Collected Works of Algernon Blackwood

by Algernon Blackwood

  “Please believe,” he replied with grave deference, “that I am entirely at your service, now and always, and that I bear no ill-feeling of any kind whatsoever. I appreciate the difficulties of life, both your own and mine — or, I should say, ours. You will, no doubt, now bring order, permanence, security, meaning and even — may I mention it? — comfort too, into existences that have so long been without them.”

  He swept his hat about a little more, then drew himself up straight as a ramrod, slipping the eyeglass back into his eye.

  “Your gracious advent,” he concluded with serious emphasis, “has been eagerly awaited, longed for, I may even add prayed for, by us all.”

  He stood there like a courtier ready for the next duty his sovereign would request, and the silence between them might have been indefinitely prolonged, but for something that then happened. Maria’s heart, indeed, was beating so fast that no reply of any sort occurred to her. Such admiration, praise and deference rather overwhelmed her. Nor, indeed, had she understood a quarter of his long speech. What happened then to save her, while at the same time to set her in a sudden panic, was a sound. From far away it came and faintly, but unmistakable.

  Tick tock! Tick tock! echoed somewhere through the building.

  And as she heard it, a feeling of urgent haste, of alarm, with terror not far behind, entered her very blood. The sense of hurry caught her, the awful knowledge that time was passing, that she had only five minutes in which to accomplish some important purpose for which she came, and that her time must now be nearly up.

  Like a cold wind this now rushed over her, the delightful feeling of endless leisure vanished.

  She turned eagerly, more than a little frightened, to the Gentleman at her side.

  “Oh, I quite forgot, it’s awful of me, I quite forgot,” her words rushed out in a confused stream. “That sound’s only just reminded me. I came here to look for something, you see. Only I can’t remember what it is. But it’s something I must find. And I’ve only got five minutes. Oh, please, sir, Mr. Gentleman, can you help me? You will, won’t you?”

  She drew breath, aware at the same time that the sound she feared now seemed fainter a little, as though it were dying away.

  “Miss Maria, we will all help you,” exclaimed the Gentleman magnificently, “for, as you must be aware, there is no hurry,” and he wore an air as though a thousand retainers, ready to do or die, must answer his beck and call. “The whole Ancient Order of Fruit Stoners, all eight of us, are at your service. We ask, indeed, nothing better than to do your slightest bidding.” He bowed as a great statesman, a great aristocrat, a noble, might have bowed. “Pray, command me, Miss Maria,” he added, with his nose still lowered towards the floor.

  Looking down upon his beautifully oiled and brushed hair, Maria wondered what on earth she could “command.” While realizing in a vague fashion that she had created these Fruit Stoners, had brought them into being, as it were, she yet could think of nothing definite and practical to ask. Confusion grew in her, for there was such a vast quantity of things she wanted to ask and know, that to choose between them was too difficult.

  “I was brought here by the Man who Winds the Clocks, you see,” she said at length. “I came to look for something — something terribly, oh, terribly important. And he said he could allow me five minutes only. And, besides, I’ve forgotten what the thing is I’ve got to find — simply got to, you see.” Although this was merely repetition, the Gentleman listened with an air of absorbed attention. Waiting with deep interest, as though to make sure she had quite finished, he then gazed into her face so gently that she knew at once he was a marvellous diplomat as well as a perfect gentleman.

  “The Man who Winds the Clocks,” he repeated suavely, yet indulgently a little too, “led you here?” It was as though he mentioned a figure in some fairy-tale, a personage to be summoned and dismissed at will, a trifler even, yet an amusing one.

  “Yes,” she told him, “the man in the black tailcoat and striped trousers, with one leg longer than the other. He looks like a bird. You know the one I mean?”

  “Ah,” came the non-committal comment, “ah, yes.”

  “And he’s completely vanished now. He said he couldn’t stay. He seemed in an awful rush. You know who I mean?” she repeated. “That was his sound, of course, just now.”

