home--and then the stranger edged off and continued his walk, looking
back once or twice at the sad-faced man who had addressed him. “It’s
ridiculous, that with all our science we can’t live under water as the
fish do,” reflected Leidall, and moved on round the other bank of the
water, where he watched a flight of duck whirl down from the darkening
air and settle with a long, mournful splash beside the bushy island. “Or
that, for all our pride of mechanism in a mechanical age, we cannot
really fly.” But these attempts to escape from self were never very
successful. Another part of him looked on and mocked. He returned ever
to the endless introspection and self-analysis, and in the deepest
moment of it--ran into a big, motionless figure that blocked his way. It
was the Park policeman, the one who always eyed him. He sheered off
suddenly towards the trees, while the man, recognising him, touched his
cap respectfully. “It’s a pleasant evening, sir; turned quite mild
again.” Leidall mumbled some reply or other, and hurried on to hide
himself among the shadows of the trees. The policeman stood and watched
him, till the darkness swallowed him. “He knows too!” groaned the
wretched man. And every bench was occupied; every face turned to watch
him; there were even figures behind the trees. He dared not go into the
street, for the very taxi-drivers were against him. If he gave an
address, he would not be driven to it; the man would _know_, and take
him elsewhere. And something in his heart, sick with anguish, weary with
the endless battle, suddenly yielded.
“There _are_ fish in the Serpentine,” he remembered the stranger had
said. “And,” he added to himself, with a wave of delicious comfort,
“they lead secret, hidden lives that no one can disturb.” His mind
cleared surprisingly. In the water he could find peace and rest and
healing. Good Lord! How easy it all was! Yet he had never thought of it
before. He turned sharply to retrace his steps, but in that very second
the clouds descended upon his thought again, his mind darkened, he
hesitated. Could he get out again when he had had enough? Would he rise
to the surface? A battle began over these questions. He ran quickly,
then stood still again to think the matter out. Darkness shrouded him.
He heard the wind rush laughing through the trees. The picture of the
whirring duck flashed back a moment, and he decided that the best way
was by air, and not by water. He would _fly_ into the place of rest, not
sink or merely float; and he remembered the view from his bedroom
window, high over old smoky London town, with a drop of eighty feet on
to the pavements. Yes, that was the best way. He waited a moment, trying
to think it all out clearly, but one moment the fish had it, and the
next the birds. It was really impossible to decide. Was there no one who
could help him, no one in all this enormous town who was sufficiently on
his side to advise him on the point? Some clear-headed, experienced,
kindly man?
And the face of Dr. Hancock flashed before his vision. He saw the gentle
eyes and sympathetic smile, remembered the soothing voice and the offer
of companionship he had refused. Of course, there was one serious
drawback: Hancock _knew_. But he was far too tactful, too sweet and good
a man to let that influence his judgment, or to betray in any way at
all that he did know.
Leidall found it in him to decide. Facing the entire hostile world, he
hailed a taxi from the nearest gate upon the street, looked up the
address in a chemist’s telephone-book, and reached the door in a
condition of delight and relief. Yes, Dr. Hancock was at home. Leidall
sent his name in. A few minutes later the two men were chatting
pleasantly together, almost like old friends, so keen was the little
man’s intuitive sympathy and tact. Only Hancock, patient listener though
he proved himself to be, was uncommonly full of words. Leidall explained
the matter very clearly. “Now, what is your decision, Dr. Hancock? Is it
to be the way of the fish or the way of the duck?” And, while Hancock
began his answer with slow, well-chosen words, a new idea, better than
either, leaped with a flash into his listener’s mind. It was an
inspiration. For where could he find a better hiding-place from all his
troubles than--inside Hancock himself? The man was kindly; he surely
would not object. Leidall this time did not hesitate a second. He was
tall and broad; Hancock was small; yet he was sure there would be room.
He sprang upon him like a wild animal. He felt the warm, thin throat
yield and bend between his great hands ... then darkness, peace and
rest, a nothingness that surely was the oblivion he had so long prayed
for. He had accomplished his desire. He had secreted himself for ever
from persecution--inside the kindliest little man he had ever
met--inside Hancock....
He opened his eyes and looked about him into a room he did not know. The
walls were soft and dimly coloured. It was very silent. Cushions were
everywhere. Peaceful it was, and out of the world. Overhead was a
skylight, and one window, opposite the door, was heavily barred.
