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Prisoner in Fairyland, A
CHAPTER II
Algernon Blackwood
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       _ When the creation was new and all the stars shone in their first
       splendour, the gods held their assembly in the sky and sang 'Oh, the
       picture of perfection! the joy unalloyed!'
       But one cried of a sudden--'It seems that somewhere there is a break
       in the chain of light and one of the stars has been lost.'
       The golden string of their harp snapped, their song stopped, and they
       cried in dismay--'Yes, that lost star was the best, she was the glory
       of all heavens!'
       From that day the search is unceasing for her, and the cry goes on
       from one to the other that in her the world has lost its one joy!
       Only in the deepest silence of night the stars smile and whisper among
       themselves--'Vain is this seeking! Unbroken perfection is over all!'
       RABINDRANATH TAGORE. (Prose translation by Author from his original
       Bengali.)
       It was April 30th and Henry Rogers sat in his rooms after breakfast,
       listening to the rumble of the traffic down St. James's Street, and
       found the morning dull. A pile of letters lay unopened upon the table,
       waiting the arrival of the discriminating Mr. Minks with his shorthand
       note-book and his mild blue eyes. It was half-past nine, and the
       secretary was due at ten o'clock.
       He smiled as he thought of this excellent fellow's first morning in
       the promoted capacity of private secretary. He would come in very
       softly, one eye looking more intelligent than the other; the air of
       the City clerk discarded, and in its place the bearing that belonged
       to new robes of office worn for the first time. He would bow, say
       'Good morning, Mr. Rogers,' glance round with one eye on his employer
       and another on a possible chair, seat himself with a sigh that meant
       'I have written a new poem in the night, and would love to read it to
       you if I dared,' then flatten out his oblong note-book and look up,
       expectant and receptive. Rogers would say 'Good morning, Mr. Minks.
       We've got a busy day before us. Now, let me see---' and would meet his
       glance with welcome. He would look quickly from one eye to the other-
       to this day he did not know which one was right to meet-and would
       wonder for the thousandth time how such an insignificant face could go
       with such an honest, capable mind. Then he smiled again as he
       remembered Frank, the little boy whose schooling he was paying for,
       and realised that Minks would bring a message of gratitude from Mrs.
       Minks, perhaps would hand him, with a gesture combining dignity and
       humbleness, a little note of thanks in a long narrow envelope of pale
       mauve, bearing a flourishing monogram on its back.
       And Rogers scowled a little as he thought of the air of gruffness he
       would assume while accepting it, saying as pleasantly as he could
       manage, 'Oh, Mr. Minks, that's nothing at all; I'm only too delighted
       to be of service to the lad.' For he abhorred the expression of
       emotion, and his delicate sense of tact would make pretence of helping
       the boy himself, rather than the struggling parents.
       Au fond he had a genuine admiration for Minks, and there was something
       lofty in the queer personality that he both envied and respected. It
       made him rely upon his judgment in certain ways he could not quite
       define. Minks seemed devoid of personal ambition in a sense that was
       not weakness. He was not insensible to the importance of money, nor
       neglectful of chances that enabled him to do well by his wife and
       family, but--he was after other things as well, if not chiefly. With a
       childlike sense of honesty he had once refused a position in a company
       that was not all it should have been, and the high pay thus rejected
       pointed to a scrupulous nicety of view that the City, of course,
       deemed foolishness. And Rogers, aware of this, had taken to him,
       seeking as it were to make this loss good to him in legitimate ways.
       Also the fellow belonged to leagues and armies and 'things,' quixotic
       some of them, that tried to lift humanity. That is, he gave of his
       spare time, as also of his spare money, to help. His Saturday
       evenings, sometimes a whole bank holiday, he devoted to the welfare of
       others, even though the devotion Rogers thought misdirected.
