Collected Works of Algernon Blackwood

by Algernon Blackwood

  “I knew just how you would look,” she said, without a trace of shyness, “the moment I heard your name. And you got my name very quickly, too?”

  “Only part of it, at first—”

  “Oh yes; but when you saw me completely you got it all,” she interrupted. “And I like your name,” she added, looking him full in the eye with her soft grey orbs; “it tells everything.”

  “So does yours, you know.”

  “Oh, of course,” she laughed; “Mr. Skale gave it to me the day I was born.”

  “I heard it,” put in the clergyman, speaking almost for the first time.

  And the talk dropped again, the secretary’s head fairly whirling.

  “You used it all, of course, as a little boy,” she said presently again; “names, I mean?”

  “Rather,” he replied without hesitation; “only I’ve rather lost it since—”

  “It will come back to you here. It’s so splendid, all this world of sound, and makes everything seem worth while. But you lose your way at first, of course; especially if you are out of practice, as you must be.”

  Spinrobin did not know what to say. To hear this young girl make use of such language took his breath away. He became aware that she was talking with a purpose, seconding Mr. Skale in the secret examination to which the clergyman was all the time subjecting him. Yet there was no element of alarm in it all. In the room with these two, and with the motherly figure of the housekeeper busying about to and fro, he felt at home, comforted, looked after — more even, he felt at his best; as though the stream of his little life were mingling in with a much bigger and worthier river, a river, moreover, in flood. But it was the imagery of music again that most readily occurred to him. He felt that the note of his own little personality had been caught up into the comforting bosom of a complete chord….

  VII

  “Mr. Spinrobin,” suddenly sounded soft and low across the table, and, thrilled to hear the girl speak his name, he looked up quickly and found her very wide-opened eyes peering into his. Her face was thrust forward a little as she leaned over the table in his direction.

  As he gazed she repeated his name, leisurely, quietly, and even more softly than before: “Mr. Spinrobin.” But this time, as their eyes met and the syllables issued from her lips, he noticed that a singular after-sound — an exceedingly soft yet vibrant overtone — accompanied it. The syllables set something quivering within him, something that sang, running of its own accord into a melody to which his rising pulses beat time and tune.

  “Now, please, speak my name,” she added. “Please look straight at me, straight into my eyes, and pronounce my name.”

  His lips trembled, if ever so slightly, as he obeyed.

  “Miriam …” he said.

  “Pronounce each syllable very distinctly and very slowly,” she said, her grey eyes all over his burning face.

  “Mir … i … am,” he repeated, looking in the center of the eyes without flinching, and becoming instantly aware that his utterance of the name produced in himself a development and extension of the original overtones awakened by her speaking of his own name. It was wonderful … exquisite … delicious. He uttered it again, and then heard that she, too, was uttering his at the same moment. Each spoke the other’s name. He could have sworn he heard the music within him leap across the intervening space and transfer itself to her … and that he heard his own name singing, too, in her blood.

  For the names were true. By this soft intoning utterance they seemed to pass mutually into the secret rhythm of that Eternal Principle of Speech which exists behind the spoken sound and is independent of its means of manifestation. Their central beings, screened and limited behind their names, knew an instant of synchronous rhythmical vibration. It was their introduction absolute to one another, for it was an instant of naked revelation.

  “Spinrobin….”

  “Miriam….”

  VIII

  … A great volume of sound suddenly enveloped and caught away the two singing names, and the spell was broken. Miriam dropped her eyes; Spinrobin looked up. It was Mr. Skale’s voice upon them with a shout.

  “Splendid! splendid!” he cried; “your voices, like your names, are made for one another, in quality, pitch, accent, everything.” He was enthusiastic rather than excited; but to Spinrobin, taking part in this astonishing performance, to which the other two alone held the key, it all seemed too perplexing for words. The great bass crashed and boomed for a moment about his ears; then came silence. The test, or whatever it was, was over. It had been successful.

