“Mason, that is?”
The other nodded. “And adding that ‘le fou’ — —”
“LeVallon, of course?”
“ —— would eat me alive at sight. He spoke with respect, however, even awe. He hoped I had come to take him away. The countryside was afraid of him.
“The valley struck me as intolerably lonely, but of unusual beauty. Big forests, great rocks, and tumbling streams among cliffs and pastures made it exceptional. The châlet was simple, clean and comfortable. It was really an ideal spot for a thinker or a student. The first thing I noticed was a fire burning on a pile of rock in front of the building. The sun was setting, and its last rays lit the entire little glen — a mere gully between precipices and forest slopes — but especially lit up the pile of rocks where the fire burned, so that I saw the smoke, blue, red and yellow, and the figure kneeling before it. This figure was a man, half naked, and of magnificent proportions. When I shouted — —”
“You would shout, of course.” Yet he did not say it critically.
“ —— the figure rose and turned and came to meet me. It was LeVallon.”
Devonham paused a moment. Fillery’s eyes were fixed upon him.
“I admit,” Devonham went on, conscious of the other’s inquiring and intent expression, “I was surprised a bit.” He smiled his faint, unwilling smile. “The figure made me start. I was aware of an emotion I am not subject to — what I called just now the creeps. I thought, at last, I had really seen a — a vision. He looked so huge, so wonderful, so radiant. It was, of course, the effect of coloured smoke and magnifying sunset, added to his semi-nakedness. To the waist he was stripped. But, at first, his size, his splendour, a kind of radiance borrowed from the sunlight and the fire, seemed to enlarge him beyond human. He seemed to dominate, even to fill the little valley.
“I stood still, uncertain of my feelings. There was, I think, a trace of fear in me. I waited for him to come up to me. He did so. He stretched out a hand. I took it. And what do you think he said?”
Fillery, the inner excitement and delight increasing in him as he listened, stared in silence. There was no lightness in him now.
“‘Are you Fillery?’ That’s what he said, and the first words he uttered. ‘Are you Fillery?’ But spoken in a way I find difficult to reproduce. He made the name sound like a rush of wind. ‘F,’ of course, involves a draught of breath between the teeth, I know. But he made the name sound exactly like a gush of wind through branches — that’s the nearest I can get to it.”
“Well — and then?”
“Don’t be impatient, Edward. I try to be accurate. But really — what happened next is a bit beyond any experience that we — I — have yet come across. And, as to what I felt — well, I was tired, hungry, thirsty. I wanted, normally, rest and food and drink. Yet all these were utterly forgotten. For a moment or two — I admit it — I felt as if I had come face to face with something not of this earth quite.” He grinned. “A touch of gooseflesh came to me for the first time in my life. The fellow’s size and radiance in the sunlight, the fact that he stood there worshipping fire — always, to me, the most wonderful of natural phenomena — his grandeur and nakedness — the way he pronounced your name even — all this — er — upset my judgment for the moment.” He paused again. He hesitated. “A visual hallucination, due to fatigue, can be, of course, very detailed sometimes,” he added, a note of challenge in his tone.
Fillery watched his friend narrowly, as he stumbled among the details of what he evidently found a difficult, almost an impossible description.
“Natural enough,” he put in. “You’d hardly be human yourself if you felt nothing at such a sight.”
“The loneliness, too, increased the effect,” went on the other, “for there was no one nearer than the peasants who had directed me a thousand feet below, nor was there another building of any sort in sight. Anyhow, it seemed, I managed my strange emotions all right, for the young man took to me at once. He left the fire, if reluctantly, singing to himself a sort of low chanting melody, with perhaps five or six notes at most in it, and far from unmusical — —”
“He explained the fire? Was he actually worshipping, I mean?”
“It was certainly worship, judging by the expression of his face and his gestures of reverence and happiness. But I asked no questions. I thought it best just to accept, or appear to accept, the whole thing as natural. He said something about the Equinox, but I did not catch it properly and did not ask. This had evidently been taught him. It was, however, the 22nd of September, oddly enough, though the gales had not yet come.”
