Collected Works of Algernon Blackwood

by Algernon Blackwood

  Thus it was that she found herself walking towards him and that he stood waiting for her. It placed her at a slight disadvantage. Why had she not walked faster and got there first? A small detail, she reflected, but stupid, very stupid. It annoyed her. Yet with a certain excitement she prepared to deal with him.

  “You’re the Thief,” she said when she was close, making to brush past him though his hand was on the door-knob. She could think of nothing else to say — nothing better at any rate. She felt that she was again blushing, and the stupidity, the idiocy, of this made her furious with herself.

  “That’s me,” he agreed. “But — your Thief, please.”

  Was he going to be insolent? If so — well, she could easily deal with that, and of course he knew it. But his expression was grave and deferential, his manner merely that of a gentleman opening a door for a lady. There was no suggestion of anything offensive, she decided. How ridiculous he looked, trying to play the gentleman.

  “What do you want then — my Thief?” she asked, patiently pausing in spite of herself and conscious of an odd tenderness rising in her.

  “All I can get,” was his blunt reply, looking her straight in the eyes.

  Maria thought a moment, hesitated. She saw, too, that he took note of the hesitation.

  “Yes, that’s quite natural, I suppose,” she said quickly, trying to cover up that foolish hesitation with a self-possession she hardly felt. “You’ve taken my ribbon already,” she added, wondering at the same moment why she did not make him give it back at once. She felt confused a little; that idiotic blush, now mounting from her neck, stole something of her self-confidence perhaps. The Sailor’s shell, she remembered, lay in her pocket. And she was wearing an amber necklace.

  “Yes,” agreed the Thief, “and I’m keeping it.”

  Maria stared at him. But she stared because she found it difficult to take her eyes away from his, as though, besides their penetrating quality, there was a sort of light and fire in them that fascinated her. While she inwardly shrank from him, she was aware of another feeling overtopping her revulsion.

  “You may,” she heard herself saying. And then she paused again. “Is there anything else I can give you that will make you happier?” she asked presently.

  He shook his head.

  “You don’t care about what’s given?”

  He shook his head again.

  “Only what you can — take?” Why had she not said “steal” as she had first intended?

  “By my own power, my own right,” said the Thief proudly, drawing himself up so that he looked for a moment rather extraordinary.

  At the same time Maria, who had been watching him intently all the while, noticed that his eyes settled more than once upon her amber necklace. His hands, too, had long ago left the door-knob, and were now constantly on the move, shifting swiftly here and there, darting about in the air with extreme rapidity, as he gesticulated, the long, slender fingers literally all over the place. The last words and the way he said them sent a sudden deep thrill down her spine that she could not explain. She admired him for talking like that. He was not a sneak-thief merely.

  “And — when you’ve — taken — everything there is to take, you will be happy, my Thief?” she asked. “Is that it?”

  He nodded again, but with a curious smile. “You too,” he said, in such a low tone that she was not sure she caught the words correctly. Her hand, too, was now upon the door-knob, and its rattle, as she began to turn it, drowned his voice rather.

  “Tell me one thing, my Thief” — she asked a final question, shivering a little as she spoke—” if you found, by chance, the great thing I’m searching for — would you keep it, or would you give it to me?”

  He did not hesitate. Turning his big fiery eyes full upon her, he answered immediately: “Keep it.”

  “Why?”

  “When you find it, Maria, you will go away — go back.”

  Maria felt frightened. A deep uneasiness rose in her. She opened the door wide to go in. His fingers seemed everywhere. Did he somehow manage to lift her hand to his lips and leave a kiss of respectful homage on it? She hardly knew. His whole manner, she saw, suddenly bespoke reverence, worship, awe. It both bewildered and comforted her. Yet certainly, as she brushed past him to enter the room, he must have touched her somehow, for the same electric shock she had felt before raced through her body. But it was a confusing moment, and she could not be quite certain what actually had happened. He spoke as well. He said some rather extraordinary words — that is, if she caught them correctly: “When I’ve taken all, you will remember...” but the same instant she had closed the door behind her, and the Thief had gone.

  As she closed the door, facing the big room for the second time, the words rang on in her ears, with the sudden odd feeling that they were her own, that she herself somehow had spoken them, or, at least, that it was she who had made him use them. But this was nonsense, obviously, and the strange notion disappeared. They had no meaning anyhow. The interest of finding herself in this great bedroom a second time filled her mind. It looked exactly the same, of course. Why should it not? How long was it, she asked herself, since she had been here last? Was it long or short? It seemed such a little time ago, while yet it seemed also a long, long time, ages and ages even. Though this sense of interval puzzled her again, it did not really matter; no, it did not matter in the least. These odd jumps and intervals and periods seemed quite natural; feeling older and younger again seemed natural too; it no longer startled or upset her. For a long stretch she was certainly a child, then, with a sudden leap, as it were, she realized that she was older. It was not a gradual business at all, this change of age; and though the moment of sudden realization startled her uneasily at first, she became used to it almost immediately.

  Well, so it was, she said to herself, and so it is, and she began to examine the room, walking round it, thinking how oddly familiar it seemed, and looking, chiefly, for a mirror, which she did not find.

