Fancies and Goodnights Part 37

"You mean to say," said Susie-May, when he had finished. "You mean to say you took me out of show business and brought me to this dump?"

"But my dear girl, you were asleep, you were sick ..." expostulated Edward.

"Aw, phooey!" said she, "I'd have woke up. I betcha I'd have woke up the minute that show hit Hollywood. And now what am I going to do?"

"I can answer that question very easily," said Edward. "You will eat the food that's set before you, or you'll go hungry. You'll spend a few days learning to walk again, or you'll spend the rest of your life sitting on your backside. As soon as you can look after yourself, we'll talk about what you shall do. By that time you'll know this place, and you'll know me, a great deal better than you do at present."

These words were uttered with a forcefulness that surprised both of them. Susie, somewhat daunted, and perhaps fatigued by the liveliness of her first waking impressions, said nothing in reply, but soon drooped her delectable eyelids and fell into a light doze.

Watching her, Edward found all his tender feelings, so rudely scattered, come fluttering home again: "I have just seen," thought he, "the scars of an appalling childhood. Somewhere, far, far below the pathetic surface, there must be a mind to match that lovely face. That is the real sleeper, and it's going to be devilish hard to awaken her."

In the days that followed he buckled to his task, and enfolded her in a warm and cheerful affection. He offered her, as one lays one toy after another to the hand of a sullen child, a smile, a flower, a word of endearment, or an American cigarette procured especially from London. He invited her to note the flavour of the speckled trout he caught for her, the fragrance on the September honeycomb, and the l.u.s.tre of the beaded raindrops on the windowpane as they sparkled under the returning sun with a brightness exceeding that of diamonds.

Had any cynical person told him he was wasting his time, Edward would have replied with terrifying logic. "Look at that face!" he would have said. "It seems suitable to this place, does it not? It should, for it was made here. That, my dear sir, is a face straight out of eighteenth-century England, and it has been preserved unchanged (as if in a sleep two or three hundred years long) in the c.u.mberland Mountains of Kentucky. Depend upon it, her sleeping soul is of the same order of beauty, and will awaken, if it wakes at all, in response to surroundings like these, from which it originally sprung. Wait till I take her into the woods!"

The days went by, and her strength returned rapidly, and she was able to walk around the little garden patch, where the straggled flowers of late summer leaned out to catch her eye, but without success. At last Edward was able to take her by the arm, and lead her out into the great woods which had once been his own.

He took her down a mile-long ride, over rabbit-nibbled turf as smooth as green velvet. Immense beeches walled it on either side; behind them the summer trunks stood hushed in a silvery dimness, regardful of the dryad. Farther down, towards where his old house stood, the beeches gave place to mighty oaks, bronzed, lichened, antlered, Virgilian. He had her peep into glades aflame with willow-herb, and others rusty with the turning bracken. The rabbits scuttled off in all directions; the hare limped away with many a backward glance; the coppery pheasant rose, clattering like a dragon, its long tail rippling dragon-like behind it. The great woodp.e.c.k.e.r, laughing heartily over something or other, swooped on from tree to tree before them all the way home.

All this time Edward had said scarcely a word, and had hardly dared to look into her face to see what she was feeling. Now, on the threshold of the cottage, he took her hands in his, and, gazing deep into her eyes, he asked her: "Well? How did you like it?"

She replied: "Lousy."

Edward's chagrin was so sudden and so fierce that for a moment he was bereft of his senses. Recovering them, he saw Susie cowering away in the very likeness of a spitting cat, and he realised his right hand was raised menacingly in the air. He lowered it. "Don't be afraid," he said breathlessly. "I am incapable of striking a woman."

Susie must have believed him, for she did not hesitate to offer some very unflattering reasons for this incapacity. Oddly enough, he himself was not so convinced, and his conscience so bit and tore at him that he scarcely heard what she was saying. He waited till six, gave her her capsule, and then strode out of the cottage and off over the dark and windy hills like a man pursued. After several miles at a very high speed, the turmoil within him abated a little, and he came to his conclusion. "I was enraged because she would not accept my standards: the standards of a man who is capable (for I lied when I said I wasn't) of striking a helpless girl. There is only one thing to do."

It is a sad reflection on life that when there is only one thing to do it is always extremely unpleasant. Next day, Edward arranged for the little daily maid to stay with Susie overnight, while he himself went up to town to see his lawyer.

"How much would I get if I sold everything I have?" asked Edward, in a somewhat grating voice.