  The Gentleman smiled faintly. “We have seen him, yes,” he observed politely, “from time to time, that is. He never stays, of course.” He smiled again, as though the idea of the Clock Man amused him rather. “He cannot,” he added positively. “He’s always catching something up — himself, so he’s always late, as he calls it. Always trying to strike, or something fanciful like that.” He smiled benignly at her, fiddling carelessly with his eyeglass ribbon. “Here, of course,” he reminded her, “there is no such thing as hurry. Endless leisure is all we know. There is, indeed, no end, of course, to anything.” He almost laughed outright. The Man who Wound the Clocks seemed merely a figure of fun to him.

  “But he gave me my five minutes,” Maria reminded him a trifle impatiently, “and I’m sure he’s after me — trying to catch me. The time must be nearly up now, and I haven’t even begun my search yet.”

  Even as she said it, however, she was aware that the feeling of being hurried had grown less: it seemed weakening more and more in some strange way. The Tick tock! had gone. The delicious sense of endless leisure was stealing back upon her.

  “How long do you think five minutes really is?” she asked suddenly. “Can it be longer or shorter, perhaps?”

  “Five minutes?” the Gentleman repeated blankly. The smile left his face and was replaced by a gentle gaze of complete bewilderment. “Five minutes, five minutes,” he said again, to himself rather than to her. “Exactly, yes, of course. Er — ah — it is a curious question, is it not?” His puzzled expression deepened, as though he made an effort to grasp something entirely beyond him. His face became strangely darker, with queer wrinkles. “Five minutes, yes,” he said once again, looking for a moment, she thought, exactly like a prune stone, lined and crinkly, “I — I fear I am no philosopher, Miss Maria. Our Apothecary, perhaps, would tell you better than I can. I propose that we go and find him, for you have not come across him yet.”

  “The Apothecary!” Maria cried. “Oh, yes, please let’s!” She had always — somewhere — known a ridiculous apothecary, who could answer any question.

  She was all agog again with excitement, too, to meet the rest of the Fruit Stoners; the Tinker, the Tailor, the Soldier, the Sailor, every one of them. Her feeling of alarm and hurry had entirely disappeared. Five minutes, whatever they meant, could evidently stretch like elastic, and she needn’t worry about it. It was only the dreadful sound of Tick tock! that brought the sense of nervous haste and hurry, and, thank heaven, she could not hear it now. But, as she turned to her companion, expecting him to lead the way, she noticed quite a new expression on his face. The wrinkles had all smoothed away, a smile was there, but it was a different smile, a smile of peace. A look of strange beauty touched the eyes and mouth. His whole being for a second conveyed something solemn, a hint of awe, almost an idea of worship. He seemed still reflecting deeply.

  He bent towards her, offering his arm with courtly dignity.

  “You look so happy but so serious,” she said. “Is it my fault, please?”

  “It concerns — this five minutes you speak of,” he murmured in a grave, hushed whisper, stumbling slightly in his speech, “it must concern, I suspect” — the voice sank to a solemn murmur—” Jack Robinson.” He straightened up again, taking her hand in his arm. “Come, let us go,” he said in his ordinary voice, as though the moment was too radiant to talk of solemn things, “and find the Apothecary and the others.”

  Jack Robinson! The name went through her like a stroke of lightning. She shivered. How did she know that name? Where had she heard it? What did it mean to her? It thrilled her fearfully. Why did the Gentleman utter it in that voice of solemn
awe, as though it were sacred almost? Why was his manner mysterious and hushed? Jack Robinson, Jack Robinson! It had a friendly sound, a meaning of tremendous power — yes, a powerful, tremendous name and meaning lay behind the syllables. And yet the syllables were familiar somehow. It was connected, she felt instinctively too, with the unpleasant Man who Wound the Clocks, the man who had given her only five minutes for her important, difficult search. In her heart of hearts, she was positive, Jack Robinson was more powerful than the other. Jack Robinson was friendly, and would somehow help her. Oh, what a strange, strange world this was, but how deliciously enchanting!

  She looked up into the Gentleman’s face, taking his step, for he had already begun to move.

  “Jack Robinson,” she exclaimed, wondering why she whispered it — but could find no further words.

