DREAMLIGHT COTTAGE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3912, 5 March 1929, Page 80

DREAMLIGHT COTTAGE.

By

Charles Procter.

(Copyright.—For the Otago Witness.) With a gasp of astonishment Mark Maitland stopped the two-seater car he was driving, and sprang out, his heart pounding in sudden excitement. Yet there seemed no cause for his excitement. The country road along which he had neen driving was deserted, and there seemed to be nothing very remarkable about®tf*e cottage at which he was staring with wonder in his grey eyes. It was a charming and picturesque cottage, built in Queen Anne style, with leaded, diamond-paned windows, and standing in a big, old-world garden, ablaze with flowers, in the June sunlight. “ Dreamlight Cottage! ” said Mark Maitland aloud, and drew a long breath. “ It’s real—it’s true—l’m not dreaming. I wonder if Belovedest is waiting?” His heart was still throbbing quickly and his hands trembled slightly as he opened the gate (a beaten copper plate on which proclaimed the name of the place to be ‘‘The Haven,” and not “ Dreamlight Cottage ”), and walked up the crazy-pavement path to the front door. He knocked, and waited expectantly, his e ery nerve thrilling, but there was no answer. He knocked again and again; still no response or any sound of movement within the house.

Maitland stood looking about him, then a smile crept into his bronzed, rugged face.

She comes not when noon is on the roses. —Too bright is day,” he murmered under his breath, and walked round the side of the house to peer through a trellis at another garden shaded bv trees, behind “ I suppose I am actually awake and not dreaming. . . There is the sum-”.er-house in which we sit and watch the sun setting, and listen to the great voioes rolling in from the sea. This is our dream cottage! Belovedest where are you;” He peered through the diamond-paned windows, and could dimly distinguish some of the features of the room he knew so well, loved so ■ well, yet had never seen in reality until that minute. There was the arm chair in which he and Belovedest so often had sat, close by the fireplace, and on the window-sill the crystal bowl edged with silver, that had been a fairy present, filled with roses white and red.

“ I suppose I am sane and not suffering .rom delusions,” muttered Mark, straightening himself to look around him once more—and to see a rustic regarding him with suspicious curiosity over the garden gate. “ M r hat are you up to, Mister? ” the rustic asked. “ There baint nobody in there. What are you after? ”

“ I want to see the lady who lives here,” explained Mark, walking down to the gate. “ Can you tell me where I can find her? ” “ Mrs Lauderdale baint here, and hasn’t bin here .for months,” the man

answered. “ There baint nobody living here now.” “ The place looks as if it was inhabited,” Maitland protested. “ Everything is swept and garnished. The garden is in good order, and I can see bowls of fresh flowers in the sitting-room.” Miss Rose comes across of a’ evening from Frimcote Admiral and keeps the place in order, sir,” the rustic explained. ’’ That’ll be her doing, I reckon. But i'xrs Lauderdale, as owns the place, she hasn’t been ’ere for a long time. Is it her that you’re wanting? ” “Yes, I suppose so,” answered Mark. “Where is Mrs Lauderdale to be found?” I dunno, sir. I believe she be somewhere up in London. Mr Richards, up at the ‘ Sheaf of Wheat ’ could tell you, I reckon. Better go along and see him.” Mark asked some questions, found that the “ Sheaf of Wheat ” was an inn a few hundred yards further along the road in a village called Brinton Admiral, and he drove along to the place and interviewed the landlord, whom he found to be an . intelligent, well-spoken old soldier. ‘ Yes, sir, The Haven belongs to Mrs Lauderdale, and I believe it is to let,” th© landlord said, in answer to Mark’s questions. “It has been let furnished several times, but the people who took it never stayed long. Round here folk says it’s haunted.” Haunted—eh? Bv what particular kind of spectre? ” asked Maitland smil ingly.

