And, when I visited the garden we had known together, the shady path beneath the larches; saw, indeed, the very chairs that she and I had used, the framed portrait in the morning-room, the harp itself, now set with its limp and broken strings in my own chamber — I was unaware of any ghostly thrill; least of all could I feel that “somebody was pleased.”
Excursion farther afield deepened the disenchantment. The gorse was out upon the Common, that Common where we played as boys, thinking it vast and wonderful with the promise of high adventure behind every prickly clump. The vastness, of course, was gone, but the power of suggestion had gone likewise. It was merely a Common that deserved its name. For though this was but the close of May, I found it worn into threadbare patches, with edges unravelled like those of some old carpet in a seaside lodging-house. The lanes that fed it were already thick with dust as in thirsty August, and instead of eglantine, wild-roses, and the rest, a smell of petrol hung upon hedges that were quite lustreless. On the crest of the hill, whence we once thought the view included heaven, I stood by those beaten pines we named The Fort, counting jagged bits of glass and scraps of faded newspaper that marred the bright green of the sprouting bracken.
This glorious spot, once sacred to our dreams, was like a great backyard — the Backyard of the County — while the view we loved as the birthplace of all possible adventure, seemed to me now without spaciousness or distinction. The trees and hedges cramped the little fields and broke their rhythm. No great winds ever swept them clean. The landscape was confused: there was no adventure in it, suggestion least of all. Everything had already happened there.
And on my way home, resentful perhaps yet eager still, I did a dreadful thing. Possibly I hoped still for that divine sensation which refused to come. I visited the very field, the very poplar ... I found the scene quite unchanged, but found it also — lifeless. The glamour of association did not operate. I knew no poignancy, desire lay inert. The thrill held stubbornly aloof. No link was strengthened.... I came home slowly, thinking instead of my mother’s plans and wishes for me, and of the clear intention to incorporate me in the stolid and conventional formulas of what appeared to me as uninspired English dullness. My disappointment crystallized into something like revolt. A faint hostility even rose in me as we sat together, talking of politics, of the London news just come to hand, of the neighbours, of the weather too. I was conscious of opposition to her stereotyped plans, and of resentment towards the lack of understanding in her. I would shake free and follow beauty. The yearning, for want of sympathy, and the hunger, for lack of sustenance, grew very strong and urgent in me.
I longed passionately just then for beauty — and for that revelation of it which included somewhere the personal emotion of a strangely eager love.
CHAPTER VIII
THIS, then, was somewhat my state of mind, when, after our late tea on the verandah, I strolled out on to the lawn to enjoy my pipe in the quiet of the garden paths. I felt dissatisfied and disappointed, yet knew not entirely perhaps, the reason. I wished to be alone, but was hungry for companionship as well. Mother saw me go and watched attentively, but said no word, merely following me a moment with her eyes above the edge of the Times she read, as of old, during the hours between tea and dinner. The Spectator, her worldly Bible, lay ready to her hand when the Times should have been finished. They were, respectively, as always, her dictionary of opinion, and her medicine-chest. Before I had gone a dozen yards, her head disappeared behind the printed sheet again. The roses flowed between us.
I felt her following glance, as I felt also its withdrawal. Then I forgot her.... A touch of melancholy stole on me, as the garden took me in its charge. For a garden is a ghostly place, and an old-world garden, above all, leads thought backwards among vanished memories rather than forward among constructive hopes and joys.
I yielded, in any case, a little to this subtle pressure from the past, and I must have strolled among the lilac and laburnums for a longer time than I knew, since the gardener who had been trimming the flower-beds with a hand lawn-mower was gone, and dusk already veiled the cedars, when I found myself leaning against the wooden gate that opened into the less formal part beyond the larches.
The house was not visible from where I stood. I smelt the May, the lilac, the heavy perfume everywhere of the opening year; it rose about me in waves, as though full-bosomed summer lay breathing her great promises close at hand, while spring, still lingering, with bright eyes of dew,’ watched over her. Then, suddenly, behind these richer scents, I caught a sweeter, wilder tang than anything they contained, and turning, saw that the pines were closer than I knew. A waft of something purer, fresher, reached my nostrils on a little noiseless wind, as, leaning across the gate, I turned my back upon the cultivated grounds and gazed into a region of more natural, tangled growth.
The change was sudden. It was exquisite, sharp and unexpected, too, as with a little touch of wonder. There was surprise in it. For the garden, you will remember, melts here insensibly into a stretch of scattered pines, where heather and bracken cover wide reaches of unreclaimed and useless land. Irregular trails of whitish sand gleamed faintly before the shadows swallowed them, and in the open patches I saw young silver-birches that made me think of running children arrested in mid-play. They stood outlined very tenderly against the sky; their slender forms still quivered; their feathery hair fell earthwards as they drew themselves together, bending their wayward little heads before the approaching night. Behind them, framed by the darker pines into a glowing frieze, the west still burned with the last fires of the sunset; I could see the heather, rising and falling like a tumbled sea against the horizon, where the dim heave of distant moorland broke the afterglow.
