The Fire Within

CHAPTER XVII. THE DREAM

DAVID came home after his month's holiday as hard and healthy as a man may be. Elizabeth was well content. She and David were friends. He liked her company, he ate and slept, he was well, and he laughed sometimes as the old David had laughed.

“Don't you think your master looks well, Mrs. Havergill?” she said quite gaily.

Mrs. Havergill sighed.

“He do look well,” she admitted; “but there, ma'am, there 's no saying-it is n't looks as we can go by. In my own family now, there was my sister Sarah. She was a fine, fresh-looking woman. Old Dr. Jones he met her out walking, as it might be on the Thursday.

“'Well, Miss Sarah, you do look well,' he says-and there, 't were n't but the following Tuesday as she was took. 'Who 'd ha' thought it,' he says. 'In the midst of life we are in death,' and that 's a true word. And my brother 'Enry now, 'e never look so well in all 'is life as when he was laying in 'is coffin.”

Elizabeth could afford to laugh.

“Oh, Mrs. Havergill, do be cheerful,” she implored; “it would be so much better for you.”

Mrs. Havergill looked injured.

“I don't see as we 're sent into this world to be cheerful,” she said, with the air of one who reproves unchristian levity.

“Oh, but we are-we really are,” said Elizabeth.

Mrs. Havergill shook her head.

“Let them be cheerful as has no troubles,” she remarked. “I 've 'ad mine, and a-plenty,” and she went out of the room, sighing.

Mary ran in to see her sister quite early on the morning after their return.

“Well, Liz-no, let me look at you-I 'll kiss you in a minute. Are you happy-you wrote dreadful guide-book letters, that I tore up and put in the fire.”

“Oh, Molly.”

“Yes, they were-exactly like Baedeker, only worse. All about mountains and flowers and the nice air, and 'David is quite well again.' As if anyone wanted to hear about mountains and flowers from a person on her honeymoon. Are you happy, Liz?”

“Don't I look happy?” said Elizabeth laughing.

“Yes, you do.” Mary looked at her considering. “You do. Is it all right, Liz, really all right?”

“Yes, it 's really all right, Molly,” said Elizabeth, and then she began to talk of other things.

Mary kissed her very affectionately when she went away, but at the door she turned, frowning.

“I expect you wrote reams to Agneta,” she said, and then shut the door quickly before Elizabeth had time to answer.

David was out when Mary came, and it so happened that for two or three days they did not meet. He had come to dread the meeting. His passion for Mary was dead. He was afraid lest her presence, her voice, should raise the dead and bring it forth again in its garment of glamour and pain. Then on Sunday he came in to find Mary sitting there with Elizabeth in the twilight. She jumped up as he came in, and held out her hand.

“Well, David, you are a nice brother-never to have come and seen me. Busy? Yes, of course you 've been busy, but you might have squeezed in a visit to me, amongst all the visits to sick old ladies and naughty little boys. Oh, do you know, Katie Ellerton has gone away? She took Ronnie to Brighton for a change, and then wrote and said she was n't coming back. I believe she is going to live with a brother who is a solicitor down there. And she 's selling her furniture, so if you want extra things you might get them cheap.”

“That 's Elizabeth 's department,” said David, laughing.

“Well, this is for you both. When will you come to dinner? On Tuesday? Yes, do. Talk about being busy. Edward 's busy, if you like. I never see him, and he 's quite worried. Liz, you remember Jack Webster? Well, you know he 's on the West Coast, and he 's sent Edward a whole case of things-frightfully exciting specimens, two centipedes he 's wanted for ever so long, and a spider that Jack says is new. And Edward has never even had time to open the case. That shows you! It 's accounts, I believe. Edward does hate accounts.”

When she had gone David sat silent for a long time. It was the old Mary, and prettier than ever. He had never seen her looking prettier, but his feeling for her was gone. He could look at her quite dispassionately, and wonder over the old unreasoning thrill. And what a chatterbox she was. Thank Heaven, she had had the sense to marry Edward, who was really not such a bad sort. Poor Edward. He laughed aloud suddenly, and Elizabeth looked up asked:

“What is it?”

“Edward and the case he can't open, and the centipedes he can't play with,” he said, still laughing. “Poor old Edward! What it is to have a conscience. I wonder he does n't have a midnight orgy with the centipedes, but I suppose Mary sees to that.”

It was that night that David dreamed his dream again. All these months it had never come to him. Amongst the many dreams that had haunted his sick brain, there had been no hint of this one. He had wondered about it sometimes. And now it returned. In the first deep sleep that comes to a healthy man he dreamed it.

