with her face suddenly very still. She had received it just before morning
school, and had opened it when the junior mathematicians were well under
way. Presently she resumed reading with an appearance of great calm. But
after the first sheet she went on reading the third without discovering
the error:--"told him frankly I did not like his name," the third sheet
began. "He told me he did not like it himself--you know that sort of
sudden, frank way he has"--Miss Winchelsea did know. "So I said, 'couldn't
you change it?' He didn't see it at first. Well, you know, dear, he had
told me what it really meant; it means Sevenoaks, only it has got down to
Snooks--both Snooks and Noaks, dreadfully vulgar surnames though they be,
are really worn forms of Sevenoaks. So I said--even I have my bright ideas
at times--'If it got down from Sevenoaks to Snooks, why not get it back
from Snooks to Sevenoaks?' And the long and the short of it is, dear, he
couldn't refuse me, and he changed his spelling there and then to Senoks
for the bills of the new lecture. And afterwards, when we are married, we
shall put in the apostrophe and make it Se'noks. Wasn't it kind of him to
mind that fancy of mine, when many men would have taken offence? But it is
just like him all over; he is as kind as he is clever. Because he knew as
well as I did that I would have had him in spite of it, had he been ten
times Snooks. But he did it all the same."
The class was startled by the sound of paper being viciously torn, and
looked up to see Miss Winchelsea white in the face and with some very
small pieces of paper clenched in one hand. For a few seconds they stared
at her stare, and then her expression changed back to a more familiar one.
"Has any one finished number three?" she asked in an even tone. She
remained calm after that. But impositions ruled high that day. And she
spent two laborious evenings writing letters of various sorts to Fanny,
before she found a decent congratulatory vein. Her reason struggled
hopelessly against the persuasion that Fanny had behaved in an exceedingly
treacherous manner.
One may be extremely refined and still capable of a very sore heart.
Certainly Miss Winchelsea's heart was very sore. She had moods of sexual
hostility, in which she generalised uncharitably about mankind. "He forgot
himself with me," she said. "But Fanny is pink and pretty and soft and a
fool--a very excellent match for a Man." And by way of a wedding present
she sent Fanny a gracefully bound volume of poetry by George Meredith, and
Fanny wrote back a grossly happy letter to say that it was "_all_
beautiful." Miss Winchelsea hoped that some day Mr. Senoks might take up
that slim book and think for a moment of the donor. Fanny wrote several
times before and about her marriage, pursuing that fond legend of their
"ancient friendship," and giving her happiness in the fullest detail. And
Miss Winchelsea wrote to Helen for the first time after the Roman journey,
saying nothing about the marriage, but expressing very cordial feelings.
They had been in Rome at Easter, and Fanny was married in the August
vacation. She wrote a garrulous letter to Miss Winchelsea, describing her
home-coming and the astonishing arrangements of their "teeny, weeny"
little house. Mr. Se'noks was now beginning to assume a refinement in Miss
Winchelsea's memory out of all proportion to the facts of the case, and
she tried in vain to imagine his cultured greatness in a "teeny weeny"
little house. "Am busy enamelling a cosy corner," said Fanny, sprawling to
the end of her third sheet, "so excuse more." Miss Winchelsea answered in
her best style, gently poking fun at Fanny's arrangements, and hoping
intensely that Mr. Se'noks might see the letter. Only this hope enabled
her to write at all, answering not only that letter but one in November
and one at Christmas.
The two latter communications contained urgent invitations for her to come
to Steely Bank on a visit during the Christmas holidays. She tried to
think that _he_ had told her to ask that, but it was too much like
Fanny's opulent good-nature. She could not but believe that he must be
sick of his blunder by this time; and she had more than a hope that he
would presently write her a letter beginning "Dear Friend." Something
subtly tragic in the separation was a great support to her, a sad
misunderstanding. To have been jilted would have been intolerable. But he
never wrote that letter beginning "Dear Friend."
For two years Miss Winchelsea could not go to see her friends, in spite of
the reiterated invitations of Mrs. Sevenoaks--it became full Sevenoaks in
the second year. Then one day near the Easter rest she felt lonely and
without a soul to understand her in the world, and her mind ran once more
on what is called Platonic friendship. Fanny was clearly happy and busy in
her new sphere of domesticity, but no doubt _he_ had his lonely
hours. Did he ever think of those days in Rome, gone now beyond recalling?
