Twelve Stories and a Dream (25 page)

The girls parted in London, and Miss Winchelsea returned, with a new
interest in life, to the Girls' High School in which she had been
an increasingly valuable assistant for the last three years. Her new
interest in life was Fanny as a correspondent, and to give her a lead
she wrote her a lengthy descriptive letter within a fortnight of her
return. Fanny answered, very disappointingly. Fanny indeed had no
literary gift, but it was new to Miss Winchelsea to find herself
deploring the want of gifts in a friend. That letter was even criticised
aloud in the safe solitude of Miss Winchelsea's study, and her
criticism, spoken with great bitterness, was "Twaddle!" It was full of
just the things Miss Winchelsea's letter had been full of, particulars
of the school. And of Mr. Snooks, only this much: "I have had a
letter from Mr. Snooks, and he has been over to see me on two Saturday
afternoons running. He talked about Rome and you; we both talked about
you. Your ears must have burnt, my dear...."

Miss Winchelsea repressed a desire to demand more explicit information,
and wrote the sweetest long letter again. "Tell me all about yourself,
dear. That journey has quite refreshed our ancient friendship, and I do
so want to keep in touch with you." About Mr. Snooks she simply wrote
on the fifth page that she was glad Fanny had seen him, and that if
he SHOULD ask after her, she was to be remembered to him VERY KINDLY
(underlined). And Fanny replied most obtusely in the key of that
"ancient friendship," reminding Miss Winchelsea of a dozen foolish
things of those old schoolgirl days at the training college, and saying
not a word about Mr. Snooks!

For nearly a week Miss Winchelsea was so angry at the failure of Fanny
as a go-between that she could not write to her. And then she wrote less
effusively, and in her letter she asked point-blank, "Have you seen Mr.
Snooks?" Fanny's letter was unexpectedly satisfactory. "I HAVE seen Mr.
Snooks," she wrote, and having once named him she kept on about him;
it was all Snooks—Snooks this and Snooks that. He was to give a public
lecture, said Fanny, among other things. Yet Miss Winchelsea, after
the first glow of gratification, still found this letter a little
unsatisfactory. Fanny did not report Mr. Snooks as saying anything about
Miss Winchelsea, nor as looking a little white and worn, as he ought
to have been doing. And behold! before she had replied, came a second
letter from Fanny on the same theme, quite a gushing letter, and
covering six sheets with her loose feminine hand.

And about this second letter was a rather odd little thing that Miss
Winchelsea only noticed as she re-read it the third time. Fanny's
natural femininity had prevailed even against the round and clear
traditions of the training college; she was one of those she-creatures
born to make all her m's and n's and u's and r's and e's alike, and to
leave her o's and a's open and her i's undotted. So that it was only
after an elaborate comparison of word with word that Miss Winchelsea
felt assured Mr. Snooks was not really "Mr. Snooks" at all! In Fanny's
first letter of gush he was Mr. "Snooks," in her second the spelling was
changed to Mr. "Senoks." Miss Winchelsea's hand positively trembled as
she turned the sheet over—it meant so much to her. For it had already
begun to seem to her that even the name of Mrs. Snooks might be avoided
at too great a price, and suddenly—this possibility! She turned over
the six sheets, all dappled with that critical name, and everywhere the
first letter had the form of an E! For a time she walked the room with a
hand pressed upon her heart.

She spent a whole day pondering this change, weighing a letter of
inquiry that should be at once discreet and effectual, weighing too what
action she should take after the answer came. She was resolved that if
this altered spelling was anything more than a quaint fancy of Fanny's,
she would write forthwith to Mr. Snooks. She had now reached a stage
when the minor refinements of behaviour disappear. Her excuse remained
uninvented, but she had the subject of her letter clear in her mind,
even to the hint that "circumstances in my life have changed very
greatly since we talked together." But she never gave that hint. There
came a third letter from that fitful correspondent Fanny. The first line
proclaimed her "the happiest girl alive."