And the dusk now held this region in its magic. So strange, indeed, was the contrast between the ebony shadows and the pools and streaks of amberish light, that I looked about me for a moment, almost sharply. There was a touch of the unearthly in this loveliness that bewildered sight a little. Extraordinarily still the world was, yet there seemed activity close upon my footsteps, an activity more than of inanimate Nature, yet less than of human beings. With solidarity it had nothing to do, though it sought material expression. It was very near. And I was startled, I recognized the narrow frontier between fear and wonder. And then I crossed it.
For something stopped me dead. I paused and stared. My heart began to beat more rapidly. Then, ashamed of my moment’s hesitation, I was about to move forward through the gate, when again I halted. I listened, and caught my breath. I fancied the stillness became articulate, the shadows stirred, the silence was about to break.
I remember trying to think; I wanted to relieve the singular tension by finding words, if only inner words, — when, out of the stillness, out of the silence, out of the shadows — something happened. Some faculty of judgment, some attitude in which I normally clothed myself, were abruptly stripped away. I was left bare and sensitive. I could almost have believed that my body had dropped aside, that I stood there naked, unprotected, a form-less spirit, stirred and lifted by the passing breeze.
And then it came. As with a sword-thrust of blinding sweetness, I was laid open. Yet so instant, and of such swiftness, was the stroke, that I can only describe it by saying that, while pierced and wounded, I was also healed again.
Without hint or warning, Beauty swept me with a pain and happiness well nigh intolerable. It drenched me and was gone. No lightning flash could have equalled the swiftness of its amazing passage; something tore in me; the emotion was enveloping but very tender; it was both terrible yet dear. Would to God I might crystallize it for you in those few mighty words which should waken in yourself — in every one! — the wonder and the joy. It contained, I felt, both the worship that belongs to awe and the tenderness of infinite love which welcomes tears. Some power that was not of this world, yet that used the details of this world to manifest, had visited me.
No element of surprise lay in it even. It was too swift for anything but joy,
which of all emotions is the most instantaneous: I had been empty, I was filled. Beauty that bathes the stars and drowns the very universe had stolen out of this wild morsel of wasted and uncared-for English garden, and dropped its transforming magic into — me. At the very moment, moreover, when I had been ready to deny it altogether. I saw my insignificance, yet, such was the splendour it had wakened in me, knew my right as well. It could be ever thus; some attitude in myself alone prevented....
And — somebody was pleased.
This personal ingredient lay secure in the joy that assuredly remained when the first brief intolerable ecstasy had passed. The link I desired to recognize was proved, not merely strengthened. Beauty had cleft me open, and a message, if you will, had been delivered. This personal hint persisted; I was almost aware of conscious and intelligent direction. For to you I will make the incredible confession, that I dare phrase the experience in another fashion, equally true: In that flashing instant I stood naked and shelterless to the gaze of some one who had looked upon me. I was aware of sight; of eyes in which “burning memory lights love home.” These eyes, this sight had gazed at me, then turned away. For in that blinding sweetness there was light, as with the immediate withdrawal again there was instant darkness. I was first visible, then concealed. I was clothed again and covered.
And the thick darkness that followed made it appear as though night, in one brief second, had taken the place of dusk.
Trembling, I leaned across the wooden gate and waited while the darkness settled closer. I can swear, moreover, that it was neither dream, nor hope, nor any hungry fantasy in me that then recognized a further marvel — I was no longer now alone.
A presence faced me, standing breast-high in the bracken. The garden had been empty; somebody now walked there with me.
It was, as I mentioned, the still hour between the twilight and the long, cool dark of early summer. The little breeze passed whispering through the pines. I smelt the pungent perfume of dry heather, sand, and bracken. The horizon, low down between the trunks, shone gold and crimson still, but fading rapidly. I stood there for a long time trembling; I was a part of it; I felt that I was shining, as though my inner joy irradiated the world about me. Nothing in all my life has been so real, so positive. I was assuredly not alone....
The first sharp magic, the flash that pierced and burned, had gone its way, but Beauty still stood so perilously near, so personal, that any moment, I felt, it must take tangible form, betray itself in visible movement of some sort, break possibly into audible sound of actual speech. It would not have surprised me — more, it would have been natural almost — had I felt a touch upon my hands and lips, or caught the murmur of spoken words against my ear.
Yet from such direct revelation I shrank involuntarily and by instinct. I could not have borne it then. I had the feeling that it must mar and defile a wonder already great enough; there would have lain in it, too, a betrayal of the commonplace, as of something which I could not possibly hold for true. I must have distrusted my own senses even, for the beauty that cleft me open dealt directly with the soul alone, leaving the senses wholly disengaged. The Presence was not answerable to any lesser recognition.
Thus I shrank and turned away, facing the familiar garden and the “wet bird-haunted English lawn,” a spiritual tenderness in me still dreading that I might see or hear or feel, destroying thus the reality of my experience. Yet there was, thank God, no speech, no touch, no movement, other than the shiver of the birches, the breath of air against my cheek, the droop and bending of the nearer pine boughs. There was no audible or visible expression; I saw no figure breast-high in the bracken. Yet sound there was, a moment later. For, as I turned away, a bird upon a larch twig overhead burst into sudden and exultant song.
