Collected Works of Algernon Blackwood

by Algernon Blackwood

  The night was very still, and through the latticed windows stole faintly the summer moonlight. Outside the foliage rustled a little in the wind. A nightjar called from the fields, and a secret, furry owl made answer from the copse beyond. The body of the chamber lay in thick darkness, but a slanting ray of moonlight caught the dressing-table and shone temptingly upon the silver objects. “It’s like setting a night-line,” was the last definite thought he remembered — when the laughter that followed stopped suddenly, and his nerves gave a jerk that turned him keenly alert.

  From the enormous open fireplace, gaping in darkness at the end of the room, issued a thread of delicate sound that was softer than a feather. A tiny flurry of excitement, furtive, tentative, passed shivering across the air. An exquisite, dainty flutter stirred the night, and through the heavy human brain upon the great four-poster fled this picture, as from very far away, picked out in black and silver — of a wee knight-errant crossing the frontiers of fairyland, high mischief in his tiny, beating heart. Pricking along over the big, thick carpet, he came towards the bed, towards the dressing-table, intent upon bold plunder. Dutton lay motionless as a stone, and watched and listened. The blood in his ears smothered the sound a little, but he never lost it altogether. The flicking of a mouse’s tail or whiskers could hardly have been more gentle than this sound, more wary, circumspect, discreet, certainly not half so artful. Yet the human being in the bed, so heavily breathing, heard it well. Closer it came, and closer, oh, so elegant and tender, this bold attack of a wee Adventurer from another world. It shot swiftly past the bed. With a little flutter, delicious, almost musical, it rose in the air before his very face and entered the pool of moonlight on the dressing-table. Something blurred it then; the human sight grew troubled and confused a moment; a mingling of moonlight with the reflections from the mirror, slab of glass, and shining objects obscured clear vision somehow. For a second Dutton lost the proper focus. There was a tiny rattle and a tiny click. He saw that the pencil-sharpener stood balanced on the table’s very edge. It was in the act of vanishing.

  But for his stupid blunder then, he might have witnessed more. He simply could not restrain himself, it seems. He sprang, and at the same instant the silver object fell upon the carpet. Of course his elephantine leap made the entire table shake. But, anyhow, he was not quick enough. He saw the reflection of a slim and tiny hand slide down into the mirrored depths of the reflecting sheet of glass — deep, deep down, and swift as a flash of light. This he thinks he saw, though the light, he admits, was oddly confusing in that moment of violent and clumsy movement.

  One thing, at any rate, was beyond all question: the pencil-sharpener had disappeared. He turned the light up; he searched for a dozen minutes, then gave it up in despair and went back to bed.

  Next morning he searched again. But, having overslept himself, he did not search as thoroughly as he might have done, for half-way through the tiresome operation the Irish lad came in to take his bag for the train.

  “Will ut be something ye’ve lost, sorr?” he asked gravely.

  “Oh, it’s all right,” Dutton answered from the floor. “You can take the bag — and my overcoat.” And in town that day he bought another pencil sharpener and hung it on his chain.

  IMAGINATION

  Having dined upon a beefsteak and a pint of bitter, Jones went home to work. The trouble with Jones — his first name William — was that he possessed creative imagination: that luggage upon which excess charges have to be paid all through life — to the critic, the stupid, the orthodox, the slower minds without the “flash.” He was alone in his brother’s flat. It was after nine o’ clock. He was half-way into a story, and had — stuck! Sad to relate, the machinery that carries on the details of an original inspiration had blocked. And to invent he knew not how. Unless the imagination “produced” he would not allow his brain to devise mere episodes — dull and lifeless substitutes. Jones, poor fool, was also artist.

