In Search of the Lost Domain — What Happens to Childhood Enchantment?

Do we have to give up on childhood mystery and wonder?

Blair Connolly, Unsplash

How much of our childhood sense of wonder and idealism must we put away for good? How much do we get to keep? This is what I’ve been thinking about lately while pet-sitting in a vintage seaside town in southeast England.

This is a town of secret wonders. On the surface, it’s all winding Victorian alleyways and lanes, yet beneath lies a secret network of tunnels and caves once used by 18th-century smugglers. I’m staying in a big beachfront house, its pale clapboard fronting much more New England than old Blighty. I could almost be in Maine if it weren’t for the resolute Britishness of my surroundings: the stretch of china-white cliffs, the kiosks selling Mr. Whippy ice creams, the pastel beach huts where families lounge outside on deckchairs, flasks of tea at their feet. Ribboned Morris dancers spin on the esplanade, while beyond, tourists spin on the merry-go-round at the fairground.

Yet the house is set apart from that busier strip and is on a clifftop residential estate with its own private beach. To reach the beach you have to find the “secret passageway” — a green gate leading to a tunnelled staircase cut through the chalk cliffs (an old smugglers route, perhaps?). The passageway is murky, musty and often moth-filled — and slightly dicey. Down and down several flights of stairs you go, the sound of waves becoming louder, the cave walls eventually brightening. And then you’re on curved golden sand, watching yachts and sailing boats drift across the sea.

The collie I’m looking after adores this secret passageway, as he knows it’s just a minute away from a swim in the ocean. Once there, he leaps like a dolphin, attempting to herd seagulls. Every time we journey down the steps, it feels like he and I are at the start of some children’s mystery tale involving lost pirate treasure.

Perhaps this is why, when browsing the bookshelves of the house one evening, I decide to read the novel Les Grand Meaulnes (also known as The Lost Estate or The Lost Domain). It seems like a perfect choice, being a book about a secret pathway to an enchanted place.

An exploration of lost childhood

Erik Hooijer, Wikimedia Commons

‘…he finally saw, above a pine forest, the spire of a grey turret.’

If you’re not familiar with it, Les Grand Meaulnes (The Lost Estate) by Alain-Fournier is a French novel published in 1913 but set around 30 years earlier. The book follows Meaulnes, a charismatic and rebellious schoolboy living in a sleepy French village. After a prank goes wrong, 17-year-old Meaulnes finds himself lost deep in a forest in midwinter. Desperate to find shelter, he stumbles upon a mysterious chateau with a party in full swing. Strangely, all of the festivities are led by children. They feast together, don flamboyant costumes, watch magic-lantern shows, race horses and take a boat trip, all in the space of one intoxicating day and night.

Meaulnes is swept up into this carnival and becomes besotted with a beautiful girl who turns out to be the young lady of the house. After the party ends he vows to return to her one day, but realises afterwards that he can’t remember the exact location of the strange chateau. He becomes consumed with trying to find it again, while memories of his fever dream experience haunt his daily life.

The Lost Estate is about our nostalgia for the things we leave behind in childhood, such as enchantment, mystery and adventure. It also warns of the folly of trying to hold onto these things, or reclaim them, or relive them. When Meaulnes reaches manhood it is in a state of arrested development, as if he is fixed forever in the hypnotic flicker of the party’s magic-lantern show.

Months and years after his experience — long after the last carriage has rattled away from the party, the last plumed hat and pierrot costume tucked into a box — Meaulnes remains in a state of mourning. And this melancholy seeps into those closest to him.

The novel explores the damage of staying stuck in childhood fantasy, whimsy and escapism, of being trapped in romantic idealism. It warns that this can wither your character, starve your future of fullness and wreak havoc on those around you. And I agree with Alain-Fournier — up to a point. A Peter Pan existence is a state of soul erosion. People who resist maturity (and yes, I have wrestled hard with this tendency in myself) do not remain ethereal, elven creatures of Never-Never Land — even if that’s how they might appear to others. Instead, they become atrophied adults, lost in their own fantasy world. And one day, they look around and realise that, while they were distracted by the carnival that was always on the horizon, all of their peers have matured, leaving them far behind.

