Armadale by Wilkie Collins
‘It has come!’ he whispered to himself. ‘Not to me – but to him.’
It had come, in the bright freshness of the morning; it had come, in the mystery and terror of a Dream. The face which Midwinter had last seen in perfect repose, was now the distorted face of a suffering man. The perspiration stood thick on Allan’s forehead, and matted his curling hair. His partially-opened eyes showed nothing but the white of the eyeball gleaming blindly. His outstretched hands scratched and struggled on the deck. From moment to moment he moaned and muttered helplessly; but the words that escaped him were lost in the grinding and gnashing of his teeth. There he lay – so near in the body to the friend who bent over him; so far away in the spirit, that the two might have been in different worlds – there he lay, with the morning sunshine on his face, in the torture of his dream.
One question, and one only, rose in the mind of the man who was looking at him. What had the Fatality which had imprisoned him in the Wreck decreed that he should see?
Had the treachery of Sleep opened the gates of the grave to that one of the two Armadales whom the other had kept in ignorance of the truth? Was the murder of the father revealing itself to the son – there, on the very spot where the crime had been committed – in the vision of a dream?
With that question over-shadowing all else in his mind, the son of the homicide knelt on the deck, and looked at the son of the man whom his father’s hand had slain.
The conflict between the sleeping body and the waking mind was strengthening every moment. The dreamer’s helpless groaning for deliverance grew louder; his hands raised themselves, and clutched at the empty air. Struggling with the all-mastering dread that still held him, Midwinter laid his hand gently on Allan’s forehead. Light as the touch was, there were mysterious sympathies in the dreaming man that answered it. His groaning ceased, and his hands dropped slowly. There was an instant of suspense, and Midwinter looked closer. His breath just fluttered over the sleeper’s face. Before the next breath had risen to his lips, Allan suddenly sprang up on his knees – sprang up, as if the call of a trumpet had rung on his ear, awake in an instant.
‘You have been dreaming,’ said Midwinter, as the other looked at him wildly, in the first bewilderment of waking.
Allan’s eyes began to wander about the wreck – at first vacandy; then with a look of angry surprise. ‘Are we here still?’ he said, as Midwinter helped him to his feet. ‘Whatever else I do on board this infernal ship,’ he added, after a moment, ‘I won’t go to sleep again!’
As he said those words, his friend’s eyes searched his face in silent inquiry. They took a turn together on the deck.
‘Tell me your dream,’ said Midwinter, with a strange tone of suspicion in his voice, and a strange appearance of abruptness in his manner.
‘I can’t tell it yet,’ returned Allan. ‘Wait a little till I’m my own man again.’
They took another turn on the deck. Midwinter stopped, and spoke once more.
‘Look at me for a moment, Allan,’ he said.
There was something of the trouble left by the dream, and something of natural surprise at the strange request just addressed to him, in Allan’s face, as he turned it full on the speaker; but no shadow of ill-will, no lurking lines of distrust anywhere. Midwinter turned aside quickly, and hid, as he best might, an irrepressible outburst of relief.
‘Do I look a little upset?’ asked Allan, taking his arm, and leading him on again. ‘Don’t make yourself nervous about me if I do. My head feels wild and giddy – but I shall soon get over it.’
For the next few minutes, they walked backwards and forwards in silence – the one, bent on dismissing the terror of the dream from his thoughts; the other, bent on discovering what the terror of the dream might be. Relieved of the dread that had oppressed it, the superstitious nature of Midwinter had leapt to its next conclusion at a bound. What, if the sleeper had been visited by another revelation than the revelation of the Past? What, if the dream had opened those unturned pages in the book of the Future, which told the story of his life to come? The bare doubt that it might be so, strengthened tenfold Midwinter’s longing to penetrate the mystery which Allan’s silence still kept a secret from him.
‘Is your head more composed?’ he asked. ‘Can you tell me your dream now?’
While he put the question, a last memorable moment in the Adventure of the Wreck was at hand.
They had reached the stern, and were just turning again when Midwinter spoke. As Allan opened his lips to answer, he looked out mechanically to sea. Instead of replying, he suddenly ran to the taffrail, and waved his hat over his head, with a shout of exultation.
