Part Four
I got back to my hotel in the Rue de la Michodiere.
Prostrate with emotion and fatigue, the tarantella still jingling in myears, and that haunting, beloved face, with its ineffable smile stillprinted on the retina of my closed eyes, I fell asleep.
And then I dreamed a dream, and the first phase of my real, inner lifebegan!
All the events of the day, distorted and exaggerated and jumbledtogether after the usual manner of dreams, wove themselves into a kindof nightmare and oppression. I was on my way to my old abode: everythingthat I met or saw was grotesque and impossible, yet had now the strange,vague charm of association and reminiscence, now the distressing senseof change and loss and desolation.
As I got near to the avenue gate, instead of the school on my left therewas a prison; and at the door a little thick-set jailer, three feet highand much deformed, and a little deformed jaileress no bigger thanhimself, were cunningly watching me out of the corners of their eyes,and toothlessly smiling. Presently they began to waltz together to anold, familiar tune, with their enormous keys dangling at their sides;and they looked so funny that I laughed and applauded. But soon Iperceived that their crooked faces were not really funny; indeed, theywere fatal and terrible in the extreme, and I was soon conscious thatthese deadly dwarfs were trying to waltz between me and the avenue gatefor which I was bound--to cut me off, that they might run me into theprison, 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 stoodthe Duchess of Towers, with mild surprise in her eyes and a kindsmile--a heavenly vision of strength and reality.
"You are not dreaming true!" she said. "Don't be afraid--those littlepeople don't exist! Give me your hand and come in here."
And as I did so she waved the troglodytes away, and they vanished; andI felt that this was no longer a dream, but something else--some strangething 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 tothen) had been only partial, intermittent, and vague, suddenly blazedinto full, consistent, practical activity--just as it is in life, whenone is well awake and much interested in what is going on--only withperceptions far keener and more alert.
I knew perfectly who I was and what I was, and remembered all the eventsof the previous day. I was conscious that my real body, undressed and inbed, now lay fast asleep in a small room on the fourth floor of an_hotel garni_ in the Rue de la Michodiere. I knew this perfectly; andyet 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 washot. With my disengaged hand I felt in my trousers-pocket; there were myLondon latch-keys, my purse, my penknife; my handkerchief in thebreastpocket of my coat, and in its tail-pockets my gloves andpipe-case, and the little water-color box I had bought that morning. Ilooked at my watch; it was going, and marked eleven. I pinched myself, Icoughed, I did all one usually does under the pressure of some immensesurprise, to assure myself that I was awake; and I _was_, and yet here Istood, actually hand in hand with a great lady to whom I had never beenintroduced (and who seemed much tickled at my confusion); and staringnow at her, now at my old school.
The prison had tumbled down like a house of cards, and loi! in its placewas M. Saindou's _maison d'education_, just as it had been of old. Ieven recognized on the yellow wall the stamp of a hand in dry mud, madefifteen years ago by a day boy called Parisot, who had fallen down inthe gutter close by, and thus left his mark on getting up again; and ithad remained there for months, till it had been whitewashed away in theholidays. Here it was anew, after fifteen years.
The swallows were flying and twittering. A yellow omnibus was drawn upto the gates of the school; the horses stamped and neighed, and bit eachother, as French horses always did in those days. The driver swore atthem perfunctorily.
A crowd was looking on--le Pere et la Mere Francois, Madame Liard, thegrocer'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 MimseySeraskier.
A barrel-organ was playing a pretty tune I knew quite well, and hadforgotten.
The school gates opened, and M. Saindou, proud and full ofself-importance (as he always was), and half a dozen boys whose facesand names were quite familiar to me, in smart white trousers and shiningboots, and silken white bands round their left arms, got into theomnibus, and were driven away in a glorified manner--as it seemed--toheaven in a golden chariot. It was beautiful to see and hear.
I was still holding the duchess's hand, and felt the warmth of itthrough her glove; it stole up my arm like a magnetic current. I was inElysium; a heavenly sense had come over me that at last my periphery hadbeen victoriously invaded by a spirit other than mine--a most powerfuland beneficent spirit. There was a blessed fault in my impenetrablearmor of self, after all, and the genius of strength and charity andloving-kindness had found it out.
"Now you're dreaming true," she said. "Where are those boys going?"
"To church, to make their _premiere communion_," I replied.
"That's right. You're dreaming true because I've got you by the hand. Doyou know that tune?"
I listened, and the words belonging to it came out of the past and Isaid them to her, and she laughed again, with her eyes screwed updeliciously.
"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 waysof speech--all as it was long ago. Nobody noticed us, and we walked upthe 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 laMichodiere! Could it be that the Duchess of Towers was dead too--hadbeen killed by some accident on her way from St. Cloud to Paris? andthat, both having died so near each other, we had begun our eternalafterlife in this heavenly fashion?
That was too good to be true, I reflected; some instinct told me thatthis was not death, but transcendent earthly life--and also, alas! thatit would not endure forever!
I was deeply conscious of every feature in her face, every movement ofher body, every detail of her dress--more so then I could have been inactual life--and said to myself, "Whatever this is, it is no dream." ButI felt there was about me the unspeakable elation which can come to usonly in our waking moments when we are at our very best; and then onlyfeebly, in comparison with this, and to many of us never, ft never hadto me, since that morning when I had found the little wheelbarrow.
I was also conscious, however, that the avenue itself had a slight touchof the dream in it. It was no longer quite right, and was getting out ofdrawing and perspective, so to speak. I had lost my stay--the touchof 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; whatis written on the portico?"
I saw written in gold letters the words, "Tete Noire," and said so.
She rippled with laughter, and said, "No; try again"; and just touchedme 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 wholehouse was exactly, down to its minutest detail, as it had been once upona time. I could see Therese through one of the windows, making my bed.
"That's better," said the duchess; "you will soon do it--it's veryeasy--_ce n'est que le premier pas!_ My father taught me; you mustalways sleep on your back with your arms above your head, your handsclasped under it and your feet crossed, the right one over the left,unless you are left-handed; and you must never for a moment ceasethinking of where you want to be in your dream till you are asleep andget there; and you must never forget in your dream where and what youwere 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 lookround everywhere as far as your eyes can see."
It was hard to look away from her; her face drew my eyes, and throughthem all my heart; but I did as she told me, and took in the wholefamiliar scene, even to the distant woods of Ville d'Avray, a glimpseof which was visible through an opening in the trees; even to the smokeof a train making its way to Versailles, miles off; and the oldtelegraph, working its black arms on the top of Mont Valerien.