Delicious! No one could get in. He was sitting in a deep and comfortable
chair. He felt rested and happy. There was a click, and he saw a tiny
window in the door drop down, as though worked by a sliding panel. Then
the door opened noiselessly, and in came a little man with smiling face
and soft brown eyes--Dr. Hancock.
Leidall’s first feeling was amazement. “Then I didn’t get into him
properly after all! Or I’ve slipped out again, perhaps! The dear, good
fellow!” And he rose to greet him. He put his hand out, and found that
the other came with it in some inexplicable fashion. Movement was
cramped. “Ah, then I’ve had a stroke,” he thought, as Hancock pressed
him, ever so gently, back into the big chair. “Do not get up,” he said
soothingly but with authority; “sit where you are and rest. You must
take it very easy for a bit; like all clever men who have
overworked----”
“I’ll get in the moment he turns,” thought Leidall. “I did it badly
before. It must be through the back of his head, of course, where the
spine runs up into the brain,” and he waited till Hancock should turn.
But Hancock never turned. He kept his face towards him all the time,
while he chatted, moving gradually nearer to the door. On Leidall’s face
was the smile of an innocent child, but there lay a hideous cunning
behind that smile, and the eyes were terrible.
“Are those bars firm and strong,” asked Leidall, “so that no one can get
in?” He pointed craftily, and the doctor, caught for a second unawares,
turned his head. That instant Leidall was upon him with a roar, then
sank back powerless into the chair, unable to move his arms more than a
few inches in any direction. Hancock stepped up quietly and made him
comfortable again with cushions.
And something in Leidall’s soul turned round and looked another way. His
mind became clear as daylight for a moment. The effort perhaps had
caused the sudden change from darkness to great light. A memory rushed
over him. “Good God!” he cried. “I am violent. I was going to do you an
injury--you who are so sweet and good to me!” He trembled dreadfully,
and burst into tears. “For the sake of Heaven,” he implored, looking up,
ashamed and keenly penitent, “put me under restraint. Fasten my hands
before I try it again.” He held both hands out willingly, beseechingly,
then looked down, following the direction of the other’s kind brown
eyes. His wrists, he saw, already wore steel handcuffs, and a strait
waistcoat was across his chest and arms and shoulders.
XXII
THE HOUSE OF THE PAST
One night a Dream came to me and brought with her an old and rusty key.
She led me across fields and sweet-smelling lanes, where the hedges were
already whispering to one another in the dark of the spring, till we
came to a huge, gaunt house with staring windows and lofty roof half
hidden in the shadows of very early morning. I noticed that the blinds
were of heavy black, and that the house seemed wrapped in absolute
stillness.
“This,” she whispered in my ear, “is the House of the Past. Come with me
and we will go through some of its rooms and passages; but quickly, for
I have not the key for long, and the night is very nearly over. Yet,
perchance, you shall remember!”
The key made a dreadful noise as she turned it in the lock, and when the
great door swung open into an empty hall and we went in, I heard sounds
of whispering and weeping, and the rustling of clothes, as of people
moving in their sleep and about to wake. Then, instantly, a spirit of
intense sadness came over me, drenching me to the soul; my eyes began to
burn and smart, and in my heart I became aware of a strange sensation as
of the uncoiling of something that had been asleep for ages. My whole
being, unable to resist, at once surrendered itself to the spirit of
deepest melancholy, and the pain in my heart, as the Things moved and
woke, became in a moment of time too strong for words....
As we advanced, the faint voices and sobbings fled away before us into
the interior of the House, and I became conscious that the air was full
of hands held aloft, of swaying garments, of drooping tresses, and of
eyes so sad and wistful that the tears, which were already brimming in
my own, held back for wonder at the sight of such intolerable yearning.
“Do not allow all this sadness to overwhelm you,” whispered the Dream at
my side, “It is not often They wake. They sleep for years and years and
years. The chambers are all full, and unless visitors such as we come to
disturb them, they will never wake of their own accord. But, when one
stirs, the sleep of the others is troubled, and they too awake, till the
motion is communicated from one room to another and thus finally
throughout the whole House.... Then, sometimes, the sadness is too great
to be borne, and the mind weakens. For this reason Memory gives to them
the sweetest and deepest sleep she has, and she keeps this old key
rusty from little use. But, listen now,” she added, holding up her hand;
“do you not hear all through the House that trembling of the air like
the distant murmur of falling water? And do you not now ... perhaps ...
