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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/9665-8.txt b/9665-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..edc027c --- /dev/null +++ b/9665-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13587 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Delia Blanchflower, by Mrs. Humphry Ward + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Delia Blanchflower + +Author: Mrs. Humphry Ward + +Posting Date: November 15, 2011 [EBook #9665] +Release Date: January, 2006 +First Posted: October 14, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DELIA BLANCHFLOWER *** + + + + +Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Charlie +Kirschner and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + + + + + + DELIA + + BLANCHFLOWER + + + BY + + + MRS. HUMPHRY WARD + + AUTHOR "LADY ROSE'S DAUGHTER," ETC. + + + Frontispiece in color by + + WILL FOSTER + + + + +DELIA BLANCHFLOWER + + + + +Chapter I + + +"Not a Britisher to be seen--or scarcely! Well, I can do without 'em +for a bit!" + +And the Englishman whose mind shaped these words continued his +leisurely survey of the crowded salon of a Tyrolese hotel, into which a +dining-room like a college hall had just emptied itself after the +mid-day meal. Meanwhile a German, sitting near, seeing that his tall +neighbour had been searching his pockets in vain for matches, offered +some. The Englishman's quick smile in response modified the German's +general opinion of English manners, and the two exchanged some remarks +on the weather--a thunder shower was splashing outside--remarks which +bore witness at least to the Englishman's courage in using such +knowledge of the German tongue as he possessed. Then, smoking +contentedly, he leant against the wall behind him, still looking on. + +He saw a large room, some seventy feet long, filled with a +miscellaneous foreign crowd--South Germans, Austrians, Russians, +Italians--seated in groups round small tables, smoking, playing cards +or dominoes, reading the day's newspapers which the funicular had just +brought up, or lazily listening to the moderately good band which was +playing some Rheingold selection at the farther end. + +To his left was a large family circle--Russians, according to +information derived from the headwaiter--and among them, a girl, +apparently about eighteen, sitting on the edge of the party and +absorbed in a novel of which she was eagerly turning the pages. From +her face and figure the half savage, or Asiatic note, present in the +physiognomy and complexion of her brothers and sisters, was entirely +absent. Her beautiful head with its luxuriant mass of black hair, worn +low upon the cheek, and coiled in thick plaits behind, reminded the +Englishman of a Greek fragment he had admired, not many days before, in +the Louvre; her form too was of a classical lightness and perfection. +The Englishman noticed indeed that her temper was apparently not equal +to her looks. When her small brothers interrupted her, she repelled +them with a pettish word or gesture; the English governess addressed +her, and got no answer beyond a haughty look; even her mother was +scarcely better treated. + +Close by, at another table, was another young girl, rather younger than +the first, and equally pretty. She too was dark haired, with a delicate +oval face and velvet black eyes, but without any of the passionate +distinction, the fire and flame of the other. She was German, +evidently. She wore a plain white dress with a red sash, and her little +feet in white shoes were lightly crossed in front of her. The face and +eyes were all alive, it seemed to him, with happiness, with the mere +pleasure of life. She could not keep herself still for a moment. Either +she was sending laughing signals to an elderly man near her, presumably +her father, or chattering at top speed with another girl of her own +age, or gathering her whole graceful body into a gesture of delight as +the familiar Rheingold music passed from one lovely _motif_ to another. + +"You dear little thing!" thought the Englishman, with an impulse of +tenderness, which passed into foreboding amusement as he compared the +pretty creature with some of the matrons sitting near her, with one in +particular, a lady of enormous girth, whose achievements in eating and +drinking at meals had seemed to him amazing. Almost all the middle-aged +women in the hotel were too fat, and had lost their youth thereby, +prematurely. Must the fairy herself--Euphrosyne--come to such a muddy +vesture in the end? Twenty years hence?--alack! + +"Beauty that must die." The hackneyed words came suddenly to mind, and +haunted him, as his eyes wandered round the room. Amid many coarse or +commonplace types, he yet perceived an unusual number of agreeable or +handsome faces; as is indeed generally the case in any Austrian hotel. +Faces, some of them, among the very young girls especially, of a +rose-tinted fairness, and subtly expressive, the dark brows arching on +white foreheads, the features straight and clean, the heads well +carried, as though conscious of ancestry and tradition; faces, also, of +the _bourgeoisie_, of a simpler, Gretchen-like beauty; faces--a few--of +"intellectuals," as he fancied,--including the girl with the +novel?--not always handsome, but arresting, and sometimes noble. He +felt himself in a border land of races, where the Teutonic and Latin +strains had each improved the other; and the pretty young girls and +women seemed to him like flowers sprung from an old and rich soil. He +found his pleasure in watching them--the pleasure of the Ancient +Mariner when he blessed the water-snakes. Sex had little to say to it; +and personal desire nothing. Was he not just over forty?--a very busy +Englishman, snatching a hard-earned holiday--a bachelor, moreover, +whose own story lay far behind him. + +"_Beauty that must die_" The words reverberated and would not be +dismissed. Was it because he had just been reading an article in a new +number of the _Quarterly_, on "Contemporary Feminism," with mingled +amazement and revolt, roused by some of the strange facts collected by +the writer? So women everywhere--many women at any rate--were turning +indiscriminately against the old bonds, the old yokes, affections, +servitudes, demanding "self-realisation," freedom for the individuality +and the personal will; rebelling against motherhood, and life-long +marriage; clamouring for easy divorce, and denouncing their own +fathers, brothers and husbands, as either tyrants or fools; casting +away the old props and veils; determined, apparently, to know +everything, however ugly, and to say everything, however outrageous? He +himself was a countryman, an English provincial, with English public +school and university traditions of the best kind behind him, a mind +steeped in history, and a natural taste for all that was ancient and +deep-rooted. The sketch of an emerging generation of women, given in +the _Quarterly_ article, had made a deep impression upon him. It seemed +to him frankly horrible. He was of course well acquainted, though +mainly through the newspapers, with English suffragism, moderate and +extreme. His own country district and circle were not, however, much +concerned with it. And certainly he knew personally no such types as +the _Quarterly_ article described. Among them, no doubt, were the women +who set fire to houses, and violently interrupted or assaulted Cabinet +ministers, who wrote and maintained newspapers that decent people would +rather not read, who grasped at martyrdom and had turned evasion of +penalty into a science, the continental type, though not as yet +involved like their English sisters in a hand-to-hand, or fist-to-fist +struggle with law and order, were, it seemed, even more revolutionary +in principle, and to some extent in action. The life and opinions of a +Sonia Kovalevski left him bewildered. For no man was less omniscient +than he. Like the Cabinet minister of recent fame, in the presence of +such _femmes fortes_, he might have honestly pleaded, _mutatis +mutandis_, "In these things I am a child." + +Were these light-limbed, dark-eyed maidens under his eyes touched with +this new anarchy? They or their elders must know something about it. +There had been a Feminist congress lately at Trient--on the very site, +and among the ghosts of the great Council. Well, what could it bring +them? Was there anything so brief, so passing, if she did but know it, +as a woman's time for happiness? "_Beauty that must die_." + +As the words recurred, some old anguish lying curled at his heart +raised its head and struck. He heard a voice--tremulously +sweet--"Mark!--dear Mark!--I'm not good enough--but I'll be to you all +a woman can." + +_She_ had not played with life--or scorned it--or missed it. It was not +_her_ fault that she must put it from her. + +In the midst of the crowd about him, he was no longer aware of it. +Still smoking mechanically, his eyelids had fallen over his eyes, as +his head rested against the wall. + +He was interrupted by a voice which said in excellent though foreign +English-- + +"I beg your pardon, sir--I wonder if I might have that paper you are +standing on?" + +He looked down astonished, and saw that he was trampling on the day's +_New York Herald_, which had fallen from a table near. With many +apologies he lifted it, smoothed it out, and presented it to the +elderly lady who had asked for it. + +She looked at him through her spectacles with a pleasant smile. + +"You don't find many English newspapers in these Tyrolese hotels?" + +"No; but I provide myself. I get my _Times_ from home." + +"Then, as an Englishman, you have all you want. But you seem to be +without it to-night?" + +"It hasn't arrived. So I am reduced, as you see, to listening to the +music." + +"You are not musical?" + +"Well, I don't like this band anyway. It makes too much noise. Don't +you think it rather a nuisance?" + +"No. It helps these people to talk," she said, in a crisp, cheerful +voice, looking round the room. + +"But they don't want any help. Most of them talk by nature as fast as +the human tongue can go!" + +"About nothing!" She shrugged her shoulders. + +Winnington observed her more closely. She was, he guessed, somewhere +near fifty; her scanty hair was already grey, and her round, plain face +was wrinkled and scored like a dried apple. But her eyes, which were +dark and singularly bright, expressed both energy and wit; and her +mouth, of which the upper lip was caught up a little at one corner, +seemed as though quivering with unspoken and, as he thought, sarcastic +speech. Was she, perchance, the Swedish _Schriftstellerin_ of whom he +had heard the porter talking to some of the hotel guests? She looked a +lonely-ish, independent sort of body. + +"They seem nice, kindly people," he said, glancing round the salon. +"And how they enjoy life!" + +"You call it life?" + +He laughed out. + +"You are hard upon them, madame. Now I--being a mere man--am lost in +admiration of their good looks. We in England pride ourselves on our +women, But upon my word, it would be difficult to match this show in an +English hotel. Look at some of the faces!" + +She followed his eyes--indifferently. + +"Yes--they've plenty of beauty. And what'll it do for them? Lead them +into some wretched marriage or other--and in a couple of years there +will be neither beauty nor health, nor self-respect, nor any interest +in anything, but money, clothes, and outwitting their husbands." + +"You forget the children!" + +"Ah--the children"--she said in a dubious tone, shrugging her shoulders +again. + +The Englishman--whose name was Mark Winnington--suddenly saw light +upon her. + +A Swedish writer, a woman travelling alone? He remembered the sketch of +"feminism" in Sweden which he had just read. The names of certain +woman-writers flitted through his mind. He felt a curiosity mixed with +distaste. But curiosity prevailed. + +He bent forward. And as he came thereby into stronger light from a +window on his left, the thought crossed the mind of his neighbour that +although so fully aware of other people's good looks, the tall +Englishman seemed to be quite unconscious of his own. Yet in truth he +appeared both to her, and to the hotel guests in general, a kind of +heroic creature. In height he towered beside the young or middle-aged +men from Munich, Buda-Pesth, or the north Italian towns, who filled the +_salon_. He had all that athlete could desire in the way of shoulders, +and lean length of body; a finely-carried head, on which the brown hair +was wearing a little thin at the crown, while still irrepressibly +strong and curly round the brow and temple; thick penthouse brows, and +beneath them a pair of greyish eyes which had already made him friends +with the children and the dogs and half the grown-ups in the place. The +Swedish lady admitted--but with no cordiality--that human kindness +could hardly speak more plainly in a human face than from those eyes. +Yet the mouth and chin were thin, strong and determined; so were the +hands. The man's whole aspect, moreover, spoke of assured position, and +of a keen intelligence free from personal pre-occupations, and keeping +a disinterested outlook on the world. The woman who observed him had in +her handbag a book by a Russian lady in which Man, with a capital, +figured either as "a great comic baby," or as the "Man-Beast," invented +for the torment of women. The gentleman before her seemed a little +difficult to fit into either category. + +But if she was observing him, he had begun to question her. + +"Will you forgive me if I ask an impertinent question?" + +"Certainly. They are the only questions worth asking." + +He laughed. + +"You are, I think, from Sweden?" + +"That is my country." + +"And I am told you are a writer?" She bent her head. "I can see also +that you are--what shall I say?--very critical of your sex--no doubt, +still more of mine! I wonder if I may ask "-- + +He paused, his smiling eyes upon her. + +"Ask anything you like." + +"Well, there seems to be a great woman-movement in your country. Are +you interested in it?" + +"You mean--am I a feminist? Yes, I happen to dislike the word; but it +describes me. I have been working for years for the advancement of +women. I have written about it--and in the Scandinavian countries we +have already got a good deal. The vote in Sweden and Norway; almost +complete equality with men in Denmark. Professional equality, too, has +gone far. We shall get all we want before long?" Her eyes sparkled in +her small lined face. + +"And you are satisfied?" + +"What human being of any intelligence--and I am intelligent," she +added, quietly,--"ever confessed to being 'satisfied'? Our shoe pinched +us. We have eased it a good deal." + +"You really find it substantially better to walk with?" + +"Through this uncomfortable world? Certainly. Why not?" + +He was silent a little. Then he said, with his pleasant look, throwing +his head back to observe her, as though aware he might rouse her +antagonism. + +"All that seems to me to go such a little way." + +"I daresay," she said, indifferently, though it seemed to him that she +flushed. "You men have had everything you want for so long, you have +lost the sense of value. Now that we want some of your rights, it is +your cue to belittle them. And England, of course, is hopelessly +behind!" The tone had sharpened. + +He laughed again and was about to reply when the band struck up Brahm's +Hungarian dances, and talk was hopeless. When the music was over, and +the burst of clapping, from all the young folk especially, had died +away, the Swedish lady said abruptly-- + +"But we had an English lady here last year--quite a young girl--very +handsome too--who was an even stronger feminist than I." + +"Oh, yes, we can produce them--in great numbers. You have only to look +at our newspapers." + +His companion's upper lip mocked at the remark. + +"You don't produce them in great numbers--like the young lady I speak +of." + +"Ah, she was good-looking?" laughed Winnington. "That, of course, gave +her a most unfair advantage." + +"A man's jest," said the other dryly--"and an old one. But naturally +women take all the advantage they can get--out of anything. They need +it. However, this young lady had plenty of other gifts--besides her +beauty. She was as strong as most men. She rode, she climbed, she sang. +The whole hotel did nothing but watch her. She was the centre of +everything. But after a little while she insisted on leaving her father +down here to over-eat himself and play cards, while she went with her +maid and a black mare that nobody but she wanted to ride, up to the +_Jagd-hütte_ in the forest. There!--you can see a little blue smoke +coming from it now"-- + +She pointed through the window to the great forest-clothed cliff, some +five thousand feet high, which fronted the hotel; and across a deep +valley, just below its topmost point, Mark Winnington saw a puff of +smoke mounting into the clear sky. + +--"Of course there was a great deal of talk. The men gossipped and the +women scoffed. Her father, who adored her and could not control her in +the least, shrugged his shoulders, played bridge all day long with an +English family, and would sit on the verandah watching the path--that +path there--which comes down from the _Jagd-hütte_ with a spy-glass. +Sometimes she would send him down a letter by one of the Jager's boys, +and he would send a reply. And every now and then she would come +down--riding--like a Brunhilde, with her hair all blown about her--and +her eyes--_Ach_, superb!" + +The little dowdy woman threw up her hands. + +Her neighbour's face shewed that the story interested and amused him. + +"A Valkyrie, indeed! But how a feminist?" + +"You shall hear. One evening she offered to give an address at the +hotel on 'Women and the Future.' She was already of course regarded as +half mad, and her opinions were well known. Some people objected, and +spoke to the manager. Her father, it was said, tried to stop it, but +she got her own way with him. And the manager finally decided that the +advertisement would be greater than the risk. When the evening came the +place was _bondé_; people came from every inn and pension round for +miles. She spoke beautiful German, she had learnt it from a German +governess who had brought her up, and been a second mother to her; and +she hadn't a particle of _mauvaise honte_. Somebody had draped some +Austrian and English flags behind her. The South Germans and Viennese, +and Hungarians who came to listen--just the same kind of people who are +here to-night--could hardly keep themselves on their chairs. The men +laughed and stared--I heard a few brutalities--but they couldn't keep +their eyes off her, and in the end they cheered her. Most of the women +were shocked, and wished they hadn't come, or let their girls come. And +the girls themselves sat open-mouthed--drinking it in." + +"Amazing!" laughed the Englishman. "Wish I had been there! Was it an +onslaught upon men?" + +"Of course," said his companion coolly. "What else could it be? At +present you men are the gaolers, and we the prisoners in revolt. This +girl talked revolution--they all do. 'We women _intend_ to have equal +rights with you!--whatever it cost. And when we have got them we shall +begin to fashion the world as _we_ want it--and not as you men have +kept it till now. _Gare ŕ vous!_ You have enslaved us for ages--you may +enslave us a good while yet--but the end is certain. There is a new age +coming, and it will be the age of the free woman!'--That was the kind +of thing. I daresay it sounds absurd to you--but as she put it--as she +looked it--I can tell you, it was fine!" + +The small, work-worn hands of the Swedish lady shook on her knee. Her +eyes seemed to hold the Englishman at bay. Then she added, in another +tone. + +"Some people of course walked out, and afterwards there were many +complaints from fathers of families that their daughters should have +been exposed to such a thing. But it all passed over." + +"And the young lady went back to the forest?" + +"Yes,--for a time." + +"And what became of the black mare?" + +"Its mistress gave her to an inn-keeper here when she left. But the +first time he went to see the horse in the stable, she trampled on him +and he was laid up for weeks." + +"Like mistress, like mare?--Excuse the jest! But now, may I know the +name of the prophetess?" + +"She was a Miss Blanchflower," said the Swedish lady, boggling a little +over the name. "Her father had been a governor of one of your +colonies." + +Winnington started forward in his chair. + +"Good heavens!--you don't mean a daughter of old Bob Blanchflower!" + +"Her father's name was Sir Robert Blanchflower." + +The tanned face beside her expressed the liveliest interest. + +"Why, I knew Blanchflower quite well. I met him long ago when I was +staying with an uncle in India--at a station in the Bombay presidency. +He was Major Blanchflower then"-- + +The speaker's brow furrowed a little as though under the stress of some +sudden recollection, and he seemed to check himself in what he was +saying. But in a moment he resumed:-- + +"A little after that he left the army, and went into Parliament. +And--precisely!--after a few years they made him governor +somewhere--not much of a post. Then last year his old father, a +neighbour of mine in Hampshire, quite close to my little place, went +and died, and Blanchflower came into a fortune and a good deal of land +besides. And I remember hearing that he had thrown up the Colonial +Service, had broken down in health, and was living abroad for some +years to avoid the English climate. That's the man of course. And the +Valkyrie is Blanchflower's daughter! Very odd that! I must have seen +her as a child. Her mother"--he paused again slightly--"was a Greek by +birth, and gloriously handsome. Blanchflower met her when he was +military attaché at Athens for a short time.--Well, that's all very +interesting!" + +And in a ruminating mood the Englishman took out his cigarette-case. + +"You smoke, Madame?" + +The Swedish lady quietly accepted the courtesy. And while the too +insistent band paused between one murdered Wagnerian fragment and +another, they continued a conversation which seemed to amuse them both. + + * * * * * + +A little later the Englishman went out into the garden of the hotel, +meaning to start for a walk. But he espied a party of young people +gathered about the new lawn-tennis court where instead of the languid +and dishevelled trifling, with a broken net and a wretched court, that +was once supposed to attract English visitors, he had been already +astonished to find Austrians and Hungarians--both girls and +boys--playing a game quite up to the average of a good English club. +The growing athleticism and independence, indeed, of the foreign girl, +struck, for Winnington, the note of change in this mid-European +spectacle more clearly than anything else. It was some ten years since +he had been abroad in August, a month he had been always accustomed to +spend in Scotch visits; and these young girls, with whom the Tyrol +seemed to swarm, of all European nationalities other than English, +still in or just out of the schoolroom; hatless and fearless; with +their knapsacks on their backs, sometimes with ice-axes in their hands; +climbing peaks and passes with their fathers and brothers; playing +lawn-tennis like young men, and shewing their shapely forms sometimes, +when it was a question of attacking the heights, in knicker-bocker +costume, and at other times in fresh white dresses and bright-coloured +jerseys, without a hint of waist; these young Atalantas, budding and +bloomed, made the strongest impression upon him, as of a new race. +Where had he been all these years? He felt himself a kind of Rip van +Winkle--face to face at forty-one with a generation unknown to him. No +one of course could live in England, and not be aware of the change +which has passed over English girls in the same direction. But the +Englishman always tacitly assumes that the foreigner is far behind him +in all matters of open-air sport and physical development. Winnington +had soon confessed the touch of national arrogance in his own surprise; +and was now the keen and much attracted spectator. + +On one of the grounds he saw the little German girl--Euphrosyne, as he +had already dubbed her--having a lesson from a bullying elder brother. +The youth, amazed at his own condescension, scolded his sister +perpetually, and at last gave her up in despair, vowing that she would +never be any good, and he was not going to waste his time in teaching +such a ninny. Euphrosyne sat down beside the court, with tears in her +pretty eyes, her white feet crossed, her dark head drooping; and two +girl companions, aged about sixteen or seventeen, like herself, came up +to comfort her. + +"I could soon shew you how to improve your service, Mademoiselle," said +Winnington, smiling, as he passed her. Euphrosyne looked up startled, +but at sight of the handsome middle-aged Englishman, whom she unkindly +judged to be not much younger than her father, she timidly replied:-- + +"It is hateful, Monsieur, to be so stupid as I am!" + +"Let me shew you," repeated Winnington, kindly. At this moment, a +vigilant English governess--speaking with a strong Irish-American +accent--came up, and after a glance at the Englishman, smilingly +acquiesced. The two comforters of Euphrosyne, graceful little maids, +with cherry-coloured jerseys over their white frocks, and golden brown +hair tied with the large black bows of the _Backfisch_, were eager to +share the lesson, and soon Winnington found himself the centre of a +whole bevy of boys and girls who had run up to watch Euphrosyne's +performance. + +The English governess, a good girl, in spite of her accent, and the +unconscious fraud she was thereby perpetrating on her employers, +thought she had seldom witnessed a more agreeable scene. + +"He treats them like princesses, and yet he makes them learn," she +thought, a comment which very fairly expressed the mixture of something +courtly with something masterful in the Englishman's manner. He was +patience itself; but he was also frankness itself, whether for praise +or blame; and the eagerness to please him grew fast and visibly in all +these young creatures. + +But as soon as he had brought back Euphrosyne's smiles, and roused a +new and fierce ambition to excel in all their young breasts, he dropped +the lesson, with a few gay slangy words, and went his way, leaving a +stir behind him of which he was quite unconscious. And there was no +Englishman looking on who might have told the charmed and conquered +maidens that they had just been coached by one of the most famous of +English athletes, born with a natural genius for every kind of game, +from cricket downwards. + + * * * * * + +On his way to the eastern side of the pass on which stood the group of +hotels, Winnington got his post from the _concierge_, including his +nightly _Times_, and carried it with him to a seat with which he was +already familiar. + +But he left the _Times_ unopened, for the spectacle before him was one +to ravish the senses from everything but itself. He looked across the +deep valley of the Adige, nearly four thousand feet below him, to the +giant range of the Dolomite Alps on the eastern side. The shadow of the +forest-clad mountain on which he stood spread downwards over the plain, +and crept up the mountains on the farther edge. Above a gulf of deepest +blue, inlaid with the green of vineyards and forest lakes, he beheld an +aerial world of rose-colour--the giant Dolomites, Latemar, Rosengarten, +Schlern--majestic rulers of an upper air, so pure and luminous, that +every tiny shadow cast by every wisp of wandering cloud on the bare red +peaks, was plainly visible across the thirty miles of space. +Rosengarten, with its snowless, tempest-beaten crags, held the centre, +flushing to its name; and to the right and left, peak ranged beyond +peak, like courtiers crowding to their king; chief among them a vast +pyramid, blood-red in the sunset, from which the whole side, it seemed, +had been torn away, leaving a gash so fresh it might have been ripped +by a storm of yesterday, yet older perhaps than Calvary.... + +The great show faded through every tone of delicate beauty to a starry +twilight,--passion into calm. Winnington watched till it was done, +still with the Keatsian tag in his mind, and that deep inner memory of +loss, to which the vanished splendour of the mountains seemed to make a +mystic answering. He was a romantic--some would have said a sentimental +person, with a poet always in his pocket, and a hunger for all that +might shield him from the worst uglinesses of life, and the worst +despairs of thought; an optimist, and, in his own sense, Christian. He +had come abroad to wander alone for a time, because as one of the +busiest, most important and most popular men in a wide country-side, he +had had a year of unceasing and strenuous work, with no time to +himself; and it had suddenly been borne in upon him, in choosing +between the Alps and Scotland, that a man must sometimes be alone, for +his soul's health. And he had never relished the luxury of occasional +solitude so sharply as on this pine-scented evening in Tyrol. + +It was not till he was sitting again under the electric light of the +hotel verandah that he opened his _Times_. The first paragraph which +his eye lit upon was an obituary notice of Sir Robert Blanchflower +"whose death, after a long illness and much suffering, occurred last +week in Paris." The notice ended with the words--"the deceased baronet +leaves a large property both in land and personalty. His only child, a +daughter, Miss Delia Blanchflower, survives him." + +Winnington laid down the paper. So the Valkyrie was now alone in the +world, and mistress no doubt of all her father's wealth. "I must have +seen her--I am sure there was a child about"; he said to himself again; +and his thoughts went groping into a mostly forgotten past, and as he +endeavoured to reconstruct it, the incident which had brought him for a +few weeks into close relations with Robert Blanchflower, then Major +Blanchflower of the--Dragoons, came at last vividly back to him. + +An easy-going husband--a beautiful wife, not vicious, but bored to +death--the inevitable third, in the person of a young and amorous +cavalry officer--and a whole Indian station, waiting, half maliciously, +half sadly, for the _banal_ catastrophe:--it was thus he remembered the +situation. Winnington had arrived on the scene as a barrister of some +five years' standing, invalided after an acute attack of pneumonia, and +the guest for the winter of his uncle, then Commissioner of the +district. He discovered in the cavalry officer a fellow who had been +his particular protégé at Eton, and had owed his passionately coveted +choice for the Eleven largely to Winnington's good word. The whole +dismal little drama unveiled itself, and Winnington was hotly moved by +the waste and pity of it. He was entertained by the Blanchflowers and +took a liking to them both. The old friendship between Winnington and +the cavalryman was soon noticed by Major Blanchflower, and one night he +walked home with Winnington, who had been dining at his house, to the +Commissioner's quarters. Then, for the first time, Winnington realised +what it may be to wrestle with a man in torment. The next day, the +young cavalryman, at Winnington's invitation, took his old friend for a +ride, and before dawn on the following day, the youth was off on leave, +and neither Major nor Mrs. Blanchflower, Winnington believed, had ever +seen him again. What he did with the youth, and how he did it, he +cannot exactly remember, but at least he doesn't forget the grip of +Blanchflower's hand, and the look of deliverance in his strained, +hollow face. Nor had Mrs. Blanchflower borne her rescuer any grudge. He +had parted from her on the best of terms, and the recollection of her +astonishing beauty grows strong in him as he thinks of her. + +So now it is her daughter who is stirring the world! With her father's +money and her mother's eyes,--not to speak of the additional +trifles--eloquence, enthusiasm, &c.--thrown in by the Swedish woman, +she ought to find it easy. + +The dressing-gong of the hotel disturbed a rather sleepy reverie, and +sent the Englishman back to his _Times_. And a few hours later he went +to a dreamless bed, little guessing at the letter which was even then +waiting for him, far below, in the Botzen post-office. + + + + +Chapter II + + +Winnington took his morning coffee on a verandah of the hotel, from +which the great forests of Monte Vanna were widely visible. Upwards +from the deep valley below the pass, to the topmost crags of the +mountain, their royal mantle ran unbroken. This morning they were +lightly drowned in a fine weather haze, and the mere sight of them +suggested cool glades and verdurous glooms, stretches of pink willow +herb lighting up the clearings--and in the secret heart of them such +chambers "deaf to noise and blind to light" as the forest lover knows. +Winnington promised himself a leisurely climb to the top of Monte +Vanna. The morning foretold considerable heat, but under the pines one +might mock at Helios. + +Ah!--Euphrosyne! + +She came, a vision of morning, tripping along in her white shoes and +white dress; followed by her English governess, the lady, as Winnington +guessed, from West Belfast, tempered by Brooklyn. The son apparently +was still in bed, nor did anyone trouble to hurry him out of it. The +father, a Viennese judge _en retraite_, as Winnington had been already +informed by the all-knowing porter of the hotel, was a shrewd +thin-lipped old fellow, with the quiet egotism of the successful +lawyer. He came up to Winnington as soon as he perceived him, and +thanked him in good English for his kindness to Euphrosyne of the day +before. Winnington responded suitably and was soon seated at their +table, chatting with them while they took their coffee. Euphrosyne +shewed a marked pleasure in his society, and upon Winnington, steeped +in a holiday reaction from much strenuous living, her charm worked as +part of the charm of the day, and the magic of the mountain world. He +noticed, however, with a revival of alarm, that she had a vigorous +German appetite of her own, and as he watched the rolls disappear he +trembled for the slender figure and the fawn-like gait. + +After breakfast, while the governess and the girl disappeared, the +father hung over the verandah smoking, beside the Englishman, to whom +he was clearly attracted. He spoke quite frankly of his daughter, and +her bringing up. "She is motherless; her mother died when she was ten +years old; and since, I must educate her myself. It gives me many +anxieties, but she is a sweet creature, _dank sei gott_! I will not let +her approach, even, any of these modern ideas about women. My wife +hated them; I do also. I shall marry her to an honest man, and she will +make a good wife and a good house-mother." + +"Mind you choose him well!" said Winnington, with a shrug. His eyes at +that moment were critically bent on a group of Berliners, men of the +commercial and stock-broking class, who, with their wives, had arrived +a couple of nights before. The men were strolling and smoking below. +They were all fat, red-faced and overbearing. When they went for walks, +the man stalked in front along the forest paths, and the woman followed +behind, carrying her own jacket. Winnington wondered what it might be +like to be the wife of any of them. These _Herren_ at any rate might +not be the worse for a little hustling from the "woman movement." He +could not, however, say honestly that the wives shewed any +consciousness of ill-fortune. They were almost all plump, plumper even +than their husbands, expensively dressed and prosperous looking; and +the amount of Viennese beer they consumed at the forest restaurants to +which their husbands conducted them, seemed to the Englishman +portentous. + +"Yes, my daughter is old-fashioned," resumed the ex-judge, +complacently, after a pause. "And I am grateful to Miss Johnson, who +has trained her very well. If she were like some of the girls one sees +now! Last year there was a young lady here--_Ach, Gott!_" He raised his +shoulders, with a contemptuous mouth. + +"Miss Blanchflower?" asked Winnington, turning towards the speaker with +sudden interest. + +"That I believe was her name. She was mad, of course. _Ach_, they have +told you?--of that _Vortrag_ she gave?--and the rest? After ten +minutes, I made a sign to my daughter, and we walked out. I would not +have had her corrupted with these ideas for the whole world. And such +beauty, you understand! That makes it more dangerous. _Ja, ja, +Liebchen--ich komme gleich!_" + +For there had been a soft call from Euphrosyne, standing on the steps +of the hotel, and her fond father hurried away to join her. + +At the same moment, the porter emerged, bearing a bundle of letters and +newspapers which had just arrived. Eager for his _Times_ Winnington +went to meet him, and the man put into his hands what looked like a +large post. He carried it off into the shelter of the pines, for the +sun was already blazing on the hotel. Two or three letters on county +business he ran through first. His own pet project, as County +Councillor,--a county school for crippled children, was at last getting +on. Foundation stone to be laid in October--good! "But how the deuce +can I get hold of some more women to help work it! Scandalous, how few +of the right sort there are about! And as for the Asylums Committee, if +we really can't legally co-opt women to it, as our clerk says"--he +looked again at a letter in his hand--"the law is an ass!--a +double-dyed ass. I swear I won't visit those poor things on the women's +side again. It's women's work--let them do it. The questions I have to +ask are enough to make an old gamp blush. Hallo, what's this?" + +He turned over a large blue envelope, and looked at a name stamped +across the back. It was the name of a well-known firm of London +solicitors. But he had no dealings with them, and could not imagine why +they should have written to him. + +He opened the letter carelessly, and began to read it,--presently with +eager attention, and at last with amazement. + +It ran as follows: + + "From Messrs. MORTON, MANNERS & LATHOM, + Solicitors, + Adelphi, + London, W. C." + +"Dear Sir,--We write on behalf of Lord Frederick Calverly, your +co-executor, under Sir Robert Blanchflower's will, to inform you that +in Sir Robert's last will and testament--of which we enclose a +copy--executed at Meran six weeks before his decease, you are named as +one of his two executors, as sole trustee of his property, and sole +guardian of Sir Robert's daughter and only child, Miss Delia +Blanchflower, until she attains the age of twenty-five. We believe that +this will be a complete surprise to you, for although Sir Robert, +according to a statement he made during his last illness to his sister, +Miss Elizabeth Blanchflower, intended to communicate with you before +signing the will, his weakness increased so rapidly, after it was +finally drawn up, that he was never able to do so. Indeed the morning +after his secretary had written out a clear copy of what he himself had +put together, he had a most alarming attack from which he rallied with +difficulty. That afternoon he signed the will, and was just able to +write you the letter which we also enclose, marked by himself, as you +will see. He was never properly conscious afterwards, and he died in +Paris last Thursday, and was buried in the Protestant cemetery at Mont +Parnasse on the Saturday following. The will which was in our custody +was opened in London yesterday, by Lord Frederick Calverly, in Miss +Blanchflower's presence. We understand from her that she has already +written to you on the subject. Lord Frederick would also have done so, +but that he has just gone to Harrogate, in a very poor state of health. +He begs us to say that he is of course quite aware that your +engagements may not allow you to accept the functions offered you under +the will, and that he will be in considerable anxiety until he knows +your decision. He hopes that you will at least accept the executorship; +and indeed ventures to appeal very strongly on that account to your old +friendship for Sir Robert; as he himself sees no prospect of being able +to carry out unaided the somewhat heavy responsibilities attaching to +the office. + +"You will see that a sum of Ł4000 is left to yourself under the will." + + We remain, dear Sir, + + Your obedient servants, + + MORTON, MANNERS & LATHOM. + "(Solicitors.)" + + "MARK WINNINGTON, Esq., J. P. + Bridge End, Maumsey, + Hants." + +A bulky document on blue paper, and also a letter had dropped to the +ground. Winnington stooped for the letter, and turned it over in +stupification. It was addressed in a faltering hand, and marked, "To be +forwarded after my death." He hastily broke the seal. + +"MY DEAR MARK WINNIXGTON,--I know well what I am laying upon you. I +have no right to do it. But I remember certain days in the past, and I +believe if you are still the same man you were then, you will do what I +ask. My daughter ought to be a fine woman. At present she seems to me +entirely and completely out of her mind. She has been captured by the +extreme suffrage movement, and by one of the most mischievous women in +it; and I have no influence with her whatever. I live in terror of what +she may do; of what they may lead her to do. To attempt to reason with +her is useless; and for a long time my health has been such that I have +avoided conflict with her as much as possible. But things have now come +to such a pass that something must be done, and I have tried in these +last weeks, ill as I am, to face the future. I want if I can to save +Delia from wasting herself, and the money and estates I should +naturally leave her, upon this mad campaign. I want, even against her +will, to give her someone to advise and help her. I feel bitterly that +I have done neither. The tropics ruined me physically, and I seem to +have gone to pieces altogether the last few years. But I love my child, +and I can't leave her without a real friend or support in the world. I +have no near relations, except my sister Elizabeth, and she and Delia +are always at feud. Freddie Calverly my cousin, is a good fellow in his +way, though too fussy about his health. He has a fair knowledge of +business, and he would have been hurt if I had not made him executor. +So I have appointed him, and have of course left him a little money. +But he could no more tackle Delia than fly. In the knock-about life we +have led since I left the Colonial Service, I seem to have shed all my +old friends. I can think of no one who could or would help me in this +strait but you--and you know why. God bless you for what you once did +for me. There was never any other cloud between my poor wife and me. +She turned to me after that trouble, and we were happy till the end. + +"I have heard too something of you from Maumsey people, since I +inherited Maumsey, though I have never been able to go there. I know +what your neighbours think of you. And now Delia is going to be your +neighbour. So, drawing a bow at a venture, as a dying man must, I have +made you Delia's guardian and trustee, with absolute power over her +property and income till she is twenty-five. When she attains that +age--she is now nearly twenty-two--if she marries a man approved by +you, or if you are satisfied that her connection with militant +suffragism has ceased, the property is to be handed over to her in full +possession, and the trust will come to an end. If on the contrary, she +continues in her present opinion and course of action, I have left +directions that the trust is to be maintained for Delia's life-time, +under certain conditions as to her maintenance, which you will find in +the will. If you yourself are not willing to administer the trust, +either now or later, the property will devolve to the Public Trustee, +for whom full instructions are left. And at Delia's death it will be +divided among her heirs, if she has any, and various public objects. + +"I cannot go further into details. My strength is almost out. But this +one thing may I beg?--if you become my child's guardian, get the right +person to live with her. I regard that as all-important. She must have +a chaperon, and she will try to set up one of the violent women who +have divided her from me. Especially am I in dread of a lady, an +English lady, a Miss Marvell, whom I engaged two years ago to stay with +us for the winter and read history with Delia. She is very able and a +very dangerous woman, prepared I believe, to go to any length on behalf +of her 'cause.' At any rate she filled Delia's head with the wildest +suffragist notions, and since then my poor child thinks of nothing +else. Even since I have been so ill--this last few weeks--I know she +has been in communication with this woman. She sympathises with all the +horrible things they do, and I am certain she gives all the money she +can to their funds. Delia is a splendid creature, but she is vain and +excitable and they court her. I feel that they might tempt her into any +madness. + +"Goodbye. I made the doctor give me strychnine and morphia enough to +carry me through this effort. I expect it will be the last. Help me, +and my girl--if you can--for old sake's sake. Goodbye." + + Your grateful old friend, + + "ROBERT BLANCHFLOWER." + +"Good heavens!" was all Winnington could find to say, as he put down +the letter. + +Then, becoming aware, as the verandah filled after breakfast, that he +was in a very public place, he hastily rose, thrust the large +solicitor's envelope, with its bulky enclosures into his coat pocket, +and proceeded to gather up the rest of his post. As he did so, he +suddenly perceived a black-edged letter, addressed in a remarkably +clear handwriting, with the intertwined initials D. B. in the corner. + +A fit of silent laughter, due to his utter bewilderment, shook him. He +put the letter with all its fellows into another pocket and hurried +away into the solitude of the woods. It was some time before he had +succeeded in leaving all the tourists' paths and seats behind. At last +in a green space of bilberry and mossy rock, with the pines behind him, +and the chain of the Dolomites, sun-bathed, in front, he opened and +read his "ward's" first letter to him. + +"DEAR MR. WINNINGTON,--I understood--though very imperfectly--from my +father, before he died, that he had appointed you my guardian and +trustee till I should reach the age of twenty-five, and he explained to +me so far as he could his reason for such a step. And now I have of +course read the will, and the solicitors have explained to me clearly +what it all means. + +"You will admit I think that I am placed in a very hard position. If my +poor father had not been so ill, I should certainly have tried to argue +with him, and to prevent his doing anything so unnecessary and unjust +as he has now done--unjust both to you and to me. But the doctors +absolutely forbade me to discuss any business with him, and I could do +nothing. I can only hope that the last letter he wrote to you, just +before his death, and the alterations he made in his will about the +same time, gave him some comfort. If so, I do not grudge them for one +moment. + +"But now you and I have to consider this matter as sensible people, and +I suggest that for a man who is a complete stranger to me, and probably +altogether out of sympathy with the ideas and principles, I believe in +and am _determined_ to act upon--(for otherwise my father would not +have chosen you)--to undertake the management of my life and affairs, +would be really grotesque. It must lead to endless friction and trouble +between us. If you refuse, the solicitors tell me, the Public +Trustee--which seems to be a government office--will manage the +property, and the Court of Chancery will appoint a guardian in +accordance with my father's wishes. That would be bad enough, +considering that I am of full age and in my right mind--I can't promise +to give a guardian chosen in such a way, a good time. But at any rate, +it would be less odious to fight a court and an office, if I must +fight, than a gentleman who is my near neighbour in the county, and was +my father's and mother's friend. I do hope you will think this over +very carefully, and will relieve both yourself and me from an +impossible state of things. I perfectly realise of course that my +father appointed you my guardian, in order to prevent me from making +certain friends, and doing certain things. But I do not admit the right +of any human being--not even a father--to dictate the life of another. +I intend to stick to my friends, And to do what my conscience directs. + +"Should you however accept the guardianship--after this candid +statement of mine--you will, I suppose, feel bound to carry out my +father's wishes by refusing me money for the purposes he disapproved. +He told me indeed that I should be wholly dependent on my guardian for +money during the next three years, even though I have attained my legal +majority. I can say to you what I could not say to him, that I +_bitterly resent_ an arrangement which treats a grown person like a +child. Such things are not done to _men_. It is only women who are the +victims of them. It would be _impossible_ to keep up friendly relations +with a guardian, who would really only be there--only exist--to thwart +and coerce me. + +"Let me point out that at the very beginning a difference must arise +between us, about the lady I am to live with. I have chosen my chaperon +already, as it was my moral, if not my legal right to do. But I am +quite aware that my father disapproved of her, and that you will +probably take the same view. She belongs to a militant suffrage +society, and is prepared at any moment to suffer for the great cause +she and I believe in. As to her ability, she is one of the cleverest +women in England. I am only too proud that she has consented--for a +time--to share my life, and nothing will _induce_ me to part with +her--as long as she consents to stay. But of course I know what you--or +any ordinary man--is likely to think of her. + +"No!--we cannot agree--it is impossible we should agree--as guardian +and ward. If indeed, for the sake of your old friendship with my +father, you would retain the executorship--I am sure Lord Frederick +Calverly will be no sort of use!--till the affairs of the will, +death-duties, debts, and so on, are settled--and would at the same time +give up _any_ other connection with the property and myself, I should +be enormously grateful to you. And I assure you I should be very glad +indeed--for father's sake--to have your advice on many points connected +with my future life; and I should be all the more ready to follow it, +if you had renounced your legal power over me. + +"I shall be much obliged if you will make your decision as soon as +possible, so that both the lawyer and I may know how to proceed." + + Yours faithfully, + + DELIA BLANCHFLOWER. + +Mark Winnington put down the letter. Its mixture of defiance, patronage +and persuasion--its young angry cleverness--would have tickled a +naturally strong sense of humour at any other time. But really the +matter was too serious to laugh at. + +"What on earth am I to do!" + +He sat pondering, his mind running through a number of associated +thoughts, of recollections old and new; those Indian scenes of fifteen +years ago; the story told him by the Swedish lady; recent incidents and +happenings in English politics; and finally the tone in which +Euphrosyne's father had described the snatching of his own innocent +from the clutches of Miss Blanchflower. + +Then it occurred to him to look at the will. He read it through; a +tedious business; for Sir Robert had been a wealthy man and the +possessions bequeathed--conditionally bequeathed--to his daughter were +many and various. Two or three thousand acres of land in one of the +southern counties, bordering on the New Forest; certain large interests +in Cleveland ironstone and Durham collieries, American and South +African shares, Canadian mortgage and railway debentures:--there was +enough to give lawyers and executors work for some time, and to provide +large pickings for the Exchequer. Among the legacies, he noticed the +legacy of Ł4000 to himself. + +"Payment for the job!" he thought, and shook his head, smiling. + +The alternative arrangements made for transferring the trust to the +Public Trustee, should Winnington decline, and for vesting the +guardianship of the daughter in the Court of Chancery, subject to the +directions of the will, till she should reach the age of twenty-five, +were clear; so also was the provision that unless a specific signed +undertaking was given by the daughter on attaining her twenty-fifth +birthday, that the moneys of the estate would not be applied to the +support of the "militant suffrage" propaganda, the trust was to be made +permanent, a life income of Ł2000 a year was to be settled on Miss +Blanchflower, and the remainder, i.e. by far the major part of Sir +Robert's property, was to accumulate, for the benefit of his daughter's +heirs should she have any, and of various public objects. Should Miss +Blanchflower sign the undertaking and afterwards break it, the Public +Trustee was directed to proceed against her, and to claim the +restitution of the property, subject always to her life allowance. + +"Pretty well tied up," thought Winnington, marvelling at the strength +of feeling, the final exasperation of a dying man, which the will +betrayed. His daughter must somehow--perhaps without realising it--have +wounded him to the heart. + +He began to climb again through the forest that he might think the +better. What would be the situation, supposing he undertook what his +old friend asked of him? + +He himself was a man of moderate means and settled habits. His small +estate and modest house which a widowed sister shared with him during +six months in the year, left him plenty of leisure from his own +affairs, and he had filled that leisure, for years past, to +overflowing, with the various kinds of public work that fall to the +country gentleman with a conscience. He was never idle; his work +interested him, and there was no conceit in his quiet knowledge that he +had many friends and much influence. Since the death of the girl to +whom he had been engaged for six short months, fifteen years before +this date, he had never thought of marriage. The circumstances of her +death--a terrible case of lingering typhoid--had so burnt the pity of +her suffering and the beauty of her courage into his mind, that natural +desire seemed to have died with her. He had turned to hard work and the +bar, and equally hard physical exercise, and so made himself master +both of his grief and his youth. But his friendships with women had +played a great part in his subsequent life. A natural chivalry, deep +based, and, in manner, a touch of caressing charm, soon evoked by those +to whom he was attached, and not easily confounded in the case of a man +so obviously manly with any lack of self-control, had long since made +him a favourite of the sex. There were few women among his +acquaintances who did not covet his liking; and he was the repository +of far more confidences than he had ever desired. No one took more +trouble to serve; and no one more carelessly forgot a service he had +himself rendered, or more tenaciously remembered any kindness done him +by man, woman or child. + +His admiration for women was mingled indeed often with profound pity; +pity for the sorrows and burdens that nature had laid upon them, for +their physical weakness, for their passive role in life. That beings so +hampered could yet play such tender and heroic parts was to him +perennially wonderful, and his sense of it expressed itself in an +unconscious homage that seemed to embrace the sex. That the homage was +not seldom wasted on persons quite unworthy of it, his best women +friends were not slow to see; but in this he was often obstinate and +took his own way. + +This mingling in him of an unfailing interest in the sex with an entire +absence of personal craving, gave him a singularly strong position with +regard to women, of which he had never yet taken any selfish advantage; +largely, no doubt, because of the many activities, most of them +disinterested, by which his life was fed and freshened; as a lake is by +the streams which fill it. + +He was much moved by his old friend's letter, and he walked about +pondering it, till the morning was almost gone. The girl's position +also seemed to him particularly friendless and perilous, though she +herself, apparently, would be the last person to think so, could she +only shake herself free from the worrying restrictions her father had +inflicted on her. Her letter, and its thinly veiled wrath, shewed quite +plainly that the task of any guardian would be a tough one. Miss +Blanchflower was evidently angry--very angry--yet at the same time +determined, if she could, to play a dignified part; ready, that is, to +be civil, on her own conditions. The proposal to instal as her +chaperon, instantly, without a day's delay, the very woman denounced in +her father's last letter, struck him as first outrageous, and then +comic. He laughed aloud over it. + +Certainly--he was not bound in any way to undertake such a business. +Blanchflower had spoken the truth when he said that he had no right to +ask it. And yet-- + +His mind dallied with it. Suppose he undertook it, on what lines could +he possibly run it? His feeling towards the violent phase of the +"woman's movement," the militancy which during the preceding three or +four years had produced a crop of outrages so surprising and so ugly, +was probably as strong as Blanchflower's own. He was a natural +Conservative, and a trained lawyer. Methods of violence in a civilised +and constitutional State, roused in him indignant abhorrence. He could +admit no excuse for them; at any rate no justification. + +But, fundamentally? What was his real attitude towards this wide-spread +claim of women, now so general in many parts of the world admitted +indeed in some English Colonies, in an increasing number of the +American states, in some of the minor European countries--to share the +public powers and responsibilities of men? Had he ever faced the +problem, as it concerned England, with any thoroughness or candour? Yet +perhaps Englishmen--all Englishmen--had now got to face it. + +Could he discover any root of sympathy in himself with what were +clearly the passionate beliefs of Delia Blanchflower, the Valkyrie of +twenty-one, as they were also the passionate beliefs of the little +Swedish lady, the blue-stocking of fifty? If so, it might be possible +to guide, even to control such a ward, for the specified three years, +at any rate, without exciting unseemly and ridiculous strife between +her and her guardian. + +"I ought to be able to do it"--he thought--"without upsetting the +apple-cart!" + +For, as he examined himself he realised that he held no closed mind on +the subject of the rights or powers or grievances of women. He had +taken no active part whatever in the English suffragist struggle, +either against woman suffrage or for it; and in his own countryside it +mattered comparatively little. But he was well aware what strong forces +and generous minds had been harnessed to the suffrage cause, since Mill +first set it stirring; and among his dearest women friends there were +some closely connected with it, who had often mocked or blamed his own +indifference. He had always thought indeed, and he thought still--for +many reasons--that they attributed a wildly exaggerated importance to +the vote, which, as it seemed to him, went a very short way in the case +of men. But he had always been content to let the thing slide; having +so much else to do and think about. + +Patience then, and respect for honest and disinterested conviction, in +any young and ardent soul; sharp discrimination between lawful and +unlawful means of propaganda, between debate, and stone-throwing; no +interference with the first, and a firm hand against the +second:--surely, in that spirit, one might make something of the +problem? Winnington was accustomed to be listened to, to get round +obstacles that other men found insuperable. It was scarcely conceit, +but a just self-confidence which suggested to him that perhaps Miss +Blanchflower would not prove so difficult after all. Gentleness, +diplomacy, decision,--by Jove, they'd all be wanted! But his legal +experience (he had been for some years a busy barrister), and his later +life as a practical administrator had not been a bad training in each +and all of these qualities. + +Of course, if the girl were merely obstinate and stupid, the case might +indeed be hopeless. But the picture drawn by the Swedish woman of the +"Valkyrie" on her black mare, of the ardent young lecturer, facing her +indifferent or hostile audience with such pluck and spirit, dwelt with +him, and affected him strongly. His face broke into amusement as he +asked himself the frank question--"Would you do it, if you hadn't heard +that tale?--if you knew that your proposed ward was just a plain +troublesome chit of a schoolgirl, bitten with suffragism?" + +He put the question to himself, standing on a pinnacle of shadowed +rock, from which the world seemed to sink into blue gulfs beneath him, +till on the farther side of immeasurable space the mountains +re-emerged, climbing to the noonday sun. + +And he answered it without hesitation. Certainly, the story told him +had added a touch of romance to the bare case presented by the batch of +letters:--had lent a force and point to Robert Blanchflower's dying +plea, it might not otherwise have possessed. For, after all, he, +Winnington, was a very busy man; and his life was already mortgaged in +many directions. But as it was--yes--the task attracted him. + +At the same time, the twinkle in his grey eyes shewed him ironically +aware of himself. + +"Understand, you old fool!--the smallest touch of philandering--and the +whole business goes to pot. The girl would have you at her mercy--and +the thing would become an odious muddle and hypocrisy, degrading to +both. Can you trust yourself? You're not exactly made of flint: Can you +play the part as it ought to be played?" + +Quietly, his face sank into rest. For him, there was that in memory, +which protected him from all such risks, which had so protected him for +fifteen years. He felt quite sure of himself. Ever since his great loss +he had found his natural allies and companions among girls and young +women as much as among men. The embarrassment of sex seemed to have +passed away for him, but not the charm. Thus, he took what for him was +the easier path of acceptance. Kindly and scrupulous as he was, it +would have been hard for him in any case to say No to the dead, more +difficult than to say it to the living. Yes!--he would do what was +possible. _The Times_ that morning contained a long list of outrages +committed by militant suffragists--houses burnt down, meetings +disturbed, members attacked. In a few months, or weeks, perhaps, +without counsel to aid or authority to warn her, the Valkyrie might be +running headlong into all the perils her father foresaw. He pledged +himself to protect her if he could. + + * * * * * + +The post which left the hotel that evening took with it a short note +from Mark Winnington to Messrs. Morton, Manners & Lathom, accepting the +functions of executor, guardian and trustee offered him under Sir +Robert Blanchflower's will, and appointing an interview with them at +their office; together with a somewhat longer one addressed to "Miss +Delia Blanchflower, Claridge's Hotel, London. + +"DEAR MISS BLANCHFLOWER, Pray let me send you my most sincere +condolence. Your poor father and I were once great friends, and I am +most truly sorry to hear of his death. + +"Thank you for your interesting letter. But I find it impossible to +refuse your father's dying request to me, nor can I believe that I +cannot be of some assistance to his daughter. Let me try. We can always +give it up, if we cannot work it, but I see no reason why, with good +will on both sides, we should not make something of it. + +"I am returning to London ten days from now, and hope to see you within +a fortnight. + +"Please address, 'Junior Carlton Club, Pall Mall.'" + + Believe me, + Yours very truly, + "MARK WINNINGTON." + + +On his arrival, in London, Winnington found a short reply awaiting him. + +"DEAR MR. WINNINGTON,--As you please. I am however shortly leaving for +Maumsey with Miss Marvell, who, as I told you, has undertaken to live +with me as my chaperon. + +"We shall hope to see you at Maumsey." + + Yours faithfully, + "DELIA BLANCHFLOWER." + + +A few days later, after long interviews with some very meticulous +solicitors, a gentleman, very much in doubt as to what his reception +would be, took train for Maumsey and the New Forest, with a view to +making as soon as possible a first call upon his ward. + + + + +Chapter III + + +"We ought soon to see the house." + +The speaker bent forward, as the train, sweeping round a curve, emerged +from some thick woods Into a space of open country. It was early +September and a sleepy autumnal sunshine lay upon the fields. The +Stubbles just reaped ran over the undulations of the land in silky +purples and gold; the blue smoke from the cottages and farms hung +poised in mid air; the eye could hardly perceive any movement in the +clear stream beside the line, as it slipped noiselessly by over its +sandy bed; it seemed a world where "it was always afternoon"; and the +only breaks in its sunny silence came from the occasional coveys of +partridges that rose whirring from the harvest-fields as the train +passed. + +Delia Blanchflower looked keenly at the English scene, so strange to +her after many years of Colonial and foreign wandering. She thought, +but did not say--"Those must be my fields--and my woods, that we have +just passed through. Probably I rode about them with Grandpapa. I +remember the pony--and the horrid groom I hated!" Quick the memory +returned of a tiny child on a rearing pony, alone with a sulky groom, +who, out of his master's sight, could not restrain his temper, and +struck the pony savagely and repeatedly over the head, to an +accompaniment of oaths; frightening out of her wits the little girl who +sat clinging to the creature's neck. And next she saw herself marching +in erect--a pale-faced thing of six, with a heart of fury,--to her +grandfather, to demand justice on the offender. And grandpapa had done +her bidding then as always; the groom was dismissed that day. It was +only grandmamma who had ever tried to manage or thwart her; result, +perpetual war, decided often for the time by the brute force at command +of the elder, but ever renewed. Delia's face flamed again as she +thought of the most humiliating incident of her childhood; when +Grandmamma, unable, to do anything with her screaming and stamping +self, had sent in despair for a stalwart young footman, and ordered him +to "carry Miss Delia up to the nursery." Delia could still feel herself +held, wriggling and shrieking face downwards, under the young man's +strong arm, unable either to kick or to scratch, while Grandmamma half +fearful, half laughing, watched the dire ascent from the bottom of the +stairs. + +"Male tyranny--my first taste of it!" thought Delia, smiling at +herself. "It was fated then that I should be a militant." + +She looked across at her friend and travelling companion, half inclined +to tell the story; but the sight of Gertrude Marvell's attitude and +expression checked the trivial reminiscence on her lips. + +"Are you tired?" she said, laying her hand on the other's knee. + +"Oh, no. Only thinking." + +"Thinking of what?"-- + +"Of all there is to do."-- + +A kind of flash passed from one face to the other, Delia's eyes darkly +answering. They looked at each other for a little, as though in silent +conversation, and then Delia turned again to the landscape outside. + +Yes, there was the house, its long, irregular line with the village +behind it. She could not restrain a slight exclamation as she caught +sight of it, and her friend opposite turned interrogatively. + +"What did you say?" + +"Nothing--only there's the Abbey. I don't suppose I've seen it since I +was twelve." + +The other lady put up an eye-glass and looked where Miss Blanchflower +pointed; but languidly, as though it were an effort to shake herself +free from pre-occupying ideas. She was a woman of about thirty-five, +slenderly made, with a sallow, regular face, and good, though +short-sighted eyes. The eyes were dark, so was the hair, the features +delicate. Under the black shady hat, the hair was very closely and +neatly coiled. The high collar of the white blouse, fitting tightly to +the slender neck, the coat and skirt of blue serge without ornament of +any kind, but well cut, emphasized the thinness, almost emaciation, of +the form. Her attitude, dress, and expression conveyed the idea of +something amazingly taut and ready--like a ship cleared for action. The +body with its clothing seemed to have been simplified as much as +possible, so as to become the mere instrument of the will which +governed it. No superfluity whatever, whether of flesh on her small +bones, or of a single unnecessary button, fold, or trimming on her +dress, had Gertrude Marvell ever allowed herself for many years. The +general effect was in some way formidable; though why the neat +precision of the little lady should convey any notion of this sort, it +would not at first sight have been easy to say. + +"How old did you say it is?"--she asked, after examining the distant +building, which could be now plainly seen from the train across a +stretch of green park. + +"Oh, the present building is nothing--a pseudo-Gothic monstrosity, +built about 1830," laughed Delia; "but there are some old remains and +foundations of the abbey. It is a big, rambling old place, and I should +think dreadfully in want of doing up. My grandfather was a bit of a +miser, and though he was quite rich, he never spent a penny he could +help." + +"All the better. He left the more for other people to spend." Miss +Marvell smiled--a slight, and rather tired smile, which hardly altered +the face. + +"Yes, if they are allowed to spend it!" said Delia, with a shrug. "Oh +well, anyway the house must be done up--painted and papered and that +kind of thing. A trustee has got to see that things of that sort are +kept in order, I suppose. But it won't have anything to do with me, +except that for decency's sake, no doubt, he'll consult me. I shall be +allowed to choose the wall-papers I suppose!" + +"If you want to," said the other drily. + +Delia's brows puckered. + +"We shall have to spend some time here, you know, Gertrude! We may as +well have something to do." + +"Nothing that might entangle us, or take too much of our thoughts," +said Miss Marvell, gently, but decidedly. + +"I'm afraid I like furnishing," said Delia, not without a shade of +defiance. + +"And I object--because I know you do. After all--you understand as +well as I do that _every day_ now is important. There are not so many +of us, Delia! If you're going to do real work, you can't afford to +spend your time or thoughts on doing up a shabby house." + +There was silence a moment. Then Delia said abruptly--"I wonder when +that man will turn up? What a fool he is to take it on!" + +"The guardianship? Yes, he hardly knows what he's in for." A touch of +grim amusement shewed itself for a moment in Miss Marvell's quiet face. + +"Oh, I daresay he knows. Perhaps he relies on what everyone calls his +'influence.' Nasty, sloppy word--nasty sloppy thing! Whenever I'm +'influenced,' I'm degraded!" The young shoulders straightened +themselves fiercely. + +"I don't know. It has its uses," said the other tranquilly. + +Delia laughed radiantly. + +"O well--if one can make the kind of weapon of it you do. I don't mean +of course that one shouldn't be rationally persuaded. But that's a +different thing. 'Influence' makes me think of canting clergymen, and +stout pompous women, who don't know what they're talking about, and +can't argue--who think they've settled everything by a stale +quotation--or an appeal to 'your better self'--or St. Paul. If Mr. +Winnington tries it on with 'influence'--we'll have some fun." + +Delia returned to her window. The look her companion bent upon her was +not visible to her. It was curiously detached--perhaps slightly +ironical. + +"I'm wondering what part I shall play in the first interview!" said +Miss Marvell, after a pause. "I represent the first stone in Mr. +Winnington's path. He will of course do his best to put me out of it." + +"How can he?" cried Delia ardently. "What can he do? He can't send for +the police and turn you out of the house. At least I suppose he could, +but he certainly won't. The last thing a gentleman of his sort wants is +to make a scandal. Every one says, after all, that he is a nice +fellow!"--the tone was unconsciously patronising--"It isn't his fault +if he's been placed in this false position. But the great question for +me is--how are we going to manage him for the best?" + +She leant forward, her chin on her hands, her sparkling eyes fixed on +her friend's face. + +"The awkward thing is"--mused Miss Marvell--"that there is so little +_time_ in which to manage him. If the movement were going on at its old +slow pace, one might lie low, try diplomacy, avoid alarming him, and so +forth. But we've no time for that. It is a case of blow on blow--action +on action--and the publicity is half the battle." + +"Still, a little management there must be, to begin with!--because +I--we--want money, and he holds the purse-strings. Hullo, here's the +station!" + +She jumped up and looked eagerly out of the window. + +"They've sent a fly for us. And there's the station-master on the +lookout. How it all comes back to me!" + +Her flushed cheek showed a natural excitement. She was coming back as +its mistress to a house where she had been happy as a child, which she +had not seen for years. Thoughts of her father, as he had been in the +old days before any trouble had arisen between them, came rushing +through her mind--tender, regretful thoughts--as the train came slowly +to a standstill. + +But the entire indifference or passivity of her companion restrained +her from any further expression. The train stopped, and she descended +to the platform of a small country station, alive apparently with +traffic and passengers. + +"Miss Blanchflower?" said a smiling station-master, whose countenance +seemed to be trying to preserve the due mean between welcome to the +living and condolence for the dead, as, hat in hand, he approached the +newcomers, and guided by her deep mourning addressed himself to Delia. + +"Why, Mr. Stebbing, I remember you quite well," said Delia, holding out +her hand. "There's my maid--and I hope there's a cart for the luggage. +We've got a lot." + +A fair-haired man in spectacles, who had also just left the train, +turned abruptly and looked hard at the group as he passed them. He +hesitated a moment, then passed on, with a curious swinging gait, a +long and shabby over-coat floating behind him--to speak to the porter +who was collecting tickets at the gate opening on the road beyond. + +Meanwhile Delia had been accosted by another gentleman, who had been +sitting reading his _Morning Post_ on the sunny platform, as the train +drew up. He too had examined the new arrivals with interest, and while +Delia was still talking to the station-master, he walked up to her. + +"I think you are Miss Blanchflower: But you won't remember me." He +lifted his hat, smiling. + +Delia looked at him, puzzled. + +"Don't you remember that Christmas dance at the Rectory, when you were +ten, and I was home from Sandhurst?" + +"Perfectly!--and I quarrelled with you because you wouldn't give me +champagne, when I'd danced with you, instead of lemonade. You said what +was good for big boys wasn't good for little girls--and I called you a +bully--" + +"You kicked me!--you had the sharpest little toes!" + +"Did I?" said Delia composedly. "I was rather good at kicking. So you +are Billy Andrews?" + +"Right. I'm Captain now, and they've just made me adjutant down here +for the Yeomanry. My mother keeps house for me. You're coming here to +live? Please let me say how sorry I was to see your sad news." The +condolence was a little clumsy but sincere. + +"Thank you. I must go and see to the luggage. Let me introduce you to +Miss Marvell--Captain Andrews--Miss Marvell." + +That lady bowed coldly, as Delia departed. The tall, soldierly man, +whose pleasant looks were somewhat spoilt by a slightly underhung +mouth, and prominent chin, disguised, however, by a fine moustache, +offered assistance with the luggage. + +"There is no need, thank you," said Miss Marvell. "Miss Blanchflower +and her maid will see to it." + +And the Captain noticed that the speaker remained entirely passive +while the luggage was being collected and piled into a fly by the +porters, directed by Miss Blanchflower and her maid. She stood quietly +on the platform, till all was ready, and Delia beckoned to her. In the +intervals the soldier tried to make conversation, but with very small +success. He dwelt upon some of the changes Miss Blanchflower would find +on the estate; how the old head-keeper, who used to make a pet of her, +was dead, and the new agent her father had put in was thought to be +doing well, how the village had lost markedly in population in the last +few years--this emigration to Canada was really getting beyond a +joke!--and so forth. Miss Marvell made no replies. But she suddenly +asked him a question. + +"What's that house over there?" + +She pointed to a grey façade on a wooded hill some two miles off. + +"That's our show place--Monk Lawrence! We're awfully proud of +it--Elizabethan, and that kind of thing. But of course you've heard of +Monk Lawrence! It's one of the finest things in England." + +"It belongs to Sir Wilfrid Lang?" + +"Certainly. Do you know him? He's scarcely been there at all, since he +became a Cabinet Minister; and yet he spent a lot of money in repairing +it a few years ago. They say it's his wife's health--that it's too damp +for her. Anyway it's quite shut up,--except that they let tourists see +it once a month." + +"Does anybody live in the house?"-- + +"Oh--a caretaker, of course,--one of the keepers. They let the +shooting. Ah! there's Miss Blanchflower calling you." + +Miss Marvell--as the gallant Captain afterwards remembered--took a long +look at the distant house and then went to join Miss Blanchflower. The +Captain accompanied her, and helped her to stow away the remaining bags +into the fly, while a small concourse of rustics, sprung from nowhere, +stolidly watched the doings of the heiress and her friend. Delia +suddenly bent forward to him, as he was about to shut the door, with an +animated look--"Can you tell me who that gentleman is who has just +walked off towards the village?"--she pointed. + +"His name is Lathrop. He lives in a place just the other side of yours. +He's got some trout-hatching ponds--will stock anybody's stream for +them. Rather a queer customer!"--the good-natured Captain dropped his +voice. "Well, good-bye, my train's just coming. I hope I may come and +see you soon?" + +Delia nodded assent, and they drove off. + +"By George, she's a beauty!" said the Captain to himself as he turned +away. "Nothing wrong with her that I can see. But there are some +strange tales going about. I wonder who that other woman is. +Marvell--Gertrude Marvell?--I seem to have heard the name +somewhere.--Hullo, Masham, how are you?" He greeted the leading local +solicitor who had just entered the station, a man with a fine ascetic +face, and singularly blue eyes. Masham looked like a starved poet or +preacher, and was in reality one of the hardest and shrewdest men of +business in the southern counties. + +"Well, did you see Miss Blanchflower?" said the Captain, as Masham +joined him on the platform, and they entered the up train together. + +"I did. A handsome young lady! Have you heard the news?" + +"No." + +"Your neighbor, Mr. Winnington--Mark Winnington--is named as her +guardian under her father's will--until she is twenty-five. He is also +trustee, with absolute power over the property." + +The Captain shewed a face of astonishment. + +"Gracious! what had Winnington to do with Sir Robert Blanchflower!" + +"An old friend, apparently. But it is a curious will." + +The solicitor's abstracted look shewed a busy mind. The Captain had +never felt a livelier desire for information. + +"Isn't there something strange about the girl?"--he said, lowering his +voice, although there was no one else in the railway carriage. "I never +saw a more beautiful creature! But my mother came home from London the +other day with some very queer stories, from a woman who had met them +abroad. She said Miss Blanchflower was awfully clever, but as wild as a +hawk--mad about women's rights and that kind of thing. In the hotel +where she met them, people fought very shy of her." + +"Oh, she's a militant suffragist," said the solicitor quietly--"though +she's not had time yet since her father's death to do any mischief. +That--in confidence--is the meaning of the will." + +The adjutant whistled. + +"Goodness!--Winnington will have his work cut out for him. But he +needn't accept." + +"He has accepted. I heard this morning from the London solicitor." + +"Your firm does the estate business down here?" + +"For many years. I hope to see Mr. Winnington to-morrow or next day. He +is evidently hurrying home--because of this." + +There was silence for a few minutes; then the Captain said bluntly: + +"It's an awful pity, you know, that kind of thing cropping up down +here. We've escaped it so far." + +"With such a lot of wild women about, what can you expect?" said the +solicitor briskly. "Like the measles--sure to come our way sooner or +later." + +"Do you think they'll get what they want?" "What--the vote? No--not +unless the men are fools." The refined, apostolic face set like iron. + +"None of the womanly women want it," said the Captain with conviction. +"You should hear my mother on it." + +The solicitor did not reply. The adjutant's mother was not in his eyes +a model of wisdom. Nor did his own opinion want any fortifying from +outside. + +Captain Andrews was not quite in the same position. He was conscious of +a strong male instinct which disavowed Miss Blanchflower and all her +kind; but at the same time he was exceedingly susceptible to female +beauty, and it troubled his reasoning processes that anybody so +wrong-headed should be so good-looking. His heart was soft, and his +brain all that was wanted for his own purposes. But it did not enable +him-it never had enabled him--to understand these extraordinary +"goings-on," which the newspapers were every day reporting, on the part +of well-to-do, educated women, who were ready--it seemed--to do +anything outrageous--just for a vote! "Of course nobody would mind if +the rich women--the tax-paying women--had a vote--help us Tories +famously. But the women of the working-classes--why, Good Lord, look at +them when there's any disturbance on--any big strike--look at +Tonypandy!--a deal sight worse than the men! Give them the vote and +they'd take us to the devil, even quicker than Lloyd George!" + +Aloud he said-- + +"Do you know anything about that lady Miss Blanchflower had with her? +She introduced me. Miss Marvell--I think that was the name. I thought I +had heard it somewhere." + +The solicitor lifted his eyebrows. + +"I daresay. She was in the stone-throwing raid last August. Fined 20s. +or a month, for damage in Pall Mall. She was in prison a week; then +somebody paid her fine. She professed great annoyance, but one of the +police told me it was privately paid by her own society. She's too +important to them--they can't do without her. An extremely clever +woman." + +"Then what on earth does she come and bury herself down here for?" +cried the Captain. + +Masham shewed a meditative twist of the lip. + +"Can't say, I'm sure. But they want money. And Miss Blanchflower is an +important capture." + +"I hope that girl will soon have the sense to shake them off!" said the +Captain with energy. "She's a deal too beautiful for that kind of +thing. I shall get my mother to come and talk to her." + +The solicitor concealed his smile behind his _Daily Telegraph_. He had +a real liking and respect for the Captain, but the family affection of +the Andrews household was a trifle too idyllic to convince a gentleman +so well acquainted with the seamy side of life. What about that +hunted-looking girl, the Captain's sister? He didn't believe, he never +had believed that Mrs. Andrews was quite so much of an angel as she +pretended to be. + +Meanwhile, no sooner had the fly left the station than Delia turned to +her companion-- + +"Gertrude!--did you see what that man was reading who passed us just +now? Our paper!--the _Tocsin_." + +Gertrude Marvell lifted her eyebrows slightly. + +"No doubt he bought it at Waterloo--out of curiosity." + +"Why not out of sympathy? I thought he looked at us rather closely. Of +course, if he reads the _Tocsin_ he knows something about you! What fun +it would be to discover a comrade and a brother down here!" + +"It depends entirely upon what use we could make of him," said Miss +Marvell. Then she turned suddenly on her companion--"Tell me really, +Delia--how long do you want to stay here?" + +"Well, a couple of months at least," said Delia, with a rather +perplexed expression. "After all, Gertrude, it's my property now, and +all the people on it, I suppose, will expect to see one and make +friends. I don't want them to think that because I'm a suffragist I'm +going to shirk. It wouldn't be good policy, would it?" + +"It's all a question of the relative importance of things," said the +other quietly. "London is our head quarters, and things are moving very +rapidly." + +"I know. But, dear, you did promise! for a time"--pleaded Delia. +"Though of course I know how dull it must be for you, when you are the +life and soul of so many things in London. But you must remember that I +haven't a penny at this moment but what Mr. Winnington chooses to allow +me! We must come to some understanding with him, mustn't we, before we +can do anything? It is all so difficult!"--the girl's voice took a +deep, passionate note--"horribly difficult, when I long to be standing +beside you--and the others--in the open--fighting--for all I'm worth. +But how can I, just yet? I ought to have eight thousand a year, and Mr. +Winnington can cut me down to anything he pleases. It's just as +important that I should get hold of my money--at this particular +moment--as that I should be joining raids in London,--more important, +surely--because we want money badly!--you say so yourself. I don't want +it for myself; I want it all--for the cause! But the question is, how +to get it--with this will in our way. I--" + +"Ah, there's that house again!" exclaimed Miss Marvell, but in the same +low restrained tone that was habitual to her. She bent forward to look +at the stately building, on the hill-side, which according to Captain +Andrews' information, was the untenanted property of Sir Wilfrid Lang, +whom a shuffle of offices had just admitted to the Cabinet. + +"What house?"--said Delia, not without a vague smart under the sudden +change of subject. She had a natural turn for declamation; a girlish +liking to hear herself talk; and Gertrude, her tutor in the first +place, and now her counsellor and friend, had a quiet way of snubbing +such inclinations, except when they could be practically useful. "You +have the gifts of a speaker--we shall want you to speak more and more," +she would say. But in private she rarely failed to interrupt an +harangue, even the first beginnings of one. + +However, the smart soon passed, and Delia too turned her eyes towards +the house among the trees. She gave a little cry of pleasure. + +"Oh, that's Monk Lawrence!--such a lovely--lovely old place! I used +often to go there as a child--I adored it. But I can't remember who +lives there now." + +Gertrude Marvell handed on the few facts learned from the Captain. + +"I knew"--she added--"that Sir Wilfrid Lang lived somewhere near here. +That they told me at the office." + +"And the house is empty?" Delia, flushing suddenly and vividly, turned +to her companion. + +"Except for the caretaker--who no doubt lives some where on the +ground-floor." + +There was silence a moment. Then Delia laughed uncomfortably. + +"Look here, Gertrude, we can't attempt anything of that kind _there_: I +remember now--it was Sir Wilfrid's brother who had the house, when I +used to go there. He was a great friend of Father's; and his little +girls and I were great chums. The house is just wonderful--full of +treasures! I am sorry it belongs to Sir Wilfrid--but nobody could lift +a finger against Monk Lawrence!" + +Miss Marvell's eyes sparkled. + +"He is the most formidable enemy we have," she said softly, between her +closed lips. A tremor seemed to run through her slight frame. + +Then she smiled, and her tone changed. + +"Dear Delia, of course I shan't run you into any--avoidable--trouble, +down here, apart from the things we have agreed on." + +"What have we agreed on? Remind me!" + +"In the first place, that we won't hide our opinions--or stop our +propaganda--to please anybody." + +"Certainly!" said Delia. "I shall have a drawing-room meeting as soon +as possible. You seem to have fixed up a number of speaking engagements +for us both. And we told the office to send us down tons of +literature." Then her face broke into laughter--"Poor Mr. Winnington!" + + * * * * * + +"A rather nice old place, isn't it?" said Delia, an hour later, when +the elderly housekeeper, who had received them with what had seemed to +Delia's companion a quite unnecessary amount of fuss and family +feeling, had at last left them alone in the drawing-room, after taking +them over the house. + +The girl spoke in a softened voice. She was standing thoughtfully by +the open window looking out, her hands clasping a chair behind her. Her +thin black dress, made short and plain, with a white frill at the open +neck and sleeves, by its very meagreness emphasized the young beauty of +the wearer,--a beauty full of significance, charged--over-charged--with +character. The attitude should have been one of repose; it was on the +contrary one of tension, suggesting a momentary balance only, of +impetuous forces. Delia was indeed suffering the onset of a wave of +feeling which had come upon her unexpectedly; for which she had not +prepared herself. This rambling old house with its quiet garden and +early Victorian furniture, had appealed to her in some profound and +touching way. Her childhood stirred again in her, and deep inherited +things. How well she remembered the low, spacious room, with its oak +wainscotting, its book-cases and its pictures! That crayon over the +writing-table of her grandmother in her white cap and shawl; her +grandfather's chair, and the old Bible and Prayer-book, beside it, from +which he used to read evening prayers; the stiff arm-chairs with their +faded chintz covers; the writing-table with its presentation inkstand; +the groups of silhouettes on the walls, her forbears of long ago; the +needlework on the fire-screen, in which, at nine years old, she had +been proud to embroider the white rose-bud still so lackadaisically +prominent; the stool on which she used to sit and knit beside her +grandmother; the place on the run where the old collie used to lie--she +saw his ghost there still!--all these familiar and even ugly objects +seemed to be putting out spiritual hands to her, playing on nerves once +eagerly responsive. She had never stayed for long in the house; but she +had always been happy there. The moral atmosphere of it came back to +her, and with a sense of the old rest and protection. Her grandfather +might have been miserly to others; he had always been kind to her. But +it was her grandmother who had been supreme in that room. A woman of +clear sense and high character; narrow and prejudiced in many respects, +but sorely missed by many when her turn came to die; a Christian in +more than name; sincerely devoted to her teasing little granddaughter. +A woman who had ordered her household justly and kindly; a personality +not soon forgotten. + +"There is something of her in me still," thought Delia--"at least, I +hope there is. And where--is the rest of me going?" + +"I think I'll take off my things, dear," said Gertrude Marvell, +breaking in on the girl's reverie. "Don't trouble. I know my room." + +The door closed. Delia was now looking out into the garden, where on +the old grass-slopes the September shadows lay--still and slumbrous. +The peace of it, the breath of its old-world tradition, came upon her, +relaxing the struggle of mind and soul in which she had been living for +months, and that ceaseless memory which weighed upon her of her dying +father,--his bitter and increasing recoil from all that, for a while, +he had indulgently permitted--his final estrangement from her, her own +obstinacy and suffering. + +"Yes!"--she cried suddenly, out loud, to the rosebushes beyond the open +window--"but it had a reason--it _had_ a reason!" She clasped her +hands fiercely to her breast. "And there is no birth without pain." + + + + +Chapter IV + + +A few days after her arrival, Delia woke up in the early dawn in the +large room that had been her grandmother's. She sat up in the broad +white bed with its dimity curtains, her hands round her knees, peering +into the half darkened room, where, however, she had thrown the windows +wide open, behind the curtains, before going to sleep. On the opposite +wall she saw an indifferent picture of her father as a boy of twelve on +his pony; beside it a faded photograph of her mother, her beautiful +mother, in her wedding dress. There had never been any real sympathy +between her mother and her grandmother. Old Lady Blanchflower had +resented her son's marriage with a foreign woman, with a Greek, in +particular. The Greeks were not at that moment of much account in the +political world, and Lady Blanchflower thought of them as a nation of +shams, trading on a great past which did not belong to them. Her secret +idea was that out of their own country they grew rich in disreputable +ways, and while at home, where only the stupid ones stayed, they were a +shabby, half-civilised people, mostly bankrupt. She could not imagine +how a girl got any bringing up at Athens, and believed nothing that her +son told her. So that when the young Mrs. Blanchflower arrived, there +were jars in the household, and it was not long before the spoilt and +handsome bride went to her husband in tears, and asked to be taken +away. Delia was surprised and touched, therefore, to find her mother's +portrait in her grandmother's room, where nothing clearly had been +admitted that had not some connection with family affection or family +pride. She wondered whether on her mother's death her grandmother had +hung the picture there in dumb confession of, or penance for, her own +unkindness. + +The paper of the room was a dingy grey, and the furniture was heavily +old-fashioned and in Delia's eyes inconvenient. "If I'm going to keep +the room I shall make it all white," she thought, "with proper fitted +wardrobes, and some low bookcases--a bath, too, of course, in the +dressing-room. And they must put in electric light at once! How could +they have done without it all this time! I believe with all its faults, +this house could be made quite pretty!" + +And she fell into a reverie,--eagerly constructive--wherein Maumsey +became, at a stroke, a House Beautiful, at once modern and +aesthetically right, a dim harmony in lovely purples, blues and greens, +with the few fine things it possessed properly spaced and grouped, the +old gardens showing through the latticed windows, and golden or silvery +lights, like those in a Blanche interior, gleaming in its now dreary +rooms. + +Then at a bound she sprang out of bed, and stood upright in the autumn +dawn. + +"I hate myself!" she said fiercely--as she ran her hands through the +mass of her dark hair, and threw it back upon her shoulders. Hurrying +across the room in her night-gown, she threw back the curtains. A light +autumnal mist, through which the sun was smiling, lay on the garden. +Stately trees rose above it, and masses of flowers shewed vaguely +bright; while through the blue distances beyond, the New Forest +stretched to the sea. + +But Delia was looking at herself, in a long pier-glass that represented +almost the only concession to the typical feminine needs in the room. +She was not admiring her own seemliness; far from it; she was rating +and despising herself for a feather-brained waverer and +good-for-nothing. + +"Oh yes, you can _talk_!" she said, to the figure in the glass--"you +are good enough at that! But what are you going to _do_!--Spend your +time at Maple's and Waring--matching chintzes and curtains?--when +you've _promised_--you've _promised_! Gertrude's right. There _are_ all +sorts of disgusting cowardices and weaknesses in you! Oh! yes, +you'd like to go fiddling and fussing down here--playing the +heiress--patronising the poor people--putting yourself into beautiful +clothes--and getting heaps of money out of Mr. Winnington to spend. +It's in you--it's just in you--to throw everything over--to forget +everything you've felt, and everything you've vowed--and just _wallow_ +in luxury and selfishness and snobbery! Gertrude's absolutely right. +But you shan't do it! You shan't put a hand to it! Why did that man +take the guardianship? Now it's his business. He may see to it! But +_you_--you have something else to do!" + +And she stood erect, the angry impulse in her stiffening all her young +body. And through her memory there ran, swift-footed, fragments from a +rhetoric of which she was already fatally mistress, the formulae too of +those sincere and goading beliefs on which her youth had been fed ever +since her first acquaintance with Gertrude Marvell. The mind renewed +them like vows; clung to them, embraced them. + +What was she before she knew Gertrude? She thought of that earlier +Delia as of a creature almost too contemptible to blame. From the +maturity of her twenty-one years she looked back upon herself at +seventeen or eighteen with wonder. That Delia had read nothing--knew +nothing--had neither thoughts or principles. She was her father's +spoilt child and darling; delighting in the luxury that surrounded his +West Indian Governorship; courted and flattered by the few English of +the colonial capital, and by the members of her father's staff; with +servants for every possible need or whim; living her life mostly in the +open air, riding at her father's side, through the sub-tropical forests +of the colony; teasing and tyrannising over the dear old German +governess who had brought her up, and whose only contribution to her +education--as Delia now counted education--had been the German tongue. +Worth something!--but not all those years, "when I might have been +learning so much else, things I shall never have time to learn +now!--things that Gertrude has at her finger's end. Why wasn't I taught +properly--decently--like any board school child! As Gertrude says, we +women want everything we can get! We _must_ know the things that men +know--that we may beat them at their own game. Why should every Balliol +boy--years younger than me--have been taught his classics and +mathematics,--and have everything brought to him--made easy for +him--history, political economy, logic, philosophy, laid at his +lordship's feet, if he will just please to learn!--while I, who have +just as good a brain as he, have had to pick up a few scraps by the +way, just because nobody who had charge of me ever thought it worth +while to teach, a girl. But I have a mind!--an intelligence!--even if I +am a woman; and there is all the world to know. Marriage? Yes!--but not +at the sacrifice of everything else--of the rational, civilised self." + +On the whole though, her youth had been happy enough, with recurrent +intervals of _ennui_ and discontent. Intervals too of poetic +enthusiasm, or ascetic religion. At eighteen she had been practically a +Catholic, influenced by the charming wife of one of her father's +aides-de-camp. And then--a few stray books or magazine articles had +made a Darwinian and an agnostic of her; the one phase as futile as the +other. + +"I knew nothing--I had no mind!"--she repeated with energy,--"till +Gertrude came." + +And she thought with ardour of that intellectual awakening, under the +strange influence of the apparently reserved and impassive woman, who +had come to read history with her for six months, at the suggestion of +a friend of her father's, a certain cultivated and clever Lady +Tonbridge, "who saw how starved I was." + +So, after enquiry, a lady who was a B.A. of London, and had taken +first-class honour in history--Delia's ambition would accept nothing +less--had been found, who wanted for health's sake a winter in a warm +climate, and was willing to read history with Governor Blanch-flower's +half-fledged daughter. + +The friendship had begun, as often, with a little aversion. Delia was +made to work, and having always resented being made to do anything, for +about a month she disliked her tutor, and would have persuaded Sir +Robert to send her away, had not England been so far off, and the +agreement with Miss Marvell, whose terms were high, unusually +stringent. But by the end of the month the girl of eighteen was +conquered. She had recognised in Gertrude Marvell accomplishments that +filled her with envy, together with an intensity of will, a bitter and +fiery purpose, that astounded and subdued a young creature in whom +inherited germs of southern energy and passion were only waiting the +touch that starts the ferment. Gertrude Marvell had read an amazing +amount of history, and all from one point of view; that of the woman +stirred to a kind of madness by what she held to be the wrongs of her +sex. The age-long monopoly of all the higher forces of civilisation by +men; the cruel and insulting insistence upon the sexual and maternal +functions of women, as covering the whole of her destiny; the hideous +depreciation of her as an inferior and unclean creature, to which +Christianity, poisoned by the story of Eve, and a score of barbarous +beliefs and superstitions more primitive still, had largely +contributed, while hypocritically professing to enfranchise and exalt +her; the unfailing doom to "obey," and to bring forth, that has crushed +her; the labours and shames heaped upon her by men in the pursuit of +their own selfish devices; and the denial to her, also by men, of all +the higher and spiritual activities, except those allowed by a man-made +religion:--this feminist gospel, in some respects so bitterly true, in +others so vindictively false, was gradually and unsparingly pressed +upon Delia's quick intelligence. She caught its fire; she rose to its +call; and there came a day when Gertrude Marvell breaking through the +cold reserve she had hitherto interposed between herself and the pupil +who had come to adore her, threw her arms round the girl, accepting +from her what were practically the vows of a neophyte in a secret and +revolutionary service. + +Joyous, self-dedicating moment! But it had been followed by a tragedy; +the tragedy of Delia's estrangement from her father. It was not long +before Sir Robert Blanchflower, a proud self-indulgent man, with a keen +critical sense, a wide acquaintance with men and affairs, and a number +of miscellaneous acquirements of which he never made the smallest +parade, had divined the spirit of irreconcilable revolt which animated +the slight and generally taciturn woman, who had obtained such a hold +upon his daughter. He, the god of his small world, was made to feel +himself humiliated in her presence. She was, in fact, his intellectual +superior, and the truth was conveyed to him in a score of subtle ways. +She was in his house simply because she was poor, and wanted rest from +excessive overwork, at someone else's expense. Otherwise her manner +suggested--often quite unconsciously--that she would not have put up +with his household and its regulations for a single day. + +Then, suddenly, he perceived that he had lost his daughter, and the +reason of it. The last year of his official life was thenceforward +darkened by an ugly and undignified struggle with the woman who had +stolen Delia from him. In the end he dismissed Gertrude Marvell. Delia +shewed a passionate resentment, told him frankly that as soon as she +was twenty-one she should take up "the Woman's movement" as her sole +occupation, and should offer herself wherever Gertrude Marvell, and +Gertrude's leaders, thought she could be useful. "The vote _must_ be +got!"--she said, standing white and trembling, but resolute, before her +father--"If not peaceably, then by violence. And when we get it, +father, you men will be astonished to see what we shall do with it!" + +Her twenty-first birthday was at hand, and would probably have seen +Delia's flight from her father's house, but for Sir Robert's breakdown +in health. He gave up his post, and it was evident he had not more than +a year or two to live. Delia softened and submitted. She went abroad +with him, and for a time he seemed to throw off the disease which had +attacked him. It was during a brighter interval that, touched by her +apparent concessions, he had consented to her giving the lecture in the +Tyrolese hotel the fame of which had spread abroad, and had even taken +a certain pleasure in her oratorical success. + +But during the following winter--Sir Robert's last--which they spent +at Meran, things had gone from bad to worse. For months Delia never +mentioned Gertrude Marvell to her father. He flattered himself that the +friendship was at an end. Then some accident revealed to him that it +was as close as, or closer than ever; that they were in daily +correspondence; that they had actually met, unknown to him, in the +neighbourhood of Meran; and that Delia was sending all the money she +could possibly spare from her very ample allowance to "The Daughters of +Revolt," the far-spreading society in which Gertrude Marvell was now +one of the leading officials. + +Some of these dismal memories of Meran descended like birds of night +upon Delia, as she stood with her arms above her head, in her long +night-gown, looking intently but quite unconsciously into the depths of +an old rosewood cheval glass. She felt that sultry night about her once +more, when, after signing his will, her father opened his eyes upon +her, coming back with an effort from the bound of death, and had said +quite clearly though faintly in the silence-- + +"Give up that woman, Delia!--promise me to give her up." And Delia had +cried bitterly, on her knees beside him--without a word--caressing his +hand. And the cold fingers had been feebly withdrawn from hers as the +eyes closed. + +"Oh papa--papa!" The low murmur came from her, as she pressed her hands +upon her eyes. If the Christian guesses were but true, and in some +quiet Elysian state he might now understand, and cease to be angry with +her! Was there ever a great cause won without setting kin against kin? +"A man's foes shall be they of his own household." "It wasn't my +fault--it wasn't my fault!" + +No!--and moreover it was her duty not to waste her strength in vain +emotion and regret. Her task was _doing_, not dreaming. She turned +away, banished her thoughts and set steadily about the task of +dressing. + + * * * * * + +"Please Miss Blanchflower, there are two or three people waiting to see +you in the servants' hall." + +So said the tall and gentle-voiced housekeeper, Mrs. Bird, whose +emotions had been, in Miss Marvell's view, so unnecessarily exercised +on the evening of Delia's home-coming. Being a sensitive person, Mrs. +Bird had already learnt her lesson, and her manner had now become as +mildly distant as could be desired, especially in the case of Miss +Blanchflower's lady companion. + +"People? What people?" asked Delia, looking round with a furrowed brow. +She and Gertrude were sitting together on the sofa when the housekeeper +entered, eagerly reading a large batch of letters which the London post +had just brought, and discussing their contents in subdued tones. + +"It's the cottages, Miss. Her Ladyship used always to decide who should +have those as were vacant about this time of year, and two or three of +these persons have been up several times to know when you'd be home." + +"But I don't know anything about it"--said Delia, rising reluctantly. +"Why doesn't the agent--why doesn't Mr. Frost do it?" + +"I suppose--they thought--you'd perhaps speak a word to Mr. Frost, +Miss," suggested Mrs. Bird. "But I can send them away of course, if you +wish." + +"Oh no, I'll come"--said Delia. "But it's rather tiresome--just +as"--she looked at Gertrude. + +"Don't be long," said Miss Marvell, sharply, "I'll wait for you here." +And she plunged back into the letters, her delicate face all alive, her +eyes sparkling. Delia departed--evidently on a distasteful errand. + +But twenty minutes later, she returned flushed and animated. + +"I _am_ glad I went! Such tyranny--such monstrous tyranny!" She stood +in front of Gertrude breathing fast, her hands on her hips. + +"What's the matter?" + +"My grandmother had a rule--can you imagine anything so cruel!--that no +girl--who had gone wrong--was to be allowed in our cottages. If she +couldn't be provided for in some Home or other, or if her family +refused to give her up, then the family must go. An old man has been up +to see me--a widower with two daughters--one in service. The one in +service has come to grief--the son of the house!--the usual +story!"--the speaker's face had turned fiercely pale--"and now our +agent refuses to let the girl and her baby come home. And the old +father says--'What am I to do, Miss? I can't turn her out--she's my own +flesh and blood. I've got to stick to her--else there'll be worse +happening. It's not _justice_, Miss--and it's not Gospel.' +Well!"--Delia seated herself with energy,--"I've told him to have her +home at once--and I'll see to it." + +Gertrude lifted her eyebrows, a gesture habitual with her, whenever +Delia wore--as now--her young prophetess look. Why feel these things so +much? Human nerves have only a certain limited stock of reactions. +Avenge--and alter them! + +But she merely said-- + +"And the others?" + +"Oh, a poor mother with eight children, pleading for a cottage with +three bedrooms instead of two! I told her she should have it if I had +to build it!--And an old woman who has lived fifty-two years in her +cottage, and lost all her belongings, begging that she mightn't be +turned out--for a family--now that it's too big for her. She shan't be +turned out! Of course I suppose it would be common sense"--the tension +of the speaker's face broke up in laughter--"to put the old woman into +the cottage of the eight children--and put the eight children into the +old woman's. But human beings are not cattle! Sentiment's something! +Why shouldn't a woman be allowed to die in her old home,--so long as +she pays the rent? I hate all this interference with people's lives! +And it's always the women who come worst off. 'Oh Mr. Frost, he never +pays no attention to us women. He claps 'is 'ands to his ears when he +sees one of us, and jest runs for it.' Well, I'll make Mr. Frost listen +to a woman!" + +"I'm afraid Mr. Winnington is his master," said Gertrude quietly. +Delia, crimson again, shrugged her shoulders. + +"We shall see!" + +Gertrude Marvell looked up. + +"Look here, Delia, if you're going to play the part of earthly +Providence to this village and your property in general--as I've said +to you before--you may as well tell the 'Daughters' you can't do +anything for them. That's a profession in itself; and would take you +all your time." + +"Then of course, I shan't do it," said Delia, with decision. "But I +only want to put in an appearance--to make friends with the +people--just for a time, Gertrude! It doesn't do to be _too_ unpopular. +We're not exactly in good odour just now, are we?" + +And sitting down on a stool beside the elder woman, Delia leant her +head against her friend's knee caressingly. + +Gertrude gave an absent touch to the girl's beautiful hair, and then +said-- + +"So you _will_ take these four meetings?" + +"Certainly!" Delia sprang up. "What are they? One at Latchford, one at +Brownmouth--Wanchester--and Frimpton. All right. I shall be pelted at +Brownmouth. But rotten eggs don't matter so much when you're looking +out for them--except on your face--Ugh!" + +"And the meeting here?" + +"Of course. Can't I do what I like with my own house? We'll have the +notices out next week." + +Gertrude looked up-- + +"When did you say that man--Mr. Winnington--was coming?" + +"His note this morning said 4:30." + +"You'd better see him alone--for the first half hour anyway." + +Delia made a face. + +"I wish I knew what line to take up. You've been no use at all, +Gertrude!" + +Gertrude smiled. + +"Wait till you see him," she said coolly. "Mother-wit will help you +out." + +"I wish I had anything to bargain with." + +"So you have." + +"Pray, what?" + +"The meeting here. You _could_ give that up. And he needn't know +anything of the others yet awhile." + +"What a charming opinion he will have of us both, by and bye," laughed +Delia, quietly. "And by all accounts he himself is a simple +paragon.--Heavens, how tiresome!" + +Gertrude Marvell turned back to her letters. + +"What does anyone know about a _man_?" she said, with slow +deliberation. + +The midday post at Maumsey brought letters just after luncheon. Delia +turning hers over was astonished to see two or three with the local +postmark. + +"What can people from _here_ be writing to me about?" + +Gertrude absorbed in the new weekly number of the _Tocsin_ took no +notice, till she was touched on the shoulder by Delia. + +"Yes?" + +"Gertrude!--it's too amazing!" The girl's tone was full of a joyous +wonder. "You know they told us at head-quarters that this was one of +the deadest places in England--a nest of Antis--nothing doing here at +all. Well, what do you think?--here are _three_ letters by one post, +from the village--all greeting us--all knowing perfectly who you +are--that you have been in prison, etcetera--all readers of the +_Tocsin_, and burning to be doing something--" + +"Burning something?" interposed the other in her most ordinary voice. + +Delia laughed, again with the note of constraint. + +"Well, anyway, they want to come and see us." + +"Who are they?" + +"An assistant mistress at the little grammar-school--that's No. 1. No. +2--a farmer's daughter, who says she took part in one of the raids last +summer, but nobody knows down here. Her father paid her fine. And No. +3. a consumptive dressmaker, who declares she hasn't much life left +anyway, and she is quite willing to give it to the 'cause'! Isn't it +wonderful how it spreads--it spreads!" + +"Hm"--said Miss Marvell. "Well, we may as well inspect them. Tell them +to come up some time next week after dusk." + +As she spoke, the temporary parlour-maid threw open the door of the +room which Delia had that morning chosen as her own sitting-room. + +"Are you at home, Miss? Mrs. France would like to see you." + +"Mrs. France?--Mrs. France? Oh, I know--the doctor's wife--Mrs. Bird +was talking of him this morning. Well, I suppose I must go." Delia +moved unwillingly. "I'm coming, Mary." + +"Of course you must go," said Gertrude, a little peremptorily. "As we +are here we may as well reconnoitre the whole ground--find out +everything we can." + + * * * * * + +In the drawing-room, to which some flowers, and a litter of new books +and magazines had already restored its inhabited look, Delia found a +woman awaiting her, in whom the girl's first glance discerned a +personality. She was dressed with an entire disregard of the fashion, +in plain, serviceable clothes. A small black bonnet tied under the chin +framed a face whose only beauty lay in the expression of the clear kind +eyes, and quiet mouth. The eyes were a little prominent; the brow above +them unusually smooth and untroubled, answering to the bands of brown +hair touched with grey which defined it. But the rest of the face was +marked by many deep lines--of experience, or suffering?--which showed +clearly that its owner had long left physical youth behind. And yet +perhaps youth--in some spiritual poetic sense--was what Mrs. France's +aspect most sharply conveyed. + +She rose as Delia entered, and greeted her warmly. + +"It is nice to see you settled here! Dr. France and I were great +friends of your old grandmother. He and she were regular cronies. We +were very sorry to see the news of your poor father's death." + +The voice was clear and soft, and absolutely sincere. Delia felt drawn +to her. But it had become habitual to her to hold herself on the +defensive with strangers, to suspect hostility and disapproval +everywhere. So that her manner in reply, though polite enough, was +rather chilly. + +But--the girl's beauty! The fame of it had indeed reached Maumsey in +advance of the heiress. Mrs. France, however, in its actual presence +was inclined to say "I had not heard the half!" She remembered Delia's +mother, and in the face before her she recognised again the Greek type, +the old pure type, reappearing, as it constantly does, in the mixed +modern race. But the daughter surpassed her mother. Delia's eyes, of a +lovely grey blue, lidded, and fringed, and arched with an exquisite +perfection; the curve of the slightly bronzed cheek, suggesting through +all its delicacy the fulness of young, sensuous life; the mouth, +perhaps a trifle too large, and the chin, perhaps a trifle too firm; +the abundance of the glossy black hair, curling wherever it was allowed +to curl, or wherever it could escape the tight coils in which it was +bound--at the temples, and over the brow; the beauty of the uncovered +neck, and of the amply-rounded form which revealed itself through the +thin black stripe of the mourning dress:--none of these "items" in +Delia's good looks escaped her admiring visitor. + +"It's to be hoped Mr. Mark realises his responsibilities," she thought, +with amusement. + +Aloud, she said-- + +"I remember you as quite a little thing staying with your +Grandmother--but you wouldn't remember me. Dr. France was grieved not +to come, but it's his hospital day." + +Delia thanked her, without effusion. Mrs. France presently began to +feel conversation an effort, and to realise that the girl's wonderful +eyes were very observant and very critical. Yet she chose the very +obvious and appropriate topic of Lady Blanchflower, her strong +character, her doings in the village, her relation to the labourers and +their wives. + +"When she died, they really missed her. They miss her still." + +"Is it good for a village to depend so much on one person?" said Delia +in a detached voice. + +Mrs. France looked at her curiously. Jealousy of one's grandmother is +not a common trait in the young. It struck her that Miss Blanchflower +was already defending herself against examples and ideals she did not +mean to follow. And again amusement--and concern!--on Mark +Winnington's account made themselves felt. Mrs. France was quite aware +of Delia's "militant" antecedents, and of the history of the lady she +had brought down to live with her. But the confidence of the doctor's +wife in Winnington's powers and charm was boundless. "He'll be a match +for them!" she thought gaily. + +Meanwhile in reply, she smilingly defended her old friend Lady +Blanchflower from the implied charge of pauperising the village. + +"Not at all! She never gave money recklessly--and the do-nothings kept +clear of her. But she was the people's friend--and they knew it. +They're very excited about your coming!" + +"I daresay I shall change some things," said Delia decidedly. "I don't +approve of all Mr. Frost has been doing." + +"Well, you'll have your guardian to help you," said Mrs. France +quietly. + +Delia flushed, straightened her shoulders, and said nothing. + +This time Mrs. France was fairly taken by surprise. She knew nothing +more of Sir Robert Blanchflower's will than that he had made Mr. Mark +Winnington his daughter's guardian, till she reached the age of +twenty-five. But that any young woman--any motherless and fatherless +girl--should not think herself the most lucky of mortals to have +obtained Mark Winnington as guide and defender, with first claim on his +time, his brains, his kindness, seemed incredible to Mark's old friend +and neighbour, accustomed to the daily signs of his immense and +deserved popularity. Then it flashed upon her--"Has she ever seen him?" + +The doubt led to an immediate communication of the news that Winnington +had arrived from town that morning. Dr. France had seen him in the +village. + +"You know him, of course, already?" + +"Not at all," said Delia, indifferently. "He and I are perfect +strangers." Mrs. France laughed. + +"I rather envy you the pleasure of making friends with him! We are all +devoted to him down here." + +Delia lifted her eyebrows. + +"What are his particular virtues? It's monotonous to possess them +_all_." The slight note of insolence was hardly disguised. + +"No two friends of his would give you the same answer. I should give +you a different catalogue, for instance, from Lady Tonbridge--" + +"Lady Tonbridge!" cried Delia, waking up at last. "You don't mean that +Lady Tonbridge lives in this neighbourhood?" + +"Certainly. You know her?" + +"She came once to stay with us in the West Indies. My father knew her +very well before she married. And I owe her--a great debt"--the last +words were spoken with emphasis. + +Mrs. France looked enquiring. + +"--she recommended to us the lady who is now living with me here--my +chaperon--Miss Marvell?" + +There was silence for a moment. Then Mrs. France said, not without +embarrassment-- + +"Your father desired she should live with you?" + +Delia flushed again. + +"No. My father did not understand her." + +"He did not agree with her views?" + +"Nor with mine. It was horrid--but even relations must agree to differ. +Why is Lady Tonbridge here? And where is Sir Alfred? Papa had not heard +of them for a long time." + +"They separated last year"--said Mrs. France gravely. "But Mr. +Winnington will tell you. He's a great friend of hers. She does a lot +of work for him." + +"Work?" + +"Social work!" smiled Mrs. France--"poor-law--schools--that kind of +thing. He ropes us all in." + +"Oh!" said Delia, with her head in the air. + +Mrs. France laughed outright. + +"That seems to you so unimportant--compared to the vote." + +"It _is_ unimportant!" said Delia, impetuously. "Nothing really matters +but the vote. Aren't you a Suffragist, Mrs. France?" + +Mrs. France smilingly shook her head. + +"I don't want to meddle with the men's business. And we're a long way +yet from catching up with our own. Oh, my husband has a lot of +scientific objections. But that's mine." Then her face grew +serious--"anyway, we can all agree, I hope, in hating violence. That +can never settle it." + +She looked a little sternly at her young companion. + +"That depends," said Delia. "But we mustn't argue, Mrs. France. I +should only make you angry. Ah!" + +She sprang up and went to the window, just as steps could be heard on +the gravel outside. + +"Here's someone coming." She turned to Mrs. France. "Is it Mr. +Winnington?" + +"It is!" said her visitor, after putting on her glasses. + +Delia surveyed him, standing behind the lace curtain, and Mrs. France +was relieved to see that a young person of such very decided opinions +could be still girlishly curious. She herself rose to go. + +"Good-bye. I won't interrupt your talk with him." + +"Good-looking?" said Delia, with mischief in her eyes, and a slight +gesture towards the approaching visitor. + +"Don't you know what an athlete he is--or was?" + +"Another perfection? Heavens!--how does he endure it?" said the girl, +laughing. + +Mrs. France took her leave. She was a very motherly tender-hearted +woman, and she would like to have taken her old friend's grandchild in +her arms and kissed her. But she wisely refrained; and indeed the +instinct to shake her was perhaps equally strong. "How long will she +stand gossiping on the doormat with the paragon," said Delia savagely +to herself, when she was left alone. "Oh, how I hate a 'charming man'!" +She moved stormily to and fro, listening to the distant sounds of talk +in the hall, and resenting them. Then suddenly she paused opposite one +of the large mirrors in the room. A coil of hair had loosened itself; +she put it right; and still stood motionless, interrogating herself in +a proud concentration. + +"Well?--I am quite ready for him." + +But her heart beat uncomfortably fast as the door opened, and Mark +Winnington entered. + + + + +Chapter V + + +As Winnington advanced with outstretched hand to greet her, Delia was +conscious of a striking physical presence, and of an eye fixed upon her +at once kind and penetrating. + +"How are you? You've been through a terrible time! Are you at all +rested? I'm afraid it has been a long, long strain." + +He held her hand in both his, asking gentle questions about her +father's illness, interrogating her looks the while with a frank +concern and sympathy. + +Delia was taken by surprise. For the first time that day she was +reminded of what was really, the truth. She _was_ tired--morally and +physically. But Gertrude Marvell never recognised anything of the kind; +and in her presence Delia rarely confessed any such weakness even to +herself. + +As it was, her eyes and mouth wavered a little under Winnington's look. + +"Thank you," she said quietly. "I shall soon be rested." + +They sat down. Delia was conscious--unwillingly conscious, of a nervous +agitation she did her best to check. For Winnington also it was clearly +an awkward moment. He began at once to talk of his old recollections of +her parents, of her mother's beauty, of her father's reputation as the +most dashing soldier on the North-West frontier, in the days when they +first met in India. + +"But his health was even then very poor. I suppose it was that made him +leave the army?" + +"Yes--and then Parliament," said Delia. "He was ordered a warm climate +for the winter. But he could never have lived without working. His +Governorship just suited him." + +She spoke with charming softness, beguiled from her insensibly by +Winnington's own manner. At the back of Winnington's mind, as they +talked, ran perpetual ejaculations--ejaculations of the natural man in +the presence of so much beauty. But his conversation with her flowed +the while with an even gentleness which never for a moment affected +intimacy, and was touched here and there with a note of deference, even +of ceremony, which disarmed his companion. + +"I never came across your father down here--oddly enough," he said +presently. "He had left Sandhurst before I went to Eton; and then there +was Oxford, and then the bar. My little place belonged then to a +cousin, and I had hardly ever seen it. But of course I knew, your +grandmother--everybody did. She was a great centre--a great figure. She +has left her mark here. Don't you find it so?" + +"Yes. Everybody seems to remember her." + +But, in a moment, the girl before him had changed and stiffened. It +seemed to Winnington, as to Mrs. France, that she pulled herself up, +reacting against something that threatened her. The expression in her +eyes put something between them. "Perhaps you know"--she said--"that +my grandmother didn't always get on with my mother?" + +He wondered why she had reminded him of that old family jar, which +gossip had spread abroad. Did it really rankle in her mind? Odd, that +it should! + +"Was that so?" he laughed. "Oh, Lady Blanchflower had her veins of +unreason. One had to know where to have her." + +"She took Greeks for barbarians--my father used to say," said Delia, a +little grimly. "But she was very good to me--and so I was fond of her." +"And she of you. But there are still tales going about--do you +mind?--of the dances you led her. It took weeks and months, they say, +before you and she arrived at an armed truce--after a most appalling +state of war! There's an old gardener here--retired now--who remembers +you quite well. He told me yesterday that you used to be very friendly +with him, and you said to him once--'I like Granny!--she's the master +of me!'" + +The laughter in Winnington's eyes again kindled hers. + +"I was a handful--I know." There was a pause. Then she added--"And I'm +afraid--I've gone on being a handful!" Gesture and tone showed that she +spoke deliberately. + +"Most people of spirit are--till they come to handle themselves," he +replied, also with a slight change of tone. + +"But that's just what women are never allowed to do, Mr. Winnington!" +She turned suddenly red, and fronted him. "There's always some man, who +claims to manage them and their affairs. We're always in +leading-strings--nobody ever admits we're grown up. Why can't we be +allowed like men--to stumble along our own way? If we make mistakes, +let's _pay_ for them! But let us at some time in our lives--at +least--feel ourselves free beings!" + +There was no mistaking the purport of these words. They referred +clearly to her father's will, and her own position. After a moment's +thought, Winnington bent forward. + +"I think I understand what you mean," he said gravely. "And I +sympathise with it more than you imagine." + +Delia looked up impetuously-- + +"Then why, Mr. Winnington, did you consent to be my guardian?" + +"Because--quite honestly--because I thought I could be of more use to +you perhaps than the Court of Chancery; and because your father's +letter to me was one very difficult to put aside." + +"How could anyone in my father's state of health really judge +reasonably!" cried Delia. "I daresay it sounds shocking to you, Mr. +Winnington, but I can't help putting it to myself like this--Papa was +always able to contrive his own life as he chose. In his Governorship +he was a small king. He tried a good many experiments. Everybody +deferred to him. Everybody was glad to help him. Then when his money +came and the estate, nobody fettered him with conditions; nobody +interfered with him. Grandpapa and he didn't agree in a lot of things. +Papa was a Liberal; and Grandpapa was an awfully hot Conservative. But +Grandpapa didn't appoint a trustee, or tie up the estates--or anything +of that kind. It is simply and solely because I am a woman that these +things are done! I am not to be allowed _my_ opinions, in _my_ life, +though Papa was quite free to work for his in his life! This is the +kind of thing we call tyranny,--this is the kind of thing that's +driving women into revolt!" + +Delia had risen. She stood in what Gertrude Marvell would have called +her "pythian" attitude, hands behind her, her head thrown back, +delivering her prophetic soul. Winnington, as he surveyed her, was +equally conscious of her beauty and her absurdity. But he kept cool, or +rather the natural faculty which had given him so much authority and +success in life rose with a kind of zest to its new and unaccustomed +task. + +"May I perhaps suggest--that your father was fifty-two when he +succeeded to this estate--and that you are twenty-one?" + +"Nearly twenty-two," she interrupted, hastily. + +"Nearly twenty-two," repeated Winnington. "And I assure you, that what +with 'People's Budgets,' and prowling Chancellors, and all the new +turns of the screw that the Treasury is for ever putting on, inheriting +an estate nowadays is no simple matter. Your father thought of that. He +wished to provide someone to help you." + +"I could have found lawyers to help me." + +"Of course you could. But my experience is that solicitors are good +servants but bad masters. It wants a good deal of practical knowledge +to direct them, so that you get what you want. I have gone a little way +into the business of the estate this morning with Mr. Masham, and in +town, with the Morton Manners people. I see already some complications +which will take me a deal of time and thought to straighten out. And I +am a lawyer, and if you will let me say so, just double your age." + +He smiled at her, but Delia's countenance did not relax. Her mouth was +scornful. + +"I daresay that's quite true, Mr. Winnington. But of course you know it +was _not_ on that account--or at any rate not chiefly on that account, +that my father left things as he did. He wished"--she spoke clearly and +slowly--"simply to prevent my helping the Suffrage movement in the way +I think best." + +Winnington too had risen, and was standing with one hand on the +mantelpiece. His brow was slightly furrowed, not frowning exactly, but +rather with the expression of one trying to bring his mind into as +close touch as possible with another mind. + +"I must of course agree with you. That is evidently one of the objects +of the will, though by no means--I think--the only one. And as to that, +should you not ask yourself--had not your father a right, even a duty, +to look after the disposal of his money as he thought best? Surely it +was his responsibility--especially as he was old, and you were young." + +Delia had begun to feel impatient--to resent the very mildness of his +tone. She felt, as though she were an insubordinate child, being gently +reasoned with. + +"No, I don't admit it!" she said passionately. "It was tampering with +the right of the next generation!" + +"Might you not say the same of the whole--or almost the whole of our +system of inheritance?" he argued. "I should put it--that the old are +always trying to preserve and protect something they know is more +precious to them than it can be to the young--something as to which, +with the experience of life behind them, they believe they are wiser +than the young. _Ought_ the young to resent it?" + +"Yes," persisted Delia. "_Yes_! They should be left to make their own +experiments." + +"They have _life_ wherewith to make them! But the dead--" He paused. +But Delia felt and quivered under the unspoken appeal; and also under +the quick touch of something more personal--more intimate--in his +manner, expressing, it seemed, some deep feeling of his own. He, in +turn, perceived that she had grown very pale; he guessed even that she +was suddenly not very far from tears. He seemed to realise the weeks, +perhaps months, of conflict through which the girl had just passed. He +was sincerely sorry for her--sincerely drawn to her. + +Delia broke the silence. + +"It is no good I think discussing this any more--is it? There's the +will, and the question is"--she faced him boldly--"how are you and I +going to get on, Mr. Winnington?" + +Winnington's seriousness broke up. He threw her a smiling look, and +with his hands in his pockets began to pace the room reflectively. + +"I really believe we can pull it off, if we look at it coolly," he said +at last, pausing in front of her. "I am no bigot on the Suffrage +question--frankly I have not yet made up my mind upon it. All that I am +clear about--as your father was clear--is that outrage and violence are +_wrong_--in any cause. I cannot believe that we shan't agree there!" + +He looked at her keenly. Delia was silent. Her face betrayed nothing, +though her eyes met his steadily. + +"And in regard to that, there is of course one thing that troubles +me"--he resumed--"one thing in which I beg you to take my advice"-- + +Delia breathed quick. + +"Gertrude Marvell?" she said. "Of course I knew that was coming!" + +"Yes. That we must settle, I think." He kept his eyes upon her. "You +can hardly know that she is mentioned by name in your father's last +letter--the letter to me---as the one person whose companionship he +dreaded for you--the one person he hoped you would consent to part +from." + +Delia had turned white. + +"No--I didn't know." + +"For that reason, and for others, I do entreat you"--he went on, +earnestly--"not to keep her here. Miss Marvell may be all that you +believe her. I have nothing to say against her,--except this. I am told +by those who know that she is already quite notorious in the militant +movement. She has been in prison, and she has made extremely violent +speeches, advocating what Miss Marvell calls war, and what plain people +call--crime. That she should live with you here would not only +prejudice your future, and divide you from people who should be your +natural friends; it would be an open disrespect to your father's +memory." + +There was silence. Then Delia said, evidently mastering her excitement +with difficulty. + +"I can't help it. She _must_ stay with me. Nobody need know--about my +father. Her name is not mentioned in the will." + +"No. That is true. But his letter to me as your guardian and trustee +ought to be regarded equitably as part of the will; and I do not see +how it would be possible for me to acquiesce in something so directly +contrary to his last wishes. I beg you to look at it from my point of +view--" + +"I do"--said Delia, flushing again. "But my letter warned you--" + +"Yes--but I felt on receiving it that you could not possibly be aware +of the full strength of your father's feeling. Let me read you his +words." + +He took an envelope from his pocket, observing her. Delia hastily +interposed. + +"Don't, Mr. Winnington!--I'm sure I know." + +"It is really my duty to read it to you," he said, courteously but +firmly. + +She endured it. The only sign of agitation she shewed was the trembling +of her hands on the back of the chair she leant upon. And when he +returned it to his pocket, she considered for a moment or two, before +she said, breathing unevenly, and stumbling a little.-- + +"That makes no difference, Mr. Winnington. I expect you think me a +monster. All the same I loved my father in my own way. But I am not +going to barter away my freedom for anything or anyone. I am not part +of my father, I am myself. And he is not here to be injured or hurt by +anything I do. I intend to stick to Gertrude Marvell--and she to me." + +And having delivered her ultimatum, she stood like a young goddess, +expectant and defiant. + +Winnington's manner changed. He straightened himself, with a slight +shake of his broad shoulders, and went to look out of the window at the +end of the room. Delia was left to contemplate the back of a very tall +man in a serge suit and to rate herself for the thrill--or the +trepidation--she could not help feeling. What would he say when he +spoke again? She was angry with herself that she could not quite +truthfully say that she did not care. + +When he returned, she divined another man. The tone was as courteous as +ever, but the first relation between them had disappeared; or rather it +had become a business relation, a relation of affairs. + +"You will of course understand--that I cannot _acquiesce_ in that +arrangement?" + +Delia's uncomfortable sense of humor found vent in a laugh--as civil +however as she could make it. + +"I do understand. But I don't quite see what you can do, Mr. +Winnington!" + +He smiled--quite pleasantly. + +"Nor do I--just yet. But of course Miss Marvell will not expect that +your father's estate should provide her with the salary that would +naturally fall to a chaperon whom your guardian could approve?" + +"I shall see to that. We shall not trouble you," said Delia, rather +fiercely. + +"And I shall ask to see Miss Marvell before I go this morning--that I +may point out to her the impropriety of remaining here against your +father's express wishes." + +Delia nodded. + +"All right--but it won't do any good." + +He made no reply, except to turn immediately to the subject of her +place of residence and her allowance. + +"It is I believe understood that you will live mainly here--at +Maumsey." + +"On the contrary!--I wish to spend a great part of the winter in +London." + +"With Miss Marvell?" + +"Certainly." + +"I cannot, I am afraid, let you expect that I shall provide the money." + +"It is my own money!" + +"Not legally. I hate insisting on these things; but perhaps you ought +to know that the _whole_ of your father's property--everything that he +left behind him, is in trust." + +"Which means"--cried Delia, quivering again--"that I am really a +pauper!--that I own nothing but my clothes--barely those!" + +He felt himself a brute. "Can I really keep this up!" he thought. +Aloud, he said--"If you would only make it a little easy for your +trustee, he would be only too thankful to follow out your wishes!" + +Delia made no reply, and Winnington took another turn up and down +before he paused in front of her with the words:-- + +"Can't we come to a compact? If I agree to London--say for six or +seven weeks--is there no promise you can make me in return?" + +With an inward laugh Delia remembered Gertrude's injunction to "keep +something to bargain with." + +"I don't know"--she said, reluctantly. "What sort of promise do you +want?" + +"I want one equal to the concession you ask me to make," he said +gravely. "In my eyes nothing could be more unfitting than that you +should be staying in London--during a time of particularly violent +agitation--under the chaperonage of Miss Marvell, who is already +committed to this agitation. If I agree to such a direct contradiction +of your father's wishes, I must at least have your assurance that you +will do nothing violent or illegal, either down here or in London, and +that in this house above all you will take some pains to respect Sir +Robert's wishes. That I am sure you will promise me?" + +She could not deny the charm of his direct appealing look, and she +hesitated. + +"I was going to have a drawing-room meeting here as soon as +possible"--she said, slowly. + +"On behalf of the 'Daughters of Revolt'?" + +She silently assented. + +"I may feel sure--may I not?--that you will give it up?" + +"It is a matter of conscience with us"--she said proudly--"to spread +our message wherever we go." + +"I don't think I can allow you a conscience all to yourself," he said +smiling. "Consider how I shall be straining mine--in agreeing to the +London plan!" + +"Very well"--the words came out reluctantly. "If you insist--and if +London is agreed upon--I will give it up." + +"Thank you," he said quietly. "And you will take part in no acts of +violence, either here or in London? It seems strange to use such words +to you. I hate to use them. But with the news in this week's papers I +can't help it. You will promise?" + +There was a short silence. + +"I will join in nothing militant down here," said Delia at last. "I +have already told Miss Marvell so." + +"Or in London?" + +She straightened herself. + +"I promise nothing about London." + +Guardian and ward looked straight into each other's faces for a few +moments. Delia's resistance had stirred a passion--a tremor--in her +pulses, she had never known in her struggle with her father. Winnington +was clearly debating with himself, and Delia seemed to see the thoughts +coursing through the grey eyes that looked at her, seriously indeed, +yet not without suggesting a man's humorous spirit behind them. + +"Very well"--he said--"we will talk of London later.--Now may we just +sit down and run through the household arrangements and expenses +here--before I see Miss Marvell. I want to know exactly what you want +doing to this house, and how we can fix you up comfortably." + +Delia assented. Winnington produced a note-book and pencil. Through his +companion's mind was running meanwhile an animated debate. + +"I'm not bound to tell him of those other meetings I have promised? +'Yes, you are!' No,--I'm not. They're not to be here--and if I once +begin asking his leave for things--there'll be no end to it. I mean to +shew him--once for all--that I am of age, and my own mistress. He can't +starve me--or beat me!" + +Her face broke into suppressed laughter as she bent it over the figures +that Winnington was presenting to her. + + * * * * * + +"Well, I am rather disappointed that you don't want to do more to the +house," said Winnington, as he rose and put up his note-book. "I +thought it might have been an occupation for the autumn and winter. But +at least we can decide on the essential things, and the work can be +done while you are in town. I am glad you like the servants Mrs. Bird +has found for you. Now I am going off to the Bank to settle everything +about the opening of your account, and the quarterly cheque we have +agreed on shall be paid in to-morrow." + +"Very well." But instantly through the girl's mind there shot up the +qualifying thought. "_He_ may say how it is to be spent--but _I_ have +made no promise!" + +He approached her to take his leave. + +"My sister comes home to-night. Will you try the new car and have tea +with us on Thursday?" Delia assented. "And before I go I should like to +say a word about some of the neighbours." + +He tried to give her a survey of the land. Lady Tonbridge, of course, +would be calling upon her directly. She was actually in the village--in +the tiniest bandbox of a house. Her husband's brutality had at +last--two years before this date--forced her to leave him, with her +girl of fifteen. "A miserable story--better taken for granted. She is +the pluckiest woman alive!" Then the Amberleys--the Rector, his wife +and daughter Susy were pleasant people--"Susy is a particular friend of +mine. It'll be jolly if you like her." + +"Oh, no, she won't take to me!" said Delia with decision. + +"Why not?" + +But Delia only shook her head, a little contemptuously. + +"We shall see," said Winnington. "Well, good night. Remember, anything +I can do for you--here I am." + +His eyes smiled, but Delia was perfectly conscious that the eager +cordiality, the touch of something like tenderness, which had entered +into his earlier manner, had disappeared. She realised, and with a +moment's soreness, that she had offended his sense of right--of what a +daughter's feeling should be towards a dead father, at any rate, in the +first hours of bereavement, when the recollections of death and +suffering are still fresh. + +"I can't help it," she thought stubbornly. "It's all part of the price +one pays." + +But when he was gone, she stood a long time by the window without +moving, thinking about the hour which had just passed. The impression +left upon her by Winnington's personality was uncomfortably strong. She +knew now that, in spite of her bravado, she had dreaded to find it so, +and the reality had more than confirmed the anticipation. She was +committed to a struggle with a man whom she must respect, and could not +help liking; whose only wish was to help and protect her. And beside +the man's energetic and fruitful maturity, she became, as it were, the +spectator of her own youth and stumbling inexperience. + +But these misgivings did not last long. A passionate conviction, a +fanatical affection, came to her aid, and her doubts were impatiently +dismissed. + + * * * * * + +Winnington found Miss Blanchflower's chaperon in a little sitting-room +on the ground floor already appropriated to her, surrounded with a +vast litter of letters and newspapers which she hastily pushed aside as +he entered. He had a long interview with her, and as he afterwards +confessed to Lady Tonbridge, he had rarely put his best powers forward +to so little purpose. Miss Marvell did not attempt to deny that she was +coming to live at Maumsey in defiance of the wishes of Delia's father +and guardian, and of the public opinion of those who were to be +henceforward Delia's friends and neighbours. + +"But Delia has asked me to live with her. She is twenty-one, and women +are not now the mere chattels they once were. Both she and I have wills +of our own. You will of course give me no salary. I require none. But I +don't see how you're going to turn me out of Delia's house, if Delia +wishes me to stay." + +And Winnington must needs acknowledge, at least to himself, that he did +not see either. + +He put the lady however through a cross-examination as to her +connection with militancy which would have embarrassed or intimidated +most women; but Gertrude Marvell, a slight and graceful figure, sitting +erect on the edge of her chair, bore it with perfect equanimity, +apparently frank, and quite unashamed. Certainly she belonged to the +"Daughters of Revolt," the record of her imprisonment was there to shew +it; and so did Delia. The aim of both their lives was to obtain the +parliamentary vote for women, and in her opinion and that of many +others, the time for constitutional action--"for that nonsense"--as she +scornfully put it, had long gone by. As to what she intended to do, or +advise Delia to do, that was her own affair. One did not give away +one's plans to the enemy. But she realised, of course, that it would be +unkind to Delia to plunge her into possible trouble, or to run the risk +herself of arrest or imprisonment during the early days of Delia's +mourning; and of her own accord she graciously offered the assurance +that neither she nor Delia would commit any illegality during the two +months or so that they might be settled at Maumsey. As to what might +happen later, she, like Delia, declined to give any assurances. The +parliamentary situation was becoming desperate, and any action whatever +on the part of women which might serve to prod the sluggish mind of +England before another general election, was in her view not only +legitimate but essential. + +"Of course I know what your conscience says on the matter," she said, +with her steady eyes on Winnington. "But--excuse me for saying so--your +conscience is not my affair." + +Winnington rose, and prepared to take his leave. If he felt nonplussed, +he managed not to shew it. + +"Very well. For the present I acquiesce. But you will scarcely wonder, +Miss Marvell, after this interview between us, if you find yourself +henceforward under observation. You are here in defiance of Miss +Blanchflower's legal guardian. I protest against your influence over +her; and I disapprove of your presence here. I shall do my best to +protect her from you." + +She nodded. + +"There of course, you will be in your right." + +And rising, she turned to the open window and the bright garden +outside, with a smiling remark on the decorative value of begonias, as +though nothing had happened. + +Winnington's temperament did not allow him to answer a woman uncivilly +under any circumstances. But they parted as duellists part before the +fray. Miss Marvell acknowledged his "Good afternoon," with a pleasant +bow, keeping her hands the while in the pockets of her serge jacket, +and she remained standing till Winnington had left the room. + +"Now for Lady Tonbridge!" thought Winnington, as he rode away. "If she +don't help me out, I'm done!" + +At the gate of Maumsey he stopped to speak to the lodge-keeper, and as +he did so, a man opened the gate, and came in. With a careless nod to +Winnington he took his way up the drive. Winnington looked after him in +some astonishment. + +"What on earth can that fellow be doing here?" + +He scented mischief; little suspecting however that a note from +Gertrude Marvell lay in the pocket of the man's shabby overcoat, +together with that copy of the _Tocsin_ which Delia's sharp eyes had +detected the week before in the hands of its owner. + +Meanwhile as he drove homeward, instead of the details of county +business, the position of Delia Blanchflower, her personality, her +loveliness, her defiance of him, absorbed his mind completely. He began +to foresee the realities of the struggle before him, and the sheer +dramatic interest of it held him, as though someone presented the case, +and bade him watch how it worked out. + + + + +Chapter VI + + +The village or rather small town of Great Maumsey took its origin in a +clearing of that royal forest which had now receded from it a couple of +miles to the south. But it was still a rural and woodland spot. The +trees in the fields round it had still a look of wildness, as survivors +from the primeval chase, and were grouped more freely and romantically +than in other places; while from the hill north of the church, one +could see the New Forest stretching away, blue beyond blue, purple +beyond purple, till it met the shining of the sea. + +Great Maumsey had a vast belief in itself, and was reckoned exclusive +and clannish by other places. It was proud of its old Georgian houses, +with their white fronts, their pillared porches, and the pediment +gables in their low roofs. The owners of these houses, of which there +were many, charmingly varied, in the long main street, were well aware +that they had once been old-fashioned, and were now as much admired in +their degree, as the pictures of the great English artists, Hogarth, +Reynolds, Romney, with which they were contemporary. There were earlier +houses too, of brick and timber, with overhanging top stories and +moss-grown roofs. There was a green surrounded with post and rails, on +which a veritable stocks still survived, kept in careful repair as a +memento of our barbarous forbears, by the parish Council. The church, +dating from that wonderful fourteenth century when all the world must +have gone mad for church-building, stood back from the main street, +with the rectory beside it, in a modest seclusion of their own. + +It was all very English, very spick and span, and apparently very well +to do. That the youth of the village was steadily leaving it for the +Colonies, that the constant marrying in and in which had gone on for +generations had produced an ugly crop of mental deficiency, and +physical deformity among the inhabitants--that the standard of morals +was too low, and the standard of drink too high--were matters well +known to the Rector and the Doctor. But there were no insanitary +cottages, and no obvious scandals of any sort. The Maumsey estate had +always been well managed; there were a good many small gentlefolk who +lived in the Georgian houses, and owing to the competition of the +railways, agricultural wages were rather better than elsewhere. + +About a mile from the eastern end of the village was the small +modernised manor-house of Bridge End, which belonged to Mark +Winnington, and where his sister Alice, Mrs. Matheson, kept him company +for the greater part of the year. The gates leading to Maumsey lay a +little west of the village, while on the hill to the north rose, +conspicuous against its background of wood, the famous old house of +Monk Lawrence. It looked down upon Maumsey on the one hand and Bridge +End on the other. It was generally believed that the owner of it, Sir +Wilfrid Lang, had exhausted his resources in restoring it, and that it +was the pressure of debt rather than his wife's health which had led to +its being shut up so long. + +The dwellers in the village regarded it as the jewel in their +landscape, their common heritage and pride. Lady Tonbridge, whose +little drawing-room and garden to the back looked out on the hill and +the old house, was specially envied because she possessed so good a +view of it. She herself inhabited one of the very smallest of the +Georgian houses, in the main street of Maumsey. She paid a rent of no +more than Ł40 a year for it, and Maumsey people who liked her, felt +affectionately concerned that a duke's grand-daughter should be reduced +to a rent and quarters so insignificant. + +Lady Tonbridge however was not at all concerned for the smallness of +her house. She regarded it as the outward and visible sign of the most +creditable action of her life--the action which would--or should--bring +her most marks when the recording angel came to make up her account. +Every time she surveyed its modest proportions the spirit of freedom +danced within her, and she envied none of the noble halls in which she +had formerly lived, and to some of which she still paid occasional +Visits. + +At tea-time, on the day following Winnington's first interview with his +ward, Madeleine Tonbridge came into her little drawing-room, in her +outdoor things, and carrying a bundle of books under the arm. + +As far as such words could ever apply to her she was tired and dusty. +But her little figure was so alert and trim, her grey linen dress and +its appointments so dainty, and the apple-red in her small cheeks so +bright, that one might have conceived her as just fresh from a maid's +hands, and stepping out to amuse herself, instead of as just returning +from a tedious afternoon's work, by which she had earned the large sum +of five shillings. A woman of forty-five, she looked her age, and she +had never possessed any positive beauty, unless it were the beauty of +delicate and harmonious proportion. Yet she had been pestered with +suitors as a girl, and unfortunately had married the least desirable of +them all. And now in middle life, no one had more devoted men-friends; +and that without exciting a breath of scandal, even in a situation +where one might have thought it inevitable. + +She looked round her as she entered. + +"Nora!--where are you?" + +A girl, apparently about seventeen, put her head in through the French +window that opened to the garden. + +"Ready for tea, Mummy?" + +"Rather!"--said Lady Tonbridge, with energy, as she put a match to the +little spirit kettle on the tea-table where everything stood ready. +"Come in, darling." + +And throwing off her hat and jacket, she sank into a comfortable +arm-chair with a sigh of fatigue. Her daughter quietly loosened her +mother's walking-shoes and took them away. Then they kissed each other, +and Nora went to look after the tea. She was a slim, pale-faced +school-girl, with yellow-brown eyes, and yellow-brown hair, not as yet +very attractive in looks, but her mother was convinced that it was only +the plainness of the cygnet, and that the swan was only a few years +off. Nora, who at seventeen had no illusions, was grateful to her +mother for the belief but did not share it in the least. + +"I'm sure you gave that girl half an hour over time," she said +reprovingly, as she handed Lady Tonbridge her cup of tea--"I can't +think why you do it." She referred to the solicitor's daughter whom +Lady Tonbridge had been that afternoon instructing in the uses of the +French participle. + +"Nor can I. A kind of ridiculous _esprit de métier_ I suppose. I +undertook to teach her French, and when after all these weeks she don't +seem to know a thing more than when she began, I feel as if I were +picking her dear papa's pockets." + +"Which is absurd," said Nora, buttering her mother's toast, "and I +can't let you do it. Half a crown an hour is silly enough already, and +for you to throw in half an hour extra for nothing, can't be stood." + +"I wish I could get it up to four hours a day," sighed the mother, +munching happily at her toast, while she held out her small stockinged +feet to the fire which Nora had just lit. "Just think. Ten shillings a +day--six days a week--ten months in the year. Why it would pay the +rent, we could have another servant, and I could give you twenty pounds +a year more for your clothes." + +"Much obliged--but I prefer a live Mummy--and no clothes--to a dead +one. More tea?" + +"Thanks. No chance, of course. Where could one find four persons a day, +in Maumsey, or near Maumsey, who want to learn French? The notion's +absurd. I shouldn't get the lessons I do, if it weren't for the +'Honourable.'" + +"Snobs!" + +"Not at all! Not a single family out of the people I go to deserve to +be called snobs. It's the natural dramatic instinct in us all. You +don't expect an 'Honourable' to be giving French lessons at half a +crown an hour, and when she does, you say--'Hullo! Some screw loose, +somewhere!'--and you at once feel a new interest in the French tongue, +and ask her to come along. I don't mind it a bit. I sit and spin yarns +about Drawing-rooms and Court balls, and it all helps.--When did you +get home?" + +For Nora attended a High School in a neighbouring town, some five miles +away, journeying there and back by train. + +"Half-past four. I met Mr. Winnington in his car, and he said he'd be +here about six." + +"Good. I'm dying to talk to him. I have written to the Abbey to say we +will call to-morrow. Of course, I ought to be her nursing mother in +these parts"--said Lady Tonbridge reflectively--"I knew Sir Robert in +frocks, and we were always pals. But my dear, it was I who hatched the +cockatrice!" + +Nora nodded gravely. + +"It was I," pursued Lady Tonbridge, penitentially,--"who saddled him +with that woman--and I know he never forgave me. He as good as told me +so when we last met--for those few hours--at Basle. But how could I +tell? How could anybody tell--she would turn out such a creature? I +only knew that she had taken all kinds of honours. I thought I was +sending him a treasure." + +"All the same you did it, Mummy. And it won't do to give yourself airs +now! That's what Mr. Winnington says. You've got to help him out." + +"I say, don't talk secrets!" said a voice just outside the room. "For I +can't help hearing 'em. May I come in?" + +And, pushing the half-open door, Mark Winnington stood smiling on the +threshold. + +"I apologise. But your little maid let me in--and then vanished +somewhere, like greased lightning--after a dog." + +"Oh, come in," said Lady Tonbridge, with resignation, extending at the +same time a hand of welcome--"the little maid, as you call her, only +came from your workhouse yesterday, and I haven't yet discovered a +grain of sense in her. But she gets plenty of exercise. If she isn't +chasing dogs, it's cats." + +"Don't you attack my schools," said Winnington seating himself at the +tea-table. "They're A1, and you're very lucky to get one of my girls." + +Madeleine Tonbridge replied tartly, that if he was a poor-law guardian, +and responsible for a barrack school it was no cause for boasting. She +had not long parted with another of his girls, who had tried on her +blouses, and gone out in her boots. She thought of offering the new +girl a free and open choice of her wardrobe to begin with, so as to +avoid unpleasantness. + +"We all know that every mistress has the maid she deserves," said +Winnington, deep in gingerbread cake. "I leave it there--" + +"Yes, jolly well do!" cried Nora, who had come to sit on a stool in +front of her mother and Winnington, her eager eyes glancing from one to +the other--"Don't start Mummy on servants, Mr. Winnington. If you do, I +shall go to bed. There's only one thing worth talking about--and +that's--" + +"Maumsey!" he said, laughing at her. + +"Have you accomplished anything?" asked Lady Tonbridge. "Don't tell me +you've dislodged the Fury?" + +Winnington shook his head. + +"_J'y suis--j'y reste_!" + +"I thought so. There is no civilised way by which men can eject a +woman. Tell me all about it." + +Winnington, however, instead of expatiating on the Maumsey household, +turned the conversation to something else--especially to Nora's first +attempts at golf, in which he had been her teacher. Nora, whose +reasonableness was abnormal, very soon took the hint, and after five +minutes' "chaff" with Winnington, to whom she was devoted, she took up +her work and went back to the garden. + +"Nobody ever snubs me so efficiently as Nora," said Madeleine +Tonbridge, with resignation, "though you come a good second. Discreet I +shall never be. Don't tell me anything if you don't want to." + +"But of course I want to! And there is nobody in the world so +absolutely bound to help me as you." + +"I knew you'd say that. Don't pile it on. Give me the kitten--and +describe your proceedings." + +Winnington handed her the grey Persian kitten reposing on a distant +chair, and Lady Tonbridge, who always found the process conducive to +clear thinking, stroked and combed the creature's beautiful fur, while +the man talked,--with entire freedom now that they were _tęte-ŕ-tęte._ + +She was his good friend indeed, and she had also been the good friend +of Sir Robert Blanchflower. It was natural that to her he should lay +his perplexities bare. + + * * * * * + +But after she had heard his story and given her best mind to his +position, she could not refrain from expressing the wonder she had felt +from the beginning that he should ever have accepted it at all. + +"What on earth made you do it? Bobby Blanchflower had no more real +claim on you than this kitten!" + +Winnington's grey eyes fixed on the trees outside shewed a man trying +to retrace his own course. + +"He wrote me a very touching letter. And I have always thought that +men--and women--ought to be ready to do this kind of service for each +other. I should have felt a beast if I had said No, at once. But I +confess now that I have seen Miss Delia, I don't know whether I can do +the slightest good." + +"Hold on!" said Lady Tonbridge, sharply,--"You can't give it +up--now." + +Winnington laughed. + +"I have no intention of giving it up. Only I warn you that I shall +probably make a mess of it." + +"Well"--the tone was coolly reflective--"that may do _you_ +good--whatever happens to the girl. You have never made a mess of +anything yet in your life. It will be a new experience." + +Winnington protested hotly that her remark only shewed how little even +intimate friends know of each other's messes, and that his were already +legion. Lady Tonbridge threw him an incredulous look. As he sat there +in his bronzed and vigorous manhood, the first crowsfeet just beginning +to shew round the eyes, and the first streaks of grey in the brown +curls, she said to herself that none of her young men acquaintance +possessed half the physical attractiveness of Mark Winnington; while +none--old or young--could rival him at all in the humane and winning +spell he carried about with him. To see Mark Winnington _aux prises_ +with an adventure in which not even his tact, his knowledge of men and +women, his candour, or his sweetness, might be sufficient to win +success, piqued her curiosity; perhaps even flattered that slight +inevitable malice, wherewith ordinary mortals protect themselves +against the favourites of the gods. + +She was determined however to help him if she could, and she put him +through a number of questions. The girl then was as handsome as she +promised to be? A beauty, said Winnington--and of the heroic or poetic +type. And the Fury? Winnington described the neat, little lady, +fashionably Pressed and quiet mannered, who had embittered the last +years of Sir Robert Blanchflower, and firmly possessed herself of his +daughter. + +"You will see her to-morrow, at my house, when you come to tea. I +carefully didn't ask her, but I am certain she will come, and Alice and +I shall of course have to receive her." + +"She is not thin-skinned then?" + +"What fanatic is? It is one of the secrets of their strength." + +"She probably regards us all as the dust under her feet," said Lady +Tonbridge. "I wonder what game she will be up to here. Have you seen +the _Times_ this morning?" + +Winnington nodded. It contained three serious cases of arson, in which +Suffragette literature and messages had been discovered among the +ruins, besides a number of minor outrages. An energetic leading article +breathed the exasperation of the public, and pointed out the spread of +the campaign of violence. + +By this time Lady Tonbridge had carried her visitor into the garden, +and they were walking up and down among the late September flowers. +Beyond the garden lay green fields and hedgerows; beyond the fields +rose the line of wooded hill, and, embedded in trees, the grey and +gabled front of Monk Lawrence. + +Winnington reported the very meagre promise he had been able to get out +of his ward and her companion. + +"The comfort is," said Lady Tonbridge, "that this is a sane +neighbourhood--comparatively. They won't get much support. Oh, I don't +know though--" she added quickly. "There's that man--Mr. Lathrop, Paul +Lathrop--who took Wood Cottage last year--a queer fish, by all +accounts. I'm told he's written the most violent things backing up the +militants generally. However, his own story has put _him_ out of +Court." + +"His own story?" said Winnington, with a puzzled look. + +"Don't be so innocent!" laughed Lady Tonbridge, rather impatiently. "I +always tell you you don't give half place enough in life to +gossip-'human nature's daily food.' I knew all about him a week after +he arrived. However, I don't propose to save you trouble, Mr. Guardian! +Go and look up a certain divorce case, with Mr. Lathrop's name in it, +some time last year--if you want to know. That's enough for that." + +But Winnington interrupted her, with a disturbed look. "I happened to +meet that very man you are speaking of--yesterday--in the Abbey drive, +going to call." + +Lady Tonbridge shrugged her shoulders. + +"There you see their freemasonry. I don't suppose they approve his +morals--but he supports their politics. You won't be able to banish +him!--Well, so the child is lovely? and interesting?" + +Winnington assented warmly. + +"But determined to make herself a nuisance to you? Hm! Mr. Mark--dear +Mr. Mark--don't fall in love with her!" + +Winnington's expression altered. He did not answer for a moment. Then +he said, looking away-- + +"Do you think you need have said that?" + +"No!"--cried Madeleine Tonbridge remorsefully. "I am a wretch. But +don't--_don't_!" + +This time he smiled at her, though not without vexation. + +"Do you forget that I am nearly old enough to be her father?" + +"Oh that's nonsense!" she said hastily. "However--I'm not going to +flatter you--or tease you. Forgive me. I put it out of my head. I +wonder if there is anybody in the field already?" + +"Not that I am aware of." + +"Of course you know this kind of thing spoils a girl's prospects of +marriage enormously. Men won't run the risk." + +Winnington laughed. + +"And all the time, you're a Suffragist yourself!" + +"Yes, indeed I am," was the stout reply. "Here am I, with a house and a +daughter, a house-parlourmaid, a boot-boy, and rates to pay. Why +shouldn't I vote as well as you? But the difference between me and the +Fury is that she wants the vote this year--this month--_this +minute_--and I don't care whether it comes in my time--or Nora's +time--or my grandchildren's time. I say we ought to have it--that it is +our right--and you men are dolts not to give it us. But I sit and wait +peaceably till you do--till the apple is ripe and drops. And meanwhile +these wild women prevent its ripening at all. So long as they rage, +there it hangs--out of our reach. So that I'm not only ashamed of them +as a woman--but out of all patience with them as a Suffragist! However +for heaven's sake don't let's discuss the horrid subject. I'll do all I +can for Delia--both for your sake and Bob's--I'll keep my best eye on +the Fury--I feel myself of course most abominably responsible for +her--and I hope for the best. Who's coming to your tea-party?" + +Winnington enumerated. At the name of Susy Amberley, his hostess threw +him a sudden look, but said nothing. + +"The Andrews'--Captain, Mrs. and Miss--," Lady Tonbridge exclaimed. + +"Why did you ask that horrid woman?" + +"We didn't! Alice indiscreetly mentioned that Miss Blanchflower was +coming to tea, and she asked herself." + +"She's enough to make any one militant! If I hear her quote 'the hand +that rocks the cradle rules the world' once more, I shall have to smite +her. The girl's _down-trodden_ I tell you! Well, well--if you gossip +too little, I gossip too much. Heavens!--what a light!" + +Winnington turned to see the glow of a lovely afternoon fusing all the +hill-side in a glory of gold and amethyst, and the windows in the long +front of Monk Lawrence taking fire under the last rays of a +fast-dropping sun. + +"Do you know--I sometimes feel anxious about that house!" said +Madeleine Tonbridge, abruptly. "It's empty--it's famous--it belongs to +a member of the Government. What is to prevent the women from attacking +it?" + +"In the first place, it isn't empty. The Keeper, Daunt, from the South +Lodge, has now moved into the house. I know, because Susy Amberley told +me. She goes up there to teach one of my cripples--Daunt's second girl. +In the next, the police are on the alert. And last--who on earth would +dare to attack Monk Lawrence? The odium of it would be too great. A +house bound up with English history and English poetry--No! They are +not such fools!" + +Lady Tonbridge shook her head. + +"Don't be so sure. Anyway you as a magistrate can keep the police up to +the mark." + +Winnington departed, and his old friend was left to meditate on his +predicament. It was strange to see Mark Winnington, with his +traditional, English ways and feelings--carried, as she always felt, to +their highest--thus face to face with the new feminist forces--as +embodied in Delia Blanchflower. He had resented, clearly resented, the +introduction--by her, Madeleine--of the sex element into the problem. +But how difficult to keep it out! "He will see her constantly--he will +have to exercise his will against hers--he will get his way--and then +hate himself for conquering--he will disapprove, and yet admire,--will +offend her, yet want to please her--a creature all fire, and beauty, +and heroisms out of place! And she--could she, could I, could any woman +I know, fight Mark Winnington--and not love him all the time? Men are +men, and women are women--in spite of all these 'isms,' and 'causes.' I +bet--but I don't know what I bet!--" Then her thoughts gradually veered +away from Mark to quite another person. + +How would Susan Amberley be affected by this new interest in Mark +Winnington's life? Madeleine's thoughts recalled a gentle face, a pair +of honest eyes, a bearing timid and yet dignified. So she was teaching +one of Mark's crippled children? And Mark thought no doubt she would +have done the like for anyone else with a charitable hobby? Perhaps she +would, for her heart was a fount of pity. All the same, the man--blind +bat!--understood nothing. No fault of his perhaps; but Lady Tonbridge +felt a woman's angry sympathy with a form of waste so common and so +costly. + +And now the modest worshipper must see her hero absorbed day by day, +and hour by hour, in the doings of a dazzling and magnificent creature +like Delia Blanchflower. What food for torment, even in the meekest +spirit! + +So that the last word the vivacious woman said to herself was a soft +"Poor Susy!" dropped into the heart of a September rose as she stooped +to gather it. + + + + +Chapter VII + + +A small expectant party were gathered for afternoon tea in the +book-lined sitting-room--the house possessed no proper drawing-room--of +Bridge End. Mrs. Matheson indeed, Mark's widowed sister, would have +resented it had anyone used the word "party" in its social sense. Miss +Blanchflower's father had been dead scarcely a month; and Mrs. Matheson +in her quiet way, held strongly by all the decencies of life. It was +merely a small gathering of some of the oldest friends and neighbours +of Miss Blanchflower's family--those who had stood nearest to her +grandparents--to welcome the orphan girl among them. Lady Tonbridge--of +whom it was commonly believed, though no one exactly knew why, that Bob +Blanchflower, as a youth had been in love with her, before ever he met +his Greek wife; Dr. France, who had attended both the old people till +their deaths, and had been much beloved by them; his wife; the Rector, +Mrs. Amberley, and Susy:--Mrs. Matheson had not intended to ask anyone +else. But the Andrews' had asked themselves, and she had not had the +moral courage to tell them that the occasion was not for them. She was +always getting Mark into difficulties, she penitently reflected, by her +inability to say No, at the right time, and with the proper force, Mark +could always say it, and stick to it smiling--without giving offence. + +Mrs. Matheson was at the tea-table. She was tall and thin, with +something of her brother's good looks, but none of his over-flowing +vitality. Her iron-grey hair was rolled back from her forehead; she +wore a black dress with a high collar of white lawn, and long white +cuffs. Little Mrs. Amberley, the Rector's wife, sitting beside her, +envied her hostess her figure, and her long slender neck. She herself +had long since parted with any semblance of a waist, and the boned +collars of the day were a perpetual torment to one whose neck, from the +dressmaker's point of view, scarcely existed. But Mrs. Amberley endured +them, because they were the fashion; and to be moderately in the +fashion meant simply keeping up to the mark--not falling behind. It was +like going to church--an acceptance of that "general will," which +according to the philosophers, is the guardian of all religion and all +morality. + +The Rector too, who was now handing the tea-cake, believed in +fashion--ecclesiastical fashion. Like his wife, he was gentle and +ineffective. His clerical dress expressed a moderate Anglicanism, and +his opinions were those of his class and neighbourhood, put for him day +by day in his favourite newspaper, with a cogency at which he +marvelled. Yet he was no more a hypocrite than his wife, and below his +common-places both of manner and thought there lay warm feelings and a +quick conscience. He was just now much troubled about his daughter +Susy. The night before she had told her mother and him that she wished +to go to London, to train for nursing. It had been an upheaval in their +quiet household. Why should she dream of such a thing? How could they +ever get on without her? Who would copy out his sermons, or help with +the schools? And her mother--so dependent on her only daughter! The +Rector's mind was much disturbed, and he was accordingly more absent +and more ineffective than usual. + +Susy herself, in a white frock, with touches of blue at her waist, and +in her shady hat, was moving about with cups of tea, taking that place +of Mrs. Matthews's lieutenant, which was always tacitly given her by +Winnington and his sister on festal occasions at Bridge End. As she +passed Winnington, who had been captured by Mrs. Andrews, he turned +with alacrity-- + +"My dear Miss Susy! What are you doing? Give me that cup!" + +"No--please! I like doing it!" And she passed on, smiling, towards Lady +Tonbridge, whose sharp eyes had seen the trivial contact between +Winnington and the girl. How the mere sound of his voice had changed +the aspect of the young face! Poor child--poor child! + +"How well you look Susy! Such a pretty dress!" said Madeleine tenderly +in the girl's ear. + +Susy flushed. + +"You really think so? Mother gave it me for a birthday present." She +looked up with her soft, brown eyes, which always seemed to have in +them, even when they smiled, a look of pleading--as of someone at a +disadvantage. At the same moment Winnington passed her. + +"_Could_ you go and talk to Miss Andrews?" he said, over his shoulder, +so that only she heard. + +Susy went obediently across the room to where a silent, dark-haired +girl sat by herself, quite apart from the rest of the circle. Marion +Andrews was plain, with large features and thick wiry hair. Maumsey +society in general declared her "impossible." She rarely talked; she +seemed to have no tastes; and the world believed her both stupid and +disagreeable. And by contrast with the effusive amiabilities of her +mother, she could appear nothing else. Mrs. Andrews indeed had a way of +using her daughter as a foil to her own qualities, which must have +paralysed the most self-confident, and Marion had never possessed any +belief in herself at all. + +As Susy Amberley timidly approached her, and began to make +conversation, she looked up coldly, and hardly answered. Meanwhile Mrs. +Andrews was pouring out a flood of talk under which the uncomfortable +Winnington--for it always fell to him as host to entertain her--sat +practising endurance. She was a selfish, egotistical woman, with a vast +command of sloppy phrases, which did duty for all that real feeling or +sympathy of which she possessed uncommonly little. On this occasion she +was elaborately dressed,--overdressed--in a black satin gown, which +seemed to Winnington, an ugly miracle of trimming and tortured "bits." +Her large hat was thick with nodding plumes, and beside her spotless +white gloves and showy lace scarf, her daughter's slovenly coat and +skirt, of the cheapest ready-made kind, her soiled gloves, and clumsy +shoes, struck even a man uncomfortably. That poor girl seemed to grow +plainer and more silent every year. + +He was just shaking himself free from the mother, when Dr. and Mrs. +France were announced. The doctor came in with a furrowed brow, and a +preoccupied look. After greeting Mrs. Matheson, and the other guests, +he caught a glance of enquiry from Winnington and went up to him. + +"The evening paper is full of the most shocking news!" he said, with +evident agitation. "There has been an attempt on Hampton Court--and two +girls who were caught breaking windows in Piccadilly have been badly +hurt by the crowd. A bomb too has been found in the entrance of one of +the tube stations. It was discovered in time, or the results might have +been frightful." + +"Good Heavens--those women again!" cried Mrs. Andrews, lifting hands +and eyes. + +No one else spoke. But in everyone's mind the same thought emerged. At +any moment the door might open, and Delia Blanchflower and her chaperon +might come in. + +The doctor drew Winnington aside into a bow-window. + +"Did you know that the lady living with Miss Blanchflower was a member +of this League of Revolt?" + +"Yes. You mean they are implicated in these things?" + +"Certainly! I am told Miss Marvell was once an official--probably is +still. My dear Winnington--you can't possibly allow it!" He spoke with +the freedom of an intimate friend. + +"How can I stop it," said Winnington, frowning. "My ward is of age. If +Miss Marvell does anything overt--But she has promised to do nothing +violent down here--they both have." + +The doctor, an impetuous Ulsterman with white hair, and black eyes, +shrugged his shoulders impatiently. "When women once take to this kind +of thing"--he was interrupted by Mrs. Andrews' heavy voice rising +above the rather nervous and disjointed conversation of the other +guests--"If women only knew where their real power lies, Mrs. Matheson! +Why, 'the hand that rocks the cradle'--" + +A sudden crash was heard. + +"Oh, dear"--cried Lady Tonbridge, who had upset a small table with a +plate of cakes on it across the tail of Mrs. Andrews' dress--"how +stupid I am!" + +"My gown!--my gown!" cried Mrs. Andrews in an anguish, groping for the +cakes. + +In the midst of the confusion the drawing-room door had opened, and +there on the threshold stood Delia Blanchflower, with a slightly-built +lady behind her. + +Winnington turned with a start and went forward to greet them. Dr. +France left behind in the bow-window observed their entry with a +mingling of curiosity and repulsion. It seemed to him that their entry +was that of persons into a hostile camp,--the senses all alert against +attack. Delia was of course in black, her face sombrely brilliant in +its dark setting of a plain felt hat, like the hat of a Cavalier +without its feathers. "She knows perfectly well we have been talking +about her!" thought Dr. France,--"that we have seen the newspapers. She +comes in ready for battle--perhaps thirsty for it! She is +excited--while the woman behind her is perfectly cool. The two +types!--the enthusiast--and the fanatic. But, by Jove, the girl is +handsome!" + +Through the sudden silence created by their entry, Delia made her way +to Mrs. Matheson. Holding her head very high, she introduced "My +chaperon--Miss Marvell." And Winnington's sister nervously shook hands +with the quietly smiling lady who followed in Miss Blanchflower's wake. +Then while Delia sat down beside the hostess, and Winnington busied +himself in supplying her with tea, her companion fell to the Rector's +care. + +The Rector, like Winnington, was not a gossip, partly out of scruples, +but mainly perhaps because of a certain deficient vitality, and he had +but disjointed ideas on the subject of the two ladies who had now +settled at the Abbey. He understood, however, that Delia, whom he +remembered as a child, was a "Suffragette," and that Mr. Winnington, +Delia's guardian, disapproved of the lady she had brought with her, +why, he could not recollect. This vague sense of something "naughty" +and abnormal gave a certain tremor to his manner as he stood beside +Gertrude Marvell, shifting from one foot to the other, and nervously +plying her with tea-cake. + +Miss Marvell's dark eyes meanwhile glanced round the room, taking in +everybody. They paused a moment on the figure of the doctor, erect and +spare in a closely-buttoned coat, on his spectacled face, and +conspicuous brow, under waves of nearly white hair; then passed on. Dr. +France watched her, following the examining eyes with his own. He saw +them change, with a look--the slightest passing look--of recognition, +and at the same moment he was aware of Marion Andrews, sitting in the +light of a side window. What had happened to the girl? He saw her dark +face, for one instant, exultant, transformed; like some forest hollow +into which a sunbeam strikes. The next, she was stooping over a copy of +"Punch" which lay on the table beside her. A rush of speculation ran +through the doctor's mind. + +"And you are settled at Maumsey?" Mrs. Matheson was saying to Delia; +aware as soon as the question was uttered that it was a foolish one. + +"Oh no, not settled. We shall be there a couple of months." + +"The house will want some doing up, Mark thinks." + +"I don't think so. Not much anyway. It does very well." + +There was an entire absence of girlish softness or shyness in the +speaker's manner, though it was both courteous and easy. The +voice--musically deep--and the splendid black eyes, that looked so +steadily at her, intimidated Mark Winnington's gentle sister. + +Mrs. Andrews, whose dress, after Susy's ministration, had been declared +out of danger, bent across the tea-table, all smiles and benevolence +again, the plumes in her black hat nodding-- + +"It's like old times to have the Abbey open again, Miss Blanchflower! +Every week we used to go to your dear grandmother, for her Tuesday +work-party. I'm afraid you'll hardly revive _that_!" + +Delia brought a rather intimidating brow to bear upon the speaker. + +"I'm afraid not." + +Lady Tonbridge, who had already greeted Delia as a woman naturally +greets the daughter of an old friend, came up as Delia spoke to ask for +a second cup of tea, and laid her hand on the girl's shoulder. + +"Very sorry to miss you yesterday. I won't insult you by saying you've +grown. How about the singing? You used to sing I remember when I stayed +with you." + +"Yes--but I've given it up. I took lessons at Munich last spring. But I +can't work at it enough. And if one can't work, it's no good." + +"Why can't you work at it?" + +Delia suddenly looked up in her questioner's face. Her gravity broke up +in a broad smile. + +"Because there's so much else to do." + +"What else?" + +The look of excited defiance in the girl's eyes sharpened. + +"Do you really want to know?" + +"Certainly. The Suffrage and that kind of thing?" said Madeleine +Tonbridge lightly. + +"The Suffrage and that kind of thing!" repeated Delia, still smiling. + +Captain Andrews who was standing near, and whose martial mind was all +in confusion, owing to Miss Blanchflower's beauty, put in an eager +word. + +"I never can understand, Miss Blanchflower, why you ladies want the +vote! Why, you can twist us round your little fingers!" + +Delia turned upon him. + +"But I don't want to twist you round my little finger!" she said, with +energy. "It wouldn't give me the smallest pleasure." + +"I thought you wanted to manage us," said the Captain, unable to take +his eyes from her. "But you do manage us already!" + +Delia's glance showed her uncertain whether the foe was worth her +steel. + +"We want to manage ourselves," she said at last, smiling indifferently. +"We say you do it badly." + +The Captain attempted to spar with her a little longer. Winnington +meanwhile stood, a silent listener, amid the group round the tea-table. +He--and Dr. France--were both acutely conscious of the realities behind +this empty talk; of the facts recorded in the day's newspapers; and of +the connection between the quiet lady in grey who had come in with +Delia Blanchflower, and the campaign of public violence, which was now +in good earnest alarming and exasperating the country. + +Where was the quiet lady in grey? Winnington was thinking too much +about his ward to keep a constant eye upon her. But Dr. France observed +her closely, and he presently saw what puzzled him anew. After a +conversation, exceedingly bland, though rather monosyllabic, on Miss +Marvell's part, with the puzzled and inarticulate Rector, Delia's +chaperon had gently and imperceptibly moved away from the tea-table. +That she had been very coldly received by the company in general was no +doubt evident to her. She was now sitting beside that strange girl +Marion Andrews--to whom, as the Doctor had seen, she had been +introduced--apparently--by the Rector. And as Dr. France caught sight +of her, she and Marion Andrews rose and walked to a window opening on +the garden, apparently to look at the blaze of autumn flowers outside. + +But it was the demeanour of the girl which again drew the doctor's +attention. Marion Andrews, who never talked, was talking fast and +earnestly to this complete stranger, her normally sallow face one glow. +It was borne in afresh upon Dr. France that the two were already +acquainted; and he continued to watch them as closely as politeness +allowed. + + * * * * * + +"Will you come and look at the house?" said Winnington to his ward. +"Not that we have anything to shew--except a few portraits and old +engravings that might interest you. But it's rather a dear old place, +and we're very fond of it." + +Delia went with him in silence. He opened the oval panelled +dining-room, and shewed her the portraits of his father, the venerable +head of an Oxford college, in the scarlet robes of a D.D., and others +representing his forebears on both sides--quiet folk, painted by decent +but not important painters. Delia looked at them and hardly spoke. Then +they went into Mrs. Matheson's room, which was bright with pretty +chintzes, books and water-colours, and had a bow-window looking on the +garden. Still Delia said nothing, beyond an absent Yes or No, or a +perfunctory word of praise. Winnington became very soon conscious of +some strong tension in her, which was threatening to break down; a +tension evidently of displeasure and resentment. He guessed what the +subject of it might be, but as he was most unwilling to discuss it with +her, if his guess were correct, he tried to soothe and evade her by +such pleasant talk as the different rooms suggested. The house through +which he led her was the home, evidently, of a man full of enthusiasms +and affections, caring intensely for many things, for his old school, +of which there were many drawings and photographs in the hall and +passages, for the two great games in which he himself excelled; for +poetry and literature--the house overflowed everywhere with books; for +his County Council work, and all the projects connected with it; for +his family and his intimate friends. + +"Who is that?" asked Delia, pointing to a charcoal drawing in Mrs. +Matheson's sitting-room, of a noble-faced woman of thirty, in a +delicate evening dress of black and white. + +"That is my mother. She died the year after it was taken." + +Delia looked at it in silence a moment. There was something in its +dignity, its restfulness, its touch of austerity which challenged her. +She said abruptly--"I want to speak to you please, Mr. Winnington. May +we shut the door?" + +Winnington shut the door of his sister's room, and returned to his +guest. Delia had turned very white. + +"I hear Mr. Winnington you have reversed an order I wrote to our agent +about one of the cottages. May I know your reasons?" + +"I was very sorry to do so," said Winnington gently; "but I felt sure +you did not understand the real circumstances, and I could not come and +discuss them with you." + +Delia stood stormily erect, and the level light of the October +afternoon streaming in through a west window magnified her height, and +her prophetess air. + +"I can't help shocking you, Mr. Winnington. I don't accept what you +say. I don't believe that covering up horrible things makes them less +horrible. I want to stand by that girl. It is cruel to separate her +from her old father!" + +Winnington looked at her in distress and embarrassment. + +"The story is not what you think it," he said earnestly. "But it is +really not fit for your ears. I have given great thought and much time +to it, yesterday and to-day. The girl--who is mentally deficient--will +be sent to a home and cared for. The father sees now that it is the +best. Please trust it to me." + +"Why mayn't I know the facts!" persisted Delia, paler than before. + +A flash of some quick feeling passed through Winnington's eyes. + +"Why should you? Leave us older folk, dear Miss Delia, to deal with +these sorrowful things." + +Indignation blazed up in her. + +"It is for women to help women," she said, passionately. "It is no good +treating us who are grown up--even if we are young--like children any +more. We intend to _know_--that we may protect--and save." + +"I assure you," said Winnington gravely, "that this poor girl shall +have every care--every kindness. So there is really no need for you to +know. Please spare yourself--and me!" + +He had come to stand by her, looking down upon her. She lifted her eyes +to his unwillingly, and as she caught his smile she was invaded by a +sudden consciousness of his strong magnetic presence. The power in the +grey eyes, and in the brow over-hanging them, the kind sincerity +mingled with the power, and the friendliness that breathed from his +whole attitude and expression, disarmed her. She felt herself for a +moment--and for the first time--young and ignorant,--and that +Winnington was ready to be in the true and not merely in the legal +sense, her "guardian," if she would only let him. + +But the moment of weakening was soon over. Her mind chafed and twisted. +Why had he undertaken it--a complete stranger to her! It was most +embarrassing--detestable--for them both! + +And there suddenly darted through her memory the recollection of a +certain item in her father's will. Under it Mr. Winnington received a +sum of Ł4,000 out of her father's estate, "in consideration of our old +friendship, and of the trouble I am asking him to undertake in +connection with my estates,"--or words to that effect. + +Somehow, she had never yet paid much attention to that clause in the +will. It occurred in a list of a good many other legacies, and had been +passed over by the lawyers in explaining the will to her, as something +entirely in the natural course of things. But the poisonous thought +suggested itself--"It was that which bribed him!--he would have given +it up, but for that!" He might not want it for himself--very +possibly!--but for his charities, his Cripple School and the rest. Her +face stiffened. + +"If you have arranged with her father, of course I can't interfere," +she said coldly. "But don't imagine, please, Mr. Winnington, for one +moment, that I accept your view of the things I 'needn't know.' If I am +to do my duty to the people on this estate--" + +"I thought you weren't going to live on the estate?" he said, lifting +his eyebrows. + +"Not at once--not this winter." She was annoyed to feel herself +stammering. "But of course I have a responsibility--" + +The kindly laugh in his grey eyes faded. + +"Yes--I quite admit that,--a great responsibility," he said slowly. "Do +you mind if I mention another subject?" + +"The meetings?" she said, quickly. "You mean that?" + +"Yes--the meetings. I have just seen the placard in the village." + +"Well?" Her loveliness in defiance dazzled him, but he held on stoutly. + +"You said nothing to me about these meetings the other day." + +"You never asked me!" + +He paused a moment. + +"No--but was it quite--quite fair to me--to let me suppose that the +drawing-room meeting at Maumsey, which you kindly gave up, was the only +meeting you had in view?" + +He saw her breath fluttering. + +"I don't know what you supposed, Mr. Winnington! I said nothing." + +"No. But you let me draw an inference--a mistaken inference. +However--let that be. Can I not persuade you--now--to give up the +Latchford meeting, and any others of the same kind you may have ahead?" + +She flamed at him. + +"I refuse to give them up!" she said, setting her teeth. "I have as +much right to my views as you, Mr. Winnington! I am of full age, and I +intend to work for them." + +"Setting fire to houses--which is what your society is advocating--and +doing--hardly counts as 'views,'" he said, with sudden sternness. +"Risking the lives, or spoiling the property of one's fellow +countrymen, is not the same thing as political argument." + +"It's _our_ argument--" she said passionately.--"The men who are +denying us the vote understand nothing else!" + +The slightest humorous quiver in Winnington's strong mouth enraged her +still further. But he spoke with most courteous gravity. + +"Then I can't persuade you to give up these meetings? I should of +course make no objection whatever, if these were ordinary Suffrage +meetings. But the Society you are going to represent and collect money +for is a Society that exists _to break the law_. And its members +have--just lately--come conspicuously into collision with the law. Your +father would have protested, and I am bound to protest--in his name." + +"I cannot give them up." + +He was silent a moment. + +"If that is so"--he said at last--"I must do my best to protect you." + +"I don't want any protection!" + +"I am a magistrate, as well as your guardian. You must allow me to +judge. There is a very bitter feeling abroad, after these--outrages--of +the last few days. The village where you are going to speak has some +rowdy elements--drawn from the brickfields near it. You will certainly +want protection. I shall see that you get it." + +He spoke with decision. Delia bit her lip. + +"We prefer to risk our lives," she said at last. "I mean--there isn't +any risk!--but if there were--our lives are nothing in comparison with +the cause!" + +"You won't expect your friends to agree with you," he said drily; then, +still holding her with an even keener look, he added-- + +"And there is another point in connection with these meetings which +distresses me. I see that you are speaking on the same platform--with +Mr. Paul Lathrop--" + +"And why not?"--she flashed, the colour rushing to her cheeks. + +He paused, walked away with his hands in his pockets, and came back +again. + +"I have been making some enquiries about him. He is not a man with whom +you ought to associate--either in public, or in private." + +She gave a sound--half scorn--half indignation which startled him. + +"You mean--because of the divorce case?" + +He looked at her amazed. + +"That is what I meant. But--I certainly do not wish to discuss it with +you. Will you not take it from me that Mr. Lathrop is not--cannot be--a +man whom as a young unmarried woman you ought to receive in your +house--or with whom you should be seen in public." + +"No, indeed I won't take it from you!" she said passionately. "Miss +Marvell knows--Miss Marvell told me. He ran away with some one he +loved. Her husband was _vile_! But she couldn't get any help--because +of the law--the abominable law--which punishes women--and lets men go +free. So they went away together, and after a little she died. Alter +your law, Mr. Winnington!--make it equal for men and women--and then +we'll talk." + +As she spoke--childishly, defiant--Winnington's mind was filled with a +confusion of clashing thoughts--the ideals of his own first youth +which made such a speech in the mouth of a girl of twenty-one almost +intolerable to him--and the moral conditions--slowly gained--of his +maturity. He agreed with what she said. And yet it was shocking to him +to hear her say it. + +"I don't quarrel with you as to that," he said, gravely, after a +moment. "Though I confess that in my belief you are too young to have +any real opinion about it. But there was much in the case which +concerned Mr. Lathrop, of which you _can_ have no idea. I repeat--he +is not a fit companion for you--and you do yourself harm by appearing +with him--in public or private." + +"Miss Marvell approves"--said Delia obstinately. + +Winnington's look grew sterner. + +"I appeal again to your father's memory," he said with energy. + +He perceived her quickened breath, but she made no no reply. + +He walked away from her, and stood looking out of the window for a +little. When he came back to her, it was with a change of manner and +subject. + +"I should like you to understand that I have been doing all I _could_ +to carry out your wishes with regard to the cottages." + +He drew a paper out of his pocket, on which he had made some notes +representing his talk that morning with the agent of the Maumsey +estates. But in her suppressed excitement she hardly listened to him. + +"It isn't exactly _business_, what we've done," he said at last, as he +put up the papers; "but we wanted you to have your way--about the old +woman--and the family of children." He smiled at her. "And the estate +can afford it." + +Delia thanked him ungraciously. She felt like a child who is offered +sixpence for being good at the dentist's. It was his whole position +towards her--his whole control and authority--that she resented. And to +be forced to be grateful to him at the same time, compelled to +recognise the anxious pains he had taken to please her in nine-tenths +of the things she wanted, was really odious: she could only chafe under +it. + +He took her back to the drawing-room. Delia walked before him in +silence. She was passionately angry; and yet beneath the stormy +currents of the upper mind, there were other feelings, intermittently +active. It was impossible to hate him!--impossible to help liking him. +His frankness and courtesy, his delicacy of feeling and touch forced +themselves on her notice. "I daresay!"--she said; "--but that's the +worst of it. If Papa hadn't done this fatal, _foolish_ thing, of course +we should have made friends!" + + * * * * * + +The Amberleys walked home together when the party dispersed. Mrs. +Amberley opened the discussion on the newcomers. + +"She is certainly handsome, but rather bold-looking. Didn't you think +so, father?" + +"I wasn't drawn to her. But she took no account of us," said the +Rector, with his usual despondent candour. In truth he was not thinking +about Miss Blanchflower, but only about the possible departure of his +daughter, Susy. + +"I thought her beautiful!--but I'm sorry for Mr. Winnington!" exclaimed +Susy, a red spot of excitement or indignation in each delicate cheek. + +"Mrs. Matheson told me they will only do exactly what they wish--that +they won't take her brother's advice. Very wrong, very wrong." The +Rector shook his grey head. "Young women were different in my youth." + +Mrs. Amberley sighed, and Susy biting her lip, knew that her own +conduct was perhaps more in question than Miss Blanchflower's. + +They reached home in silence. Susy went to light her father's candles +in his modest book-littered study. Then she put her mother on the sofa +in the drawing-room, rubbed Mrs. Amberley's cold hands and feet, and +blew up the fire. + +Suddenly her mother threw an arm round her neck. + +"Oh, Susy, must you go?" + +Susy kissed her. + +"I should come back"--she said after a moment in a low troubled voice. +"Let me get this training, and then if you want me, darling, I'll come +back." + +"Can't you be happy with us, Susy?" + +"I want to _know_ something--and _do_ something," said Susy, with +intensity--evading the question. "It's such a big world, mother! I'll +be better worth having afterwards." + +Mrs. Amberley said nothing. But a little later she went into her +husband's study. + +"Frank--I think we'll have to let her," she said piteously. + +The Rector looked up assentingly, and put his hand in his wife's. + +"It's strange how different it all seems nowadays," said Mrs. Amberley, +in her low quavering voice. "If I'd wanted to do what Susy wants, my +mother would have called me a wicked girl to leave all my duties--and +I shouldn't have dared. But we can't take it like that, Frank, +somehow." + +"No," said the Rector slowly. "In the old days it used to be only +_duties_ for the young--now it's rights too. It's God's will." + +"Susy loves us, Frank. She's a good girl." + +"She's a good girl--and she shall do what she thinks proper," said the +Rector, rising heavily. + +So they gave their consent, and Susy wrote her application to Guy's +hospital. Then they all three lay awake a good deal of the +night,--almost till the autumn robin began to sing in the little +rectory garden. + +As for Susy, in the restless intervals of restless sleep, she was +always back in the Bridge End drawing-room watching Delia Blanchflower +come in, with Mark Winnington behind. How glorious she looked! And +every day he would be seeing her, every day he would be thinking about +her--just because she was sure to give him so much trouble. + +"And what right have _you_ to complain?" she asked herself, trampling +on her own pain. Had he ever said a word of love to her, ever shewn +himself anything else than the kind and sympathetic friend--sometimes +the inspiring teacher in the causes he had at heart? Never! And +yet--insensibly--his smile, his word of praise or thanks, the touch of +his firm warm hand, the sound of his voice, the look in his eyes--it +was for them she had now learned to live. Yes!--and because she could +no longer trust herself, she must go. She would not fail or harass him; +she was his friend. She would go away and scrub hospital floors, and +polish hospital taps. That would tame the anguish in her, and some day +she would be strong again--and come back--to those beloved ones who had +given her up--so tenderly. + + + + +Chapter VIII + + +The whole of Maumsey and its neighbourhood had indeed been thrown into +excitement by certain placards on the walls announcing three public +meetings to be held--a fortnight later--by the "Daughters of +Revolt"--at Latchford, Brownmouth, and Frimpton. Latchford was but +fifteen miles from Maumsey, and frequent trains ran between them. +Brownmouth and Frimpton, also, were within easy distance by rail, and +the Maumseyites were accustomed to shop at either. So that a wide +country-side felt itself challenged--invaded; at a moment when a series +of startling outrages--destruction of some of the nation's noblest +pictures, in the National Gallery and elsewhere, defacement of +churches, personal attacks on Ministers--by the members of various +militant societies, especially "The League of Revolt," had converted an +already incensed public opinion into something none the less ugly, none +the less alarming, because it had as yet found no organised expression. +The police were kept hard at work protecting open-air meetings on the +Brownmouth and Frimpton beaches, from an angry populace who desired to +break them up; every unknown woman who approached a village or strolled +into a village church, was immediately noticed, immediately reported +on, by hungry eyes and tongues alert for catastrophe; and every empty +house had become an anxiety to its owners. + +And of course the sting of the outrage lay in the two names which +blazed in the largest of black print from the centre of the placards. +"The meeting will be addressed by Gertrude Marvell (D.R.), Delia +Blanchflower (D.R.), and Paul Lathrop." + +Within barely two months of her father's death, this young lady to be +speaking on public platforms, in the district where she was still a +new-comer and a stranger, and flaunting in the black and orange of this +unspeakable society!--such was the thought of all quiet folk for miles +round. The tide of callers which had set in towards Maumsey Abbey +ceased to flow; neighbours who had been already introduced to her, old +friends of her grandparents, passed Delia on the road with either the +stiffest of bows or no notice at all. The labourers stared at her, and +their wives, those deepest well-heads of Conservatism in the country, +were loud in reprobation. Their astonishment that "them as calls +theirselves ladies" should be found burning and breaking, was always, +in Winnington's ears, a touching thing, and a humbling. "Violence and +arson" they seemed to say, "are good enough for the likes of us--you'd +expect it of us. But _you_--the glorified, the superfine--who have your +meals brought you regular, more food than you can eat, and more clothes +than you can wear--_you_!" + +So that, underlying the country women's talk, and under the varnish of +our modern life, one caught the accents and the shape of an old +hierarchical world; and the man of sympathy winced anew under the +perennial submission and disadvantage of the poor. + +Meanwhile Delia's life was one long excitement. The more she realised +the disapproval of her neighbours, the more convinced she was that she +was on the right road. She straightened her girlish back; she set her +firm red mouth. Every morning brought reams of letters and reports from +London, for Gertrude Marvell was an important member of the +"Daughters'" organisation, and must be kept informed. The reading of +them maintained a constant ferment in Delia. In any struggle of women +against men, just as in any oppression of women by men, there is an +element of fever, of madness, which poisons life. And in this element +Delia's spirit lived for this brief hour of her youth. Led by the +perpetual influence of the older mind and imagination at her side, she +was overshadowed with the sense of women's wrongs, haunted by their +grievances, burnt up by a flame of revolt against fate, against +society, above all, against men, conceived as the age-long and +irrational barrier in the path of women. It was irrational, and +therefore no rational methods were any good. Nothing but waspishly +stinging and hurting this great Man-Beast, nothing but defiance of all +rules and decorums, nothing but force--of the womanish kind--answering +to force, of the masculine kind, could be any use. Argument was +foolish. They--the Suffragists--had already stuffed the world with +argument; which only generated argument. To smash and break and burn, +in more senses than one, remained the only course, witness Nottingham +Castle, and the Hyde Park railings. And if a woman's life dashed itself +to pieces in the process, well, what matter? The cause would only be +advanced. + +One evening, not long after the tea-party at Bridge End, a group of +persons, coming from different quarters, converged quietly, in the +autumn dusk, on Maumsey Abbey. Marion Andrews walked in front, with a +Miss Foster, the daughter of one of the larger farmers in the +neighbourhood; and a short limping woman, clinging to the arm of a +vigorously-built girl, the Science Mistress of the small but ancient +Grammar School of the village, came behind. They talked in low voices, +and any shrewd bystander would have perceived the mood of agitated +expectancy in which they approached the house. + +"It's wonderful!" said little Miss Toogood, the lame dressmaker, as +they turned a corner of the shrubbery, and the rambling south front +rose before them,--"_wonderful_!--when you think of the people that +used to live here! Why, old Lady Blanchflower looked upon you and me, +Miss Jackson, as no better than earwigs! I sent her a packet of our +leaflets once by post. Well--_she_ never used to give me any work, so +she couldn't take it away. But she got Mrs. David Jones at Thring Farm +to take away hers, and Mrs. Willy Smith, the Vet's wife, you +remember?--and two or three more. So I nearly starved one winter; but +I'm a tough one, and I got through. And now there's one of _us_ sits in +the old lady's place! Isn't that a sign of the times?" + +"But of course!" said her companion, whose face expressed a kind of +gloomy ardour. "We're winning. We must win--sometime!" + +The cheerfulness of the words was oddly robbed of its effect by the +tragic look of the speaker. Miss Toogood's hand pressed her arm. + +"I'm always so sorry"--murmured the dressmaker--"for those +others--those women--who haven't lived to see what we're going to see, +aren't you?" + +"Yes," assented the other, adding--with the same emotional +emphasis--"But they've all helped--every woman's helped! They've all +played their parts." + +"Well, I don't know about Lady Blanchflower!" laughed Miss Toogood, +happily. + +"What did she matter? The Antis are like the bits of stick you put into +a hive. All they do is to stir up the bees." + +Meanwhile Marion Andrews was mostly silent, glancing restlessly however +from side to side, as though she expected some spy, some enemy--her +mother?--to emerge upon them from the shadows of the shrubbery. Her +companion, Kitty Foster, a rather pretty girl with flaming red hair, +the daughter of a substantial farmer on the further side of the +village, chattered unceasingly, especially about the window-breaking +raid in which she had been concerned, the figure she had cut at the +police court, the things she had said to the magistrate, and the +annoyance she had felt when her father paid her fine. + +"They led me a life when they got me home. And mother's been so ill +since, I had to promise I'd stay quiet till Christmas anyway. But then +I'm off! It's fine to feel you're doing something real--something hot +and strong--so that people can't help taking notice of you. That's what +I say to father, when he shouts at me--'we're not going to _ask_ you +now any more--we've asked long enough--we're going to _make_ you do +what we want.'" + +And the girl threw back her head excitedly. Marion vaguely assented, +and the talk beside her rambled on, now violent, now egotistical, till +they reached the Maumsey door. + + * * * * * + +"Now that we've got women like you with us--it can't be long--it can't +be long!" repeated Miss Toogood, clasping her hands, as she looked +first at Delia, and then at the distant figure of Miss Marvell, who in +the further drawing-room, and through an archway, could be seen talking +with Marion Andrews. + +Delia's brows puckered. + +"I'm afraid it will be long," she said, with a kind of weary passion. +"The forces against us are so strong. But we must just go on--and +on--straight ahead." + +She sat erect on her chair, very straight and slim, in her black dress, +her hands, with their long fingers, tightly pressed together on her +knee. Miss Toogood thought she had never seen anyone so handsome, or +so--so splendid! All that was romantic in the little dressmaker's +soul rose to appreciate Delia Blanchflower. So young and so +self-sacrificing--and looking like a picture of Saint Cecilia that hung +in Miss Toogood's back room! The Movement was indeed wonderful! How it +broke down class barriers, and knit all women together! As her eyes +fell on the picture of Lady Blanchflower, in a high cap and mittens, +over the mantelpiece, Miss Toogood felt a sense of personal triumph +over the barbarous and ignorant past. + +"What I mind most is the apathy of people--the people down here. It's +really terrible!" said the science mistress, in her melancholy voice. +"Sometimes I hardly know how to bear it. One thinks of all that's going +on in London--and in the big towns up north--and here--it's like a +vault. Everyone's really against us. Why the poor people--the +labourers' wives--they're the worst of any!" + +"Oh no!--we're getting on--we're getting on!" said Miss Toogood, +hastily. "You're too despondent, Miss Jackson, if you'll excuse +me--you are indeed. Now I'm never downhearted, or if I am, I say to +myself--'It's all right somewhere!--somewhere that you can't see.' And +I think of a poem my father was fond of--'If hopes are dupes, fears may +be liars--And somewhere in yon smoke concealed--Your comrades chase +e'en now the fliers--And but for you possess the field!' That's by a +man called Arthur Clough--Miss Blanchflower--and it's a grand poem!" + +Her pale blue eyes shone in their wrinkled sockets. Delia remembered a +recent visit to Miss Toogood's tiny parlour behind the front room where +she saw her few customers and tried them on. She recollected the books +which the back parlour contained. Miss Toogood's father had been a +bookseller--evidently a reading bookseller--in Winchester, and in the +deformed and twisted form of his daughter some of his soul, his +affections and interests, survived. + +"Yes, but what are you going to give us to _do_, Miss Blanchflower?" +said Kitty Foster, impatiently--"I don't care what I do! And the more +it makes the men mad, the better!" + +She drew herself up affectedly. She was a strapping girl, with a huge +vanity and a parrot's brain. A year before this date a "disappointment" +had greatly embittered her, and the processions and the crowded London +meetings, and the window-breaking riots into which she had been led +while staying with a friend, had been the solace and relief of a +personal rancour and misery she might else have found intolerable. + +"_I_ can't do anything--not anything public"--said Miss Jackson, with +emphasis--"or I should lose my post. Oh the slavery it is! and the +pittance they pay us--compared to the men. Every man in the Boys' +school get Ł120 and over--and we're thought lucky to get Ł80. And I'll +be bound we work more hours in the week than they do. It's _hard_!" + +"That'll soon be mended," said Miss Toogood hopefully. "Look at Norway! +As soon as the women got the vote, why the women's salaries in public +offices were put up at once." + +The strong, honest face of the teacher refused to smile. "Well it isn't +always so, Miss Toogood. I know they say that in New Zealand and +Colorado--where we've got the vote--salaries aren't equal by any +manner of means." + +The dressmaker's withered cheek flushed red. + +"'_They_ say'"--she repeated scornfully. "That's one of the Anti +dodges--just picking out the things that suit 'em, and forgetting all +the rest. Don't you look at the depressing things--I never do! Look at +what helps us! There's a lot o' things said--and there's a lot of +things ain't true--You've got to pick and choose--you can't take 'em as +they come. No one can." + +Miss Jackson looked puzzled and unconvinced; but could think of no +reply. + +The two persons in the distance appeared in the archway between the +drawing-rooms, Gertrude Marvell leading. Everyone looked towards her; +everybody listened for what she would say. She took Delia's chair, +Delia instinctively yielding it, and then--her dark eyes measuring and +probing them all while she talked, she gave the little group its +orders. + +Kitty Foster was to be one of the band of girl-sellers of the _Tocsin_, +in Latchford, the day of the meeting. The town was to be sown with it +from end to end, and just before the meeting, groups of sellers, in the +"Daughters'" black and orange, were to appear in every corner of the +square where the open-air meeting was to be held. + +"But we'll put you beside the speaker's waggon. You're so tall, and +your hair is enough to advertise anything!" With a grim little smile, +she stretched out a hand and touched Kitty Foster's arm. + +"Yes, isn't it splendid!" said Delia, ardently. + +Kitty flushed and bridled. Her people in the farmhouse at home thought +her hair ugly, and frankly told her so. It was nice to be admired by +Miss Blanchflower and her friend. Ladies who lived in a big house, with +pictures and fine furniture, and everything handsome, must know better +than farm-people who never saw anything but their cattle and their +fields. + +"And you"--the clear authoritative voice addressed Miss Toogood--"can +you take round notices?" + +The speaker looked doubtfully at the woman's lame foot and stick. + +Miss Toogood replied that she would be at Latchford by midday, and +would take round notices till she dropped. + +The teacher who could do nothing public, was invited to come to Maumsey +in the evening, and address envelopes. Miss Marvell had lately imported +a Secretary, who had set up her quarters in the old gun room on the +ground floor, and had already filled it with correspondence, and +stacked it with the literature of the Daughters. + +Miss Jackson eagerly promised her help. + +Nothing was apportioned to Marion Andrews. She sat silent following the +words and gestures of that spare figure in the grey cloth dress, in +whom they all recognised their chief. There was a feverish brooding in +her look, as though she was doubly conscious--both of the scene before +her, and of something only present to the mind. + +"You know why we are holding these meetings"--said Gertrude Marvell, +presently. + +No one answered. They waited for her. + +"It is a meeting of denunciation," she said, sharply. "You know in the +Land League days in Ireland they used to hold meetings to denounce a +landlord--for evictions--and that landlord went afterwards in +fear--scorned--and cursed--and boycotted. Well, that's what we're going +to do with Ministers in their own localities where they live! We can't +boycott yet--we haven't the power. But we can denounce--we can set +people on--we can hold a man up--we can make his life a burden to him. +And that's what we're going to do--with Sir Wilfrid Lang. He's one of +this brutal Cabinet that keeps women in prison--one of the strongest of +them. His speeches have turned votes against us in the House of +Commons, time after time. We mean to be even with Sir Wilfrid Lang!" + +She spoke quite quietly--almost under her breath; but her slender +fingers interlocked, and a steady glow had overflowed her pale cheeks. + +A tremor passed through all her listeners--a tremor of excitement. + +"What can we _do_?" said Miss Toogood at last, in a low voice. Her eyes +stared out of her kind old face, which had grown white. "Ah, leave that +to us!" said Miss Marvell, in another voice, the dry organising voice, +which was her usual one. And dropping all emotion and excitement, she +began rapidly to question three out of the four women as to the +neighbourhood, the opinions of individuals and classes, the strength in +it of the old Suffrage societies, the presence or absence of +propaganda. They answered her eagerly. They all felt themselves keyed +to a higher note since she had entered the room. They had got to +business; they felt themselves a power, the rank and file of an "army +with banners," under direction. Even Delia, clearly, was in the same +relation towards this woman whom the outer world only knew as +her--presumably--paid companion. She was questioned, put right, +instructed with the rest of them. Only no one noticed that Marion +Andrews took little or no part in the conversation. + +An autumn wind raged outside, and the first of those dead regiments of +leaves which would soon be choking the lanes were pattering against the +windows. Inside, the fire leapt as the daylight faded, helped by a +couple of lamps, for Maumsey knew no electricity, and Delia, under +Gertrude's prompting, had declared against the expense of putting it +in. In the dim illumination the faces of the six women emerged, typical +all of them of the forces behind the revolutionary wing of the woman's +movement. Enthusiasms of youth and age--hardships of body and +spirit--rancour and generous hope--sore heart and untrained +mind--fanatical brain and dreaming ignorance--love unsatisfied, and +energies unused--they were all there, and all hanging upon, conditioned +by something called "the vote," conceived as the only means to a new +heaven and a new earth. + + * * * * * + +When Delia had herself dismissed her guests into the darkness of the +October evening, she returned thoughtfully to where Gertrude Marvell +was standing by the drawing-room fire, reading a letter. + +"You gave them all something to do except that Miss Andrews, Gertrude? +I wonder why you left her out?" + +"Oh, I had a talk with her before." + +The tone was absent, and the speaker went on reading her letter. + +"When you took her into the back drawing-room?" + +The slightest possible flicker passed through Gertrude's drooped +eyelids. + +"She was telling me a lot about her home-life--poor oppressed thing!" + +Delia asked no more. But she felt a vague discomfort. + +Presently Gertrude put down her letter, and turned towards her. + +"May I have that cheque, dear--before post-time? If you really meant +it?" + +"Certainly." Delia went to her writing-table, opened a drawer and took +out her cheque-book. + +A laugh--conscious and unsteady--accompanied the dipping of her pen +into the ink. + +"I wonder what he'll say?" + +"Who?" + +"Mr. Winnington--when I send him all the bills to be paid." + +"Isn't he there to pay the bills?" + +Delia's face shewed a little impatience. + +"You're so busy, dear, that I am afraid you forget all I tell you about +my own affairs. But I _did_ tell you that my guardian had trustingly +paid eight hundred pounds into the bank to last me till the New Year, +for house and other expenses--without asking me to promise anything +either!" + +"Well, now, you are going to let us have Ł500. Is there any +difficulty?" + +"None--except that the ordinary bills I don't pay, and can't pay, will +now all go in to my guardian, who will of course be curious to know +what I have done with the money. Naturally there'll be a row." + +"Oh, a row!" said Gertrude Marvell, indifferently. "It's your own +money, Delia. Spend it as you like!" + +"I intend to," said Delia. "Still--I do rather wish I'd given him +notice. He may think it a mean trick." + +"Do you care what he thinks?" + +"Not--much," said Delia slowly. "All the same, Gertrude"--she threw her +head back--"he is an awfully good sort." + +Gertrude shrugged her shoulders. + +"I daresay. But you and I are at war with him and his like, and can't +stop to consider that kind of thing. Also your father arranged that he +should be well paid for his trouble." + +Delia turned back to the writing-table, and wrote the cheque. + +"Thank you, dearest," said Gertrude Marvell, giving a light kiss to the +hand that offered the cheque. "It shall go to headquarters this +evening--and you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that you've +financed all the three bye-election campaigns that are coming--or +nearly." + + * * * * * + +Gertrude had gone away to her own sitting-room and Delia was left +alone. She hung over the fire, in an excited reverie, her pulses +rushing; and presently she took a letter from the handbag on her wrist, +and read it for the second time by the light of the blaze she had +kindled in the grate. + + * * * * * + +"I will be at the Rose and Crown at least half an hour before the +meeting. We have got a capital waggon for you to speak from, and chosen +the place where it is to stand. I am afraid we may have some rough +customers to deal with. But the police have been strongly warned--that +I have found out--though I don't know by whom--and there will be plenty +of them. My one regret is that I cannot be in the crowd, so as both to +see and hear you. I must of course stick to the waggon. What a day for +us all down here!--for our little down-trodden band! You come to us as +our Joan of Arc, leading us on a holy war. You shame us into action, +and to fight with you is itself victory. When I think of how you looked +and how you talked the other night! Do you know that you have a face +'to launch a thousand ships?' No, I am convinced you never think of +it--you never take your own beauty into consideration. And you won't +imagine that I am talking in this way from any of the usual motives. +Your personal charm, if I may say so, is merely an item in our balance +sheet; your money--I understand you have money--is another. You bring +your beauty and your money in your hand, and throw them into the great +conflagration of the Cause--just as the women did in Savonarola's day. +You fling them away--if need be--for an idea. And because of it, all +the lovers of ideas, and all the dreamers of great dreams will be your +slaves and servants. Understand!--you are going to be loved and +followed, as no ordinary woman, even with your beauty, is ever loved +and followed. Your footsteps may be on the rocks and flints--I promise +you no easy, nor royal road. There may be blood on the path! But a +cloud of witnesses will be all about you--some living and some dead; +you will be carried in the hearts of innumerable men and women--women +above all; and if you stand firm, if your soul rises to the height of +your call, you will be worshipped, as the saints were worshipped. + +"Only let nothing bar your path. Winnington is a good fellow, but a +thickheaded Philistine all the same. You spoke to me about him with +compunction. Have no compunctions. Go straight forward. Women have got +to shew themselves ruthless, and hard, and cunning, like men--if they +are to fight men." + + "Yours faithfully, + PAUL LATHROP." + + +Delia's thoughts danced and flamed, like the pile of blazing wood +before her. What a singular being was this Paul Lathrop! He had paid +them four or five visits already; and they had taken tea with him once +in his queer hermitage under the southern slope of the Monk Lawrence +hill--a one-storey thatched cottage, mostly built by Lathrop himself +with the help of two labourers, standing amid a network of ponds, +stocked with trout in all stages. Inside, the roughly-plastered walls +were lined with books--chiefly modern poets, with French and Russian +novels, and with unframed sketches by some of the ultra clever fellows, +who often, it seemed, would come down to spend Sunday with Lathrop, and +talk and smoke till dawn put out the lights. + +She found him interesting--certainly interesting. His outer man--heavy +mouth and lantern cheeks--dreamy blue eyes, and fair hair--together +with the clumsy power in his form and gait, were not without a certain +curious attraction. And his story--as Gertrude Marvell told it--would +be forgiven by the romantic. All the same his letter had offended Delia +greatly. She had given him no encouragement to write in such a +tone--so fervid, so emotional, so intimate; and she would shew +him--plainly--that it offended her. + +Nevertheless the phrases of the letter ran in her mind; until her +discomfort and resentment were lost in something else. + +She could not quiet her conscience about that cheque! Not indeed as to +giving it to the "Daughters." She would have given everything she +possessed to them, keeping the merest pittance for herself, if fate and +domestic tyranny had allowed. No!--but it hurt her--unreasonably, +foolishly hurt her--that she must prepare herself again to face the +look of troubled amazement in Mark Winnington's eyes, without being +able to justify herself to herself, so convincingly as she would have +liked to do. + +"I am simply giving my own money to a cause I adore!" said one voice in +the mind. + +"It is not legally yours--it is legally his," said another. "You should +have warned him. You have got hold of it under false pretences." + +"Quibbles! It _is_ mine--equitably," replied the first. "He and I are +at war. And I _have_ warned him." + +"At war?" Her tiresome conscience kicked again. Why, not a day had +passed since her settlement at Maumsey, without some proof, small or +great, of Winnington's consideration and care for her. She +knew--guiltily knew, that he was overwhelmed by the business of the +executorship and the estate, and had been forced to put aside some of +his own favourite occupations to attend to it. + +"Well!--my father made it worth his while!" + +But her cheek reddened, with a kind of shame, as the thought passed +through her mind. Even in this short time and because of the daily +contact which their business relations required, she was beginning to +know Winnington, to realise something of his life and character. And as +for the love borne him in the neighbourhood--it was really +preposterous--bad for any man! Delia pitied herself, not only because +she was Winnington's ward against her will, but because of the silent +force of public opinion that upheld him, and must necessarily condemn +her. + +So he had once been engaged? Lady Tonbridge had told her so. To a +gentle, saintly person of course!--a person to suit him. Delia could +not help a movement of half petulant curiosity--and then an involuntary +thrill. Many women since had been in love with him. Lady Tonbridge had +said as much. And he--with no one! But he had a great many women +friends? No doubt!--with that manner, and that charm. Delia resented +the women friends. She would have been quite ready indeed to enrol +herself among them--to worship with the rest--from afar; were it not +for ideas, and principles, and honesty of soul! As it was, she despised +the worship of which she was told, as something blind and overdone. It +was not the greatest men--not the best men--who were so easily and +universally beloved. + +What did he really think of her? Did he ever guess that there was +something else in her than this obstinacy, this troublesomeness with +which she was forced to meet him? She was sorry for herself, much more +than for him; because she must so chill and mislead a man who _ought_ +to understand her. + +Looking up she saw a dim reflection of her own beauty in the glass +above the mantelpiece. "No, I am _not_ either a minx, or a +wild-cat!"--she thought, as though she were angrily arguing with +someone. "I could be as attractive, as 'feminine,' as silly as anyone +else, if I chose! I could have lovers--of course--just like other +girls--if it weren't"-- + +For what? At that moment she hardly knew. And why were her eyes filling +with tears? She dashed them indignantly away. + +But for the first time, this cause, this public cause to which she was +pledged presented itself to her as a sacrifice to be offered, a noble +burden to be borne, rather than as something which expressed the +natural and spontaneous impulse of her life. + +Which meant that, already, since her recapture by this English world, +since what was hearsay had begun to be experience, the value of things +had slightly and imperceptibly changed. + + * * * * * + +The days ran on. One evening, just before the first of the +"Daughters'" meetings, which was to be held at Latchford, Winnington +appeared in Lady Tonbridge's drawing-room to ask for a cup of tea on +his way to a public dinner in Wanchester. + +He seemed pre-occupied and worried; and she fed him before questioning +him. But at last she said-- + +"You couldn't prevail on her to give up any of these performances?" + +"Miss Delia? Not one. But it's only the Latchford one that matters. +Have you been talking to her?" + +He looked at her a little plaintively, as though he _could_ have +reminded her that she had promised him a friend's assistance. + +"Of course! But I might as well talk to this table. She won't really +make friends--nor will Miss Marvell allow her. It's the same, I find, +with everyone else. However, I'm bound to say, the neighbourhood is +just now in the mood that it doesn't much want to make friends!" + +"I know," said Winnington, with a sigh--relapsing into silence. + +"Is she taking an interest in the property--the cottages?" + +He shook his head. + +"I'm sure she meant to. But it seems to be all dropped." + +"Provoking!" said Madeleine, drily--"considering how you've been +slaving to please her--" + +Winnington interrupted--not without annoyance-- + +"How can she think of anything else when she's once deep in this +campaign? One must blame the people who led her into it!" + +"Oh! I don't know!" said Lady Tonbridge, protesting. "She's a very +clever young woman, with a strong will of her own." + +"Captured just at the impressionable moment!" cried Winnington--"when a +girl will do anything--believe anything--for the person she loves!" + +"Well the prescription should be easy--at her age. Change the person! +But then comes the question: Is _she_ loveable? Speak the truth, Mr. +Guardian!" + +Winnington began a rather eager assent. Watch her with the servants, +the gardeners, the animals! Then you perceived what should be the +girl's natural charm and sweetness-- + +"'Hm. Does she show any of it to you?" + +Winnington laughed. + +"You forget--I am always there as the obstacle in the path. But if it +weren't for the sinister influence--in the background." + +And again he went off at score--describing various small incidents that +had touched or pleased him, as throwing light upon what he vowed was +the real Delia. + +Madeleine listened, watching him attentively the while. When he took +his leave and she was alone, she sat thinking for some time, and then +going to a cupboard in her writing-table, which held her diaries of +past years, she rummaged till she found one bearing a date fifteen +years old. She turned up the entry for the sixteenth of May: + +"She died last night. This morning, at early service, Mark was there. +We walked home together. I doubt whether he will ever marry--now. He is +not one of those men who are hurried by the mere emotion and +unbearableness of grief, into a fresh emotion of love. But what a +lover--what a husband lost!" + +She closed the book, and stood with it in her hand--pondering. + + * * * * * + +As he left her house, and turned towards the station Winnington passed +a lady to whom he bowed, recognising her as Miss Andrews. + +"Hope you've got an umbrella!" he said to her cheerily, as he passed. +"The rain's coming!" + +She smiled, pleased like all the world to be addressed with that +Winningtonian manner which somehow implied that the person addressed +was, for the moment at any rate, his chiefest concern. Immediately +after meeting him she turned from the village street, and began to +mount a lane leading to the slope on which Monk Lawrence stood. Her +expression as she walked along, sometimes with moving lips, had grown +animated and sarcastic. Here were two men, a dead father and a live +guardian, trying to coerce one simple girl--and apparently not making +much of a job of it. She gloried in what she had been told or perceived +of Delia Blanchflower's wilfulness, which seemed to her mother and her +brother the Captain so monstrous. Only--could one entirely trust +anybody like Delia Blanchflower--so prosperous--and so good-looking? + +Miss Andrews mounted the hill, passed through a wood that ran along its +crest, and took a footpath, leading past the edge of a railway cutting, +from which the wonderful old house could be plainly seen. She paused +several times to look at it, wrapped in a kind of day-dream, which gave +a growing sombreness to her harsh and melancholy features. Beyond the +footpath a swing gate opened into a private path leading to the house. + +She opened the gate, and walked a little way up the path, in the fast +gathering darkness. But she was suddenly arrested by the appearance of +a figure in the far distance, black against the pale greys of the +house. It was a policeman on his beat--she caught one of the gleams of +a lantern. + +Instantly she turned back, groped her way again through the wood, and +into a side road leading to her brother's house. + +She found her mother lying on the sofa in the drawing-room, the remains +of a rather luxurious tea beside her--her outdoor clothes lying +untidily about the room. + +"Where have you been?" said Mrs. Andrews, fretfully--"there were +several letters I wanted written before post." + +"I wanted a little air. That linen business took me all the morning." + +For it was the rule in the Andrews' household that the house linen +should be gone through every six months with a view to repairs and +renewals. It was a tedious business. Mrs. Andrews' nerves did not allow +her to undertake it. It fell therefore, and had always fallen to the +only daughter, who was not made for housewifery tasks, and detested the +half-yearly linen day accordingly. + +Her tone displeased her mother. + +"There you are--grumbling again, Marion! What else have you to do, I +should like to know, than your home duties?" + +Marion made no reply. What was the use of replying? But her black eyes, +as she helped herself wearily to some very cold tea, took note of her +mother's attitude. It was only the week before that Dr. France had +expressed himself rather pointedly to the effect that more exercise and +some fresh interests in life "would be good for Mrs. Andrews." + +Mrs. Andrews returned to the ladies' paper she was reading. The fashion +plates for the week were unusually attractive. Marion observed her +unseen. + +Suddenly the daughter said:-- + +"I must ask you for that five pounds, mother. Bill promised it me. My +underclothing is literally in rags. I've done my best, and it's past +mending. And I must have another decent dress." + +"There you are,--clamouring for money again"--said her mother, +bouncing up on the sofa--"when you know how hard-pressed Bill is. He's +got another instalment to pay for the motor the end of this week." + +"Yes--the motor you made him get!"--said Marion, as though the words +burst from her. + +"And why shouldn't he, pray! The money's his--and mine. It was high +time we got rid of that rattletrap. It jolted me to pieces." + +"You said a little while ago it would do very well for another year. +Anyway, Bill promised me something for clothes this month--and he also +said that he'd pay my school of art fees, at Wanchester, and give me a +third season ticket. Is that all done with too?" + +The girl sat erect, her face with its sparkling eyes expressing mingled +humiliation and bitterness. + +"Oh, well really, I can't stand these constant disputes!" said Mrs. +Andrews, rising angrily from the sofa. "You'd better go to your +brother. If he likes to waste his money, he can of course. But I've got +none to spare." She paused at the door--"As for your underclothing, I +daresay I could find you something of mine you could make do for a bit. +Now do be sensible!--and don't make a scene with Bill!" + +She closed the door. Marion walked to the side window of the +drawing-room, and stood looking at the wooded slope of the hill, with +Monk Lawrence in the distance. + +Her heart burned within her. She was thirty-four. She had never had any +money of her own--she had never been allowed any education that would +fit her to earn. She was absolutely dependent on her mother and +brother. Bill was kind enough, though careless, and often selfish. But +her mother rubbed her dependence into her at every turn--"And yet I +earn my clothes and my keep--every penny of them!" she thought, +fiercely. + +A year before this date she had been staying in London with a cousin +who sometimes took pity on her and gave her a change of scene. They had +gone together for curiosity's sake to a "militant" meeting in London. A +lady, slight in figure, with dark eyes and hair, had spoken on the +"economic independence of women"--as the only path to the woman's goal +of "equal rights" with men. She had spoken with passion, and Marion's +sore heart had leapt to answer her. + +That lady was Gertrude Marvell. Marion had written to her, and there +had been a brief acquaintance, enough to kindle the long-repressed will +and passion of the girl's stormy nature. She had returned home, to +read, in secret, everything that she could find on the militant +movement. The sheer violence of it appealed to her like water to the +thirsty. War, war!--on a rotten state of society, and the economic +slavery of women! + +And now her first awakener, her appointed leader, her idol had appeared +in this dead country-side, with orders to give, and tasks to impose. +And she should be obeyed--to the letter! + +The girl's heavy eyes kindled to a mad intensity, as she stood looking +at the hill-side, now almost dark, except for that distant light, which +she knew as the electric lamp still lit at sunset, even in Sir +Wilfrid's absence, over the stately doorway of Monk Lawrence. + +But she was not going to the Latchford meeting. "Don't give yourself +away. Don't be seen with the others. Keep out of notice. There are more +important things for you to do--presently. Wait!" + +The words echoed in her ears. She waited; exulting in the thought that +no one, not even Miss Blanchflower, knew as much as she; and that +neither her mother nor her brother had as yet any idea of her +connection with the "Daughters." Her "silly suffrage opinions" were +laughed at by them both--good-humouredly, by Bill. Of the rest, they +knew nothing. + + + + +Chapter IX + + +"Mark! you've done the day's work of two people already!" cried Mrs. +Matheson in a tone of distress. "You don't mean to say you're going in +to Latchford again?--and without waiting for some food?" + +She stood under the porch of Bridge End remonstrating with her brother. + +"Can't be helped, dear!" said Winnington, as he filled his pipe--"I'm +certain there'll be a row to-night, and I must catch this train!" + +"What, that horrid meeting! Delia Blanchflower lets you slave and slave +for her, and never takes the smallest notice of your wishes or your +advice! She ought to be ashamed!" + +The sister's mild tone trembled with indignation. + +"She isn't!" laughed Winnington. "I never knew anyone less so. But we +can't have her ill treated. Expect me back when you see me!" + +And kissing his hand to his sister, he went out into a dark and +blustering evening. Something had just gone wrong with the little motor +car he generally drove himself, and there was nothing for it but to +walk the mile and a half to the railway station. + +He had spent the whole day in County Council business at Wanchester, +was tired out, and had now been obliged to leave home again without +waiting even for a belated cup of tea. But there was no help for it. He +had only just time to catch the Latchford train. + +As he almost ran to the station he was not conscious however of any of +these small discomforts; his mind was full of Delia. He did not +encourage anyone but Madeleine Tonbridge to talk to him about his ward; +but he was already quite aware, before his old friend laid stress on +it, of the hostile feeling towards Delia and her chaperon that was +beginning to show itself in the neighbourhood. He knew that she was +already pronounced heartless, odious, unprincipled, consumed with a +love of notoriety, and ready for any violence, at the bidding of a +woman who was probably responsible at that very moment--as a prominent +organiser in the employ of the society contriving them--for some of the +worst of the militant outrages. His condemnation of Delia's actions was +sharp and unhesitating; his opinion of Miss Marvell not a whit milder +than that of his neighbours. Yet he had begun, as we have seen, to +discover in himself a willingness, indeed an eagerness to excuse and +pity the girl, which was wholly lacking in the case of the older woman. +Under the influence, indeed, of his own responsive temperament, +Winnington was rapidly drifting into a state of feeling where his +perception of Delia's folly and unreason was almost immediately checked +by some enchanting memory of her beauty, or of those rare moments in +their brief acquaintance, when the horrid shadow of the "Movement" had +been temporarily lifted, and he had seen her, as in his indulgent +belief she truly was--or was meant to be. She flouted and crossed him +perpetually; and he was beginning to discover that he only thought of +her the more, and that the few occasions when he had been able to force +a smile out of her,--a sudden softness in her black eyes, gone in a +moment!--were constantly pleading for her in his mind. All part no +doubt of his native and extreme susceptibility to the female race--the +female race in general. For he could see himself, and laugh at himself, +_ab extra_, better than most men. + +At the station he came across Captain Andrews, and soon discovered from +that artless warrior that he also was bound for Latchford, with a view +to watching over Delia Blanchflower. + +"Can't have a lot of hooligans attacking a good-looking girl like +that--whatever nonsense she talks!" murmured the Captain, twisting his +sandy moustache; "so I thought I'd better come along and see fair play. +Of course I knew you'd be there." + +The train was crowded. Winnington, separated from the Captain, plunged +into a dimly-lighted third class, and found himself treading on the +toes of an acquaintance. He saluted an elderly lady wearing a bonnet +and mantle of primeval cut, and a dress so ample in the skirt that it +still suggested the days of crinoline. She was abnormally tall, and +awkwardly built; she wore cotton gloves, and her boots were those of a +peasant. She carried a large bag or reticule, and her lap was piled +with brown parcels. Her large thin face was crowned by a few straggling +locks of what had once been auburn hair, now nearly grey, the pale +spectacled eyes were deeply wrinkled, and the nose and mouth slightly +but indisputably crooked. + +"My dear Miss Dempsey!--what an age since we met! Where are you off to? +Give me some of those parcels!" + +And Winnington, seizing what he could lay hands on, transferred them to +his own knees, and gave a cordial grip to the right hand cotton glove. + +Miss Dempsey replied that she had been in Brownmouth for the day, and +was going home. After which she smiled and said abruptly, bending +across her still laden knees and his--so as to speak unheard by their +neighbours-- + +"Of course I know where you're going to!" + +"Do you?" + +The queer head nodded. + +"Why can't you keep her in order?" + +"Her? Who?" + +"Your ward. Why don't you stop it?" + +"Stop these meetings? My ward is of age, please remember, and quite +aware of it." + +Miss Dempsey sighed. + +"Naughty young woman!" she said, yet with the gentlest of accents. "For +us of the elder generation to see our work all undone by these maniacs! +They have dashed the cup from our very lips." + +"Ah! I forgot you were a Suffragist," said Winnington, smiling at her. + +"Suffragist?" she held up her head indignantly--"I should rather think +I am. My parents were friends of Mill, and I heard him speak for Woman +Suffrage when I was quite a child. And now, after the years we've +toiled and moiled, to see these mad women wrecking the whole thing!" + +Winnington assented gravely. + +"I don't wonder you feel it so. But you still want it--the vote--as +much as ever?" + +"Yes!" she said, at first with energy; and then on a more wavering +note--"Yes,--but I admit a great many things have been done without it +that I thought couldn't have been done. And these wild women give one +to think. But you? Are you against us?--or has Miss Delia converted +you?" + +He smiled again, but without answering her question. Instead, he asked +her in a guarded voice-- + +"You are as busy as ever?" + +"I am there always--just as usual. I don't have much success. It +doesn't matter." + +She drew back from him, looking quietly out of window at the autumn +fields. Over her wrinkled face with its crooked features, there dawned +a look of strange intensity, mingled very faintly with something +exquisite--a ray from a spiritual world. + +Winnington looked at her with reverence. He knew all about her; so did +many of the dwellers in the Maumsey neighbourhood. She had lived for +half-a-century in the same little house in one of the back-streets of +Latchford, a town of some ten thousand inhabitants. Through all that +time her life had been given to what is called "rescue work"--though +she herself rarely called it by that name. She loved those whom no one +else would love--the meanest and feeblest of the outcast race. Every +night her door stood on the latch, and as the years passed, thousands +knew it. Scarcely a week went by, that some hand did not lift that +latch, and some girl in her first trouble, or some street-walker, dying +of her trade, did not step in to the tiny hall where the lamp burnt all +night, and wait for the sound of the descending footsteps on the +stairs, which meant shelter and pity, warmth and food. She was +constantly deceived, sometimes robbed; for such things she had no +memory. She only remembered the things which cannot be told--the +trembling voices of hope or returning joy--the tenderness in dying +eyes, the clinging of weak hands, the kindness of "her poor children." +She had written--without her name--a book describing the condition of a +great seaport town where she had once lived. The facts recorded in it +had inspired a great reforming Act. No one knew anything of her part in +it--so far as the public was concerned. Many persons indeed came to +consult her; she gave all her knowledge to those who wanted it; she +taught, and she counselled, always as one who felt herself the mere +humble mouthpiece of things divine and compelling; and those who went +away enriched did indeed forget her in her message, as she meant them +to do. But in her own town as she passed along the streets, in her +queer garb, blinking and absently smiling as though at her own +thoughts, she was greeted often with a peculiar reverence, a homage of +which her short sight told her little or nothing. + +Winnington especially had applied to her in more than one difficulty +connected with his public work. It was to her he had gone at once when +the Blanchflower agent had come to him in dismay reporting the decision +of Miss Blanchflower with regard to the half-witted girl whose third +illegitimate child by a quite uncertain father had finally proved her +need of protection both from men's vileness, and her own helplessness. +Miss Dempsey had taken the girl first into her own house, and then, +persuading and comforting the old father, had placed her in one of the +Homes where such victims are sheltered. + +Winnington briefly enquired after the girl. She as briefly replied. +Then she added:--as other travellers got out and they were left to +themselves. + +"So Miss Blanchflower wanted to keep her in the village?" + +Winnington nodded, adding-- + +"She of course had no idea of the real facts." + +"No. Why should she?--_Why should she_!--" the old lips repeated with +passion. "Let her keep her youth while she can! It's so strange to +me--how they will throw away their youth! Some of us must know. The +black ox has trodden on us. A woman of thirty must look at it all. But +a girl of twenty! Doesn't she see that she helps the world more by +_not_ knowing!--that her mere unconsciousness is _our_ gain--_our_ +refreshment." + +The face of the man sitting opposite her, reflected her own feeling. + +"You and I always agree," he said warmly. "I wish you'd make friends +with her." + +"Who? Miss Blanchflower? What could she make out of an old stager like +me!" Miss Dempsey's face broke into amusement at the notion. "And I +don't know that I could keep my temper with a militant. Well now you're +going to hear her speak--and here we are." + + * * * * * + +Winnington and Captain Andrews left the station together. Latchford +owned a rather famous market, and market day brought always a throng of +country folk into the little town. A multitude of booths under flaring +gas jets--for darkness had just fallen--held one side of the square, +and the other was given up to the hurdles which penned the sheep and +cattle, and to their attendant groups of farmers and drovers. + +The market place was full of people, but the crowd which filled it was +not an ordinary market-day crowd. The cattle and sheep indeed had long +since gone off with their new owners or departed homeward unsold. The +booths were most of them either taken down or were in process of being +dismantled. For the evening was falling fast; it was spitting with +rain; and business was over. But the shop windows in the market-place +were still brilliantly lit, and from the windows of the Crown Inn, all +tenanted by spectators, light streamed out on the crowd below. The +chief illumination came however from what seemed to be a large shallow +waggon drawn up not far from the Crown. Three people stood in it; a +man--who was speaking--and two women. From either side, a couple of +motor lamps of great brilliance concentrated upon them threw their +faces and figures into harsh relief. + +The crowd was steadily pressing toward the waggon, and it was evident +at once to Winnington and his companion that it was not a friendly +crowd. + +"Looks rather ugly, to me!" said Andrews in Winnington's ear. "They've +got hold of that thing which happened at Wanchester yesterday, of the +burning of that house where the care-taker and his children only just +escaped." + +A rush of lads and young men passed them as he spoke--shouting-- + +"Pull 'em down--turn 'em out!" + +Andrews and Winnington pursued, but were soon forced back by a +retreating movement of those in front. Winnington's height enabled him +to see over the heads of the crowd. + +"The police are keeping a ring," he reported to his companion--"they +seem to have got it in hand! Ah! now they've seen me--they'll let us +through." + +Meanwhile the shouts and booing of the hostile portion of the +audience--just augmented by a number of rough-looking men from the +neighbouring brickfields--prevented most of the remarks delivered by +the male speaker on the cart from reaching the audience. + +"Cowards!" said an excited woman's voice--"that's all they can +do!--howl like wild beasts--that's all they're fit for!" + +Winnington turned to see a tall girl, carrying an armful of newspapers. +She had flaming red hair, and she wore a black and orange scarf, with a +cap of the same colours. "Foster's daughter," he thought, wondering. +"What happens to them all!" For he had known Kitty Foster from her +school days, and had never thought of her except as a silly simpering +flirt, bent on the pursuit of man. And now he beheld a maenad, a fury. + +Suddenly another woman's voice cut across the others-- + +"Aren't you ashamed of those colours! Go home--and take them off. Go +home and behave like a decent creature!" + +Heads were turned--to see a middle-aged woman of quiet dress and +commanding aspect, sternly pointing to the astonished Kitty Foster. +"Do you see that girl?"--the woman continued, addressing her +neighbours,--"she's got the 'Daughters'' colours on. Do you know what +the Daughters have been doing in town? You've seen about the destroying +of letters in London. Well, I'll tell you what that means. I had a +little servant I was very fond of. She left me to go and live near her +sister in town. The sister died, and she got consumption. She went into +lodgings, and there was no one to help her. She wrote to me, asking me +to come to her. Her letter was destroyed in one of the pillar-boxes +raided--by those women--" She pointed. "Then she broke her heart +because she thought I'd given her up. She daren't write again. And now +I've found her out--in hospital--dying. I've seen her to-day. If it +hadn't have been for these demented creatures she might ha' lived for +years." + +The woman paused, her voice breaking a little. Kitty Foster tossed her +head. + +"What are most women in hospital for?" she said, shrilly. "By the fault +of men!--one way or the other. That's what we think of." + +"Yes I know--that's one of the shameless things you say--to us who have +husbands and sons we thank God for!" said the elder woman, quivering. +"Go and get a husband!--if you can find one to put up with you, and +hold your tongue!" She turned her back. + +The girl laughed affectedly. + +"I can do without one, thank you. It's you happy married women that are +the chief obstacle in our path. Selfish things!--never care for anybody +but yourselves!" + +"Hallo--Lathrop's down--that's Miss Blanchflower!" said Andrews, +excitedly. "Let's go on!" + +And at the same moment a mounted constable, who had been steadily +making his way to them, opened a way for the two J.P.'s through the +crowd, which after the tumult of hooting mingled with a small amount of +applause, which had greeted Lathrop's peroration, had relapsed into +sudden silence as Delia Blanchflower came forward, so that her opening +words, in a rich clear voice were audible over a large area of the +market-place. + + * * * * * + +What did she say? Certainly nothing new! Winnington knew it all by +heart--had read it dozens of times in their strident newspaper, which +he now perused weekly, simply that he might discover if he could, what +projects his ward might be up to. + +The wrongs of women, their wrongs as citizens, as wives, as the victims +of men, as the "refuse of the factory system"--Winnington remembered +the phrase in the _Tocsin_ of the week before--the uselessness of +constitutional agitation--the need "to shake England to make her +hear"--it was all the "common form" of the Movement; and yet she was +able to infuse it with passion, with conviction, with a wild and +natural eloquence. Her voice stole upon him--hypnotized him. His +political and economic knowledge told him that half the things she +said were untrue, and the rest irrelevant. His moral sense revolted +against her violence--her defence of violence. A girl of twenty-one +addressing this ugly, indifferent crowd, and talking calmly of +stone-throwing and arson, as though they were occupations as natural to +her youth as dancing or love-making!--the whole thing was +abhorrent--preposterous--to a man of order and peace. And yet he had +never been more stirred, more conscious of the mad, mixed poetry of +life, than he was, as he stood watching the slender figure on the +waggon--the gestures of the upraised arm, and the play of the lights +from the hotel, and from the side lamps, now on the deep white collar +that lightened her serge jacket, and on the gesticulating hand, or the +face that even in these disfiguring cross-lights could be nothing else +than lovely. + +She was speaking too long--a common fault of women. + +He looked from her to the faces of the crowd, and saw that the spell, +compounded partly of the speaker's good looks and partly of sheer +gaping curiosity, was breaking. They were getting restless, beginning +to heckle and laugh. + +Then he heard her say. + +"Of course we know--you think us fools--silly fools! You say it's a +poor sort of fighting--and what do we hope to get by it? Pin-pricks you +call it--all that women can do. Well, so it is--we admit it. It _is_ a +poor sort of fighting--we don't admire it any more than you. But it's +all men have left to women. You have disarmed us--and fooled us--and +made slaves of us. You won't allow us the constitutional weapon of the +vote, so we strike as we can, and with what weapons we can--" + +"Makin' bonfires of innercent people an' their property, ain't +politics, Miss!" shouted a voice. + +"Hear, Hear!" from the crowd. + +"We haven't killed anybody--but ourselves!" The answer flashed. + +"Pretty near it! Them folks at Wanchester only just got out--an' there +were two children among 'em," cried a man near the waggon. + +"An' they've just been up to something new at Brownmouth--" + +All heads turned towards a young man who spoke from the back of the +audience. "News just come to the post-office," he shouted--"as the new +pier was burnt out early this morning. There's a bit o' wanton mischief +for you!" + +A howl of wrath rose from the audience, amid which the closing words of +Delia's speech were lost. Winnington caught a glimpse of her face--pale +and excited--as she retreated from the front of the waggon in order to +make room for her co-speaker. + +Gertrude Marvell, as Winnington soon saw, was far more skilled in +street oratory than her pupil. By sheer audacity she caught her +audience at once, and very soon, mingling defiance with sarcasm, she +had turned the news of the burnt pier into a Suffragist parable. What +was that blaze in the night, lighting up earth and sea, but an emblem +of women's revolt flaming up in the face of dark injustice and +oppression? Let them rage! The women mocked. All tyrannies disliked +being disturbed--since the days of Nebuchadnezzar. And thereupon, +without any trace of excitement, or any fraction of Delia's eloquence, +she built up bit by bit, and in face of the growing hostility of the +crowd, an edifice of selected statements, which could not have been +more adroit. It did not touch or persuade, but it silenced; till at the +end she said--each word slow and distinct-- + +"Now--all these things _you_ may do to women, and nobody minds--nobody +troubles at all. But if _we_ make a bonfire of a pier, or an empty +house, by way of drawing attention to your proceedings, then, you see +red. Well, here we are!--do what you like--torture, imprison us!--you +are only longing, I know--some of you--to pull us down now and trample +on us, so that you may _show_ us how much stronger men are than women! +All right!--but where one woman falls, another will spring up. And +meanwhile the candle we are lighting will go on burning till you give +us the vote. Nothing simpler--nothing easier. _Give us the vote_!--and +send your canting Governments, Liberal, or Tory, packing, till we get +it. But until then--windows and empty houses, and piers and such-like, +are nothing--but so many opportunities of making our masters +uncomfortable, till they free their slaves! Lucky for you, if the thing +is no worse!" + +She paused a moment, and then added with sharp and quiet emphasis-- + +"And why is it specially necessary that we should try to stir up this +district--whether you like our methods or whether you don't? +Because--you have living here among you, one of the worst of the +persecutors of women! You have here a man who has backed up every +cruelty of the Government--who has denied us every right, and scoffed +at all our constitutional demands--your neighbour and great landlord, +Sir Wilfrid Lang! I call upon every woman in this district, to avenge +women on Sir Wilfrid Lang! We are not out indeed to destroy life or +limb--we leave that to the men who are trying to coerce women--but we +mean to sweep men like Sir Wilfrid Lang out of our way! Meanwhile we +can pay special attention to his meetings--we can harass him at railway +stations--we can sit on his doorstep--we can put the fear of God into +him in a hundred ways--in short we can make his life a tenth part as +disagreeable to him as he can make ours to us. We can, if we please, +make it a _burden_ to him--and we intend to do so! And don't let +men--or women either--waste their breath in preaching to us of 'law and +order.' Slaves who have no part in making the law, are not bound by the +law. Enforce it if you can! But while you refuse to free us, we despise +both the law and the making of the law. Justice--which is a very +different thing from law--Justice is our mistress!--and to her we +appeal." + +Folding her arms, she looked the crowd in the face. They seemed to +measure each other; on one side, the lines of upturned faces, gaping +youths, and smoking workmen, farmers and cattlemen, women and children; +on the other, defying them, one thin, neatly-dressed woman, her face, +under the lamps, a gleaming point in the dark. + +Then a voice rose from a lounging group of men, smoking like +chimneys--powerful fellows; smeared with the clay of the brickfields. + +"Who's a-makin' slaves of you, Ma'am? There's most of us workin' for a +woman!" + +A woman in the middle of the crowd laughed shrilly--a queer, tall +figure in a battered hat-- + +"Aye--and a lot yo' give 'er ov a Saturday night, don't yer?" + +"Sir Wilfrid's a jolly good feller, miss," shouted another man. "Pays +'is men good money, an' no tricks. If you come meddlin' with him, in +these parts, you'll catch it." + +"An' we don't want no suffragettes here, thank you!" cried a sarcastic +woman's voice. "We was quite 'appy till you come along, an' we're quite +willin' now for to say 'Good-bye, an' God bless yer!'" + +The crowd laughed wildly, and suddenly a lad on the outskirts of the +crowd picked up a cabbage-stalk that had fallen from one of the +market-stalls, and flung it at the waggon. The hooligan element, +scattered through the market-place, took up the hint at once; brutal +things began to be shouted; and in a moment the air was thick with +missiles of various sorts, derived from the refuse of the day's +market--vegetable remains of all kinds, fragments of wood and cardboard +boxes, scraps of filthy matting, and anything else that came handy. + +The audience at first disapproved. There were loud cries of "Stow +it!"--"Shut up!"--"Let the ladies alone!"--and there was little attempt +to obstruct the police as they moved forward. But then, by ill-luck, +the powerfully-built fair-haired man, who had been speaking when +Winnington and Andrews entered the market place, rushed to the front of +the waggon, and in a white heat of fury, began to denounce both the +assailants of the speakers, and the crowd in general, as "cowardly +louts"--on whom argument was thrown away--who could only be reached +"through their backs, or their pockets"--with other compliments of the +same sort, under which the temper of the "moderates" rapidly gave way. + +"What an ass! What a damned ass!" groaned Andrews indignantly. "Look +here Winnington, you take care of Miss Blanchflower--I'll answer for +the other!" + +And amid a general shouting and scuffling, through which some stones +were beginning to fly, Winnington found himself leaping on the waggon, +followed by Andrews and a couple of police. + +Delia confronted him--undaunted, though breathless. + +"What do you want? We're all right!" + +"You must come away at once. I can get you through the hotel." + +"Not at all! We must put the Resolution." + +"Come Miss!--" said the tall constable behind Winnington--"no use +talking! There's a lot of fellows here that mean mischief. You go with +this gentleman. He'll look after you." + +"Not without my friend!" cried Delia, both hands behind her on the edge +of the waggon--erect and defiant. "Gertrude!--" she raised her +voice--"What do you wish to do?" + +But amid the din, her appeal was not heard. + +Gertrude Marvell however could be clearly seen on the other side of the +waggon, with Paul Lathrop beside her, listening to the remonstrances +and entreaties of Andrews, with a smile as cool, as though she were in +the drawing-room of Maumsey Abbey, and the Captain were inviting her to +trifle with a cup of tea. + +"Take her along, Sir!" said the policeman, with a nod to Winnington. +"It's getting ugly." And as he spoke, a man jumped upon the waggon, a +Latchford doctor, an acquaintance of Winnington's, who said something +in his ear. + +The next moment, a fragment of a bottle, flung from a distance, struck +Winnington on the wrist. The blood rushed out, and Delia, suddenly +white, looked from it to Winnington's face. The only notice he took of +the incident was expressed in the instinctive action of rolling his +handkerchief round it. But it stirred him to lay a grasp upon Delia's +arm, which she could hardly have resisted. She did not, however, +resist. She felt herself lifted down from the waggon, and hurried +along, the police keeping back the crowd, into the open door of the +hotel. Shouts of a populace half enraged, half amused, pursued her. + +"Brutes--Cowards!" she gasped, between her teeth--then to +Winnington--"Where are you taking me? I have the car!" + +"There's a motor belonging to a doctor ready at once in the yard of the +hotel. Better let me take you home in it. Andrews, I assure you, will +look after Miss Marvell!" + +They passed through the brilliantly-lighted inn, where landlady, +chambermaids, and waiters stood grinning in rows to see, and Winnington +hurried his charge into the closed motor standing at the inn's back +door. + +"Take the street behind the hotel, and get out by the back of the town. +Be quick!" said Winnington to the chauffeur. + +Booing groups had already begun to gather at the entrance of the yards, +and in the side street to which it led. The motor passed slowly through +them, then quickened its pace, and in what seemed an incredibly short +time, they were in country lanes. + +Delia leant hack, drawing long breaths of fatigue and excitement. Then +she perceived with disgust that her dress was bemired with scraps of +dirty refuse, and that some mud was dripping from her hat. She took off +the hat, shook it out of the window of the car, but could not bring +herself to put it on again. Her hair, loosely magnificent, framed a +face that was now all colour and passion. She hated herself, she hated +the crowd; it seemed to her she hated the man at her side. Suddenly +Winnington turned on the electric light--with an exclamation. + +"So sorry to be a nuisance--but have you got a spare handkerchief? I'm +afraid I shall spoil your dress!" + +And Delia saw, to her dismay, that his own handkerchief which he had +originally tied round his wound was already soaked, and the blood was +dripping from it on to the motor-rug. + +"Yes--yes--I have!" And opening her little wrist-bag, she took out of +it two spare handkerchiefs, and tied them, with tremulous hands, round +the wrist he held out to her,--a wrist brown and spare and powerful, +like the rest of him. + +"Now--have you got anything you could tie round the arm, above the +wound--and then twist the knot?" + +She thought. + +"My veil!" She slipped it off in a moment, a long motor veil of stout +make. He turned towards her, pushing up his coat sleeve as high as it +would go, and shewing her where to put the bandage. She helped him to +turn back his shirt sleeve, and then wound the veil tightly round the +arm, so as to compress the arteries. Her fingers were warm and strong. +He watched them--he felt their touch--with a curious pleasure. + +"Now, suppose you take this pencil, and twist it in the knot--you know +how? Have you done any First Aid?" + +She nodded. + +"I know." + +She did it well. The tourniquet acted, and the bleeding at once +slackened. + +"All right!" said Winnington, smiling at her. "Now if I keep it up that +ought to do!" She drew down the sleeve, and he put his hand into the +motor-strap hanging near him, which supported it. Then he threw his +head back a moment against the cushions of the car. The sudden loss of +blood on the top of a long fast, had made him feel momentarily faint. + +Delia looked at him uneasily--biting her lip. + +"Let us go back to Latchford, Mr. Winnington, and find a doctor." + +"Oh dear no! I'm only pumped for a moment. It's going off. I'm +perfectly fit. When I've taken you home, I shall go in to our Maumsey +man, and get tied up." + +There was silence. The hedges and fields flew by outside, under the +light of the motor, stars overhead, Delia's heart was full of wrath and +humiliation. + +"Mr. Winnington--" + +"Yes!" He sat up, apparently quite revived. + +"Mr. Winnington--for Heaven's sake--do give me up!" + +He looked at her with amused astonishment. + +"Give you up!--How?" + +"Give up being my guardian! I really can't stand it. I--I don't mind +what happens to myself. But it's too bad that I should be forced to--to +make myself such a nuisance to you--or desert all my principles. It's +not fair to _me_--that's what I feel--it's not indeed!" she insisted +stormily. + +He saw her dimly as she spoke--the beautiful oval of the face, the +white brow, the general graciousness of line, so feminine, in +truth!--so appealing. The darkness hid away all that shewed the "female +franzy." Distress of mind--distress for his trumpery wound?--had +shaken her, brought her back to youth and childishness? Again he felt +a rush of sympathy--of tender concern. + +"Do you think you would do any better with a guardian chosen by the +Court?" he asked her, smiling, after a moment's pause. + +"Of course I should! I shouldn't mind fighting a stranger in the +least." + +"They would be very unlikely to appoint a stranger. They would probably +name Lord Frederick." + +"He wouldn't dream of taking it!" she said, startled. "And you know he +is the laziest of men." + +They both laughed. But her laugh was a sound of agitation, and in the +close contact of the motor he was aware of her quick breathing. + +"Well, it's true he never answers a letter," said Winnington. "But I +suppose he's ill." + +"He's been a _malade imaginaire_ all his life, and he isn't going to +begin to put himself out for anybody now!" she said, scornfully. + +"Your aunt, Miss Blanchflower?" + +"I haven't spoken to her for years. She used to live with us when I was +eighteen. She tried to boss me, and set father against me. But I got +the best of her." + +"I am sure you did," said Winnington. + +She broke out-- + +"Oh, I know you think me a perfectly impossible creature whom nobody +could ever get on with!" + +He paused a moment, then said gravely-- + +"No, I don't think anything of the kind. But I do think that, given +what you want, you are going entirely the wrong way to get it." + +She drew a long and desperate breath. + +"Oh, for goodness sake don't let's argue!" + +He refrained. But after a moment he added, still more gravely--"And I +do protest--most strongly!--against the influence upon you of the lady +you have taken to live with you!" + +Delia made a vehement movement. + +"She is my friend!--my dearest friend!" she said, in a shaky voice. +"And I believe in her, and admire her with all my heart!" + +"I know--and I am sorry. Her speech this evening--all the latter part +of it--was the speech of an Anarchist. And the first half was a tissue +of misstatements. I happen to know something about the facts she dealt +with." + +"Of course you take a different view!" + +"I _know_," he said, quietly--a little sternly. "Miss Marvell either +does not know, or she wilfully misrepresents." + +"You can't prove it!" + +"I think I could. And as to that man--Mr. Lathrop--but you know what I +think." + +They both fell silent. Through all his own annoyance and disgust, +Winnington was sympathetically conscious of what she too must be +feeling--chafed and thwarted, at every turn, by his legal power over +her actions, and by the pressure of his male will. He longed to +persuade her, convince her, soothe her; but what chance for it, under +the conditions she had chosen for her life? + +The motor drew up at the door of the Abbey, and Winnington turned on +the light. + +"I am afraid I can't help you out. Can you manage?" + +She stooped anxiously to look at his wrist. + +"It's bleeding worse again! I am sure I could improve that bandage. Do +come in. My maid's got everything." + +He hesitated--then followed her into the house. The maid was summoned, +and proved an excellent nurse. The wound was properly bandaged, and the +arm put in a sling. + +Then, as the maid withdrew, Delia and her guardian were left standing +together in the drawing-room, lit only by a dying gleam of fire, and a +single lamp. + +"Good-night," said Winnington, gently. "Don't be the least alarmed +about Miss Marvell. The train doesn't arrive for ten minutes yet. Thank +you for looking after me so kindly." + +Delia laughed--but it was a sound of distress. + +Suddenly he stooped, lifted her hand, and kissed it. + +"What you are doing seems to me foolish--and _wrong!_ I am afraid I +must tell you so plainly," he said, with emotion. "But although I feel +like that--my one wish--all the time--is--forgive me if it sounds +patronising!--to help you--and stand by you. To see you in that horrid +business to-night--made me--very unhappy. I am old-fashioned I +suppose--but I could hardly bear it. I wish I could make you trust me a +little!" + +"I do!" she said, choked. "I do--but I must follow my conscience." + +He shook his head, but said no more. She murmured good-night, and he +went. She heard the motor drive away, and remained standing where he +had left her, the hand he had kissed hanging at her side. She still +felt the touch of his lips upon it, and as the blood rushed into her +cheeks, her heart was conscious of new and strange emotions. She longed +to go to him as a sister or a daughter might, and say--"Forgive +me--understand me--don't despair of me!" + +The trance of feeling broke, and passed away. She caught up a cloak and +went to the hall door to listen for Gertrude Marvell. + +"What I _shall_ have to say to him before long, is--'I have tricked +you this quarter out of Ł500--and I mean to do it again next +quarter--if I can!' He won't want to kiss my hand again!" + + + + +Chapter X + + +Two men sat smoking and talking with Paul Lathrop in the hook-littered +sitting-room of his cottage. One was a young journalist, Roger Blaydes, +whose thin, close-shaven face wore the knowing fool's look of one to +whom the world's his oyster, and all the bricks for opening it +familiar. The other was a god-like creature, a poet by profession, with +long lantern-jaws, grey eyes deeply set, and a mass of curly black +hair, from which the face with its pallor and its distinction, shone +dimly out like the portrait of a Cinquecento. Lathrop, in a kind of +dressing-gown, as clumsily cut as the form it wrapped, his reddish hair +and large head catching the firelight, had the look of one lazily at +bay, as wrapped in a cloud of smoke, he twined from one speaker to the +other. + +"So you were at another of these meetings last night?" said Blaydes, +with a mouth half smiling, half contemptuous. + +"Yes. A disgusting failure! They didn't even take the trouble to pelt +us." The poet--Merian by name--moved angrily on his chair. Blaydes +threw a sly look at him, as he knocked the ash from his cigarette. + +"And what the deuce do you expect to get by it all?" + +Paul Lathrop paused a moment--and at last said with a lift of the +eyebrows:-- + +"Well!--I have no illusions!" + +Merian broke out indignantly-- + +"I say, Lathrop--why should you try and play up to that cynic there? As +if he ever had an illusion about anything!" + +"Well, but one may have faith without illusions," protested Blaydes, +with hard good temper. + +"I doubt whether Lathrop has an ounce of either!" + +Lathrop reached out for a match. + +"What's the good of 'faith'--and what does anyone mean by it? +Sympathies--and animosities: they're enough for me." + +"And you really are in sympathy with these women?" said the other. + +The tone was incredulous. Merian brought his hand violently down on the +table. + +"Don't you talk about them, Blaydes! I tell you, they're out of your +ken." + +"I daresay," said Blaydes, composedly. "I was only trying to get at +what Lathrop means by going into the business." + +Paul Lathrop sat up. + +"I'm in sympathy with anything that harasses, and bothers and stings +the governing classes of this country!" he said, with an oratorical +wave of his cigarette. "What fools they are! In this particular +business the Government is an ass, the public is an ass, the women, if +you like, are asses. So long as they don't destroy works of art that +appeal to me, I prefer to bray with them than with their enemies." + +Merian rose impatiently--a slim, dark-browed St. George towering over +the other two. + +"After that, I'd rather hear them attacked by Blaydes, than defended by +you, Lathrop!" he said with energy, as he buttoned up his coat. + +Lathrop threw him a cool glance. + +"So for you, they're all heroines--and saints?" + +"Never mind what they are. I stand by them! I'm ready to give them what +they ask." + +"Ready to hand the Empire over to them--to smash like the windows in +Piccadilly?" said Blaydes. + +"Hang the Empire!