"It was hard to look away from her."]
"Is it all right?" she asked. "That's well. Henceforward, whenever youcome here, you will be safe as far as your sight can reach--from thisspot--all through my introduction. See what it is to have a friend atcourt! No more little dancing jailers! And then you can gradually getfarther by yourself.
"Out there, through that park, leads to the Bois de Boulogne--there's agap in the hedge you can get through; but mind and make everything plainin front of you--_true_, before you go a step farther, or else you'llhave to wake and begin it all over again. You have only to will it, andthink 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 howyou touch things or people--you may hear, and see, and smell; but youmustn't touch, nor pick flowers or leaves, nor move things about. Itblurs the dream, like breathing on a window-pane. I don't know why, butit 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 arehere, and what business you have in this, my particular dream, I cannotunderstand; no living person has ever come into it before. I can't makeit out. I suppose it's because I saw your reality this afternoon,looking out of the window at the 'Tete Noire,' and you are just a strayfigment of my overtired brain--a very agreeable figment, I admit; butyou don't exist here just now--you can't possibly; you are somewhereelse, Mr. Ibbetson; dancing at Mabille, perhaps, or fast asleepsomewhere, and dreaming of French churches and palaces, and publicfountains, like a good young British architect--otherwise I shouldn'ttalk to you like this, you may be sure!
"Never mind. I am very glad to dream that I have been of use to you, andyou are very welcome here, if it amuses you to come--especially as youare only a false dream of mine, for what else _can_ you be? And now Imust leave you, so good-bye."
She disengaged her hands, and laughed her angelic laugh, and thenturned towards the park. I watched her tall, straight figure and blowingskirts, and saw her follow some ladies and children into a thicket thatI 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 takenflight; as if a precious something had withdrawn itself from mypossession, and the gap in my periphery had closed again.
Long I stood in thought, with my eyes fixed on the spot where she haddisappeared; and I felt inclined to follow, but then considered thiswould not have been discreet. For although she was only a false dream ofmine, a mere recollection of the exciting and eventful day, a strayfigment of my overtired and excited brain--a _more_ than agreeablefigment (what else _could_ she be!)--she was also a great lady, and hadtreated me, a perfect stranger and a perfect nobody, with singularcourtesy and kindness; which I repaid, it is true, with a love so deepand strong that my very life was hers, to do what she liked with, andalways had been since I first saw her, and always would be as long asthere was breath in my body! But this did not constitute an acquaintancewithout a proper introduction, even in France--even in a dream. Even indreams 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--asshe herself had asked of me?
But _was_ it a dream? I remembered my lodgings at Pentonville, that Ihad left yesterday morning. I remembered what I was--why I came toParis; I remembered the very bedroom at the Paris hotel where I was nowfast asleep, its loudly-ticking clock, and all the meagre furniture. Andhere was I, broad awake and conscious, in the middle of an old avenuethat had long ceased to exist--that had been built over by a huge brickedifice covered with newly-painted trellis-work. I saw it, this edifice,myself, only twelve hours ago. And yet here was everything as it hadbeen when I was a child; and all through the agency of this solidphantom of a lovely young English duchess, whose warm gloved hands I hadonly this minute been holding in mine! The scent of her gloves was stillin my palm. I looked at my watch; it marked twenty-three minutes totwelve. All this had happened in less than three-quarters of an hour!
Pondering over all this in hopeless bewilderment, I turned my stepstowards my old home, and, to my surprise, was just able to look over thegarden wall, which I had once thought about ten feet high.
Under the old apple-tree in full bloom sat my mother, darning smallsocks; with her flaxen side-curls (as it was her fashion to wear them)half-concealing her face. My emotion and astonishment were immense. Myheart beat fast. I felt its pulse in my temples, and my breathwas short.
At a little green table that I remembered well sat a small boy, ratherquaintly dressed in a by-gone fashion, with a frill round his wideshirt-collar, and his golden hair cut quite close at the top, and ratherlong at the sides and back. It was Gogo Pasquier. He seemed a very nicelittle boy. He had pen and ink and copy-book before him, and agilt-edged volume bound in red morocco. I knew it at a glance; it was_Elegant Extracts_. The dog Medor lay asleep in the shade. The beeswere droning among the nasturtiums and convolvulus.
A little girl ran up the avenue from the porter's lodge and pushed thegarden gate, which rang the bell as it opened, and she went into thegarden, and I followed her; but she took no notice of me, nor did theothers. 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 handwith my lips, or I should "blur the dream."
I got up and looked over the boy Gogo's shoulder. He was translatingGray's _Elegy_ into French; he had not got very far, and seemed to bestumped by the line--
_"And leaves the world to darkness and to me."_
Mimsey was silently looking over his other shoulder, her thumb in hermouth, 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 Medor's nose, and felt his warm breath. Hewagged his rudiment of a tail, and whimpered in his sleep. Mimsey said--
"Regarde Medor, comme il remue la queue! _C'est le Prince Charmant quilui 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, sounutterably dear! I rushed to her, and threw myself on my knees at herfeet, and seized her hand and kissed it, crying, "Mother, mother!"
A strange blur came over everything; the sense of reality was lost. Allbecame 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 hatand clothes, by the light of a lamp outside, and heard the ticking ofthe clock on the mantel-piece, and the rumbling of a cart and crackingof a whip in
the street, and yet felt I was not a bit more awake than Ihad 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 sideof the clock, like a pony trotting by a big horse. The clock strucktwelve, I got up and looked at my watch by the light of the gas-litstreets; it marked the same. My dream had lasted an hour--I had gone tobed at half-past ten.
I tried to recall it all, and did so to the smallest particular--allexcept 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 upagain and walked about the room, and felt that it had not been like adream at all; it was more "recollectable" than all my real adventures ofthe previous day. It had ceased to be like a dream, and had become anactuality from the moment I first touched the duchess's hand to themoment I kissed my mother's, and the blur came. It was an entirely newand 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 afterwardson the waking mind, and even then it is never so really vivid as theimpression of real life, although it ought to have seemed so in thedream: One remembers it well on awaking, but soon it fades, and then itis only one's remembrance of it that one remembers.
"MOTHER, MOTHER!"]
There was nothing of this in my dream.