       For Minks hung upon the fringe of that very modern, new-fashioned, but
       almost freakish army that worships old, old ideals, yet insists upon
       new-fangled names for them. Christ, doubtless, was his model, but it
       must be a Christ properly and freshly labelled; his Christianity must
       somewhere include the prefix 'neo,' and the word 'scientific' must
       also be dragged in if possible before he was satisfied. Minks, indeed,
       took so long explaining to himself the wonderful title that he was
       sometimes in danger of forgetting the brilliant truths it so vulgarly
       concealed. Yet never quite concealed. He must be up-to-date, that was
       all. His attitude to the world scraped acquaintance with nobility
       somewhere. His gift was a rare one. Out of so little, he gave his
       mite, and gave it simply, unaware that he was doing anything unusual.
       This attitude of mind had made him valuable, even endeared him, to the
       successful business man, and in his secret heart Rogers had once or
       twice felt ashamed of himself. Minks, as it were, knew actual
       achievement because he was, forcedly, content with little, whereas he,
       Rogers, dreamed of so much, yet took twenty years to come within reach
       of what he dreamed. He was always waiting for the right moment to
       begin.
       His reflections were interrupted by the sunlight, which, pouring in a
       flood across the opposite roof, just then dropped a patch of soft
       April glory upon the black and yellow check of his carpet slippers.
       Rogers got up and, opening the window wider than before, put out his
       head. The sunshine caught him full in the face. He tasted the fresh
       morning air. Tinged with the sharp sweetness of the north it had a
       fragrance as of fields and gardens. Even St. James's Street could not
       smother its vitality and perfume. He drew it with delight into his
       lungs, making such a to-do about it that a passer-by looked up to see
       what was the matter, and noticing the hanging tassel of a flamboyant
       dressing-gown, at once modestly lowered his eyes again.
       But Henry Rogers did not see the passer-by in whose delicate mind a
       point of taste had thus vanquished curiosity, for his thoughts had
       flown far across the pale-blue sky, behind the cannon-ball clouds, up
       into that scented space and distance where summer was already winging
       her radiant way towards the earth. Visions of June obscured his sight,
       and something in the morning splendour brought back his youth and
       boyhood. He saw a new world spread about him--a world of sunlight,
       butterflies, and flowers, of smooth soft lawns and shaded gravel
       paths, and of children playing round a pond where rushes whispered in
       a wind of long ago. He saw hayfields, orchards, tea-things spread upon
       a bank of flowers underneath a hedge, and a collie dog leaping and
       tumbling shoulder high among the standing grass.... It was all
       curiously vivid, and with a sense of something about it unfading and
       delightfully eternal. It could never pass, for instance, whereas....
       'Ain't yer forgotten the nightcap?' sang out a shrill voice from
       below, as a boy with a basket on his arm went down the street. He drew
       back from the window, realising that he was a sight for all admirers.
       Tossing the end of his cigarette in the direction of the cheeky
       urchin, he settled himself again in the arm-chair before the glowing
       grate-fire.
       But the fresh world he had tasted came back with him. For Henry Rogers
       stood this fine spring morning upon the edge of a new life. A long
       chapter had just closed behind him. He was on the threshold of
       another. The time to begin had come. And the thrill of his freedom now
       at hand was very stimulating to his imagination. He was forty, and a
       rich man. Twenty years of incessant and intelligent labour had brought
       him worldly success. He admitted he had been lucky, where so many toil
       on and on till the gates of death stand up and block their way,
       fortunate if they have earned a competency through years where hope
       and disappointment wage their incessant weary battle. But he, for some
       reason known only to the silent Fates, had crested the difficult hill
       and now stood firm upon the top to see the sunrise, the dreadful gates
       not even yet in sight. At yesterday's Board meeting, Minks had handed
       him the papers for his signature; the patents had been transferred to
       the new company; the cheque had been paid over; and he was now a
       gentleman of leisure with a handsome fortune lying in his bank to
       await investment. He was a director in the parent, as well as the
       subsidiary companies, with fees that in themselves alone were more
       than sufficient for his simple needs.