  “Well, I came up here to rest,” said Maria to herself, “and so, I suppose, I’d better rest,” and she sat down on the edge of the huge bed, dangling her legs, only to find that rest was the last thing she really wanted now. Her thoughts were whirling too violently for rest.

  Such strange details popped up first. That “Oh, God!” for instance. Why had she suddenly said “Oh, God!”? It had shocked her even as she said it, and yet she had meant it earnestly, literally, reverently. Was she a child, then, or a young woman now? Or was she both at once? Her thoughts at this moment, at any rate, were hardly a child’s. She had got older somehow. Was growing up just a thin pretence after all, merely a pose through which the child keeps bursting up spontaneously? Could one be both at once like that? The Fruit Stoners could apparently. For them, two things simultaneously seemed possible, and natural. But that was due to their queer time, of course, their queer eternal present, without past or future.

  “Anyhow,” she reminded herself again, “this isn’t thinking like a child. These thoughts aren’t a child’s thoughts. I must be older, or I couldn’t have said ‘Oh, God!’ like that.”

  And she looked down reflectingly at her dangling legs.

  “How old, then, am I really?” swept through her with a sharp, anxious twinge. She examined herself as thoroughly as was possible without a mirror.

  “Am I pretty, I wonder?” she asked herself. “I expect so. My legs are, anyhow.” She pulled up her skirt above her thighs and admired them, their smoothness, their milky whiteness. Her bust, too, she noticed, was a little rounded. She was slim and long and supple. “Oh, perhaps, I’m lovely!” she exclaimed. “Perhaps I’m even a beauty!” A deep sigh escaped her. Her thoughts flew to the Fruit Stoners, eight of them, and all men. All adored her too.

  It was very troubling.

  “And I’m — engaged — to the Gentleman,” flashed up. The banns were already announced, the best man on the way. But there was the fascinating Sailor too, the ravishing Sailor with h
is gold earrings and his rich brown skin. There was a weakness in her for the Soldier, too, though some instinct whispered sharply that that was perhaps chiefly gold braid. Then the Tinker and the Ploughboy — a softness for one, an undeniable sweetness for the other. Even the sallow Tailor had his fugitive claim, and the Apothecary — ah, bless him, her’Pothecary she really loved, even if he scared her rather. She lowered her skirt an inch or two.

  Was that all of them, all eight, or was there someone missing? Had she missed one out?... It was enough, at any rate. If there was another, he didn’t matter. Following some instinct that refused to disclose itself, she abruptly pulled down her skirts as low as they would go, hiding her pretty legs.

  Her thoughts whirled and flamed and rushed and sparkled. It lay beyond her to control them. She leaped from the bed and walked round the room again, looking at everything, wondering why it was both familiar yet unremembered, striding to and fro, rapidly, lithely, gracefully, unaware that subconsciously all the time she was really hunting for a mirror.

  Yes, a long interval had slipped by somehow since she was here last. It startled her.

  “I’ve been through a lot since I lay here last with — yes, with Judas, my black cat...!” she repeated aloud, coming back to the bed again.

  Her thoughts creamed up and bubbled like milk in a milking-pail, each bubble bursting into formlessness before she could examine it....

  This growing up — what was it, after all? It was just adding up experiences and thinking about them afterwards, while the body that had known them became too floppy to record them as before. But the mind — oh, yes, the mind skimmed the cream off the results and then became too cautious to repeat them. But the heart — oh, yes, the heart just sweetened and grew rich, or soured and grew tiny. But she — yes, she herself — oh, yes, she gathered up the results of crumpling body, shrinking mind, crinkling or expanding heart, and realized that it all meant something, or else gave up the search and sank away into nothingness....

  Maria sprang from the bed, gripped with an awful terror. Were these thoughts her own? Where did they come from, these rather mature and cynical reflections? A mortal chilliness stole over her. She shivered icily. She flung herself back and buried her face in the pillow. She felt old, old, old. Old as the hills. Her whole life was passing, going, wasted. She had done nothing, accomplished nothing, missed the object of coming here, of being alive. It was too late. These were the thoughts of a tired, worn-out being — the final thoughts. Oh, God...!

  Her face dug deeper and deeper into the soft pillow — and came up against something warm and soft and fragrant suddenly, something that smelt like heaven and felt like it too, something that emitted a lazy purring sound, something that she loved — in childhood.

  She straightened up, dragging the reluctant Judas with her.

  “You black darling monster!” she cried. “Pretending you didn’t see me! Pretending you weren’t there at all!

  She snuggled against him, hugging him with all the absurd headlong affection of a child again.

  “And I only left you a moment ago, or rather you left me. I saw you tear away like a streak of black lightning — oh, yes, I did. And the moment you’d caught your mouse and swallowed it, you slipped back in here to sleep it off, did you?”

  Her recent thoughts had vanished. Only a muddled ghost of them remained. The anguish and the biting sadness, at least, had disappeared.

