Algernon Blackwood (23 page)

Cousinenry, meanwhile, they saw, stopped for nothing. He was singing
all the time as he bent over his long, outstretched arms. And it was
the singing after all that made the best patterns—better even than
the laughing. He knew all the best tricks of this Star Cave. He
remained their leader.

And the stuff no hands picked up ran on and on, seeking a way of
escape for itself. Some sank into the ground to sweeten the body of
the old labouring earth, colouring the roots of myriad flowers; some
soaked into the rocky walls, tinting the raw materials of hills and
woods and mountain tops. Some escaped into the air in tiny drops that,
meeting in moonlight or in sunshine, instantly formed wings. And
people saw a brimstone butterfly—all wings and hardly any body. All
went somewhere for some useful purpose. It was not in the nature of
star-stuff to keep still. Like water that must go down-hill, the law
of its tender being forced it to find a place where it could fasten on
and shine. It never could get wholly lost; though, if the place it
settled on was poor, it might lose something of its radiance. But
human beings were obviously what most attracted it. Sympathy must find
an outlet; thoughts are bound to settle somewhere.

And the gatherers all sang softly—'Collect for others, never mind
yourself!'

Some of it, too, shot out by secret ways in the enormous roof. The
children recognised the exit of the separate brilliant stream they had
encountered in the sky—the one especially that went to the room of
pain and sickness in La Citadelle. Again they understood. That
unselfish thinker of golden thoughts knew special sources of supply.
No wonder that her atmosphere radiated sweetness and uplifting
influence. Her patience, smiles, and courage were explained. Passing
through the furnace of her pain, the light was cleansed and purified.
Hence the delicate, invariable radiation from her presence, voice, and
eyes. From the bed of suffering she had not left for thirty years she
helped the world go round more sweetly and more easily, though few
divined those sudden moments of beauty they caught flashing from her
halting words, nor guessed their source of strength.

'Of course,' thought Jimbo, laughing, 'I see now why I like to go and
tell her everything. She understands all before I've said it. She's
simply stuffed with starlight—bursting with inside-sight.'

'That's sympathy,' his cousin added, hearing the vivid thought. And he
worked away like an entire ant-heap. But he was growing rather
breathless now. 'There's too much for me,' he laughed as though his
mouth were full. 'I can't manage it all!' He was wading to the waist,
and his coat and trousers streamed with runnels of orange-coloured
light.

'Swallow it then!' cried Monkey, her hair so soaked that she kept
squeezing it like a sponge, both eyes dripping too.

It was their first real experience of the joy of helping others, and
they hardly knew where to begin or end. They romped and played in the
stuff like children in sand or snow—diving, smothering themselves,
plunging, choking, turning somersaults, upsetting each other's
carefully reared loads, and leaping over little pyramids of gold.
Then, in a flash, their laughter turned the destroyed heaps into
wonderful new patterns again; and once more they turned sober and
began to work.

But their cousin was more practical. 'I've got all I can carry
comfortably,' he sang out at length. 'Let's go out now and sow it
among the sleepers. Come on!'

A field of stars seemed to follow him from the roof as he moved with
difficulty towards the opening of the cave.

Some one shot out just in front of him. 'My last trip!' The words
reached them from outside. His bulging figure squeezed somehow through
the hole, layers of light scraping off against the sides. The children
followed him. But no one stuck. All were beautifully elastic; the
starlight oiled and greased their daring, subtle star-bodies. Laden to
the eyes, they sped across the woods that still slept heavily. The
tips of the pines, however, were already opening a million eyes. There
was a faint red glimmer in the east. Hours had passed while they were
collecting.

'The Interfering Sun is on the way. Look out!' cried some one,
shooting past them like an unleashed star. 'I must get just a little
more—my seventeenth journey to-night!' And Jane Anne, the puzzled
look already come back a little into her face, darted down towards the
opening. The waking of the body was approaching.

'What a girl!' thought Jimbo again, as they hurried after their grown-
up cousin towards the village.

And here, but for the leadership of Cousin Henry, they must have gone
astray and wasted half their stores in ineffective fashion. Besides,
the east was growing brighter, and there was a touch of confusion in
their little star-bodies as sleep grew lighter and the moment of the
body's waking drew nearer.