  Mr. Skale, his face still shining with enthusiasm, turned towards him.

  Miriam, equally happy, watched, her hands folded in her lap.

  “My dear fellow,” exclaimed the clergyman, half rising in his chair, “how mad you must think us! How mad you must think us! I can only assure you that when you know more, as you soon shall, you will understand the importance of what has just taken place….”

  He said a good deal more that Spinrobin did not apparently quite take in. He was too bewildered. His eyes sought the girl where she sat opposite, gazing at him. For all its pallor, her face was tenderly soft and beautiful; more pure and undefiled, he thought, than any human countenance he had ever seen, and sweet as the face of a child. Utterly unstained it was. A similar light shone in the faces of Skale and Mrs. Mawle. In their case it had forged its way through the more or less defiling garment of a worn and experienced flesh. But the light in Miriam’s eyes and skin was there because it had never been extinguished. She had retained her pristine brilliance of soul. Through the little spirit of the perplexed secretary ran a thrill of genuine worship and adoration.

  “Mr. Skale’s coffee is served in the library,” announced the voice of the housekeeper abruptly behind them; and when Spinrobin turned again he discovered that Miriam had slipped from the room unobserved and was gone.

  Mr. Skale took his companion’s arm and led the way towards the hall.

  “I am glad you love her,” was his astonishing remark. “It is the first and most essential condition of your suiting me.”

  “She is delightful, wonderful, charming, sir—”

  “Not ‘sir,’ if you please,” replied the clergyman, standing aside at the threshold for his guest to pass; “I prefer the use of the name, you know. I think it is important.”

  And he closed the library door behind them.

  Chapter II

  I

  For some minutes they sat in front of the fire and sipped their coffee in silence. The secretary felt that the sliding platform on which he was traveling into this extraordinary adventure had been going a little too fast for him. Events had crowded past before he had time to look squarely at them. He had lost his bearings rather, routed by Miriam’s beauty and by the amazing way she talked to him. Had she lived always inside his thoughts she could not have chosen words better calculated to convince him that they were utterly in sympathy one with the other. Mr. Skale, moreover, approved heartily. The one thing Spinrobin saw clearly through it all was that himself and Miriam — their voices, rather — were necessary for the success of the clergyman’s mysterious experiments. Only, while Miriam, little witch, knew all about it, he, candidate on trial, knew as yet — nothing.

  And now, as they sat opposite one another in the privacy of the library, Spinrobin, full of confidence and for once proud of his name and personality, looked forward to being taken more into the heart of the affair. Things advanced, however, more slowly than he desired. Mr. Skale’s scheme was too big to be hurried.

  The clergyman did not smoke, but his companion, with the other’s ready permission, puffed gently at a small cigarette. Short, rapid puffs he took, as though the smoke was afraid to enter beyond the front teeth, and with one finger he incessantly knocked off the ashes into his saucer, even when none were there to fall. On the table behind them gurgled the shaded lamp, lighting their faces from the eyes downwards.

  “Now,” said Mr. Skale, evidentl
y not aware that he thundered, “we can talk quietly and undisturbed.” He caught his beard in a capacious hand, in such a way that the square outline of his chin showed through the hair. His voice boomed musically, filling the room. Spinrobin listened acutely, afraid even to cross his legs. A genuine pronouncement, he felt, was coming.

  “A good many years ago, Mr. Spinrobin,” he said simply, “when I was a curate of a country parish in Norfolk, I made a discovery — of a revolutionary description — a discovery in the world of real things, that is, of spiritual things.”

  He gazed fixedly over the clutched beard at his companion, apparently searching for brief, intelligible phrases. “But a discovery, the development of which I was obliged to put on one side until I inherited with this property the means and leisure which enabled me to continue my terrific — I say purposely terrific — researches. For some years now I have been quietly at work here absorbed in my immense pursuit.” And again he stopped. “I have reached a point, Mr. Spinrobin—”

  “Yes,” interjected the secretary, as though the mention of his name touched a button and produced a sound. “A point — ?”

