A little pause fell between them, during which Dr. Fillery touched an electric bell beside his chair. Nurse Robbins appeared with what seemed miraculous swiftness. “Still sleeping quietly, sir, and pulse normal again,” she replied in answer to a question, then vanished as suddenly as she had come. He looked into the girl’s eyes across the room. “A competent, reliable nurse,” he remarked, “and, as you saw, a pretty woman.” He glanced out of the window. “She is unmarried.” He mentioned it apparently to the sky.
The quick mind took in his meaning instantly. “All women will be drawn to him irresistibly, of course,” she said. “But it is not that.”
“No, no, of course it is not that,” he agreed at once. “I should like you to see him, though not, however, just yet — —” He went on after a moment’s reflection, and speaking slowly: “I should like you to wait a little. It’s best. There has been a — a certain disturbance in his being — —”
“It’s his first experience,” she began, “of beauty — —”
“Of beauty in women, yes,” he finished for her. “It is. We must avoid anything in the nature of a violent shock — —”
“He has asked for me?” she interrupted again, in her quiet way.
He shook his head. “And we cannot be sure that it was you — as you — he sought and is affected by. The call he hears is, perhaps, hardly the call that sounds in most men’s ears, I mean.”
The hint of warning guidance was audible in his voice, as well as visible in his eyes and manner. The laughter they both betrayed, a grave and curious laughter perhaps, was brief, yet enough to conceal stranger emotions that rose like dumb, gazing figures almost before their eyes. Yet if she knew inner turmoil, emotion of any troubling sort, she concealed it perfectly.
“I am glad,” the girl said presently. “Oh, I am really glad. I think I understand, Edward.” And, even while he sat silent for a bit, watching her with an ever-growing admiration that at the same time marvelled, he saw the wonder of great questions riding through her face. The recollection of what she had suffered publicly in the Studio a few hours before came into his mind again. In these questions, perhaps, lay the only signs of the hidden storm below the surface.
“Are there — are there such things as Nature-Beings, Edward?” she asked abruptly. “We know this is his first experience. Are there then —— ?”
He was prepared a little for this kind of question by her eyes. “We have no evidence, of course,” he replied; “not a scrap of evidence for anything of the sort. There are people, however, so close to Nature, so intimate with her, that we may say they are — strangely, inexplicably akin.”
“Has he a soul — a human soul like ours?” she asked point blank.
“He is perhaps — not — quite — like us. That may be your task, Iraida,” he added enigmatically. He watched her more closely than she knew.
She appeared to ponder his words for a few minutes; then she asked abruptly: “And when do you think I ought to come and see him? You will let me know?”
“I will let you know. A few days perhaps, perhaps a week, perhaps longer. Some education, I think, is necessary first.” He gazed at her thoughtfully, and she returned his look, her dark eyes filled with the wonder that was both of a child and of a woman, and yet with a security of something that was of neither. “It will be a — a great effort to you,” he ventured with significant and sympathetic understanding, “after — what happened. It is brave and generous of you — —” He broke off.
She nodded, but at once afterwards shook her head. She rose then to go, but Dr. Fillery stopped her. He rose too.
“Nayan, I now want your help,” he said with more emotion than he had yet shown. “My responsibility, as you may guess, is not light — and — —”
“And he is in your sole charge, you mean.” She had willingly resumed her seat, and made herself comfortable with a cushion he arranged for her. He was aware chiefly of her eyes, for in them glowed light and fire he had never seen there before — but still in their depths.
“Well — yes, partly,” he replied, lighting a cigarette, “though Paul is ready with help and sympathy whenever needed. But the charge, as you call it, is not mine alone: it is ours.”
“Ours!” She started, though almost imperceptibly, as she repeated his word.
“Subconsciously,” he said in a firm voice, “we three are similar. We are together. We obey half instinctively the unknown laws of” — he hesitated a moment— “of some unknown state of being.” He added then a singular sentence, though so low it seemed almost to himself: “Had we been man and wife, Iraida, our child must have been — like him.”