I don t know, sir,” the landlord answered. “ I asked Miss Rose, who is a friend of Mrs Lauderdale, and who comes across nearly every evening to keep the place tidy and ’tend to the garden, and she said yes, there was a ghost, but it was a very friendly one. Maybe she was . only joking.” ’ ‘\ rd , like to meefc the ghost,” said . Mark Maitland. “ Has anyone told you . what it is like? ” “ Thomas Henry, that used to do the garden there, said the last lady that took the cottage told him there were two of them,” said Richards. “ You needn’t think I’m trying to scare you off taking the place, sir, if you’ve taken a fancy T j" , ¥ c , s > sir ’ 1 can g ive y° u Mrs Lauderdale s address. She left it with me and the postmistress, and said to give it to anyone who made inquiries about Ine Haven, and not worry Miss Rose.” He gave Mark an address in a fashion- • able quarter of the West End of London, and Mark made a note of it, thanked’ .him, got into his 'car again, and drove straight back to London by the shortest ’ PQute. He had left town in the morning without the remotest idea of where he was going, had found himself at length somewhere on the outskirts of the New (Forest taken another by-road because the names Brinton Admiral and Frimcote Admira! attracted him—and had chanced suddenly upon The Haven, the Dreamflight Cottage of his dreams. W ill Mrs Lauderdale turn out to be Belovedest ? ” he was wondering, as he sped along. “Are my dreams coming true ? ” b

It was after / o’clock when he reached London, but he drove, as fast as the press of traffic would permit, to Mrs Lauderdale’s house in Mayfair, sent in his .card, explaining to the fcotman that his business was important, and was shown into p beautifully furnished drawing room. He was kept waiting onlv a few minutes, then the door opened, and a slim, stately, silver-haired woman in (evening dress entered. . Mr Maitland?” she said, inquiringly, and, as she looked at Mark, she started violently, but recovered herself almost immediately. “Am I right in assuming you are' Mr Mark Maitland, the playwright and poet ? ” “At your service, madam,” Mark answered with a bow. • ‘We have met before on several occasions, Mr Maitland, and I am wondering if you are aware of the fact,” said Mrs Lauderdale, regarding him steadily with an odd, inscrutable expression in her fine eyes. “ I think. I cail guess what it is you wish to see me about.” “ Allow me to apologise, first of all, for troubling you at such an unusual hour, Mrs Lauderdale. I have come to make inquiries about Dreamlight Cot- ■ tage—er—l mean The Haven, at Brinton Admiral. I am anxious to rent it or buy it.” . “ Considering that you have been oc‘*.¥PyillB the place for nearly two years, Mr Maitland, it is time you thought of purchasing it,” she said slowly and quietly. “Please sit down and tell me

what it all means.” “ I don’t know what it all means myself, Mrs Lauderdale, and I don’t know

what you mean,” said Mark, his brain in a whirl. “ I never saw the place until to-day, but I have dreamed of it often, as] jep and awake, and in fancy Belovedest and I have spent many happy hours in it. But how do you know ? ” “I have seen you there r . ny times —the spirit shapes of you and the woman you love,” answered Mrs Lauderdale simply. “ Others who have occu-

pied the cottage have also seen you, and were lightened, although you and your companion did nothing • ore horrifying than make love to each other Openly.” Mark Maitland’s bronzed face flushed duskily. “ Yes', we make love there every . night,” he admitted, running his fingers through his dark hair. “ This is amaz- , ing, staggering, incredible. I have never dabbled in matters occult. I have

(Hever told a soul, save Belovedest, about my dreams and fancies. Tell me what Belovedest is like.”

■ “She is dark and attractive, just a trifle taller, than you, with shingled hair, ; blueeyes set rather wide apart, and a graceful, feminine figure. Is that cor)(rect, Mr Maitland?” ? “Yes. Tell me more, please!”

‘ At first I thought you were ghosts, y ' somehow I was not frightened. Then, somehow—l cannot explain it—there came to me the realisation that what I saw were the spirit forms of living people. I never saw you by .ay, except on one wonderful golden day in October. It was only at nightfall you appeared, an 4 then I would slip away to an upper room. In time I began to feel I was an intruder—that l’he Haven belonged to you and not to me, so I gave up possession. Tell me, Jr Maitland, why do you call it ‘ Dreamlight Cottage ’ ? ” “ Because it is only by dreamlight that we go there,” Mark explained. “We took the name from a poem by Herbert Trench. Do you know it?