No one had understood her as he had done; no one in all the world. It
would be a sort of melancholy pleasure to talk to him again, and what harm
could it do? Why should she deny herself? That night she wrote a sonnet,
all but the last two lines of the octave--which would not come; and the
next day she composed a graceful little note to tell Fanny she was coming
down.
And so she saw him again.
Even at the first encounter it was evident he had changed; he seemed
stouter and less nervous, and it speedily appeared that his conversation
had already lost much of its old delicacy. There even seemed a
justification for Helen's description of weakness in his face--in certain
lights it _was_ weak. He seemed busy and preoccupied about his
affairs, and almost under the impression that Miss Winchelsea had come for
the sake of Fanny. He discussed his dinner with Fanny in an intelligent
way. They only had one good long talk together, and that came to nothing.
He did not refer to Rome, and spent some time abusing a man who had stolen
an idea he had had for a text-book. It did not seem a very wonderful idea
to Miss Winchelsea. She discovered he had forgotten the names of more than
half the painters whose work they had rejoiced over in Florence.
It was a sadly disappointing week, and Miss Winchelsea was glad when it
came to an end. Under various excuses she avoided visiting them again.
After a time the visitor's room was occupied by their two little boys, and
Fanny's invitations ceased. The intimacy of her letters had long since
faded away.
XXV.
A DREAM OF ARMAGEDDON.
The man with the white face entered the carriage at Rugby. He moved slowly
in spite of the urgency of his porter, and even while he was still on the
platform I noted how ill he seemed. He dropped into the corner over
against me with a sigh, made an incomplete attempt to arrange his
travelling shawl, and became motionless, with his eyes staring vacantly.
Presently he was moved by a sense of my observation, looked up at me, and
put out a spiritless hand for his newspaper. Then he glanced again in my
direction.
I feigned to read. I feared I had unwittingly embarrassed him, and in a
moment I was surprised to find him speaking.
"I beg your pardon?" said I.
"That book," he repeated, pointing a lean finger, "is about dreams."
"Obviously," I answered, for it was Fortnum-Roscoe's _Dream States_,
and the title was on the cover.
He hung silent for a space as if he sought words. "Yes," he said, at last,
"but they tell you nothing."
I did not catch his meaning for a second.
"They don't know," he added.
I looked a little more attentively at his face.
"There are dreams," he said, "and dreams." That sort of proposition I
never dispute. "I suppose----" he hesitated. "Do you ever dream? I mean
vividly."
"I dream very little," I answered. "I doubt if I have three vivid dreams
in a year."
"Ah!" he said, and seemed for a moment to collect his thoughts.
"Your dreams don't mix with your memories?" he asked abruptly. "You don't
find yourself in doubt: did this happen or did it not?"
"Hardly ever. Except just for a momentary hesitation now and then. I
suppose few people do."
"Does _he_ say----" he indicated the book.
"Says it happens at times and gives the usual explanation about intensity
of impression and the like to account for its not happening as a rule. I
suppose you know something of these theories----"
"Very little--except that they are wrong."
His emaciated hand played with the strap of the window for a time. I
prepared to resume reading, and that seemed to precipitate his next
remark. He leant forward almost as though he would touch me.
"Isn't there something called consecutive dreaming--that goes on night
after night?"
"I believe there is. There are cases given in most books on mental
trouble."
"Mental trouble! Yes. I daresay there are. It's the right place for them.
But what I mean----" He looked at his bony knuckles. "Is that sort of
thing always dreaming? _Is_ it dreaming? Or is it something else?
Mightn't it be something else?"
I should have snubbed his persistent conversation but for the drawn
anxiety of his face. I remember now the look of his faded eyes and the
lids red stained--perhaps you know that look.
"I'm not just arguing about a matter of opinion," he said. "The thing's
killing me."
"Dreams?"
"If you call them dreams. Night after night. Vivid!--so vivid ... this--"
(he indicated the landscape that went streaming by the window) "seems
unreal in comparison! I can scarcely remember who I am, what business I am
on ..."
He paused. "Even now--"
"The dream is always the same--do you mean?" I asked.
"It's over."
"You mean?"
"I died."
"Died?"
