Collected Works of Algernon Blackwood

by Algernon Blackwood

  She climbed into the huge bed and repeated these assertions to Judas, and Judas did not contradict them.... She lay there calmly and comfortably on her back, staring at the ceiling, and repeating softly under her breath, “I made him with the best that was in me, I made him with my very best...”

  The room wore a pleasant darkness, though there had been no candle to blow out, and she lay restfully at peace, with no particular desire to sleep, but wrapped in a deep, glowing content. Hurry, the restless demon, had left her; she was in the keeping of Jack Robinson, and the sense of endlessness was comforting beyond all words. It was a golden state. She understood something of the sweet leisure the Fruit Stoners knew, for she was in their timeless world. It lulled and blessed and soothed her. Judas evidently knew it too, lying unperturbed against her ribs, warm as a breathing hot-water bottle.

  “Jack Robinson, Jack Robinson,” she murmured, staring at the ceiling. “If only I could see him — just once!”

  Oh, what peace it brought to be in his delicious kingdom. She need not get frantic now about her brief Five Minutes. These harrowing Five Minutes came from somewhere else, a place she had escaped from — into this timeless, endless region where haste and hurry had no meaning, where there were no limitations, where age and growing older held no final meaning. A golden, yes, a golden age....

  How white and smooth the ceiling was above her; no fly, no spider traced the faintest pattern there!

  Childhood, youth, growing older, age, old age — they held no interests now, no definite measurements, and certainly no terror. She could be — she was — both older and a child at once; the wise maturity of one and the gay thoughtless spontaneity of the other belonged to her simultaneously.

  “I am older a little,” she realized, passing a hand caressingly over her smooth curves under the sheets, “and at the same time I’m just a happy child who wants to play. I’m in my prime. It must be a nick!”

  She sighed and laughed and stretched out her long legs as far as they would go, wondering which she wanted most of all....

  Some fly, some busy spider, she saw, had now traced dim lines across the snow-white ceiling. Well, why not? What did it matter? Was she getting drowsy, she wondered vaguely, ready to fall asleep perhaps? No, sleep was ridiculous and impossible here. The Fruit Stoners, she was positive, never slept. She had never tucked the Tinker into bed, or packed the hay tightly against the Ploughboy’s back, or warmed the sheets for the gold-braided Soldier....

  But what was happening? Why were those faint spider lines so much thicker and darker now? And where had those cross-lines come from that were not there a moment ago?

  “I’ll marry the Gentleman first,” she told herself, “before I begin that awful search. After him, perhaps the others. I hope he isn’t just all words and manners. And would he be too polite to live with, I wonder? For ever and ever and ever with that top-hat and eyeglass and those bows?”

  The lines above her head had broadened surely, and sunk at the same time a little lower.

  “Of course, I’ll never forget the search — my Pearl of Great Price — oh, never, never — but the Sailor with his songs and dancing and trips to distant lands — the Sailor would make me laugh more perhaps. Though, if the singing and dancing never ended — well, Judas, there ought to be a limit somewhere, don’t you think?”

  Each Fruit Stoner came under review, each with his particular attractions and disabilities, until finally she reached the Thief —— —

  She stopped dead then. She thought about something else.

  “Youth — but early youth — just before my prime — that’s what I’ll choose,” she decided. “Yet more of a child perhaps—”

  Maria sat suddenly bolt upright in bed, craning her neck, her eyes fixed upon the snow-white ceiling. For it was no longer snow-white, and the fly and spider lines had now thickened into broad solid things that looked like heavy beams of wood. These beams, moreover, were trembling, settling down. Walls and ceiling no longer joined together quite as before. A faint shiver ran. The air was shaking. Distances appeared that puzzled her. The great chandelier that hung from the centre of the ceiling had disappeared. Everything was melting. Above her head she saw a smudge of gloomy space where thick rafters showed like enormous ribs. A shiver ran through the air as though a vast shape of jelly trembled....

  CHAPTER XII

  Her muscles relaxed; her eyes, if they had ever been closed, opened. A dim but pleasant light lay everywhere; there was a delicious fragrance in the air, and Judas, soft and warm, lay curled up and purring on her lap.

