Patricia Wentworth - The Fire Within

Mary poured the whole thing out to Edward the same evening.

“I really don't know what has happened to Elizabeth,” she said. “She is quite changed. I can't understand her at all. I think it is quite wicked of her. If she does n't tell David soon, some one else ought to tell him.”

Edward moved uneasily in his chair.

“People don't like being interfered with,” he said.

“Well, I 'm sure nobody could call me an interfering person,” said Mary. “It is n't interfering to be fond of people. If I were n't fond of Liz, I should n't care how strangely she behaved. I do think it 's very strange of her-and I don't care what you say, Edward. I think David ought to be told. How would you have liked it if I 'd hidden things from you?”

Edward rumpled up his hair.

“People don't like being interfered with,” he said again.

At this Mary burst into tears, and continued to weep until Edward had called himself a brute sufficiently often to justify her contradicting him.

Elizabeth continued to wait. She was not quite as untroubled as she had been. The scene with Mary had brought the whole world of other people's thoughts and judgments much nearer. It was a troubling world. One full of shadows and perplexities. It pressed upon her a little and vexed her peace.

The days slid by. They had been pleasant days for David, too. For some time past he had been aware of a change in himself-a ferment. His old passion for Mary was dust. He looked back upon it now, and saw it as a delirium of the senses, a thing of change and fever. It was gone. He rejoiced in his freedom and began to look forward to the time when he and Elizabeth would enter upon a married life grounded upon friendship, companionship, and good fellowship. He had no desire to fall in love with Elizabeth, to go back to the old storms of passion and unrest. He cared a good deal for Elizabeth. When she was his wife he would care for her more deeply, but still on the same lines. He hoped that they would have children. He was very fond of children. And then, after he had planned it all out in his own mind, he became aware of the change, the ferment. What he felt did not come into the plan at all. He disliked it and he distrusted it, but none the less the change went on, the ferment grew. It was as if he had planned to walk on a clear, wide upland, under a still, untroubled air. In his own mind he had a vision of such a place. It was a place where a man might walk and be master of himself, and then suddenly-the driving of a mighty wind, and he could not tell from whence it came, or whither it went. The wind bloweth where it listeth. In those September days the wind blew very strongly, and as it blew, David came slowly to the knowledge that he loved Elizabeth. It was a love that seemed to rise in him from some great depth. He could not have told when it began. As the days passed, he wondered sometimes whether it had not been there always, deep amongst the deepest springs of thought and will. There was no fever in it. It was a thing so strong and sane and wholesome that, after the first wonder, it seemed to him to be a part of himself, a part which, missing, he had lost balance and mental poise.

He spoke to Elizabeth as usual, but he looked at her with new eyes. And he, too, waited.

He came home one day to find the household in a commotion. It appeared that Sarah had scalded her hand, Elizabeth was out, and Mrs. Havergill was divided between the rival merits of flour, oil, and a patent preparation which she had found very useful when suffering from chilblains. She safe-guarded her infallibility by remarking, that there was some as held with one thing and some as held with another. She also observed, that “scalds were 'orrid things.”

“Now, there was an 'ousemaid I knew, Milly Clarke her name was, she scalded her hand very much the same as you 'ave, Sarah, and first thing, it swelled up as big as my two legs and arter that it turned to blood-poisoning, and the doctors could n't do nothing for her, pore girl.”

At this point Sarah broke into noisy weeping and David arrived. When he had bound up the hand, consoled the trembling Sarah, and suggested that she should have a cup of tea, he inquired where Elizabeth was. She might be at Mrs. Mottisfont's, suggested Mrs. Havergill, as she followed him into the hall.

“You 're not thinking of sending Sarah to the 'orspital, are you sir?”

“No, of course not, she 'll be all right in a day or two. I 'll just walk up the hill and meet Mrs. Blake.”

“I 'm sure it 's a mercy she were out,” said Mrs. Havergill.

“Why?” said David, turning at the door. Mrs. Havergill assumed an air of matronly importance.

“It might ha' given her a turn,” she said, “for the pore girl did scream something dreadful. I 'm sure it give me a turn, but that 's neither here nor there. What I was thinking of was Mrs. Blake's condition, sir.”

Mrs. Havergill was obviously a little nettled at David's expression.

“Nonsense,” said David quickly.

Mrs. Havergill went back to Sarah.

“'Nonsense,' he says, and him a doctor. Why, there was me own pore mother as died with her ninth, and all along of a turn she got through seeing a child run over. And he says, 'Nonsense.'“

David walked up the hill in a state of mind between impatience and amusement. How women's minds did run on babies. He supposed it was natural, but there were times when one could dispense with it.

He found Mary at home and alone. “ Elizabeth? Oh, no, she has n't been near me for days,” said Mary. “As it happened, I particularly wanted to see her. But she has n't been near me.”

She considered that Elizabeth was neglecting her. Only that morning she had told Edward so.

“She does n't come to see me on purpose ,” she had said. “But I know quite well why. I don't at all approve of the way she 's going on, and she knows it. I don't think it 's right . I think some one ought to tell David. No, Edward, I really do. I don't understand Elizabeth at all, and she 's simply afraid to come and see me because she knows that I shall speak my mind.”

Now, as she sat and talked to David, the idea that it might be her duty to enlighten him presented itself to her mind afresh. A sudden and brilliant idea came into her head, and she immediately proceeded to act upon it.

“I had a special reason for wanting to see her,” she said. “I had a lovely box of things down from town on approval, and I wanted her to see them.”

“Things?” said David.

“Oh, clothes,” said Mary, with a wave of the hand. “You now they 'll send you anything now. By the way, I bought a present for Liz, though she does n't deserve it. Will you take it down to her? I 'll get it if you don't mind waiting a minute.”

She was away for five minutes, and then returned with a small brown-paper parcel in her hand.

“You can open it when you get home,” she said. “Open it and show it to Liz, and see whether you like it. Tell her I sent it with my love .”

“Now there won't be any more nonsense,” she told Edward.

Edward looked rather unhappy, but, warned by previous experience, said nothing,

David found Elizabeth in the dining-room. She was putting a large bunch of scarlet gladioli into a brown jug upon the mantelpiece.

“I 've got a present for you,” said David.

“David, how nice of you. It 's not my birthday.”

“I 'm afraid it 's not from me at all. I looked in to see if you were with Mary, and she sent you this, with her love. By the way, you 'd better go and see her, I think she 's rather huffed.”

As he spoke he was undoing the parcel. Elizabeth had her back towards him. The flowers would not stand up just as she wished them to.

“I can't think why Molly should send me a present,” she said, and then all at once something made her turn round.