He heard the wind blowing-that was the beginning of it. It came from the far distances of space, and it passed on again to the far distances beyond. David heard it blow, but his eyes were darkened. Then suddenly he saw. His feet were on the shining sand, the sand that shone because a golden moon looked down upon it from a clear sky, and the tide had left it wet.

David stood upon the shining sand, and saw the Woman of the Dream stand where the moon track ceased at the sea's rim. The moon was behind her head, and the wind blew out her hair. He stood as he had stood a hundred times, and as he had longed a hundred times to see the Woman's face, so he longed now. He moved to go to her, and the wind blew about him in his dream.

Elizabeth had sat late in her room. There was a book in her hand, but after a time she did not read. The night was very warm. She got up and opened the window wide. The moon was low and nearly full, and a wind blew out of the west-such a warm wind, full of the scent of green, growing things. Elizabeth put out the light and stood by the window, drawing long breaths. It seemed as if the wind were blowing right through her. It beat upon her uncovered throat, and the touch of it was like something alive. It sang in her ears, and Elizabeth 's blood sang too.

And then, quite suddenly, she heard a sound that stopped her heart. She heard the handle of the door between her room and David's turn softly, and she heard a step upon the threshold. All her life was at her heart, waiting. She could neither move, nor speak, nor draw her breath. And the wind blew out her long white dress, and the wind blew out her hair. As in a trance between one world and the next, she heard a voice in the room. It was David's voice, and yet not David's voice, and it shook the very foundations of her being.

“Turn round and let me see your face, Woman of my Dream,” said David Blake.

Elizabeth stood quite still. Only her breath came again. The wind brought it back to her, and as she drew it in, the step came near and David said again:

“Show me your face-your face; I have never seen your face.”

She turned then, very slowly-in obedience to an effort, that left her drained of strength.

David was standing in the middle of the room. His feet were bare, as he had risen from his bed, but his eyes were open, and they looked not at, but through Elizabeth, to the place where she walked in his dream.

“Ah!” said David on a long, slow, sudden breath.

He came nearer-nearer. Now he stood beside her, and the wind swept suddenly between them, and eddying, drove a great swathe of her unfastened hair across his breast. David put up his hand and touched the hair.

“But I can't see your face,” he said, in a strange, complaining note. “The moon shines on your hair, but not upon your face. Show me your face-your face-”

She moved, and the moon shone on her. Her face was as white as ivory. Her eyes wide and dark-as dark as the darkening sky. They stood in silence, and the moon sank low.

Then David put out his hands and touched her on the breast.

“Now I have seen your face,” he said. “Now I am content because I have seen your face. I have gone hungry for the sight of it, and have gone thirsty for the love of you, and all the years I have never seen your face.”

“And now-?”

Elizabeth 's voice came in a whisper.

“Now I am content.”

“Why?”

“Your face is the face of Love,” said David Blake.

His hands still held her hair. They lay against her heart, and moved a little as she breathed.

A sudden terror raised its head and peered at Elizabeth. Mary-oh, God-if he took her for Mary. The thought struck her as with a spear of ice. It burned as ice burns, and froze her as ice freezes. Her lips were stiff as she forced out the words:

“Who am I? Say.”

His hands were warm. He answered her at once.

“We are in the Dream, you and I. You are the Woman of the Dream. Your face is the face of Love, and your hair-your floating hair-” He paused.

“My hair-what colour is my hair?” whispered Elizabeth.

“Your hair-” He lifted a strand of it. The wind played through it, and it brushed his cheek, then fell again upon her breast. His hand closed down upon it.

“What colour is my hair?” said Elizabeth very quietly. Mary's hair would be dark. If he said dark hair, dark like the night which would close upon them when that low moon was gone-what should she do-oh, god, what should she do?

“Your hair is gold-moon gold, which is pale as a dream,” said David Blake. And a great shudder ran through Elizabeth from head to foot as the ice went from her heart.

“Like moon gold,” repeated David, and his hands were warm against her breast.

And then all at once they were in the dark together, for the moon went out suddenly like a blown candle. She had dropped into a bank of clouds that rose from the clouding west. The wind blew a little chill, and as suddenly as the light had gone, David, too, was gone. One moment, so near-touching her in the darkness-and the next, gone-gone noiselessly, leaving her shaking, quivering.

When she could move, she lit a candle and looked in through the open door. David lay upon his side, with one hand under his cheek. He was sleeping like a child.

Elizabeth shut the door.