Clara Lake's Dream.[1]
[Footnote 1: The dream is not fiction: it is but transcribed, even to
the minutest particular.]
It was certainly a singular dream, well worthy of being recorded.
Taken in conjunction with its notable working out, few dreams have
been so remarkable. At least, if it may be deemed that subsequent
events did work it out. The reader must judge.
Mr. and Mrs. Lake retired to rest as usual, eating no supper. When
they had fish or meat with tea, supper was not served. On this evening
he drank some wine-and-water before going to bed; she touched nothing.
Therefore it cannot be thought she suffered from nightmare.
It was a singular dream; let me repeat the assertion. And it was in
the earlier part of the night that it visited her. How soon after she
went to sleep, how late, there were no means of knowing.
Part of the evening's doings came to her again in her sleep. She
thought that Mrs. Chester called, went on to the Jupps' house,
returned to drink tea, and gave the invitation to go to her house at
Guild on the Sunday--all just as it had been in reality. Clara also
thought that she felt an insuperable objection to go, in spite of
having accepted the invitation. Not the vague idea that had presented
itself to her awake, the half-wish that she had not made the
engagement, but a strong, irrepressible conviction that the going
would bring her evil--but accompanied with a conviction, a knowledge,
so to say, that she should go, that it was her fate to go, and that
she could not avoid it. She dreamt that Mrs. Chester had departed, and
that she was discussing the point with her husband They were in a
kitchen, a large kitchen quite strange to her, and were standing by a
small, round, dark-coloured table in its middle. The fireplace, as
Clara stood, was behind her; the window, a wide one, with an ironing
board underneath it, was in front; a dresser with shelves was on her
left hand; and there were several doors, leading she did not know
where. Altogether, the kitchen looked large and bleak, something like
those we see in farm-houses: and, seated on a chair to the right,
apparently engaged in sewing, and taking no notice of them, Clara
suddenly saw Mrs. Chester. She and her husband were discussing
earnestly--to go, or not to go. It appeared that both felt some evil
was impending, but yet both knew they _should_ go and encounter it, in
spite of the hesitation: and yet Clara seemed to feel that her husband
could have helped her to remain if he would. "What excuse can we make
for declining?" she seemed to say to him, and then they both thought
over various pleas, but none appeared to answer, and they came to the
final conclusion that go they must; which they both had known
throughout would be the conclusion. All the time they spoke, Mrs.
Chester was sitting in her chair, listening, but taking no notice; and
upon arriving at the decision Clara and her husband parted, he going
towards one of the kitchen doors, she towards the window; but so sharp
was the conviction that she was rushing upon evil, that she awoke.
Clara thought it a curious dream--curious because it represented what
had actually occurred, and the bent of her own feelings; curious also
because it was so unusually vivid, so like reality. She got out of bed
quietly, not to disturb her husband, struck a wax match, and looked at
the hanging watch. It was exactly three o'clock.
But the dream was not yet over. She went to sleep again, taking up the
thread almost at the point where she had left it. She remembered all
that had passed, _both of dream and reality_; she remembered that she
awoke in the certainty that she could not go beside the dreaded
expedition; all _that_ was plain in this, her second sleep, but she
now began making strenuous exertions to escape. She did not see her
husband again, but Mary Ann and Margaret Jupp had joined Mrs. Chester,
and the three seemed to be forcing her to go. Not by force of
violence, but of argument, of persuasion; and she still seemed to know
that they must prevail, that to withstand at the last would be beyond
her power.
The time appeared to change to the morning of departure: or rather,
with that inconsistency peculiar to dreams, it appeared to be the
morning of the departure without having changed. Still she strove
against it; not saying why, not hinting that she feared evil; of that,
she had only spoken with her husband; but striving, not to go, by
every possible argument, and by _passive_ resistance. And--strange
inconsistency!--it appeared that if she could have told them the
reason of her reluctance, her dread of evil, all would have been well;
but it was precisely to them she must not and dared not tell it.
To any who may fancy the description of the dream unnecessarily spun
out, the small details too much dwelt upon, I would say just a word.
It is difficult to shorten that real dream of midnight sufficiently
for it to be told within reasonable bounds. No pen can trace its
particulars as they appeared; no power of language describe them as
they were pictured. And now to resume it.