"Including the little place you are living in?"

"The whole d.a.m.ned shoot"

The lawyer consulted his files, scribbled on a pad, deprecated the state of the market, and finally told Edward he might expect between four and five thousand pounds.

"Then sell," said Edward, and, brus.h.i.+ng aside all expostulation, he repaired to a hotel, and next day took the train back home.

Just as he approached the cottage, he saw his Susie coming towards him along the path that led from the woods. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were bright, her hair was a little disordered.

"What is this?" said he, as they met "Don't tell me you have been in the woods!"

"I don't know where else there is to go," she replied.

"Come inside," said Edward, "and I will tell you of somewhere else. How would you like us to go to Hollywood, California?"

"Are you kidding?" she asked in astonishment "I thought yon was broke."

"I am selling what I have left," said Edward. "It will not bring enough to live there very long, or on a very grand scale, but since that is what you want it seems to me you should have it"

Susie was silent for a little. "Aw, shucks!" she said at last "Not if it's your last cent."

Edward, astounded at her magnanimity, tried to explain the reasons for his change of heart. However, she cut him short. "Forget it," she said. "I'd just as soon stick around here. For a while, anyway."

Edward heard this with the emotions of a man reprieved, if not from the gallows, at least from transportation. "What has happened?" cried he. "Is it possible we have both changed, only in opposite directions? Ah, I know! You have been in the woods. Something there has touched you."

"You'd better shut your big trap," said she almost angrily. "You don't know what the h.e.l.l you're talking about"

"I know," said he, "that these feelings can be very delicate and private ones; vague gropings that one prefers not to discuss. For example, I think you would not have felt what you felt today had I been there. My presence on Monday was a mistake, much as I hoped to share these sensations with you. In future you shall go alone."

So thereafter she went every afternoon alone into the woods, and Edward remained at home, and every day she came back smiling more sweetly than before.

"The woods are working for me," thought Edward, and his imagination followed her like a dog. He seemed to see her in the dappled sun and shade under the great trees, or paddling in the brook, or fanning herself with a fern frond, or staining her mouth with blackberries. Finally he felt he could live no longer without seeing these pretty things with his own eyes, so one afternoon he slyly followed her among the trees.

He kept a good way behind her, thinking to come up quietly when she stopped to rest, but instead of stopping she went on faster and faster, and at last broke into a run, and for a while he lost her altogether. He pressed on to where he heard a jay scolding in the distance, and when he got there he looked all around, but saw no sign of her. Suddenly he heard her laugh. "She must have seen me all the time!" he thought.

Her laugh had a low, sweet, inviting quality that made his heart beat fast. It came from a little dell near by, where the ground fell away at the wood's edge. Edward stepped softly to the upper edge of this dell, half-expecting, yet not daring to expect, that he'd see her there looking up at him, and with her arms spread wide. He parted the twigs and looked down. She was there indeed, and her arms were spread wide, but it was the better to embrace Edward's corpulent and detested neighbour.

Edward walked quietly away, and returned to the cottage. There he awaited Susie, who came back very late, and smiling more sweetly than ever.

"You may take that smile off your face," said Edward. "You dirty, double-crossing little harlot... ."

She at once obliged him in the matter of the smile. "Why, you low-down, snooping b.a.s.t.a.r.d," she began, and the conversation continued with the utmost vivacity. Edward so far forgot himself as to utter a threat or two, which she treated with the most galling derision, as if secure in the protection of her paramour.

"He's got a big film company up in London," she said, "and he's promised to put me in a picture."

"You forget," said Edward, "that I happen to hold your contract."

"You mean to say you'd stop me?"

"Why not?"

"Because I'm going to the cops right now," said Susie. "And do you know what I'm going to tell 'em? About when I was asleep?" She was about to supply the information when she was interrupted by an enormous yawn.

Edward glanced at his watch, and saw that the hour of six had long ago slipped by unnoticed.

"Well?" said he. "What?"

"Enough to ... put you in jail for ..." she muttered, in a voice like a slowing phonograph record, and she yawned again. Her head drooped down and down till her cheek rested on the table.

"Pleasant dreams!" said Edward, and taking the little box of capsules from the mantelpiece, he pitched it into the fire. Susie observed this operation with a glazing eye. A little flame of fury flickered up in it to match the leaping flame on the hearth. It died, and the eye closed. She looked ravis.h.i.+ng.