  “Where I need the assistance of some one with a definite quality of voice — a man who emits a certain note — a certain tenor note.” He released his beard, so that it flew out with a spring, at the same moment thrusting his head forward to drive home the announcement effectively.

  Spinrobin crossed his legs with a fluttering motion, hastily. “As you advertised,” he suggested.

  The clergyman bowed.

  “My efforts to find the right man,” continued the enthusiast, leaning back in his chair, “have now lasted a year. I have had a dozen men down here, each on a month’s trial. None of them suited. None had the requisite quality of voice. With a single exception, none of them could stand the loneliness, the seclusion; and without exception, all of them were too worldly to make sacrifices. It was the salary they wanted. The majority, moreover, confused imagination with fancy, and courage with mere audacity. And, most serious of all, not one of them passed the test of — Miriam. She harmonized with none of them. They were discords one and all. You, Mr. Spinrobin, are the first to win acceptance. The instant she heard your name she cried for you. And she knows. She sings the soprano. She took you into the chord.”

  “I hope indeed—” stammered the flustered and puzzled secretary, and then stopped, blushing absurdly. “You claim for me far more than I should dare to claim for myself,” he added. The reference to Miriam delighted him, and utterly destroyed his judgment. He longed to thank the girl for having approved him. “I’m glad my voice — er — suits your — chord.” In his heart of hearts he understood something of what Mr. Skale was driving at, yet was half-ashamed to admit it even to himself. In this twentieth century it all seemed so romantic, mystical, and absurd. He felt it was all half-true. If only he could have run back into that great “mental prairie” of his boyhood days it might all have been quite true.

  “Precisely,” continued Mr. Skale, bringing him back to reality, “precisely. And now, before I tell you more, you will forgive my asking you one or two personal questions, I’m sure. We must build securely as we go, leaving nothing to chance. The grandeur and importance of my experiments demand it. Afterwards,” and his expression changed to a sudden softness in a way that was characteristic of the man, “you must feel free to put similar questions to me, as personal and direct as you please. I wish to establish a perfect frankness between us at the start.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Skale. Of course — er — should anything occur to me to ask—” A momentary bewilderment, caused by the great visage so close to his own, prevented the completion of the sentence.

  “As to your beliefs, for instance,” the clergyman resumed abruptly, “your religious beliefs, I mean. I must be sure of you on that ground. What are you?”

  “Nothing — I think,” Spinrobin replied without hesitation, remembering how his soul had bounced its way among the various creeds since Cambridge, and arrived at its present state of Belief in Everything, yet without any definite label. “Nothing in particular. Nominally, though — a Christian.”

  “You believe in a God?”

  “A Supreme Intelligence, most certainly,” was the emphatic reply.

  “And spirits?”

  Spinrobin hesitated. He was a very honest soul.

  “Other life, let me put it,” the clergyman helped him; “other beings besides ourselves?”

  “I have often felt — wondered, rather,” he answered carefully, “whether there might not be other systems of evolution besides humanity. Such extraordinary Forces come blundering into one’s life sometimes, and one can’t help wondering where they come from. I have never formulated any definite beliefs, however—”

  “Your world is not a blind chaos, I mean?” Mr. Skale put gravely to him, as though questioning a child.

  “No, no, indeed. There’s order and system—”

  “In which you personally count for something of value?” asked the other quickly.

  “I like to think so,” was the apologetic reply. “There’s something that includes me somewhere in a purpose of very great importance — only, of course, I’ve got to do my part, and—”

  “Good,” Mr. Skale interrupted him. “And now,” he asked softly, after a moment’s pause, leaning forward, “what about death? Are you afraid of death?”

  Spinrobin started visibly. He began to wonder where this extraordinary catechism was going to lead. But he answered at once: he had thought out these things and knew where he stood.