Mrs. Chester and the Miss Jupps urged her to depart; were waiting for
her. Clara Lake resisted. "There!" she suddenly exclaimed to them, "we
cannot go. It is past ten: we have let the hour go by, and the train
is gone." "Oh!" said Mrs. Chester, "we can get a carriage and overtake
it." She went out with them--resistance appeared to be over; she
_felt_ that it was over, and that she could not help herself--went out
to look for a carriage. They ran about, down lanes and in the open
fields, and could not see one; but a butcher's cart came up in the
lane; one of them said that would do as well as a carriage, and they
all got into it. They seemed to fly, going along at a fearful pace,
but through a most dreary-looking country, the skies gloomy, the
scenery barren, and the road muddy, so muddy that it splashed up upon
them as they sat: there were also shallow, dismal ponds through which
they drove. All this haste seemed to be to catch the train, but
suddenly a noise was heard behind them, and it was known that it was
the train: they had gone so fast as to outstrip it. Their cart stopped
to wait, and Clara, when the noise came close, looked behind, but
could only distinguish something black which whirled by them, turned
round, came back, turned again, and pulled up. "Why, it is a hearse!"
she screamed out (but in surprise, not fear), to Mrs. Chester. Yes, it
was a hearse, all black, and two men sat upon the box. Clara looked
out, expecting to see the rest of their party _on_ it, but there was
no one but the two men: the one she could not see, for he seemed to
hide his face; but she caught, fixed upon her, the strangely black
eyes of the driver, the blackest eyes she ever saw in her life: of the
rest of his face she remembered nothing. "Come," said he, "there's no
time to lose;" and they all four descended from the cart. Clara got on
to the hearse first, and was settling her cloak around her, when she
heard the cart drive off, taking the road home again; and, seated in
it as before, were Mrs. Chester and Mary and Margaret Jupp. "Why don't
you come with me?" she called out; "why are you going back?" "No,"
said Mrs. Chester, "that hearse is for you, not for us;" and they
drove off. The hearse also drove off the contrary way, and Mrs. Lake
found herself sinking into its interior. She was calm enough for a
moment, but suddenly she knew that she had been entrapped into it, and
that she was being taken to her burial.
With a dreadful scream she awoke.
The scream awoke Mr. Lake. She was bathed in perspiration, and shaking
as in an ague fit. In vain he asked what was the matter, whether she
was ill: she could not speak to tell him, and it was several minutes
before she was able in any degree to overcome the fright, or relate it
to him.
Robert Lake had no belief in dreams; was given to scoff at them; but
he had too much regard for his wife to attempt to scoff then, in her
extremity of distress and agitation. He got up and lighted a lamp, for
though morning was glimmering it could not be said to be yet light.
"I am quite certain that it is sent to me as a warning," she
exclaimed; "and I will not go on Sunday to Guild."
"I never knew before that you could believe in dreams," he answered.
"I do not believe in dreams; I have never had any particular dreams to
believe in. But you must acknowledge, Robert, that this one is beyond
common. I cannot describe to you how vivid, how _real_ everything
appeared to me. And it was not one dream; it was two: that at least is
unusual. The second dream was a continuation of the first."
"The one induced the other. I dare say you saw a hearse pass
yesterday?"
"I have not seen a hearse for ever so long," she answered, still
shivering. "But, go to your sister's, I will not. Thank heaven! though
the power to refuse was not mine in the dream, it is in reality."
But that it was not the time to do it, he could have laughed outright
at the superstitious folly. He spoke pleasant, loving words to her,
almost as one would to a frightened child, trying to soothe her back
to tranquillity.
"Clara; consider! the very fact of your being able to act as you
please, which it seems you could not do in the dream, ought to
convince you how void of meaning it was."
"I will not go to Mrs. Chester's," was all she reiterated, with a
strange sigh of relief--a sense of thanksgiving that the option was
assuredly hers.
"Wait for the morning sun," said he. "You will be in a different mood
then."
She did not rise so soon as usual. She had got to sleep again at last,
first of all making a firm inward resolution that no persuasion, no
ridicule, no "morning sun"--in whose cheery rays things indeed wear a
different aspect from what they do in the dark and weird night should
suffice to alter her determination. The warning against going she
fully believed to have been sent to her, and she would abide by it.
Mr. Lake waited breakfast for his wife. She came down in her delicate
muslin dress, looking as pretty as usual. At first she made no
allusion to the past night; neither did he--he hoped it was at an end;
but when breakfast was about half over, she glanced up at him in her
rather shy manner, speaking in a low tone.
"I have a request to beg of you, Robert--that you will not mention
this dream to any one. I will make some other excuse for not going to
Guild."
"Dream!" cried he, speaking with his mouth full. "Why, Clary, I had
already forgotten it. And so will you before the day shall be over."
She shook her head.
"I shall send word to Penelope that I cannot go."
Mr. Lake put down his knife and fork and gazed at her in astonishment.
To his sober, practical mind, his careless nature, this in truth
savoured of the ridiculous.
