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Chapter the Sixth: Marriage in War Time. Parts 3 to 6 · The Dream: A Novel

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Section nineteen of The Dream, a novel. This is a Liberbox recording.
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All Liberal Box recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to
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volunteer, please visit liberyvox dot org. The Dream, a novel by H.
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G. Wells, Section nineteen, Chapter six, Marriage in Wartime,
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Parts three, two six, Part three. It would seem the queerest story
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in the world if I told you how we two youngsters spend that day,
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We who were such strangers that we did not know each other's names, Andy,
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who were already drawn so closely together. It was a day of kindly
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beauty and warmth, and we rambled westward until we came to reach that dropped
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steeply to a silvery tree bordered canal. And along that ridge we went until
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we reached a village and a friendly inn, where there were biscuits and cheese
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and some apples to make a lunch upon for our time. A mood of
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shyness followed our first vowels. Then Hetty talked of her home and of her
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place in the world. It was only after we had eaten together that we
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became easy and familiar with each other. It was only as the sun was
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sinking in the west and our day due to its golden end, that we
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embraced suddenly as we set together on a fell tree in a wood, and
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that I learned from her, what a sweet and wonderful delight the kiss of
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love? Maybe part four. Sarnak paused it happened two thousand years ago,
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but it seems to me that it happened just six years from now. Once
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more, I'm back in that wood, among the long, warm shadows of
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the evening, and all my dreams and imaginations awake to reality, with Hetty's
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body in my arms and her lips to mine. I have been able to
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tell you my story hitherto with a sort of wonder and detachment, as though
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I showed it to you through a telescope. But I have been telling you
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over much, perhaps of Anny and Matilda Good, because I have had a
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sort of reluctance about Hetty. She is still so fresh in my mind that
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she seems, as I name her, to come even here and to be
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living still a perplexity between Sandrea, who is so like her and so unlike
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her, and myself. I love her again and hate her again, as
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though I was still that assistant editor, that writer of rubbish in lost and
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forgotten Thunderstone House in dead Ault, London. And I can't describe things now,
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said Sarnaud, as I have described them up to this, I seem
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no longer to look back into past things. My memories are living and suffering.
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They inflame and hurt. I loved Hetty. She was all the delight
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of love to me. I married her, I divorced her. I repented
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of the divorce, and I was killed for her sake. And it seems
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as if I was killed not a day ago. I married while I was
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in England, before I was passed for active service. Again. After my
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wound, I was wounded in the arm, Sarnak stopped and felt his arm.
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Sundray looked sharply at it and ran her hand down it from shoulder to
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elbow, as if to reassure herself. The others burst into laughter at her
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manifest anxiety and her expression of relief, the guest master being particularly delighted.
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I was wounded. Nevertheless, I was a sitting up case in the ambulance.
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I could tell you stories about the nurses and the hospital, and how
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we had a panic about a submarine as we crossed to England. I married
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Haddy before I went back, because we were now all together lovers, and
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it was just possible she might have a child. And moreover, there was
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a business about allowances if I got killed. That was an added inducement to
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marry. In those days of haphazard death for a young there was a worldwide
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favor of love making and countless such snatched marriages. She had never got to
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France, as she had said she hoped to do, for most of the
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time she was driving a car for the Ministry of Supplies in London. We
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spent two days a wild endearment, the only honeymoon we could get, at
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her mother's farm at Peyton Links, a little hamlet near Chasinghnger. I do
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not think I have told you that she was the only daughter of a farmer,
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and that Miss Marcus, her mother, was a widow. Hetty had
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been a clever girl, an elementary school teacher, and bookish and enterprising for
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the country place. She had never mentioned me to her mother until she had
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written to tell of her approaching marriage. When her mother had driven us from
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the station to the farm, and I had helped her to put away the
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pony. The old lady's non committal manner relaxed, and she said, well,
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it might have been worse. You looks and fairy's shoulders for one who's
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town bred. You can kiss me, my boy, though Smith is a
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poor exchange for Marcus. And I can't see how anyone can ever expect to
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get a living for man and wife at a fancy trade like publishing, I'd
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hoped at first she meant a publican, But publishing, she says, it
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is whether you are properly old enough for heady. Time will show. Time
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did show very rapidly that I was not properly old enough for heady, though
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I resisted the demonstration with passionate vigor. In this world of ours, we
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are, by comparison, very simple and direct. In that old world we
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should have seemed shockingly seeneople and dreaded. It is not only that they wrapped
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up and heat their bodies in all sorts of queer garments and rippings, but
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also that they wrapped up and distorted and hit their minds and wild. We
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today have the same simple and clean ideas all over the world about sexual restraints
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and sexual freedoms. People in those days had the most various and complicated codes
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half hidden and half confessed, and not merely half hidden, but imperfectly realized,
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subconscious rather than thought out and settled. Few of these codes respected the
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freedom of other people or set any bounds to the most extravagant developments of jealousy.
