The Desire of the Moth

An excerpt from the beginning of the first chapter:


CHAPTER I.
THE PICTURE IN THE GARRET.


The wind was roaring in the chimneys and the leafless branches of the trees were rattling against the walls of the house with a wild rush as the gusts swept by.

Luigia, at the nursery window, had looked out into the dreary solitude of the park, and watched the dead leaves whirling on the lawn so long, that something of the melancholy of that wet, tempestuous, winter's day had entered into her heart, and she felt vaguely unhappy. She turned and looked around her. Her nurse, Fanny, had gone into the inner room to chat with Mrs. Dawes, the old woman who sometimes came up from the village to make Luigia's frocks. She was alone, and there was nothing particular to do. In a moment she had taken her resolution and run away—up to that mysterious region of garrets at the top of the house, where all was dust and cobwebs, and solitude, and dim light.

That dozen or so of garrets were a never-failing source of interest and delight to Luigia. The miscellaneous lumber that had collected there during years was a mine of untold wealth to the solitary child. It was charming to lift the lid of some box and grope among its contents, bringing to light many a forgotten remnant of brocade and quaintly cut garment; a broken, old-fashioned toy that had belonged to some child years ago; a mildewed photograph album full of faded, dead faces of people who had once perhaps lived in that very house, trodden those very rooms.

Then the books—how many there were of them!—books of every sort and description, both old and new, both English and foreign. But the pictures were open stories to all beholding eyes, and over these she would pore in the dusky light, weaving tales around them of happy people and sunny gardens such as she loved. And she thought about them again when she went to bed at night, peopling the' solitary house with creatures of her imagination, and living a second inner life that was both richer and fuller than the realities of her existence. Truly Luigia in her loneliness was better off for companionship than many a less imaginative child who belongs to a large family of brothers and sisters.

It was very cold in the garrets, but there was an old tablecloth that did duty as a shawl, and wrapped in this, with her feet tucked under her frock to keep them warm, she could spend many an hour by herself in a mood of mysterious happiness. The tablecloth was now dusty and tattered, but it had once been gorgeous, and Luigia liked it because it was scarlet and had a gold thread running through it. It had come from some foreign land originally, and years ago she remembered it on a table in the drawing-room, where as a child she had sat on the floor beside it and regarded its golden birds of Paradise with respectful awe. Now it was banished to the garret, and she no longer worshipped it at a distance, but wrapped it round her and made it serve her as a familiar friend. The beautiful gleaming thing was but a rag, the birds of Paradise were tarnished, the wonder of it was gone, and she used it or threw it aside without respect.

Wrapped in this gorgeous Eastern rag, she defied the cold, and enjoyed herself thoroughly after a strange, solitary fashion of her own. After gazing at a picture in a lengthy and absolute abstraction she would toss back her hair as though seeking freedom from restraint, and, looking up into the wintry sky, give free vent to her imagination. Every shade of feeling through which she passed was expressed in those great, dark, un-English eyes of hers, and perhaps also in the mouth, which was large too. But there was no one to see or even to guess at the hopes and longings that filled her heart, and she was never either disturbed or interfered with when up there.

If all other sources of interest failed her there were still the fairies to watch for. How many hours had she not spent in crouching behind some box or peeping through a half-open door in the hope of catching a fairy at its gambols! What old, fantastic creatures might not come skipping out of the dim corners into the half light in the centre of the room! What frolics might they not have chasing one another round and about the old furniture! But in all the ten years of her life there was only one solitary instance of good luck with regard to fairies, and that was one day when on entering a room suddenly a little creature sprang down from the top of a chest and disappeared behind a screen. She had told Fanny, her nurse, about it, and Fanny had said it was a mouse, but of course Luigia did not choose to believe this, and many a day after that she had waited, cramped and motionless, in some dark corner for a glimpse of the fairy creature that never came again....