"Clara, you will never be so foolish! I gave you credit for better
sense. Dreams are all very well in their places--to amuse old women
and children--but in these days they should not be allowed to
influence actions. You can see the bright sunshine, the busy
work-a-day world around you, and yet you can retain remembrance of
a ridiculous dream! I thought dreams passed away with the night."
"Of course a great part of the vivid impression has passed with the
night," she replied, confessing what was the actual fact; "but I will
abide by the night's impression, nevertheless. I look at it in this
light--my remaining at home can hurt no one, it cannot bring harm in
any way, while my going may bring me harm; we cannot tell. I am fully
decided," she continued, in a firm tone; "and do you eat your
breakfast and cease staring at me."
"Perhaps you fear the train will come to grief, and pitch us all into
coffins made to fit your hearse."
"Well, I don't know," returned Clara. "If I did get into the train on
Sunday morning, I should be unusually pleased to find myself safe out
of it again."
Mr. Lake said no more; in this frame of mind reasoning was useless.
But he felt persuaded the fancy would wear away, and his wife go
contentedly enough with the rest of them.
Nothing more was said that day, which was Friday. On the next day,
Saturday, two of the Miss Jupps called on Clara, full of the following
morning's excursion. A large family was that of the Jupps--six sons
and six daughters, all living. The sons were out in the world--one in
the army, one in the navy, one in the church, one reading for the bar,
one here, one there; Oliver, the youngest of them, was just now at
home. The six daughters were all at home, and marrying men seemed to
fight shy of so large a host. Social, pleasant, chatty girls were
they, the youngest two-and-twenty, the age of the eldest locked up in
the church's register. Mr. and Mrs. Jupp were a quiet, inoffensive
couple, completely eclipsed by their sons and daughters; not that any
were undutiful, but the old people belonged to a bygone age, and were
scarcely equal to the innovations of this. Mr. Jupp had once been high
sheriff of the county: it was the one great event of the Jupps' life,
imparting to them an importance which their pride never quite lost
sight of. They lived in a large house abutting on the street of
Katterley, about five minutes' walk from Mr. Lake's.
Mary Ann and Margaret Jupp had come to gossip about the proposed
Sunday excursion. They were pleasant, voluble girls (to pay them
the compliment of still calling them girls), with light hazel eyes
and reddish hair. The sisters were all much alike--these two, the
eldest; Louisa and Rose, the youngest. They had on flimsy skirts,
nankeen-coloured jackets, and straw hats. They sat in the shady room
open to the trailing honeysuckles, talking to Clara.
"Our plans are changed," spoke Mary. "Oliver, Louisa, and Rose go
tomorrow, returning home to sleep, and I and Margaret go over the
next day."
"We think it would be so truly unconscionable to inflict four of us on
Mrs. Chester at once, with her few servants, that we have written to
tell her we will divide ourselves," interrupted Margaret, who liked to
have her share of tongue. "Mamma says she wondered at our
thoughtlessness when she heard us making the bargain."
"Mrs. Chester would not have made a trouble of it," answered Clara.
"She is not one to put herself out of the way."
"No, she is very good; but it would have been imposing on
hospitality," said Mary Jupp. "For that very reason, as mamma
observed, we ought to spare her. So Louisa and Rose spend Sunday with
her; I and Margaret Monday; Oliver goes both days."
"But you will remain for Tuesday?"
"No. Until she has her house in complete order it would be unfair to
trouble her with night guests. You and Mr. Lake of course will remain
the whole time. And now to deliver Louisa's message. Shall they call
for you here tomorrow morning, or will you be at the train?"
"I am not going," replied Mrs. Lake.
"Not going!" echoed Mary Jupp. "Good gracious! Why not?"
"It is not quite convenient. Mrs. Chester does not expect me."
"But she did expect you!" exclaimed Mary, in wonder. "Oliver saw Mr.
Lake that night after he had taken Mrs. Chester to the train, and he
told him you were going. Did you not?" she added, appealing to
Mr. Lake, who sat perched on a side table doing something to a
fishing-line.
"All right," nodded he.
"Yes, we did promise; but since then I have altered my mind, and have
written to Mrs. Chester," said Clara. "I shall go later, when she is
more settled."
"Well, I never heard of such a thing!" cried Margaret Jupp. "Oliver
and the girls will be in a way! I don't think they care to go but for
the pleasure of your company. Mr. Lake, why have you changed your
minds?"
"Ask Clara," returned he, without looking up. "It's her affair, not
mine."
The delicate pink in Clara Lake's cheeks grew a shade brighter as the
two ladies looked at her and awaited the explanation. Not choosing to
mention the dream, she was at a loss for any sound plea to make.