  “Now, Judas,” she went on, talking into a sleeping face that hung sideways yet kept its eyes tight shut, “I’m going to tell you something. Now, listen! I’m at this moment in the very prime of life. But after the prime, I go downhill, don’t I? Well, you understand that, of course. And the next thing is — that I’ve got to look for something. I’ve got to search and find it, and it’s a pearl of great price, my black beauty, a pearl of great price. I jolly well mean to find it too, make no mistake about that. Only,” she went on to her irresponsive pet, and with a shade less conviction, due doubtless to the fact that no sign of sympathy was forthcoming, “only, I think it’s a pity rather — don’t you? — not to enjoy my prime and my loveliness — for you know I’m lovely, don’t you, darling? — instead of wasting it in a difficult and tiresome search? I may just as well wait till I am actually going downhill a little. That will be time enough, I feel. And searching downhill’s easier too, isn’t it? So, as you evidently agree...”

  Tick tock! Tick tock! Tick tock!

  It was so faint, so distant, it might have been buried inside the warm fragrant body she fondled. But it was audible, none the less. Her fingers weakened, so that the cat fell back into his deep sleep upon the pillow, while Maria sat bolt upright and rigid, listening with her whole body in an icy room. Tick tock! Tick tock! Tick tock!

  Was it growing louder, coming closer? She could not tell. Was there a grinding sound behind its dreadful beat? Though it filled her ears, she could not truly say. She felt frozen. She could not move. She could not think. She could only listen.

  Strange words rose in her mind, only half heard and far away.

  “The night cometh when no man can work!” Where did that come from? Why was it familiar? Like some dark insect it darted up to sting her.

  “When all is taken you will be happy — and remember.”

  It came with a shock she could not understand. Where had she heard it? Who — who had used those words? In a flash she saw the great penetrating eyes hanging in the air before her face, the voice, the figure.

  “Oh, Thief — my Thief!” she cried aloud — then wondered half dizzily why she called for help to one whom she despised.

  Nothing happened, of course, in response to her foolish cry; there was no answer, no one came. She sat and shivered, listening, listening.

  Tick tock! Tick tock!

  She was being watched, she knew; someone was observing her; the hideous sensation of hurry began to grow; her blood was racing, her heart was beating. Panic was close upon her. Her time was short. Her Five Minutes were nearly up. She was too late, too late. She had made no search, looked for nothing, found nothing, wasted her time, lost her opportunities. There would come, any instant now, a grinding noise, a strike...! Oh, God...!

  She clenched her hands so tightly that the nails dug into the flesh, and her lip was bleeding where she bit it. Her mouth went dry, breath failed her, there was ice against her skin — when suddenly there flamed up into her collapsing mind the memory of a name, the name, the power, the Apothecary had used.

  “Jack Robinson... Jack Robinson,” she murmured, and fell upon her knees against the bed.

  “Jack Robinson” she repeated, breathing it with intense faith and fervent belief against her folded hands. “Jack Robinson..” and there came a soft majestic roaring as of a rushing wind that swept about her.

  The relief seemed instantaneous, for her whole body slipped into an easy and delicious relaxation, and the blood, that had been congealed, flowed on again. Her muscles lost their stiffness, terror passed, the air all round her became warm and gentle.

  She rose slowly to her feet. The roaring died away.

  “Jack Robinson,” she said again in a firm, clear voice into the empty chamber. “Jack Robinson.” The wind was gone and a deep silence followed.

  The sense of hurry, of limitation, the feeling of being a caged prisoner with a dreadful end quite close, all these nightmare emotions left her and melted away. In their place a realization of ineffable peace and happiness invaded her whole being. There was a deep conviction of timeless content, of infinite leisure, of calm serenity that lapped her round as with the blessing of some endless summer’s day.

  She stood facing the great room, steady and unafraid.

  “Eternity must be like this, of course,” she whispered to herself. “Perhaps Jack Robinson is Eternity. The other” — she did not use the name—” is merely Time.”

  Her trifling thoughts had all subsided, her anguish vanished, her wild emotions smoothed away. No high, ecstatic flame of glory touched her;
it was merely that she realized peace, quiet, content, endlessness. She drew the deepest breath she had ever known in her life, and moved calmly towards the bed.

  “Now I can lay me down to rest,” she heard herself saying quietly, though the words seemed to fall upon her from the air, as though she had known them somewhere long ago. And she began in leisurely fashion to take her clothes off, noticing now for the first time that her bead necklace was missing. It was no longer round her neck. Yet its loss did not trouble her.

  “Of course, of course,” she exclaimed, but quite calmly, “he took it at the door. The Thief took it after all.”

  She felt no annoyance or vexation, only an admiring wonder. It was marvellous. Such skill, such swiftness, such accurate delicacy were beyond praise. She had noticed nothing. “Perhaps he took my shell as well!” she went on, and at once put her hand into the pocket of her frock. The shell, too, was missing. “So he’s got my ribbon, my amber necklace and my shell!”

  It rather pleased her. A wave of happiness rose in her. She stood now in the centre of the room with hardly any clothes on, smiling to herself as with some secret inner joy.

  “I made him better than I knew,” she whispered tremblingly to herself. “It’s grand! I made him almost perfectly!”