The Bright Messenger

by Algernon Blackwood

  CHAPTER XIV

  Khilkoff, Edward Fillery and Paul Devonham, between them, it seems,were wise in their generation. The story spread that the scene inthe Studio had been nothing but a bit of inspired impromptu acting,to which the coincidence of the storm had lent a touch of unexpectedconviction where, otherwise, all would have ended in a laugh and around or two of amused applause.

  The spreading of an undesirable story, thus, was to a great extentprevented, its discussion remaining confined, chiefly, among the fewstartled witnesses. Yet the Prometheans, of course, knew a supernaturaloccurrence when they saw one. They were not to be so easily deprivedof their treasured privilege. Thrilled to their marrows, individuallyand collectively, they committed their versions to writing, drew upreports, compared notes and, generally, made the feast last as long aspossible. It was, moreover, a semi-sacred feast for them. Its valueincreased portentously. It bound the Society together with fresh life.It attracted many new members. Povey and his committee increased thesubscription and announced an entrance fee in addition.

  The various accounts offered by the Members, curious as these were, maybe left aside for the moment, since the version of the occurrence asgiven by Edward Fillery comes first in interest. His report, however,was made only to himself; he mentioned it in full to no one, not evento Paul Devonham. He felt unable to share it with any living being.Only one result of his conclusions he shared openly enough with hisassistant: he withdrew his promise.

  Upon certain details, the two men agreed with interest--that everybodyin the room, men and women, were on the _qui vive_ the moment LeVallonmade his entrance. His appearance struck a note. All were aware of anunusual presence. Interest and curiosity rose like a vapour, heads allturned one way as though the same wind blew them, there was a buzz andmurmur of whispered voices, as though the figure of LeVallon woke intoresponse the same taut wire in every heart. "Who on earth is that? Whatis he?" was legible in a hundred questioning eyes. All, in a word, wereaware of something unaccustomed.

  Upon this detail--and in support of the Society's claim to special"psychic" perception, it must be mentioned--Fillery and Devonham wereat one. But another detail, too, found them in agreement. It was notthe tempest that caused the panic; it was LeVallon himself. Somethingabout LeVallon had produced the abrupt and singular sense of panicterror.

  Fillery was glad; he was satisfied, at any rate. The transient, unrealpersonality called "LeVallon" had disappeared and, as he believed,for ever; a surface apparition after all, it had been educated,superimposed, the result of imitation and quick learning, a phantommasquerading as an intelligent human being. It was merely an acquiredsurface-self, a physical, almost an automatic intelligence. The deepnature underneath had now broken out. It was the sudden irruption of"N. H." that touched the subconscious self of everyone in the room withits strange authentic shock. "N. H." was in full possession.

  Towards this real Self he felt attraction, yearning, even love. Hehad felt this from the very beginning. Why, or what it was, he didnot pretend to know as yet. Towards "N. H." he reacted as towardshis own son, as to a comrade, ancient friend, proved intimate andnatural playmate even. The strange tie was difficult to describe. Inhimself, though faint by comparison, lay something akin in sympathy andunderstanding.... They belonged together in the same unknown region.The girl, of course, belonged there too, but more completely, moreabsolutely, even than himself. He foresaw the risks, the dangers. Hisheart, with a leap of joy, accepted the responsibilities.

  Unlike Devonham, he had not come that afternoon to scoff; his smileat the vagaries of what his assistant called "hysterical psychics"had no bitterness, no contempt. If their excesses were pathogenicoften, he believed with Lombroso that genius and hysteria draw upona common origin sometimes, also that, from among this unstablematerial, there emerged on occasions hints of undeniable value. Tothe want of balance was chiefly due the ineffectiveness of thesehints. This class, dissatisfied with present things, kicking over thetraces which herd together the dull normal crowd into the safe butuninteresting commonplace, but kicking, of course, too wildly, aloneoffered hints of powers that might one day, obedient to laws at presentunknown, become of value to the race. They were temperamentally opento occasional, if misguided, inspiration, and all inspiration, theevidence overwhelmingly showed, is due to an intense, but hidden mentalactivity. The hidden nine-tenths of the self peeped out here and thereperiodically. These people were, at heart, alert to new ideas. The herdinstinct was weak in them. They were individuals.