It was something like the "camera-obscura" on Ramsgate pier: one goesin and finds one's self in total darkness; the eye is prepared; one isthoroughly expectant and wide-awake.
Suddenly there flashes on the sight the moving picture of the port andall the life therein, and the houses and cliffs beyond; and fartherstill the green hills, the white clouds, and blue sky.
Little green waves chase each other in the harbor, breaking into crispwhite foam. Sea-gulls wheel and dash and dip behind masts and ropes andpulleys; shiny brass fittings on gangway and compass flash in the sunwithout dazzling the eye; gay Liliputians walk and talk, their whiteteeth, no bigger than a pin's point, gleam in laughter, with never asound; a steamboat laden with excursionists comes in, its paddleschurning the water, and you cannot hear them. Not a detail ismissed--not a button on a sailor's jacket, not a hair on his face. Allthe light and color of sea and earth and sky, that serve for many amile, are here concentrated within a few square feet. And what color itis! A painter's despair! It is light itself, more beautiful than thatwhich streams through old church windows of stained glass. And all isframed in utter darkness, so that the fully dilated pupils can see theirvery utmost. It seems as though all had been painted life-size and thenshrunk, like a Japanese picture on crape, to a millionth of its naturalsize, so as to intensify and mellow the effect.
It is all over: you come out into the open sunshine, and all seemsgarish and bare and bald and commonplace. All magic has faded out ofthe scene; everything is too far away from everything else; everybodyone meets seems coarse and Brobdingnagian and too near. And one has beenlooking 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 dozensquare feet of Bristol-board, and appealing to the eye alone, the thingsand people in my dream had the same roundness and relief as in life, andwere life-size; one could move among them and behind them, and feel asif 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: oneheard their speech and laughter as in life. And that was not all, forsoft breezes fanned the cheek, the sparrows twittered, the sun gave outits warmth, and the scent of many flowers made the illusion complete.
And then the Duchess of Towers! She had been not only visible andaudible like the rest, but tangible as well, to the fullest extent ofthe sensibility that lay in my nerves of touch; when my hands held hersI 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 aninsect, to the very fall of a blossom!
Had I gone mad by any chance? I had possessed the past, as I had longedto 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 arethey for us but mere shiny specks on a net-work of nerves behind theeye? How does one _feel_ them there?
The sound of my friend's voice, what is it? The clasp of his hand, thepleasant sight of his face, the scent of his pipe and mine, the taste ofthe bread and cheese and beer we eat and drink together, what are theybut figments (stray figments, perhaps) of the brain--little thrillsthrough nerves made on purpose, and without which there would be nostars, no pipe, no bread and cheese and beer, no voice, no friend,no me?
And is there, perchance, some sixth sense embedded somewhere in thethickness of the flesh--some survival of the past, of the race, of ourown childhood even, etiolated by disuse? or some rudiment, some effortto begin, some priceless hidden faculty to be developed into a futuresource of bliss and consolation for our descendants? some nerve that nowcan only be made to thrill and vibrate in a dream, too delicate as yetto ply its function in the light of common day?
And was I, of all people in the world--I, Peter Ibbetson, architect andsurveyor, Wharton Street, Pentonville--most futile, desultory, anduneducated dreamer of dreams--destined to make some great psychicaldiscovery?
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 latein the morning, and breakfasted at the Bains Deligny, a delightfulswimming-bath near the Pont de la Concorde (on the other side), andspent most of the day there, alternately swimming, and dozing, andsmoking cigarettes, and thinking of the wonders of the night before, andhoping for their repetition on the night to follow.
I remained a week in Paris, loafing about by day among old haunts of mychildhood--a melancholy pleasure--and at night trying to "dream true" asmy 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 thereality and the bliss. It was transcendent _life_ once more--a veryecstasy of remembrance made actual, and _such_ an exquisite surprise!
There was M. le Major, in his green frock-coat, on his knees near alittle hawthorn-tree by the brink, among the water-logged roots of whichthere dwelt a cunning old dytiscus as big as the bowl of atable-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 silentexpectation and suspense, were grouped Gogo and Mimsey and my threecousins, and a good-humored freckled Irish boy I had quite forgotten,and I suddenly remembered that his name was Johnstone, that he was verycombative, and that he lived in the Rue Basse (now Rue Raynouard).
On the other side of the pond my mother was keeping Medor from thewater, for fear of his spoiling the sport, and on the bench by thewillow sat Madame Seraskier--lovely Madame Seraskier--deeplyinterested. I sat down by her side and gazed at her with a joy there isno telling.
An old woman came by, selling conical wafer-cakes, and singing--"_V'lal'plaisir, mesdames--V'la l'plaisir!_" Madame Seraskier bought ten sous'worth--a mountain!
M. le Major made a dash with his net--unsuccessfully, as usual. Medorwas let loose, and plunged with a plunge that made big waves all roundthe mare, and dived after an imaginary stone, amid general shouts andshrieks of excitement. Oh, the familiar voices! I almost wept.
Medor came out of the water without his stone and shook himself,twisting and barking and grinning and gyrating, as was his way, quiteclose to me. In my delight and sympathy I was ill
-advised enough to tryand stroke him, and straight the dream was "blurred"--changed to anordinary dream, where all things were jumbled up and incomprehensible; adream pleasant enough, but different in kind and degree--an ordinarydream; and in my distress thereat I woke, and failed to dream again (asI wished to dream) that night.
Next morning (after an early swim) I went to the Louvre, and stoodspellbound before Leonardo da Vinci's "Lisa Gioconda," trying hard tofind where the wondrous beauty lay that I had heard so extravagantlyextolled; and not trying very successfully, for I had seen MadameSeraskier once more, and felt that "Gioconda" was a fraud.
Presently I was conscious of a group just behind me, and heard apleasant male English voice exclaim--
"Lisa Giaconda"]
"And now, duchess, let me present to you my first and last and onlylove, Mona Lisa." I turned round, and there stood a soldier-like oldgentleman 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 feltsure, a kindly look of recognition--just for half a second. Sheevidently recollected having seen me at Lady Cray's, where I had stoodall the evening alone in a rather conspicuous corner. I was soexceptionally tall (in those days of not such tall people as now) thatit 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 wasand had been to me--in life and in a dream!
My emotion was so great that I felt it in my very knees; I couldscarcely walk; I was as weak as water. My worship for the beautifulstranger was becoming almost a madness. She was even more lovely thanMadame Seraskier. It was cruel to be like that.
