Algernon Blackwood (32 page)

She had come back from the Bank in a fainting condition, the sudden
joy too much for her altogether. A remote and inaccessible air
pervaded her, for all the red of her inflamed eyes and tears. She was
aloof from the world, freed at last from the ceaseless, gnawing
anxiety that for years had eaten her life out. The spirits had
justified themselves, and faith and worship had their just reward. But
this was only the first, immediate effect: it left her greater than it
found her, this unexpected, huge relief—brimming with new sympathy
for others. She doubled her gifts. She planned a wonderful new garden.
That very night she ordered such a quantity of bulbs and seedlings
that to this day they never have been planted.

Her interview with Henry Rogers, when she called at the carpenter's
house in all her finery, cannot properly be told, for it lay beyond
his powers of description. Her sister accompanied her; the Postmaster,
too, snatched fifteen minutes from his duties to attend. The ancient
tall hat, worn only at funerals as a rule, was replaced by the black
Trilby that had been his portion from the Magic Box, as he followed
the excited ladies at a reasonable distance. 'You had better show
yourself,' his wife suggested; 'Monsieur Rogairs would like to see you
with us—to know that you are there.' Which meant that he was not to
interfere with the actual thanksgiving, but to countenance the
occasion with his solemn presence. And, indeed, he did not go
upstairs. He paced the road beneath the windows during the interview,
looking exactly like a professional mourner waiting for the arrival of
the hearse.

'My dear old friend—friends, I mean,' said Rogers in his fluent and
very dreadful French, 'if you only knew what a pleasure it is to
me
—It is
I
who should thank you for giving me the opportunity,
not you who should thank me.' The sentence broke loose utterly,
wandering among intricacies of grammar and subjunctive moods that took
his breath away as he poured it out. 'I was only afraid you would
think it unwarrantable interference. I am delighted that you let me do
it. It's such a little thing to do.'

Both ladies instantly wept. The Widow came closer with a little rush.
Whether Rogers was actually embraced, or no, it is not stated
officially.

'It is a loan, of course, it is a loan,' cried the Widow.

'It is a present,' he said firmly, loathing the scene.

'It's a part repayment for all the kindness you showed me here as a
boy years and years ago.' Then, remembering that the sister was not
known to him in those far-away days, he added clumsily, 'and since—I
came back.... And now let's say no more, but just keep the little
secret to ourselves. It is nobody's business but our own.'

'A present!' gasped both ladies to one another, utterly overcome; and
finding nothing else to embrace, they flung their arms about each
other's necks and praised the Lord and wept more copiously than
ever.... 'Grand ciel' was heard so frequently, and so loudly, that
Madame Michaud, the carpenter's wife, listening on the stairs, made up
her mind it was a quarrel, and wondered if she ought to knock at the
door and interfere.

'I see your husband in the road,' said Rogers, tapping at the window.
'I think he seems waiting for you. Or perhaps he has a telegram for
me, do you think?' He bowed and waved his hand, smiling as the
Postmaster looked up in answer to the tapping and gravely raised his
Trilby hat.

'There now, he's calling for you. Do not keep him waiting—I'm sure—'
he didn't know what to say or how else to get them out. He opened the
door. The farewells took some time, though they would meet an hour
later at
dejeuner
as usual.

'At least you shall pay us no more
pension
,' was the final sentence
as they flounced downstairs, so happy and excited that they nearly
tumbled over each other, and sharing one handkerchief to dry their
tears.

'Then I shall buy my own food and cook it here,' he laughed, and
somehow managed to close his door upon the retreating storm. Out of
the window he saw the procession go back, the sombre figure of the
Postmaster twenty yards behind the other two.

And then, with joy in his heart, though a sigh of relief upon his
lips—there may have been traces of a lump somewhere in his throat as
well, but if so, he did not acknowledge it—he turned to his letters,
and found among them a communication from Herbert Montmorency Minks,
announcing that he had found an ideal site, and that it cost so and so
much per acre—also that the County Council had made no difficulties.
There was a hint, moreover—a general flavour of resentment and
neglect at his master's prolonged absence—that it would not be a bad
thing for the great Scheme if Mr. Rogers could see his way to return
to London 'before very long.'

