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Chapter the Seventh: Love And Death. Parts 8 and 9 · The Dream: A Novel

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Section twenty three of The Dream, a Novel. This is a LibriVox recording.
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All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to
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volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Read by Moonllith. The Dream,
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a Novel by H. G. Wells, Section twenty three, Chapter the
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seventh, Love and Death, Parts eight and nine, Part eight. For
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three or four days, I did not feel this second separation from Hetty very
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greatly. My mind was still busy with the details of her departure. On
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the third day, she sent me a wireless message, as we used to
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call it, to Thunderstone House well away. She said, fine weather,
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endless love and gratitude. Then, slowly, as the days passed, my
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sense of loss grew upon me. The intimations of immense loneliness gathered and spread
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until they became a cloud that darkened all my mental sky. I was persuaded
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now that there was no human being who could make me altogether happy but Hetty,
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and that for the second time I was rejecting the possibility of companionship with
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her. I had wanted love, I perceived without sacrifice, and in that
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old world, it seems to me now love was only possible at an exorbitant
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price, sacrifice of honor, sacrifice of one's proper work in the world,
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humiliations and distresses. I had shirked the price of Hetty, and she was
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going from me, taking out of my life forever, all those sweet,
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untellable things that were the essence of love, the little names, the trivial,
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careless caresses, the exquisite gestures of mind and body, the moments of
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laughter and pride and perfect understanding. Day by day love went westward from me.
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Day and night, I was haunted by a more and more vivid realization
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of a great steamship throbbing and heaving its way across the crests and swelling waves
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of the Atlantic welter, the rolling black coal smoke from its towering funnels poured
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before the wind. Now I would see that big ocean going fabric in the
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daylight, now lit brightly from stem to stern under the stars. I was
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full of unappeasable regret. I indulged in endless reveries of a flight across the
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Atlantic in pursuit of heaty, of a sudden dramatic appearance before or Hetty.
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I can't I've come and all the time, I stuck steadfastly to the course
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I had chosen. I worked hard and late at Thunderstone House. I did
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my best to shunt my imagination into new channels by planning two new quasi educational
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publications. And I set myself to take Milly out to restaurants, to dinner,
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and to the theater and to interesting shows. And in the midst of
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some picture show, perhaps I would find my rebel mind speculating what sort of
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thing Hetty would have said of it had she been there. There was a
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little show of landscapes at the Alpine Gallery, and several were pictures of downland
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scenery, and one showed a sunlit hillside under drowsy white clouds. It was
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almost like seeing Hetty. It was exactly a week after Hetty's landing in New
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York that I first encountered Sumner. It was my usual time of arrival,
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and I was just turning out of Tottenham Court Road and to the side street
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that led to the yard of Thunderstone House. There was a small public house
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in this byway, and two men were standing outside it in attitudes of expectation.
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One of them stepped out to accost me. He was a little flushed
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Jewish man, and for the moment I did not recognize him at all,
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mister Smith said he and scrutinized me queerly at your service, said I not
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by any chance, mister Dyson or Dixon, eh, he asked with a
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leeer. Bernardo cried my memory and placed him. My instant recognition must have
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betrayed itself in my face. Our eyes met, and there were no secrets
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between them, No, mister Bernardo, I said, with incredible stupidity,
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my name's just plain Smith. Don't mention it, mister Smith, don't mention
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it, said mister Bernardo, with extreme politeness. I had a sort of
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fancy I might have met you before, And turning to his companion and raising
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his voice a little, he said, that's him, all right, Sumner.
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Sure's eggs or eggs? Sumner. I glanced at this man who had
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given my life so disastrous, and he was very much my own height and
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build, fair, with a blotched complexion, and wearing a checkered gray suit
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and an experienced looking gray felt hat. He might have been my unsuccessful half
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brother. Her eyes met in curiosity and antagonism. I'm afraid I'm not the
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man you want, I said to Bernardo, and went on my way.
