“Did Mason inherit entire content of parents’ beliefs, dramatizing this by force of unexpressed but passionate love?
“Did not Mason’s mind, thus charged, communicate whole business to the young mind he has since formed, a plastic mind uninfluenced by normal human surroundings and conditions of ordinary life?
“Transfer of a sex-inspired mania?”
Then followed another note, summarizing evidently Devonham’s judgment:
“Not worth F.‘s investigation until examined further. N.B. Look up Mason first opportunity and judge at first hand.”
Dr. Fillery, glancing from the papers to the portrait, smiled a little again as he signified approval.
But the last entry interested him still more. It was dated July 13, 1914.
“Mason reports boy’s prophecy of great upheaval coming. Entire race slips back into chaos of primitive life again. Entire Western Civilization crumbles. Modern inventions and knowledge vanish. Nature spirits reappear.... Desires return of all previous letters. These sent by registered post.”
A few scattered notes on separate sheets of paper lay at the end of the carefully typed dossier, but these were very incomplete, and Devonham’s handwriting, especially when in pencil, was not of the clearest.
“Non-human claim, though absurd, not traceable to any antecedent causes given by letters. What is Mason’s past mental and temperamental history? Is he not, through the parents, the cause? Mania seems harmless, both to subject and others. No suffering or unhappiness. Therefore not a case for F., until further examined by self. Better see Mason and his subject first. Wrote July 24th proposing visit.”
Dr. Fillery’s eyes twinkled. His forehead relaxed. He looked back. He remembered details. Devonham’s holiday that year, he recalled, was due on August ist; he had intended going out mountain climbing in Switzerland.
The final note of all, also in half-legible writing, seemed to refer to the treatment Mason had asked advice about, and the line Devonham had suggested:
“Natural life close to Nature cannot hurt him. But I advise watch him with fire and with heights heat, air! That is, he may decide his physical body is irksome and seek to escape it. Teach him natural history botany, geology, insects, animals, even astronomy, but always giving him reasons and explanations. Above all let him meet girls of his own age and fall in love. Fullest natural expression, but guarded without his knowing it....”
For a long time Dr. Fillery sat with the notes and papers before him, thinking over what he had read. Devonham’s advice was clever enough, but without insight, sound and astute, yet lacking divination.
The twinkle in his eyes, caused by the final entry, died away. His face was grave, his manner preoccupied, intense. He gazed long at the portrait in his hand.... It was dusk when he finally rose, replaced the dossier, locked the cabinet, and went out into another room, and thence into the hall. Taking his hat and stick, he left the house, already composing in his mind the telegram instructing Devonham, while apologizing for the interrupted holiday, to bring the subject of the Notes to England with him. A telegraph girl met him on the very steps of the house. He took the envelope from her, and opened it. He read the message It was dated Bale, the day before:
“Arriving end week with interesting patient. Details index under Mason. Prepare private suite.
“DEVONHAM.”
CHAPTER 5
..................
IT WAS, HOWEVER, SOME TWO weeks later before Dr. Fillery was on his way to the station to meet Devonham and his companion. A slight delay, caused apparently by the necessity of buying an outfit, had intervened and given time for an exchange of letters, but Devonham had contented himself chiefly with telegrams. He did not wish his chief to know too much about the case in advance. “Probably he regrets the Notes already,” thought the doctor, as the car made its way slowly across crowded London. “He wants my first unbiased judgment; he’s right, of course, but it’s too late for that now.”
The delay, however, had been of value. The Home was in working order again, the staff returned, the private suite all ready for its interesting occupant, whom in thought he had already named “N.H.”; for in the first place he did not know his name as yet, and in the second he felt towards him a certain attitude of tolerant, half-humorous scepticism.
