Patricia Wentworth - The Fire Within

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.

He got up to go as the clock struck seven.

Elizabeth put out her hand to him as she had always done.

“And you will let me help you?”

“No, not yet-not till afterwards,” he said.

“It makes no difference, David, you know. It is just what I would do for any one who wanted it-”

He shook his head. There was a reaction upon him, a withdrawal.

“Not yet-not till afterwards. I 'll give old Byng's stuff a chance,” he said obstinately, and then went out with just a bare good-night.