       For all his tastes _were_ simple, and he had no expensive hobbies or
       desires; he preferred two rooms and a bath to any house that he had
       ever seen; pictures he liked best in galleries; horses he could hire
       without the trouble of owning; the few books worth reading would go
       into a couple of shelves; motors afflicted, even confused him--he was
       old-fashioned enough to love country and walk through it slowly on two
       vigorous legs; marriage had been put aside with a searing
       disappointment years ago, not forgotten, but accepted; and of travel
       he had enjoyed enough to realise now that its pleasures could be found
       reasonably near home and for very moderate expenditure indeed. And the
       very idea of servants was to him an affliction; he loathed their
       prying closeness to his intimate life and habits, destroying the
       privacy he loved. Confirmed old bachelor his friends might call him if
       they chose; he knew what he wanted. Now at last he had it. The
       ambition of his life was within reach.
       For, from boyhood up, a single big ambition had ever thundered through
       his being--the desire to be of use to others. To help his fellow-kind
       was to be his profession and career. It had burned and glowed in him
       ever since he could remember, and what first revealed it in him was
       the sight--common enough, alas--of a boy with one leg hobbling along
       on crutches down the village street. Some deep power in his youthful
       heart, akin to the wondrous sympathy of women, had been touched. Like
       a shock of fire it came home to him. He, too, might lose his dearest
       possession thus, and be unable to climb trees, jump ditches, risk his
       neck along the edge of the haystack or the roof. '_That might happen
       to me too!_' was the terrible thing he realised, and had burst into
       tears....
       Crutches at twelve! And the family hungry, as he later learned!
       Something in the world was wrong; he thought every one had enough to
       eat, at least, and only the old used crutches. 'The Poor was a sort of
       composite wretch, half criminal, who deserved to be dirty, suffering,
       punished; but this boy belonged to a family that worked and did its
       best. Something in the world-machinery had surely broken loose and
       caused violent disorder. For no one cared particularly. The
       ''thorities,' he heard, looked after the Poor--''thorities in law,' as
       he used to call the mysterious Person he never actually saw, stern,
       but kindly in a grave impersonal way; and asked once if some relation-
       in-law or other, who was mentioned often but never seen, had,
       therefore, anything to do with the poor.
       Dropping into his heart from who knows what far, happy star, this
       passion had grown instead of faded: to give himself for others, to
       help afflicted folk, to make the world go round a little more easily.
       And he had never forgotten the deep thrill with which he heard his
       father tell him of some wealthy man who during his lifetime had given
       away a million pounds--anonymously. ... His own pocket-money just then
       was five shillings a week, and his expectations just exactly--nothing.
       But before his dreams could know accomplishment, he must have means.
       To be of use to anybody at all he must make himself effective. The
       process must be reversed, for no man could fight without weapons, and
       weapons were only to be had as the result of steady, concentrated
       effort--selfish effort. A man must fashion himself before he can be
       effective for others. Self-effacement, he learned, was rather a futile
       virtue after all.
       As the years passed he saw his chances. He cut short a promising
       University career and entered business. His talents lay that way, as
       his friends declared, and unquestionably he had a certain genius for
       invention; for, while scores of futile processes he first discovered
       remained mere clever solutions of interesting problems, he at length
       devised improvements in the greater industries, and, patenting them
       wisely, made his way to practical results.
       But the process had been a dangerous one, and during the long business
       experience the iron had entered his soul, and he had witnessed at
       close quarters the degrading influence of the lust of acquisition. The
       self-advertising humbug of most philanthropy had clouded something in
       him that he felt could never again grow clear and limpid as before,
       and a portion of his original zest had faded. For the City hardly
       encouraged it. One bit of gilt after another had been knocked off his
       brilliant dream, one jet of flame upon another quenched. The single
       eye that fills the body full of light was a thing so rare that its
       possession woke suspicion. Even of money generously given, so little
       reached its object; gaping pockets and grasping fingers everywhere
       lined the way of safe delivery. It sickened him. So few, moreover,
       were willing to give without acknowledgment in at least one morning
       paper. 'Bring back the receipt' was the first maxim even of the
       office-boys; and between the right hand and the left of every one were
       special 'private wires' that flashed the news as quickly as possible
       about the entire world.
