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Chapter the Sixth: Marriage in War Time. Parts 7 and 8 · The Dream: A Novel

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Section twenty of The Dream, a novel. This is a Libertyboxer recording.
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All Liberty Boxer recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to
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volunteer, please visit liberywox dot org. The Dream, a Novel by H.
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G. Wells, Section twenty, Chapter six, Marriage in Wartime,
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Part seven and eight. Part seven. Oh poor little things, cried starlight,
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Oh poor little, pitiful, pitiless creatures. This story hurts me.
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I couldn't endure it if it were anything more than a dream. Why were
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they all so hard upon each other and so to the sorrow in each other?
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We knew no better. This world now has a tempered air. In
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this world we breathe mercy with our first flattering gasp. We are so taught
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and trained to think of others that their pain is ours. But two thousand
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years ago men and women were half way back to crude nature. Our motives
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took us unawares. We breathe infections, Our food was poisoned, our passions
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were fevers. We were only beginning to learn the art of being human.
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But didn't Fanny begin Firefly, Yes, said Willow. Didn't Fanny, who
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was naturally so wise about love didn't she take you in hand and send you
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back to forgive and help your wretched Hetty. Fanny heard my version of our
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story first, said Sarnak. She never realized the true values of the business
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until it was too late to stop the divorce. When I told her that
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Hetty had lived a life of depravity in London while I was in the trenches,
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she heard me with amazement, but never doubted my word. And she
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seemed such a deer, said Fanny. She seemed so in love with you.
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It's wonderful how different women are. There's women who seemed to change into
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something else directly they get out outside of you round the corner. I liked
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your heady, Harry. There was something sweet about her, be what she
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may. I never dreamt she'd deceive you and let you down. Fancy going
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about London picking up men. Is just as though she'd done it to me.
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Matilda Good too, was wonderfully sympathetic. No woman goes wrong only just
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once, said Matilda. You are right to end it. The Miltons were
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giving up her drawing room floor. I could have it if I cared to
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take it. I was only too glad to take it and return to my
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old home. Hetty, I suppose, packed up her own belongings as well
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as she could. She went down from Richmond to her mother's farm at Peton
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Links, and there it was her child was born. Now, I want
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to tell you, said Sarnak, what is I believe the most remarkable thing
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in all this story. I'm telling you, I do not remember, in
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all that time, right up to end, including our divorce, that I
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felt any impulse of pity or kindliness, much less of love towards Hetty.
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And yet in my dream I was very much the same sort of man as
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I am today. I was a man of the same type. But I
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was driven by a storm of amazed and outraged pride and sexual jealousy of the
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most frantic sort, towards acts of spite that are almost inconceivable hearing now,
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I was doing all I could to divorce Heady in such a way as to
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force her into marriage with Sumner, for that was the man's name. Because
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I had learned that he was a hopelessly bad character, and because I believed
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he would make her miserable and marror her life life altogether. I wanted to
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do that, to punish her, to fill her with bitter regrets for her
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treatment of me. But at the same time it drove me to the verge
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of madness to think that he should ever possess her again. If my wishes
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could have been given creative force, Hetry would have gone to Sumner, disfigured
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and diseased. They would have come together again amidst circumstances of horrible cruelty.
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Sarna cried Sandrey, that you should even dream such things. Dream. It
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is as men were, It is as they are, except for the education
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and the free happiness that released us. For we are not four score generations
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from the age of Confusion, And that was but a few thousands more from
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the hairy apemen who bade the moon in the primeval forests of Europe. Then
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it was the old man in lust and anger ruled his herd of women and
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children and begot us all. And in the age of Confusion, after the
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great wars man was and he still is, the child of that hairy old
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apemen. Don't I shave myself daily? And don't we educate and legislate with
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our utmost skill and science to keep the old beast within bounds. But our
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schools in the days of Harry Mortimer Smith, were still half way back to
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the cave. Our science was only beginning. We had no sexual education at
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all, only concealments and repressions. Our code was still the code of jealousy,
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thinly disguised. The pride and self respect of a man was still bound
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up with the animal possession of women. The pride and self respect of most
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women was, by a sort of reflection, bound up with the animal possession
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of a man. We felt that this possession was the keystone of life.
