The Bright Messenger

by Algernon Blackwood

  CHAPTER XVI

  When relative order had been restored, Devonham realized, of course,that his colleague had cleverly spirited away their "patient"; alsothat the sculptor had carried off his daughter. Relieved to escapefrom the atmosphere of what he considered collective hysteria, hehad borrowed mackintosh and umbrella, and declining several offersof a lift, had walked the four miles to his house in the rain andwind. The exercise helped to work off the emotion in him; his mindcleared healthily; personal bias gave way to honest and unprejudicedreflection; there was much that interested him deeply, at the same timepuzzled and bewildered him beyond anything he had yet experienced. Hereached the house with a mind steady if unsatisfied; but the emotionscaused by prejudice had gone. His main anxiety centred about his chief.

  He was glad to notice a light in an upper window, for it meant, hehoped, that LeVallon was now safely home. While his latchkey sought itshole, however, this light was extinguished, and when the door opened,it was Fillery himself who greeted him, a finger on his lips.

  "Quietly!" he whispered. "I've just got him to bed and put his lightout. He's asleep already." Paul noticed his manner instantly--itshappiness. There was a glow of mysterious joy and wonder in hisatmosphere that made the other hostile at once.

  They went together towards that inner room where so often togetherthey had already talked both moon and sun to bed. Cold food lay on thetable, and while they satisfied their hunger, the rain outside poureddown with a steady drenching sound. The wind had dropped. The suburblay silent and deserted. It was long past midnight. The house wasvery still, only the occasional step of a night-nurse audible in thepassages and rooms upstairs. They would not be disturbed.

  "You got him home all right, then?" Paul asked presently, keeping hisvoice low.

  He had been observing his friend closely; the evident pleasure andsatisfaction in the face annoyed him; the light in the eyes at thesame time profoundly troubled him. Not only did he love his chief forhimself, he set high value on his work as well. It would be deplorable,a tragedy, if judgment were destroyed by personal bias and desire. Hefelt uneasy and distressed.

  Fillery nodded, then gave an account of what had happened, butobviously an account of outward events merely; he did not wish,evidently, to argue or explain. The strong, rugged face was lit up,the eyes were shining; some inner enthusiasm pervaded his whole being.Evidently he felt very sure of something--something that both pleasedand stimulated him.

  His account of what had happened was brief enough, little more than astatement of the facts.

  Finding himself close to LeVallon when the darkness came, he had kepthold of him and hurried him out of the house at once. The suddenblackness, it seemed, had made LeVallon quiet again, though he keptasking excitedly for the girl. When assured that he would soon see her,he became obedient as a lamb. The absence of light apparently had acalming influence. They found, of course, no taxis, but commandeeredthe first available private car, Fillery using the authoritativeinfluence of his name. And it was Lady Gleeson's car, Lady Gleesonherself inside it. She had thought things over, put two and twotogether, and had come back. Her car might be of use. It was. For therain was falling in sheets and bucketfuls, the road had become a riverof water, and Fillery's automobile, ordered for an hour later, had notput in an appearance. It was the rain that saved the situation....

  An exasperated expression crossed Devonham's face as he heard thisdetail emphasized. He had meant to listen without interruption. Theenigmatical reference to the rain proved too much for him.

  "Why 'the rain'? What d'you mean exactly, Edward?"

  "Water," was the reply, made in a significant tone that further annoyedhis listener's sense of judgment. "You remember the Channel, surely!Water and fire mutually destroy each other. They are hostile elements."

  There was a look almost of amusement on his face as he said it.Devonham kept a tight hold upon his tongue. It was not impatience orsurprise he felt, though both were strong; it was perhaps sorrow.

  "And so Lady Gleeson drove you home?"

  He waited with devouring interest for further details. The throng ofquestions, criticisms and emotions surging in him he repressed withadmirable restraint.

  Lady Gleeson, yes, had driven the party home. Fillery made her sit onthe back seat alone, while he occupied the front one, LeVallon besidehim, but as far back among the deep cushions as possible. The doctorheld his hand. At any other time, Devonham could have laughed; but hesaw no comedy now. Lady Gleeson, it seemed, was awed by the seriousnessof the "Chief," whom, even at the best of times, she feared a little.Her vanity, however, persuaded her evidently that she was somehow thecentre of interest.

  Yet Devonham, as he listened, had difficulty in persuading himself thathe was in the twentieth century, and that the man who spoke was hiscolleague and a man of the day as well.

  "LeVallon talked little, and that little to himself or to me. He seemedunaware that a third person was present at all. Though quiet enough,there was suppressed vehemence still about him. He said various things:that '_she_ belonged to us,' for instance; that he 'knew his own'; that_she_ was 'filled with fire in exile'; and that he would 'take herback.' Also that I, too, must go with them both. He often mentionedthe sun, saying more than once that the sun had 'sent its messengers.'Obviously, it was not the ordinary sun he referred to, but some sourceof central heat and fire he seems aware of----"

  "You, I suppose, Edward," put in his listener quickly, "said nothing toencourage all this? Nothing that could suggest or stimulate?"

