Algernon Blackwood (31 page)

'Well, I never!' he heard her exclaim, 'if that's not a nursery rhyme
of my childhood that I've not heard for sixty years and more! I
declare,' she added with innocent effrontery, 'I've not heard it since
I was ten years old. And I was born in '37—the year—'

'Just fancy!' he tried to stop her.

'Queen Victoria came to the throne.'

'Strange,' he said more to himself than to any one else. She did not
contradict him.

'You or me?' asked Monkey, who overheard.

'All of us,' he answered. 'We all think the same things. It's a dream,
I believe; the whole thing is a dream.'

'It's a fact though,' said Miss Waghorn with decision, 'and now I must
go and write my letters, and then finish a bit of lace I'm doing. You
will excuse me?' She rose, made a little bow, and left the table.

Mother watched her go. 'What
has
come over the old lady?' she
thought. 'She seems to be getting back her mind and memory too. How
very odd!'

In the afternoon Henry Rogers had been into Neuchatel. It seemed he
had some business there of a rather private nature. He was very
mysterious about it, evading several offers to accompany him, and
after supper he retired early to his own room in the carpenter's
house. And, since he now was the principal attraction, a sort of
magnet that drew the train of younger folk into his neighbourhood, the
Pension emptied, and the English family, deprived of their leader,
went over to the Den.

'Partir a l'anglaise,' laughed the Widow Jequier, as she saw them file
away downstairs; and then she sighed. Some day, when the children were
older and needed a different education, they would all go finally.
Down these very stairs they would go into the street. She loved them
for themselves, but, also, the English family was a permanent source
of income to her, and the chief. They stayed on in the winter, when
boarders were few and yet living expenses doubled. She sighed, and
fluttered into her tiny room to take her finery off, finery that had
once been worn in Scotland and had reached her by way of Cook and
la petite vitesse
in the Magic Box.

And presently she fluttered out again and summoned her sister. The
Postmaster had gone to bed; the kitchen girl was washing up the last
dishes; Miss Waghorn would hardly come down again. The salon was
deserted.

'Come, Anita,' she cried, yet with a hush of excitement in her voice,
'we will have an evening of it. Bring the
soucoupe
with you, while I
prepare the little table.' In her greasy kitchen apron Anita came.
Zizi, her boy, came with her. Madame Jequier, with her flowing garment
that was tea-gown, garden-dress, and dressing-gown all in one, looked
really like a witch, her dark hair all askew and her eyes shining with
mysterious anticipation. 'We'll ask the spirits for help and
guidance,' she said to herself, lest the boy should overhear. For Zizi
often helped them with their amateur planchette, only they told him it
was electricity:
le magnetisme
,
le fluide
, was the term they
generally made use of. Its vagueness covered all possible explanations
with just the needed touch of confusion and suggestion in it.

They settled down in a corner of the room, where the ivy from the
ceiling nearly touched their heads. The small round table was
produced; the saucer, with an arrow pencilled on its edge, was
carefully placed upon the big sheet of paper which bore the letters of
the alphabet and the words
oui
and
non
in the corners. The light
behind them was half veiled by ivy; the rest of the old room lay in
comparative darkness; through the half-opened door a lamp shone upon
the oil-cloth in the hall, showing the stains and the worn, streaked
patches where the boards peeped through. The house was very still.

They began with a little prayer—to
ceux qui ecoutent
,—and then
each of them placed a finger on the rim of the upturned saucer,
waiting in silence. They were a study in darkness, those three
pointing fingers.

'Zizi, tu as beaucoup de fluide ce soir, oui?' whispered the widow
after a considerable interval.

'Oh, comme d'habitude,' he shrugged his shoulders. He loved these
mysterious experiments, but he never claimed much
fluide
until the
saucer moved, jealous of losing his reputation as a storehouse of
this strange, human electricity.

