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The Dream Chapter the Seventh - Love And Death Parts 5 to 7 · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Section twenty two of The Dream, a Novel. This is
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  Speaker 1: a 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: The Dream, a Novel by H. G. Wells. Chapter the seventh,
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  Speaker 1: Love and Death, Parts five through seven. Part five. I
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  Speaker 1: went the next day to my sister Fanny to prepare
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  Speaker 1: for Hetty's call. Fanny sat in an arm chair and
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  Speaker 1: listened and watched my face as I told my story,
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  Speaker 1: confessed how I had exaggerated Hetty's offense and asked for help.
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  Speaker 1: I ought to have seen her, Harry, before I took
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  Speaker 1: your word for it, she said, of course, even now,
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  Speaker 1: I can't imagine how a girl who loves one man
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  Speaker 1: could ever stand the kiss of another as she did.
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  Speaker 1: But then, as you say, she'd been thinking, we women
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  Speaker 1: aren't all made alike. There's all sorts make a world.
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  Speaker 1: Some girls the backbone goes out of them when they
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  Speaker 1: feel a man's kisses. You and me, Harry, we aren't
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  Speaker 1: made like that. I've been thinking while you sat talking there,
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  Speaker 1: how like we both are to poor mother, really, for
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  Speaker 1: all she quarreled with me, will grow hard presently if
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  Speaker 1: we aren't careful, and your Hetty was young, and she
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  Speaker 1: didn't know only once it was, and all her life
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  Speaker 1: been spoilt by it. I didn't know it was like that, Harry.
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  Speaker 1: And my sister Fanny began to recall her impressions aheady.
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  Speaker 1: She recalled her fine animation and the living interest of
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  Speaker 1: her talk. When she left, I said to myself, she's
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  Speaker 1: got wit. That's the first witty woman I've ever met.
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  Speaker 1: She's got poetry in her. Everything she says comes out
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  Speaker 1: a little different from the things most people say. She
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  Speaker 1: says things that come like flowers in a hedge row.
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  Speaker 1: So she did, does she still? I never thought of
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  Speaker 1: it like that before, I said, I suppose she has
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  Speaker 1: a sort of poetry. Only the other day when I
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  Speaker 1: met her first, What was it? She said something, it's
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  Speaker 1: no good quoting Harry. Witty things should bloom where they grow.
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  Speaker 1: They're no good as cut flowers. But you and I
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  Speaker 1: are fairly quick and fairly clever, Harry. But we've never
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  Speaker 1: had any of that. I've always loved her talk, I said,
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  Speaker 1: I begin to explain the situation to Fanny more fully,
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  Speaker 1: and to show how she could help in it. I
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  Speaker 1: was not to see Hetty again. Fanny was to see her,
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  Speaker 1: pay her the hundred pounds we could put together for her,
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  Speaker 1: communicate with the she was to company and get her away.
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  Speaker 1: Fanny listened gravely and agreed. Then she reflected, well, why
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  Speaker 1: don't you take her to Canada yourself, Harry, she asked
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  Speaker 1: abruptly Part six. I did not answer Fanny for some moments.
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  Speaker 1: Then I said, I don't want to. I can see
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  Speaker 1: you love Hetty, still love, but I don't want that.
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  Speaker 1: You don't want to be with her? It's out of
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  Speaker 1: the question. Why ask a painful thing like that? All
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  Speaker 1: that is dead. Isn't a resurrection possible? Why is it
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  Speaker 1: out of the question? Pride? No, Why then, Milly? You
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  Speaker 1: don't love Milly. I won't have you discuss that, Fanny.
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  Speaker 1: I do love her, not as you love Hetty, quite differently.
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  Speaker 1: But Milly trusts me, she keeps faith with me. I'd
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  Speaker 1: as soon steal money from a child's money box as
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  Speaker 1: go back on Milly. It's wonderful how fine men can
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  Speaker 1: be to the wives they don't love, said Fanny bitterly.
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  Speaker 1: Newberry's different, I said, I've got my little son, I've
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  Speaker 1: got my work, and though you will never have it.
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  Speaker 1: I love Milly in a way. Is she company for you?
