The Fire Within

by Patricia Wentworth

  “Yes; he could n't be doing better, but I 'll look in, and to-morrow Skeffington will go with me so as to get him broken in to the change. We ought to get away all right now.”

  David waked next day to find the sun shining in at his uncurtained window. From where he lay he could see the young blue of the sky, and all the room seemed full of the sun's gold. David lay in a lazy contentment watching the motes that danced in a long shining beam. There was a new stir of life in his veins. He stretched out his limbs and was glad of their strength. The sweetness and the glory and the promise of the spring slid into his blood and fired it.

  “Mary,” he said, still between sleeping and waking-and with the name, memory woke. Suddenly his brain was very clear. He looked straight ahead and saw the door that led into the other room-the room that had been his mother's. Elizabeth was in that room. He had married Elizabeth -she was his wife. He lay quite still and stared at the door. Elizabeth Chantrey was Elizabeth Blake. She was his wife-and Mary-

  A sudden spasm of laughter caught David by the throat. Mary was what she had promised to be-his sister; Mary was his sister. The spasm of laughter passed, and with it the stir in David's blood. He was quite cool now. He lay staring at that closed door, and faced the situation.

  It was a damnable situation, he decided. He felt as a man might feel who wakes from the delirium of weeks, to find that in his madness he has done some intolerable, some irrevocable thing. A man who does not sleep is a man who is not wholly sane. David looked back and followed the events of the last few months with a critical detachment.

  He saw the strain growing and growing until, in the end, on the brink of the abyss, he had snatched at the relief which Elizabeth offered, as a man who dies of thirst will snatch at water. Well-he had taken Elizabeth 's draught of water, his thirst was quenched, he was his own man again. No, never his own man any more. Never free any more- Elizabeth 's debtor- Elizabeth 's husband.

  David set his face like a flint-he would pay his debt.

  He went out as soon as he had breakfasted and walked for a couple of hours. It was a little after noon when he came into the drawing-room where Elizabeth was.

  The floor was covered with a great many yards of green stuff which she was cutting into curtain lengths. As David came in, she looked up and smiled.

  “Oh, please,” she said, “if you would n't mind, I shall cut them so much better if you hold one end.”

  David knelt down and held the stuff, whilst Elizabeth cut it. She came quite close to him at the end, smiled again, and took away the two pieces which he still clutched helplessly.

  “That 's beautiful,” she said, and sat down and began to sew.

  David watched her in silence. If she found his gaze embarrassing, she showed no sign.

  “We can start to-morrow,” he said at last. He gave a list of trains, stopping-places, and hotels, paused at the end of it, walked to the window, and then, turning, said with an effort:

  “This has been a bad beginning for you, my dear-you 've been very good to me. You deserve a better bargain, but I 'll do my best.”

  Elizabeth did not speak at once. David thought that she was not going to speak at all, but after what seemed like a long time she said:

  “David!” and then stopped.

  There was a good deal of colour in her cheeks. David saw that she, too, was making an effort

  “Well,” he said, and his voice was more natural.

  “David,” said Elizabeth, “what did you mean by 'doing your best'?”

  David met her eyes. He had always liked Elizabeth 's eyes. They were so very clear.

  “I meant that I 'd do my best to make you a good husband,” he said quite simply.

  Elizabeth 's colour rose higher still. She continued to look at David, because she would have considered it cowardly to look away.

  “A good husband to my good wife,” she said. “But, David, I don't think you want a wife just now.”

  David came across the room and sat down by the table at which Elizabeth was working.

  “Then why did you marry me, Elizabeth?” he asked.

  Elizabeth did not turn her head at once.