“So you got into the châlet next?” asked the other, noticing the gaps, the incoherence.
“He put his coat on, sat down with me to a meal of bread and milk and cheese — meat there seemed none in the building anywhere. This meal was, if you understand me, obeying a mere habit automatically. He did just what it had been his habit to do with Mason all these years. He got the stuff himself — quickly, effectively, no fumbling anywhere — and, from that moment, hardly spoke again until we left two days later. I mean that literally. All he said, when I tried to make him talk, was, ‘You are not Fillery,’ or ‘Take me to Fillery. I need him.’
“I almost felt that I was living with some marvellously trained animal, of extraordinary intelligence, gentle, docile, friendly, but unhappy because it had lost its accustomed master. But on the other hand — I admit it — I was conscious of a certain power in his personality beyond me to explain. That, really, is the best description I can give you.”
“You mentioned the name of Mason?” asked Fillery, avoiding a dozen more obvious and natural questions.
“Several times. But his only reply was a smile, while he repeated the name himself, adding your own after it: ‘Mason Fillery, Mason Fillery,’ he would say, smiling with quiet happiness. “I like Fillery!’”
“The nights?”
“Briefly — I was glad to see the dawn. We had separate rooms, my own being the one probably where Mason had died a few days before. But it was not that I minded in the least. It was the feeling — the knowledge in fact — that my companion was up and about all night in the building or out of doors. I heard him moving, singing quietly to himself, the wooden veranda creaked beneath his tread. He was active all through the darkness and cannot have slept at all. When I came down soon after dawn he was running over the slopes a mile away, running towards the châlet, too, with the speed and lightness of a deer. He had been to some height, I think, to see the sun rise and probably to worship it — —”
“And your journey? You got him away easily?”
“He was only too ready to leave, for it meant coming to you. I arranged with the peasants below to have the châlet closed up, took my charge to Neuchâtel, and thence to Berne, where I bought him an outfit, and arrived in due course, as you know, at Charing Cross.”
“His first sight of cities, people, trains, steamers and the rest, I take it. Any reactions?”
“The troubles I anticipated did not materialize. He came like a lamb, the most helpless and pathetic lamb I ever saw. He stared but asked no questions. I think he was half dazed, even stupefied with it all.”
“Stupefied?”
“An odd word to use, I know. I should have said perhaps ‘automatic’ rather. He was so open to my suggestions, doing what my mind expected him to do, but nothing more — ah! with one exception.”
Fillery meant to hear an account of that exception, though the other would willingly have foregone its telling evidently. It was related, Fillery felt sure, to the unusual powers Devonham had mentioned.
“Oh, you shall hear it,” said the latter quickly, “for what it’s worth. There’s no need to exaggerate, of course.” He told it rapidly, accurately, no doubt, because his mind was honest, yet without comment or expression in his voice and face. He supplied no atmosphere.
“I had got him like a lamb, as I told you, to Paris, and it was during the Customs examination the
— er — little thing occurred. The man, searching through his trunk, pulled out a packet of flat papers and opened it. He looked them over with puzzled interest, turning them upside down to examine them from every possible angle. Then he asked a trifle unpleasantly what they were. I hadn’t the smallest idea myself, I had never seen them before; they were very carefully wrapped up. LeVallon, whose sudden excitement increased the official’s interest, told him that they were star-and-weather maps. It doubtless was the truth; he had made them with Mason; but they were queer-looking papers to have at such a time, hidden away, too, at the bottom of the trunk; and LeVallon’s manner and expression did not help to disarm the man’s evident suspicion. He asked a number of pointed questions in a very disagreeable way — who made them, for what purpose, how they were used, and whether they were connected with aviation. I translated, of course. I explained their innocence — —”
“LeVallon’s excitement?” asked Fillery. “What form did it take? Rudeness, anger, violence of any sort?” He was aware his friend would have liked to shirk these details.
