Collected Works of Algernon Blackwood

by Algernon Blackwood

  “Origin of delusions — any indication?”

  Devonham looked up quickly. His eyes flashed a peculiarly searching glance — something watchful in it perhaps. “No delusion at all of any sort. As for origin of his ideas — the parents probably, but stimulated and allowed unchecked growth by Mason. Affected by Nature beyond anything we know.”

  “By Nature. Ah!” He checked himself. “And what peculiarities?” he asked.

  “His terror of water, for instance. Crossing the Channel he was like a frightened child. He hid from it, kept his hands over his eyes even, so as not to see it.”

  “Give any reason?”

  “All he said was ‘It is unknown, an enemy, and can destroy me, I cannot understand its secret ways. Fire and wind are not in it. I cannot work with it.’ No, it was not fear of drowning that he meant. He found comfort, too, in the repetition of your name.”

  “Appetite, pulse, temperature?” asked Fillery, after a brief pause.

  “First two very strong; temperature always slightly above normal.”

  “Other peculiarities?”

  “He became rather excited before a lighted match once — tried to kneel, almost, but I stopped it.”

  “Fire?”

  “That’s it. Instinct of worship presumably.”

  The barrow was laden, the porter was asking where the car was. They prepared to move back to the companion, whom Fillery had never failed to observe carefully over his shoulder during this rapid conversation. “N. H.” had not moved the whole time: he stood quietly, looking about him, a curious figure, aloof somehow from his surroundings, so tall and straight and unconcerned he seemed, yet so poised, alert, virile, vigorous. It was not his clothes that made him appear unusual, nor was it his eyes and hair alone, though all three contributed their share. Yet he seemed dressed up, his clothes irksome to him. He was uncommon, an attractive figure, and many a pair of eyes, female eyes especially, Fillery noticed, turned to examine him with undeniable curiosity.

  “And women?” the doctor asked quickly in a lowered voice, as they followed the porter’s barrow towards LeVallon, who already smiled at their approach — the most engaging, trustful, welcoming smile that Fillery had ever seen upon a human countenance.

  He lowered his head to catch the reply. But Devonham only laughed and shrugged his shoulders. “All attracted,” he mumbled in a half whisper, “and eager to help him.”

  “And he —— ?”

  “Gentle, astonished, but indifferent, oh, supremely indifferent.”

  LeVallon came forward to meet them, and Fillery took his hand and led him to the car. The luggage was bundled in, some behind and some on the roof. Fillery and LeVallon sat side by side. The car started.

  “We shall get home in half an hour,” the doctor mentioned, turning to his companion. “We’ll have a good dinner and then get to bed. You are hungry, I know.”

  “Thank you,” was the reply, “thank you, dear Fillery. I want sleep most. Will there be trees and air near me? And stars to see?”

  “Your windows open on to a garden with big trees, there will be plenty of fresh air, and you will hear the sparrows chattering at dawn. But London, of course, is not the country. Oh, we’ll make you comfortable, never fear.”

  “Dear Fillery, I thank you,” said LeVallon quietly, and without more ado lay back among the soft cushions and closed his eyes. Hardly a word was said the whole way out to the north-west suburb, and when they arrived the “patient” was too overcome with sleep to wish to eat. He went straight to his room, found a hot bath into which he tumbled first, and then leaped into his bed and was sound asleep almost before the door was closed. Upon a table beside the bed Dr. Fillery, with his own hands, arranged bread, butter, eggs and a jug of milk in case of need. Nurse Robbins, an experienced, tactful young woman, he put in special charge. He thought of everything, divining his friend’s possible needs instinctively, noticing with his keen practised eye several details for himself at the same time. The splendid physical condition, frame-work, muscular development he noted — no freakish bulky masses produced by gymnastic exercises, but the muscles laid on flowingly, smooth and firm and ample, without a trace of fat, and the whole in the most admirable proportion possible. The leanness was deceptive; the body was of immense power. The quick, certain, unerring movements he noticed too; perfect, swift co-ordination between brain and physical response, no misdirection, no miscalculation, the reactions extremely rapid. He thought with a smile of something between deer and tiger. The poise and balance and accuracy conveyed intense joy of living. Yet above and beyond these was something else he could not name, something that stirred in him wonder, love, a touch of awe, and a haunting suggestion of familiarity.

