The Fire Within (15 page)

And they that have seen and heard,

  Have wrested a gift from Fate

That no man taketh away.

  For they hold in their hands the key,

To all that is this-side Death,

  And they count it as dust by the way,

As small dust, driven before the breath

  Of Winds that blow to the day.

“DO you remember my telling you about my dream?” said David, next
day. He spoke quite suddenly, looking up from a letter that he was
writing.

“Yes, I remember,” said Elizabeth. She even smiled a little.

“Well, it was so odd—I really don't know what made me think of it
just now, but it happened to come into my head—do you know that I
dreamt it every night for about a fortnight? That was in May. I have
never done such a thing before. Then it stopped again quite suddenly,
and I have n't dreamt it since. I wonder whether speaking of it to
you—” he broke off.

“I wonder,” said Elizabeth.

“You see it came again and again. And the strange part was that I
used to wake in the morning feeling as if there was a lot more of it. A
lot more than there used to be. Things I could n't remember—I don't
know why I tell you this.”

“It interests me,” said Elizabeth.

“You know how one forgets a dream, and then, quite suddenly, you
just don't remember it. It 's the queerest thing—something gets the
impression, but the brain does n't record it. It 's most amazingly
provoking. Just now, while I was writing to Fossett, bits of something
came over me like a flash. And now it 's gone again. Do you ever
dream?”

“Sometimes,” said Elizabeth.

This was her time to tell him. But Elizabeth did not tell him. It
seemed to her that she had been told, quite definitely, to wait, and
she was dimly aware of the reason. The time was not yet.

David finished his letter. Then he said:

“Don't you want to go away this summer?”

“No,” said Elizabeth, a little surprised. “I don't think I do. Why?”

“Most people seem to go away. Mary would like you to go with her,
would n't she?”

“Yes, but I 've told her I don't want to go. She won't be alone, you
know, now that Edward finds that he can get away.”

David laughed.

“Poor old Edward,” he said. “A month ago this business could n't get
on without him. He was conscience-ridden, and snatched exiguous
half-hours for Mary and his beetles. And now it appears, that after
all, the business can get on without him. I don't know quite how
Macpherson brought that fact home to Edward. He must have put it very
straight, and I 'm afraid that Edward's feelings were a good deal hurt.
Personally, I should say that the less Edward interferes with
Macpherson the more radiantly will bank-managers smile upon Edward.
Edward is a well-meaning person. Mr. Mottisfont would have called him
damn well-meaning. And you cannot damn any man deeper than that in
business. No, Edward can afford to take a holiday better than most
people. He will probably start a marine collection and be perfectly
happy. Why don't you join them for a bit?”

“I don't think I want to,” said Elizabeth. “I 'm going up to London
for Agneta's wedding next week. I don't want to go anywhere else. Do
you want to get rid of me?”

To her surprise, David coloured.

“I?” he said. For a moment an odd expression passed across his face.
Then he laughed.

“I might have wanted to flirt with Miss Dobell.”

Agneta Mainwaring was married at the end of July.

“It 's going to be the most awful show,” she wrote to Elizabeth.
“Douglas and I spend all our time trying to persuade each other that it
is n't going to be awful, but we know it is. All our relations and all
our friends, and all their children and all their best clothes, and an
amount of fuss, worry, and botheration calculated to drive any one
crazy. If I had n't an enormous amount of self-control I should bolt,
either with or without Douglas. Probably without him. Then he 'd have a
really thrilling time tracking me down. It 's an awful temptation, and
if you don't want me to give way to it, you 'd better come up at least
three days beforehand, and clamp on to me. Do come, Lizabeth. I really
want you.”

Elizabeth went up to London the day before the wedding, and Agneta
detached herself sufficiently from her own dream to say:

“You 're not Issachar any longer. What has happened?”

“I don't quite know,” said Elizabeth. “I don't think the burden's
gone, but I think that some one else is carrying it for me. I don't
seem to feel it any more.”

Agneta smiled a queer little smile of understanding. Then she
laughed.

“Good Heavens, Lizabeth, if any one heard us talking, how perfectly
mad they would think us.”

