I got back to my hotel in the Rue de la MichodiÈre.
Prostrate with emotion and fatigue, the tarantella still jingling in my ears, and that haunting, beloved face, with its ineffable smile still printed on the retina of my closed eyes, I fell asleep.
And then I dreamed a dream, and the first phase of my real, inner life began!
All the events of the day, distorted and exaggerated and jumbled together after the usual manner of dreams, wove themselves into a kind of nightmare and oppression. I was on my way to my old abode: everything that I met or saw was grotesque and impossible, yet had now the strange, vague charm of association and reminiscence, now the distressing sense of change and loss and desolation.
As I got near to the avenue gate, instead of the school on my left there was a prison; and at the door a little thick-set jailer, three feet high and much deformed, and a little deformed jaileress no bigger than himself, were cunningly watching me out of the corners of their eyes, and toothlessly smiling. Presently they began to waltz together to an old, familiar tune, with their enormous keys dangling at their sides; and they looked so funny that I laughed and applauded. But soon I perceived that their crooked faces were not really funny; indeed, they were fatal and terrible in the extreme, and I was soon conscious that these deadly dwarfs were trying to waltz between me and the avenue gate for which I was bound—to cut me off, that they might run me into the prison, where it was their custom to hang people of a Monday morning.
In an agony of terror I made a rush for the avenue gate, and there stood the Duchess of Towers, with mild surprise in her eyes and a kind smile—a heavenly vision of strength and reality.
"You are not dreaming true!" she said. "Don't be afraid—those little people don't exist! Give me your hand and come in here."
And as I did so she waved the troglodytes away, and they vanished; and I felt that this was no longer a dream, but something else—some strange thing that had happened to me, some new life that I had woke up to.
For at the touch of her hand my consciousness, my sense of being I, myself, which hitherto in my dream (as in all previous dreams up to then) had been only partial, intermittent, and vague, suddenly blazed into full, consistent, practical activity—just as it is in life, when one is well awake and much interested in what is going on—only with perceptions far keener and more alert.
I knew perfectly who I was and what I was, and remembered all the events of the previous day. I was conscious that my real body, undressed and in bed, now lay fast asleep in a small room on the fourth floor of an hÔtel garni in the Rue de la MichodiÈre. I knew this perfectly; and yet here was my body, too, just as substantial, with all my clothes on; my boots rather dusty, my shirt-collar damp with the heat, for it was hot. With my disengaged hand I felt in my trousers-pocket; there were my London latch-keys, my purse, my penknife; my handkerchief in the breastpocket of my coat, and in its tail-pockets my gloves and pipe-case, and the little water-color box I had bought that morning. I looked at my watch; it was going, and marked eleven. I pinched myself, I coughed, I did all one usually does under the pressure of some immense surprise, to assure myself that I was awake; and I was, and yet here I stood, actually hand in hand with a great lady to whom I had never been introduced (and who seemed much tickled at my confusion); and staring now at her, now at my old school.
The prison had tumbled down like a house of cards, and loi! in its place was M. Saindou's maison d'Éducation, just as it had been of old. I even recognized on the yellow wall the stamp of a hand in dry mud, made fifteen years ago by a day boy called Parisot, who had fallen down in the gutter close by, and thus left his mark on getting up again; and it had remained there for months, till it had been whitewashed away in the holidays. Here it was anew, after fifteen years.
The swallows were flying and twittering. A yellow omnibus was drawn up to the gates of the school; the horses stamped and neighed, and bit each other, as French horses always did in those days. The driver swore at them perfunctorily.
A crowd was looking on—le PÈre et la MÈre FranÇois, Madame Liard, the grocer's wife, and other people, whom I remembered at once with delight. Just in front of us a small boy and girl were looking on, like the rest, and I recognized the back and the cropped head and thin legs of Mimsey Seraskier.
A barrel-organ was playing a pretty tune I knew quite well, and had forgotten.
The school gates opened, and M. Saindou, proud and full of self-importance (as he always was), and half a dozen boys whose faces and names were quite familiar to me, in smart white trousers and shining boots, and silken white bands round their left arms, got into the omnibus, and were driven away in a glorified manner—as it seemed—to heaven in a golden chariot. It was beautiful to see and hear.
I was still holding the duchess's hand, and felt the warmth of it through her glove; it stole up my arm like a magnetic current. I was in Elysium; a heavenly sense had come over me that at last my periphery had been victoriously invaded by a spirit other than mine—a most powerful and beneficent spirit. There was a blessed fault in my impenetrable armor of self, after all, and the genius of strength and charity and loving-kindness had found it out.
"Now you're dreaming true," she said. "Where are those boys going?"
"To church, to make their premiÈre communion," I replied.
"That's right. You're dreaming true because I've got you by the hand. Do you know that tune?"
I listened, and the words belonging to it came out of the past and I said them to her, and she laughed again, with her eyes screwed up deliciously.
"Quite right—quite!" she exclaimed. "How odd that you should know them! How well you pronounce French for an Englishman! For you are Mr. Ibbetson, Lady Cray's architect?"
I assented, and she let go my hand.
The street was full of people—familiar forms and faces and voices, chatting together and looking down the road after the yellow omnibus; old attitudes, old tricks of gait and manner, old forgotten French ways of speech—all as it was long ago. Nobody noticed us, and we walked up the now deserted avenue.
The happiness, the enchantment of it all! Could it be that I was dead, that I had died suddenly in my sleep, at the hotel in the Rue de la MichodiÈre! Could it be that the Duchess of Towers was dead too—had been killed by some accident on her way from St. Cloud to Paris? and that, both having died so near each other, we had begun our eternal afterlife in this heavenly fashion?
That was too good to be true, I reflected; some instinct told me that this was not death, but transcendent earthly life—and also, alas! that it would not endure forever!
I was deeply conscious of every feature in her face, every movement of her body, every detail of her dress—more so then I could have been in actual life—and said to myself, "Whatever this is, it is no dream." But I felt there was about me the unspeakable elation which can come to us only in our waking moments when we are at our very best; and then only feebly, in comparison with this, and to many of us never, ft never had to me, since that morning when I had found the little wheelbarrow.
I was also conscious, however, that the avenue itself had a slight touch of the dream in it. It was no longer quite right, and was getting out of drawing and perspective, so to speak. I had lost my stay—the touch of her hand.
"Are you still dreaming true, Mr. Ibbetson?"
"I am afraid not quite," I replied.
"You must try by yourself a little—try hard. Look at this house; what is written on the portico?"
I saw written in gold letters the words, "TÊte Noire," and said so.
[Illustration]
She rippled with laughter, and said, "No; try again"; and just touched me with the tip of her finger for a moment.
I tried again and said, "Parvis Notre Dame."
"That's rather better," she said, and touched me again; and I read, "Parva sed Apta," as I had so often read there before in old days.
"And now look at that old house over there," pointing to my old home; "how many windows are there in the top story?"
I said seven.
"No; there are five. Look again!" and there were five; and the whole house was exactly, down to its minutest detail, as it had been once upon a time. I could see ThÉrÈse through one of the windows, making my bed.
"That's better," said the duchess; "you will soon do it—it's very easy—ce n'est que le premier pas! My father taught me; you must always sleep on your back with your arms above your head, your hands clasped under it and your feet crossed, the right one over the left, unless you are left-handed; and you must never for a moment cease thinking of where you want to be in your dream till you are asleep and get there; and you must never forget in your dream where and what you were when awake. You must join the dream on to reality. Don't forget. And now I will say good-bye; but before I go give me both hands and look round everywhere as far as your eyes can see."
It was hard to look away from her; her face drew my eyes, and through them all my heart; but I did as she told me, and took in the whole familiar scene, even to the distant woods of Ville d'Avray, a glimpse of which was visible through an opening in the trees; even to the smoke of a train making its way to Versailles, miles off; and the old telegraph, working its black arms on the top of Mont ValÉrien.