  He saw him into bed, he saw him actually asleep. The strong blue eyes looked up into his own with their intense and innocent gaze for a moment; he held the firm, dry muscular hand; ten seconds later the eyes were closed in sleep, the grip of the powerful but slender fingers relaxed.

  “Good night, my friend, and sleep deeply. To-morrow we’ll see to everything you need. Be happy here and comfortable with us, for you are welcome and we love you.” His voice trembled slightly.

  “Good night, dear Fill-er-y,” the musical tones replied, and he was off.

  The windows were wide open. “N. H.” had thrown aside the pyjamas and blankets. On this cool, damp night of late autumn he covered his big, warm, lithe body with a single sheet only.

  Fillery went out quietly, an expression of keen approval and enjoyment on his face — not a smile exactly, but that look of deep content, betraying a fine inner excitement of happiness, which is the mother of all smiles. As he softly opened the door the draught blew through from the open windows, stirring the white curtains by the bed. It came from the big damp garden where the trees stood, already nearly leafless, and where no flowers were. And yet a scent of flowers came faintly with it. He caught an echo of faint sound like music. There was the invigorating hint of forests too. It seemed a living wind that blew into the house.

  Dr. Fillery paused a moment, sniffed with surprise and sharp enjoyment, listened intently, then switched the light off and went out, closing the door behind him. There was a flash of wonder in his eyes, and a thrill of some remote inexplicable happiness ran through his nerves. An instant of complete comprehension had been his, as if another consciousness had, for that swift instant, identified itself with his own.

  CHAPTER VI

  EDWARD FILLERY was glad that Paul Devonham, good friend and skillful colleague, was his assistant; for Devonham, competent as himself in knowledge and experience, found explanations for all things, and had in his natural temperament a quality of sane judgment which corrected extravagances.

  Devonham was agnostic, because reason ruled his life. Devoid of imagination, he had no temptations. Speculative, within limits, he might be, but he belonged not to the unstable. Not that he thought he knew everything, but that he refused to base action on what he regarded as unknown. A clue into the unknown he would follow up as keenly, carefully, as Fillery himself, but he went step by step, with caution, declining to move further until the last step was of hardened concrete. To the powers of the subconscious self he set drastic limits, admitting their existence of course, but attaching small value to their use or development. His own deeper being had never stirred or wakened. Of this under-sea, this vast background in himself, he remained placidly uninformed. A comprehensive view of a problem — the flash of vision he never knew — thus was perhaps denied him, but so far as he went he was very safe and sure. And his chief was the first to appreciate his value. He appreciated it particularly now, as the two men sat smoking after their late dinner, discussing details of the new inmate of the Home.

  Fillery, aware of the strong pull upon his own mixed blood, aware of a half-wild instinctive sympathy towards “N. H.,” almost of a natural desire now, having seen him, to believe him “unique” in several ways, and, therefore, conscious of a readiness to accept more than any evide
nce yet justified — feeling these symptoms clearly, and remembering vividly his experiences in the railway station, he was glad, for truth’s sake, that Devonham was there to clip extravagance before it injured judgment. A weak man, aware of his own frailties, excels a stronger one who thinks he has none at all. The two colleagues were a powerful combination.

  “In your view, it’s merely a case of a secondary — anyhow of a divided — personality?” he asked, as soon as the other had recovered a little from his journey, and was digesting his meal comfortably over a pipe. “You have seen more of him than I have. Of insanity, at any rate, there is no sign at all, I take it? His relations with his environment are sound?”

  “None whatever.” Devonham answered both questions at once. “Exactly.”

  He took off his pince-nez, cleaned them with his handkerchief, and then replaced them carefully. This gave him time to reflect, as though he was not quite sure where to begin his story.

