A Retrospective Chapter. How Fortune's Toy and the Sport of
Circumstances fell in love with one of his Nurses. Prose
composition. Lady Upwell's majesty, and the Queen's.
No engagement. The African War, and Justifiable
Fratricide. Cain. Madeline's big dog Cæsar. Cats. Ormuzd
and Ahriman. A handy little Veldt. Madeline's Japanese
kimono. A discussion of the nature of Dreams. Never
mind Athenæus. Look at the Prophet Daniel. Sir
Stopleigh's great-aunt Dorothea's twins. The Circulating
Library and the potted shrimps. How Madeline read the
manuscript in bed, and took care not to set fire to the
curtains.
The story of Madeline, the young lady who is going
one day to inherit the picture Mr. Pelly thought
he was talking to last night, along with the Surley
Stakes property--for there is no male heir--is an
easy story to tell, and soon told. There were a
many stories of the sort, just as the clock of last
century struck its hundred.
Whether the young Captain Calverley, whom the
picture alluded to, was a hero because, when, one
day in the hunting-field, our young heiress and her
quadruped came to grief over a fence, he made his
horse swerve suddenly to avoid disastrous complications,
and thereby came to greater grief himself,
Mr. Pelly, at any rate, could form no judgment. It
was out of his line, he said. So, according to him,
was the sequel, in which the sadly mauled mortal
portion of the young soldier, with a doubt if the
immortal portion was still in residence, was carried
to Surley Stakes and qualified--though rather
slowly--to resume active service, by the skill of the
best of surgeons and the assiduity of an army of
nurses. But, hero or not, he was credited with
heroism by the young lady, with all the natural
consequences. And no doubt his convalescence
was all the more rapid that he found himself, when
he recovered his senses forty-eight hours after his
head struck the corner of a stone wall in his
involuntary dismount, in such very delightful
company, with such opportunities of improving his
relations with it. In fact, the scheme for his
removal must have developed very soon, to give him
a text for a sermon to the effect that he was
Fortune's Toy and the Sport of Circumstances, that he
accounted concussion of the brain and a fractured
thigh-bone the only real blessings his lot had ever
vouchsafed to him, and that happiness would
become a Thing of the Past as soon as he rejoined
his regiment. He would, however, devote the
remainder of his life to treasuring the memories of this
little hour of unalloyed bliss, and hoping that his
cherished recollections would at almost the rarest
possible intervals find an echo somehow and
somewhere that his adoration--badly in love as he
was--failed in finding a description for, as the climax of
a long sentence. And perhaps it was just as well
that his resources in prose composition gave out
when they did, as nothing was left then but to
become natural, and say, "You'll forget all about
me, Miss Upwell, you know you will. That's what
I meant"--the last with a consciousness that when
we are doing prose composition we are apt to say
one thing and mean another.
Madeline wasn't prepared to be artificial, with
this young dragoon or anyone else. She gave him
the full benefit of her large blue eyes--because, you
see, she had got him down, as it were, and he couldn't
possibly become demonstrative with a half-healed
fracture of the thigh--and said, "I hope I _shan't_.
I shall try not to, anyhow." But this seemed not
to give entire satisfaction, as the patient said, rather
ruefully, "_You could_, if you tried, Miss Upwell!" To
which the young lady, who was not without a
mischievous side to her character, answered, "Of
course I could!" but immediately repented, and
added. "One can do anything one likes, if one tries
hard enough, you know!"
It would only be the retelling of a very old
story, the retreading of very old ground, to follow
these young people through the remainder of their
interview, which was interrupted by the appearance
of Madeline's mamma; who, to say the truth, had
been getting apprehensive that so many _têtes-à-tête_
with this handsome patient might end seriously.
And though his family was good, he was only a
younger son; and she didn't want her daughter to
marry a soldier. Fancy "Mad" being carried off
to India! For in the bosom of her family this
most uncomfortable of namelets had caught on
naturally, without imputation of Hanwell or Colney
Hatch.
However, her ladyship was too late, this time. No
clinical practice of any Hospital includes kissing or
being kissed by the patient, and "Mad" and her
lover were fairly caught. Nothing was left for it
but confession at high tension, and throwing
ourselves on the mercy of the Court. But always with
the distinct reservation that neither of us could
ever love another.
Lady Upwell, a very beautiful woman in her day,
was indulging in a beautiful sunset, and meant to
remain fine till midnight. There was a gleam of
the yellow silver of a big harvest moon in the hair
that had been gold. She was good, but very
majestic; in fact, _her_ majesty, when she presented
her daughter to her Queen, competed with that of
the latter, which has passed into the language. To
do her justice, she let it lapse on hearing the full
disclosure of these two culprits, and had the presence
of mind to ask them if they had no suspicion that
they might be a couple of young fools, to fancy they
could know their own minds on so short an acquaintance,
etc. For this was barely seven weeks after
the hunting-field accident. "You silly geese!" she
said. "Go your own way--but you'll quarrel in
a fortnight. See if you don't!" _She_ knew all
about this sort of thing, though Mr. Pelly didn't.
