Page 28 of The Dreaming Beauty
“You would not be intruding,” Mr. Taylor said. “My entire evening is at your disposal.”
Tansy opened her mouth to insist otherwise, but his expression was so relaxed, so terribly inviting, that her argument died on her lips.
“Come sit down, dear,” Aster said. “You need time to digest your meal before we rush off.”
Mr. Taylor nodded in agreement. And that was how Tansy found herself sitting next to him while Iris read aloud fromHamlet. Aster conveniently nodded off, and thankfully, Daisy found a collection of rocks displayed in a decorative bowl and began organizing them instead of attempting the pianoforte. Tansy discreetly massaged her neck, hoping to release the tension building there.
Mr. Taylor offered Iris a glass of water when she grew hoarse, and Iris obliged him by pushing through an endless number of stanzas. After taking a seat beside Tansy, Mr. Taylor leaned his head close to her own. “Admit it. Visiting me was not as bad as you surmised it would be.”
Her heart raced at his whispered words that felt almost intimate. She willed her breathing to stay even. “You must be joking. With Iris reading, it’s far worse than I could have imagined.”
“Does she intend to read the whole play?”
“You lost your chance of stopping her when you offered her a glass of water.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
“I did not sleep well last night, but perhaps tonight I will.”
Tansy smiled despite herself and listened to Iris for a few more stanzas. She was glad Iris’s reading could put Mr. Taylor’s mind at ease, but his comment did make her wonder why he hadn’t been able to sleep. Hadn’t he said something about nightmares as a child? Did he still have them? She blinked a few times, as if suddenly everything made sense. Perhaps that was why he was so intent to learn about dreams. Her mind raced as she imagined a young boy without a father, forced to live with a new brother in a strange house.Of coursehe had had nightmares. And his mother had likely been distant as she grieved for not one but two husbands. He must have felt so desperately alone.
“What are you thinking about?” Mr. Taylor whispered. “Your pallor is off, and you look as if someone has died.”
Tansy wet her lips with her tongue and forced her expression to lighten. Mr. Taylor was not Mr. Robinson. It was all right to care for him enough to listen to his problems. Surely, as a friend, the least she could offer him was a listening ear.
“I was thinking about a dream I had recently.” She had not meant to tell anyone about her mother, but it was the only way she could think of to get him to open up in return. If he could fix their fence, be patient with Daisy, somehow convince Iris to temporarily put aside her hatred toward men, and stand up for them to his friends, she could share with him this one thing.
“A dream?” His eyes lit up, and his whole body shifted closer.
She held her breath, waiting for Iris to stop reading or Aster to wake up and see how close they sat. But her aunts left them undisturbed.
“What sort of dream was it?” he asked.
His childlike excitement made her want to laugh, but thinking of her dream again quickly dashed away any mirth. Telling even one single dream was a risk, plain and simple. “It was not a pleasant one. I dreamed a memory of my mother. At least, I think it was a memory.” She had already said too much, but surely he would not read into it overmuch. “At the end of her life, Mama was quite ill. Most of my memories are of happier times, but not this one.”
His brow furrowed. “Did you remember more when you awoke?”
“No. But I knew it was not a regular sort of dream or something imagined, and I was quite sure it had really happened.” Why was she telling him this? He would think her mad! Her heart began to pound as regret and worry reached out to silence her.
“I believe you.”
Those three words stilled her fears as suddenly as they had come. And without permission, a large piece of armor around her heart broke free. She stared at his amber eyes filled with compassion, and suddenly she was blinking back tears. “Thank you.” She had been so afraid to breathe a word about her dreams to anyone, and sharing even this small part felt freeing. “It is not easy to talk about my mother, even though I lost her so long ago.”
“I have much to learn on the subject of dreams, but from what I have seen, the past makes its mark upon us in several ways. The outward effect is most obvious, while the inward impression is much more difficult to discern. Some of us carry scars we do not even know about. My theory is that they present themselves subconsciously through dreams. There are perhaps whole memories our minds have suppressed.”
She stared at him, hardly believing he could explain much of what she had struggled to understand on her own. There were still dreams she could not decipher, but his theory was a missing puzzle piece.
“Do you have dreams about your past?” she asked.
His bright eyes clouded over. “Part of my theory is that we all dream of our past. Those elements are weaved into dreams, making them more traumatic by nature and therefore more memorable when we wake up.”
He had evaded the question, but Tansy knew the answer. What painful memories did he dream about? And what else did he know that could help her understand her own secret dreams?
Chapter 13
Marcus chiseled into his blockof wood while he stewed over Tansy’s dream. She had not divulged everything last night, but what she had said was enough to intensify his curiosity. It was more than he had hoped for after learning of her sleepwalking. Her dreams of the past were like his; he was sure of it. At least, he thought his were of his past. If only he could know more and could piece together the clues to understand both their dreams.