  “I think what we both want just now,” she said, “is friendship.” Her voice was low, but she kept it steady. “The sort of friendship that is one side of marriage. It is not really possible for a man and a woman to be friends in that sort of way unless they are married. I think you want a friend-I know I do. I think you have been very lonely-one is lonely, and it is worse for a man. He can't get the home-feeling, and he misses it. You did not marry me because you needed a wife. I don't think you do. When you want a wife, I will be your wife, but just now-”

  She broke off. She did not look at David, but David looked at her. He saw how tightly her hands were clasped, he saw the colour flushing in her cheeks. She had great self-control, but that she was deeply moved was very evident.

  All at once, he became conscious of great fatigue. He had walked far and in considerable distress of mind. He had put a very strong constraint upon himself. He rested his head on his hand and tried to think. Elizabeth did not speak again. After a time he raised his head. Elizabeth was watching him-her eyes were very soft. A sense of relief came upon David. Just to drift-just to let things go on in the old way, on the old lines. Not for always-just for a time-until he had put Mary out of his thought. Their marriage was not an ordinary one. It was for Elizabeth to make what terms she would. And it was a relief-yes, no doubt it was a relief.

  “If I say, Yes,” he said, “it is only for a time. It is not a very possible situation, you know, Elizabeth -not possible at all in most cases. But just now, just for the present, I admit your right to choose.”

  Elizabeth 's hands relaxed.

  “Thank you, David,” she said.

  CHAPTER XVI. FRIENDSHIP

  See, God is everywhere,

  Where, then, is care?

  There is no night in Him,

  Then how can we grow dim?

  There is no room for pain or fear

  Since God is Love, and Love is here.

  The full cup lowered down into the sea,

  Is full continually,

  How can it lose one drop when all around

  The endless floods abound?

  So we in Him no part of Life can lose,

  For all is ours to use.

  DAVID found himself enjoying his holiday a good deal. Blue skies and shining air, clear cold of the snows and radiant warmth of the spring sun, sweet sleep by night and pleasant companionship by day-all these were his portion. His own content surprised him. He had been so long in the dark places that he could scarcely believe that the shadow was gone, and the day clear again. He had been prepared to struggle manfully against the feeling for Mary which had haunted and tormented him for so long. To his surprise, he found that this feeling fell into line with the other symptoms of his illness. He shrank from thinking of it, as he shrank from thinking of his craving for drink, his sleepless nights, and his dread of madness. It was all a part of the same bad dream-a shadow among shadows, in a world of gloom from which he had escaped.

  Elizabeth was a very good companion. It was too early to climb, but they took long walks, shared picnic meals, and talked or were silent just as the spirit moved them. It was the old boy and girl companionship come back, and it was a very restful thing. One day, when they had been married about a fortnight, David said suddenly:

  “How did you do it, Elizabeth?”

  They were sitting on a grassy slope, looking over a wide valley where blue mists lay. A little wind was blowing, and the upper air was clear. The grass on which they sat was short. It was full of innumerable small white and purple anemones. Elizabeth was sitting on the grass, watching the flowers, and touching first one and then another with the tips of her fingers.

  “All these little white ones have a violet stain at the back of each petal,” was the last thing that she had said, but when David spoke she looked up, a little startled.
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br />   He was lying full length on a narrow ledge just above her, with his cap over his eyes to shield them from the sun, which was very bright.

  “How did you do it, Elizabeth?” said David Blake.

  Elizabeth hesitated. She could not see his face.

  “What do you mean?”

  “How did you do it? Was it hypnotism?”

  “Oh, no-” There was real horror in her voice.

  “It must have been.”

  She was silent for a moment. Then she said:

  “Do you remember how interested we used to be in hypnotism, David?”

  “Yes, that 's partly what made me think of it.”

  “We read everything we could lay hands on-all the books on psychic phenomena-Charcot's experiments-everything. And do you remember the conclusion we came to?”

  “What was it?”

  “I don't think you 've forgotten. I can remember you stamping up and down my little room and saying, 'It's a damnable thing, Elizabeth, a perfectly damnable thing. There 's no end, absolutely none to the extent to which it undermines everything-I believe it is a much more real devil than any that the theologies produce.' That 's what you said nine years ago, David, and I agreed with you. We used quite a lot of strong language between us, and I don't feel called upon to retract any of it. Hypnotism is a damnable thing.”

