But the line of light along the eastern horizon had been swiftly growing broader meanwhile. It was brightening into delicate crimson. Already the room was clearer, and the radiance of their bodies fading into a paler glory. Jane Anne grew clumsier, tumbling over things, and butting against her more agile sister. Her thoughts became more muddled. She said things from time to time that showed it — hints that waking was not far away.
‘Daddy’s a wumbled Laplander, you know, after all. Hurry up!’ The foolish daylight speech came closer.
‘Give his ink-pot one more blow,’ cried Monkey. Her body always slept at least an hour longer than the others. She had more time for work.
Jane Anne bumped into the washhand-stand. She no longer saw quite clearly.
‘I’m a plenipotentiary, that’s what I am. I’m afraid of nothing. But the porridge has to be made. I must get back….’
She vanished like a flash, just as her brother had vanished half an hour before.
‘We’ll go on with it to-morrow night,’ signalled Cousin Henry to his last remaining helper. ‘Meet me here, remember, when…the moon…is high enough to…cast…a…shadow….’
The opening and shutting of a door sounded through his sleep. He turned over heavily. Surely it was not time to get up yet. That could not be hot water coming! He had only just fallen asleep. He plunged back again into slumber.
But Monkey had disappeared.
‘What a spanking dream I’ve had…!’ Her eyes opened, and she saw her school-books on the chair beside the bed. Mother was gently shaking her out of sleep. ‘Six o’clock, darling. The bath is ready, and Jinny’s nearly got the porridge done. It’s a lovely morning!’
‘Oh, Mummy, I — —’
But Mummy lifted her bodily out of bed, kissed her sleepy eyes awake, and half carried her over to the bath. ‘You can tell me all about that later,’ she said with practical decision; ‘when the cold water’s cleared your head. You’re always fuzzy when you wake.’
Another day had begun. The sun was blazing high above the Blumlisalp. The birds sang in chorus. Dew shone still on the fields, but the men were already busy in the vineyards.
And presently Cousin Henry woke too and stared lazily about his room.
He looked at his watch.
‘By Jove,’ he murmured. ‘How one does sleep in this place! And what a dream to be sure — I who never dream!’
He remembered nothing more. From the moment he closed his eyes, eight hours before, until this second, all was a delicious blank. He felt refreshed and wondrously light-hearted, at peace with all the world. There was music in his head. He began to whistle as he lay among the blankets for half an hour longer. And later, while he breakfasted alone downstairs, he remembered that he ought to write to Minks. He owed Minks a letter. And before going out into the woods he wrote it. ‘I’m staying on a bit,’ he mentioned at the end. ‘I find so much to do here, and it’s such a rest. Meanwhile I can leave everything safely in your hands. But as soon as I get a leisure moment I’ll send you the promised draft of my Scheme for Disabled, etc., etc.’
But the Scheme got no further somehow. New objections, for one thing, kept cropping up in his mind. It would take so long to build the place, and find the site, satisfy County Councils, and all the rest. The Disabled, moreover, were everywhere; it was invidious to select one group and leave the others out. Help the world, yes — but what was ‘the world’? There were so many worlds. He touched a new one every day and every hour. Which needed his help most? Bourcelles was quite as important, quite as big and hungry as any of the others. ‘That old Vicar knew a thing or two,’ he reflected later in the forest, while he gathered a bunch of hepaticas and anemones to take to Mlle. Lemaire. ‘There are “neighbours” everywhere, the world’s simply chock full of ‘em. But what a pity that we die just when we’re getting fit and ready to begin. Perhaps we go on afterwards, though. I wonder…!’
CHAPTER XVII
The stars ran loose about the sky,
Wasting their beauty recklessly,
Singing and dancing,
Shooting and prancing,
Until the Pole Star took command,
Changing each wild, disordered band
Into a lamp to guide the land —
A constellation.
And so, about my mind and yours,
Thought dances, shoots, and wastes its powers,
Coming and going,
Aimlessly flowing,
Until the Pole Star of the Will
Captains them wisely, strong, and still,
Some dream for others to fulfil
With consecration.
Selected Poems, Montmorency Minke.
There was a certain air of unreality somewhere in the life at Bourcelles that ministered to fantasy. Rogers had felt it steal over him from the beginning. It was like watching a children’s play in which the scenes were laid alternately in the Den, the Pension, and the Forest. Side by side with the grim stern facts of existence ran the coloured spell of fairy make-believe. It was the way they mingled, perhaps, that ministered to this spirit of fantasy.
There were several heroines for instance — Tante Jeanne, Mademoiselle Lemaire, and Mother; each played her role quite admirably. There were the worthy sterling men who did their duty dumbly, regardless of consequences — Daddy, the Postmaster, and the picturesque old clergyman with failing powers. There was the dark, uncertain male character, who might be villain, yet who might prove extra hero — the strutting postman of baronial ancestry; there was the role of quaint pathetic humour Miss Waghorn so excellently filled, and there were the honest rough-and-tumble comedians — half mischievous, half malicious — the retired governesses. Behind them all, brought on chiefly in scenes of dusk and moonlight, were the Forest Elves who, led by Puck, were responsible for the temporary confusion that threatened disaster, yet was bound to have a happy ending — the children. It was all a children’s play set in the lovely scenery of mountain, forest, lake, and old-world garden.