[Illustration: "It was hard to look away from her."]
"Is it all right?" she asked. "That's well. Henceforward, whenever you come here, you will be safe as far as your sight can reach—from this spot—all through my introduction. See what it is to have a friend at court! No more little dancing jailers! And then you can gradually get farther by yourself.
"Out there, through that park, leads to the Bois de Boulogne—there's a gap in the hedge you can get through; but mind and make everything plain in front of you—true, before you go a step farther, or else you'll have to wake and begin it all over again. You have only to will it, and think of yourself as awake, and it will come—on condition, of course, that you have been there before. And mind, also, you must take care how you touch things or people—you may hear, and see, and smell; but you mustn't touch, nor pick flowers or leaves, nor move things about. It blurs the dream, like breathing on a window-pane. I don't know why, but it does. You must remember that everything here is dead and gone by. With you and me it is different; we're alive and real—that is, I am; and there would seem to be no mistake about your being real too, Mr. Ibbetson, by the grasp of your hands. But you're not; and why you are here, and what business you have in this, my particular dream, I cannot understand; no living person has ever come into it before. I can't make it out. I suppose it's because I saw your reality this afternoon, looking out of the window at the 'TÊte Noire,' and you are just a stray figment of my overtired brain—a very agreeable figment, I admit; but you don't exist here just now—you can't possibly; you are somewhere else, Mr. Ibbetson; dancing at Mabille, perhaps, or fast asleep somewhere, and dreaming of French churches and palaces, and public fountains, like a good young British architect—otherwise I shouldn't talk to you like this, you may be sure!
"Never mind. I am very glad to dream that I have been of use to you, and you are very welcome here, if it amuses you to come—especially as you are only a false dream of mine, for what else can you be? And now I must leave you, so good-bye."
She disengaged her hands, and laughed her angelic laugh, and then turned towards the park. I watched her tall, straight figure and blowing skirts, and saw her follow some ladies and children into a thicket that I remembered well, and she was soon out of sight.
I felt as if all warmth had gone out of my life; as if a joy had taken flight; as if a precious something had withdrawn itself from my possession, and the gap in my periphery had closed again.
Long I stood in thought, with my eyes fixed on the spot where she had disappeared; and I felt inclined to follow, but then considered this would not have been discreet. For although she was only a false dream of mine, a mere recollection of the exciting and eventful day, a stray figment of my overtired and excited brain—a more than agreeable figment (what else could she be!)—she was also a great lady, and had treated me, a perfect stranger and a perfect nobody, with singular courtesy and kindness; which I repaid, it is true, with a love so deep and strong that my very life was hers, to do what she liked with, and always had been since I first saw her, and always would be as long as there was breath in my body! But this did not constitute an acquaintance without a proper introduction, even in France—even in a dream. Even in dreams one must be polite, even to stray figments of one's tired, sleeping brain.
And then what business had she, in this, my particular dream—as she herself had asked of me?
But was it a dream? I remembered my lodgings at Pentonville, that I had left yesterday morning. I remembered what I was—why I came to Paris; I remembered the very bedroom at the Paris hotel where I was now fast asleep, its loudly-ticking clock, and all the meagre furniture. And here was I, broad awake and conscious, in the middle of an old avenue that had long ceased to exist—that had been built over by a huge brick edifice covered with newly-painted trellis-work. I saw it, this edifice, myself, only twelve hours ago. And yet here was everything as it had been when I was a child; and all through the agency of this solid phantom of a lovely young English duchess, whose warm gloved hands I had only this minute been holding in mine! The scent of her gloves was still in my palm. I looked at my watch; it marked twenty-three minutes to twelve. All this had happened in less than three-quarters of an hour!
Pondering over all this in hopeless bewilderment, I turned my steps towards my old home, and, to my surprise, was just able to look over the garden wall, which I had once thought about ten feet high.
Under the old apple-tree in full bloom sat my mother, darning small socks; with her flaxen side-curls (as it was her fashion to wear them) half-concealing her face. My emotion and astonishment were immense. My heart beat fast. I felt its pulse in my temples, and my breath was short.
At a little green table that I remembered well sat a small boy, rather quaintly dressed in a by-gone fashion, with a frill round his wide shirt-collar, and his golden hair cut quite close at the top, and rather long at the sides and back. It was Gogo Pasquier. He seemed a very nice little boy. He had pen and ink and copy-book before him, and a gilt-edged volume bound in red morocco. I knew it at a glance; it was Elegant Extracts. The dog MÉdor lay asleep in the shade. The bees were droning among the nasturtiums and convolvulus.
A little girl ran up the avenue from the porter's lodge and pushed the garden gate, which rang the bell as it opened, and she went into the garden, and I followed her; but she took no notice of me, nor did the others. It was Mimsey Seraskier.
I went out and sat at my mother's feet, and looked long in her face.
I must not speak to her, nor touch her—not even touch her busy hand with my lips, or I should "blur the dream."
I got up and looked over the boy Gogo's shoulder. He was translating Gray's Elegy into French; he had not got very far, and seemed to be stumped by the line—
"And leaves the world to darkness and to me."
Mimsey was silently looking over his other shoulder, her thumb in her mouth, one arm on the back of his chair. She seemed to be stumped also: it was an awkward line to translate.
I stooped and put my hand to MÉdor's nose, and felt his warm breath. He wagged his rudiment of a tail, and whimpered in his sleep. Mimsey said—
"Regarde MÉdor, comme il remue la queue! C'est le Prince Charmant qui lui chatouille le bout du nez."
Said my mother, who had not spoken hitherto: "Do speak English, Mimsey, please."
Oh, my God! My mother's voice, so forgotten, yet so familiar, so unutterably dear! I rushed to her, and threw myself on my knees at her feet, and seized her hand and kissed it, crying, "Mother, mother!"
A strange blur came over everything; the sense of reality was lost. All became as a dream—a beautiful dream—but only a dream; and I woke.
* * * * *
I woke in my small hotel bedroom, and saw all the furniture, and my hat and clothes, by the light of a lamp outside, and heard the ticking of the clock on the mantel-piece, and the rumbling of a cart and cracking of a whip in the street, and yet felt I was not a bit more awake than I had been a minute ago in my strange vision—not so much!
I heard my watch ticking its little tick on the mantel-piece by the side of the clock, like a pony trotting by a big horse. The clock struck twelve, I got up and looked at my watch by the light of the gas-lit streets; it marked the same. My dream had lasted an hour—I had gone to bed at half-past ten.
I tried to recall it all, and did so to the smallest particular—all except the tune the organ had played, and the words belonging to it; they were on the tip of my tongue, and refused to come further, I got up again and walked about the room, and felt that it had not been like a dream at all; it was more "recollectable" than all my real adventures of the previous day. It had ceased to be like a dream, and had become an actuality from the moment I first touched the duchess's hand to the moment I kissed my mother's, and the blur came. It was an entirely new and utterly bewildering experience that I had gone through.
In a dream there are always breaks, inconsistencies, lapses, incoherence, breaches of continuity, many links missing in the chain; only at points is the impression vivid enough to stamp itself afterwards on the waking mind, and even then it is never so really vivid as the impression of real life, although it ought to have seemed so in the dream: One remembers it well on awaking, but soon it fades, and then it is only one's remembrance of it that one remembers.
[Illustration: "MOTHER, MOTHER!"]
There was nothing of this in my dream.
It was something like the "camera-obscura" on Ramsgate pier: one goes in and finds one's self in total darkness; the eye is prepared; one is thoroughly expectant and wide-awake.
Suddenly there flashes on the sight the moving picture of the port and all the life therein, and the houses and cliffs beyond; and farther still the green hills, the white clouds, and blue sky.
