"Can you get the other rings, Poll?" said Digory. "I want to go to Mother."
"Right. See you later," said Polly and clattered up the attic stairs.
Then Digory took a minute to get his breath, and then went softly into his
Mother's room. And there she lay, as he had seen her lie so many other times,
propped up on the pillows, with a thin, pale face that would make you cry to
look at. Digory took the Apple of Life out of his pocket.
And just as the Witch Jadis had looked different when you saw her in our world
instead of in her own, so the fruit of that mountain garden looked different
too. There were of course all sorts of coloured things in the bedroom; the
coloured counterpane on the bed, the wallpaper, the sunlight from the window,
and Mother's pretty, pale blue dressing jacket. But the moment Digory took the
Apple out of his pocket, all those things seemed to have scarcely any colour at
all. Every one of them, even the sunlight, looked faded and dingy. The
brightness of the Apple threw strange lights on the ceiling. Nothing else was
worth looking at: you couldn't look at anything else. And the smell of the Apple
of Youth was as if there was a window in the room that opened on Heaven.
"Oh, darling, how lovely," said Digory's Mother.
"You will eat it, won't you? Please," said Digory.
"I don't know what the Doctor would say," she answered. "But really - I almost
feel as if I could."
He peeled it and cut it up and gave it to her piece by piece. And no sooner had
she finished it than she smiled and her head sank back on the pillow and she was
asleep: a real, natural, gentle sleep, without any of those nasty drugs, which
was, as Digory knew, the thing in the whole world that she wanted most. And he
was sure now that her face looked a little different. He bent down and kissed
her very softly and stole out of the room with a beating heart; taking the core
of the apple with him. For the rest of that day, whenever he looked at the
things about him, and saw how ordinary and unmagical they were, he hardly dared
to hope; but when he remembered the face of Aslan he did hope.
That evening he buried the core of the Apple in the back garden.
Next morning when the Doctor made his usual visit, Digory leaned over the
banisters to listen. He heard the Doctor come out with Aunt Letty and say:
"Miss Ketterley, this is the most extraordinary case I have known in my whole
medical career. It is - it is like a miracle. I wouldn't tell the little boy
anything at present; we don't want to raise any false hopes. But in my opinion
-" then his voice became too low to hear.
That afternoon he went down the garden and whistled their agreed secret signal
for Polly (she hadn't been able to get back the day before).
"What luck?" said Polly, looking over the wall. "I mean, about your Mother?"
"I think - I think it is going to be alright," said Digory. "But if you don't
mind I'd really rather not talk about it yet. What about the rings?"
"I've got them all," said Polly. "Look, it's alright, I'm wearing gloves. Let's
bury them."
"Yes, let's. I've marked the place where I buried the core of the Apple
yesterday."
Then Polly came over the wall and they went together to the place. But, as it
turned out, Digory need not have marked the place. Something was already coming
up. It was not growing so that you could see it grow as the new trees had done
in Narnia; but it was already well above ground. They got a trowel and buried
all the magic rings, including their own ones, in a circle round it.
About a week after this it was quite certain that Digory's Mother was getting
better. About a fortnight later she was able to sit out in the garden. And a
month later that whole house had become a different place. Aunt Letty did
everything that Mother liked; windows were opened, frowsy curtains were drawn
back to brighten up the rooms, there were new flowers everywhere, and nicer
things to eat, and the old piano was tuned and Mother took up her singing again,
and had such games with Digory and Polly that Aunt Letty would say "I declare,
Mabel, you're the biggest baby of the three."
When things go wrong, you'll find they usually go on getting worse for some
time; but when things once start going right they often go on getting better and
better. After about six weeks of this lovely life there came a long letter from
Father in India, which had wonderful news in it. Old Great-Uncle Kirke had died
and this meant, apparently, that Father was now very rich. He was going to
retire and come home from India forever and ever. And the great big house in the
country, which Digory had heard of all his life and never seen would now be
their home; the big house with the suits of armour, the stables, the kennels,
the river, the park, the hot-houses, the vineries, the woods, and the mountains
behind it. So that Digory felt just as sure as you that they were all going to
live happily ever after. But perhaps you would like to know just one or two
things more.
Polly and Digory were always great friends and she came nearly every holidays to
stay with them at their beautiful house in the country; and that was where she
learned to ride and swim and milk and bake and climb.
In Narnia the Beasts lived in great peace and joy and neither the Witch nor any
other enemy came to trouble that pleasant land for many hundred years. King
Frank and Queen Helen and their children lived happily in Narnia and their
second son became King of Archenland. The boys married nymphs and the girls
married woodgods and river-gods. The lamp-post which the Witch had planted
(without knowing it) shone day and night in the Narnian forest, so that the
place where it grew came to be called Lantern Waste; and when, many years later,
another child from our world got into Narnia, on a snowy night, she found the
light still burning. And that adventure was, in a way, connected with the ones I
have just been telling you.
It was like this. The tree which sprang from the Apple that Digory planted in
the back garden, lived and grew into a fine tree. Growing in the soil of our
world, far out of the sound of Aslan's voice and far from the young air of
Narnia, it did not bear apples that would revive a dying woman as Digory's
Mother had been revived, though it did bear apples more beautiful than any
others in England, and they were extremely good for you, though not fully
magical. But inside itself, in the very sap of it, the tree (so to speak) never
forgot that other tree in Narnia to which it belonged. Sometimes it would move
mysteriously when there was no wind blowing: I think that when this happened
there were high winds in Narnia and the English tree quivered because, at that
moment, the Narnia tree was rocking and swaying in a strong south-western gale.
However, that might be, it was proved later that there was still magic in its
wood. For when Digory was quite middle-aged (and he was a famous learned man, a
Professor, and a great traveller by that time) and the Ketterleys' old house
belonged to him, there was a great storm all over the south of England which
blew the tree down. He couldn't bear to have it simply chopped up for firewood,
so he had part of the timber made into a wardrobe, which he put in his big house
in the country. And though he himself did not discover the magic properties of
that wardrobe, someone else did. That was the beginning of all the comings and
goings between Narnia and our world, which you can read of in other books.
When Digory and his people went to live in the big country house, they took
Uncle Andrew to live with them; for Digory's Father said, "We must try to keep
the old fellow out of mischief, and it isn't fair that poor Letty should have
him always on her hands." Uncle Andrew never tried any Magic again as long as he
lived. He had learned his lesson, and in his old age he became a nicer and less
selfish old man than he had ever been before. But he always liked to get
visitors alone in the billiard-room and tell them stories about a mysterious
lady, a foreign royalty, with whom he had driven about London. "A devilish
temper she had," he would say. "But she was a dem fine woman, sir, a dem fine
woman." The End .. For Now ...
