MRS. PREEDY HAS DREADFUL DREAMS.
So profound was the sleep of Mrs. Preedy, lodging-house keeper, whom we
left slumbering in the first chapter of our story, that we have been
able, without disturbing her, to make the foregoing extracts from the
copies of the _Evening Moon_ which lay on the table immediately beneath
her nose. Deep as were her slumbers, they were not peaceful. Murder
was in her brain, and it presented itself to her in a thousand hideous
and grotesque shapes. Overwhelming, indeed, was her trouble. Only that
morning had she said to Mrs. Beale, a bosom friend and neighbour on the
other side of the Square--
"I shall never rest easy in my mind till the man's caught and hung!"
Dreams, it is said, "go by contrary." If you dream of a marriage, it
means death; if you dream of death, it means marriage. Happy augury,
then, that Mrs. Preedy should dream that her dead and buried husband,
her "blessed angel," was alive, that he had committed the murder, and
that she was putting on her best black to see him hanged. Curious to
say, in her unconscious state, this otherwise distressing dream was
rather enjoyable, for through the tangled threads of the crime and
its punishment ran the refrain of a reproach she used to hurl at her
husband, when fortune went against him, to the effect that she always
knew he would come to a bad end. So altogether, it was a comfortable
hanging--Mr. Preedy being dead and out of the reach of danger, and Mrs.
Preedy being alive to enjoy it.
A more grotesque fancy was it to dream that the wooden old impostor
in the weather indicator on her mantelshelf was the murderer. This
antiquated farmer, who was about four inches in height, unhooked himself
from his catgut suspender, slid down to the ground, and stood upon the
floor of the kitchen, with Murder in his Liliputian carcase. With no
sense of wonder did the dreamer observe the movements of this incredible
dwarf-man. He looked around warily, his wooden finger at his wooden
lips. All was quiet. He walked to the wall, covering about a quarter
of an inch at every step, and rapped at it. A small hole appeared; he
vanished through it. The opening was too small for Mrs. Preedy's body,
and the current of her fancies carried her to a chair, upon which she
sat and waited for the murderer's return. The opening in the wall led to
the next house, No. 119, and the sleeper knew that, as she waited, the
dreadful deed was being done. The wooden old impostor returned, with
satisfaction in his face and blood on his fingers, which he wiped on
Mrs. Preedy's apron. He slid up to his bower in the weather indicator,
and re-hooked himself on to his catgut suspender, and stood "trembling
in the balance," but perfectly easy in his mind, predicting foul
weather.
"Ah, my man," said Mrs. Preedy, in her sleep, shaking her fist at him,
"it will be foul weather for you to-morrow, when I have you taken up and
hanged for it!"
Then came another fancy, that he had murdered the wooden young woman
in her bower (so that she should not appear as a witness), and that it
would never be fine weather any more.
These and other fancies faded and were blotted out, as though they had
never been, and a dread silence fell upon the soul of the slumbering
woman.
She was alone in a room, from which there was no outlet but a door
which was locked on the outside. No person was within hail. She was cut
off from the world, and from all chance of help. She had been asleep,
dreaming of an incident in her childhood's days. A dream within a dream.
From the inner dream she was suddenly awakened. Still asleep, and
nodding over the table, upon which lay the copies of the _Evening Moon_,
she believed herself to be awake. What had roused her? A footfall upon
the stairs in the upper part of the house.
It was a deserted house, containing no other occupant but herself. The
door was locked; it was impossible to get out. The very bed in which she
lay was a prison; she could not move from it. Afraid almost to breathe,
she listened in fear to the sound which had fallen on her sleeping
senses.
She knew exactly how the house was built--was familiar with every room
and every stair. Another footfall--another--a long pause between each.
The man, who was creeping down to her chamber to murder her, was
descending the staircase which led from the third to the second floor.
He reached it, and paused again.
There was no doubt about his intention. In her dream, it appeared as if
she knew the whole history of this murderer, and that he was the terror
of every householder in London. He worked in secret, and always with
fatal, deadly effect. He left nothing to chance. And Mrs. Preedy was to
be his next victim.
She could not avert her doom; she could only wait for it.
From the second floor to the first, step by step, she followed him
in her imagination. Slow and sure was his progress. Frantic were her
efforts to escape from the bed, but the sheets held her tight, like
sheets of steel.
* * * * *
In reality a man _was_ descending the stairs to the kitchen. There was
something stealthy in his movements which curiously contrasted with a
certain air of bravado, which, if it were assumed, was entirely thrown
away, as no eye was on him as he crept from the top of the house to the
bottom.
* * * * *
In her dream, influenced as dreams are in an excited brain by any sound,
however light, Mrs. Preedy accompanied this man in his slow progress
from his attic to her kitchen. He reached the landing, which led this
way to the street door, and that to the room in which Mrs. Preedy lay in
her nightmare of terror. Which direction would he take?
Downwards!--to the bed in which she was imprisoned. Her last moments
were approaching.
She strove to think of a prayer, but her tongue clave to the roof of her
mouth. Closer--closer--he came. He opened the door, and stood upon the
threshold. The louder sound than the sound of his steps aroused her to
full consciousness, and, opening her eyes, she confronted him with a
face white with fear.
[Decoration]