Fire Within Read online

  Elizabeth was tolerant of lovers, and Mary’s little sentimentalities, like Mary’s airs of virtuous matronhood, were often quite amusing to watch; but to-night, with David Blake as a fourth person in the room, Elizabeth found amusement merging into irritation and irritation into pain. Except for that lighted circle about the piano, the room lay all in shadow. There was a soft dusk upon it, broken every now that then by gleams of firelight. David Blake sat back in his chair, and the dimness of the room hid his face, except when the fire blazed up and showed Elizabeth how changed it was. She had been away only a month, and he looked like a stranger. His attitude was that of a very weary man. His head rested on his hand, and he looked all the time at Mary in the rosy glow which bathed her. When she looked up at Edward, he saw the look, saw the light shine down into her dark eyes and sparkle there. Not a look, not a smile was lost, and whilst he watched Mary, Elizabeth watched him. Elizabeth was very glad of the dimness that shielded her. It was a relief to drop the mask of a friendly indifference, to be able to watch David with no thought except for him. Her heart yearned to him as never before. She divined in him a great hunger—a great pain. And this hunger, this pain, was hers. The longing to give, to assuage, to comfort, welled up in her with a suddenness and strength that were almost startling. Elizabeth took her thought in a strong hand, forcing it along accustomed channels from the plane where love may be thwarted, to that other plane, where love walks unashamed and undeterred, and gives her gifts, no man forbidding her. Elizabeth sat still, with folded hands. Her love went out to David, like one ripple in a boundless, golden sea, from which they drew their being, and in which they lived and moved. A sense of light and peace came down upon her.

  Edward’s voice was filling the room. It was quite a pleasant voice, and if it never varied into expression, at least it never went out of tune, and every word was distinct.

  “Ah, well, I know the sadness

  That tears and rends your heart,

  How that from all life’s gladness

  You stand, far, far apart—”

  sang Edward, in tones of the most complete unconcern.

  It was Mary who supplied all the sentiment that could be wished for. She dwelt on the chords with an almost superfluous degree of feeling, and her eyes were quite moist.

  At any other time this combination of Edward and Lord Henry Somerset would have entertained Elizabeth not a little, but just now there was no room in her thoughts for any one but David. The light that was upon her gave her vision. She looked upon David with eyes that had grown very clear, and as she looked she understood. That he had changed, deteriorated, she had seen at the first glance. Now she discerned in him the cause of such an alteration—something wrenched and twisted. The scene in her little brown room rose vividly before her. When David had allowed Mary to sway him, he had parted with something, which he could not now recall. He had broken violently through his own code, and the broken thing was failing him at every turn. Mary’s eyes, Mary’s voice, Mary’s touch—these things had waked in him something beyond the old passion. The emotional strain of that scene had carried him beyond his self-control. A feverish craving was upon him, and his whole nature burned in the flame of it.

  Edward had passed to another song.

  “One more kiss from my darling one,” he sang in a slightly perfunctory manner. His voice was getting tired, and he seemed a little absent-minded for a lover who was about to plunge into Eternity. The manner in which he requested death to come speedily was a trifle unconvincing. As he began the next verse David made a sudden movement. A log of wood upon the fire had fallen sharply, and there was a quick upward rush of flame. David looked round, facing the glow, and as he did so his eyes met Elizabeth’s. Just for one infinitesimal moment something seemed to pass from her to him. It was one of those strange moments which are not moments of time at all, and are therefore not subject to time’s laws. Elizabeth Chantrey’s eyes were full of peace. Full, too, of a passionate gentleness. It was a gentleness which for an instant touched the sore places in David’s soul with healing, and for that one instant David had a glimpse of something very strong, very tender, that was his, and yet incomprehensibly withheld from his understanding. It was one of those instantaneous flashes of thought—one of those gleams of recognition which break upon the dullness of material sense. Before and after—darkness, the void, the unstarred night, a chaos of things forgotten. But for one dazzled instant, the lightning stab of Truth, unrealized.

  Elizabeth did not look away, or change colour. The peace was upon her still. She smiled a little, and as the moment passed, and the dark closed in again upon David’s mind, she saw a spark of rather savage humour come into his eyes.

  “Then come Eternity—”

  “No, that’s enough, Mary, I’m absolutely hoarse,” remarked Edward, all in the same breath, and with very much the same expression.

  Mary got up, and began to shut the piano. The light shone on her white, uncovered neck.

  CHAPTER IX

  MARY IS SHOCKED

  Through fire and frost and snow

  I see you go,

  I see your feet that bleed,

  My heart bleeds too.

  I, who would give my very soul for you,

  What can I do?

  I cannot help your need.

  THAT first evening was one of many others, all on very much the same pattern. David Blake would come in, after tea, or after dinner, sit for an hour in almost total silence, and then go away again. Every time that he came, Elizabeth’s heart sank a little lower. This change, this obscuring of the man she loved, was an unreality, but how some unrealities have power to hurt us.