“Nothing of the kind.” He hesitated briefly, then went on. “He behaved, rather, as though — well, as a devout Catholic might have behaved if his crucifix or some holy relic were being mauled. The maps were sacred. Symbols possibly. Heaven knows what! He tried to take them back. The official, as a natural result, became still more suspicious and, of course, offensive too. My explanations and expostulations were quite useless, for he didn’t even listen to them.”
Devonham was now approaching the part of the story he least wished to describe. He played for time. He gave details of the ensuing altercation.
“What happened in the end?” Fillery at length interrupted. “What did LeVallon do? There were no arrests, I take it?” he added with a smile.
Paul coughed and fidgeted. He told the literal truth, however.
“LeVallon, after listening for a long time to the conversation he could not understand, suddenly took his fingers off the papers. The man’s dirty hand still held them tightly on the grimy counter. LeVallon began — or — he suddenly began to breathe — well — heavily rather.”
“Rhythmically?”
“Heavily,” insisted the other. “In a curious way, anyhow,” he added, determined to keep strictly to the truth, “not unlike Heathcote when he put himself automatically into trance and then told us what was going on at the other end of England. You remember the case.” He paused a moment again, as if to recall exactly what had occurred. “It’s not easy to describe, Edward,” he continued, looking up. “You remember that huge draughty hall where they examine luggage at the Lyons Station. I can’t explain it. But that breathing somehow caught the draughts, used them possibly, in any case increased them. A wind came through the great hall. I can’t explain it,” he repeated, “I can only tell you what happened. That wind most certainly came pouring steadily through, for I felt it myself, and saw it blow upon the fluttering papers. The heat in the salle at the same moment seemed to grow intense. Not an oppressive heat, though. Radiant heat, rather. It felt, I mean, like a fierce sunlight. I looked up, almost expecting to see a great light from which it came. It was then — at this very moment — the Frenchman turned as if someone touched him.”
“You felt anything, Paul?”
“Yes,” admitted the other slowly.
Fillery waited.
“A — what I must call — a thrill.” His voice was lower now.
“Of —— ?” his Chief persisted.
Devonham waited a full ten seconds before reply. He again shrugged his shoulders a little. Apparently he sought his words with honest care that included also intense reluctance and disapproval:
“Loveliness, romance, enchantment; but, above all, I think — power.” He ground out the confession slowly. “By power I mean a sort of confidence and happiness.”
“Increase of vitality, call it. Intensification of your consciousness.”
“Possibly. A bigger perspective suddenly, a bigger scale of life; something — er — a bit wild, but certainly — er — uncommonly stimulating. The best word, I think, is liberty, perhaps. An immense and careless sense of liberty.” And Fillery, knowing the value of superlatives in Devonham’s cautious mind, felt satisfied. He asked quietly what the official did next.
“Stood stock still at first. Then his face changed; he smiled; he looked up understandingly, sympathetically, at LeVallon. He spoke: ‘My father, too,’ he said with admiration, ‘had a big telescope. Monsieur is an astronomer.’
“‘One of the greatest,’ I added quickly; ‘these charts are of infinite value to France.’ No sense of comedy touched me anywhere, the ludicrous was absent. The man bowed, as carefully, respect in every gesture, he replaced the maps, marked the trunk with his piece of chalk, and let us go, helping in every way he could.”
Devonham drew a long breath, glad that he had relieved himself of his unwelcome duty. He had told the literal truth.
“Of course, of course,” Fillery said, half to himself perhaps. “A breath of bigger consciousness, his imagination touched, the subconscious wakened, and intelligence the natural result.” He turned to his colleague. “Interesting, Paul, very,” he added in a louder tone, “and not easy to explain, I grant. The official we do not know, but you, at any rate, are not a good subject for hypnotic suggestion!”
For some time Devonham said nothing. Presently he spoke:
“Fillery, I tell you — really I love the fellow. He’s the most lovable thing in human shape I ever saw. He gets into your heart so strangely. We must heal him.”