  Fillery had not come to scoff. His chief purpose on this particularoccasion had been to observe any reactions produced in LeVallon bythe atmosphere of these unbalanced yet questing minds, and by theintroduction to a girl, whose beauty, physical and moral, he consideredfar far above the standard of other women. Iraida Khilkoff, as he sawher, rose head and shoulders, like some magical flower in a fairy-tale,beyond her feminine kind.

  His hopes had in both respects proved justified. LeVallon was gone. "N.H." had swept up commandingly into full possession.

  If it is the attitude of mind that interprets details in a givenscene, it is the heart that determines their selection. Devonham sawcollective hallucination, delusion, humbug--useless and undesirableweeds, where his chief saw strange imperfect growths that might oneday become flowers in a marvellous garden. That this garden blossomedupon the sunny slopes of a lost Caucasian valley had a significance hedid not shirk. Always he was honest with himself. It was this symbolicvalley he longed to people. Its radiant loveliness stirred a forgottenmusic in his heart, he watched golden bees sipping that wild azaleahoney, of which even the natives may not rob them without the dangerousdelight of exaltation; his nostrils caught the delicious perfumes, hischeek felt the touch of happy winds ... as he stood by the door withDevonham and LeVallon, looking round the crowded Chelsea studio.

  Aware of this association stirring in his blood, he believed he hadhimself well in hand; he knew already in advance that a spirit movedupon the face of those waters that were his inmost self; he had thatintuitive divination which anticipates a change of spiritual weather.The wind was rising, the atmosphere lay prepared, already the flowersbent their heads one way. All his powers of self-control might wellbe called upon before the entertainment ended. Glancing a moment atLeVallon, tall, erect and poised beside him, he was conscious--itwas an instant of vivid self-revelation--that he steadied himself indoing so. He borrowed, as it were, something of that poise, that calmsimplicity, that potential energy, that modest confidence. Some latentpower breathed through the great stalwart figure by his side; thestrength was not his own; LeVallon emanated this power unconsciously.

  Khilkoff, as described, had then led the youth away to see thesculpture, Devonham was captured by a Member, and Fillery found himselfalone. He looked about him, noticing here and there individuals whom heknew. Lady Gleeson he saw at once on her divan in the corner, with hercigarette, her jewels, her glass, her background of millions throughwhich an indulgent husband floated like a shadow. His eye rested on hera second only, then passed in search of something less insignificant.Miss Lance, who had heard of his books and dared to pretend knowledgeof them, monopolised him for ten minutes. A little tactful kindnessmanaged her easily, while he watched the door where LeVallon haddisappeared with Khilkoff, and through which Nayan might any moment nowenter. Already his thoughts framed these two together in a picture; hisheart saw them playing hand in hand among the flowers of the HiddenValley, one flying, the other following, a radiance of sunny fire and aspeed of lifting winds about them both, yet he himself, oddly enough,not far away. He, too, was somehow with them. While listening with hismind to what Miss Lance was saying, his heart went out playing withthis splendid pair.... He would not lose her finally, it seemed; somesubtle kinship held them together in this trinity. The heart in himplayed wild against the mind.

  He caught Devonham's eye upon him, and a sudden smile that Miss Lancefortunately appropriated to herself, ran over his too thoughtfulface. For Devonham's att
itude towards the case, his original Notes,his obvious concealment of experiences in the Jura Mountains, flashedacross him with a flavour of something half comic, half pathetic. "Withall that knowledge, with all the accumulation of data, Paul stops shortof Wonder!" he thought to himself, his eyes fixed solemnly upon MissLance's face. He remembered Coleridge: "All knowledge begins and endswith wonder, but the first wonder is the child of ignorance, whilethe second wonder is the parent of adoration." A thousand years, andthe dear fellow will still regard adoration as hysteria! He chuckledaudibly, to his companion's surprise, since the moment was notappropriate for chuckling.

  Making his peace with his neighbour, he presently left her for aposition nearer to the door, Father Collins providing the opportunity.