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Any failure in this central business involved a monstrous abasement, and against that our
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poor souls sought blindly for the most extravagant consolations. We hit things, we
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perverted, and misrepresented things, We evaded the issue. Man is a creature
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which, under nearly every sort of stress releases hate and malign action. And
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we were then still subjected to the extremest stresses. But I will not go
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on apologizing for Harry Mortimer Smith. He was what a world made him end.
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So are we. And in my dream I went about that old world,
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doing my work, control my outward behavior, and spending all the force
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of my wounded love for Hetty in scheming for her misery, and one thing
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in particular was of immense importance to my tormented being. It was that I
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should get another lover quickly, that I should dispel the magic of Hetty's embraces
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lay the haunting gost of my desire for her. I had to persuade myself
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that I had never really loved her, and replace her in my heart by
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someone I could persuade myself was my own true love. So I sought to
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company of Millie Kimpton again. We had been close companions before the war,
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and it was not difficult to persuade myself that I had always been a little
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in love with her. Always she had been more than a little in love
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with me. I told her my story of my marriage, and she was
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hurt for my sake and indignant beyond means. With a heady I presented to
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her, she married me within a week of the completion of my divorce.
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Part eight. Millie was faithful and Millie was kind. She was a cooling
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refuge from the heat and distresses of my passion. She had a broad,
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candid face that never looked either angry or miserable. She held her countenance high,
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smiling towards heaven with a pleasant confidence and self satisfaction. She was very
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fair, and she was broad shouldered for a woman. She was tender,
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but not passioned. She was intelligently interested in things, but without much whim
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or humor. She was nearly a year and a half older than I.
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She had, as people used to say, taken a great fancy to me
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when first I came into the form a crude and inexperienced youngster. She had
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seen me rise very rapidly to mister Cheeseman's position on the editorial stuff he had
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been transferred to the printing side, and at times she had helped me greatly.
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We were both popular in Thunderstone House, and when we married there was
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a farewell dinner to Milly, who gave up her position. Then in the
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counting house there were speeches and one waiful wedding present of dinner knives and silver
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forks and spoons in a brass bound chest of oak with a flattering inscription on
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a silver plate. There had been a good deal of sympathy with Milly in
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Thunderstone House, especially among the girls, and a good deal of indignation at
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me when my first marriage occurred in my belated recognition of my true destiny was
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considered a very romantic and satisfactory end to the story. We secured a convenient
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little house in a row of stackle houses, all built together to have one
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architectural effect, called Chester Terrace, close to one of the inner parks of
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London known as Richard's Park. MILLI, I discovered, had a little fortune
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of nearly two thousand pounds, and so she was able to furnish this house
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very prettily according to current taste. And in this house, in due course
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she bore me a son. I rejoiced very greatly and conspicuously over these youngsters
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arrival. I think you will understand how essentially it was to my obsession for
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defeating and obliterating heavy that Milly should bear me a child. I worked very
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hard during that first year of married life, and on the whole I was
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happy. But it was not a very rich nor a very deep sort of
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happiness. It was a happiness made up of rather hard and rather superficial satisfactions.
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In a sense, I loved Milly very dearly. Her value was above
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rubies. She was honest and sweet and complacant. She liked me enormously.
