SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: BECKWITH'S CASE

 

"Beckwith's Case" by Maurice Hewlitt (first published in Scribner's Magazine, August 1909, as "Beckwith's Fairy"; included in the author's book The Lore of Proserpine, 1913; included in The Uncertain Element:  An Anthology of Fantastic Conceptions, edited by Kay Dick, 1950)

Stephen Beckwith was a 28-year-old bank clerk, married, with a four-year-old daughter, and in good health.  He considered himself to be a good Christian.  On the evening of November 30, 1887, at about ten o'clock in the evening, Beckwith was bicycling home from a visit with a freind.  His terrier dog Strap was trotting along beside him.  Suddenly Strap rushed toward a gorse, barking.  Beckwith assumed the dog had spotted some sort of animal, but Strap would not return when called.  As Beckwith investigated, he found the dog frozen in place, staring into the bushes, neither willing to go ahead or back.  Lying in the bushes was a figure, small and frail-looking, staring at Beckwith without speaking.  It appeared to be a girl, somewhat odd looking, dressed in a thin gown, her hands behind her back.  Examining the girl further, he found a huge gash on her neck, although no blood was present.  The girl's hands were bound tightly behind her back .  She did not appear to understand what he was saying.  Beckwith assumed her to be a foreigner.  He freed the girl and lifted her up; she was exteremly light.  Beckwith bound her wound with his handerchief and no blood appeared on the cloth.  Beckwith felt she looked to about six years old, but had the form a one a decade older.  She was about three and a half feet tall.  He carried her to the road just as it started to rain.  The local constable bicycled by and stopped, appearing not to notice the girl in Beckwith's arms.  Beckwith placed the girl on his bicycle and headed home.  His wife greeted him, but also did not see the girl.  Indeed, she placed her hands on the hadlebars of the bicycle and they went completely through the girl's body as if the girl were not only invisible but also not there.  Fearful to bring the girl into his house, Beckwith placed her in the kennel with his grayhound Bran.

The following day, the girl -- which he now knew (but did not admit) was a fairy -- was dancing merrily around the kennel.  Still she did not speak.   He could find no food that she could eat, but she seemed happy and healthy, and could communicate in some unknown way with the greyhound.  His wife still could not see the girl, and he hesitated to tell her about this being he had found.  His daughter, however, could see the fairy, although she steadfastly refused to admit it to Beckwith.  Like the dog Brtan, she seemed to be able to communicate with the fairy in some unknown fashion.  The days passed into months.  The fairy, whom Beckwith had named Thumbeline, played and danced with his daughter and with Bran.  Thumbeline appeared to be attracted to Beckwith, trying to kiss him and removing her gown to appear naked, displaying no modesty whatever.  She remained in the kennel, trapped there by zinc wire, which somehow repelled her.  Later, she learned to get out of the kennel by hitching a ride on Bran.  She often entered the house and would have joined Beckwith in his bedroom had he not placed zinc wires across his threshold.  Thumbeline would play poltergeist-like tricks while in the house.  She apparantly resented May, Beckwith's wife.

Florrie (Beckwith's daughter) and Bran would spend much the days playing with the fairy.  sometimes Strap the terrier would join in, until Strap was found dead one day, and Florrie and Bran would continue their play around the dead dog's body without acknowledging it.  

Finally, in May, Florrie and Bran disappeared.  Their prints were found leading to the river, but not near it.  They -- and the fairy -- were never seen again. 

A strange little tale, emphasizing the glamour that a fairy can cast upon humans.  Beckwith appears helpless to in the face of it, often refusing to see any potential dangers.

From a review in goodreads:  "Hewlett claims that everything within its pages is true, and his own experiences of the fairy kingdom.  He is entirely unyielding in his assertion that his encounters with fairies, dryads and god are real events that he has personally experienced, though he concedes they may have been hallucinations.

" 'The Lore of Proserpine' is a combination of biography, anecdote, fairy lore, mythology, philosophy and anthropology, which to truly appreciate, the reader had to take Hewlitt at his word, suspend one's disbelief and accept the possibilty of fairies.  Hewlitt himself treats his subject matter with deadly seriousness, frequently reminding the reader not to impose human morals on a fairy, and pontificating that to call a fairy benevolent or malevolent is like calling a bee benevolent when it makes honey and malevolent when it stings you." -- Eleanor Toland

Maurice Hewlitt (1861-1923) was an English historical novelist, poet, and essayist. publishing nearly 45 books in his lifetime, including 18 well-respected historical novels.  He was a friend of Christian mystic Evelyn Underhill and of the poet Ezra Pound.  His friend J. M. Barrie named one of the pirates in Peter Pan after Hewlitt's son.  He was recognized as an influence on writer Ford Madox Ford, who praised Hewlitt's 1904 novel about Mary Queen of Scots, The Queen's Quair (it "taught me a good deal").  Hewlit separated from his wife Hilda after 26 years of marriage due, in part, to her increasing interest in aviation -- Hilda had become the first woman in the UK to get a pilot's licence.

The Lore of Proserpine is available to read online at Project Gutenberg.