ONLY A DREAM
Footprints--footprints--the footprints of one dead. How ghastly they
look as they fall before me! Up and down the long hall they go, and I
follow them. /Pit, pat/ they fall, those unearthly steps, and beneath
them starts up that awful impress. I can see it grow upon the marble,
a damp and dreadful thing.
Tread them down; tread them out; follow after them with muddy shoes,
and cover them up. In vain. See how they rise through the mire! Who
can tread out the footprints of the dead?
And so on, up and down the dim vista of the past, following the sound
of the dead feet that wander so restlessly, stamping upon the impress
that will not be stamped out. Rave on, wild wind, eternal voice of
human misery; fall, dead footsteps, eternal echo of human memory;
stamp, miry feet; stamp into forgetfulness that which will not be
forgotten.
And so on, on to the end.
Pretty ideas these for a man about to be married, especially when they
float into his brain at night like ominous clouds into a summer sky,
and he is going to be married to-morrow. There is no mistake about it
--the wedding, I mean. To be plain and matter-of-fact, why there stand
the presents, or some of them, and very handsome presents they are,
ranged in solemn rows upon the long table. It is a remarkable thing to
observe when one is about to make a really satisfactory marriage how
scores of unsuspected or forgotten friends crop up and send little
tokens of their esteem. It was very different when I married my first
wife, I remember, but then that match was not satisfactory--just a
love-match, no more.
There they stand in solemn rows, as I have said, and inspire me with
beautiful thoughts about the innate kindness of human nature,
especially the human nature of our distant cousins. It is possible to
grow almost poetical over a silver teapot when one is going to be
married to-morrow. On how many future mornings shall I be confronted
with that tea-pot? Probably for all my life; and on the other side of
the teapot will be the cream jug, and the electro-plated urn will hiss
away behind them both. Also the chased sugar basin will be in front,
full of sugar, and behind everything will be my second wife.
"My dear," she will say, "will you have another cup of tea?" and
probably I shall have another cup.
Well, it is very curious to notice what ideas will come into a man's
head sometimes. Sometimes something waves a magic wand over his being,
and from the recesses of his soul dim things arise and walk. At
unexpected moments they come, and he grows aware of the issues of his
mysterious life, and his heart shakes and shivers like a lightning-
shattered tree. In that drear light all earthly things seem far, and
all unseen things draw near and take shape and awe him, and he knows
not what is true and what is false, neither can he trace the edge that
marks off the Spirit from the Life. Then it is that the footsteps
echo, and the ghostly footprints will not be stamped out.
Pretty thoughts again! and how persistently they come! It is one
o'clock and I will go to bed. The rain is falling in sheets outside. I
can hear it lashing against the window panes, and the wind wails
through the tall wet elms at the end of the garden. I could tell the
voice of those elms anywhere; I know it as well as the voice of a
friend. What a night it is; we sometimes get them in this part of
England in October. It was just such a night when my first wife died,
and that is three years ago. I remember how she sat up in her bed.
"Ah! those horrible elms," she said; "I wish you would have them cut
down, Frank; they cry like a woman," and I said I would, and just
after that she died, poor dear. And so the old elms stand, and I like
their music. It is a strange thing; I was half broken-hearted, for I
loved her dearly, and she loved me with all her life and strength, and
now--I am going to be married again.
"Frank, Frank, don't forget me!" Those were my wife's last words; and,
indeed, though I am going to be married again to-morrow, I have not
forgotten her. Nor shall I forget how Annie Guthrie (whom I am going
to marry now) came to see her the day before she died. I know that
Annie always liked me more or less, and I think that my dear wife
guessed it. After she had kissed Annie and bid her a last good-bye,
and the door had closed, she spoke quite suddenly: "There goes your
future wife, Frank," she said; "you should have married her at first
instead of me; she is very handsome and very good, and she has two
thousand a year; /she/ would never have died of a nervous illness."
And she laughed a little, and then added:
"Oh, Frank dear, I wonder if you will think of me before you marry
Annie Guthrie. Wherever I am I shall be thinking of you."