_remember_?”
Even before she spoke, I had already caught faintly the beginning of a
new sound; and, now, deep in the cellars beneath our feet, and from the
upper regions of the great House as well, I heard the whispering, and
the rustling and the inward stirring of the sleeping Shadows. It rose
like a chord swept softly from huge unseen strings stretched somewhere
among the foundations of the House, and its tremblings ran gently
through all its walls and ceilings. And I knew that I heard the slow
awakening of the Ghosts of the Past.
Ah me, with what terrible inrushing of sadness I stood with brimming
eyes and listened to the faint dead voices of the long ago.... For,
indeed, the whole House was awakening; and there presently rose to my
nostrils the subtle, penetrating perfume of Age; of letters, long
preserved, with ink faded and ribbons pale; of scented tresses, golden
and brown, laid away, ah how tenderly! among pressed flowers that still
held the inmost delicacy of their forgotten fragrance; the scented
presence of lost memories--the intoxicating incense of the past. My eyes
o’erflowed, my heart tightened and expanded, as I yielded myself up
without reserve to these old, old influences of sound and smell. These
Ghosts of the Past--forgotten in the tumult of more recent
memories--thronged round me, took my hands in theirs, and, ever
whispering of what I had so long forgot, ever sighing, shaking from
their hair and garments the ineffable odours of the dead ages, led me
through the vast House, from room to room, from floor to floor.
And the Ghosts--were not all equally clear to me. Some had indeed but
the faintest life, and stirred me so little that they left only an
indistinct, blurred impression in the air; while others gazed half
reproachfully at me out of faded, colourless eyes, as if longing to
recall themselves to my recollection; and then, seeing they were not
recognised, floated back gently into the shadows of their room, to sleep
again undisturbed till the Final Day, when I should not fail to know
them.
“Many of them have slept so long,” said the Dream beside me, “that they
wake only with the greatest difficulty. Once awake, however, they know
and remember _you_ even though you fail to remember them. For it is the
rule in this House of the Past that, unless you recall them distinctly,
remembering precisely when you knew them and with what particular causes
in your past evolution they were associated, they cannot stay awake.
Unless you remember them when your eyes meet, unless their look of
recognition is returned by you, they are obliged to go back to their
sleep, silent and sorrowful, their hands unpressed, their voices
unheard, to sleep and dream, deathless and patient, till....”
At this moment, her words died away suddenly into the distance, and I
became conscious of an overpowering sensation of delight and happiness.
Something had touched me on the lips, and a strong, sweet fire flashed
down into my heart and sent the blood rushing tumultuously through my
veins. My pulses beat wildly, my skin glowed, my eyes grew tender, and
the terrible sadness of the place was instantly dispelled as if by
magic. Turning with a cry of joy, that was at once swallowed up in the
chorus of weeping and sighing round me, I looked ... and instinctively
stretched forth my arms in a rapture of happiness towards ... towards a
vision of a Face ... hair, lips, eyes; a cloth of gold lay about the
fair neck, and the old, old perfume of the East--ye stars, how long
ago--was in her breath. Her lips were again on mine; her hair over my
eyes; her arms about my neck, and the love of her ancient soul pouring
into mine out of eyes still starry and undimmed. Oh, the fierce tumult,
the untold wonder, if I could only remember!... That subtle,
mist-dispelling odour of many ages ago, once so familiar ... before the
Hills of Atlantis were above the blue sea, or the sands had begun to
form the bed of the Sphinx. Yet wait; it comes back; I begin to
remember. Curtain upon curtain rises in my soul, and I can almost see
beyond. But that hideous stretch of the years, awful and sinister,
thousands upon thousands.... My heart shakes, and I am afraid. Another
curtain rises and a new vista, farther than the others, comes into view,
interminable, running to a point among thick mists. Lo, they too are
moving, rising, lightening. At last, I shall see ... already I begin to
recall ... the dusky skin ... the Eastern grace, the wondrous eyes that
held the knowledge of Buddha and the wisdom of Christ before these had
even dreamed of attainment. As a dream within a dream, it steals over me
again, taking compelling possession of my whole being ... the slender
form ... the stars in that magical Eastern sky ... the whispering winds
among the palm trees ... the murmur of the river’s waves and the music
of the reeds where they bend and sigh in the shallows on the golden
sand. Thousands of years ago in some æonian distance. It fades a little
and begins to pass; then seems again to rise. Ah me, that smile of the
shining teeth ... those lace-veined lids. Oh, who will help me to
recall, for it is too far away, too dim, and I cannot wholly remember;
though my lips are still tingling, and my arms still outstretched, it
again begins to fade. Already there is the look of sadness too deep for
words, as she realises that she is unrecognised ... she, whose mere
presence could once extinguish for me the entire universe ... and she
goes back slowly, mournfully, silently to her dim, tremendous sleep, to
dream and dream of the day when I _must_ remember her and she _must_
come where she belongs....
