The Collected Works of Algernon Blackwood (10 Novels & 80+ Short Stories in One Edition). Algernon Blackwood
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and stood boldly upright on both feet. But the weight still clung to his back. He looked over his shoulder. Yes! it was trailing after him from the bed; it was fan-shaped, and brilliant in colour. He put out a hand and touched it; it was soft and glossy; then he took it deliberately between his fingers; it was smooth as velvet, and had numerous tiny ribs running along it.
Seizing it at last with all his courage, he pulled it forward in front of him for a better view, only to discover that it would not come out beyond a certain distance, and seemed to have got caught somehow between his shoulders—just where the pains had been. A second pull, more vigorous than the first, showed that it was not caught, but fastened to his skin; it divided itself, moreover, into two portions, one half coming from each shoulder.
"I do believe they're feathers!" he exclaimed, his eyes almost popping out of his head.
Then, with a sudden flash of comprehension, he saw it all, and understood. They were, indeed, feathers; but they were something more than feathers merely. They were wings!
Jimbo caught his breath and stared in silence. He felt dazed. Then bit by bit the fragments of the weird mosaic fell into their proper places, and he began to understand. Escape was to be by flight. It filled him with such a whirlwind of delight and excitement that he could scarcely keep from screaming aloud.
Lost in wonder, he took a step forward, and watched with bulging eyes how the wings followed him, their tips trailing along the floor. They were a beautiful deep red, and hung down close and warm beside his body; glossy, sleek, magical. And when, later, the sun burst into the room and turned their colour into living flame, he could not resist the temptation to kiss them. He seized them, and rubbed their soft surfaces over his face. Such colours he had never seen before, and he wanted to be sure that they really belonged to him and were intended for actual use.
Slowly, without using his hands, he raised them into the air. The effort was a perfectly easy muscular effort from the shoulders that came naturally, though he did not quite understand how he accomplished it. The wings rose in a fine, graceful sweep, curving over his head till the tips of the feathers met, touching the walls as they rose, and almost reaching to the ceiling.
He gave a howl of delight, for this sight was more than he could manage without some outlet for his pent-up emotion; and at the same moment the trap-door shot open, and the governess came into the room with such a bang and a clatter that Jimbo knew at once her excitement was as great as his own. In her hands she carried the blouse she had taken away the night before. She held it out to him without a word. Her eyes were shining like electric lamps. In less than a second he had slipped his wings through the neatly-made slits, but before he could practise them again, Miss Lake rushed over to him, her face radiant with happiness.
"Jimbo! My darling Jimbo!" she cried—and then stopped short, apparently unable to express her emotion.
The next instant he was enveloped, wings and all, in a warm confusion of kisses, congratulations and folds of hood.
When they became disentangled again the governess went down on her knees and made a careful examination; she pulled the wings out to their full extent and found that they stretched about four feet and a half from tip to tip.
"They are beauties!" she exclaimed enthusiastically, "and full grown and strong. I'm not surprised they took so long coming."
"Long!" he echoed, "I thought they came awfully quickly."
"Not half so quickly as they'll go," she interrupted; adding, when she saw his expression of dismay, "I mean, you'll fly like the wind with them."
Jimbo was simply breathless with excitement. He wanted to jump out of the window and escape at once. The blue sky and the sunshine and the white flying clouds sent him an irresistible invitation. He could not wait a minute longer.
"Quick," he cried, "I can't wait! They may go again. Show me how to use them. Oh! do show me."
"I'll show you everything in time," she answered. There was something in her voice that made him pause in his excitement. He looked at her in silence for some minutes.
"But how are you going to escape?" he asked at length. "You haven't got"——he stopped short.
The governess stepped back a few paces from him. She threw back the hood from her face. Then she lifted the long black cloak that hung like a cassock almost to her ankles and had always enveloped her hitherto.
Jimbo stared. Falling from her shoulders, and folding over her hips, he saw long red feathers clinging to her; and when he dashed forward to touch them with his hands, he found they were just as sleek and smooth and glossy as his own.
"And you never told me all this time?" he gasped.
"It was safer not," she said. "You'd have been stroking and feeling your shoulders the whole time, and the wings might never have come at all."
She spread out her wings as she spoke to their full extent; they were nearly six feet across, and the deep crimson on the under side was so exquisite, gleaming in the sunlight, that Jimbo ran in and nestled beneath the feathers, tickling his cheeks with the fluffy surface and running his fingers with childish delight along the slender red quills.
"You precious child," she said, tenderly folding her wings round him and kissing the top of his head. "Always remember that I really love you; no matter what happens, remember that, and I'll save you."
"And we shall escape together?" he asked, submitting for once to the caresses with a good grace.
"We shall escape from the Empty House together," she replied evasively. "How far we can go after that depends—on you."
"On me?"
"If you love me enough—as I love you, Jimbo—we can never separate again, because love ties us together for ever. Only," she added, "it must be mutual."
"I love you very much," he said, puzzled a little. "Of course I do."
"If you've really forgiven me for being the cause of your coming here," she said, "we can always be together, but——"
"I don't remember, but I've forgiven you—that other you—long ago," he said simply. "If you hadn't brought me here, I should never have met you."
"That's not real forgiveness—quite," she sighed, half to herself.
But Jimbo could not follow this sort of conversation for long; he was too anxious to try his wings for one thing.
"Is it very difficult to use them?" he asked.
"Try," she said.
He stood in the centre of the floor and raised them again and again. They swept up easily, meeting over his head, and the air whistled musically through them. Evidently, they had their proper muscles, for it was no great effort, and when he folded them again by his side they fell into natural curves over his arms as if they had been there all his life. The sound of the feathers threshing the air filled him with delight and made him think of the big night-bird that had flown past the window during the night. He told the governess about it, and she burst out laughing.
"I was that big bird!" she said.
"You!"
"I perched on the roof every night to watch over you. I flew down that time because I was afraid you were trying to climb out of the window."
This was indeed a proof of devotion, and Jimbo felt that he could never doubt her again; and when she went on to tell him about his wings and how to use them he listened with his very best attention and tried hard to learn and understand.
"The great difficulty is that you can't practise properly," she explained. "There's no room in here, and yet you can't get out till you fly out. It's the first swoop that decides all. You have to drop straight out of this window, and if you use the wings properly they will carry you in a single swoop over the wall and right up into the sky."
"But if I miss——?"
"You can't miss," she said with decision, "but, if you did, you would be a prisoner here for