A ghostly couple went from room to room. They were lifting something here and opening something there.
“Here we left it,” she said.
And he added,
“Oh, but here too!”
“It’s upstairs,” she murmured.
“And in the garden,” he whispered.
“Quietly,” they said, “or we shall wake them.”
But you didn’t wake us. Oh, no. “They’re looking for it. They’re drawing the curtain”, one may say and read on a page or two. “They found it”. You can be certain. And you may rise and see: the house is empty, the doors are open. Only the wood pigeons are bubbling. The hum of the threshing machine[1] is sounding from the farm.
“What did I come in here for? What did I want to find?” My hands were empty. “Perhaps it’s upstairs then?”
The apples were in the loft. The garden was still. Only the book slipped into the grass.
But they found it in the drawing-room. No one saw them. The window panes reflected apples, reflected roses. All the leaves were green in the glass. When they moved in the drawing-room, the apple only turned its yellow side. Yet, the moment after, when the door was opened, something spread about the floor. Something hung upon the walls—what? My hands were empty. The shadow of a thrush crossed the carpet. From the deepest wells of silence the wood pigeon drew its bubble of sound.
“Safe, safe, safe,” the pulse of the house beat softly. “The treasure buried; the roof…” the pulse stopped. Oh, was that the buried treasure?
A moment later the light faded. Out in the garden then? So fine, so rare, the beam always burnt behind the glass. Death was the glass. Death was between us. It came to the woman first, hundreds of years ago. It left the house. It sealed all the windows. The rooms were darkened. He left it, left her. He went North, went East. He saw the stars in the Southern sky. He came back to the house beneath the Downs.
“Safe, safe, safe,” the pulse of the house beat gladly. “The Treasure is yours.”
The wind moved the trees. Moonbeams splash and spill wildly in the rain. But the beam of the lamp falls straight from the window. The candle burns stiff and still. The ghostly couple is wandering through the house. They are opening the windows. They are whispering not to wake us. They seek their joy.
“Here we slept,” she says.
And he adds,
“And we kissed each other.”
“And woke in the morning…”
“Silver between the trees…”
“Upstairs.”
“In the garden.”
“When summer came…”
“In winter snowtime.”
The doors were shutting. The doors were gently knocking like the pulse of a heart.
They come nearer. They cease at the doorway. The wind falls. The silver rain slides down the glass. Our eyes darken. We hear no steps beside us. We see no lady who spreads her ghostly cloak. His hands shield the lantern.
“Look,” he breathes. “They sleep. Love upon their lips.”
They are holding their silver lamp above us. They are watching us long and deeply. They are standing near us.
The wind drives straightly. The flame stoops slightly. Wild beams of moonlight cross both floor and wall. Then they meet and fall upon the faces. The faces are pondering. The faces search the sleepers. The faces seek their hidden joy.
“Safe, safe, safe,” the heart of the house beats proudly.
“Long years…” he sighs.
“Again you found me.”
“Here,” she murmurs, “we were sleeping. We were reading in the garden. We were laughing, rolling apples in the loft. Here we left our treasure.”
Their light lifts the lids upon my eyes.
“Safe! safe! safe!” the pulse of the house beats wildly.
I wake up and cry:
“Oh, is this your buried treasure? The light in the heart.”
From the oval flower-bed there rose perhaps a hundred stalks. They were spreading into the leaves. They were unfurling at the tip red or blue or yellow petals. The petals were marked with spots. From the red, blue or yellow gloom of the throat emerged a straight bar. The petals were voluminous enough to feel the summer breeze. When they moved, the red, blue and yellow lights passed one over the other[2]. The light fell either upon the smooth, grey back of a pebble, or, the shell of a snail with its brown, circular veins, or falling into a raindrop. The breeze stirred briskly overhead. The colour was flashed into the air above, into the eyes of the men and women. These men and women walked in Kew Gardens in July.
The figures of these men and women walked past the flower-bed with a curiously irregular movement. The man was about six inches in front of the woman. He was strolling carelessly. She was turning her head to see that the children were not too far behind. The man walked in front of the woman purposely. He wished to go on with his thoughts.
“Fifteen years ago I came here with Lily,” he thought. “We sat somewhere over there by a lake. I begged her to marry me. It was hot. The dragonfly was circling round us. I remember the dragonfly and her shoe with the square silver buckle at the toe. All the time I spoke. I saw her shoe. It moved impatiently. I knew what she was going to say. She was in her shoe. And my love, my desire, were in the dragonfly. If the dragonfly settles there, on that leaf, she will say ‘Yes’ at once. But the dragonfly went round and round. It never settled anywhere. Of course not, happily not. And now I am walking here with Eleanor and the children.” Tell me, Eleanor, do you ever think of the past?”