  And the reason he had “stuck” was not surprising, for his story was of a kind that might well tax the imagination of any sane man. He was writing at the moment about a being who had survived his age — a study of one of those rare and primitive souls who walk the earth to-day in a man’s twentieth-century body, while yet the spirit belongs to the Golden Age of the world’s history. You may come across them sometimes, rare, ingenuous, delightful beings, the primal dews still upon their eyelids, the rush and glow of earth’s pristine fires pulsing in their veins, careless of gain, indifferent to success, lost, homeless, exiled — dépaysés.... The idea had seized him. He had met such folk. He burned to describe their exile, the pathos of their loneliness, their yearnings and their wanderings — rejected by a world they had outlived. And for his type, thus representing some power of unexpended mythological values strayed back into modern life to find itself denied and ridiculed — he had chosen a Centaur! For he wished it to symbolise what he believed was to be the next stage in human evolution: Intuition no longer neglected, but developed equally with Reason. His Centaur was to stand for instinct (the animal body close to Nature) combined with, yet not dominated by, the upright stature moving towards deity. The conception was true and pregnant.

  And — he had stuck. The detail that blocked him was the man’s appearance. How would such a being look? In what details would he betray that, though outwardly a man, he was inwardly this survival of the Golden Age, escaped from some fair Eden, splendid, immense, simple, and beneficent, yet — a Centaur?

  Perhaps it was just as well he had “stuck,” for his brother would shortly be in, and his brother was a successful business man with the money sense and commercial instincts strongly developed. He dealt in rice and sugar. With his brother in the flat no Centaur could possibly survive for a single moment. “It’ll come to me when I’m not thinking about it,” he sighed, knowing well the waywardness of his particular genius. He threw the reins upon the sub’ conscious self and moved into an arm-chair to read in the evening paper the things the public loved — that public who refused to buy his books, pleading they were “queer.” He waded down the list of immoralities, murders and assaults with a dreamy eye, and had just reached the witness’ s description of finding the bloody head in the faithless wife’s bedroom, when there came a hurried, pelting knock at the door, and William Jones, glad of the relief, went to open it. There, facing him, stood the bore from the flat below. Horrors!

  It was not, however, a visit after all. “Jones,” he faltered, “there’s an odd sort of chap here asking for you or your brother. Rang my bell by mistake.”

  Jones murmured some reply or other, and as the bore vanished with a hurry unusual to him, there passed into the flat a queer shape, born surely of the night and stars and desolate places. He seemed in some undefinable way bent, humpbacked, very large. With him came a touch of open spaces, winds, forests, long clean hills and dew-drenched fields.

  “Come in, please...” said Jones, instantly aware that the man was not for his brother. “You have something to — er—” he was going to use the word “ask,” then changed it instinctively— “say to me, haven’t you?”

  The man was ragged, poor, outcast. Clearly it was a begging episode; and yet he trembled violently, while in his veins ran fire. The caller refused a seat, but moved over to the curtains by the window, drawing them slightly aside so that he could see out. And the window was high above old smoky London — open. It felt cold. Jones bent down, always keeping his caller in view, and lit the gas stove. “You wish to see me,” he said, rising again to an upright position. Then he added more hurriedly, stepping back a little towards the rack where the walking-sticks were, “Please let me know what I can do for you!”

  Bearded, unkempt, with massive shoulders and huge neck, the caller stood a moment and stared. “Your name and address,” he said at length, “were given to me” — he hesitated a moment, then added— “you know by whom.” His voice was deep and windy and echoing. It made the stretched cords of the upright piano ring against the
wall. “He told me to call,” the man concluded.

  “Ah yes; of course,” Jones stammered, forgetting for the moment who or where he was. “Let me see — where are you” — the word did not want to come out— “staying?” The caller made an awful and curious movement; it seemed so much bigger than his body. “In what way — er — can I be of assistance?” Jones hardly knew what he said. The other volunteered so little. He was frightened. Then, before the man could answer, he caught a dreadful glimpse, as of something behind the outline. It moved. Was it shadow that thus extended his form? Was it the glare of that ugly gas stove that played tricks with the folds of the curtain, driving bodily outline forth into mere vacancy? For the figure of his strange caller seemed to carry with it the idea of projections, extensions, growths, in themselves not monstrous, fine and comely, rather — yet awful.

