The Fire Within (9 page)

“Oh, well—if you don't mind,” said Mary. “You are nearly as
tiresome as Edward and Edward has been most dreadfully tiresome. I told
him so. I said, 'Edward, I really never knew you could be so tiresome,'
and it seemed to make him worse. I think, you know, that he is
afraid that people will talk if David goes on coming here. Of course,
that 's absurd, I told him it was absurd. I said, 'Why, how on earth is
any one to know that it is n't Elizabeth he comes to see?' And then,
Edward became really violent. I did n't know he could be, but he was.
He simply plunged up and down the room, and said: 'If he wants to see
Elizabeth, then in Heaven's name let him see Elizabeth. Let him
marry Elizabeth.' Oh, you must n't mind, Liz,” as Elizabeth's head
went up, “it was only because he was so cross, and you and David are
such old friends. There 's nothing for you to mind.”

She paused, stole a quick glance at Elizabeth, then looked away, and
said in a tentative voice, “Liz, why don't you marry David?”

“Because he does n't want me to, Molly,” said Elizabeth. Her voice
was very proud, and her head very high.

Mary half put out her hand, and drew it back again. She knew this
mood of Elizabeth's, and it was one that silenced even her ready
tongue. She was the little sister again for a moment, and Elizabeth the
mother, sister, and ideal—all in one.

“Liz, I 'm sorry,” she said in quite a small, humble voice.

When she had gone, Elizabeth sat on by the fire. She did not move
for a long time. When she did move, it was to put up a hand to her
face, which was wet with many hot, slow tears. Pride dies hard, and
hurts to the very last.

I have forgotten all the ways of sleep,

  The endless, windless silence of my dream,

  The milk-white poppy meadows and the stream,

The dreaming water soft and still and deep—

  I have forgotten how that water flows,

  I have forgotten how the poppy grows,

I have forgotten all the ways of sleep.

IT was on an afternoon, a few days later, that David came into the
hall of the Mottisfonts' house.

“Lord save us, he do look bad,” was the thought in Markham's mind as
she let him in. Aloud she said that she thought Mrs. Mottisfont was
just going out. As she spoke, Mary came down the stairs, bringing with
her a sweet scent of violets.

Mary was very obviously going out. She wore a white cloth dress,
with dark furs, and there was a large bunch of mauve and white violets
at her breast. She looked a little vexed when she saw David.

“Oh,” she said, “I am just going out. I am so sorry, but I am afraid
I must. Bazaars are tiresome things, but one must go to them, and I
promised Mrs. Codrington that I would be there early. Elizabeth is in.
She 'll give you some tea. Markham, will you please tell Miss
Elizabeth?

David came forward as she was speaking. There was a window above the
front door, and as he came out of the shadow, and the light fell on his
face, he saw Mary start a little. Her expression changed, and she said
in a hesitating manner:

“Of course, Elizabeth may be busy, or she may be going out—I really
don't know. Perhaps you had better come another day, David.”

He read her clearly enough. She thought that he had been drinking,
and hesitated to leave him with her sister. He had been about to say
that he could not stop, but her suspicion raised a devil of obstinacy
in him, and as Elizabeth came out of her room by way of the
dining-room, he advanced to meet her, saying:

“Will you give me some tea, Elizabeth, or are you too busy?”

“Liz, come here,” said Mary quickly. Her colour had risen at David's
tone. She drew Elizabeth a little aside. “Liz, you 'd better not,” she
whispered, “he looks so queer.”

“Nonsense, Molly.”

“I wish you would n't—”

“My dear Molly, are you going to begin to chaperone me?”

Mary tossed her head.

“Oh, if you don't mind,” she said angrily, and went out,
leaving Elizabeth with an odd sense of anticipation.

Elizabeth found David standing before the writing-table, and looking
at himself in the little Dutch mirror which hung above it. He turned as
she came in.

“Well,” he said bitterly, “has Mary renounced the Bazaar in order to
stay and protect you? I 'm not really as dangerous as she seems to
think, though I am willing to admit that I am not exactly ornamental.
Give me some tea, and I 'll not inflict myself on you for long.”

Elizabeth smiled.

“You know very well that I like having you here,” she said in her
friendly voice. “Look at my flowers. Are n't they well forward? I
really think that everything is a fortnight before its time this year.
No, not that chair, David. This one is much more comfortable.”