Yet behind this solemn ritual, that opened with prayer and invariably
concluded with hope renewed and courage strengthened, ran the tragic
element that no degree of comedy could kill. In the hearts of the two
old women, ever fighting their uphill battle with adversity, burned
the essence of big faith, the faith that plays with mountains. Hidden
behind the curtain, an indulgent onlooker might have smiled, but tears
would have wet his eyes before the smile could have broadened into
laughter. Tante Jeanne, indeed,
had
heard that the subconscious mind
was held to account for the apparent intelligence that occasionally
betrayed itself in the laboriously spelled replies; she even made use
of the word from time to time to baffle Zizi's too importunate
inquiries. But after
le subconscient
she always tacked on
fluide
,
magnetisme
, or
electricite
lest he should be frightened, or she
should lose her way. And of course she held to her belief that spirits
produced the phenomena. A subconscious mind was a cold and comfortless
idea.

And, as usual, the saucer told them exactly what they had desired to
know, suggested ways and means that hid already in the mind of one or
other, yet in stammered sentences that included just enough surprise
or turn of phrase to confirm their faith and save their self-respect.
It was their form of prayer, and with whole hearts they prayed.
Moreover, they acted on what was told them. Had they discovered that
it was merely the content of their subconscious mind revealing thus
its little hopes and fears, they would have lost their chief support
in life. God and religion would have suffered a damaging eclipse. Big
scaffolding in their lives would have collapsed.

Doubtless, Tante Jeanne did not knowingly push the saucer, neither did
the weighty index finger of the concentrated cook deliberately exert
muscular pressure. Nor, similarly, was Zizi aware that the weight of
his entire hand helped to urge the dirty saucer across the slippery
surface of the paper in whatever direction his elders thus indicated.
But one and all knew 'subconsciously' the exact situation of
consonants and vowels—that
oui
lay in the right-hand corner and
non
in the left. And neither Zizi nor his mother dared hint to their
leader not to push, because she herself monopolised that phrase,
saying repeatedly to them both, 'mais il ne faut
pas
pousser!
Legerement avec les doigts, toujours tres legerement! Sans ca il n'y a
pas de valeur, tu comprends!' Zizi inserted an occasional electrical
question. It was discreetly ignored always.

They asked about the Bank payments, the mortgages, the future of their
much-loved old house, and of themselves; and the answers, so vague
concerning any detailed things to come, were very positive indeed
about the Bank. They were to go and interview the Manager three days
from now. They had already meant to go, only the date was undecided;
the corroboration of the spirits was required to confirm it. This
settled it. Three days from to-night!

'Tu vois!' whispered Tante Jeanne, glancing mysteriously across the
table at her sister. 'Three days from now! That explains your dream
about the three birds. Aha, tu vois!' She leaned back, supremely
satisfied. And the sister gravely bowed her head, while Zizi looked up
and listened intently, without comprehension. He felt a little alarm,
perhaps, to-night.

For this night there
was
indeed something new in the worn old
ritual. There was a strange, uncalculated element in it all,
unexpected, and fearfully thrilling to all three. Zizi for the first
time had his doubts about its being merely electricity.

'C'est d'une puissance extraordinaire,' was the widow's whispered,
eager verdict.

'C'est que j'ai enormement de fluide ce soir,' declared Zizi, with
pride and confidence, yet mystified. The other two exchanged frequent
glances of surprise, of wonder, of keen expectancy and anticipation.
There was certainly a new 'influence' at work to-night. They even felt
a touch of faint dread. The widow, her ruling passion strong even
before the altar, looked down anxiously once or twice at her
disreputable attire. It was vivid as that—this acute sense of another
presence that pervaded the room, not merely hung about the little
table. She could be 'invisible' to the Pension by the magic of old-
established habit, but she could not be so to the true Invisibles. And
they saw her in this unbecoming costume. She forgot, too, the need of
keeping Zizi in the dark. He must know some day. What did it matter
when?

She tidied back her wandering hair with her free hand, and drew the
faded garment more closely round her neck.

'Are you cold?' asked her sister with a hush in her voice; 'you feel
the cold air—all of a sudden?'

'I do,
maman
,' Zizi answered. 'It's blowing like a wind across my
hand. What is it?' He was shivering. He looked over his shoulder
nervously.