It seems that I was fated to fall down and prostrate myself before verytall, slender women, with dark hair and lily skins and light angeliceyes. The fair damsel who sold tripe and pigs' feet in Clerkenwell wasalso of that type, I remembered; and so was Mrs. Deane. Fortunately forme it is not a common one!
All that day I spent on quays and bridges, leaning over parapets, andlooking at the Seine, and nursing my sweet despair, and calling myselfthe biggest fool in Paris, and recalling over and over again thatgray-blue kindly glance--my only light, the Light of the World for ME!
* * * * *
My brief holiday over, I went back to London--to Pentonville--andresumed my old occupations; but the whole tenor of my existencewas changed.
The day, the working-day (and I worked harder than ever, to Lintot'sgreat satisfaction), passed as in an unimportant dream of mild contentand cheerful acquiescence in everything, work or play.
There was no more quarrelling with my destiny, nor wish to escape frommyself for a moment. My whole being, as I went about on business orrecreation bent, was suffused with the memory of the Duchess of Towersas with a warm inner glow that kept me at peace with all mankind andmyself, and thrilled by the hope, the enchanting hope, of once moremeeting 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 herhand. Though why should she be there?
When the blessed hour came round for sleep, the real business of my lifebegan. I practised "dreaming true" as one practises a fine art, andafter many failures I became a professed expert--a master.
I lay straight on my back, with my feet crossed, and my hands claspedabove my head in a symmetrical position; I would fix my will intentlyand persistently on a certain point in space and time that was within mymemory--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 sametime never losing touch of my own present identity as Peter Ibbetson,architect, Wharton Street, Pentonville; all of which is not so easy tomanage as one might think, although the dream duchess had said, "Cen'est que le premier pas qui coute;" and finally one night, instead ofdreaming the ordinary dreams I had dreamed all my life (but twice), Ihad the rapture of _waking up_, the minute I was fairly asleep, bythe avenue gate, and of seeing Gogo Pasquier sitting on one of the stoneposts and looking up the snowy street for the major. Presently he jumpedup to meet his old friend, whose bottle-green-clad figure had justappeared in the distance. I saw and heard their warm and friendlygreeting, and walked unperceived by their side through Auteuil to the_mare_, and back by the fortifications, and listened to the thrillingadventures of one Fier-a-bras, which, I confess, I had completelyforgotten.
THE STORY OF THE GIANT FIER-A-BRAS.]
As we passed all three together through the "Porte de la Muette," M. leMajor's powers of memory (or invention) began to flag a little--for hesuddenly said, "_Cric!_" But Gogo pitilessly answered, "_Crac!_" andthe story had to go on, till we reached at dusk the gate of thePasquiers' house, where these two most affectionately parted, aftermaking an appointment for the morrow; and I went in with Gogo, and satin the school-room while Therese gave him his tea, and heard her tellhim all that had happened in Passy that afternoon. Then he read andsummed 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'sharp... how I listened with all my ears and heart, till the sweet strainceased for the night! Then out of the hushed house I stole, thinkingunutterable things--through the snow-clad garden, where Medor was bayingthe moon--through the silent avenue and park--through the desertedstreets of Passy--and on by desolate quays and bridges to dark quartersof Paris; till I fell awake in my tracks and found that another drearyand commonplace day had dawned over London--but no longer dreary andcommonplace for me, with such experiences to look back and forwardto--such a strange inheritance of wonder and delight!
I had a few more occasional failures, such as, for instance, when thethread between my waking and sleeping life was snapped by a moment'scarelessness, or possibly by some movement of my body in bed, in whichcase the vision would suddenly get blurred, the reality of it destroyed,and an ordinary dream rise in its place. My immediate consciousness ofthis was enough to wake me on the spot, and I would begin again, _dacapo_ till all went as I wished.
Evidently our brain contains something akin both to a photographicplate and a phonographic cylinder, and many other things of the samekind not yet discovered; not a sight or a sound or a smell is lost; nota taste or a feeling or an emotion. Unconscious memory records them all,without our even heeding what goes on around us beyond the things thatattract our immediate interest or attention.
Thus night after night I saw reacted before me scenes not only fairlyremembered, but scenes utterly forgotten, and yet as unmistakably trueas the remembered ones, and all bathed in that ineffable light, thelight of other days--the light that never was on sea or land, and yetthe light of absolute truth.
How it transcends in value as well as in beauty the garish light ofcommon day, by which poor humanity has hitherto been content to live anddie, disdaining through lack of knowledge the shadow for the substance,the spirit for the matter! I verified the truth of these sleepingexperiences in every detail: old family letters I had preserved, andwhich I studied on awaking, confirmed what I had seen and heard in mydream; old stories explained themselves. It was all by-gone truth,garnered in some remote corner of the brain, and brought out of the dimpast as I willed, and made actual once more.
And strange to say, and most inexplicable, I saw it all as anindependent spectator, an outsider, not as an actor going again throughscenes 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 stoodbehind 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 laterin life that I learned the secret of two mirrors. And then, when Gogowent out of the room, sometimes apparently passing through me as he didso and coming out at the other side (with a momentary blurring of thedream), the rest would go on talking just as reasonably, as naturally,as before. Could the trees
and walls and furniture have had ears andeyes, those long-vanished trees and walls and furniture that existed nowonly in my sleeping brain, and have retained the sound and shape andmeaning of all that passed when Gogo, my only conceivableremembrancer, was away?
Francoise, the cook, would come into the drawing-room to discuss thedinner with my mother when Gogo was at school; and I would hear theorders given, and later I would assist at the eating of the meal (towhich Gogo would invariably do ample justice), and it was just as mymother had ordered. Mystery of mysteries!
What a pleasant life it was they led together, these ghosts of a by-gonetime! Such a genial, smooth, easygoing, happy-go-lucky state ofthings--half bourgeois, half Bohemian, and yet with a well-markedsimplicity, refinement, and distinction of bearing and speech that werequite aristocratic.
The servants (only three--Therese the house-maid, Francoise 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 uslike friends, and interested themselves in our concerns, and we intheirs; I noticed that they always wished us each good-morning andgood-night--a pretty French fashion of the Passy bourgeoisie in LouisPhilippe's time (he was a bourgeois king).
