The Fire Within

by Patricia Wentworth

  She spoke the last words as a child might have spoken them. Her eyes were fixed appealingly upon David's face. Mary Mottisfont had very beautiful eyes. They were hazel in colour, and in shape and expression they resembled those of another Mary, who was also Queen of Hearts.

  Elizabeth Chantrey became suddenly aware that she was shaking all over, and that the room was full of a thick white mist. She groped in the mist and found a chair. She made a step forward, and sat down. Then the mist grew thinner by degrees, and through it she saw that Mary had come quite close to David again. She was looking up at him. Her hands were against his breast, and she was saying:

  “David-David-David, you said the world was not enough to give me once.”

  David's face was rigid.

  “You would n't take what I had to give,” he said very low. He had forgotten Elizabeth Chantrey. He saw nothing but Mary's eyes.

  “You did n't want my love, Mary, and now you want my honour. And you say it is only a little thing.”

  Mary lifted her head and met his eyes.

  “Give it me,” she said. “If it is a great thing, well, I shall value it all the more. Oh, David, because I ask it. Because I shall love you all my life, and bless you all my life. And if I 'm asking you a great thing-oh, David, you said that nothing would be too great to give me. Oh, David, won't you give me this now? Won't you give me this one thing, because I ask it?”

  As Mary spoke the mist cleared from before Elizabeth 's eyes and the numbness that had been upon her changed slowly into feeling. She put both hands to her heart, and held them there. Her heart beat against her hands, and every beat hurt her. She felt again, and what she felt was the sharpest pain that she had ever known, and she had known much pain.

  She had suffered when David left Market Harford. She had suffered when he ceased to write. She had suffered when he returned only to fall headlong in love with Mary. And what she had suffered then had been a personal pang, a thing to be struggled with, dominated, and overcome. Now she must look on whilst David suffered too. Must watch whilst his nerves tautened, his strength failed, his self-control gave way. And she could not shut her eyes or look away. She could not raise her thought above this level of pain. The black cloud overshadowed them and hid the light of heaven.

  “Because I ask you, David-David, because I ask you.”

  Mary's voice trembled and fell to a quivering whisper.

  Suddenly David pushed her away. He turned and made a stumbling step towards the fireplace. His hands gripped the narrow mantelshelf. His eyes stared at the wall. And from the wall Mary's eyes looked back at him from the miniature of Mary's mother. There was a long minute's silence. Then David swung round. His face was flushed, his eyes looked black.

  “If I do it can you hold your tongues?” he said in a rough, harsh voice.

  Mary drew a deep soft breath of relief. She had won. Her hands dropped to her side, her whole figure relaxed, her face became soft and young again.

  “O David, God bless you!” she cried.

  David frowned. His brows made a dark line across his face. Every feature was heavy and forbidding.

  “Can you hold your tongues?” he repeated. “Do you understand-do you fully understand that if a word of this is ever to get out it 's just sheer ruin to the lot of us? Do you grasp that?”

  Elizabeth Chantrey got up. She crossed the room, and stood at David's side, nearly as tall as he.

  “Don't do it, David,” she said, with a sudden passion in her voice.

  Mary turned on her in a flash.

  “Liz,” she cried; but David stood between.

  “It 's none of your business, Elizabeth. You keep out of it.” The tone was kinder than the words.

  Elizabeth was silent. She drew away, and did not speak again.

  “I 'll do it on one condition,” said David Blake. “You 'd better go and tell Edward at once. I don't want to see him. I don't suppose he 's been talking to any one-it 's not exactly likely-but if he has the matter 's out of my hands. I 'll not touch it. If he has n't and you 'll all hold your tongues, I 'll do it.”

  He turned to the door and Mary cried: “Won't you write it now? Won't you sign it before you go?”

  David laughed grimly.

  “Do you think I go about with my pockets full of death certificates?” he said. Then he was gone, and the door shut to behind him.

  Elizabeth moved, and spoke.

  “I will tell Markham that you are ready to go home,” she said.

  CHAPTER V. TOWN TALK

  As long as idle dogs will bark, and idle asses bray,

  As long as hens will cackle over every egg they lay,

  So long will folks be chattering,

  And idle tongues be clattering,

  For the less there is to talk about, the more there is to say.