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  Speaker 1: Is she fun? I trust and love her. And as
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  Speaker 1: for Hetty, you don't understand about Hetty. I love her,
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  Speaker 1: I love her enormously. But it's like two ghosts me
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  Speaker 1: meeting by moonlight. We two are dead to each other
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  Speaker 1: and sorrowful. It isn't as though it was anything like
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  Speaker 1: your case over again. I see Hetty in hell and
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  Speaker 1: I do nearly anything in life to get her out.
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  Speaker 1: I don't even want to meet her. I want her
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  Speaker 1: to get away out of this built and stupidity where
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  Speaker 1: she can begin again. That's all I want, and that's
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  Speaker 1: all she wants. How could she and I ever come
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  Speaker 1: together again? How could we kiss again as lovers kiss?
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  Speaker 1: Poor defiled things we are, and all my cruelty. You're
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  Speaker 1: thinking of something else, Fanny. You're not thinking of Hetty
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  Speaker 1: and me. Maybe I am, said Fanny, Yes, I think
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  Speaker 1: I am. And so she is to go to Canada
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  Speaker 1: and begin again till her health comes back and her
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  Speaker 1: courage comes back. It isn't natural for a woman of
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  Speaker 1: her temperament to live without a man to love her. Harry,
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  Speaker 1: let her live and love said I. She'll have changed
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  Speaker 1: her name. Her friends will stand by her. They won't
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  Speaker 1: give her away, let her forget, let her begin again
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  Speaker 1: with another man. It may be you don't mind the
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  Speaker 1: thought of that. I was stung, but I kept my temper.
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  Speaker 1: Have I any right to mind the thought of that now?
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  Speaker 1: But you will, and you will go on living with
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  Speaker 1: his wife. You trust and respect who's dull spirited? Dull
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  Speaker 1: as dishwater? Know who's my son's mother? Who is trustworthy?
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  Speaker 1: Whom I'm pledged to? And I've got my work. It
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  Speaker 1: may seem nothing to you, it's good enough for me
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  Speaker 1: to give myself to it. Can't I love Hetty? Can't
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  Speaker 1: I help her out of the net she's in, and
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  Speaker 1: yet not want to go back to impossible things? Gray
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  Speaker 1: Monday mornings, said Fanny, as if all life wasn't gray,
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  Speaker 1: I said, and then said, sarnak, I remember that I
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  Speaker 1: made a prophecy. I made it? When did I make it?
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  Speaker 1: Two thousand years ago? Or two weeks ago? I sat
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  Speaker 1: in Fanny's little sitting room, an old world creature, amidst
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  Speaker 1: her old world furnishings, and I said that men and
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  Speaker 1: women would not always suffer as we were suffering. Then
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  Speaker 1: I said that we were still poor savages, living only
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  Speaker 1: in the bleak dawn of civilization, and that we suffered
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  Speaker 1: because we were underbred, undertrained, and darkly ignorant of ourselves.
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  Speaker 1: That the mere fact that we knew our own unhappiness
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  Speaker 1: was the promise of better things, And that a day
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  Speaker 1: would come when charity and understanding would light the world,
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  Speaker 1: so that men and women would no longer hurt themselves
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  Speaker 1: and one another, as they were doing now everywhere, universally,
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  Speaker 1: in law and in restriction, and in jealousy and in hate,
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  Speaker 1: all round and about the earth. It is still too
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  Speaker 1: dark for us, I said, to see clearly where we
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  Speaker 1: are going, And every one of us blunders and stumbles
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  Speaker 1: and does wrong everyone. It is idle for me to ask, now,
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  Speaker 1: what is the right thing for me to do? You?
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  Speaker 1: Whatever I do now will be wrong. I ought to
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  Speaker 1: go with Hetty and be her lover again. Easily I
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  Speaker 1: could do that, and why should I deny it? And
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  Speaker 1: I ought to stick to Milly and the work I
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  Speaker 1: have found in the world. Right road or left road
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  Speaker 1: both lead to sorrow and remorse. But there is scarcely
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  Speaker 1: a soul in all this dark world. Fanny, who has
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  Speaker 1: not had to make or will not presently have to
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  Speaker 1: make a choice as hard. I will not pull the
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  Speaker 1: skies down upon Milly. I cannot because she has put
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  Speaker 1: her faith in me. You are my dear sister, Fanny,
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  Speaker 1: and I love you, and we have loved each other.
