The Extra Day

by Algernon Blackwood

  CHAPTER XV

  "A DAY WILL COME"

  They went into the house as though wafted--thus does a shining heartdeduct bodily weight from life's obstructions; they had their tea;after tea they played games as usual, quite ordinary games; and in duecourse they went to bed. That is, they followed a customary routine,feeling it was safer. To do anything unusual just then might attractattention to their infinite Discovery and so disturb its delicateequilibrium. Its balance was precarious. Once an Authority got wind ofanything, the Extra Day might change its course and sail into anotherport. Aunt Emily, even from a distance...! In any case, they behavedwith this intuitive sagacity which obviated every risk--by taking none.

  Yet everything was different. Behind the routine lay the potentemphasis of some strange new factor, as though a lofty hope, a braveideal, had the power of transmuting common duties into gold andcrystal. This new factor pushed softly behind each little customaryact, urging what was commonplace over the edge into the marvellous. Thehabitual became wonderful. It felt like Christmas Eve, like the lastnight of the Old Year, like the day before the family moved for theholidays to the sea--only more so. Even To-morrow-will-be-Sunday hadentirely disappeared. A thrill of mysterious anticipation gildedeverything with wonder and beauty that were impossible, yet true. SomeDay, _the_ Thing that Nobody could Understand--Somebody--was coming atlast.

  Uncle Felix was in an extraordinary state; his acts were normal enough,but his speech betrayed him shamefully; they had to warn him more thanonce about it. He seemed unable to talk ordinary prose, saying that"Everything _ought_ to rhyme, At such a time," and, instead of walkinglike other people, his feet tried to keep in time with his language."But you don't understand," he replied to Tim's grave warnings; "youdon't understand what a gigantic discovery it is. Why, the whole worldwill thank us! The whole world will get its breath back! The one thingit's always dreaded more than anything else--being too late--will cometo an end! We ought to dance and sing--"

  "Oh, please hush!" warned Judy. "Aunt Emily, you know--" Even atTunbridge Wells Aunt Emily might hear and send a telegram with No in it.

  "Has it lost its breath?" Tim asked, however. But, though it was in themiddle of tea, Uncle Felix could not restrain himself, and burst intoone of his ridiculous singing fits, instead of answering in a whisperas he should have done. "Burst" described it accurately. And his feetkept time beneath the table. It was the proper place for Time, heexplained.

  The clocks are stopped, the calendars are wrong, Time holds giganticfinger-hands Before his guilty face. Listen a moment! I can hear thesong That no one understands--

  "It's the blue dragon-fly," interrupted Tim, remembering the story oflong ago.

  "It's the Night-Wind--out by day," cried Judy.

  "It's both and neither," sang the man, "This song I hear. It first began Before the hurrying race Of ticking, and of tearing pages Deafened the breathless ages: It is the happy singing Of wind among the rigging Of our Extra Day!"

  "It's something anyhow," decided Judy, rather impressed by her uncle'sfit of bursting.

  And, somehow, Dawn was the password and Tomorrow the key. No one knewmore than that. It had to do with Time, for Uncle Felix had taken thestopped clock to his room and hidden it there lest somebody likeJackman or Thompson should wind it up. Later, however, he gave it forsafer keeping to Maria, because she moved so rarely and did so littlethat was unnecessary that she seemed the best repository of all. Also,this was _her_ particular adventure, and what risk there was belongedproperly to her. But beyond this they knew nothing, and they didn'twant to know. In the immediate future, just before the gateway ofTo-morrow's dawn, a great gap lay waiting, a gap they had discoveredalone of all the world. The scientists had made a mistake, theGovernment had been afraid to deal with it, the rest of the world layin ignorance of its very existence even. It satisfied all theconditions of real adventure, since it was unique, impossible, and hadnever happened to any one before. They, with Uncle Felix, haddiscovered it. It belonged to them entirely--the most marvellous secretthat anybody could possibly imagine. Maria, they took for granted,would share it with them. A hole in Time lay waiting to receive them. A_Day Will Come_ at last was actually coming.

  "We'd better pack up," said Judy after tea. She said it calmly, but thevoice had a whisper of intense expectancy in it.

  "Pack up nothing," Uncle Felix reproved her quickly. "The importantthing is--don't wind up. Just go on as usual. It will be best," headded significantly, "if you all hand over your timepieces to me atonce." And, without a word, they recognised his wisdom and put theirtreasures into his waistcoat pockets--watches of silver, tin, andgunmetal. His use of the strange word "timepieces" was convincing. Theunusual was in the air.

  "There's Thompson's and Jackman's and Mrs. Horton's," Judy remindedhim, her eyes shining like polished door-knobs.

  "Too wrong to matter," decided Uncle Felix. "They're always slow orfast."

  "Then there's the kitchen clock," Tim mentioned; "the grandfatherthing."

  Uncle Felix reflected a moment. His reply was satisfactory andconclusive:

  "I'll go down to-night," he explained in a low voice, "when theservants are in bed. I'll take the weights off."

  Judy and Tim appreciated the seriousness of the occasion more than ever.