--what does the Empire matter! Give the people in +these islands what they _want_ before you begin to talk about the +Empire. Well, good-bye, I must be off!" + +He nodded to the other two, and opened the door of the Hermitage which +led directly into the outer air. On the threshold he turned and looked +back, irresolutely, as though in compunction for his loss of temper. +Framed in the doorway against a background of sunset sky, his dark head +and sparely-noble features were of a singular though melancholy beauty. +It was evident that he was full of speech, of which he could not in the +end unburden himself. The door closed behind him, and he was gone. + +"Poor devil!" said Blaydes, tipping the end of his cigarette into the +fire-"he's in love with a girl who's been in prison three times. He +thinks she'll kill herself--and he can't influence her at all. He +takes it hard. Well, now look here"--the young man's expression changed +and stiffened--"I understand that you too are seeing a good deal of one +of these wild women--and that she's both rich--and a beauty?" + +He looked up, with a laugh. + +Lathrop's aspect was undisturbed. + +"Nothing to do with it!--though your silly little mind will no doubt go +on thinking so." + +The other laughed again--with a more emphatic mockery. Lathrop +reddened--then said quietly-- + +"Well, I admit that was a lie. Yes, she is handsome--and if she were +to stick to it--sacrifice all her life to it--in time she might make a +horrible success of this thing. Will she stick to it?" + +"Are you in love with her, Paul?" + +"Of course! I am in love with all pretty women--especially when I +daren't shew it." + +"You daren't shew it?" + +"The smallest advance on my part, in this quarter, brings me a rap on +the knuckles. I try to pitch what I have to say in the most impersonal +and romantic terms. No good at all! But all egg-dancing is amusing, so +I dance--and accept all the drudgery she and Alecto give me to do." + +"Alecto? Miss Marvell?" + +"Naturally." + +"These meetings must be pretty boring." + +"Especially because I can't keep my temper. I lose it in the vulgarest +way--and say the most idiotic things." + +There was a pause of silence. The eyes of the journalist wandered round +the room, coming back to Lathrop at last with renewed curiosity. + +"How are your affairs, Paul?" + +"Couldn't be worse. Everything here would have been seized long ago, if +there had been anything to seize. But you can't distrain on trout--dear +slithery things. And as the ponds afford my only means of sustenance, +and do occasionally bring in something, my creditors have to leave me +the house and a few beds and chairs so that I may look after them." + +"Why don't you write another book?" + +"Because at present I have nothing to say. And on that point I happen +to have a conscience--some rays of probity, left." + +He got up as he spoke, and went across the room, to a covered basket +beside the fire. + +"Mimi!" he said caressingly--"poor Mimi!" + +He raised a piece of flannel, and a Persian kitten lying in the +basket--a sick kitten--lifted its head languidly. + +"_Tu m'aimes_, Mimi?" + +The kitten looked at him with veiled eyes, already masked with death. +Lathrop stooped for a saucer of warm milk standing by the fire. The +kitten refused it, but when he dipped his fingers in the milk, it made +a momentary effort to lick them, then subsiding, sank to sleep again. + +"Poor little beast!" said Blaydes--"what's the matter?" + +"Some poison--I don't know what. It'll die tonight." + +"Then you'll be all alone?" + +"I'm never alone," said Lathrop, with decision. And rising he went to +the door of the cottage--which opened straight on the hill-side, and +set it open. + +It was four o'clock on a November day. The autumn was late, and of a +marvellous beauty. The month was a third gone and still there were +trees here and there, isolated trees, intensely green as though they +defied decay. The elder trees, the first to leaf under the Spring, were +now the last to wither. The elms in twenty-four hours had turned a pale +gold atop, while all below was still round and green. But the beeches +were nearly gone; all that remained of them was a thin pattern of +separate leaves, pale gold and faintly sparkling against the afternoon +sky. Such a sky! Bands of delicate pinks, lilacs and blues scratched +across an inner-heaven of light, and in the mid-heaven a blazing +furnace, blood-red, wherein the sun had just plunged headlong to its +death. And under the sky, an English scene of field and woodland, +fading into an all-environing forest, still richly clothed. While in +the foreground and middle distance, some trees already stripped and +bare, winter's first spoil, stood sharply black against the scarlet of +the sunset. And fusing the whole scene, hazes of blue, amethyst or +purple, beyond a Turner's brush, + +"What beauty!--my God!" + +Blaydes came to stand beside the speaker, glancing at him with eyes +half curious, half mocking. + +"You get so much pleasure out of it?" + +For answer, Lathrop murmured a few words as though to himself, a sudden +lightening in his sleepy eyes-- + + L'univers--si liquide, si pur!-- + Une belle eau qu'on voudrait boire. + + +"I don't understand French"--said Blaydes, with a shrug--"not French +verse, anyway." + +"That's a pity," was the dry reply--"because you can't read Madame de +Noailles. Ah!--there are Lang's pheasants calling!--his tenants I +suppose--for he's left the shooting." + +He pointed to a mass of wood on his left hand from which the sound +came. + +"They say he's never here?" + +"Two or three times a year,--just on business. His wife--a little +painted doll--hates the place, and they've built a villa at Beaulieu." + +"Rather risky leaving a big house empty in these days--with your wild +women about!" + +Lathrop looked round. + +"Good heavens!--who would ever dream of touching Monk Lawrence! I bet +even Gertrude Marvell hasn't nerve enough for that. Look here!--have +you ever seen it?" + +"Never." + +"Come along then. There's just time--while this light lasts." + +They snatched their caps, and were presently mounting the path which +led ultimately through the woods of Monk Lawrence to the western front. + +Blaydes frowned as he walked. He was a young man of a very practical +turn of mind, who in spite of an office-boy's training possessed an +irrelevant taste for literature which had made him an admirer of +Lathrop's two published volumes. For some time past he had been +Lathrop's chancellor of the exchequer--self-appointed, and had done his +best to keep his friend out of the workhouse. From the tone of Paul's +recent letters he had become aware of two things--first, that Lathrop +was in sight of his last five pound note, and did not see his way to +either earning or borrowing another; and secondly, that a handsome girl +had appeared on the scene, providentially mad with the same kind of +madness as had recently seized on Lathrop, belonging to the same +anarchial association, and engaged in the same silly defiance of +society; likely therefore to be thrown a good deal in his company; and +last, but most important, possessed of a fortune which she would no +doubt allow the "Daughters of Revolt" to squander--unless Paul cut in. +The situation had begun to seem to him interesting, and having already +lent Lathrop more money than he could afford, he had come down to +enquire about it. He himself possessed an income of three hundred a +year, plus two thousand pounds left him by an uncle. Except for the +single weakness which had induced him to lend Lathrop a couple of +hundred pounds, his principles with regard to money were frankly +piratical. Get what you can--and how you can. Clearly it was Lathrop's +game to take advantage of this queer friendship with a militant who +happened to be both rich and young, which his dabbling in their +"nonsense" had brought about. Why shouldn't he achieve it? Lathrop was +as clever as sin; and there was the past history of the man, to shew +that he could attract women. + +He gripped his friend's arm as they passed into the shadow of the wood. +Lathrop looked at him with surprise-- + +"Look here, Paul"--said the younger man in a determined voice--"You've +got to pull this thing off." + +"What thing?" + +"You can marry this girl if you put your mind to it. You tell me you're +going about the country with her speaking at meetings--that you're one +of her helpers and advisers. That is--you've got an A1 chance with her. +If you don't use it, you're a blithering idiot." + +Paul threw back his head and laughed. + +"And what about other people? What about her guardian, for +instance--who is the sole trustee of the property--who has a thousand +chances with her to my one--and holds, I venture to say--if he knows +anything about me--the strongest views on the subject of _my_ moral +character?" + +"Who is her guardian?" + +"Mark Wilmington. Does that convey anything to you?" + +Blaydes whistled. + +"Great Scott!" + +"Yes. Precisely 'Great Scott!'" said Lathrop, mocking. "I may add that +everybody here has their own romance on the subject. They are convinced +that Winnington will soon cure her of her preposterous notions, and +restore her, tamed, to a normal existence." + +Blaydes meditated,--his aspect showing a man checked. + +"I saw Winnington playing in a county match last August," he said--with +his eyes on the ground--"I declare no one looked at anybody else. I +suppose he's forty; but the old stagers tell you that he's just as much +of an Apollo now as he was in his most famous days--twenty years ago." + +"Don't exaggerate. He _is_ forty, and I'm thirty--which is one to me. +I only meant to suggest to you a _reasonable_ view of the chances." + +"Look here--_is_ she as handsome as people say?" + +"Blaydes!--this is the last time I shall allow you to talk about +her--you get on my nerves. Handsome? I don't know." + +He walked on, muttering to himself and twitching at the trees on either +hand. + +"I am simply putting what is your duty to yourself--and your +creditors," said Blaydes, sulkily--"You must know your affairs are in +a pretty desperate state." + +"And a girl like that is to be sacrificed--to my creditors! Good Lord!" + +"Oh, well, if you regard yourself as such an undesirable, naturally, +I've nothing to say. Of course I know--there's that case against you. +But it's a good while ago; and I declare women don't look at those +things as they used to do. Why don't you play the man of letters +business? You know very well, Paul, you could earn a lot of money if +you chose. But you're such a lazy dog!" + +"Let me alone!" said Lathrop, rather fiercely. "The fact that you've +lent me a couple of hundred really doesn't give you the right to talk +to me like this." + +"I won't lend you a farthing more unless you promise me to take this +thing seriously," said Blaydes, doggedly. + +Lathrop burst into a nervous shout of laughter. + +"I say, do shut up! I assure you, you can't bully me. Now then--here's +the house!" + +And as he spoke they emerged from the green oblong, bordered by low yew +edges, from which as from a flat and spacious shelf carved out of the +hill, Monk Lawrence surveyed the slopes below it, the clustered +village, the middle distance with its embroidery of fields and trees, +with the vaporous stretches of the forest beyond, and in the far +distance, a shining line of sea. + +"My word!--that is a house!" cried Blaydes, stopping to survey it and +get his townsman's breath, after the steep pitch of hill. + +"Not bad?" + +"Is it shown?" + +"Used to be. It has been shut lately for fear of the militants." + +"But they keep somebody in it?" + +"Yes--in some room at the back. A keeper, and his three children. The +wife's dead. Shall I go and see if he'll let us in? But he won't. He'll +have seen my name at that meeting, in the Latchford paper." + +"No, no. I shall miss my train. Let's walk round. Why, you'd think it +was on fire already!" said Blaydes, with a start, gazing at the house. + +For the marvellous evening now marching from the western forest, was +dyeing the whole earth in crimson, and the sun just emerging from one +bank of cloud, before dropping into the bank below, was flinging a +fierce glare upon the wide grey front of Monk Lawrence. Every window +blazed, and some fine oaks still thick with red leaf, which flanked the +house on the north, flamed in concert. The air was suffused with red; +every minor tone, blue or brown, green or purple, shewed through it, as +through a veil. + +And yet how quietly the house rose, in the heart of the flame! Peace +brooding on memory seemed to breathe from its rounded oriels, its mossy +roof, its legend in stone letters running round the eaves, the carved +trophies and arabesques which framed the stately doorway, the sleepy +fountain with its cupids, in the courtyard, the graceful loggia on the +northern side. It stood, aloof and self-contained, amid the lightnings +and arrows of the departing sun. + +"No--they'd never dare to touch that!" said Lathrop as he led the way +to the path skirting the house. "And if I caught Miss Marvell at it, +I'm not sure I shouldn't hand her over myself!" + +"Aren't we trespassing?" said Blaydes, as their footsteps rang on the +broad flagged path which led from the front court to the terrace at the +back of the house. + +"Certainly. Ah, the dog's heard us." + +And before they had gone more than a few steps further, a burly man +appeared at the further corner of the house, holding a muzzled dog--a +mastiff--on a leash. + +"What might you be wanting, gentlemen?" he said gruffly. + +"Why, you know me, Daunt. I brought a friend up to look at your +wonderful place. We can walk through, can't we?" + +"Well, as you're here, Sir, I'll let you out by the lower gate. But +this is private ground, Sir, and Sir Wilfrid's orders are strict,--not +to let anybody through that hasn't either business with the house or an +order from himself." + +"All right. Let's have a look at the back and the terrace, and then +we'll be off; Sir Wilfrid coming here?" + +"Not that I know of, Sir," said the keeper shortly, striding on before +the two men, and quieting his dog, who was growling at their heels. + +As he spoke he led the way down a stately flight of stone steps by +which the famous eastern terrace at the back of the house was reached. +The three men and the dog disappeared from view. + +Steadily the sunset faded. An attacking host of cloud rushed upon it +from the sea, and quenched it. The lights in the windows of Monk +Lawrence went out. Dusk fell upon the house and all its approaches. + +Suddenly, two figures--figures of women--emerged in the twilight from +the thick plantation, which protected the house on the north. They +reached the flagged path with noiseless feet, and then pausing, they +began what an intelligent spectator would have soon seen to be a +careful reconnoitering of the whole northern side of the house. They +seemed to examine the windows, a garden door, the recesses in the +walls, the old lead piping, the creepers and shrubs. Then one of them, +keeping close to the house wall, which was in deep shadow, went quickly +round to the back. The other awaited her. In the distance rose at +intervals a dog's uneasy bark. + +In a very few minutes the woman who had gone round the house returned +and the two, slipping back into the dense belt of wood from which they +had come, were instantly swallowed up by it. Their appearance and their +movements throughout had been as phantom-like and silent as the shadows +which were now engulfing the house. Anyone who had seen them come and +go might almost have doubted his own eyes. + + * * * * * + +Daunt the Keeper returned leisurely to his quarters in some back +premises of Monk Lawrence, at the southeastern corner of the house. But +he had but just opened his own door when he again heard the sound of +footsteps in the fore-court. + +"Well, what's come to the folk to-night"--he muttered, with some +ill-humour, as he turned back towards the front. + +A woman!--standing with her back to the house, in the middle of the +forecourt as though the place belonged to her, and gazing at the piled +clouds of the west, still haunted by the splendour just past away. + +A veritable Masque of Women, all of the Maenad sort, had by now begun +to riot through Daunt's brain by night and day. He raised his voice +sharply-- + +"What's your business here, Ma'am? There is no public road past this +house." + +The lady turned, and came towards him. + +"Don't you know who I am, Mr. Daunt? But I remember you when I was a +child." + +Daunt peered through the dusk. + +"You have the advantage of me, Madam," he said, stiffly. "Kindly give +me your name." + +"Miss Blanchflower--from Maumsey Abbey!" said a young, conscious voice. +"I used to come here with my grandmother, Lady Blanchflower. I have +been intending to come and pay you a visit for a long time--to have a +look at the old house again. And just now I was passing the foot of +your hill in a motor; something went wrong with the car, and while they +were mending it, I ran up. But it's getting dark so quick, one can +hardly see anything!" + +Daunt's attitude showed no relaxation. Indeed, quick recollections +assailed him of certain reports in the local papers, now some ten days +old. Miss Blanchflower indeed! She was a brazen one--after all done and +said. + +"Pleased to see you, Miss, if you'll kindly get an order from Sir +Wilfrid. But I have strict instructions from Sir Wilfrid not to admit +anyone--not anyone whatsoever--to the gardens or the house, without his +order." + +"I should have thought, Mr. Daunt, that only applied to strangers." The +tones shewed annoyance. "My father, Sir Robert Blanchflower, was an old +friend of Sir Wilfrid's." + +"Can't help it, Miss," said Daunt, not without the secret zest of the +Radical putting down his "betters." "There are queer people about. I +can't let no one in without an order." + +As he spoke, a gate slammed on his left, and Daunt, with the feeling of +one beset, turned in wrath to see who might be this new intruder. Since +the house had been closed to visitors, and a notice to the effect had +been posted in the village, scarcely a soul had penetrated through its +enclosing woods, except Miss Amberley, who came to teach Daunts +crippled child. And now in one evening here were three assaults upon +its privacy! + +But as to the third he was soon reassured. + +"Hullo, Daunt, is that you? Did I hear you telling Miss Blanchflower +you can't let her in? But you know her of course?" said a man's easy +voice. + +Delia started. The next moment her hand was in her guardian's, and she +realised that he had heard the conversation between herself and Daunt, +realised also that she had committed a folly not easily to be +explained, either to Winnington or herself, in obeying the impulse +which--half memory, half vague anxiety,--had led her to pay this +sudden visit to the house. Gertrude Marvell had left Maumsey that +morning, saying she should be in London for the day. Had Gertrude been +with her, Delia would have let Monk Lawrence go by. For in Gertrude's +company it had become an instinct with her--an instinct she scarcely +confessed to herself--to avoid all reference to the house. + +At sight of Winnington, however, who was clearly a privileged person in +his eyes, Daunt instantly changed his tone. + +"Good evening, Sir. Perhaps you'll explain to this young lady? We've +got to keep a sharp lookout--you know that, Sir." + +"Certainly, Daunt, certainly. I am sure Miss Blanchflower understands. +But you'll let _me_ shew her the house, I imagine?" + +"Why, of course, Sir! There's nothing you can't do here. Give me a few +minutes--I'll turn on some lights. Perhaps the young lady will walk +in?" He pointed to his own rooms. "So you still keep the electric +light going?" + +"By Sir Wilfrid's wish, Sir,--so as if anything did happen these winter +nights, we mightn't be left in darkness. The engine works a bit now and +then." + +He led the way towards his quarters. The door into his kitchen stood +open, and in the glow of fire and lamp stood his three children, who +had been eagerly listening to the conversation outside. One of them, a +little girl, was leaning on a crutch. She looked up happily as +Winnington entered. + +"Well, Lily--" he pinched her cheek--"I've got something to tell Father +about you. Say 'how do you do' to this lady." The child put her hand in +Delia's, looking all the while ardently at Winnington. + +"Am I going to be in your school, Sir?" + +"If you're good. But you'll have to be dreadfully good!" + +"I am good," said Lily, confidently. "I want to be in your school, +please Sir." + +"But such a lot of other little girls want to come too! Must I leave +them out?" + +Lily shook her head perplexed. "But you promithed," she lisped, very +softly. + +Winnington laughed. The child's hand had transferred itself to his, and +nestled there. + +"What school does she mean?" asked Delia. + +At the sound of her voice Winnington turned to her for the first time. +It was as though till then he had avoided looking at her, lest the +hidden thought in each mind should be too plain to the other. He had +found her--Sir Robert Blanchflower's daughter--on the point of being +curtly refused admission to the house where her father had been a +familiar inmate, and where she herself had gone in and out as a child. +And he knew why; she knew why; Daunt knew why. She was a person under +suspicion, a person on whom the community was keeping watch. + +Nevertheless, Winnington entirely believed what he had overheard her +say to the keeper. It was no doubt quite true that she had turned aside +to see Monk Lawrence on a sudden impulse of sentiment or memory. Odd +that it should be so!--but like her. That _she_ could have any designs +on the beautiful old place was indeed incredible; and it was equally +incredible that she would aid or abet them in anyone else. And +yet--there was that monstrous speech at Latchford, made in her hearing, +by her friend and co-militant, the woman who shared her life! Was it +any wonder that Daunt bristled at the sight of her? + +He had, however, to answer her question. + +"My county school," he explained. "The school for invalid +children--'physical defectives'--that we are going to open next summer. +I came to tell Daunt there'd be a place for this child. She's an old +friend of mine." He smiled down upon the nestling creature--"Has Miss +Amberley been to see you lately, Lily?" + +At this moment Daunt returned to the kitchen, with the news that the +house was ready. "The light's not quite what it ought to be, Sir, but I +daresay you'll be able to see a good deal. Miss Amberley, Sir, she's +taught Lily fine. I'm sure we're very much obliged to her--and to you +for asking her." + +"I don't know what the sick children here will do without her, Daunt. +She's going away--wants to be a nurse." + +"Well, I'm very sorry, Sir. She'll be badly missed." + +"That she will. Shall we go in?" Winnington turned to Delia, who +nodded assent, and followed him into the dim passages beyond the +brightly-lighted kitchen. The children, looking after them, saw the +beautiful lady disappearing, and felt vaguely awed by her height, her +stiff carriage and her proud looks. + +Delia, indeed, was again--and as usual--in revolt, against herself and +circumstances. Why had she been such a fool as to come to Monk Lawrence +at all, and then to submit to seeing it--on sufferance!--in +Winnington's custody? And how he must be contrasting her with Susy +Amberley!--the soft sister of charity, plying her womanly tasks, in the +manner of all good women, since the world began! She saw herself as the +anarchist prowling outside, tracked, spied on, held at arm's length by +all decent citizens, all lovers of ancient beauty, and moral tradition; +while, within, women like Susy Amberley sat Madonna-like, with the +children at their knee. "Well, we stand for the children too--the +children of the future!" she said to herself defiantly. + +"This is the old hall--and the gallery that was put up in honour of +Elizabeth's visit here in 1570--" she heard Winnington saying--"One of +the finest things of its kind. But you can hardly see it." + +The electric light indeed was of the feeblest. A dim line of it ran +round the carved ceiling, and glimmered in the central chandelier. But +the mingled illumination of sunset and moonrise from outside contended +with it on more than equal terms; and everything in the hall, +tapestries, armour, and old oak, the gallery above, the dais with its +carved chairs below, had the dim mystery of a stage set ready for the +play, before the lights are on. + +Daunt apologised. + +"The gardener'll be here directly, Sir. He knows how to manage it +better than I." + +And in spite of protests from the two visitors he ran off again to see +what could he done to better the light. Delia turned impetuously on her +companion. + +"I know you think I have no business to be here!" + +Winnington paused a moment, then said-- + +"I was rather astonished to see you here, certainly." + +"Because of what we said at Latchford the other day?" + +"_You_ didn't say it!" + +"But I agreed with it--I agreed with every word of it!" + +"Then indeed I _am_ astonished that you should wish to see Sir Wilfrid +Lang's house!" he said, with energy. + +"My recollections of it have nothing to do with Sir Wilfrid. I never +saw him that I know of." + +"All the same, it belongs to him." + +"No!--to history--to the nation!" + +"Then let the nation guard it--and every individual in the nation! But +do you think Miss Marvell would take much pains to protect it?" + +"Gertrude said nothing about the house." "No; but if I had been one of +the excitable women you command, my one desire after that speech would +have been to do some desperate damage to Sir Wilfrid, or his property. +If anything does happen, I am afraid everyone in the neighbourhood will +regard her as responsible." + +Delia moved impatiently. "Can't we say what we think of Sir +Wilfrid--because he happens to possess a beautiful house?" + +"If you care for Monk Lawrence, you do so,--with this campaign on +foot--only at great risk. Confess, Miss Delia!--that you were sorry for +that speech!" + +He turned upon her with animation. + +She spoke as though under pressure, her head thrown back, her face +ivory within the black frame of the veil. + +"I--I shouldn't have made it." + +"That's not enough. I want to hear you say you regret it!" + +The light suddenly increased, and she saw him looking at her, his +eyes bright and urgent, his attitude that of the strong yet mild +judge, whose own moral life watches keenly for any sign of grace in +the accused before him. She realised for an angry moment what his +feeling must be--how deep and invincible, towards these "outrages" +which she and Gertrude Marvell regarded by now as so natural and +habitual--outrages that were calmly planned and organised, as she knew +well, at the head offices of their society, by Gertrude Marvell among +others, and acquiesced in--approved--by hundreds of persons like +herself, who either shrank from taking a direct part in them, or had no +opportunity of doing so. "But I shall soon make opportunities!--" she +thought, passionately; "I'm not going to be a shirker!" Aloud she said +in her stiffest manner--"I stand by my friends, Mr. Winnington, +especially when they are ten times better and nobler than I!" + +His expression changed. He turned, like any courteous stranger, to +playing the part of showman of the house. Once more a veil had fallen +between them. + +He led her through the great suite of rooms on the ground-floor, the +drawing-room, the Red Parlour, the Chinese room, the Library. They +recalled her childish visits to the house with her grandmother, and a +score of recollections, touching or absurd, rushed into her mind--but +not to her lips. Dumbness had fallen on her;--nothing seemed worth +saying, and she hurried through. She was conscious only of a rich +confused impression of old seemliness and mellowed beauty,--steeped in +fragrant and famous memories, English history, English poetry, English +art, breathing from every room and stone of the house. "In the Red +Parlour, Sidney wrote part of the 'Arcadia.'--In the room overhead +Gabriel Harvey slept.--In the Porch rooms Chatham stayed--his autograph +is there.--Fox advised upon all the older portion of the Library"--and +so on. She heard Winnington's voice as though through a dream. What did +it matter? She felt the house an oppression--as though it accused or +threatened her. + +As they emerged from the library into a broad passage, Winnington +noticed a garden door at the north end of the passage, and called to +Daunt who was walking behind them. They went to look at it, leaving +Delia in the corridor. + +"Not very secure, is it?" said Winnington, pointing to the glazed upper +half of the door--"anyone might get in there." + +"I've told Sir Wilfrid, Sir, and sent him the measurements. There's to +be an iron shutter." + +"H'm--that may take time. Why not put up something +temporary?--cross-bars of some sort?" + +They came back towards Delia, discussing it. Unreasonably, absurdly, +she held it an offence that Winnington should discuss it in her +presence; her breath grew stormy. + +Daunt turned to the right at the foot of a carved staircase, and down a +long passage leading to the kitchens, he and Winnington still talking. +Suddenly--a short flight of steps, not very visible in a dark place. +Winnington descended them, and then turned to look for Delia who was +just behind-- + +"Please take care!--" + +But he was too late. Head in air--absorbed in her own passionate mood, +Delia never saw the steps, till her foot slipped on the topmost. She +would have fallen headlong, had not Winnington caught her. His arms +received her, held her, released her. The colour rushed into his face +as into hers. "You are not hurt?" he said anxiously. "I ought to have +held a light," said Daunt, full of concern. But the little incident had +broken the ice. Delia laughed, and straightened her Cavalier hat, which +had suffered. She was still rosy as they entered Daunt's kitchen, and +the children who had seen her silent and haughty entrance, hardly +recognised the creature all life and animation who returned to them. + +The car stood waiting in the fore-court. Winnington put her in. As +Delia descended the hill alone in the dark, she closed her eyes, that +she might the more completely give herself to the conflict of thoughts +which possessed her. She was bitterly ashamed and sore, torn between +her passionate affection for Gertrude Marvell, and what seemed to her a +weak and traitorous wish to stand better with Mark Winnington. Nor +could she escape from the memory--the mere physical memory--of those +strong arms round her, resent it as she might. + + * * * * * + +As for Winnington, when he reached home in the moonlight, instead of +going in to join his sister at tea, he paced a garden path till night +had fallen. What was this strong insurgent feeling he could neither +reason with nor silence? It seemed to have stolen upon him, amid a host +of other thoughts and pre-occupations, secretly and insidiously, till +there it stood--full-grown--his new phantom self--challenging the old, +the normal self, face to face. + +Trouble, self-scorn overwhelmed him. Recalling all his promises +to himself, all his assurances to Lady Tonbridge, he stood convicted, +as the sentry who has shut his eyes and let the invader pass. +Monstrous!--that in his position, with this difference of age between +them, he should have allowed such ideas to grow and gather head. +Beautiful wayward creature!--all the more beguiling, because of the +Difficulties that bristled round her. His common sense, his judgment +were under no illusions at all about Delia Blanchflower. And yet-- + +This then was _passion_!--which must be held down and reasoned down. +He would reason it down. She must and should marry a man of her own +generation--youth with youth. And, moreover, to give way to these wild +desires would be simply to alienate her, to destroy all his own power +with her for good. + +The ghostly presence of his life came to him. He cried out to her, made +appeal to her, in sackcloth and ashes. And then, in some mysterious, +heavenly way she was revealed to him afresh; not as an enemy whom he +had offended, not as a lover slighted, but as his best and tenderest +friend. She closed no gates against the future:--that was for himself +to settle, if closed they were to be. She seemed to walk with him, hand +in hand, sister with brother--in a deep converse of souls. + + + + +Chapter XI + + +Gertrude Marvell was sitting alone at the Maumsey breakfast-table, in +the pale light of a December day. All around her were letters and +newspapers, to which she was giving an attention entirely denied to her +meal. She opened them one after another, with a frown or a look of +satisfaction, classifying them in heaps as she read, and occasionally +remembering her coffee or her toast. The parlourmaid waited on her, but +knew very well--and resented the knowledge--that Miss Marvell was +scarcely aware of her existence, or her presence in the room. + +But presently the lady at the table asked-- + +"Is Miss Blanchflower getting up?" + +"She will be down directly, Miss." + +Gertrude's eyebrows rose, unconsciously. She herself was never late for +an 8:30 breakfast, and never went to bed till long after midnight. The +ways of Delia, who varied between too little sleep and the long nights +of fatigue, seemed to her self-indulgent. + +After her letters had been put aside and the ordinary newspapers, she +took up a new number of the _Tocsin_. The first page was entirely given +up to an article headed "How LONG?" She read it with care, her delicate +mouth tightening a little. She herself had suggested the lines of it a +few days before, to the Editor, and her hints had been partially +carried out. It gave a scathing account of Sir Wilfrid's course on the +suffrage question--of his earlier coquettings with the woman's cause, +his defection and "treachery," the bitter and ingenious hostility with +which he was now pursuing the Bill before the House of Commons. "An +amiable, white-haired nonentity for the rest of the world--who only +mention him to marvel that such a man was ever admitted to an English +Cabinet--to us he is the 'smiler with the knife,' the assassin of the +hopes of women, the reptile in the path. The Bill is weakening every +day in the House, and on the night of the second reading it will +receive its 'coup de grace' from the hand of Sir Wilfrid Lang. Women of +England--_how long_!--" + +Gertrude pushed the newspaper aside in discontent. Her critical sense +was beginning to weary of the shrieking note. And the descent from the +"assassin of the hopes of women" to "the reptile in the path" struck +her as a silly bathos. + +Suddenly, a reverie--a waking dream--fell upon her, a visionary +succession of sights and sounds. A dying sunset--and a rising wind, +sighing through dense trees--old walls--the light from a kitchen +window--voices in the distance--the barking of a dog.... + +"Oh Gertrude!--how late I am!" + +Delia entered hurriedly, with an anxious air. + +"I should have been down long ago, but Weston had one of her attacks, +and I have been looking after her." + +Weston was Delia's maid who had been her constant companion for ten +years. She was a delicate nervous woman, liable to occasional onsets of +mysterious pain, which terrified both herself and her mistress, and had +hitherto puzzled the doctor. + +Gertrude received the news with a passing concern. + +"Better send for France, if you are worried. But I expect it will be +soon over." + +"I don't know. It seems worse than usual. The man in Paris threatened +an operation. And here we are--going up to London in a fortnight!" + +"Well, you need only send her to the Brownmouth hospital, or leave her +here with France and a good nurse." + +"She has the most absurd terror of hospitals, and I certainly couldn't +leave her," said Delia, with a furrowed brow. + +"You certainly couldn't stay behind!" Gertrude looked up pleasantly. + +"Of course I want to come--" said Delia slowly. + +"Why, darling, how could we do without you? You don't know how you're +wanted. Whenever I go up town, it's the same--'When's she coming?' Of +course they understood you must be here for a while--but the heart of +things, the things that concern _us_--is London." + +"What did you hear yesterday?" asked Delia, helping herself to some +very cold coffee. Nothing was ever kept warm for her, the owner of the +house; everything was always kept warm for Gertrude. Yet the fact arose +from no Sybaritic tendency whatever on Gertrude's part. Food, clothing, +sleep--no religious ascetic could have been more sparing than she, in +her demands upon them. She took them as they came--well or ill +supplied; too pre-occupied to be either grateful or discontented. And +what she neglected for herself, she equally neglected for other people. + +"What did I hear?" repeated Gertrude. "Well, of course, everything is +rushing on. There is to be a raid on Parliament as soon as the session +begins--and a deputation to Downing Street. A number of new plans, and +devices are being discussed. And there seemed to me to be more +volunteers than ever for 'special service'?" + +She looked up quietly and her eyes met Delia's;--in hers a steely +ardour, in Delia's a certain trouble. + +"Well, we want some cheering up," said the girl, rather wearily. "Those +two last meetings were--pretty depressing!--and so were the +bye-elections." + +She was thinking of the two open-air meetings at Brownmouth and +Frimpton. There had been no violence offered to the speakers, as in the +Latchford case; the police had seen to that. Her guardian had made no +appearance at either, satisfied, no doubt, after enquiry, that she was +not likely to come to harm. But the evidence of public disapproval +could scarcely have been more chilling--more complete. Both her +speaking, and that of Gertrude and Paul Lathrop, seemed to her to have +dropped dead in exhausted air. An audience of boys and girls--an +accompaniment of faint jeers, testifying rather to boredom than +hostility--a sense of blank waste and futility when all was over:--her +recollection had little else to shew. + +Gertrude interrupted her thought. + +"My dear Delia!--what you want is to get out of this backwater, and +back into the main stream! Even I get stale here. But in those great +London meetings--there one catches on again!--one realises again--what +it all _means_! Why not come up with me next week, even if the flat's +not ready? I can't have you running down like this! Let's hurry up and +get to London." + +The speaker had risen, and standing behind Delia, she laid her hand on +the waves of the girl's beautiful hair. Delia looked up. + +"Very well. Yes, I'll come. I've been getting depressed. I'll come--at +least if Weston's all right." + + * * * * * + +"I'm afraid, Miss Blanchflower, this is a very serious business!" + +Dr. France was the speaker. He stood with his back to the fire, and his +hands behind him, surveying Delia with a look of absent thoughtfulness; +the look of a man of science on the track of a problem. + +Delia's aspect was one of pale consternation. She had just heard that +the only hope of the woman, now wrestling upstairs with agonies of +pain, lay in a critical and dangerous operation, for which at least a +fortnight's preliminary treatment would be necessary. A nurse was to be +sent for at once, and the only question to be decided was where and by +whom the thing was to be done. + +"We _can_ move her," said France, meditatively; "though I'd rather not. +And of course a hospital is the best place." + +"She won't go! Her mother died in a hospital, and Weston thinks she was +neglected." + +"Absurd! I assure you," said France warmly. "Nobody is neglected in +hospitals." + +"But one can't persuade her--and if she's forced against her will, +it'll give her no chance!" said Delia in distress. "No, it must be +here. You say we can get a good man from Brownmouth?" + +They discussed the possibilities of an operation at Maumsey. + +Insensibly the doctor's tone during the conversation grew more +friendly, as it proceeded. A convinced opponent of "feminism" in all +its forms, he had thought of Delia hitherto as merely a wrong-headed, +foolish girl, and could hardly bring himself to be civil at all to her +chaperon, who in his eyes belonged to a criminal society, and was +almost certainly at that very moment engaged in criminal practices. But +Delia, absorbed in the distresses of someone she cared for, all heart +and eager sympathy, her loveliness lending that charm to all she said +and looked which plainer women must so frequently do without was a very +mollifying and ingratiating spectacle. France began to think +her--misled and unbalanced of course--but sound at bottom. He ended by +promising to make all arrangements himself, and to go in that very +afternoon to see the great man at Brownmouth. + +When Delia returned to her maid's room, the morphia which had been +administered was beginning to take effect, and Weston, an elderly woman +with a patient, pleasing face, lay comparatively at rest, her tremulous +look expressing at once the keenness of the suffering past, and the +bliss of respite. Delia bent over her, dim-eyed. + +"Dear Weston--we've arranged it all--it's going to be done here. You'll +be at home--and I shall look after you." + +Weston put out a clammy hand and faintly pressed Delia's warm fingers-- + +"But you were going to London, Miss. I don't want to put you out so." + +"I shan't go till you're out of the wood, so go to sleep--and don't +worry." + + * * * * * + +"Delia!--for Heaven's sake be reasonable. Leave Weston to France, and a +couple of good nurses. She'll be perfectly looked after. You'll put out +all out plans--you'll risk everything!" + +Gertrude Marvell had risen from her seat in front of a crowded desk. +The secretary who generally worked with her in the old gun room, now +become a militant office, had disappeared in obedience to a signal from +her chief. Anger and annoyance were plainly visible on Gertrude's small +chiselled features. + +Delia shook her head. + +"I can't!" she said. "I've promised. Weston has pulled _me_ through two +bad illnesses--once when I had pneumonia in Paris--and once after a +fall out riding. I daresay I shouldn't be here at all, but for her. If +she's going to have a fight for her life--and Doctor France doesn't +promise she'll get through--I shall stand by her." + +Gertrude grew a little sallower than usual as her black eyes fastened +themselves on the girl before her who had hitherto seemed so ductile in +her hands. It was not so much the incident itself that alarmed her as a +certain new tone in Delia's voice. + +"I thought we had agreed--that nothing--_nothing_--was to come before +the Cause!" she said quietly, but insistently. + +Delia's laugh was embarrassed. + +"I never promised to desert Weston, Gertrude. I couldn't--any more than +I could desert you." + +"We shall want every hand--every ounce of help that can be got--through +January and February. You undertook to do some office work, to help in +the organisation of the processions to Parliament, to speak at a number +of meetings--" + +Delia interrupted. + +"As soon as Weston is out of danger, I'll go--of course I'll go!--about +a month from now, perhaps less. You will have the flat, Gertrude, all +the same, and as much money as I can scrape together--after the +operation's paid for. I don't matter a tenth part as much as you, you +know I don't; I haven't been at all a success at these meetings +lately!" + +There was a certain young bitterness in the tone. + +"Well, of course you know what people will say." + +"That I'm shirking--giving in? Well, you can contradict it." + +Delia turned from the window beside which she was standing to look at +Gertrude. A pale December sunshine shone on the girl's half-seen face, +and on the lines of her black dress. A threatening sense of change, +mingled with a masterful desire to break down the resistance offered, +awoke in Gertrude. But she restrained the dictatorial instinct. +Instead, she sat down beside the desk again, and covered her face with +her hand. + +"If I couldn't contradict it--if I couldn't be sure of you--I might as +well kill myself," she said with sudden and volcanic passion, though in +a voice scarcely raised above its ordinary note. + +Delia came to her impulsively, knelt down and put her arms round her. + +"You know you can be sure of me!" she said, reproachfully. + +Gertrude held her away from her. Her eyes examined the lovely face so +close to her. + +"On the contrary! You are being influenced against me." + +Delia laughed. + +"By whom, please?" + +"By the man who has you in his power--under our abominable laws." + +"By my guardian?--by Mark Winnington? Really! Gertrude! Considering +that I had a fresh quarrel with him only last week--on your account--at +Monk Lawrence--" + +Gertrude released herself by a sudden movement. + +"When were you at Monk Lawrence?" + +"Why, that afternoon, when you were in town. I missed my train at +Latchford, and took a motor home." There was some consciousness in the +girl's look and tone which did not escape her companion. She was +evidently aware that her silence on the incident might appear strange +to Gertrude. However, she frankly described her adventure, Daunt's +surliness, and Winnington's appearance. + +"He arrived in the nick of time, and made Daunt let me in. Then, while +we were going round, he began to talk about your speech, and wanted to +make me say I was sorry for it. And I wouldn't! And then--well, he +thought very poorly of me--and we parted--coolly. We've scarcely met +since. And that's all." + +"What speech?" Gertrude was sitting erect now with queerly bright eyes. + +"The speech about Sir Wilfrid--at Latchford." + +"What else does he expect?" + +"I don't know. But--well, I may as well say, Gertrude--to you, though I +wouldn't say it to him--that I--I didn't much admire that speech +either!" + +Delia was now sitting on the floor with her hands round her knees, +looking up. The slight stiffening of her face shewed that it had been +an effort to say what she had said. + +"So _you_ think that Lang ought to be approached with 'bated breath and +whispering humbleness'--just as he is on the point of trampling us and +our cause into the dirt?" + +"No--certainly not! But why hasn't he as good a right to his opinion as +we to ours--without being threatened with personal violence?" + +Gertrude drew a long breath of amazement. + +"I don't quite see, Delia, why you ever joined the 'Daughters'--or why +you stay with them." + +"That's not fair!"--protested Delia, the colour flooding in her cheeks. +"As for burning stupid villas--that are empty and insured--or +boathouses--or piers--or tea-pavilions, to keep the country in +mind of us,--that's one thing. But threatening _persons_ with +violence--that's--somehow--another thing. And as to villas and piers +even--to be quite honest--I sometimes wonder, Gertrude!--I declare, I'm +beginning to wonder! And why shouldn't one take up one's policy from +time to time and look at it, all round, with a free mind? We haven't +been doing particularly well lately." + +Gertrude laughed--a dry, embittered sound--as she pushed the _Tocsin_ +from her. + +"Oh well, of course, if you're going to desert us in the worst of the +fight, and to follow your guardian's lead--" + +"But I'm not!" cried Delia, springing to her feet. "Try me. Haven't I +promised--a hundred things? Didn't I say all you expected me to say at +Latchford? And, on the whole"--her voice dragged a little--"the empty +houses and the cricket pavilions--still seem to me fair game. It's +only--as to the good it does. Of course--if it were Monk Lawrence--" + +"Well--if it were Monk Lawrence?" + +"I should think that a crime! I told you so before." + +"Why?" + +Delia looked at her friend with a contracted brow. + +"Because--it's a national possession! Lang's only the temporary +owner--the trustee. We've no right to destroy what belongs to +_England_." + +Gertrude laughed again--as she rose from the tea-table. + +"Well, as long as women are slaves, I don't see what England matters to +them. However, don't trouble yourself. Monk Lawrence is all right. And +Mr. Winnington's a charmer--we all know that." + +Delia flushed angrily. But Gertrude, having gathered up her papers, +quietly departed, leaving her final shaft to work. + +Delia went back to her own sitting-room, but was too excited, too +tremulous indeed, to settle to her letters. She had never yet found +herself in direct collision with Gertrude, impetuous as her own temper +was. Their friendship had now lasted nearly three years. She looked +back to their West Indian acquaintance, that first year of adoration, +of long-continued emotion,--mind and heart growing and blossoming +together. Gertrude, during that year, had not only aroused her pupil's +intelligence; she had taught a motherless girl what the love of women +may be for each other. To make Gertrude happy, to be approved by her, +to watch her, to sit at her feet--the girl of nineteen had asked +nothing more. Gertrude's accomplishments, her coolness, her +self-reliance, the delicate precision of her small features and frame, +the grace of her quiet movements, her cold sincerity, the unyielding +scorns, the passionate loves and hates that were gradually to be +discovered below the even dryness of her manner,--by these Delia had +been captured; by these indeed, she was still held. Gertrude was to her +everything that she herself was not. And when her father had insisted +on separating her from her friend, her wild resentment, and her girlish +longing for the forbidden had only increased Gertrude's charm tenfold. + +The eighteen months of their separation, too, had coincided with the +rise of that violent episode in the feminist movement which was +represented by the founding and organisation of the "Daughters" +society. Gertrude though not one of the first contrivers and +instigators of it, had been among the earliest of its converts. Its +initial successes had been the subject of all her letters to Delia; +Delia had walked on air to read them. At last the world was moving, was +rushing--and it seemed that Gertrude was in the van. Women were at last +coming to their own; forcing men to acknowledge them as equals and +comrades; and able to win victory, not by the old whining and +wheedling, but by their own strength. The intoxication of it filled the +girl's days and nights. She thought endlessly of processions and raids, +of street-preaching, or Hyde Park meetings. Gertrude went to prison for +a few days as the result of a raid on Downing Street. Delia, in one +dull hotel after another, wearily following her father from "cure" to +"cure," dreamed hungrily and enviously of Gertrude's more heroic fate. +Everything in those days was haloed for her--the Movement, its first +violent acts, what Gertrude did, and what Gertrude thought--she saw it +all transfigured and aflame. + +And now, since her father's death, they had been four months +together--she and her friend--in the closest intimacy, sharing--or so +Delia supposed--every thought and every prospect. Delia for the greater +part of that time _had_ been all glad submission and unquestioning +response. It was quite natural--absolutely right--that Gertrude should +command her house, her money, her daily life. She only waited for +Gertrude's orders; it would be her pride to carry them out. Until-- + +What had happened? The girl, standing motionless beside her window, +confessed to herself, as she had not been willing to confess to +Gertrude, that something _had_ happened--some change of climate and +temperature in her own life. + +In the first place, the Movement was not prospering. Why deny it? Who +could deny it? Its first successes were long past; its uses as +advertisement were exhausted; the old violences and audacities, as they +were repeated, fell dead. The cause of Woman Suffrage had certainly not +advanced. Check after check had been inflicted on it. The number of its +supporters in the House of Commons had gone down and down. By-elections +were only adding constantly to the number of its opponents. + +"Well, what then?"--said the stalwarts of the party--"More outrages, +more arson, more violence! We _must_ win at last!" And, meanwhile, +blowing through England like a steadily increasing gale, could be felt +the force of public anger, public condemnation. + +Delia since her return to England had felt the chill of it, for the +first time, on her own nerves and conscience. For the first time she +had winced--morally--even while she mocked at her own shrinking. + +Was that Gertrude pacing outside? The day was dark and stormy. But +Gertrude, who rarely took a walk for pleasure, scarcely ever missed the +exercise which was necessary to keep her in health. Her slight figure, +wrapped in a fur cape, paced a sheltered walk. Her shoulders were bent, +her eyes on the ground. Suddenly it struck Delia that she had begun to +stoop, that she looked older and thinner than usual. + +"She is killing herself!"--thought the girl in a sudden +anguish--"killing herself with work and anxiety. And yet she always +says she is so strong. What can I do? There is nobody that matters to +her--nobody!--but me!" + +And she recalled all she knew--it was very little--of Gertrude's +personal history. She had been unhappy at home. Her mother, a widow, +had never been able to get on with her elder daughter, while petting +and spoiling her only son and her younger girl, who was ten years +Gertrude's junior. Gertrude had been left a small sum of money by a +woman friend, and had spent it in going to a west-country university +and taking honours in history. She never spoke now of either her mother +or her sister. Her sister was married, but Gertrude held no +communication with her or her children. Delia had always felt it +impossible to ask questions about her, and believed, with a thrilled +sense of mystery, that some tragic incident or experience had separated +the two sisters. Her brother also, it seemed, was as dead to her. But +on all such personal matters Gertrude's silence was insuperable, and +Delia knew no more of them than on the first day of their meeting. + +Indomitable figure! Worn with effort and struggle--worn above all with +_hating_. Delia looked at it with a sob in her throat. Surely, surely, +the great passion, the great uplifting faith they had felt in common, +was vital, was true! Only, somehow, after the large dreams and hopes of +the early days, to come down to this perpetual campaign of petty +law-breaking, and futile outrage, to these odious meetings and shrieking +newspapers, was to be--well, discouraged!--heart-wearied. + +"Only, she is not wearied, or discouraged!" thought Delia, +despairingly. "And why am I?" + +Was it hatefully true--after all--that she was being influenced--drawn +away? + +The girl flushed, breathing quick. She must master herself!--get rid of +this foolish obsession of Winnington's presence and voice--of a pair of +grave, kind eyes--a look now perplexed, now sternly bright--a +personality, limited no doubt, not very accessible to what Gertrude +called "ideas," not quick to catch the last new thing, but honest, +noble, tender, through and through. + +Absurd! She was holding her own with him; she would hold her own. That +very day she must grapple with him afresh. She had sent him a note that +morning, and he had replied in a message that he would ride over to +luncheon. + +For the question of money was urgent. Delia was already overdrawn. Yet +supplies were wanted for the newly rented flat, for Weston's operation, +for Gertrude's expenses in London--for a hundred things. + +She paced up and down, imagining the conversation, framing eloquent +defences for her conduct, and again, from time to time, meanly, +shamefacedly reminding herself of Winnington's benefit under the will. +If she was a nuisance, she was at least a fairly profitable nuisance. + + * * * * * + +Winnington duly arrived at luncheon. The two ladies appeared to him as +usual--Gertrude Marvell, self-possessed and quietly gay, ready to +handle politics or books, on so light a note, that Winnington's acute +recollection of her, as the haranguing fury on the Latchford waggon, +began to seem absurd even to himself. Delia also, lovely, restless, +with bursts of talk, and more significant bursts of silence, produced +on him her normal effect--as of a creature made for all delightful +uses, and somehow jangled and out of tune. + +After luncheon, she led the way to her own sitting-room. "I am afraid I +must talk business," she said abruptly as she closed the door and stood +confronting him. "I am overdrawn, Mr. Winnington, and I must have some +more money." + +Winnington laid down his cigarette, and looked at her in open-mouthed +amazement. + +"Overdrawn!--but--we agreed--" + +"I know. You gave me what you thought was ample. Well, I have spent it, +and there is nothing left to pay house bills, or servants with, or--or +anything." + +Her pale defiance gave him at once a hint of the truth. + +"I fear I must ask what it has been spent on," he said, after a pause. + +"Certainly. I gave Ł500 of it in one cheque to Miss Marvell. Of course +you will guess how it has been spent." + +Winnington took up his cigarette again, and smoked it thoughtfully. His +colour was, perhaps, a little higher than usual. + +"I am sorry you have done that. It makes it rather awkward both for you +and for me. Perhaps I had better explain. The lawyers have been +settling the debts on your father's estate. That took a considerable +sum. A mortgage has been paid off, according to directions in Sir +Robert's will. And some of the death duties have been paid. For the +moment there is no money at all in the Trust account. I hope to have +replenished it by the New Year, when I understood you would want fresh +funds." + +He sat on the arm of a chair and looked at her quietly. + +Delia made no attempt at explanation or argument. After a short +silence, she said-- + +"What will you do?" + +"I must, of course, lend you some of my own." + +Delia flushed violently. + +"That is surely absurd, Mr. Winnington! My father left a large sum!" + +"As his trustee I can only repeat that until some further securities +are realised--which may take a little time--I have no money. But _you_ +must have money--servants and tradesmen can't go unpaid. I will give +you, therefore, a cheque on my own bank--to replace that Ł500." + +He drew his cheque book from his breast pocket. Delia was stormily +walking up and down. It struck him sharply, first that she was wholly +taken by surprise; and next that shock and emotion play finely with +such a face as hers. He had never seen her so splendid. His own pulses +ran. + +"This--this is not at all what I want, Mr. Winnington! I want my own +money--my father's money! Why should I distress and inconvenience you?" + +"I have tried to explain." + +"Then let the lawyers find it somehow. Aren't they there to do such +things?" + +"I assure you this is simplest. I happen"--he smiled--"to have enough +in the bank. Alice and I can manage quite well till January!" + +The mention of Mrs. Matheson was quite intolerable in Delia's ears. She +turned upon him-- + +"I can't accept it! You oughtn't to ask it." + +"I think you must accept it," he said with decision. "But the important +question with me is--the further question--am I not really bound to +restore this money to your father's estate?" + +Delia stared at him bewildered. + +"What _do_ you mean!" + +"Your father made me his trustee in order that I might protect his +money--from uses of which he disapproved--and protect you, if I could, +from actions and companions he dreaded. This Ł500 has gone--where he +expressly wished it not to go. It seems to me that I am liable, and +that I ought to repay." + +Delia gasped. + +"I never heard anything so absurd!" + +"I will consider it," he said gravely. "It is a case of conscience. +Meanwhile"--he began to write the cheque--"here is the money. Only, let +me warn you, dear Miss Delia,--if this were repeated, I might find +myself embarrassed. I am not a rich man!" + +Silence. He finished writing the cheque, and handed it to her. Delia +pushed it away, and it dropped on the table between them. + +"It is simply tyranny--monstrous tyranny--that I should be coerced like +this!" she said, choking. "You must feel it so yourself! Put yourself +in my place, Mr. Winnington." + +"I think--I am first bound--to try and put myself in your father's +place," he said, with vivacity. "Where has that money gone, Miss +Delia?" + +He rose, and in his turn began to pace the little room. "It has been +proved, in evidence, that a great deal of this outrage is _paid_ +outrage--that it could not be carried on without money--however madly +and fanatically devoted, however personally disinterested the +organisers of it may be--such as Miss Marvell. You have, therefore, +taken your father's money to provide for this payment--payment for all +that his soul most abhorred. His will was his last painful effort to +prevent this being done. And yet--you have done it!" + +He looked at her steadily. + +"One may seem to do evil"--she panted--"but we have a faith, a cause, +which justifies it!" + +He shook his head sadly, + +Delia sat very still, tormented by a score of harassing thoughts. If +she could not provide money for the "Daughters" what particular use +could she be to Gertrude, or Gertrude's Committee? She could speak, and +walk in processions, and break up meetings. But so could hundreds of +others. It was her fortune--she knew it--that had made her so important +in Gertrude's eyes. It had always been assumed between them that a +little daring and a little adroitness would break through the meshes of +her father's will. And how difficult it was turning out to be! + +At that moment, an idea occurred to her. Her face, responsive as a +wave to the wind, relaxed. Its sullenness disappeared in sudden +brightness--in something like triumph. She raised her eyes. Their +tremulous, half whimsical look set Winnington wondering what she could +be going to say next. + +"You seem to have beaten me," she said, with a little nod--"or you +think you have." + +"I have no thoughts that you mightn't know," was the quiet reply. + +"You want me to promise not to do it again?" + +"If you mean to keep it." + +As he stood by the fire, looking down upon her rather sternly--she yet +perceived in his grey eyes, something of that expression she had seen +there at their first meeting--as though the heart of a good man tried +to speak to her. The same expression--and yet different; with something +added and interfused, which moved her strangely. + +"Odd as it may seem, I will keep it!" she said. "Yet without giving up +any earlier purpose, or promise, whatever." Each word was emphasized. + +His face changed. + +"I won't worry _you_ in any such way again," she added hastily and +proudly. + +Some other words were on her lips, but she checked them. She held out +her hand for the cheque, and the smile with which she accepted it, +after her preceding passion, puzzled him. + +She locked up the cheque in a drawer of her writing-table. Winnington's +horse passed the window, and he rose to go. She accompanied him to the +hall door and waved a light farewell. Winnington's response was +ceremonious. A sure instinct told him to shew no further softness. His +dilemma was getting worse and worse, and Lady Tonbridge had been no use +to him whatever. + + + + +Chapter XII + + +One of the first days of the New year rose clear and frosty. When the +young housemaid who had temporarily replaced Weston as Delia's maid +drew back her curtains at half-past seven, Delia caught a vision of an +opaline sky with a sinking moon and fading stars. A strewing of snow +lay on the ground, and the bare black trees rose, vividly separate, on +the white stretches of grass. Her window looked to the north along the +bases of the low range of hills which shut in the valley and the +village. A patch of paler colour on the purple slope of the hills +marked the long front of Monk Lawrence. + +As she sleepily roused herself, she saw her bed littered with dark +objects--two leather boxes of some size, and a number of miscellaneous +cases--and when the maid had left the room, she lay still, looking at +them. They were the signs and symbols of an enquiry she had lately been +conducting into her possessions, which seemed to her to have yielded +very satisfactory results. They represented in the main the contents of +a certain cupboard in the wall of her bedroom where Lady Blanchflower +had always kept her jewels, and where, in consequence, Weston had so +far locked away all that Delia possessed. Here were all her own girlish +ornaments--costly things which her father had given her at intervals +during the three or four years since her coming out; here were her +Mother's jewels, which Sir Robert had sent to his bankers after his +wife's death, and had never seen again during his lifetime; and here +were also a number of family jewels which had belonged to Delia's +grandmother, and had remained, after Lady Blanchflower's death, in the +custody of the family lawyers, till Delia, to whom they had been left +by will, had appeared to claim them. + +Delia had always known that she possessed a quantity of valuable +things, and had hitherto felt but small interest in them. Gertrude's +influence, and her own idealism had bred in her contempt for gauds. It +was the worst of breeding to wear anything for its mere money value; +and nothing whatever should be worn that wasn't in itself beautiful. +Lady Blanchflower's taste had been, in Delia's eyes, abominable; and +her diamonds,--tiaras, pendants and the rest--had absolutely nothing to +recommend them but their sheer brute cost. After a few glances at them, +the girl had shut them up and forgotten them. + +But they _were_ diamonds, and they must be worth some thousands. + +It was this idea which had flashed upon her during her last talk with +Winnington, and she had been brooding over it, and pondering it ever +since. Winnington himself was away. He and his sister had been spending +Christmas with some cousins in the midlands. Meanwhile Delia recognised +that his relation to her had been somewhat strained. His letters to her +on various points of business had been more formal than usual; and +though he had sent her a pocket Keats for a Christmas present, it had +arrived accompanied merely by his "kind regards" and she had felt +unreasonably aggrieved, and much inclined to send it back. His +cheque meanwhile for Ł500 had gone into Delia's bank. No help for +it--considering all the Christmas bills which had been pouring in! But +she panted for the time when she could return it. + +As for his threat of permanently refunding the money out of his own +pocket, she remembered it with soreness of spirit. Too bad! + +Well, there they lay, on the counterpane all round her--the means of +checkmating her guardian. For while she was rummaging in the wall-safe, +the night before, suddenly the fire had gone down, and the room had +sunk to freezing point. Delia, brought up in warm climates, had jumped +shivering into bed, and there, heaped round with the contents of the +cupboard, had examined a few more cases, till sleep and cold +overpowered her. + +In the grey morning light she opened some of the cases again. Vulgar +and ugly, if you like--but undeniably, absurdly worth money! Her dark +eyes caught the sparkle of the jewels running through her fingers. +These tasteless things--mercifully--were her own--her very own. +Winnington had nothing to say to them! She could wear them--or give +them--or sell them, as she pleased. + +She was alternately exultant, and strangely full of a fluttering +anxiety. The thought of returning Winnington's cheque was sweet to her. +But her disputes with him had begun to cost her more than she had ever +imagined they could or would. And the particular way out, which, a few +weeks before, she had so impatiently desired--that he should resign the +guardianship, and leave her to battle with the Court of Chancery as +best she could--was no longer so attractive to her. To be cherished and +cared for by Mark Winnington--no woman yet, but had found it +delightful. Insensibly Delia had grown accustomed to it--to his comings +and goings, his business-ways, abrupt sometimes, even peremptory, but +informed always by a kindness, a selflessness that amazed her. +Everyone wanted his help or advice, and he must refuse now--as he had +never refused before--because his time and thoughts were so much taken +up with his ward's affairs. Delia knew that she was envied; and knew +also that the neighbours thought her an ungrateful, unmanageable +hoyden, totally unworthy of such devotion. + +She sat up in bed, dreaming, her hands round her knees. No, she didn't +want Winnington to give her up! Especially since she had found this +easy way out. Why should there be any more friction between them at +all? All that _he_ gave her henceforward should be religiously spent on +the normal and necessary things. She would keep accounts if he liked, +like any good little girl, and shew them up. Let him do with the trust +fund exactly what he pleased. For a long time at any rate, she could be +independent of it. Why had she never thought of such a device before? + +But how to realise the jewels? In all business affairs, Delia was the +merest child. She had been brought up in the midst of large +expenditure, of which she had been quite unconscious. All preoccupation +with money had seemed to her mean and pettifogging. Have it!--and +spend it on what you want. But wants must be governed by ideas--by +ethical standards. To waste money on personal luxury, on eating, +drinking, clothes, or any form of mere display, in such a world as +Gertrude Marvell had unveiled to her, seemed to Delia contemptible and +idiotic. One must have _some_ nice clothes--some beauty in one's +surroundings--and the means of living as one wished to live. +Otherwise, to fume and fret about money, to be coveting instead of +giving, buying and bargaining, instead of thinking--or debating--was +degrading. She loathed shopping. It was the drug which put women's +minds to sleep. + +Who would help her? She pondered. She would tell no one till it was +done; not even Gertrude, whose cold, changed manner to her hurt the +girl's proud sense to think of. + +"I must do it properly--I won't be cheated!" + +The London lawyers? No. The local solicitor, Mr. Masham? No! Her vanity +was far too keenly conscious of their real opinion of her, through all +their politeness. + +Lady Tonbridge? No! She was Mark Winnington's intimate friend--and a +constitutional Suffragist. At the notion of consulting her,--on the +means of providing funds for "militancy"--Delia sprang out of bed, and +went to her dressing, dissolved in laughter. + +And presently--sobered again, and soft-eyed--she was stealing along the +passage to Weston's door for a word with the trained nurse who was now +in charge. Just a week now--to the critical day. + + * * * * * + +"Is Miss Marvell, in? Ask if she will see Mr. Lathrop for a few +minutes?" + +Paul Lathrop, left to himself, looked round Delia's drawing-room. It +set his teeth on edge. What pictures--what furniture! A certain +mellowness born of sheer time, no doubt--but with all its ugly +ingredients still repulsively visible. Why didn't the heiress burn +everything and begin again? Was all her money to be spent on burning +other people's property, when her own was so desperately in need of the +purging process--or on dreary meetings and unreadable newspapers? +Lathrop was already tired of these delights; his essentially Hedonist +temper was re-asserting itself. The "movement" had excited and +interested him for a time; had provided besides easy devices for +annoying stupid people. He had been eager to speak and write for it, +had persuaded himself that he really cared. + +But now candour--and he was generally candid with himself--made him +confess that but for Delia Blanchflower he would already have cut his +connection with the whole thing. He thought with a mixture of irony and +discomfort of his "high-falutin" letter to her. + +"And here I am--hanging round her"--he said to himself, as he strolled +about the room, peering through his eye-glass at its common vases, and +trivial knick-knacks--"just because Blaydes bothers me. I might as +well cry for the moon. But she's worth watching, by Jove. One gets copy +out of her, if nothing else! I vow I can't understand why my dithyrambs +move her so little--she's dithyrambic enough herself!" + +The door opened. He quickly pulled himself together. Gertrude Marvell +came in, and as she gave him an absent greeting, he was vaguely struck +by some change in her aspect, as Delia had long been. She had always +seemed to him a cold half-human being, in all ordinary matters. +But now she was paler, thinner, more remote than ever. "Nerves +strained--probably sleepless--" he said to himself. "It's the pace +they will live at--it kills them all." + +This kind of comment ran at the back of his brain, while he plunged +into the "business"--which was his pretence for calling. Gertrude, as a +District Organizer of the League of Revolt, had intrusted him with the +running of various meetings in small places, along the coast, for which +it humiliated him to remember that he had agreed to be paid. For at his +very first call upon them, Miss Marvell had divined his impecunious +state, and pounced upon him as an agent,--unknown, he thought, to Miss +Blanchflower. He came now to report what had been done, and to ask if +the meetings should be continued. + +Gertrude Marvell shook her head. + +"I have had some letters about your meetings. I doubt whether they have +been worth while." + +Miss Marvell's manner was that of an employer to an employee. Lathrop's +vanity winced. + +"May I know what was wrong with them?" + +Gertrude Marvell considered. Her gesture, unconsciously judicial, +annoyed Lathrop still further. + +"Too much argument, I hear,--and too little feeling. Our people wanted +more about the women in prison. And it was thought that you apologised +too much for the outrages." + +The last word emerged quite simply, as the only fitting one. + +Lathrop laughed,--rather angrily. + +"You must be aware, Miss Marvell, that the public thinks they want +defence." + +"Not from us!" she said, with energy. "No one speaking for us must ever +apologise for militant acts. It takes all the heart out of our people. +Justify them--glory in them--as much as you like." + +There was a pause. + +"Then you have no more work for me?" said Lathrop at last. + +"We need not, I think, trouble you again. Your cheque will of course be +sent from head-quarters." + +"That doesn't matter," said Lathrop, hastily. + +The reflection crossed his mind that there is an insolence of women far +more odious than the insolence of men. + +"After all they are our inferiors! It doesn't do to let them command +us," he thought, furiously. + +He rose to take his leave. + +"You are going up to London?" + +"I am going. Miss Blanchflower stays behind, because her maid is ill." + +He stood hesitating. Gertrude lifted her eyebrows as though he puzzled +her. She never had liked him, and by now all her instincts were hostile +to him. His clumsy figure, and slovenly dress offended her, and the +touch of something grandiose in his heavy brow, and reddish-gold hair, +seemed to her merely theatrical. Her information was that he had been +no use as a campaigner. Why on earth did he keep her waiting? + +"I suppose you have heard some of the talk going about?" he said at +last, shooting out the words. + +"What talk?" + +"They're very anxious about Monk Lawrence--after your speech. And +there are absurd stories. Women have been seen--at night--and so on." + +Gertrude laughed. + +"The more panic the better--for us." + +"Yes--so long as it stops there. But if anything happened to that +place, the whole neighbourhood would turn detective--myself included." + +He looked at her steadily. She leant one thin hand on a table behind +her. + +"No one of course would have a better chance than you. You are so +near." + +Their eyes crossed. "By George!" he thought--"you're in it. I believe +to God you're in it." + +And at that moment he felt that he hated the willowy, intangible +creature who had just treated him with contempt. + +But as they coldly touched hands, the door opened again, and Delia +appeared. + +"Oh I didn't mean to interrupt--" she said, retreating. + +"Come in, come in!" said Gertrude. "We have finished our business--and +Mr. Lathrop I am sure will excuse me--I must get some letters off by +post--" + +And with the curtest of bows she disappeared. + +"I have brought you a book, Miss Blanchflower," Lathrop nervously +began, diving into a large and sagging pocket. "You said you wanted to +see Madame de Noailles' second volume." + +He brought out "Les Éblouissements," and laid it on the table beside +her. Delia thanked him, and then, all in a moment, as she stood beside +him, a thought struck her. She turned her great eyes full upon him, and +he saw the colour rushing into her cheeks. + +"Mr. Lathrop!" + +"Yes." + +"Mr. Lathrop--I--I dreadfully want some practical advice. And I don't +know whom to ask." + +The soreness of his wounded self-love vanished in a moment. + +"What can I do for you?" he asked eagerly. And at once his own +personality seemed to expand, to throw off the shadow of something +ignoble it had worn in Gertrude's presence. For Delia, looking at him, +was attracted by him. The shabby clothes made no impression upon her, +but the blue eyes did. And the childishness which still survived in +her, beneath all her intellectualisms, came impulsively to the surface. + +"Mr. Lathrop, do you--do you know anything about jewelry?" + +"Jewelry? Nothing!--except that I have dabbled in pretty things of that +sort as I have dabbled in most things. I once did some designing for a +man who set up--in Bond Street--to imitate Lalique. Why do you ask? I +suppose you have heaps of jewels?" + +"Too many. I want to sell some jewels." + +"Sell?--But--" he looked at her in astonishment. + +She reddened still more deeply; but spoke with a frank charm. + +"You thought I was rich? Well, of course I ought to be. My father was +rich. But at present I have nothing of my own--nothing! It is all in +trust--and I can't get at it. But I _must_ have some money! Wait here a +moment!" + +She ran out of the room. When she came back she was carrying a +miscellaneous armful of jewellers' cases. She threw them down on the +sofa. + +"They are all hideous--but I am sure they're worth a great deal of +money." + +And she opened them with hasty fingers before his astonished eyes. In +his restless existence he had accumulated various odd veins of +knowledge, and he knew something of the jewelry trade of London. He had +not only drawn designs, he had speculated--unluckily--in "De Beers." +For a short time Diamonds had been an obsession with him, then Burmah +rubies. He had made money out of neither; it was not in his horoscope +to make money out of anything. However there was the result--a certain +amount of desultory information. + +He took up one piece after another, presently drawing a magnifying +glass out of his pocket to examine them the better. + +"Well, if you want money--" he said at last, putting down a _rivičre_ +which had belonged to Delia's mother--"That alone will give you some +thousands!" + +Delia's eyes danced with satisfaction--then darkened. + +"That was Mamma's. Papa bought it at Constantinople--from an old +Turkish Governor--who had robbed a province--spent the loot in Paris +on his wives--and then had to disgorge half his fortune--to the +Sultan--who got wind of it. Papa bought it at a great bargain, and was +awfully proud of it. But after Mamma died, he sent it to the Bank, and +never thought of it again. I couldn't wear it, of course--I was too +young." + +"How much money do you want?" + +"Oh, a few thousands," said Delia, vaguely. "Five hundred pounds, first +of all." + +"And who will sell them for you?" + +She frowned in perplexity. + +"I--I don't know." + +"You don't wish to ask Mr. Winnington?" + +"Certainly not! They have nothing to do with him. They are my own +personal property," she added proudly. + +"Still he might object--Ought you not to ask him?" + +"I shall not tell him!" She straightened her shoulders. "He has far too +much bother on my account already." + +"Of course, if I could do anything for you--I should be delighted. But +I don't know why you should trust me. You don't know anything about +me!" He laughed uncomfortably. + +Delia laughed too--in some confusion. It seemed to him she suddenly +realised she had done something unusual. + +"It is very kind of you to suggest it--" she said, hesitating. + +"Not at all. It would amuse me. I have some threads I can pick up +still--in Bond Street. Let me advise you to concentrate on that +_rivičre_. If you really feel inclined to trust me, I will take it to a +man I know; he will show it to--" he named a famous firm. "In a few +days--well, give me a week--and I undertake to bring you proposals. If +you accept them, I will collect the money for you at once--or I will +return you the necklace, if you don't." + +Delia clasped her hands. + +"A week! You think it might all be finished in a week?" + +"Certainly--thereabouts. These things--" he touched the diamonds--"are +practically money." + +Delia sat ruminating, with a bright excited face. Then a serious +expression returned. She looked up. + +"Mr. Lathrop, this ought to be a matter of business between us--if you +do me so great a service?" + +"You mean I ought to take a commission?" he said, calmly. "I shall do +nothing of the kind." + +"It is more than I ought to accept!" she cried. "Let your +kindness--include what I wish." + +He shook his fair hair impatiently. + +"Why should you take away all my pleasure in the little adventure?" + +She looked embarrassed. He went on-- + +"Besides we are comrades--we have stood together in the fight. I expect +this is for the Cause! If so I ought to be angry that you even +suggested it!" + +"Don't be angry!" she said gravely. "I meant nothing unkind. Well, I +thank you very much--and there are the diamonds." + +She gave him the case, with a quiet deliberate movement, as if to +emphasize her trust in him. The simplicity with which it was done +pricked him uncomfortably. "I'm no thief!--" he thought angrily. "She's +safe enough with me. All the same, if she knew--she wouldn't speak to +me--she wouldn't admit me into her house. She doesn't know--and I am a +cad!" + +"You can't the least understand what it means to be allowed to do you a +service!" he said, with emotion. + +But the tone evidently displeased her. She once more formally thanked +him; then sprang up and began to put the cases on the sofa together. As +she did so, steps on the gravel outside were heard through the low +casement window. Delia turned with a start, and saw Mark Winnington +approaching the front door. + +"Don't say anything _please_!" she said urgently. "This has nothing to +do with my guardian." + +And opening the door of a lacquer cabinet, she hurriedly packed the +jewelry inside with all the speed she could. Her flushed cheek shewed +her humiliated by the action. + + * * * * * + +Winnington stood in the doorway, silent and waiting. After a hasty +greeting to the new-comer, Delia was nervously bidding Lathrop +good-bye. + +"In a week!" he said, under his breath, as she gave him her hand. + +"A week!" she repeated, evidently impatient for him to be gone. He +exchanged a curt bow with Winnington, and the door closed on him. + +There was a short silence. Winnington remained standing, hat in hand. +He was in riding dress--a commanding figure, his lean face reddened, +and the waves of his grizzled hair slightly loosened, by a buffeting +wind. Delia, stealing a glance at him, divined a coming remonstrance, +and awaited it with a strange mixture of fear and pleasure. They had +not met for ten days; and she stammered out some New Year's wishes. She +hoped that he and Mrs. Matheson had enjoyed their visit. + +But without any reply to her politeness, he said abruptly-- + +"Were you arranging some business with Mr. Lathrop?" + +She supposed he was thinking of the militant Campaign. + +"Yes," she said, eagerly. "Yes, I was arranging some business." + +Winnington's eyes examined her. + +"Miss Delia, what do you know about that man?--except that +story--which I understand Miss Marvell told you." + +"Nothing--nothing at all! Except--except that he speaks at our +meetings, and generally gets us into hot water. He has a lot of +interesting books--and drawings--in his cottage; and he has lent me +Madame de Noailles' poems. Won't you sit down? I hope you and Mrs. +Matheson have had a good time? We have been to church--at least I +have--and given away lots of coals and plum-puddings--at least I have. +Gertrude thought me a fool. We have had the choir up to sing carols in +the servants' hall, and given them a sovereign--at least I did. And I +don't want any more Christmas--for a long, long, time!" + +And with that, she dropped into a chair opposite Winnington, who sat +now twirling his hat and studying the ground. + +"I agree with you," he said drily when she paused. "I felt when I was +away that I had better be here. And I feel it now doubly." + +"Because?" + +"Because--if my absence has led to your developing any further +acquaintance with the gentleman who has just left the room, when I +might have prevented it, I regret it deeply." + +Delia's cheeks had gone crimson again. + +"You knew perfectly well Mr. Winnington, that we had made acquaintance +with Mr. Lathrop! We never concealed it!" + +"I knew, of course, that you were both members of the League, and that +you had spoken at meetings together. I regretted it--exceedingly--and I +asked you--in vain--to put an end to it. But when I find him paying a +morning call here--and lending you books--that is a very different +matter!" + +Delia broke out-- + +"You really are _too_ Early-Victorian, Mr. Winnington!--and I can't +help being rude. Do you suppose you can ever turn me into a +bread-and-butter miss? I have looked after myself for years--you don't +understand!" She faced him indignantly. + +Winnington laughed. + +"All right--so long as the Early Victorians may have their say. And my +say about Mr. Lathrop is--again that he is not a fit companion for +you, or any young girl,--that he is a man of blemished character--both +in morals and business. Ask anybody in this neighbourhood!" + +He had spoken with firm emphasis, his eyes sparkling. + +"Everybody in the neighbourhood believes anything bad, about him--and +us!" cried Delia. + +"Don't, for Heaven's sake, couple yourself, and the man--together!" +said Winnington, flushing with anger. "I know nothing about him, when +you first arrived here. Mr. Lathrop didn't matter twopence to me +before. Now he does matter." + +"Why?" Delia's eyes were held to his, fascinated. + +"Simply because I care--I care a great deal--what happens to you," he +said quietly, after a pause. "Naturally, I must care." + +Delia looked away, and began twisting her black sash into knots. + +"Bankruptcy--is not exactly a crime." + +"Oh, so you knew that farther fact about him? But of course--it is the +rest that matters. Since we spoke of this before, I have seen the judge +who tried the case in which this man figured. I hate speaking of it in +your presence, but you force me. He told me it was one of the worst he +had ever known--a case for which there was no defence or excuse +whatever." + +"Why must I believe it?" cried Delia impetuously. "It's a man's +judgment! The woman may have been--Gertrude says she was--horribly +unhappy and ill-treated. Yet nothing could be proved--enough to free +her. Wait till we have women judges--and women lawyers--then you'll +see!" + +He laughed indignantly--though not at all inclined to laugh. And what +seemed to him her stubborn perversity drove him to despair. + +"In this case, if there had been a woman judge, I am inclined to think +it would have been a good deal worse for the people concerned. At least +I hope so. Don't try to make me believe, Miss Delia, that women are +going to forgive treachery and wickedness more easily than men!" + +"Oh, 'treachery!'--" she murmured, protesting. His look both +intimidated and drew her. Winnington came nearer to her, and suddenly +he laid his hand on both of hers. Looking up she was conscious of a +look that was half raillery, half tenderness. + +"My dear child!--I must call you that--though you are so clever--and +so--so determined to have your own way. Look here! I'm going to plead +my rights. I've done a good deal for you the last three months--perhaps +you hardly know all that has been done. I've been your watch-dog--put +it at that. Well, now give the watch-dog, give the Early-Victorian, his +bone! Promise me that you will have no more dealings with Mr. Lathrop. +Send him back his books--and say 'Not at Home!'" + +She was really distressed. + +"I can't, Mr. Winnington!--I'm so sorry!--but I can't." + +"Why can't you?" He still held her. + +A score of thoughts flew hither and thither in her brain. She had asked +a great favour of Lathrop--she had actually put the jewels into his +hands! How could she recall her action? And when he had done her such a +service, if he succeeded in doing it--how was she to turn round on him, +and cut him the very next moment? + +Nor could she make up her mind to confess to Winnington what she had +done. She was bent on her scheme. If she disclosed it _now_ everything +might be upset. + +"I really _can't!_" she repeated, gravely, releasing her hands. + +Winnington rose, and began to pace the drawing room. Delia watched +him--quivering--an exquisite vision herself, in the half lights of the +room. + +When he paused at last to speak, she saw a new expression in his eyes. + +"I shall have to think this over, Miss Blanchflower--perhaps to +reconsider my whole position." + +She was startled, but she kept her composure. + +"You mean--you may have--after all--to give me up?" + +He forced a very chilly smile. + +"You remember--you asked me to give you up. Now if it were only one +subject--however important--on which we disagreed, I might still do my +best, though the responsibility of all you make me connive at is +certainly heavy. But if you are entirely to set at defiance not only my +advice and wishes as to this illegal society to which you belong, and +as to the violent action into which I understand you may be led when +you go to town, but also in such a matter as we have just been +discussing--then indeed, I see no place for me. I must think it over. A +guardian appointed by the Court might be more effective--might +influence you more." + +"I told you I was a handful," said Delia, trying to laugh. But her +voice sounded hollow in her own ears. + +He offered no reply--merely repeating "I must think it over!"--and +resolutely changing the subject, he made a little perfunctory +conversation on a few matters of business--and was gone. + +After his departure, Delia sat motionless for half an hour at least, +staring at the fire. Then suddenly she sprang up, went to the +writing-table, and sat down to write-- + +"Dear Mr. Mark--Don't give me up! You don't know. Trust me a little! I +am not such a fiend as you think. I am grateful--I am indeed. I wish to +goodness I could show it. Perhaps I shall some day. I hadn't time to +tell you about poor Weston--who's to have an operation--and that I'm +not going to town with Gertrude--not for some weeks at any rate. I +shall be alone here, looking after Weston. So I can't disgrace or +worry you for a good while any way. And you needn't fret about Mr. +Lathrop--you needn't _really_! I can't explain--not just yet--but it's +all right. Mayn't I come and help with some of your cripple children? +or the school? or something? If Susy Amberly can do it, I suppose I +can--I'd like to. May I sign myself--though I _am_ a handful-" + + "Yours affectionately, + DELIA BLANCHFLOWER." + + +She sat staring at the paper, trembling under a stress of feeling she +could not understand--the large tears in her eyes. + + + + +Chapter XIII + + +"Pack the papers as quickly as you can--I am going to town this +afternoon. Whatever can't be packed before then, you can bring up to me +tomorrow." + +A tired girl lifted her head from the packing-case before which she was +kneeling. + +"I'll do my best, Miss Marvell--But I'm afraid it will be impossible to +finish to-day." And she looked wearily round the room laden with +papers--letters, pamphlets, press-cuttings--on every available table +and shelf. + +Gertrude gave a rather curt assent. Her reason told her the thing was +impossible; but her will chafed against the delay, which her secretary +threatened, of even a few hours in the resumption of her work in +London, and the re-housing of all its tools and materials. She was a +hard mistress; though no harder on her subordinates than she was on +herself. + +She began to turn her own hand to the packing, and missing a book she +had left in the drawing-room the night before, she went to fetch it. It +was again a morning of frosty sunshine, and the garden outside lay in +dazzling light. The drawing-room windows were open, and through one of +them Gertrude perceived Delia moving about outside on the whitened +grass. She was looking for the earliest snowdrops which were just +beginning to bulge from the green stems, pushing up through the dead +leaves under the beech trees. She wore a blue soft shawl round her head +and shoulders, and she was singing to herself. As she raised herself +from the ground, and paused a moment looking towards the house, but +evidently quite unconscious of any spectators, Gertrude could not take +her eyes from the vision she made. If radiant beauty, if grace, and +flawless youth can "lift a mortal to the skies," Delia stood like a +young goddess under the winter sun. But there was much more than beauty +in her face. There was a fluttering and dreamy joy which belongs only +to the children of earth. The low singing came unconsciously from her +lips, as though it were the natural expression of the heart within. +Gertrude caught the old lilting tune:-- + + "For oh, Greensleaves was all my joy-- + For oh, Greensleaves was my heart's delight-- + And who but my lady Greensleaves--" + + +The woman observing her did so with a strange mixture of softness and +repulsion. If Gertrude Marvell loved anybody, she loved Delia--the +captive of her own bow and spear, and until now the most loyal, the +most single-minded of disciples. But as she saw Delia walk away to a +further reach of the garden, the mind of the elder woman bitterly +accused the younger. Delia's refusal to join the militant forces in +London, at this most critical and desperate time, on what seemed to +Gertrude the trumpery excuse of Weston's illness, had made an indelible +impression on a fanatical temper. If she had cared--if she had _really_ +cared--she could not have done any such thing. "What have I been +wasting my time here for?" she asked herself; and reviewing the motives +which had induced her to accept Delia's proposal that they should live +together, she accused herself sharply of a contemptible lack of +judgment and foresight. + +For no mere affection for Delia Blanchflower would have influenced her, +at the time when Delia, writing to tell her of the approaching death of +Sir Robert, implored her to come and share her life. "You know I shall +have money, dearest Gertrude,"--wrote Delia--"Come and help me to spend +it--for the Cause." And for the sake of the Cause,--which was then +sorely in want of money--and only for its sake, Gertrude had consented. +She was at that time rapidly becoming one of the leading spirits in the +London office of the "Daughters," so that to bury herself, even for a +time, in a country village, some eighty miles from London, was a +sacrifice. But to secure what seemed likely to be some thousands a +year from a willing giver, such a temporary and modified exile had +appeared to her worth while; and she had at once planned a campaign of +"militant" meetings in the towns along the South Coast, by way of +keeping in touch with "active work." + +But, in the first place, the extraordinary terms of Sir Robert's will +had proved far more baffling than she and Delia had ever been willing +to believe. And, in the next place, the personality of Mark Winnington +had almost immediately presented itself to Gertrude as something she +had never reckoned with. A blustering and tyrannical guardian would +have been comparatively easy to fight. Winnington was formidable, not +because he was hostile, resolutely hostile, to their whole propaganda +of violence; that might only have spurred a strong-willed girl to +more passionate extremes. He was dangerous,--in spite of his forty +years--because he was delightful; because, in his leisurely, +old-fashioned way, he was so loveable, so handsome, so inevitably +attractive, Gertrude, looking back, realised that she had soon +perceived--vaguely at least--what might happen, what had now--as she +dismally guessed--actually happened. + +The young, impressionable creature, brought into close contact with +this charming fellow--this agreeable reactionary--had fallen in love! +That was all. But it was more than enough. Delia might be still +unconscious of it herself. But this new shrinking from the most +characteristic feature of the violent policy--this new softness and +fluidity in a personality that when they first reached Maumsey had +begun already to stiffen in the fierce mould of militancy--to what +could any observer with eyes in their head attribute them but the +influence of Mark Winnington--the daily unseen presence of other +judgments and other ideals embodied in a man to whom the girl's +feelings had capitulated? + +"If I could have kept her to myself for another year, he could have +done nothing. But he has intervened before her opinions were anything +more than the echoes of mine;--and for the future I shall have less and +less chance against him. What shall we ever get out of her as a married +woman? What would Mark Winnington--to whom she will give herself, body +and soul,--allow us to get out of her? Better break with her now, and +disentangle my own life!" + +With such thoughts, a pale and brooding woman pursued the now distant +figure of Delia. At the same time Gertrude Marvell had no intention +whatever of provoking a premature breach which might deprive either the +Cause or herself of any help they might still obtain from Delia in the +desperate fight immediately ahead. She, personally, would have +infinitely preferred freedom and a garret to Delia's flat, and any kind +of dependence on Delia's money. "I was not born to be a parasite!" she +angrily thought. But she had no right to prefer them. All that could be +extracted from Delia should be extracted. She was now no more to +Gertrude than a pawn in the game. Let her be used--if she could not be +trusted! + +But if this had fallen differently, if she had remained the true +sister-in-arms, given wholly to the joy of the fight, Gertrude's stern +soul would have clasped her to itself, just as passionately as it now +dismissed her. + +"No matter!" The hard brown eyes looked steadily into the future. +"That's done with. I am alone--I shall be alone. What does it +signify?--a little sooner or later?" + +The vagueness of the words matched the vagueness of certain haunting +premonitions in the background of the mind. Her own future always +shaped itself in tragic terms. It was impossible--she knew it--that it +should bring her to any kind of happiness. It was no less impossible +that she should pause and submit. That active defiance of the existing +order, on which she had entered, possessed her, gripped her, +irrevocably. She was like the launched stone which describes its +appointed curve--till it drops. + +As for any interference from the side of her own personal ties and +affections,--she had none. + +In her pocket she carried a letter she had received that morning, from +her mother. It was plaintive, as usual. + +"Winnie's second child arrived last week. It was an awful confinement. +The first doctor had to get another, and they only just pulled her +through. The child's a misery. It would be much better if it had died. +I can't think what she'll do. Her husband's a wretched creature--just +manages to keep in work--but he neglects her shamefully--and if there +ever is anything to spend, _he_ spends it--on his own amusement. She +cried the other day, when we were talking of you. She thinks you're +living with a rich lady, and have everything you want--and she and +her children are often half-starved. 'She might forgive me now, I do +think--' she'll say sometimes--'And as for Henry, if I did take him +away from her, she may thank her stars she didn't marry him. She'd have +killed him by now. She never could stand men like Henry. Only, when he +was a young fellow, he took her in--her first, and then me. It was a +bad job we ever saw him.' + +"Why are you so set against us, Gertrude?--your own flesh and blood. +I'm sure if I ever was unkind to you I'm sorry for it. You used to say +I favoured Albert at your expense--Well, he's as good as dead to me +now, and I've got no good out of all the spoiling I gave him. I sit at +home by myself, and I'm a pretty miserable woman. I read everything I +can in the papers about what you're doing--you, who were my only +child, seven years before Albert came. It doesn't matter to you what I +think--at least, it oughtn't. I'm an old woman, and whatever I thought +I'd never quarrel with you. But it would matter to me a good deal, if +you'd sometimes come in, and sit by the fire a bit, and chat. It's +three years since I've even seen you. Winnie says you've forgotten +us--you only care about the vote. But I don't believe it. Other people +may think the vote can make up for everything--but not you. You're too +clever. Hoping to see you," + + "Your lonely old mother, + JANET MARVELL." + + +To that letter, Gertrude had already written her reply. Sometime--in +the summer, perhaps, she had said to her mother. And she had added the +mental proviso--"if I am alive." For the matters in which she was +engaged were no child's play, and the excitements of prison and +hunger-striking might tell even on the strongest physique. + +No--her family were nothing to her. Her mother's appeal, though it +should not be altogether ignored, was an insincere one. She had always +stood by the men of the family; and for the men of the family, +Gertrude, its eldest daughter, felt nothing but loathing and contempt. +Her father, a local government official in a western town, a +small-minded domestic tyrant, ruined by long years of whisky-nipping +between meals; her only brother, profligate and spendthrift, of whose +present modes of life the less said the better; her brother-in-law, +Henry Lewison, the man whom, in her callow, ignorant youth, she was +once to have married, before her younger sister supplanted her--a +canting hypocrite, who would spend his day in devising petty torments +for his wife, and begin and end it with family prayers:--these types, +in a brooding and self-centred mind, had gradually come to stand for +the whole male race. + +Nor had her lonely struggle for a livelihood, after she had fled from +home, done anything to loosen the hold of these images upon her. She +looked back upon a dismal type-writing office, run by a grasping +employer; a struggle for health, warring with the struggle for bread; +sick headache, sleeplessness, anaemia, yet always within, the same iron +will driving on the weary body; and always the same grim perception on +the dark horizon of an outer gulf into which some women fell, with no +hope of resurrection. She burnt again with the old bitter sense of +injustice, on the economic side; remembering fiercely her own stinted +earnings, and the higher wages and larger opportunities of men, whom, +intellectually, she despised. Remembering too the development of that +new and ugly temper in men--men hard-pressed themselves--who must now +see in women no longer playthings or sweethearts, but rivals and +supplanters. + +So that gradually, year by year, there had strengthened in her that +strange, modern thing, a woman's hatred of men--the normal instincts of +sex distorted and embittered. And when suddenly, owing to the slow +working of many causes, economic and moral, a section of the Woman +Suffrage movement had broken into flame and violence, she had flung her +very soul to it as fuel, with the passion of one to whom life at last +"gives room." In that outbreak were gathered up for her all the +rancours, and all the ideals of life, all its hopes and all its +despairs. Not much hope!--and few ideals. Her passion for the Cause +had been a grim force, hardly mixed with illusion; but it had held and +shaped her. + +Meanwhile among women she has found a few kindred souls. One of them, a +fellow-student, came into money, died, and left Gertrude Marvell a +thousand pounds. On that sum she had educated herself, had taken her +degree at a West Country University, had moved to London and begun work +as a teacher and journalist. Then again, a break down in health, +followed by a casual acquaintance with Lady Tonbridge--Sir Robert's +offer--its acceptance--Delia! + +How much had opened to her with Delia! _Pleasure_, for the first time; +the sheer pleasure of travel, society, tropical beauty; the strangeness +also of finding herself adored, of feeling that young loveliness, that +young intelligence, all yielding softness in her own strong hands-- + +Well, that was done;--practically done. She cheated herself with no +vain hopes. The process which had begun in Delia would go forward. One +more defeat to admit and forget. One more disaster to turn one's back +upon. + +And no disabling lamentations! Her eyes cleared, her mouth stiffened. +She went quietly back to her packing. + +"Gertrude! What _are_ you doing?" The voice was Delia's. She stood on +the threshold of Gertrude's den, looking with amazement, at the +littered room and the packing-cases. + +"I find I must go up at once--They want help at the office." Gertrude, +who was writing a letter, delivered the information over her shoulder. + +"But the flat won't be ready!" + +"Never mind. I can go to a hotel for a few days." + +A cloud dropped over the radiance of Delia's face, fresh from the sun +and frost outside. + +"I can't bear your going alone!" + +"Oh, you'll come later," said Gertrude indifferently. + +"Did you--did you--have such urgent letters this morning?" + +"Well--you know things _are_ urgent! But then, you see, you have made +up your mind to stay with Weston!" + +A slight mocking look accompanied the words. + +"Yes--I must stay with Weston," said Delia, slowly, and then perceiving +that the typist showed no signs of leaving them together, and that +confidential talk was therefore impossible, she reluctantly went away. + +Weston that morning was in much pain, and Delia sat beside her, +learning by some new and developing instinct how to soothe her. The +huntress of the Tyrolese woods had few caressing ways, and pain had +always been horrible to her; a thing to be shunned, even by the +spectator, lest it should weaken the wild natural energies. But Weston +was very dear to her, and the maid's suffering stirred deep slumbering +powers in the girl's nature. She watched the trained Nurse at her work, +and copied her anxiously. And all the time she was thinking, thinking, +now of Gertrude, now of her letter to Winnington. Gertrude was vexed +with her, thought her a poor creature--that was plain. "But in a +fortnight, I'll go to her,--and they'll see!--" thought the girl's +wrestling mind. "And before that, I shall send her money. I can't help +what she thinks. I'm not false!--I'm not giving in! But I must have +this fortnight,--just this fortnight;--for Weston's sake, and--" + +For her proud sincerity would not allow her to pretend to herself. What +had happened to her? She felt the strangest lightness--as though some +long restraint had broken down; a wonderful intermittent happiness, +sweeping on her without reason, and setting the breath fluttering. It +made her think of what an old Welsh nurse of her childhood had once +told her of "conversion," in a Welsh revival, and its marvellous +effects; how men and women walked on air, and the iron bands of life +and custom dropped away. + +Then she rose impatiently, despising herself, and went downstairs again +to try and help Gertrude. But the packing was done, the pony-cart was +ordered, and in an hour more, Gertrude was gone. Delia was left +standing on the threshold of the front door, listening to the sound of +the receding wheels. They had parted in perfect friendliness, Gertrude +with civil wishes for Weston's complete recovery, Delia with eager +promises--"I shall soon come--_very_ soon!"--promises of which, as she +now remembered, Gertrude had taken but little notice. + +But as she went back into the house, the girl had a queer feeling of +catastrophe, of radical change. She passed the old gun-room, and looked +in. All its brown paper bundles, its stacks of leaflets, its books of +reference were gone; only a litter of torn papers remained here and +there, to shew what its uses had been. And suddenly, a swell of +something like exultation, a wild sense of deliverance, rushed upon +her, driving out depression. She went back to the drawing-room, with +little dancing steps, singing under her breath. The flowers wanted +freshening. She went out to the greenhouse, and brought in some early +hyacinths and violets till the room was fragrant. Some of them she took +up to Weston, chatting to the patient and her nurse as she arranged +them, with such sweetness, such smiles, such an abandonment of +kindness, that both looked after her amazed, when, again, she vanished. +What had become of the imperious absent-minded young woman of ordinary +days? + +Delia lunched alone. And after lunch she grew restless. + +He must have received her letter at breakfast-time. Probably he had +some tiresome meetings in the morning, but soon--soon-- + +She tried to settle to some reading. How long it was since she had read +anything for the joy of it!--anything that in some shape or other was +not the mere pemmican of the Suffrage Movement; dusty arguments for, or +exasperating arguments against. She plunged into poetry--a +miscellaneous volume of modern verse--and the new world of feeling +in which her mind had begun to move, grew rich, and deep, and +many-coloured about her. + +Surely--a sound at the gate! She sat up, crimson. Well?--she was going +to make friends with her guardian--to bury the hatchet--for a whole +fortnight at least. Only that. Nothing more--nothing--nothing! + +Steps approached. She hastily unearthed a neglected work-basket, and a +very ancient piece of half-done embroidery. Was there a thimble +anywhere--or needles! Yes!--by good luck. Heavens!--what shamming! She +bent over the dingy bit of silk, her cheeks dimpling with laughter. + +Their first greetings were done, and Winnington was sitting by +her--astride a chair, his arms lying along the top of it, his eyes +looking down upon her, as she made random stitches in what looked like +a futurist design. + +"Do you know that you wrote me a very, _very_ nice letter?" and as he +spoke, she heard in his voice that tone--that lost tone, which she had +heard in it at their very first interview, before she had chilled and +flouted him, and made his life a burden to him. Her pulses leapt; but +she did not look up. + +"I wonder whether--you quite deserved it? You were angry with me--for +nothing!" + +"I am afraid I can't agree!" The voice now was a little dry, and a pair +of very keen grey eyes examined her partially hidden face. + +She pushed her work away and looked up. + +"You ought!" she said vehemently. "You accused me--practically--of +flirting with Mr. Lathrop. And I was doing nothing of the kind!" + +He laughed. + +"I never imagined that you were--or could be--flirting with Mr. +Lathrop." + +"Then why did you threaten to give me up if I went on seeing him?" + +He hesitated--but said at last--gravely-- + +"Because I could not take the responsibility." + +"How would it help me--to give me up? According to you--" she breathed +fast--"I should only--go to perdition--the quicker!" Her eyes still +laughed, but behind the laughter there was a rush of feeling which +communicated itself to him. + +"May I suggest that it is not necessary to go to perdition--at +all--fast or slow?" + +She shook her head. Silence followed; which Winnington broke. + +"You said you would like to come and see some of the village +people--your own people--and the school? Was that serious?" + +"Certainly!" She raised an indignant countenance. "I suppose you +think--like everybody--that because I want the vote, I can't care +about anything else?" + +"You'll admit it has a way of driving everything else out," he said, +mildly. "Have you ever been into the village--for a month?--for two +months? The things you wanted have been done. But you haven't been to +see." She sprang to her feet. + +"Shall I come now?" + +"If it suits you. I've saved the afternoon." + +She ran out of the room to put on her things, upsetting as she did so, +the work-box with which she had been masquerading, and quite +unconscious of it. Winnington, smiling to himself, stooped to pick up +the reels and skeins of silk. One, a skein of pink silk with which she +had been working, he held in his hand a moment, and, suddenly, put in +his pocket. After which he drifted absently to the hearthrug, and stood +waiting for her, hat in hand. He was thinking of that moment in the +wintry dawn when he had read her letter. The shock of emotion returned +upon him. But what was he to do? What was really in her mind?--or, for +the matter of that, in his own? + +She re-appeared, radiant in a moleskin cap and furs, and then they both +awkwardly remembered--he, that he had made no inquiry about Weston, and +she, that she had said nothing of Gertrude Marvell's hurried departure. + +"Your poor maid? Tell me about her. Oh, but she'll do well. We'll take +care of her. France is an awfully good doctor." + +Her eyes thanked him. She gave him a brief account of Weston's state; +then looked away. + +"Do you know--that I'm quite alone? Gertrude went up to town this +morning?" + +Winnington gave a low whistle of astonishment. + +"She had to--" said Delia, hurriedly. "It was the office--they couldn't +do without her." + +"I thought she had undertaken to be your chaperon?" + +The girl coloured. + +"Well yes--but of course--the other claim came first." + +"You don't expect me to admit that," said Winnington, with energy. +"Miss Marvell has left you alone?--_alone_?--at a moment's notice--with +your maid desperately ill--and without a word to me, or anybody?" His +eyes sparkled. + +"Don't let's quarrel!" cried Delia, as she stood opposite to him, +putting on her gloves. "_Don't_! Not to-day--not this afternoon! And +we're sure to quarrel if we talk about Gertrude." + +His indignation broke up in laughter. + +"Very well. We won't mention her. Well, but look here--" he +pondered--"You _must_ have somebody. I would propose that Alice +should come and keep you company, but I left her in bed with what +looks like the flu. Ah!--I have it. But--am I really to advise? You +are twenty-one, remember,--nearly twenty-two!" + +The tender sarcasm in his voice brought a flood of colour to her +cheeks. + +"Go on!" she said, and stood quivering. + +"Would you consider asking Lady Tonbridge to come and stay with you? +Nora is away on a visit." + +Delia moved quietly to the writing-table, pulled off her gloves, sat +down to write a note. He watched her, standing behind her; his strained +yet happy look resting on the beautiful dark head. + +She rose, and held out the note, addressed to Lady Tonbridge. He took +the note, and the hand together. The temptation was irresistible. He +raised the hand and kissed it. Both were naturally reminded of the only +previous occasion on which he had done such a thing; and as he dropped +his hold, Delia saw the ugly scar which would always mark his left +wrist. + +"Thank you!"--he said warmly--"That'll be an immense relief to my +mind." + +"You mustn't think she'll convert me," said Delia, quickly. + +"Why, she's a Suffragist!" + +Delia shrugged her shoulders. "_Pour rire_!" + +"Let's leave the horrid subject alone--shall we?" + +Delia assented; and they set out, just as the winter sun of a bright +and brilliant afternoon was beginning to drop towards its setting. + + * * * * * + +When Delia afterwards looked back on those two hours in Mark +Winnington's company, she remembered them as a time enskied and +glorified. First, the mere pleasure of the senses--the orange glow of +the January evening, the pleasant crackling of the frosty ground, the +exhilaration of exercise, and of the keen pungent air; then the beauty +of the village and of the village lanes in the dusk, of the blue smoke +drifting along the hill, of the dim reds and whites of the old houses, +and the occasional gleams of fire and lamp through the small-paned +windows; the gaiety of the children racing home from school, the +dignity of the old labourers, the seemliness of the young. It was good +to be alive--in England--breathing English air. It was good to be young +and strong-limbed, with all one's life before one. + +And next--and greater--there was the pleasure of Winnington beside her, +of his changed manner, of their new comradeship. She felt even a +curious joy in the difference of age between them. Now that by some +queer change, she had ceased to stand on her dignity with him, to hold +him arrogantly at arm's length, there emerged in her a childish +confidence and sweetness, enchanting to the man on whom it played. "May +I?--" "Do you think I might?--" she would say, gently, throwing out +some suggestion or other, as they went in and out of the cottages, and +the humbleness in her dark eyes, as though a queen stooped, began to +turn his head. + +And how beautiful this common human life seemed that evening--after all +the fierce imaginings in which she had lived so long! In the great +towns beyond the hills, women were still starved and sweated,--still +enslaved and degraded. Man no doubt was still the stupid and vicious +tyrant, the Man-Beast that Gertrude Marvell believed him. But here in +this large English village, how the old primal relations stood +out!--sorrow-laden and sin-stained often, yet how touching, how worthy, +in the main, of reverence and tenderness! As they went in and out of +the cottages of her father's estate, the cottages where Winnington was +at home, and she a stranger, all that "other side" of any great +argument began to speak to her--without words. The world of politics +and its machinery, how far away!--instead, the world of human need, and +love, and suffering unveiled itself this winter evening to Delia's +soul, and spoke to her in a new language. And always it was a language +of sex, as between wives and husbands, mothers and sons, sisters and +brothers. No isolation of one sex or the other. No possibility of +thinking of them apart, as foes and rivals, with jarring rights and +claims. These old couples tending each other, clinging together, after +their children had left them, till their own last day should dawn; +these widowed men or women, piteously lost without the old companion, +like the ox left alone in the furrow; these young couples with their +first babies; these dutiful or neglectful sons, these hard or tender +daughters; these mothers young and old, selfish or devoted:--with +Winnington beside her, Delia saw them all anew, heard them all anew. +And Love, in all its kinds, everywhere the governing force, by its +presence or its absence!--Love abused and degraded, or that Love, +whether in the sunken eyes of the old, or on the cheeks of the young, +which is but "a little lower than the angels." + +And what frankly amazed her was Winnington's place in this world of +labouring folk. He had given it ten years of service; not charity, but +simply the service of the good citizen; moved by a secret, impelling +motive, which Delia had yet to learn. And how they rewarded him! She +walked beside a natural ruler, and felt her heart presently big with +the pride of it. + +"But the cripples?" She enquired for them, with a touch of sarcasm. "So +far," she said, "the population Maumsey, appeared to be quiet +exceptionally able-bodied." + +"Goodness!" said Winnington--"I can't shew you more than two or three +cripples to a village. Maumsey only rejoices in two. My county school +will collect from the whole county. And I should never have found out +the half of them, if it hadn't been for Susy Amberley." + +"How did she discover them?" asked Delia, without any sort of +cordiality. + +"We--the County Council--put the enquiry into her hands. I showed +her--a bit. But she's done it admirably. She's a wonderful little +person, Susy. What the old parents will do without her when she goes to +London I can't think." + +"Why is she going?" + +Winnington shrugged his shoulders kindly. + +"Wants a training--wants something more to do. Quite right--if it +makes her happy. You women have all grown so restless nowadays." He +laughed into the rather sombre face beside him. And the face lit +up--amazingly. + +"Because the world's so _marvellous_," said Delia, with her passionate +look. "And there's so little time to explore it in. You men have always +known that. Now we women know it too." + +He pondered the remark--half smiling. + +"Well, you'll see a good deal of it before you've done," he said at +last. "Now come and look at what I've been trying to do for the women +who complained to you." + +And he shewed her how everything had been arranged to please her, at +the cost of infinite trouble, and much expense. The woman with the +eight children had been moved into a spacious new cottage made out of +two old ones; the old granny alone in a house now too big for her, had +been induced to take in a prim little spinster, the daughter of a small +grocer just deceased; and the father of the deficient girl, for whom +Miss Dempsey had made herself responsible, received Winnington with a +lightening of his tired eyes, and taking him out of earshot of Delia, +told him how Bessie "had got through her trouble," and was now earning +money at some simple hand-work under Miss Dempsey's care. + +"I didn't know you were doing all this!" said Delia, remorsefully, as +they walked along the village street. "Why didn't you tell me?" + +"I think I did tell you--once or twice. But you had other things to +think about." + +"I hadn't!" said Delia, with angry energy. "I hadn't, you needn't make +excuses for me!" + +He smiled at her, a little gravely, but said nothing--till they +reached a path leading to an isolated cottage-- + +"Here's a cripple at last!--Susy!--You here?" + +For as the door opened to his knock, a lady rose from a low seat, and +faced them. + +Winnington grasped her by the hand. + +"I thought you were already gone." + +"No--they've put it off again for a week or two--no vacancy yet." + +She shook hands formally with Delia. "I came to have another look at +this boy. Isn't he splendid?" + +She pointed to a grinning child of five sitting on the edge of the +kitchen table, and dangling a pair of heavily ironed legs. The mother +proudly shewed them. He had been three months in the Orthopaedic +Hospital, she told Delia. The legs twisted with rickets had been broken +and set twice, and now he was "doing fine." She set him down, and made +him walk. "I never thought to see him do that!" she said, her wan face +shining. "And it's all his doing--" she pointed to Winnington, "and +Miss Susy's." + +Meanwhile Susy and Winnington were deep in conversation--very +technical much of it--about a host of subjects they seemed to have in +common. + +Delia silent and rather restless, watched them both, the girl's sweet, +already faded, face, and Winnington's expression. When they emerged +from the cottage Susy said shyly to Delia-- + +"Won't you come to tea with me some day next week?" + +"Thank you. I should like to. But my maid is very ill. Else I should be +in London." + +"Oh, I'm very sorry. May I come to you?" + +Delia thanked her coldly. She could have beaten herself for a rude, +ungracious creature; yet for the life of her she could not command +another manner. Susy drew back. She and Winnington began to talk again, +ranging over persons and incidents quite unknown to Delia--the frank +talk, full of matter of comrades in a public service. And again Delia +watched them acutely--jealous--yet not in any ordinary sense. When Susy +turned back towards the Rectory, Delia said abruptly-- + +"She's helped you a great deal?" + +"Susy!" He went off at score, ending with--"What France and I shall do +without her, I don't know. If we could only get more women--_scores +more women_--to do the work! There we sit, perched up aloft on the +Council, and what we want are the women to advise us, and the women's +hands--_to do the little things_--which make just all the difference!" + +She was silent a moment, and then said sorely--"I suppose that means, +that if we did all the work we might do--we needn't bother about the +vote." + +He turned upon with animation-- + +"I vow I wasn't thinking about the vote!" + +"Miss Amberley doesn't seem to bother about it." + +Winnington's voice shewed amusement. + +"I can't imagine Susy a suff. It simply isn't in her." + +"I know plenty of suffragists just as good and useful as she is," said +Delia, bristling. + +Winnington did not immediately reply. They had left the village behind, +and were walking up the Maumsey lane in a gathering darkness, each +electrically conscious of the other. At last he said in a changed +tone-- + +"Have I been saying anything to wound you? I didn't mean it." + +She laughed unsteadily. + +"You never say anything to wound me. I was only--a kind of fretful +porcupine--standing up for my side." + +"And the last thought in my mind to-night was to attack your 'side,'" +he protested. + +Her tremulous sense drank in the gentleness of his voice, the joy of +his strong, enveloping presence, and the sweetness of her own surrender +which had brought him back to her, the thought of it vibrating between +them, unspoken. Until, suddenly, at the door of the Abbey, Winnington +halted and took her by both hands. + +"I must go home. Good-night. Have you got books to amuse you?" + +"Plenty." + +"Poor child!--all alone! But you'll have Lady Tonbridge to-morrow." + +"How do you know? She mayn't come." + +"I'm going there now. I'll make her. You--you won't be doing any more +embroidery to-night?" + +He looked at her slyly. Delia laughed out. + +"There!--when one tries to be feminine, that's how you mock!" + +"'_Mock_!' I admired. Good-night!--I shall be here to-morrow." + +He was gone--into the darkness. + +Delia entered the lonely house, in a bewilderment of feeling. As she +passed Gertrude's deserted sitting-room on her way to the staircase, +she saw that the parlourmaid had lit a useless lamp there. She went in +to put it out. As she did so, a torn paper among the litter on the +floor attracted her notice. She stooped and took it up. + +It seemed to be a fragment of a plan--a plan of a house. It shewed two +series of rooms, divided by a long passage. One of the rooms was marked +"Red Parlour," another, "Hall," and at the end of the passage, there +were some words, clearly in Gertrude Marvell's handwriting-- + +"_Garden door, north_." + +With terror in her heart, Delia brought the fragment to the lamp, and +examined every word and line of it. + +Recollections flashed into her mind, and turned her pale. That what she +held was part of a general plan of the Monk Lawrence ground-floor, she +was certain--dismally certain. And Gertrude had made it. Why? + +Delia tore the paper into shreds and burnt the shreds. Afterwards she +spent an oppressed and miserable night. Her friend reproached her, on +the one side; and Winnington, on the other. + + + + +Chapter XIV + + +Lady Tonbridge was sitting in the window-seat of a little sitting-room +adjoining her bedroom at Maumsey Abbey. That the young mistress of +Maumsey had done her best to make her guest comfortable, that guest +most handsomely acknowledged. Some of the few pretty things which the +house contained had been gathered there. The chintz covered sofa and +chairs, even though the chintz was ugly, had the pleasant country-house +look, which suggests afternoon tea, and chatting friends; a bright +fire, flowers and a lavish strewing of books completed the hospitable +impression. + +Yet Madeleine Tonbridge had by no means come to Maumsey Abbey, at +Winnington's bidding, as to a Land of Cockaigne. She at all events +regarded Delia as a "handful," and was on the watch day by day +for things outrageous. She could not help liking the beautiful +creature--almost loving her! But Delia was still a "Daughter of +Revolt"--apparently unrepentant; that dangerous fanatic, her pretended +chaperon, was still in constant correspondence with her; the papers +teemed with news of militant outrages, north, south, east and west; and +riotous doings were threatened for the meetings of Parliament by +Delia's Society. On all these matters Delia shut her proud lips. Indeed +her new reticence with regard to militant doings and beliefs struck +Lady Tonbridge as more alarming than the young and arrogant defiance +with which on her first arrival she had been wont to throw them at the +world. Madeleine could not rid herself of the impression during these +weeks that Delia had some secret cause of anxiety connected with the +militant propaganda. She was often depressed, and there were moments +when she shewed a nervousness not easily accounted for. She scarcely +ever mentioned Gertrude Marvell; and she never wrote her letters in +public; while those she received, she would carry away to the gun +room--which she had now made her own particular den--before she opened +them. + +At the same time, if Weston recovered from the operation, in three +weeks or so it would be possible for Delia to leave Maumsey; and it was +generally understood that she would then join her friend in London, +just in time for the opening of Parliament. For the moment, it was +plain she was not engaged in any violent doings. But who could answer +for the future? + +And meanwhile, what was Mark Winnington about? It was all very well to +sit there trifling with the pages of the _Quarterly Review_! In her +moments of solitude by night or day, during the five days she had +already spent at Maumsey, Madeleine had never really given her mind to +anything else but the engrossing question. "Is he in love with her--or +is he not?" + +Of course she had foreseen--had feared--the possibility of it, from +that very first moment, almost--when Winnington had written to her +describing the terms of Bob Blanchflower's will, and his own acceptance +of the guardianship. + +Yet why "feared"? Had she not for years desired few things so sincerely +as to see Winnington happily married? As to that old tragedy, with its +romantic effect upon his life, her first acquiescence in that effect, +as something irrevocable, had worn away with time. It now seemed to her +an intolerable thing that Agnes Clay's death should forever stand +between Winnington and love. It was positively anti-social--bad +citizenship--that such a man as Mark Winnington should not produce +sons and daughters for the State, when all the wastrels and cheats in +creation were so active in the business. + +All the same she had but rarely ventured to attack him on the subject, +and the results had not been encouraging. She was certain that he had +entered upon the guardianship of Delia Blanchflower in complete +single-mindedness--confident, disdainfully confident, in his own +immunity; and after that first outburst into which friendship had +betrayed her, she had not dared to return to the subject. But she had +watched him--with the lynx eyes of a best friend; and that best friend, +a woman to whom love affairs were the most interesting things in +existence. In which, of course, she knew she was old-fashioned, and +behind the mass of the sex, now racing toward what she understood was +called the "economic independence of women"--_i.e._ a life without man. + +But in spite of watching, she was much perplexed--as to both the +persons concerned. She had now been nearly a week at Maumsey, in +obedience to Delia's invitation and Winnington's urging. The +opportunity indeed of getting to know Mark's beautiful--and +troublesome--ward, more intimately, was extremely welcome to her +curiosity. Hitherto Gertrude Marvell had served as an effective barrier +between Delia and her neighbours. The neighbours did not want to know +Miss Marvell, and Miss Marvell, Madeleine Tonbridge was certain, had +never intended that the neighbours should rob her of Delia. + +But now Gertrude Marvell had in some strange sudden way vacated her +post; and the fortress lay open to attack and capture, were anyone +strong enough to seize it. Moreover Delia's visitor had not been +twenty-four hours in the house before she had perceived that Delia's +attitude to her guardian was new, and full of suggestion to the shrewd +bystander. Winnington had clearly begun to interest the girl +profoundly--both in himself, and in his relation to her. She now wished +to please him, and was nervously anxious to avoid hurting or offending +him. She was always conscious of his neighbourhood or his mood; she was +eager--though she tried to conceal it--for information about him; and +three nights already had Lady Tonbridge lingered over Delia's bedroom +fire, the girl on the rug at her feet, while the elder woman poured out +her recollections of Mark Winnington, from the days when she and he had +been young together. + +As to that vanished betrothed, Agnes Clay,--the heroine of Winnington's +brief engagement--Delia's thirst for knowledge, in a restless, +suppressed way, had been insatiable. Was she jealous of that poor +ghost, and of all those delicate, domestic qualities with which her +biographer could not but invest her? The daughter of a Dean of +Wanchester--retiring, spiritual, tender,--suggesting a cloistered +atmosphere, and _The Christian Year_--she was still sharp in +Madeleine's recollection, and that lady felt a certain secret and +mischievous zest in drawing her portrait, while Delia, her black brows +drawn together, her full red mouth compressed, sat silent. + +Then--Wilmington as a friend!--upon that theme indeed Madeleine had +used her brightest colours. And to make this passive listener +understand what friendship meant in Wilmington's soul, it had been +necessary for the speaker to tell her own story, as much at least as it +was possible for her to tell, and Delia to hear. A hasty marriage--"my +own fault, my dear, as much as my parents'!"--twelve years of torment +and humiliation at the hands of a bad man, descending rapidly to the +pit, and quite willing to drag his wife and child with him, ending in a +separation largely arranged by Winnington--and then-- + +"We retired, Nora and I, on a decent allowance, my own money really, +only like a fool, I had let it all get into Alfred's hands. We took a +house at Richmond. Nora was fifteen. For two years my husband paid the +money. Then he wrote to say he was tired of doing without his daughter, +and he required her to live with him for six months in the year, as a +condition of continuing the allowance. I refused. We would sooner both +of us have thrown ourselves into the Thames. Alfred blustered and +threatened--but he could do nothing--except cut off the allowance, +which he did, at once. Then Mark Winnington found me the cottage here, +and made everything smooth for us. I wouldn't take any money from him, +though he was abominably ready to give it us! But he got me lessons--he +got me friends. He's made everybody here feel for us, and respect us. +He's managed the little bits of property we've got left--he's watched +over Nora--he's been our earthly Providence--and we both adore him!" + +On which the speaker, with a flickering smile and tear-dashed eyes, had +taken Delia's face in her two slender hands-- + +"And don't be such a fool, dear, as to imagine there's been anything in +it, ever, but the purest friendship and good-heartedness that ever +bound three people together! My greatest joy would be to see him +married--to a woman worthy of him--if there is one! And he I suppose +will find his reward in marrying Nora--to some nice fellow. He begins +to match-make for her already." + +Delia slowly withdrew herself. + +"And he himself doesn't intend to marry?" She asked the question, +clasping her long arms round her knees, as she sat on the floor, her +dark eyes--defiantly steady on her guest's face. + +Lady Tonbridge could hear her own answer. + +"L'homme propose! Let the right woman try!" Whereupon Delia, a +delicious figure, in a slim white dressing-gown, a flood of curly brown +hair falling about her neck and shoulders, had sprung up, and bidden +her guest a hasty good-night. + +One other small incident she recalled. + +_A propos_ of some anxious calculation made by Winnington's sister +Alice Matheson one day in talk with Lady Tonbridge--Delia being +present--as to whether Mark could possibly afford a better motor than +the "ramshackle little horror" he was at present dependent on, Delia +had said abruptly, on the departure of Mrs. Matheson-- + +"But surely the legacy my father left Mr. Winnington would get a new +motor!" + +"But he hasn't taken it, and never will!" Lady Tonbridge had cried, +amazed at the girl's ignorance. + +"Why not?" Delia had demanded, almost fiercely, looking very tall, and +oddly resentful. + +Why not? "Because one doesn't take payment for that sort of thing!" had +been Mark's laughing explanation, and the only explanation that she, +Madeleine, had been able to get out of him. She handed it on--to +Delia's evident discomfort. So, all along, this very annoying--though +attaching--young woman had imagined that Winnington was being +handsomely paid for putting up with her? + + * * * * * + +And Winnington? + +Here again, it was plain there was a change of attitude, though what it +meant Madeleine could not satisfactorily settle with herself. In the +early days of his guardianship he had been ready enough to come to her, +his most intimate woman-friend, and talk about his ward, though always +with that chivalrous delicacy which was his gift among men. Of late he +had been much less ready to talk; a good sign! And now, since Gertrude +Marvell's blessed departure, he was more at Maumsey than he had ever +been before. He seemed indeed to be pitting his own influence against +Miss Marvell's, and in his modest way, yet consciously, to be taking +Delia in hand, and endeavouring to alter her outlook on life; clearing +away, so far as he could, the atmosphere of angry, hearsay propaganda +in which she had spent her recent years, and trying to bring her face +to face with the deeper loves and duties and sorrows which she in her +headstrong youth knew so little about, while they entered so profoundly +into his own upright and humane character. + +Well, but did all this mean _love_?--the desire of the man for the +woman. + +Madeleine Tonbridge pondered it. She recollected a number of little +acts and sayings, throwing light upon his profound feeling for the +girl, his sympathy with her convictions, her difficulties, her wild +revolts against existing abuses and tyrannies. "I learn from her"--he +had said once, in conversation,--"she teaches me many things." +Madeleine could have laughed in his face--but for the passionate +sincerity in his look. + +One thing she perceived--that he was abundantly roused on the subject +of that man Lathrop's acquaintance with his ward. Lathrop's name had +not been mentioned since Lady Tonbridge's arrival, but she received the +impression of a constant vigilance on Winnington's part, and a certain +mystery and unhappiness on Delia's. As to the notion that such a man as +Paul Lathrop could have any attraction for such a girl as Delia +Blanchflower, the idea was simply preposterous,--except on the general +theory that no one is really sane, and every woman "is at heart a +rake." But of course there was the common interest, or what appeared to +be a common interest in this militant society to which Delia was still +so intolerably committed! And an unscrupulous man might easily make +capital out of it. + +At this stage in the rambling reverie which possessed her, Lady +Tonbridge was aware of footsteps on the gravel outside. Winnington? He +had proposed to take Delia for a ride that afternoon, to distract her +mind from Weston's state, and from the operation which was to take +place early the following morning. She drew the curtain aside. + +Paul Lathrop! + +Madeleine felt herself flushing with surprise and indignation. The +visitor was let in immediately. It surely was her duty to go down and +play watchdog. + +She firmly rose. But as she did so, there was a knock at her door, and +Delia hurriedly entered. + +"I--I thought I'd better say--Mr. Lathrop's just come to see me--on +business. I'm so sorry, but you won't mind my coming to say so?" + +Lady Tonbridge raised her eyebrows. + +"You mean--you want to see him alone? All right. I'll come down +presently." + +Delia disappeared. + + * * * * * + +For more than half an hour did that "disreputable creature," as Lady +Tonbridge roundly dubbed him, remain closeted with Delia, in Delia's +drawing-room. Towards the end of the time the visitor overhead was +walking to and fro impatiently, vowing to herself that she was +bound--positively bound to Winnington--to go down and dislodge the man. +But just as she was about to leave her room, she again heard the front +door open and close. She ran to the window just in time to see Lathrop +departing--and Winnington arriving!--on foot and alone. She watched +the two men pass each other in the drive--Winnington's start of haughty +surprise--and Lathrop's smiling and, as she thought, insolent greeting. +It seemed to her that Winnington hesitated--was about to stop and +address the intruder. But he finally passed him by with the slightest +and coldest recognition. Lathrop's fair hair and slouching shoulders +disappeared round a corner of the drive. Winnington hurried to the +front door and entered. + +Lady Tonbridge resolutely threw herself into an arm-chair and took up a +novel. + +"Now let them have it out! I don't interfere." + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile Delia, with a red spot of agitation on either cheek, was +sitting at the old satin-wood bureau in the drawing-room, writing a +cheque. A knock at the door disturbed her. She half rose, to see +Wilmington open and close it. + +A look at his face startled her. She sank back into her chair, in +evident confusion. But her troubled eyes met his appealingly. + +Wilmington's disturbance was plain. + +"I had ventured to think--to hope--" he began, abruptly--"that although +you refused to give me your promise when I asked it, yet that you would +not again--or so soon again--receive Mr. Lathrop--privately." + +Delia rose and came towards him. + +"I told Lady Tonbridge not to come down. Was that very wrong of me?" + +She looked at him, half smiling, half hanging her head. + +"It was unwise--and, I think, unkind!" said Winnington, with energy. + +"Unkind to you?" She lifted her beautiful eyes. There was something +touching in their strained expression, and in her tone. + +"Unkind to yourself, first of all," he said, firmly. "I must repeat +Miss Delia, that this man is not a fit associate for you or any young +girl. You do yourself harm by admitting him--by allowing him to see you +alone--and you hurt your friends." + +Delia paused a moment. + +"Then you don't trust me at all?" she said at last, slowly. + +Winnington melted. How pale she looked! He came forward and took her +hand-- + +"Of course I trust you! But you don't know--you are too young. You +confess you have some business with Mr. Lathrop that you can't tell +me--your guardian; and you have no idea to what misrepresentations you +expose yourself, or with what kind of a man you have to deal!" + +Delia withdrew her hand, and dropped into a chair--her eyes on the +carpet. + +"I meant--" she said, and her tone trembled--"I did mean to have told +you everything to-day." + +"And now--now you can't?" + +She made no reply, and in the silence he watched her closely. What +could account for such an eclipse of all her young vivacity? It was +clear to him that that fellow was entangling her in some monstrous +way--part and parcel no doubt of this militant propaganda--and +calculating on developments. Winnington's blood boiled. But while he +stood uncertain, Delia rose, went to the bureau where she had been +writing, brought thence a cheque, and mutely offered it. + +"What is this?" he asked. + +"The money you lent me." + +And to his astonishment he saw that the cheque was for Ł500, and was +signed "Delia Blanchflower." + +"You will of course explain?" he said, looking at her keenly. Suddenly +Delia's embarrassed smile broke through. + +"It's--it's only that I've been trying to pay my debts!" + +His patience gave way. + +"I'm afraid I must tell you--very plainly--that unless you can account +to me for this cheque, I must entirely refuse to take it!" + +Delia put her hands behind her, like a scolded child. + +"It is my very own," she protested, mildly. "I had some ugly jewels +that my grandmother left me, and I have sold them--that's all." + +Winnington's grey eyes held her. + +"H'm--and--has Mr. Lathrop had anything to do with the sale?" + +"Yes!" She looked up frankly, still smiling. "He has managed it for +me." + +"And it never occurred to you to apply to your guardian in such a +matter? Or to your lawyer?" + +She laughed--with what he admitted was a very natural scorn. "Ask my +guardian to provide me with the means of helping the 'Daughters'--when +he regards us all as criminals? On the contrary, I wanted to relieve +your conscience, Mr. Winnington!" + +"I can't say you have succeeded," he said, grimly, as he began to pace +the drawing-room, with slow steps, his hands in his pockets. + +"Why not? Now--everything you give me--can go to the right things--what +you consider the right things. And what is my own--my very own--I can +use as I please." + +Yet neither tone nor gesture were defiant, as they would have been a +few weeks before. Rather her look was wistful--appealing--as she stood +there, a perplexing, but most charming figure, in her plain black +dress, with its Quakerish collar of white lawn. + +He turned on her impetuously. + +"And Mr. Lathrop has arranged it all for you?" + +"Yes. He said he knew a good deal about jewellers. I gave him some +diamonds. He took them to London, and he has sold them." + +"How do you know he has even treated you honestly!" + +"I am certain he has done it honestly!" she cried indignantly. "There +are the letters--from the jewellers--" And running to the bureau, she +took thence a packet of letters and thrust them into Winnington's +hands. + +He looked them through in silence,--turning to her, as he put them +down. + +"I see. It is of course possible that this firm of jewellers have paid +Mr. Lathrop a heavy commission behind the scenes, of which you know +nothing. But I don't press that. Indeed I will assume exactly the +contrary. I will suppose that Mr. Lathrop has acted without any profit +to himself. If so, in my eyes it only makes the matter worse--for it +establishes a claim on you. Miss Delia!--" his resolute gaze held +her--"I do not take a farthing of this money unless you allow me to +write to Mr. Lathrop, and offer him a reasonable commission for his +services!" + +"No--no! Impossible!" + +She turned away from him, towards the window, biting her lip--in sharp +distress. + +"Then I return you this cheque"--he laid it down beside her. "And I +shall replace the money,--the Ł500--which I ought never to have allowed +you to spend as you have done, out of my own private pocket." + +She stood silent, looking into the garden, her chest heaving. She +thought of what Lady Tonbridge had told her of his modest means--and +those generous hidden uses of them, of which even his most intimate +friends only got an occasional glimpse. Suddenly she went up to him-- + +"Will you--will you promise me to write civilly?" she said, in a +wavering voice. + +"Certainly." + +"You won't offend--insult him?" + +"I will remember that you have allowed him to come into this +drawing-room, and treated him as a guest," said Winnington coldly. "But +why, Miss Delia, are you so careful about this man's feelings? And is +it still impossible that you should meet my wishes--and refuse to see +him again?" + +She shook her head--mutely. + +"You intend--to see him again?" + +"You forget--that we have--business together." + +Winnington paused a moment, then came nearer to the chair on which she +had dropped. + +"This last week--we have been very good friends--haven't we, Miss +Delia?" + +"Call me Delia, please!" + +"Delia, then!--we have come to understand each other much +better--haven't we?" + +She made a drooping sign of assent. + +"_Can't_ I persuade you--to be guided by me--as your father +wished--during these next years of your life? I don't ask you to give +up your convictions--your ideals. We should all be poor creatures +without them! But I do ask you to give up these violent and illegal +methods--this violent and illegal Society--with which you have +become entangled. It will ruin your life, and poison your whole +nature!--unless you can shake yourself free. Work for the Suffrage +as much as you like--but work for it honourably--and lawfully. I ask +you--I beg of you!--to give up these associates--and these methods." + +The tenderness and gravity of his tone touched the girl's quivering +senses almost unbearably. It was like the tenderness of a woman. She +felt a wild impulse to throw herself into his arms, and weep. But +instead she grew very white and still. + +"I can't!"--was all she said, her eyes on the ground. Winnington turned +away. + +Suddenly--a sound of hasty steps in the hall outside--and the door was +opened by a nurse, in uniform. + +"Miss Blanchflower!--can you come?" + +Delia sprang up. She and the nurse disappeared together. + + * * * * * + +Winnington guessed what had happened. Weston who was to face a +frightful operation on the morrow as the only chance of saving her +life, had on the whole gone through the fortnight of preparatory +treatment with wonderful courage. But during the last forty-eight +hours, there had been attacks of crying and excitement, connected with +the making of her will, which she had insisted on doing, being herself +convinced that she would die under the knife. Medically, all such +agitation was disastrous. But the only person who could calm her at +these moments was Delia, whom she loved. And the girl had shewn in +dealing with her a marvellous patience and strength. + +Presently Madeleine Tonbridge came downstairs--with red eyes. She +described the scene of which she had just been a witness in Weston's +room. Delia, she said, choking again at the thought of it, had been +"wonderful." Then she looked enquiringly at Winnington-- + +"You met that man going away?" + +He sat down beside her, unable to disguise his trouble of mind, or to +resist the temptation of her sympathy and their old friendship. + +"I am certain there is some plot afoot--some desperate business--and +they are trying to draw her into it! What can we do?" + +Lady Tonbridge shook her head despondently. What indeed could they do, +with a young lady of full age,--bent on her own way? + +Then she noticed the cheque lying open on the table, and asked what it +meant. + +"Miss Delia wishes to repay me some money I lent her," said Winnington, +after a pause. "As matters stand at present, I prefer to wait. Would +you kindly take charge of the cheque for her? No need to worry her +about it again, to-night." + + * * * * * + +Delia came down at tea-time, pale and quiet, like one from whom virtue +has gone out. By tacit consent Winnington and Lady Tonbridge devoted +themselves to her. It seemed as though in both minds there had arisen +the same thought of her as orphaned and motherless, the same pity, the +same resentment that anything so lovely should be unhappy--as she +clearly was; and not only, so both were convinced, on account of her +poor maid. + +Winnington stayed on into the lamplight, and presently began to read +aloud. The scene became intimate and domestic. Delia very silent, sat +in a deep arm chair, some pretence at needlework on her knee, but in +reality doing nothing but look into the fire, and listen to +Winnington's voice. She had changed while upstairs into a white dress, +and the brilliance of her hair, and wide, absent eyes above the +delicate folds of white, seemed to burn in Winnington's consciousness +as he read. Presently however, Lady Tonbridge looking up, was startled +to see that the girl had imperceptibly fallen asleep. The childish +sadness and sweetness of the face in its utter repose seemed to present +another Delia, with another history. Madeleine hoped that Winnington +had not observed the girl's sleep; and he certainly gave no sign of it. +He went on reading; and presently his companion, noticing the clock, +rose very quietly, and went out to give a letter to the parlour-maid +for post. + +As she entered the room again, however, she saw that Winnington had +laid down his book. His eyes were now on Delia--his lips parted. All +the weather-beaten countenance of the man, its deep lines graven by +strenuous living, glowed as from an inward light--marvellously intense +and pure. Madeleine's pulse leapt. She had her answer to her +speculations of the afternoon. + +Meanwhile through Delia's sleeping mind there swept scenes and images +of fear. She grew restless, and as Lady Tonbridge slipped again into +her chair by the fire, the girl woke suddenly with a long quivering +sigh, a sound of pain, which provoked a quick movement of alarm in +Winnington. + +But she very soon recovered her usual manner; and Winnington said +good-night. He went away carrying his anxieties with him through the +dark, carrying also a tumult of soul that would not be stilled. Whither +was he drifting? Of late he had felt sure of himself again. Her best +friend and guide--it was that he was rapidly becoming--with that, day +by day, he bade himself be content. And now, once more, self-control +was uprooted and tottering. It was the touch of this new softness, this +note of innocent appeal, even of bewildered distress, in her, which was +kindling all his manhood, and breaking down his determination. + +He raged at the thought of Lathrop. As to any danger of a love-affair, +like Lady Tonbridge, he scouted the notion. It would be an insult to +Delia to suppose such a thing. But it was simply intolerable in his +eyes that she should have any dealings with the fellow--that he should +have the audacity to call at her house, to put her under an obligation. + +And he was persuaded there was more than appeared in it; more than +Delia's devices for getting money, wherewith to feed the League of +Revolt. She was clearly anxious, afraid. Some shadow was brooding over +her, some terror that she could not disclose:--of that Winnington was +certain. And this man, whom she had already accepted as her colleague +in a public campaign, was evidently in the secret; might be even the +cause of her fears. + +He began hotly to con the terms of his letter to Lathrop; and then had +to pull himself up, remembering unwillingly what he had promised Delia. + + + + +Chapter XV + + +"Do you know anything more?" + +The voice was Delia's; and the man who had just met her in the shelter +of the wooded walk which ran along the crest of the hill above the +Maumsey valley, was instantly aware of the agitation of the speaker. + +"Nothing--precise. As I told you last week--you needn't be afraid of +anything immediate. But my London informants assure me that elaborate +preparations are certainly going on for some great _coup_ as soon as +Parliament meets--against Sir Wilfrid. The police are uneasy, though +puzzled. They have warned Daunt, and Sir Wilfrid is guarded." + +"Then of course our people won't attempt it! It would be far too +dangerous." + +"Don't be too sure! You and I know Miss Marvell. If she means to burn +Monk Lawrence, she'll achieve it, whatever the police may do." + +The man and the girl walked on in silence. The January afternoons were +lengthening a little, and even under the shadow of the wood Lathrop +could see with sufficient plainness Delia's pale beauty--strangely worn +and dimmed as it seemed to him. His mind revolted. Couldn't the jealous +gods spare even this physical perfection? What on earth had been +happening to her? He supposed a Christian would call the face +"spiritualised." If so, the Christian--in his opinion--would be a human +ass. + +"I have written several times to Miss Marvell--very strongly," said +Delia at last. "I thought you ought to know that. But I have had no +reply." + +"Why don't you go--instead of writing?" + +"It has been impossible. My maid has been so terribly ill." + +Lathrop expressed his sympathy. Delia received it with coldness and a +slight frown. She hurried on-- + +"I've written again--but I haven't sent it. Perhaps I oughtn't to have +written by post." + +"Better not. Shall I be your messenger? Miss Marvell doesn't like +me--but that don't matter." + +"Oh, no, thank you." The voice was hastily emphatic; so that his +vanity winced. "There are several members of the League in the village. +I shall send one of them." + +He smiled--rather maliciously. + +"Are you going to tackle Miss Andrews herself?" + +"You're still--quite _certain_--that she's concerned?" + +"Quite certain. Since you and I met--a fortnight ago isn't it?--I have +seen her several times, in the neighbourhood of the house--after dark. +She has no idea, of course, that I have been prowling round." + +"What have you seen?--what can she be doing?" asked Delia. "Of course I +remember what you told me--the other day." + +Lathrop's belief was that a close watch was now being kept on Daunt--on +his goings and comings--with a view perhaps to beguiling him away, and +then getting into the house. + +"But he has lately got a niece to stay with him, and help look after +the children, and the house. His sister who is married in London, +offered to send her down for six months. He was rather surprised, for +he had quite lost sight of his sister; but he tells me it's a great +relief to his mind. + +"So you talk to him?" + +"Certainly. Oh, he knows all about me--but he knows too that I'm on the +side of the house! He thinks I'm a queer chap--but he can trust me--in +_that_ business. And by the way, Miss Blanchflower, perhaps I ought to +let you understand that I'm an artist and a writer, before I'm a +Suffragist, and if I come across Miss Marvell--engaged in what you and +I have been talking of--I shall behave just like any other member of +the public, and act for the police. I don't want to sail--with +you--under any false pretences!" + +"I know," said Delia, quietly. "You came to warn me--and we are acting +together. I understand perfectly. You--you've promised however"--she +could not keep her voice quite normal--"that you'd let me know--that +you'd give me notice before you took any step." + +Lathrop nodded. "If there's time--I promise. But if Daunt or I come +upon Miss Marvell--or any of her minions--torch in hand--there would +not be time. Though, of course, if I could help her escape, +consistently with saving the house--for your sake--I should do so. I am +sure you believe that?" + +Delia made no audible reply, but he took her silence for consent. + +"And now"--he resumed--"I ought to be informed without delay, whether +your messenger finds Miss Marvell and how she receives your letter." + +"I will let you know at once." + +"A telegram brings me here--this same spot. But you won't wire from the +village?" + +"Oh no, from Latchford." + +"Well, then, that's settled. Regard me, please, as your henchman. +Well!--have you read any Madame de Noailles?" + +He fancied he saw a slight impatient movement. + +"Not yet, I'm afraid. I've been living in a sick room." + +Again he expressed polite sympathy, while his thoughts repeated--"What +waste!--what absurdity!" + +"She might distract you--especially in these winter days. Her verse is +the very quintessence of summer--of hot gardens and their scents--of +roses--and June twilights. It takes one out of this leafless north." He +stretched a hand to the landscape. + +And suddenly, while his heavy face kindled, he began to recite. His +French was immaculate--even to a sensitive and well-trained ear; and +his voice, which in speaking was disagreeable, took in reciting deep +and beautiful notes, which easily communicated to a listener the +thrill, the passion, of sensuous pleasure, which certain poetry +produced in himself. + +But it communicated no such thrill to Delia. She was only irritably +conscious of the uncouthness of his large cadaverous face, and +straggling fair hair; of his ragged ulster, his loosened tie, and all +the other untidy details of his dress. "And I shall have to go on +meeting him!" she thought, with repulsion. "And at the end of this walk +(the gate was in sight) I shall have to shake hands with him--and he'll +hold my hand." + +She loathed the thought of it; but she knew very well that she +Was under coercion--for Gertrude's sake. The recollection of +Winnington--away in Latchford on county business--smote her sharply. +But how could she help it? She must--_must_ keep in touch with this +man--who had Gertrude in his power. + +While these thoughts were running through her mind, he stopped his +recitation abruptly. + +"Am I to help you any more--with the jewels?" + +Delia started. Lathrop was smiling at her, and she resented the smile. +She had forgotten. But there was no help for it. She must have more +money. It might be, in the last resort, the means of bargaining with +Gertrude. And how could she ask Mark Winnington! + +So she hurriedly thanked him, naming a tiara and two pendants, that she +thought must be valuable. + +"All right," said Lathrop, taking out a note-book from his breast +pocket, and looking at certain entries he had made on the occasion of +his visit to Maumsey. "I remember--worth a couple of thousand at least. +When shall I have them?" + +"I will send them registered--to-morrow--from Latchford." + +"_ Trčs bien_! I will do my best. You know Mr. Winnington has offered +me a commission?" His eyes laughed. + +Delia turned upon him. + +"And you ought to accept it, Mr. Lathrop! It would be kinder to all of +us." + +She spoke with spirit and dignity. But he laughed again and shook his +head. + +"My reward, you see, is just _not_ to be paid. My fee is your +presence--in this wood--your little word of thanks--and the hand you +give me--on the bargain!" + +They had reached the gate, and he held out his hand. Delia had flushed +violently, but she yielded her own. He pressed it lingeringly, as she +had foreseen, then released it and opened the gate for her. + +"Good-bye then. A word commands me--when you wish. We keep watch--and +each informs the other--barring accidents. That is, I think, the +bargain." + +She murmured assent, and they parted. Half way back towards his own +cottage, Lathrop paused at a spot where the trees were thin, and the +slopes of the valley below could be clearly seen. He could still make +out her figure nearing the first houses of the village. + +"I think she hates me. Never mind! I command her, and meet me she +must--when I please to summon her. There is some sweetness in that--and +in teasing the stupid fellow who no doubt will own her some day." + +And he thought exultantly of Winnington's letter to him, and his own +insolent reply. It had been a perfectly civil letter--and a perfectly +proper thing for a guardian to do. But--for the moment-- + +"I have the whip hand--and it amuses me to keep it,--Now then for +Blaydes!" + +For there, in the doorway of the cottage, stood the young journalist, +waiting and smoking. He was evidently in good humour. + +"Well? She came?" + +"Of course she came. But it doesn't matter to you." + +"Oh, doesn't it! I suppose she wants you to sell something more for +her?" + +Lathrop did not reply. Concerning Gertrude Marvell, he had not breathed +a word to Blaydes. + +They entered the hut together, and Lathrop rekindled the fire. The two +men sat over it smoking. Blaydes plied his companion with eager +questions, to which Lathrop returned the scantiest answers. At last he +said with a sarcastic look-- + +"I was offered four hundred pounds this afternoon--and refused it." + +"The deuce you did!" cried Blaydes, fiercely. "What about my debt--and +what do you mean?" + +"Ten per cent. commission," said Lathrop, drawing quietly at his cigar. +"Sales up to two thou., a fortnight ago. I shall get the same money--or +more--for the next batch." + +"Well, that's all right! No need to get it out of the lady, if you're +particular. Get it out of the other side. Any fool could manage that." + +"I shall not get a farthing out of the other side. I shall not make a +doit out of the whole transaction!" + +"Then you're a d----d fool," said Blaydes, in a passion. "And a +dishonest fool besides!" + +"Easy, please! What hold should I have on this girl--this splendid +creature--if I were merely to make money out of her? As it is, she's +obliged to me--she treats me like a gentleman. I thought you had +matrimonial ideas." + +"I don't believe you've got the ghost of a chance!" grumbled Blaydes, +his mind smarting under the thought of the lost four hundred pounds, +out of which his debt might have been paid. + +"Nor do I," said Lathrop, coolly. "But I choose to keep on equal terms +with her. You can sell me up when you like." + +He lounged to the window, and threw it open. The January day was +closing, not in any glory of sunset, but with interwoven greys and +pearls, and delicate yellow lights slipping through the clouds. + +"I shall always have _this_"--he said to himself, passionately, as he +drank in the air and the beauty--"whatever happens." + +Recollection brought back to him Delia's proud, virginal youth, and her +springing step as she walked beside him through the wood. His mind +wavered again between triumph and self-disgust. His muddy past returned +upon him, mingled, as always, with that invincible respect for her, and +belief in something high and unstained in the depths of his own nature, +to which his weakened and corrupt will was yet unable to give any +effect. + +"What I have done is not 'me'"--he thought. "At any rate not all +'me.' I am better than it. I suspect Winnington has told her +something--measuring it chastely out. All the same--I shall see her +again." + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile Delia was descending the hill pursued by doubts and terrors. +The day was now darkening fast, and heavy snow-clouds were coming +down over the valley. The wind had dropped, but the heavy air was +bitter-cold and lifeless, as though the earth waited sadly for the +silencing and muffling of the snow. + +And in Delia's heart there was a like dumb expectancy of change. The +old enthusiasms, and ideals and causes, seemed for the moment to lie +veiled and frozen within her. Only two figures emerged sharply in the +landscape of thought--Gertrude--and Winnington. + +Since that day, the day before Weston's operation, when Paul Lathrop +had brought her evidence--collected partly from small incidents and +observations on the spot, partly from information supplied him by +friends in London--which had sharpened all her own suspicions into +certainties, she had never known an hour free from fear. Her letters +had remained wholly unanswered. She did not even know where Gertrude +was; though it seemed to her that letters addressed to the head office +of the League of Revolt must have been forwarded. No! Gertrude was +really planning this hateful thing; the destruction of this beautiful +and historic house, with all its memories and its treasures, in order +to punish a Cabinet Minister for his opposition to Woman Suffrage, +and so terrorise others. Moreover it meant the risking of human +life--Daunt--his children, complete indifference also to Delia's +feelings, Delia's pain. + +What was she to do? Betray her friend?--go to Winnington for help? But +he was a magistrate. If such a plot were really on foot--and Lathrop +was himself convinced that petroleum and explosives were already stored +somewhere in the neighbourhood of the house--Winnington could only +treat such a thing as a public servant, as a guardian of the +law. Any appeal to him to let private interests--even _her_ +interests--interfere, would, she felt certain, be entirely fruitless. +Once go to him, the police must be informed--it would be his clear +duty; and if such proofs of the plot existed as Lathrop believed, +Gertrude would be arrested, and her accomplices. Including Delia +herself? + +That possibility, instead of frightening her, gave the girl some +momentary comfort. For that _might_ perhaps secure Winnington's +silence? + +But no!--her common sense dismissed the notion. Winnington would +discover at once that she had had no connection whatever with the +business. Lathrop's evidence alone would be enough. And that being so, +her confession would simply hand Gertrude over to Winnington's +conscience. And Mark Winnington's conscience was a thing to fear. + +And yet the yearning to go to him--like the yearning of an unhappy +child--was so strong. + +Traitor!--yes, _traitor_!--double-dyed. + +And pausing just outside the village, at a field gate, Delia leant over +it, gazing into the lowering sky, and piteously crying to some power +beyond--some God, "if any Zeus there be," on whom the heart in its +trouble might throw itself. + +Her thought ran backwards and forwards over the past months and years. +The burning moments of revolt through which she had lived--the meetings +of the League with their multitudes of faces, strained, fierce faces, +alive, many of them, with hatreds new to English life, new perhaps to +civilised history,--and the intermittent gusts of pity and fury which +had swept through her own young ignorance as she listened, making a +hideous thing of the future and of human fate:--she lived through them +all again. Individual personalities recurred to her, the wild looks of +delicate, frenzied women, who had lost health, employment, and the love +of friends--suffered in body, mind and estate for this "cause" to which +she too had vowed herself. Was she alone to desert, to fail--both the +cause and her friend, who had taught her everything? + +"It's not my will--not my _will_--that shrinks"--she moaned to herself. +"If I _believed_--if I still believed!" + +But why was the fire gone out of the old faiths, the savour from the +old hopes? Was she less moved by the sufferings, the toils, the +weakness of her sex? She could remember nights of weeping over the +wrongs of women, after an impassioned evening with Gertrude. And +now--had the heart of flesh become a heart of stone? Was she no longer +worthy of the great crusade, the vast upheaval? + +She could not tell. She only knew that the glamour of it all was +gone--that there were many hours when the Movement lay like lead upon +her life. Was it simply that her intelligence had revolted, that she +had come to see the folly, the sheer, ludicrous folly of a "physical +force" policy which opposed the pin-pricks of women to the strength of +men? Or was it something else--something far more compelling--more +convincing--more humiliating! + +"I've just fallen in love!--_fallen in love!_"--the words repeated +themselves brazenly, desperately, in her mind:--"and I can't think for +myself--judge for myself any longer! It's abominable--but it's true!" + +The very thought of Winnington's voice and look made her tremble as she +walked. Eternal weakness of the eternal woman! She scorned herself, yet +a bewildering joy sang through her senses. + +Nevertheless she held it at bay. She had her promised word--her +honour--to think of. Gertrude still expected her in London--on the +scene of action. + +"And I shall go," she said to herself with resolute inconsistency, "_I +shall go_!" + +What an angel Mark Winnington had been to her, this last fortnight! She +recalled the day of Weston's operation, and all the long days since. +The poor gentle creature had suffered terribly; death had been just +held off, from hour to hour; and was only now withdrawing. And Delia, +sitting by the bed, or stealing with hushed foot about the house, was +not only torn by pity for the living sufferer, she was haunted again by +all the memories of her father's dying struggle--bitter and miserable +days! And with what tenderness, what strength, what infinite delicacy +of thought and care, had she been upheld through it all! Her heart +melted within her. "There are such men in the world--there are!--and a +year ago I should have simply despised anyone who told me so!" + +Yet after these weeks of deepening experience, and sacred feeling, in +which she had come to love Mark Winnington with all the strength of her +young heart, and to realise that she loved him, the first use that she +was making of a free hour was to go, unknown to him--for he was away +on county business at Wanchester--and meet Paul Lathrop! + +"But he would understand," she said to herself, drearily, as she moved +on again. "If he knew, he would understand." + + * * * * * + +Now she must hurry on. She turned into the broad High Street of the +village, observed by many people, and half way down, she stopped at a +door on which was a brass plate, "Miss Toogood, Dressmaker." + +The lame woman greeted her with delight, and there in the back parlour +of the little shop she found them gathered,--Kitty Foster, the +science-mistress, Miss Jackson, and Miss Toogood,--the three +"Daughters," who were now coldly looked on in the village, and found +pleasure chiefly in each other's society. Marion Andrews was not there. +Delia indeed fancied she had seen her in the dusk, walking in a side +lane, that led into the Monk Lawrence road, with another girl, whom +Delia did not know. + +It was a relief, however, not to find her--for the moment. The faces of +the three women in the back parlour, were all strained and nervous; +they spoke low, and they gathered round Delia with an eagerness which +betrayed their own sense of isolation--of being left leaderless. + +"You will be going up soon, won't you?" whispered Miss Toogood, as she +stroked the sleeve of Delia's jacket. "The _Tocsin_ says there'll be +great doings next week--the day Parliament meets." + +"I've got my orders!"--said Kitty Foster, tossing her red hair +mysteriously. "Father won't keep me down here any longer. I've made +arrangements to go up to-morrow and lodge with a cousin in Battersea. +She's as deep in it as I am." + +"And I'm hoping they'll find room for me in the League office," said +the science-mistress. "I can't stand this life here much longer. My +Governors are always showing me they think us all criminals, and +they'll find an excuse for getting rid of me whenever they can. I +daren't even put up the 'Daughters' colours in my room now." + +Her hollow, anxious eyes, with the fanatical light in them clung to +Delia--to the girl's noble head, and the young face flushed with the +winter wind. + +"But we shall get it this session, shan't we?" said Miss Toogood +eagerly, still stroking Delia's fur. "The Government will give in--they +must give in." + +And she began to talk with hushed enthusiasm of the last month's tale +of outrages--houses burnt, windows broken, Downing Street attacked, red +pepper thrown over a Minister, ballot-boxes spoiled-- + +Suddenly it all seemed to Delia so absurd--so pathetic-- + +"I don't think we shall get the Bill!" she said, sombrely. "We shall be +tricked again." + +"Dear, dear!" said Miss Toogood, helplessly. "Then we shall have to go +on. It's war. We can't stop." + +And as she stood there, sadly contemplating the "war," in which, +poor soul, she had never yet joined, except by sympathy, a little +bill-distributing and a modest subscription, she seemed to carry on her +shoulders the whole burden of the "Movement"--herself, the little lame +dressmaker, on the one side--and a truculent British Empire on the +other. + +"We'll make them smart anyway!" cried Kitty Foster. "See if we don't!" + +Delia hurriedly opened her business. Would one of them take a letter +for her to London--an important letter to Miss Marvell that she didn't +want to trust to the post. Whoever took it must go to the League office +and find out where Miss Marvell was, and deliver it--personally. She +couldn't go herself--till after the doctors' consultation, which was to +be held on Monday--if then. + +Miss Jackson at once volunteered. Her face lightened eagerly. + +"It's Saturday. I shall be free. And then I shall see for myself--at +the office--if they can give me anything to do. When they write, they +seem to put me off." + +Delia gave her the letter, and stayed talking with them a little. They, +it was evident, knew nothing of the anxiety which possessed her. And as +to their hopes and expectations--why was it they now seemed to her so +foolish and so ignorant? She had shared them all, such a little while +before. + +And meanwhile they made much of her. They tried to keep her with them +in the little stuffy parlour, with its books which had belonged to Miss +Toogood's father, and the engraving of Winchester cathedral, and the +portrait of Mr. Keble. That "Miss Blanchflower" was with them, seemed +to reflect a glory on their little despised coterie. They admired her +and listened to her, loath to let her go. + +But at last Delia said Good-bye, and stepped out again into the lights +of the village street. As she walked rapidly towards Maumsey, and the +village houses thinned and fell away, she suddenly noticed a dark +figure in front of her. It was Marion Andrews. Delia ran to overtake +her. + +Marion stopped uncertainly when she heard herself called. Delia, +breathless, laid a hand on her arm. + +"I wanted to speak to you!" + +"Yes!" The girl stood quiet. It was too dark now to see her face. + +"I wanted to tell you--that there are suspicions--about Monk Lawrence. +You are being watched. I want you to promise to give it up!" + +There was no one on the road, above which some frosty stars had begun +to come out. Marion Andrews moved on slowly. + +"I don't know what you mean, Miss Blanchflower." + +"Don't, please, try to deceive me!" cried Delia, with low-voiced +urgency. "You have been seen at night--following Daunt about, +examining the doors and windows. The person who suspects won't +betray us. I've seen to that. But you must give it up--you _must_! I +have written to Miss Marvell." + +Marion Andrews laughed,--a sound of defiance. + +"All right. I don't take my orders from any one but her. But you are +mistaken, Miss Blanchflower, quite mistaken. Good-night." + +And turning quickly to the left, she entered a field path leading to +her brother's house, and was immediately out of sight. + +Delia went on, smarting and bewildered. How clear it was that she was +no longer trusted--no longer in the inner circle--and that Gertrude +herself had given the cue! The silent and stubborn Marion Andrews was +of a very different type from the three excitable or helpless women +gathered in Miss Toogood's parlour. She had ability, passion, and the +power to hold her tongue. Her connection with Gertrude Marvell had +begun, in London, at the "Daughters" office, as Delia now knew, long +before her own appearance at Maumsey. When Gertrude came to the Abbey, +she and this strange, determined woman were already well acquainted, +though Delia herself had not been aware of it till quite lately. "I +have been a child in their hands!--they have _never_ trusted me!" Heart +and vanity were equally wounded. + +As she neared the Maumsey gate, suddenly a sound--a voice--a tall +figure in the twilight. + +"Ah, there you are!" said Winnington. "Lady Tonbridge sent me to look +for you." + +"Aren't you back very early?" Delia attempted her usual voice. But +the man who joined her at once detected the note of effort, of tired +pre-occupation. + +"Yes--our business collapsed. Our clerk's too good--leaves us nothing +to do. So I've been having a talk with Lady Tonbridge." + +Delia was startled; not by the words, but by the manner of them. While +she seemed to Winnington to be thinking of something other than the +moment--the actual moment, her impression was the precise opposite, as +of a sharp, intense consciousness of the moment in him, which presently +communicated its own emotion to her. + +They walked up the drive together. + +"At last I have got a horse for you," said Winnington, after a pause. +"Shall I bring it to-morrow? Weston is going on so well to-night, +France tells me, that he may be able to say 'out of danger' to-morrow. +If so, let me take you far afield, into the Forest. We might have a +jolly run." + +Delia hesitated. It was very good of him. But she was out of practice. +She hadn't ridden for a long time. + +Winnington laughed aloud. He told--deliberately--a tale of a young +lady on a black mare, whom no one else could ride--of a Valkyrie--a +Brunhilde--who had exchanged a Tyrolese hotel for a forest lodge, and +ranged the wide world alone-- + +"Oh!"--cried Delia, "where did you hear that?" + +He described the talk of the little Swedish lady, and that evening on +the heights when he had first heard her name. + +"Next day came the lawyers' letter--and yours--both in a bundle." +"You'll agree--I did all I could--to put you off!" + +"So I understood--at once. You never beat about the bush." + +There was a tender laughter in his voice. But she had not the +heart to spar with him. He felt rather than saw her drooping. +Alarm--anxiety--rushed upon him, mingled in a tempest-driven mind with +all that Madeleine Tonbridge, in the Maumsey drawing-room, had just +been saying to him. That had been indeed the plain speaking of a +friend!--attacking his qualms and scruples up and down, denouncing them +even; asking him indignantly, who else could save this child--who else +could free her from the sordid entanglement into which her life had +slipped--but he? "You--you only, can do it!" The words were still +thundering through his blood. Yet he had not meant to listen to his old +friend. He had indeed withstood her firmly. But this sad and languid +Delia began, again, to put resistance to flight--to tempt--to justify +him--driving him into action that his cooler will had just refused. + +Suddenly, as they walked under the overshadowing trees of the drive, +her ungloved hand hanging beside her, she felt it taken, enclosed in a +warm strong clasp. A thrill, a shiver ran through her. But she let it +stay. Neither spoke. Only as they neared the front door with the lamp, +she softly withdrew her fingers. + +There was no one in the drawing-room, which was scented with early +hyacinths, and pleasantly aglow with fire-light. Winnington closed the +door, and they stood facing each other. Delia wanted to cry out--to +prevent him from speaking--but she seemed struck dumb. + +He approached her. + +"Delia!" + +She looked at him still helplessly silent. She had thrown off her hat +and furs, and, in her short walking-dress, she looked singularly +young and fragile. The change which had tempered the splendid--or +insolent--exuberance of her beauty, which Lathrop had perceived, had +made it in Winnington's eyes infinitely more appealing, infinitely more +seductive. Love and fear, mingled, had "passed into her face," like the +sculptor's last subtle touches on the clay. + +"Delia!" How all life seemed to have passed into a name! "I'm not sure +that I ought to speak! I'm not sure it's fair. It--it seems like taking +advantage. If you think so, don't imagine I shall ever press it again. +I'm twenty years older than you--I've had my youth. I thought +everything was closed for me--but--" He paused a moment--then his voice +broke into a low cry--"Dear! what have you done to make me love you +so?" + +He came nearer. His look spoke the rest. + +Delia retreated. + +"What have I done?" she said passionately. + +"Made your life one long worry!--ever since you saw me. How can you +love me?--you oughtn't!--you oughtn't!" + +He laughed. + +"Every quarrel we had I loved you the better. From our very first talk +in this room--" + +She cried out, putting up her hands, as though to protect herself +against the power that breathed from his face and shining eyes. + +"Don't--don't!--I can't bear it." + +His expression changed. + +"Delia!" + +"Oh, I do thank you!" she said, piteously, "I would--if I could. I--I +shall never care for any one else--but I can't--I can't." + +He was silent a moment, and then said, taking her hands, and putting +them to his lips-- + +"Won't you explain?" + +"Yes, I'll try--I ought to. You see"--she looked up in anguish--"I'm +not my own--to give--and I--No, no, I couldn't make you happy!" + +"You mean--you're--you're too deeply pledged to this Society?" + +He had dropped her hands, and stood looking at her, as if he would read +her through. + +"I must go up to town next week," she said hurriedly. "I must go, and I +must do what Gertrude tells me. Perhaps--I can protect--save her. I +don't know. I daresay I'm absurd to think so--but I might--and I'm +bound. But I'm promised--promised in honour--and I can't--get free. I +can't give up Gertrude--and you--you could never bear with her--or +accept her. And so--you see--I should just make you miserable!" + +He walked away, his hands in his pockets, and came back. Then suddenly +he took her by the shoulders. + +"You don't imagine I shall acquiesce in this!" he said +passionately--"that I shall endure to see you tied and chained by a +woman whom I know you have ceased to respect, and I believe you have +ceased to love!" + +"No!--no!--" she protested. + +"I think it is so," he said, steadily. "That is how I read it!" + +She gave a sob--quickly repressed. Then she violently mastered herself. + +"If it were true--I can't marry you. I won't be treacherous--nor a +coward. And I won't ruin your life. Dear Mr. Mark--it's quite, quite +impossible. Let's never talk of it again." + +And straightening all her slender body, she faced him with that foolish +courage, that senseless heroism, which women have so terribly at +command. + +So far, however from obliging her, he broke into a tempest of +discussion bringing to bear upon her all the arguments that love or +common sense dictated. If she really cared for him at all, if she even +thought it possible she might care, was she going to refuse all +help--all advice--from one to whom she had grown so dear?--to whom +everything she did was now of such vital, such desperate importance? He +pleaded for himself--guessing it to be the more hopeful way. + +"It's been a lonely life, Delia, till you came! And now you've filled +it. For God's sake, listen to me! Let me protect you, dear--let me +advise you--trust yourself to me. Do you imagine I should want to +dictate to you--or tyrannise over you? Do you imagine I don't +sympathise with your faiths, your ideals--that I don't feel for +women--what they suffer--what they endure--in this hard world? Delia, +we'd work together!--it mightn't be always in the same way--nor always +with the same opinions--but we'd teach--we'd help each other. Your own +conscience--your own mind--I see it plainly--have turned against this +horrible campaign--and the woman who's led you into it. How she's +treated you! Would any friend, any real _friend_ have left you alone +through this Weston business? And you've given her everything--your +house, your money, yourself! It makes me _mad_. I do implore you to +break with her--as gently, as generously as you like--but _free +yourself_! And then!"--he drew a long breath--"what a life we'd make +together!" He sat down beside her. Under the strong overhanging brows, +his grey eyes still pleaded with her--silently. + +But she was just strong enough, alas!--the poor child!--to resist him. +She scarcely replied; but her silence held the gate--against his +onslaughts. And at last she tottered to her feet. + +"Mr. Mark--dear Mr. Mark!--let me go!" + +Her voice, her aspect struck him dumb. And before he could rally his +forces again, the door shut, and she was gone. + + + + +Chapter XVI + + +"So I mustn't argue any more?" said Lady Tonbridge, looking at Delia, +who was seated by her guest's fire, and wore the weary aspect of one +who had already been argued with a good deal. + +Madeleine's tone was one of suppressed exasperation. Exasperation +rather with the general nature of things than with Delia. It was +difficult to be angry with one whose perversity made her so evidently +wretched. But as to the "intolerable woman" who had got the girl's +conscience--and Winnington's happiness--in her power, Lady Tonbridge's +feelings were at a white heat. How to reason with Delia, without +handling Gertrude Marvell as she deserved---there was the difficulty. + +In any case, Delia was unshakeable. If Weston were really out of +danger--Dr. France was to bring over the Brownmouth specialist on +Monday--then that very afternoon, or the next morning, Delia must +and would go to London to join Gertrude Marvell. And six days +later Parliament would re-assemble under the menace of raids and +stone-throwings, to which the _Tocsin_ had been for weeks past +summoning "The Daughters of Revolt," throughout the country, in terms +of passionate violence. In those proceedings Delia had apparently +determined to take her part. As to this Lady Tonbridge had not been +able to move her in the least. + +The case for Winnington seemed indeed for the moment desperate. After +his scene with Delia, he had left the Abbey immediately, and +Lady Tonbridge, though certain that something important--and +disastrous--had happened, would have known nothing, but for a sudden +confession from Delia, as the two ladies sat together in the +drawing-room after dinner. Delia had abruptly laid down her book, with +which she was clearly only trifling--in order to say-- + +"I think I had better tell you at once that my guardian asked me to +marry him, this afternoon, and I refused." + +Since this earthquake shock, Madeleine Tonbridge could imagine nothing +more unsatisfactory than the conversations between them which had begun +in the drawing-room, and lingered on till, now, at nearly midnight, +sheer weariness on both sides had brought them to an end. When +Madeleine had at last thrown up argument as hopeless, Delia with a face +of carven wax, and so handsome through it all that Lady Tonbridge could +have beaten her for sheer vexation, had said a quiet goodnight and +departed. + +But she was _in love with him_, the foolish, obstinate child!--wildly, +absorbingly in love with him! The fact was tragically evident, in +everything she said, and everything she left unsaid. + +The struggle lay then between her loyalty to her friend, the passionate +loyalty of woman to woman, so newly and strangely developed by the +Suffrage movement, and Winnington's advancing influence,--the influence +of a man equipped surely with all the means of victory--character, +strength, charm--over the girl's heart and imagination. He must +conquer! + +And yet Madeleine Tonbridge, staring into the ashes of a dwindling +fire, had never persuaded herself--incorrigible optimist that she +was--to so little purpose. + +What _was_ there at the back of the girl's mind? Something more than +appeared; though what appeared was bad enough. One seemed at times to +catch a glimpse of some cloaked and brooding Horror, in the dim +background of the girl's consciousness, and overshadowing it. What more +likely indeed, with this wild campaign sweeping through the country? +She probably knew or suspected things that her moral sense condemned, +to which she was nevertheless committed. + +"We shall end by proving all that the enemy says of us; we shall give +our chance away for a generation!" + +"Do for Heaven's sake keep the young lady at home!" + +The speaker was Dr. France. After seeing his patient, dismissing the +specialist, and spending half an hour _tęte-ŕ-tęte_ with Delia, he came +down to see Lady Tonbridge in a state that in any one else would have +been a state of agitation. In him all that appeared was a certain +hawkish glitter in the eye, and a tendency to pull and pinch a scarcely +existing moustache. But Madeleine, who knew him well, understood that +he was just as much at feud with the radical absurdity of things as she +was. + +"No one can keep her at home. Delia is of age," she said, rising to +meet him, with a face as serious as his own. + +"If she gets into prison, and hunger-strikes, she'll injure herself! +She's extraordinarily run down with this business of Weston's. I don't +believe she could stand the sheer excitement of what she proposes to +do." + +"She's told you?" + +"Quite enough. If she once goes up to town--if she once gets into that +woman's clutches, no one can tell what will happen. Oh, you women--you +women!" And the doctor walked tigerishly up and down the room. "That +some of the cleverest and wisest of you can stoop to dabbling in a +business like this! Upon my word it's an eye-opener!--it pulls one up. +And you think you can drive men by such antics! The more you smash and +burn, the more firmly goes down the male foot--yes, and the female +too!" + +And the doctor, with a glare, and a male foot as firm as he could make +it, came to a stop beside Lady Tonbridge--who looked at him coolly. + +"Excellent!--but no concern of mine. I'm not a militant. I want the +vote just as much as Delia does!" said Lady Tonbridge, firmly. "Don't +forget that." + +"No, you don't--you don't! Excuse me. You are a reasonable woman." + +"Half the reasonable women in England want the vote. Why shouldn't I +have a vote--as well as you?" + +"Because, my dear lady--" the doctor smote the table with his hand for +emphasis--"because the parliamentary vote means the government _of men +by men_--without which we go to pieces. And you propose now to make it +include the government of men by women--which is absurd!--and if you +try it, will only break up the only real government that exists, or can +exist!" + +"Oh!--'physical force,'" said Madeleine, contemptuously, with her nose +in the air. + +"Well--did I--did you--make the physical difference between men and +women? Can we unmake it?" "We are governed by discussion--not by +force." + +"Are we? Look at South Africa--look at Ulster--look at the labour +troubles that have been, and are to be. And then you women come along +with your claim to the vote! What are you doing but breaking up all the +social values--weakening all the foundations of the social edifice! +Woe!--to you women especially--when you teach men to despise the +vote--when men come to know that behind the paper currency of a vote +which may be a man's or a woman's, there is nothing but an opinion--bad +or good! At present, I tell you, the great conventions of democracy +hold because there is reality of bone and muscle behind them! Break +down that reality--and sooner or later we come back to force +again--through bloodshed and anarchy!" + +"Inevitable--all the same!" cried Madeleine. "Why did you ever let us +taste education?--if you are to deny us for ever political equality?" + +"Use your education, my dear Madam!" said the doctor, indignantly. "Are +there not many roads to political equality?--many forms of government +within government, that may be tried, before you insist on ruining us +by doing men's work in the men's way? Hasn't it taken more than a +hundred years to settle that Irish question, which began with the +Union? Is it a hundred years since it was a hanging matter to steal a +handkerchief off a hedge? Can't you give us a hundred years for the +Woman Question? Sixty years only, since the higher education of women +began! Isn't the science of government developing every day? Women have +got, you say, to be fitted into government--I agree! I _agree_! But +_don't rush it_! Claim everything--what you like!--except only that +sovereign vote, which controls, and must control, the male force of an +Empire!" + +"Jove's thunder!" scoffed Lady Tonbridge. "Well--my dear old +friend!--you and I shan't agree--you know that. Now what can I do for +Delia?" + +"Nothing," said France gloomily. "Unless some one goes up to watch over +her." + +"Her guardian will go," said Madeleine quietly, after a pause. + +They eyed each other. + +"You're sure?" said France. + +"Quite sure--though I've not said a word to him--nor he to me." + +"All right then--she's worth it! By George, she's got the makings +of something splendid in her. I tell you she's had as much to do +as any of us with saving the life of that woman upstairs. +Courage?--tenderness?--'not arf.'" + +The slangy term shewed the speaker's desire to get rid of his own +feelings. He had, at any rate, soon smothered them, and he and Lady +Tonbridge, their chairs drawn close, fell into a very confidential +discussion. France was one of those country doctors, not rare +fortunately in England, in whom a whole neighbourhood confides, whom +a whole neighbourhood loves; all the more if a man betrays a fair +allowance of those gnarls and twists of character, of strong +prejudices, and harmless manias, which enable the common herd to +take him to their bosoms. Dr. France was a stamp-collector, a +player--indifferent--on the cornet, a rabid Tory, and a person who +could never be trusted to deal faithfully and on C.O.S. principles with +tramps and "undesirables." Such things temper the majesty of virtue, +and make even the good human. + +He had known and prescribed for Winnington since he was a boy in +knickers; he was particularly attached to Lady Tonbridge. What he and +Madeleine talked about is not of great importance to this narrative; +but it is certain that France left the house in much concern for a man +he loved, and a girl who, in the teeth of his hottest beliefs, had +managed to touch his feelings. + +Delia spent the day in packing. Winnington made no sign. In the +afternoon,--it was a wet Saturday afternoon--Lady Tonbridge sitting in +the drawing-room, saw the science mistress of the Dame Perrott School +coming up the drive. Madeleine knew her as a "Daughter," and could not +help scowling at her--unseen. + +She was at once admitted however, and spent a short time with Delia in +the Library. + +And when Miss Jackson closed the Library door behind her on her way out +of the house, Delia broke the seal of a letter which had been given +into her hands:-- + +"I am very sorry, my dear Delia, you should have taken these silly +reports so much to heart. You had better dismiss them from your mind. I +have given no such orders as you suppose--nor has the Central Office. +The plan you found referred to something quite different--I really +can't remember what. I can't of course be responsible for all the +'Daughters' in England, but I have much more important business to +think of just now than the nonsense Mr. Lathrop seems to have been +stuffing you with. As to W-----L-----, it would only be worth while to +strike at him, if our affairs _go wrong_--through him. At present, I am +extraordinary hopeful. We are winning every day. People see that we are +in earnest, and mean to succeed--at whatever cost. + +"I am glad you are coming up on Monday. You will find the flat anything +but a comfortable or restful place,--but that you will be prepared +for. Our people are amazing!--and we shall get into the House on +Thursday, or know the reason why. + +"For the money you sent, and the money you promise--best thanks. +Everybody is giving. It is the spirit of the Crusader, 'Dieu le +veult!'" + + "Your affectionate + G. M." + + +Delia read and re-read it. It was the first time Gertrude had +deliberately tried to deceive her, and the girl's heart was sore. +Even now, she was not to be trusted--"now that I am risking +everything--_everything_!" And with the letter in her lap, she sat and +thought of Winnington's face, as he had turned to look at her, before +leaving the drawing-room the night before. + + * * * * * + +The day passed drearily. The hills and trees were wrapped in a damp +fog, and though the days were lengthening fast, the evening closed like +November. Madeleine thought with joy of getting back to her tiny house +and her Nora. Nora, who was not yet out, seemed to have been enjoying a +huge success in the large cousinly party with whom she had been +spending the Christmas holidays. "But it's an odd place, Mummy. In the +morning we 'rag'; and the rest of the day we talk religion. Everybody +is either Buddhist or 'Bahai'--if that's the right way to spell it. It +sounds odd, but it seems to be a very good way of getting on with young +men." + +Heavens! What did it matter how you played the old game, or with what +counters, so long as it was played? + +And as Lady Tonbridge watched the figure of Delia gliding through the +house, wrapped in an estranging silence, things ancient and traditonal +returned upon her in flood, and nothing in the world seemed worth +having but young love and happy marriage!--if you could get them! +She--and her heart knew its bitterness--had made the great throw and +lost. + + * * * * * + +Sunday passed in the same isolation. But on Sunday afternoon Delia took +the motor out alone, and gave no reason either before or after. + +"If she's gone out to meet that man, it's a scandal!" thought Madeleine +wrathfully, and could hardly bring herself to be civil when the girl +returned--pale, wearied, and quite uncommunicative. But she was very +touching in a mute, dignified way, all the evening, and Madeleine +relented fast. And, as they sat in the fire-lit drawing-room, when the +curtains were drawn, Delia suddenly brought a stool close to Lady +Tonbridge's side, and, sitting at her feet, held up appealing arms. +Madeleine, with a rush of motherliness, gathered her close; and the +beautiful head lay, very quiet, on her breast. But when she would have +entreated, or argued, again, Delia implored her--"Don't--don't +talk!--it's no good. Just let me stay." + +Late that night, all being ready for departure, Delia went in to say +good-night, and good-bye to Weston. + +"You'll be downstairs and as strong as a horse, when I come back," she +said gaily, stroking the patient's emaciated fingers. + +Weston shook her head. + +"I don't think I shall ever be good for much, Miss Delia. But"--and her +voice suddenly broke--"I believe I'd go through it all again--just to +know--what--you could be--to a poor thing--like me." + +"Weston!--" said Delia, softly--"if you talk like that--and if you dare +to cry, Nurse will turn me out. You're going to get quite well, but +whether you're well or ill, here you stay, Miss Rosina Weston!--and I'm +going to look after you. Polly hasn't packed my things half badly." +Polly was the under-housemaid, whom Delia was taking to town. "She +wouldn't be worth her salt, if she hadn't," said Weston tartly. "But +she can't do your hair, Miss--and it's no good saying she can." + +"Then I'll do it myself. I'll make some sort of a glorious mess of it, +and set the fashion." + +But her thought said--"If I go to prison, they'll cut it off. Poor +Weston!" + +Weston moved uneasily-- + +"Miss Delia?" + +"Yes." + +"Don't you go getting yourself into trouble. Now don't you!" And with +tears in her eyes, the ghostly creature pressed the girl's hand to her +lips. Delia stooped and kissed her. But she made no reply. Instead she +began to talk of the new bed-rest which had just been provided for +Weston, and on which the patient professed herself wonderfully +comfortable. + +"It's better than the one we had at Meran--for papa." Her voice +dropped. She sat at the foot of Weston's bed looking absently into some +scene of the past. + +"Nothing ever gave him ease--your poor Papa!" said Weston, pitifully. +"He did suffer! But don't you go thinking about it this time of night, +Miss Delia, or you won't sleep." + +Delia said goodnight, and went away. But she did think of her +father--with a curious intensity. And when she fell fitfully asleep, +she dreamt that she saw him standing beside her in some open foreign +place, and that he looked at her in silence, steadily and coldly. And +she stretched out her hands, in a rush of grief--"Kiss me, father! I +was unkind--horribly--horribly unkind!" + +With the pain of it, she woke suddenly and the visualising sense seemed +still to perceive in the darkness the white head and soldierly form. +She half rose, gasping. Then, as though a photographic shutter were let +down, the image passed from the brain, and she lay with heaving breast, +trying to find her way back into what we call reality. But it was a +reality even more wretched than those recollections to which her dream +had recalled her. For it was held and possessed by Winnington, and now +by the threatening vision of Monk Lawrence, spectral amid the red ruin +of fire. She had stopped the motor that day at the foot of the hill on +which the house stood, and using Winnington's name, had made a call on +the cripple child. Daunt had received her with a somewhat gruff +civility, and was not communicative about the house and its defence. +But she gathered--without herself broaching the subject--that he was +scornfully confident of his power to protect it against "them creeping +women," and she had come home comforted. The cripple child had clung to +her silently; and on coming away, Delia had felt a small wet kiss upon +her hand. A touching creature!--with her wide blue eyes, and delicate +drawn face. It was feared that another abscess might be developing in +the little hip, where for a time disease had been quiescent. + + * * * * * + +On Monday morning the doctors came early. They gave a favourable +verdict, and Delia at once decided on an afternoon train. + +All the morning, Lady Tonbridge hovered round her, loth to take her own +departure, and trying every now and then to re-open the subject of +London, to make the girl promise to send for her--to consult +Winnington, if any trouble arose. + +But Delia would not allow any discussion. "I shall be with +Gertrude--she'll tell me what to do," was all she would say. + +Lady Tonbridge was dropped at her own door by Delia, on her way to the +station. Nora was there to welcome her, but not all their joy in +recovering each other, could repair Madeleine's cheerfulness. She +stood, looking after the retreating car with such a face that Nora +exclaimed-- + +"Mother, what _is_ the matter!" + +"I'm watching the tumbril out of sight," said Lady Tonbridge +incoherently. "Shall we ever see her again?" + +That, however, was someone else's affair. + +Delia took her own and her housemaid's tickets for London, saw her +companion established, and then, preferring to be alone, stepped into +an empty carriage herself. She had hardly disposed her various +packages, and the train was within two minutes of starting, when a tall +man came quickly along the platform, inspecting the carriages as he +passed. Delia did not see him till he was actually at her window. In +another moment he had opened and closed the door, and had thrown down +his newspapers and overcoat on the seat. The train was just starting, +and Delia, crimson, found herself mechanically shaking hands with Mark +Winnington. + +"You're going up to town?" She stammered it. "I didn't know--" + +"I shall be in town for a few days. Are you quite comfortable? A +footwarmer?" + +For the day was cold and frosty, with a bitter east wind. + +"I'm quite warm, thank you." + +The train ran out of the station, and they were soon in the open +country. Delia leant back in her seat, silent, conscious of her own +hurrying pulses, but determined to control them. She would have liked +to be indignant--to protest that she was being persecuted and coerced. +But the recollection of their last meeting, and the sheer, +inconvenient, shameful, joy of his presence there, opposite, +interposed. + +Winnington himself was quite cool; there were no signs whatever of any +intention to renew their Friday's conversation. His manner and tone +were just as usual. Some business at the Home Office, connected with +his County Council work, called him to town. He should be staying at +his Club in St. James's St. Alice Matheson also would be in town. + +"Shall we join for a theatre, one night?" he asked her. + +She felt suddenly angered. Was she never to be believed, never to be +taken seriously? + +"To-morrow, Mr. Mark, is the meeting of Parliament." + +"That I am aware of." + +"The day after, I shall probably be in prison!" + +She fronted him bravely, though, as he saw, with an effort. He paused a +moment, but showed no astonishment. + +"I hope not. I think not," he said, quietly. + +Delia took up the evening paper she had just bought at the station, +opened it, and looked at the middle page. + +"There are our plans," she said, defiantly, handing it to him. + +"Thank you. I have already seen it." + +But he again read through attentively the paragraph to which she +pointed him. It was headed "Militant Plans for To-morrow." A +procession of five hundred women was to march on the Houses of +Parliament, at the moment of the King's Speech. "We insist"--said the +Manifesto issued from the offices of the League of Revolt--"upon our +right of access to the King, or failing His Majesty, to the Prime +Minister. We mean business and we shall be armed." + +Winnington pointed to the word "armed." + +"With stones--I presume?" + +"Well, not revolvers, I hope!" said Delia. "I should certainly shoot +myself." + +Tension broke up in slightly hysterical laughter. She was already in +better spirits. There was something exciting--exhilarating even--in +the duel between herself and Winnington, which was implied in the +conversation. His journey up to town, the look in his grey eyes +meant--"I shall prevent you from doing what you are intending to do." +But he could not prevent it. If he was the breakwater, she was the +storm-wave, driven by the gale--by the wind from afar, of which she +felt herself the sport, and sometimes the victim--without its changing +her purpose in the least. + +"Only I shall not refuse food!" she thought. "I shall spare him that. I +shall serve my sentence. It won't be long." + +But afterwards? Would she then be free? Free to follow Gertrude or not, +according to her judgment? Would she have "purged" her promise--paid +her shot--recovered the governance of herself? + +Her thoughts discussed the future, when, all in a moment, Winnington, +watching her from behind his _Times_, saw a pale startled look. It +seemed to be caused by something in the landscape. He turned his eyes +to the window and saw that they were passing an old manor house, with a +gabled front, standing above the line, among trees. What could that +have had to do with the sudden contraction of the beautiful brow, the +sudden look of terror--or distress? The house had a certain resemblance +to Monk Lawrence. Had it reminded her of that speech in the Latchford +marketplace from which he was certain she had recoiled, no less than +he? + +"You'll let me take you to the flat? I've been over it once, but I +should like to see it's in order." + +She hesitated, but how could she refuse? He put her into a taxi, having +already dispatched her maid with the luggage in another, and they +started. + +"I expect you'll find a lot of queer people there!" she said, trying to +laugh. "At least you'll think them queer." + +"I shall like to see the people you are working with," he said, +gravely. + +Half way to Westminster, he turned to her. + +"Miss Delia!--it's my plain duty to tell you--again--and to keep on +telling you, even though it makes you angry, and even though I have no +power to stop you, that in taking part in these doings to-morrow, you +are doing a wrong thing, a grievously wrong thing! If I were only an +ordinary friend, I should try to dissuade you with all my might. But I +represent your father--and you know what he would have felt." + +He saw her lips tremble. But she spoke calmly, "Yes,--I know. But it +can't be helped. We can't agree, Mr. Mark, and it's no good my trying +to explain, any more--just yet!--" she added, in a lower tone. + +"'Just yet'? What do you mean by that?" + +"I mean that some time,--perhaps sometime soon--I shall be ready to +argue the whole thing with you--what's right and what's wrong. Now I +can't argue--I'm not free to. Don't you see--'Ours not to make +reply,--ours but to do, or die.'" Her smile flashed out. "There's not +going to be any dying about it however--you know that as well as I do." +Then with a touch of mockery she bent towards him. "You won't persuade +me, Mr. Mark, that you take us very seriously! But I'm not angry at +that--I'm not angry--at anything!" + +And her face, as he scanned it, melted--changed--became all soft +sadness, and deprecating appeal. Never had she seemed to him so +fascinating. Never had he felt himself so powerless. He thought, +despairingly--"If I had her to myself, I could take her in my arms, +and make her give way!" + +But here were the first signs of arrival--a narrow Westminster +street--a towering group of flats. The taxi stopped, and Winnington +jumped out. + + + + +Chapter XVII + + +Delia's luggage was brought in by the hall porter, and she and +Winnington stood waiting for the lift. Meanwhile Winnington happened to +notice, through the open door of the mansions, a couple of policemen +standing just outside, on the pavement, and two others on the further +side of the street. It seemed to him they were keeping the house which +Delia and he had just entered under observation. + +The lift descended. There were in it four women, all talking eagerly in +subdued tones. One was grey-haired, the others were quite young girls. +The strained, excited look on all their faces struck Winnington sharply +as they emerged from the lift. One of the girls looked curiously at +Delia and her tall companion. The grey-haired lady's attention was +caught by the policeman outside. She gave a little chuckle. + +"We shall have plenty to do with those gentry to-morrow!" she said to +the girl beside her, drawing her cloak round her so that it displayed a +black and orange badge. + +Delia approached her. + +"Is Miss Marvell here?" + +They all stopped and eyed her. + +"Yes, she's upstairs. She's just come back from the Central. But she's +very busy," said the elder lady. "She won't see you without an +appointment." + +One of the girls suddenly looked at Delia, and whispered to the +speaker. + +"Oh, I see!" said that lady, vaguely. "Are you Miss Blanchflower?" + +"Yes." + +"I beg your pardon. Miss Marvell's expecting you of course. Do make her +rest a bit if you can. She's simply _splendid_! She's going to be one +of our great leaders. I'm glad you won't miss it after all. You've been +delayed, haven't you?--by somebody's illness. Well, it's going +magnificently! We shall make Parliament listen--at last. Though they'll +protect themselves no doubt with any number of police--cowards!" + +The eyes of the speaker, as her face came into the light of the hall +lamp, sparkled maliciously. She seemed to direct her words especially +to Winnington, who stood impassive. Delia turned to the lift, and they +ascended. + +They were admitted, after much ringing. A bewildered maid looked at +Delia, and the luggage behind her, as though she had never heard of her +before. And the whole flat in the background seemed alive with voices +and bustle. Winnington lost patience. + +"Tell this man, please, where to take Miss Blanchflower's luggage at +once. And where is the drawing-room?" + +"Are you going to stay, Miss?" said the girl. "There's only the small +bedroom vacant." + +Delia burst out laughing--especially at the sight of Winnington's irate +countenance. + +"All right. It'll do quite well. Now tell me where Miss Marvell is." + +"I mustn't interrupt her, Miss." + +"This is my flat," said Delia, good-humouredly--"so I think you must. +And please shew Mr. Winnington the drawing-room." + +The girl, with an astonished face, opened a door for Winnington, into a +room filled with people, and then--unwillingly--led Delia along the +passage. + +Winnington looked round him in bewilderment. He had entered, it seemed, +upon a busy hive of women. The room was full, and everybody in it +seemed to be working at high pressure. A young lady at a central table +was writing telegrams as fast as possible, and handing them to a +telegraph clerk who was waiting. Two typewriters were busy in the +further corners. A woman, with a sharply clever face, was writing near +by, holding her pad on her knee, while a printer's boy, cap in hand, +was sitting by her waiting for her "copy." Two other women were undoing +and sorting rolls of posters. Winnington caught the head-lines--"Women +of England, strike for your liberties!" "Remember our martyrs in +prison!"--"Destroy property--and save lives!" "If violence won freedom +for men, why not for women!" And in the distance of the room were +groups in eager discussion. A few had maps in their hands, and others +note-books, in which they took down the arrangements made. So far as +their talk reached Winnington's ears, it seemed to relate to the +converging routes of processions making for Parliament Square. + +"How do you do, Mr. Winnington," said a laughing voice, as a +daintily-dressed woman, with fair fluffy hair came towards him. + +He recognised the sister of a well-known member of Parliament, a lady +who had already been imprisoned twice for window-breaking in Downing +Street. + +"Who would have thought to see you here!" she said, gaily, as they +shook hands. + +"Surprising--I admit! I came to see Miss Blanchflower settled in her +flat. But I seem to have stumbled into an office." + +"The Central Office simply couldn't hold the work. We were all in each +other's way. So yesterday, by Miss Marvell's instructions, some of us +migrated here. We are only two streets from the central." + +"Excellent!" said Winnington. "But it might perhaps have been well to +inform Miss Blanchflower." + +The flushed babyish face under the fashionable hat looked at him +askance. Lady Fanny's tone changed--took a sharpened edge. + +"Miss Blanchflower--you may be quite sure--will be as ready as anyone +else to make sacrifices for the cause. But we don't expect _you_ to +understand that!" + +"Nobody can doubt your zeal, Lady Fanny." + +"Only my discretion? Oh, I've long left that to take care of itself. +What are you here for?" + +"To look after my ward." + +Lady Fanny eyed him again. + +"Of course! I had forgotten. Well, she'll be all right." + +"What are you really preparing to do to-morrow?" + +"Force our way into the House of Commons!" + +"Which means--get into an ugly scrimmage with the police, and put your +cause back another few years?" + +"Ah! I can't talk to you, if you talk like that! There isn't time," she +threw back, with laughing affectation, and nodding to him, she +fluttered off to a distant table where a group of girls were busy +making black and orange badges. But her encounter with him seemed to +have affected the hive. Its buzz sank, almost ceased. + +Winnington indeed suddenly discovered that all eyes were fixed upon +him--that he was being closely and angrily observed. He was conscious, +quickly and strangely conscious, of an atmosphere of passionate +hostility, as though a pulse of madness ran through the twenty or +thirty women present. Meredithian lines flashed into memory-- + + "Thousand eyeballs under hoods + Have you by the hair--" + +and a shock of inward laughter mingled in his mind with irritation for +Delia--who was to have no place apparently in her own flat for either +rest or food--and the natural wish of a courteous man not to give +offense. At the same moment, he perceived on one of the tables a heap +of new and bright objects; and saw at once that they were light +hammers, fresh from the ironmongers. Near them lay a pile of stones, +and two women were busily casing the stones in a printed leaflet. But +he had no sooner become aware of these things than several persons in +the room moved so as to stand between him and them. + +He went back into the passage, closing the door behind him. + +The little parlour-maid came hurriedly from the back regions carrying a +tray on which was tea and bread and butter. + +"Are you taking that to Miss Blanchflower?" + +"Yes, Sir." + +"Shew me the way, please." + +Winnington followed her, and she, after a scared look, did not attempt +to stop him. + +She paused outside a door, and instantly made way for him. He knocked, +and at the "Come in" he entered, the maid slipping in after him with +the tea. + +Two persons rose startled from their seats--Delia and Gertrude Marvell. +He had chanced upon the dining-room, which no less than the +drawing-room had been transformed into an office and a store-room. +Masses of militant literature, copies of the _Tocsin_, books and +Stationery covered the tables, while, on the wall opposite the door, a +large scale map of the streets in the neighbourhood of the Houses of +Parliament had been hung over a picture. + +It seemed to him that Delia looked ill and agitated. He walked up to +her companion, and spoke with vivacity-- + +"Miss Marvell!--I protest altogether against your proceedings in this +house! I protest against Miss Blanchflower's being drawn into what is +clearly intended to be an organised riot, which may end in physical +injury, even in loss of life--which will certainly entail imprisonment +on the ringleaders. If you have any affection for Delia you will advise +her to let me take her to my sister, who is in town to-night, at +Smith's Hotel, and will of course most gladly look after her." + +Gertrude, who seemed to him somehow to have dwindled and withered into +an elderly woman since he had last seen her, looked him over from head +to foot with a touch of smiling insolence, and then turned quietly to +Delia. + +"Will you go, Delia?" + +"No!" said Delia, throwing back her beautiful head. "No! This is my +place, Mr. Mark. I'm very sorry--but you must leave me here. Give my +love to Mrs. Matheson." + +"Delia!" He turned to her imploringly. But the softness she had shewn +on the journey had died out of her face. She stood resolved, and some +cold dividing force seemed to have rolled between them. + +"I don't see what you can do, Mr. Winnington," said Gertrude, still +smiling. "I have pointed that out to you before. As a matter of fact +Delia will not even be living here on money provided by you at all. She +has other resources. You have no hold on her--no power--that I can see. +And she wishes to stay with me. I think we must bid you good night. We +are very busy." + +He stood a moment, looking keenly from one to the other, at Gertrude's +triumphant eyes blazing from her emaciated face, at Delia's exalted, +tragic air. Then, with a bow, and in silence, he left the room, and the +house. + + * * * * * + +It was quite dark when he emerged on Milbank Street. All the +neighbourhood of the Houses of Parliament and the Abbey seemed to be +alive with business and traffic. But Palace Yard was still empty save +for a few passing figures, and there was no light on the Clock Tower. A +placard on the railings of the Square caught his notice--"Threatened +Raid on the House of Commons. Police precautions." At the same moment +he was conscious that a policeman standing at the corner of the House +of Commons had touched his hat to him, grinning broadly. Winnington +recognised a Maumsey man, whom he had befriended in various ways, who +owed his place indeed in the Metropolitan force to Winnington's good +word. + +"Hullo, Hewson--how are you? Flourishing?" + +The man's face beamed again. He was thinking of a cricket match the +year before under Winnington's captaincy. Like every member of the +eleven, he would have faced "death and damnation" for the captain. + +They walked along the man's beat together. A thought struck Winnington. + +"You seem likely to have some disturbance here tomorrow?" he said, as +they neared Westminster Bridge. + +"It's the ladies, Sir. They do give a lot of trouble!" Winnington +laughed--paused--then looked straight at the fine young man who was +evidently so glad to see him. + +"Look here, Hewson--I'll tell you something--keep it to yourself! +There'll be a lady in that procession to-morrow whom I don't want +knocked about. I shall be here. Is there anything you can do to help +me? I shall try and get her out of the crowd. Of course I shall have a +motor here." + +Hewson looked puzzled, but eager. He described where he was likely to +be stationed, and where Winnington would probably find him. If Mr. +Winnington would allow him, he would tip a wink to a couple of mates, +who could be trusted--and if he could do anything to help, why, he +would be "rare pleased" to do it. + +"But I'm afraid it'll be a bad row, Sir. There's a lot of men +coming--from Whitechapel--they say." + +Winnington nodded and walked on. He went to his club, and dined there, +refusing a friend's invitation to go and dine with him at home. And +after dinner, as the best means of solitude, he went out again into +the crowded streets, walking aimlessly. The thought of Delia +arrested--refused bail--in a police cell--or in prison--tormented him. +All the traditional, fastidious instincts of his class and type were +strong in him. He loathed the notion of any hand laid upon her, of any +rough contact between her clean youth, and the brutalities of a London +crowd. His blood rushed at the thought of it. The mere idea of any +insult offered her made him murderous. + +He turned down Whitehall, and at a corner near Dover House he presently +perceived a small crowd which was being addressed by a woman. She had +brought a stool with her, and was standing on it. A thin slip of a +girl, with a childish, open face and shrill voice. He went up to listen +to her, and stood amazed at the ignorant passion, the reckless violence +of what she was saying. It seemed indeed to have but little effect upon +her hearers. Men joined the crowd for a few minutes, listened with +upturned impassive faces, and went their way. A few lads attempted +horse-play, but stopped as a policeman approached; and some women +carrying bundles propped them against a railing near, and waited, +lifting tired eyes, and occasionally making comments to each other. +Presently, it appeared to Winnington that the speaker was no more +affected by her own statements--appalling as some of them were--than +her hearers. She appeared to be speaking from a book--to have just +learnt a lesson. She was then a paid speaker? And yet he thought not. +Every now and then phrases stood out--fiercely sincere--about the low +wages of women, their exclusion from the skilled trades, the marriage +laws, the exploiting and "selling" of women, and the like. And always, +in the background of the girl's picture, the hungry and sensual +appetites of men, lying in wait for the economic and physical weakness +of the woman. + +He waited until she had finished. Then he helped her down from her +perch, and made a way for her through the crowd. She looked at him in +astonishment. "Thank you, Sir,--don't trouble! Last night I was pelted +with filth. Are you one of us?" + +He shook his head, smiling. + +"I didn't agree with you. I advise you to look up some of those things +you said. But you speak very well. Good-night." + +She looked at him angrily, gathered up her skirt with a rattle, in a +small hand, and disappeared. + +He presently turned back towards Buckingham Gate, and in a narrow +Westminster street, as he passed the side of a high factory building, +suddenly there emerged from a door-way a number of women and girls, who +had evidently been working over-time. Some of them broke at once into +loud talk and laughter, as though in reaction from the confinement and +tension of their work, some--quite silent--turned their tired faces to +him as they passed him; and some looked boldly, provocatively at the +handsome man, who on his side was clearly observing them. They were of +all types, but the majority of the quite young girls were pale and +stunted, shewing the effect of long hours, and poor food. The coarse or +vicious faces were few; many indeed were marked by a modest or patient +gentleness. The thin line of hurrying forms disappeared into darkness +and distance, some one way, some another; and Winnington was left to +feel that in what he had seen--this everyday incident of a London +street--he had been aptly reminded of what a man who has his occupation +and dwelling amid rural scenes and occupations too readily +forgets--that toiling host of women, married and unmarried, which +modern industry is every day using, or devouring, or wasting. The +stream of lives rushes day by day through the industrial rapids; some +of it passing on to quiet and fruitful channels beyond the roar, and +some lost and churned for ever in the main tumult of the river. + +This new claim upon women, on the part of society, in addition to the +old claims of home and motherhood--this vast industrial claim--must it +not change and modify everything in time?--depress old values, create +new? "The vote!--give us the vote! and all will be well. More wages, +more food, more joy, more share in this glorious world!--that's what +the vote means--give us the vote!" Such, in effect, had been the cry +of that half-mad speaker in Whitehall, herself marked and injured by +the economic struggle. + +The appeal echoed in Winnington's heart. And Delia seemed to be at his +side, raising her eager eyes to his, pressing him for admission. Had +he, indeed, thought enough of these things?--taken enough to heart this +new and fierce struggle of women with life and circumstance, that is +really involved in the industrial organisation of the modern world? + +He passed on--up Buckingham Gate, towards the Palace. Turning to the +left, he was soon aware of two contrasted things:--an evening party +going on at a well-known Embassy, cars driving up and putting down +figures in flashing dresses, and gold-encrusted uniforms, emerging, and +disappearing within its open doors--and only twenty yards away, a group +of women huddled together in the cold, outside a closed fish-shop, +waiting to buy for a few pence the broken or spoiled fish of the day. +But a little further on he suddenly plunged into a crowd coming down +Grosvenor Place. He stopped to watch it, and saw that it accompanied a +long procession of men tramping back from Hyde Park. A banner held by +the leaders bore the words--"Unemployed and starving! Give us work or +bread." And Winnington remembered there was a docker's strike going on +in Limehouse, passionately backed and defended by the whole body of the +local clergy. + +His eyes examined the faces and forms in the procession. Young and old, +sickly and robust, they passed him by, all of them marked and branded +by their tyrant, Labour; rolled like the women amid the rocks and +whirlpools of the industrial stream; marred and worn like them, only +more deeply, more tragically. The hollow eyes accused him as they +passed--him, with his ease of honoured life. "What have you made of us, +your brethren?--you who have had the lead and the start!--you who have +had till now the fashioning of this world in which we suffer! What is +wrong with the world? We know no more than you. But it is your business +to know! For God's sake, you who have intelligence and education, and +time to use them, think for us!--think with us!--find a way out! More +wages--more food--more leisure--more joy!--By G--d! we'll have them, +or bring down your world and ours in one ruin together!" + +And then far back, from the middle of the last century, there came to +Winnington's listening mind the cry of the founders of English +democracy. "The vote!--give us the vote!--and bring in the reign of +plenty and of peace." And the vote was given. Sixty years--and still +this gaunt procession!--and all through Industrial England, the same +unrest, the same bitterness! + +The vote? What is it actually going to mean, in struggle for life and +happiness that lies before every modern Community? How many other +methods and forces have already emerged, and must yet emerge, beside +it! The men know it. And meanwhile, the women--a section of women--have +seized with the old faith, on the confident cries of sixty years +ago?--with the same disillusion waiting in the path? + +He passed on, drawn again down Constitution Hill, and the Mall, back to +the Houses of Parliament and the River.... The night was clear and +frosty. He paused on Westminster Bridge, and leant over the parapet, +feasting his eyes on that incomparable scene which age cannot wither +nor custom stale for the heart of an Englishman. The long front of the +Houses of Parliament rose darkly over the faintly moonlit river; the +wharves and houses beyond, a medley of strong or delicate line, of +black shadow and pale lights, ran far into a vaporous distance powdered +with lamps. On the other side St. Thomas's Hospital, and an answering +chain of lamps, far-flung towards Battersea. Between, the river, +heaving under a full tide, with the dim barges and tugs passing up and +down. "The Mississippi, Sir, is dirty water--the St. Lawrence is cold, +dirty water--but the Thames, Sir, is liquid 'istory!" That famous _mot_ +of a Labour Minister delighted Mark's dreaming sense. The river indeed +as it flowed by, between buildings new and old, seemed to be bearing +the nation on its breast, to symbolise the ever-renewed life of a great +people. What tasks that life had seen!--what vaster issues it had still +to see!-- + +And in that dark building, like a coiled and secret spring ready to act +when touched, the Idea which ruled that life, as all life, in the end, +is ruled. On the morrow, a few hundred men would flock to that +building, as the representatives and servants of the Idea--of that +England which lives "while we believe." + +And the vote behind them?--the political act which chose and sent them +there? Its social power, and all its ordinary associations, noble or +ignoble, seemed suddenly to vanish, for Winnington, engulfed in +something infinitely greater, something vital and primitive, on which +all else depended. + +He hung, absorbed, over the sliding water, giving the rein to reverie. +He seemed to see the English Spirit, hovering, proudly watchful, above +that high roof beside the dark water-way, looking out to sea, and +across the world. What indomitable force, what ichor gleaming fire, +through the dark veins of that weary Titan, sustained him there?--amid +the clash of alien antagonisms, and the mysterious currents of things? +What but the lavished blood and brain of England's sons?--that rude +primal power that men alone can bring to their country? + +Let others solve their own problems! But can women share the male tasks +that make and keep _us_ a Nation, amid a jarring and environing host of +Nations?--an Empire, with the guardianship of half the world on its +shoulders? And if not, how can men rightly share with women the act +which controls those tasks, and chooses the men to execute them? + +And yet!--all his knowledge of human life, all his tenderness for human +suffering, rushed in to protest that the great question was only half +answered, when it was answered so. He seemed to see the Spirit of +England, Janus-like, two-faced, with one aspect looking out to sea, the +other, brooding over the great city at its feet, and turned inland +towards the green country and studded towns beyond. And as to that +other, that home-face of England, his dreaming sense scarcely knew +whether it was man or woman. There was in it male power, but also +virgin strength, and mother love. Men and women might turn to it +equally--for help. + +No need for women in the home tasks--the national house-keeping of this +our England? He laughed--like France--at the mere suggestion of the +doubt. Why, that teeming England, north and south, was crying out for +the work of women, the help of women! Who knew it better than he? But +call in thought!--call in intelligence! Find out the best way to fit +the work to the organism, the organism to the work. What soil so rich +as England in the seed of political ideas? What nation could so easily +as we evolve new forms out of the old to fit new needs? + +But what need for patience in the process--for tolerance--for clear +thinking! And while England ponders, bewildered by the very weight of +her own load, and its responsibilities, comes, suddenly, this train of +Maenads rushing through the land, shrieking and destroying. + +He groaned in spirit, as he thought of Delia's look that day--of the +tragic-comic crowd around her. Again his thoughts flew hither and +thither, seeking to excuse, to understand her, and always, as it +seemed, with her dear voice in his ears--trembling--rushing--with the +passionate note he knew. + +"Mr. Winnington!" + +He looked up. An elderly woman, plain-featured, ill-dressed, stood +beside him, her kind eyes blinking under the lamp overhead. He +recognised Miss Dempsey, and grasped her by the hand. + +"My dear lady, where have you sprung from?" + +She hesitated, and then said, supporting herself on the parapet of the +bridge, as though thankful for the momentary rest. + +"I had to go in search of someone." + +He knew very well what she meant. + +"You've found her?" + +"Yes." + +"Can anyone help?" + +"No. The poor thing's safe--with good people who understand." + +He asked no more about her errand. He knew very well that day after +day, and week after week, her tired feet carried her on the same +endless quest--seeking "that which was lost." But the stress of thought +in his own mind found expression in a question which surprised her. + +"Would the vote help you? Is that why you want it?" + +She smiled. + +"Oh, no! Oh, dear no!" she said, with emphasis; after a moment, adding +in a lower tone, scarcely addressed to her companion--"'_It cost +more--to redeem their souls_!'" And again--"Dear Mr. Mark, men are what +their mothers make them!--that is the bottom truth. And when women are +what God intended them to be, they will have killed the ape and the +tiger in men. But law can't do it. Only the Spirit." Her face shone a +little. Then, in her ordinary voice--"Oh, no--I want the vote for quite +other reasons. It is our right--and it is monstrous we shouldn't have +it!" Her cheeks flushed. + +He turned his friendly smile upon her, without attempting to argue. +They walked back over the bridge together. + + * * * * * + +The following day rose in wind and shower. But the February rain +cleared away towards noon, and the high scudding clouds, with bright +spaces between, suddenly began to prophesy Spring. From Hyde Park, down +the Mall, and along Whitehall, the troops gathered and the usual crowd +sprang up in their rear, pressing towards Parliament Square, or lining +the route. Winnington had sent a note early to Delia by messenger; but +he expected no reply, and got none. All he could do was to hide a motor +in Dean's Yard, to hold a conference or two with the friendly bobby in +Parliament Square, and then to wander about the streets looking +restlessly at the show. It duly passed him by, the Cinderella-coach, +with the King and Queen of fairy-tale, the splendid Embassy carriages, +the Generals on their gleaming horses, the Guards, in their red +cloaks--and all the rest. The Royalties disappeared up the carpeted +stairs into the House of Lords, and after half an hour, while the bells +of St. Margaret's filled all the air with tumult, came out, again; and +again the ermined Queen, and the glistening King passed bowing along +the crowd. Winnington caught hold of a Hampshire member in the crowd. + +"When does the House meet?" + +"Everything adjourned till four. They'll move the Address about five. +But everyone expects a row." + +Nothing for it but to wait and stroll, to spend half an hour in the +Abbey, and take a turn along the Embankment.... And gradually, +steadily the Square filled up, no one knew how. The soldiers +disappeared, but policemen quietly took their places. All the entrances +to the House of Commons were carefully guarded, groups as they gathered +were dispersed, and the approaches to the House, in Old and New Palace +Yards, were rigorously kept free. But still the crowd in Parliament +Square grew and thickened. Girls, with smiling excited faces, still +moved to and fro in it, selling the _Tocsin_. Everybody waited +expectant. + +Then the chimes of the Abbey struck four. And as they died away, from a +Westminster street, from Whitehall, and from Milbank, there arose a +simultaneous stir and shouting. And presently, from each quarter +appeared processions of women, carrying black and orange banners making +their way slowly through the throng. The crowd cheered and booed them +as they passed, swaying to this side and that. And as each procession +neared the outer line of police, it was firmly but courteously stopped, +and the leaders of it must needs parley with the mounted constables who +sat ready to meet them. + +Winnington, jumping on the motor which he had placed opposite St. +Margaret's, drew out some field-glasses, and scanned the advancing +lines of women. The detachment coming from Whitehall seemed to be +headed by the chiefs of the whole organisation, to judge from the +glistening banner which floated above its foremost group. Winnington +examined it closely. Gertrude Marvell was not there, nor Delia. Then he +turned westwards. Ah, now he saw her! That surely was she!--in the +front ranks of the lines coming from Milbank. For a moment, he saw the +whole scene in orderly and picturesque array, the cordons of police, +the mounted constables, the banners of the processions, the swaying +crowds, Westminster Hall, the clock tower, with its light:--the next, +everything was tossed in wild confusion. Some savage impelling movement +in the crowd behind had broken the lines of police. The women were +through! He could see the scurrying forms running across the open +spaces, pursued, grappled with. + +He threw himself into the crowd, which had rapidly hemmed him in, +buffeting it from side to side like a swimmer into troubled waters. His +height, his strength, served him well, and by the time he had reached +the southern corner of St. Margaret's, a friendly hand gripped him. + +"Do you see her, Sir?" + +"Near the front!--coming from Milbank." + +"All right! Follow me, Sir. This way!" + +And with Hewson, and apparently two other police, Winnington battled +his way towards the tumult in front of St. Stephen's entrance. The +mounted police were pressing the crowd back with their horses, and as +Winnington emerged into clear ground, he saw a melee of women and +police,--some women on the ground, some held between police on either +side, and one group still intact. In it he recognised Gertrude Marvell. +He saw her deliberately strike a constable in the face. Then he lost +sight of her. All he saw were the steps of St. Stephen's entrance +behind, crowded with Members of Parliament. Suddenly another woman +fell, a grey-haired woman, and almost immediately a girl who was +struggling with two policemen, disengaged herself and ran to help. She +bent over the woman, and lifted her up. The police at once made way for +them, but another wild rush from behind seemed to part them--sweep +them from view-- + +"Now, Sir!" said Hewson, on tiptoe--"Hold on! They've got the old lady +safe. I think the young one's hurt." + +They pressed their way through. Winnington caught sight of Delia again, +deadly white, supported by a policeman on one side, and a gentleman on +the other. Andrews!--by George! Winnington cursed his own ill-luck in +not having been the first to reach her; but the gallant Captain was an +ally worth having, all the same. + +Mark was at her side. She lifted a face, all pain and bitter +indignation. "Cowards--Cowards!--to treat an old woman so!--Let me +go--let me go back! I must find her!" + +"She's all safe, Miss--she's all safe--you go home," said a friendly +policeman. "These gentlemen will look after you! Stand back there!" And +he tried to open a passage for them. + +Winnington touched her arm. But an involuntary moan startled him. +"She's hurt her arm"--said Andrews in his ear--"twisted it somehow. Go +to the other side of her--put your arm round her, and I'll clear the +way." + +Delia struggled--"No--no!--let me go!" + +But she was powerless. Winnington nearly carried her through the crowd, +while her faintness increased. By the time they reached the motor, she +was barely conscious. The two men lifted her in. Andrews stood looking +at her a moment, as she sank back with Winnington beside her, his ruddy +countenance expressing perhaps the most acute emotion of which its +possessor had ever yet been capable. + +"Good-night. You'll take her home," he said gruffly, and lifted his +hat. But the next moment he ran back to say--"I'll go back and find out +what's happened. She'll want to know. Where are you taking her?" + +"Smith's Hotel," said Winnington--"to my sister." And he gave the order +to the chauffeur. + +They set out. Mark passed his arm round her again, to support her, and +she drooped unconsciously upon his shoulder. A fierce joy--mingled with +his wrath and disgust. This must be--this should be the _end_! Was such +a form made for sordid violence and strife? Her life just breathed +against his--he could have borne her so for ever. + +But as soon as they had revived her, and she opened her eyes in Mrs. +Matheson's sitting-room at the hotel, she burst into a cry of misery. + +"Where's Gertrude!--let me go to her! Where am I?" + +As they wrestled with and soothed her, a servant knocked. + +"A gentleman to see you, Sir, downstairs." + +Winnington descended, and found Andrews--breathless with news. + +Eighty women arrested--Miss Marvell among the ringleaders, for all of +whom bail has been refused? While the riot had been going on in +Parliament Square, another detachment of women had passed along +Whitehall, smashing windows as they went. And at the same moment, a +number of shop-windows had been broken in Piccadilly. The Prime +Minister had been questioned in the Commons, and Sir Wilfrid Lang had +denounced the "Daughters'" organisation, and the mad campaign of +violence to which they were committed, in an indignant speech much +cheered by the House. + + * * * * * + +The days that followed were days of nightmare both for Delia and those +who watched over her. + +Gertrude Marvell and ten others went to prison, without the option of a +fine. About forty of the rank and file who refused to pay their fines, +or give surety for good behaviour, accompanied their leaders into +duress. The country rang with the scandal of what had happened, and +with angry debate as to how to stop the scandal in the future. The +Daughters issued defiant broadsheets, and filled the _Tocsin_ with +brave words. And the Constitutionalists who had pinned their hopes on +the Suffrage Bill before the House, wrung their hands, and wailed to +heaven and earth to keep these mad women in order. + +Delia sat waiting--waiting--all these intolerable hours. She scarcely +spoke to Winnington, except to ask him for news, or to thank him, when +every evening, owing to a personal knowledge of the Home Secretary, he +was able to bring her the very latest news of what was happening in +prison. Gertrude had refused food; forcible feeding would very soon +have to be abandoned; and her release, on the ground of danger to life, +might have to be granted. But in view of the hot indignation of the +public, the Government were not going to release any of the prisoners +before they absolutely must. + +Delia herself was maimed and powerless. How the wrenching of her arm +had come about--whether in the struggle with the two constables who had +separated her from Gertrude, or in the attempt to raise her companion +from the ground--she could not now remember. But a muscle had been +badly torn; she wore a sling and suffered constant and often severe +pain. Neither Alice Matheson, nor Lady Tonbridge--who had rushed up to +town--ever heard her complain, except involuntarily, of this pain. +Madeleine indeed believed that there was some atoning satisfaction in +it, for Delia's wounded spirit. If she was not with Gertrude in prison, +at least she too was suffering--if only a fraction of what Gertrude was +enduring. + +The arm however was not the most serious matter. As France had long +since perceived, she had been overstrained in nursing Weston, and the +events since she left Maumsey had naturally increased the mischief. She +had become sleepless and neurasthenic. And Winnington watched day by +day the eclipse of her radiant youth, with a dumb wrath almost as Pagan +as that which a similar impression had roused in Lathrop. + +The nights were her worst time. She lived then, in prison, with +Gertrude, vividly recalling all that she had ever heard from the +Daughters who had endured it, of the miseries and indignities of prison +life. But she also lived again through the events which had preceded +and followed the riot; her quick intelligence pondered the comments of +the newspapers, the attitude of the public, the measured words and +looks of these friends who surrounded her. And there were many times +when sitting up in bed alone, suffering and sleepless, she asked +herself bitterly--"were we just fools!--just fools?" + +But whatever the mind replied, the heart and its loyalty stood firm. +She was no more free now than before--that was the horrible part of it! +It was this which divided her from Winnington. The thought of how he +had carried her off from the ugly or ridiculous scenes which the +newspapers described--scenes of which she had scarcely any personal +memory, alternately thrilled and shamed her. But the aching expectation +of Gertrude's return--the doubt in what temper of mind and what plight +of body she would return--dominated everything else. + +At last came the expected message. "In consequence of a report from the +prison doctors and his own medical advisers, the Home Secretary has +ordered the immediate release of Miss Gertrude Marvell." Winnington was +privately notified of the time of release, information which was +refused to what remained of the Daughters' organisation, lest there +should be further disturbance. He took a motor to the prison gate, and +put a terribly enfeebled woman and her nurse into it. Gertrude did not +even recognise him, and he followed the motor to the Westminster flat, +distracted by the gloomiest forebodings. + +Delia was already at the flat to receive her friend, having +quietly--but passionately--insisted, against all the entreaties of Mrs. +Matheson and Lady Tonbridge. Winnington helped the nurse and the porter +to carry Gertrude Marvell upstairs. They laid her on the bed, and the +doctor who had been summoned took her in charge. As he was leaving the +room, Winnington turned back--to look at his enemy. How far more +formidable to him in her weakness than in her strength! The keen eyes +were closed, the thin mouth relaxed and bloodless shewing the teeth, +the hands mere skin and bone. She lay helpless and only half-conscious +on her pillows, with nurse and doctor hovering round her, and Delia +kneeling beside her. Yet, as he closed the door, Winnington realised +her power through every vein! It rested entirely with her whether or no +she would destroy Delia, as she must in the end destroy herself. + +He waited in the drawing-room for Delia. She came at last, with a cold +and alien face. "Don't come again, please! Leave us to ourselves. I +shall have doctors--and nurses. We'll let you know." + +He took her hands tenderly. But she drew them away--shivering a little. + +"You don't know--you can't know--what it means to me--to _us_--to see +what she has suffered. There must be no one here but those--who +sympathise--who won't reproach--" Her voice failed her. + +There was nothing for it but to go. + + + + +Chapter XVIII + + +Great is the power of martyrdom!--of the false no less than the +true--and whether the mind consent or no. + +During the first week of Gertrude Marvell's recovery--or partial +recovery--from her prison ordeal, both Winnington and Delia realised +the truth of this commonplace to the full. Winnington was excluded from +the flat. Delia, imprisoned within it, was dragged, day by day, through +deep waters of emotion and pity. She envied the heroism of her friend +and leader; despised herself for not having been able to share it; and +could not do enough to soothe the nervous suffering which Gertrude's +struggle with law and order had left behind it. + +But with the beginning of the second week some strange facts emerged. +Gertrude was then sufficiently convalescent to be moved into the +drawing-room, to see a few visitors, and to exchange experiences. All +who came belonged to the League, and had been concerned in the +Parliamentary raid. Most of them had been a few days or a week in +prison. Two had been hunger-strikers. And as they gathered round +Gertrude in half-articulate worship, Delia, passing from one revealing +moment to another, suddenly felt herself superfluous--thrust away! She +could not join in their talk except perfunctorily; the violence of it +often left her cold and weary; and she soon recognised half in +laughter, half bitterly, that, as one who had been carried out of the +fray, like a naughty child, by her guardian, she stood in the opinion +of Gertrude's visitors, on a level altogether inferior to that of +persons who had "fought it out." + +This, however, would not have troubled her--she was so entirely of the +same opinion herself. But what began to wound her to the quick was +Gertrude's own attitude towards her. She had been accustomed for so +long to be Gertrude's most intimate friend, to be recognised and envied +as such, that to be made to feel day by day how small a hold--for some +mysterious reason--she now retained on that fierce spirit, was galling +indeed. Meanwhile she had placed all the money realised by the sale of +her jewels,--more than three thousand pounds--in Gertrude's hands for +League purposes; her house was practically Gertrude's, and had Gertrude +willed, her time and her thoughts would have been Gertrude's also. She +would not let herself even think of Winnington. One glance at the +emaciated face and frame beside her was enough to recall her from what +had otherwise been a heavenly wandering. + +But she was naturally quick and shrewd, and she soon made herself face +the fact that she was supplanted. Supplanted by many--but especially by +one. Marion Andrews had not been in the raid--Delia often uneasily +pondered the why and wherefore. She came up to town a week after it, +and was then constantly in Gertrude's room. Between Delia, and this +iron-faced, dark-browed woman, with her clumsy dress and brusque ways, +there was but little conversation. Delia never forgot their last +meeting at Maumsey; she was often filled with dire forebodings and +suspicions; and as the relation between Gertrude and Miss Andrews +became closer, they grew and multiplied. + +At last one morning Gertrude turned her back on invalid ways. She got +up at her usual time; she dismissed her nurse; and in the middle of the +morning she came in upon Delia, who, in the desultory temper born of +physical strain, was alternately trying to read Marshall's "Economics +of Industry," and writing to Lady Tonbridge about anything and +everything, except the topics that really occupied her mind. + +Delia sprang up to get her a shawl, to settle her on the sofa. But +Gertrude said impatiently-- + +"Please don't fuss. I want to be treated now as though I were well--I +soon shall be. And anyway I am tired of illness." And she took a plain +chair, as though to emphasize what she had said. + +"I came to talk to you about plans. You're not busy!" + +"Busy!" The scornful tone was a trifle bitter also, as Gertrude +perceived. Delia put aside her book, and her writing-board, and +descended to her favourite place on the hearth rug. The two friends +surveyed each other. + +"Gertrude, it's absurd to talk as though you were well!" cried Delia. +"You look a perfect wreck!" + +But there was more in what she saw--in what she felt--than physical +wreck. There was a moral and spiritual change, subtler than any +physical injury, and probably more permanent. Gertrude Marvell had +never possessed any "charm," in the sense in which other leaders of the +militant movement possessed it. A clear and narrowly logical brain, the +diamond sharpness of an astonishing will, and certain passions of hate, +rather than passions of love, had made the strength of her personality, +and given her an increasing ascendancy. But these qualities had been +mated with a slender physique--trim, balanced, composed--suggesting a +fastidious taste, and nerves perfectly under control; a physique which +had given special accent and emphasis to her rare outbreaks of spoken +violence. Refinement, seemliness, "ladylikeness,"--even Sir Robert +Blanchflower in his sorest moments would scarcely have denied her +these. + +In a measure they were there still, but coupled with pathetic signs of +some disintegrating and poisonous influence. The face which once, in +its pallid austerity, had not been without beauty, had now coarsened, +even in emaciation. The features stood out disproportionately; the hair +had receded from the temples; something ugly and feverish had been, as +it were, laid bare. And composure had been long undermined. The nurse +who had just left had been glad to go. + +Gertrude received Delia's remark with impatience. + +"Do please let my looks alone! As if you could boast!" The speaker's +smile softened as she looked at the girl's still bandaged arm, and pale +cheeks. "That in fact is what I wanted to say, Delia. You ought to be +going home. You want the country and the garden. And I, it seems--so +this tiresome Doctor says--ought to have a fortnight's sea." + +"Oh--" said Delia, with a sudden flush. "So you think we ought to give +up the flat? Why can't I come with you to the sea?" + +"I thought you had begun to do various things--cripples--and +cottages--and schools--for Mr. Winnington," said Gertrude, drily. + +"I wanted to--but Weston's illness stopped it--and then I came here." + +"Well, you 'wanted to.' And why shouldn't you?" + +There was a silence. Then Delia looked up--very pale now--her head +thrown back. + +"So you mean you wish to get rid of me, Gertrude!" + +"Nothing of the sort. I want you to do--what you clearly wish to do." + +"When have I ever shown you that I wished to desert you--or--the +League?" + +"Perhaps I read you better than you do yourself," said +Gertrude, slightly reddening too. "Of course you have been +goodness--generosity--itself. But--this cause wants more than +gifts--more than money-it wants a woman's _self_!" + +"Well?" Delia waited. + +Gertrude moved impatiently. + +"Why should we play the hypocrite with each other!" she said at last. +"You won't deny that what Mr. Winnington thinks--what Mr. Winnington +feels--is infinitely more important to you now than what anybody else +in the world thinks or feels?" + +"Which I shewed by coming up here against his express wishes?--and +joining in the raid, after he had said all that a man could say against +it, both to you and to me?" + +"Oh, I admit you did your best--you did your best," said Gertrude +sombrely. "But I know you, Delia!--I know you! Your heart's not in +it--any more." + +Delia rose, and began slowly to pace the room. There was a wonderful +virginal dignity--a suppressed passion--in her attitude, as though she +wrestled with inward wound. But she said nothing, except to ask--as she +paused in front of Gertrude-- + +"Where are you going--and who is going with you?" + +"I shall go to the sea, somewhere--perhaps to the Isle of Wight. I +daresay Marion Andrews will come with me. She wants to escape her +mother for a time." + +"Marion Andrews?" repeated Delia thoughtfully. Then, after a +moment--"So you're not coming down to Maumsey any more?" + +"Ask yourself what there is for me to do there, my dear child! Frankly, +I should find the society of Mr. Winnington and Lady Tonbridge rather +difficult! And as for their feelings about me!" + +"Do you remember--you promised to live with me for a year?" + +"Under mental reservation," said Gertrude, quietly. "You know very +well, I didn't accept it as an ordinary post." + +"And now there's nothing more to be got out of me? Oh, I didn't mean +anything cruel!" added the girl hastily. "I know you must put the cause +first." + +"And you see where the cause is," said Gertrude grimly. "In ten days +from now Sir Wilfrid Lang will have crushed the bill." + +"And everybody seems to be clamouring that we've given them the +excuse!" + +Fierce colour overspread Gertrude's thin temples and cheeks. + +"They'll take it, anyway; and we've got to do all we can--meetings, +processions, way-laying Ministers--the usual things--and any new +torment we can devise." + +"But I thought you were going to Southsea!" + +"Afterwards--afterwards!" said Gertrude, with visible temper. "I shall +run down to Brighton tomorrow, and come back fresh on Monday." + +"To this flat?" + +"Oh no--I've found a lodging." + +Delia turned away--her breath fluttering. + +"So we part to-morrow!" Then suddenly she faced round on Gertrude. "But +I don't go, Gertrude--till I have your promise!" + +"What promise?" + +"To let--Monk Lawrence _alone_!" said the girl with sudden intensity, +and laying her uninjured hand on a table near, she stooped and looked +Gertrude in the eyes. + +Gertrude broke into a laugh. + +"You little goose! Do you think I look the kind of person for nocturnal +adventures?--a cripple--on a stick? Yes, I know you have been talking +to Marion Andrews. She told me." + +"I warned _you_," said Delia, with determination--"which was more to +the point. Everything Mr. Lathrop told me, I handed on to you." + +There was an instant's silence. Then Gertrude laid a skeleton hand upon +the girl's hand--gripping it painfully. + +"And do you suppose--that anything Mr. Lathrop could say, or you +could say, could prevent my carrying out plans that seemed to me +necessary--in this war!" + +Delia gasped. + +"Gertrude!--you mean to do it!" + +Gertrude released her--almost threw her hand away. + +"I have told you why you are a fool to think so. But if you do think +so, go and tell Mr. Winnington! Tell him everything!--make him enquire. +I shall be in town--ready for the warrant." + +The two faced each other. + +"And now," said Gertrude--"though I am convalescent--we have had +enough of this." She rose tottering--and felt for her stick. Delia +gave it her. + +"Gertrude!" It was a bitter cry of crushed affection and wounded trust. +It arrested Gertrude for a moment on her way to the door. She turned in +indecision--then shook her head--muttered something inarticulate, and +went. + + * * * * * + +That afternoon Delia sent a telegram to Lady Tonbridge who had returned +to Maumsey--"Can you and Nora come and stay with me for three months. I +shall be quite alone." She also despatched a note to Winnington's club, +simply to say that she was going home tomorrow. She had no recent news +of Winnington's whereabouts, but something told her that he was still +in town--still near her. + +Then she turned with energy to practical affairs--arrangements for +giving up the flat, dismissing some servants, despatching others to +Maumsey. She had something of a gift for housekeeping, and on this +evening of all others she blessed its tasks. When they met at dinner, +Gertrude was perfectly placid and amiable. She went to bed early, and +Delia spent the hours after dinner in packing, with her maid. In the +middle of it came a line from Winnington--"Good news indeed! I go down +to Maumsey early, to see that the Abbey is ready for you. Don't bother +about the flat. I have spoken to the Agents. They will do everything. +_Au revoir!"_ + +The commonplace words somehow broke down her self-control. She sent +away her maid, put out the glaring electric light, and sat crouched +over the fire, in the darkness, thinking her heart out. Once she sprang +up suddenly, her hands at her breast--"Oh Mark, Mark--I'm coming back +to you, Mark,--I'm coming back--I'm _free!_"--in an ecstasy. + +But only to feel herself the next moment, quenched--coerced--her +happiness dashed from her. If she gave herself to Mark, her knowledge, +her suspicions, her practical certainty must go with the gift. She +could not keep from him her growing belief that Monk Lawrence was +vitally threatened, and that Gertrude, in spite of audacious denials, +was still madly bent upon the plot. And to tell him would mean instant +action on his part: arrest--prison--perhaps death--for this woman she +had adored, whom she still loved with a sore, disillusioned tenderness. +She could not tell him!--and therefore she could not engage herself to +him. Had Gertrude realised that?--counted upon it? + +No. She must work in other ways--through Mr. Lathrop--through various +members of the "Daughters" Executive who were personally known to her. +Gertrude must be restrained--somehow--by those who still had influence +with her. + +The loneliness of that hour sank deep into Delia's soul. Never had she +felt herself so motherless, so forlorn. Her passion for this elder +woman during three years of fast-developing youth had divided her from +all her natural friends. As for her relations, her father's sister, +Elizabeth Blanchflower, a selfish, eccentric old maid, had just +acknowledged her existence in two chilly notes since she returned to +England; while Lord Frederick, Winnington's co-executor, had in the +same period written her one letter of half-scolding, half-patronising +advice, and sent a present of game to Maumsey. Since then she +understood he had been pursuing his enemy the gout from "cure" to +"cure," and "Mr. Mark" certainly had done all the executor's work that +had not been mere formality. + +She had no friends, no one who cared for her!--except Winnington--her +chilled heart glowed to the name!--Lady Tonbridge, and poor Weston. +Among the Daughters she had acquaintances, but no intimates. Gertrude +had absorbed her; she had lived for Gertrude and Gertrude's ideas. + +And now she was despised--cast out. She tried to revive in herself the +old crusading flame--the hot unquestioning belief in Women's Rights +and Women's Wrongs--the angry contempt for men as a race of coarse and +hypocritical oppressors, which Gertrude had taught her. In vain. She +sat there, with these altruistic loves and hates--premature, artificial +things!--drooping away; conscious only, nakedly conscious, of the +thirst for individual happiness, personal joy--ashamed of it too, in +her bewildered youth!--not knowing that she was thereby best serving +her sex and her race in the fore-ordained ways of destiny. And the +wickedness of men? But to have watched a good man, day by day, had +changed all the values of the human scene. Her time would come +again--with fuller knowledge--for bitter loathing of the tyrannies of +sex and lust. But this, in the natural order, was her hour for +hope--for faith. As the night grew deeper, the tides of both rose and +rose within her--washing her at last from the shores of Desolation. She +was going home. Winnington would be there--her friend. Somehow, she +would save Gertrude. Somehow--surely--she would find herself in Mark's +arms again. She went to sleep with a face all tears, but whether for +joy or sorrow, she could hardly have told. + +Next morning Marion arrived early, and carried Gertrude off to +Victoria, en route for Brighton. Gertrude and Delia kissed each other, +and said Good-bye, without visible emotion. + +"Of course I shall come down to plague you in the summer," said +Gertrude, and Delia laughed assent--with Miss Andrews standing by. The +girl went through a spasm of solitary weeping when Gertrude was finally +gone; but she soon mastered it, and an hour later she herself was in +the train. + +Oh, the freshness of the February day--of the spring breathing +everywhere!--of the pairing birds and the springing wheat--and the +bright patches of crocuses and snowdrop in the gardens along the line. +A rush of pleasure in the mere return to the country and her home, in +the mere welling back of health, the escape from daily friction, and +ugly, violent thoughts, overflowed all her young senses. She was a +child on a holiday. The nightmare of the Raid--of those groups of +fighting, dishevelled women, ignominiously overpowered, of the grinning +crowd, the agonising pain of her arm, and the policeman's rough grip +upon it--began to vanish "in black from the skies." + +Until--the train ran into the long cutting half way between Latchford +and Maumsey, above which climbed the steep woods of Monk Lawrence. +Delia knew it well. And she had no sooner recognised it than her gaiety +fell--headlong--like a shot bird. She waited in a kind of terror for +the moment when the train should leave the cutting, and the house come +into view, on its broad terrace carved out of the hill. Yes, there it +was, far away, the incomparable front, with its beautiful +irregularities, and its equally beautiful symmetries, with its oriel +windows flashing in the sun, the golden grey of its stone work, the +delicate tracery on its tall twisted chimneys, and the dim purples of +its spreading roofs. It lay so gently in the bosom of the woods which +clasped it round--as though they said--"See how we have guarded and +kept it through the centuries for you, the children of to-day." + +The train sped on, and looking back Delia could just make out a whitish +patch on the lower edge of the woods. That was Mr. Lathrop's cottage. +It seemed to her vaguely that she had seen his face in the front rank +of the crowd in Parliament Square; but she had heard nothing of him, or +from him since their last talk. She had indeed written him a short +veiled note as she had promised to do, after Gertrude's first denials, +repeating them--though she herself disbelieved them--and there had been +no reply. Was he at home? Had he perhaps discovered anything more? + +When she alighted at Maumsey, with her hand in Winnington's, the fresh +colour in her cheeks had disappeared again, and he was dismayed anew at +her appearance, though he kept it to himself. But when she was once +more in the familiar drawing-room, sitting in her grandmother's chair, +obliged to rest while Lady Tonbridge poured out tea--Nora was improving +her French in Paris--and Winnington, with his hands in his pockets, +talked gossip and gardening, without a word of anything that had +happened since they three had last met in that room; when Weston, +ghostly but convalescent, came in to show herself; when Delia's black +spitz careered all over his recovered mistress, and even the cats came +to rub themselves against her skirts, it was impossible not to feel for +the moment, tremulously happy, and strangely delivered--in this house +whence Gertrude Marvell had departed. + +How vivid was the impression of this latter fact on the other two may +be imagined. When Delia had gone upstairs to chat with Weston, Lady +Tonbridge looked at Winnington-- + +"To what do we owe this crowning mercy? Who dislodged her?" +Winnington's glance was thoughtful. + +"I guess it has been her own doing entirely. But I know nothing." + +"Hm.--Well, if I may advise, dear Mr. Mark, ask no questions. And"--his +old friend put a hand on his arm--"May I go on?" A smile, not very gay, +permitted her. + +"Let her be!" she said softly, with a world of sympathy in her clear +brown eyes. "She's suffered--and she's on edge." He laid his hand on +hers, but said nothing. + + * * * * * + +The days passed by. Winnington did as he had been told; and Madeleine +Tonbridge seemed to see that Delia was dumbly grateful to him. +Meanwhile in the eyes of her two friends she made little or no advance +towards recapturing her former health and strength. The truth, of +course, was that she was consumed by devouring and helpless anxiety. +She wrote to Lathrop, posting the letter at a distant village; and +received no answer. Then she ascertained that he was not at the +cottage, and a casual line in the _Tocsin_ informed her that he had +been in town taking part in the foundation of an "outspoken" +newspaper--outspoken on "the fundamental questions of sex, liberty, and +morals involved in the suffrage movement." + +But a letter addressed "To be forwarded" to the _Tocsin_ office +produced no more result than her first. Meanwhile she had written +imploringly to various prominent members of the organisation in London +pointing out the effect on public opinion that must be produced all +through Southern England by any attack on Monk Lawrence. She received +two cold and cautious replies. It seemed to her that the writers of +them were even more in the dark than she. + +The days ran on. The newspapers were full of the coming Woman Suffrage +Bill, and its certain defeat in the Commons. Sir Wilfrid Lang was +leading the forces hostile to the Suffrage, and making speech after +speech in the country to cheering audiences, denouncing the Bill, and +the mad women who had tried to promote it by a campaign of outrage, "as +ridiculous as it was criminal." He was to move the rejection of it on +the second reading, and was reported to be triumphantly confident of +the result. + +Winnington meanwhile became more and more conscious of an abnormal +state of nerve and brain in this pale Delia, the shadow of her proper +self, and as the hours went on, he was presently for throwing all +Madeleine's counsels aside, and somehow breaking through the girl's +silence, in the hope of getting at--and healing--the cause of it. He +guessed of course at a hundred things to account for it--at a final +breach between her and Gertrude--at the disappointment of cherished +hopes and illusions--at a profound travail of mind, partly moral, +partly intellectual, going back over the past, and bewildered as to the +future. But at the first sign of a change of action, of any attempt to +probe her, on his part, she was off--in flight; throwing back at him +often a look at once so full of pain and so resolute that he dared not +pursue her. She possessed at all times a great personal dignity, and it +held him at bay. + +He himself--unconsciously--enabled her to hold him at bay. Naturally, +he connected some of the haunting anxiety he perceived with Monk +Lawrence, and with Gertrude Marvell's outrageous speech in Latchford +market-place. But he himself, on the other hand, was not greatly +concerned for Monk Lawrence. Not only he---the whole neighbourhood was +on the alert, in defence of the famous treasure-house. The outside of +the building and the gardens were patrolled at night by two detectives; +and according to Daunt's own emphatic assurance to Winnington, the +house was never left without either the Keeper himself or his niece in +it, to mount guard. They had set up a dog, with a bark which was alone +worth a policeman. And finally, Sir Wilfrid himself had been down to +see the precautions taken, had especially ordered the strengthening of +the side door, and the provision of iron bars for all the ground floor +windows. As to the niece, Eliza Daunt, she had not made herself popular +with the neighbours or in the village; but she seemed an efficient and +managing woman, and that she "kept herself to herself" was far best for +the safety of Monk Lawrence. + +Whenever during these days Winnington's business took him in the +Latchford direction, so that going or coming he passed Monk Lawrence, +he would walk up to the Abbey in the evening, and in the course of the +gossip of the day, all the reassuring news he had to give would be sure +to drop out; while Delia sat listening, her eyes fixed on him. And +then, for a time, the shadow almost lifted, and she would be her young +and natural self. + +In this way, without knowing it, he helped her to keep her secret, and, +intermittently, to fight down her fears. + +On one of these afternoons, in the February twilight, he had been +talking to both the ladies, describing _inter alia_ a brief call at +Monk Lawrence and a chat with Daunt, when Madeleine Tonbridge went away +to change her walking dress, and he and Delia were left alone. +Winnington was standing in the favourite male attitude--his hands in +his pockets, and his back to the fire; Delia was on a sofa near. The +firelight flickered on the black and white of her dress, and on the +face which in losing something of its dark bloom had gained infinitely +in other magic for the eyes of the man looking down upon her. + +Suddenly she said-- + +"Do you remember when you wanted me to say--I was sorry for Gertrude's +speech--and I wouldn't?" + +He started. + +"Perfectly." + +"Well, I am sorry now. I see--I know--it has been all a mistake." + +She lifted her eyes to his, very quietly--but the hands on her lap +shook. + +His passionate impulse was to throw himself at her feet, and silence +any further humbleness with kisses. But he controlled himself. + +"You mean--that violence--has been a mistake?" + +"Yes--just that. Oh, of course!"--she flushed again--"I am just as much +for _women_--I am just as rebellious against their wrongs--as I ever +was. I shall be a Suffragist always. But I see now--what we've stirred +up in England. I see now--that we can't win that way--and that we +oughtn't to win that way." + +He was silent a moment, and then said in a rather muffled voice-- + +"I don't know who else would have confessed it--so bravely!" His +emotion seemed to quiet her. She smiled radiantly. + +"Does it make you feel triumphant?" + +"Not in the least!" + +She held out both hands, and he grasped them, smiling +back--understanding that she wished him to take it lightly. + +Her eyes indeed now were full of gaiety--light swimming on depths. + +"You won't be always saying 'I told you so?'" + +"Is it my way?" + +"No. But perhaps it's cunning on your part. You know it pays better to +be generous." + +They both laughed, and she drew her hands away. In another minute, she +had asked him to go on with some reading aloud while she worked. He +took up the book. The blood raced in his veins. "Soon, soon!"--he said +to himself, only to be checked by the divining instinct which +added--"but not yet!" + + * * * * * + +Only a few more days now, to the Commons debate. Every morning the +newspapers contained a crop of "militant" news of the kind foreshadowed +by Gertrude Marvell--meetings disturbed, private parties raided, +Ministers waylaid, windows smashed, and the like, though in none of the +reports did Gertrude's own name appear. Only two days before the +debate, a glorious Reynolds in the National Gallery was all but +hopelessly defaced by a girl of eighteen. Feeling throughout the +country surged at a white-heat. Delia said little or nothing, but the +hollows under her eyes grew steadily darker, and her cheeks whiter. Nor +could Winnington, for all his increasing anxiety, devote himself to +soothing or distracting her. An ugly strike in the Latchford +brickfields against nonunion labour was giving the magistrates of +the country a good deal of anxiety. Some bad outrages had already +occurred, and Winnington was endeavouring to get a Board of Trade +arbitration,--all of which meant his being a good deal away from home. + +Meanwhile Delia was making a new friend. Easily and simply, though no +one knew exactly how, Susy Amberley had found her way to the heart of +the young woman so much talked about and so widely condemned by the +county. Her own departure for London had been once more delayed by the +illness of her mother. But the worst of her own struggle was over now; +and no one had guessed it. She was a little older, though it was hardly +perceptible to any eye but her mother's; a little graver; in some ways +sweeter, in others perhaps a trifle harder, like the dipped sword. Her +dress had become less of a care to her; she minded the fashions less +than her mother. And there had opened before her more and more +alluringly that world of social service, which is to so many beautiful +souls outside Catholicism the equivalent of the vowed and dedicated +life. + +But just as of old, she guessed Mark Winnington's thoughts, and by some +instinct divined his troubles. He loved Delia Blanchflower; that she +knew by a hundred signs; and there were rough places in his road,--that +too she knew. They were clearly not engaged; but their relation was +clearly, also, one of no ordinary friendship. Delia's dependence on +him, her new gentleness and docility were full of meaning--for Susy. As +to the causes of Delia's depression, why, she had lost her friend, or +at any rate, to judge from the fact that Delia was at Maumsey, while +Miss Marvell remained, so report said, in London--had ceased to agree +or act with her. Susy divined and felt for the possible tragedy +involved. Delia indeed never spoke of the militant propaganda; but she +often produced on Susy a strange impression as of someone +listening--through darkness. + +The net result of all these guessings was that the tender Susy fell +suddenly in love with Delia--first for Mark's sake, then for her own; +and became in a few days of frequent meetings, Delia's small worshipper +and ministering spirit. Delia surrendered, wondering; and it was soon +very evident that, on her side, the splendid creature, in her +unrevealed distress, pined after all to be loved, and by her own sex. +She told Susy no secrets, either as to Winnington, or Gertrude; but +very soon, just as Susy was certain about her, so she--very pitifully +and tenderly--became certain about Susy. Susy loved--or had once +loved--Winnington. And Delia knew very well, whom Winnington loved. The +double knowledge softened all her pride--all her incipient jealousy +away. She took Susy into her heart, though not wholly into her +confidence; and soon the two began to walk the lonely country roads +together hand in hand. Susy's natural tasks took her often among the +poor. But Delia would not go with her. She shrank during these days, +with a sick distaste from the human world around her,--its possible +claims upon her. Her mind was pre-engaged; and she would not pretend +what she could not feel. + +This applied especially to the folk on her father's estate. As to the +neighbours of her own class, they apparently shrank from her. She was +left coldly alone. No one called, but Susy, France and his wife, and +Captain Andrews. Mrs. Andrews indeed was loud in her denunciation of +Delia and all her crew. Her daughter Marion had abominably deserted +all her family duties, without any notice to her family, and was +now--according to a note left behind--brazenly living in town with +some one or other of the "criminals" to whom Miss Blanchflower of +course, had introduced her. But as she had given no address she was +safe from pursuit. Mrs. Andrews' life had never been so uncomfortable. +She had to maid herself, and do her own housekeeping, and the thing was +Scandalous and intolerable. She filled the local air with wailing and +abuse. + +But her son, the gallant Captain, would not allow any abuse of Delia +Blanchflower in his presence. He had begun, indeed, immediately after +Delia's return, to haunt the Abbey so persistently that Madeleine +Tonbridge had to make an opportunity for a few quiet words in his ear, +after which he disappeared disconsolate. + +But he was a good fellow at heart, and the impression Delia had made +upon him, together with some plain speaking on the subject from Lady +Tonbridge, in the course of a chance meeting in the village, roused a +remorseful discomfort in him about his sister. He tried honestly to +find out where she was, but quite in vain. Then he turned upon his +Mother, and told her bluntly she was herself to blame for her +daughter's flight. "Between us, we've led her a dog's life, Mother, +there, that's the truth! All the same, I'm damned sorry she's taken up +with this business." + +However, it mattered nothing to anybody whether the Captain was "damned +sorry" or not. The hours were almost numbered. The Sunday before the +Tuesday fixed for the Second Reading came and went. It was a foggy +February day, in which the hills faded from sight, and all the world +went grey. Winnington spent the afternoon at Maumsey. But neither he +nor Madeleine seemed to be able to rouse Delia during that day from a +kind of waking dream--which he interpreted as a brooding sense of some +catastrophe to come. + +He was certain that her mind was fixed on the division ahead--the +scene in the House of Commons--and on the terror of what the +"Daughters"--Gertrude perhaps in the van--might be planning and +plotting in revenge for it. His own feeling was one of vast relief that +the strain would be so soon over, and his own tongue loosed. Monk +Lawrence was safe enough! And as for any other attempt at vengeance, he +dismissed the notion with impatient scorn. + +But meanwhile he said not a word that could have jarred on any +conviction or grief of Delia's. Sometimes indeed they touched the great +subject itself--the "movement" in its broad and arguable aspects; +though it seemed to him that Delia could not bear it for long. Mind and +heart were too sore; and her weary reasonableness made him long for the +prophetic furies of the autumn. But always she felt herself enwrapped +by a tenderness, a chivalry that never failed. Only between her and +it--between her and him--as she lay awake through broken nights, some +barrier rose--dark and impassable. She knew it for the barrier of her +own unconquered fear. + + + + +Chapter XIX + + +On this same Sunday night before the date fixed for the Suffrage +debate, a slender woman, in a veil and a waterproof, opened the gate of +a small house in the Brixton Road. It was about nine o'clock in the +evening. The pavements were wet with rain, and a gusty wind was +shrieking through the smutty almond and alder trees along the road +which had ventured to put out their poor blossoms and leaves in the +teeth of this February gale. + +The woman stood and looked at the house after shutting the gate, as +though uncertain whether she had found what she was looking for. But +the number 453, on the dingy door, could be still made out by the light +of the street opposite, and she mounted the steps. + +A slatternly maid opened the door, and on being asked whether Mrs. +Marvell was at home, pointed curtly to a dimly lighted staircase, and +disappeared. + +Gertrude Marvell groped her way upstairs. The house smelt repulsively +of stale food, and gas mingled, and the wailing wind from outside +seemed to pursue the visitor with its voice as she mounted. On the +second floor landing, she knocked at the door of the front room. + +After an interval, some shuffling steps came to the door, and it was +cautiously opened. + +"What's your business, please?" + +"It's me--Gertrude. Are you alone?" + +A sound of astonishment. The door was opened, and a woman appeared. Her +untidy, brown hair, touched with grey, fell back from a handsome +peevish face of an aquiline type. A delicate mouth, relaxed and +bloodless, seemed to make a fretful appeal to the spectator, and the +dark circles under the eyes shewed violet on a smooth and pallid skin. +She was dressed in a faded tea-gown much betrimmed, covered up with a +dingy white shawl. + +"Well, Gertrude--so you've come--at last!"