Ah! the exquisite adjustment that exists between the night and day
bodies of children! It is little wonder that with the process of
growing-up there comes a coarsening that congeals the fluid passages
of exit, and finally seals the memory centres too. Only in a few can
this delicate adjustment be preserved, and the sources of inspiration
known to children be kept available and sweet—in the poets, dreamers,
and artists of this practical, steel-girdled age.

'This way,' called Cousinenry. 'Follow me.' They settled down in a
group among Madame Jequier's lilacs. 'We'll begin with the Pension des
Glycines. Jinny is already busy with La Citadelle.'

They perched among the opening blossoms. Overhead flashed by the
Sweep, the Dustman, and the Laugher, bound for distant ports, perhaps
as far as England. The Head Gardener lumbered heavily after them to
find his flowers and trees. Starlight, they grasped, could be no
separate thing. The rays started, indeed, from separate points, but
all met later in the sky to weave this enormous fairy network in which
the currents and cross-currents and criss-cross-currents were so
utterly bewildering. Alone, the children certainly must have got lost
in the first five minutes.

Their cousin gathered up the threads from Monkey's hair and Jimbo's
eyes, and held them in one hand like reins. He sang to them a moment
while they recovered their breath and forces:—

The stars in their courses
Are runaway horses
That gallop with Thoughts from the Earth;
They collect them, and race
Back through wireless space,
Bringing word of the tiniest birth;
Past old Saturn and Mars,
And the hosts of big stars,
Who strain at their leashes for joy.
Kind thoughts, like fine weather,
Bind sweetly together
God's suns—with the heart of a boy.

So, beware what you think;
It is written in ink
That is golden, and read by His Stars!

'Hadn't we better get on?' cried Monkey, pulling impatiently at the
reins he held.

'Yes,' echoed Jimbo. 'Look at the sky. The "rapide" from Paris comes
past at six o'clock.'

Aus den Himmelsaugen droben
Fallen zitternd goldne Funken
Durch die Nacht, und meine Seele
Dehnt sich liebeweit und weiter.

O ihr Himmelsaugen droben,
Weint euch aus in meine Seele,
Dass von lichten Sternentranen
Uberfliesset meine Seele!

Heine.

They rose, fluttered a moment above the lilac bushes, and then shot
forward like the curve of a rainbow into the sleeping house. The next
second they stood beside the bed of the Widow Jequier.

She lay there, so like a bundle of untidy sticks that, but for the
sadness upon the weary face, they could have burst out laughing. The
perfume of the wistaria outside the open window came in sweetly, yet
could not lighten the air of heavy gloom that clothed her like a
garment. Her atmosphere was dull, all streaked with greys and black,
for her mind, steeped in anxiety even while she slept, gave forth
cloudy vapours of depression and disquietude that made impossible the
approach of—light. Starlight, certainly, could not force an entrance,
and even sunlight would spill half its radiance before it reached her
heart. The help she needed she thus deliberately shut out. Before
going to bed her mood had been one of anxious care and searching
worry. It continued, of course, in sleep.

'Now,' thought their leader briskly, 'we must deal with this at once';
and the children, understanding his unspoken message, approached
closer to the bed. How brilliant their little figures were—Jimbo, a
soft, pure blue, and Monkey tinged faintly here and there with
delicate clear orange. Thus do the little clouds of sunset gather
round to see the sun get into bed. And in utter silence; all their
intercourse was silent—thought, felt, but never spoken.

For a moment there was hesitation. Cousinenry was uncertain exactly
how to begin. Tante Jeanne's atmosphere was so very thick he hardly
knew the best way to penetrate it. Her mood had been so utterly black
and rayless. But his hesitation operated like a call for help that
flew instantly about the world and was communicated to the golden
threads that patterned the outside sky. They quivered, flashed the
message automatically; the enormous network repeated it as far as
England, and the answer came. For thought is instantaneous, and desire
is prayer. Quick as lightning came the telegram. Beside them stood a
burly figure of gleaming gold.