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She was made happy by my attentions. She helped me, watched for my
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comfort, rejoiced at the freshness and vigor of my work. Yet we did
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not talk very freely and easily together. I could not let my mind run
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on before her. I had to shape what I said to her feelings and
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standards, and they were very different feelings and standards from my own. She
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was everything a wife should be, except in one matter. She was not
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for me that particular dear companion for whom the heart of every human being craves,
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that dear companion with whom you are happy and free and safe, That
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dear companionship I had met, and I had thrust it from me. Does
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it come twice in a life to anyone? How should I know? Said
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Sandray. We know better than to reject it, said Radiant. Perhaps after
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many years, said Willow, answering Sarnak's question, after one has healed and
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grown and changed. Milly and I were close friends, indeed, but we
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were never dear companions. I had told Hetty about my sister Fanny on the
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evening of our first day together, when we walked over the hills. She
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was instantly sure that she would love Fanny. Fanny had seemed very brave and
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romantic to Hatty's imagination. But I did not tell Millia of Fanny until close
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upon our marriage. You will say that it was not Mealy's fault that I
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was shy with her on Fanny's account, But assuredly it was a fault in
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our relationship, and it was clear that Millia accepted Fanny on my account and
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refrained from too searching a commentary because of me. Merely believed profoundly in the
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institution of marriage and in the obligation of an unlimited chastity upon women. It's
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a pity she cannot marry this man, said Milly, anticipating perplexities. It
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must make everything so inconvenient for her and everyone who knows her. It must
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be so difficult to introduce her to people. You needn't do that, I
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said. My people are all fashioned. They needn't know. I said,
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that would be easy way for me, Harry. I found my own declarations
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of affection for Fanny considerably chilled by the effort Merely made to be generous in
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the matter. I found it's still more difficult to tell her that Fanny's lover
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was Newberry. Then is that how you got into a thunderstone house, asked
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Milly, when at last I got to that revelation. It's how I got
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my chance there, I admitted. I didn't think it was like that.
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I thought you'd made your way in. I've made my way up. I've
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never been favored. Yes, but do you think people know, Harry?
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They'd say all sorts of things. You perceived that Milly was not a very
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clever woman, and also that she was very jealous of my honor. I
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don't think anyone knows who matters, I said. Neither I nor Fanny advertise,
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But it was clear Millie did not like the situation. She would have
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much preferred a world without sister Fanny. She had no curiosity to see this
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sister that I loved so dearly, or to find any good in her.
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On various small but quite valied scores. She put off going to see her
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for a whole week, and always I had to remind her of Fanny and
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speak of Fanny first before Fanny could be talked about in all other matters.
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Millie was charming and delightful to me, but as far as she could contrive
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it, she banished Fanny from our world. She could not see how much
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of my affection went also into banishment. Their meeting, when at last it
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came about, was right, rather than warm and invisible. A terminous screen
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had fallen, not only between Milly and Fanny, but between Fannie and myself.
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Millie had come resolved to be generous and agreeable in spite of Vennie's disadvantage
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status, and I think she was a little disconcerted by Fannie's dress and furniture.
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For Millia was always very sensitive to furniture, and her sensitiveness had been
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enhanced by our own efforts to ecupe a delightful home on a sufficient but not
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too extravagant expenditure. I had always thought Fanny's furnishings very pretty, but it
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had never occurred to me that they were, as Milly put it, dreadfully
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good. But there was a red lacquer cabinet that Milly said afterwards might be
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worth as much as one hundred pounds. And she added one of those sentences
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that came upon one like an unexpected threat of gossamer upon the face. It
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doesn't seem right. Somehow, Fanny's simple dress, I gathered was far too
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good. Also, simple dresses were the cost least in those days of abandoned
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material and insufficient skill. But these were subsequent revelations, and at the time
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I did not understand why there should be an obscure undertone of resentment in Melia's
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manner, nor why Fanny was displaying a sort of stiff sweetness quite foreign to
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my impression of her. It's wonderful to meet you at last, said Fanny.
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He's talked about you for years. I can remember once, long before,
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long before the war and everything at Hampton Court. I can remember sitting
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on those seats by the river, and he's talking about you. I remember
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that, I said, though it wasn't the part about Milly that had stuck
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in my memory. We used to go about together no end in those days,
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said Fanny. He was the dearest of brothers. I hope he'll still
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be, said Milly, very kindly. A son's a son till he gets
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a wife, said Fanny, quoting an old woman's proverb. You mustn't say
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that, said Milly. I hope you'll come to see us quite often.
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I'd love to come, said Fanny. You are lucky to get a house
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so easily these days. It isn't quite ready yet, said Milly. But
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as soon as ever it is, we must find someday when you are free.
