“'Yes, ma'am,' I says, expecting every moment as she 'd up and say, 'and one 'ere, too, Mrs. Havergill,' but no, not a blessed word, and me sure of it for weeks. But there-they're all the same with the first, every one's to be blind and deaf. All the same, Sarah, my girl, if she don't want it talked about, she don't, so just you mind and don't talk, not if she don't say nothing till the christening's ordered.”
When Elizabeth knew that she was going to have a child, her first thought was, “Now, I must tell David,” and her next, “How can I tell him, how can I possibly tell him?” She lay on her bed in the darkness and faced the situation. If she told David, and he did not believe her-that was possible, but not probable. If she told him, and he believed her as to the facts-but believed also that this strange development was due in some way to some influence of hers-conscious or unconscious hypnotism-the thought broke off half-way. If he believed this-and it was likely that he would believe it- Elizabeth covered her eyes with her hand. Even the darkness was no shield. How should she meet David's eyes in the light, if he were to believe this? What would he think of her? What must he think of her? She began to weep slow tears of shame and agony. What was she to do? To wait until some accident branded her in David's eyes, or to go to him with a most unbelievable tale? She tried to find words that she could say, and she could find none. Her flesh shrank, and she knew that she could not do it. There were no words. The tears ran slowly, very slowly, between her fingers. Elizabeth was cold. The room was full of the empty dark. All the world was dark and empty too. She lay quite still for a very long time. Then there came upon her a curious gradual sense of companionship. It grew continually. At the last, she took her hands from before her face and opened her eyes. And there was a light in the room. It shed no glow on anything-it was just a light by itself. A steady, golden light. It was not moonlight, for there was no moon. Elizabeth lay and looked at it. It was very radiant and very soft. She ceased to weep and she ceased to be troubled. She knew with a certainty that never faltered again, that she and David were one. Whether he would become conscious of their oneness during the space of this short mortal dream, she did not know, but it had ceased to matter. The thing that had tormented her was her own doubt. Now that was stilled for ever-Love walked again among the realities, pure and unashamed. The things of Time-the mistakes, the illusions, the shadows of Time-moved in a little misty dream, that could not touch her. Elizabeth turned on her side. She was warm and she was comforted.
She slept.
CHAPTER XXIII. ELIZABETH WAITS
And they that have seen and heard,
Have wrested a gift from Fate
That no man taketh away.
For they hold in their hands the key,
To all that is this-side Death,
And they count it as dust by the way,
As small dust, driven before the breath
Of Winds that blow to the day.
“DO you remember my telling you about my dream?” said David, next day. He spoke quite suddenly, looking up from a letter that he was writing.
“Yes, I remember,” said Elizabeth. She even smiled a little.
“Well, it was so odd-I really don't know what made me think of it just now, but it happened to come into my head-do you know that I dreamt it every night for about a fortnight? That was in May. I have never done such a thing before. Then it stopped again quite suddenly, and I have n't dreamt it since. I wonder whether speaking of it to you-” he broke off.
“I wonder,” said Elizabeth.
“You see it came again and again. And the strange part was that I used to wake in the morning feeling as if there was a lot more of it. A lot more than there used to be. Things I could n't remember-I don't know why I tell you this.”
“It interests me,” said Elizabeth.
“You know how one forgets a dream, and then, quite suddenly, you just don't remember it. It 's the queerest thing-something gets the impression, but the brain does n't record it. It 's most amazingly provoking. Just now, while I was writing to Fossett, bits of something came over me like a flash. And now it 's gone again. Do you ever dream?”
“Sometimes,” said Elizabeth.
This was her time to tell him. But Elizabeth did not tell him. It seemed to her that she had been told, quite definitely, to wait, and she was dimly aware of the reason. The time was not yet.
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.