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  Speaker 1: Do you remember how you used to take me round
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  Speaker 1: to school and hold my hand at crossings. Don't make
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  Speaker 1: things too hard for me now, just help me to
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  Speaker 1: help Hetty. Don't tear me to pieces. She is still
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  Speaker 1: alive and young, and Hetty out there she at least
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  Speaker 1: can begin again Part seven. Nevertheless, I did see Hetty
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  Speaker 1: again before she left England. There came for a letter
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  Speaker 1: for me at Thunderstone House, in which she proposed a meeting.
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  Speaker 1: You have been so kind to me, she wrote, It
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  Speaker 1: is the next best thing to your never having left me.
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  Speaker 1: You have been a generous dear. You've given back happiness
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  Speaker 1: to me. I feel excited already at the thought of
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  Speaker 1: the great liner and the ocean, and full of hope.
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  Speaker 1: We've got a sort of picture of the ship. It
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  Speaker 1: is like a great hotel with our cabin marked in it,
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  Speaker 1: exactly where it is. Canada will be wonderful our Lady
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  Speaker 1: of the snows, and we are going by way of
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  Speaker 1: New York, New York like nothing else on earth, cliffs
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  Speaker 1: and crags of windows towering up to the sky. And
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  Speaker 1: it's wonderful to have new things again. I sneak off
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  Speaker 1: to Fanny's, just to finger them over. I'm excited, yes,
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  Speaker 1: and grateful yes, and full of hope yes. And Harry, Harry,
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  Speaker 1: my heart aches and aches. I want to see you again.
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  Speaker 1: I don't deserve to, but I want to see you again.
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  Speaker 1: We began with a walk, and why shouldn't we end
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  Speaker 1: with a walk? Thursday and Friday, all the gang will
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  Speaker 1: be at Leeds. I could get away the whole day
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  Speaker 1: either day, and it would be a miracle if anyone new.
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  Speaker 1: I wish we could have that same old walk again.
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  Speaker 1: I suppose it's too far and impossible. We'll save that, Harry,
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  Speaker 1: until we're both quite dead, and then we'll be too
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  Speaker 1: little swirls of breeze in the grass, or two bits
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  Speaker 1: of thistle down going side by side. But there was
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  Speaker 1: that other walk we had when we went to Sheer
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  Speaker 1: and right over the north downs to Leatherhead. We looked
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  Speaker 1: across the wheeld and saw our own south Downs, far
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  Speaker 1: far away Pinewood and heather. There was hills beyond hills,
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  Speaker 1: and the smoke of rubbish burning. I was to write
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  Speaker 1: to Fanny's address. Of course, we had that walk. We
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  Speaker 1: two half resuscitated lovers. We did not make love at all,
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  Speaker 1: though we kissed when we met, and we meant to
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  Speaker 1: kiss when we parted. We talked, as I suppose dead
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  Speaker 1: souls might talk of the world that had once been real.
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  Speaker 1: We talked of a hundred different things, even of Sumner.
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  Speaker 1: Now that she was so near escape from him, her
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  Speaker 1: dread and hatred had evaporated. She said Sumner had a
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  Speaker 1: passionate desire for her and a real need for her,
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  Speaker 1: and that it was not fair to him, and very
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  Speaker 1: bad for him that she despised him. It wounded his
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  Speaker 1: self respect, it made him violent and defiant. A woman
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  Speaker 1: who cared for him, who would take the pains to
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  Speaker 1: watch him and care for him as a woman should
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  Speaker 1: do for a man, might have made something of him.
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  Speaker 1: But I've never cared for him, Harry, though I've tried.
