The President's Daughter (Britton)/Chapter 99
That night, Thursday, the 2nd of August, 1923, I dreamed a strange and terrible dream. I had retired about twelve; I had not been long in bed, and surely had not even closed my eyes, though when I seemed to come to my senses I realized I must have been dreaming. My room, in the corner where my bed stood, was dark, and when I realized what a horrible nightmare I had experienced, I sprang out of bed like a shot and over to the wall to turn on the electric light. I looked at my watch. Why, I had been in bed for three whole hours! Seven o'clock in America—Elizabeth Ann's bed-hour. My heart was beating violently and I shook all over. I passed an icy hand across my hot forehead. Yes, I was awake, all right, now. God! What a ghastly dream! I opened my shutters and breathed deeply of the sweet-scented garden air. A million stars blinked down at me . . . . Peace, peace, there was peace everywhere but in my heart. I turned off my light and crept back into bed. Strange how really cold it got here at night; I should not have stood those few moments at the window. I was trembling like a leaf; my teeth chattered and my heart was still pounding up into my throat. My mother had taught us children at home many things to repeat before we fell asleep and mechanically I whispered these things now to myself—the Lord's Prayer, the 91st Psalm, the 23rd Psalm. I repeated them all, over and over, but I knew not what I was repeating. My conscious mind was reviewing my dream in minute detail for the morbid satisfaction of the mental devils which seemed to possess me. I was conscious again of a something above me, to the left. It seemed to be floating through the air. It was shrouded about with white clouds which seemed not to hide it from view but rather to protect it in its slow mount upward. What was I seeing! God! A coffin! A coffin draped with, and trailing about it, American flags, and heaped with red, red roses! A coffin, ascending on my left, rising so slowly that it seemed suspended in mid-air, yet ever moving upward and away from me. How blood-red were the roses! And the crimson stripes of the trailing flags stained the clouds! The whole, mounting majestically, lifted by an invisible force, upward, onward, protectingly shrouded by white, white clouds!
So he had come to me! He had come in this way that I might be the first to know he was leaving this earth! He himself, tired unto death, lay hidden beneath the folds of the crimson-striped flag he had so loved, revealing to me only the symbol of his going, the beautiful cradle of his last restful sleep! Perhaps he had been too tired, too tired to bend over me, too tired even to murmur before he went away, "I love you, dearie!" But I knew. I understood. He meant to waft me sweet kisses in his sleep. Yet later he would come back, come back to hold me close, and I would feel his presence, even as we were wont to waken to sweet consciousness in each other's arms, realizing with keen morning wakefulness the bliss of reciprocal touch . . . . yes, now he must sleep . . . . How beautiful the roses! They hung in tangled masses over the edge of the coffin, mingling their blood-red with the crimson and white stripes . . . how gentle the Hand that steadied the coffin . . . a Hand that sensed his weariness and guarded well his slumber . . . . going upward, heavenward, away from me—away from me! Oh, God! No, not away . . . . I stared, wide-eyed, fearfully fascinated, knowing, yet not daring to move, feeling instinctively the futility of lifting human hands in an effort to stay the coffin in its slow flight heavenward . . . . Even as one transfixed I lay, moving only pitifully frightened eyes to watch the coffin fade slowly out of sight, protectingly enveloped in the white, white clouds . . . . !
With a shock I came back to conscious thinking and sprang from my bed to switch on the light. God! what a horrible nightmare it had been, I thought as I lay in bed now reviewing it and mechanically repeating the Lord's Prayer . . . . the Psalms . . . . over and over . . . . "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, he leadeth me beside the still waters" . . . . Oh, God, how glad I was that it had been only a dream! I thought as I fell asleep.