Lady Athlyne
Copyright© 2025 by Bram Stoker
Chapter 19: Declaration of War
Joy Ogilvie was so tired out that her body lay like a log all night. How her mind was occupied she only knew afterwards. For the memory of dreams is an unconscious memory at the time; it is only when there is opportunity of comparison with actualities that dreams can be re-produced. Then, as at first, the dreams are real—as they are forever whilst memory lasts. Indeed regarding dreams and actualities, one might almost appeal to scientific analogy; and in comparing the world of imagination—which is the kingdom of dreams—with the material world, might adduce the utterance of Sir Oliver Lodge in comparing the density of aether with that of matter in the modern scientific view: “Matter is turning out to be a filmy thing in comparison with aether.”
This might well serve as a scientific comparison. Nay more, it might well be an induction. The analogies of nature are so marvellously constant, as exemplified by the higher discoveries in physics, that we might easily wander farther than in taking the inner world of Thought as compared with the outer world of Physical Being, as an analogy to the Seen and Unseen worlds.
In the meantime we may take it that Joy’s dreams that night were in some way reflective of the events of the day. No girl of healthy emotional power could fail to be influenced by such a sequence of experiences of passion and fear as she had gone through. The realized hoping of love, the quick-answering abandonment of expressed passion; long, long minutes of the bliss of communion with that other soul—minutes whose sweetness or whose length could not be computed until the leisure of thought gave opportunity. Unconscious cerebration goes on unceasingly; and be sure that with such data as she had in her mind, the workings of imagination were quick and by no means cold. Again she lived the moments of responsive passion; but so lived them that she had advanced further on the road to completed passion when the unconsciousness to physical surroundings began to disappear and on the senses the actualities began to consciously impress themselves. The dawn, stealing in between the chinks of the folded shutters, made strange lines on the floor without piercing through the walls of sleep. The myriad sounds of waking life from distant field and surrounding street brought no message to the closed eyes of weariness. The sun rose, and rose, and rose; and still she lay there unmoving.
At last that unaccountable impulse which moves all living things to sentience at the ending of sleep, stirred her. The waking grew on her. At first, when her eyes partially opened, she saw, but without comprehending, the dim room with its low ceiling; the wide window, masked in with shutters whose edges were brilliant with the early light; the odd furniture and all the unfamiliar surroundings. Then came the inevitable self-question: “where am I?”
The realization of waking from such dreaming as hers is a rude and jarring process, and when it does come, comes with something of a shock. For what seemed a long time Joy lay in a sort of languorous ecstasy whilst memory brought back to her those moments of the previous day which were sweeter even than her dreams. Again she heard the footsteps of the man she loved coming up rapidly behind her. Again she saw as she turned, in obedience to some new impulse which swayed her to surrender, the face of the man looking radiant with love and happiness. Again she felt the sweet satisfaction of living and loving when his arms closed round her and her arms closed round him and they strained each other strictly. Again there came to her the thrill which seemed to lift her from her earthly being as his mouth touched hers and they kissed each other in the absolute self-abandonment of reciprocated passion—the very passing memory of which set her blood tingling afresh; the thrill which set her soul floating in the expanse of air and made all conventions of the artificial world seen far below seem small and miserable and of neither power nor import. Again she was swept by that tide of wild desires, vague and nebulous as yet, inchoate, elusive, expansive, all-absorbing, which proclaimed her womanhood to herself. That desire of wife to husband, of sex to sex, of woman to man, which is the final expression of humanity—the love song of the children of Adam. It was as though memory and dreaming had become one. As if the day had merged in the night, and the night again in the coming day; each getting as it came all the thoughts and wishes and fancies and desires which follow in the train of the all-conquering Love-God.
In such receptive mood Joy awoke to life. When she realized where she was; and when the import of her new surroundings had broken in upon her, all the forces of her youth and strength began at once to manifest themselves. She slid softly from her bed—the instinct of self protection forbade noise or else she would have jumped to the floor. Doing must follow dreaming! The attitude of standing, once again helped to recall the previous evening, and she remembered that she had thought then that she must not open the windows in the morning because they faced directly other windows across a narrow street.