  Father Collins, as he was called, half affectionately, half in awe, asof a parent with a cane, was an individual. He had been evangelical,high church, Anglican, Roman Catholic, in turn, and finally Buddhist.Believing in reincarnation, he did not look for progress in humanity;the planet resembled a form at school--individuals passed into it andout of it, but the average of the form remained the same. The fifthform was always the fifth form. Earth's history showed no advance asa whole, though individuals did. He looked forward, therefore, to noUtopia, nor shared the pessimism of the thinkers who despaired ofprogress.

  A man of intense convictions, yet open mind, he was not ashamedto move. Before the Buddhist phase, he had been icily agnostic.He thought, but also he felt. He had vision and intuition; he hadinvestigated for himself. His mind was of the imaginative-scientificorder. Buddhism, his latest phase, attracted him because it was "ascientific, logical system rather than a religion based on revelation."He belonged eminently to the unstable. He found no resting place. Hecame to the meetings of the Society to listen rather than to talk. Hisnet was far flung, catching anything and everything in the way of newideas, experiments, theories, beliefs, especially powers. He testedfor himself, then accepted or discarded. The more extravagant thetheory, the greater its appeal to him. Behind a grim, even a repulsiveugliness, he hid a heart of milk and honey. In his face was nobility,yet something slovenly ran through it like a streak.

  He loved his kind and longed to help them to the light. Although arolling stone, spiritually, his naked sincerity won respect. He wascomposed, however, of several personalities, and hence, since theseoften clashed, he was accused of insincerity too. The essay thatlost him his pulpit and parish, "The Ever-moving Truth, or ProofImpossible," was the poignant confession of an honest intellect wherefaith and unbelief came face to face with facts. The Bishop, naturally,preferred the room of "Father" Collins to his company.

  "I should like you to meet my friend," Fillery mentioned, after somepreliminary talk. "He would interest you. You might help him possibly."He mentioned a few essential details. "Perhaps you will call oneday--you know my address--and make his acquaintance. His mind, owing tohis lonely and isolated youth, is _tabula rasa_. For the same reason, aprimitive Nature is his Deity."

  Father Collins raised his bushy dark eyebrows.

  "I took note of him the moment he came in," he replied. "I waswondering who he was--and what! I'll come one day with pleasure. Theinnocence on his face surprised me. Is he--may I ask it--friend orpatient?"

  "Both."

  "I see," said the other, without hesitation. He added: "You areexperimenting?"

  "Studying. I should value the help--the view of a religioustemperament."

  Father Collins looked grim to ugliness. The touch of nobility appeared.

  "I know your ideals, Dr. Fillery; I know your work," he said gruffly."In you lies more true religion than in a thousand bishops. I shouldtrust your treatment of an unusual case. If," he added slowly, "I canhelp him, so much the better." He then looked up suddenly, his manneras if galvanized: "Unless _he_ can perhaps help us."

  The words struck Fillery on the raw, as it were. They startled him. Hestared into the other's eyes. "What makes you think that? What do youmean exactly?"

  Father Collins returned his gaze unflinchingly. He made an odd reply."Your friend," he said, "looks to me--like a man who--might start a newreligion--Nature for instance--back to Nature being, in my opinion,always a possible solution of over-civilization and its degeneracy."The streak of something slovenly crept into the nobility, smudging it,so to speak, with a blur.

  Dr. Fillery, for a moment, waited, listening with his heart.

  "And find a million followers at once," continued the other, as thoughhe had not noticed. "His voice, his manner, his stature, his face, butabove all--something he brings with him. Whatever his nature, he's anatural leader. And a sincere, unselfish leader is what people areasking for nowadays."

  His black bushy eyebrows dropped, darkening the grim, clean-shavenface. "You noticed, of course--_you_--the women's eyes?" he mentioned."It isn't, you know, so much what a man says, nor entirely hislooks, that excite favour or disfavour with women. It's something heemanates--unconsciously. They can't analyze it, but they never fail torecognize it."

  Fillery moved sideways a little, so that he could watch the innerstudio better. The discernment of his companion was somewhatunexpected. It disconcerted him. All his knowledge, all his experienceclustered about his mind as thick as bees, yet he felt unable toselect the item he needed. The sunshine upon his Inner Valley burned abrighter fire. He saw the flowers glow. The wind ran sweet and magical.He began to watch himself more closely.