And yet…The Lost Estate also seems to suggest that if we are to become adults, we must pack away our childish desire for enchantment, mystery and adventure. It suggests that these things are unseemly and even destructive. Instead, we must (borrowing a motif from the book) lock these inclinations in a trunk in the attic, a trunk that gathers dust and lies, forgotten and rusting, in the corner forever. Yet I’m just not sure I buy into this bleak idea of adulthood.

It’s a stark choice, isn’t it? Being either the Boy or Girl Who Never Grew Up, or the buttoned-up adult with no sense of wonder. Is there no in-between?

When I found myself dwelling on this, I also realised that the book’s mysterious mansion reminded me of a much less dramatic interlude in my adolescence. My own “lost estate”, so to speak.

The castle at the end of the drive

Jonathan Larson, Unsplash

Throughout my childhood, my parents enjoyed weekend drives through a stretch of Scottish countryside that wound alongside the River Clyde, with views of waterfalls, pretty bridges and 18th-century mills. On these drives, I’d sometimes spot a pair of stone gates leading to a driveway and beyond, a Baronial castle with dove-grey turrets, tucked away in the woods. There it would be, in a flash — a fairytale scene — and I’d wonder for a moment who lived there. Then we’d turn the corner and the castle would be gone.

One day, when I was around eleven or twelve, we went on a summer’s day drive along the usual stretch. The castle had just come into sight and I was gazing at it when my parents noticed a young couple up ahead whose car had broken down. My dad, ever the good Samaritan, decided to see if he could help, so stopped just outside the castle gates. My parents told me to stay in the car and then walked along the road to speak to the couple.

I was irritated at being left out of this mini-drama. I sat for what felt like ages, fidgeting restlessly and watching as Dad peered into the car bonnet while Mum chatted to the couple. Eventually, I couldn’t stand it any longer — I hopped out, slammed the door shut and began walking over to them. At that moment, I heard the thrum of an engine — they’d got the car going again. Then Mum looked over, saw me, and froze.

‘Oh no, no, no’ she exclaimed. Everyone turned around to stare at me — I’d done something wrong but didn’t know what. ‘Did you bring them? Please tell me you brought them’. I shook my head, confused. ‘The car keys!’ she yelled. And that’s when I realised — I’d shut the keys in the car, locking us all out.

The couple were mortified at this turn of events, blaming themselves for our trouble. I was equally mortified but also grateful they were around, as I think they kept the lid on my parents’ anger. We stood there helplessly, staring at each other, while I wished I could disappear. Then the woman pulled a hairpin out of her messy brown bun, walked back to our car and tried to turn the lock with it.

‘She’s a master at lock picking’ the man said, which made me wonder what this couple got up to in their spare time. Sadly, her cat burglar skills didn’t work on our car. And when we felt the first warning drops of rain, my parents persuaded them to head off, as there was no sense in us all getting wet. Then Dad decided to find a phone box and call AA repairs.

As he disappeared down the road, the sky opened up fully, drenching Mum and me in a torrential blast of rain. Drops of water rolled off our noses and our thin summer jackets were soon wringing. Mum looked dejected and I felt awful, as her day had been ruined. Despite this, I also found myself unexpectedly (and almost guiltily) elated. A strange tingling sensation was passing through me, as if we’d veered off of our ordinary course and onto the path of adventure. It felt as if we were at some intersection of fateful occurrences, where something was going to happen.

I’m not sure how long we waited in the rain but, after a while, a smart blue car appeared, coming to an abrupt halt outside the castle gates. A young woman climbed out and stared at us. She wore her blonde hair in a chignon, and her navy blue suit nearly matched the car perfectly.

‘What are you doing?’ she demanded, waving her arm. ‘Why are you blocking the drive?’ I realised that she must live in the castle. My mum quickly explained and the woman’s face shifted into sympathy, and also a touch of embarrassment at her rudeness.

‘Oh that’s a shame’ she said. ‘You’re getting soaked. Why don’t you come up to the house for a cup of tea?’ My heart leapt — we were being invited into the castle. We’d get to see the antique furniture and dry off by a huge fireplace and drink tea and maybe have cakes. Yes, maybe I’d been an idiot locking the keys in the car, but the situation was turning into a real adventure now, one that would redeem me. But, to my dismay, Mum shook her head.