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And while Hetty's thoughts about love and marriage had been nourished on a diet
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of countryside folk and then of novels and poetry, devoured with avidity, and
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had had tremendous releases in the lags atmosphere of wartime London, I, in
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spite of my love for and faith and Fanny, had almost unwittingly adopted the
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rigid standards of my mother. As we used to say in those days,
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Hetti's was a much more artistic temperament than mine. For my part, I
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did not so much think as assumed that the worship of a man for a
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woman gave place to mastery as soon as her love was one. That the
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problem of absolute fidelity for both flowers was to be facilitated on his side by
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an absolute submissiveness on hers and about her wherever she went. Invisible but real,
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there had to be a sort of cloistered quality. It was implicit moreover,
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that she had never thought of love before she met her pretdistant and triumphant
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lover. Ridiculous and impossible, you will say, But Sundray here has read
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the all novels, and she can witness that that was the code. Sunray
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nodded, that's the spirit of them, she said. Well, in fact,
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Hetty was not only half a year older than I, but age beyond
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me in the business of love. She was my teacher. While I had
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been reading about Adams and Darwing and exploration and socialism, she had been sucking
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the honey of sensuous passion from hints and half hints in all the romances and
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poems from Shakespeare and all playwrights, and not only I realize now from books.
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She took me as a one, Captures and Thames and Animal, and
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made my senses and my imagination hers. Our honeymoon was magical and wonderful.
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She delighted in me and made me drunken with delights. And then we parted
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wonderfully with the taste of her salt tears on my lips, and I went
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off to the last five months of the war. I can see her now,
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slender as a tall boy in her khaki breeches and dry uniform, waving
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to my train. As I drew out of chasing hanger stasion. She wrote
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adorable and whimsical love letters that made me ache to be with her again.
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And just when we were forcing the great German barrier of the Hindenburg Line came
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one to tell me we were to have a child. She had not told
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me of it before, she said, because she had not been quite sure
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of it. Now she was sure. Would I love her still? Now
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that she would be no longer slim and gracious? Love her still? I
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was filled with monstrous pride. I wrote back to tell her how my job
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at Thunderstone House was being saved for me, how I would certainly get a
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little house, a dear little house, in some London suburb. How I
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would worship and cherish her. Her answer was at once tender and unusual.
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She said I was too good to her, far too good. She repeated
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with extraordinary passion that she loved me, had never loved, and could never
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love anyone but me, That she hated my absence more than she could tell.
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And then I was to do everything I could move heaven and earth to
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get my discharge and come home to her and be with her, and never,
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never, never leave her again. She had never wanted my arms about
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her as she wanted them now. I read nothing between the lines of that
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outbreak. It seemed just a new mood amidst the variety of her moods.
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Thunderstone House wanted me back as soon as possible, and the war had done
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much to increase the power and influence of all magazine publishers and newspaper proprietors.
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I got out of the army within three months of the armistice, and came
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back to a very soft and tender and submissive heady, a new heady,
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more wonderful even than the old. She was evidently more passionately in love with
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me than ever. We took some furnished rooms in a part of London called
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Richmond, near the Thames, in the Great Park, and we sought vainly
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for that bright little house in which our child was to be born. But
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there were no bright little houses available, and slowly a dark shadow who fell
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across the first brightness of our reunion. The seasonable days passed, but Hetty's
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child was not born. It was not born, indeed, until it was
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nearly two months too late for it to be my child. Part five.
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We are trained from earliest childhood in the world to be tolerant and understanding of
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others, and to be weary and disciplined with our own wayward impulses. We
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are given from the first a clear knowledge of our entangled nature. It will
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be hard for you to understand how harsh and how this ingenious the old world
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was. You live in a world that is, as we used to say,
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better bread. You will find it difficult to imagine the sudden storm of
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temptation and excitement and forgetfulness in Hetty's newly aroused being that had betrayed her into
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disloyalty. And still more difficult will you find the tangle of fear and desperate
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dishonesty that held her silent from any plain speech with me after my return.