  "Into Mrs. Horton's kitchen?" they whispered.

  "Into Mrs. Horton's kitchen," he agreed, beneath his breath.

  Maria, meanwhile, said nothing. Her eyes kept open very wide, but noaudible remark got past her lips. She paid no attention to the singingnor to the whispered conversation; she ate an enormous tea, finishingup all the cakes that the others neglected in their excitement andpreoccupation; but she appeared as calm and unconcerned as the tea-cosythat concealed the heated, stimulating teapot beneath it. She lookedmore circular and globular than ever. Even the knowledge that this wasthe eve of her own particular adventure did not rouse her. Herexpression seemed to say, "I never _have_ believed in Time; at thecentre where _I_ live, clocks and calendars are not recognised"; andlater, when Judy blew the candle out and asked as usual, "Are you allright, Maria?" her reply came floating across the darkened room withoutthe smallest alteration in tone or accent: "I'm alright." The stoppedalarum-clock was underneath her pillow; Uncle Felix had tucked them up,each in turn; everything was all right. She fell asleep, the othersfell asleep, Time also fell asleep.

  And above the Old Mill House that warm June night the darkness kept thesecret faithfully, yet offered little signs and hints to those who didnot sleep too heavily. The feeling that something or somebody wascoming hung in the very air; there was a gentle haze beneath the stars;and a breeze that passed softly through the lime trees droppedsemi-articulate warnings. There were curious, faint echoes flyingbetween the walls and the Wood without a Centre; the daisies heard themand opened half an eyelid; the Night-Wind whispered and sighed as itbore them to and fro. Maria's question entered the dream of the entiregarden: "Why not? Why not? Why not?"

  An owl in the barn beyond the stables heard the call and took it up,and told it to some swallows fast asleep below the eaves, who woke withsudden chattering and mentioned it to a robin in the laurel shrubberiesbelow. The robin pretended not to be at all surprised, but felt it aduty to inform a coot who lived a quarter of a mile away among thereeds of the lower pond. When it returned from its five-minute flight,the swallows had gone to sleep again, and only the owl went on hootingsoftly through the summer darkness. "It really needn't go on so longabout it," thought the robin, then fell asleep again with its headbetween exactly the same feathers as before. But the news had beendistributed; the garden was aware; the birds, as natural guardians ofthe dawn, had delivered the message as their duty was. "Why not? Whynot?" hummed all night long through the dreams of the Mill Housegarden. Weeden turned in his sleep and sighed with happiness.

  Nothing could now prevent it; a day was coming at last, an extra,unused, unrecorded day. The immemorial expectancy of childhood, theuniversal anticipation, the promise
that something or somebody wascoming--all this would be fulfilled. This promise is really but theprelude to creation. God felt it before the world appeared. Andchildren have stolen it from heaven. Conceived of wonder, born of hope,and realised by belief, it is the prerogative of all properly-beatinghearts. Everything living feels it, and--everything lives. The Postman;the Figure coming down the road; the Visitor on the pathway; the Knockupon the door; even the Stranger in the teacup--all are embodiments ofthis exquisite scrap of heaven, divine expectancy. It may be Christmas,it may be only To-morrow, but equally it may be the End of the World.Something is coming--into the heart--something satisfying. It is theeternal beginning. It is the--dawn.

  Long after the children had retired to bed Uncle Felix sat up alone inthe big house thinking. He made himself cosy in the library, meaning tofinish a chapter of the historical novel he had sadly neglected thesepast days, and he set himself to the work with a will. But, try as hewould, the story would not run; he fixed his mind upon the scene invain; he concentrated hard, visualised the place and characters as hishabit was, reconstructed the incidents and conversation exactly asthough he had seen them happen and remembered them--but the imaginationthat should have given them life failed to operate. It became a mereeffort of invention. The characters would not talk of their own accord;the incidents did not flow in a stream as when he worked successfully;life was not in them. He began again, wrote and rewrote, but failed toseize the atmosphere of reality that alone could make them interesting.Interest--he suddenly realised it--had vanished. He felt no interest inthe stupid chapter. He tore it up--and knew it was the right thing todo, because he heard the characters laughing.

  "I'm not in the mood," he reflected. "It's artificial. William Smith ofPeckham would skip this chapter. There's something bigger in me. Iwonder...!"

  He lit his pipe and sat by the open window, watching the stars andsniffing the scented summer night. He let his thoughts go wandering asthey would, and the moment he relaxed attention a sense of pleasantrelief stole over him. He discovered how great the effort had been. Healso discovered the reason. It offered itself in a flash to his mindthat was no longer blocked by the effort and therefore unreceptive.

  "A man can't live adventure and write it too," he, realised sharply."He writes what he would like to live. I'm living adventure. The desireto live it vicariously by writing it has left me. Of course!"

  It was a sweet and rich discovery--that the adventures of the last tendays had been so real and meant so much to him. No man of action,leading a deep, full life of actual experience, felt the need ofscribbling, painting, fiddling. "Glorious, by Jove!" he exclaimedbetween great puffs of smoke. "I've struck a fact!" He had been sobusily creating these last days that he had lost the yearning todescribe merely what others did. The children had caught him body andsoul in their eternal world of wonder and belief. Judy and Tim hadtaught him this.