‘No thank you’ she said, politely. ‘I have to wait for my husband, he’s trying to phone a repair man’.

‘Oh, that’s a shame’, the woman repeated, sounding genuinely sorry. ‘But if you change your mind, just come up’. She climbed into her car and manoeuvred it past ours, then was through the gate and away. I turned to Mum.

‘Why didn’t you say yes?’ I demanded, crushed with disappointment, for I felt we were meant to follow her. ‘Dad probably won’t be back for ages’.

‘I’m not going up there to sit and make polite conversation’. Because while Mum could chat with her friends for hours — I was always in awe of her gift for small talk — she felt uncomfortable around people she viewed as ‘posh’. I felt sad for her, that she’d rather stand in the rain.

A few minutes later, the woman drove back down and handed us two huge golfing umbrellas. We thanked her, although Mum looked even more mortified than before. After she left, I gazed down the road for a glimpse of dad. I’m not sure how long we waited — even five minutes in that rain felt like an hour — but eventually, an AA repair van appeared with Dad in the passenger seat. The AA man got our car unlocked in no time, then we drove away (we left the umbrellas at the gate before we went, although I’d wanted to take them to the door, just so I could peek inside).

As the dove-grey turrets disappeared, I felt a strange combination of crushed hopes and a sort of shivering excitement at how close I’d come to stepping inside the fairytale. It was a brush with magic, in a way. A fantasy that had very almost come to life, like a pop-up illustration in a picture book.

Reclaiming the lost domain

Michael Dziedzic, Unsplash

Stepping through the castle door was a childhood desire left unresolved, yet perhaps that’s a good thing. The things that we don’t get to do in childhood can fuel our creativity and daydreams, and propel us into adventure in adulthood. And all these years later, I’m still seeking some enchanted domain. It’s what nurtures me and sustains me, a golden thread in a sometimes dull daily tapestry.

I think the difference between myself and a character like Meaulnes is that, at a young and pivotal age, he had a genuinely fantastical experience. He stepped into the kingdom of granted wishes for a night and a day, got to drink the nectar of reveries come to life, and it wrecked him. Yet those who only sense this kingdom, or dream of it, or see it at a glimpse, can still draw from it artistically and in other ways. We sip the nectar but our thirst is never fully quenched. It’s a rationed magic, but perhaps that’s the only kind a human being can handle. And it helps to sustain me.

Which is why I don’t agree that maturity requires us to turn our backs fully on the mysterious turrets glimpsed through the trees, so that we can enter into the plain-bread, prosaic everyday world. I don’t think that my desire for magic and escapism undermines my path to maturity (well, not always). Instead, it’s what makes the pain and disappointments of adulthood bearable.

Of course, we don’t want to become Peter Pans, eternal children haunted by the adult selves we never became. But neither do we want to become Mr. Banks, the rigid father in Mary Poppins who lives with a withered child hidden inside of him. Ideally, we want to do our best at walking the thorny path of adulthood, while keeping an eye out for faraway castles and mysterious mansions.

We can’t ever fully return to that place called childhood — it is the lost domain and the lane leading to a fairy realm that is now barred to us, for the most part. And it is the ache that lingers on that lane.

But that doesn’t stop me from standing at the castle gates. Or taking the overgrown forest walk to nowhere. Or wandering down a secret passageway to the beach, before breathing in the salty air and imagining pirate treasure buried beneath my feet.

On that beach, the sun sends a streak of gold across the sea, a pathway to Shangri-La or some other lovely place. Briefly, a sailing boat meets with it, before returning to the ungilded world again.

Take a look at my last post on Three Strange and Mysterious Stories from Sussex, where I explore local legends from the region.

The Beckoning is written by a wandering Scottish writer who is currently travelling across the UK as a full-time house-sitter. I hope that you’ll join me on the journey. If you’d consider upgrading to a paid subscription, buying me a coffee, or sharing this post, then that would really help to support my writing — and also help me to return to a more secure and rooted life eventually.