Fire Within

by Patricia Wentworth

  “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 wouldn’t marry me first, I suppose? You wouldn’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.

  CHAPTER XIII

  MARCH GOES OUT

  The sun was gone away,

  Most unendurably gone down,

  With all delights of day.

  I cried aloud for light, and all

  The light was dead and done away,

  And no one answered to my call.

  EDWARD was, perhaps, the person best pleased at the news of Elizabeth’s engagement. He had been, as Mary phrased it, “very much put out.” Put out, in fact, to the point of wondering whether he could possibly nerve himself to tell David that he came too often to the house. He had an affection for David, and he was under an obligation to him, but there were limits—during the last fortnight he had very frequently explained to Mary that there were limits. Whether he would ever have got as far as explaining this to David remains amongst the lesser mysteries of life. Mary did not take the explanation in what Edward considered at all a proper spirit. She bridled, looked very pretty, talked about good influences, and was much offended when Edward lost his temper. He lost it to the extent of consigning good influences to a place with which they are not usually connected, though the way to it is said to be paved with good intentions. Mary had a temper, too. It took her out of the room with a bang of the door, but she subsequently cried herself sick because Edward had sworn at her.

  There was a reconciliation, but Edward was not as penitent as Mary thought he should have been. David became a sore point with both of them, and Edward, at least, was unfeignedly pleased at what he considered a happy solution of the difficulty. He was fond of Elizabeth, but it would certainly be more agreeable to have the whole house at his own disposal. He had always thought that Elizabeth’s little brown room would be the very place for his collections. He fell to estimating the probable cost of lining the whole wall-space with cabinets.

  Mary was not quite as pleased as Edward.

  “You know, Liz,” she said, “I am very glad that David should marry. I think he wants a home. But I don’t think you ought to marry him until he’s better. He looks dreadful. And a fortnight’s engagement—I can’t think what people will say—one ought to consider that.”

  “Oh, Molly, you are too young for the part of Mrs. Grundy,” said Elizabeth, laughing.

  Mary coloured and said:

  “It’s all very well, Liz, but people will talk.”

  “Well, Molly, and if they do? What is there for them to say? It is all very simple, really. No one can help seeing how ill David is, and I think every one would understand my wanting to be with him. People are really quite human and understanding if they are taken the right way.”

  “But a fortnight,” said Mary, frowning. “Why, Liz, you will not be able to get your things!” And she was shocked beyond words when Elizabeth betrayed a complete indifference as to whether she had any new things at all.

  The wedding was fixed for the 3rd of April, and the days passed. David made the necessary arrangements with a growing sense of detachment. The matter was out of his hands.

  For a week the new drug gave him sleep, a sleep full of brilliant dreams, strange flashes of light, and bursts of unbearable colour. He woke from it with a blinding headache and a sense of strain beyond that induced by insomnia. Towards the end of the week he stopped taking the drug. The headache had become unendurable. This state was worse than the last.

  On the last day of March he came to Elizabeth and told her that their marriage must be deferred.

  “Ronnie Ellerton is very ill,” he said; “I can’t go away.”

  “But David, you must—”

  He shook his head. The obstinacy of illness was upon him.

  “I can’t—and I won’t,” he declared. Then, as if realizing that he owed her some explanation, he added:

  “He’s so spoilt. Why are women such fools? He’s never been made to do anything he didn’t like. He won’t take food or medicine, and I’m the only person who has the least authority over him. And she’s half crazy with anxiety, poor soul. I have promised not to go until he’s round the corner. It’s only a matter of a day or two, so we must just put it off.”

  Elizabeth put her hand on his arm.

  “David, we need not put off the marriage,” she said in her most ordinary tones. “You see, if we are married, we could start off as soon as the child was better.”

  She had it in her mind that unless David would let her help him soon, he would be past helping.

  He looked at her indifferently. “You will stay here?”

  “Not unless you wish,” she answered.

  “I? Oh! it is for you to say.”

  There was no interest in his tone. If he thought of anything it was of Ronnie Ellerton. A complete apathy had descended upon him. Nothing was real, nothing mattered. Health—sanity—rest—these were only names. They meant nothing. Only when he turned to his work, his brain still moved with the precision of a machine, regularly, correctly.

  He did not tell her either then or ever, that Katie Ellerton had broken down and spoken bitter words about his marriage.

  “I’ve nothing but Ronnie—nothing but Ronnie—and you will go away with her and he will die. I know he will die if you go. Can’t she spare you just for two days—or three—to save Ronnie’s life? Promise me you won’t go till he is safe—promise—promise.”