There was a heavy step in the hall, and a figure darkened the doorway.
All three gave a start.

'J'ai sommeil,' announced the deep voice of the Postmaster. This meant
that the boy must come to bed. It was the sepulchral tone that made
them jump perhaps. Zizi got up without a murmur; he was glad to go,
really. He slept in the room with his parents. His father, an overcoat
thrown over his night things, led him away without another word. And
the two women resumed their seance. The saucer moved more easily and
swiftly now that Zizi had gone. 'C'est done
toi
qui as le fluide,'
each said to the other.

But in the excitement caused by this queer, new element in the
proceedings, the familiar old routine was forgotten. Napoleon and
Marie Antoinette were brushed aside to make room for this important
personage who suddenly descended upon the saucer from an unknown star
with the statement—it took half an hour to spell—'Je viens d'une
etoile tres eloignee qui n'a pas encore de nom.'

'There
is
a starry light in the room. It was above your head just
now,' whispered the widow, enormously excited. 'I saw it plainly.' She
was trembling.

'That explains the clouds in my dream,' was the tense reply, as they
both peered round them into the shadows with a touch of awe. 'Now,
give all your attention. This has an importance, but, you know, an
importance—' She could not get the degree of importance into any
words. She looked it instead, leaving the sentence eloquently
incomplete.

For, certainly, into the quaint ritual of these two honest, troubled
old women there crept then a hint of something that was uncommon and
uplifting. That it came through themselves is as sure as that it spelt
out detailed phrases of encouragement and guidance with regard to
their coming visit to the Bank. That they both were carried away by it
into joy and the happiness of sincere relief of mind is equally a
fact. That their receptive mood attuned them to overhear
subconsciously messages of thought that flashed across the night from
another mind in sympathy with their troubles—a mind hard at work that
very moment in the carpenter's house—was not known to them; nor would
it have brought the least explanatory comfort even if they had been
told of it. They picked up these starry telegrams of unselfish
thinking that flamed towards them through the midnight sky from an
eager mind elsewhere busily making plans for their benefit. And,
reaching them subconsciously, their deep subconsciousness urged the
dirty saucer to the spelling of them, word by word and letter by
letter. The flavour of their own interpretation, of course, crept in
to mar, and sometimes to obliterate. The instruments were gravely
imperfect. But the messages came through. And with them came the great
feeling that the Christian calls answered prayer. They had such
absolute faith. They had belief.

'Go to the Bank. Help awaits you there. And I shall go with you to
direct and guide.' This was the gist of that message from 'une etoile
tres eloignee.'

They copied it out in violet ink with a pen that scratched like the
point of a pin. And when they stole upstairs to bed, long after
midnight, there was great joy and certainty in their fighting old
hearts. There was a perfume of flowers, of lilacs and wistaria in the
air, as if the whole garden had slipped in by the back door and was
unable to find its way out again. They dreamed of stars and starlight.

La vie est un combat qu'ils ont change en fete.

Lei Elus
, E. VERHAIREN.

The excitement a few days later spread through the village like a
flame. People came out of their way to steal a glance at the Pension
that now, for the first time in their—memory, was free of debt. Gygi,
tolling the bell at
midi
, forgot to stop, as he peered through the
narrow window in the church tower and watched the Widow Jequier
planting and digging recklessly in her garden. Several came running
down the street, thinking it was a warning of fire.

But the secret was well kept; no one discovered who had worked the
miracle. Pride sealed the lips of the beneficiaries themselves, while
the inhabitants of the Citadelle, who alone shared the knowledge, kept
the facts secret, as in honour bound. Every one wondered, however, for
every one knew the sum ran into several thousand francs; and a
thousand francs was a fortune; the rich man in the corner house, who
owned so many vineyards, and was reputed to enjoy an income of ten
thousand francs a year, was always referred to as 'le million naire.'
And so the story spread that Madame Jequier had inherited a fortune,
none knew whence. The tradespeople treated her thereafter with a
degree of respect that sweetened her days till the end of life.