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The Dream Chapter the Third - Misfortunes Come Upon the Smith Family Parts 5 and 6 · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Section seven of The Dream, a Novel. This is the
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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  Speaker 1: Recording by du Bois, Orlando, August eighteenth, twenty twenty three.
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  Speaker 1: Their Dream, a Novel by H. G. Wells. Chapter the
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  Speaker 1: third Misfortunes come upon the Smith family, Parts five and six.
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  Speaker 1: Part five. The next night, Fanny did not come home
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  Speaker 1: at all. As the hours passed and the emotion of
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  Speaker 1: my family deepened, I began to realize the full enormity
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  Speaker 1: of the disaster that had come upon our home. Sarnak
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  Speaker 1: paused and smiled. Never was there so clinging a dream.
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  Speaker 1: I am still half Harry Mortimer Smith, and only half myself.
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  Speaker 1: I'm still not only a memory, but half in feeling
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  Speaker 1: also that young English barber in the age of confusion.
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  Speaker 1: And yet all the time I am looking at my
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  Speaker 1: story from our point of view, and telling it in
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  Speaker 1: Sarnac's voice amidst this sunshine. Was it really a dream?
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  Speaker 1: I don't believe I am telling you a dream. It
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  Speaker 1: isn't a bit like a dream, said Willow. It is
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  Speaker 1: a story, a real story. Do you think it was
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  Speaker 1: a dream? Sunray shook her head. Gones, you said to Sarnac,
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  Speaker 1: whatever it is, tell it, tell us how your family
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  Speaker 1: behaved when Fanny ran away. You must keep in mind
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  Speaker 1: that all these poor souls were living in a world
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  Speaker 1: of repressions such as seem almost inconceivable. Now. You think
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  Speaker 1: they had ideas about love and sex and duty different
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  Speaker 1: from our ideas. We are taught that they had different ideas,
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  Speaker 1: But that is not the truth. The truth is that
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  Speaker 1: they had no clear thought out ideas about such things
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  Speaker 1: at all. They had fears and blank prohibitions and ignorances.
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  Speaker 1: Where we have ideas love sex, these were things like
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  Speaker 1: the enchanted woods of a fairy tale. It was forbidden
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  Speaker 1: even to go in, and none of us knew to
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  Speaker 1: what extent Fanny had gone in. So that evening was
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  Speaker 1: an evening of alarm, deepening to a sort of moral
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  Speaker 1: panic for the whole household. It seemed to be required
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  Speaker 1: in my family that they should all behave rationally and violently.
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  Speaker 1: My mother began to fret about half past nine. I've
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  Speaker 1: told her once for all, she said, partly to herself,
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  Speaker 1: but also for my benefit. It's got to stop. She
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  Speaker 1: cross examined me about where Fanny might be. Had she
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  Speaker 1: said anything about going on the pier, I said I
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  Speaker 1: didn't know. My mother fumed and fretted. Even if Fanny
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  Speaker 1: had own on the pier, she ought to be home
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  Speaker 1: by ten. I wasn't sent to bed at the usual hour,
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  Speaker 1: so that I saw my father and uncle come in
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  Speaker 1: after the public house had closed. I forgotten now why
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  Speaker 1: my uncle came in to us instead of going straight home,
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  Speaker 1: but it was not a very unusual thing for him
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  Speaker 1: to do. So they were already disposed of despondency, and
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  Speaker 1: my mother's white face and anxious tiding deepened their gloom.
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  Speaker 1: Mortimer said, my mother, that galley of yours has gone
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  Speaker 1: a bit too far. So our's ten and she isn't
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  Speaker 1: home yet, Haven't I told her? Time after time? Said
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  Speaker 1: my father. She's got to be in by nine. Not
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  Speaker 1: time's enough, you haven't, said my mother. And heir's the fruit.