  “Am I in my prime still? Is this a proper nick? Am I too late to begin?” rose confusedly in her mind, as she stared about her. A start of uneasiness followed. “There’s something I’ve got to look for — at once—”

  Her uneasy whisper went drifting, floating through the pleasant semi-darkness, and she realized the same second that she sat perched high above the ground upon masses of comfortable, soft hay, and that great rafters stretched, dimly outlined, in the gloom above her. Far below, she dimly made out a broken cart, an old mowing-machine, a great heap of potatoes, rakes and poles, iron netting, and a pile of dirty rope. An earthy, tarry smell mingled with the hay on which she sat. It was all unmistakable, of course. This was a place she had been in before, had seen in a picture, or at least had dreamed about.

  “This is — the Barn—” she began, then stopped dead. Something had moved. There was a movement somewhere just where she could not see it, a movement the corner of her eye had caught. She held motionless.

  “I came here to look for something,” her uneasy thought ran on, “to search. I was interrupted, delayed — but now I must get on with it — I must hunt and find—”

  The concealed movement made her pause, but her uneasy thought ran on.

  She took a step or two and sank almost to her knees in the deep hay. She turned about her, wondering where to begin the search, and her hands flew automatically to her head. “I wonder how my hair looks! I must be horribly untidy! I wish I had a mirror!” She patted and pushed her hair about.... These masses of stacked hay! They might hide anything — from a thimble to an elephant! What a place to search!

  Her fingers plunged in wildly, recklessly. It pricked and stung. Crawling, floundering along, she reached the edge of the hay and peered over. It dropped in a sheer wall below her. The sides had been cut into a smooth, straight wall. Her eye looked down it dizzily to the dusty floor, then upwards to the shadowy rafters that ran across the gloomy ceiling.

  “That’s where something moved,” she told herself, “or did I only imagine it?”

  Was something perched there on one of the big rafters? Did it move? Had it moved? Or had it just stopped moving as she looked? Something was watching her; she was not alone, she felt positive of that, and she shrank down and tried to hide herself with a mass of loose hay. She concealed herself like an animal or insect.

  Again that curious sense of interval, of a long interval, passed over her. It alarmed her, bringing a sense of hurry.

  “Judas, my black demon, am I older, or younger, or about the same? And — what is this thing I’ve got to look for? Will you tell me that?”

  But Judas, asleep where she had left him, gave no answer.

  She peered down the precipice of hay, she plunged her hands feverishly into the sharp prickly stalks, and then she looked down at her short serge skirt and spindly legs, the legs of a little girl, of course. Her bare hands stung and pricked, but it was worth it — there was something she wanted to find, something she had come to look for, something she must find — and quickly. For time was passing.... The feeling of hurry grew. A restlessness caught and twisted her....

  “I was so happy somewhere, peaceful, lying cosily and dreaming—”

  Then, suddenly, it all came back more sharply to her: her urgent search, the shortening time, the Fruit Stoners, the Barn!

  She was digging and ferreting blindly close to the edge when this all flashed back upon her
like a thunderbolt. A touch of panic shot over her like fire. To hunt for anything in this mass of hay would take a lifetime; to search all that loose, untidy paraphernalia below would need years. Something was rushing past her, rushing at unchecked, uncheckable speed, and she was rushing with it, being swept along with it helplessly — towards an end — an end that was coming nearer.

  She gave a gasp of startled surprise as something, but something solid this time, darted past her face and went scuttling down the precipitous wall of hay and landed on the floor below almost soundlessly. It made her jump, so that she nearly lost her balance, but the same second she realized what it was: Judas, in a single rushing spring, had left her side and safely reached the ground. She peered down and watched him. His tail was in the air, his black face thrust forward, his whiskers twitching, as with slow, cautious footsteps he advanced towards the wall of hay. He was nosing now against the lowest bales, he was sniffing inquiringly, with great interest, and as she watched his mysterious antics, her first impulse was to get down somehow and join him. But could she make the effort for that dizzy slide? Could she manage to slither down the sheer sides? That giddy, awful drop!

