Love stories; Nobility -- Great Britain -- Fiction; Switzerland -- Fiction
Again Godfrey dreamed, a strange and beautiful dream which went on from
day to day. It was that he was very ill and that Isobel had come to
nurse him. She came quite suddenly and at first seemed a little
frightened and disturbed, but afterwards very happy indeed. This went
on for a while, till suddenly there struck him a sense of something
terrible that had happened, of an upheaval of conditions, of a
wrenching asunder of ties, of change utter and profound.
Then while he mourned because she was not there, Isobel came again, but
different. The difference was indefinable, but it was undoubted. Her
appearance seemed to have changed somewhat, and in the intervals
between her comings he could never remember how she had been clothed,
except for two things which she always seemed to wear, the little ring
with the turquoise hearts, though oddly enough, not her wedding ring,
and the string of small pearls which he had given her when they were
married, and knew again by the clasp, that was fashioned in a lover’s
knot of gold. Her voice, too, seemed changed, or rather he did not hear
her voice, since it appeared to speak within him, in his consciousness,
not without to his ears. She told him all sorts of strange things,
about a wonderful land in which they would live together, and the home
that she was making ready for him, and the trees and flowers growing
around it, that were unlike any of which Godfrey had ever heard. Also
she said that there were many other matters whereof she would wish to
speak to him, only she might not.
Finally there came a vivid dream in which she told him that soon he
would wake up to the world again for a little while (she seemed to lay
emphasis on this “little while”) and, if he could not find her in
it, that he must not grieve at all, since although their case seemed
sad, it was much better than he could conceive. In his dream she made
him promise that he would not grieve, and he did so, wondering. At this
she smiled, looking more beautiful than ever he could have conceived
her to be. Then she spoke these words, always, as it appeared, within
him, printing them, as it were, upon his mind:
“Now you are about to wake up and I must leave you for a while. But
this I promise you, my most dear, my beloved, my own, that before you
fall asleep again for the last time, you shall see me once more, for
that is allowed to me. Indeed it shall be I who will soothe you to
sleep and I who will receive you when you awake again. Also in the
space between, although you do not see me, you will always feel me
near, and I shall be with you. So swear to me once more that you will
not grieve.”
Then in his vision Godfrey swore, and she appeared to lean over him and
whisper words into his ear that, although they impressed themselves
upon his brain as the others had done, had no meaning for him, since
they were in some language which he did not understand.
Only he knew that they conveyed a blessing to him, and not that of
Isobel alone!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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