--she said, after a moment, +in a tone of resentment. + +"If you can put me up for the night--I can stay. I've brought no +luggage." + +"That doesn't matter. There's a stretcher bed. Come in." Gertrude +Marvell entered, and her mother closed the door. + +"Well, mother--how are you?" + +The daughter offered her cheek, which the elder woman kissed. Then Mrs. +Marvell said bitterly-- + +"Well, I don't suppose, Gertrude, it much matters to you how I am." + +Gertrude took off her wet waterproof, and hat, and sitting down by the +fire, looked round her mother's bed-sitting-room. There was a tray on +the table with the remains of a meal. There were also a large number of +women's hats, some trimmed, some untrimmed, some in process of +trimming, lying about the room, on the different articles of furniture. +There was a tiny dog in a basket, which barked shrilly and feebly as +Gertrude approached the fire, and there were various cheap illustrated +papers and a couple of sixpenny novels to be seen emerging from the +litter here and there. For the rest, the furniture was of a squalid +lodging-house type. On the chimney-piece however was a bunch of +daffodils, the only fresh and pleasing object in the room. + +To Gertrude it was as though she had seen it all before. Behind the +room, there stretched a succession of its ghostly fellows--the rooms of +her childhood. In those rooms she could remember her mother as a young +and comely woman, but always with the same slovenly dress, and the same +untidy--though then abundant and beautiful--hair. And as she half shut +her eyes she seemed also to see her younger sister coming in and +out--malicious, secretive--with her small turn-up nose, pouting lips, +and under-hung chin. + +She made no reply to her mother's complaining remark. But while she +held her cold hands to the blaze that Mrs. Marvell stirred up, her eyes +took careful note of her mother's aspect. "Much as usual," was her +inward comment. "Whatever happens, she'll outlive me." + +"You've been going on with the millinery?" She pointed to the hats. "I +hope you've been making it pay." + +"It provides me with a few shillings now and then," said Mrs. Marvell, +sitting heavily down on the other side of the fire--"which Winnie +generally gets out of me!" she said sharply. "I am a miserable pauper +now, as I always have been." + +Gertrude's look was unmoved. Her mother had, she knew, all that her +father had left behind him--no great sum, but enough for a solitary +woman to live on. + +"Well, anyway, you must be glad of it as an occupation. I wish I could +help you. But I haven't really a farthing of my own, beyond the +interest on my Ł1000. I handle a great deal of money, but it all goes +to the League, and I never let them pay me more than my bare expenses. +Now then, tell me all about everybody!" And she lay back in the +dilapidated basket-chair that had been offered her, and prepared +herself to listen. + +The family chronicle was done. It was as depressing as usual, and +Gertrude made but little comment upon it. When it was finished, Mrs. +Marvell rose, and put the kettle on the fire, and got out a couple of +fresh cups and saucers from a cupboard. As she did so, she looked round +at her visitor. + +"And you're as deep in that militant business as ever." + +Gertrude made a negligent sign of assent. + +"Well, you'll never get any good of it." The mother's pale cheek +flushed. It excited her to have this chance of speaking her mind to her +clever and notorious daughter, whom in many ways she secretly envied, +while heartily disapproving her acts and opinions. + +Gertrude shrugged her shoulders. + +"What's the good of arguing?" + +"Well, it's true"--said the mother, persisting. "Every new thing you +do, turns more people against you. Winnie's a Suffragist--but she says +you've spoilt all their game!" + +Gertrude's eyes shone; she despised her mother's opinion, and her +sister's still more, and yet once again in their neighbourhood, once +again in the old environment, she could not help treating them in the +old defiant brow-beating way. + +"And you think, I suppose, that Winnie knows a good deal about it?" + +"Well, she knows what everybody's saying--in the trams--and the trains +everywhere. Hundreds of them that used to be for you have turned over." + +"Let them!" + +The contemptuous tone irritated Mrs. Marvell. But at the same time she +could not help admiring her eldest daughter, as she sat there in the +fire-light, her quiet well-cut dress, her delicate hands and feet. It +was true indeed, she was a scarce-crow for thinness, and looked years +older--"somehow gone to pieces"--thought the mother, vaguely, and with +a queer, sudden pang. + +"And you're going on with it?" + +"What? Militancy? Of course we are--more than ever!" + +"Why, the men laugh at you, Gertrude!" + +"They won't laugh--by the time we've done," said Gertrude, with +apparent indifference. Her mother had not sufficient subtlety of +perception to see that the indifference was now assumed, to hide the +quiver of nerves, irreparably injured by excitement and overstrain. + +"Well, all I know is, it's against nature to suppose that women can +fight men." Mrs. Marvell's remarks were rather like the emergence of +scattered spars from a choppy sea. + +"We shall fight them," said Gertrude, sourly--"And what's more, we +shall beat them." + +"All the same we've got to live with them!" cried her mother, suddenly +flushing, as old memories swept across her. + +"Yes,--on our terms--not theirs!" + +"I do believe, Gertrude, you hate the very sight of a man!" Gertrude +smiled again; then suddenly shivered, as though the cold wind outside +had swept through the room. + +"And so would you--if you knew what I do!" + +"Well I do know a good bit!" protested Mrs. Marvell. "And I'm a married +woman,--worse luck! and you're not. But you'll never see it any other +way than your own, Gertie. You got a kink in you when you were quite +a girl. Last week I was talking about you to a woman I know--and I +said--'It's the girls ruined by the bad men that make Gertrude so +mad'--and she said--'She don't ever think of the boys that are ruined +by the bad women!--Has she ever had a son--not she!' And she just cried +and cried. I suppose she was thinking of something." + +Gertrude rose. + +"Look here, mother. Can I go to bed? I'm awfully tired." + +"Wait a bit. I'll make the bed." + +Gertrude sat down by the fire again. Her exhaustion was evident, and +she made no attempt to help her mother. Mrs. Marvell let down the +chair-bed, drew it near the fire, and found some bed-clothes. Then she +produced night-things of her own, and helped Gertrude undress. When her +daughter was in bed, she made some tea, and dry toast, and Gertrude let +them be forced on her. When she had finished, the mother suddenly +stooped and kissed her. + +"Where are you going to now, Gertrude? Are you staying on with that +lady in Hamptonshire?" + +"Can't tell you my plans just yet," said Gertrude sleepily--"but you'll +know next week." + +The lights were put out. Both women tried to sleep, and Gertrude was +soon heavily asleep. + +But as soon as it was light, Mrs. Marvell heard her moving, the splash +of water, and the lighting of the fire. Presently Gertrude came to her +side fully dressed-- + +"There, mother, I've made _you_ a cup of tea! And now in a few minutes +I shall be off." + +Mrs. Marvell sat up and drank the tea. + +"I didn't think you'd go in such a hurry," she said, fretfully. + +"I must. My day's so full. Well, now look here, Mother, I want you to +know if anything were to happen to me, my thousand pounds would come to +you first, and then to Winnie and her children. And it's my wish, that +neither my brother nor Henry shall touch a farthing of it. I've made a +will, and that's the address of my solicitors, who're keeping it." She +handed her mother an envelope. + +Mrs. Marvell put down her tea, and put her handkerchief to her eyes. + +"I believe you're up to something dreadful, Gertrude,--which you won't +tell me." + +"Nonsense," said Gertrude, not however unkindly. "But we mayn't see +each other for a good while. There!--I'll open the windows--that'll +make you feel more cheerful." And she drew up the blinds to the dull +February day, and opened a window. + +"I'll telephone to Winnie as I go past the Post Office to come and +spend the day with you--and I'll send up the servant to do your room. +Now don't fret." + +"I'm a lonely old woman, Gertrude:--and I wish I was dead." + +Gertrude frowned. + +"You should try and read something, Mother--better than these trashy +novels. When I've time, I'll send you a parcel of books--I've got a +good many. And don't you let your work go--it's good for you. Now +good-bye." + +The two women kissed--Mrs. Marvell embracing her daughter with a sudden +fierceness of emotion to which Gertrude submitted, almost for the first +time in her life. Then her mother pushed her away. + +"Good-bye, Gertrude--you'd better go!" + +Gertrude went out noiselessly, closing the door behind her with a +lingering movement, unlike her. In the tiny hall below, she found the +"general" at work, and sent her up to Mrs. Marvell. Then she went out +into the grey February morning, and the little girl of the landlady +standing on the steps saw her enter one of the eastward-bound trams. + +Monday afternoon came. Winnington had been called away to Wanchester by +urgent County business; against his will, for there had been some bad +rioting the day before at Latchford, and he would rather have gone to +help his brother magistrates. But there was no help for it. Lady +Tonbridge was at the little Georgian house, shutting it up for six +months. Delia was left alone in the Abbey, consumed with a restless +excitement she had done her best to hide from her companions. She +suddenly made up her mind that she would go and see for herself, and by +herself, what was happening at Monk Lawrence. She set out unobserved +and on foot, and had soon climbed the hill and reached the wood walk +along its crest where she had once met Lathrop. Half way through, +she came on two persons whom she at once recognised as the +science-mistress, Miss Jackson, and Miss Toogood. They were waiting +slowly, and, as it seemed to Delia, sadly; the little dressmaker +limping painfully, with her head thrown back and a face of fixed and +tragic distress. + +When they saw Delia, they stopped in agitation. + +"Oh, Miss Blanchflower!--" + +Delia who knew that Miss Jackson had been in town hoping for work at +the Central Office of the League of Revolt, divined at once that she +had been disappointed. + +"They couldn't find you anything?" + +The teacher shook her head. + +"And the Governors have given me a month's salary here in lieu of +notice. I've left the school, Miss Blanchflower! I was in the Square +you know, that day--and at the Police Court afterwards. That was what +did it. And I have my old mother to keep." + +A pair of haggard eyes met Delia's. + +"Oh, but I'll help!" cried Delia.--"You must let me help!--won't you?" + +"Thank you--but I've got a few savings," said the teacher quietly. "It +isn't that so much. It's--well, Miss Toogood feels it too. She was in +town--she saw everything. And she knows what I mean. We're +disheartened--that's what it is!" + +"With the movement?" said Delia, after a moment. + +"It seemed so splendid when we talked of it down here--and--it +_was_--so horrible!" Her voice dropped. + +"So horrible!" echoed Miss Toogood drearily. "It wasn't what we meant, +somehow. And yet we'd read about it. But to see those young women +beating men's faces--well, it did for me!" + +"The police were rough too!" cried Miss Jackson. "But you couldn't +wonder at it, Miss Blanchflower, could you?" + +Delia looked into the speaker's frank, troubled face. "You and I felt +the same," she said in a choked voice. "It was ugly--and it was +absurd." + +She walked back with them a little way, comforting them, as best she +could. And her sympathy, her sweetness did--strangely--comfort them. +When she left them, they walked on, talking tenderly of her, counting +on _her_ good fortune, if there was none for them. + +At the end of the walk, towards Monk Lawrence, another figure emerged +from the distance. Delia started, then gathered all her wits; for it +was Lathrop. + +He hurried towards her, breathless, cutting all preliminaries-- + +"I was coming to find you. I arrived this morning. There is something +wrong! I have just been to the house, and there is no one there." + +"What do you mean?" + +"No one. I went to Daunt's rooms. Everything locked. The house +absolutely dark--everywhere. And I know that he has had the strictest +orders!" + +Without a word, she began to run, and he beside her. When she +slackened, he told her that while in London he had made the most +skilful enquiries he could devise as to the plot he believed to be on +foot. But--like Delia's own--they had been quite fruitless. Those +persons who had shared suspicion with him in December were now +convinced that the thing was dropped. All that he had ascertained was +that Miss Marvell was in town, apparently recovered, and Miss Andrews +with her. + +"Well--and were you pleased with your raid?" he asked her, half +mockingly, as he opened the gate of Monk Lawrence for her. + +She resented the question, and the tone of it, remembering his first +grandiloquent letter to her. + +"_You_ ought to be," she said, drily. "It was the kind of thing you +recommended." + +"In that letter I wrote you! I ought to have apologised to you for that +letter long ago. I am afraid it was an exercise. Oh, I felt it, I +suppose, when I wrote it." + +There was a touch of something insolent in his voice. + +She made no reply. If it had not been for the necessity which yoked +them, she would not have spent another minute in his company, so +repellent to her had he become--both in the inner and the outer man. +She tried only to think of him as an ally in a desperate campaign. + +They hastened up the Monk Lawrence drive. The house stood still and +peaceful in the February afternoon. The rooks from the rookery behind +were swirling about and over the roofs, filling the air with monotonous +sound which only emphasized the silence below. A sheet of snowdrops lay +white in the courtyard, where a child's go-cart upset, held the very +middle of the stately approach to the house. + +Delia went to the front door, and rang the bell--repeatedly. Not a +sound, except the dim echoes of the bell itself from some region far +inside. + +"No good!" said Lathrop. "Now come to the back." They went round to the +low addition at the back of the house, where Daunt and his family had +now lived for many months. Here also there was nobody. The door was +locked. The blinds were drawn down. Impossible to see into the rooms, +and neither calling nor knocking produced any response. + +Lathrop stood thinking. + +"Absolutely against orders! I know--for Daunt himself told me--that he +had promised Lang never to leave the house without putting some deputy +he could trust in charge. He has gone and left no deputy--or the deputy +he did leave has deserted." + +"What's the nearest house--or cottage?" + +"The Gardeners' cottages, beyond the kitchen garden. Only one of them +occupied now, I believe. Daunt used to live there before he moved into +the house. Let's go there!" + +They ran on. The walled kitchen garden was locked, but they found a way +round it to where three creeper-grown cottages stood in a pleasant +lonely space girdled by beech-woods. One only was inhabited, but from +that the smoke was going up, and a babble of children's voices emerged. + +Lathrop knocked. There was a sudden sound, and then a silence within. +In a minute however the door was opened, and a strapping black-eyed +young woman stood on the threshold looking both sulky and astonished. + +"Are you Daunt's niece?" said Lathrop. + +"I am, Sir. What do you want with him?" + +"Why isn't he at Monk Lawrence?" asked Lathrop roughly. "He told me +himself he was not to leave the house unguarded." + +"Well, Sir, I don't know I'm sure what business it is of yours!" said +the woman, flushing with anger. "He got bad news of his son, whose ship +arrived at Portsmouth yesterday, and the young man said to be dying, on +board. So he went off this afternoon. I've only left it for ten minutes +and I'm going back directly. Mrs. Cresson here had asked the children +to tea, and I brought them over. And I'll thank you, Sir, not to go +spying on honest people!" + +And she would have slammed the door in his face, but that Delia came +forward. + +"We had no intention of spying upon you, Miss Daunt--indeed we hadn't. +But I am Miss Blanchflower, who came here before Christmas, with Mr. +Winnington, and I should have been glad to see Mr. Daunt and the +children. Lily!--don't you remember me?"--and she smiled at the +crippled child--a delicate blue-eyed creature--whom she saw in the +background. + +But the child, who seemed to have been crying violently, did not come +forward. And the other two, who had their fingers in their mouths, were +equally silent and shrinking. In the distance an old woman sat +motionless in her chair by the fire, taking no notice apparently of +what was going on. + +The young woman appeared for a moment confused or excited. + +"Well, I'm sorry, Miss, but my Uncle won't be back till after dark. And +I wouldn't advise you to come in, Miss,"--she hurriedly drew the door +close behind her--"the doctor thinks two of the children have got +whooping-cough--and I didn't send them to school today." + +"Well, just understand, Miss Daunt, if that's your name," said Lathrop, +with emphasis--"that till you return to the house, we shall stay there. +We shall walk up and down there, till you come back. You know well +enough there are people about, who would gladly do an injury to the +house, and that it's not safe to leave it. Monk Lawrence is not Sir +Wilfrid Lang's property only. It belongs to the whole nation, and there +are plenty of people that'll know the reason why, if any harm comes to +it." + +"Oh, very well. Have it your own way, Sir! I'll come--I'll come--fast +enough," and the speaker, with a curious half-mocking look at Lathrop, +flounced back into the cottage, and shut the door. They waited. There +were sounds of lowered voices, and crying children. Then Miss Daunt +emerged defiantly, and they all three walked back to Monk Lawrence. + +The keeper's niece unlocked the door leading to Daunt's rooms. But she +stood sulkily in the entry. + +"Now I hope you're satisfied, Sir. I don't know, I'm sure, why you +should come meddling in other people's affairs. And I daresay you'll +say something against me to my uncle!" + +"Well, anyway, you keep watch!" was the stern reply. "I take my rounds +often this way, as your Uncle knows. I daresay I shall be by here again +tonight. Can the children find their way home alone?" + +"Well, they're not idiots, Sir! Good-night to you. I've got to get +supper." And brusquely shutting the door in their faces, she went +inside. They perceived immediately afterwards that she had lit a light +in the kitchen. + +"Well, so far, all right," said Lathrop, as he and Delia withdrew. "But +the whole thing's rather--queer. You know that old woman, Mrs. +Cresson, is not all there, and quite helpless?" + +He pondered it as they walked back through the wood, his eyes on the +ground. Delia shared his undefined anxiety. She suggested that he +should go back to the house in an hour or so, to see if Daunt had +returned, and complain of his niece's breach of rules. Lathrop agreed. + +"How do we know who or what that girl is?"--he said slowly--"that she +mayn't have been got hold of?" + +The same terror grew in Delia. She walked on beside him absorbed in +speculation and discussion, till, without noticing, she had reached the +farther gate of the wood-walk. Outside the gate, ran the Wanchester +road, climbing the down, amid the woods. To reach the field path +leading to the Abbey, Delia must cross it. + +She and Lathrop emerged from the wood still talking in low voices, and +stood beside the gate. A small car, with one man driving it, was +descending the long hill. But Delia had her back to it. + +It came nearer. She turned, and saw Winnington approaching her--saw the +look on his face. For a moment she wavered. Then with a bow and a hasty +"Good Evening," she left Lathrop, and stepped into the road, holding up +her hand to stop the car. + +"How lucky!" she said, clearly, and gaily,--"just as it's going to +rain! Will you take me home?" + +Winnington, without a word, made room for her beside him. The two men +exchanged a slight greeting--and the car passed. + +Lathrop walked quickly back in the direction of Monk Lawrence. His +vanity was hugely pleased. + +"By George!--that was one to me! It's quite evident she hasn't taken +him into her confidence--doesn't want magistrates interfering--no +doubt. And meanwhile she appeals to _me_--she depends on _me_. Whatever +happens--she'll have to be grateful to me. That fellow with his +wry face can't stop it. What a vision she made just now under the +wood--'belle dame sans merci!'--hating my company--and yet compelled +to it. It would make a sonnet I think--I'll try it tonight." + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile in the dark corridors of Monk Lawrence a woman groping, met +another woman. The two dim figures exchanged some whispered words. Then +one of them returned to the back regions. + +Lathrop, passing by, noticed smoke rising from the Daunts' chimney, and +was reassured. But in an hour or so he would return to look for Daunt +himself. + +He had no sooner descended the hill to his own cottage, in the fast +gathering dusk, than Eliza Daunt emerged. She left the light burning in +the keeper's kitchen, and some cold supper on the table. Then with a +laugh which was half a sob of excitement she ran down the path leading +to the garden cottages. + +She was met by a clamour of rebellious children, as she opened Mrs. +Cresson's door. "Where's Daddy, Liza?--where's Daddy! Why can't we go +home! We want our Daddy!" + +"Hold your noise!" said Eliza roughly--"or it'll be the worse for +you--Daddy won't be home for a couple of hours yet, and I promised Fred +Cresson, I'd get Mrs. Cresson's tea for her. Lily, stop crying--and +get the tray!" + +The crippled child, red-eyed, unwillingly obeyed. Neither she nor her +sisters could understand why they had been brought over to tea with +Mrs. Cresson of whose queer half-imbecile ways they were all terrified. +Their father had gone off in a great hurry--because of the telegram +which had come. And Fred had bicycled down to Latchford to see somebody +about a gardener's place. And now there was no one left but Liza and +Mrs. Cresson--of whom, for different reasons, the three little girls +were equally afraid. And Lily's heart especially was sore for her +father. She knew very well they were all doing what was forbidden. But +she dared not complain. They had found Cousin 'Liza a hard woman. + +After Eliza Daunt had left Daunt's kitchen, for the space of half an +hour, a deep and brooding quiet settled on Monk Lawrence. The old house +held that in its womb, which must soon crash to light; but for this +last brief space, all was peace. The twilight of a clear February +evening mellowed the grey walls, and the moss-grown roofs; the house +spoke its last message--its murmured story, as the long yoke-fellow of +human life--to the tranquil air; and the pigeons crooned about it, +little knowing. + +Presently from the same door which had seen Eliza Daunt depart, a woman +cautiously emerged. She was in dark clothes, closely veiled. With +noiseless step, she passed round the back of the house, pausing a +moment to look at the side door on the north side which had been lately +strengthened by Sir Wilfrid's orders. Then she gained the shelter of +the close-grown shrubbery, and turning round she stood a few seconds +motionless, gazing at the house. In spite of her quiet movements, she +was trembling from head to foot--with excitement, not fear. + +"It's beautiful," she was saying to herself--"and precious--and I've +destroyed it." Then--with a fierce leap in the blood--"_Beauty_! And +what about the beauty that men destroy? Let them _pay_!" + +But as she stood there a sudden disabling storm of +thought--misgiving--argument--swept through her brain. She seemed to +hear on all sides voices in the air--the voices of friends and foes, of +applause and execration--Delia's voice among them! And at the mere +imagination of it, a shiver of anger ran through her. She thought of +Delia now, only as of one who had deserted and disobeyed. + +But with the illusion of the ear, there came also an illusion of +vision. The months of her recent life rose before her, in one hurrying +spectacle of scenes and faces, and the spectacle aroused in her but one +idea--one sickening impression--of crushing and superhuman effort. What +labour!--what toil! She shuddered under it. Then, suddenly, her mind +ran back to the early years before, beyond, the days of "war"--sordid, +unceasing war--when there had been time to love, to weep, to pity, to +enjoy; before wrath breeding wrath, and violence begetting violence, +had driven out the Spirits of Tenderness and Hope. She seemed to see, +to feel them--the sad Exiles!--fleeing along desert ways; and her +bitter heart cried out to them--for the only--the last time. For in the +great names of Love and Justice, she had let Hate loose within her, and +like the lion-cub nurtured in the house, it had grown to be the soul's +master and gaoler; a "doom" holding the citadels of life, and working +itself out to the appointed end. + +But the tumult in which she stood began to unnerve her. By a last +exercise of will she was able to pull herself together. + +Rapidly, as one well used to them, she made her way through the +shrubbery paths; round the walled garden, and behind the gardeners' +cottages. She heard the children in Mrs. Cresson's cottage as she +passed, Lily still fretfully crying, and the old woman's voice +scolding. Poor children!--they would be horribly frightened--but +nothing worse. + +The thick overgrown wood of fir and beech behind the cottages received +her, swallowed up the slight insignificant form. In the wood there was +still light enough to let her grope her way along the path, till at the +end, against an opening to the sky, she saw the outlines of a keeper's +hut. Then she knew that she was worn out, and must rest. She pushed the +door ajar, and sat crouching on the threshold, while the schemes and +plottings of the preceding weeks ran disjointedly through memory. + +Marion was safe by now--she had had an hour's start. And Eliza too had +gone. Nothing could be better than the arrangements made for those two. + +But she herself was not going--not yet. Her limbs failed her; and +beyond the sheltering woods, she seemed to become electrically aware of +hostile persons, of nets drawn round her, cutting off escape. As to +that, she felt the most supreme indifference to what might happen to +her. The indifference, indeed, passed presently into a strange and +stinging temptation to go back--back to the dark house--to see with +her own eyes what her hands had done. She resisted it with +difficulty.... Suddenly, a sound from the distance--beyond the +cottages--as of a slight explosion. She started, and throwing back her +veil, she sat motionless in the doorway of the hut, her face making a +dim white patch upon the darkness. + + + + +Chapter XX + + +"Take me home!--take me home quick! I want to talk to you. Not +now--not here!" + +The car flew along. Mark barely looked at Delia. His face was set and +pale. As for her, while they ran through the village and along the +country road between it and Maumsey, her mind had time to adjust itself +to that flashing resolution which had broken down a hundred scruples +and swept away a hundred fears, in that moment on the hill when she had +met his eyes, and the look in them. What must he think of her? An +assignation with that man, on the very first afternoon when his tender +watchfulness left her for an hour! No, it could not be borne that he +should read her so! She must clear herself! And thought, leaping +beacon-like from point to point told her, at last, that for Gertrude +too, she had chosen wrongly. Thank Heaven, there was still time! What +could a girl do, all alone--groping in such a darkness? Better after +all lay the case before Mark's judgment, Mark's tenderness, and trust +him with it all. Trust her own power too--see what a girl could do with +the man who loved her! + +The car stopped at the Abbey door, and Winnington, still absolutely +silent, helped her to alight. She led the way, past the drawing-room +where Lady Tonbridge sat rather anxiously expecting her, to that bare +room on the ground floor, the little gun-room, which Gertrude Marvell +had made her office, and where many signs of her occupation still +remained--a calendar on the wall marking the "glorious" dates of the +League--a flashlight photograph of the first raid on Parliament some +years before--a faded badge, and scattered piles of newspapers. A +couple of deal tables and two chairs were all the furniture the room +contained, in addition to the cupboards, painted in stone-colour, which +covered the walls. + +Delia closed the door, and threw off her furs. Then, with a gesture of +complete abandonment, she went up to Winnington, holding out her +hands-- + +"Oh, Mark, Mark, I want you to help me!" + +He took her hands, but without pressing them. His face, frowning and +flushed, with a little quivering of the nostrils, began to terrify +her-- + +"Oh, Mark,--dear Mr. Mark--I went to see Mr. Lathrop--because--because +I was in great trouble--and I thought he could help me." + +He dropped the hands. + +"You went to _him_--instead of to me? How long have you been with him? +Did you write to him to arrange it?" + +"No, no--we met by accident. Mark, it's not myself--it's a fear I +have--a dreadful, dreadful fear!" + +She came close to him, piteously, just murmuring-- + +"It's Monk Lawrence!--and Gertrude!" + +He started, and looked at her keenly-- + +"You know something I don't know?" + +"Oh yes, I do, I do!" she said, wringing her hands. "I ought to have +told you long ago. But I've been afraid of what you might do--I've been +afraid for Gertrude. Can't you see, Mark? I've been trying to make Mr. +Lathrop keep watch--enquire--so that they wouldn't dare. I've told +Gertrude that I know--I've written to people--I've done all I could. +And this afternoon I felt I must go there and see for myself, what +precautions had been taken--and I met Mr. Lathrop--" + +She gave a rapid account of their visit to the house,--of its complete +desertion--of the strange behaviour of the niece--and of the growing +alarm in her own mind. + +"There's something--there's some plot. Perhaps that woman's in it. +Perhaps Gertrude's got hold of her--or Miss Andrews. Anyway, if that +house can be left quite alone--ever--they'll get at it--that I'm sure +of. Why did she take the children away? Wasn't that strange?" + +Then she put her hands on the heart that fluttered so--and tried to +smile-- + +"But of course till the Bill's thrown out, there can be no danger, can +there? There _can't_ be any!" she repeated, as though appealing to him +to reassure her. + +"I don't understand yet," he said gravely. "Why do you suspect Miss +Marvell, or a plot at all? There was no such idea in your mind when we +went over the house together?" + +"No, none!--or at least not seriously--there was nothing, really, to go +on"--she assured him eagerly. "But just after--you remember Mr. +Lathrop's coming--that day--?--when you scolded me?" + +He could not help smiling a little--rather bitterly. + +"I remember you said you couldn't explain. Of course I thought it was +something connected with Miss Marvell, or your Society--but--" + +"I'm going to explain"--she said, trying hard for composure. "I'm going +to tell it all in order." + +And sitting down, her head resting on her hand, with Winnington +standing before her, she told the whole story of the preceding +weeks--the alternations of fear and relief--Lathrop's +suspicions--Gertrude's denials--the last interview between them. + +As for the man looking down upon her beautiful bowed head, his heart +melted within him as he listened. The sting remained that she should +have asked anyone else than he to help her--above all that she should +have humbled herself to ask it of such a man as Lathrop. Anxiety +remained, for Monk Lawrence itself, and still more for what might be +said of her complicity. But all that was further implied in her +confession, her drooping sweetness, her passionate appeal to him--the +beauty of her true character, its innocence, its faith, its +loyalty--began to flood him with a feeling that presently burst its +bounds. + +She wound up with most touching entreaties to him, to save and shield +her friend--to go himself to Gertrude and warn her--to go to the +police--without disclosing names, of course--and insist that the house +should be constantly patrolled. + +He scarcely heard a word of this. When she paused--there was silence a +moment. Then she heard her name--very low-- + +"Delia!" + +She looked up, and with a long breath she rose, as though drawn +invisibly. He held out his arms, and she threw hers round his neck, +hiding her face against the life that beat for her. + +"Oh, forgive me!"--she murmured, after a little, childishly pressing +her lips to his--"forgive me--for everything!" + +The tears were in his eyes. + +"You've gone through all this!--alone!" he said to her, as he bent over +her. "But never again, Delia--never again!" + +She was the first to release herself--putting tears away. + +"Now then--what can we do?" + +He resumed at once his ordinary manner and voice. + +"We can do a great deal. I have the car here. I shall go straight back +to Monk Lawrence, and see Daunt to-night. That woman's behaviour must +be reported--and explained. An hour--an hour and a half?--since you +were there?"--he took out his watch--"He's probably home by now--it's +quite dark--he'd scarcely risk being away after dark. Dearest, go and +rest!--I shall come back later--after dinner. Put it out of your mind." + +She went towards the hall with him hand in hand. Suddenly there was a +confused sound of shouting outside. Lady Tonbridge opened the +drawing-room door with a scared face-- + +"What is it? There are people running up the drive. They're shouting +something!" + +Winnington rushed to the front door, Delia with him. With his first +glance at the hill-side, he understood the meaning of the cries--of the +crowd approaching. + +"My God!--_too late_!" + +For high on that wooded slope, a blaze was spreading to the skies--a +blaze that grew with every second--illuminating with its flare the +woods around it, the chimneys of the old house, the quiet stretches of +the hill. + +"Monk Lawrence is afire, Muster Winnington!" panted one of Winnington's +own labourers who had outstripped the rest. "They're asking for you to +come! They've telephoned to Latchford for the engines, and to +Brownmouth and Wanchester too. They say it's burning like tow--there +must be petrol in it, or summat. It's the women they say!--spite of Mr. +Daunt and the perlice!" + +Then he noticed Delia standing beside Winnington on the steps, and held +his tongue, scowling. + +Winnington's car was still standing at the steps. He set it going in a +moment. + +"My cloak!" said Delia, looking round her--"And tell them to bring the +car!" + +"Delia, you're not going?" cried Madeleine, throwing a restraining arm +about her. + +"But of course I am!" said the girl amazed. "Not with him--because I +should be in his way." + +Various persons ran to do her bidding. Winnington already in his place, +with a labourer beside him, and two more in the seat behind him, +beckoned to her. + +"Why should you come, dearest! It will only break your heart. We'll do +all that can be done, and I'll send back messages." + +She shook her head. + +"I shall come! But don't think of me. I won't run any risks." + +There was no time to argue with her. The little car sped away, and with +it the miscellaneous crowd who had rushed to find Winnington, as the +natural head of the Maumsey community, and the only magistrate within +reach. + +Delia and Madeleine were left standing on the steps, amid a group of +frightened and chattering servants--gazing in despairing rage at the +ever-spreading horror on the slope of the down, at the sudden leaps of +flame, the vast showers of sparks drifting over the woods, the red +glare on the low hanging clouds. The garnered beauty of four centuries, +one of England's noblest heirlooms, was going down in ruin, at the +bidding of a handful of women, hurling themselves in disappointed fury +on a community that would not give them their way. + +Sharp-toothed remorse had hold on Delia. If she had only gone to +Wilmington earlier! "My fault!--my fault!" + +When the car came quickly round, she and Lady Tonbridge got into it. As +they rushed through the roads, lit on their way by that blaze in the +heart of the hills, of which the roaring began to reach their ears, +Delia sat speechless, and death-like, reconstructing the past days and +hours. Not yet two hours since she had left the house--left it +untouched. At that very moment, Gertrude or Gertrude's agents must have +been within it. The whole thing had been a plot--the children taken +away--the house left deserted. Very likely Daunt's summons to his dying +son had been also part of it. And as to the niece--what more probable +than that Gertrude had laid hands on her months before, guided perhaps +by the local knowledge of Marion Andrews,--and had placed her as spy +and agent in the doomed house till the time should be ripe? The blind +and fanatical devotions which Gertrude was able to excite when she set +herself to it, was only too well known to Delia. + +Where was Gertrude herself? For Delia was certain that she had not +merely done this act by deputy. + +In the village, every person who had not gone rushing up the hill was +standing at the doors, pale and terror-stricken, watching the glare +overhead. The blinds of Miss Toogood's little house were drawn close. +And as Delia passed, angry looks and mutterings pursued her. + +The car mounted the hill. Suddenly a huge noise and hooting behind +them. They drew into the hedge, to let the Latchford fire-engine +thunder past, a fine new motor engine, just purchased and equipped. + +"There'll be three or four more directly, Miss"--shouted one of her +own garden lads, mounting on the step of the car. "But they say there's +no hope. It was fired in three places, and there was petrol used." + +At the gate, the police--looking askance especially at Miss +Blanchflower--would have turned them back. But Delia asked for +Winnington, and they were at last admitted into the circle outside the +courtyard, where beyond reach of the sparks, and falling fragments, the +crowd of spectators was gathered. People made way for her, but Lady +Tonbridge noticed that nobody spoke to her, though as soon as she +appeared all the angry or excited attention that the crowd could spare +from the fire was given to her. Delia was not aware of it. She stood a +little in front of the crowd, with her veil thrown back, her hands +clasped in front of her, an image of rapt despair. Her face, like all +the faces in the crowd, was made lurid--fantastic--by the glare of the +flames; and every now and then, as though unconsciously, she brushed +away the mist of tears from her eyes. + +"Aye she's sorry now!"--said a stout farmer, bitterly, to his +neighbour--"now that she's led them as is even younger than herself +into trouble. My girl's in prison all along of her--and that woman as +they do say is at the bottom of this business." + +The speaker was Kitty Foster's father. Kitty had just been sentenced to +six months' imprisonment for the burning of a cricket pavilion in the +Midlands, and her relations were sitting in shame and grief for her. + +"Whoever 'tis as did it 'ull have a job to get away"--said the man he +addressed. "They've got a lot o' police out. Where's 'Liza Daunt, I +say? They're searching for her everywhere. Daunt's just come upon the +engine from Latchford--saw the fire from the train. He says he's been +tricked--a put-up job he says. There wasn't nothing wrong with his son, +he says, when he got to Portsmouth. If they do catch 'em, the police +will have to guard 'em safe. It won't do to let the crowd get at 'em. +They're fair mad. Oh, Lord!--it's caught another roof!" + +And a groan rose from the fast-thickening multitude, as another wall +fell amid a shower of sparks and ashes, and the flames, licking up and +up, caught the high-pitched roof of the great hall, and ran along the +stone letters of the parapet, which spelt out the motto--"Except the +Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it." The fantastic +letters themselves, which had been lifted to their places before the +death of Shakespeare, seemed to dance in the flame like living and +tormented things. + +Meanwhile in the courtyard, and on the side lawns, scores of persons +were busy removing furniture, pictures and tapestries. Winnington was +leading and organising the rescue parties, now inside, now outside the +house. And near him, under his orders, worked Paul Lathrop, in his +shirt sleeves, superhumanly active, and superhumanly strong--grinding +his teeth with rage sometimes, as the fire defeated one effort after +another to check it. Daunt, also was there, pouring out incoherent +confidences to the police, and distracted by the growing certainty that +his niece had been one of the chief authors of the plot. His children +naturally had been his first thought. But the Rector, who had just been +round to enquire for them at Mrs. Cresson's cottage, came back +breathless, shouting "all safe!"--and Daunt rushed off to help the +firemen; while Amberley reported to Susy the pitiable misery of Lily, +the little cripple, who had been shrieking for her father in wild +outbursts of crying, refusing to believe that he was not in the fire. +Susy, who loved the child, would have gladly gone to find her, and take +her home to the Rectory for the night. But, impossible to leave her +post at Delia's side, and this blazing spectacle that held the +darkness! Two village women, said the Rector, were in charge of the +children. + +"No chance!" said Lathrop, bitterly, pausing for a moment beside +Winnington, while they both took breath--the sweat pouring from their +smoke-blackened faces. + +"If one could get to the top of that window with the big hose--one +could reach the roof better"--panted Winnington, pointing to the still +intact double oriel which ran up through two stories of the building, +to the east of the doorway. + +"I see!" Lathrop dashed away. And in a few seconds he and a fireman +could be seen climbing from a ladder upon a ledge, a carved +string-course, which connected the eastern and western oriels above the +main doorway. They crawled along the ledge like flies, clinging to +every projection, every stem of ivy, the fireman dragging the hose. + +The crowd watched, all eyes. Winnington, after a rapid look or two, +turned away with the thought--"That fellow's done some rock-climbing in +his day!" + +But against such a doom as had now gripped Monk Lawrence, nothing +availed. Lathrop and his companion had barely scaled the parapet of the +window when a huge central crash sent its resounding din circling round +the leafless woods, and the two climbing figures disappeared from view +amid a fresh rush of smoke and flame. + +The great western chimney-stack had fallen. When the cloud of smoke +drifted away, a gaping cavity of fire was seen just behind the two men; +it could only be a matter of minutes before the wall and roof +immediately behind them came down upon them. The firemen shouted to +them from below. A long ladder was brought and run up to within twenty +feet of them. Lathrop climbed down to it over the scorched face of the +oriel, his life in jeopardy at every step. Then steadying himself on +the ladder,--and grasping a projection in the wall, he called to the +man above, to drop upon his shoulders. It was done, by a miracle--and +both holding on, the man above by the projections of the wall and +Lathrop by the ladder, descended, till the two were within reach of +safety. + +A thin roar of cheers rose from the environing throng, scarcely audible +amid the greater roar of the flames. Lathrop, wearied, depressed, with +bleeding hands, came back to Winnington's side. Winnington looked +round. For the first time Lathrop saw through Mark's grey eyes the +generous heart within--unveiled. + +"Splendid! Are you hurt?" + +"Only scorched and scratched. Give me another job!" + +"Come along then." + +And thenceforward the two worked side by side, like brothers, in the +desperate attempt to save at least the Great Hall, and the beautiful +rooms adjoining; the Porch Room, with its Chatham memorials; the +library too, with its stores of seventeenth-century books, its busts, +and its portraits. But the flames rushed on and on, with a fiendish and +astounding rapidity. Fragments of news ran back to the onlookers. The +main staircase had been steeped in petrol--and sacks full of shavings +had been stored in the panelled spaces underneath it. Fire-lighters +heaped together had been found in the Red Parlour--to be dragged out by +the firemen--but again too late!--for the fire was already gnawing at +the room, like a wild prowling beast. A back staircase too had been +kindled with paraffin--the smell of it was everywhere. And thus urged, +a very demon of fire seemed to have seized on the beautiful place. +There was a will and a passion of destruction in the flames that +nothing could withstand. As the diamond-paned windows fell into +nothing-ness, the rooms behind shewed for a brief space; carved roofs, +stately fireplaces, gleaming for a last moment, before Time knew them +no more, and all that remained of them was the last vision of their +antique beauty, stamped on the aching memories of those who watched. + +"Why did you let her come!" said France vehemently in Lady Tonbridge's +ear, with his eyes on Delia. "It's enough to kill her. She must know +who's done it!" + +Lady Tonbridge shook her head despairingly, and both gazed, without +daring to speak to her, on the girl beside them. Madeleine had taken +one cold hand. France was torn with pity for her--but what comfort was +there to give! Her tears had dried. But there was something now in her +uncontrollable restlessness as she moved ghost-like along the front of +the spectators, pressing as near to the house as the police would +permit, scanning every patch of light or shadow, which suggested to +those who followed her, possession by some torturing fear--some terror +of worse still to come. + +Meanwhile the police were thinking not only of the house, but still +more of its destroyers. They had a large number of men on the spot, and +a quick-witted inspector in charge. It was evident from many traces +that the incendiaries had only left the place a very short time before +the outbreak of the fire; they could not be far away. Scouts were flung +out on all the roads; search parties were in all the woods; every +railway station had been warned. + +On the northern side, the famous Loggia, built by an Italianate owner +of the house, in the first half of the sixteenth century--a series of +open arches, with twisted marble pillars--ran along the house from +front to rear. It was approached on the south by a beautiful staircase, +of which the terra-cotta balustrading had been copied from a famous +villa on Como, and a similar staircase gave access to it from the +garden to the north. The fight for the Great Hall which the Loggia +adjoined, was being followed with agonised anxiety by the crowds. The +Red Parlour, with all its carvings and mouldings had gone, the porch +room was a furnace of fire, with black spars and beams hanging in +ragged ruin across it. The Great Hall seemed already tottering, and in +its fall, the Loggia too must go. + +Then, as every eye hung upon the work of the firemen and the play of +the water, into the still empty space of the Loggia, and illumined by +the glare of the flames, there emerged with quiet step, the figure of a +woman. She came forward: she stood with crossed arms looking at the +crowd. And at the same moment, behind her, there appeared the form of a +child, a little fair-haired girl, hobbling on a crutch, in desperate +haste, and wailing--"Father!" + +Delia saw them, and with one wild movement she was through the cordon +of police, and running for the house. + +Winnington, at the head of his salvage corps, perceived her, and ran +too. + +"Delia!--go back!--go back!" + +"Gertrude!" she said, gasping--and pointed to the Loggia. And he had +hardly looked where all the world was looking, when a part of the roof +of the Hall at the back, fell suddenly outwards and northwards, in a +blaze of flame. Charred rafters stood out, hanging in mid air, and the +flames leapt on triumphant. At the same moment, evidently startled by +some sound behind her, the woman turned, and saw what the crowd +saw--the child, limping on its crutch, coming towards her, calling +incoherently. + +Her own cry rang out, as she ran towards the cripple, waving her back. +And as she did so, came another thundering fall, another upward rush of +flame, as a fresh portion of the roof fell eastwards, covering the +Loggia and blotting out the figures of both woman and child. + +With difficulty the police kept back the mad rush of the crowd. The +firemen swarmed to the spot. + +But the child was buried deep under flaming ruin, where her father, +Daunt, who had rushed to save her, was only restrained by main force +from plunging after her, to his death. The woman they brought +out--alive. France, Delia and Winnington were beside her. + +"Stand back!" shouted the mild old Rector--transformed into a +prophet-figure, his white hair streaming--as the multitude swayed +against the cordon of police. "Stand back! all of you--and pray--for +this woman!" + +In a dead silence, men, shivering, took off their hats, and women +sobbed. + +"Gertrude!" Delia called, in her anguish, as she knelt beside the +charred frame, over which France who was kneeling on the other side had +thrown his coat. + +The dark eyes opened in the blackened face, the scorched lips unlocked. +A shudder ran through the dying frame. + +"The child!--the child!" + +And with that cry to heaven,--that protesting cry of an amazed and +conquered soul--Gertrude Marvell passed away. + + * * * * * + +Thus ended the First Act of Delia's life. When three weeks later, after +a marriage at which no one was present except the persons to be +married, Lady Tonbridge, and Dr. France, Winnington took his wife far +from these scenes to lands of summer and of rest, he carried with him a +Delia ineffaceably marked by this tragedy of her youth. Children, as +they come, will sometime re-kindle the natural joy in a face so lovely. +And till that time arrives Winnington's tenderness will be the +master-light of all her day. But there are sounds once heard that live +for ever in the mind. And in Delia's there will reverberate till death +that wail of a fierce and childless woman--that last cry of nature in +one who had defied nature--of womanhood in one who had renounced the +ways of womanhood: "_the child--the child_!" + +Not long after the destruction of Monk Lawrence and the marriage of +Delia, Paul Lathrop left the Maumsey neighbourhood. His debts had been +paid by some unknown friend or friends, and he fell back into London +literary life, where he maintained a precarious but--to himself--not +unpleasant existence. + +Miss Jackson, the science-mistress, went to Vancouver, married the +owner of a lumber camp, and so tamed her soul. Miss Toogood lived on, +rarely employed, and seldom going outside the tiny back parlour, with +its pictures of Winchester and Mr. Keble. But Lady Tonbridge and Delia +do their best to lighten the mild melancholy which grows upon her with +age; and a little red-haired niece who came to live with her, keeps her +old aunt's nerves alive and alert by various harmless vices--among them +an incorrigible interest in the Maumsey and Latchford youth. Marion +Andrews and Eliza Daunt disappeared together. They were not captured on +that terrible night when Gertrude Marvell, convinced that she could not +escape, and perhaps not much caring to escape, came back to look on the +ruin she had so long and carefully prepared, and perished in the heart +of it--not alone. + +But such desperate happenings as the destruction of Monk Lawrence, to +whatever particular calamities they may lead, are but a backward ripple +on the vast and ceaseless tide of human efforts towards a new and +nobler order. Delia must still wrestle all her life with the meaning of +that imperious call to women which this century has sounded; and of +those further stages, upwards and onwards, to which the human spirit, +in Man or Woman, is perennially urged by the revealing forces that +breathe through human destiny. Two days after the death of Gertrude +Marvell, the immediate cause on which she and her fellows had wrought +such havoc, went down in Parliament to long and bitter eclipse. But the +end is not yet. And for that riddle of the Sphinx to which Gertrude and +her fellows gave the answer of a futile violence, generations more +patient and more wise, will yet find the fitting key. + + THE END + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Delia Blanchflower, by Mrs. Humphry Ward + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DELIA BLANCHFLOWER *** + +***** This file should be named 9665-8.txt or 9665-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/9/6/6/9665/ + +Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Charlie +Kirschner and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Delia Blanchflower + +Author: Mrs. Humphry Ward + +Posting Date: November 15, 2011 [EBook #9665] +Release Date: January, 2006 +First Posted: October 14, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DELIA BLANCHFLOWER *** + + + + +Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Charlie +Kirschner and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + + + + + + DELIA + + BLANCHFLOWER + + + BY + + + MRS. HUMPHRY WARD + + AUTHOR "LADY ROSE'S DAUGHTER," ETC. + + + Frontispiece in color by + + WILL FOSTER + + + + +DELIA BLANCHFLOWER + + + + +Chapter I + + +"Not a Britisher to be seen--or scarcely! Well, I can do without 'em +for a bit!" + +And the Englishman whose mind shaped these words continued his +leisurely survey of the crowded salon of a Tyrolese hotel, into which a +dining-room like a college hall had just emptied itself after the +mid-day meal. Meanwhile a German, sitting near, seeing that his tall +neighbour had been searching his pockets in vain for matches, offered +some. The Englishman's quick smile in response modified the German's +general opinion of English manners, and the two exchanged some remarks +on the weather--a thunder shower was splashing outside--remarks which +bore witness at least to the Englishman's courage in using such +knowledge of the German tongue as he possessed. Then, smoking +contentedly, he leant against the wall behind him, still looking on. + +He saw a large room, some seventy feet long, filled with a +miscellaneous foreign crowd--South Germans, Austrians, Russians, +Italians--seated in groups round small tables, smoking, playing cards +or dominoes, reading the day's newspapers which the funicular had just +brought up, or lazily listening to the moderately good band which was +playing some Rheingold selection at the farther end. + +To his left was a large family circle--Russians, according to +information derived from the headwaiter--and among them, a girl, +apparently about eighteen, sitting on the edge of the party and +absorbed in a novel of which she was eagerly turning the pages. From +her face and figure the half savage, or Asiatic note, present in the +physiognomy and complexion of her brothers and sisters, was entirely +absent. Her beautiful head with its luxuriant mass of black hair, worn +low upon the cheek, and coiled in thick plaits behind, reminded the +Englishman of a Greek fragment he had admired, not many days before, in +the Louvre; her form too was of a classical lightness and perfection. +The Englishman noticed indeed that her temper was apparently not equal +to her looks. When her small brothers interrupted her, she repelled +them with a pettish word or gesture; the English governess addressed +her, and got no answer beyond a haughty look; even her mother was +scarcely better treated. + +Close by, at another table, was another young girl, rather younger than +the first, and equally pretty. She too was dark haired, with a delicate +oval face and velvet black eyes, but without any of the passionate +distinction, the fire and flame of the other. She was German, +evidently. She wore a plain white dress with a red sash, and her little +feet in white shoes were lightly crossed in front of her. The face and +eyes were all alive, it seemed to him, with happiness, with the mere +pleasure of life. She could not keep herself still for a moment. Either +she was sending laughing signals to an elderly man near her, presumably +her father, or chattering at top speed with another girl of her own +age, or gathering her whole graceful body into a gesture of delight as +the familiar Rheingold music passed from one lovely _motif_ to another. + +"You dear little thing!" thought the Englishman, with an impulse of +tenderness, which passed into foreboding amusement as he compared the +pretty creature with some of the matrons sitting near her, with one in +particular, a lady of enormous girth, whose achievements in eating and +drinking at meals had seemed to him amazing. Almost all the middle-aged +women in the hotel were too fat, and had lost their youth thereby, +prematurely. Must the fairy herself--Euphrosyne--come to such a muddy +vesture in the end? Twenty years hence?--alack! + +"Beauty that must die." The hackneyed words came suddenly to mind, and +haunted him, as his eyes wandered round the room. Amid many coarse or +commonplace types, he yet perceived an unusual number of agreeable or +handsome faces; as is indeed generally the case in any Austrian hotel. +Faces, some of them, among the very young girls especially, of a +rose-tinted fairness, and subtly expressive, the dark brows arching on +white foreheads, the features straight and clean, the heads well +carried, as though conscious of ancestry and tradition; faces, also, of +the _bourgeoisie_, of a simpler, Gretchen-like beauty; faces--a few--of +"intellectuals," as he fancied,--including the girl with the +novel?--not always handsome, but arresting, and sometimes noble. He +felt himself in a border land of races, where the Teutonic and Latin +strains had each improved the other; and the pretty young girls and +women seemed to him like flowers sprung from an old and rich soil. He +found his pleasure in watching them--the pleasure of the Ancient +Mariner when he blessed the water-snakes. Sex had little to say to it; +and personal desire nothing. Was he not just over forty?--a very busy +Englishman, snatching a hard-earned holiday--a bachelor, moreover, +whose own story lay far behind him. + +"_Beauty that must die_" The words reverberated and would not be +dismissed. Was it because he had just been reading an article in a new +number of the _Quarterly_, on "Contemporary Feminism," with mingled +amazement and revolt, roused by some of the strange facts collected by +the writer? So women everywhere--many women at any rate--were turning +indiscriminately against the old bonds, the old yokes, affections, +servitudes, demanding "self-realisation," freedom for the individuality +and the personal will; rebelling against motherhood, and life-long +marriage; clamouring for easy divorce, and denouncing their own +fathers, brothers and husbands, as either tyrants or fools; casting +away the old props and veils; determined, apparently, to know +everything, however ugly, and to say everything, however outrageous? He +himself was a countryman, an English provincial, with English public +school and university traditions of the best kind behind him, a mind +steeped in history, and a natural taste for all that was ancient and +deep-rooted. The sketch of an emerging generation of women, given in +the _Quarterly_ article, had made a deep impression upon him. It seemed +to him frankly horrible. He was of course well acquainted, though +mainly through the newspapers, with English suffragism, moderate and +extreme. His own country district and circle were not, however, much +concerned with it. And certainly he knew personally no such types as +the _Quarterly_ article described. Among them, no doubt, were the women +who set fire to houses, and violently interrupted or assaulted Cabinet +ministers, who wrote and maintained newspapers that decent people would +rather not read, who grasped at martyrdom and had turned evasion of +penalty into a science, the continental type, though not as yet +involved like their English sisters in a hand-to-hand, or fist-to-fist +struggle with law and order, were, it seemed, even more revolutionary +in principle, and to some extent in action. The life and opinions of a +Sonia Kovalevski left him bewildered. For no man was less omniscient +than he. Like the Cabinet minister of recent fame, in the presence of +such _femmes fortes_, he might have honestly pleaded, _mutatis +mutandis_, "In these things I am a child." + +Were these light-limbed, dark-eyed maidens under his eyes touched with +this new anarchy? They or their elders must know something about it. +There had been a Feminist congress lately at Trient--on the very site, +and among the ghosts of the great Council. Well, what could it bring +them? Was there anything so brief, so passing, if she did but know it, +as a woman's time for happiness? "_Beauty that must die_." + +As the words recurred, some old anguish lying curled at his heart +raised its head and struck. He heard a voice--tremulously +sweet--"Mark!--dear Mark!--I'm not good enough--but I'll be to you all +a woman can." + +_She_ had not played with life--or scorned it--or missed it. It was not +_her_ fault that she must put it from her. + +In the midst of the crowd about him, he was no longer aware of it. +Still smoking mechanically, his eyelids had fallen over his eyes, as +his head rested against the wall. + +He was interrupted by a voice which said in excellent though foreign +English-- + +"I beg your pardon, sir--I wonder if I might have that paper you are +standing on?" + +He looked down astonished, and saw that he was trampling on the day's +_New York Herald_, which had fallen from a table near. With many +apologies he lifted it, smoothed it out, and presented it to the +elderly lady who had asked for it. + +She looked at him through her spectacles with a pleasant smile. + +"You don't find many English newspapers in these Tyrolese hotels?" + +"No; but I provide myself. I get my _Times_ from home." + +"Then, as an Englishman, you have all you want. But you seem to be +without it to-night?" + +"It hasn't arrived. So I am reduced, as you see, to listening to the +music." + +"You are not musical?" + +"Well, I don't like this band anyway. It makes too much noise. Don't +you think it rather a nuisance?" + +"No. It helps these people to talk," she said, in a crisp, cheerful +voice, looking round the room. + +"But they don't want any help. Most of them talk by nature as fast as +the human tongue can go!" + +"About nothing!" She shrugged her shoulders. + +Winnington observed her more closely. She was, he guessed, somewhere +near fifty; her scanty hair was already grey, and her round, plain face +was wrinkled and scored like a dried apple. But her eyes, which were +dark and singularly bright, expressed both energy and wit; and her +mouth, of which the upper lip was caught up a little at one corner, +seemed as though quivering with unspoken and, as he thought, sarcastic +speech. Was she, perchance, the Swedish _Schriftstellerin_ of whom he +had heard the porter talking to some of the hotel guests? She looked a +lonely-ish, independent sort of body. + +"They seem nice, kindly people," he said, glancing round the salon. +"And how they enjoy life!" + +"You call it life?" + +He laughed out. + +"You are hard upon them, madame. Now I--being a mere man--am lost in +admiration of their good looks. We in England pride ourselves on our +women, But upon my word, it would be difficult to match this show in an +English hotel. Look at some of the faces!" + +She followed his eyes--indifferently. + +"Yes--they've plenty of beauty. And what'll it do for them? Lead them +into some wretched marriage or other--and in a couple of years there +will be neither beauty nor health, nor self-respect, nor any interest +in anything, but money, clothes, and outwitting their husbands." + +"You forget the children!" + +"Ah--the children"--she said in a dubious tone, shrugging her shoulders +again. + +The Englishman--whose name was Mark Winnington--suddenly saw light +upon her. + +A Swedish writer, a woman travelling alone? He remembered the sketch of +"feminism" in Sweden which he had just read. The names of certain +woman-writers flitted through his mind. He felt a curiosity mixed with +distaste. But curiosity prevailed. + +He bent forward. And as he came thereby into stronger light from a +window on his left, the thought crossed the mind of his neighbour that +although so fully aware of other people's good looks, the tall +Englishman seemed to be quite unconscious of his own. Yet in truth he +appeared both to her, and to the hotel guests in general, a kind of +heroic creature. In height he towered beside the young or middle-aged +men from Munich, Buda-Pesth, or the north Italian towns, who filled the +_salon_. He had all that athlete could desire in the way of shoulders, +and lean length of body; a finely-carried head, on which the brown hair +was wearing a little thin at the crown, while still irrepressibly +strong and curly round the brow and temple; thick penthouse brows, and +beneath them a pair of greyish eyes which had already made him friends +with the children and the dogs and half the grown-ups in the place. The +Swedish lady admitted--but with no cordiality--that human kindness +could hardly speak more plainly in a human face than from those eyes. +Yet the mouth and chin were thin, strong and determined; so were the +hands. The man's whole aspect, moreover, spoke of assured position, and +of a keen intelligence free from personal pre-occupations, and keeping +a disinterested outlook on the world. The woman who observed him had in +her handbag a book by a Russian lady in which Man, with a capital, +figured either as "a great comic baby," or as the "Man-Beast," invented +for the torment of women. The gentleman before her seemed a little +difficult to fit into either category. + +But if she was observing him, he had begun to question her. + +"Will you forgive me if I ask an impertinent question?" + +"Certainly. They are the only questions worth asking." + +He laughed. + +"You are, I think, from Sweden?" + +"That is my country." + +"And I am told you are a writer?" She bent her head. "I can see also +that you are--what shall I say?--very critical of your sex--no doubt, +still more of mine! I wonder if I may ask "-- + +He paused, his smiling eyes upon her. + +"Ask anything you like." + +"Well, there seems to be a great woman-movement in your country. Are +you interested in it?" + +"You mean--am I a feminist? Yes, I happen to dislike the word; but it +describes me. I have been working for years for the advancement of +women. I have written about it--and in the Scandinavian countries we +have already got a good deal. The vote in Sweden and Norway; almost +complete equality with men in Denmark. Professional equality, too, has +gone far. We shall get all we want before long?" Her eyes sparkled in +her small lined face. + +"And you are satisfied?" + +"What human being of any intelligence--and I am intelligent," she +added, quietly,--"ever confessed to being 'satisfied'? Our shoe pinched +us. We have eased it a good deal." + +"You really find it substantially better to walk with?" + +"Through this uncomfortable world? Certainly. Why not?" + +He was silent a little. Then he said, with his pleasant look, throwing +his head back to observe her, as though aware he might rouse her +antagonism. + +"All that seems to me to go such a little way." + +"I daresay," she said, indifferently, though it seemed to him that she +flushed. "You men have had everything you want for so long, you have +lost the sense of value. Now that we want some of your rights, it is +your cue to belittle them. And England, of course, is hopelessly +behind!" The tone had sharpened. + +He laughed again and was about to reply when the band struck up Brahm's +Hungarian dances, and talk was hopeless. When the music was over, and +the burst of clapping, from all the young folk especially, had died +away, the Swedish lady said abruptly-- + +"But we had an English lady here last year--quite a young girl--very +handsome too--who was an even stronger feminist than I." + +"Oh, yes, we can produce them--in great numbers. You have only to look +at our newspapers." + +His companion's upper lip mocked at the remark. + +"You don't produce them in great numbers--like the young lady I speak +of." + +"Ah, she was good-looking?" laughed Winnington. "That, of course, gave +her a most unfair advantage." + +"A man's jest," said the other dryly--"and an old one. But naturally +women take all the advantage they can get--out of anything. They need +it. However, this young lady had plenty of other gifts--besides her +beauty. She was as strong as most men. She rode, she climbed, she sang. +The whole hotel did nothing but watch her. She was the centre of +everything. But after a little while she insisted on leaving her father +down here to over-eat himself and play cards, while she went with her +maid and a black mare that nobody but she wanted to ride, up to the +_Jagd-huette_ in the forest. There!--you can see a little blue smoke +coming from it now"-- + +She pointed through the window to the great forest-clothed cliff, some +five thousand feet high, which fronted the hotel; and across a deep +valley, just below its topmost point, Mark Winnington saw a puff of +smoke mounting into the clear sky. + +--"Of course there was a great deal of talk. The men gossipped and the +women scoffed. Her father, who adored her and could not control her in +the least, shrugged his shoulders, played bridge all day long with an +English family, and would sit on the verandah watching the path--that +path there--which comes down from the _Jagd-huette_ with a spy-glass. +Sometimes she would send him down a letter by one of the Jager's boys, +and he would send a reply. And every now and then she would come +down--riding--like a Brunhilde, with her hair all blown about her--and +her eyes--_Ach_, superb!" + +The little dowdy woman threw up her hands. + +Her neighbour's face shewed that the story interested and amused him. + +"A Valkyrie, indeed! But how a feminist?" + +"You shall hear. One evening she offered to give an address at the +hotel on 'Women and the Future.' She was already of course regarded as +half mad, and her opinions were well known. Some people objected, and +spoke to the manager. Her father, it was said, tried to stop it, but +she got her own way with him. And the manager finally decided that the +advertisement would be greater than the risk. When the evening came the +place was _bonde_; people came from every inn and pension round for +miles. She spoke beautiful German, she had learnt it from a German +governess who had brought her up, and been a second mother to her; and +she hadn't a particle of _mauvaise honte_. Somebody had draped some +Austrian and English flags behind her. The South Germans and Viennese, +and Hungarians who came to listen--just the same kind of people who are +here to-night--could hardly keep themselves on their chairs. The men +laughed and stared--I heard a few brutalities--but they couldn't keep +their eyes off her, and in the end they cheered her. Most of the women +were shocked, and wished they hadn't come, or let their girls come. And +the girls themselves sat open-mouthed--drinking it in." + +"Amazing!" laughed the Englishman. "Wish I had been there! Was it an +onslaught upon men?" + +"Of course," said his companion coolly. "What else could it be? At +present you men are the gaolers, and we the prisoners in revolt. This +girl talked revolution--they all do. 'We women _intend_ to have equal +rights with you!--whatever it cost. And when we have got them we shall +begin to fashion the world as _we_ want it--and not as you men have +kept it till now. _Gare a vous!_ You have enslaved us for ages--you may +enslave us a good while yet--but the end is certain. There is a new age +coming, and it will be the age of the free woman!'--That was the kind +of thing. I daresay it sounds absurd to you--but as she put it--as she +looked it--I can tell you, it was fine!" + +The small, work-worn hands of the Swedish lady shook on her knee. Her +eyes seemed to hold the Englishman at bay. Then she added, in another +tone. + +"Some people of course walked out, and afterwards there were many +complaints from fathers of families that their daughters should have +been exposed to such a thing. But it all passed over." + +"And the young lady went back to the forest?" + +"Yes,--for a time." + +"And what became of the black mare?" + +"Its mistress gave her to an inn-keeper here when she left. But the +first time he went to see the horse in the stable, she trampled on him +and he was laid up for weeks." + +"Like mistress, like mare?--Excuse the jest! But now, may I know the +name of the prophetess?" + +"She was a Miss Blanchflower," said the Swedish lady, boggling a little +over the name. "Her father had been a governor of one of your +colonies." + +Winnington started forward in his chair. + +"Good heavens!--you don't mean a daughter of old Bob Blanchflower!" + +"Her father's name was Sir Robert Blanchflower." + +The tanned face beside her expressed the liveliest interest. + +"Why, I knew Blanchflower quite well. I met him long ago when I was +staying with an uncle in India--at a station in the Bombay presidency. +He was Major Blanchflower then"-- + +The speaker's brow furrowed a little as though under the stress of some +sudden recollection, and he seemed to check himself in what he was +saying. But in a moment he resumed:-- + +"A little after that he left the army, and went into Parliament. +And--precisely!--after a few years they made him governor +somewhere--not much of a post. Then last year his old father, a +neighbour of mine in Hampshire, quite close to my little place, went +and died, and Blanchflower came into a fortune and a good deal of land +besides. And I remember hearing that he had thrown up the Colonial +Service, had broken down in health, and was living abroad for some +years to avoid the English climate. That's the man of course. And the +Valkyrie is Blanchflower's daughter! Very odd that! I must have seen +her as a child. Her mother"--he paused again slightly--"was a Greek by +birth, and gloriously handsome. Blanchflower met her when he was +military attache at Athens for a short time.--Well, that's all very +interesting!" + +And in a ruminating mood the Englishman took out his cigarette-case. + +"You smoke, Madame?" + +The Swedish lady quietly accepted the courtesy. And while the too +insistent band paused between one murdered Wagnerian fragment and +another, they continued a conversation which seemed to amuse them both. + + * * * * * + +A little later the Englishman went out into the garden of the hotel, +meaning to start for a walk. But he espied a party of young people +gathered about the new lawn-tennis court where instead of the languid +and dishevelled trifling, with a broken net and a wretched court, that +was once supposed to attract English visitors, he had been already +astonished to find Austrians and Hungarians--both girls and +boys--playing a game quite up to the average of a good English club. +The growing athleticism and independence, indeed, of the foreign girl, +struck, for Winnington, the note of change in this mid-European +spectacle more clearly than anything else. It was some ten years since +he had been abroad in August, a month he had been always accustomed to +spend in Scotch visits; and these young girls, with whom the Tyrol +seemed to swarm, of all European nationalities other than English, +still in or just out of the schoolroom; hatless and fearless; with +their knapsacks on their backs, sometimes with ice-axes in their hands; +climbing peaks and passes with their fathers and brothers; playing +lawn-tennis like young men, and shewing their shapely forms sometimes, +when it was a question of attacking the heights, in knicker-bocker +costume, and at other times in fresh white dresses and bright-coloured +jerseys, without a hint of waist; these young Atalantas, budding and +bloomed, made the strongest impression upon him, as of a new race. +Where had he been all these years? He felt himself a kind of Rip van +Winkle--face to face at forty-one with a generation unknown to him. No +one of course could live in England, and not be aware of the change +which has passed over English girls in the same direction. But the +Englishman always tacitly assumes that the foreigner is far behind him +in all matters of open-air sport and physical development. Winnington +had soon confessed the touch of national arrogance in his own surprise; +and was now the keen and much attracted spectator. + +On one of the grounds he saw the little German girl--Euphrosyne, as he +had already dubbed her--having a lesson from a bullying elder brother. +The youth, amazed at his own condescension, scolded his sister +perpetually, and at last gave her up in despair, vowing that she would +never be any good, and he was not going to waste his time in teaching +such a ninny. Euphrosyne sat down beside the court, with tears in her +pretty eyes, her white feet crossed, her dark head drooping; and two +girl companions, aged about sixteen or seventeen, like herself, came up +to comfort her. + +"I could soon shew you how to improve your service, Mademoiselle," said +Winnington, smiling, as he passed her. Euphrosyne looked up startled, +but at sight of the handsome middle-aged Englishman, whom she unkindly +judged to be not much younger than her father, she timidly replied:-- + +"It is hateful, Monsieur, to be so stupid as I am!" + +"Let me shew you," repeated Winnington, kindly. At this moment, a +vigilant English governess--speaking with a strong Irish-American +accent--came up, and after a glance at the Englishman, smilingly +acquiesced. The two comforters of Euphrosyne, graceful little maids, +with cherry-coloured jerseys over their white frocks, and golden brown +hair tied with the large black bows of the _Backfisch_, were eager to +share the lesson, and soon Winnington found himself the centre of a +whole bevy of boys and girls who had run up to watch Euphrosyne's +performance. + +The English governess, a good girl, in spite of her accent, and the +unconscious fraud she was thereby perpetrating on her employers, +thought she had seldom witnessed a more agreeable scene. + +"He treats them like princesses, and yet he makes them learn," she +thought, a comment which very fairly expressed the mixture of something +courtly with something masterful in the Englishman's manner. He was +patience itself; but he was also frankness itself, whether for praise +or blame; and the eagerness to please him grew fast and visibly in all +these young creatures. + +But as soon as he had brought back Euphrosyne's smiles, and roused a +new and fierce ambition to excel in all their young breasts, he dropped +the lesson, with a few gay slangy words, and went his way, leaving a +stir behind him of which he was quite unconscious. And there was no +Englishman looking on who might have told the charmed and conquered +maidens that they had just been coached by one of the most famous of +English athletes, born with a natural genius for every kind of game, +from cricket downwards. + + * * * * * + +On his way to the eastern side of the pass on which stood the group of +hotels, Winnington got his post from the _concierge_, including his +nightly _Times_, and carried it with him to a seat with which he was +already familiar. + +But he left the _Times_ unopened, for the spectacle before him was one +to ravish the senses from everything but itself. He looked across the +deep valley of the Adige, nearly four thousand feet below him, to the +giant range of the Dolomite Alps on the eastern side. The shadow of the +forest-clad mountain on which he stood spread downwards over the plain, +and crept up the mountains on the farther edge. Above a gulf of deepest +blue, inlaid with the green of vineyards and forest lakes, he beheld an +aerial world of rose-colour--the giant Dolomites, Latemar, Rosengarten, +Schlern--majestic rulers of an upper air, so pure and luminous, that +every tiny shadow cast by every wisp of wandering cloud on the bare red +peaks, was plainly visible across the thirty miles of space. +Rosengarten, with its snowless, tempest-beaten crags, held the centre, +flushing to its name; and to the right and left, peak ranged beyond +peak, like courtiers crowding to their king; chief among them a vast +pyramid, blood-red in the sunset, from which the whole side, it seemed, +had been torn away, leaving a gash so fresh it might have been ripped +by a storm of yesterday, yet older perhaps than Calvary.... + +The great show faded through every tone of delicate beauty to a starry +twilight,--passion into calm. Winnington watched till it was done, +still with the Keatsian tag in his mind, and that deep inner memory of +loss, to which the vanished splendour of the mountains seemed to make a +mystic answering. He was a romantic--some would have said a sentimental +person, with a poet always in his pocket, and a hunger for all that +might shield him from the worst uglinesses of life, and the worst +despairs of thought; an optimist, and, in his own sense, Christian. He +had come abroad to wander alone for a time, because as one of the +busiest, most important and most popular men in a wide country-side, he +had had a year of unceasing and strenuous work, with no time to +himself; and it had suddenly been borne in upon him, in choosing +between the Alps and Scotland, that a man must sometimes be alone, for +his soul's health. And he had never relished the luxury of occasional +solitude so sharply as on this pine-scented evening in Tyrol. + +It was not till he was sitting again under the electric light of the +hotel verandah that he opened his _Times_. The first paragraph which +his eye lit upon was an obituary notice of Sir Robert Blanchflower +"whose death, after a long illness and much suffering, occurred last +week in Paris." The notice ended with the words--"the deceased baronet +leaves a large property both in land and personalty. His only child, a +daughter, Miss Delia Blanchflower, survives him." + +Winnington laid down the paper. So the Valkyrie was now alone in the +world, and mistress no doubt of all her father's wealth. "I must have +seen her--I am sure there was a child about"; he said to himself again; +and his thoughts went groping into a mostly forgotten past, and as he +endeavoured to reconstruct it, the incident which had brought him for a +few weeks into close relations with Robert Blanchflower, then Major +Blanchflower of the--Dragoons, came at last vividly back to him. + +An easy-going husband--a beautiful wife, not vicious, but bored to +death--the inevitable third, in the person of a young and amorous +cavalry officer--and a whole Indian station, waiting, half maliciously, +half sadly, for the _banal_ catastrophe:--it was thus he remembered the +situation. Winnington had arrived on the scene as a barrister of some +five years' standing, invalided after an acute attack of pneumonia, and +the guest for the winter of his uncle, then Commissioner of the +district. He discovered in the cavalry officer a fellow who had been +his particular protege at Eton, and had owed his passionately coveted +choice for the Eleven largely to Winnington's good word. The whole +dismal little drama unveiled itself, and Winnington was hotly moved by +the waste and pity of it. He was entertained by the Blanchflowers and +took a liking to them both. The old friendship between Winnington and +the cavalryman was soon noticed by Major Blanchflower, and one night he +walked home with Winnington, who had been dining at his house, to the +Commissioner's quarters. Then, for the first time, Winnington realised +what it may be to wrestle with a man in torment. The next day, the +young cavalryman, at Winnington's invitation, took his old friend for a +ride, and before dawn on the following day, the youth was off on leave, +and neither Major nor Mrs. Blanchflower, Winnington believed, had ever +seen him again. What he did with the youth, and how he did it, he +cannot exactly remember, but at least he doesn't forget the grip of +Blanchflower's hand, and the look of deliverance in his strained, +hollow face. Nor had Mrs. Blanchflower borne her rescuer any grudge. He +had parted from her on the best of terms, and the recollection of her +astonishing beauty grows strong in him as he thinks of her. + +So now it is her daughter who is stirring the world! With her father's +money and her mother's eyes,--not to speak of the additional +trifles--eloquence, enthusiasm, &c.--thrown in by the Swedish woman, +she ought to find it easy. + +The dressing-gong of the hotel disturbed a rather sleepy reverie, and +sent the Englishman back to his _Times_. And a few hours later he went +to a dreamless bed, little guessing at the letter which was even then +waiting for him, far below, in the Botzen post-office. + + + + +Chapter II + + +Winnington took his morning coffee on a verandah of the hotel, from +which the great forests of Monte Vanna were widely visible. Upwards +from the deep valley below the pass, to the topmost crags of the +mountain, their royal mantle ran unbroken. This morning they were +lightly drowned in a fine weather haze, and the mere sight of them +suggested cool glades and verdurous glooms, stretches of pink willow +herb lighting up the clearings--and in the secret heart of them such +chambers "deaf to noise and blind to light" as the forest lover knows. +Winnington promised himself a leisurely climb to the top of Monte +Vanna. The morning foretold considerable heat, but under the pines one +might mock at Helios. + +Ah!--Euphrosyne! + +She came, a vision of morning, tripping along in her white shoes and +white dress; followed by her English governess, the lady, as Winnington +guessed, from West Belfast, tempered by Brooklyn. The son apparently +was still in bed, nor did anyone trouble to hurry him out of it. The +father, a Viennese judge _en retraite_, as Winnington had been already +informed by the all-knowing porter of the hotel, was a shrewd +thin-lipped old fellow, with the quiet egotism of the successful +lawyer. He came up to Winnington as soon as he perceived him, and +thanked him in good English for his kindness to Euphrosyne of the day +before. Winnington responded suitably and was soon seated at their +table, chatting with them while they took their coffee. Euphrosyne +shewed a marked pleasure in his society, and upon Winnington, steeped +in a holiday reaction from much strenuous living, her charm worked as +part of the charm of the day, and the magic of the mountain world. He +noticed, however, with a revival of alarm, that she had a vigorous +German appetite of her own, and as he watched the rolls disappear he +trembled for the slender figure and the fawn-like gait. + +After breakfast, while the governess and the girl disappeared, the +father hung over the verandah smoking, beside the Englishman, to whom +he was clearly attracted. He spoke quite frankly of his daughter, and +her bringing up. "She is motherless; her mother died when she was ten +years old; and since, I must educate her myself. It gives me many +anxieties, but she is a sweet creature, _dank sei gott_! I will not let +her approach, even, any of these modern ideas about women. My wife +hated them; I do also. I shall marry her to an honest man, and she will +make a good wife and a good house-mother." + +"Mind you choose him well!" said Winnington, with a shrug. His eyes at +that moment were critically bent on a group of Berliners, men of the +commercial and stock-broking class, who, with their wives, had arrived +a couple of nights before. The men were strolling and smoking below. +They were all fat, red-faced and overbearing. When they went for walks, +the man stalked in front along the forest paths, and the woman followed +behind, carrying her own jacket. Winnington wondered what it might be +like to be the wife of any of them. These _Herren_ at any rate might +not be the worse for a little hustling from the "woman movement." He +could not, however, say honestly that the wives shewed any +consciousness of ill-fortune. They were almost all plump, plumper even +than their husbands, expensively dressed and prosperous looking; and +the amount of Viennese beer they consumed at the forest restaurants to +which their husbands conducted them, seemed to the Englishman +portentous. + +"Yes, my daughter is old-fashioned," resumed the ex-judge, +complacently, after a pause. "And I am grateful to Miss Johnson, who +has trained her very well. If she were like some of the girls one sees +now! Last year there was a young lady here--_Ach, Gott!_" He raised his +shoulders, with a contemptuous mouth. + +"Miss Blanchflower?" asked Winnington, turning towards the speaker with +sudden interest. + +"That I believe was her name. She was mad, of course. _Ach_, they have +told you?--of that _Vortrag_ she gave?--and the rest? After ten +minutes, I made a sign to my daughter, and we walked out. I would not +have had her corrupted with these ideas for the whole world. And such +beauty, you understand! That makes it more dangerous. _Ja, ja, +Liebchen--ich komme gleich!_" + +For there had been a soft call from Euphrosyne, standing on the steps +of the hotel, and her fond father hurried away to join her. + +At the same moment, the porter emerged, bearing a bundle of letters and +newspapers which had just arrived. Eager for his _Times_ Winnington +went to meet him, and the man put into his hands what looked like a +large post. He carried it off into the shelter of the pines, for the +sun was already blazing on the hotel. Two or three letters on county +business he ran through first. His own pet project, as County +Councillor,--a county school for crippled children, was at last getting +on. Foundation stone to be laid in October--good! "But how the deuce +can I get hold of some more women to help work it! Scandalous, how few +of the right sort there are about! And as for the Asylums Committee, if +we really can't legally co-opt women to it, as our clerk says"--he +looked again at a letter in his hand--"the law is an ass!--a +double-dyed ass. I swear I won't visit those poor things on the women's +side again. It's women's work--let them do it. The questions I have to +ask are enough to make an old gamp blush. Hallo, what's this?" + +He turned over a large blue envelope, and looked at a name stamped +across the back. It was the name of a well-known firm of London +solicitors. But he had no dealings with them, and could not imagine why +they should have written to him. + +He opened the letter carelessly, and began to read it,--presently with +eager attention, and at last with amazement. + +It ran as follows: + + "From Messrs. MORTON, MANNERS & LATHOM, + Solicitors, + Adelphi, + London, W. C." + +"Dear Sir,--We write on behalf of Lord Frederick Calverly, your +co-executor, under Sir Robert Blanchflower's will, to inform you that +in Sir Robert's last will and testament--of which we enclose a +copy--executed at Meran six weeks before his decease, you are named as +one of his two executors, as sole trustee of his property, and sole +guardian of Sir Robert's daughter and only child, Miss Delia +Blanchflower, until she attains the age of twenty-five. We believe that +this will be a complete surprise to you, for although Sir Robert, +according to a statement he made during his last illness to his sister, +Miss Elizabeth Blanchflower, intended to communicate with you before +signing the will, his weakness increased so rapidly, after it was +finally drawn up, that he was never able to do so. Indeed the morning +after his secretary had written out a clear copy of what he himself had +put together, he had a most alarming attack from which he rallied with +difficulty. That afternoon he signed the will, and was just able to +write you the letter which we also enclose, marked by himself, as you +will see. He was never properly conscious afterwards, and he died in +Paris last Thursday, and was buried in the Protestant cemetery at Mont +Parnasse on the Saturday following. The will which was in our custody +was opened in London yesterday, by Lord Frederick Calverly, in Miss +Blanchflower's presence. We understand from her that she has already +written to you on the subject. Lord Frederick would also have done so, +but that he has just gone to Harrogate, in a very poor state of health. +He begs us to say that he is of course quite aware that your +engagements may not allow you to accept the functions offered you under +the will, and that he will be in considerable anxiety until he knows +your decision. He hopes that you will at least accept the executorship; +and indeed ventures to appeal very strongly on that account to your old +friendship for Sir Robert; as he himself sees no prospect of being able +to carry out unaided the somewhat heavy responsibilities attaching to +the office. + +"You will see that a sum of L4000 is left to yourself under the will." + + We remain, dear Sir, + + Your obedient servants, + + MORTON, MANNERS & LATHOM. + "(Solicitors.)" + + "MARK WINNINGTON, Esq., J. P. + Bridge End, Maumsey, + Hants." + +A bulky document on blue paper, and also a letter had dropped to the +ground. Winnington stooped for the letter, and turned it over in +stupification. It was addressed in a faltering hand, and marked, "To be +forwarded after my death." He hastily broke the seal. + +"MY DEAR MARK WINNIXGTON,--I know well what I am laying upon you. I +have no right to do it. But I remember certain days in the past, and I +believe if you are still the same man you were then, you will do what I +ask. My daughter ought to be a fine woman. At present she seems to me +entirely and completely out of her mind. She has been captured by the +extreme suffrage movement, and by one of the most mischievous women in +it; and I have no influence with her whatever. I live in terror of what +she may do; of what they may lead her to do. To attempt to reason with +her is useless; and for a long time my health has been such that I have +avoided conflict with her as much as possible. But things have now come +to such a pass that something must be done, and I have tried in these +last weeks, ill as I am, to face the future. I want if I can to save +Delia from wasting herself, and the money and estates I should +naturally leave her, upon this mad campaign. I want, even against her +will, to give her someone to advise and help her. I feel bitterly that +I have done neither. The tropics ruined me physically, and I seem to +have gone to pieces altogether the last few years. But I love my child, +and I can't leave her without a real friend or support in the world. I +have no near relations, except my sister Elizabeth, and she and Delia +are always at feud. Freddie Calverly my cousin, is a good fellow in his +way, though too fussy about his health. He has a fair knowledge of +business, and he would have been hurt if I had not made him executor. +So I have appointed him, and have of course left him a little money. +But he could no more tackle Delia than fly. In the knock-about life we +have led since I left the Colonial Service, I seem to have shed all my +old friends. I can think of no one who could or would help me in this +strait but you--and you know why. God bless you for what you once did +for me. There was never any other cloud between my poor wife and me. +She turned to me after that trouble, and we were happy till the end. + +"I have heard too something of you from Maumsey people, since I +inherited Maumsey, though I have never been able to go there. I know +what your neighbours think of you. And now Delia is going to be your +neighbour. So, drawing a bow at a venture, as a dying man must, I have +made you Delia's guardian and trustee, with absolute power over her +property and income till she is twenty-five. When she attains that +age--she is now nearly twenty-two--if she marries a man approved by +you, or if you are satisfied that her connection with militant +suffragism has ceased, the property is to be handed over to her in full +possession, and the trust will come to an end. If on the contrary, she +continues in her present opinion and course of action, I have left +directions that the trust is to be maintained for Delia's life-time, +under certain conditions as to her maintenance, which you will find in +the will. If you yourself are not willing to administer the trust, +either now or later, the property will devolve to the Public Trustee, +for whom full instructions are left. And at Delia's death it will be +divided among her heirs, if she has any, and various public objects. + +"I cannot go further into details. My strength is almost out. But this +one thing may I beg?--if you become my child's guardian, get the right +person to live with her. I regard that as all-important. She must have +a chaperon, and she will try to set up one of the violent women who +have divided her from me. Especially am I in dread of a lady, an +English lady, a Miss Marvell, whom I engaged two years ago to stay with +us for the winter and read history with Delia. She is very able and a +very dangerous woman, prepared I believe, to go to any length on behalf +of her 'cause.' At any rate she filled Delia's head with the wildest +suffragist notions, and since then my poor child thinks of nothing +else. Even since I have been so ill--this last few weeks--I know she +has been in communication with this woman. She sympathises with all the +horrible things they do, and I am certain she gives all the money she +can to their funds. Delia is a splendid creature, but she is vain and +excitable and they court her. I feel that they might tempt her into any +madness. + +"Goodbye. I made the doctor give me strychnine and morphia enough to +carry me through this effort. I expect it will be the last. Help me, +and my girl--if you can--for old sake's sake. Goodbye." + + Your grateful old friend, + + "ROBERT BLANCHFLOWER." + +"Good heavens!" was all Winnington could find to say, as he put down +the letter. + +Then, becoming aware, as the verandah filled after breakfast, that he +was in a very public place, he hastily rose, thrust the large +solicitor's envelope, with its bulky enclosures into his coat pocket, +and proceeded to gather up the rest of his post. As he did so, he +suddenly perceived a black-edged letter, addressed in a remarkably +clear handwriting, with the intertwined initials D. B. in the corner. + +A fit of silent laughter, due to his utter bewilderment, shook him. He +put the letter with all its fellows into another pocket and hurried +away into the solitude of the woods. It was some time before he had +succeeded in leaving all the tourists' paths and seats behind. At last +in a green space of bilberry and mossy rock, with the pines behind him, +and the chain of the Dolomites, sun-bathed, in front, he opened and +read his "ward's" first letter to him. + +"DEAR MR. WINNINGTON,--I understood--though very imperfectly--from my +father, before he died, that he had appointed you my guardian and +trustee till I should reach the age of twenty-five, and he explained to +me so far as he could his reason for such a step. And now I have of +course read the will, and the solicitors have explained to me clearly +what it all means. + +"You will admit I think that I am placed in a very hard position. If my +poor father had not been so ill, I should certainly have tried to argue +with him, and to prevent his doing anything so unnecessary and unjust +as he has now done--unjust both to you and to me. But the doctors +absolutely forbade me to discuss any business with him, and I could do +nothing. I can only hope that the last letter he wrote to you, just +before his death, and the alterations he made in his will about the +same time, gave him some comfort. If so, I do not grudge them for one +moment. + +"But now you and I have to consider this matter as sensible people, and +I suggest that for a man who is a complete stranger to me, and probably +altogether out of sympathy with the ideas and principles, I believe in +and am _determined_ to act upon--(for otherwise my father would not +have chosen you)--to undertake the management of my life and affairs, +would be really grotesque. It must lead to endless friction and trouble +between us. If you refuse, the solicitors tell me, the Public +Trustee--which seems to be a government office--will manage the +property, and the Court of Chancery will appoint a guardian in +accordance with my father's wishes. That would be bad enough, +considering that I am of full age and in my right mind--I can't promise +to give a guardian chosen in such a way, a good time. But at any rate, +it would be less odious to fight a court and an office, if I must +fight, than a gentleman who is my near neighbour in the county, and was +my father's and mother's friend. I do hope you will think this over +very carefully, and will relieve both yourself and me from an +impossible state of things. I perfectly realise of course that my +father appointed you my guardian, in order to prevent me from making +certain friends, and doing certain things. But I do not admit the right +of any human being--not even a father--to dictate the life of another. +I intend to stick to my friends, And to do what my conscience directs. + +"Should you however accept the guardianship--after this candid +statement of mine--you will, I suppose, feel bound to carry out my +father's wishes by refusing me money for the purposes he disapproved. +He told me indeed that I should be wholly dependent on my guardian for +money during the next three years, even though I have attained my legal +majority. I can say to you what I could not say to him, that I +_bitterly resent_ an arrangement which treats a grown person like a +child. Such things are not done to _men_. It is only women who are the +victims of them. It would be _impossible_ to keep up friendly relations +with a guardian, who would really only be there--only exist--to thwart +and coerce me. + +"Let me point out that at the very beginning a difference must arise +between us, about the lady I am to live with. I have chosen my chaperon +already, as it was my moral, if not my legal right to do. But I am +quite aware that my father disapproved of her, and that you will +probably take the same view. She belongs to a militant suffrage +society, and is prepared at any moment to suffer for the great cause +she and I believe in. As to her ability, she is one of the cleverest +women in England. I am only too proud that she has consented--for a +time--to share my life, and nothing will _induce_ me to part with +her--as long as she consents to stay. But of course I know what you--or +any ordinary man--is likely to think of her. + +"No!--we cannot agree--it is impossible we should agree--as guardian +and ward. If indeed, for the sake of your old friendship with my +father, you would retain the executorship--I am sure Lord Frederick +Calverly will be no sort of use!--till the affairs of the will, +death-duties, debts, and so on, are settled--and would at the same time +give up _any_ other connection with the property and myself, I should +be enormously grateful to you. And I assure you I should be very glad +indeed--for father's sake--to have your advice on many points connected +with my future life; and I should be all the more ready to follow it, +if you had renounced your legal power over me. + +"I shall be much obliged if you will make your decision as soon as +possible, so that both the lawyer and I may know how to proceed." + + Yours faithfully, + + DELIA BLANCHFLOWER. + +Mark Winnington put down the letter. Its mixture of defiance, patronage +and persuasion--its young angry cleverness--would have tickled a +naturally strong sense of humour at any other time. But really the +matter was too serious to laugh at. + +"What on earth am I to do!" + +He sat pondering, his mind running through a number of associated +thoughts, of recollections old and new; those Indian scenes of fifteen +years ago; the story told him by the Swedish lady; recent incidents and +happenings in English politics; and finally the tone in which +Euphrosyne's father had described the snatching of his own innocent +from the clutches of Miss Blanchflower. + +Then it occurred to him to look at the will. He read it through; a +tedious business; for Sir Robert had been a wealthy man and the +possessions bequeathed--conditionally bequeathed--to his daughter were +many and various. Two or three thousand acres of land in one of the +southern counties, bordering on the New Forest; certain large interests +in Cleveland ironstone and Durham collieries, American and South +African shares, Canadian mortgage and railway debentures:--there was +enough to give lawyers and executors work for some time, and to provide +large pickings for the Exchequer. Among the legacies, he noticed the +legacy of L4000 to himself. + +"Payment for the job!" he thought, and shook his head, smiling. + +The alternative arrangements made for transferring the trust to the +Public Trustee, should Winnington decline, and for vesting the +guardianship of the daughter in the Court of Chancery, subject to the +directions of the will, till she should reach the age of twenty-five, +were clear; so also was the provision that unless a specific signed +undertaking was given by the daughter on attaining her twenty-fifth +birthday, that the moneys of the estate would not be applied to the +support of the "militant suffrage" propaganda, the trust was to be made +permanent, a life income of L2000 a year was to be settled on Miss +Blanchflower, and the remainder, i.e. by far the major part of Sir +Robert's property, was to accumulate, for the benefit of his daughter's +heirs should she have any, and of various public objects. Should Miss +Blanchflower sign the undertaking and afterwards break it, the Public +Trustee was directed to proceed against her, and to claim the +restitution of the property, subject always to her life allowance. + +"Pretty well tied up," thought Winnington, marvelling at the strength +of feeling, the final exasperation of a dying man, which the will +betrayed. His daughter must somehow--perhaps without realising it--have +wounded him to the heart. + +He began to climb again through the forest that he might think the +better. What would be the situation, supposing he undertook what his +old friend asked of him? + +He himself was a man of moderate means and settled habits. His small +estate and modest house which a widowed sister shared with him during +six months in the year, left him plenty of leisure from his own +affairs, and he had filled that leisure, for years past, to +overflowing, with the various kinds of public work that fall to the +country gentleman with a conscience. He was never idle; his work +interested him, and there was no conceit in his quiet knowledge that he +had many friends and much influence. Since the death of the girl to +whom he had been engaged for six short months, fifteen years before +this date, he had never thought of marriage. The circumstances of her +death--a terrible case of lingering typhoid--had so burnt the pity of +her suffering and the beauty of her courage into his mind, that natural +desire seemed to have died with her. He had turned to hard work and the +bar, and equally hard physical exercise, and so made himself master +both of his grief and his youth. But his friendships with women had +played a great part in his subsequent life. A natural chivalry, deep +based, and, in manner, a touch of caressing charm, soon evoked by those +to whom he was attached, and not easily confounded in the case of a man +so obviously manly with any lack of self-control, had long since made +him a favourite of the sex. There were few women among his +acquaintances who did not covet his liking; and he was the repository +of far more confidences than he had ever desired. No one took more +trouble to serve; and no one more carelessly forgot a service he had +himself rendered, or more tenaciously remembered any kindness done him +by man, woman or child. + +His admiration for women was mingled indeed often with profound pity; +pity for the sorrows and burdens that nature had laid upon them, for +their physical weakness, for their passive role in life. That beings so +hampered could yet play such tender and heroic parts was to him +perennially wonderful, and his sense of it expressed itself in an +unconscious homage that seemed to embrace the sex. That the homage was +not seldom wasted on persons quite unworthy of it, his best women +friends were not slow to see; but in this he was often obstinate and +took his own way. + +This mingling in him of an unfailing interest in the sex with an entire +absence of personal craving, gave him a singularly strong position with +regard to women, of which he had never yet taken any selfish advantage; +largely, no doubt, because of the many activities, most of them +disinterested, by which his life was fed and freshened; as a lake is by +the streams which fill it. + +He was much moved by his old friend's letter, and he walked about +pondering it, till the morning was almost gone. The girl's position +also seemed to him particularly friendless and perilous, though she +herself, apparently, would be the last person to think so, could she +only shake herself free from the worrying restrictions her father had +inflicted on her. Her letter, and its thinly veiled wrath, shewed quite +plainly that the task of any guardian would be a tough one. Miss +Blanchflower was evidently angry--very angry--yet at the same time +determined, if she could, to play a dignified part; ready, that is, to +be civil, on her own conditions. The proposal to instal as her +chaperon, instantly, without a day's delay, the very woman denounced in +her father's last letter, struck him as first outrageous, and then +comic. He laughed aloud over it. + +Certainly--he was not bound in any way to undertake such a business. +Blanchflower had spoken the truth when he said that he had no right to +ask it. And yet-- + +His mind dallied with it. Suppose he undertook it, on what lines could +he possibly run it? His feeling towards the violent phase of the +"woman's movement," the militancy which during the preceding three or +four years had produced a crop of outrages so surprising and so ugly, +was probably as strong as Blanchflower's own. He was a natural +Conservative, and a trained lawyer. Methods of violence in a civilised +and constitutional State, roused in him indignant abhorrence. He could +admit no excuse for them; at any rate no justification. + +But, fundamentally? What was his real attitude towards this wide-spread +claim of women, now so general in many parts of the world admitted +indeed in some English Colonies, in an increasing number of the +American states, in some of the minor European countries--to share the +public powers and responsibilities of men? Had he ever faced the +problem, as it concerned England, with any thoroughness or candour? Yet +perhaps Englishmen--all Englishmen--had now got to face it. + +Could he discover any root of sympathy in himself with what were +clearly the passionate beliefs of Delia Blanchflower, the Valkyrie of +twenty-one, as they were also the passionate beliefs of the little +Swedish lady, the blue-stocking of fifty? If so, it might be possible +to guide, even to control such a ward, for the specified three years, +at any rate, without exciting unseemly and ridiculous strife between +her and her guardian. + +"I ought to be able to do it"--he thought--"without upsetting the +apple-cart!" + +For, as he examined himself he realised that he held no closed mind on +the subject of the rights or powers or grievances of women. He had +taken no active part whatever in the English suffragist struggle, +either against woman suffrage or for it; and in his own countryside it +mattered comparatively little. But he was well aware what strong forces +and generous minds had been harnessed to the suffrage cause, since Mill +first set it stirring; and among his dearest women friends there were +some closely connected with it, who had often mocked or blamed his own +indifference. He had always thought indeed, and he thought still--for +many reasons--that they attributed a wildly exaggerated importance to +the vote, which, as it seemed to him, went a very short way in the case +of men. But he had always been content to let the thing slide; having +so much else to do and think about. + +Patience then, and respect for honest and disinterested conviction, in +any young and ardent soul; sharp discrimination between lawful and +unlawful means of propaganda, between debate, and stone-throwing; no +interference with the first, and a firm hand against the +second:--surely, in that spirit, one might make something of the +problem? Winnington was accustomed to be listened to, to get round +obstacles that other men found insuperable. It was scarcely conceit, +but a just self-confidence which suggested to him that perhaps Miss +Blanchflower would not prove so difficult after all. Gentleness, +diplomacy, decision,--by Jove, they'd all be wanted! But his legal +experience (he had been for some years a busy barrister), and his later +life as a practical administrator had not been a bad training in each +and all of these qualities. + +Of course, if the girl were merely obstinate and stupid, the case might +indeed be hopeless. But the picture drawn by the Swedish woman of the +"Valkyrie" on her black mare, of the ardent young lecturer, facing her +indifferent or hostile audience with such pluck and spirit, dwelt with +him, and affected him strongly. His face broke into amusement as he +asked himself the frank question--"Would you do it, if you hadn't heard +that tale?--if you knew that your proposed ward was just a plain +troublesome chit of a schoolgirl, bitten with suffragism?" + +He put the question to himself, standing on a pinnacle of shadowed +rock, from which the world seemed to sink into blue gulfs beneath him, +till on the farther side of immeasurable space the mountains +re-emerged, climbing to the noonday sun. + +And he answered it without hesitation. Certainly, the story told him +had added a touch of romance to the bare case presented by the batch of +letters:--had lent a force and point to Robert Blanchflower's dying +plea, it might not otherwise have possessed. For, after all, he, +Winnington, was a very busy man; and his life was already mortgaged in +many directions. But as it was--yes--the task attracted him. + +At the same time, the twinkle in his grey eyes shewed him ironically +aware of himself. + +"Understand, you old fool!--the smallest touch of philandering--and the +whole business goes to pot. The girl would have you at her mercy--and +the thing would become an odious muddle and hypocrisy, degrading to +both. Can you trust yourself? You're not exactly made of flint: Can you +play the part as it ought to be played?" + +Quietly, his face sank into rest. For him, there was that in memory, +which protected him from all such risks, which had so protected him for +fifteen years. He felt quite sure of himself. Ever since his great loss +he had found his natural allies and companions among girls and young +women as much as among men. The embarrassment of sex seemed to have +passed away for him, but not the charm. Thus, he took what for him was +the easier path of acceptance. Kindly and scrupulous as he was, it +would have been hard for him in any case to say No to the dead, more +difficult than to say it to the living. Yes!--he would do what was +possible. _The Times_ that morning contained a long list of outrages +committed by militant suffragists--houses burnt down, meetings +disturbed, members attacked. In a few months, or weeks, perhaps, +without counsel to aid or authority to warn her, the Valkyrie might be +running headlong into all the perils her father foresaw. He pledged +himself to protect her if he could. + + * * * * * + +The post which left the hotel that evening took with it a short note +from Mark Winnington to Messrs. Morton, Manners & Lathom, accepting the +functions of executor, guardian and trustee offered him under Sir +Robert Blanchflower's will, and appointing an interview with them at +their office; together with a somewhat longer one addressed to "Miss +Delia Blanchflower, Claridge's Hotel, London. + +"DEAR MISS BLANCHFLOWER, Pray let me send you my most sincere +condolence. Your poor father and I were once great friends, and I am +most truly sorry to hear of his death. + +"Thank you for your interesting letter. But I find it impossible to +refuse your father's dying request to me, nor can I believe that I +cannot be of some assistance to his daughter. Let me try. We can always +give it up, if we cannot work it, but I see no reason why, with good +will on both sides, we should not make something of it. + +"I am returning to London ten days from now, and hope to see you within +a fortnight. + +"Please address, 'Junior Carlton Club, Pall Mall.'" + + Believe me, + Yours very truly, + "MARK WINNINGTON." + + +On his arrival, in London, Winnington found a short reply awaiting him. + +"DEAR MR. WINNINGTON,--As you please. I am however shortly leaving for +Maumsey with Miss Marvell, who, as I told you, has undertaken to live +with me as my chaperon. + +"We shall hope to see you at Maumsey." + + Yours faithfully, + "DELIA BLANCHFLOWER." + + +A few days later, after long interviews with some very meticulous +solicitors, a gentleman, very much in doubt as to what his reception +would be, took train for Maumsey and the New Forest, with a view to +making as soon as possible a first call upon his ward. + + + + +Chapter III + + +"We ought soon to see the house." + +The speaker bent forward, as the train, sweeping round a curve, emerged +from some thick woods Into a space of open country. It was early +September and a sleepy autumnal sunshine lay upon the fields. The +Stubbles just reaped ran over the undulations of the land in silky +purples and gold; the blue smoke from the cottages and farms hung +poised in mid air; the eye could hardly perceive any movement in the +clear stream beside the line, as it slipped noiselessly by over its +sandy bed; it seemed a world where "it was always afternoon"; and the +only breaks in its sunny silence came from the occasional coveys of +partridges that rose whirring from the harvest-fields as the train +passed. + +Delia Blanchflower looked keenly at the English scene, so strange to +her after many years of Colonial and foreign wandering. She thought, +but did not say--"Those must be my fields--and my woods, that we have +just passed through. Probably I rode about them with Grandpapa. I +remember the pony--and the horrid groom I hated!" Quick the memory +returned of a tiny child on a rearing pony, alone with a sulky groom, +who, out of his master's sight, could not restrain his temper, and +struck the pony savagely and repeatedly over the head, to an +accompaniment of oaths; frightening out of her wits the little girl who +sat clinging to the creature's neck. And next she saw herself marching +in erect--a pale-faced thing of six, with a heart of fury,--to her +grandfather, to demand justice on the offender. And grandpapa had done +her bidding then as always; the groom was dismissed that day. It was +only grandmamma who had ever tried to manage or thwart her; result, +perpetual war, decided often for the time by the brute force at command +of the elder, but ever renewed. Delia's face flamed again as she +thought of the most humiliating incident of her childhood; when +Grandmamma, unable, to do anything with her screaming and stamping +self, had sent in despair for a stalwart young footman, and ordered him +to "carry Miss Delia up to the nursery." Delia could still feel herself +held, wriggling and shrieking face downwards, under the young man's +strong arm, unable either to kick or to scratch, while Grandmamma half +fearful, half laughing, watched the dire ascent from the bottom of the +stairs. + +"Male tyranny--my first taste of it!" thought Delia, smiling at +herself. "It was fated then that I should be a militant." + +She looked across at her friend and travelling companion, half inclined +to tell the story; but the sight of Gertrude Marvell's attitude and +expression checked the trivial reminiscence on her lips. + +"Are you tired?" she said, laying her hand on the other's knee. + +"Oh, no. Only thinking." + +"Thinking of what?"-- + +"Of all there is to do."-- + +A kind of flash passed from one face to the other, Delia's eyes darkly +answering. They looked at each other for a little, as though in silent +conversation, and then Delia turned again to the landscape outside. + +Yes, there was the house, its long, irregular line with the village +behind it. She could not restrain a slight exclamation as she caught +sight of it, and her friend opposite turned interrogatively. + +"What did you say?" + +"Nothing--only there's the Abbey. I don't suppose I've seen it since I +was twelve." + +The other lady put up an eye-glass and looked where Miss Blanchflower +pointed; but languidly, as though it were an effort to shake herself +free from pre-occupying ideas. She was a woman of about thirty-five, +slenderly made, with a sallow, regular face, and good, though +short-sighted eyes. The eyes were dark, so was the hair, the features +delicate. Under the black shady hat, the hair was very closely and +neatly coiled. The high collar of the white blouse, fitting tightly to +the slender neck, the coat and skirt of blue serge without ornament of +any kind, but well cut, emphasized the thinness, almost emaciation, of +the form. Her attitude, dress, and expression conveyed the idea of +something amazingly taut and ready--like a ship cleared for action. The +body with its clothing seemed to have been simplified as much as +possible, so as to become the mere instrument of the will which +governed it. No superfluity whatever, whether of flesh on her small +bones, or of a single unnecessary button, fold, or trimming on her +dress, had Gertrude Marvell ever allowed herself for many years. The +general effect was in some way formidable; though why the neat +precision of the little lady should convey any notion of this sort, it +would not at first sight have been easy to say. + +"How old did you say it is?"--she asked, after examining the distant +building, which could be now plainly seen from the train across a +stretch of green park. + +"Oh, the present building is nothing--a pseudo-Gothic monstrosity, +built about 1830," laughed Delia; "but there are some old remains and +foundations of the abbey. It is a big, rambling old place, and I should +think dreadfully in want of doing up. My grandfather was a bit of a +miser, and though he was quite rich, he never spent a penny he could +help." + +"All the better. He left the more for other people to spend." Miss +Marvell smiled--a slight, and rather tired smile, which hardly altered +the face. + +"Yes, if they are allowed to spend it!" said Delia, with a shrug. "Oh +well, anyway the house must be done up--painted and papered and that +kind of thing. A trustee has got to see that things of that sort are +kept in order, I suppose. But it won't have anything to do with me, +except that for decency's sake, no doubt, he'll consult me. I shall be +allowed to choose the wall-papers I suppose!" + +"If you want to," said the other drily. + +Delia's brows puckered. + +"We shall have to spend some time here, you know, Gertrude! We may as +well have something to do." + +"Nothing that might entangle us, or take too much of our thoughts," +said Miss Marvell, gently, but decidedly. + +"I'm afraid I like furnishing," said Delia, not without a shade of +defiance. + +"And I object--because I know you do. After all--you understand as +well as I do that _every day_ now is important. There are not so many +of us, Delia! If you're going to do real work, you can't afford to +spend your time or thoughts on doing up a shabby house." + +There was silence a moment. Then Delia said abruptly--"I wonder when +that man will turn up? What a fool he is to take it on!" + +"The guardianship? Yes, he hardly knows what he's in for." A touch of +grim amusement shewed itself for a moment in Miss Marvell's quiet face. + +"Oh, I daresay he knows. Perhaps he relies on what everyone calls his +'influence.' Nasty, sloppy word--nasty sloppy thing! Whenever I'm +'influenced,' I'm degraded!" The young shoulders straightened +themselves fiercely. + +"I don't know. It has its uses," said the other tranquilly. + +Delia laughed radiantly. + +"O well--if one can make the kind of weapon of it you do. I don't mean +of course that one shouldn't be rationally persuaded. But that's a +different thing. 'Influence' makes me think of canting clergymen, and +stout pompous women, who don't know what they're talking about, and +can't argue--who think they've settled everything by a stale +quotation--or an appeal to 'your better self'--or St. Paul. If Mr. +Winnington tries it on with 'influence'--we'll have some fun." + +Delia returned to her window. The look her companion bent upon her was +not visible to her. It was curiously detached--perhaps slightly +ironical. + +"I'm wondering what part I shall play in the first interview!" said +Miss Marvell, after a pause. "I represent the first stone in Mr. +Winnington's path. He will of course do his best to put me out of it." + +"How can he?" cried Delia ardently. "What can he do? He can't send for +the police and turn you out of the house. At least I suppose he could, +but he certainly won't. The last thing a gentleman of his sort wants is +to make a scandal. Every one says, after all, that he is a nice +fellow!"--the tone was unconsciously patronising--"It isn't his fault +if he's been placed in this false position. But the great question for +me is--how are we going to manage him for the best?" + +She leant forward, her chin on her hands, her sparkling eyes fixed on +her friend's face. + +"The awkward thing is"--mused Miss Marvell--"that there is so little +_time_ in which to manage him. If the movement were going on at its old +slow pace, one might lie low, try diplomacy, avoid alarming him, and so +forth. But we've no time for that. It is a case of blow on blow--action +on action--and the publicity is half the battle." + +"Still, a little management there must be, to begin with!--because +I--we--want money, and he holds the purse-strings. Hullo, here's the +station!" + +She jumped up and looked eagerly out of the window. + +"They've sent a fly for us. And there's the station-master on the +lookout. How it all comes back to me!" + +Her flushed cheek showed a natural excitement. She was coming back as +its mistress to a house where she had been happy as a child, which she +had not seen for years. Thoughts of her father, as he had been in the +old days before any trouble had arisen between them, came rushing +through her mind--tender, regretful thoughts--as the train came slowly +to a standstill. + +But the entire indifference or passivity of her companion restrained +her from any further expression. The train stopped, and she descended +to the platform of a small country station, alive apparently with +traffic and passengers. + +"Miss Blanchflower?" said a smiling station-master, whose countenance +seemed to be trying to preserve the due mean between welcome to the +living and condolence for the dead, as, hat in hand, he approached the +newcomers, and guided by her deep mourning addressed himself to Delia. + +"Why, Mr. Stebbing, I remember you quite well," said Delia, holding out +her hand. "There's my maid--and I hope there's a cart for the luggage. +We've got a lot." + +A fair-haired man in spectacles, who had also just left the train, +turned abruptly and looked hard at the group as he passed them. He +hesitated a moment, then passed on, with a curious swinging gait, a +long and shabby over-coat floating behind him--to speak to the porter +who was collecting tickets at the gate opening on the road beyond. + +Meanwhile Delia had been accosted by another gentleman, who had been +sitting reading his _Morning Post_ on the sunny platform, as the train +drew up. He too had examined the new arrivals with interest, and while +Delia was still talking to the station-master, he walked up to her. + +"I think you are Miss Blanchflower: But you won't remember me." He +lifted his hat, smiling. + +Delia looked at him, puzzled. + +"Don't you remember that Christmas dance at the Rectory, when you were +ten, and I was home from Sandhurst?" + +"Perfectly!--and I quarrelled with you because you wouldn't give me +champagne, when I'd danced with you, instead of lemonade. You said what +was good for big boys wasn't good for little girls--and I called you a +bully--" + +"You kicked me!--you had the sharpest little toes!" + +"Did I?" said Delia composedly. "I was rather good at kicking. So you +are Billy Andrews?" + +"Right. I'm Captain now, and they've just made me adjutant down here +for the Yeomanry. My mother keeps house for me. You're coming here to +live? Please let me say how sorry I was to see your sad news." The +condolence was a little clumsy but sincere. + +"Thank you. I must go and see to the luggage. Let me introduce you to +Miss Marvell--Captain Andrews--Miss Marvell." + +That lady bowed coldly, as Delia departed. The tall, soldierly man, +whose pleasant looks were somewhat spoilt by a slightly underhung +mouth, and prominent chin, disguised, however, by a fine moustache, +offered assistance with the luggage. + +"There is no need, thank you," said Miss Marvell. "Miss Blanchflower +and her maid will see to it." + +And the Captain noticed that the speaker remained entirely passive +while the luggage was being collected and piled into a fly by the +porters, directed by Miss Blanchflower and her maid. She stood quietly +on the platform, till all was ready, and Delia beckoned to her. In the +intervals the soldier tried to make conversation, but with very small +success. He dwelt upon some of the changes Miss Blanchflower would find +on the estate; how the old head-keeper, who used to make a pet of her, +was dead, and the new agent her father had put in was thought to be +doing well, how the village had lost markedly in population in the last +few years--this emigration to Canada was really getting beyond a +joke!--and so forth. Miss Marvell made no replies. But she suddenly +asked him a question. + +"What's that house over there?" + +She pointed to a grey facade on a wooded hill some two miles off. + +"That's our show place--Monk Lawrence! We're awfully proud of +it--Elizabethan, and that kind of thing. But of course you've heard of +Monk Lawrence! It's one of the finest things in England." + +"It belongs to Sir Wilfrid Lang?" + +"Certainly. Do you know him? He's scarcely been there at all, since he +became a Cabinet Minister; and yet he spent a lot of money in repairing +it a few years ago. They say it's his wife's health--that it's too damp +for her. Anyway it's quite shut up,--except that they let tourists see +it once a month." + +"Does anybody live in the house?"-- + +"Oh--a caretaker, of course,--one of the keepers. They let the +shooting. Ah! there's Miss Blanchflower calling you." + +Miss Marvell--as the gallant Captain afterwards remembered--took a long +look at the distant house and then went to join Miss Blanchflower. The +Captain accompanied her, and helped her to stow away the remaining bags +into the fly, while a small concourse of rustics, sprung from nowhere, +stolidly watched the doings of the heiress and her friend. Delia +suddenly bent forward to him, as he was about to shut the door, with an +animated look--"Can you tell me who that gentleman is who has just +walked off towards the village?"--she pointed. + +"His name is Lathrop. He lives in a place just the other side of yours. +He's got some trout-hatching ponds--will stock anybody's stream for +them. Rather a queer customer!"--the good-natured Captain dropped his +voice. "Well, good-bye, my train's just coming. I hope I may come and +see you soon?" + +Delia nodded assent, and they drove off. + +"By George, she's a beauty!" said the Captain to himself as he turned +away. "Nothing wrong with her that I can see. But there are some +strange tales going about. I wonder who that other woman is. +Marvell--Gertrude Marvell?--I seem to have heard the name +somewhere.--Hullo, Masham, how are you?" He greeted the leading local +solicitor who had just entered the station, a man with a fine ascetic +face, and singularly blue eyes. Masham looked like a starved poet or +preacher, and was in reality one of the hardest and shrewdest men of +business in the southern counties. + +"Well, did you see Miss Blanchflower?" said the Captain, as Masham +joined him on the platform, and they entered the up train together. + +"I did. A handsome young lady! Have you heard the news?" + +"No." + +"Your neighbor, Mr. Winnington--Mark Winnington--is named as her +guardian under her father's will--until she is twenty-five. He is also +trustee, with absolute power over the property." + +The Captain shewed a face of astonishment. + +"Gracious! what had Winnington to do with Sir Robert Blanchflower!" + +"An old friend, apparently. But it is a curious will." + +The solicitor's abstracted look shewed a busy mind. The Captain had +never felt a livelier desire for information. + +"Isn't there something strange about the girl?"--he said, lowering his +voice, although there was no one else in the railway carriage. "I never +saw a more beautiful creature! But my mother came home from London the +other day with some very queer stories, from a woman who had met them +abroad. She said Miss Blanchflower was awfully clever, but as wild as a +hawk--mad about women's rights and that kind of thing. In the hotel +where she met them, people fought very shy of her." + +"Oh, she's a militant suffragist," said the solicitor quietly--"though +she's not had time yet since her father's death to do any mischief. +That--in confidence--is the meaning of the will." + +The adjutant whistled. + +"Goodness!--Winnington will have his work cut out for him. But he +needn't accept." + +"He has accepted. I heard this morning from the London solicitor." + +"Your firm does the estate business down here?" + +"For many years. I hope to see Mr. Winnington to-morrow or next day. He +is evidently hurrying home--because of this." + +There was silence for a few minutes; then the Captain said bluntly: + +"It's an awful pity, you know, that kind of thing cropping up down +here. We've escaped it so far." + +"With such a lot of wild women about, what can you expect?" said the +solicitor briskly. "Like the measles--sure to come our way sooner or +later." + +"Do you think they'll get what they want?" "What--the vote? No--not +unless the men are fools." The refined, apostolic face set like iron. + +"None of the womanly women want it," said the Captain with conviction. +"You should hear my mother on it." + +The solicitor did not reply. The adjutant's mother was not in his eyes +a model of wisdom. Nor did his own opinion want any fortifying from +outside. + +Captain Andrews was not quite in the same position. He was conscious of +a strong male instinct which disavowed Miss Blanchflower and all her +kind; but at the same time he was exceedingly susceptible to female +beauty, and it troubled his reasoning processes that anybody so +wrong-headed should be so good-looking. His heart was soft, and his +brain all that was wanted for his own purposes. But it did not enable +him-it never had enabled him--to understand these extraordinary +"goings-on," which the newspapers were every day reporting, on the part +of well-to-do, educated women, who were ready--it seemed--to do +anything outrageous--just for a vote! "Of course nobody would mind if +the rich women--the tax-paying women--had a vote--help us Tories +famously. But the women of the working-classes--why, Good Lord, look at +them when there's any disturbance on--any big strike--look at +Tonypandy!--a deal sight worse than the men! Give them the vote and +they'd take us to the devil, even quicker than Lloyd George!" + +Aloud he said-- + +"Do you know anything about that lady Miss Blanchflower had with her? +She introduced me. Miss Marvell--I think that was the name. I thought I +had heard it somewhere." + +The solicitor lifted his eyebrows. + +"I daresay. She was in the stone-throwing raid last August. Fined 20s. +or a month, for damage in Pall Mall. She was in prison a week; then +somebody paid her fine. She professed great annoyance, but one of the +police told me it was privately paid by her own society. She's too +important to them--they can't do without her. An extremely clever +woman." + +"Then what on earth does she come and bury herself down here for?" +cried the Captain. + +Masham shewed a meditative twist of the lip. + +"Can't say, I'm sure. But they want money. And Miss Blanchflower is an +important capture." + +"I hope that girl will soon have the sense to shake them off!" said the +Captain with energy. "She's a deal too beautiful for that kind of +thing. I shall get my mother to come and talk to her." + +The solicitor concealed his smile behind his _Daily Telegraph_. He had +a real liking and respect for the Captain, but the family affection of +the Andrews household was a trifle too idyllic to convince a gentleman +so well acquainted with the seamy side of life. What about that +hunted-looking girl, the Captain's sister? He didn't believe, he never +had believed that Mrs. Andrews was quite so much of an angel as she +pretended to be. + +Meanwhile, no sooner had the fly left the station than Delia turned to +her companion-- + +"Gertrude!--did you see what that man was reading who passed us just +now? Our paper!--the _Tocsin_." + +Gertrude Marvell lifted her eyebrows slightly. + +"No doubt he bought it at Waterloo--out of curiosity." + +"Why not out of sympathy? I thought he looked at us rather closely. Of +course, if he reads the _Tocsin_ he knows something about you! What fun +it would be to discover a comrade and a brother down here!" + +"It depends entirely upon what use we could make of him," said Miss +Marvell. Then she turned suddenly on her companion--"Tell me really, +Delia--how long do you want to stay here?" + +"Well, a couple of months at least," said Delia, with a rather +perplexed expression. "After all, Gertrude, it's my property now, and +all the people on it, I suppose, will expect to see one and make +friends. I don't want them to think that because I'm a suffragist I'm +going to shirk. It wouldn't be good policy, would it?" + +"It's all a question of the relative importance of things," said the +other quietly. "London is our head quarters, and things are moving very +rapidly." + +"I know. But, dear, you did promise! for a time"--pleaded Delia. +"Though of course I know how dull it must be for you, when you are the +life and soul of so many things in London. But you must remember that I +haven't a penny at this moment but what Mr. Winnington chooses to allow +me! We must come to some understanding with him, mustn't we, before we +can do anything? It is all so difficult!"--the girl's voice took a +deep, passionate note--"horribly difficult, when I long to be standing +beside you--and the others--in the open--fighting--for all I'm worth. +But how can I, just yet? I ought to have eight thousand a year, and Mr. +Winnington can cut me down to anything he pleases. It's just as +important that I should get hold of my money--at this particular +moment--as that I should be joining raids in London,--more important, +surely--because we want money badly!--you say so yourself. I don't want +it for myself; I want it all--for the cause! But the question is, how +to get it--with this will in our way. I--" + +"Ah, there's that house again!" exclaimed Miss Marvell, but in the same +low restrained tone that was habitual to her. She bent forward to look +at the stately building, on the hill-side, which according to Captain +Andrews' information, was the untenanted property of Sir Wilfrid Lang, +whom a shuffle of offices had just admitted to the Cabinet. + +"What house?"--said Delia, not without a vague smart under the sudden +change of subject. She had a natural turn for declamation; a girlish +liking to hear herself talk; and Gertrude, her tutor in the first +place, and now her counsellor and friend, had a quiet way of snubbing +such inclinations, except when they could be practically useful. "You +have the gifts of a speaker--we shall want you to speak more and more," +she would say. But in private she rarely failed to interrupt an +harangue, even the first beginnings of one. + +However, the smart soon passed, and Delia too turned her eyes towards +the house among the trees. She gave a little cry of pleasure. + +"Oh, that's Monk Lawrence!--such a lovely--lovely old place! I used +often to go there as a child--I adored it. But I can't remember who +lives there now." + +Gertrude Marvell handed on the few facts learned from the Captain. + +"I knew"--she added--"that Sir Wilfrid Lang lived somewhere near here. +That they told me at the office." + +"And the house is empty?" Delia, flushing suddenly and vividly, turned +to her companion. + +"Except for the caretaker--who no doubt lives some where on the +ground-floor." + +There was silence a moment. Then Delia laughed uncomfortably. + +"Look here, Gertrude, we can't attempt anything of that kind _there_: I +remember now--it was Sir Wilfrid's brother who had the house, when I +used to go there. He was a great friend of Father's; and his little +girls and I were great chums. The house is just wonderful--full of +treasures! I am sorry it belongs to Sir Wilfrid--but nobody could lift +a finger against Monk Lawrence!" + +Miss Marvell's eyes sparkled. + +"He is the most formidable enemy we have," she said softly, between her +closed lips. A tremor seemed to run through her slight frame. + +Then she smiled, and her tone changed. + +"Dear Delia, of course I shan't run you into any--avoidable--trouble, +down here, apart from the things we have agreed on." + +"What have we agreed on? Remind me!" + +"In the first place, that we won't hide our opinions--or stop our +propaganda--to please anybody." + +"Certainly!" said Delia. "I shall have a drawing-room meeting as soon +as possible. You seem to have fixed up a number of speaking engagements +for us both. And we told the office to send us down tons of +literature." Then her face broke into laughter--"Poor Mr. Winnington!" + + * * * * * + +"A rather nice old place, isn't it?" said Delia, an hour later, when +the elderly housekeeper, who had received them with what had seemed to +Delia's companion a quite unnecessary amount of fuss and family +feeling, had at last left them alone in the drawing-room, after taking +them over the house. + +The girl spoke in a softened voice. She was standing thoughtfully by +the open window looking out, her hands clasping a chair behind her. Her +thin black dress, made short and plain, with a white frill at the open +neck and sleeves, by its very meagreness emphasized the young beauty of +the wearer,--a beauty full of significance, charged--over-charged--with +character. The attitude should have been one of repose; it was on the +contrary one of tension, suggesting a momentary balance only, of +impetuous forces. Delia was indeed suffering the onset of a wave of +feeling which had come upon her unexpectedly; for which she had not +prepared herself. This rambling old house with its quiet garden and +early Victorian furniture, had appealed to her in some profound and +touching way. Her childhood stirred again in her, and deep inherited +things. How well she remembered the low, spacious room, with its oak +wainscotting, its book-cases and its pictures! That crayon over the +writing-table of her grandmother in her white cap and shawl; her +grandfather's chair, and the old Bible and Prayer-book, beside it, from +which he used to read evening prayers; the stiff arm-chairs with their +faded chintz covers; the writing-table with its presentation inkstand; +the groups of silhouettes on the walls, her forbears of long ago; the +needlework on the fire-screen, in which, at nine years old, she had +been proud to embroider the white rose-bud still so lackadaisically +prominent; the stool on which she used to sit and knit beside her +grandmother; the place on the run where the old collie used to lie--she +saw his ghost there still!--all these familiar and even ugly objects +seemed to be putting out spiritual hands to her, playing on nerves once +eagerly responsive. She had never stayed for long in the house; but she +had always been happy there. The moral atmosphere of it came back to +her, and with a sense of the old rest and protection. Her grandfather +might have been miserly to others; he had always been kind to her. But +it was her grandmother who had been supreme in that room. A woman of +clear sense and high character; narrow and prejudiced in many respects, +but sorely missed by many when her turn came to die; a Christian in +more than name; sincerely devoted to her teasing little granddaughter. +A woman who had ordered her household justly and kindly; a personality +not soon forgotten. + +"There is something of her in me still," thought Delia--"at least, I +hope there is. And where--is the rest of me going?" + +"I think I'll take off my things, dear," said Gertrude Marvell, +breaking in on the girl's reverie. "Don't trouble. I know my room." + +The door closed. Delia was now looking out into the garden, where on +the old grass-slopes the September shadows lay--still and slumbrous. +The peace of it, the breath of its old-world tradition, came upon her, +relaxing the struggle of mind and soul in which she had been living for +months, and that ceaseless memory which weighed upon her of her dying +father,--his bitter and increasing recoil from all that, for a while, +he had indulgently permitted--his final estrangement from her, her own +obstinacy and suffering. + +"Yes!"--she cried suddenly, out loud, to the rosebushes beyond the open +window--"but it had a reason--it _had_ a reason!" She clasped her +hands fiercely to her breast. "And there is no birth without pain." + + + + +Chapter IV + + +A few days after her arrival, Delia woke up in the early dawn in the +large room that had been her grandmother's. She sat up in the broad +white bed with its dimity curtains, her hands round her knees, peering +into the half darkened room, where, however, she had thrown the windows +wide open, behind the curtains, before going to sleep. On the opposite +wall she saw an indifferent picture of her father as a boy of twelve on +his pony; beside it a faded photograph of her mother, her beautiful +mother, in her wedding dress. There had never been any real sympathy +between her mother and her grandmother. Old Lady Blanchflower had +resented her son's marriage with a foreign woman, with a Greek, in +particular. The Greeks were not at that moment of much account in the +political world, and Lady Blanchflower thought of them as a nation of +shams, trading on a great past which did not belong to them. Her secret +idea was that out of their own country they grew rich in disreputable +ways, and while at home, where only the stupid ones stayed, they were a +shabby, half-civilised people, mostly bankrupt. She could not imagine +how a girl got any bringing up at Athens, and believed nothing that her +son told her. So that when the young Mrs. Blanchflower arrived, there +were jars in the household, and it was not long before the spoilt and +handsome bride went to her husband in tears, and asked to be taken +away. Delia was surprised and touched, therefore, to find her mother's +portrait in her grandmother's room, where nothing clearly had been +admitted that had not some connection with family affection or family +pride. She wondered whether on her mother's death her grandmother had +hung the picture there in dumb confession of, or penance for, her own +unkindness. + +The paper of the room was a dingy grey, and the furniture was heavily +old-fashioned and in Delia's eyes inconvenient. "If I'm going to keep +the room I shall make it all white," she thought, "with proper fitted +wardrobes, and some low bookcases--a bath, too, of course, in the +dressing-room. And they must put in electric light at once! How could +they have done without it all this time! I believe with all its faults, +this house could be made quite pretty!" + +And she fell into a reverie,--eagerly constructive--wherein Maumsey +became, at a stroke, a House Beautiful, at once modern and +aesthetically right, a dim harmony in lovely purples, blues and greens, +with the few fine things it possessed properly spaced and grouped, the +old gardens showing through the latticed windows, and golden or silvery +lights, like those in a Blanche interior, gleaming in its now dreary +rooms. + +Then at a bound she sprang out of bed, and stood upright in the autumn +dawn. + +"I hate myself!" she said fiercely--as she ran her hands through the +mass of her dark hair, and threw it back upon her shoulders. Hurrying +across the room in her night-gown, she threw back the curtains. A light +autumnal mist, through which the sun was smiling, lay on the garden. +Stately trees rose above it, and masses of flowers shewed vaguely +bright; while through the blue distances beyond, the New Forest +stretched to the sea. + +But Delia was looking at herself, in a long pier-glass that represented +almost the only concession to the typical feminine needs in the room. +She was not admiring her own seemliness; far from it; she was rating +and despising herself for a feather-brained waverer and +good-for-nothing. + +"Oh yes, you can _talk_!" she said, to the figure in the glass--"you +are good enough at that! But what are you going to _do_!--Spend your +time at Maple's and Waring--matching chintzes and curtains?--when +you've _promised_--you've _promised_! Gertrude's right. There _are_ all +sorts of disgusting cowardices and weaknesses in you! Oh! yes, +you'd like to go fiddling and fussing down here--playing the +heiress--patronising the poor people--putting yourself into beautiful +clothes--and getting heaps of money out of Mr. Winnington to spend. +It's in you--it's just in you--to throw everything over--to forget +everything you've felt, and everything you've vowed--and just _wallow_ +in luxury and selfishness and snobbery! Gertrude's absolutely right. +But you shan't do it! You shan't put a hand to it! Why did that man +take the guardianship? Now it's his business. He may see to it! But +_you_--you have something else to do!" + +And she stood erect, the angry impulse in her stiffening all her young +body. And through her memory there ran, swift-footed, fragments from a +rhetoric of which she was already fatally mistress, the formulae too of +those sincere and goading beliefs on which her youth had been fed ever +since her first acquaintance with Gertrude Marvell. The mind renewed +them like vows; clung to them, embraced them. + +What was she before she knew Gertrude? She thought of that earlier +Delia as of a creature almost too contemptible to blame. From the +maturity of her twenty-one years she looked back upon herself at +seventeen or eighteen with wonder. That Delia had read nothing--knew +nothing--had neither thoughts or principles. She was her father's +spoilt child and darling; delighting in the luxury that surrounded his +West Indian Governorship; courted and flattered by the few English of +the colonial capital, and by the members of her father's staff; with +servants for every possible need or whim; living her life mostly in the +open air, riding at her father's side, through the sub-tropical forests +of the colony; teasing and tyrannising over the dear old German +governess who had brought her up, and whose only contribution to her +education--as Delia now counted education--had been the German tongue. +Worth something!--but not all those years, "when I might have been +learning so much else, things I shall never have time to learn +now!--things that Gertrude has at her finger's end. Why wasn't I taught +properly--decently--like any board school child! As Gertrude says, we +women want everything we can get! We _must_ know the things that men +know--that we may beat them at their own game. Why should every Balliol +boy--years younger than me--have been taught his classics and +mathematics,--and have everything brought to him--made easy for +him--history, political economy, logic, philosophy, laid at his +lordship's feet, if he will just please to learn!--while I, who have +just as good a brain as he, have had to pick up a few scraps by the +way, just because nobody who had charge of me ever thought it worth +while to teach, a girl. But I have a mind!--an intelligence!--even if I +am a woman; and there is all the world to know. Marriage? Yes!--but not +at the sacrifice of everything else--of the rational, civilised self." + +On the whole though, her youth had been happy enough, with recurrent +intervals of _ennui_ and discontent. Intervals too of poetic +enthusiasm, or ascetic religion. At eighteen she had been practically a +Catholic, influenced by the charming wife of one of her father's +aides-de-camp. And then--a few stray books or magazine articles had +made a Darwinian and an agnostic of her; the one phase as futile as the +other. + +"I knew nothing--I had no mind!"--she repeated with energy,--"till +Gertrude came." + +And she thought with ardour of that intellectual awakening, under the +strange influence of the apparently reserved and impassive woman, who +had come to read history with her for six months, at the suggestion of +a friend of her father's, a certain cultivated and clever Lady +Tonbridge, "who saw how starved I was." + +So, after enquiry, a lady who was a B.A. of London, and had taken +first-class honour in history--Delia's ambition would accept nothing +less--had been found, who wanted for health's sake a winter in a warm +climate, and was willing to read history with Governor Blanch-flower's +half-fledged daughter. + +The friendship had begun, as often, with a little aversion. Delia was +made to work, and having always resented being made to do anything, for +about a month she disliked her tutor, and would have persuaded Sir +Robert to send her away, had not England been so far off, and the +agreement with Miss Marvell, whose terms were high, unusually +stringent. But by the end of the month the girl of eighteen was +conquered. She had recognised in Gertrude Marvell accomplishments that +filled her with envy, together with an intensity of will, a bitter and +fiery purpose, that astounded and subdued a young creature in whom +inherited germs of southern energy and passion were only waiting the +touch that starts the ferment. Gertrude Marvell had read an amazing +amount of history, and all from one point of view; that of the woman +stirred to a kind of madness by what she held to be the wrongs of her +sex. The age-long monopoly of all the higher forces of civilisation by +men; the cruel and insulting insistence upon the sexual and maternal +functions of women, as covering the whole of her destiny; the hideous +depreciation of her as an inferior and unclean creature, to which +Christianity, poisoned by the story of Eve, and a score of barbarous +beliefs and superstitions more primitive still, had largely +contributed, while hypocritically professing to enfranchise and exalt +her; the unfailing doom to "obey," and to bring forth, that has crushed +her; the labours and shames heaped upon her by men in the pursuit of +their own selfish devices; and the denial to her, also by men, of all +the higher and spiritual activities, except those allowed by a man-made +religion:--this feminist gospel, in some respects so bitterly true, in +others so vindictively false, was gradually and unsparingly pressed +upon Delia's quick intelligence. She caught its fire; she rose to its +call; and there came a day when Gertrude Marvell breaking through the +cold reserve she had hitherto interposed between herself and the pupil +who had come to adore her, threw her arms round the girl, accepting +from her what were practically the vows of a neophyte in a secret and +revolutionary service. + +Joyous, self-dedicating moment! But it had been followed by a tragedy; +the tragedy of Delia's estrangement from her father. It was not long +before Sir Robert Blanchflower, a proud self-indulgent man, with a keen +critical sense, a wide acquaintance with men and affairs, and a number +of miscellaneous acquirements of which he never made the smallest +parade, had divined the spirit of irreconcilable revolt which animated +the slight and generally taciturn woman, who had obtained such a hold +upon his daughter. He, the god of his small world, was made to feel +himself humiliated in her presence. She was, in fact, his intellectual +superior, and the truth was conveyed to him in a score of subtle ways. +She was in his house simply because she was poor, and wanted rest from +excessive overwork, at someone else's expense. Otherwise her manner +suggested--often quite unconsciously--that she would not have put up +with his household and its regulations for a single day. + +Then, suddenly, he perceived that he had lost his daughter, and the +reason of it. The last year of his official life was thenceforward +darkened by an ugly and undignified struggle with the woman who had +stolen Delia from him. In the end he dismissed Gertrude Marvell. Delia +shewed a passionate resentment, told him frankly that as soon as she +was twenty-one she should take up "the Woman's movement" as her sole +occupation, and should offer herself wherever Gertrude Marvell, and +Gertrude's leaders, thought she could be useful. "The vote _must_ be +got!"--she said, standing white and trembling, but resolute, before her +father--"If not peaceably, then by violence. And when we get it, +father, you men will be astonished to see what we shall do with it!" + +Her twenty-first birthday was at hand, and would probably have seen +Delia's flight from her father's house, but for Sir Robert's breakdown +in health. He gave up his post, and it was evident he had not more than +a year or two to live. Delia softened and submitted. She went abroad +with him, and for a time he seemed to throw off the disease which had +attacked him. It was during a brighter interval that, touched by her +apparent concessions, he had consented to her giving the lecture in the +Tyrolese hotel the fame of which had spread abroad, and had even taken +a certain pleasure in her oratorical success. + +But during the following winter--Sir Robert's last--which they spent +at Meran, things had gone from bad to worse. For months Delia never +mentioned Gertrude Marvell to her father. He flattered himself that the +friendship was at an end. Then some accident revealed to him that it +was as close as, or closer than ever; that they were in daily +correspondence; that they had actually met, unknown to him, in the +neighbourhood of Meran; and that Delia was sending all the money she +could possibly spare from her very ample allowance to "The Daughters of +Revolt," the far-spreading society in which Gertrude Marvell was now +one of the leading officials. + +Some of these dismal memories of Meran descended like birds of night +upon Delia, as she stood with her arms above her head, in her long +night-gown, looking intently but quite unconsciously into the depths of +an old rosewood cheval glass. She felt that sultry night about her once +more, when, after signing his will, her father opened his eyes upon +her, coming back with an effort from the bound of death, and had said +quite clearly though faintly in the silence-- + +"Give up that woman, Delia!--promise me to give her up." And Delia had +cried bitterly, on her knees beside him--without a word--caressing his +hand. And the cold fingers had been feebly withdrawn from hers as the +eyes closed. + +"Oh papa--papa!" The low murmur came from her, as she pressed her hands +upon her eyes. If the Christian guesses were but true, and in some +quiet Elysian state he might now understand, and cease to be angry with +her! Was there ever a great cause won without setting kin against kin? +"A man's foes shall be they of his own household." "It wasn't my +fault--it wasn't my fault!" + +No!--and moreover it was her duty not to waste her strength in vain +emotion and regret. Her task was _doing_, not dreaming. She turned +away, banished her thoughts and set steadily about the task of +dressing. + + * * * * * + +"Please Miss Blanchflower, there are two or three people waiting to see +you in the servants' hall." + +So said the tall and gentle-voiced housekeeper, Mrs. Bird, whose +emotions had been, in Miss Marvell's view, so unnecessarily exercised +on the evening of Delia's home-coming. Being a sensitive person, Mrs. +Bird had already learnt her lesson, and her manner had now become as +mildly distant as could be desired, especially in the case of Miss +Blanchflower's lady companion. + +"People? What people?" asked Delia, looking round with a furrowed brow. +She and Gertrude were sitting together on the sofa when the housekeeper +entered, eagerly reading a large batch of letters which the London post +had just brought, and discussing their contents in subdued tones. + +"It's the cottages, Miss. Her Ladyship used always to decide who should +have those as were vacant about this time of year, and two or three of +these persons have been up several times to know when you'd be home." + +"But I don't know anything about it"--said Delia, rising reluctantly. +"Why doesn't the agent--why doesn't Mr. Frost do it?" + +"I suppose--they thought--you'd perhaps speak a word to Mr. Frost, +Miss," suggested Mrs. Bird. "But I can send them away of course, if you +wish." + +"Oh no, I'll come"--said Delia. "But it's rather tiresome--just +as"--she looked at Gertrude. + +"Don't be long," said Miss Marvell, sharply, "I'll wait for you here." +And she plunged back into the letters, her delicate face all alive, her +eyes sparkling. Delia departed--evidently on a distasteful errand. + +But twenty minutes later, she returned flushed and animated. + +"I _am_ glad I went! Such tyranny--such monstrous tyranny!" She stood +in front of Gertrude breathing fast, her hands on her hips. + +"What's the matter?" + +"My grandmother had a rule--can you imagine anything so cruel!--that no +girl--who had gone wrong--was to be allowed in our cottages. If she +couldn't be provided for in some Home or other, or if her family +refused to give her up, then the family must go. An old man has been up +to see me--a widower with two daughters--one in service. The one in +service has come to grief--the son of the house!--the usual +story!"--the speaker's face had turned fiercely pale--"and now our +agent refuses to let the girl and her baby come home. And the old +father says--'What am I to do, Miss? I can't turn her out--she's my own +flesh and blood. I've got to stick to her--else there'll be worse +happening. It's not _justice_, Miss--and it's not Gospel.' +Well!"--Delia seated herself with energy,--"I've told him to have her +home at once--and I'll see to it." + +Gertrude lifted her eyebrows, a gesture habitual with her, whenever +Delia wore--as now--her young prophetess look. Why feel these things so +much? Human nerves have only a certain limited stock of reactions. +Avenge--and alter them! + +But she merely said-- + +"And the others?" + +"Oh, a poor mother with eight children, pleading for a cottage with +three bedrooms instead of two! I told her she should have it if I had +to build it!--And an old woman who has lived fifty-two years in her +cottage, and lost all her belongings, begging that she mightn't be +turned out--for a family--now that it's too big for her. She shan't be +turned out! Of course I suppose it would be common sense"--the tension +of the speaker's face broke up in laughter--"to put the old woman into +the cottage of the eight children--and put the eight children into the +old woman's. But human beings are not cattle! Sentiment's something! +Why shouldn't a woman be allowed to die in her old home,--so long as +she pays the rent? I hate all this interference with people's lives! +And it's always the women who come worst off. 'Oh Mr. Frost, he never +pays no attention to us women. He claps 'is 'ands to his ears when he +sees one of us, and jest runs for it.' Well, I'll make Mr. Frost listen +to a woman!" + +"I'm afraid Mr. Winnington is his master," said Gertrude quietly. +Delia, crimson again, shrugged her shoulders. + +"We shall see!" + +Gertrude Marvell looked up. + +"Look here, Delia, if you're going to play the part of earthly +Providence to this village and your property in general--as I've said +to you before--you may as well tell the 'Daughters' you can't do +anything for them. That's a profession in itself; and would take you +all your time." + +"Then of course, I shan't do it," said Delia, with decision. "But I +only want to put in an appearance--to make friends with the +people--just for a time, Gertrude! It doesn't do to be _too_ unpopular. +We're not exactly in good odour just now, are we?" + +And sitting down on a stool beside the elder woman, Delia leant her +head against her friend's knee caressingly. + +Gertrude gave an absent touch to the girl's beautiful hair, and then +said-- + +"So you _will_ take these four meetings?" + +"Certainly!" Delia sprang up. "What are they? One at Latchford, one at +Brownmouth--Wanchester--and Frimpton. All right. I shall be pelted at +Brownmouth. But rotten eggs don't matter so much when you're looking +out for them--except on your face--Ugh!" + +"And the meeting here?" + +"Of course. Can't I do what I like with my own house? We'll have the +notices out next week." + +Gertrude looked up-- + +"When did you say that man--Mr. Winnington--was coming?" + +"His note this morning said 4:30." + +"You'd better see him alone--for the first half hour anyway." + +Delia made a face. + +"I wish I knew what line to take up. You've been no use at all, +Gertrude!" + +Gertrude smiled. + +"Wait till you see him," she said coolly. "Mother-wit will help you +out." + +"I wish I had anything to bargain with." + +"So you have." + +"Pray, what?" + +"The meeting here. You _could_ give that up. And he needn't know +anything of the others yet awhile." + +"What a charming opinion he will have of us both, by and bye," laughed +Delia, quietly. "And by all accounts he himself is a simple +paragon.--Heavens, how tiresome!" + +Gertrude Marvell turned back to her letters. + +"What does anyone know about a _man_?" she said, with slow +deliberation. + +The midday post at Maumsey brought letters just after luncheon. Delia +turning hers over was astonished to see two or three with the local +postmark. + +"What can people from _here_ be writing to me about?" + +Gertrude absorbed in the new weekly number of the _Tocsin_ took no +notice, till she was touched on the shoulder by Delia. + +"Yes?" + +"Gertrude!--it's too amazing!" The girl's tone was full of a joyous +wonder. "You know they told us at head-quarters that this was one of +the deadest places in England--a nest of Antis--nothing doing here at +all. Well, what do you think?--here are _three_ letters by one post, +from the village--all greeting us--all knowing perfectly who you +are--that you have been in prison, etcetera--all readers of the +_Tocsin_, and burning to be doing something--" + +"Burning something?" interposed the other in her most ordinary voice. + +Delia laughed, again with the note of constraint. + +"Well, anyway, they want to come and see us." + +"Who are they?" + +"An assistant mistress at the little grammar-school--that's No. 1. No. +2--a farmer's daughter, who says she took part in one of the raids last +summer, but nobody knows down here. Her father paid her fine. And No. +3. a consumptive dressmaker, who declares she hasn't much life left +anyway, and she is quite willing to give it to the 'cause'! Isn't it +wonderful how it spreads--it spreads!" + +"Hm"--said Miss Marvell. "Well, we may as well inspect them. Tell them +to come up some time next week after dusk." + +As she spoke, the temporary parlour-maid threw open the door of the +room which Delia had that morning chosen as her own sitting-room. + +"Are you at home, Miss? Mrs. France would like to see you." + +"Mrs. France?--Mrs. France? Oh, I know--the doctor's wife--Mrs. Bird +was talking of him this morning. Well, I suppose I must go." Delia +moved unwillingly. "I'm coming, Mary." + +"Of course you must go," said Gertrude, a little peremptorily. "As we +are here we may as well reconnoitre the whole ground--find out +everything we can." + + * * * * * + +In the drawing-room, to which some flowers, and a litter of new books +and magazines had already restored its inhabited look, Delia found a +woman awaiting her, in whom the girl's first glance discerned a +personality. She was dressed with an entire disregard of the fashion, +in plain, serviceable clothes. A small black bonnet tied under the chin +framed a face whose only beauty lay in the expression of the clear kind +eyes, and quiet mouth. The eyes were a little prominent; the brow above +them unusually smooth and untroubled, answering to the bands of brown +hair touched with grey which defined it. But the rest of the face was +marked by many deep lines--of experience, or suffering?--which showed +clearly that its owner had long left physical youth behind. And yet +perhaps youth--in some spiritual poetic sense--was what Mrs. France's +aspect most sharply conveyed. + +She rose as Delia entered, and greeted her warmly. + +"It is nice to see you settled here! Dr. France and I were great +friends of your old grandmother. He and she were regular cronies. We +were very sorry to see the news of your poor father's death." + +The voice was clear and soft, and absolutely sincere. Delia felt drawn +to her. But it had become habitual to her to hold herself on the +defensive with strangers, to suspect hostility and disapproval +everywhere. So that her manner in reply, though polite enough, was +rather chilly. + +But--the girl's beauty! The fame of it had indeed reached Maumsey in +advance of the heiress. Mrs. France, however, in its actual presence +was inclined to say "I had not heard the half!" She remembered Delia's +mother, and in the face before her she recognised again the Greek type, +the old pure type, reappearing, as it constantly does, in the mixed +modern race. But the daughter surpassed her mother. Delia's eyes, of a +lovely grey blue, lidded, and fringed, and arched with an exquisite +perfection; the curve of the slightly bronzed cheek, suggesting through +all its delicacy the fulness of young, sensuous life; the mouth, +perhaps a trifle too large, and the chin, perhaps a trifle too firm; +the abundance of the glossy black hair, curling wherever it was allowed +to curl, or wherever it could escape the tight coils in which it was +bound--at the temples, and over the brow; the beauty of the uncovered +neck, and of the amply-rounded form which revealed itself through the +thin black stripe of the mourning dress:--none of these "items" in +Delia's good looks escaped her admiring visitor. + +"It's to be hoped Mr. Mark realises his responsibilities," she thought, +with amusement. + +Aloud, she said-- + +"I remember you as quite a little thing staying with your +Grandmother--but you wouldn't remember me. Dr. France was grieved not +to come, but it's his hospital day." + +Delia thanked her, without effusion. Mrs. France presently began to +feel conversation an effort, and to realise that the girl's wonderful +eyes were very observant and very critical. Yet she chose the very +obvious and appropriate topic of Lady Blanchflower, her strong +character, her doings in the village, her relation to the labourers and +their wives. + +"When she died, they really missed her. They miss her still." + +"Is it good for a village to depend so much on one person?" said Delia +in a detached voice. + +Mrs. France looked at her curiously. Jealousy of one's grandmother is +not a common trait in the young. It struck her that Miss Blanchflower +was already defending herself against examples and ideals she did not +mean to follow. And again amusement--and concern!--on Mark +Winnington's account made themselves felt. Mrs. France was quite aware +of Delia's "militant" antecedents, and of the history of the lady she +had brought down to live with her. But the confidence of the doctor's +wife in Winnington's powers and charm was boundless. "He'll be a match +for them!" she thought gaily. + +Meanwhile in reply, she smilingly defended her old friend Lady +Blanchflower from the implied charge of pauperising the village. + +"Not at all! She never gave money recklessly--and the do-nothings kept +clear of her. But she was the people's friend--and they knew it. +They're very excited about your coming!" + +"I daresay I shall change some things," said Delia decidedly. "I don't +approve of all Mr. Frost has been doing." + +"Well, you'll have your guardian to help you," said Mrs. France +quietly. + +Delia flushed, straightened her shoulders, and said nothing. + +This time Mrs. France was fairly taken by surprise. She knew nothing +more of Sir Robert Blanchflower's will than that he had made Mr. Mark +Winnington his daughter's guardian, till she reached the age of +twenty-five. But that any young woman--any motherless and fatherless +girl--should not think herself the most lucky of mortals to have +obtained Mark Winnington as guide and defender, with first claim on his +time, his brains, his kindness, seemed incredible to Mark's old friend +and neighbour, accustomed to the daily signs of his immense and +deserved popularity. Then it flashed upon her--"Has she ever seen him?" + +The doubt led to an immediate communication of the news that Winnington +had arrived from town that morning. Dr. France had seen him in the +village. + +"You know him, of course, already?" + +"Not at all," said Delia, indifferently. "He and I are perfect +strangers." Mrs. France laughed. + +"I rather envy you the pleasure of making friends with him! We are all +devoted to him down here." + +Delia lifted her eyebrows. + +"What are his particular virtues? It's monotonous to possess them +_all_." The slight note of insolence was hardly disguised. + +"No two friends of his would give you the same answer. I should give +you a different catalogue, for instance, from Lady Tonbridge--" + +"Lady Tonbridge!" cried Delia, waking up at last. "You don't mean that +Lady Tonbridge lives in this neighbourhood?" + +"Certainly. You know her?" + +"She came once to stay with us in the West Indies. My father knew her +very well before she married. And I owe her--a great debt"--the last +words were spoken with emphasis. + +Mrs. France looked enquiring. + +"--she recommended to us the lady who is now living with me here--my +chaperon--Miss Marvell?" + +There was silence for a moment. Then Mrs. France said, not without +embarrassment-- + +"Your father desired she should live with you?" + +Delia flushed again. + +"No. My father did not understand her." + +"He did not agree with her views?" + +"Nor with mine. It was horrid--but even relations must agree to differ. +Why is Lady Tonbridge here? And where is Sir Alfred? Papa had not heard +of them for a long time." + +"They separated last year"--said Mrs. France gravely. "But Mr. +Winnington will tell you. He's a great friend of hers. She does a lot +of work for him." + +"Work?" + +"Social work!" smiled Mrs. France--"poor-law--schools--that kind of +thing. He ropes us all in." + +"Oh!" said Delia, with her head in the air. + +Mrs. France laughed outright. + +"That seems to you so unimportant--compared to the vote." + +"It _is_ unimportant!" said Delia, impetuously. "Nothing really matters +but the vote. Aren't you a Suffragist, Mrs. France?" + +Mrs. France smilingly shook her head. + +"I don't want to meddle with the men's business. And we're a long way +yet from catching up with our own. Oh, my husband has a lot of +scientific objections. But that's mine." Then her face grew +serious--"anyway, we can all agree, I hope, in hating violence. That +can never settle it." + +She looked a little sternly at her young companion. + +"That depends," said Delia. "But we mustn't argue, Mrs. France. I +should only make you angry. Ah!" + +She sprang up and went to the window, just as steps could be heard on +the gravel outside. + +"Here's someone coming." She turned to Mrs. France. "Is it Mr. +Winnington?" + +"It is!" said her visitor, after putting on her glasses. + +Delia surveyed him, standing behind the lace curtain, and Mrs. France +was relieved to see that a young person of such very decided opinions +could be still girlishly curious. She herself rose to go. + +"Good-bye. I won't interrupt your talk with him." + +"Good-looking?" said Delia, with mischief in her eyes, and a slight +gesture towards the approaching visitor. + +"Don't you know what an athlete he is--or was?" + +"Another perfection? Heavens!--how does he endure it?" said the girl, +laughing. + +Mrs. France took her leave. She was a very motherly tender-hearted +woman, and she would like to have taken her old friend's grandchild in +her arms and kissed her. But she wisely refrained; and indeed the +instinct to shake her was perhaps equally strong. "How long will she +stand gossiping on the doormat with the paragon," said Delia savagely +to herself, when she was left alone. "Oh, how I hate a 'charming man'!" +She moved stormily to and fro, listening to the distant sounds of talk +in the hall, and resenting them. Then suddenly she paused opposite one +of the large mirrors in the room. A coil of hair had loosened itself; +she put it right; and still stood motionless, interrogating herself in +a proud concentration. + +"Well?--I am quite ready for him." + +But her heart beat uncomfortably fast as the door opened, and Mark +Winnington entered. + + + + +Chapter V + + +As Winnington advanced with outstretched hand to greet her, Delia was +conscious of a striking physical presence, and of an eye fixed upon her +at once kind and penetrating. + +"How are you? You've been through a terrible time! Are you at all +rested? I'm afraid it has been a long, long strain." + +He held her hand in both his, asking gentle questions about her +father's illness, interrogating her looks the while with a frank +concern and sympathy. + +Delia was taken by surprise. For the first time that day she was +reminded of what was really, the truth. She _was_ tired--morally and +physically. But Gertrude Marvell never recognised anything of the kind; +and in her presence Delia rarely confessed any such weakness even to +herself. + +As it was, her eyes and mouth wavered a little under Winnington's look. + +"Thank you," she said quietly. "I shall soon be rested." + +They sat down. Delia was conscious--unwillingly conscious, of a nervous +agitation she did her best to check. For Winnington also it was clearly +an awkward moment. He began at once to talk of his old recollections of +her parents, of her mother's beauty, of her father's reputation as the +most dashing soldier on the North-West frontier, in the days when they +first met in India. + +"But his health was even then very poor. I suppose it was that made him +leave the army?" + +"Yes--and then Parliament," said Delia. "He was ordered a warm climate +for the winter. But he could never have lived without working. His +Governorship just suited him." + +She spoke with charming softness, beguiled from her insensibly by +Winnington's own manner. At the back of Winnington's mind, as they +talked, ran perpetual ejaculations--ejaculations of the natural man in +the presence of so much beauty. But his conversation with her flowed +the while with an even gentleness which never for a moment affected +intimacy, and was touched here and there with a note of deference, even +of ceremony, which disarmed his companion. + +"I never came across your father down here--oddly enough," he said +presently. "He had left Sandhurst before I went to Eton; and then there +was Oxford, and then the bar. My little place belonged then to a +cousin, and I had hardly ever seen it. But of course I knew, your +grandmother--everybody did. She was a great centre--a great figure. She +has left her mark here. Don't you find it so?" + +"Yes. Everybody seems to remember her." + +But, in a moment, the girl before him had changed and stiffened. It +seemed to Winnington, as to Mrs. France, that she pulled herself up, +reacting against something that threatened her. The expression in her +eyes put something between them. "Perhaps you know"--she said--"that +my grandmother didn't always get on with my mother?" + +He wondered why she had reminded him of that old family jar, which +gossip had spread abroad. Did it really rankle in her mind? Odd, that +it should! + +"Was that so?" he laughed. "Oh, Lady Blanchflower had her veins of +unreason. One had to know where to have her." + +"She took Greeks for barbarians--my father used to say," said Delia, a +little grimly. "But she was very good to me--and so I was fond of her." +"And she of you. But there are still tales going about--do you +mind?--of the dances you led her. It took weeks and months, they say, +before you and she arrived at an armed truce--after a most appalling +state of war! There's an old gardener here--retired now--who remembers +you quite well. He told me yesterday that you used to be very friendly +with him, and you said to him once--'I like Granny!--she's the master +of me!'" + +The laughter in Winnington's eyes again kindled hers. + +"I was a handful--I know." There was a pause. Then she added--"And I'm +afraid--I've gone on being a handful!" Gesture and tone showed that she +spoke deliberately. + +"Most people of spirit are--till they come to handle themselves," he +replied, also with a slight change of tone. + +"But that's just what women are never allowed to do, Mr. Winnington!" +She turned suddenly red, and fronted him. "There's always some man, who +claims to manage them and their affairs. We're always in +leading-strings--nobody ever admits we're grown up. Why can't we be +allowed like men--to stumble along our own way? If we make mistakes, +let's _pay_ for them! But let us at some time in our lives--at +least--feel ourselves free beings!" + +There was no mistaking the purport of these words. They referred +clearly to her father's will, and her own position. After a moment's +thought, Winnington bent forward. + +"I think I understand what you mean," he said gravely. "And I +sympathise with it more than you imagine." + +Delia looked up impetuously-- + +"Then why, Mr. Winnington, did you consent to be my guardian?" + +"Because--quite honestly--because I thought I could be of more use to +you perhaps than the Court of Chancery; and because your father's +letter to me was one very difficult to put aside." + +"How could anyone in my father's state of health really judge +reasonably!" cried Delia. "I daresay it sounds shocking to you, Mr. +Winnington, but I can't help putting it to myself like this--Papa was +always able to contrive his own life as he chose. In his Governorship +he was a small king. He tried a good many experiments. Everybody +deferred to him. Everybody was glad to help him. Then when his money +came and the estate, nobody fettered him with conditions; nobody +interfered with him. Grandpapa and he didn't agree in a lot of things. +Papa was a Liberal; and Grandpapa was an awfully hot Conservative. But +Grandpapa didn't appoint a trustee, or tie up the estates--or anything +of that kind. It is simply and solely because I am a woman that these +things are done! I am not to be allowed _my_ opinions, in _my_ life, +though Papa was quite free to work for his in his life! This is the +kind of thing we call tyranny,--this is the kind of thing that's +driving women into revolt!" + +Delia had risen. She stood in what Gertrude Marvell would have called +her "pythian" attitude, hands behind her, her head thrown back, +delivering her prophetic soul. Winnington, as he surveyed her, was +equally conscious of her beauty and her absurdity. But he kept cool, or +rather the natural faculty which had given him so much authority and +success in life rose with a kind of zest to its new and unaccustomed +task. + +"May I perhaps suggest--that your father was fifty-two when he +succeeded to this estate--and that you are twenty-one?" + +"Nearly twenty-two," she interrupted, hastily. + +"Nearly twenty-two," repeated Winnington. "And I assure you, that what +with 'People's Budgets,' and prowling Chancellors, and all the new +turns of the screw that the Treasury is for ever putting on, inheriting +an estate nowadays is no simple matter. Your father thought of that. He +wished to provide someone to help you." + +"I could have found lawyers to help me." + +"Of course you could. But my experience is that solicitors are good +servants but bad masters. It wants a good deal of practical knowledge +to direct them, so that you get what you want. I have gone a little way +into the business of the estate this morning with Mr. Masham, and in +town, with the Morton Manners people. I see already some complications +which will take me a deal of time and thought to straighten out. And I +am a lawyer, and if you will let me say so, just double your age." + +He smiled at her, but Delia's countenance did not relax. Her mouth was +scornful. + +"I daresay that's quite true, Mr. Winnington. But of course you know it +was _not_ on that account--or at any rate not chiefly on that account, +that my father left things as he did. He wished"--she spoke clearly and +slowly--"simply to prevent my helping the Suffrage movement in the way +I think best." + +Winnington too had risen, and was standing with one hand on the +mantelpiece. His brow was slightly furrowed, not frowning exactly, but +rather with the expression of one trying to bring his mind into as +close touch as possible with another mind. + +"I must of course agree with you. That is evidently one of the objects +of the will, though by no means--I think--the only one. And as to that, +should you not ask yourself--had not your father a right, even a duty, +to look after the disposal of his money as he thought best? Surely it +was his responsibility--especially as he was old, and you were young." + +Delia had begun to feel impatient--to resent the very mildness of his +tone. She felt, as though she were an insubordinate child, being gently +reasoned with. + +"No, I don't admit it!" she said passionately. "It was tampering with +the right of the next generation!" + +"Might you not say the same of the whole--or almost the whole of our +system of inheritance?" he argued. "I should put it--that the old are +always trying to preserve and protect something they know is more +precious to them than it can be to the young--something as to which, +with the experience of life behind them, they believe they are wiser +than the young. _Ought_ the young to resent it?" + +"Yes," persisted Delia. "_Yes_! They should be left to make their own +experiments." + +"They have _life_ wherewith to make them! But the dead--" He paused. +But Delia felt and quivered under the unspoken appeal; and also under +the quick touch of something more personal--more intimate--in his +manner, expressing, it seemed, some deep feeling of his own. He, in +turn, perceived that she had grown very pale; he guessed even that she +was suddenly not very far from tears. He seemed to realise the weeks, +perhaps months, of conflict through which the girl had just passed. He +was sincerely sorry for her--sincerely drawn to her. + +Delia broke the silence. + +"It is no good I think discussing this any more--is it? There's the +will, and the question is"--she faced him boldly--"how are you and I +going to get on, Mr. Winnington?" + +Winnington's seriousness broke up. He threw her a smiling look, and +with his hands in his pockets began to pace the room reflectively. + +"I really believe we can pull it off, if we look at it coolly," he said +at last, pausing in front of her. "I am no bigot on the Suffrage +question--frankly I have not yet made up my mind upon it. All that I am +clear about--as your father was clear--is that outrage and violence are +_wrong_--in any cause. I cannot believe that we shan't agree there!" + +He looked at her keenly. Delia was silent. Her face betrayed nothing, +though her eyes met his steadily. + +"And in regard to that, there is of course one thing that troubles +me"--he resumed--"one thing in which I beg you to take my advice"-- + +Delia breathed quick. + +"Gertrude Marvell?" she said. "Of course I knew that was coming!" + +"Yes. That we must settle, I think." He kept his eyes upon her. "You +can hardly know that she is mentioned by name in your father's last +letter--the letter to me---as the one person whose companionship he +dreaded for you--the one person he hoped you would consent to part +from." + +Delia had turned white. + +"No--I didn't know." + +"For that reason, and for others, I do entreat you"--he went on, +earnestly--"not to keep her here. Miss Marvell may be all that you +believe her. I have nothing to say against her,--except this. I am told +by those who know that she is already quite notorious in the militant +movement. She has been in prison, and she has made extremely violent +speeches, advocating what Miss Marvell calls war, and what plain people +call--crime. That she should live with you here would not only +prejudice your future, and divide you from people who should be your +natural friends; it would be an open disrespect to your father's +memory." + +There was silence. Then Delia said, evidently mastering her excitement +with difficulty. + +"I can't help it. She _must_ stay with me. Nobody need know--about my +father. Her name is not mentioned in the will." + +"No. That is true. But his letter to me as your guardian and trustee +ought to be regarded equitably as part of the will; and I do not see +how it would be possible for me to acquiesce in something so directly +contrary to his last wishes. I beg you to look at it from my point of +view--" + +"I do"--said Delia, flushing again. "But my letter warned you--" + +"Yes--but I felt on receiving it that you could not possibly be aware +of the full strength of your father's feeling. Let me read you his +words." + +He took an envelope from his pocket, observing her. Delia hastily +interposed. + +"Don't, Mr. Winnington!--I'm sure I know." + +"It is really my duty to read it to you," he said, courteously but +firmly. + +She endured it. The only sign of agitation she shewed was the trembling +of her hands on the back of the chair she leant upon. And when he +returned it to his pocket, she considered for a moment or two, before +she said, breathing unevenly, and stumbling a little.-- + +"That makes no difference, Mr. Winnington. I expect you think me a +monster. All the same I loved my father in my own way. But I am not +going to barter away my freedom for anything or anyone. I am not part +of my father, I am myself. And he is not here to be injured or hurt by +anything I do. I intend to stick to Gertrude Marvell--and she to me." + +And having delivered her ultimatum, she stood like a young goddess, +expectant and defiant. + +Winnington's manner changed. He straightened himself, with a slight +shake of his broad shoulders, and went to look out of the window at the +end of the room. Delia was left to contemplate the back of a very tall +man in a serge suit and to rate herself for the thrill--or the +trepidation--she could not help feeling. What would he say when he +spoke again? She was angry with herself that she could not quite +truthfully say that she did not care. + +When he returned, she divined another man. The tone was as courteous as +ever, but the first relation between them had disappeared; or rather it +had become a business relation, a relation of affairs. + +"You will of course understand--that I cannot _acquiesce_ in that +arrangement?" + +Delia's uncomfortable sense of humor found vent in a laugh--as civil +however as she could make it. + +"I do understand. But I don't quite see what you can do, Mr. +Winnington!" + +He smiled--quite pleasantly. + +"Nor do I--just yet. But of course Miss Marvell will not expect that +your father's estate should provide her with the salary that would +naturally fall to a chaperon whom your guardian could approve?" + +"I shall see to that. We shall not trouble you," said Delia, rather +fiercely. + +"And I shall ask to see Miss Marvell before I go this morning--that I +may point out to her the impropriety of remaining here against your +father's express wishes." + +Delia nodded. + +"All right--but it won't do any good." + +He made no reply, except to turn immediately to the subject of her +place of residence and her allowance. + +"It is I believe understood that you will live mainly here--at +Maumsey." + +"On the contrary!--I wish to spend a great part of the winter in +London." + +"With Miss Marvell?" + +"Certainly." + +"I cannot, I am afraid, let you expect that I shall provide the money." + +"It is my own money!" + +"Not legally. I hate insisting on these things; but perhaps you ought +to know that the _whole_ of your father's property--everything that he +left behind him, is in trust." + +"Which means"--cried Delia, quivering again--"that I am really a +pauper!--that I own nothing but my clothes--barely those!" + +He felt himself a brute. "Can I really keep this up!" he thought. +Aloud, he said--"If you would only make it a little easy for your +trustee, he would be only too thankful to follow out your wishes!" + +Delia made no reply, and Winnington took another turn up and down +before he paused in front of her with the words:-- + +"Can't we come to a compact? If I agree to London--say for six or +seven weeks--is there no promise you can make me in return?" + +With an inward laugh Delia remembered Gertrude's injunction to "keep +something to bargain with." + +"I don't know"--she said, reluctantly. "What sort of promise do you +want?" + +"I want one equal to the concession you ask me to make," he said +gravely. "In my eyes nothing could be more unfitting than that you +should be staying in London--during a time of particularly violent +agitation--under the chaperonage of Miss Marvell, who is already +committed to this agitation. If I agree to such a direct contradiction +of your father's wishes, I must at least have your assurance that you +will do nothing violent or illegal, either down here or in London, and +that in this house above all you will take some pains to respect Sir +Robert's wishes. That I am sure you will promise me?" + +She could not deny the charm of his direct appealing look, and she +hesitated. + +"I was going to have a drawing-room meeting here as soon as +possible"--she said, slowly. + +"On behalf of the 'Daughters of Revolt'?" + +She silently assented. + +"I may feel sure--may I not?--that you will give it up?" + +"It is a matter of conscience with us"--she said proudly--"to spread +our message wherever we go." + +"I don't think I can allow you a conscience all to yourself," he said +smiling. "Consider how I shall be straining mine--in agreeing to the +London plan!" + +"Very well"--the words came out reluctantly. "If you insist--and if +London is agreed upon--I will give it up." + +"Thank you," he said quietly. "And you will take part in no acts of +violence, either here or in London? It seems strange to use such words +to you. I hate to use them. But with the news in this week's papers I +can't help it. You will promise?" + +There was a short silence. + +"I will join in nothing militant down here," said Delia at last. "I +have already told Miss Marvell so." + +"Or in London?" + +She straightened herself. + +"I promise nothing about London." + +Guardian and ward looked straight into each other's faces for a few +moments. Delia's resistance had stirred a passion--a tremor--in her +pulses, she had never known in her struggle with her father. Winnington +was clearly debating with himself, and Delia seemed to see the thoughts +coursing through the grey eyes that looked at her, seriously indeed, +yet not without suggesting a man's humorous spirit behind them. + +"Very well"--he said--"we will talk of London later.--Now may we just +sit down and run through the household arrangements and expenses +here--before I see Miss Marvell. I want to know exactly what you want +doing to this house, and how we can fix you up comfortably." + +Delia assented. Winnington produced a note-book and pencil. Through his +companion's mind was running meanwhile an animated debate. + +"I'm not bound to tell him of those other meetings I have promised? +'Yes, you are!' No,--I'm not. They're not to be here--and if I once +begin asking his leave for things--there'll be no end to it. I mean to +shew him--once for all--that I am of age, and my own mistress. He can't +starve me--or beat me!" + +Her face broke into suppressed laughter as she bent it over the figures +that Winnington was presenting to her. + + * * * * * + +"Well, I am rather disappointed that you don't want to do more to the +house," said Winnington, as he rose and put up his note-book. "I +thought it might have been an occupation for the autumn and winter. But +at least we can decide on the essential things, and the work can be +done while you are in town. I am glad you like the servants Mrs. Bird +has found for you. Now I am going off to the Bank to settle everything +about the opening of your account, and the quarterly cheque we have +agreed on shall be paid in to-morrow." + +"Very well." But instantly through the girl's mind there shot up the +qualifying thought. "_He_ may say how it is to be spent--but _I_ have +made no promise!" + +He approached her to take his leave. + +"My sister comes home to-night. Will you try the new car and have tea +with us on Thursday?" Delia assented. "And before I go I should like to +say a word about some of the neighbours." + +He tried to give her a survey of the land. Lady Tonbridge, of course, +would be calling upon her directly. She was actually in the village--in +the tiniest bandbox of a house. Her husband's brutality had at +last--two years before this date--forced her to leave him, with her +girl of fifteen. "A miserable story--better taken for granted. She is +the pluckiest woman alive!" Then the Amberleys--the Rector, his wife +and daughter Susy were pleasant people--"Susy is a particular friend of +mine. It'll be jolly if you like her." + +"Oh, no, she won't take to me!" said Delia with decision. + +"Why not?" + +But Delia only shook her head, a little contemptuously. + +"We shall see," said Winnington. "Well, good night. Remember, anything +I can do for you--here I am." + +His eyes smiled, but Delia was perfectly conscious that the eager +cordiality, the touch of something like tenderness, which had entered +into his earlier manner, had disappeared. She realised, and with a +moment's soreness, that she had offended his sense of right--of what a +daughter's feeling should be towards a dead father, at any rate, in the +first hours of bereavement, when the recollections of death and +suffering are still fresh. + +"I can't help it," she thought stubbornly. "It's all part of the price +one pays." + +But when he was gone, she stood a long time by the window without +moving, thinking about the hour which had just passed. The impression +left upon her by Winnington's personality was uncomfortably strong. She +knew now that, in spite of her bravado, she had dreaded to find it so, +and the reality had more than confirmed the anticipation. She was +committed to a struggle with a man whom she must respect, and could not +help liking; whose only wish was to help and protect her. And beside +the man's energetic and fruitful maturity, she became, as it were, the +spectator of her own youth and stumbling inexperience. + +But these misgivings did not last long. A passionate conviction, a +fanatical affection, came to her aid, and her doubts were impatiently +dismissed. + + * * * * * + +Winnington found Miss Blanchflower's chaperon in a little sitting-room +on the ground floor already appropriated to her, surrounded with a +vast litter of letters and newspapers which she hastily pushed aside as +he entered. He had a long interview with her, and as he afterwards +confessed to Lady Tonbridge, he had rarely put his best powers forward +to so little purpose. Miss Marvell did not attempt to deny that she was +coming to live at Maumsey in defiance of the wishes of Delia's father +and guardian, and of the public opinion of those who were to be +henceforward Delia's friends and neighbours. + +"But Delia has asked me to live with her. She is twenty-one, and women +are not now the mere chattels they once were. Both she and I have wills +of our own. You will of course give me no salary. I require none. But I +don't see how you're going to turn me out of Delia's house, if Delia +wishes me to stay." + +And Winnington must needs acknowledge, at least to himself, that he did +not see either. + +He put the lady however through a cross-examination as to her +connection with militancy which would have embarrassed or intimidated +most women; but Gertrude Marvell, a slight and graceful figure, sitting +erect on the edge of her chair, bore it with perfect equanimity, +apparently frank, and quite unashamed. Certainly she belonged to the +"Daughters of Revolt," the record of her imprisonment was there to shew +it; and so did Delia. The aim of both their lives was to obtain the +parliamentary vote for women, and in her opinion and that of many +others, the time for constitutional action--"for that nonsense"--as she +scornfully put it, had long gone by. As to what she intended to do, or +advise Delia to do, that was her own affair. One did not give away +one's plans to the enemy. But she realised, of course, that it would be +unkind to Delia to plunge her into possible trouble, or to run the risk +herself of arrest or imprisonment during the early days of Delia's +mourning; and of her own accord she graciously offered the assurance +that neither she nor Delia would commit any illegality during the two +months or so that they might be settled at Maumsey. As to what might +happen later, she, like Delia, declined to give any assurances. The +parliamentary situation was becoming desperate, and any action whatever +on the part of women which might serve to prod the sluggish mind of +England before another general election, was in her view not only +legitimate but essential. + +"Of course I know what your conscience says on the matter," she said, +with her steady eyes on Winnington. "But--excuse me for saying so--your +conscience is not my affair." + +Winnington rose, and prepared to take his leave. If he felt nonplussed, +he managed not to shew it. + +"Very well. For the present I acquiesce. But you will scarcely wonder, +Miss Marvell, after this interview between us, if you find yourself +henceforward under observation. You are here in defiance of Miss +Blanchflower's legal guardian. I protest against your influence over +her; and I disapprove of your presence here. I shall do my best to +protect her from you." + +She nodded. + +"There of course, you will be in your right." + +And rising, she turned to the open window and the bright garden +outside, with a smiling remark on the decorative value of begonias, as +though nothing had happened. + +Winnington's temperament did not allow him to answer a woman uncivilly +under any circumstances. But they parted as duellists part before the +fray. Miss Marvell acknowledged his "Good afternoon," with a pleasant +bow, keeping her hands the while in the pockets of her serge jacket, +and she remained standing till Winnington had left the room. + +"Now for Lady Tonbridge!" thought Winnington, as he rode away. "If she +don't help me out, I'm done!" + +At the gate of Maumsey he stopped to speak to the lodge-keeper, and as +he did so, a man opened the gate, and came in. With a careless nod to +Winnington he took his way up the drive. Winnington looked after him in +some astonishment. + +"What on earth can that fellow be doing here?" + +He scented mischief; little suspecting however that a note from +Gertrude Marvell lay in the pocket of the man's shabby overcoat, +together with that copy of the _Tocsin_ which Delia's sharp eyes had +detected the week before in the hands of its owner. + +Meanwhile as he drove homeward, instead of the details of county +business, the position of Delia Blanchflower, her personality, her +loveliness, her defiance of him, absorbed his mind completely. He began +to foresee the realities of the struggle before him, and the sheer +dramatic interest of it held him, as though someone presented the case, +and bade him watch how it worked out. + + + + +Chapter VI + + +The village or rather small town of Great Maumsey took its origin in a +clearing of that royal forest which had now receded from it a couple of +miles to the south. But it was still a rural and woodland spot. The +trees in the fields round it had still a look of wildness, as survivors +from the primeval chase, and were grouped more freely and romantically +than in other places; while from the hill north of the church, one +could see the New Forest stretching away, blue beyond blue, purple +beyond purple, till it met the shining of the sea. + +Great Maumsey had a vast belief in itself, and was reckoned exclusive +and clannish by other places. It was proud of its old Georgian houses, +with their white fronts, their pillared porches, and the pediment +gables in their low roofs. The owners of these houses, of which there +were many, charmingly varied, in the long main street, were well aware +that they had once been old-fashioned, and were now as much admired in +their degree, as the pictures of the great English artists, Hogarth, +Reynolds, Romney, with which they were contemporary. There were earlier +houses too, of brick and timber, with overhanging top stories and +moss-grown roofs. There was a green surrounded with post and rails, on +which a veritable stocks still survived, kept in careful repair as a +memento of our barbarous forbears, by the parish Council. The church, +dating from that wonderful fourteenth century when all the world must +have gone mad for church-building, stood back from the main street, +with the rectory beside it, in a modest seclusion of their own. + +It was all very English, very spick and span, and apparently very well +to do. That the youth of the village was steadily leaving it for the +Colonies, that the constant marrying in and in which had gone on for +generations had produced an ugly crop of mental deficiency, and +physical deformity among the inhabitants--that the standard of morals +was too low, and the standard of drink too high--were matters well +known to the Rector and the Doctor. But there were no insanitary +cottages, and no obvious scandals of any sort. The Maumsey estate had +always been well managed; there were a good many small gentlefolk who +lived in the Georgian houses, and owing to the competition of the +railways, agricultural wages were rather better than elsewhere. + +About a mile from the eastern end of the village was the small +modernised manor-house of Bridge End, which belonged to Mark +Winnington, and where his sister Alice, Mrs. Matheson, kept him company +for the greater part of the year. The gates leading to Maumsey lay a +little west of the village, while on the hill to the north rose, +conspicuous against its background of wood, the famous old house of +Monk Lawrence. It looked down upon Maumsey on the one hand and Bridge +End on the other. It was generally believed that the owner of it, Sir +Wilfrid Lang, had exhausted his resources in restoring it, and that it +was the pressure of debt rather than his wife's health which had led to +its being shut up so long. + +The dwellers in the village regarded it as the jewel in their +landscape, their common heritage and pride. Lady Tonbridge, whose +little drawing-room and garden to the back looked out on the hill and +the old house, was specially envied because she possessed so good a +view of it. She herself inhabited one of the very smallest of the +Georgian houses, in the main street of Maumsey. She paid a rent of no +more than L40 a year for it, and Maumsey people who liked her, felt +affectionately concerned that a duke's grand-daughter should be reduced +to a rent and quarters so insignificant. + +Lady Tonbridge however was not at all concerned for the smallness of +her house. She regarded it as the outward and visible sign of the most +creditable action of her life--the action which would--or should--bring +her most marks when the recording angel came to make up her account. +Every time she surveyed its modest proportions the spirit of freedom +danced within her, and she envied none of the noble halls in which she +had formerly lived, and to some of which she still paid occasional +Visits. + +At tea-time, on the day following Winnington's first interview with his +ward, Madeleine Tonbridge came into her little drawing-room, in her +outdoor things, and carrying a bundle of books under the arm. + +As far as such words could ever apply to her she was tired and dusty. +But her little figure was so alert and trim, her grey linen dress and +its appointments so dainty, and the apple-red in her small cheeks so +bright, that one might have conceived her as just fresh from a maid's +hands, and stepping out to amuse herself, instead of as just returning +from a tedious afternoon's work, by which she had earned the large sum +of five shillings. A woman of forty-five, she looked her age, and she +had never possessed any positive beauty, unless it were the beauty of +delicate and harmonious proportion. Yet she had been pestered with +suitors as a girl, and unfortunately had married the least desirable of +them all. And now in middle life, no one had more devoted men-friends; +and that without exciting a breath of scandal, even in a situation +where one might have thought it inevitable. + +She looked round her as she entered. + +"Nora!--where are you?" + +A girl, apparently about seventeen, put her head in through the French +window that opened to the garden. + +"Ready for tea, Mummy?" + +"Rather!"--said Lady Tonbridge, with energy, as she put a match to the +little spirit kettle on the tea-table where everything stood ready. +"Come in, darling." + +And throwing off her hat and jacket, she sank into a comfortable +arm-chair with a sigh of fatigue. Her daughter quietly loosened her +mother's walking-shoes and took them away. Then they kissed each other, +and Nora went to look after the tea. She was a slim, pale-faced +school-girl, with yellow-brown eyes, and yellow-brown hair, not as yet +very attractive in looks, but her mother was convinced that it was only +the plainness of the cygnet, and that the swan was only a few years +off. Nora, who at seventeen had no illusions, was grateful to her +mother for the belief but did not share it in the least. + +"I'm sure you gave that girl half an hour over time," she said +reprovingly, as she handed Lady Tonbridge her cup of tea--"I can't +think why you do it." She referred to the solicitor's daughter whom +Lady Tonbridge had been that afternoon instructing in the uses of the +French participle. + +"Nor can I. A kind of ridiculous _esprit de metier_ I suppose. I +undertook to teach her French, and when after all these weeks she don't +seem to know a thing more than when she began, I feel as if I were +picking her dear papa's pockets." + +"Which is absurd," said Nora, buttering her mother's toast, "and I +can't let you do it. Half a crown an hour is silly enough already, and +for you to throw in half an hour extra for nothing, can't be stood." + +"I wish I could get it up to four hours a day," sighed the mother, +munching happily at her toast, while she held out her small stockinged +feet to the fire which Nora had just lit. "Just think. Ten shillings a +day--six days a week--ten months in the year. Why it would pay the +rent, we could have another servant, and I could give you twenty pounds +a year more for your clothes." + +"Much obliged--but I prefer a live Mummy--and no clothes--to a dead +one. More tea?" + +"Thanks. No chance, of course. Where could one find four persons a day, +in Maumsey, or near Maumsey, who want to learn French? The notion's +absurd. I shouldn't get the lessons I do, if it weren't for the +'Honourable.'" + +"Snobs!" + +"Not at all! Not a single family out of the people I go to deserve to +be called snobs. It's the natural dramatic instinct in us all. You +don't expect an 'Honourable' to be giving French lessons at half a +crown an hour, and when she does, you say--'Hullo! Some screw loose, +somewhere!'--and you at once feel a new interest in the French tongue, +and ask her to come along. I don't mind it a bit. I sit and spin yarns +about Drawing-rooms and Court balls, and it all helps.--When did you +get home?" + +For Nora attended a High School in a neighbouring town, some five miles +away, journeying there and back by train. + +"Half-past four. I met Mr. Winnington in his car, and he said he'd be +here about six." + +"Good. I'm dying to talk to him. I have written to the Abbey to say we +will call to-morrow. Of course, I ought to be her nursing mother in +these parts"--said Lady Tonbridge reflectively--"I knew Sir Robert in +frocks, and we were always pals. But my dear, it was I who hatched the +cockatrice!" + +Nora nodded gravely. + +"It was I," pursued Lady Tonbridge, penitentially,--"who saddled him +with that woman--and I know he never forgave me. He as good as told me +so when we last met--for those few hours--at Basle. But how could I +tell? How could anybody tell--she would turn out such a creature? I +only knew that she had taken all kinds of honours. I thought I was +sending him a treasure." + +"All the same you did it, Mummy. And it won't do to give yourself airs +now! That's what Mr. Winnington says. You've got to help him out." + +"I say, don't talk secrets!" said a voice just outside the room. "For I +can't help hearing 'em. May I come in?" + +And, pushing the half-open door, Mark Winnington stood smiling on the +threshold. + +"I apologise. But your little maid let me in--and then vanished +somewhere, like greased lightning--after a dog." + +"Oh, come in," said Lady Tonbridge, with resignation, extending at the +same time a hand of welcome--"the little maid, as you call her, only +came from your workhouse yesterday, and I haven't yet discovered a +grain of sense in her. But she gets plenty of exercise. If she isn't +chasing dogs, it's cats." + +"Don't you attack my schools," said Winnington seating himself at the +tea-table. "They're A1, and you're very lucky to get one of my girls." + +Madeleine Tonbridge replied tartly, that if he was a poor-law guardian, +and responsible for a barrack school it was no cause for boasting. She +had not long parted with another of his girls, who had tried on her +blouses, and gone out in her boots. She thought of offering the new +girl a free and open choice of her wardrobe to begin with, so as to +avoid unpleasantness. + +"We all know that every mistress has the maid she deserves," said +Winnington, deep in gingerbread cake. "I leave it there--" + +"Yes, jolly well do!" cried Nora, who had come to sit on a stool in +front of her mother and Winnington, her eager eyes glancing from one to +the other--"Don't start Mummy on servants, Mr. Winnington. If you do, I +shall go to bed. There's only one thing worth talking about--and +that's--" + +"Maumsey!" he said, laughing at her. + +"Have you accomplished anything?" asked Lady Tonbridge. "Don't tell me +you've dislodged the Fury?" + +Winnington shook his head. + +"_J'y suis--j'y reste_!" + +"I thought so. There is no civilised way by which men can eject a +woman. Tell me all about it." + +Winnington, however, instead of expatiating on the Maumsey household, +turned the conversation to something else--especially to Nora's first +attempts at golf, in which he had been her teacher. Nora, whose +reasonableness was abnormal, very soon took the hint, and after five +minutes' "chaff" with Winnington, to whom she was devoted, she took up +her work and went back to the garden. + +"Nobody ever snubs me so efficiently as Nora," said Madeleine +Tonbridge, with resignation, "though you come a good second. Discreet I +shall never be. Don't tell me anything if you don't want to." + +"But of course I want to! And there is nobody in the world so +absolutely bound to help me as you." + +"I knew you'd say that. Don't pile it on. Give me the kitten--and +describe your proceedings." + +Winnington handed her the grey Persian kitten reposing on a distant +chair, and Lady Tonbridge, who always found the process conducive to +clear thinking, stroked and combed the creature's beautiful fur, while +the man talked,--with entire freedom now that they were _tete-a-tete._ + +She was his good friend indeed, and she had also been the good friend +of Sir Robert Blanchflower. It was natural that to her he should lay +his perplexities bare. + + * * * * * + +But after she had heard his story and given her best mind to his +position, she could not refrain from expressing the wonder she had felt +from the beginning that he should ever have accepted it at all. + +"What on earth made you do it? Bobby Blanchflower had no more real +claim on you than this kitten!" + +Winnington's grey eyes fixed on the trees outside shewed a man trying +to retrace his own course. + +"He wrote me a very touching letter. And I have always thought that +men--and women--ought to be ready to do this kind of service for each +other. I should have felt a beast if I had said No, at once. But I +confess now that I have seen Miss Delia, I don't know whether I can do +the slightest good." + +"Hold on!" said Lady Tonbridge, sharply,--"You can't give it +up--now." + +Winnington laughed. + +"I have no intention of giving it up. Only I warn you that I shall +probably make a mess of it." + +"Well"--the tone was coolly reflective--"that may do _you_ +good--whatever happens to the girl. You have never made a mess of +anything yet in your life. It will be a new experience." + +Winnington protested hotly that her remark only shewed how little even +intimate friends know of each other's messes, and that his were already +legion. Lady Tonbridge threw him an incredulous look. As he sat there +in his bronzed and vigorous manhood, the first crowsfeet just beginning +to shew round the eyes, and the first streaks of grey in the brown +curls, she said to herself that none of her young men acquaintance +possessed half the physical attractiveness of Mark Winnington; while +none--old or young--could rival him at all in the humane and winning +spell he carried about with him. To see Mark Winnington _aux prises_ +with an adventure in which not even his tact, his knowledge of men and +women, his candour, or his sweetness, might be sufficient to win +success, piqued her curiosity; perhaps even flattered that slight +inevitable malice, wherewith ordinary mortals protect themselves +against the favourites of the gods. + +She was determined however to help him if she could, and she put him +through a number of questions. The girl then was as handsome as she +promised to be? A beauty, said Winnington--and of the heroic or poetic +type. And the Fury? Winnington described the neat, little lady, +fashionably Pressed and quiet mannered, who had embittered the last +years of Sir Robert Blanchflower, and firmly possessed herself of his +daughter. + +"You will see her to-morrow, at my house, when you come to tea. I +carefully didn't ask her, but I am certain she will come, and Alice and +I shall of course have to receive her." + +"She is not thin-skinned then?" + +"What fanatic is? It is one of the secrets of their strength." + +"She probably regards us all as the dust under her feet," said Lady +Tonbridge. "I wonder what game she will be up to here. Have you seen +the _Times_ this morning?" + +Winnington nodded. It contained three serious cases of arson, in which +Suffragette literature and messages had been discovered among the +ruins, besides a number of minor outrages. An energetic leading article +breathed the exasperation of the public, and pointed out the spread of +the campaign of violence. + +By this time Lady Tonbridge had carried her visitor into the garden, +and they were walking up and down among the late September flowers. +Beyond the garden lay green fields and hedgerows; beyond the fields +rose the line of wooded hill, and, embedded in trees, the grey and +gabled front of Monk Lawrence. + +Winnington reported the very meagre promise he had been able to get out +of his ward and her companion. + +"The comfort is," said Lady Tonbridge, "that this is a sane +neighbourhood--comparatively. They won't get much support. Oh, I don't +know though--" she added quickly. "There's that man--Mr. Lathrop, Paul +Lathrop--who took Wood Cottage last year--a queer fish, by all +accounts. I'm told he's written the most violent things backing up the +militants generally. However, his own story has put _him_ out of +Court." + +"His own story?" said Winnington, with a puzzled look. + +"Don't be so innocent!" laughed Lady Tonbridge, rather impatiently. "I +always tell you you don't give half place enough in life to +gossip-'human nature's daily food.' I knew all about him a week after +he arrived. However, I don't propose to save you trouble, Mr. Guardian! +Go and look up a certain divorce case, with Mr. Lathrop's name in it, +some time last year--if you want to know. That's enough for that." + +But Winnington interrupted her, with a disturbed look. "I happened to +meet that very man you are speaking of--yesterday--in the Abbey drive, +going to call." + +Lady Tonbridge shrugged her shoulders. + +"There you see their freemasonry. I don't suppose they approve his +morals--but he supports their politics. You won't be able to banish +him!--Well, so the child is lovely? and interesting?" + +Winnington assented warmly. + +"But determined to make herself a nuisance to you? Hm! Mr. Mark--dear +Mr. Mark--don't fall in love with her!" + +Winnington's expression altered. He did not answer for a moment. Then +he said, looking away-- + +"Do you think you need have said that?" + +"No!"--cried Madeleine Tonbridge remorsefully. "I am a wretch. But +don't--_don't_!" + +This time he smiled at her, though not without vexation. + +"Do you forget that I am nearly old enough to be her father?" + +"Oh that's nonsense!" she said hastily. "However--I'm not going to +flatter you--or tease you. Forgive me. I put it out of my head. I +wonder if there is anybody in the field already?" + +"Not that I am aware of." + +"Of course you know this kind of thing spoils a girl's prospects of +marriage enormously. Men won't run the risk." + +Winnington laughed. + +"And all the time, you're a Suffragist yourself!" + +"Yes, indeed I am," was the stout reply. "Here am I, with a house and a +daughter, a house-parlourmaid, a boot-boy, and rates to pay. Why +shouldn't I vote as well as you? But the difference between me and the +Fury is that she wants the vote this year--this month--_this +minute_--and I don't care whether it comes in my time--or Nora's +time--or my grandchildren's time. I say we ought to have it--that it is +our right--and you men are dolts not to give it us. But I sit and wait +peaceably till you do--till the apple is ripe and drops. And meanwhile +these wild women prevent its ripening at all. So long as they rage, +there it hangs--out of our reach. So that I'm not only ashamed of them +as a woman--but out of all patience with them as a Suffragist! However +for heaven's sake don't let's discuss the horrid subject. I'll do all I +can for Delia--both for your sake and Bob's--I'll keep my best eye on +the Fury--I feel myself of course most abominably responsible for +her--and I hope for the best. Who's coming to your tea-party?" + +Winnington enumerated. At the name of Susy Amberley, his hostess threw +him a sudden look, but said nothing. + +"The Andrews'--Captain, Mrs. and Miss--," Lady Tonbridge exclaimed. + +"Why did you ask that horrid woman?" + +"We didn't! Alice indiscreetly mentioned that Miss Blanchflower was +coming to tea, and she asked herself." + +"She's enough to make any one militant! If I hear her quote 'the hand +that rocks the cradle rules the world' once more, I shall have to smite +her. The girl's _down-trodden_ I tell you! Well, well--if you gossip +too little, I gossip too much. Heavens!--what a light!" + +Winnington turned to see the glow of a lovely afternoon fusing all the +hill-side in a glory of gold and amethyst, and the windows in the long +front of Monk Lawrence taking fire under the last rays of a +fast-dropping sun. + +"Do you know--I sometimes feel anxious about that house!" said +Madeleine Tonbridge, abruptly. "It's empty--it's famous--it belongs to +a member of the Government. What is to prevent the women from attacking +it?" + +"In the first place, it isn't empty. The Keeper, Daunt, from the South +Lodge, has now moved into the house. I know, because Susy Amberley told +me. She goes up there to teach one of my cripples--Daunt's second girl. +In the next, the police are on the alert. And last--who on earth would +dare to attack Monk Lawrence? The odium of it would be too great. A +house bound up with English history and English poetry--No! They are +not such fools!" + +Lady Tonbridge shook her head. + +"Don't be so sure. Anyway you as a magistrate can keep the police up to +the mark." + +Winnington departed, and his old friend was left to meditate on his +predicament. It was strange to see Mark Winnington, with his +traditional, English ways and feelings--carried, as she always felt, to +their highest--thus face to face with the new feminist forces--as +embodied in Delia Blanchflower. He had resented, clearly resented, the +introduction--by her, Madeleine--of the sex element into the problem. +But how difficult to keep it out! "He will see her constantly--he will +have to exercise his will against hers--he will get his way--and then +hate himself for conquering--he will disapprove, and yet admire,--will +offend her, yet want to please her--a creature all fire, and beauty, +and heroisms out of place! And she--could she, could I, could any woman +I know, fight Mark Winnington--and not love him all the time? Men are +men, and women are women--in spite of all these 'isms,' and 'causes.' I +bet--but I don't know what I bet!--" Then her thoughts gradually veered +away from Mark to quite another person. + +How would Susan Amberley be affected by this new interest in Mark +Winnington's life? Madeleine's thoughts recalled a gentle face, a pair +of honest eyes, a bearing timid and yet dignified. So she was teaching +one of Mark's crippled children? And Mark thought no doubt she would +have done the like for anyone else with a charitable hobby? Perhaps she +would, for her heart was a fount of pity. All the same, the man--blind +bat!--understood nothing. No fault of his perhaps; but Lady Tonbridge +felt a woman's angry sympathy with a form of waste so common and so +costly. + +And now the modest worshipper must see her hero absorbed day by day, +and hour by hour, in the doings of a dazzling and magnificent creature +like Delia Blanchflower. What food for torment, even in the meekest +spirit! + +So that the last word the vivacious woman said to herself was a soft +"Poor Susy!" dropped into the heart of a September rose as she stooped +to gather it. + + + + +Chapter VII + + +A small expectant party were gathered for afternoon tea in the +book-lined sitting-room--the house possessed no proper drawing-room--of +Bridge End. Mrs. Matheson indeed, Mark's widowed sister, would have +resented it had anyone used the word "party" in its social sense. Miss +Blanchflower's father had been dead scarcely a month; and Mrs. Matheson +in her quiet way, held strongly by all the decencies of life. It was +merely a small gathering of some of the oldest friends and neighbours +of Miss Blanchflower's family--those who had stood nearest to her +grandparents--to welcome the orphan girl among them. Lady Tonbridge--of +whom it was commonly believed, though no one exactly knew why, that Bob +Blanchflower, as a youth had been in love with her, before ever he met +his Greek wife; Dr. France, who had attended both the old people till +their deaths, and had been much beloved by them; his wife; the Rector, +Mrs. Amberley, and Susy:--Mrs. Matheson had not intended to ask anyone +else. But the Andrews' had asked themselves, and she had not had the +moral courage to tell them that the occasion was not for them. She was +always getting Mark into difficulties, she penitently reflected, by her +inability to say No, at the right time, and with the proper force, Mark +could always say it, and stick to it smiling--without giving offence. + +Mrs. Matheson was at the tea-table. She was tall and thin, with +something of her brother's good looks, but none of his over-flowing +vitality. Her iron-grey hair was rolled back from her forehead; she +wore a black dress with a high collar of white lawn, and long white +cuffs. Little Mrs. Amberley, the Rector's wife, sitting beside her, +envied her hostess her figure, and her long slender neck. She herself +had long since parted with any semblance of a waist, and the boned +collars of the day were a perpetual torment to one whose neck, from the +dressmaker's point of view, scarcely existed. But Mrs. Amberley endured +them, because they were the fashion; and to be moderately in the +fashion meant simply keeping up to the mark--not falling behind. It was +like going to church--an acceptance of that "general will," which +according to the philosophers, is the guardian of all religion and all +morality. + +The Rector too, who was now handing the tea-cake, believed in +fashion--ecclesiastical fashion. Like his wife, he was gentle and +ineffective. His clerical dress expressed a moderate Anglicanism, and +his opinions were those of his class and neighbourhood, put for him day +by day in his favourite newspaper, with a cogency at which he +marvelled. Yet he was no more a hypocrite than his wife, and below his +common-places both of manner and thought there lay warm feelings and a +quick conscience. He was just now much troubled about his daughter +Susy. The night before she had told her mother and him that she wished +to go to London, to train for nursing. It had been an upheaval in their +quiet household. Why should she dream of such a thing? How could they +ever get on without her? Who would copy out his sermons, or help with +the schools? And her mother--so dependent on her only daughter! The +Rector's mind was much disturbed, and he was accordingly more absent +and more ineffective than usual. + +Susy herself, in a white frock, with touches of blue at her waist, and +in her shady hat, was moving about with cups of tea, taking that place +of Mrs. Matthews's lieutenant, which was always tacitly given her by +Winnington and his sister on festal occasions at Bridge End. As she +passed Winnington, who had been captured by Mrs. Andrews, he turned +with alacrity-- + +"My dear Miss Susy! What are you doing? Give me that cup!" + +"No--please! I like doing it!" And she passed on, smiling, towards Lady +Tonbridge, whose sharp eyes had seen the trivial contact between +Winnington and the girl. How the mere sound of his voice had changed +the aspect of the young face! Poor child--poor child! + +"How well you look Susy! Such a pretty dress!" said Madeleine tenderly +in the girl's ear. + +Susy flushed. + +"You really think so? Mother gave it me for a birthday present." She +looked up with her soft, brown eyes, which always seemed to have in +them, even when they smiled, a look of pleading--as of someone at a +disadvantage. At the same moment Winnington passed her. + +"_Could_ you go and talk to Miss Andrews?" he said, over his shoulder, +so that only she heard. + +Susy went obediently across the room to where a silent, dark-haired +girl sat by herself, quite apart from the rest of the circle. Marion +Andrews was plain, with large features and thick wiry hair. Maumsey +society in general declared her "impossible." She rarely talked; she +seemed to have no tastes; and the world believed her both stupid and +disagreeable. And by contrast with the effusive amiabilities of her +mother, she could appear nothing else. Mrs. Andrews indeed had a way of +using her daughter as a foil to her own qualities, which must have +paralysed the most self-confident, and Marion had never possessed any +belief in herself at all. + +As Susy Amberley timidly approached her, and began to make +conversation, she looked up coldly, and hardly answered. Meanwhile Mrs. +Andrews was pouring out a flood of talk under which the uncomfortable +Winnington--for it always fell to him as host to entertain her--sat +practising endurance. She was a selfish, egotistical woman, with a vast +command of sloppy phrases, which did duty for all that real feeling or +sympathy of which she possessed uncommonly little. On this occasion she +was elaborately dressed,--overdressed--in a black satin gown, which +seemed to Winnington, an ugly miracle of trimming and tortured "bits." +Her large hat was thick with nodding plumes, and beside her spotless +white gloves and showy lace scarf, her daughter's slovenly coat and +skirt, of the cheapest ready-made kind, her soiled gloves, and clumsy +shoes, struck even a man uncomfortably. That poor girl seemed to grow +plainer and more silent every year. + +He was just shaking himself free from the mother, when Dr. and Mrs. +France were announced. The doctor came in with a furrowed brow, and a +preoccupied look. After greeting Mrs. Matheson, and the other guests, +he caught a glance of enquiry from Winnington and went up to him. + +"The evening paper is full of the most shocking news!" he said, with +evident agitation. "There has been an attempt on Hampton Court--and two +girls who were caught breaking windows in Piccadilly have been badly +hurt by the crowd. A bomb too has been found in the entrance of one of +the tube stations. It was discovered in time, or the results might have +been frightful." + +"Good Heavens--those women again!" cried Mrs. Andrews, lifting hands +and eyes. + +No one else spoke. But in everyone's mind the same thought emerged. At +any moment the door might open, and Delia Blanchflower and her chaperon +might come in. + +The doctor drew Winnington aside into a bow-window. + +"Did you know that the lady living with Miss Blanchflower was a member +of this League of Revolt?" + +"Yes. You mean they are implicated in these things?" + +"Certainly! I am told Miss Marvell was once an official--probably is +still. My dear Winnington--you can't possibly allow it!" He spoke with +the freedom of an intimate friend. + +"How can I stop it," said Winnington, frowning. "My ward is of age. If +Miss Marvell does anything overt--But she has promised to do nothing +violent down here--they both have." + +The doctor, an impetuous Ulsterman with white hair, and black eyes, +shrugged his shoulders impatiently. "When women once take to this kind +of thing"--he was interrupted by Mrs. Andrews' heavy voice rising +above the rather nervous and disjointed conversation of the other +guests--"If women only knew where their real power lies, Mrs. Matheson! +Why, 'the hand that rocks the cradle'--" + +A sudden crash was heard. + +"Oh, dear"--cried Lady Tonbridge, who had upset a small table with a +plate of cakes on it across the tail of Mrs. Andrews' dress--"how +stupid I am!" + +"My gown!--my gown!" cried Mrs. Andrews in an anguish, groping for the +cakes. + +In the midst of the confusion the drawing-room door had opened, and +there on the threshold stood Delia Blanchflower, with a slightly-built +lady behind her. + +Winnington turned with a start and went forward to greet them. Dr. +France left behind in the bow-window observed their entry with a +mingling of curiosity and repulsion. It seemed to him that their entry +was that of persons into a hostile camp,--the senses all alert against +attack. Delia was of course in black, her face sombrely brilliant in +its dark setting of a plain felt hat, like the hat of a Cavalier +without its feathers. "She knows perfectly well we have been talking +about her!" thought Dr. France,--"that we have seen the newspapers. She +comes in ready for battle--perhaps thirsty for it! She is +excited--while the woman behind her is perfectly cool. The two +types!--the enthusiast--and the fanatic. But, by Jove, the girl is +handsome!" + +Through the sudden silence created by their entry, Delia made her way +to Mrs. Matheson. Holding her head very high, she introduced "My +chaperon--Miss Marvell." And Winnington's sister nervously shook hands +with the quietly smiling lady who followed in Miss Blanchflower's wake. +Then while Delia sat down beside the hostess, and Winnington busied +himself in supplying her with tea, her companion fell to the Rector's +care. + +The Rector, like Winnington, was not a gossip, partly out of scruples, +but mainly perhaps because of a certain deficient vitality, and he had +but disjointed ideas on the subject of the two ladies who had now +settled at the Abbey. He understood, however, that Delia, whom he +remembered as a child, was a "Suffragette," and that Mr. Winnington, +Delia's guardian, disapproved of the lady she had brought with her, +why, he could not recollect. This vague sense of something "naughty" +and abnormal gave a certain tremor to his manner as he stood beside +Gertrude Marvell, shifting from one foot to the other, and nervously +plying her with tea-cake. + +Miss Marvell's dark eyes meanwhile glanced round the room, taking in +everybody. They paused a moment on the figure of the doctor, erect and +spare in a closely-buttoned coat, on his spectacled face, and +conspicuous brow, under waves of nearly white hair; then passed on. Dr. +France watched her, following the examining eyes with his own. He saw +them change, with a look--the slightest passing look--of recognition, +and at the same moment he was aware of Marion Andrews, sitting in the +light of a side window. What had happened to the girl? He saw her dark +face, for one instant, exultant, transformed; like some forest hollow +into which a sunbeam strikes. The next, she was stooping over a copy of +"Punch" which lay on the table beside her. A rush of speculation ran +through the doctor's mind. + +"And you are settled at Maumsey?" Mrs. Matheson was saying to Delia; +aware as soon as the question was uttered that it was a foolish one. + +"Oh no, not settled. We shall be there a couple of months." + +"The house will want some doing up, Mark thinks." + +"I don't think so. Not much anyway. It does very well." + +There was an entire absence of girlish softness or shyness in the +speaker's manner, though it was both courteous and easy. The +voice--musically deep--and the splendid black eyes, that looked so +steadily at her, intimidated Mark Winnington's gentle sister. + +Mrs. Andrews, whose dress, after Susy's ministration, had been declared +out of danger, bent across the tea-table, all smiles and benevolence +again, the plumes in her black hat nodding-- + +"It's like old times to have the Abbey open again, Miss Blanchflower! +Every week we used to go to your dear grandmother, for her Tuesday +work-party. I'm afraid you'll hardly revive _that_!" + +Delia brought a rather intimidating brow to bear upon the speaker. + +"I'm afraid not." + +Lady Tonbridge, who had already greeted Delia as a woman naturally +greets the daughter of an old friend, came up as Delia spoke to ask for +a second cup of tea, and laid her hand on the girl's shoulder. + +"Very sorry to miss you yesterday. I won't insult you by saying you've +grown. How about the singing? You used to sing I remember when I stayed +with you." + +"Yes--but I've given it up. I took lessons at Munich last spring. But I +can't work at it enough. And if one can't work, it's no good." + +"Why can't you work at it?" + +Delia suddenly looked up in her questioner's face. Her gravity broke up +in a broad smile. + +"Because there's so much else to do." + +"What else?" + +The look of excited defiance in the girl's eyes sharpened. + +"Do you really want to know?" + +"Certainly. The Suffrage and that kind of thing?" said Madeleine +Tonbridge lightly. + +"The Suffrage and that kind of thing!" repeated Delia, still smiling. + +Captain Andrews who was standing near, and whose martial mind was all +in confusion, owing to Miss Blanchflower's beauty, put in an eager +word. + +"I never can understand, Miss Blanchflower, why you ladies want the +vote! Why, you can twist us round your little fingers!" + +Delia turned upon him. + +"But I don't want to twist you round my little finger!" she said, with +energy. "It wouldn't give me the smallest pleasure." + +"I thought you wanted to manage us," said the Captain, unable to take +his eyes from her. "But you do manage us already!" + +Delia's glance showed her uncertain whether the foe was worth her +steel. + +"We want to manage ourselves," she said at last, smiling indifferently. +"We say you do it badly." + +The Captain attempted to spar with her a little longer. Winnington +meanwhile stood, a silent listener, amid the group round the tea-table. +He--and Dr. France--were both acutely conscious of the realities behind +this empty talk; of the facts recorded in the day's newspapers; and of +the connection between the quiet lady in grey who had come in with +Delia Blanchflower, and the campaign of public violence, which was now +in good earnest alarming and exasperating the country. + +Where was the quiet lady in grey? Winnington was thinking too much +about his ward to keep a constant eye upon her. But Dr. France observed +her closely, and he presently saw what puzzled him anew. After a +conversation, exceedingly bland, though rather monosyllabic, on Miss +Marvell's part, with the puzzled and inarticulate Rector, Delia's +chaperon had gently and imperceptibly moved away from the tea-table. +That she had been very coldly received by the company in general was no +doubt evident to her. She was now sitting beside that strange girl +Marion Andrews--to whom, as the Doctor had seen, she had been +introduced--apparently--by the Rector. And as Dr. France caught sight +of her, she and Marion Andrews rose and walked to a window opening on +the garden, apparently to look at the blaze of autumn flowers outside. + +But it was the demeanour of the girl which again drew the doctor's +attention. Marion Andrews, who never talked, was talking fast and +earnestly to this complete stranger, her normally sallow face one glow. +It was borne in afresh upon Dr. France that the two were already +acquainted; and he continued to watch them as closely as politeness +allowed. + + * * * * * + +"Will you come and look at the house?" said Winnington to his ward. +"Not that we have anything to shew--except a few portraits and old +engravings that might interest you. But it's rather a dear old place, +and we're very fond of it." + +Delia went with him in silence. He opened the oval panelled +dining-room, and shewed her the portraits of his father, the venerable +head of an Oxford college, in the scarlet robes of a D.D., and others +representing his forebears on both sides--quiet folk, painted by decent +but not important painters. Delia looked at them and hardly spoke. Then +they went into Mrs. Matheson's room, which was bright with pretty +chintzes, books and water-colours, and had a bow-window looking on the +garden. Still Delia said nothing, beyond an absent Yes or No, or a +perfunctory word of praise. Winnington became very soon conscious of +some strong tension in her, which was threatening to break down; a +tension evidently of displeasure and resentment. He guessed what the +subject of it might be, but as he was most unwilling to discuss it with +her, if his guess were correct, he tried to soothe and evade her by +such pleasant talk as the different rooms suggested. The house through +which he led her was the home, evidently, of a man full of enthusiasms +and affections, caring intensely for many things, for his old school, +of which there were many drawings and photographs in the hall and +passages, for the two great games in which he himself excelled; for +poetry and literature--the house overflowed everywhere with books; for +his County Council work, and all the projects connected with it; for +his family and his intimate friends. + +"Who is that?" asked Delia, pointing to a charcoal drawing in Mrs. +Matheson's sitting-room, of a noble-faced woman of thirty, in a +delicate evening dress of black and white. + +"That is my mother. She died the year after it was taken." + +Delia looked at it in silence a moment. There was something in its +dignity, its restfulness, its touch of austerity which challenged her. +She said abruptly--"I want to speak to you please, Mr. Winnington. May +we shut the door?" + +Winnington shut the door of his sister's room, and returned to his +guest. Delia had turned very white. + +"I hear Mr. Winnington you have reversed an order I wrote to our agent +about one of the cottages. May I know your reasons?" + +"I was very sorry to do so," said Winnington gently; "but I felt sure +you did not understand the real circumstances, and I could not come and +discuss them with you." + +Delia stood stormily erect, and the level light of the October +afternoon streaming in through a west window magnified her height, and +her prophetess air. + +"I can't help shocking you, Mr. Winnington. I don't accept what you +say. I don't believe that covering up horrible things makes them less +horrible. I want to stand by that girl. It is cruel to separate her +from her old father!" + +Winnington looked at her in distress and embarrassment. + +"The story is not what you think it," he said earnestly. "But it is +really not fit for your ears. I have given great thought and much time +to it, yesterday and to-day. The girl--who is mentally deficient--will +be sent to a home and cared for. The father sees now that it is the +best. Please trust it to me." + +"Why mayn't I know the facts!" persisted Delia, paler than before. + +A flash of some quick feeling passed through Winnington's eyes. + +"Why should you? Leave us older folk, dear Miss Delia, to deal with +these sorrowful things." + +Indignation blazed up in her. + +"It is for women to help women," she said, passionately. "It is no good +treating us who are grown up--even if we are young--like children any +more. We intend to _know_--that we may protect--and save." + +"I assure you," said Winnington gravely, "that this poor girl shall +have every care--every kindness. So there is really no need for you to +know. Please spare yourself--and me!" + +He had come to stand by her, looking down upon her. She lifted her eyes +to his unwillingly, and as she caught his smile she was invaded by a +sudden consciousness of his strong magnetic presence. The power in the +grey eyes, and in the brow over-hanging them, the kind sincerity +mingled with the power, and the friendliness that breathed from his +whole attitude and expression, disarmed her. She felt herself for a +moment--and for the first time--young and ignorant,--and that +Winnington was ready to be in the true and not merely in the legal +sense, her "guardian," if she would only let him. + +But the moment of weakening was soon over. Her mind chafed and twisted. +Why had he undertaken it--a complete stranger to her! It was most +embarrassing--detestable--for them both! + +And there suddenly darted through her memory the recollection of a +certain item in her father's will. Under it Mr. Winnington received a +sum of L4,000 out of her father's estate, "in consideration of our old +friendship, and of the trouble I am asking him to undertake in +connection with my estates,"--or words to that effect. + +Somehow, she had never yet paid much attention to that clause in the +will. It occurred in a list of a good many other legacies, and had been +passed over by the lawyers in explaining the will to her, as something +entirely in the natural course of things. But the poisonous thought +suggested itself--"It was that which bribed him!--he would have given +it up, but for that!" He might not want it for himself--very +possibly!--but for his charities, his Cripple School and the rest. Her +face stiffened. + +"If you have arranged with her father, of course I can't interfere," +she said coldly. "But don't imagine, please, Mr. Winnington, for one +moment, that I accept your view of the things I 'needn't know.' If I am +to do my duty to the people on this estate--" + +"I thought you weren't going to live on the estate?" he said, lifting +his eyebrows. + +"Not at once--not this winter." She was annoyed to feel herself +stammering. "But of course I have a responsibility--" + +The kindly laugh in his grey eyes faded. + +"Yes--I quite admit that,--a great responsibility," he said slowly. "Do +you mind if I mention another subject?" + +"The meetings?" she said, quickly. "You mean that?" + +"Yes--the meetings. I have just seen the placard in the village." + +"Well?" Her loveliness in defiance dazzled him, but he held on stoutly. + +"You said nothing to me about these meetings the other day." + +"You never asked me!" + +He paused a moment. + +"No--but was it quite--quite fair to me--to let me suppose that the +drawing-room meeting at Maumsey, which you kindly gave up, was the only +meeting you had in view?" + +He saw her breath fluttering. + +"I don't know what you supposed, Mr. Winnington! I said nothing." + +"No. But you let me draw an inference--a mistaken inference. +However--let that be. Can I not persuade you--now--to give up the +Latchford meeting, and any others of the same kind you may have ahead?" + +She flamed at him. + +"I refuse to give them up!" she said, setting her teeth. "I have as +much right to my views as you, Mr. Winnington! I am of full age, and I +intend to work for them." + +"Setting fire to houses--which is what your society is advocating--and +doing--hardly counts as 'views,'" he said, with sudden sternness. +"Risking the lives, or spoiling the property of one's fellow +countrymen, is not the same thing as political argument." + +"It's _our_ argument--" she said passionately.--"The men who are +denying us the vote understand nothing else!" + +The slightest humorous quiver in Winnington's strong mouth enraged her +still further. But he spoke with most courteous gravity. + +"Then I can't persuade you to give up these meetings? I should of +course make no objection whatever, if these were ordinary Suffrage +meetings. But the Society you are going to represent and collect money +for is a Society that exists _to break the law_. And its members +have--just lately--come conspicuously into collision with the law. Your +father would have protested, and I am bound to protest--in his name." + +"I cannot give them up." + +He was silent a moment. + +"If that is so"--he said at last--"I must do my best to protect you." + +"I don't want any protection!" + +"I am a magistrate, as well as your guardian. You must allow me to +judge. There is a very bitter feeling abroad, after these--outrages--of +the last few days. The village where you are going to speak has some +rowdy elements--drawn from the brickfields near it. You will certainly +want protection. I shall see that you get it." + +He spoke with decision. Delia bit her lip. + +"We prefer to risk our lives," she said at last. "I mean--there isn't +any risk!--but if there were--our lives are nothing in comparison with +the cause!" + +"You won't expect your friends to agree with you," he said drily; then, +still holding her with an even keener look, he added-- + +"And there is another point in connection with these meetings which +distresses me. I see that you are speaking on the same platform--with +Mr. Paul Lathrop--" + +"And why not?"--she flashed, the colour rushing to her cheeks. + +He paused, walked away with his hands in his pockets, and came back +again. + +"I have been making some enquiries about him. He is not a man with whom +you ought to associate--either in public, or in private." + +She gave a sound--half scorn--half indignation which startled him. + +"You mean--because of the divorce case?" + +He looked at her amazed. + +"That is what I meant. But--I certainly do not wish to discuss it with +you. Will you not take it from me that Mr. Lathrop is not--cannot be--a +man whom as a young unmarried woman you ought to receive in your +house--or with whom you should be seen in public." + +"No, indeed I won't take it from you!" she said passionately. "Miss +Marvell knows--Miss Marvell told me. He ran away with some one he +loved. Her husband was _vile_! But she couldn't get any help--because +of the law--the abominable law--which punishes women--and lets men go +free. So they went away together, and after a little she died. Alter +your law, Mr. Winnington!--make it equal for men and women--and then +we'll talk." + +As she spoke--childishly, defiant--Winnington's mind was filled with a +confusion of clashing thoughts--the ideals of his own first youth +which made such a speech in the mouth of a girl of twenty-one almost +intolerable to him--and the moral conditions--slowly gained--of his +maturity. He agreed with what she said. And yet it was shocking to him +to hear her say it. + +"I don't quarrel with you as to that," he said, gravely, after a +moment. "Though I confess that in my belief you are too young to have +any real opinion about it. But there was much in the case which +concerned Mr. Lathrop, of which you _can_ have no idea. I repeat--he +is not a fit companion for you--and you do yourself harm by appearing +with him--in public or private." + +"Miss Marvell approves"--said Delia obstinately. + +Winnington's look grew sterner. + +"I appeal again to your father's memory," he said with energy. + +He perceived her quickened breath, but she made no no reply. + +He walked away from her, and stood looking out of the window for a +little. When he came back to her, it was with a change of manner and +subject. + +"I should like you to understand that I have been doing all I _could_ +to carry out your wishes with regard to the cottages." + +He drew a paper out of his pocket, on which he had made some notes +representing his talk that morning with the agent of the Maumsey +estates. But in her suppressed excitement she hardly listened to him. + +"It isn't exactly _business_, what we've done," he said at last, as he +put up the papers; "but we wanted you to have your way--about the old +woman--and the family of children." He smiled at her. "And the estate +can afford it." + +Delia thanked him ungraciously. She felt like a child who is offered +sixpence for being good at the dentist's. It was his whole position +towards her--his whole control and authority--that she resented. And to +be forced to be grateful to him at the same time, compelled to +recognise the anxious pains he had taken to please her in nine-tenths +of the things she wanted, was really odious: she could only chafe under +it. + +He took her back to the drawing-room. Delia walked before him in +silence. She was passionately angry; and yet beneath the stormy +currents of the upper mind, there were other feelings, intermittently +active. It was impossible to hate him!--impossible to help liking him. +His frankness and courtesy, his delicacy of feeling and touch forced +themselves on her notice. "I daresay!"--she said; "--but that's the +worst of it. If Papa hadn't done this fatal, _foolish_ thing, of course +we should have made friends!" + + * * * * * + +The Amberleys walked home together when the party dispersed. Mrs. +Amberley opened the discussion on the newcomers. + +"She is certainly handsome, but rather bold-looking. Didn't you think +so, father?" + +"I wasn't drawn to her. But she took no account of us," said the +Rector, with his usual despondent candour. In truth he was not thinking +about Miss Blanchflower, but only about the possible departure of his +daughter, Susy. + +"I thought her beautiful!--but I'm sorry for Mr. Winnington!" exclaimed +Susy, a red spot of excitement or indignation in each delicate cheek. + +"Mrs. Matheson told me they will only do exactly what they wish--that +they won't take her brother's advice. Very wrong, very wrong." The +Rector shook his grey head. "Young women were different in my youth." + +Mrs. Amberley sighed, and Susy biting her lip, knew that her own +conduct was perhaps more in question than Miss Blanchflower's. + +They reached home in silence. Susy went to light her father's candles +in his modest book-littered study. Then she put her mother on the sofa +in the drawing-room, rubbed Mrs. Amberley's cold hands and feet, and +blew up the fire. + +Suddenly her mother threw an arm round her neck. + +"Oh, Susy, must you go?" + +Susy kissed her. + +"I should come back"--she said after a moment in a low troubled voice. +"Let me get this training, and then if you want me, darling, I'll come +back." + +"Can't you be happy with us, Susy?" + +"I want to _know_ something--and _do_ something," said Susy, with +intensity--evading the question. "It's such a big world, mother! I'll +be better worth having afterwards." + +Mrs. Amberley said nothing. But a little later she went into her +husband's study. + +"Frank--I think we'll have to let her," she said piteously. + +The Rector looked up assentingly, and put his hand in his wife's. + +"It's strange how different it all seems nowadays," said Mrs. Amberley, +in her low quavering voice. "If I'd wanted to do what Susy wants, my +mother would have called me a wicked girl to leave all my duties--and +I shouldn't have dared. But we can't take it like that, Frank, +somehow." + +"No," said the Rector slowly. "In the old days it used to be only +_duties_ for the young--now it's rights too. It's God's will." + +"Susy loves us, Frank. She's a good girl." + +"She's a good girl--and she shall do what she thinks proper," said the +Rector, rising heavily. + +So they gave their consent, and Susy wrote her application to Guy's +hospital. Then they all three lay awake a good deal of the +night,--almost till the autumn robin began to sing in the little +rectory garden. + +As for Susy, in the restless intervals of restless sleep, she was +always back in the Bridge End drawing-room watching Delia Blanchflower +come in, with Mark Winnington behind. How glorious she looked! And +every day he would be seeing her, every day he would be thinking about +her--just because she was sure to give him so much trouble. + +"And what right have _you_ to complain?" she asked herself, trampling +on her own pain. Had he ever said a word of love to her, ever shewn +himself anything else than the kind and sympathetic friend--sometimes +the inspiring teacher in the causes he had at heart? Never! And +yet--insensibly--his smile, his word of praise or thanks, the touch of +his firm warm hand, the sound of his voice, the look in his eyes--it +was for them she had now learned to live. Yes!--and because she could +no longer trust herself, she must go. She would not fail or harass him; +she was his friend. She would go away and scrub hospital floors, and +polish hospital taps. That would tame the anguish in her, and some day +she would be strong again--and come back--to those beloved ones who had +given her up--so tenderly. + + + + +Chapter VIII + + +The whole of Maumsey and its neighbourhood had indeed been thrown into +excitement by certain placards on the walls announcing three public +meetings to be held--a fortnight later--by the "Daughters of +Revolt"--at Latchford, Brownmouth, and Frimpton. Latchford was but +fifteen miles from Maumsey, and frequent trains ran between them. +Brownmouth and Frimpton, also, were within easy distance by rail, and +the Maumseyites were accustomed to shop at either. So that a wide +country-side felt itself challenged--invaded; at a moment when a series +of startling outrages--destruction of some of the nation's noblest +pictures, in the National Gallery and elsewhere, defacement of +churches, personal attacks on Ministers--by the members of various +militant societies, especially "The League of Revolt," had converted an +already incensed public opinion into something none the less ugly, none +the less alarming, because it had as yet found no organised expression. +The police were kept hard at work protecting open-air meetings on the +Brownmouth and Frimpton beaches, from an angry populace who desired to +break them up; every unknown woman who approached a village or strolled +into a village church, was immediately noticed, immediately reported +on, by hungry eyes and tongues alert for catastrophe; and every empty +house had become an anxiety to its owners. + +And of course the sting of the outrage lay in the two names which +blazed in the largest of black print from the centre of the placards. +"The meeting will be addressed by Gertrude Marvell (D.R.), Delia +Blanchflower (D.R.), and Paul Lathrop." + +Within barely two months of her father's death, this young lady to be +speaking on public platforms, in the district where she was still a +new-comer and a stranger, and flaunting in the black and orange of this +unspeakable society!--such was the thought of all quiet folk for miles +round. The tide of callers which had set in towards Maumsey Abbey +ceased to flow; neighbours who had been already introduced to her, old +friends of her grandparents, passed Delia on the road with either the +stiffest of bows or no notice at all. The labourers stared at her, and +their wives, those deepest well-heads of Conservatism in the country, +were loud in reprobation. Their astonishment that "them as calls +theirselves ladies" should be found burning and breaking, was always, +in Winnington's ears, a touching thing, and a humbling. "Violence and +arson" they seemed to say, "are good enough for the likes of us--you'd +expect it of us. But _you_--the glorified, the superfine--who have your +meals brought you regular, more food than you can eat, and more clothes +than you can wear--_you_!" + +So that, underlying the country women's talk, and under the varnish of +our modern life, one caught the accents and the shape of an old +hierarchical world; and the man of sympathy winced anew under the +perennial submission and disadvantage of the poor. + +Meanwhile Delia's life was one long excitement. The more she realised +the disapproval of her neighbours, the more convinced she was that she +was on the right road. She straightened her girlish back; she set her +firm red mouth. Every morning brought reams of letters and reports from +London, for Gertrude Marvell was an important member of the +"Daughters'" organisation, and must be kept informed. The reading of +them maintained a constant ferment in Delia. In any struggle of women +against men, just as in any oppression of women by men, there is an +element of fever, of madness, which poisons life. And in this element +Delia's spirit lived for this brief hour of her youth. Led by the +perpetual influence of the older mind and imagination at her side, she +was overshadowed with the sense of women's wrongs, haunted by their +grievances, burnt up by a flame of revolt against fate, against +society, above all, against men, conceived as the age-long and +irrational barrier in the path of women. It was irrational, and +therefore no rational methods were any good. Nothing but waspishly +stinging and hurting this great Man-Beast, nothing but defiance of all +rules and decorums, nothing but force--of the womanish kind--answering +to force, of the masculine kind, could be any use. Argument was +foolish. They--the Suffragists--had already stuffed the world with +argument; which only generated argument. To smash and break and burn, +in more senses than one, remained the only course, witness Nottingham +Castle, and the Hyde Park railings. And if a woman's life dashed itself +to pieces in the process, well, what matter? The cause would only be +advanced. + +One evening, not long after the tea-party at Bridge End, a group of +persons, coming from different quarters, converged quietly, in the +autumn dusk, on Maumsey Abbey. Marion Andrews walked in front, with a +Miss Foster, the daughter of one of the larger farmers in the +neighbourhood; and a short limping woman, clinging to the arm of a +vigorously-built girl, the Science Mistress of the small but ancient +Grammar School of the village, came behind. They talked in low voices, +and any shrewd bystander would have perceived the mood of agitated +expectancy in which they approached the house. + +"It's wonderful!" said little Miss Toogood, the lame dressmaker, as +they turned a corner of the shrubbery, and the rambling south front +rose before them,--"_wonderful_!--when you think of the people that +used to live here! Why, old Lady Blanchflower looked upon you and me, +Miss Jackson, as no better than earwigs! I sent her a packet of our +leaflets once by post. Well--_she_ never used to give me any work, so +she couldn't take it away. But she got Mrs. David Jones at Thring Farm +to take away hers, and Mrs. Willy Smith, the Vet's wife, you +remember?--and two or three more. So I nearly starved one winter; but +I'm a tough one, and I got through. And now there's one of _us_ sits in +the old lady's place! Isn't that a sign of the times?" + +"But of course!" said her companion, whose face expressed a kind of +gloomy ardour. "We're winning. We must win--sometime!" + +The cheerfulness of the words was oddly robbed of its effect by the +tragic look of the speaker. Miss Toogood's hand pressed her arm. + +"I'm always so sorry"--murmured the dressmaker--"for those +others--those women--who haven't lived to see what we're going to see, +aren't you?" + +"Yes," assented the other, adding--with the same emotional +emphasis--"But they've all helped--every woman's helped! They've all +played their parts." + +"Well, I don't know about Lady Blanchflower!" laughed Miss Toogood, +happily. + +"What did she matter? The Antis are like the bits of stick you put into +a hive. All they do is to stir up the bees." + +Meanwhile Marion Andrews was mostly silent, glancing restlessly however +from side to side, as though she expected some spy, some enemy--her +mother?--to emerge upon them from the shadows of the shrubbery. Her +companion, Kitty Foster, a rather pretty girl with flaming red hair, +the daughter of a substantial farmer on the further side of the +village, chattered unceasingly, especially about the window-breaking +raid in which she had been concerned, the figure she had cut at the +police court, the things she had said to the magistrate, and the +annoyance she had felt when her father paid her fine. + +"They led me a life when they got me home. And mother's been so ill +since, I had to promise I'd stay quiet till Christmas anyway. But then +I'm off! It's fine to feel you're doing something real--something hot +and strong--so that people can't help taking notice of you. That's what +I say to father, when he shouts at me--'we're not going to _ask_ you +now any more--we've asked long enough--we're going to _make_ you do +what we want.'" + +And the girl threw back her head excitedly. Marion vaguely assented, +and the talk beside her rambled on, now violent, now egotistical, till +they reached the Maumsey door. + + * * * * * + +"Now that we've got women like you with us--it can't be long--it can't +be long!" repeated Miss Toogood, clasping her hands, as she looked +first at Delia, and then at the distant figure of Miss Marvell, who in +the further drawing-room, and through an archway, could be seen talking +with Marion Andrews. + +Delia's brows puckered. + +"I'm afraid it will be long," she said, with a kind of weary passion. +"The forces against us are so strong. But we must just go on--and +on--straight ahead." + +She sat erect on her chair, very straight and slim, in her black dress, +her hands, with their long fingers, tightly pressed together on her +knee. Miss Toogood thought she had never seen anyone so handsome, or +so--so splendid! All that was romantic in the little dressmaker's +soul rose to appreciate Delia Blanchflower. So young and so +self-sacrificing--and looking like a picture of Saint Cecilia that hung +in Miss Toogood's back room! The Movement was indeed wonderful! How it +broke down class barriers, and knit all women together! As her eyes +fell on the picture of Lady Blanchflower, in a high cap and mittens, +over the mantelpiece, Miss Toogood felt a sense of personal triumph +over the barbarous and ignorant past. + +"What I mind most is the apathy of people--the people down here. It's +really terrible!" said the science mistress, in her melancholy voice. +"Sometimes I hardly know how to bear it. One thinks of all that's going +on in London--and in the big towns up north--and here--it's like a +vault. Everyone's really against us. Why the poor people--the +labourers' wives--they're the worst of any!" + +"Oh no!--we're getting on--we're getting on!" said Miss Toogood, +hastily. "You're too despondent, Miss Jackson, if you'll excuse +me--you are indeed. Now I'm never downhearted, or if I am, I say to +myself--'It's all right somewhere!--somewhere that you can't see.' And +I think of a poem my father was fond of--'If hopes are dupes, fears may +be liars--And somewhere in yon smoke concealed--Your comrades chase +e'en now the fliers--And but for you possess the field!' That's by a +man called Arthur Clough--Miss Blanchflower--and it's a grand poem!" + +Her pale blue eyes shone in their wrinkled sockets. Delia remembered a +recent visit to Miss Toogood's tiny parlour behind the front room where +she saw her few customers and tried them on. She recollected the books +which the back parlour contained. Miss Toogood's father had been a +bookseller--evidently a reading bookseller--in Winchester, and in the +deformed and twisted form of his daughter some of his soul, his +affections and interests, survived. + +"Yes, but what are you going to give us to _do_, Miss Blanchflower?" +said Kitty Foster, impatiently--"I don't care what I do! And the more +it makes the men mad, the better!" + +She drew herself up affectedly. She was a strapping girl, with a huge +vanity and a parrot's brain. A year before this date a "disappointment" +had greatly embittered her, and the processions and the crowded London +meetings, and the window-breaking riots into which she had been led +while staying with a friend, had been the solace and relief of a +personal rancour and misery she might else have found intolerable. + +"_I_ can't do anything--not anything public"--said Miss Jackson, with +emphasis--"or I should lose my post. Oh the slavery it is! and the +pittance they pay us--compared to the men. Every man in the Boys' +school get L120 and over--and we're thought lucky to get L80. And I'll +be bound we work more hours in the week than they do. It's _hard_!" + +"That'll soon be mended," said Miss Toogood hopefully. "Look at Norway! +As soon as the women got the vote, why the women's salaries in public +offices were put up at once." + +The strong, honest face of the teacher refused to smile. "Well it isn't +always so, Miss Toogood. I know they say that in New Zealand and +Colorado--where we've got the vote--salaries aren't equal by any +manner of means." + +The dressmaker's withered cheek flushed red. + +"'_They_ say'"--she repeated scornfully. "That's one of the Anti +dodges--just picking out the things that suit 'em, and forgetting all +the rest. Don't you look at the depressing things--I never do! Look at +what helps us! There's a lot o' things said--and there's a lot of +things ain't true--You've got to pick and choose--you can't take 'em as +they come. No one can." + +Miss Jackson looked puzzled and unconvinced; but could think of no +reply. + +The two persons in the distance appeared in the archway between the +drawing-rooms, Gertrude Marvell leading. Everyone looked towards her; +everybody listened for what she would say. She took Delia's chair, +Delia instinctively yielding it, and then--her dark eyes measuring and +probing them all while she talked, she gave the little group its +orders. + +Kitty Foster was to be one of the band of girl-sellers of the _Tocsin_, +in Latchford, the day of the meeting. The town was to be sown with it +from end to end, and just before the meeting, groups of sellers, in the +"Daughters'" black and orange, were to appear in every corner of the +square where the open-air meeting was to be held. + +"But we'll put you beside the speaker's waggon. You're so tall, and +your hair is enough to advertise anything!" With a grim little smile, +she stretched out a hand and touched Kitty Foster's arm. + +"Yes, isn't it splendid!" said Delia, ardently. + +Kitty flushed and bridled. Her people in the farmhouse at home thought +her hair ugly, and frankly told her so. It was nice to be admired by +Miss Blanchflower and her friend. Ladies who lived in a big house, with +pictures and fine furniture, and everything handsome, must know better +than farm-people who never saw anything but their cattle and their +fields. + +"And you"--the clear authoritative voice addressed Miss Toogood--"can +you take round notices?" + +The speaker looked doubtfully at the woman's lame foot and stick. + +Miss Toogood replied that she would be at Latchford by midday, and +would take round notices till she dropped. + +The teacher who could do nothing public, was invited to come to Maumsey +in the evening, and address envelopes. Miss Marvell had lately imported +a Secretary, who had set up her quarters in the old gun room on the +ground floor, and had already filled it with correspondence, and +stacked it with the literature of the Daughters. + +Miss Jackson eagerly promised her help. + +Nothing was apportioned to Marion Andrews. She sat silent following the +words and gestures of that spare figure in the grey cloth dress, in +whom they all recognised their chief. There was a feverish brooding in +her look, as though she was doubly conscious--both of the scene before +her, and of something only present to the mind. + +"You know why we are holding these meetings"--said Gertrude Marvell, +presently. + +No one answered. They waited for her. + +"It is a meeting of denunciation," she said, sharply. "You know in the +Land League days in Ireland they used to hold meetings to denounce a +landlord--for evictions--and that landlord went afterwards in +fear--scorned--and cursed--and boycotted. Well, that's what we're going +to do with Ministers in their own localities where they live! We can't +boycott yet--we haven't the power. But we can denounce--we can set +people on--we can hold a man up--we can make his life a burden to him. +And that's what we're going to do--with Sir Wilfrid Lang. He's one of +this brutal Cabinet that keeps women in prison--one of the strongest of +them. His speeches have turned votes against us in the House of +Commons, time after time. We mean to be even with Sir Wilfrid Lang!" + +She spoke quite quietly--almost under her breath; but her slender +fingers interlocked, and a steady glow had overflowed her pale cheeks. + +A tremor passed through all her listeners--a tremor of excitement. + +"What can we _do_?" said Miss Toogood at last, in a low voice. Her eyes +stared out of her kind old face, which had grown white. "Ah, leave that +to us!" said Miss Marvell, in another voice, the dry organising voice, +which was her usual one. And dropping all emotion and excitement, she +began rapidly to question three out of the four women as to the +neighbourhood, the opinions of individuals and classes, the strength in +it of the old Suffrage societies, the presence or absence of +propaganda. They answered her eagerly. They all felt themselves keyed +to a higher note since she had entered the room. They had got to +business; they felt themselves a power, the rank and file of an "army +with banners," under direction. Even Delia, clearly, was in the same +relation towards this woman whom the outer world only knew as +her--presumably--paid companion. She was questioned, put right, +instructed with the rest of them. Only no one noticed that Marion +Andrews took little or no part in the conversation. + +An autumn wind raged outside, and the first of those dead regiments of +leaves which would soon be choking the lanes were pattering against the +windows. Inside, the fire leapt as the daylight faded, helped by a +couple of lamps, for Maumsey knew no electricity, and Delia, under +Gertrude's prompting, had declared against the expense of putting it +in. In the dim illumination the faces of the six women emerged, typical +all of them of the forces behind the revolutionary wing of the woman's +movement. Enthusiasms of youth and age--hardships of body and +spirit--rancour and generous hope--sore heart and untrained +mind--fanatical brain and dreaming ignorance--love unsatisfied, and +energies unused--they were all there, and all hanging upon, conditioned +by something called "the vote," conceived as the only means to a new +heaven and a new earth. + + * * * * * + +When Delia had herself dismissed her guests into the darkness of the +October evening, she returned thoughtfully to where Gertrude Marvell +was standing by the drawing-room fire, reading a letter. + +"You gave them all something to do except that Miss Andrews, Gertrude? +I wonder why you left her out?" + +"Oh, I had a talk with her before." + +The tone was absent, and the speaker went on reading her letter. + +"When you took her into the back drawing-room?" + +The slightest possible flicker passed through Gertrude's drooped +eyelids. + +"She was telling me a lot about her home-life--poor oppressed thing!" + +Delia asked no more. But she felt a vague discomfort. + +Presently Gertrude put down her letter, and turned towards her. + +"May I have that cheque, dear--before post-time? If you really meant +it?" + +"Certainly." Delia went to her writing-table, opened a drawer and took +out her cheque-book. + +A laugh--conscious and unsteady--accompanied the dipping of her pen +into the ink. + +"I wonder what he'll say?" + +"Who?" + +"Mr. Winnington--when I send him all the bills to be paid." + +"Isn't he there to pay the bills?" + +Delia's face shewed a little impatience. + +"You're so busy, dear, that I am afraid you forget all I tell you about +my own affairs. But I _did_ tell you that my guardian had trustingly +paid eight hundred pounds into the bank to last me till the New Year, +for house and other expenses--without asking me to promise anything +either!" + +"Well, now, you are going to let us have L500. Is there any +difficulty?" + +"None--except that the ordinary bills I don't pay, and can't pay, will +now all go in to my guardian, who will of course be curious to know +what I have done with the money. Naturally there'll be a row." + +"Oh, a row!" said Gertrude Marvell, indifferently. "It's your own +money, Delia. Spend it as you like!" + +"I intend to," said Delia. "Still--I do rather wish I'd given him +notice. He may think it a mean trick." + +"Do you care what he thinks?" + +"Not--much," said Delia slowly. "All the same, Gertrude"--she threw her +head back--"he is an awfully good sort." + +Gertrude shrugged her shoulders. + +"I daresay. But you and I are at war with him and his like, and can't +stop to consider that kind of thing. Also your father arranged that he +should be well paid for his trouble." + +Delia turned back to the writing-table, and wrote the cheque. + +"Thank you, dearest," said Gertrude Marvell, giving a light kiss to the +hand that offered the cheque. "It shall go to headquarters this +evening--and you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that you've +financed all the three bye-election campaigns that are coming--or +nearly." + + * * * * * + +Gertrude had gone away to her own sitting-room and Delia was left +alone. She hung over the fire, in an excited reverie, her pulses +rushing; and presently she took a letter from the handbag on her wrist, +and read it for the second time by the light of the blaze she had +kindled in the grate. + + * * * * * + +"I will be at the Rose and Crown at least half an hour before the +meeting. We have got a capital waggon for you to speak from, and chosen +the place where it is to stand. I am afraid we may have some rough +customers to deal with. But the police have been strongly warned--that +I have found out--though I don't know by whom--and there will be plenty +of them. My one regret is that I cannot be in the crowd, so as both to +see and hear you. I must of course stick to the waggon. What a day for +us all down here!