Little green waves chase each other in the harbor, breaking into crisp white foam. Sea-gulls wheel and dash and dip behind masts and ropes and pulleys; shiny brass fittings on gangway and compass flash in the sun without dazzling the eye; gay Liliputians walk and talk, their white teeth, no bigger than a pin's point, gleam in laughter, with never a sound; a steamboat laden with excursionists comes in, its paddles churning the water, and you cannot hear them. Not a detail is missed—not a button on a sailor's jacket, not a hair on his face. All the light and color of sea and earth and sky, that serve for many a mile, are here concentrated within a few square feet. And what color it is! A painter's despair! It is light itself, more beautiful than that which streams through old church windows of stained glass. And all is framed in utter darkness, so that the fully dilated pupils can see their very utmost. It seems as though all had been painted life-size and then shrunk, like a Japanese picture on crape, to a millionth of its natural size, so as to intensify and mellow the effect.
It is all over: you come out into the open sunshine, and all seems garish and bare and bald and commonplace. All magic has faded out of the scene; everything is too far away from everything else; everybody one meets seems coarse and Brobdingnagian and too near. And one has been looking at the like of it all one's life!
Thus with my dream, compared to common, waking, every-day experience; only instead of being mere flat, silent little images moving on a dozen square feet of Bristol-board, and appealing to the eye alone, the things and people in my dream had the same roundness and relief as in life, and were life-size; one could move among them and behind them, and feel as if one could touch and clasp and embrace them if one dared. And the ear, as well as the eye, was made free of this dark chamber of the brain: one heard their speech and laughter as in life. And that was not all, for soft breezes fanned the cheek, the sparrows twittered, the sun gave out its warmth, and the scent of many flowers made the illusion complete.
And then the Duchess of Towers! She had been not only visible and audible like the rest, but tangible as well, to the fullest extent of the sensibility that lay in my nerves of touch; when my hands held hers I felt as though I were drawing all her life into mine.
With the exception of that one figure, all had evidently been as it had been in reality a few years ago, to the very droning of an insect, to the very fall of a blossom!
Had I gone mad by any chance? I had possessed the past, as I had longed to do a few hours before.
What are sight and hearing and touch and the rest?
Five senses in all.
The stars, worlds upon worlds, so many billions of miles away, what are they for us but mere shiny specks on a net-work of nerves behind the eye? How does one feel them there?
The sound of my friend's voice, what is it? The clasp of his hand, the pleasant sight of his face, the scent of his pipe and mine, the taste of the bread and cheese and beer we eat and drink together, what are they but figments (stray figments, perhaps) of the brain—little thrills through nerves made on purpose, and without which there would be no stars, no pipe, no bread and cheese and beer, no voice, no friend, no me?
And is there, perchance, some sixth sense embedded somewhere in the thickness of the flesh—some survival of the past, of the race, of our own childhood even, etiolated by disuse? or some rudiment, some effort to begin, some priceless hidden faculty to be developed into a future source of bliss and consolation for our descendants? some nerve that now can only be made to thrill and vibrate in a dream, too delicate as yet to ply its function in the light of common day?
And was I, of all people in the world—I, Peter Ibbetson, architect and surveyor, Wharton Street, Pentonville—most futile, desultory, and uneducated dreamer of dreams—destined to make some great psychical discovery?
Pondering deeply over these solemn things, I sent myself to sleep again, as was natural enough—but no more to dream. I slept soundly until late in the morning, and breakfasted at the Bains Deligny, a delightful swimming-bath near the Pont de la Concorde (on the other side), and spent most of the day there, alternately swimming, and dozing, and smoking cigarettes, and thinking of the wonders of the night before, and hoping for their repetition on the night to follow.
[Illustration]
I remained a week in Paris, loafing about by day among old haunts of my childhood—a melancholy pleasure—and at night trying to "dream true" as my dream duchess had called it. Only once did I succeed.
I had gone to bed thinking most persistently of the "Mare d'Auteuil," and it seemed to me that as soon as I was fairly asleep I woke up there, and knew directly that I had come into a "true dream" again, by the reality and the bliss. It was transcendent life once more—a very ecstasy of remembrance made actual, and such an exquisite surprise!
There was M. le Major, in his green frock-coat, on his knees near a little hawthorn-tree by the brink, among the water-logged roots of which there dwelt a cunning old dytiscus as big as the bowl of a table-spoon—a prize we had often tried to catch in vain.
M. le Major had a net in his hand, and was watching the water intently; the perspiration was trickling down his nose; and around him, in silent expectation and suspense, were grouped Gogo and Mimsey and my three cousins, and a good-humored freckled Irish boy I had quite forgotten, and I suddenly remembered that his name was Johnstone, that he was very combative, and that he lived in the Rue Basse (now Rue Raynouard).
On the other side of the pond my mother was keeping MÉdor from the water, for fear of his spoiling the sport, and on the bench by the willow sat Madame Seraskier—lovely Madame Seraskier—deeply interested. I sat down by her side and gazed at her with a joy there is no telling.
An old woman came by, selling conical wafer-cakes, and singing—"V'l l'plaisir, mesdames—V'l l'plaisir!" Madame Seraskier bought ten sous' worth—a mountain!
M. le Major made a dash with his net—unsuccessfully, as usual. MÉdor was let loose, and plunged with a plunge that made big waves all round the mare, and dived after an imaginary stone, amid general shouts and shrieks of excitement. Oh, the familiar voices! I almost wept.
MÉdor came out of the water without his stone and shook himself, twisting and barking and grinning and gyrating, as was his way, quite close to me. In my delight and sympathy I was ill-advised enough to try and stroke him, and straight the dream was "blurred"—changed to an ordinary dream, where all things were jumbled up and incomprehensible; a dream pleasant enough, but different in kind and degree—an ordinary dream; and in my distress thereat I woke, and failed to dream again (as I wished to dream) that night.
Next morning (after an early swim) I went to the Louvre, and stood spellbound before Leonardo da Vinci's "Lisa Gioconda," trying hard to find where the wondrous beauty lay that I had heard so extravagantly extolled; and not trying very successfully, for I had seen Madame Seraskier once more, and felt that "Gioconda" was a fraud.
Presently I was conscious of a group just behind me, and heard a pleasant male English voice exclaim—
[Illustration: "Lisa Giaconda"]
"And now, duchess, let me present to you my first and last and only love, Mona Lisa." I turned round, and there stood a soldier-like old gentleman and two ladies (one of whom was the Duchess of Towers), staring at the picture.
As I made way for them I caught her eye, and in it again, as I felt sure, a kindly look of recognition—just for half a second. She evidently recollected having seen me at Lady Cray's, where I had stood all the evening alone in a rather conspicuous corner. I was so exceptionally tall (in those days of not such tall people as now) that it was easy to notice and remember me, especially as I wore my beard, which it was unusual to do then among Englishmen.
She little guessed how I remembered her; she little knew all she was and had been to me—in life and in a dream!
My emotion was so great that I felt it in my very knees; I could scarcely walk; I was as weak as water. My worship for the beautiful stranger was becoming almost a madness. She was even more lovely than Madame Seraskier. It was cruel to be like that.
It seems that I was fated to fall down and prostrate myself before very tall, slender women, with dark hair and lily skins and light angelic eyes. The fair damsel who sold tripe and pigs' feet in Clerkenwell was also of that type, I remembered; and so was Mrs. Deane. Fortunately for me it is not a common one!
All that day I spent on quays and bridges, leaning over parapets, and looking at the Seine, and nursing my sweet despair, and calling myself the biggest fool in Paris, and recalling over and over again that gray-blue kindly glance—my only light, the Light of the World for ME!
* * * * *
My brief holiday over, I went back to London—to Pentonville—and resumed my old occupations; but the whole tenor of my existence was changed.