She remembered also that the next room, through which she had entered, had windows on two sides. Those on one side opened as did her own; but those on the other side looked out on an open space. And so, without further thought, she opened the door between and passed into the outer room. It too, like her own, was dark from the closed shutters. Instinctively she went softly, her bare feet making no sound on the carpet. With the same instinctive caution she had opened the door noiselessly; when the self-protective instinct has once been awakened, it does not easily relapse to sleep. She went over to one of the windows and tried to look out through the chinks. The day was bright outside and the sun was shining; the fog had entirely disappeared. In the sudden desire to breathe the fresh morning air, and to free in the sunlight her soul cramped by the long darkness of fog and night, she threw open the heavy shutters.
Athlyne slept so soundly that he never stirred. He lay on the sofa on his left side with his face out to the room. He too had been dreaming; and to his dreams the happiness of the day had brought a vivifying light. Through all his weariness of mind and body came to his spirit the glow of those moments when he knew that his love was reciprocated; when his call to his mate had been answered—answered in no uncertain voice. And so he, too, had lain with bodily nature all quiescent, whilst the emotional side of his mind ranged freely between memory and expectation. And in due process the imaginative power of the mind had worked on the nerves—and through them on the body—till he too lay in a languorous semi-trance—the mind ranging free whilst the abnormally receptive body quivered in unison. It was a dangerous condition of being in which to face the situation which awaited him.
The sound of the opening shutter wakened him, fully and all at once. The moment his eyes opened he saw a figure between him and the window; and at the knowledge that some stranger was in his room the habit of quick action which had prevailed in his years of campaigning re-asserted itself. On the instant he flung aside his blanket and sprang from his bed.
At the sound of a step on the floor Joy turned. The light streaming in through the unshuttered window showed them in completeness each to the other. The light struck Athlyne full in front. There was instant recognition, even in the unaccustomed garb, of that tall lithe form; of those fine aquiline features, of those dark flashing eyes. As to Joy, who standing against the light made her own shadow, Athlyne could have no doubt. He would have realized her presence in darkness and silence. As she stood in her fine linen, the morning light making a sort of nimbus round the opacity of the upper part of her body, she looked to him like some fresh realization—some continuation in semi-ethereal form—of the being of his dreams. There was no pause for thought in either of the lovers. The instant of recognition was the realization of presence—unquestioning and the most natural thing in the world that the other should be there. Delight had sealed from within the ears of Doubt. Unhesitatingly they ran to each other, and before a second had passed were locked tightly in each other’s arms.
In the secret belief of the Conventional world—that belief which is the official teaching of the churches of an artificial society, and not merely the world of Adam and Eve (and some others)—the ceremony of Marriage in itself changes the entire nature of the contracting parties. Whatever may have been the idiosyncrasies of these individuals such are forthwith changed, foregone, or otherwise altered to suit that common denominator of Human Nature which alone is officially catalogued in the records of the Just. It were as though the recorded promise of two love-stricken sufferers, followed by the formal blessings of the Church in any of its differentiations—or of the Registrar—should change baser mortals to more angelic counterpart; just as the “Philosopher’s Stone” which the mediaeval alchemist dreamed of and sought for, was expected to change baser metals to gold.
Perhaps it is because this transmutation is so complete that so many of those marriages which the Church does sanctify turn out so differently from the anticipations of the contractors and blessors!