  And David had promised, taking in what she had said about the child, but only half grasping the import of her frantic appeal. Neither he nor she were real people to him just now. Only Ronnie was real—Ronnie, who was ill, and his patient.

  Elizabeth went through the next two days with a hea
vy heart. She had to meet Mary’s questions, her objections, her disapprobations, and it was all just a little more than she could bear.

  On the night before the wedding, Mary left Edward upstairs and came to sit beside Elizabeth’s fire. Elizabeth would rather have been alone, and yet she was pleased that Mary cared to come. If only she would let all vexed questions be—it seemed as if she would, for her mood was a silent one. She sat for a long time without speaking, then, with an impulsive movement, she slid out of her chair and knelt at Elizabeth’s side.

  “Oh, Liz, I’ve been cross. I know I have. I know you’ve thought me cross. But it’s because I’ve been unhappy—Liz, I’m not happy about you—”

  Elizabeth put her hand on Mary’s shoulder for a moment.

  “Don’t be unhappy, Molly,” she said, in rather an unsteady voice.

  “But I am, Liz, I am—I can’t help it—I have talked, and worried you, and have been cross, but all the time I’ve been most dreadfully unhappy. Oh, Liz, don’t do it—don’t!”

  “Molly, dear—”

  “No, I know it’s no use—you won’t listen—” and Mary drew away and dabbed her eyes with a fragmentary apology for a pocket-handkerchief.

  “Molly, please—”

  Mary nodded.

  “Yes, Liz, I know. I won’t—I didn’t mean to—”

  There was a little silence. Then with a sudden choking sob, Mary turned and said:

  “I can’t bear it. Oh, Liz, you ought to be loved so much. You ought to marry some one who loves you—really—. And I don’t think David does. Liz, does he love you—does he?”

  The sound of her own words frightened her a little, but Elizabeth answered very gently and sadly:

  “No, Molly, but he needs me.”

  Mary was silenced. Here was something beyond her. She put her arms round Elizabeth and held her very tightly for a moment. Then she released her with a sob, and ran crying from the room.

  CHAPTER XIV

  THE GOLDEN WIND

  Then far, oh, very far away,

  The Wind began to rise,

  The Sun, the Moon, the Stars were gone,

  I saw the Grey Wolf’s eyes.

  The Wind rose up and rising, shone,

  I saw it shine, I saw it rise,

  And suddenly the dark was gone.

  DAVID BLAKE was married to Elizabeth Chantrey at half-past two of an April day. Edward and Mary Mottisfont were the only witnesses, with the exception of the verger, who considered himself a most important person on these occasions, when he invariably appeared to be more priestly than the rector and more indispensable than the bridegroom.

  It requires no practice to be a bridegroom but years, if not generations, go to the making of the perfect verger. This verger was the son and the grandson of vergers. He was the perfect verger. He stood during the service and disapproved of David’s grey pallor, his shaking hand, and his unsteady voice. His black gown imparted a funerary air to the proceedings.

  “Drinking, that’s what he’d been,” he told his wife, and his wife said, “Oh, William,” as one who makes response to an officiating priest.

  But he wronged David, who was not drunk—only starved for lack of sleep, and strung to the breaking point. His voice stumbled over the words in which he took Elizabeth to be his wedded wife and trailed away to a whisper at the conclusion.

  A gusty wind beat against the long grey windows, and between the gusts the heavy rain thudded on the roof above.

  Mary shivered in the vestry as she kissed Elizabeth and wished her joy. Then she turned to David and kissed him too. He was her brother now, and there would be no more nonsense. Edward frowned, David stiffened, and Elizabeth, standing near him, was aware that all his muscles had become rigid.

  Elizabeth and David went out by the vestry door, and stood a moment on the step. The rain had ceased quite suddenly in the April fashion. The sky was very black overhead and the air was full of a wet wind, but far down to the right the water meadows lay bathed in a clear sweet sunshine, and the west was as blue as a turquoise. Between the blue of the sky and the bright emerald of the grass, the horizon showed faintly golden, and a broken patch of rainbow light glowed against the nearest dark cloud.

  David and Elizabeth walked to their home in silence. Mrs. Havergill awaited them with an air of mournful importance. She had prepared coffee and a cake with much almond icing and the word “Welcome” inscribed upon it in silver comfits. Elizabeth ate a piece of cake from a sense of duty, and David drank cup after cup of black coffee, and then sat in a sort of stupor of fatigue until roused by the sound of the telephone bell.

  After a minute or two he came back into the room.

  “Ronnie is worse,” he said shortly. There was a change in him. He had pulled himself together. His voice was stronger.