“Yes,” she said, leaning forward a little in her chair, increased warmth, yet no blush, upon her skin. “Yes, Edward, we three are somehow together in this, aren’t we? Oh, I feel it. It pours over me like a great wind, a wind with heat in it.” Her hands clasped her knee, as they gazed at one another for a moment’s silence. “I feel it,” she repeated presently. “I’m sure of it, quite sure.”
She stretched out a spirit hand, as it were, for an instant across the impersonal barrier between them, but he did not take it, pretending he did not see it.
“Ours, Nayan,” he emphasized, again using the name that belonged to everyone. “Therefore, you see, I want you to tell me — if you will — what you felt, experienced, perceived — in the Studio last night.” After watching her a little, he qualified: “Another day, if you would like to think it over. But some time, without fail. For my part, I will confess — though I think you already know it — that I brought him there on purpose — —”
“To see my effect upon him, Edward.”
“But in his interest, and in the interest of my possible future treatment. His effect upon yourself was not my motive. You believe that.”
“I know, I know. And I will tell you gladly. Indeed, I want to.”
He was aware, as she said it, that it would be a satisfaction to her to talk; she would welcome the relief of confession; she could speak to him as doctor now, as professional man, as healer, and this, too, without betraying the impersonal attitude she evidently wore and had adopted possibly — he wondered? — in self-protection. “Tell me exactly what it is you would like to know, please, Edward,” she added, and instinctively moved to the sofa, so that he might occupy the professional swinging chair at the desk.
“What you saw, Nayan,” he began, accepting the change of position without comment, because he knew it helped her. “What you saw is of value, I think, first.”
He had all his usual self-control again, for he was now on his throne, his seat of power; his inner attitude changed subtly; he was examining two patients — the girl and himself. She sat before him demure, obedient, honest, very sweet but very strong; if her perfume reached him he did not notice it, the appeal of her loveliness went past him, he did not see her eyes. He had a very comely and intelligent young woman facing him, and the glow, as it were, of an intense inner activity, strongly suppressed, was the chief quality in her that he noted. But his new attitude made other things, too, stand out sharply: he realized there was confusion in her own mind and heart. Her being was not wholly at one with itself. This impersonal rôle meant safety until she was sure of herself; and so far she had been entirely and admirably non-committal. No girl, he remembered, could look back upon what she had experienced in the Studio, upon what she had herself said and done, before a crowd of onlookers too, without deep feelings of a mixed and even violent kind. That scene with a young man she had never seen before must bring painful memories; if it was love at first sight the memories must be more painful still. But was it a case of this sudden, rapturous love? What, indeed, were her feelings? What at any rate was her dominant feeling? She had felt his appeal beyond all question, but was it as Nayan or as Iraida that she felt it?
She was non-committal and impersonal, conscious that therein safety lay — until, having become one with herself, harmonious, she could feel absolutely sure. One hint o
nly had she dropped — it was Nayan speaking — that her mothering, maternal instinct was needed and that she must obey its prompting. She must “care” for him....
Dr. Fillery, meanwhile, though he might easily have probed and made discoveries without her knowing that he did so, was not the man to use his powers now. Unless she gave of her own free will, he would not ask. He would close eyes and ears even to any chance betrayal or unconscious revelation.
“When you first looked in, for instance? You had just come in from the street, I think. You opened the door on your way upstairs. Do you remember?”
She remembered perfectly. “I wanted to see who was there. You, I think, were chiefly in my thoughts — I was wondering if you had come.” Her voice was even, her eyes quite steady; she chose her next words slowly: “I saw — to my intense surprise — a figure of light.”
“Shining, you mean? A shining figure?”
