The star dreamer: A romance

Five days went like a dream over Ellinor’s head. And when she woke up upon the sixth and saw the daylight grow upon the panelled wall of her room at the rectory, and knew it was the day that would see her David’s wife, she still felt as if she were in a dream. But it was a dream of great peace. All conflict, all violent emotion, all sense even of having to decide for herself, had gone from her. She was being guided and willingly went, without a single anxious thought for the future.

As in a dream she allowed Madam Tutterville, who fluttered between smiles and tears, to robe her in her wedding garment. “Wear your grey gown,” David had once said to her. And so she was clothed this day in the colour he had liked.

Dream-like still was the simple ceremony in Bindon’s mossy little church, where a very solemn and reverent rector gave their union the blessing of God from the depth of his fatherly heart.

Coming down the aisle she noted with a vague smile what a monstrous white tie, what a cauliflower of a button-hole, adorned the figure of old Giles; how sheepishly some village notabilities were peeping at the new lady of Bindon as she paused to lay her wedding flowers on the stone that had but so lately been shifted for the laying to rest of Bindon’s sorcerer; how deeply these same good people curtsied—deepest those who had been most anxious to bring faggots for a witch’s pyre; how loud a cheer gave Joe Barnwall, whose pitchfork thrust had nearly ended all weal and woe for her but a month ago; with what strenuous childish importance the chubby hand that had flung stones at her, now helped to strew flowers before her bridal foot!

Then a golden day at the rectory—long and yet strangely short. There was a wonderful wedding feast of four—which the rector vastly commended. They had the first pears from the rector’s pear-tree. And the rector and his lady quoted, after their special fashion, to their heart’s content. The rector gave a toast and made a little speech, with as much gusto, as felicitous a turn of phrase and as elegant a delivery as if he had been presiding at the most select gathering Oxford dignity could produce.

At sunset, however, the moment fixed by herself for walking forth with her husband to her home, Ellinor suddenly awoke—awoke to the fact that she was married to her beloved, that she was his and he was hers, for ever; that they were starting on their new life together—and yet that there still was something between them!

Her secret was still untold; that secret once so heavy, now so glad; that secret which once she had guarded with so anxious watch upon herself, which now the minutes were all too slow till she could set it free!

He had not asked for it: he never would. Better than all, he was content to believe in her. He, whom a diseased mistrust of his fellow-creatures had driven from the world for the best part of his life, could show to her, now in circumstances so extraordinary, this beautiful blind confidence. Oh, how she loved him for it! How rich, since he loved her thus, should be his reward! How happy was she in this planning of the supreme moment of his joy! So, with the touch of the rector’s fatherly hand upon her brow, and aunt Sophia’s last tear-bedewed kiss upon her cheek; with her familiar old grey cloak wrapped round her wedding finery, and the little bunch from the Herb-Garden (Barnaby’s quaint offering) sweet upon her breast, she passed forth from the little autumnal orchard into the vast green spaces of the park. Close against David she pressed, leaning upon him, walking in thought-laden silence. In silence too he went, respecting her mood; but each time he turned his face upon her under the yellow light, she marked its radiance; and in the quivering trouble of her joy all the web of her pretty schemes seemed shaken apart, so that she was fain to begin to weave afresh.

It was a lemon and orange sunset reflected round the sky—the sunset that presages storm—and the wind was already high and tore with swelling organ-chant through the trees of the avenue; a great mild west wind, booming up from the woods, hurling past them with a beat as of wide soft wings and rushing on with its song of triumph.

“Let us go by the wood,” said Ellinor. He turned to her quickly, the glory of the sinking day in his eyes.

“To you too, then,” he said, “this is a good hour! Listen to our wedding choral that the wind now sings in the arches of these trees.”

They turned across the turf towards where elm and ash, oak and scented pine made a night of their own already, though at the top of many a swaying bough the thrush and the blackbird still piped to the gleaming west; though the rooks were still circling and the first star shone no brighter than a small white daisy in a strip of eastward sky, faintly green like a fairy field. In the woody depths they drew yet closer together. Here, though the wind-voices were never hushed at all, but kept up their chant continuously overhead, the lower spaces seemed so still, that the lovers almost thought to go in silence beneath a canopy of sound. They heard the faintest leaf whisper as they passed it, and the tiniest twig snap beneath their tread. Suddenly David halted.