But Dame Nature has her own church and her own ritual. In her case the Blessing comes before the Service; and the Benediction is but the official recognition that two souls—with their attendant bodies—have found a perfect communion for themselves. Those who believe in Human Nature—and many of them are seriously minded people too—realize and are thankful for the goodness of God who showers the possibilities of happiness with no stinting and no uncertain hand. “After all” they say “what about Eden?” There was no church’s blessing there—not even a Registrar; and yet we hold that Adam and Eve were united in Matrimony. Nor were their children or their children’s children made one with organized formality. What was it then that on these occasions stood between fornication and marriage? What could it be but the Blessing of God! And if God could make marriage by His Blessing in Eden, when did He forego that power. Or if indeed there be only a “Civil Contract”—as so many hold to-day—what proofs or writings must there be beyond that mere “parole” contract which is recognized in other matters by the Law of the Land.
So, the believers in natural religion and natural law—those who do not hold that personal licence, unchecked and boundless, is an appanage or logical result of freedom. To these, freedom is in itself a state bounded on all sides by restrictive laws—as must ever be, unless Anarchy is held to be the ultimate and controlling force. And in the end Anarchy is the denial of all Cosmic law—that systematised congeries of natural forces working in harmony to a common end.
But law, Cosmic or Anarchic, (if there be such a thing, and it may be that Hell—if there is one—has its own laws—) or any grade between these opposites, is a matter for coolness and reflection. Inter arma silent leges is a maxim of co-ordinate rulings in the Court of Cosmic law. And the principle holds whether the arms be opposed or locked together in any form of passion. When Love lifts the souls, whose bodies are already in earthly communion, Law ceases to be. From the altitude of accomplished serenity the mightiest law is puny; just as from a balloon the earth looks flat, and even steeples and towers have no perspective.
So it was with the two young people clasped in each other’s arms. The world they lived in at the moment was their world, bounded only by the compass of their arms. After all what more did they want—what could they want. They were together and alone. Shame was not for them, or to them, who loved with all their hearts—whose souls already felt as one. For shame, which is a conventional ordering of the blood, has no place—not even a servitor’s—in the House of Love: that palace where reigns the love of husbandhood and wifehood, of fatherhood and motherhood—that true, realized Cosmos—the aim, the objective, the heaven of human life.
Their circumstances but intensified the pleasure of the embrace. Athlyne and Joy had both felt the same communion of spirits when they embraced at their first meeting out of Ambleside when their souls had met. This had been intensified when they sat in close embrace after lunch beyond Dalry, when heart consciously beat to heart. Now it was completed in this meeting, unexpected and therefore more free and unhampered by preparatory thoughts and intentions, when body met body in a close if tentative communion. The mere paucity of raiment had force and purpose. They could each feel as they hung together closely strained, the beating of each other’s heart; the rising and falling of each other’s lungs. Their breaths commingled as they held mouth to mouth. In such delirious rapture—for these two ardent young people loved each other with a love which both held to be but the very beginning of an eternal bond and which took in every phase, actual and possible, of human beings—there was no place for forethought or afterthought. It was the hour of life which is under the guidance of Nature; to be looked forward to with keen if ignorant anticipation; and which is to be looked back on for evermore as a time when the very heavens opened and the singing of the Angelic choir came through unmuffled.
For seconds, in which Time seemed to stand still, they stood body to body and mouth to mouth. The first to speak was the man:
“I thought you were in England by late in the evening—and you were there all the time!” He indicated the direction by turning his eyes towards her room. His words seemed to fire her afresh. Holding him more closely to her, she leaned back from her hips and gazed at him languorously; her words dropped slowly from her opened lips:
“Oh-h! If we had only known!” What exactly was in her mind she did not know—did not think of knowing—did not want to know. Perhaps she did not mean anything definite. It was only an expression of some feeling, of some want, some emotion, some longing—some primitive utterance couched in words of educated thought, as sweet and spontaneous as the singing of a bird in its native woods at springtime.
Somehow, it moved Athlyne strangely. Moved the manhood of him in many ways, chiefest among them his duty of protection. It is not a commonly-received idea that man—not primitive man but the partially-completed article of a partially-completed cosmic age—is scrupulous with regard to woman. The general idea to the contrary effect is true en gros but not en detaille. True of women; not true of a woman. An educated man, accustomed to judgment and action in matters requiring thought, thinks, perhaps unconsciously, all round him, backward as well as forward; but mainly forward. Present surroundings form his data; consequences represent the conclusion. Himself remains neutral, an onlooker, until he is called on for immediate decision and consequent action.
