Patricia Wentworth - The Fire Within

Presently she heard David come up and go into his room. She went on rolling up stray bits of lace and ribbon with fingers that seemed oddly numb. When she had finished, she began to brush her hair, standing before the glass, and brushing with a long, rhythmic movement. After about ten minutes she turned suddenly and blew out the candle. She went to the window and opened it wide.

Then, because she was trembling, she sat down on the window-seat and waited. The night came into the room and filled it. The trees moved above the water. The rumble of traffic in the High Street sounded very far away. It had nothing to do with the world in which Elizabeth waited. There was no wind to-night. It was very still and warm. The moon shone.

When the door opened, Elizabeth knew that she had known that he would come. He crossed the room and took her in his arms. She felt his arms about her, she felt his kiss, and there was nothing of the unsubstantial stuff of dreams in his strong clasp. For one moment, as her lips kissed too, she thought that he was awake-that he had remembered, but as she stepped back and looked into his face she saw that he was in his dream. His eyes looked far away. Then he kissed her again, and dreaming or waking her soul went out of her and was his soul, her very consciousness was no more hers, but his, and she, too, saw that strange, moon-guarded shore, and she, too, heard the wind. But the night-the night was still. Where did it come from, this sudden rush of the wind, that seemed to blow through her? From far away it came, from very far away, and it passed through her and on to its own far place again, a rushing eddy of wind, whirling about some unknown centre.

Elizabeth was giddy and faint with the singing of that wind in her ears. The moon was in her eyes. She trembled, and hid them upon David's breast.

“David,” she whispered at last, and he answered her.

“Love-love-”

She turned a little from the light and looked at him. There was a smile upon his face, and his eyes smiled too.

“Where are we?” she said. And David laid his face against hers and said:

“We are in the Dream.”

“David, what is the Dream? Do you know? Tell me.”

“It is the Dream,” he said, “the old dream, the dream that has no waking.”

“And who am I? Am I Elizabeth?” She feared so much to say it, and could not rest till it was said.

“ Elizabeth.” He repeated the word, and paused. His eyes clouded.

“You are the Woman of the Dream.”

“But I have a name-”

“Yes-you have a name, but I have forgotten-if I could remember it. It is the name-the old name-the name you had before the moon went down. It was at night. You kissed me. There were so many trees. I knew your name. Then the moon went down, and it was dark, and I forgot-not you-only the name. Are you angry, love, because I have forgotten your name?”

There was trouble in his tone.

“No, not angry,” said Elizabeth, with a quiver in her voice. “Will you call me Elizabeth, David? Will you say Elizabeth to me?”

He said “ Elizabeth,” and as he said it his face changed. For a moment she thought that he was waking. His arms dropped from about her, and he drew a long, deep breath that was like a sigh.

Then he went slowly from her into the darkness of his own room, walking as if he saw.

Elizabeth fell on her knees by the window-seat and hid her face. The wind still sang in her ears.

THEY dined with Edward and Mary next day. The centipedes were still immured, and Edward made tentative overtures to David on the subject of broaching the case after dinner.

“Edward is the soul of hospitality,” David said afterwards. “He keeps his best to the end. First a positively good dinner, then some comparatively enjoyable music, and, last of all, the superlatively enthralling centipedes.”

At the time, he complied with a very good grace. He even contrived a respectable degree of enthusiasm when the subject came up.

It was Mary who insisted on the comparatively agreeable music.

“No-I will not have you two going off by yourselves the moment you 've swallowed your dinner. It 's not good for people. Edward will certainly have indigestion-yes, Edward, you know you will. Come and have coffee with us in a proper and decent fashion, and we 'll have some music, and then you shall do anything you like, and I 'll talk to Elizabeth.”

Edward sang only one song, and then said that he was hoarse, which was not true. But Elizabeth was glad when the door closed upon him and David, for the song Edward had sung was the one thing on earth which she felt least able to hear. He sang, O Moon of my Delight , transposed by Mary to suit his voice, and he sang it with his usual tuneful correctness.

Elizabeth looked up only once, and that was just at the end. David was looking at her with a frown of perplexity. But as Edward remarked that he was hoarse, David passed his hand across his eyes for a moment, as if to brush something away, and rose with alacrity to leave the room.

When they were gone Mary drew a chair close to her sister and sat down. She was rather silent for a time, and Elizabeth was beginning to find it hard to keep her own thoughts at bay, when Mary said in a new, gentle voice:

“Liz, I 'm so happy .”

“Are you, Molly?” She spoke rather absently, and Mary became softly offended.

“Don't you want to know why, Liz? I don't believe you care a bit. I don't believe you 'd mind if I were ever so miserable, now that you 've got David, and are happy yourself!”

Elizabeth came back to her surroundings.

“Oh, Molly, what a goose you are, and what a monster you make me out. What is it, Mollykins, tell me?”

“I 've a great mind not to. I don't believe you really care. I would n't tell you a word, only I can't help it. Oh, Liz, I 'm going to have a baby, and I thought I never should. I was making myself wretched about it.”

She caught Elizabeth 's hand and squeezed it.

“Oh, Liz, be glad for me. I 'm so glad and happy, and I want some one to be glad too. You don't know how I 've wanted it. No one knows. I 've simply hated all the people in the Morning Post who had babies. I 've not even read the first column for weeks, and when Sybil Delamere sent me an invitation to her baby's christening-she was married the same day I was, you know-I just tore it up and burnt it. And now it 's really coming to me, and you 're to be glad for me, Liz.”

“Molly, darling, I am glad-so glad.”

“Really?”

Mary looked up into her sister's face, searchingly.

“You 're thinking of me, really of me-not about David, as you were just now? Oh, yes, I knew.”

Elizabeth laughed.

“Really, Molly, may n't I think of my own husband?”

“Not when I 'm telling you about a thing like this,” said Mary. “Liz, you are the first person I have told, the very first.”

Elizabeth did not allow her thoughts to wander again. As they talked, the rain beat heavily against the windows, and they heard the rush of it in the gutters below.

“What a pity,” Mary cried. “How quickly it has come up, and last night was so lovely. Did you see the moon? And to-night it is full.”