“Strange,” said he, passing his hand across his brow. “How often there has come upon me of late a memory as of a dream—a dream of woods and of you. A dream of woods and of love! And yet you were not with me. Nay, now it comes back; you were not with me, but I was going to you; and the trees were all speaking of you and bidding me haste to you. A mad dream, but sweet!”

He would have clasped her to him but she, who had listened with her heart beating so happy-fast that it would scarce let her draw breath, held him away with soft hands:

“Oh, David,” she panted, “think back on that dream again!”

“It is gone,” he answered, smiling, “the reality is so much sweeter!”

She stood still holding him from her and yet to her, with a delicate touch. His words had suddenly cleared before her a golden path: the heart that loves has its own flashes of genius.—Yes, it should be so, she resolved.

She drew a long breath. Without another word she passed her arm within his again and led him on. He allowed himself to be guided whither she would in glad obedience; all she did this hour was well done for him.

It was full night when they left the dim aisles of trees and the high sighing choirs, and emerged into the windswept fields. Ellinor looked up at the sky:

“It will be a night of stars,” she said. “Thank God!”

“Ah, love,” he answered her, “my heaven is on earth to-night!”

She nodded her head, with a flickering enigmatic smile; and in another spell of silence she brought him, through the shrubbery tangle, to that spot where, across the ivied ruined walls and the spaces of the Herb-Garden, the light from her gable-window had been wont to shine out through the summer nights.

“David,” she whispered—he could feel how she trembled beside him as she spoke, could almost hear the flutter of her heart through her voice—“will you do all I bid you to-night?”

“Surely,” he made answer with infinite gentleness.

“Then, David, will you wait till from here you can see my light, the light in the window of my old room! And then, David, when the light shines, will you come to me there?”

Close though they stood together in the gloom, neither could see the other’s face but as a dim whiteness. Yet, at these words, Ellinor felt how the serenity that her husband’s countenance had worn all the evening was broken up and swept away by a storm of passion—a passion as wide in its strength and yet as tender as the wild west gale that now in its rush embraced them and passed on, hymning.

He bowed his head, because he could not trust himself in words, and because the other answer he would have given her, the answer of straining arms and eager silent lips, she once again eluded.

The next instant he was alone with the choir of the elements, the great gathering company of the stars, and his own tumultuous thoughts.

Ellinor was back in the little room that had held her as child and widow; that now received her, a bride trembling on the verge of joy.

No one had expected the lady of Bindon to go back to this humble nest. There was a great belighted and beflowered apartment awaiting her in state, somewhere in the house; whereas here, shutters were barred and all was in darkness, spiced of lavender and dried roses. She laid down the lamp she had culled from a wall on her secret way, and set about her preparations with the haste that will not stay to think.

Off with the grey satin robes that she had trailed across the dew-sprent grass and the brown wood paths; down with the curls and twists and the high-jewelled combs wherewith Madam Tutterville had so lovingly adorned her bridal head.... All her glorious hair in one loose unbound coil; thus——! Now, from the recesses of yonder press the white loose long-folded wrapper which, in her mourning flight, she had deemed unsuitable for the small trunk of the working woman. And now, over all, the great grey cloak once more!

This done, she lifted the lamp again and held it while she stood a second before the mirror. Yes! so must she have looked, upon that night of false joy—that night of delusions and terrors. But truly, not with that fire of expectancy in her eye, those chasing blushes and pallors on her cheeks, that flock of rosy smiles that no effort of will could keep away for long!

Now was the moment come to unbar the shutters and set the casement wide, to let in the breath of the late honeysuckle, the exotic fragrances of poor Master Simon’s ravaged garden—to let out, across the wide spaces, the summoning beams of her lamp!

She held it aloft a moment, then lit a rushlight: for in not one detail must she omit anything of that Lammas-night’s dream-scene to be re-enacted, this time with awakened senses, to the assuring of their great comfort. And then, between the inner and the outer rooms she stood, bare-footed, waiting, listening—the one anguished moment of that happy day!

And yet not long had she to wait. With incredible speed came the sounds for which her heart yearned so fiercely; light, unfaltering steps, approaching along the echoing stone passage; the door of the outer room opening, it seemed, at the same instant ... and David stood before her, out of the darkness! David, with shining eyes, the heavy hair tossed back from his forehead, with the pungent breath of the night woods hanging about his garments.