Miss Winchelsea crushed the letter in her hand—the rest unread—and
sat with her face suddenly very still. She had received it just before
morning school, and had opened it when the junior mathematicians were
well under way. Presently she resumed reading with an appearance of
great calm. But after the first sheet she went on reading the third
without discovering the error:—"told him frankly I did not like
his name," the third sheet began. "He told me he did not like it
himself—you know that sort of sudden frank way he has"—Miss Winchelsea
did know. "So I said 'Couldn't you change it?' He didn't see it at
first. Well, you know, dear, he had told me what it really meant; it
means Sevenoaks, only it has got down to Snooks—both Snooks and Noaks,
dreadfully vulgar surnames though they be, are really worn forms of
Sevenoaks. So I said—even I have my bright ideas at times—'if it
got down from Sevenoaks to Snooks, why not get it back from Snooks
to Sevenoaks?' And the long and the short of it is, dear, he couldn't
refuse me, and he changed his spelling there and then to Senoks for the
bills of the new lecture. And afterwards, when we are married, we shall
put in the apostrophe and make it Se'noks. Wasn't it kind of him to mind
that fancy of mine, when many men would have taken offence? But it is
just like him all over; he is as kind as he is clever. Because he knew
as well as I did that I would have had him in spite of it, had he been
ten times Snooks. But he did it all the same."

The class was startled by the sound of paper being viciously torn, and
looked up to see Miss Winchelsea white in the face, and with some very
small pieces of paper clenched in one hand. For a few seconds they
stared at her stare, and then her expression changed back to a more
familiar one. "Has any one finished number three?" she asked in an even
tone. She remained calm after that. But impositions ruled high that day.
And she spent two laborious evenings writing letters of various sorts
to Fanny, before she found a decent congratulatory vein. Her reason
struggled hopelessly against the persuasion that Fanny had behaved in an
exceedingly treacherous manner.

One may be extremely refined and still capable of a very sore heart.
Certainly Miss Winchelsea's heart was very sore. She had moods of sexual
hostility, in which she generalised uncharitably about mankind. "He
forgot himself with me," she said. "But Fanny is pink and pretty and
soft and a fool—a very excellent match for a Man." And by way of a
wedding present she sent Fanny a gracefully bound volume of poetry by
George Meredith, and Fanny wrote back a grossly happy letter to say that
it was "ALL beautiful." Miss Winchelsea hoped that some day Mr. Senoks
might take up that slim book and think for a moment of the donor. Fanny
wrote several times before and about her marriage, pursuing that fond
legend of their "ancient friendship," and giving her happiness in the
fullest detail. And Miss Winchelsea wrote to Helen for the first
time after the Roman journey, saying nothing about the marriage, but
expressing very cordial feelings.

They had been in Rome at Easter, and Fanny was married in the August
vacation. She wrote a garrulous letter to Miss Winchelsea, describing
her home-coming, and the astonishing arrangements of their "teeny weeny"
little house. Mr. Se'noks was now beginning to assume a refinement in
Miss Winchelsea's memory out of all proportion to the facts of the case,
and she tried in vain to imagine his cultured greatness in a "teeny
weeny" little house. "Am busy enamelling a cosey corner," said Fanny,
sprawling to the end of her third sheet, "so excuse more." Miss
Winchelsea answered in her best style, gently poking fun at Fanny's
arrangements and hoping intensely that Mr. Sen'oks might see the letter.
Only this hope enabled her to write at all, answering not only that
letter but one in November and one at Christmas.

The two latter communications contained urgent invitations for her to
come to Steely Bank on a Visit during the Christmas holidays. She tried
to think that HE had told her to ask that, but it was too much like
Fanny's opulent good-nature. She could not but believe that he must be
sick of his blunder by this time; and she had more than a hope that he
would presently write her a letter beginning "Dear Friend." Something
subtly tragic in the separation was a great support to her, a sad
misunderstanding. To have been jilted would have been intolerable. But
he never wrote that letter beginning "Dear Friend."

