Algernon Blackwood (26 page)

'I'll do it,' he decided with enthusiasm that was forgotten before he
left the room ten minutes later.

It was the same with the suggestion of teaching English. He had much
spare time, and could easily have earned a pound a week by giving
lessons, and a pound a week is fifty pounds a year—enough to dress
the younger children easily. The plan was elaborated laboriously. 'Of
course,' agreed Daddy, with genuine interest. 'It's easily done. I
wonder we never thought of it before.' Every few months they talked
about it, but it never grew an inch nearer to accomplishment. They
drifted along, ever in difficulty, each secretly blaming the other,
yet never putting their thoughts into speech. They did not quite
understand each other's point of view.

'Mother really might have foreseen
that
!' when Jimbo, growing like a
fairy beanstalk, rendered his recent clothes entirely useless. 'Boys
must grow. Why didn't she buy the things a size or two larger?'

'It's rather thoughtless, almost selfish, of Daddy to go on writing
these books that bring in praise without money. He could write
anything if he chose. At least, he might put his shoulder to the wheel
and teach, or something!'

And so, not outwardly in spoken words or quarrels, but inwardly, owing
to that deadliest of cancers, want of sympathy, these two excellent
grown-up children had moved with the years further and further apart.
Love had not died, but want of understanding, not attended to in time,
had frayed the edges so that they no longer fitted well together. They
have blown in here, thought Rogers as he watched them, like seeds the
wind has brought. They have taken root and grown a bit. They think
they're here for ever, but presently a wind will rise and blow them
off again elsewhere. And thinking it is their own act, they will look
wisely at each other, as children do, and say, 'Yes, it
is
time now
to make a move. The children are getting big. Our health, too, needs a
change.' He wondered, smiling a little, in what vale or mountain top
the wind would let them down. And a big decision blazed up in his
heart. 'I'm not very strong in the domestic line,' he exclaimed, 'but
I think I can help them a bit. They're neighbours at any rate. They're
all children too. Daddy's no older than Jimbo, or Mother than Jane
Anne!'

In the spaces of the forest there was moss and sunshine. It was very
still. The primroses and anemones had followed the hepaticas and
periwinkles. Patches of lily of the valley filled the air with
fragrance. Through openings of the trees he caught glimpses of the
lake, deep as the Italian blue of the sky above his head. White Alps
hung in the air beyond its farther shore line. Below him, already far
away, the village followed slowly, bringing its fields and vineyards
with it, until the tired old church called halt. And then it lay back,
nestling down to sleep, very small, very cosy, mere handful of brown
roofs among the orchards. Only the blue smoke of occasional peat fires
moved here and there, betraying human occupation.

The peace and beauty sank into his heart, as he wandered higher across
Mont Racine's velvet shoulder. And the contrast stirred memories of
his recent London life. He thought of the scurrying busy-bodies in the
'City,' and he thought of the Widow Jequier attacking life so
restlessly in her garden at that very minute. That other sentence of
the old Vicar floated though his mind: 'the grandeur of toil and the
insignificance of acquisition.'... Far overhead two giant buzzards
circled quietly, ceaselessly watching from the blue. A brimstone
butterfly danced in random flight before his face. Two cuckoos
answered one another in the denser forest somewhere above him. Bells
from distant village churches boomed softly through the air, voices
from a world forgotten.

And the contrast brought back London. He thought of the long busy
chapter of his life just finished. The transition had been so abrupt.
As a rule periods fade into one another gradually in life, easily,
divisions blurred; it is difficult on looking back to say where the
change began. One is well into the new before the old is realised as
left behind. 'How did I come to this?' the mind asks itself. 'I don't
remember any definite decision. Where was the boundary crossed?' It
has been imperceptibly accomplished.

But here the change had been sudden and complete, no shading anywhere.
He had leaped a wall. Turmoil and confusion lay on that side; on this
lay peace, rest and beauty. Strain and ugliness were left behind, and
with them so much that now seemed false, unnecessary, vain. The
grandeur of toil, and the insignificance of acquisition—the phrase
ran through his mind with the sighing of the pine trees; it was like
the first line of a song. The Vicar knew the song complete. Even
Minks, perhaps, could pipe it too. Rogers was learning it. 'I must
help them somehow,' he thought again. 'It's not a question of money
merely. It's that they want welding together more—more harmony—more
sympathy. They're separate bits of a puzzle now, whereas they might be
a rather big and lovely pattern. ...'