       Yet, while inevitable disillusion had dulled his youthful dreams, its
       glory was never quite destroyed. It still glowed within. At times,
       indeed, it ran into flame, and knew something of its original
       splendour. Women, in particular, had helped to keep it alive, fanning
       its embers bravely. For many women, he found, dreamed his own dream,
       and dreamed it far more sweetly. They were closer to essential
       realities than men were. While men bothered with fuss and fury about
       empires, tariffs, street-cars, and marvellous engines for destroying
       one another, women, keeping close to the sources of life, knew, like
       children, more of its sweet, mysterious secrets--the things of value
       no one yet has ever put completely into words. He wondered, a little
       sadly, to see them battling now to scuffle with the men in managing
       the gross machinery, cleaning the pens and regulating ink-pots. Did
       they really think that by helping to decide whether rates should rise
       or fall, or how many buttons a factory-inspector should wear upon his
       uniform, they more nobly helped the world go round? Did they never
       pause to reflect who would fill the places they thus vacated? With
       something like melancholy he saw them stepping down from their thrones
       of high authority, for it seemed to him a prostitution of their sweet
       prerogatives that damaged the entire sex.
       'Old-fashioned bachelor, no doubt, I am,' he smiled quietly to
       himself, coming back to the first reflection whence his thoughts had
       travelled so far--the reflection, namely, that now at last he
       possessed the freedom he had longed and toiled for.
       And then he paused and looked about him, confronted with a difficulty.
       To him it seemed unusual, but really it was very common.
       For, having it, he knew not at first what use to make of it. This
       dawned upon him suddenly when the sunlight splashed his tawdry
       slippers with its gold. The movement to the open window was really
       instinctive beginning of a search, as though in the free, wonderful
       spaces out of doors he would find the thing he sought to do. Now,
       settled back in the deep arm-chair, he realised that he had not found
       it. The memories of childhood had flashed into him instead. He renewed
       the search before the dying fire, waiting for the sound of Minks'
       ascending footsteps on the stairs. ...
       And this revival of the childhood mood was curious, he felt, almost
       significant, for it was symbolical of so much that he had
       deliberately, yet with difficulty, suppressed and put aside. During
       these years of concentrated toil for money, his strong will had
       neglected of set purpose the call of a robust imagination. He had
       stifled poetry just as he had stifled play. Yet really that
       imagination had merely gone into other channels--scientific invention.
       It was a higher form, married at least with action that produced
       poetry in steel and stone instead of in verse. Invention has ever
       imagination and poetry at its heart.
       The acquirement of wealth demanded his entire strength, and all
       lighter considerations he had consistently refused to recognise, until
       he thought them dead. This sudden flaming mood rushed up and showed
       him otherwise. He reflected on it, but clumsily, as with a mind too
       long trained in the rigid values of stocks and shares, buying and
       selling, hard figures that knew not elasticity. This softer subject
       led him to no conclusion, leaving him stranded among misty woods and
       fields of flowers that had no outlet. He realised, however, clearly
       that this side of him was not atrophied as he thought. Its unused
       powers had merely been accumulating--underground.
       He got no further than that just now. He poked the fire and lit
       another cigarette. Then, glancing idly at the paper, his eye fell upon
       the list of births, and by merest chance picked out the name of
       Crayfield. Some nonentity had been 'safely delivered of a son' at
       Crayfield, the village where he had passed his youth and childhood. He
       saw the Manor House where he was born, the bars across the night-
       nursery windows, the cedars on the lawn, the haystacks just beyond the
       stables, and the fields where the rabbits sometimes fell asleep as
       they sat after enormous meals too stuffed to move. He saw the old
       gravel-pit that led, the gardener told him, to the centre of the
       earth. A whiff of perfume from the laurustinus in the drive came back,
       the scent of hay, and with it the sound of the mowing-machine going
       over the lawn. He saw the pony in loose flat leather shoes. The bees
       were humming in the lime trees. The rooks were cawing. A blackbird
       whistled from the shrubberies where he once passed an entire day in
       hiding, after emptying an ink-bottle down the German governess's
       dress. He heard the old family butler in his wheezy voice calling in
       vain for 'Mr. 'Enery' to come in. The tone was respectful, seductive
       as the man could make it, yet reproachful. He remembered throwing a
       little stone that caught him just where the Newgate fringe met the
       black collar of his coat, so that his cry of delight betrayed his
       hiding-place. The whacking that followed he remembered too, and how
       his brother emerged suddenly from behind the curtain with, 'Father,
       may I have it instead of Henry, please?' That spontaneous offer of
       sacrifice, of willingness to suffer for another, had remained in his
       mind for a long time as a fiery, incomprehensible picture.