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I didn't see any advantage in an immediate discussion in that place. I perceived
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that an encounter was inevitable, but I meant it to happen amidst circumstances of
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my own choice, and after I had time to consider the situation properly.
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I heard something happened behind me, and Bernardo said, shut up, you
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fool. You found out what you want to know. I went through the
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passages and rooms of Thunderstone House to my office, and there, when I
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was alone, I sat down in my arm chair and swore very heartily.
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Every day since the departure of Hetty, I had been feeling more and more
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sure that this, at least was not going to happen. I had thought
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that Sumner was very easily and safely and completely out of the story. I
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took my writing pad and began to sketch out the situation ends to be secured.
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I wrote, Number one, Hetty must not be traced. Number two
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Milly must hear nothing of this. Number three no blackmailing, I considered.
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But if a lump payment I began this, I scratched out again. I
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had to scheme out the essential facts. What does s know? What evidence
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exists of? What no clue to lead to Fanny? There's nothing but that
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journey in the train. You will have a moral certainty, but will it
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convince anyone else? I wrote a new heading, how to handle them.
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I began to sketch grotesques and arabesques over my paper as I plotted. Finally,
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I tore it up into very small fragments and dropped it into my waste
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paper basket. A messenger girl wrapped and came in with a paper slip bearing
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the names of Fred Sumner and Arthur Bernardo. They've not put the business they
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want to talk about, I remarked. They said, you'd know, sir,
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no excuse. I want everybody to fill in that said, just say
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I'm too busy to see strangers who don't state their business, and ask them
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to complete the form. Back came the form inquiry about mister Sumner's missing wife.
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I considered it calmly. I don't believe we ever had the manuscript.
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Say I'm engaged up to half past twelve, then I could have a talk
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of ten minutes with mister Sumner alone. Make that clear I don't see where
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mister Bernardo comes in. Make it clear it's a privilege to see me.
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My messenger did not reappear. I resume my meditations on the situation. There
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was time for a lot of aggressive energy to evaporate before half past twelve.
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Probably both of the men had come in from the outskirts and would have nowhere
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to wait for the streets or public house. Mister Bernardo might want to be
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back upon his own business at epsom he'd played his part in identifying me.
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Anyhow, I didn't intend to have any talk with Sumner before witness. If
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he reappeared with Bernardo, I should refuse to see them. For Bernardo alone
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I had a plan, and for Sumner I had a plan, but not
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for the two of them together. My delaying policy was a good one,
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and at half past twelve, Sumner came alone and was shown up to me.
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Sit down there, I said abruptly, and leaned back in my chair
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and stared at his face and waited in silence for him to begin. For
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some moments he did not speak. He had evidently expected me to open with
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some sort of question, and he had come ready loaded with a reply to
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be plumped into a chair and looked at put him off his game. He
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tried to glare at me, and I looked at his face as if I
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was looking at a map. As I did so, I found my hatred
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for him, shrinking and changing. It wasn't a case for hatred. He
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had such a poor meal, silly face, a weak arrangement of plausibly handsome
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features. Every now and then it was convulsed by a nervous twitch. His
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straw colored mustache was clipped back more on one side than the other, and
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his rather a frayed necktie had slipped down to display his collar stud and the
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grubbiness of his collar. He had pulled his mouth a little askew and thrust
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his face forward in an attempt at fierceness, and his rather watery blue eyes
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were as open and as protruded as he could manage. Where's my wife?
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Smith? He said, at last, out of my reach, mister Sumner,
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and out of yours. Where you hit her? She's gone. I
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said, it's no work of mine. She's come back to you. I
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shook my head. You know where she is. She's gone, clear,
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Sumner. You let her go, Let her go, You let her go,
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but I'm not going to I'm not that sort. Here's this girl you
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marry and mess about with, and when she comes across a man who's a
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bit more of a man than you are, and handles her as a woman
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ought to be handled, you go and check her out and divorce herr divorce
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her with her child coming, and then start planning and plotting to get her
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away from the man she's giving her love too. He stopped for one of
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words or breath. He wanted to exasperate me and start a shouting match.