The latter was right, however, and prudent, when
in his dream he laid stress on the wish of Madeline's
parents that there should be "no engagement." This
stipulation seemed to be accounted by both
of them--but especially by the Baronet--as a sort
of panacea for all parental responsibilities. It could
not be reiterated too often. The consequence was
that there were two concurrent determinations of
the relative positions of Madeline and the Captain;
one an esoteric one--a sort of sacramental
service of perpetual vows of fidelity; the other the
exoteric proclamations of a kind of many-headed
town-crier, who went about ringing his bell and
shouting that it was "distinctly understood that
there was no engagement." Mr. Pelly's repetition
of this in his dream may have had an intransitive
character; but he was good and prudent, just the
same. How we behave in dreams shows whether
the high qualities we pride ourselves on are more
than skin-deep.
But all the efforts of the exoteric town-crier were
of no avail against the esoteric sacramental services.
The most unsettling condition lovers can have
imposed upon them--that of being left entirely to their
own devices, and never stimulated by so much as a
hint of a _chaperon_--failed to bring about a coolness.
And when within a year after his accident Jack
Calverley was ordered away with his Company to
South Africa, where war had all but broken out,
the sacramental service the picture--or someone--had
witnessed, just by the glass case with the big
fish in it, was the farewell of a couple of
heartbreaks, kept under by the upspring of Hope in
youth, that clings to the creed that the stricken
classes, the mourning classes, are Other People, and
that to them pity shall be given from within our
pale of well-fenced security. It was a wrench to
part, certainly, but Jack would come back, and be
a great soldier and wear medals. And the Other
People would die for their country.
And then came the war, and the many unpleasant
discoveries that always come with a war,
the most unpleasant of all being the discovery of
the strength of the enemy. The usual recognitions
of the obvious, too late; and the usual denunciations
of everybody else for not having foreseen it all the
time. The usual rush to the money-chest of
unexhausted Credit, to make good with pounds
deficiencies shillings spent in time would have
supplied; the usual storms of indignation against
the incompetence in high places that never spent,
in time, the shillings we refused to provide. The
usual war-whoops from sheltered corners, safe out
of gunshot; and the usual deaths by scores of men
on both sides who never felt a pang of ill-feeling to
each other, or knew the cause of quarrel--yes, a
many of whom, had they known a quarrel was
pending, would have given their lives to avert it!
The usual bearing, on both sides, of the brunt of the
whirlwind by those who never sowed a wind-seed,
and the usual reaping of a golden harvest by the
Judicious Investor, he who buys and sells, but
makes and meddles not with what he sells or buys,
measuring its value alone by what he can get and
must give for it. And a very respectable person
he is, too.
The history of Madeline's next few months made
up for her a tale of anxious waitings for many mails;
of pangs of unendurable tension over journals that,
surrendered by the postman, would not open; that,
opened at last, seemed nothing but advertisements;
that, run to earth and convicted of telegrams, only
yielded new food for anxiety. A tale of three
periods of expectation of letters from Jack, by every
mail. The first of expectation fulfilled; of letters full
of hope and confidence, of forecast of victories easily
won and a triumphant quick return. The second
of expectation damped and thwarted; of victories
revised; of Hope's rebukes to Confidence, the
coward who fails us at our need; of the slow dawn
of the true horrors of war--mere death on the
battlefield the least of them--that will one day change
the reckless young soldier to an old grave man that
has learned his lesson, and knows that the curse of
Cain is on him who stirs to War, and that half the
great names of History have been borne by Devils
incarnate. And then the third--a weary time of
waiting for a letter that came not, for only one little
word of news to say _yes_ or _no_ to the question we
hardly dare to ask:--"Is he dead?" For our poor
young friend, after distinguishing himself brilliantly,
and yet coming almost scathless out of more than
one action, was _missing_. When the roll was called
after a memorable action from which the two
opponent armies retreated simultaneously, able to
bear the slaughter by unseen guns no longer, no
answer came to the name--called formally--of
Captain Calverley. The survivors who still had
breath to answer to their names already knew that
he was missing--knew that he was last seen apparently
carried away by his horse, having lost control
over it--probably wounded, said report. That was
all--soon told! And then followed terrible hours
that should have brought more news and did not.