--for our little down-trodden band! You come to us as +our Joan of Arc, leading us on a holy war. You shame us into action, +and to fight with you is itself victory. When I think of how you looked +and how you talked the other night! Do you know that you have a face +'to launch a thousand ships?' No, I am convinced you never think of +it--you never take your own beauty into consideration. And you won't +imagine that I am talking in this way from any of the usual motives. +Your personal charm, if I may say so, is merely an item in our balance +sheet; your money--I understand you have money--is another. You bring +your beauty and your money in your hand, and throw them into the great +conflagration of the Cause--just as the women did in Savonarola's day. +You fling them away--if need be--for an idea. And because of it, all +the lovers of ideas, and all the dreamers of great dreams will be your +slaves and servants. Understand!--you are going to be loved and +followed, as no ordinary woman, even with your beauty, is ever loved +and followed. Your footsteps may be on the rocks and flints--I promise +you no easy, nor royal road. There may be blood on the path! But a +cloud of witnesses will be all about you--some living and some dead; +you will be carried in the hearts of innumerable men and women--women +above all; and if you stand firm, if your soul rises to the height of +your call, you will be worshipped, as the saints were worshipped. + +"Only let nothing bar your path. Winnington is a good fellow, but a +thickheaded Philistine all the same. You spoke to me about him with +compunction. Have no compunctions. Go straight forward. Women have got +to shew themselves ruthless, and hard, and cunning, like men--if they +are to fight men." + + "Yours faithfully, + PAUL LATHROP." + + +Delia's thoughts danced and flamed, like the pile of blazing wood +before her. What a singular being was this Paul Lathrop! He had paid +them four or five visits already; and they had taken tea with him once +in his queer hermitage under the southern slope of the Monk Lawrence +hill--a one-storey thatched cottage, mostly built by Lathrop himself +with the help of two labourers, standing amid a network of ponds, +stocked with trout in all stages. Inside, the roughly-plastered walls +were lined with books--chiefly modern poets, with French and Russian +novels, and with unframed sketches by some of the ultra clever fellows, +who often, it seemed, would come down to spend Sunday with Lathrop, and +talk and smoke till dawn put out the lights. + +She found him interesting--certainly interesting. His outer man--heavy +mouth and lantern cheeks--dreamy blue eyes, and fair hair--together +with the clumsy power in his form and gait, were not without a certain +curious attraction. And his story--as Gertrude Marvell told it--would +be forgiven by the romantic. All the same his letter had offended Delia +greatly. She had given him no encouragement to write in such a +tone--so fervid, so emotional, so intimate; and she would shew +him--plainly--that it offended her. + +Nevertheless the phrases of the letter ran in her mind; until her +discomfort and resentment were lost in something else. + +She could not quiet her conscience about that cheque! Not indeed as to +giving it to the "Daughters." She would have given everything she +possessed to them, keeping the merest pittance for herself, if fate and +domestic tyranny had allowed. No!--but it hurt her--unreasonably, +foolishly hurt her--that she must prepare herself again to face the +look of troubled amazement in Mark Winnington's eyes, without being +able to justify herself to herself, so convincingly as she would have +liked to do. + +"I am simply giving my own money to a cause I adore!" said one voice in +the mind. + +"It is not legally yours--it is legally his," said another. "You should +have warned him. You have got hold of it under false pretences." + +"Quibbles! It _is_ mine--equitably," replied the first. "He and I are +at war. And I _have_ warned him." + +"At war?" Her tiresome conscience kicked again. Why, not a day had +passed since her settlement at Maumsey, without some proof, small or +great, of Winnington's consideration and care for her. She +knew--guiltily knew, that he was overwhelmed by the business of the +executorship and the estate, and had been forced to put aside some of +his own favourite occupations to attend to it. + +"Well!--my father made it worth his while!" + +But her cheek reddened, with a kind of shame, as the thought passed +through her mind. Even in this short time and because of the daily +contact which their business relations required, she was beginning to +know Winnington, to realise something of his life and character. And as +for the love borne him in the neighbourhood--it was really +preposterous--bad for any man! Delia pitied herself, not only because +she was Winnington's ward against her will, but because of the silent +force of public opinion that upheld him, and must necessarily condemn +her. + +So he had once been engaged? Lady Tonbridge had told her so. To a +gentle, saintly person of course!--a person to suit him. Delia could +not help a movement of half petulant curiosity--and then an involuntary +thrill. Many women since had been in love with him. Lady Tonbridge had +said as much. And he--with no one! But he had a great many women +friends? No doubt!--with that manner, and that charm. Delia resented +the women friends. She would have been quite ready indeed to enrol +herself among them--to worship with the rest--from afar; were it not +for ideas, and principles, and honesty of soul! As it was, she despised +the worship of which she was told, as something blind and overdone. It +was not the greatest men--not the best men--who were so easily and +universally beloved. + +What did he really think of her? Did he ever guess that there was +something else in her than this obstinacy, this troublesomeness with +which she was forced to meet him? She was sorry for herself, much more +than for him; because she must so chill and mislead a man who _ought_ +to understand her. + +Looking up she saw a dim reflection of her own beauty in the glass +above the mantelpiece. "No, I am _not_ either a minx, or a +wild-cat!"--she thought, as though she were angrily arguing with +someone. "I could be as attractive, as 'feminine,' as silly as anyone +else, if I chose! I could have lovers--of course--just like other +girls--if it weren't"-- + +For what? At that moment she hardly knew. And why were her eyes filling +with tears? She dashed them indignantly away. + +But for the first time, this cause, this public cause to which she was +pledged presented itself to her as a sacrifice to be offered, a noble +burden to be borne, rather than as something which expressed the +natural and spontaneous impulse of her life. + +Which meant that, already, since her recapture by this English world, +since what was hearsay had begun to be experience, the value of things +had slightly and imperceptibly changed. + + * * * * * + +The days ran on. One evening, just before the first of the +"Daughters'" meetings, which was to be held at Latchford, Winnington +appeared in Lady Tonbridge's drawing-room to ask for a cup of tea on +his way to a public dinner in Wanchester. + +He seemed pre-occupied and worried; and she fed him before questioning +him. But at last she said-- + +"You couldn't prevail on her to give up any of these performances?" + +"Miss Delia? Not one. But it's only the Latchford one that matters. +Have you been talking to her?" + +He looked at her a little plaintively, as though he _could_ have +reminded her that she had promised him a friend's assistance. + +"Of course! But I might as well talk to this table. She won't really +make friends--nor will Miss Marvell allow her. It's the same, I find, +with everyone else. However, I'm bound to say, the neighbourhood is +just now in the mood that it doesn't much want to make friends!" + +"I know," said Winnington, with a sigh--relapsing into silence. + +"Is she taking an interest in the property--the cottages?" + +He shook his head. + +"I'm sure she meant to. But it seems to be all dropped." + +"Provoking!" said Madeleine, drily--"considering how you've been +slaving to please her--" + +Winnington interrupted--not without annoyance-- + +"How can she think of anything else when she's once deep in this +campaign? One must blame the people who led her into it!" + +"Oh! I don't know!" said Lady Tonbridge, protesting. "She's a very +clever young woman, with a strong will of her own." + +"Captured just at the impressionable moment!" cried Winnington--"when a +girl will do anything--believe anything--for the person she loves!" + +"Well the prescription should be easy--at her age. Change the person! +But then comes the question: Is _she_ loveable? Speak the truth, Mr. +Guardian!" + +Winnington began a rather eager assent. Watch her with the servants, +the gardeners, the animals! Then you perceived what should be the +girl's natural charm and sweetness-- + +"'Hm. Does she show any of it to you?" + +Winnington laughed. + +"You forget--I am always there as the obstacle in the path. But if it +weren't for the sinister influence--in the background." + +And again he went off at score--describing various small incidents that +had touched or pleased him, as throwing light upon what he vowed was +the real Delia. + +Madeleine listened, watching him attentively the while. When he took +his leave and she was alone, she sat thinking for some time, and then +going to a cupboard in her writing-table, which held her diaries of +past years, she rummaged till she found one bearing a date fifteen +years old. She turned up the entry for the sixteenth of May: + +"She died last night. This morning, at early service, Mark was there. +We walked home together. I doubt whether he will ever marry--now. He is +not one of those men who are hurried by the mere emotion and +unbearableness of grief, into a fresh emotion of love. But what a +lover--what a husband lost!" + +She closed the book, and stood with it in her hand--pondering. + + * * * * * + +As he left her house, and turned towards the station Winnington passed +a lady to whom he bowed, recognising her as Miss Andrews. + +"Hope you've got an umbrella!" he said to her cheerily, as he passed. +"The rain's coming!" + +She smiled, pleased like all the world to be addressed with that +Winningtonian manner which somehow implied that the person addressed +was, for the moment at any rate, his chiefest concern. Immediately +after meeting him she turned from the village street, and began to +mount a lane leading to the slope on which Monk Lawrence stood. Her +expression as she walked along, sometimes with moving lips, had grown +animated and sarcastic. Here were two men, a dead father and a live +guardian, trying to coerce one simple girl--and apparently not making +much of a job of it. She gloried in what she had been told or perceived +of Delia Blanchflower's wilfulness, which seemed to her mother and her +brother the Captain so monstrous. Only--could one entirely trust +anybody like Delia Blanchflower--so prosperous--and so good-looking? + +Miss Andrews mounted the hill, passed through a wood that ran along its +crest, and took a footpath, leading past the edge of a railway cutting, +from which the wonderful old house could be plainly seen. She paused +several times to look at it, wrapped in a kind of day-dream, which gave +a growing sombreness to her harsh and melancholy features. Beyond the +footpath a swing gate opened into a private path leading to the house. + +She opened the gate, and walked a little way up the path, in the fast +gathering darkness. But she was suddenly arrested by the appearance of +a figure in the far distance, black against the pale greys of the +house. It was a policeman on his beat--she caught one of the gleams of +a lantern. + +Instantly she turned back, groped her way again through the wood, and +into a side road leading to her brother's house. + +She found her mother lying on the sofa in the drawing-room, the remains +of a rather luxurious tea beside her--her outdoor clothes lying +untidily about the room. + +"Where have you been?" said Mrs. Andrews, fretfully--"there were +several letters I wanted written before post." + +"I wanted a little air. That linen business took me all the morning." + +For it was the rule in the Andrews' household that the house linen +should be gone through every six months with a view to repairs and +renewals. It was a tedious business. Mrs. Andrews' nerves did not allow +her to undertake it. It fell therefore, and had always fallen to the +only daughter, who was not made for housewifery tasks, and detested the +half-yearly linen day accordingly. + +Her tone displeased her mother. + +"There you are--grumbling again, Marion! What else have you to do, I +should like to know, than your home duties?" + +Marion made no reply. What was the use of replying? But her black eyes, +as she helped herself wearily to some very cold tea, took note of her +mother's attitude. It was only the week before that Dr. France had +expressed himself rather pointedly to the effect that more exercise and +some fresh interests in life "would be good for Mrs. Andrews." + +Mrs. Andrews returned to the ladies' paper she was reading. The fashion +plates for the week were unusually attractive. Marion observed her +unseen. + +Suddenly the daughter said:-- + +"I must ask you for that five pounds, mother. Bill promised it me. My +underclothing is literally in rags. I've done my best, and it's past +mending. And I must have another decent dress." + +"There you are,--clamouring for money again"--said her mother, +bouncing up on the sofa--"when you know how hard-pressed Bill is. He's +got another instalment to pay for the motor the end of this week." + +"Yes--the motor you made him get!"--said Marion, as though the words +burst from her. + +"And why shouldn't he, pray! The money's his--and mine. It was high +time we got rid of that rattletrap. It jolted me to pieces." + +"You said a little while ago it would do very well for another year. +Anyway, Bill promised me something for clothes this month--and he also +said that he'd pay my school of art fees, at Wanchester, and give me a +third season ticket. Is that all done with too?" + +The girl sat erect, her face with its sparkling eyes expressing mingled +humiliation and bitterness. + +"Oh, well really, I can't stand these constant disputes!" said Mrs. +Andrews, rising angrily from the sofa. "You'd better go to your +brother. If he likes to waste his money, he can of course. But I've got +none to spare." She paused at the door--"As for your underclothing, I +daresay I could find you something of mine you could make do for a bit. +Now do be sensible!--and don't make a scene with Bill!" + +She closed the door. Marion walked to the side window of the +drawing-room, and stood looking at the wooded slope of the hill, with +Monk Lawrence in the distance. + +Her heart burned within her. She was thirty-four. She had never had any +money of her own--she had never been allowed any education that would +fit her to earn. She was absolutely dependent on her mother and +brother. Bill was kind enough, though careless, and often selfish. But +her mother rubbed her dependence into her at every turn--"And yet I +earn my clothes and my keep--every penny of them!" she thought, +fiercely. + +A year before this date she had been staying in London with a cousin +who sometimes took pity on her and gave her a change of scene. They had +gone together for curiosity's sake to a "militant" meeting in London. A +lady, slight in figure, with dark eyes and hair, had spoken on the +"economic independence of women"--as the only path to the woman's goal +of "equal rights" with men. She had spoken with passion, and Marion's +sore heart had leapt to answer her. + +That lady was Gertrude Marvell. Marion had written to her, and there +had been a brief acquaintance, enough to kindle the long-repressed will +and passion of the girl's stormy nature. She had returned home, to +read, in secret, everything that she could find on the militant +movement. The sheer violence of it appealed to her like water to the +thirsty. War, war!--on a rotten state of society, and the economic +slavery of women! + +And now her first awakener, her appointed leader, her idol had appeared +in this dead country-side, with orders to give, and tasks to impose. +And she should be obeyed--to the letter! + +The girl's heavy eyes kindled to a mad intensity, as she stood looking +at the hill-side, now almost dark, except for that distant light, which +she knew as the electric lamp still lit at sunset, even in Sir +Wilfrid's absence, over the stately doorway of Monk Lawrence. + +But she was not going to the Latchford meeting. "Don't give yourself +away. Don't be seen with the others. Keep out of notice. There are more +important things for you to do--presently. Wait!" + +The words echoed in her ears. She waited; exulting in the thought that +no one, not even Miss Blanchflower, knew as much as she; and that +neither her mother nor her brother had as yet any idea of her +connection with the "Daughters." Her "silly suffrage opinions" were +laughed at by them both--good-humouredly, by Bill. Of the rest, they +knew nothing. + + + + +Chapter IX + + +"Mark! you've done the day's work of two people already!" cried Mrs. +Matheson in a tone of distress. "You don't mean to say you're going in +to Latchford again?--and without waiting for some food?" + +She stood under the porch of Bridge End remonstrating with her brother. + +"Can't be helped, dear!" said Winnington, as he filled his pipe--"I'm +certain there'll be a row to-night, and I must catch this train!" + +"What, that horrid meeting! Delia Blanchflower lets you slave and slave +for her, and never takes the smallest notice of your wishes or your +advice! She ought to be ashamed!" + +The sister's mild tone trembled with indignation. + +"She isn't!" laughed Winnington. "I never knew anyone less so. But we +can't have her ill treated. Expect me back when you see me!" + +And kissing his hand to his sister, he went out into a dark and +blustering evening. Something had just gone wrong with the little motor +car he generally drove himself, and there was nothing for it but to +walk the mile and a half to the railway station. + +He had spent the whole day in County Council business at Wanchester, +was tired out, and had now been obliged to leave home again without +waiting even for a belated cup of tea. But there was no help for it. He +had only just time to catch the Latchford train. + +As he almost ran to the station he was not conscious however of any of +these small discomforts; his mind was full of Delia. He did not +encourage anyone but Madeleine Tonbridge to talk to him about his ward; +but he was already quite aware, before his old friend laid stress on +it, of the hostile feeling towards Delia and her chaperon that was +beginning to show itself in the neighbourhood. He knew that she was +already pronounced heartless, odious, unprincipled, consumed with a +love of notoriety, and ready for any violence, at the bidding of a +woman who was probably responsible at that very moment--as a prominent +organiser in the employ of the society contriving them--for some of the +worst of the militant outrages. His condemnation of Delia's actions was +sharp and unhesitating; his opinion of Miss Marvell not a whit milder +than that of his neighbours. Yet he had begun, as we have seen, to +discover in himself a willingness, indeed an eagerness to excuse and +pity the girl, which was wholly lacking in the case of the older woman. +Under the influence, indeed, of his own responsive temperament, +Winnington was rapidly drifting into a state of feeling where his +perception of Delia's folly and unreason was almost immediately checked +by some enchanting memory of her beauty, or of those rare moments in +their brief acquaintance, when the horrid shadow of the "Movement" had +been temporarily lifted, and he had seen her, as in his indulgent +belief she truly was--or was meant to be. She flouted and crossed him +perpetually; and he was beginning to discover that he only thought of +her the more, and that the few occasions when he had been able to force +a smile out of her,--a sudden softness in her black eyes, gone in a +moment!--were constantly pleading for her in his mind. All part no +doubt of his native and extreme susceptibility to the female race--the +female race in general. For he could see himself, and laugh at himself, +_ab extra_, better than most men. + +At the station he came across Captain Andrews, and soon discovered from +that artless warrior that he also was bound for Latchford, with a view +to watching over Delia Blanchflower. + +"Can't have a lot of hooligans attacking a good-looking girl like +that--whatever nonsense she talks!" murmured the Captain, twisting his +sandy moustache; "so I thought I'd better come along and see fair play. +Of course I knew you'd be there." + +The train was crowded. Winnington, separated from the Captain, plunged +into a dimly-lighted third class, and found himself treading on the +toes of an acquaintance. He saluted an elderly lady wearing a bonnet +and mantle of primeval cut, and a dress so ample in the skirt that it +still suggested the days of crinoline. She was abnormally tall, and +awkwardly built; she wore cotton gloves, and her boots were those of a +peasant. She carried a large bag or reticule, and her lap was piled +with brown parcels. Her large thin face was crowned by a few straggling +locks of what had once been auburn hair, now nearly grey, the pale +spectacled eyes were deeply wrinkled, and the nose and mouth slightly +but indisputably crooked. + +"My dear Miss Dempsey!--what an age since we met! Where are you off to? +Give me some of those parcels!" + +And Winnington, seizing what he could lay hands on, transferred them to +his own knees, and gave a cordial grip to the right hand cotton glove. + +Miss Dempsey replied that she had been in Brownmouth for the day, and +was going home. After which she smiled and said abruptly, bending +across her still laden knees and his--so as to speak unheard by their +neighbours-- + +"Of course I know where you're going to!" + +"Do you?" + +The queer head nodded. + +"Why can't you keep her in order?" + +"Her? Who?" + +"Your ward. Why don't you stop it?" + +"Stop these meetings? My ward is of age, please remember, and quite +aware of it." + +Miss Dempsey sighed. + +"Naughty young woman!" she said, yet with the gentlest of accents. "For +us of the elder generation to see our work all undone by these maniacs! +They have dashed the cup from our very lips." + +"Ah! I forgot you were a Suffragist," said Winnington, smiling at her. + +"Suffragist?" she held up her head indignantly--"I should rather think +I am. My parents were friends of Mill, and I heard him speak for Woman +Suffrage when I was quite a child. And now, after the years we've +toiled and moiled, to see these mad women wrecking the whole thing!" + +Winnington assented gravely. + +"I don't wonder you feel it so. But you still want it--the vote--as +much as ever?" + +"Yes!" she said, at first with energy; and then on a more wavering +note--"Yes,--but I admit a great many things have been done without it +that I thought couldn't have been done. And these wild women give one +to think. But you? Are you against us?--or has Miss Delia converted +you?" + +He smiled again, but without answering her question. Instead, he asked +her in a guarded voice-- + +"You are as busy as ever?" + +"I am there always--just as usual. I don't have much success. It +doesn't matter." + +She drew back from him, looking quietly out of window at the autumn +fields. Over her wrinkled face with its crooked features, there dawned +a look of strange intensity, mingled very faintly with something +exquisite--a ray from a spiritual world. + +Winnington looked at her with reverence. He knew all about her; so did +many of the dwellers in the Maumsey neighbourhood. She had lived for +half-a-century in the same little house in one of the back-streets of +Latchford, a town of some ten thousand inhabitants. Through all that +time her life had been given to what is called "rescue work"--though +she herself rarely called it by that name. She loved those whom no one +else would love--the meanest and feeblest of the outcast race. Every +night her door stood on the latch, and as the years passed, thousands +knew it. Scarcely a week went by, that some hand did not lift that +latch, and some girl in her first trouble, or some street-walker, dying +of her trade, did not step in to the tiny hall where the lamp burnt all +night, and wait for the sound of the descending footsteps on the +stairs, which meant shelter and pity, warmth and food. She was +constantly deceived, sometimes robbed; for such things she had no +memory. She only remembered the things which cannot be told--the +trembling voices of hope or returning joy--the tenderness in dying +eyes, the clinging of weak hands, the kindness of "her poor children." +She had written--without her name--a book describing the condition of a +great seaport town where she had once lived. The facts recorded in it +had inspired a great reforming Act. No one knew anything of her part in +it--so far as the public was concerned. Many persons indeed came to +consult her; she gave all her knowledge to those who wanted it; she +taught, and she counselled, always as one who felt herself the mere +humble mouthpiece of things divine and compelling; and those who went +away enriched did indeed forget her in her message, as she meant them +to do. But in her own town as she passed along the streets, in her +queer garb, blinking and absently smiling as though at her own +thoughts, she was greeted often with a peculiar reverence, a homage of +which her short sight told her little or nothing. + +Winnington especially had applied to her in more than one difficulty +connected with his public work. It was to her he had gone at once when +the Blanchflower agent had come to him in dismay reporting the decision +of Miss Blanchflower with regard to the half-witted girl whose third +illegitimate child by a quite uncertain father had finally proved her +need of protection both from men's vileness, and her own helplessness. +Miss Dempsey had taken the girl first into her own house, and then, +persuading and comforting the old father, had placed her in one of the +Homes where such victims are sheltered. + +Winnington briefly enquired after the girl. She as briefly replied. +Then she added:--as other travellers got out and they were left to +themselves. + +"So Miss Blanchflower wanted to keep her in the village?" + +Winnington nodded, adding-- + +"She of course had no idea of the real facts." + +"No. Why should she?--_Why should she_!--" the old lips repeated with +passion. "Let her keep her youth while she can! It's so strange to +me--how they will throw away their youth! Some of us must know. The +black ox has trodden on us. A woman of thirty must look at it all. But +a girl of twenty! Doesn't she see that she helps the world more by +_not_ knowing!--that her mere unconsciousness is _our_ gain--_our_ +refreshment." + +The face of the man sitting opposite her, reflected her own feeling. + +"You and I always agree," he said warmly. "I wish you'd make friends +with her." + +"Who? Miss Blanchflower? What could she make out of an old stager like +me!" Miss Dempsey's face broke into amusement at the notion. "And I +don't know that I could keep my temper with a militant. Well now you're +going to hear her speak--and here we are." + + * * * * * + +Winnington and Captain Andrews left the station together. Latchford +owned a rather famous market, and market day brought always a throng of +country folk into the little town. A multitude of booths under flaring +gas jets--for darkness had just fallen--held one side of the square, +and the other was given up to the hurdles which penned the sheep and +cattle, and to their attendant groups of farmers and drovers. + +The market place was full of people, but the crowd which filled it was +not an ordinary market-day crowd. The cattle and sheep indeed had long +since gone off with their new owners or departed homeward unsold. The +booths were most of them either taken down or were in process of being +dismantled. For the evening was falling fast; it was spitting with +rain; and business was over. But the shop windows in the market-place +were still brilliantly lit, and from the windows of the Crown Inn, all +tenanted by spectators, light streamed out on the crowd below. The +chief illumination came however from what seemed to be a large shallow +waggon drawn up not far from the Crown. Three people stood in it; a +man--who was speaking--and two women. From either side, a couple of +motor lamps of great brilliance concentrated upon them threw their +faces and figures into harsh relief. + +The crowd was steadily pressing toward the waggon, and it was evident +at once to Winnington and his companion that it was not a friendly +crowd. + +"Looks rather ugly, to me!" said Andrews in Winnington's ear. "They've +got hold of that thing which happened at Wanchester yesterday, of the +burning of that house where the care-taker and his children only just +escaped." + +A rush of lads and young men passed them as he spoke--shouting-- + +"Pull 'em down--turn 'em out!" + +Andrews and Winnington pursued, but were soon forced back by a +retreating movement of those in front. Winnington's height enabled him +to see over the heads of the crowd. + +"The police are keeping a ring," he reported to his companion--"they +seem to have got it in hand! Ah! now they've seen me--they'll let us +through." + +Meanwhile the shouts and booing of the hostile portion of the +audience--just augmented by a number of rough-looking men from the +neighbouring brickfields--prevented most of the remarks delivered by +the male speaker on the cart from reaching the audience. + +"Cowards!" said an excited woman's voice--"that's all they can +do!--howl like wild beasts--that's all they're fit for!" + +Winnington turned to see a tall girl, carrying an armful of newspapers. +She had flaming red hair, and she wore a black and orange scarf, with a +cap of the same colours. "Foster's daughter," he thought, wondering. +"What happens to them all!" For he had known Kitty Foster from her +school days, and had never thought of her except as a silly simpering +flirt, bent on the pursuit of man. And now he beheld a maenad, a fury. + +Suddenly another woman's voice cut across the others-- + +"Aren't you ashamed of those colours! Go home--and take them off. Go +home and behave like a decent creature!" + +Heads were turned--to see a middle-aged woman of quiet dress and +commanding aspect, sternly pointing to the astonished Kitty Foster. +"Do you see that girl?"--the woman continued, addressing her +neighbours,--"she's got the 'Daughters'' colours on. Do you know what +the Daughters have been doing in town? You've seen about the destroying +of letters in London. Well, I'll tell you what that means. I had a +little servant I was very fond of. She left me to go and live near her +sister in town. The sister died, and she got consumption. She went into +lodgings, and there was no one to help her. She wrote to me, asking me +to come to her. Her letter was destroyed in one of the pillar-boxes +raided--by those women--" She pointed. "Then she broke her heart +because she thought I'd given her up. She daren't write again. And now +I've found her out--in hospital--dying. I've seen her to-day. If it +hadn't have been for these demented creatures she might ha' lived for +years." + +The woman paused, her voice breaking a little. Kitty Foster tossed her +head. + +"What are most women in hospital for?" she said, shrilly. "By the fault +of men!--one way or the other. That's what we think of." + +"Yes I know--that's one of the shameless things you say--to us who have +husbands and sons we thank God for!" said the elder woman, quivering. +"Go and get a husband!--if you can find one to put up with you, and +hold your tongue!" She turned her back. + +The girl laughed affectedly. + +"I can do without one, thank you. It's you happy married women that are +the chief obstacle in our path. Selfish things!--never care for anybody +but yourselves!" + +"Hallo--Lathrop's down--that's Miss Blanchflower!" said Andrews, +excitedly. "Let's go on!" + +And at the same moment a mounted constable, who had been steadily +making his way to them, opened a way for the two J.P.'s through the +crowd, which after the tumult of hooting mingled with a small amount of +applause, which had greeted Lathrop's peroration, had relapsed into +sudden silence as Delia Blanchflower came forward, so that her opening +words, in a rich clear voice were audible over a large area of the +market-place. + + * * * * * + +What did she say? Certainly nothing new! Winnington knew it all by +heart--had read it dozens of times in their strident newspaper, which +he now perused weekly, simply that he might discover if he could, what +projects his ward might be up to. + +The wrongs of women, their wrongs as citizens, as wives, as the victims +of men, as the "refuse of the factory system"--Winnington remembered +the phrase in the _Tocsin_ of the week before--the uselessness of +constitutional agitation--the need "to shake England to make her +hear"--it was all the "common form" of the Movement; and yet she was +able to infuse it with passion, with conviction, with a wild and +natural eloquence. Her voice stole upon him--hypnotized him. His +political and economic knowledge told him that half the things she +said were untrue, and the rest irrelevant. His moral sense revolted +against her violence--her defence of violence. A girl of twenty-one +addressing this ugly, indifferent crowd, and talking calmly of +stone-throwing and arson, as though they were occupations as natural to +her youth as dancing or love-making!--the whole thing was +abhorrent--preposterous--to a man of order and peace. And yet he had +never been more stirred, more conscious of the mad, mixed poetry of +life, than he was, as he stood watching the slender figure on the +waggon--the gestures of the upraised arm, and the play of the lights +from the hotel, and from the side lamps, now on the deep white collar +that lightened her serge jacket, and on the gesticulating hand, or the +face that even in these disfiguring cross-lights could be nothing else +than lovely. + +She was speaking too long--a common fault of women. + +He looked from her to the faces of the crowd, and saw that the spell, +compounded partly of the speaker's good looks and partly of sheer +gaping curiosity, was breaking. They were getting restless, beginning +to heckle and laugh. + +Then he heard her say. + +"Of course we know--you think us fools--silly fools! You say it's a +poor sort of fighting--and what do we hope to get by it? Pin-pricks you +call it--all that women can do. Well, so it is--we admit it. It _is_ a +poor sort of fighting--we don't admire it any more than you. But it's +all men have left to women. You have disarmed us--and fooled us--and +made slaves of us. You won't allow us the constitutional weapon of the +vote, so we strike as we can, and with what weapons we can--" + +"Makin' bonfires of innercent people an' their property, ain't +politics, Miss!" shouted a voice. + +"Hear, Hear!" from the crowd. + +"We haven't killed anybody--but ourselves!" The answer flashed. + +"Pretty near it! Them folks at Wanchester only just got out--an' there +were two children among 'em," cried a man near the waggon. + +"An' they've just been up to something new at Brownmouth--" + +All heads turned towards a young man who spoke from the back of the +audience. "News just come to the post-office," he shouted--"as the new +pier was burnt out early this morning. There's a bit o' wanton mischief +for you!" + +A howl of wrath rose from the audience, amid which the closing words of +Delia's speech were lost. Winnington caught a glimpse of her face--pale +and excited--as she retreated from the front of the waggon in order to +make room for her co-speaker. + +Gertrude Marvell, as Winnington soon saw, was far more skilled in +street oratory than her pupil. By sheer audacity she caught her +audience at once, and very soon, mingling defiance with sarcasm, she +had turned the news of the burnt pier into a Suffragist parable. What +was that blaze in the night, lighting up earth and sea, but an emblem +of women's revolt flaming up in the face of dark injustice and +oppression? Let them rage! The women mocked. All tyrannies disliked +being disturbed--since the days of Nebuchadnezzar. And thereupon, +without any trace of excitement, or any fraction of Delia's eloquence, +she built up bit by bit, and in face of the growing hostility of the +crowd, an edifice of selected statements, which could not have been +more adroit. It did not touch or persuade, but it silenced; till at the +end she said--each word slow and distinct-- + +"Now--all these things _you_ may do to women, and nobody minds--nobody +troubles at all. But if _we_ make a bonfire of a pier, or an empty +house, by way of drawing attention to your proceedings, then, you see +red. Well, here we are!--do what you like--torture, imprison us!--you +are only longing, I know--some of you--to pull us down now and trample +on us, so that you may _show_ us how much stronger men are than women! +All right!--but where one woman falls, another will spring up. And +meanwhile the candle we are lighting will go on burning till you give +us the vote. Nothing simpler--nothing easier. _Give us the vote_!--and +send your canting Governments, Liberal, or Tory, packing, till we get +it. But until then--windows and empty houses, and piers and such-like, +are nothing--but so many opportunities of making our masters +uncomfortable, till they free their slaves! Lucky for you, if the thing +is no worse!" + +She paused a moment, and then added with sharp and quiet emphasis-- + +"And why is it specially necessary that we should try to stir up this +district--whether you like our methods or whether you don't? +Because--you have living here among you, one of the worst of the +persecutors of women! You have here a man who has backed up every +cruelty of the Government--who has denied us every right, and scoffed +at all our constitutional demands--your neighbour and great landlord, +Sir Wilfrid Lang! I call upon every woman in this district, to avenge +women on Sir Wilfrid Lang! We are not out indeed to destroy life or +limb--we leave that to the men who are trying to coerce women--but we +mean to sweep men like Sir Wilfrid Lang out of our way! Meanwhile we +can pay special attention to his meetings--we can harass him at railway +stations--we can sit on his doorstep--we can put the fear of God into +him in a hundred ways--in short we can make his life a tenth part as +disagreeable to him as he can make ours to us. We can, if we please, +make it a _burden_ to him--and we intend to do so! And don't let +men--or women either--waste their breath in preaching to us of 'law and +order.' Slaves who have no part in making the law, are not bound by the +law. Enforce it if you can! But while you refuse to free us, we despise +both the law and the making of the law. Justice--which is a very +different thing from law--Justice is our mistress!--and to her we +appeal." + +Folding her arms, she looked the crowd in the face. They seemed to +measure each other; on one side, the lines of upturned faces, gaping +youths, and smoking workmen, farmers and cattlemen, women and children; +on the other, defying them, one thin, neatly-dressed woman, her face, +under the lamps, a gleaming point in the dark. + +Then a voice rose from a lounging group of men, smoking like +chimneys--powerful fellows; smeared with the clay of the brickfields. + +"Who's a-makin' slaves of you, Ma'am? There's most of us workin' for a +woman!" + +A woman in the middle of the crowd laughed shrilly--a queer, tall +figure in a battered hat-- + +"Aye--and a lot yo' give 'er ov a Saturday night, don't yer?" + +"Sir Wilfrid's a jolly good feller, miss," shouted another man. "Pays +'is men good money, an' no tricks. If you come meddlin' with him, in +these parts, you'll catch it." + +"An' we don't want no suffragettes here, thank you!" cried a sarcastic +woman's voice. "We was quite 'appy till you come along, an' we're quite +willin' now for to say 'Good-bye, an' God bless yer!'" + +The crowd laughed wildly, and suddenly a lad on the outskirts of the +crowd picked up a cabbage-stalk that had fallen from one of the +market-stalls, and flung it at the waggon. The hooligan element, +scattered through the market-place, took up the hint at once; brutal +things began to be shouted; and in a moment the air was thick with +missiles of various sorts, derived from the refuse of the day's +market--vegetable remains of all kinds, fragments of wood and cardboard +boxes, scraps of filthy matting, and anything else that came handy. + +The audience at first disapproved. There were loud cries of "Stow +it!"--"Shut up!"--"Let the ladies alone!"--and there was little attempt +to obstruct the police as they moved forward. But then, by ill-luck, +the powerfully-built fair-haired man, who had been speaking when +Winnington and Andrews entered the market place, rushed to the front of +the waggon, and in a white heat of fury, began to denounce both the +assailants of the speakers, and the crowd in general, as "cowardly +louts"--on whom argument was thrown away--who could only be reached +"through their backs, or their pockets"--with other compliments of the +same sort, under which the temper of the "moderates" rapidly gave way. + +"What an ass! What a damned ass!" groaned Andrews indignantly. "Look +here Winnington, you take care of Miss Blanchflower--I'll answer for +the other!" + +And amid a general shouting and scuffling, through which some stones +were beginning to fly, Winnington found himself leaping on the waggon, +followed by Andrews and a couple of police. + +Delia confronted him--undaunted, though breathless. + +"What do you want? We're all right!" + +"You must come away at once. I can get you through the hotel." + +"Not at all! We must put the Resolution." + +"Come Miss!--" said the tall constable behind Winnington--"no use +talking! There's a lot of fellows here that mean mischief. You go with +this gentleman. He'll look after you." + +"Not without my friend!" cried Delia, both hands behind her on the edge +of the waggon--erect and defiant. "Gertrude!--" she raised her +voice--"What do you wish to do?" + +But amid the din, her appeal was not heard. + +Gertrude Marvell however could be clearly seen on the other side of the +waggon, with Paul Lathrop beside her, listening to the remonstrances +and entreaties of Andrews, with a smile as cool, as though she were in +the drawing-room of Maumsey Abbey, and the Captain were inviting her to +trifle with a cup of tea. + +"Take her along, Sir!" said the policeman, with a nod to Winnington. +"It's getting ugly." And as he spoke, a man jumped upon the waggon, a +Latchford doctor, an acquaintance of Winnington's, who said something +in his ear. + +The next moment, a fragment of a bottle, flung from a distance, struck +Winnington on the wrist. The blood rushed out, and Delia, suddenly +white, looked from it to Winnington's face. The only notice he took of +the incident was expressed in the instinctive action of rolling his +handkerchief round it. But it stirred him to lay a grasp upon Delia's +arm, which she could hardly have resisted. She did not, however, +resist. She felt herself lifted down from the waggon, and hurried +along, the police keeping back the crowd, into the open door of the +hotel. Shouts of a populace half enraged, half amused, pursued her. + +"Brutes--Cowards!" she gasped, between her teeth--then to +Winnington--"Where are you taking me? I have the car!" + +"There's a motor belonging to a doctor ready at once in the yard of the +hotel. Better let me take you home in it. Andrews, I assure you, will +look after Miss Marvell!" + +They passed through the brilliantly-lighted inn, where landlady, +chambermaids, and waiters stood grinning in rows to see, and Winnington +hurried his charge into the closed motor standing at the inn's back +door. + +"Take the street behind the hotel, and get out by the back of the town. +Be quick!" said Winnington to the chauffeur. + +Booing groups had already begun to gather at the entrance of the yards, +and in the side street to which it led. The motor passed slowly through +them, then quickened its pace, and in what seemed an incredibly short +time, they were in country lanes. + +Delia leant hack, drawing long breaths of fatigue and excitement. Then +she perceived with disgust that her dress was bemired with scraps of +dirty refuse, and that some mud was dripping from her hat. She took off +the hat, shook it out of the window of the car, but could not bring +herself to put it on again. Her hair, loosely magnificent, framed a +face that was now all colour and passion. She hated herself, she hated +the crowd; it seemed to her she hated the man at her side. Suddenly +Winnington turned on the electric light--with an exclamation. + +"So sorry to be a nuisance--but have you got a spare handkerchief? I'm +afraid I shall spoil your dress!" + +And Delia saw, to her dismay, that his own handkerchief which he had +originally tied round his wound was already soaked, and the blood was +dripping from it on to the motor-rug. + +"Yes--yes--I have!" And opening her little wrist-bag, she took out of +it two spare handkerchiefs, and tied them, with tremulous hands, round +the wrist he held out to her,--a wrist brown and spare and powerful, +like the rest of him. + +"Now--have you got anything you could tie round the arm, above the +wound--and then twist the knot?" + +She thought. + +"My veil!" She slipped it off in a moment, a long motor veil of stout +make. He turned towards her, pushing up his coat sleeve as high as it +would go, and shewing her where to put the bandage. She helped him to +turn back his shirt sleeve, and then wound the veil tightly round the +arm, so as to compress the arteries. Her fingers were warm and strong. +He watched them--he felt their touch--with a curious pleasure. + +"Now, suppose you take this pencil, and twist it in the knot--you know +how? Have you done any First Aid?" + +She nodded. + +"I know." + +She did it well. The tourniquet acted, and the bleeding at once +slackened. + +"All right!" said Winnington, smiling at her. "Now if I keep it up that +ought to do!" She drew down the sleeve, and he put his hand into the +motor-strap hanging near him, which supported it. Then he threw his +head back a moment against the cushions of the car. The sudden loss of +blood on the top of a long fast, had made him feel momentarily faint. + +Delia looked at him uneasily--biting her lip. + +"Let us go back to Latchford, Mr. Winnington, and find a doctor." + +"Oh dear no! I'm only pumped for a moment. It's going off. I'm +perfectly fit. When I've taken you home, I shall go in to our Maumsey +man, and get tied up." + +There was silence. The hedges and fields flew by outside, under the +light of the motor, stars overhead, Delia's heart was full of wrath and +humiliation. + +"Mr. Winnington--" + +"Yes!" He sat up, apparently quite revived. + +"Mr. Winnington--for Heaven's sake--do give me up!" + +He looked at her with amused astonishment. + +"Give you up!--How?" + +"Give up being my guardian! I really can't stand it. I--I don't mind +what happens to myself. But it's too bad that I should be forced to--to +make myself such a nuisance to you--or desert all my principles. It's +not fair to _me_--that's what I feel--it's not indeed!" she insisted +stormily. + +He saw her dimly as she spoke--the beautiful oval of the face, the +white brow, the general graciousness of line, so feminine, in +truth!--so appealing. The darkness hid away all that shewed the "female +franzy." Distress of mind--distress for his trumpery wound?--had +shaken her, brought her back to youth and childishness? Again he felt +a rush of sympathy--of tender concern. + +"Do you think you would do any better with a guardian chosen by the +Court?" he asked her, smiling, after a moment's pause. + +"Of course I should! I shouldn't mind fighting a stranger in the +least." + +"They would be very unlikely to appoint a stranger. They would probably +name Lord Frederick." + +"He wouldn't dream of taking it!" she said, startled. "And you know he +is the laziest of men." + +They both laughed. But her laugh was a sound of agitation, and in the +close contact of the motor he was aware of her quick breathing. + +"Well, it's true he never answers a letter," said Winnington. "But I +suppose he's ill." + +"He's been a _malade imaginaire_ all his life, and he isn't going to +begin to put himself out for anybody now!" she said, scornfully. + +"Your aunt, Miss Blanchflower?" + +"I haven't spoken to her for years. She used to live with us when I was +eighteen. She tried to boss me, and set father against me. But I got +the best of her." + +"I am sure you did," said Winnington. + +She broke out-- + +"Oh, I know you think me a perfectly impossible creature whom nobody +could ever get on with!" + +He paused a moment, then said gravely-- + +"No, I don't think anything of the kind. But I do think that, given +what you want, you are going entirely the wrong way to get it." + +She drew a long and desperate breath. + +"Oh, for goodness sake don't let's argue!" + +He refrained. But after a moment he added, still more gravely--"And I +do protest--most strongly!--against the influence upon you of the lady +you have taken to live with you!" + +Delia made a vehement movement. + +"She is my friend!--my dearest friend!" she said, in a shaky voice. +"And I believe in her, and admire her with all my heart!" + +"I know--and I am sorry. Her speech this evening--all the latter part +of it--was the speech of an Anarchist. And the first half was a tissue +of misstatements. I happen to know something about the facts she dealt +with." + +"Of course you take a different view!" + +"I _know_," he said, quietly--a little sternly. "Miss Marvell either +does not know, or she wilfully misrepresents." + +"You can't prove it!" + +"I think I could. And as to that man--Mr. Lathrop--but you know what I +think." + +They both fell silent. Through all his own annoyance and disgust, +Winnington was sympathetically conscious of what she too must be +feeling--chafed and thwarted, at every turn, by his legal power over +her actions, and by the pressure of his male will. He longed to +persuade her, convince her, soothe her; but what chance for it, under +the conditions she had chosen for her life? + +The motor drew up at the door of the Abbey, and Winnington turned on +the light. + +"I am afraid I can't help you out. Can you manage?" + +She stooped anxiously to look at his wrist. + +"It's bleeding worse again! I am sure I could improve that bandage. Do +come in. My maid's got everything." + +He hesitated--then followed her into the house. The maid was summoned, +and proved an excellent nurse. The wound was properly bandaged, and the +arm put in a sling. + +Then, as the maid withdrew, Delia and her guardian were left standing +together in the drawing-room, lit only by a dying gleam of fire, and a +single lamp. + +"Good-night," said Winnington, gently. "Don't be the least alarmed +about Miss Marvell. The train doesn't arrive for ten minutes yet. Thank +you for looking after me so kindly." + +Delia laughed--but it was a sound of distress. + +Suddenly he stooped, lifted her hand, and kissed it. + +"What you are doing seems to me foolish--and _wrong!_ I am afraid I +must tell you so plainly," he said, with emotion. "But although I feel +like that--my one wish--all the time--is--forgive me if it sounds +patronising!--to help you--and stand by you. To see you in that horrid +business to-night--made me--very unhappy. I am old-fashioned I +suppose--but I could hardly bear it. I wish I could make you trust me a +little!" + +"I do!" she said, choked. "I do--but I must follow my conscience." + +He shook his head, but said no more. She murmured good-night, and he +went. She heard the motor drive away, and remained standing where he +had left her, the hand he had kissed hanging at her side. She still +felt the touch of his lips upon it, and as the blood rushed into her +cheeks, her heart was conscious of new and strange emotions. She longed +to go to him as a sister or a daughter might, and say--"Forgive +me--understand me--don't despair of me!" + +The trance of feeling broke, and passed away. She caught up a cloak and +went to the hall door to listen for Gertrude Marvell. + +"What I _shall_ have to say to him before long, is--'I have tricked +you this quarter out of L500--and I mean to do it again next +quarter--if I can!' He won't want to kiss my hand again!" + + + + +Chapter X + + +Two men sat smoking and talking with Paul Lathrop in the hook-littered +sitting-room of his cottage. One was a young journalist, Roger Blaydes, +whose thin, close-shaven face wore the knowing fool's look of one to +whom the world's his oyster, and all the bricks for opening it +familiar. The other was a god-like creature, a poet by profession, with +long lantern-jaws, grey eyes deeply set, and a mass of curly black +hair, from which the face with its pallor and its distinction, shone +dimly out like the portrait of a Cinquecento. Lathrop, in a kind of +dressing-gown, as clumsily cut as the form it wrapped, his reddish hair +and large head catching the firelight, had the look of one lazily at +bay, as wrapped in a cloud of smoke, he twined from one speaker to the +other. + +"So you were at another of these meetings last night?" said Blaydes, +with a mouth half smiling, half contemptuous. + +"Yes. A disgusting failure! They didn't even take the trouble to pelt +us." The poet--Merian by name--moved angrily on his chair. Blaydes +threw a sly look at him, as he knocked the ash from his cigarette. + +"And what the deuce do you expect to get by it all?" + +Paul Lathrop paused a moment--and at last said with a lift of the +eyebrows:-- + +"Well!--I have no illusions!" + +Merian broke out indignantly-- + +"I say, Lathrop--why should you try and play up to that cynic there? As +if he ever had an illusion about anything!" + +"Well, but one may have faith without illusions," protested Blaydes, +with hard good temper. + +"I doubt whether Lathrop has an ounce of either!" + +Lathrop reached out for a match. + +"What's the good of 'faith'--and what does anyone mean by it? +Sympathies--and animosities: they're enough for me." + +"And you really are in sympathy with these women?" said the other. + +The tone was incredulous. Merian brought his hand violently down on the +table. + +"Don't you talk about them, Blaydes! I tell you, they're out of your +ken." + +"I daresay," said Blaydes, composedly. "I was only trying to get at +what Lathrop means by going into the business." + +Paul Lathrop sat up. + +"I'm in sympathy with anything that harasses, and bothers and stings +the governing classes of this country!" he said, with an oratorical +wave of his cigarette. "What fools they are! In this particular +business the Government is an ass, the public is an ass, the women, if +you like, are asses. So long as they don't destroy works of art that +appeal to me, I prefer to bray with them than with their enemies." + +Merian rose impatiently--a slim, dark-browed St. George towering over +the other two. + +"After that, I'd rather hear them attacked by Blaydes, than defended by +you, Lathrop!" he said with energy, as he buttoned up his coat. + +Lathrop threw him a cool glance. + +"So for you, they're all heroines--and saints?" + +"Never mind what they are. I stand by them! I'm ready to give them what +they ask." + +"Ready to hand the Empire over to them--to smash like the windows in +Piccadilly?" said Blaydes. + +"Hang the Empire!--what does the Empire matter! Give the people in +these islands what they _want_ before you begin to talk about the +Empire. Well, good-bye, I must be off!" + +He nodded to the other two, and opened the door of the Hermitage which +led directly into the outer air. On the threshold he turned and looked +back, irresolutely, as though in compunction for his loss of temper. +Framed in the doorway against a background of sunset sky, his dark head +and sparely-noble features were of a singular though melancholy beauty. +It was evident that he was full of speech, of which he could not in the +end unburden himself. The door closed behind him, and he was gone. + +"Poor devil!" said Blaydes, tipping the end of his cigarette into the +fire-"he's in love with a girl who's been in prison three times. He +thinks she'll kill herself--and he can't influence her at all. He +takes it hard. Well, now look here"--the young man's expression changed +and stiffened--"I understand that you too are seeing a good deal of one +of these wild women--and that she's both rich--and a beauty?" + +He looked up, with a laugh. + +Lathrop's aspect was undisturbed. + +"Nothing to do with it!--though your silly little mind will no doubt go +on thinking so." + +The other laughed again--with a more emphatic mockery. Lathrop +reddened--then said quietly-- + +"Well, I admit that was a lie. Yes, she is handsome--and if she were +to stick to it--sacrifice all her life to it--in time she might make a +horrible success of this thing. Will she stick to it?" + +"Are you in love with her, Paul?" + +"Of course! I am in love with all pretty women--especially when I +daren't shew it." + +"You daren't shew it?" + +"The smallest advance on my part, in this quarter, brings me a rap on +the knuckles. I try to pitch what I have to say in the most impersonal +and romantic terms. No good at all! But all egg-dancing is amusing, so +I dance--and accept all the drudgery she and Alecto give me to do." + +"Alecto? Miss Marvell?" + +"Naturally." + +"These meetings must be pretty boring." + +"Especially because I can't keep my temper. I lose it in the vulgarest +way--and say the most idiotic things." + +There was a pause of silence. The eyes of the journalist wandered round +the room, coming back to Lathrop at last with renewed curiosity. + +"How are your affairs, Paul?" + +"Couldn't be worse. Everything here would have been seized long ago, if +there had been anything to seize. But you can't distrain on trout--dear +slithery things. And as the ponds afford my only means of sustenance, +and do occasionally bring in something, my creditors have to leave me +the house and a few beds and chairs so that I may look after them." + +"Why don't you write another book?" + +"Because at present I have nothing to say. And on that point I happen +to have a conscience--some rays of probity, left." + +He got up as he spoke, and went across the room, to a covered basket +beside the fire. + +"Mimi!" he said caressingly--"poor Mimi!" + +He raised a piece of flannel, and a Persian kitten lying in the +basket--a sick kitten--lifted its head languidly. + +"_Tu m'aimes_, Mimi?" + +The kitten looked at him with veiled eyes, already masked with death. +Lathrop stooped for a saucer of warm milk standing by the fire. The +kitten refused it, but when he dipped his fingers in the milk, it made +a momentary effort to lick them, then subsiding, sank to sleep again. + +"Poor little beast!" said Blaydes--"what's the matter?" + +"Some poison--I don't know what. It'll die tonight." + +"Then you'll be all alone?" + +"I'm never alone," said Lathrop, with decision. And rising he went to +the door of the cottage--which opened straight on the hill-side, and +set it open. + +It was four o'clock on a November day. The autumn was late, and of a +marvellous beauty. The month was a third gone and still there were +trees here and there, isolated trees, intensely green as though they +defied decay. The elder trees, the first to leaf under the Spring, were +now the last to wither. The elms in twenty-four hours had turned a pale +gold atop, while all below was still round and green. But the beeches +were nearly gone; all that remained of them was a thin pattern of +separate leaves, pale gold and faintly sparkling against the afternoon +sky. Such a sky! Bands of delicate pinks, lilacs and blues scratched +across an inner-heaven of light, and in the mid-heaven a blazing +furnace, blood-red, wherein the sun had just plunged headlong to its +death. And under the sky, an English scene of field and woodland, +fading into an all-environing forest, still richly clothed. While in +the foreground and middle distance, some trees already stripped and +bare, winter's first spoil, stood sharply black against the scarlet of +the sunset. And fusing the whole scene, hazes of blue, amethyst or +purple, beyond a Turner's brush, + +"What beauty!--my God!" + +Blaydes came to stand beside the speaker, glancing at him with eyes +half curious, half mocking. + +"You get so much pleasure out of it?" + +For answer, Lathrop murmured a few words as though to himself, a sudden +lightening in his sleepy eyes-- + + L'univers--si liquide, si pur!-- + Une belle eau qu'on voudrait boire. + + +"I don't understand French"--said Blaydes, with a shrug--"not French +verse, anyway." + +"That's a pity," was the dry reply--"because you can't read Madame de +Noailles. Ah!--there are Lang's pheasants calling!--his tenants I +suppose--for he's left the shooting." + +He pointed to a mass of wood on his left hand from which the sound +came. + +"They say he's never here?" + +"Two or three times a year,--just on business. His wife--a little +painted doll--hates the place, and they've built a villa at Beaulieu." + +"Rather risky leaving a big house empty in these days--with your wild +women about!" + +Lathrop looked round. + +"Good heavens!--who would ever dream of touching Monk Lawrence! I bet +even Gertrude Marvell hasn't nerve enough for that. Look here!--have +you ever seen it?" + +"Never." + +"Come along then. There's just time--while this light lasts." + +They snatched their caps, and were presently mounting the path which +led ultimately through the woods of Monk Lawrence to the western front. + +Blaydes frowned as he walked. He was a young man of a very practical +turn of mind, who in spite of an office-boy's training possessed an +irrelevant taste for literature which had made him an admirer of +Lathrop's two published volumes. For some time past he had been +Lathrop's chancellor of the exchequer--self-appointed, and had done his +best to keep his friend out of the workhouse. From the tone of Paul's +recent letters he had become aware of two things--first, that Lathrop +was in sight of his last five pound note, and did not see his way to +either earning or borrowing another; and secondly, that a handsome girl +had appeared on the scene, providentially mad with the same kind of +madness as had recently seized on Lathrop, belonging to the same +anarchial association, and engaged in the same silly defiance of +society; likely therefore to be thrown a good deal in his company; and +last, but most important, possessed of a fortune which she would no +doubt allow the "Daughters of Revolt" to squander--unless Paul cut in. +The situation had begun to seem to him interesting, and having already +lent Lathrop more money than he could afford, he had come down to +enquire about it. He himself possessed an income of three hundred a +year, plus two thousand pounds left him by an uncle. Except for the +single weakness which had induced him to lend Lathrop a couple of +hundred pounds, his principles with regard to money were frankly +piratical. Get what you can--and how you can. Clearly it was Lathrop's +game to take advantage of this queer friendship with a militant who +happened to be both rich and young, which his dabbling in their +"nonsense" had brought about. Why shouldn't he achieve it? Lathrop was +as clever as sin; and there was the past history of the man, to shew +that he could attract women. + +He gripped his friend's arm as they passed into the shadow of the wood. +Lathrop looked at him with surprise-- + +"Look here, Paul"--said the younger man in a determined voice--"You've +got to pull this thing off." + +"What thing?" + +"You can marry this girl if you put your mind to it. You tell me you're +going about the country with her speaking at meetings--that you're one +of her helpers and advisers. That is--you've got an A1 chance with her. +If you don't use it, you're a blithering idiot." + +Paul threw back his head and laughed. + +"And what about other people? What about her guardian, for +instance--who is the sole trustee of the property--who has a thousand +chances with her to my one--and holds, I venture to say--if he knows +anything about me--the strongest views on the subject of _my_ moral +character?" + +"Who is her guardian?" + +"Mark Wilmington. Does that convey anything to you?" + +Blaydes whistled. + +"Great Scott!" + +"Yes. Precisely 'Great Scott!'" said Lathrop, mocking. "I may add that +everybody here has their own romance on the subject. They are convinced +that Winnington will soon cure her of her preposterous notions, and +restore her, tamed, to a normal existence." + +Blaydes meditated,--his aspect showing a man checked. + +"I saw Winnington playing in a county match last August," he said--with +his eyes on the ground--"I declare no one looked at anybody else. I +suppose he's forty; but the old stagers tell you that he's just as much +of an Apollo now as he was in his most famous days--twenty years ago." + +"Don't exaggerate. He _is_ forty, and I'm thirty--which is one to me. +I only meant to suggest to you a _reasonable_ view of the chances." + +"Look here--_is_ she as handsome as people say?" + +"Blaydes!--this is the last time I shall allow you to talk about +her--you get on my nerves. Handsome? I don't know." + +He walked on, muttering to himself and twitching at the trees on either +hand. + +"I am simply putting what is your duty to yourself--and your +creditors," said Blaydes, sulkily--"You must know your affairs are in +a pretty desperate state." + +"And a girl like that is to be sacrificed--to my creditors! Good Lord!" + +"Oh, well, if you regard yourself as such an undesirable, naturally, +I've nothing to say. Of course I know--there's that case against you. +But it's a good while ago; and I declare women don't look at those +things as they used to do. Why don't you play the man of letters +business? You know very well, Paul, you could earn a lot of money if +you chose. But you're such a lazy dog!" + +"Let me alone!" said Lathrop, rather fiercely. "The fact that you've +lent me a couple of hundred really doesn't give you the right to talk +to me like this." + +"I won't lend you a farthing more unless you promise me to take this +thing seriously," said Blaydes, doggedly. + +Lathrop burst into a nervous shout of laughter. + +"I say, do shut up! I assure you, you can't bully me. Now then--here's +the house!" + +And as he spoke they emerged from the green oblong, bordered by low yew +edges, from which as from a flat and spacious shelf carved out of the +hill, Monk Lawrence surveyed the slopes below it, the clustered +village, the middle distance with its embroidery of fields and trees, +with the vaporous stretches of the forest beyond, and in the far +distance, a shining line of sea. + +"My word!--that is a house!" cried Blaydes, stopping to survey it and +get his townsman's breath, after the steep pitch of hill. + +"Not bad?" + +"Is it shown?" + +"Used to be. It has been shut lately for fear of the militants." + +"But they keep somebody in it?" + +"Yes--in some room at the back. A keeper, and his three children. The +wife's dead. Shall I go and see if he'll let us in? But he won't. He'll +have seen my name at that meeting, in the Latchford paper." + +"No, no. I shall miss my train. Let's walk round. Why, you'd think it +was on fire already!" said Blaydes, with a start, gazing at the house. + +For the marvellous evening now marching from the western forest, was +dyeing the whole earth in crimson, and the sun just emerging from one +bank of cloud, before dropping into the bank below, was flinging a +fierce glare upon the wide grey front of Monk Lawrence. Every window +blazed, and some fine oaks still thick with red leaf, which flanked the +house on the north, flamed in concert. The air was suffused with red; +every minor tone, blue or brown, green or purple, shewed through it, as +through a veil. + +And yet how quietly the house rose, in the heart of the flame! Peace +brooding on memory seemed to breathe from its rounded oriels, its mossy +roof, its legend in stone letters running round the eaves, the carved +trophies and arabesques which framed the stately doorway, the sleepy +fountain with its cupids, in the courtyard, the graceful loggia on the +northern side. It stood, aloof and self-contained, amid the lightnings +and arrows of the departing sun. + +"No--they'd never dare to touch that!" said Lathrop as he led the way +to the path skirting the house. "And if I caught Miss Marvell at it, +I'm not sure I shouldn't hand her over myself!" + +"Aren't we trespassing?" said Blaydes, as their footsteps rang on the +broad flagged path which led from the front court to the terrace at the +back of the house. + +"Certainly. Ah, the dog's heard us." + +And before they had gone more than a few steps further, a burly man +appeared at the further corner of the house, holding a muzzled dog--a +mastiff--on a leash. + +"What might you be wanting, gentlemen?" he said gruffly. + +"Why, you know me, Daunt. I brought a friend up to look at your +wonderful place. We can walk through, can't we?" + +"Well, as you're here, Sir, I'll let you out by the lower gate. But +this is private ground, Sir, and Sir Wilfrid's orders are strict,--not +to let anybody through that hasn't either business with the house or an +order from himself." + +"All right. Let's have a look at the back and the terrace, and then +we'll be off; Sir Wilfrid coming here?" + +"Not that I know of, Sir," said the keeper shortly, striding on before +the two men, and quieting his dog, who was growling at their heels. + +As he spoke he led the way down a stately flight of stone steps by +which the famous eastern terrace at the back of the house was reached. +The three men and the dog disappeared from view. + +Steadily the sunset faded. An attacking host of cloud rushed upon it +from the sea, and quenched it. The lights in the windows of Monk +Lawrence went out. Dusk fell upon the house and all its approaches. + +Suddenly, two figures--figures of women--emerged in the twilight from +the thick plantation, which protected the house on the north. They +reached the flagged path with noiseless feet, and then pausing, they +began what an intelligent spectator would have soon seen to be a +careful reconnoitering of the whole northern side of the house. They +seemed to examine the windows, a garden door, the recesses in the +walls, the old lead piping, the creepers and shrubs. Then one of them, +keeping close to the house wall, which was in deep shadow, went quickly +round to the back. The other awaited her. In the distance rose at +intervals a dog's uneasy bark. + +In a very few minutes the woman who had gone round the house returned +and the two, slipping back into the dense belt of wood from which they +had come, were instantly swallowed up by it. Their appearance and their +movements throughout had been as phantom-like and silent as the shadows +which were now engulfing the house. Anyone who had seen them come and +go might almost have doubted his own eyes. + + * * * * * + +Daunt the Keeper returned leisurely to his quarters in some back +premises of Monk Lawrence, at the southeastern corner of the house. But +he had but just opened his own door when he again heard the sound of +footsteps in the fore-court. + +"Well, what's come to the folk to-night"--he muttered, with some +ill-humour, as he turned back towards the front. + +A woman!--standing with her back to the house, in the middle of the +forecourt as though the place belonged to her, and gazing at the piled +clouds of the west, still haunted by the splendour just past away. + +A veritable Masque of Women, all of the Maenad sort, had by now begun +to riot through Daunt's brain by night and day. He raised his voice +sharply-- + +"What's your business here, Ma'am? There is no public road past this +house." + +The lady turned, and came towards him. + +"Don't you know who I am, Mr. Daunt? But I remember you when I was a +child." + +Daunt peered through the dusk. + +"You have the advantage of me, Madam," he said, stiffly. "Kindly give +me your name." + +"Miss Blanchflower--from Maumsey Abbey!" said a young, conscious voice. +"I used to come here with my grandmother, Lady Blanchflower. I have +been intending to come and pay you a visit for a long time--to have a +look at the old house again. And just now I was passing the foot of +your hill in a motor; something went wrong with the car, and while they +were mending it, I ran up. But it's getting dark so quick, one can +hardly see anything!" + +Daunt's attitude showed no relaxation. Indeed, quick recollections +assailed him of certain reports in the local papers, now some ten days +old. Miss Blanchflower indeed! She was a brazen one--after all done and +said. + +"Pleased to see you, Miss, if you'll kindly get an order from Sir +Wilfrid. But I have strict instructions from Sir Wilfrid not to admit +anyone--not anyone whatsoever--to the gardens or the house, without his +order." + +"I should have thought, Mr. Daunt, that only applied to strangers." The +tones shewed annoyance. "My father, Sir Robert Blanchflower, was an old +friend of Sir Wilfrid's." + +"Can't help it, Miss," said Daunt, not without the secret zest of the +Radical putting down his "betters." "There are queer people about. I +can't let no one in without an order." + +As he spoke, a gate slammed on his left, and Daunt, with the feeling of +one beset, turned in wrath to see who might be this new intruder. Since +the house had been closed to visitors, and a notice to the effect had +been posted in the village, scarcely a soul had penetrated through its +enclosing woods, except Miss Amberley, who came to teach Daunts +crippled child. And now in one evening here were three assaults upon +its privacy! + +But as to the third he was soon reassured. + +"Hullo, Daunt, is that you? Did I hear you telling Miss Blanchflower +you can't let her in? But you know her of course?" said a man's easy +voice. + +Delia started. The next moment her hand was in her guardian's, and she +realised that he had heard the conversation between herself and Daunt, +realised also that she had committed a folly not easily to be +explained, either to Winnington or herself, in obeying the impulse +which--half memory, half vague anxiety,--had led her to pay this +sudden visit to the house. Gertrude Marvell had left Maumsey that +morning, saying she should be in London for the day. Had Gertrude been +with her, Delia would have let Monk Lawrence go by. For in Gertrude's +company it had become an instinct with her--an instinct she scarcely +confessed to herself--to avoid all reference to the house. + +At sight of Winnington, however, who was clearly a privileged person in +his eyes, Daunt instantly changed his tone. + +"Good evening, Sir. Perhaps you'll explain to this young lady? We've +got to keep a sharp lookout--you know that, Sir." + +"Certainly, Daunt, certainly. I am sure Miss Blanchflower understands. +But you'll let _me_ shew her the house, I imagine?" + +"Why, of course, Sir! There's nothing you can't do here. Give me a few +minutes--I'll turn on some lights. Perhaps the young lady will walk +in?" He pointed to his own rooms. "So you still keep the electric +light going?" + +"By Sir Wilfrid's wish, Sir,--so as if anything did happen these winter +nights, we mightn't be left in darkness. The engine works a bit now and +then." + +He led the way towards his quarters. The door into his kitchen stood +open, and in the glow of fire and lamp stood his three children, who +had been eagerly listening to the conversation outside. One of them, a +little girl, was leaning on a crutch. She looked up happily as +Winnington entered. + +"Well, Lily--" he pinched her cheek--"I've got something to tell Father +about you. Say 'how do you do' to this lady." The child put her hand in +Delia's, looking all the while ardently at Winnington. + +"Am I going to be in your school, Sir?" + +"If you're good. But you'll have to be dreadfully good!" + +"I am good," said Lily, confidently. "I want to be in your school, +please Sir." + +"But such a lot of other little girls want to come too! Must I leave +them out?" + +Lily shook her head perplexed. "But you promithed," she lisped, very +softly. + +Winnington laughed. The child's hand had transferred itself to his, and +nestled there. + +"What school does she mean?" asked Delia. + +At the sound of her voice Winnington turned to her for the first time. +It was as though till then he had avoided looking at her, lest the +hidden thought in each mind should be too plain to the other. He had +found her--Sir Robert Blanchflower's daughter--on the point of being +curtly refused admission to the house where her father had been a +familiar inmate, and where she herself had gone in and out as a child. +And he knew why; she knew why; Daunt knew why. She was a person under +suspicion, a person on whom the community was keeping watch. + +Nevertheless, Winnington entirely believed what he had overheard her +say to the keeper. It was no doubt quite true that she had turned aside +to see Monk Lawrence on a sudden impulse of sentiment or memory. Odd +that it should be so!--but like her. That _she_ could have any designs +on the beautiful old place was indeed incredible; and it was equally +incredible that she would aid or abet them in anyone else. And +yet--there was that monstrous speech at Latchford, made in her hearing, +by her friend and co-militant, the woman who shared her life! Was it +any wonder that Daunt bristled at the sight of her? + +He had, however, to answer her question. + +"My county school," he explained. "The school for invalid +children--'physical defectives'--that we are going to open next summer. +I came to tell Daunt there'd be a place for this child. She's an old +friend of mine." He smiled down upon the nestling creature--"Has Miss +Amberley been to see you lately, Lily?" + +At this moment Daunt returned to the kitchen, with the news that the +house was ready. "The light's not quite what it ought to be, Sir, but I +daresay you'll be able to see a good deal. Miss Amberley, Sir, she's +taught Lily fine. I'm sure we're very much obliged to her--and to you +for asking her." + +"I don't know what the sick children here will do without her, Daunt. +She's going away--wants to be a nurse." + +"Well, I'm very sorry, Sir. She'll be badly missed." + +"That she will. Shall we go in?" Winnington turned to Delia, who +nodded assent, and followed him into the dim passages beyond the +brightly-lighted kitchen. The children, looking after them, saw the +beautiful lady disappearing, and felt vaguely awed by her height, her +stiff carriage and her proud looks. + +Delia, indeed, was again--and as usual--in revolt, against herself and +circumstances. Why had she been such a fool as to come to Monk Lawrence +at all, and then to submit to seeing it--on sufferance!--in +Winnington's custody? And how he must be contrasting her with Susy +Amberley!--the soft sister of charity, plying her womanly tasks, in the +manner of all good women, since the world began! She saw herself as the +anarchist prowling outside, tracked, spied on, held at arm's length by +all decent citizens, all lovers of ancient beauty, and moral tradition; +while, within, women like Susy Amberley sat Madonna-like, with the +children at their knee. "Well, we stand for the children too--the +children of the future!" she said to herself defiantly. + +"This is the old hall--and the gallery that was put up in honour of +Elizabeth's visit here in 1570--" she heard Winnington saying--"One of +the finest things of its kind. But you can hardly see it." + +The electric light indeed was of the feeblest. A dim line of it ran +round the carved ceiling, and glimmered in the central chandelier. But +the mingled illumination of sunset and moonrise from outside contended +with it on more than equal terms; and everything in the hall, +tapestries, armour, and old oak, the gallery above, the dais with its +carved chairs below, had the dim mystery of a stage set ready for the +play, before the lights are on. + +Daunt apologised. + +"The gardener'll be here directly, Sir. He knows how to manage it +better than I." + +And in spite of protests from the two visitors he ran off again to see +what could he done to better the light. Delia turned impetuously on her +companion. + +"I know you think I have no business to be here!" + +Winnington paused a moment, then said-- + +"I was rather astonished to see you here, certainly." + +"Because of what we said at Latchford the other day?" + +"_You_ didn't say it!" + +"But I agreed with it--I agreed with every word of it!" + +"Then indeed I _am_ astonished that you should wish to see Sir Wilfrid +Lang's house!" he said, with energy. + +"My recollections of it have nothing to do with Sir Wilfrid. I never +saw him that I know of." + +"All the same, it belongs to him." + +"No!--to history--to the nation!" + +"Then let the nation guard it--and every individual in the nation! But +do you think Miss Marvell would take much pains to protect it?" + +"Gertrude said nothing about the house." "No; but if I had been one of +the excitable women you command, my one desire after that speech would +have been to do some desperate damage to Sir Wilfrid, or his property. +If anything does happen, I am afraid everyone in the neighbourhood will +regard her as responsible." + +Delia moved impatiently. "Can't we say what we think of Sir +Wilfrid--because he happens to possess a beautiful house?" + +"If you care for Monk Lawrence, you do so,--with this campaign on +foot--only at great risk. Confess, Miss Delia!--that you were sorry for +that speech!" + +He turned upon her with animation. + +She spoke as though under pressure, her head thrown back, her face +ivory within the black frame of the veil. + +"I--I shouldn't have made it." + +"That's not enough. I want to hear you say you regret it!" + +The light suddenly increased, and she saw him looking at her, his +eyes bright and urgent, his attitude that of the strong yet mild +judge, whose own moral life watches keenly for any sign of grace in +the accused before him. She realised for an angry moment what his +feeling must be--how deep and invincible, towards these "outrages" +which she and Gertrude Marvell regarded by now as so natural and +habitual--outrages that were calmly planned and organised, as she knew +well, at the head offices of their society, by Gertrude Marvell among +others, and acquiesced in--approved--by hundreds of persons like +herself, who either shrank from taking a direct part in them, or had no +opportunity of doing so. "But I shall soon make opportunities!--" she +thought, passionately; "I'm not going to be a shirker!" Aloud she said +in her stiffest manner--"I stand by my friends, Mr. Winnington, +especially when they are ten times better and nobler than I!" + +His expression changed. He turned, like any courteous stranger, to +playing the part of showman of the house. Once more a veil had fallen +between them. + +He led her through the great suite of rooms on the ground-floor, the +drawing-room, the Red Parlour, the Chinese room, the Library. They +recalled her childish visits to the house with her grandmother, and a +score of recollections, touching or absurd, rushed into her mind--but +not to her lips. Dumbness had fallen on her;--nothing seemed worth +saying, and she hurried through. She was conscious only of a rich +confused impression of old seemliness and mellowed beauty,--steeped in +fragrant and famous memories, English history, English poetry, English +art, breathing from every room and stone of the house. "In the Red +Parlour, Sidney wrote part of the 'Arcadia.'--In the room overhead +Gabriel Harvey slept.--In the Porch rooms Chatham stayed--his autograph +is there.--Fox advised upon all the older portion of the Library"--and +so on. She heard Winnington's voice as though through a dream. What did +it matter? She felt the house an oppression--as though it accused or +threatened her. + +As they emerged from the library into a broad passage, Winnington +noticed a garden door at the north end of the passage, and called to +Daunt who was walking behind them. They went to look at it, leaving +Delia in the corridor. + +"Not very secure, is it?" said Winnington, pointing to the glazed upper +half of the door--"anyone might get in there." + +"I've told Sir Wilfrid, Sir, and sent him the measurements. There's to +be an iron shutter." + +"H'm--that may take time. Why not put up something +temporary?--cross-bars of some sort?" + +They came back towards Delia, discussing it. Unreasonably, absurdly, +she held it an offence that Winnington should discuss it in her +presence; her breath grew stormy. + +Daunt turned to the right at the foot of a carved staircase, and down a +long passage leading to the kitchens, he and Winnington still talking. +Suddenly--a short flight of steps, not very visible in a dark place. +Winnington descended them, and then turned to look for Delia who was +just behind-- + +"Please take care!--" + +But he was too late. Head in air--absorbed in her own passionate mood, +Delia never saw the steps, till her foot slipped on the topmost. She +would have fallen headlong, had not Winnington caught her. His arms +received her, held her, released her. The colour rushed into his face +as into hers. "You are not hurt?" he said anxiously. "I ought to have +held a light," said Daunt, full of concern. But the little incident had +broken the ice. Delia laughed, and straightened her Cavalier hat, which +had suffered. She was still rosy as they entered Daunt's kitchen, and +the children who had seen her silent and haughty entrance, hardly +recognised the creature all life and animation who returned to them. + +The car stood waiting in the fore-court. Winnington put her in. As +Delia descended the hill alone in the dark, she closed her eyes, that +she might the more completely give herself to the conflict of thoughts +which possessed her. She was bitterly ashamed and sore, torn between +her passionate affection for Gertrude Marvell, and what seemed to her a +weak and traitorous wish to stand better with Mark Winnington. Nor +could she escape from the memory--the mere physical memory--of those +strong arms round her, resent it as she might. + + * * * * * + +As for Winnington, when he reached home in the moonlight, instead of +going in to join his sister at tea, he paced a garden path till night +had fallen. What was this strong insurgent feeling he could neither +reason with nor silence? It seemed to have stolen upon him, amid a host +of other thoughts and pre-occupations, secretly and insidiously, till +there it stood--full-grown--his new phantom self--challenging the old, +the normal self, face to face. + +Trouble, self-scorn overwhelmed him. Recalling all his promises +to himself, all his assurances to Lady Tonbridge, he stood convicted, +as the sentry who has shut his eyes and let the invader pass. +Monstrous!--that in his position, with this difference of age between +them, he should have allowed such ideas to grow and gather head. +Beautiful wayward creature!--all the more beguiling, because of the +Difficulties that bristled round her. His common sense, his judgment +were under no illusions at all about Delia Blanchflower. And yet-- + +This then was _passion_!--which must be held down and reasoned down. +He would reason it down. She must and should marry a man of her own +generation--youth with youth. And, moreover, to give way to these wild +desires would be simply to alienate her, to destroy all his own power +with her for good. + +The ghostly presence of his life came to him. He cried out to her, made +appeal to her, in sackcloth and ashes. And then, in some mysterious, +heavenly way she was revealed to him afresh; not as an enemy whom he +had offended, not as a lover slighted, but as his best and tenderest +friend. She closed no gates against the future:--that was for himself +to settle, if closed they were to be. She seemed to walk with him, hand +in hand, sister with brother--in a deep converse of souls. + + + + +Chapter XI + + +Gertrude Marvell was sitting alone at the Maumsey breakfast-table, in +the pale light of a December day. All around her were letters and +newspapers, to which she was giving an attention entirely denied to her +meal. She opened them one after another, with a frown or a look of +satisfaction, classifying them in heaps as she read, and occasionally +remembering her coffee or her toast. The parlourmaid waited on her, but +knew very well--and resented the knowledge--that Miss Marvell was +scarcely aware of her existence, or her presence in the room. + +But presently the lady at the table asked-- + +"Is Miss Blanchflower getting up?" + +"She will be down directly, Miss." + +Gertrude's eyebrows rose, unconsciously. She herself was never late for +an 8:30 breakfast, and never went to bed till long after midnight. The +ways of Delia, who varied between too little sleep and the long nights +of fatigue, seemed to her self-indulgent. + +After her letters had been put aside and the ordinary newspapers, she +took up a new number of the _Tocsin_. The first page was entirely given +up to an article headed "How LONG?" She read it with care, her delicate +mouth tightening a little. She herself had suggested the lines of it a +few days before, to the Editor, and her hints had been partially +carried out. It gave a scathing account of Sir Wilfrid's course on the +suffrage question--of his earlier coquettings with the woman's cause, +his defection and "treachery," the bitter and ingenious hostility with +which he was now pursuing the Bill before the House of Commons. "An +amiable, white-haired nonentity for the rest of the world--who only +mention him to marvel that such a man was ever admitted to an English +Cabinet--to us he is the 'smiler with the knife,' the assassin of the +hopes of women, the reptile in the path. The Bill is weakening every +day in the House, and on the night of the second reading it will +receive its 'coup de grace' from the hand of Sir Wilfrid Lang. Women of +England--_how long_!--" + +Gertrude pushed the newspaper aside in discontent. Her critical sense +was beginning to weary of the shrieking note. And the descent from the +"assassin of the hopes of women" to "the reptile in the path" struck +her as a silly bathos. + +Suddenly, a reverie--a waking dream--fell upon her, a visionary +succession of sights and sounds. A dying sunset--and a rising wind, +sighing through dense trees--old walls--the light from a kitchen +window--voices in the distance--the barking of a dog.... + +"Oh Gertrude!--how late I am!" + +Delia entered hurriedly, with an anxious air. + +"I should have been down long ago, but Weston had one of her attacks, +and I have been looking after her." + +Weston was Delia's maid who had been her constant companion for ten +years. She was a delicate nervous woman, liable to occasional onsets of +mysterious pain, which terrified both herself and her mistress, and had +hitherto puzzled the doctor. + +Gertrude received the news with a passing concern. + +"Better send for France, if you are worried. But I expect it will be +soon over." + +"I don't know. It seems worse than usual. The man in Paris threatened +an operation. And here we are--going up to London in a fortnight!" + +"Well, you need only send her to the Brownmouth hospital, or leave her +here with France and a good nurse." + +"She has the most absurd terror of hospitals, and I certainly couldn't +leave her," said Delia, with a furrowed brow. + +"You certainly couldn't stay behind!" Gertrude looked up pleasantly. + +"Of course I want to come--" said Delia slowly. + +"Why, darling, how could we do without you? You don't know how you're +wanted. Whenever I go up town, it's the same--'When's she coming?' Of +course they understood you must be here for a while--but the heart of +things, the things that concern _us_--is London." + +"What did you hear yesterday?" asked Delia, helping herself to some +very cold coffee. Nothing was ever kept warm for her, the owner of the +house; everything was always kept warm for Gertrude. Yet the fact arose +from no Sybaritic tendency whatever on Gertrude's part. Food, clothing, +sleep--no religious ascetic could have been more sparing than she, in +her demands upon them. She took them as they came--well or ill +supplied; too pre-occupied to be either grateful or discontented. And +what she neglected for herself, she equally neglected for other people. + +"What did I hear?" repeated Gertrude. "Well, of course, everything is +rushing on. There is to be a raid on Parliament as soon as the session +begins--and a deputation to Downing Street. A number of new plans, and +devices are being discussed. And there seemed to me to be more +volunteers than ever for 'special service'?" + +She looked up quietly and her eyes met Delia's;--in hers a steely +ardour, in Delia's a certain trouble. + +"Well, we want some cheering up," said the girl, rather wearily. "Those +two last meetings were--pretty depressing!--and so were the +bye-elections." + +She was thinking of the two open-air meetings at Brownmouth and +Frimpton. There had been no violence offered to the speakers, as in the +Latchford case; the police had seen to that. Her guardian had made no +appearance at either, satisfied, no doubt, after enquiry, that she was +not likely to come to harm. But the evidence of public disapproval +could scarcely have been more chilling--more complete. Both her +speaking, and that of Gertrude and Paul Lathrop, seemed to her to have +dropped dead in exhausted air. An audience of boys and girls--an +accompaniment of faint jeers, testifying rather to boredom than +hostility--a sense of blank waste and futility when all was over:--her +recollection had little else to shew. + +Gertrude interrupted her thought. + +"My dear Delia!--what you want is to get out of this backwater, and +back into the main stream! Even I get stale here. But in those great +London meetings--there one catches on again!--one realises again--what +it all _means_! Why not come up with me next week, even if the flat's +not ready? I can't have you running down like this! Let's hurry up and +get to London." + +The speaker had risen, and standing behind Delia, she laid her hand on +the waves of the girl's beautiful hair. Delia looked up. + +"Very well. Yes, I'll come. I've been getting depressed. I'll come--at +least if Weston's all right." + + * * * * * + +"I'm afraid, Miss Blanchflower, this is a very serious business!" + +Dr. France was the speaker. He stood with his back to the fire, and his +hands behind him, surveying Delia with a look of absent thoughtfulness; +the look of a man of science on the track of a problem. + +Delia's aspect was one of pale consternation. She had just heard that +the only hope of the woman, now wrestling upstairs with agonies of +pain, lay in a critical and dangerous operation, for which at least a +fortnight's preliminary treatment would be necessary. A nurse was to be +sent for at once, and the only question to be decided was where and by +whom the thing was to be done. + +"We _can_ move her," said France, meditatively; "though I'd rather not. +And of course a hospital is the best place." + +"She won't go! Her mother died in a hospital, and Weston thinks she was +neglected." + +"Absurd! I assure you," said France warmly. "Nobody is neglected in +hospitals." + +"But one can't persuade her--and if she's forced against her will, +it'll give her no chance!" said Delia in distress. "No, it must be +here. You say we can get a good man from Brownmouth?" + +They discussed the possibilities of an operation at Maumsey. + +Insensibly the doctor's tone during the conversation grew more +friendly, as it proceeded. A convinced opponent of "feminism" in all +its forms, he had thought of Delia hitherto as merely a wrong-headed, +foolish girl, and could hardly bring himself to be civil at all to her +chaperon, who in his eyes belonged to a criminal society, and was +almost certainly at that very moment engaged in criminal practices. But +Delia, absorbed in the distresses of someone she cared for, all heart +and eager sympathy, her loveliness lending that charm to all she said +and looked which plainer women must so frequently do without was a very +mollifying and ingratiating spectacle. France began to think +her--misled and unbalanced of course--but sound at bottom. He ended by +promising to make all arrangements himself, and to go in that very +afternoon to see the great man at Brownmouth. + +When Delia returned to her maid's room, the morphia which had been +administered was beginning to take effect, and Weston, an elderly woman +with a patient, pleasing face, lay comparatively at rest, her tremulous +look expressing at once the keenness of the suffering past, and the +bliss of respite. Delia bent over her, dim-eyed. + +"Dear Weston--we've arranged it all--it's going to be done here. You'll +be at home--and I shall look after you." + +Weston put out a clammy hand and faintly pressed Delia's warm fingers-- + +"But you were going to London, Miss. I don't want to put you out so." + +"I shan't go till you're out of the wood, so go to sleep--and don't +worry." + + * * * * * + +"Delia!--for Heaven's sake be reasonable. Leave Weston to France, and a +couple of good nurses. She'll be perfectly looked after. You'll put out +all out plans--you'll risk everything!" + +Gertrude Marvell had risen from her seat in front of a crowded desk. +The secretary who generally worked with her in the old gun room, now +become a militant office, had disappeared in obedience to a signal from +her chief. Anger and annoyance were plainly visible on Gertrude's small +chiselled features. + +Delia shook her head. + +"I can't!" she said. "I've promised. Weston has pulled _me_ through two +bad illnesses--once when I had pneumonia in Paris--and once after a +fall out riding. I daresay I shouldn't be here at all, but for her. If +she's going to have a fight for her life--and Doctor France doesn't +promise she'll get through--I shall stand by her." + +Gertrude grew a little sallower than usual as her black eyes fastened +themselves on the girl before her who had hitherto seemed so ductile in +her hands. It was not so much the incident itself that alarmed her as a +certain new tone in Delia's voice. + +"I thought we had agreed--that nothing--_nothing_--was to come before +the Cause!" she said quietly, but insistently. + +Delia's laugh was embarrassed. + +"I never promised to desert Weston, Gertrude. I couldn't--any more than +I could desert you." + +"We shall want every hand--every ounce of help that can be got--through +January and February. You undertook to do some office work, to help in +the organisation of the processions to Parliament, to speak at a number +of meetings--" + +Delia interrupted. + +"As soon as Weston is out of danger, I'll go--of course I'll go!--about +a month from now, perhaps less. You will have the flat, Gertrude, all +the same, and as much money as I can scrape together--after the +operation's paid for. I don't matter a tenth part as much as you, you +know I don't; I haven't been at all a success at these meetings +lately!" + +There was a certain young bitterness in the tone. + +"Well, of course you know what people will say." + +"That I'm shirking--giving in? Well, you can contradict it." + +Delia turned from the window beside which she was standing to look at +Gertrude. A pale December sunshine shone on the girl's half-seen face, +and on the lines of her black dress. A threatening sense of change, +mingled with a masterful desire to break down the resistance offered, +awoke in Gertrude. But she restrained the dictatorial instinct. +Instead, she sat down beside the desk again, and covered her face with +her hand. + +"If I couldn't contradict it--if I couldn't be sure of you--I might as +well kill myself," she said with sudden and volcanic passion, though in +a voice scarcely raised above its ordinary note. + +Delia came to her impulsively, knelt down and put her arms round her. + +"You know you can be sure of me!" she said, reproachfully. + +Gertrude held her away from her. Her eyes examined the lovely face so +close to her. + +"On the contrary! You are being influenced against me." + +Delia laughed. + +"By whom, please?" + +"By the man who has you in his power--under our abominable laws." + +"By my guardian?--by Mark Winnington? Really! Gertrude! Considering +that I had a fresh quarrel with him only last week--on your account--at +Monk Lawrence--" + +Gertrude released herself by a sudden movement. + +"When were you at Monk Lawrence?" + +"Why, that afternoon, when you were in town. I missed my train at +Latchford, and took a motor home." There was some consciousness in the +girl's look and tone which did not escape her companion. She was +evidently aware that her silence on the incident might appear strange +to Gertrude. However, she frankly described her adventure, Daunt's +surliness, and Winnington's appearance. + +"He arrived in the nick of time, and made Daunt let me in. Then, while +we were going round, he began to talk about your speech, and wanted to +make me say I was sorry for it. And I wouldn't! And then--well, he +thought very poorly of me--and we parted--coolly. We've scarcely met +since. And that's all." + +"What speech?" Gertrude was sitting erect now with queerly bright eyes. + +"The speech about Sir Wilfrid--at Latchford." + +"What else does he expect?" + +"I don't know. But--well, I may as well say, Gertrude--to you, though I +wouldn't say it to him--that I--I didn't much admire that speech +either!" + +Delia was now sitting on the floor with her hands round her knees, +looking up. The slight stiffening of her face shewed that it had been +an effort to say what she had said. + +"So _you_ think that Lang ought to be approached with 'bated breath and +whispering humbleness'--just as he is on the point of trampling us and +our cause into the dirt?" + +"No--certainly not! But why hasn't he as good a right to his opinion as +we to ours--without being threatened with personal violence?" + +Gertrude drew a long breath of amazement. + +"I don't quite see, Delia, why you ever joined the 'Daughters'--or why +you stay with them." + +"That's not fair!"--protested Delia, the colour flooding in her cheeks. +"As for burning stupid villas--that are empty and insured--or +boathouses--or piers--or tea-pavilions, to keep the country in +mind of us,--that's one thing. But threatening _persons_ with +violence--that's--somehow--another thing. And as to villas and piers +even--to be quite honest--I sometimes wonder, Gertrude!--I declare, I'm +beginning to wonder! And why shouldn't one take up one's policy from +time to time and look at it, all round, with a free mind? We haven't +been doing particularly well lately." + +Gertrude laughed--a dry, embittered sound--as she pushed the _Tocsin_ +from her. + +"Oh well, of course, if you're going to desert us in the worst of the +fight, and to follow your guardian's lead--" + +"But I'm not!" cried Delia, springing to her feet. "Try me. Haven't I +promised--a hundred things? Didn't I say all you expected me to say at +Latchford? And, on the whole"--her voice dragged a little--"the empty +houses and the cricket pavilions--still seem to me fair game. It's +only--as to the good it does. Of course--if it were Monk Lawrence--" + +"Well--if it were Monk Lawrence?" + +"I should think that a crime! I told you so before." + +"Why?" + +Delia looked at her friend with a contracted brow. + +"Because--it's a national possession! Lang's only the temporary +owner--the trustee. We've no right to destroy what belongs to +_England_." + +Gertrude laughed again--as she rose from the tea-table. + +"Well, as long as women are slaves, I don't see what England matters to +them. However, don't trouble yourself. Monk Lawrence is all right. And +Mr. Winnington's a charmer--we all know that." + +Delia flushed angrily. But Gertrude, having gathered up her papers, +quietly departed, leaving her final shaft to work. + +Delia went back to her own sitting-room, but was too excited, too +tremulous indeed, to settle to her letters. She had never yet found +herself in direct collision with Gertrude, impetuous as her own temper +was. Their friendship had now lasted nearly three years. She looked +back to their West Indian acquaintance, that first year of adoration, +of long-continued emotion,--mind and heart growing and blossoming +together. Gertrude, during that year, had not only aroused her pupil's +intelligence; she had taught a motherless girl what the love of women +may be for each other. To make Gertrude happy, to be approved by her, +to watch her, to sit at her feet--the girl of nineteen had asked +nothing more. Gertrude's accomplishments, her coolness, her +self-reliance, the delicate precision of her small features and frame, +the grace of her quiet movements, her cold sincerity, the unyielding +scorns, the passionate loves and hates that were gradually to be +discovered below the even dryness of her manner,--by these Delia had +been captured; by these indeed, she was still held. Gertrude was to her +everything that she herself was not. And when her father had insisted +on separating her from her friend, her wild resentment, and her girlish +longing for the forbidden had only increased Gertrude's charm tenfold. + +The eighteen months of their separation, too, had coincided with the +rise of that violent episode in the feminist movement which was +represented by the founding and organisation of the "Daughters" +society. Gertrude though not one of the first contrivers and +instigators of it, had been among the earliest of its converts. Its +initial successes had been the subject of all her letters to Delia; +Delia had walked on air to read them. At last the world was moving, was +rushing--and it seemed that Gertrude was in the van. Women were at last +coming to their own; forcing men to acknowledge them as equals and +comrades; and able to win victory, not by the old whining and +wheedling, but by their own strength. The intoxication of it filled the +girl's days and nights. She thought endlessly of processions and raids, +of street-preaching, or Hyde Park meetings. Gertrude went to prison for +a few days as the result of a raid on Downing Street. Delia, in one +dull hotel after another, wearily following her father from "cure" to +"cure," dreamed hungrily and enviously of Gertrude's more heroic fate. +Everything in those days was haloed for her--the Movement, its first +violent acts, what Gertrude did, and what Gertrude thought--she saw it +all transfigured and aflame. + +And now, since her father's death, they had been four months +together--she and her friend--in the closest intimacy, sharing--or so +Delia supposed--every thought and every prospect. Delia for the greater +part of that time _had_ been all glad submission and unquestioning +response. It was quite natural--absolutely right--that Gertrude should +command her house, her money, her daily life. She only waited for +Gertrude's orders; it would be her pride to carry them out. Until-- + +What had happened? The girl, standing motionless beside her window, +confessed to herself, as she had not been willing to confess to +Gertrude, that something _had_ happened--some change of climate and +temperature in her own life. + +In the first place, the Movement was not prospering. Why deny it? Who +could deny it? Its first successes were long past; its uses as +advertisement were exhausted; the old violences and audacities, as they +were repeated, fell dead. The cause of Woman Suffrage had certainly not +advanced. Check after check had been inflicted on it. The number of its +supporters in the House of Commons had gone down and down. By-elections +were only adding constantly to the number of its opponents. + +"Well, what then?"--said the stalwarts of the party--"More outrages, +more arson, more violence! We _must_ win at last!" And, meanwhile, +blowing through England like a steadily increasing gale, could be felt +the force of public anger, public condemnation. + +Delia since her return to England had felt the chill of it, for the +first time, on her own nerves and conscience. For the first time she +had winced--morally--even while she mocked at her own shrinking. + +Was that Gertrude pacing outside? The day was dark and stormy. But +Gertrude, who rarely took a walk for pleasure, scarcely ever missed the +exercise which was necessary to keep her in health. Her slight figure, +wrapped in a fur cape, paced a sheltered walk. Her shoulders were bent, +her eyes on the ground. Suddenly it struck Delia that she had begun to +stoop, that she looked older and thinner than usual. + +"She is killing herself!"--thought the girl in a sudden +anguish--"killing herself with work and anxiety. And yet she always +says she is so strong. What can I do? There is nobody that matters to +her--nobody!--but me!" + +And she recalled all she knew--it was very little--of Gertrude's +personal history. She had been unhappy at home. Her mother, a widow, +had never been able to get on with her elder daughter, while petting +and spoiling her only son and her younger girl, who was ten years +Gertrude's junior. Gertrude had been left a small sum of money by a +woman friend, and had spent it in going to a west-country university +and taking honours in history. She never spoke now of either her mother +or her sister. Her sister was married, but Gertrude held no +communication with her or her children. Delia had always felt it +impossible to ask questions about her, and believed, with a thrilled +sense of mystery, that some tragic incident or experience had separated +the two sisters. Her brother also, it seemed, was as dead to her. But +on all such personal matters Gertrude's silence was insuperable, and +Delia knew no more of them than on the first day of their meeting. + +Indomitable figure! Worn with effort and struggle--worn above all with +_hating_. Delia looked at it with a sob in her throat. Surely, surely, +the great passion, the great uplifting faith they had felt in common, +was vital, was true! Only, somehow, after the large dreams and hopes of +the early days, to come down to this perpetual campaign of petty +law-breaking, and futile outrage, to these odious meetings and shrieking +newspapers, was to be--well, discouraged!--heart-wearied. + +"Only, she is not wearied, or discouraged!" thought Delia, +despairingly. "And why am I?" + +Was it hatefully true--after all--that she was being influenced--drawn +away? + +The girl flushed, breathing quick. She must master herself!--get rid of +this foolish obsession of Winnington's presence and voice--of a pair of +grave, kind eyes--a look now perplexed, now sternly bright--a +personality, limited no doubt, not very accessible to what Gertrude +called "ideas," not quick to catch the last new thing, but honest, +noble, tender, through and through. + +Absurd! She was holding her own with him; she would hold her own. That +very day she must grapple with him afresh. She had sent him a note that +morning, and he had replied in a message that he would ride over to +luncheon. + +For the question of money was urgent. Delia was already overdrawn. Yet +supplies were wanted for the newly rented flat, for Weston's operation, +for Gertrude's expenses in London--for a hundred things. + +She paced up and down, imagining the conversation, framing eloquent +defences for her conduct, and again, from time to time, meanly, +shamefacedly reminding herself of Winnington's benefit under the will. +If she was a nuisance, she was at least a fairly profitable nuisance. + + * * * * * + +Winnington duly arrived at luncheon. The two ladies appeared to him as +usual--Gertrude Marvell, self-possessed and quietly gay, ready to +handle politics or books, on so light a note, that Winnington's acute +recollection of her, as the haranguing fury on the Latchford waggon, +began to seem absurd even to himself. Delia also, lovely, restless, +with bursts of talk, and more significant bursts of silence, produced +on him her normal effect--as of a creature made for all delightful +uses, and somehow jangled and out of tune. + +After luncheon, she led the way to her own sitting-room. "I am afraid I +must talk business," she said abruptly as she closed the door and stood +confronting him. "I am overdrawn, Mr. Winnington, and I must have some +more money." + +Winnington laid down his cigarette, and looked at her in open-mouthed +amazement. + +"Overdrawn!--but--we agreed--" + +"I know. You gave me what you thought was ample. Well, I have spent it, +and there is nothing left to pay house bills, or servants with, or--or +anything." + +Her pale defiance gave him at once a hint of the truth. + +"I fear I must ask what it has been spent on," he said, after a pause. + +"Certainly. I gave L500 of it in one cheque to Miss Marvell. Of course +you will guess how it has been spent." + +Winnington took up his cigarette again, and smoked it thoughtfully. His +colour was, perhaps, a little higher than usual. + +"I am sorry you have done that. It makes it rather awkward both for you +and for me. Perhaps I had better explain. The lawyers have been +settling the debts on your father's estate. That took a considerable +sum. A mortgage has been paid off, according to directions in Sir +Robert's will. And some of the death duties have been paid. For the +moment there is no money at all in the Trust account. I hope to have +replenished it by the New Year, when I understood you would want fresh +funds." + +He sat on the arm of a chair and looked at her quietly. + +Delia made no attempt at explanation or argument. After a short +silence, she said-- + +"What will you do?" + +"I must, of course, lend you some of my own." + +Delia flushed violently. + +"That is surely absurd, Mr. Winnington! My father left a large sum!" + +"As his trustee I can only repeat that until some further securities +are realised--which may take a little time--I have no money. But _you_ +must have money--servants and tradesmen can't go unpaid. I will give +you, therefore, a cheque on my own bank--to replace that L500." + +He drew his cheque book from his breast pocket. Delia was stormily +walking up and down. It struck him sharply, first that she was wholly +taken by surprise; and next that shock and emotion play finely with +such a face as hers. He had never seen her so splendid. His own pulses +ran. + +"This--this is not at all what I want, Mr. Winnington! I want my own +money--my father's money! Why should I distress and inconvenience you?" + +"I have tried to explain." + +"Then let the lawyers find it somehow. Aren't they there to do such +things?" + +"I assure you this is simplest. I happen"--he smiled--"to have enough +in the bank. Alice and I can manage quite well till January!" + +The mention of Mrs. Matheson was quite intolerable in Delia's ears. She +turned upon him-- + +"I can't accept it! You oughtn't to ask it." + +"I think you must accept it," he said with decision. "But the important +question with me is--the further question--am I not really bound to +restore this money to your father's estate?" + +Delia stared at him bewildered. + +"What _do_ you mean!" + +"Your father made me his trustee in order that I might protect his +money--from uses of which he disapproved--and protect you, if I could, +from actions and companions he dreaded. This L500 has gone--where he +expressly wished it not to go. It seems to me that I am liable, and +that I ought to repay." + +Delia gasped. + +"I never heard anything so absurd!" + +"I will consider it," he said gravely. "It is a case of conscience. +Meanwhile"--he began to write the cheque--"here is the money. Only, let +me warn you, dear Miss Delia,--if this were repeated, I might find +myself embarrassed. I am not a rich man!" + +Silence. He finished writing the cheque, and handed it to her. Delia +pushed it away, and it dropped on the table between them. + +"It is simply tyranny--monstrous tyranny--that I should be coerced like +this!" she said, choking. "You must feel it so yourself! Put yourself +in my place, Mr. Winnington." + +"I think--I am first bound--to try and put myself in your father's +place," he said, with vivacity. "Where has that money gone, Miss +Delia?" + +He rose, and in his turn began to pace the little room. "It has been +proved, in evidence, that a great deal of this outrage is _paid_ +outrage--that it could not be carried on without money--however madly +and fanatically devoted, however personally disinterested the +organisers of it may be--such as Miss Marvell. You have, therefore, +taken your father's money to provide for this payment--payment for all +that his soul most abhorred. His will was his last painful effort to +prevent this being done. And yet--you have done it!" + +He looked at her steadily. + +"One may seem to do evil"--she panted--"but we have a faith, a cause, +which justifies it!" + +He shook his head sadly, + +Delia sat very still, tormented by a score of harassing thoughts. If +she could not provide money for the "Daughters" what particular use +could she be to Gertrude, or Gertrude's Committee? She could speak, and +walk in processions, and break up meetings. But so could hundreds of +others. It was her fortune--she knew it--that had made her so important +in Gertrude's eyes. It had always been assumed between them that a +little daring and a little adroitness would break through the meshes of +her father's will. And how difficult it was turning out to be! + +At that moment, an idea occurred to her. Her face, responsive as a +wave to the wind, relaxed. Its sullenness disappeared in sudden +brightness--in something like triumph. She raised her eyes. Their +tremulous, half whimsical look set Winnington wondering what she could +be going to say next. + +"You seem to have beaten me," she said, with a little nod--"or you +think you have." + +"I have no thoughts that you mightn't know," was the quiet reply. + +"You want me to promise not to do it again?" + +"If you mean to keep it." + +As he stood by the fire, looking down upon her rather sternly--she yet +perceived in his grey eyes, something of that expression she had seen +there at their first meeting--as though the heart of a good man tried +to speak to her. The same expression--and yet different; with something +added and interfused, which moved her strangely. + +"Odd as it may seem, I will keep it!" she said. "Yet without giving up +any earlier purpose, or promise, whatever." Each word was emphasized. + +His face changed. + +"I won't worry _you_ in any such way again," she added hastily and +proudly. + +Some other words were on her lips, but she checked them. She held out +her hand for the cheque, and the smile with which she accepted it, +after her preceding passion, puzzled him. + +She locked up the cheque in a drawer of her writing-table. Winnington's +horse passed the window, and he rose to go. She accompanied him to the +hall door and waved a light farewell. Winnington's response was +ceremonious. A sure instinct told him to shew no further softness. His +dilemma was getting worse and worse, and Lady Tonbridge had been no use +to him whatever. + + + + +Chapter XII + + +One of the first days of the New year rose clear and frosty. When the +young housemaid who had temporarily replaced Weston as Delia's maid +drew back her curtains at half-past seven, Delia caught a vision of an +opaline sky with a sinking moon and fading stars. A strewing of snow +lay on the ground, and the bare black trees rose, vividly separate, on +the white stretches of grass. Her window looked to the north along the +bases of the low range of hills which shut in the valley and the +village. A patch of paler colour on the purple slope of the hills +marked the long front of Monk Lawrence. + +As she sleepily roused herself, she saw her bed littered with dark +objects--two leather boxes of some size, and a number of miscellaneous +cases--and when the maid had left the room, she lay still, looking at +them. They were the signs and symbols of an enquiry she had lately been +conducting into her possessions, which seemed to her to have yielded +very satisfactory results. They represented in the main the contents of +a certain cupboard in the wall of her bedroom where Lady Blanchflower +had always kept her jewels, and where, in consequence, Weston had so +far locked away all that Delia possessed. Here were all her own girlish +ornaments--costly things which her father had given her at intervals +during the three or four years since her coming out; here were her +Mother's jewels, which Sir Robert had sent to his bankers after his +wife's death, and had never seen again during his lifetime; and here +were also a number of family jewels which had belonged to Delia's +grandmother, and had remained, after Lady Blanchflower's death, in the +custody of the family lawyers, till Delia, to whom they had been left +by will, had appeared to claim them. + +Delia had always known that she possessed a quantity of valuable +things, and had hitherto felt but small interest in them. Gertrude's +influence, and her own idealism had bred in her contempt for gauds. It +was the worst of breeding to wear anything for its mere money value; +and nothing whatever should be worn that wasn't in itself beautiful. +Lady Blanchflower's taste had been, in Delia's eyes, abominable; and +her diamonds,--tiaras, pendants and the rest--had absolutely nothing to +recommend them but their sheer brute cost. After a few glances at them, +the girl had shut them up and forgotten them. + +But they _were_ diamonds, and they must be worth some thousands. + +It was this idea which had flashed upon her during her last talk with +Winnington, and she had been brooding over it, and pondering it ever +since. Winnington himself was away. He and his sister had been spending +Christmas with some cousins in the midlands. Meanwhile Delia recognised +that his relation to her had been somewhat strained. His letters to her +on various points of business had been more formal than usual; and +though he had sent her a pocket Keats for a Christmas present, it had +arrived accompanied merely by his "kind regards" and she had felt +unreasonably aggrieved, and much inclined to send it back. His +cheque meanwhile for L500 had gone into Delia's bank. No help for +it--considering all the Christmas bills which had been pouring in! But +she panted for the time when she could return it. + +As for his threat of permanently refunding the money out of his own +pocket, she remembered it with soreness of spirit. Too bad! + +Well, there they lay, on the counterpane all round her--the means of +checkmating her guardian. For while she was rummaging in the wall-safe, +the night before, suddenly the fire had gone down, and the room had +sunk to freezing point. Delia, brought up in warm climates, had jumped +shivering into bed, and there, heaped round with the contents of the +cupboard, had examined a few more cases, till sleep and cold +overpowered her. + +In the grey morning light she opened some of the cases again. Vulgar +and ugly, if you like--but undeniably, absurdly worth money! Her dark +eyes caught the sparkle of the jewels running through her fingers. +These tasteless things--mercifully--were her own--her very own. +Winnington had nothing to say to them! She could wear them--or give +them--or sell them, as she pleased. + +She was alternately exultant, and strangely full of a fluttering +anxiety. The thought of returning Winnington's cheque was sweet to her. +But her disputes with him had begun to cost her more than she had ever +imagined they could or would. And the particular way out, which, a few +weeks before, she had so impatiently desired--that he should resign the +guardianship, and leave her to battle with the Court of Chancery as +best she could--was no longer so attractive to her. To be cherished and +cared for by Mark Winnington--no woman yet, but had found it +delightful. Insensibly Delia had grown accustomed to it--to his comings +and goings, his business-ways, abrupt sometimes, even peremptory, but +informed always by a kindness, a selflessness that amazed her. +Everyone wanted his help or advice, and he must refuse now--as he had +never refused before--because his time and thoughts were so much taken +up with his ward's affairs. Delia knew that she was envied; and knew +also that the neighbours thought her an ungrateful, unmanageable +hoyden, totally unworthy of such devotion. + +She sat up in bed, dreaming, her hands round her knees. No, she didn't +want Winnington to give her up! Especially since she had found this +easy way out. Why should there be any more friction between them at +all? All that _he_ gave her henceforward should be religiously spent on +the normal and necessary things. She would keep accounts if he liked, +like any good little girl, and shew them up. Let him do with the trust +fund exactly what he pleased. For a long time at any rate, she could be +independent of it. Why had she never thought of such a device before? + +But how to realise the jewels? In all business affairs, Delia was the +merest child. She had been brought up in the midst of large +expenditure, of which she had been quite unconscious. All preoccupation +with money had seemed to her mean and pettifogging. Have it!--and +spend it on what you want. But wants must be governed by ideas--by +ethical standards. To waste money on personal luxury, on eating, +drinking, clothes, or any form of mere display, in such a world as +Gertrude Marvell had unveiled to her, seemed to Delia contemptible and +idiotic. One must have _some_ nice clothes--some beauty in one's +surroundings--and the means of living as one wished to live. +Otherwise, to fume and fret about money, to be coveting instead of +giving, buying and bargaining, instead of thinking--or debating--was +degrading. She loathed shopping. It was the drug which put women's +minds to sleep. + +Who would help her? She pondered. She would tell no one till it was +done; not even Gertrude, whose cold, changed manner to her hurt the +girl's proud sense to think of. + +"I must do it properly--I won't be cheated!" + +The London lawyers? No. The local solicitor, Mr. Masham? No! Her vanity +was far too keenly conscious of their real opinion of her, through all +their politeness. + +Lady Tonbridge? No! She was Mark Winnington's intimate friend--and a +constitutional Suffragist. At the notion of consulting her,--on the +means of providing funds for "militancy"--Delia sprang out of bed, and +went to her dressing, dissolved in laughter. + +And presently--sobered again, and soft-eyed--she was stealing along the +passage to Weston's door for a word with the trained nurse who was now +in charge. Just a week now--to the critical day. + + * * * * * + +"Is Miss Marvell, in? Ask if she will see Mr. Lathrop for a few +minutes?" + +Paul Lathrop, left to himself, looked round Delia's drawing-room. It +set his teeth on edge. What pictures--what furniture! A certain +mellowness born of sheer time, no doubt--but with all its ugly +ingredients still repulsively visible. Why didn't the heiress burn +everything and begin again? Was all her money to be spent on burning +other people's property, when her own was so desperately in need of the +purging process--or on dreary meetings and unreadable newspapers? +Lathrop was already tired of these delights; his essentially Hedonist +temper was re-asserting itself. The "movement" had excited and +interested him for a time; had provided besides easy devices for +annoying stupid people. He had been eager to speak and write for it, +had persuaded himself that he really cared. + +But now candour--and he was generally candid with himself--made him +confess that but for Delia Blanchflower he would already have cut his +connection with the whole thing. He thought with a mixture of irony and +discomfort of his "high-falutin" letter to her. + +"And here I am--hanging round her"--he said to himself, as he strolled +about the room, peering through his eye-glass at its common vases, and +trivial knick-knacks--"just because Blaydes bothers me. I might as +well cry for the moon. But she's worth watching, by Jove. One gets copy +out of her, if nothing else! I vow I can't understand why my dithyrambs +move her so little--she's dithyrambic enough herself!" + +The door opened. He quickly pulled himself together. Gertrude Marvell +came in, and as she gave him an absent greeting, he was vaguely struck +by some change in her aspect, as Delia had long been. She had always +seemed to him a cold half-human being, in all ordinary matters. +But now she was paler, thinner, more remote than ever. "Nerves +strained--probably sleepless--" he said to himself. "It's the pace +they will live at--it kills them all." + +This kind of comment ran at the back of his brain, while he plunged +into the "business"--which was his pretence for calling. Gertrude, as a +District Organizer of the League of Revolt, had intrusted him with the +running of various meetings in small places, along the coast, for which +it humiliated him to remember that he had agreed to be paid. For at his +very first call upon them, Miss Marvell had divined his impecunious +state, and pounced upon him as an agent,--unknown, he thought, to Miss +Blanchflower. He came now to report what had been done, and to ask if +the meetings should be continued. + +Gertrude Marvell shook her head. + +"I have had some letters about your meetings. I doubt whether they have +been worth while." + +Miss Marvell's manner was that of an employer to an employee. Lathrop's +vanity winced. + +"May I know what was wrong with them?" + +Gertrude Marvell considered. Her gesture, unconsciously judicial, +annoyed Lathrop still further. + +"Too much argument, I hear,--and too little feeling. Our people wanted +more about the women in prison. And it was thought that you apologised +too much for the outrages." + +The last word emerged quite simply, as the only fitting one. + +Lathrop laughed,--rather angrily. + +"You must be aware, Miss Marvell, that the public thinks they want +defence." + +"Not from us!" she said, with energy. "No one speaking for us must ever +apologise for militant acts. It takes all the heart out of our people. +Justify them--glory in them--as much as you like." + +There was a pause. + +"Then you have no more work for me?" said Lathrop at last. + +"We need not, I think, trouble you again. Your cheque will of course be +sent from head-quarters." + +"That doesn't matter," said Lathrop, hastily. + +The reflection crossed his mind that there is an insolence of women far +more odious than the insolence of men. + +"After all they are our inferiors! It doesn't do to let them command +us," he thought, furiously. + +He rose to take his leave. + +"You are going up to London?" + +"I am going. Miss Blanchflower stays behind, because her maid is ill." + +He stood hesitating. Gertrude lifted her eyebrows as though he puzzled +her. She never had liked him, and by now all her instincts were hostile +to him. His clumsy figure, and slovenly dress offended her, and the +touch of something grandiose in his heavy brow, and reddish-gold hair, +seemed to her merely theatrical. Her information was that he had been +no use as a campaigner. Why on earth did he keep her waiting? + +"I suppose you have heard some of the talk going about?" he said at +last, shooting out the words. + +"What talk?" + +"They're very anxious about Monk Lawrence--after your speech. And +there are absurd stories. Women have been seen--at night--and so on." + +Gertrude laughed. + +"The more panic the better--for us." + +"Yes--so long as it stops there. But if anything happened to that +place, the whole neighbourhood would turn detective--myself included." + +He looked at her steadily. She leant one thin hand on a table behind +her. + +"No one of course would have a better chance than you. You are so +near." + +Their eyes crossed. "By George!" he thought--"you're in it. I believe +to God you're in it." + +And at that moment he felt that he hated the willowy, intangible +creature who had just treated him with contempt. + +But as they coldly touched hands, the door opened again, and Delia +appeared. + +"Oh I didn't mean to interrupt--" she said, retreating. + +"Come in, come in!" said Gertrude. "We have finished our business--and +Mr. Lathrop I am sure will excuse me--I must get some letters off by +post--" + +And with the curtest of bows she disappeared. + +"I have brought you a book, Miss Blanchflower," Lathrop nervously +began, diving into a large and sagging pocket. "You said you wanted to +see Madame de Noailles' second volume." + +He brought out "Les Eblouissements," and laid it on the table beside +her. Delia thanked him, and then, all in a moment, as she stood beside +him, a thought struck her. She turned her great eyes full upon him, and +he saw the colour rushing into her cheeks. + +"Mr. Lathrop!" + +"Yes." + +"Mr. Lathrop--I--I dreadfully want some practical advice. And I don't +know whom to ask." + +The soreness of his wounded self-love vanished in a moment. + +"What can I do for you?" he asked eagerly. And at once his own +personality seemed to expand, to throw off the shadow of something +ignoble it had worn in Gertrude's presence. For Delia, looking at him, +was attracted by him. The shabby clothes made no impression upon her, +but the blue eyes did. And the childishness which still survived in +her, beneath all her intellectualisms, came impulsively to the surface. + +"Mr. Lathrop, do you--do you know anything about jewelry?" + +"Jewelry? Nothing!--except that I have dabbled in pretty things of that +sort as I have dabbled in most things. I once did some designing for a +man who set up--in Bond Street--to imitate Lalique. Why do you ask? I +suppose you have heaps of jewels?" + +"Too many. I want to sell some jewels." + +"Sell?--But--" he looked at her in astonishment. + +She reddened still more deeply; but spoke with a frank charm. + +"You thought I was rich? Well, of course I ought to be. My father was +rich. But at present I have nothing of my own--nothing! It is all in +trust--and I can't get at it. But I _must_ have some money! Wait here a +moment!" + +She ran out of the room. When she came back she was carrying a +miscellaneous armful of jewellers' cases. She threw them down on the +sofa. + +"They are all hideous--but I am sure they're worth a great deal of +money." + +And she opened them with hasty fingers before his astonished eyes. In +his restless existence he had accumulated various odd veins of +knowledge, and he knew something of the jewelry trade of London. He had +not only drawn designs, he had speculated--unluckily--in "De Beers." +For a short time Diamonds had been an obsession with him, then Burmah +rubies. He had made money out of neither; it was not in his horoscope +to make money out of anything. However there was the result--a certain +amount of desultory information. + +He took up one piece after another, presently drawing a magnifying +glass out of his pocket to examine them the better. + +"Well, if you want money--" he said at last, putting down a _riviere_ +which had belonged to Delia's mother--"That alone will give you some +thousands!" + +Delia's eyes danced with satisfaction--then darkened. + +"That was Mamma's. Papa bought it at Constantinople--from an old +Turkish Governor--who had robbed a province--spent the loot in Paris +on his wives--and then had to disgorge half his fortune--to the +Sultan--who got wind of it. Papa bought it at a great bargain, and was +awfully proud of it. But after Mamma died, he sent it to the Bank, and +never thought of it again. I couldn't wear it, of course--I was too +young." + +"How much money do you want?" + +"Oh, a few thousands," said Delia, vaguely. "Five hundred pounds, first +of all." + +"And who will sell them for you?" + +She frowned in perplexity. + +"I--I don't know." + +"You don't wish to ask Mr. Winnington?" + +"Certainly not! They have nothing to do with him. They are my own +personal property," she added proudly. + +"Still he might object--Ought you not to ask him?" + +"I shall not tell him!" She straightened her shoulders. "He has far too +much bother on my account already." + +"Of course, if I could do anything for you--I should be delighted. But +I don't know why you should trust me. You don't know anything about +me!" He laughed uncomfortably. + +Delia laughed too--in some confusion. It seemed to him she suddenly +realised she had done something unusual. + +"It is very kind of you to suggest it--" she said, hesitating. + +"Not at all. It would amuse me. I have some threads I can pick up +still--in Bond Street. Let me advise you to concentrate on that +_riviere_. If you really feel inclined to trust me, I will take it to a +man I know; he will show it to--" he named a famous firm. "In a few +days--well, give me a week--and I undertake to bring you proposals. If +you accept them, I will collect the money for you at once--or I will +return you the necklace, if you don't." + +Delia clasped her hands. + +"A week! You think it might all be finished in a week?" + +"Certainly--thereabouts. These things--" he touched the diamonds--"are +practically money." + +Delia sat ruminating, with a bright excited face. Then a serious +expression returned. She looked up. + +"Mr. Lathrop, this ought to be a matter of business between us--if you +do me so great a service?" + +"You mean I ought to take a commission?" he said, calmly. "I shall do +nothing of the kind." + +"It is more than I ought to accept!" she cried. "Let your +kindness--include what I wish." + +He shook his fair hair impatiently. + +"Why should you take away all my pleasure in the little adventure?" + +She looked embarrassed. He went on-- + +"Besides we are comrades--we have stood together in the fight. I expect +this is for the Cause! If so I ought to be angry that you even +suggested it!" + +"Don't be angry!" she said gravely. "I meant nothing unkind. Well, I +thank you very much--and there are the diamonds." + +She gave him the case, with a quiet deliberate movement, as if to +emphasize her trust in him. The simplicity with which it was done +pricked him uncomfortably. "I'm no thief!--" he thought angrily. "She's +safe enough with me. All the same, if she knew--she wouldn't speak to +me--she wouldn't admit me into her house. She doesn't know--and I am a +cad!" + +"You can't the least understand what it means to be allowed to do you a +service!" he said, with emotion. + +But the tone evidently displeased her. She once more formally thanked +him; then sprang up and began to put the cases on the sofa together. As +she did so, steps on the gravel outside were heard through the low +casement window. Delia turned with a start, and saw Mark Winnington +approaching the front door. + +"Don't say anything _please_!" she said urgently. "This has nothing to +do with my guardian." + +And opening the door of a lacquer cabinet, she hurriedly packed the +jewelry inside with all the speed she could. Her flushed cheek shewed +her humiliated by the action. + + * * * * * + +Winnington stood in the doorway, silent and waiting. After a hasty +greeting to the new-comer, Delia was nervously bidding Lathrop +good-bye. + +"In a week!" he said, under his breath, as she gave him her hand. + +"A week!" she repeated, evidently impatient for him to be gone. He +exchanged a curt bow with Winnington, and the door closed on him. + +There was a short silence. Winnington remained standing, hat in hand. +He was in riding dress--a commanding figure, his lean face reddened, +and the waves of his grizzled hair slightly loosened, by a buffeting +wind. Delia, stealing a glance at him, divined a coming remonstrance, +and awaited it with a strange mixture of fear and pleasure. They had +not met for ten days; and she stammered out some New Year's wishes. She +hoped that he and Mrs. Matheson had enjoyed their visit. + +But without any reply to her politeness, he said abruptly-- + +"Were you arranging some business with Mr. Lathrop?" + +She supposed he was thinking of the militant Campaign. + +"Yes," she said, eagerly. "Yes, I was arranging some business." + +Winnington's eyes examined her. + +"Miss Delia, what do you know about that man?--except that +story--which I understand Miss Marvell told you." + +"Nothing--nothing at all! Except--except that he speaks at our +meetings, and generally gets us into hot water. He has a lot of +interesting books--and drawings--in his cottage; and he has lent me +Madame de Noailles' poems. Won't you sit down? I hope you and Mrs. +Matheson have had a good time? We have been to church--at least I +have--and given away lots of coals and plum-puddings--at least I have. +Gertrude thought me a fool. We have had the choir up to sing carols in +the servants' hall, and given them a sovereign--at least I did. And I +don't want any more Christmas--for a long, long, time!" + +And with that, she dropped into a chair opposite Winnington, who sat +now twirling his hat and studying the ground. + +"I agree with you," he said drily when she paused. "I felt when I was +away that I had better be here. And I feel it now doubly." + +"Because?" + +"Because--if my absence has led to your developing any further +acquaintance with the gentleman who has just left the room, when I +might have prevented it, I regret it deeply." + +Delia's cheeks had gone crimson again. + +"You knew perfectly well Mr. Winnington, that we had made acquaintance +with Mr. Lathrop! We never concealed it!" + +"I knew, of course, that you were both members of the League, and that +you had spoken at meetings together. I regretted it--exceedingly--and I +asked you--in vain--to put an end to it. But when I find him paying a +morning call here--and lending you books--that is a very different +matter!" + +Delia broke out-- + +"You really are _too_ Early-Victorian, Mr. Winnington!--and I can't +help being rude. Do you suppose you can ever turn me into a +bread-and-butter miss? I have looked after myself for years--you don't +understand!" She faced him indignantly. + +Winnington laughed. + +"All right--so long as the Early Victorians may have their say. And my +say about Mr. Lathrop is--again that he is not a fit companion for +you, or any young girl,--that he is a man of blemished character--both +in morals and business. Ask anybody in this neighbourhood!" + +He had spoken with firm emphasis, his eyes sparkling. + +"Everybody in the neighbourhood believes anything bad, about him--and +us!" cried Delia. + +"Don't, for Heaven's sake, couple yourself, and the man--together!" +said Winnington, flushing with anger. "I know nothing about him, when +you first arrived here. Mr. Lathrop didn't matter twopence to me +before. Now he does matter." + +"Why?" Delia's eyes were held to his, fascinated. + +"Simply because I care--I care a great deal--what happens to you," he +said quietly, after a pause. "Naturally, I must care." + +Delia looked away, and began twisting her black sash into knots. + +"Bankruptcy--is not exactly a crime." + +"Oh, so you knew that farther fact about him? But of course--it is the +rest that matters. Since we spoke of this before, I have seen the judge +who tried the case in which this man figured. I hate speaking of it in +your presence, but you force me. He told me it was one of the worst he +had ever known--a case for which there was no defence or excuse +whatever." + +"Why must I believe it?" cried Delia impetuously. "It's a man's +judgment! The woman may have been--Gertrude says she was--horribly +unhappy and ill-treated. Yet nothing could be proved--enough to free +her. Wait till we have women judges--and women lawyers--then you'll +see!" + +He laughed indignantly--though not at all inclined to laugh. And what +seemed to him her stubborn perversity drove him to despair. + +"In this case, if there had been a woman judge, I am inclined to think +it would have been a good deal worse for the people concerned. At least +I hope so. Don't try to make me believe, Miss Delia, that women are +going to forgive treachery and wickedness more easily than men!" + +"Oh, 'treachery!'--" she murmured, protesting. His look both +intimidated and drew her. Winnington came nearer to her, and suddenly +he laid his hand on both of hers. Looking up she was conscious of a +look that was half raillery, half tenderness. + +"My dear child!--I must call you that--though you are so clever--and +so--so determined to have your own way. Look here! I'm going to plead +my rights. I've done a good deal for you the last three months--perhaps +you hardly know all that has been done. I've been your watch-dog--put +it at that. Well, now give the watch-dog, give the Early-Victorian, his +bone! Promise me that you will have no more dealings with Mr. Lathrop. +Send him back his books--and say 'Not at Home!'" + +She was really distressed. + +"I can't, Mr. Winnington!--I'm so sorry!--but I can't." + +"Why can't you?" He still held her. + +A score of thoughts flew hither and thither in her brain. She had asked +a great favour of Lathrop--she had actually put the jewels into his +hands! How could she recall her action? And when he had done her such a +service, if he succeeded in doing it--how was she to turn round on him, +and cut him the very next moment? + +Nor could she make up her mind to confess to Winnington what she had +done. She was bent on her scheme. If she disclosed it _now_ everything +might be upset. + +"I really _can't!_" she repeated, gravely, releasing her hands. + +Winnington rose, and began to pace the drawing room. Delia watched +him--quivering--an exquisite vision herself, in the half lights of the +room. + +When he paused at last to speak, she saw a new expression in his eyes. + +"I shall have to think this over, Miss Blanchflower--perhaps to +reconsider my whole position." + +She was startled, but she kept her composure. + +"You mean--you may have--after all--to give me up?" + +He forced a very chilly smile. + +"You remember--you asked me to give you up. Now if it were only one +subject--however important--on which we disagreed, I might still do my +best, though the responsibility of all you make me connive at is +certainly heavy. But if you are entirely to set at defiance not only my +advice and wishes as to this illegal society to which you belong, and +as to the violent action into which I understand you may be led when +you go to town, but also in such a matter as we have just been +discussing--then indeed, I see no place for me. I must think it over. A +guardian appointed by the Court might be more effective--might +influence you more." + +"I told you I was a handful," said Delia, trying to laugh. But her +voice sounded hollow in her own ears. + +He offered no reply--merely repeating "I must think it over!"--and +resolutely changing the subject, he made a little perfunctory +conversation on a few matters of business--and was gone. + +After his departure, Delia sat motionless for half an hour at least, +staring at the fire. Then suddenly she sprang up, went to the +writing-table, and sat down to write-- + +"Dear Mr. Mark--Don't give me up! You don't know. Trust me a little! I +am not such a fiend as you think. I am grateful--I am indeed. I wish to +goodness I could show it. Perhaps I shall some day. I hadn't time to +tell you about poor Weston--who's to have an operation--and that I'm +not going to town with Gertrude--not for some weeks at any rate. I +shall be alone here, looking after Weston. So I can't disgrace or +worry you for a good while any way. And you needn't fret about Mr. +Lathrop--you needn't _really_! I can't explain--not just yet--but it's +all right. Mayn't I come and help with some of your cripple children? +or the school? or something? If Susy Amberly can do it, I suppose I +can--I'd like to. May I sign myself--though I _am_ a handful-" + + "Yours affectionately, + DELIA BLANCHFLOWER." + + +She sat staring at the paper, trembling under a stress of feeling she +could not understand--the large tears in her eyes. + + + + +Chapter XIII + + +"Pack the papers as quickly as you can--I am going to town this +afternoon. Whatever can't be packed before then, you can bring up to me +tomorrow." + +A tired girl lifted her head from the packing-case before which she was +kneeling. + +"I'll do my best, Miss Marvell--But I'm afraid it will be impossible to +finish to-day." And she looked wearily round the room laden with +papers--letters, pamphlets, press-cuttings--on every available table +and shelf. + +Gertrude gave a rather curt assent. Her reason told her the thing was +impossible; but her will chafed against the delay, which her secretary +threatened, of even a few hours in the resumption of her work in +London, and the re-housing of all its tools and materials. She was a +hard mistress; though no harder on her subordinates than she was on +herself. + +She began to turn her own hand to the packing, and missing a book she +had left in the drawing-room the night before, she went to fetch it. It +was again a morning of frosty sunshine, and the garden outside lay in +dazzling light. The drawing-room windows were open, and through one of +them Gertrude perceived Delia moving about outside on the whitened +grass. She was looking for the earliest snowdrops which were just +beginning to bulge from the green stems, pushing up through the dead +leaves under the beech trees. She wore a blue soft shawl round her head +and shoulders, and she was singing to herself. As she raised herself +from the ground, and paused a moment looking towards the house, but +evidently quite unconscious of any spectators, Gertrude could not take +her eyes from the vision she made. If radiant beauty, if grace, and +flawless youth can "lift a mortal to the skies," Delia stood like a +young goddess under the winter sun. But there was much more than beauty +in her face. There was a fluttering and dreamy joy which belongs only +to the children of earth. The low singing came unconsciously from her +lips, as though it were the natural expression of the heart within. +Gertrude caught the old lilting tune:-- + + "For oh, Greensleaves was all my joy-- + For oh, Greensleaves was my heart's delight-- + And who but my lady Greensleaves--" + + +The woman observing her did so with a strange mixture of softness and +repulsion. If Gertrude Marvell loved anybody, she loved Delia--the +captive of her own bow and spear, and until now the most loyal, the +most single-minded of disciples. But as she saw Delia walk away to a +further reach of the garden, the mind of the elder woman bitterly +accused the younger. Delia's refusal to join the militant forces in +London, at this most critical and desperate time, on what seemed to +Gertrude the trumpery excuse of Weston's illness, had made an indelible +impression on a fanatical temper. If she had cared--if she had _really_ +cared--she could not have done any such thing. "What have I been +wasting my time here for?" she asked herself; and reviewing the motives +which had induced her to accept Delia's proposal that they should live +together, she accused herself sharply of a contemptible lack of +judgment and foresight. + +For no mere affection for Delia Blanchflower would have influenced her, +at the time when Delia, writing to tell her of the approaching death of +Sir Robert, implored her to come and share her life. "You know I shall +have money, dearest Gertrude,"--wrote Delia--"Come and help me to spend +it--for the Cause." And for the sake of the Cause,--which was then +sorely in want of money--and only for its sake, Gertrude had consented. +She was at that time rapidly becoming one of the leading spirits in the +London office of the "Daughters," so that to bury herself, even for a +time, in a country village, some eighty miles from London, was a +sacrifice. But to secure what seemed likely to be some thousands a +year from a willing giver, such a temporary and modified exile had +appeared to her worth while; and she had at once planned a campaign of +"militant" meetings in the towns along the South Coast, by way of +keeping in touch with "active work." + +But, in the first place, the extraordinary terms of Sir Robert's will +had proved far more baffling than she and Delia had ever been willing +to believe. And, in the next place, the personality of Mark Winnington +had almost immediately presented itself to Gertrude as something she +had never reckoned with. A blustering and tyrannical guardian would +have been comparatively easy to fight. Winnington was formidable, not +because he was hostile, resolutely hostile, to their whole propaganda +of violence; that might only have spurred a strong-willed girl to +more passionate extremes. He was dangerous,--in spite of his forty +years--because he was delightful; because, in his leisurely, +old-fashioned way, he was so loveable, so handsome, so inevitably +attractive, Gertrude, looking back, realised that she had soon +perceived--vaguely at least--what might happen, what had now--as she +dismally guessed--actually happened. + +The young, impressionable creature, brought into close contact with +this charming fellow--this agreeable reactionary--had fallen in love! +That was all. But it was more than enough. Delia might be still +unconscious of it herself. But this new shrinking from the most +characteristic feature of the violent policy--this new softness and +fluidity in a personality that when they first reached Maumsey had +begun already to stiffen in the fierce mould of militancy--to what +could any observer with eyes in their head attribute them but the +influence of Mark Winnington--the daily unseen presence of other +judgments and other ideals embodied in a man to whom the girl's +feelings had capitulated? + +"If I could have kept her to myself for another year, he could have +done nothing. But he has intervened before her opinions were anything +more than the echoes of mine;--and for the future I shall have less and +less chance against him. What shall we ever get out of her as a married +woman? What would Mark Winnington--to whom she will give herself, body +and soul,--allow us to get out of her? Better break with her now, and +disentangle my own life!" + +With such thoughts, a pale and brooding woman pursued the now distant +figure of Delia. At the same time Gertrude Marvell had no intention +whatever of provoking a premature breach which might deprive either the +Cause or herself of any help they might still obtain from Delia in the +desperate fight immediately ahead. She, personally, would have +infinitely preferred freedom and a garret to Delia's flat, and any kind +of dependence on Delia's money. "I was not born to be a parasite!" she +angrily thought. But she had no right to prefer them. All that could be +extracted from Delia should be extracted. She was now no more to +Gertrude than a pawn in the game. Let her be used--if she could not be +trusted! + +But if this had fallen differently, if she had remained the true +sister-in-arms, given wholly to the joy of the fight, Gertrude's stern +soul would have clasped her to itself, just as passionately as it now +dismissed her. + +"No matter!" The hard brown eyes looked steadily into the future. +"That's done with. I am alone--I shall be alone. What does it +signify?--a little sooner or later?" + +The vagueness of the words matched the vagueness of certain haunting +premonitions in the background of the mind. Her own future always +shaped itself in tragic terms. It was impossible--she knew it--that it +should bring her to any kind of happiness. It was no less impossible +that she should pause and submit. That active defiance of the existing +order, on which she had entered, possessed her, gripped her, +irrevocably. She was like the launched stone which describes its +appointed curve--till it drops. + +As for any interference from the side of her own personal ties and +affections,--she had none. + +In her pocket she carried a letter she had received that morning, from +her mother. It was plaintive, as usual. + +"Winnie's second child arrived last week. It was an awful confinement. +The first doctor had to get another, and they only just pulled her +through. The child's a misery. It would be much better if it had died. +I can't think what she'll do. Her husband's a wretched creature--just +manages to keep in work--but he neglects her shamefully--and if there +ever is anything to spend, _he_ spends it--on his own amusement. She +cried the other day, when we were talking of you. She thinks you're +living with a rich lady, and have everything you want--and she and +her children are often half-starved. 'She might forgive me now, I do +think--' she'll say sometimes--'And as for Henry, if I did take him +away from her, she may thank her stars she didn't marry him. She'd have +killed him by now. She never could stand men like Henry. Only, when he +was a young fellow, he took her in--her first, and then me. It was a +bad job we ever saw him.' + +"Why are you so set against us, Gertrude?--your own flesh and blood. +I'm sure if I ever was unkind to you I'm sorry for it. You used to say +I favoured Albert at your expense--Well, he's as good as dead to me +now, and I've got no good out of all the spoiling I gave him. I sit at +home by myself, and I'm a pretty miserable woman. I read everything I +can in the papers about what you're doing--you, who were my only +child, seven years before Albert came. It doesn't matter to you what I +think--at least, it oughtn't. I'm an old woman, and whatever I thought +I'd never quarrel with you. But it would matter to me a good deal, if +you'd sometimes come in, and sit by the fire a bit, and chat. It's +three years since I've even seen you. Winnie says you've forgotten +us--you only care about the vote. But I don't believe it. Other people +may think the vote can make up for everything--but not you. You're too +clever. Hoping to see you," + + "Your lonely old mother, + JANET MARVELL." + + +To that letter, Gertrude had already written her reply. Sometime--in +the summer, perhaps, she had said to her mother. And she had added the +mental proviso--"if I am alive." For the matters in which she was +engaged were no child's play, and the excitements of prison and +hunger-striking might tell even on the strongest physique. + +No--her family were nothing to her. Her mother's appeal, though it +should not be altogether ignored, was an insincere one. She had always +stood by the men of the family; and for the men of the family, +Gertrude, its eldest daughter, felt nothing but loathing and contempt. +Her father, a local government official in a western town, a +small-minded domestic tyrant, ruined by long years of whisky-nipping +between meals; her only brother, profligate and spendthrift, of whose +present modes of life the less said the better; her brother-in-law, +Henry Lewison, the man whom, in her callow, ignorant youth, she was +once to have married, before her younger sister supplanted her--a +canting hypocrite, who would spend his day in devising petty torments +for his wife, and begin and end it with family prayers:--these types, +in a brooding and self-centred mind, had gradually come to stand for +the whole male race. + +Nor had her lonely struggle for a livelihood, after she had fled from +home, done anything to loosen the hold of these images upon her. She +looked back upon a dismal type-writing office, run by a grasping +employer; a struggle for health, warring with the struggle for bread; +sick headache, sleeplessness, anaemia, yet always within, the same iron +will driving on the weary body; and always the same grim perception on +the dark horizon of an outer gulf into which some women fell, with no +hope of resurrection. She burnt again with the old bitter sense of +injustice, on the economic side; remembering fiercely her own stinted +earnings, and the higher wages and larger opportunities of men, whom, +intellectually, she despised. Remembering too the development of that +new and ugly temper in men--men hard-pressed themselves--who must now +see in women no longer playthings or sweethearts, but rivals and +supplanters. + +So that gradually, year by year, there had strengthened in her that +strange, modern thing, a woman's hatred of men--the normal instincts of +sex distorted and embittered. And when suddenly, owing to the slow +working of many causes, economic and moral, a section of the Woman +Suffrage movement had broken into flame and violence, she had flung her +very soul to it as fuel, with the passion of one to whom life at last +"gives room." In that outbreak were gathered up for her all the +rancours, and all the ideals of life, all its hopes and all its +despairs. Not much hope!--and few ideals. Her passion for the Cause +had been a grim force, hardly mixed with illusion; but it had held and +shaped her. + +Meanwhile among women she has found a few kindred souls. One of them, a +fellow-student, came into money, died, and left Gertrude Marvell a +thousand pounds. On that sum she had educated herself, had taken her +degree at a West Country University, had moved to London and begun work +as a teacher and journalist. Then again, a break down in health, +followed by a casual acquaintance with Lady Tonbridge--Sir Robert's +offer--its acceptance--Delia! + +How much had opened to her with Delia! _Pleasure_, for the first time; +the sheer pleasure of travel, society, tropical beauty; the strangeness +also of finding herself adored, of feeling that young loveliness, that +young intelligence, all yielding softness in her own strong hands-- + +Well, that was done;--practically done. She cheated herself with no +vain hopes. The process which had begun in Delia would go forward. One +more defeat to admit and forget. One more disaster to turn one's back +upon. + +And no disabling lamentations! Her eyes cleared, her mouth stiffened. +She went quietly back to her packing. + +"Gertrude! What _are_ you doing?" The voice was Delia's. She stood on +the threshold of Gertrude's den, looking with amazement, at the +littered room and the packing-cases. + +"I find I must go up at once--They want help at the office." Gertrude, +who was writing a letter, delivered the information over her shoulder. + +"But the flat won't be ready!" + +"Never mind. I can go to a hotel for a few days." + +A cloud dropped over the radiance of Delia's face, fresh from the sun +and frost outside. + +"I can't bear your going alone!" + +"Oh, you'll come later," said Gertrude indifferently. + +"Did you--did you--have such urgent letters this morning?" + +"Well--you know things _are_ urgent! But then, you see, you have made +up your mind to stay with Weston!" + +A slight mocking look accompanied the words. + +"Yes--I must stay with Weston," said Delia, slowly, and then perceiving +that the typist showed no signs of leaving them together, and that +confidential talk was therefore impossible, she reluctantly went away. + +Weston that morning was in much pain, and Delia sat beside her, +learning by some new and developing instinct how to soothe her. The +huntress of the Tyrolese woods had few caressing ways, and pain had +always been horrible to her; a thing to be shunned, even by the +spectator, lest it should weaken the wild natural energies. But Weston +was very dear to her, and the maid's suffering stirred deep slumbering +powers in the girl's nature. She watched the trained Nurse at her work, +and copied her anxiously. And all the time she was thinking, thinking, +now of Gertrude, now of her letter to Winnington. Gertrude was vexed +with her, thought her a poor creature--that was plain. "But in a +fortnight, I'll go to her,--and they'll see!--" thought the girl's +wrestling mind. "And before that, I shall send her money. I can't help +what she thinks. I'm not false!--I'm not giving in! But I must have +this fortnight,--just this fortnight;--for Weston's sake, and--" + +For her proud sincerity would not allow her to pretend to herself. What +had happened to her? She felt the strangest lightness--as though some +long restraint had broken down; a wonderful intermittent happiness, +sweeping on her without reason, and setting the breath fluttering. It +made her think of what an old Welsh nurse of her childhood had once +told her of "conversion," in a Welsh revival, and its marvellous +effects; how men and women walked on air, and the iron bands of life +and custom dropped away. + +Then she rose impatiently, despising herself, and went downstairs again +to try and help Gertrude. But the packing was done, the pony-cart was +ordered, and in an hour more, Gertrude was gone. Delia was left +standing on the threshold of the front door, listening to the sound of +the receding wheels. They had parted in perfect friendliness, Gertrude +with civil wishes for Weston's complete recovery, Delia with eager +promises--"I shall soon come--_very_ soon!"--promises of which, as she +now remembered, Gertrude had taken but little notice. + +But as she went back into the house, the girl had a queer feeling of +catastrophe, of radical change. She passed the old gun-room, and looked +in. All its brown paper bundles, its stacks of leaflets, its books of +reference were gone; only a litter of torn papers remained here and +there, to shew what its uses had been. And suddenly, a swell of +something like exultation, a wild sense of deliverance, rushed upon +her, driving out depression. She went back to the drawing-room, with +little dancing steps, singing under her breath. The flowers wanted +freshening. She went out to the greenhouse, and brought in some early +hyacinths and violets till the room was fragrant. Some of them she took +up to Weston, chatting to the patient and her nurse as she arranged +them, with such sweetness, such smiles, such an abandonment of +kindness, that both looked after her amazed, when, again, she vanished. +What had become of the imperious absent-minded young woman of ordinary +days? + +Delia lunched alone. And after lunch she grew restless. + +He must have received her letter at breakfast-time. Probably he had +some tiresome meetings in the morning, but soon--soon-- + +She tried to settle to some reading. How long it was since she had read +anything for the joy of it!--anything that in some shape or other was +not the mere pemmican of the Suffrage Movement; dusty arguments for, or +exasperating arguments against. She plunged into poetry--a +miscellaneous volume of modern verse--and the new world of feeling +in which her mind had begun to move, grew rich, and deep, and +many-coloured about her. + +Surely--a sound at the gate! She sat up, crimson. Well?--she was going +to make friends with her guardian--to bury the hatchet--for a whole +fortnight at least. Only that. Nothing more--nothing--nothing! + +Steps approached. She hastily unearthed a neglected work-basket, and a +very ancient piece of half-done embroidery. Was there a thimble +anywhere--or needles! Yes!--by good luck. Heavens!--what shamming! She +bent over the dingy bit of silk, her cheeks dimpling with laughter. + +Their first greetings were done, and Winnington was sitting by +her--astride a chair, his arms lying along the top of it, his eyes +looking down upon her, as she made random stitches in what looked like +a futurist design. + +"Do you know that you wrote me a very, _very_ nice letter?" and as he +spoke, she heard in his voice that tone--that lost tone, which she had +heard in it at their very first interview, before she had chilled and +flouted him, and made his life a burden to him. Her pulses leapt; but +she did not look up. + +"I wonder whether--you quite deserved it? You were angry with me--for +nothing!" + +"I am afraid I can't agree!" The voice now was a little dry, and a pair +of very keen grey eyes examined her partially hidden face. + +She pushed her work away and looked up. + +"You ought!" she said vehemently. "You accused me--practically--of +flirting with Mr. Lathrop. And I was doing nothing of the kind!" + +He laughed. + +"I never imagined that you were--or could be--flirting with Mr. +Lathrop." + +"Then why did you threaten to give me up if I went on seeing him?" + +He hesitated--but said at last--gravely-- + +"Because I could not take the responsibility." + +"How would it help me--to give me up? According to you--" she breathed +fast--"I should only--go to perdition--the quicker!" Her eyes still +laughed, but behind the laughter there was a rush of feeling which +communicated itself to him. + +"May I suggest that it is not necessary to go to perdition--at +all--fast or slow?" + +She shook her head. Silence followed; which Winnington broke. + +"You said you would like to come and see some of the village +people--your own people--and the school? Was that serious?" + +"Certainly!" She raised an indignant countenance. "I suppose you +think--like everybody--that because I want the vote, I can't care +about anything else?" + +"You'll admit it has a way of driving everything else out," he said, +mildly. "Have you ever been into the village--for a month?--for two +months? The things you wanted have been done. But you haven't been to +see." She sprang to her feet. + +"Shall I come now?" + +"If it suits you. I've saved the afternoon." + +She ran out of the room to put on her things, upsetting as she did so, +the work-box with which she had been masquerading, and quite +unconscious of it. Winnington, smiling to himself, stooped to pick up +the reels and skeins of silk. One, a skein of pink silk with which she +had been working, he held in his hand a moment, and, suddenly, put in +his pocket. After which he drifted absently to the hearthrug, and stood +waiting for her, hat in hand. He was thinking of that moment in the +wintry dawn when he had read her letter. The shock of emotion returned +upon him. But what was he to do? What was really in her mind?--or, for +the matter of that, in his own? + +She re-appeared, radiant in a moleskin cap and furs, and then they both +awkwardly remembered--he, that he had made no inquiry about Weston, and +she, that she had said nothing of Gertrude Marvell's hurried departure. + +"Your poor maid? Tell me about her. Oh, but she'll do well. We'll take +care of her. France is an awfully good doctor." + +Her eyes thanked him. She gave him a brief account of Weston's state; +then looked away. + +"Do you know--that I'm quite alone? Gertrude went up to town this +morning?" + +Winnington gave a low whistle of astonishment. + +"She had to--" said Delia, hurriedly. "It was the office--they couldn't +do without her." + +"I thought she had undertaken to be your chaperon?" + +The girl coloured. + +"Well yes--but of course--the other claim came first." + +"You don't expect me to admit that," said Winnington, with energy. +"Miss Marvell has left you alone?--_alone_?--at a moment's notice--with +your maid desperately ill--and without a word to me, or anybody?" His +eyes sparkled. + +"Don't let's quarrel!" cried Delia, as she stood opposite to him, +putting on her gloves. "_Don't_! Not to-day--not this afternoon! And +we're sure to quarrel if we talk about Gertrude." + +His indignation broke up in laughter. + +"Very well. We won't mention her. Well, but look here--" he +pondered--"You _must_ have somebody. I would propose that Alice +should come and keep you company, but I left her in bed with what +looks like the flu. Ah!--I have it. But--am I really to advise? You +are twenty-one, remember,--nearly twenty-two!" + +The tender sarcasm in his voice brought a flood of colour to her +cheeks. + +"Go on!" she said, and stood quivering. + +"Would you consider asking Lady Tonbridge to come and stay with you? +Nora is away on a visit." + +Delia moved quietly to the writing-table, pulled off her gloves, sat +down to write a note. He watched her, standing behind her; his strained +yet happy look resting on the beautiful dark head. + +She rose, and held out the note, addressed to Lady Tonbridge. He took +the note, and the hand together. The temptation was irresistible. He +raised the hand and kissed it. Both were naturally reminded of the only +previous occasion on which he had done such a thing; and as he dropped +his hold, Delia saw the ugly scar which would always mark his left +wrist. + +"Thank you!"--he said warmly--"That'll be an immense relief to my +mind." + +"You mustn't think she'll convert me," said Delia, quickly. + +"Why, she's a Suffragist!" + +Delia shrugged her shoulders. "_Pour rire_!" + +"Let's leave the horrid subject alone--shall we?" + +Delia assented; and they set out, just as the winter sun of a bright +and brilliant afternoon was beginning to drop towards its setting. + + * * * * * + +When Delia afterwards looked back on those two hours in Mark +Winnington's company, she remembered them as a time enskied and +glorified. First, the mere pleasure of the senses--the orange glow of +the January evening, the pleasant crackling of the frosty ground, the +exhilaration of exercise, and of the keen pungent air; then the beauty +of the village and of the village lanes in the dusk, of the blue smoke +drifting along the hill, of the dim reds and whites of the old houses, +and the occasional gleams of fire and lamp through the small-paned +windows; the gaiety of the children racing home from school, the +dignity of the old labourers, the seemliness of the young. It was good +to be alive--in England--breathing English air. It was good to be young +and strong-limbed, with all one's life before one. + +And next--and greater--there was the pleasure of Winnington beside her, +of his changed manner, of their new comradeship. She felt even a +curious joy in the difference of age between them. Now that by some +queer change, she had ceased to stand on her dignity with him, to hold +him arrogantly at arm's length, there emerged in her a childish +confidence and sweetness, enchanting to the man on whom it played. "May +I?--" "Do you think I might?--" she would say, gently, throwing out +some suggestion or other, as they went in and out of the cottages, and +the humbleness in her dark eyes, as though a queen stooped, began to +turn his head. + +And how beautiful this common human life seemed that evening--after all +the fierce imaginings in which she had lived so long! In the great +towns beyond the hills, women were still starved and sweated,--still +enslaved and degraded. Man no doubt was still the stupid and vicious +tyrant, the Man-Beast that Gertrude Marvell believed him. But here in +this large English village, how the old primal relations stood +out!--sorrow-laden and sin-stained often, yet how touching, how worthy, +in the main, of reverence and tenderness! As they went in and out of +the cottages of her father's estate, the cottages where Winnington was +at home, and she a stranger, all that "other side" of any great +argument began to speak to her--without words. The world of politics +and its machinery, how far away!--instead, the world of human need, and +love, and suffering unveiled itself this winter evening to Delia's +soul, and spoke to her in a new language. And always it was a language +of sex, as between wives and husbands, mothers and sons, sisters and +brothers. No isolation of one sex or the other. No possibility of +thinking of them apart, as foes and rivals, with jarring rights and +claims. These old couples tending each other, clinging together, after +their children had left them, till their own last day should dawn; +these widowed men or women, piteously lost without the old companion, +like the ox left alone in the furrow; these young couples with their +first babies; these dutiful or neglectful sons, these hard or tender +daughters; these mothers young and old, selfish or devoted:--with +Winnington beside her, Delia saw them all anew, heard them all anew. +And Love, in all its kinds, everywhere the governing force, by its +presence or its absence!--Love abused and degraded, or that Love, +whether in the sunken eyes of the old, or on the cheeks of the young, +which is but "a little lower than the angels." + +And what frankly amazed her was Winnington's place in this world of +labouring folk. He had given it ten years of service; not charity, but +simply the service of the good citizen; moved by a secret, impelling +motive, which Delia had yet to learn. And how they rewarded him! She +walked beside a natural ruler, and felt her heart presently big with +the pride of it. + +"But the cripples?" She enquired for them, with a touch of sarcasm. "So +far," she said, "the population Maumsey, appeared to be quiet +exceptionally able-bodied." + +"Goodness!" said Winnington--"I can't shew you more than two or three +cripples to a village. Maumsey only rejoices in two. My county school +will collect from the whole county. And I should never have found out +the half of them, if it hadn't been for Susy Amberley." + +"How did she discover them?" asked Delia, without any sort of +cordiality. + +"We--the County Council--put the enquiry into her hands. I showed +her--a bit. But she's done it admirably. She's a wonderful little +person, Susy. What the old parents will do without her when she goes to +London I can't think." + +"Why is she going?" + +Winnington shrugged his shoulders kindly. + +"Wants a training--wants something more to do. Quite right--if it +makes her happy. You women have all grown so restless nowadays." He +laughed into the rather sombre face beside him. And the face lit +up--amazingly. + +"Because the world's so _marvellous_," said Delia, with her passionate +look. "And there's so little time to explore it in. You men have always +known that. Now we women know it too." + +He pondered the remark--half smiling. + +"Well, you'll see a good deal of it before you've done," he said at +last. "Now come and look at what I've been trying to do for the women +who complained to you." + +And he shewed her how everything had been arranged to please her, at +the cost of infinite trouble, and much expense. The woman with the +eight children had been moved into a spacious new cottage made out of +two old ones; the old granny alone in a house now too big for her, had +been induced to take in a prim little spinster, the daughter of a small +grocer just deceased; and the father of the deficient girl, for whom +Miss Dempsey had made herself responsible, received Winnington with a +lightening of his tired eyes, and taking him out of earshot of Delia, +told him how Bessie "had got through her trouble," and was now earning +money at some simple hand-work under Miss Dempsey's care. + +"I didn't know you were doing all this!" said Delia, remorsefully, as +they walked along the village street. "Why didn't you tell me?" + +"I think I did tell you--once or twice. But you had other things to +think about." + +"I hadn't!" said Delia, with angry energy. "I hadn't, you needn't make +excuses for me!" + +He smiled at her, a little gravely, but said nothing--till they +reached a path leading to an isolated cottage-- + +"Here's a cripple at last!--Susy!--You here?" + +For as the door opened to his knock, a lady rose from a low seat, and +faced them. + +Winnington grasped her by the hand. + +"I thought you were already gone." + +"No--they've put it off again for a week or two--no vacancy yet." + +She shook hands formally with Delia. "I came to have another look at +this boy. Isn't he splendid?" + +She pointed to a grinning child of five sitting on the edge of the +kitchen table, and dangling a pair of heavily ironed legs. The mother +proudly shewed them. He had been three months in the Orthopaedic +Hospital, she told Delia. The legs twisted with rickets had been broken +and set twice, and now he was "doing fine." She set him down, and made +him walk. "I never thought to see him do that!" she said, her wan face +shining. "And it's all his doing--" she pointed to Winnington, "and +Miss Susy's." + +Meanwhile Susy and Winnington were deep in conversation--very +technical much of it--about a host of subjects they seemed to have in +common. + +Delia silent and rather restless, watched them both, the girl's sweet, +already faded, face, and Winnington's expression. When they emerged +from the cottage Susy said shyly to Delia-- + +"Won't you come to tea with me some day next week?" + +"Thank you. I should like to. But my maid is very ill. Else I should be +in London." + +"Oh, I'm very sorry. May I come to you?" + +Delia thanked her coldly. She could have beaten herself for a rude, +ungracious creature; yet for the life of her she could not command +another manner. Susy drew back. She and Winnington began to talk again, +ranging over persons and incidents quite unknown to Delia--the frank +talk, full of matter of comrades in a public service. And again Delia +watched them acutely--jealous--yet not in any ordinary sense. When Susy +turned back towards the Rectory, Delia said abruptly-- + +"She's helped you a great deal?" + +"Susy!" He went off at score, ending with--"What France and I shall do +without her, I don't know. If we could only get more women--_scores +more women_--to do the work! There we sit, perched up aloft on the +Council, and what we want are the women to advise us, and the women's +hands--_to do the little things_--which make just all the difference!" + +She was silent a moment, and then said sorely--"I suppose that means, +that if we did all the work we might do--we needn't bother about the +vote." + +He turned upon with animation-- + +"I vow I wasn't thinking about the vote!" + +"Miss Amberley doesn't seem to bother about it." + +Winnington's voice shewed amusement. + +"I can't imagine Susy a suff. It simply isn't in her." + +"I know plenty of suffragists just as good and useful as she is," said +Delia, bristling. + +Winnington did not immediately reply. They had left the village behind, +and were walking up the Maumsey lane in a gathering darkness, each +electrically conscious of the other. At last he said in a changed +tone-- + +"Have I been saying anything to wound you? I didn't mean it." + +She laughed unsteadily. + +"You never say anything to wound me. I was only--a kind of fretful +porcupine--standing up for my side." + +"And the last thought in my mind to-night was to attack your 'side,'" +he protested. + +Her tremulous sense drank in the gentleness of his voice, the joy of +his strong, enveloping presence, and the sweetness of her own surrender +which had brought him back to her, the thought of it vibrating between +them, unspoken. Until, suddenly, at the door of the Abbey, Winnington +halted and took her by both hands. + +"I must go home. Good-night. Have you got books to amuse you?" + +"Plenty." + +"Poor child!--all alone! But you'll have Lady Tonbridge to-morrow." + +"How do you know? She mayn't come." + +"I'm going there now. I'll make her. You--you won't be doing any more +embroidery to-night?" + +He looked at her slyly. Delia laughed out. + +"There!--when one tries to be feminine, that's how you mock!" + +"'_Mock_!' I admired. Good-night!--I shall be here to-morrow." + +He was gone--into the darkness. + +Delia entered the lonely house, in a bewilderment of feeling. As she +passed Gertrude's deserted sitting-room on her way to the staircase, +she saw that the parlourmaid had lit a useless lamp there. She went in +to put it out. As she did so, a torn paper among the litter on the +floor attracted her notice. She stooped and took it up. + +It seemed to be a fragment of a plan--a plan of a house. It shewed two +series of rooms, divided by a long passage. One of the rooms was marked +"Red Parlour," another, "Hall," and at the end of the passage, there +were some words, clearly in Gertrude Marvell's handwriting-- + +"_Garden door, north_." + +With terror in her heart, Delia brought the fragment to the lamp, and +examined every word and line of it. + +Recollections flashed into her mind, and turned her pale. That what she +held was part of a general plan of the Monk Lawrence ground-floor, she +was certain--dismally certain. And Gertrude had made it. Why? + +Delia tore the paper into shreds and burnt the shreds. Afterwards she +spent an oppressed and miserable night. Her friend reproached her, on +the one side; and Winnington, on the other. + + + + +Chapter XIV + + +Lady Tonbridge was sitting in the window-seat of a little sitting-room +adjoining her bedroom at Maumsey Abbey. That the young mistress of +Maumsey had done her best to make her guest comfortable, that guest +most handsomely acknowledged. Some of the few pretty things which the +house contained had been gathered there. The chintz covered sofa and +chairs, even though the chintz was ugly, had the pleasant country-house +look, which suggests afternoon tea, and chatting friends; a bright +fire, flowers and a lavish strewing of books completed the hospitable +impression. + +Yet Madeleine Tonbridge had by no means come to Maumsey Abbey, at +Winnington's bidding, as to a Land of Cockaigne. She at all events +regarded Delia as a "handful," and was on the watch day by day +for things outrageous. She could not help liking the beautiful +creature--almost loving her! But Delia was still a "Daughter of +Revolt"--apparently unrepentant; that dangerous fanatic, her pretended +chaperon, was still in constant correspondence with her; the papers +teemed with news of militant outrages, north, south, east and west; and +riotous doings were threatened for the meetings of Parliament by +Delia's Society. On all these matters Delia shut her proud lips. Indeed +her new reticence with regard to militant doings and beliefs struck +Lady Tonbridge as more alarming than the young and arrogant defiance +with which on her first arrival she had been wont to throw them at the +world. Madeleine could not rid herself of the impression during these +weeks that Delia had some secret cause of anxiety connected with the +militant propaganda. She was often depressed, and there were moments +when she shewed a nervousness not easily accounted for. She scarcely +ever mentioned Gertrude Marvell; and she never wrote her letters in +public; while those she received, she would carry away to the gun +room--which she had now made her own particular den--before she opened +them. + +At the same time, if Weston recovered from the operation, in three +weeks or so it would be possible for Delia to leave Maumsey; and it was +generally understood that she would then join her friend in London, +just in time for the opening of Parliament. For the moment, it was +plain she was not engaged in any violent doings. But who could answer +for the future? + +And meanwhile, what was Mark Winnington about? It was all very well to +sit there trifling with the pages of the _Quarterly Review_! In her +moments of solitude by night or day, during the five days she had +already spent at Maumsey, Madeleine had never really given her mind to +anything else but the engrossing question. "Is he in love with her--or +is he not?" + +Of course she had foreseen--had feared--the possibility of it, from +that very first moment, almost--when Winnington had written to her +describing the terms of Bob Blanchflower's will, and his own acceptance +of the guardianship. + +Yet why "feared"? Had she not for years desired few things so sincerely +as to see Winnington happily married? As to that old tragedy, with its +romantic effect upon his life, her first acquiescence in that effect, +as something irrevocable, had worn away with time. It now seemed to her +an intolerable thing that Agnes Clay's death should forever stand +between Winnington and love. It was positively anti-social--bad +citizenship--that such a man as Mark Winnington should not produce +sons and daughters for the State, when all the wastrels and cheats in +creation were so active in the business. + +All the same she had but rarely ventured to attack him on the subject, +and the results had not been encouraging. She was certain that he had +entered upon the guardianship of Delia Blanchflower in complete +single-mindedness--confident, disdainfully confident, in his own +immunity; and after that first outburst into which friendship had +betrayed her, she had not dared to return to the subject. But she had +watched him--with the lynx eyes of a best friend; and that best friend, +a woman to whom love affairs were the most interesting things in +existence. In which, of course, she knew she was old-fashioned, and +behind the mass of the sex, now racing toward what she understood was +called the "economic independence of women"--_i.e._ a life without man. + +But in spite of watching, she was much perplexed--as to both the +persons concerned. She had now been nearly a week at Maumsey, in +obedience to Delia's invitation and Winnington's urging. The +opportunity indeed of getting to know Mark's beautiful--and +troublesome--ward, more intimately, was extremely welcome to her +curiosity. Hitherto Gertrude Marvell had served as an effective barrier +between Delia and her neighbours. The neighbours did not want to know +Miss Marvell, and Miss Marvell, Madeleine Tonbridge was certain, had +never intended that the neighbours should rob her of Delia. + +But now Gertrude Marvell had in some strange sudden way vacated her +post; and the fortress lay open to attack and capture, were anyone +strong enough to seize it. Moreover Delia's visitor had not been +twenty-four hours in the house before she had perceived that Delia's +attitude to her guardian was new, and full of suggestion to the shrewd +bystander. Winnington had clearly begun to interest the girl +profoundly--both in himself, and in his relation to her. She now wished +to please him, and was nervously anxious to avoid hurting or offending +him. She was always conscious of his neighbourhood or his mood; she was +eager--though she tried to conceal it--for information about him; and +three nights already had Lady Tonbridge lingered over Delia's bedroom +fire, the girl on the rug at her feet, while the elder woman poured out +her recollections of Mark Winnington, from the days when she and he had +been young together. + +As to that vanished betrothed, Agnes Clay,--the heroine of Winnington's +brief engagement--Delia's thirst for knowledge, in a restless, +suppressed way, had been insatiable. Was she jealous of that poor +ghost, and of all those delicate, domestic qualities with which her +biographer could not but invest her? The daughter of a Dean of +Wanchester--retiring, spiritual, tender,--suggesting a cloistered +atmosphere, and _The Christian Year_--she was still sharp in +Madeleine's recollection, and that lady felt a certain secret and +mischievous zest in drawing her portrait, while Delia, her black brows +drawn together, her full red mouth compressed, sat silent. + +Then--Wilmington as a friend!--upon that theme indeed Madeleine had +used her brightest colours. And to make this passive listener +understand what friendship meant in Wilmington's soul, it had been +necessary for the speaker to tell her own story, as much at least as it +was possible for her to tell, and Delia to hear. A hasty marriage--"my +own fault, my dear, as much as my parents'!"--twelve years of torment +and humiliation at the hands of a bad man, descending rapidly to the +pit, and quite willing to drag his wife and child with him, ending in a +separation largely arranged by Winnington--and then-- + +"We retired, Nora and I, on a decent allowance, my own money really, +only like a fool, I had let it all get into Alfred's hands. We took a +house at Richmond. Nora was fifteen. For two years my husband paid the +money. Then he wrote to say he was tired of doing without his daughter, +and he required her to live with him for six months in the year, as a +condition of continuing the allowance. I refused. We would sooner both +of us have thrown ourselves into the Thames. Alfred blustered and +threatened--but he could do nothing--except cut off the allowance, +which he did, at once. Then Mark Winnington found me the cottage here, +and made everything smooth for us. I wouldn't take any money from him, +though he was abominably ready to give it us! But he got me lessons--he +got me friends. He's made everybody here feel for us, and respect us. +He's managed the little bits of property we've got left--he's watched +over Nora--he's been our earthly Providence--and we both adore him!" + +On which the speaker, with a flickering smile and tear-dashed eyes, had +taken Delia's face in her two slender hands-- + +"And don't be such a fool, dear, as to imagine there's been anything in +it, ever, but the purest friendship and good-heartedness that ever +bound three people together! My greatest joy would be to see him +married--to a woman worthy of him--if there is one! And he I suppose +will find his reward in marrying Nora--to some nice fellow. He begins +to match-make for her already." + +Delia slowly withdrew herself. + +"And he himself doesn't intend to marry?" She asked the question, +clasping her long arms round her knees, as she sat on the floor, her +dark eyes--defiantly steady on her guest's face. + +Lady Tonbridge could hear her own answer. + +"L'homme propose! Let the right woman try!" Whereupon Delia, a +delicious figure, in a slim white dressing-gown, a flood of curly brown +hair falling about her neck and shoulders, had sprung up, and bidden +her guest a hasty good-night. + +One other small incident she recalled. + +_A propos_ of some anxious calculation made by Winnington's sister +Alice Matheson one day in talk with Lady Tonbridge--Delia being +present--as to whether Mark could possibly afford a better motor than +the "ramshackle little horror" he was at present dependent on, Delia +had said abruptly, on the departure of Mrs. Matheson-- + +"But surely the legacy my father left Mr. Winnington would get a new +motor!" + +"But he hasn't taken it, and never will!" Lady Tonbridge had cried, +amazed at the girl's ignorance. + +"Why not?" Delia had demanded, almost fiercely, looking very tall, and +oddly resentful. + +Why not? "Because one doesn't take payment for that sort of thing!" had +been Mark's laughing explanation, and the only explanation that she, +Madeleine, had been able to get out of him. She handed it on--to +Delia's evident discomfort. So, all along, this very annoying--though +attaching--young woman had imagined that Winnington was being +handsomely paid for putting up with her? + + * * * * * + +And Winnington? + +Here again, it was plain there was a change of attitude, though what it +meant Madeleine could not satisfactorily settle with herself. In the +early days of his guardianship he had been ready enough to come to her, +his most intimate woman-friend, and talk about his ward, though always +with that chivalrous delicacy which was his gift among men. Of late he +had been much less ready to talk; a good sign! And now, since Gertrude +Marvell's blessed departure, he was more at Maumsey than he had ever +been before. He seemed indeed to be pitting his own influence against +Miss Marvell's, and in his modest way, yet consciously, to be taking +Delia in hand, and endeavouring to alter her outlook on life; clearing +away, so far as he could, the atmosphere of angry, hearsay propaganda +in which she had spent her recent years, and trying to bring her face +to face with the deeper loves and duties and sorrows which she in her +headstrong youth knew so little about, while they entered so profoundly +into his own upright and humane character. + +Well, but did all this mean _love_?--the desire of the man for the +woman. + +Madeleine Tonbridge pondered it. She recollected a number of little +acts and sayings, throwing light upon his profound feeling for the +girl, his sympathy with her convictions, her difficulties, her wild +revolts against existing abuses and tyrannies. "I learn from her"--he +had said once, in conversation,--"she teaches me many things." +Madeleine could have laughed in his face--but for the passionate +sincerity in his look. + +One thing she perceived--that he was abundantly roused on the subject +of that man Lathrop's acquaintance with his ward. Lathrop's name had +not been mentioned since Lady Tonbridge's arrival, but she received the +impression of a constant vigilance on Winnington's part, and a certain +mystery and unhappiness on Delia's. As to the notion that such a man as +Paul Lathrop could have any attraction for such a girl as Delia +Blanchflower, the idea was simply preposterous,--except on the general +theory that no one is really sane, and every woman "is at heart a +rake." But of course there was the common interest, or what appeared to +be a common interest in this militant society to which Delia was still +so intolerably committed! And an unscrupulous man might easily make +capital out of it. + +At this stage in the rambling reverie which possessed her, Lady +Tonbridge was aware of footsteps on the gravel outside. Winnington? He +had proposed to take Delia for a ride that afternoon, to distract her +mind from Weston's state, and from the operation which was to take +place early the following morning. She drew the curtain aside. + +Paul Lathrop! + +Madeleine felt herself flushing with surprise and indignation. The +visitor was let in immediately. It surely was her duty to go down and +play watchdog. + +She firmly rose. But as she did so, there was a knock at her door, and +Delia hurriedly entered. + +"I--I thought I'd better say--Mr. Lathrop's just come to see me--on +business. I'm so sorry, but you won't mind my coming to say so?" + +Lady Tonbridge raised her eyebrows. + +"You mean--you want to see him alone? All right. I'll come down +presently." + +Delia disappeared. + + * * * * * + +For more than half an hour did that "disreputable creature," as Lady +Tonbridge roundly dubbed him, remain closeted with Delia, in Delia's +drawing-room. Towards the end of the time the visitor overhead was +walking to and fro impatiently, vowing to herself that she was +bound--positively bound to Winnington--to go down and dislodge the man. +But just as she was about to leave her room, she again heard the front +door open and close. She ran to the window just in time to see Lathrop +departing--and Winnington arriving!--on foot and alone. She watched +the two men pass each other in the drive--Winnington's start of haughty +surprise--and Lathrop's smiling and, as she thought, insolent greeting. +It seemed to her that Winnington hesitated--was about to stop and +address the intruder. But he finally passed him by with the slightest +and coldest recognition. Lathrop's fair hair and slouching shoulders +disappeared round a corner of the drive. Winnington hurried to the +front door and entered. + +Lady Tonbridge resolutely threw herself into an arm-chair and took up a +novel. + +"Now let them have it out! I don't interfere." + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile Delia, with a red spot of agitation on either cheek, was +sitting at the old satin-wood bureau in the drawing-room, writing a +cheque. A knock at the door disturbed her. She half rose, to see +Wilmington open and close it. + +A look at his face startled her. She sank back into her chair, in +evident confusion. But her troubled eyes met his appealingly. + +Wilmington's disturbance was plain. + +"I had ventured to think--to hope--" he began, abruptly--"that although +you refused to give me your promise when I asked it, yet that you would +not again--or so soon again--receive Mr. Lathrop--privately." + +Delia rose and came towards him. + +"I told Lady Tonbridge not to come down. Was that very wrong of me?" + +She looked at him, half smiling, half hanging her head. + +"It was unwise--and, I think, unkind!" said Winnington, with energy. + +"Unkind to you?" She lifted her beautiful eyes. There was something +touching in their strained expression, and in her tone. + +"Unkind to yourself, first of all," he said, firmly. "I must repeat +Miss Delia, that this man is not a fit associate for you or any young +girl. You do yourself harm by admitting him--by allowing him to see you +alone--and you hurt your friends." + +Delia paused a moment. + +"Then you don't trust me at all?" she said at last, slowly. + +Winnington melted. How pale she looked! He came forward and took her +hand-- + +"Of course I trust you! But you don't know--you are too young. You +confess you have some business with Mr. Lathrop that you can't tell +me--your guardian; and you have no idea to what misrepresentations you +expose yourself, or with what kind of a man you have to deal!" + +Delia withdrew her hand, and dropped into a chair--her eyes on the +carpet. + +"I meant--" she said, and her tone trembled--"I did mean to have told +you everything to-day." + +"And now--now you can't?" + +She made no reply, and in the silence he watched her closely. What +could account for such an eclipse of all her young vivacity? It was +clear to him that that fellow was entangling her in some monstrous +way--part and parcel no doubt of this militant propaganda--and +calculating on developments. Winnington's blood boiled. But while he +stood uncertain, Delia rose, went to the bureau where she had been +writing, brought thence a cheque, and mutely offered it. + +"What is this?" he asked. + +"The money you lent me." + +And to his astonishment he saw that the cheque was for L500, and was +signed "Delia Blanchflower." + +"You will of course explain?" he said, looking at her keenly. Suddenly +Delia's embarrassed smile broke through. + +"It's--it's only that I've been trying to pay my debts!" + +His patience gave way. + +"I'm afraid I must tell you--very plainly--that unless you can account +to me for this cheque, I must entirely refuse to take it!" + +Delia put her hands behind her, like a scolded child. + +"It is my very own," she protested, mildly. "I had some ugly jewels +that my grandmother left me, and I have sold them--that's all." + +Winnington's grey eyes held her. + +"H'm--and--has Mr. Lathrop had anything to do with the sale?" + +"Yes!" She looked up frankly, still smiling. "He has managed it for +me." + +"And it never occurred to you to apply to your guardian in such a +matter? Or to your lawyer?" + +She laughed--with what he admitted was a very natural scorn. "Ask my +guardian to provide me with the means of helping the 'Daughters'--when +he regards us all as criminals? On the contrary, I wanted to relieve +your conscience, Mr. Winnington!" + +"I can't say you have succeeded," he said, grimly, as he began to pace +the drawing-room, with slow steps, his hands in his pockets. + +"Why not? Now--everything you give me--can go to the right things--what +you consider the right things. And what is my own--my very own--I can +use as I please." + +Yet neither tone nor gesture were defiant, as they would have been a +few weeks before. Rather her look was wistful--appealing--as she stood +there, a perplexing, but most charming figure, in her plain black +dress, with its Quakerish collar of white lawn. + +He turned on her impetuously. + +"And Mr. Lathrop has arranged it all for you?" + +"Yes. He said he knew a good deal about jewellers. I gave him some +diamonds. He took them to London, and he has sold them." + +"How do you know he has even treated you honestly!" + +"I am certain he has done it honestly!" she cried indignantly. "There +are the letters--from the jewellers--" And running to the bureau, she +took thence a packet of letters and thrust them into Winnington's +hands. + +He looked them through in silence,--turning to her, as he put them +down. + +"I see. It is of course possible that this firm of jewellers have paid +Mr. Lathrop a heavy commission behind the scenes, of which you know +nothing. But I don't press that. Indeed I will assume exactly the +contrary. I will suppose that Mr. Lathrop has acted without any profit +to himself. If so, in my eyes it only makes the matter worse--for it +establishes a claim on you. Miss Delia!--" his resolute gaze held +her--"I do not take a farthing of this money unless you allow me to +write to Mr. Lathrop, and offer him a reasonable commission for his +services!" + +"No--no! Impossible!" + +She turned away from him, towards the window, biting her lip--in sharp +distress. + +"Then I return you this cheque"--he laid it down beside her. "And I +shall replace the money,--the L500--which I ought never to have allowed +you to spend as you have done, out of my own private pocket." + +She stood silent, looking into the garden, her chest heaving. She +thought of what Lady Tonbridge had told her of his modest means--and +those generous hidden uses of them, of which even his most intimate +friends only got an occasional glimpse. Suddenly she went up to him-- + +"Will you--will you promise me to write civilly?" she said, in a +wavering voice. + +"Certainly." + +"You won't offend--insult him?" + +"I will remember that you have allowed him to come into this +drawing-room, and treated him as a guest," said Winnington coldly. "But +why, Miss Delia, are you so careful about this man's feelings? And is +it still impossible that you should meet my wishes--and refuse to see +him again?" + +She shook her head--mutely. + +"You intend--to see him again?" + +"You forget--that we have--business together." + +Winnington paused a moment, then came nearer to the chair on which she +had dropped. + +"This last week--we have been very good friends--haven't we, Miss +Delia?" + +"Call me Delia, please!" + +"Delia, then!--we have come to understand each other much +better--haven't we?" + +She made a drooping sign of assent. + +"_Can't_ I persuade you--to be guided by me--as your father +wished--during these next years of your life? I don't ask you to give +up your convictions--your ideals. We should all be poor creatures +without them! But I do ask you to give up these violent and illegal +methods--this violent and illegal Society--with which you have +become entangled. It will ruin your life, and poison your whole +nature!--unless you can shake yourself free. Work for the Suffrage +as much as you like--but work for it honourably--and lawfully. I ask +you--I beg of you!--to give up these associates--and these methods." + +The tenderness and gravity of his tone touched the girl's quivering +senses almost unbearably. It was like the tenderness of a woman. She +felt a wild impulse to throw herself into his arms, and weep. But +instead she grew very white and still. + +"I can't!"--was all she said, her eyes on the ground. Winnington turned +away. + +Suddenly--a sound of hasty steps in the hall outside--and the door was +opened by a nurse, in uniform. + +"Miss Blanchflower!--can you come?" + +Delia sprang up. She and the nurse disappeared together. + + * * * * * + +Winnington guessed what had happened. Weston who was to face a +frightful operation on the morrow as the only chance of saving her +life, had on the whole gone through the fortnight of preparatory +treatment with wonderful courage. But during the last forty-eight +hours, there had been attacks of crying and excitement, connected with +the making of her will, which she had insisted on doing, being herself +convinced that she would die under the knife. Medically, all such +agitation was disastrous. But the only person who could calm her at +these moments was Delia, whom she loved. And the girl had shewn in +dealing with her a marvellous patience and strength. + +Presently Madeleine Tonbridge came downstairs--with red eyes. She +described the scene of which she had just been a witness in Weston's +room. Delia, she said, choking again at the thought of it, had been +"wonderful." Then she looked enquiringly at Winnington-- + +"You met that man going away?" + +He sat down beside her, unable to disguise his trouble of mind, or to +resist the temptation of her sympathy and their old friendship. + +"I am certain there is some plot afoot--some desperate business--and +they are trying to draw her into it! What can we do?" + +Lady Tonbridge shook her head despondently. What indeed could they do, +with a young lady of full age,--bent on her own way? + +Then she noticed the cheque lying open on the table, and asked what it +meant. + +"Miss Delia wishes to repay me some money I lent her," said Winnington, +after a pause. "As matters stand at present, I prefer to wait. Would +you kindly take charge of the cheque for her? No need to worry her +about it again, to-night." + + * * * * * + +Delia came down at tea-time, pale and quiet, like one from whom virtue +has gone out. By tacit consent Winnington and Lady Tonbridge devoted +themselves to her. It seemed as though in both minds there had arisen +the same thought of her as orphaned and motherless, the same pity, the +same resentment that anything so lovely should be unhappy--as she +clearly was; and not only, so both were convinced, on account of her +poor maid. + +Winnington stayed on into the lamplight, and presently began to read +aloud. The scene became intimate and domestic. Delia very silent, sat +in a deep arm chair, some pretence at needlework on her knee, but in +reality doing nothing but look into the fire, and listen to +Winnington's voice. She had changed while upstairs into a white dress, +and the brilliance of her hair, and wide, absent eyes above the +delicate folds of white, seemed to burn in Winnington's consciousness +as he read. Presently however, Lady Tonbridge looking up, was startled +to see that the girl had imperceptibly fallen asleep. The childish +sadness and sweetness of the face in its utter repose seemed to present +another Delia, with another history. Madeleine hoped that Winnington +had not observed the girl's sleep; and he certainly gave no sign of it. +He went on reading; and presently his companion, noticing the clock, +rose very quietly, and went out to give a letter to the parlour-maid +for post. + +As she entered the room again, however, she saw that Winnington had +laid down his book. His eyes were now on Delia--his lips parted. All +the weather-beaten countenance of the man, its deep lines graven by +strenuous living, glowed as from an inward light--marvellously intense +and pure. Madeleine's pulse leapt. She had her answer to her +speculations of the afternoon. + +Meanwhile through Delia's sleeping mind there swept scenes and images +of fear. She grew restless, and as Lady Tonbridge slipped again into +her chair by the fire, the girl woke suddenly with a long quivering +sigh, a sound of pain, which provoked a quick movement of alarm in +Winnington. + +But she very soon recovered her usual manner; and Winnington said +good-night. He went away carrying his anxieties with him through the +dark, carrying also a tumult of soul that would not be stilled. Whither +was he drifting? Of late he had felt sure of himself again. Her best +friend and guide--it was that he was rapidly becoming--with that, day +by day, he bade himself be content. And now, once more, self-control +was uprooted and tottering. It was the touch of this new softness, this +note of innocent appeal, even of bewildered distress, in her, which was +kindling all his manhood, and breaking down his determination. + +He raged at the thought of Lathrop. As to any danger of a love-affair, +like Lady Tonbridge, he scouted the notion. It would be an insult to +Delia to suppose such a thing. But it was simply intolerable in his +eyes that she should have any dealings with the fellow--that he should +have the audacity to call at her house, to put her under an obligation. + +And he was persuaded there was more than appeared in it; more than +Delia's devices for getting money, wherewith to feed the League of +Revolt. She was clearly anxious, afraid. Some shadow was brooding over +her, some terror that she could not disclose:--of that Winnington was +certain. And this man, whom she had already accepted as her colleague +in a public campaign, was evidently in the secret; might be even the +cause of her fears. + +He began hotly to con the terms of his letter to Lathrop; and then had +to pull himself up, remembering unwillingly what he had promised Delia. + + + + +Chapter XV + + +"Do you know anything more?" + +The voice was Delia's; and the man who had just met her in the shelter +of the wooded walk which ran along the crest of the hill above the +Maumsey valley, was instantly aware of the agitation of the speaker. + +"Nothing--precise. As I told you last week--you needn't be afraid of +anything immediate. But my London informants assure me that elaborate +preparations are certainly going on for some great _coup_ as soon as +Parliament meets--against Sir Wilfrid. The police are uneasy, though +puzzled. They have warned Daunt, and Sir Wilfrid is guarded." + +"Then of course our people won't attempt it! It would be far too +dangerous." + +"Don't be too sure! You and I know Miss Marvell. If she means to burn +Monk Lawrence, she'll achieve it, whatever the police may do." + +The man and the girl walked on in silence. The January afternoons were +lengthening a little, and even under the shadow of the wood Lathrop +could see with sufficient plainness Delia's pale beauty--strangely worn +and dimmed as it seemed to him. His mind revolted. Couldn't the jealous +gods spare even this physical perfection? What on earth had been +happening to her? He supposed a Christian would call the face +"spiritualised." If so, the Christian--in his opinion--would be a human +ass. + +"I have written several times to Miss Marvell--very strongly," said +Delia at last. "I thought you ought to know that. But I have had no +reply." + +"Why don't you go--instead of writing?" + +"It has been impossible. My maid has been so terribly ill." + +Lathrop expressed his sympathy. Delia received it with coldness and a +slight frown. She hurried on-- + +"I've written again--but I haven't sent it. Perhaps I oughtn't to have +written by post." + +"Better not. Shall I be your messenger? Miss Marvell doesn't like +me--but that don't matter." + +"Oh, no, thank you." The voice was hastily emphatic; so that his +vanity winced. "There are several members of the League in the village. +I shall send one of them." + +He smiled--rather maliciously. + +"Are you going to tackle Miss Andrews herself?" + +"You're still--quite _certain_--that she's concerned?" + +"Quite certain. Since you and I met--a fortnight ago isn't it?--I have +seen her several times, in the neighbourhood of the house--after dark. +She has no idea, of course, that I have been prowling round." + +"What have you seen?--what can she be doing?" asked Delia. "Of course I +remember what you told me--the other day." + +Lathrop's belief was that a close watch was now being kept on Daunt--on +his goings and comings--with a view perhaps to beguiling him away, and +then getting into the house. + +"But he has lately got a niece to stay with him, and help look after +the children, and the house. His sister who is married in London, +offered to send her down for six months. He was rather surprised, for +he had quite lost sight of his sister; but he tells me it's a great +relief to his mind. + +"So you talk to him?" + +"Certainly. Oh, he knows all about me--but he knows too that I'm on the +side of the house! He thinks I'm a queer chap--but he can trust me--in +_that_ business. And by the way, Miss Blanchflower, perhaps I ought to +let you understand that I'm an artist and a writer, before I'm a +Suffragist, and if I come across Miss Marvell--engaged in what you and +I have been talking of--I shall behave just like any other member of +the public, and act for the police. I don't want to sail--with +you--under any false pretences!" + +"I know," said Delia, quietly. "You came to warn me--and we are acting +together. I understand perfectly. You--you've promised however"--she +could not keep her voice quite normal--"that you'd let me know--that +you'd give me notice before you took any step." + +Lathrop nodded. "If there's time--I promise. But if Daunt or I come +upon Miss Marvell--or any of her minions--torch in hand--there would +not be time. Though, of course, if I could help her escape, +consistently with saving the house--for your sake--I should do so. I am +sure you believe that?" + +Delia made no audible reply, but he took her silence for consent. + +"And now"--he resumed--"I ought to be informed without delay, whether +your messenger finds Miss Marvell and how she receives your letter." + +"I will let you know at once." + +"A telegram brings me here--this same spot. But you won't wire from the +village?" + +"Oh no, from Latchford." + +"Well, then, that's settled. Regard me, please, as your henchman. +Well!--have you read any Madame de Noailles?" + +He fancied he saw a slight impatient movement. + +"Not yet, I'm afraid. I've been living in a sick room." + +Again he expressed polite sympathy, while his thoughts repeated--"What +waste!--what absurdity!" + +"She might distract you--especially in these winter days. Her verse is +the very quintessence of summer--of hot gardens and their scents--of +roses--and June twilights. It takes one out of this leafless north." He +stretched a hand to the landscape. + +And suddenly, while his heavy face kindled, he began to recite. His +French was immaculate--even to a sensitive and well-trained ear; and +his voice, which in speaking was disagreeable, took in reciting deep +and beautiful notes, which easily communicated to a listener the +thrill, the passion, of sensuous pleasure, which certain poetry +produced in himself. + +But it communicated no such thrill to Delia. She was only irritably +conscious of the uncouthness of his large cadaverous face, and +straggling fair hair; of his ragged ulster, his loosened tie, and all +the other untidy details of his dress. "And I shall have to go on +meeting him!" she thought, with repulsion. "And at the end of this walk +(the gate was in sight) I shall have to shake hands with him--and he'll +hold my hand." + +She loathed the thought of it; but she knew very well that she +Was under coercion--for Gertrude's sake. The recollection of +Winnington--away in Latchford on county business--smote her sharply. +But how could she help it? She must--_must_ keep in touch with this +man--who had Gertrude in his power. + +While these thoughts were running through her mind, he stopped his +recitation abruptly. + +"Am I to help you any more--with the jewels?" + +Delia started. Lathrop was smiling at her, and she resented the smile. +She had forgotten. But there was no help for it. She must have more +money. It might be, in the last resort, the means of bargaining with +Gertrude. And how could she ask Mark Winnington! + +So she hurriedly thanked him, naming a tiara and two pendants, that she +thought must be valuable. + +"All right," said Lathrop, taking out a note-book from his breast +pocket, and looking at certain entries he had made on the occasion of +his visit to Maumsey. "I remember--worth a couple of thousand at least. +When shall I have them?" + +"I will send them registered--to-morrow--from Latchford." + +"_ Tres bien_! I will do my best. You know Mr. Winnington has offered +me a commission?" His eyes laughed. + +Delia turned upon him. + +"And you ought to accept it, Mr. Lathrop! It would be kinder to all of +us." + +She spoke with spirit and dignity. But he laughed again and shook his +head. + +"My reward, you see, is just _not_ to be paid. My fee is your +presence--in this wood--your little word of thanks--and the hand you +give me--on the bargain!" + +They had reached the gate, and he held out his hand. Delia had flushed +violently, but she yielded her own. He pressed it lingeringly, as she +had foreseen, then released it and opened the gate for her. + +"Good-bye then. A word commands me--when you wish. We keep watch--and +each informs the other--barring accidents. That is, I think, the +bargain." + +She murmured assent, and they parted. Half way back towards his own +cottage, Lathrop paused at a spot where the trees were thin, and the +slopes of the valley below could be clearly seen. He could still make +out her figure nearing the first houses of the village. + +"I think she hates me. Never mind! I command her, and meet me she +must--when I please to summon her. There is some sweetness in that--and +in teasing the stupid fellow who no doubt will own her some day." + +And he thought exultantly of Winnington's letter to him, and his own +insolent reply. It had been a perfectly civil letter--and a perfectly +proper thing for a guardian to do. But--for the moment-- + +"I have the whip hand--and it amuses me to keep it,--Now then for +Blaydes!" + +For there, in the doorway of the cottage, stood the young journalist, +waiting and smoking. He was evidently in good humour. + +"Well? She came?" + +"Of course she came. But it doesn't matter to you." + +"Oh, doesn't it! I suppose she wants you to sell something more for +her?" + +Lathrop did not reply. Concerning Gertrude Marvell, he had not breathed +a word to Blaydes. + +They entered the hut together, and Lathrop rekindled the fire. The two +men sat over it smoking. Blaydes plied his companion with eager +questions, to which Lathrop returned the scantiest answers. At last he +said with a sarcastic look-- + +"I was offered four hundred pounds this afternoon--and refused it." + +"The deuce you did!" cried Blaydes, fiercely. "What about my debt--and +what do you mean?" + +"Ten per cent. commission," said Lathrop, drawing quietly at his cigar. +"Sales up to two thou., a fortnight ago. I shall get the same money--or +more--for the next batch." + +"Well, that's all right! No need to get it out of the lady, if you're +particular. Get it out of the other side. Any fool could manage that." + +"I shall not get a farthing out of the other side. I shall not make a +doit out of the whole transaction!" + +"Then you're a d----d fool," said Blaydes, in a passion. "And a +dishonest fool besides!" + +"Easy, please! What hold should I have on this girl--this splendid +creature--if I were merely to make money out of her? As it is, she's +obliged to me--she treats me like a gentleman. I thought you had +matrimonial ideas." + +"I don't believe you've got the ghost of a chance!" grumbled Blaydes, +his mind smarting under the thought of the lost four hundred pounds, +out of which his debt might have been paid. + +"Nor do I," said Lathrop, coolly. "But I choose to keep on equal terms +with her. You can sell me up when you like." + +He lounged to the window, and threw it open. The January day was +closing, not in any glory of sunset, but with interwoven greys and +pearls, and delicate yellow lights slipping through the clouds. + +"I shall always have _this_"--he said to himself, passionately, as he +drank in the air and the beauty--"whatever happens." + +Recollection brought back to him Delia's proud, virginal youth, and her +springing step as she walked beside him through the wood. His mind +wavered again between triumph and self-disgust. His muddy past returned +upon him, mingled, as always, with that invincible respect for her, and +belief in something high and unstained in the depths of his own nature, +to which his weakened and corrupt will was yet unable to give any +effect. + +"What I have done is not 'me'"--he thought. "At any rate not all +'me.' I am better than it. I suspect Winnington has told her +something--measuring it chastely out. All the same--I shall see her +again." + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile Delia was descending the hill pursued by doubts and terrors. +The day was now darkening fast, and heavy snow-clouds were coming +down over the valley. The wind had dropped, but the heavy air was +bitter-cold and lifeless, as though the earth waited sadly for the +silencing and muffling of the snow. + +And in Delia's heart there was a like dumb expectancy of change. The +old enthusiasms, and ideals and causes, seemed for the moment to lie +veiled and frozen within her. Only two figures emerged sharply in the +landscape of thought--Gertrude--and Winnington. + +Since that day, the day before Weston's operation, when Paul Lathrop +had brought her evidence--collected partly from small incidents and +observations on the spot, partly from information supplied him by +friends in London--which had sharpened all her own suspicions into +certainties, she had never known an hour free from fear. Her letters +had remained wholly unanswered. She did not even know where Gertrude +was; though it seemed to her that letters addressed to the head office +of the League of Revolt must have been forwarded. No! Gertrude was +really planning this hateful thing; the destruction of this beautiful +and historic house, with all its memories and its treasures, in order +to punish a Cabinet Minister for his opposition to Woman Suffrage, +and so terrorise others. Moreover it meant the risking of human +life--Daunt--his children, complete indifference also to Delia's +feelings, Delia's pain. + +What was she to do? Betray her friend?--go to Winnington for help? But +he was a magistrate. If such a plot were really on foot--and Lathrop +was himself convinced that petroleum and explosives were already stored +somewhere in the neighbourhood of the house--Winnington could only +treat such a thing as a public servant, as a guardian of the +law. Any appeal to him to let private interests--even _her_ +interests--interfere, would, she felt certain, be entirely fruitless. +Once go to him, the police must be informed--it would be his clear +duty; and if such proofs of the plot existed as Lathrop believed, +Gertrude would be arrested, and her accomplices. Including Delia +herself? + +That possibility, instead of frightening her, gave the girl some +momentary comfort. For that _might_ perhaps secure Winnington's +silence? + +But no!--her common sense dismissed the notion. Winnington would +discover at once that she had had no connection whatever with the +business. Lathrop's evidence alone would be enough. And that being so, +her confession would simply hand Gertrude over to Winnington's +conscience. And Mark Winnington's conscience was a thing to fear. + +And yet the yearning to go to him--like the yearning of an unhappy +child--was so strong. + +Traitor!--yes, _traitor_!--double-dyed. + +And pausing just outside the village, at a field gate, Delia leant over +it, gazing into the lowering sky, and piteously crying to some power +beyond--some God, "if any Zeus there be," on whom the heart in its +trouble might throw itself. + +Her thought ran backwards and forwards over the past months and years. +The burning moments of revolt through which she had lived--the meetings +of the League with their multitudes of faces, strained, fierce faces, +alive, many of them, with hatreds new to English life, new perhaps to +civilised history,--and the intermittent gusts of pity and fury which +had swept through her own young ignorance as she listened, making a +hideous thing of the future and of human fate:--she lived through them +all again. Individual personalities recurred to her, the wild looks of +delicate, frenzied women, who had lost health, employment, and the love +of friends--suffered in body, mind and estate for this "cause" to which +she too had vowed herself. Was she alone to desert, to fail--both the +cause and her friend, who had taught her everything? + +"It's not my will--not my _will_--that shrinks"--she moaned to herself. +"If I _believed_--if I still believed!" + +But why was the fire gone out of the old faiths, the savour from the +old hopes? Was she less moved by the sufferings, the toils, the +weakness of her sex? She could remember nights of weeping over the +wrongs of women, after an impassioned evening with Gertrude. And +now--had the heart of flesh become a heart of stone? Was she no longer +worthy of the great crusade, the vast upheaval? + +She could not tell. She only knew that the glamour of it all was +gone--that there were many hours when the Movement lay like lead upon +her life. Was it simply that her intelligence had revolted, that she +had come to see the folly, the sheer, ludicrous folly of a "physical +force" policy which opposed the pin-pricks of women to the strength of +men? Or was it something else--something far more compelling--more +convincing--more humiliating! + +"I've just fallen in love!--_fallen in love!_"--the words repeated +themselves brazenly, desperately, in her mind:--"and I can't think for +myself--judge for myself any longer! It's abominable--but it's true!" + +The very thought of Winnington's voice and look made her tremble as she +walked. Eternal weakness of the eternal woman! She scorned herself, yet +a bewildering joy sang through her senses. + +Nevertheless she held it at bay. She had her promised word--her +honour--to think of. Gertrude still expected her in London--on the +scene of action. + +"And I shall go," she said to herself with resolute inconsistency, "_I +shall go_!" + +What an angel Mark Winnington had been to her, this last fortnight! She +recalled the day of Weston's operation, and all the long days since. +The poor gentle creature had suffered terribly; death had been just +held off, from hour to hour; and was only now withdrawing. And Delia, +sitting by the bed, or stealing with hushed foot about the house, was +not only torn by pity for the living sufferer, she was haunted again by +all the memories of her father's dying struggle--bitter and miserable +days! And with what tenderness, what strength, what infinite delicacy +of thought and care, had she been upheld through it all! Her heart +melted within her. "There are such men in the world--there are!--and a +year ago I should have simply despised anyone who told me so!" + +Yet after these weeks of deepening experience, and sacred feeling, in +which she had come to love Mark Winnington with all the strength of her +young heart, and to realise that she loved him, the first use that she +was making of a free hour was to go, unknown to him--for he was away +on county business at Wanchester--and meet Paul Lathrop! + +"But he would understand," she said to herself, drearily, as she moved +on again. "If he knew, he would understand." + + * * * * * + +Now she must hurry on. She turned into the broad High Street of the +village, observed by many people, and half way down, she stopped at a +door on which was a brass plate, "Miss Toogood, Dressmaker." + +The lame woman greeted her with delight, and there in the back parlour +of the little shop she found them gathered,--Kitty Foster, the +science-mistress, Miss Jackson, and Miss Toogood,--the three +"Daughters," who were now coldly looked on in the village, and found +pleasure chiefly in each other's society. Marion Andrews was not there. +Delia indeed fancied she had seen her in the dusk, walking in a side +lane, that led into the Monk Lawrence road, with another girl, whom +Delia did not know. + +It was a relief, however, not to find her--for the moment. The faces of +the three women in the back parlour, were all strained and nervous; +they spoke low, and they gathered round Delia with an eagerness which +betrayed their own sense of isolation--of being left leaderless. + +"You will be going up soon, won't you?" whispered Miss Toogood, as she +stroked the sleeve of Delia's jacket. "The _Tocsin_ says there'll be +great doings next week--the day Parliament meets." + +"I've got my orders!"--said Kitty Foster, tossing her red hair +mysteriously. "Father won't keep me down here any longer. I've made +arrangements to go up to-morrow and lodge with a cousin in Battersea. +She's as deep in it as I am." + +"And I'm hoping they'll find room for me in the League office," said +the science-mistress. "I can't stand this life here much longer. My +Governors are always showing me they think us all criminals, and +they'll find an excuse for getting rid of me whenever they can. I +daren't even put up the 'Daughters' colours in my room now." + +Her hollow, anxious eyes, with the fanatical light in them clung to +Delia--to the girl's noble head, and the young face flushed with the +winter wind. + +"But we shall get it this session, shan't we?" said Miss Toogood +eagerly, still stroking Delia's fur. "The Government will give in--they +must give in." + +And she began to talk with hushed enthusiasm of the last month's tale +of outrages--houses burnt, windows broken, Downing Street attacked, red +pepper thrown over a Minister, ballot-boxes spoiled-- + +Suddenly it all seemed to Delia so absurd--so pathetic-- + +"I don't think we shall get the Bill!" she said, sombrely. "We shall be +tricked again." + +"Dear, dear!" said Miss Toogood, helplessly. "Then we shall have to go +on. It's war. We can't stop." + +And as she stood there, sadly contemplating the "war," in which, +poor soul, she had never yet joined, except by sympathy, a little +bill-distributing and a modest subscription, she seemed to carry on her +shoulders the whole burden of the "Movement"--herself, the little lame +dressmaker, on the one side--and a truculent British Empire on the +other. + +"We'll make them smart anyway!" cried Kitty Foster. "See if we don't!" + +Delia hurriedly opened her business. Would one of them take a letter +for her to London--an important letter to Miss Marvell that she didn't +want to trust to the post. Whoever took it must go to the League office +and find out where Miss Marvell was, and deliver it--personally. She +couldn't go herself--till after the doctors' consultation, which was to +be held on Monday--if then. + +Miss Jackson at once volunteered. Her face lightened eagerly. + +"It's Saturday. I shall be free. And then I shall see for myself--at +the office--if they can give me anything to do. When they write, they +seem to put me off." + +Delia gave her the letter, and stayed talking with them a little. They, +it was evident, knew nothing of the anxiety which possessed her. And as +to their hopes and expectations--why was it they now seemed to her so +foolish and so ignorant? She had shared them all, such a little while +before. + +And meanwhile they made much of her. They tried to keep her with them +in the little stuffy parlour, with its books which had belonged to Miss +Toogood's father, and the engraving of Winchester cathedral, and the +portrait of Mr. Keble. That "Miss Blanchflower" was with them, seemed +to reflect a glory on their little despised coterie. They admired her +and listened to her, loath to let her go. + +But at last Delia said Good-bye, and stepped out again into the lights +of the village street. As she walked rapidly towards Maumsey, and the +village houses thinned and fell away, she suddenly noticed a dark +figure in front of her. It was Marion Andrews. Delia ran to overtake +her. + +Marion stopped uncertainly when she heard herself called. Delia, +breathless, laid a hand on her arm. + +"I wanted to speak to you!" + +"Yes!" The girl stood quiet. It was too dark now to see her face. + +"I wanted to tell you--that there are suspicions--about Monk Lawrence. +You are being watched. I want you to promise to give it up!" + +There was no one on the road, above which some frosty stars had begun +to come out. Marion Andrews moved on slowly. + +"I don't know what you mean, Miss Blanchflower." + +"Don't, please, try to deceive me!" cried Delia, with low-voiced +urgency. "You have been seen at night--following Daunt about, +examining the doors and windows. The person who suspects won't +betray us. I've seen to that. But you must give it up--you _must_! I +have written to Miss Marvell." + +Marion Andrews laughed,--a sound of defiance. + +"All right. I don't take my orders from any one but her. But you are +mistaken, Miss Blanchflower, quite mistaken. Good-night." + +And turning quickly to the left, she entered a field path leading to +her brother's house, and was immediately out of sight. + +Delia went on, smarting and bewildered. How clear it was that she was +no longer trusted--no longer in the inner circle--and that Gertrude +herself had given the cue! The silent and stubborn Marion Andrews was +of a very different type from the three excitable or helpless women +gathered in Miss Toogood's parlour. She had ability, passion, and the +power to hold her tongue. Her connection with Gertrude Marvell had +begun, in London, at the "Daughters" office, as Delia now knew, long +before her own appearance at Maumsey. When Gertrude came to the Abbey, +she and this strange, determined woman were already well acquainted, +though Delia herself had not been aware of it till quite lately. "I +have been a child in their hands!--they have _never_ trusted me!" Heart +and vanity were equally wounded. + +As she neared the Maumsey gate, suddenly a sound--a voice--a tall +figure in the twilight. + +"Ah, there you are!" said Winnington. "Lady Tonbridge sent me to look +for you." + +"Aren't you back very early?" Delia attempted her usual voice. But +the man who joined her at once detected the note of effort, of tired +pre-occupation. + +"Yes--our business collapsed. Our clerk's too good--leaves us nothing +to do. So I've been having a talk with Lady Tonbridge." + +Delia was startled; not by the words, but by the manner of them. While +she seemed to Winnington to be thinking of something other than the +moment--the actual moment, her impression was the precise opposite, as +of a sharp, intense consciousness of the moment in him, which presently +communicated its own emotion to her. + +They walked up the drive together. + +"At last I have got a horse for you," said Winnington, after a pause. +"Shall I bring it to-morrow? Weston is going on so well to-night, +France tells me, that he may be able to say 'out of danger' to-morrow. +If so, let me take you far afield, into the Forest. We might have a +jolly run." + +Delia hesitated. It was very good of him. But she was out of practice. +She hadn't ridden for a long time. + +Winnington laughed aloud. He told--deliberately--a tale of a young +lady on a black mare, whom no one else could ride--of a Valkyrie--a +Brunhilde--who had exchanged a Tyrolese hotel for a forest lodge, and +ranged the wide world alone-- + +"Oh!"--cried Delia, "where did you hear that?" + +He described the talk of the little Swedish lady, and that evening on +the heights when he had first heard her name. + +"Next day came the lawyers' letter--and yours--both in a bundle." +"You'll agree--I did all I could--to put you off!" + +"So I understood--at once. You never beat about the bush." + +There was a tender laughter in his voice. But she had not the +heart to spar with him. He felt rather than saw her drooping. +Alarm--anxiety--rushed upon him, mingled in a tempest-driven mind with +all that Madeleine Tonbridge, in the Maumsey drawing-room, had just +been saying to him. That had been indeed the plain speaking of a +friend!--attacking his qualms and scruples up and down, denouncing them +even; asking him indignantly, who else could save this child--who else +could free her from the sordid entanglement into which her life had +slipped--but he? "You--you only, can do it!" The words were still +thundering through his blood. Yet he had not meant to listen to his old +friend. He had indeed withstood her firmly. But this sad and languid +Delia began, again, to put resistance to flight--to tempt--to justify +him--driving him into action that his cooler will had just refused. + +Suddenly, as they walked under the overshadowing trees of the drive, +her ungloved hand hanging beside her, she felt it taken, enclosed in a +warm strong clasp. A thrill, a shiver ran through her. But she let it +stay. Neither spoke. Only as they neared the front door with the lamp, +she softly withdrew her fingers. + +There was no one in the drawing-room, which was scented with early +hyacinths, and pleasantly aglow with fire-light. Winnington closed the +door, and they stood facing each other. Delia wanted to cry out--to +prevent him from speaking--but she seemed struck dumb. + +He approached her. + +"Delia!" + +She looked at him still helplessly silent. She had thrown off her hat +and furs, and, in her short walking-dress, she looked singularly +young and fragile. The change which had tempered the splendid--or +insolent--exuberance of her beauty, which Lathrop had perceived, had +made it in Winnington's eyes infinitely more appealing, infinitely more +seductive. Love and fear, mingled, had "passed into her face," like the +sculptor's last subtle touches on the clay. + +"Delia!" How all life seemed to have passed into a name! "I'm not sure +that I ought to speak! I'm not sure it's fair. It--it seems like taking +advantage. If you think so, don't imagine I shall ever press it again. +I'm twenty years older than you--I've had my youth. I thought +everything was closed for me--but--" He paused a moment--then his voice +broke into a low cry--"Dear! what have you done to make me love you +so?" + +He came nearer. His look spoke the rest. + +Delia retreated. + +"What have I done?" she said passionately. + +"Made your life one long worry!--ever since you saw me. How can you +love me?--you oughtn't!--you oughtn't!" + +He laughed. + +"Every quarrel we had I loved you the better. From our very first talk +in this room--" + +She cried out, putting up her hands, as though to protect herself +against the power that breathed from his face and shining eyes. + +"Don't--don't!--I can't bear it." + +His expression changed. + +"Delia!" + +"Oh, I do thank you!" she said, piteously, "I would--if I could. I--I +shall never care for any one else--but I can't--I can't." + +He was silent a moment, and then said, taking her hands, and putting +them to his lips-- + +"Won't you explain?" + +"Yes, I'll try--I ought to. You see"--she looked up in anguish--"I'm +not my own--to give--and I--No, no, I couldn't make you happy!" + +"You mean--you're--you're too deeply pledged to this Society?" + +He had dropped her hands, and stood looking at her, as if he would read +her through. + +"I must go up to town next week," she said hurriedly. "I must go, and I +must do what Gertrude tells me. Perhaps--I can protect--save her. I +don't know. I daresay I'm absurd to think so--but I might--and I'm +bound. But I'm promised--promised in honour--and I can't--get free. I +can't give up Gertrude--and you--you could never bear with her--or +accept her. And so--you see--I should just make you miserable!" + +He walked away, his hands in his pockets, and came back. Then suddenly +he took her by the shoulders. + +"You don't imagine I shall acquiesce in this!" he said +passionately--"that I shall endure to see you tied and chained by a +woman whom I know you have ceased to respect, and I believe you have +ceased to love!" + +"No!--no!--" she protested. + +"I think it is so," he said, steadily. "That is how I read it!" + +She gave a sob--quickly repressed. Then she violently mastered herself. + +"If it were true--I can't marry you. I won't be treacherous--nor a +coward. And I won't ruin your life. Dear Mr. Mark--it's quite, quite +impossible. Let's never talk of it again." + +And straightening all her slender body, she faced him with that foolish +courage, that senseless heroism, which women have so terribly at +command. + +So far, however from obliging her, he broke into a tempest of +discussion bringing to bear upon her all the arguments that love or +common sense dictated. If she really cared for him at all, if she even +thought it possible she might care, was she going to refuse all +help--all advice--from one to whom she had grown so dear?--to whom +everything she did was now of such vital, such desperate importance? He +pleaded for himself--guessing it to be the more hopeful way. + +"It's been a lonely life, Delia, till you came! And now you've filled +it. For God's sake, listen to me! Let me protect you, dear--let me +advise you--trust yourself to me. Do you imagine I should want to +dictate to you--or tyrannise over you? Do you imagine I don't +sympathise with your faiths, your ideals--that I don't feel for +women--what they suffer--what they endure--in this hard world? Delia, +we'd work together!--it mightn't be always in the same way--nor always +with the same opinions--but we'd teach--we'd help each other. Your own +conscience--your own mind--I see it plainly--have turned against this +horrible campaign--and the woman who's led you into it. How she's +treated you! Would any friend, any real _friend_ have left you alone +through this Weston business? And you've given her everything--your +house, your money, yourself! It makes me _mad_. I do implore you to +break with her--as gently, as generously as you like--but _free +yourself_! And then!"--he drew a long breath--"what a life we'd make +together!" He sat down beside her. Under the strong overhanging brows, +his grey eyes still pleaded with her--silently. + +But she was just strong enough, alas!--the poor child!--to resist him. +She scarcely replied; but her silence held the gate--against his +onslaughts. And at last she tottered to her feet. + +"Mr. Mark--dear Mr. Mark!--let me go!" + +Her voice, her aspect struck him dumb. And before he could rally his +forces again, the door shut, and she was gone. + + + + +Chapter XVI + + +"So I mustn't argue any more?" said Lady Tonbridge, looking at Delia, +who was seated by her guest's fire, and wore the weary aspect of one +who had already been argued with a good deal. + +Madeleine's tone was one of suppressed exasperation. Exasperation +rather with the general nature of things than with Delia. It was +difficult to be angry with one whose perversity made her so evidently +wretched. But as to the "intolerable woman" who had got the girl's +conscience--and Winnington's happiness--in her power, Lady Tonbridge's +feelings were at a white heat. How to reason with Delia, without +handling Gertrude Marvell as she deserved---there was the difficulty. + +In any case, Delia was unshakeable. If Weston were really out of +danger--Dr. France was to bring over the Brownmouth specialist on +Monday--then that very afternoon, or the next morning, Delia must +and would go to London to join Gertrude Marvell. And six days +later Parliament would re-assemble under the menace of raids and +stone-throwings, to which the _Tocsin_ had been for weeks past +summoning "The Daughters of Revolt," throughout the country, in terms +of passionate violence. In those proceedings Delia had apparently +determined to take her part. As to this Lady Tonbridge had not been +able to move her in the least. + +The case for Winnington seemed indeed for the moment desperate. After +his scene with Delia, he had left the Abbey immediately, and +Lady Tonbridge, though certain that something important--and +disastrous--had happened, would have known nothing, but for a sudden +confession from Delia, as the two ladies sat together in the +drawing-room after dinner. Delia had abruptly laid down her book, with +which she was clearly only trifling--in order to say-- + +"I think I had better tell you at once that my guardian asked me to +marry him, this afternoon, and I refused." + +Since this earthquake shock, Madeleine Tonbridge could imagine nothing +more unsatisfactory than the conversations between them which had begun +in the drawing-room, and lingered on till, now, at nearly midnight, +sheer weariness on both sides had brought them to an end. When +Madeleine had at last thrown up argument as hopeless, Delia with a face +of carven wax, and so handsome through it all that Lady Tonbridge could +have beaten her for sheer vexation, had said a quiet goodnight and +departed. + +But she was _in love with him_, the foolish, obstinate child!--wildly, +absorbingly in love with him! The fact was tragically evident, in +everything she said, and everything she left unsaid. + +The struggle lay then between her loyalty to her friend, the passionate +loyalty of woman to woman, so newly and strangely developed by the +Suffrage movement, and Winnington's advancing influence,--the influence +of a man equipped surely with all the means of victory--character, +strength, charm--over the girl's heart and imagination. He must +conquer! + +And yet Madeleine Tonbridge, staring into the ashes of a dwindling +fire, had never persuaded herself--incorrigible optimist that she +was--to so little purpose. + +What _was_ there at the back of the girl's mind? Something more than +appeared; though what appeared was bad enough. One seemed at times to +catch a glimpse of some cloaked and brooding Horror, in the dim +background of the girl's consciousness, and overshadowing it. What more +likely indeed, with this wild campaign sweeping through the country? +She probably knew or suspected things that her moral sense condemned, +to which she was nevertheless committed. + +"We shall end by proving all that the enemy says of us; we shall give +our chance away for a generation!" + +"Do for Heaven's sake keep the young lady at home!" + +The speaker was Dr. France. After seeing his patient, dismissing the +specialist, and spending half an hour _tete-a-tete_ with Delia, he came +down to see Lady Tonbridge in a state that in any one else would have +been a state of agitation. In him all that appeared was a certain +hawkish glitter in the eye, and a tendency to pull and pinch a scarcely +existing moustache. But Madeleine, who knew him well, understood that +he was just as much at feud with the radical absurdity of things as she +was. + +"No one can keep her at home. Delia is of age," she said, rising to +meet him, with a face as serious as his own. + +"If she gets into prison, and hunger-strikes, she'll injure herself! +She's extraordinarily run down with this business of Weston's. I don't +believe she could stand the sheer excitement of what she proposes to +do." + +"She's told you?" + +"Quite enough. If she once goes up to town--if she once gets into that +woman's clutches, no one can tell what will happen. Oh, you women--you +women!" And the doctor walked tigerishly up and down the room. "That +some of the cleverest and wisest of you can stoop to dabbling in a +business like this! Upon my word it's an eye-opener!--it pulls one up. +And you think you can drive men by such antics! The more you smash and +burn, the more firmly goes down the male foot--yes, and the female +too!" + +And the doctor, with a glare, and a male foot as firm as he could make +it, came to a stop beside Lady Tonbridge--who looked at him coolly. + +"Excellent!--but no concern of mine. I'm not a militant. I want the +vote just as much as Delia does!" said Lady Tonbridge, firmly. "Don't +forget that." + +"No, you don't--you don't! Excuse me. You are a reasonable woman." + +"Half the reasonable women in England want the vote. Why shouldn't I +have a vote--as well as you?" + +"Because, my dear lady--" the doctor smote the table with his hand for +emphasis--"because the parliamentary vote means the government _of men +by men_--without which we go to pieces. And you propose now to make it +include the government of men by women--which is absurd!--and if you +try it, will only break up the only real government that exists, or can +exist!" + +"Oh!--'physical force,'" said Madeleine, contemptuously, with her nose +in the air. + +"Well--did I--did you--make the physical difference between men and +women? Can we unmake it?" "We are governed by discussion--not by +force." + +"Are we? Look at South Africa--look at Ulster--look at the labour +troubles that have been, and are to be. And then you women come along +with your claim to the vote! What are you doing but breaking up all the +social values--weakening all the foundations of the social edifice! +Woe!--to you women especially--when you teach men to despise the +vote--when men come to know that behind the paper currency of a vote +which may be a man's or a woman's, there is nothing but an opinion--bad +or good! At present, I tell you, the great conventions of democracy +hold because there is reality of bone and muscle behind them! Break +down that reality--and sooner or later we come back to force +again--through bloodshed and anarchy!" + +"Inevitable--all the same!" cried Madeleine. "Why did you ever let us +taste education?--if you are to deny us for ever political equality?" + +"Use your education, my dear Madam!" said the doctor, indignantly. "Are +there not many roads to political equality?--many forms of government +within government, that may be tried, before you insist on ruining us +by doing men's work in the men's way? Hasn't it taken more than a +hundred years to settle that Irish question, which began with the +Union? Is it a hundred years since it was a hanging matter to steal a +handkerchief off a hedge? Can't you give us a hundred years for the +Woman Question? Sixty years only, since the higher education of women +began! Isn't the science of government developing every day? Women have +got, you say, to be fitted into government--I agree! I _agree_! But +_don't rush it_! Claim everything--what you like!--except only that +sovereign vote, which controls, and must control, the male force of an +Empire!" + +"Jove's thunder!" scoffed Lady Tonbridge. "Well--my dear old +friend!--you and I shan't agree--you know that. Now what can I do for +Delia?" + +"Nothing," said France gloomily. "Unless some one goes up to watch over +her." + +"Her guardian will go," said Madeleine quietly, after a pause. + +They eyed each other. + +"You're sure?" said France. + +"Quite sure--though I've not said a word to him--nor he to me." + +"All right then--she's worth it! By George, she's got the makings +of something splendid in her. I tell you she's had as much to do +as any of us with saving the life of that woman upstairs. +Courage?--tenderness?--'not arf.'" + +The slangy term shewed the speaker's desire to get rid of his own +feelings. He had, at any rate, soon smothered them, and he and Lady +Tonbridge, their chairs drawn close, fell into a very confidential +discussion. France was one of those country doctors, not rare +fortunately in England, in whom a whole neighbourhood confides, whom +a whole neighbourhood loves; all the more if a man betrays a fair +allowance of those gnarls and twists of character, of strong +prejudices, and harmless manias, which enable the common herd to +take him to their bosoms. Dr. France was a stamp-collector, a +player--indifferent--on the cornet, a rabid Tory, and a person who +could never be trusted to deal faithfully and on C.O.S. principles with +tramps and "undesirables." Such things temper the majesty of virtue, +and make even the good human. + +He had known and prescribed for Winnington since he was a boy in +knickers; he was particularly attached to Lady Tonbridge. What he and +Madeleine talked about is not of great importance to this narrative; +but it is certain that France left the house in much concern for a man +he loved, and a girl who, in the teeth of his hottest beliefs, had +managed to touch his feelings. + +Delia spent the day in packing. Winnington made no sign. In the +afternoon,--it was a wet Saturday afternoon--Lady Tonbridge sitting in +the drawing-room, saw the science mistress of the Dame Perrott School +coming up the drive. Madeleine knew her as a "Daughter," and could not +help scowling at her--unseen. + +She was at once admitted however, and spent a short time with Delia in +the Library. + +And when Miss Jackson closed the Library door behind her on her way out +of the house, Delia broke the seal of a letter which had been given +into her hands:-- + +"I am very sorry, my dear Delia, you should have taken these silly +reports so much to heart. You had better dismiss them from your mind. I +have given no such orders as you suppose--nor has the Central Office. +The plan you found referred to something quite different--I really +can't remember what. I can't of course be responsible for all the +'Daughters' in England, but I have much more important business to +think of just now than the nonsense Mr. Lathrop seems to have been +stuffing you with. As to W-----L-----, it would only be worth while to +strike at him, if our affairs _go wrong_--through him. At present, I am +extraordinary hopeful. We are winning every day. People see that we are +in earnest, and mean to succeed--at whatever cost. + +"I am glad you are coming up on Monday. You will find the flat anything +but a comfortable or restful place,--but that you will be prepared +for. Our people are amazing!--and we shall get into the House on +Thursday, or know the reason why. + +"For the money you sent, and the money you promise--best thanks. +Everybody is giving. It is the spirit of the Crusader, 'Dieu le +veult!'" + + "Your affectionate + G. M." + + +Delia read and re-read it. It was the first time Gertrude had +deliberately tried to deceive her, and the girl's heart was sore. +Even now, she was not to be trusted--"now that I am risking +everything--_everything_!" And with the letter in her lap, she sat and +thought of Winnington's face, as he had turned to look at her, before +leaving the drawing-room the night before. + + * * * * * + +The day passed drearily. The hills and trees were wrapped in a damp +fog, and though the days were lengthening fast, the evening closed like +November. Madeleine thought with joy of getting back to her tiny house +and her Nora. Nora, who was not yet out, seemed to have been enjoying a +huge success in the large cousinly party with whom she had been +spending the Christmas holidays. "But it's an odd place, Mummy. In the +morning we 'rag'; and the rest of the day we talk religion. Everybody +is either Buddhist or 'Bahai'--if that's the right way to spell it. It +sounds odd, but it seems to be a very good way of getting on with young +men." + +Heavens! What did it matter how you played the old game, or with what +counters, so long as it was played? + +And as Lady Tonbridge watched the figure of Delia gliding through the +house, wrapped in an estranging silence, things ancient and traditonal +returned upon her in flood, and nothing in the world seemed worth +having but young love and happy marriage!--if you could get them! +She--and her heart knew its bitterness--had made the great throw and +lost. + + * * * * * + +Sunday passed in the same isolation. But on Sunday afternoon Delia took +the motor out alone, and gave no reason either before or after. + +"If she's gone out to meet that man, it's a scandal!" thought Madeleine +wrathfully, and could hardly bring herself to be civil when the girl +returned--pale, wearied, and quite uncommunicative. But she was very +touching in a mute, dignified way, all the evening, and Madeleine +relented fast. And, as they sat in the fire-lit drawing-room, when the +curtains were drawn, Delia suddenly brought a stool close to Lady +Tonbridge's side, and, sitting at her feet, held up appealing arms. +Madeleine, with a rush of motherliness, gathered her close; and the +beautiful head lay, very quiet, on her breast. But when she would have +entreated, or argued, again, Delia implored her--"Don't--don't +talk!--it's no good. Just let me stay." + +Late that night, all being ready for departure, Delia went in to say +good-night, and good-bye to Weston. + +"You'll be downstairs and as strong as a horse, when I come back," she +said gaily, stroking the patient's emaciated fingers. + +Weston shook her head. + +"I don't think I shall ever be good for much, Miss Delia. But"--and her +voice suddenly broke--"I believe I'd go through it all again--just to +know--what--you could be--to a poor thing--like me." + +"Weston!--" said Delia, softly--"if you talk like that--and if you dare +to cry, Nurse will turn me out. You're going to get quite well, but +whether you're well or ill, here you stay, Miss Rosina Weston!--and I'm +going to look after you. Polly hasn't packed my things half badly." +Polly was the under-housemaid, whom Delia was taking to town. "She +wouldn't be worth her salt, if she hadn't," said Weston tartly. "But +she can't do your hair, Miss--and it's no good saying she can." + +"Then I'll do it myself. I'll make some sort of a glorious mess of it, +and set the fashion." + +But her thought said--"If I go to prison, they'll cut it off. Poor +Weston!" + +Weston moved uneasily-- + +"Miss Delia?" + +"Yes." + +"Don't you go getting yourself into trouble. Now don't you!" And with +tears in her eyes, the ghostly creature pressed the girl's hand to her +lips. Delia stooped and kissed her. But she made no reply. Instead she +began to talk of the new bed-rest which had just been provided for +Weston, and on which the patient professed herself wonderfully +comfortable. + +"It's better than the one we had at Meran--for papa." Her voice +dropped. She sat at the foot of Weston's bed looking absently into some +scene of the past. + +"Nothing ever gave him ease--your poor Papa!" said Weston, pitifully. +"He did suffer! But don't you go thinking about it this time of night, +Miss Delia, or you won't sleep." + +Delia said goodnight, and went away. But she did think of her +father--with a curious intensity. And when she fell fitfully asleep, +she dreamt that she saw him standing beside her in some open foreign +place, and that he looked at her in silence, steadily and coldly. And +she stretched out her hands, in a rush of grief--"Kiss me, father! I +was unkind--horribly--horribly unkind!" + +With the pain of it, she woke suddenly and the visualising sense seemed +still to perceive in the darkness the white head and soldierly form. +She half rose, gasping. Then, as though a photographic shutter were let +down, the image passed from the brain, and she lay with heaving breast, +trying to find her way back into what we call reality. But it was a +reality even more wretched than those recollections to which her dream +had recalled her. For it was held and possessed by Winnington, and now +by the threatening vision of Monk Lawrence, spectral amid the red ruin +of fire. She had stopped the motor that day at the foot of the hill on +which the house stood, and using Winnington's name, had made a call on +the cripple child. Daunt had received her with a somewhat gruff +civility, and was not communicative about the house and its defence. +But she gathered--without herself broaching the subject--that he was +scornfully confident of his power to protect it against "them creeping +women," and she had come home comforted. The cripple child had clung to +her silently; and on coming away, Delia had felt a small wet kiss upon +her hand. A touching creature!--with her wide blue eyes, and delicate +drawn face. It was feared that another abscess might be developing in +the little hip, where for a time disease had been quiescent. + + * * * * * + +On Monday morning the doctors came early. They gave a favourable +verdict, and Delia at once decided on an afternoon train. + +All the morning, Lady Tonbridge hovered round her, loth to take her own +departure, and trying every now and then to re-open the subject of +London, to make the girl promise to send for her--to consult +Winnington, if any trouble arose. + +But Delia would not allow any discussion. "I shall be with +Gertrude--she'll tell me what to do," was all she would say. + +Lady Tonbridge was dropped at her own door by Delia, on her way to the +station. Nora was there to welcome her, but not all their joy in +recovering each other, could repair Madeleine's cheerfulness. She +stood, looking after the retreating car with such a face that Nora +exclaimed-- + +"Mother, what _is_ the matter!" + +"I'm watching the tumbril out of sight," said Lady Tonbridge +incoherently. "Shall we ever see her again?" + +That, however, was someone else's affair. + +Delia took her own and her housemaid's tickets for London, saw her +companion established, and then, preferring to be alone, stepped into +an empty carriage herself. She had hardly disposed her various +packages, and the train was within two minutes of starting, when a tall +man came quickly along the platform, inspecting the carriages as he +passed. Delia did not see him till he was actually at her window. In +another moment he had opened and closed the door, and had thrown down +his newspapers and overcoat on the seat. The train was just starting, +and Delia, crimson, found herself mechanically shaking hands with Mark +Winnington. + +"You're going up to town?" She stammered it. "I didn't know--" + +"I shall be in town for a few days. Are you quite comfortable? A +footwarmer?" + +For the day was cold and frosty, with a bitter east wind. + +"I'm quite warm, thank you." + +The train ran out of the station, and they were soon in the open +country. Delia leant back in her seat, silent, conscious of her own +hurrying pulses, but determined to control them. She would have liked +to be indignant--to protest that she was being persecuted and coerced. +But the recollection of their last meeting, and the sheer, +inconvenient, shameful, joy of his presence there, opposite, +interposed. + +Winnington himself was quite cool; there were no signs whatever of any +intention to renew their Friday's conversation. His manner and tone +were just as usual. Some business at the Home Office, connected with +his County Council work, called him to town. He should be staying at +his Club in St. James's St. Alice Matheson also would be in town. + +"Shall we join for a theatre, one night?" he asked her. + +She felt suddenly angered. Was she never to be believed, never to be +taken seriously? + +"To-morrow, Mr. Mark, is the meeting of Parliament." + +"That I am aware of." + +"The day after, I shall probably be in prison!" + +She fronted him bravely, though, as he saw, with an effort. He paused a +moment, but showed no astonishment. + +"I hope not. I think not," he said, quietly. + +Delia took up the evening paper she had just bought at the station, +opened it, and looked at the middle page. + +"There are our plans," she said, defiantly, handing it to him. + +"Thank you. I have already seen it." + +But he again read through attentively the paragraph to which she +pointed him. It was headed "Militant Plans for To-morrow." A +procession of five hundred women was to march on the Houses of +Parliament, at the moment of the King's Speech. "We insist"--said the +Manifesto issued from the offices of the League of Revolt--"upon our +right of access to the King, or failing His Majesty, to the Prime +Minister. We mean business and we shall be armed." + +Winnington pointed to the word "armed." + +"With stones--I presume?" + +"Well, not revolvers, I hope!" said Delia. "I should certainly shoot +myself." + +Tension broke up in slightly hysterical laughter. She was already in +better spirits. There was something exciting--exhilarating even--in +the duel between herself and Winnington, which was implied in the +conversation. His journey up to town, the look in his grey eyes +meant--"I shall prevent you from doing what you are intending to do." +But he could not prevent it. If he was the breakwater, she was the +storm-wave, driven by the gale--by the wind from afar, of which she +felt herself the sport, and sometimes the victim--without its changing +her purpose in the least. + +"Only I shall not refuse food!" she thought. "I shall spare him that. I +shall serve my sentence. It won't be long." + +But afterwards? Would she then be free? Free to follow Gertrude or not, +according to her judgment? Would she have "purged" her promise--paid +her shot--recovered the governance of herself? + +Her thoughts discussed the future, when, all in a moment, Winnington, +watching her from behind his _Times_, saw a pale startled look. It +seemed to be caused by something in the landscape. He turned his eyes +to the window and saw that they were passing an old manor house, with a +gabled front, standing above the line, among trees. What could that +have had to do with the sudden contraction of the beautiful brow, the +sudden look of terror--or distress? The house had a certain resemblance +to Monk Lawrence. Had it reminded her of that speech in the Latchford +marketplace from which he was certain she had recoiled, no less than +he? + +"You'll let me take you to the flat? I've been over it once, but I +should like to see it's in order." + +She hesitated, but how could she refuse? He put her into a taxi, having +already dispatched her maid with the luggage in another, and they +started. + +"I expect you'll find a lot of queer people there!" she said, trying to +laugh. "At least you'll think them queer." + +"I shall like to see the people you are working with," he said, +gravely. + +Half way to Westminster, he turned to her. + +"Miss Delia!--it's my plain duty to tell you--again--and to keep on +telling you, even though it makes you angry, and even though I have no +power to stop you, that in taking part in these doings to-morrow, you +are doing a wrong thing, a grievously wrong thing! If I were only an +ordinary friend, I should try to dissuade you with all my might. But I +represent your father--and you know what he would have felt." + +He saw her lips tremble. But she spoke calmly, "Yes,--I know. But it +can't be helped. We can't agree, Mr. Mark, and it's no good my trying +to explain, any more--just yet!--" she added, in a lower tone. + +"'Just yet'? What do you mean by that?" + +"I mean that some time,--perhaps sometime soon--I shall be ready to +argue the whole thing with you--what's right and what's wrong. Now I +can't argue--I'm not free to. Don't you see--'Ours not to make +reply,--ours but to do, or die.'" Her smile flashed out. "There's not +going to be any dying about it however--you know that as well as I do." +Then with a touch of mockery she bent towards him. "You won't persuade +me, Mr. Mark, that you take us very seriously! But I'm not angry at +that--I'm not angry--at anything!" + +And her face, as he scanned it, melted--changed--became all soft +sadness, and deprecating appeal. Never had she seemed to him so +fascinating. Never had he felt himself so powerless. He thought, +despairingly--"If I had her to myself, I could take her in my arms, +and make her give way!" + +But here were the first signs of arrival--a narrow Westminster +street--a towering group of flats. The taxi stopped, and Winnington +jumped out. + + + + +Chapter XVII + + +Delia's luggage was brought in by the hall porter, and she and +Winnington stood waiting for the lift. Meanwhile Winnington happened to +notice, through the open door of the mansions, a couple of policemen +standing just outside, on the pavement, and two others on the further +side of the street. It seemed to him they were keeping the house which +Delia and he had just entered under observation. + +The lift descended. There were in it four women, all talking eagerly in +subdued tones. One was grey-haired, the others were quite young girls. +The strained, excited look on all their faces struck Winnington sharply +as they emerged from the lift. One of the girls looked curiously at +Delia and her tall companion. The grey-haired lady's attention was +caught by the policeman outside. She gave a little chuckle. + +"We shall have plenty to do with those gentry to-morrow!" she said to +the girl beside her, drawing her cloak round her so that it displayed a +black and orange badge. + +Delia approached her. + +"Is Miss Marvell here?" + +They all stopped and eyed her. + +"Yes, she's upstairs. She's just come back from the Central. But she's +very busy," said the elder lady. "She won't see you without an +appointment." + +One of the girls suddenly looked at Delia, and whispered to the +speaker. + +"Oh, I see!" said that lady, vaguely. "Are you Miss Blanchflower?" + +"Yes." + +"I beg your pardon. Miss Marvell's expecting you of course. Do make her +rest a bit if you can. She's simply _splendid_! She's going to be one +of our great leaders. I'm glad you won't miss it after all. You've been +delayed, haven't you?--by somebody's illness. Well, it's going +magnificently! We shall make Parliament listen--at last. Though they'll +protect themselves no doubt with any number of police--cowards!" + +The eyes of the speaker, as her face came into the light of the hall +lamp, sparkled maliciously. She seemed to direct her words especially +to Winnington, who stood impassive. Delia turned to the lift, and they +ascended. + +They were admitted, after much ringing. A bewildered maid looked at +Delia, and the luggage behind her, as though she had never heard of her +before. And the whole flat in the background seemed alive with voices +and bustle. Winnington lost patience. + +"Tell this man, please, where to take Miss Blanchflower's luggage at +once. And where is the drawing-room?" + +"Are you going to stay, Miss?" said the girl. "There's only the small +bedroom vacant." + +Delia burst out laughing--especially at the sight of Winnington's irate +countenance. + +"All right. It'll do quite well. Now tell me where Miss Marvell is." + +"I mustn't interrupt her, Miss." + +"This is my flat," said Delia, good-humouredly--"so I think you must. +And please shew Mr. Winnington the drawing-room." + +The girl, with an astonished face, opened a door for Winnington, into a +room filled with people, and then--unwillingly--led Delia along the +passage. + +Winnington looked round him in bewilderment. He had entered, it seemed, +upon a busy hive of women. The room was full, and everybody in it +seemed to be working at high pressure. A young lady at a central table +was writing telegrams as fast as possible, and handing them to a +telegraph clerk who was waiting. Two typewriters were busy in the +further corners. A woman, with a sharply clever face, was writing near +by, holding her pad on her knee, while a printer's boy, cap in hand, +was sitting by her waiting for her "copy." Two other women were undoing +and sorting rolls of posters. Winnington caught the head-lines--"Women +of England, strike for your liberties!" "Remember our martyrs in +prison!"--"Destroy property--and save lives!" "If violence won freedom +for men, why not for women!" And in the distance of the room were +groups in eager discussion. A few had maps in their hands, and others +note-books, in which they took down the arrangements made. So far as +their talk reached Winnington's ears, it seemed to relate to the +converging routes of processions making for Parliament Square. + +"How do you do, Mr. Winnington," said a laughing voice, as a +daintily-dressed woman, with fair fluffy hair came towards him. + +He recognised the sister of a well-known member of Parliament, a lady +who had already been imprisoned twice for window-breaking in Downing +Street. + +"Who would have thought to see you here!" she said, gaily, as they +shook hands. + +"Surprising--I admit! I came to see Miss Blanchflower settled in her +flat. But I seem to have stumbled into an office." + +"The Central Office simply couldn't hold the work. We were all in each +other's way. So yesterday, by Miss Marvell's instructions, some of us +migrated here. We are only two streets from the central." + +"Excellent!" said Winnington. "But it might perhaps have been well to +inform Miss Blanchflower." + +The flushed babyish face under the fashionable hat looked at him +askance. Lady Fanny's tone changed--took a sharpened edge. + +"Miss Blanchflower--you may be quite sure--will be as ready as anyone +else to make sacrifices for the cause. But we don't expect _you_ to +understand that!" + +"Nobody can doubt your zeal, Lady Fanny." + +"Only my discretion? Oh, I've long left that to take care of itself. +What are you here for?" + +"To look after my ward." + +Lady Fanny eyed him again. + +"Of course! I had forgotten. Well, she'll be all right." + +"What are you really preparing to do to-morrow?" + +"Force our way into the House of Commons!" + +"Which means--get into an ugly scrimmage with the police, and put your +cause back another few years?" + +"Ah! I can't talk to you, if you talk like that! There isn't time," she +threw back, with laughing affectation, and nodding to him, she +fluttered off to a distant table where a group of girls were busy +making black and orange badges. But her encounter with him seemed to +have affected the hive. Its buzz sank, almost ceased. + +Winnington indeed suddenly discovered that all eyes were fixed upon +him--that he was being closely and angrily observed. He was conscious, +quickly and strangely conscious, of an atmosphere of passionate +hostility, as though a pulse of madness ran through the twenty or +thirty women present. Meredithian lines flashed into memory-- + + "Thousand eyeballs under hoods + Have you by the hair--" + +and a shock of inward laughter mingled in his mind with irritation for +Delia--who was to have no place apparently in her own flat for either +rest or food--and the natural wish of a courteous man not to give +offense. At the same moment, he perceived on one of the tables a heap +of new and bright objects; and saw at once that they were light +hammers, fresh from the ironmongers. Near them lay a pile of stones, +and two women were busily casing the stones in a printed leaflet. But +he had no sooner become aware of these things than several persons in +the room moved so as to stand between him and them. + +He went back into the passage, closing the door behind him. + +The little parlour-maid came hurriedly from the back regions carrying a +tray on which was tea and bread and butter. + +"Are you taking that to Miss Blanchflower?" + +"Yes, Sir." + +"Shew me the way, please." + +Winnington followed her, and she, after a scared look, did not attempt +to stop him. + +She paused outside a door, and instantly made way for him. He knocked, +and at the "Come in" he entered, the maid slipping in after him with +the tea. + +Two persons rose startled from their seats--Delia and Gertrude Marvell. +He had chanced upon the dining-room, which no less than the +drawing-room had been transformed into an office and a store-room. +Masses of militant literature, copies of the _Tocsin_, books and +Stationery covered the tables, while, on the wall opposite the door, a +large scale map of the streets in the neighbourhood of the Houses of +Parliament had been hung over a picture. + +It seemed to him that Delia looked ill and agitated. He walked up to +her companion, and spoke with vivacity-- + +"Miss Marvell!--I protest altogether against your proceedings in this +house! I protest against Miss Blanchflower's being drawn into what is +clearly intended to be an organised riot, which may end in physical +injury, even in loss of life--which will certainly entail imprisonment +on the ringleaders. If you have any affection for Delia you will advise +her to let me take her to my sister, who is in town to-night, at +Smith's Hotel, and will of course most gladly look after her." + +Gertrude, who seemed to him somehow to have dwindled and withered into +an elderly woman since he had last seen her, looked him over from head +to foot with a touch of smiling insolence, and then turned quietly to +Delia. + +"Will you go, Delia?" + +"No!" said Delia, throwing back her beautiful head. "No! This is my +place, Mr. Mark. I'm very sorry--but you must leave me here. Give my +love to Mrs. Matheson." + +"Delia!" He turned to her imploringly. But the softness she had shewn +on the journey had died out of her face. She stood resolved, and some +cold dividing force seemed to have rolled between them. + +"I don't see what you can do, Mr. Winnington," said Gertrude, still +smiling. "I have pointed that out to you before. As a matter of fact +Delia will not even be living here on money provided by you at all. She +has other resources. You have no hold on her--no power--that I can see. +And she wishes to stay with me. I think we must bid you good night. We +are very busy." + +He stood a moment, looking keenly from one to the other, at Gertrude's +triumphant eyes blazing from her emaciated face, at Delia's exalted, +tragic air. Then, with a bow, and in silence, he left the room, and the +house. + + * * * * * + +It was quite dark when he emerged on Milbank Street. All the +neighbourhood of the Houses of Parliament and the Abbey seemed to be +alive with business and traffic. But Palace Yard was still empty save +for a few passing figures, and there was no light on the Clock Tower. A +placard on the railings of the Square caught his notice--"Threatened +Raid on the House of Commons. Police precautions." At the same moment +he was conscious that a policeman standing at the corner of the House +of Commons had touched his hat to him, grinning broadly. Winnington +recognised a Maumsey man, whom he had befriended in various ways, who +owed his place indeed in the Metropolitan force to Winnington's good +word. + +"Hullo, Hewson--how are you? Flourishing?" + +The man's face beamed again. He was thinking of a cricket match the +year before under Winnington's captaincy. Like every member of the +eleven, he would have faced "death and damnation" for the captain. + +They walked along the man's beat together. A thought struck Winnington. + +"You seem likely to have some disturbance here tomorrow?" he said, as +they neared Westminster Bridge. + +"It's the ladies, Sir. They do give a lot of trouble!" Winnington +laughed--paused--then looked straight at the fine young man who was +evidently so glad to see him. + +"Look here, Hewson--I'll tell you something--keep it to yourself! +There'll be a lady in that procession to-morrow whom I don't want +knocked about. I shall be here. Is there anything you can do to help +me? I shall try and get her out of the crowd. Of course I shall have a +motor here." + +Hewson looked puzzled, but eager. He described where he was likely to +be stationed, and where Winnington would probably find him. If Mr. +Winnington would allow him, he would tip a wink to a couple of mates, +who could be trusted--and if he could do anything to help, why, he +would be "rare pleased" to do it. + +"But I'm afraid it'll be a bad row, Sir. There's a lot of men +coming--from Whitechapel--they say." + +Winnington nodded and walked on. He went to his club, and dined there, +refusing a friend's invitation to go and dine with him at home. And +after dinner, as the best means of solitude, he went out again into +the crowded streets, walking aimlessly. The thought of Delia +arrested--refused bail--in a police cell--or in prison--tormented him. +All the traditional, fastidious instincts of his class and type were +strong in him. He loathed the notion of any hand laid upon her, of any +rough contact between her clean youth, and the brutalities of a London +crowd. His blood rushed at the thought of it. The mere idea of any +insult offered her made him murderous. + +He turned down Whitehall, and at a corner near Dover House he presently +perceived a small crowd which was being addressed by a woman. She had +brought a stool with her, and was standing on it. A thin slip of a +girl, with a childish, open face and shrill voice. He went up to listen +to her, and stood amazed at the ignorant passion, the reckless violence +of what she was saying. It seemed indeed to have but little effect upon +her hearers. Men joined the crowd for a few minutes, listened with +upturned impassive faces, and went their way. A few lads attempted +horse-play, but stopped as a policeman approached; and some women +carrying bundles propped them against a railing near, and waited, +lifting tired eyes, and occasionally making comments to each other. +Presently, it appeared to Winnington that the speaker was no more +affected by her own statements--appalling as some of them were--than +her hearers. She appeared to be speaking from a book--to have just +learnt a lesson. She was then a paid speaker? And yet he thought not. +Every now and then phrases stood out--fiercely sincere--about the low +wages of women, their exclusion from the skilled trades, the marriage +laws, the exploiting and "selling" of women, and the like. And always, +in the background of the girl's picture, the hungry and sensual +appetites of men, lying in wait for the economic and physical weakness +of the woman. + +He waited until she had finished. Then he helped her down from her +perch, and made a way for her through the crowd. She looked at him in +astonishment. "Thank you, Sir,--don't trouble! Last night I was pelted +with filth. Are you one of us?" + +He shook his head, smiling. + +"I didn't agree with you. I advise you to look up some of those things +you said. But you speak very well. Good-night." + +She looked at him angrily, gathered up her skirt with a rattle, in a +small hand, and disappeared. + +He presently turned back towards Buckingham Gate, and in a narrow +Westminster street, as he passed the side of a high factory building, +suddenly there emerged from a door-way a number of women and girls, who +had evidently been working over-time. Some of them broke at once into +loud talk and laughter, as though in reaction from the confinement and +tension of their work, some--quite silent--turned their tired faces to +him as they passed him; and some looked boldly, provocatively at the +handsome man, who on his side was clearly observing them. They were of +all types, but the majority of the quite young girls were pale and +stunted, shewing the effect of long hours, and poor food. The coarse or +vicious faces were few; many indeed were marked by a modest or patient +gentleness. The thin line of hurrying forms disappeared into darkness +and distance, some one way, some another; and Winnington was left to +feel that in what he had seen--this everyday incident of a London +street--he had been aptly reminded of what a man who has his occupation +and dwelling amid rural scenes and occupations too readily +forgets--that toiling host of women, married and unmarried, which +modern industry is every day using, or devouring, or wasting. The +stream of lives rushes day by day through the industrial rapids; some +of it passing on to quiet and fruitful channels beyond the roar, and +some lost and churned for ever in the main tumult of the river. + +This new claim upon women, on the part of society, in addition to the +old claims of home and motherhood--this vast industrial claim--must it +not change and modify everything in time?