The Fire Within

by Patricia Wentworth

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.

  CHAPTER XII. THE GREY WOLF

  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.