And now that time which she foresaw has come, and Heaven knows that I
have thought of her, poor dear. Ah! those footsteps of one dead that
will echo through our lives, those woman's footprints on the marble
flooring which will not be stamped out. Most of us have heard and seen
them at some time or other, and I hear and see them very plainly
to-night. Poor dead wife, I wonder if there are any doors in the land
where you have gone through which you can creep out to look at me
to-night? I hope that there are none. Death must indeed be a hell if
the dead can see and feel and take measure of the forgetful
faithlessness of their beloved. Well, I will go to bed and try to get
a little rest. I am not so young or so strong as I was, and this
wedding wears me out. I wish that the whole thing were done or had
never been begun.
What was that? It was not the wind, for it never makes that sound
here, and it was not the rain, since the rain has ceased its surging
for a moment; nor was it the howling of a dog, for I keep none. It was
more like the crying of a woman's voice; but what woman can be abroad
on such a night or at such an hour--half-past one in the morning?
There it is again--a dreadful sound; it makes the blood turn chill,
and yet has something familiar about it. It is a woman's voice calling
round the house. There, she is at the window now, and rattling it,
and, great heavens! she is calling me.
"Frank! Frank! Frank!" she calls.
I strive to stir and unshutter that window, but before I can get there
she is knocking and calling at another.
Gone again, with her dreadful wail of "Frank! Frank!" Now I hear her
at the front door, and, half mad with a horrible fear, I run down the
long, dark hall and unbar it. There is nothing there--nothing but the
wild rush of the wind and the drip of the rain from the portico. But I
can hear the wailing voice going round the house, past the patch of
shrubbery. I close the door and listen. There, she has got through the
little yard, and is at the back door now. Whoever it is, she must know
the way about the house. Along the hall I go again, through a swing
door, through the servants' hall, stumbling down some steps into the
kitchen, where the embers of the fire are still alive in the grate,
diffusing a little warmth and light into the dense gloom.
Whoever it is at the door is knocking now with her clenched hand
against the hard wood, and it is wonderful, though she knocks so low,
how the sound echoes through the empty kitchens.
* * * * *
There I stood and hesitated, trembling in every limb; I dared not open
the door. No words of mine can convey the sense of utter desolation
that overpowered me. I felt as though I were the only living man in
the whole world.
"/Frank! Frank!/" cries the voice with the dreadful familiar ring in
it. "Open the door; I am so cold. I have so little time."
My heart stood still, and yet my hands were constrained to obey.
Slowly, slowly I lifted the latch and unbarred the door, and, as I did
so, a great rush of air snatched it from my hands and swept it wide.
The black clouds had broken a little overhead, and there was a patch
of blue, rain-washed sky with just a star or two glimmering in it
fitfully. For a moment I could only see this bit of sky, but by
degrees I made out the accustomed outline of the great trees swinging
furiously against it, and the rigid line of the coping of the garden
wall beneath them. Then a whirling leaf hit me smartly on the face,
and instinctively I dropped my eyes on to something that as yet I
could not distinguish--something small and black and wet.
"What are you?" I gasped. Somehow I seemed to feel that it was not a
person--I could not say, /Who/ are you?
"Don't you know me?" wailed the voice, with the far-off familiar ring
about it. "And I mayn't come in and show myself. I haven't the time.
You were so long opening the door, Frank, and I am so cold--oh, so
bitterly cold! Look there, the moon is coming out, and you will be
able to see me. I suppose that you long to see me, as I have longed to
see you."
As the figure spoke, or rather wailed, a moonbeam struggled through
the watery air and fell on it. It was short and shrunken, the figure
of a tiny woman. Also it was dressed in black and wore a black
covering over the whole head, shrouding it, after the fashion of a
bridal veil. From every part of this veil and dress the water fell in
heavy drops.
The figure bore a small basket on her left arm, and her hand--such a
poor thin little hand--gleamed white in the moonlight. I noticed that
on the third finger was a red line, showing that a wedding-ring had
once been there. The other hand was stretched towards me as though in
entreaty.
