Algernon Blackwood (25 page)

The stars ran loose about the sky,
Wasting their beauty recklessly,
Singing and dancing,
Shooting and prancing,
Until the Pole Star took command,
Changing each wild, disordered band
Into a lamp to guide the land—
A constellation.

And so, about my mind and yours,
Thought dances, shoots, and wastes its powers,
Coming and going,
Aimlessly flowing,
Until the Pole Star of the Will
Captains them wisely, strong, and still,
Some dream for others to fulfil
With consecration.

Selected Poems, Montmorency Minke.

There was a certain air of unreality somewhere in the life at
Bourcelles that ministered to fantasy. Rogers had felt it steal over
him from the beginning. It was like watching a children's play in
which the scenes were laid alternately in the Den, the Pension, and
the Forest. Side by side with the grim stern facts of existence ran
the coloured spell of fairy make-believe. It was the way they mingled,
perhaps, that ministered to this spirit of fantasy.

There were several heroines for instance—Tante Jeanne, Mademoiselle
Lemaire, and Mother; each played her role quite admirably. There were
the worthy sterling men who did their duty dumbly, regardless of
consequences—Daddy, the Postmaster, and the picturesque old clergyman
with failing powers. There was the dark, uncertain male character, who
might be villain, yet who might prove extra hero—the strutting
postman of baronial ancestry; there was the role of quaint pathetic
humour Miss Waghorn so excellently filled, and there were the honest
rough-and-tumble comedians—half mischievous, half malicious—the
retired governesses. Behind them all, brought on chiefly in scenes of
dusk and moonlight, were the Forest Elves who, led by Puck, were
responsible for the temporary confusion that threatened disaster, yet
was bound to have a happy ending—the children. It was all a
children's play set in the lovely scenery of mountain, forest, lake,
and old-world garden.

Numerous other characters also flitted in and out. There was the cat,
the bird, the donkey as in pantomime; goblin caves and haunted valleys
and talking flowers; and the queer shadowy folk who came to the
Pension in the summer months, then vanished into space again. Links
with the outside world were by no means lacking. As in the theatre,
one caught now and again the rumble of street traffic and the roar of
everyday concerns. But these fell in by chance during quiet intervals,
and served to heighten contrast only.

And so many of the principal roles were almost obviously assumed,
interchangeable almost; any day the players might drop their wigs, rub
off the paint, and appear otherwise, as they were in private life. The
Widow Jequier's husband, for instance, had been a
pasteur
who had
gone later into the business of a wine-merchant. She herself was not
really the keeper of a Pension for Jeune Filles, but had drifted into
it owing to her husband's disastrous descent from pulpit into cellar—
understudy for some one who had forgotten to come on. The Postmaster,
too, had originally been a photographer, whose funereal aspect had
sealed his failure in that line. His customers could never smile and
look pleasant. The postman, again, was a baron in disguise—in private
life he had a castle and retainers; and even Gygi, the gendarme, was a
make-believe official who behind the scenes was a
vigneron
and
farmer in a very humble way. Daddy, too, seemed sometimes but a tinsel
author dressed up for the occasion, and absurdly busy over books that
no one ever saw on railway bookstalls. While Mademoiselle Lemaire was
not in fact and verity a suffering, patient, bed-ridden lady, but a
princess who escaped from her disguise at night into glory and great
beneficent splendour.

Mother alone was more real than the other players. There was no make-
believe about Mother. She thundered across the stage and stood before
the footlights, interrupting many a performance with her stubborn
common-sense and her grip upon difficult grave issues. 'This
performance will finish at such and such an hour,' was her cry. 'Get
your wraps ready. It will be cold when you go out. And see that you
have money handy for your 'bus fares home!' Yes, Mother was real. She
knew some facts of life at least. She knitted the children's stockings
and did the family mending.