He lay down upon the moss and flung his hat away. He felt that Life
stood still within him, watching, waiting, asking beautiful, deep,
searching questions. It made him slightly uncomfortable. Henry Rogers,
late of Threadneedle Street, took stock of himself, not of set
intention, yet somehow deliberately. He reviewed another Henry Rogers
who had been unable to leap that wall. The two peered at one another
gravely.

The review, however, took no definite form; precise language hardly
came to help with definite orders. A vague procession of feelings,
half sad, half pleasurable, floated past his closing eyes. ... Perhaps
he slept a moment in the sunshine upon that bed of moss and pine
needles. ...

Such curious thoughts flowed up and out and round about, dancing like
the brimstone butterflies out of reach before he could seize them,
calling with voices like the cuckoos, themselves all the time just out
of sight. Who ever saw a cuckoo when it's talking? Who ever foretold
the instant when a butterfly would shoot upwards and away? Such
darting, fragile thoughts they were, like hints, suggestions. Still,
they
were
thoughts.

Minks, dragging behind him an enormous Scheme, emerged from the dark
vaults of a Bank where gold lay piled in heaps. Minks was looking for
him, yet smiling a little, almost pityingly, as he strained beneath
the load. It was like a comic opera. Minks was going down the noisy,
crowded Strand. Then, suddenly, he paused, uncertain of the way. From
an upper window a shining face popped out and issued clear directions
—as from a pulpit. 'That way—towards the river,' sang the voice—and
far down the narrow side street flashed a gleam of flowing water with
orchards on the farther bank. Minks instantly turned and went down it
with his load so fast that the scenery changed before the heavy
traffic could get out of the way. Everything got muddled up with
fields and fruit-trees; the Scheme changed into a mass of wild-
flowers; a lame boy knocked it over with his crutch; gold fell in a
brilliant, singing shower, and where each sovereign fell there sprang
up a buttercup or dandelion. Rogers rubbed his eyes ... and realised
that the sun was rather hot upon his face. A dragon fly was perched
upon his hat three feet away. ...

The tea hour at the Den was close, and Jimbo, no doubt, was already
looking for him at the carpenter's house. Rogers hurried home among
the silent forest ways that were sweet with running shadows and
slanting sunshine. Oh, how fragrant was the evening air! And how the
lily of the valley laughed up in his face! Normally, at this time, he
would be sitting in a taxi, hurrying noisily towards his Club,
thoughts full of figures, politics, philanthropy cut to line and
measure—a big Scheme standing in squares across the avenue of the
future. Now, moss and flowers and little children took up all the
available space. ... How curiously out of the world Bourcelles was, to
be sure. Newspapers had no meaning any longer. Picture-papers and
smart weekly Reviews, so necessary and important in St. James's
Street, here seemed vulgar, almost impertinent—ridiculous even. Big
books, yes; but not pert, topical comments issued with an absurd
omnipotence upon things merely ephemeral. How the mind accumulated
rubbish in a city! It seemed incredible. He surely had climbed a wall
and dropped down into a world far bigger, though a world the 'city'
would deem insignificant and trivial. Yet only because it had less
detail probably! A loved verse flashed to him across the years:—

'O to dream, O to awake and wander
There, and with delight to take and render,
Through the trance of silence,
Quiet breath!

Lo! for there among the flowers and grasses,
Only the mightier movement sounds and passes;
Only winds and rivers,
Life and death.'

Bourcelles was important as London, yes, while simple as the nursery.
The same big questions of life and death, of battle, duty, love, ruled
the peaceful inhabitants. Only the noisy shouting, the clatter of
superfluous chattering and feverish striving had dropped away. Hearts
and minds wore fewer clothes among these woods and vineyards. There
was no nakedness though ... there were flowers and moss, blue sky and
peace and beauty. ... Thought ran into confused, vague pictures. He
could not give them coherence, shape, form. ...

He crossed the meadows and entered the village through the Pension
garden. The Widow Jequier gave him a spray of her Persian lilac on the
way. 'It's been growing twenty-five years for you,' she said, 'only do
not look at
me
. I'm in my garden things—invisible.' He remembered
with a smile Jane Anne's description—that 'the front part of the
house was all at the back.'

Tumbling down the wooden stairs, he crossed the street and made for
the Citadelle, where the children opened the door for him even before
he rang. Jimbo and Monkey, just home from school, pulled him by both
arms towards the tea-table. They had watched for his coming.