Markham was coming in with the tea as Elizabeth spoke. David sat
silent. He watched the tiny flame of the spirit-lamp, the mingled
flicker of firelight and daylight upon the silver, and the thin old
china with its branching pattern of purple and yellow flowers. He drank
as many cups of tea as Elizabeth gave him, and she talked a little in a
desultory manner, until he had finished, and then sat in a silence that
was not awkward, but companionable.

David made no effort to move, or speak. This was a pleasant room of
Elizabeth's. The brown panels were warm in the firelight. They made a
soft darkness that had nothing gloomy about it, and the room was full
of flowers. The great brown crock full of daffodils stood on the
window-ledge, and on the table which filled the angle between the
window and the fireplace was another, in which stood a number of the
tall yellow tulips which smell like Maréchal-Niel roses. Elizabeth's
dress was brown, too. It was made of some soft stuff that made no sound
when she moved. The room was very still, and very sweet, and the
sweetness and the stillness were very grateful to David Blake. The
thought came to him suddenly, that it was many years since he had sat
like this in Elizabeth's room, and the silence had companioned them.
Years ago he had been there often enough, and they had talked, read,
argued, or been still, just as the spirit of the moment dictated. They
had been good comrades, then, in the old days—the happy days of youth.

He looked across at Elizabeth and said suddenly:

“You are a very restful woman, Elizabeth.”

She smiled at him without moving, and answered:

“I am glad if I rest you, David—I think you need rest.”

“You sit so still. No one else sits so still.”

Elizabeth laughed softly.

“That sounds as if I were a very inert sort of person,” she said.

David frowned a little.

“No, it 's not that. It is strength—force—stability. Only strong
things keep still like that.”

This was so like the old David, that it took Elizabeth back ten
years at a leap. She was silent for a moment, gathering her courage.
Then she said:

“David, you do need rest, and a change. Why don't you go away?”

She had thought he would be angry, but he was not angry. Instead, he
answered her as the David of ten years ago might have done, with a
misquotation.

“What is the good of a change? It 's a case of—I myself am my own
Heaven and Hell”; and his voice was the voice of a very weary man.

Elizabeth's eyes dwelt on him with a deep considering look.

“Yes, that 's true,” she said. “One has to find oneself. But it is
easier to find oneself in clear country than in a fog. This place is
not good for you, David. When I said you wanted a change, I did n't
mean just for a time—I meant altogether. Why don't you go right
away—leave it all behind you, and start again?”

He looked at her as if he might be angry, if he were not too tired.

“Because I won't run away,” he said, with his voice back on the
harsh note which had become habitual.

There was a pause. Elizabeth heard her own heart beat. The room was
getting darker. A log fell in the fire.

Then David laughed bitterly.

“That sounded very fine, but it 's just a flam. The truth is, not
that I won't run away, but that I can't. I 've not got the energy. I 'm
three parts broke, and it 's all I can do to keep going at all. I could
n't start fresh, because I 've got nothing to start with. If I could
sleep for a week it would give me a chance, but I can't sleep.
Skeffington has taken me in hand now, and out of three drugs he has
given me, two made me feel as if I were going mad, and the third had no
effect at all. I 'm full of bromide now. It makes me sleepy, but it
does n't make me sleep. You don't know what it 's like. My brain is
drunk with sleep—marshy with it, water-logged—but there 's always one
point of consciousness left high and dry—tortured.”

“Can't you sleep at all?”

“I suppose I do, or I should be mad in real earnest. Do I look mad,
Elizabeth?”

She looked at him. His face was very white, except for a flushed
patch high up on either cheek. His eyes were bloodshot and strained,
but there was no madness in them.

“Is that what you are afraid of?”

“Yes, my God, yes,” said David Blake, speaking only just above his
breath.

“I don't think you need be afraid. I don't, really, David. You look
very tired. You look as if you wanted sleep more than anything else in
the world.,”

She spoke very gently. “Will you let me send you to sleep? I think I
can.”

“Does one ask a man who is dying of thirst if one may give him a
drink?”

“Then I may?”

