The Case of William Smith

Chapter Eighteen

Katharine woke with the night turning towards day. It was the hour when even a great city is quiet – a still hour, but not dark, because the sky was clear. Somewhere behind all those houses the moon was going down. From where she lay she could see the tracery of leafless trees above the roof-line over the way. The trees were in the garden of Rasselas House. They were old, and tall, and beautiful. She looked at them now and was at peace. The window was open and a soft air came in. She turned a little. On the other side of Carol’s wide, low bed William was very deeply asleep. One of his hands was tucked under the pillow, the other lay across his chest. She had to listen to catch the quiet, even breathing. If she put out her own hand it would touch him. But her thought could not reach him at all. Or could it? She wondered. When you loved someone as much as this it didn’t seem possible that he could go where you couldn’t reach him. All through time – all through space-. The thought broke off. Time and space were frightening things – cold, far, endless. No, not that, because time must come to an end. There was a verse about it in the Bible – the angel standing upon the sea and upon the earth and lifting up his hand to swear that there should be time no longer. A little shiver went over her. Time and space were cold and far away. She and William were here. This was their hour. Her thought swung back again. His body was here. William was somewhere else – perhaps in the very deep places of sleep where they say there are no dreams. How do they know? All they can really tell is that you don’t remember what you dream in those deep places. Perhaps William was there.

William came up into the shallows where dreams begin. The dream that met him there was the one he knew, only this time it was different. Always before it had begun in the street. He would be walking up the steps and going into the house. The last time he had had the dream was when he was hit over the head and he couldn’t get into the house because someone was holding the door against him. That hadn’t ever happened before, and it worried him. This time was quite different, because he was not only in the house, but he was right up at the top of the stairs. As a rule, that was when he woke. Always in the dream someone was waiting for him, and when he got to the top, or nearly to the top, he woke up.

This time it was different. He stood at the top of the stairs and looked down. He could see all the way down the stairs into the hall. There was plenty of light – but not daylight – there wasn’t ever daylight in his dream. Everything was all right. And then quite suddenly it wasn’t. The dream took a slant, the way dreams sometimes do. The newel-posts which were carved with the four Evangelists went queer. He was standing at the head of the stairs between the eagle and the man, looking down to the lion and the ox at the foot, and all at once they were different. The eagle had changed into a Boomalong Bird, and the man was Mr. Tattlecombe, looking indignant, as well he might, with his grey hair standing up and his eyes very blue. And down there on either side of the bottom step there was a Wurzel Dog and a Crummocky Cow. He came down the stairs into the hall, and someone knocked three times on the door. They wanted to get in, but the door was barred. Then they came through the door – just like that – the door didn’t open, they came through it with their arms linked – three of them, with the woman in the middle. He knew her at once. She was Miss Jones, the secretary who had told him that Eversleys wouldn’t be interested in the Wurzel toys. He knew her, but he didn’t know the men, because there wasn’t anything to know. They were just trousers and coats, and faces painted smooth and featureless with the paint they used in the workshop for undercoating the toys. It was a horrid pinkish colour and it glistened. The faces had no eyes and no features. They were just paint. They came towards him. He called out, ‘No – no – no! and the dream broke up. He opened his eyes on the room, the glimmering square of the window, the light air coming in.

Katharine slipped her arm under his head and drew it to her shoulder.

‘What is it? You called out.’

‘What did I say?’

‘You said, “No – no – no!” ’

He said, ‘I was dreaming.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Well, it’s rather odd. It’s a dream I have sometimes, about going up three steps into a house. There’s an old door – oak, with nails in it – and I go through into a hall with a staircase going up on the right. The hall has panelling – it goes all the way up the stairs too. There are pictures let into it. There’s a girl in a pink dress. The stair goes up on the right, and the newel-posts are carved with the four Evangelists – a lion and an ox at the bottom, and an eagle and a man at the top – ’ He broke off suddenly. ‘Katharine, I’ve never remembered that before. It’s been in the dream, but I haven’t remembered it when I was awake – not till now. That’s funny, isn’t it?’

‘I don’t know – ’

‘I’ve never remembered it before, but it was there. I used to remember going up the steps and into the house, and that I was coming home. Do you think it’s something real and I remember it when I’m asleep?’

She felt his rough fair hair under her cheek. She said,

‘Does it feel like that?’

‘I don’t know – I don’t know what it would feel like. It’s always felt good – until tonight. ’

‘What happened tonight?’

‘Well, as a rule I come in and I go upstairs, and then I wake up. It doesn’t sound much, but it feels good. Tonight it all went queer. Three of the Evangelists turned into Wurzel toys, and the man was Mr. Tattlecombe. And then it all got horrid. Three people came through the door – I mean really right through it, when it was shut. Two of them were men, with their faces all smoothed out with undercoating paint – no features or anything – but the one in the middle was that Miss Jones I saw when I went to Eversleys.’

Katharine drew a sharp breath.

He said, ‘What’s that for?’

‘It was rather horrid.’

‘Yes. But I woke up – don’t let’s bother about it any more. I love you.’

‘Do you?’

‘Yes. I feel as if I’d loved you always.’