  "LeVallon is an interesting being," he admitted finally, "but you makebig deductions surely. A mind like yours," he added, "must have itsreasons?"

  "Power," replied the other promptly; "power. 'The earlier generations,'said Emerson, 'saw God face to face; _we_ through their eyes. Whyshould not we also enjoy an original relation to Nature?' Your friendhas this original relation, I feel; he stands close--terribly close--toNature. He brings open spaces even into this bargain sale----" He drewa deep breath. "There is a power about him----"

  "Perhaps," interrupted the other.

  "Not of this earth."

  "You mean that literally?"

  "Not of this earth quite--not of humanity, so to speak," repeatedFather Collins half irritably, as though his intelligence had beeninsulted. "That's the best way I can describe how it strikes me. Askone of the women. Ask Nayan, for instance. Whatever he is, your friendis elemental."

  Like a shock of fire the unusual words ran deep into Fillery's heart,but, at that same instant a stirring of the figures beyond the doorcaught his attention. His main interest revived. The inner door of theprivate studio, he thought, had opened.

  "Elemental!" he repeated, his interest torn in two directionssimultaneously. He looked at his companion keenly, searchingly. "You--aman like you--does not use such words----" He kept an eye upon theinner studio.

  "Without meaning," the other caught him up at once. "No. I mean it. Nordo I use such words idly to a man--Fillery--like you." He stopped. "Hehas what you have," came the quick blunt statement; "only in your caseit's indirect, while in his it's direct--essential."

  They looked at each other. Two minds, packed with knowledge andsoftened with experience of their kind, though from different pointsof view, met each other fairly. A bridge existed. It was crossed. Fewwords were necessary, it seemed. Each understood the other.

  "Elemental," repeated Fillery, his pulse quickening half painfully.

  At which instant he knew the inner door _had_ opened. Nayan hadcome in. The same instant almost she had gone out again. So quick,indeed, was the interval between her appearance and disappearance,that Fillery's version of what he then witnessed in those few secondsmight have been ascribed by a third person who saw it with him to hisimagination largely. Imaginative, at any rate, the version was; whetherit was on that account unreal is another matter. The swift, tiny scene,however, no one witnessed but himself. Even Devonham, unusually alertwith professional anxiety, missed it; as did also the watchful LadyGleeson, whom jealousy made clairvoyante almost. Khilkoff and LeVallon,standing sideways to the door, were eq
ually unaware that it had opened,then quickly closed again. None saw, apparently, the radiant, lovelyoutline.

  It was a curtained door leading out of the far end of the inner studiointo a passage which had an exit to the street; Fillery was so placedthat he could see it over his companion's shoulder; Khilkoff, LeVallonand the little group about them stood in his direct line of sightagainst the dark background of the curtain. The light in this farcorner was so dim that Fillery was not aware the curtained door hadswung open until he actually saw the figure of Nayan Khilkoff framedsuddenly in the clear space, the white passage wall behind her. Shewore gloves, hat and furs, having come, evidently, straight from thestreet. Ten seconds, perhaps twenty, she stood there, gazing with asudden fixed intensity at LeVallon, whose figure, almost close enoughfor touch, was sideways to her, the face in profile.

  She stopped abruptly as though a shock ran through her. She remainedmotionless. She stared, an expression in her eyes as of lifemomentarily arrested by wild, glorious, intense surprise. The lips wereparted; one gloved hand still held the swinging curtained door. ToFillery it seemed as if a flame leaped into her eyes. The entire facelit up. She seemed spellbound with delight.

  This leap of light was the first sign he witnessed. The same second hereyes lifted a fraction of an inch, changed their focus, and, gazingpast LeVallon, looked straight across the room into his own.

  In his mind at that instant still rang the singular words of FatherCollins; in his heart still hung the picture of the flowered valley: itwas across this atmosphere the eyes of the girl flashed their messagelike a stroke of lightning. It came as a cry, almost a call for help,an audible message whose syllables fled down the valley, yearningsweet, yet a tone of poignant farewell within the following wind.It was a moment of delicious joy, of exquisite pain, of a blissful,searching dream beyond this world....