  The man left the window and moved towards him. It was a movement both swift and enormous. It was instantaneous.

  “Who are you — really?” asked Jones, his breath catching, while he went pluckily out to meet him, irresistibly drawn. “And what is it you really want of me?” He went very close to the shrouded form, caught the keen air from the open window behind, sniffed a wind that was not London’s stale and weary wind, then stopped abruptly, frozen with terror and delight.

  The man facing him was splendid and terrific, exhaling something that over whelmed.

  “What can I... do... for... you?” whispered Jones, shaking like a leaf. A delight of racing clouds was in him.

  The answer came in a singular roaring voice that yet sounded far away, as though among mountains. Wind might have brought it down.

  “There is nothing you can do for me! But, by Chiron, there is something I can do for you!”

  “And that is?” asked Jones faintly, feeling something sweep against his feet and legs like the current of a river in flood.

  The man eyed him appallingly a moment.

  “Let you see me!” he roared, while his voice set the piano singing again, and his outline seemed to swim over the chairs and tables like a fluid mass. “Show myself to you!”

  The figure stretched out what looked like arms, reared gigantically aloft towards the ceiling, and swept towards him. Jones saw the great visage close to his own. He smelt the odour of caves, river-beds, hillsides — space. In another second he would have been lost —

  His brother made a great rattling as he opened the door. The atmosphere of rice and sugar and office desks came in with him.

  “Why, Billy, old man, you look as if you’d seen a ghost. You’re white!”

  William Jones mopped his forehead. “I’ve been working rather hard,” he answered. “Feel tired. Fact is — I got stuck in a story for a bit.”

  “Too bad. Got it straightened out at last, I hope?”

  “Yes, thanks. It came to me — in the end.”

  The other looked at him. “Good,” he said shortly. “Rum thing, imagination, isn’t it?” And then he began talking about his day’s business — in tons and tons of food.

  THE INVITATION

  They bumped into one another by the swinging doors of the little Soho restaurant, and, recoiling sharply, each made a half-hearted pretence of lifting his hat (it was French manners, of course, inside). Then, discovering that they were English, and not strangers, they exclaimed, “Sorry!” and laughed.

  “Hulloa! It’s Smith!” cried the man with the breezy manner; “and when did you get back?” It sounded as though “Smith” and “you” were different persons. “I haven’t seen you for months!” They shook hands cordially.

  “Only last Saturday — on the Rollitania,” answered the man with the pince-nez. They were acquaintances of some standing. Neither was aware of anything in the other he disliked. More positive cause for friendship there was none. They met, however, not infrequently.

  “Last Saturday! Did you really?” exclaimed the breezy one; and, after an imperceptible pause which suggested nothing more vital, he added, “And had a good time in America, eh?”

  “Oh! not bad, thanks — not bad at all.” He likewise was conscious of a rather barren pause. “Awful crossing, though,” he threw in a few seconds later with a slight grimace.

  “Ah! At this time of year, you know—” said Breezy, shaking his head knowingly; “though sometimes, of course, one has better trips in winter than in summer. I crossed once in December when it was like a mill-pond the whole blessed way.”

  They moved a little to one side to let a group of Frenchmen enter the swinging doors.

  “It’s a good line,” he added, in a voice that settled the reputation of the steamship company for ever. “By Jove, it’s a good line.”

  “Oh! it’s a good line, yes,” agreed Pince-nez, gratified to find his choice approved. He shifted his glasses modestly. The discovery reflected glory upon his judgment. “And such an excellent table!”

  Breezy agreed heartily. “I’d never cross now on any other,” he declared, as though he meant the table. “You’re right.”

  This happy little agreement about the food pleased them both; it showed their judgment to be sound; also it established a ground of common interest — a link — something that gave point to their little chat, and made it seem worth while to have stopped and spoken. They rose in one another’s estimation. The chance meeting ought to lead to something, perhaps. Yet neither found the expected inspiration; for neither au fond had anything to say to the other beyond passing the time of day.