Numerous other characters also flitted in and out. There was the cat, the bird, the donkey as in pantomime; goblin caves and haunted valleys and talking flowers; and the queer shadowy folk who came to the Pension in the summer months, then vanished into space again. Links with the outside world were by no means lacking. As in the theatre, one caught now and again the rumble of street traffic and the roar of everyday concerns. But these fell in by chance during quiet intervals, and served to heighten contrast only.
And so many of the principal roles were almost obviously assumed, interchangeable almost; any day the players might drop their wigs, rub off the paint, and appear otherwise, as they were in private life. The Widow Jequier’s husband, for instance, had been a pasteur who had gone later into the business of a wine-merchant. She herself was not really the keeper of a Pension for Jeune Filles, but had drifted into it owing to her husband’s disastrous descent from pulpit into cellar — understudy for some one who had forgotten to come on. The Postmaster, too, had originally been a photographer, whose funereal aspect had sealed his failure in that line. His customers could never smile and look pleasant. The postman, again, was a baron in disguise — in private life he had a castle and retainers; and even Gygi, the gendarme, was a make-believe official who behind the scenes was a vigneron and farmer in a very humble way. Daddy, too, seemed sometimes but a tinsel author dressed up for the occasion, and absurdly busy over books that no one ever saw on railway bookstalls. While Mademoiselle Lemaire was not in fact and verity a suffering, patient, bed-ridden lady, but a princess who escaped from her disguise at night into glory and great beneficent splendour.
Mother alone was more real than the other players. There was no make- believe about Mother. She thundered across the stage and stood before the footlights, interrupting many a performance with her stubborn common-sense and her grip upon difficult grave issues. ‘This performance will finish at such and such an hour,’ was her cry. ‘Get your wraps ready. It will be cold when you go out. And s
ee that you have money handy for your ‘bus fares home!’ Yes, Mother was real. She knew some facts of life at least. She knitted the children’s stockings and did the family mending.
Yet Rogers felt, even with her, that she was merely waiting. She knew the cast was not complete as yet. She waited. They all waited — for some one. These were rehearsals; Rogers himself had dropped in also merely as an understudy. Another role was vacant, and it was the principal role. There was no one in the company who could play it, none who could understudy it even. Neither Rogers nor Daddy could learn the lines or do the ‘business.’ The part was a very important one, calling for a touch of genius to be filled adequately. And it was a feminine role. For here was a Fairy Play without a Fairy Queen. There was not even a Fairy Princess!
This idea of a representation, all prepared specially for himself, induced a very happy state of mind; he felt restful, calm, at peace with all the world. He had only to sit in his stall and enjoy. But it brought, too, this sense of delicate bewilderment that was continually propounding questions to which he found no immediate answer. With the rest of the village, he stood still while Time flowed past him. Later, with Minks, he would run after it and catch it up again. Minks would pick out the lost clues. Minks stood on the banks — in London — noting the questions floating by and landing them sometimes with a rod and net. His master would deal with them by and by; but just now he could well afford to wait and enjoy himself. It was a holiday; there was no hurry; Minks held the fort meanwhile and sent in reports at intervals.
And the sweet spring weather continued; days were bright and warm; the nights were thick with stars. Rogers postponed departure on the flimsiest reasons. It was no easy thing to leave Bourcelles. ‘Next week the muguet will be over in the vallon vert. We must pick it quickly together for Tante Anna.’ Jinny brought every spring flower to Mademoiselle Lemaire in this way the moment they appeared. Her room was a record of their sequence from week to week. And Jimbo knew exactly where to find them first; his mind was a time-table of flowers as well as of trains, dates of arrival, and stations where they grew. He knew it all exaccurately. This kind of fact with him was never wumbled. ‘Soon the sabot de Venus will be in flower at the Creux du Van, but it takes time to find it. It’s most awfully rare, you see. You’ll have to climb beyond the fontaine froide. That’s past the Ferme Robert, between Champ du Moulin and Noiraigue. The snow ought to be gone by now. We’ll go and hunt for it. I’ll take you in — oh, in about deux semaines — comme ca.’ Alone, those dangerous cliffs were out of bounds for him, but if he went with Cousinenry, permission could not be refused. Jimbo knew what he was about. And he took for granted that his employer would never leave Bourcelles again. ‘Thursday and Saturday would be the best days,’ he added. They were his half- holidays, but he did not say so. Secretaries, he knew, did not have half-holidays comme ca. ‘Je suis son vrai secretaire,’ he had told Mademoiselle Lemaire, who had confirmed it with a grave mais oui. No one but Mother heard the puzzled question one night when he was being tucked into bed; it was asked with just a hint of shame upon a very puckered little face— ‘But, Mummy, what really is a sekrity?’
