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If there were dreams to sell

What would you buy?

Some cost a passing bell

Some a light sigh.

That shakes from Life’s full crown

Only a rose-leaf down,

If there were dreams to sell,

Merry and sad to tell

And the crier rang the bell,

What would you buy?

thomas l. beddoes

NATALIE had been left downstairs, there was no doubt about it. She was not in her cradle, she was not in the toy cupboard, she was not on the shelf, she was not on the dresser; she must be downstairs on one of the drawing-room tables, and what is more, face downwards.

This is what passed in the mind of Natalie’s mistress as she lay warmly in her bed. She lay looking at the nightlight shadows, but with this last thought she sat upright, and looked round her. Yes, she must have been asleep, for the nightlight was burning brightly and fully, as it does when it has been alight some time; not showing that melancholy little humpbacked flame with which its vigil commences. “I wonder what time it is,” thought Clare, “I wish I had remembered to bring Natalie up to bed with me.”

She lay down again, and tried to go to sleep, but one feels very wide awake indeed if one keeps thinking of one thing in particular. You feel even if you buttoned your lids down, they would still flutter wide.

There is a writer called George Herbert of whom you have heard, and in one of his poems he says,

I hasted to my bed,

But when I thought to sleep out all these faults

(I sigh to speak)

I found that some had stuffed the bed with thoughts,

I would say thorns,

and rest was impossible. So it was with Clare. She kept seeing Natalie nose downwards.

“I’ll go and fetch her,” she said, and she was out of bed in a twink.

Quietly she passed through her little room to the door, passing all the familiar shadows. There was the big one cast by the cupboard, that looked like a cloaked figure by the door. And there was the black corner with the sharp shadow jutting out of it, that was really only the chair-back, for she had moved the chair one night to make sure. And there lay her little pile of clothes on the chair itself, but even the sight of these did not make her remember to put on her slippers, and passing all these things and so through the room, she opened the door, and went out into the passage.

How light she felt! as if she’d left her body in bed and was going downstairs in her soul. The stair-rods touched the back of her heel strangely cold; how soft and deep the carpet was.

The floor round about the big landing window was flooded by moonlight, and by this Clare moved, but it did not reach very far, and soon she had to feel along the wall towards the drawing-room. Then she saw beneath the door a thin streak of light shed on the carpet, showing the lights had not yet been put out within.

“I wonder if they’ve been forgotten, or if Mummie’s still in there,” thought Clare, and she turned the handle.

The room was partially lit by one of the lamps, and Clare ran in to seize Natalie. There she lay, her furry eyelashes sweeping the faultless contour of a china cheek.

But in the far end of the room by the shaded light, some one was seated, writing. It was the figure of a woman. Clare ran forward eagerly, but a strange face was turned to her, strange, yet not wholly so, in some way it was familiar. The lady was dressed in white material, rather like stiff muslin, her face was eager, and shrewd. She had sharp brown eyes, and as she leaned back in her chair, turning sideways, Clare recognised her. She was Mrs. Inchbald. And as Clare realised this a little wave of fear swept from the nape of her neck to her heels, as she stood looking.

“Why aren’t you in bed, child?” Mrs. Inchbald said, in measured tones. She spoke slowly, with a controlled stammer. Clare felt as if she were not going to like her, very much.

“Why aren’t you in bed, child?” Mrs. Inchbald repeated. “Good Heavens, the way the children over-run this house is something unparalleled! Collina, Beppo, Dolorès and Leslie, not to mention Robin and Fieldmouse; but I see now, you are one of the others. Well, they make noise enough in all conscience. Why, I repeat, are you not in bed?”

Romney.

MRS. INCHBALD.

All this time Clare had been looking at the lady, and was now quite sure she didn’t like her. The wave of fear she had first experienced had receded, and she had only an overmastering inclination to be “rude back.” She knew now she was talking to one of the pictures, and “Why aren’t you in your frame?” was on the tip of her tongue to utter. But she knew she mustn’t say it, so she just stood and let her eyes grow as hard as Scotch pebbles, and she Scotch-pebbled Mrs. Inchbald with all her might.

Evidently that lady was one of those who do not need any answer, on the contrary who prefer conducting the talk, for she continued with a stammering fluency,

“I suppose there are nurses in the house; to be sure, I’ve seen them. But it’s all this modern movement among Mothers to have their children with them, I suppose. The Parent’s Review. I’ve seen it lying about on the tables. By the way, child, your Mother reads remarkably uninteresting books. I found mine on the table once, but only one was cut, and that partially. Why doesn’t she read Mrs. Radclyffe?”