"Smashed and killed, and now so much of me as that dream was is dead. Dead
for ever. I dreamt I was another man, you know, living in a different part
of the world and in a different time. I dreamt that night after night.
Night after night I woke into that other life. Fresh scenes and fresh
happenings--until I came upon the last--"
"When you died?"
"When I died."
"And since then--"
"No," he said. "Thank God! that was the end of the dream..."
It was clear I was in for this dream. And, after all, I had an hour before
me, the light was fading fast, and Fortnum-Roscoe has a dreary way with
him. "Living in a different time," I said: "do you mean in some different
age?"
"Yes."
"Past?"
"No, to come--to come."
"The year three thousand, for example?"
"I don't know what year it was. I did when I was asleep, when I was
dreaming, that is, but not now--not now that I am awake. There's a lot of
things I have forgotten since I woke out of these dreams, though I knew
them at the time when I was--I suppose it was dreaming. They called the
year differently from our way of calling the year... What _did_ they
call it?" He put his hand to his forehead. "No," said he, "I forget."
He sat smiling weakly. For a moment I feared he did not mean to tell me
his dream. As a rule, I hate people who tell their dreams, but this struck
me differently. I proffered assistance even. "It began----" I suggested.
"It was vivid from the first. I seemed to wake up in it suddenly. And it's
curious that in these dreams I am speaking of I never remembered this life
I am living now. It seemed as if the dream life was enough while it
lasted. Perhaps----But I will tell you how I find myself when I do my
best to recall it all. I don't remember anything clearly until I found
myself sitting in a sort of loggia looking out over the sea. I had been
dozing, and suddenly I woke up--fresh and vivid--not a bit dreamlike--
because the girl had stopped fanning me."
"The girl?"
"Yes, the girl. You must not interrupt or you will put me out."
He stopped abruptly. "You won't think I'm mad?" he said.
"No," I answered; "you've been dreaming. Tell me your dream."
"I woke up, I say, because the girl had stopped fanning me. I was not
surprised to find myself there or anything of that sort, you understand. I
did not feel I had fallen into it suddenly. I simply took it up at that
point. Whatever memory I had of _this_ life, this nineteenth-century
life, faded as I woke, vanished like a dream. I knew all about myself,
knew that my name was no longer Cooper but Hedon, and all about my
position in the world. I've forgotten a lot since I woke--there's a want
of connection--but it was all quite clear and matter-of-fact then."
He hesitated again, gripping the window strap, putting his face forward,
and looking up to me appealingly.
"This seems bosh to you?"
"No, no!" I cried. "Go on. Tell me what this loggia was like."
"It was not really a loggia--I don't know what to call it. It faced south.
It was small. It was all in shadow except the semicircle above the balcony
that showed the sky and sea and the corner where the girl stood. I was on
a couch--it was a metal couch with light striped cushions--and the girl
was leaning over the balcony with her back to me. The light of the sunrise
fell on her ear and cheek. Her pretty white neck and the little curls that
nestled there, and her white shoulder were in the sun, and all the grace
of her body was in the cool blue shadow. She was dressed--how can I
describe it? It was easy and flowing. And altogether there she stood, so
that it came to me how beautiful and desirable she was, as though I had
never seen her before. And when at last I sighed and raised myself upon my
arm she turned her face to me--"
He stopped.
"I have lived three-and-fifty years in this world. I have had mother,
sisters, friends, wife and daughters--all their faces, the play of their
faces, I know. But the face of this girl--it is much more real to me. I
can bring it back into memory so that I see it again--I could draw it or
paint it. And after all--"
He stopped--but I said nothing.
"The face of a dream--the face of a dream. She was beautiful. Not that
beauty which is terrible, cold, and worshipful, like the beauty of a
saint; nor that beauty that stirs fierce passions; but a sort of
radiation, sweet lips that softened into smiles, and grave gray eyes. And
she moved gracefully, she seemed to have part with all pleasant and
gracious things--"
He stopped, and his face was downcast and hidden. Then he looked up at me
and went on, making no further attempt to disguise his absolute belief in
the reality of his story.
