I wouldn’t make a fuss about it if I were you,” said Charlie Craven,
pursuing that search from pocket to pocket which men, having no
particular reputation for tidiness to maintain, are accustomed to
institute when they have filled a pipe and are anxious to light it.
“A fuss about it?” cried his sister Madge. “A fuss--good gracious! What
is there to make a fuss about in all that I have told you? A dream--I
ask you candidly if you think that I am the sort of girl to make a fuss
over a dream?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Charlie. He had succeeded in finding in one of
his pockets a match-box--an empty match-box.
“Well, you should know,” said Madge severely.
“There now, you are; making a fuss over something a deal flimsier than
your dream,” laughed her brother. “I wonder if that palace of your dream
was no better supplied than this house with matches: if it wasn’t, I
shouldn’t care to live in it for any length of time.”
“It’s so like a man to keep on bothering himself and every one about him
for a match, while all the time a fire is roaring on the hearth behind
him, and his pockets are full of bills--the usual Christmas bills, the
least of which would light all the pipes he smokes in a day, and that’s
saying a good deal.”
“How clever you are! I never thought of the fire. Well, as I was
remarking, I wouldn’t bother telling my dreams to any one if I were you.
Dreams--well, dreams are all rot, you know.”
“I’m not quite so sure of that as you seem to be, O wisest of brothers.
The wisest of people in the world--next to you, of course--have thought
that there was something in dreams, haven’t they?”
“They were wrong. My aunt! the rot that I have dreamt from time to
time!”
“Oh, that settles the question.”
“It does, so far as I am concerned. Look here, Madge; don’t come to me
again with the story of your dreams, hoping to find a sympathetic ear.
Dreams, I say, are all----Of course, you saw that particular house and
that particular staircase in some picture, and they stuck somewhere at
the back of your brain. It’s a rummy thing the brain, you know--a jolly
rum thing!”
“It is. I am becoming more impressed every minute with the truth of that
discovery of yours.”
“Oh, if you are becoming sarcastic, I have nothing more to say. But
please to remember that sarcasm is no argument. I tell you, my dear
girl, you have seen a picture of that house at some period of your
life--I don’t say recently, mind you--and my theory is that the brain is
like a sensitized plate: it records an impression once and for all, and
stores it away, and you never know exactly when it means to bring it out
again before your eyes. Oh, believe me, it plays a lot of tricks upon
even the most commonplace people.”
“Among whom I suppose I must count myself? Well, I daresay you are
right.”
“I know that I am right. Dreams! Did you ever hear the story of the old
woman who won a big prize in a lottery, the ticket being No. 26? Had she
chosen that number on chance or in accordance with some system? she was
asked, and she replied that she had dreamt it all out. Dreamt it all
out? What did she mean by that? they inquired. ‘Well, a week ago I
dreamt that I won the prize, and that the ticket I took was No. 9,’ said
she. ‘The next night I dreamt exactly the same, and the ticket was No.
9. The third night the same thing happened, so, of course, I chose No.
26.’ ‘No. 26? Why not No. 9 as you dreamt it?’ the people asked. ‘Oh,
you fools!’ said she; ‘didn’t I tell you that I dreamt it three times?
the number was 9, and doesn’t every one know that three times 9 are 26?’
Now that’s the stuff that dreams are made of, as Shakespeare remarks, so
don’t you bother about this particular vision of yours; and if you take
my advice you’ll say nothing to Uncle Philip or the lot of them about
it. They would only laugh at you.”
“Why on earth should I go about proclaiming my dream to all our
relations?” cried the girl. “Dear Charlie, I’m not suffering just yet
from softening of the brain. Besides, I can recall many instances of
disaster following people who bored others with the story of their
dreams. There was the notable case of Joseph and his brethren, and later
in history there was the case of the Duke of Clarence. You remember how
swiftly retribution followed his story of his dream? Now, of course,
my dream was only a little insignificant thing compared to Joseph’s
and Clarence’s, still something might happen if I bored people with
it--something proportionate--the plum-pudding might come to the table
in a state of squash, or the custards might be smoked. Oh no, I’ll be
forewarned, and talk only of facts. I suppose a dream cannot, by even
the most indulgent of people, be called a fact.”
“I’m off to the stables,” said her brother, after a little pause.
Then he went off to the stables. He was an excellent fellow and the
best of brothers, although he was more at home in the stables than when
engaged in a discussion on a subject involving some exercise of the
imagination. There is not much room in a stable for a play of the
imagination, especially where the corn accounts are kept on a system.