  Excitement whirled through her. She must somehow join her beloved cat. Her body automatically made the first muscular movements, gathering the legs taut beneath her; her hands clutched the hay and tried to make a rope of it; she felt herself just beginning to slither helplessly — when a sudden noise overhead caught her ears.

  Digging her heels in violently, she stopped sliding just in time and looked up, and there, moving along the big central rafter, was the dark object she had seen before. She had known all along there was something or someone perched up there, watching her in the gloom. An involuntary cry escaped her, and the movement stopped instantly, but, though the object was now stationary, she got the impression of great agility, almost as though a large monkey crouched up there, observing her from the shadows, noting everything she did. She strained her smarting eyes to their utmost, but the outline remained a blur, and at that moment a little cry of excitement from Judas, half miaow, half purr, made her look down again, and what she saw going on below was so interesting and peculiar that the rafter and its mysterious occupant were momentarily forgotten.

  For Judas was now standing right up against the wall of hay, tapping it with a tentative paw, then springing sharply away again, as though he saw a movement in it. He sat down a couple of feet away and stared with gimlet eyes. The hay was moving, the tight smooth surface was parting; Maria saw the separate stalks give sudden tiny jerks; something was trying to force a way out. She watched with popping eyes. Plainly enough, the opening in the surface widened. A tip appeared, a pointed tip that was pink and shiny. It wriggled, it pushed out farther, the breach grew bigger.

  She stared with such concentrated interest that it seemed her eyes must pop out of her head, bounce on the ground, and roll away like two marbles.

  “Now, Marigold, is the moment to be careful,” whispered a cautious voice inside her, while another followed, but more eagerly, “Get down, Maria, and see for yourself!”

  For while she dreaded the dizzy drop, she knew she could really manage it quite easily, and both voices sounded in her simultaneously as though two ages uttered. The pointed thing with the pink, shiny tip pushed out farther still and was now wriggling aimlessly in the air, while Judas, advancing calmly, stalked up and with signs of obvious pleasure, sniffed it. It instantly drew back, then thrust forward again; it touched his head; it scratched the black hair. Something glinted on it lower down — a ring, a signet-ring!

  “Glory be!” cried Maria aloud, with amazement. “It’s a finger!”

  What she then witnessed drove everything else completely out of her head. The finger protruded farther. It worked the hole bigger and bigger. The hay was not as tightly packed as it appeared, evidently, for soon a hand came into view, after the hand an arm, after the arm a shoulder. There was a sound of heavy breathing, almost panting. Next, from a point closer to the floor, a foot protruded, a wrinkled sock, a piece of trousers, at each of which Judas sniffed cautiously in turn. With a burst of loose hay higher up then came into view a patterned waistcoat, a chain of gleaming gold across it, a fob, an eyeglass swinging on a black cord; and finally, amid a shower of dust and stalks, and with a great blowing and puffing and spluttering, emerged the full outline of — the Gentleman.

  He reached the air in a crumpled mass, bent sideways like a tangled parcel that had burst, but immediately, giving a violent shake as a wet dog shakes off water, he straightened up and recovered his natural elegance with surprising ease. Judas, whose head he had scratched without knowing what it was, stood, fortunately, behind him, and before he could add to the Gentleman’s discomfiture, he gave one look of amazement, turned tail, and raced instantly out of sight.

  Maria gave a look of amazement, too, from her giddy perch. The Gentleman stood up stiffly, swung his arms about, puffed and blew noisily, shook himself again like a drenched dog, and flung out his legs alternately as though an ant’s nest had crawled inside his crumpled trousers.

  “Odds bodikins!” he cried, whistling windily past a dry dandelion that caught in his lips.

  “Gadzooks! It’s all down me back and next me skin, and it pricks like thistles. Zounds! What a place to search in! Devil take me, if I’m not covered with fleas as well!”