All this I saw in an instant, as it were, and as I saw it, horror
seemed to grip me by the throat as though it were a living thing, for
as the voice had been familiar, so was the form familiar, though the
churchyard had received it long years ago. I could not speak--I could
not even move.
"Oh, don't you know me yet?" wailed the voice; "and I have come from
so far to see you, and I cannot stop. Look, look," and she began to
pluck feverishly with her poor thin hand at the black veil that
enshrouded her. At last it came off, and, as in a dream, I saw what in
a dim frozen way I had expected to see--the white face and pale yellow
hair of my dead wife. Unable to speak or to stir, I gazed and gazed.
There was no mistake about it, it was she, ay, even as I had last seen
her, white with the whiteness of death, with purple circles round her
eyes and the grave-cloth yet beneath her chin. Only her eyes were wide
open and fixed upon my face; and a lock of the soft yellow hair had
broken loose, and the wind tossed it.
"You know me now, Frank--don't you, Frank? It has been so hard to come
to see you, and so cold! But you are going to be married to-morrow,
Frank; and I promised--oh, a long time ago--to think of you when you
were going to be married wherever I was, and I have kept my promise,
and I have come from where I am and brought a present with me. It was
bitter to die so young! I was so young to die and leave you, but I had
to go. Take it--take it; be quick, I cannot stay any longer. /I could
not give you my life, Frank, so I have brought you my death--take
it!/"
The figure thrust the basket into my hand, and as it did so the rain
came up again, and began to obscure the moonlight.
"I must go, I must go," went on the dreadful, familiar voice, in a cry
of despair. "Oh, why were you so long opening the door? I wanted to
talk to you before you married Annie; and now I shall never see you
again--never! never! /never!/ I have lost you for ever! ever! /ever!/"
As the last wailing notes died away the wind came down with a rush and
a whirl and the sweep as of a thousand wings, and threw me back into
the house, bringing the door to with a crash after me.
I staggered into the kitchen, the basket in my hand, and set it on the
table. Just then some embers of the fire fell in, and a faint little
flame rose and glimmered on the bright dishes on the dresser, even
revealing a tin candlestick, with a box of matches by it. I was well-
nigh mad with the darkness and fear, and, seizing the matches, I
struck one, and held it to the candle. Presently it caught, and I
glanced round the room. It was just as usual, just as the servants had
left it, and above the mantelpiece the eight-day clock ticked away
solemnly. While I looked at it it struck two, and in a dim fashion I
was thankful for its friendly sound.
Then I looked at the basket. It was of very fine white plaited work
with black bands running up it, and a chequered black-and-white
handle. I knew it well. I have never seen another like it. I bought it
years ago at Madeira, and gave it to my poor wife. Ultimately it was
washed overboard in a gale in the Irish Channel. I remember that it
was full of newspapers and library books, and I had to pay for them.
Many and many is the time that I have seen that identical basket
standing there on that very kitchen table, for my dear wife always
used it to put flowers in, and the shortest cut from that part of the
garden where her roses grew was through the kitchen. She used to
gather the flowers, and then come in and place her basket on the
table, just where it stood now, and order the dinner.
All this passed through my mind in a few seconds as I stood there with
the candle in my hand, feeling indeed half dead, and yet with my mind
painfully alive. I began to wonder if I had gone asleep, and was the
victim of a nightmare. No such thing. I wish it had only been a
nightmare. A mouse ran out along the dresser and jumped on to the
floor, making quite a crash in the silence.
What was in the basket? I feared to look, and yet some power within me
forced me to it. I drew near to the table and stood for a moment
listening to the sound of my own heart. Then I stretched out my hand
and slowly raised the lid of the basket.
"I could not give you my life, so I have brought you my death!" Those
were her words. What could she mean--what could it all mean? I must
know or I would go mad. There it lay, whatever it was, wrapped up in
linen.
Ah, heaven help me! It was a small bleached human skull!
A dream! After all, only a dream by the fire, but what a dream! And I
am to be married to-morrow.
/Can/ I be married to-morrow?