'Bother the fellow!' thought he; 'what a nuisance he is, to be sure!'

And he answered him at once. 'Do not trouble
about a site just yet,' he wrote; 'there is no hurry for the moment.'
He made a rapid calculation in his head. He had paid those mortgages
out of capital, and the sum represented just about the cost of the
site Minks mentioned. But results were immediate. There was no loss,
no waste in fees and permits and taxes. Each penny did its work.

'There's the site gone, anyhow,' he laughed to himself. 'The
foundation will go next, then the walls. But, at any rate, they needed
it. The Commune Charity would have had 'em at the end of the month.
They're my neighbours after all. And I must find out from them who
else in the village needs a leg up. For these people are worth
helping, and I can see exactly where every penny goes.'

Bit by bit, as it would seem, the great Scheme for Disabled
Thingumagigs was being undermined.

And those who were good shall be happy.
They shall sit in a golden chair;
They shall splash at a ten-league canvas
With brushes of comets' hair.
They shall have real saints to paint from—
Magdalene, Peter, and Paul;
They shall work for an age at a sitting
And never get tired at all.

And only the Master shall praise them,
And only the Master shall blame;
And no one shall work for money,
And no one shall work for fame;
But each for the joy of the working,
And each in his separate star,
Shall draw the thing as he sees it
For the God of things as they are,

R. KIPLING.

And meanwhile, as May ran laughing to meet June, an air of coloured
wonder spread itself about the entire village. Rogers had brought it
with him from that old Kentish garden somehow. His journey there had
opened doors into a region of imagination and belief whence fairyland
poured back upon his inner world, transfiguring common things. And
this transfiguration he unwittingly put into others too. Through this
very ordinary man swept powers that usually are left behind with
childhood. The childhood aspect of the world invaded all who came in
contact with him, enormous, radiant, sparkling, charged with questions
of wonder and enchantment. And every one felt it according to their
ability of reconstruction. Yet he himself had not the least idea that
he did it all. It was a reformation, very tender, soft, and true.

For wonder, of course, is the basis of all inquiry. Interpretation
varies, facts remain the same; and to interpret is to recreate. Wonder
leads to worship. It insists upon recreation, prerogative of all young
life. The Starlight Express ran regularly every night, Jimbo having
constructed a perfect time-table that answered all requirements, and
was sufficiently elastic to fit instantly any scale that time and
space demanded. Rogers and the children talked of little else, and
their adventures in the daytime seemed curiously fed by details of
information gleaned elsewhere.

But where? The details welled up in one and all, though whence they
came remained a mystery. 'I believe we dream a lot of it,' said Jimbo.
'It's a lot of dreams we have at night, comme fa.' He had made a
complete map of railway lines, with stations everywhere, in forests,
sky, and mountains. He carried stations in his pocket, and just
dropped one out of the carriage window whenever a passenger shouted,
'Let's stop here.' But Monkey, more intellectual, declared it was 'all
Cousinenry's invention and make-up,' although she asked more questions
than all the others put together. Jinny, her sister, stared and
listened with her puzzled, moth-like expression, while Mother watched
and marvelled cautiously from a distance. In one and all, however, the
famished sense of wonder interpreted life anew. It named the world
afresh—the world of common things. It subdued the earth unto itself.
What a mind creates it understands. Through the familiar these
adventurers trace lines of discovery into the unfamiliar. They
understood. They were up to their waists in wonder. There was still
disorder, of course, in their great reconstruction, but that was where
the exciting fun came in; for disorder involves surprise. Any moment
out might pop the unexpected—event or person.

