The Algernon Blackwood Collection

by Algernon Blackwood

  Devonham, hardly able to believe his ears and eyes, turned to see if Fillery had heard the scrap of talk. Judging by the expression on his face, he had not heard it. Father Collins seemed saying things that held his attention too closely. Yet Fillery, for all his apparent absorption, had heard it, though he read it otherwise than his somewhat literal colleague. It was, nevertheless, an interesting revelation to him, since it proved to him again how unreal “LeVallon” was; how easily, quickly this educated simulacrum caught up, assimilated and reproduced as his own, yet honestly, whatever was in the air at the moment. For the words he had spoken were not his own, but Fillery’s. They lay, or something like them lay, unuttered in Fillery’s mind just at that very moment. Yet, even while listening attentively to Father Collins, his close interest in LeVallon was so keen, so watchful, that another portion of his mind was listening to this second conversation, even taking part in it inaudibly. LeVallon caught his language from the

  Devonham made his opportunity, leading LeVallon off to be introduced to Lady Gleeson, who still sat waiting for them on the divan in the outer studio.

  As they made their way through the buzzing throng into the larger room, Devonham guessed suddenly that Lady Gleeson must somehow have heard in advance that Le–Vallon would be present; her flair for new men was singular; the sexual instinct, unduly developed, seemed aware of its prey anywhere within a big radius. He owed his friend a hint of guidance possibly. “A little woman,” he explained as they crossed over, “who has a weakness for big men and will probably pay you compliments. She comes here to amuse herself with what she calls ‘the freaks.’ Sometimes she lends her great house for the meetings. Her husband’s a millionaire.” To which the other, in his deep, quiet voice, replied: “Thank you, Dr. Devonham.”

  “She’s known as ‘the pretty Lady Gleeson.’”

  “That?” exclaimed the other, looking towards her.

  “Hush!” his companion warned him.

  As they approached, Lady Gleeson, waiting with keen impatience, saw them coming and made her preparations. The frown of annoyance at the long delay was replaced by a smile of welcome that lifted the upper lip on one side only, showing the white even teeth with odd effect. She stared at LeVallon, thought Devonham, as a wolf eyes its prey. Deftly lowering her dress betraying thereby that she knew it was too high, and a detail now best omitted from the picture she half rose from her seat as they came up. The instinctive art of deference, though instantly corrected, did not escape Paul Devonham’s too observant eye.

  “You were kind enough to say I might introduce my friend,” murmured he. “Mr. LeVallon is new to our big London 2 and a stranger among all these people.”

  LeVallon bowed in his calm, dignified fashion, saying no word, but Lady Gleeson put her hand out, and, finding his own, shook it with her air of brilliant welcome. Determination lay in her smile and in her gesture, in her voice as well, as she said familiarly at once: “But, Mr. LeVallon, how tall are you, really? You seem to me a perfect giant.” She made room for him beside her on the divan. “Everybody here looks undersized beside you!” She became intense.

  “I am six feet and three inches,” he replied literally, but without expression in his face. There was no smile. He was examining her as frankly as she examined him. Devonham was examining the pair of them. The lack of interest, the cold indifference in LeVallon, he reflected, must put the young woman on her mettle, accustomed as she was to quick submission in her victims.

  LeVallon, however, did not accept the offered seat; perhaps he had not noticed the invitation. He showed no interest, though polite and gentle.

  “He towers over all of us,” Devonham put in, to help an awkward pause. Yet he meant it more than literally; the empty prettiness of the shallow little face before him, the triviality of Miss Rosa Mystica, the cheapness of Povey, Kempster, Mrs. Towzer, the foolish air of otherworldly expectancy in the whole room, of deliberate exaggeration, of eyes big with wonder for sensation as story followed story all this came upon him with its note of poverty and tawdriness as he used the words.

  Something in the atmosphere of LeVallon had this effect whence did it come? he questioned, puzzled of dwarfing all about him.

