The front door was open; she heard her father calling. But she felt
she could not see him, she must hide from his sight, and dashing
upstairs she double-locked her door.
The sky was still flushed, there was light upon the sea, but the room
was dim and quiet. Her room! she had lived in many years, had seen it
under all aspects; then why did she look with strained eyes? Why did
she shrink? Nothing has been changed.
There is her little narrow bed, and her little book-case full of
novels and prayer-books; there is her work-basket by the fireplace, by
the fireplace closed in with curtains that she herself embroidered;
above her pillow there is a crucifix; there are photographs of the
Miss Austins, and pictures of pretty children, cut from the Christmas
numbers, on the walls. She started at the sight of these familiar
objects, and trembled in the room which she had thought of as a haven
of refuge. Why? She didn't know; something that is at once remembrance
and suspicion filled her mind, and she asked if this was her room?
She sighed, and approaching her bedside, raised her hands to her neck.
It was the instinctive movement of undressing. But she did not
unbutton her collar. Resuming her walk, she picked up a blossom that
had fallen from the fuchsia. She walked to and fro. Then she threw
herself on her bed and closed her eyes.... She slept, and then the
moonlight showed her face convulsed. She is the victim of a dream.
Something follows her--she knows not what. She dare not look round.
She falls over great leaves. She falls into the clefts of ruined
tombs, and her hands, as she attempts to rise, are laid on sleeping
snakes; they turn to attack her; they glide away and disappear in moss
and inscriptions.
Before her the trees extend in complex colonnades, silent ruins are
grown through with giant roots, and about the mysterious entrances of
the crypts there lingers yet the odour of ancient sacrifices. The stem
of a rare column rises amid the branches, the fragment of an arch
hangs over and is supported by a dismantled tree trunk. And through
the torrid twilight of the approaching storm the cry of the hyena is
heard. The claws of the hyena are heard upon the crumbling tombs and
the suffocating girl strives with her last strength to free herself
from the thrall of the great lianas. But there comes a hirsute smell;
she turns with terrified eyes to plead, but meets only dull, liquorish
eyes, and the breath of the obscene animal is hot on her face.
She sprang from her bed. Was there any one in her room? No, only the
moonlight. 'But the forest, the wild animal--was it then only a
dream?' the girl thought. 'It was only a dream, a horrible dream, but
after all, only a dream.' Then a voice within her said, 'But all was
not a dream--there was something that was worse than the dream.'
She walked to and fro, and when she lay down her eyelids strove
against sleep. But sleep came again, and her dream was of a brown and
yellow serpent. She saw it from afar rearing its tawny hide, scenting
its prey.
She takes refuge in the rosery. How will she save herself? By plucking
roses and building a. wall between her and it. So she collects huge
bouquets, armfuls of beautiful flowers, garlands and wreaths. The
flower-wall rises, and hoping to combat the fury of the beast with
purity, she goes whither snowy blossoms bloom in clustering millions.
She gathers them in haste; her arms and hands stream with blood, but
she pays no heed, and as the snake surmounts one barricade she builds
another. But the reptile leans over the roses. The long, thin neck is
upon her; she feels the horrid strength of the coils as they curl and
slip about her, drawing her whole life into one knotted and loathsome
embrace. Then she knows not how, but while the roses fall in a red and
white rain about her she escapes from the stench of the scaly hide,
from the strength of the coils.
And, without any transition in place or time, she finds herself
listening to the sound of rippling water. There is an iron drinking-
cup close to her hand. She seems to recognise the spot. It is
Shoreham. There are the streets she knows so well, the masts of the
vessels, the downs. But something darkens the sunlight, the tawny body
of the snake oscillates, the people cry to her to escape. She flies
along the streets, like the wind she seems to pass. She calls for
help. Sometimes the crowds are stationary, as if frozen into stone,
sometimes they follow the snake and attack it with sticks and knives.
One man with colossal shoulders wields a great sabre; it flashes about
him like lightning. Will he kill it? He turns, chases a dog, and
disappears. The people too have disappeared. She is now flying along a
wild plain covered with coarse grass and wild poppies. The snake is
near her, and there is no one to whom she can call for help. But the
sea is in front of her. She will escape down the rocks--there is still
a chance! The descent is sheer, but somehow she retains foothold. Then
the snake drops--she feels its weight upon her, and with a shriek she
awakes.
The moon hung over the sea, the sea flowed with silver, the world was
as chill as an icicle.
'The roses, the snake, the cliff's edge, was it then only a dream?'
the girl thought. 'It was only a dream, a terrible dream, but after
all only a dream!' Then a voice within her said, 'But all was not a
dream--there was something that was worse than the dream.'