Our cuisine was bourgeoise also. Peter Ibbetson's mouth watered (afterhis tenpenny London dinner) to see and smell the steam of "soupe a labonne femme," "soupe aux choux," "pot au feu," "blanquette de veau,""boeuf a la mode," "cotelettes de porc a la sauce piquante,""vinaigrette de boeuf bouilli"--that endless variety of good things onwhich French people grow fat so young--and most excellent claret (at onefranc a bottle in those happy days): its bouquet seemed to fill the roomas soon as the cork was drawn!
Sometimes, such a repast ended, "le beau Pasquier," in the fulness ofhis heart, would suddenly let off impossible fireworks of vocalization,ascending rockets of chromatic notes which would explode softly veryhigh up and come down in full cadences, trills, roulades, like beautifulcolored stars; and Therese would exclaim, "Ah, q'c'est beau!" as if shehad been present at a real pyrotechnic display; and Therese was quiteright. I have never heard the like from any human throat, and should nothave believed it possible. Only Joachim's violin can do such beautifulthings so beautifully.
Or else he would tell us of wolves he had shot in Brittany, orwild-boars in Burgundy--for he was a great sportsman--or of hisadventures as a _garde du corps_ of Charles Dix, or of the wonderfulinventions that were so soon to bring us fame and fortune; and he wouldloyally drink to Henri Cinq; and he was so droll and buoyant and wittythat 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 ofvanished lives.
They built castles in the air, and made plans, and talked of all thewealth and happiness that would be theirs when my father's ship camehome, and of all the good they would do, pathetically unconscious of thenear future; which, of course, was all past history to their lovingaudience of one.
And then my tears would flow with the unbearable ache of love and pitycombined; they would fall and dry on the waxed floors of my old home inPassy, and I would find them still wet on my pillow in Pentonvillewhen I woke.
* * * * *
Soon I discovered by practice that I was able for a second or two to bemore 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 bythose I had so loved. My mother kissed me and I felt it; just as long asI 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 forfour or five yards as I walked, before blurring the dream; and the blurwould soon pass away, if it did not wake me, and I was Peter Ibbetsononce more, walking and sitting among them, hearing them talk and laugh,watching them at their meals, in their walks; listening to my father'ssongs, my mother's sweet playing, and always unseen and unheeded bythem. Moreover, I soon learned to touch things without sensibly blurringthe dream. I would cull a rose, and stick it in my buttonhole, andthere it remained--but lo! the very rose I had just culled was still onthe 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 layat my feet, however often I might pick it up and throw it!
No waking joy in the world can give, can equal in intensity, thesecomplex joys I had when asleep; waking joys seem so slight, so vague incomparison--so much escapes the senses through lack of concentration andundivided attention--the waking perceptions are so blunt.
It was a life within a life--an intenser life--in which the freshperceptions of childhood combined with the magic of dream-land, and inwhich there was but one unsatisfied longing; but its name was Lion.
It was the passionate longing to meet the Duchess of Towers once more inthat land of dreams.
* * * * *
Thus for a time I went on, more solitary than ever, but well compensatedfor all my loneliness by this strange new life that had opened itself tome, and never ceasing to marvel and rejoice--when one morning I receiveda note from Lady Cray, who wanted some stables built at Cray, theircountry-seat in Hertfordshire, and begged I would go there for the dayand night.
I was bound to accept this invitation, as a mere matter of business, ofcourse; as a friend, Lady Cray seemed to have dropped me long ago, "likea '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 andsnobbery fell from me at the mere touch of her hand.
I had arrived at Cray early in the afternoon, and had immediately setabout my work, which took several hours, so that I got to the house onlyjust in time to dress for dinner.
When I came into the drawing-room there were several people there, andLady Cray presented me to a young lady, the vicar's daughter, whom I wasto take in to dinner.
I was very much impressed on being told by her that the companyassembled in the drawing-room included no less a person than Sir EdwinLandseer. Many years ago I had copied an engraving of one of hispictures for Mimsey Seraskier. It was called "The Challenge," or "ComingEvents cast their Shadows before Them." I feasted my eyes on thewondrous little man, who seemed extremely chatty and genial, and quiteunembarrassed by his fame.
A guest was late, and Lord Cray, who seemed somewhat peevishly impatientfor 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 Duchessof Towers!
My knees trembled under me; but there was no time to give way to anysuch tender weakness. Lord Cray walked away with her; the processionfiled into the dining room, and somewhere at the end of it my youngvicaress 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 Duchessof Towers the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.
I assented with right good-will, and was told that she was as good asshe was beautiful, and as clever as she was good (as if I did not knowit); that she would give away the very clothes off her back; that therewas no trouble she would not take for others; that she did not get onwell with her husband, who drank, and was altogether bad and vile; thatshe had a great sorrow--an only child, an idiot, to whom she wasdevoted, and who would some day be the Duke of Towers; that she washighly accomplished, a great linguist, a great musician, and about themost popular woman in all English society.
Ah! Who loved the Duchess of Towers better than this poor scribe, inwhose soul she lived and shone like a bright particular star--like thesun; and who, without his knowing, was being rapidly drawn into thesphere of her attraction, as Lintot called it; one day to be finallyabsorbed, I trust, forever!
"And who was this wonderful Duchess of Towers before she married?" Iasked.
"She was a Miss Seraskier. Her fathe
r was a Hungarian, a physician, anda political reformer--a most charming person; that's where she gets hermanners. Her mother, whom she lost when she was quite a child, was avery beautiful Irish girl of good family, a first cousin of LordCray's--a Miss Desmond, who ran away with the interesting patriot. Theylived somewhere near Paris. It was there that Madame Seraskier died ofcholera--... What is the matter--are you ill?"
I made out that I was faint from the heat, and concealed as well as Icould 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, andyour cold, pale cheek against mine. I felt them there only last night!To have grown into such a splendid vision of female health and strengthand beauty as this--with that enchanting, ever-ready laugh and smile!Why, of course, those eyes, so lashless then, so thickly fringedto-day!--how could I have mistaken them? Ah, Mimsey, you never smiled orlaughed in those days, or I should have known your eyes again! Is itpossible--is it possible?"
Thus I went on to myself till the ladies left, my fair young companionexpressing her kind anxiety and polite hope that I would soon bemyself again.
I sat silent till it was time to join the ladies (I could not evenfollow the witty and brilliant anecdotes of the great painter, who heldthe table); and then I went up to my room. I could not face _her_ againso soon after what I had heard.
