Algernon Blackwood (27 page)

... In his heart plans shaped themselves with soft, shy eyes and
hidden faces.... He longed to get
la famille anglaise
straight
... for one thing. ...

It was an hour later, while he still sat dreaming in the sunshine by
the open window, that a gentle tap came at the door, and Daddy
entered. The visit was a surprise. Usually, until time for
dejeuner
,
he kept his room, busily unwumbling stories. This was unusual. And
something had happened to him; he looked different. What was it that
had changed? Some veil had cleared away; his eyes were shining. They
greeted one another, and Rogers fell shyly to commonplaces, while
wondering what the change exactly was.

But the other was not to be put off. He was bursting with something.
Rogers had never seen him like this before.

'You've stopped work earlier than usual,' he said, providing the
opening. He understood his diffidence, his shyness in speaking of
himself. Long disappointments lay so thinly screened behind his
unfulfilled enthusiasm.

But this time the enthusiasm swept diffidence to the winds. It had
been vitally stirred.

'Early indeed,' he cried. 'I've been working four hours without a
break, man. Why, what do you think?—I woke at sunrise, a thing I
never do, with—with a brilliant idea in my head. Brilliant, I tell
you. By Jove, if only I can carry it out as I see it—!'

'You've begun it already?'

'Been at it since six o'clock, I tell you. It was in me when I woke—
idea, treatment, everything complete, all in a perfect pattern of
Beauty.'

There was a glow upon his face, his hair was untidy; a white muffler
with blue spots was round his neck instead of collar. One end stuck up
against his chin. The safety pin was open.

'By Jove! I am delighted!' Rogers had seen him excited before over a
'brilliant idea,' but the telling of it always left him cold. It
touched the intellect, yet not the heart. It was merely clever. This
time, however, there was a new thing in his manner. 'How did you get
it?' he repeated. Methods of literary production beyond his own
doggerels were a mystery to him. 'Sort of inspiration, eh?'

'Woke with it, I tell you,' continued his cousin, twisting the muffler
so that it tickled his ear now instead of his chin. 'It must have come
to me in sleep—' 'In sleep,' exclaimed the other; 'you dreamt it,
then?'

'Kind of inspiration business. I've heard of that sort of thing, but
never experienced it—' The author paused for breath.

'What is it? Tell me.' He remembered how ingenious details of his
patents had sometimes found themselves cleared up in the morning after
refreshing slumber. This might be something similar. 'Let's hear it,'
he added; 'I'm interested.'

His cousin's recitals usually ended in sad confusion, so that all he
could answer by way of praise was—' You ought to make something good
out of that. I shall like to read it when you've finished it.' But
this time, he felt, there was distinctly a difference. There were new
conditions.

The older man leaned closer, his face alight, his manner shyly,
eagerly confidential. The morning sunshine blazed upon his untidy
hair. A bread crumb from breakfast still balanced in his beard.

'It's difficult to tell in a few words, you see,' he began, the
enthusiasm of a boy in his manner, 'but—I woke with the odd idea that
this little village might be an epitome of the world. All the emotions
of London, you see, are here in essence—the courage and cowardice,
the fear and hope, the greed and sacrifice, the love and hate and
passion—everything. It's the big world in miniature. Only—with one
difference.'

'That's good,' said Rogers, trying to remember when it was he had told
his cousin this very thing. Or had he only
thought
it? 'And what
is
the difference?'

'The difference,' continued the other, eyes sparkling, face alight,
'that here the woods, the mountains and the stars are close. They pour
themselves in upon the village life from every side—above, below, all
round. Flowers surround it; it dances to the mountain winds; at night
it lies entangled in the starlight. Along a thousand imperceptible
channels an ideal simplicity from Nature pours down into it, modifying
the human passions, chastening, purifying, uplifting. Don't you see?
And these sweet, viewless channels—who keeps them clean and open?
Why, God bless you—. The children!
My
children!'

'By Jingo, yes;
your
children.'