"I seem to have a prejudice against going tomorrow," she said, feeling
how lame were the words. "And--and I wrote to Mrs. Chester, telling
her not to expect me."
"How very odd!" cried Margaret Jupp. They were keen-sighted, those
girls, and felt sure there was some suppressed reason.
"The truth is, my wife has taken it into her head that Sunday
travelling is sinful," cried Mr. Lake, partly to help Clara out of her
dilemma, partly in the indulgence of the mocking spirit he liked so
well. "If we do venture to go tomorrow, in the teeth of the sin, she
thinks the engine will infallibly burst and blow us up."
Mrs. Lake felt vexed. It was precisely the fear her imagination
induced her to take. Unable to conceive any other probable danger, she
was unconsciously casting doubts on the safe convoy of the train. But
she had not confessed it to him.
"Do not talk nonsense," she said to her husband; and Mary and Margaret
Jupp looked from one to the other, not knowing what to think.
"My dear Mrs. Lake, they get to Guild for morning service, you know,"
spoke Margaret. "I don't see any great harm in going just that little
way on a Sunday morning."
"Robert is very stupid to say such things," returned Mrs. Lake, driven
into a corner. "I did not think anything about its being a sin. The
sin is not my objection."
"The train runs whether we passengers go in it or not; so that our
staying away is not of the least benefit in a religious point of
view," logically argued Mary Jupp. "Do pray go, Mrs. Lake."
"Not tomorrow," Clara gently said, shaking her head.
"Can't you induce her, Mr. Lake?"
"I! I have wasted all my powers of oratory; I have tried persuasion; I
have hinted at an illegitimate application of my riding-whip, and all
in vain. She's harder than a brickbat."
The young ladies laughed. "Dear Mrs. Lake, you must go, if only to
oblige us. Think of the disappointment to Louisa and Rose."
Clara remembered her dream: how Mary Ann and Margaret (the very two of
the sisters now present) had striven in it to persuade her. The
recollection only served to render her more firm. They began to fear
that there would be no prevailing, and felt half inclined to be
offended. "And yourself, Mr. Lake? Do you also remain at home?"
"Not I. I don't live in fear of the boiler's treachery."
"Of course I do not wish to prevent my husband's going," said Mrs.
Lake, hastily.
"Though you know you would rather I did not," he rejoined.
"Well, of course, if there is to be--as you say, though I don't--a
bursting of the boiler, it would be as bad for you to be in it as for
me," she said, affecting a light laugh. The truth was, she did wish he
would not go; she knew that she should feel more easy; though she
would not ask him to remain, lest it might seem selfish. The Miss
Jupps rose to leave.
"I hope you will think better of it," said Margaret. "Louisa was
saying this morning how glad she was Mrs. Lake was going. She has been
counting on you."
"Ah, well--she had better count upon me instead," cried Mr. Lake, as
he left his seat to attend them to the gate. "And mind you give my
love to Rose, and tell her I shall be a bachelor for the day."
"Don't forget that," put in Clara.
The two ladies walked away, commenting on what had passed. Clara Lake
was a poor actor, and her manner had betrayed that the true reason had
not been spoken. Margaret said she should put it down to "caprice;"
but both acknowledged that they had never known Mrs. Lake capricious
before.
Never did a more lovely day dawn than that Sunday in August. Not
another word upon the subject had been exchanged between Mr. Lake and
his wife since the visit of the Miss Jupps; she shunned it, feeling
half ashamed of herself for her persistent folly; he had given the
matter up for a bad job. After breakfast they stood together, looking
from the open window. The church bells rang out; Mr. Lake's time for
departure was drawing near.
"I must not miss the train," he carelessly observed. "'Twould be a
pity to lose the excursion such a morning as this."
"It is a most beautiful day," she sighed. "I almost envy you."
"Clara," he said, turning to her with a sudden seriousness of manner,
"I ask you to be yourself. Lay aside this folly, and act as a
reasonable woman ought. Put on your things and come with us."
She moved closer to him and spoke deprecatingly, "Do not be angry with
me, Robert; I believe I am doing right to remain away. I must remain."
"Well, of all the simpletons that ever walked, you are about the
worst," was his complimentary rejoinder as he caught up his gloves.
"Good-bye, Clary," he added, stooping to kiss her.
"Oh, Robert, I hope you will come back safely!" she said, clinging to
him as if she feared he was going away for ever; and the tone of her
voice, full of mournful wailing, struck upon the ear of her husband.
Nevertheless he went off laughing, telling her not to fear--that he'd
come back with all his legs and wings about him.