Midwinter joined him, and saw a large six-oared boat pulling straight for the channel of the Sound. A figure, which they both thought they recognized, rose eagerly in the stern-sheets, and returned the waving of Allan’s hat. The boat came nearer; the steersman called to them cheerfully; and they recognized the doctor’s voice.
‘Thank God you’re both above water?’ said Mr Hawbury, as they met him on the deck of the timber-ship. ‘Of all the winds of heaven, which wind blew you here?’
He looked at Midwinter, as he made the inquiry – but it was Allan who told him the story of the night; and Allan who asked the doctor for information in return. The one absorbing interest in Midwinter’s mind – the interest of penetrating the mystery of the dream – kept him silent throughout. Heedless of all that was said or done about him, he watched Allan, and followed Allan, like a dog, until the time came for getting down into the boat. Mr Hawbury’s professional eye rested on him curiously, noting his varying colour, and the incessant restlessness of his hands. ‘I wouldn’t change nervous systems with that man, for the largest fortune that could be offered me,’ thought the doctor as he took the boat’s tiller, and gave the oarsmen their order to push off from the wreck.
Having reserved all explanations on his side until they were on their way back to Port St Mary, Mr Hawbury next addressed himself to the gratification of Allan’s curiosity. The circumstances which had brought him to the rescue of his two guests of the previous evening were simple enough. The lost boat had been met with at sea, by some fishermen of Port Erin, on the western side of the island, who at once recognized it as the doctor’s property, and at once sent a messenger to make inquiry at the doctor’s house. The man’s statement of what had happened had naturally alarmed Mr Hawbury for the safety of Allan and his friend. He had immediately secured assistance; and guided by the boatmen’s advice, had made first for the most dangerous place on the coast – the only place, in that calm weather, in which an accident could have happened to a boat sailed by experienced men – the channel of the Sound. After thus accounting for his welcome appearance on the scene, the doctor hospitably insisted that his guests of the evening should be his guests of the morning as well. It would still be too early when they got back for the people at the hotel to receive them, and they would find bed and breakfast at Mr Hawbury’s house.
At the first pause in the conversation between Allan and the doctor, Midwinter – who had neither joined in the talk, nor listened to the talk – touched his friend on the arm. ‘Are you better?’ he asked in a whisper. ‘Shall you soon be composed enough to tell me what I want to know?’
Allan’s eyebrows contracted impatiently; the subject of the dream, and Midwinter’s obstinacy in returning to it, seemed to be alike distasteful to him. He hardly answered with his usual good-humour. ‘I suppose I shall have no peace till I tell you,’ he said, ‘so I may as well get it over at once.’
‘No!’ returned Midwinter, with a look at the doctor and his oarsmen. ‘Not where other people can hear it – not till you and I are alone.’
‘If you wish to see the last, gentlemen, of your quarters for the night,’ interposed the doctor, ‘now is your time! the coast will shut the vessel out, in a minute more.’
In silence on the one side and on the other, the two Armadales looked their last at the fatal ship. Lonely and l
An hour later the doctor had seen his guests established in their bedrooms, and had left them to take their rest until the breakfast hour arrived.
Almost as soon as his back was turned, the doors of both rooms opened softly, and Allan and Midwinter met in the passage.
‘Can you sleep after what has happened?’ asked Allan.
Midwinter shook his head. ‘You were coming to my room, were you not?’ he said. ‘What for?’
‘To ask you to keep me company. What were you coming to my room for?’
‘To ask you to tell me your dream.’
‘Damn the dream! I want to forget all about it.’
‘And I want to know all about it.’
Both paused; both refrained instinctively from saying more. For the first time since the beginning of their friendship they were on the verge of a disagreement – and that on the subject of the dream. Allan’s good temper just stopped them on the brink.
‘You are the most obstinate fellow alive,’ he said, ‘but if you will know all about it, you must know all about it, I suppose. Come into my room, and I’ll tell you.’
He led the way, and Midwinter followed. The door closed, and shut them in together.