  His white top-hat, bristling with stalks, its surface all brushed the wrong way, had the air of a ruined bee-hive, and the next thing he did was to remove it for inspection. “Upon me soul!” he exclaimed with elegant disgust as he breathed upon it, polished it carefully against his sleeve, and then replaced it upon his head at a very rakish angle. He looked about him more contentedly then, brushing his coat, and patting one pocket in particular, a pocket, Maria noticed, that had a peculiar bulge. “Whew!” he half whistled again, “there’s no knowing what may be expected of a fellah—” and stopped dead, as he glanced up and for the first time caught sight of Maria overhead.

  “Oh, sir — oh, my Gent!” she cried, a torrent of words set free as their eyes met, “I’m so awfully glad to see you!” With a tremendous effort she kept her laughter back. “You look adorable! But how on earth did you manage to squeeze in there? You can’t have been very comfortable, I’m afraid—”

  Her greetings were cut short abruptly, for leaning too far forward in her excitement, she suddenly lost her balance and slid bodily over the edge, landing with a bang and clatter at his very feet. She arrived on all fours in a heap of loose, tumbled hay, and as laughter seemed natural now and could not hurt his feelings, she let out peal after peal that had been suppressed before with such difficulty.

  “Your obedient, Maria,” said the Gentleman collectedly, though his voice was still choked with dust a little. He bent instantly to help her rise, his swinging eyeglass tapping against her cheek, his hat already sweeping about as he made his usual bow. “I trust you are not hurt?” he inquired gravely, for he did not join her laughter. “My arrival seems well timed, if I may dare to say so.” And he steadied her on her feet again. He was dignity and aristocratic elegance personified.

  “Oh, my Gent!” was all she could get out between her gusts of laughter. “ I do thank you ever so much, and I must give you a kiss at once,” and she forthwith planted a hearty peck on his dusty cheek.

  “My darling, my affianced darling,” he replied gallantly, returning the kiss with fervour, “for we are affianced still in spite of all this hay and stuff?” He puffed and blew with great delicacy.

  “Of course we are,” Maria agreed quickly. “And I’m not a scrap hurt, thank you. Why, that’s nothing,” she added, referring to the slide. “I’ve often and often climbed to the top of the cedar, the very top, I mean—”

  Her lips closed with a snap. What was she saying? She tried to collect her thoughts. “And you, Gent,” she went on rapidly, “how in the world did you ever get inside that hay? And what were you doing there? Wasn’t it frightfully stuffy, and weren’t
you” — she tried violently to find a dignified and suitable word, for it was clear he was in no mood for laughter—” incommoded?” she brought out finally, with an expression that held at least no visible smile.

  She looked hard into his face. He seemed different somewhere, she thought, not quite as young, but more as she had seen him first, the skin crinkly rather, looser, too, as when the air escapes from a toy balloon. It was filling up again, however, now, and the blood seemed pouring back. Yet — did he look a shade less real? Had a great interval passed over him as well?

  “I was — er — searching,” he replied, blandly courteous, “searching, as you asked. And I found — this,” he added proudly, while his hand dived into the bulging pocket and drew out a huge horse-pistol. “Can this be, Maria,” he asked solemnly, “the thing you wish so ardently to find?” He held it out for her examination.

  Maria looked at the big weapon cautiously, inspecting it with curiosity.

  “No, my Gent, it’s not that,” she answered decidedly, shaking her head. The ugly weapon, dangerous though it was, seemed trifling somehow. A touch of impatient resentment flashed across her. It was as though he tried to pacify her with a toy, she felt. Compared to what she had come to find, it was a toy. “But I thank you all the same, you know. It was sweet of you to look. You kept your word. And — and are the other Fruit Stoners searching too?” she asked suddenly. “Are they all looking for my Pearl of Great Price too?”

  He made a profound bow, betraying no interest, no emotion of any sort.

  “They are all somewhere about here,” he told her casually, “in the hay probably, more or less. This is the Barn, you see, where you wanted us to search.”

  “In the hay!” Maria gasped. “And searching! Oh, Gent — how splendid of them!”

  The Gentleman calmly screwed his eyeglass in, patted his top-hat more firmly on his head, and gazed into space above him.