Collected Works of Algernon Blackwood

by Algernon Blackwood

  He found, at any rate, his own words futile. “You remember,” he offered—”’We need only suppose the continuity of our own consciousness with a mother sea, to allow for exceptional waves occasionally pouring over the dam.’”

  “Good, yes,” said Fillery. “But that ‘mother sea,’ what may it not include? Dare we set limits to it?”

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

  “Let us come to the point,” he said in a clear, steady voice. “It all lies — doesn’t it? — in that question you asked — —”

  “Who?” came at once from Devonham’s lips, as he stood, looking oddly stiff and rigid opposite his Chief. There was a touch of defiance in his 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 they looked into each other’s eyes. Fillery waited for his assistant to speak, but no word came.

  “LeVallon,” the older man continued, “is the transient, acquired personality. It does not interest us. There is no real LeVallon. The sole reality is— ‘N. H.’”

  He spoke with the earnestness of deep conviction. There was still no reply or comment from the other.

  “Paul,” he continued, steadying his voice and placing a hand upon his colleague’s shoulder, “I am going to ask you to — consider our arrangement — cancelled. I must — —”

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

  “Edward, I give you back your promise.”

  He shrugged his shoulders ever so slightly, but there was no unpleasant, no antagonistic touch now either in voice or manner. There was, rather, a graver earnestness than there had been hitherto, a hint of reluctant acquiescence, but also there was an emotion that included certainly affection. No such fundamental disagreement had ever come between them during all their years of work together. “You understand,” he added slowly, “what you are doing — what is involved.” His tone almost suggested that he spoke to a patient, a loved patient, but one over 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, it involves.”

  The faint movement of the shoulders again was noticeable. “We need not put 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 a firmer voice— “his fate as well. He must become permanently — one or other.”

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

  “There lies the root of our disagreement, Paul. There is no ‘other.’ I am positive for once. There is only one, and that one is— ‘N. H.’”

  “Umph!” his friend grunted. Behind the exclamation hid an attitude confirmed, as though he had come suddenly to a big decision.

  “You see, Paul — I know.”

  CHAPTER XVII

  IT was not long after the scene in the Studio that the Prometheans foregathered at dinner in the back room of the small French restaurant in Soho and discussed the event. The prices were moderate, conditions free and easy. It was a favourite haunt of Members.

  To-night, moreover, there was likely to be a good attendance. The word had gone out.

  The Studio scene had, of course, been the subject of much discussion already. The night of its occurrence it had been talked over till dawn in more than one flat, and during the following days the Society, as a whole, thought of little else. Those who had not been present had to be informed, and those who had witnessed it found it an absorbing topic of speculation. The first words that passed when one member met another in the street was: “What did you make of that storm? Wasn’t it amazing? Did your solar plexus vibrate? Mine did! And the light, the colour, the vibrations — weren’t they terrific? What do you think he is?” It was rumoured that the Secretary was asking for individual reports. Excitement and interest were general, though the accounts of individual witnesses differed extraordinarily. It seemed impossible that all had seen and heard the same thing.

  The back room was pleasantly filled to-night, for it was somehow known that Millington Povey, and possibly Father Collins, too, were coming. Miss Milligan, the astrologist, was there early, arriving with Mrs. Towzer, who saw auras and had already, it was rumoured, painted automatically a strange rendering of “forces” that were visible to her clairvoyantly during the occurrence. Miss Lance, in shining beads and a glittering scarf, arrived on their heels, an account of the scene in her pocket — to be published in her magazine “Simplicity” after she had modified it according to what she picked up from hearing other, and better, descriptions.

  Kempster, immaculate as ever, ordering his food as he ordered his clothes, like a connoisseur, was one of the first to establish himself in a comfortable seat. He knew how to look after himself, and was already eating in his neat dainty way while the others still stood about studying the big white menu with its illegible hieroglyphics in smudged violet ink. He supplemented his meals with special patent foods of vegetarian kind he brought with him. He had dried bananas in one pocket and spirit photographs in another, and he was invariably pulling out the wrong thing. Meat he avoided. “A man is what he eats,” he held, and animal blood was fatal to psychic development. To eat pig or cow was to absorb undesirable characteristics.

  Next to him sat Lattimer, a lanky man of thirty, with loose clothes, long hair, and eyes of strange intensity. Known as “occultist and alchemist,” he was also a chemist of some repute. His life was ruled by a master-desire and a master-fear: the former, that he might one day project his double consciously; the latter, that in his next earthly incarnation he might be — the prospect made him shudder — a woman. He sought to keep his thought as concrete as possible, the male quality.

  He believed that the nervous centre of the physical body which controlled all such unearthly, if not definitely “spiritual,” impulses, was the solar plexus. For him it was the important portion of his anatomy, the seat of intuition. Brain came second.

  “The fellow,” he declared emphatically, “stirred my solar plexus, my kundalini — that’s all I know.” He referred, as all understood, to the latent power the yogis claim lies coiled, but only rarely manifested, in that great nervous centre.

