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The Extra Day

A >> Algernon Blackwood >> The Extra Day




It was a pleasant walk home, all together; they took the short cut
across the fields; the world was covered with flowers, birds were
singing, the air was fresh and sweet and the delicious sunlight not
uncomfortably hot. Tim ran everywhere, exploring eagerly like a dog,
and, also like a dog, doubling the journey's length. He whistled to
himself; from time to time he came back to report results of his
discoveries. He was full of energy. Judy behaved in a similar manner,
dancing in circles to make her hair and dress fly out; she sang bits
of the hymn-tunes that she liked, taking the tune but fitting words of
her own upon it. Maria was carried over two fields and a half; the
down-hill parts she walked, however. She kept everybody waiting. They
could not leave her. She contrived to make herself the centre of the
party. Stumper and Uncle Felix brought up the rear, talking together
"about things," and whirling their sticks in the air as though it
helped them forward somehow.

On the slippery plank-bridge across the mill stream all paused a
moment to watch the dragon-flies that set the air on fire with their
coloured tails.

"The things that nobody can understand!" cried Judy.

"Nobody else," Tim corrected her. "We do!"

They leaned over the rail and saw their own reflections in the running
water.

"Why, Come-Back hasn't got a button-hole!" exclaimed Judy--and flew
off to find one for him, Tim fast upon her heels like a collie after a
dipping swallow. They raced down the banks where the golden king-cups
grew in spendthrift patches and disappeared among the colonies of
reeds. Between some hanging willow branches further down they were
visible a moment, like dryad figures peering and flitting through the
cataract of waving green. They searched as though their lives depended
on success. It was absurd that Stumper had no button-hole!

Maria, seated comfortably on the lower rail, watched their efforts and
listened to the bursts of laughing voices that came up-stream--then,
with a leisurely movement, took the flower from her own button-hole
and handed it to Stumper. The eyes rolled upwards with the flower--
solemnly. And Come-Back saw the action reflected in the stream below.

"Aw--thank you, my dear," he said, fastening the forget-me-not into
his Sunday coat, "but I ought not to take it all. It's yours." The
voice had a quiet, almost distant sound in it.

"Ours," Maria murmured to herself, addressing the faces in the water.
She took the fragment Stumper handed back to her. All three,
forgetting it was time for lunch, forgetting they were hungry,
forgetting that there was still half a mile of lane between them and
the house, gazed down at their reflections in the stream as though
fascinated. Uncle Felix certainly felt the watery-enchantment in his
soul. The reflections trembled and quivered, yet did not pass away.
The stream flowed hurrying by them, yet still was always there. It
gave him a strange, familiar feeling--something he knew, but had
forgotten. Everything in life was passing, yet nothing went--there was
no hurry. The rippling music, as the water washed the banks and made
the grasses swish, was audible, and there was a deeper sound of
swirling round the wooden posts that held the bridge secure. Bubbles
rose and burst in spray. A lark, hanging like a cross in the blue sky,
overhead, dropped suddenly as though it was a stone, but in the
reflection it rushed up into their faces. It seemed to rise at them
from the pebbly bed of the stream. Both movements seemed one and the
same--both were true--the direction depended upon the point of view.

It startled them and broke the water-spell. For the singing stopped
abruptly too. At the same moment Judy and Tim arrived, their arms full
of flowers, hemlock, ferns, and bulrushes. They were breathless and
exhausted; both talked at once; they had quite forgotten, apparently,
what they had gone to find. Judy had seen a king-fisher, Tim had
discovered tracks of an otter; in the excitement they forgot about the
button-hole. But, somehow, the bird, the animal, and the flowers were
the same thing really--one big simple thing. Only the point of view
was different.

"We've looked simply everywhere!" cried Judy.

"Just look what we found!" Tim echoed.

To Uncle Felix it seemed they said one and the same thing merely--
using _one_ word in many syllables.

"Beautiful!" agreed Stumper, as they emptied their arms at his feet in
wild profusion; "and enough for everybody too!"

Stumper also said the thing they had just said. Uncle Felix watched
him move forward, where Maria was already using the heaped-up greenery
as a cushion for her back, and pick something off the stem of a giant
bulrush.

"But that's what I like best," he exclaimed. "Look at the colour, will
you--blue and cream and yellow! You can hear the Ganges in it, if you
listen close enough." He held a small, coloured snail-shell between
his sinewy fingers, then placed it against his ear, while the others,
caught by a strange enveloping sense of wonder, stared and listened,
swept for a moment into another world.

"How marvellous!" whispered some one.

"Extrornary!" another murmured.

"Yes," said Maria. Her voice made a sound like a thin stone falling
from a height into water. But Maria had said the same thing as the
others, only said it shorter. An entire language lay in that mono-
syllable. Again, it was the point of view of doing, saying one
enormous thing. And Maria's point of view was everywhere at once--the
centre.

"Listen!" she added the next minute.

Perhaps the sunlight quivering on the surface of the stream confused
them, or perhaps it was the murmur and movement of the leaves upon the
banks that brought the sense of sweet, queer bewilderment upon all
five. A new sound there certainly was--footsteps, as though some one
came dancing--voices, as though some one sang. Figures were seen in
the distance among the waving world of green; they moved behind the
cataract of falling willow branches; and their distance was as the
distance of a half-remembered dream.

"They're coming," gasped Judy below her breath.