  “All London, remember, isn’t like this,” he heard Lady Gleeson saying, a dangerous purr audible in the throaty voice. “Do sit down here and tell me what you think about it. I feel you don’t belong here quite, do you know? London cramps you, doesn’t it? And you find the women dull and insipid?” She deliberately made more room, patting the cushions invitingly with a flashing hand, that alone, thought Devonham contemptuously, could have endowed at least two big Cliniques. “Tell me about yourself, Mr. LeVallon. I’m dying to hear about your life in the woods and mountains. Do talk to me. I am so bored!”

  What followed surprised Devonham more than any of the three perhaps. He ascribed it to what Fillery had called the “natural gentleman,” while Lady Gleeson, doubtless, ascribed it to her own personal witchery.

  With that easy grace of his he sat down instantly beside her on the low divan, his height and big frame contriving the awkward movement without a sign of clumsiness. His indifference was obvious to Devonham, but the vain eyes of the woman did not notice it.

  “That’s better,” she again welcomed him with a happy laugh. She edged closer a little. “Now, do make yourself comfortable” she arranged the cushions again “and please tell me about your wild life in the forests, or wherever it was. You know a lot about the stars, I hear.” She devoured his face and figure with her shining eyes.

  The upper lip was lifted for a second above a gleaming tooth. Devonham had the feeling she was about to eat him, licking her lips already in anticipation. He himself would be dismissed, he well knew, in another moment, for Lady Gleeson would not tolerate a third person at the meal. Before he was sent about his business, however, he had the good fortune to hear LeVallon’s opening answer to the foolish invitation. Amazement filled him, He wished

  Fillery could have heard it with him, seen the play of expression on the faces too the bewilderment of sensational hunger for something new in Lady Gleeson’s staring eyes, arrested instantaneously; the calm, cold look of power, yet power tempered by a touch of pity, in LeVallon’s glance, a glance that was only barely aware of her proximity. He smiled as he spoke, and the smile increased his natural radiance. He looked extraordinarily handsome, yet with a new touch of strangeness that held even the cautious doctor momentarily almost spellbound.

  “Stars yes, but I rarely see them here in London, and they seem so far away. They comfort me. They bring me they and women bring me nearest to a condition that is gone from me. I have lost it.” He looked straight into her face, so that she blinked and screwed up her eyes, while her breathing came more rapidly. “But stars and women,” he went on, his voice vibrating with music in spite of its quietness, “remind me that it is recoverable. Both give me this sweet message. I read it in stars and in the eyes of women. And it is true because no words convey it. For women cannot express themselves, I see; and stars, too, are silent here.”

  The same soft thunder as before sounded below the gently spoken words; Lady Gleeson was trembling a little; she made a movement by means of which she shifted herself yet nearer to her companion in what seemed a natural and unconscious way. It was doubtless his proximity rather than his words that stirred her. Her face was set, though the lips quivered a trifle and the voice was less shrill than usual as she spoke, holding out her empty glass.

  “Thank you, Dr. Devonham,” she said icily.

  The determined gesture, a toss of the head, with the glare of sharp impatience in the eyes, he could not ignore; yet he accepted his curt dismissal slowly enough to catch her murmured words to LeVallon:

  “How wonderful! How wonderful you are! And what sort of women...?” followed him as he moved away.

  In his heart rose again an uncomfortable memory of a Jura valley blazing in the sunset, and of a half-naked figure worshipping before a great wood fire on
the rocks.... He fancied he caught, too, in the voice, a suggestion of a lilt, a chanting resonance, that increased his uneasiness further. One thing was certain: it was not quite the ordinary “LeVallon” that answered the silly woman. The reaction was of a different kind. Was, then, the other self awake and stirring? Was it “N.H.” after all, as his colleague claimed?

  Allowing a considerable interval to pass, he returned with a glass of lemonade reaching the divan in its dimlit corner just in time to see a flashing hand withdrawn quickly from LeVallon’s arm, and to intercept a glance that told him the intrigue evidently had not developed altogether according to Lady Gleeson’s plan, although her air was one of confidence and keenest self-satisfaction. LeVallon sat like a marble figure, cold, indifferent, looking straight before him, listening, if only with half an ear, to a stream of words whose import it was not difficult to guess.

