“THE HOUSE OF DREAMS”

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 76, Issue 303, 23 December 1933, Page 8 (Supplement)

“THE HOUSE OF DREAMS”

A Complete Story by

Mollie Jamieson.

So long the dream had been an actual part of Hester’s life, and all her thoughts, that now she told herself that she would almost have missed it if it went away. Always the same dream too—the gate, opening abruptly from the high road; the long, tree-shaded avenue; the old. grey house round the turning;—oh! she could have found her way there blindfolded, or asleep; though in truth, it was only in sleep that she ever visited it. Lying down at night, Hester, with a hardly admitted sense of anticipation, would wonder if the dream was to be hers again. And then, drifting softly, easily, into that world of our other selves, which so often seems more real than this, her hand would be on the gate; it would swing ajar, and she would be setting out upon her voyage of discovery once more. The dream, the same always, had not till recently assumed additional proportions. Ever there had been, accompanying it, that happy sense of inexplicable buoyancy, of joyous anticipation, as she swung the gate ajar, and went up the tree-shaded avenue. Something was coming—coming—coming—something to which she had, been looking forward all her life; something which lay just beyond, and if she could but attain to it. There, round the corner, the house—she was hurrying nearer, and she awoke. But in another, night or two it would come again; she had gained the doorway; Paradise was just in view; when once more the dream shattered—broke. Hester, sitting up in bed, rubbing sleepy eyes, smiled a little ruefully. •‘Seems as if I’ve just got to get inside of that dream house, and yet I never can. What lies beyond. 1 wonder! Oh! amn’t I a silly little goose to be wasting time like this, when that letter of Aunt Hannah's is lying waiting to be answered, and me with hardly a minute to spare if I amn’t to be late for school.” For Aunt Hannah, grim outwardly, if kind at heart, had, for the first time, and quite unexpectedly, held out the olive branch to the orphaned daughter of the brother with whom she had quarrelled so long ago. She was grow’ing old, Aunt Hannah wrote, beginning to feel the want of any of her own kith and kin, and if Hester felt inclined to let bygones be bygones, and come and spend the Christmas holidays with her.—Coming from the town as she did, she needn’t expect things to hum much at Starthorpe; but she ’d get as warm a welcome as any, and there was talk of a concert and limelight entertainment in the church hall, come the New Year . . . Hester, reading, had first of all screwed a naughty face, and made up her mind quite decidedly not to go. Then, re-perusing it, and this time between the lines, her heart had been filled with sudden compunction; she had visualised just what it must mean to be old. and lonely, and possibly unloved, like Aunt Hannah, and that if she was in the same case. . Yes she’d go; surely she -could give up as much as her Christmas holidays to poor old Aunt Hannah, who was* the only relative'she had in the whole, wide world. So thus it came to pass that, on a certain foggy afternoon, a couple of days before Christmas, a solitary passenger might have been seen alighting at the rather desolate little station of Starthorpe. and glancing enquiringly about her to see whether Aunt Hannah or any emissary of Aunt Hannah’s awaited her coming. Aunt Hannah was not there; but it would seem that Aunt Hannah had sent directions bv the bus-driver that ‘the young miss’ was to come right along with him; she herself having been too afraid of the fog to venture out. So, enclosed in a vehicle which might have been Noah’s Ark on wheels, Hester that December afternoon set out on her journey into the unknown, little dreaming what destiny lay beyond, or that her feet were already set upon the brink of that ‘adventure’ which, indirectly, was to alter all her coming life for her. ‘‘l don’t believe in dreams.” said Aunt Hannah uncompromisingly. That was upon the following morning, when aunt and niece, having made what progress they could towards intimacy on the preceding night, were now able to sum up each other bv the colder and clearer light of day. Aunt Hannah, Hester had quite from the first decided, was as uncompromising as her voice; yet she rather liked Aunt Hannah all the same. Her gruffness was not so much gruffness as a species of camouflaged shyness; her keen grey eyes were true and honest, and the half wistfulness of her glance like that of a child who desires to be loved, vet is too proud to make the first advance, touched her always soft heart more inexpressibly than anything else could have done. ‘‘lt’s such a strange dream this, Aunt Hannah; I mean that it’s strange because it comes again and again. But last night it went on even farther than it has ever done before—always it has stopped short, and that makes it so wonderful that it should have gone straight on this time. For, when I went to sleep in that ducky little room you’ve given me. Aunt Hannah. 1 dreamt that the door of the little house that had always heen shut before was open, and I could see straight in. There’s never been anybody in the dream before, but this time there was —a man with his face turned away from me. going up the stairs—and then the dream broke, faded as it always does. ‘‘Hoots and havers, lassie, you and your dreams. You’ve thought of it so often, that now it’s but natural that, whenever you put your head on the pillow it comes to you. and you can’t help going on adding a wee* bit there, and a wee bit here. When you’ve lived alone as long as I have, you’ll know how the thoughts come and go. till you ran hardly tell which is dreaming, and which waking. But you’re over young for that sort of thing awhile, and though there’s maybe not much of diversion here to turn your mind from such whimsies, still we’ll have to be thinking what we can do. There’s a bit of Christmas shopping to be done m Bridgenorth—that’s the markertown three miles away, and you’d maybe care to take the ’bus in‘after early dinner. But you’re just to do what pleases you, my bairn, and to enjoy your holiday all you can.” “Christmas shopping? Why! I'd jus; love to go Christinas shopping,’’ Hester said. “I’ve got some things to buy for the girls at school, too, though very likely now I shan’t get them away before New Year. You just give me a list. Aunt Hannah, and I’ll do my I’ll have to start early if I’m to be back before it’s dark.” So, shortly after noon, for a second time Hester took her place in the ark like ’bus. detailed for Bridgenorth as well as station duty. Already, as they drew near the little town. Ihe first light flakes of snow were falling, and