And so Rogers, from day to day, stayed on, enjoying himself and resting. The City would have called it loafing, but in the City the schedule of values was a different one. Meanwhile the bewilderment he felt at first gradually disappeared. He no longer realised it, that is. While still outside, attacked by it, he had realised the soft entanglement. Now he was in it, caught utterly, a prisoner. He was no longer mere observer. He was part and parcel of it. ‘What does a few weeks matter out of a whole strenuous life?’ he argued. ‘It’s all to the good, this holiday. I’m storing up strength and energy for future use. My Scheme can wait a little. I’m thinking things out meanwhile.’
He often went into the forest alone to think his things out, and ‘things’ always meant his Scheme … but the more he thought about it the more distant and impracticable seemed that wondrous Scheme. He had the means, the love, the yearning, all in good condition, waiting to be put to practical account. In his mind, littered more and more now with details that Minks not infrequently sent in, this great Scheme by which he had meant to help the world ran into the confusion of new issues that were continually cropping up. Most of these were caused by the difficulty of knowing his money spent exactly as he wished, not wasted, no pound of it used for adornment, whether salaries, uniforms, fancy stationery, or unnecessary appearances, whatever they might be. Whichever way he faced it, and no matter how carefully thought out were the plans that Minks devised, these leakages cropped up and mocked him. Among a dozen propositions his original clear idea went lost, and floundered. It came perilously near to wumbling itself away altogether.
For one thing, there were rivals on the scene — his cousin’s family, the education of these growing children, the difficulties of the Widow Jequier, some kind of security he might ensure to old Miss Waghorn, the best expert medical attendance for Mademoiselle Lemaire … and his fortune was after all a small one as fortunes go. Only his simple scale of personal living could make these things possible at all. Yet here, at least, he would know that every penny went exaccurately where it was meant to go, and accomplished the precise purpose it was intended to accomplish.
And the more he thought about it, the more insistent grew the claims of little Bourcelles, and the more that portentous Scheme for Disabled Thingumabobs faded into dimness. The old Vicar’s words kept singing in his head: ‘The world is full of Neighbours. Bring them all back to Fairyland.’ He thought things out in his own way and at his leisure. He loved to wander alone among the mountains… thinking in this way. His thoughts turned to his cousin’s family, their expenses, their difficulties, the curious want of harmony somewhere. For the conditions in which the famille anglaise existed, he had soon discovered, were those of muddle pure and simple, yet of muddle on so large a scale that it was fascinating and even exhilarating. It must be lovely, he reflected, to live so carelessly. They drifted. Chance forces blew them hither and thither as gusts of wind blow autumn leaves. Five years in a place and then — a gust that blew them elsewhere. Thus they had lived five years in a London suburb, thinking it permanent; five years in a lonely Essex farm, certain they would never abandon country life; and five years, finally, in the Jura forests.
Neither parent, though each was estimable, worthy, and entirely of good repute, had the smallest faculty for seeing life whole; each studied closely a small fragment of it, the fragment limited by the Monday and the Saturday of next week, or, in moments of optimistic health, the fragment that lies between the first and thirty-first of a single month. Of what lay beyond, they talked; oh, yes, they talked voluminously and with detail that sounded impressive to a listener, but somehow in circles that carried them no further than the starting- point, or in spirals that rose higher with each sentence and finally lifted them bodily above the solid ground. It was merely talk — ineffective — yet the kind that makes one feel it has accomplished something and so brings the false security of carelessness again. Neither one nor other was head of the house. They took it in turns, each slipping by chance into that onerous position, supported but uncoveted by the other. Mother fed the children, mended everything, sent them to the dentist when their teeth ached badly, but never before as a preventative, and — trusted to luck.
‘Daddy,’ she would say in her slow gentle way, ‘I do wish we could be more practical sometimes. Life is such a business, isn’t it?’ And they would examine in detail the grain of the stable door now that the horse had escaped, then close it very carefully.
‘I really must keep books,’ he would answer, ‘so that we can see exactly how we stand,’ having discovered at the end of laborious calculation concerning the cost of the proposed Geneva schooling for Jinny that they had reckoned in shillings instead of francs. And then, with heads together, they selected for their eldest boy a profession utterly unsuited to his capacities, with coaching expenses far beyond their purses, and with t
he comforting consideration that ‘there’s a pension attached to it, you see, for when he’s old.’
Similarly, having planned minutely, and with personal sacrifice, to save five francs in one direction, they would spend that amount unnecessarily in another. They felt they had it to spend, as though it had been just earned and already jingled in their pockets. Daddy would announce he was walking into Neuchatel to buy tobacco. ‘Better take the tram,’ suggested Mother, ‘it’s going to rain. You save shoe leather, too,’ she added laughingly. ‘Will you be back to tea?’ He thought not; he would get a cup of tea in town. ‘May I come, too?’ from Jimbo. ‘Why not?’ thought Mother. ‘Take him with you, he’ll enjoy the trip.’ Monkey and Jane Ann, of course, went too. They all had tea in a shop, and bought chocolate into the bargain. The five francs melted into — nothing, for tea at home was included in their Pension terms. Saving is in the mind. There was no system in their life.
‘It would be jolly, yes, if you could earn a little something regular besides your work,’ agreed Mother, when he thought of learning a typewriter to copy his own books, and taking in work to copy for others too.
‘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.
Collected Works of Algernon Blackwood Page 104