CHAPTER IX
NOW, do not be alarmed lest I shall attempt to describe a list of fanciful unrealities that borrowed life from a passing emotion merely; the emotion was permanent, the results enduring. Please believe the honest statement that, with the singing of that bird, the pent-up stress in me became measurably articulate. Some bird in my heart, long caged, rang out in answering inner song.
It is also true, I think, that there were no words in me at the moment, and certainly no desire for speech. Had a companion been with me, I should probably have merely lit my pipe and smoked in silence; if I spoke at all, I should have made some commonplace remark: “It’s late; we must be going in to dress for dinner....” As it was, however, the emotion in me, answering the singing of the bird, became, as I said, measurably articulate. I give you simple facts, as though this were my monthly Report to the Foreign Office in days gone by. I spoke no word aloud, of course. It was rather that my feelings found utterance in the rapturous song I listened to, and that my thoughts knew this relief of vicarious expression, though of inner and inaudible expression. The beauty of scene and moment were adequately recorded, and for ever in that song. They were now part of me.
Unaware of its perfect mission the bird sang, of course because it could not help itself; perhaps some mating thrush, perhaps a common blackbird only; I cannot say; I only realized that no human voice, no human music, even of the most elaborate and inspired kind, could have made this beauty, similarly articulate. And, for a moment I knew my former pain that I could not share this joy, this beauty, with others of my kind, that, except for myself, the loveliness seemed lost and wasted. There was no spectator, no other listener; the sweet spring night was lavish for no audience; the revelation had been repeated, would be repeated, a thousand thousand times without recognition and without reward.
Then, as I listened, memory, it seemed, took yearning by the hand, and led me towards that inner utterance I have mentioned. There was no voice, least of all that inner voice you surely have anticipated. But there was utterance, as though my whole being combined with nature in its birth.
Into the mould of familiar sentences of long ago it ran, yet nearer at last to full disclosure, because the pregnant sentences had altered:
“I need your forgiveness born of love...” passed through me with the singing of the bird.
I listened with the closest inner attention I have ever known. I paused. My heart brimmed with an expectant wonder that was happiness. And the happiness was justified. For the familiar sentence halted before its first sorrowful completion; the poignant close remained unuttered — because it was no longer true.
Out of deep love in me, new-born, that held the promise of fulfilment, the utterance concluded:
“... I have found a better way....”
Before I could think or question, and almost as though a whisper of the wind went past, there rose in me at once this answering recognition. It seemed authentically convincing; it was glorious; it was full of joy:
“That beauty which was Marion lives on, and lives for me.”
It was as though a blaze of light shone through me; somewhere in my body there were tears of welcome; for this recognition was to me reunion.
It must seem astonishing for me, a mere soldier and Colonial Governor, to confess you that I stood there listening to the song for a long interval of what I can only term, with utmost sincerity, communion. Beauty and love both visited me; I believe that truth and wisdom entered softly with them. As I wrote above, I saw my own insignificance, yet, such was the splendour in me, I knew my right as well. It could be ever thus. My attitude alone prevented. I was not excluded, not cut off. This Beauty lay ready to my hand, always available, for ever, now. It was not unharvested. But more — it could be shared with others; it was become a portion of myself, and that which is part of my being must, inevitably and automatically, be given out.
It was, thus, nowhere wasted or unharvested; it offered with prodigal opportunity a vehicle for that inspiration which is love, and being love of purest kind, is surely wisdom too. The dead, indeed, do not return, yet they are active, and those who lived beauty in their lives are still, through that beauty, benevolently active.
I will give you now the c
hange instantaneously produced in me:
There rose in me another, deeper point of view that dispelled as by magic the disenchantment that had chilled these first days of my return. I stood here in this old-world garden, but I stood also in the heart of that beauty, so carefully hidden, so craftily screened behind the obvious, that strong and virile beauty which is England. Within call of my voice, still studying by lamplight now the symbols of her well-established strength, burning, moreover, with the steady faith which does not easily break across restraint, and loving the man as she had loved the little boy, sat one, not wondering perhaps at my unspoken misunderstanding, yet hoping, patiently and in silence, for its removal in due time. In the house of our boyhood, of our earliest play and quarrels, unchanged and unchangeable, knowing simply that I had “come home again to her,” our mother waited....
I need not elaborate this for you, you for whom England and our mother win almost a single, undivided love. I had misjudged, but the cause of my misjudgment was thus suddenly removed. A subtler understanding insight, a sympathy born of deeper love, something of greater wisdom, in a word, awoke in me. The thrill had worked its magic as of old, but this time in its slower English fashion, deep, and characteristically sure. To my country (that is, to my first experience of impersonal love) and to my mother (that is, to my earliest acquaintance with personal love) I had been ready, in my impatience, to credit an injustice. Unknown to me, thus, there had been need of guidance, of assistance. Beauty, having cleared the way, had worked upon me its amazing alchemy.
There, in fewest possible words, is what had happened.
Collected Works of Algernon Blackwood Page 220