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I said nothing. I want Eddie back, he said. She's my wife
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and I want her back. She's mine. And the sooner this foolery stops,
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the better. I sat up to the desk and put my elbows on
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it. You won't get her back, I said, very quietly. What
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are you going to do about it? My god? I'll have her back
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if I swing for it, exactly. And what are you going to do?
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What can I do? I'm her husband, Well you've got her,
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not a scrap of she's missing. I can go to the police, go
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to them. What will they do? I can put them onto you,
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not a bit of it. They won't bother about me. If your is
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missing and you go to the police, they'll clear up all your gang with
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their inquiries. They'll be only too glad of the chance trouble me. They'll
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dig up the cellars in your house and in your previous house to find the
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body. They'll search you and ransack you. And what they don't do to
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you, your pals will. Sumner leaned forward in grimace like a gargoyle to
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give his words greater emphasis. You were the last man scene with her,
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he said, not a scrap of evidence. Somener cursed vigorously. He are
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you? I can deny that, absolutely, frosty little witness. Your friend
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Bernardo, don't be too sure. He'll stick it. Nasty business. If
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a woman disappears and you find yourself trying to fix something that won't hold water
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onto someone her husband dislikes, why were you, Sumner? I wouldn't take
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that line. Even if he backs you up. What does it prove you
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know of nobody else who pretends to have seen me with Hetty? You won't
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be able to find anybody. Mister Sumner extended his hand towards my table.
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It was too far away to bang it properly. So he pulled his chair
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up closer. The bang when it came was an effective. Look here,
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he said, and moistened his lips. I want my heady back, and
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I'm going to have her back. You are precious, cool and cucumberish and
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all that just now, But by god, I'll warm you up before I've
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done with you. You think you can get her away and bluff me off.
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Never made such a mistake in your life. Suppose I don't go to
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the police. Suppose I go for direct action. Suppose I come around to
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your place and make a fuss with your wife. That will be in new
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I said. He followed up his advantage a masterpiece of a nuisance, I
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considered the forced fierceness of his face. I shall say I know nothing about
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your wife's disappearance, and that you are a blackmailing liar. People will believe
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me. My wife will certainly believe me. She'd make herself do so.
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If your story was ten times as possible. Your friend Bernardo and you will
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make a pretty couple of accusers. I shall say you are a crazy,
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jealous fool, and if you keep the game up, I shall have you
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run in. I'd not be altogether sorry to have you run in. There's
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one or two little things I don't like you for, I'd not be so
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very sorry to get quits. I had the better of him. He was
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baffled and angry, but I saw now plainly that he had no real fight
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in him. And you where she is? He said, I was too
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full of the spirit of conflict now to be discreet. I know where she
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is, and you don't get her whatever you do. And as I said
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before, what can you do about it? My god? He said,
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my own wife. I went back with the air of a man who had
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finished an interview. I looked at my wristwatch. He stood up. I
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looked at him, brightly, well, I said, look here, he
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sputtered. I don't stand this. By God, I tell you I want
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Hetty. I want her. I want her, and I'll do what I
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like with her. Do you think I'll take this me? She's mine,
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your dirty thief. I took up a drawing from an illustration and held it
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in my hand, regarding him with an expression of mild patience. Then maddened,
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Tim didn't I marry her when I needn't? Have you wanted her?
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Why the devil didn't you keep her when you had her? I tell you
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I won't stand it, my dear sumner, as I said before, what
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can you do about it? He leaned over the desk shook a finger as
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though it was a pistol barrel in my face. I'll let daylight through you,
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he said, I'll let daylight through you. I'll take my chance of
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that, I said. He expressed his opinion of me for a bit.