"You see, I had thrown up my plans and ambitions, thrown up all I had ever
worked for or desired, for her sake. I had been a master man away there in
the north, with influence and property and a great reputation, but none of
it had seemed worth having beside her. I had come to the place, this city
of sunny pleasures, with her, and left all those things to wreck and ruin
just to save a remnant at least of my life. While I had been in love with
her before I knew that she had any care for me, before I had imagined that
she would dare--that we should dare--all my life had seemed vain and
hollow, dust and ashes. It _was_ dust and ashes. Night after night,
and through the long days I had longed and desired--my soul had beaten
against the thing forbidden!
"But it is impossible for one man to tell another just these things. It's
emotion, it's a tint, a light that comes and goes. Only while it's there,
everything changes, everything. The thing is I came away and left them in
their crisis to do what they could."
"Left whom?" I asked, puzzled.
"The people up in the north there. You see--in this dream, anyhow--I had
been a big man, the sort of man men come to trust in, to group themselves
about. Millions of men who had never seen me were ready to do things and
risk things because of their confidence in me. I had been playing that
game for years, that big laborious game, that vague, monstrous political
game amidst intrigues and betrayals, speech and agitation. It was a vast
weltering world, and at last I had a sort of leadership against the Gang--
you know it was called the Gang--a sort of compromise of scoundrelly
projects and base ambitions and vast public emotional stupidities and
catch-words--the Gang that kept the world noisy and blind year by year,
and all the while that it was drifting, drifting towards infinite
disaster. But I can't expect you to understand the shades and
complications of the year--the year something or other ahead. I had it
all--down to the smallest details--in my dream. I suppose I had been
dreaming of it before I awoke, and the fading outline of some queer new
development I had imagined still hung about me as I rubbed my eyes. It was
some grubby affair that made me thank God for the sunlight. I sat up on
the couch and remained looking at the woman, and rejoicing--rejoicing that
I had come away out of all that tumult and folly and violence before it
was too late. After all, I thought, this is life--love and beauty, desire
and delight, are they not worth all those dismal struggles for vague,
gigantic ends? And I blamed myself for having ever sought to be a leader
when I might have given my days to love. But then, thought I, if I had not
spent my early days sternly and austerely, I might have wasted myself upon
vain and worthless women, and at the thought all my being went out in love
and tenderness to my dear mistress, my dear lady, who had come at last and
compelled me--compelled me by her invincible charm for me--to lay that
life aside.
"'You are worth it,' I said, speaking without intending her to hear; 'you
are worth it, my dearest one; worth pride and praise and all things. Love!
to have _you_ is worth them all together.' And at the murmur of my
voice she turned about.
"'Come and see,' she cried--I can hear her now--come and see the sunrise
upon Monte Solaro.'
"I remember how I sprang to my feet and joined her at the balcony. She put
a white hand upon my shoulder and pointed towards great masses of
limestone flushing, as it were, into life. I looked. But first I noted the
sunlight on her face caressing the lines of her cheeks and neck. How can I
describe to you the scene we had before us? We were at Capri----"
"I have been there," I said. "I have clambered up Monte Solaro and drunk
_vero Capri_--muddy stuff like cider--at the summit."
"Ah!" said the man with the white face; "then perhaps you can tell me--you
will know if this was indeed Capri. For in this life I have never been
there. Let me describe it. We were in a little room, one of a vast
multitude of little rooms, very cool and sunny, hollowed out of the
limestone of a sort of cape, very high above the sea. The whole island,
you know, was one enormous hotel, complex beyond explaining, and on the
other side there were miles of floating hotels, and huge floating stages
to which the flying machines came. They called it a Pleasure City. Of
course, there was none of that in your time--rather, I should say,
_is_ none of that _now_. Of course. Now!--yes.
"Well, this room of ours was at the extremity of the cape, so that one
could see east and west. Eastward was a great cliff--a thousand feet high
perhaps, coldly grey except for one bright edge of gold, and beyond it the
Isle of the Sirens, and a falling coast that faded and passed into the hot
sunrise. And when one turned to the west, distinct and near was a little
bay, a little beach still in shadow. And out of that shadow rose Solaro,
straight and tall, flushed and golden-crested, like a beauty throned, and
the white moon was floating behind her in the sky. And before us from east
to west stretched the many-tinted sea all dotted with little
sailing-boats.