The good Lord Cray came to make kind inquiries, but I soon satisfied himthat my indisposition was nothing. He stayed on, however, and talked;his dinner seemed to have done him a great deal of good, and he wantedto smoke (and somebody to smoke with), which he had not been able to doin the dining-room on account of some reverend old bishop who waspresent. So he rolled himself a little cigarette, like a Frenchman, andpuffed away to his heart's content.
He little guessed how his humble architect wished him away, until hebegan to talk of the Duchess of Towers--"Mary Towers," as he calledher--and to tell me how "Towers" deserved to be kicked, and whipped atthe cart's tail. "Why, she's the best and most beautiful woman inEngland, and as sharp as a needle! If it hadn't been for her, he'd havebeen in the bankruptcy court long ago," etc. "There's not a duchess inEngland that's fit to hold the candle to her, either for looks orbrains, or breedin' either. Her mother (the loveliest woman that everlived, except Mary) was a connection of mine; that's where she gets hermanners!" 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 inthe English mode with the adorable _y_! Great men have had a passion forit--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 evenan ugly one. Indeed, there was once a Bloody Mary who was both! It seemsincredible!
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 walkedabout the park, and tried to interest my self in the stables till it wasbreakfast-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 mea 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 lawnwhere some people were playing "croquet." It was quite a new game, and afew years later became the fashion.
SWEET AND BITTER MUSIC.]
I sat down under a large weeping-ash close to the lawn; it was like atent, with chairs and tables underneath.
Presently Lady Cray came there with the Duchess of Towers. I wanted tofly, but was rooted to the spot.
The Introduction.]
Lady Cray presented me, and almost immediately a servant came with amessage for her, and I was left with the One Woman in the World! Myheart was in my mouth, my throat was dry, my pulse was beating inmy 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!" Igroaned at my idiocy and hid my face in my hands. She asked if I werestill unwell, and I said no; and then she began to talk quite easilyabout anything, everything, till I felt more at my ease.
Her voice! I had never heard it well but in a dream, and it was thesame--a very rich and modulated voice--low--contralto, with many variedand delightful inflexions; and she used more action in speaking than thegenerality of Englishwomen, thereby reminding me of Madame Seraskier. Inoticed that her hands were long and very narrow, and also her feet, andremembered that Mimsey's were like that--they were considered poorMimsey's only beauty. I also noticed an almost imperceptible scar on herleft temple, and remembered with a thrill that I had noticed it in mydream as we walked up the avenue together. In waking life I had neverbeen near enough to her to notice a small scar, and Mimsey had no scarof the kind in the old days--of that I felt sure, for I had seen much ofMimsey lately.
I grew more accustomed to the situation, and ventured to say that I hadonce met her at Lady Cray's in London.
"Oh yes; I remember. Giulia Grisi sand the 'Willow Song.'" And then shecrinkled up her eyes, and laughed, and blushed, and went on: "I noticedyou standing in a corner, under the famous Gainsborough. You reminded meof a dear little French boy I once knew who was very kind to me when Iwas a little girl in France, and whose father you happen to be like. ButI found that you were Mr. Ibbetson, an English architect, and, Lady Craytells me, a very rising one"
"I _was_ a little French boy once. I had to change my name to please arelative, 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 andlooked 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 youpickaback!"
"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 hereyes. The croquet-players were intent upon their game.
I again sat down beside her; she had dried her eyes, and at length shesaid--
"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. Iwent to Russia with papa--Dr. Seraskier. What a terrible break-up itall 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 whileI said--
"I went to Passy, and found everything changed and built over. Itnearly drove me mad to see. I went to St. Cloud, and saw you drivingwith the Empress of the French. That night I had such an extraordinarydream! I dreamed I was floundering about the Rue de la Pompe, and hadjust got to the avenue gate, and you were there."
"Good heavens!" she whispered, and turned white again, and trembled allover, "what do you mean?"
"Yes," I said, "you came to my rescue. I was pursued by gnomes andhorrors."
_She._ "Good heavens! by--by two little jailers, a man and his wife, whodanced and were trying to hem you in?"
It was now my turn to ejaculate "Good heavens!" We both shook andtrembled together.
I said: "You gave me your hand, and all came straight at once. My oldschool rose in place of the jail."
_She._ "With a yellow omnibus? And boys going off to their _premierecommunion?_"
_I._ "Yes; and there was a crowd--le Pere et la MereFrancois, and Madame Liard, the grocer's wife, and--andMimsey Seraskier, with her cropped head. Andan organ was playing a tune I knew quite well, butcannot
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 beta! 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 wegot to my old house, and I tried to make you read the letters on theportico, and you read them wrong, and I laughed."
_I_. "Yes; I read 'Tete 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 sedApta'--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.' Ibelieved it ever since, and thought 'Parva sed Apta' meant _petitpavillon_!"
_I_. "I blush for my bad Latin! After this you gave me good adviceagain, about not touching anything or picking flowers. I never have. Andthen 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. Idon'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 nowand then, and tried to speak. I was sick with the conflict of myfeelings. At length she said--
"Dear Mr. Ibbetson, this is all so extraordinary that I must go awayand think it all over. I cannot tell you what it has been to me to meetyou once more. And that double dream, common to us both! Oh, I am dazedbeyond expression, and feel as if I were dreaming now--except that thisall seems so unreal and impossible--so untrue! We had better part now. Idon't know if I shall ever meet you again. You will be often in mythoughts, but never in my dreams again--that, at least, I cancommand--nor I in yours; it must not be. My poor father taught me how todream before he died, that I might find innocent consolation in dreamsfor my waking troubles, which are many and great, as his were. If I cansee that any good may come of it, I will write--but no--you must notexpect 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. Icannot tell you of what interest you are to me and always have been. Ithought you had died long ago. We shall often think of each other--thatis inevitable--_but never, never dream. That will not do._
"Dear Mr. Ibbetson, I wish you all the good that one human being canwish another. And now goodbye, and may God in heaven bless you!"
She rose, trembling and white, and her eyes wet with tears, and wrungboth 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--morewretchedly and miserably alone than if I had never met her.
I went back to Pentonville, and outwardly took up the thread of mymonotonous existence, and ate, drank, and worked, and went about asusual, but as one in an ordinary dream. For now dreams--true dreams--hadbecome the only reality for me.
A FAREWELL.]
So great, so inconceivable and unexampled a wonder had been wrought in adream that all the conditions of life had been altered and reversed.
I and another human being had met--actually and really met--in a doubledream, a dream common to us both, and clasped each other's hands! Andeach had spoken words to the other which neither ever would or evercould forget.
