Collected Works of Algernon Blackwood

by Algernon Blackwood

  “I expect so,” she answered, after a moment’s pause. She looked wiser than an owl, he thought.

  “What is it? What is your secret? Can’t you tell me?”

  For it came over him that Maria, for all her inactivity, was really more truly alive than both the other children put together. Their tireless, incessant energy was nothing compared to some deep well of life Maria’s outer calm concealed.

  He continued to stare at her, reflecting while he did so. Through her globular exterior, standing here beside him, rose this quiet tide whose profound and inexhaustible source was nothing less than the entire universe. Finding himself thus alone with her, he knew his imagination singularly stirred. The full stream of this imagination — usually turned into sea — and history-stories — poured now into Maria. It was the way she had delivered herself of the monosyllable, “Yes,” that first enflamed him.

  The child, obviously, was quite innocent that her uncle’s imagination clothed her in such wonder; she was entirely unselfconscious, and remained so; but, as she kept silent as well, there was nothing to interrupt the natural process of his thought. “You’re a circle, a mystery, a globe of wonder,” his mind addressed her, gazing downwards half in play and half in earnest. “You’re always going it. Though you seem so still — you’re turning furiously like a little planet!”

  For this abruptly struck him, flashing the symbol into his imagination — that Maria lived so close to the universe that her life and movements were akin to those of the heavenly bodies. He saw her as an epitome of the earth. Fat, peaceful, little, calm, rotund Maria — a miniature earth! She had no call to hurry nor rush after things. Like the earth she contained all things within herself. It made him smile; he smiled as he looked down into her face; she smiled as she rolled her blue eyes upwards into his.

  Yet her calm was not the calm of sloth. In that mysterious centre where she lived he felt her as tremendously alive.

  For the earth, apparently so calm and steady, knows no pause. She moves round her axis without stopping. She rushes with immense rapidity round the sun. Simultaneously with these two movements she combines a third; the sun, carrying her and all his other planets with him, hurries at a prodigious rate through interstellar space, adventuring new regions never seen before. Calm outwardly, and without apparent motion, the earth — at this very moment, as he leaned across the window-sill — was making these three gigantic, endless movements. This peaceful summer morning, like any other peaceful summer morning, she was actually spinning, rushing, rising. And in Maria — it came to him — in Maria, outwardly so calm, something also — spun — rushed — rose! This amazing life that brimmed her full to bursting, even as it brimmed the robin and the earth, overflowed and dripped out of her very eyes in shining blue. There was no need for her to dash about. She, like the earth, was — carried.

  All this flashed upon him while the alarum clock ticked off a second merely, for imagination telescopes time, of course, and knows things all at once.

  “What is your secret, Maria?” he asked again. “I believe it’s about that Extra Day we meant to steal. Is that it?”

  Her eyes gazed straight before her across the lawn where Tim and Judy were now visible, searching busily for button-holes.

  “It was to be your particular adventure, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” she told him at length, without changing her expression of serene contentment.

  His imagination warned him he was getting “at her” gradually. He possibly read into her a thousand things that were not there. Certainly, Maria was not aware of them. But, though Uncle Felix knew this perfectly well, he persisted, hoping for a sudden disclosure that would justify his search — even expecting it, perhaps.

  “And what sort of a day would it be, then, this Extra Day of yours?” he went on. “It would never end, of course, for one thing, would it? There’d be no time?”

  She nodded quietly by way of effortless agreement and consent.

  “So that, in a sense, you’d have it always,” he said, aware of distinct encouragement. He felt obliged to help her. This was her peculiar power — that everything was done for her while she seemed to do it all herself. “You would live it over and over again, for ever and ever. That’s your secret, I expect, isn’t it?”

  “I expect so,” the child answered quietly. “I’ve always got it.” She moved in a little closer to his side as she said it. The disclosure he expected seemed so near now that excitement grew in him. Across the lawn he saw the hurrying figures of Tim and Judy, racing back with their button-holes. There was no time to lose.

  He put his arm about her, tilting her face upwards with one hand to see it plainly. The blue dyes came up with it.

  “Then, what kind of a day would you choose, Maria? Tell me — in a whisper.”