When he had left the breakfast-room on this bright Christmas morning
his sister paused for a few moments in her morning duty of collecting
a breakfast for the birds which were loitering about the Italian
balustrade in front of the window, reminding her, in their own way, that
they expected an exceptionally liberal repast on this Christmas morning:
she paused and began to think once more upon this strange dream of hers,
which she had been rehearsing to her brother.
After all, it was not so strange a dream, she reflected. The only queer
thing about it was that it had come to her on every Christmas Eve for
five consecutive years--since she was seventeen--and that its details
did not differ in the least from one year to another. Perhaps it was
also different from the majority of dreams in its vividness, and in the
fact that, on awaking from it, she felt as exhausted as if she had just
returned from a long journey. Even now it required almost an effort on
her part to walk round the old oak table sweeping the crumbs on to a
plate to throw to the birds; and when she had discharged this duty she
seated herself with a sigh of relief in one of the arm-chairs that stood
by the side of the great wood fire.
She closed her eyes and once again recalled her dream. She had no
difficulty in doing so. She had fancied herself in the act of driving up
to a fine old house, standing in the middle of a well-timbered park
of oak and chestnut. The lawn extended across the full front of the
mansion, and in the centre she noticed a beautiful old fountain,
composed of a great marble basin with a splendid group of figures in the
centre--Neptune with his dolphins and a Naiad or two. She passed into
the house through a great hall hung with trophies of war and of the
chase. In front of her was the enormous head of a moose, and at one side
there was a great grey skull of some animal such as she had never seen
before,--a fearful thing with huge tusks--quite the monster of a dream.
Then she seemed to go from room to room, as if she had been a member
of the family living in the place, but--and this she felt to be a true
dream-touch--the moment she entered a room every one who was there fled
from her; but apparently this did not cause her any surprise, any
more than did the strange costume of the figures who fled at her
approach--costumes of the sixteenth century, mingled with those of the
seventeenth and eighteenth. Thinking of the figures hurrying from every
room suggested to her the family portraits of three centuries in motion.
After visiting several fine rooms she found herself walking up a broad
oaken staircase of shallow steps, until she came to a large lobby,
where the staircase divided to right and left. There she found a curious
settee of some dark wood, the long centre panel of which was carved with
many figures. She saw all this by the aid of the moonlight which flowed
in through the panes of coloured glass in a high window, painted with
many coats of arms.
She remembered having rested in this seat for some time, feeling very
lonely, and then some one had come to her, sitting by her side and
taking her hand, saying--
“I have been waiting for you all these years. I am so glad that you are
here at last.”
She remembered that the sound of the voice and the touch of the hand
had banished her loneliness, and made her feel happier than she had
ever felt in all her life before. Even now she felt supremely happy,
recalling this incident of her dream, though she recollected that she
had not yet seen the face of the man who had come to her to banish her
loneliness. She wished that her dream had been less whimsical in this
one particular. She felt that she could have spared some of the other
details that came before her so vividly--the skull of that strange
animal that hung in the hall, for instance--if in their place she had
been allowed to see what manner of man it was who had sat with her.
Still, the recollection of him gave her pleasure even when the dream had
first come to her and he had come in the dream, and this pleasure had
been increasing year by year, until she knew that she had actually gone
asleep on the previous night, full of joy in the hope of hearing the
sound of that voice and feeling the touch of that hand as she had done
in the past.
And that was the end of her dream, unless the feeling of
happiness--happiness mingled with a certain sadness--of which she was
conscious while she recalled its details should be accounted part of
the dream. Her pleasure was the same as one experiences in recalling the
incidents of a visit to a dear friend; her sadness was the same as one
experiences on thinking that a long time must elapse before one can see
that friend again.
Madge actually found herself reflecting that a year must pass before she
could once more find herself wandering through the strange mansion of
her dream--find herself once more seated on that carved seat in the
lobby beneath the painted window.
She kept on thinking, and wondering as she thought, over the strange
features of this experience of hers. She knew that she was what people
would call a commonplace, practical girl--a girl without fads or fancies
of any sort. Since her mother’s death, three years before, she had
managed all the household affairs of Craven Court for her brother, who
had inherited the property before she had left the schoolroom. Every one
was bound to acknowledge that her management of the household had been
admirable, though only her brother knew exactly how admirable it was.
