The Fire Within (16 page)

Now, as she sat and talked to David, the idea that it might be her
duty to enlighten him presented itself to her mind afresh. A sudden and
brilliant idea came into her head, and she immediately proceeded to act
upon it.

“I had a special reason for wanting to see her,” she said. “I had a
lovely box of things down from town on approval, and I wanted her to
see them.”

“Things?” said David.

“Oh, clothes,” said Mary, with a wave of the hand. “You now they 'll
send you anything now. By the way, I bought a present for Liz, though
she does n't deserve it. Will you take it down to her? I 'll get
it if you don't mind waiting a minute.”

She was away for five minutes, and then returned with a small
brown-paper parcel in her hand.

“You can open it when you get home,” she said. “Open it and show it
to Liz, and see whether you like it. Tell her I sent it with my love.”

“Now there won't be any more nonsense,” she told Edward.

Edward looked rather unhappy, but, warned by previous experience,
said nothing,

David found Elizabeth in the dining-room. She was putting a large
bunch of scarlet gladioli into a brown jug upon the mantelpiece.

“I 've got a present for you,” said David.

“David, how nice of you. It 's not my birthday.”

“I 'm afraid it 's not from me at all. I looked in to see if you
were with Mary, and she sent you this, with her love. By the way, you
'd better go and see her, I think she 's rather huffed.”

As he spoke he was undoing the parcel. Elizabeth had her back
towards him. The flowers would not stand up just as she wished them to.

“I can't think why Molly should send me a present,” she said, and
then all at once something made her turn round.

The brown-paper wrapping lay on the table. David had taken something
white out of the parcel. He held it up and they both looked at it. It
was a baby's robe, very fine, and delicately embroidered.

Elizabeth made a wavering step forward. The light danced on the
white robe, and not only on the robe. All the room was full of small
dancing lights. Elizabeth put her hand behind her and felt for the edge
of the mantelpiece. She could not find it. Everything was shaking. She
swung half round, and all the dancing lights flashed in her eyes as she
fell forwards.

You are as old as Egypt, and as young as yesterday,

  Oh, turn again and look again, for when you look I know

The dusk of death is but a dream, that dreaming, dies away

  And leaves you with the lips I loved, three thousand years ago.

The mists of that forgotten dream, they fill your brooding eyes,

  With veil on strange revealing veil that wavers, and is gone,

And still between the veiling mists, the dim, dead centuries rise,

  And still behind the farthest veil, your burning soul burns on.

You are as old as Egypt, and as young as very Youth,

  Before your still, immortal eyes the ages come and go,

The dusk of death is but a dream that dims the face of Truth—

  Oh, turn again, and look again, for when you look, I know.

WHEN Elizabeth came to herself, the room was full of mist. Through
the mist, she saw David's face, and quite suddenly in these few minutes
it had grown years older.

He spoke. He seemed a long way off.

“Drink this.”

“What is it?” said Elizabeth faintly.

“Water.”

Elizabeth raised herself a little and drank. The faintness passed.
She became aware that the collar of her dress was unfastened, and she
sat up and began to fasten it.

David got up, too.

“I am all right.”

There was no mist before Elizabeth's eyes now. They saw clearly,
quite, quite clearly. She looked at David, and David's face was
grey—old and grey. So it had come. Now in this hour of physical
weakness. The thing she dreaded.

To her own surprise, she felt no dread now. Only a great weariness.
What could she say? What was she to say? All seemed useless—not worth
while. But then there was David's face, his grey, old face. She must do
her best—not for her own sake, but for David's.

She wondered a little that it should hurt him so much. It was not as
though he loved her, or had ever loved her. Only of course this was a
thing to cut a man, down to the very quick of his pride and his
self-respect. It was that—of course it was that.

Whilst she was thinking, David spoke. He was standing by the table
fingering the piece of string that lay there.

“Elizabeth, do you know why you fainted?” he said.

“Yes,” said Elizabeth, and said no more.