Cut off from his own kind for so many years, educated, perhaps half — educated only, by too speculative and imaginative a mind, equally warped by this long solitude, a mind unduly stretched by the contemplation of immense geological perspectives, filled, too, with heaven knows what strange stories of pantheistic Nature — feeling “N.H.” might be distinctly interesting, but hardly all that Mason had thought him. “Unique” was a word rarely justified; the peculiarities would prove to be mere extravagances that had, of necessity, remained uncorrected by the friction of intercourse with his own kind. The rest was inheritance, equally unpruned; a mind living in a side-eddy, a backwater with Nature....
At the same time Dr. Fillery admitted a certain anticipatory excitement he could not wholly account for, an undercurrent of wonder he ascribed to his Khaketian blood.
He had written once only to his assistant, sending briefest instructions to say the rooms would be ready, and that the young man must believe he was an invited guest coming on a visit. “Let him expect complete freedom of movement and occupation without the smallest idea of restraint in any way. He is merely coming to stay for as long as he pleases with a friend of Mason. Impress him with a sense of hearty welcome,” And Devonham, replying, had evidently understood the wisdom of this method. “He is also greatly pleased with your name the sound of it,” was stated in the one letter that he wrote, “and as names mean a lot to him, so much the better. The sound of it gives him pleasure; he keeps repeating it over to himself; he already likes you. My name he does not care about, saying it quickly, sharply. But he trusts me. His trust in anyone who shows him kindness is instantaneous and complete. He invariably expects kindness, however, from everyone gives it himself equally and is baffled and puzzled by any other treatment.”
So Devonham, with “N.H.,” who attached importance to names and expected kindness from people as a natural thing, would be in London town within the hour. Straight from his forests and mountains for the first time in his life, he would find himself in the heart of the greatest accumulation of human beings on the planet, the first city of the world, the final expression of civilization as known to the human race.
“‘N.H.’ in London town,” thought Dr. Fillery, his mouth twitching with the smile that began in his quiet eyes. “Bless the lad! We must make him feel at home and happy. He shall indeed have kindness. He’ll need a woman’s touch as well.” He reflected a moment. “Women are a great help in doubtful cases the way a man reacts to them,” he mused. “Only they must be distinct in type to be of value.” And his mind ran quickly, comprehensively over the women of his acquaintance, pausing, as it did so, upon two in particular a certain Lady Gleeson, and Iraida sometimes called Nayan Khilkoff, the daugher of his Russian friend, the sculptor.
His mind pondered for some moments the two he had selected. It was not the first time he had made use of them. Their effect respectively upon a man was invariably instinctive and illuminating.
The two were radically different feminine types, as far removed from one another as pole from pole, yet each essentially of her sex. Their effect, respectively, upon such a youth must be of value, and might be even illuminating to the point of revelation. Both, he felt sure, would not be indifferent to the new personality.
It was, however, of Nayan Khilkoff that he thought chiefly. Of that rare, selfless, maternal type which men in all ages have called saint or angel, she possessed that power which evoked in them all they could feel of respect, of purity, of chivalry, that love, in a word, which holds as a chief ingredient, worship. Her beauty, beyond their reach, was of the stars; it was the unattainable in her they loved; her beauty was of the soul. Nayan was spiritual, not as a result of painful eff
ort and laborious development, but born so. Her life, moreover, was one of natural service. Personal love, exclusive devotion to an individual, concentration of her being upon another single being this seemed impossible to her. She was at the same time an enigma: there was an elusive flavour about her that made people a little in awe of her, a flavour not of this earth, quite. She carried an impersonal attitude almost to the point of seeming irresponsive to common human things and interests.