She peers at me from the end of the room where the Shadows already cover
her and win her back with outstretched arms to her age-long sleep in the
House of the Past.
Trembling all over, with the strange odour still in my nostrils and the
fire in my heart, I turned away and followed my Dream up a broad
staircase into another part of the House.
As we entered the upper corridors I heard the wind pass singing over the
roof. Its music took possession of me until I felt as though my whole
body were a single heart, aching, straining, throbbing as if it would
break; and all because I heard the wind singing round this House of the
Past.
“But, remember,” whispered the Dream, answering my unspoken wonder,
“that you are listening to the song it has sung for untold ages into
untold myriad ears. It carries back so appallingly far; and in that
simple dirge, profound in its terrible monotony, are the associations
and recollections of the joys, griefs, and struggles of all your
previous existence. The wind, like the sea, speaks to the inmost
memory,” she added, “and that is why its voice is one of such deep
spiritual sadness. It is the song of things for ever incomplete,
unfinished, unsatisfying.”
As we passed through the vaulted rooms, I noticed that no one stirred.
There was no actual sound, only a general impression of deep, collective
breathing, like the heave of a muffled ocean. But the rooms, I knew at
once, were full to the walls, crowded, rows upon rows.... And, from the
floors below, rose ever the murmur of the weeping Shadows as they
returned to their sleep, and settled down again in the silence, the
darkness, and the dust. The dust.... Ah, the dust that floated in this
House of the Past, so thick, so penetrating; so fine, it filled the
throat and eyes without pain; so fragrant, it soothed the senses and
stilled the aching of the heart; so soft, it parched the tongue, without
offence; yet so silently falling, gathering, settling over everything,
that the air held it like a fine mist and the sleeping Shadows wore it
for their shrouds.
“And these are the oldest,” said my Dream, “the longest asleep,”
pointing to the crowded rows of silent sleepers. “None here have wakened
for ages too many to count; and even if they woke you would not know
them. They are, like the others, all your own, but they are the memories
of your earliest stages along the great Path of Evolution. Some day,
though, they will awake, and you must know them, and answer their
questions, for they cannot die till they have exhausted themselves
again through you who gave them birth.”
“Ah me,” I thought, only half listening to or understanding these last
words, “what mothers, fathers, brothers may then be asleep in this room;
what faithful lovers, what true friends, what ancient enemies! And to
think that some day they will step forth and confront me, and I shall
meet their eyes again, claim them, know them, forgive, and be forgiven
... the memories of all my Past....”
I turned to speak to the Dream at my side, but she was already fading
into dimness, and, as I looked again, the whole House melted away into
the flush of the eastern sky, and I heard the birds singing and saw the
clouds overhead veiling the stars in the light of coming day.
XXIII
JIMBO’S LONGEST DAY
The Longest Day has in it for children a strange, incommunicable thrill.
It begins so early in the morning, for one thing, that half of it--the
first half--belongs to the mystery of night. It steals upon the world as
though from Fairyland, a thing apart from the rush and scurry of
ordinary days; it is so long that nothing happens quickly in it; there
is a delicious leisure throughout its shining hours that makes it
possible to carry out a hundred schemes unhurried. No voice can call
“Time’s up!”; no one can urge “Be quick!”; it passes, true, yet passes
like a dream that flows in a circle, having neither proper beginning nor
definite end. Christmas Day and Easter Day seem short and sharp by
comparison. They are measurable. The Longest Day brims with a happy,
endless wonder from dawn to sunset. Exceptional happenings are its
prerogative.
All this, and something more no elder can quite grasp, lay stealthily in
Jimbo’s question: “Uncle, to-morrow’s the Longest Day. What shall we
do?” He glanced across the room at his mother, prepared for a
prohibitive remark of some sort. But mother, deep in a stolen book, paid
no attention. He looked back at me. “It’s all right; she’s not
listening; but we can go outside to discuss it, if you prefer,” his
expression said. I beckoned him over to me, however, for safety’s sake.