The day, the working-day (and I worked harder than ever, to Lintot's great satisfaction), passed as in an unimportant dream of mild content and cheerful acquiescence in everything, work or play.
There was no more quarrelling with my destiny, nor wish to escape from myself for a moment. My whole being, as I went about on business or recreation bent, was suffused with the memory of the Duchess of Towers as with a warm inner glow that kept me at peace with all mankind and myself, and thrilled by the hope, the enchanting hope, of once more meeting her image at night in a dream, in or about my old home at Passy, and perhaps even feeling once more that ineffable bliss of touching her hand. Though why should she be there?
When the blessed hour came round for sleep, the real business of my life began. I practised "dreaming true" as one practises a fine art, and after many failures I became a professed expert—a master.
I lay straight on my back, with my feet crossed, and my hands clasped above my head in a symmetrical position; I would fix my will intently and persistently on a certain point in space and time that was within my memory—for instance, the avenue gate on a certain Christmas afternoon, when I remembered waiting for M. le Major to go for a walk—at the same time never losing touch of my own present identity as Peter Ibbetson, architect, Wharton Street, Pentonville; all of which is not so easy to manage as one might think, although the dream duchess had said, "Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coÛte;" and finally one night, instead of dreaming the ordinary dreams I had dreamed all my life (but twice), I had the rapture of waking up, the minute I was fairly asleep, by the avenue gate, and of seeing Gogo Pasquier sitting on one of the stone posts and looking up the snowy street for the major. Presently he jumped up to meet his old friend, whose bottle-green-clad figure had just appeared in the distance. I saw and heard their warm and friendly greeting, and walked unperceived by their side through Auteuil to the mare, and back by the fortifications, and listened to the thrilling adventures of one Fier-À-bras, which, I confess, I had completely forgotten.
[Illustration: THE STORY OF THE GIANT FIER-A-BRAS.]
As we passed all three together through the "Porte de la Muette," M. le Major's powers of memory (or invention) began to flag a little—for he suddenly said, "Cric!" But Gogo pitilessly answered, "Crac!" and the story had to go on, till we reached at dusk the gate of the Pasquiers' house, where these two most affectionately parted, after making an appointment for the morrow; and I went in with Gogo, and sat in the school-room while ThÉrÈse gave him his tea, and heard her tell him all that had happened in Passy that afternoon. Then he read and summed and translated with his mother till it was time to go up to bed, and I sat by his bedside as he was lulled asleep by his mother's harp… how I listened with all my ears and heart, till the sweet strain ceased for the night! Then out of the hushed house I stole, thinking unutterable things—through the snow-clad garden, where MÉdor was baying the moon—through the silent avenue and park—through the deserted streets of Passy—and on by desolate quays and bridges to dark quarters of Paris; till I fell awake in my tracks and found that another dreary and commonplace day had dawned over London—but no longer dreary and commonplace for me, with such experiences to look back and forward to—such a strange inheritance of wonder and delight!
I had a few more occasional failures, such as, for instance, when the thread between my waking and sleeping life was snapped by a moment's carelessness, or possibly by some movement of my body in bed, in which case the vision would suddenly get blurred, the reality of it destroyed, and an ordinary dream rise in its place. My immediate consciousness of this was enough to wake me on the spot, and I would begin again, da capo till all went as I wished.
Evidently our brain contains something akin both to a photographic plate and a phonographic cylinder, and many other things of the same kind not yet discovered; not a sight or a sound or a smell is lost; not a taste or a feeling or an emotion. Unconscious memory records them all, without our even heeding what goes on around us beyond the things that attract our immediate interest or attention.
Thus night after night I saw reacted before me scenes not only fairly remembered, but scenes utterly forgotten, and yet as unmistakably true as the remembered ones, and all bathed in that ineffable light, the light of other days—the light that never was on sea or land, and yet the light of absolute truth.
How it transcends in value as well as in beauty the garish light of common day, by which poor humanity has hitherto been content to live and die, disdaining through lack of knowledge the shadow for the substance, the spirit for the matter! I verified the truth of these sleeping experiences in every detail: old family letters I had preserved, and which I studied on awaking, confirmed what I had seen and heard in my dream; old stories explained themselves. It was all by-gone truth, garnered in some remote corner of the brain, and brought out of the dim past as I willed, and made actual once more.
And strange to say, and most inexplicable, I saw it all as an independent spectator, an outsider, not as an actor going again through scenes in which he has played a part before!
Yet many things perplexed and puzzled me.
For instance, Gogo's back, and the back of his head, when I stood behind him, were as visible and apparently as true to life as his face, and I had never seen his back or the back of his head; it was much later in life that I learned the secret of two mirrors. And then, when Gogo went out of the room, sometimes apparently passing through me as he did so and coming out at the other side (with a momentary blurring of the dream), the rest would go on talking just as reasonably, as naturally, as before. Could the trees and walls and furniture have had ears and eyes, those long-vanished trees and walls and furniture that existed now only in my sleeping brain, and have retained the sound and shape and meaning of all that passed when Gogo, my only conceivable remembrancer, was away?
FranÇoise, the cook, would come into the drawing-room to discuss the dinner with my mother when Gogo was at school; and I would hear the orders given, and later I would assist at the eating of the meal (to which Gogo would invariably do ample justice), and it was just as my mother had ordered. Mystery of mysteries!
What a pleasant life it was they led together, these ghosts of a by-gone time! Such a genial, smooth, easygoing, happy-go-lucky state of things—half bourgeois, half Bohemian, and yet with a well-marked simplicity, refinement, and distinction of bearing and speech that were quite aristocratic.
The servants (only three—ThÉrÈse the house-maid, FranÇoise the cook, and English Sarah, who had been my nurse and was now my mother's maid) were on the kindliest and most familiar terms with us, and talked to us like friends, and interested themselves in our concerns, and we in theirs; I noticed that they always wished us each good-morning and good-night—a pretty French fashion of the Passy bourgeoisie in Louis Philippe's time (he was a bourgeois king).
Our cuisine was bourgeoise also. Peter Ibbetson's mouth watered (after his tenpenny London dinner) to see and smell the steam of "soupe À la bonne femme," "soupe aux choux," "pot au feu," "blanquette de veau," "boeuf À la mode," "cotelettes de porc À la sauce piquante," "vinaigrette de boeuf bouilli"—that endless variety of good things on which French people grow fat so young—and most excellent claret (at one franc a bottle in those happy days): its bouquet seemed to fill the room as soon as the cork was drawn!
Sometimes, such a repast ended, "le beau Pasquier," in the fulness of his heart, would suddenly let off impossible fireworks of vocalization, ascending rockets of chromatic notes which would explode softly very high up and come down in full cadences, trills, roulades, like beautiful colored stars; and ThÉrÈse would exclaim, "Ah, q'c'est beau!" as if she had been present at a real pyrotechnic display; and ThÉrÈse was quite right. I have never heard the like from any human throat, and should not have believed it possible. Only Joachim's violin can do such beautiful things so beautifully.
Or else he would tell us of wolves he had shot in Brittany, or wild-boars in Burgundy—for he was a great sportsman—or of his adventures as a garde du corps of Charles Dix, or of the wonderful inventions that were so soon to bring us fame and fortune; and he would loyally drink to Henri Cinq; and he was so droll and buoyant and witty that it was as good to hear him speak as to hear him sing.
But there was another and a sad side to all this strange comedy of vanished lives.
They built castles in the air, and made plans, and talked of all the wealth and happiness that would be theirs when my father's ship came home, and of all the good they would do, pathetically unconscious of the near future; which, of course, was all past history to their loving audience of one.
And then my tears would flow with the unbearable ache of love and pity combined; they would fall and dry on the waxed floors of my old home in Passy, and I would find them still wet on my pillow in Pentonville when I woke.