The other woman, Lady Gleeson, Angela her Christian name, was equally a simple type, though her simplicity was that of the primitive female who is still close to the Stone Age a savage. She adorned herself to capture men. She was the female spider that devours its mates. She wanted slaves. To describe her as selfish were inadequate, for she was unaware that any other ideal existed in life but that of obtaining her own pleasure. There was instinct and emotion, but, of course, no heart. Without morals, conscience or consideration, she was the animal of prey that obeys the call of hunger in the most direct way possible, regardless of consequences to herself or others. Her brain was quick, her personality shallow. When talking she “rattled on.” Devonham had well said once: “You can hear her two thoughts clicking, both of them in trousers!” Sir George, recently knighted, successful with large concessions in China, was indulgent. The male splendour of the youth was bound to stimulate her hunger, as his simplicity, his loneliness, and in a sense his pathetic helplessness, would certainly evoke the tenderness in Nayan. “He’ll probably like her dear, ridiculous name, too,” Dr. Fillery felt, “the nickname they gave her because she’s the same to everybody, whichever way you take her Nayan Khilkoff.” Yet her real name was more beautiful Iraida. And, as he repeated it half aloud, a soft light stole upon his face, shone in the deep clear eyes, and touched even the corners of the rather grim mouth with another, a tenderer expression, before the sternness quickly returned to it.
“N.H.” would meet, thus, two main types of female life. He, apparently an exceedingly male being, would face the onslaught of passion and heart, of lust and love, respectively; and it was his reactions to these onslaughts that Fillery wished to observe. They would help his diagnosis, they might guide his treatment.
It was a warm and muggy afternoon, the twilight passing rapidly into darkness now; one of those late autumn days when summer heat flits back, but light is weak. The covered sky increased the clammy warmth, which was damp, unhealthy, devitalizing. No wind stirred. The great city was sticky and depressing. Yet people approved the heat, although it tired them. “It shortens the winter, anyhow,” was the general verdict, when expressed at all. They referred unconsciously to the general dread of strikes.
London was hurried and confused. An air of feverish overcrowding reigned in the great station, when he left the car and went in on foot. No sign of order, system, direction, was visible. The scene might have been a first rehearsal of some entirely new experiment. Grumbling and complaint rose from all sides in an exasperated chorus. He tried to ascertain how late the train was and on which platform it might be expected, but no one knew for certain, and the grudging replies to questions seemed to say, “You’ve no right to ask anything, and if you keep on asking there will be a strike. So that’s that!”
He listened to the talk and watched the facial expressions and the movements of the half — resigned and half-excited concourse of London citizens. The clock was accurate, and everyone was kind to ladies; stewed tea, stale cake with little stones in it, vile whisky and very weak beer were obtainable at high prices. There were no matches. The machine for supplying platform-tickets was broken. He saw men paying more thought and attention to the comfort of their dogs than to their own. The great, marvellous, stupid, splendid race was puzzled and exasperated. Then, suddenly, the train pulled in, full of returned exiles longing to be back again in “dear old England.”
“Thank God, it’s come,” sighed the crowd. “Good! We’re English. Forgive and forget!” and prepared to tip the porters handsomely and carry their own baggage.
The confusion that followed was equally characteristic, and equally remarkable, displaying greatness side by side with its defects. There was no system; all was muddled, yet all was safe. Anyone could claim what luggage they liked, though no one did so, nor dreamed, it seemed, of doing so. There was an air of decent honesty and trust. There were ladies who discovered that all men are savages; there were men and women who were savages. People shook hands warmly, smiled with honest affection, said light, careless goodbyes that hid genuine emotion; helped one another with parcels, offered one another lifts. There were few taxicabs, one perhaps to every thirty people. And in this general scrimmage, Dr. Fillery, at first, could see no sign of his expected arrivals; he walked from end to end of the platform littered with luggage and thronged with bustling people, but nowhere could he discover the familiar outline of Devonham, nor anyone who answered to the strange picture that already stood forth sharply in his mind.
“There’s been a mistake somewhere,” he said to himself; “I shall find a telegram when I get back to the house explaining it” when, suddenly and without apparent cause, there stole upon him a curious lift of freedom a sharp sense of open spaces he was at a loss to understand. It was accompanied by an increase of light. For a second it occurred to him that the great enclosing roof had rolled back and blown away, letting in air and some lost ray of sunshine. A lovely valley flitted across his thought. Almost he was aware of flowers, of music, of rhythmic movement.