She uttered a low cry--she moaned. She drew herself up on her bed, and
lay with her face buried in the pillow. Again she fought against
sleep, but sleep came again, and in overpowering dream she lay as if
dead. And she sees herself dead. All her friends are about her
crowning her with flowers, beautiful garlands of white roses. They
dress her in a long white robe, white as the snowiest cloud in heaven,
and it lies in long, straight plaits about her limbs, like the robes
of those who lie in marble in cathedral aisles. It falls over her
feet, her hands are crossed over her breast, and all praise in low but
ardent words the excessive whiteness of the garment. For none but she
sees that there is a black spot upon the robe which they believe to be
immaculate. She would warn them of their error, but she cannot; and
when they avert their faces to wipe away their tears, the stain might
be easily seen, but as they continue their last offices, folds or
flowers fall over the stain and hide it from view.
It is great pain to her to find herself unable to tell them of their
error; for she well knows that when she is placed in the tomb, and the
angels come, that they will not fail to perceive the stain, and seeing
it, they will not fail to be shocked and sorrowful--and seeing it they
will turn away weeping, saying, 'She is not for us, alas! she is not
for us!' And Kitty, who is conscious of this fatal oversight, the
results of which she so clearly foresees, is grievously afflicted, and
she makes every effort to warn her friends of their error. But there
is one amid the mourners who knows that she is endeavouring to tell of
the black stain. And this one, whose face she cannot readily
distinguish, maliciously, and with diabolical ingenuity, withdraws the
attention of the others, so that they do not see it.
And so it befell her to be buried in the stained robe. And she is
taken away amid flowers and white cloths to a white tomb, where
incense is burning, and where the walls are hung with votive wreaths,
and things commemorative of virginal life. But upon all these, upon
the flowers and images alike, there is some small stain which none
sees but she and the one in shadow, the one whose face she cannot
recognise. And although she is nailed fast in her coffin, she sees
these stains vividly, and the one whose face she cannot recognise sees
them too. And this is certain, for the shadow of the face is stirred
by laughter.
The mourners go; the evening darkens; the wild sunset floats for a
while through the western heavens; the cemetery becomes a deep green,
and in the wind that blows out of heaven the cypresses rock like
things sad and mute. Then the blue night comes with stars in her
tresses, and out of those stars angels float softly; their white feet
hanging out of blown folds, their wings pointing to the stars. And
from out of the earth, out of the mist--but whence and how it is
impossible to say--there come other angels, dark of hue and foul
smelling. But the white angels carry swords, and they wave these
swords, and the scene is reflected in them as in a mirror; the dark
angels cower in a corner of the cemetery, but they do not utterly
retire.
The tomb mysteriously opens, and the white angels enter the tomb. And
the coffin is opened and the girl trembles lest the angels should
discover the stain she knew of. But lo! to her great joy they do not
see it, and they bear her away through the blue night, through the
stars of heaven. And it is not until one whose face she cannot
recognise, and whose presence among the angels of heaven she cannot
comprehend, steals away one of the garlands with which she is
entwined, that the fatal stain becomes visible. Then relinquishing
their burden, the angels break into song, and the song they sing is
one of grief; it travels through the spaces of heaven; she listens to
its wailing echoes as she falls--as she falls towards the sea where
the dark angels are waiting for her; and as she falls she leans with
reverted neck and strives to see their faces, and as she nears them
she distinguishes one.
'Save me, save me!' she cried; and, bewildered and dazed with the
dream, she stared on the room, now chill with summer dawn. Again she
murmured, 'It was only a dream, it was only a dream;' again a sort of
presentiment of happiness spread like light through her mind, and
again the voice within her said, 'But all was not a dream--there was
something that was worse than the dream.' And with despair in her
heart she sat watching the cold sky turn to blue, the delicate, bright
blue of morning, and the garden grow into yellow and purple and red.
She did not weep, nor did she moan. She sat thinking. She dwelt on the
remembrance of the hills and the tramp with strange persistency, and
yet no more now than before did she attempt to come to conclusions
with her thought; it was vague, she would not define it; she brooded
over it sullenly and obtusely. Sometimes her thoughts slipped away
from it, but with each returning a fresh stage was marked in the
progress of her nervous despair.
And so the hours went by. At eight o'clock the maid knocked at the
door. Kitty opened it mechanically, and she fell into the woman's
arms, weeping, sobbing. The sight of the female face brought relief;
it interrupted the jarred and strained sense of the horrible; the
secret affinities of sex quickened within her. The woman's presence
filled Kitty with the feelings that the harmlessness of a lamb or a
soft bird inspires.