A sort of shudder passed over David Blake.

“Then it 's true,” he said in a voice that was hardly a voice at
all. There was a sound, and there were words. But it was not like a man
speaking. It was like a long, quick breath of pain.

“Yes,” said Elizabeth. “It is true, David.”

There was a very great pity in her eyes.

“Oh, my God!” said David, and he sat down by the table and put his
head in his hands. “Oh, my God!” he said again.

Elizabeth got up. She was trembling just a little, but she felt no
faintness now. She put one hand on the mantelpiece, and so stood,
waiting.

There was a very long silence, one of those profound silences which
seem to break in upon a room and fill it. They overlie and blot out all
the little sounds of every-day life and usage. Outside, people came and
went, the traffic in the High Street came and went, but neither to
David, nor to Elizabeth, did there come the smallest sound. They were
enclosed in a silence that seemed to stretch unbroken, from one
Eternity to another. It became an unbearable torment. To his dying day,
when any one spoke of hell, David glimpsed a place of eternal silence,
where anguish burned for ever with a still unwavering flame.

He moved at last, slowly, like a man who has been in a trance. His
head lifted. He got up, resting his weight upon his hands. Then he
straightened himself. All his movements were like those of a man who is
lifting an intolerably heavy load.

“Why did you marry me?” he asked in a tired voice and then his tone
hardened. “Who is the man? Who is he? Will he marry you if I divorce
you?”

An unbearable pang of pity went through Elizabeth, and she turned
her head sharply. David stopped looking at her.

She to be ashamed—oh, God!—Elizabeth ashamed—he could not look at
her. He walked quickly to the window. Then turned back again because
Elizabeth was speaking.

“David,” she said, in a low voice, “David, what sort of woman am I?”

A groan burst from David.

“You are a good woman. That 's just the damnable part of it. There
are some women, when they do a thing like this, one only says they 've
done after their kind—they're gone where they belong. When a good
woman does it, it 's Hell—just Hell. And you 're a good woman.”

Elizabeth was looking down. She could not bear his face.

“And would you say I was a truthful woman?” she said. “If I were to
tell you the truth, would you believe me, David?”

“Yes,” said David at once. “Yes, I 'd believe you. If you told me
anything at all you 'd tell me the truth. Why should n't I believe
you?”

“Because the truth is very unbelievable,” said Elizabeth.

David lifted his head and looked at her.

“Oh, you 'll not lie,” he said.

“Thank you,” said Elizabeth. After a moment's pause, she went on.

“Will you sit down, David? I don't think I can speak if you walk up
and down like that. It 's not very easy to speak.”

He sat down in a big chair, that stood with its back to the window.

“David,” she said, “when we were in Switzerland, you asked me how I
had put you to sleep. You asked me if I had hypnotised you. I said, No.
I want to know if you believed me?”

“I don't know what I believed,” said David wearily. The question
appeared to him to be entirely irrelevant and unimportant.

“When you hypnotise a person, you are producing an illusion,” said
Elizabeth. “The effect of what I did was to destroy one. But whatever I
did, when you asked me to stop doing it, I stopped. You do believe
that?”

“Yes—I believe that.”

“I stopped at once—definitely. You must please believe that.
Presently you will see why I say this.”

All the time she had been standing quietly by the mantelpiece. Now
she came across and kneeled down beside David's chair. She laid her
hands one above the other upon the broad arm, and she looked, not at
David at all, but at her own hands. It was the penitent's attitude, but
David Blake, looking at her, found nothing of the penitent's
expression. The light shone full upon her face. There was a look upon
it that startled him. Her face was white and still. The look that
riveted David's attention was a look of remoteness—passionless
remoteness—and over all a sort of patience.

Elizabeth looked down at her strong folded hands, and began to speak
in a quiet, gentle voice. The sapphire in her ring caught the light.

“David, just now you asked me why I married you. You never asked me
that before. I am going to tell you now. I married you because I loved
you very much. I thought I could help, and I loved you. That is why I
married you. You won't speak, please, till I have done. It is n't
easy.”