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  Speaker 1: I've told her time after time, said my father, time
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  Speaker 1: after time. And he continued to repeat this at intervals
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  Speaker 1: throughout the subsequent discussion, until another refrain replaced it. My
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  Speaker 1: uncle said a little. At first, he took up his
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  Speaker 1: position on the hearth rug my father had made, and
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  Speaker 1: stood there swaying slightly, hiccuping at intervals behind his hand, frowning,
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  Speaker 1: and scrutinizing the faces of the speakers. At last, he
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  Speaker 1: delivered his judgment. Something's happened to that girl, he said,
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  Speaker 1: you mark my words. Prue had a mind apt for horrors.
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  Speaker 1: She's been an accident, perhaps, she said, she may have
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  Speaker 1: been knocked down, I told her, said my father, time
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  Speaker 1: after time. If there's been an accident, said my uncle sagely, Well,
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  Speaker 1: anything may happen. He repeated this statement in a louder,
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  Speaker 1: firmer voice. Anything may have happened. It's time you went
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  Speaker 1: to bed, Prue, said my mother. Aye, time, and you too, Harry.
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  Speaker 1: My sister got up with unusual promptitude and went out
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  Speaker 1: of the room. I think she must have had an
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  Speaker 1: idea then, of looking for Fanny's things. I lingered, may
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  Speaker 1: have been an accident, may not, said my mother darkly.
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  Speaker 1: It's worse things than accidents. What do you mean by that,
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  Speaker 1: Marth asked my uncle. Never mind what I mean? That
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  Speaker 1: girl's worried me times and off. There's worse things than accidents.
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  Speaker 1: I listened, thrilled, you be off to bed the air,
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  Speaker 1: said my mother. What you got to do, simple, said
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  Speaker 1: my uncle, leaning forward on his toes. Telephone, hospitals, telephone police,
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  Speaker 1: old crow at the Wellington, won't have gone to bed.
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  Speaker 1: It's got a telephone. Good customers, you'll telephone mark my words.
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  Speaker 1: It's an accident. And then Prue reappeared at the top
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  Speaker 1: of the stairs. Mother, she said, in a loud whisper,
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  Speaker 1: you be off to bed, miss, said my mother. Haven't
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  Speaker 1: I got worries enough? Mother said Prue, you know that
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  Speaker 1: little old portmantle of fannies. Everyone faced a new realization,
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  Speaker 1: so gorn, said Prue, and her two best hats and
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  Speaker 1: all her underclothes and her other dress gone too. Then
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  Speaker 1: she's took him, said my father, and herself, said my mother.
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  Speaker 1: Time after time I told her, said my father. She's
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  Speaker 1: run away, said my mother, with a scream in her voice.
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  Speaker 1: She's brought shame and disgrace on us. She's run away.
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  Speaker 1: Someone's got old of her, said my father. My mother
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  Speaker 1: sat down abruptly. After all I had done far, she cried,
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  Speaker 1: beginning to weep. With an honest man ready to marry her,
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  Speaker 1: toil and sacrifice, care and warnings, and she brought us
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  Speaker 1: to shame and dishonor she's run away, that I should
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  Speaker 1: have lived to see this day. Fanny, she jumped up
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  Speaker 1: suddenly to go and see with her own eyes that
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  Speaker 1: Prue's report was true. I made myself as inconspicuous as possible,
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  Speaker 1: for I feared some chance question might reveal my share
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  Speaker 1: in our family tragedy. But I didn't want to go
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  Speaker 1: to bed. I wanted to hear things out. Any good
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  Speaker 1: my going to the police station for you? My way home,
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  Speaker 1: Uncle asked Pleae, said my father, what good's police? God?
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  Speaker 1: If I had my hands on that villain's throat, I'd
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  Speaker 1: please him, bringing shame on me and mine police heirs. Fanny,
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  Speaker 1: my little daughter, Fanny beguiled and misled and carried away.
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  Speaker 1: I'm hasty. Yes, John, you go in and tell the police.