* * * * *
Soon I discovered by practice that I was able for a second or two to be more than a mere spectator—to be an actor once more; to turn myself (Ibbetson) into my old self (Gogo), and thus be touched and caressed by those I had so loved. My mother kissed me and I felt it; just as long as I could hold my breath I could walk hand in hand with Madame Seraskier, or feel Mimsey's small weight on my back and her arms round my neck for four or five yards as I walked, before blurring the dream; and the blur would soon pass away, if it did not wake me, and I was Peter Ibbetson once more, walking and sitting among them, hearing them talk and laugh, watching them at their meals, in their walks; listening to my father's songs, my mother's sweet playing, and always unseen and unheeded by them. Moreover, I soon learned to touch things without sensibly blurring the dream. I would cull a rose, and stick it in my buttonhole, and there it remained—but lo! the very rose I had just culled was still on the rose-bush also! I would pick up a stone and throw it at the wall, where it disappeared without a sound—and the very same stone still lay at my feet, however often I might pick it up and throw it!
[Illustration]
No waking joy in the world can give, can equal in intensity, these complex joys I had when asleep; waking joys seem so slight, so vague in comparison—so much escapes the senses through lack of concentration and undivided attention—the waking perceptions are so blunt.
It was a life within a life—an intenser life—in which the fresh perceptions of childhood combined with the magic of dream-land, and in which there was but one unsatisfied longing; but its name was Lion.
It was the passionate longing to meet the Duchess of Towers once more in that land of dreams.
* * * * *
Thus for a time I went on, more solitary than ever, but well compensated for all my loneliness by this strange new life that had opened itself to me, and never ceasing to marvel and rejoice—when one morning I received a note from Lady Cray, who wanted some stables built at Cray, their country-seat in Hertfordshire, and begged I would go there for the day and night.
I was bound to accept this invitation, as a mere matter of business, of course; as a friend, Lady Cray seemed to have dropped me long ago, "like a 'ot potato," blissfully unconscious that it was I who had dropped her.
But she received me as a friend—an old friend. All my shyness and snobbery fell from me at the mere touch of her hand.
I had arrived at Cray early in the afternoon, and had immediately set about my work, which took several hours, so that I got to the house only just in time to dress for dinner.
When I came into the drawing-room there were several people there, and Lady Cray presented me to a young lady, the vicar's daughter, whom I was to take in to dinner.
I was very much impressed on being told by her that the company assembled in the drawing-room included no less a person than Sir Edwin Landseer. Many years ago I had copied an engraving of one of his pictures for Mimsey Seraskier. It was called "The Challenge," or "Coming Events cast their Shadows before Them." I feasted my eyes on the wondrous little man, who seemed extremely chatty and genial, and quite unembarrassed by his fame.
A guest was late, and Lord Cray, who seemed somewhat peevishly impatient for his food, exclaimed—
"Mary wouldn't be Mary if she were punctual!"
Just then Mary came in—and Mary was no less a person than the Duchess of Towers!
My knees trembled under me; but there was no time to give way to any such tender weakness. Lord Cray walked away with her; the procession filed into the dining room, and somewhere at the end of it my young vicaress and myself.
The duchess sat a long way from me, but I met her glance for a moment, and fancied I saw again in it that glimmer of kindly recognition.
My neighbor, who was charming, asked me if I did not think the Duchess of Towers the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.
I assented with right good-will, and was told that she was as good as she was beautiful, and as clever as she was good (as if I did not know it); that she would give away the very clothes off her back; that there was no trouble she would not take for others; that she did not get on well with her husband, who drank, and was altogether bad and vile; that she had a great sorrow—an only child, an idiot, to whom she was devoted, and who would some day be the Duke of Towers; that she was highly accomplished, a great linguist, a great musician, and about the most popular woman in all English society.
Ah! Who loved the Duchess of Towers better than this poor scribe, in whose soul she lived and shone like a bright particular star—like the sun; and who, without his knowing, was being rapidly drawn into the sphere of her attraction, as Lintot called it; one day to be finally absorbed, I trust, forever!
"And who was this wonderful Duchess of Towers before she married?" I asked.
"She was a Miss Seraskier. Her father was a Hungarian, a physician, and a political reformer—a most charming person; that's where she gets her manners. Her mother, whom she lost when she was quite a child, was a very beautiful Irish girl of good family, a first cousin of Lord Cray's—a Miss Desmond, who ran away with the interesting patriot. They lived somewhere near Paris. It was there that Madame Seraskier died of cholera—… What is the matter—are you ill?"
[Illustration]
I made out that I was faint from the heat, and concealed as well as I could the flood of emotion and bewilderment that overwhelmed me.
I dared not look again at the Duchess of Towers.
"Oh! little Mimsey dear, with your poor thin arms round my neck, and your cold, pale cheek against mine. I felt them there only last night! To have grown into such a splendid vision of female health and strength and beauty as this—with that enchanting, ever-ready laugh and smile! Why, of course, those eyes, so lashless then, so thickly fringed to-day!—how could I have mistaken them? Ah, Mimsey, you never smiled or laughed in those days, or I should have known your eyes again! Is it possible—is it possible?"
Thus I went on to myself till the ladies left, my fair young companion expressing her kind anxiety and polite hope that I would soon be myself again.
I sat silent till it was time to join the ladies (I could not even follow the witty and brilliant anecdotes of the great painter, who held the table); and then I went up to my room. I could not face her again so soon after what I had heard.
The good Lord Cray came to make kind inquiries, but I soon satisfied him that my indisposition was nothing. He stayed on, however, and talked; his dinner seemed to have done him a great deal of good, and he wanted to smoke (and somebody to smoke with), which he had not been able to do in the dining-room on account of some reverend old bishop who was present. So he rolled himself a little cigarette, like a Frenchman, and puffed away to his heart's content.
He little guessed how his humble architect wished him away, until he began to talk of the Duchess of Towers—"Mary Towers," as he called her—and to tell me how "Towers" deserved to be kicked, and whipped at the cart's tail. "Why, she's the best and most beautiful woman in England, and as sharp as a needle! If it hadn't been for her, he'd have been in the bankruptcy court long ago," etc. "There's not a duchess in England that's fit to hold the candle to her, either for looks or brains, or breedin' either. Her mother (the loveliest woman that ever lived, except Mary) was a connection of mine; that's where she gets her manners!" etc.
Thus did this noble earl make music for me—sweet and bitter music.
Mary! It is a heavenly name, especially on English lips, and spelled in the English mode with the adorable y! Great men have had a passion for it—Byron, Shelley, Burns. But none, methinks, a greater passion than I, nor with such good cause.
And yet there must be a bad Mary now and then, here or there, and even an ugly one. Indeed, there was once a Bloody Mary who was both! It seems incredible!
Mary, indeed! Why not Hecuba? For what was I to the Duchess of Towers?
When I was alone again I went to bed, and tried to sleep on my back, with my arms up, in the hope of a true dream; but sleep would not come, and I passed a white night, as the French say. I rose early and walked about the park, and tried to interest my self in the stables till it was breakfast-time. Nobody was up, and I breakfasted alone with Lady Cray, who was as kind as she could be. I do not think she could have found me a very witty companion. And then I went back to the stables to think, and fell into a doze.
At about twelve I heard the sound of wooden balls, and found a lawn where some people were playing "croquet." It was quite a new game, and a few years later became the fashion.
[Illustration: SWEET AND BITTER MUSIC.]
I sat down under a large weeping-ash close to the lawn; it was like a tent, with chairs and tables underneath.
Presently Lady Cray came there with the Duchess of Towers. I wanted to fly, but was rooted to the spot.
[Illustration: The Introduction.]