  And then the disclosure came. But it was not whispered. Uncle Felix heard the secret in a very clear, decided voice and in a single word:

  “Birthday.”

  At the same moment the others poured into the room; they came like a cataract; it seemed that a dozen children rushed upon them in a torrent. The air was full of voices and flowers suddenly. A smell of the open world came in with them. Button-holes were fastened into everybody, accompanied by a breathless chorus of where and how they had been found, who got the best, who got it first, and all the rest. From the End of the World they came, apparently, but while Tim had climbed the wall for his, Judy picked hers because a bird had lowered the branch into her very hand. For Uncle Felix she brought a spray of lilac; Tim brought a bit of mignonette. Eventually he had to wear them both.

  “And here’s a forget-me-not, Maria,” cried Judy, stooping down to poke it into her sister’s blue and white striped dress. “That suits you best, I thought.”

  “Thank you,” said Maria, moving her eyes the smallest possible fraction of an inch.

  And they scampered out of the room again, Maria ambling slowly in the rear, to prepare for church. There were prayer-books and things to find, threepenny bits and sixpences for the collection. There was simply heaps to do, as they expressed it, and not a moment to lose either. Uncle Felix listened to the sound of voices and footsteps as they flew down the passage, dying rapidly away into the distance, and finally ceasing altogether. He puffed his pipe a little longer before going to his room upon a similar errand. He watched the smoke curl up and melt into the outer air; he felt the pleasant sunshine warm upon his face; he smelt the perfume rising from his enormous button-hole. But of these things he did not think. He thought of what Maria said. The way she uttered that single word remained with him: “Birthday.”

  He had half divined her secret. For a birthday was the opening of life; it was the beginning. Maria had “got it always.” All days for her were birthdays, Extra Days.

  And while they walked along the lane to church he still was thinking about it.

  The conversation proved that he was absent-minded rather; yet not that his mind was absent so much as intent upon other things. The children found him heavy; he seemed ponderous to them. And pondering he certainly was — pondering the meaning of existence. The children, he realised, were such brilliant comments upon existence; their unconscious way of living, all they said and thought and did, but especially all they believed, offered such bright interpretations, such simple solutions of a million things. They lived so really, were so really — alive. They never explained, they just accepted; and the explanations given they placed at their true value, still asking, “Yes, but what is the meaning of all that?” So close to Reality they lived — before reason, cloaked and confused it with a million complex explanations. That “Yes” and “Birthday” of Maria’s were illuminating examples.

  Of this he was vaguely pondering as they walked along the sunny lanes to church, and his conversation proved it. For conversation with children meant answering endless questions merely, and the questions were prompted by anything and everything they saw. Reality poked them; they gave expression to it by a question. And nothing
real was trivial; the most careless detail was important, all being but a single question — an affirmation: “We’re alive, so everything else is too!”

  His conversation proved that he had almost reached that state of time-less reality in which they lived. He felt it this morning very vividly. It seemed familiar somehow — like his own childhood recovered almost.

  He answered them accordingly. It didn’t matter what was said, because all the words in the world said one thing only. Whether the words, therefore, made sense or not, was of no importance.

  “Have you ever seen a rabbit come out of its hole?” asked Tim. “They do that for safety,” he added; and if there was confusion in his language, there was none in his thought. “Then no one can tell which its hole is, you see. Because each rabbit—”

  He broke off and glanced expectantly at his uncle. At junctures like this his uncle usually cleared things up with an easy word or two. He would not fail him now.

  “Come out, no,” was the reply; “no one ever sees a rabbit come out. But I’ve seen them go in; and that’s the same thing in the end. They go down the wrong hole on purpose. They know right enough. Rabbits are rabbits.”

  “Of course,” exclaimed Judy, “everything’s itself and knows its own sign — er — business, I mean.”

  “Yes,” Maria repeated.

  And before anything further could be mentioned — if there was anything to mention — they arrived at the porch of the church, passed under it without speaking, walked up the aisle and took their places in the family pew, Maria occupying the comfortable corner against the inner wall.

  CHAPTER XX. — BUT DIFFERENTLY!