  THE obituary notices of old Mr. Mottisfont which appeared in due course in the two local papers were of a glowingly appreciative nature, and at least as accurate as such notices usually are. David could not help thinking how much the old gentleman would have relished the fine phrases and the flowing periods. Sixty years of hard work were compressed into two and a half columns of palpitating journalese. David preferred the old man's own version, which had fewer adjectives and a great deal more backbone.

  “My father left me nothing but debts-and William. The ironworks were in a bad way, and we were on the edge of a bankruptcy. I was twenty-one, and William was fifteen, and every one shook their heads. I can see ' em now. Well, I gave some folk the rough side of my tongue, and some the smooth. I had to have money, and no one would lend. I got a little credit, but I could n't get the cash. Then I hunted up my father's cousin, Edward Moberly. Rolling he was, and as close as wax. Bored to death too, for all his money. I talked to him, and he took to me. I talked to him for three days, and he lent me what I wanted, on my note of hand, and I paid it all back in five years, and the interest up-to-date right along. It took some doing but I got it done. Then the thing got a go on it, and we climbed right up. And folks stopped shaking their heads. I began to make my mark. I began to be a 'respected fellow-citizen.' Oh, Lord, David, if you 'd known William you 'd respect me too! Talk about the debts-as a handicap, they were n't worth mentioning in the same breath with William. I could talk people into believing I was solvent, but I could n't talk 'em into believing that William had any business capacity. And I could n't pay off William, same as I paid off the debts.”

  David's recollections plunged him suddenly into a gulf of black depression. Such a plucky old man, and now he was dead-out of the way-and he, David, had lent a hand to cover the matter over, and shield the murderer. David took the black fit to bed with him at night, and rose in the morning with the gloom upon him still. It became a shadow which went with him in all his ways and clung about his every thought. And with the gloom there came upon him a horrible, haunting recurrence of his old passion for Mary. The wound made by her rejection of him had been slowly skinning over, but in the scene which they had shared, and the stress of the emotions raised by it, this wound had broken out afresh, and now it was no more a deep clean cut, but a festering thing that bid fair to poison all the springs of life. At Mary's bidding he had violated a trust, and his own sense of honour. There were times when he hated Mary. There were times when he craved for her. And always his contempt for himself deepened, and with it the gloom-the black gloom.

  “The doctor gets through a sight of whisky these days,” remarked Mrs. Havergill, David's housekeeper. “And a more abstemious gentleman, I 'm sure I never did live with. Weeks a bottle of whisky 'ud last, unless he 'd friends in. And now-gone like a flash, as you might say. Only, just you mind there 's not a word of this goes out of the 'ouse, Sarah, my girl. D' ye hear?”

  Sarah, a whey-faced girl whose arms and legs were set on at uncertain angles, only nodded. She adored David with the unreasoning affection of a dog, and had he taken to washing in whisky instead of merely drinking it, she would have regarded his doing so as quite a right an
d proper thing.

  When the local papers had finished Mr. Mottisfont's obituary notices and had lavished all their remaining stock of adjectives upon the funeral arrangements, they proceeded to interest themselves in the terms of his will. For once, old Mr. Mottisfont had done very much what was expected of him. Local charities benefited and old servants were remembered. Elizabeth Chantrey was left twenty-five thousand pounds, and everything else went to Edward. “To David Blake I leave my sincere respect, he having declined to receive a legacy.”

  David could almost see the old man grin as he wrote the words, could almost hear him chuckle, “Very well, my highfalutin young man-into the pillory with you.”

  The situation held a touch of sardonic humour beyond old Mr. Mottisfont's contriving, and the iron of it rusted into David's soul. Market Harford discussed the terms of the will with great interest. They began to speculate as to what Elizabeth Chantrey would do. When it transpired that she was going to remain on in the old house and be joined there by Edward and Mary, there was quite a little buzz of talk.

  “I assure you he make it a condition-a secret condition,” said old Mrs. Codrington in her deep booming voice. “I have it from Mary herself. He made it a condition.”

  It was quite impossible to disbelieve a statement made with so much authority. Mrs. Codrington's voice always stood her in good stead. It had a solidity which served to prop up any shaky fact. Miss Dobell, to whom she was speaking, sniffed, and felt a little out of it. She had been Agatha Mottisfont's great friend, and as such she felt that she herself should have been the fountainhead of information. As soon as Mrs. Codrington had departed Miss Hester Dobell put on her outdoor things and went to call upon Mary Mossitfont.