--depress old values, create +new? "The vote!--give us the vote! and all will be well. More wages, +more food, more joy, more share in this glorious world!--that's what +the vote means--give us the vote!" Such, in effect, had been the cry +of that half-mad speaker in Whitehall, herself marked and injured by +the economic struggle. + +The appeal echoed in Winnington's heart. And Delia seemed to be at his +side, raising her eager eyes to his, pressing him for admission. Had +he, indeed, thought enough of these things?--taken enough to heart this +new and fierce struggle of women with life and circumstance, that is +really involved in the industrial organisation of the modern world? + +He passed on--up Buckingham Gate, towards the Palace. Turning to the +left, he was soon aware of two contrasted things:--an evening party +going on at a well-known Embassy, cars driving up and putting down +figures in flashing dresses, and gold-encrusted uniforms, emerging, and +disappearing within its open doors--and only twenty yards away, a group +of women huddled together in the cold, outside a closed fish-shop, +waiting to buy for a few pence the broken or spoiled fish of the day. +But a little further on he suddenly plunged into a crowd coming down +Grosvenor Place. He stopped to watch it, and saw that it accompanied a +long procession of men tramping back from Hyde Park. A banner held by +the leaders bore the words--"Unemployed and starving! Give us work or +bread." And Winnington remembered there was a docker's strike going on +in Limehouse, passionately backed and defended by the whole body of the +local clergy. + +His eyes examined the faces and forms in the procession. Young and old, +sickly and robust, they passed him by, all of them marked and branded +by their tyrant, Labour; rolled like the women amid the rocks and +whirlpools of the industrial stream; marred and worn like them, only +more deeply, more tragically. The hollow eyes accused him as they +passed--him, with his ease of honoured life. "What have you made of us, +your brethren?--you who have had the lead and the start!--you who have +had till now the fashioning of this world in which we suffer! What is +wrong with the world? We know no more than you. But it is your business +to know! For God's sake, you who have intelligence and education, and +time to use them, think for us!--think with us!--find a way out! More +wages--more food--more leisure--more joy!--By G--d! we'll have them, +or bring down your world and ours in one ruin together!" + +And then far back, from the middle of the last century, there came to +Winnington's listening mind the cry of the founders of English +democracy. "The vote!--give us the vote!--and bring in the reign of +plenty and of peace." And the vote was given. Sixty years--and still +this gaunt procession!--and all through Industrial England, the same +unrest, the same bitterness! + +The vote? What is it actually going to mean, in struggle for life and +happiness that lies before every modern Community? How many other +methods and forces have already emerged, and must yet emerge, beside +it! The men know it. And meanwhile, the women--a section of women--have +seized with the old faith, on the confident cries of sixty years +ago?--with the same disillusion waiting in the path? + +He passed on, drawn again down Constitution Hill, and the Mall, back to +the Houses of Parliament and the River.... The night was clear and +frosty. He paused on Westminster Bridge, and leant over the parapet, +feasting his eyes on that incomparable scene which age cannot wither +nor custom stale for the heart of an Englishman. The long front of the +Houses of Parliament rose darkly over the faintly moonlit river; the +wharves and houses beyond, a medley of strong or delicate line, of +black shadow and pale lights, ran far into a vaporous distance powdered +with lamps. On the other side St. Thomas's Hospital, and an answering +chain of lamps, far-flung towards Battersea. Between, the river, +heaving under a full tide, with the dim barges and tugs passing up and +down. "The Mississippi, Sir, is dirty water--the St. Lawrence is cold, +dirty water--but the Thames, Sir, is liquid 'istory!" That famous _mot_ +of a Labour Minister delighted Mark's dreaming sense. The river indeed +as it flowed by, between buildings new and old, seemed to be bearing +the nation on its breast, to symbolise the ever-renewed life of a great +people. What tasks that life had seen!--what vaster issues it had still +to see!-- + +And in that dark building, like a coiled and secret spring ready to act +when touched, the Idea which ruled that life, as all life, in the end, +is ruled. On the morrow, a few hundred men would flock to that +building, as the representatives and servants of the Idea--of that +England which lives "while we believe." + +And the vote behind them?--the political act which chose and sent them +there? Its social power, and all its ordinary associations, noble or +ignoble, seemed suddenly to vanish, for Winnington, engulfed in +something infinitely greater, something vital and primitive, on which +all else depended. + +He hung, absorbed, over the sliding water, giving the rein to reverie. +He seemed to see the English Spirit, hovering, proudly watchful, above +that high roof beside the dark water-way, looking out to sea, and +across the world. What indomitable force, what ichor gleaming fire, +through the dark veins of that weary Titan, sustained him there?--amid +the clash of alien antagonisms, and the mysterious currents of things? +What but the lavished blood and brain of England's sons?--that rude +primal power that men alone can bring to their country? + +Let others solve their own problems! But can women share the male tasks +that make and keep _us_ a Nation, amid a jarring and environing host of +Nations?--an Empire, with the guardianship of half the world on its +shoulders? And if not, how can men rightly share with women the act +which controls those tasks, and chooses the men to execute them? + +And yet!--all his knowledge of human life, all his tenderness for human +suffering, rushed in to protest that the great question was only half +answered, when it was answered so. He seemed to see the Spirit of +England, Janus-like, two-faced, with one aspect looking out to sea, the +other, brooding over the great city at its feet, and turned inland +towards the green country and studded towns beyond. And as to that +other, that home-face of England, his dreaming sense scarcely knew +whether it was man or woman. There was in it male power, but also +virgin strength, and mother love. Men and women might turn to it +equally--for help. + +No need for women in the home tasks--the national house-keeping of this +our England? He laughed--like France--at the mere suggestion of the +doubt. Why, that teeming England, north and south, was crying out for +the work of women, the help of women! Who knew it better than he? But +call in thought!--call in intelligence! Find out the best way to fit +the work to the organism, the organism to the work. What soil so rich +as England in the seed of political ideas? What nation could so easily +as we evolve new forms out of the old to fit new needs? + +But what need for patience in the process--for tolerance--for clear +thinking! And while England ponders, bewildered by the very weight of +her own load, and its responsibilities, comes, suddenly, this train of +Maenads rushing through the land, shrieking and destroying. + +He groaned in spirit, as he thought of Delia's look that day--of the +tragic-comic crowd around her. Again his thoughts flew hither and +thither, seeking to excuse, to understand her, and always, as it +seemed, with her dear voice in his ears--trembling--rushing--with the +passionate note he knew. + +"Mr. Winnington!" + +He looked up. An elderly woman, plain-featured, ill-dressed, stood +beside him, her kind eyes blinking under the lamp overhead. He +recognised Miss Dempsey, and grasped her by the hand. + +"My dear lady, where have you sprung from?" + +She hesitated, and then said, supporting herself on the parapet of the +bridge, as though thankful for the momentary rest. + +"I had to go in search of someone." + +He knew very well what she meant. + +"You've found her?" + +"Yes." + +"Can anyone help?" + +"No. The poor thing's safe--with good people who understand." + +He asked no more about her errand. He knew very well that day after +day, and week after week, her tired feet carried her on the same +endless quest--seeking "that which was lost." But the stress of thought +in his own mind found expression in a question which surprised her. + +"Would the vote help you? Is that why you want it?" + +She smiled. + +"Oh, no! Oh, dear no!" she said, with emphasis; after a moment, adding +in a lower tone, scarcely addressed to her companion--"'_It cost +more--to redeem their souls_!'" And again--"Dear Mr. Mark, men are what +their mothers make them!--that is the bottom truth. And when women are +what God intended them to be, they will have killed the ape and the +tiger in men. But law can't do it. Only the Spirit." Her face shone a +little. Then, in her ordinary voice--"Oh, no--I want the vote for quite +other reasons. It is our right--and it is monstrous we shouldn't have +it!" Her cheeks flushed. + +He turned his friendly smile upon her, without attempting to argue. +They walked back over the bridge together. + + * * * * * + +The following day rose in wind and shower. But the February rain +cleared away towards noon, and the high scudding clouds, with bright +spaces between, suddenly began to prophesy Spring. From Hyde Park, down +the Mall, and along Whitehall, the troops gathered and the usual crowd +sprang up in their rear, pressing towards Parliament Square, or lining +the route. Winnington had sent a note early to Delia by messenger; but +he expected no reply, and got none. All he could do was to hide a motor +in Dean's Yard, to hold a conference or two with the friendly bobby in +Parliament Square, and then to wander about the streets looking +restlessly at the show. It duly passed him by, the Cinderella-coach, +with the King and Queen of fairy-tale, the splendid Embassy carriages, +the Generals on their gleaming horses, the Guards, in their red +cloaks--and all the rest. The Royalties disappeared up the carpeted +stairs into the House of Lords, and after half an hour, while the bells +of St. Margaret's filled all the air with tumult, came out, again; and +again the ermined Queen, and the glistening King passed bowing along +the crowd. Winnington caught hold of a Hampshire member in the crowd. + +"When does the House meet?" + +"Everything adjourned till four. They'll move the Address about five. +But everyone expects a row." + +Nothing for it but to wait and stroll, to spend half an hour in the +Abbey, and take a turn along the Embankment.... And gradually, +steadily the Square filled up, no one knew how. The soldiers +disappeared, but policemen quietly took their places. All the entrances +to the House of Commons were carefully guarded, groups as they gathered +were dispersed, and the approaches to the House, in Old and New Palace +Yards, were rigorously kept free. But still the crowd in Parliament +Square grew and thickened. Girls, with smiling excited faces, still +moved to and fro in it, selling the _Tocsin_. Everybody waited +expectant. + +Then the chimes of the Abbey struck four. And as they died away, from a +Westminster street, from Whitehall, and from Milbank, there arose a +simultaneous stir and shouting. And presently, from each quarter +appeared processions of women, carrying black and orange banners making +their way slowly through the throng. The crowd cheered and booed them +as they passed, swaying to this side and that. And as each procession +neared the outer line of police, it was firmly but courteously stopped, +and the leaders of it must needs parley with the mounted constables who +sat ready to meet them. + +Winnington, jumping on the motor which he had placed opposite St. +Margaret's, drew out some field-glasses, and scanned the advancing +lines of women. The detachment coming from Whitehall seemed to be +headed by the chiefs of the whole organisation, to judge from the +glistening banner which floated above its foremost group. Winnington +examined it closely. Gertrude Marvell was not there, nor Delia. Then he +turned westwards. Ah, now he saw her! That surely was she!--in the +front ranks of the lines coming from Milbank. For a moment, he saw the +whole scene in orderly and picturesque array, the cordons of police, +the mounted constables, the banners of the processions, the swaying +crowds, Westminster Hall, the clock tower, with its light:--the next, +everything was tossed in wild confusion. Some savage impelling movement +in the crowd behind had broken the lines of police. The women were +through! He could see the scurrying forms running across the open +spaces, pursued, grappled with. + +He threw himself into the crowd, which had rapidly hemmed him in, +buffeting it from side to side like a swimmer into troubled waters. His +height, his strength, served him well, and by the time he had reached +the southern corner of St. Margaret's, a friendly hand gripped him. + +"Do you see her, Sir?" + +"Near the front!--coming from Milbank." + +"All right! Follow me, Sir. This way!" + +And with Hewson, and apparently two other police, Winnington battled +his way towards the tumult in front of St. Stephen's entrance. The +mounted police were pressing the crowd back with their horses, and as +Winnington emerged into clear ground, he saw a melee of women and +police,--some women on the ground, some held between police on either +side, and one group still intact. In it he recognised Gertrude Marvell. +He saw her deliberately strike a constable in the face. Then he lost +sight of her. All he saw were the steps of St. Stephen's entrance +behind, crowded with Members of Parliament. Suddenly another woman +fell, a grey-haired woman, and almost immediately a girl who was +struggling with two policemen, disengaged herself and ran to help. She +bent over the woman, and lifted her up. The police at once made way for +them, but another wild rush from behind seemed to part them--sweep +them from view-- + +"Now, Sir!" said Hewson, on tiptoe--"Hold on! They've got the old lady +safe. I think the young one's hurt." + +They pressed their way through. Winnington caught sight of Delia again, +deadly white, supported by a policeman on one side, and a gentleman on +the other. Andrews!--by George! Winnington cursed his own ill-luck in +not having been the first to reach her; but the gallant Captain was an +ally worth having, all the same. + +Mark was at her side. She lifted a face, all pain and bitter +indignation. "Cowards--Cowards!--to treat an old woman so!--Let me +go--let me go back! I must find her!" + +"She's all safe, Miss--she's all safe--you go home," said a friendly +policeman. "These gentlemen will look after you! Stand back there!" And +he tried to open a passage for them. + +Winnington touched her arm. But an involuntary moan startled him. +"She's hurt her arm"--said Andrews in his ear--"twisted it somehow. Go +to the other side of her--put your arm round her, and I'll clear the +way." + +Delia struggled--"No--no!--let me go!" + +But she was powerless. Winnington nearly carried her through the crowd, +while her faintness increased. By the time they reached the motor, she +was barely conscious. The two men lifted her in. Andrews stood looking +at her a moment, as she sank back with Winnington beside her, his ruddy +countenance expressing perhaps the most acute emotion of which its +possessor had ever yet been capable. + +"Good-night. You'll take her home," he said gruffly, and lifted his +hat. But the next moment he ran back to say--"I'll go back and find out +what's happened. She'll want to know. Where are you taking her?" + +"Smith's Hotel," said Winnington--"to my sister." And he gave the order +to the chauffeur. + +They set out. Mark passed his arm round her again, to support her, and +she drooped unconsciously upon his shoulder. A fierce joy--mingled with +his wrath and disgust. This must be--this should be the _end_! Was such +a form made for sordid violence and strife? Her life just breathed +against his--he could have borne her so for ever. + +But as soon as they had revived her, and she opened her eyes in Mrs. +Matheson's sitting-room at the hotel, she burst into a cry of misery. + +"Where's Gertrude!--let me go to her! Where am I?" + +As they wrestled with and soothed her, a servant knocked. + +"A gentleman to see you, Sir, downstairs." + +Winnington descended, and found Andrews--breathless with news. + +Eighty women arrested--Miss Marvell among the ringleaders, for all of +whom bail has been refused? While the riot had been going on in +Parliament Square, another detachment of women had passed along +Whitehall, smashing windows as they went. And at the same moment, a +number of shop-windows had been broken in Piccadilly. The Prime +Minister had been questioned in the Commons, and Sir Wilfrid Lang had +denounced the "Daughters'" organisation, and the mad campaign of +violence to which they were committed, in an indignant speech much +cheered by the House. + + * * * * * + +The days that followed were days of nightmare both for Delia and those +who watched over her. + +Gertrude Marvell and ten others went to prison, without the option of a +fine. About forty of the rank and file who refused to pay their fines, +or give surety for good behaviour, accompanied their leaders into +duress. The country rang with the scandal of what had happened, and +with angry debate as to how to stop the scandal in the future. The +Daughters issued defiant broadsheets, and filled the _Tocsin_ with +brave words. And the Constitutionalists who had pinned their hopes on +the Suffrage Bill before the House, wrung their hands, and wailed to +heaven and earth to keep these mad women in order. + +Delia sat waiting--waiting--all these intolerable hours. She scarcely +spoke to Winnington, except to ask him for news, or to thank him, when +every evening, owing to a personal knowledge of the Home Secretary, he +was able to bring her the very latest news of what was happening in +prison. Gertrude had refused food; forcible feeding would very soon +have to be abandoned; and her release, on the ground of danger to life, +might have to be granted. But in view of the hot indignation of the +public, the Government were not going to release any of the prisoners +before they absolutely must. + +Delia herself was maimed and powerless. How the wrenching of her arm +had come about--whether in the struggle with the two constables who had +separated her from Gertrude, or in the attempt to raise her companion +from the ground--she could not now remember. But a muscle had been +badly torn; she wore a sling and suffered constant and often severe +pain. Neither Alice Matheson, nor Lady Tonbridge--who had rushed up to +town--ever heard her complain, except involuntarily, of this pain. +Madeleine indeed believed that there was some atoning satisfaction in +it, for Delia's wounded spirit. If she was not with Gertrude in prison, +at least she too was suffering--if only a fraction of what Gertrude was +enduring. + +The arm however was not the most serious matter. As France had long +since perceived, she had been overstrained in nursing Weston, and the +events since she left Maumsey had naturally increased the mischief. She +had become sleepless and neurasthenic. And Winnington watched day by +day the eclipse of her radiant youth, with a dumb wrath almost as Pagan +as that which a similar impression had roused in Lathrop. + +The nights were her worst time. She lived then, in prison, with +Gertrude, vividly recalling all that she had ever heard from the +Daughters who had endured it, of the miseries and indignities of prison +life. But she also lived again through the events which had preceded +and followed the riot; her quick intelligence pondered the comments of +the newspapers, the attitude of the public, the measured words and +looks of these friends who surrounded her. And there were many times +when sitting up in bed alone, suffering and sleepless, she asked +herself bitterly--"were we just fools!--just fools?" + +But whatever the mind replied, the heart and its loyalty stood firm. +She was no more free now than before--that was the horrible part of it! +It was this which divided her from Winnington. The thought of how he +had carried her off from the ugly or ridiculous scenes which the +newspapers described--scenes of which she had scarcely any personal +memory, alternately thrilled and shamed her. But the aching expectation +of Gertrude's return--the doubt in what temper of mind and what plight +of body she would return--dominated everything else. + +At last came the expected message. "In consequence of a report from the +prison doctors and his own medical advisers, the Home Secretary has +ordered the immediate release of Miss Gertrude Marvell." Winnington was +privately notified of the time of release, information which was +refused to what remained of the Daughters' organisation, lest there +should be further disturbance. He took a motor to the prison gate, and +put a terribly enfeebled woman and her nurse into it. Gertrude did not +even recognise him, and he followed the motor to the Westminster flat, +distracted by the gloomiest forebodings. + +Delia was already at the flat to receive her friend, having +quietly--but passionately--insisted, against all the entreaties of Mrs. +Matheson and Lady Tonbridge. Winnington helped the nurse and the porter +to carry Gertrude Marvell upstairs. They laid her on the bed, and the +doctor who had been summoned took her in charge. As he was leaving the +room, Winnington turned back--to look at his enemy. How far more +formidable to him in her weakness than in her strength! The keen eyes +were closed, the thin mouth relaxed and bloodless shewing the teeth, +the hands mere skin and bone. She lay helpless and only half-conscious +on her pillows, with nurse and doctor hovering round her, and Delia +kneeling beside her. Yet, as he closed the door, Winnington realised +her power through every vein! It rested entirely with her whether or no +she would destroy Delia, as she must in the end destroy herself. + +He waited in the drawing-room for Delia. She came at last, with a cold +and alien face. "Don't come again, please! Leave us to ourselves. I +shall have doctors--and nurses. We'll let you know." + +He took her hands tenderly. But she drew them away--shivering a little. + +"You don't know--you can't know--what it means to me--to _us_--to see +what she has suffered. There must be no one here but those--who +sympathise--who won't reproach--" Her voice failed her. + +There was nothing for it but to go. + + + + +Chapter XVIII + + +Great is the power of martyrdom!--of the false no less than the +true--and whether the mind consent or no. + +During the first week of Gertrude Marvell's recovery--or partial +recovery--from her prison ordeal, both Winnington and Delia realised +the truth of this commonplace to the full. Winnington was excluded from +the flat. Delia, imprisoned within it, was dragged, day by day, through +deep waters of emotion and pity. She envied the heroism of her friend +and leader; despised herself for not having been able to share it; and +could not do enough to soothe the nervous suffering which Gertrude's +struggle with law and order had left behind it. + +But with the beginning of the second week some strange facts emerged. +Gertrude was then sufficiently convalescent to be moved into the +drawing-room, to see a few visitors, and to exchange experiences. All +who came belonged to the League, and had been concerned in the +Parliamentary raid. Most of them had been a few days or a week in +prison. Two had been hunger-strikers. And as they gathered round +Gertrude in half-articulate worship, Delia, passing from one revealing +moment to another, suddenly felt herself superfluous--thrust away! She +could not join in their talk except perfunctorily; the violence of it +often left her cold and weary; and she soon recognised half in +laughter, half bitterly, that, as one who had been carried out of the +fray, like a naughty child, by her guardian, she stood in the opinion +of Gertrude's visitors, on a level altogether inferior to that of +persons who had "fought it out." + +This, however, would not have troubled her--she was so entirely of the +same opinion herself. But what began to wound her to the quick was +Gertrude's own attitude towards her. She had been accustomed for so +long to be Gertrude's most intimate friend, to be recognised and envied +as such, that to be made to feel day by day how small a hold--for some +mysterious reason--she now retained on that fierce spirit, was galling +indeed. Meanwhile she had placed all the money realised by the sale of +her jewels,--more than three thousand pounds--in Gertrude's hands for +League purposes; her house was practically Gertrude's, and had Gertrude +willed, her time and her thoughts would have been Gertrude's also. She +would not let herself even think of Winnington. One glance at the +emaciated face and frame beside her was enough to recall her from what +had otherwise been a heavenly wandering. + +But she was naturally quick and shrewd, and she soon made herself face +the fact that she was supplanted. Supplanted by many--but especially by +one. Marion Andrews had not been in the raid--Delia often uneasily +pondered the why and wherefore. She came up to town a week after it, +and was then constantly in Gertrude's room. Between Delia, and this +iron-faced, dark-browed woman, with her clumsy dress and brusque ways, +there was but little conversation. Delia never forgot their last +meeting at Maumsey; she was often filled with dire forebodings and +suspicions; and as the relation between Gertrude and Miss Andrews +became closer, they grew and multiplied. + +At last one morning Gertrude turned her back on invalid ways. She got +up at her usual time; she dismissed her nurse; and in the middle of the +morning she came in upon Delia, who, in the desultory temper born of +physical strain, was alternately trying to read Marshall's "Economics +of Industry," and writing to Lady Tonbridge about anything and +everything, except the topics that really occupied her mind. + +Delia sprang up to get her a shawl, to settle her on the sofa. But +Gertrude said impatiently-- + +"Please don't fuss. I want to be treated now as though I were well--I +soon shall be. And anyway I am tired of illness." And she took a plain +chair, as though to emphasize what she had said. + +"I came to talk to you about plans. You're not busy!" + +"Busy!" The scornful tone was a trifle bitter also, as Gertrude +perceived. Delia put aside her book, and her writing-board, and +descended to her favourite place on the hearth rug. The two friends +surveyed each other. + +"Gertrude, it's absurd to talk as though you were well!" cried Delia. +"You look a perfect wreck!" + +But there was more in what she saw--in what she felt--than physical +wreck. There was a moral and spiritual change, subtler than any +physical injury, and probably more permanent. Gertrude Marvell had +never possessed any "charm," in the sense in which other leaders of the +militant movement possessed it. A clear and narrowly logical brain, the +diamond sharpness of an astonishing will, and certain passions of hate, +rather than passions of love, had made the strength of her personality, +and given her an increasing ascendancy. But these qualities had been +mated with a slender physique--trim, balanced, composed--suggesting a +fastidious taste, and nerves perfectly under control; a physique which +had given special accent and emphasis to her rare outbreaks of spoken +violence. Refinement, seemliness, "ladylikeness,"--even Sir Robert +Blanchflower in his sorest moments would scarcely have denied her +these. + +In a measure they were there still, but coupled with pathetic signs of +some disintegrating and poisonous influence. The face which once, in +its pallid austerity, had not been without beauty, had now coarsened, +even in emaciation. The features stood out disproportionately; the hair +had receded from the temples; something ugly and feverish had been, as +it were, laid bare. And composure had been long undermined. The nurse +who had just left had been glad to go. + +Gertrude received Delia's remark with impatience. + +"Do please let my looks alone! As if you could boast!" The speaker's +smile softened as she looked at the girl's still bandaged arm, and pale +cheeks. "That in fact is what I wanted to say, Delia. You ought to be +going home. You want the country and the garden. And I, it seems--so +this tiresome Doctor says--ought to have a fortnight's sea." + +"Oh--" said Delia, with a sudden flush. "So you think we ought to give +up the flat? Why can't I come with you to the sea?" + +"I thought you had begun to do various things--cripples--and +cottages--and schools--for Mr. Winnington," said Gertrude, drily. + +"I wanted to--but Weston's illness stopped it--and then I came here." + +"Well, you 'wanted to.' And why shouldn't you?" + +There was a silence. Then Delia looked up--very pale now--her head +thrown back. + +"So you mean you wish to get rid of me, Gertrude!" + +"Nothing of the sort. I want you to do--what you clearly wish to do." + +"When have I ever shown you that I wished to desert you--or--the +League?" + +"Perhaps I read you better than you do yourself," said +Gertrude, slightly reddening too. "Of course you have been +goodness--generosity--itself. But--this cause wants more than +gifts--more than money-it wants a woman's _self_!" + +"Well?" Delia waited. + +Gertrude moved impatiently. + +"Why should we play the hypocrite with each other!" she said at last. +"You won't deny that what Mr. Winnington thinks--what Mr. Winnington +feels--is infinitely more important to you now than what anybody else +in the world thinks or feels?" + +"Which I shewed by coming up here against his express wishes?--and +joining in the raid, after he had said all that a man could say against +it, both to you and to me?" + +"Oh, I admit you did your best--you did your best," said Gertrude +sombrely. "But I know you, Delia!--I know you! Your heart's not in +it--any more." + +Delia rose, and began slowly to pace the room. There was a wonderful +virginal dignity--a suppressed passion--in her attitude, as though she +wrestled with inward wound. But she said nothing, except to ask--as she +paused in front of Gertrude-- + +"Where are you going--and who is going with you?" + +"I shall go to the sea, somewhere--perhaps to the Isle of Wight. I +daresay Marion Andrews will come with me. She wants to escape her +mother for a time." + +"Marion Andrews?" repeated Delia thoughtfully. Then, after a +moment--"So you're not coming down to Maumsey any more?" + +"Ask yourself what there is for me to do there, my dear child! Frankly, +I should find the society of Mr. Winnington and Lady Tonbridge rather +difficult! And as for their feelings about me!" + +"Do you remember--you promised to live with me for a year?" + +"Under mental reservation," said Gertrude, quietly. "You know very +well, I didn't accept it as an ordinary post." + +"And now there's nothing more to be got out of me? Oh, I didn't mean +anything cruel!" added the girl hastily. "I know you must put the cause +first." + +"And you see where the cause is," said Gertrude grimly. "In ten days +from now Sir Wilfrid Lang will have crushed the bill." + +"And everybody seems to be clamouring that we've given them the +excuse!" + +Fierce colour overspread Gertrude's thin temples and cheeks. + +"They'll take it, anyway; and we've got to do all we can--meetings, +processions, way-laying Ministers--the usual things--and any new +torment we can devise." + +"But I thought you were going to Southsea!" + +"Afterwards--afterwards!" said Gertrude, with visible temper. "I shall +run down to Brighton tomorrow, and come back fresh on Monday." + +"To this flat?" + +"Oh no--I've found a lodging." + +Delia turned away--her breath fluttering. + +"So we part to-morrow!" Then suddenly she faced round on Gertrude. "But +I don't go, Gertrude--till I have your promise!" + +"What promise?" + +"To let--Monk Lawrence _alone_!" said the girl with sudden intensity, +and laying her uninjured hand on a table near, she stooped and looked +Gertrude in the eyes. + +Gertrude broke into a laugh. + +"You little goose! Do you think I look the kind of person for nocturnal +adventures?--a cripple--on a stick? Yes, I know you have been talking +to Marion Andrews. She told me." + +"I warned _you_," said Delia, with determination--"which was more to +the point. Everything Mr. Lathrop told me, I handed on to you." + +There was an instant's silence. Then Gertrude laid a skeleton hand upon +the girl's hand--gripping it painfully. + +"And do you suppose--that anything Mr. Lathrop could say, or you +could say, could prevent my carrying out plans that seemed to me +necessary--in this war!" + +Delia gasped. + +"Gertrude!--you mean to do it!" + +Gertrude released her--almost threw her hand away. + +"I have told you why you are a fool to think so. But if you do think +so, go and tell Mr. Winnington! Tell him everything!--make him enquire. +I shall be in town--ready for the warrant." + +The two faced each other. + +"And now," said Gertrude--"though I am convalescent--we have had +enough of this." She rose tottering--and felt for her stick. Delia +gave it her. + +"Gertrude!" It was a bitter cry of crushed affection and wounded trust. +It arrested Gertrude for a moment on her way to the door. She turned in +indecision--then shook her head--muttered something inarticulate, and +went. + + * * * * * + +That afternoon Delia sent a telegram to Lady Tonbridge who had returned +to Maumsey--"Can you and Nora come and stay with me for three months. I +shall be quite alone." She also despatched a note to Winnington's club, +simply to say that she was going home tomorrow. She had no recent news +of Winnington's whereabouts, but something told her that he was still +in town--still near her. + +Then she turned with energy to practical affairs--arrangements for +giving up the flat, dismissing some servants, despatching others to +Maumsey. She had something of a gift for housekeeping, and on this +evening of all others she blessed its tasks. When they met at dinner, +Gertrude was perfectly placid and amiable. She went to bed early, and +Delia spent the hours after dinner in packing, with her maid. In the +middle of it came a line from Winnington--"Good news indeed! I go down +to Maumsey early, to see that the Abbey is ready for you. Don't bother +about the flat. I have spoken to the Agents. They will do everything. +_Au revoir!"_ + +The commonplace words somehow broke down her self-control. She sent +away her maid, put out the glaring electric light, and sat crouched +over the fire, in the darkness, thinking her heart out. Once she sprang +up suddenly, her hands at her breast--"Oh Mark, Mark--I'm coming back +to you, Mark,--I'm coming back--I'm _free!_"--in an ecstasy. + +But only to feel herself the next moment, quenched--coerced--her +happiness dashed from her. If she gave herself to Mark, her knowledge, +her suspicions, her practical certainty must go with the gift. She +could not keep from him her growing belief that Monk Lawrence was +vitally threatened, and that Gertrude, in spite of audacious denials, +was still madly bent upon the plot. And to tell him would mean instant +action on his part: arrest--prison--perhaps death--for this woman she +had adored, whom she still loved with a sore, disillusioned tenderness. +She could not tell him!--and therefore she could not engage herself to +him. Had Gertrude realised that?--counted upon it? + +No. She must work in other ways--through Mr. Lathrop--through various +members of the "Daughters" Executive who were personally known to her. +Gertrude must be restrained--somehow--by those who still had influence +with her. + +The loneliness of that hour sank deep into Delia's soul. Never had she +felt herself so motherless, so forlorn. Her passion for this elder +woman during three years of fast-developing youth had divided her from +all her natural friends. As for her relations, her father's sister, +Elizabeth Blanchflower, a selfish, eccentric old maid, had just +acknowledged her existence in two chilly notes since she returned to +England; while Lord Frederick, Winnington's co-executor, had in the +same period written her one letter of half-scolding, half-patronising +advice, and sent a present of game to Maumsey. Since then she +understood he had been pursuing his enemy the gout from "cure" to +"cure," and "Mr. Mark" certainly had done all the executor's work that +had not been mere formality. + +She had no friends, no one who cared for her!--except Winnington--her +chilled heart glowed to the name!--Lady Tonbridge, and poor Weston. +Among the Daughters she had acquaintances, but no intimates. Gertrude +had absorbed her; she had lived for Gertrude and Gertrude's ideas. + +And now she was despised--cast out. She tried to revive in herself the +old crusading flame--the hot unquestioning belief in Women's Rights +and Women's Wrongs--the angry contempt for men as a race of coarse and +hypocritical oppressors, which Gertrude had taught her. In vain. She +sat there, with these altruistic loves and hates--premature, artificial +things!--drooping away; conscious only, nakedly conscious, of the +thirst for individual happiness, personal joy--ashamed of it too, in +her bewildered youth!--not knowing that she was thereby best serving +her sex and her race in the fore-ordained ways of destiny. And the +wickedness of men? But to have watched a good man, day by day, had +changed all the values of the human scene. Her time would come +again--with fuller knowledge--for bitter loathing of the tyrannies of +sex and lust. But this, in the natural order, was her hour for +hope--for faith. As the night grew deeper, the tides of both rose and +rose within her--washing her at last from the shores of Desolation. She +was going home. Winnington would be there--her friend. Somehow, she +would save Gertrude. Somehow--surely--she would find herself in Mark's +arms again. She went to sleep with a face all tears, but whether for +joy or sorrow, she could hardly have told. + +Next morning Marion arrived early, and carried Gertrude off to +Victoria, en route for Brighton. Gertrude and Delia kissed each other, +and said Good-bye, without visible emotion. + +"Of course I shall come down to plague you in the summer," said +Gertrude, and Delia laughed assent--with Miss Andrews standing by. The +girl went through a spasm of solitary weeping when Gertrude was finally +gone; but she soon mastered it, and an hour later she herself was in +the train. + +Oh, the freshness of the February day--of the spring breathing +everywhere!--of the pairing birds and the springing wheat--and the +bright patches of crocuses and snowdrop in the gardens along the line. +A rush of pleasure in the mere return to the country and her home, in +the mere welling back of health, the escape from daily friction, and +ugly, violent thoughts, overflowed all her young senses. She was a +child on a holiday. The nightmare of the Raid--of those groups of +fighting, dishevelled women, ignominiously overpowered, of the grinning +crowd, the agonising pain of her arm, and the policeman's rough grip +upon it--began to vanish "in black from the skies." + +Until--the train ran into the long cutting half way between Latchford +and Maumsey, above which climbed the steep woods of Monk Lawrence. +Delia knew it well. And she had no sooner recognised it than her gaiety +fell--headlong--like a shot bird. She waited in a kind of terror for +the moment when the train should leave the cutting, and the house come +into view, on its broad terrace carved out of the hill. Yes, there it +was, far away, the incomparable front, with its beautiful +irregularities, and its equally beautiful symmetries, with its oriel +windows flashing in the sun, the golden grey of its stone work, the +delicate tracery on its tall twisted chimneys, and the dim purples of +its spreading roofs. It lay so gently in the bosom of the woods which +clasped it round--as though they said--"See how we have guarded and +kept it through the centuries for you, the children of to-day." + +The train sped on, and looking back Delia could just make out a whitish +patch on the lower edge of the woods. That was Mr. Lathrop's cottage. +It seemed to her vaguely that she had seen his face in the front rank +of the crowd in Parliament Square; but she had heard nothing of him, or +from him since their last talk. She had indeed written him a short +veiled note as she had promised to do, after Gertrude's first denials, +repeating them--though she herself disbelieved them--and there had been +no reply. Was he at home? Had he perhaps discovered anything more? + +When she alighted at Maumsey, with her hand in Winnington's, the fresh +colour in her cheeks had disappeared again, and he was dismayed anew at +her appearance, though he kept it to himself. But when she was once +more in the familiar drawing-room, sitting in her grandmother's chair, +obliged to rest while Lady Tonbridge poured out tea--Nora was improving +her French in Paris--and Winnington, with his hands in his pockets, +talked gossip and gardening, without a word of anything that had +happened since they three had last met in that room; when Weston, +ghostly but convalescent, came in to show herself; when Delia's black +spitz careered all over his recovered mistress, and even the cats came +to rub themselves against her skirts, it was impossible not to feel for +the moment, tremulously happy, and strangely delivered--in this house +whence Gertrude Marvell had departed. + +How vivid was the impression of this latter fact on the other two may +be imagined. When Delia had gone upstairs to chat with Weston, Lady +Tonbridge looked at Winnington-- + +"To what do we owe this crowning mercy? Who dislodged her?" +Winnington's glance was thoughtful. + +"I guess it has been her own doing entirely. But I know nothing." + +"Hm.--Well, if I may advise, dear Mr. Mark, ask no questions. And"--his +old friend put a hand on his arm--"May I go on?" A smile, not very gay, +permitted her. + +"Let her be!" she said softly, with a world of sympathy in her clear +brown eyes. "She's suffered--and she's on edge." He laid his hand on +hers, but said nothing. + + * * * * * + +The days passed by. Winnington did as he had been told; and Madeleine +Tonbridge seemed to see that Delia was dumbly grateful to him. +Meanwhile in the eyes of her two friends she made little or no advance +towards recapturing her former health and strength. The truth, of +course, was that she was consumed by devouring and helpless anxiety. +She wrote to Lathrop, posting the letter at a distant village; and +received no answer. Then she ascertained that he was not at the +cottage, and a casual line in the _Tocsin_ informed her that he had +been in town taking part in the foundation of an "outspoken" +newspaper--outspoken on "the fundamental questions of sex, liberty, and +morals involved in the suffrage movement." + +But a letter addressed "To be forwarded" to the _Tocsin_ office +produced no more result than her first. Meanwhile she had written +imploringly to various prominent members of the organisation in London +pointing out the effect on public opinion that must be produced all +through Southern England by any attack on Monk Lawrence. She received +two cold and cautious replies. It seemed to her that the writers of +them were even more in the dark than she. + +The days ran on. The newspapers were full of the coming Woman Suffrage +Bill, and its certain defeat in the Commons. Sir Wilfrid Lang was +leading the forces hostile to the Suffrage, and making speech after +speech in the country to cheering audiences, denouncing the Bill, and +the mad women who had tried to promote it by a campaign of outrage, "as +ridiculous as it was criminal." He was to move the rejection of it on +the second reading, and was reported to be triumphantly confident of +the result. + +Winnington meanwhile became more and more conscious of an abnormal +state of nerve and brain in this pale Delia, the shadow of her proper +self, and as the hours went on, he was presently for throwing all +Madeleine's counsels aside, and somehow breaking through the girl's +silence, in the hope of getting at--and healing--the cause of it. He +guessed of course at a hundred things to account for it--at a final +breach between her and Gertrude--at the disappointment of cherished +hopes and illusions--at a profound travail of mind, partly moral, +partly intellectual, going back over the past, and bewildered as to the +future. But at the first sign of a change of action, of any attempt to +probe her, on his part, she was off--in flight; throwing back at him +often a look at once so full of pain and so resolute that he dared not +pursue her. She possessed at all times a great personal dignity, and it +held him at bay. + +He himself--unconsciously--enabled her to hold him at bay. Naturally, +he connected some of the haunting anxiety he perceived with Monk +Lawrence, and with Gertrude Marvell's outrageous speech in Latchford +market-place. But he himself, on the other hand, was not greatly +concerned for Monk Lawrence. Not only he---the whole neighbourhood was +on the alert, in defence of the famous treasure-house. The outside of +the building and the gardens were patrolled at night by two detectives; +and according to Daunt's own emphatic assurance to Winnington, the +house was never left without either the Keeper himself or his niece in +it, to mount guard. They had set up a dog, with a bark which was alone +worth a policeman. And finally, Sir Wilfrid himself had been down to +see the precautions taken, had especially ordered the strengthening of +the side door, and the provision of iron bars for all the ground floor +windows. As to the niece, Eliza Daunt, she had not made herself popular +with the neighbours or in the village; but she seemed an efficient and +managing woman, and that she "kept herself to herself" was far best for +the safety of Monk Lawrence. + +Whenever during these days Winnington's business took him in the +Latchford direction, so that going or coming he passed Monk Lawrence, +he would walk up to the Abbey in the evening, and in the course of the +gossip of the day, all the reassuring news he had to give would be sure +to drop out; while Delia sat listening, her eyes fixed on him. And +then, for a time, the shadow almost lifted, and she would be her young +and natural self. + +In this way, without knowing it, he helped her to keep her secret, and, +intermittently, to fight down her fears. + +On one of these afternoons, in the February twilight, he had been +talking to both the ladies, describing _inter alia_ a brief call at +Monk Lawrence and a chat with Daunt, when Madeleine Tonbridge went away +to change her walking dress, and he and Delia were left alone. +Winnington was standing in the favourite male attitude--his hands in +his pockets, and his back to the fire; Delia was on a sofa near. The +firelight flickered on the black and white of her dress, and on the +face which in losing something of its dark bloom had gained infinitely +in other magic for the eyes of the man looking down upon her. + +Suddenly she said-- + +"Do you remember when you wanted me to say--I was sorry for Gertrude's +speech--and I wouldn't?" + +He started. + +"Perfectly." + +"Well, I am sorry now. I see--I know--it has been all a mistake." + +She lifted her eyes to his, very quietly--but the hands on her lap +shook. + +His passionate impulse was to throw himself at her feet, and silence +any further humbleness with kisses. But he controlled himself. + +"You mean--that violence--has been a mistake?" + +"Yes--just that. Oh, of course!"--she flushed again--"I am just as much +for _women_--I am just as rebellious against their wrongs--as I ever +was. I shall be a Suffragist always. But I see now--what we've stirred +up in England. I see now--that we can't win that way--and that we +oughtn't to win that way." + +He was silent a moment, and then said in a rather muffled voice-- + +"I don't know who else would have confessed it--so bravely!" His +emotion seemed to quiet her. She smiled radiantly. + +"Does it make you feel triumphant?" + +"Not in the least!" + +She held out both hands, and he grasped them, smiling +back--understanding that she wished him to take it lightly. + +Her eyes indeed now were full of gaiety--light swimming on depths. + +"You won't be always saying 'I told you so?'" + +"Is it my way?" + +"No. But perhaps it's cunning on your part. You know it pays better to +be generous." + +They both laughed, and she drew her hands away. In another minute, she +had asked him to go on with some reading aloud while she worked. He +took up the book. The blood raced in his veins. "Soon, soon!"--he said +to himself, only to be checked by the divining instinct which +added--"but not yet!" + + * * * * * + +Only a few more days now, to the Commons debate. Every morning the +newspapers contained a crop of "militant" news of the kind foreshadowed +by Gertrude Marvell--meetings disturbed, private parties raided, +Ministers waylaid, windows smashed, and the like, though in none of the +reports did Gertrude's own name appear. Only two days before the +debate, a glorious Reynolds in the National Gallery was all but +hopelessly defaced by a girl of eighteen. Feeling throughout the +country surged at a white-heat. Delia said little or nothing, but the +hollows under her eyes grew steadily darker, and her cheeks whiter. Nor +could Winnington, for all his increasing anxiety, devote himself to +soothing or distracting her. An ugly strike in the Latchford +brickfields against nonunion labour was giving the magistrates of +the country a good deal of anxiety. Some bad outrages had already +occurred, and Winnington was endeavouring to get a Board of Trade +arbitration,--all of which meant his being a good deal away from home. + +Meanwhile Delia was making a new friend. Easily and simply, though no +one knew exactly how, Susy Amberley had found her way to the heart of +the young woman so much talked about and so widely condemned by the +county. Her own departure for London had been once more delayed by the +illness of her mother. But the worst of her own struggle was over now; +and no one had guessed it. She was a little older, though it was hardly +perceptible to any eye but her mother's; a little graver; in some ways +sweeter, in others perhaps a trifle harder, like the dipped sword. Her +dress had become less of a care to her; she minded the fashions less +than her mother. And there had opened before her more and more +alluringly that world of social service, which is to so many beautiful +souls outside Catholicism the equivalent of the vowed and dedicated +life. + +But just as of old, she guessed Mark Winnington's thoughts, and by some +instinct divined his troubles. He loved Delia Blanchflower; that she +knew by a hundred signs; and there were rough places in his road,--that +too she knew. They were clearly not engaged; but their relation was +clearly, also, one of no ordinary friendship. Delia's dependence on +him, her new gentleness and docility were full of meaning--for Susy. As +to the causes of Delia's depression, why, she had lost her friend, or +at any rate, to judge from the fact that Delia was at Maumsey, while +Miss Marvell remained, so report said, in London--had ceased to agree +or act with her. Susy divined and felt for the possible tragedy +involved. Delia indeed never spoke of the militant propaganda; but she +often produced on Susy a strange impression as of someone +listening--through darkness. + +The net result of all these guessings was that the tender Susy fell +suddenly in love with Delia--first for Mark's sake, then for her own; +and became in a few days of frequent meetings, Delia's small worshipper +and ministering spirit. Delia surrendered, wondering; and it was soon +very evident that, on her side, the splendid creature, in her +unrevealed distress, pined after all to be loved, and by her own sex. +She told Susy no secrets, either as to Winnington, or Gertrude; but +very soon, just as Susy was certain about her, so she--very pitifully +and tenderly--became certain about Susy. Susy loved--or had once +loved--Winnington. And Delia knew very well, whom Winnington loved. The +double knowledge softened all her pride--all her incipient jealousy +away. She took Susy into her heart, though not wholly into her +confidence; and soon the two began to walk the lonely country roads +together hand in hand. Susy's natural tasks took her often among the +poor. But Delia would not go with her. She shrank during these days, +with a sick distaste from the human world around her,--its possible +claims upon her. Her mind was pre-engaged; and she would not pretend +what she could not feel. + +This applied especially to the folk on her father's estate. As to the +neighbours of her own class, they apparently shrank from her. She was +left coldly alone. No one called, but Susy, France and his wife, and +Captain Andrews. Mrs. Andrews indeed was loud in her denunciation of +Delia and all her crew. Her daughter Marion had abominably deserted +all her family duties, without any notice to her family, and was +now--according to a note left behind--brazenly living in town with +some one or other of the "criminals" to whom Miss Blanchflower of +course, had introduced her. But as she had given no address she was +safe from pursuit. Mrs. Andrews' life had never been so uncomfortable. +She had to maid herself, and do her own housekeeping, and the thing was +Scandalous and intolerable. She filled the local air with wailing and +abuse. + +But her son, the gallant Captain, would not allow any abuse of Delia +Blanchflower in his presence. He had begun, indeed, immediately after +Delia's return, to haunt the Abbey so persistently that Madeleine +Tonbridge had to make an opportunity for a few quiet words in his ear, +after which he disappeared disconsolate. + +But he was a good fellow at heart, and the impression Delia had made +upon him, together with some plain speaking on the subject from Lady +Tonbridge, in the course of a chance meeting in the village, roused a +remorseful discomfort in him about his sister. He tried honestly to +find out where she was, but quite in vain. Then he turned upon his +Mother, and told her bluntly she was herself to blame for her +daughter's flight. "Between us, we've led her a dog's life, Mother, +there, that's the truth! All the same, I'm damned sorry she's taken up +with this business." + +However, it mattered nothing to anybody whether the Captain was "damned +sorry" or not. The hours were almost numbered. The Sunday before the +Tuesday fixed for the Second Reading came and went. It was a foggy +February day, in which the hills faded from sight, and all the world +went grey. Winnington spent the afternoon at Maumsey. But neither he +nor Madeleine seemed to be able to rouse Delia during that day from a +kind of waking dream--which he interpreted as a brooding sense of some +catastrophe to come. + +He was certain that her mind was fixed on the division ahead--the +scene in the House of Commons--and on the terror of what the +"Daughters"--Gertrude perhaps in the van--might be planning and +plotting in revenge for it. His own feeling was one of vast relief that +the strain would be so soon over, and his own tongue loosed. Monk +Lawrence was safe enough! And as for any other attempt at vengeance, he +dismissed the notion with impatient scorn. + +But meanwhile he said not a word that could have jarred on any +conviction or grief of Delia's. Sometimes indeed they touched the great +subject itself--the "movement" in its broad and arguable aspects; +though it seemed to him that Delia could not bear it for long. Mind and +heart were too sore; and her weary reasonableness made him long for the +prophetic furies of the autumn. But always she felt herself enwrapped +by a tenderness, a chivalry that never failed. Only between her and +it--between her and him--as she lay awake through broken nights, some +barrier rose--dark and impassable. She knew it for the barrier of her +own unconquered fear. + + + + +Chapter XIX + + +On this same Sunday night before the date fixed for the Suffrage +debate, a slender woman, in a veil and a waterproof, opened the gate of +a small house in the Brixton Road. It was about nine o'clock in the +evening. The pavements were wet with rain, and a gusty wind was +shrieking through the smutty almond and alder trees along the road +which had ventured to put out their poor blossoms and leaves in the +teeth of this February gale. + +The woman stood and looked at the house after shutting the gate, as +though uncertain whether she had found what she was looking for. But +the number 453, on the dingy door, could be still made out by the light +of the street opposite, and she mounted the steps. + +A slatternly maid opened the door, and on being asked whether Mrs. +Marvell was at home, pointed curtly to a dimly lighted staircase, and +disappeared. + +Gertrude Marvell groped her way upstairs. The house smelt repulsively +of stale food, and gas mingled, and the wailing wind from outside +seemed to pursue the visitor with its voice as she mounted. On the +second floor landing, she knocked at the door of the front room. + +After an interval, some shuffling steps came to the door, and it was +cautiously opened. + +"What's your business, please?" + +"It's me--Gertrude. Are you alone?" + +A sound of astonishment. The door was opened, and a woman appeared. Her +untidy, brown hair, touched with grey, fell back from a handsome +peevish face of an aquiline type. A delicate mouth, relaxed and +bloodless, seemed to make a fretful appeal to the spectator, and the +dark circles under the eyes shewed violet on a smooth and pallid skin. +She was dressed in a faded tea-gown much betrimmed, covered up with a +dingy white shawl. + +"Well, Gertrude--so you've come--at last!"--she said, after a moment, +in a tone of resentment. + +"If you can put me up for the night--I can stay. I've brought no +luggage." + +"That doesn't matter. There's a stretcher bed. Come in." Gertrude +Marvell entered, and her mother closed the door. + +"Well, mother--how are you?" + +The daughter offered her cheek, which the elder woman kissed. Then Mrs. +Marvell said bitterly-- + +"Well, I don't suppose, Gertrude, it much matters to you how I am." + +Gertrude took off her wet waterproof, and hat, and sitting down by the +fire, looked round her mother's bed-sitting-room. There was a tray on +the table with the remains of a meal. There were also a large number of +women's hats, some trimmed, some untrimmed, some in process of +trimming, lying about the room, on the different articles of furniture. +There was a tiny dog in a basket, which barked shrilly and feebly as +Gertrude approached the fire, and there were various cheap illustrated +papers and a couple of sixpenny novels to be seen emerging from the +litter here and there. For the rest, the furniture was of a squalid +lodging-house type. On the chimney-piece however was a bunch of +daffodils, the only fresh and pleasing object in the room. + +To Gertrude it was as though she had seen it all before. Behind the +room, there stretched a succession of its ghostly fellows--the rooms of +her childhood. In those rooms she could remember her mother as a young +and comely woman, but always with the same slovenly dress, and the same +untidy--though then abundant and beautiful--hair. And as she half shut +her eyes she seemed also to see her younger sister coming in and +out--malicious, secretive--with her small turn-up nose, pouting lips, +and under-hung chin. + +She made no reply to her mother's complaining remark. But while she +held her cold hands to the blaze that Mrs. Marvell stirred up, her eyes +took careful note of her mother's aspect. "Much as usual," was her +inward comment. "Whatever happens, she'll outlive me." + +"You've been going on with the millinery?" She pointed to the hats. "I +hope you've been making it pay." + +"It provides me with a few shillings now and then," said Mrs. Marvell, +sitting heavily down on the other side of the fire--"which Winnie +generally gets out of me!" she said sharply. "I am a miserable pauper +now, as I always have been." + +Gertrude's look was unmoved. Her mother had, she knew, all that her +father had left behind him--no great sum, but enough for a solitary +woman to live on. + +"Well, anyway, you must be glad of it as an occupation. I wish I could +help you. But I haven't really a farthing of my own, beyond the +interest on my L1000. I handle a great deal of money, but it all goes +to the League, and I never let them pay me more than my bare expenses. +Now then, tell me all about everybody!" And she lay back in the +dilapidated basket-chair that had been offered her, and prepared +herself to listen. + +The family chronicle was done. It was as depressing as usual, and +Gertrude made but little comment upon it. When it was finished, Mrs. +Marvell rose, and put the kettle on the fire, and got out a couple of +fresh cups and saucers from a cupboard. As she did so, she looked round +at her visitor. + +"And you're as deep in that militant business as ever." + +Gertrude made a negligent sign of assent. + +"Well, you'll never get any good of it." The mother's pale cheek +flushed. It excited her to have this chance of speaking her mind to her +clever and notorious daughter, whom in many ways she secretly envied, +while heartily disapproving her acts and opinions. + +Gertrude shrugged her shoulders. + +"What's the good of arguing?" + +"Well, it's true"--said the mother, persisting. "Every new thing you +do, turns more people against you. Winnie's a Suffragist--but she says +you've spoilt all their game!" + +Gertrude's eyes shone; she despised her mother's opinion, and her +sister's still more, and yet once again in their neighbourhood, once +again in the old environment, she could not help treating them in the +old defiant brow-beating way. + +"And you think, I suppose, that Winnie knows a good deal about it?" + +"Well, she knows what everybody's saying--in the trams--and the trains +everywhere. Hundreds of them that used to be for you have turned over." + +"Let them!" + +The contemptuous tone irritated Mrs. Marvell. But at the same time she +could not help admiring her eldest daughter, as she sat there in the +fire-light, her quiet well-cut dress, her delicate hands and feet. It +was true indeed, she was a scarce-crow for thinness, and looked years +older--"somehow gone to pieces"--thought the mother, vaguely, and with +a queer, sudden pang. + +"And you're going on with it?" + +"What? Militancy? Of course we are--more than ever!" + +"Why, the men laugh at you, Gertrude!" + +"They won't laugh--by the time we've done," said Gertrude, with +apparent indifference. Her mother had not sufficient subtlety of +perception to see that the indifference was now assumed, to hide the +quiver of nerves, irreparably injured by excitement and overstrain. + +"Well, all I know is, it's against nature to suppose that women can +fight men." Mrs. Marvell's remarks were rather like the emergence of +scattered spars from a choppy sea. + +"We shall fight them," said Gertrude, sourly--"And what's more, we +shall beat them." + +"All the same we've got to live with them!" cried her mother, suddenly +flushing, as old memories swept across her. + +"Yes,--on our terms--not theirs!" + +"I do believe, Gertrude, you hate the very sight of a man!" Gertrude +smiled again; then suddenly shivered, as though the cold wind outside +had swept through the room. + +"And so would you--if you knew what I do!" + +"Well I do know a good bit!" protested Mrs. Marvell. "And I'm a married +woman,--worse luck! and you're not. But you'll never see it any other +way than your own, Gertie. You got a kink in you when you were quite +a girl. Last week I was talking about you to a woman I know--and I +said--'It's the girls ruined by the bad men that make Gertrude so +mad'--and she said--'She don't ever think of the boys that are ruined +by the bad women!--Has she ever had a son--not she!' And she just cried +and cried. I suppose she was thinking of something." + +Gertrude rose. + +"Look here, mother. Can I go to bed? I'm awfully tired." + +"Wait a bit. I'll make the bed." + +Gertrude sat down by the fire again. Her exhaustion was evident, and +she made no attempt to help her mother. Mrs. Marvell let down the +chair-bed, drew it near the fire, and found some bed-clothes. Then she +produced night-things of her own, and helped Gertrude undress. When her +daughter was in bed, she made some tea, and dry toast, and Gertrude let +them be forced on her. When she had finished, the mother suddenly +stooped and kissed her. + +"Where are you going to now, Gertrude? Are you staying on with that +lady in Hamptonshire?" + +"Can't tell you my plans just yet," said Gertrude sleepily--"but you'll +know next week." + +The lights were put out. Both women tried to sleep, and Gertrude was +soon heavily asleep. + +But as soon as it was light, Mrs. Marvell heard her moving, the splash +of water, and the lighting of the fire. Presently Gertrude came to her +side fully dressed-- + +"There, mother, I've made _you_ a cup of tea! And now in a few minutes +I shall be off." + +Mrs. Marvell sat up and drank the tea. + +"I didn't think you'd go in such a hurry," she said, fretfully. + +"I must. My day's so full. Well, now look here, Mother, I want you to +know if anything were to happen to me, my thousand pounds would come to +you first, and then to Winnie and her children. And it's my wish, that +neither my brother nor Henry shall touch a farthing of it. I've made a +will, and that's the address of my solicitors, who're keeping it." She +handed her mother an envelope. + +Mrs. Marvell put down her tea, and put her handkerchief to her eyes. + +"I believe you're up to something dreadful, Gertrude,--which you won't +tell me." + +"Nonsense," said Gertrude, not however unkindly. "But we mayn't see +each other for a good while. There!--I'll open the windows--that'll +make you feel more cheerful." And she drew up the blinds to the dull +February day, and opened a window. + +"I'll telephone to Winnie as I go past the Post Office to come and +spend the day with you--and I'll send up the servant to do your room. +Now don't fret." + +"I'm a lonely old woman, Gertrude:--and I wish I was dead." + +Gertrude frowned. + +"You should try and read something, Mother--better than these trashy +novels. When I've time, I'll send you a parcel of books--I've got a +good many. And don't you let your work go--it's good for you. Now +good-bye." + +The two women kissed--Mrs. Marvell embracing her daughter with a sudden +fierceness of emotion to which Gertrude submitted, almost for the first +time in her life. Then her mother pushed her away. + +"Good-bye, Gertrude--you'd better go!" + +Gertrude went out noiselessly, closing the door behind her with a +lingering movement, unlike her. In the tiny hall below, she found the +"general" at work, and sent her up to Mrs. Marvell. Then she went out +into the grey February morning, and the little girl of the landlady +standing on the steps saw her enter one of the eastward-bound trams. + +Monday afternoon came. Winnington had been called away to Wanchester by +urgent County business; against his will, for there had been some bad +rioting the day before at Latchford, and he would rather have gone to +help his brother magistrates. But there was no help for it. Lady +Tonbridge was at the little Georgian house, shutting it up for six +months. Delia was left alone in the Abbey, consumed with a restless +excitement she had done her best to hide from her companions. She +suddenly made up her mind that she would go and see for herself, and by +herself, what was happening at Monk Lawrence. She set out unobserved +and on foot, and had soon climbed the hill and reached the wood walk +along its crest where she had once met Lathrop. Half way through, +she came on two persons whom she at once recognised as the +science-mistress, Miss Jackson, and Miss Toogood. They were waiting +slowly, and, as it seemed to Delia, sadly; the little dressmaker +limping painfully, with her head thrown back and a face of fixed and +tragic distress. + +When they saw Delia, they stopped in agitation. + +"Oh, Miss Blanchflower!--" + +Delia who knew that Miss Jackson had been in town hoping for work at +the Central Office of the League of Revolt, divined at once that she +had been disappointed. + +"They couldn't find you anything?" + +The teacher shook her head. + +"And the Governors have given me a month's salary here in lieu of +notice. I've left the school, Miss Blanchflower! I was in the Square +you know, that day--and at the Police Court afterwards. That was what +did it. And I have my old mother to keep." + +A pair of haggard eyes met Delia's. + +"Oh, but I'll help!" cried Delia.--"You must let me help!--won't you?" + +"Thank you--but I've got a few savings," said the teacher quietly. "It +isn't that so much. It's--well, Miss Toogood feels it too. She was in +town--she saw everything. And she knows what I mean. We're +disheartened--that's what it is!" + +"With the movement?" said Delia, after a moment. + +"It seemed so splendid when we talked of it down here--and--it +_was_--so horrible!" Her voice dropped. + +"So horrible!" echoed Miss Toogood drearily. "It wasn't what we meant, +somehow. And yet we'd read about it. But to see those young women +beating men's faces--well, it did for me!" + +"The police were rough too!" cried Miss Jackson. "But you couldn't +wonder at it, Miss Blanchflower, could you?" + +Delia looked into the speaker's frank, troubled face. "You and I felt +the same," she said in a choked voice. "It was ugly--and it was +absurd." + +She walked back with them a little way, comforting them, as best she +could. And her sympathy, her sweetness did--strangely--comfort them. +When she left them, they walked on, talking tenderly of her, counting +on _her_ good fortune, if there was none for them. + +At the end of the walk, towards Monk Lawrence, another figure emerged +from the distance. Delia started, then gathered all her wits; for it +was Lathrop. + +He hurried towards her, breathless, cutting all preliminaries-- + +"I was coming to find you. I arrived this morning. There is something +wrong! I have just been to the house, and there is no one there." + +"What do you mean?" + +"No one. I went to Daunt's rooms. Everything locked. The house +absolutely dark--everywhere. And I know that he has had the strictest +orders!" + +Without a word, she began to run, and he beside her. When she +slackened, he told her that while in London he had made the most +skilful enquiries he could devise as to the plot he believed to be on +foot. But--like Delia's own--they had been quite fruitless. Those +persons who had shared suspicion with him in December were now +convinced that the thing was dropped. All that he had ascertained was +that Miss Marvell was in town, apparently recovered, and Miss Andrews +with her. + +"Well--and were you pleased with your raid?" he asked her, half +mockingly, as he opened the gate of Monk Lawrence for her. + +She resented the question, and the tone of it, remembering his first +grandiloquent letter to her. + +"_You_ ought to be," she said, drily. "It was the kind of thing you +recommended." + +"In that letter I wrote you! I ought to have apologised to you for that +letter long ago. I am afraid it was an exercise. Oh, I felt it, I +suppose, when I wrote it." + +There was a touch of something insolent in his voice. + +She made no reply. If it had not been for the necessity which yoked +them, she would not have spent another minute in his company, so +repellent to her had he become--both in the inner and the outer man. +She tried only to think of him as an ally in a desperate campaign. + +They hastened up the Monk Lawrence drive. The house stood still and +peaceful in the February afternoon. The rooks from the rookery behind +were swirling about and over the roofs, filling the air with monotonous +sound which only emphasized the silence below. A sheet of snowdrops lay +white in the courtyard, where a child's go-cart upset, held the very +middle of the stately approach to the house. + +Delia went to the front door, and rang the bell--repeatedly. Not a +sound, except the dim echoes of the bell itself from some region far +inside. + +"No good!" said Lathrop. "Now come to the back." They went round to the +low addition at the back of the house, where Daunt and his family had +now lived for many months. Here also there was nobody. The door was +locked. The blinds were drawn down. Impossible to see into the rooms, +and neither calling nor knocking produced any response. + +Lathrop stood thinking. + +"Absolutely against orders! I know--for Daunt himself told me--that he +had promised Lang never to leave the house without putting some deputy +he could trust in charge. He has gone and left no deputy--or the deputy +he did leave has deserted." + +"What's the nearest house--or cottage?" + +"The Gardeners' cottages, beyond the kitchen garden. Only one of them +occupied now, I believe. Daunt used to live there before he moved into +the house. Let's go there!" + +They ran on. The walled kitchen garden was locked, but they found a way +round it to where three creeper-grown cottages stood in a pleasant +lonely space girdled by beech-woods. One only was inhabited, but from +that the smoke was going up, and a babble of children's voices emerged. + +Lathrop knocked. There was a sudden sound, and then a silence within. +In a minute however the door was opened, and a strapping black-eyed +young woman stood on the threshold looking both sulky and astonished. + +"Are you Daunt's niece?" said Lathrop. + +"I am, Sir. What do you want with him?" + +"Why isn't he at Monk Lawrence?" asked Lathrop roughly. "He told me +himself he was not to leave the house unguarded." + +"Well, Sir, I don't know I'm sure what business it is of yours!" said +the woman, flushing with anger. "He got bad news of his son, whose ship +arrived at Portsmouth yesterday, and the young man said to be dying, on +board. So he went off this afternoon. I've only left it for ten minutes +and I'm going back directly. Mrs. Cresson here had asked the children +to tea, and I brought them over. And I'll thank you, Sir, not to go +spying on honest people!" + +And she would have slammed the door in his face, but that Delia came +forward. + +"We had no intention of spying upon you, Miss Daunt--indeed we hadn't. +But I am Miss Blanchflower, who came here before Christmas, with Mr. +Winnington, and I should have been glad to see Mr. Daunt and the +children. Lily!--don't you remember me?"--and she smiled at the +crippled child--a delicate blue-eyed creature--whom she saw in the +background. + +But the child, who seemed to have been crying violently, did not come +forward. And the other two, who had their fingers in their mouths, were +equally silent and shrinking. In the distance an old woman sat +motionless in her chair by the fire, taking no notice apparently of +what was going on. + +The young woman appeared for a moment confused or excited. + +"Well, I'm sorry, Miss, but my Uncle won't be back till after dark. And +I wouldn't advise you to come in, Miss,"--she hurriedly drew the door +close behind her--"the doctor thinks two of the children have got +whooping-cough--and I didn't send them to school today." + +"Well, just understand, Miss Daunt, if that's your name," said Lathrop, +with emphasis--"that till you return to the house, we shall stay there. +We shall walk up and down there, till you come back. You know well +enough there are people about, who would gladly do an injury to the +house, and that it's not safe to leave it. Monk Lawrence is not Sir +Wilfrid Lang's property only. It belongs to the whole nation, and there +are plenty of people that'll know the reason why, if any harm comes to +it." + +"Oh, very well. Have it your own way, Sir! I'll come--I'll come--fast +enough," and the speaker, with a curious half-mocking look at Lathrop, +flounced back into the cottage, and shut the door. They waited. There +were sounds of lowered voices, and crying children. Then Miss Daunt +emerged defiantly, and they all three walked back to Monk Lawrence. + +The keeper's niece unlocked the door leading to Daunt's rooms. But she +stood sulkily in the entry. + +"Now I hope you're satisfied, Sir. I don't know, I'm sure, why you +should come meddling in other people's affairs. And I daresay you'll +say something against me to my uncle!" + +"Well, anyway, you keep watch!" was the stern reply. "I take my rounds +often this way, as your Uncle knows. I daresay I shall be by here again +tonight. Can the children find their way home alone?" + +"Well, they're not idiots, Sir! Good-night to you. I've got to get +supper." And brusquely shutting the door in their faces, she went +inside. They perceived immediately afterwards that she had lit a light +in the kitchen. + +"Well, so far, all right," said Lathrop, as he and Delia withdrew. "But +the whole thing's rather--queer. You know that old woman, Mrs. +Cresson, is not all there, and quite helpless?" + +He pondered it as they walked back through the wood, his eyes on the +ground. Delia shared his undefined anxiety. She suggested that he +should go back to the house in an hour or so, to see if Daunt had +returned, and complain of his niece's breach of rules. Lathrop agreed. + +"How do we know who or what that girl is?"--he said slowly--"that she +mayn't have been got hold of?" + +The same terror grew in Delia. She walked on beside him absorbed in +speculation and discussion, till, without noticing, she had reached the +farther gate of the wood-walk. Outside the gate, ran the Wanchester +road, climbing the down, amid the woods. To reach the field path +leading to the Abbey, Delia must cross it. + +She and Lathrop emerged from the wood still talking in low voices, and +stood beside the gate. A small car, with one man driving it, was +descending the long hill. But Delia had her back to it. + +It came nearer. She turned, and saw Winnington approaching her--saw the +look on his face. For a moment she wavered. Then with a bow and a hasty +"Good Evening," she left Lathrop, and stepped into the road, holding up +her hand to stop the car. + +"How lucky!" she said, clearly, and gaily,--"just as it's going to +rain! Will you take me home?" + +Winnington, without a word, made room for her beside him. The two men +exchanged a slight greeting--and the car passed. + +Lathrop walked quickly back in the direction of Monk Lawrence. His +vanity was hugely pleased. + +"By George!--that was one to me! It's quite evident she hasn't taken +him into her confidence--doesn't want magistrates interfering--no +doubt. And meanwhile she appeals to _me_--she depends on _me_. Whatever +happens--she'll have to be grateful to me. That fellow with his +wry face can't stop it. What a vision she made just now under the +wood--'belle dame sans merci!'--hating my company--and yet compelled +to it. It would make a sonnet I think--I'll try it tonight." + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile in the dark corridors of Monk Lawrence a woman groping, met +another woman. The two dim figures exchanged some whispered words. Then +one of them returned to the back regions. + +Lathrop, passing by, noticed smoke rising from the Daunts' chimney, and +was reassured. But in an hour or so he would return to look for Daunt +himself. + +He had no sooner descended the hill to his own cottage, in the fast +gathering dusk, than Eliza Daunt emerged. She left the light burning in +the keeper's kitchen, and some cold supper on the table. Then with a +laugh which was half a sob of excitement she ran down the path leading +to the garden cottages. + +She was met by a clamour of rebellious children, as she opened Mrs. +Cresson's door. "Where's Daddy, Liza?--where's Daddy! Why can't we go +home! We want our Daddy!" + +"Hold your noise!" said Eliza roughly--"or it'll be the worse for +you--Daddy won't be home for a couple of hours yet, and I promised Fred +Cresson, I'd get Mrs. Cresson's tea for her. Lily, stop crying--and +get the tray!" + +The crippled child, red-eyed, unwillingly obeyed. Neither she nor her +sisters could understand why they had been brought over to tea with +Mrs. Cresson of whose queer half-imbecile ways they were all terrified. +Their father had gone off in a great hurry--because of the telegram +which had come. And Fred had bicycled down to Latchford to see somebody +about a gardener's place. And now there was no one left but Liza and +Mrs. Cresson--of whom, for different reasons, the three little girls +were equally afraid. And Lily's heart especially was sore for her +father. She knew very well they were all doing what was forbidden. But +she dared not complain. They had found Cousin 'Liza a hard woman. + +After Eliza Daunt had left Daunt's kitchen, for the space of half an +hour, a deep and brooding quiet settled on Monk Lawrence. The old house +held that in its womb, which must soon crash to light; but for this +last brief space, all was peace. The twilight of a clear February +evening mellowed the grey walls, and the moss-grown roofs; the house +spoke its last message--its murmured story, as the long yoke-fellow of +human life--to the tranquil air; and the pigeons crooned about it, +little knowing. + +Presently from the same door which had seen Eliza Daunt depart, a woman +cautiously emerged. She was in dark clothes, closely veiled. With +noiseless step, she passed round the back of the house, pausing a +moment to look at the side door on the north side which had been lately +strengthened by Sir Wilfrid's orders. Then she gained the shelter of +the close-grown shrubbery, and turning round she stood a few seconds +motionless, gazing at the house. In spite of her quiet movements, she +was trembling from head to foot--with excitement, not fear. + +"It's beautiful," she was saying to herself--"and precious--and I've +destroyed it." Then--with a fierce leap in the blood--"_Beauty_! And +what about the beauty that men destroy? Let them _pay_!" + +But as she stood there a sudden disabling storm of +thought--misgiving--argument--swept through her brain. She seemed to +hear on all sides voices in the air--the voices of friends and foes, of +applause and execration--Delia's voice among them! And at the mere +imagination of it, a shiver of anger ran through her. She thought of +Delia now, only as of one who had deserted and disobeyed. + +But with the illusion of the ear, there came also an illusion of +vision. The months of her recent life rose before her, in one hurrying +spectacle of scenes and faces, and the spectacle aroused in her but one +idea--one sickening impression--of crushing and superhuman effort. What +labour!--what toil! She shuddered under it. Then, suddenly, her mind +ran back to the early years before, beyond, the days of "war"--sordid, +unceasing war--when there had been time to love, to weep, to pity, to +enjoy; before wrath breeding wrath, and violence begetting violence, +had driven out the Spirits of Tenderness and Hope. She seemed to see, +to feel them--the sad Exiles!--fleeing along desert ways; and her +bitter heart cried out to them--for the only--the last time. For in the +great names of Love and Justice, she had let Hate loose within her, and +like the lion-cub nurtured in the house, it had grown to be the soul's +master and gaoler; a "doom" holding the citadels of life, and working +itself out to the appointed end. + +But the tumult in which she stood began to unnerve her. By a last +exercise of will she was able to pull herself together. + +Rapidly, as one well used to them, she made her way through the +shrubbery paths; round the walled garden, and behind the gardeners' +cottages. She heard the children in Mrs. Cresson's cottage as she +passed, Lily still fretfully crying, and the old woman's voice +scolding. Poor children!--they would be horribly frightened--but +nothing worse. + +The thick overgrown wood of fir and beech behind the cottages received +her, swallowed up the slight insignificant form. In the wood there was +still light enough to let her grope her way along the path, till at the +end, against an opening to the sky, she saw the outlines of a keeper's +hut. Then she knew that she was worn out, and must rest. She pushed the +door ajar, and sat crouching on the threshold, while the schemes and +plottings of the preceding weeks ran disjointedly through memory. + +Marion was safe by now--she had had an hour's start. And Eliza too had +gone. Nothing could be better than the arrangements made for those two. + +But she herself was not going--not yet. Her limbs failed her; and +beyond the sheltering woods, she seemed to become electrically aware of +hostile persons, of nets drawn round her, cutting off escape. As to +that, she felt the most supreme indifference to what might happen to +her. The indifference, indeed, passed presently into a strange and +stinging temptation to go back--back to the dark house--to see with +her own eyes what her hands had done. She resisted it with +difficulty.... Suddenly, a sound from the distance--beyond the +cottages--as of a slight explosion. She started, and throwing back her +veil, she sat motionless in the doorway of the hut, her face making a +dim white patch upon the darkness. + + + + +Chapter XX + + +"Take me home!--take me home quick! I want to talk to you. Not +now--not here!" + +The car flew along. Mark barely looked at Delia. His face was set and +pale. As for her, while they ran through the village and along the +country road between it and Maumsey, her mind had time to adjust itself +to that flashing resolution which had broken down a hundred scruples +and swept away a hundred fears, in that moment on the hill when she had +met his eyes, and the look in them. What must he think of her? An +assignation with that man, on the very first afternoon when his tender +watchfulness left her for an hour! No, it could not be borne that he +should read her so! She must clear herself! And thought, leaping +beacon-like from point to point told her, at last, that for Gertrude +too, she had chosen wrongly. Thank Heaven, there was still time! What +could a girl do, all alone--groping in such a darkness? Better after +all lay the case before Mark's judgment, Mark's tenderness, and trust +him with it all. Trust her own power too--see what a girl could do with +the man who loved her! + +The car stopped at the Abbey door, and Winnington, still absolutely +silent, helped her to alight. She led the way, past the drawing-room +where Lady Tonbridge sat rather anxiously expecting her, to that bare +room on the ground floor, the little gun-room, which Gertrude Marvell +had made her office, and where many signs of her occupation still +remained--a calendar on the wall marking the "glorious" dates of the +League--a flashlight photograph of the first raid on Parliament some +years before--a faded badge, and scattered piles of newspapers. A +couple of deal tables and two chairs were all the furniture the room +contained, in addition to the cupboards, painted in stone-colour, which +covered the walls. + +Delia closed the door, and threw off her furs. Then, with a gesture of +complete abandonment, she went up to Winnington, holding out her +hands-- + +"Oh, Mark, Mark, I want you to help me!" + +He took her hands, but without pressing them. His face, frowning and +flushed, with a little quivering of the nostrils, began to terrify +her-- + +"Oh, Mark,--dear Mr. Mark--I went to see Mr. Lathrop--because--because +I was in great trouble--and I thought he could help me." + +He dropped the hands. + +"You went to _him_--instead of to me? How long have you been with him? +Did you write to him to arrange it?" + +"No, no--we met by accident. Mark, it's not myself--it's a fear I +have--a dreadful, dreadful fear!" + +She came close to him, piteously, just murmuring-- + +"It's Monk Lawrence!--and Gertrude!" + +He started, and looked at her keenly-- + +"You know something I don't know?" + +"Oh yes, I do, I do!" she said, wringing her hands. "I ought to have +told you long ago. But I've been afraid of what you might do--I've been +afraid for Gertrude. Can't you see, Mark? I've been trying to make Mr. +Lathrop keep watch--enquire--so that they wouldn't dare. I've told +Gertrude that I know--I've written to people--I've done all I could. +And this afternoon I felt I must go there and see for myself, what +precautions had been taken--and I met Mr. Lathrop--" + +She gave a rapid account of their visit to the house,--of its complete +desertion--of the strange behaviour of the niece--and of the growing +alarm in her own mind. + +"There's something--there's some plot. Perhaps that woman's in it. +Perhaps Gertrude's got hold of her--or Miss Andrews. Anyway, if that +house can be left quite alone--ever--they'll get at it--that I'm sure +of. Why did she take the children away? Wasn't that strange?" + +Then she put her hands on the heart that fluttered so--and tried to +smile-- + +"But of course till the Bill's thrown out, there can be no danger, can +there? There _can't_ be any!" she repeated, as though appealing to him +to reassure her. + +"I don't understand yet," he said gravely. "Why do you suspect Miss +Marvell, or a plot at all? There was no such idea in your mind when we +went over the house together?" + +"No, none!--or at least not seriously--there was nothing, really, to go +on"--she assured him eagerly. "But just after--you remember Mr. +Lathrop's coming--that day--?--when you scolded me?" + +He could not help smiling a little--rather bitterly. + +"I remember you said you couldn't explain. Of course I thought it was +something connected with Miss Marvell, or your Society--but--" + +"I'm going to explain"--she said, trying hard for composure. "I'm going +to tell it all in order." + +And sitting down, her head resting on her hand, with Winnington +standing before her, she told the whole story of the preceding +weeks--the alternations of fear and relief--Lathrop's +suspicions--Gertrude's denials--the last interview between them. + +As for the man looking down upon her beautiful bowed head, his heart +melted within him as he listened. The sting remained that she should +have asked anyone else than he to help her--above all that she should +have humbled herself to ask it of such a man as Lathrop. Anxiety +remained, for Monk Lawrence itself, and still more for what might be +said of her complicity. But all that was further implied in her +confession, her drooping sweetness, her passionate appeal to him--the +beauty of her true character, its innocence, its faith, its +loyalty--began to flood him with a feeling that presently burst its +bounds. + +She wound up with most touching entreaties to him, to save and shield +her friend--to go himself to Gertrude and warn her--to go to the +police--without disclosing names, of course--and insist that the house +should be constantly patrolled. + +He scarcely heard a word of this. When she paused--there was silence a +moment. Then she heard her name--very low-- + +"Delia!" + +She looked up, and with a long breath she rose, as though drawn +invisibly. He held out his arms, and she threw hers round his neck, +hiding her face against the life that beat for her. + +"Oh, forgive me!"--she murmured, after a little, childishly pressing +her lips to his--"forgive me--for everything!" + +The tears were in his eyes. + +"You've gone through all this!--alone!" he said to her, as he bent over +her. "But never again, Delia--never again!" + +She was the first to release herself--putting tears away. + +"Now then--what can we do?" + +He resumed at once his ordinary manner and voice. + +"We can do a great deal. I have the car here. I shall go straight back +to Monk Lawrence, and see Daunt to-night. That woman's behaviour must +be reported--and explained. An hour--an hour and a half?--since you +were there?"--he took out his watch--"He's probably home by now--it's +quite dark--he'd scarcely risk being away after dark. Dearest, go and +rest!--I shall come back later--after dinner. Put it out of your mind." + +She went towards the hall with him hand in hand. Suddenly there was a +confused sound of shouting outside. Lady Tonbridge opened the +drawing-room door with a scared face-- + +"What is it? There are people running up the drive. They're shouting +something!" + +Winnington rushed to the front door, Delia with him. With his first +glance at the hill-side, he understood the meaning of the cries--of the +crowd approaching. + +"My God!--_too late_!" + +For high on that wooded slope, a blaze was spreading to the skies--a +blaze that grew with every second--illuminating with its flare the +woods around it, the chimneys of the old house, the quiet stretches of +the hill. + +"Monk Lawrence is afire, Muster Winnington!" panted one of Winnington's +own labourers who had outstripped the rest. "They're asking for you to +come! They've telephoned to Latchford for the engines, and to +Brownmouth and Wanchester too. They say it's burning like tow--there +must be petrol in it, or summat. It's the women they say!--spite of Mr. +Daunt and the perlice!" + +Then he noticed Delia standing beside Winnington on the steps, and held +his tongue, scowling. + +Winnington's car was still standing at the steps. He set it going in a +moment. + +"My cloak!" said Delia, looking round her--"And tell them to bring the +car!" + +"Delia, you're not going?" cried Madeleine, throwing a restraining arm +about her. + +"But of course I am!" said the girl amazed. "Not with him--because I +should be in his way." + +Various persons ran to do her bidding. Winnington already in his place, +with a labourer beside him, and two more in the seat behind him, +beckoned to her. + +"Why should you come, dearest! It will only break your heart. We'll do +all that can be done, and I'll send back messages." + +She shook her head. + +"I shall come! But don't think of me. I won't run any risks." + +There was no time to argue with her. The little car sped away, and with +it the miscellaneous crowd who had rushed to find Winnington, as the +natural head of the Maumsey community, and the only magistrate within +reach. + +Delia and Madeleine were left standing on the steps, amid a group of +frightened and chattering servants--gazing in despairing rage at the +ever-spreading horror on the slope of the down, at the sudden leaps of +flame, the vast showers of sparks drifting over the woods, the red +glare on the low hanging clouds. The garnered beauty of four centuries, +one of England's noblest heirlooms, was going down in ruin, at the +bidding of a handful of women, hurling themselves in disappointed fury +on a community that would not give them their way. + +Sharp-toothed remorse had hold on Delia. If she had only gone to +Wilmington earlier! "My fault!--my fault!" + +When the car came quickly round, she and Lady Tonbridge got into it. As +they rushed through the roads, lit on their way by that blaze in the +heart of the hills, of which the roaring began to reach their ears, +Delia sat speechless, and death-like, reconstructing the past days and +hours. Not yet two hours since she had left the house--left it +untouched. At that very moment, Gertrude or Gertrude's agents must have +been within it. The whole thing had been a plot--the children taken +away--the house left deserted. Very likely Daunt's summons to his dying +son had been also part of it. And as to the niece--what more probable +than that Gertrude had laid hands on her months before, guided perhaps +by the local knowledge of Marion Andrews,--and had placed her as spy +and agent in the doomed house till the time should be ripe? The blind +and fanatical devotions which Gertrude was able to excite when she set +herself to it, was only too well known to Delia. + +Where was Gertrude herself? For Delia was certain that she had not +merely done this act by deputy. + +In the village, every person who had not gone rushing up the hill was +standing at the doors, pale and terror-stricken, watching the glare +overhead. The blinds of Miss Toogood's little house were drawn close. +And as Delia passed, angry looks and mutterings pursued her. + +The car mounted the hill. Suddenly a huge noise and hooting behind +them. They drew into the hedge, to let the Latchford fire-engine +thunder past, a fine new motor engine, just purchased and equipped. + +"There'll be three or four more directly, Miss"--shouted one of her +own garden lads, mounting on the step of the car. "But they say there's +no hope. It was fired in three places, and there was petrol used." + +At the gate, the police--looking askance especially at Miss +Blanchflower--would have turned them back. But Delia asked for +Winnington, and they were at last admitted into the circle outside the +courtyard, where beyond reach of the sparks, and falling fragments, the +crowd of spectators was gathered. People made way for her, but Lady +Tonbridge noticed that nobody spoke to her, though as soon as she +appeared all the angry or excited attention that the crowd could spare +from the fire was given to her. Delia was not aware of it. She stood a +little in front of the crowd, with her veil thrown back, her hands +clasped in front of her, an image of rapt despair. Her face, like all +the faces in the crowd, was made lurid--fantastic--by the glare of the +flames; and every now and then, as though unconsciously, she brushed +away the mist of tears from her eyes. + +"Aye she's sorry now!"--said a stout farmer, bitterly, to his +neighbour--"now that she's led them as is even younger than herself +into trouble. My girl's in prison all along of her--and that woman as +they do say is at the bottom of this business." + +The speaker was Kitty Foster's father. Kitty had just been sentenced to +six months' imprisonment for the burning of a cricket pavilion in the +Midlands, and her relations were sitting in shame and grief for her. + +"Whoever 'tis as did it 'ull have a job to get away"--said the man he +addressed. "They've got a lot o' police out. Where's 'Liza Daunt, I +say? They're searching for her everywhere. Daunt's just come upon the +engine from Latchford--saw the fire from the train. He says he's been +tricked--a put-up job he says. There wasn't nothing wrong with his son, +he says, when he got to Portsmouth. If they do catch 'em, the police +will have to guard 'em safe. It won't do to let the crowd get at 'em. +They're fair mad. Oh, Lord!--it's caught another roof!" + +And a groan rose from the fast-thickening multitude, as another wall +fell amid a shower of sparks and ashes, and the flames, licking up and +up, caught the high-pitched roof of the great hall, and ran along the +stone letters of the parapet, which spelt out the motto--"Except the +Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it." The fantastic +letters themselves, which had been lifted to their places before the +death of Shakespeare, seemed to dance in the flame like living and +tormented things. + +Meanwhile in the courtyard, and on the side lawns, scores of persons +were busy removing furniture, pictures and tapestries. Winnington was +leading and organising the rescue parties, now inside, now outside the +house. And near him, under his orders, worked Paul Lathrop, in his +shirt sleeves, superhumanly active, and superhumanly strong--grinding +his teeth with rage sometimes, as the fire defeated one effort after +another to check it. Daunt, also was there, pouring out incoherent +confidences to the police, and distracted by the growing certainty that +his niece had been one of the chief authors of the plot. His children +naturally had been his first thought. But the Rector, who had just been +round to enquire for them at Mrs. Cresson's cottage, came back +breathless, shouting "all safe!"--and Daunt rushed off to help the +firemen; while Amberley reported to Susy the pitiable misery of Lily, +the little cripple, who had been shrieking for her father in wild +outbursts of crying, refusing to believe that he was not in the fire. +Susy, who loved the child, would have gladly gone to find her, and take +her home to the Rectory for the night. But, impossible to leave her +post at Delia's side, and this blazing spectacle that held the +darkness! Two village women, said the Rector, were in charge of the +children. + +"No chance!" said Lathrop, bitterly, pausing for a moment beside +Winnington, while they both took breath--the sweat pouring from their +smoke-blackened faces. + +"If one could get to the top of that window with the big hose--one +could reach the roof better"--panted Winnington, pointing to the still +intact double oriel which ran up through two stories of the building, +to the east of the doorway. + +"I see!" Lathrop dashed away. And in a few seconds he and a fireman +could be seen climbing from a ladder upon a ledge, a carved +string-course, which connected the eastern and western oriels above the +main doorway. They crawled along the ledge like flies, clinging to +every projection, every stem of ivy, the fireman dragging the hose. + +The crowd watched, all eyes. Winnington, after a rapid look or two, +turned away with the thought--"That fellow's done some rock-climbing in +his day!" + +But against such a doom as had now gripped Monk Lawrence, nothing +availed. Lathrop and his companion had barely scaled the parapet of the +window when a huge central crash sent its resounding din circling round +the leafless woods, and the two climbing figures disappeared from view +amid a fresh rush of smoke and flame. + +The great western chimney-stack had fallen. When the cloud of smoke +drifted away, a gaping cavity of fire was seen just behind the two men; +it could only be a matter of minutes before the wall and roof +immediately behind them came down upon them. The firemen shouted to +them from below. A long ladder was brought and run up to within twenty +feet of them. Lathrop climbed down to it over the scorched face of the +oriel, his life in jeopardy at every step. Then steadying himself on +the ladder,--and grasping a projection in the wall, he called to the +man above, to drop upon his shoulders. It was done, by a miracle--and +both holding on, the man above by the projections of the wall and +Lathrop by the ladder, descended, till the two were within reach of +safety. + +A thin roar of cheers rose from the environing throng, scarcely audible +amid the greater roar of the flames. Lathrop, wearied, depressed, with +bleeding hands, came back to Winnington's side. Winnington looked +round. For the first time Lathrop saw through Mark's grey eyes the +generous heart within--unveiled. + +"Splendid! Are you hurt?" + +"Only scorched and scratched. Give me another job!" + +"Come along then." + +And thenceforward the two worked side by side, like brothers, in the +desperate attempt to save at least the Great Hall, and the beautiful +rooms adjoining; the Porch Room, with its Chatham memorials; the +library too, with its stores of seventeenth-century books, its busts, +and its portraits. But the flames rushed on and on, with a fiendish and +astounding rapidity. Fragments of news ran back to the onlookers. The +main staircase had been steeped in petrol--and sacks full of shavings +had been stored in the panelled spaces underneath it. Fire-lighters +heaped together had been found in the Red Parlour--to be dragged out by +the firemen--but again too late!--for the fire was already gnawing at +the room, like a wild prowling beast. A back staircase too had been +kindled with paraffin--the smell of it was everywhere. And thus urged, +a very demon of fire seemed to have seized on the beautiful place. +There was a will and a passion of destruction in the flames that +nothing could withstand. As the diamond-paned windows fell into +nothing-ness, the rooms behind shewed for a brief space; carved roofs, +stately fireplaces, gleaming for a last moment, before Time knew them +no more, and all that remained of them was the last vision of their +antique beauty, stamped on the aching memories of those who watched. + +"Why did you let her come!" said France vehemently in Lady Tonbridge's +ear, with his eyes on Delia. "It's enough to kill her. She must know +who's done it!" + +Lady Tonbridge shook her head despairingly, and both gazed, without +daring to speak to her, on the girl beside them. Madeleine had taken +one cold hand. France was torn with pity for her--but what comfort was +there to give! Her tears had dried. But there was something now in her +uncontrollable restlessness as she moved ghost-like along the front of +the spectators, pressing as near to the house as the police would +permit, scanning every patch of light or shadow, which suggested to +those who followed her, possession by some torturing fear--some terror +of worse still to come. + +Meanwhile the police were thinking not only of the house, but still +more of its destroyers. They had a large number of men on the spot, and +a quick-witted inspector in charge. It was evident from many traces +that the incendiaries had only left the place a very short time before +the outbreak of the fire; they could not be far away. Scouts were flung +out on all the roads; search parties were in all the woods; every +railway station had been warned. + +On the northern side, the famous Loggia, built by an Italianate owner +of the house, in the first half of the sixteenth century--a series of +open arches, with twisted marble pillars--ran along the house from +front to rear. It was approached on the south by a beautiful staircase, +of which the terra-cotta balustrading had been copied from a famous +villa on Como, and a similar staircase gave access to it from the +garden to the north. The fight for the Great Hall which the Loggia +adjoined, was being followed with agonised anxiety by the crowds. The +Red Parlour, with all its carvings and mouldings had gone, the porch +room was a furnace of fire, with black spars and beams hanging in +ragged ruin across it. The Great Hall seemed already tottering, and in +its fall, the Loggia too must go. + +Then, as every eye hung upon the work of the firemen and the play of +the water, into the still empty space of the Loggia, and illumined by +the glare of the flames, there emerged with quiet step, the figure of a +woman. She came forward: she stood with crossed arms looking at the +crowd. And at the same moment, behind her, there appeared the form of a +child, a little fair-haired girl, hobbling on a crutch, in desperate +haste, and wailing--"Father!" + +Delia saw them, and with one wild movement she was through the cordon +of police, and running for the house. + +Winnington, at the head of his salvage corps, perceived her, and ran +too. + +"Delia!--go back!--go back!" + +"Gertrude!" she said, gasping--and pointed to the Loggia. And he had +hardly looked where all the world was looking, when a part of the roof +of the Hall at the back, fell suddenly outwards and northwards, in a +blaze of flame. Charred rafters stood out, hanging in mid air, and the +flames leapt on triumphant. At the same moment, evidently startled by +some sound behind her, the woman turned, and saw what the crowd +saw--the child, limping on its crutch, coming towards her, calling +incoherently. + +Her own cry rang out, as she ran towards the cripple, waving her back. +And as she did so, came another thundering fall, another upward rush of +flame, as a fresh portion of the roof fell eastwards, covering the +Loggia and blotting out the figures of both woman and child. + +With difficulty the police kept back the mad rush of the crowd. The +firemen swarmed to the spot. + +But the child was buried deep under flaming ruin, where her father, +Daunt, who had rushed to save her, was only restrained by main force +from plunging after her, to his death. The woman they brought +out--alive. France, Delia and Winnington were beside her. + +"Stand back!" shouted the mild old Rector--transformed into a +prophet-figure, his white hair streaming--as the multitude swayed +against the cordon of police. "Stand back! all of you--and pray--for +this woman!" + +In a dead silence, men, shivering, took off their hats, and women +sobbed. + +"Gertrude!" Delia called, in her anguish, as she knelt beside the +charred frame, over which France who was kneeling on the other side had +thrown his coat. + +The dark eyes opened in the blackened face, the scorched lips unlocked. +A shudder ran through the dying frame. + +"The child!--the child!" + +And with that cry to heaven,--that protesting cry of an amazed and +conquered soul--Gertrude Marvell passed away. + + * * * * * + +Thus ended the First Act of Delia's life. When three weeks later, after +a marriage at which no one was present except the persons to be +married, Lady Tonbridge, and Dr. France, Winnington took his wife far +from these scenes to lands of summer and of rest, he carried with him a +Delia ineffaceably marked by this tragedy of her youth. Children, as +they come, will sometime re-kindle the natural joy in a face so lovely. +And till that time arrives Winnington's tenderness will be the +master-light of all her day. But there are sounds once heard that live +for ever in the mind. And in Delia's there will reverberate till death +that wail of a fierce and childless woman--that last cry of nature in +one who had defied nature--of womanhood in one who had renounced the +ways of womanhood: "_the child--the child_!" + +Not long after the destruction of Monk Lawrence and the marriage of +Delia, Paul Lathrop left the Maumsey neighbourhood. His debts had been +paid by some unknown friend or friends, and he fell back into London +literary life, where he maintained a precarious but--to himself--not +unpleasant existence. + +Miss Jackson, the science-mistress, went to Vancouver, married the +owner of a lumber camp, and so tamed her soul. Miss Toogood lived on, +rarely employed, and seldom going outside the tiny back parlour, with +its pictures of Winchester and Mr. Keble. But Lady Tonbridge and Delia +do their best to lighten the mild melancholy which grows upon her with +age; and a little red-haired niece who came to live with her, keeps her +old aunt's nerves alive and alert by various harmless vices--among them +an incorrigible interest in the Maumsey and Latchford youth. Marion +Andrews and Eliza Daunt disappeared together. They were not captured on +that terrible night when Gertrude Marvell, convinced that she could not +escape, and perhaps not much caring to escape, came back to look on the +ruin she had so long and carefully prepared, and perished in the heart +of it--not alone. + +But such desperate happenings as the destruction of Monk Lawrence, to +whatever particular calamities they may lead, are but a backward ripple +on the vast and ceaseless tide of human efforts towards a new and +nobler order. Delia must still wrestle all her life with the meaning of +that imperious call to women which this century has sounded; and of +those further stages, upwards and onwards, to which the human spirit, +in Man or Woman, is perennially urged by the revealing forces that +breathe through human destiny. Two days after the death of Gertrude +Marvell, the immediate cause on which she and her fellows had wrought +such havoc, went down in Parliament to long and bitter eclipse. But the +end is not yet. And for that riddle of the Sphinx to which Gertrude and +her fellows gave the answer of a futile violence, generations more +patient and more wise, will yet find the fitting key. + + THE END + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Delia Blanchflower, by Mrs. Humphry Ward + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DELIA BLANCHFLOWER *** + +***** This file should be named 9665.txt or 9665.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/9/6/6/9665/ + +Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Charlie +Kirschner and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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HUMPHRY WARD + + AUTHOR "LADY ROSE'S DAUGHTER," ETC. + + + Frontispiece in color by + + WILL FOSTER + + + + +DELIA BLANCHFLOWER + + + + +Chapter I + + +"Not a Britisher to be seen--or scarcely! Well, I can do without 'em +for a bit!" + +And the Englishman whose mind shaped these words continued his +leisurely survey of the crowded salon of a Tyrolese hotel, into which a +dining-room like a college hall had just emptied itself after the +mid-day meal. Meanwhile a German, sitting near, seeing that his tall +neighbour had been searching his pockets in vain for matches, offered +some. The Englishman's quick smile in response modified the German's +general opinion of English manners, and the two exchanged some remarks +on the weather--a thunder shower was splashing outside--remarks which +bore witness at least to the Englishman's courage in using such +knowledge of the German tongue as he possessed. Then, smoking +contentedly, he leant against the wall behind him, still looking on. + +He saw a large room, some seventy feet long, filled with a +miscellaneous foreign crowd--South Germans, Austrians, Russians, +Italians--seated in groups round small tables, smoking, playing cards +or dominoes, reading the day's newspapers which the funicular had just +brought up, or lazily listening to the moderately good band which was +playing some Rheingold selection at the farther end. + +To his left was a large family circle--Russians, according to +information derived from the headwaiter--and among them, a girl, +apparently about eighteen, sitting on the edge of the party and +absorbed in a novel of which she was eagerly turning the pages. From +her face and figure the half savage, or Asiatic note, present in the +physiognomy and complexion of her brothers and sisters, was entirely +absent. Her beautiful head with its luxuriant mass of black hair, worn +low upon the cheek, and coiled in thick plaits behind, reminded the +Englishman of a Greek fragment he had admired, not many days before, in +the Louvre; her form too was of a classical lightness and perfection. +The Englishman noticed indeed that her temper was apparently not equal +to her looks. When her small brothers interrupted her, she repelled +them with a pettish word or gesture; the English governess addressed +her, and got no answer beyond a haughty look; even her mother was +scarcely better treated. + +Close by, at another table, was another young girl, rather younger than +the first, and equally pretty. She too was dark haired, with a delicate +oval face and velvet black eyes, but without any of the passionate +distinction, the fire and flame of the other. She was German, +evidently. She wore a plain white dress with a red sash, and her little +feet in white shoes were lightly crossed in front of her. The face and +eyes were all alive, it seemed to him, with happiness, with the mere +pleasure of life. She could not keep herself still for a moment. Either +she was sending laughing signals to an elderly man near her, presumably +her father, or chattering at top speed with another girl of her own +age, or gathering her whole graceful body into a gesture of delight as +the familiar Rheingold music passed from one lovely _motif_ to another. + +"You dear little thing!" thought the Englishman, with an impulse of +tenderness, which passed into foreboding amusement as he compared the +pretty creature with some of the matrons sitting near her, with one in +particular, a lady of enormous girth, whose achievements in eating and +drinking at meals had seemed to him amazing. Almost all the middle-aged +women in the hotel were too fat, and had lost their youth thereby, +prematurely. Must the fairy herself--Euphrosyne--come to such a muddy +vesture in the end? Twenty years hence?--alack! + +"Beauty that must die." The hackneyed words came suddenly to mind, and +haunted him, as his eyes wandered round the room. Amid many coarse or +commonplace types, he yet perceived an unusual number of agreeable or +handsome faces; as is indeed generally the case in any Austrian hotel. +Faces, some of them, among the very young girls especially, of a +rose-tinted fairness, and subtly expressive, the dark brows arching on +white foreheads, the features straight and clean, the heads well +carried, as though conscious of ancestry and tradition; faces, also, of +the _bourgeoisie_, of a simpler, Gretchen-like beauty; faces--a few--of +"intellectuals," as he fancied,--including the girl with the +novel?--not always handsome, but arresting, and sometimes noble. He +felt himself in a border land of races, where the Teutonic and Latin +strains had each improved the other; and the pretty young girls and +women seemed to him like flowers sprung from an old and rich soil. He +found his pleasure in watching them--the pleasure of the Ancient +Mariner when he blessed the water-snakes. Sex had little to say to it; +and personal desire nothing. Was he not just over forty?--a very busy +Englishman, snatching a hard-earned holiday--a bachelor, moreover, +whose own story lay far behind him. + +"_Beauty that must die_" The words reverberated and would not be +dismissed. Was it because he had just been reading an article in a new +number of the _Quarterly_, on "Contemporary Feminism," with mingled +amazement and revolt, roused by some of the strange facts collected by +the writer? So women everywhere--many women at any rate--were turning +indiscriminately against the old bonds, the old yokes, affections, +servitudes, demanding "self-realisation," freedom for the individuality +and the personal will; rebelling against motherhood, and life-long +marriage; clamouring for easy divorce, and denouncing their own +fathers, brothers and husbands, as either tyrants or fools; casting +away the old props and veils; determined, apparently, to know +everything, however ugly, and to say everything, however outrageous? He +himself was a countryman, an English provincial, with English public +school and university traditions of the best kind behind him, a mind +steeped in history, and a natural taste for all that was ancient and +deep-rooted. The sketch of an emerging generation of women, given in +the _Quarterly_ article, had made a deep impression upon him. It seemed +to him frankly horrible. He was of course well acquainted, though +mainly through the newspapers, with English suffragism, moderate and +extreme. His own country district and circle were not, however, much +concerned with it. And certainly he knew personally no such types as +the _Quarterly_ article described. Among them, no doubt, were the women +who set fire to houses, and violently interrupted or assaulted Cabinet +ministers, who wrote and maintained newspapers that decent people would +rather not read, who grasped at martyrdom and had turned evasion of +penalty into a science, the continental type, though not as yet +involved like their English sisters in a hand-to-hand, or fist-to-fist +struggle with law and order, were, it seemed, even more revolutionary +in principle, and to some extent in action. The life and opinions of a +Sonia Kovalevski left him bewildered. For no man was less omniscient +than he. Like the Cabinet minister of recent fame, in the presence of +such _femmes fortes_, he might have honestly pleaded, _mutatis +mutandis_, "In these things I am a child." + +Were these light-limbed, dark-eyed maidens under his eyes touched with +this new anarchy? They or their elders must know something about it. +There had been a Feminist congress lately at Trient--on the very site, +and among the ghosts of the great Council. Well, what could it bring +them? Was there anything so brief, so passing, if she did but know it, +as a woman's time for happiness? "_Beauty that must die_." + +As the words recurred, some old anguish lying curled at his heart +raised its head and struck. He heard a voice--tremulously +sweet--"Mark!--dear Mark!--I'm not good enough--but I'll be to you all +a woman can." + +_She_ had not played with life--or scorned it--or missed it. It was not +_her_ fault that she must put it from her. + +In the midst of the crowd about him, he was no longer aware of it. +Still smoking mechanically, his eyelids had fallen over his eyes, as +his head rested against the wall. + +He was interrupted by a voice which said in excellent though foreign +English-- + +"I beg your pardon, sir--I wonder if I might have that paper you are +standing on?" + +He looked down astonished, and saw that he was trampling on the day's +_New York Herald_, which had fallen from a table near. With many +apologies he lifted it, smoothed it out, and presented it to the +elderly lady who had asked for it. + +She looked at him through her spectacles with a pleasant smile. + +"You don't find many English newspapers in these Tyrolese hotels?" + +"No; but I provide myself. I get my _Times_ from home." + +"Then, as an Englishman, you have all you want. But you seem to be +without it to-night?" + +"It hasn't arrived. So I am reduced, as you see, to listening to the +music." + +"You are not musical?" + +"Well, I don't like this band anyway. It makes too much noise. Don't +you think it rather a nuisance?" + +"No. It helps these people to talk," she said, in a crisp, cheerful +voice, looking round the room. + +"But they don't want any help. Most of them talk by nature as fast as +the human tongue can go!" + +"About nothing!" She shrugged her shoulders. + +Winnington observed her more closely. She was, he guessed, somewhere +near fifty; her scanty hair was already grey, and her round, plain face +was wrinkled and scored like a dried apple. But her eyes, which were +dark and singularly bright, expressed both energy and wit; and her +mouth, of which the upper lip was caught up a little at one corner, +seemed as though quivering with unspoken and, as he thought, sarcastic +speech. Was she, perchance, the Swedish _Schriftstellerin_ of whom he +had heard the porter talking to some of the hotel guests? She looked a +lonely-ish, independent sort of body. + +"They seem nice, kindly people," he said, glancing round the salon. +"And how they enjoy life!" + +"You call it life?" + +He laughed out. + +"You are hard upon them, madame. Now I--being a mere man--am lost in +admiration of their good looks. We in England pride ourselves on our +women, But upon my word, it would be difficult to match this show in an +English hotel. Look at some of the faces!" + +She followed his eyes--indifferently. + +"Yes--they've plenty of beauty. And what'll it do for them? Lead them +into some wretched marriage or other--and in a couple of years there +will be neither beauty nor health, nor self-respect, nor any interest +in anything, but money, clothes, and outwitting their husbands." + +"You forget the children!" + +"Ah--the children"--she said in a dubious tone, shrugging her shoulders +again. + +The Englishman--whose name was Mark Winnington--suddenly saw light +upon her. + +A Swedish writer, a woman travelling alone? He remembered the sketch of +"feminism" in Sweden which he had just read. The names of certain +woman-writers flitted through his mind. He felt a curiosity mixed with +distaste. But curiosity prevailed. + +He bent forward. And as he came thereby into stronger light from a +window on his left, the thought crossed the mind of his neighbour that +although so fully aware of other people's good looks, the tall +Englishman seemed to be quite unconscious of his own. Yet in truth he +appeared both to her, and to the hotel guests in general, a kind of +heroic creature. In height he towered beside the young or middle-aged +men from Munich, Buda-Pesth, or the north Italian towns, who filled the +_salon_. He had all that athlete could desire in the way of shoulders, +and lean length of body; a finely-carried head, on which the brown hair +was wearing a little thin at the crown, while still irrepressibly +strong and curly round the brow and temple; thick penthouse brows, and +beneath them a pair of greyish eyes which had already made him friends +with the children and the dogs and half the grown-ups in the place. The +Swedish lady admitted--but with no cordiality--that human kindness +could hardly speak more plainly in a human face than from those eyes. +Yet the mouth and chin were thin, strong and determined; so were the +hands. The man's whole aspect, moreover, spoke of assured position, and +of a keen intelligence free from personal pre-occupations, and keeping +a disinterested outlook on the world. The woman who observed him had in +her handbag a book by a Russian lady in which Man, with a capital, +figured either as "a great comic baby," or as the "Man-Beast," invented +for the torment of women. The gentleman before her seemed a little +difficult to fit into either category. + +But if she was observing him, he had begun to question her. + +"Will you forgive me if I ask an impertinent question?" + +"Certainly. They are the only questions worth asking." + +He laughed. + +"You are, I think, from Sweden?" + +"That is my country." + +"And I am told you are a writer?" She bent her head. "I can see also +that you are--what shall I say?--very critical of your sex--no doubt, +still more of mine! I wonder if I may ask "-- + +He paused, his smiling eyes upon her. + +"Ask anything you like." + +"Well, there seems to be a great woman-movement in your country. Are +you interested in it?" + +"You mean--am I a feminist? Yes, I happen to dislike the word; but it +describes me. I have been working for years for the advancement of +women. I have written about it--and in the Scandinavian countries we +have already got a good deal. The vote in Sweden and Norway; almost +complete equality with men in Denmark. Professional equality, too, has +gone far. We shall get all we want before long?" Her eyes sparkled in +her small lined face. + +"And you are satisfied?" + +"What human being of any intelligence--and I am intelligent," she +added, quietly,--"ever confessed to being 'satisfied'? Our shoe pinched +us. We have eased it a good deal." + +"You really find it substantially better to walk with?" + +"Through this uncomfortable world? Certainly. Why not?" + +He was silent a little. Then he said, with his pleasant look, throwing +his head back to observe her, as though aware he might rouse her +antagonism. + +"All that seems to me to go such a little way." + +"I daresay," she said, indifferently, though it seemed to him that she +flushed. "You men have had everything you want for so long, you have +lost the sense of value. Now that we want some of your rights, it is +your cue to belittle them. And England, of course, is hopelessly +behind!" The tone had sharpened. + +He laughed again and was about to reply when the band struck up Brahm's +Hungarian dances, and talk was hopeless. When the music was over, and +the burst of clapping, from all the young folk especially, had died +away, the Swedish lady said abruptly-- + +"But we had an English lady here last year--quite a young girl--very +handsome too--who was an even stronger feminist than I." + +"Oh, yes, we can produce them--in great numbers. You have only to look +at our newspapers." + +His companion's upper lip mocked at the remark. + +"You don't produce them in great numbers--like the young lady I speak +of." + +"Ah, she was good-looking?" laughed Winnington. "That, of course, gave +her a most unfair advantage." + +"A man's jest," said the other dryly--"and an old one. But naturally +women take all the advantage they can get--out of anything. They need +it. However, this young lady had plenty of other gifts--besides her +beauty. She was as strong as most men. She rode, she climbed, she sang. +The whole hotel did nothing but watch her. She was the centre of +everything. But after a little while she insisted on leaving her father +down here to over-eat himself and play cards, while she went with her +maid and a black mare that nobody but she wanted to ride, up to the +_Jagd-huette_ in the forest. There!--you can see a little blue smoke +coming from it now"-- + +She pointed through the window to the great forest-clothed cliff, some +five thousand feet high, which fronted the hotel; and across a deep +valley, just below its topmost point, Mark Winnington saw a puff of +smoke mounting into the clear sky. + +--"Of course there was a great deal of talk. The men gossipped and the +women scoffed. Her father, who adored her and could not control her in +the least, shrugged his shoulders, played bridge all day long with an +English family, and would sit on the verandah watching the path--that +path there--which comes down from the _Jagd-huette_ with a spy-glass. +Sometimes she would send him down a letter by one of the Jager's boys, +and he would send a reply. And every now and then she would come +down--riding--like a Brunhilde, with her hair all blown about her--and +her eyes--_Ach_, superb!" + +The little dowdy woman threw up her hands. + +Her neighbour's face shewed that the story interested and amused him. + +"A Valkyrie, indeed! But how a feminist?" + +"You shall hear. One evening she offered to give an address at the +hotel on 'Women and the Future.' She was already of course regarded as +half mad, and her opinions were well known. Some people objected, and +spoke to the manager. Her father, it was said, tried to stop it, but +she got her own way with him. And the manager finally decided that the +advertisement would be greater than the risk. When the evening came the +place was _bonde_; people came from every inn and pension round for +miles. She spoke beautiful German, she had learnt it from a German +governess who had brought her up, and been a second mother to her; and +she hadn't a particle of _mauvaise honte_. Somebody had draped some +Austrian and English flags behind her. The South Germans and Viennese, +and Hungarians who came to listen--just the same kind of people who are +here to-night--could hardly keep themselves on their chairs. The men +laughed and stared--I heard a few brutalities--but they couldn't keep +their eyes off her, and in the end they cheered her. Most of the women +were shocked, and wished they hadn't come, or let their girls come. And +the girls themselves sat open-mouthed--drinking it in." + +"Amazing!" laughed the Englishman. "Wish I had been there! Was it an +onslaught upon men?" + +"Of course," said his companion coolly. "What else could it be? At +present you men are the gaolers, and we the prisoners in revolt. This +girl talked revolution--they all do. 'We women _intend_ to have equal +rights with you!--whatever it cost. And when we have got them we shall +begin to fashion the world as _we_ want it--and not as you men have +kept it till now. _Gare a vous!_ You have enslaved us for ages--you may +enslave us a good while yet--but the end is certain. There is a new age +coming, and it will be the age of the free woman!'--That was the kind +of thing. I daresay it sounds absurd to you--but as she put it--as she +looked it--I can tell you, it was fine!" + +The small, work-worn hands of the Swedish lady shook on her knee. Her +eyes seemed to hold the Englishman at bay. Then she added, in another +tone. + +"Some people of course walked out, and afterwards there were many +complaints from fathers of families that their daughters should have +been exposed to such a thing. But it all passed over." + +"And the young lady went back to the forest?" + +"Yes,--for a time." + +"And what became of the black mare?" + +"Its mistress gave her to an inn-keeper here when she left. But the +first time he went to see the horse in the stable, she trampled on him +and he was laid up for weeks." + +"Like mistress, like mare?--Excuse the jest! But now, may I know the +name of the prophetess?" + +"She was a Miss Blanchflower," said the Swedish lady, boggling a little +over the name. "Her father had been a governor of one of your +colonies." + +Winnington started forward in his chair. + +"Good heavens!--you don't mean a daughter of old Bob Blanchflower!" + +"Her father's name was Sir Robert Blanchflower." + +The tanned face beside her expressed the liveliest interest. + +"Why, I knew Blanchflower quite well. I met him long ago when I was +staying with an uncle in India--at a station in the Bombay presidency. +He was Major Blanchflower then"-- + +The speaker's brow furrowed a little as though under the stress of some +sudden recollection, and he seemed to check himself in what he was +saying. But in a moment he resumed:-- + +"A little after that he left the army, and went into Parliament. +And--precisely!--after a few years they made him governor +somewhere--not much of a post. Then last year his old father, a +neighbour of mine in Hampshire, quite close to my little place, went +and died, and Blanchflower came into a fortune and a good deal of land +besides. And I remember hearing that he had thrown up the Colonial +Service, had broken down in health, and was living abroad for some +years to avoid the English climate. That's the man of course. And the +Valkyrie is Blanchflower's daughter! Very odd that! I must have seen +her as a child. Her mother"--he paused again slightly--"was a Greek by +birth, and gloriously handsome. Blanchflower met her when he was +military attache at Athens for a short time.--Well, that's all very +interesting!" + +And in a ruminating mood the Englishman took out his cigarette-case. + +"You smoke, Madame?" + +The Swedish lady quietly accepted the courtesy. And while the too +insistent band paused between one murdered Wagnerian fragment and +another, they continued a conversation which seemed to amuse them both. + + * * * * * + +A little later the Englishman went out into the garden of the hotel, +meaning to start for a walk. But he espied a party of young people +gathered about the new lawn-tennis court where instead of the languid +and dishevelled trifling, with a broken net and a wretched court, that +was once supposed to attract English visitors, he had been already +astonished to find Austrians and Hungarians--both girls and +boys--playing a game quite up to the average of a good English club. +The growing athleticism and independence, indeed, of the foreign girl, +struck, for Winnington, the note of change in this mid-European +spectacle more clearly than anything else. It was some ten years since +he had been abroad in August, a month he had been always accustomed to +spend in Scotch visits; and these young girls, with whom the Tyrol +seemed to swarm, of all European nationalities other than English, +still in or just out of the schoolroom; hatless and fearless; with +their knapsacks on their backs, sometimes with ice-axes in their hands; +climbing peaks and passes with their fathers and brothers; playing +lawn-tennis like young men, and shewing their shapely forms sometimes, +when it was a question of attacking the heights, in knicker-bocker +costume, and at other times in fresh white dresses and bright-coloured +jerseys, without a hint of waist; these young Atalantas, budding and +bloomed, made the strongest impression upon him, as of a new race. +Where had he been all these years? He felt himself a kind of Rip van +Winkle--face to face at forty-one with a generation unknown to him. No +one of course could live in England, and not be aware of the change +which has passed over English girls in the same direction. But the +Englishman always tacitly assumes that the foreigner is far behind him +in all matters of open-air sport and physical development. Winnington +had soon confessed the touch of national arrogance in his own surprise; +and was now the keen and much attracted spectator. + +On one of the grounds he saw the little German girl--Euphrosyne, as he +had already dubbed her--having a lesson from a bullying elder brother. +The youth, amazed at his own condescension, scolded his sister +perpetually, and at last gave her up in despair, vowing that she would +never be any good, and he was not going to waste his time in teaching +such a ninny. Euphrosyne sat down beside the court, with tears in her +pretty eyes, her white feet crossed, her dark head drooping; and two +girl companions, aged about sixteen or seventeen, like herself, came up +to comfort her. + +"I could soon shew you how to improve your service, Mademoiselle," said +Winnington, smiling, as he passed her. Euphrosyne looked up startled, +but at sight of the handsome middle-aged Englishman, whom she unkindly +judged to be not much younger than her father, she timidly replied:-- + +"It is hateful, Monsieur, to be so stupid as I am!" + +"Let me shew you," repeated Winnington, kindly. At this moment, a +vigilant English governess--speaking with a strong Irish-American +accent--came up, and after a glance at the Englishman, smilingly +acquiesced. The two comforters of Euphrosyne, graceful little maids, +with cherry-coloured jerseys over their white frocks, and golden brown +hair tied with the large black bows of the _Backfisch_, were eager to +share the lesson, and soon Winnington found himself the centre of a +whole bevy of boys and girls who had run up to watch Euphrosyne's +performance. + +The English governess, a good girl, in spite of her accent, and the +unconscious fraud she was thereby perpetrating on her employers, +thought she had seldom witnessed a more agreeable scene. + +"He treats them like princesses, and yet he makes them learn," she +thought, a comment which very fairly expressed the mixture of something +courtly with something masterful in the Englishman's manner. He was +patience itself; but he was also frankness itself, whether for praise +or blame; and the eagerness to please him grew fast and visibly in all +these young creatures. + +But as soon as he had brought back Euphrosyne's smiles, and roused a +new and fierce ambition to excel in all their young breasts, he dropped +the lesson, with a few gay slangy words, and went his way, leaving a +stir behind him of which he was quite unconscious. And there was no +Englishman looking on who might have told the charmed and conquered +maidens that they had just been coached by one of the most famous of +English athletes, born with a natural genius for every kind of game, +from cricket downwards. + + * * * * * + +On his way to the eastern side of the pass on which stood the group of +hotels, Winnington got his post from the _concierge_, including his +nightly _Times_, and carried it with him to a seat with which he was +already familiar. + +But he left the _Times_ unopened, for the spectacle before him was one +to ravish the senses from everything but itself. He looked across the +deep valley of the Adige, nearly four thousand feet below him, to the +giant range of the Dolomite Alps on the eastern side. The shadow of the +forest-clad mountain on which he stood spread downwards over the plain, +and crept up the mountains on the farther edge. Above a gulf of deepest +blue, inlaid with the green of vineyards and forest lakes, he beheld an +aerial world of rose-colour--the giant Dolomites, Latemar, Rosengarten, +Schlern--majestic rulers of an upper air, so pure and luminous, that +every tiny shadow cast by every wisp of wandering cloud on the bare red +peaks, was plainly visible across the thirty miles of space. +Rosengarten, with its snowless, tempest-beaten crags, held the centre, +flushing to its name; and to the right and left, peak ranged beyond +peak, like courtiers crowding to their king; chief among them a vast +pyramid, blood-red in the sunset, from which the whole side, it seemed, +had been torn away, leaving a gash so fresh it might have been ripped +by a storm of yesterday, yet older perhaps than Calvary.... + +The great show faded through every tone of delicate beauty to a starry +twilight,--passion into calm. Winnington watched till it was done, +still with the Keatsian tag in his mind, and that deep inner memory of +loss, to which the vanished splendour of the mountains seemed to make a +mystic answering. He was a romantic--some would have said a sentimental +person, with a poet always in his pocket, and a hunger for all that +might shield him from the worst uglinesses of life, and the worst +despairs of thought; an optimist, and, in his own sense, Christian. He +had come abroad to wander alone for a time, because as one of the +busiest, most important and most popular men in a wide country-side, he +had had a year of unceasing and strenuous work, with no time to +himself; and it had suddenly been borne in upon him, in choosing +between the Alps and Scotland, that a man must sometimes be alone, for +his soul's health. And he had never relished the luxury of occasional +solitude so sharply as on this pine-scented evening in Tyrol. + +It was not till he was sitting again under the electric light of the +hotel verandah that he opened his _Times_. The first paragraph which +his eye lit upon was an obituary notice of Sir Robert Blanchflower +"whose death, after a long illness and much suffering, occurred last +week in Paris." The notice ended with the words--"the deceased baronet +leaves a large property both in land and personalty. His only child, a +daughter, Miss Delia Blanchflower, survives him." + +Winnington laid down the paper. So the Valkyrie was now alone in the +world, and mistress no doubt of all her father's wealth. "I must have +seen her--I am sure there was a child about"; he said to himself again; +and his thoughts went groping into a mostly forgotten past, and as he +endeavoured to reconstruct it, the incident which had brought him for a +few weeks into close relations with Robert Blanchflower, then Major +Blanchflower of the--Dragoons, came at last vividly back to him. + +An easy-going husband--a beautiful wife, not vicious, but bored to +death--the inevitable third, in the person of a young and amorous +cavalry officer--and a whole Indian station, waiting, half maliciously, +half sadly, for the _banal_ catastrophe:--it was thus he remembered the +situation. Winnington had arrived on the scene as a barrister of some +five years' standing, invalided after an acute attack of pneumonia, and +the guest for the winter of his uncle, then Commissioner of the +district. He discovered in the cavalry officer a fellow who had been +his particular protege at Eton, and had owed his passionately coveted +choice for the Eleven largely to Winnington's good word. The whole +dismal little drama unveiled itself, and Winnington was hotly moved by +the waste and pity of it. He was entertained by the Blanchflowers and +took a liking to them both. The old friendship between Winnington and +the cavalryman was soon noticed by Major Blanchflower, and one night he +walked home with Winnington, who had been dining at his house, to the +Commissioner's quarters. Then, for the first time, Winnington realised +what it may be to wrestle with a man in torment. The next day, the +young cavalryman, at Winnington's invitation, took his old friend for a +ride, and before dawn on the following day, the youth was off on leave, +and neither Major nor Mrs. Blanchflower, Winnington believed, had ever +seen him again. What he did with the youth, and how he did it, he +cannot exactly remember, but at least he doesn't forget the grip of +Blanchflower's hand, and the look of deliverance in his strained, +hollow face. Nor had Mrs. Blanchflower borne her rescuer any grudge. He +had parted from her on the best of terms, and the recollection of her +astonishing beauty grows strong in him as he thinks of her. + +So now it is her daughter who is stirring the world! With her father's +money and her mother's eyes,--not to speak of the additional +trifles--eloquence, enthusiasm, &c.--thrown in by the Swedish woman, +she ought to find it easy. + +The dressing-gong of the hotel disturbed a rather sleepy reverie, and +sent the Englishman back to his _Times_. And a few hours later he went +to a dreamless bed, little guessing at the letter which was even then +waiting for him, far below, in the Botzen post-office. + + + + +Chapter II + + +Winnington took his morning coffee on a verandah of the hotel, from +which the great forests of Monte Vanna were widely visible. Upwards +from the deep valley below the pass, to the topmost crags of the +mountain, their royal mantle ran unbroken. This morning they were +lightly drowned in a fine weather haze, and the mere sight of them +suggested cool glades and verdurous glooms, stretches of pink willow +herb lighting up the clearings--and in the secret heart of them such +chambers "deaf to noise and blind to light" as the forest lover knows. +Winnington promised himself a leisurely climb to the top of Monte +Vanna. The morning foretold considerable heat, but under the pines one +might mock at Helios. + +Ah!--Euphrosyne! + +She came, a vision of morning, tripping along in her white shoes and +white dress; followed by her English governess, the lady, as Winnington +guessed, from West Belfast, tempered by Brooklyn. The son apparently +was still in bed, nor did anyone trouble to hurry him out of it. The +father, a Viennese judge _en retraite_, as Winnington had been already +informed by the all-knowing porter of the hotel, was a shrewd +thin-lipped old fellow, with the quiet egotism of the successful +lawyer. He came up to Winnington as soon as he perceived him, and +thanked him in good English for his kindness to Euphrosyne of the day +before. Winnington responded suitably and was soon seated at their +table, chatting with them while they took their coffee. Euphrosyne +shewed a marked pleasure in his society, and upon Winnington, steeped +in a holiday reaction from much strenuous living, her charm worked as +part of the charm of the day, and the magic of the mountain world. He +noticed, however, with a revival of alarm, that she had a vigorous +German appetite of her own, and as he watched the rolls disappear he +trembled for the slender figure and the fawn-like gait. + +After breakfast, while the governess and the girl disappeared, the +father hung over the verandah smoking, beside the Englishman, to whom +he was clearly attracted. He spoke quite frankly of his daughter, and +her bringing up. "She is motherless; her mother died when she was ten +years old; and since, I must educate her myself. It gives me many +anxieties, but she is a sweet creature, _dank sei gott_! I will not let +her approach, even, any of these modern ideas about women. My wife +hated them; I do also. I shall marry her to an honest man, and she will +make a good wife and a good house-mother." + +"Mind you choose him well!" said Winnington, with a shrug. His eyes at +that moment were critically bent on a group of Berliners, men of the +commercial and stock-broking class, who, with their wives, had arrived +a couple of nights before. The men were strolling and smoking below. +They were all fat, red-faced and overbearing. When they went for walks, +the man stalked in front along the forest paths, and the woman followed +behind, carrying her own jacket. Winnington wondered what it might be +like to be the wife of any of them. These _Herren_ at any rate might +not be the worse for a little hustling from the "woman movement." He +could not, however, say honestly that the wives shewed any +consciousness of ill-fortune. They were almost all plump, plumper even +than their husbands, expensively dressed and prosperous looking; and +the amount of Viennese beer they consumed at the forest restaurants to +which their husbands conducted them, seemed to the Englishman +portentous. + +"Yes, my daughter is old-fashioned," resumed the ex-judge, +complacently, after a pause. "And I am grateful to Miss Johnson, who +has trained her very well. If she were like some of the girls one sees +now! Last year there was a young lady here--_Ach, Gott!_" He raised his +shoulders, with a contemptuous mouth. + +"Miss Blanchflower?" asked Winnington, turning towards the speaker with +sudden interest. + +"That I believe was her name. She was mad, of course. _Ach_, they have +told you?--of that _Vortrag_ she gave?--and the rest? After ten +minutes, I made a sign to my daughter, and we walked out. I would not +have had her corrupted with these ideas for the whole world. And such +beauty, you understand! That makes it more dangerous. _Ja, ja, +Liebchen--ich komme gleich!_" + +For there had been a soft call from Euphrosyne, standing on the steps +of the hotel, and her fond father hurried away to join her. + +At the same moment, the porter emerged, bearing a bundle of letters and +newspapers which had just arrived. Eager for his _Times_ Winnington +went to meet him, and the man put into his hands what looked like a +large post. He carried it off into the shelter of the pines, for the +sun was already blazing on the hotel. Two or three letters on county +business he ran through first. His own pet project, as County +Councillor,--a county school for crippled children, was at last getting +on. Foundation stone to be laid in October--good! "But how the deuce +can I get hold of some more women to help work it! Scandalous, how few +of the right sort there are about! And as for the Asylums Committee, if +we really can't legally co-opt women to it, as our clerk says"--he +looked again at a letter in his hand--"the law is an ass!--a +double-dyed ass. I swear I won't visit those poor things on the women's +side again. It's women's work--let them do it. The questions I have to +ask are enough to make an old gamp blush. Hallo, what's this?" + +He turned over a large blue envelope, and looked at a name stamped +across the back. It was the name of a well-known firm of London +solicitors. But he had no dealings with them, and could not imagine why +they should have written to him. + +He opened the letter carelessly, and began to read it,--presently with +eager attention, and at last with amazement. + +It ran as follows: + + "From Messrs. MORTON, MANNERS & LATHOM, + Solicitors, + Adelphi, + London, W. C." + +"Dear Sir,--We write on behalf of Lord Frederick Calverly, your +co-executor, under Sir Robert Blanchflower's will, to inform you that +in Sir Robert's last will and testament--of which we enclose a +copy--executed at Meran six weeks before his decease, you are named as +one of his two executors, as sole trustee of his property, and sole +guardian of Sir Robert's daughter and only child, Miss Delia +Blanchflower, until she attains the age of twenty-five. We believe that +this will be a complete surprise to you, for although Sir Robert, +according to a statement he made during his last illness to his sister, +Miss Elizabeth Blanchflower, intended to communicate with you before +signing the will, his weakness increased so rapidly, after it was +finally drawn up, that he was never able to do so. Indeed the morning +after his secretary had written out a clear copy of what he himself had +put together, he had a most alarming attack from which he rallied with +difficulty. That afternoon he signed the will, and was just able to +write you the letter which we also enclose, marked by himself, as you +will see. He was never properly conscious afterwards, and he died in +Paris last Thursday, and was buried in the Protestant cemetery at Mont +Parnasse on the Saturday following. The will which was in our custody +was opened in London yesterday, by Lord Frederick Calverly, in Miss +Blanchflower's presence. We understand from her that she has already +written to you on the subject. Lord Frederick would also have done so, +but that he has just gone to Harrogate, in a very poor state of health. +He begs us to say that he is of course quite aware that your +engagements may not allow you to accept the functions offered you under +the will, and that he will be in considerable anxiety until he knows +your decision. He hopes that you will at least accept the executorship; +and indeed ventures to appeal very strongly on that account to your old +friendship for Sir Robert; as he himself sees no prospect of being able +to carry out unaided the somewhat heavy responsibilities attaching to +the office. + +"You will see that a sum of L4000 is left to yourself under the will." + + We remain, dear Sir, + + Your obedient servants, + + MORTON, MANNERS & LATHOM. + "(Solicitors.)" + + "MARK WINNINGTON, Esq., J. P. + Bridge End, Maumsey, + Hants." + +A bulky document on blue paper, and also a letter had dropped to the +ground. Winnington stooped for the letter, and turned it over in +stupification. It was addressed in a faltering hand, and marked, "To be +forwarded after my death." He hastily broke the seal. + +"MY DEAR MARK WINNIXGTON,--I know well what I am laying upon you. I +have no right to do it. But I remember certain days in the past, and I +believe if you are still the same man you were then, you will do what I +ask. My daughter ought to be a fine woman. At present she seems to me +entirely and completely out of her mind. She has been captured by the +extreme suffrage movement, and by one of the most mischievous women in +it; and I have no influence with her whatever. I live in terror of what +she may do; of what they may lead her to do. To attempt to reason with +her is useless; and for a long time my health has been such that I have +avoided conflict with her as much as possible. But things have now come +to such a pass that something must be done, and I have tried in these +last weeks, ill as I am, to face the future. I want if I can to save +Delia from wasting herself, and the money and estates I should +naturally leave her, upon this mad campaign. I want, even against her +will, to give her someone to advise and help her. I feel bitterly that +I have done neither. The tropics ruined me physically, and I seem to +have gone to pieces altogether the last few years. But I love my child, +and I can't leave her without a real friend or support in the world. I +have no near relations, except my sister Elizabeth, and she and Delia +are always at feud. Freddie Calverly my cousin, is a good fellow in his +way, though too fussy about his health. He has a fair knowledge of +business, and he would have been hurt if I had not made him executor. +So I have appointed him, and have of course left him a little money. +But he could no more tackle Delia than fly. In the knock-about life we +have led since I left the Colonial Service, I seem to have shed all my +old friends. I can think of no one who could or would help me in this +strait but you--and you know why. God bless you for what you once did +for me. There was never any other cloud between my poor wife and me. +She turned to me after that trouble, and we were happy till the end. + +"I have heard too something of you from Maumsey people, since I +inherited Maumsey, though I have never been able to go there. I know +what your neighbours think of you. And now Delia is going to be your +neighbour. So, drawing a bow at a venture, as a dying man must, I have +made you Delia's guardian and trustee, with absolute power over her +property and income till she is twenty-five. When she attains that +age--she is now nearly twenty-two--if she marries a man approved by +you, or if you are satisfied that her connection with militant +suffragism has ceased, the property is to be handed over to her in full +possession, and the trust will come to an end. If on the contrary, she +continues in her present opinion and course of action, I have left +directions that the trust is to be maintained for Delia's life-time, +under certain conditions as to her maintenance, which you will find in +the will. If you yourself are not willing to administer the trust, +either now or later, the property will devolve to the Public Trustee, +for whom full instructions are left. And at Delia's death it will be +divided among her heirs, if she has any, and various public objects. + +"I cannot go further into details. My strength is almost out. But this +one thing may I beg?--if you become my child's guardian, get the right +person to live with her. I regard that as all-important. She must have +a chaperon, and she will try to set up one of the violent women who +have divided her from me. Especially am I in dread of a lady, an +English lady, a Miss Marvell, whom I engaged two years ago to stay with +us for the winter and read history with Delia. She is very able and a +very dangerous woman, prepared I believe, to go to any length on behalf +of her 'cause.' At any rate she filled Delia's head with the wildest +suffragist notions, and since then my poor child thinks of nothing +else. Even since I have been so ill--this last few weeks--I know she +has been in communication with this woman. She sympathises with all the +horrible things they do, and I am certain she gives all the money she +can to their funds. Delia is a splendid creature, but she is vain and +excitable and they court her. I feel that they might tempt her into any +madness. + +"Goodbye. I made the doctor give me strychnine and morphia enough to +carry me through this effort. I expect it will be the last. Help me, +and my girl--if you can--for old sake's sake. Goodbye." + + Your grateful old friend, + + "ROBERT BLANCHFLOWER." + +"Good heavens!" was all Winnington could find to say, as he put down +the letter. + +Then, becoming aware, as the verandah filled after breakfast, that he +was in a very public place, he hastily rose, thrust the large +solicitor's envelope, with its bulky enclosures into his coat pocket, +and proceeded to gather up the rest of his post. As he did so, he +suddenly perceived a black-edged letter, addressed in a remarkably +clear handwriting, with the intertwined initials D. B. in the corner. + +A fit of silent laughter, due to his utter bewilderment, shook him. He +put the letter with all its fellows into another pocket and hurried +away into the solitude of the woods. It was some time before he had +succeeded in leaving all the tourists' paths and seats behind. At last +in a green space of bilberry and mossy rock, with the pines behind him, +and the chain of the Dolomites, sun-bathed, in front, he opened and +read his "ward's" first letter to him. + +"DEAR MR. WINNINGTON,--I understood--though very imperfectly--from my +father, before he died, that he had appointed you my guardian and +trustee till I should reach the age of twenty-five, and he explained to +me so far as he could his reason for such a step. And now I have of +course read the will, and the solicitors have explained to me clearly +what it all means. + +"You will admit I think that I am placed in a very hard position. If my +poor father had not been so ill, I should certainly have tried to argue +with him, and to prevent his doing anything so unnecessary and unjust +as he has now done--unjust both to you and to me. But the doctors +absolutely forbade me to discuss any business with him, and I could do +nothing. I can only hope that the last letter he wrote to you, just +before his death, and the alterations he made in his will about the +same time, gave him some comfort. If so, I do not grudge them for one +moment. + +"But now you and I have to consider this matter as sensible people, and +I suggest that for a man who is a complete stranger to me, and probably +altogether out of sympathy with the ideas and principles, I believe in +and am _determined_ to act upon--(for otherwise my father would not +have chosen you)--to undertake the management of my life and affairs, +would be really grotesque. It must lead to endless friction and trouble +between us. If you refuse, the solicitors tell me, the Public +Trustee--which seems to be a government office--will manage the +property, and the Court of Chancery will appoint a guardian in +accordance with my father's wishes. That would be bad enough, +considering that I am of full age and in my right mind--I can't promise +to give a guardian chosen in such a way, a good time. But at any rate, +it would be less odious to fight a court and an office, if I must +fight, than a gentleman who is my near neighbour in the county, and was +my father's and mother's friend. I do hope you will think this over +very carefully, and will relieve both yourself and me from an +impossible state of things. I perfectly realise of course that my +father appointed you my guardian, in order to prevent me from making +certain friends, and doing certain things. But I do not admit the right +of any human being--not even a father--to dictate the life of another. +I intend to stick to my friends, And to do what my conscience directs. + +"Should you however accept the guardianship--after this candid +statement of mine--you will, I suppose, feel bound to carry out my +father's wishes by refusing me money for the purposes he disapproved. +He told me indeed that I should be wholly dependent on my guardian for +money during the next three years, even though I have attained my legal +majority. I can say to you what I could not say to him, that I +_bitterly resent_ an arrangement which treats a grown person like a +child. Such things are not done to _men_. It is only women who are the +victims of them. It would be _impossible_ to keep up friendly relations +with a guardian, who would really only be there--only exist--to thwart +and coerce me. + +"Let me point out that at the very beginning a difference must arise +between us, about the lady I am to live with. I have chosen my chaperon +already, as it was my moral, if not my legal right to do. But I am +quite aware that my father disapproved of her, and that you will +probably take the same view. She belongs to a militant suffrage +society, and is prepared at any moment to suffer for the great cause +she and I believe in. As to her ability, she is one of the cleverest +women in England. I am only too proud that she has consented--for a +time--to share my life, and nothing will _induce_ me to part with +her--as long as she consents to stay. But of course I know what you--or +any ordinary man--is likely to think of her. + +"No!--we cannot agree--it is impossible we should agree--as guardian +and ward. If indeed, for the sake of your old friendship with my +father, you would retain the executorship--I am sure Lord Frederick +Calverly will be no sort of use!--till the affairs of the will, +death-duties, debts, and so on, are settled--and would at the same time +give up _any_ other connection with the property and myself, I should +be enormously grateful to you. And I assure you I should be very glad +indeed--for father's sake--to have your advice on many points connected +with my future life; and I should be all the more ready to follow it, +if you had renounced your legal power over me. + +"I shall be much obliged if you will make your decision as soon as +possible, so that both the lawyer and I may know how to proceed." + + Yours faithfully, + + DELIA BLANCHFLOWER. + +Mark Winnington put down the letter. Its mixture of defiance, patronage +and persuasion--its young angry cleverness--would have tickled a +naturally strong sense of humour at any other time. But really the +matter was too serious to laugh at. + +"What on earth am I to do!" + +He sat pondering, his mind running through a number of associated +thoughts, of recollections old and new; those Indian scenes of fifteen +years ago; the story told him by the Swedish lady; recent incidents and +happenings in English politics; and finally the tone in which +Euphrosyne's father had described the snatching of his own innocent +from the clutches of Miss Blanchflower. + +Then it occurred to him to look at the will. He read it through; a +tedious business; for Sir Robert had been a wealthy man and the +possessions bequeathed--conditionally bequeathed--to his daughter were +many and various. Two or three thousand acres of land in one of the +southern counties, bordering on the New Forest; certain large interests +in Cleveland ironstone and Durham collieries, American and South +African shares, Canadian mortgage and railway debentures:--there was +enough to give lawyers and executors work for some time, and to provide +large pickings for the Exchequer. Among the legacies, he noticed the +legacy of L4000 to himself. + +"Payment for the job!" he thought, and shook his head, smiling. + +The alternative arrangements made for transferring the trust to the +Public Trustee, should Winnington decline, and for vesting the +guardianship of the daughter in the Court of Chancery, subject to the +directions of the will, till she should reach the age of twenty-five, +were clear; so also was the provision that unless a specific signed +undertaking was given by the daughter on attaining her twenty-fifth +birthday, that the moneys of the estate would not be applied to the +support of the "militant suffrage" propaganda, the trust was to be made +permanent, a life income of L2000 a year was to be settled on Miss +Blanchflower, and the remainder, i.e. by far the major part of Sir +Robert's property, was to accumulate, for the benefit of his daughter's +heirs should she have any, and of various public objects. Should Miss +Blanchflower sign the undertaking and afterwards break it, the Public +Trustee was directed to proceed against her, and to claim the +restitution of the property, subject always to her life allowance. + +"Pretty well tied up," thought Winnington, marvelling at the strength +of feeling, the final exasperation of a dying man, which the will +betrayed. His daughter must somehow--perhaps without realising it--have +wounded him to the heart. + +He began to climb again through the forest that he might think the +better. What would be the situation, supposing he undertook what his +old friend asked of him? + +He himself was a man of moderate means and settled habits. His small +estate and modest house which a widowed sister shared with him during +six months in the year, left him plenty of leisure from his own +affairs, and he had filled that leisure, for years past, to +overflowing, with the various kinds of public work that fall to the +country gentleman with a conscience. He was never idle; his work +interested him, and there was no conceit in his quiet knowledge that he +had many friends and much influence. Since the death of the girl to +whom he had been engaged for six short months, fifteen years before +this date, he had never thought of marriage. The circumstances of her +death--a terrible case of lingering typhoid--had so burnt the pity of +her suffering and the beauty of her courage into his mind, that natural +desire seemed to have died with her. He had turned to hard work and the +bar, and equally hard physical exercise, and so made himself master +both of his grief and his youth. But his friendships with women had +played a great part in his subsequent life. A natural chivalry, deep +based, and, in manner, a touch of caressing charm, soon evoked by those +to whom he was attached, and not easily confounded in the case of a man +so obviously manly with any lack of self-control, had long since made +him a favourite of the sex. There were few women among his +acquaintances who did not covet his liking; and he was the repository +of far more confidences than he had ever desired. No one took more +trouble to serve; and no one more carelessly forgot a service he had +himself rendered, or more tenaciously remembered any kindness done him +by man, woman or child. + +His admiration for women was mingled indeed often with profound pity; +pity for the sorrows and burdens that nature had laid upon them, for +their physical weakness, for their passive role in life. That beings so +hampered could yet play such tender and heroic parts was to him +perennially wonderful, and his sense of it expressed itself in an +unconscious homage that seemed to embrace the sex. That the homage was +not seldom wasted on persons quite unworthy of it, his best women +friends were not slow to see; but in this he was often obstinate and +took his own way. + +This mingling in him of an unfailing interest in the sex with an entire +absence of personal craving, gave him a singularly strong position with +regard to women, of which he had never yet taken any selfish advantage; +largely, no doubt, because of the many activities, most of them +disinterested, by which his life was fed and freshened; as a lake is by +the streams which fill it. + +He was much moved by his old friend's letter, and he walked about +pondering it, till the morning was almost gone. The girl's position +also seemed to him particularly friendless and perilous, though she +herself, apparently, would be the last person to think so, could she +only shake herself free from the worrying restrictions her father had +inflicted on her. Her letter, and its thinly veiled wrath, shewed quite +plainly that the task of any guardian would be a tough one. Miss +Blanchflower was evidently angry--very angry--yet at the same time +determined, if she could, to play a dignified part; ready, that is, to +be civil, on her own conditions. The proposal to instal as her +chaperon, instantly, without a day's delay, the very woman denounced in +her father's last letter, struck him as first outrageous, and then +comic. He laughed aloud over it. + +Certainly--he was not bound in any way to undertake such a business. +Blanchflower had spoken the truth when he said that he had no right to +ask it. And yet-- + +His mind dallied with it. Suppose he undertook it, on what lines could +he possibly run it? His feeling towards the violent phase of the +"woman's movement," the militancy which during the preceding three or +four years had produced a crop of outrages so surprising and so ugly, +was probably as strong as Blanchflower's own. He was a natural +Conservative, and a trained lawyer. Methods of violence in a civilised +and constitutional State, roused in him indignant abhorrence. He could +admit no excuse for them; at any rate no justification. + +But, fundamentally? What was his real attitude towards this wide-spread +claim of women, now so general in many parts of the world admitted +indeed in some English Colonies, in an increasing number of the +American states, in some of the minor European countries--to share the +public powers and responsibilities of men? Had he ever faced the +problem, as it concerned England, with any thoroughness or candour? Yet +perhaps Englishmen--all Englishmen--had now got to face it. + +Could he discover any root of sympathy in himself with what were +clearly the passionate beliefs of Delia Blanchflower, the Valkyrie of +twenty-one, as they were also the passionate beliefs of the little +Swedish lady, the blue-stocking of fifty? If so, it might be possible +to guide, even to control such a ward, for the specified three years, +at any rate, without exciting unseemly and ridiculous strife between +her and her guardian. + +"I ought to be able to do it"--he thought--"without upsetting the +apple-cart!" + +For, as he examined himself he realised that he held no closed mind on +the subject of the rights or powers or grievances of women. He had +taken no active part whatever in the English suffragist struggle, +either against woman suffrage or for it; and in his own countryside it +mattered comparatively little. But he was well aware what strong forces +and generous minds had been harnessed to the suffrage cause, since Mill +first set it stirring; and among his dearest women friends there were +some closely connected with it, who had often mocked or blamed his own +indifference. He had always thought indeed, and he thought still--for +many reasons--that they attributed a wildly exaggerated importance to +the vote, which, as it seemed to him, went a very short way in the case +of men. But he had always been content to let the thing slide; having +so much else to do and think about. + +Patience then, and respect for honest and disinterested conviction, in +any young and ardent soul; sharp discrimination between lawful and +unlawful means of propaganda, between debate, and stone-throwing; no +interference with the first, and a firm hand against the +second:--surely, in that spirit, one might make something of the +problem? Winnington was accustomed to be listened to, to get round +obstacles that other men found insuperable. It was scarcely conceit, +but a just self-confidence which suggested to him that perhaps Miss +Blanchflower would not prove so difficult after all. Gentleness, +diplomacy, decision,--by Jove, they'd all be wanted! But his legal +experience (he had been for some years a busy barrister), and his later +life as a practical administrator had not been a bad training in each +and all of these qualities. + +Of course, if the girl were merely obstinate and stupid, the case might +indeed be hopeless. But the picture drawn by the Swedish woman of the +"Valkyrie" on her black mare, of the ardent young lecturer, facing her +indifferent or hostile audience with such pluck and spirit, dwelt with +him, and affected him strongly. His face broke into amusement as he +asked himself the frank question--"Would you do it, if you hadn't heard +that tale?--if you knew that your proposed ward was just a plain +troublesome chit of a schoolgirl, bitten with suffragism?" + +He put the question to himself, standing on a pinnacle of shadowed +rock, from which the world seemed to sink into blue gulfs beneath him, +till on the farther side of immeasurable space the mountains +re-emerged, climbing to the noonday sun. + +And he answered it without hesitation. Certainly, the story told him +had added a touch of romance to the bare case presented by the batch of +letters:--had lent a force and point to Robert Blanchflower's dying +plea, it might not otherwise have possessed. For, after all, he, +Winnington, was a very busy man; and his life was already mortgaged in +many directions. But as it was--yes--the task attracted him. + +At the same time, the twinkle in his grey eyes shewed him ironically +aware of himself. + +"Understand, you old fool!--the smallest touch of philandering--and the +whole business goes to pot. The girl would have you at her mercy--and +the thing would become an odious muddle and hypocrisy, degrading to +both. Can you trust yourself? You're not exactly made of flint: Can you +play the part as it ought to be played?" + +Quietly, his face sank into rest. For him, there was that in memory, +which protected him from all such risks, which had so protected him for +fifteen years. He felt quite sure of himself. Ever since his great loss +he had found his natural allies and companions among girls and young +women as much as among men. The embarrassment of sex seemed to have +passed away for him, but not the charm. Thus, he took what for him was +the easier path of acceptance. Kindly and scrupulous as he was, it +would have been hard for him in any case to say No to the dead, more +difficult than to say it to the living. Yes!--he would do what was +possible. _The Times_ that morning contained a long list of outrages +committed by militant suffragists--houses burnt down, meetings +disturbed, members attacked. In a few months, or weeks, perhaps, +without counsel to aid or authority to warn her, the Valkyrie might be +running headlong into all the perils her father foresaw. He pledged +himself to protect her if he could. + + * * * * * + +The post which left the hotel that evening took with it a short note +from Mark Winnington to Messrs. Morton, Manners & Lathom, accepting the +functions of executor, guardian and trustee offered him under Sir +Robert Blanchflower's will, and appointing an interview with them at +their office; together with a somewhat longer one addressed to "Miss +Delia Blanchflower, Claridge's Hotel, London. + +"DEAR MISS BLANCHFLOWER, Pray let me send you my most sincere +condolence. Your poor father and I were once great friends, and I am +most truly sorry to hear of his death. + +"Thank you for your interesting letter. But I find it impossible to +refuse your father's dying request to me, nor can I believe that I +cannot be of some assistance to his daughter. Let me try. We can always +give it up, if we cannot work it, but I see no reason why, with good +will on both sides, we should not make something of it. + +"I am returning to London ten days from now, and hope to see you within +a fortnight. + +"Please address, 'Junior Carlton Club, Pall Mall.'" + + Believe me, + Yours very truly, + "MARK WINNINGTON." + + +On his arrival, in London, Winnington found a short reply awaiting him. + +"DEAR MR. WINNINGTON,--As you please. I am however shortly leaving for +Maumsey with Miss Marvell, who, as I told you, has undertaken to live +with me as my chaperon. + +"We shall hope to see you at Maumsey." + + Yours faithfully, + "DELIA BLANCHFLOWER." + + +A few days later, after long interviews with some very meticulous +solicitors, a gentleman, very much in doubt as to what his reception +would be, took train for Maumsey and the New Forest, with a view to +making as soon as possible a first call upon his ward. + + + + +Chapter III + + +"We ought soon to see the house." + +The speaker bent forward, as the train, sweeping round a curve, emerged +from some thick woods Into a space of open country. It was early +September and a sleepy autumnal sunshine lay upon the fields. The +Stubbles just reaped ran over the undulations of the land in silky +purples and gold; the blue smoke from the cottages and farms hung +poised in mid air; the eye could hardly perceive any movement in the +clear stream beside the line, as it slipped noiselessly by over its +sandy bed; it seemed a world where "it was always afternoon"; and the +only breaks in its sunny silence came from the occasional coveys of +partridges that rose whirring from the harvest-fields as the train +passed. + +Delia Blanchflower looked keenly at the English scene, so strange to +her after many years of Colonial and foreign wandering. She thought, +but did not say--"Those must be my fields--and my woods, that we have +just passed through. Probably I rode about them with Grandpapa. I +remember the pony--and the horrid groom I hated!" Quick the memory +returned of a tiny child on a rearing pony, alone with a sulky groom, +who, out of his master's sight, could not restrain his temper, and +struck the pony savagely and repeatedly over the head, to an +accompaniment of oaths; frightening out of her wits the little girl who +sat clinging to the creature's neck. And next she saw herself marching +in erect--a pale-faced thing of six, with a heart of fury,--to her +grandfather, to demand justice on the offender. And grandpapa had done +her bidding then as always; the groom was dismissed that day. It was +only grandmamma who had ever tried to manage or thwart her; result, +perpetual war, decided often for the time by the brute force at command +of the elder, but ever renewed. Delia's face flamed again as she +thought of the most humiliating incident of her childhood; when +Grandmamma, unable, to do anything with her screaming and stamping +self, had sent in despair for a stalwart young footman, and ordered him +to "carry Miss Delia up to the nursery." Delia could still feel herself +held, wriggling and shrieking face downwards, under the young man's +strong arm, unable either to kick or to scratch, while Grandmamma half +fearful, half laughing, watched the dire ascent from the bottom of the +stairs. + +"Male tyranny--my first taste of it!" thought Delia, smiling at +herself. "It was fated then that I should be a militant." + +She looked across at her friend and travelling companion, half inclined +to tell the story; but the sight of Gertrude Marvell's attitude and +expression checked the trivial reminiscence on her lips. + +"Are you tired?" she said, laying her hand on the other's knee. + +"Oh, no. Only thinking." + +"Thinking of what?"-- + +"Of all there is to do."-- + +A kind of flash passed from one face to the other, Delia's eyes darkly +answering. They looked at each other for a little, as though in silent +conversation, and then Delia turned again to the landscape outside. + +Yes, there was the house, its long, irregular line with the village +behind it. She could not restrain a slight exclamation as she caught +sight of it, and her friend opposite turned interrogatively. + +"What did you say?" + +"Nothing--only there's the Abbey. I don't suppose I've seen it since I +was twelve." + +The other lady put up an eye-glass and looked where Miss Blanchflower +pointed; but languidly, as though it were an effort to shake herself +free from pre-occupying ideas. She was a woman of about thirty-five, +slenderly made, with a sallow, regular face, and good, though +short-sighted eyes. The eyes were dark, so was the hair, the features +delicate. Under the black shady hat, the hair was very closely and +neatly coiled. The high collar of the white blouse, fitting tightly to +the slender neck, the coat and skirt of blue serge without ornament of +any kind, but well cut, emphasized the thinness, almost emaciation, of +the form. Her attitude, dress, and expression conveyed the idea of +something amazingly taut and ready--like a ship cleared for action. The +body with its clothing seemed to have been simplified as much as +possible, so as to become the mere instrument of the will which +governed it. No superfluity whatever, whether of flesh on her small +bones, or of a single unnecessary button, fold, or trimming on her +dress, had Gertrude Marvell ever allowed herself for many years. The +general effect was in some way formidable; though why the neat +precision of the little lady should convey any notion of this sort, it +would not at first sight have been easy to say. + +"How old did you say it is?"--she asked, after examining the distant +building, which could be now plainly seen from the train across a +stretch of green park. + +"Oh, the present building is nothing--a pseudo-Gothic monstrosity, +built about 1830," laughed Delia; "but there are some old remains and +foundations of the abbey. It is a big, rambling old place, and I should +think dreadfully in want of doing up. My grandfather was a bit of a +miser, and though he was quite rich, he never spent a penny he could +help." + +"All the better. He left the more for other people to spend." Miss +Marvell smiled--a slight, and rather tired smile, which hardly altered +the face. + +"Yes, if they are allowed to spend it!" said Delia, with a shrug. "Oh +well, anyway the house must be done up--painted and papered and that +kind of thing. A trustee has got to see that things of that sort are +kept in order, I suppose. But it won't have anything to do with me, +except that for decency's sake, no doubt, he'll consult me. I shall be +allowed to choose the wall-papers I suppose!" + +"If you want to," said the other drily. + +Delia's brows puckered. + +"We shall have to spend some time here, you know, Gertrude! We may as +well have something to do." + +"Nothing that might entangle us, or take too much of our thoughts," +said Miss Marvell, gently, but decidedly. + +"I'm afraid I like furnishing," said Delia, not without a shade of +defiance. + +"And I object--because I know you do. After all--you understand as +well as I do that _every day_ now is important. There are not so many +of us, Delia! If you're going to do real work, you can't afford to +spend your time or thoughts on doing up a shabby house." + +There was silence a moment. Then Delia said abruptly--"I wonder when +that man will turn up? What a fool he is to take it on!" + +"The guardianship? Yes, he hardly knows what he's in for." A touch of +grim amusement shewed itself for a moment in Miss Marvell's quiet face. + +"Oh, I daresay he knows. Perhaps he relies on what everyone calls his +'influence.' Nasty, sloppy word--nasty sloppy thing! Whenever I'm +'influenced,' I'm degraded!" The young shoulders straightened +themselves fiercely. + +"I don't know. It has its uses," said the other tranquilly. + +Delia laughed radiantly. + +"O well--if one can make the kind of weapon of it you do. I don't mean +of course that one shouldn't be rationally persuaded. But that's a +different thing. 'Influence' makes me think of canting clergymen, and +stout pompous women, who don't know what they're talking about, and +can't argue--who think they've settled everything by a stale +quotation--or an appeal to 'your better self'--or St. Paul. If Mr. +Winnington tries it on with 'influence'--we'll have some fun." + +Delia returned to her window. The look her companion bent upon her was +not visible to her. It was curiously detached--perhaps slightly +ironical. + +"I'm wondering what part I shall play in the first interview!" said +Miss Marvell, after a pause. "I represent the first stone in Mr. +Winnington's path. He will of course do his best to put me out of it." + +"How can he?" cried Delia ardently. "What can he do? He can't send for +the police and turn you out of the house. At least I suppose he could, +but he certainly won't. The last thing a gentleman of his sort wants is +to make a scandal. Every one says, after all, that he is a nice +fellow!"--the tone was unconsciously patronising--"It isn't his fault +if he's been placed in this false position. But the great question for +me is--how are we going to manage him for the best?" + +She leant forward, her chin on her hands, her sparkling eyes fixed on +her friend's face. + +"The awkward thing is"--mused Miss Marvell--"that there is so little +_time_ in which to manage him. If the movement were going on at its old +slow pace, one might lie low, try diplomacy, avoid alarming him, and so +forth. But we've no time for that. It is a case of blow on blow--action +on action--and the publicity is half the battle." + +"Still, a little management there must be, to begin with!--because +I--we--want money, and he holds the purse-strings. Hullo, here's the +station!" + +She jumped up and looked eagerly out of the window. + +"They've sent a fly for us. And there's the station-master on the +lookout. How it all comes back to me!" + +Her flushed cheek showed a natural excitement. She was coming back as +its mistress to a house where she had been happy as a child, which she +had not seen for years. Thoughts of her father, as he had been in the +old days before any trouble had arisen between them, came rushing +through her mind--tender, regretful thoughts--as the train came slowly +to a standstill. + +But the entire indifference or passivity of her companion restrained +her from any further expression. The train stopped, and she descended +to the platform of a small country station, alive apparently with +traffic and passengers. + +"Miss Blanchflower?" said a smiling station-master, whose countenance +seemed to be trying to preserve the due mean between welcome to the +living and condolence for the dead, as, hat in hand, he approached the +newcomers, and guided by her deep mourning addressed himself to Delia. + +"Why, Mr. Stebbing, I remember you quite well," said Delia, holding out +her hand. "There's my maid--and I hope there's a cart for the luggage. +We've got a lot." + +A fair-haired man in spectacles, who had also just left the train, +turned abruptly and looked hard at the group as he passed them. He +hesitated a moment, then passed on, with a curious swinging gait, a +long and shabby over-coat floating behind him--to speak to the porter +who was collecting tickets at the gate opening on the road beyond. + +Meanwhile Delia had been accosted by another gentleman, who had been +sitting reading his _Morning Post_ on the sunny platform, as the train +drew up. He too had examined the new arrivals with interest, and while +Delia was still talking to the station-master, he walked up to her. + +"I think you are Miss Blanchflower: But you won't remember me." He +lifted his hat, smiling. + +Delia looked at him, puzzled. + +"Don't you remember that Christmas dance at the Rectory, when you were +ten, and I was home from Sandhurst?" + +"Perfectly!--and I quarrelled with you because you wouldn't give me +champagne, when I'd danced with you, instead of lemonade. You said what +was good for big boys wasn't good for little girls--and I called you a +bully--" + +"You kicked me!--you had the sharpest little toes!" + +"Did I?" said Delia composedly. "I was rather good at kicking. So you +are Billy Andrews?" + +"Right. I'm Captain now, and they've just made me adjutant down here +for the Yeomanry. My mother keeps house for me. You're coming here to +live? Please let me say how sorry I was to see your sad news." The +condolence was a little clumsy but sincere. + +"Thank you. I must go and see to the luggage. Let me introduce you to +Miss Marvell--Captain Andrews--Miss Marvell." + +That lady bowed coldly, as Delia departed. The tall, soldierly man, +whose pleasant looks were somewhat spoilt by a slightly underhung +mouth, and prominent chin, disguised, however, by a fine moustache, +offered assistance with the luggage. + +"There is no need, thank you," said Miss Marvell. "Miss Blanchflower +and her maid will see to it." + +And the Captain noticed that the speaker remained entirely passive +while the luggage was being collected and piled into a fly by the +porters, directed by Miss Blanchflower and her maid. She stood quietly +on the platform, till all was ready, and Delia beckoned to her. In the +intervals the soldier tried to make conversation, but with very small +success. He dwelt upon some of the changes Miss Blanchflower would find +on the estate; how the old head-keeper, who used to make a pet of her, +was dead, and the new agent her father had put in was thought to be +doing well, how the village had lost markedly in population in the last +few years--this emigration to Canada was really getting beyond a +joke!--and so forth. Miss Marvell made no replies. But she suddenly +asked him a question. + +"What's that house over there?" + +She pointed to a grey facade on a wooded hill some two miles off. + +"That's our show place--Monk Lawrence! We're awfully proud of +it--Elizabethan, and that kind of thing. But of course you've heard of +Monk Lawrence! It's one of the finest things in England." + +"It belongs to Sir Wilfrid Lang?" + +"Certainly. Do you know him? He's scarcely been there at all, since he +became a Cabinet Minister; and yet he spent a lot of money in repairing +it a few years ago. They say it's his wife's health--that it's too damp +for her. Anyway it's quite shut up,--except that they let tourists see +it once a month." + +"Does anybody live in the house?"-- + +"Oh--a caretaker, of course,--one of the keepers. They let the +shooting. Ah! there's Miss Blanchflower calling you." + +Miss Marvell--as the gallant Captain afterwards remembered--took a long +look at the distant house and then went to join Miss Blanchflower. The +Captain accompanied her, and helped her to stow away the remaining bags +into the fly, while a small concourse of rustics, sprung from nowhere, +stolidly watched the doings of the heiress and her friend. Delia +suddenly bent forward to him, as he was about to shut the door, with an +animated look--"Can you tell me who that gentleman is who has just +walked off towards the village?"--she pointed. + +"His name is Lathrop. He lives in a place just the other side of yours. +He's got some trout-hatching ponds--will stock anybody's stream for +them. Rather a queer customer!"--the good-natured Captain dropped his +voice. "Well, good-bye, my train's just coming. I hope I may come and +see you soon?" + +Delia nodded assent, and they drove off. + +"By George, she's a beauty!" said the Captain to himself as he turned +away. "Nothing wrong with her that I can see. But there are some +strange tales going about. I wonder who that other woman is. +Marvell--Gertrude Marvell?--I seem to have heard the name +somewhere.--Hullo, Masham, how are you?" He greeted the leading local +solicitor who had just entered the station, a man with a fine ascetic +face, and singularly blue eyes. Masham looked like a starved poet or +preacher, and was in reality one of the hardest and shrewdest men of +business in the southern counties. + +"Well, did you see Miss Blanchflower?" said the Captain, as Masham +joined him on the platform, and they entered the up train together. + +"I did. A handsome young lady! Have you heard the news?" + +"No." + +"Your neighbor, Mr. Winnington--Mark Winnington--is named as her +guardian under her father's will--until she is twenty-five. He is also +trustee, with absolute power over the property." + +The Captain shewed a face of astonishment. + +"Gracious! what had Winnington to do with Sir Robert Blanchflower!" + +"An old friend, apparently. But it is a curious will." + +The solicitor's abstracted look shewed a busy mind. The Captain had +never felt a livelier desire for information. + +"Isn't there something strange about the girl?"--he said, lowering his +voice, although there was no one else in the railway carriage. "I never +saw a more beautiful creature! But my mother came home from London the +other day with some very queer stories, from a woman who had met them +abroad. She said Miss Blanchflower was awfully clever, but as wild as a +hawk--mad about women's rights and that kind of thing. In the hotel +where she met them, people fought very shy of her." + +"Oh, she's a militant suffragist," said the solicitor quietly--"though +she's not had time yet since her father's death to do any mischief. +That--in confidence--is the meaning of the will." + +The adjutant whistled. + +"Goodness!--Winnington will have his work cut out for him. But he +needn't accept." + +"He has accepted. I heard this morning from the London solicitor." + +"Your firm does the estate business down here?" + +"For many years. I hope to see Mr. Winnington to-morrow or next day. He +is evidently hurrying home--because of this." + +There was silence for a few minutes; then the Captain said bluntly: + +"It's an awful pity, you know, that kind of thing cropping up down +here. We've escaped it so far." + +"With such a lot of wild women about, what can you expect?" said the +solicitor briskly. "Like the measles--sure to come our way sooner or +later." + +"Do you think they'll get what they want?" "What--the vote? No--not +unless the men are fools." The refined, apostolic face set like iron. + +"None of the womanly women want it," said the Captain with conviction. +"You should hear my mother on it." + +The solicitor did not reply. The adjutant's mother was not in his eyes +a model of wisdom. Nor did his own opinion want any fortifying from +outside. + +Captain Andrews was not quite in the same position. He was conscious of +a strong male instinct which disavowed Miss Blanchflower and all her +kind; but at the same time he was exceedingly susceptible to female +beauty, and it troubled his reasoning processes that anybody so +wrong-headed should be so good-looking. His heart was soft, and his +brain all that was wanted for his own purposes. But it did not enable +him-it never had enabled him--to understand these extraordinary +"goings-on," which the newspapers were every day reporting, on the part +of well-to-do, educated women, who were ready--it seemed--to do +anything outrageous--just for a vote! "Of course nobody would mind if +the rich women--the tax-paying women--had a vote--help us Tories +famously. But the women of the working-classes--why, Good Lord, look at +them when there's any disturbance on--any big strike--look at +Tonypandy!--a deal sight worse than the men! Give them the vote and +they'd take us to the devil, even quicker than Lloyd George!" + +Aloud he said-- + +"Do you know anything about that lady Miss Blanchflower had with her? +She introduced me. Miss Marvell--I think that was the name. I thought I +had heard it somewhere." + +The solicitor lifted his eyebrows. + +"I daresay. She was in the stone-throwing raid last August. Fined 20s. +or a month, for damage in Pall Mall. She was in prison a week; then +somebody paid her fine. She professed great annoyance, but one of the +police told me it was privately paid by her own society. She's too +important to them--they can't do without her. An extremely clever +woman." + +"Then what on earth does she come and bury herself down here for?" +cried the Captain. + +Masham shewed a meditative twist of the lip. + +"Can't say, I'm sure. But they want money. And Miss Blanchflower is an +important capture." + +"I hope that girl will soon have the sense to shake them off!" said the +Captain with energy. "She's a deal too beautiful for that kind of +thing. I shall get my mother to come and talk to her." + +The solicitor concealed his smile behind his _Daily Telegraph_. He had +a real liking and respect for the Captain, but the family affection of +the Andrews household was a trifle too idyllic to convince a gentleman +so well acquainted with the seamy side of life. What about that +hunted-looking girl, the Captain's sister? He didn't believe, he never +had believed that Mrs. Andrews was quite so much of an angel as she +pretended to be. + +Meanwhile, no sooner had the fly left the station than Delia turned to +her companion-- + +"Gertrude!--did you see what that man was reading who passed us just +now? Our paper!--the _Tocsin_." + +Gertrude Marvell lifted her eyebrows slightly. + +"No doubt he bought it at Waterloo--out of curiosity." + +"Why not out of sympathy? I thought he looked at us rather closely. Of +course, if he reads the _Tocsin_ he knows something about you! What fun +it would be to discover a comrade and a brother down here!" + +"It depends entirely upon what use we could make of him," said Miss +Marvell. Then she turned suddenly on her companion--"Tell me really, +Delia--how long do you want to stay here?" + +"Well, a couple of months at least," said Delia, with a rather +perplexed expression. "After all, Gertrude, it's my property now, and +all the people on it, I suppose, will expect to see one and make +friends. I don't want them to think that because I'm a suffragist I'm +going to shirk. It wouldn't be good policy, would it?" + +"It's all a question of the relative importance of things," said the +other quietly. "London is our head quarters, and things are moving very +rapidly." + +"I know. But, dear, you did promise! for a time"--pleaded Delia. +"Though of course I know how dull it must be for you, when you are the +life and soul of so many things in London. But you must remember that I +haven't a penny at this moment but what Mr. Winnington chooses to allow +me! We must come to some understanding with him, mustn't we, before we +can do anything? It is all so difficult!"--the girl's voice took a +deep, passionate note--"horribly difficult, when I long to be standing +beside you--and the others--in the open--fighting--for all I'm worth. +But how can I, just yet? I ought to have eight thousand a year, and Mr. +Winnington can cut me down to anything he pleases. It's just as +important that I should get hold of my money--at this particular +moment--as that I should be joining raids in London,--more important, +surely--because we want money badly!--you say so yourself. I don't want +it for myself; I want it all--for the cause! But the question is, how +to get it--with this will in our way. I--" + +"Ah, there's that house again!" exclaimed Miss Marvell, but in the same +low restrained tone that was habitual to her. She bent forward to look +at the stately building, on the hill-side, which according to Captain +Andrews' information, was the untenanted property of Sir Wilfrid Lang, +whom a shuffle of offices had just admitted to the Cabinet. + +"What house?"--said Delia, not without a vague smart under the sudden +change of subject. She had a natural turn for declamation; a girlish +liking to hear herself talk; and Gertrude, her tutor in the first +place, and now her counsellor and friend, had a quiet way of snubbing +such inclinations, except when they could be practically useful. "You +have the gifts of a speaker--we shall want you to speak more and more," +she would say. But in private she rarely failed to interrupt an +harangue, even the first beginnings of one. + +However, the smart soon passed, and Delia too turned her eyes towards +the house among the trees. She gave a little cry of pleasure. + +"Oh, that's Monk Lawrence!--such a lovely--lovely old place! I used +often to go there as a child--I adored it. But I can't remember who +lives there now." + +Gertrude Marvell handed on the few facts learned from the Captain. + +"I knew"--she added--"that Sir Wilfrid Lang lived somewhere near here. +That they told me at the office." + +"And the house is empty?" Delia, flushing suddenly and vividly, turned +to her companion. + +"Except for the caretaker--who no doubt lives some where on the +ground-floor." + +There was silence a moment. Then Delia laughed uncomfortably. + +"Look here, Gertrude, we can't attempt anything of that kind _there_: I +remember now--it was Sir Wilfrid's brother who had the house, when I +used to go there. He was a great friend of Father's; and his little +girls and I were great chums. The house is just wonderful--full of +treasures! I am sorry it belongs to Sir Wilfrid--but nobody could lift +a finger against Monk Lawrence!" + +Miss Marvell's eyes sparkled. + +"He is the most formidable enemy we have," she said softly, between her +closed lips. A tremor seemed to run through her slight frame. + +Then she smiled, and her tone changed. + +"Dear Delia, of course I shan't run you into any--avoidable--trouble, +down here, apart from the things we have agreed on." + +"What have we agreed on? Remind me!" + +"In the first place, that we won't hide our opinions--or stop our +propaganda--to please anybody." + +"Certainly!" said Delia. "I shall have a drawing-room meeting as soon +as possible. You seem to have fixed up a number of speaking engagements +for us both. And we told the office to send us down tons of +literature." Then her face broke into laughter--"Poor Mr. Winnington!" + + * * * * * + +"A rather nice old place, isn't it?" said Delia, an hour later, when +the elderly housekeeper, who had received them with what had seemed to +Delia's companion a quite unnecessary amount of fuss and family +feeling, had at last left them alone in the drawing-room, after taking +them over the house. + +The girl spoke in a softened voice. She was standing thoughtfully by +the open window looking out, her hands clasping a chair behind her. Her +thin black dress, made short and plain, with a white frill at the open +neck and sleeves, by its very meagreness emphasized the young beauty of +the wearer,--a beauty full of significance, charged--over-charged--with +character. The attitude should have been one of repose; it was on the +contrary one of tension, suggesting a momentary balance only, of +impetuous forces. Delia was indeed suffering the onset of a wave of +feeling which had come upon her unexpectedly; for which she had not +prepared herself. This rambling old house with its quiet garden and +early Victorian furniture, had appealed to her in some profound and +touching way. Her childhood stirred again in her, and deep inherited +things. How well she remembered the low, spacious room, with its oak +wainscotting, its book-cases and its pictures! That crayon over the +writing-table of her grandmother in her white cap and shawl; her +grandfather's chair, and the old Bible and Prayer-book, beside it, from +which he used to read evening prayers; the stiff arm-chairs with their +faded chintz covers; the writing-table with its presentation inkstand; +the groups of silhouettes on the walls, her forbears of long ago; the +needlework on the fire-screen, in which, at nine years old, she had +been proud to embroider the white rose-bud still so lackadaisically +prominent; the stool on which she used to sit and knit beside her +grandmother; the place on the run where the old collie used to lie--she +saw his ghost there still!--all these familiar and even ugly objects +seemed to be putting out spiritual hands to her, playing on nerves once +eagerly responsive. She had never stayed for long in the house; but she +had always been happy there. The moral atmosphere of it came back to +her, and with a sense of the old rest and protection. Her grandfather +might have been miserly to others; he had always been kind to her. But +it was her grandmother who had been supreme in that room. A woman of +clear sense and high character; narrow and prejudiced in many respects, +but sorely missed by many when her turn came to die; a Christian in +more than name; sincerely devoted to her teasing little granddaughter. +A woman who had ordered her household justly and kindly; a personality +not soon forgotten. + +"There is something of her in me still," thought Delia--"at least, I +hope there is. And where--is the rest of me going?" + +"I think I'll take off my things, dear," said Gertrude Marvell, +breaking in on the girl's reverie. "Don't trouble. I know my room." + +The door closed. Delia was now looking out into the garden, where on +the old grass-slopes the September shadows lay--still and slumbrous. +The peace of it, the breath of its old-world tradition, came upon her, +relaxing the struggle of mind and soul in which she had been living for +months, and that ceaseless memory which weighed upon her of her dying +father,--his bitter and increasing recoil from all that, for a while, +he had indulgently permitted--his final estrangement from her, her own +obstinacy and suffering. + +"Yes!"--she cried suddenly, out loud, to the rosebushes beyond the open +window--"but it had a reason--it _had_ a reason!" She clasped her +hands fiercely to her breast. "And there is no birth without pain." + + + + +Chapter IV + + +A few days after her arrival, Delia woke up in the early dawn in the +large room that had been her grandmother's. She sat up in the broad +white bed with its dimity curtains, her hands round her knees, peering +into the half darkened room, where, however, she had thrown the windows +wide open, behind the curtains, before going to sleep. On the opposite +wall she saw an indifferent picture of her father as a boy of twelve on +his pony; beside it a faded photograph of her mother, her beautiful +mother, in her wedding dress. There had never been any real sympathy +between her mother and her grandmother. Old Lady Blanchflower had +resented her son's marriage with a foreign woman, with a Greek, in +particular. The Greeks were not at that moment of much account in the +political world, and Lady Blanchflower thought of them as a nation of +shams, trading on a great past which did not belong to them. Her secret +idea was that out of their own country they grew rich in disreputable +ways, and while at home, where only the stupid ones stayed, they were a +shabby, half-civilised people, mostly bankrupt. She could not imagine +how a girl got any bringing up at Athens, and believed nothing that her +son told her. So that when the young Mrs. Blanchflower arrived, there +were jars in the household, and it was not long before the spoilt and +handsome bride went to her husband in tears, and asked to be taken +away. Delia was surprised and touched, therefore, to find her mother's +portrait in her grandmother's room, where nothing clearly had been +admitted that had not some connection with family affection or family +pride. She wondered whether on her mother's death her grandmother had +hung the picture there in dumb confession of, or penance for, her own +unkindness. + +The paper of the room was a dingy grey, and the furniture was heavily +old-fashioned and in Delia's eyes inconvenient. "If I'm going to keep +the room I shall make it all white," she thought, "with proper fitted +wardrobes, and some low bookcases--a bath, too, of course, in the +dressing-room. And they must put in electric light at once! How could +they have done without it all this time! I believe with all its faults, +this house could be made quite pretty!" + +And she fell into a reverie,--eagerly constructive--wherein Maumsey +became, at a stroke, a House Beautiful, at once modern and +aesthetically right, a dim harmony in lovely purples, blues and greens, +with the few fine things it possessed properly spaced and grouped, the +old gardens showing through the latticed windows, and golden or silvery +lights, like those in a Blanche interior, gleaming in its now dreary +rooms. + +Then at a bound she sprang out of bed, and stood upright in the autumn +dawn. + +"I hate myself!" she said fiercely--as she ran her hands through the +mass of her dark hair, and threw it back upon her shoulders. Hurrying +across the room in her night-gown, she threw back the curtains. A light +autumnal mist, through which the sun was smiling, lay on the garden. +Stately trees rose above it, and masses of flowers shewed vaguely +bright; while through the blue distances beyond, the New Forest +stretched to the sea. + +But Delia was looking at herself, in a long pier-glass that represented +almost the only concession to the typical feminine needs in the room. +She was not admiring her own seemliness; far from it; she was rating +and despising herself for a feather-brained waverer and +good-for-nothing. + +"Oh yes, you can _talk_!" she said, to the figure in the glass--"you +are good enough at that! But what are you going to _do_!--Spend your +time at Maple's and Waring--matching chintzes and curtains?--when +you've _promised_--you've _promised_! Gertrude's right. There _are_ all +sorts of disgusting cowardices and weaknesses in you! Oh! yes, +you'd like to go fiddling and fussing down here--playing the +heiress--patronising the poor people--putting yourself into beautiful +clothes--and getting heaps of money out of Mr. Winnington to spend. +It's in you--it's just in you--to throw everything over--to forget +everything you've felt, and everything you've vowed--and just _wallow_ +in luxury and selfishness and snobbery! Gertrude's absolutely right. +But you shan't do it! You shan't put a hand to it! Why did that man +take the guardianship? Now it's his business. He may see to it! But +_you_--you have something else to do!" + +And she stood erect, the angry impulse in her stiffening all her young +body. And through her memory there ran, swift-footed, fragments from a +rhetoric of which she was already fatally mistress, the formulae too of +those sincere and goading beliefs on which her youth had been fed ever +since her first acquaintance with Gertrude Marvell. The mind renewed +them like vows; clung to them, embraced them. + +What was she before she knew Gertrude? She thought of that earlier +Delia as of a creature almost too contemptible to blame. From the +maturity of her twenty-one years she looked back upon herself at +seventeen or eighteen with wonder. That Delia had read nothing--knew +nothing--had neither thoughts or principles. She was her father's +spoilt child and darling; delighting in the luxury that surrounded his +West Indian Governorship; courted and flattered by the few English of +the colonial capital, and by the members of her father's staff; with +servants for every possible need or whim; living her life mostly in the +open air, riding at her father's side, through the sub-tropical forests +of the colony; teasing and tyrannising over the dear old German +governess who had brought her up, and whose only contribution to her +education--as Delia now counted education--had been the German tongue. +Worth something!--but not all those years, "when I might have been +learning so much else, things I shall never have time to learn +now!--things that Gertrude has at her finger's end. Why wasn't I taught +properly--decently--like any board school child! As Gertrude says, we +women want everything we can get! We _must_ know the things that men +know--that we may beat them at their own game. Why should every Balliol +boy--years younger than me--have been taught his classics and +mathematics,--and have everything brought to him--made easy for +him--history, political economy, logic, philosophy, laid at his +lordship's feet, if he will just please to learn!--while I, who have +just as good a brain as he, have had to pick up a few scraps by the +way, just because nobody who had charge of me ever thought it worth +while to teach, a girl. But I have a mind!--an intelligence!--even if I +am a woman; and there is all the world to know. Marriage? Yes!--but not +at the sacrifice of everything else--of the rational, civilised self." + +On the whole though, her youth had been happy enough, with recurrent +intervals of _ennui_ and discontent. Intervals too of poetic +enthusiasm, or ascetic religion. At eighteen she had been practically a +Catholic, influenced by the charming wife of one of her father's +aides-de-camp. And then--a few stray books or magazine articles had +made a Darwinian and an agnostic of her; the one phase as futile as the +other. + +"I knew nothing--I had no mind!"--she repeated with energy,--"till +Gertrude came." + +And she thought with ardour of that intellectual awakening, under the +strange influence of the apparently reserved and impassive woman, who +had come to read history with her for six months, at the suggestion of +a friend of her father's, a certain cultivated and clever Lady +Tonbridge, "who saw how starved I was." + +So, after enquiry, a lady who was a B.A. of London, and had taken +first-class honour in history--Delia's ambition would accept nothing +less--had been found, who wanted for health's sake a winter in a warm +climate, and was willing to read history with Governor Blanch-flower's +half-fledged daughter. + +The friendship had begun, as often, with a little aversion. Delia was +made to work, and having always resented being made to do anything, for +about a month she disliked her tutor, and would have persuaded Sir +Robert to send her away, had not England been so far off, and the +agreement with Miss Marvell, whose terms were high, unusually +stringent. But by the end of the month the girl of eighteen was +conquered. She had recognised in Gertrude Marvell accomplishments that +filled her with envy, together with an intensity of will, a bitter and +fiery purpose, that astounded and subdued a young creature in whom +inherited germs of southern energy and passion were only waiting the +touch that starts the ferment. Gertrude Marvell had read an amazing +amount of history, and all from one point of view; that of the woman +stirred to a kind of madness by what she held to be the wrongs of her +sex. The age-long monopoly of all the higher forces of civilisation by +men; the cruel and insulting insistence upon the sexual and maternal +functions of women, as covering the whole of her destiny; the hideous +depreciation of her as an inferior and unclean creature, to which +Christianity, poisoned by the story of Eve, and a score of barbarous +beliefs and superstitions more primitive still, had largely +contributed, while hypocritically professing to enfranchise and exalt +her; the unfailing doom to "obey," and to bring forth, that has crushed +her; the labours and shames heaped upon her by men in the pursuit of +their own selfish devices; and the denial to her, also by men, of all +the higher and spiritual activities, except those allowed by a man-made +religion:--this feminist gospel, in some respects so bitterly true, in +others so vindictively false, was gradually and unsparingly pressed +upon Delia's quick intelligence. She caught its fire; she rose to its +call; and there came a day when Gertrude Marvell breaking through the +cold reserve she had hitherto interposed between herself and the pupil +who had come to adore her, threw her arms round the girl, accepting +from her what were practically the vows of a neophyte in a secret and +revolutionary service. + +Joyous, self-dedicating moment! But it had been followed by a tragedy; +the tragedy of Delia's estrangement from her father. It was not long +before Sir Robert Blanchflower, a proud self-indulgent man, with a keen +critical sense, a wide acquaintance with men and affairs, and a number +of miscellaneous acquirements of which he never made the smallest +parade, had divined the spirit of irreconcilable revolt which animated +the slight and generally taciturn woman, who had obtained such a hold +upon his daughter. He, the god of his small world, was made to feel +himself humiliated in her presence. She was, in fact, his intellectual +superior, and the truth was conveyed to him in a score of subtle ways. +She was in his house simply because she was poor, and wanted rest from +excessive overwork, at someone else's expense. Otherwise her manner +suggested--often quite unconsciously--that she would not have put up +with his household and its regulations for a single day. + +Then, suddenly, he perceived that he had lost his daughter, and the +reason of it. The last year of his official life was thenceforward +darkened by an ugly and undignified struggle with the woman who had +stolen Delia from him. In the end he dismissed Gertrude Marvell. Delia +shewed a passionate resentment, told him frankly that as soon as she +was twenty-one she should take up "the Woman's movement" as her sole +occupation, and should offer herself wherever Gertrude Marvell, and +Gertrude's leaders, thought she could be useful. "The vote _must_ be +got!"--she said, standing white and trembling, but resolute, before her +father--"If not peaceably, then by violence. And when we get it, +father, you men will be astonished to see what we shall do with it!" + +Her twenty-first birthday was at hand, and would probably have seen +Delia's flight from her father's house, but for Sir Robert's breakdown +in health. He gave up his post, and it was evident he had not more than +a year or two to live. Delia softened and submitted. She went abroad +with him, and for a time he seemed to throw off the disease which had +attacked him. It was during a brighter interval that, touched by her +apparent concessions, he had consented to her giving the lecture in the +Tyrolese hotel the fame of which had spread abroad, and had even taken +a certain pleasure in her oratorical success. + +But during the following winter--Sir Robert's last--which they spent +at Meran, things had gone from bad to worse. For months Delia never +mentioned Gertrude Marvell to her father. He flattered himself that the +friendship was at an end. Then some accident revealed to him that it +was as close as, or closer than ever; that they were in daily +correspondence; that they had actually met, unknown to him, in the +neighbourhood of Meran; and that Delia was sending all the money she +could possibly spare from her very ample allowance to "The Daughters of +Revolt," the far-spreading society in which Gertrude Marvell was now +one of the leading officials. + +Some of these dismal memories of Meran descended like birds of night +upon Delia, as she stood with her arms above her head, in her long +night-gown, looking intently but quite unconsciously into the depths of +an old rosewood cheval glass. She felt that sultry night about her once +more, when, after signing his will, her father opened his eyes upon +her, coming back with an effort from the bound of death, and had said +quite clearly though faintly in the silence-- + +"Give up that woman, Delia!--promise me to give her up." And Delia had +cried bitterly, on her knees beside him--without a word--caressing his +hand. And the cold fingers had been feebly withdrawn from hers as the +eyes closed. + +"Oh papa--papa!" The low murmur came from her, as she pressed her hands +upon her eyes. If the Christian guesses were but true, and in some +quiet Elysian state he might now understand, and cease to be angry with +her! Was there ever a great cause won without setting kin against kin? +"A man's foes shall be they of his own household." "It wasn't my +fault--it wasn't my fault!" + +No!--and moreover it was her duty not to waste her strength in vain +emotion and regret. Her task was _doing_, not dreaming. She turned +away, banished her thoughts and set steadily about the task of +dressing. + + * * * * * + +"Please Miss Blanchflower, there are two or three people waiting to see +you in the servants' hall." + +So said the tall and gentle-voiced housekeeper, Mrs. Bird, whose +emotions had been, in Miss Marvell's view, so unnecessarily exercised +on the evening of Delia's home-coming. Being a sensitive person, Mrs. +Bird had already learnt her lesson, and her manner had now become as +mildly distant as could be desired, especially in the case of Miss +Blanchflower's lady companion. + +"People? What people?" asked Delia, looking round with a furrowed brow. +She and Gertrude were sitting together on the sofa when the housekeeper +entered, eagerly reading a large batch of letters which the London post +had just brought, and discussing their contents in subdued tones. + +"It's the cottages, Miss. Her Ladyship used always to decide who should +have those as were vacant about this time of year, and two or three of +these persons have been up several times to know when you'd be home." + +"But I don't know anything about it"--said Delia, rising reluctantly. +"Why doesn't the agent--why doesn't Mr. Frost do it?" + +"I suppose--they thought--you'd perhaps speak a word to Mr. Frost, +Miss," suggested Mrs. Bird. "But I can send them away of course, if you +wish." + +"Oh no, I'll come"--said Delia. "But it's rather tiresome--just +as"--she looked at Gertrude. + +"Don't be long," said Miss Marvell, sharply, "I'll wait for you here." +And she plunged back into the letters, her delicate face all alive, her +eyes sparkling. Delia departed--evidently on a distasteful errand. + +But twenty minutes later, she returned flushed and animated. + +"I _am_ glad I went! Such tyranny--such monstrous tyranny!" She stood +in front of Gertrude breathing fast, her hands on her hips. + +"What's the matter?" + +"My grandmother had a rule--can you imagine anything so cruel!--that no +girl--who had gone wrong--was to be allowed in our cottages. If she +couldn't be provided for in some Home or other, or if her family +refused to give her up, then the family must go. An old man has been up +to see me--a widower with two daughters--one in service. The one in +service has come to grief--the son of the house!--the usual +story!"--the speaker's face had turned fiercely pale--"and now our +agent refuses to let the girl and her baby come home. And the old +father says--'What am I to do, Miss? I can't turn her out--she's my own +flesh and blood. I've got to stick to her--else there'll be worse +happening. It's not _justice_, Miss--and it's not Gospel.' +Well!"--Delia seated herself with energy,--"I've told him to have her +home at once--and I'll see to it." + +Gertrude lifted her eyebrows, a gesture habitual with her, whenever +Delia wore--as now--her young prophetess look. Why feel these things so +much? Human nerves have only a certain limited stock of reactions. +Avenge--and alter them! + +But she merely said-- + +"And the others?" + +"Oh, a poor mother with eight children, pleading for a cottage with +three bedrooms instead of two! I told her she should have it if I had +to build it!--And an old woman who has lived fifty-two years in her +cottage, and lost all her belongings, begging that she mightn't be +turned out--for a family--now that it's too big for her. She shan't be +turned out! Of course I suppose it would be common sense"--the tension +of the speaker's face broke up in laughter--"to put the old woman into +the cottage of the eight children--and put the eight children into the +old woman's. But human beings are not cattle! Sentiment's something! +Why shouldn't a woman be allowed to die in her old home,--so long as +she pays the rent? I hate all this interference with people's lives! +And it's always the women who come worst off. 'Oh Mr. Frost, he never +pays no attention to us women. He claps 'is 'ands to his ears when he +sees one of us, and jest runs for it.' Well, I'll make Mr. Frost listen +to a woman!" + +"I'm afraid Mr. Winnington is his master," said Gertrude quietly. +Delia, crimson again, shrugged her shoulders. + +"We shall see!" + +Gertrude Marvell looked up. + +"Look here, Delia, if you're going to play the part of earthly +Providence to this village and your property in general--as I've said +to you before--you may as well tell the 'Daughters' you can't do +anything for them. That's a profession in itself; and would take you +all your time." + +"Then of course, I shan't do it," said Delia, with decision. "But I +only want to put in an appearance--to make friends with the +people--just for a time, Gertrude! It doesn't do to be _too_ unpopular. +We're not exactly in good odour just now, are we?" + +And sitting down on a stool beside the elder woman, Delia leant her +head against her friend's knee caressingly. + +Gertrude gave an absent touch to the girl's beautiful hair, and then +said-- + +"So you _will_ take these four meetings?" + +"Certainly!" Delia sprang up. "What are they? One at Latchford, one at +Brownmouth--Wanchester--and Frimpton. All right. I shall be pelted at +Brownmouth. But rotten eggs don't matter so much when you're looking +out for them--except on your face--Ugh!" + +"And the meeting here?" + +"Of course. Can't I do what I like with my own house? We'll have the +notices out next week." + +Gertrude looked up-- + +"When did you say that man--Mr. Winnington--was coming?" + +"His note this morning said 4:30." + +"You'd better see him alone--for the first half hour anyway." + +Delia made a face. + +"I wish I knew what line to take up. You've been no use at all, +Gertrude!" + +Gertrude smiled. + +"Wait till you see him," she said coolly. "Mother-wit will help you +out." + +"I wish I had anything to bargain with." + +"So you have." + +"Pray, what?" + +"The meeting here. You _could_ give that up. And he needn't know +anything of the others yet awhile." + +"What a charming opinion he will have of us both, by and bye," laughed +Delia, quietly. "And by all accounts he himself is a simple +paragon.--Heavens, how tiresome!" + +Gertrude Marvell turned back to her letters. + +"What does anyone know about a _man_?" she said, with slow +deliberation. + +The midday post at Maumsey brought letters just after luncheon. Delia +turning hers over was astonished to see two or three with the local +postmark. + +"What can people from _here_ be writing to me about?" + +Gertrude absorbed in the new weekly number of the _Tocsin_ took no +notice, till she was touched on the shoulder by Delia. + +"Yes?" + +"Gertrude!--it's too amazing!" The girl's tone was full of a joyous +wonder. "You know they told us at head-quarters that this was one of +the deadest places in England--a nest of Antis--nothing doing here at +all. Well, what do you think?--here are _three_ letters by one post, +from the village--all greeting us--all knowing perfectly who you +are--that you have been in prison, etcetera--all readers of the +_Tocsin_, and burning to be doing something--" + +"Burning something?" interposed the other in her most ordinary voice. + +Delia laughed, again with the note of constraint. + +"Well, anyway, they want to come and see us." + +"Who are they?" + +"An assistant mistress at the little grammar-school--that's No. 1. No. +2--a farmer's daughter, who says she took part in one of the raids last +summer, but nobody knows down here. Her father paid her fine. And No. +3. a consumptive dressmaker, who declares she hasn't much life left +anyway, and she is quite willing to give it to the 'cause'! Isn't it +wonderful how it spreads--it spreads!" + +"Hm"--said Miss Marvell. "Well, we may as well inspect them. Tell them +to come up some time next week after dusk." + +As she spoke, the temporary parlour-maid threw open the door of the +room which Delia had that morning chosen as her own sitting-room. + +"Are you at home, Miss? Mrs. France would like to see you." + +"Mrs. France?--Mrs. France? Oh, I know--the doctor's wife--Mrs. Bird +was talking of him this morning. Well, I suppose I must go." Delia +moved unwillingly. "I'm coming, Mary." + +"Of course you must go," said Gertrude, a little peremptorily. "As we +are here we may as well reconnoitre the whole ground--find out +everything we can." + + * * * * * + +In the drawing-room, to which some flowers, and a litter of new books +and magazines had already restored its inhabited look, Delia found a +woman awaiting her, in whom the girl's first glance discerned a +personality. She was dressed with an entire disregard of the fashion, +in plain, serviceable clothes. A small black bonnet tied under the chin +framed a face whose only beauty lay in the expression of the clear kind +eyes, and quiet mouth. The eyes were a little prominent; the brow above +them unusually smooth and untroubled, answering to the bands of brown +hair touched with grey which defined it. But the rest of the face was +marked by many deep lines--of experience, or suffering?--which showed +clearly that its owner had long left physical youth behind. And yet +perhaps youth--in some spiritual poetic sense--was what Mrs. France's +aspect most sharply conveyed. + +She rose as Delia entered, and greeted her warmly. + +"It is nice to see you settled here! Dr. France and I were great +friends of your old grandmother. He and she were regular cronies. We +were very sorry to see the news of your poor father's death." + +The voice was clear and soft, and absolutely sincere. Delia felt drawn +to her. But it had become habitual to her to hold herself on the +defensive with strangers, to suspect hostility and disapproval +everywhere. So that her manner in reply, though polite enough, was +rather chilly. + +But--the girl's beauty! The fame of it had indeed reached Maumsey in +advance of the heiress. Mrs. France, however, in its actual presence +was inclined to say "I had not heard the half!" She remembered Delia's +mother, and in the face before her she recognised again the Greek type, +the old pure type, reappearing, as it constantly does, in the mixed +modern race. But the daughter surpassed her mother. Delia's eyes, of a +lovely grey blue, lidded, and fringed, and arched with an exquisite +perfection; the curve of the slightly bronzed cheek, suggesting through +all its delicacy the fulness of young, sensuous life; the mouth, +perhaps a trifle too large, and the chin, perhaps a trifle too firm; +the abundance of the glossy black hair, curling wherever it was allowed +to curl, or wherever it could escape the tight coils in which it was +bound--at the temples, and over the brow; the beauty of the uncovered +neck, and of the amply-rounded form which revealed itself through the +thin black stripe of the mourning dress:--none of these "items" in +Delia's good looks escaped her admiring visitor. + +"It's to be hoped Mr. Mark realises his responsibilities," she thought, +with amusement. + +Aloud, she said-- + +"I remember you as quite a little thing staying with your +Grandmother--but you wouldn't remember me. Dr. France was grieved not +to come, but it's his hospital day." + +Delia thanked her, without effusion. Mrs. France presently began to +feel conversation an effort, and to realise that the girl's wonderful +eyes were very observant and very critical. Yet she chose the very +obvious and appropriate topic of Lady Blanchflower, her strong +character, her doings in the village, her relation to the labourers and +their wives. + +"When she died, they really missed her. They miss her still." + +"Is it good for a village to depend so much on one person?" said Delia +in a detached voice. + +Mrs. France looked at her curiously. Jealousy of one's grandmother is +not a common trait in the young. It struck her that Miss Blanchflower +was already defending herself against examples and ideals she did not +mean to follow. And again amusement--and concern!--on Mark +Winnington's account made themselves felt. Mrs. France was quite aware +of Delia's "militant" antecedents, and of the history of the lady she +had brought down to live with her. But the confidence of the doctor's +wife in Winnington's powers and charm was boundless. "He'll be a match +for them!" she thought gaily. + +Meanwhile in reply, she smilingly defended her old friend Lady +Blanchflower from the implied charge of pauperising the village. + +"Not at all! She never gave money recklessly--and the do-nothings kept +clear of her. But she was the people's friend--and they knew it. +They're very excited about your coming!" + +"I daresay I shall change some things," said Delia decidedly. "I don't +approve of all Mr. Frost has been doing." + +"Well, you'll have your guardian to help you," said Mrs. France +quietly. + +Delia flushed, straightened her shoulders, and said nothing. + +This time Mrs. France was fairly taken by surprise. She knew nothing +more of Sir Robert Blanchflower's will than that he had made Mr. Mark +Winnington his daughter's guardian, till she reached the age of +twenty-five. But that any young woman--any motherless and fatherless +girl--should not think herself the most lucky of mortals to have +obtained Mark Winnington as guide and defender, with first claim on his +time, his brains, his kindness, seemed incredible to Mark's old friend +and neighbour, accustomed to the daily signs of his immense and +deserved popularity. Then it flashed upon her--"Has she ever seen him?" + +The doubt led to an immediate communication of the news that Winnington +had arrived from town that morning. Dr. France had seen him in the +village. + +"You know him, of course, already?" + +"Not at all," said Delia, indifferently. "He and I are perfect +strangers." Mrs. France laughed. + +"I rather envy you the pleasure of making friends with him! We are all +devoted to him down here." + +Delia lifted her eyebrows. + +"What are his particular virtues? It's monotonous to possess them +_all_." The slight note of insolence was hardly disguised. + +"No two friends of his would give you the same answer. I should give +you a different catalogue, for instance, from Lady Tonbridge--" + +"Lady Tonbridge!" cried Delia, waking up at last. "You don't mean that +Lady Tonbridge lives in this neighbourhood?" + +"Certainly. You know her?" + +"She came once to stay with us in the West Indies. My father knew her +very well before she married. And I owe her--a great debt"--the last +words were spoken with emphasis. + +Mrs. France looked enquiring. + +"--she recommended to us the lady who is now living with me here--my +chaperon--Miss Marvell?" + +There was silence for a moment. Then Mrs. France said, not without +embarrassment-- + +"Your father desired she should live with you?" + +Delia flushed again. + +"No. My father did not understand her." + +"He did not agree with her views?" + +"Nor with mine. It was horrid--but even relations must agree to differ. +Why is Lady Tonbridge here? And where is Sir Alfred? Papa had not heard +of them for a long time." + +"They separated last year"--said Mrs. France gravely. "But Mr. +Winnington will tell you. He's a great friend of hers. She does a lot +of work for him." + +"Work?" + +"Social work!" smiled Mrs. France--"poor-law--schools--that kind of +thing. He ropes us all in." + +"Oh!" said Delia, with her head in the air. + +Mrs. France laughed outright. + +"That seems to you so unimportant--compared to the vote." + +"It _is_ unimportant!" said Delia, impetuously. "Nothing really matters +but the vote. Aren't you a Suffragist, Mrs. France?" + +Mrs. France smilingly shook her head. + +"I don't want to meddle with the men's business. And we're a long way +yet from catching up with our own. Oh, my husband has a lot of +scientific objections. But that's mine." Then her face grew +serious--"anyway, we can all agree, I hope, in hating violence. That +can never settle it." + +She looked a little sternly at her young companion. + +"That depends," said Delia. "But we mustn't argue, Mrs. France. I +should only make you angry. Ah!" + +She sprang up and went to the window, just as steps could be heard on +the gravel outside. + +"Here's someone coming." She turned to Mrs. France. "Is it Mr. +Winnington?" + +"It is!" said her visitor, after putting on her glasses. + +Delia surveyed him, standing behind the lace curtain, and Mrs. France +was relieved to see that a young person of such very decided opinions +could be still girlishly curious. She herself rose to go. + +"Good-bye. I won't interrupt your talk with him." + +"Good-looking?" said Delia, with mischief in her eyes, and a slight +gesture towards the approaching visitor. + +"Don't you know what an athlete he is--or was?" + +"Another perfection? Heavens!--how does he endure it?" said the girl, +laughing. + +Mrs. France took her leave. She was a very motherly tender-hearted +woman, and she would like to have taken her old friend's grandchild in +her arms and kissed her. But she wisely refrained; and indeed the +instinct to shake her was perhaps equally strong. "How long will she +stand gossiping on the doormat with the paragon," said Delia savagely +to herself, when she was left alone. "Oh, how I hate a 'charming man'!" +She moved stormily to and fro, listening to the distant sounds of talk +in the hall, and resenting them. Then suddenly she paused opposite one +of the large mirrors in the room. A coil of hair had loosened itself; +she put it right; and still stood motionless, interrogating herself in +a proud concentration. + +"Well?--I am quite ready for him." + +But her heart beat uncomfortably fast as the door opened, and Mark +Winnington entered. + + + + +Chapter V + + +As Winnington advanced with outstretched hand to greet her, Delia was +conscious of a striking physical presence, and of an eye fixed upon her +at once kind and penetrating. + +"How are you? You've been through a terrible time! Are you at all +rested? I'm afraid it has been a long, long strain." + +He held her hand in both his, asking gentle questions about her +father's illness, interrogating her looks the while with a frank +concern and sympathy. + +Delia was taken by surprise. For the first time that day she was +reminded of what was really, the truth. She _was_ tired--morally and +physically. But Gertrude Marvell never recognised anything of the kind; +and in her presence Delia rarely confessed any such weakness even to +herself. + +As it was, her eyes and mouth wavered a little under Winnington's look. + +"Thank you," she said quietly. "I shall soon be rested." + +They sat down. Delia was conscious--unwillingly conscious, of a nervous +agitation she did her best to check. For Winnington also it was clearly +an awkward moment. He began at once to talk of his old recollections of +her parents, of her mother's beauty, of her father's reputation as the +most dashing soldier on the North-West frontier, in the days when they +first met in India. + +"But his health was even then very poor. I suppose it was that made him +leave the army?" + +"Yes--and then Parliament," said Delia. "He was ordered a warm climate +for the winter. But he could never have lived without working. His +Governorship just suited him." + +She spoke with charming softness, beguiled from her insensibly by +Winnington's own manner. At the back of Winnington's mind, as they +talked, ran perpetual ejaculations--ejaculations of the natural man in +the presence of so much beauty. But his conversation with her flowed +the while with an even gentleness which never for a moment affected +intimacy, and was touched here and there with a note of deference, even +of ceremony, which disarmed his companion. + +"I never came across your father down here--oddly enough," he said +presently. "He had left Sandhurst before I went to Eton; and then there +was Oxford, and then the bar. My little place belonged then to a +cousin, and I had hardly ever seen it. But of course I knew, your +grandmother--everybody did. She was a great centre--a great figure. She +has left her mark here. Don't you find it so?" + +"Yes. Everybody seems to remember her." + +But, in a moment, the girl before him had changed and stiffened. It +seemed to Winnington, as to Mrs. France, that she pulled herself up, +reacting against something that threatened her. The expression in her +eyes put something between them. "Perhaps you know"--she said--"that +my grandmother didn't always get on with my mother?" + +He wondered why she had reminded him of that old family jar, which +gossip had spread abroad. Did it really rankle in her mind? Odd, that +it should! + +"Was that so?" he laughed. "Oh, Lady Blanchflower had her veins of +unreason. One had to know where to have her." + +"She took Greeks for barbarians--my father used to say," said Delia, a +little grimly. "But she was very good to me--and so I was fond of her." +"And she of you. But there are still tales going about--do you +mind?--of the dances you led her. It took weeks and months, they say, +before you and she arrived at an armed truce--after a most appalling +state of war! There's an old gardener here--retired now--who remembers +you quite well. He told me yesterday that you used to be very friendly +with him, and you said to him once--'I like Granny!--she's the master +of me!'" + +The laughter in Winnington's eyes again kindled hers. + +"I was a handful--I know." There was a pause. Then she added--"And I'm +afraid--I've gone on being a handful!" Gesture and tone showed that she +spoke deliberately. + +"Most people of spirit are--till they come to handle themselves," he +replied, also with a slight change of tone. + +"But that's just what women are never allowed to do, Mr. Winnington!" +She turned suddenly red, and fronted him. "There's always some man, who +claims to manage them and their affairs. We're always in +leading-strings--nobody ever admits we're grown up. Why can't we be +allowed like men--to stumble along our own way? If we make mistakes, +let's _pay_ for them! But let us at some time in our lives--at +least--feel ourselves free beings!" + +There was no mistaking the purport of these words. They referred +clearly to her father's will, and her own position. After a moment's +thought, Winnington bent forward. + +"I think I understand what you mean," he said gravely. "And I +sympathise with it more than you imagine." + +Delia looked up impetuously-- + +"Then why, Mr. Winnington, did you consent to be my guardian?" + +"Because--quite honestly--because I thought I could be of more use to +you perhaps than the Court of Chancery; and because your father's +letter to me was one very difficult to put aside." + +"How could anyone in my father's state of health really judge +reasonably!" cried Delia. "I daresay it sounds shocking to you, Mr. +Winnington, but I can't help putting it to myself like this--Papa was +always able to contrive his own life as he chose. In his Governorship +he was a small king. He tried a good many experiments. Everybody +deferred to him. Everybody was glad to help him. Then when his money +came and the estate, nobody fettered him with conditions; nobody +interfered with him. Grandpapa and he didn't agree in a lot of things. +Papa was a Liberal; and Grandpapa was an awfully hot Conservative. But +Grandpapa didn't appoint a trustee, or tie up the estates--or anything +of that kind. It is simply and solely because I am a woman that these +things are done! I am not to be allowed _my_ opinions, in _my_ life, +though Papa was quite free to work for his in his life! This is the +kind of thing we call tyranny,--this is the kind of thing that's +driving women into revolt!" + +Delia had risen. She stood in what Gertrude Marvell would have called +her "pythian" attitude, hands behind her, her head thrown back, +delivering her prophetic soul. Winnington, as he surveyed her, was +equally conscious of her beauty and her absurdity. But he kept cool, or +rather the natural faculty which had given him so much authority and +success in life rose with a kind of zest to its new and unaccustomed +task. + +"May I perhaps suggest--that your father was fifty-two when he +succeeded to this estate--and that you are twenty-one?" + +"Nearly twenty-two," she interrupted, hastily. + +"Nearly twenty-two," repeated Winnington. "And I assure you, that what +with 'People's Budgets,' and prowling Chancellors, and all the new +turns of the screw that the Treasury is for ever putting on, inheriting +an estate nowadays is no simple matter. Your father thought of that. He +wished to provide someone to help you." + +"I could have found lawyers to help me." + +"Of course you could. But my experience is that solicitors are good +servants but bad masters. It wants a good deal of practical knowledge +to direct them, so that you get what you want. I have gone a little way +into the business of the estate this morning with Mr. Masham, and in +town, with the Morton Manners people. I see already some complications +which will take me a deal of time and thought to straighten out. And I +am a lawyer, and if you will let me say so, just double your age." + +He smiled at her, but Delia's countenance did not relax. Her mouth was +scornful. + +"I daresay that's quite true, Mr. Winnington. But of course you know it +was _not_ on that account--or at any rate not chiefly on that account, +that my father left things as he did. He wished"--she spoke clearly and +slowly--"simply to prevent my helping the Suffrage movement in the way +I think best." + +Winnington too had risen, and was standing with one hand on the +mantelpiece. His brow was slightly furrowed, not frowning exactly, but +rather with the expression of one trying to bring his mind into as +close touch as possible with another mind. + +"I must of course agree with you. That is evidently one of the objects +of the will, though by no means--I think--the only one. And as to that, +should you not ask yourself--had not your father a right, even a duty, +to look after the disposal of his money as he thought best? Surely it +was his responsibility--especially as he was old, and you were young." + +Delia had begun to feel impatient--to resent the very mildness of his +tone. She felt, as though she were an insubordinate child, being gently +reasoned with. + +"No, I don't admit it!" she said passionately. "It was tampering with +the right of the next generation!" + +"Might you not say the same of the whole--or almost the whole of our +system of inheritance?" he argued. "I should put it--that the old are +always trying to preserve and protect something they know is more +precious to them than it can be to the young--something as to which, +with the experience of life behind them, they believe they are wiser +than the young. _Ought_ the young to resent it?" + +"Yes," persisted Delia. "_Yes_! They should be left to make their own +experiments." + +"They have _life_ wherewith to make them! But the dead--" He paused. +But Delia felt and quivered under the unspoken appeal; and also under +the quick touch of something more personal--more intimate--in his +manner, expressing, it seemed, some deep feeling of his own. He, in +turn, perceived that she had grown very pale; he guessed even that she +was suddenly not very far from tears. He seemed to realise the weeks, +perhaps months, of conflict through which the girl had just passed. He +was sincerely sorry for her--sincerely drawn to her. + +Delia broke the silence. + +"It is no good I think discussing this any more--is it? There's the +will, and the question is"--she faced him boldly--"how are you and I +going to get on, Mr. Winnington?" + +Winnington's seriousness broke up. He threw her a smiling look, and +with his hands in his pockets began to pace the room reflectively. + +"I really believe we can pull it off, if we look at it coolly," he said +at last, pausing in front of her. "I am no bigot on the Suffrage +question--frankly I have not yet made up my mind upon it. All that I am +clear about--as your father was clear--is that outrage and violence are +_wrong_--in any cause. I cannot believe that we shan't agree there!" + +He looked at her keenly. Delia was silent. Her face betrayed nothing, +though her eyes met his steadily. + +"And in regard to that, there is of course one thing that troubles +me"--he resumed--"one thing in which I beg you to take my advice"-- + +Delia breathed quick. + +"Gertrude Marvell?" she said. "Of course I knew that was coming!" + +"Yes. That we must settle, I think." He kept his eyes upon her. "You +can hardly know that she is mentioned by name in your father's last +letter--the letter to me---as the one person whose companionship he +dreaded for you--the one person he hoped you would consent to part +from." + +Delia had turned white. + +"No--I didn't know." + +"For that reason, and for others, I do entreat you"--he went on, +earnestly--"not to keep her here. Miss Marvell may be all that you +believe her. I have nothing to say against her,--except this. I am told +by those who know that she is already quite notorious in the militant +movement. She has been in prison, and she has made extremely violent +speeches, advocating what Miss Marvell calls war, and what plain people +call--crime. That she should live with you here would not only +prejudice your future, and divide you from people who should be your +natural friends; it would be an open disrespect to your father's +memory." + +There was silence. Then Delia said, evidently mastering her excitement +with difficulty. + +"I can't help it. She _must_ stay with me. Nobody need know--about my +father. Her name is not mentioned in the will." + +"No. That is true. But his letter to me as your guardian and trustee +ought to be regarded equitably as part of the will; and I do not see +how it would be possible for me to acquiesce in something so directly +contrary to his last wishes. I beg you to look at it from my point of +view--" + +"I do"--said Delia, flushing again. "But my letter warned you--" + +"Yes--but I felt on receiving it that you could not possibly be aware +of the full strength of your father's feeling. Let me read you his +words." + +He took an envelope from his pocket, observing her. Delia hastily +interposed. + +"Don't, Mr. Winnington!--I'm sure I know." + +"It is really my duty to read it to you," he said, courteously but +firmly. + +She endured it. The only sign of agitation she shewed was the trembling +of her hands on the back of the chair she leant upon. And when he +returned it to his pocket, she considered for a moment or two, before +she said, breathing unevenly, and stumbling a little.-- + +"That makes no difference, Mr. Winnington. I expect you think me a +monster. All the same I loved my father in my own way. But I am not +going to barter away my freedom for anything or anyone. I am not part +of my father, I am myself. And he is not here to be injured or hurt by +anything I do. I intend to stick to Gertrude Marvell--and she to me." + +And having delivered her ultimatum, she stood like a young goddess, +expectant and defiant. + +Winnington's manner changed. He straightened himself, with a slight +shake of his broad shoulders, and went to look out of the window at the +end of the room. Delia was left to contemplate the back of a very tall +man in a serge suit and to rate herself for the thrill--or the +trepidation--she could not help feeling. What would he say when he +spoke again? She was angry with herself that she could not quite +truthfully say that she did not care. + +When he returned, she divined another man. The tone was as courteous as +ever, but the first relation between them had disappeared; or rather it +had become a business relation, a relation of affairs. + +"You will of course understand--that I cannot _acquiesce_ in that +arrangement?" + +Delia's uncomfortable sense of humor found vent in a laugh--as civil +however as she could make it. + +"I do understand. But I don't quite see what you can do, Mr. +Winnington!" + +He smiled--quite pleasantly. + +"Nor do I--just yet. But of course Miss Marvell will not expect that +your father's estate should provide her with the salary that would +naturally fall to a chaperon whom your guardian could approve?" + +"I shall see to that. We shall not trouble you," said Delia, rather +fiercely. + +"And I shall ask to see Miss Marvell before I go this morning--that I +may point out to her the impropriety of remaining here against your +father's express wishes." + +Delia nodded. + +"All right--but it won't do any good." + +He made no reply, except to turn immediately to the subject of her +place of residence and her allowance. + +"It is I believe understood that you will live mainly here--at +Maumsey." + +"On the contrary!--I wish to spend a great part of the winter in +London." + +"With Miss Marvell?" + +"Certainly." + +"I cannot, I am afraid, let you expect that I shall provide the money." + +"It is my own money!" + +"Not legally. I hate insisting on these things; but perhaps you ought +to know that the _whole_ of your father's property--everything that he +left behind him, is in trust." + +"Which means"--cried Delia, quivering again--"that I am really a +pauper!--that I own nothing but my clothes--barely those!" + +He felt himself a brute. "Can I really keep this up!" he thought. +Aloud, he said--"If you would only make it a little easy for your +trustee, he would be only too thankful to follow out your wishes!" + +Delia made no reply, and Winnington took another turn up and down +before he paused in front of her with the words:-- + +"Can't we come to a compact? If I agree to London--say for six or +seven weeks--is there no promise you can make me in return?" + +With an inward laugh Delia remembered Gertrude's injunction to "keep +something to bargain with." + +"I don't know"--she said, reluctantly. "What sort of promise do you +want?" + +"I want one equal to the concession you ask me to make," he said +gravely. "In my eyes nothing could be more unfitting than that you +should be staying in London--during a time of particularly violent +agitation--under the chaperonage of Miss Marvell, who is already +committed to this agitation. If I agree to such a direct contradiction +of your father's wishes, I must at least have your assurance that you +will do nothing violent or illegal, either down here or in London, and +that in this house above all you will take some pains to respect Sir +Robert's wishes. That I am sure you will promise me?" + +She could not deny the charm of his direct appealing look, and she +hesitated. + +"I was going to have a drawing-room meeting here as soon as +possible"--she said, slowly. + +"On behalf of the 'Daughters of Revolt'?" + +She silently assented. + +"I may feel sure--may I not?--that you will give it up?" + +"It is a matter of conscience with us"--she said proudly--"to spread +our message wherever we go." + +"I don't think I can allow you a conscience all to yourself," he said +smiling. "Consider how I shall be straining mine--in agreeing to the +London plan!" + +"Very well"--the words came out reluctantly. "If you insist--and if +London is agreed upon--I will give it up." + +"Thank you," he said quietly. "And you will take part in no acts of +violence, either here or in London? It seems strange to use such words +to you. I hate to use them. But with the news in this week's papers I +can't help it. You will promise?" + +There was a short silence. + +"I will join in nothing militant down here," said Delia at last. "I +have already told Miss Marvell so." + +"Or in London?" + +She straightened herself. + +"I promise nothing about London." + +Guardian and ward looked straight into each other's faces for a few +moments. Delia's resistance had stirred a passion--a tremor--in her +pulses, she had never known in her struggle with her father. Winnington +was clearly debating with himself, and Delia seemed to see the thoughts +coursing through the grey eyes that looked at her, seriously indeed, +yet not without suggesting a man's humorous spirit behind them. + +"Very well"--he said--"we will talk of London later.--Now may we just +sit down and run through the household arrangements and expenses +here--before I see Miss Marvell. I want to know exactly what you want +doing to this house, and how we can fix you up comfortably." + +Delia assented. Winnington produced a note-book and pencil. Through his +companion's mind was running meanwhile an animated debate. + +"I'm not bound to tell him of those other meetings I have promised? +'Yes, you are!' No,--I'm not. They're not to be here--and if I once +begin asking his leave for things--there'll be no end to it. I mean to +shew him--once for all--that I am of age, and my own mistress. He can't +starve me--or beat me!" + +Her face broke into suppressed laughter as she bent it over the figures +that Winnington was presenting to her. + + * * * * * + +"Well, I am rather disappointed that you don't want to do more to the +house," said Winnington, as he rose and put up his note-book. "I +thought it might have been an occupation for the autumn and winter. But +at least we can decide on the essential things, and the work can be +done while you are in town. I am glad you like the servants Mrs. Bird +has found for you. Now I am going off to the Bank to settle everything +about the opening of your account, and the quarterly cheque we have +agreed on shall be paid in to-morrow." + +"Very well." But instantly through the girl's mind there shot up the +qualifying thought. "_He_ may say how it is to be spent--but _I_ have +made no promise!" + +He approached her to take his leave. + +"My sister comes home to-night. Will you try the new car and have tea +with us on Thursday?" Delia assented. "And before I go I should like to +say a word about some of the neighbours." + +He tried to give her a survey of the land. Lady Tonbridge, of course, +would be calling upon her directly. She was actually in the village--in +the tiniest bandbox of a house. Her husband's brutality had at +last--two years before this date--forced her to leave him, with her +girl of fifteen. "A miserable story--better taken for granted. She is +the pluckiest woman alive!" Then the Amberleys--the Rector, his wife +and daughter Susy were pleasant people--"Susy is a particular friend of +mine. It'll be jolly if you like her." + +"Oh, no, she won't take to me!" said Delia with decision. + +"Why not?" + +But Delia only shook her head, a little contemptuously. + +"We shall see," said Winnington. "Well, good night. Remember, anything +I can do for you--here I am." + +His eyes smiled, but Delia was perfectly conscious that the eager +cordiality, the touch of something like tenderness, which had entered +into his earlier manner, had disappeared. She realised, and with a +moment's soreness, that she had offended his sense of right--of what a +daughter's feeling should be towards a dead father, at any rate, in the +first hours of bereavement, when the recollections of death and +suffering are still fresh. + +"I can't help it," she thought stubbornly. "It's all part of the price +one pays." + +But when he was gone, she stood a long time by the window without +moving, thinking about the hour which had just passed. The impression +left upon her by Winnington's personality was uncomfortably strong. She +knew now that, in spite of her bravado, she had dreaded to find it so, +and the reality had more than confirmed the anticipation. She was +committed to a struggle with a man whom she must respect, and could not +help liking; whose only wish was to help and protect her. And beside +the man's energetic and fruitful maturity, she became, as it were, the +spectator of her own youth and stumbling inexperience. + +But these misgivings did not last long. A passionate conviction, a +fanatical affection, came to her aid, and her doubts were impatiently +dismissed. + + * * * * * + +Winnington found Miss Blanchflower's chaperon in a little sitting-room +on the ground floor already appropriated to her, surrounded with a +vast litter of letters and newspapers which she hastily pushed aside as +he entered. He had a long interview with her, and as he afterwards +confessed to Lady Tonbridge, he had rarely put his best powers forward +to so little purpose. Miss Marvell did not attempt to deny that she was +coming to live at Maumsey in defiance of the wishes of Delia's father +and guardian, and of the public opinion of those who were to be +henceforward Delia's friends and neighbours. + +"But Delia has asked me to live with her. She is twenty-one, and women +are not now the mere chattels they once were. Both she and I have wills +of our own. You will of course give me no salary. I require none. But I +don't see how you're going to turn me out of Delia's house, if Delia +wishes me to stay." + +And Winnington must needs acknowledge, at least to himself, that he did +not see either. + +He put the lady however through a cross-examination as to her +connection with militancy which would have embarrassed or intimidated +most women; but Gertrude Marvell, a slight and graceful figure, sitting +erect on the edge of her chair, bore it with perfect equanimity, +apparently frank, and quite unashamed. Certainly she belonged to the +"Daughters of Revolt," the record of her imprisonment was there to shew +it; and so did Delia. The aim of both their lives was to obtain the +parliamentary vote for women, and in her opinion and that of many +others, the time for constitutional action--"for that nonsense"--as she +scornfully put it, had long gone by. As to what she intended to do, or +advise Delia to do, that was her own affair. One did not give away +one's plans to the enemy. But she realised, of course, that it would be +unkind to Delia to plunge her into possible trouble, or to run the risk +herself of arrest or imprisonment during the early days of Delia's +mourning; and of her own accord she graciously offered the assurance +that neither she nor Delia would commit any illegality during the two +months or so that they might be settled at Maumsey. As to what might +happen later, she, like Delia, declined to give any assurances. The +parliamentary situation was becoming desperate, and any action whatever +on the part of women which might serve to prod the sluggish mind of +England before another general election, was in her view not only +legitimate but essential. + +"Of course I know what your conscience says on the matter," she said, +with her steady eyes on Winnington. "But--excuse me for saying so--your +conscience is not my affair." + +Winnington rose, and prepared to take his leave. If he felt nonplussed, +he managed not to shew it. + +"Very well. For the present I acquiesce. But you will scarcely wonder, +Miss Marvell, after this interview between us, if you find yourself +henceforward under observation. You are here in defiance of Miss +Blanchflower's legal guardian. I protest against your influence over +her; and I disapprove of your presence here. I shall do my best to +protect her from you." + +She nodded. + +"There of course, you will be in your right." + +And rising, she turned to the open window and the bright garden +outside, with a smiling remark on the decorative value of begonias, as +though nothing had happened. + +Winnington's temperament did not allow him to answer a woman uncivilly +under any circumstances. But they parted as duellists part before the +fray. Miss Marvell acknowledged his "Good afternoon," with a pleasant +bow, keeping her hands the while in the pockets of her serge jacket, +and she remained standing till Winnington had left the room. + +"Now for Lady Tonbridge!" thought Winnington, as he rode away. "If she +don't help me out, I'm done!" + +At the gate of Maumsey he stopped to speak to the lodge-keeper, and as +he did so, a man opened the gate, and came in. With a careless nod to +Winnington he took his way up the drive. Winnington looked after him in +some astonishment. + +"What on earth can that fellow be doing here?" + +He scented mischief; little suspecting however that a note from +Gertrude Marvell lay in the pocket of the man's shabby overcoat, +together with that copy of the _Tocsin_ which Delia's sharp eyes had +detected the week before in the hands of its owner. + +Meanwhile as he drove homeward, instead of the details of county +business, the position of Delia Blanchflower, her personality, her +loveliness, her defiance of him, absorbed his mind completely. He began +to foresee the realities of the struggle before him, and the sheer +dramatic interest of it held him, as though someone presented the case, +and bade him watch how it worked out. + + + + +Chapter VI + + +The village or rather small town of Great Maumsey took its origin in a +clearing of that royal forest which had now receded from it a couple of +miles to the south. But it was still a rural and woodland spot. The +trees in the fields round it had still a look of wildness, as survivors +from the primeval chase, and were grouped more freely and romantically +than in other places; while from the hill north of the church, one +could see the New Forest stretching away, blue beyond blue, purple +beyond purple, till it met the shining of the sea. + +Great Maumsey had a vast belief in itself, and was reckoned exclusive +and clannish by other places. It was proud of its old Georgian houses, +with their white fronts, their pillared porches, and the pediment +gables in their low roofs. The owners of these houses, of which there +were many, charmingly varied, in the long main street, were well aware +that they had once been old-fashioned, and were now as much admired in +their degree, as the pictures of the great English artists, Hogarth, +Reynolds, Romney, with which they were contemporary. There were earlier +houses too, of brick and timber, with overhanging top stories and +moss-grown roofs. There was a green surrounded with post and rails, on +which a veritable stocks still survived, kept in careful repair as a +memento of our barbarous forbears, by the parish Council. The church, +dating from that wonderful fourteenth century when all the world must +have gone mad for church-building, stood back from the main street, +with the rectory beside it, in a modest seclusion of their own. + +It was all very English, very spick and span, and apparently very well +to do. That the youth of the village was steadily leaving it for the +Colonies, that the constant marrying in and in which had gone on for +generations had produced an ugly crop of mental deficiency, and +physical deformity among the inhabitants--that the standard of morals +was too low, and the standard of drink too high--were matters well +known to the Rector and the Doctor. But there were no insanitary +cottages, and no obvious scandals of any sort. The Maumsey estate had +always been well managed; there were a good many small gentlefolk who +lived in the Georgian houses, and owing to the competition of the +railways, agricultural wages were rather better than elsewhere. + +About a mile from the eastern end of the village was the small +modernised manor-house of Bridge End, which belonged to Mark +Winnington, and where his sister Alice, Mrs. Matheson, kept him company +for the greater part of the year. The gates leading to Maumsey lay a +little west of the village, while on the hill to the north rose, +conspicuous against its background of wood, the famous old house of +Monk Lawrence. It looked down upon Maumsey on the one hand and Bridge +End on the other. It was generally believed that the owner of it, Sir +Wilfrid Lang, had exhausted his resources in restoring it, and that it +was the pressure of debt rather than his wife's health which had led to +its being shut up so long. + +The dwellers in the village regarded it as the jewel in their +landscape, their common heritage and pride. Lady Tonbridge, whose +little drawing-room and garden to the back looked out on the hill and +the old house, was specially envied because she possessed so good a +view of it. She herself inhabited one of the very smallest of the +Georgian houses, in the main street of Maumsey. She paid a rent of no +more than L40 a year for it, and Maumsey people who liked her, felt +affectionately concerned that a duke's grand-daughter should be reduced +to a rent and quarters so insignificant. + +Lady Tonbridge however was not at all concerned for the smallness of +her house. She regarded it as the outward and visible sign of the most +creditable action of her life--the action which would--or should--bring +her most marks when the recording angel came to make up her account. +Every time she surveyed its modest proportions the spirit of freedom +danced within her, and she envied none of the noble halls in which she +had formerly lived, and to some of which she still paid occasional +Visits. + +At tea-time, on the day following Winnington's first interview with his +ward, Madeleine Tonbridge came into her little drawing-room, in her +outdoor things, and carrying a bundle of books under the arm. + +As far as such words could ever apply to her she was tired and dusty. +But her little figure was so alert and trim, her grey linen dress and +its appointments so dainty, and the apple-red in her small cheeks so +bright, that one might have conceived her as just fresh from a maid's +hands, and stepping out to amuse herself, instead of as just returning +from a tedious afternoon's work, by which she had earned the large sum +of five shillings. A woman of forty-five, she looked her age, and she +had never possessed any positive beauty, unless it were the beauty of +delicate and harmonious proportion. Yet she had been pestered with +suitors as a girl, and unfortunately had married the least desirable of +them all. And now in middle life, no one had more devoted men-friends; +and that without exciting a breath of scandal, even in a situation +where one might have thought it inevitable. + +She looked round her as she entered. + +"Nora!--where are you?" + +A girl, apparently about seventeen, put her head in through the French +window that opened to the garden. + +"Ready for tea, Mummy?" + +"Rather!"--said Lady Tonbridge, with energy, as she put a match to the +little spirit kettle on the tea-table where everything stood ready. +"Come in, darling." + +And throwing off her hat and jacket, she sank into a comfortable +arm-chair with a sigh of fatigue. Her daughter quietly loosened her +mother's walking-shoes and took them away. Then they kissed each other, +and Nora went to look after the tea. She was a slim, pale-faced +school-girl, with yellow-brown eyes, and yellow-brown hair, not as yet +very attractive in looks, but her mother was convinced that it was only +the plainness of the cygnet, and that the swan was only a few years +off. Nora, who at seventeen had no illusions, was grateful to her +mother for the belief but did not share it in the least. + +"I'm sure you gave that girl half an hour over time," she said +reprovingly, as she handed Lady Tonbridge her cup of tea--"I can't +think why you do it." She referred to the solicitor's daughter whom +Lady Tonbridge had been that afternoon instructing in the uses of the +French participle. + +"Nor can I. A kind of ridiculous _esprit de metier_ I suppose. I +undertook to teach her French, and when after all these weeks she don't +seem to know a thing more than when she began, I feel as if I were +picking her dear papa's pockets." + +"Which is absurd," said Nora, buttering her mother's toast, "and I +can't let you do it. Half a crown an hour is silly enough already, and +for you to throw in half an hour extra for nothing, can't be stood." + +"I wish I could get it up to four hours a day," sighed the mother, +munching happily at her toast, while she held out her small stockinged +feet to the fire which Nora had just lit. "Just think. Ten shillings a +day--six days a week--ten months in the year. Why it would pay the +rent, we could have another servant, and I could give you twenty pounds +a year more for your clothes." + +"Much obliged--but I prefer a live Mummy--and no clothes--to a dead +one. More tea?" + +"Thanks. No chance, of course. Where could one find four persons a day, +in Maumsey, or near Maumsey, who want to learn French? The notion's +absurd. I shouldn't get the lessons I do, if it weren't for the +'Honourable.'" + +"Snobs!" + +"Not at all! Not a single family out of the people I go to deserve to +be called snobs. It's the natural dramatic instinct in us all. You +don't expect an 'Honourable' to be giving French lessons at half a +crown an hour, and when she does, you say--'Hullo! Some screw loose, +somewhere!'--and you at once feel a new interest in the French tongue, +and ask her to come along. I don't mind it a bit. I sit and spin yarns +about Drawing-rooms and Court balls, and it all helps.--When did you +get home?" + +For Nora attended a High School in a neighbouring town, some five miles +away, journeying there and back by train. + +"Half-past four. I met Mr. Winnington in his car, and he said he'd be +here about six." + +"Good. I'm dying to talk to him. I have written to the Abbey to say we +will call to-morrow. Of course, I ought to be her nursing mother in +these parts"--said Lady Tonbridge reflectively--"I knew Sir Robert in +frocks, and we were always pals. But my dear, it was I who hatched the +cockatrice!" + +Nora nodded gravely. + +"It was I," pursued Lady Tonbridge, penitentially,--"who saddled him +with that woman--and I know he never forgave me. He as good as told me +so when we last met--for those few hours--at Basle. But how could I +tell? How could anybody tell--she would turn out such a creature? I +only knew that she had taken all kinds of honours. I thought I was +sending him a treasure." + +"All the same you did it, Mummy. And it won't do to give yourself airs +now! That's what Mr. Winnington says. You've got to help him out." + +"I say, don't talk secrets!" said a voice just outside the room. "For I +can't help hearing 'em. May I come in?" + +And, pushing the half-open door, Mark Winnington stood smiling on the +threshold. + +"I apologise. But your little maid let me in--and then vanished +somewhere, like greased lightning--after a dog." + +"Oh, come in," said Lady Tonbridge, with resignation, extending at the +same time a hand of welcome--"the little maid, as you call her, only +came from your workhouse yesterday, and I haven't yet discovered a +grain of sense in her. But she gets plenty of exercise. If she isn't +chasing dogs, it's cats." + +"Don't you attack my schools," said Winnington seating himself at the +tea-table. "They're A1, and you're very lucky to get one of my girls." + +Madeleine Tonbridge replied tartly, that if he was a poor-law guardian, +and responsible for a barrack school it was no cause for boasting. She +had not long parted with another of his girls, who had tried on her +blouses, and gone out in her boots. She thought of offering the new +girl a free and open choice of her wardrobe to begin with, so as to +avoid unpleasantness. + +"We all know that every mistress has the maid she deserves," said +Winnington, deep in gingerbread cake. "I leave it there--" + +"Yes, jolly well do!" cried Nora, who had come to sit on a stool in +front of her mother and Winnington, her eager eyes glancing from one to +the other--"Don't start Mummy on servants, Mr. Winnington. If you do, I +shall go to bed. There's only one thing worth talking about--and +that's--" + +"Maumsey!" he said, laughing at her. + +"Have you accomplished anything?" asked Lady Tonbridge. "Don't tell me +you've dislodged the Fury?" + +Winnington shook his head. + +"_J'y suis--j'y reste_!" + +"I thought so. There is no civilised way by which men can eject a +woman. Tell me all about it." + +Winnington, however, instead of expatiating on the Maumsey household, +turned the conversation to something else--especially to Nora's first +attempts at golf, in which he had been her teacher. Nora, whose +reasonableness was abnormal, very soon took the hint, and after five +minutes' "chaff" with Winnington, to whom she was devoted, she took up +her work and went back to the garden. + +"Nobody ever snubs me so efficiently as Nora," said Madeleine +Tonbridge, with resignation, "though you come a good second. Discreet I +shall never be. Don't tell me anything if you don't want to." + +"But of course I want to! And there is nobody in the world so +absolutely bound to help me as you." + +"I knew you'd say that. Don't pile it on. Give me the kitten--and +describe your proceedings." + +Winnington handed her the grey Persian kitten reposing on a distant +chair, and Lady Tonbridge, who always found the process conducive to +clear thinking, stroked and combed the creature's beautiful fur, while +the man talked,--with entire freedom now that they were _tete-a-tete._ + +She was his good friend indeed, and she had also been the good friend +of Sir Robert Blanchflower. It was natural that to her he should lay +his perplexities bare. + + * * * * * + +But after she had heard his story and given her best mind to his +position, she could not refrain from expressing the wonder she had felt +from the beginning that he should ever have accepted it at all. + +"What on earth made you do it? Bobby Blanchflower had no more real +claim on you than this kitten!" + +Winnington's grey eyes fixed on the trees outside shewed a man trying +to retrace his own course. + +"He wrote me a very touching letter. And I have always thought that +men--and women--ought to be ready to do this kind of service for each +other. I should have felt a beast if I had said No, at once. But I +confess now that I have seen Miss Delia, I don't know whether I can do +the slightest good." + +"Hold on!" said Lady Tonbridge, sharply,--"You can't give it +up--now." + +Winnington laughed. + +"I have no intention of giving it up. Only I warn you that I shall +probably make a mess of it." + +"Well"--the tone was coolly reflective--"that may do _you_ +good--whatever happens to the girl. You have never made a mess of +anything yet in your life. It will be a new experience." + +Winnington protested hotly that her remark only shewed how little even +intimate friends know of each other's messes, and that his were already +legion. Lady Tonbridge threw him an incredulous look. As he sat there +in his bronzed and vigorous manhood, the first crowsfeet just beginning +to shew round the eyes, and the first streaks of grey in the brown +curls, she said to herself that none of her young men acquaintance +possessed half the physical attractiveness of Mark Winnington; while +none--old or young--could rival him at all in the humane and winning +spell he carried about with him. To see Mark Winnington _aux prises_ +with an adventure in which not even his tact, his knowledge of men and +women, his candour, or his sweetness, might be sufficient to win +success, piqued her curiosity; perhaps even flattered that slight +inevitable malice, wherewith ordinary mortals protect themselves +against the favourites of the gods. + +She was determined however to help him if she could, and she put him +through a number of questions. The girl then was as handsome as she +promised to be? A beauty, said Winnington--and of the heroic or poetic +type. And the Fury? Winnington described the neat, little lady, +fashionably Pressed and quiet mannered, who had embittered the last +years of Sir Robert Blanchflower, and firmly possessed herself of his +daughter. + +"You will see her to-morrow, at my house, when you come to tea. I +carefully didn't ask her, but I am certain she will come, and Alice and +I shall of course have to receive her." + +"She is not thin-skinned then?" + +"What fanatic is? It is one of the secrets of their strength." + +"She probably regards us all as the dust under her feet," said Lady +Tonbridge. "I wonder what game she will be up to here. Have you seen +the _Times_ this morning?" + +Winnington nodded. It contained three serious cases of arson, in which +Suffragette literature and messages had been discovered among the +ruins, besides a number of minor outrages. An energetic leading article +breathed the exasperation of the public, and pointed out the spread of +the campaign of violence. + +By this time Lady Tonbridge had carried her visitor into the garden, +and they were walking up and down among the late September flowers. +Beyond the garden lay green fields and hedgerows; beyond the fields +rose the line of wooded hill, and, embedded in trees, the grey and +gabled front of Monk Lawrence. + +Winnington reported the very meagre promise he had been able to get out +of his ward and her companion. + +"The comfort is," said Lady Tonbridge, "that this is a sane +neighbourhood--comparatively. They won't get much support. Oh, I don't +know though--" she added quickly. "There's that man--Mr. Lathrop, Paul +Lathrop--who took Wood Cottage last year--a queer fish, by all +accounts. I'm told he's written the most violent things backing up the +militants generally. However, his own story has put _him_ out of +Court." + +"His own story?" said Winnington, with a puzzled look. + +"Don't be so innocent!" laughed Lady Tonbridge, rather impatiently. "I +always tell you you don't give half place enough in life to +gossip-'human nature's daily food.' I knew all about him a week after +he arrived. However, I don't propose to save you trouble, Mr. Guardian! +Go and look up a certain divorce case, with Mr. Lathrop's name in it, +some time last year--if you want to know. That's enough for that." + +But Winnington interrupted her, with a disturbed look. "I happened to +meet that very man you are speaking of--yesterday--in the Abbey drive, +going to call." + +Lady Tonbridge shrugged her shoulders. + +"There you see their freemasonry. I don't suppose they approve his +morals--but he supports their politics. You won't be able to banish +him!--Well, so the child is lovely? and interesting?" + +Winnington assented warmly. + +"But determined to make herself a nuisance to you? Hm! Mr. Mark--dear +Mr. Mark--don't fall in love with her!" + +Winnington's expression altered. He did not answer for a moment. Then +he said, looking away-- + +"Do you think you need have said that?" + +"No!"--cried Madeleine Tonbridge remorsefully. "I am a wretch. But +don't--_don't_!" + +This time he smiled at her, though not without vexation. + +"Do you forget that I am nearly old enough to be her father?" + +"Oh that's nonsense!" she said hastily. "However--I'm not going to +flatter you--or tease you. Forgive me. I put it out of my head. I +wonder if there is anybody in the field already?" + +"Not that I am aware of." + +"Of course you know this kind of thing spoils a girl's prospects of +marriage enormously. Men won't run the risk." + +Winnington laughed. + +"And all the time, you're a Suffragist yourself!" + +"Yes, indeed I am," was the stout reply. "Here am I, with a house and a +daughter, a house-parlourmaid, a boot-boy, and rates to pay. Why +shouldn't I vote as well as you? But the difference between me and the +Fury is that she wants the vote this year--this month--_this +minute_--and I don't care whether it comes in my time--or Nora's +time--or my grandchildren's time. I say we ought to have it--that it is +our right--and you men are dolts not to give it us. But I sit and wait +peaceably till you do--till the apple is ripe and drops. And meanwhile +these wild women prevent its ripening at all. So long as they rage, +there it hangs--out of our reach. So that I'm not only ashamed of them +as a woman--but out of all patience with them as a Suffragist! However +for heaven's sake don't let's discuss the horrid subject. I'll do all I +can for Delia--both for your sake and Bob's--I'll keep my best eye on +the Fury--I feel myself of course most abominably responsible for +her--and I hope for the best. Who's coming to your tea-party?" + +Winnington enumerated. At the name of Susy Amberley, his hostess threw +him a sudden look, but said nothing. + +"The Andrews'--Captain, Mrs. and Miss--," Lady Tonbridge exclaimed. + +"Why did you ask that horrid woman?" + +"We didn't! Alice indiscreetly mentioned that Miss Blanchflower was +coming to tea, and she asked herself." + +"She's enough to make any one militant! If I hear her quote 'the hand +that rocks the cradle rules the world' once more, I shall have to smite +her. The girl's _down-trodden_ I tell you! Well, well--if you gossip +too little, I gossip too much. Heavens!