  Fillery ignored, even if he noticed, the tone of the question. "I keptsilence rather. I said very little. I let him talk. I had to keep aneye on the woman, too."

  "You certainly had your hands full--a dual personality and anymphomaniac."

  "She helped me, without knowing it. All he said about the girl, sheevidently took to herself. When he begged me to keep the water out, shedrew the window up the last half-inch.... The water frightened him; shewas sympathetic, and her sympathy seemed to reach him, though I doubtif he was aware of her presence at all until the last minute almost----"

  "And 'at the last minute'?"

  "She leaned forward suddenly and took both his hands. I had let goof the one I held and was just about to open the door, when I heardher say excitedly that I must let her come and see him, or that hemust call on her; she was sure she could help him; he must tell hereverything.... I turned to look.... LeVallon, startled into what Ibelieve was his first consciousness of her presence, stared into hereyes, and leaned forward among his cushions a little, so that theirfaces were close together. Before I could interfere, she had flungher bare arms about his neck and kissed him. She then sat back again,turning to me, and repeating again and again that he needed a woman'scare and that she must help and mother him. She was excited, but sheknew what she was saying. She showed neither shame nor the leastconfusion. She tasted--of course with her it cannot last--a biggerworld. She was most determined."

  "_His_ reaction?" inquired Devonham, amused in spite of his graveremotions of uneasiness and exasperation.

  "None whatever. I scarcely think he realized he had been kissed. Hisinterest was so entirely elsewhere. I saw his face a moment among thewhite ermine, the bare arms and jewels that enveloped him." Filleryfrowned faintly. "The car had almost stopped. Lady Gleeson was leaningback again. He looked at me, and his voice was intense and eager: 'DearFillery,' he said, 'we have found each other, I have found her. Sheknows, she remembers the way back. Here we can do so little.'

  "Lady Gleeson, however, had interpreted the words in another way.

  "'I'll come to-morrow to see you,' she said at once intensely. 'You_must_ let me come,'--the last words addressed to me, of course."

  The two men looked at one another a moment in silence, and for thefirst time during the conversation they exchanged a smile....

  "I got him to bed," Fillery concluded. "In ten minutes he was soundasleep." And his eyes indicated the room overhead.

  He leaned back, a
nd quietly began to fill his pipe. The account wasover.

  As though a great spring suddenly released him, Paul Devonham stood up.His untidy hair hung wild, his glasses were crooked on his big nose,his tie askew. His whole manner bristled with accumulated challenge anddisagreement.

  "_Who?_" he cried. "_Who?_ Edward, I ask you?"

  His colleague, yet knowing exactly what he meant, looked upquestioningly. He looked him full in the face.

  "Hush!" he said quietly. "You'll wake him."

  He gazed with happy penetrating eyes at his companion. "Paul," he addedgently, "do you really mean it? Have you still the faintest doubt?"

  The moment had drama in it of unusual kind. The conflict between thesetwo honest and unselfish minds was vital. The moment, too, was chosen,the place as well--this small, quiet room in a commonplace suburb ofthe greatest city on the planet, drenched by earthly rain and batteredby earthly wind from the heart of an equinoctial storm; the mightyuniverse outside, breaking with wondrous, incredible impossibilitiesupon a mind that listened and a mind that could not hear; and upstairs,separated from them by a few carpenter's boards, an assortment of"souls," either derelict and ruined, or gifted supernormally, mastersof space and time perhaps, yet all waiting to be healed by the bestknowledge known to the race--and one among them, about whom theconflict raged ... sound asleep ... while wind and water stormed, whilelightning fires lit the distant horizons, while the great sun layhidden, and darkness crept soundlessly to and fro....

  "Have you still the slightest doubt, Paul?" repeated Fillery. "You knowthe evidence. You have an open mind."

  Then Devonham, still standing over his Chief, let out the storm thathad accumulated in him over-long. He talked like a book. He talked likeseveral books. It seemed almost that he distrusted his own personaljudgment.

  "Edward," he began solemnly--not knowing that he quoted--"you, aboveall men, understand the lower recesses of the human heart, that gloomy,gigantic oubliette in which our million ancestors writhe togetherinextricably, and each man's planetary past is buried alive----"

  Fillery nodded quietly his acquiescence.

  "You, of all men, know our packed, limitless subterranean life,"Devonham went on, "and its impenetrable depths. You understandtelepathy, 'extended telepathy' as well, and how a given mind may tapnot only forgotten individual memories, but memories of his family, hisrace, even planetary memories into the bargain, the memory, in fact, ofevery being that ever lived, right down to Adam, if you will----"

  "Agreed," murmured the other, listening patiently, while he puffed hispipe and heard the rain and wind. "I know all that. I know it, at anyrate, as a possible theory."

