The Other World

by Frank Frankfort Moore

After all, it was not so strange a dream, she reflected. The only queer thing about it was that it had come to her on every Christmas Eve for five consecutive years—since she was seventeen—and that its details did not differ in the least from one year to another. Perhaps it was also different from the majority of dreams in its vividness, and in the fact that, on awaking from it, she felt as exhausted as if she had just returned from a long journey. Even now it required almost an effort on her part to walk round the old oak table sweeping the crumbs on to a plate to throw to the birds; and when she had discharged this duty she seated herself with a sigh of relief in one of the arm-chairs that stood by the side of the great wood fire.

She closed her eyes and once again recalled her dream. She had no difficulty in doing so. She had fancied herself in the act of driving up to a fine old house, standing in the middle of a well-timbered park of oak and chestnut. The lawn extended across the full front of the mansion, and in the centre she noticed a beautiful old fountain, composed of a great marble basin with a splendid group of figures in the centre—Neptune with his dolphins and a Naiad or two. She passed into the house through a great hall hung with trophies of war and of the chase. In front of her was the enormous head of a moose, and at one side there was a great grey skull of some animal such as she had never seen before,—a fearful thing with huge tusks—quite the monster of a dream.

Then she seemed to go from room to room, as if she had been a member of the family living in the place, but—and this she felt to be a true dream-touch—the moment she entered a room every one who was there fled from her; but apparently this did not cause her any surprise, any more than did the strange costume of the figures who fled at her approach—costumes of the sixteenth century, mingled with those of the seventeenth and eighteenth. Thinking of the figures hurrying from every room suggested to her the family portraits of three centuries in motion. After visiting several fine rooms she found herself walking up a broad oaken staircase of shallow steps, until she came to a large lobby, where the staircase divided to right and left. There she found a curious settee of some dark wood, the long centre panel of which was carved with many figures. She saw all this by the aid of the moonlight which flowed in through the panes of coloured glass in a high window, painted with many coats of arms.

She remembered having rested in this seat for some time, feeling very lonely, and then some one had come to her, sitting by her side and taking her hand, saying—

“I have been waiting for you all these years. I am so glad that you are here at last.”

She remembered that the sound of the voice and the touch of the hand had banished her loneliness, and made her feel happier than she had ever felt in all her life before. Even now she felt supremely happy, recalling this incident of her dream, though she recollected that she had not yet seen the face of the man who had come to her to banish her loneliness. She wished that her dream had been less whimsical in this one particular. She felt that she could have spared some of the other details that came before her so vividly—the skull of that strange animal that hung in the hall, for instance—if in their place she had been allowed to see what manner of man it was who had sat with her.

Still, the recollection of him gave her pleasure even when the dream had first come to her and he had come in the dream, and this pleasure had been increasing year by year, until she knew that she had actually gone asleep on the previous night, full of joy in the hope of hearing the sound of that voice and feeling the touch of that hand as she had done in the past.

And that was the end of her dream, unless the feeling of happiness—happiness mingled with a certain sadness—of which she was conscious while she recalled its details should be accounted part of the dream. Her pleasure was the same as one experiences in recalling the incidents of a visit to a dear friend; her sadness was the same as one experiences on thinking that a long time must elapse before one can see that friend again.

Madge actually found herself reflecting that a year must pass before she could once more find herself wandering through the strange mansion of her dream—find herself once more seated on that carved seat in the lobby beneath the painted window.

She kept on thinking, and wondering as she thought, over the strange features of this experience of hers. She knew that she was what people would call a commonplace, practical girl—a girl without fads or fancies of any sort. Since her mother’s death, three years before, she had managed all the household affairs of Craven Court for her brother, who had inherited the property before she had left the schoolroom. Every one was bound to acknowledge that her management of the household had been admirable, though only her brother knew exactly how admirable it was.