Elizabeth found August a very peaceful month. A large number of her
friends and acquaintances were away. There were no calls to be paid and
no notes to be written. She and David were more together than they had
been since the time in Switzerland, and she was happy with a strange
brooding happiness, which was not yet complete, but which awaited
completion. She thought a great deal about the child—the child of the
Dream. She came to think of it as an indication that behind the Dream
was the Real.

Mary came back on the 15th of September. She was looking very well,
and was once more in a state of extreme contentment with Edward and
things in general. When she had poured forth a complete catalogue of
all that they had done, she paused for breath, and looked suddenly and
sharply at Elizabeth.

“Liz,” she said. “Why, Liz.”

To Elizabeth's annoyance, she felt herself colouring.

“Liz, and you never told me. Tell me at once. Is it true? Why did
n't you tell me before?”

“Oh, Molly, what an Inquisitor you would have made!”

“Then it is true. And I suppose you told Agneta weeks ago?”

“I have n't told any one,” said Elizabeth.

“Not Agneta? And I suppose if I had n't guessed you would n't have
told me for ages and ages and ages. Why did n't you tell me, Liz?”

“Why, I thought I 'd wait till you came back, Molly.”

Mary caught her sister's hand.

“Liz, are n't you glad? Are n't you pleased? Does n't it make you
happy? Oh, Liz, if I thought you were one of those dreadful
women who don't want to have a baby, I—I don't know what I should do.
I wanted to tell everybody. But then I was pleased. I don't
believe you 're a bit pleased. Are you?”

“I don't know that pleased is exactly the word,” said Elizabeth. She
looked at Mary and laughed a little.

“Oh, Molly, do stop being Mrs. Grundy.”

Mary lifted her chin.

“Just because I was interested,” she said. “I suppose you 'd rather
I did n't care.”

Then she relaxed a little.

“Liz, I 'm frightfully excited. Do be pleased and excited too. Why
are you so stiff and odd? Is n't David pleased?”

She had looked away, but she turned quickly at the last words, and
fixed her eyes on Elizabeth's face. And for a moment Elizabeth had been
off her guard.

Mary exclaimed.

“Is n't he pleased? Does n't he know? Liz, you don't mean to tell
me—”

“I don't think you give me much time to tell you anything, Molly,”
said Elizabeth.

“He does n't know? Liz, what 's happened to you? Why are you so
extraordinary? It 's the sort of thing you read about in an early
Victorian novel. Do you mean to say that you really have n't
told David? That he does n't know?”

Elizabeth's colour rose.

“Molly, my dear, do you think it is your business?” she said.

“Yes, I do,” said Mary. “I suppose you won't pretend you 're not my
own sister. And I think you must be quite mad, Liz. I do, indeed, You
ought to tell David at once—at once. I can't imagine what
Edward would have said if he had not known at once. You ought to go
straight home and tell him now. Married people ought to be one. They
ought never to have secrets.”

Mary poured the whole thing out to Edward the same evening.

“I really don't know what has happened to Elizabeth,” she said. “She
is quite changed. I can't understand her at all. I think it is quite
wicked of her. If she does n't tell David soon, some one else ought to
tell him.”

Edward moved uneasily in his chair.

“People don't like being interfered with,” he said.

“Well, I 'm sure nobody could call me an interfering person,” said
Mary. “It is n't interfering to be fond of people. If I were n't fond
of Liz, I should n't care how strangely she behaved. I do think it 's
very strange of her—and I don't care what you say, Edward. I think
David ought to be told. How would you have liked it if I 'd hidden
things from you?”

Edward rumpled up his hair.

“People don't like being interfered with,” he said again.

At this Mary burst into tears, and continued to weep until Edward
had called himself a brute sufficiently often to justify her
contradicting him.

Elizabeth continued to wait. She was not quite as untroubled as she
had been. The scene with Mary had brought the whole world of other
people's thoughts and judgments much nearer. It was a troubling world.
One full of shadows and perplexities. It pressed upon her a little and
vexed her peace.