On the platform he met Louisa and Rose Jupp under the convoy of their
brother. "Then actually Mrs. Lake is _not_ coming!" exclaimed Louisa.
"And I have only come to see you off," was Mr. Lake's response. "I am
not going on to Guild."
"Oh, you barbarous deceiver!" quoth Rose. "Where are you going?"
"To church, as a respectable individual of modern society ought."
"I tell you what, Lake," interrupted Oliver Jupp, a dark, short young
man, quiet and sensible, "this is not fair. These girls entrapped me
into taking them, on the strength that you were to be one of the
party, and it's too bad to shuffle off it."
"So it is," returned Mr. Lake. "But you must talk to my wife about it.
I am the most hopelessly henpecked husband your worst fancy ever
pictured; Caudle was nothing to it."
The train went smoothly off, and Mr. Lake returned home. His wife was
leisurely attiring herself for church. She started when she saw him.
"Why, Robert, what has happened?"
"Nothing. The boiler has not gone up yet; that calamity is expected to
take place midway between here and Guild."
"Why have you come back?"
"I came back because I have got a silly child for my wife," he said,
standing in front of her, and speaking half tenderly, half severely.
"One who would have worried her foolish heart into a fever, had I
gone, believing I should never come back alive."
She wound her arms round him and pulled his face down to hers in her
fervent love, her tears falling upon it. "Oh, my darling! my dearest!
you don't know how happy you have made me!" she passionately
whispered. "How shall I thank you for giving way to my foolishness? I
_should_ have been in unhappy suspense all day long."
"I shan't give way to it the next time," cried he, as he kissed away
her tears. "And I have told the girls what a henpecked husband I am,
the slave of a capricious tyrant. Jupp won't be in a hurry to marry
after my warning example before his eyes."
"The next time!" she repeated, with a sad smile. "Robert, there will
be no next time. I shall never have such a dream again."
The Jupps went grumbling all the way to Guild. That is, the young
ladies grumbled, and their brother listened. The disappointment was
really great. Mr. and Mrs. Lake were great favourites with everybody;
just those people that make society brighter for their presence.
"Margaret says Clara Lake was taken with a capricious fit."
"Nonsense, Louisa!" spoke Oliver, at length. "She has too much innate
good feeling for caprice. Mrs. Chester has been at her domineering
ways, I expect, and frightened her poor little sister-in-law."
Guild reached, they found their way to Mrs. Chester's house, which was
just outside the town, some ten minutes' walk from the station. It was
a pretty place--old-fashioned but commodious; standing in the midst of
a productive garden, with windows opening to a large lawn. It used to
be called Guild Farm; Mrs. Chester had already changed that, and
rechristened it "Guild Lawn." She had it at a cheap rent. There were
two houses on the farm, and the farmer who rented the land lived in
the other: to let this was so much gain to him. Guild Rectory, where
Mrs. Chester had hitherto lived, was at the opposite end of the town.
The Reverend James Chester, her late husband, had been a poor curate
for the greater portion of his life. He, his first wife (who was a
cousin of the Jupps), and their only child, Anna, had lived on his
country curacy of one hundred a year. He had no residence; and none,
save themselves, knew the shifts they had been put to--the constant
scheming and contriving they had been forced to exercise to live as
gentlepeople and keep up appearances out of doors. His wife died; and,
close upon it, the bishop gave him the living of St. Thomas, at Guild.
Its emoluments were a small house and three hundred a year--great
riches, in the eyes of the Reverend James Chester. He next married
Penelope Hunter, who had two hundred a year of her own. Three children
were subsequently born, Fanny, Thomas, and James. When the girl was
ten years old and the youngest boy six, Mr. Chester died; and Mrs.
Chester was left with Anna and her own children on her hands, a little
good furniture and her two hundred a year to bring them up upon.
So--as she told her half-brother--she had to scheme to live: she took
this house, and hoped that would help her to do it.
"Well, and now what's the reason that Robert and Clara have not come?"
began Mrs. Chester, without any other greeting, as she stood, bonnet
and mantle on, to receive her guests. "I should like to know what
Clara means by it! I had the coolest letter from her!--just putting
off her visit to a future time, without saying with your leave or by
your leave."
Fine nuts for the Miss Jupps to crack! They hastily recounted what had
passed at their sisters' interview with Mrs. Lake, and her husband's
words at the train in the morning. There was no time for more.
"If you ask my opinion," said Louisa Jupp, as they hurried off to the
nearest church, "I should say that Mrs. Lake has acquired an objection
to Sunday travelling."
"What a crotchet!" concluded Mrs. Chester. "I never quite understood
my brother's wife."