She drew a long, steady breath and went on.

“I knew you did n't love me, you loved Mary. It was n't good for
you. I knew that you would never love me. I was—content—with
friendship. You gave me friendship. Then we came home. And you stopped
loving Mary. I was very thankful—for you—not for myself.”

She stopped for a moment. David was looking at her. Her words fell
on his heart, word after word, like scalding tears. So she had loved
him—it only needed that. Why did she tell him now when it was all too
late—hideously too late?

Elizabeth went on.

“Do you remember, when we had been home a week, you dreamed your
dream? Your old dream—you told me of it, one evening—but I knew
already—”

“Knew?”

“No, don't speak. I can't go on if you speak. I knew because when
you dreamed your dream you came to me.”

She bent lower over her hands. Her breathing quickened. She scarcely
heard David's startled exclamation. She must say it—and it was so
hard. Her heart beat so—it was so hard to steady her voice.

“You came into my room. It was late. The window was open, and the
wind was blowing in. The moon was going down. I was standing by the
window in my night-dress—and you spoke. You said, 'Turn round, and let
me see your face.' Then I turned round and you came to me and touched
me. You touched me and you spoke, and then you went away. And the next
night you came again. You were in your dream, and in your dream you
loved me. We talked. I said, 'Who am I?' and you said, 'You are the
Woman of my Dream,' and you kissed me, and then you went away. But the
third night—the third night—I woke up—in the dark—and you were
there.”

After that first start, David sat rigid and watched her face. He saw
her lips quiver—the patience of her face break into pain. He knew the
effort with which she spoke.

“You came every night—for a fortnight. I used to think you would
wake—but you never did. You went away before the dawn—always. You
never waked—you never remembered. In your dream you loved me—you
loved me very much. In the daytime you did n't love me at all. I got to
feel I could n't bear it. I went away to Agneta, and there I thought it
all out. I knew what I had to do. I think I had really known all along.
But I was shirking. That 's why it hurt so much. If you shirk, you
always get hurt.”

Elizabeth paused for a moment. She was looking at the blue of her
ring. It shone. There was a little star in the heart of it.

“It 's very difficult to explain,” she said. “I suppose you would
say I prayed. Do you remember asking me, if you had slept because I saw
you in the Divine Consciousness? That 's the nearest I can get to
explaining. I tried to see the whole thing—us—the Dream—in the
Divine Consciousness, and you stopped dreaming. I knew you would. You
never came any more. That 's all.”

Elizabeth stopped speaking. She moved as if to rise, but David's
hand fell suddenly upon both of hers, and rested there with a hard,
heavy pressure.

He said her name, “Elizabeth!” and then again, “Elizabeth!” His
voice had a bewildered sound.

Elizabeth lifted her eyes and looked at him. His face was working,
twitching, his eyes strained as if to see something beyond the line of
vision. He looked past Elizabeth as he had done in his dream. All at
once he spoke in a whisper.

“I remembered, it 's gone again—but I remembered.”

“The dream?”

“No, not the dream. I don't know—it 's gone. It was a name—your
name—but it 's gone again.”

“My name?”

“Yes—it 's gone.”

“It does n't matter, David.”

Elizabeth had begun to tremble, and all at once he became aware of
it.

“Why do you tremble?”

Elizabeth was at the end of her strength. She had done what she had
to do. If he would let her go—

“David, let me go,” she said, only just above her breath.

Instead, he put out his other hand and touched her on the breast. It
was like the Dream. But they were not in the Dream any more. They were
awake.

David leaned slowly forward, and Elizabeth could not turn away her
eyes. They looked at each other, and the thing that had happened before
came upon them again. A momentary flash—memory—revelation—truth. The
moment passed. This time it left behind it, not darkness, but light.
They were in the light, because love is of the light.

David put his arms about Elizabeth

“Mine!” he said.

THE END