  Yet, somehow, it was the inactive, calm Maria who loomed up in histhoughts as the principal enchantress. Maria's apparent inactivity wasa blind; she did not do very much in the sense of rushinghelter-skelter after desirable things, but she obtained themnevertheless. She got in their way so that they ran into her--then sheclaimed them. She knew beforehand, as it were, the way they would take.She was always there when anything worth happening was about. Andthough she spoke so little--during a general conversation, forinstance--she said so much. At the end of all the talk, it was alwaysMaria who had said the important thing. Her "why" and "why not" thatvery afternoon were all that he remembered of the intricate and longdiscussion. It left the odd impression on his mind that talk, all theworld over, said one thing only; that the millions of talkers on theteeming earth, eagerly chattering in many languages, said one and thesame thing only. There _was_ only one thing to be said.

  That is--they were all trying to say it. Maria _had_ said it....

  A whirring moth flew busily past the open window and vanished into thenight. He thought of his own books; for writers, painters, preachers,musicians, these were trying to say it too. "If I could describe thatmoth exactly," he murmured to himself, "give the sensation of itsflight, its unconscious attraction to the light, its plunge back intothe darkness, its precise purpose in the universe, its marvellous aimand balance--its life, I could--er--"

  The thought broke off with a jagged end. With a leap then it went onagain:

  "Touch reality," and he heard his own voice saying it. He had utteredit aloud. The sound had an odd effect upon him. He realised theuselessness of words. No words touched reality. To be known, realityhad to be lived, experienced. Maria managed this in some extraordinaryway. She had reality.... Time did not humbug her. Nor did space....Goodness!

  The moth whirred into the room, softly banging itself against theceiling, and through the smoke from his pipe he saw that a dozen morewere doing the same thing with tireless energy. They felt or saw thelight; all obeyed the one driving desire to get closer into it. He sawmillions and millions of people, the whole world over, rushing about ontwo legs and behaving similarly. How they did run about and fuss, to besure! What was it all about? What were they after? People had to earntheir living, of course, but it seemed more than that, for all wereafter something, and the faster they went the better pleased they were.Apparently they thought speed was of chief importance--as though speedkilled Time. They banged themselves into obstacles everywhere; theyscreamed and disagreed, and accused each other of lying and beingblind, but the thing they were after either hid itself remarkably well,or went at incredible speed, for no one ever came up with it or foundit. Time invariably blocked them. Only one or two--Maria sort ofpeople--sat still and waited....

  He watched them all and wondered. One rushed up to an office in atrain, while another built the train he rushed in; one wore black andpreached a sermon, another wore blue and guarded a street, a third worered and killed, a fourth wore very little and danced; all in the endwere nothing and--disappeared. Some lived in a room and read hundredsof books; another wrote them; one spent his days examining the starsthrough a telescope, another hurried off to find the Poles; hundredswere digging into the ground, ferreting in the air or under the water.A large number fed animals, then killed and cooked them when they hadbeen fed enough. Hens laid eggs and eggs produced hens that laid moreeggs. There were always thousands hurrying along the roads, then comingback again. The millions of living beings were everywhere extremelybusy after something, yet hardly any two of them agreed exactly what itwas they sought. There were sects, societies, religions by the score,each one cocksure it knew and had found Reality, yet proving by thecontinuous busy searching that it had not found it. Yet all, oddlyenough, fitted in together fairly well, as in a gigantic Dance, thoughobviously none knew exactly what the tune was, nor who played it. Wouldthey never know? Would all die before they found it? Were they allafter the same thing, or after a lot of different things? And why, inthe name of goodness, couldn't they all agree about it? Wasn't it,perhaps, that they looked in different ways--all for the same thing?Surely the world had existed long enough for _that_ to be settledfinally--Reality! Time prevented always....

  A moth fell with a soft and disconcerting plop upon the top of hishead, cannonaded thence against the window-sill, and shot out into thenight again. He came back with a start to _his_ reality: that he hadpromised the children an Extra Day, that for twenty-four hours, inspite of the paradox, Time should cease its driving hurry--and that,for the moment at any rate, he was very sleepy and must go upstairs tobed.

  He rose, shook himself free of the curious reverie with a mighty yawn,and looked at the gold watch from his waistcoat pocket. Out came anumber of other timepieces with it! And it was then that thepersonality of Maria entered the room, and stood beside him, and saiddistinctly, "This is _my_ particular adventure, please remember."

  And he understood that whatever happened, it would happen according tothe gospel of Maria. Getting behind Time meant getting a little nearerto Reality, one stage nearer at any rate. It meant entering the regionwhere she dw
elt so serenely. It was her doing, and not his. He realisedin a flash that in her quiet way she was responsible and had drawn themin, seduced them. All gravitated to her and into her mysterious circle.Maria claimed them. It was certainly her particular adventure. Only shewould share it with them all.