“If you can—but—” He broke off as Markham came in to clear away
the tea. Elizabeth began to talk of trivialities. For a minute or two
Markham came and went, but when she had taken away the tray, and the
door was shut, there was silence again.

Elizabeth had turned her chair a little. She sat looking into the
fire. She was not making pictures among the embers, as she sometimes
did. Her eyes had a brooding look. Her honey-coloured hair looked like
pale gold against the brown paneling behind her. She sat very still.
David found it pleasant to watch her, pleasant to be here.

His whole head was stiff and numb with lack of sleep. Every muscle
seemed stretched and every nerve taut. There was a dull, continuous
pain at the back of his head. Thought seemed muffled, his faculties
clogged. Two thirds of his brain was submerged, but in the remaining
third consciousness flared like a flickering will-o'-the-wisp above a
marsh.

David lay back in his chair. This was a peaceful place, a peaceful
room. He had not meant to stay so long, but he had no desire to move.
Slowly, slowly the tide of sleep mounted in him. Not, as often lately,
with a sudden flooding wave which retreated again as suddenly, and left
his brain reeling, but steadily, quietly, like the still rising of some
peaceful, moon-drawn sea. He seemed to see that lifting tide. It was as
deep and still as those still waters of which another David wrote. It
rose and rose—the will-o'-the-wisp of consciousness ceased its
tormented flickering, and he slept.

Elizabeth never turned her head. She heard his breathing deepen,
until it was very slow and steady. There was no other sound except when
an ember dropped. The light failed. Soon there was no light but the
glow of the fire.

I thought I saw the Grey Wolf's eyes

  Look through the bars of night;

They drank the silver of the moon,

  And the stars' pale chrysolite.

From star by star they took their toll,

And through the drained and darkened night

  They sought my darkened soul.

DAVID slept for a couple of hours, and that night he slept more than
he had done for weeks. Next night, however, there returned the old
strain, the old yearning for oblivion, the old inability to compass it.
In the week that followed David passed through a number of strange,
mental phases. After that first sound sleep had relieved the tension of
his brain, he told himself that he owed it to the delayed action of the
bromide Skeffington had given him. But as the strain returned, though
reason held him to this opinion still, out of the deep undercurrents of
consciousness there rose before him a vision of Elizabeth, with the
gift of sleep in her hand. He passed into a state of conflict, and out
of this conflict there grew up a pride that would owe nothing to a
woman, a resistance that called itself reason and independence. And
then, as the desire for sleep dominated everything, conflict merged
into a desire that Elizabeth should heal him, should make him sleep.
And all through the week he did not think of Mary at all. The craving
for her had been swallowed up by that other craving. Mary had raised
this fever, but it had now reached a point at which he had become
unconscious of her. It was Elizabeth who filled his thoughts. Not
Elizabeth the woman, but Elizabeth the bearer of that gift of sleep.
But this, too, was a phase, and had its reaction.

Towards the end of the week he finished his afternoon round by going
to see an old Irish-woman, who had been in the hospital for an
operation, and had since been dismissed as incurable. She was a plucky
old soul, and a cheerful, but to-day David found her in a downcast
mood.

“Sure, it 's not the pain I 'd be minding if I could get my sleep,”
she said. “Could n't ye be after putting the least taste of something
in my medicine, then, Doctor, dear?”

David had his finger on her pulse. He patted her hand kindly as he
laid it down.

“Come, now, Mrs. Halloran,” he said, “when I gave you that last
bottle of medicine you said it made you sleep beautifully.”

“Just for a bit it did,” said Judy Halloran. “Sure, it was only for
a bit, and now it 's the devil's own nights I 'm having. Could n't you
be making it the least taste stronger, then?”

She looked at David rather piteously.

“Well, we must see,” he said. “You finish that bottle, and then I
'll see what I can do for you.”

Mrs. Halloran closed her eyes for a minute. Then she opened them
rather suddenly, shot a quick look at David, and said with an eager
note in her voice:

“They do be saying that Miss Chantrey can make any one sleep. There
was a friend of mine was after telling me about it. It was her daughter
that had the sleep gone from her, and after Miss Chantrey came to see
her, it was the fine nights she was having, and it 's the strong woman
she is now, entirely.”

David got up rather abruptly.