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I'm often free, said Fanny. We'll fix a day, said Mealy,
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obviously quite resolute to ensure that we had no unexpected calls from Fanny when
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other people might be about. It is nice you have been in the counting
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House and understanding all about his work, said Fanny. My people didn't like
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my going into business at all, said Milly. But it's lucky I did.
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Lucky for Harry, said Fanny. Are your people London people, dor
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said, said Milly. They didn't like my coming to London. They are
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just a little bit churchy and old fashioned, you know. But it's college
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or business, I said. And you don't find mistake at home to dust
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and put out the flowers. One has to take a firm line with wils
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people at times, didn't you find that? So there was a convenient aunt
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in Bedford Park to secure the proprieties and head off the otherwise inevitable latch key.
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And it was business instead of college because my best uncle uncle Hereward,
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he's the Vicar of Peddleborn, objects to the higher education of women, and
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there was also a question of finance. It must be interesting for Harry to
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meet your people, said Fanny. He's completely conquered aunt Rachel, said Milly,
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though she started hostile naturally, as I'm about the only Kimpton of three
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generations. They pitched the expectations high. They'd like me to have a hut
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spent with a pedigree a yard long. I felt Millie was rather overemphasizing the
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county family side of the Kimptons. Her father was a veterinary surgeon near Wimborne.
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But I did not appreciate the qualities in Fanny's bearing and furniture that were
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putting Milly into the safe, assertive mood. They went on to talk with
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a certain flavor of unreality, of the hygienic and social advantages of Richard's Park.
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It's easy to get to for one's friends, said Milly. And quite
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a lot of interesting people, actors and critics and writers and all that sort
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of people live around and about there. Of course, Harry will want to
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know more and more of the artistic and the literary world. Now I expect
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we'll have to have a day for them and give them tea and sandwiches.
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It's a bore, but it's necessary, you know, Harry's got to know
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people. She smiled at me, between pride and patronage. Harry's going up
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in the world, said my sister. That's what makes it all so wonderful,
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said Millie. He's a wonderful brother for you. She began to praise
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the beauty of Fanny's flat, and Fanny offered to show her all over it.
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They were away sometime, and I went to the window, wishing,
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stupidly, after the manner of a man, that they could somehow contrive to
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be a little different and a little warmer with each other. Didn't they both
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love me? And shouldn't that be a bond of sisterhood between them? Then
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came tea, one of Fanny's wonderful teas. But I was not no longer
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the indiscriminate devourer of teas that I had been. Milly praised it all like
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a visiting duchess. Well, said Milly, at last, with the air
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of one who has many appointments. It is time to go. I'm afraid
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I had been watching Fenny very closely throughout this visit, and contrasting her guarded
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and polished civilities with the natural warmth of her reception of Hetty half a year
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before. I felt I could not wait for another occasion before I had a
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word or two with her, so I kissed her goodbye. Even her kiss
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had changed, and she and Milly hesitated and kissed, And I went down
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past the landing with Milly and heard the door close above. I've lift my
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gloves, I said, suddenly, you go one down. I won't be
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a moment, and I darted back upstairs. Fanny did not come to the
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door immediately. What is it, Harry, she said. When she appeared,
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Gloves said I no, here, they are in my pocket. Silly
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of me. You do like her, Fanny. You think she is all
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right, don't you. She's a little shy with you, but she is
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a deer. Fanny looked at me. I thought her eyes were hard.
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She's all right, she said, quite all right. You will never have
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to divorce, For Harry, I didn't know I want you to like her.
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I thought you didn't seem quite warm. Selly, old Harry, said
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Fanny, with a sudden return to her old manner, And she took me
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and kissed me like a loving sister again. I went down two steps from
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the door and turned. I'd hate it, I said, if you didn't
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think she was all right. She is all right, said Fanny. And
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it's good luck to you, Harry, it is you see, it's about
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goodbye for me. I shan't be seeing very much of you now, with
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that clever wife of yours to take you about, who was so well connected.
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But good luck, old brother, oh always good luck. Her eyes
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were bringing with tears. God send you are happy, Harry, dear after
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your fashion. It is different. She stopped short. She was weeping.
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She banged her door upon me, and I stood puzzled for a moment,
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and then went down to Milly. End of section twenty se