“I suppose people who live framed by themselves,” thought Clare, “may grow rather prosy”; but she had discovered the value of making comments inwardly. Even had she been about to speak, Mrs. Inchbald would have given her small hearing.

“Goodness me! I’ve heard the poor lady herself allude to her own room as Piccadilly when two nurses, three children, somebody with a note, the cook and the clock-winder, all focus their energies upon it at the same time.

“Then at dressing time it is like this:

“‘Will you hear me say my prayers to-night?’

“‘And mine?’

“‘And mine?’

“‘And mine?’

“‘Can I have a joo-joob?’

“‘Don’t you think Juno was awfully interfering?’

“‘When do we go to Peter Pan?’

“‘Well, good-night, good-night, I won’t speak again really,—but you’ll come and kiss me, won’t you Moth’?’

“‘Is to-morrow football?’

“‘O, my lips are so sore!’

“‘And mine!’

“‘And mine!’

“‘What have you got on, Mummie?’

“‘What?’

“‘O, your yellow. Well, good-night, boys!’

“‘When do we go on our expedition?’

“‘Oh! it’s soup.’

“‘I’ve got a flea-bite.’

“‘Have you? Where?’

“‘Will somebody brush the crumbs out?’

“And so on, indefinitely. How she stands it I can’t imagine, but there is peace at last. And then it’s the turn of the other children; but I’ll say this for them, they make very little noise.”

“What other children?” asked Clare, with a sense of growing excitement, “do you mean——”

“I mean the picture children of course, child. Leslie, Beppo, Collina, and the little Spencers. You interrupt me as callously as you do your poor Mother. My next novel shall be concerned with the amazing difference in the up-bringing of children, then and now. But how different it all is to Grosvenor Square!”

This caught Clare’s fancy. She loved people to criticise and draw comparisons. “O, what?” she said. “Is it different? Of course I know it is, but do tell me, don’t you like it? And did you like Grosvenor Square?”

“They knew how to live there,” said Mrs. Inchbald severely: “everything was in order, my dear. There was a butler, with all the punctuality of a heavenly body surrounded by his satellites, the footmen, who could be thoroughly depended on to keep up the fires....”

“Yes, even in the very warmest weather, Mother says. She doesn’t like footmen, you know, except in palaces; she’d rather men were soldiers, or ploughed fields. She doesn’t like to see them hand plates about, which women do far more prettily; besides, men stamp so, and blow down your back.”

“Perhaps the furniture,” continued Mrs. Inchbald, regardless of interruption, “perhaps the furniture was unsuited to child-life, holding the priceless china as it did ... the move was certainly courageous. But O, how we were loved!”

Something in Mrs. Inchbald’s voice made Clare listen. She liked her better now that her hard face softened so.

“Ah, that was something like belonging! it warmed us, my dear, it warmed us; that’s what made us alive. Do you think if your Grandpapa had never loved us in the way he did that we should be here walking and breathing—we, but semblances of human form dwelling in pigment and paste? It’s only love that can make alive, and he did it. Sometimes, after all the lights were out and the folks in bed, the door would open and he’d enter. I can see him in his dressing-gown and slippers, the light shining on the mahogany door; his clean white hair, and shrewd face. His hands so swift in movement, so beautifully kept, his beard trimmed so neatly. Did you ever see him untidy, I wonder, or harassed, or wasting time? Never—it all went so easily, he had the long-houred day of a busy man. Time to read aloud to others, time to look over his old French books, time to saunter out and play golf earnestly, and time, above all, to spend, upon us. How he loved us. We shall never have that again.”

“O yes you shall,” said Clare, for she was warm-hearted really, for all the Scotch pebble in her eyes on occasion—“O yes, you shall. Why—we all, all like you we are all going to learn about you, Mother says so; it is only Lady Crosbie who sometimes ... bores her, you know.”

This came out rushingly, and Clare would have withdrawn it, but the spoken word is like a sped arrow, there is no calling either back. Mrs. Inchbald changed completely. Her brown eyes twinkled comfortably, and she leaned in her eagerness, right out of her chair.

“You don’t say so? Well, I agree with her. I believe I shall get on with your Mother, after all, though she does let you all victimise her, and reads such dull books. But I shouldn’t have chosen the word bore exactly. I shouldn’t say Lady Crosbie ever bored people ... dear me, O no, she’s vastly entertaining, my dear, to those she thinks worth it....”

“Well, Mother says however charming she must have been in life, it is rather tiresome, in a picture, to be looking permanently mischievous. She says, although Lady Crosbie is flitting off into such a lovely landscape, she’s not really going to know how to enjoy the country at all.”

