Algernon Blackwood (21 page)

And outside all heard their laughing voices dying down the street as
they raced along to the Citadelle for bed. It was Monkey's duty to see
her brother safely in. Ten minutes later Mother would follow to tell
them tuck-up stories and hear their prayers.

'Excuse me! Have you got a hot-water bottle?' asked a sudden jerky
voice, and he turned with a start to see Jane Anne towering beside
him.

'I'm sorry,' he answered, 'but I don't carry such things about with
me.' He imagined she was joking, then saw that it was very serious.

She looked puzzled a moment. 'I meant—would you like one? Everybody
uses them here.' She thought all grown-ups used hot-water bottles.

He hesitated a second. The child looked as though she would produce
one from her blouse like any conjurer. As yet, however, the article in
question had not entered his scheme of life. He declined it with many
thanks.

'I can get you a big one,' she urged. But even that did not tempt him.

'Will you have a cold-water bandage then—for your head—or anything?'

She seemed so afflicted with a desire to do something for him that he
almost said 'Yes'; only the fear that she might offer next a beehive
or a gramophone restrained him.

'Thank you
so
much, but really I can manage without it—to-night.'

Jane Anne made no attempt to conceal her disappointment. What a man he
was, to be sure! And what a funny place the world was!

'It's Jinny's panacea,' said Mother, helping herself with reckless
uncertainty to a long word. 'She's never happy unless she's doing for
somebody,' she added ambiguously. 'It's her
metier
in life.'

'Mother, what
are
you saying?' said the child's expression. Then she
made one last attempt. She remembered, perhaps, the admiring way he
had watched her brother and sister's antics in the Den before. She was
not clever on her feet, but at least she could try.

'Shall I turn head over heels for you, then?'

He caught her mother's grave expression just in time to keep his
laughter back. The offer of gymnastics clearly involved sacrifice
somewhere.

'To-morrow,' he answered quickly. 'Always put off till to-morrow what
you're too old to do to-day.'

'Of course; I see—yes.' She was more perplexed than ever, as he meant
that she should be. His words were meaningless, but they helped the
poignant situation neatly. She could not understand why all her offers
were refused like this. There must be something wrong with her
selection, perhaps. She would think of better ones in future. But, oh,
what a funny place the world was!

'Good-night, then, Mr.—Cousin Rogers,' she said jerkily with
resignation. 'Perhaps to-morrow—when I'm older—'

'If it comes.' He gravely shook the hand she held out primly, keeping
a certain distance from him lest he should attempt to kiss her.

'It always comes; it's a chronic monster,' she laughed, saying the
first thing that came into her queer head. They all laughed. Jane Anne
went out, feeling happier. At least, she had amused him. She marched
off with the air of a grenadier going to some stern and difficult
duty. From the door she flung back at him a look of speechless
admiration, then broke into a run, afraid she might have been immodest
or too forward. They heard her thumping overhead.

And presently he followed her example. The Pension sitting-room
emptied. Unless there was something special on hand—a dance, a romp,
a game, or some neighbours who dropped in for talk and music—it was
rarely occupied after nine o'clock. Daddy had already slipped home—he
had this mysterious way of disappearing when no one saw him go. At
this moment, doubtless, a wumbled book absorbed him over at the
carpenter's. Old Miss Waghorn sat in a corner nodding over her novel,
and the Pension cat, Borelle, was curled up in her sloping, inadequate
lap.

The big, worn velvet sofa in the opposite corner was also empty. On
romping nights it was the
train de Moscou
, where Jimbo sold tickets
to crowded passengers for any part of the world. To-night it was a
mere dead sofa, uninviting, dull.

He went across the darkened room, his head scraping acquaintance with
the ivy leaves that trailed across the ceiling. He slipped through the
little hall. In the kitchen he heard the shrill voice of Mme. Jequier
talking very loudly about a dozen things at once to the servant-girl,
or to any one else who was near enough to listen. Luckily she did not
see him. Otherwise he would never have escaped without another offer
of a hot-water bottle, a pot of home-made marmalade, or a rug and
pillow for his bed. He made his way downstairs into the street
unnoticed; but just as he reached the bottom his thundering tread
betrayed him. The door flew open at the top.