Rogers said it with emphasis. But there was a sudden catch at his
heart; he was conscious of a queer sensation he could not name. This
was exactly what he had felt himself—with the difference that his own
thought had been, perhaps, emotion rather than a reasoned-out idea.
His cousin put it into words and gave it form. A picture—had he seen
it in a book perhaps?—flashed across his mind. A child, suspiciously
like Monkey, held a pen and dipped it into something bright and
flowing. A little boy with big blue eyes gathered this shining stuff
in both hands and poured it in a golden cataract upon the eyelids of a
sleeping figure. And the figure had a beard. It was a man ...
familiar. ... A touch of odd excitement trembled through his undermind
... thrilled ... vanished. ...

All dived out of sight again with the swiftness of a darting swallow.
His cousin was talking at high speed. Rogers had lost a great deal of
what he had been saying.

'... it may, of course, have come from something you said the other
night as we walked up the hill to supper—you remember?—something
about the brilliance of our stars here and how they formed a shining
network that hung from Boudry and La Tourne. It's impossible to say.
The germ of a true inspiration is never discoverable. Only, I
remember, it struck me as an odd thing for
you
to say. I was telling
you about my idea of the scientist who married—no, no, it wasn't
that, it was my story of the materialist doctor whom circumstances
compelled to accept a position in the Community of Shakers, and how
the contrast produced an effect upon his mind of—of—you remember,
perhaps? It was one or the other; I forget exactly,'—then suddenly—
'No, no, I've got it—it was the analysis of the father's mind when he
found—'

'Yes, yes,' interrupted Rogers. 'We were just passing the Citadelle
fountain. I saw the big star upon the top of Boudry, and made a remark
about it.' His cousin was getting sadly wumbled. He tried to put
severity and concentration into his voice.

'That's it,' the other cried, head on one side and holding up a
finger, 'because I remember that my own thought wandered for a moment
—thought will, you know, in spite of one's best effort sometimes—and
you said a thing that sent a little shiver of pleasure through me for
an instant—something about a Starlight Train—and made me wonder
where you got the idea. That's it. I do believe you've hit the nail on
the head. Isn't it curious sometimes how a practical mind may suggest
valuable material to the artist? I remember, several years ago—'

'Starlight Express, wasn't it?' said his friend with decision in his
voice. He thumped the table vigorously with one fist. 'Keep to the
point, old man. Follow it out. Your idea is splendid.'

'Yes, I do believe it is.' Something in his voice trembled.

One sentence in particular Rogers heard, for it seemed plucked out of
the talk he had with the children in the forest that day two weeks
ago.

'You see, all light meets somewhere. It's all one, I mean. And so with
minds. They all have a common meeting-place. Sympathy is the name for
that place—that state—they feel with each other, see flash-like from
the same point of view for a moment. And children are the conduits.
They do not think things out. They feel them, eh?' He paused an
instant.

'For you see, along these little channels that the children—my
children, as I think I mentioned—keep sweet and open, there might
troop back into the village—Fairyland. Not merely a foolish fairyland
of make-believe and dragons and princesses imprisoned in animals, but
a fairyland the whole world needs—the sympathy of sweet endeavour,
love, gentleness and sacrifice for others. The stars would bring it—
starlight don't you see? One might weave starlight in and out
everywhere—use it as the symbol of sympathy—and—er—so on—'

Rogers again lost the clue. Another strangely familiar picture, and
then another, flashed gorgeously before his inner vision; his mind
raced after them, yet never caught them up. They were most curiously
familiar. Then, suddenly, he came back and heard his cousin still
talking. It was like a subtle plagiarism. Too subtle altogether,
indeed, it was for him. He could only stare and listen in amazement.

But the recital grew more and more involved. Perhaps, alone in his
work-room, Daddy could unwumble it consistently. He certainly could
not tell it. The thread went lost among a dozen other things. The
interfering sun had melted it all down in dew and spider gossamer and
fairy cotton. ...

'I must go down and work,' he said at length, rising and fumbling with
the door handle. He seemed disappointed a little. He had given out his
ideas so freely, perhaps too freely. Rogers divined he had not
sympathised enough. His manner had been shamefully absent-minded. The
absent-mindedness was really the highest possible praise, but the
author did not seem to realise it.

'It's glorious, my dear fellow, glorious,' Rogers added emphatically.
'You've got a big idea, and you can write it too. You will.' He said
it with conviction. 'You touch my heart as you tell it. I congratulate
you. Really I do.'