  His statement, he knew, would meet with general approval and understanding. It was the literal Kempster who spoiled his opening:

  “Paul Devonham,” said the latter, “thinks it’s merely a secondary personality that emerged. I had a long argument with him about it — —”

  “Never argue with the once-born,” declared Povey flatly, producing his pet sentence. “It’s waste of time. Only older souls, with the experience of many earthly lives stored in their beings, are knowledgeable.” He filled his glass and poured out for others, Lattimer and Mrs. Towzer alone declining, though for different reasons.

  “It destroys the ‘sight,’” explained the former. “Alcohol sets up coarse vibrations that ruin clairvoyance.”

  “I decided to deny myself till the war is over,” was Mrs. Towzer’s reason, and when Povey reminded her of the armistice, she mentioned that Turkey hadn’t “signed yet.”

  “I think his soul — —” began Miss Lance.

  “If he has a soul,” put in Povey, electrically.

  “ — is hardly in his body at all,” concluded Miss Lance, less convincingly than originally intended.

  “It was love at first sight. His sign is Fire and hers is Air,” Miss Milligan said. “That’s certain. Of course they came together.”

  “A clear case of memory, at a
ny rate,” insisted Kempster. “Two old souls meeting again for the first time for thousands of years, probably. Love at first sight, or hate, for that matter, is always memory, isn’t it?” He disliked the astrology explanation; it was not mysterious enough, too mathematical and exact to please him.

  “Secondary personalities are invariably memories of former selves, of course,” agreed young Dickson, the theosophist, who was on the verge now of becoming a psycho-analyst and had already discarded Freud for Jung. “If not memories of past lives, then they’re desires suppressed in this one.”

  “The less you think, the more you know,” suggested Miss Lance. She distrusted intellect and believed that another faculty, called instinct or intuition, according to which word first occurred to her, was the way to knowledge. She was about to quote Bergson upside down, when Povey, foreseeing an interval of boredom, took command:

  “One thing we know, at any rate,” he began judiciously; “we aren’t the only beings in the universe. There are non-human intelligences, both vast and small. The old world-wide legends can’t be built on nothing. In every age of history — the reports are universal — we have pretty good evidence for other forms of life than humans — —”

  “Though never yet in human form,” put in Lattimer, yet sympathetically. “Their bodies, I mean, aren’t human,” he added.

  “Exactly. That’s true. But the gods, the fauns, the satyrs, the elemental beings, as we call ’em — sylphs, undines, gnomes and salamanders — to say nothing of fairies et hoc genus omne — there must be some reasonable foundation for their persistence through all the ages.”

  “They all belong to the Deva Evolution,” Dickson mentioned with conviction. “In the East it’s been known and recognized for centuries, hasn’t it? Another evolutionary system that runs parallel to ours. From planetary spirits down to elementals, they’re concerned with the building up of form in the various kingdoms — —”

  “Yes, yes,” Povey interrupted impatiently. Dickson was stealing what he had meant to say himself and to say, he flattered himself, far better. “We know all that, of course. They stand behind what we call the laws of nature, non-human activities and intelligences of every grade and kind. They work for humanity in a way, are in other space and time, deathless, of course, yet — in some strange way, always eager to cross the gulf fixed between the two and so find a soul. They are impersonal in a sense, as impersonal as, say, wind and fire through which some of them operate as bodies.”

  He paused and looked about him, noting the interested attention he awaked.

  “There may be times,” he went on, “there probably are certain occasions, when the gulf is more crossable than others.” He laid down his knife and fork as a sympathetic murmur proved that the point he was leading up to was favourably understood already. “We have had this war, for instance,” he stated, his voice taking on a more significant and mysterious tone. “Dislodged by the huge upheaval, man’s soul is on the march again.” He paused once more. “They,” he concluded, lowering his voice still more, and emphasizing the pronoun, “are possibly already among us! Who knows?”

  He glanced round. “We do; we know,” was the expression on most faces. All knew precisely what he meant and to whom he referred, at any rate.

  “You might get him to come and lecture to us,” said Dickson, the first to break the pause. “You might ask Dr. Fillery. You know him.”

  “That’s an idea — —” began the Secretary, when there was a commotion near the door. His face showed annoyance.

  It was the arrival of Toogood that at this moment disturbed the atmosphere and robbed Povey of the effect he aimed at. It provided Kempster, however, with an idea at the same time. “Here’s a psychometrist!” he exclaimed, making room for him. “He might get a bit of his hair or clothing and psychometrize it. He might tell us about his past, if not exactly what he is.”

  The suggestion, however, found no seconder, for it seemed that the new arrival was not particularly welcomed. Judging by the glances, the varying shades of greeting, too, he was not fully trusted, perhaps, this broad, fleshy man of thirty-five, with complexion blotchy, an over-sensual mouth and eyes a trifle shifty. His claim to membership was two-fold: he remembered past lives, and had the strange power of psychometry. An archæologist by trade, his gift of psychometry — by which he claimed to hold an object and tell its past, its pedigree, its history — was of great use to him in his calling. Without further trouble he could tell whether such an object was genuine or sham. Dealers in antiquities offered him big fees — but “No, no; I cannot prostitute my powers, you see” — and he remained poor accordingly.