       More dimly, then, somewhere in mist behind, he saw other figures
       moving--the Dustman and the Lamplighter, the Demon Chimneysweep in
       black, the Woman of the Haystack--outposts and sentries of a larger
       fascinating host that gathered waiting in the shadows just beyond. The
       creations of his boy's imagination swarmed up from their temporary
       graves, and made him smile and wonder. After twenty years of strenuous
       business life, how pale and thin they seemed. Yet at the same time how
       extraordinarily alive and active! He saw, too, the huge Net of Stars
       he once had made to catch them with from that night-nursery window,
       fastened by long golden nails made out of meteors to the tops of the
       cedars. ... There had been, too, a train--the Starlight Express. It
       almost seemed as if _they_ knew, too, that a new chapter had begun,
       and that they called him to come back and play again. ...
       Then, with a violent jump, his thoughts flew to other things, and he
       considered one by one the various philanthropic schemes he had
       cherished against the day when he could realise them. That day had
       come. But the schemes seemed one and all wild now, impracticable,
       already accomplished by others better than he could hope to accomplish
       them, and none of them fulfilling the first essential his practical
       mind demanded--knowing his money spent precisely as he wished. Dreams,
       long cherished, seemed to collapse one by one before him just when he
       at last came up with them. He thought of the woman who was to have
       helped him, now married to another who had money without working for
       it. He put the thought back firmly in its place. He knew now a greater
       love than that--the love for many. ...
       He was embarking upon other novel schemes when there was a ring at the
       bell, and the charwoman, who passed with him for servant, ushered in
       his private secretary, Mr. Minks. Quickly readjusting the machinery of
       his mind, Rogers came back to the present,
       'Good morning, Mr. Rogers. I trust I am punctual.'
       'Good morning, Minks; yes, on the stroke of ten. We've got a busy day.
       Let's see now. How are you, by the by?' he added, as an afterthought,
       catching first one eye, then the other, and looking finally between
       the two.
       'Very well, indeed, thank you, Mr. Rogers.' He was dressed in a black
       tail-coat, with a green tie neatly knotted into a spotless turn-down
       collar. He glanced round him for a chair, one hand already in his
       pocket for the note-book.
       'Good,' said Rogers, indicating where he might seat himself, and
       reaching for the heap of letters.
       The other sighed a little and began to look expectant and receptive.
       'If I might give you this first, please, Mr. Rogers,' he said,
       suddenly pretending to remember something in his breast-pocket and
       handing across the table, with a slight flush upon his cheeks, a long,
       narrow, mauve envelope with a flourishing address. 'It was a red-
       letter day for Mrs. Minks when I told her of your kindness. She wished
       to thank you in person, but--I thought a note--I knew,' he stammered,
       'you would prefer a letter. It is a tremendous help to both of us, if
       I may say so again.'
       'Yes, yes, quite so,' said Rogers, quickly; 'and I'm glad to be of
       service to the lad. You must let me know from time to time how he's
       getting on.'
       Minks subsided, flattening out his oblong notebook and examining the
       points of his pencil sharpened at both ends as though the fate of
       Empires depended on it. They attacked the pile of correspondence
       heartily, while the sun, watching them through the open window, danced
       gorgeously upon the walls and secretly put the fire out.
       In this way several hours passed, for besides letters to be dictated,
       there were careful instructions to be given about many things. Minks
       was kept very busy. He was now not merely shorthand clerk, and he had
       to be initiated into the inner history of various enterprises in which
       his chief was interested. All Mr. Rogers's London interests, indeed,
       were to be in his charge, and, obviously aware of this, he bore
       himself proudly with an air of importance that had no connection with
       a common office. To watch him, you would never have dreamed that
       Herbert Minks had ever contemplated City life, much less known ten
       years of drudgery in its least poetic stages. For him, too, as for his
       employer, anew chapter of existence had begun--'commenced' he would
       have phrased it--and, as confidential adviser to a man of fortune
       whose character he admired almost to the point of worship, he was now
       a person whose importance it was right the world should recognise. And
       he meant the world to take this attitude without delay. He dressed
       accordingly, knowing that of every ten people nine judge value from
       clothes, and hat, and boots--especially boots. His patent leather,
       buttoned boots were dazzling, with upper parts of soft grey leather.