--what a light!" + +Winnington turned to see the glow of a lovely afternoon fusing all the +hill-side in a glory of gold and amethyst, and the windows in the long +front of Monk Lawrence taking fire under the last rays of a +fast-dropping sun. + +"Do you know--I sometimes feel anxious about that house!" said +Madeleine Tonbridge, abruptly. "It's empty--it's famous--it belongs to +a member of the Government. What is to prevent the women from attacking +it?" + +"In the first place, it isn't empty. The Keeper, Daunt, from the South +Lodge, has now moved into the house. I know, because Susy Amberley told +me. She goes up there to teach one of my cripples--Daunt's second girl. +In the next, the police are on the alert. And last--who on earth would +dare to attack Monk Lawrence? The odium of it would be too great. A +house bound up with English history and English poetry--No! They are +not such fools!" + +Lady Tonbridge shook her head. + +"Don't be so sure. Anyway you as a magistrate can keep the police up to +the mark." + +Winnington departed, and his old friend was left to meditate on his +predicament. It was strange to see Mark Winnington, with his +traditional, English ways and feelings--carried, as she always felt, to +their highest--thus face to face with the new feminist forces--as +embodied in Delia Blanchflower. He had resented, clearly resented, the +introduction--by her, Madeleine--of the sex element into the problem. +But how difficult to keep it out! "He will see her constantly--he will +have to exercise his will against hers--he will get his way--and then +hate himself for conquering--he will disapprove, and yet admire,--will +offend her, yet want to please her--a creature all fire, and beauty, +and heroisms out of place! And she--could she, could I, could any woman +I know, fight Mark Winnington--and not love him all the time? Men are +men, and women are women--in spite of all these 'isms,' and 'causes.' I +bet--but I don't know what I bet!--" Then her thoughts gradually veered +away from Mark to quite another person. + +How would Susan Amberley be affected by this new interest in Mark +Winnington's life? Madeleine's thoughts recalled a gentle face, a pair +of honest eyes, a bearing timid and yet dignified. So she was teaching +one of Mark's crippled children? And Mark thought no doubt she would +have done the like for anyone else with a charitable hobby? Perhaps she +would, for her heart was a fount of pity. All the same, the man--blind +bat!--understood nothing. No fault of his perhaps; but Lady Tonbridge +felt a woman's angry sympathy with a form of waste so common and so +costly. + +And now the modest worshipper must see her hero absorbed day by day, +and hour by hour, in the doings of a dazzling and magnificent creature +like Delia Blanchflower. What food for torment, even in the meekest +spirit! + +So that the last word the vivacious woman said to herself was a soft +"Poor Susy!" dropped into the heart of a September rose as she stooped +to gather it. + + + + +Chapter VII + + +A small expectant party were gathered for afternoon tea in the +book-lined sitting-room--the house possessed no proper drawing-room--of +Bridge End. Mrs. Matheson indeed, Mark's widowed sister, would have +resented it had anyone used the word "party" in its social sense. Miss +Blanchflower's father had been dead scarcely a month; and Mrs. Matheson +in her quiet way, held strongly by all the decencies of life. It was +merely a small gathering of some of the oldest friends and neighbours +of Miss Blanchflower's family--those who had stood nearest to her +grandparents--to welcome the orphan girl among them. Lady Tonbridge--of +whom it was commonly believed, though no one exactly knew why, that Bob +Blanchflower, as a youth had been in love with her, before ever he met +his Greek wife; Dr. France, who had attended both the old people till +their deaths, and had been much beloved by them; his wife; the Rector, +Mrs. Amberley, and Susy:--Mrs. Matheson had not intended to ask anyone +else. But the Andrews' had asked themselves, and she had not had the +moral courage to tell them that the occasion was not for them. She was +always getting Mark into difficulties, she penitently reflected, by her +inability to say No, at the right time, and with the proper force, Mark +could always say it, and stick to it smiling--without giving offence. + +Mrs. Matheson was at the tea-table. She was tall and thin, with +something of her brother's good looks, but none of his over-flowing +vitality. Her iron-grey hair was rolled back from her forehead; she +wore a black dress with a high collar of white lawn, and long white +cuffs. Little Mrs. Amberley, the Rector's wife, sitting beside her, +envied her hostess her figure, and her long slender neck. She herself +had long since parted with any semblance of a waist, and the boned +collars of the day were a perpetual torment to one whose neck, from the +dressmaker's point of view, scarcely existed. But Mrs. Amberley endured +them, because they were the fashion; and to be moderately in the +fashion meant simply keeping up to the mark--not falling behind. It was +like going to church--an acceptance of that "general will," which +according to the philosophers, is the guardian of all religion and all +morality. + +The Rector too, who was now handing the tea-cake, believed in +fashion--ecclesiastical fashion. Like his wife, he was gentle and +ineffective. His clerical dress expressed a moderate Anglicanism, and +his opinions were those of his class and neighbourhood, put for him day +by day in his favourite newspaper, with a cogency at which he +marvelled. Yet he was no more a hypocrite than his wife, and below his +common-places both of manner and thought there lay warm feelings and a +quick conscience. He was just now much troubled about his daughter +Susy. The night before she had told her mother and him that she wished +to go to London, to train for nursing. It had been an upheaval in their +quiet household. Why should she dream of such a thing? How could they +ever get on without her? Who would copy out his sermons, or help with +the schools? And her mother--so dependent on her only daughter! The +Rector's mind was much disturbed, and he was accordingly more absent +and more ineffective than usual. + +Susy herself, in a white frock, with touches of blue at her waist, and +in her shady hat, was moving about with cups of tea, taking that place +of Mrs. Matthews's lieutenant, which was always tacitly given her by +Winnington and his sister on festal occasions at Bridge End. As she +passed Winnington, who had been captured by Mrs. Andrews, he turned +with alacrity-- + +"My dear Miss Susy! What are you doing? Give me that cup!" + +"No--please! I like doing it!" And she passed on, smiling, towards Lady +Tonbridge, whose sharp eyes had seen the trivial contact between +Winnington and the girl. How the mere sound of his voice had changed +the aspect of the young face! Poor child--poor child! + +"How well you look Susy! Such a pretty dress!" said Madeleine tenderly +in the girl's ear. + +Susy flushed. + +"You really think so? Mother gave it me for a birthday present." She +looked up with her soft, brown eyes, which always seemed to have in +them, even when they smiled, a look of pleading--as of someone at a +disadvantage. At the same moment Winnington passed her. + +"_Could_ you go and talk to Miss Andrews?" he said, over his shoulder, +so that only she heard. + +Susy went obediently across the room to where a silent, dark-haired +girl sat by herself, quite apart from the rest of the circle. Marion +Andrews was plain, with large features and thick wiry hair. Maumsey +society in general declared her "impossible." She rarely talked; she +seemed to have no tastes; and the world believed her both stupid and +disagreeable. And by contrast with the effusive amiabilities of her +mother, she could appear nothing else. Mrs. Andrews indeed had a way of +using her daughter as a foil to her own qualities, which must have +paralysed the most self-confident, and Marion had never possessed any +belief in herself at all. + +As Susy Amberley timidly approached her, and began to make +conversation, she looked up coldly, and hardly answered. Meanwhile Mrs. +Andrews was pouring out a flood of talk under which the uncomfortable +Winnington--for it always fell to him as host to entertain her--sat +practising endurance. She was a selfish, egotistical woman, with a vast +command of sloppy phrases, which did duty for all that real feeling or +sympathy of which she possessed uncommonly little. On this occasion she +was elaborately dressed,--overdressed--in a black satin gown, which +seemed to Winnington, an ugly miracle of trimming and tortured "bits." +Her large hat was thick with nodding plumes, and beside her spotless +white gloves and showy lace scarf, her daughter's slovenly coat and +skirt, of the cheapest ready-made kind, her soiled gloves, and clumsy +shoes, struck even a man uncomfortably. That poor girl seemed to grow +plainer and more silent every year. + +He was just shaking himself free from the mother, when Dr. and Mrs. +France were announced. The doctor came in with a furrowed brow, and a +preoccupied look. After greeting Mrs. Matheson, and the other guests, +he caught a glance of enquiry from Winnington and went up to him. + +"The evening paper is full of the most shocking news!" he said, with +evident agitation. "There has been an attempt on Hampton Court--and two +girls who were caught breaking windows in Piccadilly have been badly +hurt by the crowd. A bomb too has been found in the entrance of one of +the tube stations. It was discovered in time, or the results might have +been frightful." + +"Good Heavens--those women again!" cried Mrs. Andrews, lifting hands +and eyes. + +No one else spoke. But in everyone's mind the same thought emerged. At +any moment the door might open, and Delia Blanchflower and her chaperon +might come in. + +The doctor drew Winnington aside into a bow-window. + +"Did you know that the lady living with Miss Blanchflower was a member +of this League of Revolt?" + +"Yes. You mean they are implicated in these things?" + +"Certainly! I am told Miss Marvell was once an official--probably is +still. My dear Winnington--you can't possibly allow it!" He spoke with +the freedom of an intimate friend. + +"How can I stop it," said Winnington, frowning. "My ward is of age. If +Miss Marvell does anything overt--But she has promised to do nothing +violent down here--they both have." + +The doctor, an impetuous Ulsterman with white hair, and black eyes, +shrugged his shoulders impatiently. "When women once take to this kind +of thing"--he was interrupted by Mrs. Andrews' heavy voice rising +above the rather nervous and disjointed conversation of the other +guests--"If women only knew where their real power lies, Mrs. Matheson! +Why, 'the hand that rocks the cradle'--" + +A sudden crash was heard. + +"Oh, dear"--cried Lady Tonbridge, who had upset a small table with a +plate of cakes on it across the tail of Mrs. Andrews' dress--"how +stupid I am!" + +"My gown!--my gown!" cried Mrs. Andrews in an anguish, groping for the +cakes. + +In the midst of the confusion the drawing-room door had opened, and +there on the threshold stood Delia Blanchflower, with a slightly-built +lady behind her. + +Winnington turned with a start and went forward to greet them. Dr. +France left behind in the bow-window observed their entry with a +mingling of curiosity and repulsion. It seemed to him that their entry +was that of persons into a hostile camp,--the senses all alert against +attack. Delia was of course in black, her face sombrely brilliant in +its dark setting of a plain felt hat, like the hat of a Cavalier +without its feathers. "She knows perfectly well we have been talking +about her!" thought Dr. France,--"that we have seen the newspapers. She +comes in ready for battle--perhaps thirsty for it! She is +excited--while the woman behind her is perfectly cool. The two +types!--the enthusiast--and the fanatic. But, by Jove, the girl is +handsome!" + +Through the sudden silence created by their entry, Delia made her way +to Mrs. Matheson. Holding her head very high, she introduced "My +chaperon--Miss Marvell." And Winnington's sister nervously shook hands +with the quietly smiling lady who followed in Miss Blanchflower's wake. +Then while Delia sat down beside the hostess, and Winnington busied +himself in supplying her with tea, her companion fell to the Rector's +care. + +The Rector, like Winnington, was not a gossip, partly out of scruples, +but mainly perhaps because of a certain deficient vitality, and he had +but disjointed ideas on the subject of the two ladies who had now +settled at the Abbey. He understood, however, that Delia, whom he +remembered as a child, was a "Suffragette," and that Mr. Winnington, +Delia's guardian, disapproved of the lady she had brought with her, +why, he could not recollect. This vague sense of something "naughty" +and abnormal gave a certain tremor to his manner as he stood beside +Gertrude Marvell, shifting from one foot to the other, and nervously +plying her with tea-cake. + +Miss Marvell's dark eyes meanwhile glanced round the room, taking in +everybody. They paused a moment on the figure of the doctor, erect and +spare in a closely-buttoned coat, on his spectacled face, and +conspicuous brow, under waves of nearly white hair; then passed on. Dr. +France watched her, following the examining eyes with his own. He saw +them change, with a look--the slightest passing look--of recognition, +and at the same moment he was aware of Marion Andrews, sitting in the +light of a side window. What had happened to the girl? He saw her dark +face, for one instant, exultant, transformed; like some forest hollow +into which a sunbeam strikes. The next, she was stooping over a copy of +"Punch" which lay on the table beside her. A rush of speculation ran +through the doctor's mind. + +"And you are settled at Maumsey?" Mrs. Matheson was saying to Delia; +aware as soon as the question was uttered that it was a foolish one. + +"Oh no, not settled. We shall be there a couple of months." + +"The house will want some doing up, Mark thinks." + +"I don't think so. Not much anyway. It does very well." + +There was an entire absence of girlish softness or shyness in the +speaker's manner, though it was both courteous and easy. The +voice--musically deep--and the splendid black eyes, that looked so +steadily at her, intimidated Mark Winnington's gentle sister. + +Mrs. Andrews, whose dress, after Susy's ministration, had been declared +out of danger, bent across the tea-table, all smiles and benevolence +again, the plumes in her black hat nodding-- + +"It's like old times to have the Abbey open again, Miss Blanchflower! +Every week we used to go to your dear grandmother, for her Tuesday +work-party. I'm afraid you'll hardly revive _that_!" + +Delia brought a rather intimidating brow to bear upon the speaker. + +"I'm afraid not." + +Lady Tonbridge, who had already greeted Delia as a woman naturally +greets the daughter of an old friend, came up as Delia spoke to ask for +a second cup of tea, and laid her hand on the girl's shoulder. + +"Very sorry to miss you yesterday. I won't insult you by saying you've +grown. How about the singing? You used to sing I remember when I stayed +with you." + +"Yes--but I've given it up. I took lessons at Munich last spring. But I +can't work at it enough. And if one can't work, it's no good." + +"Why can't you work at it?" + +Delia suddenly looked up in her questioner's face. Her gravity broke up +in a broad smile. + +"Because there's so much else to do." + +"What else?" + +The look of excited defiance in the girl's eyes sharpened. + +"Do you really want to know?" + +"Certainly. The Suffrage and that kind of thing?" said Madeleine +Tonbridge lightly. + +"The Suffrage and that kind of thing!" repeated Delia, still smiling. + +Captain Andrews who was standing near, and whose martial mind was all +in confusion, owing to Miss Blanchflower's beauty, put in an eager +word. + +"I never can understand, Miss Blanchflower, why you ladies want the +vote! Why, you can twist us round your little fingers!" + +Delia turned upon him. + +"But I don't want to twist you round my little finger!" she said, with +energy. "It wouldn't give me the smallest pleasure." + +"I thought you wanted to manage us," said the Captain, unable to take +his eyes from her. "But you do manage us already!" + +Delia's glance showed her uncertain whether the foe was worth her +steel. + +"We want to manage ourselves," she said at last, smiling indifferently. +"We say you do it badly." + +The Captain attempted to spar with her a little longer. Winnington +meanwhile stood, a silent listener, amid the group round the tea-table. +He--and Dr. France--were both acutely conscious of the realities behind +this empty talk; of the facts recorded in the day's newspapers; and of +the connection between the quiet lady in grey who had come in with +Delia Blanchflower, and the campaign of public violence, which was now +in good earnest alarming and exasperating the country. + +Where was the quiet lady in grey? Winnington was thinking too much +about his ward to keep a constant eye upon her. But Dr. France observed +her closely, and he presently saw what puzzled him anew. After a +conversation, exceedingly bland, though rather monosyllabic, on Miss +Marvell's part, with the puzzled and inarticulate Rector, Delia's +chaperon had gently and imperceptibly moved away from the tea-table. +That she had been very coldly received by the company in general was no +doubt evident to her. She was now sitting beside that strange girl +Marion Andrews--to whom, as the Doctor had seen, she had been +introduced--apparently--by the Rector. And as Dr. France caught sight +of her, she and Marion Andrews rose and walked to a window opening on +the garden, apparently to look at the blaze of autumn flowers outside. + +But it was the demeanour of the girl which again drew the doctor's +attention. Marion Andrews, who never talked, was talking fast and +earnestly to this complete stranger, her normally sallow face one glow. +It was borne in afresh upon Dr. France that the two were already +acquainted; and he continued to watch them as closely as politeness +allowed. + + * * * * * + +"Will you come and look at the house?" said Winnington to his ward. +"Not that we have anything to shew--except a few portraits and old +engravings that might interest you. But it's rather a dear old place, +and we're very fond of it." + +Delia went with him in silence. He opened the oval panelled +dining-room, and shewed her the portraits of his father, the venerable +head of an Oxford college, in the scarlet robes of a D.D., and others +representing his forebears on both sides--quiet folk, painted by decent +but not important painters. Delia looked at them and hardly spoke. Then +they went into Mrs. Matheson's room, which was bright with pretty +chintzes, books and water-colours, and had a bow-window looking on the +garden. Still Delia said nothing, beyond an absent Yes or No, or a +perfunctory word of praise. Winnington became very soon conscious of +some strong tension in her, which was threatening to break down; a +tension evidently of displeasure and resentment. He guessed what the +subject of it might be, but as he was most unwilling to discuss it with +her, if his guess were correct, he tried to soothe and evade her by +such pleasant talk as the different rooms suggested. The house through +which he led her was the home, evidently, of a man full of enthusiasms +and affections, caring intensely for many things, for his old school, +of which there were many drawings and photographs in the hall and +passages, for the two great games in which he himself excelled; for +poetry and literature--the house overflowed everywhere with books; for +his County Council work, and all the projects connected with it; for +his family and his intimate friends. + +"Who is that?" asked Delia, pointing to a charcoal drawing in Mrs. +Matheson's sitting-room, of a noble-faced woman of thirty, in a +delicate evening dress of black and white. + +"That is my mother. She died the year after it was taken." + +Delia looked at it in silence a moment. There was something in its +dignity, its restfulness, its touch of austerity which challenged her. +She said abruptly--"I want to speak to you please, Mr. Winnington. May +we shut the door?" + +Winnington shut the door of his sister's room, and returned to his +guest. Delia had turned very white. + +"I hear Mr. Winnington you have reversed an order I wrote to our agent +about one of the cottages. May I know your reasons?" + +"I was very sorry to do so," said Winnington gently; "but I felt sure +you did not understand the real circumstances, and I could not come and +discuss them with you." + +Delia stood stormily erect, and the level light of the October +afternoon streaming in through a west window magnified her height, and +her prophetess air. + +"I can't help shocking you, Mr. Winnington. I don't accept what you +say. I don't believe that covering up horrible things makes them less +horrible. I want to stand by that girl. It is cruel to separate her +from her old father!" + +Winnington looked at her in distress and embarrassment. + +"The story is not what you think it," he said earnestly. "But it is +really not fit for your ears. I have given great thought and much time +to it, yesterday and to-day. The girl--who is mentally deficient--will +be sent to a home and cared for. The father sees now that it is the +best. Please trust it to me." + +"Why mayn't I know the facts!" persisted Delia, paler than before. + +A flash of some quick feeling passed through Winnington's eyes. + +"Why should you? Leave us older folk, dear Miss Delia, to deal with +these sorrowful things." + +Indignation blazed up in her. + +"It is for women to help women," she said, passionately. "It is no good +treating us who are grown up--even if we are young--like children any +more. We intend to _know_--that we may protect--and save." + +"I assure you," said Winnington gravely, "that this poor girl shall +have every care--every kindness. So there is really no need for you to +know. Please spare yourself--and me!" + +He had come to stand by her, looking down upon her. She lifted her eyes +to his unwillingly, and as she caught his smile she was invaded by a +sudden consciousness of his strong magnetic presence. The power in the +grey eyes, and in the brow over-hanging them, the kind sincerity +mingled with the power, and the friendliness that breathed from his +whole attitude and expression, disarmed her. She felt herself for a +moment--and for the first time--young and ignorant,--and that +Winnington was ready to be in the true and not merely in the legal +sense, her "guardian," if she would only let him. + +But the moment of weakening was soon over. Her mind chafed and twisted. +Why had he undertaken it--a complete stranger to her! It was most +embarrassing--detestable--for them both! + +And there suddenly darted through her memory the recollection of a +certain item in her father's will. Under it Mr. Winnington received a +sum of L4,000 out of her father's estate, "in consideration of our old +friendship, and of the trouble I am asking him to undertake in +connection with my estates,"--or words to that effect. + +Somehow, she had never yet paid much attention to that clause in the +will. It occurred in a list of a good many other legacies, and had been +passed over by the lawyers in explaining the will to her, as something +entirely in the natural course of things. But the poisonous thought +suggested itself--"It was that which bribed him!--he would have given +it up, but for that!" He might not want it for himself--very +possibly!--but for his charities, his Cripple School and the rest. Her +face stiffened. + +"If you have arranged with her father, of course I can't interfere," +she said coldly. "But don't imagine, please, Mr. Winnington, for one +moment, that I accept your view of the things I 'needn't know.' If I am +to do my duty to the people on this estate--" + +"I thought you weren't going to live on the estate?" he said, lifting +his eyebrows. + +"Not at once--not this winter." She was annoyed to feel herself +stammering. "But of course I have a responsibility--" + +The kindly laugh in his grey eyes faded. + +"Yes--I quite admit that,--a great responsibility," he said slowly. "Do +you mind if I mention another subject?" + +"The meetings?" she said, quickly. "You mean that?" + +"Yes--the meetings. I have just seen the placard in the village." + +"Well?" Her loveliness in defiance dazzled him, but he held on stoutly. + +"You said nothing to me about these meetings the other day." + +"You never asked me!" + +He paused a moment. + +"No--but was it quite--quite fair to me--to let me suppose that the +drawing-room meeting at Maumsey, which you kindly gave up, was the only +meeting you had in view?" + +He saw her breath fluttering. + +"I don't know what you supposed, Mr. Winnington! I said nothing." + +"No. But you let me draw an inference--a mistaken inference. +However--let that be. Can I not persuade you--now--to give up the +Latchford meeting, and any others of the same kind you may have ahead?" + +She flamed at him. + +"I refuse to give them up!" she said, setting her teeth. "I have as +much right to my views as you, Mr. Winnington! I am of full age, and I +intend to work for them." + +"Setting fire to houses--which is what your society is advocating--and +doing--hardly counts as 'views,'" he said, with sudden sternness. +"Risking the lives, or spoiling the property of one's fellow +countrymen, is not the same thing as political argument." + +"It's _our_ argument--" she said passionately.--"The men who are +denying us the vote understand nothing else!" + +The slightest humorous quiver in Winnington's strong mouth enraged her +still further. But he spoke with most courteous gravity. + +"Then I can't persuade you to give up these meetings? I should of +course make no objection whatever, if these were ordinary Suffrage +meetings. But the Society you are going to represent and collect money +for is a Society that exists _to break the law_. And its members +have--just lately--come conspicuously into collision with the law. Your +father would have protested, and I am bound to protest--in his name." + +"I cannot give them up." + +He was silent a moment. + +"If that is so"--he said at last--"I must do my best to protect you." + +"I don't want any protection!" + +"I am a magistrate, as well as your guardian. You must allow me to +judge. There is a very bitter feeling abroad, after these--outrages--of +the last few days. The village where you are going to speak has some +rowdy elements--drawn from the brickfields near it. You will certainly +want protection. I shall see that you get it." + +He spoke with decision. Delia bit her lip. + +"We prefer to risk our lives," she said at last. "I mean--there isn't +any risk!--but if there were--our lives are nothing in comparison with +the cause!" + +"You won't expect your friends to agree with you," he said drily; then, +still holding her with an even keener look, he added-- + +"And there is another point in connection with these meetings which +distresses me. I see that you are speaking on the same platform--with +Mr. Paul Lathrop--" + +"And why not?"--she flashed, the colour rushing to her cheeks. + +He paused, walked away with his hands in his pockets, and came back +again. + +"I have been making some enquiries about him. He is not a man with whom +you ought to associate--either in public, or in private." + +She gave a sound--half scorn--half indignation which startled him. + +"You mean--because of the divorce case?" + +He looked at her amazed. + +"That is what I meant. But--I certainly do not wish to discuss it with +you. Will you not take it from me that Mr. Lathrop is not--cannot be--a +man whom as a young unmarried woman you ought to receive in your +house--or with whom you should be seen in public." + +"No, indeed I won't take it from you!" she said passionately. "Miss +Marvell knows--Miss Marvell told me. He ran away with some one he +loved. Her husband was _vile_! But she couldn't get any help--because +of the law--the abominable law--which punishes women--and lets men go +free. So they went away together, and after a little she died. Alter +your law, Mr. Winnington!--make it equal for men and women--and then +we'll talk." + +As she spoke--childishly, defiant--Winnington's mind was filled with a +confusion of clashing thoughts--the ideals of his own first youth +which made such a speech in the mouth of a girl of twenty-one almost +intolerable to him--and the moral conditions--slowly gained--of his +maturity. He agreed with what she said. And yet it was shocking to him +to hear her say it. + +"I don't quarrel with you as to that," he said, gravely, after a +moment. "Though I confess that in my belief you are too young to have +any real opinion about it. But there was much in the case which +concerned Mr. Lathrop, of which you _can_ have no idea. I repeat--he +is not a fit companion for you--and you do yourself harm by appearing +with him--in public or private." + +"Miss Marvell approves"--said Delia obstinately. + +Winnington's look grew sterner. + +"I appeal again to your father's memory," he said with energy. + +He perceived her quickened breath, but she made no no reply. + +He walked away from her, and stood looking out of the window for a +little. When he came back to her, it was with a change of manner and +subject. + +"I should like you to understand that I have been doing all I _could_ +to carry out your wishes with regard to the cottages." + +He drew a paper out of his pocket, on which he had made some notes +representing his talk that morning with the agent of the Maumsey +estates. But in her suppressed excitement she hardly listened to him. + +"It isn't exactly _business_, what we've done," he said at last, as he +put up the papers; "but we wanted you to have your way--about the old +woman--and the family of children." He smiled at her. "And the estate +can afford it." + +Delia thanked him ungraciously. She felt like a child who is offered +sixpence for being good at the dentist's. It was his whole position +towards her--his whole control and authority--that she resented. And to +be forced to be grateful to him at the same time, compelled to +recognise the anxious pains he had taken to please her in nine-tenths +of the things she wanted, was really odious: she could only chafe under +it. + +He took her back to the drawing-room. Delia walked before him in +silence. She was passionately angry; and yet beneath the stormy +currents of the upper mind, there were other feelings, intermittently +active. It was impossible to hate him!--impossible to help liking him. +His frankness and courtesy, his delicacy of feeling and touch forced +themselves on her notice. "I daresay!"--she said; "--but that's the +worst of it. If Papa hadn't done this fatal, _foolish_ thing, of course +we should have made friends!" + + * * * * * + +The Amberleys walked home together when the party dispersed. Mrs. +Amberley opened the discussion on the newcomers. + +"She is certainly handsome, but rather bold-looking. Didn't you think +so, father?" + +"I wasn't drawn to her. But she took no account of us," said the +Rector, with his usual despondent candour. In truth he was not thinking +about Miss Blanchflower, but only about the possible departure of his +daughter, Susy. + +"I thought her beautiful!--but I'm sorry for Mr. Winnington!" exclaimed +Susy, a red spot of excitement or indignation in each delicate cheek. + +"Mrs. Matheson told me they will only do exactly what they wish--that +they won't take her brother's advice. Very wrong, very wrong." The +Rector shook his grey head. "Young women were different in my youth." + +Mrs. Amberley sighed, and Susy biting her lip, knew that her own +conduct was perhaps more in question than Miss Blanchflower's. + +They reached home in silence. Susy went to light her father's candles +in his modest book-littered study. Then she put her mother on the sofa +in the drawing-room, rubbed Mrs. Amberley's cold hands and feet, and +blew up the fire. + +Suddenly her mother threw an arm round her neck. + +"Oh, Susy, must you go?" + +Susy kissed her. + +"I should come back"--she said after a moment in a low troubled voice. +"Let me get this training, and then if you want me, darling, I'll come +back." + +"Can't you be happy with us, Susy?" + +"I want to _know_ something--and _do_ something," said Susy, with +intensity--evading the question. "It's such a big world, mother! I'll +be better worth having afterwards." + +Mrs. Amberley said nothing. But a little later she went into her +husband's study. + +"Frank--I think we'll have to let her," she said piteously. + +The Rector looked up assentingly, and put his hand in his wife's. + +"It's strange how different it all seems nowadays," said Mrs. Amberley, +in her low quavering voice. "If I'd wanted to do what Susy wants, my +mother would have called me a wicked girl to leave all my duties--and +I shouldn't have dared. But we can't take it like that, Frank, +somehow." + +"No," said the Rector slowly. "In the old days it used to be only +_duties_ for the young--now it's rights too. It's God's will." + +"Susy loves us, Frank. She's a good girl." + +"She's a good girl--and she shall do what she thinks proper," said the +Rector, rising heavily. + +So they gave their consent, and Susy wrote her application to Guy's +hospital. Then they all three lay awake a good deal of the +night,--almost till the autumn robin began to sing in the little +rectory garden. + +As for Susy, in the restless intervals of restless sleep, she was +always back in the Bridge End drawing-room watching Delia Blanchflower +come in, with Mark Winnington behind. How glorious she looked! And +every day he would be seeing her, every day he would be thinking about +her--just because she was sure to give him so much trouble. + +"And what right have _you_ to complain?" she asked herself, trampling +on her own pain. Had he ever said a word of love to her, ever shewn +himself anything else than the kind and sympathetic friend--sometimes +the inspiring teacher in the causes he had at heart? Never! And +yet--insensibly--his smile, his word of praise or thanks, the touch of +his firm warm hand, the sound of his voice, the look in his eyes--it +was for them she had now learned to live. Yes!--and because she could +no longer trust herself, she must go. She would not fail or harass him; +she was his friend. She would go away and scrub hospital floors, and +polish hospital taps. That would tame the anguish in her, and some day +she would be strong again--and come back--to those beloved ones who had +given her up--so tenderly. + + + + +Chapter VIII + + +The whole of Maumsey and its neighbourhood had indeed been thrown into +excitement by certain placards on the walls announcing three public +meetings to be held--a fortnight later--by the "Daughters of +Revolt"--at Latchford, Brownmouth, and Frimpton. Latchford was but +fifteen miles from Maumsey, and frequent trains ran between them. +Brownmouth and Frimpton, also, were within easy distance by rail, and +the Maumseyites were accustomed to shop at either. So that a wide +country-side felt itself challenged--invaded; at a moment when a series +of startling outrages--destruction of some of the nation's noblest +pictures, in the National Gallery and elsewhere, defacement of +churches, personal attacks on Ministers--by the members of various +militant societies, especially "The League of Revolt," had converted an +already incensed public opinion into something none the less ugly, none +the less alarming, because it had as yet found no organised expression. +The police were kept hard at work protecting open-air meetings on the +Brownmouth and Frimpton beaches, from an angry populace who desired to +break them up; every unknown woman who approached a village or strolled +into a village church, was immediately noticed, immediately reported +on, by hungry eyes and tongues alert for catastrophe; and every empty +house had become an anxiety to its owners. + +And of course the sting of the outrage lay in the two names which +blazed in the largest of black print from the centre of the placards. +"The meeting will be addressed by Gertrude Marvell (D.R.), Delia +Blanchflower (D.R.), and Paul Lathrop." + +Within barely two months of her father's death, this young lady to be +speaking on public platforms, in the district where she was still a +new-comer and a stranger, and flaunting in the black and orange of this +unspeakable society!--such was the thought of all quiet folk for miles +round. The tide of callers which had set in towards Maumsey Abbey +ceased to flow; neighbours who had been already introduced to her, old +friends of her grandparents, passed Delia on the road with either the +stiffest of bows or no notice at all. The labourers stared at her, and +their wives, those deepest well-heads of Conservatism in the country, +were loud in reprobation. Their astonishment that "them as calls +theirselves ladies" should be found burning and breaking, was always, +in Winnington's ears, a touching thing, and a humbling. "Violence and +arson" they seemed to say, "are good enough for the likes of us--you'd +expect it of us. But _you_--the glorified, the superfine--who have your +meals brought you regular, more food than you can eat, and more clothes +than you can wear--_you_!" + +So that, underlying the country women's talk, and under the varnish of +our modern life, one caught the accents and the shape of an old +hierarchical world; and the man of sympathy winced anew under the +perennial submission and disadvantage of the poor. + +Meanwhile Delia's life was one long excitement. The more she realised +the disapproval of her neighbours, the more convinced she was that she +was on the right road. She straightened her girlish back; she set her +firm red mouth. Every morning brought reams of letters and reports from +London, for Gertrude Marvell was an important member of the +"Daughters'" organisation, and must be kept informed. The reading of +them maintained a constant ferment in Delia. In any struggle of women +against men, just as in any oppression of women by men, there is an +element of fever, of madness, which poisons life. And in this element +Delia's spirit lived for this brief hour of her youth. Led by the +perpetual influence of the older mind and imagination at her side, she +was overshadowed with the sense of women's wrongs, haunted by their +grievances, burnt up by a flame of revolt against fate, against +society, above all, against men, conceived as the age-long and +irrational barrier in the path of women. It was irrational, and +therefore no rational methods were any good. Nothing but waspishly +stinging and hurting this great Man-Beast, nothing but defiance of all +rules and decorums, nothing but force--of the womanish kind--answering +to force, of the masculine kind, could be any use. Argument was +foolish. They--the Suffragists--had already stuffed the world with +argument; which only generated argument. To smash and break and burn, +in more senses than one, remained the only course, witness Nottingham +Castle, and the Hyde Park railings. And if a woman's life dashed itself +to pieces in the process, well, what matter? The cause would only be +advanced. + +One evening, not long after the tea-party at Bridge End, a group of +persons, coming from different quarters, converged quietly, in the +autumn dusk, on Maumsey Abbey. Marion Andrews walked in front, with a +Miss Foster, the daughter of one of the larger farmers in the +neighbourhood; and a short limping woman, clinging to the arm of a +vigorously-built girl, the Science Mistress of the small but ancient +Grammar School of the village, came behind. They talked in low voices, +and any shrewd bystander would have perceived the mood of agitated +expectancy in which they approached the house. + +"It's wonderful!" said little Miss Toogood, the lame dressmaker, as +they turned a corner of the shrubbery, and the rambling south front +rose before them,--"_wonderful_!--when you think of the people that +used to live here! Why, old Lady Blanchflower looked upon you and me, +Miss Jackson, as no better than earwigs! I sent her a packet of our +leaflets once by post. Well--_she_ never used to give me any work, so +she couldn't take it away. But she got Mrs. David Jones at Thring Farm +to take away hers, and Mrs. Willy Smith, the Vet's wife, you +remember?--and two or three more. So I nearly starved one winter; but +I'm a tough one, and I got through. And now there's one of _us_ sits in +the old lady's place! Isn't that a sign of the times?" + +"But of course!" said her companion, whose face expressed a kind of +gloomy ardour. "We're winning. We must win--sometime!" + +The cheerfulness of the words was oddly robbed of its effect by the +tragic look of the speaker. Miss Toogood's hand pressed her arm. + +"I'm always so sorry"--murmured the dressmaker--"for those +others--those women--who haven't lived to see what we're going to see, +aren't you?" + +"Yes," assented the other, adding--with the same emotional +emphasis--"But they've all helped--every woman's helped! They've all +played their parts." + +"Well, I don't know about Lady Blanchflower!" laughed Miss Toogood, +happily. + +"What did she matter? The Antis are like the bits of stick you put into +a hive. All they do is to stir up the bees." + +Meanwhile Marion Andrews was mostly silent, glancing restlessly however +from side to side, as though she expected some spy, some enemy--her +mother?--to emerge upon them from the shadows of the shrubbery. Her +companion, Kitty Foster, a rather pretty girl with flaming red hair, +the daughter of a substantial farmer on the further side of the +village, chattered unceasingly, especially about the window-breaking +raid in which she had been concerned, the figure she had cut at the +police court, the things she had said to the magistrate, and the +annoyance she had felt when her father paid her fine. + +"They led me a life when they got me home. And mother's been so ill +since, I had to promise I'd stay quiet till Christmas anyway. But then +I'm off! It's fine to feel you're doing something real--something hot +and strong--so that people can't help taking notice of you. That's what +I say to father, when he shouts at me--'we're not going to _ask_ you +now any more--we've asked long enough--we're going to _make_ you do +what we want.'" + +And the girl threw back her head excitedly. Marion vaguely assented, +and the talk beside her rambled on, now violent, now egotistical, till +they reached the Maumsey door. + + * * * * * + +"Now that we've got women like you with us--it can't be long--it can't +be long!" repeated Miss Toogood, clasping her hands, as she looked +first at Delia, and then at the distant figure of Miss Marvell, who in +the further drawing-room, and through an archway, could be seen talking +with Marion Andrews. + +Delia's brows puckered. + +"I'm afraid it will be long," she said, with a kind of weary passion. +"The forces against us are so strong. But we must just go on--and +on--straight ahead." + +She sat erect on her chair, very straight and slim, in her black dress, +her hands, with their long fingers, tightly pressed together on her +knee. Miss Toogood thought she had never seen anyone so handsome, or +so--so splendid! All that was romantic in the little dressmaker's +soul rose to appreciate Delia Blanchflower. So young and so +self-sacrificing--and looking like a picture of Saint Cecilia that hung +in Miss Toogood's back room! The Movement was indeed wonderful! How it +broke down class barriers, and knit all women together! As her eyes +fell on the picture of Lady Blanchflower, in a high cap and mittens, +over the mantelpiece, Miss Toogood felt a sense of personal triumph +over the barbarous and ignorant past. + +"What I mind most is the apathy of people--the people down here. It's +really terrible!" said the science mistress, in her melancholy voice. +"Sometimes I hardly know how to bear it. One thinks of all that's going +on in London--and in the big towns up north--and here--it's like a +vault. Everyone's really against us. Why the poor people--the +labourers' wives--they're the worst of any!" + +"Oh no!--we're getting on--we're getting on!" said Miss Toogood, +hastily. "You're too despondent, Miss Jackson, if you'll excuse +me--you are indeed. Now I'm never downhearted, or if I am, I say to +myself--'It's all right somewhere!--somewhere that you can't see.' And +I think of a poem my father was fond of--'If hopes are dupes, fears may +be liars--And somewhere in yon smoke concealed--Your comrades chase +e'en now the fliers--And but for you possess the field!' That's by a +man called Arthur Clough--Miss Blanchflower--and it's a grand poem!" + +Her pale blue eyes shone in their wrinkled sockets. Delia remembered a +recent visit to Miss Toogood's tiny parlour behind the front room where +she saw her few customers and tried them on. She recollected the books +which the back parlour contained. Miss Toogood's father had been a +bookseller--evidently a reading bookseller--in Winchester, and in the +deformed and twisted form of his daughter some of his soul, his +affections and interests, survived. + +"Yes, but what are you going to give us to _do_, Miss Blanchflower?" +said Kitty Foster, impatiently--"I don't care what I do! And the more +it makes the men mad, the better!" + +She drew herself up affectedly. She was a strapping girl, with a huge +vanity and a parrot's brain. A year before this date a "disappointment" +had greatly embittered her, and the processions and the crowded London +meetings, and the window-breaking riots into which she had been led +while staying with a friend, had been the solace and relief of a +personal rancour and misery she might else have found intolerable. + +"_I_ can't do anything--not anything public"--said Miss Jackson, with +emphasis--"or I should lose my post. Oh the slavery it is! and the +pittance they pay us--compared to the men. Every man in the Boys' +school get L120 and over--and we're thought lucky to get L80. And I'll +be bound we work more hours in the week than they do. It's _hard_!" + +"That'll soon be mended," said Miss Toogood hopefully. "Look at Norway! +As soon as the women got the vote, why the women's salaries in public +offices were put up at once." + +The strong, honest face of the teacher refused to smile. "Well it isn't +always so, Miss Toogood. I know they say that in New Zealand and +Colorado--where we've got the vote--salaries aren't equal by any +manner of means." + +The dressmaker's withered cheek flushed red. + +"'_They_ say'"--she repeated scornfully. "That's one of the Anti +dodges--just picking out the things that suit 'em, and forgetting all +the rest. Don't you look at the depressing things--I never do! Look at +what helps us! There's a lot o' things said--and there's a lot of +things ain't true--You've got to pick and choose--you can't take 'em as +they come. No one can." + +Miss Jackson looked puzzled and unconvinced; but could think of no +reply. + +The two persons in the distance appeared in the archway between the +drawing-rooms, Gertrude Marvell leading. Everyone looked towards her; +everybody listened for what she would say. She took Delia's chair, +Delia instinctively yielding it, and then--her dark eyes measuring and +probing them all while she talked, she gave the little group its +orders. + +Kitty Foster was to be one of the band of girl-sellers of the _Tocsin_, +in Latchford, the day of the meeting. The town was to be sown with it +from end to end, and just before the meeting, groups of sellers, in the +"Daughters'" black and orange, were to appear in every corner of the +square where the open-air meeting was to be held. + +"But we'll put you beside the speaker's waggon. You're so tall, and +your hair is enough to advertise anything!" With a grim little smile, +she stretched out a hand and touched Kitty Foster's arm. + +"Yes, isn't it splendid!" said Delia, ardently. + +Kitty flushed and bridled. Her people in the farmhouse at home thought +her hair ugly, and frankly told her so. It was nice to be admired by +Miss Blanchflower and her friend. Ladies who lived in a big house, with +pictures and fine furniture, and everything handsome, must know better +than farm-people who never saw anything but their cattle and their +fields. + +"And you"--the clear authoritative voice addressed Miss Toogood--"can +you take round notices?" + +The speaker looked doubtfully at the woman's lame foot and stick. + +Miss Toogood replied that she would be at Latchford by midday, and +would take round notices till she dropped. + +The teacher who could do nothing public, was invited to come to Maumsey +in the evening, and address envelopes. Miss Marvell had lately imported +a Secretary, who had set up her quarters in the old gun room on the +ground floor, and had already filled it with correspondence, and +stacked it with the literature of the Daughters. + +Miss Jackson eagerly promised her help. + +Nothing was apportioned to Marion Andrews. She sat silent following the +words and gestures of that spare figure in the grey cloth dress, in +whom they all recognised their chief. There was a feverish brooding in +her look, as though she was doubly conscious--both of the scene before +her, and of something only present to the mind. + +"You know why we are holding these meetings"--said Gertrude Marvell, +presently. + +No one answered. They waited for her. + +"It is a meeting of denunciation," she said, sharply. "You know in the +Land League days in Ireland they used to hold meetings to denounce a +landlord--for evictions--and that landlord went afterwards in +fear--scorned--and cursed--and boycotted. Well, that's what we're going +to do with Ministers in their own localities where they live! We can't +boycott yet--we haven't the power. But we can denounce--we can set +people on--we can hold a man up--we can make his life a burden to him. +And that's what we're going to do--with Sir Wilfrid Lang. He's one of +this brutal Cabinet that keeps women in prison--one of the strongest of +them. His speeches have turned votes against us in the House of +Commons, time after time. We mean to be even with Sir Wilfrid Lang!" + +She spoke quite quietly--almost under her breath; but her slender +fingers interlocked, and a steady glow had overflowed her pale cheeks. + +A tremor passed through all her listeners--a tremor of excitement. + +"What can we _do_?" said Miss Toogood at last, in a low voice. Her eyes +stared out of her kind old face, which had grown white. "Ah, leave that +to us!" said Miss Marvell, in another voice, the dry organising voice, +which was her usual one. And dropping all emotion and excitement, she +began rapidly to question three out of the four women as to the +neighbourhood, the opinions of individuals and classes, the strength in +it of the old Suffrage societies, the presence or absence of +propaganda. They answered her eagerly. They all felt themselves keyed +to a higher note since she had entered the room. They had got to +business; they felt themselves a power, the rank and file of an "army +with banners," under direction. Even Delia, clearly, was in the same +relation towards this woman whom the outer world only knew as +her--presumably--paid companion. She was questioned, put right, +instructed with the rest of them. Only no one noticed that Marion +Andrews took little or no part in the conversation. + +An autumn wind raged outside, and the first of those dead regiments of +leaves which would soon be choking the lanes were pattering against the +windows. Inside, the fire leapt as the daylight faded, helped by a +couple of lamps, for Maumsey knew no electricity, and Delia, under +Gertrude's prompting, had declared against the expense of putting it +in. In the dim illumination the faces of the six women emerged, typical +all of them of the forces behind the revolutionary wing of the woman's +movement. Enthusiasms of youth and age--hardships of body and +spirit--rancour and generous hope--sore heart and untrained +mind--fanatical brain and dreaming ignorance--love unsatisfied, and +energies unused--they were all there, and all hanging upon, conditioned +by something called "the vote," conceived as the only means to a new +heaven and a new earth. + + * * * * * + +When Delia had herself dismissed her guests into the darkness of the +October evening, she returned thoughtfully to where Gertrude Marvell +was standing by the drawing-room fire, reading a letter. + +"You gave them all something to do except that Miss Andrews, Gertrude? +I wonder why you left her out?" + +"Oh, I had a talk with her before." + +The tone was absent, and the speaker went on reading her letter. + +"When you took her into the back drawing-room?" + +The slightest possible flicker passed through Gertrude's drooped +eyelids. + +"She was telling me a lot about her home-life--poor oppressed thing!" + +Delia asked no more. But she felt a vague discomfort. + +Presently Gertrude put down her letter, and turned towards her. + +"May I have that cheque, dear--before post-time? If you really meant +it?" + +"Certainly." Delia went to her writing-table, opened a drawer and took +out her cheque-book. + +A laugh--conscious and unsteady--accompanied the dipping of her pen +into the ink. + +"I wonder what he'll say?" + +"Who?" + +"Mr. Winnington--when I send him all the bills to be paid." + +"Isn't he there to pay the bills?" + +Delia's face shewed a little impatience. + +"You're so busy, dear, that I am afraid you forget all I tell you about +my own affairs. But I _did_ tell you that my guardian had trustingly +paid eight hundred pounds into the bank to last me till the New Year, +for house and other expenses--without asking me to promise anything +either!" + +"Well, now, you are going to let us have L500. Is there any +difficulty?" + +"None--except that the ordinary bills I don't pay, and can't pay, will +now all go in to my guardian, who will of course be curious to know +what I have done with the money. Naturally there'll be a row." + +"Oh, a row!" said Gertrude Marvell, indifferently. "It's your own +money, Delia. Spend it as you like!" + +"I intend to," said Delia. "Still--I do rather wish I'd given him +notice. He may think it a mean trick." + +"Do you care what he thinks?" + +"Not--much," said Delia slowly. "All the same, Gertrude"--she threw her +head back--"he is an awfully good sort." + +Gertrude shrugged her shoulders. + +"I daresay. But you and I are at war with him and his like, and can't +stop to consider that kind of thing. Also your father arranged that he +should be well paid for his trouble." + +Delia turned back to the writing-table, and wrote the cheque. + +"Thank you, dearest," said Gertrude Marvell, giving a light kiss to the +hand that offered the cheque. "It shall go to headquarters this +evening--and you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that you've +financed all the three bye-election campaigns that are coming--or +nearly." + + * * * * * + +Gertrude had gone away to her own sitting-room and Delia was left +alone. She hung over the fire, in an excited reverie, her pulses +rushing; and presently she took a letter from the handbag on her wrist, +and read it for the second time by the light of the blaze she had +kindled in the grate. + + * * * * * + +"I will be at the Rose and Crown at least half an hour before the +meeting. We have got a capital waggon for you to speak from, and chosen +the place where it is to stand. I am afraid we may have some rough +customers to deal with. But the police have been strongly warned--that +I have found out--though I don't know by whom--and there will be plenty +of them. My one regret is that I cannot be in the crowd, so as both to +see and hear you. I must of course stick to the waggon. What a day for +us all down here!--for our little down-trodden band! You come to us as +our Joan of Arc, leading us on a holy war. You shame us into action, +and to fight with you is itself victory. When I think of how you looked +and how you talked the other night! Do you know that you have a face +'to launch a thousand ships?' No, I am convinced you never think of +it--you never take your own beauty into consideration. And you won't +imagine that I am talking in this way from any of the usual motives. +Your personal charm, if I may say so, is merely an item in our balance +sheet; your money--I understand you have money--is another. You bring +your beauty and your money in your hand, and throw them into the great +conflagration of the Cause--just as the women did in Savonarola's day. +You fling them away--if need be--for an idea. And because of it, all +the lovers of ideas, and all the dreamers of great dreams will be your +slaves and servants. Understand!--you are going to be loved and +followed, as no ordinary woman, even with your beauty, is ever loved +and followed. Your footsteps may be on the rocks and flints--I promise +you no easy, nor royal road. There may be blood on the path! But a +cloud of witnesses will be all about you--some living and some dead; +you will be carried in the hearts of innumerable men and women--women +above all; and if you stand firm, if your soul rises to the height of +your call, you will be worshipped, as the saints were worshipped. + +"Only let nothing bar your path. Winnington is a good fellow, but a +thickheaded Philistine all the same. You spoke to me about him with +compunction. Have no compunctions. Go straight forward. Women have got +to shew themselves ruthless, and hard, and cunning, like men--if they +are to fight men." + + "Yours faithfully, + PAUL LATHROP." + + +Delia's thoughts danced and flamed, like the pile of blazing wood +before her. What a singular being was this Paul Lathrop! He had paid +them four or five visits already; and they had taken tea with him once +in his queer hermitage under the southern slope of the Monk Lawrence +hill--a one-storey thatched cottage, mostly built by Lathrop himself +with the help of two labourers, standing amid a network of ponds, +stocked with trout in all stages. Inside, the roughly-plastered walls +were lined with books--chiefly modern poets, with French and Russian +novels, and with unframed sketches by some of the ultra clever fellows, +who often, it seemed, would come down to spend Sunday with Lathrop, and +talk and smoke till dawn put out the lights. + +She found him interesting--certainly interesting. His outer man--heavy +mouth and lantern cheeks--dreamy blue eyes, and fair hair--together +with the clumsy power in his form and gait, were not without a certain +curious attraction. And his story--as Gertrude Marvell told it--would +be forgiven by the romantic. All the same his letter had offended Delia +greatly. She had given him no encouragement to write in such a +tone--so fervid, so emotional, so intimate; and she would shew +him--plainly--that it offended her. + +Nevertheless the phrases of the letter ran in her mind; until her +discomfort and resentment were lost in something else. + +She could not quiet her conscience about that cheque! Not indeed as to +giving it to the "Daughters." She would have given everything she +possessed to them, keeping the merest pittance for herself, if fate and +domestic tyranny had allowed. No!--but it hurt her--unreasonably, +foolishly hurt her--that she must prepare herself again to face the +look of troubled amazement in Mark Winnington's eyes, without being +able to justify herself to herself, so convincingly as she would have +liked to do. + +"I am simply giving my own money to a cause I adore!" said one voice in +the mind. + +"It is not legally yours--it is legally his," said another. "You should +have warned him. You have got hold of it under false pretences." + +"Quibbles! It _is_ mine--equitably," replied the first. "He and I are +at war. And I _have_ warned him." + +"At war?" Her tiresome conscience kicked again. Why, not a day had +passed since her settlement at Maumsey, without some proof, small or +great, of Winnington's consideration and care for her. She +knew--guiltily knew, that he was overwhelmed by the business of the +executorship and the estate, and had been forced to put aside some of +his own favourite occupations to attend to it. + +"Well!--my father made it worth his while!" + +But her cheek reddened, with a kind of shame, as the thought passed +through her mind. Even in this short time and because of the daily +contact which their business relations required, she was beginning to +know Winnington, to realise something of his life and character. And as +for the love borne him in the neighbourhood--it was really +preposterous--bad for any man! Delia pitied herself, not only because +she was Winnington's ward against her will, but because of the silent +force of public opinion that upheld him, and must necessarily condemn +her. + +So he had once been engaged? Lady Tonbridge had told her so. To a +gentle, saintly person of course!--a person to suit him. Delia could +not help a movement of half petulant curiosity--and then an involuntary +thrill. Many women since had been in love with him. Lady Tonbridge had +said as much. And he--with no one! But he had a great many women +friends? No doubt!--with that manner, and that charm. Delia resented +the women friends. She would have been quite ready indeed to enrol +herself among them--to worship with the rest--from afar; were it not +for ideas, and principles, and honesty of soul! As it was, she despised +the worship of which she was told, as something blind and overdone. It +was not the greatest men--not the best men--who were so easily and +universally beloved. + +What did he really think of her? Did he ever guess that there was +something else in her than this obstinacy, this troublesomeness with +which she was forced to meet him? She was sorry for herself, much more +than for him; because she must so chill and mislead a man who _ought_ +to understand her. + +Looking up she saw a dim reflection of her own beauty in the glass +above the mantelpiece. "No, I am _not_ either a minx, or a +wild-cat!"--she thought, as though she were angrily arguing with +someone. "I could be as attractive, as 'feminine,' as silly as anyone +else, if I chose! I could have lovers--of course--just like other +girls--if it weren't"-- + +For what? At that moment she hardly knew. And why were her eyes filling +with tears? She dashed them indignantly away. + +But for the first time, this cause, this public cause to which she was +pledged presented itself to her as a sacrifice to be offered, a noble +burden to be borne, rather than as something which expressed the +natural and spontaneous impulse of her life. + +Which meant that, already, since her recapture by this English world, +since what was hearsay had begun to be experience, the value of things +had slightly and imperceptibly changed. + + * * * * * + +The days ran on. One evening, just before the first of the +"Daughters'" meetings, which was to be held at Latchford, Winnington +appeared in Lady Tonbridge's drawing-room to ask for a cup of tea on +his way to a public dinner in Wanchester. + +He seemed pre-occupied and worried; and she fed him before questioning +him. But at last she said-- + +"You couldn't prevail on her to give up any of these performances?" + +"Miss Delia? Not one. But it's only the Latchford one that matters. +Have you been talking to her?" + +He looked at her a little plaintively, as though he _could_ have +reminded her that she had promised him a friend's assistance. + +"Of course! But I might as well talk to this table. She won't really +make friends--nor will Miss Marvell allow her. It's the same, I find, +with everyone else. However, I'm bound to say, the neighbourhood is +just now in the mood that it doesn't much want to make friends!" + +"I know," said Winnington, with a sigh--relapsing into silence. + +"Is she taking an interest in the property--the cottages?" + +He shook his head. + +"I'm sure she meant to. But it seems to be all dropped." + +"Provoking!" said Madeleine, drily--"considering how you've been +slaving to please her--" + +Winnington interrupted--not without annoyance-- + +"How can she think of anything else when she's once deep in this +campaign? One must blame the people who led her into it!" + +"Oh! I don't know!" said Lady Tonbridge, protesting. "She's a very +clever young woman, with a strong will of her own." + +"Captured just at the impressionable moment!" cried Winnington--"when a +girl will do anything--believe anything--for the person she loves!" + +"Well the prescription should be easy--at her age. Change the person! +But then comes the question: Is _she_ loveable? Speak the truth, Mr. +Guardian!" + +Winnington began a rather eager assent. Watch her with the servants, +the gardeners, the animals! Then you perceived what should be the +girl's natural charm and sweetness-- + +"'Hm. Does she show any of it to you?" + +Winnington laughed. + +"You forget--I am always there as the obstacle in the path. But if it +weren't for the sinister influence--in the background." + +And again he went off at score--describing various small incidents that +had touched or pleased him, as throwing light upon what he vowed was +the real Delia. + +Madeleine listened, watching him attentively the while. When he took +his leave and she was alone, she sat thinking for some time, and then +going to a cupboard in her writing-table, which held her diaries of +past years, she rummaged till she found one bearing a date fifteen +years old. She turned up the entry for the sixteenth of May: + +"She died last night. This morning, at early service, Mark was there. +We walked home together. I doubt whether he will ever marry--now. He is +not one of those men who are hurried by the mere emotion and +unbearableness of grief, into a fresh emotion of love. But what a +lover--what a husband lost!" + +She closed the book, and stood with it in her hand--pondering. + + * * * * * + +As he left her house, and turned towards the station Winnington passed +a lady to whom he bowed, recognising her as Miss Andrews. + +"Hope you've got an umbrella!" he said to her cheerily, as he passed. +"The rain's coming!" + +She smiled, pleased like all the world to be addressed with that +Winningtonian manner which somehow implied that the person addressed +was, for the moment at any rate, his chiefest concern. Immediately +after meeting him she turned from the village street, and began to +mount a lane leading to the slope on which Monk Lawrence stood. Her +expression as she walked along, sometimes with moving lips, had grown +animated and sarcastic. Here were two men, a dead father and a live +guardian, trying to coerce one simple girl--and apparently not making +much of a job of it. She gloried in what she had been told or perceived +of Delia Blanchflower's wilfulness, which seemed to her mother and her +brother the Captain so monstrous. Only--could one entirely trust +anybody like Delia Blanchflower--so prosperous--and so good-looking? + +Miss Andrews mounted the hill, passed through a wood that ran along its +crest, and took a footpath, leading past the edge of a railway cutting, +from which the wonderful old house could be plainly seen. She paused +several times to look at it, wrapped in a kind of day-dream, which gave +a growing sombreness to her harsh and melancholy features. Beyond the +footpath a swing gate opened into a private path leading to the house. + +She opened the gate, and walked a little way up the path, in the fast +gathering darkness. But she was suddenly arrested by the appearance of +a figure in the far distance, black against the pale greys of the +house. It was a policeman on his beat--she caught one of the gleams of +a lantern. + +Instantly she turned back, groped her way again through the wood, and +into a side road leading to her brother's house. + +She found her mother lying on the sofa in the drawing-room, the remains +of a rather luxurious tea beside her--her outdoor clothes lying +untidily about the room. + +"Where have you been?" said Mrs. Andrews, fretfully--"there were +several letters I wanted written before post." + +"I wanted a little air. That linen business took me all the morning." + +For it was the rule in the Andrews' household that the house linen +should be gone through every six months with a view to repairs and +renewals. It was a tedious business. Mrs. Andrews' nerves did not allow +her to undertake it. It fell therefore, and had always fallen to the +only daughter, who was not made for housewifery tasks, and detested the +half-yearly linen day accordingly. + +Her tone displeased her mother. + +"There you are--grumbling again, Marion! What else have you to do, I +should like to know, than your home duties?" + +Marion made no reply. What was the use of replying? But her black eyes, +as she helped herself wearily to some very cold tea, took note of her +mother's attitude. It was only the week before that Dr. France had +expressed himself rather pointedly to the effect that more exercise and +some fresh interests in life "would be good for Mrs. Andrews." + +Mrs. Andrews returned to the ladies' paper she was reading. The fashion +plates for the week were unusually attractive. Marion observed her +unseen. + +Suddenly the daughter said:-- + +"I must ask you for that five pounds, mother. Bill promised it me. My +underclothing is literally in rags. I've done my best, and it's past +mending. And I must have another decent dress." + +"There you are,--clamouring for money again"--said her mother, +bouncing up on the sofa--"when you know how hard-pressed Bill is. He's +got another instalment to pay for the motor the end of this week." + +"Yes--the motor you made him get!"--said Marion, as though the words +burst from her. + +"And why shouldn't he, pray! The money's his--and mine. It was high +time we got rid of that rattletrap. It jolted me to pieces." + +"You said a little while ago it would do very well for another year. +Anyway, Bill promised me something for clothes this month--and he also +said that he'd pay my school of art fees, at Wanchester, and give me a +third season ticket. Is that all done with too?" + +The girl sat erect, her face with its sparkling eyes expressing mingled +humiliation and bitterness. + +"Oh, well really, I can't stand these constant disputes!" said Mrs. +Andrews, rising angrily from the sofa. "You'd better go to your +brother. If he likes to waste his money, he can of course. But I've got +none to spare." She paused at the door--"As for your underclothing, I +daresay I could find you something of mine you could make do for a bit. +Now do be sensible!--and don't make a scene with Bill!" + +She closed the door. Marion walked to the side window of the +drawing-room, and stood looking at the wooded slope of the hill, with +Monk Lawrence in the distance. + +Her heart burned within her. She was thirty-four. She had never had any +money of her own--she had never been allowed any education that would +fit her to earn. She was absolutely dependent on her mother and +brother. Bill was kind enough, though careless, and often selfish. But +her mother rubbed her dependence into her at every turn--"And yet I +earn my clothes and my keep--every penny of them!" she thought, +fiercely. + +A year before this date she had been staying in London with a cousin +who sometimes took pity on her and gave her a change of scene. They had +gone together for curiosity's sake to a "militant" meeting in London. A +lady, slight in figure, with dark eyes and hair, had spoken on the +"economic independence of women"--as the only path to the woman's goal +of "equal rights" with men. She had spoken with passion, and Marion's +sore heart had leapt to answer her. + +That lady was Gertrude Marvell. Marion had written to her, and there +had been a brief acquaintance, enough to kindle the long-repressed will +and passion of the girl's stormy nature. She had returned home, to +read, in secret, everything that she could find on the militant +movement. The sheer violence of it appealed to her like water to the +thirsty. War, war!--on a rotten state of society, and the economic +slavery of women! + +And now her first awakener, her appointed leader, her idol had appeared +in this dead country-side, with orders to give, and tasks to impose. +And she should be obeyed--to the letter! + +The girl's heavy eyes kindled to a mad intensity, as she stood looking +at the hill-side, now almost dark, except for that distant light, which +she knew as the electric lamp still lit at sunset, even in Sir +Wilfrid's absence, over the stately doorway of Monk Lawrence. + +But she was not going to the Latchford meeting. "Don't give yourself +away. Don't be seen with the others. Keep out of notice. There are more +important things for you to do--presently. Wait!" + +The words echoed in her ears. She waited; exulting in the thought that +no one, not even Miss Blanchflower, knew as much as she; and that +neither her mother nor her brother had as yet any idea of her +connection with the "Daughters." Her "silly suffrage opinions" were +laughed at by them both--good-humouredly, by Bill. Of the rest, they +knew nothing. + + + + +Chapter IX + + +"Mark! you've done the day's work of two people already!" cried Mrs. +Matheson in a tone of distress. "You don't mean to say you're going in +to Latchford again?--and without waiting for some food?" + +She stood under the porch of Bridge End remonstrating with her brother. + +"Can't be helped, dear!" said Winnington, as he filled his pipe--"I'm +certain there'll be a row to-night, and I must catch this train!" + +"What, that horrid meeting! Delia Blanchflower lets you slave and slave +for her, and never takes the smallest notice of your wishes or your +advice! She ought to be ashamed!" + +The sister's mild tone trembled with indignation. + +"She isn't!" laughed Winnington. "I never knew anyone less so. But we +can't have her ill treated. Expect me back when you see me!" + +And kissing his hand to his sister, he went out into a dark and +blustering evening. Something had just gone wrong with the little motor +car he generally drove himself, and there was nothing for it but to +walk the mile and a half to the railway station. + +He had spent the whole day in County Council business at Wanchester, +was tired out, and had now been obliged to leave home again without +waiting even for a belated cup of tea. But there was no help for it. He +had only just time to catch the Latchford train. + +As he almost ran to the station he was not conscious however of any of +these small discomforts; his mind was full of Delia. He did not +encourage anyone but Madeleine Tonbridge to talk to him about his ward; +but he was already quite aware, before his old friend laid stress on +it, of the hostile feeling towards Delia and her chaperon that was +beginning to show itself in the neighbourhood. He knew that she was +already pronounced heartless, odious, unprincipled, consumed with a +love of notoriety, and ready for any violence, at the bidding of a +woman who was probably responsible at that very moment--as a prominent +organiser in the employ of the society contriving them--for some of the +worst of the militant outrages. His condemnation of Delia's actions was +sharp and unhesitating; his opinion of Miss Marvell not a whit milder +than that of his neighbours. Yet he had begun, as we have seen, to +discover in himself a willingness, indeed an eagerness to excuse and +pity the girl, which was wholly lacking in the case of the older woman. +Under the influence, indeed, of his own responsive temperament, +Winnington was rapidly drifting into a state of feeling where his +perception of Delia's folly and unreason was almost immediately checked +by some enchanting memory of her beauty, or of those rare moments in +their brief acquaintance, when the horrid shadow of the "Movement" had +been temporarily lifted, and he had seen her, as in his indulgent +belief she truly was--or was meant to be. She flouted and crossed him +perpetually; and he was beginning to discover that he only thought of +her the more, and that the few occasions when he had been able to force +a smile out of her,--a sudden softness in her black eyes, gone in a +moment!--were constantly pleading for her in his mind. All part no +doubt of his native and extreme susceptibility to the female race--the +female race in general. For he could see himself, and laugh at himself, +_ab extra_, better than most men. + +At the station he came across Captain Andrews, and soon discovered from +that artless warrior that he also was bound for Latchford, with a view +to watching over Delia Blanchflower. + +"Can't have a lot of hooligans attacking a good-looking girl like +that--whatever nonsense she talks!" murmured the Captain, twisting his +sandy moustache; "so I thought I'd better come along and see fair play. +Of course I knew you'd be there." + +The train was crowded. Winnington, separated from the Captain, plunged +into a dimly-lighted third class, and found himself treading on the +toes of an acquaintance. He saluted an elderly lady wearing a bonnet +and mantle of primeval cut, and a dress so ample in the skirt that it +still suggested the days of crinoline. She was abnormally tall, and +awkwardly built; she wore cotton gloves, and her boots were those of a +peasant. She carried a large bag or reticule, and her lap was piled +with brown parcels. Her large thin face was crowned by a few straggling +locks of what had once been auburn hair, now nearly grey, the pale +spectacled eyes were deeply wrinkled, and the nose and mouth slightly +but indisputably crooked. + +"My dear Miss Dempsey!--what an age since we met! Where are you off to? +Give me some of those parcels!" + +And Winnington, seizing what he could lay hands on, transferred them to +his own knees, and gave a cordial grip to the right hand cotton glove. + +Miss Dempsey replied that she had been in Brownmouth for the day, and +was going home. After which she smiled and said abruptly, bending +across her still laden knees and his--so as to speak unheard by their +neighbours-- + +"Of course I know where you're going to!" + +"Do you?" + +The queer head nodded. + +"Why can't you keep her in order?" + +"Her? Who?" + +"Your ward. Why don't you stop it?" + +"Stop these meetings? My ward is of age, please remember, and quite +aware of it." + +Miss Dempsey sighed. + +"Naughty young woman!" she said, yet with the gentlest of accents. "For +us of the elder generation to see our work all undone by these maniacs! +They have dashed the cup from our very lips." + +"Ah! I forgot you were a Suffragist," said Winnington, smiling at her. + +"Suffragist?" she held up her head indignantly--"I should rather think +I am. My parents were friends of Mill, and I heard him speak for Woman +Suffrage when I was quite a child. And now, after the years we've +toiled and moiled, to see these mad women wrecking the whole thing!" + +Winnington assented gravely. + +"I don't wonder you feel it so. But you still want it--the vote--as +much as ever?" + +"Yes!" she said, at first with energy; and then on a more wavering +note--"Yes,--but I admit a great many things have been done without it +that I thought couldn't have been done. And these wild women give one +to think. But you? Are you against us?--or has Miss Delia converted +you?" + +He smiled again, but without answering her question. Instead, he asked +her in a guarded voice-- + +"You are as busy as ever?" + +"I am there always--just as usual. I don't have much success. It +doesn't matter." + +She drew back from him, looking quietly out of window at the autumn +fields. Over her wrinkled face with its crooked features, there dawned +a look of strange intensity, mingled very faintly with something +exquisite--a ray from a spiritual world. + +Winnington looked at her with reverence. He knew all about her; so did +many of the dwellers in the Maumsey neighbourhood. She had lived for +half-a-century in the same little house in one of the back-streets of +Latchford, a town of some ten thousand inhabitants. Through all that +time her life had been given to what is called "rescue work"--though +she herself rarely called it by that name. She loved those whom no one +else would love--the meanest and feeblest of the outcast race. Every +night her door stood on the latch, and as the years passed, thousands +knew it. Scarcely a week went by, that some hand did not lift that +latch, and some girl in her first trouble, or some street-walker, dying +of her trade, did not step in to the tiny hall where the lamp burnt all +night, and wait for the sound of the descending footsteps on the +stairs, which meant shelter and pity, warmth and food. She was +constantly deceived, sometimes robbed; for such things she had no +memory. She only remembered the things which cannot be told--the +trembling voices of hope or returning joy--the tenderness in dying +eyes, the clinging of weak hands, the kindness of "her poor children." +She had written--without her name--a book describing the condition of a +great seaport town where she had once lived. The facts recorded in it +had inspired a great reforming Act. No one knew anything of her part in +it--so far as the public was concerned. Many persons indeed came to +consult her; she gave all her knowledge to those who wanted it; she +taught, and she counselled, always as one who felt herself the mere +humble mouthpiece of things divine and compelling; and those who went +away enriched did indeed forget her in her message, as she meant them +to do. But in her own town as she passed along the streets, in her +queer garb, blinking and absently smiling as though at her own +thoughts, she was greeted often with a peculiar reverence, a homage of +which her short sight told her little or nothing. + +Winnington especially had applied to her in more than one difficulty +connected with his public work. It was to her he had gone at once when +the Blanchflower agent had come to him in dismay reporting the decision +of Miss Blanchflower with regard to the half-witted girl whose third +illegitimate child by a quite uncertain father had finally proved her +need of protection both from men's vileness, and her own helplessness. +Miss Dempsey had taken the girl first into her own house, and then, +persuading and comforting the old father, had placed her in one of the +Homes where such victims are sheltered. + +Winnington briefly enquired after the girl. She as briefly replied. +Then she added:--as other travellers got out and they were left to +themselves. + +"So Miss Blanchflower wanted to keep her in the village?" + +Winnington nodded, adding-- + +"She of course had no idea of the real facts." + +"No. Why should she?--_Why should she_!--" the old lips repeated with +passion. "Let her keep her youth while she can! It's so strange to +me--how they will throw away their youth! Some of us must know. The +black ox has trodden on us. A woman of thirty must look at it all. But +a girl of twenty! Doesn't she see that she helps the world more by +_not_ knowing!--that her mere unconsciousness is _our_ gain--_our_ +refreshment." + +The face of the man sitting opposite her, reflected her own feeling. + +"You and I always agree," he said warmly. "I wish you'd make friends +with her." + +"Who? Miss Blanchflower? What could she make out of an old stager like +me!" Miss Dempsey's face broke into amusement at the notion. "And I +don't know that I could keep my temper with a militant. Well now you're +going to hear her speak--and here we are." + + * * * * * + +Winnington and Captain Andrews left the station together. Latchford +owned a rather famous market, and market day brought always a throng of +country folk into the little town. A multitude of booths under flaring +gas jets--for darkness had just fallen--held one side of the square, +and the other was given up to the hurdles which penned the sheep and +cattle, and to their attendant groups of farmers and drovers. + +The market place was full of people, but the crowd which filled it was +not an ordinary market-day crowd. The cattle and sheep indeed had long +since gone off with their new owners or departed homeward unsold. The +booths were most of them either taken down or were in process of being +dismantled. For the evening was falling fast; it was spitting with +rain; and business was over. But the shop windows in the market-place +were still brilliantly lit, and from the windows of the Crown Inn, all +tenanted by spectators, light streamed out on the crowd below. The +chief illumination came however from what seemed to be a large shallow +waggon drawn up not far from the Crown. Three people stood in it; a +man--who was speaking--and two women. From either side, a couple of +motor lamps of great brilliance concentrated upon them threw their +faces and figures into harsh relief. + +The crowd was steadily pressing toward the waggon, and it was evident +at once to Winnington and his companion that it was not a friendly +crowd. + +"Looks rather ugly, to me!" said Andrews in Winnington's ear. "They've +got hold of that thing which happened at Wanchester yesterday, of the +burning of that house where the care-taker and his children only just +escaped." + +A rush of lads and young men passed them as he spoke--shouting-- + +"Pull 'em down--turn 'em out!" + +Andrews and Winnington pursued, but were soon forced back by a +retreating movement of those in front. Winnington's height enabled him +to see over the heads of the crowd. + +"The police are keeping a ring," he reported to his companion--"they +seem to have got it in hand! Ah! now they've seen me--they'll let us +through." + +Meanwhile the shouts and booing of the hostile portion of the +audience--just augmented by a number of rough-looking men from the +neighbouring brickfields--prevented most of the remarks delivered by +the male speaker on the cart from reaching the audience. + +"Cowards!" said an excited woman's voice--"that's all they can +do!--howl like wild beasts--that's all they're fit for!" + +Winnington turned to see a tall girl, carrying an armful of newspapers. +She had flaming red hair, and she wore a black and orange scarf, with a +cap of the same colours. "Foster's daughter," he thought, wondering. +"What happens to them all!" For he had known Kitty Foster from her +school days, and had never thought of her except as a silly simpering +flirt, bent on the pursuit of man. And now he beheld a maenad, a fury. + +Suddenly another woman's voice cut across the others-- + +"Aren't you ashamed of those colours! Go home--and take them off. Go +home and behave like a decent creature!" + +Heads were turned--to see a middle-aged woman of quiet dress and +commanding aspect, sternly pointing to the astonished Kitty Foster. +"Do you see that girl?"--the woman continued, addressing her +neighbours,--"she's got the 'Daughters'' colours on. Do you know what +the Daughters have been doing in town? You've seen about the destroying +of letters in London. Well, I'll tell you what that means. I had a +little servant I was very fond of. She left me to go and live near her +sister in town. The sister died, and she got consumption. She went into +lodgings, and there was no one to help her. She wrote to me, asking me +to come to her. Her letter was destroyed in one of the pillar-boxes +raided--by those women--" She pointed. "Then she broke her heart +because she thought I'd given her up. She daren't write again. And now +I've found her out--in hospital--dying. I've seen her to-day. If it +hadn't have been for these demented creatures she might ha' lived for +years." + +The woman paused, her voice breaking a little. Kitty Foster tossed her +head. + +"What are most women in hospital for?" she said, shrilly. "By the fault +of men!--one way or the other. That's what we think of." + +"Yes I know--that's one of the shameless things you say--to us who have +husbands and sons we thank God for!" said the elder woman, quivering. +"Go and get a husband!--if you can find one to put up with you, and +hold your tongue!" She turned her back. + +The girl laughed affectedly. + +"I can do without one, thank you. It's you happy married women that are +the chief obstacle in our path. Selfish things!--never care for anybody +but yourselves!" + +"Hallo--Lathrop's down--that's Miss Blanchflower!" said Andrews, +excitedly. "Let's go on!" + +And at the same moment a mounted constable, who had been steadily +making his way to them, opened a way for the two J.P.'s through the +crowd, which after the tumult of hooting mingled with a small amount of +applause, which had greeted Lathrop's peroration, had relapsed into +sudden silence as Delia Blanchflower came forward, so that her opening +words, in a rich clear voice were audible over a large area of the +market-place. + + * * * * * + +What did she say? Certainly nothing new! Winnington knew it all by +heart--had read it dozens of times in their strident newspaper, which +he now perused weekly, simply that he might discover if he could, what +projects his ward might be up to. + +The wrongs of women, their wrongs as citizens, as wives, as the victims +of men, as the "refuse of the factory system"--Winnington remembered +the phrase in the _Tocsin_ of the week before--the uselessness of +constitutional agitation--the need "to shake England to make her +hear"--it was all the "common form" of the Movement; and yet she was +able to infuse it with passion, with conviction, with a wild and +natural eloquence. Her voice stole upon him--hypnotized him. His +political and economic knowledge told him that half the things she +said were untrue, and the rest irrelevant. His moral sense revolted +against her violence--her defence of violence. A girl of twenty-one +addressing this ugly, indifferent crowd, and talking calmly of +stone-throwing and arson, as though they were occupations as natural to +her youth as dancing or love-making!--the whole thing was +abhorrent--preposterous--to a man of order and peace. And yet he had +never been more stirred, more conscious of the mad, mixed poetry of +life, than he was, as he stood watching the slender figure on the +waggon--the gestures of the upraised arm, and the play of the lights +from the hotel, and from the side lamps, now on the deep white collar +that lightened her serge jacket, and on the gesticulating hand, or the +face that even in these disfiguring cross-lights could be nothing else +than lovely. + +She was speaking too long--a common fault of women. + +He looked from her to the faces of the crowd, and saw that the spell, +compounded partly of the speaker's good looks and partly of sheer +gaping curiosity, was breaking. They were getting restless, beginning +to heckle and laugh. + +Then he heard her say. + +"Of course we know--you think us fools--silly fools! You say it's a +poor sort of fighting--and what do we hope to get by it? Pin-pricks you +call it--all that women can do. Well, so it is--we admit it. It _is_ a +poor sort of fighting--we don't admire it any more than you. But it's +all men have left to women. You have disarmed us--and fooled us--and +made slaves of us. You won't allow us the constitutional weapon of the +vote, so we strike as we can, and with what weapons we can--" + +"Makin' bonfires of innercent people an' their property, ain't +politics, Miss!" shouted a voice. + +"Hear, Hear!" from the crowd. + +"We haven't killed anybody--but ourselves!" The answer flashed. + +"Pretty near it! Them folks at Wanchester only just got out--an' there +were two children among 'em," cried a man near the waggon. + +"An' they've just been up to something new at Brownmouth--" + +All heads turned towards a young man who spoke from the back of the +audience. "News just come to the post-office," he shouted--"as the new +pier was burnt out early this morning. There's a bit o' wanton mischief +for you!" + +A howl of wrath rose from the audience, amid which the closing words of +Delia's speech were lost. Winnington caught a glimpse of her face--pale +and excited--as she retreated from the front of the waggon in order to +make room for her co-speaker. + +Gertrude Marvell, as Winnington soon saw, was far more skilled in +street oratory than her pupil. By sheer audacity she caught her +audience at once, and very soon, mingling defiance with sarcasm, she +had turned the news of the burnt pier into a Suffragist parable. What +was that blaze in the night, lighting up earth and sea, but an emblem +of women's revolt flaming up in the face of dark injustice and +oppression? Let them rage! The women mocked. All tyrannies disliked +being disturbed--since the days of Nebuchadnezzar. And thereupon, +without any trace of excitement, or any fraction of Delia's eloquence, +she built up bit by bit, and in face of the growing hostility of the +crowd, an edifice of selected statements, which could not have been +more adroit. It did not touch or persuade, but it silenced; till at the +end she said--each word slow and distinct-- + +"Now--all these things _you_ may do to women, and nobody minds--nobody +troubles at all. But if _we_ make a bonfire of a pier, or an empty +house, by way of drawing attention to your proceedings, then, you see +red. Well, here we are!--do what you like--torture, imprison us!--you +are only longing, I know--some of you--to pull us down now and trample +on us, so that you may _show_ us how much stronger men are than women! +All right!--but where one woman falls, another will spring up. And +meanwhile the candle we are lighting will go on burning till you give +us the vote. Nothing simpler--nothing easier. _Give us the vote_!--and +send your canting Governments, Liberal, or Tory, packing, till we get +it. But until then--windows and empty houses, and piers and such-like, +are nothing--but so many opportunities of making our masters +uncomfortable, till they free their slaves! Lucky for you, if the thing +is no worse!" + +She paused a moment, and then added with sharp and quiet emphasis-- + +"And why is it specially necessary that we should try to stir up this +district--whether you like our methods or whether you don't? +Because--you have living here among you, one of the worst of the +persecutors of women! You have here a man who has backed up every +cruelty of the Government--who has denied us every right, and scoffed +at all our constitutional demands--your neighbour and great landlord, +Sir Wilfrid Lang! I call upon every woman in this district, to avenge +women on Sir Wilfrid Lang! We are not out indeed to destroy life or +limb--we leave that to the men who are trying to coerce women--but we +mean to sweep men like Sir Wilfrid Lang out of our way! Meanwhile we +can pay special attention to his meetings--we can harass him at railway +stations--we can sit on his doorstep--we can put the fear of God into +him in a hundred ways--in short we can make his life a tenth part as +disagreeable to him as he can make ours to us. We can, if we please, +make it a _burden_ to him--and we intend to do so! And don't let +men--or women either--waste their breath in preaching to us of 'law and +order.' Slaves who have no part in making the law, are not bound by the +law. Enforce it if you can! But while you refuse to free us, we despise +both the law and the making of the law. Justice--which is a very +different thing from law--Justice is our mistress!--and to her we +appeal." + +Folding her arms, she looked the crowd in the face. They seemed to +measure each other; on one side, the lines of upturned faces, gaping +youths, and smoking workmen, farmers and cattlemen, women and children; +on the other, defying them, one thin, neatly-dressed woman, her face, +under the lamps, a gleaming point in the dark. + +Then a voice rose from a lounging group of men, smoking like +chimneys--powerful fellows; smeared with the clay of the brickfields. + +"Who's a-makin' slaves of you, Ma'am? There's most of us workin' for a +woman!" + +A woman in the middle of the crowd laughed shrilly--a queer, tall +figure in a battered hat-- + +"Aye--and a lot yo' give 'er ov a Saturday night, don't yer?" + +"Sir Wilfrid's a jolly good feller, miss," shouted another man. "Pays +'is men good money, an' no tricks. If you come meddlin' with him, in +these parts, you'll catch it." + +"An' we don't want no suffragettes here, thank you!" cried a sarcastic +woman's voice. "We was quite 'appy till you come along, an' we're quite +willin' now for to say 'Good-bye, an' God bless yer!'" + +The crowd laughed wildly, and suddenly a lad on the outskirts of the +crowd picked up a cabbage-stalk that had fallen from one of the +market-stalls, and flung it at the waggon. The hooligan element, +scattered through the market-place, took up the hint at once; brutal +things began to be shouted; and in a moment the air was thick with +missiles of various sorts, derived from the refuse of the day's +market--vegetable remains of all kinds, fragments of wood and cardboard +boxes, scraps of filthy matting, and anything else that came handy. + +The audience at first disapproved. There were loud cries of "Stow +it!"--"Shut up!"--"Let the ladies alone!"--and there was little attempt +to obstruct the police as they moved forward. But then, by ill-luck, +the powerfully-built fair-haired man, who had been speaking when +Winnington and Andrews entered the market place, rushed to the front of +the waggon, and in a white heat of fury, began to denounce both the +assailants of the speakers, and the crowd in general, as "cowardly +louts"--on whom argument was thrown away--who could only be reached +"through their backs, or their pockets"--with other compliments of the +same sort, under which the temper of the "moderates" rapidly gave way. + +"What an ass! What a damned ass!" groaned Andrews indignantly. "Look +here Winnington, you take care of Miss Blanchflower--I'll answer for +the other!" + +And amid a general shouting and scuffling, through which some stones +were beginning to fly, Winnington found himself leaping on the waggon, +followed by Andrews and a couple of police. + +Delia confronted him--undaunted, though breathless. + +"What do you want? We're all right!" + +"You must come away at once. I can get you through the hotel." + +"Not at all! We must put the Resolution." + +"Come Miss!--" said the tall constable behind Winnington--"no use +talking! There's a lot of fellows here that mean mischief. You go with +this gentleman. He'll look after you." + +"Not without my friend!" cried Delia, both hands behind her on the edge +of the waggon--erect and defiant. "Gertrude!--" she raised her +voice--"What do you wish to do?" + +But amid the din, her appeal was not heard. + +Gertrude Marvell however could be clearly seen on the other side of the +waggon, with Paul Lathrop beside her, listening to the remonstrances +and entreaties of Andrews, with a smile as cool, as though she were in +the drawing-room of Maumsey Abbey, and the Captain were inviting her to +trifle with a cup of tea. + +"Take her along, Sir!" said the policeman, with a nod to Winnington. +"It's getting ugly." And as he spoke, a man jumped upon the waggon, a +Latchford doctor, an acquaintance of Winnington's, who said something +in his ear. + +The next moment, a fragment of a bottle, flung from a distance, struck +Winnington on the wrist. The blood rushed out, and Delia, suddenly +white, looked from it to Winnington's face. The only notice he took of +the incident was expressed in the instinctive action of rolling his +handkerchief round it. But it stirred him to lay a grasp upon Delia's +arm, which she could hardly have resisted. She did not, however, +resist. She felt herself lifted down from the waggon, and hurried +along, the police keeping back the crowd, into the open door of the +hotel. Shouts of a populace half enraged, half amused, pursued her. + +"Brutes--Cowards!" she gasped, between her teeth--then to +Winnington--"Where are you taking me? I have the car!" + +"There's a motor belonging to a doctor ready at once in the yard of the +hotel. Better let me take you home in it. Andrews, I assure you, will +look after Miss Marvell!" + +They passed through the brilliantly-lighted inn, where landlady, +chambermaids, and waiters stood grinning in rows to see, and Winnington +hurried his charge into the closed motor standing at the inn's back +door. + +"Take the street behind the hotel, and get out by the back of the town. +Be quick!" said Winnington to the chauffeur. + +Booing groups had already begun to gather at the entrance of the yards, +and in the side street to which it led. The motor passed slowly through +them, then quickened its pace, and in what seemed an incredibly short +time, they were in country lanes. + +Delia leant hack, drawing long breaths of fatigue and excitement. Then +she perceived with disgust that her dress was bemired with scraps of +dirty refuse, and that some mud was dripping from her hat. She took off +the hat, shook it out of the window of the car, but could not bring +herself to put it on again. Her hair, loosely magnificent, framed a +face that was now all colour and passion. She hated herself, she hated +the crowd; it seemed to her she hated the man at her side. Suddenly +Winnington turned on the electric light--with an exclamation. + +"So sorry to be a nuisance--but have you got a spare handkerchief? I'm +afraid I shall spoil your dress!" + +And Delia saw, to her dismay, that his own handkerchief which he had +originally tied round his wound was already soaked, and the blood was +dripping from it on to the motor-rug. + +"Yes--yes--I have!" And opening her little wrist-bag, she took out of +it two spare handkerchiefs, and tied them, with tremulous hands, round +the wrist he held out to her,--a wrist brown and spare and powerful, +like the rest of him. + +"Now--have you got anything you could tie round the arm, above the +wound--and then twist the knot?" + +She thought. + +"My veil!" She slipped it off in a moment, a long motor veil of stout +make. He turned towards her, pushing up his coat sleeve as high as it +would go, and shewing her where to put the bandage. She helped him to +turn back his shirt sleeve, and then wound the veil tightly round the +arm, so as to compress the arteries. Her fingers were warm and strong. +He watched them--he felt their touch--with a curious pleasure. + +"Now, suppose you take this pencil, and twist it in the knot--you know +how? Have you done any First Aid?" + +She nodded. + +"I know." + +She did it well. The tourniquet acted, and the bleeding at once +slackened. + +"All right!" said Winnington, smiling at her. "Now if I keep it up that +ought to do!" She drew down the sleeve, and he put his hand into the +motor-strap hanging near him, which supported it. Then he threw his +head back a moment against the cushions of the car. The sudden loss of +blood on the top of a long fast, had made him feel momentarily faint. + +Delia looked at him uneasily--biting her lip. + +"Let us go back to Latchford, Mr. Winnington, and find a doctor." + +"Oh dear no! I'm only pumped for a moment. It's going off. I'm +perfectly fit. When I've taken you home, I shall go in to our Maumsey +man, and get tied up." + +There was silence. The hedges and fields flew by outside, under the +light of the motor, stars overhead, Delia's heart was full of wrath and +humiliation. + +"Mr. Winnington--" + +"Yes!" He sat up, apparently quite revived. + +"Mr. Winnington--for Heaven's sake--do give me up!" + +He looked at her with amused astonishment. + +"Give you up!--How?" + +"Give up being my guardian! I really can't stand it. I--I don't mind +what happens to myself. But it's too bad that I should be forced to--to +make myself such a nuisance to you--or desert all my principles. It's +not fair to _me_--that's what I feel--it's not indeed!" she insisted +stormily. + +He saw her dimly as she spoke--the beautiful oval of the face, the +white brow, the general graciousness of line, so feminine, in +truth!--so appealing. The darkness hid away all that shewed the "female +franzy." Distress of mind--distress for his trumpery wound?--had +shaken her, brought her back to youth and childishness? Again he felt +a rush of sympathy--of tender concern. + +"Do you think you would do any better with a guardian chosen by the +Court?" he asked her, smiling, after a moment's pause. + +"Of course I should! I shouldn't mind fighting a stranger in the +least." + +"They would be very unlikely to appoint a stranger. They would probably +name Lord Frederick." + +"He wouldn't dream of taking it!" she said, startled. "And you know he +is the laziest of men." + +They both laughed. But her laugh was a sound of agitation, and in the +close contact of the motor he was aware of her quick breathing. + +"Well, it's true he never answers a letter," said Winnington. "But I +suppose he's ill." + +"He's been a _malade imaginaire_ all his life, and he isn't going to +begin to put himself out for anybody now!" she said, scornfully. + +"Your aunt, Miss Blanchflower?" + +"I haven't spoken to her for years. She used to live with us when I was +eighteen. She tried to boss me, and set father against me. But I got +the best of her." + +"I am sure you did," said Winnington. + +She broke out-- + +"Oh, I know you think me a perfectly impossible creature whom nobody +could ever get on with!" + +He paused a moment, then said gravely-- + +"No, I don't think anything of the kind. But I do think that, given +what you want, you are going entirely the wrong way to get it." + +She drew a long and desperate breath. + +"Oh, for goodness sake don't let's argue!" + +He refrained. But after a moment he added, still more gravely--"And I +do protest--most strongly!--against the influence upon you of the lady +you have taken to live with you!" + +Delia made a vehement movement. + +"She is my friend!--my dearest friend!" she said, in a shaky voice. +"And I believe in her, and admire her with all my heart!" + +"I know--and I am sorry. Her speech this evening--all the latter part +of it--was the speech of an Anarchist. And the first half was a tissue +of misstatements. I happen to know something about the facts she dealt +with." + +"Of course you take a different view!" + +"I _know_," he said, quietly--a little sternly. "Miss Marvell either +does not know, or she wilfully misrepresents." + +"You can't prove it!" + +"I think I could. And as to that man--Mr. Lathrop--but you know what I +think." + +They both fell silent. Through all his own annoyance and disgust, +Winnington was sympathetically conscious of what she too must be +feeling--chafed and thwarted, at every turn, by his legal power over +her actions, and by the pressure of his male will. He longed to +persuade her, convince her, soothe her; but what chance for it, under +the conditions she had chosen for her life? + +The motor drew up at the door of the Abbey, and Winnington turned on +the light. + +"I am afraid I can't help you out. Can you manage?" + +She stooped anxiously to look at his wrist. + +"It's bleeding worse again! I am sure I could improve that bandage. Do +come in. My maid's got everything." + +He hesitated--then followed her into the house. The maid was summoned, +and proved an excellent nurse. The wound was properly bandaged, and the +arm put in a sling. + +Then, as the maid withdrew, Delia and her guardian were left standing +together in the drawing-room, lit only by a dying gleam of fire, and a +single lamp. + +"Good-night," said Winnington, gently. "Don't be the least alarmed +about Miss Marvell. The train doesn't arrive for ten minutes yet. Thank +you for looking after me so kindly." + +Delia laughed--but it was a sound of distress. + +Suddenly he stooped, lifted her hand, and kissed it. + +"What you are doing seems to me foolish--and _wrong!_ I am afraid I +must tell you so plainly," he said, with emotion. "But although I feel +like that--my one wish--all the time--is--forgive me if it sounds +patronising!--to help you--and stand by you. To see you in that horrid +business to-night--made me--very unhappy. I am old-fashioned I +suppose--but I could hardly bear it. I wish I could make you trust me a +little!" + +"I do!" she said, choked. "I do--but I must follow my conscience." + +He shook his head, but said no more. She murmured good-night, and he +went. She heard the motor drive away, and remained standing where he +had left her, the hand he had kissed hanging at her side. She still +felt the touch of his lips upon it, and as the blood rushed into her +cheeks, her heart was conscious of new and strange emotions. She longed +to go to him as a sister or a daughter might, and say--"Forgive +me--understand me--don't despair of me!" + +The trance of feeling broke, and passed away. She caught up a cloak and +went to the hall door to listen for Gertrude Marvell. + +"What I _shall_ have to say to him before long, is--'I have tricked +you this quarter out of L500--and I mean to do it again next +quarter--if I can!' He won't want to kiss my hand again!" + + + + +Chapter X + + +Two men sat smoking and talking with Paul Lathrop in the hook-littered +sitting-room of his cottage. One was a young journalist, Roger Blaydes, +whose thin, close-shaven face wore the knowing fool's look of one to +whom the world's his oyster, and all the bricks for opening it +familiar. The other was a god-like creature, a poet by profession, with +long lantern-jaws, grey eyes deeply set, and a mass of curly black +hair, from which the face with its pallor and its distinction, shone +dimly out like the portrait of a Cinquecento. Lathrop, in a kind of +dressing-gown, as clumsily cut as the form it wrapped, his reddish hair +and large head catching the firelight, had the look of one lazily at +bay, as wrapped in a cloud of smoke, he twined from one speaker to the +other. + +"So you were at another of these meetings last night?" said Blaydes, +with a mouth half smiling, half contemptuous. + +"Yes. A disgusting failure! They didn't even take the trouble to pelt +us." The poet--Merian by name--moved angrily on his chair. Blaydes +threw a sly look at him, as he knocked the ash from his cigarette. + +"And what the deuce do you expect to get by it all?" + +Paul Lathrop paused a moment--and at last said with a lift of the +eyebrows:-- + +"Well!--I have no illusions!" + +Merian broke out indignantly-- + +"I say, Lathrop--why should you try and play up to that cynic there? As +if he ever had an illusion about anything!" + +"Well, but one may have faith without illusions," protested Blaydes, +with hard good temper. + +"I doubt whether Lathrop has an ounce of either!" + +Lathrop reached out for a match. + +"What's the good of 'faith'--and what does anyone mean by it? +Sympathies--and animosities: they're enough for me." + +"And you really are in sympathy with these women?" said the other. + +The tone was incredulous. Merian brought his hand violently down on the +table. + +"Don't you talk about them, Blaydes! I tell you, they're out of your +ken." + +"I daresay," said Blaydes, composedly. "I was only trying to get at +what Lathrop means by going into the business." + +Paul Lathrop sat up. + +"I'm in sympathy with anything that harasses, and bothers and stings +the governing classes of this country!" he said, with an oratorical +wave of his cigarette. "What fools they are! In this particular +business the Government is an ass, the public is an ass, the women, if +you like, are asses. So long as they don't destroy works of art that +appeal to me, I prefer to bray with them than with their enemies." + +Merian rose impatiently--a slim, dark-browed St. George towering over +the other two. + +"After that, I'd rather hear them attacked by Blaydes, than defended by +you, Lathrop!" he said with energy, as he buttoned up his coat. + +Lathrop threw him a cool glance. + +"So for you, they're all heroines--and saints?" + +"Never mind what they are. I stand by them! I'm ready to give them what +they ask." + +"Ready to hand the Empire over to them--to smash like the windows in +Piccadilly?" said Blaydes. + +"Hang the Empire!--what does the Empire matter! Give the people in +these islands what they _want_ before you begin to talk about the +Empire. Well, good-bye, I must be off!" + +He nodded to the other two, and opened the door of the Hermitage which +led directly into the outer air. On the threshold he turned and looked +back, irresolutely, as though in compunction for his loss of temper. +Framed in the doorway against a background of sunset sky, his dark head +and sparely-noble features were of a singular though melancholy beauty. +It was evident that he was full of speech, of which he could not in the +end unburden himself. The door closed behind him, and he was gone. + +"Poor devil!" said Blaydes, tipping the end of his cigarette into the +fire-"he's in love with a girl who's been in prison three times. He +thinks she'll kill herself--and he can't influence her at all. He +takes it hard. Well, now look here"--the young man's expression changed +and stiffened--"I understand that you too are seeing a good deal of one +of these wild women--and that she's both rich--and a beauty?" + +He looked up, with a laugh. + +Lathrop's aspect was undisturbed. + +"Nothing to do with it!--though your silly little mind will no doubt go +on thinking so." + +The other laughed again--with a more emphatic mockery. Lathrop +reddened--then said quietly-- + +"Well, I admit that was a lie. Yes, she is handsome--and if she were +to stick to it--sacrifice all her life to it--in time she might make a +horrible success of this thing. Will she stick to it?" + +"Are you in love with her, Paul?" + +"Of course! I am in love with all pretty women--especially when I +daren't shew it." + +"You daren't shew it?" + +"The smallest advance on my part, in this quarter, brings me a rap on +the knuckles. I try to pitch what I have to say in the most impersonal +and romantic terms. No good at all! But all egg-dancing is amusing, so +I dance--and accept all the drudgery she and Alecto give me to do." + +"Alecto? Miss Marvell?" + +"Naturally." + +"These meetings must be pretty boring." + +"Especially because I can't keep my temper. I lose it in the vulgarest +way--and say the most idiotic things." + +There was a pause of silence. The eyes of the journalist wandered round +the room, coming back to Lathrop at last with renewed curiosity. + +"How are your affairs, Paul?" + +"Couldn't be worse. Everything here would have been seized long ago, if +there had been anything to seize. But you can't distrain on trout--dear +slithery things. And as the ponds afford my only means of sustenance, +and do occasionally bring in something, my creditors have to leave me +the house and a few beds and chairs so that I may look after them." + +"Why don't you write another book?" + +"Because at present I have nothing to say. And on that point I happen +to have a conscience--some rays of probity, left." + +He got up as he spoke, and went across the room, to a covered basket +beside the fire. + +"Mimi!" he said caressingly--"poor Mimi!" + +He raised a piece of flannel, and a Persian kitten lying in the +basket--a sick kitten--lifted its head languidly. + +"_Tu m'aimes_, Mimi?" + +The kitten looked at him with veiled eyes, already masked with death. +Lathrop stooped for a saucer of warm milk standing by the fire. The +kitten refused it, but when he dipped his fingers in the milk, it made +a momentary effort to lick them, then subsiding, sank to sleep again. + +"Poor little beast!" said Blaydes--"what's the matter?" + +"Some poison--I don't know what. It'll die tonight." + +"Then you'll be all alone?" + +"I'm never alone," said Lathrop, with decision. And rising he went to +the door of the cottage--which opened straight on the hill-side, and +set it open. + +It was four o'clock on a November day. The autumn was late, and of a +marvellous beauty. The month was a third gone and still there were +trees here and there, isolated trees, intensely green as though they +defied decay. The elder trees, the first to leaf under the Spring, were +now the last to wither. The elms in twenty-four hours had turned a pale +gold atop, while all below was still round and green. But the beeches +were nearly gone; all that remained of them was a thin pattern of +separate leaves, pale gold and faintly sparkling against the afternoon +sky. Such a sky! Bands of delicate pinks, lilacs and blues scratched +across an inner-heaven of light, and in the mid-heaven a blazing +furnace, blood-red, wherein the sun had just plunged headlong to its +death. And under the sky, an English scene of field and woodland, +fading into an all-environing forest, still richly clothed. While in +the foreground and middle distance, some trees already stripped and +bare, winter's first spoil, stood sharply black against the scarlet of +the sunset. And fusing the whole scene, hazes of blue, amethyst or +purple, beyond a Turner's brush, + +"What beauty!--my God!" + +Blaydes came to stand beside the speaker, glancing at him with eyes +half curious, half mocking. + +"You get so much pleasure out of it?" + +For answer, Lathrop murmured a few words as though to himself, a sudden +lightening in his sleepy eyes-- + + L'univers--si liquide, si pur!-- + Une belle eau qu'on voudrait boire. + + +"I don't understand French"--said Blaydes, with a shrug--"not French +verse, anyway." + +"That's a pity," was the dry reply--"because you can't read Madame de +Noailles. Ah!--there are Lang's pheasants calling!--his tenants I +suppose--for he's left the shooting." + +He pointed to a mass of wood on his left hand from which the sound +came. + +"They say he's never here?" + +"Two or three times a year,--just on business. His wife--a little +painted doll--hates the place, and they've built a villa at Beaulieu." + +"Rather risky leaving a big house empty in these days--with your wild +women about!" + +Lathrop looked round. + +"Good heavens!--who would ever dream of touching Monk Lawrence! I bet +even Gertrude Marvell hasn't nerve enough for that. Look here!--have +you ever seen it?" + +"Never." + +"Come along then. There's just time--while this light lasts." + +They snatched their caps, and were presently mounting the path which +led ultimately through the woods of Monk Lawrence to the western front. + +Blaydes frowned as he walked. He was a young man of a very practical +turn of mind, who in spite of an office-boy's training possessed an +irrelevant taste for literature which had made him an admirer of +Lathrop's two published volumes. For some time past he had been +Lathrop's chancellor of the exchequer--self-appointed, and had done his +best to keep his friend out of the workhouse. From the tone of Paul's +recent letters he had become aware of two things--first, that Lathrop +was in sight of his last five pound note, and did not see his way to +either earning or borrowing another; and secondly, that a handsome girl +had appeared on the scene, providentially mad with the same kind of +madness as had recently seized on Lathrop, belonging to the same +anarchial association, and engaged in the same silly defiance of +society; likely therefore to be thrown a good deal in his company; and +last, but most important, possessed of a fortune which she would no +doubt allow the "Daughters of Revolt" to squander--unless Paul cut in. +The situation had begun to seem to him interesting, and having already +lent Lathrop more money than he could afford, he had come down to +enquire about it. He himself possessed an income of three hundred a +year, plus two thousand pounds left him by an uncle. Except for the +single weakness which had induced him to lend Lathrop a couple of +hundred pounds, his principles with regard to money were frankly +piratical. Get what you can--and how you can. Clearly it was Lathrop's +game to take advantage of this queer friendship with a militant who +happened to be both rich and young, which his dabbling in their +"nonsense" had brought about. Why shouldn't he achieve it? Lathrop was +as clever as sin; and there was the past history of the man, to shew +that he could attract women. + +He gripped his friend's arm as they passed into the shadow of the wood. +Lathrop looked at him with surprise-- + +"Look here, Paul"--said the younger man in a determined voice--"You've +got to pull this thing off." + +"What thing?" + +"You can marry this girl if you put your mind to it. You tell me you're +going about the country with her speaking at meetings--that you're one +of her helpers and advisers. That is--you've got an A1 chance with her. +If you don't use it, you're a blithering idiot." + +Paul threw back his head and laughed. + +"And what about other people? What about her guardian, for +instance--who is the sole trustee of the property--who has a thousand +chances with her to my one--and holds, I venture to say--if he knows +anything about me--the strongest views on the subject of _my_ moral +character?" + +"Who is her guardian?" + +"Mark Wilmington. Does that convey anything to you?" + +Blaydes whistled. + +"Great Scott!" + +"Yes. Precisely 'Great Scott!'" said Lathrop, mocking. "I may add that +everybody here has their own romance on the subject. They are convinced +that Winnington will soon cure her of her preposterous notions, and +restore her, tamed, to a normal existence." + +Blaydes meditated,--his aspect showing a man checked. + +"I saw Winnington playing in a county match last August," he said--with +his eyes on the ground--"I declare no one looked at anybody else. I +suppose he's forty; but the old stagers tell you that he's just as much +of an Apollo now as he was in his most famous days--twenty years ago." + +"Don't exaggerate. He _is_ forty, and I'm thirty--which is one to me. +I only meant to suggest to you a _reasonable_ view of the chances." + +"Look here--_is_ she as handsome as people say?" + +"Blaydes!--this is the last time I shall allow you to talk about +her--you get on my nerves. Handsome? I don't know." + +He walked on, muttering to himself and twitching at the trees on either +hand. + +"I am simply putting what is your duty to yourself--and your +creditors," said Blaydes, sulkily--"You must know your affairs are in +a pretty desperate state." + +"And a girl like that is to be sacrificed--to my creditors! Good Lord!" + +"Oh, well, if you regard yourself as such an undesirable, naturally, +I've nothing to say. Of course I know--there's that case against you. +But it's a good while ago; and I declare women don't look at those +things as they used to do. Why don't you play the man of letters +business? You know very well, Paul, you could earn a lot of money if +you chose. But you're such a lazy dog!" + +"Let me alone!" said Lathrop, rather fiercely. "The fact that you've +lent me a couple of hundred really doesn't give you the right to talk +to me like this." + +"I won't lend you a farthing more unless you promise me to take this +thing seriously," said Blaydes, doggedly. + +Lathrop burst into a nervous shout of laughter. + +"I say, do shut up! I assure you, you can't bully me. Now then--here's +the house!" + +And as he spoke they emerged from the green oblong, bordered by low yew +edges, from which as from a flat and spacious shelf carved out of the +hill, Monk Lawrence surveyed the slopes below it, the clustered +village, the middle distance with its embroidery of fields and trees, +with the vaporous stretches of the forest beyond, and in the far +distance, a shining line of sea. + +"My word!--that is a house!" cried Blaydes, stopping to survey it and +get his townsman's breath, after the steep pitch of hill. + +"Not bad?" + +"Is it shown?" + +"Used to be. It has been shut lately for fear of the militants." + +"But they keep somebody in it?" + +"Yes--in some room at the back. A keeper, and his three children. The +wife's dead. Shall I go and see if he'll let us in? But he won't. He'll +have seen my name at that meeting, in the Latchford paper." + +"No, no. I shall miss my train. Let's walk round. Why, you'd think it +was on fire already!" said Blaydes, with a start, gazing at the house. + +For the marvellous evening now marching from the western forest, was +dyeing the whole earth in crimson, and the sun just emerging from one +bank of cloud, before dropping into the bank below, was flinging a +fierce glare upon the wide grey front of Monk Lawrence. Every window +blazed, and some fine oaks still thick with red leaf, which flanked the +house on the north, flamed in concert. The air was suffused with red; +every minor tone, blue or brown, green or purple, shewed through it, as +through a veil. + +And yet how quietly the house rose, in the heart of the flame! Peace +brooding on memory seemed to breathe from its rounded oriels, its mossy +roof, its legend in stone letters running round the eaves, the carved +trophies and arabesques which framed the stately doorway, the sleepy +fountain with its cupids, in the courtyard, the graceful loggia on the +northern side. It stood, aloof and self-contained, amid the lightnings +and arrows of the departing sun. + +"No--they'd never dare to touch that!" said Lathrop as he led the way +to the path skirting the house. "And if I caught Miss Marvell at it, +I'm not sure I shouldn't hand her over myself!" + +"Aren't we trespassing?" said Blaydes, as their footsteps rang on the +broad flagged path which led from the front court to the terrace at the +back of the house. + +"Certainly. Ah, the dog's heard us." + +And before they had gone more than a few steps further, a burly man +appeared at the further corner of the house, holding a muzzled dog--a +mastiff--on a leash. + +"What might you be wanting, gentlemen?" he said gruffly. + +"Why, you know me, Daunt. I brought a friend up to look at your +wonderful place. We can walk through, can't we?" + +"Well, as you're here, Sir, I'll let you out by the lower gate. But +this is private ground, Sir, and Sir Wilfrid's orders are strict,--not +to let anybody through that hasn't either business with the house or an +order from himself." + +"All right. Let's have a look at the back and the terrace, and then +we'll be off; Sir Wilfrid coming here?" + +"Not that I know of, Sir," said the keeper shortly, striding on before +the two men, and quieting his dog, who was growling at their heels. + +As he spoke he led the way down a stately flight of stone steps by +which the famous eastern terrace at the back of the house was reached. +The three men and the dog disappeared from view. + +Steadily the sunset faded. An attacking host of cloud rushed upon it +from the sea, and quenched it. The lights in the windows of Monk +Lawrence went out. Dusk fell upon the house and all its approaches. + +Suddenly, two figures--figures of women--emerged in the twilight from +the thick plantation, which protected the house on the north. They +reached the flagged path with noiseless feet, and then pausing, they +began what an intelligent spectator would have soon seen to be a +careful reconnoitering of the whole northern side of the house. They +seemed to examine the windows, a garden door, the recesses in the +walls, the old lead piping, the creepers and shrubs. Then one of them, +keeping close to the house wall, which was in deep shadow, went quickly +round to the back. The other awaited her. In the distance rose at +intervals a dog's uneasy bark. + +In a very few minutes the woman who had gone round the house returned +and the two, slipping back into the dense belt of wood from which they +had come, were instantly swallowed up by it. Their appearance and their +movements throughout had been as phantom-like and silent as the shadows +which were now engulfing the house. Anyone who had seen them come and +go might almost have doubted his own eyes. + + * * * * * + +Daunt the Keeper returned leisurely to his quarters in some back +premises of Monk Lawrence, at the southeastern corner of the house. But +he had but just opened his own door when he again heard the sound of +footsteps in the fore-court. + +"Well, what's come to the folk to-night"--he muttered, with some +ill-humour, as he turned back towards the front. + +A woman!--standing with her back to the house, in the middle of the +forecourt as though the place belonged to her, and gazing at the piled +clouds of the west, still haunted by the splendour just past away. + +A veritable Masque of Women, all of the Maenad sort, had by now begun +to riot through Daunt's brain by night and day. He raised his voice +sharply-- + +"What's your business here, Ma'am? There is no public road past this +house." + +The lady turned, and came towards him. + +"Don't you know who I am, Mr. Daunt? But I remember you when I was a +child." + +Daunt peered through the dusk. + +"You have the advantage of me, Madam," he said, stiffly. "Kindly give +me your name." + +"Miss Blanchflower--from Maumsey Abbey!" said a young, conscious voice. +"I used to come here with my grandmother, Lady Blanchflower. I have +been intending to come and pay you a visit for a long time--to have a +look at the old house again. And just now I was passing the foot of +your hill in a motor; something went wrong with the car, and while they +were mending it, I ran up. But it's getting dark so quick, one can +hardly see anything!" + +Daunt's attitude showed no relaxation. Indeed, quick recollections +assailed him of certain reports in the local papers, now some ten days +old. Miss Blanchflower indeed! She was a brazen one--after all done and +said. + +"Pleased to see you, Miss, if you'll kindly get an order from Sir +Wilfrid. But I have strict instructions from Sir Wilfrid not to admit +anyone--not anyone whatsoever--to the gardens or the house, without his +order." + +"I should have thought, Mr. Daunt, that only applied to strangers." The +tones shewed annoyance. "My father, Sir Robert Blanchflower, was an old +friend of Sir Wilfrid's." + +"Can't help it, Miss," said Daunt, not without the secret zest of the +Radical putting down his "betters." "There are queer people about. I +can't let no one in without an order." + +As he spoke, a gate slammed on his left, and Daunt, with the feeling of +one beset, turned in wrath to see who might be this new intruder. Since +the house had been closed to visitors, and a notice to the effect had +been posted in the village, scarcely a soul had penetrated through its +enclosing woods, except Miss Amberley, who came to teach Daunts +crippled child. And now in one evening here were three assaults upon +its privacy! + +But as to the third he was soon reassured. + +"Hullo, Daunt, is that you? Did I hear you telling Miss Blanchflower +you can't let her in? But you know her of course?" said a man's easy +voice. + +Delia started. The next moment her hand was in her guardian's, and she +realised that he had heard the conversation between herself and Daunt, +realised also that she had committed a folly not easily to be +explained, either to Winnington or herself, in obeying the impulse +which--half memory, half vague anxiety,--had led her to pay this +sudden visit to the house. Gertrude Marvell had left Maumsey that +morning, saying she should be in London for the day. Had Gertrude been +with her, Delia would have let Monk Lawrence go by. For in Gertrude's +company it had become an instinct with her--an instinct she scarcely +confessed to herself--to avoid all reference to the house. + +At sight of Winnington, however, who was clearly a privileged person in +his eyes, Daunt instantly changed his tone. + +"Good evening, Sir. Perhaps you'll explain to this young lady? We've +got to keep a sharp lookout--you know that, Sir." + +"Certainly, Daunt, certainly. I am sure Miss Blanchflower understands. +But you'll let _me_ shew her the house, I imagine?" + +"Why, of course, Sir! There's nothing you can't do here. Give me a few +minutes--I'll turn on some lights. Perhaps the young lady will walk +in?" He pointed to his own rooms. "So you still keep the electric +light going?" + +"By Sir Wilfrid's wish, Sir,--so as if anything did happen these winter +nights, we mightn't be left in darkness. The engine works a bit now and +then." + +He led the way towards his quarters. The door into his kitchen stood +open, and in the glow of fire and lamp stood his three children, who +had been eagerly listening to the conversation outside. One of them, a +little girl, was leaning on a crutch. She looked up happily as +Winnington entered. + +"Well, Lily--" he pinched her cheek--"I've got something to tell Father +about you. Say 'how do you do' to this lady." The child put her hand in +Delia's, looking all the while ardently at Winnington. + +"Am I going to be in your school, Sir?" + +"If you're good. But you'll have to be dreadfully good!" + +"I am good," said Lily, confidently. "I want to be in your school, +please Sir." + +"But such a lot of other little girls want to come too! Must I leave +them out?" + +Lily shook her head perplexed. "But you promithed," she lisped, very +softly. + +Winnington laughed. The child's hand had transferred itself to his, and +nestled there. + +"What school does she mean?" asked Delia. + +At the sound of her voice Winnington turned to her for the first time. +It was as though till then he had avoided looking at her, lest the +hidden thought in each mind should be too plain to the other. He had +found her--Sir Robert Blanchflower's daughter--on the point of being +curtly refused admission to the house where her father had been a +familiar inmate, and where she herself had gone in and out as a child. +And he knew why; she knew why; Daunt knew why. She was a person under +suspicion, a person on whom the community was keeping watch. + +Nevertheless, Winnington entirely believed what he had overheard her +say to the keeper. It was no doubt quite true that she had turned aside +to see Monk Lawrence on a sudden impulse of sentiment or memory. Odd +that it should be so!--but like her. That _she_ could have any designs +on the beautiful old place was indeed incredible; and it was equally +incredible that she would aid or abet them in anyone else. And +yet--there was that monstrous speech at Latchford, made in her hearing, +by her friend and co-militant, the woman who shared her life! Was it +any wonder that Daunt bristled at the sight of her? + +He had, however, to answer her question. + +"My county school," he explained. "The school for invalid +children--'physical defectives'--that we are going to open next summer. +I came to tell Daunt there'd be a place for this child. She's an old +friend of mine." He smiled down upon the nestling creature--"Has Miss +Amberley been to see you lately, Lily?" + +At this moment Daunt returned to the kitchen, with the news that the +house was ready. "The light's not quite what it ought to be, Sir, but I +daresay you'll be able to see a good deal. Miss Amberley, Sir, she's +taught Lily fine. I'm sure we're very much obliged to her--and to you +for asking her." + +"I don't know what the sick children here will do without her, Daunt. +She's going away--wants to be a nurse." + +"Well, I'm very sorry, Sir. She'll be badly missed." + +"That she will. Shall we go in?" Winnington turned to Delia, who +nodded assent, and followed him into the dim passages beyond the +brightly-lighted kitchen. The children, looking after them, saw the +beautiful lady disappearing, and felt vaguely awed by her height, her +stiff carriage and her proud looks. + +Delia, indeed, was again--and as usual--in revolt, against herself and +circumstances. Why had she been such a fool as to come to Monk Lawrence +at all, and then to submit to seeing it--on sufferance!--in +Winnington's custody? And how he must be contrasting her with Susy +Amberley!--the soft sister of charity, plying her womanly tasks, in the +manner of all good women, since the world began! She saw herself as the +anarchist prowling outside, tracked, spied on, held at arm's length by +all decent citizens, all lovers of ancient beauty, and moral tradition; +while, within, women like Susy Amberley sat Madonna-like, with the +children at their knee. "Well, we stand for the children too--the +children of the future!" she said to herself defiantly. + +"This is the old hall--and the gallery that was put up in honour of +Elizabeth's visit here in 1570--" she heard Winnington saying--"One of +the finest things of its kind. But you can hardly see it." + +The electric light indeed was of the feeblest. A dim line of it ran +round the carved ceiling, and glimmered in the central chandelier. But +the mingled illumination of sunset and moonrise from outside contended +with it on more than equal terms; and everything in the hall, +tapestries, armour, and old oak, the gallery above, the dais with its +carved chairs below, had the dim mystery of a stage set ready for the +play, before the lights are on. + +Daunt apologised. + +"The gardener'll be here directly, Sir. He knows how to manage it +better than I." + +And in spite of protests from the two visitors he ran off again to see +what could he done to better the light. Delia turned impetuously on her +companion. + +"I know you think I have no business to be here!" + +Winnington paused a moment, then said-- + +"I was rather astonished to see you here, certainly." + +"Because of what we said at Latchford the other day?" + +"_You_ didn't say it!" + +"But I agreed with it--I agreed with every word of it!" + +"Then indeed I _am_ astonished that you should wish to see Sir Wilfrid +Lang's house!" he said, with energy. + +"My recollections of it have nothing to do with Sir Wilfrid. I never +saw him that I know of." + +"All the same, it belongs to him." + +"No!--to history--to the nation!" + +"Then let the nation guard it--and every individual in the nation! But +do you think Miss Marvell would take much pains to protect it?" + +"Gertrude said nothing about the house." "No; but if I had been one of +the excitable women you command, my one desire after that speech would +have been to do some desperate damage to Sir Wilfrid, or his property. +If anything does happen, I am afraid everyone in the neighbourhood will +regard her as responsible." + +Delia moved impatiently. "Can't we say what we think of Sir +Wilfrid--because he happens to possess a beautiful house?" + +"If you care for Monk Lawrence, you do so,--with this campaign on +foot--only at great risk. Confess, Miss Delia!--that you were sorry for +that speech!" + +He turned upon her with animation. + +She spoke as though under pressure, her head thrown back, her face +ivory within the black frame of the veil. + +"I--I shouldn't have made it." + +"That's not enough. I want to hear you say you regret it!" + +The light suddenly increased, and she saw him looking at her, his +eyes bright and urgent, his attitude that of the strong yet mild +judge, whose own moral life watches keenly for any sign of grace in +the accused before him. She realised for an angry moment what his +feeling must be--how deep and invincible, towards these "outrages" +which she and Gertrude Marvell regarded by now as so natural and +habitual--outrages that were calmly planned and organised, as she knew +well, at the head offices of their society, by Gertrude Marvell among +others, and acquiesced in--approved--by hundreds of persons like +herself, who either shrank from taking a direct part in them, or had no +opportunity of doing so. "But I shall soon make opportunities!--" she +thought, passionately; "I'm not going to be a shirker!" Aloud she said +in her stiffest manner--"I stand by my friends, Mr. Winnington, +especially when they are ten times better and nobler than I!" + +His expression changed. He turned, like any courteous stranger, to +playing the part of showman of the house. Once more a veil had fallen +between them. + +He led her through the great suite of rooms on the ground-floor, the +drawing-room, the Red Parlour, the Chinese room, the Library. They +recalled her childish visits to the house with her grandmother, and a +score of recollections, touching or absurd, rushed into her mind--but +not to her lips. Dumbness had fallen on her;--nothing seemed worth +saying, and she hurried through. She was conscious only of a rich +confused impression of old seemliness and mellowed beauty,--steeped in +fragrant and famous memories, English history, English poetry, English +art, breathing from every room and stone of the house. "In the Red +Parlour, Sidney wrote part of the 'Arcadia.'--In the room overhead +Gabriel Harvey slept.--In the Porch rooms Chatham stayed--his autograph +is there.--Fox advised upon all the older portion of the Library"--and +so on. She heard Winnington's voice as though through a dream. What did +it matter? She felt the house an oppression--as though it accused or +threatened her. + +As they emerged from the library into a broad passage, Winnington +noticed a garden door at the north end of the passage, and called to +Daunt who was walking behind them. They went to look at it, leaving +Delia in the corridor. + +"Not very secure, is it?" said Winnington, pointing to the glazed upper +half of the door--"anyone might get in there." + +"I've told Sir Wilfrid, Sir, and sent him the measurements. There's to +be an iron shutter." + +"H'm--that may take time. Why not put up something +temporary?--cross-bars of some sort?" + +They came back towards Delia, discussing it. Unreasonably, absurdly, +she held it an offence that Winnington should discuss it in her +presence; her breath grew stormy. + +Daunt turned to the right at the foot of a carved staircase, and down a +long passage leading to the kitchens, he and Winnington still talking. +Suddenly--a short flight of steps, not very visible in a dark place. +Winnington descended them, and then turned to look for Delia who was +just behind-- + +"Please take care!--" + +But he was too late. Head in air--absorbed in her own passionate mood, +Delia never saw the steps, till her foot slipped on the topmost. She +would have fallen headlong, had not Winnington caught her. His arms +received her, held her, released her. The colour rushed into his face +as into hers. "You are not hurt?" he said anxiously. "I ought to have +held a light," said Daunt, full of concern. But the little incident had +broken the ice. Delia laughed, and straightened her Cavalier hat, which +had suffered. She was still rosy as they entered Daunt's kitchen, and +the children who had seen her silent and haughty entrance, hardly +recognised the creature all life and animation who returned to them. + +The car stood waiting in the fore-court. Winnington put her in. As +Delia descended the hill alone in the dark, she closed her eyes, that +she might the more completely give herself to the conflict of thoughts +which possessed her. She was bitterly ashamed and sore, torn between +her passionate affection for Gertrude Marvell, and what seemed to her a +weak and traitorous wish to stand better with Mark Winnington. Nor +could she escape from the memory--the mere physical memory--of those +strong arms round her, resent it as she might. + + * * * * * + +As for Winnington, when he reached home in the moonlight, instead of +going in to join his sister at tea, he paced a garden path till night +had fallen. What was this strong insurgent feeling he could neither +reason with nor silence? It seemed to have stolen upon him, amid a host +of other thoughts and pre-occupations, secretly and insidiously, till +there it stood--full-grown--his new phantom self--challenging the old, +the normal self, face to face. + +Trouble, self-scorn overwhelmed him. Recalling all his promises +to himself, all his assurances to Lady Tonbridge, he stood convicted, +as the sentry who has shut his eyes and let the invader pass. +Monstrous!--that in his position, with this difference of age between +them, he should have allowed such ideas to grow and gather head. +Beautiful wayward creature!--all the more beguiling, because of the +Difficulties that bristled round her. His common sense, his judgment +were under no illusions at all about Delia Blanchflower. And yet-- + +This then was _passion_!--which must be held down and reasoned down. +He would reason it down. She must and should marry a man of her own +generation--youth with youth. And, moreover, to give way to these wild +desires would be simply to alienate her, to destroy all his own power +with her for good. + +The ghostly presence of his life came to him. He cried out to her, made +appeal to her, in sackcloth and ashes. And then, in some mysterious, +heavenly way she was revealed to him afresh; not as an enemy whom he +had offended, not as a lover slighted, but as his best and tenderest +friend. She closed no gates against the future:--that was for himself +to settle, if closed they were to be. She seemed to walk with him, hand +in hand, sister with brother--in a deep converse of souls. + + + + +Chapter XI + + +Gertrude Marvell was sitting alone at the Maumsey breakfast-table, in +the pale light of a December day. All around her were letters and +newspapers, to which she was giving an attention entirely denied to her +meal. She opened them one after another, with a frown or a look of +satisfaction, classifying them in heaps as she read, and occasionally +remembering her coffee or her toast. The parlourmaid waited on her, but +knew very well--and resented the knowledge--that Miss Marvell was +scarcely aware of her existence, or her presence in the room. + +But presently the lady at the table asked-- + +"Is Miss Blanchflower getting up?" + +"She will be down directly, Miss." + +Gertrude's eyebrows rose, unconsciously. She herself was never late for +an 8:30 breakfast, and never went to bed till long after midnight. The +ways of Delia, who varied between too little sleep and the long nights +of fatigue, seemed to her self-indulgent. + +After her letters had been put aside and the ordinary newspapers, she +took up a new number of the _Tocsin_. The first page was entirely given +up to an article headed "How LONG?" She read it with care, her delicate +mouth tightening a little. She herself had suggested the lines of it a +few days before, to the Editor, and her hints had been partially +carried out. It gave a scathing account of Sir Wilfrid's course on the +suffrage question--of his earlier coquettings with the woman's cause, +his defection and "treachery," the bitter and ingenious hostility with +which he was now pursuing the Bill before the House of Commons. "An +amiable, white-haired nonentity for the rest of the world--who only +mention him to marvel that such a man was ever admitted to an English +Cabinet--to us he is the 'smiler with the knife,' the assassin of the +hopes of women, the reptile in the path. The Bill is weakening every +day in the House, and on the night of the second reading it will +receive its 'coup de grace' from the hand of Sir Wilfrid Lang. Women of +England--_how long_!--" + +Gertrude pushed the newspaper aside in discontent. Her critical sense +was beginning to weary of the shrieking note. And the descent from the +"assassin of the hopes of women" to "the reptile in the path" struck +her as a silly bathos. + +Suddenly, a reverie--a waking dream--fell upon her, a visionary +succession of sights and sounds. A dying sunset--and a rising wind, +sighing through dense trees--old walls--the light from a kitchen +window--voices in the distance--the barking of a dog.... + +"Oh Gertrude!--how late I am!" + +Delia entered hurriedly, with an anxious air. + +"I should have been down long ago, but Weston had one of her attacks, +and I have been looking after her." + +Weston was Delia's maid who had been her constant companion for ten +years. She was a delicate nervous woman, liable to occasional onsets of +mysterious pain, which terrified both herself and her mistress, and had +hitherto puzzled the doctor. + +Gertrude received the news with a passing concern. + +"Better send for France, if you are worried. But I expect it will be +soon over." + +"I don't know. It seems worse than usual. The man in Paris threatened +an operation. And here we are--going up to London in a fortnight!" + +"Well, you need only send her to the Brownmouth hospital, or leave her +here with France and a good nurse." + +"She has the most absurd terror of hospitals, and I certainly couldn't +leave her," said Delia, with a furrowed brow. + +"You certainly couldn't stay behind!" Gertrude looked up pleasantly. + +"Of course I want to come--" said Delia slowly. + +"Why, darling, how could we do without you? You don't know how you're +wanted. Whenever I go up town, it's the same--'When's she coming?' Of +course they understood you must be here for a while--but the heart of +things, the things that concern _us_--is London." + +"What did you hear yesterday?" asked Delia, helping herself to some +very cold coffee. Nothing was ever kept warm for her, the owner of the +house; everything was always kept warm for Gertrude. Yet the fact arose +from no Sybaritic tendency whatever on Gertrude's part. Food, clothing, +sleep--no religious ascetic could have been more sparing than she, in +her demands upon them. She took them as they came--well or ill +supplied; too pre-occupied to be either grateful or discontented. And +what she neglected for herself, she equally neglected for other people. + +"What did I hear?" repeated Gertrude. "Well, of course, everything is +rushing on. There is to be a raid on Parliament as soon as the session +begins--and a deputation to Downing Street. A number of new plans, and +devices are being discussed. And there seemed to me to be more +volunteers than ever for 'special service'?" + +She looked up quietly and her eyes met Delia's;--in hers a steely +ardour, in Delia's a certain trouble. + +"Well, we want some cheering up," said the girl, rather wearily. "Those +two last meetings were--pretty depressing!--and so were the +bye-elections." + +She was thinking of the two open-air meetings at Brownmouth and +Frimpton. There had been no violence offered to the speakers, as in the +Latchford case; the police had seen to that. Her guardian had made no +appearance at either, satisfied, no doubt, after enquiry, that she was +not likely to come to harm. But the evidence of public disapproval +could scarcely have been more chilling--more complete. Both her +speaking, and that of Gertrude and Paul Lathrop, seemed to her to have +dropped dead in exhausted air. An audience of boys and girls--an +accompaniment of faint jeers, testifying rather to boredom than +hostility--a sense of blank waste and futility when all was over:--her +recollection had little else to shew. + +Gertrude interrupted her thought. + +"My dear Delia!--what you want is to get out of this backwater, and +back into the main stream! Even I get stale here. But in those great +London meetings--there one catches on again!--one realises again--what +it all _means_! Why not come up with me next week, even if the flat's +not ready? I can't have you running down like this! Let's hurry up and +get to London." + +The speaker had risen, and standing behind Delia, she laid her hand on +the waves of the girl's beautiful hair. Delia looked up. + +"Very well. Yes, I'll come. I've been getting depressed. I'll come--at +least if Weston's all right." + + * * * * * + +"I'm afraid, Miss Blanchflower, this is a very serious business!" + +Dr. France was the speaker. He stood with his back to the fire, and his +hands behind him, surveying Delia with a look of absent thoughtfulness; +the look of a man of science on the track of a problem. + +Delia's aspect was one of pale consternation. She had just heard that +the only hope of the woman, now wrestling upstairs with agonies of +pain, lay in a critical and dangerous operation, for which at least a +fortnight's preliminary treatment would be necessary. A nurse was to be +sent for at once, and the only question to be decided was where and by +whom the thing was to be done. + +"We _can_ move her," said France, meditatively; "though I'd rather not. +And of course a hospital is the best place." + +"She won't go! Her mother died in a hospital, and Weston thinks she was +neglected." + +"Absurd! I assure you," said France warmly. "Nobody is neglected in +hospitals." + +"But one can't persuade her--and if she's forced against her will, +it'll give her no chance!" said Delia in distress. "No, it must be +here. You say we can get a good man from Brownmouth?" + +They discussed the possibilities of an operation at Maumsey. + +Insensibly the doctor's tone during the conversation grew more +friendly, as it proceeded. A convinced opponent of "feminism" in all +its forms, he had thought of Delia hitherto as merely a wrong-headed, +foolish girl, and could hardly bring himself to be civil at all to her +chaperon, who in his eyes belonged to a criminal society, and was +almost certainly at that very moment engaged in criminal practices. But +Delia, absorbed in the distresses of someone she cared for, all heart +and eager sympathy, her loveliness lending that charm to all she said +and looked which plainer women must so frequently do without was a very +mollifying and ingratiating spectacle. France began to think +her--misled and unbalanced of course--but sound at bottom. He ended by +promising to make all arrangements himself, and to go in that very +afternoon to see the great man at Brownmouth. + +When Delia returned to her maid's room, the morphia which had been +administered was beginning to take effect, and Weston, an elderly woman +with a patient, pleasing face, lay comparatively at rest, her tremulous +look expressing at once the keenness of the suffering past, and the +bliss of respite. Delia bent over her, dim-eyed. + +"Dear Weston--we've arranged it all--it's going to be done here. You'll +be at home--and I shall look after you." + +Weston put out a clammy hand and faintly pressed Delia's warm fingers-- + +"But you were going to London, Miss. I don't want to put you out so." + +"I shan't go till you're out of the wood, so go to sleep--and don't +worry." + + * * * * * + +"Delia!--for Heaven's sake be reasonable. Leave Weston to France, and a +couple of good nurses. She'll be perfectly looked after. You'll put out +all out plans--you'll risk everything!" + +Gertrude Marvell had risen from her seat in front of a crowded desk. +The secretary who generally worked with her in the old gun room, now +become a militant office, had disappeared in obedience to a signal from +her chief. Anger and annoyance were plainly visible on Gertrude's small +chiselled features. + +Delia shook her head. + +"I can't!" she said. "I've promised. Weston has pulled _me_ through two +bad illnesses--once when I had pneumonia in Paris--and once after a +fall out riding. I daresay I shouldn't be here at all, but for her. If +she's going to have a fight for her life--and Doctor France doesn't +promise she'll get through--I shall stand by her." + +Gertrude grew a little sallower than usual as her black eyes fastened +themselves on the girl before her who had hitherto seemed so ductile in +her hands. It was not so much the incident itself that alarmed her as a +certain new tone in Delia's voice. + +"I thought we had agreed--that nothing--_nothing_--was to come before +the Cause!" she said quietly, but insistently. + +Delia's laugh was embarrassed. + +"I never promised to desert Weston, Gertrude. I couldn't--any more than +I could desert you." + +"We shall want every hand--every ounce of help that can be got--through +January and February. You undertook to do some office work, to help in +the organisation of the processions to Parliament, to speak at a number +of meetings--" + +Delia interrupted. + +"As soon as Weston is out of danger, I'll go--of course I'll go!--about +a month from now, perhaps less. You will have the flat, Gertrude, all +the same, and as much money as I can scrape together--after the +operation's paid for. I don't matter a tenth part as much as you, you +know I don't; I haven't been at all a success at these meetings +lately!" + +There was a certain young bitterness in the tone. + +"Well, of course you know what people will say." + +"That I'm shirking--giving in? Well, you can contradict it." + +Delia turned from the window beside which she was standing to look at +Gertrude. A pale December sunshine shone on the girl's half-seen face, +and on the lines of her black dress. A threatening sense of change, +mingled with a masterful desire to break down the resistance offered, +awoke in Gertrude. But she restrained the dictatorial instinct. +Instead, she sat down beside the desk again, and covered her face with +her hand. + +"If I couldn't contradict it--if I couldn't be sure of you--I might as +well kill myself," she said with sudden and volcanic passion, though in +a voice scarcely raised above its ordinary note. + +Delia came to her impulsively, knelt down and put her arms round her. + +"You know you can be sure of me!" she said, reproachfully. + +Gertrude held her away from her. Her eyes examined the lovely face so +close to her. + +"On the contrary! You are being influenced against me." + +Delia laughed. + +"By whom, please?" + +"By the man who has you in his power--under our abominable laws." + +"By my guardian?--by Mark Winnington? Really! Gertrude! Considering +that I had a fresh quarrel with him only last week--on your account--at +Monk Lawrence--" + +Gertrude released herself by a sudden movement. + +"When were you at Monk Lawrence?" + +"Why, that afternoon, when you were in town. I missed my train at +Latchford, and took a motor home." There was some consciousness in the +girl's look and tone which did not escape her companion. She was +evidently aware that her silence on the incident might appear strange +to Gertrude. However, she frankly described her adventure, Daunt's +surliness, and Winnington's appearance. + +"He arrived in the nick of time, and made Daunt let me in. Then, while +we were going round, he began to talk about your speech, and wanted to +make me say I was sorry for it. And I wouldn't! And then--well, he +thought very poorly of me--and we parted--coolly. We've scarcely met +since. And that's all." + +"What speech?" Gertrude was sitting erect now with queerly bright eyes. + +"The speech about Sir Wilfrid--at Latchford." + +"What else does he expect?" + +"I don't know. But--well, I may as well say, Gertrude--to you, though I +wouldn't say it to him--that I--I didn't much admire that speech +either!" + +Delia was now sitting on the floor with her hands round her knees, +looking up. The slight stiffening of her face shewed that it had been +an effort to say what she had said. + +"So _you_ think that Lang ought to be approached with 'bated breath and +whispering humbleness'--just as he is on the point of trampling us and +our cause into the dirt?" + +"No--certainly not! But why hasn't he as good a right to his opinion as +we to ours--without being threatened with personal violence?" + +Gertrude drew a long breath of amazement. + +"I don't quite see, Delia, why you ever joined the 'Daughters'--or why +you stay with them." + +"That's not fair!"--protested Delia, the colour flooding in her cheeks. +"As for burning stupid villas--that are empty and insured--or +boathouses--or piers--or tea-pavilions, to keep the country in +mind of us,--that's one thing. But threatening _persons_ with +violence--that's--somehow--another thing. And as to villas and piers +even--to be quite honest--I sometimes wonder, Gertrude!--I declare, I'm +beginning to wonder! And why shouldn't one take up one's policy from +time to time and look at it, all round, with a free mind? We haven't +been doing particularly well lately." + +Gertrude laughed--a dry, embittered sound--as she pushed the _Tocsin_ +from her. + +"Oh well, of course, if you're going to desert us in the worst of the +fight, and to follow your guardian's lead--" + +"But I'm not!" cried Delia, springing to her feet. "Try me. Haven't I +promised--a hundred things? Didn't I say all you expected me to say at +Latchford? And, on the whole"--her voice dragged a little--"the empty +houses and the cricket pavilions--still seem to me fair game. It's +only--as to the good it does. Of course--if it were Monk Lawrence--" + +"Well--if it were Monk Lawrence?" + +"I should think that a crime! I told you so before." + +"Why?" + +Delia looked at her friend with a contracted brow. + +"Because--it's a national possession! Lang's only the temporary +owner--the trustee. We've no right to destroy what belongs to +_England_." + +Gertrude laughed again--as she rose from the tea-table. + +"Well, as long as women are slaves, I don't see what England matters to +them. However, don't trouble yourself. Monk Lawrence is all right. And +Mr. Winnington's a charmer--we all know that." + +Delia flushed angrily. But Gertrude, having gathered up her papers, +quietly departed, leaving her final shaft to work. + +Delia went back to her own sitting-room, but was too excited, too +tremulous indeed, to settle to her letters. She had never yet found +herself in direct collision with Gertrude, impetuous as her own temper +was. Their friendship had now lasted nearly three years. She looked +back to their West Indian acquaintance, that first year of adoration, +of long-continued emotion,--mind and heart growing and blossoming +together. Gertrude, during that year, had not only aroused her pupil's +intelligence; she had taught a motherless girl what the love of women +may be for each other. To make Gertrude happy, to be approved by her, +to watch her, to sit at her feet--the girl of nineteen had asked +nothing more. Gertrude's accomplishments, her coolness, her +self-reliance, the delicate precision of her small features and frame, +the grace of her quiet movements, her cold sincerity, the unyielding +scorns, the passionate loves and hates that were gradually to be +discovered below the even dryness of her manner,--by these Delia had +been captured; by these indeed, she was still held. Gertrude was to her +everything that she herself was not. And when her father had insisted +on separating her from her friend, her wild resentment, and her girlish +longing for the forbidden had only increased Gertrude's charm tenfold. + +The eighteen months of their separation, too, had coincided with the +rise of that violent episode in the feminist movement which was +represented by the founding and organisation of the "Daughters" +society. Gertrude though not one of the first contrivers and +instigators of it, had been among the earliest of its converts. Its +initial successes had been the subject of all her letters to Delia; +Delia had walked on air to read them. At last the world was moving, was +rushing--and it seemed that Gertrude was in the van. Women were at last +coming to their own; forcing men to acknowledge them as equals and +comrades; and able to win victory, not by the old whining and +wheedling, but by their own strength. The intoxication of it filled the +girl's days and nights. She thought endlessly of processions and raids, +of street-preaching, or Hyde Park meetings. Gertrude went to prison for +a few days as the result of a raid on Downing Street. Delia, in one +dull hotel after another, wearily following her father from "cure" to +"cure," dreamed hungrily and enviously of Gertrude's more heroic fate. +Everything in those days was haloed for her--the Movement, its first +violent acts, what Gertrude did, and what Gertrude thought--she saw it +all transfigured and aflame. + +And now, since her father's death, they had been four months +together--she and her friend--in the closest intimacy, sharing--or so +Delia supposed--every thought and every prospect. Delia for the greater +part of that time _had_ been all glad submission and unquestioning +response. It was quite natural--absolutely right--that Gertrude should +command her house, her money, her daily life. She only waited for +Gertrude's orders; it would be her pride to carry them out. Until-- + +What had happened? The girl, standing motionless beside her window, +confessed to herself, as she had not been willing to confess to +Gertrude, that something _had_ happened--some change of climate and +temperature in her own life. + +In the first place, the Movement was not prospering. Why deny it? Who +could deny it? Its first successes were long past; its uses as +advertisement were exhausted; the old violences and audacities, as they +were repeated, fell dead. The cause of Woman Suffrage had certainly not +advanced. Check after check had been inflicted on it. The number of its +supporters in the House of Commons had gone down and down. By-elections +were only adding constantly to the number of its opponents. + +"Well, what then?"--said the stalwarts of the party--"More outrages, +more arson, more violence! We _must_ win at last!" And, meanwhile, +blowing through England like a steadily increasing gale, could be felt +the force of public anger, public condemnation. + +Delia since her return to England had felt the chill of it, for the +first time, on her own nerves and conscience. For the first time she +had winced--morally--even while she mocked at her own shrinking. + +Was that Gertrude pacing outside? The day was dark and stormy. But +Gertrude, who rarely took a walk for pleasure, scarcely ever missed the +exercise which was necessary to keep her in health. Her slight figure, +wrapped in a fur cape, paced a sheltered walk. Her shoulders were bent, +her eyes on the ground. Suddenly it struck Delia that she had begun to +stoop, that she looked older and thinner than usual. + +"She is killing herself!"--thought the girl in a sudden +anguish--"killing herself with work and anxiety. And yet she always +says she is so strong. What can I do? There is nobody that matters to +her--nobody!--but me!" + +And she recalled all she knew--it was very little--of Gertrude's +personal history. She had been unhappy at home. Her mother, a widow, +had never been able to get on with her elder daughter, while petting +and spoiling her only son and her younger girl, who was ten years +Gertrude's junior. Gertrude had been left a small sum of money by a +woman friend, and had spent it in going to a west-country university +and taking honours in history. She never spoke now of either her mother +or her sister. Her sister was married, but Gertrude held no +communication with her or her children. Delia had always felt it +impossible to ask questions about her, and believed, with a thrilled +sense of mystery, that some tragic incident or experience had separated +the two sisters. Her brother also, it seemed, was as dead to her. But +on all such personal matters Gertrude's silence was insuperable, and +Delia knew no more of them than on the first day of their meeting. + +Indomitable figure! Worn with effort and struggle--worn above all with +_hating_. Delia looked at it with a sob in her throat. Surely, surely, +the great passion, the great uplifting faith they had felt in common, +was vital, was true! Only, somehow, after the large dreams and hopes of +the early days, to come down to this perpetual campaign of petty +law-breaking, and futile outrage, to these odious meetings and shrieking +newspapers, was to be--well, discouraged!--heart-wearied. + +"Only, she is not wearied, or discouraged!" thought Delia, +despairingly. "And why am I?" + +Was it hatefully true--after all--that she was being influenced--drawn +away? + +The girl flushed, breathing quick. She must master herself!--get rid of +this foolish obsession of Winnington's presence and voice--of a pair of +grave, kind eyes--a look now perplexed, now sternly bright--a +personality, limited no doubt, not very accessible to what Gertrude +called "ideas," not quick to catch the last new thing, but honest, +noble, tender, through and through. + +Absurd! She was holding her own with him; she would hold her own. That +very day she must grapple with him afresh. She had sent him a note that +morning, and he had replied in a message that he would ride over to +luncheon. + +For the question of money was urgent. Delia was already overdrawn. Yet +supplies were wanted for the newly rented flat, for Weston's operation, +for Gertrude's expenses in London--for a hundred things. + +She paced up and down, imagining the conversation, framing eloquent +defences for her conduct, and again, from time to time, meanly, +shamefacedly reminding herself of Winnington's benefit under the will. +If she was a nuisance, she was at least a fairly profitable nuisance. + + * * * * * + +Winnington duly arrived at luncheon. The two ladies appeared to him as +usual--Gertrude Marvell, self-possessed and quietly gay, ready to +handle politics or books, on so light a note, that Winnington's acute +recollection of her, as the haranguing fury on the Latchford waggon, +began to seem absurd even to himself. Delia also, lovely, restless, +with bursts of talk, and more significant bursts of silence, produced +on him her normal effect--as of a creature made for all delightful +uses, and somehow jangled and out of tune. + +After luncheon, she led the way to her own sitting-room. "I am afraid I +must talk business," she said abruptly as she closed the door and stood +confronting him. "I am overdrawn, Mr. Winnington, and I must have some +more money." + +Winnington laid down his cigarette, and looked at her in open-mouthed +amazement. + +"Overdrawn!--but--we agreed--" + +"I know. You gave me what you thought was ample. Well, I have spent it, +and there is nothing left to pay house bills, or servants with, or--or +anything." + +Her pale defiance gave him at once a hint of the truth. + +"I fear I must ask what it has been spent on," he said, after a pause. + +"Certainly. I gave L500 of it in one cheque to Miss Marvell. Of course +you will guess how it has been spent." + +Winnington took up his cigarette again, and smoked it thoughtfully. His +colour was, perhaps, a little higher than usual. + +"I am sorry you have done that. It makes it rather awkward both for you +and for me. Perhaps I had better explain. The lawyers have been +settling the debts on your father's estate. That took a considerable +sum. A mortgage has been paid off, according to directions in Sir +Robert's will. And some of the death duties have been paid. For the +moment there is no money at all in the Trust account. I hope to have +replenished it by the New Year, when I understood you would want fresh +funds." + +He sat on the arm of a chair and looked at her quietly. + +Delia made no attempt at explanation or argument. After a short +silence, she said-- + +"What will you do?" + +"I must, of course, lend you some of my own." + +Delia flushed violently. + +"That is surely absurd, Mr. Winnington! My father left a large sum!" + +"As his trustee I can only repeat that until some further securities +are realised--which may take a little time--I have no money. But _you_ +must have money--servants and tradesmen can't go unpaid. I will give +you, therefore, a cheque on my own bank--to replace that L500." + +He drew his cheque book from his breast pocket. Delia was stormily +walking up and down. It struck him sharply, first that she was wholly +taken by surprise; and next that shock and emotion play finely with +such a face as hers. He had never seen her so splendid. His own pulses +ran. + +"This--this is not at all what I want, Mr. Winnington! I want my own +money--my father's money! Why should I distress and inconvenience you?" + +"I have tried to explain." + +"Then let the lawyers find it somehow. Aren't they there to do such +things?" + +"I assure you this is simplest. I happen"--he smiled--"to have enough +in the bank. Alice and I can manage quite well till January!" + +The mention of Mrs. Matheson was quite intolerable in Delia's ears. She +turned upon him-- + +"I can't accept it! You oughtn't to ask it." + +"I think you must accept it," he said with decision. "But the important +question with me is--the further question--am I not really bound to +restore this money to your father's estate?" + +Delia stared at him bewildered. + +"What _do_ you mean!" + +"Your father made me his trustee in order that I might protect his +money--from uses of which he disapproved--and protect you, if I could, +from actions and companions he dreaded. This L500 has gone--where he +expressly wished it not to go. It seems to me that I am liable, and +that I ought to repay." + +Delia gasped. + +"I never heard anything so absurd!" + +"I will consider it," he said gravely. "It is a case of conscience. +Meanwhile"--he began to write the cheque--"here is the money. Only, let +me warn you, dear Miss Delia,--if this were repeated, I might find +myself embarrassed. I am not a rich man!" + +Silence. He finished writing the cheque, and handed it to her. Delia +pushed it away, and it dropped on the table between them. + +"It is simply tyranny--monstrous tyranny--that I should be coerced like +this!" she said, choking. "You must feel it so yourself! Put yourself +in my place, Mr. Winnington." + +"I think--I am first bound--to try and put myself in your father's +place," he said, with vivacity. "Where has that money gone, Miss +Delia?" + +He rose, and in his turn began to pace the little room. "It has been +proved, in evidence, that a great deal of this outrage is _paid_ +outrage--that it could not be carried on without money--however madly +and fanatically devoted, however personally disinterested the +organisers of it may be--such as Miss Marvell. You have, therefore, +taken your father's money to provide for this payment--payment for all +that his soul most abhorred. His will was his last painful effort to +prevent this being done. And yet--you have done it!" + +He looked at her steadily. + +"One may seem to do evil"--she panted--"but we have a faith, a cause, +which justifies it!" + +He shook his head sadly, + +Delia sat very still, tormented by a score of harassing thoughts. If +she could not provide money for the "Daughters" what particular use +could she be to Gertrude, or Gertrude's Committee? She could speak, and +walk in processions, and break up meetings. But so could hundreds of +others. It was her fortune--she knew it--that had made her so important +in Gertrude's eyes. It had always been assumed between them that a +little daring and a little adroitness would break through the meshes of +her father's will. And how difficult it was turning out to be! + +At that moment, an idea occurred to her. Her face, responsive as a +wave to the wind, relaxed. Its sullenness disappeared in sudden +brightness--in something like triumph. She raised her eyes. Their +tremulous, half whimsical look set Winnington wondering what she could +be going to say next. + +"You seem to have beaten me," she said, with a little nod--"or you +think you have." + +"I have no thoughts that you mightn't know," was the quiet reply. + +"You want me to promise not to do it again?" + +"If you mean to keep it." + +As he stood by the fire, looking down upon her rather sternly--she yet +perceived in his grey eyes, something of that expression she had seen +there at their first meeting--as though the heart of a good man tried +to speak to her. The same expression--and yet different; with something +added and interfused, which moved her strangely. + +"Odd as it may seem, I will keep it!" she said. "Yet without giving up +any earlier purpose, or promise, whatever." Each word was emphasized. + +His face changed. + +"I won't worry _you_ in any such way again," she added hastily and +proudly. + +Some other words were on her lips, but she checked them. She held out +her hand for the cheque, and the smile with which she accepted it, +after her preceding passion, puzzled him. + +She locked up the cheque in a drawer of her writing-table. Winnington's +horse passed the window, and he rose to go. She accompanied him to the +hall door and waved a light farewell. Winnington's response was +ceremonious. A sure instinct told him to shew no further softness. His +dilemma was getting worse and worse, and Lady Tonbridge had been no use +to him whatever. + + + + +Chapter XII + + +One of the first days of the New year rose clear and frosty. When the +young housemaid who had temporarily replaced Weston as Delia's maid +drew back her curtains at half-past seven, Delia caught a vision of an +opaline sky with a sinking moon and fading stars. A strewing of snow +lay on the ground, and the bare black trees rose, vividly separate, on +the white stretches of grass. Her window looked to the north along the +bases of the low range of hills which shut in the valley and the +village. A patch of paler colour on the purple slope of the hills +marked the long front of Monk Lawrence. + +As she sleepily roused herself, she saw her bed littered with dark +objects--two leather boxes of some size, and a number of miscellaneous +cases--and when the maid had left the room, she lay still, looking at +them. They were the signs and symbols of an enquiry she had lately been +conducting into her possessions, which seemed to her to have yielded +very satisfactory results. They represented in the main the contents of +a certain cupboard in the wall of her bedroom where Lady Blanchflower +had always kept her jewels, and where, in consequence, Weston had so +far locked away all that Delia possessed. Here were all her own girlish +ornaments--costly things which her father had given her at intervals +during the three or four years since her coming out; here were her +Mother's jewels, which Sir Robert had sent to his bankers after his +wife's death, and had never seen again during his lifetime; and here +were also a number of family jewels which had belonged to Delia's +grandmother, and had remained, after Lady Blanchflower's death, in the +custody of the family lawyers, till Delia, to whom they had been left +by will, had appeared to claim them. + +Delia had always known that she possessed a quantity of valuable +things, and had hitherto felt but small interest in them. Gertrude's +influence, and her own idealism had bred in her contempt for gauds. It +was the worst of breeding to wear anything for its mere money value; +and nothing whatever should be worn that wasn't in itself beautiful. +Lady Blanchflower's taste had been, in Delia's eyes, abominable; and +her diamonds,--tiaras, pendants and the rest--had absolutely nothing to +recommend them but their sheer brute cost. After a few glances at them, +the girl had shut them up and forgotten them. + +But they _were_ diamonds, and they must be worth some thousands. + +It was this idea which had flashed upon her during her last talk with +Winnington, and she had been brooding over it, and pondering it ever +since. Winnington himself was away. He and his sister had been spending +Christmas with some cousins in the midlands. Meanwhile Delia recognised +that his relation to her had been somewhat strained. His letters to her +on various points of business had been more formal than usual; and +though he had sent her a pocket Keats for a Christmas present, it had +arrived accompanied merely by his "kind regards" and she had felt +unreasonably aggrieved, and much inclined to send it back. His +cheque meanwhile for L500 had gone into Delia's bank. No help for +it--considering all the Christmas bills which had been pouring in! But +she panted for the time when she could return it. + +As for his threat of permanently refunding the money out of his own +pocket, she remembered it with soreness of spirit. Too bad! + +Well, there they lay, on the counterpane all round her--the means of +checkmating her guardian. For while she was rummaging in the wall-safe, +the night before, suddenly the fire had gone down, and the room had +sunk to freezing point. Delia, brought up in warm climates, had jumped +shivering into bed, and there, heaped round with the contents of the +cupboard, had examined a few more cases, till sleep and cold +overpowered her. + +In the grey morning light she opened some of the cases again. Vulgar +and ugly, if you like--but undeniably, absurdly worth money! Her dark +eyes caught the sparkle of the jewels running through her fingers. +These tasteless things--mercifully--were her own--her very own. +Winnington had nothing to say to them! She could wear them--or give +them--or sell them, as she pleased. + +She was alternately exultant, and strangely full of a fluttering +anxiety. The thought of returning Winnington's cheque was sweet to her. +But her disputes with him had begun to cost her more than she had ever +imagined they could or would. And the particular way out, which, a few +weeks before, she had so impatiently desired--that he should resign the +guardianship, and leave her to battle with the Court of Chancery as +best she could--was no longer so attractive to her. To be cherished and +cared for by Mark Winnington--no woman yet, but had found it +delightful. Insensibly Delia had grown accustomed to it--to his comings +and goings, his business-ways, abrupt sometimes, even peremptory, but +informed always by a kindness, a selflessness that amazed her. +Everyone wanted his help or advice, and he must refuse now--as he had +never refused before--because his time and thoughts were so much taken +up with his ward's affairs. Delia knew that she was envied; and knew +also that the neighbours thought her an ungrateful, unmanageable +hoyden, totally unworthy of such devotion. + +She sat up in bed, dreaming, her hands round her knees. No, she didn't +want Winnington to give her up! Especially since she had found this +easy way out. Why should there be any more friction between them at +all? All that _he_ gave her henceforward should be religiously spent on +the normal and necessary things. She would keep accounts if he liked, +like any good little girl, and shew them up. Let him do with the trust +fund exactly what he pleased. For a long time at any rate, she could be +independent of it. Why had she never thought of such a device before? + +But how to realise the jewels? In all business affairs, Delia was the +merest child. She had been brought up in the midst of large +expenditure, of which she had been quite unconscious. All preoccupation +with money had seemed to her mean and pettifogging. Have it!--and +spend it on what you want. But wants must be governed by ideas--by +ethical standards. To waste money on personal luxury, on eating, +drinking, clothes, or any form of mere display, in such a world as +Gertrude Marvell had unveiled to her, seemed to Delia contemptible and +idiotic. One must have _some_ nice clothes--some beauty in one's +surroundings--and the means of living as one wished to live. +Otherwise, to fume and fret about money, to be coveting instead of +giving, buying and bargaining, instead of thinking--or debating--was +degrading. She loathed shopping. It was the drug which put women's +minds to sleep. + +Who would help her? She pondered. She would tell no one till it was +done; not even Gertrude, whose cold, changed manner to her hurt the +girl's proud sense to think of. + +"I must do it properly--I won't be cheated!" + +The London lawyers? No. The local solicitor, Mr. Masham? No! Her vanity +was far too keenly conscious of their real opinion of her, through all +their politeness. + +Lady Tonbridge? No! She was Mark Winnington's intimate friend--and a +constitutional Suffragist. At the notion of consulting her,--on the +means of providing funds for "militancy"--Delia sprang out of bed, and +went to her dressing, dissolved in laughter. + +And presently--sobered again, and soft-eyed--she was stealing along the +passage to Weston's door for a word with the trained nurse who was now +in charge. Just a week now--to the critical day. + + * * * * * + +"Is Miss Marvell, in? Ask if she will see Mr. Lathrop for a few +minutes?" + +Paul Lathrop, left to himself, looked round Delia's drawing-room. It +set his teeth on edge. What pictures--what furniture! A certain +mellowness born of sheer time, no doubt--but with all its ugly +ingredients still repulsively visible. Why didn't the heiress burn +everything and begin again? Was all her money to be spent on burning +other people's property, when her own was so desperately in need of the +purging process--or on dreary meetings and unreadable newspapers? +Lathrop was already tired of these delights; his essentially Hedonist +temper was re-asserting itself. The "movement" had excited and +interested him for a time; had provided besides easy devices for +annoying stupid people. He had been eager to speak and write for it, +had persuaded himself that he really cared. + +But now candour--and he was generally candid with himself--made him +confess that but for Delia Blanchflower he would already have cut his +connection with the whole thing. He thought with a mixture of irony and +discomfort of his "high-falutin" letter to her. + +"And here I am--hanging round her"--he said to himself, as he strolled +about the room, peering through his eye-glass at its common vases, and +trivial knick-knacks--"just because Blaydes bothers me. I might as +well cry for the moon. But she's worth watching, by Jove. One gets copy +out of her, if nothing else! I vow I can't understand why my dithyrambs +move her so little--she's dithyrambic enough herself!" + +The door opened. He quickly pulled himself together. Gertrude Marvell +came in, and as she gave him an absent greeting, he was vaguely struck +by some change in her aspect, as Delia had long been. She had always +seemed to him a cold half-human being, in all ordinary matters. +But now she was paler, thinner, more remote than ever. "Nerves +strained--probably sleepless--" he said to himself. "It's the pace +they will live at--it kills them all." + +This kind of comment ran at the back of his brain, while he plunged +into the "business"--which was his pretence for calling. Gertrude, as a +District Organizer of the League of Revolt, had intrusted him with the +running of various meetings in small places, along the coast, for which +it humiliated him to remember that he had agreed to be paid. For at his +very first call upon them, Miss Marvell had divined his impecunious +state, and pounced upon him as an agent,--unknown, he thought, to Miss +Blanchflower. He came now to report what had been done, and to ask if +the meetings should be continued. + +Gertrude Marvell shook her head. + +"I have had some letters about your meetings. I doubt whether they have +been worth while." + +Miss Marvell's manner was that of an employer to an employee. Lathrop's +vanity winced. + +"May I know what was wrong with them?" + +Gertrude Marvell considered. Her gesture, unconsciously judicial, +annoyed Lathrop still further. + +"Too much argument, I hear,--and too little feeling. Our people wanted +more about the women in prison. And it was thought that you apologised +too much for the outrages." + +The last word emerged quite simply, as the only fitting one. + +Lathrop laughed,--rather angrily. + +"You must be aware, Miss Marvell, that the public thinks they want +defence." + +"Not from us!" she said, with energy. "No one speaking for us must ever +apologise for militant acts. It takes all the heart out of our people. +Justify them--glory in them--as much as you like." + +There was a pause. + +"Then you have no more work for me?" said Lathrop at last. + +"We need not, I think, trouble you again. Your cheque will of course be +sent from head-quarters." + +"That doesn't matter," said Lathrop, hastily. + +The reflection crossed his mind that there is an insolence of women far +more odious than the insolence of men. + +"After all they are our inferiors! It doesn't do to let them command +us," he thought, furiously. + +He rose to take his leave. + +"You are going up to London?" + +"I am going. Miss Blanchflower stays behind, because her maid is ill." + +He stood hesitating. Gertrude lifted her eyebrows as though he puzzled +her. She never had liked him, and by now all her instincts were hostile +to him. His clumsy figure, and slovenly dress offended her, and the +touch of something grandiose in his heavy brow, and reddish-gold hair, +seemed to her merely theatrical. Her information was that he had been +no use as a campaigner. Why on earth did he keep her waiting? + +"I suppose you have heard some of the talk going about?" he said at +last, shooting out the words. + +"What talk?" + +"They're very anxious about Monk Lawrence--after your speech. And +there are absurd stories. Women have been seen--at night--and so on." + +Gertrude laughed. + +"The more panic the better--for us." + +"Yes--so long as it stops there. But if anything happened to that +place, the whole neighbourhood would turn detective--myself included." + +He looked at her steadily. She leant one thin hand on a table behind +her. + +"No one of course would have a better chance than you. You are so +near." + +Their eyes crossed. "By George!" he thought--"you're in it. I believe +to God you're in it." + +And at that moment he felt that he hated the willowy, intangible +creature who had just treated him with contempt. + +But as they coldly touched hands, the door opened again, and Delia +appeared. + +"Oh I didn't mean to interrupt--" she said, retreating. + +"Come in, come in!" said Gertrude. "We have finished our business--and +Mr. Lathrop I am sure will excuse me--I must get some letters off by +post--" + +And with the curtest of bows she disappeared. + +"I have brought you a book, Miss Blanchflower," Lathrop nervously +began, diving into a large and sagging pocket. "You said you wanted to +see Madame de Noailles' second volume." + +He brought out "Les Eblouissements," and laid it on the table beside +her. Delia thanked him, and then, all in a moment, as she stood beside +him, a thought struck her. She turned her great eyes full upon him, and +he saw the colour rushing into her cheeks. + +"Mr. Lathrop!" + +"Yes." + +"Mr. Lathrop--I--I dreadfully want some practical advice. And I don't +know whom to ask." + +The soreness of his wounded self-love vanished in a moment. + +"What can I do for you?" he asked eagerly. And at once his own +personality seemed to expand, to throw off the shadow of something +ignoble it had worn in Gertrude's presence. For Delia, looking at him, +was attracted by him. The shabby clothes made no impression upon her, +but the blue eyes did. And the childishness which still survived in +her, beneath all her intellectualisms, came impulsively to the surface. + +"Mr. Lathrop, do you--do you know anything about jewelry?" + +"Jewelry? Nothing!--except that I have dabbled in pretty things of that +sort as I have dabbled in most things. I once did some designing for a +man who set up--in Bond Street--to imitate Lalique. Why do you ask? I +suppose you have heaps of jewels?" + +"Too many. I want to sell some jewels." + +"Sell?--But--" he looked at her in astonishment. + +She reddened still more deeply; but spoke with a frank charm. + +"You thought I was rich? Well, of course I ought to be. My father was +rich. But at present I have nothing of my own--nothing! It is all in +trust--and I can't get at it. But I _must_ have some money! Wait here a +moment!" + +She ran out of the room. When she came back she was carrying a +miscellaneous armful of jewellers' cases. She threw them down on the +sofa. + +"They are all hideous--but I am sure they're worth a great deal of +money." + +And she opened them with hasty fingers before his astonished eyes. In +his restless existence he had accumulated various odd veins of +knowledge, and he knew something of the jewelry trade of London. He had +not only drawn designs, he had speculated--unluckily--in "De Beers." +For a short time Diamonds had been an obsession with him, then Burmah +rubies. He had made money out of neither; it was not in his horoscope +to make money out of anything. However there was the result--a certain +amount of desultory information. + +He took up one piece after another, presently drawing a magnifying +glass out of his pocket to examine them the better. + +"Well, if you want money--" he said at last, putting down a _riviere_ +which had belonged to Delia's mother--"That alone will give you some +thousands!" + +Delia's eyes danced with satisfaction--then darkened. + +"That was Mamma's. Papa bought it at Constantinople--from an old +Turkish Governor--who had robbed a province--spent the loot in Paris +on his wives--and then had to disgorge half his fortune--to the +Sultan--who got wind of it. Papa bought it at a great bargain, and was +awfully proud of it. But after Mamma died, he sent it to the Bank, and +never thought of it again. I couldn't wear it, of course--I was too +young." + +"How much money do you want?" + +"Oh, a few thousands," said Delia, vaguely. "Five hundred pounds, first +of all." + +"And who will sell them for you?" + +She frowned in perplexity. + +"I--I don't know." + +"You don't wish to ask Mr. Winnington?" + +"Certainly not! They have nothing to do with him. They are my own +personal property," she added proudly. + +"Still he might object--Ought you not to ask him?" + +"I shall not tell him!" She straightened her shoulders. "He has far too +much bother on my account already." + +"Of course, if I could do anything for you--I should be delighted. But +I don't know why you should trust me. You don't know anything about +me!" He laughed uncomfortably. + +Delia laughed too--in some confusion. It seemed to him she suddenly +realised she had done something unusual. + +"It is very kind of you to suggest it--" she said, hesitating. + +"Not at all. It would amuse me. I have some threads I can pick up +still--in Bond Street. Let me advise you to concentrate on that +_riviere_. If you really feel inclined to trust me, I will take it to a +man I know; he will show it to--" he named a famous firm. "In a few +days--well, give me a week--and I undertake to bring you proposals. If +you accept them, I will collect the money for you at once--or I will +return you the necklace, if you don't." + +Delia clasped her hands. + +"A week! You think it might all be finished in a week?" + +"Certainly--thereabouts. These things--" he touched the diamonds--"are +practically money." + +Delia sat ruminating, with a bright excited face. Then a serious +expression returned. She looked up. + +"Mr. Lathrop, this ought to be a matter of business between us--if you +do me so great a service?" + +"You mean I ought to take a commission?" he said, calmly. "I shall do +nothing of the kind." + +"It is more than I ought to accept!" she cried. "Let your +kindness--include what I wish." + +He shook his fair hair impatiently. + +"Why should you take away all my pleasure in the little adventure?" + +She looked embarrassed. He went on-- + +"Besides we are comrades--we have stood together in the fight. I expect +this is for the Cause! If so I ought to be angry that you even +suggested it!" + +"Don't be angry!" she said gravely. "I meant nothing unkind. Well, I +thank you very much--and there are the diamonds." + +She gave him the case, with a quiet deliberate movement, as if to +emphasize her trust in him. The simplicity with which it was done +pricked him uncomfortably. "I'm no thief!--" he thought angrily. "She's +safe enough with me. All the same, if she knew--she wouldn't speak to +me--she wouldn't admit me into her house. She doesn't know--and I am a +cad!" + +"You can't the least understand what it means to be allowed to do you a +service!" he said, with emotion. + +But the tone evidently displeased her. She once more formally thanked +him; then sprang up and began to put the cases on the sofa together. As +she did so, steps on the gravel outside were heard through the low +casement window. Delia turned with a start, and saw Mark Winnington +approaching the front door. + +"Don't say anything _please_!" she said urgently. "This has nothing to +do with my guardian." + +And opening the door of a lacquer cabinet, she hurriedly packed the +jewelry inside with all the speed she could. Her flushed cheek shewed +her humiliated by the action. + + * * * * * + +Winnington stood in the doorway, silent and waiting. After a hasty +greeting to the new-comer, Delia was nervously bidding Lathrop +good-bye. + +"In a week!" he said, under his breath, as she gave him her hand. + +"A week!" she repeated, evidently impatient for him to be gone. He +exchanged a curt bow with Winnington, and the door closed on him. + +There was a short silence. Winnington remained standing, hat in hand. +He was in riding dress--a commanding figure, his lean face reddened, +and the waves of his grizzled hair slightly loosened, by a buffeting +wind. Delia, stealing a glance at him, divined a coming remonstrance, +and awaited it with a strange mixture of fear and pleasure. They had +not met for ten days; and she stammered out some New Year's wishes. She +hoped that he and Mrs. Matheson had enjoyed their visit. + +But without any reply to her politeness, he said abruptly-- + +"Were you arranging some business with Mr. Lathrop?" + +She supposed he was thinking of the militant Campaign. + +"Yes," she said, eagerly. "Yes, I was arranging some business." + +Winnington's eyes examined her. + +"Miss Delia, what do you know about that man?--except that +story--which I understand Miss Marvell told you." + +"Nothing--nothing at all! Except--except that he speaks at our +meetings, and generally gets us into hot water. He has a lot of +interesting books--and drawings--in his cottage; and he has lent me +Madame de Noailles' poems. Won't you sit down? I hope you and Mrs. +Matheson have had a good time? We have been to church--at least I +have--and given away lots of coals and plum-puddings--at least I have. +Gertrude thought me a fool. We have had the choir up to sing carols in +the servants' hall, and given them a sovereign--at least I did. And I +don't want any more Christmas--for a long, long, time!" + +And with that, she dropped into a chair opposite Winnington, who sat +now twirling his hat and studying the ground. + +"I agree with you," he said drily when she paused. "I felt when I was +away that I had better be here. And I feel it now doubly." + +"Because?" + +"Because--if my absence has led to your developing any further +acquaintance with the gentleman who has just left the room, when I +might have prevented it, I regret it deeply." + +Delia's cheeks had gone crimson again. + +"You knew perfectly well Mr. Winnington, that we had made acquaintance +with Mr. Lathrop! We never concealed it!" + +"I knew, of course, that you were both members of the League, and that +you had spoken at meetings together. I regretted it--exceedingly--and I +asked you--in vain--to put an end to it. But when I find him paying a +morning call here--and lending you books--that is a very different +matter!" + +Delia broke out-- + +"You really are _too_ Early-Victorian, Mr. Winnington!--and I can't +help being rude. Do you suppose you can ever turn me into a +bread-and-butter miss? I have looked after myself for years--you don't +understand!" She faced him indignantly. + +Winnington laughed. + +"All right--so long as the Early Victorians may have their say. And my +say about Mr. Lathrop is--again that he is not a fit companion for +you, or any young girl,--that he is a man of blemished character--both +in morals and business. Ask anybody in this neighbourhood!" + +He had spoken with firm emphasis, his eyes sparkling. + +"Everybody in the neighbourhood believes anything bad, about him--and +us!" cried Delia. + +"Don't, for Heaven's sake, couple yourself, and the man--together!" +said Winnington, flushing with anger. "I know nothing about him, when +you first arrived here. Mr. Lathrop didn't matter twopence to me +before. Now he does matter." + +"Why?" Delia's eyes were held to his, fascinated. + +"Simply because I care--I care a great deal--what happens to you," he +said quietly, after a pause. "Naturally, I must care." + +Delia looked away, and began twisting her black sash into knots. + +"Bankruptcy--is not exactly a crime." + +"Oh, so you knew that farther fact about him? But of course--it is the +rest that matters. Since we spoke of this before, I have seen the judge +who tried the case in which this man figured. I hate speaking of it in +your presence, but you force me. He told me it was one of the worst he +had ever known--a case for which there was no defence or excuse +whatever." + +"Why must I believe it?" cried Delia impetuously. "It's a man's +judgment! The woman may have been--Gertrude says she was--horribly +unhappy and ill-treated. Yet nothing could be proved--enough to free +her. Wait till we have women judges--and women lawyers--then you'll +see!" + +He laughed indignantly--though not at all inclined to laugh. And what +seemed to him her stubborn perversity drove him to despair. + +"In this case, if there had been a woman judge, I am inclined to think +it would have been a good deal worse for the people concerned. At least +I hope so. Don't try to make me believe, Miss Delia, that women are +going to forgive treachery and wickedness more easily than men!" + +"Oh, 'treachery!'--" she murmured, protesting. His look both +intimidated and drew her. Winnington came nearer to her, and suddenly +he laid his hand on both of hers. Looking up she was conscious of a +look that was half raillery, half tenderness. + +"My dear child!--I must call you that--though you are so clever--and +so--so determined to have your own way. Look here! I'm going to plead +my rights. I've done a good deal for you the last three months--perhaps +you hardly know all that has been done. I've been your watch-dog--put +it at that. Well, now give the watch-dog, give the Early-Victorian, his +bone! Promise me that you will have no more dealings with Mr. Lathrop. +Send him back his books--and say 'Not at Home!'" + +She was really distressed. + +"I can't, Mr. Winnington!--I'm so sorry!--but I can't." + +"Why can't you?" He still held her. + +A score of thoughts flew hither and thither in her brain. She had asked +a great favour of Lathrop--she had actually put the jewels into his +hands! How could she recall her action? And when he had done her such a +service, if he succeeded in doing it--how was she to turn round on him, +and cut him the very next moment? + +Nor could she make up her mind to confess to Winnington what she had +done. She was bent on her scheme. If she disclosed it _now_ everything +might be upset. + +"I really _can't!_" she repeated, gravely, releasing her hands. + +Winnington rose, and began to pace the drawing room. Delia watched +him--quivering--an exquisite vision herself, in the half lights of the +room. + +When he paused at last to speak, she saw a new expression in his eyes. + +"I shall have to think this over, Miss Blanchflower--perhaps to +reconsider my whole position." + +She was startled, but she kept her composure. + +"You mean--you may have--after all--to give me up?" + +He forced a very chilly smile. + +"You remember--you asked me to give you up. Now if it were only one +subject--however important--on which we disagreed, I might still do my +best, though the responsibility of all you make me connive at is +certainly heavy. But if you are entirely to set at defiance not only my +advice and wishes as to this illegal society to which you belong, and +as to the violent action into which I understand you may be led when +you go to town, but also in such a matter as we have just been +discussing--then indeed, I see no place for me. I must think it over. A +guardian appointed by the Court might be more effective--might +influence you more." + +"I told you I was a handful," said Delia, trying to laugh. But her +voice sounded hollow in her own ears. + +He offered no reply--merely repeating "I must think it over!"--and +resolutely changing the subject, he made a little perfunctory +conversation on a few matters of business--and was gone. + +After his departure, Delia sat motionless for half an hour at least, +staring at the fire. Then suddenly she sprang up, went to the +writing-table, and sat down to write-- + +"Dear Mr. Mark--Don't give me up! You don't know. Trust me a little! I +am not such a fiend as you think. I am grateful--I am indeed. I wish to +goodness I could show it. Perhaps I shall some day. I hadn't time to +tell you about poor Weston--who's to have an operation--and that I'm +not going to town with Gertrude--not for some weeks at any rate. I +shall be alone here, looking after Weston. So I can't disgrace or +worry you for a good while any way. And you needn't fret about Mr. +Lathrop--you needn't _really_! I can't explain--not just yet--but it's +all right. Mayn't I come and help with some of your cripple children? +or the school? or something? If Susy Amberly can do it, I suppose I +can--I'd like to. May I sign myself--though I _am_ a handful-" + + "Yours affectionately, + DELIA BLANCHFLOWER." + + +She sat staring at the paper, trembling under a stress of feeling she +could not understand--the large tears in her eyes. + + + + +Chapter XIII + + +"Pack the papers as quickly as you can--I am going to town this +afternoon. Whatever can't be packed before then, you can bring up to me +tomorrow." + +A tired girl lifted her head from the packing-case before which she was +kneeling. + +"I'll do my best, Miss Marvell--But I'm afraid it will be impossible to +finish to-day." And she looked wearily round the room laden with +papers--letters, pamphlets, press-cuttings--on every available table +and shelf. + +Gertrude gave a rather curt assent. Her reason told her the thing was +impossible; but her will chafed against the delay, which her secretary +threatened, of even a few hours in the resumption of her work in +London, and the re-housing of all its tools and materials. She was a +hard mistress; though no harder on her subordinates than she was on +herself. + +She began to turn her own hand to the packing, and missing a book she +had left in the drawing-room the night before, she went to fetch it. It +was again a morning of frosty sunshine, and the garden outside lay in +dazzling light. The drawing-room windows were open, and through one of +them Gertrude perceived Delia moving about outside on the whitened +grass. She was looking for the earliest snowdrops which were just +beginning to bulge from the green stems, pushing up through the dead +leaves under the beech trees. She wore a blue soft shawl round her head +and shoulders, and she was singing to herself. As she raised herself +from the ground, and paused a moment looking towards the house, but +evidently quite unconscious of any spectators, Gertrude could not take +her eyes from the vision she made. If radiant beauty, if grace, and +flawless youth can "lift a mortal to the skies," Delia stood like a +young goddess under the winter sun. But there was much more than beauty +in her face. There was a fluttering and dreamy joy which belongs only +to the children of earth. The low singing came unconsciously from her +lips, as though it were the natural expression of the heart within. +Gertrude caught the old lilting tune:-- + + "For oh, Greensleaves was all my joy-- + For oh, Greensleaves was my heart's delight-- + And who but my lady Greensleaves--" + + +The woman observing her did so with a strange mixture of softness and +repulsion. If Gertrude Marvell loved anybody, she loved Delia--the +captive of her own bow and spear, and until now the most loyal, the +most single-minded of disciples. But as she saw Delia walk away to a +further reach of the garden, the mind of the elder woman bitterly +accused the younger. Delia's refusal to join the militant forces in +London, at this most critical and desperate time, on what seemed to +Gertrude the trumpery excuse of Weston's illness, had made an indelible +impression on a fanatical temper. If she had cared--if she had _really_ +cared--she could not have done any such thing. "What have I been +wasting my time here for?" she asked herself; and reviewing the motives +which had induced her to accept Delia's proposal that they should live +together, she accused herself sharply of a contemptible lack of +judgment and foresight. + +For no mere affection for Delia Blanchflower would have influenced her, +at the time when Delia, writing to tell her of the approaching death of +Sir Robert, implored her to come and share her life. "You know I shall +have money, dearest Gertrude,"--wrote Delia--"Come and help me to spend +it--for the Cause." And for the sake of the Cause,--which was then +sorely in want of money--and only for its sake, Gertrude had consented. +She was at that time rapidly becoming one of the leading spirits in the +London office of the "Daughters," so that to bury herself, even for a +time, in a country village, some eighty miles from London, was a +sacrifice. But to secure what seemed likely to be some thousands a +year from a willing giver, such a temporary and modified exile had +appeared to her worth while; and she had at once planned a campaign of +"militant" meetings in the towns along the South Coast, by way of +keeping in touch with "active work." + +But, in the first place, the extraordinary terms of Sir Robert's will +had proved far more baffling than she and Delia had ever been willing +to believe. And, in the next place, the personality of Mark Winnington +had almost immediately presented itself to Gertrude as something she +had never reckoned with. A blustering and tyrannical guardian would +have been comparatively easy to fight. Winnington was formidable, not +because he was hostile, resolutely hostile, to their whole propaganda +of violence; that might only have spurred a strong-willed girl to +more passionate extremes. He was dangerous,--in spite of his forty +years--because he was delightful; because, in his leisurely, +old-fashioned way, he was so loveable, so handsome, so inevitably +attractive, Gertrude, looking back, realised that she had soon +perceived--vaguely at least--what might happen, what had now--as she +dismally guessed--actually happened. + +The young, impressionable creature, brought into close contact with +this charming fellow--this agreeable reactionary--had fallen in love! +That was all. But it was more than enough. Delia might be still +unconscious of it herself. But this new shrinking from the most +characteristic feature of the violent policy--this new softness and +fluidity in a personality that when they first reached Maumsey had +begun already to stiffen in the fierce mould of militancy--to what +could any observer with eyes in their head attribute them but the +influence of Mark Winnington--the daily unseen presence of other +judgments and other ideals embodied in a man to whom the girl's +feelings had capitulated? + +"If I could have kept her to myself for another year, he could have +done nothing. But he has intervened before her opinions were anything +more than the echoes of mine;--and for the future I shall have less and +less chance against him. What shall we ever get out of her as a married +woman? What would Mark Winnington--to whom she will give herself, body +and soul,--allow us to get out of her? Better break with her now, and +disentangle my own life!" + +With such thoughts, a pale and brooding woman pursued the now distant +figure of Delia. At the same time Gertrude Marvell had no intention +whatever of provoking a premature breach which might deprive either the +Cause or herself of any help they might still obtain from Delia in the +desperate fight immediately ahead. She, personally, would have +infinitely preferred freedom and a garret to Delia's flat, and any kind +of dependence on Delia's money. "I was not born to be a parasite!" she +angrily thought. But she had no right to prefer them. All that could be +extracted from Delia should be extracted. She was now no more to +Gertrude than a pawn in the game. Let her be used--if she could not be +trusted! + +But if this had fallen differently, if she had remained the true +sister-in-arms, given wholly to the joy of the fight, Gertrude's stern +soul would have clasped her to itself, just as passionately as it now +dismissed her. + +"No matter!" The hard brown eyes looked steadily into the future. +"That's done with. I am alone--I shall be alone. What does it +signify?--a little sooner or later?" + +The vagueness of the words matched the vagueness of certain haunting +premonitions in the background of the mind. Her own future always +shaped itself in tragic terms. It was impossible--she knew it--that it +should bring her to any kind of happiness. It was no less impossible +that she should pause and submit. That active defiance of the existing +order, on which she had entered, possessed her, gripped her, +irrevocably. She was like the launched stone which describes its +appointed curve--till it drops. + +As for any interference from the side of her own personal ties and +affections,--she had none. + +In her pocket she carried a letter she had received that morning, from +her mother. It was plaintive, as usual. + +"Winnie's second child arrived last week. It was an awful confinement. +The first doctor had to get another, and they only just pulled her +through. The child's a misery. It would be much better if it had died. +I can't think what she'll do. Her husband's a wretched creature--just +manages to keep in work--but he neglects her shamefully--and if there +ever is anything to spend, _he_ spends it--on his own amusement. She +cried the other day, when we were talking of you. She thinks you're +living with a rich lady, and have everything you want--and she and +her children are often half-starved. 'She might forgive me now, I do +think--' she'll say sometimes--'And as for Henry, if I did take him +away from her, she may thank her stars she didn't marry him. She'd have +killed him by now. She never could stand men like Henry. Only, when he +was a young fellow, he took her in--her first, and then me. It was a +bad job we ever saw him.' + +"Why are you so set against us, Gertrude?--your own flesh and blood. +I'm sure if I ever was unkind to you I'm sorry for it. You used to say +I favoured Albert at your expense--Well, he's as good as dead to me +now, and I've got no good out of all the spoiling I gave him. I sit at +home by myself, and I'm a pretty miserable woman. I read everything I +can in the papers about what you're doing--you, who were my only +child, seven years before Albert came. It doesn't matter to you what I +think--at least, it oughtn't. I'm an old woman, and whatever I thought +I'd never quarrel with you. But it would matter to me a good deal, if +you'd sometimes come in, and sit by the fire a bit, and chat. It's +three years since I've even seen you. Winnie says you've forgotten +us--you only care about the vote. But I don't believe it. Other people +may think the vote can make up for everything--but not you. You're too +clever. Hoping to see you," + + "Your lonely old mother, + JANET MARVELL." + + +To that letter, Gertrude had already written her reply. Sometime--in +the summer, perhaps, she had said to her mother. And she had added the +mental proviso--"if I am alive." For the matters in which she was +engaged were no child's play, and the excitements of prison and +hunger-striking might tell even on the strongest physique. + +No--her family were nothing to her. Her mother's appeal, though it +should not be altogether ignored, was an insincere one. She had always +stood by the men of the family; and for the men of the family, +Gertrude, its eldest daughter, felt nothing but loathing and contempt. +Her father, a local government official in a western town, a +small-minded domestic tyrant, ruined by long years of whisky-nipping +between meals; her only brother, profligate and spendthrift, of whose +present modes of life the less said the better; her brother-in-law, +Henry Lewison, the man whom, in her callow, ignorant youth, she was +once to have married, before her younger sister supplanted her--a +canting hypocrite, who would spend his day in devising petty torments +for his wife, and begin and end it with family prayers:--these types, +in a brooding and self-centred mind, had gradually come to stand for +the whole male race. + +Nor had her lonely struggle for a livelihood, after she had fled from +home, done anything to loosen the hold of these images upon her. She +looked back upon a dismal type-writing office, run by a grasping +employer; a struggle for health, warring with the struggle for bread; +sick headache, sleeplessness, anaemia, yet always within, the same iron +will driving on the weary body; and always the same grim perception on +the dark horizon of an outer gulf into which some women fell, with no +hope of resurrection. She burnt again with the old bitter sense of +injustice, on the economic side; remembering fiercely her own stinted +earnings, and the higher wages and larger opportunities of men, whom, +intellectually, she despised. Remembering too the development of that +new and ugly temper in men--men hard-pressed themselves--who must now +see in women no longer playthings or sweethearts, but rivals and +supplanters. + +So that gradually, year by year, there had strengthened in her that +strange, modern thing, a woman's hatred of men--the normal instincts of +sex distorted and embittered. And when suddenly, owing to the slow +working of many causes, economic and moral, a section of the Woman +Suffrage movement had broken into flame and violence, she had flung her +very soul to it as fuel, with the passion of one to whom life at last +"gives room." In that outbreak were gathered up for her all the +rancours, and all the ideals of life, all its hopes and all its +despairs. Not much hope!--and few ideals. Her passion for the Cause +had been a grim force, hardly mixed with illusion; but it had held and +shaped her. + +Meanwhile among women she has found a few kindred souls. One of them, a +fellow-student, came into money, died, and left Gertrude Marvell a +thousand pounds. On that sum she had educated herself, had taken her +degree at a West Country University, had moved to London and begun work +as a teacher and journalist. Then again, a break down in health, +followed by a casual acquaintance with Lady Tonbridge--Sir Robert's +offer--its acceptance--Delia! + +How much had opened to her with Delia! _Pleasure_, for the first time; +the sheer pleasure of travel, society, tropical beauty; the strangeness +also of finding herself adored, of feeling that young loveliness, that +young intelligence, all yielding softness in her own strong hands-- + +Well, that was done;--practically done. She cheated herself with no +vain hopes. The process which had begun in Delia would go forward. One +more defeat to admit and forget. One more disaster to turn one's back +upon. + +And no disabling lamentations! Her eyes cleared, her mouth stiffened. +She went quietly back to her packing. + +"Gertrude! What _are_ you doing?" The voice was Delia's. She stood on +the threshold of Gertrude's den, looking with amazement, at the +littered room and the packing-cases. + +"I find I must go up at once--They want help at the office." Gertrude, +who was writing a letter, delivered the information over her shoulder. + +"But the flat won't be ready!" + +"Never mind. I can go to a hotel for a few days." + +A cloud dropped over the radiance of Delia's face, fresh from the sun +and frost outside. + +"I can't bear your going alone!" + +"Oh, you'll come later," said Gertrude indifferently. + +"Did you--did you--have such urgent letters this morning?" + +"Well--you know things _are_ urgent! But then, you see, you have made +up your mind to stay with Weston!" + +A slight mocking look accompanied the words. + +"Yes--I must stay with Weston," said Delia, slowly, and then perceiving +that the typist showed no signs of leaving them together, and that +confidential talk was therefore impossible, she reluctantly went away. + +Weston that morning was in much pain, and Delia sat beside her, +learning by some new and developing instinct how to soothe her. The +huntress of the Tyrolese woods had few caressing ways, and pain had +always been horrible to her; a thing to be shunned, even by the +spectator, lest it should weaken the wild natural energies. But Weston +was very dear to her, and the maid's suffering stirred deep slumbering +powers in the girl's nature. She watched the trained Nurse at her work, +and copied her anxiously. And all the time she was thinking, thinking, +now of Gertrude, now of her letter to Winnington. Gertrude was vexed +with her, thought her a poor creature--that was plain. "But in a +fortnight, I'll go to her,--and they'll see!--" thought the girl's +wrestling mind. "And before that, I shall send her money. I can't help +what she thinks. I'm not false!--I'm not giving in! But I must have +this fortnight,--just this fortnight;--for Weston's sake, and--" + +For her proud sincerity would not allow her to pretend to herself. What +had happened to her? She felt the strangest lightness--as though some +long restraint had broken down; a wonderful intermittent happiness, +sweeping on her without reason, and setting the breath fluttering. It +made her think of what an old Welsh nurse of her childhood had once +told her of "conversion," in a Welsh revival, and its marvellous +effects; how men and women walked on air, and the iron bands of life +and custom dropped away. + +Then she rose impatiently, despising herself, and went downstairs again +to try and help Gertrude. But the packing was done, the pony-cart was +ordered, and in an hour more, Gertrude was gone. Delia was left +standing on the threshold of the front door, listening to the sound of +the receding wheels. They had parted in perfect friendliness, Gertrude +with civil wishes for Weston's complete recovery, Delia with eager +promises--"I shall soon come--_very_ soon!"--promises of which, as she +now remembered, Gertrude had taken but little notice. + +But as she went back into the house, the girl had a queer feeling of +catastrophe, of radical change. She passed the old gun-room, and looked +in. All its brown paper bundles, its stacks of leaflets, its books of +reference were gone; only a litter of torn papers remained here and +there, to shew what its uses had been. And suddenly, a swell of +something like exultation, a wild sense of deliverance, rushed upon +her, driving out depression. She went back to the drawing-room, with +little dancing steps, singing under her breath. The flowers wanted +freshening. She went out to the greenhouse, and brought in some early +hyacinths and violets till the room was fragrant. Some of them she took +up to Weston, chatting to the patient and her nurse as she arranged +them, with such sweetness, such smiles, such an abandonment of +kindness, that both looked after her amazed, when, again, she vanished. +What had become of the imperious absent-minded young woman of ordinary +days? + +Delia lunched alone. And after lunch she grew restless. + +He must have received her letter at breakfast-time. Probably he had +some tiresome meetings in the morning, but soon--soon-- + +She tried to settle to some reading. How long it was since she had read +anything for the joy of it!--anything that in some shape or other was +not the mere pemmican of the Suffrage Movement; dusty arguments for, or +exasperating arguments against. She plunged into poetry--a +miscellaneous volume of modern verse--and the new world of feeling +in which her mind had begun to move, grew rich, and deep, and +many-coloured about her. + +Surely--a sound at the gate! She sat up, crimson. Well?--she was going +to make friends with her guardian--to bury the hatchet--for a whole +fortnight at least. Only that. Nothing more--nothing--nothing! + +Steps approached. She hastily unearthed a neglected work-basket, and a +very ancient piece of half-done embroidery. Was there a thimble +anywhere--or needles! Yes!--by good luck. Heavens!--what shamming! She +bent over the dingy bit of silk, her cheeks dimpling with laughter. + +Their first greetings were done, and Winnington was sitting by +her--astride a chair, his arms lying along the top of it, his eyes +looking down upon her, as she made random stitches in what looked like +a futurist design. + +"Do you know that you wrote me a very, _very_ nice letter?" and as he +spoke, she heard in his voice that tone--that lost tone, which she had +heard in it at their very first interview, before she had chilled and +flouted him, and made his life a burden to him. Her pulses leapt; but +she did not look up. + +"I wonder whether--you quite deserved it? You were angry with me--for +nothing!" + +"I am afraid I can't agree!" The voice now was a little dry, and a pair +of very keen grey eyes examined her partially hidden face. + +She pushed her work away and looked up. + +"You ought!" she said vehemently. "You accused me--practically--of +flirting with Mr. Lathrop. And I was doing nothing of the kind!" + +He laughed. + +"I never imagined that you were--or could be--flirting with Mr. +Lathrop." + +"Then why did you threaten to give me up if I went on seeing him?" + +He hesitated--but said at last--gravely-- + +"Because I could not take the responsibility." + +"How would it help me--to give me up? According to you--" she breathed +fast--"I should only--go to perdition--the quicker!" Her eyes still +laughed, but behind the laughter there was a rush of feeling which +communicated itself to him. + +"May I suggest that it is not necessary to go to perdition--at +all--fast or slow?" + +She shook her head. Silence followed; which Winnington broke. + +"You said you would like to come and see some of the village +people--your own people--and the school? Was that serious?" + +"Certainly!" She raised an indignant countenance. "I suppose you +think--like everybody--that because I want the vote, I can't care +about anything else?" + +"You'll admit it has a way of driving everything else out," he said, +mildly. "Have you ever been into the village--for a month?--for two +months? The things you wanted have been done. But you haven't been to +see." She sprang to her feet. + +"Shall I come now?" + +"If it suits you. I've saved the afternoon." + +She ran out of the room to put on her things, upsetting as she did so, +the work-box with which she had been masquerading, and quite +unconscious of it. Winnington, smiling to himself, stooped to pick up +the reels and skeins of silk. One, a skein of pink silk with which she +had been working, he held in his hand a moment, and, suddenly, put in +his pocket. After which he drifted absently to the hearthrug, and stood +waiting for her, hat in hand. He was thinking of that moment in the +wintry dawn when he had read her letter. The shock of emotion returned +upon him. But what was he to do? What was really in her mind?--or, for +the matter of that, in his own? + +She re-appeared, radiant in a moleskin cap and furs, and then they both +awkwardly remembered--he, that he had made no inquiry about Weston, and +she, that she had said nothing of Gertrude Marvell's hurried departure. + +"Your poor maid? Tell me about her. Oh, but she'll do well. We'll take +care of her. France is an awfully good doctor." + +Her eyes thanked him. She gave him a brief account of Weston's state; +then looked away. + +"Do you know--that I'm quite alone? Gertrude went up to town this +morning?" + +Winnington gave a low whistle of astonishment. + +"She had to--" said Delia, hurriedly. "It was the office--they couldn't +do without her." + +"I thought she had undertaken to be your chaperon?" + +The girl coloured. + +"Well yes--but of course--the other claim came first." + +"You don't expect me to admit that," said Winnington, with energy. +"Miss Marvell has left you alone?--_alone_?--at a moment's notice--with +your maid desperately ill--and without a word to me, or anybody?" His +eyes sparkled. + +"Don't let's quarrel!" cried Delia, as she stood opposite to him, +putting on her gloves. "_Don't_! Not to-day--not this afternoon! And +we're sure to quarrel if we talk about Gertrude." + +His indignation broke up in laughter. + +"Very well. We won't mention her. Well, but look here--" he +pondered--"You _must_ have somebody. I would propose that Alice +should come and keep you company, but I left her in bed with what +looks like the flu. Ah!--I have it. But--am I really to advise? You +are twenty-one, remember,--nearly twenty-two!" + +The tender sarcasm in his voice brought a flood of colour to her +cheeks. + +"Go on!" she said, and stood quivering. + +"Would you consider asking Lady Tonbridge to come and stay with you? +Nora is away on a visit." + +Delia moved quietly to the writing-table, pulled off her gloves, sat +down to write a note. He watched her, standing behind her; his strained +yet happy look resting on the beautiful dark head. + +She rose, and held out the note, addressed to Lady Tonbridge. He took +the note, and the hand together. The temptation was irresistible. He +raised the hand and kissed it. Both were naturally reminded of the only +previous occasion on which he had done such a thing; and as he dropped +his hold, Delia saw the ugly scar which would always mark his left +wrist. + +"Thank you!"--he said warmly--"That'll be an immense relief to my +mind." + +"You mustn't think she'll convert me," said Delia, quickly. + +"Why, she's a Suffragist!" + +Delia shrugged her shoulders. "_Pour rire_!" + +"Let's leave the horrid subject alone--shall we?" + +Delia assented; and they set out, just as the winter sun of a bright +and brilliant afternoon was beginning to drop towards its setting. + + * * * * * + +When Delia afterwards looked back on those two hours in Mark +Winnington's company, she remembered them as a time enskied and +glorified. First, the mere pleasure of the senses--the orange glow of +the January evening, the pleasant crackling of the frosty ground, the +exhilaration of exercise, and of the keen pungent air; then the beauty +of the village and of the village lanes in the dusk, of the blue smoke +drifting along the hill, of the dim reds and whites of the old houses, +and the occasional gleams of fire and lamp through the small-paned +windows; the gaiety of the children racing home from school, the +dignity of the old labourers, the seemliness of the young. It was good +to be alive--in England--breathing English air. It was good to be young +and strong-limbed, with all one's life before one. + +And next--and greater--there was the pleasure of Winnington beside her, +of his changed manner, of their new comradeship. She felt even a +curious joy in the difference of age between them. Now that by some +queer change, she had ceased to stand on her dignity with him, to hold +him arrogantly at arm's length, there emerged in her a childish +confidence and sweetness, enchanting to the man on whom it played. "May +I?--" "Do you think I might?--" she would say, gently, throwing out +some suggestion or other, as they went in and out of the cottages, and +the humbleness in her dark eyes, as though a queen stooped, began to +turn his head. + +And how beautiful this common human life seemed that evening--after all +the fierce imaginings in which she had lived so long! In the great +towns beyond the hills, women were still starved and sweated,--still +enslaved and degraded. Man no doubt was still the stupid and vicious +tyrant, the Man-Beast that Gertrude Marvell believed him. But here in +this large English village, how the old primal relations stood +out!--sorrow-laden and sin-stained often, yet how touching, how worthy, +in the main, of reverence and tenderness! As they went in and out of +the cottages of her father's estate, the cottages where Winnington was +at home, and she a stranger, all that "other side" of any great +argument began to speak to her--without words. The world of politics +and its machinery, how far away!--instead, the world of human need, and +love, and suffering unveiled itself this winter evening to Delia's +soul, and spoke to her in a new language. And always it was a language +of sex, as between wives and husbands, mothers and sons, sisters and +brothers. No isolation of one sex or the other. No possibility of +thinking of them apart, as foes and rivals, with jarring rights and +claims. These old couples tending each other, clinging together, after +their children had left them, till their own last day should dawn; +these widowed men or women, piteously lost without the old companion, +like the ox left alone in the furrow; these young couples with their +first babies; these dutiful or neglectful sons, these hard or tender +daughters; these mothers young and old, selfish or devoted:--with +Winnington beside her, Delia saw them all anew, heard them all anew. +And Love, in all its kinds, everywhere the governing force, by its +presence or its absence!--Love abused and degraded, or that Love, +whether in the sunken eyes of the old, or on the cheeks of the young, +which is but "a little lower than the angels." + +And what frankly amazed her was Winnington's place in this world of +labouring folk. He had given it ten years of service; not charity, but +simply the service of the good citizen; moved by a secret, impelling +motive, which Delia had yet to learn. And how they rewarded him! She +walked beside a natural ruler, and felt her heart presently big with +the pride of it. + +"But the cripples?" She enquired for them, with a touch of sarcasm. "So +far," she said, "the population Maumsey, appeared to be quiet +exceptionally able-bodied." + +"Goodness!" said Winnington--"I can't shew you more than two or three +cripples to a village. Maumsey only rejoices in two. My county school +will collect from the whole county. And I should never have found out +the half of them, if it hadn't been for Susy Amberley." + +"How did she discover them?" asked Delia, without any sort of +cordiality. + +"We--the County Council--put the enquiry into her hands. I showed +her--a bit. But she's done it admirably. She's a wonderful little +person, Susy. What the old parents will do without her when she goes to +London I can't think." + +"Why is she going?" + +Winnington shrugged his shoulders kindly. + +"Wants a training--wants something more to do. Quite right--if it +makes her happy. You women have all grown so restless nowadays." He +laughed into the rather sombre face beside him. And the face lit +up--amazingly. + +"Because the world's so _marvellous_," said Delia, with her passionate +look. "And there's so little time to explore it in. You men have always +known that. Now we women know it too." + +He pondered the remark--half smiling. + +"Well, you'll see a good deal of it before you've done," he said at +last. "Now come and look at what I've been trying to do for the women +who complained to you." + +And he shewed her how everything had been arranged to please her, at +the cost of infinite trouble, and much expense. The woman with the +eight children had been moved into a spacious new cottage made out of +two old ones; the old granny alone in a house now too big for her, had +been induced to take in a prim little spinster, the daughter of a small +grocer just deceased; and the father of the deficient girl, for whom +Miss Dempsey had made herself responsible, received Winnington with a +lightening of his tired eyes, and taking him out of earshot of Delia, +told him how Bessie "had got through her trouble," and was now earning +money at some simple hand-work under Miss Dempsey's care. + +"I didn't know you were doing all this!" said Delia, remorsefully, as +they walked along the village street. "Why didn't you tell me?" + +"I think I did tell you--once or twice. But you had other things to +think about." + +"I hadn't!" said Delia, with angry energy. "I hadn't, you needn't make +excuses for me!" + +He smiled at her, a little gravely, but said nothing--till they +reached a path leading to an isolated cottage-- + +"Here's a cripple at last!--Susy!--You here?" + +For as the door opened to his knock, a lady rose from a low seat, and +faced them. + +Winnington grasped her by the hand. + +"I thought you were already gone." + +"No--they've put it off again for a week or two--no vacancy yet." + +She shook hands formally with Delia. "I came to have another look at +this boy. Isn't he splendid?" + +She pointed to a grinning child of five sitting on the edge of the +kitchen table, and dangling a pair of heavily ironed legs. The mother +proudly shewed them. He had been three months in the Orthopaedic +Hospital, she told Delia. The legs twisted with rickets had been broken +and set twice, and now he was "doing fine." She set him down, and made +him walk. "I never thought to see him do that!" she said, her wan face +shining. "And it's all his doing--" she pointed to Winnington, "and +Miss Susy's." + +Meanwhile Susy and Winnington were deep in conversation--very +technical much of it--about a host of subjects they seemed to have in +common. + +Delia silent and rather restless, watched them both, the girl's sweet, +already faded, face, and Winnington's expression. When they emerged +from the cottage Susy said shyly to Delia-- + +"Won't you come to tea with me some day next week?" + +"Thank you. I should like to. But my maid is very ill. Else I should be +in London." + +"Oh, I'm very sorry. May I come to you?" + +Delia thanked her coldly. She could have beaten herself for a rude, +ungracious creature; yet for the life of her she could not command +another manner. Susy drew back. She and Winnington began to talk again, +ranging over persons and incidents quite unknown to Delia--the frank +talk, full of matter of comrades in a public service. And again Delia +watched them acutely--jealous--yet not in any ordinary sense. When Susy +turned back towards the Rectory, Delia said abruptly-- + +"She's helped you a great deal?" + +"Susy!" He went off at score, ending with--"What France and I shall do +without her, I don't know. If we could only get more women--_scores +more women_--to do the work! There we sit, perched up aloft on the +Council, and what we want are the women to advise us, and the women's +hands--_to do the little things_--which make just all the difference!" + +She was silent a moment, and then said sorely--"I suppose that means, +that if we did all the work we might do--we needn't bother about the +vote." + +He turned upon with animation-- + +"I vow I wasn't thinking about the vote!" + +"Miss Amberley doesn't seem to bother about it." + +Winnington's voice shewed amusement. + +"I can't imagine Susy a suff. It simply isn't in her." + +"I know plenty of suffragists just as good and useful as she is," said +Delia, bristling. + +Winnington did not immediately reply. They had left the village behind, +and were walking up the Maumsey lane in a gathering darkness, each +electrically conscious of the other. At last he said in a changed +tone-- + +"Have I been saying anything to wound you? I didn't mean it." + +She laughed unsteadily. + +"You never say anything to wound me. I was only--a kind of fretful +porcupine--standing up for my side." + +"And the last thought in my mind to-night was to attack your 'side,'" +he protested. + +Her tremulous sense drank in the gentleness of his voice, the joy of +his strong, enveloping presence, and the sweetness of her own surrender +which had brought him back to her, the thought of it vibrating between +them, unspoken. Until, suddenly, at the door of the Abbey, Winnington +halted and took her by both hands. + +"I must go home. Good-night. Have you got books to amuse you?" + +"Plenty." + +"Poor child!--all alone! But you'll have Lady Tonbridge to-morrow." + +"How do you know? She mayn't come." + +"I'm going there now. I'll make her. You--you won't be doing any more +embroidery to-night?" + +He looked at her slyly. Delia laughed out. + +"There!--when one tries to be feminine, that's how you mock!" + +"'_Mock_!' I admired. Good-night!--I shall be here to-morrow." + +He was gone--into the darkness. + +Delia entered the lonely house, in a bewilderment of feeling. As she +passed Gertrude's deserted sitting-room on her way to the staircase, +she saw that the parlourmaid had lit a useless lamp there. She went in +to put it out. As she did so, a torn paper among the litter on the +floor attracted her notice. She stooped and took it up. + +It seemed to be a fragment of a plan--a plan of a house. It shewed two +series of rooms, divided by a long passage. One of the rooms was marked +"Red Parlour," another, "Hall," and at the end of the passage, there +were some words, clearly in Gertrude Marvell's handwriting-- + +"_Garden door, north_." + +With terror in her heart, Delia brought the fragment to the lamp, and +examined every word and line of it. + +Recollections flashed into her mind, and turned her pale. That what she +held was part of a general plan of the Monk Lawrence ground-floor, she +was certain--dismally certain. And Gertrude had made it. Why? + +Delia tore the paper into shreds and burnt the shreds. Afterwards she +spent an oppressed and miserable night. Her friend reproached her, on +the one side; and Winnington, on the other. + + + + +Chapter XIV + + +Lady Tonbridge was sitting in the window-seat of a little sitting-room +adjoining her bedroom at Maumsey Abbey. That the young mistress of +Maumsey had done her best to make her guest comfortable, that guest +most handsomely acknowledged. Some of the few pretty things which the +house contained had been gathered there. The chintz covered sofa and +chairs, even though the chintz was ugly, had the pleasant country-house +look, which suggests afternoon tea, and chatting friends; a bright +fire, flowers and a lavish strewing of books completed the hospitable +impression. + +Yet Madeleine Tonbridge had by no means come to Maumsey Abbey, at +Winnington's bidding, as to a Land of Cockaigne. She at all events +regarded Delia as a "handful," and was on the watch day by day +for things outrageous. She could not help liking the beautiful +creature--almost loving her! But Delia was still a "Daughter of +Revolt"--apparently unrepentant; that dangerous fanatic, her pretended +chaperon, was still in constant correspondence with her; the papers +teemed with news of militant outrages, north, south, east and west; and +riotous doings were threatened for the meetings of Parliament by +Delia's Society. On all these matters Delia shut her proud lips. Indeed +her new reticence with regard to militant doings and beliefs struck +Lady Tonbridge as more alarming than the young and arrogant defiance +with which on her first arrival she had been wont to throw them at the +world. Madeleine could not rid herself of the impression during these +weeks that Delia had some secret cause of anxiety connected with the +militant propaganda. She was often depressed, and there were moments +when she shewed a nervousness not easily accounted for. She scarcely +ever mentioned Gertrude Marvell; and she never wrote her letters in +public; while those she received, she would carry away to the gun +room--which she had now made her own particular den--before she opened +them. + +At the same time, if Weston recovered from the operation, in three +weeks or so it would be possible for Delia to leave Maumsey; and it was +generally understood that she would then join her friend in London, +just in time for the opening of Parliament. For the moment, it was +plain she was not engaged in any violent doings. But who could answer +for the future? + +And meanwhile, what was Mark Winnington about? It was all very well to +sit there trifling with the pages of the _Quarterly Review_! In her +moments of solitude by night or day, during the five days she had +already spent at Maumsey, Madeleine had never really given her mind to +anything else but the engrossing question. "Is he in love with her--or +is he not?" + +Of course she had foreseen--had feared--the possibility of it, from +that very first moment, almost--when Winnington had written to her +describing the terms of Bob Blanchflower's will, and his own acceptance +of the guardianship. + +Yet why "feared"? Had she not for years desired few things so sincerely +as to see Winnington happily married? As to that old tragedy, with its +romantic effect upon his life, her first acquiescence in that effect, +as something irrevocable, had worn away with time. It now seemed to her +an intolerable thing that Agnes Clay's death should forever stand +between Winnington and love. It was positively anti-social--bad +citizenship--that such a man as Mark Winnington should not produce +sons and daughters for the State, when all the wastrels and cheats in +creation were so active in the business. + +All the same she had but rarely ventured to attack him on the subject, +and the results had not been encouraging. She was certain that he had +entered upon the guardianship of Delia Blanchflower in complete +single-mindedness--confident, disdainfully confident, in his own +immunity; and after that first outburst into which friendship had +betrayed her, she had not dared to return to the subject. But she had +watched him--with the lynx eyes of a best friend; and that best friend, +a woman to whom love affairs were the most interesting things in +existence. In which, of course, she knew she was old-fashioned, and +behind the mass of the sex, now racing toward what she understood was +called the "economic independence of women"--_i.e._ a life without man. + +But in spite of watching, she was much perplexed--as to both the +persons concerned. She had now been nearly a week at Maumsey, in +obedience to Delia's invitation and Winnington's urging. The +opportunity indeed of getting to know Mark's beautiful--and +troublesome--ward, more intimately, was extremely welcome to her +curiosity. Hitherto Gertrude Marvell had served as an effective barrier +between Delia and her neighbours. The neighbours did not want to know +Miss Marvell, and Miss Marvell, Madeleine Tonbridge was certain, had +never intended that the neighbours should rob her of Delia. + +But now Gertrude Marvell had in some strange sudden way vacated her +post; and the fortress lay open to attack and capture, were anyone +strong enough to seize it. Moreover Delia's visitor had not been +twenty-four hours in the house before she had perceived that Delia's +attitude to her guardian was new, and full of suggestion to the shrewd +bystander. Winnington had clearly begun to interest the girl +profoundly--both in himself, and in his relation to her. She now wished +to please him, and was nervously anxious to avoid hurting or offending +him. She was always conscious of his neighbourhood or his mood; she was +eager--though she tried to conceal it--for information about him; and +three nights already had Lady Tonbridge lingered over Delia's bedroom +fire, the girl on the rug at her feet, while the elder woman poured out +her recollections of Mark Winnington, from the days when she and he had +been young together. + +As to that vanished betrothed, Agnes Clay,--the heroine of Winnington's +brief engagement--Delia's thirst for knowledge, in a restless, +suppressed way, had been insatiable. Was she jealous of that poor +ghost, and of all those delicate, domestic qualities with which her +biographer could not but invest her? The daughter of a Dean of +Wanchester--retiring, spiritual, tender,--suggesting a cloistered +atmosphere, and _The Christian Year_--she was still sharp in +Madeleine's recollection, and that lady felt a certain secret and +mischievous zest in drawing her portrait, while Delia, her black brows +drawn together, her full red mouth compressed, sat silent. + +Then--Wilmington as a friend!--upon that theme indeed Madeleine had +used her brightest colours. And to make this passive listener +understand what friendship meant in Wilmington's soul, it had been +necessary for the speaker to tell her own story, as much at least as it +was possible for her to tell, and Delia to hear. A hasty marriage--"my +own fault, my dear, as much as my parents'!"--twelve years of torment +and humiliation at the hands of a bad man, descending rapidly to the +pit, and quite willing to drag his wife and child with him, ending in a +separation largely arranged by Winnington--and then-- + +"We retired, Nora and I, on a decent allowance, my own money really, +only like a fool, I had let it all get into Alfred's hands. We took a +house at Richmond. Nora was fifteen. For two years my husband paid the +money. Then he wrote to say he was tired of doing without his daughter, +and he required her to live with him for six months in the year, as a +condition of continuing the allowance. I refused. We would sooner both +of us have thrown ourselves into the Thames. Alfred blustered and +threatened--but he could do nothing--except cut off the allowance, +which he did, at once. Then Mark Winnington found me the cottage here, +and made everything smooth for us. I wouldn't take any money from him, +though he was abominably ready to give it us! But he got me lessons--he +got me friends. He's made everybody here feel for us, and respect us. +He's managed the little bits of property we've got left--he's watched +over Nora--he's been our earthly Providence--and we both adore him!" + +On which the speaker, with a flickering smile and tear-dashed eyes, had +taken Delia's face in her two slender hands-- + +"And don't be such a fool, dear, as to imagine there's been anything in +it, ever, but the purest friendship and good-heartedness that ever +bound three people together! My greatest joy would be to see him +married--to a woman worthy of him--if there is one! And he I suppose +will find his reward in marrying Nora--to some nice fellow. He begins +to match-make for her already." + +Delia slowly withdrew herself. + +"And he himself doesn't intend to marry?" She asked the question, +clasping her long arms round her knees, as she sat on the floor, her +dark eyes--defiantly steady on her guest's face. + +Lady Tonbridge could hear her own answer. + +"L'homme propose! Let the right woman try!" Whereupon Delia, a +delicious figure, in a slim white dressing-gown, a flood of curly brown +hair falling about her neck and shoulders, had sprung up, and bidden +her guest a hasty good-night. + +One other small incident she recalled. + +_A propos_ of some anxious calculation made by Winnington's sister +Alice Matheson one day in talk with Lady Tonbridge--Delia being +present--as to whether Mark could possibly afford a better motor than +the "ramshackle little horror" he was at present dependent on, Delia +had said abruptly, on the departure of Mrs. Matheson-- + +"But surely the legacy my father left Mr. Winnington would get a new +motor!" + +"But he hasn't taken it, and never will!" Lady Tonbridge had cried, +amazed at the girl's ignorance. + +"Why not?" Delia had demanded, almost fiercely, looking very tall, and +oddly resentful. + +Why not? "Because one doesn't take payment for that sort of thing!" had +been Mark's laughing explanation, and the only explanation that she, +Madeleine, had been able to get out of him. She handed it on--to +Delia's evident discomfort. So, all along, this very annoying--though +attaching--young woman had imagined that Winnington was being +handsomely paid for putting up with her? + + * * * * * + +And Winnington? + +Here again, it was plain there was a change of attitude, though what it +meant Madeleine could not satisfactorily settle with herself. In the +early days of his guardianship he had been ready enough to come to her, +his most intimate woman-friend, and talk about his ward, though always +with that chivalrous delicacy which was his gift among men. Of late he +had been much less ready to talk; a good sign! And now, since Gertrude +Marvell's blessed departure, he was more at Maumsey than he had ever +been before. He seemed indeed to be pitting his own influence against +Miss Marvell's, and in his modest way, yet consciously, to be taking +Delia in hand, and endeavouring to alter her outlook on life; clearing +away, so far as he could, the atmosphere of angry, hearsay propaganda +in which she had spent her recent years, and trying to bring her face +to face with the deeper loves and duties and sorrows which she in her +headstrong youth knew so little about, while they entered so profoundly +into his own upright and humane character. + +Well, but did all this mean _love_?--the desire of the man for the +woman. + +Madeleine Tonbridge pondered it. She recollected a number of little +acts and sayings, throwing light upon his profound feeling for the +girl, his sympathy with her convictions, her difficulties, her wild +revolts against existing abuses and tyrannies. "I learn from her"--he +had said once, in conversation,--"she teaches me many things." +Madeleine could have laughed in his face--but for the passionate +sincerity in his look. + +One thing she perceived--that he was abundantly roused on the subject +of that man Lathrop's acquaintance with his ward. Lathrop's name had +not been mentioned since Lady Tonbridge's arrival, but she received the +impression of a constant vigilance on Winnington's part, and a certain +mystery and unhappiness on Delia's. As to the notion that such a man as +Paul Lathrop could have any attraction for such a girl as Delia +Blanchflower, the idea was simply preposterous,--except on the general +theory that no one is really sane, and every woman "is at heart a +rake." But of course there was the common interest, or what appeared to +be a common interest in this militant society to which Delia was still +so intolerably committed! And an unscrupulous man might easily make +capital out of it. + +At this stage in the rambling reverie which possessed her, Lady +Tonbridge was aware of footsteps on the gravel outside. Winnington? He +had proposed to take Delia for a ride that afternoon, to distract her +mind from Weston's state, and from the operation which was to take +place early the following morning. She drew the curtain aside. + +Paul Lathrop! + +Madeleine felt herself flushing with surprise and indignation. The +visitor was let in immediately. It surely was her duty to go down and +play watchdog. + +She firmly rose. But as she did so, there was a knock at her door, and +Delia hurriedly entered. + +"I--I thought I'd better say--Mr. Lathrop's just come to see me--on +business. I'm so sorry, but you won't mind my coming to say so?" + +Lady Tonbridge raised her eyebrows. + +"You mean--you want to see him alone? All right. I'll come down +presently." + +Delia disappeared. + + * * * * * + +For more than half an hour did that "disreputable creature," as Lady +Tonbridge roundly dubbed him, remain closeted with Delia, in Delia's +drawing-room. Towards the end of the time the visitor overhead was +walking to and fro impatiently, vowing to herself that she was +bound--positively bound to Winnington--to go down and dislodge the man. +But just as she was about to leave her room, she again heard the front +door open and close. She ran to the window just in time to see Lathrop +departing--and Winnington arriving!--on foot and alone. She watched +the two men pass each other in the drive--Winnington's start of haughty +surprise--and Lathrop's smiling and, as she thought, insolent greeting. +It seemed to her that Winnington hesitated--was about to stop and +address the intruder. But he finally passed him by with the slightest +and coldest recognition. Lathrop's fair hair and slouching shoulders +disappeared round a corner of the drive. Winnington hurried to the +front door and entered. + +Lady Tonbridge resolutely threw herself into an arm-chair and took up a +novel. + +"Now let them have it out! I don't interfere." + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile Delia, with a red spot of agitation on either cheek, was +sitting at the old satin-wood bureau in the drawing-room, writing a +cheque. A knock at the door disturbed her. She half rose, to see +Wilmington open and close it. + +A look at his face startled her. She sank back into her chair, in +evident confusion. But her troubled eyes met his appealingly. + +Wilmington's disturbance was plain. + +"I had ventured to think--to hope--" he began, abruptly--"that although +you refused to give me your promise when I asked it, yet that you would +not again--or so soon again--receive Mr. Lathrop--privately." + +Delia rose and came towards him. + +"I told Lady Tonbridge not to come down. Was that very wrong of me?" + +She looked at him, half smiling, half hanging her head. + +"It was unwise--and, I think, unkind!" said Winnington, with energy. + +"Unkind to you?" She lifted her beautiful eyes. There was something +touching in their strained expression, and in her tone. + +"Unkind to yourself, first of all," he said, firmly. "I must repeat +Miss Delia, that this man is not a fit associate for you or any young +girl. You do yourself harm by admitting him--by allowing him to see you +alone--and you hurt your friends." + +Delia paused a moment. + +"Then you don't trust me at all?" she said at last, slowly. + +Winnington melted. How pale she looked! He came forward and took her +hand-- + +"Of course I trust you! But you don't know--you are too young. You +confess you have some business with Mr. Lathrop that you can't tell +me--your guardian; and you have no idea to what misrepresentations you +expose yourself, or with what kind of a man you have to deal!" + +Delia withdrew her hand, and dropped into a chair--her eyes on the +carpet. + +"I meant--" she said, and her tone trembled--"I did mean to have told +you everything to-day." + +"And now--now you can't?" + +She made no reply, and in the silence he watched her closely. What +could account for such an eclipse of all her young vivacity? It was +clear to him that that fellow was entangling her in some monstrous +way--part and parcel no doubt of this militant propaganda--and +calculating on developments. Winnington's blood boiled. But while he +stood uncertain, Delia rose, went to the bureau where she had been +writing, brought thence a cheque, and mutely offered it. + +"What is this?" he asked. + +"The money you lent me." + +And to his astonishment he saw that the cheque was for L500, and was +signed "Delia Blanchflower." + +"You will of course explain?" he said, looking at her keenly. Suddenly +Delia's embarrassed smile broke through. + +"It's--it's only that I've been trying to pay my debts!" + +His patience gave way. + +"I'm afraid I must tell you--very plainly--that unless you can account +to me for this cheque, I must entirely refuse to take it!" + +Delia put her hands behind her, like a scolded child. + +"It is my very own," she protested, mildly. "I had some ugly jewels +that my grandmother left me, and I have sold them--that's all." + +Winnington's grey eyes held her. + +"H'm--and--has Mr. Lathrop had anything to do with the sale?" + +"Yes!" She looked up frankly, still smiling. "He has managed it for +me." + +"And it never occurred to you to apply to your guardian in such a +matter? Or to your lawyer?" + +She laughed--with what he admitted was a very natural scorn. "Ask my +guardian to provide me with the means of helping the 'Daughters'--when +he regards us all as criminals? On the contrary, I wanted to relieve +your conscience, Mr. Winnington!" + +"I can't say you have succeeded," he said, grimly, as he began to pace +the drawing-room, with slow steps, his hands in his pockets. + +"Why not? Now--everything you give me--can go to the right things--what +you consider the right things. And what is my own--my very own--I can +use as I please." + +Yet neither tone nor gesture were defiant, as they would have been a +few weeks before. Rather her look was wistful--appealing--as she stood +there, a perplexing, but most charming figure, in her plain black +dress, with its Quakerish collar of white lawn. + +He turned on her impetuously. + +"And Mr. Lathrop has arranged it all for you?" + +"Yes. He said he knew a good deal about jewellers. I gave him some +diamonds. He took them to London, and he has sold them." + +"How do you know he has even treated you honestly!" + +"I am certain he has done it honestly!" she cried indignantly. "There +are the letters--from the jewellers--" And running to the bureau, she +took thence a packet of letters and thrust them into Winnington's +hands. + +He looked them through in silence,--turning to her, as he put them +down. + +"I see. It is of course possible that this firm of jewellers have paid +Mr. Lathrop a heavy commission behind the scenes, of which you know +nothing. But I don't press that. Indeed I will assume exactly the +contrary. I will suppose that Mr. Lathrop has acted without any profit +to himself. If so, in my eyes it only makes the matter worse--for it +establishes a claim on you. Miss Delia!--" his resolute gaze held +her--"I do not take a farthing of this money unless you allow me to +write to Mr. Lathrop, and offer him a reasonable commission for his +services!" + +"No--no! Impossible!" + +She turned away from him, towards the window, biting her lip--in sharp +distress. + +"Then I return you this cheque"--he laid it down beside her. "And I +shall replace the money,--the L500--which I ought never to have allowed +you to spend as you have done, out of my own private pocket." + +She stood silent, looking into the garden, her chest heaving. She +thought of what Lady Tonbridge had told her of his modest means--and +those generous hidden uses of them, of which even his most intimate +friends only got an occasional glimpse. Suddenly she went up to him-- + +"Will you--will you promise me to write civilly?" she said, in a +wavering voice. + +"Certainly." + +"You won't offend--insult him?" + +"I will remember that you have allowed him to come into this +drawing-room, and treated him as a guest," said Winnington coldly. "But +why, Miss Delia, are you so careful about this man's feelings? And is +it still impossible that you should meet my wishes--and refuse to see +him again?" + +She shook her head--mutely. + +"You intend--to see him again?" + +"You forget--that we have--business together." + +Winnington paused a moment, then came nearer to the chair on which she +had dropped. + +"This last week--we have been very good friends--haven't we, Miss +Delia?" + +"Call me Delia, please!" + +"Delia, then!--we have come to understand each other much +better--haven't we?" + +She made a drooping sign of assent. + +"_Can't_ I persuade you--to be guided by me--as your father +wished--during these next years of your life? I don't ask you to give +up your convictions--your ideals. We should all be poor creatures +without them! But I do ask you to give up these violent and illegal +methods--this violent and illegal Society--with which you have +become entangled. It will ruin your life, and poison your whole +nature!--unless you can shake yourself free. Work for the Suffrage +as much as you like--but work for it honourably--and lawfully. I ask +you--I beg of you!--to give up these associates--and these methods." + +The tenderness and gravity of his tone touched the girl's quivering +senses almost unbearably. It was like the tenderness of a woman. She +felt a wild impulse to throw herself into his arms, and weep. But +instead she grew very white and still. + +"I can't!"--was all she said, her eyes on the ground. Winnington turned +away. + +Suddenly--a sound of hasty steps in the hall outside--and the door was +opened by a nurse, in uniform. + +"Miss Blanchflower!--can you come?" + +Delia sprang up. She and the nurse disappeared together. + + * * * * * + +Winnington guessed what had happened. Weston who was to face a +frightful operation on the morrow as the only chance of saving her +life, had on the whole gone through the fortnight of preparatory +treatment with wonderful courage. But during the last forty-eight +hours, there had been attacks of crying and excitement, connected with +the making of her will, which she had insisted on doing, being herself +convinced that she would die under the knife. Medically, all such +agitation was disastrous. But the only person who could calm her at +these moments was Delia, whom she loved. And the girl had shewn in +dealing with her a marvellous patience and strength. + +Presently Madeleine Tonbridge came downstairs--with red eyes. She +described the scene of which she had just been a witness in Weston's +room. Delia, she said, choking again at the thought of it, had been +"wonderful." Then she looked enquiringly at Winnington-- + +"You met that man going away?" + +He sat down beside her, unable to disguise his trouble of mind, or to +resist the temptation of her sympathy and their old friendship. + +"I am certain there is some plot afoot--some desperate business--and +they are trying to draw her into it! What can we do?" + +Lady Tonbridge shook her head despondently. What indeed could they do, +with a young lady of full age,--bent on her own way? + +Then she noticed the cheque lying open on the table, and asked what it +meant. + +"Miss Delia wishes to repay me some money I lent her," said Winnington, +after a pause. "As matters stand at present, I prefer to wait. Would +you kindly take charge of the cheque for her? No need to worry her +about it again, to-night." + + * * * * * + +Delia came down at tea-time, pale and quiet, like one from whom virtue +has gone out. By tacit consent Winnington and Lady Tonbridge devoted +themselves to her. It seemed as though in both minds there had arisen +the same thought of her as orphaned and motherless, the same pity, the +same resentment that anything so lovely should be unhappy--as she +clearly was; and not only, so both were convinced, on account of her +poor maid. + +Winnington stayed on into the lamplight, and presently began to read +aloud. The scene became intimate and domestic. Delia very silent, sat +in a deep arm chair, some pretence at needlework on her knee, but in +reality doing nothing but look into the fire, and listen to +Winnington's voice. She had changed while upstairs into a white dress, +and the brilliance of her hair, and wide, absent eyes above the +delicate folds of white, seemed to burn in Winnington's consciousness +as he read. Presently however, Lady Tonbridge looking up, was startled +to see that the girl had imperceptibly fallen asleep. The childish +sadness and sweetness of the face in its utter repose seemed to present +another Delia, with another history. Madeleine hoped that Winnington +had not observed the girl's sleep; and he certainly gave no sign of it. +He went on reading; and presently his companion, noticing the clock, +rose very quietly, and went out to give a letter to the parlour-maid +for post. + +As she entered the room again, however, she saw that Winnington had +laid down his book. His eyes were now on Delia--his lips parted. All +the weather-beaten countenance of the man, its deep lines graven by +strenuous living, glowed as from an inward light--marvellously intense +and pure. Madeleine's pulse leapt. She had her answer to her +speculations of the afternoon. + +Meanwhile through Delia's sleeping mind there swept scenes and images +of fear. She grew restless, and as Lady Tonbridge slipped again into +her chair by the fire, the girl woke suddenly with a long quivering +sigh, a sound of pain, which provoked a quick movement of alarm in +Winnington. + +But she very soon recovered her usual manner; and Winnington said +good-night. He went away carrying his anxieties with him through the +dark, carrying also a tumult of soul that would not be stilled. Whither +was he drifting? Of late he had felt sure of himself again. Her best +friend and guide--it was that he was rapidly becoming--with that, day +by day, he bade himself be content. And now, once more, self-control +was uprooted and tottering. It was the touch of this new softness, this +note of innocent appeal, even of bewildered distress, in her, which was +kindling all his manhood, and breaking down his determination. + +He raged at the thought of Lathrop. As to any danger of a love-affair, +like Lady Tonbridge, he scouted the notion. It would be an insult to +Delia to suppose such a thing. But it was simply intolerable in his +eyes that she should have any dealings with the fellow--that he should +have the audacity to call at her house, to put her under an obligation. + +And he was persuaded there was more than appeared in it; more than +Delia's devices for getting money, wherewith to feed the League of +Revolt. She was clearly anxious, afraid. Some shadow was brooding over +her, some terror that she could not disclose:--of that Winnington was +certain. And this man, whom she had already accepted as her colleague +in a public campaign, was evidently in the secret; might be even the +cause of her fears. + +He began hotly to con the terms of his letter to Lathrop; and then had +to pull himself up, remembering unwillingly what he had promised Delia. + + + + +Chapter XV + + +"Do you know anything more?" + +The voice was Delia's; and the man who had just met her in the shelter +of the wooded walk which ran along the crest of the hill above the +Maumsey valley, was instantly aware of the agitation of the speaker. + +"Nothing--precise. As I told you last week--you needn't be afraid of +anything immediate. But my London informants assure me that elaborate +preparations are certainly going on for some great _coup_ as soon as +Parliament meets--against Sir Wilfrid. The police are uneasy, though +puzzled. They have warned Daunt, and Sir Wilfrid is guarded." + +"Then of course our people won't attempt it! It would be far too +dangerous." + +"Don't be too sure! You and I know Miss Marvell. If she means to burn +Monk Lawrence, she'll achieve it, whatever the police may do." + +The man and the girl walked on in silence. The January afternoons were +lengthening a little, and even under the shadow of the wood Lathrop +could see with sufficient plainness Delia's pale beauty--strangely worn +and dimmed as it seemed to him. His mind revolted. Couldn't the jealous +gods spare even this physical perfection? What on earth had been +happening to her? He supposed a Christian would call the face +"spiritualised." If so, the Christian--in his opinion--would be a human +ass. + +"I have written several times to Miss Marvell--very strongly," said +Delia at last. "I thought you ought to know that. But I have had no +reply." + +"Why don't you go--instead of writing?" + +"It has been impossible. My maid has been so terribly ill." + +Lathrop expressed his sympathy. Delia received it with coldness and a +slight frown. She hurried on-- + +"I've written again--but I haven't sent it. Perhaps I oughtn't to have +written by post." + +"Better not. Shall I be your messenger? Miss Marvell doesn't like +me--but that don't matter." + +"Oh, no, thank you." The voice was hastily emphatic; so that his +vanity winced. "There are several members of the League in the village. +I shall send one of them." + +He smiled--rather maliciously. + +"Are you going to tackle Miss Andrews herself?" + +"You're still--quite _certain_--that she's concerned?" + +"Quite certain. Since you and I met--a fortnight ago isn't it?--I have +seen her several times, in the neighbourhood of the house--after dark. +She has no idea, of course, that I have been prowling round." + +"What have you seen?--what can she be doing?" asked Delia. "Of course I +remember what you told me--the other day." + +Lathrop's belief was that a close watch was now being kept on Daunt--on +his goings and comings--with a view perhaps to beguiling him away, and +then getting into the house. + +"But he has lately got a niece to stay with him, and help look after +the children, and the house. His sister who is married in London, +offered to send her down for six months. He was rather surprised, for +he had quite lost sight of his sister; but he tells me it's a great +relief to his mind. + +"So you talk to him?" + +"Certainly. Oh, he knows all about me--but he knows too that I'm on the +side of the house! He thinks I'm a queer chap--but he can trust me--in +_that_ business. And by the way, Miss Blanchflower, perhaps I ought to +let you understand that I'm an artist and a writer, before I'm a +Suffragist, and if I come across Miss Marvell--engaged in what you and +I have been talking of--I shall behave just like any other member of +the public, and act for the police. I don't want to sail--with +you--under any false pretences!" + +"I know," said Delia, quietly. "You came to warn me--and we are acting +together. I understand perfectly. You--you've promised however"--she +could not keep her voice quite normal--"that you'd let me know--that +you'd give me notice before you took any step." + +Lathrop nodded. "If there's time--I promise. But if Daunt or I come +upon Miss Marvell--or any of her minions--torch in hand--there would +not be time. Though, of course, if I could help her escape, +consistently with saving the house--for your sake--I should do so. I am +sure you believe that?" + +Delia made no audible reply, but he took her silence for consent. + +"And now"--he resumed--"I ought to be informed without delay, whether +your messenger finds Miss Marvell and how she receives your letter." + +"I will let you know at once." + +"A telegram brings me here--this same spot. But you won't wire from the +village?" + +"Oh no, from Latchford." + +"Well, then, that's settled. Regard me, please, as your henchman. +Well!--have you read any Madame de Noailles?" + +He fancied he saw a slight impatient movement. + +"Not yet, I'm afraid. I've been living in a sick room." + +Again he expressed polite sympathy, while his thoughts repeated--"What +waste!--what absurdity!" + +"She might distract you--especially in these winter days. Her verse is +the very quintessence of summer--of hot gardens and their scents--of +roses--and June twilights. It takes one out of this leafless north." He +stretched a hand to the landscape. + +And suddenly, while his heavy face kindled, he began to recite. His +French was immaculate--even to a sensitive and well-trained ear; and +his voice, which in speaking was disagreeable, took in reciting deep +and beautiful notes, which easily communicated to a listener the +thrill, the passion, of sensuous pleasure, which certain poetry +produced in himself. + +But it communicated no such thrill to Delia. She was only irritably +conscious of the uncouthness of his large cadaverous face, and +straggling fair hair; of his ragged ulster, his loosened tie, and all +the other untidy details of his dress. "And I shall have to go on +meeting him!" she thought, with repulsion. "And at the end of this walk +(the gate was in sight) I shall have to shake hands with him--and he'll +hold my hand." + +She loathed the thought of it; but she knew very well that she +Was under coercion--for Gertrude's sake. The recollection of +Winnington--away in Latchford on county business--smote her sharply. +But how could she help it? She must--_must_ keep in touch with this +man--who had Gertrude in his power. + +While these thoughts were running through her mind, he stopped his +recitation abruptly. + +"Am I to help you any more--with the jewels?" + +Delia started. Lathrop was smiling at her, and she resented the smile. +She had forgotten. But there was no help for it. She must have more +money. It might be, in the last resort, the means of bargaining with +Gertrude. And how could she ask Mark Winnington! + +So she hurriedly thanked him, naming a tiara and two pendants, that she +thought must be valuable. + +"All right," said Lathrop, taking out a note-book from his breast +pocket, and looking at certain entries he had made on the occasion of +his visit to Maumsey. "I remember--worth a couple of thousand at least. +When shall I have them?" + +"I will send them registered--to-morrow--from Latchford." + +"_ Tres bien_! I will do my best. You know Mr. Winnington has offered +me a commission?" His eyes laughed. + +Delia turned upon him. + +"And you ought to accept it, Mr. Lathrop! It would be kinder to all of +us." + +She spoke with spirit and dignity. But he laughed again and shook his +head. + +"My reward, you see, is just _not_ to be paid. My fee is your +presence--in this wood--your little word of thanks--and the hand you +give me--on the bargain!" + +They had reached the gate, and he held out his hand. Delia had flushed +violently, but she yielded her own. He pressed it lingeringly, as she +had foreseen, then released it and opened the gate for her. + +"Good-bye then. A word commands me--when you wish. We keep watch--and +each informs the other--barring accidents. That is, I think, the +bargain." + +She murmured assent, and they parted. Half way back towards his own +cottage, Lathrop paused at a spot where the trees were thin, and the +slopes of the valley below could be clearly seen. He could still make +out her figure nearing the first houses of the village. + +"I think she hates me. Never mind! I command her, and meet me she +must--when I please to summon her. There is some sweetness in that--and +in teasing the stupid fellow who no doubt will own her some day." + +And he thought exultantly of Winnington's letter to him, and his own +insolent reply. It had been a perfectly civil letter--and a perfectly +proper thing for a guardian to do. But--for the moment-- + +"I have the whip hand--and it amuses me to keep it,--Now then for +Blaydes!" + +For there, in the doorway of the cottage, stood the young journalist, +waiting and smoking. He was evidently in good humour. + +"Well? She came?" + +"Of course she came. But it doesn't matter to you." + +"Oh, doesn't it! I suppose she wants you to sell something more for +her?" + +Lathrop did not reply. Concerning Gertrude Marvell, he had not breathed +a word to Blaydes. + +They entered the hut together, and Lathrop rekindled the fire. The two +men sat over it smoking. Blaydes plied his companion with eager +questions, to which Lathrop returned the scantiest answers. At last he +said with a sarcastic look-- + +"I was offered four hundred pounds this afternoon--and refused it." + +"The deuce you did!" cried Blaydes, fiercely. "What about my debt--and +what do you mean?" + +"Ten per cent. commission," said Lathrop, drawing quietly at his cigar. +"Sales up to two thou., a fortnight ago. I shall get the same money--or +more--for the next batch." + +"Well, that's all right! No need to get it out of the lady, if you're +particular. Get it out of the other side. Any fool could manage that." + +"I shall not get a farthing out of the other side. I shall not make a +doit out of the whole transaction!" + +"Then you're a d----d fool," said Blaydes, in a passion. "And a +dishonest fool besides!" + +"Easy, please! What hold should I have on this girl--this splendid +creature--if I were merely to make money out of her? As it is, she's +obliged to me--she treats me like a gentleman. I thought you had +matrimonial ideas." + +"I don't believe you've got the ghost of a chance!" grumbled Blaydes, +his mind smarting under the thought of the lost four hundred pounds, +out of which his debt might have been paid. + +"Nor do I," said Lathrop, coolly. "But I choose to keep on equal terms +with her. You can sell me up when you like." + +He lounged to the window, and threw it open. The January day was +closing, not in any glory of sunset, but with interwoven greys and +pearls, and delicate yellow lights slipping through the clouds. + +"I shall always have _this_"--he said to himself, passionately, as he +drank in the air and the beauty--"whatever happens." + +Recollection brought back to him Delia's proud, virginal youth, and her +springing step as she walked beside him through the wood. His mind +wavered again between triumph and self-disgust. His muddy past returned +upon him, mingled, as always, with that invincible respect for her, and +belief in something high and unstained in the depths of his own nature, +to which his weakened and corrupt will was yet unable to give any +effect. + +"What I have done is not 'me'"--he thought. "At any rate not all +'me.' I am better than it. I suspect Winnington has told her +something--measuring it chastely out. All the same--I shall see her +again." + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile Delia was descending the hill pursued by doubts and terrors. +The day was now darkening fast, and heavy snow-clouds were coming +down over the valley. The wind had dropped, but the heavy air was +bitter-cold and lifeless, as though the earth waited sadly for the +silencing and muffling of the snow. + +And in Delia's heart there was a like dumb expectancy of change. The +old enthusiasms, and ideals and causes, seemed for the moment to lie +veiled and frozen within her. Only two figures emerged sharply in the +landscape of thought--Gertrude--and Winnington. + +Since that day, the day before Weston's operation, when Paul Lathrop +had brought her evidence--collected partly from small incidents and +observations on the spot, partly from information supplied him by +friends in London--which had sharpened all her own suspicions into +certainties, she had never known an hour free from fear. Her letters +had remained wholly unanswered. She did not even know where Gertrude +was; though it seemed to her that letters addressed to the head office +of the League of Revolt must have been forwarded. No! Gertrude was +really planning this hateful thing; the destruction of this beautiful +and historic house, with all its memories and its treasures, in order +to punish a Cabinet Minister for his opposition to Woman Suffrage, +and so terrorise others. Moreover it meant the risking of human +life--Daunt--his children, complete indifference also to Delia's +feelings, Delia's pain. + +What was she to do? Betray her friend?--go to Winnington for help? But +he was a magistrate. If such a plot were really on foot--and Lathrop +was himself convinced that petroleum and explosives were already stored +somewhere in the neighbourhood of the house--Winnington could only +treat such a thing as a public servant, as a guardian of the +law. Any appeal to him to let private interests--even _her_ +interests--interfere, would, she felt certain, be entirely fruitless. +Once go to him, the police must be informed--it would be his clear +duty; and if such proofs of the plot existed as Lathrop believed, +Gertrude would be arrested, and her accomplices. Including Delia +herself? + +That possibility, instead of frightening her, gave the girl some +momentary comfort. For that _might_ perhaps secure Winnington's +silence? + +But no!--her common sense dismissed the notion. Winnington would +discover at once that she had had no connection whatever with the +business. Lathrop's evidence alone would be enough. And that being so, +her confession would simply hand Gertrude over to Winnington's +conscience. And Mark Winnington's conscience was a thing to fear. + +And yet the yearning to go to him--like the yearning of an unhappy +child--was so strong. + +Traitor!--yes, _traitor_!--double-dyed. + +And pausing just outside the village, at a field gate, Delia leant over +it, gazing into the lowering sky, and piteously crying to some power +beyond--some God, "if any Zeus there be," on whom the heart in its +trouble might throw itself. + +Her thought ran backwards and forwards over the past months and years. +The burning moments of revolt through which she had lived--the meetings +of the League with their multitudes of faces, strained, fierce faces, +alive, many of them, with hatreds new to English life, new perhaps to +civilised history,--and the intermittent gusts of pity and fury which +had swept through her own young ignorance as she listened, making a +hideous thing of the future and of human fate:--she lived through them +all again. Individual personalities recurred to her, the wild looks of +delicate, frenzied women, who had lost health, employment, and the love +of friends--suffered in body, mind and estate for this "cause" to which +she too had vowed herself. Was she alone to desert, to fail--both the +cause and her friend, who had taught her everything? + +"It's not my will--not my _will_--that shrinks"--she moaned to herself. +"If I _believed_--if I still believed!" + +But why was the fire gone out of the old faiths, the savour from the +old hopes? Was she less moved by the sufferings, the toils, the +weakness of her sex? She could remember nights of weeping over the +wrongs of women, after an impassioned evening with Gertrude. And +now--had the heart of flesh become a heart of stone? Was she no longer +worthy of the great crusade, the vast upheaval? + +She could not tell. She only knew that the glamour of it all was +gone--that there were many hours when the Movement lay like lead upon +her life. Was it simply that her intelligence had revolted, that she +had come to see the folly, the sheer, ludicrous folly of a "physical +force" policy which opposed the pin-pricks of women to the strength of +men? Or was it something else--something far more compelling--more +convincing--more humiliating! + +"I've just fallen in love!