The Fire Within (7 page)

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. lt 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.

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 morning. 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
should n'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 have n'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 would n'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 has n'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 no 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—”

Her eyes sparkled, and her head was high. She gave a little angry
laugh, and turned towards the bell.

“Will you go, please, or must I ring for Markham?”

At her movement, and the sound of her laughter, David's self-control
gave way, suddenly and completely. The blood rushed violently to his
head. He took a long step towards her, and she stopped where she was in
sheer terror.

“You laugh,” he said, in a low tone of concentrated passion—“you
laugh—”

Then his voice leaped into fury. “I 've sold my soul for you, and
you laugh. I 'm in hell for you, and you laugh. I 'm drunk, and you
laugh. My God, for that at least you shall never laugh at me again. By
God, you shan't—”

He stood over her for a moment, looking down on her with terrible
eyes. Then he turned and went stumbling to the door, and so out, and,
in the dead silence that followed, they heard the heavy front door
swing to behind him.

Mary was clinging to a chair.

“Oh, Liz,” she whispered faintly, but Elizabeth turned and went out
of the room without a single word.