CHAPTER V
THE SHADOW OF THE FUTURE
When Mr Hawbury joined his guests in the breakfast-room, the strange contrast of character between them which he had noticed already, was impressed on his mind more strongly than ever. One of them sat at the well-spread table, hungry and happy; ranging from dish to dish, and declaring that he had never made such a breakfast in his life. The other sat apart at the window; his cup thanklessly deserted before it was empty, his meat left ungraciously half eaten on his plate. The doctor’s morning greeting to the two, accurately expressed the differing impressions which they had produced on his mind. He clapped Allan on the shoulder, and saluted him with a joke. He bowed constrainedly to Midwinter, and said, ‘I am afraid you have not recovered the fatigues of the night.’
‘It’s not the night, doctor, that has damped his spirits,’ said Allan. ‘It’s something I have been telling him. It is not my fault, mind. If I had only known beforehand that he believed in dreams, I wouldn’t have opened my lips.’
‘Dreams?’ repeated the doctor, looking at Midwinter directly, and addressing him under a mistaken impression of the meaning of Allan’s words. ‘With your constitution, you ought to be well used to dreaming by this time.’
‘This way, doctor; you have taken the wrong turning!’ cried Allan. ‘I’m the dreamer – not he. Don’t look astonished; it wasn’t in this comfortable house – it was on board that confounded timber-ship. The fact is, I fell asleep just before you took us off the wreck; and it’s not to be denied that I had a very ugly dream. Well, when we got back here—’
‘Why do you trouble Mr Hawbury about a matter that cannot possibly interest him?’ asked Midwinter, speaking for the first time, and speaking very impatiently.
‘I beg your pardon,’ returned the doctor, rather sharply; ‘so far as I have heard, the matter does interest me.’
‘That’s right, doctor!’ said Allan. ‘Be interested, I beg and pray; I want you to clear his head of the nonsense he has got in it now. What do you think? – he will have it that my dream is a warning to me to avoid certain people; and he actually persists in saying that one of those people is – himself! Did you ever hear the like of it? I took great pains; I explained the whole thing to him. I said, warning be hanged – it’s all indigestion! You don’t know what I ate and drank at the doctor’s supper-table – I do. Do you think he would listen to me? Not he. You try him next; you’re a professional man, and he must listen to you. Be a good fellow, doctor; and give me a certificate of indigestion; I’ll show you my tongue with pleasure.’
‘The sight of your face is quite enough,’ said Mr Hawbury. ‘I certify, on the spot, that you never had such a thing as an indigestion in your life. Let’s hear about the dream, and see what we can make of it – if you have no objection, that is to say.’
Allan pointed at Midwinter with his fork.
‘Apply to my friend, there,’ he said; ‘he has got a much better account of it than I can give you. If you’ll believe me, he took it all down in writing from my own lips; and he made me sign it at the end, as if it was my “last dying speech and confession”, before I went to the gallows. Out with it, old boy – I saw you put it in your pocket-book – out with it!’
‘Are you really in earnest?’ asked Midwinter, producing his pocket-book with a reluctance which was almost offensive under the circumstances, for it implied distrust of the doctor in the doctor’s own house.
Mr Hawbury’s colour rose. ‘Pray don’t show it to me, if you feel the least unwillingness,’ he said, with the elaborate politeness of an offended man.
‘Stuff and nonsense!’ cried Allan. ‘Throw it over here!’
Instead of complying with that characteristic request, Midwinter took the paper from the pocket-book, and, leaving his place, approached Mr Hawbury. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said, as he offered the doctor the manuscript with his own hand. His eyes dropped to the ground, and his face darkened, while he made the apology. ‘A secret, sullen fellow,’ thought the doctor, thanking him with formal civility – ‘his friend is worth ten thousand of him.’ Midwinter went back to the window, and sat down again in silence, with the old impenetrable resignation which had once puzzled Mr Brock.