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I won't argue your points, I said. I guess we're about through with
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this interview. Don't shuck my clerk please when she comes in, and I
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rang the bell on my desk. His parting shot was, feeble, you've
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not heard less to me. I mean what I told you? Mind the
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step, said I. The door closed and left me strung up and trembling
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with excitement, but triumphant. I felt I had beaten him, and that
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I could go on beating him. It might be he would shoot. He'd
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probably got a revolver, but it was ten to one. He'd take the
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trouble, take a fair chance at me, and screw himself up to shooting
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pitch. And with his loose, twitching face and shaky hand, it was
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ten to one against his hitting me. He'd aim anyhow, he'd shoot too
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soon, and if he shot me, it was ten to one. He
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only wounded me slightly. Then I'd carry through my story against him. Millie
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might be shaken for a time, but I'd get the thing right again with
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her. I sat for a long time, turning over the possibilities of the
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case. The more I considered it, the more satisfied I was with my
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position. It was two o'clock and long past my usual lunchtime. When I
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went off to my club. I treated myself to the unusual luxury of a
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half bottle of Champagne Part nine. I never believed Sumner would shoot me until
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I was actually shot. He waylaid me in the passageway to the yard of
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Thunderstone House as I was returning from lunch, just a week after our first
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encounter, when I was beginning to hope that he had accepted his defeat.
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He had been drinking, and as soon as I saw his flushed face,
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half angry and half scared, I saw an intimation of what might befall.
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I remember that I thought then that if anything happened, he must get away,
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because otherwise he might be left to tell his tale after I was dead.
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But I didn't really believe he was mad enough to shoot, and even
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now I do not believe that he fired through sheer lack of nervous and muscular
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coordination. He did not produce his pistol until I was close up to him
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now, then said he you're for it, where's my wife? And out
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came the pistol a yard for me. I forget my answer. I probably
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said put that away, or something of that sort, and then I may
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have seemed about to snatch it. The report of the pistol, which sounded
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very loud to me kim at once, and a feeling as though I'd been
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kicked in the small the back. The pistol was one of those that go
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on firing automatically as long as the trigger is gripped. It's fired. Two
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other shots and one got my knee and smashed it. Damn the thing.
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He screamed, and threw it down as though it had stung him. Get
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out, you fool, run, I said, as I lurched towards him,
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and then as I fell, I came within a foot of his terrified
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face as he dashed past me towards the main thoroughfare. He thrust me back
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with his hand as I reeled upon him. I think I rolled over onto
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my back into a sitting position after I fell, because I have a clear
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impression of him vanishing like the tail of a bolting rabbit into Tottenham Court Road.
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I saw a van in an omnibus pass across the space at the end
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of the street. He lists all together of the pistol shots that it sounded
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so terrible in my ears. A girl and a man passed with equal indifference.
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He was clear, poor little beast, I had stolen his heady And
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now I was very clear headed, a little numbed where I had been hit,
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but not in pain. I was chiefly aware of my smashed knee,
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which looked very silly, with its mixture of torn trouser and red stuff,
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and a little splintered pink thing that I supposed was an end of bone.
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People from nowhere were standing about me and saying things to me. They had
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come out of the yard of from the public house. I made a swift
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decision. Pistol went off in my hand, I said, and shut my
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eyes. Then a fear of a hospital came upon me. My home quite
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handy I said, eight Chester Terrace, Regent's Park, get me there please.
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I heard them repeating the address, and I recognized the voice of Crane
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and News's door porter. That's right, he was saying, it's mister Mortimer
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Smith. Anything I can do for you, mister Smith. I do not
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remember much of the details of what followed. When they moved me, there
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was pain. I seem to have been holding on to what I meant to
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say and do. My memory does not seem to have recorded anything else properly.
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I may have fainted once or twice. Newberry was in it somehow.
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I think he took me home in his car. How did it happen?
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He asked that I remember quite clearly. The thing went off in my hand.
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I said one thing I was very certain about whatever happened. They were
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not going to hang that poor silly, hunted sheet Sumner. Whatever happened,
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the story of Hetty must not come out. If it did, Millie would
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think only one thing, that I had been unfaithful to her and that Sumner
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had killed me. On that account, Hetty was all right now. I
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needn't bother about Hetty anymore. I had to think of Milly and Sumner.
