Algernon Blackwood (51 page)

She laughed again till the whole web quivered. Through her eyes the
softness of all the seven Pleiades poured deliciously into him.

'It's absurd that such a big thing as you could hide so easily,' she
said. 'But you'll never hide again. I've got you fast now. And you've
got me! It's like being reflected together in the same puddle, you
see!'

The dazzling radiance passed as she said it into a clearer glow, and
across the fire of it he caught her eyes steadily a moment, though he
could not see the face complete. Two brilliant points of amber shone
up at him, as stars that peep from the mirror of a forest pool. That
mental daylight-searching seemed all explained, only he could not
remember now that there was any such thing at all as either searching
or daylight. When 'out' like this, waking was the dream—the sunlight
world forgotten.

'This Pattern has always been my own,' she continued with infinite
softness, yet so clearly that his whole body seemed a single ear
against her lips, 'for I've thought it ever since I can remember. I've
lived it. This Network of Stars I made ages ago in a garden among far
bigger mountains than these hills, a garden I knew vividly, yet could
not always find—almost as though I dreamed it. The Net included the—
oh, included everything there is, and I fastened it to four big pines
that grew on the further side of the torrent in that mountain garden
of my dream—fastened it with nails of falling stars. And I made the
Pleiades its centre because I loved them best of all. Oh! Orion,
Orion, how big and comforting your arms are! Please hold me tight for
ever and ever!'

'But I know it, too, that lovely dream,' he cried. 'It all comes back
to me. I, too, have dreamed it with you then somewhere—somewhere—!'
His voice choked. He had never known that life could hold such
sweetness, wonder, joy. The universe lay within his arms.

'All the people I wanted to help I used to catch in my Net of Stars,'
she went on. 'There was a train that brought them up to its edges, and
once I got the passengers into the web, and hung them loose in it till
they were soaked with starlight, I could send them back happier and
braver than they came. It's been my story ever since I can remember
anything—my adventure, my dream, my life. And when the great Net
faded a little and wanted brightening, we knew an enormous cavern in
the mountains where lost starlight collected, and we used to gather
this in thousands of sacks, and wash and paint the entire web afresh.
That made it sticky, so that the passengers hung in it longer. Don't
you remember?

They came back with starlight in their hair and eyes and voices—and
in their hearts.'

'And the way you—
we
got them into the Net,' he interrupted
excitedly, 'was by understanding them—by feeling with them—'

'Sympathy,' she laughed, 'of course! Only there were so many I could
not reach and could not understand, and so could never get in. In
particular there was some one who ought to have been there to help me.
If I could find that some one I could do twice as much. I searched and
searched. I hunted through every corner of the garden, through forest,
cavern, sky, but never with success. Orion never overtook me! My
longing cried every where, but in vain. Oh, Orion, my lost Orion, I
have found you now at last!... The Net flashed messages in all
directions, but without response. This some one who could make my work
complete existed—that I
knew
—only he was hidden somewhere out of
sight—concealed in some corner or other, veiled by a darkness that he
wove about himself—as though by some funny kind of wrong thinking
that obscured the light I searched for and made it too dim to reach me
properly. His life or mind—his thought and feeling, that is—were
wumbled—'

'
Wumbled!
' he cried, as the certainty burst upon him with the
password. He stood close to her, opening his arms.

Instantly she placed her golden palm upon his mouth, with fingers that
were like soft star-rays. Her words, as she continued, were sweeter
than the footfalls of the Pleiades when they rise above the sea.

'Yet there were times when we were so close that we could feel each
other, and each wondered why the other did not actually appear. I have
been trying,' she whispered, oh so dearly, 'to find you always. And
you knew it, too, for I've felt you searching too....'

The outlying skirts of the Pattern closed in a little, till the edges
gathered over them like a tent of stars. Alone in the heart of the
universe they told their secret very softly....

'There are twin-stars, you know,' she whispered, when he released her,
'that circle so close about each other that they look like one. I
wonder, oh, I wonder, do they ever touch!'

'They are apart in order to see one another better,' he murmured.
'They watch one another more sweetly so. They play at separation for
the joy of coming together again.'

