David finished his letter. Then he said:
“Don't you want to go away this summer?”
“No,” said Elizabeth, a little surprised. “I don't think I do. Why?”
“Most people seem to go away. Mary would like you to go with her, would n't she?”
“Yes, but I 've told her I don't want to go. She won't be alone, you know, now that Edward finds that he can get away.”
David laughed.
“Poor old Edward,” he said. “A month ago this business could n't get on without him. He was conscience-ridden, and snatched exiguous half-hours for Mary and his beetles. And now it appears, that after all, the business can get on without him. I don't know quite how Macpherson brought that fact home to Edward. He must have put it very straight, and I 'm afraid that Edward's feelings were a good deal hurt. Personally, I should say that the less Edward interferes with Macpherson the more radiantly will bank-managers smile upon Edward. Edward is a well-meaning person. Mr. Mottisfont would have called him damn well-meaning. And you cannot damn any man deeper than that in business. No, Edward can afford to take a holiday better than most people. He will probably start a marine collection and be perfectly happy. Why don't you join them for a bit?”
“I don't think I want to,” said Elizabeth. “I 'm going up to London for Agneta's wedding next week. I don't want to go anywhere else. Do you want to get rid of me?”
To her surprise, David coloured.
“I?” he said. For a moment an odd expression passed across his face. Then he laughed.
“I might have wanted to flirt with Miss Dobell.”
Agneta Mainwaring was married at the end of July.
“It 's going to be the most awful show,” she wrote to Elizabeth. “Douglas and I spend all our time trying to persuade each other that it is n't going to be awful, but we know it is. All our relations and all our friends, and all their children and all their best clothes, and an amount of fuss, worry, and botheration calculated to drive any one crazy. If I had n't an enormous amount of self-control I should bolt, either with or without Douglas. Probably without him. Then he 'd have a really thrilling time tracking me down. It 's an awful temptation, and if you don't want me to give way to it, you 'd better come up at least three days beforehand, and clamp on to me. Do come, Lizabeth. I really want you.”
Elizabeth went up to London the day before the wedding, and Agneta detached herself sufficiently from her own dream to say:
“You 're not Issachar any longer. What has happened?”
“I don't quite know,” said Elizabeth. “I don't think the burden's gone, but I think that some one else is carrying it for me. I don't seem to feel it any more.”
Agneta smiled a queer little smile of understanding. Then she laughed.
“Good Heavens, Lizabeth, if any one heard us talking, how perfectly mad they would think us.”
Elizabeth found August a very peaceful month. A large number of her friends and acquaintances were away. There were no calls to be paid and no notes to be written. She and David were more together than they had been since the time in Switzerland, and she was happy with a strange brooding happiness, which was not yet complete, but which awaited completion. She thought a great deal about the child-the child of the Dream. She came to think of it as an indication that behind the Dream was the Real.
Mary came back on the 15th of September. She was looking very well, and was once more in a state of extreme contentment with Edward and things in general. When she had poured forth a complete catalogue of all that they had done, she paused for breath, and looked suddenly and sharply at Elizabeth.
“Liz,” she said. “Why, Liz.”
To Elizabeth 's annoyance, she felt herself colouring.
“Liz, and you never told me. Tell me at once. Is it true? Why did n't you tell me before?”
“Oh, Molly, what an Inquisitor you would have made!”
“Then it is true. And I suppose you told Agneta weeks ago?”
“I have n't told any one,” said Elizabeth.
“Not Agneta? And I suppose if I had n't guessed you would n't have told me for ages and ages and ages. Why did n't you tell me, Liz?”
“Why, I thought I 'd wait till you came back, Molly.”
Mary caught her sister's hand.
“Liz, are n't you glad? Are n't you pleased? Does n't it make you happy? Oh, Liz, if I thought you were one of those dreadful women who don't want to have a baby, I-I don't know what I should do. I wanted to tell everybody. But then I was pleased. I don't believe you 're a bit pleased. Are you?”
“I don't know that pleased is exactly the word,” said Elizabeth. She looked at Mary and laughed a little.
“Oh, Molly, do stop being Mrs. Grundy.”
Mary lifted her chin.
“Just because I was interested,” she said. “I suppose you 'd rather I did n't care.”
Then she relaxed a little.
“Liz, I 'm frightfully excited. Do be pleased and excited too. Why are you so stiff and odd? Is n't David pleased?”
She had looked away, but she turned quickly at the last words, and fixed her eyes on Elizabeth 's face. And for a moment Elizabeth had been off her guard.
Mary exclaimed.
“Is n't he pleased? Does n't he know? Liz, you don't mean to tell me-”
“I don't think you give me much time to tell you anything, Molly,” said Elizabeth.
“He does n't know? Liz, what 's happened to you? Why are you so extraordinary? It 's the sort of thing you read about in an early Victorian novel. Do you mean to say that you really have n't told David? That he does n't know?”
Elizabeth 's colour rose.
“Molly, my dear, do you think it is your business?” she said.
“Yes, I do,” said Mary. “I suppose you won't pretend you 're not my own sister. And I think you must be quite mad, Liz. I do, indeed, You ought to tell David at once-at once. I can't imagine what Edward would have said if he had not known at once. You ought to go straight home and tell him now. Married people ought to be one. They ought never to have secrets.”
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.