  This Devonham’ s practised eye read in the flashing look she shot at him, and in the quick way she thanked him.

  “Coffee, dear Dr. Devonham, I asked for.”

  Her move was so quick, his desire to watch them a moment longer together so keen, that for an instant he appeared to hesitate. It was more than appearance; he did hesitate an instant merely, yet long enough for Lady Gleeson to shoot at him a second swift glance of concentrated virulence, and also long enough for LeVallon to spring lightly to his feet, take the glass from his hand and vanish in the direction of the refreshment table before anything could prevent. “I will get your coffee for you,” still sounded in the air, so quickly was the adroit manoeuvre executed. LeVallon had cleverly escaped.

  “How stupid of me,” said Devonham quickly, referring to the pretended mistake. Lady Gleeson made no reply. Her inward fury betrayed itself, however, in the tight-set lips and the hard glitter of her brilliant little eyes. “He won’t be a moment,” the other added. “Do you find him interesting? He’s not very talkative as a rule, but perhaps with you “ He hardly knew what words he used.

  The look she gave him stopped him, so intense was the bitterness in the eyes. His interruption, then, must indeed have been worse or better? timed than he had imagined. She made no pretence of speaking. Turning her glance in the direction whence the coffee must presently appear, she waited, and Devonham might have been a dummy for all the sign she gave of his being there. He had made an enemy for life, he felt, a feeling confirmed by what almost immediately then followed. Neither the coffee nor its bearer came that evening to pretty Lady Gleeson in the way she had desired. She laid the blame at Devonham’s door.

  For at that moment, as he stood before her, secretly enjoying her anger a little, yet feeling foolish, perhaps, as well, a chord sounded on the piano, and a hush passed instantly over the entire room. Someone was about to sing. Nayan Khilkoff had come in, unnoticed, by the door of the private room. Her singing invariably formed a part of these entertainments. The song, too, was the one invariably asked for, its music written by herself.

  All talk and movement stopped at the sound of the little prelude, as though a tap had been turned off. Even Devonham, most unmusical of men, prepared to listen with enjoyment. He tried to see Nayan at the piano, but too many people came between. He saw, instead, LeVallon standing close at his side, the cup of coffee in his hand. He had that instant returned.

  “For Lady Gleeson. Will you pass it to her? Who’s going to sing?” he whispered all in the same breath. And Devonham told him, as he bent down to give the cup. “Nayan Khilkoff. Hush! It’s a lovely song. I know it The Vagrant’s Epitaph.’”

  They stood motionless to listen, as the pure voice of the girl, singing very simply but with the sweetness and truth of sincere feeling, filled the room. Every word, too, was clearly audible:

  “Change was his mistress; Chance his counsellor.

  Love could not hold him; Duty forged no chain.

  The wide seas and the mountains called him,

  And grey dawns saw his camp-fires in the rain.

  “Sweet hands might tremble! aye, but he must go.

  Revel might hold him for a little space;

  But, turning past the laughter and the lamps,

  His eyes must ever catch the luring Face.

  “Dear eyes might question! Yea, and melt again;

  Rare lips a-quiver, silently implore;

  But he must ever turn his furtive head,

  And hear that other summons at the door.

  “Change was his mistress; Chance his counsellor.

  The dark firs knew his whistle up the trail.

  Why tarries he today?... And yesternight

  Adventure lit her stars without avail.”

  CHAPTER 13

  ..................

  LADY GLEESON, OWING TO AN outraged vanity and jealousy she was unable to control, missed the final scene, for before the song was actually finished she was gone. Being near a passage that was draped only by a curtain, she slipped out easily, flung herself into a luxurious motor, and vanished into the bleak autumn night.

  She had seen enough. Her little heart raged with selfish fury. What followed was told her later by word of mouth.

  Never could she forgive herself that she had left the studio before the thing had happened. She blamed Devonham for that too.