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It was queer, but I seemed to have known I was mortally wounded from
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the very instant I was shot. Milly appeared full of solicitude. Accident,
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I said to her, with all my strength went off in my hand,
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my own bed clothes being cut away round my knee. The cloth had stuck,
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the new gray suit which I'd mentioned last the whole summer. Then two
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strangers became conspicuous doctors, I suppose, whispering, and one of them had
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his sleeves up and showed a pair of fat, pink arms sponges and a
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tinkle of water tripping into a basin. They prodded me about damn that hurt,
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then stinging stuff? What was the good of it? I was in
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the body they were prodding, and I knew all about it, and I
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was sure that I was a dead man. Milly again, my dear,
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I whispered, dear, and her poor tearful face beamed love upon me.
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Valiant Milly, things had never been fair to her. Fanny had Newberry gone
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to fetch her anyhow, he had vanished. She'd say nothing about Hetty.
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She was safe as sick as what What did one say anything? Safe?
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Poor DearS? What a fuss they were all in. It seemed almost shameful
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to me to be glad that I was going out of it all. But
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I was glad the pistol shot had come with the smashing of a window and
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a stuffy room. My chief desire was to leave kind and comforting impressions on
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those poor survivors might still have to stay on in the world of muddle for
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years and years life. What a muddle and a blundering it had been.
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I'd never have to grow old now. Anyhow, there was an eruption people
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coming in from the dressing room. When was a police inspector in uniform.
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The others showed policemen through his plain clothes. Now is the time for it.
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I was quite clear headed, quite I must be careful what I said.
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If I didn't want to say anything, I could just close my eyes
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bleeding internally, said someone. Then the police inspector sat down on the bed.
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But a wail he was, and asked me questions. I wondered if
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anyone had caught a glimpse of Sumner. Sumner bolting like a rabbit, I
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must risk that it went off in my hand, I said, what was
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he saying how long had I had that revolver bought it this lunchtime? I
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said, Did he ask why he did keep up my shooting? Where?
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He wanted to know? Where error Highbury? What part of Highbury they wanted
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to chase the pistol that I want to do, Give mister inspector a paper
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chase near Highbury, not in Highbury. I decided to be faint and stupid
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that way, I said, faintally a pawn shop. Best not to answer
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then, as if by an effort, little shop and readeem pledges. I
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said nothing to that. I was thinking of another touch to the picture I
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was painting. I spoke with weak indignation. I didn't think it was loaded.
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How was I to know it was loaded? It ought not to have
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been sold loaded like that? I was just looking at it. I stopped
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short and shammed exhaustion. Then I felt that I was not shamming exhaustion.
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I was exhausted, God, but the stuffing was out of me. I
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was sinking, sinking out of the bedroom, out from among this group of
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people. They were getting little and faint and flimsy. Was there anything more
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to say? Too late? If there was, I was falling asleep,
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falling into a sleep, so profound, so fathomless. Far away now was
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the little room full of people, and infinitely small. He's going, somebody
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said, in a minute voice. I seemed to come back. For an
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instant. I heard the rustle of Milly's dress as she came across the room
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to me. And then then I heard Hetty's voice again, and opened my
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eyes and saw Hetty bending down over me, and that lovely place upon this
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mountain side. Only Hetty had become my dear son Ray, who is mistress
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of my life. And the sunshine was honest and on her face. And
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I stretched because my back was a little stiff, and one of my knees
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was twisted. Wake up, I said, said sunright, wake up.
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And I shook you. And then we came and laughed at you, said
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radiant Firefly, and I and you said. Then there is another life,
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said Firefly. And the tail is only a dream. It has been a
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good tale, Sarnac, And somehow you've made me think it was true as
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it is, said Sarnac. For I am as certain I was Henry Mortimore
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Smith yesterday, as I am that I am Sarnac here and now and of
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Section twenty three