For two years Miss Winchelsea could not go to see her friends, in
spite of the reiterated invitations of Mrs. Sevenoaks—it became full
Sevenoaks in the second year. Then one day near the Easter rest she felt
lonely and without a soul to understand her in the world, and her mind
ran once more on what is called Platonic friendship. Fanny was clearly
happy and busy in her new sphere of domesticity, but no doubt HE had his
lonely hours. Did he ever think of those days in Rome—gone now beyond
recalling? No one had understood her as he had done; no one in all the
world. It would be a sort of melancholy pleasure to talk to him again,
and what harm could it do? Why should she deny herself? That night she
wrote a sonnet, all but the last two lines of the octave—which would
not come, and the next day she composed a graceful little note to tell
Fanny she was coming down.

And so she saw him again.

Even at the first encounter it was evident he had changed; he seemed
stouter and less nervous, and it speedily appeared that his conversation
had already lost much of its old delicacy. There even seemed a
justification for Helen's description of weakness in his face—in
certain lights it WAS weak. He seemed busy and preoccupied about his
affairs, and almost under the impression that Miss Winchelsea had
come for the sake of Fanny. He discussed his dinner with Fanny in an
intelligent way. They only had one good long talk together, and that
came to nothing. He did not refer to Rome, and spent some time abusing a
man who had stolen an idea he had had for a text-book. It did not seem a
very wonderful idea to Miss Winchelsea. She discovered he had forgotten
the names of more than half the painters whose work they had rejoiced
over in Florence.

It was a sadly disappointing week, and Miss Winchelsea was glad when it
came to an end. Under various excuses she avoided visiting them again.
After a time the visitor's room was occupied by their two little boys,
and Fanny's invitations ceased. The intimacy of her letters had long
since faded away.

The man with the white face entered the carriage at Rugby. He moved
slowly in spite of the urgency of his porter, and even while he was
still on the platform I noted how ill he seemed. He dropped into the
corner over against me with a sigh, made an incomplete attempt to
arrange his travelling shawl, and became motionless, with his eyes
staring vacantly. Presently he was moved by a sense of my observation,
looked up at me, and put out a spiritless hand for his newspaper. Then
he glanced again in my direction.

I feigned to read. I feared I had unwittingly embarrassed him, and in a
moment I was surprised to find him speaking.

"I beg your pardon?" said I.

"That book," he repeated, pointing a lean finger, "is about dreams."

"Obviously," I answered, for it was Fortnum-Roscoe's Dream States, and
the title was on the cover. He hung silent for a space as if he sought
words. "Yes," he said at last, "but they tell you nothing." I did not
catch his meaning for a second.

"They don't know," he added.

I looked a little more attentively at his face.

"There are dreams," he said, "and dreams."

That sort of proposition I never dispute.

"I suppose—" he hesitated. "Do you ever dream? I mean vividly."

"I dream very little," I answered. "I doubt if I have three vivid dreams
in a year."

"Ah!" he said, and seemed for a moment to collect his thoughts.

"Your dreams don't mix with your memories?" he asked abruptly. "You
don't find yourself in doubt; did this happen or did it not?"

"Hardly ever. Except just for a momentary hesitation now and then. I
suppose few people do."

"Does HE say—" he indicated the book.

"Says it happens at times and gives the usual explanation about
intensity of impression and the like to account for its not happening as
a rule. I suppose you know something of these theories—"

"Very little—except that they are wrong."

His emaciated hand played with the strap of the window for a time. I
prepared to resume reading, and that seemed to precipitate his next
remark. He leant forward almost as though he would touch me.

"Isn't there something called consecutive dreaming—that goes on night
after night?"

"I believe there is. There are cases given in most books on mental
trouble."

"Mental trouble! Yes. I dare say there are. It's the right place for
them. But what I mean—" He looked at his bony knuckles. "Is that sort
of thing always dreaming? IS it dreaming? Or is it something else?
Mightn't it be something else?"

I should have snubbed his persistent conversation but for the drawn
anxiety of his face. I remember now the look of his faded eyes and the
lids red-stained—perhaps you know that look.

"I'm not just arguing about a matter of opinion," he said. "The thing's
killing me."

"Dreams?"

"If you call them dreams. Night after night. Vivid!—so vivid... this—"
(he indicated the landscape that went streaming by the window) "seems
unreal in comparison! I can scarcely remember who I am, what business I
am on...."