She nodded her head, as one little hand put back a straying wisp of dark hair from her forehead. “A figure like flame,” she agreed. “I saw it quite clearly. I saw everything else quite clearly too — the inner room, various people standing about, the piano, the thick smoke, everything as usual. I saw you. You were in the big outer room beyond, but your face was very distinct. You were staring — staring straight at me.”
“True,” put in Dr. Fillery; “I saw you in the doorway plainly.”
“In the foreground, by itself apart somehow, though surrounded by people, was this shining, radiant outline. I thought it was a Vision — the first thing of that sort I had ever seen in my life.”
“That was your very first impression — even before you had time to think?”
“Yes.”
“It struck you as unusual?”
“I cannot say more than that. I knew by the light it was unusual. Then it moved — talking to Povey or Kempster or someone — and I realized in a flash who it was. I knew it must be your friend, the man you had promised to bring — Ju — —”
“And then —— ?” he asked quickly, before she could pronounce the name.
“And then — —”
She stopped, and her eyes looked away from him, not in the sense that they moved but that their focus changed as though she looked at something else, at something within herself, no longer, therefore, at the face in front of her. He waited; he understood that she was searching among deep, strange, seething memories; he let her search; and, watching closely, he presently saw the sight return into her eyes from its inward plunge.
“And when you knew who it was,” he asked very quietly, “were you still surprised? Did he look as you expected him to look, for instance?”
“I had expected nothing, you see, Edward, because I had not been consciously thinking about his coming. No mental picture was present in me at all. But the moment I realized who it was, the light seemed to go — I just saw a young man standing there, with his head turned sideways to me. The light, I suppose, lasted for a second only — that first second. As to how he looked? Well, he looked, not only bigger — he is bigger than most men,” she went on, “but he looked” — her voice hushed instinctively a little on the adjective— “different.”
Her companion made a gesture of agreement, waiting in silence for what was to follow.
“He looked so extraordinary, so wonderful,” she resumed, gazing steadily into his eyes, “that I — I can hardly put it into words, Edward, unless I use childish language.” She broke off and sighed, and something, he fancied, in her wavered for a second, though it was certainly neither the voice nor the eyes. A faint trembling again perhaps ran through her body. Her account was so deliberately truthful that it impressed him more than he quite understood. He was aware of pathos in her, of some vague trouble very poignant yet inexplicable. A breath of awe, it seemed, entered the room and moved between them.
“The childish words are probably the best, the right ones,” he told her gently.
“An angel,” she said instantly in a hushed tone, “I thought of an angel. There is no other word I can find. But somehow a helpless one. An angel — out of place.”
He looked hard at her, his manner encouraging though grave; he said no word; he did not smile.
“Someone not of this earth quite,” she added. “Not a man, at any rate.”
Still more gently, he then asked her what she felt.
“At first I couldn’t move,” she went on, her voice normal again. “I must have stood there ten minutes fully, perhaps longer” — her listener did not correct the statement— “when I suddenly recovered and looked about for you, Edward, but could not see you. I needed you, but could not find you. I remember feeling somehow that I had lost you. I tried to call for you — in my heart. There was no answer.... Then — then I closed the door quietly and went upstairs to change from my street clothes.”
She paused and passed a hand slowly across her forehead. Dr. Fillery asked casually a curious question:
“Do you remember how you got upstairs, Nayan?”
Her hand dropped instantly; she started. “It’s very odd you should ask me that, Edward,” she said, gazing at him with a slightly rising colour in her face, an increase of fire glowing in her eyes; “very odd indeed. I was just trying to think how I could describe it to you. No. Actually I do not remember how I got upstairs. All I know is — I was suddenly in my room.” A new intensity appeared in voice and manner. “It seemed to me I flew — or that — something — carried me.”
“Yes, Nayan, yes. It’s quite natural you should have felt like that.”