‘Read that, doctor,’ said Allan, as Mr Hawbury opened the written paper. ‘It’s not told in my roundabout way; but there’s nothing added to it, and nothing taken away. It’s exactly what I dreamed, and exactly what I should have written myself, if I had thought the thing worth putting down on paper, and if I had had the knack of writing – which,’ concluded Allan, composedly stirring his coffee, ‘I haven’t, except it’s letters; and I rattle them off in no time.’
Mr Hawbury spread the manuscript before him on the breakfast-table, and read these lines:
ALLAN ARMADALE’S DREAM
Early on the morning of June the first, eighteen hundred and fifty-one, I found myself (through circumstances which it is not important to mention in this place) left alone with a friend of mine – a young man about my own age – on board the French timber-ship named La Grâce de Dieu, which ship then lay wrecked in the channel of the Sound, between the mainland of the Isle of Man and the islet called the Calf. Having not been in bed the previous night, and feeling overcome by fatigue, I fell asleep on the deck of the vessel. I was in my usual good health at the time, and the morning was far enough advanced for the sun to have risen. Under these circumstances, and at that period of the day, I passed from sleeping to dreaming. As clearly as I can recollect it, after the lapse of a few hours, this was the succession of events presented to me by the dream:
1. The first event of which I was conscious, was the appearance of my father. He took me silently by the hand; and we found ourselves in the cabin of a ship.
2. Water rose slowly over us in the cabin; and I and my father sank through the water together.
3. An interval of oblivion followed; and then the sense came to me of being left alone in the darkness.
4. I waited.
5. The darkness opened, and showed me the vision – as in a picture – of a broad, lonely pool, surrounded by open ground. Above the farther margin of the pool, I saw the cloudless western sky, red with the light of sunset.
6. On the near margin of the pool, there stood the Shadow of a Woman.
7. It was the shadow only. No indication was visible to me by which I could identify it, or compare it with any living creature. The long robe showed me that it was the shadow of a woman, and showed me nothing more.
8. The darkness closed again – remained with me for an interval – and opened for the second time.
9. I found myself in a room, standing before a long
10. I was not alone in the room. Standing opposite to me at the window was the Shadow of a Man.
11. I saw no more of it – I knew no more of it than I saw and knew of the shadow of the woman. But the shadow of the man moved. It stretched out its arm towards the statue; and the statue fell in fragments on the floor.
12. With a confused sensation in me, which was partly anger and partly distress, I stooped to look at the fragments. When I rose again, the Shadow had vanished, and I saw no more.
13. The darkness opened for the third time, and showed me the Shadow of the Woman and the Shadow of the Man, together.
14. No surrounding scene (or none that I can now call to mind) was visible to me.
15. The Man-Shadow was the nearest; the Woman-Shadow stood back. From where she stood, there came a sound as of the pouring of a liquid softly. I saw her touch the shadow of the man with one hand, and with the other give him a glass. He took the glass, and gave it to me. In the moment when I put it to my lips, a deadly faintness mastered me from head to foot. When I came to my senses again, the Shadow had vanished, and the third vision was at an end.
16. The darkness closed over me again; and the interval of oblivion followed.1
17. I was conscious of nothing more, till I felt the morning sunshine on my face, and heard my friend tell me that I had awakened from a dream.
After reading the narrative attentively to the last line (under which appeared Allan’s signature) the doctor looked across the breakfast-table At Midwinter, and tapped his fingers on the manuscript with a satirical smile.
‘Many men, many opinions,’ he said. ‘I don’t agree with either of you about this dream. Your theory,’ he added, looking at Allan, with a smile, ‘we have disposed of already: the supper that you can’t digest, is a supper which has yet to be discovered. My theory we will come to presently; your friend’s theory claims attention first.’ He turned again to Midwinter, with his anticipated triumph over a man whom he disliked a little too plainly visible in his face and manner. ‘If I understand rightly,’ he went on, ‘you believe that this dream is a warning, super-naturally addressed to Mr Armadale, of dangerous events that are threatening him, and of dangerous people connected with those events, whom he would do wisely to avoid. May I inquire whether you have arrived at this conclusion, as an habitual believer in dreams? – or, as having reasons of your own for attaching especial importance to this one dream in particular?’