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  Speaker 1: But I can see where things hurt him. I can
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  Speaker 1: see they hurt him frightfully. At times it doesn't hurt
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  Speaker 1: him any the less because he does ugly things. He
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  Speaker 1: was vain too, and ashamed of his incapacity to get
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  Speaker 1: a sufficient living. He was drifting very rapidly to a
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  Speaker 1: criminal life, and she had no power over him to
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  Speaker 1: hold him back. I can still see Hetty and hear
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  Speaker 1: her voice as we walked along a broad bridle path
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  Speaker 1: between great rhododendron bushes, and she talked grave and balanced
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  Speaker 1: and kind. She was of this rogue who had cheated
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  Speaker 1: her and outraged her and beaten her. It was a
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  Speaker 1: new aspect of Hetty, and yet at the same time
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  Speaker 1: it was the old dear Hetty I had loved and
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  Speaker 1: wasted and lost, clear minded and swift, with an understanding
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  Speaker 1: better than her will. We sat for a long time
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  Speaker 1: on the crest of the downs above Sheer, where the
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  Speaker 1: view was at its widest and best, and we recalled
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  Speaker 1: the old days of happiness in Kent, and talked of
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  Speaker 1: the distances before us, and of crossing the sea, and
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  Speaker 1: of France and so the whole wide world. I feel,
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  Speaker 1: she said, as I used to when I was a child.
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  Speaker 1: At the end of the school quarter, I'm going away
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  Speaker 1: to new things. Put on your frock, put on your hat,
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  Speaker 1: the big ship waiting. I am a little frightened about it,
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  Speaker 1: and rather happy I wish. But never mind that you wish?
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  Speaker 1: What else could I wish? You mean, it's no good wishing.
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  Speaker 1: I've got to stick to the job I've taken. I've
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  Speaker 1: got to see it through. But if you care to
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  Speaker 1: know it, Hetty, I wish so too, my God, if
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  Speaker 1: wishes could release one, You've got your job here. I
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't take you away, Harry, if I could sturdy you are, Harry,
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  Speaker 1: and you go through with it and do the work
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  Speaker 1: you're made to do, And I'll take what comes to
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  Speaker 1: me over there. I guess I'll forget a lot about
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  Speaker 1: Sumner and the things that happened between, and think a
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  Speaker 1: lot about you and the South Downs, and this how
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  Speaker 1: we sat side by side here, Perhaps, said Hetty. Heaven
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  Speaker 1: is a place like this, a great hillside to which
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  Speaker 1: you come at last, after all the tugging and pushing
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  Speaker 1: and the hoping, and the disappointments and the spurring, and
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  Speaker 1: the hungers and the cruel jealousies are done with and
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  Speaker 1: finished forever. Then here you sit down and rest, and
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  Speaker 1: you aren't alone. Your lover is here, and he sits
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  Speaker 1: beside you, and you just touch shoulder to shoulder, very
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  Speaker 1: close and very still, and your sins are forgiven you.
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  Speaker 1: Your blunders and misunderstandings, they matter no longer, and the
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  Speaker 1: beauty takes you, and you dissolve into it. You dissolve
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  Speaker 1: into it, side by side, and together you forget and fade,
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  Speaker 1: until at last nothing remains of all their distresses and
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  Speaker 1: anger and sorrow. Nothing remains of you at all but
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  Speaker 1: the breeze upon the great hillside, and sunshine, an everlasting peace,
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  Speaker 1: all of which said Hetty, rising abruptly to her feet
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  Speaker 1: and standing over me. It's just empty nothingness, Oh Harry, Harry,
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  Speaker 1: one feels things, and when one tries to see them,
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  Speaker 1: it is just words and nonsense. We've hardly started on
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  Speaker 1: our way to Leatherhead, and you'll have to be back
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  Speaker 1: by seven. So get up, old Harry, get up and
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  Speaker 1: come on. You are the dearest person alive, and it
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  Speaker 1: has been sweet of you to come with me today.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: I was half afraid you'd think it wasn't wise. In
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  Speaker 1: the late afternoon we got to a place called Little Bookum.
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  Speaker 1: There we had tea. About a mile farther on was
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  Speaker 1: a railway station, and we found a train for London.
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  Speaker 1: It came in as we got on to the platform.
