VI.
Dead people really did rise. Supposing all the dead people in the City of London Cemetery rose and came out of their graves and went about the city? Supposing they walked out as far as Ilford? Crowds and crowds of them, in white sheets? Supposing they got into the garden?
"Please, God, keep me from thinking about the Resurrection. Please God, keep me from dreaming about coffins and funerals and ghosts and skeletons and corpses." She said it last, after the blessings, so that God couldn't forget. But it was no use.
If you said texts: "Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night."
"Yea, though I walk through the City of London Cemetery." It was no use.
"The trumpet shall sound and the dead shall arise … Incorruptible."
That was beautiful. Like a bright light shining. But you couldn't think about it long enough. And the dreams went on just the same: the dream of the ghost in the passage, the dream of the black coffin coming round the turn of the staircase and squeezing you against the banister; the dream of the corpse that came to your bed. She could see the round back and the curled arms under the white sheet.
The dreams woke her with a sort of burst. Her heart was jumping about and thumping; her face and hair were wet with water that came out of her skin.
The grey light in the passage was like the ghost-light of the dreams.
Gas light was a good light; but when you turned it on Jenny came up and put it out again. She said, "Goodness knows when you'll get to sleep with that light flaring."
There was never anybody about at bedtime. Jenny was dishing up the dinner. Harriet was waiting. Catty only ran up for a minute to undo the hooks and brush your hair.
When Mamma sent her to bed she came creeping back into the dining-room.
Everybody was eating dinner. She sickened with fright in the steam and
smell of dinner. She leaned her head against Mamma and whimpered, and
Mamma said in her soft voice, "Big girls don't cry because it's bed-time.
Only silly baby girls are afraid of ghosts."
Mamma wasn't afraid.
When she cried Mark left his dinner and carried her upstairs, past the place where the ghost was, and stayed with her till Catty came.