Part 12

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.

“It’s begun already, you see. Isn’t it wonderful? Everything knows.”

“And is getting ready,” I added, “for its coming.”

“The Longest Day,” he whispered, looking about him with suppressed excitement and ready, if necessary, to believe the earth would presently stop turning. He gave one curious look at the sky, shuddered an instant with intense delight, gave my hand a secret squeeze, and disappeared like a goblin into the cottage. But behind him lingered something his little presence had evoked. Wonder and expectation are true words of power, and anticipation constructs the mould along which Imagination later shall lead her fairy band. I realised what he had seen. The orchard, the cow, the beehives _did_ look different. They were inviting, as though something was on the way. The very sky, as the summer dusk spread down it, wore colouring no ordinary June evening knew. Midsummer Eve set free the fairies, and Jimbo knew it. The roses seemed to flutter everywhere on wings.... The very lilac blooms had eyes.... I heard a rustle as of skirts high up among the peeping stars....

How it came about is more than I can say, for I went to bed with a whirr of wings and flowers in my head. The stillness of the night was magical, four short hours of transparent darkness that seemed to gleam and glimmer without hiding anything. Maria’s alarum clock was _not_ beside my bed, for the simple reason that I had not asked for it. Jimbo and the Longest Day between them had cast a glamour over me that had nothing to do with hours, minutes, seconds. It was delicious and inexplicable. Yet at other times I am an ordinary person, who knows that time is money and money is difficult to come by without uncommon effort. All this came for nothing. Jimbo did it.

And what did I do for Jimbo? I cannot say. His is the grand old magical secret. He believed and wondered; he waited and asked no futile questions; time and space obeyed his imperious little will; waking or sleeping he dreamed, creating the world anew. I shut no eye that night. I watched the wheeling constellations rise and pass. The whole, clear summer night was rich with the silence of the gods. I dreamed, perhaps, beside my open window, where the roses and the clematis climbed, shining like lamps of starry beauty above the tiny lawn.... And at half-past one, when the east began to whisper stealthily that Someone was on the way, I left my chair and stole quietly down the narrow passage-way to Jimbo’s room.... I was clever in my wickedness. I knew that if I waked him, whispering that the Longest Day was about to break, he would open half an eye, turn over in his thick childhood sleep, and murmur, as in dream, “Then let it come.” And so, a little weary, if the truth be told, I did all this, and--to my intense surprise--discovered Jimbo perched, wide awake and staring, at the casement window. He had never closed an eye, nor half an eye. He was watchful and alert, but undeniably tired out, as I was.

“Jimbo,” I whispered, stealing in upon him, “the Longest Day is very near. It’s so close you can hear it coming down the sky. It’s softer than any dream you ever dreamed in your life. Come out--if you will--we’ll see it from the orchard.”

He turned towards me in his little nightshirt like a goblin. His eyes were very big, but the eyelids held open with an effort.

“Uncle,” he said in a tiny voice, “do you think it’s really come at last? It’s been terribly slow, but I suppose that’s because it’s such an awful length. Wasn’t it _wonderful_?”