  “Well,” said Pince-nez, lingeringly but very pleasantly, making a movement towards the doors; “I suppose I must be going in. You — er — you’ve had lunch, of course?”

  “Thanks, yes, I have,” Breezy replied with a certain air of disappointment, as though the question had been an invitation. He moved a few steps backwards down the pavement. “But, now you’re back,” he added more cheerfully, “we must try and see something of one another.”

  “By all means. Do let’s,” said Pince-nez. His manner somehow suggested that he too expected an invitation, perhaps. He hesitated a moment, as though about to add something, but in the end said nothing.

  “We must lunch together one day,” observed Breezy, with his jolly smile. He glanced up at the restaurant.

  “By all means — let’s,” agreed the other again, with one foot on the steps. “Any day you like. Next week, perhaps. You let me know.” He nodded cordially, and half turned to enter.

  “Lemme see, where are you staying?” called Breezy by way of after thought.

  “Oh! I’ in at the X — ,” mentioning an obscure hostel in the W.C. district.

  “Of course; yes, I remember. That’s where you stopped before, isn’t it? Up in Bloomsbury somewhere — ?”

  “Rooms ain’t up to much, but the cooking’s quite decent.”

  “Good. Then we’ll lunch one day soon. What sort of time, by the bye, suits you?” The breezy one, for some obscure reason, looked vigorously at his watch.

  “Oh! any time; one o’clock onwards, sort of thing, I suppose?” with an air of “just let me know and I’ll be there.”

  “Same here, yes,” agreed the other, with slightly less enthusiasm.

  “That’s capital, then,” from Pince-nez. He paused a moment, not finding precisely the suitable farewell phrase. Then, to his own undoing, he added carelessly, “There are one or two things — er — I should like to tell you about—”

  “And luncheon is the best time,” Breezy suggested at once, “for busy men like us. You might bespeak a table, in fact.” He jerked his head towards the restaurant.

  The two acquaintances, one on the pavement, the other on the steps, stood and stared at each other. The onus of invitation had somehow shifted insensibly from Breezy to Pince-nez. The next remark would be vital. Neither thought it worth while to incur the slight expense of a luncheon that involved an hour in each other’s company. Yet it was nothing stronger than a dread of possible boredom that dictated the hesitancy.

  “Not a bad idea,” agreed
Pince-nez vaguely. “But I doubt if they’ll keep a table after one o’clock, you know.”

  “Never mind, then. You’ re on the telephone, I suppose, aren’t you?” called Breezy down the pavement, still moving slowly backwards.

  “Yes, you’ll find it under the name of the hotel,” replied the other, putting his head back round the door-post in the act of going in.

  “My number’s not in the book!” Breezy cried back; “but it’s 0417 Westminster. Then you’ll ring me up one day? That’ll be very jolly indeed. Don’t forget the number!” This shifting of telephonic responsibility, he felt, was a master-stroke.

  “Right-O. I’ll remember. So long, then, for the present,” Pince-nez answered more faintly, disappearing into the restaurant.

  “Decent fellow, that. I shall go to lunch if he asks me,” was the thought in the mind of each. It lasted for perhaps half a minute, and then — oblivion.

  Ten days later they ran across one another again about luncheon-time in Piccadilly; nodded, smiled, hesitated a second too long — and turned back to shake hands.

  “How’s everything?” asked the breezy one with gusto.

  “First-rate, thanks. And how are you?”

  “Jolly weather, isn’t it?” Breezy said, looking about him generally, “this sunshine — by Jove!”

  “Nothing like it,” declared Pince-nez, shifting his glasses to look at the sun, and concealing his lack of something to say by catching at the hearty manner.

  “Nothing,” agreed Breezy.

  “In the world,” echoed Pince-nez.

  Again the topic was a link. The stream of pedestrians jostled them. They moved a few yards up Dover Street. Each was really on his way to luncheon. A pause followed the move.