       And his shiny 'topper' wore a band of black. Minks, so far as he knew,
       was not actually in mourning, but somebody for whom he ought to be in
       mourning might die any day, and meanwhile, he felt, the band conveyed
       distinction. It suited a man of letters. It also protected the hat.
       'Thank'ee,' said his chief as luncheon time drew near; 'and now, if
       you'll get those letters typed, you might leave 'em here for me on
       your way home to sign. That's all we have to-day, isn't it?'
       'You wanted, I think, to draft your Scheme for Disabled---' began the
       secretary, when the other cut him short.
       'Yes, yes, but that must wait. I haven't got it clear yet in my own
       mind. You might think it out a bit yourself, perhaps, meanwhile, and
       give me your ideas, eh? Look up what others have done in the same
       line, for instance, and tell me where they failed. What the weakness
       of their schemes was, you know--and--er--so forth.'
       A faint smile, that held the merest ghost of merriment, passed across
       the face of Minks, leaping, unobserved by his chief, from one eye to
       the other. There was pity and admiration in it; a hint of pathos
       visited those wayward lips. For the suggestion revealed the weakness
       the secretary had long ago divined--that the practical root of the
       matter did not really lie in him at all, and Henry Rogers forever
       dreamed of 'Schemes' he was utterly unable and unsuited to carry out.
       Improvements in a silk machine was one thing, but improvements in
       humanity was another. Like the poetry in his soul they could never
       know fulfilment. He had inspiration, but no constructive talent. For
       the thousandth time Minks wondered, glancing at his employer's face,
       how such calm and gentle features, such dreamy eyes and a Vandyke
       beard so neatly trimmed, could go with ambitions so lofty and so
       unusual. This sentence he had heard before, and was destined often to
       hear again, while achievement came no nearer.
       'I will do so at the first opportunity.' He put the oblong note-book
       carefully in his pocket, and stood by the table in an attitude of 'any
       further instructions, please?' while one eye wandered to the unopened
       letter that was signed 'Albinia Minks, with heartfelt gratitude.'
       'And, by the by, Minks,' said his master, turning as though a new idea
       had suddenly struck him and he had formed a hasty plan, 'you might
       kindly look up an afternoon train to Crayfield. Loop line from Charing
       Cross, you know. Somewhere about two o'clock or so. I have to--er--I
       think I'll run down that way after luncheon.'
       Whereupon, having done this last commission, and written it down upon
       a sheet of paper which he placed with care against the clock, beside
       the unopened letter, the session closed, and Minks, in his mourning
       hat and lavender gloves, walked up St. James's Street apparently
       _en route_ for the Ritz, but suddenly, as with careless
       unconsciousness, turning into an A.B.C. Depot for luncheon, well
       pleased with himself and with the world, but especially with his
       considerate employer.
       Ten minutes later Mr. Rogers followed him on his way to the club, and
       just when Minks was reflecting with pride of the well-turned phrases
       he had dictated to his wife for her letter of thanks, it passed across
       the mind of its recipient that he had forgotten to read it altogether.
       And, truth to tell, he never yet has read it; for, returning late that
       evening from his sentimental journey down to Crayfield, it stood no
       longer where he had left it beside the clock, and nothing occurred to
       remind him of its existence. Apart from its joint composers, no one
       can ever know its contents but the charwoman, who, noticing the
       feminine writing, took it back to Lambeth and pored over it with a
       candle for full half an hour, greatly disappointed. 'Things like
       that,' she grumbled to her husband, whose appearance suggested that he
       went for bigger game, 'ain't worth the trouble of taking at all,
       whichever way you looks at it.' And probably she was right. _