Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/341

 326 not only dreams themselves but those who dreamt them, that night hour, and the vague dread pervading Jane’s spirit, all too plainly were exercising their influence over her now. Jane began at once; it was a significant fact that she showed no thought of objecting. Judith, not caring to be solitary at a dream-telling, drew near and stood close behind the chair of Lady Jane.

“It was on Monday night, the thirteenth of March,” began Lady Jane, with a shiver, “and quite the beginning of Lent, for Easter was very late that year"

“What has Easter to do with it?” interrupted Laura.

“Nothing. I had gone to bed that evening as soon as tea was over, not being well, and by half-past nine was asleep. I thought that Clarice came to my bed-side, dressed in her grave clothes, and stood looking at me. Understand me, Laura—I remembered in my dream that I had gone to bed ill; I seemed to know that I was lying in bed, and that I was sleeping. I dreamt that Clarice came, I say, and I dreamt that I awoke; her attire, the shroud, did not appear to frighten me, but she did not speak. ‘Why have you come here?’ I asked. ‘To tell you that I am gone,’ she answered, and she pointed to her face, which was that of the dead, and to the shroud; but it did not appear that I associated her words with death (at least, I could not remember so when I awoke), but that she had gone on a journey. ‘Why did you go without telling us?’ I asked her. ‘He stopped it,’ she answered, ‘he was too quick.’ ‘Who?’ I asked; and she turned her white face round and pointed to the door of the room. I cannot describe to you, Laura, the horror, the fear, that at that moment seemed to take possession of me. ‘Come and see him,’ Clarice said, and glided towards the door. I seemed to get out of bed, to follow her, without power of resistance; she kept looking over her shoulder, with her dead face and her dead fixed eyes, and beckoned to me. But oh! the dread, the fear I seemed to experience at having to look beyond that door! It was a dread perfectly unearthly, such as we can never feel in life. I thought Clarice went out before me,—went out in obedience to one who was compelling her to go, as she was compelling me. It seemed that I would have given my own life not to look, but yet I had no thought of resistance. There, standing outside, and waiting for her, was"

“A—h!” shrieked Laura, her nerves strung beyond their tension with the superstitious terror induced by the recital “Look at Judith!”

Jane started at the interruption, and turned round. Judith’s face was of a blue whiteness. She stammered forth an excuse. “I am not ill, my ladies; but it frightens me to hear these strange dreams.”

Lady Jane resumed.

“Standing outside, waiting for Clarice, was the person she seemed to have spoken of as stopping her from telling us, as being ‘too quick.’ It was Mr. Carlton. He was looking at her sternly, and pointed with his outstretched hand to some place in the distance where it was dark. I remember no more; I awoke with the terror, the horror—such horror that, I tell you, Laura, we can never experience in life, except in a dream. And yet I was collected enough not to scream; papa was just getting better from his attack of gout, and I did not dare raise the house, and alarm him. I put my head under the bedclothes, and I believe a full hour passed before I had courage to put it out again; there I lay, shivering and shaking, bathed in perspiration.”

“It was a singular dream,” said Laura, musingly. “But, Jane, it could have had no meaning.”

“I argued so to myself. Clarice was at a distance, in London as we supposed, and Mr. Carlton was at South Wennock; that very evening, as late as half-past seven, he had been at our house with papa. This dream of mine took place before ten, for I heard the clock strike after I awoke. I did not like Mr. Carlton previously; we do take likes and dislikes; but it is impossible to tell you how very much that dream set me against him. Unjustly, you will say; but we cannot help these things. He was, ever after, associated in my mind with terror, with dread; and I would rather have seen you marry any one else in the world. This night, for the first time, I begin to think that the dream had a meaning, for Clarice must have been at South Wennock; the note of hers was dated the tenth, the previous Friday.”

“How absurd, Jane! What meaning?”

“I cannot conjecture; unless, as I say, those young Wests brought any ill on Clarice, and Mr. Carlton was privy to it.”

Laura would not accept the suggestion; ridiculed it in the highest degree; and she went away to her room casting a mocking, laughing word of censure at Jane for what she called her “folly.”

“I shall go,” said Jane, “to Mrs. Jenkinson’s in the morning.”

She spoke aloud, though the words were but uttered in commune with herself. Judith came forward, a little wash-leather bag in her hand.

“It will be of no use your going to Mrs. Jenkinson—as I believe, my lady. Did your ladyship ever see this?”