And this other human being and I had been enshrined in each other'smemory for years--since childhood--and were now linked together by a tieso marvellous, an experience so unprecedented, that neither could everwell be out of the other's thoughts as long as life and sense andmemory 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 ofhers with whom I had walked up the avenue in that balmy dreamatmosphere, where we had lived and moved and had our being together fora few short moments, yet each believing the other at the time to be amere figment of his own (and her) sleeping imagination; such stuff asdreams are made of!
And lo! it was all true--as true as the common experience of every-daylife--more (ten times more), because through our keener and more exaltedsense perceptions, and less divided attention, we were more conscious ofeach other's real inner being--linked closer together for a space--thantwo mortals had probably ever been since the world began.
That clasp of the hands in the dream--how infinitely more it hadconveyed 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 hauntedthe parks and streets--the street where she lived--in the hope of seeingher once more. The house was shut; she was away--in America, as Iafterwards learned--with her husband and child.
At night, in the familiar scenes I had learned so well to conjure up, Iexplored every nook and corner with the same yearning desire to find atrace of her. I was hardly ever away from "Parva sed Apta." There wereMadame Seraskier and Mimsey and the major, and my mother and Gogo, atall times, in and out, and of course as unconscious of my solid presenceas though I had never existed. And as I looked at Mimsey and her motherI wondered at my obtuseness in not recognizing at the very first glancewho the Duchess of Towers had been, and whose daughter. The height, thevoice, the eyes, certain tricks of gait and gesture--how could I havefailed to know her again after such recent dream opportunities?
And Seraskier, towering among them all, as his daughter now toweredamong women. I saw that he lived again in his daughter; _his_ was thesmile that closed up the eyes, as hers did; had Mimsey ever smiled inthose days, I should have known her again by this very characteristictrait.
Of this daughter of his (the Mimsey of the past years, not the duchessof to-day) I never now could have enough, and made her go through againand again all the scenes with Gogo, so dear to my remembrance, and tohers. I was, in fact, the Prince Charmant, of whose unseen attendanceshe had been conscious in some inconceivable way. What a strangeforesight! But where was the fee Tarapatapoum? Never there during thisyear of unutterable longing; she had said it; never, never again shouldI be in her dream, or she in mine, however constantly we might dwell ineach 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 tothe great calamity of my life which I will endeavor to tell in as fewwords as possible.
The reader, if he has been good enough to read without skipping, willremember the handsome Mrs. Deane, to whom I fancied I lost my heart, inHopshire, a few years back.
I had not seen her since--had, indeed, almost forgotten her--but hadheard vaguely that she had left Hopshire, and come to London, andmarried 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 init sad Mrs. Deane (that was), all alone in her glory, and looking verysulky indeed. She recognized me and bowed, and I bowed back again, withjust a moment's little flutter of the heart--an involuntary tribute toauld lang syne--and went on my way, wondering that I could ever hadadmired her so.
Presently, to my surprise, I was touched on the elbow. It was Mrs. Deaneagain--I will call her Mrs. Deane still. She had got out and followedme on foot. It was her wish that I should drive round the park with herand talk of old times. I obeyed, and for the first and last time foundmyself forming part of that proud and gay procession I had so oftenwatched with curious eyes.
She seemed anxious to know whether I had ever made it up with ColonelIbbetson, and pleased to hear that I had not, and that I probably nevershould, and that my feeling against him was strong and bitter andlikely to last.
She appeared to hate him very much.
She inquired kindly after myself
and my prospects in life, but did notseem deeply interested in my answers--until later, when I talked of myFrench life, and my dear father and mother, when she listened with eagersympathy, 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 tocall upon her next afternoon, and bring these miniatures with me.
She seemed a languid woman, much ennuyee, and evidently without a largecircle of acquaintance. She told me I was the only person in the wholepark whom she had bowed to that day. Her husband was in Hamburg, and shewas 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 tohave met her, and willingly called, as I had promised, with theportraits.
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 hadbrought the miniatures; and looked at them quite eagerly, and then atme, 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 andcharacteristic fashion at the bridge of the nose, and she seemed muchstruck by this. He was represented in the uniform of Charles X's _gardesdu corps_, in which he had served for two years, and had acquired thenickname of "le beau Pasquier." Mrs. Deane seemed never to tire ofgazing at it, and remarked that my father "must have been the very idealof a young girl's dream" (an indirect compliment which made me blushafter what she had just said of the likeness between us. I almost beganto wonder whether she was going to try and make a fool of me again, asshe had so successfully done a few years ago).
Then she became interested again in my early life and recollections, andwanted to know whether my parents were fond of each other. They were amost devoted and lover-like pair, and had loved each other at firstsight and until death, and I told her so; and so on until I became quiteexcited, and imagined she must know of some good fortune to which I wasentitled, and had been kept out of by the machinations of awicked uncle.
For I had long discovered in my dreams that he had been my father'sbitterest enemy and the main cause of his financial ruin, by selfish,heartless, and dishonest deeds too complicated to explain here--aregular Shylock.
I had found this out by listening (in my dreams) to long conversationsbetween my father and mother in the old drawing-room at Passy, whileGogo was absorbed in his book; and every word that had passed throughGogo's inattentive ears into his otherwise preoccupied little brain hadbeen recorded there as in a phonograph, and was now repeated over andover again for Peter Ibbetson, as he sat unnoticed among them.
I asked her, jokingly, if she had discovered that I was the rightfulheir to Ibbetson Hall by any chance.
She replied that nothing would give her greater pleasure, but there wasno such good fortune in store for either her or me; that she haddiscovered long ago that Colonel Ibbetson was the greatest blackguardunhung, and nothing new she might discover could make him worse.
I then remembered how he would often speak of her, even to me, and hintand insinuate things which were no doubt untrue, and which Idisbelieved. Not that the question of their truth or untruth made himany the less despicable and vile for telling.
She asked me if he had ever spoken of her to me, and after muchpersuasion and cunning cross-examination I told her as much of the truthas I dared, and she became a tigress. She assured me that he had managedso to injure and compromise her in Hopshire that she and her mother hadto leave, and she swore to me most solemnly (and I thoroughly believeshe spoke the truth) that there had never been any relation betweenthem 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 tomake 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 seriousand honorable.