'I'll do it,' said the earthy voice. 'I'll show you 'ow. For she loves
'er garden. Her sympathy with trees and flowers lets me in. Always
send for
me
when she's in a mess, or needs a bit of trimmin' and
cleanin' up.'

The Head Gardener pushed past them with his odour of soil and burning
leaves, his great sunburned face and his browned, stained hands. These
muscular, big hands he spread above her troubled face; he touched her
heart; he blew his windy breath of flowers upon her untidy hair; he
called the names of lilac, wistaria, roses, and laburnum....

The room filled with the little rushing music of wind in leaves; and,
as he said 'laburnum,' there came at last a sudden opening channel
through the fog that covered her so thickly. Starlight, that was like
a rivulet of laburnum blossoms melted into running dew, flowed down
it. The Widow Jequier stirred in her sleep and smiled. Other channels
opened. Light trickled down these, too, drawn in and absorbed from the
store the Gardener carried. Then, with a rush of scattering fire, he
was gone again. Out into the enormous sky he flew, trailing golden
flame behind him. They heard him singing as he dived into the Network
—singing of buttercups and cowslips, of primroses and marigolds and
dandelions, all yellow flowers that have stored up starlight.

And the atmosphere of Tante Jeanne first glowed, then shone; it
changed slowly from gloom to glory. Golden channels opened everywhere,
making a miniature network of their own. Light flashed and corruscated
through it, passing from the children and their leader along the tiny
pipes of sympathy the Gardener had cleared of rubbish and decay. Along
the very lines of her face ran tiny shining rivers; flooding across
her weary eyelids, gilding her untidy hair, and pouring down into her
heavy heart. She ceased fidgeting; she smiled in her sleep; peace
settled on her face; her fingers on the coverlet lost their touch of
strain. Finally she turned over, stretched her old fighting body into
a more comfortable position, sighed a moment, then settled down into a
deep and restful slumber. Her atmosphere was everywhere 'soft-shiny'
when they left her to shoot next into the attic chamber above, where
Miss Waghorn lay among her fragments of broken memory, and the litter
of disordered images that passed with her for 'thinking.'

And here, again, although their task was easier, they needed help to
show the right way to begin. Before they reached the room Jimbo had
wondered how they would 'get at' her. That wonder summoned help. The
tall, thin figure was already operating beside the bed as they
entered. His length seemed everywhere at once, and his slender pole, a
star hanging from the end, was busy touching articles on walls and
floor and furniture. The disorder everywhere was the expression of her
dishevelled mind, and though he could not build the ruins up again, at
least he could trace the outlines of an ordered plan that she might
use when she left her body finally and escaped from the rebellious
instrument in death. And now that escape was not so very far away.
Obviously she was already loose. She was breaking up, as the world
expresses it.

And the children, watching with happy delight, soon understood his
method. Each object that he touched emitted a tiny light. In her mind
he touched the jumble of wandering images as well. On waking she would
find both one and the other better assorted. Some of the lost things
her memory ever groped for she would find more readily. She would see
the starlight on them.

'See,' said their leader softly, as the long thin figure of the
Lamplighter shot away into the night, 'she sleeps so lightly because
she is so old—fastened so delicately to the brain and heart. The
fastenings are worn and loose now. Already she is partly out!'

'That's why she's so muddled in the daytime,' explained Jimbo, for his
sister's benefit.

'Exaccurately, I knew it already!' was the reply, turning a somersault
like a wheel of twirling meteors close to the old lady's nose.

'Carefully, now!' said their leader. 'And hurry up! There's not much
we can do here, and there's heaps to do elsewhere. We must remember
Mother and Daddy—before the Interfering Sun is up, you know.'

They flashed about the attic chamber, tipping everything with light,
from the bundle of clothes that strewed the floor to the confused
interior of the black basket-trunk where she kept her money and
papers. There were no shelves in this attic chamber; no room for
cupboards either; it was the cheapest room in the house. And the old
woman in the bed sometimes opened her eyes and peered curiously,
expectantly, about her. Even in her sleep she looked for things.
Almost, they felt, she seemed aware of their presence near her, she
knew that they were there; she smiled.