Edward put her to bed, and came downstairs and wrote a letter to a firm that advertised motor caravans and trailers. Next summer he was at Blackpool, in a spotless white coat, addressing the mult.i.tude from under a sign that read: THE SLEEPING BEAUTY.

_Dr. von Stangelberg presents the Wonder of Modem Science Adults only._ THE SLEEPING BEAUTY.

Admission sixpence.

They say he is rapidly recovering his fortune.

INTERPRETATION OF A DREAM.

A young man entered the office of a well-known psychiatrist, whom he addressed as follows: "Doctor, save me!"

"By all means," responded the mind specialist suavely. "After all, that is what I am here for."

"But you can't," cried the young man distractedly. "You can't! You can't! Nothing can save me!"

"At all events," said the psychiatrist soothingly, "it will do no harm to talk it over."

With that he waved his hands a little, smiled with a rather soapy and ingratiating expression, and before he knew it the young man was seated in a deep armchair, with his face to the light, pouring out his story.

"My name," said he, "is Charles Rotifer. I am employed in the office of an accountant, who occupies the top storey of this skysc.r.a.per. I am twenty-eight years of age, single, engaged to be married. My fiancee is the best and dearest girl in the world, beautiful as an angel, and with lovely golden hair. I mention this because it is relevant to my story."

"It is indeed," said the psychiatrist. "Gold is a symbol of money. Have you a retentive att.i.tude toward money? For example, you say you are employed in an office. Have you saved anything considerable out of your salary?"

"Yes, I have," replied the young man. "I've saved quite a bit"

"Please continue, Mr. Rotifer," said the psychiatrist, benevolently. "You were speaking of your fiancee. Later on I shall have to ask you one or two rather intimate questions on that subject"

"And I will answer them," returned the young man. "There is nothing in our relations.h.i.+p that needs to be concealed - at all events from a psychologist. All is complete harmony between us, and there is nothing about her that I could wish altered, except perhaps her little habit of gesturing rather too freely as she speaks."

"I will make a note of that," said the other, scribbling on his pad.

"It is not of the least importance," said the young man. "I hardly know why I mentioned it, except to indicate how perfect she is. But, Doctor, thirty-eight nights ago I dreamed a dream."

"Thirty-eight, indeed!" observed the mind doctor, jotting down the figure. "Tell me frankly, when you were an infant, did you by any chance have a nurse, a teacher or a female relative, on whom perhaps you might have had a little fixation, who happened to be thirty-eight years of age?"

"No, Doctor," said the young man, "but there are thirty-nine floors to this skysc.r.a.per."

The psychiatrist gave him a penetrating glance. "And does the form and height of this building suggest anything to you?"

"All I know," said the young man obstinately, "is that I dreamed I was outside the window of our office at the top, in the air, falling."

"Falling!" said the psychiatrist, raising his eyebrows. "And what were your sensations at that moment?"

"I was calm," replied the young man. "I imagine I was falling at the normal rate, but my mind seemed to work very fast I had leisure to reflect, to look around me. The view was superb. In a moment I had reached the ornamental stonework which separates our windows from those immediately below. Then I woke up."

"And that simple, harmless, perfectly ordinary little dream has been preying on your mind?" asked the psychiatrist in a jocular tone. "Well, my dear sir ..."

"Wait a moment," said his visitor. "On the following night I dreamed the same dream, or rather, a continuation of it. There I was, spread-eagled in mid-air - like this - pa.s.sing the ornamental stone-work, looking into the window of the floor below, which is also occupied by our firm. I saw my friend, Don Straker, of our tax department, bending over his desk. He looked up. He saw me. His face took on an expression of the utmost astonishment. He made a movement as if to rise from his seat, no doubt to rush to the window. But compared with mine, his movements were indescribably slow. I remember thinking, 'He will be too late.' Then I dropped below his window, and down to the dividing line between that floor and the next. As I did so, I woke."

"Well," said the brain doctor. "What have we here? The dream of one night is resumed on the night following. That is a very ordinary occurrence."

"Possibly," said the young man. "However, on the next night, there I was, having just pa.s.sed the dividing line between that floor and the floor below it. I had slipped into a rec.u.mbent posture, with one leg slightly raised, like this."

"Yes, yes," said the psychiatrist. "I see. It is not necessary to demonstrate. You nearly knocked over my ash-tray."