There was no mistaking the sincerity of his words and tone. The other
came back a step into the room again. He stroked his beard and felt
the crisp, hard crumb. He picked it out, examining it without
surprise. It was no unfamiliar thing, perhaps; at any rate, it was an
excuse to lower his eyes. Shyness returned upon him.

'Thank you,' he said gently; 'I'm glad you think so. You see, I
sometimes feel—perhaps—my work has rather suffered from—been a
little deficient in—the human touch. One must reach people's hearts
if one wants big sales. So few have brains. Not that I care for money,
or could ever write for money, for that brings its own punishment in
loss of inspiration. But of course, with a family to support. ... I
have
a family, you see.' He raised his eyes and looked out into the
sunshine. 'Well, anyhow, I've begun this thing. I shall send it in
short form to the
X. Review
. It may attract attention there. And
later I can expand it into a volume.' He hesitated, examined the crumb
closely again, tossed it away, and looked up at his cousin suddenly
full in the face. The high enthusiasm flamed back into his eyes again.
'Bring the world back to Fairyland, you see!' he concluded with
vehemence, 'eh?'

'Glorious!' Surely thought ran about the world like coloured flame, if
this was true.

The author turned towards the door. He opened it, then stopped on the
threshold and looked round like a person who has lost his way.

'I forgot,' he added, 'I forgot another thing, one of the chief
almost. It's this: there must be a Leader—who shall bring it back.
Without the Guide, Interpreter, Pioneer, how shall the world listen or
understand, even the little world of Bourcelles?'

'Of course, yes—some big figure—like a priest or prophet, you mean?
A sort of Chairman, President, eh?'

'Yes,' was the reply, while the eyes flashed fires that almost
recaptured forgotten dreams, 'but hardly in the way you mean, perhaps.
A very simple figure,
I
mean, unconscious of its mighty role. Some
one with endless stores of love and sympathy and compassion that have
never found an outlet yet, but gone on accumulating and accumulating
unexpressed.'

'I see, yes.' Though he really did not 'see' a bit. 'But who is there
like that here? You'll have to invent him.' He remembered his own
thought that some principal role was vacant in his Children's Fairy
Play. How queer it all was! He stared. 'Who is there?' he repeated.

'No one—now. I shall bring her, though.'

'
Her
!' exclaimed Rogers with surprise. 'You mean a woman?'

'A childless woman,' came the soft reply. 'A woman with a million
children—all unborn.' But Rogers did not see the expression of the
face. His cousin was on the landing. The door closed softly on the
words. The steps went fumbling down the stairs, and presently he heard
the door below close too. The key was turned in it.

'A childless woman!' The phrase rang on long after he had gone. What
an extraordinary idea! 'Bring her here' indeed! Could his cousin mean
that some such woman might read his story and come to claim the
position, play the vacant role? No, nothing so literal surely. The
idea was preposterous. He had heard it said that imaginative folk,
writers, painters, musicians, all had a touch of lunacy in them
somewhere. He shrugged his shoulders. And what a job it must be, too,
the writing of a book! He had never realised it before. A real book,
then, meant putting one's heart into sentences, telling one's inmost
secrets, confessing one's own ideals with fire and lust and passion.
That was the difference perhaps between literature and mere facile
invention. His cousin had never dared do this before; shyness
prevented; his intellect wove pretty patterns that had no heat of life
in them. But now he had discovered a big idea, true as the sun, and
able, like the sun, to warm thousands of readers, all ready for it
without knowing it. ...

Rogers sat on thinking in the bright spring sunshine, smoking one
cigarette after another. For the idea his cousin had wumbled over so
fubsily had touched his heart, and for a long time he was puzzled to
find the reason. But at length he found it. In that startling phrase
'a childless woman' lay the clue. A childless woman was like a vessel
with a cargo of exquisite flowers that could never make a port.
Sweetening every wind, she yet never comes to land. No harbour
welcomes her. She sails endless seas, charged with her freight of
undelivered beauty; the waves devour her glory, her pain, her lovely
secret all unconfessed. To bring such a woman into port, even
imaginatively in a story, or subconsciously in an inner life, was
fulfilment of a big, fine, wholesome yearning, sacred in a way, too.