"They're coming back," Tim whispered, the tone muffled, underground.

"Eh?" ejaculated Stumper. "Coming back?" His voice, too, had distance
in it.

Whether they saw it in the reflections on the running water, or
whether the maze of shadow and sunshine in the wooded banks produced
it, no one knew exactly. The figures, at any rate, were plainly
visible, moving along with singing and dancing through the summery
noontide of the brilliant day. No one spoke while they went by, no one
except Maria who at intervals murmured "Yes." There was no other
audible comment or remark. They afterwards agreed that Weeden was seen
clearest, but Thompson and Mrs. Horton were fairly distinct as well,
and bringing up the rear was a figure in blue that could only have
been the Policeman who lived usually upon the high road to London.
They carried flowers in their arms, they moved lightly and quickly--it
was uncommonly like dancing--and their voices floated through the
woodland spaces with a sound that, if it was not singing, was at least
an excellent imitation--an attempt to sing!

"They're not lost," said Tim, as they disappeared from view. "They're
just looking--for the way."

"The way home," said Judy. "And they're following some one--who knows
it."

"Yes," added Maria. For another figure, more like a tree moving in the
wind than anything else, and certainly looking differently to each of
them--another figure was seen in advance of the group, seen in
flashes, as it were, and only glimpses of it discernible among the
world of moving green. This other figure was singing too; snatches of
wild sweet music floated through the quiet wood--one said the singing
of a bird, another, the wind, a third, the rippling murmur of the
stream--but, to one and all, an enchanting and enticing sound. And, to
one and all, familiar too, with the familiarity of a half-remembered
dream.

And a flood of memory rose about them as they watched and listened, a
tide that carried them away with it into the heart of something they
knew, yet had forgotten. In the few moments' interval an eternity
might have passed. Their hearts opened curiously, they saw wonder
growing like a flower inside--the exquisite wonder of common things.
There was something they were looking for, but they had found it. The
flower of wonder blossomed there before their very eyes, explaining
the world, but not explaining it away, explaining simply that it was
wonderful beyond all telling. They all knew suddenly what they didn't
know they knew; they understood what nobody understands. None knew why
it came just at this particular moment, and none knew where it came
from either. It was there, so what else mattered. It broke upon them
out of the heart of the summer's day, out of this very ordinary Sunday
morning, out of the brimming life all about them that was passing but
could never pass away. The familiar figures of the gardener, the
butler, the policeman and the cook brought back to them the memory of
something they had forgotten, yet brought it back in the form of
endless and inexhaustible enticement rather than of complete recovery.
There had been long preparation somewhere, growth, development; but
that was past and they gave no thought to it; Expectancy and Wonder
rushed them off their feet. The world hid something. Every one was
looking for it. _They_ must go on looking, looking, looking too!

_What_ it was they had forgotten--they entirely forgot. Only the
marvellous hint remained, and the certainty that it could be found.
For, to each of them it seemed, came this fairy reminder, stealing
deliciously upon the senses: somewhere, somehow, they had known an
experience that had enriched their lives. It had become part of them.
It had always been in them, but they had found it now. They felt quite
positive about it. They believed. To Tim came messages from the solid
earth about him, secrets from creatures that lived in it and knew;
Judy, catching a thousand kisses from the air upon her cheeks, divined
the mystery of all flying life--that brought the stars within her
reach; Maria, possessing all within herself, remained steady and calm
at the eternal centre of the circle--a clearing-house for messages
from everywhere at once. Asking nothing for herself, she merely wanted
to give away, give out. She said "Yes" to all that came her way; and
all did come her way. To every one of them, to Stumper and Uncle Felix
too, came a great conviction that they had passed nearer, somehow, to
an everlasting joy. There was no hurry, life had just begun--seemed
singing everywhere about them. There was Unity.

"It's a lovely day," remarked Uncle Felix presently. "I want my
luncheon."

He picked up Maria and moved on across the bridge.

"It's the Extra Day," Maria whispered in his ear. "It's my adventure,
but you all can have it."

The others followed with Come-Back Stumper, and in the lane they saw
the figures of Weeden, Thompson and Mrs. Horton in front of them,
coming home from church. They were walking quietly enough.

"We're not late, then," Tim remarked. "There's lots of time!"

Crossing the field in the direction of the London road a policeman was
moving steadily. They saw him stoop and pick a yellow flower as he
went. He was off to take charge of the world upon his Sunday beat. He
disappeared behind a hedge. The butler and the cook vanished through a
side-door into the old Mill House about the same time.

In due course, they also arrived at the porch, and Uncle Felix set his
burden down. As they scraped their muddy boots and rubbed them on the
mat, their backs were turned to the outside world; but Maria, whose
boots required no scraping, happened to face it still. As usual she
faced in all directions like a circle.

"Look," she said. "There's some one coming!"

And they saw the figure of a tramp go past the opening of the drive
where the London road was just visible. He paused a moment and looked
towards the house. He did not come in. He just looked--and waved his
hand at them. The next minute he was gone. But not before Maria had
returned his wave.

"He'll come back," suggested Stumper, as they went inside.

"Yes," said Maria. "He's mine--but you can have him too."

Ten minutes later, when they all sat down to lunch, the big blue
figure of the policeman passed the opening of the drive. Being
occupied with hot roast beef, they did not see him. He paused a
moment, looked towards the house, and then went slowly out of sight
again along the London road, following the tramp....

THE END

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