And the hearts of those who watched for it went
sick with the fear that no news would ever come,
that none would ever know the end of that ride
and the vanished rider. But each heart hid away
its sickness from its neighbour, and would not tell.
And so the days passed, and each day's end was
the grafting of a fresh despair in the tree nourished
in the soil of buried hopes; and each morning
Madeline would try to reason it away and discover
some new calendar rule, bringing miscalculation to
book--always cutting short the tale of days, never
lengthening them. She talked very little to
anyone about it, for fear her houses of cards should be
shaken down by stern common sense; or, worse
still, that she should be chilled by the hesitating
sympathy of half-hearted Hope. But her speech
was free to her great dog Cæsar, when they were
alone together.
Cæsar was about the size of a small cart-horse,
and when he had a mind--and he often had--to lie
on the hearthrug, and think with his eyes shut, he
was difficult to move. Not that he had an opposive
or lazy disposition, but that it was not easy to make
him understand. The moment he knew what was
wanted of him he was only too anxious to comply.
As, for instance, if he could be convinced of Cats,
he would rise and leave the room abruptly, knocking
several persons down, and leaving behind him the
trail of an earthquake. But his heart was good and
pure, and he impressed his admirers somehow that
he was always on the side of Ormuzd against
Ahriman: he always took part with the Right.
So Madeline, when she found herself alone with
Cæsar, in those days, would cry into his fur as he
lay on the rug, and would put sentiments of
sympathy and commiseration into his mouth, which
may have been warranted by the facts, only really
there was nothing to show it. In these passages
she alleged kinship with Cæsar, claiming him as her
son.
"Was he," she would say, "his own mamma's
precious Angel? And the only person in the house
that had any real feeling! All the other nasty
people keep on being sorry for her, and he says he
knows Jack's coming back, and nobody need be
sorry at all. And when Jack comes home safe and
well, his mamma's own Heavenly Angel shall run
with the horses all over Household Common--he
shall! And he shall catch a swallow at last, he
shall, and bring it to his own mamma. Bless him!
Only he mustn't scratch his darling head too
suddenly; at least, not till his mamma can get her own
out of the way, because she's not a bull or an
elephant, and able to stand anything.... That's
right, my pet! Now he shall try and get a little
sleep, he shall." This was acknowledgment of a
deep sigh, as of one who had at last deservedly
found rest. But it called for a recognition of its
unselfish nature, too. "And he never so much as
thought of going to sleep till he'd consoled his poor
mamma--the darling!" And really her interviews
with Cæsar grew to be almost Madeline's only speech
about her lost lover; for her father and mother,
though they talked to each other, scarcely dared
to say a word to her, lest their own disbelief
in the possibility of Jack's return should show itself.
And so the hours passed and passed, and the days
grew to weeks, and the weeks to months; and now, at
the time of the cold January night when Mr. Pelly
dreamed the picture talked, the flame of Hope was
dying down in the girl's tired heart like the embers
he sat by, and none came bringing fuel and a new
lease of life.
But the way she nursed the flame that flickered
still was brave. She kept up her spirits entirely
on the knowledge that there was no direct proof of
Jack's death. She fostered a conception in her
mind of a perfectly imaginary Veldt, about the size
of Hyde Park, and carefully patrolled day and
night. They would have been certain to find
him if he were dead--was her thought. What
a handy little Veldt that was!--and, oh, the
intolerable leagues of the reality! But it did
help towards keeping her spirits up, somehow or
other.
Her father and mother ascribed more than a fair
share of these kept-up spirits to their great panacea.
They laid to their souls the flattering unction that
if there _had_ been a regular engagement their daughter
would have given way altogether. Think what a
difference it would have made if she had had to go
into mourning! Lady Upwell took exception to
the behaviour of Jack's family at Calverley Court,
who had rushed into mourning six weeks after his
disappearance, and advertised their belief in his
death, really before there was any need for it. Her
daughter, on the contrary, rather made a parade of
being out of mourning. Perhaps it seemed to her
to emphasize and consolidate her own hopes, as
well as to rebuke dispositions towards premature
despair in others.
Therefore, when this young lady came upon old
Mr. Pelly, just aroused from his dream, she was
certainly not clad in sackcloth and ashes. She had
on her rose colour _voile de soie_; only, of course,
Mr. Pelly didn't see it until she took off her seal-colour
musquash wrap, which was quite necessary because
of the cold. And the third evening after that,
which was to be a quiet one at home for Mr. Pelly
to read them the memoranda of his dream in the
Library, she put on her Jap kimono with the
embroidered storks, which was really nearly as smart
as the _voile de soie_; and, of course, there was no need
to fig up, when it was only Mr. Pelly. And
whatever tale her looks might tell, no one could have
guessed from her manner she had such a sorrow at
heart, so successfully did she affect, from fear of
it, a cheerfulness she was far from feeling; knowing
perfectly well that if she made any concession, she
must needs break down altogether.