  December brought extra work to the Market Harford doctors. There was an epidemic of measles amongst the children, combined with one of influenza amongst their elders. David Blake stood the extra strain but ill. He was slipping steadily down the hill. His day’s work followed only too often upon a broken or sleepless night, and to get through what had to be done, or to secure some measure of sleep, he had recourse more and more frequently to stimulant. If no patient of his ever saw him the worse for drink, he was none the less constantly under its influence. If it did not intoxicate him, he came to rely upon its stimulus, and to distrust his unaided strength. He could no longer count upon his nerve, and the fear of all that nerve failure may involve haunted him continually and drove him down.

  “Look here, Blake, you want a change. Why don’t you go away?” said Tom Skeffington. It was a late January evening, and he had dropped in for a smoke and a chat. “The press of work is over now, and I could very well manage the lot for a fortnight or three weeks. Will you go?”

  “No, I won’t,” said David shortly.

  Young Skeffington paused. It was not much after six in the evening, and David’s face was flushed, his hand unsteady.

  “Look here, Blake,” he said, and then stopped, because David was staring at him out of eyes that had suddenly grown suspicious.

  “Well?” said David, still staring.

  “Well, I should go away if I were you—go to Switzerland, do some winter sports. Get a thorough change. Come back yourself again.”

  There was ever so slight an emphasis on the last few words, and David flashed into sudden anger.

  “Mind your own business, and be damned to you, Skeffington,” he cried.

  Tom Skeffington shrugged his shoulders.

  “Oh, certainly,” he said, and made haste to be gone.

  Blake in this mood was quite impracticable. He had no mind for a scene.

  David sat on, with a tumbler at his elbow. So they wanted him out of the way. That was the third person who had told him he needed a change—the third in one week. Edward was one, and old Dr. Bull, and now Skeffington. Yes, of course, Skeffington would like him out of the way, so as to get all the practice into his own hands. Edward too. Was it this morning, or yesterday morning, that Edward had asked him when he was going to take a holiday? Now he came to think of it, it was yesterday m
orning. And he supposed that Edward wanted him out of the way too. Perhaps he went too often to Edward’s house. David began to get angry. Edward was an ungrateful hound. “Damned ungrateful,” said David’s muddled brain. The idea of going to see Mary began to present itself to him. If Edward did not like it, Edward could lump it. He had been told to come whenever he liked. Very well, he liked now. Why shouldn’t he?

  He got up and went out into the cold. Then, when he was half-way up the High Street he remembered that Edward had gone away for a couple of days. It occurred to him as a very agreeable circumstance. Mary would be alone, and they would have a pleasant, friendly time together. Mary would sit in the rosy light and play to him, not to Edward, and sing in that small sweet voice of hers—not to Edward, but to him.

  It was a cold, crisp night, and the frosty air heightened the effect of the stimulant which he had taken. He had left his own house flushed, irritable, and warm, but he arrived at the Mottisfonts’ as unmistakably drunk as a man may be who is still upon his legs.

  He rushed past Markham in the hall before she had time to do more than notice that his manner was rather odd, and she called after him that Mrs. Mottisfont was in the drawing-room.

  David went up the stairs walking quite steadily, but his brain, under the influence of one idea, appeared to work in a manner entirely divorced from any volition of his.

  Mary was sitting before the fire, in the rosy glow of his imagining. She wore a dim purple gown, with a border of soft dark fur. A book lay upon her lap, but she was not reading. Her head, with its dark curls, rested against the rose-patterned chintz of the chair. Her skin was as white as a white rose leaf. Her lips as softly red as real red roses. A little amethyst heart hung low upon her bosom and caught the light. There was a bunch of violets at her waist. The room was sweet with them.

  Mary looked up half startled as David Blake came in. He shut the door behind him, with a push, and she was startled outright when she saw his face. He looked at her with glazed eyes, and smiled a meaningless and foolish smile.

  “Edward is out,” said Mary, “he is away.” And then she wished that she had said anything else. She looked at the bell, and wondered where Elizabeth was. Elizabeth had said something about going out—one of her sick people.

  “Yes—out,” said David, still smiling. “That’s why I’ve come. He’s out—Edward’s out—gone away. You’ll play to me—not to Edward—to-night. You’ll sit in this nice pink light and—play to me, won’t you—Mary dear?” The words slipped into one another, tripped, jostled, and came with a run.

  David advanced across the room, moving with caution, and putting each foot down slowly and carefully. His irritability had vanished. He felt instead a pleasant sense of warmth and satisfaction. He let himself sink into a chair and gazed at Mary.

  “Le’s sit down—and have nice long talk,” he said in an odd, thick voice; “we haven’t had—nice long talk—for months. Le’s talk now.”

  Mary began to tremble. Except in the streets, she had never seen a man drunk before, and even in the streets, passing by on the other side of the road, under safe protection, and with head averted, she had felt sick and terrified. What she felt now she hardly knew. She looked at the bell. She would have to pass quite close to David before she could reach it. Elizabeth—she might ring and ask if Elizabeth had come in. Yes, she might do that. She made a step forward, but as she reached to touch the bell, David leaned sideways, with a sudden heavy jerk, and caught her by the wrist.

  “What’s that for?” he asked.

