Chapter 01 - Lucy Looks Into a Wardrobe

CHAPTER ONE

LUCY LOOKS INTO A WARDROBE

ONCE there were fourchildren whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. This story is aboutsomething that happened to them when they were sent away from London during thewar because of the air-raids. They were sent to the house of an old Professorwho lived in the heart of the country, ten miles from the nearest railwaystation and two miles from the nearest post office. He had no wife and he livedin a very large house with a housekeeper called Mrs Macready and three servants.(Their names were Ivy, Margaret and Betty, but they do not come into the storymuch.) He himself was a very old man with shaggy white hair which grew overmost of his face as well as on his head, and they liked him almost at once; buton the first evening when he came out to meet them at the front door he was soodd-looking that Lucy (who was the youngest) was a little afraid of him, andEdmund (who was the next youngest) wanted to laugh and had to keep onpretending he was blowing his nose to hide it.

As soon as they had said good night to the Professor and gone upstairson the first night, the boys came into the girls' room and they all talked itover.

"We've fallen on our feet and no mistake," said Peter."This is going to be perfectly splendid. That old chap will let us doanything we like."

"I think he's an old dear," said Susan.

"Oh, come offit!" said Edmund, who was tired and pretending not to be tired, whichalways made him bad-tempered. "Don't go on talking like that."

"Like what?" said Susan; "and anyway, it's time you werein bed."

"Trying to talk like Mother," said Edmund. "And who areyou to say when I'm to go to bed? Go to bed yourself."

"Hadn't we all better go to bed?" said Lucy. "There'ssure to be a row if we're heard talking here."

"No there won't," said Peter. "I tell you this is thesort of house where no one's going to mind what we do. Anyway, they won't hearus. It's about ten minutes' walk from here down to that dining-room, and anyamount of stairs and passages in between."

"What's thatnoise?" said Lucy suddenly. It was a far larger house than she had everbeen in before and the thought of all those long passages and rows of doorsleading into empty rooms was beginning to make her feel a little creepy.

"It's only a bird, silly," said Edmund.

"It's an owl," said Peter. "This is going to be awonderful place for birds. I shall go to bed now. I say, let's go and exploretomorrow. You might find anything in a place like this. Did you see thosemountains as we came along? And the woods? There might be eagles. There mightbe stags. There'll be hawks."

"Badgers!" said Lucy.

"Foxes!" said Edmund.

"Rabbits!" said Susan.

But when next morning came there was a steady rain falling, so thickthat when you looked out of the window you could see neither the mountains northe woods nor even the stream in the garden.

"Of course it would be raining!" said Edmund. They had justfinished their breakfast with the Professor and were upstairs in the room hehad set apart for them - a long, low room with two windows looking out in onedirection and two in another.

"Do stop grumbling, Ed," said Susan. "Ten to one it'llclear up in an hour or so. And in the meantime we're pretty well off. There's awireless and lots of books."

"Not for me"said Peter; "I'm going to explore in thehouse."

Everyone agreed to this and that was how the adventures began. It wasthe sort of house that you never seem to come to the end of, and it was full ofunexpected places. The first few doors they tried led only into spare bedrooms,as everyone had expected that they would; but soon they came to a very longroom full of pictures and there they found a suit of armour; and after that wasa room all hung with green, with a harp in one corner; and then came threesteps down and five steps up, and then a kind of little upstairs hall and adoor that led out on to a balcony, and then a whole series of rooms that ledinto each other and were lined with books - most of them very old books andsome bigger than a Bible in a church. And shortly after that they looked into aroom that was quite empty except for one big wardrobe; the sort that has alooking-glass in the door. There was nothing else in the room at all except adead blue-bottle on the window-sill.

"Nothing there!" said Peter, and they all trooped out again -all except Lucy. She stayed behind because she thought it would be worth whiletrying the door of the wardrobe, even though she felt almost sure that it wouldbe locked. To her surprise it opened quite easily, and two moth-balls droppedout.

Looking into the inside, she saw several coats hanging up - mostly longfur coats. There was nothing Lucy liked so much as the smell and feel of fur.She immediately stepped into the wardrobe and got in among the coats and rubbedher face against them, leaving the door open, of course, because she knew thatit is very foolish to shut oneself into any wardrobe. Soon she went further inand found that there was a second row of coats hanging up behind the first one.It was almost quite dark in there and she kept her arms stretched out in frontof her so as not to bump her face into the back of the wardrobe. She took astep further in - then two or three steps always expecting to feel woodworkagainst the tips of her fingers. But she could not feel it.

"This must be a simply enormous wardrobe!" thought Lucy, goingstill further in and pushing the soft folds of the coats aside to make room forher. Then she noticed that there was something crunching under her feet."I wonder is that more mothballs?" she thought, stooping down to feelit with her hand. But instead of feeling the hard, smooth wood of the floor ofthe wardrobe, she felt something soft and powdery and extremely cold."This is very queer," she said, and went on a step or two further.

Next moment she found that what was rubbing against her face and handswas no longer soft fur but something hard and rough and even prickly."Why, it is just like branches of trees!" exclaimed Lucy. And thenshe saw that there was a light ahead of her; not a few inches away where theback of the wardrobe ought to have been, but a long way off. Something cold andsoft was falling on her. A moment later she found that she was standing in themiddle of a wood at night-time with snow under her feet and snowflakes fallingthrough the air.

Lucy felt a little frightened, but she felt very inquisitive and excitedas well. She looked back over her shoulder and there, between the dark treetrunks; she could still see the open doorway of the wardrobe and even catch aglimpse of the empty room from which she had set out. (She had, of course, leftthe door open, for she knew that it is a very silly thing to shut oneself intoa wardrobe.) It seemed to be still daylight there. "I can always get backif anything goes wrong," thought Lucy. She began to walk forward,crunch-crunch over the snow and through the wood towards the other light. Inabout ten minutes she reached it and found it was a lamp-post. As she stoodlooking at it, wondering why there was a lamp-post in the middle of a wood andwondering what to do next, she heard a pitter patter of feet coming towardsher. And soon after that a very strange person stepped out from among the treesinto the light of the lamp-post.

He was only a little taller than Lucy herself and he carried over hishead an umbrella, white with snow. From the waist upwards he was like a man,but his legs were shaped like a goat's (the hair on them was glossy black) andinstead of feet he had goat's hoofs. He also had a tail, but Lucy did notnotice this at first because it was neatly caught up over the arm that held theumbrella so as to keep it from trailing in the snow. He had a red woollenmuffler round his neck and his skin was rather reddish too. He had a strange,but pleasant little face, with a short pointed beard and curly hair, and out ofthe hair there stuck two horns, one on each side of his forehead. One of hishands, as I have said, held

the umbrella: in the other arm he carried several brown-paper parcels.What with the parcels and the snow it looked just as if he had been doing hisChristmas shopping. He was a Faun. And when he saw Lucy he gave such a start ofsurprise that he dropped all his parcels.

"Goodness gracious me!" exclaimed the Faun.