  For LeVallon, it appears, having passed the cup of coffee to her through a third person in itself an insult of indifference and neglect stood absorbed in the words and music of the song., Being head and shoulders above the throng, he easily saw the girl at the piano. No one, unless it was Fillery, a few yards away, watched him as closely as did Devonham and Lady Gleeson, though all three for different reasons. It was Devonham, however, who made the most accurate note of what he saw, though Fillery ‘s memory was possibly the truer, since his own inner being supplied the fuller and more sympathetic interpretation.

  LeVallon, tall and poised, stood there like a great figure shaped in bronze. He was very calm. His bright hair seemed to rise a little; his eyes, steady and wondering, gazed fixedly; his features, though set, were mobile in the sense that any instant they might leap into the alive and fluid expression of some strong emotion. His whole being, in a word, stood at attention, alert for instant action of some uncontrollable, perhaps terrific kind, “He seemed like a glowing pillar of metal that must burst into flame the very next instant,” as a Member told Lady Gleeson later.

  Devonham watched him. LeVallon seemed transfixed. He stared above the intervening tousled heads. He drew a series of deep breaths that squared his shoulders and made his chest expand. His very muscles ached apparently for instant action. An intensity of wondering joy and admiration that lit his face made the eyes shine like stars. He watched the singing girl as a tiger watches the keeper who brings its long-expected food. The instant the bar is up, it springs, it leaps, it carries off, devours. Only, in this case, there were no bars. Nor was the wild desire for nourishment of a carnal kind. It was companionship, it was intercourse with his own that he desired so intensely.

  “He divines the motherhood in her,” thought Fillery, watching closely, pain and happiness mingled in his heart. “The protective, selfless, upbuilding power lies close to Nature.” And as this flashed across him he caught a glimpse by chance of its exact opposite in Lady Gleeson’s peering, glittering eyes the destructive lust, the selfish passion, the bird of prey.

  “The dark firs knew his whistle up the trail,” the song in that soft true voice drew to its close. LeVallon was trembling.

  “Good Heavens!” thought Devonham. “Is it ‘N.H.’? Is it ‘N.H.’ after all, waking rising to take possession?” He, too, trembled.

  It was here that Lady Gleeson, close, intuitive observer of her escaping prey, rose up and slipped away, her going hardly noticed by the half — entranced, half-dreaming hearts about her, each intent upon its own small heaven of neat desire. She went as unobstrusively as an animal that is aware of untoward conditions and surroundings, showing her teeth, feeling her claws, yet knowing herself helpless. Not even Devonham, his mind ever keen
ly alert, observed her going. Fillery, alone, conscious of LeVallon’s eyes across the room, took note of it. She left, her violent little will intent upon vengeance of a later victory that she still promised herself with concentrated passion.

  Yet Devonham, though he failed to notice the slim animal of prey in exit, noticed this that the face he watched so closely changed quickly even as he watched, and that the new expression, growing upon it as heat grows upon metal set in a flame, was an expression he had seen before. He had seen it in that lonely mountain valley where a setting sun poured gold upon a burning pyre, upon a dancing, chanting figure, upon a human face he now watched in this ridiculous little Chelsea studio. The sharpness of the air, the very perfume, stole over him as he stared, perplexed, excited and uneasy. That strange, wild, innocent and tender face, that power, that infinite yearning! LeVallon had disappeared. It was “N.H.” that stood and watched the singer at the little modern piano.

  Then with the end of the song came the rush, the bustle of applause, the confusion of many people rising, trotting forward, all talking at once, all moving towards the singer when LeVallon, hitherto motionless as a statue, suddenly leaped past and through them like a vehement wind through a whirl of crackling dead leaves. Only his deft, skilful movement, of poise and perfect balance combined with accurate swiftness, could have managed it without bruised bodies and angry cries. There was no clumsiness, no visible effort, no appearance of undue speed. He seemed to move quietly, though he moved like fire. In a moment he was by the piano, and Nayan, in the act of rising from her stool, gazed straight up into his great lighted eyes.

  It was singular how all made way for him, drew back, looked on. Confusion threatened. Emotion surged like a rising sea. Without a leader there might easily have been tumult; even a scene. But Fillery was there. His figure intervened at once.