And once more the golden Pattern hid them for a moment from the other
stars.... The shafts of night-fire played round and above their secret
tent in space.... Most marvellously their beings found each other in
the great whispering galleries of the world where Thought and Yearning
know that first fulfilment which is the source of action later....

'So, now that I have found you,' her voice presently
went on, 'our Network shall catch everybody everywhere. For the
Pattern of my story, woven so long ago, has passed through you as
through a channel—to another who can give it forth. It will spread
across every sky. All, all will see it and climb up.'

'My scheme—' he cried, with eager delight, yet not quite certain
what he meant, nor whence the phrase proceeded.

'Was my thought first,' she laughed, 'when you were a little boy and I
was a little girl—somewhere in a garden very long ago. A ray from its
pattern touched you into beauty. Though I could do nothing with it
myself, one little ray shot into the mirror of your mind and instantly
increased itself. But then, you hid yourself; the channel closed—'

'It never died, though,' he interrupted; 'the ray, I mean.'

'It waited,' she went on, 'until you found children somewhere, and the
channel cleared instantly. Through you, opened up and cleaned by them,
my pattern rushed headlong into another who can use it. It could never
die, of course. And the long repression—I never ceased to live it—
made its power irresistible.'

'Your story!' he cried. 'It
is
indeed your story.'

The eyes were so close against his own that he made a movement that
was like diving into a deep and shining sea to reach them.... The
Pleiades rushed instantly past his face.... Soft filaments of golden
texture stroked his very cheeks. That slender violet wind rose into
his hair. He saw other larger winds behind it, deeply coloured....
Something made him tremble all over like a leaf in a storm. He saw,
then, the crest of the sentinel poplar tossing between him and the
earth far, far below. A mist of confusion caught him, so that he knew
not where he was.... He made an effort to remember... a violent
effort.... Some strange sense of heaviness oppressed him.... He was
leaving her.

'Quick!' he tried to cry; 'be quick! I am changing. I am drowsy with
your voice and beauty. Your eyes have touched me, and I am—falling
asleep!' His voice grew weaker as he said it.

Her answer sounded faint, and far above him:

'Give me... your... hand. Touch me. Come away with me... to... my ...
garden ... in the mountains.... We may wake together ... You are
waking now...!'

He made an effort to find her little palm. But the wind swept coldly
between his opened fingers.

'Waking!—what is it?' he cried thinly. He thought swiftly of
something vague and muddy—something dull, disordered, incomplete.
Here it was all glass-clear. 'Where are you? I can't find you. I can't
see!'

A dreadful, searching pain shot through him. He was losing her, just
when he had found her. He struggled, clung, fought frantically to hold
her. But his fingers seized the air.

'Oh, I shall find you—even when you wake,' he heard far away among
the stars. 'Try and remember me—when I come.
Try and remember
....'

It dipped into the distance. He had lost her. He caught a glimpse of
the Pleiades as he fell at a fearful speed. Some one behind them
picked up stars and tossed them after him. They dimmed as they shot
by—from gold to white, from white to something very pale. Behind them
rose a wave of light that hurt his eyes.

'Look out! The Interfering Sun!' came a disappearing voice that was
followed by a peal of laughter. 'I hope you found her, and I hope you
caught it well. You deserved to....'

There was a scent of hair that he loved, a vision of mischievous brown
eyes, an idea that somebody was turning a somersault beside him—and
then he landed upon the solid earth with a noise like thunder.

The room was dark. At first he did not recognise it. Through the open
window came the clatter of lumbering traffic that passed heavily down
St. James's Street. He rose stiffly from his chair, vexed with himself
for having dozed. It was more than a doze, though; he had slept some
thirty minutes by his watch. No memory of any dreams was in him—
nothing but a feeling of great refreshing lightness and peace....

It was wonderful, he reflected, as he changed into country clothes for
his walk in Richmond Park, how even the shortest nap revives the brain
and body. There was a sense that an immense interval had elapsed, and
that something very big had happened or was going to happen to him
very soon....

And an hour later he passed through the Richmond Gate and found the
open spaces of the Park deserted, as they always were. The oaks and
bracken rustled in a gentle breeze. The swishing of his boots through
the wet grass was the only sound he heard, for the boom and purr of
distant London reached him more as touch than as something audible.
Seated on a fallen tree, he watched the stars and listened to the
wind. That hum and boom of the city seemed underground, the flare it
tossed into the sky rose from vast furnaces below the world. The stars
danced lightly far beyond its reach, secure and unafraid. He thought
of children dancing with twinkling feet upon the mountains....