“Come, now, Mrs. Halloran,” he said, “you know as well as I do that
that 's all nonsense. But I daresay a visit from Miss Chantrey would
cheer you up quite a lot. Would you like to see her? Shall I ask her to
come in one day?”

“She 'd be kindly welcome,” said Judy Halloran.

David went home with the old conflict raging again. Skeffington had
been urging him to see a specialist. He had always refused. But now,
quite suddenly, he wired for an appointment.

He came down from town on a dark, rainy afternoon, feeling that he
had built up a barrier between himself and superstition.

An hour later he was at the Mottisfonts' door, asking Markham if
Mary was at home. Mary had gone out to tea, said Markham, and then
volunteered, “Miss Elizabeth is in, sir.”

David told himself that he had not intended to ask for Elizabeth.
Why should he ask for Elizabeth? He could, however, hardly explain to
Markham that it was not Elizabeth he wished to see, so he came in, and
was somehow very glad to come.

Elizabeth had been reading aloud to herself. As he stood at the door
he could hear the rise and fall of her voice. It was an old trick of
hers. Ten years ago he had often stood on the threshold and listened,
until rebuked by Elizabeth for eavesdropping.

He came in, and she said just in the old voice:

“You were listening, David.”

But it was the David of to-day who responded wearily, “I beg your
pardon, Elizabeth. Did you mind?”

“No, of course not. Sit down, David. What have you been doing with
yourself?”

Instead of sitting down he walked to the window and looked out. The
sky was one even grey, and, though the rain had ceased, heavy drops
were falling from the roof and denting the earth in Elizabeth's window
boxes, which were full of daffodils in bud. After a moment he turned
and said impatiently, “How dark this room is!”

Elizabeth divined in him a reaction, a fear of what she had done,
and might do. She knew very well why he had stayed away. Without
replying she put out her hand and touched a switch on the wall. A tall
lamp with a yellow shade sprang into view, and the whole room became
filled with a soft, warm light.

David left the window, but still he did not sit. For a while he
walked up and down restlessly, but at length came to a standstill
between Elizabeth and the fire. He was so close to her that she had
only to put out her hand and it would have touched his. He stood
looking, now at the miniatures on the wall, now at the fire which
burned with a steady red glow. He was half turned from Elizabeth, but
she could see his face. It was strained and thin. The flesh had fallen
away, leaving the great bones prominent.

It was Elizabeth who broke the silence, and she said what she had
not meant to say.

“David, are you better? Are you sleeping?”

“No,” he said shortly.

“And you won't let me help?”

“I did n't say so.”

“Did you think I did n't know?” Elizabeth's voice was very sad.

They had fallen suddenly upon an intimate note. It was a note that
he had never touched with Mary. That they should be talking like this
filled him with a dazed surprise. He as well as she was taking it for
granted that she had given him sleep, and could give him sleep again.

He gave himself a sudden shake.

“I 'm going away,” he said in a harder voice.

There was a pause.

“I 'm glad,” said Elizabeth, and then there was silence again.

This time it was David who spoke, and he spoke in the hot, insistent
tones of a man who argues a losing case.

“One can't go on not sleeping. That is what I said to old Wyatt Byng
to-day.”

“Sir Wyatt Byng?” said Elizabeth quickly.

“Yes—I saw him. Skeffington would have me see him, but what 's the
use? He swears I shall sleep, if I take the stuff he 's given me—the
latest French fad—but I don't sleep. I seem to have lost the way—and
one can't go on.”

He paused, and then said frowning:

“It 's so odd—”

“Odd?”

“Yes—so odd—sleep. Such an odd thing. It was so easy once. Now it
's so difficult that it can't be done. Why? No one knows. No one knows
what sleep is—”

His voice trailed away. He was strung like a wire that is ready to
snap, and on the borders of consciousness, just out of sight, something
waited; he turned his head sharply, as if the thing he dreaded might be
there—behind him—in the shadow.

Instead, he saw Elizabeth in a golden light like a halo. It swam
before his tired eyes, a glow with a rainbow edge. Out of the heart of
it she looked at him with serious, tender eyes.

Beyond, in the gloom, there lurked such a horror as made him catch
his breath, and here at his side—in this room, peace, safety, and
sleep—sleep, the one thing in heaven or earth desired and desirable.

