The Collected Works of Algernon Blackwood (10 Novels & 80+ Short Stories in One Edition). Algernon Blackwood
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meanwhile. It was brightening into delicate crimson. Already the room was clearer, and the radiance of their bodies fading into a paler glory. Jane Anne grew clumsier, tumbling over things, and butting against her more agile sister. Her thoughts became more muddled. She said things from time to time that showed it—hints that waking was not far away.
'Daddy's a wumbled Laplander, you know, after all. Hurry up!' The foolish daylight speech came closer.
'Give his ink-pot one more blow,' cried Monkey. Her body always slept at least an hour longer than the others. She had more time for work.
Jane Anne bumped into the washhand-stand. She no longer saw quite clearly.
'I'm a plenipotentiary, that's what I am. I'm afraid of nothing. But the porridge has to be made. I must get back….'
She vanished like a flash, just as her brother had vanished half an hour before.
'We'll go on with it to-morrow night,' signalled Cousin Henry to his last remaining helper. 'Meet me here, remember, when…the moon…is high enough to…cast…a…shadow….'
The opening and shutting of a door sounded through his sleep. He turned over heavily. Surely it was not time to get up yet. That could not be hot water coming! He had only just fallen asleep. He plunged back again into slumber.
But Monkey had disappeared.
'What a spanking dream I've had…!' Her eyes opened, and she saw her school-books on the chair beside the bed. Mother was gently shaking her out of sleep. 'Six o'clock, darling. The bath is ready, and Jinny's nearly got the porridge done. It's a lovely morning!'
'Oh, Mummy, I——'
But Mummy lifted her bodily out of bed, kissed her sleepy eyes awake, and half carried her over to the bath. 'You can tell me all about that later,' she said with practical decision; 'when the cold water's cleared your head. You're always fuzzy when you wake.'
Another day had begun. The sun was blazing high above the Blumlisalp. The birds sang in chorus. Dew shone still on the fields, but the men were already busy in the vineyards.
And presently Cousin Henry woke too and stared lazily about his room.
He looked at his watch.
'By Jove,' he murmured. 'How one does sleep in this place! And what a dream to be sure—I who never dream!'
He remembered nothing more. From the moment he closed his eyes, eight hours before, until this second, all was a delicious blank. He felt refreshed and wondrously light-hearted, at peace with all the world. There was music in his head. He began to whistle as he lay among the blankets for half an hour longer. And later, while he breakfasted alone downstairs, he remembered that he ought to write to Minks. He owed Minks a letter. And before going out into the woods he wrote it. 'I'm staying on a bit,' he mentioned at the end. 'I find so much to do here, and it's such a rest. Meanwhile I can leave everything safely in your hands. But as soon as I get a leisure moment I'll send you the promised draft of my Scheme for Disabled, etc., etc.'
But the Scheme got no further somehow. New objections, for one thing, kept cropping up in his mind. It would take so long to build the place, and find the site, satisfy County Councils, and all the rest. The Disabled, moreover, were everywhere; it was invidious to select one group and leave the others out. Help the world, yes—but what was 'the world'? There were so many worlds. He touched a new one every day and every hour. Which needed his help most? Bourcelles was quite as important, quite as big and hungry as any of the others. 'That old Vicar knew a thing or two,' he reflected later in the forest, while he gathered a bunch of hepaticas and anemones to take to Mlle. Lemaire. 'There are "neighbours" everywhere, the world's simply chock full of 'em. But what a pity that we die just when we're getting fit and ready to begin. Perhaps we go on afterwards, though. I wonder…!'
CHAPTER XVII
The stars ran loose about the sky,
Wasting their beauty recklessly,
Singing and dancing,
Shooting and prancing,
Until the Pole Star took command,
Changing each wild, disordered band
Into a lamp to guide the land—
A constellation.
And so, about my mind and yours,
Thought dances, shoots, and wastes its powers,
Coming and going,
Aimlessly flowing,
Until the Pole Star of the Will
Captains them wisely, strong, and still,
Some dream for others to fulfil
With consecration.
Selected Poems, Montmorency Minke.
There was a certain air of unreality somewhere in the life at Bourcelles that ministered to fantasy. Rogers had felt it steal over him from the beginning. It was like watching a children's play in which the scenes were laid alternately in the Den, the Pension, and the Forest. Side by side with the grim stern facts of existence ran the coloured spell of fairy make-believe. It was the way they mingled, perhaps, that ministered to this spirit of fantasy.
There were several heroines for instance—Tante Jeanne, Mademoiselle Lemaire, and Mother; each played her role quite admirably. There were the worthy sterling men who did their duty dumbly, regardless of consequences—Daddy, the Postmaster, and the picturesque old clergyman with failing powers. There was the dark, uncertain male character, who might be villain, yet who might prove extra hero—the strutting postman of baronial ancestry; there was the role of quaint pathetic humour Miss Waghorn so excellently filled, and there were the honest rough-and-tumble comedians—half mischievous, half malicious—the retired governesses. Behind them all, brought on chiefly in scenes of dusk and moonlight, were the Forest Elves who, led by Puck, were responsible for the temporary confusion that threatened disaster, yet was bound to have a happy ending—the children. It was all a children's play set in the lovely scenery of mountain, forest, lake, and old-world garden.
Numerous other characters also flitted in and out. There was the cat, the bird, the donkey as in pantomime; goblin caves and haunted valleys and talking flowers; and the queer shadowy folk who came to the Pension in the summer months, then vanished into space again. Links with the outside world were by no means lacking. As in the theatre, one caught now and again the rumble of street traffic and the roar of everyday concerns. But these fell in by chance during quiet intervals, and served to heighten contrast only.
And so many of the principal roles were almost obviously assumed, interchangeable almost; any day the players might drop their wigs, rub off the paint, and appear otherwise, as they were in private life. The Widow Jequier's husband, for instance, had been a pasteur who had gone later into the business of a wine-merchant. She herself was not really the keeper of a Pension for Jeune Filles, but had drifted into it owing to her husband's disastrous descent from pulpit into cellar— understudy for some one who had forgotten to come on. The Postmaster, too, had originally been a photographer, whose funereal aspect had sealed his failure in that line. His customers could never smile and look pleasant. The postman, again, was a baron in disguise—in private life he had a castle and retainers; and even Gygi, the gendarme, was a make-believe official who behind the scenes was a vigneron and farmer in a very humble way. Daddy, too, seemed sometimes but a tinsel author dressed up for the occasion, and absurdly busy over books that no one ever saw on railway bookstalls. While Mademoiselle Lemaire was not in fact and verity a suffering, patient, bed-ridden lady, but a princess who escaped from her disguise at night into glory and great beneficent splendour.
Mother alone was more real than the other players. There was no make- believe about Mother. She thundered across the stage and stood before the footlights, interrupting many a performance with her stubborn common-sense and her grip upon difficult