'The samovar's just boiling,' Mother welcomed him. Daddy was on the
sofa by the open window, reading manuscript over to himself in a
mumbling voice; and Jane Anne, apron on, sleeves tucked up, face
flushed, poked her head in from the kitchen:

'Excuse me, Mother, the cupboard's all in distress. I can't find the
marmalade anywhere.'

'But it's already on the table, child.'

She saw her Cousin and popped swiftly back again from view. One heard
fragments of her sentences—'wumbled ... chronic ... busy monster. ...
'And two minutes later
la famille anglaise
was seriously at tea.

What art thou, then? I cannot guess;
But tho' I seem in star and flower
To feel thee some diffusive power,
I do not therefore love thee less.

Love and Death,
TENNYSON.

In the act of waking up on the morning of the Star Cave experience,
Henry Rogers caught the face of a vivid dream close against his own—
but in rapid motion, already passing. He tried to seize it. There was
a happy, delightful atmosphere about it. Examination, however, was
impossible; the effort to recover the haunting dream dispersed it. He
saw the tip, like an express train flying round a corner; it flashed
and disappeared, fading into dimness. Only the delightful atmosphere
remained and the sense that he had been somewhere far away in very
happy conditions. People he knew quite well, had been there with him;
Jimbo and Monkey; Daddy too, as he had known him in his boyhood. More
than this was mere vague surmise; he could not recover details. Others
had been also of the merry company, familiar yet unrecognisable. Who
in the world were they? It all seemed oddly real.

'How I do dream in this place, to be sure,' he thought; 'I, who
normally dream so little! It was like a scene of my childhood—
Crayfield or somewhere.' And he reflected how easily one might be
persuaded that the spirit escaped in sleep and knew another order of
experience. The sense of actuality was so vivid.

He lay half dozing for a little longer, hoping to recover the
adventures. The flying train showed itself once or twice again, but
smaller, and much, much farther away. It curved off into the distance.
A deep cutting quickly swallowed it. It emerged for the last time,
tiny as a snake upon a chess-board of far-off fields. Then it dipped
into mist; the snake shot into its hole. It was gone. He sighed. It
had been so lovely. Why must it vanish so entirely? Once or twice
during the day it returned, touched him swiftly on the heart and was
gone again. But the waking impression of a dream is never the dream
itself. Sunshine destroys the sense of enormous wonder.

'I believe I've been dreaming all night long, and going through all
kinds of wild adventures.'

He dressed leisurely, still hunting subconsciously for fragments of
that happy dreamland. Its aroma still clung about him. The sunshine
poured into the room. He went out on to the balcony and looked at the
Alps through his Zeiss field-glasses. The brilliant snow upon the
Diablerets danced and sang into his blood; across the broken teeth of
the Dent du Midi trailed thin strips of early cloud. Behind him rose
great Boudry's massive shoulders, a pyramid of incredible deep blue.
And the limestone precipices of La Tourne stood dazzlingly white,
catching the morning sunlight full in their face.

The air had the freshness of the sea. Men were singing at their work
among the vineyards. The tinkle of cow-bells floated to him from the
upper pastures upon Mont Racine. Little sails like sea-gulls dipped
across the lake. Goodness, how happy the world was at Bourcelles!
Singing, radiant, careless of pain and death. And, goodness, how he
longed to make it happier still!

Every day now this morning mood had been the same. Desire to do
something for others ran races with little practical schemes for
carrying it out. Selfish considerations seemed to have taken flight,
all washed away while he slept. Moreover, the thought of his Scheme
had begun to oppress him; a touch of shame came with it, almost as
though an unworthy personal motive were somewhere in it. Perhaps after
all—he wondered more and more now—there had been an admixture of
personal ambition in the plan. The idea that it would bring him honour
in the eyes of the world had possibly lain there hidden all along. If
so, he had not realised it; the depravity had been unconscious. Before
the Bourcelles standard of simplicity, artificial elements dropped off
automatically, ashamed. ... And a profound truth, fished somehow out
of that vanished dreamland, spun its trail of glory through his heart.
Kindness that is thanked-for surely brings degradation—a degradation
almost as mean as the subscription acknowledged in a newspaper, or the
anonymous contribution kept secret temporarily in order that its later
advertisement may excite the more applause. Out flashed this blazing
truth: kind acts must be instinctive, natural, thoughtless. One hand
must be in absolute ignorance of the other's high adventures. ... And
when the carpenter's wife brought up his breakfast tray, with the
bunch of forest flowers standing in a tumbler of water, she caught him
pondering over another boyhood's memory—that friend of his father's
who had given away a million anonymously.