Lady Cray presented me, and almost immediately a servant came with a message for her, and I was left with the One Woman in the World! My heart was in my mouth, my throat was dry, my pulse was beating in my temples.
She asked me, in the most natural manner, if I played "croquet."
"Yes—no—at least, sometimes—that is, I never of it—oh—I forget!" I groaned at my idiocy and hid my face in my hands. She asked if I were still unwell, and I said no; and then she began to talk quite easily about anything, everything, till I felt more at my ease.
Her voice! I had never heard it well but in a dream, and it was the same—a very rich and modulated voice—low—contralto, with many varied and delightful inflexions; and she used more action in speaking than the generality of Englishwomen, thereby reminding me of Madame Seraskier. I noticed that her hands were long and very narrow, and also her feet, and remembered that Mimsey's were like that—they were considered poor Mimsey's only beauty. I also noticed an almost imperceptible scar on her left temple, and remembered with a thrill that I had noticed it in my dream as we walked up the avenue together. In waking life I had never been near enough to her to notice a small scar, and Mimsey had no scar of the kind in the old days—of that I felt sure, for I had seen much of Mimsey lately.
I grew more accustomed to the situation, and ventured to say that I had once met her at Lady Cray's in London.
"Oh yes; I remember. Giulia Grisi sand the 'Willow Song.'" And then she crinkled up her eyes, and laughed, and blushed, and went on: "I noticed you standing in a corner, under the famous Gainsborough. You reminded me of a dear little French boy I once knew who was very kind to me when I was a little girl in France, and whose father you happen to be like. But I found that you were Mr. Ibbetson, an English architect, and, Lady Cray tells me, a very rising one"
"I was a little French boy once. I had to change my name to please a relative, and become English—that is, I was always really English, you know."
"Good Heavens, what an extraordinary thing! What was your name, then?"
"Pasquier-Gogo Pasquier!" I groaned, and the tears came into my eyes, and I looked away. The duchess made no answer, and when I turned and looked at her she was looking at me, very pale, her lips quite white, her hands tightly clasped in her lap, and trembling all over.
I said, "You used to be little Mimsey Seraskier, and I used to carry you pickaback!"
"Oh don't! oh don't!" she said, and began to cry.
I got up and walked about under the ash-tree till she had dried her eyes. The croquet-players were intent upon their game.
I again sat down beside her; she had dried her eyes, and at length she said—
"What a dreadful thing it was about your poor father and mother, and my dear mother! Do you remember her? She died a week after you left. I went to Russia with papa—Dr. Seraskier. What a terrible break-up it all was!"
And then we gradually fell to talking quite naturally about old times, and dear dead people. She never took her eyes off mine. After a while I said—
"I went to Passy, and found everything changed and built over. It nearly drove me mad to see. I went to St. Cloud, and saw you driving with the Empress of the French. That night I had such an extraordinary dream! I dreamed I was floundering about the Rue de la Pompe, and had just got to the avenue gate, and you were there."
"Good heavens!" she whispered, and turned white again, and trembled all over, "what do you mean?"
"Yes," I said, "you came to my rescue. I was pursued by gnomes and horrors."
She. "Good heavens! by—by two little jailers, a man and his wife, who danced and were trying to hem you in?"
It was now my turn to ejaculate "Good heavens!" We both shook and trembled together.
I said: "You gave me your hand, and all came straight at once. My old school rose in place of the jail."
She. "With a yellow omnibus? And boys going off to their premiÈre communion?"
I. "Yes; and there was a crowd—le PÈre et la MÈre FranÇois, and Madame Liard, the grocer's wife, and—and Mimsey Seraskier, with her cropped head. And an organ was playing a tune I knew quite well, but cannot now recall." …
She. "Wasn't it 'Maman, les p'tits bateaux?'"
I. Oh, of course!
"'Maman, les p'tits bateaux Qui vont sur l'eau, Ont-ils des jambes?'"
She. "That's it!"
"'Eh oui, petit bÊta! S'ils n'avaient pas Ils n'march'raient pas!'"
She sank back in her chair, pale and prostrate. After a while—
She. "And then I gave you good advice about how to dream true, and we got to my old house, and I tried to make you read the letters on the portico, and you read them wrong, and I laughed."
I. "Yes; I read 'TÊte Noire.' Wasn't it idiotic?"
She. "And then I touched you again and you read 'Parvis Notre Dame.'"
I. "Yes! and you touched me again, and I read 'Parva sed Apta'—small but fit."
She. "Is that what it means? Why, when you were a boy, you told me sed apta was all one word, and was the Latin for 'Pavilion.' I believed it ever since, and thought 'Parva sed Apta' meant petit pavillon!"
I. "I blush for my bad Latin! After this you gave me good advice again, about not touching anything or picking flowers. I never have. And then you went away into the park—the light went out of my life, sleeping or waking. I have never been able to dream of you since. I don't suppose I shall ever meet you again after to-day!"
After this we were silent for a long time, though I hummed and hawed now and then, and tried to speak. I was sick with the conflict of my feelings. At length she said—
"Dear Mr. Ibbetson, this is all so extraordinary that I must go away and think it all over. I cannot tell you what it has been to me to meet you once more. And that double dream, common to us both! Oh, I am dazed beyond expression, and feel as if I were dreaming now—except that this all seems so unreal and impossible—so untrue! We had better part now. I don't know if I shall ever meet you again. You will be often in my thoughts, but never in my dreams again—that, at least, I can command—nor I in yours; it must not be. My poor father taught me how to dream before he died, that I might find innocent consolation in dreams for my waking troubles, which are many and great, as his were. If I can see that any good may come of it, I will write—but no—you must not expect a letter. I will now say good-bye and leave you. You go to-day, do you not? That is best. I think this had better be a final adieu. I cannot tell you of what interest you are to me and always have been. I thought you had died long ago. We shall often think of each other—that is inevitable—but never, never dream. That will not do.
"Dear Mr. Ibbetson, I wish you all the good that one human being can wish another. And now goodbye, and may God in heaven bless you!"
She rose, trembling and white, and her eyes wet with tears, and wrung both my hands, and left me as she had left me in the dream.
The light went out of my life, and I was once more alone—more wretchedly and miserably alone than if I had never met her.
I went back to Pentonville, and outwardly took up the thread of my monotonous existence, and ate, drank, and worked, and went about as usual, but as one in an ordinary dream. For now dreams—true dreams—had become the only reality for me.
[Illustration: A FAREWELL.]
So great, so inconceivable and unexampled a wonder had been wrought in a dream that all the conditions of life had been altered and reversed.
I and another human being had met—actually and really met—in a double dream, a dream common to us both, and clasped each other's hands! And each had spoken words to the other which neither ever would or ever could forget.
And this other human being and I had been enshrined in each other's memory for years—since childhood—and were now linked together by a tie so marvellous, an experience so unprecedented, that neither could ever well be out of the other's thoughts as long as life and sense and memory lasted.
Her very self, as we talked to each other under the ash-tree at Cray, was less vividly present to me than that other and still dearer self of hers with whom I had walked up the avenue in that balmy dream atmosphere, where we had lived and moved and had our being together for a few short moments, yet each believing the other at the time to be a mere figment of his own (and her) sleeping imagination; such stuff as dreams are made of!
And lo! it was all true—as true as the common experience of every-day life—more (ten times more), because through our keener and more exalted sense perceptions, and less divided attention, we were more conscious of each other's real inner being—linked closer together for a space—than two mortals had probably ever been since the world began.
That clasp of the hands in the dream—how infinitely more it had conveyed of one to the other than even that sad farewell clasp at Cray!
In my poor outer life I waited in vain for a letter; in vain I haunted the parks and streets—the street where she lived—in the hope of seeing her once more. The house was shut; she was away—in America, as I afterwards learned—with her husband and child.