  “There are certainly indications,” he went on slowly, “of a divided personality, though of an unusual kind. The margin between the two — between the normal and the secondary self — is so very slight. It is not clearly defined, I mean. They sometimes merge and interpenetrate. The frontier is almost indistinguishable.”

  Fillery raised his eyebrows.

  “You feel uncertain which is the main self, and which the split-off secondary personality?” he inquired, with surprise.

  Devonham nodded. “I’m extremely puzzled,” he admitted. “LeVallon’s most marked self, the best defined, the richest, the most fully developed, seems to me what we should call his Secondary Self — this ‘Nature-being’ that worships wind and fire, is terrified by a large body of water, is ignorant of human ways, probably also quite un-moral, yet alive with a kind of instinctive wisdom we credit usually to the animal kingdom — though far beyond anything animals can claim — —”

  “Briefly, what we mean by the term ‘N. H.,’” suggested Fillery, not anxious for too many details at the moment.

  “Exactly. And I propose we always refer to that aspect of him as ‘N. H.,’ the other, the normal ordinary man, being LeVallon, his right name.” He smiled faintly.

  “Agreed,” replied his chief. “We shall always know then exactly which one we’re talking of at a given moment. Now,” he went on, “to come to the chief point, and before you give me details of what happened abroad, let me hear your own main conclusion. What is LeVallon? What is ‘N. H.’?”

  Devonham hesitated for some time. It was evident his respect for his chief made him cautious. There was an eternal battle between these two, keen though always good-natured, even humorous, the victory not invariably perhaps with the assistant. Later evidence had often proved Fillery’s swifter imagination correct after all, or, alternately, shown him to be wrong. They kept an accurate score of the points won and lost by either.

  “You can always revise your conclusions later,” Fillery reminded him slyly. “Call it a preliminary conclusion for the moment. You’ve not had time yet for a careful study, I know.”

  But Devonham this time did not smile at the rally, and his chief noticed it with secret approval. Here was something new, big, serious, it seemed. Devonham, apparently, was already too interested to care who scored or did not score. His Notes of 1914 indeed betrayed his genuine zeal sufficiently.

  “LeVallon,” he said at length— “to begin with him! I think LeVallon — without any flavour of ‘N. H.’ — is a fine specimen of a normal human being. His physique is magnificent, as you have seen, his health and strength exceptional. The brain, so far as I have been able to judge, functions quite normally. The intelligence, also normal, is much above the average in quickness, receptivity of ideas, and judgment based on these. The emotional development, however, puzzles me; the emotions are not entirely normal. But” — he paused again, a grave expression on his face— “to answer your question as well as my limited observation of him, of LeVallon, allows — I repeat that I consider him a normal young man, though with peculiarities and idiosyncrasies of his own, as with most other normal young fellows who are individuals, that is,” he added quickly, “and not turned out in bundles cut to measure.”

  “So much for LeVallon. Now what about ‘N. H.’?”

  He repeated the question, fixing the assistant with his steady gaze. He had noticed the confusion in the reply.

  “My dear Edward — —” began Devonham, after a considerable pause. Then he stuck fast, sighed, settled his glasses carefully upon his aquiline, sharp nose, and relapsed into silence. His forehead became wrinkled, his mouth much pursed.

  “Out with it, Paul! This isn’t a Court of Law. I shan’t behead you if you’re wrong.” Yet Fillery, too, spoke gravely.

  The other kept his eyes down; his face still wore a puzzled look. Fillery detected a new expression on the keen, thoughtful features, and he was pleased to see it.

  “To give you the truth,” resumed his assistant, “and all question of who is right or who is wrong aside, I tell you frankly — I am not sure. I confess myself up against it. It — er — gives me the creeps a little — —” He laughed awkwardly. That swift watchful look, as of a man who plays a part, flashed and vanished.

  “Your feeling, anyhow?” insisted his friend. “Your general feeling?”