"To the eastward, of course, these little boats were gray and very minute
and clear, but to the westward they were little boats of gold--shining
gold--almost like little flames. And just below us was a rock with an arch
worn through it. The blue sea-water broke to green and foam all round the
rock, and a galley came gliding out of the arch."
"I know that rock," I said. "I was nearly drowned there. It is called the
Faraglioni."
"_Faraglioni_? Yes, _she_ called it that," answered the man with
the white face. "There was some story--but that----"
He put his hand to his forehead again. "No," he said, "I forget that
story.
"Well, that is the first thing I remember, the first dream I had, that
little shaded room and the beautiful air and sky and that dear lady of
mine, with her shining arms and her graceful robe, and how we sat and
talked in half whispers to one another. We talked in whispers, not because
there was any one to hear, but because there was still such a freshness of
mind between us that our thoughts were a little frightened, I think, to
find themselves at last in words. And so they went softly.
"Presently we were hungry, and we went from our apartment, going by a
strange passage with a moving floor, until we came to the great
breakfast-room--there was a fountain and music. A pleasant and joyful
place it was, with its sunlight and splashing, and the murmur of plucked
strings. And we sat and ate and smiled at one another, and I would not
heed a man who was watching me from a table near by.
"And afterwards we went on to the dancing-hall. But I cannot describe
that hall. The place was enormous, larger than any building you have ever
seen--and in one place there was the old gate of Capri, caught into the
wall of a gallery high overhead. Light girders, stems and threads of gold,
burst from the pillars like fountains, streamed like an Aurora across the
roof and interlaced, like--like conjuring tricks. All about the great
circle for the dancers there were beautiful figures, strange dragons, and
intricate and wonderful grotesques bearing lights. The place was inundated
with artificial light that shamed the newborn day. And as we went through
the throng the people turned about and looked at us, for all through the
world my name and face were known, and how I had suddenly thrown up pride,
and struggle to come to this place. And they looked also at the lady
beside me, though half the story of how at last she had come to me was
unknown or mistold. And few of the men who were there, I know, but judged
me a happy man, in spite of all the shame and dishonour that had come upon
my name.
"The air was full of music, full of harmonious scents, full of the rhythm
of beautiful motions. Thousands of beautiful people swarmed about the
hall, crowded the galleries, sat in a myriad recesses; they were dressed
in splendid colours and crowned with flowers; thousands danced about the
great circle beneath the white images of the ancient gods, and glorious
processions of youths and maidens came and went. We two danced, not the
dreary monotonies of your days--of this time, I mean--but dances that were
beautiful, intoxicating. And even now I can see my lady dancing--dancing
joyously. She danced, you know, with a serious face; she danced with a
serious dignity, and yet she was smiling at me and caressing me--smiling
and caressing with her eyes.
"The music was different," he murmured. "It went--I cannot describe it;
but it was infinitely richer and more varied than any music that has ever
come to me awake.
"And then--it was when we had done dancing--a man came to speak to me. He
was a lean, resolute man, very soberly clad for that place, and already I
had marked his face watching me in the breakfasting hall, and afterwards
as we went along the passage I had avoided his eye. But now, as we sat in
a little alcove smiling at the pleasure of all the people who went to and
fro across the shining floor, he came and touched me, and spoke to me so
that I was forced to listen. And he asked that he might speak to me for a
little time apart.
"'No,' I said. 'I have no secrets from this lady. What do you want to tell
me?'
"He said it was a trivial matter, or at least a dry matter, for a lady to
hear.
"'Perhaps for me to hear,' said I.
"He glanced at her, as though almost he would appeal to her. Then he asked
me suddenly if I had heard of a great and avenging declaration that
Gresham had made. Now, Gresham had always before been the man next to
myself in the leadership of that great party in the north. He was a
forcible, hard, and tactless man, and only I had been able to control and
soften him. It was on his account even more than my own, I think, that the
others had been so dismayed at my retreat. So this question about what he
had done re-awakened my old interest in the life I had put aside just for
a moment.
"'I have taken no heed of any news for many days,' I said. 'What has
Gresham been saying?'
"And with that the man began, nothing loth, and I must confess ever; I was
struck by Gresham's reckless folly in the wild and threatening words he
had used. And this messenger they had sent to me not only told me of
Gresham's speech, but went on to ask counsel and to point out what need
they had of me. While he talked, my lady sat a little forward and watched
his face and mine.