  "You also know," continued Devonham in a slightly less stridenttone, "your own--forgive me, Edward--your own idiosyncrasies, yourweaknesses, your dynamic accumulated repressions, your strange physicalheritage and spiritual--I repeat the phrase--your spiritual vagranciestowards--towards----" He broke off suddenly, unable to find the wordshe wanted.

  "I'm illegitimate, born of a pagan passion," mentioned the othercalmly. "In that sense, if you like, I have in me a 'complex' againstthe race, against humanity--as such."

  He smiled patiently, and it was the patience, the evident conviction ofsuperiority that exasperated his cautious, accurate colleague.

  "If I love humanity, I also tolerate it perhaps, for I try to heal it,"added Fillery. "But, believe me, Paul, I do not lose my scientificjudgment."

  "Edward," burst out the other, "how can you think it possible,then--that _he_ is other than the result of tendencies transmitted byhis mad parents, or acquired from Mason, who taught him all he knows,or--if you will--that he has these hysterical faculties--supernormalas we may call them--which tap some racial, even, if you will, someplanetary past----"

  He again broke off, unable to express his whole thought, his entireemotion, in a few words.

  "I accept all that," said Fillery, still calmly, quietly, "but perhapsnow--in the interest of truth"--his tone was grave, his words obviouslychosen carefully--"if now I feel it necessary to go beyond it! Mystrange heritage," he added, "is even possibly a help and guide. How,"he asked, a trace of passion for the first time visible in his manner,"shall we venture--how decide--for we are not wholly ignorant, you andI--between what is possible and impossible? Is this trivial planet,then," he asked, his voice rising suddenly, ominously perhaps, "oursole criterion? Dare we not venture--beyond--a little? The scientificmind should be the last to dogmatize as to the possibilities of thislife of ours...."

  The authority of chief, the old tie of respectful and affectionatefriendship, the admiring wonder that pertained to a daring speculatorwho had often proved himself right in face of violent opposition--allthese affected Devonham. He did not weaken, but for an instant he knew,perhaps, the existence of a vast, incredible horizon in his friend'smind, though one he dared not contemplate. Possibly, he understood inthis passing moment a huger world, a new outlook that scorned limit,though yet an outlook that his accurate, smaller spirit shrank from.

  He found, at any rate, his own words futile. "You remember," heoffered--"'We need only suppose the continuity of our own consciousnesswith a mother sea, to allow for exceptional waves occasionally pouringover the dam.'"

  "Good, yes," said Fillery. "But that 'mother sea,' what may it notinclude? Dare we set limits to it?"

  And, as he said it, Fillery, emotion visible in him, rose suddenly fromhis chair. He stood up and faced his colleague.

  "Let us come to the point," he said in a clear, steady voice. "It alllies--doesn't it?--in that question you asked----"

  "_Who?_" came at once from Devonham's lips, as he stood, looking oddlystiff and rigid opposite his Chief. There was a touch of defiance inhis tone. "_Who?_" He repeated his original question.

  No pause intervened. Fillery's reply came sharp and firm:

  "'N. H.,'" he said.

  An interval of silence followed, then, between the two men, as theylooked into each other's eyes. Fillery waited for his assistant tospeak, but no word came.

  "LeVallon," the older man continued, "is the transient, acquiredpersonality. It does not interest us. There is no real LeVallon. Thesole reality is--'N. H.'"

  He spoke with the earnestness of deep conviction. There was still noreply or comment from the other.

  "Paul," he continued, steadying his voice and placing a hand uponhis colleague's shoulder, "I am going to ask you to--consider ourarrangement--cancelled. I must----"

  Then, before he could finish what he had to say, the other had said itfor him:

  "Edward, I give you back your promise."

  He shrugged his shoulders ever so slightly, but there was nounpleasant, no antagonistic touch now either in voice or manner. Therewas, rather, a graver earnestness than there had been hitherto, a hintof reluctant acquiescence, but also there was an emotion that includedcertainly affection. No such fundamental disagreement had ever comebetween them during all their years of work together. "You understand,"he added slowly, "what you are doing--what is involved." His tonealmost suggested that he spoke to a patient, a loved patient, but oneover whom he had no control. He sighed.

  "I belong, Paul, myself to the unstable--if that is what you mean,"said his old friend gently, "and with all of danger, or of wonder, itinvolves."

  The faint movement of the shoulders again was noticeable. "We need notput it that way, Edward," was the quiet rejoinder; "for that, if true,can only help your insight, your understanding, and your judgment."He hesitated a moment or two, searching his mind carefully for words.Fillery waited. "But it involves--I think"--he went on presently in afirmer voice--"_his_ fate as well. He must become permanently--one orother."

  No pause followed. There was a smile of curious happiness on Fillery'sface as he instantly answered in a tone of absolute conviction:

  "There lies the root of our disagreement, Paul. There is no 'other.' Iam positive for once. There is only one, and that one is--'N. H.'"

  "Umph!" his friend grunted. Behind the ex
clamation hid an attitudeconfirmed, as though he had come suddenly to a big decision.

  "You see, Paul--I _know_."