'Bon soir, bonne nuit,' screamed the voice; 'wait a moment and I'll
get the lamp. You'll break your neck. Is there anything you want—a
hot-water bottle, or a box of matches, or some of my marmalade for
your breakfast? Wait, and I'll get it in a moment—' She would have
given the blouse off her back had he needed, or could have used it.

She flew back to the kitchen to search and shout. It sounded like a
quarrel; but, pretending not to hear, he made good his escape and
passed out into the street. The heavy door of the Post Office banged
behind him, cutting short a stream of excited sentences. The peace and
quiet of the night closed instantly about his steps.

By the fountain opposite the Citadelle he paused to drink from the
pipe of gushing mountain water. The open courtyard looked inviting,
but he did not go in, for, truth to tell, there was a curious
excitement in him—an urgent, keen desire to get to sleep as soon as
possible. Not that he felt sleepy—quite the reverse in fact, but that
he looked forward to his bed and to 'sleeping tightly.'

The village was already lost in slumber. No lights showed in any
houses. Yet it was barely half-past nine. Everywhere was peace and
stillness. Far across the lake he saw the twinkling villages. Behind
him dreamed the forests. A deep calm brooded over the mountains; but
within the calm, and just below the surface in himself, hid the
excitement as of some lively anticipation. He expected something.
Something was going to happen. And it was connected with the children.
Jimbo and Monkey were at the bottom of it. They had said they would
come for him—to 'find him later.' He wondered—quite absurdly he
wondered.

He passed his cousin's room on tiptoe, and noticed a light beneath the
door. But, before getting into bed, he stood a moment at the open
window and drew in deep draughts of the fresh night air. The world of
forest swayed across his sight. The outline of the Citadelle merged
into it. A point of light showed the window where the children already
slept. But, far beyond, the moon was loading stars upon the trees, and
a rising wind drove them in glittering flocks along the heights....

Blowing out the candle, he turned over on his side to sleep, his mind
charged to the brim with wonder and curious under-thrills of this
anticipation. He half expected—what? Reality lay somewhere in the
whole strange business; it was not merely imaginative nonsense.
Fairyland was close.

And the moment he slept and began to dream, the thing took a lively
and dramatic shape. A thousand tiny fingers, soft and invisible, drew
him away into the heart of fairyland. There was a terror in him lest
he should—stick. But he came out beautifully and smoothly, like a
thread of summer grass from its covering sheath.

'I
am
slippery after all, then—slippery enough,' he remembered
saying with surprised delight, and then—

Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold.
There's not the smallest orb which thou beholdest
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims.

Merchant of Venice
.

—there came to him a vivid impression of sudden light in the room,
and he knew that something very familiar was happening to him, yet
something that had not happened consciously for thirty years and more
—since his early childhood in the night-nursery with the bars across
the windows.

He was both asleep and awake at the same time. Some part of him,
rather, that never slept was disengaging itself—with difficulty. He
was getting free. Stimulated by his intercourse with the children,
this part of him that in boyhood used to be so easily detached, light
as air, was getting loose. The years had fastened it in very tightly.
Jimbo and Monkey had got at it. And Jimbo and Monkey were in the room
at this moment. They were pulling him out.

It was very wonderful; a glory of youth and careless joy rushed
through him like a river. Some sheath or vesture melted off. It seemed
to tear him loose. How in the world could he ever have forgotten it—
let it go out of his life? What on earth could have seemed good enough
to take its place? He felt like an eagle some wizard spell had
imprisoned in a stone, now released and shaking out its crumpled
wings. A mightier spell had set him free. The children stood beside
his bed!

'I can manage it alone,' he said firmly. 'You needn't try to help me.'