At night, in the familiar scenes I had learned so well to conjure up, I explored every nook and corner with the same yearning desire to find a trace of her. I was hardly ever away from "Parva sed Apta." There were Madame Seraskier and Mimsey and the major, and my mother and Gogo, at all times, in and out, and of course as unconscious of my solid presence as though I had never existed. And as I looked at Mimsey and her mother I wondered at my obtuseness in not recognizing at the very first glance who the Duchess of Towers had been, and whose daughter. The height, the voice, the eyes, certain tricks of gait and gesture—how could I have failed to know her again after such recent dream opportunities?
And Seraskier, towering among them all, as his daughter now towered among women. I saw that he lived again in his daughter; his was the smile that closed up the eyes, as hers did; had Mimsey ever smiled in those days, I should have known her again by this very characteristic trait.
Of this daughter of his (the Mimsey of the past years, not the duchess of to-day) I never now could have enough, and made her go through again and again all the scenes with Gogo, so dear to my remembrance, and to hers. I was, in fact, the Prince Charmant, of whose unseen attendance she had been conscious in some inconceivable way. What a strange foresight! But where was the fÉe Tarapatapoum? Never there during this year of unutterable longing; she had said it; never, never again should I be in her dream, or she in mine, however constantly we might dwell in each other's thoughts.
So sped a twelvemonth after that last meeting in the flesh at Gray.
* * * * *
And now with an unwilling heart and most reluctant pen, I must come to the great calamity of my life which I will endeavor to tell in as few words as possible.
The reader, if he has been good enough to read without skipping, will remember the handsome Mrs. Deane, to whom I fancied I lost my heart, in Hopshire, a few years back.
I had not seen her since—had, indeed, almost forgotten her—but had heard vaguely that she had left Hopshire, and come to London, and married a wealthy man much older than herself.
Well, one day I was in Hyde Park, gazing at the people in the drive, when a spick-and-span and very brand-new open carriage went by, and in it sad Mrs. Deane (that was), all alone in her glory, and looking very sulky indeed. She recognized me and bowed, and I bowed back again, with just a moment's little flutter of the heart—an involuntary tribute to auld lang syne—and went on my way, wondering that I could ever had admired her so.
Presently, to my surprise, I was touched on the elbow. It was Mrs. Deane again—I will call her Mrs. Deane still. She had got out and followed me on foot. It was her wish that I should drive round the park with her and talk of old times. I obeyed, and for the first and last time found myself forming part of that proud and gay procession I had so often watched with curious eyes.
She seemed anxious to know whether I had ever made it up with Colonel Ibbetson, and pleased to hear that I had not, and that I probably never should, and that my feeling against him was strong and bitter and likely to last.
She appeared to hate him very much.
She inquired kindly after myself and my prospects in life, but did not seem deeply interested in my answers—until later, when I talked of my French life, and my dear father and mother, when she listened with eager sympathy, and I was much touched. She asked if I had portraits of them; I had—most excellent miniatures; and when we parted I had promised to call upon her next afternoon, and bring these miniatures with me.
She seemed a languid woman, much ennuyÉe, and evidently without a large circle of acquaintance. She told me I was the only person in the whole park whom she had bowed to that day. Her husband was in Hamburg, and she was going to meet him in Paris in a day or two.
I had not so many friends but what I felt rather glad than otherwise to have met her, and willingly called, as I had promised, with the portraits.
She lived in a large, new house, magnificently up near the Marble Arch. She was quite alone when I called, and asked me immediately if I had brought the miniatures; and looked at them quite eagerly, and then at me, and exclaimed—
"Good heavens, you are your father's very image!"
Indeed, I had always been considered so.
Both his eyebrows and mine, especially, met in a singular and characteristic fashion at the bridge of the nose, and she seemed much struck by this. He was represented in the uniform of Charles X's gardes du corps, in which he had served for two years, and had acquired the nickname of "le beau Pasquier." Mrs. Deane seemed never to tire of gazing at it, and remarked that my father "must have been the very ideal of a young girl's dream" (an indirect compliment which made me blush after what she had just said of the likeness between us. I almost began to wonder whether she was going to try and make a fool of me again, as she had so successfully done a few years ago).
Then she became interested again in my early life and recollections, and wanted to know whether my parents were fond of each other. They were a most devoted and lover-like pair, and had loved each other at first sight and until death, and I told her so; and so on until I became quite excited, and imagined she must know of some good fortune to which I was entitled, and had been kept out of by the machinations of a wicked uncle.
For I had long discovered in my dreams that he had been my father's bitterest enemy and the main cause of his financial ruin, by selfish, heartless, and dishonest deeds too complicated to explain here—a regular Shylock.
I had found this out by listening (in my dreams) to long conversations between my father and mother in the old drawing-room at Passy, while Gogo was absorbed in his book; and every word that had passed through Gogo's inattentive ears into his otherwise preoccupied little brain had been recorded there as in a phonograph, and was now repeated over and over again for Peter Ibbetson, as he sat unnoticed among them.
I asked her, jokingly, if she had discovered that I was the rightful heir to Ibbetson Hall by any chance.
She replied that nothing would give her greater pleasure, but there was no such good fortune in store for either her or me; that she had discovered long ago that Colonel Ibbetson was the greatest blackguard unhung, and nothing new she might discover could make him worse.
I then remembered how he would often speak of her, even to me, and hint and insinuate things which were no doubt untrue, and which I disbelieved. Not that the question of their truth or untruth made him any the less despicable and vile for telling.
She asked me if he had ever spoken of her to me, and after much persuasion and cunning cross-examination I told her as much of the truth as I dared, and she became a tigress. She assured me that he had managed so to injure and compromise her in Hopshire that she and her mother had to leave, and she swore to me most solemnly (and I thoroughly believe she spoke the truth) that there had never been any relation between them that she could not have owned to before the whole world.
She had wished to marry him, it is true, for his wealth and position; for both she and her mother were very poor, and often hard put to it to make both ends meet and keep up a decent appearance before the world; and he had singled her out and paid her marked attention from the first, and given her every reason to believe that his attentions were serious and honorable.
At this juncture her mother came in, Mrs. Glyn, and we renewed our old acquaintance. She had quite forgiven me my school-boy admiration for her daughter; all her power of hating, like her daughter's, had concentrated itself on Ibbetson; and as I listened to the long story of their wrongs and his infamy, I grew to hate him worse than ever, and was ready to be their champion on the spot, and to take up their quarrel there and then.
But this would not do, it appeared, for their name must nevermore be in any way mixed up with his.
Then suddenly Mrs. Glyn asked me if I knew when he went to India.
I could satisfy her, for I knew that it was just after my parents' marriage, nearly a year before my birth; upon which she gave the exact date of his departure with his regiment, and the name of the transport, and everything; and also, to my surprise, the date of my parents' marriage at Marylebone Church, and of my baptism there fifteen months later—just fourteen weeks after my birth in Passy. I was growing quite bewildered with all this knowledge of my affairs, and wondered more and more.
We sat silent for a while, the two women looking at each other and at me and at the miniatures. It was getting grewsome. What could it all mean?
Presently Mrs. Glyn, at a nod from her daughter, addressed me thus:
"Mr. Ibbetson, your uncle, as you call him, though he is not your uncle, is a very terrible villain, and has done you and your parents a very foul wrong. Before I tell you what it is (and I think you ought to know) you must give me your word of honor that you will do or say nothing that will get our name publicly mixed up in any way with Colonel Ibbetson's. The injury to my daughter, now she is happily married to an excellent man, would be irreparable."
With a beating heart I solemnly gave the required assurance.
"Then, Mr. Ibbetson, it is right that you should know that Colonel Ibbetson, when he was paying his infamous addresses to my daughter, gave her unmistakably to understand that you were his natural son, by his cousin, Miss Catherine Biddulph, afterwards Madame Pasquier de la MariÈre!"