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  Speaker 1: It's on your way. Tell them from me. I won't
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  Speaker 1: leave not a single stone unturned, so as to bring
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  Speaker 1: her back. My mother came back whiter than ever. It's
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  Speaker 1: right enough, she said, she's gone, she's off, while we
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  Speaker 1: stand here disgraced and shamed. She's away. Who with? Said
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  Speaker 1: my father, that's the question, who with, Harry? Have you
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  Speaker 1: seen anyone about with your sister, anyone hanging about, any
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  Speaker 1: suspicious looking, sort of dressed up, fancy man, have you ever,
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  Speaker 1: I said, I hadn't. But Prue had evidence she became valuable.
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  Speaker 1: About a week ago. She had seen Fanny and a
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  Speaker 1: man coming along from Cliffstone talking. They hadn't seen her,
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  Speaker 1: they had been too wrapped up in each other. Her
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  Speaker 1: description of the man was very vague, and was concerned
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  Speaker 1: chiefly with his clothes. He had worn a blue serge
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  Speaker 1: suit and a gray felt hat. He was sort of
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  Speaker 1: a gentlemanlike. He was a good lot older than Fanny.
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  Speaker 1: Prue wasn't sure whether he had a mustache or not.
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  Speaker 1: My father interrupted Prue's evidence by a tremendous saying, which
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  Speaker 1: I was to hear him repeat time after time during
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  Speaker 1: the next week. Sooner than this should have happened, said
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  Speaker 1: my father, I've seen her lying dead at my feet. Gladly,
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  Speaker 1: I've seen her lying dead at my feet. Poor girl,
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  Speaker 1: said my uncle. It's a bitter lesson she has before,
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  Speaker 1: a bitter lesson, poor child, Poor little Fanny. Poor Fanny, indeed,
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  Speaker 1: cried my mother vindictively. Seeing it all I perceived from
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  Speaker 1: an entirely different angle. There she is prancing about with
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  Speaker 1: her fancy gentleman now and all her flalls, dinners and wines.
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  Speaker 1: She'll have flowers, shall have dresses and everything. He took
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  Speaker 1: about and shown things, shown off, and took to the theaters.
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  Speaker 1: The shame of it, and us earshamed and disgraced, and
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  Speaker 1: not a word to say. Neighbors ask us questions, how
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  Speaker 1: can I look him in the face? How can I
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  Speaker 1: look mister Crosby in the face. That man was ready
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  Speaker 1: to go down on his bended knees to her and
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  Speaker 1: worship her. Stout though he was, he'd have given her
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  Speaker 1: anything she asked for in reason. What he could see
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  Speaker 1: in her I could never make out. But see what
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  Speaker 1: he did. And now I've got to face him and
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  Speaker 1: tell him I've told him wrong. Time after time I've
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  Speaker 1: said to him, you wait, mister Crosby, And that huzzy
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  Speaker 1: sly and stuck up in deep gorne. My father's voice
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  Speaker 1: came booming over my mother's shrill outcry. Sooner than this
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  Speaker 1: should have happened, i'd seen her dead at my feet.
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  Speaker 1: I was moved to protest, but for all my thirteen
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  Speaker 1: years I found myself weeping. How do you know I
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  Speaker 1: blubbered that Fanny hasn't gone away and got married. How
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  Speaker 1: do you know married? Cried my mother. Why should she
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  Speaker 1: run away to be married if it was marriage? What
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  Speaker 1: was to prevent her bringing him home and having him
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  Speaker 1: introduced to us all right and proper? Isn't her own
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  Speaker 1: father and mother and own good enough for that? She
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  Speaker 1: has to run away and get married when she could
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  Speaker 1: have had it here at Saint Jude's, nice and respectful,
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  Speaker 1: with your father and your uncle and all of us
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  Speaker 1: in white favors and a carriage and all. I wish
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  Speaker 1: I could hope she was married. I wished there was
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  Speaker 1: a chance of it. My uncle shook his head in confirmation.
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  Speaker 1: Sooner than this should have happened. Boom, my father. I've
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  Speaker 1: seen her dead at my feet last night, said Prue.