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But Hatch spoken instead of leaving it to me to suspect, discover, and
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accuse. I doubt if she would have found any more mercy in me for
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her pitiful and abominable lapse. I see now that from the day I returned
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to Hetty, she was trying to tell me of her disaster and failing to
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find a possible way of doing so. But the vague intimations in her words
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and manner dropped like seats into my mind and germinated there. She was passionately
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excited and made happy by my coming back. Our first week together was the
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happiest week of my old world life. Fanny came to see us once,
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and we went and had a dinner at her flat, and something had happened
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to her too. I knew not what to make her very happy. Fanny
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liked Hetty. When she kissed me good night after her dinner, she helped
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me and whispered, she's a deer. I thought I'd be jealous of your
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wife, Harry, but I love her. Yes, we were very happy
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for that week. We walked along together back to our rooms instead of taking
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a taxi. What it was better for Hetty to walk a happy week.
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It was that stretched almost to happy fortnight, and then the shadows of suspicion
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gathered and deepened. It was in bed, in the darkness of the night,
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that I was at last moved to speak plainly to Hetty. I woke
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up and lay awake for a long time, very still and staring at my
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bleak realization of what had happened to us? Then I turned over, sat
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up in bed, and said, Hetty, this child is not mine.
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She answered. At once it was plain she too had been awake. She
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answered, in a muffled voice, as though her face lay against the pillow.
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No, you said no, She stirred, and her voice came clearer.
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I said, no, Oh, husband, boy, I wish I
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was dead. I wish to God I was dead. I sat still,
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and she said no more. We remained like two fear stricken creatures in the
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jungle, motionless in an immense silence and darkness. At last she moved her
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hand crept out towards me, seek me, and at that advance I recoiled.
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I seemed to hang for a moment between two courses of action, and
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then I gave myself over to rage. You touch me, I cried,
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and got out of bed and began to walk about the room. I knew
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it, I shouted, I knew it, I felt it, and I
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have loved you. You cheat, your foul thing, you lying cheat.
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Part six. I think I described to you earlier in the story how my
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family behaved when Fanny left us, how we all seemed to be acting and
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keeping up a noise of indignation, as we were afraid of some different and
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disturbing realizations coming through to us should that barrage of make believe morality fail.
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And just as my father and my mother behaved in that downstairs kitchen in Cherry
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Gardens, so now I behaved in that desolating crisis between myself and Heady.
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I stormed about the room. I hurled insults at her. I would not
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let the facts that she was a beaten and weeping thin, that she certainly
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loved me, and then her pay tortured me prevail against my heart duty to
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my outraged pride. I lit the gas I don't remember when, and the
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scene went on in that watery Victorian light. I began dressing, for never
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more was I to lie in bed with Hetty. I meant to dress,
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and having said my say to go out of the house. So I had
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to be scornful and loudly indignant. But also I had to find my various
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garments, pull my shirt out my head, and lace up my boots,
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so that there were interludes in the storm when Hetty could say something that I
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had to hear. It all happened in an evening, She said, It
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isn't as though I had planned to betray you. It was his last day
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before he left, and he was wreched. It was the thought of you
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made me go with him. It was just kindness. There were two of
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our girls going to have dinner with their boys, and they asked me to
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come, and that was how I met him. Officers. They were all
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three and schoolfellows, Londoners, three boys who were going over just as you
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were. It seemed rotten not to make a party for them. I was
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struggling with my color and stud but I tried to achieve sarcasm. I see,
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I said, under the circumstances, mere politeness dictated what you did.
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Oh my god, listen how it happened, Harry, don't shout at me
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again for a minute. Afterwards, he asked me to come to his rooms.
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He said the others were coming on. He seemed such a harmless sword,
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very He seemed the sword would surely get killed, and I was sorry
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for him. He was fairer, like you, fairer, and it seemed
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all different that night. And then he got hold of me and kissed me.
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And I struggled, but I didn't seem to have the strength to resist.
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I didn't realize somehow, that's pretty evident that I can believe you've got
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no pity, Harry. Perhaps it's just I suppose I ought to have seen
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the risk. But we aren't all strong like you. Some of us are
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pulled this way, and that some of us to the thing we hate.
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I did what I could. It was like waking up to realize what had
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happened. He wanted me to stay with him. I ran out from his
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rooms. I've never seen him since. He's written, but I haven't answered.
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He knew you were a soldier's wife. He's rotten. He knew it.
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He planned it while we were at dinner. He prayed and promised and
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lied. He said he wanted just a kiss, just one kiss for kindness.
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He began with that kiss. I'd been drinking wine, and I'm not
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used to wine. Oh, Harry, husband, boy, if I could
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have died, but I'd kissed and played about with boys before I met you.
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It seemed so little until it was too late, and here we are,
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said I. I came and sat down on the bed and stared at
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Heady's disheveled distress. She was suddenly pitiful and pretty. I suppose I ought
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to go and kill this swine, I said, I feel more like killing
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you kill me, she said, I wish you would. What's his name?
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Where's he now? He doesn't matter, A rep said, Hetty.