“Come in, David,” said she and strove to make her tones as placid in her tremulous expectancy as, on that other night, they had been in her desperate courage.

She stepped back into the inner room as she spoke, and he followed. Ah, here the parallel ceased! Followed her, not with the dilated gaze of the sleep-walker, unknowing, unconscious; but as the strong man crosses the threshold of his beloved’s chamber, in passionate reverent realisation.

From her taper she lit all the candles, and then turned to him with a smile that quivered upon thrust-down tears.

“Sit down, dear cousin, and we can talk a little; but not for long”—here the smile, emboldened, became tender, faintly mischievous— “but not long, for we both must sleep!”

A second he had watched her unexpected ways with amazement: but at her words, arrested on his impulse towards her, he stood and again clasped his forehead. His eye ran over her figure from loosened hair to bare feet.

“The dream again!” he said in a whisper. A sort of bewilderment, a trouble gathered upon his splendour of happiness.

Ellinor broke in quickly: she must not keep her beloved in perplexity. Every word of what she wanted to say was imprinted on her memory; no need here to hesitate. She leaned towards him, a lovely Sibyl, finger on lip, and poured her mysterious message into his soul.

“Remember,” said she, “remember, David, the blessed cup I gave you and how it set you free. It ran like fire through your veins, it drove you out into the wood, under the singing trees. Those trees took voices: ‘Go to her,’ they sang, and waved their arms. They ran with you, and you came, leaping over the mountains. Love, you have come, and you are free, free to love me!”

“Ellinor!” he cried, and caught her hands in his. Ever nearer she bent to him, ever more tenderly. Oh, surely never man heard words so sweet, so sweetly spoken on his bridal night!

“You knew I was waiting for you, in my white garments, with my light burning. You knew that, because of my faithful heart.”

When she said this, even as before on that Lammas-tide, he kissed both her hands. But he had no word for her. Yet she saw how the radiance of her dawn strove with the clouds of his doubt and darkness.

“Always, since first we met,” she went on, “have our hearts been singing to each other. I have stood beside you on your tower ... perhaps you did not know it always,” the tears brimmed to her lashes, but the dimple by her smile was arch as she paraphrased his unforgettable words to suit her woman’s lips: “In the dawn you sought me in the garden....”

She was halting now, stammering a little. He had dropped her hand.

“What trial is this!” he cried. “What test do you put me to? Your words bring me back to the past and sweet, though they are, there is trouble mingled with them. Ellinor, why drive me back to dreams when I am at last awake! Ellinor, Ellinor, the past is gone but the present I will hold!”

He caught her in his arms, strong arms of love. This in sooth was no dream-wooer!

“But, David,” she said, “it is because of the present that I want you to go back to the past. Oh, David, for love of me, go back to that night when you took the cup from my hand and you had a long, long sleep! Did you not dream?”

The tide of crimson that rushed into her face at these words was reflected in flame upon his. He would soon know now. The gossamer veil which still divided him from the truth was being rift. Yet a last diffidence kept down the cry of understanding on his lips. And still they were seeking hers in passionate silence. But that kiss which he would fain have had; that kiss which might have been the kiss of revelation, Ellinor held in reserve to be the seal of their acknowledged joy. She turned her head to glance out of the window.

The great moment of her life had struck at last. The very harmony of the heavens seemed to be working for its record. The stars, in their passionless courses, had had strange influence over the life of that poor child of earth; and now it was as if they that had mocked her were making gracious atonement. Serene and aloof, the stately measure that had held at midnight the new-gemmed Northern Crown over the lovers’ mad meeting on that past Lammas-tide, was now unfolding at the ninth hour the self-same aspect of glory over their bridal joy. Against the line of David’s tower, just emerging out of blackness, the light of the new star, even as she looked, glided forth upon them.

“See, love,” she called, and gently turned his face towards the casement: “See, our Star—”

And, as he looked, he saw. Deep into his soul dropped the tender beam; and with it a revelation that seemed to fire where it struck. He gave a loud cry: “The dream, the dream!” then fell at her feet. “So strong, so chaste, so silent!... Oh, my wife!”

The tears streamed down her face as she stooped to raise him to her lips.

“The dream-life is over, David. We stand upon the threshold of the golden chamber. Shall we not enter?”