■ her Jehu, as she descended at her desi t (nation, portentously shook his head. ‘‘Happen if it turns a heavy fall. I ; shan’t be coming back this way again, I missie; but you’ll always get the after- ' noon train to Starthorpe, and then it’s i nobbut half-a-mile to your aunt’s i place. Out of gear the ’bus has been ' gettin’ this last day or so, and a snow- • blocked road would just be the finish | of it. Three-forty-five the train is. so i that’ll give you plenty of time for the ■buying of your fal-lals. Good-bye, i missie. and a merry Christmas to ’ee. ” “Merry Christinas to you. too,” Hester said gaily. She turned away, regarding the now faster falling ‘snow with undisturbed mien; for, after all. to return by train rather than by the improvised Noah’s Ark would* be rather an advantage than otherwise. She fumbled in her pocket, and, producing Aunt Hannah's list, set to work at once. There was plenty of time before the train left; but winter afternoons were short, and the location of the shops as yet totally unknown to her. The show was now coming heavily down, but the station was near, and no fear for the safety of her return journey need assail her. She bought sonic winter violets and a sprig of mistletoe from a pinched flower-seller as she jvent, not that she thought that Aunt Hannah would appreciate either the violets or mistletoe, but it was Christmas Eve. The flower-seller had looked cold and hungry, and Hester’s heart was always a soft one. Then, readjusting her numerous parcels, and bending her head once again to the i ow drifting snow, she hastened on. ’The shelter of the station once gained, she would have plenty of time to rest before the train came in. But alas! The shelter of the station proved to be but a shelter at best. The three-forty-five, altered now, as she was cheerfully informed to threethirty, had but two minutes earlier come and gone; the next train a couple of hours later, did not stop at Starthorpe; though the one due close on midnight did. If the lady was in no great hurry perhaps she’d wait for that. The eleven-fifty would stop at Starthorpe, sure and certain, unless it happened to be delayed by a breakdown. or by a drift of snow. No, there was no other way that she could get back, now that old John ’s ’bus also had played traitor. If it hadn’t been snowing she might have walked; it was nobbut three miles or so, but as it was . The only cab had gone out Moorend way, and no saying when it would be home. And then it was that slim Hester surprised them all, lethargic station-mas-ter, open-mouthed porter, and admiring ticket-clerk of tender years, hastilysummoned to the conference. “Christmas will likely be long come and gone while I’m waiting for that particular train to get out of the snowdrift,” the visitor from the town said, and gazed undismayed out across the white stretch of blankness before her “I’ll walk.” Now it is one thing to undertake a three-mile walk upon a summer’s day, and in pleasant company; quite another to trudge that same distance alone through the darkness, with the falling snow swiftly obliterating every guiding footstep, and the inky cloak of night as surely and inexorably shrouding even such landmarks as might have pointed still distant Starthorpe's way. Hester, for her part, seemed to have been walking for aeons, and still to be as far off her desired goal as ever. At last, spent, worn, 'and wearied, she came to a standstill. “I’m lost, and I may as well confess to it first as last. What’s to be done now. I wonder! Even that problematical midnight train would have been betteY than this, only, as usual, I thought 1 was wiser than anyone else. You’ve got yourself into a pretty fix, Hester Atherton, and now I'd like very much to know how you propose to get out of it again.” Steadying herself against the low stone wall which here bordered the high road, Hester, as calmly as she could, reviewed the situation. Directions for her homeward route had been given explicitly enough before she left the station, but how could such directions be followed when the countryside, still unfamiliar to her, was shrouded with snow, and road and pathway had lost any semblance to what they once had been. Indeed, as Hester told herself she might be doubling upon her tracks for all she knew, and instead of progressing, walking round and round in the proverbial circle. The lights and houses of the town had long since been left behind; across the dreary waste of white, not so much as a cottage or barn was to be seen. Hester glanced about her despairingly. “I’ve always wanted a Christmas •adventure,’ and now I’ve got one, sure enough. Not a chance of anyone coming, and, even though they did, the chances are that they might pass me half-a-dozen yards away, bidden by this blinding snow. Why!”—she was passing her hand now along the rough stone wall, “It would almost seem as though this ended here, or is it a gate? 1 hat means, perhaps, a house beyond, and though as likely it may only be a field, it’s worth while anyway to try.” The bolt of the gate was rusted, but presently with numbed fingers Hester had forced it back, and passed within. Trees overarching seemed to form a sort of avenue, she could see their gaunt arms flung blackly overhead, hear fell from her like a garment, she felt suddenly and strangely assured. It was as though she had come this way before, not once, but many times; just there, at the turning, she should see the house. And then, with a swift flash, remembrance came to her. “The dream!” said Hester, and paused, in hardly believing wonder. For here was the turning; yonder the light windows; why! she had dreamt it all so often that there was no sense of strangeness now. The door would be shut, of course; the door had always been shut in her dreams, except that last time, but the lighted windows indicated someone within. It was the strangest of all strange happenings, her dream should thus have its realisation at last. But when she drew nearer, Hester saw that she had been wrong in her prognostications, for now the door stood widely ajar; the flickering light which had illuminated the lower win dows was being borne by someone on the stairs. Hester, her hand raised to the old iron knocker paused, for now the figure had halted—turned, and she saw that it was the face of a young man which confronted her. So, just for a moment, they stood, he looking down, Hester up. It was the girl, after all. who broke the silence first. “I’ve lost my way,” poor Hester said a little piteously. She stood there, a small, snow whitened figure, as h* came to hold the door more widely ajar. Hester saw a dark, keen younv