  He stood spellbound himself a moment. The look in the girl's bigeloquent eyes threatened a cherished dream that lay too close to hisown life. He was aware of collapse, of ruin; that old peculiar anguishseized him. He remembered her words in Baker Street a few days before:"Please bring your friend"--the accompanying pain they caused. And nowhe caught the echo on that following wind along the distant valley. Thecry in her eyes came to him:

  "Why--O why--do you bring this to me? It must take your place. It mustput out--You!"

  The reasoning and the inspirational self in him knew this momentaryconfusion, as the cry fled down the wind.

  "O follow, follow Through the caverns hollow As the song floats, thou pursue Where the wild bee never flew...."

  The curtained door swung to again; the face and figure were no longerthere; Nayan had withdrawn quickly, noticed by none but himself. Shehad gone up to make herself ready for her father's guests; in a fewminutes she would come down again to play hostess as her custom was....It was so ordinary. It was so dislocating.... For at that moment itseemed as if all the feminine forces of the universe, whatever thesemay be, focused in her, and poured against him their concentratedstream to allure, enchant, subdue. He trembled. He rememberedDevonham's admission of the panic sense.

  "It's the air," said a voice beside him, "all this tobacco smoke andscent, and no ventilation."

  Father Collins was speaking, only he had completely forgotten thatFather Collins was in the world. The steadying hand upon his arm madehim realize that he had swayed a moment.

  "The perfume chiefly," the voice continued. "All this cheap nasty stuffthese women use. It's enough to sicken any healthy man. Nobody knowshis own smell, they say." He laughed a little.

  Collins was tactful. He talked on easily of nothing in particular, sothat his companion might let the occasion slip, or comment on it, as hewished.

  "Worse than incense." Fillery gave him the clue perhaps intentionally,certainly with gratitude. He made an effort. He found control. "Itintoxicates the imagination, doesn't it?" That note of sweet farewellstill hung with enchanting sadness in his brain. He still saw thoseyearning eyes. He heard that cry. And yet the conflict in his naturebewildered him--as though he found two persons in him, one weepingwhile the other sang.

  Father Collins smiled, and Fillery then knew that he, too, had seen thegirl framed in the doorway, intercepted the glance as well. No shadowof resentment crossed his heart as he heard him add: "She, too, perhapsbelongs elsewhere." The phrase, however, brought to his own personaldream the conviction of another understanding mind. "As you yourselfdo, too," was added in a thrilling whisper suddenly.

  Fillery turned with a start to meet his eye. "But _where_?"

  "That is _your_ problem," said Father Collins promptly. "You are theexpert--even though you think--mistakenly--that your heart is robbed."His voice held the sympathy and tenderness of a woman taught bysuffering. The nobility was in his face again, untarnished now. Hiswords, his tone, his manner caught Fillery in amazement. It did notsurprise him that Father Collins had been quick enough to understand,but it did surprise him that a man so entangled in one formal creedafter another, so netted by the conventional thought of variousreligious Systems, and therefore stuffed with old, rigid, commonplaceideas--it did, indeed surprise him to feel this sudden atmosphere ofvision and prophecy that abruptly shone about him. The extravagant,fantastic side of the man he had forgotten.

  "Where?" he repeated, gazing at him. "Where, indeed?"

  "Where the wild bee never flew ... perhaps!"

  Father Collins's eyebrows shot up as though worked by artificialsprings. His eyes, changing extraordinarily, turned very keen.He seemed several persons at once. He looked like--contradictorydescription--a spiritual Jesuit. The ugly mouth--thank Heaven, thoughtFillery--showed lines of hidden humour. His sanity, at any rate, wasunquestioned. Father Collins watched the planet with his soul, not withhis brain alone. But which of his many personalities was now in theascendancy, no man, least of all himself, could tell. His companion,the expert in him automatically aware of the simultaneous irruption anddisruption, waited almost professionally for any outburst that mightfollow. "Arcades ambo," he reflected, making a stern attempt to keephis balance.

  "The subconscious, remember, doesn't explain everything," camethe words. "Not everything," he added with emphasis. "As withheredity"--he looked keenly half humorously, half sympathetically atthe doctor--"there are gaps and lapses. The recent upheaval has beenmore than an inter-tribal war. It was a planetary event. It has shakenour nature fundamentally, radically. The human mind has been shocked,broken, dislocated. The prevalent hysteria is not an ordinary hysteria,nor are the new powers--perhaps--quite ordinary either."