  Church was very — that is, they enjoyed the service very much, without knowing precisely why they liked it. They joined in the hymns with more energy than usual, because they felt “singy” and knew the tunes as well. Colonel Stumper handed round one of the bags at the end of a long pole — and, though the clergyman didn’t look at all as if he required feeding, the threepenny bits dropped in without the least regret on the part of the contributors. Tim’s coin, however, having been squeezed for several minutes before the bag came round, stuck to his moist finger, and Stumper, thinking he had nothing to put in, drove the long handle past him towards Maria. That same instant the coin came un-stuck, and dropped with a rattle into the aisle. Come-Back Stumper stooped to recover it. Whereupon, to Judy, Tim and Uncle Felix, watching him, came a sudden feeling of familiarity, as though all this had happened before. The bent figure, groping after the hidden coin, seemed irresistibly familiar. It was very odd, they thought, very odd indeed. Where — when — had they seen him groping before like that, almost on all fours? But no one, of course, could remark upon it, and it was only Tim and Judy who exchanged a brief, significant glance. Maria, being asleep, did not witness it, nor did she contribute to the feeding of the clergyman either.

  There followed a short sermon, of which they heard only the beginning, the end, and certain patches in the middle when the preacher raised his voice abruptly, but the text, they all agreed, was “Seek and ye shall find.” During the delivery of the portions that escaped them, Tim scratched his head and thought about rabbits, while Judy’s mind hesitated between various costumes in the pews in front of her, unable to decide which she would wear when she reached the age of its respective owner.

  And so, in due course, feeling somehow that something very real had been accomplished, they streamed out with the rest of the congregation into the blazing summer sunshine. Expectant, inquisitive and hungry, they stood between the yew trees and the porch, yawning and fidgeting until Uncle Felix gave the signal to start. The sunlight made them blink. There was something of pleasurable excitement in knowing themselves part of a “Congregation,” for a Congregation was distantly connected with “metropolis” and “govunment,” and an important kind of thing at any time.

  They stood and watched it. It scattered slowly, loth to separate and go. There was no hurry certainly. People talked in lowered voices, as if conversation after service was against the rules, and the church and graves might overhear; they smiled, but not too gaily; they seemed subdued; yet really they wanted to sing and dance — once safely out of hearing and sight, they would run and jump and stand on their heads. The children, that is, attributed their own feelings to them.

  Several — all “Members” of the Congregation — approached and asked unreal questions, to which Judy, as the eldest, gave unreal answers:

  “Your parents will soon be back again?”

  “Yes; Father comes to-morrow, Mother too.”

  “I hope they have enjoyed their little change.”

  “I think so — thank you.”

  Gradually the Congregation melted away, broughams and victorias drove off sedately down the road, the horses making as little sound as possible with their hoofs. The Choir-boys emerged from a side-door and vanished into a field; a series of Old Ladies and Invalids felt their way down the gravel path with sticks; the “Neighbours,” looking clean and dressed-up, went off in various directions — gravely, voices hushed, manners circumspect. Tim, feeling as usual “awfully empty after church,” was sure they ran as fast as ever they could the moment they were out of sight. A Congregation was a wonderful thing altogether. It was a puzzle how the little church could hold so many people. They watched the whole familiar business with suppressed excitement, forgetting they were hungry and impatient. It was both real and unreal, something better beckoned beyond all the time; but there was no hurry. It was a deep childhood mystery — wonder filled them to the brim.

  “Come on, children; we’ll be off now,” sounded their uncle’s voice, and at the same moment Come-Back Stumper joined them. He had been counting over the money with the clergyman, of course, all this time. He was very slow. They hoped their contributions had been noticed.

  “You’ll come back with us?” suggested Uncle Felix. And Stumper, growling his acceptance, walked home to lunch with them in the old Mill House. In his short black coat, trousers of shepherd’s plaid, and knotted white tie bearing a neat horseshoe pin, he looked smart yet soldierly. Tim apologised for his moist finger and the threepenny bit. “I thought it had got down a hole,” he said, “but you found it wonderfully.” “It simply flew!” cried Judy. “Clever old thing!” she added with admiration.

