Dreams and Dream Stories

by Anna Bonus Kingsford

All the evening, throughout the conversation and the forfeits and the merry-making, Stephen Gray spoke and moved and thought only for Adelais, and she for Stephen's twin brother. It was for Maurice that she sang, while Stephen stood beside her at the piano, drinking in the tender passionate notes as though they were sweet wine for which all his soul were athirst; it was at Maurice that she smiled, while Stephen's eyes were on her face, and to Maurice that she prattled and sported and made mirthful jests, while Stephen alone heeded all that she said and did; for the younger brother was reflected in every purpose and thought of hers, even as her own image lay mirrored continually in the heart and thoughts of the elder.

But before the hour of parting came that night, Stephen drew Adelais aside from the others as they sat laughing and talking over some long-winded story of the old wine-merchant's experiences, and told her what she, in the blindness of her own wild love, had never guessed nor dreamed of,—all the deep adoration and worship of his soul. And when it was told, she said nothing for a few minutes, but only stood motionless and surprised, without a blush or tremor or sigh, and he, looking earnestly into her fair uplifted face, saw with unutterable pain that there was no response there to the passionate yearning of his own.

"Adelais," said he, presently, "you do not love me?"

"Yes, yes, Stephen," she answered, softly; "as a brother, as a dear brother."

"No more?" he asked again.

She put her hand into his, and fixing the clear light of her brown eyes full upon him: "Why," she said, hurriedly, "do you ask me this? I cannot give you more, I cannot love you as a husband. Let no one know what has passed between us tonight; forget it yourself as I shall forget also, and we will always be brother and sister all our lives."

Then she turned and glided away across the room into the warm bright glow of the fireside, that lay brightest and warmest in the corner where Maurice sat; but Stephen stood alone in the darkness and hid his face in his hands and groaned. And after this there came a changeover the fortunes of the two households. Day by day Adelais faded and paled and saddened; none knew why. People said it was the winter weather, and that when the springtime came the girl would be herself again, and grow brisker and stronger than ever. But when Maurice was gone back to his college, to fulfil his last term there before leaving for India, the only brother of Adelais came up from his home by the seaside, on a month's visit to his aunt and his sister at Kensington. He was a man of middle age almost, this same Philip Cameron, tall and handsome and fair-spoken, so that the old wine-merchant, who dearly loved good looks and courteous breeding, took to him mightily from the first, and made much of his company on all occasions. But as he stayed on from week to week at Mrs Lamertine's house, Philip saw that the pale lips and cheeks of Adelais grew paler and thinner continually, that the brown eyes greatened in the dark sockets, and that the fragile limbs weakened and sharpened themselves more and more, as though some terrible blight, like the curse of an old enchantment or of an evil eye, hung over the sweet girl, withering and poisoning all the life and the youth in her veins.

She lay on a sofa one afternoon, leaning her golden head upon one of her pale wan hands, and gazing dreamily through the open casement into the depths of the broad April sky, over whose clear blue firmament the drifting clouds came and went incessantly like white- sailed ships at sea. And Adelais thought of the sea as she watched them, and longed in her heart to be away and down by the southern coast where her brother had made his home, with the free salt breeze blowing in her face, and the free happy waves beating the shore at her feet, and the sea-fowl dipping their great strong wings in the leaping surge. Ah to be free,—to be away,—perhaps then she might forget, forget and live down her old life, and bury it somewhere out of sight in the sea-sand;—forget and grow blithe and happy and strong once more, like the breeze and the waves and the wild birds, who have no memory nor regret for the past, and no thought for any joy, save the joy of their present being.

"Phil," she said, as her brother came softly into the room and sat beside her, "take me back with you to the sea-side. I am weary of living always here in Kensington. It is only London after all."

"My dearest," he answered, kindly, "if that is all you wish for, it shall certainly be. But, Adelais, is there nothing more than this that troubles you? There is a shadow in your eyes and on your lips that used not to be there, and all day long you sit by yourself and muse in silence; and you weep too at times, Adelais, when you fancy none is by to see you. Tell me, sister mine, for the sake of the love that is between us, and for the sake of our father and mother who are dead, what cloud is this that overshadows you so?"