  "Mental history repeats itself," Fillery put in, now more master ofhimself again. "Unbalance has always followed upheaval. The removalof known, familiar foundations always lets in extravagance of wildestdissatisfaction, search and question."

  "Upheaval of this kind," rejoined the other gravely, "there has neverbeen since human beings walked the earth. Our fabulous old worldtrembles in the balance." And, as he said it, the dreamer shone in thelight below the big, black eyebrows, noticed quickly by his companion."Old ideals have been smashed beyond recovery. The gods men knew havebeen killed, like Tommy, in the trenches. The past is likewise dead,its dreams of progress buried with it by a Black Maria. The human mindand heart stand everywhere empty and bereft, while their hungry andunanswered questions search the stars for something new."

  "Well, well," said Fillery gently, half stirred, half amused by theodd language. "You may be right. But mental history has always showna desire for something new after each separate collapse. Signs andwonders are a recurrent hunger, remember. In the days of Abraham, ofPaul, of Moses it was the same."

  "Questions to-day," replied the other, "are based on an immenseaccumulated knowledge unknown to Moses or to Abraham's time. Thephenomenon, I grant you, is the same, but--the shock, the dislocation,the shattering upheaval comes in the twentieth century upon mindsgrounded in deep scientific wisdom. It was formerly a shock to thesuperstitious ignorance of intuitive feeling merely. To-day
it isorganized scientific knowledge that meets the earthquake."

  "You mentioned gaps and lapses," said Fillery, deeply interested, butstill half professionally, perhaps, in spite of his preoccupations."You think, perhaps, those gaps----?" One eye watched the inner studio.The unstable in him gained more and more the upper hand.

  "I mean," replied Father Collins, now fairly launched upon his secrethobby, evidently his qualification for membership in the Society,"I mean, Edward Fillery, that the time is ripe, if ever, for a newrevelation. If Man is the only type of being in the universe, well andgood. We see his finish plainly, for the war has shown that progressis a myth. Man remains, in spite of all conceivable scientificknowledge, a savage, of low degree, irredeemable, and intellect, as areconstructive force, but of small account."

  "It seems so, I admit."

  "But if"--Father Collins said it as calmly as though he spoke ofsome new food or hygienic treatment merely--"if mankind is not theonly life in the universe, if, for instance, there exist--and whynot?--other evolutionary systems besides our own somewhat trumperytype--other schemes and other beings--perhaps parallel, perhaps quitedifferent--perhaps in more direct contact with the sources of life--apurer emanation, so to say----"

  He hesitated, realizing perhaps that in speaking to a man of EdwardFillery's standing he must choose his words, or at least present hiscase convincingly, while aware that his inability to do so made himonly more extravagant and incoherent.

  "Yes, quite so," Fillery helped him, noting all the time the suppressedintensity, the half-concealed conviction of an _idee fixe_ behind thecalmness, while the balance of his own attention remained concentratedon the group about LeVallon. "If, as you suggest, there _are_ othertypes of life----" He spoke encouragingly. He had noticed the slovenlystreak spread and widen, breaking down, as it were, the structure ofthe face. He was aware also of the increasing insecurity in himself.

  "Now is the moment," cried the other; "now is the time for theirappearance."

  He turned as though he had hit a target unexpectedly.

  "Now," he repeated, "is the opportunity for their manifestation. Thehuman mind lies open everywhere. It is blank, receptive, ready. On allsides it waits ready and inviting. The gaps are provided. If there isany other life, it should break through and come among us--_now_!"

  Fillery, startled, withdrew for the first time his attention from thatinner room. With keen eyes he gazed at his companion. With an abrupt,unpleasant shock it occurred to him that all he heard was borrowed,filched, stolen out of his own mind. Before words came to him, theother spoke:

  "Your friend," he mentioned quietly, but with intentional significance,"and patient."

  "LeVallon!"

  But it was at this moment that Nayan Khilkoff, entering again withouther hat and furs, had moved straight to the piano, seated herself, andbegan to sing.