"I'm sorry," said the young man. "I'm afraid I have picked up the habit from Maisie. Maisie is my fiancee. When she wants to say how she did a thing, she just shows you. She acts it out. It was the night she told me how she slipped and fell on the icy pavement on Seventy-second Street, that we became engaged. Well, as I say, there I was, falling past another floor, looking about me in all directions. The hills of New Jersey looked magnificent. A high-flying pigeon coasted in my direction, and regarded me with a round eye, devoid of any expression whatsoever. Then he banked and sheered off. I could see the people in the street below, or rather their hats, jammed as closely as black pebbles on a beach. Even as I looked, one or two of these black pebbles suddenly turned white. I realized I was attracting attention."

"Tell me this," said the psychiatrist. "You seem to have had a good deal of time for thought. Did you recollect why you were falling; whether you had thrown yourself, or slipped, or what?"

"Doctor, I really don't know," said the young man. "Not unless my last dream, which I had last night, sheds any light on the matter. Most of the time I was just looking around, falling faster all the time, of course, but thinking faster to make up for it. Naturally I tried to think of subjects of importance, seeing it was my last opportunity. Between the seventeenth and the sixteenth floors, for example, I thought a lot about democracy and the world crisis. It seemed to me that where most people are making a big mistake is ..."

"Perhaps, for the moment, we had better keep to the experience itself," said the brain doctor.

"Well," said the young man, "at the fifteenth floor I looked in at the window, and, really, I never believed such things happened! Not in offices, anyway. And, Doctor, next day I paid a visit to the fifteenth floor here, just out of curiosity. And those offices are occupied by a theatrical agent. Doctor, don't you think that confirms my dream?"

"Calm yourself," said the psychiatrist. "The names of all the firms in this building are listed on the wall directory on the main floor. You no doubt retained an unconscious memory which you adroitly fitted into your dream."

"Well, after that," said the young man, "I began to look down a good deal more. I'd take just a quick glance into each window as I pa.s.sed, but mostly I was looking downwards. By this time there were big patches of white among the dark, pebble-like hats below. In fact, pretty soon they were clearly distinguishable as hats and faces. I saw two taxi-cabs swerve toward one another and collide. A woman's scream drifted up out of the confused murmur below. I felt I agreed with her. I was in a reclining posture, and already I felt an antic.i.p.atory pain in the parts that would touch the ground first. So I turned face downwards - like this - but that was horrible. So I put my feet down, but then they hurt. I tried to fall head first, to end it sooner, but that didn't satisfy me. I kept on twisting and turning - like this."

"Please relax," said the psychiatrist. "There is no need to demonstrate."

"I'm sorry," said the young man. "I picked up the habit from Maisie."

"Sit down," said the psychiatrist, "and continue."

"Last night," said the young man despairingly, "was the thirty-eighth night"

"Then," said the psychiatrist, "you must have got down to this level, for this office is on the mezzanine floor."

"I was," cried the young man. "And I was outside this very window, descending at terrific speed. I looked in. Doctor, I saw you! As clearly as I see you now!"

"Mr. Rotifer," replied the psychiatrist with a modest smile, "I very frequently figure in my patients' dreams."

"But I wasn't your patient then," said the young man. "I didn't even know you existed. I didn't know till this morning, when I came to see who occupied this office. Oh, Doctor, I was so relieved to find you were not a theatrical agent!"

"And why were you relieved?" asked the specialist blandly.

"Because you were not alone. In my dream, I mean. A young woman was with you. A young woman with beautiful golden hair. And she was sitting on your knee, Doctor, and her arms were around your neck. I felt certain it was another theatrical agency. And then I thought, that is very beautiful golden hair. It is like my Maisie's hair. At that moment you both looked toward the window. It was she! Maisie! My own Maisie!"

The psychiatrist laughed very heartily. "My dear sir," said he, "you may set your mind entirely at rest"

"All the same," said the young man, "this morning, in the office, I have been a prey to an unbearable curiosity, an almost irresistible urge to jump, just to see what I should see."

"You would have had the mortification," said the psychiatrist, "of seeing that there were no grounds whatever for your rash act. Your fiancee is not a patient of mine; therefore she could not have had one of those harmless little transferences, as we call them, which have been known to lead to ardent behaviour on the part of the subject. Besides, our profession has its ethics, and nothing ever happens in the office. No, my dear sir, what you have described to me is a relatively simple condition, a recurrent dream, a little neurotic compulsion - nothing that cannot be cured in time. If you can visit me three or four times a week, I am confident that a very few years will show a decided improvement"

"But Doctor," cried the young man in despair, "I am due to hit the ground at any moment!"