“Is it? I remember so little of what I actually felt. I wonder — I wonder,” she went on softly, with an air almost of talking to herself, “if it will ever come back again — what I felt then — —”
“Such moments of subliminal excitement,” Dr. Fillery reminded her gently, “have the effect of obliterating memory sometimes — —”
“Excitement,” she caught him up. “Yes, I suppose it was excitement. But it was more, much more, than that. Stimulated — I think that’s the word really. I felt caught away somewhere, caught away, caught up — as if into the rest of myself — into the whole of myself. I became vast” — she smiled curiously— “if you know what I mean — in several places at once, perhaps, is better. It was an immense feeling — no, I mean a feeling of immensity — —”
“Happy?” His voice was low.
Her eyes answered even before her words, as the memory came back a little in response to his cautious suggestion.
“A new feeling altogether,” she replied, returning his clear gaze with her frank, innocent eyes that had grown still more brilliant. “A feeling I have never known before.” She talked more rapidly now, leaning forward a little in her chair. “I felt in the open air somehow, with flowers, trees, hot burning sunshine and sweet winds rushing to and fro. It was something bigger than happiness — a sort of intoxicating joy, I think. It was liberty, but of an enormous spiritual kind. I wanted to dance — I believe I did dance — yes, I’m sure I did, and with hardly anything on my body. I wanted to sing — I sang downstairs, of course — —”
“I heard,” he put in briefly. He did not add that she had never sung like that before.
“The moment I came into the room, yes, I remember I went straight to the piano without a word to anyone.” She reflected a moment. “I suppose I had to. There was something new in me I could only express by music — rhythm, that is, not language.”
“It was natural,” Dr. Fillery said again. “Quite natural, I think.”
“Yes, Edward, I suppose it was,” she answered, then sank back in her chair, as though she had told him all there was to tell.
Dr. Fillery smoked in silence for a few minutes, then rose and touched the bell as before, and, as before, Nurse Robbins appeared with the same miraculous speed. There was a brief colloquy at the door; the woman was gone again, and the doctor turned back into the room with a look of satisfaction on his face. All, apparently, was going well upstairs. He did not sit dow
n, however; he stood looking out of the window at the drab wintry sky of motionless clouds, his back to his companion. It was midday, but the light, while making all things visible, was not light; there was no shine, no touch of radiance, no hint of sparkle beneath the canopy of sullen cloud. The English winter’s day was visible, no more than that. Yet it was not the English day, nor the clouds, nor the bleak dead atmosphere he looked at. In a single second his sight travelled far, far away, covering an enormous interval in space and time, in condition too. He saw a radiant world of sun-drenched flowers “tossing with random airs of an unearthly wind”; he saw a foam of forest leaves shaking and dancing against a deep blue sky; he say a valley whose streams and emerald turf knew not the touch of human feet.... The familiar symbols he saw, but inflamed with new meaning.
“Thank you, Edward, thank you” — she was just behind him, her hands upon his shoulders. “You understand everything in the world!” she added, “and out of it,” but too low for him to hear.
He came back with an effort, turning towards her. They were standing level now and very close, eyes looking into eyes. He felt her breath upon his face, her perfume rose about him, her lips were moving just in front of him — yet, for a second, he did not know who she was. It was as though she had not come with him out of that valley, not come back with him.... An insatiable longing seized him — to return and find her, stay with her. The ache of an intolerable yearning was in his heart, yet a sudden flash of understanding that brought a bigger, almost an unearthly joy in its train. At the call of some service, some duty, some help to be rendered to humanity, the three of them together — he, “N. H.,” the girl — were in temporary exile from their rightful home. The scent of wild flowers rose about him. He suddenly remembered, recognized, and gave a little start. He had left her behind in the valley — Iraida; it was Nayan who now stood before him.
He uttered a dry little laugh. “You startled me, Nayan. I was thinking. I didn’t hear you.” She had just thanked him for something — oh, yes — because he had left her alone for a moment, giving her time to collect herself after the long cross-examination.
Collected Works of Algernon Blackwood Page 248