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  Speaker 1: She said her prayers. Didn't she always say her prayers,
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  Speaker 1: asked my uncle shocked, not kneeling down, said Prue. But
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: last night she was kneeling quite a long time. She
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  Speaker 1: thought I was asleep, but I watched her. That looks bad,
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  Speaker 1: so my uncle, you know, smith, that looks I don't
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  Speaker 1: like that praying. It's ominous. I don't like it. And
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  Speaker 1: then suddenly and violently. Prue and I were packed off
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  Speaker 1: upstairs to bed. For long the sound of their voices
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  Speaker 1: went on. The three of them came up into the
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  Speaker 1: shop and stood at the front door, while my uncle
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  Speaker 1: gradually took leave. But what further things they said? I
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  Speaker 1: did not hear, but I remember this. Suddenly I had
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  Speaker 1: a brilliant idea, suggested no doubt by Prue's scrap of evidence.
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  Speaker 1: I got out of bed and knelt down and said,
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  Speaker 1: pray God be kind to my Fanny. Pray God not
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  Speaker 1: to be hard on Fanny. I'm sure she means to
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  Speaker 1: get married forever and ever I'm in And after putting
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  Speaker 1: Providence upon his honor, so to speak, in this fashion,
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  Speaker 1: I felt less mentally distracted, and I got back into bed,
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  Speaker 1: and presently I fell asleep. Sarnak paused, it's all rather puzzling,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: said Willow. It seemed perfectly natural at the time, said Sarnak,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: That pork butcher was evidently a repulsive creature, said Firefly.
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  Speaker 1: Why didn't they object to it? Because the importance of
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  Speaker 1: the marriage ceremonial was so great in those days as
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  Speaker 1: to dominate the entire situation. I knew Crosbie quite well.
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  Speaker 1: He was a cunning faced, oily mannered humbug with a
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  Speaker 1: bald head, fat red ears, a red complexion, and a paunch.
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  Speaker 1: There are no such people in the world now. You
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  Speaker 1: must recall some incredible, gross old world caricature to imagine him. Nowadays,
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  Speaker 1: you would as soon think of coupling the life of
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  Speaker 1: a girl with some gross heavy animal as with such
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  Speaker 1: a man. But that mattered nothing to my father or
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  Speaker 1: my mother. My mother, I suspect, rather liked the idea
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  Speaker 1: of the physical humiliation of Fanning. She no doubt had
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  Speaker 1: had her own humiliations. But the sexual life this old
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  Speaker 1: world was a tangle of clumsy ignorances and secret shames.
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  Speaker 1: Except for my mother's real hostility to Fanny, I remember,
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  Speaker 1: scarcely a scrap of any simple natural feeling, let alone
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  Speaker 1: any reasonable thinking in all that terrible fuss they made.
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  Speaker 1: Men and women in those days were so much more
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  Speaker 1: complex and artificial than they are now. In a muddled way,
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  Speaker 1: they were amazingly intricate. You know that monkeys, even young monkeys,
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  Speaker 1: have old and wrinkled faces. And it's equally true that
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  Speaker 1: in the Age of Confusion, life was so perplexing and
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  Speaker 1: irrational that while we were still children, our minds were
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  Speaker 1: already old and wrinkled. Even to my boyish observation, it
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  Speaker 1: was clear that my father was acting the whole time.
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  Speaker 1: He was behaving as he imagined he was expected to behave.
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  Speaker 1: Never for a moment, either when drunk or sober, did
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  Speaker 1: he even attempt to find out, much less to express
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  Speaker 1: what he was feeling naturally about Fanny. He was afraid
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  Speaker 1: to do so, And that night we were all acting,
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  Speaker 1: all of us. We were all afraid to do anything
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  Speaker 1: but act in what we imagined would be regarded as
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  Speaker 1: a virtuous role. But what were you afraid of? Asked Radiant,
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  Speaker 1: Why did you act? I don't know. Afraid to blame,
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  Speaker 1: afraid of the herd, a habit of fear, a habit
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  Speaker 1: of inhibition. What was the objection to the real lover?