She conies not when Noon Is on the roses —Too bright is Day; She conies not to the soul till it reposes From work and play. But when night is on the hills and the great Voices Roll in from sea, By starlight and candlelight and dreamlight She comes to me.” “ Mrs Lauderdale, as I am a living, sentient being and not a ghost, surely the sweetheart of my drcams is also a living being and not merely a creature of my imagination. Do you think it possible that she exists, and that she dreams the same dreams as I ? ” “ I am sure it is so, and that you must be twin souls, soul-mates, although you have never met, save in your dream cottage,” answered Mrs Lauderdale gravely, but with a smile in her eyes. “ I’d love to hear all about it, Mr Maitland, if you don’t object to giving me youx - confidence. I have, an idea that I am destined to bring you and your Belovedest together. Do you know her by any other name than 1 Belovedest ’ ? ” “ I have no idea what her real name is, if that is what you mean, Mrs Lauderdale,” Mark answered. “ I only know that my dream sweetheart is to me the most lovely, fascinating woman in the world, and that I love her with every fibre of my being. It seems incredible that your cottage should be haunted by living glints, that you should actually have seen me and Belovedest there. And it is wonderful that you should understand.”

“ How long ago is it since you first met your Belovedest?” “ I don’t know. At times I feel we must have met and loved centuries ago, and have been seeking each other ever since. It is very odd. Perhaps I am a dreamer of dreams. I am over 40, and thought I had lost all my illusions about women, and I had lost all hope of finding the love of which I had dreamed.”

“ Yet you found youi- ideal —in a dream? ” “ Yes, she came to me, radiant and pulsating with life in a dream more than two years ago. It was on a cliff overlooking the sea, a cliff glowing with golden gorse, and she gave me her lips at first meeting and recognised me, as I did her, as—how shall I put it?— as Heart’s Desire.”

“ The whole affair is quite as uncanny to me as it is to you,” said Mrs Lauderdale. “ I think the fairies have something to do with it.”

“ Since you know so much, Mrs Lauderdlae, tell me what- to do and how to find the girl of my dreams.” “ Surely you should wait for her in your Dreamlight Cottage? ” Mrs Lauderdale suggested, after a thoughtful pause. “ It may be that you will find her waiting for you there, or she will come to you when night is on the hills. I suggest that you go down there again tomorrow, at nightfall, and wait. She may not come to you on the first night of your stay, but she will surelv come. I will get you the keys of the "Haven. Me will not talk about price or terms now. This is not an affair for such sordid considerations. I make you a present of your Dreamlight Cottage for a . month, Mr Maitland, and hope you will find your heart’s desire.” Ten minutes later Mark Maitland was out in the street again, with the keys of the Haven in his pocket. His mind was in such a turmoil that he failed to notice the signal of a policeman controlling the traffic, and he was brought back to stern realities with a jerk by the officer’s caustic comments.

Mark slept but little that night, and he was in a very fever of impatience next morning to get back to Brinton Admiral ; but he controlled his impulse to rush off immediately he got out of bed, remembering Mrs Lauderdale’s advice to go to the cottage at nightfall. The sun was beginning to dip westward when at length he opened the door of The Haven ana walked in, his heart beating fast, his pulses throbbing with anticipation. Almost he expected his dream girl to be awaiting him in the sitting-room—exactly the room of which he had dreamed, sleeping and waking, hundreds of times, a long, low-roofed apartment in which everything harmonised. The room of his dreams, even to the willow-pattern curtains on the casement windows, and the crystal bowl with the silver rim—a fairy present—filled with white and red roses, on the windowledge. And there was the big, cosy armchair in which he and Belovedest had so often sat and made love and poured out their hearts to each other.

. The house seemed almost unnaturally silent as he went from room to room, his wonder deepening as he found everything just as he knew it, even to the appointments of the dressing-table in the chief bedroom. Mark had a sort of feeling that everything was hushed and standing on tiptoe, as it were, awaiting some great event.

Twilight was gradually deepening into darkness as he went back to the sittingroom and sank into the armchair.

“ Belovedest, I am waiting,” he whispered. “ Your own man is waiting, darlingest. Oh, my dream love, come to me! ”

He waited holding his breath and straining his ears, and his heart seemed to miss a beat when he heard the click cf a latch. He started to his feet and waited, breathing unsteadily, his every nerve thrilling. The door of the sitting-room opened, and he needed all his self-control to prevent himself from giving vent to a great shout of gladness. For it was Belovedest, the girl of his dreams, who had entered, her eyes shining, her sweet face all aglow. “ Have you been waiting long, darling heart?” she asked softly, advancing towards Mark without any sign of surprise or hesitation. “ I wanted to come earlier to my own man, but the others kept me. Uh, darlingest I am so hungry for your kisses 1 ”

“ Belovedest! at last! ” breathed Mark, and drew her close to his breast to kiss her passionately again and again. Suddenly she stiffened in his arms, and a breathless cry broke from her. But—but this is real! ” she gasped, er blue eyes dilating in amazement that was mingled with fear. “ You are real! ”

“ Yes, and you, too, are real, Belovedest—thank God! ” said Mark very gently. “ Darlingest, say you are glad "that the dream has become a reality. I have been loving you and longing for you ever since that day we kissed on the cliffs bysunset and moonrise.”

