If she could only dream about Mark. But if she dreamed about any of them
it was always Mamma. She had left her in the house by herself and she had
got out of her room to the stair-head. Or they were in London at the
crossing by the Bank and Mamma was frightened. She had to get her through
the thick of the traffic. The horses pushed at Mamma and you tried to
hold back their noses, but she sank down and slid away from you sideways
under the wheel.
Or she would come into this room and find her in it. At first she would
be glad to see that Mamma was still there; then she would be unhappy and
afraid. She would go on to a clear thought: if Mamma was still there,
then she had got back somehow to Morfe. The old life was still going on;
it had never really stopped. But if that was real, then this was not
real. Her secure, shining life of last year and now wasn't real; nothing
could make it real; her exquisite sense of it was not real. She had only
thought it had happened.
Nothing had happened but what had happened before; it was happening now;
it would go on and on till it frightened you, till you could not bear it.
When she woke up she was glad that the dream had been nothing but a
dream.
But that meant that you were glad Mamma was not there. The dream showed
you what you were hiding from yourself. Supposing the dead knew?
Supposing Mamma knew, and Mark knew that you were glad--