"Fancy your being able to remember it all, and
write it out like that!" said she to Mr. Pelly when
they adjourned into the Library after dinner.
"We must bear in mind," he replied, "that the
story is a figment of my own mind, and therefore
easier to recall than a communication from another
person. Athenæus refers to an instance of..."
"Never mind Athenæus! How do you know it
is a figment of your imagination?"
"What else can it be?"
"Lots of things. Besides, it doesn't matter.
Look here, now, you say it was a dream, don't you?"
"I certainly think so."
"Well!--and aren't dreams the hardest things to
recollect there are? Look at the Prophet Daniel,
and Nebuchadnezzar." Mr. Pelly thought to
himself that he would much sooner look at the speaker.
But he only said, "Suppose we do!" To which
the reply was, "Well, then--of course!..."
"Of course what?"
"Why--of course when you can recollect things
that proves they're not dreams."
"Then, when Daniel recollected--or, I should
rather say, recalled his dream to Nebuchadnezzar--did
that prove that it wasn't a dream?"
"Certainly not, because he was a Prophet. The
Chaldeans _couldn't_ recollect, and that proved that
it was."
The Baronet and his Lady remained superiorly
silent, smiling over the heads of the discussion.
The attitude of Debrett towards human weaknesses--such
as Philosophical Speculation, or the Use of
the Globes--was indicated.
When Mr. Pelly had finished reading his account
of the dream--on which our relation of it, already
given, was founded--discussion ensued. It
embodied, intelligently enough, all the things that it
is dutiful to say when we are disconcerted at the
inscrutable.
The Baronet said we must guard ourselves
carefully against being carried away by two or three
things; superstition was one of them. It did not
require a Scientific Eye to see that there was nothing
in this narrative which might not be easily ascribed
to the subconscious action of Mr. Pelly's brain.
It was quite otherwise in such a case as that of his
great-aunt, Dorothea, whose wraith undoubtedly
appeared and took refreshment at Knaresborough
Copping at the very time that she was confined of
twins here in this house. The testimony to the
truth of this had never been challenged. But when
people came and told him stories of substantial
tables floating in the air and accordions being
played, he always asked this one question, "Was
it in the dark?" That question always proved a
poser, etc., etc.--and so forth. From which it
will be seen that Sir Stopleigh belonged to that
numerous class of persons which, when its attention
turns towards wondermongering of any sort, loses
its heads promptly, and runs through the nearest
available gamut of accepted phrases.
Her ladyship said she was not the least surprised
at anything happening in a dream. She herself
dreamed only the other night that Lady Pirbright
had gone up in a balloon shaped like a gridiron, and
the very next day came the news that old Canon
Pirbright, at Trenchards Plaistowe, had had a
paralytic stroke. It was impossible to account for
these things. The only wonder to her was that
Mr. Pelly should have recollected the whole so plainly,
and been able to write it down. She would give
anything to recollect that dream about the
Circulating Library and the potted shrimps. Her
ladyship discoursed for some time about her own
dreams.
Mr. Pelly entirely concurred in the view that the
whole thing was a dream. In fact, it would be
absurd to suppose it anything else. When he got
an opportunity to read Professor Schrudengesser's
translation of the Italian MS. to his friends, they
would readily see the source of most of the events
his mind had automatically woven into a
continuous narrative for the picture-woman to tell.
He would rather read it to them himself than leave
them the MS. to read, as there were points that
would require explanation. He could not offer to
do so till he came back from his great-grandniece
Constance's wedding at Cowcester. A little delay
would not matter. They would not have forgotten
the dream-story in a fortnight. To this, assent was
given in chorus.
But Madeline was not going to have the story
pooh-poohed and made light of. "I believe it was
a _ghost_, Uncle Christopher," said she. "The ghost
of the woman in the picture. And you christened
her after me by subconscious thingummy. _Maddalena's_
Italian for Madeline. But they never give
their names right. Ask anyone that has
phenomena." Then she lit candles for all parties to
go to bed, and kissed them all, including her alleged
uncle, who laid stress on his claim for this grace in
duplicate, as he had no one to kiss him at home.
"Poor Uncle Christopher," said she, "he's been shut
up in the dark with a ghost.... Oh yes!--I'm in
earnest, and you're all a parcel of sillies." Then
she borrowed his written account of the dream to
re-read in bed, and take care the lamp didn't set
fire to the curtains. She said she particularly
wanted to look at that last sentence or two, about
when the picture was in Chelsea.