  David pushed the cap back from his eyes as Elizabeth spoke, and raised himself on his elbow, so that he could see her face.

  “There are degrees,” he said, “and it 's very hard to define. How would you define it?”

  “It 's not easy. 'The unlawful influence of one mind over another'?”

  “That 's begging the question. At what point does it become unlawful?-that 's the crux.”

  “I suppose at the point when force of will overbears sense-reason-conscience. You may persuade a man to lend you money, but you may n't pick his pocket or hypnotise him.”

  David laughed.

  “How practical!”

  Then very suddenly:

  “So it was n't hypnotism. Are you sure?”

  “Yes, quite sure.”

  “But can you be sure? There 's such a thing as the unconscious exercise of will power.”

  Elizabeth shook her head.

  “There is nothing in the least unconscious in what I do. I know very well what I am about, and I know enough about hypnotism to know that it is not that. I don't use my will at all.”

  “What do you do? How is it done?” His tone was interested.

  “I think,” said Elizabeth slowly, “that it is done by realizing, by getting into touch with Reality. Things like sleeplessness, pain, and strain are n't right-they are n't normal. They are like bad dreams. If one wakes-if one sees the reality-the dream is gone.”

  She spoke as if she were struggling to find words for some idea which filled her mind, but was hard to put into a communicable shape.

  “It is life on the Fourth Dimension,” she said at last.

  “Yes,” said David, “go on.” There was a slightly quizzical look in his eyes, but he was interested. “What do you mean by the Fourth Dimension?”

  “We used to talk of that too, and lately I have thought about it a lot.”

  “Yes?”

  “It is so hard to put into words. Fourth Dimensional things won't get into Third Dimensional words. One has to try and try, and then a little scrap of the meaning comes through. That is why there are so many creeds, so many sects. They are all an attempt to express-and one can't really express the thing. I can't say it, I can only feel it. It is limitless, and words are limited. There are no bounds or barriers. Take Thought, for instance-that is Fourth Dimensional-and Love. Religion is a purely Fourth Dimensional thing, and we all guess and translate as best we may. In all religions that have life, apprehension rises above the creed and reaches out to the Real-the untranslatable.”

  “Yes, that 's true; but go on-define the Fourth Dimension.”

  “I can see it, you know. It 's another plane. It is the plane which permeates and inter-penetrates all other planes-universal, eternal, unchanging. It 's like the Fire of God-searching all things. It is the plane of Reality. Nothing is real which is not universal and unchanging and eternal. If one can realize that plane, one is amongst the realities, and all that is unreal goes out. 'There is no life but the Life of God, no consciousness but the Divine Consciousness.' I think that is the best definition of all: 'the Divine Consciousness.'“

  He did not know that she was quoting, and he did not answer her or speak at all for some time. But at last he said:

  “So I slept, because you saw me in the Divine Consciousness; is that it?”

  “Something like that.”

  “You did n't will that I should sleep?”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Are you doing it still?”

  “Yes.”

  “Every night?”

  “Yes,” said Elizabeth again.

  David sat up. The mists in the valley beneath were golden, for the sun had dropped. As he looked, the gold turned grey, and the shadow of darkness to come rose out of the valley's depths, though the hill-slope on which they sat was warm and sunny yet. David turned and saw that Elizabeth was watching him.

  “I want you to stop whatever it is you do,” he said abruptly.

  “Very well.”

  “I 'm not as ungrateful as that sounds-” He broke off, and Elizabeth said quickly:

  “Oh, no.”

  “You don't think it?”

  “Why should I? You are well again. You don't need my help any more.”

  A shadow like the shadow of evening came over her as she spoke, but her smile betrayed nothing.

  They walked back to the hotel in silence.

  David had wondered if he would sleep. He slept all night, the sweet sound sleep of health and a mind unburdened.