The girl was still gazing at him wide eyed.

“ I —l suppose lam really awake and not dreaming,” she faltered. “You have become so real to me, darling, that now I —l don’t know if this “is reality.” She put out . .her hand nervously and touched Mark’s face to assure herself that he was actually a creature of flesh and blood and not a spectre—a somewhat unnecessary proceeding, considering that her lips _ were tingling from his kisses ; and a little glad cry that was half a laugh and half a sob broke from her lips as Mark _ took her masterfully into his arms again. “ The time of waiting has seemed so long sometimes,” she said tremulously between kisses; “but you said our dreams would all come true, and I knew my own man would come to me in the end. It is a miracle! Hold me close, sweetheart. I can’t believe this is not a dream.”

Bight gladly did Mark comply, then, by degrees both began to recover their normal senses to some extent, and to ask breathless questions of each other. Yes, she had dreamed the same dreams as Mark, and had loved her dream man ever since their first kiss on the gorse-clad cliff.

“ It is a miracle! ” she exclaimed. “ My people wanted me to marry another man, but I couldn’t. It would" have been like —like committing bigamy, as I belonged to you. And I couldn’t explain. They wouldn.’t have understood. But Mrs Lauderdale understood. You see, darling, she recognised me although she- hadn’t seen me for years, because she had seen me here often. That sounds Irish, but she says we have been haunting this place.” “ She recognised me, too,” said Mark, “ and I know now why she told me I should find you here in" Dreamlight Cottage.” •• Yes, yes, darling, we’ve called it that ever since we read those verses— ‘ By starlight and candlelight and dreamlight.’ Oh, beloved, isn’t it a miracle? We have been lovers for two years, and yet we don’t even know each other’s names ? ”

“ Me shall never be able to improve on our dream names, Belovedest, said Mark, smiling into her blue eyes. “ My name to the rest of the world is Mark "Maitland.” “And mine is Alma Rose. I think I shall like your name, Mark.” “ That is good, Belovedest, for it will soon be yours.” Twilight had deepened into darkness, but neither was aware of the fact. They were snuggled together in their armchair. Both had many questions to ask and answer.

Alma had been abroad with her people, and had been in England only a month or so. Mrs Lauderdale was a relative of her mother, and had not seen Alma since the latter was a child, but immediately she met her she had recognised her as one of the “ ghosts ” who haunted the cottage. She had asked questions, and Alma had told her all about her dream-lover.

“ The moment I saw the cottage, darling, I knew my dreams would come true,” Alma said. “ I am staying with some people near here, and every night at dusk I have come here to wait, to talk to you. Oh, darlingest, I was beginning to lose heart and to fear you would never cmne.”

“I only saw the cottage for the first time yesterday, Belovedest,” explained Mark, and told.. what had happened. “ Sometimes I, too, wearied of waiting, and began to fear that my dream was only a dream. We won’t attempt to understand it of seek for an explanation, but just be thankful. We are lords of them all, as Kipling says—the dreamers whose dreams come true.”

“And now we shall never be parted again,” whispered Alma. “Oh, my own man, I am so glad and thankful! ” “ It will be sweet and wonderful, Belovedest mine, to make every moment of our dreams of the past two years realities,” murmured Mark. “And we’ll do it! ”

They are doing it, and the Locals marvel at the perpetual radiant happi-

ness of Mr and Mrs Mark Maitland, who live in a house that used to be haunted, and the name of which they changed from “ The Haven ” to “ Dreamlight Cottage ” when they married. Mrs Lauderdale’s wedding present to the happy couple was the title deeds of ? e . B aven ” and a verse by Kipling, inscribed on vellum and illuminated in the style of an ancient missal. The verse reads:—

I’d not give room for an emperor, I’d hold my road for a king; To the Triple Crown I’d not bow down— But this is a different thing ! J fight with the powers of the air— Sentries pass him through, Drawbridge let fall, he’s the Lord of us all— The Dreamer ■whose dreams came true.