So it was with Athlyne. His instant ejaculation:
“Thank God we didn’t know!” would perhaps have been understood by a man. To a woman it was incomprehensible. Woman is, after all, more primitive than man. Her instincts are more self-centred than his. As her life moves in a narrower circle, her view is rather microscopic than telescopic; whilst his is the reverse. Inasmuch then as he naturally surveys a larger field, so his introspective view is wider.
Joy loved the man; and so, since he had already expressed himself, considered him as already her husband; or to speak more accurately considered herself as already his wife. It was, therefore, with something like chagrin that she heard his disavowal of her views. She did not herself quite understand what those views were, but all the same it was a disappointment that he did not really acquiesce in them; nay more that he did not press them on his own account—press them relentlessly, as a woman loves a man to do, even when his wishes are opposed to her own.
A woman’s answer to chagrin is ultimate victory of her purpose; and the chagrin of love is perhaps the strongest passion with a purpose that can animate her.
When Joy became conscious, as she did in a few seconds, that her lover following out his protective purpose was about to separate himself from her—she quite understood without any telling or any experience both motive and purpose—she opposed it on her part. As the strictness of his embrace lessened, so in proportion did hers increase. Then came to the man the reaction—he was only a man, after all. His ardour redoubled, and her heart beat harder with new love as well as triumph as he drew her closer to him in a pythonic embrace. Then she, too, clung to him even closer than before. That embrace was all lover-like—an agony of rapture.
In its midst they were startled somewhat by the rumbling of a motor driven fast which seemed to stop close to them. Instinctively Joy tried to draw away from her lover; such is woman’s impulse. But Athlyne held her all the tighter—his embrace was not all love now, but the protection which comes from love. She understood, and resigned herself to him. And so they stood, heart to heart, and mouth to mouth, listening.
There was a clatter of tongues in the hall. Joy thought she recognised one voice—she could not be sure in the distance and through the closed door—and her heart sank. She would again have tried to draw away violently but that she was powerless. Her will was gone, like a bird’s under the stare of the snake. Athlyne, too, was in suspense, his heart beating wildly. He had a sort of presage of disaster which seemed in a way to paralyse him.
There were quick steps on the stairs. A voice said: “There” and the door rattled. At this moment both the lovers were willing to separate. But before they could do so, the door opened and the figure of Colonel Ogilvie blocked the entrance.
“Good God!” The old man’s face had grown white as though the sight had on the instant frozen him. So pallid was he, all in that second, that Joy and Athlyne received at once the same idea: that his moustache, which they had thought of snowy whiteness, was but grey against the marble face.
The father’s instinct was protective too, and his action was quick. In the instant, without turning his face, he shut the door behind him and put his heel against it.
“Quick, daughter, quick!” he said in a whisper, low but so fierce that it cut the air like a knife, “Get into that room and dress yourself. And, get out if you can, by another way without being noticed!” As he spoke he pointed towards the open door through which in the darkened room the bed with clothing in disarray could be dimly seen. Joy fled incontinently. The movements of a young woman can be of extraordinary quickness, but never quicker than when fear lends her wings. It seemed to Athlyne that she made but one jump from where she stood through the door-way. He could remember afterwards the flash of her bare heels as she turned in closing the door behind her.
“Now Sir!” Colonel Ogilvie’s voice was stern to deadliness as he spoke. Athlyne realised its import. He felt that he was bound hand and foot, and knew that his part of the coming struggle would have to be passive. He braced himself to endure. Still, the Colonel’s question had to be answered. The onus of beginning the explanation had been thrust upon him. It was due to Joy that there should be no delay on his part in her vindication. Almost sick at heart with apprehension he began:
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