The other sighed, quickly smothering it, yet not before Devonham had noticed it. They did not look at one another for some seconds, and there was a certain tenseness, a sense of deep emotion in the air that each, possibly, sought to hide from the other.
Devonham was the first to break the silence that had fallen between them.
“To be quite frank — it’s LeVallon that appeals most to me,” he said, as if to himself, “whereas you, Edward, I believe, are more — more interested in the other aspect of him. It’s ‘N. H.’ that interests you.”
No challenge was intended, yet the glove was flung. Fillery said nothing for a minute or two. Then he looked up, and their eyes met across the smoke-laden atmosphere. It was close on midnight. The world lay very still and hushed about the house.
“It is,” he said quietly, “a pathetic and inspiring case. He is deserving of” — he chose his words slowly and with care— “our very best,” he concluded shortly.
“And now,” he added quickly, “you’re tired out, and I ought to have let you have a night’s sleep before taxing you like this.” He poured out two glasses of whisky. “Let us drink anyhow to success and healing of body, mind — and soul.”
“Body, mind and — nerves,” said Devonham slowly, as he drank the toast.
“The reason I had none of the trouble I anticipated,” remarked Devonham, as he sipped the reviving liquor, “is simple enough.”
“There are two periods, of course. I guessed that.”
“Exactly. There is the LeVallon period, when he is quiescent, normal, very charming into the bargain, more like a good child or trained animal or happy peasant, if you like it better, than a grown man. And there is the ‘N. H.’ period, when he is — otherwise.”
“Ah!”
“I arrived just at the transition moment, so to speak. It was during the change I reached the châlet.”
“Precisely.” Fillery looked up, smiled and nodded.
“That’s about the truth,” repeated Devonham, putting his glass down. He thought for a moment, then added slowly, “I think that fire of his, the worship, singing — at the autumnal equinox — marked the change. ‘N. H,’ at once after that, slipped back into the unconscious state. LeVallon emerged. It was with LeVallon only or chiefly, I had to deal. He became so very quiet, dazed a little, half there, as we call it, and almost entirely silent. He retained little, if any, memory of the ‘N. H.’
period, although it lies, I think, just beneath the surface only. The LeVallon personality, you see, is not very positive, is it? It seems a quiet, negative state, a condition almost of rest, in fact.”
Fillery listening attentively, made no rejoinder.
“We may expect,” continued Devonham, “these alternating states, I think. The frontier between them is, as I said, a narrow one. Indeed, often they merge or interpenetrate. In my judgment, the main, important part of his consciousness, that parent Self, is LeVallon — not ‘N. H.’” The voice was slightly strident.
“Ah!”
It so happened that, in the act of exchanging these last words, they both looked up toward the ceiling, where a moth buzzed round and round, banging itself occasionally against the electric light. Whether it was this that drew their sight upwards simultaneously, or whether it was that some other sound in the stillness of the night had caught their strained attention, is uncertain. The same thought, at any rate, was in both minds at that instant, the same freight of meaning trailing behind it invisibly across the air. Their hearts burned within them; the two faces upward turned, the lips a little parted as when listening is intense, the heads thrown back. For in the room above that ceiling, asleep at this moment, lay the subject of their long discussion; only a few inches of lath and plaster separated them from the strange being who, dropping out of space, as it were, had come to make his home with them. A being, lonely utterly in the world, unique in kind perhaps, his nature as yet undecipherable, lay trustingly unconscious in that upper chamber. The two men felt the gravity, the responsibility of their charge. The same thought had vividly touched them both at the same instant.
A few minutes later they were still standing, facing one another. They were of a height, but compared to Fillery’s big frame and rugged head, his friend’s appearance was almost slight. Devonham, for all his qualifications, looked painfully like a shopwalker. They exchanged this steady gaze for a few seconds without speaking. Then the older man said quietly:
Collected Works of Algernon Blackwood Page 227