  In his past lives he had been either a famous Pharaoh, or Cleopatra — according to his audience of the moment and its male or female character — but usually Cleopatra, because, on the whole, there was more money and less risk in her. He lectured — for a fee. Lately, however, he had been Pharaoh, having got into grave trouble over the Cleopatra claim, even to the point of being threatened with expulsion from the Society. His attitude during the war, besides, had been unsatisfactory — it was felt he had selfishly protected himself on the grounds of being physically unfit. Apart from archæology, too, his chief preoccupation, derived from past lives of course, was sex, in the form of other men’s wives, his own wife and children being, naturally, very recent and somewhat negligible ties.

  His gift of psychometry, none the less, was considered proved — in spite of the backward and indifferent dealers. His mind was quick and not unsubtle. He became now au fait with the trend of the conversation in a very few seconds, but he had not been present at the Studio when the occurrence all discussed had taken place.

  “Hair would be best,” he advised tentatively, sipping his whisky-and-soda. He had already dined. “It’s a part of himself, you see. Better than mere clothing, I mean. It’s extremely vital, hair. It grows after death.”

  “If I can get it for you, I will,” said Povey. “He may be lecturing for us before long. I’ll try.”

  “With psychometry and a good photograph,” Kempster suggested, “a time exposure, if possible, we ought to get some evidence, at any rate. It’s first-hand evidence we want, of course, isn’t it? What do you think of this, for instance, I wonder?” He turned to Lattimer, drawing something from his pocket and showing it. “It’s a time exposure at night of a haunted tree. You’ll notice a queer sort of elemental form inside the trunk and branches. Oh!” He replaced the shrivelled banana in his pocket, and drew out the photograph without a smile. “This,” he explained, waving it, “is what I meant.” They fell to discussing it.

  Meanwhile, Povey, anxious to resume his lecture, made an effort to recover his command of the group-atmosphere which Toogood had disturbed. The latter had a “personal magnetism” which made the women like him in spite of their distrust.

  “I was just saying,” he resumed, patting the elbow of the psychometrist, “that this strange event we’ve been discussing — you weren’t present, I believe, at the time, but, of course, you’ve heard about it — has features which seem to point to something radically new, or at least of very rare occurrence. As Lattimer mentioned, a human body has never yet, so far as we know, been occupied, obsessed, by a non-human entity, but that, after all, is no reason why it should not ever happen. What is a body, anyhow? What is an entity, too?” Povey’s thought was wandering, evidently; the thread of his first discourse was broken; he floundered. “Man, anyway, is more than a mere chemical machine,” he went on, “a crystallization of the primitive nebulæ, though the instrument he uses, the body he works through, is undoubtedly thus describable. Now, we know there are all kinds of non-human intelligences busy on our planet, in the Universe itself as well. Why, then, I ask, should not one of these —— ?”

  He paused, unable to find himself, his confusion obvious. He was as glad of the interruption that was then provided by the arrival of Imson as his audience was. Toogood certainly was not sorry; he need find no immediate answer. He sipped his d
rink and made mental notes.

  Imson arrived in a rough brown ulster with the collar turned up about his ears, a low flannel shirt, not strictly clean, lying loosely round his neck. His colourless face was of somewhat flabby texture, due probably to his diet, but its simple, honest expression was attractive, the smile engaging. The touch of foolishness might have been childlike innocence, even saintliness some thought, and though he was well over forty, the unlined skin made him look more like thirty. He enjoyed a physiognomy not unlike that of a horse or sheep. His big, brown eyes stared wide open at the world, expecting wonder and finding it. His hobby was inspirational poems. One lay in his breast pocket now. He burned to read it aloud.

  Pat Imson’s ideal was an odd one — detachment; the desire to avoid all ties that must bring him back to future incarnations on the earth, to eschew making fresh Karma, in a word. He considered himself an “old soul,” and was rather weary of it all — of existence and development, that is. To take no part in life meant to escape from those tangles for whose unravelling the law of rebirth dragged the soul back again and again. To sow no Causes was to have no harvest of Effects to reap with toil and perspiration. Action, of course, there must be, but “indifference to results of action” was the secret. Imson, none the less, was always entangled with wives and children. Having divorced one wife, and been divorced by another, he had recently married a third; a flock of children streamed behind him; he was a good father, if a strange husband.

  “It’s old Karma I have to work off,” he would explain, referring to the wives. “If I avoid the experience I shall only have to come back again. There’s no good shirking old Karma.” He gave this explanation to the wives themselves, not only to his friends. “Face it and it’s done with, worked off, you see.” That is, it had to be done nicely, kindly, generously.