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You may hang for me if you like, but you shan't hang for a
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thing like that. I tell you he doesn't matter. He's a dirty accident.
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He happened. You are shilling him him, she said, I'm shilling
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you. I stared at her. Again. Came a moment when I seemed
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to hang undecided at a parting of two courses, and again I decided to
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explode into a rage. My god, I cried, and then louder and
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standing up. My God. Then I rented at her. I suppose I've
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only got myself to blame for all this. What did I know of what
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you were before I met you? I guess I wasn't the first, and
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I guess he won't be the last. What do names matter? I guess
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you thanked Heaven for a green dad when you met me, and so on.
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I passd about the room as I raved. She set up on the
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bed, her hair disordered and her eyes tearful. Regarding me with a still
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and mournful face. Oh harry, she would say, ever and again,
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or oh boy, While I lit my clumsy fancy rove through a wilderness of
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coarse reproaches, Ever and again, I would come up to her and stand
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over her. Tell me his name, I would shout, and she would
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shake her head. At last, I was dressed. I looked at my
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watch. Five. What are you going to do? She asked. I
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don't know. Go. I suppose I can't stay here. I should be
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sick. I shall get most of my things together and go. I'll find
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a lodging somewhere. It's nearly dawn. I'll go before you need get up.
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Meanwhile, i'll sit in the other room. I can lie on the
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sofa for a bit. But the fire's not lit, she said, And
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it's cold. It's not even late, and you'll need some coffee. She
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stared at me with eyes full of solicitude, and forthwith. She shuffled out
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of bed and slipped her feet into her bedroom slippers and put on a gate
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dressing gown that had been a great delight to us ten days ago. She
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went meekly by me, moving her poor heavy body rather wearily and found some
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firelighters in a cupboard and nailt by the fireplace, and began to rake out
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the ashes of the overnight fire. I made no movement to prevent her.
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I began to collect together various books and small possessions I intended to take with
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me. She was only apprehending the situation very slowly. She turned to me
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in the middle of her fire lighting. I suppose you leave me a little
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money to go on with? She said. That gave me a base opportunity.
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I leave you money, all right, I sneered. I suppose I've
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got to keep you until we are free. Then it will be his job
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or the next man's. She occupied herself with the fire. She filled a
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kettle and put it ready. Then she sat down in an armchair by the
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hearth. Her face was white and drawn, but she shed no tears.
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I went to the window and pulled up the blind and stared at the street
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outside, with its street lamps still alight. Everything was gaunt and bleak in
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the colorless called horror of the early dawn. I shall go to mother,
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she said, shivering and pulling her dressing gown about her shoulders. It will
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be dreadful for her to know what has happened. But she is kind,
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she'll be kinder than anyone. I shall go to her. You can do
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what you like, I said, Harry. She said, I've never loved
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any man but you. If I could kill this child, if it would
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please you, if I killed this child, she spoke with white lips.
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Yes, I tried all. I knew some things I couldn't bring myself to
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do. And now it's a thing that's alive. We stared at one another
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in silence for some moments. No, I said, at last, I
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can't stand it. I can't endure it. Nothing can alter it. Now
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you tell a tale. How do I know you've cheated once and you can
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cheat again. You gave yourself to that swine. If I live to one
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hundred, I'll never forgive that you gave your How do I know you didn't
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tempt him? You gave You can go go where you gave yourself. There
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are things no this man can forgive, things that are dirty to forgive.
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He stole you, and you let him steal you, and he can have
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you. I wish if you'd had the beginnings of a sense of honor,
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you'd never have let me come back to you, to think of these last
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days here, and you, you with this secret next your heart, the
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fifthness of it, you, you whom I loved. I was weeping.
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Sarnak paused and stared into the fire. Yes, he said, I was
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weeping. And the tears I shed, It's wonderful. The tears I shed
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were tears of the purest self pity. And all the time I saw the
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thing from my own standpoint alone, blind to the answering tragedy in Heady's heart.
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And the most grotesque thing is that all the time she was getting me
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a coffee, and that when it was ready, I drank her coffee.
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At the end, she wanted to kiss me, to kiss me goodbye,
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she said, And I rebuffed her and struck her. When she came near
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me. I went only to thrust her back, but my hand clenched at
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the opportunity. Harry, she whispered. She stood like a stun thing,
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watched me go, and then turned suddenly and swiftly and ran back to the
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bedroom. I stemmed the outer door and went downstairs into the empty morning.
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Richmond streets all together empty of traffic. They were under the flash of dawn.
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I carried my bag towards the railway station that would take me to London.
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My bag was heavy with the things I had brought away, and it
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dragged upon my arms, and I felt myself a tragically illused, but honorably
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self vindicated young man. End of Section nineteen