  The Gentleman said nothing either. She felt a slight shiver run along his arm. He lifted his hat slightly, bowed almost imperceptibly, screwed in his eyeglass more firmly, and quickened his pace along the empty corridor. And Maria, stepping along beside him arm-in-arm, felt inside like a boiler about to burst, for the excited delight and wonder in her was so tremendous they might have drawn a luggage train, or driven a great liner across the Atlantic.

  She had no words, at any rate, to add to what had just been said. She just left the conversation where it was. This was her instinct and she obeyed it.

  “Oh, Mr. Gentleman,” she cried instead, “what a marvellous place I’ve come to! What a wonderful world I’m in!”

  He bent his head towards her. “It is his world,” he murmured, “but you made it. You made us too.” And with his free hand he pointed down the corridor, at the far end of which, she now saw, yet somehow without surprise, a group of figures. A confused sound of voices rose from them, like the buzzing of bumble bees in clover, then died away into silence as they approached.

  Yet long before she reached the group that stood huddled about the top of the great stairs, she had recognized them. Their faces, peering across one another’s shoulders, stared at her expectantly, like a band of penguins she had seen somewhere waiting to be fed. For their heads twitched jerkily, rising and falling, as though they tried to see behind her.

  They were standing in a ring. They were nervous obviously, and she was quick to guess the reason.

  “It’s all right,” she called out. “My cat isn’t with me. And if he was he wouldn’t hurt you.” There was an audible sigh of collective relief by way of answer, as Maria picked out the figures she had seen in her mind so often. They shifted to and fro like a kaleidoscope, but there was no mistaking them, and they certainly all seemed entirely friendly, judging by their smiles. It was marvellous how they kept in that circular formation.

  “One at a time, if you please,” announced the Gentleman in a voice of authority, as though he were their leader. “This is Miss Maria who has at last come down among us, as we always believed she would. Our hopes are fulfilled, our faith is justified. If we have much to ask of her, she, too, has many things to tell us, perhaps, indeed, to ask as well. And — we may hope — to do for us. With all our hearts, and in the name of us all, we bid her welcome, and if some of the questions she puts to us may seem — may seem — er — if we find difficulty, that is, in — er—”

  Whether he realized that no one, Maria least of all, was listening to his long-winded speech, seemed uncertain; but, at any rate he stepped back now and leaned against the wall, mopping his face with a coloured silk handkerchief, while he searched, perhaps, for the lost fragments of his broken sentence. Maria, for her part, was so intent upon the group before her that she was hardly aware of his withdrawal. These were her Fruit Stoners! It was the Sailor, perhaps, she thought of chiefly. One of them, who had been examining her steadily through a long telescope that he rested on the shoulder in front of him, now shut it down with a click, and skipped out towards her. He was dressed in blue. And it was, of course, the Sailor.

  Her heart gave a leap of pleasure as she saw him. He was light as a feather. Gold rings swung from his ears. He hitched his loose trousers, did a rapid hornpipe step with crossed arms, sang a bar of something about a “lass upon the quay,” then doffed his little blue cap, clapped the long telescope back to his eye though she was only two feet away, and before she could do anything, cried out with a merry laugh: “How d’ye do, Miss? Why, you’re lookin’ splendid, so ‘elp me gawd! Better than I ever saw you, or I’m a land-lubber, which of course I ain’t!”

  “So are you, Sailor!” she cried back, pleased and flattered that he recognized her, and finding him too lovely for words. “Looking splendid, I mean. You’re just exactly what I thought you’d be!” She wanted to dance herself. Her heart was thumping.

  “Just what I feel on lookin’ at you, Miss,” he laughed gaily, catching the whistle that swung on a lanyard round his neck. “I’d like to pipe all ‘ands on deck to see you.” And he actually blew a short, shrill blast, as he danced round her. “I’m always at home to you, Miss, if you’re ever this way, and I’ve been a weary long time waitin’ for a sight of you, shiver my timbers, if you’ll forgive my saying so, though I knew — oh, I was positive sure of that — I knew you’d turn up one day.” He flung his legs and arms about in his happy dance, and he seemed the very spirit of careless fun and jollity.