face, brown, rather sombre eyes, which, by the candle's flicker, scrutinised her. “You've come!’’ was what he said slowly, almost incredulously. He paused flushing a little, and, when he spoke again, his voice was that merely of the hospitable, kindly host. “Easy enough a night like this to miss your way. Come right in. won’t you! I’ve got a tire here, and it'll do you no harm to thaw out a bit.” His tone was gay, cheerful, friendly now. Hester felt that she must have imagined rather than heard those first, slow, wondering words of his. Sac followed him into the cheerful, fire-lit kitchen, her guide still talking as they went. “Only arrived here a couple of hours ago, and though 1 didn’t mean to stay I reckon the snow is going to force me to. Tea?—l’ll make you a cup, and then while you’re taking it, you'll tell mo where you want to go. I’ve got my motor-bike here, and, snow or no snow, I can run you along home just dandy. ’ ’ The little black kettle was alrealy singing on the fire, the cup of tea presently forthcoming; while Hester, par tially thawed, and not a little comforted, sat in the old green rocker by the fire, and glanced about her, then up at him as he stood before her. “This house?—l’ve never been hero before, yet I feel as if I knew it all so well.” She paused, for of course, to a total stranger such as this she could not speak of her dream, which now seemed so distant and unsubstantial when compared with actual reality. He nodded understandingly. “I know. Felt a bit that way myself when first 1 saw it this afternoon; though, I suppose, that’s natural enough, seeing my people have lived here for generations. But my old Dad was a younger son, I was raised abroad, and though the old place has stood empty for long, this is the first I’ve seen of it. It was that that brought me back to the old country, really, and when I landed the other day. and the agent gave me the keys, I thought I'd just look into things myself. Queer sort of story there’s always been about it, the Dad used to say—a curse laid on