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: Asked Firefly. I don't understand all this indignation. They guessed
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  Speaker 1: rightly enough that he did not intend to marry Fanny.
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  Speaker 1: What sort of man was he? I never saw him
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  Speaker 1: until many years afterwards, but I will tell you about
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: that when I come to it. Was he the sort
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: of man one could love. Fanny loved him, She had
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: every reason to do so. He took care of her.
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  Speaker 1: He got her the education she craved for. He gave
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: her a life full of interest. I believe he was
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: an honest and delightful man. They stuck to each other. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: then why didn't he marry her? If it was the custom?
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: He was married already. Marriage had embittered him, It embittered
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  Speaker 1: many people. He had been cheated. He had been married
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  Speaker 1: by a woman who pretended love to impose herself upon
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: him and his fortunes, and he had found her out
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: not a very difficult discovery, said Firefly. No, well, why
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: couldn't they divorce? In those days it took two to
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: make a divorce. She wouldn't let him loose. She just
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  Speaker 1: stuck on and lived on his loneliness. If he had
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: been poor, he probably would have tried to murder her.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: But as it happened, he had the knack of success,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: and he was rich. Rich people could take liberties with
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  Speaker 1: marriage restrictions that were absolutely impossible for the poor. And
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: he was I should guess, sensitive, affectionate, and energetic. Heaven
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: knows what sort of mind he was in when he
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: came upon Fanning. He picked her up, As people used
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  Speaker 1: to say, casually, the old world was full of such
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: pitiful adventures and encounter. Almost always they meant disaster, but
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: this was an exceptional case. Perhaps it was as lucky
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: for him that he met her as it was for
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: her that she met him. Fanny, you know, is one
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: of those people you have to be honest with. She
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: was acute and simple. She cut like a clean sharp knife.
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  Speaker 1: They were both in danger and want The ugliest chances
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  Speaker 1: might have happened to her, and he was far gone
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: in the way to promiscuity and complete sexual degradation. But
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: I can't go off on Fanny's story. In the end,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: she probably married him. They were going to marry in
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: some way. The other woman did at last make it possible.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: Don't you know for certain? Because I was shot before
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: that happened, if it happened at all. Part six, No,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: cried Sarnac, stopping a question from Willow by a gesture.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: I shall never tell my story, said Sarnac, if you
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: interrupt with questions. I was telling you of the storm
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: of misfortunes that wrecked our household at Cherry Gardens. My
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: father was killed within three weeks of Fanny's elopement. He
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: was killed upon the road between cherry gardens and clistone
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: there was a young gentleman named Wickersham with one of
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: the new petrol driven motor cars that were just coming
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: into use. He was hurrying home as fast as possible,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: he told the coroner, because his brakes were out of
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: order and he was afraid of an accident. My father
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: was walking with my uncle along the pavement talking. He
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: found a pavement too restricted for his subject and gestures,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: and he stepped off suddenly into the roadway and was
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: struck by the car from behind and knocked headlong and
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: instantly killed. The effect upon my uncle was very profound.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: For some days he was thoughtful and sober, and he
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: missed a race meeting. He was very helpful over the
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: details of the funeral. You can't say wasn't prepared, Marth,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: he told my mother. You can't say he wasn't prepared.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Very moment he was killed, he had the name of
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Providence on his lips. He'd been saying how sorely he
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: had been tried by this, and that he wasn't the
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: only one, said my mother. He was saying he knew
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: it was only to teach him some lesson, though he
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: couldn't rightly say what the lesson was. He was convinced
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: that everything that happened to us, good though it seemed,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: or bad though it seemed, was surely for the best.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: My uncle paused dramatically, And then the car at him,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: said my mother, trying to picture the scene. Then the
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: car at him, said my uncle. End of section seven.