And in himself there was hum and light as well. Too deep, too far
below the horizon for full discovery, he caught the echo, the faint,
dim flashings of reflection that are called by men a Mood. These,
rising to the surface, swept over him with the queer joy of
intoxicating wonder that only children know. Some great Secret he had
to tell himself, only he had kept it so long and so well that he could
not find it quite. He felt the thrill, yet had forgotten what it was.

Something was going to happen. A new footfall was coming across the
world towards him. He could almost hear its delicate, swift tread.
Life was about to offer him this delicious, thrilling secret—very
soon. Looking up he saw the Pleiades, and the single footfall became
many. He remembered that former curious obsession of the Pleiades...
and as Thought and Yearning went roaming into space, they met
Anticipation, who took them by the hand. It seemed, then, that
children came flocking down upon him from the sky, led by a little
figure with starry eyes of clearest amber, a pair of tiny twinkling
feet, and a voice quite absurdly soft and tender.

'Your time is coming,' he heard behind the rustling of the oak leaves
overhead, 'for the children are calling to you—children of your own.
And this is the bravest Scheme in all the world. There is no bigger.
How can there be? For all the world is a child that goes past your
windows crying for its lost Fairyland...!'

It was after midnight when at length he slipped through the Robin Hood
Gate, passed up Priory Lane, and walked rapidly by the shuttered
houses of Roehampton. And, looking a moment over Putney Bridge; he saw
the reflections of the stars in the muddy, dawdling Thames. Nothing
anywhere was thick enough to hide them. The Net of Stars, being in his
heart, was everywhere. No prisoner could be more securely caught than
he was.

Asia
.
The point of one white star is quivering still
Deep in the orange light of widening morn
Beyond the purple mountains: through a chasm
Of wind-divided mist the darker lake
Reflects it: now it wanes: it gleams again
As the waves fade, and as the burning threads
Of woven cloud unravel in the pale air:
'Tis lost! and through yon peaks of cloud-like snow
The roseate sunlight quivers: hear I not
The Aeolian music of her sea-green plumes
Winnowing the crimson dawn?

Prometheus Unbound
, SHELLEY.

August had blazed its path into September, and September had already
trimmed her successor's gown with gold and russet before Henry Rogers
found himself free again to think of holidays. London had kept its
grip upon him all these weeks while the rest of the world was gay and
irresponsible. He was so absurdly conscientious. One of his Companies
had got into difficulties, and he was the only man who could save the
shareholders' money. The Patent Coal Dust Fuel Company, Ltd., had
bought his invention for blowing fine coal dust into a furnace whereby
an intense heat was obtainable in a few minutes. The saving in
material, time, and labour was revolutionary. Rogers had received a
large sum in cash, though merely a nominal number of the common
shares. It meant little to him if the Company collapsed, and an
ordinary Director would have been content with sending counsel through
the post in the intervals of fishing and shooting. But Henry Rogers
was of a different calibre. The invention was his child, born by hard
labour out of loving thought. The several thousand shareholders
believed in him: they were his neighbours. Incompetence and
extravagance threatened failure. He took a room in the village near
the Essex factories, and gave his personal energy and attention to
restoring economical working of every detail. He wore overalls. He put
intelligence into hired men and foremen; he spent his summer holiday
turning a system of waste into the basis of a lucrative industry. The
shareholders would never know whose faithfulness had saved them loss,
and at the most his thanks would be a formal paragraph in the Report
at the end of the year. Yet he was satisfied, and worked as though his
own income depended on success. For he knew—of late this certainty
had established itself in him, influencing all he did—that faithful
labour, backed by steady thinking, must reach ten thousand wavering
characters, merge with awakening tendencies in them, and slip thence
into definite daily action. Action was thought materialised. He helped
the world. A copybook maxim thus became a weapon of tempered steel.
His Scheme was bigger than any hospital for disabled bodies. It would
still be cumulative when bodies and bricks were dust upon the wind. It
must increase by geometrical progression through all time.