The days slid by. They had been pleasant days for David, too. For
some time past he had been aware of a change in himself—a ferment. His
old passion for Mary was dust. He looked back upon it now, and saw it
as a delirium of the senses, a thing of change and fever. It was gone.
He rejoiced in his freedom and began to look forward to the time when
he and Elizabeth would enter upon a married life grounded upon
friendship, companionship, and good fellowship. He had no desire to
fall in love with Elizabeth, to go back to the old storms of passion
and unrest. He cared a good deal for Elizabeth. When she was his wife
he would care for her more deeply, but still on the same lines. He
hoped that they would have children. He was very fond of children. And
then, after he had planned it all out in his own mind, he became aware
of the change, the ferment. What he felt did not come into the plan at
all. He disliked it and he distrusted it, but none the less the change
went on, the ferment grew. It was as if he had planned to walk on a
clear, wide upland, under a still, untroubled air. In his own mind he
had a vision of such a place. It was a place where a man might walk and
be master of himself, and then suddenly—the driving of a mighty wind,
and he could not tell from whence it came, or whither it went. The wind
bloweth where it listeth. In those September days the wind blew very
strongly, and as it blew, David came slowly to the knowledge that he
loved Elizabeth. It was a love that seemed to rise in him from some
great depth. He could not have told when it began. As the days passed,
he wondered sometimes whether it had not been there always, deep
amongst the deepest springs of thought and will. There was no fever in
it. It was a thing so strong and sane and wholesome that, after the
first wonder, it seemed to him to be a part of himself, a part which,
missing, he had lost balance and mental poise.

He spoke to Elizabeth as usual, but he looked at her with new eyes.
And he, too, waited.

He came home one day to find the household in a commotion. It
appeared that Sarah had scalded her hand, Elizabeth was out, and Mrs.
Havergill was divided between the rival merits of flour, oil, and a
patent preparation which she had found very useful when suffering from
chilblains. She safe-guarded her infallibility by remarking, that there
was some as held with one thing and some as held with another. She also
observed, that “scalds were 'orrid things.”

“Now, there was an 'ousemaid I knew, Milly Clarke her name was, she
scalded her hand very much the same as you 'ave, Sarah, and first
thing, it swelled up as big as my two legs and arter that it turned to
blood-poisoning, and the doctors could n't do nothing for her, pore
girl.”

At this point Sarah broke into noisy weeping and David arrived. When
he had bound up the hand, consoled the trembling Sarah, and suggested
that she should have a cup of tea, he inquired where Elizabeth was. She
might be at Mrs. Mottisfont's, suggested Mrs. Havergill, as she
followed him into the hall.

“You 're not thinking of sending Sarah to the 'orspital, are you
sir?”

“No, of course not, she 'll be all right in a day or two. I 'll just
walk up the hill and meet Mrs. Blake.”

“I 'm sure it 's a mercy she were out,” said Mrs. Havergill.

“Why?” said David, turning at the door. Mrs. Havergill assumed an
air of matronly importance.

“It might ha' given her a turn,” she said, “for the pore girl did
scream something dreadful. I 'm sure it give me a turn, but that 's
neither here nor there. What I was thinking of was Mrs. Blake's
condition, sir.”

Mrs. Havergill was obviously a little nettled at David's expression.

“Nonsense,” said David quickly.

Mrs. Havergill went back to Sarah.

“'Nonsense,' he says, and him a doctor. Why, there was me own pore
mother as died with her ninth, and all along of a turn she got through
seeing a child run over. And he says, 'Nonsense.'“

David walked up the hill in a state of mind between impatience and
amusement. How women's minds did run on babies. He supposed it was
natural, but there were times when one could dispense with it.

He found Mary at home and alone. “Elizabeth? Oh, no, she has n't
been near me for days,” said Mary. “As it happened, I particularly
wanted to see her. But she has n't been near me.”

She considered that Elizabeth was neglecting her. Only that morning
she had told Edward so.

“She does n't come to see me on purpose,” she had said. “But
I know quite well why. I don't at all approve of the way she 's going
on, and she knows it. I don't think it 's right. I think some
one ought to tell David. No, Edward, I really do. I don't understand
Elizabeth at all, and she 's simply afraid to come and see me because
she knows that I shall speak my mind.”