Yet Rogers felt, even with her, that she was merely waiting. She knew
the cast was not complete as yet. She waited. They all waited—for
some one. These were rehearsals; Rogers himself had dropped in also
merely as an understudy. Another role was vacant, and it was the
principal role. There was no one in the company who could play it,
none who could understudy it even. Neither Rogers nor Daddy could
learn the lines or do the 'business.' The part was a very important
one, calling for a touch of genius to be filled adequately. And it was
a feminine role. For here was a Fairy Play without a Fairy Queen.
There was not even a Fairy Princess!

This idea of a representation, all prepared specially for himself,
induced a very happy state of mind; he felt restful, calm, at peace
with all the world. He had only to sit in his stall and enjoy. But it
brought, too, this sense of delicate bewilderment that was continually
propounding questions to which he found no immediate answer. With the
rest of the village, he stood still while Time flowed past him. Later,
with Minks, he would run after it and catch it up again. Minks would
pick out the lost clues. Minks stood on the banks—in London—noting
the questions floating by and landing them sometimes with a rod and
net. His master would deal with them by and by; but just now he could
well afford to wait and enjoy himself. It was a holiday; there was no
hurry; Minks held the fort meanwhile and sent in reports at intervals.

And the sweet spring weather continued; days were bright and warm; the
nights were thick with stars. Rogers postponed departure on the
flimsiest reasons. It was no easy thing to leave Bourcelles. 'Next
week the muguet will be over in the vallon vert. We must pick it
quickly together for Tante Anna.' Jinny brought every spring flower to
Mademoiselle Lemaire in this way the moment they appeared. Her room
was a record of their sequence from week to week. And Jimbo knew
exactly where to find them first; his mind was a time-table of flowers
as well as of trains, dates of arrival, and stations where they grew.
He knew it all exaccurately. This kind of fact with him was never
wumbled. 'Soon the sabot de Venus will be in flower at the Creux du
Van, but it takes time to find it. It's most awfully rare, you see.
You'll have to climb beyond the fontaine froide. That's past the Ferme
Robert, between Champ du Moulin and Noiraigue. The snow ought to be
gone by now. We'll go and hunt for it. I'll take you in—oh, in about
deux semaines—comme ca.' Alone, those dangerous cliffs were out of
bounds for him, but if he went with Cousinenry, permission could not
be refused. Jimbo knew what he was about. And he took for granted that
his employer would never leave Bourcelles again. 'Thursday and
Saturday would be the best days,' he added. They were his half-
holidays, but he did not say so. Secretaries, he knew, did not have
half-holidays comme ca. 'Je suis son vrai secretaire,' he had told
Mademoiselle Lemaire, who had confirmed it with a grave mais oui. No
one but Mother heard the puzzled question one night when he was being
tucked into bed; it was asked with just a hint of shame upon a very
puckered little face—'But, Mummy, what really
is
a sekrity?'

And so Rogers, from day to day, stayed on, enjoying himself and
resting. The City would have called it loafing, but in the City the
schedule of values was a different one. Meanwhile the bewilderment he
felt at first gradually disappeared. He no longer realised it, that
is. While still outside, attacked by it, he had realised the soft
entanglement. Now he was in it, caught utterly, a prisoner. He was no
longer mere observer. He was part and parcel of it. 'What does a few
weeks matter out of a whole strenuous life?' he argued. 'It's all to
the good, this holiday. I'm storing up strength and energy for future
use. My Scheme can wait a little. I'm thinking things out meanwhile.'

He often went into the forest alone to think his things out, and
'things' always meant his Scheme ... but the more he thought about it
the more distant and impracticable seemed that wondrous Scheme. He had
the means, the love, the yearning, all in good condition, waiting to
be put to practical account. In his mind, littered more and more now
with details that Minks not infrequently sent in, this great Scheme by
which he had meant to help the world ran into the confusion of new
issues that were continually cropping up. Most of these were caused by
the difficulty of knowing his money spent exactly as he wished, not
wasted, no pound of it used for adornment, whether salaries, uniforms,
fancy stationery, or unnecessary appearances, whatever they might be.
Whichever way he faced it, and no matter how carefully thought out
were the plans that Minks devised, these leakages cropped up and
mocked him. Among a dozen propositions his original clear idea went
lost, and floundered. It came perilously near to wumbling itself away
altogether.