it by one of those Johnnies of long ago that won’t ever be lifted till a most unlikely thing happens. “Till the Dream Comes True.” that’s how ID ad said the old prophecy ran, and that’s how the folks about here, who’ve grown to fight shy of it nowadays, call it mostly ‘The House of Dreams.’ ” Hester nodded, her grey eyes suddenly shining. “ ‘Thp House of Dreams’?”—yes, that’s the name it ought to have—the name that suits it best.” Again she hesitated, for once more that strange reticence held her back from confiding to the house’s owner her own particular ‘dream.’ He, for his part, was still smiling, as though some hidden thought had pleased him. “You think so, too? I’m glad,” this rather extraordinary young man said. His brown eyes were no longer sombre, but. almost, as Hester thought herself, as though some cherished dream of his —like hers—had at last come true. And perhaps, who knows, it, had, and that to Jerry Farnham, on that first night in the old house of his fathers, the sight of fair-haired Hester sitting in the green rocking-chair by the fire, portended greater things than he himself knew. Hester flushed up a little beneath his earnest glance, laying down her now empty cup. “Thanks ever so much for your kindness, and now I must be going. Starthorpe—perhaps you know where it lies, and could tell me the shortest wav. It was only the snow confused me. and made me take, I think a wrong turning.” “Starthorpe? Yes. of course. I know Starthorpe, for I. came right through it on my way here.” he said cheerfully. “Reckon you’ve gone something out of your way, but still that’s all to the good as far as I’m concerned for otherwise we’d never have met. You wait till I get out my bike, and we’ll have you there in a bract of ticks. I thought that this was going to bo just about the dullest Christinas Eve I’d ever known, snowed up al! alone on the wilds, instead of quite the jel'iest. It’s been worth while coming back to the old country for this one ‘adventure’ alone.” They reached Starthorpe, that Christmas Eve in time to still Aunt Hannah’s growing alarms, and Hester, who had been rather dreading what Aunt Hannah would say when she arrived with an altogether unknown stranger in her train, was quite agreeably disappointed. Aunt Hannah, corn ing out to the doorway to greet tier st-i’-ed niece, eyed Jerry critically nil over and then nodded an approving hear'. “You to tell me who yoi are, young man, anyway. Farnhams don’t want any introductions here, nor ever did. You’ll be William Fam ham's son come home from abroad, ami high time, too. The old place hasn’t known itself since all of your name went away.” William Farnham’s son bent low over Aunt Hannah's outstretched hand. “ I haf s the jollies! welcome home I vo had yet, ma’am, and if von re omthat knew the old Dad. it makes it or jollier still. " He paused, for now it seemed to him,that. Aunt Hannah’s

I - rigid face was working strangely. She laid her hand upon his arm: I “Know him?” she whispered, t “Know William Farnham? I'oim l your 1 ways in.‘lad. Jf you weren’t welcome o for your own. then you would b<‘ for I your father’s sake.” ■]’ :: :: :: e So, because romance dies hard in b even the most staid of spinsters’ l hearts, Jerry Farnham, finding himself '» thus welcomed that Christmas Evo. s came agjjin, and yet again. II was 1 probably little Hester rather than Aunt <• Hannah he came to see, and. before g the end of that memorable Christmas e week, Hester knew that what had been but a dream to her—though she had told Jerry now all about, it was Io be ’ a dream no longer but blissful and rcrt tain reality. '• “For flic old house won't lie a. home t at all unless you share it, with me, '■ sweetheart,” ho told her. “ 'Twas a i’ dream too that, brought mo across the. • • ocean; I never told you that, little girl, i but you were in it, and I. couldn't rest till L knew if the dream was true. - 1 Then that Christmas Eve and you g standing in the doorway, and me thinking I was dreaming still. To ’’ think that, wo should have, met like s that, and in a dream, dear heart, while r the sea stil rolled between!” “And now it’s ‘The dream come '* true.’ Jerry.” whispered little Hester, 1 and her eyes were like some happy e dawn.