  Suspicion roused in him again, and he frowned as he spoke. His face was very red, and his eyes looked black. Mary had cried out, when he caught her wrist. Now, as he continued to hold it, she stared at him in helpless silence. Then quite suddenly she burst into hysterical tears.

  “Let me go—oh, let me go! Go away, you’re not fit to be here! You’re drunk. Let me go at once! How dare you?”

  David continued to hold her wrist, not of any set purpose, but stupidly. He seemed to have forgotten to let it go. The heat and pressure of his hand, his slow vacant stare, terrified Mary out of all self-control. She tried to pull her hand away, and as David’s clasp tightened, and she felt her own helplessness, she screamed aloud, and almost as she did so the door opened sharply and Elizabeth Chantrey came into the room. She wore a long green coat, and dark furs, and her colour was bright and clear with exercise. For one startled second she stood just inside the room, with her hand upon the door. Then, as she made a step forward, David relaxed his grasp, and Mary, wrenching her hand away, ran sobbing to meet her sister.

  “Oh, Liz! Oh, Liz!” she cried.

  Elizabeth was cold to the very heart. David’s face—the heavy, animal look upon it—and Mary’s frightened pallor, the terror in he eyes. What had happened?

  She caught Mary by the arm.

  “What is it?”

  “He held me—he wouldn’t let me go. He caught my wrist when I was going to ring the bell, and held it. Make him go away, Liz.”

  Elizabeth drew a long breath of relief. She scarcely knew what she had feared, but she felt suddenly as if an intolerable weight had been lifted from her mind. The removal of this weight set her free to think and act.

  “Molly, hush! Do you hear me, hush! Pull yourself together! Do you know I heard you scream half-way up the stairs? Do you want the servants to hear too?”

  She spoke in low, rapid tones, and Mary caught her breath like a child.

  “But he’s tipsy, Liz. Oh, Liz, make him go away,” she whispered.

  David had got upon his feet. He was looking at the two women with a puzzled frown.

  “What’s the matter?” he said slowly, and Mary turned on him with a sudden spurt of temper.

  “I wonder you’re not ashamed,” she said in rather a trembling voice. “I do wonder you’re not—and will you please go away at once, or do you want the servants to come in, and every one to know how disgracefully you have behaved?”

  “Molly, hush!” said Elizabeth again.

  Her own colour died away, leaving her very pale. Her eyes were fixed on David with a look between pity and appeal. She left Mary and went to him.

  “David,” she said, putting her hand on his arm, “won’t you go home now? It’s getting late. It’s nearly dinner time, and I’m afraid we can’t ask you to stay to-night.”

  Something in her manner sobered David a little. Mary had screamed—why? What had he said to her—or done? She was angry. Why? Why did Elizabeth look at him like that? His mind was very much confused. Amid the confusion an idea presented itself to him. They thought that he was drunk. Well, he would show them, he would show them that he was not drunk. He stood for a moment endeavouring to bring the confusion of his brain into something like order. Then without a word he walked past Mary, and out of the room, walking quite steadily because a sober man walks steadily and he had to show them that he was sober.

  Mary stood by the door listening. “Liz,” she whispered, “he hasn’t gone down-stairs.” Her terror returned. “Oh, what is he doing? He has gone down the passage to Edward’s room. Oh, do you think he’s safe? Liz, ring the bell—do ring the bell.”

  Elizabeth shook her head. She came forward and put her hand on Mary’s shoulder.

  “No, Molly, it’s all right,” she said. She, too, listened, but Mary broke in on the silence with half a sob.

  “You don’t know how he frightened me. You don’t know how dreadful he was—like a great stupid animal. Oh, I don’t know how he dared to come to me like that. And my wrist aches still, it does, indeed. Oh! Liz, he’s coming back.”

  They heard his steps coming along the passage, heavy, deliberate steps. Mary moved quickly away from the door, but Elizabeth stood still, and David Blake touched her dress as he came back into the room and shut the door behind him. His hair was wet from a liberal application of cold water. His face was less flushed and his eyes had lost the vacant look. He was obviously making a very great effort, and as obviously Mary had n
o intention of responding to it. She stood and looked at him, and ceased to be afraid. This was not the stranger who had frightened her. This was David Blake again, the man whom she could play upon, and control. The fright in her eyes gave place to a dancing spark of anger.

  “I thought I asked you to go away,” she said, and David winced at the coldness of her voice.

  “Will you please go?”

  “Mary—”

  “If you want to apologise you can do so later—when you are fit,” said Mary, her brows arched over very scornful eyes.

  David was still making a great effort at self-control. He had turned quite white, and his eyes had rather a dazed look.

  “Mary, don’t,” he said, and there was so much pain in his voice that Elizabeth made a half step towards him, and then stopped, because it was not any comfort of hers that he desired.

  Mary’s temper was up, and she was not to be checked. She meant to have her say, and if it hurt David, why, so much the better. He had given her a most dreadful fright, and he deserved to be hurt. It would be very good for him. Anger reinforced by a high moral motive is indeed a potent weapon. Mary wielded it unmercifully.

  “Don’t—don’t,” she said. “Oh, of course not. You behave disgracefully—you take advantage of Edward’s being away—you come here drunk—and I’m not to say a word—”