  His hand stretched out to her and she caught it; she began dancing with him. He whirled her about, swinging the telescope above his head.

  “Oh, but I’d love to come,” she cried rather breathlessly. “It’s just exactly what I’ve always wanted.”

  “A sailor’s life for me,” he went on singing, “but a bloke does get tired o’ waitin’, all the same, while the seas go rollin’ by—”

  “I can come any time,” she repeated, afraid he might forget that he had asked her. She paused to get her breath. “When will you be in, please? And where do you live?”

  He stopped dancing and singing, and gazed at her as though she were some strange craft at sea. The merry laughter left his face.

  “Well, Miss,” he replied, hitching his trousers nervously, “that, I take it, depends on you,” and a curious note of respect and deference came into the voice.

  “Depends on me?”

  “Well he hesitated, his manner a little anxious, almost grave—” of course there ain’t no ‘urry, not where I’m concerned,” he mentioned. His clear blue eyes looked at her with a question in them, yet a question he did not dare, it seemed, to put into words.

  “Oh, my five minutes, of course,” she exclaimed, her heart sinking a little. “Yes, I’ve only got five minutes. I forgot. That awful, horrid Clock Man!”

  He gazed at her with the same expression of puzzled blankness the Gentleman had shown.

  “Five minutes, Miss, five minutes?”

  “That’s all he gave me,” she explained.

  A sign of laughter flashed back into his face, almost contemptuous laughter.

  “‘Im!” was all he said.

  “Yes, ‘im.” Maria copied him before she could correct herself.

  The Sailor now laughed outright, and his laughter seemed somehow to laugh the Clock Man out of existence, for the moment, anyhow.

  “It’s only flashin’ in and flashin’ out again, gone as soon as come,” he chuckled. “He don’t count, not ‘ere with us—”

  “So I can come and see you any time, can I?” she asked quickly, greatly relieved, if hardly knowing exactly why.

  “Depends on you, Miss,” he repeated. “It’s any time and place you say, of course. Choose the year and I’ll be there. I’m a bit all over the place with this year and next year and sometimes never. Sort of rovin’ life with a vengeance. But no complaints, Miss, no complaints from me, understand. Long voyages all the time and just off on another — next year’s, I think, if it ain’t last. But ‘oo cares, so long as we’re all ‘appy!”

  “Yes, ‘oo cares?” she cried, clapping her hands in her excitement.

  He began to dance again, his lanyard swun
g, his gold ear-rings tossed about. And the meaning in his strange words dawned in Maria’s mind as she watched and listened.

  “Only say the word, Miss,” he went on, more gaily now, “and the moment I’m back with me pockets full o’ money I’ll be lookin’ for ye on the quay.”

  “Oh, this year, please,” Maria cried quickly, “this year, of course — now! I’ve only got five minutes! Let’s make it a party — with the Soldier and—”

  The Sailor seemed growing oddly smaller, as though distance had crept in somehow.

  “I always said you’d be turnin’ up one of these fine days” — his voice reached her more faintly now—” and ‘elp to put us straight. I always believed in you. I knew you didn’t mean no ‘arm, making us the way you did, and I shall always love you, Miss.”

  She saw him clap the telescope to his eye, but it was a long way off. He was going, oh, he was going, she realized. He was already among the group. He was in the ring again. He was disappearing. And with him was going, too, all the romance and mystery of the sea, of wind whistling in the rigging, of hidden treasure, of pirates, of coral islands basking far away in calm, blue oceans, and of long voyages she had always yearned to make.

  “This year, this year, Sailor — Now!” she cried out, and took a quick running step after him.

  Tick tock! Tick tock! sounded at that same instant in her ears. She pretended, she tried hard, not to hear it.

  The Sailor was going; he was gone. The ring of figures was whirling round and round. The Tick tock!, on the other hand, was coming nearer; it was growing louder. Oh, what was she to do? What could she do? The feeling of rush and hurry, of being late, of wasting time, the panic of being caught before she was ready, before her search had even begun — all this came pouring over her. Her five minutes must have been up ages ago. And she had done nothing, nothing. That dreadful sound! It haunted her. It always came just when she was enjoying herself.