"Oh, oh, oh!" I cried, "surely you must be mistaken—he knew it was impossible—he had been refused by my mother three times—he went to India nearly a year before I was born—he—"
Then Mrs. Deane said, producing an old letter from her pocket:
"Do you know his handwriting and his crest? Do you happen to recollect once bringing me a note from at Ibbetson Hall? Here it is," and she handed it to me. It was unmistakably his, and I remembered it at once, and this is what it said:
"For Heaven's sake, dear friend, don't breathe a word to any living soul of what you were clever enough to guess last night! There is a likeness, of course.
"Poor AntinoÜs! He is quite ignorant of the true relationship, which has caused me many a pang of shame and remorse….
"'Que voulez-vous? Elle Était ravissaure!' … We were cousins, much thrown together; 'both were so young, and one so beautiful!' … I was but a penniless cornet in those days—hardly more than a boy. Happily an unsuspecting Frenchman of good family was there who had loved her long, and she married him. 'Il Était temps!' …
"Can you forgive me this 'entraÎnement de jeunesse?' I have repented in sackcloth and ashes, and made what reparation I could by adopting and giving my name to one who is a perpetual reminder to me of a moment's infatuation. He little knows, poor boy, and never will, I hope. 'Il n'a plus que moi au monde!'
"Burn this as soon as you have read it, and never let the subject be mentioned between us again.
"R. ('Qui sait aimer')."
Here was a thunderbolt out of the blue!
I sat stunned and saw scarlet, and felt as if I should see scarlet forever.
[Illustration: THE FATAL LETTER.]
After a long silence, during which I could feel my pulse beat to bursting-point in my temples, Mrs. Glyn said:
"Now, Mr. Ibbetson, I hope you will do nothing rash—nothing that can bring my daughter's name into any quarrel between yourself and your uncle. For the sake of your mother's good name, you will be prudent, I know. If he could speak like this of his cousin, with whom he had been in love when he was young, what lies would he not tell of my poor daughter? He has—terrible lies! Oh, what we have suffered! When he wrote that letter I believe he really meant to marry her. He had the greatest trust in her, or he would never have committed himself so foolishly."
"Does he know of this letter's existing?" I asked.
"No. When he and my daughter quarrelled she sent him back his letters—all but this one, which she told him she had burned immediately after reading it, as he had told her to do."
"May I keep it?"
"Yes. I know you may be trusted, and my daughter's name has been removed from the outside, as you see. No one but ourselves has ever seen it, nor have we mentioned to a soul what it contains, as we never believed it for a moment. Two or three years ago we had the curiosity to find out when and where your parents had married, and when you were born, and when he went to India, it was no surprise to us at all. We then tried to find you, but soon gave it up, and thought it better to leave matters alone. Then we heard he was in mischief again—just the same sort of mischief; and then my daughter saw you in the park, and we concluded you ought to know."
Such was the gist of that memorable conversation, which I have condensed as much as I could.
When I left these two ladies I walked twice rapidly round the park. I saw scarlet often during that walk. Perhaps I looked scarlet. I remember people staring at me.
Then I went straight to Lintot's, with the impulse to tell him my trouble and ask his advice.
He was away from home, and I waited in his smoking-room for a while, reading the letter over and over again.
Then I decided not to tell him, and left the house, taking with me as I did so (but without any definite purpose) a heavy loaded stick, a most formidable weapon, even in the hands of a boy, and which I myself had given to Lintot on his last birthday. [Greek: Anagkae]!
Then I went to my usual eating-house near the circus and dined. To the surprise of the waiting-maid, I drank a quart of bitter ale and two glasses of sherry. It was my custom to drink water. She plied me with questions as to whether I was ill or in trouble. I answered her no, and at last begged she would leave me alone.
Ibbetson lived in St. James's Street. I went there. He was out. It was nine o'clock, and his servant seemed uncertain when he would return. I came back at ten. He was not yet home, and the servant, after thinking a while, and looking up and down the street, and finding my appearance decent and by no means dangerous, asked me to go upstairs and wait, as I told him it was a matter of great importance.
So I went and sat in my uncle's drawing-room and waited.
The servant came with me and lit the candles, and remarked on the weather, and handed me the Saturday Review and Punch. I must have looked quite natural—as I tried to look—and he left me.
I saw a Malay creese on the mantel-piece and hid it behind a picture-frame. I locked a door leading to another drawing-room where there was a grand piano, and above it a trophy of swords, daggers, battle-axes, etc., and put the key in my pocket.
The key of the room where I waited was inside the door.
All this time I had a vague idea of possible violence on his part, but no idea of killing him. I felt far too strong for that. Indeed, I had a feeling of quiet, irresistible strength—the result of suppressed excitement.
I sat down and meditated all I would say. I had settled it over and over again, and read and reread the fatal letter.
The servant came up with glasses and soda-water. I trembled lest he should observe that the door to the other room was locked, but he did not. He opened the window and looked up and down the street. Presently he said, "Here's the colonel at last, sir," and went down to open the door.
I heard him come in and speak to his servant. Then he came straight up, humming "la donna e mobile," and walked in with just the jaunty, airy manner I remembered. He was in evening dress, and very little changed. He seemed much surprised to see me, and turned very white.
"Well, my Apollo of the T square, pourquoi cet honneur? Have you come, like a dutiful nephew, to humble yourself and beg for forgiveness?"
I forgot all I meant to say (indeed, nothing happened as I had meant), but rose and said, "I have come to have a talk with you," as quietly as I could, though with a thick voice.
He seemed uneasy, and went towards the door.
I got there before him, and closed it, and locked it, and put the key in my pocket.
He darted to the other door and found it locked.
Then he went to the mantel-piece and looked for the creese, and not finding it, he turned round with his back to the fireplace and his arms akimbo, and tried to look very contemptuous and determined. His chin was quite white under his dyed mustache—like wax—and his eyes blinked nervously.
I walked up to him and said: "You told Mrs. Deane that I was your natural son."
"It's a lie! Who told you so?"
"She did—this afternoon."
"It's a lie—a spiteful invention of a cast-off mistress!"
"She never was your mistress!"
"You fool! I suppose she told you that too. Leave the room, you pitiful green jackass, or I'll have you turned out," and he rang the bell.
"Do you know your own handwriting?" I said, and handed him the letter.
He read a line or two and gasped out that it was a forgery, and rang the bell again, and looked again behind the clock for his creese. Then he lit the letter at a candle and threw it in the fireplace, where it blazed out.
I made no attempt to prevent him.
The servant tried to open the door, and Ibbetson went to the window and called out for the police. I rushed to the picture where I had hidden the creese, and threw it on the table. Then I swung him away from the window by his coat-tails, and told him to defend himself, pointing to the creese.
He seized it, and stood on the defensive; the servant had apparently run down-stairs for assistance.
"Now, then," I said, "down on your knees, you infamous cur, and confess; it's your only chance."
"Confess what, you fool?"
"That you're a coward and a liar; that you wrote that letter; that Mrs. Deane was no more your mistress than my mother was!"
There was a sound of people running up-stairs. He listened a moment and hissed out:
"They both were, you idiot! How can I tell for certain whether you are my son or not? It all comes to the same. Of course I wrote the letter. Come on, you cowardly assassin, you bastard parricide!" … and he advanced on me with his creese low down in his right hand, the point upward, and made a thrust, shrieking out, "Break open the door! quick!" They did; but too late!
[Illustration: "BASTARD! PARRICIDE!"]
I saw crimson!
He missed me, and I brought down my stick on his left arm, which he held over his head, and then on his head, and he fell, crying:
"O my God! O Christ!"
I struck him again on his head as he was falling, and once again when he was on the ground. It seemed to crash right in.