At this juncture her mother came in, Mrs. Glyn, and we renewed our oldacquaintance. She had quite forgiven me my school-boy admiration for herdaughter; all her power of hating, like her daughter's, had concentrateditself on Ibbetson; and as I listened to the long story of their wrongsand his infamy, I grew to hate him worse than ever, and was ready to betheir 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 inany 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 exactdate 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 monthslater--just fourteen weeks after my birth in Passy. I was growing quitebewildered with all this knowledge of my affairs, and wondered moreand more.
We sat silent for a while, the two women looking at each other and at meand 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 veryfoul 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 thatwill 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 excellentman, would be irreparable."
With a beating heart I solemnly gave the required assurance.
"Then, Mr. Ibbetson, it is right that you should know that ColonelIbbetson, when he was paying his infamous addresses to my daughter, gaveher unmistakably to understand that you were his natural son, by hiscousin, Miss Catherine Biddulph, afterwards Madame Pasquier dela Mariere!"
"Oh, oh, oh!" I cried, "surely you must be mistaken--he knew it wasimpossible--he had been refused by my mother three times--he went toIndia 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 recollectonce bringing me a note from at Ibbetson Hall? Here it is," and shehanded 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 soulof what you were clever enough to guess last night! There is a likeness,of course.
"Poor Antinoues! He is quite ignorant of the true relationship, which hascaused me many a pang of shame and remorse....
"'Que voulez-vous? Elle etait ravissaure!' ... We were cousins, muchthrown together; 'both were so young, and one so beautiful!' ... I wasbut a penniless cornet in those days--hardly more than a boy. Happily anunsuspecting Frenchman of good family was there who had loved her long,and she married him. 'Il etait temps!' ...
"Can you forgive me this 'entrainement de jeunesse?' I have repented insackcloth and ashes, and made what reparation I could by adopting andgiving my name to one who is a perpetual reminder to me of a moment'sinfatuation. He little knows, poor boy, and never will, I hope. 'Il n'aplus que moi au monde!'
"Burn this as soon as you have read it, and never let the subject bementioned 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 scarletforever.
THE FATAL LETTER.]
After a long silence, during which I could feel my pulse beat tobursting-point in my temples, Mrs. Glyn said:
"Now, Mr. Ibbetson, I hope you will do nothing rash--nothing that canbring my daughter's name into any quarrel between yourself and youruncle. For the sake of your mother's
good name, you will be prudent, Iknow. If he could speak like this of his cousin, with whom he had beenin love when he was young, what lies would he not tell of my poordaughter? He _has_--terrible lies! Oh, what we have suffered! When hewrote that letter I believe he really meant to marry her. He had thegreatest trust in her, or he would never have committed himself sofoolishly."
"Does he know of this letter's existing?" I asked.
"No. When he and my daughter quarrelled she sent him back hisletters--all but this one, which she told him she had burned immediatelyafter 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 removedfrom the outside, as you see. No one but ourselves has ever seen it, norhave we mentioned to a soul what it contains, as we never believed itfor a moment. Two or three years ago we had the curiosity to find outwhen and where your parents had married, and when you were born, andwhen _he_ went to India, it was no surprise to us at all. We then triedto find you, but soon gave it up, and thought it better to leave mattersalone. Then we heard he was in mischief again--just the same sort ofmischief; and then my daughter saw you in the park, and we concluded youought to know."
Such was the gist of that memorable conversation, which I have condensedas much as I could.
When I left these two ladies I walked twice rapidly round the park. Isaw scarlet often during that walk. Perhaps I looked scarlet. I rememberpeople staring at me.
Then I went straight to Lintot's, with the impulse to tell him mytrouble 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 Idid so (but without any definite purpose) a heavy loaded stick, a mostformidable weapon, even in the hands of a boy, and which I myself hadgiven to Lintot on his last birthday. [Greek: Anagkae]!
Then I went to my usual eating-house near the circus and dined. To thesurprise of the waiting-maid, I drank a quart of bitter ale and twoglasses of sherry. It was my custom to drink water. She plied me withquestions as to whether I was ill or in trouble. I answered her no, andat last begged she would leave me alone.
Ibbetson lived in St. James's Street. I went there. He was out. It wasnine o'clock, and his servant seemed uncertain when he would return. Icame back at ten. He was not yet home, and the servant, after thinking awhile, and looking up and down the street, and finding my appearancedecent and by no means dangerous, asked me to go upstairs and wait, as Itold 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 theweather, and handed me the _Saturday Review_ and _Punch_. I must havelooked quite natural--as I tried to look--and he left me.
I saw a Malay creese on the mantel-piece and hid it behind apicture-frame. I locked a door leading to another drawing-room wherethere 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, butno idea of killing him. I felt far too strong for that. Indeed, I had afeeling of quiet, irresistible strength--the result of suppressedexcitement.
I sat down and meditated all I would say. I had settled it over and overagain, and read and reread the fatal letter.
The servant came up with glasses and soda-water. I trembled lest heshould observe that the door to the other room was locked, but he didnot. He opened the window and looked up and down the street. Presentlyhe said, "Here's the colonel at last, sir," and went down to openthe 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, airymanner 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 asI 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 keyin 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 notfinding it, he turned round with his back to the fireplace and his armsakimbo, and tried to look very contemptuous and determined. His chin wasquite white under his dyed mustache--like wax--and his eyes blinkednervously.
I walked up to him and said: "You told Mrs. Deane that I was yournatural 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 pitifulgreen 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 thebell again, and looked again behind the clock for his creese. Then helit the letter at a candle and threw it in the fireplace, where itblazed out.
I made no attempt to prevent him.
The servant tried to open the door, and Ibbetson went to the window andcalled out for the police. I rushed to the picture where I had hiddenthe creese, and threw it on the table. Then I swung him away from thewindow by his coat-tails, and told him to defend himself, pointing tothe creese.
He seized it, and stood on the defensive; the servant had apparently rundown-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 andhissed out:
"They _both_ were, you idiot! How can I tell for certain whether you aremy son or not? It all comes to the same. Of course I wrote the letter.Come on, you cowardly assassin, you bastard parricide!" ... and headvanced on me with his creese low down in his right hand, the pointupward, and made a thrust, shrieking out, "Break open the door! quick!"They did; but too late!
"BASTARD! PARRICIDE!"]
I saw crimson!
He missed me, and I brought down my stick on his left arm, which he heldover 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 hewas on the ground. It seemed to crash right in.
That is why and how I killed Uncle Ibbetson.