--_fallen in love!_"--the words repeated +themselves brazenly, desperately, in her mind:--"and I can't think for +myself--judge for myself any longer! It's abominable--but it's true!" + +The very thought of Winnington's voice and look made her tremble as she +walked. Eternal weakness of the eternal woman! She scorned herself, yet +a bewildering joy sang through her senses. + +Nevertheless she held it at bay. She had her promised word--her +honour--to think of. Gertrude still expected her in London--on the +scene of action. + +"And I shall go," she said to herself with resolute inconsistency, "_I +shall go_!" + +What an angel Mark Winnington had been to her, this last fortnight! She +recalled the day of Weston's operation, and all the long days since. +The poor gentle creature had suffered terribly; death had been just +held off, from hour to hour; and was only now withdrawing. And Delia, +sitting by the bed, or stealing with hushed foot about the house, was +not only torn by pity for the living sufferer, she was haunted again by +all the memories of her father's dying struggle--bitter and miserable +days! And with what tenderness, what strength, what infinite delicacy +of thought and care, had she been upheld through it all! Her heart +melted within her. "There are such men in the world--there are!--and a +year ago I should have simply despised anyone who told me so!" + +Yet after these weeks of deepening experience, and sacred feeling, in +which she had come to love Mark Winnington with all the strength of her +young heart, and to realise that she loved him, the first use that she +was making of a free hour was to go, unknown to him--for he was away +on county business at Wanchester--and meet Paul Lathrop! + +"But he would understand," she said to herself, drearily, as she moved +on again. "If he knew, he would understand." + + * * * * * + +Now she must hurry on. She turned into the broad High Street of the +village, observed by many people, and half way down, she stopped at a +door on which was a brass plate, "Miss Toogood, Dressmaker." + +The lame woman greeted her with delight, and there in the back parlour +of the little shop she found them gathered,--Kitty Foster, the +science-mistress, Miss Jackson, and Miss Toogood,--the three +"Daughters," who were now coldly looked on in the village, and found +pleasure chiefly in each other's society. Marion Andrews was not there. +Delia indeed fancied she had seen her in the dusk, walking in a side +lane, that led into the Monk Lawrence road, with another girl, whom +Delia did not know. + +It was a relief, however, not to find her--for the moment. The faces of +the three women in the back parlour, were all strained and nervous; +they spoke low, and they gathered round Delia with an eagerness which +betrayed their own sense of isolation--of being left leaderless. + +"You will be going up soon, won't you?" whispered Miss Toogood, as she +stroked the sleeve of Delia's jacket. "The _Tocsin_ says there'll be +great doings next week--the day Parliament meets." + +"I've got my orders!"--said Kitty Foster, tossing her red hair +mysteriously. "Father won't keep me down here any longer. I've made +arrangements to go up to-morrow and lodge with a cousin in Battersea. +She's as deep in it as I am." + +"And I'm hoping they'll find room for me in the League office," said +the science-mistress. "I can't stand this life here much longer. My +Governors are always showing me they think us all criminals, and +they'll find an excuse for getting rid of me whenever they can. I +daren't even put up the 'Daughters' colours in my room now." + +Her hollow, anxious eyes, with the fanatical light in them clung to +Delia--to the girl's noble head, and the young face flushed with the +winter wind. + +"But we shall get it this session, shan't we?" said Miss Toogood +eagerly, still stroking Delia's fur. "The Government will give in--they +must give in." + +And she began to talk with hushed enthusiasm of the last month's tale +of outrages--houses burnt, windows broken, Downing Street attacked, red +pepper thrown over a Minister, ballot-boxes spoiled-- + +Suddenly it all seemed to Delia so absurd--so pathetic-- + +"I don't think we shall get the Bill!" she said, sombrely. "We shall be +tricked again." + +"Dear, dear!" said Miss Toogood, helplessly. "Then we shall have to go +on. It's war. We can't stop." + +And as she stood there, sadly contemplating the "war," in which, +poor soul, she had never yet joined, except by sympathy, a little +bill-distributing and a modest subscription, she seemed to carry on her +shoulders the whole burden of the "Movement"--herself, the little lame +dressmaker, on the one side--and a truculent British Empire on the +other. + +"We'll make them smart anyway!" cried Kitty Foster. "See if we don't!" + +Delia hurriedly opened her business. Would one of them take a letter +for her to London--an important letter to Miss Marvell that she didn't +want to trust to the post. Whoever took it must go to the League office +and find out where Miss Marvell was, and deliver it--personally. She +couldn't go herself--till after the doctors' consultation, which was to +be held on Monday--if then. + +Miss Jackson at once volunteered. Her face lightened eagerly. + +"It's Saturday. I shall be free. And then I shall see for myself--at +the office--if they can give me anything to do. When they write, they +seem to put me off." + +Delia gave her the letter, and stayed talking with them a little. They, +it was evident, knew nothing of the anxiety which possessed her. And as +to their hopes and expectations--why was it they now seemed to her so +foolish and so ignorant? She had shared them all, such a little while +before. + +And meanwhile they made much of her. They tried to keep her with them +in the little stuffy parlour, with its books which had belonged to Miss +Toogood's father, and the engraving of Winchester cathedral, and the +portrait of Mr. Keble. That "Miss Blanchflower" was with them, seemed +to reflect a glory on their little despised coterie. They admired her +and listened to her, loath to let her go. + +But at last Delia said Good-bye, and stepped out again into the lights +of the village street. As she walked rapidly towards Maumsey, and the +village houses thinned and fell away, she suddenly noticed a dark +figure in front of her. It was Marion Andrews. Delia ran to overtake +her. + +Marion stopped uncertainly when she heard herself called. Delia, +breathless, laid a hand on her arm. + +"I wanted to speak to you!" + +"Yes!" The girl stood quiet. It was too dark now to see her face. + +"I wanted to tell you--that there are suspicions--about Monk Lawrence. +You are being watched. I want you to promise to give it up!" + +There was no one on the road, above which some frosty stars had begun +to come out. Marion Andrews moved on slowly. + +"I don't know what you mean, Miss Blanchflower." + +"Don't, please, try to deceive me!" cried Delia, with low-voiced +urgency. "You have been seen at night--following Daunt about, +examining the doors and windows. The person who suspects won't +betray us. I've seen to that. But you must give it up--you _must_! I +have written to Miss Marvell." + +Marion Andrews laughed,--a sound of defiance. + +"All right. I don't take my orders from any one but her. But you are +mistaken, Miss Blanchflower, quite mistaken. Good-night." + +And turning quickly to the left, she entered a field path leading to +her brother's house, and was immediately out of sight. + +Delia went on, smarting and bewildered. How clear it was that she was +no longer trusted--no longer in the inner circle--and that Gertrude +herself had given the cue! The silent and stubborn Marion Andrews was +of a very different type from the three excitable or helpless women +gathered in Miss Toogood's parlour. She had ability, passion, and the +power to hold her tongue. Her connection with Gertrude Marvell had +begun, in London, at the "Daughters" office, as Delia now knew, long +before her own appearance at Maumsey. When Gertrude came to the Abbey, +she and this strange, determined woman were already well acquainted, +though Delia herself had not been aware of it till quite lately. "I +have been a child in their hands!--they have _never_ trusted me!" Heart +and vanity were equally wounded. + +As she neared the Maumsey gate, suddenly a sound--a voice--a tall +figure in the twilight. + +"Ah, there you are!" said Winnington. "Lady Tonbridge sent me to look +for you." + +"Aren't you back very early?" Delia attempted her usual voice. But +the man who joined her at once detected the note of effort, of tired +pre-occupation. + +"Yes--our business collapsed. Our clerk's too good--leaves us nothing +to do. So I've been having a talk with Lady Tonbridge." + +Delia was startled; not by the words, but by the manner of them. While +she seemed to Winnington to be thinking of something other than the +moment--the actual moment, her impression was the precise opposite, as +of a sharp, intense consciousness of the moment in him, which presently +communicated its own emotion to her. + +They walked up the drive together. + +"At last I have got a horse for you," said Winnington, after a pause. +"Shall I bring it to-morrow? Weston is going on so well to-night, +France tells me, that he may be able to say 'out of danger' to-morrow. +If so, let me take you far afield, into the Forest. We might have a +jolly run." + +Delia hesitated. It was very good of him. But she was out of practice. +She hadn't ridden for a long time. + +Winnington laughed aloud. He told--deliberately--a tale of a young +lady on a black mare, whom no one else could ride--of a Valkyrie--a +Brunhilde--who had exchanged a Tyrolese hotel for a forest lodge, and +ranged the wide world alone-- + +"Oh!"--cried Delia, "where did you hear that?" + +He described the talk of the little Swedish lady, and that evening on +the heights when he had first heard her name. + +"Next day came the lawyers' letter--and yours--both in a bundle." +"You'll agree--I did all I could--to put you off!" + +"So I understood--at once. You never beat about the bush." + +There was a tender laughter in his voice. But she had not the +heart to spar with him. He felt rather than saw her drooping. +Alarm--anxiety--rushed upon him, mingled in a tempest-driven mind with +all that Madeleine Tonbridge, in the Maumsey drawing-room, had just +been saying to him. That had been indeed the plain speaking of a +friend!--attacking his qualms and scruples up and down, denouncing them +even; asking him indignantly, who else could save this child--who else +could free her from the sordid entanglement into which her life had +slipped--but he? "You--you only, can do it!" The words were still +thundering through his blood. Yet he had not meant to listen to his old +friend. He had indeed withstood her firmly. But this sad and languid +Delia began, again, to put resistance to flight--to tempt--to justify +him--driving him into action that his cooler will had just refused. + +Suddenly, as they walked under the overshadowing trees of the drive, +her ungloved hand hanging beside her, she felt it taken, enclosed in a +warm strong clasp. A thrill, a shiver ran through her. But she let it +stay. Neither spoke. Only as they neared the front door with the lamp, +she softly withdrew her fingers. + +There was no one in the drawing-room, which was scented with early +hyacinths, and pleasantly aglow with fire-light. Winnington closed the +door, and they stood facing each other. Delia wanted to cry out--to +prevent him from speaking--but she seemed struck dumb. + +He approached her. + +"Delia!" + +She looked at him still helplessly silent. She had thrown off her hat +and furs, and, in her short walking-dress, she looked singularly +young and fragile. The change which had tempered the splendid--or +insolent--exuberance of her beauty, which Lathrop had perceived, had +made it in Winnington's eyes infinitely more appealing, infinitely more +seductive. Love and fear, mingled, had "passed into her face," like the +sculptor's last subtle touches on the clay. + +"Delia!" How all life seemed to have passed into a name! "I'm not sure +that I ought to speak! I'm not sure it's fair. It--it seems like taking +advantage. If you think so, don't imagine I shall ever press it again. +I'm twenty years older than you--I've had my youth. I thought +everything was closed for me--but--" He paused a moment--then his voice +broke into a low cry--"Dear! what have you done to make me love you +so?" + +He came nearer. His look spoke the rest. + +Delia retreated. + +"What have I done?" she said passionately. + +"Made your life one long worry!--ever since you saw me. How can you +love me?--you oughtn't!--you oughtn't!" + +He laughed. + +"Every quarrel we had I loved you the better. From our very first talk +in this room--" + +She cried out, putting up her hands, as though to protect herself +against the power that breathed from his face and shining eyes. + +"Don't--don't!--I can't bear it." + +His expression changed. + +"Delia!" + +"Oh, I do thank you!" she said, piteously, "I would--if I could. I--I +shall never care for any one else--but I can't--I can't." + +He was silent a moment, and then said, taking her hands, and putting +them to his lips-- + +"Won't you explain?" + +"Yes, I'll try--I ought to. You see"--she looked up in anguish--"I'm +not my own--to give--and I--No, no, I couldn't make you happy!" + +"You mean--you're--you're too deeply pledged to this Society?" + +He had dropped her hands, and stood looking at her, as if he would read +her through. + +"I must go up to town next week," she said hurriedly. "I must go, and I +must do what Gertrude tells me. Perhaps--I can protect--save her. I +don't know. I daresay I'm absurd to think so--but I might--and I'm +bound. But I'm promised--promised in honour--and I can't--get free. I +can't give up Gertrude--and you--you could never bear with her--or +accept her. And so--you see--I should just make you miserable!" + +He walked away, his hands in his pockets, and came back. Then suddenly +he took her by the shoulders. + +"You don't imagine I shall acquiesce in this!" he said +passionately--"that I shall endure to see you tied and chained by a +woman whom I know you have ceased to respect, and I believe you have +ceased to love!" + +"No!--no!--" she protested. + +"I think it is so," he said, steadily. "That is how I read it!" + +She gave a sob--quickly repressed. Then she violently mastered herself. + +"If it were true--I can't marry you. I won't be treacherous--nor a +coward. And I won't ruin your life. Dear Mr. Mark--it's quite, quite +impossible. Let's never talk of it again." + +And straightening all her slender body, she faced him with that foolish +courage, that senseless heroism, which women have so terribly at +command. + +So far, however from obliging her, he broke into a tempest of +discussion bringing to bear upon her all the arguments that love or +common sense dictated. If she really cared for him at all, if she even +thought it possible she might care, was she going to refuse all +help--all advice--from one to whom she had grown so dear?--to whom +everything she did was now of such vital, such desperate importance? He +pleaded for himself--guessing it to be the more hopeful way. + +"It's been a lonely life, Delia, till you came! And now you've filled +it. For God's sake, listen to me! Let me protect you, dear--let me +advise you--trust yourself to me. Do you imagine I should want to +dictate to you--or tyrannise over you? Do you imagine I don't +sympathise with your faiths, your ideals--that I don't feel for +women--what they suffer--what they endure--in this hard world? Delia, +we'd work together!--it mightn't be always in the same way--nor always +with the same opinions--but we'd teach--we'd help each other. Your own +conscience--your own mind--I see it plainly--have turned against this +horrible campaign--and the woman who's led you into it. How she's +treated you! Would any friend, any real _friend_ have left you alone +through this Weston business? And you've given her everything--your +house, your money, yourself! It makes me _mad_. I do implore you to +break with her--as gently, as generously as you like--but _free +yourself_! And then!"--he drew a long breath--"what a life we'd make +together!" He sat down beside her. Under the strong overhanging brows, +his grey eyes still pleaded with her--silently. + +But she was just strong enough, alas!--the poor child!--to resist him. +She scarcely replied; but her silence held the gate--against his +onslaughts. And at last she tottered to her feet. + +"Mr. Mark--dear Mr. Mark!--let me go!" + +Her voice, her aspect struck him dumb. And before he could rally his +forces again, the door shut, and she was gone. + + + + +Chapter XVI + + +"So I mustn't argue any more?" said Lady Tonbridge, looking at Delia, +who was seated by her guest's fire, and wore the weary aspect of one +who had already been argued with a good deal. + +Madeleine's tone was one of suppressed exasperation. Exasperation +rather with the general nature of things than with Delia. It was +difficult to be angry with one whose perversity made her so evidently +wretched. But as to the "intolerable woman" who had got the girl's +conscience--and Winnington's happiness--in her power, Lady Tonbridge's +feelings were at a white heat. How to reason with Delia, without +handling Gertrude Marvell as she deserved---there was the difficulty. + +In any case, Delia was unshakeable. If Weston were really out of +danger--Dr. France was to bring over the Brownmouth specialist on +Monday--then that very afternoon, or the next morning, Delia must +and would go to London to join Gertrude Marvell. And six days +later Parliament would re-assemble under the menace of raids and +stone-throwings, to which the _Tocsin_ had been for weeks past +summoning "The Daughters of Revolt," throughout the country, in terms +of passionate violence. In those proceedings Delia had apparently +determined to take her part. As to this Lady Tonbridge had not been +able to move her in the least. + +The case for Winnington seemed indeed for the moment desperate. After +his scene with Delia, he had left the Abbey immediately, and +Lady Tonbridge, though certain that something important--and +disastrous--had happened, would have known nothing, but for a sudden +confession from Delia, as the two ladies sat together in the +drawing-room after dinner. Delia had abruptly laid down her book, with +which she was clearly only trifling--in order to say-- + +"I think I had better tell you at once that my guardian asked me to +marry him, this afternoon, and I refused." + +Since this earthquake shock, Madeleine Tonbridge could imagine nothing +more unsatisfactory than the conversations between them which had begun +in the drawing-room, and lingered on till, now, at nearly midnight, +sheer weariness on both sides had brought them to an end. When +Madeleine had at last thrown up argument as hopeless, Delia with a face +of carven wax, and so handsome through it all that Lady Tonbridge could +have beaten her for sheer vexation, had said a quiet goodnight and +departed. + +But she was _in love with him_, the foolish, obstinate child!--wildly, +absorbingly in love with him! The fact was tragically evident, in +everything she said, and everything she left unsaid. + +The struggle lay then between her loyalty to her friend, the passionate +loyalty of woman to woman, so newly and strangely developed by the +Suffrage movement, and Winnington's advancing influence,--the influence +of a man equipped surely with all the means of victory--character, +strength, charm--over the girl's heart and imagination. He must +conquer! + +And yet Madeleine Tonbridge, staring into the ashes of a dwindling +fire, had never persuaded herself--incorrigible optimist that she +was--to so little purpose. + +What _was_ there at the back of the girl's mind? Something more than +appeared; though what appeared was bad enough. One seemed at times to +catch a glimpse of some cloaked and brooding Horror, in the dim +background of the girl's consciousness, and overshadowing it. What more +likely indeed, with this wild campaign sweeping through the country? +She probably knew or suspected things that her moral sense condemned, +to which she was nevertheless committed. + +"We shall end by proving all that the enemy says of us; we shall give +our chance away for a generation!" + +"Do for Heaven's sake keep the young lady at home!" + +The speaker was Dr. France. After seeing his patient, dismissing the +specialist, and spending half an hour _tete-a-tete_ with Delia, he came +down to see Lady Tonbridge in a state that in any one else would have +been a state of agitation. In him all that appeared was a certain +hawkish glitter in the eye, and a tendency to pull and pinch a scarcely +existing moustache. But Madeleine, who knew him well, understood that +he was just as much at feud with the radical absurdity of things as she +was. + +"No one can keep her at home. Delia is of age," she said, rising to +meet him, with a face as serious as his own. + +"If she gets into prison, and hunger-strikes, she'll injure herself! +She's extraordinarily run down with this business of Weston's. I don't +believe she could stand the sheer excitement of what she proposes to +do." + +"She's told you?" + +"Quite enough. If she once goes up to town--if she once gets into that +woman's clutches, no one can tell what will happen. Oh, you women--you +women!" And the doctor walked tigerishly up and down the room. "That +some of the cleverest and wisest of you can stoop to dabbling in a +business like this! Upon my word it's an eye-opener!--it pulls one up. +And you think you can drive men by such antics! The more you smash and +burn, the more firmly goes down the male foot--yes, and the female +too!" + +And the doctor, with a glare, and a male foot as firm as he could make +it, came to a stop beside Lady Tonbridge--who looked at him coolly. + +"Excellent!--but no concern of mine. I'm not a militant. I want the +vote just as much as Delia does!" said Lady Tonbridge, firmly. "Don't +forget that." + +"No, you don't--you don't! Excuse me. You are a reasonable woman." + +"Half the reasonable women in England want the vote. Why shouldn't I +have a vote--as well as you?" + +"Because, my dear lady--" the doctor smote the table with his hand for +emphasis--"because the parliamentary vote means the government _of men +by men_--without which we go to pieces. And you propose now to make it +include the government of men by women--which is absurd!--and if you +try it, will only break up the only real government that exists, or can +exist!" + +"Oh!--'physical force,'" said Madeleine, contemptuously, with her nose +in the air. + +"Well--did I--did you--make the physical difference between men and +women? Can we unmake it?" "We are governed by discussion--not by +force." + +"Are we? Look at South Africa--look at Ulster--look at the labour +troubles that have been, and are to be. And then you women come along +with your claim to the vote! What are you doing but breaking up all the +social values--weakening all the foundations of the social edifice! +Woe!--to you women especially--when you teach men to despise the +vote--when men come to know that behind the paper currency of a vote +which may be a man's or a woman's, there is nothing but an opinion--bad +or good! At present, I tell you, the great conventions of democracy +hold because there is reality of bone and muscle behind them! Break +down that reality--and sooner or later we come back to force +again--through bloodshed and anarchy!" + +"Inevitable--all the same!" cried Madeleine. "Why did you ever let us +taste education?--if you are to deny us for ever political equality?" + +"Use your education, my dear Madam!" said the doctor, indignantly. "Are +there not many roads to political equality?--many forms of government +within government, that may be tried, before you insist on ruining us +by doing men's work in the men's way? Hasn't it taken more than a +hundred years to settle that Irish question, which began with the +Union? Is it a hundred years since it was a hanging matter to steal a +handkerchief off a hedge? Can't you give us a hundred years for the +Woman Question? Sixty years only, since the higher education of women +began! Isn't the science of government developing every day? Women have +got, you say, to be fitted into government--I agree! I _agree_! But +_don't rush it_! Claim everything--what you like!--except only that +sovereign vote, which controls, and must control, the male force of an +Empire!" + +"Jove's thunder!" scoffed Lady Tonbridge. "Well--my dear old +friend!--you and I shan't agree--you know that. Now what can I do for +Delia?" + +"Nothing," said France gloomily. "Unless some one goes up to watch over +her." + +"Her guardian will go," said Madeleine quietly, after a pause. + +They eyed each other. + +"You're sure?" said France. + +"Quite sure--though I've not said a word to him--nor he to me." + +"All right then--she's worth it! By George, she's got the makings +of something splendid in her. I tell you she's had as much to do +as any of us with saving the life of that woman upstairs. +Courage?--tenderness?--'not arf.'" + +The slangy term shewed the speaker's desire to get rid of his own +feelings. He had, at any rate, soon smothered them, and he and Lady +Tonbridge, their chairs drawn close, fell into a very confidential +discussion. France was one of those country doctors, not rare +fortunately in England, in whom a whole neighbourhood confides, whom +a whole neighbourhood loves; all the more if a man betrays a fair +allowance of those gnarls and twists of character, of strong +prejudices, and harmless manias, which enable the common herd to +take him to their bosoms. Dr. France was a stamp-collector, a +player--indifferent--on the cornet, a rabid Tory, and a person who +could never be trusted to deal faithfully and on C.O.S. principles with +tramps and "undesirables." Such things temper the majesty of virtue, +and make even the good human. + +He had known and prescribed for Winnington since he was a boy in +knickers; he was particularly attached to Lady Tonbridge. What he and +Madeleine talked about is not of great importance to this narrative; +but it is certain that France left the house in much concern for a man +he loved, and a girl who, in the teeth of his hottest beliefs, had +managed to touch his feelings. + +Delia spent the day in packing. Winnington made no sign. In the +afternoon,--it was a wet Saturday afternoon--Lady Tonbridge sitting in +the drawing-room, saw the science mistress of the Dame Perrott School +coming up the drive. Madeleine knew her as a "Daughter," and could not +help scowling at her--unseen. + +She was at once admitted however, and spent a short time with Delia in +the Library. + +And when Miss Jackson closed the Library door behind her on her way out +of the house, Delia broke the seal of a letter which had been given +into her hands:-- + +"I am very sorry, my dear Delia, you should have taken these silly +reports so much to heart. You had better dismiss them from your mind. I +have given no such orders as you suppose--nor has the Central Office. +The plan you found referred to something quite different--I really +can't remember what. I can't of course be responsible for all the +'Daughters' in England, but I have much more important business to +think of just now than the nonsense Mr. Lathrop seems to have been +stuffing you with. As to W-----L-----, it would only be worth while to +strike at him, if our affairs _go wrong_--through him. At present, I am +extraordinary hopeful. We are winning every day. People see that we are +in earnest, and mean to succeed--at whatever cost. + +"I am glad you are coming up on Monday. You will find the flat anything +but a comfortable or restful place,--but that you will be prepared +for. Our people are amazing!--and we shall get into the House on +Thursday, or know the reason why. + +"For the money you sent, and the money you promise--best thanks. +Everybody is giving. It is the spirit of the Crusader, 'Dieu le +veult!'" + + "Your affectionate + G. M." + + +Delia read and re-read it. It was the first time Gertrude had +deliberately tried to deceive her, and the girl's heart was sore. +Even now, she was not to be trusted--"now that I am risking +everything--_everything_!" And with the letter in her lap, she sat and +thought of Winnington's face, as he had turned to look at her, before +leaving the drawing-room the night before. + + * * * * * + +The day passed drearily. The hills and trees were wrapped in a damp +fog, and though the days were lengthening fast, the evening closed like +November. Madeleine thought with joy of getting back to her tiny house +and her Nora. Nora, who was not yet out, seemed to have been enjoying a +huge success in the large cousinly party with whom she had been +spending the Christmas holidays. "But it's an odd place, Mummy. In the +morning we 'rag'; and the rest of the day we talk religion. Everybody +is either Buddhist or 'Bahai'--if that's the right way to spell it. It +sounds odd, but it seems to be a very good way of getting on with young +men." + +Heavens! What did it matter how you played the old game, or with what +counters, so long as it was played? + +And as Lady Tonbridge watched the figure of Delia gliding through the +house, wrapped in an estranging silence, things ancient and traditonal +returned upon her in flood, and nothing in the world seemed worth +having but young love and happy marriage!--if you could get them! +She--and her heart knew its bitterness--had made the great throw and +lost. + + * * * * * + +Sunday passed in the same isolation. But on Sunday afternoon Delia took +the motor out alone, and gave no reason either before or after. + +"If she's gone out to meet that man, it's a scandal!" thought Madeleine +wrathfully, and could hardly bring herself to be civil when the girl +returned--pale, wearied, and quite uncommunicative. But she was very +touching in a mute, dignified way, all the evening, and Madeleine +relented fast. And, as they sat in the fire-lit drawing-room, when the +curtains were drawn, Delia suddenly brought a stool close to Lady +Tonbridge's side, and, sitting at her feet, held up appealing arms. +Madeleine, with a rush of motherliness, gathered her close; and the +beautiful head lay, very quiet, on her breast. But when she would have +entreated, or argued, again, Delia implored her--"Don't--don't +talk!--it's no good. Just let me stay." + +Late that night, all being ready for departure, Delia went in to say +good-night, and good-bye to Weston. + +"You'll be downstairs and as strong as a horse, when I come back," she +said gaily, stroking the patient's emaciated fingers. + +Weston shook her head. + +"I don't think I shall ever be good for much, Miss Delia. But"--and her +voice suddenly broke--"I believe I'd go through it all again--just to +know--what--you could be--to a poor thing--like me." + +"Weston!--" said Delia, softly--"if you talk like that--and if you dare +to cry, Nurse will turn me out. You're going to get quite well, but +whether you're well or ill, here you stay, Miss Rosina Weston!--and I'm +going to look after you. Polly hasn't packed my things half badly." +Polly was the under-housemaid, whom Delia was taking to town. "She +wouldn't be worth her salt, if she hadn't," said Weston tartly. "But +she can't do your hair, Miss--and it's no good saying she can." + +"Then I'll do it myself. I'll make some sort of a glorious mess of it, +and set the fashion." + +But her thought said--"If I go to prison, they'll cut it off. Poor +Weston!" + +Weston moved uneasily-- + +"Miss Delia?" + +"Yes." + +"Don't you go getting yourself into trouble. Now don't you!" And with +tears in her eyes, the ghostly creature pressed the girl's hand to her +lips. Delia stooped and kissed her. But she made no reply. Instead she +began to talk of the new bed-rest which had just been provided for +Weston, and on which the patient professed herself wonderfully +comfortable. + +"It's better than the one we had at Meran--for papa." Her voice +dropped. She sat at the foot of Weston's bed looking absently into some +scene of the past. + +"Nothing ever gave him ease--your poor Papa!" said Weston, pitifully. +"He did suffer! But don't you go thinking about it this time of night, +Miss Delia, or you won't sleep." + +Delia said goodnight, and went away. But she did think of her +father--with a curious intensity. And when she fell fitfully asleep, +she dreamt that she saw him standing beside her in some open foreign +place, and that he looked at her in silence, steadily and coldly. And +she stretched out her hands, in a rush of grief--"Kiss me, father! I +was unkind--horribly--horribly unkind!" + +With the pain of it, she woke suddenly and the visualising sense seemed +still to perceive in the darkness the white head and soldierly form. +She half rose, gasping. Then, as though a photographic shutter were let +down, the image passed from the brain, and she lay with heaving breast, +trying to find her way back into what we call reality. But it was a +reality even more wretched than those recollections to which her dream +had recalled her. For it was held and possessed by Winnington, and now +by the threatening vision of Monk Lawrence, spectral amid the red ruin +of fire. She had stopped the motor that day at the foot of the hill on +which the house stood, and using Winnington's name, had made a call on +the cripple child. Daunt had received her with a somewhat gruff +civility, and was not communicative about the house and its defence. +But she gathered--without herself broaching the subject--that he was +scornfully confident of his power to protect it against "them creeping +women," and she had come home comforted. The cripple child had clung to +her silently; and on coming away, Delia had felt a small wet kiss upon +her hand. A touching creature!--with her wide blue eyes, and delicate +drawn face. It was feared that another abscess might be developing in +the little hip, where for a time disease had been quiescent. + + * * * * * + +On Monday morning the doctors came early. They gave a favourable +verdict, and Delia at once decided on an afternoon train. + +All the morning, Lady Tonbridge hovered round her, loth to take her own +departure, and trying every now and then to re-open the subject of +London, to make the girl promise to send for her--to consult +Winnington, if any trouble arose. + +But Delia would not allow any discussion. "I shall be with +Gertrude--she'll tell me what to do," was all she would say. + +Lady Tonbridge was dropped at her own door by Delia, on her way to the +station. Nora was there to welcome her, but not all their joy in +recovering each other, could repair Madeleine's cheerfulness. She +stood, looking after the retreating car with such a face that Nora +exclaimed-- + +"Mother, what _is_ the matter!" + +"I'm watching the tumbril out of sight," said Lady Tonbridge +incoherently. "Shall we ever see her again?" + +That, however, was someone else's affair. + +Delia took her own and her housemaid's tickets for London, saw her +companion established, and then, preferring to be alone, stepped into +an empty carriage herself. She had hardly disposed her various +packages, and the train was within two minutes of starting, when a tall +man came quickly along the platform, inspecting the carriages as he +passed. Delia did not see him till he was actually at her window. In +another moment he had opened and closed the door, and had thrown down +his newspapers and overcoat on the seat. The train was just starting, +and Delia, crimson, found herself mechanically shaking hands with Mark +Winnington. + +"You're going up to town?" She stammered it. "I didn't know--" + +"I shall be in town for a few days. Are you quite comfortable? A +footwarmer?" + +For the day was cold and frosty, with a bitter east wind. + +"I'm quite warm, thank you." + +The train ran out of the station, and they were soon in the open +country. Delia leant back in her seat, silent, conscious of her own +hurrying pulses, but determined to control them. She would have liked +to be indignant--to protest that she was being persecuted and coerced. +But the recollection of their last meeting, and the sheer, +inconvenient, shameful, joy of his presence there, opposite, +interposed. + +Winnington himself was quite cool; there were no signs whatever of any +intention to renew their Friday's conversation. His manner and tone +were just as usual. Some business at the Home Office, connected with +his County Council work, called him to town. He should be staying at +his Club in St. James's St. Alice Matheson also would be in town. + +"Shall we join for a theatre, one night?" he asked her. + +She felt suddenly angered. Was she never to be believed, never to be +taken seriously? + +"To-morrow, Mr. Mark, is the meeting of Parliament." + +"That I am aware of." + +"The day after, I shall probably be in prison!" + +She fronted him bravely, though, as he saw, with an effort. He paused a +moment, but showed no astonishment. + +"I hope not. I think not," he said, quietly. + +Delia took up the evening paper she had just bought at the station, +opened it, and looked at the middle page. + +"There are our plans," she said, defiantly, handing it to him. + +"Thank you. I have already seen it." + +But he again read through attentively the paragraph to which she +pointed him. It was headed "Militant Plans for To-morrow." A +procession of five hundred women was to march on the Houses of +Parliament, at the moment of the King's Speech. "We insist"--said the +Manifesto issued from the offices of the League of Revolt--"upon our +right of access to the King, or failing His Majesty, to the Prime +Minister. We mean business and we shall be armed." + +Winnington pointed to the word "armed." + +"With stones--I presume?" + +"Well, not revolvers, I hope!" said Delia. "I should certainly shoot +myself." + +Tension broke up in slightly hysterical laughter. She was already in +better spirits. There was something exciting--exhilarating even--in +the duel between herself and Winnington, which was implied in the +conversation. His journey up to town, the look in his grey eyes +meant--"I shall prevent you from doing what you are intending to do." +But he could not prevent it. If he was the breakwater, she was the +storm-wave, driven by the gale--by the wind from afar, of which she +felt herself the sport, and sometimes the victim--without its changing +her purpose in the least. + +"Only I shall not refuse food!" she thought. "I shall spare him that. I +shall serve my sentence. It won't be long." + +But afterwards? Would she then be free? Free to follow Gertrude or not, +according to her judgment? Would she have "purged" her promise--paid +her shot--recovered the governance of herself? + +Her thoughts discussed the future, when, all in a moment, Winnington, +watching her from behind his _Times_, saw a pale startled look. It +seemed to be caused by something in the landscape. He turned his eyes +to the window and saw that they were passing an old manor house, with a +gabled front, standing above the line, among trees. What could that +have had to do with the sudden contraction of the beautiful brow, the +sudden look of terror--or distress? The house had a certain resemblance +to Monk Lawrence. Had it reminded her of that speech in the Latchford +marketplace from which he was certain she had recoiled, no less than +he? + +"You'll let me take you to the flat? I've been over it once, but I +should like to see it's in order." + +She hesitated, but how could she refuse? He put her into a taxi, having +already dispatched her maid with the luggage in another, and they +started. + +"I expect you'll find a lot of queer people there!" she said, trying to +laugh. "At least you'll think them queer." + +"I shall like to see the people you are working with," he said, +gravely. + +Half way to Westminster, he turned to her. + +"Miss Delia!--it's my plain duty to tell you--again--and to keep on +telling you, even though it makes you angry, and even though I have no +power to stop you, that in taking part in these doings to-morrow, you +are doing a wrong thing, a grievously wrong thing! If I were only an +ordinary friend, I should try to dissuade you with all my might. But I +represent your father--and you know what he would have felt." + +He saw her lips tremble. But she spoke calmly, "Yes,--I know. But it +can't be helped. We can't agree, Mr. Mark, and it's no good my trying +to explain, any more--just yet!--" she added, in a lower tone. + +"'Just yet'? What do you mean by that?" + +"I mean that some time,--perhaps sometime soon--I shall be ready to +argue the whole thing with you--what's right and what's wrong. Now I +can't argue--I'm not free to. Don't you see--'Ours not to make +reply,--ours but to do, or die.'" Her smile flashed out. "There's not +going to be any dying about it however--you know that as well as I do." +Then with a touch of mockery she bent towards him. "You won't persuade +me, Mr. Mark, that you take us very seriously! But I'm not angry at +that--I'm not angry--at anything!" + +And her face, as he scanned it, melted--changed--became all soft +sadness, and deprecating appeal. Never had she seemed to him so +fascinating. Never had he felt himself so powerless. He thought, +despairingly--"If I had her to myself, I could take her in my arms, +and make her give way!" + +But here were the first signs of arrival--a narrow Westminster +street--a towering group of flats. The taxi stopped, and Winnington +jumped out. + + + + +Chapter XVII + + +Delia's luggage was brought in by the hall porter, and she and +Winnington stood waiting for the lift. Meanwhile Winnington happened to +notice, through the open door of the mansions, a couple of policemen +standing just outside, on the pavement, and two others on the further +side of the street. It seemed to him they were keeping the house which +Delia and he had just entered under observation. + +The lift descended. There were in it four women, all talking eagerly in +subdued tones. One was grey-haired, the others were quite young girls. +The strained, excited look on all their faces struck Winnington sharply +as they emerged from the lift. One of the girls looked curiously at +Delia and her tall companion. The grey-haired lady's attention was +caught by the policeman outside. She gave a little chuckle. + +"We shall have plenty to do with those gentry to-morrow!" she said to +the girl beside her, drawing her cloak round her so that it displayed a +black and orange badge. + +Delia approached her. + +"Is Miss Marvell here?" + +They all stopped and eyed her. + +"Yes, she's upstairs. She's just come back from the Central. But she's +very busy," said the elder lady. "She won't see you without an +appointment." + +One of the girls suddenly looked at Delia, and whispered to the +speaker. + +"Oh, I see!" said that lady, vaguely. "Are you Miss Blanchflower?" + +"Yes." + +"I beg your pardon. Miss Marvell's expecting you of course. Do make her +rest a bit if you can. She's simply _splendid_! She's going to be one +of our great leaders. I'm glad you won't miss it after all. You've been +delayed, haven't you?--by somebody's illness. Well, it's going +magnificently! We shall make Parliament listen--at last. Though they'll +protect themselves no doubt with any number of police--cowards!" + +The eyes of the speaker, as her face came into the light of the hall +lamp, sparkled maliciously. She seemed to direct her words especially +to Winnington, who stood impassive. Delia turned to the lift, and they +ascended. + +They were admitted, after much ringing. A bewildered maid looked at +Delia, and the luggage behind her, as though she had never heard of her +before. And the whole flat in the background seemed alive with voices +and bustle. Winnington lost patience. + +"Tell this man, please, where to take Miss Blanchflower's luggage at +once. And where is the drawing-room?" + +"Are you going to stay, Miss?" said the girl. "There's only the small +bedroom vacant." + +Delia burst out laughing--especially at the sight of Winnington's irate +countenance. + +"All right. It'll do quite well. Now tell me where Miss Marvell is." + +"I mustn't interrupt her, Miss." + +"This is my flat," said Delia, good-humouredly--"so I think you must. +And please shew Mr. Winnington the drawing-room." + +The girl, with an astonished face, opened a door for Winnington, into a +room filled with people, and then--unwillingly--led Delia along the +passage. + +Winnington looked round him in bewilderment. He had entered, it seemed, +upon a busy hive of women. The room was full, and everybody in it +seemed to be working at high pressure. A young lady at a central table +was writing telegrams as fast as possible, and handing them to a +telegraph clerk who was waiting. Two typewriters were busy in the +further corners. A woman, with a sharply clever face, was writing near +by, holding her pad on her knee, while a printer's boy, cap in hand, +was sitting by her waiting for her "copy." Two other women were undoing +and sorting rolls of posters. Winnington caught the head-lines--"Women +of England, strike for your liberties!" "Remember our martyrs in +prison!"--"Destroy property--and save lives!" "If violence won freedom +for men, why not for women!" And in the distance of the room were +groups in eager discussion. A few had maps in their hands, and others +note-books, in which they took down the arrangements made. So far as +their talk reached Winnington's ears, it seemed to relate to the +converging routes of processions making for Parliament Square. + +"How do you do, Mr. Winnington," said a laughing voice, as a +daintily-dressed woman, with fair fluffy hair came towards him. + +He recognised the sister of a well-known member of Parliament, a lady +who had already been imprisoned twice for window-breaking in Downing +Street. + +"Who would have thought to see you here!" she said, gaily, as they +shook hands. + +"Surprising--I admit! I came to see Miss Blanchflower settled in her +flat. But I seem to have stumbled into an office." + +"The Central Office simply couldn't hold the work. We were all in each +other's way. So yesterday, by Miss Marvell's instructions, some of us +migrated here. We are only two streets from the central." + +"Excellent!" said Winnington. "But it might perhaps have been well to +inform Miss Blanchflower." + +The flushed babyish face under the fashionable hat looked at him +askance. Lady Fanny's tone changed--took a sharpened edge. + +"Miss Blanchflower--you may be quite sure--will be as ready as anyone +else to make sacrifices for the cause. But we don't expect _you_ to +understand that!" + +"Nobody can doubt your zeal, Lady Fanny." + +"Only my discretion? Oh, I've long left that to take care of itself. +What are you here for?" + +"To look after my ward." + +Lady Fanny eyed him again. + +"Of course! I had forgotten. Well, she'll be all right." + +"What are you really preparing to do to-morrow?" + +"Force our way into the House of Commons!" + +"Which means--get into an ugly scrimmage with the police, and put your +cause back another few years?" + +"Ah! I can't talk to you, if you talk like that! There isn't time," she +threw back, with laughing affectation, and nodding to him, she +fluttered off to a distant table where a group of girls were busy +making black and orange badges. But her encounter with him seemed to +have affected the hive. Its buzz sank, almost ceased. + +Winnington indeed suddenly discovered that all eyes were fixed upon +him--that he was being closely and angrily observed. He was conscious, +quickly and strangely conscious, of an atmosphere of passionate +hostility, as though a pulse of madness ran through the twenty or +thirty women present. Meredithian lines flashed into memory-- + + "Thousand eyeballs under hoods + Have you by the hair--" + +and a shock of inward laughter mingled in his mind with irritation for +Delia--who was to have no place apparently in her own flat for either +rest or food--and the natural wish of a courteous man not to give +offense. At the same moment, he perceived on one of the tables a heap +of new and bright objects; and saw at once that they were light +hammers, fresh from the ironmongers. Near them lay a pile of stones, +and two women were busily casing the stones in a printed leaflet. But +he had no sooner become aware of these things than several persons in +the room moved so as to stand between him and them. + +He went back into the passage, closing the door behind him. + +The little parlour-maid came hurriedly from the back regions carrying a +tray on which was tea and bread and butter. + +"Are you taking that to Miss Blanchflower?" + +"Yes, Sir." + +"Shew me the way, please." + +Winnington followed her, and she, after a scared look, did not attempt +to stop him. + +She paused outside a door, and instantly made way for him. He knocked, +and at the "Come in" he entered, the maid slipping in after him with +the tea. + +Two persons rose startled from their seats--Delia and Gertrude Marvell. +He had chanced upon the dining-room, which no less than the +drawing-room had been transformed into an office and a store-room. +Masses of militant literature, copies of the _Tocsin_, books and +Stationery covered the tables, while, on the wall opposite the door, a +large scale map of the streets in the neighbourhood of the Houses of +Parliament had been hung over a picture. + +It seemed to him that Delia looked ill and agitated. He walked up to +her companion, and spoke with vivacity-- + +"Miss Marvell!--I protest altogether against your proceedings in this +house! I protest against Miss Blanchflower's being drawn into what is +clearly intended to be an organised riot, which may end in physical +injury, even in loss of life--which will certainly entail imprisonment +on the ringleaders. If you have any affection for Delia you will advise +her to let me take her to my sister, who is in town to-night, at +Smith's Hotel, and will of course most gladly look after her." + +Gertrude, who seemed to him somehow to have dwindled and withered into +an elderly woman since he had last seen her, looked him over from head +to foot with a touch of smiling insolence, and then turned quietly to +Delia. + +"Will you go, Delia?" + +"No!" said Delia, throwing back her beautiful head. "No! This is my +place, Mr. Mark. I'm very sorry--but you must leave me here. Give my +love to Mrs. Matheson." + +"Delia!" He turned to her imploringly. But the softness she had shewn +on the journey had died out of her face. She stood resolved, and some +cold dividing force seemed to have rolled between them. + +"I don't see what you can do, Mr. Winnington," said Gertrude, still +smiling. "I have pointed that out to you before. As a matter of fact +Delia will not even be living here on money provided by you at all. She +has other resources. You have no hold on her--no power--that I can see. +And she wishes to stay with me. I think we must bid you good night. We +are very busy." + +He stood a moment, looking keenly from one to the other, at Gertrude's +triumphant eyes blazing from her emaciated face, at Delia's exalted, +tragic air. Then, with a bow, and in silence, he left the room, and the +house. + + * * * * * + +It was quite dark when he emerged on Milbank Street. All the +neighbourhood of the Houses of Parliament and the Abbey seemed to be +alive with business and traffic. But Palace Yard was still empty save +for a few passing figures, and there was no light on the Clock Tower. A +placard on the railings of the Square caught his notice--"Threatened +Raid on the House of Commons. Police precautions." At the same moment +he was conscious that a policeman standing at the corner of the House +of Commons had touched his hat to him, grinning broadly. Winnington +recognised a Maumsey man, whom he had befriended in various ways, who +owed his place indeed in the Metropolitan force to Winnington's good +word. + +"Hullo, Hewson--how are you? Flourishing?" + +The man's face beamed again. He was thinking of a cricket match the +year before under Winnington's captaincy. Like every member of the +eleven, he would have faced "death and damnation" for the captain. + +They walked along the man's beat together. A thought struck Winnington. + +"You seem likely to have some disturbance here tomorrow?" he said, as +they neared Westminster Bridge. + +"It's the ladies, Sir. They do give a lot of trouble!" Winnington +laughed--paused--then looked straight at the fine young man who was +evidently so glad to see him. + +"Look here, Hewson--I'll tell you something--keep it to yourself! +There'll be a lady in that procession to-morrow whom I don't want +knocked about. I shall be here. Is there anything you can do to help +me? I shall try and get her out of the crowd. Of course I shall have a +motor here." + +Hewson looked puzzled, but eager. He described where he was likely to +be stationed, and where Winnington would probably find him. If Mr. +Winnington would allow him, he would tip a wink to a couple of mates, +who could be trusted--and if he could do anything to help, why, he +would be "rare pleased" to do it. + +"But I'm afraid it'll be a bad row, Sir. There's a lot of men +coming--from Whitechapel--they say." + +Winnington nodded and walked on. He went to his club, and dined there, +refusing a friend's invitation to go and dine with him at home. And +after dinner, as the best means of solitude, he went out again into +the crowded streets, walking aimlessly. The thought of Delia +arrested--refused bail--in a police cell--or in prison--tormented him. +All the traditional, fastidious instincts of his class and type were +strong in him. He loathed the notion of any hand laid upon her, of any +rough contact between her clean youth, and the brutalities of a London +crowd. His blood rushed at the thought of it. The mere idea of any +insult offered her made him murderous. + +He turned down Whitehall, and at a corner near Dover House he presently +perceived a small crowd which was being addressed by a woman. She had +brought a stool with her, and was standing on it. A thin slip of a +girl, with a childish, open face and shrill voice. He went up to listen +to her, and stood amazed at the ignorant passion, the reckless violence +of what she was saying. It seemed indeed to have but little effect upon +her hearers. Men joined the crowd for a few minutes, listened with +upturned impassive faces, and went their way. A few lads attempted +horse-play, but stopped as a policeman approached; and some women +carrying bundles propped them against a railing near, and waited, +lifting tired eyes, and occasionally making comments to each other. +Presently, it appeared to Winnington that the speaker was no more +affected by her own statements--appalling as some of them were--than +her hearers. She appeared to be speaking from a book--to have just +learnt a lesson. She was then a paid speaker? And yet he thought not. +Every now and then phrases stood out--fiercely sincere--about the low +wages of women, their exclusion from the skilled trades, the marriage +laws, the exploiting and "selling" of women, and the like. And always, +in the background of the girl's picture, the hungry and sensual +appetites of men, lying in wait for the economic and physical weakness +of the woman. + +He waited until she had finished. Then he helped her down from her +perch, and made a way for her through the crowd. She looked at him in +astonishment. "Thank you, Sir,--don't trouble! Last night I was pelted +with filth. Are you one of us?" + +He shook his head, smiling. + +"I didn't agree with you. I advise you to look up some of those things +you said. But you speak very well. Good-night." + +She looked at him angrily, gathered up her skirt with a rattle, in a +small hand, and disappeared. + +He presently turned back towards Buckingham Gate, and in a narrow +Westminster street, as he passed the side of a high factory building, +suddenly there emerged from a door-way a number of women and girls, who +had evidently been working over-time. Some of them broke at once into +loud talk and laughter, as though in reaction from the confinement and +tension of their work, some--quite silent--turned their tired faces to +him as they passed him; and some looked boldly, provocatively at the +handsome man, who on his side was clearly observing them. They were of +all types, but the majority of the quite young girls were pale and +stunted, shewing the effect of long hours, and poor food. The coarse or +vicious faces were few; many indeed were marked by a modest or patient +gentleness. The thin line of hurrying forms disappeared into darkness +and distance, some one way, some another; and Winnington was left to +feel that in what he had seen--this everyday incident of a London +street--he had been aptly reminded of what a man who has his occupation +and dwelling amid rural scenes and occupations too readily +forgets--that toiling host of women, married and unmarried, which +modern industry is every day using, or devouring, or wasting. The +stream of lives rushes day by day through the industrial rapids; some +of it passing on to quiet and fruitful channels beyond the roar, and +some lost and churned for ever in the main tumult of the river. + +This new claim upon women, on the part of society, in addition to the +old claims of home and motherhood--this vast industrial claim--must it +not change and modify everything in time?--depress old values, create +new? "The vote!--give us the vote! and all will be well. More wages, +more food, more joy, more share in this glorious world!--that's what +the vote means--give us the vote!" Such, in effect, had been the cry +of that half-mad speaker in Whitehall, herself marked and injured by +the economic struggle. + +The appeal echoed in Winnington's heart. And Delia seemed to be at his +side, raising her eager eyes to his, pressing him for admission. Had +he, indeed, thought enough of these things?--taken enough to heart this +new and fierce struggle of women with life and circumstance, that is +really involved in the industrial organisation of the modern world? + +He passed on--up Buckingham Gate, towards the Palace. Turning to the +left, he was soon aware of two contrasted things:--an evening party +going on at a well-known Embassy, cars driving up and putting down +figures in flashing dresses, and gold-encrusted uniforms, emerging, and +disappearing within its open doors--and only twenty yards away, a group +of women huddled together in the cold, outside a closed fish-shop, +waiting to buy for a few pence the broken or spoiled fish of the day. +But a little further on he suddenly plunged into a crowd coming down +Grosvenor Place. He stopped to watch it, and saw that it accompanied a +long procession of men tramping back from Hyde Park. A banner held by +the leaders bore the words--"Unemployed and starving! Give us work or +bread." And Winnington remembered there was a docker's strike going on +in Limehouse, passionately backed and defended by the whole body of the +local clergy. + +His eyes examined the faces and forms in the procession. Young and old, +sickly and robust, they passed him by, all of them marked and branded +by their tyrant, Labour; rolled like the women amid the rocks and +whirlpools of the industrial stream; marred and worn like them, only +more deeply, more tragically. The hollow eyes accused him as they +passed--him, with his ease of honoured life. "What have you made of us, +your brethren?--you who have had the lead and the start!--you who have +had till now the fashioning of this world in which we suffer! What is +wrong with the world? We know no more than you. But it is your business +to know! For God's sake, you who have intelligence and education, and +time to use them, think for us!--think with us!--find a way out! More +wages--more food--more leisure--more joy!--By G--d! we'll have them, +or bring down your world and ours in one ruin together!" + +And then far back, from the middle of the last century, there came to +Winnington's listening mind the cry of the founders of English +democracy. "The vote!--give us the vote!--and bring in the reign of +plenty and of peace." And the vote was given. Sixty years--and still +this gaunt procession!--and all through Industrial England, the same +unrest, the same bitterness! + +The vote? What is it actually going to mean, in struggle for life and +happiness that lies before every modern Community? How many other +methods and forces have already emerged, and must yet emerge, beside +it! The men know it. And meanwhile, the women--a section of women--have +seized with the old faith, on the confident cries of sixty years +ago?--with the same disillusion waiting in the path? + +He passed on, drawn again down Constitution Hill, and the Mall, back to +the Houses of Parliament and the River.... The night was clear and +frosty. He paused on Westminster Bridge, and leant over the parapet, +feasting his eyes on that incomparable scene which age cannot wither +nor custom stale for the heart of an Englishman. The long front of the +Houses of Parliament rose darkly over the faintly moonlit river; the +wharves and houses beyond, a medley of strong or delicate line, of +black shadow and pale lights, ran far into a vaporous distance powdered +with lamps. On the other side St. Thomas's Hospital, and an answering +chain of lamps, far-flung towards Battersea. Between, the river, +heaving under a full tide, with the dim barges and tugs passing up and +down. "The Mississippi, Sir, is dirty water--the St. Lawrence is cold, +dirty water--but the Thames, Sir, is liquid 'istory!" That famous _mot_ +of a Labour Minister delighted Mark's dreaming sense. The river indeed +as it flowed by, between buildings new and old, seemed to be bearing +the nation on its breast, to symbolise the ever-renewed life of a great +people. What tasks that life had seen!--what vaster issues it had still +to see!-- + +And in that dark building, like a coiled and secret spring ready to act +when touched, the Idea which ruled that life, as all life, in the end, +is ruled. On the morrow, a few hundred men would flock to that +building, as the representatives and servants of the Idea--of that +England which lives "while we believe." + +And the vote behind them?--the political act which chose and sent them +there? Its social power, and all its ordinary associations, noble or +ignoble, seemed suddenly to vanish, for Winnington, engulfed in +something infinitely greater, something vital and primitive, on which +all else depended. + +He hung, absorbed, over the sliding water, giving the rein to reverie. +He seemed to see the English Spirit, hovering, proudly watchful, above +that high roof beside the dark water-way, looking out to sea, and +across the world. What indomitable force, what ichor gleaming fire, +through the dark veins of that weary Titan, sustained him there?--amid +the clash of alien antagonisms, and the mysterious currents of things? +What but the lavished blood and brain of England's sons?--that rude +primal power that men alone can bring to their country? + +Let others solve their own problems! But can women share the male tasks +that make and keep _us_ a Nation, amid a jarring and environing host of +Nations?--an Empire, with the guardianship of half the world on its +shoulders? And if not, how can men rightly share with women the act +which controls those tasks, and chooses the men to execute them? + +And yet!--all his knowledge of human life, all his tenderness for human +suffering, rushed in to protest that the great question was only half +answered, when it was answered so. He seemed to see the Spirit of +England, Janus-like, two-faced, with one aspect looking out to sea, the +other, brooding over the great city at its feet, and turned inland +towards the green country and studded towns beyond. And as to that +other, that home-face of England, his dreaming sense scarcely knew +whether it was man or woman. There was in it male power, but also +virgin strength, and mother love. Men and women might turn to it +equally--for help. + +No need for women in the home tasks--the national house-keeping of this +our England? He laughed--like France--at the mere suggestion of the +doubt. Why, that teeming England, north and south, was crying out for +the work of women, the help of women! Who knew it better than he? But +call in thought!--call in intelligence! Find out the best way to fit +the work to the organism, the organism to the work. What soil so rich +as England in the seed of political ideas? What nation could so easily +as we evolve new forms out of the old to fit new needs? + +But what need for patience in the process--for tolerance--for clear +thinking! And while England ponders, bewildered by the very weight of +her own load, and its responsibilities, comes, suddenly, this train of +Maenads rushing through the land, shrieking and destroying. + +He groaned in spirit, as he thought of Delia's look that day--of the +tragic-comic crowd around her. Again his thoughts flew hither and +thither, seeking to excuse, to understand her, and always, as it +seemed, with her dear voice in his ears--trembling--rushing--with the +passionate note he knew. + +"Mr. Winnington!" + +He looked up. An elderly woman, plain-featured, ill-dressed, stood +beside him, her kind eyes blinking under the lamp overhead. He +recognised Miss Dempsey, and grasped her by the hand. + +"My dear lady, where have you sprung from?" + +She hesitated, and then said, supporting herself on the parapet of the +bridge, as though thankful for the momentary rest. + +"I had to go in search of someone." + +He knew very well what she meant. + +"You've found her?" + +"Yes." + +"Can anyone help?" + +"No. The poor thing's safe--with good people who understand." + +He asked no more about her errand. He knew very well that day after +day, and week after week, her tired feet carried her on the same +endless quest--seeking "that which was lost." But the stress of thought +in his own mind found expression in a question which surprised her. + +"Would the vote help you? Is that why you want it?" + +She smiled. + +"Oh, no! Oh, dear no!" she said, with emphasis; after a moment, adding +in a lower tone, scarcely addressed to her companion--"'_It cost +more--to redeem their souls_!'" And again--"Dear Mr. Mark, men are what +their mothers make them!--that is the bottom truth. And when women are +what God intended them to be, they will have killed the ape and the +tiger in men. But law can't do it. Only the Spirit." Her face shone a +little. Then, in her ordinary voice--"Oh, no--I want the vote for quite +other reasons. It is our right--and it is monstrous we shouldn't have +it!" Her cheeks flushed. + +He turned his friendly smile upon her, without attempting to argue. +They walked back over the bridge together. + + * * * * * + +The following day rose in wind and shower. But the February rain +cleared away towards noon, and the high scudding clouds, with bright +spaces between, suddenly began to prophesy Spring. From Hyde Park, down +the Mall, and along Whitehall, the troops gathered and the usual crowd +sprang up in their rear, pressing towards Parliament Square, or lining +the route. Winnington had sent a note early to Delia by messenger; but +he expected no reply, and got none. All he could do was to hide a motor +in Dean's Yard, to hold a conference or two with the friendly bobby in +Parliament Square, and then to wander about the streets looking +restlessly at the show. It duly passed him by, the Cinderella-coach, +with the King and Queen of fairy-tale, the splendid Embassy carriages, +the Generals on their gleaming horses, the Guards, in their red +cloaks--and all the rest. The Royalties disappeared up the carpeted +stairs into the House of Lords, and after half an hour, while the bells +of St. Margaret's filled all the air with tumult, came out, again; and +again the ermined Queen, and the glistening King passed bowing along +the crowd. Winnington caught hold of a Hampshire member in the crowd. + +"When does the House meet?" + +"Everything adjourned till four. They'll move the Address about five. +But everyone expects a row." + +Nothing for it but to wait and stroll, to spend half an hour in the +Abbey, and take a turn along the Embankment.... And gradually, +steadily the Square filled up, no one knew how. The soldiers +disappeared, but policemen quietly took their places. All the entrances +to the House of Commons were carefully guarded, groups as they gathered +were dispersed, and the approaches to the House, in Old and New Palace +Yards, were rigorously kept free. But still the crowd in Parliament +Square grew and thickened. Girls, with smiling excited faces, still +moved to and fro in it, selling the _Tocsin_. Everybody waited +expectant. + +Then the chimes of the Abbey struck four. And as they died away, from a +Westminster street, from Whitehall, and from Milbank, there arose a +simultaneous stir and shouting. And presently, from each quarter +appeared processions of women, carrying black and orange banners making +their way slowly through the throng. The crowd cheered and booed them +as they passed, swaying to this side and that. And as each procession +neared the outer line of police, it was firmly but courteously stopped, +and the leaders of it must needs parley with the mounted constables who +sat ready to meet them. + +Winnington, jumping on the motor which he had placed opposite St. +Margaret's, drew out some field-glasses, and scanned the advancing +lines of women. The detachment coming from Whitehall seemed to be +headed by the chiefs of the whole organisation, to judge from the +glistening banner which floated above its foremost group. Winnington +examined it closely. Gertrude Marvell was not there, nor Delia. Then he +turned westwards. Ah, now he saw her! That surely was she!--in the +front ranks of the lines coming from Milbank. For a moment, he saw the +whole scene in orderly and picturesque array, the cordons of police, +the mounted constables, the banners of the processions, the swaying +crowds, Westminster Hall, the clock tower, with its light:--the next, +everything was tossed in wild confusion. Some savage impelling movement +in the crowd behind had broken the lines of police. The women were +through! He could see the scurrying forms running across the open +spaces, pursued, grappled with. + +He threw himself into the crowd, which had rapidly hemmed him in, +buffeting it from side to side like a swimmer into troubled waters. His +height, his strength, served him well, and by the time he had reached +the southern corner of St. Margaret's, a friendly hand gripped him. + +"Do you see her, Sir?" + +"Near the front!--coming from Milbank." + +"All right! Follow me, Sir. This way!" + +And with Hewson, and apparently two other police, Winnington battled +his way towards the tumult in front of St. Stephen's entrance. The +mounted police were pressing the crowd back with their horses, and as +Winnington emerged into clear ground, he saw a melee of women and +police,--some women on the ground, some held between police on either +side, and one group still intact. In it he recognised Gertrude Marvell. +He saw her deliberately strike a constable in the face. Then he lost +sight of her. All he saw were the steps of St. Stephen's entrance +behind, crowded with Members of Parliament. Suddenly another woman +fell, a grey-haired woman, and almost immediately a girl who was +struggling with two policemen, disengaged herself and ran to help. She +bent over the woman, and lifted her up. The police at once made way for +them, but another wild rush from behind seemed to part them--sweep +them from view-- + +"Now, Sir!" said Hewson, on tiptoe--"Hold on! They've got the old lady +safe. I think the young one's hurt." + +They pressed their way through. Winnington caught sight of Delia again, +deadly white, supported by a policeman on one side, and a gentleman on +the other. Andrews!--by George! Winnington cursed his own ill-luck in +not having been the first to reach her; but the gallant Captain was an +ally worth having, all the same. + +Mark was at her side. She lifted a face, all pain and bitter +indignation. "Cowards--Cowards!--to treat an old woman so!--Let me +go--let me go back! I must find her!" + +"She's all safe, Miss--she's all safe--you go home," said a friendly +policeman. "These gentlemen will look after you! Stand back there!" And +he tried to open a passage for them. + +Winnington touched her arm. But an involuntary moan startled him. +"She's hurt her arm"--said Andrews in his ear--"twisted it somehow. Go +to the other side of her--put your arm round her, and I'll clear the +way." + +Delia struggled--"No--no!--let me go!" + +But she was powerless. Winnington nearly carried her through the crowd, +while her faintness increased. By the time they reached the motor, she +was barely conscious. The two men lifted her in. Andrews stood looking +at her a moment, as she sank back with Winnington beside her, his ruddy +countenance expressing perhaps the most acute emotion of which its +possessor had ever yet been capable. + +"Good-night. You'll take her home," he said gruffly, and lifted his +hat. But the next moment he ran back to say--"I'll go back and find out +what's happened. She'll want to know. Where are you taking her?" + +"Smith's Hotel," said Winnington--"to my sister." And he gave the order +to the chauffeur. + +They set out. Mark passed his arm round her again, to support her, and +she drooped unconsciously upon his shoulder. A fierce joy--mingled with +his wrath and disgust. This must be--this should be the _end_! Was such +a form made for sordid violence and strife? Her life just breathed +against his--he could have borne her so for ever. + +But as soon as they had revived her, and she opened her eyes in Mrs. +Matheson's sitting-room at the hotel, she burst into a cry of misery. + +"Where's Gertrude!--let me go to her! Where am I?" + +As they wrestled with and soothed her, a servant knocked. + +"A gentleman to see you, Sir, downstairs." + +Winnington descended, and found Andrews--breathless with news. + +Eighty women arrested--Miss Marvell among the ringleaders, for all of +whom bail has been refused? While the riot had been going on in +Parliament Square, another detachment of women had passed along +Whitehall, smashing windows as they went. And at the same moment, a +number of shop-windows had been broken in Piccadilly. The Prime +Minister had been questioned in the Commons, and Sir Wilfrid Lang had +denounced the "Daughters'" organisation, and the mad campaign of +violence to which they were committed, in an indignant speech much +cheered by the House. + + * * * * * + +The days that followed were days of nightmare both for Delia and those +who watched over her. + +Gertrude Marvell and ten others went to prison, without the option of a +fine. About forty of the rank and file who refused to pay their fines, +or give surety for good behaviour, accompanied their leaders into +duress. The country rang with the scandal of what had happened, and +with angry debate as to how to stop the scandal in the future. The +Daughters issued defiant broadsheets, and filled the _Tocsin_ with +brave words. And the Constitutionalists who had pinned their hopes on +the Suffrage Bill before the House, wrung their hands, and wailed to +heaven and earth to keep these mad women in order. + +Delia sat waiting--waiting--all these intolerable hours. She scarcely +spoke to Winnington, except to ask him for news, or to thank him, when +every evening, owing to a personal knowledge of the Home Secretary, he +was able to bring her the very latest news of what was happening in +prison. Gertrude had refused food; forcible feeding would very soon +have to be abandoned; and her release, on the ground of danger to life, +might have to be granted. But in view of the hot indignation of the +public, the Government were not going to release any of the prisoners +before they absolutely must. + +Delia herself was maimed and powerless. How the wrenching of her arm +had come about--whether in the struggle with the two constables who had +separated her from Gertrude, or in the attempt to raise her companion +from the ground--she could not now remember. But a muscle had been +badly torn; she wore a sling and suffered constant and often severe +pain. Neither Alice Matheson, nor Lady Tonbridge--who had rushed up to +town--ever heard her complain, except involuntarily, of this pain. +Madeleine indeed believed that there was some atoning satisfaction in +it, for Delia's wounded spirit. If she was not with Gertrude in prison, +at least she too was suffering--if only a fraction of what Gertrude was +enduring. + +The arm however was not the most serious matter. As France had long +since perceived, she had been overstrained in nursing Weston, and the +events since she left Maumsey had naturally increased the mischief. She +had become sleepless and neurasthenic. And Winnington watched day by +day the eclipse of her radiant youth, with a dumb wrath almost as Pagan +as that which a similar impression had roused in Lathrop. + +The nights were her worst time. She lived then, in prison, with +Gertrude, vividly recalling all that she had ever heard from the +Daughters who had endured it, of the miseries and indignities of prison +life. But she also lived again through the events which had preceded +and followed the riot; her quick intelligence pondered the comments of +the newspapers, the attitude of the public, the measured words and +looks of these friends who surrounded her. And there were many times +when sitting up in bed alone, suffering and sleepless, she asked +herself bitterly--"were we just fools!--just fools?" + +But whatever the mind replied, the heart and its loyalty stood firm. +She was no more free now than before--that was the horrible part of it! +It was this which divided her from Winnington. The thought of how he +had carried her off from the ugly or ridiculous scenes which the +newspapers described--scenes of which she had scarcely any personal +memory, alternately thrilled and shamed her. But the aching expectation +of Gertrude's return--the doubt in what temper of mind and what plight +of body she would return--dominated everything else. + +At last came the expected message. "In consequence of a report from the +prison doctors and his own medical advisers, the Home Secretary has +ordered the immediate release of Miss Gertrude Marvell." Winnington was +privately notified of the time of release, information which was +refused to what remained of the Daughters' organisation, lest there +should be further disturbance. He took a motor to the prison gate, and +put a terribly enfeebled woman and her nurse into it. Gertrude did not +even recognise him, and he followed the motor to the Westminster flat, +distracted by the gloomiest forebodings. + +Delia was already at the flat to receive her friend, having +quietly--but passionately--insisted, against all the entreaties of Mrs. +Matheson and Lady Tonbridge. Winnington helped the nurse and the porter +to carry Gertrude Marvell upstairs. They laid her on the bed, and the +doctor who had been summoned took her in charge. As he was leaving the +room, Winnington turned back--to look at his enemy. How far more +formidable to him in her weakness than in her strength! The keen eyes +were closed, the thin mouth relaxed and bloodless shewing the teeth, +the hands mere skin and bone. She lay helpless and only half-conscious +on her pillows, with nurse and doctor hovering round her, and Delia +kneeling beside her. Yet, as he closed the door, Winnington realised +her power through every vein! It rested entirely with her whether or no +she would destroy Delia, as she must in the end destroy herself. + +He waited in the drawing-room for Delia. She came at last, with a cold +and alien face. "Don't come again, please! Leave us to ourselves. I +shall have doctors--and nurses. We'll let you know." + +He took her hands tenderly. But she drew them away--shivering a little. + +"You don't know--you can't know--what it means to me--to _us_--to see +what she has suffered. There must be no one here but those--who +sympathise--who won't reproach--" Her voice failed her. + +There was nothing for it but to go. + + + + +Chapter XVIII + + +Great is the power of martyrdom!--of the false no less than the +true--and whether the mind consent or no. + +During the first week of Gertrude Marvell's recovery--or partial +recovery--from her prison ordeal, both Winnington and Delia realised +the truth of this commonplace to the full. Winnington was excluded from +the flat. Delia, imprisoned within it, was dragged, day by day, through +deep waters of emotion and pity. She envied the heroism of her friend +and leader; despised herself for not having been able to share it; and +could not do enough to soothe the nervous suffering which Gertrude's +struggle with law and order had left behind it. + +But with the beginning of the second week some strange facts emerged. +Gertrude was then sufficiently convalescent to be moved into the +drawing-room, to see a few visitors, and to exchange experiences. All +who came belonged to the League, and had been concerned in the +Parliamentary raid. Most of them had been a few days or a week in +prison. Two had been hunger-strikers. And as they gathered round +Gertrude in half-articulate worship, Delia, passing from one revealing +moment to another, suddenly felt herself superfluous--thrust away! She +could not join in their talk except perfunctorily; the violence of it +often left her cold and weary; and she soon recognised half in +laughter, half bitterly, that, as one who had been carried out of the +fray, like a naughty child, by her guardian, she stood in the opinion +of Gertrude's visitors, on a level altogether inferior to that of +persons who had "fought it out." + +This, however, would not have troubled her--she was so entirely of the +same opinion herself. But what began to wound her to the quick was +Gertrude's own attitude towards her. She had been accustomed for so +long to be Gertrude's most intimate friend, to be recognised and envied +as such, that to be made to feel day by day how small a hold--for some +mysterious reason--she now retained on that fierce spirit, was galling +indeed. Meanwhile she had placed all the money realised by the sale of +her jewels,--more than three thousand pounds--in Gertrude's hands for +League purposes; her house was practically Gertrude's, and had Gertrude +willed, her time and her thoughts would have been Gertrude's also. She +would not let herself even think of Winnington. One glance at the +emaciated face and frame beside her was enough to recall her from what +had otherwise been a heavenly wandering. + +But she was naturally quick and shrewd, and she soon made herself face +the fact that she was supplanted. Supplanted by many--but especially by +one. Marion Andrews had not been in the raid--Delia often uneasily +pondered the why and wherefore. She came up to town a week after it, +and was then constantly in Gertrude's room. Between Delia, and this +iron-faced, dark-browed woman, with her clumsy dress and brusque ways, +there was but little conversation. Delia never forgot their last +meeting at Maumsey; she was often filled with dire forebodings and +suspicions; and as the relation between Gertrude and Miss Andrews +became closer, they grew and multiplied. + +At last one morning Gertrude turned her back on invalid ways. She got +up at her usual time; she dismissed her nurse; and in the middle of the +morning she came in upon Delia, who, in the desultory temper born of +physical strain, was alternately trying to read Marshall's "Economics +of Industry," and writing to Lady Tonbridge about anything and +everything, except the topics that really occupied her mind. + +Delia sprang up to get her a shawl, to settle her on the sofa. But +Gertrude said impatiently-- + +"Please don't fuss. I want to be treated now as though I were well--I +soon shall be. And anyway I am tired of illness." And she took a plain +chair, as though to emphasize what she had said. + +"I came to talk to you about plans. You're not busy!" + +"Busy!" The scornful tone was a trifle bitter also, as Gertrude +perceived. Delia put aside her book, and her writing-board, and +descended to her favourite place on the hearth rug. The two friends +surveyed each other. + +"Gertrude, it's absurd to talk as though you were well!" cried Delia. +"You look a perfect wreck!" + +But there was more in what she saw--in what she felt--than physical +wreck. There was a moral and spiritual change, subtler than any +physical injury, and probably more permanent. Gertrude Marvell had +never possessed any "charm," in the sense in which other leaders of the +militant movement possessed it. A clear and narrowly logical brain, the +diamond sharpness of an astonishing will, and certain passions of hate, +rather than passions of love, had made the strength of her personality, +and given her an increasing ascendancy. But these qualities had been +mated with a slender physique--trim, balanced, composed--suggesting a +fastidious taste, and nerves perfectly under control; a physique which +had given special accent and emphasis to her rare outbreaks of spoken +violence. Refinement, seemliness, "ladylikeness,"--even Sir Robert +Blanchflower in his sorest moments would scarcely have denied her +these. + +In a measure they were there still, but coupled with pathetic signs of +some disintegrating and poisonous influence. The face which once, in +its pallid austerity, had not been without beauty, had now coarsened, +even in emaciation. The features stood out disproportionately; the hair +had receded from the temples; something ugly and feverish had been, as +it were, laid bare. And composure had been long undermined. The nurse +who had just left had been glad to go. + +Gertrude received Delia's remark with impatience. + +"Do please let my looks alone! As if you could boast!" The speaker's +smile softened as she looked at the girl's still bandaged arm, and pale +cheeks. "That in fact is what I wanted to say, Delia. You ought to be +going home. You want the country and the garden. And I, it seems--so +this tiresome Doctor says--ought to have a fortnight's sea." + +"Oh--" said Delia, with a sudden flush. "So you think we ought to give +up the flat? Why can't I come with you to the sea?" + +"I thought you had begun to do various things--cripples--and +cottages--and schools--for Mr. Winnington," said Gertrude, drily. + +"I wanted to--but Weston's illness stopped it--and then I came here." + +"Well, you 'wanted to.' And why shouldn't you?" + +There was a silence. Then Delia looked up--very pale now--her head +thrown back. + +"So you mean you wish to get rid of me, Gertrude!" + +"Nothing of the sort. I want you to do--what you clearly wish to do." + +"When have I ever shown you that I wished to desert you--or--the +League?" + +"Perhaps I read you better than you do yourself," said +Gertrude, slightly reddening too. "Of course you have been +goodness--generosity--itself. But--this cause wants more than +gifts--more than money-it wants a woman's _self_!" + +"Well?" Delia waited. + +Gertrude moved impatiently. + +"Why should we play the hypocrite with each other!" she said at last. +"You won't deny that what Mr. Winnington thinks--what Mr. Winnington +feels--is infinitely more important to you now than what anybody else +in the world thinks or feels?" + +"Which I shewed by coming up here against his express wishes?--and +joining in the raid, after he had said all that a man could say against +it, both to you and to me?" + +"Oh, I admit you did your best--you did your best," said Gertrude +sombrely. "But I know you, Delia!--I know you! Your heart's not in +it--any more." + +Delia rose, and began slowly to pace the room. There was a wonderful +virginal dignity--a suppressed passion--in her attitude, as though she +wrestled with inward wound. But she said nothing, except to ask--as she +paused in front of Gertrude-- + +"Where are you going--and who is going with you?" + +"I shall go to the sea, somewhere--perhaps to the Isle of Wight. I +daresay Marion Andrews will come with me. She wants to escape her +mother for a time." + +"Marion Andrews?" repeated Delia thoughtfully. Then, after a +moment--"So you're not coming down to Maumsey any more?" + +"Ask yourself what there is for me to do there, my dear child! Frankly, +I should find the society of Mr. Winnington and Lady Tonbridge rather +difficult! And as for their feelings about me!" + +"Do you remember--you promised to live with me for a year?" + +"Under mental reservation," said Gertrude, quietly. "You know very +well, I didn't accept it as an ordinary post." + +"And now there's nothing more to be got out of me? Oh, I didn't mean +anything cruel!" added the girl hastily. "I know you must put the cause +first." + +"And you see where the cause is," said Gertrude grimly. "In ten days +from now Sir Wilfrid Lang will have crushed the bill." + +"And everybody seems to be clamouring that we've given them the +excuse!" + +Fierce colour overspread Gertrude's thin temples and cheeks. + +"They'll take it, anyway; and we've got to do all we can--meetings, +processions, way-laying Ministers--the usual things--and any new +torment we can devise." + +"But I thought you were going to Southsea!" + +"Afterwards--afterwards!" said Gertrude, with visible temper. "I shall +run down to Brighton tomorrow, and come back fresh on Monday." + +"To this flat?" + +"Oh no--I've found a lodging." + +Delia turned away--her breath fluttering. + +"So we part to-morrow!" Then suddenly she faced round on Gertrude. "But +I don't go, Gertrude--till I have your promise!" + +"What promise?" + +"To let--Monk Lawrence _alone_!" said the girl with sudden intensity, +and laying her uninjured hand on a table near, she stooped and looked +Gertrude in the eyes. + +Gertrude broke into a laugh. + +"You little goose! Do you think I look the kind of person for nocturnal +adventures?--a cripple--on a stick? Yes, I know you have been talking +to Marion Andrews. She told me." + +"I warned _you_," said Delia, with determination--"which was more to +the point. Everything Mr. Lathrop told me, I handed on to you." + +There was an instant's silence. Then Gertrude laid a skeleton hand upon +the girl's hand--gripping it painfully. + +"And do you suppose--that anything Mr. Lathrop could say, or you +could say, could prevent my carrying out plans that seemed to me +necessary--in this war!" + +Delia gasped. + +"Gertrude!--you mean to do it!" + +Gertrude released her--almost threw her hand away. + +"I have told you why you are a fool to think so. But if you do think +so, go and tell Mr. Winnington! Tell him everything!--make him enquire. +I shall be in town--ready for the warrant." + +The two faced each other. + +"And now," said Gertrude--"though I am convalescent--we have had +enough of this." She rose tottering--and felt for her stick. Delia +gave it her. + +"Gertrude!" It was a bitter cry of crushed affection and wounded trust. +It arrested Gertrude for a moment on her way to the door. She turned in +indecision--then shook her head--muttered something inarticulate, and +went. + + * * * * * + +That afternoon Delia sent a telegram to Lady Tonbridge who had returned +to Maumsey--"Can you and Nora come and stay with me for three months. I +shall be quite alone." She also despatched a note to Winnington's club, +simply to say that she was going home tomorrow. She had no recent news +of Winnington's whereabouts, but something told her that he was still +in town--still near her. + +Then she turned with energy to practical affairs--arrangements for +giving up the flat, dismissing some servants, despatching others to +Maumsey. She had something of a gift for housekeeping, and on this +evening of all others she blessed its tasks. When they met at dinner, +Gertrude was perfectly placid and amiable. She went to bed early, and +Delia spent the hours after dinner in packing, with her maid. In the +middle of it came a line from Winnington--"Good news indeed! I go down +to Maumsey early, to see that the Abbey is ready for you. Don't bother +about the flat. I have spoken to the Agents. They will do everything. +_Au revoir!"_ + +The commonplace words somehow broke down her self-control. She sent +away her maid, put out the glaring electric light, and sat crouched +over the fire, in the darkness, thinking her heart out. Once she sprang +up suddenly, her hands at her breast--"Oh Mark, Mark--I'm coming back +to you, Mark,--I'm coming back--I'm _free!_"--in an ecstasy. + +But only to feel herself the next moment, quenched--coerced--her +happiness dashed from her. If she gave herself to Mark, her knowledge, +her suspicions, her practical certainty must go with the gift. She +could not keep from him her growing belief that Monk Lawrence was +vitally threatened, and that Gertrude, in spite of audacious denials, +was still madly bent upon the plot. And to tell him would mean instant +action on his part: arrest--prison--perhaps death--for this woman she +had adored, whom she still loved with a sore, disillusioned tenderness. +She could not tell him!--and therefore she could not engage herself to +him. Had Gertrude realised that?--counted upon it? + +No. She must work in other ways--through Mr. Lathrop--through various +members of the "Daughters" Executive who were personally known to her. +Gertrude must be restrained--somehow--by those who still had influence +with her. + +The loneliness of that hour sank deep into Delia's soul. Never had she +felt herself so motherless, so forlorn. Her passion for this elder +woman during three years of fast-developing youth had divided her from +all her natural friends. As for her relations, her father's sister, +Elizabeth Blanchflower, a selfish, eccentric old maid, had just +acknowledged her existence in two chilly notes since she returned to +England; while Lord Frederick, Winnington's co-executor, had in the +same period written her one letter of half-scolding, half-patronising +advice, and sent a present of game to Maumsey. Since then she +understood he had been pursuing his enemy the gout from "cure" to +"cure," and "Mr. Mark" certainly had done all the executor's work that +had not been mere formality. + +She had no friends, no one who cared for her!--except Winnington--her +chilled heart glowed to the name!--Lady Tonbridge, and poor Weston. +Among the Daughters she had acquaintances, but no intimates. Gertrude +had absorbed her; she had lived for Gertrude and Gertrude's ideas. + +And now she was despised--cast out. She tried to revive in herself the +old crusading flame--the hot unquestioning belief in Women's Rights +and Women's Wrongs--the angry contempt for men as a race of coarse and +hypocritical oppressors, which Gertrude had taught her. In vain. She +sat there, with these altruistic loves and hates--premature, artificial +things!--drooping away; conscious only, nakedly conscious, of the +thirst for individual happiness, personal joy--ashamed of it too, in +her bewildered youth!--not knowing that she was thereby best serving +her sex and her race in the fore-ordained ways of destiny. And the +wickedness of men? But to have watched a good man, day by day, had +changed all the values of the human scene. Her time would come +again--with fuller knowledge--for bitter loathing of the tyrannies of +sex and lust. But this, in the natural order, was her hour for +hope--for faith. As the night grew deeper, the tides of both rose and +rose within her--washing her at last from the shores of Desolation. She +was going home. Winnington would be there--her friend. Somehow, she +would save Gertrude. Somehow--surely--she would find herself in Mark's +arms again. She went to sleep with a face all tears, but whether for +joy or sorrow, she could hardly have told. + +Next morning Marion arrived early, and carried Gertrude off to +Victoria, en route for Brighton. Gertrude and Delia kissed each other, +and said Good-bye, without visible emotion. + +"Of course I shall come down to plague you in the summer," said +Gertrude, and Delia laughed assent--with Miss Andrews standing by. The +girl went through a spasm of solitary weeping when Gertrude was finally +gone; but she soon mastered it, and an hour later she herself was in +the train. + +Oh, the freshness of the February day--of the spring breathing +everywhere!--of the pairing birds and the springing wheat--and the +bright patches of crocuses and snowdrop in the gardens along the line. +A rush of pleasure in the mere return to the country and her home, in +the mere welling back of health, the escape from daily friction, and +ugly, violent thoughts, overflowed all her young senses. She was a +child on a holiday. The nightmare of the Raid--of those groups of +fighting, dishevelled women, ignominiously overpowered, of the grinning +crowd, the agonising pain of her arm, and the policeman's rough grip +upon it--began to vanish "in black from the skies." + +Until--the train ran into the long cutting half way between Latchford +and Maumsey, above which climbed the steep woods of Monk Lawrence. +Delia knew it well. And she had no sooner recognised it than her gaiety +fell--headlong--like a shot bird. She waited in a kind of terror for +the moment when the train should leave the cutting, and the house come +into view, on its broad terrace carved out of the hill. Yes, there it +was, far away, the incomparable front, with its beautiful +irregularities, and its equally beautiful symmetries, with its oriel +windows flashing in the sun, the golden grey of its stone work, the +delicate tracery on its tall twisted chimneys, and the dim purples of +its spreading roofs. It lay so gently in the bosom of the woods which +clasped it round--as though they said--"See how we have guarded and +kept it through the centuries for you, the children of to-day." + +The train sped on, and looking back Delia could just make out a whitish +patch on the lower edge of the woods. That was Mr. Lathrop's cottage. +It seemed to her vaguely that she had seen his face in the front rank +of the crowd in Parliament Square; but she had heard nothing of him, or +from him since their last talk. She had indeed written him a short +veiled note as she had promised to do, after Gertrude's first denials, +repeating them--though she herself disbelieved them--and there had been +no reply. Was he at home? Had he perhaps discovered anything more? + +When she alighted at Maumsey, with her hand in Winnington's, the fresh +colour in her cheeks had disappeared again, and he was dismayed anew at +her appearance, though he kept it to himself. But when she was once +more in the familiar drawing-room, sitting in her grandmother's chair, +obliged to rest while Lady Tonbridge poured out tea--Nora was improving +her French in Paris--and Winnington, with his hands in his pockets, +talked gossip and gardening, without a word of anything that had +happened since they three had last met in that room; when Weston, +ghostly but convalescent, came in to show herself; when Delia's black +spitz careered all over his recovered mistress, and even the cats came +to rub themselves against her skirts, it was impossible not to feel for +the moment, tremulously happy, and strangely delivered--in this house +whence Gertrude Marvell had departed. + +How vivid was the impression of this latter fact on the other two may +be imagined. When Delia had gone upstairs to chat with Weston, Lady +Tonbridge looked at Winnington-- + +"To what do we owe this crowning mercy? Who dislodged her?" +Winnington's glance was thoughtful. + +"I guess it has been her own doing entirely. But I know nothing." + +"Hm.--Well, if I may advise, dear Mr. Mark, ask no questions. And"--his +old friend put a hand on his arm--"May I go on?" A smile, not very gay, +permitted her. + +"Let her be!" she said softly, with a world of sympathy in her clear +brown eyes. "She's suffered--and she's on edge." He laid his hand on +hers, but said nothing. + + * * * * * + +The days passed by. Winnington did as he had been told; and Madeleine +Tonbridge seemed to see that Delia was dumbly grateful to him. +Meanwhile in the eyes of her two friends she made little or no advance +towards recapturing her former health and strength. The truth, of +course, was that she was consumed by devouring and helpless anxiety. +She wrote to Lathrop, posting the letter at a distant village; and +received no answer. Then she ascertained that he was not at the +cottage, and a casual line in the _Tocsin_ informed her that he had +been in town taking part in the foundation of an "outspoken" +newspaper--outspoken on "the fundamental questions of sex, liberty, and +morals involved in the suffrage movement." + +But a letter addressed "To be forwarded" to the _Tocsin_ office +produced no more result than her first. Meanwhile she had written +imploringly to various prominent members of the organisation in London +pointing out the effect on public opinion that must be produced all +through Southern England by any attack on Monk Lawrence. She received +two cold and cautious replies. It seemed to her that the writers of +them were even more in the dark than she. + +The days ran on. The newspapers were full of the coming Woman Suffrage +Bill, and its certain defeat in the Commons. Sir Wilfrid Lang was +leading the forces hostile to the Suffrage, and making speech after +speech in the country to cheering audiences, denouncing the Bill, and +the mad women who had tried to promote it by a campaign of outrage, "as +ridiculous as it was criminal." He was to move the rejection of it on +the second reading, and was reported to be triumphantly confident of +the result. + +Winnington meanwhile became more and more conscious of an abnormal +state of nerve and brain in this pale Delia, the shadow of her proper +self, and as the hours went on, he was presently for throwing all +Madeleine's counsels aside, and somehow breaking through the girl's +silence, in the hope of getting at--and healing--the cause of it. He +guessed of course at a hundred things to account for it--at a final +breach between her and Gertrude--at the disappointment of cherished +hopes and illusions--at a profound travail of mind, partly moral, +partly intellectual, going back over the past, and bewildered as to the +future. But at the first sign of a change of action, of any attempt to +probe her, on his part, she was off--in flight; throwing back at him +often a look at once so full of pain and so resolute that he dared not +pursue her. She possessed at all times a great personal dignity, and it +held him at bay. + +He himself--unconsciously--enabled her to hold him at bay. Naturally, +he connected some of the haunting anxiety he perceived with Monk +Lawrence, and with Gertrude Marvell's outrageous speech in Latchford +market-place. But he himself, on the other hand, was not greatly +concerned for Monk Lawrence. Not only he---the whole neighbourhood was +on the alert, in defence of the famous treasure-house. The outside of +the building and the gardens were patrolled at night by two detectives; +and according to Daunt's own emphatic assurance to Winnington, the +house was never left without either the Keeper himself or his niece in +it, to mount guard. They had set up a dog, with a bark which was alone +worth a policeman. And finally, Sir Wilfrid himself had been down to +see the precautions taken, had especially ordered the strengthening of +the side door, and the provision of iron bars for all the ground floor +windows. As to the niece, Eliza Daunt, she had not made herself popular +with the neighbours or in the village; but she seemed an efficient and +managing woman, and that she "kept herself to herself" was far best for +the safety of Monk Lawrence. + +Whenever during these days Winnington's business took him in the +Latchford direction, so that going or coming he passed Monk Lawrence, +he would walk up to the Abbey in the evening, and in the course of the +gossip of the day, all the reassuring news he had to give would be sure +to drop out; while Delia sat listening, her eyes fixed on him. And +then, for a time, the shadow almost lifted, and she would be her young +and natural self. + +In this way, without knowing it, he helped her to keep her secret, and, +intermittently, to fight down her fears. + +On one of these afternoons, in the February twilight, he had been +talking to both the ladies, describing _inter alia_ a brief call at +Monk Lawrence and a chat with Daunt, when Madeleine Tonbridge went away +to change her walking dress, and he and Delia were left alone. +Winnington was standing in the favourite male attitude--his hands in +his pockets, and his back to the fire; Delia was on a sofa near. The +firelight flickered on the black and white of her dress, and on the +face which in losing something of its dark bloom had gained infinitely +in other magic for the eyes of the man looking down upon her. + +Suddenly she said-- + +"Do you remember when you wanted me to say--I was sorry for Gertrude's +speech--and I wouldn't?" + +He started. + +"Perfectly." + +"Well, I am sorry now. I see--I know--it has been all a mistake." + +She lifted her eyes to his, very quietly--but the hands on her lap +shook. + +His passionate impulse was to throw himself at her feet, and silence +any further humbleness with kisses. But he controlled himself. + +"You mean--that violence--has been a mistake?" + +"Yes--just that. Oh, of course!"--she flushed again--"I am just as much +for _women_--I am just as rebellious against their wrongs--as I ever +was. I shall be a Suffragist always. But I see now--what we've stirred +up in England. I see now--that we can't win that way--and that we +oughtn't to win that way." + +He was silent a moment, and then said in a rather muffled voice-- + +"I don't know who else would have confessed it--so bravely!" His +emotion seemed to quiet her. She smiled radiantly. + +"Does it make you feel triumphant?" + +"Not in the least!" + +She held out both hands, and he grasped them, smiling +back--understanding that she wished him to take it lightly. + +Her eyes indeed now were full of gaiety--light swimming on depths. + +"You won't be always saying 'I told you so?'" + +"Is it my way?" + +"No. But perhaps it's cunning on your part. You know it pays better to +be generous." + +They both laughed, and she drew her hands away. In another minute, she +had asked him to go on with some reading aloud while she worked. He +took up the book. The blood raced in his veins. "Soon, soon!"--he said +to himself, only to be checked by the divining instinct which +added--"but not yet!" + + * * * * * + +Only a few more days now, to the Commons debate. Every morning the +newspapers contained a crop of "militant" news of the kind foreshadowed +by Gertrude Marvell--meetings disturbed, private parties raided, +Ministers waylaid, windows smashed, and the like, though in none of the +reports did Gertrude's own name appear. Only two days before the +debate, a glorious Reynolds in the National Gallery was all but +hopelessly defaced by a girl of eighteen. Feeling throughout the +country surged at a white-heat. Delia said little or nothing, but the +hollows under her eyes grew steadily darker, and her cheeks whiter. Nor +could Winnington, for all his increasing anxiety, devote himself to +soothing or distracting her. An ugly strike in the Latchford +brickfields against nonunion labour was giving the magistrates of +the country a good deal of anxiety. Some bad outrages had already +occurred, and Winnington was endeavouring to get a Board of Trade +arbitration,--all of which meant his being a good deal away from home. + +Meanwhile Delia was making a new friend. Easily and simply, though no +one knew exactly how, Susy Amberley had found her way to the heart of +the young woman so much talked about and so widely condemned by the +county. Her own departure for London had been once more delayed by the +illness of her mother. But the worst of her own struggle was over now; +and no one had guessed it. She was a little older, though it was hardly +perceptible to any eye but her mother's; a little graver; in some ways +sweeter, in others perhaps a trifle harder, like the dipped sword. Her +dress had become less of a care to her; she minded the fashions less +than her mother. And there had opened before her more and more +alluringly that world of social service, which is to so many beautiful +souls outside Catholicism the equivalent of the vowed and dedicated +life. + +But just as of old, she guessed Mark Winnington's thoughts, and by some +instinct divined his troubles. He loved Delia Blanchflower; that she +knew by a hundred signs; and there were rough places in his road,--that +too she knew. They were clearly not engaged; but their relation was +clearly, also, one of no ordinary friendship. Delia's dependence on +him, her new gentleness and docility were full of meaning--for Susy. As +to the causes of Delia's depression, why, she had lost her friend, or +at any rate, to judge from the fact that Delia was at Maumsey, while +Miss Marvell remained, so report said, in London--had ceased to agree +or act with her. Susy divined and felt for the possible tragedy +involved. Delia indeed never spoke of the militant propaganda; but she +often produced on Susy a strange impression as of someone +listening--through darkness. + +The net result of all these guessings was that the tender Susy fell +suddenly in love with Delia--first for Mark's sake, then for her own; +and became in a few days of frequent meetings, Delia's small worshipper +and ministering spirit. Delia surrendered, wondering; and it was soon +very evident that, on her side, the splendid creature, in her +unrevealed distress, pined after all to be loved, and by her own sex. +She told Susy no secrets, either as to Winnington, or Gertrude; but +very soon, just as Susy was certain about her, so she--very pitifully +and tenderly--became certain about Susy. Susy loved--or had once +loved--Winnington. And Delia knew very well, whom Winnington loved. The +double knowledge softened all her pride--all her incipient jealousy +away. She took Susy into her heart, though not wholly into her +confidence; and soon the two began to walk the lonely country roads +together hand in hand. Susy's natural tasks took her often among the +poor. But Delia would not go with her. She shrank during these days, +with a sick distaste from the human world around her,--its possible +claims upon her. Her mind was pre-engaged; and she would not pretend +what she could not feel. + +This applied especially to the folk on her father's estate. As to the +neighbours of her own class, they apparently shrank from her. She was +left coldly alone. No one called, but Susy, France and his wife, and +Captain Andrews. Mrs. Andrews indeed was loud in her denunciation of +Delia and all her crew. Her daughter Marion had abominably deserted +all her family duties, without any notice to her family, and was +now--according to a note left behind--brazenly living in town with +some one or other of the "criminals" to whom Miss Blanchflower of +course, had introduced her. But as she had given no address she was +safe from pursuit. Mrs. Andrews' life had never been so uncomfortable. +She had to maid herself, and do her own housekeeping, and the thing was +Scandalous and intolerable. She filled the local air with wailing and +abuse. + +But her son, the gallant Captain, would not allow any abuse of Delia +Blanchflower in his presence. He had begun, indeed, immediately after +Delia's return, to haunt the Abbey so persistently that Madeleine +Tonbridge had to make an opportunity for a few quiet words in his ear, +after which he disappeared disconsolate. + +But he was a good fellow at heart, and the impression Delia had made +upon him, together with some plain speaking on the subject from Lady +Tonbridge, in the course of a chance meeting in the village, roused a +remorseful discomfort in him about his sister. He tried honestly to +find out where she was, but quite in vain. Then he turned upon his +Mother, and told her bluntly she was herself to blame for her +daughter's flight. "Between us, we've led her a dog's life, Mother, +there, that's the truth! All the same, I'm damned sorry she's taken up +with this business." + +However, it mattered nothing to anybody whether the Captain was "damned +sorry" or not. The hours were almost numbered. The Sunday before the +Tuesday fixed for the Second Reading came and went. It was a foggy +February day, in which the hills faded from sight, and all the world +went grey. Winnington spent the afternoon at Maumsey. But neither he +nor Madeleine seemed to be able to rouse Delia during that day from a +kind of waking dream--which he interpreted as a brooding sense of some +catastrophe to come. + +He was certain that her mind was fixed on the division ahead--the +scene in the House of Commons--and on the terror of what the +"Daughters"--Gertrude perhaps in the van--might be planning and +plotting in revenge for it. His own feeling was one of vast relief that +the strain would be so soon over, and his own tongue loosed. Monk +Lawrence was safe enough! And as for any other attempt at vengeance, he +dismissed the notion with impatient scorn. + +But meanwhile he said not a word that could have jarred on any +conviction or grief of Delia's. Sometimes indeed they touched the great +subject itself--the "movement" in its broad and arguable aspects; +though it seemed to him that Delia could not bear it for long. Mind and +heart were too sore; and her weary reasonableness made him long for the +prophetic furies of the autumn. But always she felt herself enwrapped +by a tenderness, a chivalry that never failed. Only between her and +it--between her and him--as she lay awake through broken nights, some +barrier rose--dark and impassable. She knew it for the barrier of her +own unconquered fear. + + + + +Chapter XIX + + +On this same Sunday night before the date fixed for the Suffrage +debate, a slender woman, in a veil and a waterproof, opened the gate of +a small house in the Brixton Road. It was about nine o'clock in the +evening. The pavements were wet with rain, and a gusty wind was +shrieking through the smutty almond and alder trees along the road +which had ventured to put out their poor blossoms and leaves in the +teeth of this February gale. + +The woman stood and looked at the house after shutting the gate, as +though uncertain whether she had found what she was looking for. But +the number 453, on the dingy door, could be still made out by the light +of the street opposite, and she mounted the steps. + +A slatternly maid opened the door, and on being asked whether Mrs. +Marvell was at home, pointed curtly to a dimly lighted staircase, and +disappeared. + +Gertrude Marvell groped her way upstairs. The house smelt repulsively +of stale food, and gas mingled, and the wailing wind from outside +seemed to pursue the visitor with its voice as she mounted. On the +second floor landing, she knocked at the door of the front room. + +After an interval, some shuffling steps came to the door, and it was +cautiously opened. + +"What's your business, please?" + +"It's me--Gertrude. Are you alone?" + +A sound of astonishment. The door was opened, and a woman appeared. Her +untidy, brown hair, touched with grey, fell back from a handsome +peevish face of an aquiline type. A delicate mouth, relaxed and +bloodless, seemed to make a fretful appeal to the spectator, and the +dark circles under the eyes shewed violet on a smooth and pallid skin. +She was dressed in a faded tea-gown much betrimmed, covered up with a +dingy white shawl. + +"Well, Gertrude--so you've come--at last!"--she said, after a moment, +in a tone of resentment. + +"If you can put me up for the night--I can stay. I've brought no +luggage." + +"That doesn't matter. There's a stretcher bed. Come in." Gertrude +Marvell entered, and her mother closed the door. + +"Well, mother--how are you?" + +The daughter offered her cheek, which the elder woman kissed. Then Mrs. +Marvell said bitterly-- + +"Well, I don't suppose, Gertrude, it much matters to you how I am." + +Gertrude took off her wet waterproof, and hat, and sitting down by the +fire, looked round her mother's bed-sitting-room. There was a tray on +the table with the remains of a meal. There were also a large number of +women's hats, some trimmed, some untrimmed, some in process of +trimming, lying about the room, on the different articles of furniture. +There was a tiny dog in a basket, which barked shrilly and feebly as +Gertrude approached the fire, and there were various cheap illustrated +papers and a couple of sixpenny novels to be seen emerging from the +litter here and there. For the rest, the furniture was of a squalid +lodging-house type. On the chimney-piece however was a bunch of +daffodils, the only fresh and pleasing object in the room. + +To Gertrude it was as though she had seen it all before. Behind the +room, there stretched a succession of its ghostly fellows--the rooms of +her childhood. In those rooms she could remember her mother as a young +and comely woman, but always with the same slovenly dress, and the same +untidy--though then abundant and beautiful--hair. And as she half shut +her eyes she seemed also to see her younger sister coming in and +out--malicious, secretive--with her small turn-up nose, pouting lips, +and under-hung chin. + +She made no reply to her mother's complaining remark. But while she +held her cold hands to the blaze that Mrs. Marvell stirred up, her eyes +took careful note of her mother's aspect. "Much as usual," was her +inward comment. "Whatever happens, she'll outlive me." + +"You've been going on with the millinery?" She pointed to the hats. "I +hope you've been making it pay." + +"It provides me with a few shillings now and then," said Mrs. Marvell, +sitting heavily down on the other side of the fire--"which Winnie +generally gets out of me!" she said sharply. "I am a miserable pauper +now, as I always have been." + +Gertrude's look was unmoved. Her mother had, she knew, all that her +father had left behind him--no great sum, but enough for a solitary +woman to live on. + +"Well, anyway, you must be glad of it as an occupation. I wish I could +help you. But I haven't really a farthing of my own, beyond the +interest on my L1000. I handle a great deal of money, but it all goes +to the League, and I never let them pay me more than my bare expenses. +Now then, tell me all about everybody!" And she lay back in the +dilapidated basket-chair that had been offered her, and prepared +herself to listen. + +The family chronicle was done. It was as depressing as usual, and +Gertrude made but little comment upon it. When it was finished, Mrs. +Marvell rose, and put the kettle on the fire, and got out a couple of +fresh cups and saucers from a cupboard. As she did so, she looked round +at her visitor. + +"And you're as deep in that militant business as ever." + +Gertrude made a negligent sign of assent. + +"Well, you'll never get any good of it." The mother's pale cheek +flushed. It excited her to have this chance of speaking her mind to her +clever and notorious daughter, whom in many ways she secretly envied, +while heartily disapproving her acts and opinions. + +Gertrude shrugged her shoulders. + +"What's the good of arguing?" + +"Well, it's true"--said the mother, persisting. "Every new thing you +do, turns more people against you. Winnie's a Suffragist--but she says +you've spoilt all their game!" + +Gertrude's eyes shone; she despised her mother's opinion, and her +sister's still more, and yet once again in their neighbourhood, once +again in the old environment, she could not help treating them in the +old defiant brow-beating way. + +"And you think, I suppose, that Winnie knows a good deal about it?" + +"Well, she knows what everybody's saying--in the trams--and the trains +everywhere. Hundreds of them that used to be for you have turned over." + +"Let them!" + +The contemptuous tone irritated Mrs. Marvell. But at the same time she +could not help admiring her eldest daughter, as she sat there in the +fire-light, her quiet well-cut dress, her delicate hands and feet. It +was true indeed, she was a scarce-crow for thinness, and looked years +older--"somehow gone to pieces"--thought the mother, vaguely, and with +a queer, sudden pang. + +"And you're going on with it?" + +"What? Militancy? Of course we are--more than ever!" + +"Why, the men laugh at you, Gertrude!" + +"They won't laugh--by the time we've done," said Gertrude, with +apparent indifference. Her mother had not sufficient subtlety of +perception to see that the indifference was now assumed, to hide the +quiver of nerves, irreparably injured by excitement and overstrain. + +"Well, all I know is, it's against nature to suppose that women can +fight men." Mrs. Marvell's remarks were rather like the emergence of +scattered spars from a choppy sea. + +"We shall fight them," said Gertrude, sourly--"And what's more, we +shall beat them." + +"All the same we've got to live with them!" cried her mother, suddenly +flushing, as old memories swept across her. + +"Yes,--on our terms--not theirs!" + +"I do believe, Gertrude, you hate the very sight of a man!" Gertrude +smiled again; then suddenly shivered, as though the cold wind outside +had swept through the room. + +"And so would you--if you knew what I do!" + +"Well I do know a good bit!" protested Mrs. Marvell. "And I'm a married +woman,--worse luck! and you're not. But you'll never see it any other +way than your own, Gertie. You got a kink in you when you were quite +a girl. Last week I was talking about you to a woman I know--and I +said--'It's the girls ruined by the bad men that make Gertrude so +mad'--and she said--'She don't ever think of the boys that are ruined +by the bad women!--Has she ever had a son--not she!' And she just cried +and cried. I suppose she was thinking of something." + +Gertrude rose. + +"Look here, mother. Can I go to bed? I'm awfully tired." + +"Wait a bit. I'll make the bed." + +Gertrude sat down by the fire again. Her exhaustion was evident, and +she made no attempt to help her mother. Mrs. Marvell let down the +chair-bed, drew it near the fire, and found some bed-clothes. Then she +produced night-things of her own, and helped Gertrude undress. When her +daughter was in bed, she made some tea, and dry toast, and Gertrude let +them be forced on her. When she had finished, the mother suddenly +stooped and kissed her. + +"Where are you going to now, Gertrude? Are you staying on with that +lady in Hamptonshire?" + +"Can't tell you my plans just yet," said Gertrude sleepily--"but you'll +know next week." + +The lights were put out. Both women tried to sleep, and Gertrude was +soon heavily asleep. + +But as soon as it was light, Mrs. Marvell heard her moving, the splash +of water, and the lighting of the fire. Presently Gertrude came to her +side fully dressed-- + +"There, mother, I've made _you_ a cup of tea! And now in a few minutes +I shall be off." + +Mrs. Marvell sat up and drank the tea. + +"I didn't think you'd go in such a hurry," she said, fretfully. + +"I must. My day's so full. Well, now look here, Mother, I want you to +know if anything were to happen to me, my thousand pounds would come to +you first, and then to Winnie and her children. And it's my wish, that +neither my brother nor Henry shall touch a farthing of it. I've made a +will, and that's the address of my solicitors, who're keeping it." She +handed her mother an envelope. + +Mrs. Marvell put down her tea, and put her handkerchief to her eyes. + +"I believe you're up to something dreadful, Gertrude,--which you won't +tell me." + +"Nonsense," said Gertrude, not however unkindly. "But we mayn't see +each other for a good while. There!--I'll open the windows--that'll +make you feel more cheerful." And she drew up the blinds to the dull +February day, and opened a window. + +"I'll telephone to Winnie as I go past the Post Office to come and +spend the day with you--and I'll send up the servant to do your room. +Now don't fret." + +"I'm a lonely old woman, Gertrude:--and I wish I was dead." + +Gertrude frowned. + +"You should try and read something, Mother--better than these trashy +novels. When I've time, I'll send you a parcel of books--I've got a +good many. And don't you let your work go--it's good for you. Now +good-bye." + +The two women kissed--Mrs. Marvell embracing her daughter with a sudden +fierceness of emotion to which Gertrude submitted, almost for the first +time in her life. Then her mother pushed her away. + +"Good-bye, Gertrude--you'd better go!" + +Gertrude went out noiselessly, closing the door behind her with a +lingering movement, unlike her. In the tiny hall below, she found the +"general" at work, and sent her up to Mrs. Marvell. Then she went out +into the grey February morning, and the little girl of the landlady +standing on the steps saw her enter one of the eastward-bound trams. + +Monday afternoon came. Winnington had been called away to Wanchester by +urgent County business; against his will, for there had been some bad +rioting the day before at Latchford, and he would rather have gone to +help his brother magistrates. But there was no help for it. Lady +Tonbridge was at the little Georgian house, shutting it up for six +months. Delia was left alone in the Abbey, consumed with a restless +excitement she had done her best to hide from her companions. She +suddenly made up her mind that she would go and see for herself, and by +herself, what was happening at Monk Lawrence. She set out unobserved +and on foot, and had soon climbed the hill and reached the wood walk +along its crest where she had once met Lathrop. Half way through, +she came on two persons whom she at once recognised as the +science-mistress, Miss Jackson, and Miss Toogood. They were waiting +slowly, and, as it seemed to Delia, sadly; the little dressmaker +limping painfully, with her head thrown back and a face of fixed and +tragic distress. + +When they saw Delia, they stopped in agitation. + +"Oh, Miss Blanchflower!--" + +Delia who knew that Miss Jackson had been in town hoping for work at +the Central Office of the League of Revolt, divined at once that she +had been disappointed. + +"They couldn't find you anything?" + +The teacher shook her head. + +"And the Governors have given me a month's salary here in lieu of +notice. I've left the school, Miss Blanchflower! I was in the Square +you know, that day--and at the Police Court afterwards. That was what +did it. And I have my old mother to keep." + +A pair of haggard eyes met Delia's. + +"Oh, but I'll help!" cried Delia.--"You must let me help!--won't you?" + +"Thank you--but I've got a few savings," said the teacher quietly. "It +isn't that so much. It's--well, Miss Toogood feels it too. She was in +town--she saw everything. And she knows what I mean. We're +disheartened--that's what it is!" + +"With the movement?" said Delia, after a moment. + +"It seemed so splendid when we talked of it down here--and--it +_was_--so horrible!" Her voice dropped. + +"So horrible!" echoed Miss Toogood drearily. "It wasn't what we meant, +somehow. And yet we'd read about it. But to see those young women +beating men's faces--well, it did for me!" + +"The police were rough too!" cried Miss Jackson. "But you couldn't +wonder at it, Miss Blanchflower, could you?" + +Delia looked into the speaker's frank, troubled face. "You and I felt +the same," she said in a choked voice. "It was ugly--and it was +absurd." + +She walked back with them a little way, comforting them, as best she +could. And her sympathy, her sweetness did--strangely--comfort them. +When she left them, they walked on, talking tenderly of her, counting +on _her_ good fortune, if there was none for them. + +At the end of the walk, towards Monk Lawrence, another figure emerged +from the distance. Delia started, then gathered all her wits; for it +was Lathrop. + +He hurried towards her, breathless, cutting all preliminaries-- + +"I was coming to find you. I arrived this morning. There is something +wrong! I have just been to the house, and there is no one there." + +"What do you mean?" + +"No one. I went to Daunt's rooms. Everything locked. The house +absolutely dark--everywhere. And I know that he has had the strictest +orders!" + +Without a word, she began to run, and he beside her. When she +slackened, he told her that while in London he had made the most +skilful enquiries he could devise as to the plot he believed to be on +foot. But--like Delia's own--they had been quite fruitless. Those +persons who had shared suspicion with him in December were now +convinced that the thing was dropped. All that he had ascertained was +that Miss Marvell was in town, apparently recovered, and Miss Andrews +with her. + +"Well--and were you pleased with your raid?" he asked her, half +mockingly, as he opened the gate of Monk Lawrence for her. + +She resented the question, and the tone of it, remembering his first +grandiloquent letter to her. + +"_You_ ought to be," she said, drily. "It was the kind of thing you +recommended." + +"In that letter I wrote you! I ought to have apologised to you for that +letter long ago. I am afraid it was an exercise. Oh, I felt it, I +suppose, when I wrote it." + +There was a touch of something insolent in his voice. + +She made no reply. If it had not been for the necessity which yoked +them, she would not have spent another minute in his company, so +repellent to her had he become--both in the inner and the outer man. +She tried only to think of him as an ally in a desperate campaign. + +They hastened up the Monk Lawrence drive. The house stood still and +peaceful in the February afternoon. The rooks from the rookery behind +were swirling about and over the roofs, filling the air with monotonous +sound which only emphasized the silence below. A sheet of snowdrops lay +white in the courtyard, where a child's go-cart upset, held the very +middle of the stately approach to the house. + +Delia went to the front door, and rang the bell--repeatedly. Not a +sound, except the dim echoes of the bell itself from some region far +inside. + +"No good!" said Lathrop. "Now come to the back." They went round to the +low addition at the back of the house, where Daunt and his family had +now lived for many months. Here also there was nobody. The door was +locked. The blinds were drawn down. Impossible to see into the rooms, +and neither calling nor knocking produced any response. + +Lathrop stood thinking. + +"Absolutely against orders! I know--for Daunt himself told me--that he +had promised Lang never to leave the house without putting some deputy +he could trust in charge. He has gone and left no deputy--or the deputy +he did leave has deserted." + +"What's the nearest house--or cottage?" + +"The Gardeners' cottages, beyond the kitchen garden. Only one of them +occupied now, I believe. Daunt used to live there before he moved into +the house. Let's go there!" + +They ran on. The walled kitchen garden was locked, but they found a way +round it to where three creeper-grown cottages stood in a pleasant +lonely space girdled by beech-woods. One only was inhabited, but from +that the smoke was going up, and a babble of children's voices emerged. + +Lathrop knocked. There was a sudden sound, and then a silence within. +In a minute however the door was opened, and a strapping black-eyed +young woman stood on the threshold looking both sulky and astonished. + +"Are you Daunt's niece?" said Lathrop. + +"I am, Sir. What do you want with him?" + +"Why isn't he at Monk Lawrence?" asked Lathrop roughly. "He told me +himself he was not to leave the house unguarded." + +"Well, Sir, I don't know I'm sure what business it is of yours!" said +the woman, flushing with anger. "He got bad news of his son, whose ship +arrived at Portsmouth yesterday, and the young man said to be dying, on +board. So he went off this afternoon. I've only left it for ten minutes +and I'm going back directly. Mrs. Cresson here had asked the children +to tea, and I brought them over. And I'll thank you, Sir, not to go +spying on honest people!" + +And she would have slammed the door in his face, but that Delia came +forward. + +"We had no intention of spying upon you, Miss Daunt--indeed we hadn't. +But I am Miss Blanchflower, who came here before Christmas, with Mr. +Winnington, and I should have been glad to see Mr. Daunt and the +children. Lily!--don't you remember me?"--and she smiled at the +crippled child--a delicate blue-eyed creature--whom she saw in the +background. + +But the child, who seemed to have been crying violently, did not come +forward. And the other two, who had their fingers in their mouths, were +equally silent and shrinking. In the distance an old woman sat +motionless in her chair by the fire, taking no notice apparently of +what was going on. + +The young woman appeared for a moment confused or excited. + +"Well, I'm sorry, Miss, but my Uncle won't be back till after dark. And +I wouldn't advise you to come in, Miss,"--she hurriedly drew the door +close behind her--"the doctor thinks two of the children have got +whooping-cough--and I didn't send them to school today." + +"Well, just understand, Miss Daunt, if that's your name," said Lathrop, +with emphasis--"that till you return to the house, we shall stay there. +We shall walk up and down there, till you come back. You know well +enough there are people about, who would gladly do an injury to the +house, and that it's not safe to leave it. Monk Lawrence is not Sir +Wilfrid Lang's property only. It belongs to the whole nation, and there +are plenty of people that'll know the reason why, if any harm comes to +it." + +"Oh, very well. Have it your own way, Sir! I'll come--I'll come--fast +enough," and the speaker, with a curious half-mocking look at Lathrop, +flounced back into the cottage, and shut the door. They waited. There +were sounds of lowered voices, and crying children. Then Miss Daunt +emerged defiantly, and they all three walked back to Monk Lawrence. + +The keeper's niece unlocked the door leading to Daunt's rooms. But she +stood sulkily in the entry. + +"Now I hope you're satisfied, Sir. I don't know, I'm sure, why you +should come meddling in other people's affairs. And I daresay you'll +say something against me to my uncle!" + +"Well, anyway, you keep watch!" was the stern reply. "I take my rounds +often this way, as your Uncle knows. I daresay I shall be by here again +tonight. Can the children find their way home alone?" + +"Well, they're not idiots, Sir! Good-night to you. I've got to get +supper." And brusquely shutting the door in their faces, she went +inside. They perceived immediately afterwards that she had lit a light +in the kitchen. + +"Well, so far, all right," said Lathrop, as he and Delia withdrew. "But +the whole thing's rather--queer. You know that old woman, Mrs. +Cresson, is not all there, and quite helpless?" + +He pondered it as they walked back through the wood, his eyes on the +ground. Delia shared his undefined anxiety. She suggested that he +should go back to the house in an hour or so, to see if Daunt had +returned, and complain of his niece's breach of rules. Lathrop agreed. + +"How do we know who or what that girl is?"--he said slowly--"that she +mayn't have been got hold of?" + +The same terror grew in Delia. She walked on beside him absorbed in +speculation and discussion, till, without noticing, she had reached the +farther gate of the wood-walk. Outside the gate, ran the Wanchester +road, climbing the down, amid the woods. To reach the field path +leading to the Abbey, Delia must cross it. + +She and Lathrop emerged from the wood still talking in low voices, and +stood beside the gate. A small car, with one man driving it, was +descending the long hill. But Delia had her back to it. + +It came nearer. She turned, and saw Winnington approaching her--saw the +look on his face. For a moment she wavered. Then with a bow and a hasty +"Good Evening," she left Lathrop, and stepped into the road, holding up +her hand to stop the car. + +"How lucky!" she said, clearly, and gaily,--"just as it's going to +rain! Will you take me home?" + +Winnington, without a word, made room for her beside him. The two men +exchanged a slight greeting--and the car passed. + +Lathrop walked quickly back in the direction of Monk Lawrence. His +vanity was hugely pleased. + +"By George!--that was one to me! It's quite evident she hasn't taken +him into her confidence--doesn't want magistrates interfering--no +doubt. And meanwhile she appeals to _me_--she depends on _me_. Whatever +happens--she'll have to be grateful to me. That fellow with his +wry face can't stop it. What a vision she made just now under the +wood--'belle dame sans merci!'--hating my company--and yet compelled +to it. It would make a sonnet I think--I'll try it tonight." + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile in the dark corridors of Monk Lawrence a woman groping, met +another woman. The two dim figures exchanged some whispered words. Then +one of them returned to the back regions. + +Lathrop, passing by, noticed smoke rising from the Daunts' chimney, and +was reassured. But in an hour or so he would return to look for Daunt +himself. + +He had no sooner descended the hill to his own cottage, in the fast +gathering dusk, than Eliza Daunt emerged. She left the light burning in +the keeper's kitchen, and some cold supper on the table. Then with a +laugh which was half a sob of excitement she ran down the path leading +to the garden cottages. + +She was met by a clamour of rebellious children, as she opened Mrs. +Cresson's door. "Where's Daddy, Liza?--where's Daddy! Why can't we go +home! We want our Daddy!" + +"Hold your noise!" said Eliza roughly--"or it'll be the worse for +you--Daddy won't be home for a couple of hours yet, and I promised Fred +Cresson, I'd get Mrs. Cresson's tea for her. Lily, stop crying--and +get the tray!" + +The crippled child, red-eyed, unwillingly obeyed. Neither she nor her +sisters could understand why they had been brought over to tea with +Mrs. Cresson of whose queer half-imbecile ways they were all terrified. +Their father had gone off in a great hurry--because of the telegram +which had come. And Fred had bicycled down to Latchford to see somebody +about a gardener's place. And now there was no one left but Liza and +Mrs. Cresson--of whom, for different reasons, the three little girls +were equally afraid. And Lily's heart especially was sore for her +father. She knew very well they were all doing what was forbidden. But +she dared not complain. They had found Cousin 'Liza a hard woman. + +After Eliza Daunt had left Daunt's kitchen, for the space of half an +hour, a deep and brooding quiet settled on Monk Lawrence. The old house +held that in its womb, which must soon crash to light; but for this +last brief space, all was peace. The twilight of a clear February +evening mellowed the grey walls, and the moss-grown roofs; the house +spoke its last message--its murmured story, as the long yoke-fellow of +human life--to the tranquil air; and the pigeons crooned about it, +little knowing. + +Presently from the same door which had seen Eliza Daunt depart, a woman +cautiously emerged. She was in dark clothes, closely veiled. With +noiseless step, she passed round the back of the house, pausing a +moment to look at the side door on the north side which had been lately +strengthened by Sir Wilfrid's orders. Then she gained the shelter of +the close-grown shrubbery, and turning round she stood a few seconds +motionless, gazing at the house. In spite of her quiet movements, she +was trembling from head to foot--with excitement, not fear. + +"It's beautiful," she was saying to herself--"and precious--and I've +destroyed it." Then--with a fierce leap in the blood--"_Beauty_! And +what about the beauty that men destroy? Let them _pay_!" + +But as she stood there a sudden disabling storm of +thought--misgiving--argument--swept through her brain. She seemed to +hear on all sides voices in the air--the voices of friends and foes, of +applause and execration--Delia's voice among them! And at the mere +imagination of it, a shiver of anger ran through her. She thought of +Delia now, only as of one who had deserted and disobeyed. + +But with the illusion of the ear, there came also an illusion of +vision. The months of her recent life rose before her, in one hurrying +spectacle of scenes and faces, and the spectacle aroused in her but one +idea--one sickening impression--of crushing and superhuman effort. What +labour!--what toil! She shuddered under it. Then, suddenly, her mind +ran back to the early years before, beyond, the days of "war"--sordid, +unceasing war--when there had been time to love, to weep, to pity, to +enjoy; before wrath breeding wrath, and violence begetting violence, +had driven out the Spirits of Tenderness and Hope. She seemed to see, +to feel them--the sad Exiles!--fleeing along desert ways; and her +bitter heart cried out to them--for the only--the last time. For in the +great names of Love and Justice, she had let Hate loose within her, and +like the lion-cub nurtured in the house, it had grown to be the soul's +master and gaoler; a "doom" holding the citadels of life, and working +itself out to the appointed end. + +But the tumult in which she stood began to unnerve her. By a last +exercise of will she was able to pull herself together. + +Rapidly, as one well used to them, she made her way through the +shrubbery paths; round the walled garden, and behind the gardeners' +cottages. She heard the children in Mrs. Cresson's cottage as she +passed, Lily still fretfully crying, and the old woman's voice +scolding. Poor children!--they would be horribly frightened--but +nothing worse. + +The thick overgrown wood of fir and beech behind the cottages received +her, swallowed up the slight insignificant form. In the wood there was +still light enough to let her grope her way along the path, till at the +end, against an opening to the sky, she saw the outlines of a keeper's +hut. Then she knew that she was worn out, and must rest. She pushed the +door ajar, and sat crouching on the threshold, while the schemes and +plottings of the preceding weeks ran disjointedly through memory. + +Marion was safe by now--she had had an hour's start. And Eliza too had +gone. Nothing could be better than the arrangements made for those two. + +But she herself was not going--not yet. Her limbs failed her; and +beyond the sheltering woods, she seemed to become electrically aware of +hostile persons, of nets drawn round her, cutting off escape. As to +that, she felt the most supreme indifference to what might happen to +her. The indifference, indeed, passed presently into a strange and +stinging temptation to go back--back to the dark house--to see with +her own eyes what her hands had done. She resisted it with +difficulty.... Suddenly, a sound from the distance--beyond the +cottages--as of a slight explosion. She started, and throwing back her +veil, she sat motionless in the doorway of the hut, her face making a +dim white patch upon the darkness. + + + + +Chapter XX + + +"Take me home!--take me home quick! I want to talk to you. Not +now--not here!" + +The car flew along. Mark barely looked at Delia. His face was set and +pale. As for her, while they ran through the village and along the +country road between it and Maumsey, her mind had time to adjust itself +to that flashing resolution which had broken down a hundred scruples +and swept away a hundred fears, in that moment on the hill when she had +met his eyes, and the look in them. What must he think of her? An +assignation with that man, on the very first afternoon when his tender +watchfulness left her for an hour! No, it could not be borne that he +should read her so! She must clear herself! And thought, leaping +beacon-like from point to point told her, at last, that for Gertrude +too, she had chosen wrongly. Thank Heaven, there was still time! What +could a girl do, all alone--groping in such a darkness? Better after +all lay the case before Mark's judgment, Mark's tenderness, and trust +him with it all. Trust her own power too--see what a girl could do with +the man who loved her! + +The car stopped at the Abbey door, and Winnington, still absolutely +silent, helped her to alight. She led the way, past the drawing-room +where Lady Tonbridge sat rather anxiously expecting her, to that bare +room on the ground floor, the little gun-room, which Gertrude Marvell +had made her office, and where many signs of her occupation still +remained--a calendar on the wall marking the "glorious" dates of the +League--a flashlight photograph of the first raid on Parliament some +years before--a faded badge, and scattered piles of newspapers. A +couple of deal tables and two chairs were all the furniture the room +contained, in addition to the cupboards, painted in stone-colour, which +covered the walls. + +Delia closed the door, and threw off her furs. Then, with a gesture of +complete abandonment, she went up to Winnington, holding out her +hands-- + +"Oh, Mark, Mark, I want you to help me!" + +He took her hands, but without pressing them. His face, frowning and +flushed, with a little quivering of the nostrils, began to terrify +her-- + +"Oh, Mark,--dear Mr. Mark--I went to see Mr. Lathrop--because--because +I was in great trouble--and I thought he could help me." + +He dropped the hands. + +"You went to _him_--instead of to me? How long have you been with him? +Did you write to him to arrange it?" + +"No, no--we met by accident. Mark, it's not myself--it's a fear I +have--a dreadful, dreadful fear!" + +She came close to him, piteously, just murmuring-- + +"It's Monk Lawrence!--and Gertrude!" + +He started, and looked at her keenly-- + +"You know something I don't know?" + +"Oh yes, I do, I do!" she said, wringing her hands. "I ought to have +told you long ago. But I've been afraid of what you might do--I've been +afraid for Gertrude. Can't you see, Mark? I've been trying to make Mr. +Lathrop keep watch--enquire--so that they wouldn't dare. I've told +Gertrude that I know--I've written to people--I've done all I could. +And this afternoon I felt I must go there and see for myself, what +precautions had been taken--and I met Mr. Lathrop--" + +She gave a rapid account of their visit to the house,--of its complete +desertion--of the strange behaviour of the niece--and of the growing +alarm in her own mind. + +"There's something--there's some plot. Perhaps that woman's in it. +Perhaps Gertrude's got hold of her--or Miss Andrews. Anyway, if that +house can be left quite alone--ever--they'll get at it--that I'm sure +of. Why did she take the children away? Wasn't that strange?" + +Then she put her hands on the heart that fluttered so--and tried to +smile-- + +"But of course till the Bill's thrown out, there can be no danger, can +there? There _can't_ be any!" she repeated, as though appealing to him +to reassure her. + +"I don't understand yet," he said gravely. "Why do you suspect Miss +Marvell, or a plot at all? There was no such idea in your mind when we +went over the house together?" + +"No, none!--or at least not seriously--there was nothing, really, to go +on"--she assured him eagerly. "But just after--you remember Mr. +Lathrop's coming--that day--?--when you scolded me?" + +He could not help smiling a little--rather bitterly. + +"I remember you said you couldn't explain. Of course I thought it was +something connected with Miss Marvell, or your Society--but--" + +"I'm going to explain"--she said, trying hard for composure. "I'm going +to tell it all in order." + +And sitting down, her head resting on her hand, with Winnington +standing before her, she told the whole story of the preceding +weeks--the alternations of fear and relief--Lathrop's +suspicions--Gertrude's denials--the last interview between them. + +As for the man looking down upon her beautiful bowed head, his heart +melted within him as he listened. The sting remained that she should +have asked anyone else than he to help her--above all that she should +have humbled herself to ask it of such a man as Lathrop. Anxiety +remained, for Monk Lawrence itself, and still more for what might be +said of her complicity. But all that was further implied in her +confession, her drooping sweetness, her passionate appeal to him--the +beauty of her true character, its innocence, its faith, its +loyalty--began to flood him with a feeling that presently burst its +bounds. + +She wound up with most touching entreaties to him, to save and shield +her friend--to go himself to Gertrude and warn her--to go to the +police--without disclosing names, of course--and insist that the house +should be constantly patrolled. + +He scarcely heard a word of this. When she paused--there was silence a +moment. Then she heard her name--very low-- + +"Delia!" + +She looked up, and with a long breath she rose, as though drawn +invisibly. He held out his arms, and she threw hers round his neck, +hiding her face against the life that beat for her. + +"Oh, forgive me!"--she murmured, after a little, childishly pressing +her lips to his--"forgive me--for everything!" + +The tears were in his eyes. + +"You've gone through all this!--alone!" he said to her, as he bent over +her. "But never again, Delia--never again!" + +She was the first to release herself--putting tears away. + +"Now then--what can we do?" + +He resumed at once his ordinary manner and voice. + +"We can do a great deal. I have the car here. I shall go straight back +to Monk Lawrence, and see Daunt to-night. That woman's behaviour must +be reported--and explained. An hour--an hour and a half?--since you +were there?"--he took out his watch--"He's probably home by now--it's +quite dark--he'd scarcely risk being away after dark. Dearest, go and +rest!--I shall come back later--after dinner. Put it out of your mind." + +She went towards the hall with him hand in hand. Suddenly there was a +confused sound of shouting outside. Lady Tonbridge opened the +drawing-room door with a scared face-- + +"What is it? There are people running up the drive. They're shouting +something!" + +Winnington rushed to the front door, Delia with him. With his first +glance at the hill-side, he understood the meaning of the cries--of the +crowd approaching. + +"My God!--_too late_!" + +For high on that wooded slope, a blaze was spreading to the skies--a +blaze that grew with every second--illuminating with its flare the +woods around it, the chimneys of the old house, the quiet stretches of +the hill. + +"Monk Lawrence is afire, Muster Winnington!" panted one of Winnington's +own labourers who had outstripped the rest. "They're asking for you to +come! They've telephoned to Latchford for the engines, and to +Brownmouth and Wanchester too. They say it's burning like tow--there +must be petrol in it, or summat. It's the women they say!--spite of Mr. +Daunt and the perlice!" + +Then he noticed Delia standing beside Winnington on the steps, and held +his tongue, scowling. + +Winnington's car was still standing at the steps. He set it going in a +moment. + +"My cloak!" said Delia, looking round her--"And tell them to bring the +car!" + +"Delia, you're not going?" cried Madeleine, throwing a restraining arm +about her. + +"But of course I am!" said the girl amazed. "Not with him--because I +should be in his way." + +Various persons ran to do her bidding. Winnington already in his place, +with a labourer beside him, and two more in the seat behind him, +beckoned to her. + +"Why should you come, dearest! It will only break your heart. We'll do +all that can be done, and I'll send back messages." + +She shook her head. + +"I shall come! But don't think of me. I won't run any risks." + +There was no time to argue with her. The little car sped away, and with +it the miscellaneous crowd who had rushed to find Winnington, as the +natural head of the Maumsey community, and the only magistrate within +reach. + +Delia and Madeleine were left standing on the steps, amid a group of +frightened and chattering servants--gazing in despairing rage at the +ever-spreading horror on the slope of the down, at the sudden leaps of +flame, the vast showers of sparks drifting over the woods, the red +glare on the low hanging clouds. The garnered beauty of four centuries, +one of England's noblest heirlooms, was going down in ruin, at the +bidding of a handful of women, hurling themselves in disappointed fury +on a community that would not give them their way. + +Sharp-toothed remorse had hold on Delia. If she had only gone to +Wilmington earlier! "My fault!--my fault!" + +When the car came quickly round, she and Lady Tonbridge got into it. As +they rushed through the roads, lit on their way by that blaze in the +heart of the hills, of which the roaring began to reach their ears, +Delia sat speechless, and death-like, reconstructing the past days and +hours. Not yet two hours since she had left the house--left it +untouched. At that very moment, Gertrude or Gertrude's agents must have +been within it. The whole thing had been a plot--the children taken +away--the house left deserted. Very likely Daunt's summons to his dying +son had been also part of it. And as to the niece--what more probable +than that Gertrude had laid hands on her months before, guided perhaps +by the local knowledge of Marion Andrews,--and had placed her as spy +and agent in the doomed house till the time should be ripe? The blind +and fanatical devotions which Gertrude was able to excite when she set +herself to it, was only too well known to Delia. + +Where was Gertrude herself? For Delia was certain that she had not +merely done this act by deputy. + +In the village, every person who had not gone rushing up the hill was +standing at the doors, pale and terror-stricken, watching the glare +overhead. The blinds of Miss Toogood's little house were drawn close. +And as Delia passed, angry looks and mutterings pursued her. + +The car mounted the hill. Suddenly a huge noise and hooting behind +them. They drew into the hedge, to let the Latchford fire-engine +thunder past, a fine new motor engine, just purchased and equipped. + +"There'll be three or four more directly, Miss"--shouted one of her +own garden lads, mounting on the step of the car. "But they say there's +no hope. It was fired in three places, and there was petrol used." + +At the gate, the police--looking askance especially at Miss +Blanchflower--would have turned them back. But Delia asked for +Winnington, and they were at last admitted into the circle outside the +courtyard, where beyond reach of the sparks, and falling fragments, the +crowd of spectators was gathered. People made way for her, but Lady +Tonbridge noticed that nobody spoke to her, though as soon as she +appeared all the angry or excited attention that the crowd could spare +from the fire was given to her. Delia was not aware of it. She stood a +little in front of the crowd, with her veil thrown back, her hands +clasped in front of her, an image of rapt despair. Her face, like all +the faces in the crowd, was made lurid--fantastic--by the glare of the +flames; and every now and then, as though unconsciously, she brushed +away the mist of tears from her eyes. + +"Aye she's sorry now!"--said a stout farmer, bitterly, to his +neighbour--"now that she's led them as is even younger than herself +into trouble. My girl's in prison all along of her--and that woman as +they do say is at the bottom of this business." + +The speaker was Kitty Foster's father. Kitty had just been sentenced to +six months' imprisonment for the burning of a cricket pavilion in the +Midlands, and her relations were sitting in shame and grief for her. + +"Whoever 'tis as did it 'ull have a job to get away"--said the man he +addressed. "They've got a lot o' police out. Where's 'Liza Daunt, I +say? They're searching for her everywhere. Daunt's just come upon the +engine from Latchford--saw the fire from the train. He says he's been +tricked--a put-up job he says. There wasn't nothing wrong with his son, +he says, when he got to Portsmouth. If they do catch 'em, the police +will have to guard 'em safe. It won't do to let the crowd get at 'em. +They're fair mad. Oh, Lord!--it's caught another roof!" + +And a groan rose from the fast-thickening multitude, as another wall +fell amid a shower of sparks and ashes, and the flames, licking up and +up, caught the high-pitched roof of the great hall, and ran along the +stone letters of the parapet, which spelt out the motto--"Except the +Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it." The fantastic +letters themselves, which had been lifted to their places before the +death of Shakespeare, seemed to dance in the flame like living and +tormented things. + +Meanwhile in the courtyard, and on the side lawns, scores of persons +were busy removing furniture, pictures and tapestries. Winnington was +leading and organising the rescue parties, now inside, now outside the +house. And near him, under his orders, worked Paul Lathrop, in his +shirt sleeves, superhumanly active, and superhumanly strong--grinding +his teeth with rage sometimes, as the fire defeated one effort after +another to check it. Daunt, also was there, pouring out incoherent +confidences to the police, and distracted by the growing certainty that +his niece had been one of the chief authors of the plot. His children +naturally had been his first thought. But the Rector, who had just been +round to enquire for them at Mrs. Cresson's cottage, came back +breathless, shouting "all safe!"--and Daunt rushed off to help the +firemen; while Amberley reported to Susy the pitiable misery of Lily, +the little cripple, who had been shrieking for her father in wild +outbursts of crying, refusing to believe that he was not in the fire. +Susy, who loved the child, would have gladly gone to find her, and take +her home to the Rectory for the night. But, impossible to leave her +post at Delia's side, and this blazing spectacle that held the +darkness! Two village women, said the Rector, were in charge of the +children. + +"No chance!" said Lathrop, bitterly, pausing for a moment beside +Winnington, while they both took breath--the sweat pouring from their +smoke-blackened faces. + +"If one could get to the top of that window with the big hose--one +could reach the roof better"--panted Winnington, pointing to the still +intact double oriel which ran up through two stories of the building, +to the east of the doorway. + +"I see!" Lathrop dashed away. And in a few seconds he and a fireman +could be seen climbing from a ladder upon a ledge, a carved +string-course, which connected the eastern and western oriels above the +main doorway. They crawled along the ledge like flies, clinging to +every projection, every stem of ivy, the fireman dragging the hose. + +The crowd watched, all eyes. Winnington, after a rapid look or two, +turned away with the thought--"That fellow's done some rock-climbing in +his day!" + +But against such a doom as had now gripped Monk Lawrence, nothing +availed. Lathrop and his companion had barely scaled the parapet of the +window when a huge central crash sent its resounding din circling round +the leafless woods, and the two climbing figures disappeared from view +amid a fresh rush of smoke and flame. + +The great western chimney-stack had fallen. When the cloud of smoke +drifted away, a gaping cavity of fire was seen just behind the two men; +it could only be a matter of minutes before the wall and roof +immediately behind them came down upon them. The firemen shouted to +them from below. A long ladder was brought and run up to within twenty +feet of them. Lathrop climbed down to it over the scorched face of the +oriel, his life in jeopardy at every step. Then steadying himself on +the ladder,--and grasping a projection in the wall, he called to the +man above, to drop upon his shoulders. It was done, by a miracle--and +both holding on, the man above by the projections of the wall and +Lathrop by the ladder, descended, till the two were within reach of +safety. + +A thin roar of cheers rose from the environing throng, scarcely audible +amid the greater roar of the flames. Lathrop, wearied, depressed, with +bleeding hands, came back to Winnington's side. Winnington looked +round. For the first time Lathrop saw through Mark's grey eyes the +generous heart within--unveiled. + +"Splendid! Are you hurt?" + +"Only scorched and scratched. Give me another job!" + +"Come along then." + +And thenceforward the two worked side by side, like brothers, in the +desperate attempt to save at least the Great Hall, and the beautiful +rooms adjoining; the Porch Room, with its Chatham memorials; the +library too, with its stores of seventeenth-century books, its busts, +and its portraits. But the flames rushed on and on, with a fiendish and +astounding rapidity. Fragments of news ran back to the onlookers. The +main staircase had been steeped in petrol--and sacks full of shavings +had been stored in the panelled spaces underneath it. Fire-lighters +heaped together had been found in the Red Parlour--to be dragged out by +the firemen--but again too late!--for the fire was already gnawing at +the room, like a wild prowling beast. A back staircase too had been +kindled with paraffin--the smell of it was everywhere. And thus urged, +a very demon of fire seemed to have seized on the beautiful place. +There was a will and a passion of destruction in the flames that +nothing could withstand. As the diamond-paned windows fell into +nothing-ness, the rooms behind shewed for a brief space; carved roofs, +stately fireplaces, gleaming for a last moment, before Time knew them +no more, and all that remained of them was the last vision of their +antique beauty, stamped on the aching memories of those who watched. + +"Why did you let her come!" said France vehemently in Lady Tonbridge's +ear, with his eyes on Delia. "It's enough to kill her. She must know +who's done it!" + +Lady Tonbridge shook her head despairingly, and both gazed, without +daring to speak to her, on the girl beside them. Madeleine had taken +one cold hand. France was torn with pity for her--but what comfort was +there to give! Her tears had dried. But there was something now in her +uncontrollable restlessness as she moved ghost-like along the front of +the spectators, pressing as near to the house as the police would +permit, scanning every patch of light or shadow, which suggested to +those who followed her, possession by some torturing fear--some terror +of worse still to come. + +Meanwhile the police were thinking not only of the house, but still +more of its destroyers. They had a large number of men on the spot, and +a quick-witted inspector in charge. It was evident from many traces +that the incendiaries had only left the place a very short time before +the outbreak of the fire; they could not be far away. Scouts were flung +out on all the roads; search parties were in all the woods; every +railway station had been warned. + +On the northern side, the famous Loggia, built by an Italianate owner +of the house, in the first half of the sixteenth century--a series of +open arches, with twisted marble pillars--ran along the house from +front to rear. It was approached on the south by a beautiful staircase, +of which the terra-cotta balustrading had been copied from a famous +villa on Como, and a similar staircase gave access to it from the +garden to the north. The fight for the Great Hall which the Loggia +adjoined, was being followed with agonised anxiety by the crowds. The +Red Parlour, with all its carvings and mouldings had gone, the porch +room was a furnace of fire, with black spars and beams hanging in +ragged ruin across it. The Great Hall seemed already tottering, and in +its fall, the Loggia too must go. + +Then, as every eye hung upon the work of the firemen and the play of +the water, into the still empty space of the Loggia, and illumined by +the glare of the flames, there emerged with quiet step, the figure of a +woman. She came forward: she stood with crossed arms looking at the +crowd. And at the same moment, behind her, there appeared the form of a +child, a little fair-haired girl, hobbling on a crutch, in desperate +haste, and wailing--"Father!" + +Delia saw them, and with one wild movement she was through the cordon +of police, and running for the house. + +Winnington, at the head of his salvage corps, perceived her, and ran +too. + +"Delia!--go back!--go back!" + +"Gertrude!" she said, gasping--and pointed to the Loggia. And he had +hardly looked where all the world was looking, when a part of the roof +of the Hall at the back, fell suddenly outwards and northwards, in a +blaze of flame. Charred rafters stood out, hanging in mid air, and the +flames leapt on triumphant. At the same moment, evidently startled by +some sound behind her, the woman turned, and saw what the crowd +saw--the child, limping on its crutch, coming towards her, calling +incoherently. + +Her own cry rang out, as she ran towards the cripple, waving her back. +And as she did so, came another thundering fall, another upward rush of +flame, as a fresh portion of the roof fell eastwards, covering the +Loggia and blotting out the figures of both woman and child. + +With difficulty the police kept back the mad rush of the crowd. The +firemen swarmed to the spot. + +But the child was buried deep under flaming ruin, where her father, +Daunt, who had rushed to save her, was only restrained by main force +from plunging after her, to his death. The woman they brought +out--alive. France, Delia and Winnington were beside her. + +"Stand back!" shouted the mild old Rector--transformed into a +prophet-figure, his white hair streaming--as the multitude swayed +against the cordon of police. "Stand back! all of you--and pray--for +this woman!" + +In a dead silence, men, shivering, took off their hats, and women +sobbed. + +"Gertrude!" Delia called, in her anguish, as she knelt beside the +charred frame, over which France who was kneeling on the other side had +thrown his coat. + +The dark eyes opened in the blackened face, the scorched lips unlocked. +A shudder ran through the dying frame. + +"The child!--the child!" + +And with that cry to heaven,--that protesting cry of an amazed and +conquered soul--Gertrude Marvell passed away. + + * * * * * + +Thus ended the First Act of Delia's life. When three weeks later, after +a marriage at which no one was present except the persons to be +married, Lady Tonbridge, and Dr. France, Winnington took his wife far +from these scenes to lands of summer and of rest, he carried with him a +Delia ineffaceably marked by this tragedy of her youth. Children, as +they come, will sometime re-kindle the natural joy in a face so lovely. +And till that time arrives Winnington's tenderness will be the +master-light of all her day. But there are sounds once heard that live +for ever in the mind. And in Delia's there will reverberate till death +that wail of a fierce and childless woman--that last cry of nature in +one who had defied nature--of womanhood in one who had renounced the +ways of womanhood: "_the child--the child_!" + +Not long after the destruction of Monk Lawrence and the marriage of +Delia, Paul Lathrop left the Maumsey neighbourhood. His debts had been +paid by some unknown friend or friends, and he fell back into London +literary life, where he maintained a precarious but--to himself--not +unpleasant existence. + +Miss Jackson, the science-mistress, went to Vancouver, married the +owner of a lumber camp, and so tamed her soul. Miss Toogood lived on, +rarely employed, and seldom going outside the tiny back parlour, with +its pictures of Winchester and Mr. Keble. But Lady Tonbridge and Delia +do their best to lighten the mild melancholy which grows upon her with +age; and a little red-haired niece who came to live with her, keeps her +old aunt's nerves alive and alert by various harmless vices--among them +an incorrigible interest in the Maumsey and Latchford youth. Marion +Andrews and Eliza Daunt disappeared together. They were not captured on +that terrible night when Gertrude Marvell, convinced that she could not +escape, and perhaps not much caring to escape, came back to look on the +ruin she had so long and carefully prepared, and perished in the heart +of it--not alone. + +But such desperate happenings as the destruction of Monk Lawrence, to +whatever particular calamities they may lead, are but a backward ripple +on the vast and ceaseless tide of human efforts towards a new and +nobler order. Delia must still wrestle all her life with the meaning of +that imperious call to women which this century has sounded; and of +those further stages, upwards and onwards, to which the human spirit, +in Man or Woman, is perennially urged by the revealing forces that +breathe through human destiny. Two days after the death of Gertrude +Marvell, the immediate cause on which she and her fellows had wrought +such havoc, went down in Parliament to long and bitter eclipse. But the +end is not yet. And for that riddle of the Sphinx to which Gertrude and +her fellows gave the answer of a futile violence, generations more +patient and more wise, will yet find the fitting key. + + THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Delia Blanchflower, by Mrs. Humphry Ward + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DELIA BLANCHFLOWER *** + +This file should be named 7dlbl10.txt or 7dlbl10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7dlbl11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7dlbl10a.txt + +Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, +Charlie Kirschner and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Delia Blanchflower + +Author: Mrs. Humphry Ward + +Release Date: January, 2006 [EBook #9665] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on October 14, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DELIA BLANCHFLOWER *** + + + + +Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Charlie Kirschner +and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + DELIA + + BLANCHFLOWER + + + BY + + + MRS. HUMPHRY WARD + + AUTHOR "LADY ROSE'S DAUGHTER," ETC. + + + Frontispiece in color by + + WILL FOSTER + + + + +DELIA BLANCHFLOWER + + + + +Chapter I + + +"Not a Britisher to be seen--or scarcely! Well, I can do without 'em +for a bit!" + +And the Englishman whose mind shaped these words continued his +leisurely survey of the crowded salon of a Tyrolese hotel, into which a +dining-room like a college hall had just emptied itself after the +mid-day meal. Meanwhile a German, sitting near, seeing that his tall +neighbour had been searching his pockets in vain for matches, offered +some. The Englishman's quick smile in response modified the German's +general opinion of English manners, and the two exchanged some remarks +on the weather--a thunder shower was splashing outside--remarks which +bore witness at least to the Englishman's courage in using such +knowledge of the German tongue as he possessed. Then, smoking +contentedly, he leant against the wall behind him, still looking on. + +He saw a large room, some seventy feet long, filled with a +miscellaneous foreign crowd--South Germans, Austrians, Russians, +Italians--seated in groups round small tables, smoking, playing cards +or dominoes, reading the day's newspapers which the funicular had just +brought up, or lazily listening to the moderately good band which was +playing some Rheingold selection at the farther end. + +To his left was a large family circle--Russians, according to +information derived from the headwaiter--and among them, a girl, +apparently about eighteen, sitting on the edge of the party and +absorbed in a novel of which she was eagerly turning the pages. From +her face and figure the half savage, or Asiatic note, present in the +physiognomy and complexion of her brothers and sisters, was entirely +absent. Her beautiful head with its luxuriant mass of black hair, worn +low upon the cheek, and coiled in thick plaits behind, reminded the +Englishman of a Greek fragment he had admired, not many days before, in +the Louvre; her form too was of a classical lightness and perfection. +The Englishman noticed indeed that her temper was apparently not equal +to her looks. When her small brothers interrupted her, she repelled +them with a pettish word or gesture; the English governess addressed +her, and got no answer beyond a haughty look; even her mother was +scarcely better treated. + +Close by, at another table, was another young girl, rather younger than +the first, and equally pretty. She too was dark haired, with a delicate +oval face and velvet black eyes, but without any of the passionate +distinction, the fire and flame of the other. She was German, +evidently. She wore a plain white dress with a red sash, and her little +feet in white shoes were lightly crossed in front of her. The face and +eyes were all alive, it seemed to him, with happiness, with the mere +pleasure of life. She could not keep herself still for a moment. Either +she was sending laughing signals to an elderly man near her, presumably +her father, or chattering at top speed with another girl of her own +age, or gathering her whole graceful body into a gesture of delight as +the familiar Rheingold music passed from one lovely _motif_ to another. + +"You dear little thing!" thought the Englishman, with an impulse of +tenderness, which passed into foreboding amusement as he compared the +pretty creature with some of the matrons sitting near her, with one in +particular, a lady of enormous girth, whose achievements in eating and +drinking at meals had seemed to him amazing. Almost all the middle-aged +women in the hotel were too fat, and had lost their youth thereby, +prematurely. Must the fairy herself--Euphrosyne--come to such a muddy +vesture in the end? Twenty years hence?--alack! + +"Beauty that must die." The hackneyed words came suddenly to mind, and +haunted him, as his eyes wandered round the room. Amid many coarse or +commonplace types, he yet perceived an unusual number of agreeable or +handsome faces; as is indeed generally the case in any Austrian hotel. +Faces, some of them, among the very young girls especially, of a +rose-tinted fairness, and subtly expressive, the dark brows arching on +white foreheads, the features straight and clean, the heads well +carried, as though conscious of ancestry and tradition; faces, also, of +the _bourgeoisie_, of a simpler, Gretchen-like beauty; faces--a few--of +"intellectuals," as he fancied,--including the girl with the +novel?--not always handsome, but arresting, and sometimes noble. He +felt himself in a border land of races, where the Teutonic and Latin +strains had each improved the other; and the pretty young girls and +women seemed to him like flowers sprung from an old and rich soil. He +found his pleasure in watching them--the pleasure of the Ancient +Mariner when he blessed the water-snakes. Sex had little to say to it; +and personal desire nothing. Was he not just over forty?--a very busy +Englishman, snatching a hard-earned holiday--a bachelor, moreover, +whose own story lay far behind him. + +"_Beauty that must die_" The words reverberated and would not be +dismissed. Was it because he had just been reading an article in a new +number of the _Quarterly_, on "Contemporary Feminism," with mingled +amazement and revolt, roused by some of the strange facts collected by +the writer? So women everywhere--many women at any rate--were turning +indiscriminately against the old bonds, the old yokes, affections, +servitudes, demanding "self-realisation," freedom for the individuality +and the personal will; rebelling against motherhood, and life-long +marriage; clamouring for easy divorce, and denouncing their own +fathers, brothers and husbands, as either tyrants or fools; casting +away the old props and veils; determined, apparently, to know +everything, however ugly, and to say everything, however outrageous? He +himself was a countryman, an English provincial, with English public +school and university traditions of the best kind behind him, a mind +steeped in history, and a natural taste for all that was ancient and +deep-rooted. The sketch of an emerging generation of women, given in +the _Quarterly_ article, had made a deep impression upon him. It seemed +to him frankly horrible. He was of course well acquainted, though +mainly through the newspapers, with English suffragism, moderate and +extreme. His own country district and circle were not, however, much +concerned with it. And certainly he knew personally no such types as +the _Quarterly_ article described. Among them, no doubt, were the women +who set fire to houses, and violently interrupted or assaulted Cabinet +ministers, who wrote and maintained newspapers that decent people would +rather not read, who grasped at martyrdom and had turned evasion of +penalty into a science, the continental type, though not as yet +involved like their English sisters in a hand-to-hand, or fist-to-fist +struggle with law and order, were, it seemed, even more revolutionary +in principle, and to some extent in action. The life and opinions of a +Sonia Kovalevski left him bewildered. For no man was less omniscient +than he. Like the Cabinet minister of recent fame, in the presence of +such _femmes fortes_, he might have honestly pleaded, _mutatis +mutandis_, "In these things I am a child." + +Were these light-limbed, dark-eyed maidens under his eyes touched with +this new anarchy? They or their elders must know something about it. +There had been a Feminist congress lately at Trient--on the very site, +and among the ghosts of the great Council. Well, what could it bring +them? Was there anything so brief, so passing, if she did but know it, +as a woman's time for happiness? "_Beauty that must die_." + +As the words recurred, some old anguish lying curled at his heart +raised its head and struck. He heard a voice--tremulously +sweet--"Mark!--dear Mark!--I'm not good enough--but I'll be to you all +a woman can." + +_She_ had not played with life--or scorned it--or missed it. It was not +_her_ fault that she must put it from her. + +In the midst of the crowd about him, he was no longer aware of it. +Still smoking mechanically, his eyelids had fallen over his eyes, as +his head rested against the wall. + +He was interrupted by a voice which said in excellent though foreign +English-- + +"I beg your pardon, sir--I wonder if I might have that paper you are +standing on?" + +He looked down astonished, and saw that he was trampling on the day's +_New York Herald_, which had fallen from a table near. With many +apologies he lifted it, smoothed it out, and presented it to the +elderly lady who had asked for it. + +She looked at him through her spectacles with a pleasant smile. + +"You don't find many English newspapers in these Tyrolese hotels?" + +"No; but I provide myself. I get my _Times_ from home." + +"Then, as an Englishman, you have all you want. But you seem to be +without it to-night?" + +"It hasn't arrived. So I am reduced, as you see, to listening to the +music." + +"You are not musical?" + +"Well, I don't like this band anyway. It makes too much noise. Don't +you think it rather a nuisance?" + +"No. It helps these people to talk," she said, in a crisp, cheerful +voice, looking round the room. + +"But they don't want any help. Most of them talk by nature as fast as +the human tongue can go!" + +"About nothing!" She shrugged her shoulders. + +Winnington observed her more closely. She was, he guessed, somewhere +near fifty; her scanty hair was already grey, and her round, plain face +was wrinkled and scored like a dried apple. But her eyes, which were +dark and singularly bright, expressed both energy and wit; and her +mouth, of which the upper lip was caught up a little at one corner, +seemed as though quivering with unspoken and, as he thought, sarcastic +speech. Was she, perchance, the Swedish _Schriftstellerin_ of whom he +had heard the porter talking to some of the hotel guests? She looked a +lonely-ish, independent sort of body. + +"They seem nice, kindly people," he said, glancing round the salon. +"And how they enjoy life!" + +"You call it life?" + +He laughed out. + +"You are hard upon them, madame. Now I--being a mere man--am lost in +admiration of their good looks. We in England pride ourselves on our +women, But upon my word, it would be difficult to match this show in an +English hotel. Look at some of the faces!" + +She followed his eyes--indifferently. + +"Yes--they've plenty of beauty. And what'll it do for them? Lead them +into some wretched marriage or other--and in a couple of years there +will be neither beauty nor health, nor self-respect, nor any interest +in anything, but money, clothes, and outwitting their husbands." + +"You forget the children!" + +"Ah--the children"--she said in a dubious tone, shrugging her shoulders +again. + +The Englishman--whose name was Mark Winnington--suddenly saw light +upon her. + +A Swedish writer, a woman travelling alone? He remembered the sketch of +"feminism" in Sweden which he had just read. The names of certain +woman-writers flitted through his mind. He felt a curiosity mixed with +distaste. But curiosity prevailed. + +He bent forward. And as he came thereby into stronger light from a +window on his left, the thought crossed the mind of his neighbour that +although so fully aware of other people's good looks, the tall +Englishman seemed to be quite unconscious of his own. Yet in truth he +appeared both to her, and to the hotel guests in general, a kind of +heroic creature. In height he towered beside the young or middle-aged +men from Munich, Buda-Pesth, or the north Italian towns, who filled the +_salon_. He had all that athlete could desire in the way of shoulders, +and lean length of body; a finely-carried head, on which the brown hair +was wearing a little thin at the crown, while still irrepressibly +strong and curly round the brow and temple; thick penthouse brows, and +beneath them a pair of greyish eyes which had already made him friends +with the children and the dogs and half the grown-ups in the place. The +Swedish lady admitted--but with no cordiality--that human kindness +could hardly speak more plainly in a human face than from those eyes. +Yet the mouth and chin were thin, strong and determined; so were the +hands. The man's whole aspect, moreover, spoke of assured position, and +of a keen intelligence free from personal pre-occupations, and keeping +a disinterested outlook on the world. The woman who observed him had in +her handbag a book by a Russian lady in which Man, with a capital, +figured either as "a great comic baby," or as the "Man-Beast," invented +for the torment of women. The gentleman before her seemed a little +difficult to fit into either category. + +But if she was observing him, he had begun to question her. + +"Will you forgive me if I ask an impertinent question?" + +"Certainly. They are the only questions worth asking." + +He laughed. + +"You are, I think, from Sweden?" + +"That is my country." + +"And I am told you are a writer?" She bent her head. "I can see also +that you are--what shall I say?--very critical of your sex--no doubt, +still more of mine! I wonder if I may ask "-- + +He paused, his smiling eyes upon her. + +"Ask anything you like." + +"Well, there seems to be a great woman-movement in your country. Are +you interested in it?" + +"You mean--am I a feminist? Yes, I happen to dislike the word; but it +describes me. I have been working for years for the advancement of +women. I have written about it--and in the Scandinavian countries we +have already got a good deal. The vote in Sweden and Norway; almost +complete equality with men in Denmark. Professional equality, too, has +gone far. We shall get all we want before long?" Her eyes sparkled in +her small lined face. + +"And you are satisfied?" + +"What human being of any intelligence--and I am intelligent," she +added, quietly,--"ever confessed to being 'satisfied'? Our shoe pinched +us. We have eased it a good deal." + +"You really find it substantially better to walk with?" + +"Through this uncomfortable world? Certainly. Why not?" + +He was silent a little. Then he said, with his pleasant look, throwing +his head back to observe her, as though aware he might rouse her +antagonism. + +"All that seems to me to go such a little way." + +"I daresay," she said, indifferently, though it seemed to him that she +flushed. "You men have had everything you want for so long, you have +lost the sense of value. Now that we want some of your rights, it is +your cue to belittle them. And England, of course, is hopelessly +behind!" The tone had sharpened. + +He laughed again and was about to reply when the band struck up Brahm's +Hungarian dances, and talk was hopeless. When the music was over, and +the burst of clapping, from all the young folk especially, had died +away, the Swedish lady said abruptly-- + +"But we had an English lady here last year--quite a young girl--very +handsome too--who was an even stronger feminist than I." + +"Oh, yes, we can produce them--in great numbers. You have only to look +at our newspapers." + +His companion's upper lip mocked at the remark. + +"You don't produce them in great numbers--like the young lady I speak +of." + +"Ah, she was good-looking?" laughed Winnington. "That, of course, gave +her a most unfair advantage." + +"A man's jest," said the other dryly--"and an old one. But naturally +women take all the advantage they can get--out of anything. They need +it. However, this young lady had plenty of other gifts--besides her +beauty. She was as strong as most men. She rode, she climbed, she sang. +The whole hotel did nothing but watch her. She was the centre of +everything. But after a little while she insisted on leaving her father +down here to over-eat himself and play cards, while she went with her +maid and a black mare that nobody but she wanted to ride, up to the +_Jagd-hütte_ in the forest. There!--you can see a little blue smoke +coming from it now"-- + +She pointed through the window to the great forest-clothed cliff, some +five thousand feet high, which fronted the hotel; and across a deep +valley, just below its topmost point, Mark Winnington saw a puff of +smoke mounting into the clear sky. + +--"Of course there was a great deal of talk. The men gossipped and the +women scoffed. Her father, who adored her and could not control her in +the least, shrugged his shoulders, played bridge all day long with an +English family, and would sit on the verandah watching the path--that +path there--which comes down from the _Jagd-hütte_ with a spy-glass. +Sometimes she would send him down a letter by one of the Jager's boys, +and he would send a reply. And every now and then she would come +down--riding--like a Brunhilde, with her hair all blown about her--and +her eyes--_Ach_, superb!" + +The little dowdy woman threw up her hands. + +Her neighbour's face shewed that the story interested and amused him. + +"A Valkyrie, indeed! But how a feminist?" + +"You shall hear. One evening she offered to give an address at the +hotel on 'Women and the Future.' She was already of course regarded as +half mad, and her opinions were well known. Some people objected, and +spoke to the manager. Her father, it was said, tried to stop it, but +she got her own way with him. And the manager finally decided that the +advertisement would be greater than the risk. When the evening came the +place was _bondé_; people came from every inn and pension round for +miles. She spoke beautiful German, she had learnt it from a German +governess who had brought her up, and been a second mother to her; and +she hadn't a particle of _mauvaise honte_. Somebody had draped some +Austrian and English flags behind her. The South Germans and Viennese, +and Hungarians who came to listen--just the same kind of people who are +here to-night--could hardly keep themselves on their chairs. The men +laughed and stared--I heard a few brutalities--but they couldn't keep +their eyes off her, and in the end they cheered her. Most of the women +were shocked, and wished they hadn't come, or let their girls come. And +the girls themselves sat open-mouthed--drinking it in." + +"Amazing!" laughed the Englishman. "Wish I had been there! Was it an +onslaught upon men?" + +"Of course," said his companion coolly. "What else could it be? At +present you men are the gaolers, and we the prisoners in revolt. This +girl talked revolution--they all do. 'We women _intend_ to have equal +rights with you!--whatever it cost. And when we have got them we shall +begin to fashion the world as _we_ want it--and not as you men have +kept it till now. _Gare ŕ vous!_ You have enslaved us for ages--you may +enslave us a good while yet--but the end is certain. There is a new age +coming, and it will be the age of the free woman!'--That was the kind +of thing. I daresay it sounds absurd to you--but as she put it--as she +looked it--I can tell you, it was fine!" + +The small, work-worn hands of the Swedish lady shook on her knee. Her +eyes seemed to hold the Englishman at bay. Then she added, in another +tone. + +"Some people of course walked out, and afterwards there were many +complaints from fathers of families that their daughters should have +been exposed to such a thing. But it all passed over." + +"And the young lady went back to the forest?" + +"Yes,--for a time." + +"And what became of the black mare?" + +"Its mistress gave her to an inn-keeper here when she left. But the +first time he went to see the horse in the stable, she trampled on him +and he was laid up for weeks." + +"Like mistress, like mare?--Excuse the jest! But now, may I know the +name of the prophetess?" + +"She was a Miss Blanchflower," said the Swedish lady, boggling a little +over the name. "Her father had been a governor of one of your +colonies." + +Winnington started forward in his chair. + +"Good heavens!--you don't mean a daughter of old Bob Blanchflower!" + +"Her father's name was Sir Robert Blanchflower." + +The tanned face beside her expressed the liveliest interest. + +"Why, I knew Blanchflower quite well. I met him long ago when I was +staying with an uncle in India--at a station in the Bombay presidency. +He was Major Blanchflower then"-- + +The speaker's brow furrowed a little as though under the stress of some +sudden recollection, and he seemed to check himself in what he was +saying. But in a moment he resumed:-- + +"A little after that he left the army, and went into Parliament. +And--precisely!--after a few years they made him governor +somewhere--not much of a post. Then last year his old father, a +neighbour of mine in Hampshire, quite close to my little place, went +and died, and Blanchflower came into a fortune and a good deal of land +besides. And I remember hearing that he had thrown up the Colonial +Service, had broken down in health, and was living abroad for some +years to avoid the English climate. That's the man of course. And the +Valkyrie is Blanchflower's daughter! Very odd that! I must have seen +her as a child. Her mother"--he paused again slightly--"was a Greek by +birth, and gloriously handsome. Blanchflower met her when he was +military attaché at Athens for a short time.--Well, that's all very +interesting!" + +And in a ruminating mood the Englishman took out his cigarette-case. + +"You smoke, Madame?" + +The Swedish lady quietly accepted the courtesy. And while the too +insistent band paused between one murdered Wagnerian fragment and +another, they continued a conversation which seemed to amuse them both. + + * * * * * + +A little later the Englishman went out into the garden of the hotel, +meaning to start for a walk. But he espied a party of young people +gathered about the new lawn-tennis court where instead of the languid +and dishevelled trifling, with a broken net and a wretched court, that +was once supposed to attract English visitors, he had been already +astonished to find Austrians and Hungarians--both girls and +boys--playing a game quite up to the average of a good English club. +The growing athleticism and independence, indeed, of the foreign girl, +struck, for Winnington, the note of change in this mid-European +spectacle more clearly than anything else. It was some ten years since +he had been abroad in August, a month he had been always accustomed to +spend in Scotch visits; and these young girls, with whom the Tyrol +seemed to swarm, of all European nationalities other than English, +still in or just out of the schoolroom; hatless and fearless; with +their knapsacks on their backs, sometimes with ice-axes in their hands; +climbing peaks and passes with their fathers and brothers; playing +lawn-tennis like young men, and shewing their shapely forms sometimes, +when it was a question of attacking the heights, in knicker-bocker +costume, and at other times in fresh white dresses and bright-coloured +jerseys, without a hint of waist; these young Atalantas, budding and +bloomed, made the strongest impression upon him, as of a new race. +Where had he been all these years? He felt himself a kind of Rip van +Winkle--face to face at forty-one with a generation unknown to him. No +one of course could live in England, and not be aware of the change +which has passed over English girls in the same direction. But the +Englishman always tacitly assumes that the foreigner is far behind him +in all matters of open-air sport and physical development. Winnington +had soon confessed the touch of national arrogance in his own surprise; +and was now the keen and much attracted spectator. + +On one of the grounds he saw the little German girl--Euphrosyne, as he +had already dubbed her--having a lesson from a bullying elder brother. +The youth, amazed at his own condescension, scolded his sister +perpetually, and at last gave her up in despair, vowing that she would +never be any good, and he was not going to waste his time in teaching +such a ninny. Euphrosyne sat down beside the court, with tears in her +pretty eyes, her white feet crossed, her dark head drooping; and two +girl companions, aged about sixteen or seventeen, like herself, came up +to comfort her. + +"I could soon shew you how to improve your service, Mademoiselle," said +Winnington, smiling, as he passed her. Euphrosyne looked up startled, +but at sight of the handsome middle-aged Englishman, whom she unkindly +judged to be not much younger than her father, she timidly replied:-- + +"It is hateful, Monsieur, to be so stupid as I am!" + +"Let me shew you," repeated Winnington, kindly. At this moment, a +vigilant English governess--speaking with a strong Irish-American +accent--came up, and after a glance at the Englishman, smilingly +acquiesced. The two comforters of Euphrosyne, graceful little maids, +with cherry-coloured jerseys over their white frocks, and golden brown +hair tied with the large black bows of the _Backfisch_, were eager to +share the lesson, and soon Winnington found himself the centre of a +whole bevy of boys and girls who had run up to watch Euphrosyne's +performance. + +The English governess, a good girl, in spite of her accent, and the +unconscious fraud she was thereby perpetrating on her employers, +thought she had seldom witnessed a more agreeable scene. + +"He treats them like princesses, and yet he makes them learn," she +thought, a comment which very fairly expressed the mixture of something +courtly with something masterful in the Englishman's manner. He was +patience itself; but he was also frankness itself, whether for praise +or blame; and the eagerness to please him grew fast and visibly in all +these young creatures. + +But as soon as he had brought back Euphrosyne's smiles, and roused a +new and fierce ambition to excel in all their young breasts, he dropped +the lesson, with a few gay slangy words, and went his way, leaving a +stir behind him of which he was quite unconscious. And there was no +Englishman looking on who might have told the charmed and conquered +maidens that they had just been coached by one of the most famous of +English athletes, born with a natural genius for every kind of game, +from cricket downwards. + + * * * * * + +On his way to the eastern side of the pass on which stood the group of +hotels, Winnington got his post from the _concierge_, including his +nightly _Times_, and carried it with him to a seat with which he was +already familiar. + +But he left the _Times_ unopened, for the spectacle before him was one +to ravish the senses from everything but itself. He looked across the +deep valley of the Adige, nearly four thousand feet below him, to the +giant range of the Dolomite Alps on the eastern side. The shadow of the +forest-clad mountain on which he stood spread downwards over the plain, +and crept up the mountains on the farther edge. Above a gulf of deepest +blue, inlaid with the green of vineyards and forest lakes, he beheld an +aerial world of rose-colour--the giant Dolomites, Latemar, Rosengarten, +Schlern--majestic rulers of an upper air, so pure and luminous, that +every tiny shadow cast by every wisp of wandering cloud on the bare red +peaks, was plainly visible across the thirty miles of space. +Rosengarten, with its snowless, tempest-beaten crags, held the centre, +flushing to its name; and to the right and left, peak ranged beyond +peak, like courtiers crowding to their king; chief among them a vast +pyramid, blood-red in the sunset, from which the whole side, it seemed, +had been torn away, leaving a gash so fresh it might have been ripped +by a storm of yesterday, yet older perhaps than Calvary.... + +The great show faded through every tone of delicate beauty to a starry +twilight,--passion into calm. Winnington watched till it was done, +still with the Keatsian tag in his mind, and that deep inner memory of +loss, to which the vanished splendour of the mountains seemed to make a +mystic answering. He was a romantic--some would have said a sentimental +person, with a poet always in his pocket, and a hunger for all that +might shield him from the worst uglinesses of life, and the worst +despairs of thought; an optimist, and, in his own sense, Christian. He +had come abroad to wander alone for a time, because as one of the +busiest, most important and most popular men in a wide country-side, he +had had a year of unceasing and strenuous work, with no time to +himself; and it had suddenly been borne in upon him, in choosing +between the Alps and Scotland, that a man must sometimes be alone, for +his soul's health. And he had never relished the luxury of occasional +solitude so sharply as on this pine-scented evening in Tyrol. + +It was not till he was sitting again under the electric light of the +hotel verandah that he opened his _Times_. The first paragraph which +his eye lit upon was an obituary notice of Sir Robert Blanchflower +"whose death, after a long illness and much suffering, occurred last +week in Paris." The notice ended with the words--"the deceased baronet +leaves a large property both in land and personalty. His only child, a +daughter, Miss Delia Blanchflower, survives him." + +Winnington laid down the paper. So the Valkyrie was now alone in the +world, and mistress no doubt of all her father's wealth. "I must have +seen her--I am sure there was a child about"; he said to himself again; +and his thoughts went groping into a mostly forgotten past, and as he +endeavoured to reconstruct it, the incident which had brought him for a +few weeks into close relations with Robert Blanchflower, then Major +Blanchflower of the--Dragoons, came at last vividly back to him. + +An easy-going husband--a beautiful wife, not vicious, but bored to +death--the inevitable third, in the person of a young and amorous +cavalry officer--and a whole Indian station, waiting, half maliciously, +half sadly, for the _banal_ catastrophe:--it was thus he remembered the +situation. Winnington had arrived on the scene as a barrister of some +five years' standing, invalided after an acute attack of pneumonia, and +the guest for the winter of his uncle, then Commissioner of the +district. He discovered in the cavalry officer a fellow who had been +his particular protégé at Eton, and had owed his passionately coveted +choice for the Eleven largely to Winnington's good word. The whole +dismal little drama unveiled itself, and Winnington was hotly moved by +the waste and pity of it. He was entertained by the Blanchflowers and +took a liking to them both. The old friendship between Winnington and +the cavalryman was soon noticed by Major Blanchflower, and one night he +walked home with Winnington, who had been dining at his house, to the +Commissioner's quarters. Then, for the first time, Winnington realised +what it may be to wrestle with a man in torment. The next day, the +young cavalryman, at Winnington's invitation, took his old friend for a +ride, and before dawn on the following day, the youth was off on leave, +and neither Major nor Mrs. Blanchflower, Winnington believed, had ever +seen him again. What he did with the youth, and how he did it, he +cannot exactly remember, but at least he doesn't forget the grip of +Blanchflower's hand, and the look of deliverance in his strained, +hollow face. Nor had Mrs. Blanchflower borne her rescuer any grudge. He +had parted from her on the best of terms, and the recollection of her +astonishing beauty grows strong in him as he thinks of her. + +So now it is her daughter who is stirring the world! With her father's +money and her mother's eyes,--not to speak of the additional +trifles--eloquence, enthusiasm, &c.--thrown in by the Swedish woman, +she ought to find it easy. + +The dressing-gong of the hotel disturbed a rather sleepy reverie, and +sent the Englishman back to his _Times_. And a few hours later he went +to a dreamless bed, little guessing at the letter which was even then +waiting for him, far below, in the Botzen post-office. + + + + +Chapter II + + +Winnington took his morning coffee on a verandah of the hotel, from +which the great forests of Monte Vanna were widely visible. Upwards +from the deep valley below the pass, to the topmost crags of the +mountain, their royal mantle ran unbroken. This morning they were +lightly drowned in a fine weather haze, and the mere sight of them +suggested cool glades and verdurous glooms, stretches of pink willow +herb lighting up the clearings--and in the secret heart of them such +chambers "deaf to noise and blind to light" as the forest lover knows. +Winnington promised himself a leisurely climb to the top of Monte +Vanna. The morning foretold considerable heat, but under the pines one +might mock at Helios. + +Ah!--Euphrosyne! + +She came, a vision of morning, tripping along in her white shoes and +white dress; followed by her English governess, the lady, as Winnington +guessed, from West Belfast, tempered by Brooklyn. The son apparently +was still in bed, nor did anyone trouble to hurry him out of it. The +father, a Viennese judge _en retraite_, as Winnington had been already +informed by the all-knowing porter of the hotel, was a shrewd +thin-lipped old fellow, with the quiet egotism of the successful +lawyer. He came up to Winnington as soon as he perceived him, and +thanked him in good English for his kindness to Euphrosyne of the day +before. Winnington responded suitably and was soon seated at their +table, chatting with them while they took their coffee. Euphrosyne +shewed a marked pleasure in his society, and upon Winnington, steeped +in a holiday reaction from much strenuous living, her charm worked as +part of the charm of the day, and the magic of the mountain world. He +noticed, however, with a revival of alarm, that she had a vigorous +German appetite of her own, and as he watched the rolls disappear he +trembled for the slender figure and the fawn-like gait. + +After breakfast, while the governess and the girl disappeared, the +father hung over the verandah smoking, beside the Englishman, to whom +he was clearly attracted. He spoke quite frankly of his daughter, and +her bringing up. "She is motherless; her mother died when she was ten +years old; and since, I must educate her myself. It gives me many +anxieties, but she is a sweet creature, _dank sei gott_! I will not let +her approach, even, any of these modern ideas about women. My wife +hated them; I do also. I shall marry her to an honest man, and she will +make a good wife and a good house-mother." + +"Mind you choose him well!" said Winnington, with a shrug. His eyes at +that moment were critically bent on a group of Berliners, men of the +commercial and stock-broking class, who, with their wives, had arrived +a couple of nights before. The men were strolling and smoking below. +They were all fat, red-faced and overbearing. When they went for walks, +the man stalked in front along the forest paths, and the woman followed +behind, carrying her own jacket. Winnington wondered what it might be +like to be the wife of any of them. These _Herren_ at any rate might +not be the worse for a little hustling from the "woman movement." He +could not, however, say honestly that the wives shewed any +consciousness of ill-fortune. They were almost all plump, plumper even +than their husbands, expensively dressed and prosperous looking; and +the amount of Viennese beer they consumed at the forest restaurants to +which their husbands conducted them, seemed to the Englishman +portentous. + +"Yes, my daughter is old-fashioned," resumed the ex-judge, +complacently, after a pause. "And I am grateful to Miss Johnson, who +has trained her very well. If she were like some of the girls one sees +now! Last year there was a young lady here--_Ach, Gott!_" He raised his +shoulders, with a contemptuous mouth. + +"Miss Blanchflower?" asked Winnington, turning towards the speaker with +sudden interest. + +"That I believe was her name. She was mad, of course. _Ach_, they have +told you?--of that _Vortrag_ she gave?--and the rest? After ten +minutes, I made a sign to my daughter, and we walked out. I would not +have had her corrupted with these ideas for the whole world. And such +beauty, you understand! That makes it more dangerous. _Ja, ja, +Liebchen--ich komme gleich!_" + +For there had been a soft call from Euphrosyne, standing on the steps +of the hotel, and her fond father hurried away to join her. + +At the same moment, the porter emerged, bearing a bundle of letters and +newspapers which had just arrived. Eager for his _Times_ Winnington +went to meet him, and the man put into his hands what looked like a +large post. He carried it off into the shelter of the pines, for the +sun was already blazing on the hotel. Two or three letters on county +business he ran through first. His own pet project, as County +Councillor,--a county school for crippled children, was at last getting +on. Foundation stone to be laid in October--good! "But how the deuce +can I get hold of some more women to help work it! Scandalous, how few +of the right sort there are about! And as for the Asylums Committee, if +we really can't legally co-opt women to it, as our clerk says"--he +looked again at a letter in his hand--"the law is an ass!--a +double-dyed ass. I swear I won't visit those poor things on the women's +side again. It's women's work--let them do it. The questions I have to +ask are enough to make an old gamp blush. Hallo, what's this?" + +He turned over a large blue envelope, and looked at a name stamped +across the back. It was the name of a well-known firm of London +solicitors. But he had no dealings with them, and could not imagine why +they should have written to him. + +He opened the letter carelessly, and began to read it,--presently with +eager attention, and at last with amazement. + +It ran as follows: + + "From Messrs. MORTON, MANNERS & LATHOM, + Solicitors, + Adelphi, + London, W. C." + +"Dear Sir,--We write on behalf of Lord Frederick Calverly, your +co-executor, under Sir Robert Blanchflower's will, to inform you that +in Sir Robert's last will and testament--of which we enclose a +copy--executed at Meran six weeks before his decease, you are named as +one of his two executors, as sole trustee of his property, and sole +guardian of Sir Robert's daughter and only child, Miss Delia +Blanchflower, until she attains the age of twenty-five. We believe that +this will be a complete surprise to you, for although Sir Robert, +according to a statement he made during his last illness to his sister, +Miss Elizabeth Blanchflower, intended to communicate with you before +signing the will, his weakness increased so rapidly, after it was +finally drawn up, that he was never able to do so. Indeed the morning +after his secretary had written out a clear copy of what he himself had +put together, he had a most alarming attack from which he rallied with +difficulty. That afternoon he signed the will, and was just able to +write you the letter which we also enclose, marked by himself, as you +will see. He was never properly conscious afterwards, and he died in +Paris last Thursday, and was buried in the Protestant cemetery at Mont +Parnasse on the Saturday following. The will which was in our custody +was opened in London yesterday, by Lord Frederick Calverly, in Miss +Blanchflower's presence. We understand from her that she has already +written to you on the subject. Lord Frederick would also have done so, +but that he has just gone to Harrogate, in a very poor state of health. +He begs us to say that he is of course quite aware that your +engagements may not allow you to accept the functions offered you under +the will, and that he will be in considerable anxiety until he knows +your decision. He hopes that you will at least accept the executorship; +and indeed ventures to appeal very strongly on that account to your old +friendship for Sir Robert; as he himself sees no prospect of being able +to carry out unaided the somewhat heavy responsibilities attaching to +the office. + +"You will see that a sum of Ł4000 is left to yourself under the will." + + We remain, dear Sir, + + Your obedient servants, + + MORTON, MANNERS & LATHOM. + "(Solicitors.)" + + "MARK WINNINGTON, Esq., J. P. + Bridge End, Maumsey, + Hants." + +A bulky document on blue paper, and also a letter had dropped to the +ground. Winnington stooped for the letter, and turned it over in +stupification. It was addressed in a faltering hand, and marked, "To be +forwarded after my death." He hastily broke the seal. + +"MY DEAR MARK WINNIXGTON,--I know well what I am laying upon you. I +have no right to do it. But I remember certain days in the past, and I +believe if you are still the same man you were then, you will do what I +ask. My daughter ought to be a fine woman. At present she seems to me +entirely and completely out of her mind. She has been captured by the +extreme suffrage movement, and by one of the most mischievous women in +it; and I have no influence with her whatever. I live in terror of what +she may do; of what they may lead her to do. To attempt to reason with +her is useless; and for a long time my health has been such that I have +avoided conflict with her as much as possible. But things have now come +to such a pass that something must be done, and I have tried in these +last weeks, ill as I am, to face the future. I want if I can to save +Delia from wasting herself, and the money and estates I should +naturally leave her, upon this mad campaign. I want, even against her +will, to give her someone to advise and help her. I feel bitterly that +I have done neither. The tropics ruined me physically, and I seem to +have gone to pieces altogether the last few years. But I love my child, +and I can't leave her without a real friend or support in the world. I +have no near relations, except my sister Elizabeth, and she and Delia +are always at feud. Freddie Calverly my cousin, is a good fellow in his +way, though too fussy about his health. He has a fair knowledge of +business, and he would have been hurt if I had not made him executor. +So I have appointed him, and have of course left him a little money. +But he could no more tackle Delia than fly. In the knock-about life we +have led since I left the Colonial Service, I seem to have shed all my +old friends. I can think of no one who could or would help me in this +strait but you--and you know why. God bless you for what you once did +for me. There was never any other cloud between my poor wife and me. +She turned to me after that trouble, and we were happy till the end. + +"I have heard too something of you from Maumsey people, since I +inherited Maumsey, though I have never been able to go there. I know +what your neighbours think of you. And now Delia is going to be your +neighbour. So, drawing a bow at a venture, as a dying man must, I have +made you Delia's guardian and trustee, with absolute power over her +property and income till she is twenty-five. When she attains that +age--she is now nearly twenty-two--if she marries a man approved by +you, or if you are satisfied that her connection with militant +suffragism has ceased, the property is to be handed over to her in full +possession, and the trust will come to an end. If on the contrary, she +continues in her present opinion and course of action, I have left +directions that the trust is to be maintained for Delia's life-time, +under certain conditions as to her maintenance, which you will find in +the will. If you yourself are not willing to administer the trust, +either now or later, the property will devolve to the Public Trustee, +for whom full instructions are left. And at Delia's death it will be +divided among her heirs, if she has any, and various public objects. + +"I cannot go further into details. My strength is almost out. But this +one thing may I beg?--if you become my child's guardian, get the right +person to live with her. I regard that as all-important. She must have +a chaperon, and she will try to set up one of the violent women who +have divided her from me. Especially am I in dread of a lady, an +English lady, a Miss Marvell, whom I engaged two years ago to stay with +us for the winter and read history with Delia. She is very able and a +very dangerous woman, prepared I believe, to go to any length on behalf +of her 'cause.' At any rate she filled Delia's head with the wildest +suffragist notions, and since then my poor child thinks of nothing +else. Even since I have been so ill--this last few weeks--I know she +has been in communication with this woman. She sympathises with all the +horrible things they do, and I am certain she gives all the money she +can to their funds. Delia is a splendid creature, but she is vain and +excitable and they court her. I feel that they might tempt her into any +madness. + +"Goodbye. I made the doctor give me strychnine and morphia enough to +carry me through this effort. I expect it will be the last. Help me, +and my girl--if you can--for old sake's sake. Goodbye." + + Your grateful old friend, + + "ROBERT BLANCHFLOWER." + +"Good heavens!" was all Winnington could find to say, as he put down +the letter. + +Then, becoming aware, as the verandah filled after breakfast, that he +was in a very public place, he hastily rose, thrust the large +solicitor's envelope, with its bulky enclosures into his coat pocket, +and proceeded to gather up the rest of his post. As he did so, he +suddenly perceived a black-edged letter, addressed in a remarkably +clear handwriting, with the intertwined initials D. B. in the corner. + +A fit of silent laughter, due to his utter bewilderment, shook him. He +put the letter with all its fellows into another pocket and hurried +away into the solitude of the woods. It was some time before he had +succeeded in leaving all the tourists' paths and seats behind. At last +in a green space of bilberry and mossy rock, with the pines behind him, +and the chain of the Dolomites, sun-bathed, in front, he opened and +read his "ward's" first letter to him. + +"DEAR MR. WINNINGTON,--I understood--though very imperfectly--from my +father, before he died, that he had appointed you my guardian and +trustee till I should reach the age of twenty-five, and he explained to +me so far as he could his reason for such a step. And now I have of +course read the will, and the solicitors have explained to me clearly +what it all means. + +"You will admit I think that I am placed in a very hard position. If my +poor father had not been so ill, I should certainly have tried to argue +with him, and to prevent his doing anything so unnecessary and unjust +as he has now done--unjust both to you and to me. But the doctors +absolutely forbade me to discuss any business with him, and I could do +nothing. I can only hope that the last letter he wrote to you, just +before his death, and the alterations he made in his will about the +same time, gave him some comfort. If so, I do not grudge them for one +moment. + +"But now you and I have to consider this matter as sensible people, and +I suggest that for a man who is a complete stranger to me, and probably +altogether out of sympathy with the ideas and principles, I believe in +and am _determined_ to act upon--(for otherwise my father would not +have chosen you)--to undertake the management of my life and affairs, +would be really grotesque. It must lead to endless friction and trouble +between us. If you refuse, the solicitors tell me, the Public +Trustee--which seems to be a government office--will manage the +property, and the Court of Chancery will appoint a guardian in +accordance with my father's wishes. That would be bad enough, +considering that I am of full age and in my right mind--I can't promise +to give a guardian chosen in such a way, a good time. But at any rate, +it would be less odious to fight a court and an office, if I must +fight, than a gentleman who is my near neighbour in the county, and was +my father's and mother's friend. I do hope you will think this over +very carefully, and will relieve both yourself and me from an +impossible state of things. I perfectly realise of course that my +father appointed you my guardian, in order to prevent me from making +certain friends, and doing certain things. But I do not admit the right +of any human being--not even a father--to dictate the life of another. +I intend to stick to my friends, And to do what my conscience directs. + +"Should you however accept the guardianship--after this candid +statement of mine--you will, I suppose, feel bound to carry out my +father's wishes by refusing me money for the purposes he disapproved. +He told me indeed that I should be wholly dependent on my guardian for +money during the next three years, even though I have attained my legal +majority. I can say to you what I could not say to him, that I +_bitterly resent_ an arrangement which treats a grown person like a +child. Such things are not done to _men_. It is only women who are the +victims of them. It would be _impossible_ to keep up friendly relations +with a guardian, who would really only be there--only exist--to thwart +and coerce me. + +"Let me point out that at the very beginning a difference must arise +between us, about the lady I am to live with. I have chosen my chaperon +already, as it was my moral, if not my legal right to do. But I am +quite aware that my father disapproved of her, and that you will +probably take the same view. She belongs to a militant suffrage +society, and is prepared at any moment to suffer for the great cause +she and I believe in. As to her ability, she is one of the cleverest +women in England. I am only too proud that she has consented--for a +time--to share my life, and nothing will _induce_ me to part with +her--as long as she consents to stay. But of course I know what you--or +any ordinary man--is likely to think of her. + +"No!--we cannot agree--it is impossible we should agree--as guardian +and ward. If indeed, for the sake of your old friendship with my +father, you would retain the executorship--I am sure Lord Frederick +Calverly will be no sort of use!--till the affairs of the will, +death-duties, debts, and so on, are settled--and would at the same time +give up _any_ other connection with the property and myself, I should +be enormously grateful to you. And I assure you I should be very glad +indeed--for father's sake--to have your advice on many points connected +with my future life; and I should be all the more ready to follow it, +if you had renounced your legal power over me. + +"I shall be much obliged if you will make your decision as soon as +possible, so that both the lawyer and I may know how to proceed." + + Yours faithfully, + + DELIA BLANCHFLOWER. + +Mark Winnington put down the letter. Its mixture of defiance, patronage +and persuasion--its young angry cleverness--would have tickled a +naturally strong sense of humour at any other time. But really the +matter was too serious to laugh at. + +"What on earth am I to do!" + +He sat pondering, his mind running through a number of associated +thoughts, of recollections old and new; those Indian scenes of fifteen +years ago; the story told him by the Swedish lady; recent incidents and +happenings in English politics; and finally the tone in which +Euphrosyne's father had described the snatching of his own innocent +from the clutches of Miss Blanchflower. + +Then it occurred to him to look at the will. He read it through; a +tedious business; for Sir Robert had been a wealthy man and the +possessions bequeathed--conditionally bequeathed--to his daughter were +many and various. Two or three thousand acres of land in one of the +southern counties, bordering on the New Forest; certain large interests +in Cleveland ironstone and Durham collieries, American and South +African shares, Canadian mortgage and railway debentures:--there was +enough to give lawyers and executors work for some time, and to provide +large pickings for the Exchequer. Among the legacies, he noticed the +legacy of Ł4000 to himself. + +"Payment for the job!" he thought, and shook his head, smiling. + +The alternative arrangements made for transferring the trust to the +Public Trustee, should Winnington decline, and for vesting the +guardianship of the daughter in the Court of Chancery, subject to the +directions of the will, till she should reach the age of twenty-five, +were clear; so also was the provision that unless a specific signed +undertaking was given by the daughter on attaining her twenty-fifth +birthday, that the moneys of the estate would not be applied to the +support of the "militant suffrage" propaganda, the trust was to be made +permanent, a life income of Ł2000 a year was to be settled on Miss +Blanchflower, and the remainder, i.e. by far the major part of Sir +Robert's property, was to accumulate, for the benefit of his daughter's +heirs should she have any, and of various public objects. Should Miss +Blanchflower sign the undertaking and afterwards break it, the Public +Trustee was directed to proceed against her, and to claim the +restitution of the property, subject always to her life allowance. + +"Pretty well tied up," thought Winnington, marvelling at the strength +of feeling, the final exasperation of a dying man, which the will +betrayed. His daughter must somehow--perhaps without realising it--have +wounded him to the heart. + +He began to climb again through the forest that he might think the +better. What would be the situation, supposing he undertook what his +old friend asked of him? + +He himself was a man of moderate means and settled habits. His small +estate and modest house which a widowed sister shared with him during +six months in the year, left him plenty of leisure from his own +affairs, and he had filled that leisure, for years past, to +overflowing, with the various kinds of public work that fall to the +country gentleman with a conscience. He was never idle; his work +interested him, and there was no conceit in his quiet knowledge that he +had many friends and much influence. Since the death of the girl to +whom he had been engaged for six short months, fifteen years before +this date, he had never thought of marriage. The circumstances of her +death--a terrible case of lingering typhoid--had so burnt the pity of +her suffering and the beauty of her courage into his mind, that natural +desire seemed to have died with her. He had turned to hard work and the +bar, and equally hard physical exercise, and so made himself master +both of his grief and his youth. But his friendships with women had +played a great part in his subsequent life. A natural chivalry, deep +based, and, in manner, a touch of caressing charm, soon evoked by those +to whom he was attached, and not easily confounded in the case of a man +so obviously manly with any lack of self-control, had long since made +him a favourite of the sex. There were few women among his +acquaintances who did not covet his liking; and he was the repository +of far more confidences than he had ever desired. No one took more +trouble to serve; and no one more carelessly forgot a service he had +himself rendered, or more tenaciously remembered any kindness done him +by man, woman or child. + +His admiration for women was mingled indeed often with profound pity; +pity for the sorrows and burdens that nature had laid upon them, for +their physical weakness, for their passive role in life. That beings so +hampered could yet play such tender and heroic parts was to him +perennially wonderful, and his sense of it expressed itself in an +unconscious homage that seemed to embrace the sex. That the homage was +not seldom wasted on persons quite unworthy of it, his best women +friends were not slow to see; but in this he was often obstinate and +took his own way. + +This mingling in him of an unfailing interest in the sex with an entire +absence of personal craving, gave him a singularly strong position with +regard to women, of which he had never yet taken any selfish advantage; +largely, no doubt, because of the many activities, most of them +disinterested, by which his life was fed and freshened; as a lake is by +the streams which fill it. + +He was much moved by his old friend's letter, and he walked about +pondering it, till the morning was almost gone. The girl's position +also seemed to him particularly friendless and perilous, though she +herself, apparently, would be the last person to think so, could she +only shake herself free from the worrying restrictions her father had +inflicted on her. Her letter, and its thinly veiled wrath, shewed quite +plainly that the task of any guardian would be a tough one. Miss +Blanchflower was evidently angry--very angry--yet at the same time +determined, if she could, to play a dignified part; ready, that is, to +be civil, on her own conditions. The proposal to instal as her +chaperon, instantly, without a day's delay, the very woman denounced in +her father's last letter, struck him as first outrageous, and then +comic. He laughed aloud over it. + +Certainly--he was not bound in any way to undertake such a business. +Blanchflower had spoken the truth when he said that he had no right to +ask it. And yet-- + +His mind dallied with it. Suppose he undertook it, on what lines could +he possibly run it? His feeling towards the violent phase of the +"woman's movement," the militancy which during the preceding three or +four years had produced a crop of outrages so surprising and so ugly, +was probably as strong as Blanchflower's own. He was a natural +Conservative, and a trained lawyer. Methods of violence in a civilised +and constitutional State, roused in him indignant abhorrence. He could +admit no excuse for them; at any rate no justification. + +But, fundamentally? What was his real attitude towards this wide-spread +claim of women, now so general in many parts of the world admitted +indeed in some English Colonies, in an increasing number of the +American states, in some of the minor European countries--to share the +public powers and responsibilities of men? Had he ever faced the +problem, as it concerned England, with any thoroughness or candour? Yet +perhaps Englishmen--all Englishmen--had now got to face it. + +Could he discover any root of sympathy in himself with what were +clearly the passionate beliefs of Delia Blanchflower, the Valkyrie of +twenty-one, as they were also the passionate beliefs of the little +Swedish lady, the blue-stocking of fifty? If so, it might be possible +to guide, even to control such a ward, for the specified three years, +at any rate, without exciting unseemly and ridiculous strife between +her and her guardian. + +"I ought to be able to do it"--he thought--"without upsetting the +apple-cart!" + +For, as he examined himself he realised that he held no closed mind on +the subject of the rights or powers or grievances of women. He had +taken no active part whatever in the English suffragist struggle, +either against woman suffrage or for it; and in his own countryside it +mattered comparatively little. But he was well aware what strong forces +and generous minds had been harnessed to the suffrage cause, since Mill +first set it stirring; and among his dearest women friends there were +some closely connected with it, who had often mocked or blamed his own +indifference. He had always thought indeed, and he thought still--for +many reasons--that they attributed a wildly exaggerated importance to +the vote, which, as it seemed to him, went a very short way in the case +of men. But he had always been content to let the thing slide; having +so much else to do and think about. + +Patience then, and respect for honest and disinterested conviction, in +any young and ardent soul; sharp discrimination between lawful and +unlawful means of propaganda, between debate, and stone-throwing; no +interference with the first, and a firm hand against the +second:--surely, in that spirit, one might make something of the +problem? Winnington was accustomed to be listened to, to get round +obstacles that other men found insuperable. It was scarcely conceit, +but a just self-confidence which suggested to him that perhaps Miss +Blanchflower would not prove so difficult after all. Gentleness, +diplomacy, decision,--by Jove, they'd all be wanted! But his legal +experience (he had been for some years a busy barrister), and his later +life as a practical administrator had not been a bad training in each +and all of these qualities. + +Of course, if the girl were merely obstinate and stupid, the case might +indeed be hopeless. But the picture drawn by the Swedish woman of the +"Valkyrie" on her black mare, of the ardent young lecturer, facing her +indifferent or hostile audience with such pluck and spirit, dwelt with +him, and affected him strongly. His face broke into amusement as he +asked himself the frank question--"Would you do it, if you hadn't heard +that tale?--if you knew that your proposed ward was just a plain +troublesome chit of a schoolgirl, bitten with suffragism?" + +He put the question to himself, standing on a pinnacle of shadowed +rock, from which the world seemed to sink into blue gulfs beneath him, +till on the farther side of immeasurable space the mountains +re-emerged, climbing to the noonday sun. + +And he answered it without hesitation. Certainly, the story told him +had added a touch of romance to the bare case presented by the batch of +letters:--had lent a force and point to Robert Blanchflower's dying +plea, it might not otherwise have possessed. For, after all, he, +Winnington, was a very busy man; and his life was already mortgaged in +many directions. But as it was--yes--the task attracted him. + +At the same time, the twinkle in his grey eyes shewed him ironically +aware of himself. + +"Understand, you old fool!--the smallest touch of philandering--and the +whole business goes to pot. The girl would have you at her mercy--and +the thing would become an odious muddle and hypocrisy, degrading to +both. Can you trust yourself? You're not exactly made of flint: Can you +play the part as it ought to be played?" + +Quietly, his face sank into rest. For him, there was that in memory, +which protected him from all such risks, which had so protected him for +fifteen years. He felt quite sure of himself. Ever since his great loss +he had found his natural allies and companions among girls and young +women as much as among men. The embarrassment of sex seemed to have +passed away for him, but not the charm. Thus, he took what for him was +the easier path of acceptance. Kindly and scrupulous as he was, it +would have been hard for him in any case to say No to the dead, more +difficult than to say it to the living. Yes!--he would do what was +possible. _The Times_ that morning contained a long list of outrages +committed by militant suffragists--houses burnt down, meetings +disturbed, members attacked. In a few months, or weeks, perhaps, +without counsel to aid or authority to warn her, the Valkyrie might be +running headlong into all the perils her father foresaw. He pledged +himself to protect her if he could. + + * * * * * + +The post which left the hotel that evening took with it a short note +from Mark Winnington to Messrs. Morton, Manners & Lathom, accepting the +functions of executor, guardian and trustee offered him under Sir +Robert Blanchflower's will, and appointing an interview with them at +their office; together with a somewhat longer one addressed to "Miss +Delia Blanchflower, Claridge's Hotel, London. + +"DEAR MISS BLANCHFLOWER, Pray let me send you my most sincere +condolence. Your poor father and I were once great friends, and I am +most truly sorry to hear of his death. + +"Thank you for your interesting letter. But I find it impossible to +refuse your father's dying request to me, nor can I believe that I +cannot be of some assistance to his daughter. Let me try. We can always +give it up, if we cannot work it, but I see no reason why, with good +will on both sides, we should not make something of it. + +"I am returning to London ten days from now, and hope to see you within +a fortnight. + +"Please address, 'Junior Carlton Club, Pall Mall.'" + + Believe me, + Yours very truly, + "MARK WINNINGTON." + + +On his arrival, in London, Winnington found a short reply awaiting him. + +"DEAR MR. WINNINGTON,--As you please. I am however shortly leaving for +Maumsey with Miss Marvell, who, as I told you, has undertaken to live +with me as my chaperon. + +"We shall hope to see you at Maumsey." + + Yours faithfully, + "DELIA BLANCHFLOWER." + + +A few days later, after long interviews with some very meticulous +solicitors, a gentleman, very much in doubt as to what his reception +would be, took train for Maumsey and the New Forest, with a view to +making as soon as possible a first call upon his ward. + + + + +Chapter III + + +"We ought soon to see the house." + +The speaker bent forward, as the train, sweeping round a curve, emerged +from some thick woods Into a space of open country. It was early +September and a sleepy autumnal sunshine lay upon the fields. The +Stubbles just reaped ran over the undulations of the land in silky +purples and gold; the blue smoke from the cottages and farms hung +poised in mid air; the eye could hardly perceive any movement in the +clear stream beside the line, as it slipped noiselessly by over its +sandy bed; it seemed a world where "it was always afternoon"; and the +only breaks in its sunny silence came from the occasional coveys of +partridges that rose whirring from the harvest-fields as the train +passed. + +Delia Blanchflower looked keenly at the English scene, so strange to +her after many years of Colonial and foreign wandering. She thought, +but did not say--"Those must be my fields--and my woods, that we have +just passed through. Probably I rode about them with Grandpapa. I +remember the pony--and the horrid groom I hated!" Quick the memory +returned of a tiny child on a rearing pony, alone with a sulky groom, +who, out of his master's sight, could not restrain his temper, and +struck the pony savagely and repeatedly over the head, to an +accompaniment of oaths; frightening out of her wits the little girl who +sat clinging to the creature's neck. And next she saw herself marching +in erect--a pale-faced thing of six, with a heart of fury,--to her +grandfather, to demand justice on the offender. And grandpapa had done +her bidding then as always; the groom was dismissed that day. It was +only grandmamma who had ever tried to manage or thwart her; result, +perpetual war, decided often for the time by the brute force at command +of the elder, but ever renewed. Delia's face flamed again as she +thought of the most humiliating incident of her childhood; when +Grandmamma, unable, to do anything with her screaming and stamping +self, had sent in despair for a stalwart young footman, and ordered him +to "carry Miss Delia up to the nursery." Delia could still feel herself +held, wriggling and shrieking face downwards, under the young man's +strong arm, unable either to kick or to scratch, while Grandmamma half +fearful, half laughing, watched the dire ascent from the bottom of the +stairs. + +"Male tyranny--my first taste of it!" thought Delia, smiling at +herself. "It was fated then that I should be a militant." + +She looked across at her friend and travelling companion, half inclined +to tell the story; but the sight of Gertrude Marvell's attitude and +expression checked the trivial reminiscence on her lips. + +"Are you tired?" she said, laying her hand on the other's knee. + +"Oh, no. Only thinking." + +"Thinking of what?"-- + +"Of all there is to do."-- + +A kind of flash passed from one face to the other, Delia's eyes darkly +answering. They looked at each other for a little, as though in silent +conversation, and then Delia turned again to the landscape outside. + +Yes, there was the house, its long, irregular line with the village +behind it. She could not restrain a slight exclamation as she caught +sight of it, and her friend opposite turned interrogatively. + +"What did you say?" + +"Nothing--only there's the Abbey. I don't suppose I've seen it since I +was twelve." + +The other lady put up an eye-glass and looked where Miss Blanchflower +pointed; but languidly, as though it were an effort to shake herself +free from pre-occupying ideas. She was a woman of about thirty-five, +slenderly made, with a sallow, regular face, and good, though +short-sighted eyes. The eyes were dark, so was the hair, the features +delicate. Under the black shady hat, the hair was very closely and +neatly coiled. The high collar of the white blouse, fitting tightly to +the slender neck, the coat and skirt of blue serge without ornament of +any kind, but well cut, emphasized the thinness, almost emaciation, of +the form. Her attitude, dress, and expression conveyed the idea of +something amazingly taut and ready--like a ship cleared for action. The +body with its clothing seemed to have been simplified as much as +possible, so as to become the mere instrument of the will which +governed it. No superfluity whatever, whether of flesh on her small +bones, or of a single unnecessary button, fold, or trimming on her +dress, had Gertrude Marvell ever allowed herself for many years. The +general effect was in some way formidable; though why the neat +precision of the little lady should convey any notion of this sort, it +would not at first sight have been easy to say. + +"How old did you say it is?"--she asked, after examining the distant +building, which could be now plainly seen from the train across a +stretch of green park. + +"Oh, the present building is nothing--a pseudo-Gothic monstrosity, +built about 1830," laughed Delia; "but there are some old remains and +foundations of the abbey. It is a big, rambling old place, and I should +think dreadfully in want of doing up. My grandfather was a bit of a +miser, and though he was quite rich, he never spent a penny he could +help." + +"All the better. He left the more for other people to spend." Miss +Marvell smiled--a slight, and rather tired smile, which hardly altered +the face. + +"Yes, if they are allowed to spend it!" said Delia, with a shrug. "Oh +well, anyway the house must be done up--painted and papered and that +kind of thing. A trustee has got to see that things of that sort are +kept in order, I suppose. But it won't have anything to do with me, +except that for decency's sake, no doubt, he'll consult me. I shall be +allowed to choose the wall-papers I suppose!" + +"If you want to," said the other drily. + +Delia's brows puckered. + +"We shall have to spend some time here, you know, Gertrude! We may as +well have something to do." + +"Nothing that might entangle us, or take too much of our thoughts," +said Miss Marvell, gently, but decidedly. + +"I'm afraid I like furnishing," said Delia, not without a shade of +defiance. + +"And I object--because I know you do. After all--you understand as +well as I do that _every day_ now is important. There are not so many +of us, Delia! If you're going to do real work, you can't afford to +spend your time or thoughts on doing up a shabby house." + +There was silence a moment. Then Delia said abruptly--"I wonder when +that man will turn up? What a fool he is to take it on!" + +"The guardianship? Yes, he hardly knows what he's in for." A touch of +grim amusement shewed itself for a moment in Miss Marvell's quiet face. + +"Oh, I daresay he knows. Perhaps he relies on what everyone calls his +'influence.' Nasty, sloppy word--nasty sloppy thing! Whenever I'm +'influenced,' I'm degraded!" The young shoulders straightened +themselves fiercely. + +"I don't know. It has its uses," said the other tranquilly. + +Delia laughed radiantly. + +"O well--if one can make the kind of weapon of it you do. I don't mean +of course that one shouldn't be rationally persuaded. But that's a +different thing. 'Influence' makes me think of canting clergymen, and +stout pompous women, who don't know what they're talking about, and +can't argue--who think they've settled everything by a stale +quotation--or an appeal to 'your better self'--or St. Paul. If Mr. +Winnington tries it on with 'influence'--we'll have some fun." + +Delia returned to her window. The look her companion bent upon her was +not visible to her. It was curiously detached--perhaps slightly +ironical. + +"I'm wondering what part I shall play in the first interview!" said +Miss Marvell, after a pause. "I represent the first stone in Mr. +Winnington's path. He will of course do his best to put me out of it." + +"How can he?" cried Delia ardently. "What can he do? He can't send for +the police and turn you out of the house. At least I suppose he could, +but he certainly won't. The last thing a gentleman of his sort wants is +to make a scandal. Every one says, after all, that he is a nice +fellow!"--the tone was unconsciously patronising--"It isn't his fault +if he's been placed in this false position. But the great question for +me is--how are we going to manage him for the best?" + +She leant forward, her chin on her hands, her sparkling eyes fixed on +her friend's face. + +"The awkward thing is"--mused Miss Marvell--"that there is so little +_time_ in which to manage him. If the movement were going on at its old +slow pace, one might lie low, try diplomacy, avoid alarming him, and so +forth. But we've no time for that. It is a case of blow on blow--action +on action--and the publicity is half the battle." + +"Still, a little management there must be, to begin with!--because +I--we--want money, and he holds the purse-strings. Hullo, here's the +station!" + +She jumped up and looked eagerly out of the window. + +"They've sent a fly for us. And there's the station-master on the +lookout. How it all comes back to me!" + +Her flushed cheek showed a natural excitement. She was coming back as +its mistress to a house where she had been happy as a child, which she +had not seen for years. Thoughts of her father, as he had been in the +old days before any trouble had arisen between them, came rushing +through her mind--tender, regretful thoughts--as the train came slowly +to a standstill. + +But the entire indifference or passivity of her companion restrained +her from any further expression. The train stopped, and she descended +to the platform of a small country station, alive apparently with +traffic and passengers. + +"Miss Blanchflower?" said a smiling station-master, whose countenance +seemed to be trying to preserve the due mean between welcome to the +living and condolence for the dead, as, hat in hand, he approached the +newcomers, and guided by her deep mourning addressed himself to Delia. + +"Why, Mr. Stebbing, I remember you quite well," said Delia, holding out +her hand. "There's my maid--and I hope there's a cart for the luggage. +We've got a lot." + +A fair-haired man in spectacles, who had also just left the train, +turned abruptly and looked hard at the group as he passed them. He +hesitated a moment, then passed on, with a curious swinging gait, a +long and shabby over-coat floating behind him--to speak to the porter +who was collecting tickets at the gate opening on the road beyond. + +Meanwhile Delia had been accosted by another gentleman, who had been +sitting reading his _Morning Post_ on the sunny platform, as the train +drew up. He too had examined the new arrivals with interest, and while +Delia was still talking to the station-master, he walked up to her. + +"I think you are Miss Blanchflower: But you won't remember me." He +lifted his hat, smiling. + +Delia looked at him, puzzled. + +"Don't you remember that Christmas dance at the Rectory, when you were +ten, and I was home from Sandhurst?" + +"Perfectly!--and I quarrelled with you because you wouldn't give me +champagne, when I'd danced with you, instead of lemonade. You said what +was good for big boys wasn't good for little girls--and I called you a +bully--" + +"You kicked me!--you had the sharpest little toes!" + +"Did I?" said Delia composedly. "I was rather good at kicking. So you +are Billy Andrews?" + +"Right. I'm Captain now, and they've just made me adjutant down here +for the Yeomanry. My mother keeps house for me. You're coming here to +live? Please let me say how sorry I was to see your sad news." The +condolence was a little clumsy but sincere. + +"Thank you. I must go and see to the luggage. Let me introduce you to +Miss Marvell--Captain Andrews--Miss Marvell." + +That lady bowed coldly, as Delia departed. The tall, soldierly man, +whose pleasant looks were somewhat spoilt by a slightly underhung +mouth, and prominent chin, disguised, however, by a fine moustache, +offered assistance with the luggage. + +"There is no need, thank you," said Miss Marvell. "Miss Blanchflower +and her maid will see to it." + +And the Captain noticed that the speaker remained entirely passive +while the luggage was being collected and piled into a fly by the +porters, directed by Miss Blanchflower and her maid. She stood quietly +on the platform, till all was ready, and Delia beckoned to her. In the +intervals the soldier tried to make conversation, but with very small +success. He dwelt upon some of the changes Miss Blanchflower would find +on the estate; how the old head-keeper, who used to make a pet of her, +was dead, and the new agent her father had put in was thought to be +doing well, how the village had lost markedly in population in the last +few years--this emigration to Canada was really getting beyond a +joke!--and so forth. Miss Marvell made no replies. But she suddenly +asked him a question. + +"What's that house over there?" + +She pointed to a grey façade on a wooded hill some two miles off. + +"That's our show place--Monk Lawrence! We're awfully proud of +it--Elizabethan, and that kind of thing. But of course you've heard of +Monk Lawrence! It's one of the finest things in England." + +"It belongs to Sir Wilfrid Lang?" + +"Certainly. Do you know him? He's scarcely been there at all, since he +became a Cabinet Minister; and yet he spent a lot of money in repairing +it a few years ago. They say it's his wife's health--that it's too damp +for her. Anyway it's quite shut up,--except that they let tourists see +it once a month." + +"Does anybody live in the house?"-- + +"Oh--a caretaker, of course,--one of the keepers. They let the +shooting. Ah! there's Miss Blanchflower calling you." + +Miss Marvell--as the gallant Captain afterwards remembered--took a long +look at the distant house and then went to join Miss Blanchflower. The +Captain accompanied her, and helped her to stow away the remaining bags +into the fly, while a small concourse of rustics, sprung from nowhere, +stolidly watched the doings of the heiress and her friend. Delia +suddenly bent forward to him, as he was about to shut the door, with an +animated look--"Can you tell me who that gentleman is who has just +walked off towards the village?"--she pointed. + +"His name is Lathrop. He lives in a place just the other side of yours. +He's got some trout-hatching ponds--will stock anybody's stream for +them. Rather a queer customer!"--the good-natured Captain dropped his +voice. "Well, good-bye, my train's just coming. I hope I may come and +see you soon?" + +Delia nodded assent, and they drove off. + +"By George, she's a beauty!" said the Captain to himself as he turned +away. "Nothing wrong with her that I can see. But there are some +strange tales going about. I wonder who that other woman is. +Marvell--Gertrude Marvell?--I seem to have heard the name +somewhere.--Hullo, Masham, how are you?" He greeted the leading local +solicitor who had just entered the station, a man with a fine ascetic +face, and singularly blue eyes. Masham looked like a starved poet or +preacher, and was in reality one of the hardest and shrewdest men of +business in the southern counties. + +"Well, did you see Miss Blanchflower?" said the Captain, as Masham +joined him on the platform, and they entered the up train together. + +"I did. A handsome young lady! Have you heard the news?" + +"No." + +"Your neighbor, Mr. Winnington--Mark Winnington--is named as her +guardian under her father's will--until she is twenty-five. He is also +trustee, with absolute power over the property." + +The Captain shewed a face of astonishment. + +"Gracious! what had Winnington to do with Sir Robert Blanchflower!" + +"An old friend, apparently. But it is a curious will." + +The solicitor's abstracted look shewed a busy mind. The Captain had +never felt a livelier desire for information. + +"Isn't there something strange about the girl?"--he said, lowering his +voice, although there was no one else in the railway carriage. "I never +saw a more beautiful creature! But my mother came home from London the +other day with some very queer stories, from a woman who had met them +abroad. She said Miss Blanchflower was awfully clever, but as wild as a +hawk--mad about women's rights and that kind of thing. In the hotel +where she met them, people fought very shy of her." + +"Oh, she's a militant suffragist," said the solicitor quietly--"though +she's not had time yet since her father's death to do any mischief. +That--in confidence--is the meaning of the will." + +The adjutant whistled. + +"Goodness!--Winnington will have his work cut out for him. But he +needn't accept." + +"He has accepted. I heard this morning from the London solicitor." + +"Your firm does the estate business down here?" + +"For many years. I hope to see Mr. Winnington to-morrow or next day. He +is evidently hurrying home--because of this." + +There was silence for a few minutes; then the Captain said bluntly: + +"It's an awful pity, you know, that kind of thing cropping up down +here. We've escaped it so far." + +"With such a lot of wild women about, what can you expect?" said the +solicitor briskly. "Like the measles--sure to come our way sooner or +later." + +"Do you think they'll get what they want?" "What--the vote? No--not +unless the men are fools." The refined, apostolic face set like iron. + +"None of the womanly women want it," said the Captain with conviction. +"You should hear my mother on it." + +The solicitor did not reply. The adjutant's mother was not in his eyes +a model of wisdom. Nor did his own opinion want any fortifying from +outside. + +Captain Andrews was not quite in the same position. He was conscious of +a strong male instinct which disavowed Miss Blanchflower and all her +kind; but at the same time he was exceedingly susceptible to female +beauty, and it troubled his reasoning processes that anybody so +wrong-headed should be so good-looking. His heart was soft, and his +brain all that was wanted for his own purposes. But it did not enable +him-it never had enabled him--to understand these extraordinary +"goings-on," which the newspapers were every day reporting, on the part +of well-to-do, educated women, who were ready--it seemed--to do +anything outrageous--just for a vote! "Of course nobody would mind if +the rich women--the tax-paying women--had a vote--help us Tories +famously. But the women of the working-classes--why, Good Lord, look at +them when there's any disturbance on--any big strike--look at +Tonypandy!--a deal sight worse than the men! Give them the vote and +they'd take us to the devil, even quicker than Lloyd George!" + +Aloud he said-- + +"Do you know anything about that lady Miss Blanchflower had with her? +She introduced me. Miss Marvell--I think that was the name. I thought I +had heard it somewhere." + +The solicitor lifted his eyebrows. + +"I daresay. She was in the stone-throwing raid last August. Fined 20s. +or a month, for damage in Pall Mall. She was in prison a week; then +somebody paid her fine. She professed great annoyance, but one of the +police told me it was privately paid by her own society. She's too +important to them--they can't do without her. An extremely clever +woman." + +"Then what on earth does she come and bury herself down here for?" +cried the Captain. + +Masham shewed a meditative twist of the lip. + +"Can't say, I'm sure. But they want money. And Miss Blanchflower is an +important capture." + +"I hope that girl will soon have the sense to shake them off!" said the +Captain with energy. "She's a deal too beautiful for that kind of +thing. I shall get my mother to come and talk to her." + +The solicitor concealed his smile behind his _Daily Telegraph_. He had +a real liking and respect for the Captain, but the family affection of +the Andrews household was a trifle too idyllic to convince a gentleman +so well acquainted with the seamy side of life. What about that +hunted-looking girl, the Captain's sister? He didn't believe, he never +had believed that Mrs. Andrews was quite so much of an angel as she +pretended to be. + +Meanwhile, no sooner had the fly left the station than Delia turned to +her companion-- + +"Gertrude!--did you see what that man was reading who passed us just +now? Our paper!--the _Tocsin_." + +Gertrude Marvell lifted her eyebrows slightly. + +"No doubt he bought it at Waterloo--out of curiosity." + +"Why not out of sympathy? I thought he looked at us rather closely. Of +course, if he reads the _Tocsin_ he knows something about you! What fun +it would be to discover a comrade and a brother down here!" + +"It depends entirely upon what use we could make of him," said Miss +Marvell. Then she turned suddenly on her companion--"Tell me really, +Delia--how long do you want to stay here?" + +"Well, a couple of months at least," said Delia, with a rather +perplexed expression. "After all, Gertrude, it's my property now, and +all the people on it, I suppose, will expect to see one and make +friends. I don't want them to think that because I'm a suffragist I'm +going to shirk. It wouldn't be good policy, would it?" + +"It's all a question of the relative importance of things," said the +other quietly. "London is our head quarters, and things are moving very +rapidly." + +"I know. But, dear, you did promise! for a time"--pleaded Delia. +"Though of course I know how dull it must be for you, when you are the +life and soul of so many things in London. But you must remember that I +haven't a penny at this moment but what Mr. Winnington chooses to allow +me! We must come to some understanding with him, mustn't we, before we +can do anything? It is all so difficult!"--the girl's voice took a +deep, passionate note--"horribly difficult, when I long to be standing +beside you--and the others--in the open--fighting--for all I'm worth. +But how can I, just yet? I ought to have eight thousand a year, and Mr. +Winnington can cut me down to anything he pleases. It's just as +important that I should get hold of my money--at this particular +moment--as that I should be joining raids in London,--more important, +surely--because we want money badly!--you say so yourself. I don't want +it for myself; I want it all--for the cause! But the question is, how +to get it--with this will in our way. I--" + +"Ah, there's that house again!" exclaimed Miss Marvell, but in the same +low restrained tone that was habitual to her. She bent forward to look +at the stately building, on the hill-side, which according to Captain +Andrews' information, was the untenanted property of Sir Wilfrid Lang, +whom a shuffle of offices had just admitted to the Cabinet. + +"What house?"--said Delia, not without a vague smart under the sudden +change of subject. She had a natural turn for declamation; a girlish +liking to hear herself talk; and Gertrude, her tutor in the first +place, and now her counsellor and friend, had a quiet way of snubbing +such inclinations, except when they could be practically useful. "You +have the gifts of a speaker--we shall want you to speak more and more," +she would say. But in private she rarely failed to interrupt an +harangue, even the first beginnings of one. + +However, the smart soon passed, and Delia too turned her eyes towards +the house among the trees. She gave a little cry of pleasure. + +"Oh, that's Monk Lawrence!--such a lovely--lovely old place! I used +often to go there as a child--I adored it. But I can't remember who +lives there now." + +Gertrude Marvell handed on the few facts learned from the Captain. + +"I knew"--she added--"that Sir Wilfrid Lang lived somewhere near here. +That they told me at the office." + +"And the house is empty?" Delia, flushing suddenly and vividly, turned +to her companion. + +"Except for the caretaker--who no doubt lives some where on the +ground-floor." + +There was silence a moment. Then Delia laughed uncomfortably. + +"Look here, Gertrude, we can't attempt anything of that kind _there_: I +remember now--it was Sir Wilfrid's brother who had the house, when I +used to go there. He was a great friend of Father's; and his little +girls and I were great chums. The house is just wonderful--full of +treasures! I am sorry it belongs to Sir Wilfrid--but nobody could lift +a finger against Monk Lawrence!" + +Miss Marvell's eyes sparkled. + +"He is the most formidable enemy we have," she said softly, between her +closed lips. A tremor seemed to run through her slight frame. + +Then she smiled, and her tone changed. + +"Dear Delia, of course I shan't run you into any--avoidable--trouble, +down here, apart from the things we have agreed on." + +"What have we agreed on? Remind me!" + +"In the first place, that we won't hide our opinions--or stop our +propaganda--to please anybody." + +"Certainly!" said Delia. "I shall have a drawing-room meeting as soon +as possible. You seem to have fixed up a number of speaking engagements +for us both. And we told the office to send us down tons of +literature." Then her face broke into laughter--"Poor Mr. Winnington!" + + * * * * * + +"A rather nice old place, isn't it?" said Delia, an hour later, when +the elderly housekeeper, who had received them with what had seemed to +Delia's companion a quite unnecessary amount of fuss and family +feeling, had at last left them alone in the drawing-room, after taking +them over the house. + +The girl spoke in a softened voice. She was standing thoughtfully by +the open window looking out, her hands clasping a chair behind her. Her +thin black dress, made short and plain, with a white frill at the open +neck and sleeves, by its very meagreness emphasized the young beauty of +the wearer,--a beauty full of significance, charged--over-charged--with +character. The attitude should have been one of repose; it was on the +contrary one of tension, suggesting a momentary balance only, of +impetuous forces. Delia was indeed suffering the onset of a wave of +feeling which had come upon her unexpectedly; for which she had not +prepared herself. This rambling old house with its quiet garden and +early Victorian furniture, had appealed to her in some profound and +touching way. Her childhood stirred again in her, and deep inherited +things. How well she remembered the low, spacious room, with its oak +wainscotting, its book-cases and its pictures! That crayon over the +writing-table of her grandmother in her white cap and shawl; her +grandfather's chair, and the old Bible and Prayer-book, beside it, from +which he used to read evening prayers; the stiff arm-chairs with their +faded chintz covers; the writing-table with its presentation inkstand; +the groups of silhouettes on the walls, her forbears of long ago; the +needlework on the fire-screen, in which, at nine years old, she had +been proud to embroider the white rose-bud still so lackadaisically +prominent; the stool on which she used to sit and knit beside her +grandmother; the place on the run where the old collie used to lie--she +saw his ghost there still!--all these familiar and even ugly objects +seemed to be putting out spiritual hands to her, playing on nerves once +eagerly responsive. She had never stayed for long in the house; but she +had always been happy there. The moral atmosphere of it came back to +her, and with a sense of the old rest and protection. Her grandfather +might have been miserly to others; he had always been kind to her. But +it was her grandmother who had been supreme in that room. A woman of +clear sense and high character; narrow and prejudiced in many respects, +but sorely missed by many when her turn came to die; a Christian in +more than name; sincerely devoted to her teasing little granddaughter. +A woman who had ordered her household justly and kindly; a personality +not soon forgotten. + +"There is something of her in me still," thought Delia--"at least, I +hope there is. And where--is the rest of me going?" + +"I think I'll take off my things, dear," said Gertrude Marvell, +breaking in on the girl's reverie. "Don't trouble. I know my room." + +The door closed. Delia was now looking out into the garden, where on +the old grass-slopes the September shadows lay--still and slumbrous. +The peace of it, the breath of its old-world tradition, came upon her, +relaxing the struggle of mind and soul in which she had been living for +months, and that ceaseless memory which weighed upon her of her dying +father,--his bitter and increasing recoil from all that, for a while, +he had indulgently permitted--his final estrangement from her, her own +obstinacy and suffering. + +"Yes!"--she cried suddenly, out loud, to the rosebushes beyond the open +window--"but it had a reason--it _had_ a reason!" She clasped her +hands fiercely to her breast. "And there is no birth without pain." + + + + +Chapter IV + + +A few days after her arrival, Delia woke up in the early dawn in the +large room that had been her grandmother's. She sat up in the broad +white bed with its dimity curtains, her hands round her knees, peering +into the half darkened room, where, however, she had thrown the windows +wide open, behind the curtains, before going to sleep. On the opposite +wall she saw an indifferent picture of her father as a boy of twelve on +his pony; beside it a faded photograph of her mother, her beautiful +mother, in her wedding dress. There had never been any real sympathy +between her mother and her grandmother. Old Lady Blanchflower had +resented her son's marriage with a foreign woman, with a Greek, in +particular. The Greeks were not at that moment of much account in the +political world, and Lady Blanchflower thought of them as a nation of +shams, trading on a great past which did not belong to them. Her secret +idea was that out of their own country they grew rich in disreputable +ways, and while at home, where only the stupid ones stayed, they were a +shabby, half-civilised people, mostly bankrupt. She could not imagine +how a girl got any bringing up at Athens, and believed nothing that her +son told her. So that when the young Mrs. Blanchflower arrived, there +were jars in the household, and it was not long before the spoilt and +handsome bride went to her husband in tears, and asked to be taken +away. Delia was surprised and touched, therefore, to find her mother's +portrait in her grandmother's room, where nothing clearly had been +admitted that had not some connection with family affection or family +pride. She wondered whether on her mother's death her grandmother had +hung the picture there in dumb confession of, or penance for, her own +unkindness. + +The paper of the room was a dingy grey, and the furniture was heavily +old-fashioned and in Delia's eyes inconvenient. "If I'm going to keep +the room I shall make it all white," she thought, "with proper fitted +wardrobes, and some low bookcases--a bath, too, of course, in the +dressing-room. And they must put in electric light at once! How could +they have done without it all this time! I believe with all its faults, +this house could be made quite pretty!" + +And she fell into a reverie,--eagerly constructive--wherein Maumsey +became, at a stroke, a House Beautiful, at once modern and +aesthetically right, a dim harmony in lovely purples, blues and greens, +with the few fine things it possessed properly spaced and grouped, the +old gardens showing through the latticed windows, and golden or silvery +lights, like those in a Blanche interior, gleaming in its now dreary +rooms. + +Then at a bound she sprang out of bed, and stood upright in the autumn +dawn. + +"I hate myself!" she said fiercely--as she ran her hands through the +mass of her dark hair, and threw it back upon her shoulders. Hurrying +across the room in her night-gown, she threw back the curtains. A light +autumnal mist, through which the sun was smiling, lay on the garden. +Stately trees rose above it, and masses of flowers shewed vaguely +bright; while through the blue distances beyond, the New Forest +stretched to the sea. + +But Delia was looking at herself, in a long pier-glass that represented +almost the only concession to the typical feminine needs in the room. +She was not admiring her own seemliness; far from it; she was rating +and despising herself for a feather-brained waverer and +good-for-nothing. + +"Oh yes, you can _talk_!" she said, to the figure in the glass--"you +are good enough at that! But what are you going to _do_!--Spend your +time at Maple's and Waring--matching chintzes and curtains?--when +you've _promised_--you've _promised_! Gertrude's right. There _are_ all +sorts of disgusting cowardices and weaknesses in you! Oh! yes, +you'd like to go fiddling and fussing down here--playing the +heiress--patronising the poor people--putting yourself into beautiful +clothes--and getting heaps of money out of Mr. Winnington to spend. +It's in you--it's just in you--to throw everything over--to forget +everything you've felt, and everything you've vowed--and just _wallow_ +in luxury and selfishness and snobbery! Gertrude's absolutely right. +But you shan't do it! You shan't put a hand to it! Why did that man +take the guardianship? Now it's his business. He may see to it! But +_you_--you have something else to do!" + +And she stood erect, the angry impulse in her stiffening all her young +body. And through her memory there ran, swift-footed, fragments from a +rhetoric of which she was already fatally mistress, the formulae too of +those sincere and goading beliefs on which her youth had been fed ever +since her first acquaintance with Gertrude Marvell. The mind renewed +them like vows; clung to them, embraced them. + +What was she before she knew Gertrude? She thought of that earlier +Delia as of a creature almost too contemptible to blame. From the +maturity of her twenty-one years she looked back upon herself at +seventeen or eighteen with wonder. That Delia had read nothing--knew +nothing--had neither thoughts or principles. She was her father's +spoilt child and darling; delighting in the luxury that surrounded his +West Indian Governorship; courted and flattered by the few English of +the colonial capital, and by the members of her father's staff; with +servants for every possible need or whim; living her life mostly in the +open air, riding at her father's side, through the sub-tropical forests +of the colony; teasing and tyrannising over the dear old German +governess who had brought her up, and whose only contribution to her +education--as Delia now counted education--had been the German tongue. +Worth something!--but not all those years, "when I might have been +learning so much else, things I shall never have time to learn +now!--things that Gertrude has at her finger's end. Why wasn't I taught +properly--decently--like any board school child! As Gertrude says, we +women want everything we can get! We _must_ know the things that men +know--that we may beat them at their own game. Why should every Balliol +boy--years younger than me--have been taught his classics and +mathematics,--and have everything brought to him--made easy for +him--history, political economy, logic, philosophy, laid at his +lordship's feet, if he will just please to learn!--while I, who have +just as good a brain as he, have had to pick up a few scraps by the +way, just because nobody who had charge of me ever thought it worth +while to teach, a girl. But I have a mind!--an intelligence!--even if I +am a woman; and there is all the world to know. Marriage? Yes!--but not +at the sacrifice of everything else--of the rational, civilised self." + +On the whole though, her youth had been happy enough, with recurrent +intervals of _ennui_ and discontent. Intervals too of poetic +enthusiasm, or ascetic religion. At eighteen she had been practically a +Catholic, influenced by the charming wife of one of her father's +aides-de-camp. And then--a few stray books or magazine articles had +made a Darwinian and an agnostic of her; the one phase as futile as the +other. + +"I knew nothing--I had no mind!"--she repeated with energy,--"till +Gertrude came." + +And she thought with ardour of that intellectual awakening, under the +strange influence of the apparently reserved and impassive woman, who +had come to read history with her for six months, at the suggestion of +a friend of her father's, a certain cultivated and clever Lady +Tonbridge, "who saw how starved I was." + +So, after enquiry, a lady who was a B.A. of London, and had taken +first-class honour in history--Delia's ambition would accept nothing +less--had been found, who wanted for health's sake a winter in a warm +climate, and was willing to read history with Governor Blanch-flower's +half-fledged daughter. + +The friendship had begun, as often, with a little aversion. Delia was +made to work, and having always resented being made to do anything, for +about a month she disliked her tutor, and would have persuaded Sir +Robert to send her away, had not England been so far off, and the +agreement with Miss Marvell, whose terms were high, unusually +stringent. But by the end of the month the girl of eighteen was +conquered. She had recognised in Gertrude Marvell accomplishments that +filled her with envy, together with an intensity of will, a bitter and +fiery purpose, that astounded and subdued a young creature in whom +inherited germs of southern energy and passion were only waiting the +touch that starts the ferment. Gertrude Marvell had read an amazing +amount of history, and all from one point of view; that of the woman +stirred to a kind of madness by what she held to be the wrongs of her +sex. The age-long monopoly of all the higher forces of civilisation by +men; the cruel and insulting insistence upon the sexual and maternal +functions of women, as covering the whole of her destiny; the hideous +depreciation of her as an inferior and unclean creature, to which +Christianity, poisoned by the story of Eve, and a score of barbarous +beliefs and superstitions more primitive still, had largely +contributed, while hypocritically professing to enfranchise and exalt +her; the unfailing doom to "obey," and to bring forth, that has crushed +her; the labours and shames heaped upon her by men in the pursuit of +their own selfish devices; and the denial to her, also by men, of all +the higher and spiritual activities, except those allowed by a man-made +religion:--this feminist gospel, in some respects so bitterly true, in +others so vindictively false, was gradually and unsparingly pressed +upon Delia's quick intelligence. She caught its fire; she rose to its +call; and there came a day when Gertrude Marvell breaking through the +cold reserve she had hitherto interposed between herself and the pupil +who had come to adore her, threw her arms round the girl, accepting +from her what were practically the vows of a neophyte in a secret and +revolutionary service. + +Joyous, self-dedicating moment! But it had been followed by a tragedy; +the tragedy of Delia's estrangement from her father. It was not long +before Sir Robert Blanchflower, a proud self-indulgent man, with a keen +critical sense, a wide acquaintance with men and affairs, and a number +of miscellaneous acquirements of which he never made the smallest +parade, had divined the spirit of irreconcilable revolt which animated +the slight and generally taciturn woman, who had obtained such a hold +upon his daughter. He, the god of his small world, was made to feel +himself humiliated in her presence. She was, in fact, his intellectual +superior, and the truth was conveyed to him in a score of subtle ways. +She was in his house simply because she was poor, and wanted rest from +excessive overwork, at someone else's expense. Otherwise her manner +suggested--often quite unconsciously--that she would not have put up +with his household and its regulations for a single day. + +Then, suddenly, he perceived that he had lost his daughter, and the +reason of it. The last year of his official life was thenceforward +darkened by an ugly and undignified struggle with the woman who had +stolen Delia from him. In the end he dismissed Gertrude Marvell. Delia +shewed a passionate resentment, told him frankly that as soon as she +was twenty-one she should take up "the Woman's movement" as her sole +occupation, and should offer herself wherever Gertrude Marvell, and +Gertrude's leaders, thought she could be useful. "The vote _must_ be +got!"--she said, standing white and trembling, but resolute, before her +father--"If not peaceably, then by violence. And when we get it, +father, you men will be astonished to see what we shall do with it!" + +Her twenty-first birthday was at hand, and would probably have seen +Delia's flight from her father's house, but for Sir Robert's breakdown +in health. He gave up his post, and it was evident he had not more than +a year or two to live. Delia softened and submitted. She went abroad +with him, and for a time he seemed to throw off the disease which had +attacked him. It was during a brighter interval that, touched by her +apparent concessions, he had consented to her giving the lecture in the +Tyrolese hotel the fame of which had spread abroad, and had even taken +a certain pleasure in her oratorical success. + +But during the following winter--Sir Robert's last--which they spent +at Meran, things had gone from bad to worse. For months Delia never +mentioned Gertrude Marvell to her father. He flattered himself that the +friendship was at an end. Then some accident revealed to him that it +was as close as, or closer than ever; that they were in daily +correspondence; that they had actually met, unknown to him, in the +neighbourhood of Meran; and that Delia was sending all the money she +could possibly spare from her very ample allowance to "The Daughters of +Revolt," the far-spreading society in which Gertrude Marvell was now +one of the leading officials. + +Some of these dismal memories of Meran descended like birds of night +upon Delia, as she stood with her arms above her head, in her long +night-gown, looking intently but quite unconsciously into the depths of +an old rosewood cheval glass. She felt that sultry night about her once +more, when, after signing his will, her father opened his eyes upon +her, coming back with an effort from the bound of death, and had said +quite clearly though faintly in the silence-- + +"Give up that woman, Delia!--promise me to give her up." And Delia had +cried bitterly, on her knees beside him--without a word--caressing his +hand. And the cold fingers had been feebly withdrawn from hers as the +eyes closed. + +"Oh papa--papa!" The low murmur came from her, as she pressed her hands +upon her eyes. If the Christian guesses were but true, and in some +quiet Elysian state he might now understand, and cease to be angry with +her! Was there ever a great cause won without setting kin against kin? +"A man's foes shall be they of his own household." "It wasn't my +fault--it wasn't my fault!" + +No!--and moreover it was her duty not to waste her strength in vain +emotion and regret. Her task was _doing_, not dreaming. She turned +away, banished her thoughts and set steadily about the task of +dressing. + + * * * * * + +"Please Miss Blanchflower, there are two or three people waiting to see +you in the servants' hall." + +So said the tall and gentle-voiced housekeeper, Mrs. Bird, whose +emotions had been, in Miss Marvell's view, so unnecessarily exercised +on the evening of Delia's home-coming. Being a sensitive person, Mrs. +Bird had already learnt her lesson, and her manner had now become as +mildly distant as could be desired, especially in the case of Miss +Blanchflower's lady companion. + +"People? What people?" asked Delia, looking round with a furrowed brow. +She and Gertrude were sitting together on the sofa when the housekeeper +entered, eagerly reading a large batch of letters which the London post +had just brought, and discussing their contents in subdued tones. + +"It's the cottages, Miss. Her Ladyship used always to decide who should +have those as were vacant about this time of year, and two or three of +these persons have been up several times to know when you'd be home." + +"But I don't know anything about it"--said Delia, rising reluctantly. +"Why doesn't the agent--why doesn't Mr. Frost do it?" + +"I suppose--they thought--you'd perhaps speak a word to Mr. Frost, +Miss," suggested Mrs. Bird. "But I can send them away of course, if you +wish." + +"Oh no, I'll come"--said Delia. "But it's rather tiresome--just +as"--she looked at Gertrude. + +"Don't be long," said Miss Marvell, sharply, "I'll wait for you here." +And she plunged back into the letters, her delicate face all alive, her +eyes sparkling. Delia departed--evidently on a distasteful errand. + +But twenty minutes later, she returned flushed and animated. + +"I _am_ glad I went! Such tyranny--such monstrous tyranny!" She stood +in front of Gertrude breathing fast, her hands on her hips. + +"What's the matter?" + +"My grandmother had a rule--can you imagine anything so cruel!--that no +girl--who had gone wrong--was to be allowed in our cottages. If she +couldn't be provided for in some Home or other, or if her family +refused to give her up, then the family must go. An old man has been up +to see me--a widower with two daughters--one in service. The one in +service has come to grief--the son of the house!--the usual +story!"--the speaker's face had turned fiercely pale--"and now our +agent refuses to let the girl and her baby come home. And the old +father says--'What am I to do, Miss? I can't turn her out--she's my own +flesh and blood. I've got to stick to her--else there'll be worse +happening. It's not _justice_, Miss--and it's not Gospel.' +Well!"--Delia seated herself with energy,--"I've told him to have her +home at once--and I'll see to it." + +Gertrude lifted her eyebrows, a gesture habitual with her, whenever +Delia wore--as now--her young prophetess look. Why feel these things so +much? Human nerves have only a certain limited stock of reactions. +Avenge--and alter them! + +But she merely said-- + +"And the others?" + +"Oh, a poor mother with eight children, pleading for a cottage with +three bedrooms instead of two! I told her she should have it if I had +to build it!--And an old woman who has lived fifty-two years in her +cottage, and lost all her belongings, begging that she mightn't be +turned out--for a family--now that it's too big for her. She shan't be +turned out! Of course I suppose it would be common sense"--the tension +of the speaker's face broke up in laughter--"to put the old woman into +the cottage of the eight children--and put the eight children into the +old woman's. But human beings are not cattle! Sentiment's something! +Why shouldn't a woman be allowed to die in her old home,--so long as +she pays the rent? I hate all this interference with people's lives! +And it's always the women who come worst off. 'Oh Mr. Frost, he never +pays no attention to us women. He claps 'is 'ands to his ears when he +sees one of us, and jest runs for it.' Well, I'll make Mr. Frost listen +to a woman!" + +"I'm afraid Mr. Winnington is his master," said Gertrude quietly. +Delia, crimson again, shrugged her shoulders. + +"We shall see!" + +Gertrude Marvell looked up. + +"Look here, Delia, if you're going to play the part of earthly +Providence to this village and your property in general--as I've said +to you before--you may as well tell the 'Daughters' you can't do +anything for them. That's a profession in itself; and would take you +all your time." + +"Then of course, I shan't do it," said Delia, with decision. "But I +only want to put in an appearance--to make friends with the +people--just for a time, Gertrude! It doesn't do to be _too_ unpopular. +We're not exactly in good odour just now, are we?" + +And sitting down on a stool beside the elder woman, Delia leant her +head against her friend's knee caressingly. + +Gertrude gave an absent touch to the girl's beautiful hair, and then +said-- + +"So you _will_ take these four meetings?" + +"Certainly!" Delia sprang up. "What are they? One at Latchford, one at +Brownmouth--Wanchester--and Frimpton. All right. I shall be pelted at +Brownmouth. But rotten eggs don't matter so much when you're looking +out for them--except on your face--Ugh!" + +"And the meeting here?" + +"Of course. Can't I do what I like with my own house? We'll have the +notices out next week." + +Gertrude looked up-- + +"When did you say that man--Mr. Winnington--was coming?" + +"His note this morning said 4:30." + +"You'd better see him alone--for the first half hour anyway." + +Delia made a face. + +"I wish I knew what line to take up. You've been no use at all, +Gertrude!" + +Gertrude smiled. + +"Wait till you see him," she said coolly. "Mother-wit will help you +out." + +"I wish I had anything to bargain with." + +"So you have." + +"Pray, what?" + +"The meeting here. You _could_ give that up. And he needn't know +anything of the others yet awhile." + +"What a charming opinion he will have of us both, by and bye," laughed +Delia, quietly. "And by all accounts he himself is a simple +paragon.