“Edward! there you are. I thought you hadn’t come,” he heard close behind him, and, turning, saw the figure of Devonham, calm and alert as usual. At his side stood a lean, virile outline of a young man, topping Devonham by several inches, with broad but thin shoulders, figure erect yet flexible, whose shining and inquiring eyes of blue were the most striking feature in a boyish face, where strength, intensity and radiant health combined in an unusual degree.
“Here is our friend, LeVallon,” added Devonham, but not before the figure had stepped lightly and quickly forward, already staring at him and shaking his outstretched hand.
So this was “N.H.,” and LeVallon was his name. The calm, searching eyes held a touch of bewilderment in them, the eyes of an honest, intelligent animal, thought Fillery quickly, adding in spite of himself and almost simultaneously, “but of a divine animal.” It was a look he had never in his life before encountered in any human eyes. Mason’s water-colour sketch had caught something, at least, of their innocence and question, of their odd directness and intensity, something, too, of the golden fire in the hair. He wore a broad-brimmed felt hat of Swiss pattern, a Bernese overcoat, a low, soft-collared shirt, with blue tie to match.
Buffeted and pushed by the frenzied travellers, they stood and faced each other, shaking hands, eyes looking into eyes, two strangers, doctor and patient possibly, but friends most certainly, both felt instantly. They liked one another, Once again the scent of flowers danced with light above the piled-up heaps of trunks, rugs, packages. A cool wind from mountains seemed to blow across the dreadful station.
“You’ve arrived safely,” began Dr. Fillery, a little taken aback perhaps. “Welcome! And not too tired, I hope when the other interrupted him in a man’s deep voice, full of pleasant timbre:
“Fill-er-y,” he said, making the “F” sound rather long, “I need you. To see you makes me happy.”
“Tired,” put in Devonham breathlessly, “good heavens, not he! But I am. Now for a porter and the big luggage. Have you got a taxi?”
“The car is here,” said Fillery, letting go with a certain reluctance the hand he held, and paying little attention to anything but the figure before him who used such unexpected language. What was it? What did it mean? Whence came this sudden sense of intensity, light, of order, system, intelligence into the racial scene of muddled turmoil all about him? There seemed an air of speeding up in thought and action near him, compared to which the slow stupidity, uncoordinated and confused on all sides, became painful, gross, and even ludic
rous.
Someone bumped against him with violence, but quite needlessly, since the simplest judgment of weight and distance could have avoided the collision. In such ordinary small details he was aware of another, a higher, standard close. A man on his left, trying to manage several bundles, appeared vividly as of amazing incompetence, with his miscalculation, his clumsy movement, his hopeless inability to judge cause and effect. Yet he had two arms, ten fingers, two legs, broad shoulders and deep chest. Misdirection of his great strength made it impossible for him to manage the assortment of light parcels. Next to him, however, stood a woman carrying a baby there was no error there. The panting engine just beyond them, again, set a standard of contemptuous, impersonal intelligence that, obeying Nature’s laws, dwarfed the humans generally. But it was another, a quasi-spiritual standard that had flashed to him above all. In some curious way the competent “dead” machinery that obeyed the Law with faultless efficiency, and the woman obeying instinct with equally unconscious skill these two energies were akin to the new standard he was now startlingly aware of.
He looked up, as though to trace this sudden new consciousness of bright, quick, rapid competence almost as of some immense power building with consistent scheme and system that had occurred to him; and he met again the direct, yet slightly bewildered eyes that watched him, watched him with confidence, sweetness, and with a questioning intensity he found intriguing, captivating, and oddly stimulating. He felt happiness.
“By yer leave!” roared a porter, as they stepped aside just in time to save being pushed by the laden truck just in time to save himself, that is, for the other, Fillery noticed, moved like a chamois on its native rocks, so surely, lightly, swiftly was he poised.
“This! Ah, you must excuse it,” the doctor exclaimed with a smile of apology almost, “we’ve not yet had time to settle down after the war, you see.” He pointed with a sweep of his hand to the roaring, dim-lit cavern where confusion reigned supreme, the G.H.Q. of travel in the biggest city of the Empire.
The Algernon Blackwood Collection Page 169