My position was fairly strong, I knew, because the stolen book was mine,
and had been taken from my work-table. Jimbo’s mother has this way with
books, her passion almost unmoral. If a book comes to me for review, if
a friend makes me a present of a book, if I buy or borrow one--the
instant it comes into the house she knows it. “I just looked in to see
if your room had been dusted,” she says; “I’m sorry to disturb you,” and
is gone again. But she has seen the new book. Her instinct is curious. I
used to think she bribed the postman. She smells a new arrival, and goes
straight for it. “Were you looking for _this_?” she will ask innocently
an hour later when I catch her with it, household account-books
neglected by her side. “I’m so sorry. I was just peeping into it.” And
she is incorrigible, as unashamed. No book is ever lost, at any rate.
“Mother’s got it,” indicates its hiding-place infallibly.
So I felt safe enough discussing plans for the Longest Day with Jimbo,
and talked openly with him, while I watched her turn the pages.
“It’s the _very_ beginning I like,” he said. “I want to see it start.
The sun rises at 3.44, you see. That’s a quarter to four--three hours
and a quarter before I usually get up. How shall we manage it, d’you
think?” He had worked it all out.
“There’s hardly any night either,” I said, “for the sun sets at 8.18,
and that leaves very little time for darkness. It’s light at two,
remember.”
He stared into my face. “Maria has an alarum clock. She wakes with that.
It’s by her bed in the attic room, you know.”
Mother turned a page noisily, but did not look up. There was no cause
for alarm, though we instinctively lowered our voices at once. I cannot
say how it was so swiftly, so deftly arranged between us that _I_ was to
steal the clock, set it accurately for two in the morning, rise, dress,
and come to fetch Jimbo. But the result was clear beyond equivocation,
and I had accepted the duty as a man should. Generously he left this
exciting thing to me. “And suppose it doesn’t go off and wake you,” he
inquired anxiously, “will you be sure to get up and _make_ it go off?
Because we might miss the beginning of the day unless you do.” I
explained something about the mechanism of the mind and the mechanism of
an alarum clock that seemed to satisfy him, and then he asked another
vital question: “What _is_ exactly the Longest Day, uncle? I thought
all days were about the same--like that,” and he stretched an imaginary
line in the air with one hand, so that Mac, the terrier, thought he
wanted to play a moment. I explained that too, to his satisfaction,
whereupon he nestled much closer to me, glancing first over his shoulder
at his mother, and inquired whether “everything knew it was the Longest
Day--birds, cows, and out-of-door things all over the world--rabbits, I
mean--like that? They know, I suppose?”
“They certainly must find it longer than other days, ordinary days, just
common days,” I said. “I’m sure of that.” And then I cleared my throat
so loudly that mother looked up from her book with an unmistakable
start. “Oh, I’m _so_ sorry,” she exclaimed, with unblushing mendacity,
“but d’you want your book? Were you looking for it? I just took a
peep----” And when I turned to leave the room with it beneath my arm
Jimbo had vanished, leaving no trace behind him.
That night he went to bed without a murmur at half-past eight. He
trusted me implicitly. There were no questions: “Have you got the
clock?” or “How did you get it?” or anything of the kind--just his
absolute confidence that I _had_ got it and that I _would_ wake him. At
the stairs, however, he turned and made a sign. Leading me through the
back door of the Sussex cottage, we found ourselves a moment in the
orchard together. And then, saying no word, he pointed. He pointed
everywhere; he stared about him, listening; he looked up into my face,
and then at the orchard, and then back into my face again. His whole
little person stood on tiptoe, observing, watching, listening. And at
first I was disappointed, for I noticed nothing unusual anywhere. “Well,
what is it?” my manner probably expressed. But neither of us said a
word. The saffron sky shone between the trunks of the apple trees;
swallows darted to and fro; a blackbird whistled out of sight; and over
the hedge a big cow thrust her head towards us, her body concealed. In
the foreground were beehives. The air was very still and scented. My
pipe smoke hung almost motionless. I moved from one foot to the other.
“Aha!” I said mysteriously below my breath, “aha!”
And that was sufficient for him. He knew I had seen and understood. He
came a step nearer to me, his face solemn and expectant.