A sort of shudder passed over him, and he repeated his own last
words in a low, altered voice.

“One can't go on. Something must give way. Sometimes I feel
as if it might give now—at any moment. Then there 's madness—when one
can't sleep. Am I going mad, Elizabeth?”

Elizabeth caught his hand and held it. He was so near that the
impulse carried her away. Her clasp was strong, warm, and vital.

“No, my dear, no,” she said.

Then with a catch in her voice:

“Oh, David—let me help you.”

He shook his head in a slow, considering manner.

“No—there would be only one way—and that 's not fair.”

“What is n't fair, David?”

“You—to marry—me,” he said, still in that slow, considering way.
“You know, Elizabeth, I can't think very well. My head is all to
pieces. But it 's not fair, and I can't take your help—” He broke off
frowning.

“David, it has nothing to do with that sort of thing,” said
Elizabeth very seriously. “It 's only what I would do for any one.”

She was shaken to the depths, but she kept her voice low and steady.

“Yes—it has—one can't take like that—”

“Because I 'm a woman? Just because I 'm a woman?”

Elizabeth looked up quickly and spoke quickly, because she knew that
if she stopped to think she would not speak at all.

“And if we were married?”

“Then it would be different,” said David Blake.

His voice was not like his usual voice. It sounded like the voice of
a man who was puzzled, who was trying to recall something of which he
has seen glimpses. Was it something from the past, or something from
the future?

Elizabeth got up and stood as he was standing—one hand on the oak
shelf above the fireplace—the other clenched at her side.

“David, are you asking me to marry you?” she said.

He raised his head, half startled. The silence that followed her
question seemed to fill the room and shake it. His will shook too,
drawn this way and that by forces that were above and beyond them both.

Elizabeth did not look at him. She did not know what he would
answer, and all their lives hung on that answer of his. She held her
breath, and it seemed to her that she was holding her will too. She was
suddenly, overpoweringly conscious of her own strength, her own vital
force and power. If she let this force go out to David now—in his
weakness! It was the greatest temptation that she had ever known, and,
after one shuddering moment, she turned from it in horror. She kept her
will, her strength, her vital powers in a strong grip. No influence of
hers must touch or sway him now. Her heart stopped beating. Her very
life seemed to be suspended. Then she heard David say:

“Would you marry me, Elizabeth?” His tone was a wondering one. It
broke the tension. She turned her head a little and said:

“Yes—if you needed me.”

“Need—need—I think I should sleep—and if I don't sleep I shall go
mad. But, perhaps I shall go mad anyhow. You must not marry me if I am
going mad.”

“You won't go mad.”

“You think not? There is something that shakes all the time. It
never stops. It goes on always. I think that is why I don't sleep. But
when I am with you it seems to stop. I don't know why, but it does seem
to stop, just whilst I am with you.”

“It will stop altogether when you get your sleep back.”

“Oh, yes.”

The half-dreamy note went out of his voice, and the note of intimate
self-revealing. Elizabeth noticed the change at once.

“When do you go away, and where do you go?” she asked.

“Switzerland, I think. I could get away by the 3rd of April.”

David was trying to think, but his head was very tired. He must go
away. He must have a change. They all said that. But it was no use for
him to go away if he did not sleep. He must have sleep. But if
Elizabeth were with him he would sleep. Elizabeth must come with him.
If they were married at once she could come with him, and then he would
sleep. But it was so soon. He spoke his thought aloud.

“You would n't marry me first, I suppose? You would n't come with
me?”

“Why not?” said Elizabeth quietly. The quietness hid the greatest
effort of her life. “If you want me, I will come. I only want to help
you, and if I can help you best that way—”

David let himself sink into a chair, and began to talk a little of
plans, wearily and with an effort. He had to force his brain to make it
work at all. All these details, these plans, these conventions seemed
to him irrelevant and burdensome.

He got up to go as the clock struck seven.

Elizabeth put out her hand to him as she had always done.

“And you will let me help you?”

“No, not yet—not till afterwards,” he said.

“It makes no difference, David, you know. It is just what I would do
for any one who wanted it—”

He shook his head. There was a reaction upon him, a withdrawal.

“Not yet—not till afterwards. I 'll give old Byng's stuff a
chance,” he said obstinately, and then went out with just a bare
good-night.