  It was Elizabeth who did not sleep. She had walked with him through the valley of the shadow and he had come out of it a whole man again. Was she to cling to the shadow, because in the shadow David had clung to her? It came to that. She drove the thought home, and did not shirk the pain of it. They were come out into the light, and in the light he had no need of her. But this was not full daylight in which they walked-it was only the first chill grey of the dawn, and there is always a need of Love. Love needs must give, and giving, blesses and is blessed, for Love is of the realities-a thing immutable and all-pervading. No man can shut out Love.

  CHAPTER XVII. THE DREAM

  My hand has never touched your hand, I have not seen your face,

  No sound of any spoken word has passed between us two-

  Yet night by night I come to you in some unearthly place,

  And all my dreams of day and night are dreams of love and you.

  The moon has never shone on us together in our sleep,

  The sun has never seen us kiss beneath the arch of day,

  Your eyes have never looked in mine-your soul has looked so deep,

  That all the sundering veils of sense are drawn and done away.

  My lids are sealed with more than sleep, but I am lapped in light,

  Your soul draws near, and yet more near, till both our souls are one.

  In that strange place of our content is neither day nor night,

  No end and no beginning, whilst the timeless aeons run.

  DAVID came home after his month's holiday as hard and healthy as a man may be. Elizabeth was well content. She and David were friends. He liked her company, he ate and slept, he was well, and he laughed sometimes as the old David had laughed.

  “Don't you think your master looks well, Mrs. Havergill?” she said quite gaily.

  Mrs. Havergill sighed.

  “He do look well,” she admitted; “but there, ma'am, there 's no saying-it is n't looks as we can go by. In my own family now, there was my sister Sarah. She was a fine, fresh-looking woman. Old Dr. Jones he met her out walking, as it might be on the Thursday.

  “'Well, Miss Sarah, you d
o look well,' he says-and there, 't were n't but the following Tuesday as she was took. 'Who 'd ha' thought it,' he says. 'In the midst of life we are in death,' and that 's a true word. And my brother 'Enry now, 'e never look so well in all 'is life as when he was laying in 'is coffin.”

  Elizabeth could afford to laugh.

  “Oh, Mrs. Havergill, do be cheerful,” she implored; “it would be so much better for you.”

  Mrs. Havergill looked injured.

  “I don't see as we 're sent into this world to be cheerful,” she said, with the air of one who reproves unchristian levity.

  “Oh, but we are-we really are,” said Elizabeth.

  Mrs. Havergill shook her head.

  “Let them be cheerful as has no troubles,” she remarked. “I 've 'ad mine, and a-plenty,” and she went out of the room, sighing.

  Mary ran in to see her sister quite early on the morning after their return.

  “Well, Liz-no, let me look at you-I 'll kiss you in a minute. Are you happy-you wrote dreadful guide-book letters, that I tore up and put in the fire.”

  “Oh, Molly.”

  “Yes, they were-exactly like Baedeker, only worse. All about mountains and flowers and the nice air, and 'David is quite well again.' As if anyone wanted to hear about mountains and flowers from a person on her honeymoon. Are you happy, Liz?”

  “Don't I look happy?” said Elizabeth laughing.

  “Yes, you do.” Mary looked at her considering. “You do. Is it all right, Liz, really all right?”

  “Yes, it 's really all right, Molly,” said Elizabeth, and then she began to talk of other things.

  Mary kissed her very affectionately when she went away, but at the door she turned, frowning.

  “I expect you wrote reams to Agneta,” she said, and then shut the door quickly before Elizabeth had time to answer.

  David was out when Mary came, and it so happened that for two or three days they did not meet. He had come to dread the meeting. His passion for Mary was dead. He was afraid lest her presence, her voice, should raise the dead and bring it forth again in its garment of glamour and pain. Then on Sunday he came in to find Mary sitting there with Elizabeth in the twilight. She jumped up as he came in, and held out her hand.