  As it was a damp afternoon, she pinned up her skirts all round, and she was still unpinning them upon Mary's doorstep, when the door opened.

  “Miss Chantrey is with her sister? Oh, indeed! That is very nice, very nice indeed. And Mrs. Mottisfont is seeing visitors, you say? Yes? Then I will just walk in-just walk in.”

  Miss Dobell came into the drawing-room with a little fluttered run. Her faded blue eyes were moist, but not so moist as to prevent her perceiving that Mary wore a black dress which did not become her, and that Elizabeth had on an old grey coat and skirt, with dark furs, and a close felt hat which almost hid her hair. She greeted Mary very affectionately and Elizabeth a shade less affectionately.

  “I hope you are well, Mary, my dear? Yes? That is good. These sad times are very trying. And you, Elizabeth? I am pleased to find that you are able to be out. I feared you were indisposed. Every one was saying, 'Miss Chantrey must be indisposed, as she was not at the funeral.' And I feared it was the case.”

  “No, thank you, I am quite well,” said Elizabeth.

  Miss Dobell seated herself, smoothing down her skirt. It was of a very bright blue, and she wore with it a little fawn-coloured jacket adorned with a black and white braid, which was arranged upon it in loops and spirals. She had on also a blue tie, fastened in a bow at her throat, and an extremely oddly-shaped hat, from one side of which depended a somewhat battered bunch of purple grapes. Beneath this rather bacchanalian headgear her old, mild straw-coloured face had all the effect of an anachronism.

  “I am so glad to find you both. I am so glad to have the opportunity of explaining how it was that I did not attend the funeral. It was a great disappointment. Everything so impressive, by all accounts. Yes. But I could not have attended without proper mourning. No. Oh, no, it would have been impossible. Even though I was aware that poor dear Mr. Mottisfont entertained very singular ideas upon the subject of mourning, I know how much they grieved poor dear Agatha. They were very singular. I suppose, my dear, Elizabeth, that it is in deference to poor Mr. Mottisfont's wishes that you do not wear black. I said to every one at once-oh, at once-'depend upon it poor Mr. Mottisfont must have expressed a wish. Otherwise Miss Chantrey would certainly wear mourning-oh, certainly. After living so long in the house, and being like a daughter to him, it would be only proper, only right and proper.' That is what I said, and I am sure I was right. It was his wish, was it not?”

  “He did not like to see people in black,” said Elizabeth.

  “No,” said Miss Dobell in a flustered little voice. “Very strange, is it not? But then so many of poor Mr. Mottisfont's ideas were very strange. I cannot help remembering how they used to grieve poor dear Agatha. And his views-so sad-so very sad. But there, we must not speak of them now that he is dead. No. Doubtless he knows better now. Oh, yes, we must hope so. I do not know what made me speak of it. I should not have done so. No, not now that he is dead! It was not right, or charitable. But I really only intended to explain how it came about that I was not at the funeral. It was a great deprivation-a very great deprivation, but I was there in spirit-oh, yes, in spirit.”

  The purple grapes nodded a little in sympathy with Miss Dobell's nervous agitation. She put up a little hand, clothed in a brown woolen glove, and steadied them.

  “I often think,” she said, “that I should do well to purchase one black garment for such occasions as these. Now I should hardly have liked to come here to-day, dressed in colours, had I not been aware of poor dear Mr. Mottisfont's views. It is awkward. Yes, oh, yes. But you see, my dear Mary, in my youth, being one of a very large family, we were so continually in mourning that I really hardly ever possessed any garment of a coloured nature. When I was only six years old I can remember that we were in mourning for my grandfather. In those days, my dears, little girls, wore, well, they wore-little-hem-white trousers, quite long, you know, reaching in fact to the ankle. Under a black frock it had quite a garish appearance. And my dear mother, who was very particular about all family observances, used to stitch black crape bands upon the trouser-legs. It was quite a work. Oh, yes, I assure you. Then after my grandfather, there was my great-uncle George, and on the other side of the family my great-aunt Eliza. And then there were my uncles, and two aunts, and quite a number of cousins. And, later on, my own dear brothers and sisters. So that, as you may say, we were never out of black at all, for our means were such that it was necessary to wear out one garment before another could be purchased. And I became a little weary of wearing black, my dears. So when my last dear sister died. I went into colours. Not at once, oh, no!”-Miss Cobell became very much shocked and agitated at the sound of her own words. “Oh, dear, no. Not, of course, until after a full and proper period of mourning, but when that was over I went into colours, and have never since possessed anything black. You see, as I have no more relations, it is unnecessary that I should be provided with mourning.”