  “Only of its possible pain,” he said, smiling into the bearded visage before him. “And an immense curiosity, of course—”

  “It does not mean extinction for you — going out like the flame of a candle, for instance?”

  “I have never been able to believe that, Mr. Skale. I continue somewhere and somehow — forever.”

  The cross-examination puzzled him more and more, and through it, for the first time, he began to feel dimly, ran a certain strain of something not quite right, not permissible in the biggest sense. It was not the questions themselves that produced this odd and rather disquieting impression, but the fact that Mr. Skale was preparing the ground with such extraordinary thoroughness. This conversation was the first swell, as it were, rolling mysteriously in upon him from the ocean in whose deeps the great Experiment lay buried. Forces, tidal in strength, oceanic in volume, shrouded it just now, but he already felt them. They reached him through the person of the clergyman. It was these forces playing through his personality that Spinrobin had been aware of the first moment they met on the station platform, and had “sensed” even more strongly during the walk home across the mountains.

  Behind the play of these darker impressions, as yet only vague and ambiguous, there ran in and out among his thoughts the vein of something much sweeter. Miriam, with her large grey eyes and silvery voice, was continually peeping in upon his mind. He wondered where she was and what she was doing in the big, lonely house. He wished she could have been in the room to hear his answers and approve them. He felt incomplete without her. Already he thought of her as the melody to which he was the accompaniment, two things that ought not to be separated.

  “My point is,” Mr. Skale continued, “that, apart from ordinary human ties, and so forth, you have no intrinsic terror of death — of losing your present body?”

  “No, no,” was the reply, more faintly given than the rest. “I love my life, but — but—” he looked about him in some confusion for the right words, still thinking of Miriam— “but I look forward, Mr. Skale; I look forward.” He dropped back into the depths of his armchair and puffed swiftly at the end of his extinguished cigarette, oblivious of the fact that no smoke came.

  “The attitude of a brave man,” said the clergyman with approval. Then, looking straight into the secretary’s blue eyes, he added with increased gravity: “And therefore it would not be immoral of me to expose you to an experiment in whi
ch the penalty of a slip would be — death? Or you would not shrink from it yourself, provided the knowledge to be obtained seemed worth while?”

  “That’s right, sir — Mr. Skale, I mean; that’s right,” came the answer after an imperceptible pause.

  The result of the talk seemed to satisfy the clergyman. “You must think my questions very peculiar,” he said, the sternness of his face relaxing a little, “but it was necessary to understand your exact position before proceeding further. The gravity of my undertaking demands it. However, you must not let my words alarm you.” He waited a moment, reflecting deeply. “You must regard them, if you will, as a kind of test,” he resumed, searching his companion’s face with eagle eyes, “the beginning of a series of tests in which your attitude to Miriam and hers to you, so far as that goes, was the first.”

  “Oh, that’s all right, Mr. Skale,” was his inadequate rejoinder; for the moment the name of the girl was introduced his thoughts instantly wandered out to find her. The way the clergyman pronounced it increased its power, too, for no name he uttered sounded ordinary. There seemed a curious mingling in the resonant cavity of his great mouth of the fundamental note and the overtones.

  “Yes, you have the kind of courage that is necessary,” Mr. Skale was saying, half to himself, “the modesty that forgets self, and the unworldly attitude that is essential. With your help I may encompass success; and I consider myself wonderfully fortunate to have found you, wonderfully fortunate….”

  “I’m glad,” murmured Spinrobin, thinking that so far he had not learned anything very definite about his duties, or what it was he had to do to earn so substantial a salary. Truth to tell, he did not bother much about that part of it. He was conscious only of three main desires: to pass the unknown tests, to learn the nature of Mr. Skale’s discovery, with the experiment involved, and — to be with Miriam as much as possible. The whole affair was so unusual that he had already lost the common standards of judging. He let the sliding platform take him where it would, and he flattered himself that he was not fool enough to mistake originality for insanity. The clergyman, dreamer and enthusiast though he might be, was as sane as other men, saner than most.