Cousin Henry was easily leader now. While Daddy remained absorbed with
his marvellous new story, enthusiastic and invisible, they ran about
the world at the heels of this 'busy engineer,' as Jane Ann entitled
him. He had long ago told them, with infinite and exaccurate detail,
of his journey to the garden and his rediscovery of the sprites,
forgotten during his twenty years of business life. And these sprites
were as familiar to them now as those of their own childhood. They
little knew that at night they met and talked with them. Daddy had put
them all into the Wumble Book, achieving mediocre success with the
rhymes, but amply atoning with the illustrations. The Woman of the
Haystack was evidently a monster pure and simple, till Jinny announced
that she merely had 'elephantitis,' and thus explained her
satisfactorily. The Lamplighter, with shining feet, taking enormous
strides from Neuchatel to a London slum, putting fire into eyes and
hearts
en route
, thrilled them by his radiant speed and ubiquitous
activity, while his doggerel left them coldly questioning. For the
rhymes did
not
commend themselves to their sense of what was proper
in the use of words. His natural history left them unconvinced, though
the anatomy of the drawing fascinated them.

He walked upon his toes
As softly as a saying does,
For so the saying goes.

That he 'walked upon his toes' was all right, but that he 'walked
softly as a saying' meant nothing, even when explained that 'thus the
saying goes.'

'Poor old Daddy,' was Jinny's judgment; 'he's got to write something.
You see, he is an author. Some day he'll get his testimonial.'

It was Cousin Henry who led them with a surer, truer touch. He always
had an adventure up his sleeve—something their imaginations could
accept and recreate. Each in their own way, they supplied
interpretations as they were able.

Every walk they took together furnished the germ of an adventure.

'But I'm not exciting to-day,' he would object thirsting for a
convincing compliment that should persuade him to take them out. Only
the compliment never came quite as he hoped.

'Everybody's exciting somewhere,' said Monkey, leading the way and
knowing he would follow. 'We'll go to the Wind Wood.'

Jimbo took his hand then, and they went. Corners of the forest had
names now, born of stories and adventures he had placed there—the
Wind Wood, the Cuckoo Wood, where Daddy could not sleep because 'the
beastly cuckoo made such a noise'; the Wood where Mother Fell, and so
on. No walk was wholly unproductive.

And so, one evening after supper, they escaped by the garden, crossed
the field where the standing hay came to their waists, and climbed by
forest paths towards the Wind Wood. It was a spot where giant pines
stood thinly, allowing a view across the lake towards the Alps. The
moss was thick and deep. Great boulders, covered with lichen, lay
about, and there were fallen trees to rest the back against. Here he
had told them once his vision of seeing the wind, and the name had
stuck; for the story had been very vivid, and every time they felt the
wind or heard it stirring in the tree-tops, they expected to see it
too. There were blue winds, black winds, and winds—violent these—of
purple and flaming scarlet.

They lay down, and Cousinenry made a fire. The smoke went up in thin
straight lines of blue, melting into the sky. The sun had set half an
hour before, and the flush of gold and pink was fading into twilight.
The glamour of Bourcelles dropped down upon all three. They ought to
have been in bed—hence the particular enjoyment.

'Are you getting excited now?' asked Monkey, nestling in against him.

'Hush!' he said, 'can't you hear it coming?'

'The excitement?' she inquired under her breath.

'No, the Night. Keep soft and silent—if you can.'

'Tell us, please, at once,' both children begged him instantly, for
the beauty of the place and hour demanded explanation, and
explanation, of course, must be in story or adventure form. The fire
crackled faintly; the smell crept out like incense; the lines of smoke
coiled upwards, and seemed to draw the tree-stems with them. Indeed
they formed a pattern together, big thick trunks marking the uprights
at the corners, and wavy smoke lines weaving a delicate structure in
between them. It was a kind of growing, moving scaffolding. Saying
nothing, Cousin Henry pointed to it with his finger. He traced its
general pattern for them in the air.

'That's the Scaffolding of the Night beginning,' he whispered
presently, feeling adventure press upon him.

'Oh, I say,' said Jimbo, sitting up, and pretending as usual more
comprehension than he actually possessed. But his sister instantly
asked, 'What is it—the Scaffolding of the Night? A sort of cathedral,
you mean?'