No sound was audible, but they instantly desisted. This thought, that
took a dozen words to express ordinarily, shot from him into them the
instant it was born. A gentle pulsing, like the flicker of a flame,
ran over their shining little forms of radiance as they received it.
They shifted to one side silently to give him room. Thus had he seen a
searchlight pass like lightning from point to point across the sea.

Yet, at first, there was difficulty; here and there, in places, he
could not get quite loose and free.

'He sticks like Daddy,' he heard them think. 'In the head it seems,
too.'

There was no pain in the sensation, but a certain straining as of
unaccustomed muscles being stretched. He felt uncomfortable, then
embarrassed, then—exhilarated. But there were other exquisite
sensations too. Happiness, as of flooding summer sunshine, poured
through him.

'He'll come with a rush. Look out!' felt Jimbo—'felt' expressing
'thought' and 'said' together, for no single word can convey the
double operation thus combined in ordinary life.

The reality of it caught him by the throat.

'This,' he exclaimed, 'is real and actual. It is happening to me now!'

He looked from the pile of clothes taken off two hours ago—goodness,
what a mass!—to the children's figures in the middle of the room. And
one was as real as the other. The moods of the day and evening, their
play and nonsense, had all passed away. He had crossed a gulf that
stood between this moment and those good-nights in the Pension. This
was as real as anything in life; more real than death. Reality—he
caught the obvious thought pass thickly through the body on the bed—
is what has been experienced. Death, for that reason, is not real, not
realised; dinner is. And this was real because he had been through it,
though long forgotten it. Jimbo stood aside and 'felt' directions.

'Don't push,' he said.

'Just think and wish,' added Monkey with a laugh.

It was her laugh, and perhaps the beauty of her big brown eyes as
well, that got him finally loose. For the laughter urged some queer,
deep yearning in him towards a rush of exquisite accomplishment. He
began to slip more easily and freely. The brain upon the bed, oddly
enough, remembered a tradition of old Egypt—that Thoth created the
world by bursting into seven peals of laughter. It touched forgotten
springs of imagination and belief. In some tenuous, racy vehicle his
thought flashed forth. With a gliding spring, like a swooping bird
across a valley, he was suddenly—out.

'I'm out!' he cried.

'All out!' echoed the answering voices.

And then he understood that first vivid impression of light. It was
everywhere, an evenly distributed light. He saw the darkness of the
night as well, the deep old shadows that draped the village, woods,
and mountains. But in themselves was light, a light that somehow
enabled them to see everything quite clearly. Solid things were all
transparent.

Light even radiated from objects in the room. Two much-loved books
upon the table shone beautifully—his Bible and a volume of poems;
and, fairer still, more delicate than either, there was a lustre on
the table that had so brilliant a halo it almost corruscated. The
sparkle in it was like the sparkle in the children's eyes. It came
from the bunch of violets, gentians, and hepaticas, already faded,
that Mother had placed there days ago on his arrival. And overhead,
through plaster, tiles, and rafters he saw—the stars.

'We've already been for Jinny,' Jimbo informed him; 'but she's gone as
usual. She goes the moment she falls asleep. We never can catch her up
or find her.'

'Come on,' cried Monkey. 'How slow you both are! We shan't get
anywhere at this rate.' And she made a wheel of coloured fire in the
air. 'I'm ready,' he answered, happier than either. 'Let's be off at
once.'

Through his mind flashed this explanation of their elder sister's day-
expression—that expression of a moth she had, puzzled, distressed,
only half there, as the saying is. For if she went out so easily at
night in this way, some part of her probably stayed out altogether.
She never wholly came back. She was always dreaming. The entire
instinct of the child, he remembered, was for others, and she thought
of herself as little as did the sun—old tireless star that shines for
all.

'She's soaked in starlight,' he cried, as they went off headlong. 'We
shall find her in the Cave. Come on, you pair of lazy meteors.'

He was already far beyond the village, and the murmur of the woods
rose up to them. They entered the meshes of the Star Net that spun its
golden threads everywhere about them, linking up the Universe with
their very hearts.