“There are no frills about Madge; she is the best woman of business in
the county, and we have none of the bothers of other people with our
servants,” he had frequently said.
And yet here was this embodiment of all that is practical in life,
dreaming upon a dream upon this bright and frosty Christmas morning, and
actually feeling sad at the thought that a whole year must elapse before
the same vision should return to her.
The chiming of the church bells startled her out of her reverie.
“Pshaw!” she cried, jumping up from her chair; “I am quite as great a
goose as Charlie believes me to be--quite! or I should not have told
him that that dream had come to me again. I should have had the sense to
know that he would have the sense to know that dreams are, one and all,
the utterest folly!”
She knew that she was trying to convince herself that there was nothing
more in this particular dream than in the many casual dreams that came
to her as well as to other people; but before she had reached the door
of the dining-room she knew that she had failed in her attempt. The
curious fatigue of which she was conscious, quickly told her that this
oft-recurring vision was not as others were.
She went to church with her brother, and in the afternoon their uncle,
Colonel Craven, and his wife duly arrived at the Court to spend their
annual week at the family mansion, and Madge took her brother’s advice
and refrained from saying a word to either of them on the subject of her
dream. Indeed, she had so much to think of and so much to do during
the week, she had no time to give to anything so immaterial as a dream,
however interesting it might be to herself.
On the last morning of the stay of Colonel and Mrs Craven at Craven
Court, the former received a letter which he tossed across the
breakfast-table to Charlie.
“Funny, isn’t it?” he said. “We were talking about wild-duck-shooting no
later than last night, and here’s a letter from Jack Tremaine telling me
that he is taking over his cousin’s place for six months and promising
me some good sport if I go to him for a week in January. You will see
that he suggests that you should be of the party: he asks if you are
here. See what he says about the ducks.”
“Who is his cousin?” inquired Charlie, “and where is his place?”
“His cousin is a chap named Clifford, and his place is in
Dorsetshire--on the coast--Barmouth Manor it is called, and I know that
it’s famous for its duck-shooting. Tremaine will no doubt write to you.”
“Where has the cousin gone, that the place is available for Jack
Tremaine?” asked Charlie.
“Turn over the page and you’ll see what he says about the Cliffords,”
replied Colonel Craven.
Charlie found on the last leaf half a dozen lines on the point in
question. Jack Tremaine said that Mrs Clifford was not satisfied as to
the health of her son, and was going abroad with him during the first
week in January.
“I should like to have a go at the ducks,” said Charlie Craven, handing
back the letter. “I suppose there is a duck-punt or two at the place?”
“You may be sure of that,” said his uncle. “Young Clifford is a good
sportsman, I believe, but I have never met him. I’ll write to Tremaine
to-day telling him that you are at home. I’m sure he means to invite
you.”
All doubt on this point was removed by the arrival two days later of
an invitation from Mr Tremaine to Charlie Craven for a fortnight’s
duck-shooting at Barmouth Manor, and he enclosed a letter from his wife
to Madge expressing the hope that she would be able to accompany her
brother.
Madge was delighted at the prospect of the visit, for she and Mrs
Tremaine were close friends.
The frost which had set in a few days before Christmas had not gone
when she and her brother were due at Barmouth Manor, so that there was a
likelihood of her having some skating on the lake. Mrs Tremaine had,
in her invitation, laid some stress upon the possibility of a week’s
skating on the lake which, she said, was within the Manor Park.
A carriage met them at Barmouth Station, for the Manor was quite five
miles from the picturesque little town; and it was late in the afternoon
before they passed through the spacious entrance gates to the Manor
Park. There was, however, quite enough light to enable Madge to see
every detail of the place, and it was observing some of the details that
caused her to make a rather startling exclamation of surprise.
“Hallo!” said her brother, “what has startled you?”
There was a little pause before she had recovered herself sufficiently
to be able to make an excuse that would sound plausible. She pointed to
a group of deer looking over the barrier of their enclosure.
“One of the stags,” she said; “it seemed for a moment as if it were
about to jump the rail.”
“What matter if it did? They are as tame as cats at this time of the
year,” said Charlie.
“Of course, I should have remembered,” she said. “I wonder in what
direction is the pond. Does the sunset look promising?”
“There may be no thaw before the end of the month,” said he.
That was the end of their conversation, and she flattered herself that
he had no notion how excited she was as the carriage reached that part
of the drive which was beside the lawn, and the red level rays of the
sun streaming through the naked trees stained the marble basin of an
Italian fountain, the central group of which was in every detail the
same as the figures in the fountain of her dream. In another minute the
front of the house was disclosed, and she saw that it was the house
of her dream. She would have been greatly disappointed had it been
otherwise.