  Elizabeth Chantrey left her sister's house in rather a saddened mood. She wondered if she too would ever be left derelict. Unmarried women were often very lonely. Life went past them down other channels. They missed their link with the generations to come, and as the new life sprang up it knew them not, and they had neither part nor lot in it. When she reached home she sat for a long while very still, forcing her consciousness into a realisation of Life as a thing unbroken, one, eternal. The peace of it came upon her, and the sadness passed.

  CHAPTER VI. THE LETTER

  Oh, you shall walk in the mummers' train,

  And dance for a beggar's boon,

  And wear as mad a motley

  As any under the moon,

  And you shall pay the piper-

  But I will call the tune.

  OLD Mr. Mottisfont had been dead for about a fortnight when the letter arrived. David Blake found it upon his breakfast table when he came downstairs. It was a Friday morning, and there was an east wind blowing. David came into the dining-room wishing that there were no such thing as breakfast, and there, propped up in front of his plate, was the letter. He stared at it, and stared again. A series of sleepless or hag-ridden nights are not the best preparation for a letter written in a dead man's hand and sealed with a dead man's seal. If David's hand was steady when he picked up the letter it was because his will kept it steady, and for no
other reason. As he held it in his hand, Mrs. Havergill came bustling in with toast and coffee. David passed her, went into his consulting room and shut the door.

  “First he went red and then he went white,” she told Sarah, “and he pushed past me as if I were a stock, or a post, or something of that sort. I 'ope he 'asn't caught one of them nasty fevers, down in some slum. 'Tisn't natural for a man to turn colour that way. There was only one young man ever I knew as did it, William Jones his name was, and he was the sexton's son down at Dunnington. And he 'd do it. Red one minute and white the next, and then red again. And he went of in a galloping decline, and broke his poor mother's heart. And there 's their two graves side by side in Dunnington Churchyard. Mr. Jones, he dug the graves hisself, and never rightly held his head up after.”

  David Blake sat down at his table and spread out old Mr. Mottisfont's letter upon the desk in front of him. It was a long letter, written in a clear, pointed handwriting, which was characteristic and unmistakable.

  “My dear David,”-wrote old Mr. Mottisfont,-“My dear David, I have just written a letter to Edward-a blameless and beautiful letter-in which I have announced my immediate, or, as one might say, approximate intention of committing suicide by the simple expedient of first putting arsenic into a cup of tea and then drinking the tea. I shall send Edward for the tea, and I shall put the arsenic into it, under his very nose. And Edward will be thinking of beetles, and will not see me do it. I am prepared to bet my bottom dollar that he does not see me do it. Edward's letter, of which I enclose a copy, is the sort of letter which one shows to coroners, and jurymen, and legal advisers. Of course things may not have gone as far as that, but, on the other hand, they may. There are evil-minded persons who may have suspected Edward of having hastened my departure to a better world. You may even have suspected him yourself, in which case, of course, my dear David, this letter will be affording you a good deal of pleasurable relief.” David clenched his hand and read on. “Edward's letter is for the coroner. It should arrive about a fortnight after my death, if my valued correspondent, William Giles, of New York, does as I have asked him. This letter is for you. Between ourselves, then, it was that possible three years of yours that decided me. I could n't stand it. I don't believe in another world, and I 'm damned if I 'll put in three years' hell in this one. Do you remember old Madden? I do, and I 'm not going to hang on like that, not to please any one, nor I 'm not going to be cut up in sections either. So now you know all about it. I 've just sent Edward for the tea. Poor Edward, it will hurt his feelings very much to be suspected of polishing me off. By the way, David, as a sort of last word-you 're no end of a damn fool-why don't you marry the right woman instead of wasting your time hankering after the wrong one? That 's all. Here 's luck.