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  Speaker 1: Everything had gone well so far, and then came the
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  Speaker 1: first gleam of disaster. At Leatherhead. We sat looking out
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  Speaker 1: on the station platform, and a little ruddy man came
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  Speaker 1: trotting along to get into the compartment next to us,
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  Speaker 1: a little common fellow, like an ostler, with a cigar
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  Speaker 1: under his Hebrew nose. And as he was about to
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  Speaker 1: get in, he glanced up at us doubt, and then
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  Speaker 1: recognition came into his eyes. And at the sight of him,
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  Speaker 1: Hetty recoiled. Get in, said the guard, blowing his whistle,
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  Speaker 1: and the little man was hustled out of sight. Hetty
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  Speaker 1: was very white. I know that man, she said, and
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  Speaker 1: he knows me. He's named Barnado. What shall I do? Nothing?
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  Speaker 1: Does he know you very well. He's been to our
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  Speaker 1: rooms three or four times. He may not have been
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  Speaker 1: sure it was you. I think he was. Suppose he
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  Speaker 1: were to come to the window at the next station
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  Speaker 1: and make certain. Could I pretend not to be myself,
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  Speaker 1: refuse to recognize him or answer to my name. But
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: if he was convinced it was you, in spite of
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  Speaker 1: your bluff, that would instantly make him suspicious, and off
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: he'd go to your husband. If, on the other hand,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: you took it all quite casually, said I was your
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  Speaker 1: cousin or your brother in law, he might think nothing
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  Speaker 1: of it and never even mention it to Sumner. But
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: making him suspicious would send him off to Sumner right away.
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  Speaker 1: And how you go to Liverpool tomorrow. I don't see
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  Speaker 1: that his recognition of you matters. I'm thinking of you,
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  Speaker 1: she said, But he doesn't know who I am. So
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  Speaker 1: far as I know, none of that lot has seen me.
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  Speaker 1: The train slowed down. At the next station, mister Bernardo appeared,
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  Speaker 1: cigar and all bright eyed and curious. Beshfahal didn't shave
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: em my shelf thattch Hetty Shumnah said, mister Bernardo. Wonderful.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: How won't reach people? My brother in law, mister Dyson,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: said Hetty, introducing me. We've been down to see his
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: little daughter. I didn't y you all the system, miss Sumna,
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  Speaker 1: I haven't, said Hetty, with a note of pain in
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  Speaker 1: her voice. Mister Dyson is a widower, sorry, said mister Bernardo.
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  Speaker 1: Stupid of me? And at what age might the little
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  Speaker 1: girl be? Mister Dyson I found myself under the necessity
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  Speaker 1: of creating, explaining and discussing an orphaned daughter. Mister Bernardo
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: had three and was uncomfortably expert about children and their
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: phases of development. He was evidently a model father. I
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: did as well as I could. I drew out mister
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  Speaker 1: Barnardo's family pride rather than indulge my own. But I
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: was immensely relieved when mister Bernardo exclaimed gold he is
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: epten already glad you met you, mister Damn, I said
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  Speaker 1: to myself. I had forgotten Dixon, said Hetty hastily, and
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: mister Bernardo, after a fusive farewells, proceeded to remove himself
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  Speaker 1: from the carriage. Think then said Hetty, he didn't come
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  Speaker 1: on to London. You're the poorest liar, Harry I've ever known.
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  Speaker 1: As it is, no harm's been done. No harm's been done,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: said I. But two or three times before we reached
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  Speaker 1: the London station where we were to part forever, we
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  Speaker 1: recurred to the encounter and repeated the reassuring formula that
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  Speaker 1: no harm had been done. We parted at Victoria Station
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: with very little emotion. Mister Bernardo had brought us back,
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  Speaker 1: as it were, to an everyday and incidental atmosphere. We
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: did not kiss each other again. The world about us
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: had become full now of observant eyes. My last words
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  Speaker 1: to Hetty were everything's all right, in a business like,
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  Speaker 1: reassuring tone. And the next day she slipped off to
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: join her friends at Liverpool and passed out of my
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: life forever. End of section twenty two, read by Heather McKee,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: October two thousand, twenty three.