  “He’s worse. I must go at once. Don’t wait dinner, and don’t sit up. I may have to stay all night.”

  When he had gone, Elizabeth went upstairs to unpack. Mrs. Havergill followed her.

  “You ’avn’t been in this room since Mrs. Blake was took.”

  “It’s a very nice room,” said Elizabeth.

  “All this furniture,” said Mrs. Havergill, “come out of the ’ouse in the ’Igh Street. That old mahogany press, Mrs. Blake set a lot of store by, and the bed, too. Ah! pore thing, I suppose she little thought as ’ow she’d come to die in it.”

  The bed was a fine old four-poster, with a carved foot-rail. Elizabeth went past it to the windows, of which there were three, set casement fashion, at the end of the room, with a wide low window-seat running beneath them.

  She got rid of Mrs. Havergill without hurting her feelings. Then she knelt on the seat, and looked out. She saw the river beneath her, and a line of trees in the first green mist of their new leaves. The river was dark and bright in patches, and the wind sang above it. Elizabeth’s heart was glad of this place. It was a thing she loved—to see green trees and bright water, and to hear the wind go by above the stream.

  When she had unpacked and put everything away, she stood for a moment, and then opened the door that led through into David’s room. It was getting dark in here, for the room faced the east. Elizabeth went to the window and looked out. The sky was full of clouds, and the promise of rain.

  It was very late before David came home. At ten, Elizabeth sent the servants to bed. There was cold supper laid in the dining-room, and soup in a covered pan by the side of the fire. Elizabeth sat by the lamp and sewed. Every now and then she lifted her head and listened. Then she sewed again.

  At twelve o’clock David put his key into the latch, and the door opened with a little click and then shut again.

  David was a long time coming in. He came in slowly, and sat down upon the first chair he touched.

  “He’ll do,” he said in an exhausted voice.

  “I’m so glad,” said Elizabeth.

  She knelt by the fire, and poured some of the soup into a cup. Then she held it out to him, and he drank, taking long draughts. After that she put food before him, and he ate in a dazed, mechanical fashion.

  When he had finished, he sat staring at Elizabeth, with his elbows on the table, and his head between his hands.

  “Ronnie is asleep—he’ll do.” And then with sudden passion: “My God, if I could sleep!”

  “You will, David,” said Elizabeth. She put her hand on his arm, and he turned his head a little, still staring at her.

  “No, I don’t sleep,” he said. “Everything else sleeps—Die Všglein ruhen im Walde. How does it go?”

  “Warte nur, balde ruhest du auch,” said Elizabeth in her tranquil voice.

  “No,” said David, “I can’t get in. It was so easy once—but now I can’t get in. The silent city of sleep has long, smooth walls—I can’t find the gate; I grope along the wall all night, hour after hour. A hundred times I think I have found the door. Sometimes there is a flashing sword that bars the way, sometimes the wall closes—closes as I pass the threshold. There’s no wa
y in. The walls are smooth—all smooth—you can’t get in.”

  He spoke, not wildly, but in a low, muttering way. Elizabeth touched his hand. It was very hot.

  “Come, David,” she said, “it is late.” She drew him to his feet, and he walked uncertainly, and leaned on her shoulder as they went up the stair. Once in his room, he sank again upon a chair. He let her help him, but when she knelt, and would have unlaced his boots, he roused himself.

  “No, you are not to,” he said with a sudden anger in his voice, and he took them off, and then let her help him again.

  When he was in bed, Elizabeth stood by him for a moment.

  “Are you comfortable?” she asked.

  “If I could sleep,” he said, only just above his breath. “If I could.”

  “Oh, but you will,” said Elizabeth. “Don’t be afraid, David. It’s all right.”

  She set the door into her room ajar and then sat down by the window, and looked out at the night. The blind was up. The night was dark and clear. There were stars, many little glittering points. It was very still. Elizabeth fixed her eyes upon the sky, but after a minute or two she did not see it at all. Her mind was full of David and his need. This tortured, sleepless state of his had no reality. How could it compass and oppress the immortal image of God? Her thought rose into peace. Elizabeth opened her mind to the Divine light. Her will rested. She was conscious only of that radiant peace. It enwrapped her, it enwrapped David. In it they lived and moved and had their being. In it they were real and vital creatures. To lapse from consciousness of it, was to fall upon a formless, baseless dream, wherein were the shadows of evil. These shadows had no reality. Brought to the light, they faded, leaving only that peace—that radiance. Elizabeth’s eyes were opened. She saw the Wings of Peace.

  And David slept.