She entered the great hall, and could scarcely reply to the cordial
greeting of her aunt and Mrs Tremaine, for she found herself stared at
by the sleepy eyes that looked out from the head of a moose just as they
had stared at her in her sleep. She turned to the wall on her right.
Yes, there was the curious skull with the mighty tusks.
“Oh yes, we had a delightful journey,” she managed to say in reply
to Mrs Tremaine’s inquiry. “Thank you; I should like a cup of tea
immensely. Do you have it in the hall or in the tapestry room beyond?”
“What; you have been here before? I had no idea of that,” said Mrs
Tremaine.
For more than a moment Madge was confused.
Luckily for her, however, the lamps had not been lighted in the hall,
and the sudden flush that came over her face was unobserved by her
friends.
She gave a laugh.
“What a good shot I made!” she cried. “Isn’t this just the sort of house
to have an old-panelled dining-room and a tapestry chamber beside it? I
think we should have tea here. What sort of prehistoric creature is that
on the wall?”
“I believe it is a skull that was found when they were digging the
foundations of one of the lodges,” said Mrs Tremaine.
“I seem to have read some description of this very place,” said Charlie,
standing in front of the great skull.
Madge wondered if he would remember enough of her account of the house
of her dreams to enable him to recognise the details before him.
“It is fully described in Hall’s History, and in every guide-book of the
district. The animal that that skull belonged to lived some thousands of
years before the Flood, I understand.”
“What is the exact date b.c. carved on it?” laughed Charlie. “Yes, I
daresay I came upon a paragraph or an illustration of the place. No
house is safe from the depredations of the magazines nowadays.”
Tea was served in the hall to give Madge’s maid time to unpack; and then
the girl was shown to her room. She ran up the broad, shallow staircase
to the lobby; she had made up her mind to sit, if only for a moment,
on the carved settee; but a surprise awaited her,--no carved settee was
there. The painted window was there, but no settee was beneath it.
She was so surprised that she stood for some moments gazing at the
vacant place.
“That lobby looks quite bare without the settee, Miss Craven,” said
the housekeeper, who was beside her. “It’s a fine bit of carving--all
ebony.”
“Was there a settee here?” asked Madge innocently.
“It was only taken away to-day to be in a better light for Mrs Tremaine
to photograph it,” said the housekeeper. “Mrs Tremaine has done most
of the rare pieces in the house. This is your room, Miss Craven. It’s
called the Dauphin’s chamber, for it was here he slept fifty years ago
when he was in Dorsetshire.”
Madge entered the room, remarking that it was beautifully furnished and
that it seemed extremely comfortable. When the door was closed she threw
herself into a chair and had a good think.
What could it all mean? she asked herself. Why should this house become
so associated with her life? Was she going to die here? Was something
going to happen to her? Was she to meet here the man who had upon five
different occasions come to her side, telling her that he had been
waiting for her?
For ten days she remained in the house, looking forward day by day to
some occurrence that would cause her to realise what her dream meant;
but she returned with her brother to Craven Court in disappointment.
Nothing particular happened all the time, and she came to the conclusion
that her dream was as meaningless as her brother had said it was.
Madge Craven and her brother were staying with the Tremaines at their
own place during the pheasant shooting the following October, and one
morning their hostess mentioned that her husband’s cousin, Mrs Clifford,
had returned to England from South America and was expected to join
their party that day.
She arrived before the shooters had come back from their day’s sport,
and she and Mrs Tremaine had a long chat in front of the fire before
tea. Mrs Clifford was a handsome old lady of the _grande dame_ type;
and being a close observer and an admirable describer of all that she
observed, she was able to entertain Mrs Tremaine with an account of the
adventures of her son and herself in South America.
“I hope Rawdon’s health is more satisfactory now than it was,” said Mrs
Tremaine when her guest had declared that there was no more to be told.
“I can only hope for the best,” said Mrs Clifford, becoming grave.
“Rawdon is gone across the mountains to Chili, and will not be at home
until the middle of January.”
“He must be pretty robust to be able to undertake such a journey,” said
Mrs Tremaine.
“He is not wanting in strength,” said Mrs Clifford. “Only--poor boy!”
“‘Poor boy!’ ‘Why poor boy’?” asked the other.