“My dear, your Mother’s talking about something she doesn’t rightly know about, begging your pardon, if she calls that country. That’s studio, my dear, sheer studio, and a very good studio landscape it is. But all the same, your Mother’s opinion interests me; I notice she keeps the light on some, and not so often on others. I wonder what she thinks about it all.”

Reynolds.

ROBERT MAYNE, M.P. FOR UPPER GATTON.

“O well,” said Clare, “once she’s made up her mind she’s not to have bare walls (which is what she likes best to live among), she says she likes you all, and Miss Ridge she loves. She says she knows she was a darling, and of course she loves Miss Ross, and so do we all, only we long to make her happy. And we like Lewis the actor, because he’s showing off so finely, and Bimbo longs for his sword. Robert Mayne’s got the loveliest clothes, and such a kind face, Mother says she feels he knows everything, before she’s spoken. She feels sure he’s a dear, and she says his face makes her feel bound to tell him what she’s been doing; and he’s never bored by trifles. And often when we come into the room, just for fun, Mummie says, ‘Well, we’ve come in again; it’s very windy and cold, but the crocuses are showing. I had a few things to do at Woollands, but it’s so vexing, I couldn’t find a match anywhere for the blue....’ And then she goes on, looking at him in his picture, and makes up all sorts of enjoyable nonsense, and says get away with us, she’s talking to Robert Mayne; and we love it when she’s in that mood; and say ‘Go on, go on,’ and sometimes she tells us what he says to her—but, the best of all was when....”

“Was when ... was when....” echoed a very pleasant voice beside her, and a hand was set on Clare’s shoulder. And, looking up, she saw Robert Mayne standing there, M.P. for Upper Gatton. Never did she think his face looked nicer than at that moment, or his coat so warm and red.

“It’s only love that makes alive,” he repeated, looking at Mrs. Inchbald. “Was I right or was I wrong, Madam? Should you and I be talking to this little thing here to-night if they didn’t care?” His voice was so extremely comfortable that Clare felt wonderfully happy, just as one always feels if people are near one that understand. You feel stroked down and peaceful, and as if you needn’t talk much, because they know. And you think you never need feel as if your inside were made of red serge soaked in lemon juice, which is the feeling that another kind of person brings about. So Clare stood and watched him talking to Mrs. Inchbald, and enjoyed it very much.

“I think I had the pleasure, Madam, of travelling in the van with you, when we made the much-dreaded move?”

“You did, Sir, and you were mightily helpful staying as you did the needless chatter and tittle-tattle of the occasion.”

Reynolds.

BEPPO.

“It was the morose forebodings that I felt grieved by,” said Robert Mayne, “the faithless despair, the manufactured misery of morbid minds. Why, what need was there to fill the children with apprehension, to chill our own hearts with fear? You yourself, madam,” he continued with a charming bow, “had need that day of all your energy of character for which I have so much respect. You would not let the weaker moods possess your heart. How I wish we might then have shown those who were fearful, these sheltering walls, these fair white rooms, this Home!”

“You might show some folk the loaves upon the table, and they’d swear they were going to starve,” said Mrs. Inchbald crisply. “The children are well housed too, for that matter; really better than before. I don’t think yellow satin and brocade suits children—white-wash and brown holland, say I. And this house is as near to white-wash as the Mother can compass. Even the drawing-room curtains, I’m told, are to have a decidedly brown-holland appearance.”

“But the children,” said Clare, “are they really in the house? O, do let me see them, will you, Ma’am?”

“It’s time I were framed, and you were in bed, my dear, so we may as well go together”; and the brisk old lady rose in her stiff muslin and walked towards the door. Clare just had sight of Robert Mayne settling himself comfortably to read in an arm-chair. Then Mrs. Inchbald led her out into the passage, and up the stairs to her own room. But one strong impression remained in Clare’s mind, that the passage seemed in some way different.

“That’s not my door,” she said, as she looked before her, “and Mother’s room is further on. I never noticed a door there before. O, Mrs. Inchbald, is it the children’s room?”

She stood in a long low apartment, the light shed from a nightlight falling softly on six beds. On each pillow lay a little head.

Clare stepped quietly beside them; how pretty they looked in their sleep, Collina and Beppo and Leslie, Dolorès and Fieldmouse and Rob.

There they lay, the pillows scarce dinted. How clearly she recognised them. And as she bent over the white bed of Dolorès, Clare saw the tear glisten wet on the rounded cheek.