  “A general judgment based on general feeling,” said the other in a quiet tone, “has little value. It is based, necessarily, as you know, upon intuition, which I temperamentally dislike. It has no facts to go upon. I distrust generalizations.” He took a deep breath, inhaled a lot of smoke, exhaled it with relief, and made an effort. It went against the grain in him to be caught without an explanation.

  “‘N. H.’ in my opinion, and so far as my limited observation of him — —”

  Fillery allowed himself a laugh of amused impatience. “Leave out the personal extras for once, and burn your bridges. Tell me finally what you think about ‘N. H.’ We’re not scoring points now.”

  Thus faced with an alternative, Devonham found his sense of humour again and forgot himself. It cost him an effort, but he obeyed the bigger and less personal mind.

  “I really don’t know exactly what he is,” he confessed again. “He puzzles me completely. It may be” — he shrugged his shoulders, compelled by his temperament to hedge— “that he represents, as I first thought, the content of his parents’ minds, the subsequent addition of Mason’s mind included.”

  “That’s possible, usual and comprehensible enough,” put in the doctor, watching him with amused concentration, but with an inner excitement scarcely concealed.

  “Or” resumed Devonham, “it may be that through these — —”

  “Through his mental inheritance from his parents and from Mason, yes — —”

  “ —— he taps the most primitive stores and layers of racial memory we know. The world-memory, if I dare put it so, full proof being lacking, is open to him — —”

  “Through his subconscious powers, of course?”

  “That is your usual theory, isn’t it? We have there, at any rate, a working hypothesis, with a great mass of evidence — generally speaking — behind it.”

  “Don’t be cynical, Paul. Is this ‘N. H.’ merely a Secondary Personality, or is it the real central self? That’s the whole point.”

  “You jump ahead, as usual,” replied Devonham, really smiling for the first time, though his face instantly grew serious again. “Edward,” he went on, “I do not know, I cannot say, I dare not — dare not guess. ‘N. H.’ is something entirely new to me, and I admit it.” He seemed to find his stride, to forget himself. “I feel far from cynical. ‘N. H.,’ in my opinion, is exceptional. My notes suggested it long ago. He has, for instance — at least, so it seems to me — peculiar powers.”

  “Ah!”

  “Of suggestion, let us put it.”

  “Of suggestion, yes. Get on with it, there’s a good fellow. I felt myself an extraordinary vitality about him. I noticed it at once at Charing Cross.”r />
  “I saw you did.” Devonham looked hard at him. “You were humming to yourself, you know.”

  “I didn’t know,” was the surprised reply, “but I can well believe it. I felt a curious pleasure and exhilaration.”

  Devonham, shrugging his shoulders slightly, resumed: “During the ‘LeVallon’ periods he is ordinary, though unusually observant, critical and intelligent; during the ‘N. H.’ periods he becomes — er — super-normal. If you felt this — felt anything in the station, it was because something in you — called up the ‘N. H.’ aspect.”

  “It’s quick of you to guess that,” said Fillery, with quick appreciation. “You noticed a change in me, well — but the other —— ? He divined my ‘foreign’ blood, you think?”

  “It is enough that you responded and felt kinship. Put it that way. ‘N. H.’ seems to me” — he took a deeper breath and gave a sort of gasp— “in some ways — a unique — being — as I said before.”

  “Tell me, if you can,” said Fillery, lighting his own pipe and settling back into his chair, “tell me a little about your first meeting with him in the Jura Mountains, what happened and so forth. I remember, of course, your Notes. After your telegram, I read ’em carefully.” He glanced round at his companion. “They were very honest, Paul, I thought. Eh?” He was unable to refuse himself the pleasure of the little dig. “Honest you always are,” he added. “We couldn’t work together otherwise, could we?”

  Devonham, deep in his own thoughts, did not accept the challenge. He turned in his chair, puffing at his pipe.

  “I can give you briefly what happened and how things went,” he said. “The place, then, first: an ordinary peasant châlet in a remote Jura valley, difficult of access, situated among what they call the upper pastures. I reached it by diligence and mule late in the afternoon. A peasant in a lower valley directed me, adding that ‘le monsieur anglais’ was dead and buried two days before — —”