For one thing, there were rivals on the scene—his cousin's family,
the education of these growing children, the difficulties of the Widow
Jequier, some kind of security he might ensure to old Miss Waghorn,
the best expert medical attendance for Mademoiselle Lemaire ... and
his fortune was after all a small one as fortunes go. Only his simple
scale of personal living could make these things possible at all. Yet
here, at least, he would know that every penny went exaccurately where
it was meant to go, and accomplished the precise purpose it was
intended to accomplish.

And the more he thought about it, the more insistent grew the claims
of little Bourcelles, and the more that portentous Scheme for Disabled
Thingumabobs faded into dimness. The old Vicar's words kept singing in
his head: 'The world is full of Neighbours. Bring them all back to
Fairyland.' He thought things out in his own way and at his leisure.
He loved to wander alone among the mountains... thinking in this way.
His thoughts turned to his cousin's family, their expenses, their
difficulties, the curious want of harmony somewhere. For the
conditions in which the
famille anglaise
existed, he had soon
discovered, were those of muddle pure and simple, yet of muddle on so
large a scale that it was fascinating and even exhilarating. It must
be lovely, he reflected, to live so carelessly. They drifted. Chance
forces blew them hither and thither as gusts of wind blow autumn
leaves. Five years in a place and then—a gust that blew them
elsewhere. Thus they had lived five years in a London suburb, thinking
it permanent; five years in a lonely Essex farm, certain they would
never abandon country life; and five years, finally, in the Jura
forests.

Neither parent, though each was estimable, worthy, and entirely of
good repute, had the smallest faculty for seeing life whole; each
studied closely a small fragment of it, the fragment limited by the
Monday and the Saturday of next week, or, in moments of optimistic
health, the fragment that lies between the first and thirty-first of a
single month. Of what lay beyond, they talked; oh, yes, they talked
voluminously and with detail that sounded impressive to a listener,
but somehow in circles that carried them no further than the starting-
point, or in spirals that rose higher with each sentence and finally
lifted them bodily above the solid ground. It was merely talk—
ineffective—yet the kind that makes one feel it has accomplished
something and so brings the false security of carelessness again.
Neither one nor other was head of the house. They took it in turns,
each slipping by chance into that onerous position, supported but
uncoveted by the other. Mother fed the children, mended everything,
sent them to the dentist when their teeth ached badly, but never
before as a preventative, and—trusted to luck.

'Daddy,' she would say in her slow gentle way, 'I do wish we could be
more practical sometimes. Life is such a business, isn't it?' And they
would examine in detail the grain of the stable door now that the
horse had escaped, then close it very carefully.

'I really must keep books,' he would answer, 'so that we can see
exactly how we stand,' having discovered at the end of laborious
calculation concerning the cost of the proposed Geneva schooling for
Jinny that they had reckoned in shillings instead of francs. And then,
with heads together, they selected for their eldest boy a profession
utterly unsuited to his capacities, with coaching expenses far beyond
their purses, and with the comforting consideration that 'there's a
pension attached to it, you see, for when he's old.'

Similarly, having planned minutely, and with personal sacrifice, to
save five francs in one direction, they would spend that amount
unnecessarily in another. They felt they had it to spend, as though it
had been just earned and already jingled in their pockets. Daddy would
announce he was walking into Neuchatel to buy tobacco. 'Better take
the tram,' suggested Mother, 'it's going to rain. You save shoe
leather, too,' she added laughingly. 'Will you be back to tea?' He
thought not; he would get a cup of tea in town. 'May I come, too?'
from Jimbo. 'Why not?' thought Mother. 'Take him with you, he'll enjoy
the trip.' Monkey and Jane Ann, of course, went too. They
all
had
tea in a shop, and bought chocolate into the bargain. The five francs
melted into—nothing, for tea at home was included in their Pension
terms. Saving is in the mind. There was no system in their life.

'It would be jolly, yes, if you could earn a little something regular
besides your work,' agreed Mother, when he thought of learning a
typewriter to copy his own books, and taking in work to copy for
others too.