  “I’ve found harder things than that,” said Stumper. “It hid itself well, though — bang in the open like a lost collar-stud. Thought I’d never look there!”

  They glanced at one another with a curious, half-expectant air, and Tim suddenly took the soldier’s hand. But no one said anything more about it; the sin was forgiven and forgotten. Uncle Felix put in a vague remark concerning Indian life, and Stumper mentioned proudly that a new edition of his scouting book was coming out and he had just finished revising the last sheets. “All yesterday I spent working on it,” he informed them with a satisfied air, whereupon Tim said “Fancy that!” and Judy exclaimed “Did you really?” They seemed to have an idea that he was doing something else “all yesterday”; but no one knew exactly what it was. Then Judy planted herself in the road before him, made him stop, and picked something off his shoulder. “A tiny caterpillar!” she explained. “Another minute and you’d have had it down your neck.” “It would have come back though,” he said with a gruff laugh. “It might’nt have,” returned Judy. “But look; it’s awfully beautiful!” They examined it for a moment, all five of them, and then Judy set it down carefully in the ditch and watched it march away towards the safer hedge.

  It was a pleasant walk home, all together; they took the short cut across the fields; the world was covered with flowers, birds were singing, the air was fresh and sweet and the delicious sunlight not uncomfortably hot. Tim ran everywhere, exploring eagerly like a dog, and, also like a dog, doubling the journey’s length. He whistled to himself; from time to time he came back to report results of his discoveries. He was full of energy. Judy behaved in a similar manner, dancing in circles to make her hair and dres
s fly out; she sang bits of the hymn-tunes that she liked, taking the tune but fitting words of her own upon it. Maria was carried over two fields and a half; the down-hill parts she walked, however. She kept everybody waiting. They could not leave her. She contrived to make herself the centre of the party. Stumper and Uncle Felix brought up the rear, talking together “about things,” and whirling their sticks in the air as though it helped them forward somehow.

  On the slippery plank-bridge across the mill stream all paused a moment to watch the dragon-flies that set the air on fire with their coloured tails.

  “The things that nobody can understand!” cried Judy.

  “Nobody else,” Tim corrected her. “We do!”

  They leaned over the rail and saw their own reflections in the running water.

  “Why, Come-Back hasn’t got a button-hole!” exclaimed Judy — and flew off to find one for him, Tim fast upon her heels like a collie after a dipping swallow. They raced down the banks where the golden king-cups grew in spendthrift patches and disappeared among the colonies of reeds. Between some hanging willow branches further down they were visible a moment, like dryad figures peering and flitting through the cataract of waving green. They searched as though their lives depended on success. It was absurd that Stumper had no button-hole!

  Maria, seated comfortably on the lower rail, watched their efforts and listened to the bursts of laughing voices that came up-stream — then, with a leisurely movement, took the flower from her own button-hole and handed it to Stumper. The eyes rolled upwards with the flower — solemnly. And Come-Back saw the action reflected in the stream below.

  “Aw — thank you, my dear,” he said, fastening the forget-me-not into his Sunday coat, “but I ought not to take it all. It’s yours.” The voice had a quiet, almost distant sound in it.

  “Ours,” Maria murmured to herself, addressing the faces in the water. She took the fragment Stumper handed back to her. All three, forgetting it was time for lunch, forgetting they were hungry, forgetting that there was still half a mile of lane between them and the house, gazed down at their reflections in the stream as though fascinated. Uncle Felix certainly felt the watery-enchantment in his soul. The reflections trembled and quivered, yet did not pass away. The stream flowed hurrying by them, yet still was always there. It gave him a strange, familiar feeling — something he knew, but had forgotten. Everything in life was passing, yet nothing went — there was no hurry. The rippling music, as the water washed the banks and made the grasses swish, was audible, and there was a deeper sound of swirling round the wooden posts that held the bridge secure. Bubbles rose and burst in spray. A lark, hanging like a cross in the blue sky, overhead, dropped suddenly as though it was a stone, but in the reflection it rushed up into their faces. It seemed to rise at them from the pebbly bed of the stream. Both movements seemed one and the same — both were true — the direction depended upon the point of view.