--Heavens, how tiresome!" + +Gertrude Marvell turned back to her letters. + +"What does anyone know about a _man_?" she said, with slow +deliberation. + +The midday post at Maumsey brought letters just after luncheon. Delia +turning hers over was astonished to see two or three with the local +postmark. + +"What can people from _here_ be writing to me about?" + +Gertrude absorbed in the new weekly number of the _Tocsin_ took no +notice, till she was touched on the shoulder by Delia. + +"Yes?" + +"Gertrude!--it's too amazing!" The girl's tone was full of a joyous +wonder. "You know they told us at head-quarters that this was one of +the deadest places in England--a nest of Antis--nothing doing here at +all. Well, what do you think?--here are _three_ letters by one post, +from the village--all greeting us--all knowing perfectly who you +are--that you have been in prison, etcetera--all readers of the +_Tocsin_, and burning to be doing something--" + +"Burning something?" interposed the other in her most ordinary voice. + +Delia laughed, again with the note of constraint. + +"Well, anyway, they want to come and see us." + +"Who are they?" + +"An assistant mistress at the little grammar-school--that's No. 1. No. +2--a farmer's daughter, who says she took part in one of the raids last +summer, but nobody knows down here. Her father paid her fine. And No. +3. a consumptive dressmaker, who declares she hasn't much life left +anyway, and she is quite willing to give it to the 'cause'! Isn't it +wonderful how it spreads--it spreads!" + +"Hm"--said Miss Marvell. "Well, we may as well inspect them. Tell them +to come up some time next week after dusk." + +As she spoke, the temporary parlour-maid threw open the door of the +room which Delia had that morning chosen as her own sitting-room. + +"Are you at home, Miss? Mrs. France would like to see you." + +"Mrs. France?--Mrs. France? Oh, I know--the doctor's wife--Mrs. Bird +was talking of him this morning. Well, I suppose I must go." Delia +moved unwillingly. "I'm coming, Mary." + +"Of course you must go," said Gertrude, a little peremptorily. "As we +are here we may as well reconnoitre the whole ground--find out +everything we can." + + * * * * * + +In the drawing-room, to which some flowers, and a litter of new books +and magazines had already restored its inhabited look, Delia found a +woman awaiting her, in whom the girl's first glance discerned a +personality. She was dressed with an entire disregard of the fashion, +in plain, serviceable clothes. A small black bonnet tied under the chin +framed a face whose only beauty lay in the expression of the clear kind +eyes, and quiet mouth. The eyes were a little prominent; the brow above +them unusually smooth and untroubled, answering to the bands of brown +hair touched with grey which defined it. But the rest of the face was +marked by many deep lines--of experience, or suffering?--which showed +clearly that its owner had long left physical youth behind. And yet +perhaps youth--in some spiritual poetic sense--was what Mrs. France's +aspect most sharply conveyed. + +She rose as Delia entered, and greeted her warmly. + +"It is nice to see you settled here! Dr. France and I were great +friends of your old grandmother. He and she were regular cronies. We +were very sorry to see the news of your poor father's death." + +The voice was clear and soft, and absolutely sincere. Delia felt drawn +to her. But it had become habitual to her to hold herself on the +defensive with strangers, to suspect hostility and disapproval +everywhere. So that her manner in reply, though polite enough, was +rather chilly. + +But--the girl's beauty! The fame of it had indeed reached Maumsey in +advance of the heiress. Mrs. France, however, in its actual presence +was inclined to say "I had not heard the half!" She remembered Delia's +mother, and in the face before her she recognised again the Greek type, +the old pure type, reappearing, as it constantly does, in the mixed +modern race. But the daughter surpassed her mother. Delia's eyes, of a +lovely grey blue, lidded, and fringed, and arched with an exquisite +perfection; the curve of the slightly bronzed cheek, suggesting through +all its delicacy the fulness of young, sensuous life; the mouth, +perhaps a trifle too large, and the chin, perhaps a trifle too firm; +the abundance of the glossy black hair, curling wherever it was allowed +to curl, or wherever it could escape the tight coils in which it was +bound--at the temples, and over the brow; the beauty of the uncovered +neck, and of the amply-rounded form which revealed itself through the +thin black stripe of the mourning dress:--none of these "items" in +Delia's good looks escaped her admiring visitor. + +"It's to be hoped Mr. Mark realises his responsibilities," she thought, +with amusement. + +Aloud, she said-- + +"I remember you as quite a little thing staying with your +Grandmother--but you wouldn't remember me. Dr. France was grieved not +to come, but it's his hospital day." + +Delia thanked her, without effusion. Mrs. France presently began to +feel conversation an effort, and to realise that the girl's wonderful +eyes were very observant and very critical. Yet she chose the very +obvious and appropriate topic of Lady Blanchflower, her strong +character, her doings in the village, her relation to the labourers and +their wives. + +"When she died, they really missed her. They miss her still." + +"Is it good for a village to depend so much on one person?" said Delia +in a detached voice. + +Mrs. France looked at her curiously. Jealousy of one's grandmother is +not a common trait in the young. It struck her that Miss Blanchflower +was already defending herself against examples and ideals she did not +mean to follow. And again amusement--and concern!--on Mark +Winnington's account made themselves felt. Mrs. France was quite aware +of Delia's "militant" antecedents, and of the history of the lady she +had brought down to live with her. But the confidence of the doctor's +wife in Winnington's powers and charm was boundless. "He'll be a match +for them!" she thought gaily. + +Meanwhile in reply, she smilingly defended her old friend Lady +Blanchflower from the implied charge of pauperising the village. + +"Not at all! She never gave money recklessly--and the do-nothings kept +clear of her. But she was the people's friend--and they knew it. +They're very excited about your coming!" + +"I daresay I shall change some things," said Delia decidedly. "I don't +approve of all Mr. Frost has been doing." + +"Well, you'll have your guardian to help you," said Mrs. France +quietly. + +Delia flushed, straightened her shoulders, and said nothing. + +This time Mrs. France was fairly taken by surprise. She knew nothing +more of Sir Robert Blanchflower's will than that he had made Mr. Mark +Winnington his daughter's guardian, till she reached the age of +twenty-five. But that any young woman--any motherless and fatherless +girl--should not think herself the most lucky of mortals to have +obtained Mark Winnington as guide and defender, with first claim on his +time, his brains, his kindness, seemed incredible to Mark's old friend +and neighbour, accustomed to the daily signs of his immense and +deserved popularity. Then it flashed upon her--"Has she ever seen him?" + +The doubt led to an immediate communication of the news that Winnington +had arrived from town that morning. Dr. France had seen him in the +village. + +"You know him, of course, already?" + +"Not at all," said Delia, indifferently. "He and I are perfect +strangers." Mrs. France laughed. + +"I rather envy you the pleasure of making friends with him! We are all +devoted to him down here." + +Delia lifted her eyebrows. + +"What are his particular virtues? It's monotonous to possess them +_all_." The slight note of insolence was hardly disguised. + +"No two friends of his would give you the same answer. I should give +you a different catalogue, for instance, from Lady Tonbridge--" + +"Lady Tonbridge!" cried Delia, waking up at last. "You don't mean that +Lady Tonbridge lives in this neighbourhood?" + +"Certainly. You know her?" + +"She came once to stay with us in the West Indies. My father knew her +very well before she married. And I owe her--a great debt"--the last +words were spoken with emphasis. + +Mrs. France looked enquiring. + +"--she recommended to us the lady who is now living with me here--my +chaperon--Miss Marvell?" + +There was silence for a moment. Then Mrs. France said, not without +embarrassment-- + +"Your father desired she should live with you?" + +Delia flushed again. + +"No. My father did not understand her." + +"He did not agree with her views?" + +"Nor with mine. It was horrid--but even relations must agree to differ. +Why is Lady Tonbridge here? And where is Sir Alfred? Papa had not heard +of them for a long time." + +"They separated last year"--said Mrs. France gravely. "But Mr. +Winnington will tell you. He's a great friend of hers. She does a lot +of work for him." + +"Work?" + +"Social work!" smiled Mrs. France--"poor-law--schools--that kind of +thing. He ropes us all in." + +"Oh!" said Delia, with her head in the air. + +Mrs. France laughed outright. + +"That seems to you so unimportant--compared to the vote." + +"It _is_ unimportant!" said Delia, impetuously. "Nothing really matters +but the vote. Aren't you a Suffragist, Mrs. France?" + +Mrs. France smilingly shook her head. + +"I don't want to meddle with the men's business. And we're a long way +yet from catching up with our own. Oh, my husband has a lot of +scientific objections. But that's mine." Then her face grew +serious--"anyway, we can all agree, I hope, in hating violence. That +can never settle it." + +She looked a little sternly at her young companion. + +"That depends," said Delia. "But we mustn't argue, Mrs. France. I +should only make you angry. Ah!" + +She sprang up and went to the window, just as steps could be heard on +the gravel outside. + +"Here's someone coming." She turned to Mrs. France. "Is it Mr. +Winnington?" + +"It is!" said her visitor, after putting on her glasses. + +Delia surveyed him, standing behind the lace curtain, and Mrs. France +was relieved to see that a young person of such very decided opinions +could be still girlishly curious. She herself rose to go. + +"Good-bye. I won't interrupt your talk with him." + +"Good-looking?" said Delia, with mischief in her eyes, and a slight +gesture towards the approaching visitor. + +"Don't you know what an athlete he is--or was?" + +"Another perfection? Heavens!--how does he endure it?" said the girl, +laughing. + +Mrs. France took her leave. She was a very motherly tender-hearted +woman, and she would like to have taken her old friend's grandchild in +her arms and kissed her. But she wisely refrained; and indeed the +instinct to shake her was perhaps equally strong. "How long will she +stand gossiping on the doormat with the paragon," said Delia savagely +to herself, when she was left alone. "Oh, how I hate a 'charming man'!" +She moved stormily to and fro, listening to the distant sounds of talk +in the hall, and resenting them. Then suddenly she paused opposite one +of the large mirrors in the room. A coil of hair had loosened itself; +she put it right; and still stood motionless, interrogating herself in +a proud concentration. + +"Well?--I am quite ready for him." + +But her heart beat uncomfortably fast as the door opened, and Mark +Winnington entered. + + + + +Chapter V + + +As Winnington advanced with outstretched hand to greet her, Delia was +conscious of a striking physical presence, and of an eye fixed upon her +at once kind and penetrating. + +"How are you? You've been through a terrible time! Are you at all +rested? I'm afraid it has been a long, long strain." + +He held her hand in both his, asking gentle questions about her +father's illness, interrogating her looks the while with a frank +concern and sympathy. + +Delia was taken by surprise. For the first time that day she was +reminded of what was really, the truth. She _was_ tired--morally and +physically. But Gertrude Marvell never recognised anything of the kind; +and in her presence Delia rarely confessed any such weakness even to +herself. + +As it was, her eyes and mouth wavered a little under Winnington's look. + +"Thank you," she said quietly. "I shall soon be rested." + +They sat down. Delia was conscious--unwillingly conscious, of a nervous +agitation she did her best to check. For Winnington also it was clearly +an awkward moment. He began at once to talk of his old recollections of +her parents, of her mother's beauty, of her father's reputation as the +most dashing soldier on the North-West frontier, in the days when they +first met in India. + +"But his health was even then very poor. I suppose it was that made him +leave the army?" + +"Yes--and then Parliament," said Delia. "He was ordered a warm climate +for the winter. But he could never have lived without working. His +Governorship just suited him." + +She spoke with charming softness, beguiled from her insensibly by +Winnington's own manner. At the back of Winnington's mind, as they +talked, ran perpetual ejaculations--ejaculations of the natural man in +the presence of so much beauty. But his conversation with her flowed +the while with an even gentleness which never for a moment affected +intimacy, and was touched here and there with a note of deference, even +of ceremony, which disarmed his companion. + +"I never came across your father down here--oddly enough," he said +presently. "He had left Sandhurst before I went to Eton; and then there +was Oxford, and then the bar. My little place belonged then to a +cousin, and I had hardly ever seen it. But of course I knew, your +grandmother--everybody did. She was a great centre--a great figure. She +has left her mark here. Don't you find it so?" + +"Yes. Everybody seems to remember her." + +But, in a moment, the girl before him had changed and stiffened. It +seemed to Winnington, as to Mrs. France, that she pulled herself up, +reacting against something that threatened her. The expression in her +eyes put something between them. "Perhaps you know"--she said--"that +my grandmother didn't always get on with my mother?" + +He wondered why she had reminded him of that old family jar, which +gossip had spread abroad. Did it really rankle in her mind? Odd, that +it should! + +"Was that so?" he laughed. "Oh, Lady Blanchflower had her veins of +unreason. One had to know where to have her." + +"She took Greeks for barbarians--my father used to say," said Delia, a +little grimly. "But she was very good to me--and so I was fond of her." +"And she of you. But there are still tales going about--do you +mind?--of the dances you led her. It took weeks and months, they say, +before you and she arrived at an armed truce--after a most appalling +state of war! There's an old gardener here--retired now--who remembers +you quite well. He told me yesterday that you used to be very friendly +with him, and you said to him once--'I like Granny!--she's the master +of me!'" + +The laughter in Winnington's eyes again kindled hers. + +"I was a handful--I know." There was a pause. Then she added--"And I'm +afraid--I've gone on being a handful!" Gesture and tone showed that she +spoke deliberately. + +"Most people of spirit are--till they come to handle themselves," he +replied, also with a slight change of tone. + +"But that's just what women are never allowed to do, Mr. Winnington!" +She turned suddenly red, and fronted him. "There's always some man, who +claims to manage them and their affairs. We're always in +leading-strings--nobody ever admits we're grown up. Why can't we be +allowed like men--to stumble along our own way? If we make mistakes, +let's _pay_ for them! But let us at some time in our lives--at +least--feel ourselves free beings!" + +There was no mistaking the purport of these words. They referred +clearly to her father's will, and her own position. After a moment's +thought, Winnington bent forward. + +"I think I understand what you mean," he said gravely. "And I +sympathise with it more than you imagine." + +Delia looked up impetuously-- + +"Then why, Mr. Winnington, did you consent to be my guardian?" + +"Because--quite honestly--because I thought I could be of more use to +you perhaps than the Court of Chancery; and because your father's +letter to me was one very difficult to put aside." + +"How could anyone in my father's state of health really judge +reasonably!" cried Delia. "I daresay it sounds shocking to you, Mr. +Winnington, but I can't help putting it to myself like this--Papa was +always able to contrive his own life as he chose. In his Governorship +he was a small king. He tried a good many experiments. Everybody +deferred to him. Everybody was glad to help him. Then when his money +came and the estate, nobody fettered him with conditions; nobody +interfered with him. Grandpapa and he didn't agree in a lot of things. +Papa was a Liberal; and Grandpapa was an awfully hot Conservative. But +Grandpapa didn't appoint a trustee, or tie up the estates--or anything +of that kind. It is simply and solely because I am a woman that these +things are done! I am not to be allowed _my_ opinions, in _my_ life, +though Papa was quite free to work for his in his life! This is the +kind of thing we call tyranny,--this is the kind of thing that's +driving women into revolt!" + +Delia had risen. She stood in what Gertrude Marvell would have called +her "pythian" attitude, hands behind her, her head thrown back, +delivering her prophetic soul. Winnington, as he surveyed her, was +equally conscious of her beauty and her absurdity. But he kept cool, or +rather the natural faculty which had given him so much authority and +success in life rose with a kind of zest to its new and unaccustomed +task. + +"May I perhaps suggest--that your father was fifty-two when he +succeeded to this estate--and that you are twenty-one?" + +"Nearly twenty-two," she interrupted, hastily. + +"Nearly twenty-two," repeated Winnington. "And I assure you, that what +with 'People's Budgets,' and prowling Chancellors, and all the new +turns of the screw that the Treasury is for ever putting on, inheriting +an estate nowadays is no simple matter. Your father thought of that. He +wished to provide someone to help you." + +"I could have found lawyers to help me." + +"Of course you could. But my experience is that solicitors are good +servants but bad masters. It wants a good deal of practical knowledge +to direct them, so that you get what you want. I have gone a little way +into the business of the estate this morning with Mr. Masham, and in +town, with the Morton Manners people. I see already some complications +which will take me a deal of time and thought to straighten out. And I +am a lawyer, and if you will let me say so, just double your age." + +He smiled at her, but Delia's countenance did not relax. Her mouth was +scornful. + +"I daresay that's quite true, Mr. Winnington. But of course you know it +was _not_ on that account--or at any rate not chiefly on that account, +that my father left things as he did. He wished"--she spoke clearly and +slowly--"simply to prevent my helping the Suffrage movement in the way +I think best." + +Winnington too had risen, and was standing with one hand on the +mantelpiece. His brow was slightly furrowed, not frowning exactly, but +rather with the expression of one trying to bring his mind into as +close touch as possible with another mind. + +"I must of course agree with you. That is evidently one of the objects +of the will, though by no means--I think--the only one. And as to that, +should you not ask yourself--had not your father a right, even a duty, +to look after the disposal of his money as he thought best? Surely it +was his responsibility--especially as he was old, and you were young." + +Delia had begun to feel impatient--to resent the very mildness of his +tone. She felt, as though she were an insubordinate child, being gently +reasoned with. + +"No, I don't admit it!" she said passionately. "It was tampering with +the right of the next generation!" + +"Might you not say the same of the whole--or almost the whole of our +system of inheritance?" he argued. "I should put it--that the old are +always trying to preserve and protect something they know is more +precious to them than it can be to the young--something as to which, +with the experience of life behind them, they believe they are wiser +than the young. _Ought_ the young to resent it?" + +"Yes," persisted Delia. "_Yes_! They should be left to make their own +experiments." + +"They have _life_ wherewith to make them! But the dead--" He paused. +But Delia felt and quivered under the unspoken appeal; and also under +the quick touch of something more personal--more intimate--in his +manner, expressing, it seemed, some deep feeling of his own. He, in +turn, perceived that she had grown very pale; he guessed even that she +was suddenly not very far from tears. He seemed to realise the weeks, +perhaps months, of conflict through which the girl had just passed. He +was sincerely sorry for her--sincerely drawn to her. + +Delia broke the silence. + +"It is no good I think discussing this any more--is it? There's the +will, and the question is"--she faced him boldly--"how are you and I +going to get on, Mr. Winnington?" + +Winnington's seriousness broke up. He threw her a smiling look, and +with his hands in his pockets began to pace the room reflectively. + +"I really believe we can pull it off, if we look at it coolly," he said +at last, pausing in front of her. "I am no bigot on the Suffrage +question--frankly I have not yet made up my mind upon it. All that I am +clear about--as your father was clear--is that outrage and violence are +_wrong_--in any cause. I cannot believe that we shan't agree there!" + +He looked at her keenly. Delia was silent. Her face betrayed nothing, +though her eyes met his steadily. + +"And in regard to that, there is of course one thing that troubles +me"--he resumed--"one thing in which I beg you to take my advice"-- + +Delia breathed quick. + +"Gertrude Marvell?" she said. "Of course I knew that was coming!" + +"Yes. That we must settle, I think." He kept his eyes upon her. "You +can hardly know that she is mentioned by name in your father's last +letter--the letter to me---as the one person whose companionship he +dreaded for you--the one person he hoped you would consent to part +from." + +Delia had turned white. + +"No--I didn't know." + +"For that reason, and for others, I do entreat you"--he went on, +earnestly--"not to keep her here. Miss Marvell may be all that you +believe her. I have nothing to say against her,--except this. I am told +by those who know that she is already quite notorious in the militant +movement. She has been in prison, and she has made extremely violent +speeches, advocating what Miss Marvell calls war, and what plain people +call--crime. That she should live with you here would not only +prejudice your future, and divide you from people who should be your +natural friends; it would be an open disrespect to your father's +memory." + +There was silence. Then Delia said, evidently mastering her excitement +with difficulty. + +"I can't help it. She _must_ stay with me. Nobody need know--about my +father. Her name is not mentioned in the will." + +"No. That is true. But his letter to me as your guardian and trustee +ought to be regarded equitably as part of the will; and I do not see +how it would be possible for me to acquiesce in something so directly +contrary to his last wishes. I beg you to look at it from my point of +view--" + +"I do"--said Delia, flushing again. "But my letter warned you--" + +"Yes--but I felt on receiving it that you could not possibly be aware +of the full strength of your father's feeling. Let me read you his +words." + +He took an envelope from his pocket, observing her. Delia hastily +interposed. + +"Don't, Mr. Winnington!--I'm sure I know." + +"It is really my duty to read it to you," he said, courteously but +firmly. + +She endured it. The only sign of agitation she shewed was the trembling +of her hands on the back of the chair she leant upon. And when he +returned it to his pocket, she considered for a moment or two, before +she said, breathing unevenly, and stumbling a little.-- + +"That makes no difference, Mr. Winnington. I expect you think me a +monster. All the same I loved my father in my own way. But I am not +going to barter away my freedom for anything or anyone. I am not part +of my father, I am myself. And he is not here to be injured or hurt by +anything I do. I intend to stick to Gertrude Marvell--and she to me." + +And having delivered her ultimatum, she stood like a young goddess, +expectant and defiant. + +Winnington's manner changed. He straightened himself, with a slight +shake of his broad shoulders, and went to look out of the window at the +end of the room. Delia was left to contemplate the back of a very tall +man in a serge suit and to rate herself for the thrill--or the +trepidation--she could not help feeling. What would he say when he +spoke again? She was angry with herself that she could not quite +truthfully say that she did not care. + +When he returned, she divined another man. The tone was as courteous as +ever, but the first relation between them had disappeared; or rather it +had become a business relation, a relation of affairs. + +"You will of course understand--that I cannot _acquiesce_ in that +arrangement?" + +Delia's uncomfortable sense of humor found vent in a laugh--as civil +however as she could make it. + +"I do understand. But I don't quite see what you can do, Mr. +Winnington!" + +He smiled--quite pleasantly. + +"Nor do I--just yet. But of course Miss Marvell will not expect that +your father's estate should provide her with the salary that would +naturally fall to a chaperon whom your guardian could approve?" + +"I shall see to that. We shall not trouble you," said Delia, rather +fiercely. + +"And I shall ask to see Miss Marvell before I go this morning--that I +may point out to her the impropriety of remaining here against your +father's express wishes." + +Delia nodded. + +"All right--but it won't do any good." + +He made no reply, except to turn immediately to the subject of her +place of residence and her allowance. + +"It is I believe understood that you will live mainly here--at +Maumsey." + +"On the contrary!--I wish to spend a great part of the winter in +London." + +"With Miss Marvell?" + +"Certainly." + +"I cannot, I am afraid, let you expect that I shall provide the money." + +"It is my own money!" + +"Not legally. I hate insisting on these things; but perhaps you ought +to know that the _whole_ of your father's property--everything that he +left behind him, is in trust." + +"Which means"--cried Delia, quivering again--"that I am really a +pauper!--that I own nothing but my clothes--barely those!" + +He felt himself a brute. "Can I really keep this up!" he thought. +Aloud, he said--"If you would only make it a little easy for your +trustee, he would be only too thankful to follow out your wishes!" + +Delia made no reply, and Winnington took another turn up and down +before he paused in front of her with the words:-- + +"Can't we come to a compact? If I agree to London--say for six or +seven weeks--is there no promise you can make me in return?" + +With an inward laugh Delia remembered Gertrude's injunction to "keep +something to bargain with." + +"I don't know"--she said, reluctantly. "What sort of promise do you +want?" + +"I want one equal to the concession you ask me to make," he said +gravely. "In my eyes nothing could be more unfitting than that you +should be staying in London--during a time of particularly violent +agitation--under the chaperonage of Miss Marvell, who is already +committed to this agitation. If I agree to such a direct contradiction +of your father's wishes, I must at least have your assurance that you +will do nothing violent or illegal, either down here or in London, and +that in this house above all you will take some pains to respect Sir +Robert's wishes. That I am sure you will promise me?" + +She could not deny the charm of his direct appealing look, and she +hesitated. + +"I was going to have a drawing-room meeting here as soon as +possible"--she said, slowly. + +"On behalf of the 'Daughters of Revolt'?" + +She silently assented. + +"I may feel sure--may I not?--that you will give it up?" + +"It is a matter of conscience with us"--she said proudly--"to spread +our message wherever we go." + +"I don't think I can allow you a conscience all to yourself," he said +smiling. "Consider how I shall be straining mine--in agreeing to the +London plan!" + +"Very well"--the words came out reluctantly. "If you insist--and if +London is agreed upon--I will give it up." + +"Thank you," he said quietly. "And you will take part in no acts of +violence, either here or in London? It seems strange to use such words +to you. I hate to use them. But with the news in this week's papers I +can't help it. You will promise?" + +There was a short silence. + +"I will join in nothing militant down here," said Delia at last. "I +have already told Miss Marvell so." + +"Or in London?" + +She straightened herself. + +"I promise nothing about London." + +Guardian and ward looked straight into each other's faces for a few +moments. Delia's resistance had stirred a passion--a tremor--in her +pulses, she had never known in her struggle with her father. Winnington +was clearly debating with himself, and Delia seemed to see the thoughts +coursing through the grey eyes that looked at her, seriously indeed, +yet not without suggesting a man's humorous spirit behind them. + +"Very well"--he said--"we will talk of London later.--Now may we just +sit down and run through the household arrangements and expenses +here--before I see Miss Marvell. I want to know exactly what you want +doing to this house, and how we can fix you up comfortably." + +Delia assented. Winnington produced a note-book and pencil. Through his +companion's mind was running meanwhile an animated debate. + +"I'm not bound to tell him of those other meetings I have promised? +'Yes, you are!' No,--I'm not. They're not to be here--and if I once +begin asking his leave for things--there'll be no end to it. I mean to +shew him--once for all--that I am of age, and my own mistress. He can't +starve me--or beat me!" + +Her face broke into suppressed laughter as she bent it over the figures +that Winnington was presenting to her. + + * * * * * + +"Well, I am rather disappointed that you don't want to do more to the +house," said Winnington, as he rose and put up his note-book. "I +thought it might have been an occupation for the autumn and winter. But +at least we can decide on the essential things, and the work can be +done while you are in town. I am glad you like the servants Mrs. Bird +has found for you. Now I am going off to the Bank to settle everything +about the opening of your account, and the quarterly cheque we have +agreed on shall be paid in to-morrow." + +"Very well." But instantly through the girl's mind there shot up the +qualifying thought. "_He_ may say how it is to be spent--but _I_ have +made no promise!" + +He approached her to take his leave. + +"My sister comes home to-night. Will you try the new car and have tea +with us on Thursday?" Delia assented. "And before I go I should like to +say a word about some of the neighbours." + +He tried to give her a survey of the land. Lady Tonbridge, of course, +would be calling upon her directly. She was actually in the village--in +the tiniest bandbox of a house. Her husband's brutality had at +last--two years before this date--forced her to leave him, with her +girl of fifteen. "A miserable story--better taken for granted. She is +the pluckiest woman alive!" Then the Amberleys--the Rector, his wife +and daughter Susy were pleasant people--"Susy is a particular friend of +mine. It'll be jolly if you like her." + +"Oh, no, she won't take to me!" said Delia with decision. + +"Why not?" + +But Delia only shook her head, a little contemptuously. + +"We shall see," said Winnington. "Well, good night. Remember, anything +I can do for you--here I am." + +His eyes smiled, but Delia was perfectly conscious that the eager +cordiality, the touch of something like tenderness, which had entered +into his earlier manner, had disappeared. She realised, and with a +moment's soreness, that she had offended his sense of right--of what a +daughter's feeling should be towards a dead father, at any rate, in the +first hours of bereavement, when the recollections of death and +suffering are still fresh. + +"I can't help it," she thought stubbornly. "It's all part of the price +one pays." + +But when he was gone, she stood a long time by the window without +moving, thinking about the hour which had just passed. The impression +left upon her by Winnington's personality was uncomfortably strong. She +knew now that, in spite of her bravado, she had dreaded to find it so, +and the reality had more than confirmed the anticipation. She was +committed to a struggle with a man whom she must respect, and could not +help liking; whose only wish was to help and protect her. And beside +the man's energetic and fruitful maturity, she became, as it were, the +spectator of her own youth and stumbling inexperience. + +But these misgivings did not last long. A passionate conviction, a +fanatical affection, came to her aid, and her doubts were impatiently +dismissed. + + * * * * * + +Winnington found Miss Blanchflower's chaperon in a little sitting-room +on the ground floor already appropriated to her, surrounded with a +vast litter of letters and newspapers which she hastily pushed aside as +he entered. He had a long interview with her, and as he afterwards +confessed to Lady Tonbridge, he had rarely put his best powers forward +to so little purpose. Miss Marvell did not attempt to deny that she was +coming to live at Maumsey in defiance of the wishes of Delia's father +and guardian, and of the public opinion of those who were to be +henceforward Delia's friends and neighbours. + +"But Delia has asked me to live with her. She is twenty-one, and women +are not now the mere chattels they once were. Both she and I have wills +of our own. You will of course give me no salary. I require none. But I +don't see how you're going to turn me out of Delia's house, if Delia +wishes me to stay." + +And Winnington must needs acknowledge, at least to himself, that he did +not see either. + +He put the lady however through a cross-examination as to her +connection with militancy which would have embarrassed or intimidated +most women; but Gertrude Marvell, a slight and graceful figure, sitting +erect on the edge of her chair, bore it with perfect equanimity, +apparently frank, and quite unashamed. Certainly she belonged to the +"Daughters of Revolt," the record of her imprisonment was there to shew +it; and so did Delia. The aim of both their lives was to obtain the +parliamentary vote for women, and in her opinion and that of many +others, the time for constitutional action--"for that nonsense"--as she +scornfully put it, had long gone by. As to what she intended to do, or +advise Delia to do, that was her own affair. One did not give away +one's plans to the enemy. But she realised, of course, that it would be +unkind to Delia to plunge her into possible trouble, or to run the risk +herself of arrest or imprisonment during the early days of Delia's +mourning; and of her own accord she graciously offered the assurance +that neither she nor Delia would commit any illegality during the two +months or so that they might be settled at Maumsey. As to what might +happen later, she, like Delia, declined to give any assurances. The +parliamentary situation was becoming desperate, and any action whatever +on the part of women which might serve to prod the sluggish mind of +England before another general election, was in her view not only +legitimate but essential. + +"Of course I know what your conscience says on the matter," she said, +with her steady eyes on Winnington. "But--excuse me for saying so--your +conscience is not my affair." + +Winnington rose, and prepared to take his leave. If he felt nonplussed, +he managed not to shew it. + +"Very well. For the present I acquiesce. But you will scarcely wonder, +Miss Marvell, after this interview between us, if you find yourself +henceforward under observation. You are here in defiance of Miss +Blanchflower's legal guardian. I protest against your influence over +her; and I disapprove of your presence here. I shall do my best to +protect her from you." + +She nodded. + +"There of course, you will be in your right." + +And rising, she turned to the open window and the bright garden +outside, with a smiling remark on the decorative value of begonias, as +though nothing had happened. + +Winnington's temperament did not allow him to answer a woman uncivilly +under any circumstances. But they parted as duellists part before the +fray. Miss Marvell acknowledged his "Good afternoon," with a pleasant +bow, keeping her hands the while in the pockets of her serge jacket, +and she remained standing till Winnington had left the room. + +"Now for Lady Tonbridge!" thought Winnington, as he rode away. "If she +don't help me out, I'm done!" + +At the gate of Maumsey he stopped to speak to the lodge-keeper, and as +he did so, a man opened the gate, and came in. With a careless nod to +Winnington he took his way up the drive. Winnington looked after him in +some astonishment. + +"What on earth can that fellow be doing here?" + +He scented mischief; little suspecting however that a note from +Gertrude Marvell lay in the pocket of the man's shabby overcoat, +together with that copy of the _Tocsin_ which Delia's sharp eyes had +detected the week before in the hands of its owner. + +Meanwhile as he drove homeward, instead of the details of county +business, the position of Delia Blanchflower, her personality, her +loveliness, her defiance of him, absorbed his mind completely. He began +to foresee the realities of the struggle before him, and the sheer +dramatic interest of it held him, as though someone presented the case, +and bade him watch how it worked out. + + + + +Chapter VI + + +The village or rather small town of Great Maumsey took its origin in a +clearing of that royal forest which had now receded from it a couple of +miles to the south. But it was still a rural and woodland spot. The +trees in the fields round it had still a look of wildness, as survivors +from the primeval chase, and were grouped more freely and romantically +than in other places; while from the hill north of the church, one +could see the New Forest stretching away, blue beyond blue, purple +beyond purple, till it met the shining of the sea. + +Great Maumsey had a vast belief in itself, and was reckoned exclusive +and clannish by other places. It was proud of its old Georgian houses, +with their white fronts, their pillared porches, and the pediment +gables in their low roofs. The owners of these houses, of which there +were many, charmingly varied, in the long main street, were well aware +that they had once been old-fashioned, and were now as much admired in +their degree, as the pictures of the great English artists, Hogarth, +Reynolds, Romney, with which they were contemporary. There were earlier +houses too, of brick and timber, with overhanging top stories and +moss-grown roofs. There was a green surrounded with post and rails, on +which a veritable stocks still survived, kept in careful repair as a +memento of our barbarous forbears, by the parish Council. The church, +dating from that wonderful fourteenth century when all the world must +have gone mad for church-building, stood back from the main street, +with the rectory beside it, in a modest seclusion of their own. + +It was all very English, very spick and span, and apparently very well +to do. That the youth of the village was steadily leaving it for the +Colonies, that the constant marrying in and in which had gone on for +generations had produced an ugly crop of mental deficiency, and +physical deformity among the inhabitants--that the standard of morals +was too low, and the standard of drink too high--were matters well +known to the Rector and the Doctor. But there were no insanitary +cottages, and no obvious scandals of any sort. The Maumsey estate had +always been well managed; there were a good many small gentlefolk who +lived in the Georgian houses, and owing to the competition of the +railways, agricultural wages were rather better than elsewhere. + +About a mile from the eastern end of the village was the small +modernised manor-house of Bridge End, which belonged to Mark +Winnington, and where his sister Alice, Mrs. Matheson, kept him company +for the greater part of the year. The gates leading to Maumsey lay a +little west of the village, while on the hill to the north rose, +conspicuous against its background of wood, the famous old house of +Monk Lawrence. It looked down upon Maumsey on the one hand and Bridge +End on the other. It was generally believed that the owner of it, Sir +Wilfrid Lang, had exhausted his resources in restoring it, and that it +was the pressure of debt rather than his wife's health which had led to +its being shut up so long. + +The dwellers in the village regarded it as the jewel in their +landscape, their common heritage and pride. Lady Tonbridge, whose +little drawing-room and garden to the back looked out on the hill and +the old house, was specially envied because she possessed so good a +view of it. She herself inhabited one of the very smallest of the +Georgian houses, in the main street of Maumsey. She paid a rent of no +more than Ł40 a year for it, and Maumsey people who liked her, felt +affectionately concerned that a duke's grand-daughter should be reduced +to a rent and quarters so insignificant. + +Lady Tonbridge however was not at all concerned for the smallness of +her house. She regarded it as the outward and visible sign of the most +creditable action of her life--the action which would--or should--bring +her most marks when the recording angel came to make up her account. +Every time she surveyed its modest proportions the spirit of freedom +danced within her, and she envied none of the noble halls in which she +had formerly lived, and to some of which she still paid occasional +Visits. + +At tea-time, on the day following Winnington's first interview with his +ward, Madeleine Tonbridge came into her little drawing-room, in her +outdoor things, and carrying a bundle of books under the arm. + +As far as such words could ever apply to her she was tired and dusty. +But her little figure was so alert and trim, her grey linen dress and +its appointments so dainty, and the apple-red in her small cheeks so +bright, that one might have conceived her as just fresh from a maid's +hands, and stepping out to amuse herself, instead of as just returning +from a tedious afternoon's work, by which she had earned the large sum +of five shillings. A woman of forty-five, she looked her age, and she +had never possessed any positive beauty, unless it were the beauty of +delicate and harmonious proportion. Yet she had been pestered with +suitors as a girl, and unfortunately had married the least desirable of +them all. And now in middle life, no one had more devoted men-friends; +and that without exciting a breath of scandal, even in a situation +where one might have thought it inevitable. + +She looked round her as she entered. + +"Nora!--where are you?" + +A girl, apparently about seventeen, put her head in through the French +window that opened to the garden. + +"Ready for tea, Mummy?" + +"Rather!"--said Lady Tonbridge, with energy, as she put a match to the +little spirit kettle on the tea-table where everything stood ready. +"Come in, darling." + +And throwing off her hat and jacket, she sank into a comfortable +arm-chair with a sigh of fatigue. Her daughter quietly loosened her +mother's walking-shoes and took them away. Then they kissed each other, +and Nora went to look after the tea. She was a slim, pale-faced +school-girl, with yellow-brown eyes, and yellow-brown hair, not as yet +very attractive in looks, but her mother was convinced that it was only +the plainness of the cygnet, and that the swan was only a few years +off. Nora, who at seventeen had no illusions, was grateful to her +mother for the belief but did not share it in the least. + +"I'm sure you gave that girl half an hour over time," she said +reprovingly, as she handed Lady Tonbridge her cup of tea--"I can't +think why you do it." She referred to the solicitor's daughter whom +Lady Tonbridge had been that afternoon instructing in the uses of the +French participle. + +"Nor can I. A kind of ridiculous _esprit de métier_ I suppose. I +undertook to teach her French, and when after all these weeks she don't +seem to know a thing more than when she began, I feel as if I were +picking her dear papa's pockets." + +"Which is absurd," said Nora, buttering her mother's toast, "and I +can't let you do it. Half a crown an hour is silly enough already, and +for you to throw in half an hour extra for nothing, can't be stood." + +"I wish I could get it up to four hours a day," sighed the mother, +munching happily at her toast, while she held out her small stockinged +feet to the fire which Nora had just lit. "Just think. Ten shillings a +day--six days a week--ten months in the year. Why it would pay the +rent, we could have another servant, and I could give you twenty pounds +a year more for your clothes." + +"Much obliged--but I prefer a live Mummy--and no clothes--to a dead +one. More tea?" + +"Thanks. No chance, of course. Where could one find four persons a day, +in Maumsey, or near Maumsey, who want to learn French? The notion's +absurd. I shouldn't get the lessons I do, if it weren't for the +'Honourable.'" + +"Snobs!" + +"Not at all! Not a single family out of the people I go to deserve to +be called snobs. It's the natural dramatic instinct in us all. You +don't expect an 'Honourable' to be giving French lessons at half a +crown an hour, and when she does, you say--'Hullo! Some screw loose, +somewhere!'--and you at once feel a new interest in the French tongue, +and ask her to come along. I don't mind it a bit. I sit and spin yarns +about Drawing-rooms and Court balls, and it all helps.--When did you +get home?" + +For Nora attended a High School in a neighbouring town, some five miles +away, journeying there and back by train. + +"Half-past four. I met Mr. Winnington in his car, and he said he'd be +here about six." + +"Good. I'm dying to talk to him. I have written to the Abbey to say we +will call to-morrow. Of course, I ought to be her nursing mother in +these parts"--said Lady Tonbridge reflectively--"I knew Sir Robert in +frocks, and we were always pals. But my dear, it was I who hatched the +cockatrice!" + +Nora nodded gravely. + +"It was I," pursued Lady Tonbridge, penitentially,--"who saddled him +with that woman--and I know he never forgave me. He as good as told me +so when we last met--for those few hours--at Basle. But how could I +tell? How could anybody tell--she would turn out such a creature? I +only knew that she had taken all kinds of honours. I thought I was +sending him a treasure." + +"All the same you did it, Mummy. And it won't do to give yourself airs +now! That's what Mr. Winnington says. You've got to help him out." + +"I say, don't talk secrets!" said a voice just outside the room. "For I +can't help hearing 'em. May I come in?" + +And, pushing the half-open door, Mark Winnington stood smiling on the +threshold. + +"I apologise. But your little maid let me in--and then vanished +somewhere, like greased lightning--after a dog." + +"Oh, come in," said Lady Tonbridge, with resignation, extending at the +same time a hand of welcome--"the little maid, as you call her, only +came from your workhouse yesterday, and I haven't yet discovered a +grain of sense in her. But she gets plenty of exercise. If she isn't +chasing dogs, it's cats." + +"Don't you attack my schools," said Winnington seating himself at the +tea-table. "They're A1, and you're very lucky to get one of my girls." + +Madeleine Tonbridge replied tartly, that if he was a poor-law guardian, +and responsible for a barrack school it was no cause for boasting. She +had not long parted with another of his girls, who had tried on her +blouses, and gone out in her boots. She thought of offering the new +girl a free and open choice of her wardrobe to begin with, so as to +avoid unpleasantness. + +"We all know that every mistress has the maid she deserves," said +Winnington, deep in gingerbread cake. "I leave it there--" + +"Yes, jolly well do!" cried Nora, who had come to sit on a stool in +front of her mother and Winnington, her eager eyes glancing from one to +the other--"Don't start Mummy on servants, Mr. Winnington. If you do, I +shall go to bed. There's only one thing worth talking about--and +that's--" + +"Maumsey!" he said, laughing at her. + +"Have you accomplished anything?" asked Lady Tonbridge. "Don't tell me +you've dislodged the Fury?" + +Winnington shook his head. + +"_J'y suis--j'y reste_!" + +"I thought so. There is no civilised way by which men can eject a +woman. Tell me all about it." + +Winnington, however, instead of expatiating on the Maumsey household, +turned the conversation to something else--especially to Nora's first +attempts at golf, in which he had been her teacher. Nora, whose +reasonableness was abnormal, very soon took the hint, and after five +minutes' "chaff" with Winnington, to whom she was devoted, she took up +her work and went back to the garden. + +"Nobody ever snubs me so efficiently as Nora," said Madeleine +Tonbridge, with resignation, "though you come a good second. Discreet I +shall never be. Don't tell me anything if you don't want to." + +"But of course I want to! And there is nobody in the world so +absolutely bound to help me as you." + +"I knew you'd say that. Don't pile it on. Give me the kitten--and +describe your proceedings." + +Winnington handed her the grey Persian kitten reposing on a distant +chair, and Lady Tonbridge, who always found the process conducive to +clear thinking, stroked and combed the creature's beautiful fur, while +the man talked,--with entire freedom now that they were _tęte-ŕ-tęte._ + +She was his good friend indeed, and she had also been the good friend +of Sir Robert Blanchflower. It was natural that to her he should lay +his perplexities bare. + + * * * * * + +But after she had heard his story and given her best mind to his +position, she could not refrain from expressing the wonder she had felt +from the beginning that he should ever have accepted it at all. + +"What on earth made you do it? Bobby Blanchflower had no more real +claim on you than this kitten!" + +Winnington's grey eyes fixed on the trees outside shewed a man trying +to retrace his own course. + +"He wrote me a very touching letter. And I have always thought that +men--and women--ought to be ready to do this kind of service for each +other. I should have felt a beast if I had said No, at once. But I +confess now that I have seen Miss Delia, I don't know whether I can do +the slightest good." + +"Hold on!" said Lady Tonbridge, sharply,--"You can't give it +up--now." + +Winnington laughed. + +"I have no intention of giving it up. Only I warn you that I shall +probably make a mess of it." + +"Well"--the tone was coolly reflective--"that may do _you_ +good--whatever happens to the girl. You have never made a mess of +anything yet in your life. It will be a new experience." + +Winnington protested hotly that her remark only shewed how little even +intimate friends know of each other's messes, and that his were already +legion. Lady Tonbridge threw him an incredulous look. As he sat there +in his bronzed and vigorous manhood, the first crowsfeet just beginning +to shew round the eyes, and the first streaks of grey in the brown +curls, she said to herself that none of her young men acquaintance +possessed half the physical attractiveness of Mark Winnington; while +none--old or young--could rival him at all in the humane and winning +spell he carried about with him. To see Mark Winnington _aux prises_ +with an adventure in which not even his tact, his knowledge of men and +women, his candour, or his sweetness, might be sufficient to win +success, piqued her curiosity; perhaps even flattered that slight +inevitable malice, wherewith ordinary mortals protect themselves +against the favourites of the gods. + +She was determined however to help him if she could, and she put him +through a number of questions. The girl then was as handsome as she +promised to be? A beauty, said Winnington--and of the heroic or poetic +type. And the Fury? Winnington described the neat, little lady, +fashionably Pressed and quiet mannered, who had embittered the last +years of Sir Robert Blanchflower, and firmly possessed herself of his +daughter. + +"You will see her to-morrow, at my house, when you come to tea. I +carefully didn't ask her, but I am certain she will come, and Alice and +I shall of course have to receive her." + +"She is not thin-skinned then?" + +"What fanatic is? It is one of the secrets of their strength." + +"She probably regards us all as the dust under her feet," said Lady +Tonbridge. "I wonder what game she will be up to here. Have you seen +the _Times_ this morning?" + +Winnington nodded. It contained three serious cases of arson, in which +Suffragette literature and messages had been discovered among the +ruins, besides a number of minor outrages. An energetic leading article +breathed the exasperation of the public, and pointed out the spread of +the campaign of violence. + +By this time Lady Tonbridge had carried her visitor into the garden, +and they were walking up and down among the late September flowers. +Beyond the garden lay green fields and hedgerows; beyond the fields +rose the line of wooded hill, and, embedded in trees, the grey and +gabled front of Monk Lawrence. + +Winnington reported the very meagre promise he had been able to get out +of his ward and her companion. + +"The comfort is," said Lady Tonbridge, "that this is a sane +neighbourhood--comparatively. They won't get much support. Oh, I don't +know though--" she added quickly. "There's that man--Mr. Lathrop, Paul +Lathrop--who took Wood Cottage last year--a queer fish, by all +accounts. I'm told he's written the most violent things backing up the +militants generally. However, his own story has put _him_ out of +Court." + +"His own story?" said Winnington, with a puzzled look. + +"Don't be so innocent!" laughed Lady Tonbridge, rather impatiently. "I +always tell you you don't give half place enough in life to +gossip-'human nature's daily food.' I knew all about him a week after +he arrived. However, I don't propose to save you trouble, Mr. Guardian! +Go and look up a certain divorce case, with Mr. Lathrop's name in it, +some time last year--if you want to know. That's enough for that." + +But Winnington interrupted her, with a disturbed look. "I happened to +meet that very man you are speaking of--yesterday--in the Abbey drive, +going to call." + +Lady Tonbridge shrugged her shoulders. + +"There you see their freemasonry. I don't suppose they approve his +morals--but he supports their politics. You won't be able to banish +him!--Well, so the child is lovely? and interesting?" + +Winnington assented warmly. + +"But determined to make herself a nuisance to you? Hm! Mr. Mark--dear +Mr. Mark--don't fall in love with her!" + +Winnington's expression altered. He did not answer for a moment. Then +he said, looking away-- + +"Do you think you need have said that?" + +"No!"--cried Madeleine Tonbridge remorsefully. "I am a wretch. But +don't--_don't_!" + +This time he smiled at her, though not without vexation. + +"Do you forget that I am nearly old enough to be her father?" + +"Oh that's nonsense!" she said hastily. "However--I'm not going to +flatter you--or tease you. Forgive me. I put it out of my head. I +wonder if there is anybody in the field already?" + +"Not that I am aware of." + +"Of course you know this kind of thing spoils a girl's prospects of +marriage enormously. Men won't run the risk." + +Winnington laughed. + +"And all the time, you're a Suffragist yourself!" + +"Yes, indeed I am," was the stout reply. "Here am I, with a house and a +daughter, a house-parlourmaid, a boot-boy, and rates to pay. Why +shouldn't I vote as well as you? But the difference between me and the +Fury is that she wants the vote this year--this month--_this +minute_--and I don't care whether it comes in my time--or Nora's +time--or my grandchildren's time. I say we ought to have it--that it is +our right--and you men are dolts not to give it us. But I sit and wait +peaceably till you do--till the apple is ripe and drops. And meanwhile +these wild women prevent its ripening at all. So long as they rage, +there it hangs--out of our reach. So that I'm not only ashamed of them +as a woman--but out of all patience with them as a Suffragist! However +for heaven's sake don't let's discuss the horrid subject. I'll do all I +can for Delia--both for your sake and Bob's--I'll keep my best eye on +the Fury--I feel myself of course most abominably responsible for +her--and I hope for the best. Who's coming to your tea-party?" + +Winnington enumerated. At the name of Susy Amberley, his hostess threw +him a sudden look, but said nothing. + +"The Andrews'--Captain, Mrs. and Miss--," Lady Tonbridge exclaimed. + +"Why did you ask that horrid woman?" + +"We didn't! Alice indiscreetly mentioned that Miss Blanchflower was +coming to tea, and she asked herself." + +"She's enough to make any one militant! If I hear her quote 'the hand +that rocks the cradle rules the world' once more, I shall have to smite +her. The girl's _down-trodden_ I tell you! Well, well--if you gossip +too little, I gossip too much. Heavens!--what a light!" + +Winnington turned to see the glow of a lovely afternoon fusing all the +hill-side in a glory of gold and amethyst, and the windows in the long +front of Monk Lawrence taking fire under the last rays of a +fast-dropping sun. + +"Do you know--I sometimes feel anxious about that house!" said +Madeleine Tonbridge, abruptly. "It's empty--it's famous--it belongs to +a member of the Government. What is to prevent the women from attacking +it?" + +"In the first place, it isn't empty. The Keeper, Daunt, from the South +Lodge, has now moved into the house. I know, because Susy Amberley told +me. She goes up there to teach one of my cripples--Daunt's second girl. +In the next, the police are on the alert. And last--who on earth would +dare to attack Monk Lawrence? The odium of it would be too great. A +house bound up with English history and English poetry--No! They are +not such fools!" + +Lady Tonbridge shook her head. + +"Don't be so sure. Anyway you as a magistrate can keep the police up to +the mark." + +Winnington departed, and his old friend was left to meditate on his +predicament. It was strange to see Mark Winnington, with his +traditional, English ways and feelings--carried, as she always felt, to +their highest--thus face to face with the new feminist forces--as +embodied in Delia Blanchflower. He had resented, clearly resented, the +introduction--by her, Madeleine--of the sex element into the problem. +But how difficult to keep it out! "He will see her constantly--he will +have to exercise his will against hers--he will get his way--and then +hate himself for conquering--he will disapprove, and yet admire,--will +offend her, yet want to please her--a creature all fire, and beauty, +and heroisms out of place! And she--could she, could I, could any woman +I know, fight Mark Winnington--and not love him all the time? Men are +men, and women are women--in spite of all these 'isms,' and 'causes.' I +bet--but I don't know what I bet!--" Then her thoughts gradually veered +away from Mark to quite another person. + +How would Susan Amberley be affected by this new interest in Mark +Winnington's life? Madeleine's thoughts recalled a gentle face, a pair +of honest eyes, a bearing timid and yet dignified. So she was teaching +one of Mark's crippled children? And Mark thought no doubt she would +have done the like for anyone else with a charitable hobby? Perhaps she +would, for her heart was a fount of pity. All the same, the man--blind +bat!--understood nothing. No fault of his perhaps; but Lady Tonbridge +felt a woman's angry sympathy with a form of waste so common and so +costly. + +And now the modest worshipper must see her hero absorbed day by day, +and hour by hour, in the doings of a dazzling and magnificent creature +like Delia Blanchflower. What food for torment, even in the meekest +spirit! + +So that the last word the vivacious woman said to herself was a soft +"Poor Susy!" dropped into the heart of a September rose as she stooped +to gather it. + + + + +Chapter VII + + +A small expectant party were gathered for afternoon tea in the +book-lined sitting-room--the house possessed no proper drawing-room--of +Bridge End. Mrs. Matheson indeed, Mark's widowed sister, would have +resented it had anyone used the word "party" in its social sense. Miss +Blanchflower's father had been dead scarcely a month; and Mrs. Matheson +in her quiet way, held strongly by all the decencies of life. It was +merely a small gathering of some of the oldest friends and neighbours +of Miss Blanchflower's family--those who had stood nearest to her +grandparents--to welcome the orphan girl among them. Lady Tonbridge--of +whom it was commonly believed, though no one exactly knew why, that Bob +Blanchflower, as a youth had been in love with her, before ever he met +his Greek wife; Dr. France, who had attended both the old people till +their deaths, and had been much beloved by them; his wife; the Rector, +Mrs. Amberley, and Susy:--Mrs. Matheson had not intended to ask anyone +else. But the Andrews' had asked themselves, and she had not had the +moral courage to tell them that the occasion was not for them. She was +always getting Mark into difficulties, she penitently reflected, by her +inability to say No, at the right time, and with the proper force, Mark +could always say it, and stick to it smiling--without giving offence. + +Mrs. Matheson was at the tea-table. She was tall and thin, with +something of her brother's good looks, but none of his over-flowing +vitality. Her iron-grey hair was rolled back from her forehead; she +wore a black dress with a high collar of white lawn, and long white +cuffs. Little Mrs. Amberley, the Rector's wife, sitting beside her, +envied her hostess her figure, and her long slender neck. She herself +had long since parted with any semblance of a waist, and the boned +collars of the day were a perpetual torment to one whose neck, from the +dressmaker's point of view, scarcely existed. But Mrs. Amberley endured +them, because they were the fashion; and to be moderately in the +fashion meant simply keeping up to the mark--not falling behind. It was +like going to church--an acceptance of that "general will," which +according to the philosophers, is the guardian of all religion and all +morality. + +The Rector too, who was now handing the tea-cake, believed in +fashion--ecclesiastical fashion. Like his wife, he was gentle and +ineffective. His clerical dress expressed a moderate Anglicanism, and +his opinions were those of his class and neighbourhood, put for him day +by day in his favourite newspaper, with a cogency at which he +marvelled. Yet he was no more a hypocrite than his wife, and below his +common-places both of manner and thought there lay warm feelings and a +quick conscience. He was just now much troubled about his daughter +Susy. The night before she had told her mother and him that she wished +to go to London, to train for nursing. It had been an upheaval in their +quiet household. Why should she dream of such a thing? How could they +ever get on without her? Who would copy out his sermons, or help with +the schools? And her mother--so dependent on her only daughter! The +Rector's mind was much disturbed, and he was accordingly more absent +and more ineffective than usual. + +Susy herself, in a white frock, with touches of blue at her waist, and +in her shady hat, was moving about with cups of tea, taking that place +of Mrs. Matthews's lieutenant, which was always tacitly given her by +Winnington and his sister on festal occasions at Bridge End. As she +passed Winnington, who had been captured by Mrs. Andrews, he turned +with alacrity-- + +"My dear Miss Susy! What are you doing? Give me that cup!" + +"No--please! I like doing it!" And she passed on, smiling, towards Lady +Tonbridge, whose sharp eyes had seen the trivial contact between +Winnington and the girl. How the mere sound of his voice had changed +the aspect of the young face! Poor child--poor child! + +"How well you look Susy! Such a pretty dress!" said Madeleine tenderly +in the girl's ear. + +Susy flushed. + +"You really think so? Mother gave it me for a birthday present." She +looked up with her soft, brown eyes, which always seemed to have in +them, even when they smiled, a look of pleading--as of someone at a +disadvantage. At the same moment Winnington passed her. + +"_Could_ you go and talk to Miss Andrews?" he said, over his shoulder, +so that only she heard. + +Susy went obediently across the room to where a silent, dark-haired +girl sat by herself, quite apart from the rest of the circle. Marion +Andrews was plain, with large features and thick wiry hair. Maumsey +society in general declared her "impossible." She rarely talked; she +seemed to have no tastes; and the world believed her both stupid and +disagreeable. And by contrast with the effusive amiabilities of her +mother, she could appear nothing else. Mrs. Andrews indeed had a way of +using her daughter as a foil to her own qualities, which must have +paralysed the most self-confident, and Marion had never possessed any +belief in herself at all. + +As Susy Amberley timidly approached her, and began to make +conversation, she looked up coldly, and hardly answered. Meanwhile Mrs. +Andrews was pouring out a flood of talk under which the uncomfortable +Winnington--for it always fell to him as host to entertain her--sat +practising endurance. She was a selfish, egotistical woman, with a vast +command of sloppy phrases, which did duty for all that real feeling or +sympathy of which she possessed uncommonly little. On this occasion she +was elaborately dressed,--overdressed--in a black satin gown, which +seemed to Winnington, an ugly miracle of trimming and tortured "bits." +Her large hat was thick with nodding plumes, and beside her spotless +white gloves and showy lace scarf, her daughter's slovenly coat and +skirt, of the cheapest ready-made kind, her soiled gloves, and clumsy +shoes, struck even a man uncomfortably. That poor girl seemed to grow +plainer and more silent every year. + +He was just shaking himself free from the mother, when Dr. and Mrs. +France were announced. The doctor came in with a furrowed brow, and a +preoccupied look. After greeting Mrs. Matheson, and the other guests, +he caught a glance of enquiry from Winnington and went up to him. + +"The evening paper is full of the most shocking news!" he said, with +evident agitation. "There has been an attempt on Hampton Court--and two +girls who were caught breaking windows in Piccadilly have been badly +hurt by the crowd. A bomb too has been found in the entrance of one of +the tube stations. It was discovered in time, or the results might have +been frightful." + +"Good Heavens--those women again!" cried Mrs. Andrews, lifting hands +and eyes. + +No one else spoke. But in everyone's mind the same thought emerged. At +any moment the door might open, and Delia Blanchflower and her chaperon +might come in. + +The doctor drew Winnington aside into a bow-window. + +"Did you know that the lady living with Miss Blanchflower was a member +of this League of Revolt?" + +"Yes. You mean they are implicated in these things?" + +"Certainly! I am told Miss Marvell was once an official--probably is +still. My dear Winnington--you can't possibly allow it!" He spoke with +the freedom of an intimate friend. + +"How can I stop it," said Winnington, frowning. "My ward is of age. If +Miss Marvell does anything overt--But she has promised to do nothing +violent down here--they both have." + +The doctor, an impetuous Ulsterman with white hair, and black eyes, +shrugged his shoulders impatiently. "When women once take to this kind +of thing"--he was interrupted by Mrs. Andrews' heavy voice rising +above the rather nervous and disjointed conversation of the other +guests--"If women only knew where their real power lies, Mrs. Matheson! +Why, 'the hand that rocks the cradle'--" + +A sudden crash was heard. + +"Oh, dear"--cried Lady Tonbridge, who had upset a small table with a +plate of cakes on it across the tail of Mrs. Andrews' dress--"how +stupid I am!" + +"My gown!--my gown!" cried Mrs. Andrews in an anguish, groping for the +cakes. + +In the midst of the confusion the drawing-room door had opened, and +there on the threshold stood Delia Blanchflower, with a slightly-built +lady behind her. + +Winnington turned with a start and went forward to greet them. Dr. +France left behind in the bow-window observed their entry with a +mingling of curiosity and repulsion. It seemed to him that their entry +was that of persons into a hostile camp,--the senses all alert against +attack. Delia was of course in black, her face sombrely brilliant in +its dark setting of a plain felt hat, like the hat of a Cavalier +without its feathers. "She knows perfectly well we have been talking +about her!" thought Dr. France,--"that we have seen the newspapers. She +comes in ready for battle--perhaps thirsty for it! She is +excited--while the woman behind her is perfectly cool. The two +types!--the enthusiast--and the fanatic. But, by Jove, the girl is +handsome!" + +Through the sudden silence created by their entry, Delia made her way +to Mrs. Matheson. Holding her head very high, she introduced "My +chaperon--Miss Marvell." And Winnington's sister nervously shook hands +with the quietly smiling lady who followed in Miss Blanchflower's wake. +Then while Delia sat down beside the hostess, and Winnington busied +himself in supplying her with tea, her companion fell to the Rector's +care. + +The Rector, like Winnington, was not a gossip, partly out of scruples, +but mainly perhaps because of a certain deficient vitality, and he had +but disjointed ideas on the subject of the two ladies who had now +settled at the Abbey. He understood, however, that Delia, whom he +remembered as a child, was a "Suffragette," and that Mr. Winnington, +Delia's guardian, disapproved of the lady she had brought with her, +why, he could not recollect. This vague sense of something "naughty" +and abnormal gave a certain tremor to his manner as he stood beside +Gertrude Marvell, shifting from one foot to the other, and nervously +plying her with tea-cake. + +Miss Marvell's dark eyes meanwhile glanced round the room, taking in +everybody. They paused a moment on the figure of the doctor, erect and +spare in a closely-buttoned coat, on his spectacled face, and +conspicuous brow, under waves of nearly white hair; then passed on. Dr. +France watched her, following the examining eyes with his own. He saw +them change, with a look--the slightest passing look--of recognition, +and at the same moment he was aware of Marion Andrews, sitting in the +light of a side window. What had happened to the girl? He saw her dark +face, for one instant, exultant, transformed; like some forest hollow +into which a sunbeam strikes. The next, she was stooping over a copy of +"Punch" which lay on the table beside her. A rush of speculation ran +through the doctor's mind. + +"And you are settled at Maumsey?" Mrs. Matheson was saying to Delia; +aware as soon as the question was uttered that it was a foolish one. + +"Oh no, not settled. We shall be there a couple of months." + +"The house will want some doing up, Mark thinks." + +"I don't think so. Not much anyway. It does very well." + +There was an entire absence of girlish softness or shyness in the +speaker's manner, though it was both courteous and easy. The +voice--musically deep--and the splendid black eyes, that looked so +steadily at her, intimidated Mark Winnington's gentle sister. + +Mrs. Andrews, whose dress, after Susy's ministration, had been declared +out of danger, bent across the tea-table, all smiles and benevolence +again, the plumes in her black hat nodding-- + +"It's like old times to have the Abbey open again, Miss Blanchflower! +Every week we used to go to your dear grandmother, for her Tuesday +work-party. I'm afraid you'll hardly revive _that_!" + +Delia brought a rather intimidating brow to bear upon the speaker. + +"I'm afraid not." + +Lady Tonbridge, who had already greeted Delia as a woman naturally +greets the daughter of an old friend, came up as Delia spoke to ask for +a second cup of tea, and laid her hand on the girl's shoulder. + +"Very sorry to miss you yesterday. I won't insult you by saying you've +grown. How about the singing? You used to sing I remember when I stayed +with you." + +"Yes--but I've given it up. I took lessons at Munich last spring. But I +can't work at it enough. And if one can't work, it's no good." + +"Why can't you work at it?" + +Delia suddenly looked up in her questioner's face. Her gravity broke up +in a broad smile. + +"Because there's so much else to do." + +"What else?" + +The look of excited defiance in the girl's eyes sharpened. + +"Do you really want to know?" + +"Certainly. The Suffrage and that kind of thing?" said Madeleine +Tonbridge lightly. + +"The Suffrage and that kind of thing!" repeated Delia, still smiling. + +Captain Andrews who was standing near, and whose martial mind was all +in confusion, owing to Miss Blanchflower's beauty, put in an eager +word. + +"I never can understand, Miss Blanchflower, why you ladies want the +vote! Why, you can twist us round your little fingers!" + +Delia turned upon him. + +"But I don't want to twist you round my little finger!" she said, with +energy. "It wouldn't give me the smallest pleasure." + +"I thought you wanted to manage us," said the Captain, unable to take +his eyes from her. "But you do manage us already!" + +Delia's glance showed her uncertain whether the foe was worth her +steel. + +"We want to manage ourselves," she said at last, smiling indifferently. +"We say you do it badly." + +The Captain attempted to spar with her a little longer. Winnington +meanwhile stood, a silent listener, amid the group round the tea-table. +He--and Dr. France--were both acutely conscious of the realities behind +this empty talk; of the facts recorded in the day's newspapers; and of +the connection between the quiet lady in grey who had come in with +Delia Blanchflower, and the campaign of public violence, which was now +in good earnest alarming and exasperating the country. + +Where was the quiet lady in grey? Winnington was thinking too much +about his ward to keep a constant eye upon her. But Dr. France observed +her closely, and he presently saw what puzzled him anew. After a +conversation, exceedingly bland, though rather monosyllabic, on Miss +Marvell's part, with the puzzled and inarticulate Rector, Delia's +chaperon had gently and imperceptibly moved away from the tea-table. +That she had been very coldly received by the company in general was no +doubt evident to her. She was now sitting beside that strange girl +Marion Andrews--to whom, as the Doctor had seen, she had been +introduced--apparently--by the Rector. And as Dr. France caught sight +of her, she and Marion Andrews rose and walked to a window opening on +the garden, apparently to look at the blaze of autumn flowers outside. + +But it was the demeanour of the girl which again drew the doctor's +attention. Marion Andrews, who never talked, was talking fast and +earnestly to this complete stranger, her normally sallow face one glow. +It was borne in afresh upon Dr. France that the two were already +acquainted; and he continued to watch them as closely as politeness +allowed. + + * * * * * + +"Will you come and look at the house?" said Winnington to his ward. +"Not that we have anything to shew--except a few portraits and old +engravings that might interest you. But it's rather a dear old place, +and we're very fond of it." + +Delia went with him in silence. He opened the oval panelled +dining-room, and shewed her the portraits of his father, the venerable +head of an Oxford college, in the scarlet robes of a D.D., and others +representing his forebears on both sides--quiet folk, painted by decent +but not important painters. Delia looked at them and hardly spoke. Then +they went into Mrs. Matheson's room, which was bright with pretty +chintzes, books and water-colours, and had a bow-window looking on the +garden. Still Delia said nothing, beyond an absent Yes or No, or a +perfunctory word of praise. Winnington became very soon conscious of +some strong tension in her, which was threatening to break down; a +tension evidently of displeasure and resentment. He guessed what the +subject of it might be, but as he was most unwilling to discuss it with +her, if his guess were correct, he tried to soothe and evade her by +such pleasant talk as the different rooms suggested. The house through +which he led her was the home, evidently, of a man full of enthusiasms +and affections, caring intensely for many things, for his old school, +of which there were many drawings and photographs in the hall and +passages, for the two great games in which he himself excelled; for +poetry and literature--the house overflowed everywhere with books; for +his County Council work, and all the projects connected with it; for +his family and his intimate friends. + +"Who is that?" asked Delia, pointing to a charcoal drawing in Mrs. +Matheson's sitting-room, of a noble-faced woman of thirty, in a +delicate evening dress of black and white. + +"That is my mother. She died the year after it was taken." + +Delia looked at it in silence a moment. There was something in its +dignity, its restfulness, its touch of austerity which challenged her. +She said abruptly--"I want to speak to you please, Mr. Winnington. May +we shut the door?" + +Winnington shut the door of his sister's room, and returned to his +guest. Delia had turned very white. + +"I hear Mr. Winnington you have reversed an order I wrote to our agent +about one of the cottages. May I know your reasons?" + +"I was very sorry to do so," said Winnington gently; "but I felt sure +you did not understand the real circumstances, and I could not come and +discuss them with you." + +Delia stood stormily erect, and the level light of the October +afternoon streaming in through a west window magnified her height, and +her prophetess air. + +"I can't help shocking you, Mr. Winnington. I don't accept what you +say. I don't believe that covering up horrible things makes them less +horrible. I want to stand by that girl. It is cruel to separate her +from her old father!" + +Winnington looked at her in distress and embarrassment. + +"The story is not what you think it," he said earnestly. "But it is +really not fit for your ears. I have given great thought and much time +to it, yesterday and to-day. The girl--who is mentally deficient--will +be sent to a home and cared for. The father sees now that it is the +best. Please trust it to me." + +"Why mayn't I know the facts!" persisted Delia, paler than before. + +A flash of some quick feeling passed through Winnington's eyes. + +"Why should you? Leave us older folk, dear Miss Delia, to deal with +these sorrowful things." + +Indignation blazed up in her. + +"It is for women to help women," she said, passionately. "It is no good +treating us who are grown up--even if we are young--like children any +more. We intend to _know_--that we may protect--and save." + +"I assure you," said Winnington gravely, "that this poor girl shall +have every care--every kindness. So there is really no need for you to +know. Please spare yourself--and me!" + +He had come to stand by her, looking down upon her. She lifted her eyes +to his unwillingly, and as she caught his smile she was invaded by a +sudden consciousness of his strong magnetic presence. The power in the +grey eyes, and in the brow over-hanging them, the kind sincerity +mingled with the power, and the friendliness that breathed from his +whole attitude and expression, disarmed her. She felt herself for a +moment--and for the first time--young and ignorant,--and that +Winnington was ready to be in the true and not merely in the legal +sense, her "guardian," if she would only let him. + +But the moment of weakening was soon over. Her mind chafed and twisted. +Why had he undertaken it--a complete stranger to her! It was most +embarrassing--detestable--for them both! + +And there suddenly darted through her memory the recollection of a +certain item in her father's will. Under it Mr. Winnington received a +sum of Ł4,000 out of her father's estate, "in consideration of our old +friendship, and of the trouble I am asking him to undertake in +connection with my estates,"--or words to that effect. + +Somehow, she had never yet paid much attention to that clause in the +will. It occurred in a list of a good many other legacies, and had been +passed over by the lawyers in explaining the will to her, as something +entirely in the natural course of things. But the poisonous thought +suggested itself--"It was that which bribed him!--he would have given +it up, but for that!" He might not want it for himself--very +possibly!--but for his charities, his Cripple School and the rest. Her +face stiffened. + +"If you have arranged with her father, of course I can't interfere," +she said coldly. "But don't imagine, please, Mr. Winnington, for one +moment, that I accept your view of the things I 'needn't know.' If I am +to do my duty to the people on this estate--" + +"I thought you weren't going to live on the estate?" he said, lifting +his eyebrows. + +"Not at once--not this winter." She was annoyed to feel herself +stammering. "But of course I have a responsibility--" + +The kindly laugh in his grey eyes faded. + +"Yes--I quite admit that,--a great responsibility," he said slowly. "Do +you mind if I mention another subject?" + +"The meetings?" she said, quickly. "You mean that?" + +"Yes--the meetings. I have just seen the placard in the village." + +"Well?" Her loveliness in defiance dazzled him, but he held on stoutly. + +"You said nothing to me about these meetings the other day." + +"You never asked me!" + +He paused a moment. + +"No--but was it quite--quite fair to me--to let me suppose that the +drawing-room meeting at Maumsey, which you kindly gave up, was the only +meeting you had in view?" + +He saw her breath fluttering. + +"I don't know what you supposed, Mr. Winnington! I said nothing." + +"No. But you let me draw an inference--a mistaken inference. +However--let that be. Can I not persuade you--now--to give up the +Latchford meeting, and any others of the same kind you may have ahead?" + +She flamed at him. + +"I refuse to give them up!" she said, setting her teeth. "I have as +much right to my views as you, Mr. Winnington! I am of full age, and I +intend to work for them." + +"Setting fire to houses--which is what your society is advocating--and +doing--hardly counts as 'views,'" he said, with sudden sternness. +"Risking the lives, or spoiling the property of one's fellow +countrymen, is not the same thing as political argument." + +"It's _our_ argument--" she said passionately.--"The men who are +denying us the vote understand nothing else!" + +The slightest humorous quiver in Winnington's strong mouth enraged her +still further. But he spoke with most courteous gravity. + +"Then I can't persuade you to give up these meetings? I should of +course make no objection whatever, if these were ordinary Suffrage +meetings. But the Society you are going to represent and collect money +for is a Society that exists _to break the law_. And its members +have--just lately--come conspicuously into collision with the law. Your +father would have protested, and I am bound to protest--in his name." + +"I cannot give them up." + +He was silent a moment. + +"If that is so"--he said at last--"I must do my best to protect you." + +"I don't want any protection!" + +"I am a magistrate, as well as your guardian. You must allow me to +judge. There is a very bitter feeling abroad, after these--outrages--of +the last few days. The village where you are going to speak has some +rowdy elements--drawn from the brickfields near it. You will certainly +want protection. I shall see that you get it." + +He spoke with decision. Delia bit her lip. + +"We prefer to risk our lives," she said at last. "I mean--there isn't +any risk!--but if there were--our lives are nothing in comparison with +the cause!" + +"You won't expect your friends to agree with you," he said drily; then, +still holding her with an even keener look, he added-- + +"And there is another point in connection with these meetings which +distresses me. I see that you are speaking on the same platform--with +Mr. Paul Lathrop--" + +"And why not?"--she flashed, the colour rushing to her cheeks. + +He paused, walked away with his hands in his pockets, and came back +again. + +"I have been making some enquiries about him. He is not a man with whom +you ought to associate--either in public, or in private." + +She gave a sound--half scorn--half indignation which startled him. + +"You mean--because of the divorce case?" + +He looked at her amazed. + +"That is what I meant. But--I certainly do not wish to discuss it with +you. Will you not take it from me that Mr. Lathrop is not--cannot be--a +man whom as a young unmarried woman you ought to receive in your +house--or with whom you should be seen in public." + +"No, indeed I won't take it from you!" she said passionately. "Miss +Marvell knows--Miss Marvell told me. He ran away with some one he +loved. Her husband was _vile_! But she couldn't get any help--because +of the law--the abominable law--which punishes women--and lets men go +free. So they went away together, and after a little she died. Alter +your law, Mr. Winnington!--make it equal for men and women--and then +we'll talk." + +As she spoke--childishly, defiant--Winnington's mind was filled with a +confusion of clashing thoughts--the ideals of his own first youth +which made such a speech in the mouth of a girl of twenty-one almost +intolerable to him--and the moral conditions--slowly gained--of his +maturity. He agreed with what she said. And yet it was shocking to him +to hear her say it. + +"I don't quarrel with you as to that," he said, gravely, after a +moment. "Though I confess that in my belief you are too young to have +any real opinion about it. But there was much in the case which +concerned Mr. Lathrop, of which you _can_ have no idea. I repeat--he +is not a fit companion for you--and you do yourself harm by appearing +with him--in public or private." + +"Miss Marvell approves"--said Delia obstinately. + +Winnington's look grew sterner. + +"I appeal again to your father's memory," he said with energy. + +He perceived her quickened breath, but she made no no reply. + +He walked away from her, and stood looking out of the window for a +little. When he came back to her, it was with a change of manner and +subject. + +"I should like you to understand that I have been doing all I _could_ +to carry out your wishes with regard to the cottages." + +He drew a paper out of his pocket, on which he had made some notes +representing his talk that morning with the agent of the Maumsey +estates. But in her suppressed excitement she hardly listened to him. + +"It isn't exactly _business_, what we've done," he said at last, as he +put up the papers; "but we wanted you to have your way--about the old +woman--and the family of children." He smiled at her. "And the estate +can afford it." + +Delia thanked him ungraciously. She felt like a child who is offered +sixpence for being good at the dentist's. It was his whole position +towards her--his whole control and authority--that she resented. And to +be forced to be grateful to him at the same time, compelled to +recognise the anxious pains he had taken to please her in nine-tenths +of the things she wanted, was really odious: she could only chafe under +it. + +He took her back to the drawing-room. Delia walked before him in +silence. She was passionately angry; and yet beneath the stormy +currents of the upper mind, there were other feelings, intermittently +active. It was impossible to hate him!--impossible to help liking him. +His frankness and courtesy, his delicacy of feeling and touch forced +themselves on her notice. "I daresay!"--she said; "--but that's the +worst of it. If Papa hadn't done this fatal, _foolish_ thing, of course +we should have made friends!" + + * * * * * + +The Amberleys walked home together when the party dispersed. Mrs. +Amberley opened the discussion on the newcomers. + +"She is certainly handsome, but rather bold-looking. Didn't you think +so, father?" + +"I wasn't drawn to her. But she took no account of us," said the +Rector, with his usual despondent candour. In truth he was not thinking +about Miss Blanchflower, but only about the possible departure of his +daughter, Susy. + +"I thought her beautiful!--but I'm sorry for Mr. Winnington!" exclaimed +Susy, a red spot of excitement or indignation in each delicate cheek. + +"Mrs. Matheson told me they will only do exactly what they wish--that +they won't take her brother's advice. Very wrong, very wrong." The +Rector shook his grey head. "Young women were different in my youth." + +Mrs. Amberley sighed, and Susy biting her lip, knew that her own +conduct was perhaps more in question than Miss Blanchflower's. + +They reached home in silence. Susy went to light her father's candles +in his modest book-littered study. Then she put her mother on the sofa +in the drawing-room, rubbed Mrs. Amberley's cold hands and feet, and +blew up the fire. + +Suddenly her mother threw an arm round her neck. + +"Oh, Susy, must you go?" + +Susy kissed her. + +"I should come back"--she said after a moment in a low troubled voice. +"Let me get this training, and then if you want me, darling, I'll come +back." + +"Can't you be happy with us, Susy?" + +"I want to _know_ something--and _do_ something," said Susy, with +intensity--evading the question. "It's such a big world, mother! I'll +be better worth having afterwards." + +Mrs. Amberley said nothing. But a little later she went into her +husband's study. + +"Frank--I think we'll have to let her," she said piteously. + +The Rector looked up assentingly, and put his hand in his wife's. + +"It's strange how different it all seems nowadays," said Mrs. Amberley, +in her low quavering voice. "If I'd wanted to do what Susy wants, my +mother would have called me a wicked girl to leave all my duties--and +I shouldn't have dared. But we can't take it like that, Frank, +somehow." + +"No," said the Rector slowly. "In the old days it used to be only +_duties_ for the young--now it's rights too. It's God's will." + +"Susy loves us, Frank. She's a good girl." + +"She's a good girl--and she shall do what she thinks proper," said the +Rector, rising heavily. + +So they gave their consent, and Susy wrote her application to Guy's +hospital. Then they all three lay awake a good deal of the +night,--almost till the autumn robin began to sing in the little +rectory garden. + +As for Susy, in the restless intervals of restless sleep, she was +always back in the Bridge End drawing-room watching Delia Blanchflower +come in, with Mark Winnington behind. How glorious she looked! And +every day he would be seeing her, every day he would be thinking about +her--just because she was sure to give him so much trouble. + +"And what right have _you_ to complain?" she asked herself, trampling +on her own pain. Had he ever said a word of love to her, ever shewn +himself anything else than the kind and sympathetic friend--sometimes +the inspiring teacher in the causes he had at heart? Never! And +yet--insensibly--his smile, his word of praise or thanks, the touch of +his firm warm hand, the sound of his voice, the look in his eyes--it +was for them she had now learned to live. Yes!--and because she could +no longer trust herself, she must go. She would not fail or harass him; +she was his friend. She would go away and scrub hospital floors, and +polish hospital taps. That would tame the anguish in her, and some day +she would be strong again--and come back--to those beloved ones who had +given her up--so tenderly. + + + + +Chapter VIII + + +The whole of Maumsey and its neighbourhood had indeed been thrown into +excitement by certain placards on the walls announcing three public +meetings to be held--a fortnight later--by the "Daughters of +Revolt"--at Latchford, Brownmouth, and Frimpton. Latchford was but +fifteen miles from Maumsey, and frequent trains ran between them. +Brownmouth and Frimpton, also, were within easy distance by rail, and +the Maumseyites were accustomed to shop at either. So that a wide +country-side felt itself challenged--invaded; at a moment when a series +of startling outrages--destruction of some of the nation's noblest +pictures, in the National Gallery and elsewhere, defacement of +churches, personal attacks on Ministers--by the members of various +militant societies, especially "The League of Revolt," had converted an +already incensed public opinion into something none the less ugly, none +the less alarming, because it had as yet found no organised expression. +The police were kept hard at work protecting open-air meetings on the +Brownmouth and Frimpton beaches, from an angry populace who desired to +break them up; every unknown woman who approached a village or strolled +into a village church, was immediately noticed, immediately reported +on, by hungry eyes and tongues alert for catastrophe; and every empty +house had become an anxiety to its owners. + +And of course the sting of the outrage lay in the two names which +blazed in the largest of black print from the centre of the placards. +"The meeting will be addressed by Gertrude Marvell (D.R.), Delia +Blanchflower (D.R.), and Paul Lathrop." + +Within barely two months of her father's death, this young lady to be +speaking on public platforms, in the district where she was still a +new-comer and a stranger, and flaunting in the black and orange of this +unspeakable society!--such was the thought of all quiet folk for miles +round. The tide of callers which had set in towards Maumsey Abbey +ceased to flow; neighbours who had been already introduced to her, old +friends of her grandparents, passed Delia on the road with either the +stiffest of bows or no notice at all. The labourers stared at her, and +their wives, those deepest well-heads of Conservatism in the country, +were loud in reprobation. Their astonishment that "them as calls +theirselves ladies" should be found burning and breaking, was always, +in Winnington's ears, a touching thing, and a humbling. "Violence and +arson" they seemed to say, "are good enough for the likes of us--you'd +expect it of us. But _you_--the glorified, the superfine--who have your +meals brought you regular, more food than you can eat, and more clothes +than you can wear--_you_!" + +So that, underlying the country women's talk, and under the varnish of +our modern life, one caught the accents and the shape of an old +hierarchical world; and the man of sympathy winced anew under the +perennial submission and disadvantage of the poor. + +Meanwhile Delia's life was one long excitement. The more she realised +the disapproval of her neighbours, the more convinced she was that she +was on the right road. She straightened her girlish back; she set her +firm red mouth. Every morning brought reams of letters and reports from +London, for Gertrude Marvell was an important member of the +"Daughters'" organisation, and must be kept informed. The reading of +them maintained a constant ferment in Delia. In any struggle of women +against men, just as in any oppression of women by men, there is an +element of fever, of madness, which poisons life. And in this element +Delia's spirit lived for this brief hour of her youth. Led by the +perpetual influence of the older mind and imagination at her side, she +was overshadowed with the sense of women's wrongs, haunted by their +grievances, burnt up by a flame of revolt against fate, against +society, above all, against men, conceived as the age-long and +irrational barrier in the path of women. It was irrational, and +therefore no rational methods were any good. Nothing but waspishly +stinging and hurting this great Man-Beast, nothing but defiance of all +rules and decorums, nothing but force--of the womanish kind--answering +to force, of the masculine kind, could be any use. Argument was +foolish. They--the Suffragists--had already stuffed the world with +argument; which only generated argument. To smash and break and burn, +in more senses than one, remained the only course, witness Nottingham +Castle, and the Hyde Park railings. And if a woman's life dashed itself +to pieces in the process, well, what matter? The cause would only be +advanced. + +One evening, not long after the tea-party at Bridge End, a group of +persons, coming from different quarters, converged quietly, in the +autumn dusk, on Maumsey Abbey. Marion Andrews walked in front, with a +Miss Foster, the daughter of one of the larger farmers in the +neighbourhood; and a short limping woman, clinging to the arm of a +vigorously-built girl, the Science Mistress of the small but ancient +Grammar School of the village, came behind. They talked in low voices, +and any shrewd bystander would have perceived the mood of agitated +expectancy in which they approached the house. + +"It's wonderful!" said little Miss Toogood, the lame dressmaker, as +they turned a corner of the shrubbery, and the rambling south front +rose before them,--"_wonderful_!--when you think of the people that +used to live here! Why, old Lady Blanchflower looked upon you and me, +Miss Jackson, as no better than earwigs! I sent her a packet of our +leaflets once by post. Well--_she_ never used to give me any work, so +she couldn't take it away. But she got Mrs. David Jones at Thring Farm +to take away hers, and Mrs. Willy Smith, the Vet's wife, you +remember?--and two or three more. So I nearly starved one winter; but +I'm a tough one, and I got through. And now there's one of _us_ sits in +the old lady's place! Isn't that a sign of the times?" + +"But of course!" said her companion, whose face expressed a kind of +gloomy ardour. "We're winning. We must win--sometime!" + +The cheerfulness of the words was oddly robbed of its effect by the +tragic look of the speaker. Miss Toogood's hand pressed her arm. + +"I'm always so sorry"--murmured the dressmaker--"for those +others--those women--who haven't lived to see what we're going to see, +aren't you?" + +"Yes," assented the other, adding--with the same emotional +emphasis--"But they've all helped--every woman's helped! They've all +played their parts." + +"Well, I don't know about Lady Blanchflower!" laughed Miss Toogood, +happily. + +"What did she matter? The Antis are like the bits of stick you put into +a hive. All they do is to stir up the bees." + +Meanwhile Marion Andrews was mostly silent, glancing restlessly however +from side to side, as though she expected some spy, some enemy--her +mother?--to emerge upon them from the shadows of the shrubbery. Her +companion, Kitty Foster, a rather pretty girl with flaming red hair, +the daughter of a substantial farmer on the further side of the +village, chattered unceasingly, especially about the window-breaking +raid in which she had been concerned, the figure she had cut at the +police court, the things she had said to the magistrate, and the +annoyance she had felt when her father paid her fine. + +"They led me a life when they got me home. And mother's been so ill +since, I had to promise I'd stay quiet till Christmas anyway. But then +I'm off! It's fine to feel you're doing something real--something hot +and strong--so that people can't help taking notice of you. That's what +I say to father, when he shouts at me--'we're not going to _ask_ you +now any more--we've asked long enough--we're going to _make_ you do +what we want.'" + +And the girl threw back her head excitedly. Marion vaguely assented, +and the talk beside her rambled on, now violent, now egotistical, till +they reached the Maumsey door. + + * * * * * + +"Now that we've got women like you with us--it can't be long--it can't +be long!" repeated Miss Toogood, clasping her hands, as she looked +first at Delia, and then at the distant figure of Miss Marvell, who in +the further drawing-room, and through an archway, could be seen talking +with Marion Andrews. + +Delia's brows puckered. + +"I'm afraid it will be long," she said, with a kind of weary passion. +"The forces against us are so strong. But we must just go on--and +on--straight ahead." + +She sat erect on her chair, very straight and slim, in her black dress, +her hands, with their long fingers, tightly pressed together on her +knee. Miss Toogood thought she had never seen anyone so handsome, or +so--so splendid! All that was romantic in the little dressmaker's +soul rose to appreciate Delia Blanchflower. So young and so +self-sacrificing--and looking like a picture of Saint Cecilia that hung +in Miss Toogood's back room! The Movement was indeed wonderful! How it +broke down class barriers, and knit all women together! As her eyes +fell on the picture of Lady Blanchflower, in a high cap and mittens, +over the mantelpiece, Miss Toogood felt a sense of personal triumph +over the barbarous and ignorant past. + +"What I mind most is the apathy of people--the people down here. It's +really terrible!" said the science mistress, in her melancholy voice. +"Sometimes I hardly know how to bear it. One thinks of all that's going +on in London--and in the big towns up north--and here--it's like a +vault. Everyone's really against us. Why the poor people--the +labourers' wives--they're the worst of any!" + +"Oh no!--we're getting on--we're getting on!" said Miss Toogood, +hastily. "You're too despondent, Miss Jackson, if you'll excuse +me--you are indeed. Now I'm never downhearted, or if I am, I say to +myself--'It's all right somewhere!--somewhere that you can't see.' And +I think of a poem my father was fond of--'If hopes are dupes, fears may +be liars--And somewhere in yon smoke concealed--Your comrades chase +e'en now the fliers--And but for you possess the field!' That's by a +man called Arthur Clough--Miss Blanchflower--and it's a grand poem!" + +Her pale blue eyes shone in their wrinkled sockets. Delia remembered a +recent visit to Miss Toogood's tiny parlour behind the front room where +she saw her few customers and tried them on. She recollected the books +which the back parlour contained. Miss Toogood's father had been a +bookseller--evidently a reading bookseller--in Winchester, and in the +deformed and twisted form of his daughter some of his soul, his +affections and interests, survived. + +"Yes, but what are you going to give us to _do_, Miss Blanchflower?" +said Kitty Foster, impatiently--"I don't care what I do! And the more +it makes the men mad, the better!" + +She drew herself up affectedly. She was a strapping girl, with a huge +vanity and a parrot's brain. A year before this date a "disappointment" +had greatly embittered her, and the processions and the crowded London +meetings, and the window-breaking riots into which she had been led +while staying with a friend, had been the solace and relief of a +personal rancour and misery she might else have found intolerable. + +"_I_ can't do anything--not anything public"--said Miss Jackson, with +emphasis--"or I should lose my post. Oh the slavery it is! and the +pittance they pay us--compared to the men. Every man in the Boys' +school get Ł120 and over--and we're thought lucky to get Ł80. And I'll +be bound we work more hours in the week than they do. It's _hard_!" + +"That'll soon be mended," said Miss Toogood hopefully. "Look at Norway! +As soon as the women got the vote, why the women's salaries in public +offices were put up at once." + +The strong, honest face of the teacher refused to smile. "Well it isn't +always so, Miss Toogood. I know they say that in New Zealand and +Colorado--where we've got the vote--salaries aren't equal by any +manner of means." + +The dressmaker's withered cheek flushed red. + +"'_They_ say'"--she repeated scornfully. "That's one of the Anti +dodges--just picking out the things that suit 'em, and forgetting all +the rest. Don't you look at the depressing things--I never do! Look at +what helps us! There's a lot o' things said--and there's a lot of +things ain't true--You've got to pick and choose--you can't take 'em as +they come. No one can." + +Miss Jackson looked puzzled and unconvinced; but could think of no +reply. + +The two persons in the distance appeared in the archway between the +drawing-rooms, Gertrude Marvell leading. Everyone looked towards her; +everybody listened for what she would say. She took Delia's chair, +Delia instinctively yielding it, and then--her dark eyes measuring and +probing them all while she talked, she gave the little group its +orders. + +Kitty Foster was to be one of the band of girl-sellers of the _Tocsin_, +in Latchford, the day of the meeting. The town was to be sown with it +from end to end, and just before the meeting, groups of sellers, in the +"Daughters'" black and orange, were to appear in every corner of the +square where the open-air meeting was to be held. + +"But we'll put you beside the speaker's waggon. You're so tall, and +your hair is enough to advertise anything!" With a grim little smile, +she stretched out a hand and touched Kitty Foster's arm. + +"Yes, isn't it splendid!" said Delia, ardently. + +Kitty flushed and bridled. Her people in the farmhouse at home thought +her hair ugly, and frankly told her so. It was nice to be admired by +Miss Blanchflower and her friend. Ladies who lived in a big house, with +pictures and fine furniture, and everything handsome, must know better +than farm-people who never saw anything but their cattle and their +fields. + +"And you"--the clear authoritative voice addressed Miss Toogood--"can +you take round notices?" + +The speaker looked doubtfully at the woman's lame foot and stick. + +Miss Toogood replied that she would be at Latchford by midday, and +would take round notices till she dropped. + +The teacher who could do nothing public, was invited to come to Maumsey +in the evening, and address envelopes. Miss Marvell had lately imported +a Secretary, who had set up her quarters in the old gun room on the +ground floor, and had already filled it with correspondence, and +stacked it with the literature of the Daughters. + +Miss Jackson eagerly promised her help. + +Nothing was apportioned to Marion Andrews. She sat silent following the +words and gestures of that spare figure in the grey cloth dress, in +whom they all recognised their chief. There was a feverish brooding in +her look, as though she was doubly conscious--both of the scene before +her, and of something only present to the mind. + +"You know why we are holding these meetings"--said Gertrude Marvell, +presently. + +No one answered. They waited for her. + +"It is a meeting of denunciation," she said, sharply. "You know in the +Land League days in Ireland they used to hold meetings to denounce a +landlord--for evictions--and that landlord went afterwards in +fear--scorned--and cursed--and boycotted. Well, that's what we're going +to do with Ministers in their own localities where they live! We can't +boycott yet--we haven't the power. But we can denounce--we can set +people on--we can hold a man up--we can make his life a burden to him. +And that's what we're going to do--with Sir Wilfrid Lang. He's one of +this brutal Cabinet that keeps women in prison--one of the strongest of +them. His speeches have turned votes against us in the House of +Commons, time after time. We mean to be even with Sir Wilfrid Lang!" + +She spoke quite quietly--almost under her breath; but her slender +fingers interlocked, and a steady glow had overflowed her pale cheeks. + +A tremor passed through all her listeners--a tremor of excitement. + +"What can we _do_?" said Miss Toogood at last, in a low voice. Her eyes +stared out of her kind old face, which had grown white. "Ah, leave that +to us!" said Miss Marvell, in another voice, the dry organising voice, +which was her usual one. And dropping all emotion and excitement, she +began rapidly to question three out of the four women as to the +neighbourhood, the opinions of individuals and classes, the strength in +it of the old Suffrage societies, the presence or absence of +propaganda. They answered her eagerly. They all felt themselves keyed +to a higher note since she had entered the room. They had got to +business; they felt themselves a power, the rank and file of an "army +with banners," under direction. Even Delia, clearly, was in the same +relation towards this woman whom the outer world only knew as +her--presumably--paid companion. She was questioned, put right, +instructed with the rest of them. Only no one noticed that Marion +Andrews took little or no part in the conversation. + +An autumn wind raged outside, and the first of those dead regiments of +leaves which would soon be choking the lanes were pattering against the +windows. Inside, the fire leapt as the daylight faded, helped by a +couple of lamps, for Maumsey knew no electricity, and Delia, under +Gertrude's prompting, had declared against the expense of putting it +in. In the dim illumination the faces of the six women emerged, typical +all of them of the forces behind the revolutionary wing of the woman's +movement. Enthusiasms of youth and age--hardships of body and +spirit--rancour and generous hope--sore heart and untrained +mind--fanatical brain and dreaming ignorance--love unsatisfied, and +energies unused--they were all there, and all hanging upon, conditioned +by something called "the vote," conceived as the only means to a new +heaven and a new earth. + + * * * * * + +When Delia had herself dismissed her guests into the darkness of the +October evening, she returned thoughtfully to where Gertrude Marvell +was standing by the drawing-room fire, reading a letter. + +"You gave them all something to do except that Miss Andrews, Gertrude? +I wonder why you left her out?" + +"Oh, I had a talk with her before." + +The tone was absent, and the speaker went on reading her letter. + +"When you took her into the back drawing-room?" + +The slightest possible flicker passed through Gertrude's drooped +eyelids. + +"She was telling me a lot about her home-life--poor oppressed thing!" + +Delia asked no more. But she felt a vague discomfort. + +Presently Gertrude put down her letter, and turned towards her. + +"May I have that cheque, dear--before post-time? If you really meant +it?" + +"Certainly." Delia went to her writing-table, opened a drawer and took +out her cheque-book. + +A laugh--conscious and unsteady--accompanied the dipping of her pen +into the ink. + +"I wonder what he'll say?" + +"Who?" + +"Mr. Winnington--when I send him all the bills to be paid." + +"Isn't he there to pay the bills?" + +Delia's face shewed a little impatience. + +"You're so busy, dear, that I am afraid you forget all I tell you about +my own affairs. But I _did_ tell you that my guardian had trustingly +paid eight hundred pounds into the bank to last me till the New Year, +for house and other expenses--without asking me to promise anything +either!" + +"Well, now, you are going to let us have Ł500. Is there any +difficulty?" + +"None--except that the ordinary bills I don't pay, and can't pay, will +now all go in to my guardian, who will of course be curious to know +what I have done with the money. Naturally there'll be a row." + +"Oh, a row!" said Gertrude Marvell, indifferently. "It's your own +money, Delia. Spend it as you like!" + +"I intend to," said Delia. "Still--I do rather wish I'd given him +notice. He may think it a mean trick." + +"Do you care what he thinks?" + +"Not--much," said Delia slowly. "All the same, Gertrude"--she threw her +head back--"he is an awfully good sort." + +Gertrude shrugged her shoulders. + +"I daresay. But you and I are at war with him and his like, and can't +stop to consider that kind of thing. Also your father arranged that he +should be well paid for his trouble." + +Delia turned back to the writing-table, and wrote the cheque. + +"Thank you, dearest," said Gertrude Marvell, giving a light kiss to the +hand that offered the cheque. "It shall go to headquarters this +evening--and you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that you've +financed all the three bye-election campaigns that are coming--or +nearly." + + * * * * * + +Gertrude had gone away to her own sitting-room and Delia was left +alone. She hung over the fire, in an excited reverie, her pulses +rushing; and presently she took a letter from the handbag on her wrist, +and read it for the second time by the light of the blaze she had +kindled in the grate. + + * * * * * + +"I will be at the Rose and Crown at least half an hour before the +meeting. We have got a capital waggon for you to speak from, and chosen +the place where it is to stand. I am afraid we may have some rough +customers to deal with. But the police have been strongly warned--that +I have found out--though I don't know by whom--and there will be plenty +of them. My one regret is that I cannot be in the crowd, so as both to +see and hear you. I must of course stick to the waggon. What a day for +us all down here!--for our little down-trodden band! You come to us as +our Joan of Arc, leading us on a holy war. You shame us into action, +and to fight with you is itself victory. When I think of how you looked +and how you talked the other night! Do you know that you have a face +'to launch a thousand ships?' No, I am convinced you never think of +it--you never take your own beauty into consideration. And you won't +imagine that I am talking in this way from any of the usual motives. +Your personal charm, if I may say so, is merely an item in our balance +sheet; your money--I understand you have money--is another. You bring +your beauty and your money in your hand, and throw them into the great +conflagration of the Cause--just as the women did in Savonarola's day. +You fling them away--if need be--for an idea. And because of it, all +the lovers of ideas, and all the dreamers of great dreams will be your +slaves and servants. Understand!--you are going to be loved and +followed, as no ordinary woman, even with your beauty, is ever loved +and followed. Your footsteps may be on the rocks and flints--I promise +you no easy, nor royal road. There may be blood on the path! But a +cloud of witnesses will be all about you--some living and some dead; +you will be carried in the hearts of innumerable men and women--women +above all; and if you stand firm, if your soul rises to the height of +your call, you will be worshipped, as the saints were worshipped. + +"Only let nothing bar your path. Winnington is a good fellow, but a +thickheaded Philistine all the same. You spoke to me about him with +compunction. Have no compunctions. Go straight forward. Women have got +to shew themselves ruthless, and hard, and cunning, like men--if they +are to fight men." + + "Yours faithfully, + PAUL LATHROP." + + +Delia's thoughts danced and flamed, like the pile of blazing wood +before her. What a singular being was this Paul Lathrop! He had paid +them four or five visits already; and they had taken tea with him once +in his queer hermitage under the southern slope of the Monk Lawrence +hill--a one-storey thatched cottage, mostly built by Lathrop himself +with the help of two labourers, standing amid a network of ponds, +stocked with trout in all stages. Inside, the roughly-plastered walls +were lined with books--chiefly modern poets, with French and Russian +novels, and with unframed sketches by some of the ultra clever fellows, +who often, it seemed, would come down to spend Sunday with Lathrop, and +talk and smoke till dawn put out the lights. + +She found him interesting--certainly interesting. His outer man--heavy +mouth and lantern cheeks--dreamy blue eyes, and fair hair--together +with the clumsy power in his form and gait, were not without a certain +curious attraction. And his story--as Gertrude Marvell told it--would +be forgiven by the romantic. All the same his letter had offended Delia +greatly. She had given him no encouragement to write in such a +tone--so fervid, so emotional, so intimate; and she would shew +him--plainly--that it offended her. + +Nevertheless the phrases of the letter ran in her mind; until her +discomfort and resentment were lost in something else. + +She could not quiet her conscience about that cheque! Not indeed as to +giving it to the "Daughters." She would have given everything she +possessed to them, keeping the merest pittance for herself, if fate and +domestic tyranny had allowed. No!--but it hurt her--unreasonably, +foolishly hurt her--that she must prepare herself again to face the +look of troubled amazement in Mark Winnington's eyes, without being +able to justify herself to herself, so convincingly as she would have +liked to do. + +"I am simply giving my own money to a cause I adore!" said one voice in +the mind. + +"It is not legally yours--it is legally his," said another. "You should +have warned him. You have got hold of it under false pretences." + +"Quibbles! It _is_ mine--equitably," replied the first. "He and I are +at war. And I _have_ warned him." + +"At war?" Her tiresome conscience kicked again. Why, not a day had +passed since her settlement at Maumsey, without some proof, small or +great, of Winnington's consideration and care for her. She +knew--guiltily knew, that he was overwhelmed by the business of the +executorship and the estate, and had been forced to put aside some of +his own favourite occupations to attend to it. + +"Well!--my father made it worth his while!" + +But her cheek reddened, with a kind of shame, as the thought passed +through her mind. Even in this short time and because of the daily +contact which their business relations required, she was beginning to +know Winnington, to realise something of his life and character. And as +for the love borne him in the neighbourhood--it was really +preposterous--bad for any man! Delia pitied herself, not only because +she was Winnington's ward against her will, but because of the silent +force of public opinion that upheld him, and must necessarily condemn +her. + +So he had once been engaged? Lady Tonbridge had told her so. To a +gentle, saintly person of course!--a person to suit him. Delia could +not help a movement of half petulant curiosity--and then an involuntary +thrill. Many women since had been in love with him. Lady Tonbridge had +said as much. And he--with no one! But he had a great many women +friends? No doubt!--with that manner, and that charm. Delia resented +the women friends. She would have been quite ready indeed to enrol +herself among them--to worship with the rest--from afar; were it not +for ideas, and principles, and honesty of soul! As it was, she despised +the worship of which she was told, as something blind and overdone. It +was not the greatest men--not the best men--who were so easily and +universally beloved. + +What did he really think of her? Did he ever guess that there was +something else in her than this obstinacy, this troublesomeness with +which she was forced to meet him? She was sorry for herself, much more +than for him; because she must so chill and mislead a man who _ought_ +to understand her. + +Looking up she saw a dim reflection of her own beauty in the glass +above the mantelpiece. "No, I am _not_ either a minx, or a +wild-cat!"--she thought, as though she were angrily arguing with +someone. "I could be as attractive, as 'feminine,' as silly as anyone +else, if I chose! I could have lovers--of course--just like other +girls--if it weren't"-- + +For what? At that moment she hardly knew. And why were her eyes filling +with tears? She dashed them indignantly away. + +But for the first time, this cause, this public cause to which she was +pledged presented itself to her as a sacrifice to be offered, a noble +burden to be borne, rather than as something which expressed the +natural and spontaneous impulse of her life. + +Which meant that, already, since her recapture by this English world, +since what was hearsay had begun to be experience, the value of things +had slightly and imperceptibly changed. + + * * * * * + +The days ran on. One evening, just before the first of the +"Daughters'" meetings, which was to be held at Latchford, Winnington +appeared in Lady Tonbridge's drawing-room to ask for a cup of tea on +his way to a public dinner in Wanchester. + +He seemed pre-occupied and worried; and she fed him before questioning +him. But at last she said-- + +"You couldn't prevail on her to give up any of these performances?" + +"Miss Delia? Not one. But it's only the Latchford one that matters. +Have you been talking to her?" + +He looked at her a little plaintively, as though he _could_ have +reminded her that she had promised him a friend's assistance. + +"Of course! But I might as well talk to this table. She won't really +make friends--nor will Miss Marvell allow her. It's the same, I find, +with everyone else. However, I'm bound to say, the neighbourhood is +just now in the mood that it doesn't much want to make friends!" + +"I know," said Winnington, with a sigh--relapsing into silence. + +"Is she taking an interest in the property--the cottages?" + +He shook his head. + +"I'm sure she meant to. But it seems to be all dropped." + +"Provoking!" said Madeleine, drily--"considering how you've been +slaving to please her--" + +Winnington interrupted--not without annoyance-- + +"How can she think of anything else when she's once deep in this +campaign? One must blame the people who led her into it!" + +"Oh! I don't know!" said Lady Tonbridge, protesting. "She's a very +clever young woman, with a strong will of her own." + +"Captured just at the impressionable moment!" cried Winnington--"when a +girl will do anything--believe anything--for the person she loves!" + +"Well the prescription should be easy--at her age. Change the person! +But then comes the question: Is _she_ loveable? Speak the truth, Mr. +Guardian!" + +Winnington began a rather eager assent. Watch her with the servants, +the gardeners, the animals! Then you perceived what should be the +girl's natural charm and sweetness-- + +"'Hm. Does she show any of it to you?" + +Winnington laughed. + +"You forget--I am always there as the obstacle in the path. But if it +weren't for the sinister influence--in the background." + +And again he went off at score--describing various small incidents that +had touched or pleased him, as throwing light upon what he vowed was +the real Delia. + +Madeleine listened, watching him attentively the while. When he took +his leave and she was alone, she sat thinking for some time, and then +going to a cupboard in her writing-table, which held her diaries of +past years, she rummaged till she found one bearing a date fifteen +years old. She turned up the entry for the sixteenth of May: + +"She died last night. This morning, at early service, Mark was there. +We walked home together. I doubt whether he will ever marry--now. He is +not one of those men who are hurried by the mere emotion and +unbearableness of grief, into a fresh emotion of love. But what a +lover--what a husband lost!" + +She closed the book, and stood with it in her hand--pondering. + + * * * * * + +As he left her house, and turned towards the station Winnington passed +a lady to whom he bowed, recognising her as Miss Andrews. + +"Hope you've got an umbrella!" he said to her cheerily, as he passed. +"The rain's coming!" + +She smiled, pleased like all the world to be addressed with that +Winningtonian manner which somehow implied that the person addressed +was, for the moment at any rate, his chiefest concern. Immediately +after meeting him she turned from the village street, and began to +mount a lane leading to the slope on which Monk Lawrence stood. Her +expression as she walked along, sometimes with moving lips, had grown +animated and sarcastic. Here were two men, a dead father and a live +guardian, trying to coerce one simple girl--and apparently not making +much of a job of it. She gloried in what she had been told or perceived +of Delia Blanchflower's wilfulness, which seemed to her mother and her +brother the Captain so monstrous. Only--could one entirely trust +anybody like Delia Blanchflower--so prosperous--and so good-looking? + +Miss Andrews mounted the hill, passed through a wood that ran along its +crest, and took a footpath, leading past the edge of a railway cutting, +from which the wonderful old house could be plainly seen. She paused +several times to look at it, wrapped in a kind of day-dream, which gave +a growing sombreness to her harsh and melancholy features. Beyond the +footpath a swing gate opened into a private path leading to the house. + +She opened the gate, and walked a little way up the path, in the fast +gathering darkness. But she was suddenly arrested by the appearance of +a figure in the far distance, black against the pale greys of the +house. It was a policeman on his beat--she caught one of the gleams of +a lantern. + +Instantly she turned back, groped her way again through the wood, and +into a side road leading to her brother's house. + +She found her mother lying on the sofa in the drawing-room, the remains +of a rather luxurious tea beside her--her outdoor clothes lying +untidily about the room. + +"Where have you been?" said Mrs. Andrews, fretfully--"there were +several letters I wanted written before post." + +"I wanted a little air. That linen business took me all the morning." + +For it was the rule in the Andrews' household that the house linen +should be gone through every six months with a view to repairs and +renewals. It was a tedious business. Mrs. Andrews' nerves did not allow +her to undertake it. It fell therefore, and had always fallen to the +only daughter, who was not made for housewifery tasks, and detested the +half-yearly linen day accordingly. + +Her tone displeased her mother. + +"There you are--grumbling again, Marion! What else have you to do, I +should like to know, than your home duties?" + +Marion made no reply. What was the use of replying? But her black eyes, +as she helped herself wearily to some very cold tea, took note of her +mother's attitude. It was only the week before that Dr. France had +expressed himself rather pointedly to the effect that more exercise and +some fresh interests in life "would be good for Mrs. Andrews." + +Mrs. Andrews returned to the ladies' paper she was reading. The fashion +plates for the week were unusually attractive. Marion observed her +unseen. + +Suddenly the daughter said:-- + +"I must ask you for that five pounds, mother. Bill promised it me. My +underclothing is literally in rags. I've done my best, and it's past +mending. And I must have another decent dress." + +"There you are,--clamouring for money again"--said her mother, +bouncing up on the sofa--"when you know how hard-pressed Bill is. He's +got another instalment to pay for the motor the end of this week." + +"Yes--the motor you made him get!"--said Marion, as though the words +burst from her. + +"And why shouldn't he, pray! The money's his--and mine. It was high +time we got rid of that rattletrap. It jolted me to pieces." + +"You said a little while ago it would do very well for another year. +Anyway, Bill promised me something for clothes this month--and he also +said that he'd pay my school of art fees, at Wanchester, and give me a +third season ticket. Is that all done with too?" + +The girl sat erect, her face with its sparkling eyes expressing mingled +humiliation and bitterness. + +"Oh, well really, I can't stand these constant disputes!" said Mrs. +Andrews, rising angrily from the sofa. "You'd better go to your +brother. If he likes to waste his money, he can of course. But I've got +none to spare." She paused at the door--"As for your underclothing, I +daresay I could find you something of mine you could make do for a bit. +Now do be sensible!--and don't make a scene with Bill!" + +She closed the door. Marion walked to the side window of the +drawing-room, and stood looking at the wooded slope of the hill, with +Monk Lawrence in the distance. + +Her heart burned within her. She was thirty-four. She had never had any +money of her own--she had never been allowed any education that would +fit her to earn. She was absolutely dependent on her mother and +brother. Bill was kind enough, though careless, and often selfish. But +her mother rubbed her dependence into her at every turn--"And yet I +earn my clothes and my keep--every penny of them!" she thought, +fiercely. + +A year before this date she had been staying in London with a cousin +who sometimes took pity on her and gave her a change of scene. They had +gone together for curiosity's sake to a "militant" meeting in London. A +lady, slight in figure, with dark eyes and hair, had spoken on the +"economic independence of women"--as the only path to the woman's goal +of "equal rights" with men. She had spoken with passion, and Marion's +sore heart had leapt to answer her. + +That lady was Gertrude Marvell. Marion had written to her, and there +had been a brief acquaintance, enough to kindle the long-repressed will +and passion of the girl's stormy nature. She had returned home, to +read, in secret, everything that she could find on the militant +movement. The sheer violence of it appealed to her like water to the +thirsty. War, war!--on a rotten state of society, and the economic +slavery of women! + +And now her first awakener, her appointed leader, her idol had appeared +in this dead country-side, with orders to give, and tasks to impose. +And she should be obeyed--to the letter! + +The girl's heavy eyes kindled to a mad intensity, as she stood looking +at the hill-side, now almost dark, except for that distant light, which +she knew as the electric lamp still lit at sunset, even in Sir +Wilfrid's absence, over the stately doorway of Monk Lawrence. + +But she was not going to the Latchford meeting. "Don't give yourself +away. Don't be seen with the others. Keep out of notice. There are more +important things for you to do--presently. Wait!" + +The words echoed in her ears. She waited; exulting in the thought that +no one, not even Miss Blanchflower, knew as much as she; and that +neither her mother nor her brother had as yet any idea of her +connection with the "Daughters." Her "silly suffrage opinions" were +laughed at by them both--good-humouredly, by Bill. Of the rest, they +knew nothing. + + + + +Chapter IX + + +"Mark! you've done the day's work of two people already!" cried Mrs. +Matheson in a tone of distress. "You don't mean to say you're going in +to Latchford again?--and without waiting for some food?" + +She stood under the porch of Bridge End remonstrating with her brother. + +"Can't be helped, dear!" said Winnington, as he filled his pipe--"I'm +certain there'll be a row to-night, and I must catch this train!" + +"What, that horrid meeting! Delia Blanchflower lets you slave and slave +for her, and never takes the smallest notice of your wishes or your +advice! She ought to be ashamed!" + +The sister's mild tone trembled with indignation. + +"She isn't!" laughed Winnington. "I never knew anyone less so. But we +can't have her ill treated. Expect me back when you see me!" + +And kissing his hand to his sister, he went out into a dark and +blustering evening. Something had just gone wrong with the little motor +car he generally drove himself, and there was nothing for it but to +walk the mile and a half to the railway station. + +He had spent the whole day in County Council business at Wanchester, +was tired out, and had now been obliged to leave home again without +waiting even for a belated cup of tea. But there was no help for it. He +had only just time to catch the Latchford train. + +As he almost ran to the station he was not conscious however of any of +these small discomforts; his mind was full of Delia. He did not +encourage anyone but Madeleine Tonbridge to talk to him about his ward; +but he was already quite aware, before his old friend laid stress on +it, of the hostile feeling towards Delia and her chaperon that was +beginning to show itself in the neighbourhood. He knew that she was +already pronounced heartless, odious, unprincipled, consumed with a +love of notoriety, and ready for any violence, at the bidding of a +woman who was probably responsible at that very moment--as a prominent +organiser in the employ of the society contriving them--for some of the +worst of the militant outrages. His condemnation of Delia's actions was +sharp and unhesitating; his opinion of Miss Marvell not a whit milder +than that of his neighbours. Yet he had begun, as we have seen, to +discover in himself a willingness, indeed an eagerness to excuse and +pity the girl, which was wholly lacking in the case of the older woman. +Under the influence, indeed, of his own responsive temperament, +Winnington was rapidly drifting into a state of feeling where his +perception of Delia's folly and unreason was almost immediately checked +by some enchanting memory of her beauty, or of those rare moments in +their brief acquaintance, when the horrid shadow of the "Movement" had +been temporarily lifted, and he had seen her, as in his indulgent +belief she truly was--or was meant to be. She flouted and crossed him +perpetually; and he was beginning to discover that he only thought of +her the more, and that the few occasions when he had been able to force +a smile out of her,--a sudden softness in her black eyes, gone in a +moment!--were constantly pleading for her in his mind. All part no +doubt of his native and extreme susceptibility to the female race--the +female race in general. For he could see himself, and laugh at himself, +_ab extra_, better than most men. + +At the station he came across Captain Andrews, and soon discovered from +that artless warrior that he also was bound for Latchford, with a view +to watching over Delia Blanchflower. + +"Can't have a lot of hooligans attacking a good-looking girl like +that--whatever nonsense she talks!" murmured the Captain, twisting his +sandy moustache; "so I thought I'd better come along and see fair play. +Of course I knew you'd be there." + +The train was crowded. Winnington, separated from the Captain, plunged +into a dimly-lighted third class, and found himself treading on the +toes of an acquaintance. He saluted an elderly lady wearing a bonnet +and mantle of primeval cut, and a dress so ample in the skirt that it +still suggested the days of crinoline. She was abnormally tall, and +awkwardly built; she wore cotton gloves, and her boots were those of a +peasant. She carried a large bag or reticule, and her lap was piled +with brown parcels. Her large thin face was crowned by a few straggling +locks of what had once been auburn hair, now nearly grey, the pale +spectacled eyes were deeply wrinkled, and the nose and mouth slightly +but indisputably crooked. + +"My dear Miss Dempsey!--what an age since we met! Where are you off to? +Give me some of those parcels!" + +And Winnington, seizing what he could lay hands on, transferred them to +his own knees, and gave a cordial grip to the right hand cotton glove. + +Miss Dempsey replied that she had been in Brownmouth for the day, and +was going home. After which she smiled and said abruptly, bending +across her still laden knees and his--so as to speak unheard by their +neighbours-- + +"Of course I know where you're going to!" + +"Do you?" + +The queer head nodded. + +"Why can't you keep her in order?" + +"Her? Who?" + +"Your ward. Why don't you stop it?" + +"Stop these meetings? My ward is of age, please remember, and quite +aware of it." + +Miss Dempsey sighed. + +"Naughty young woman!" she said, yet with the gentlest of accents. "For +us of the elder generation to see our work all undone by these maniacs! +They have dashed the cup from our very lips." + +"Ah! I forgot you were a Suffragist," said Winnington, smiling at her. + +"Suffragist?" she held up her head indignantly--"I should rather think +I am. My parents were friends of Mill, and I heard him speak for Woman +Suffrage when I was quite a child. And now, after the years we've +toiled and moiled, to see these mad women wrecking the whole thing!" + +Winnington assented gravely. + +"I don't wonder you feel it so. But you still want it--the vote--as +much as ever?" + +"Yes!" she said, at first with energy; and then on a more wavering +note--"Yes,--but I admit a great many things have been done without it +that I thought couldn't have been done. And these wild women give one +to think. But you? Are you against us?--or has Miss Delia converted +you?" + +He smiled again, but without answering her question. Instead, he asked +her in a guarded voice-- + +"You are as busy as ever?" + +"I am there always--just as usual. I don't have much success. It +doesn't matter." + +She drew back from him, looking quietly out of window at the autumn +fields. Over her wrinkled face with its crooked features, there dawned +a look of strange intensity, mingled very faintly with something +exquisite--a ray from a spiritual world. + +Winnington looked at her with reverence. He knew all about her; so did +many of the dwellers in the Maumsey neighbourhood. She had lived for +half-a-century in the same little house in one of the back-streets of +Latchford, a town of some ten thousand inhabitants. Through all that +time her life had been given to what is called "rescue work"--though +she herself rarely called it by that name. She loved those whom no one +else would love--the meanest and feeblest of the outcast race. Every +night her door stood on the latch, and as the years passed, thousands +knew it. Scarcely a week went by, that some hand did not lift that +latch, and some girl in her first trouble, or some street-walker, dying +of her trade, did not step in to the tiny hall where the lamp burnt all +night, and wait for the sound of the descending footsteps on the +stairs, which meant shelter and pity, warmth and food. She was +constantly deceived, sometimes robbed; for such things she had no +memory. She only remembered the things which cannot be told--the +trembling voices of hope or returning joy--the tenderness in dying +eyes, the clinging of weak hands, the kindness of "her poor children." +She had written--without her name--a book describing the condition of a +great seaport town where she had once lived. The facts recorded in it +had inspired a great reforming Act. No one knew anything of her part in +it--so far as the public was concerned. Many persons indeed came to +consult her; she gave all her knowledge to those who wanted it; she +taught, and she counselled, always as one who felt herself the mere +humble mouthpiece of things divine and compelling; and those who went +away enriched did indeed forget her in her message, as she meant them +to do. But in her own town as she passed along the streets, in her +queer garb, blinking and absently smiling as though at her own +thoughts, she was greeted often with a peculiar reverence, a homage of +which her short sight told her little or nothing. + +Winnington especially had applied to her in more than one difficulty +connected with his public work. It was to her he had gone at once when +the Blanchflower agent had come to him in dismay reporting the decision +of Miss Blanchflower with regard to the half-witted girl whose third +illegitimate child by a quite uncertain father had finally proved her +need of protection both from men's vileness, and her own helplessness. +Miss Dempsey had taken the girl first into her own house, and then, +persuading and comforting the old father, had placed her in one of the +Homes where such victims are sheltered. + +Winnington briefly enquired after the girl. She as briefly replied. +Then she added:--as other travellers got out and they were left to +themselves. + +"So Miss Blanchflower wanted to keep her in the village?" + +Winnington nodded, adding-- + +"She of course had no idea of the real facts." + +"No. Why should she?--_Why should she_!--" the old lips repeated with +passion. "Let her keep her youth while she can! It's so strange to +me--how they will throw away their youth! Some of us must know. The +black ox has trodden on us. A woman of thirty must look at it all. But +a girl of twenty! Doesn't she see that she helps the world more by +_not_ knowing!--that her mere unconsciousness is _our_ gain--_our_ +refreshment." + +The face of the man sitting opposite her, reflected her own feeling. + +"You and I always agree," he said warmly. "I wish you'd make friends +with her." + +"Who? Miss Blanchflower? What could she make out of an old stager like +me!" Miss Dempsey's face broke into amusement at the notion. "And I +don't know that I could keep my temper with a militant. Well now you're +going to hear her speak--and here we are." + + * * * * * + +Winnington and Captain Andrews left the station together. Latchford +owned a rather famous market, and market day brought always a throng of +country folk into the little town. A multitude of booths under flaring +gas jets--for darkness had just fallen--held one side of the square, +and the other was given up to the hurdles which penned the sheep and +cattle, and to their attendant groups of farmers and drovers. + +The market place was full of people, but the crowd which filled it was +not an ordinary market-day crowd. The cattle and sheep indeed had long +since gone off with their new owners or departed homeward unsold. The +booths were most of them either taken down or were in process of being +dismantled. For the evening was falling fast; it was spitting with +rain; and business was over. But the shop windows in the market-place +were still brilliantly lit, and from the windows of the Crown Inn, all +tenanted by spectators, light streamed out on the crowd below. The +chief illumination came however from what seemed to be a large shallow +waggon drawn up not far from the Crown. Three people stood in it; a +man--who was speaking--and two women. From either side, a couple of +motor lamps of great brilliance concentrated upon them threw their +faces and figures into harsh relief. + +The crowd was steadily pressing toward the waggon, and it was evident +at once to Winnington and his companion that it was not a friendly +crowd. + +"Looks rather ugly, to me!" said Andrews in Winnington's ear. "They've +got hold of that thing which happened at Wanchester yesterday, of the +burning of that house where the care-taker and his children only just +escaped." + +A rush of lads and young men passed them as he spoke--shouting-- + +"Pull 'em down--turn 'em out!" + +Andrews and Winnington pursued, but were soon forced back by a +retreating movement of those in front. Winnington's height enabled him +to see over the heads of the crowd. + +"The police are keeping a ring," he reported to his companion--"they +seem to have got it in hand! Ah! now they've seen me--they'll let us +through." + +Meanwhile the shouts and booing of the hostile portion of the +audience--just augmented by a number of rough-looking men from the +neighbouring brickfields--prevented most of the remarks delivered by +the male speaker on the cart from reaching the audience. + +"Cowards!" said an excited woman's voice--"that's all they can +do!--howl like wild beasts--that's all they're fit for!" + +Winnington turned to see a tall girl, carrying an armful of newspapers. +She had flaming red hair, and she wore a black and orange scarf, with a +cap of the same colours. "Foster's daughter," he thought, wondering. +"What happens to them all!" For he had known Kitty Foster from her +school days, and had never thought of her except as a silly simpering +flirt, bent on the pursuit of man. And now he beheld a maenad, a fury. + +Suddenly another woman's voice cut across the others-- + +"Aren't you ashamed of those colours! Go home--and take them off. Go +home and behave like a decent creature!" + +Heads were turned--to see a middle-aged woman of quiet dress and +commanding aspect, sternly pointing to the astonished Kitty Foster. +"Do you see that girl?"--the woman continued, addressing her +neighbours,--"she's got the 'Daughters'' colours on. Do you know what +the Daughters have been doing in town? You've seen about the destroying +of letters in London. Well, I'll tell you what that means. I had a +little servant I was very fond of. She left me to go and live near her +sister in town. The sister died, and she got consumption. She went into +lodgings, and there was no one to help her. She wrote to me, asking me +to come to her. Her letter was destroyed in one of the pillar-boxes +raided--by those women--" She pointed. "Then she broke her heart +because she thought I'd given her up. She daren't write again. And now +I've found her out--in hospital--dying. I've seen her to-day. If it +hadn't have been for these demented creatures she might ha' lived for +years." + +The woman paused, her voice breaking a little. Kitty Foster tossed her +head. + +"What are most women in hospital for?" she said, shrilly. "By the fault +of men!--one way or the other. That's what we think of." + +"Yes I know--that's one of the shameless things you say--to us who have +husbands and sons we thank God for!" said the elder woman, quivering. +"Go and get a husband!--if you can find one to put up with you, and +hold your tongue!" She turned her back. + +The girl laughed affectedly. + +"I can do without one, thank you. It's you happy married women that are +the chief obstacle in our path. Selfish things!--never care for anybody +but yourselves!" + +"Hallo--Lathrop's down--that's Miss Blanchflower!" said Andrews, +excitedly. "Let's go on!" + +And at the same moment a mounted constable, who had been steadily +making his way to them, opened a way for the two J.P.'s through the +crowd, which after the tumult of hooting mingled with a small amount of +applause, which had greeted Lathrop's peroration, had relapsed into +sudden silence as Delia Blanchflower came forward, so that her opening +words, in a rich clear voice were audible over a large area of the +market-place. + + * * * * * + +What did she say? Certainly nothing new! Winnington knew it all by +heart--had read it dozens of times in their strident newspaper, which +he now perused weekly, simply that he might discover if he could, what +projects his ward might be up to. + +The wrongs of women, their wrongs as citizens, as wives, as the victims +of men, as the "refuse of the factory system"--Winnington remembered +the phrase in the _Tocsin_ of the week before--the uselessness of +constitutional agitation--the need "to shake England to make her +hear"--it was all the "common form" of the Movement; and yet she was +able to infuse it with passion, with conviction, with a wild and +natural eloquence. Her voice stole upon him--hypnotized him. His +political and economic knowledge told him that half the things she +said were untrue, and the rest irrelevant. His moral sense revolted +against her violence--her defence of violence. A girl of twenty-one +addressing this ugly, indifferent crowd, and talking calmly of +stone-throwing and arson, as though they were occupations as natural to +her youth as dancing or love-making!--the whole thing was +abhorrent--preposterous--to a man of order and peace. And yet he had +never been more stirred, more conscious of the mad, mixed poetry of +life, than he was, as he stood watching the slender figure on the +waggon--the gestures of the upraised arm, and the play of the lights +from the hotel, and from the side lamps, now on the deep white collar +that lightened her serge jacket, and on the gesticulating hand, or the +face that even in these disfiguring cross-lights could be nothing else +than lovely. + +She was speaking too long--a common fault of women. + +He looked from her to the faces of the crowd, and saw that the spell, +compounded partly of the speaker's good looks and partly of sheer +gaping curiosity, was breaking. They were getting restless, beginning +to heckle and laugh. + +Then he heard her say. + +"Of course we know--you think us fools--silly fools! You say it's a +poor sort of fighting--and what do we hope to get by it? Pin-pricks you +call it--all that women can do. Well, so it is--we admit it. It _is_ a +poor sort of fighting--we don't admire it any more than you. But it's +all men have left to women. You have disarmed us--and fooled us--and +made slaves of us. You won't allow us the constitutional weapon of the +vote, so we strike as we can, and with what weapons we can--" + +"Makin' bonfires of innercent people an' their property, ain't +politics, Miss!" shouted a voice. + +"Hear, Hear!" from the crowd. + +"We haven't killed anybody--but ourselves!" The answer flashed. + +"Pretty near it! Them folks at Wanchester only just got out--an' there +were two children among 'em," cried a man near the waggon. + +"An' they've just been up to something new at Brownmouth--" + +All heads turned towards a young man who spoke from the back of the +audience. "News just come to the post-office," he shouted--"as the new +pier was burnt out early this morning. There's a bit o' wanton mischief +for you!" + +A howl of wrath rose from the audience, amid which the closing words of +Delia's speech were lost. Winnington caught a glimpse of her face--pale +and excited--as she retreated from the front of the waggon in order to +make room for her co-speaker. + +Gertrude Marvell, as Winnington soon saw, was far more skilled in +street oratory than her pupil. By sheer audacity she caught her +audience at once, and very soon, mingling defiance with sarcasm, she +had turned the news of the burnt pier into a Suffragist parable. What +was that blaze in the night, lighting up earth and sea, but an emblem +of women's revolt flaming up in the face of dark injustice and +oppression? Let them rage! The women mocked. All tyrannies disliked +being disturbed--since the days of Nebuchadnezzar. And thereupon, +without any trace of excitement, or any fraction of Delia's eloquence, +she built up bit by bit, and in face of the growing hostility of the +crowd, an edifice of selected statements, which could not have been +more adroit. It did not touch or persuade, but it silenced; till at the +end she said--each word slow and distinct-- + +"Now--all these things _you_ may do to women, and nobody minds--nobody +troubles at all. But if _we_ make a bonfire of a pier, or an empty +house, by way of drawing attention to your proceedings, then, you see +red. Well, here we are!--do what you like--torture, imprison us!--you +are only longing, I know--some of you--to pull us down now and trample +on us, so that you may _show_ us how much stronger men are than women! +All right!--but where one woman falls, another will spring up. And +meanwhile the candle we are lighting will go on burning till you give +us the vote. Nothing simpler--nothing easier. _Give us the vote_!--and +send your canting Governments, Liberal, or Tory, packing, till we get +it. But until then--windows and empty houses, and piers and such-like, +are nothing--but so many opportunities of making our masters +uncomfortable, till they free their slaves! Lucky for you, if the thing +is no worse!" + +She paused a moment, and then added with sharp and quiet emphasis-- + +"And why is it specially necessary that we should try to stir up this +district--whether you like our methods or whether you don't? +Because--you have living here among you, one of the worst of the +persecutors of women! You have here a man who has backed up every +cruelty of the Government--who has denied us every right, and scoffed +at all our constitutional demands--your neighbour and great landlord, +Sir Wilfrid Lang! I call upon every woman in this district, to avenge +women on Sir Wilfrid Lang! We are not out indeed to destroy life or +limb--we leave that to the men who are trying to coerce women--but we +mean to sweep men like Sir Wilfrid Lang out of our way! Meanwhile we +can pay special attention to his meetings--we can harass him at railway +stations--we can sit on his doorstep--we can put the fear of God into +him in a hundred ways--in short we can make his life a tenth part as +disagreeable to him as he can make ours to us. We can, if we please, +make it a _burden_ to him--and we intend to do so! And don't let +men--or women either--waste their breath in preaching to us of 'law and +order.' Slaves who have no part in making the law, are not bound by the +law. Enforce it if you can! But while you refuse to free us, we despise +both the law and the making of the law. Justice--which is a very +different thing from law--Justice is our mistress!--and to her we +appeal." + +Folding her arms, she looked the crowd in the face. They seemed to +measure each other; on one side, the lines of upturned faces, gaping +youths, and smoking workmen, farmers and cattlemen, women and children; +on the other, defying them, one thin, neatly-dressed woman, her face, +under the lamps, a gleaming point in the dark. + +Then a voice rose from a lounging group of men, smoking like +chimneys--powerful fellows; smeared with the clay of the brickfields. + +"Who's a-makin' slaves of you, Ma'am? There's most of us workin' for a +woman!" + +A woman in the middle of the crowd laughed shrilly--a queer, tall +figure in a battered hat-- + +"Aye--and a lot yo' give 'er ov a Saturday night, don't yer?" + +"Sir Wilfrid's a jolly good feller, miss," shouted another man. "Pays +'is men good money, an' no tricks. If you come meddlin' with him, in +these parts, you'll catch it." + +"An' we don't want no suffragettes here, thank you!" cried a sarcastic +woman's voice. "We was quite 'appy till you come along, an' we're quite +willin' now for to say 'Good-bye, an' God bless yer!'" + +The crowd laughed wildly, and suddenly a lad on the outskirts of the +crowd picked up a cabbage-stalk that had fallen from one of the +market-stalls, and flung it at the waggon. The hooligan element, +scattered through the market-place, took up the hint at once; brutal +things began to be shouted; and in a moment the air was thick with +missiles of various sorts, derived from the refuse of the day's +market--vegetable remains of all kinds, fragments of wood and cardboard +boxes, scraps of filthy matting, and anything else that came handy. + +The audience at first disapproved. There were loud cries of "Stow +it!"--"Shut up!"--"Let the ladies alone!"--and there was little attempt +to obstruct the police as they moved forward. But then, by ill-luck, +the powerfully-built fair-haired man, who had been speaking when +Winnington and Andrews entered the market place, rushed to the front of +the waggon, and in a white heat of fury, began to denounce both the +assailants of the speakers, and the crowd in general, as "cowardly +louts"--on whom argument was thrown away--who could only be reached +"through their backs, or their pockets"--with other compliments of the +same sort, under which the temper of the "moderates" rapidly gave way. + +"What an ass! What a damned ass!" groaned Andrews indignantly. "Look +here Winnington, you take care of Miss Blanchflower--I'll answer for +the other!" + +And amid a general shouting and scuffling, through which some stones +were beginning to fly, Winnington found himself leaping on the waggon, +followed by Andrews and a couple of police. + +Delia confronted him--undaunted, though breathless. + +"What do you want? We're all right!" + +"You must come away at once. I can get you through the hotel." + +"Not at all! We must put the Resolution." + +"Come Miss!--" said the tall constable behind Winnington--"no use +talking! There's a lot of fellows here that mean mischief. You go with +this gentleman. He'll look after you." + +"Not without my friend!" cried Delia, both hands behind her on the edge +of the waggon--erect and defiant. "Gertrude!--" she raised her +voice--"What do you wish to do?" + +But amid the din, her appeal was not heard. + +Gertrude Marvell however could be clearly seen on the other side of the +waggon, with Paul Lathrop beside her, listening to the remonstrances +and entreaties of Andrews, with a smile as cool, as though she were in +the drawing-room of Maumsey Abbey, and the Captain were inviting her to +trifle with a cup of tea. + +"Take her along, Sir!" said the policeman, with a nod to Winnington. +"It's getting ugly." And as he spoke, a man jumped upon the waggon, a +Latchford doctor, an acquaintance of Winnington's, who said something +in his ear. + +The next moment, a fragment of a bottle, flung from a distance, struck +Winnington on the wrist. The blood rushed out, and Delia, suddenly +white, looked from it to Winnington's face. The only notice he took of +the incident was expressed in the instinctive action of rolling his +handkerchief round it. But it stirred him to lay a grasp upon Delia's +arm, which she could hardly have resisted. She did not, however, +resist. She felt herself lifted down from the waggon, and hurried +along, the police keeping back the crowd, into the open door of the +hotel. Shouts of a populace half enraged, half amused, pursued her. + +"Brutes--Cowards!" she gasped, between her teeth--then to +Winnington--"Where are you taking me? I have the car!" + +"There's a motor belonging to a doctor ready at once in the yard of the +hotel. Better let me take you home in it. Andrews, I assure you, will +look after Miss Marvell!" + +They passed through the brilliantly-lighted inn, where landlady, +chambermaids, and waiters stood grinning in rows to see, and Winnington +hurried his charge into the closed motor standing at the inn's back +door. + +"Take the street behind the hotel, and get out by the back of the town. +Be quick!" said Winnington to the chauffeur. + +Booing groups had already begun to gather at the entrance of the yards, +and in the side street to which it led. The motor passed slowly through +them, then quickened its pace, and in what seemed an incredibly short +time, they were in country lanes. + +Delia leant hack, drawing long breaths of fatigue and excitement. Then +she perceived with disgust that her dress was bemired with scraps of +dirty refuse, and that some mud was dripping from her hat. She took off +the hat, shook it out of the window of the car, but could not bring +herself to put it on again. Her hair, loosely magnificent, framed a +face that was now all colour and passion. She hated herself, she hated +the crowd; it seemed to her she hated the man at her side. Suddenly +Winnington turned on the electric light--with an exclamation. + +"So sorry to be a nuisance--but have you got a spare handkerchief? I'm +afraid I shall spoil your dress!" + +And Delia saw, to her dismay, that his own handkerchief which he had +originally tied round his wound was already soaked, and the blood was +dripping from it on to the motor-rug. + +"Yes--yes--I have!" And opening her little wrist-bag, she took out of +it two spare handkerchiefs, and tied them, with tremulous hands, round +the wrist he held out to her,--a wrist brown and spare and powerful, +like the rest of him. + +"Now--have you got anything you could tie round the arm, above the +wound--and then twist the knot?" + +She thought. + +"My veil!" She slipped it off in a moment, a long motor veil of stout +make. He turned towards her, pushing up his coat sleeve as high as it +would go, and shewing her where to put the bandage. She helped him to +turn back his shirt sleeve, and then wound the veil tightly round the +arm, so as to compress the arteries. Her fingers were warm and strong. +He watched them--he felt their touch--with a curious pleasure. + +"Now, suppose you take this pencil, and twist it in the knot--you know +how? Have you done any First Aid?" + +She nodded. + +"I know." + +She did it well. The tourniquet acted, and the bleeding at once +slackened. + +"All right!" said Winnington, smiling at her. "Now if I keep it up that +ought to do!" She drew down the sleeve, and he put his hand into the +motor-strap hanging near him, which supported it. Then he threw his +head back a moment against the cushions of the car. The sudden loss of +blood on the top of a long fast, had made him feel momentarily faint. + +Delia looked at him uneasily--biting her lip. + +"Let us go back to Latchford, Mr. Winnington, and find a doctor." + +"Oh dear no! I'm only pumped for a moment. It's going off. I'm +perfectly fit. When I've taken you home, I shall go in to our Maumsey +man, and get tied up." + +There was silence. The hedges and fields flew by outside, under the +light of the motor, stars overhead, Delia's heart was full of wrath and +humiliation. + +"Mr. Winnington--" + +"Yes!" He sat up, apparently quite revived. + +"Mr. Winnington--for Heaven's sake--do give me up!" + +He looked at her with amused astonishment. + +"Give you up!--How?" + +"Give up being my guardian! I really can't stand it. I--I don't mind +what happens to myself. But it's too bad that I should be forced to--to +make myself such a nuisance to you--or desert all my principles. It's +not fair to _me_--that's what I feel--it's not indeed!" she insisted +stormily. + +He saw her dimly as she spoke--the beautiful oval of the face, the +white brow, the general graciousness of line, so feminine, in +truth!--so appealing. The darkness hid away all that shewed the "female +franzy." Distress of mind--distress for his trumpery wound?--had +shaken her, brought her back to youth and childishness? Again he felt +a rush of sympathy--of tender concern. + +"Do you think you would do any better with a guardian chosen by the +Court?" he asked her, smiling, after a moment's pause. + +"Of course I should! I shouldn't mind fighting a stranger in the +least." + +"They would be very unlikely to appoint a stranger. They would probably +name Lord Frederick." + +"He wouldn't dream of taking it!" she said, startled. "And you know he +is the laziest of men." + +They both laughed. But her laugh was a sound of agitation, and in the +close contact of the motor he was aware of her quick breathing. + +"Well, it's true he never answers a letter," said Winnington. "But I +suppose he's ill." + +"He's been a _malade imaginaire_ all his life, and he isn't going to +begin to put himself out for anybody now!" she said, scornfully. + +"Your aunt, Miss Blanchflower?" + +"I haven't spoken to her for years. She used to live with us when I was +eighteen. She tried to boss me, and set father against me. But I got +the best of her." + +"I am sure you did," said Winnington. + +She broke out-- + +"Oh, I know you think me a perfectly impossible creature whom nobody +could ever get on with!" + +He paused a moment, then said gravely-- + +"No, I don't think anything of the kind. But I do think that, given +what you want, you are going entirely the wrong way to get it." + +She drew a long and desperate breath. + +"Oh, for goodness sake don't let's argue!" + +He refrained. But after a moment he added, still more gravely--"And I +do protest--most strongly!--against the influence upon you of the lady +you have taken to live with you!" + +Delia made a vehement movement. + +"She is my friend!--my dearest friend!" she said, in a shaky voice. +"And I believe in her, and admire her with all my heart!" + +"I know--and I am sorry. Her speech this evening--all the latter part +of it--was the speech of an Anarchist. And the first half was a tissue +of misstatements. I happen to know something about the facts she dealt +with." + +"Of course you take a different view!" + +"I _know_," he said, quietly--a little sternly. "Miss Marvell either +does not know, or she wilfully misrepresents." + +"You can't prove it!" + +"I think I could. And as to that man--Mr. Lathrop--but you know what I +think." + +They both fell silent. Through all his own annoyance and disgust, +Winnington was sympathetically conscious of what she too must be +feeling--chafed and thwarted, at every turn, by his legal power over +her actions, and by the pressure of his male will. He longed to +persuade her, convince her, soothe her; but what chance for it, under +the conditions she had chosen for her life? + +The motor drew up at the door of the Abbey, and Winnington turned on +the light. + +"I am afraid I can't help you out. Can you manage?" + +She stooped anxiously to look at his wrist. + +"It's bleeding worse again! I am sure I could improve that bandage. Do +come in. My maid's got everything." + +He hesitated--then followed her into the house. The maid was summoned, +and proved an excellent nurse. The wound was properly bandaged, and the +arm put in a sling. + +Then, as the maid withdrew, Delia and her guardian were left standing +together in the drawing-room, lit only by a dying gleam of fire, and a +single lamp. + +"Good-night," said Winnington, gently. "Don't be the least alarmed +about Miss Marvell. The train doesn't arrive for ten minutes yet. Thank +you for looking after me so kindly." + +Delia laughed--but it was a sound of distress. + +Suddenly he stooped, lifted her hand, and kissed it. + +"What you are doing seems to me foolish--and _wrong!_ I am afraid I +must tell you so plainly," he said, with emotion. "But although I feel +like that--my one wish--all the time--is--forgive me if it sounds +patronising!--to help you--and stand by you. To see you in that horrid +business to-night--made me--very unhappy. I am old-fashioned I +suppose--but I could hardly bear it. I wish I could make you trust me a +little!" + +"I do!" she said, choked. "I do--but I must follow my conscience." + +He shook his head, but said no more. She murmured good-night, and he +went. She heard the motor drive away, and remained standing where he +had left her, the hand he had kissed hanging at her side. She still +felt the touch of his lips upon it, and as the blood rushed into her +cheeks, her heart was conscious of new and strange emotions. She longed +to go to him as a sister or a daughter might, and say--"Forgive +me--understand me--don't despair of me!" + +The trance of feeling broke, and passed away. She caught up a cloak and +went to the hall door to listen for Gertrude Marvell. + +"What I _shall_ have to say to him before long, is--'I have tricked +you this quarter out of Ł500--and I mean to do it again next +quarter--if I can!' He won't want to kiss my hand again!" + + + + +Chapter X + + +Two men sat smoking and talking with Paul Lathrop in the hook-littered +sitting-room of his cottage. One was a young journalist, Roger Blaydes, +whose thin, close-shaven face wore the knowing fool's look of one to +whom the world's his oyster, and all the bricks for opening it +familiar. The other was a god-like creature, a poet by profession, with +long lantern-jaws, grey eyes deeply set, and a mass of curly black +hair, from which the face with its pallor and its distinction, shone +dimly out like the portrait of a Cinquecento. Lathrop, in a kind of +dressing-gown, as clumsily cut as the form it wrapped, his reddish hair +and large head catching the firelight, had the look of one lazily at +bay, as wrapped in a cloud of smoke, he twined from one speaker to the +other. + +"So you were at another of these meetings last night?" said Blaydes, +with a mouth half smiling, half contemptuous. + +"Yes. A disgusting failure! They didn't even take the trouble to pelt +us." The poet--Merian by name--moved angrily on his chair. Blaydes +threw a sly look at him, as he knocked the ash from his cigarette. + +"And what the deuce do you expect to get by it all?" + +Paul Lathrop paused a moment--and at last said with a lift of the +eyebrows:-- + +"Well!--I have no illusions!" + +Merian broke out indignantly-- + +"I say, Lathrop--why should you try and play up to that cynic there? As +if he ever had an illusion about anything!" + +"Well, but one may have faith without illusions," protested Blaydes, +with hard good temper. + +"I doubt whether Lathrop has an ounce of either!" + +Lathrop reached out for a match. + +"What's the good of 'faith'--and what does anyone mean by it? +Sympathies--and animosities: they're enough for me." + +"And you really are in sympathy with these women?" said the other. + +The tone was incredulous. Merian brought his hand violently down on the +table. + +"Don't you talk about them, Blaydes! I tell you, they're out of your +ken." + +"I daresay," said Blaydes, composedly. "I was only trying to get at +what Lathrop means by going into the business." + +Paul Lathrop sat up. + +"I'm in sympathy with anything that harasses, and bothers and stings +the governing classes of this country!" he said, with an oratorical +wave of his cigarette. "What fools they are! In this particular +business the Government is an ass, the public is an ass, the women, if +you like, are asses. So long as they don't destroy works of art that +appeal to me, I prefer to bray with them than with their enemies." + +Merian rose impatiently--a slim, dark-browed St. George towering over +the other two. + +"After that, I'd rather hear them attacked by Blaydes, than defended by +you, Lathrop!" he said with energy, as he buttoned up his coat. + +Lathrop threw him a cool glance. + +"So for you, they're all heroines--and saints?" + +"Never mind what they are. I stand by them! I'm ready to give them what +they ask." + +"Ready to hand the Empire over to them--to smash like the windows in +Piccadilly?" said Blaydes. + +"Hang the Empire!--what does the Empire matter! Give the people in +these islands what they _want_ before you begin to talk about the +Empire. Well, good-bye, I must be off!" + +He nodded to the other two, and opened the door of the Hermitage which +led directly into the outer air. On the threshold he turned and looked +back, irresolutely, as though in compunction for his loss of temper. +Framed in the doorway against a background of sunset sky, his dark head +and sparely-noble features were of a singular though melancholy beauty. +It was evident that he was full of speech, of which he could not in the +end unburden himself. The door closed behind him, and he was gone. + +"Poor devil!" said Blaydes, tipping the end of his cigarette into the +fire-"he's in love with a girl who's been in prison three times. He +thinks she'll kill herself--and he can't influence her at all. He +takes it hard. Well, now look here"--the young man's expression changed +and stiffened--"I understand that you too are seeing a good deal of one +of these wild women--and that she's both rich--and a beauty?" + +He looked up, with a laugh. + +Lathrop's aspect was undisturbed. + +"Nothing to do with it!--though your silly little mind will no doubt go +on thinking so." + +The other laughed again--with a more emphatic mockery. Lathrop +reddened--then said quietly-- + +"Well, I admit that was a lie. Yes, she is handsome--and if she were +to stick to it--sacrifice all her life to it--in time she might make a +horrible success of this thing. Will she stick to it?" + +"Are you in love with her, Paul?" + +"Of course! I am in love with all pretty women--especially when I +daren't shew it." + +"You daren't shew it?" + +"The smallest advance on my part, in this quarter, brings me a rap on +the knuckles. I try to pitch what I have to say in the most impersonal +and romantic terms. No good at all! But all egg-dancing is amusing, so +I dance--and accept all the drudgery she and Alecto give me to do." + +"Alecto? Miss Marvell?" + +"Naturally." + +"These meetings must be pretty boring." + +"Especially because I can't keep my temper. I lose it in the vulgarest +way--and say the most idiotic things." + +There was a pause of silence. The eyes of the journalist wandered round +the room, coming back to Lathrop at last with renewed curiosity. + +"How are your affairs, Paul?" + +"Couldn't be worse. Everything here would have been seized long ago, if +there had been anything to seize. But you can't distrain on trout--dear +slithery things. And as the ponds afford my only means of sustenance, +and do occasionally bring in something, my creditors have to leave me +the house and a few beds and chairs so that I may look after them." + +"Why don't you write another book?" + +"Because at present I have nothing to say. And on that point I happen +to have a conscience--some rays of probity, left." + +He got up as he spoke, and went across the room, to a covered basket +beside the fire. + +"Mimi!" he said caressingly--"poor Mimi!" + +He raised a piece of flannel, and a Persian kitten lying in the +basket--a sick kitten--lifted its head languidly. + +"_Tu m'aimes_, Mimi?" + +The kitten looked at him with veiled eyes, already masked with death. +Lathrop stooped for a saucer of warm milk standing by the fire. The +kitten refused it, but when he dipped his fingers in the milk, it made +a momentary effort to lick them, then subsiding, sank to sleep again. + +"Poor little beast!" said Blaydes--"what's the matter?" + +"Some poison--I don't know what. It'll die tonight." + +"Then you'll be all alone?" + +"I'm never alone," said Lathrop, with decision. And rising he went to +the door of the cottage--which opened straight on the hill-side, and +set it open. + +It was four o'clock on a November day. The autumn was late, and of a +marvellous beauty. The month was a third gone and still there were +trees here and there, isolated trees, intensely green as though they +defied decay. The elder trees, the first to leaf under the Spring, were +now the last to wither. The elms in twenty-four hours had turned a pale +gold atop, while all below was still round and green. But the beeches +were nearly gone; all that remained of them was a thin pattern of +separate leaves, pale gold and faintly sparkling against the afternoon +sky. Such a sky! Bands of delicate pinks, lilacs and blues scratched +across an inner-heaven of light, and in the mid-heaven a blazing +furnace, blood-red, wherein the sun had just plunged headlong to its +death. And under the sky, an English scene of field and woodland, +fading into an all-environing forest, still richly clothed. While in +the foreground and middle distance, some trees already stripped and +bare, winter's first spoil, stood sharply black against the scarlet of +the sunset. And fusing the whole scene, hazes of blue, amethyst or +purple, beyond a Turner's brush, + +"What beauty!--my God!" + +Blaydes came to stand beside the speaker, glancing at him with eyes +half curious, half mocking. + +"You get so much pleasure out of it?" + +For answer, Lathrop murmured a few words as though to himself, a sudden +lightening in his sleepy eyes-- + + L'univers--si liquide, si pur!-- + Une belle eau qu'on voudrait boire. + + +"I don't understand French"--said Blaydes, with a shrug--"not French +verse, anyway." + +"That's a pity," was the dry reply--"because you can't read Madame de +Noailles. Ah!--there are Lang's pheasants calling!--his tenants I +suppose--for he's left the shooting." + +He pointed to a mass of wood on his left hand from which the sound +came. + +"They say he's never here?" + +"Two or three times a year,--just on business. His wife--a little +painted doll--hates the place, and they've built a villa at Beaulieu." + +"Rather risky leaving a big house empty in these days--with your wild +women about!" + +Lathrop looked round. + +"Good heavens!--who would ever dream of touching Monk Lawrence! I bet +even Gertrude Marvell hasn't nerve enough for that. Look here!--have +you ever seen it?" + +"Never." + +"Come along then. There's just time--while this light lasts." + +They snatched their caps, and were presently mounting the path which +led ultimately through the woods of Monk Lawrence to the western front. + +Blaydes frowned as he walked. He was a young man of a very practical +turn of mind, who in spite of an office-boy's training possessed an +irrelevant taste for literature which had made him an admirer of +Lathrop's two published volumes. For some time past he had been +Lathrop's chancellor of the exchequer--self-appointed, and had done his +best to keep his friend out of the workhouse. From the tone of Paul's +recent letters he had become aware of two things--first, that Lathrop +was in sight of his last five pound note, and did not see his way to +either earning or borrowing another; and secondly, that a handsome girl +had appeared on the scene, providentially mad with the same kind of +madness as had recently seized on Lathrop, belonging to the same +anarchial association, and engaged in the same silly defiance of +society; likely therefore to be thrown a good deal in his company; and +last, but most important, possessed of a fortune which she would no +doubt allow the "Daughters of Revolt" to squander--unless Paul cut in. +The situation had begun to seem to him interesting, and having already +lent Lathrop more money than he could afford, he had come down to +enquire about it. He himself possessed an income of three hundred a +year, plus two thousand pounds left him by an uncle. Except for the +single weakness which had induced him to lend Lathrop a couple of +hundred pounds, his principles with regard to money were frankly +piratical. Get what you can--and how you can. Clearly it was Lathrop's +game to take advantage of this queer friendship with a militant who +happened to be both rich and young, which his dabbling in their +"nonsense" had brought about. Why shouldn't he achieve it? Lathrop was +as clever as sin; and there was the past history of the man, to shew +that he could attract women. + +He gripped his friend's arm as they passed into the shadow of the wood. +Lathrop looked at him with surprise-- + +"Look here, Paul"--said the younger man in a determined voice--"You've +got to pull this thing off." + +"What thing?" + +"You can marry this girl if you put your mind to it. You tell me you're +going about the country with her speaking at meetings--that you're one +of her helpers and advisers. That is--you've got an A1 chance with her. +If you don't use it, you're a blithering idiot." + +Paul threw back his head and laughed. + +"And what about other people? What about her guardian, for +instance--who is the sole trustee of the property--who has a thousand +chances with her to my one--and holds, I venture to say--if he knows +anything about me--the strongest views on the subject of _my_ moral +character?" + +"Who is her guardian?" + +"Mark Wilmington. Does that convey anything to you?" + +Blaydes whistled. + +"Great Scott!" + +"Yes. Precisely 'Great Scott!'" said Lathrop, mocking. "I may add that +everybody here has their own romance on the subject. They are convinced +that Winnington will soon cure her of her preposterous notions, and +restore her, tamed, to a normal existence." + +Blaydes meditated,--his aspect showing a man checked. + +"I saw Winnington playing in a county match last August," he said--with +his eyes on the ground--"I declare no one looked at anybody else. I +suppose he's forty; but the old stagers tell you that he's just as much +of an Apollo now as he was in his most famous days--twenty years ago." + +"Don't exaggerate. He _is_ forty, and I'm thirty--which is one to me. +I only meant to suggest to you a _reasonable_ view of the chances." + +"Look here--_is_ she as handsome as people say?" + +"Blaydes!--this is the last time I shall allow you to talk about +her--you get on my nerves. Handsome? I don't know." + +He walked on, muttering to himself and twitching at the trees on either +hand. + +"I am simply putting what is your duty to yourself--and your +creditors," said Blaydes, sulkily--"You must know your affairs are in +a pretty desperate state." + +"And a girl like that is to be sacrificed--to my creditors! Good Lord!" + +"Oh, well, if you regard yourself as such an undesirable, naturally, +I've nothing to say. Of course I know--there's that case against you. +But it's a good while ago; and I declare women don't look at those +things as they used to do. Why don't you play the man of letters +business? You know very well, Paul, you could earn a lot of money if +you chose. But you're such a lazy dog!" + +"Let me alone!" said Lathrop, rather fiercely. "The fact that you've +lent me a couple of hundred really doesn't give you the right to talk +to me like this." + +"I won't lend you a farthing more unless you promise me to take this +thing seriously," said Blaydes, doggedly. + +Lathrop burst into a nervous shout of laughter. + +"I say, do shut up! I assure you, you can't bully me. Now then--here's +the house!" + +And as he spoke they emerged from the green oblong, bordered by low yew +edges, from which as from a flat and spacious shelf carved out of the +hill, Monk Lawrence surveyed the slopes below it, the clustered +village, the middle distance with its embroidery of fields and trees, +with the vaporous stretches of the forest beyond, and in the far +distance, a shining line of sea. + +"My word!--that is a house!" cried Blaydes, stopping to survey it and +get his townsman's breath, after the steep pitch of hill. + +"Not bad?" + +"Is it shown?" + +"Used to be. It has been shut lately for fear of the militants." + +"But they keep somebody in it?" + +"Yes--in some room at the back. A keeper, and his three children. The +wife's dead. Shall I go and see if he'll let us in? But he won't. He'll +have seen my name at that meeting, in the Latchford paper." + +"No, no. I shall miss my train. Let's walk round. Why, you'd think it +was on fire already!" said Blaydes, with a start, gazing at the house. + +For the marvellous evening now marching from the western forest, was +dyeing the whole earth in crimson, and the sun just emerging from one +bank of cloud, before dropping into the bank below, was flinging a +fierce glare upon the wide grey front of Monk Lawrence. Every window +blazed, and some fine oaks still thick with red leaf, which flanked the +house on the north, flamed in concert. The air was suffused with red; +every minor tone, blue or brown, green or purple, shewed through it, as +through a veil. + +And yet how quietly the house rose, in the heart of the flame! Peace +brooding on memory seemed to breathe from its rounded oriels, its mossy +roof, its legend in stone letters running round the eaves, the carved +trophies and arabesques which framed the stately doorway, the sleepy +fountain with its cupids, in the courtyard, the graceful loggia on the +northern side. It stood, aloof and self-contained, amid the lightnings +and arrows of the departing sun. + +"No--they'd never dare to touch that!" said Lathrop as he led the way +to the path skirting the house. "And if I caught Miss Marvell at it, +I'm not sure I shouldn't hand her over myself!" + +"Aren't we trespassing?" said Blaydes, as their footsteps rang on the +broad flagged path which led from the front court to the terrace at the +back of the house. + +"Certainly. Ah, the dog's heard us." + +And before they had gone more than a few steps further, a burly man +appeared at the further corner of the house, holding a muzzled dog--a +mastiff--on a leash. + +"What might you be wanting, gentlemen?" he said gruffly. + +"Why, you know me, Daunt. I brought a friend up to look at your +wonderful place. We can walk through, can't we?" + +"Well, as you're here, Sir, I'll let you out by the lower gate. But +this is private ground, Sir, and Sir Wilfrid's orders are strict,--not +to let anybody through that hasn't either business with the house or an +order from himself." + +"All right. Let's have a look at the back and the terrace, and then +we'll be off; Sir Wilfrid coming here?" + +"Not that I know of, Sir," said the keeper shortly, striding on before +the two men, and quieting his dog, who was growling at their heels. + +As he spoke he led the way down a stately flight of stone steps by +which the famous eastern terrace at the back of the house was reached. +The three men and the dog disappeared from view. + +Steadily the sunset faded. An attacking host of cloud rushed upon it +from the sea, and quenched it. The lights in the windows of Monk +Lawrence went out. Dusk fell upon the house and all its approaches. + +Suddenly, two figures--figures of women--emerged in the twilight from +the thick plantation, which protected the house on the north. They +reached the flagged path with noiseless feet, and then pausing, they +began what an intelligent spectator would have soon seen to be a +careful reconnoitering of the whole northern side of the house. They +seemed to examine the windows, a garden door, the recesses in the +walls, the old lead piping, the creepers and shrubs. Then one of them, +keeping close to the house wall, which was in deep shadow, went quickly +round to the back. The other awaited her. In the distance rose at +intervals a dog's uneasy bark. + +In a very few minutes the woman who had gone round the house returned +and the two, slipping back into the dense belt of wood from which they +had come, were instantly swallowed up by it. Their appearance and their +movements throughout had been as phantom-like and silent as the shadows +which were now engulfing the house. Anyone who had seen them come and +go might almost have doubted his own eyes. + + * * * * * + +Daunt the Keeper returned leisurely to his quarters in some back +premises of Monk Lawrence, at the southeastern corner of the house. But +he had but just opened his own door when he again heard the sound of +footsteps in the fore-court. + +"Well, what's come to the folk to-night"--he muttered, with some +ill-humour, as he turned back towards the front. + +A woman!--standing with her back to the house, in the middle of the +forecourt as though the place belonged to her, and gazing at the piled +clouds of the west, still haunted by the splendour just past away. + +A veritable Masque of Women, all of the Maenad sort, had by now begun +to riot through Daunt's brain by night and day. He raised his voice +sharply-- + +"What's your business here, Ma'am? There is no public road past this +house." + +The lady turned, and came towards him. + +"Don't you know who I am, Mr. Daunt? But I remember you when I was a +child." + +Daunt peered through the dusk. + +"You have the advantage of me, Madam," he said, stiffly. "Kindly give +me your name." + +"Miss Blanchflower--from Maumsey Abbey!" said a young, conscious voice. +"I used to come here with my grandmother, Lady Blanchflower. I have +been intending to come and pay you a visit for a long time--to have a +look at the old house again. And just now I was passing the foot of +your hill in a motor; something went wrong with the car, and while they +were mending it, I ran up. But it's getting dark so quick, one can +hardly see anything!" + +Daunt's attitude showed no relaxation. Indeed, quick recollections +assailed him of certain reports in the local papers, now some ten days +old. Miss Blanchflower indeed! She was a brazen one--after all done and +said. + +"Pleased to see you, Miss, if you'll kindly get an order from Sir +Wilfrid. But I have strict instructions from Sir Wilfrid not to admit +anyone--not anyone whatsoever--to the gardens or the house, without his +order." + +"I should have thought, Mr. Daunt, that only applied to strangers." The +tones shewed annoyance. "My father, Sir Robert Blanchflower, was an old +friend of Sir Wilfrid's." + +"Can't help it, Miss," said Daunt, not without the secret zest of the +Radical putting down his "betters." "There are queer people about. I +can't let no one in without an order." + +As he spoke, a gate slammed on his left, and Daunt, with the feeling of +one beset, turned in wrath to see who might be this new intruder. Since +the house had been closed to visitors, and a notice to the effect had +been posted in the village, scarcely a soul had penetrated through its +enclosing woods, except Miss Amberley, who came to teach Daunts +crippled child. And now in one evening here were three assaults upon +its privacy! + +But as to the third he was soon reassured. + +"Hullo, Daunt, is that you? Did I hear you telling Miss Blanchflower +you can't let her in? But you know her of course?" said a man's easy +voice. + +Delia started. The next moment her hand was in her guardian's, and she +realised that he had heard the conversation between herself and Daunt, +realised also that she had committed a folly not easily to be +explained, either to Winnington or herself, in obeying the impulse +which--half memory, half vague anxiety,--had led her to pay this +sudden visit to the house. Gertrude Marvell had left Maumsey that +morning, saying she should be in London for the day. Had Gertrude been +with her, Delia would have let Monk Lawrence go by. For in Gertrude's +company it had become an instinct with her--an instinct she scarcely +confessed to herself--to avoid all reference to the house. + +At sight of Winnington, however, who was clearly a privileged person in +his eyes, Daunt instantly changed his tone. + +"Good evening, Sir. Perhaps you'll explain to this young lady? We've +got to keep a sharp lookout--you know that, Sir." + +"Certainly, Daunt, certainly. I am sure Miss Blanchflower understands. +But you'll let _me_ shew her the house, I imagine?" + +"Why, of course, Sir! There's nothing you can't do here. Give me a few +minutes--I'll turn on some lights. Perhaps the young lady will walk +in?" He pointed to his own rooms. "So you still keep the electric +light going?" + +"By Sir Wilfrid's wish, Sir,--so as if anything did happen these winter +nights, we mightn't be left in darkness. The engine works a bit now and +then." + +He led the way towards his quarters. The door into his kitchen stood +open, and in the glow of fire and lamp stood his three children, who +had been eagerly listening to the conversation outside. One of them, a +little girl, was leaning on a crutch. She looked up happily as +Winnington entered. + +"Well, Lily--" he pinched her cheek--"I've got something to tell Father +about you. Say 'how do you do' to this lady." The child put her hand in +Delia's, looking all the while ardently at Winnington. + +"Am I going to be in your school, Sir?" + +"If you're good. But you'll have to be dreadfully good!" + +"I am good," said Lily, confidently. "I want to be in your school, +please Sir." + +"But such a lot of other little girls want to come too! Must I leave +them out?" + +Lily shook her head perplexed. "But you promithed," she lisped, very +softly. + +Winnington laughed. The child's hand had transferred itself to his, and +nestled there. + +"What school does she mean?" asked Delia. + +At the sound of her voice Winnington turned to her for the first time. +It was as though till then he had avoided looking at her, lest the +hidden thought in each mind should be too plain to the other. He had +found her--Sir Robert Blanchflower's daughter--on the point of being +curtly refused admission to the house where her father had been a +familiar inmate, and where she herself had gone in and out as a child. +And he knew why; she knew why; Daunt knew why. She was a person under +suspicion, a person on whom the community was keeping watch. + +Nevertheless, Winnington entirely believed what he had overheard her +say to the keeper. It was no doubt quite true that she had turned aside +to see Monk Lawrence on a sudden impulse of sentiment or memory. Odd +that it should be so!--but like her. That _she_ could have any designs +on the beautiful old place was indeed incredible; and it was equally +incredible that she would aid or abet them in anyone else. And +yet--there was that monstrous speech at Latchford, made in her hearing, +by her friend and co-militant, the woman who shared her life! Was it +any wonder that Daunt bristled at the sight of her? + +He had, however, to answer her question. + +"My county school," he explained. "The school for invalid +children--'physical defectives'--that we are going to open next summer. +I came to tell Daunt there'd be a place for this child. She's an old +friend of mine." He smiled down upon the nestling creature--"Has Miss +Amberley been to see you lately, Lily?" + +At this moment Daunt returned to the kitchen, with the news that the +house was ready. "The light's not quite what it ought to be, Sir, but I +daresay you'll be able to see a good deal. Miss Amberley, Sir, she's +taught Lily fine. I'm sure we're very much obliged to her--and to you +for asking her." + +"I don't know what the sick children here will do without her, Daunt. +She's going away--wants to be a nurse." + +"Well, I'm very sorry, Sir. She'll be badly missed." + +"That she will. Shall we go in?" Winnington turned to Delia, who +nodded assent, and followed him into the dim passages beyond the +brightly-lighted kitchen. The children, looking after them, saw the +beautiful lady disappearing, and felt vaguely awed by her height, her +stiff carriage and her proud looks. + +Delia, indeed, was again--and as usual--in revolt, against herself and +circumstances. Why had she been such a fool as to come to Monk Lawrence +at all, and then to submit to seeing it--on sufferance!--in +Winnington's custody? And how he must be contrasting her with Susy +Amberley!--the soft sister of charity, plying her womanly tasks, in the +manner of all good women, since the world began! She saw herself as the +anarchist prowling outside, tracked, spied on, held at arm's length by +all decent citizens, all lovers of ancient beauty, and moral tradition; +while, within, women like Susy Amberley sat Madonna-like, with the +children at their knee. "Well, we stand for the children too--the +children of the future!" she said to herself defiantly. + +"This is the old hall--and the gallery that was put up in honour of +Elizabeth's visit here in 1570--" she heard Winnington saying--"One of +the finest things of its kind. But you can hardly see it." + +The electric light indeed was of the feeblest. A dim line of it ran +round the carved ceiling, and glimmered in the central chandelier. But +the mingled illumination of sunset and moonrise from outside contended +with it on more than equal terms; and everything in the hall, +tapestries, armour, and old oak, the gallery above, the dais with its +carved chairs below, had the dim mystery of a stage set ready for the +play, before the lights are on. + +Daunt apologised. + +"The gardener'll be here directly, Sir. He knows how to manage it +better than I." + +And in spite of protests from the two visitors he ran off again to see +what could he done to better the light. Delia turned impetuously on her +companion. + +"I know you think I have no business to be here!" + +Winnington paused a moment, then said-- + +"I was rather astonished to see you here, certainly." + +"Because of what we said at Latchford the other day?" + +"_You_ didn't say it!" + +"But I agreed with it--I agreed with every word of it!" + +"Then indeed I _am_ astonished that you should wish to see Sir Wilfrid +Lang's house!" he said, with energy. + +"My recollections of it have nothing to do with Sir Wilfrid. I never +saw him that I know of." + +"All the same, it belongs to him." + +"No!--to history--to the nation!" + +"Then let the nation guard it--and every individual in the nation! But +do you think Miss Marvell would take much pains to protect it?" + +"Gertrude said nothing about the house." "No; but if I had been one of +the excitable women you command, my one desire after that speech would +have been to do some desperate damage to Sir Wilfrid, or his property. +If anything does happen, I am afraid everyone in the neighbourhood will +regard her as responsible." + +Delia moved impatiently. "Can't we say what we think of Sir +Wilfrid--because he happens to possess a beautiful house?" + +"If you care for Monk Lawrence, you do so,--with this campaign on +foot--only at great risk. Confess, Miss Delia!--that you were sorry for +that speech!" + +He turned upon her with animation. + +She spoke as though under pressure, her head thrown back, her face +ivory within the black frame of the veil. + +"I--I shouldn't have made it." + +"That's not enough. I want to hear you say you regret it!" + +The light suddenly increased, and she saw him looking at her, his +eyes bright and urgent, his attitude that of the strong yet mild +judge, whose own moral life watches keenly for any sign of grace in +the accused before him. She realised for an angry moment what his +feeling must be--how deep and invincible, towards these "outrages" +which she and Gertrude Marvell regarded by now as so natural and +habitual--outrages that were calmly planned and organised, as she knew +well, at the head offices of their society, by Gertrude Marvell among +others, and acquiesced in--approved--by hundreds of persons like +herself, who either shrank from taking a direct part in them, or had no +opportunity of doing so. "But I shall soon make opportunities!--" she +thought, passionately; "I'm not going to be a shirker!" Aloud she said +in her stiffest manner--"I stand by my friends, Mr. Winnington, +especially when they are ten times better and nobler than I!" + +His expression changed. He turned, like any courteous stranger, to +playing the part of showman of the house. Once more a veil had fallen +between them. + +He led her through the great suite of rooms on the ground-floor, the +drawing-room, the Red Parlour, the Chinese room, the Library. They +recalled her childish visits to the house with her grandmother, and a +score of recollections, touching or absurd, rushed into her mind--but +not to her lips. Dumbness had fallen on her;--nothing seemed worth +saying, and she hurried through. She was conscious only of a rich +confused impression of old seemliness and mellowed beauty,--steeped in +fragrant and famous memories, English history, English poetry, English +art, breathing from every room and stone of the house. "In the Red +Parlour, Sidney wrote part of the 'Arcadia.'--In the room overhead +Gabriel Harvey slept.--In the Porch rooms Chatham stayed--his autograph +is there.--Fox advised upon all the older portion of the Library"--and +so on. She heard Winnington's voice as though through a dream. What did +it matter? She felt the house an oppression--as though it accused or +threatened her. + +As they emerged from the library into a broad passage, Winnington +noticed a garden door at the north end of the passage, and called to +Daunt who was walking behind them. They went to look at it, leaving +Delia in the corridor. + +"Not very secure, is it?" said Winnington, pointing to the glazed upper +half of the door--"anyone might get in there." + +"I've told Sir Wilfrid, Sir, and sent him the measurements. There's to +be an iron shutter." + +"H'm--that may take time. Why not put up something +temporary?--cross-bars of some sort?" + +They came back towards Delia, discussing it. Unreasonably, absurdly, +she held it an offence that Winnington should discuss it in her +presence; her breath grew stormy. + +Daunt turned to the right at the foot of a carved staircase, and down a +long passage leading to the kitchens, he and Winnington still talking. +Suddenly--a short flight of steps, not very visible in a dark place. +Winnington descended them, and then turned to look for Delia who was +just behind-- + +"Please take care!--" + +But he was too late. Head in air--absorbed in her own passionate mood, +Delia never saw the steps, till her foot slipped on the topmost. She +would have fallen headlong, had not Winnington caught her. His arms +received her, held her, released her. The colour rushed into his face +as into hers. "You are not hurt?" he said anxiously. "I ought to have +held a light," said Daunt, full of concern. But the little incident had +broken the ice. Delia laughed, and straightened her Cavalier hat, which +had suffered. She was still rosy as they entered Daunt's kitchen, and +the children who had seen her silent and haughty entrance, hardly +recognised the creature all life and animation who returned to them. + +The car stood waiting in the fore-court. Winnington put her in. As +Delia descended the hill alone in the dark, she closed her eyes, that +she might the more completely give herself to the conflict of thoughts +which possessed her. She was bitterly ashamed and sore, torn between +her passionate affection for Gertrude Marvell, and what seemed to her a +weak and traitorous wish to stand better with Mark Winnington. Nor +could she escape from the memory--the mere physical memory--of those +strong arms round her, resent it as she might. + + * * * * * + +As for Winnington, when he reached home in the moonlight, instead of +going in to join his sister at tea, he paced a garden path till night +had fallen. What was this strong insurgent feeling he could neither +reason with nor silence? It seemed to have stolen upon him, amid a host +of other thoughts and pre-occupations, secretly and insidiously, till +there it stood--full-grown--his new phantom self--challenging the old, +the normal self, face to face. + +Trouble, self-scorn overwhelmed him. Recalling all his promises +to himself, all his assurances to Lady Tonbridge, he stood convicted, +as the sentry who has shut his eyes and let the invader pass. +Monstrous!--that in his position, with this difference of age between +them, he should have allowed such ideas to grow and gather head. +Beautiful wayward creature!--all the more beguiling, because of the +Difficulties that bristled round her. His common sense, his judgment +were under no illusions at all about Delia Blanchflower. And yet-- + +This then was _passion_!--which must be held down and reasoned down. +He would reason it down. She must and should marry a man of her own +generation--youth with youth. And, moreover, to give way to these wild +desires would be simply to alienate her, to destroy all his own power +with her for good. + +The ghostly presence of his life came to him. He cried out to her, made +appeal to her, in sackcloth and ashes. And then, in some mysterious, +heavenly way she was revealed to him afresh; not as an enemy whom he +had offended, not as a lover slighted, but as his best and tenderest +friend. She closed no gates against the future:--that was for himself +to settle, if closed they were to be. She seemed to walk with him, hand +in hand, sister with brother--in a deep converse of souls. + + + + +Chapter XI + + +Gertrude Marvell was sitting alone at the Maumsey breakfast-table, in +the pale light of a December day. All around her were letters and +newspapers, to which she was giving an attention entirely denied to her +meal. She opened them one after another, with a frown or a look of +satisfaction, classifying them in heaps as she read, and occasionally +remembering her coffee or her toast. The parlourmaid waited on her, but +knew very well--and resented the knowledge--that Miss Marvell was +scarcely aware of her existence, or her presence in the room. + +But presently the lady at the table asked-- + +"Is Miss Blanchflower getting up?" + +"She will be down directly, Miss." + +Gertrude's eyebrows rose, unconsciously. She herself was never late for +an 8:30 breakfast, and never went to bed till long after midnight. The +ways of Delia, who varied between too little sleep and the long nights +of fatigue, seemed to her self-indulgent. + +After her letters had been put aside and the ordinary newspapers, she +took up a new number of the _Tocsin_. The first page was entirely given +up to an article headed "How LONG?" She read it with care, her delicate +mouth tightening a little. She herself had suggested the lines of it a +few days before, to the Editor, and her hints had been partially +carried out. It gave a scathing account of Sir Wilfrid's course on the +suffrage question--of his earlier coquettings with the woman's cause, +his defection and "treachery," the bitter and ingenious hostility with +which he was now pursuing the Bill before the House of Commons. "An +amiable, white-haired nonentity for the rest of the world--who only +mention him to marvel that such a man was ever admitted to an English +Cabinet--to us he is the 'smiler with the knife,' the assassin of the +hopes of women, the reptile in the path. The Bill is weakening every +day in the House, and on the night of the second reading it will +receive its 'coup de grace' from the hand of Sir Wilfrid Lang. Women of +England--_how long_!--" + +Gertrude pushed the newspaper aside in discontent. Her critical sense +was beginning to weary of the shrieking note. And the descent from the +"assassin of the hopes of women" to "the reptile in the path" struck +her as a silly bathos. + +Suddenly, a reverie--a waking dream--fell upon her, a visionary +succession of sights and sounds. A dying sunset--and a rising wind, +sighing through dense trees--old walls--the light from a kitchen +window--voices in the distance--the barking of a dog.... + +"Oh Gertrude!--how late I am!" + +Delia entered hurriedly, with an anxious air. + +"I should have been down long ago, but Weston had one of her attacks, +and I have been looking after her." + +Weston was Delia's maid who had been her constant companion for ten +years. She was a delicate nervous woman, liable to occasional onsets of +mysterious pain, which terrified both herself and her mistress, and had +hitherto puzzled the doctor. + +Gertrude received the news with a passing concern. + +"Better send for France, if you are worried. But I expect it will be +soon over." + +"I don't know. It seems worse than usual. The man in Paris threatened +an operation. And here we are--going up to London in a fortnight!" + +"Well, you need only send her to the Brownmouth hospital, or leave her +here with France and a good nurse." + +"She has the most absurd terror of hospitals, and I certainly couldn't +leave her," said Delia, with a furrowed brow. + +"You certainly couldn't stay behind!" Gertrude looked up pleasantly. + +"Of course I want to come--" said Delia slowly. + +"Why, darling, how could we do without you? You don't know how you're +wanted. Whenever I go up town, it's the same--'When's she coming?' Of +course they understood you must be here for a while--but the heart of +things, the things that concern _us_--is London." + +"What did you hear yesterday?" asked Delia, helping herself to some +very cold coffee. Nothing was ever kept warm for her, the owner of the +house; everything was always kept warm for Gertrude. Yet the fact arose +from no Sybaritic tendency whatever on Gertrude's part. Food, clothing, +sleep--no religious ascetic could have been more sparing than she, in +her demands upon them. She took them as they came--well or ill +supplied; too pre-occupied to be either grateful or discontented. And +what she neglected for herself, she equally neglected for other people. + +"What did I hear?" repeated Gertrude. "Well, of course, everything is +rushing on. There is to be a raid on Parliament as soon as the session +begins--and a deputation to Downing Street. A number of new plans, and +devices are being discussed. And there seemed to me to be more +volunteers than ever for 'special service'?" + +She looked up quietly and her eyes met Delia's;--in hers a steely +ardour, in Delia's a certain trouble. + +"Well, we want some cheering up," said the girl, rather wearily. "Those +two last meetings were--pretty depressing!--and so were the +bye-elections." + +She was thinking of the two open-air meetings at Brownmouth and +Frimpton. There had been no violence offered to the speakers, as in the +Latchford case; the police had seen to that. Her guardian had made no +appearance at either, satisfied, no doubt, after enquiry, that she was +not likely to come to harm. But the evidence of public disapproval +could scarcely have been more chilling--more complete. Both her +speaking, and that of Gertrude and Paul Lathrop, seemed to her to have +dropped dead in exhausted air. An audience of boys and girls--an +accompaniment of faint jeers, testifying rather to boredom than +hostility--a sense of blank waste and futility when all was over:--her +recollection had little else to shew. + +Gertrude interrupted her thought. + +"My dear Delia!--what you want is to get out of this backwater, and +back into the main stream! Even I get stale here. But in those great +London meetings--there one catches on again!--one realises again--what +it all _means_! Why not come up with me next week, even if the flat's +not ready? I can't have you running down like this! Let's hurry up and +get to London." + +The speaker had risen, and standing behind Delia, she laid her hand on +the waves of the girl's beautiful hair. Delia looked up. + +"Very well. Yes, I'll come. I've been getting depressed. I'll come--at +least if Weston's all right." + + * * * * * + +"I'm afraid, Miss Blanchflower, this is a very serious business!" + +Dr. France was the speaker. He stood with his back to the fire, and his +hands behind him, surveying Delia with a look of absent thoughtfulness; +the look of a man of science on the track of a problem. + +Delia's aspect was one of pale consternation. She had just heard that +the only hope of the woman, now wrestling upstairs with agonies of +pain, lay in a critical and dangerous operation, for which at least a +fortnight's preliminary treatment would be necessary. A nurse was to be +sent for at once, and the only question to be decided was where and by +whom the thing was to be done. + +"We _can_ move her," said France, meditatively; "though I'd rather not. +And of course a hospital is the best place." + +"She won't go! Her mother died in a hospital, and Weston thinks she was +neglected." + +"Absurd! I assure you," said France warmly. "Nobody is neglected in +hospitals." + +"But one can't persuade her--and if she's forced against her will, +it'll give her no chance!" said Delia in distress. "No, it must be +here. You say we can get a good man from Brownmouth?" + +They discussed the possibilities of an operation at Maumsey. + +Insensibly the doctor's tone during the conversation grew more +friendly, as it proceeded. A convinced opponent of "feminism" in all +its forms, he had thought of Delia hitherto as merely a wrong-headed, +foolish girl, and could hardly bring himself to be civil at all to her +chaperon, who in his eyes belonged to a criminal society, and was +almost certainly at that very moment engaged in criminal practices. But +Delia, absorbed in the distresses of someone she cared for, all heart +and eager sympathy, her loveliness lending that charm to all she said +and looked which plainer women must so frequently do without was a very +mollifying and ingratiating spectacle. France began to think +her--misled and unbalanced of course--but sound at bottom. He ended by +promising to make all arrangements himself, and to go in that very +afternoon to see the great man at Brownmouth. + +When Delia returned to her maid's room, the morphia which had been +administered was beginning to take effect, and Weston, an elderly woman +with a patient, pleasing face, lay comparatively at rest, her tremulous +look expressing at once the keenness of the suffering past, and the +bliss of respite. Delia bent over her, dim-eyed. + +"Dear Weston--we've arranged it all--it's going to be done here. You'll +be at home--and I shall look after you." + +Weston put out a clammy hand and faintly pressed Delia's warm fingers-- + +"But you were going to London, Miss. I don't want to put you out so." + +"I shan't go till you're out of the wood, so go to sleep--and don't +worry." + + * * * * * + +"Delia!--for Heaven's sake be reasonable. Leave Weston to France, and a +couple of good nurses. She'll be perfectly looked after. You'll put out +all out plans--you'll risk everything!" + +Gertrude Marvell had risen from her seat in front of a crowded desk. +The secretary who generally worked with her in the old gun room, now +become a militant office, had disappeared in obedience to a signal from +her chief. Anger and annoyance were plainly visible on Gertrude's small +chiselled features. + +Delia shook her head. + +"I can't!" she said. "I've promised. Weston has pulled _me_ through two +bad illnesses--once when I had pneumonia in Paris--and once after a +fall out riding. I daresay I shouldn't be here at all, but for her. If +she's going to have a fight for her life--and Doctor France doesn't +promise she'll get through--I shall stand by her." + +Gertrude grew a little sallower than usual as her black eyes fastened +themselves on the girl before her who had hitherto seemed so ductile in +her hands. It was not so much the incident itself that alarmed her as a +certain new tone in Delia's voice. + +"I thought we had agreed--that nothing--_nothing_--was to come before +the Cause!" she said quietly, but insistently. + +Delia's laugh was embarrassed. + +"I never promised to desert Weston, Gertrude. I couldn't--any more than +I could desert you." + +"We shall want every hand--every ounce of help that can be got--through +January and February. You undertook to do some office work, to help in +the organisation of the processions to Parliament, to speak at a number +of meetings--" + +Delia interrupted. + +"As soon as Weston is out of danger, I'll go--of course I'll go!--about +a month from now, perhaps less. You will have the flat, Gertrude, all +the same, and as much money as I can scrape together--after the +operation's paid for. I don't matter a tenth part as much as you, you +know I don't; I haven't been at all a success at these meetings +lately!" + +There was a certain young bitterness in the tone. + +"Well, of course you know what people will say." + +"That I'm shirking--giving in? Well, you can contradict it." + +Delia turned from the window beside which she was standing to look at +Gertrude. A pale December sunshine shone on the girl's half-seen face, +and on the lines of her black dress. A threatening sense of change, +mingled with a masterful desire to break down the resistance offered, +awoke in Gertrude. But she restrained the dictatorial instinct. +Instead, she sat down beside the desk again, and covered her face with +her hand. + +"If I couldn't contradict it--if I couldn't be sure of you--I might as +well kill myself," she said with sudden and volcanic passion, though in +a voice scarcely raised above its ordinary note. + +Delia came to her impulsively, knelt down and put her arms round her. + +"You know you can be sure of me!" she said, reproachfully. + +Gertrude held her away from her. Her eyes examined the lovely face so +close to her. + +"On the contrary! You are being influenced against me." + +Delia laughed. + +"By whom, please?" + +"By the man who has you in his power--under our abominable laws." + +"By my guardian?--by Mark Winnington? Really! Gertrude! Considering +that I had a fresh quarrel with him only last week--on your account--at +Monk Lawrence--" + +Gertrude released herself by a sudden movement. + +"When were you at Monk Lawrence?" + +"Why, that afternoon, when you were in town. I missed my train at +Latchford, and took a motor home." There was some consciousness in the +girl's look and tone which did not escape her companion. She was +evidently aware that her silence on the incident might appear strange +to Gertrude. However, she frankly described her adventure, Daunt's +surliness, and Winnington's appearance. + +"He arrived in the nick of time, and made Daunt let me in. Then, while +we were going round, he began to talk about your speech, and wanted to +make me say I was sorry for it. And I wouldn't! And then--well, he +thought very poorly of me--and we parted--coolly. We've scarcely met +since. And that's all." + +"What speech?" Gertrude was sitting erect now with queerly bright eyes. + +"The speech about Sir Wilfrid--at Latchford." + +"What else does he expect?" + +"I don't know. But--well, I may as well say, Gertrude--to you, though I +wouldn't say it to him--that I--I didn't much admire that speech +either!" + +Delia was now sitting on the floor with her hands round her knees, +looking up. The slight stiffening of her face shewed that it had been +an effort to say what she had said. + +"So _you_ think that Lang ought to be approached with 'bated breath and +whispering humbleness'--just as he is on the point of trampling us and +our cause into the dirt?" + +"No--certainly not! But why hasn't he as good a right to his opinion as +we to ours--without being threatened with personal violence?" + +Gertrude drew a long breath of amazement. + +"I don't quite see, Delia, why you ever joined the 'Daughters'--or why +you stay with them." + +"That's not fair!"--protested Delia, the colour flooding in her cheeks. +"As for burning stupid villas--that are empty and insured--or +boathouses--or piers--or tea-pavilions, to keep the country in +mind of us,--that's one thing. But threatening _persons_ with +violence--that's--somehow--another thing. And as to villas and piers +even--to be quite honest--I sometimes wonder, Gertrude!--I declare, I'm +beginning to wonder! And why shouldn't one take up one's policy from +time to time and look at it, all round, with a free mind? We haven't +been doing particularly well lately." + +Gertrude laughed--a dry, embittered sound--as she pushed the _Tocsin_ +from her. + +"Oh well, of course, if you're going to desert us in the worst of the +fight, and to follow your guardian's lead--" + +"But I'm not!" cried Delia, springing to her feet. "Try me. Haven't I +promised--a hundred things? Didn't I say all you expected me to say at +Latchford? And, on the whole"--her voice dragged a little--"the empty +houses and the cricket pavilions--still seem to me fair game. It's +only--as to the good it does. Of course--if it were Monk Lawrence--" + +"Well--if it were Monk Lawrence?" + +"I should think that a crime! I told you so before." + +"Why?" + +Delia looked at her friend with a contracted brow. + +"Because--it's a national possession! Lang's only the temporary +owner--the trustee. We've no right to destroy what belongs to +_England_." + +Gertrude laughed again--as she rose from the tea-table. + +"Well, as long as women are slaves, I don't see what England matters to +them. However, don't trouble yourself. Monk Lawrence is all right. And +Mr. Winnington's a charmer--we all know that." + +Delia flushed angrily. But Gertrude, having gathered up her papers, +quietly departed, leaving her final shaft to work. + +Delia went back to her own sitting-room, but was too excited, too +tremulous indeed, to settle to her letters. She had never yet found +herself in direct collision with Gertrude, impetuous as her own temper +was. Their friendship had now lasted nearly three years. She looked +back to their West Indian acquaintance, that first year of adoration, +of long-continued emotion,--mind and heart growing and blossoming +together. Gertrude, during that year, had not only aroused her pupil's +intelligence; she had taught a motherless girl what the love of women +may be for each other. To make Gertrude happy, to be approved by her, +to watch her, to sit at her feet--the girl of nineteen had asked +nothing more. Gertrude's accomplishments, her coolness, her +self-reliance, the delicate precision of her small features and frame, +the grace of her quiet movements, her cold sincerity, the unyielding +scorns, the passionate loves and hates that were gradually to be +discovered below the even dryness of her manner,--by these Delia had +been captured; by these indeed, she was still held. Gertrude was to her +everything that she herself was not. And when her father had insisted +on separating her from her friend, her wild resentment, and her girlish +longing for the forbidden had only increased Gertrude's charm tenfold. + +The eighteen months of their separation, too, had coincided with the +rise of that violent episode in the feminist movement which was +represented by the founding and organisation of the "Daughters" +society. Gertrude though not one of the first contrivers and +instigators of it, had been among the earliest of its converts. Its +initial successes had been the subject of all her letters to Delia; +Delia had walked on air to read them. At last the world was moving, was +rushing--and it seemed that Gertrude was in the van. Women were at last +coming to their own; forcing men to acknowledge them as equals and +comrades; and able to win victory, not by the old whining and +wheedling, but by their own strength. The intoxication of it filled the +girl's days and nights. She thought endlessly of processions and raids, +of street-preaching, or Hyde Park meetings. Gertrude went to prison for +a few days as the result of a raid on Downing Street. Delia, in one +dull hotel after another, wearily following her father from "cure" to +"cure," dreamed hungrily and enviously of Gertrude's more heroic fate. +Everything in those days was haloed for her--the Movement, its first +violent acts, what Gertrude did, and what Gertrude thought--she saw it +all transfigured and aflame. + +And now, since her father's death, they had been four months +together--she and her friend--in the closest intimacy, sharing--or so +Delia supposed--every thought and every prospect. Delia for the greater +part of that time _had_ been all glad submission and unquestioning +response. It was quite natural--absolutely right--that Gertrude should +command her house, her money, her daily life. She only waited for +Gertrude's orders; it would be her pride to carry them out. Until-- + +What had happened? The girl, standing motionless beside her window, +confessed to herself, as she had not been willing to confess to +Gertrude, that something _had_ happened--some change of climate and +temperature in her own life. + +In the first place, the Movement was not prospering. Why deny it? Who +could deny it? Its first successes were long past; its uses as +advertisement were exhausted; the old violences and audacities, as they +were repeated, fell dead. The cause of Woman Suffrage had certainly not +advanced. Check after check had been inflicted on it. The number of its +supporters in the House of Commons had gone down and down. By-elections +were only adding constantly to the number of its opponents. + +"Well, what then?"--said the stalwarts of the party--"More outrages, +more arson, more violence! We _must_ win at last!" And, meanwhile, +blowing through England like a steadily increasing gale, could be felt +the force of public anger, public condemnation. + +Delia since her return to England had felt the chill of it, for the +first time, on her own nerves and conscience. For the first time she +had winced--morally--even while she mocked at her own shrinking. + +Was that Gertrude pacing outside? The day was dark and stormy. But +Gertrude, who rarely took a walk for pleasure, scarcely ever missed the +exercise which was necessary to keep her in health. Her slight figure, +wrapped in a fur cape, paced a sheltered walk. Her shoulders were bent, +her eyes on the ground. Suddenly it struck Delia that she had begun to +stoop, that she looked older and thinner than usual. + +"She is killing herself!"--thought the girl in a sudden +anguish--"killing herself with work and anxiety. And yet she always +says she is so strong. What can I do? There is nobody that matters to +her--nobody!--but me!" + +And she recalled all she knew--it was very little--of Gertrude's +personal history. She had been unhappy at home. Her mother, a widow, +had never been able to get on with her elder daughter, while petting +and spoiling her only son and her younger girl, who was ten years +Gertrude's junior. Gertrude had been left a small sum of money by a +woman friend, and had spent it in going to a west-country university +and taking honours in history. She never spoke now of either her mother +or her sister. Her sister was married, but Gertrude held no +communication with her or her children. Delia had always felt it +impossible to ask questions about her, and believed, with a thrilled +sense of mystery, that some tragic incident or experience had separated +the two sisters. Her brother also, it seemed, was as dead to her. But +on all such personal matters Gertrude's silence was insuperable, and +Delia knew no more of them than on the first day of their meeting. + +Indomitable figure! Worn with effort and struggle--worn above all with +_hating_. Delia looked at it with a sob in her throat. Surely, surely, +the great passion, the great uplifting faith they had felt in common, +was vital, was true! Only, somehow, after the large dreams and hopes of +the early days, to come down to this perpetual campaign of petty +law-breaking, and futile outrage, to these odious meetings and shrieking +newspapers, was to be--well, discouraged!--heart-wearied. + +"Only, she is not wearied, or discouraged!" thought Delia, +despairingly. "And why am I?" + +Was it hatefully true--after all--that she was being influenced--drawn +away? + +The girl flushed, breathing quick. She must master herself!--get rid of +this foolish obsession of Winnington's presence and voice--of a pair of +grave, kind eyes--a look now perplexed, now sternly bright--a +personality, limited no doubt, not very accessible to what Gertrude +called "ideas," not quick to catch the last new thing, but honest, +noble, tender, through and through. + +Absurd! She was holding her own with him; she would hold her own. That +very day she must grapple with him afresh. She had sent him a note that +morning, and he had replied in a message that he would ride over to +luncheon. + +For the question of money was urgent. Delia was already overdrawn. Yet +supplies were wanted for the newly rented flat, for Weston's operation, +for Gertrude's expenses in London--for a hundred things. + +She paced up and down, imagining the conversation, framing eloquent +defences for her conduct, and again, from time to time, meanly, +shamefacedly reminding herself of Winnington's benefit under the will. +If she was a nuisance, she was at least a fairly profitable nuisance. + + * * * * * + +Winnington duly arrived at luncheon. The two ladies appeared to him as +usual--Gertrude Marvell, self-possessed and quietly gay, ready to +handle politics or books, on so light a note, that Winnington's acute +recollection of her, as the haranguing fury on the Latchford waggon, +began to seem absurd even to himself. Delia also, lovely, restless, +with bursts of talk, and more significant bursts of silence, produced +on him her normal effect--as of a creature made for all delightful +uses, and somehow jangled and out of tune. + +After luncheon, she led the way to her own sitting-room. "I am afraid I +must talk business," she said abruptly as she closed the door and stood +confronting him. "I am overdrawn, Mr. Winnington, and I must have some +more money." + +Winnington laid down his cigarette, and looked at her in open-mouthed +amazement. + +"Overdrawn!--but--we agreed--" + +"I know. You gave me what you thought was ample. Well, I have spent it, +and there is nothing left to pay house bills, or servants with, or--or +anything." + +Her pale defiance gave him at once a hint of the truth. + +"I fear I must ask what it has been spent on," he said, after a pause. + +"Certainly. I gave Ł500 of it in one cheque to Miss Marvell. Of course +you will guess how it has been spent." + +Winnington took up his cigarette again, and smoked it thoughtfully. His +colour was, perhaps, a little higher than usual. + +"I am sorry you have done that. It makes it rather awkward both for you +and for me. Perhaps I had better explain. The lawyers have been +settling the debts on your father's estate. That took a considerable +sum. A mortgage has been paid off, according to directions in Sir +Robert's will. And some of the death duties have been paid. For the +moment there is no money at all in the Trust account. I hope to have +replenished it by the New Year, when I understood you would want fresh +funds." + +He sat on the arm of a chair and looked at her quietly. + +Delia made no attempt at explanation or argument. After a short +silence, she said-- + +"What will you do?" + +"I must, of course, lend you some of my own." + +Delia flushed violently. + +"That is surely absurd, Mr. Winnington! My father left a large sum!" + +"As his trustee I can only repeat that until some further securities +are realised--which may take a little time--I have no money. But _you_ +must have money--servants and tradesmen can't go unpaid. I will give +you, therefore, a cheque on my own bank--to replace that Ł500." + +He drew his cheque book from his breast pocket. Delia was stormily +walking up and down. It struck him sharply, first that she was wholly +taken by surprise; and next that shock and emotion play finely with +such a face as hers. He had never seen her so splendid. His own pulses +ran. + +"This--this is not at all what I want, Mr. Winnington! I want my own +money--my father's money! Why should I distress and inconvenience you?" + +"I have tried to explain." + +"Then let the lawyers find it somehow. Aren't they there to do such +things?" + +"I assure you this is simplest. I happen"--he smiled--"to have enough +in the bank. Alice and I can manage quite well till January!" + +The mention of Mrs. Matheson was quite intolerable in Delia's ears. She +turned upon him-- + +"I can't accept it! You oughtn't to ask it." + +"I think you must accept it," he said with decision. "But the important +question with me is--the further question--am I not really bound to +restore this money to your father's estate?" + +Delia stared at him bewildered. + +"What _do_ you mean!" + +"Your father made me his trustee in order that I might protect his +money--from uses of which he disapproved--and protect you, if I could, +from actions and companions he dreaded. This Ł500 has gone--where he +expressly wished it not to go. It seems to me that I am liable, and +that I ought to repay." + +Delia gasped. + +"I never heard anything so absurd!" + +"I will consider it," he said gravely. "It is a case of conscience. +Meanwhile"--he began to write the cheque--"here is the money. Only, let +me warn you, dear Miss Delia,--if this were repeated, I might find +myself embarrassed. I am not a rich man!" + +Silence. He finished writing the cheque, and handed it to her. Delia +pushed it away, and it dropped on the table between them. + +"It is simply tyranny--monstrous tyranny--that I should be coerced like +this!" she said, choking. "You must feel it so yourself! Put yourself +in my place, Mr. Winnington." + +"I think--I am first bound--to try and put myself in your father's +place," he said, with vivacity. "Where has that money gone, Miss +Delia?" + +He rose, and in his turn began to pace the little room. "It has been +proved, in evidence, that a great deal of this outrage is _paid_ +outrage--that it could not be carried on without money--however madly +and fanatically devoted, however personally disinterested the +organisers of it may be--such as Miss Marvell. You have, therefore, +taken your father's money to provide for this payment--payment for all +that his soul most abhorred. His will was his last painful effort to +prevent this being done. And yet--you have done it!" + +He looked at her steadily. + +"One may seem to do evil"--she panted--"but we have a faith, a cause, +which justifies it!" + +He shook his head sadly, + +Delia sat very still, tormented by a score of harassing thoughts. If +she could not provide money for the "Daughters" what particular use +could she be to Gertrude, or Gertrude's Committee? She could speak, and +walk in processions, and break up meetings. But so could hundreds of +others. It was her fortune--she knew it--that had made her so important +in Gertrude's eyes. It had always been assumed between them that a +little daring and a little adroitness would break through the meshes of +her father's will. And how difficult it was turning out to be! + +At that moment, an idea occurred to her. Her face, responsive as a +wave to the wind, relaxed. Its sullenness disappeared in sudden +brightness--in something like triumph. She raised her eyes. Their +tremulous, half whimsical look set Winnington wondering what she could +be going to say next. + +"You seem to have beaten me," she said, with a little nod--"or you +think you have." + +"I have no thoughts that you mightn't know," was the quiet reply. + +"You want me to promise not to do it again?" + +"If you mean to keep it." + +As he stood by the fire, looking down upon her rather sternly--she yet +perceived in his grey eyes, something of that expression she had seen +there at their first meeting--as though the heart of a good man tried +to speak to her. The same expression--and yet different; with something +added and interfused, which moved her strangely. + +"Odd as it may seem, I will keep it!" she said. "Yet without giving up +any earlier purpose, or promise, whatever." Each word was emphasized. + +His face changed. + +"I won't worry _you_ in any such way again," she added hastily and +proudly. + +Some other words were on her lips, but she checked them. She held out +her hand for the cheque, and the smile with which she accepted it, +after her preceding passion, puzzled him. + +She locked up the cheque in a drawer of her writing-table. Winnington's +horse passed the window, and he rose to go. She accompanied him to the +hall door and waved a light farewell. Winnington's response was +ceremonious. A sure instinct told him to shew no further softness. His +dilemma was getting worse and worse, and Lady Tonbridge had been no use +to him whatever. + + + + +Chapter XII + + +One of the first days of the New year rose clear and frosty. When the +young housemaid who had temporarily replaced Weston as Delia's maid +drew back her curtains at half-past seven, Delia caught a vision of an +opaline sky with a sinking moon and fading stars. A strewing of snow +lay on the ground, and the bare black trees rose, vividly separate, on +the white stretches of grass. Her window looked to the north along the +bases of the low range of hills which shut in the valley and the +village. A patch of paler colour on the purple slope of the hills +marked the long front of Monk Lawrence. + +As she sleepily roused herself, she saw her bed littered with dark +objects--two leather boxes of some size, and a number of miscellaneous +cases--and when the maid had left the room, she lay still, looking at +them. They were the signs and symbols of an enquiry she had lately been +conducting into her possessions, which seemed to her to have yielded +very satisfactory results. They represented in the main the contents of +a certain cupboard in the wall of her bedroom where Lady Blanchflower +had always kept her jewels, and where, in consequence, Weston had so +far locked away all that Delia possessed. Here were all her own girlish +ornaments--costly things which her father had given her at intervals +during the three or four years since her coming out; here were her +Mother's jewels, which Sir Robert had sent to his bankers after his +wife's death, and had never seen again during his lifetime; and here +were also a number of family jewels which had belonged to Delia's +grandmother, and had remained, after Lady Blanchflower's death, in the +custody of the family lawyers, till Delia, to whom they had been left +by will, had appeared to claim them. + +Delia had always known that she possessed a quantity of valuable +things, and had hitherto felt but small interest in them. Gertrude's +influence, and her own idealism had bred in her contempt for gauds. It +was the worst of breeding to wear anything for its mere money value; +and nothing whatever should be worn that wasn't in itself beautiful. +Lady Blanchflower's taste had been, in Delia's eyes, abominable; and +her diamonds,--tiaras, pendants and the rest--had absolutely nothing to +recommend them but their sheer brute cost. After a few glances at them, +the girl had shut them up and forgotten them. + +But they _were_ diamonds, and they must be worth some thousands. + +It was this idea which had flashed upon her during her last talk with +Winnington, and she had been brooding over it, and pondering it ever +since. Winnington himself was away. He and his sister had been spending +Christmas with some cousins in the midlands. Meanwhile Delia recognised +that his relation to her had been somewhat strained. His letters to her +on various points of business had been more formal than usual; and +though he had sent her a pocket Keats for a Christmas present, it had +arrived accompanied merely by his "kind regards" and she had felt +unreasonably aggrieved, and much inclined to send it back. His +cheque meanwhile for Ł500 had gone into Delia's bank. No help for +it--considering all the Christmas bills which had been pouring in! But +she panted for the time when she could return it. + +As for his threat of permanently refunding the money out of his own +pocket, she remembered it with soreness of spirit. Too bad! + +Well, there they lay, on the counterpane all round her--the means of +checkmating her guardian. For while she was rummaging in the wall-safe, +the night before, suddenly the fire had gone down, and the room had +sunk to freezing point. Delia, brought up in warm climates, had jumped +shivering into bed, and there, heaped round with the contents of the +cupboard, had examined a few more cases, till sleep and cold +overpowered her. + +In the grey morning light she opened some of the cases again. Vulgar +and ugly, if you like--but undeniably, absurdly worth money! Her dark +eyes caught the sparkle of the jewels running through her fingers. +These tasteless things--mercifully--were her own--her very own. +Winnington had nothing to say to them! She could wear them--or give +them--or sell them, as she pleased. + +She was alternately exultant, and strangely full of a fluttering +anxiety. The thought of returning Winnington's cheque was sweet to her. +But her disputes with him had begun to cost her more than she had ever +imagined they could or would. And the particular way out, which, a few +weeks before, she had so impatiently desired--that he should resign the +guardianship, and leave her to battle with the Court of Chancery as +best she could--was no longer so attractive to her. To be cherished and +cared for by Mark Winnington--no woman yet, but had found it +delightful. Insensibly Delia had grown accustomed to it--to his comings +and goings, his business-ways, abrupt sometimes, even peremptory, but +informed always by a kindness, a selflessness that amazed her. +Everyone wanted his help or advice, and he must refuse now--as he had +never refused before--because his time and thoughts were so much taken +up with his ward's affairs. Delia knew that she was envied; and knew +also that the neighbours thought her an ungrateful, unmanageable +hoyden, totally unworthy of such devotion. + +She sat up in bed, dreaming, her hands round her knees. No, she didn't +want Winnington to give her up! Especially since she had found this +easy way out. Why should there be any more friction between them at +all? All that _he_ gave her henceforward should be religiously spent on +the normal and necessary things. She would keep accounts if he liked, +like any good little girl, and shew them up. Let him do with the trust +fund exactly what he pleased. For a long time at any rate, she could be +independent of it. Why had she never thought of such a device before? + +But how to realise the jewels? In all business affairs, Delia was the +merest child. She had been brought up in the midst of large +expenditure, of which she had been quite unconscious. All preoccupation +with money had seemed to her mean and pettifogging. Have it!--and +spend it on what you want. But wants must be governed by ideas--by +ethical standards. To waste money on personal luxury, on eating, +drinking, clothes, or any form of mere display, in such a world as +Gertrude Marvell had unveiled to her, seemed to Delia contemptible and +idiotic. One must have _some_ nice clothes--some beauty in one's +surroundings--and the means of living as one wished to live. +Otherwise, to fume and fret about money, to be coveting instead of +giving, buying and bargaining, instead of thinking--or debating--was +degrading. She loathed shopping. It was the drug which put women's +minds to sleep. + +Who would help her? She pondered. She would tell no one till it was +done; not even Gertrude, whose cold, changed manner to her hurt the +girl's proud sense to think of. + +"I must do it properly--I won't be cheated!" + +The London lawyers? No. The local solicitor, Mr. Masham? No! Her vanity +was far too keenly conscious of their real opinion of her, through all +their politeness. + +Lady Tonbridge? No! She was Mark Winnington's intimate friend--and a +constitutional Suffragist. At the notion of consulting her,--on the +means of providing funds for "militancy"--Delia sprang out of bed, and +went to her dressing, dissolved in laughter. + +And presently--sobered again, and soft-eyed--she was stealing along the +passage to Weston's door for a word with the trained nurse who was now +in charge. Just a week now--to the critical day. + + * * * * * + +"Is Miss Marvell, in? Ask if she will see Mr. Lathrop for a few +minutes?" + +Paul Lathrop, left to himself, looked round Delia's drawing-room. It +set his teeth on edge. What pictures--what furniture! A certain +mellowness born of sheer time, no doubt--but with all its ugly +ingredients still repulsively visible. Why didn't the heiress burn +everything and begin again? Was all her money to be spent on burning +other people's property, when her own was so desperately in need of the +purging process--or on dreary meetings and unreadable newspapers? +Lathrop was already tired of these delights; his essentially Hedonist +temper was re-asserting itself. The "movement" had excited and +interested him for a time; had provided besides easy devices for +annoying stupid people. He had been eager to speak and write for it, +had persuaded himself that he really cared. + +But now candour--and he was generally candid with himself--made him +confess that but for Delia Blanchflower he would already have cut his +connection with the whole thing. He thought with a mixture of irony and +discomfort of his "high-falutin" letter to her. + +"And here I am--hanging round her"--he said to himself, as he strolled +about the room, peering through his eye-glass at its common vases, and +trivial knick-knacks--"just because Blaydes bothers me. I might as +well cry for the moon. But she's worth watching, by Jove. One gets copy +out of her, if nothing else! I vow I can't understand why my dithyrambs +move her so little--she's dithyrambic enough herself!" + +The door opened. He quickly pulled himself together. Gertrude Marvell +came in, and as she gave him an absent greeting, he was vaguely struck +by some change in her aspect, as Delia had long been. She had always +seemed to him a cold half-human being, in all ordinary matters. +But now she was paler, thinner, more remote than ever. "Nerves +strained--probably sleepless--" he said to himself. "It's the pace +they will live at--it kills them all." + +This kind of comment ran at the back of his brain, while he plunged +into the "business"--which was his pretence for calling. Gertrude, as a +District Organizer of the League of Revolt, had intrusted him with the +running of various meetings in small places, along the coast, for which +it humiliated him to remember that he had agreed to be paid. For at his +very first call upon them, Miss Marvell had divined his impecunious +state, and pounced upon him as an agent,--unknown, he thought, to Miss +Blanchflower. He came now to report what had been done, and to ask if +the meetings should be continued. + +Gertrude Marvell shook her head. + +"I have had some letters about your meetings. I doubt whether they have +been worth while." + +Miss Marvell's manner was that of an employer to an employee. Lathrop's +vanity winced. + +"May I know what was wrong with them?" + +Gertrude Marvell considered. Her gesture, unconsciously judicial, +annoyed Lathrop still further. + +"Too much argument, I hear,--and too little feeling. Our people wanted +more about the women in prison. And it was thought that you apologised +too much for the outrages." + +The last word emerged quite simply, as the only fitting one. + +Lathrop laughed,--rather angrily. + +"You must be aware, Miss Marvell, that the public thinks they want +defence." + +"Not from us!" she said, with energy. "No one speaking for us must ever +apologise for militant acts. It takes all the heart out of our people. +Justify them--glory in them--as much as you like." + +There was a pause. + +"Then you have no more work for me?" said Lathrop at last. + +"We need not, I think, trouble you again. Your cheque will of course be +sent from head-quarters." + +"That doesn't matter," said Lathrop, hastily. + +The reflection crossed his mind that there is an insolence of women far +more odious than the insolence of men. + +"After all they are our inferiors! It doesn't do to let them command +us," he thought, furiously. + +He rose to take his leave. + +"You are going up to London?" + +"I am going. Miss Blanchflower stays behind, because her maid is ill." + +He stood hesitating. Gertrude lifted her eyebrows as though he puzzled +her. She never had liked him, and by now all her instincts were hostile +to him. His clumsy figure, and slovenly dress offended her, and the +touch of something grandiose in his heavy brow, and reddish-gold hair, +seemed to her merely theatrical. Her information was that he had been +no use as a campaigner. Why on earth did he keep her waiting? + +"I suppose you have heard some of the talk going about?" he said at +last, shooting out the words. + +"What talk?" + +"They're very anxious about Monk Lawrence--after your speech. And +there are absurd stories. Women have been seen--at night--and so on." + +Gertrude laughed. + +"The more panic the better--for us." + +"Yes--so long as it stops there. But if anything happened to that +place, the whole neighbourhood would turn detective--myself included." + +He looked at her steadily. She leant one thin hand on a table behind +her. + +"No one of course would have a better chance than you. You are so +near." + +Their eyes crossed. "By George!" he thought--"you're in it. I believe +to God you're in it." + +And at that moment he felt that he hated the willowy, intangible +creature who had just treated him with contempt. + +But as they coldly touched hands, the door opened again, and Delia +appeared. + +"Oh I didn't mean to interrupt--" she said, retreating. + +"Come in, come in!" said Gertrude. "We have finished our business--and +Mr. Lathrop I am sure will excuse me--I must get some letters off by +post--" + +And with the curtest of bows she disappeared. + +"I have brought you a book, Miss Blanchflower," Lathrop nervously +began, diving into a large and sagging pocket. "You said you wanted to +see Madame de Noailles' second volume." + +He brought out "Les Éblouissements," and laid it on the table beside +her. Delia thanked him, and then, all in a moment, as she stood beside +him, a thought struck her. She turned her great eyes full upon him, and +he saw the colour rushing into her cheeks. + +"Mr. Lathrop!" + +"Yes." + +"Mr. Lathrop--I--I dreadfully want some practical advice. And I don't +know whom to ask." + +The soreness of his wounded self-love vanished in a moment. + +"What can I do for you?" he asked eagerly. And at once his own +personality seemed to expand, to throw off the shadow of something +ignoble it had worn in Gertrude's presence. For Delia, looking at him, +was attracted by him. The shabby clothes made no impression upon her, +but the blue eyes did. And the childishness which still survived in +her, beneath all her intellectualisms, came impulsively to the surface. + +"Mr. Lathrop, do you--do you know anything about jewelry?" + +"Jewelry? Nothing!--except that I have dabbled in pretty things of that +sort as I have dabbled in most things. I once did some designing for a +man who set up--in Bond Street--to imitate Lalique. Why do you ask? I +suppose you have heaps of jewels?" + +"Too many. I want to sell some jewels." + +"Sell?--But--" he looked at her in astonishment. + +She reddened still more deeply; but spoke with a frank charm. + +"You thought I was rich? Well, of course I ought to be. My father was +rich. But at present I have nothing of my own--nothing! It is all in +trust--and I can't get at it. But I _must_ have some money! Wait here a +moment!" + +She ran out of the room. When she came back she was carrying a +miscellaneous armful of jewellers' cases. She threw them down on the +sofa. + +"They are all hideous--but I am sure they're worth a great deal of +money." + +And she opened them with hasty fingers before his astonished eyes. In +his restless existence he had accumulated various odd veins of +knowledge, and he knew something of the jewelry trade of London. He had +not only drawn designs, he had speculated--unluckily--in "De Beers." +For a short time Diamonds had been an obsession with him, then Burmah +rubies. He had made money out of neither; it was not in his horoscope +to make money out of anything. However there was the result--a certain +amount of desultory information. + +He took up one piece after another, presently drawing a magnifying +glass out of his pocket to examine them the better. + +"Well, if you want money--" he said at last, putting down a _rivičre_ +which had belonged to Delia's mother--"That alone will give you some +thousands!" + +Delia's eyes danced with satisfaction--then darkened. + +"That was Mamma's. Papa bought it at Constantinople--from an old +Turkish Governor--who had robbed a province--spent the loot in Paris +on his wives--and then had to disgorge half his fortune--to the +Sultan--who got wind of it. Papa bought it at a great bargain, and was +awfully proud of it. But after Mamma died, he sent it to the Bank, and +never thought of it again. I couldn't wear it, of course--I was too +young." + +"How much money do you want?" + +"Oh, a few thousands," said Delia, vaguely. "Five hundred pounds, first +of all." + +"And who will sell them for you?" + +She frowned in perplexity. + +"I--I don't know." + +"You don't wish to ask Mr. Winnington?" + +"Certainly not! They have nothing to do with him. They are my own +personal property," she added proudly. + +"Still he might object--Ought you not to ask him?" + +"I shall not tell him!" She straightened her shoulders. "He has far too +much bother on my account already." + +"Of course, if I could do anything for you--I should be delighted. But +I don't know why you should trust me. You don't know anything about +me!" He laughed uncomfortably. + +Delia laughed too--in some confusion. It seemed to him she suddenly +realised she had done something unusual. + +"It is very kind of you to suggest it--" she said, hesitating. + +"Not at all. It would amuse me. I have some threads I can pick up +still--in Bond Street. Let me advise you to concentrate on that +_rivičre_. If you really feel inclined to trust me, I will take it to a +man I know; he will show it to--" he named a famous firm. "In a few +days--well, give me a week--and I undertake to bring you proposals. If +you accept them, I will collect the money for you at once--or I will +return you the necklace, if you don't." + +Delia clasped her hands. + +"A week! You think it might all be finished in a week?" + +"Certainly--thereabouts. These things--" he touched the diamonds--"are +practically money." + +Delia sat ruminating, with a bright excited face. Then a serious +expression returned. She looked up. + +"Mr. Lathrop, this ought to be a matter of business between us--if you +do me so great a service?" + +"You mean I ought to take a commission?" he said, calmly. "I shall do +nothing of the kind." + +"It is more than I ought to accept!" she cried. "Let your +kindness--include what I wish." + +He shook his fair hair impatiently. + +"Why should you take away all my pleasure in the little adventure?" + +She looked embarrassed. He went on-- + +"Besides we are comrades--we have stood together in the fight. I expect +this is for the Cause! If so I ought to be angry that you even +suggested it!" + +"Don't be angry!" she said gravely. "I meant nothing unkind. Well, I +thank you very much--and there are the diamonds." + +She gave him the case, with a quiet deliberate movement, as if to +emphasize her trust in him. The simplicity with which it was done +pricked him uncomfortably. "I'm no thief!--" he thought angrily. "She's +safe enough with me. All the same, if she knew--she wouldn't speak to +me--she wouldn't admit me into her house. She doesn't know--and I am a +cad!" + +"You can't the least understand what it means to be allowed to do you a +service!" he said, with emotion. + +But the tone evidently displeased her. She once more formally thanked +him; then sprang up and began to put the cases on the sofa together. As +she did so, steps on the gravel outside were heard through the low +casement window. Delia turned with a start, and saw Mark Winnington +approaching the front door. + +"Don't say anything _please_!" she said urgently. "This has nothing to +do with my guardian." + +And opening the door of a lacquer cabinet, she hurriedly packed the +jewelry inside with all the speed she could. Her flushed cheek shewed +her humiliated by the action. + + * * * * * + +Winnington stood in the doorway, silent and waiting. After a hasty +greeting to the new-comer, Delia was nervously bidding Lathrop +good-bye. + +"In a week!" he said, under his breath, as she gave him her hand. + +"A week!" she repeated, evidently impatient for him to be gone. He +exchanged a curt bow with Winnington, and the door closed on him. + +There was a short silence. Winnington remained standing, hat in hand. +He was in riding dress--a commanding figure, his lean face reddened, +and the waves of his grizzled hair slightly loosened, by a buffeting +wind. Delia, stealing a glance at him, divined a coming remonstrance, +and awaited it with a strange mixture of fear and pleasure. They had +not met for ten days; and she stammered out some New Year's wishes. She +hoped that he and Mrs. Matheson had enjoyed their visit. + +But without any reply to her politeness, he said abruptly-- + +"Were you arranging some business with Mr. Lathrop?" + +She supposed he was thinking of the militant Campaign. + +"Yes," she said, eagerly. "Yes, I was arranging some business." + +Winnington's eyes examined her. + +"Miss Delia, what do you know about that man?--except that +story--which I understand Miss Marvell told you." + +"Nothing--nothing at all! Except--except that he speaks at our +meetings, and generally gets us into hot water. He has a lot of +interesting books--and drawings--in his cottage; and he has lent me +Madame de Noailles' poems. Won't you sit down? I hope you and Mrs. +Matheson have had a good time? We have been to church--at least I +have--and given away lots of coals and plum-puddings--at least I have. +Gertrude thought me a fool. We have had the choir up to sing carols in +the servants' hall, and given them a sovereign--at least I did. And I +don't want any more Christmas--for a long, long, time!" + +And with that, she dropped into a chair opposite Winnington, who sat +now twirling his hat and studying the ground. + +"I agree with you," he said drily when she paused. "I felt when I was +away that I had better be here. And I feel it now doubly." + +"Because?" + +"Because--if my absence has led to your developing any further +acquaintance with the gentleman who has just left the room, when I +might have prevented it, I regret it deeply." + +Delia's cheeks had gone crimson again. + +"You knew perfectly well Mr. Winnington, that we had made acquaintance +with Mr. Lathrop! We never concealed it!" + +"I knew, of course, that you were both members of the League, and that +you had spoken at meetings together. I regretted it--exceedingly--and I +asked you--in vain--to put an end to it. But when I find him paying a +morning call here--and lending you books--that is a very different +matter!" + +Delia broke out-- + +"You really are _too_ Early-Victorian, Mr. Winnington!--and I can't +help being rude. Do you suppose you can ever turn me into a +bread-and-butter miss? I have looked after myself for years--you don't +understand!" She faced him indignantly. + +Winnington laughed. + +"All right--so long as the Early Victorians may have their say. And my +say about Mr. Lathrop is--again that he is not a fit companion for +you, or any young girl,--that he is a man of blemished character--both +in morals and business. Ask anybody in this neighbourhood!" + +He had spoken with firm emphasis, his eyes sparkling. + +"Everybody in the neighbourhood believes anything bad, about him--and +us!" cried Delia. + +"Don't, for Heaven's sake, couple yourself, and the man--together!" +said Winnington, flushing with anger. "I know nothing about him, when +you first arrived here. Mr. Lathrop didn't matter twopence to me +before. Now he does matter." + +"Why?" Delia's eyes were held to his, fascinated. + +"Simply because I care--I care a great deal--what happens to you," he +said quietly, after a pause. "Naturally, I must care." + +Delia looked away, and began twisting her black sash into knots. + +"Bankruptcy--is not exactly a crime." + +"Oh, so you knew that farther fact about him? But of course--it is the +rest that matters. Since we spoke of this before, I have seen the judge +who tried the case in which this man figured. I hate speaking of it in +your presence, but you force me. He told me it was one of the worst he +had ever known--a case for which there was no defence or excuse +whatever." + +"Why must I believe it?" cried Delia impetuously. "It's a man's +judgment! The woman may have been--Gertrude says she was--horribly +unhappy and ill-treated. Yet nothing could be proved--enough to free +her. Wait till we have women judges--and women lawyers--then you'll +see!" + +He laughed indignantly--though not at all inclined to laugh. And what +seemed to him her stubborn perversity drove him to despair. + +"In this case, if there had been a woman judge, I am inclined to think +it would have been a good deal worse for the people concerned. At least +I hope so. Don't try to make me believe, Miss Delia, that women are +going to forgive treachery and wickedness more easily than men!" + +"Oh, 'treachery!'--" she murmured, protesting. His look both +intimidated and drew her. Winnington came nearer to her, and suddenly +he laid his hand on both of hers. Looking up she was conscious of a +look that was half raillery, half tenderness. + +"My dear child!--I must call you that--though you are so clever--and +so--so determined to have your own way. Look here! I'm going to plead +my rights. I've done a good deal for you the last three months--perhaps +you hardly know all that has been done. I've been your watch-dog--put +it at that. Well, now give the watch-dog, give the Early-Victorian, his +bone! Promise me that you will have no more dealings with Mr. Lathrop. +Send him back his books--and say 'Not at Home!'" + +She was really distressed. + +"I can't, Mr. Winnington!--I'm so sorry!--but I can't." + +"Why can't you?" He still held her. + +A score of thoughts flew hither and thither in her brain. She had asked +a great favour of Lathrop--she had actually put the jewels into his +hands! How could she recall her action? And when he had done her such a +service, if he succeeded in doing it--how was she to turn round on him, +and cut him the very next moment? + +Nor could she make up her mind to confess to Winnington what she had +done. She was bent on her scheme. If she disclosed it _now_ everything +might be upset. + +"I really _can't!_" she repeated, gravely, releasing her hands. + +Winnington rose, and began to pace the drawing room. Delia watched +him--quivering--an exquisite vision herself, in the half lights of the +room. + +When he paused at last to speak, she saw a new expression in his eyes. + +"I shall have to think this over, Miss Blanchflower--perhaps to +reconsider my whole position." + +She was startled, but she kept her composure. + +"You mean--you may have--after all--to give me up?" + +He forced a very chilly smile. + +"You remember--you asked me to give you up. Now if it were only one +subject--however important--on which we disagreed, I might still do my +best, though the responsibility of all you make me connive at is +certainly heavy. But if you are entirely to set at defiance not only my +advice and wishes as to this illegal society to which you belong, and +as to the violent action into which I understand you may be led when +you go to town, but also in such a matter as we have just been +discussing--then indeed, I see no place for me. I must think it over. A +guardian appointed by the Court might be more effective--might +influence you more." + +"I told you I was a handful," said Delia, trying to laugh. But her +voice sounded hollow in her own ears. + +He offered no reply--merely repeating "I must think it over!"--and +resolutely changing the subject, he made a little perfunctory +conversation on a few matters of business--and was gone. + +After his departure, Delia sat motionless for half an hour at least, +staring at the fire. Then suddenly she sprang up, went to the +writing-table, and sat down to write-- + +"Dear Mr. Mark--Don't give me up! You don't know. Trust me a little! I +am not such a fiend as you think. I am grateful--I am indeed. I wish to +goodness I could show it. Perhaps I shall some day. I hadn't time to +tell you about poor Weston--who's to have an operation--and that I'm +not going to town with Gertrude--not for some weeks at any rate. I +shall be alone here, looking after Weston. So I can't disgrace or +worry you for a good while any way. And you needn't fret about Mr. +Lathrop--you needn't _really_! I can't explain--not just yet--but it's +all right. Mayn't I come and help with some of your cripple children? +or the school? or something? If Susy Amberly can do it, I suppose I +can--I'd like to. May I sign myself--though I _am_ a handful-" + + "Yours affectionately, + DELIA BLANCHFLOWER." + + +She sat staring at the paper, trembling under a stress of feeling she +could not understand--the large tears in her eyes. + + + + +Chapter XIII + + +"Pack the papers as quickly as you can--I am going to town this +afternoon. Whatever can't be packed before then, you can bring up to me +tomorrow." + +A tired girl lifted her head from the packing-case before which she was +kneeling. + +"I'll do my best, Miss Marvell--But I'm afraid it will be impossible to +finish to-day." And she looked wearily round the room laden with +papers--letters, pamphlets, press-cuttings--on every available table +and shelf. + +Gertrude gave a rather curt assent. Her reason told her the thing was +impossible; but her will chafed against the delay, which her secretary +threatened, of even a few hours in the resumption of her work in +London, and the re-housing of all its tools and materials. She was a +hard mistress; though no harder on her subordinates than she was on +herself. + +She began to turn her own hand to the packing, and missing a book she +had left in the drawing-room the night before, she went to fetch it. It +was again a morning of frosty sunshine, and the garden outside lay in +dazzling light. The drawing-room windows were open, and through one of +them Gertrude perceived Delia moving about outside on the whitened +grass. She was looking for the earliest snowdrops which were just +beginning to bulge from the green stems, pushing up through the dead +leaves under the beech trees. She wore a blue soft shawl round her head +and shoulders, and she was singing to herself. As she raised herself +from the ground, and paused a moment looking towards the house, but +evidently quite unconscious of any spectators, Gertrude could not take +her eyes from the vision she made. If radiant beauty, if grace, and +flawless youth can "lift a mortal to the skies," Delia stood like a +young goddess under the winter sun. But there was much more than beauty +in her face. There was a fluttering and dreamy joy which belongs only +to the children of earth. The low singing came unconsciously from her +lips, as though it were the natural expression of the heart within. +Gertrude caught the old lilting tune:-- + + "For oh, Greensleaves was all my joy-- + For oh, Greensleaves was my heart's delight-- + And who but my lady Greensleaves--" + + +The woman observing her did so with a strange mixture of softness and +repulsion. If Gertrude Marvell loved anybody, she loved Delia--the +captive of her own bow and spear, and until now the most loyal, the +most single-minded of disciples. But as she saw Delia walk away to a +further reach of the garden, the mind of the elder woman bitterly +accused the younger. Delia's refusal to join the militant forces in +London, at this most critical and desperate time, on what seemed to +Gertrude the trumpery excuse of Weston's illness, had made an indelible +impression on a fanatical temper. If she had cared--if she had _really_ +cared--she could not have done any such thing. "What have I been +wasting my time here for?" she asked herself; and reviewing the motives +which had induced her to accept Delia's proposal that they should live +together, she accused herself sharply of a contemptible lack of +judgment and foresight. + +For no mere affection for Delia Blanchflower would have influenced her, +at the time when Delia, writing to tell her of the approaching death of +Sir Robert, implored her to come and share her life. "You know I shall +have money, dearest Gertrude,"--wrote Delia--"Come and help me to spend +it--for the Cause." And for the sake of the Cause,--which was then +sorely in want of money--and only for its sake, Gertrude had consented. +She was at that time rapidly becoming one of the leading spirits in the +London office of the "Daughters," so that to bury herself, even for a +time, in a country village, some eighty miles from London, was a +sacrifice. But to secure what seemed likely to be some thousands a +year from a willing giver, such a temporary and modified exile had +appeared to her worth while; and she had at once planned a campaign of +"militant" meetings in the towns along the South Coast, by way of +keeping in touch with "active work." + +But, in the first place, the extraordinary terms of Sir Robert's will +had proved far more baffling than she and Delia had ever been willing +to believe. And, in the next place, the personality of Mark Winnington +had almost immediately presented itself to Gertrude as something she +had never reckoned with. A blustering and tyrannical guardian would +have been comparatively easy to fight. Winnington was formidable, not +because he was hostile, resolutely hostile, to their whole propaganda +of violence; that might only have spurred a strong-willed girl to +more passionate extremes. He was dangerous,--in spite of his forty +years--because he was delightful; because, in his leisurely, +old-fashioned way, he was so loveable, so handsome, so inevitably +attractive, Gertrude, looking back, realised that she had soon +perceived--vaguely at least--what might happen, what had now--as she +dismally guessed--actually happened. + +The young, impressionable creature, brought into close contact with +this charming fellow--this agreeable reactionary--had fallen in love! +That was all. But it was more than enough. Delia might be still +unconscious of it herself. But this new shrinking from the most +characteristic feature of the violent policy--this new softness and +fluidity in a personality that when they first reached Maumsey had +begun already to stiffen in the fierce mould of militancy--to what +could any observer with eyes in their head attribute them but the +influence of Mark Winnington--the daily unseen presence of other +judgments and other ideals embodied in a man to whom the girl's +feelings had capitulated? + +"If I could have kept her to myself for another year, he could have +done nothing. But he has intervened before her opinions were anything +more than the echoes of mine;--and for the future I shall have less and +less chance against him. What shall we ever get out of her as a married +woman? What would Mark Winnington--to whom she will give herself, body +and soul,--allow us to get out of her? Better break with her now, and +disentangle my own life!" + +With such thoughts, a pale and brooding woman pursued the now distant +figure of Delia. At the same time Gertrude Marvell had no intention +whatever of provoking a premature breach which might deprive either the +Cause or herself of any help they might still obtain from Delia in the +desperate fight immediately ahead. She, personally, would have +infinitely preferred freedom and a garret to Delia's flat, and any kind +of dependence on Delia's money. "I was not born to be a parasite!" she +angrily thought. But she had no right to prefer them. All that could be +extracted from Delia should be extracted. She was now no more to +Gertrude than a pawn in the game. Let her be used--if she could not be +trusted! + +But if this had fallen differently, if she had remained the true +sister-in-arms, given wholly to the joy of the fight, Gertrude's stern +soul would have clasped her to itself, just as passionately as it now +dismissed her. + +"No matter!" The hard brown eyes looked steadily into the future. +"That's done with. I am alone--I shall be alone. What does it +signify?--a little sooner or later?" + +The vagueness of the words matched the vagueness of certain haunting +premonitions in the background of the mind. Her own future always +shaped itself in tragic terms. It was impossible--she knew it--that it +should bring her to any kind of happiness. It was no less impossible +that she should pause and submit. That active defiance of the existing +order, on which she had entered, possessed her, gripped her, +irrevocably. She was like the launched stone which describes its +appointed curve--till it drops. + +As for any interference from the side of her own personal ties and +affections,--she had none. + +In her pocket she carried a letter she had received that morning, from +her mother. It was plaintive, as usual. + +"Winnie's second child arrived last week. It was an awful confinement. +The first doctor had to get another, and they only just pulled her +through. The child's a misery. It would be much better if it had died. +I can't think what she'll do. Her husband's a wretched creature--just +manages to keep in work--but he neglects her shamefully--and if there +ever is anything to spend, _he_ spends it--on his own amusement. She +cried the other day, when we were talking of you. She thinks you're +living with a rich lady, and have everything you want--and she and +her children are often half-starved. 'She might forgive me now, I do +think--' she'll say sometimes--'And as for Henry, if I did take him +away from her, she may thank her stars she didn't marry him. She'd have +killed him by now. She never could stand men like Henry. Only, when he +was a young fellow, he took her in--her first, and then me. It was a +bad job we ever saw him.' + +"Why are you so set against us, Gertrude?--your own flesh and blood. +I'm sure if I ever was unkind to you I'm sorry for it. You used to say +I favoured Albert at your expense--Well, he's as good as dead to me +now, and I've got no good out of all the spoiling I gave him. I sit at +home by myself, and I'm a pretty miserable woman. I read everything I +can in the papers about what you're doing--you, who were my only +child, seven years before Albert came. It doesn't matter to you what I +think--at least, it oughtn't. I'm an old woman, and whatever I thought +I'd never quarrel with you. But it would matter to me a good deal, if +you'd sometimes come in, and sit by the fire a bit, and chat. It's +three years since I've even seen you. Winnie says you've forgotten +us--you only care about the vote. But I don't believe it. Other people +may think the vote can make up for everything--but not you. You're too +clever. Hoping to see you," + + "Your lonely old mother, + JANET MARVELL." + + +To that letter, Gertrude had already written her reply. Sometime--in +the summer, perhaps, she had said to her mother. And she had added the +mental proviso--"if I am alive." For the matters in which she was +engaged were no child's play, and the excitements of prison and +hunger-striking might tell even on the strongest physique. + +No--her family were nothing to her. Her mother's appeal, though it +should not be altogether ignored, was an insincere one. She had always +stood by the men of the family; and for the men of the family, +Gertrude, its eldest daughter, felt nothing but loathing and contempt. +Her father, a local government official in a western town, a +small-minded domestic tyrant, ruined by long years of whisky-nipping +between meals; her only brother, profligate and spendthrift, of whose +present modes of life the less said the better; her brother-in-law, +Henry Lewison, the man whom, in her callow, ignorant youth, she was +once to have married, before her younger sister supplanted her--a +canting hypocrite, who would spend his day in devising petty torments +for his wife, and begin and end it with family prayers:--these types, +in a brooding and self-centred mind, had gradually come to stand for +the whole male race. + +Nor had her lonely struggle for a livelihood, after she had fled from +home, done anything to loosen the hold of these images upon her. She +looked back upon a dismal type-writing office, run by a grasping +employer; a struggle for health, warring with the struggle for bread; +sick headache, sleeplessness, anaemia, yet always within, the same iron +will driving on the weary body; and always the same grim perception on +the dark horizon of an outer gulf into which some women fell, with no +hope of resurrection. She burnt again with the old bitter sense of +injustice, on the economic side; remembering fiercely her own stinted +earnings, and the higher wages and larger opportunities of men, whom, +intellectually, she despised. Remembering too the development of that +new and ugly temper in men--men hard-pressed themselves--who must now +see in women no longer playthings or sweethearts, but rivals and +supplanters. + +So that gradually, year by year, there had strengthened in her that +strange, modern thing, a woman's hatred of men--the normal instincts of +sex distorted and embittered. And when suddenly, owing to the slow +working of many causes, economic and moral, a section of the Woman +Suffrage movement had broken into flame and violence, she had flung her +very soul to it as fuel, with the passion of one to whom life at last +"gives room." In that outbreak were gathered up for her all the +rancours, and all the ideals of life, all its hopes and all its +despairs. Not much hope!--and few ideals. Her passion for the Cause +had been a grim force, hardly mixed with illusion; but it had held and +shaped her. + +Meanwhile among women she has found a few kindred souls. One of them, a +fellow-student, came into money, died, and left Gertrude Marvell a +thousand pounds. On that sum she had educated herself, had taken her +degree at a West Country University, had moved to London and begun work +as a teacher and journalist. Then again, a break down in health, +followed by a casual acquaintance with Lady Tonbridge--Sir Robert's +offer--its acceptance--Delia! + +How much had opened to her with Delia! _Pleasure_, for the first time; +the sheer pleasure of travel, society, tropical beauty; the strangeness +also of finding herself adored, of feeling that young loveliness, that +young intelligence, all yielding softness in her own strong hands-- + +Well, that was done;--practically done. She cheated herself with no +vain hopes. The process which had begun in Delia would go forward. One +more defeat to admit and forget. One more disaster to turn one's back +upon. + +And no disabling lamentations! Her eyes cleared, her mouth stiffened. +She went quietly back to her packing. + +"Gertrude! What _are_ you doing?" The voice was Delia's. She stood on +the threshold of Gertrude's den, looking with amazement, at the +littered room and the packing-cases. + +"I find I must go up at once--They want help at the office." Gertrude, +who was writing a letter, delivered the information over her shoulder. + +"But the flat won't be ready!" + +"Never mind. I can go to a hotel for a few days." + +A cloud dropped over the radiance of Delia's face, fresh from the sun +and frost outside. + +"I can't bear your going alone!" + +"Oh, you'll come later," said Gertrude indifferently. + +"Did you--did you--have such urgent letters this morning?" + +"Well--you know things _are_ urgent! But then, you see, you have made +up your mind to stay with Weston!" + +A slight mocking look accompanied the words. + +"Yes--I must stay with Weston," said Delia, slowly, and then perceiving +that the typist showed no signs of leaving them together, and that +confidential talk was therefore impossible, she reluctantly went away. + +Weston that morning was in much pain, and Delia sat beside her, +learning by some new and developing instinct how to soothe her. The +huntress of the Tyrolese woods had few caressing ways, and pain had +always been horrible to her; a thing to be shunned, even by the +spectator, lest it should weaken the wild natural energies. But Weston +was very dear to her, and the maid's suffering stirred deep slumbering +powers in the girl's nature. She watched the trained Nurse at her work, +and copied her anxiously. And all the time she was thinking, thinking, +now of Gertrude, now of her letter to Winnington. Gertrude was vexed +with her, thought her a poor creature--that was plain. "But in a +fortnight, I'll go to her,--and they'll see!--" thought the girl's +wrestling mind. "And before that, I shall send her money. I can't help +what she thinks. I'm not false!--I'm not giving in! But I must have +this fortnight,--just this fortnight;--for Weston's sake, and--" + +For her proud sincerity would not allow her to pretend to herself. What +had happened to her? She felt the strangest lightness--as though some +long restraint had broken down; a wonderful intermittent happiness, +sweeping on her without reason, and setting the breath fluttering. It +made her think of what an old Welsh nurse of her childhood had once +told her of "conversion," in a Welsh revival, and its marvellous +effects; how men and women walked on air, and the iron bands of life +and custom dropped away. + +Then she rose impatiently, despising herself, and went downstairs again +to try and help Gertrude. But the packing was done, the pony-cart was +ordered, and in an hour more, Gertrude was gone. Delia was left +standing on the threshold of the front door, listening to the sound of +the receding wheels. They had parted in perfect friendliness, Gertrude +with civil wishes for Weston's complete recovery, Delia with eager +promises--"I shall soon come--_very_ soon!"--promises of which, as she +now remembered, Gertrude had taken but little notice. + +But as she went back into the house, the girl had a queer feeling of +catastrophe, of radical change. She passed the old gun-room, and looked +in. All its brown paper bundles, its stacks of leaflets, its books of +reference were gone; only a litter of torn papers remained here and +there, to shew what its uses had been. And suddenly, a swell of +something like exultation, a wild sense of deliverance, rushed upon +her, driving out depression. She went back to the drawing-room, with +little dancing steps, singing under her breath. The flowers wanted +freshening. She went out to the greenhouse, and brought in some early +hyacinths and violets till the room was fragrant. Some of them she took +up to Weston, chatting to the patient and her nurse as she arranged +them, with such sweetness, such smiles, such an abandonment of +kindness, that both looked after her amazed, when, again, she vanished. +What had become of the imperious absent-minded young woman of ordinary +days? + +Delia lunched alone. And after lunch she grew restless. + +He must have received her letter at breakfast-time. Probably he had +some tiresome meetings in the morning, but soon--soon-- + +She tried to settle to some reading. How long it was since she had read +anything for the joy of it!--anything that in some shape or other was +not the mere pemmican of the Suffrage Movement; dusty arguments for, or +exasperating arguments against. She plunged into poetry--a +miscellaneous volume of modern verse--and the new world of feeling +in which her mind had begun to move, grew rich, and deep, and +many-coloured about her. + +Surely--a sound at the gate! She sat up, crimson. Well?--she was going +to make friends with her guardian--to bury the hatchet--for a whole +fortnight at least. Only that. Nothing more--nothing--nothing! + +Steps approached. She hastily unearthed a neglected work-basket, and a +very ancient piece of half-done embroidery. Was there a thimble +anywhere--or needles! Yes!--by good luck. Heavens!--what shamming! She +bent over the dingy bit of silk, her cheeks dimpling with laughter. + +Their first greetings were done, and Winnington was sitting by +her--astride a chair, his arms lying along the top of it, his eyes +looking down upon her, as she made random stitches in what looked like +a futurist design. + +"Do you know that you wrote me a very, _very_ nice letter?" and as he +spoke, she heard in his voice that tone--that lost tone, which she had +heard in it at their very first interview, before she had chilled and +flouted him, and made his life a burden to him. Her pulses leapt; but +she did not look up. + +"I wonder whether--you quite deserved it? You were angry with me--for +nothing!" + +"I am afraid I can't agree!" The voice now was a little dry, and a pair +of very keen grey eyes examined her partially hidden face. + +She pushed her work away and looked up. + +"You ought!" she said vehemently. "You accused me--practically--of +flirting with Mr. Lathrop. And I was doing nothing of the kind!" + +He laughed. + +"I never imagined that you were--or could be--flirting with Mr. +Lathrop." + +"Then why did you threaten to give me up if I went on seeing him?" + +He hesitated--but said at last--gravely-- + +"Because I could not take the responsibility." + +"How would it help me--to give me up? According to you--" she breathed +fast--"I should only--go to perdition--the quicker!" Her eyes still +laughed, but behind the laughter there was a rush of feeling which +communicated itself to him. + +"May I suggest that it is not necessary to go to perdition--at +all--fast or slow?" + +She shook her head. Silence followed; which Winnington broke. + +"You said you would like to come and see some of the village +people--your own people--and the school? Was that serious?" + +"Certainly!" She raised an indignant countenance. "I suppose you +think--like everybody--that because I want the vote, I can't care +about anything else?" + +"You'll admit it has a way of driving everything else out," he said, +mildly. "Have you ever been into the village--for a month?--for two +months? The things you wanted have been done. But you haven't been to +see." She sprang to her feet. + +"Shall I come now?" + +"If it suits you. I've saved the afternoon." + +She ran out of the room to put on her things, upsetting as she did so, +the work-box with which she had been masquerading, and quite +unconscious of it. Winnington, smiling to himself, stooped to pick up +the reels and skeins of silk. One, a skein of pink silk with which she +had been working, he held in his hand a moment, and, suddenly, put in +his pocket. After which he drifted absently to the hearthrug, and stood +waiting for her, hat in hand. He was thinking of that moment in the +wintry dawn when he had read her letter. The shock of emotion returned +upon him. But what was he to do? What was really in her mind?--or, for +the matter of that, in his own? + +She re-appeared, radiant in a moleskin cap and furs, and then they both +awkwardly remembered--he, that he had made no inquiry about Weston, and +she, that she had said nothing of Gertrude Marvell's hurried departure. + +"Your poor maid? Tell me about her. Oh, but she'll do well. We'll take +care of her. France is an awfully good doctor." + +Her eyes thanked him. She gave him a brief account of Weston's state; +then looked away. + +"Do you know--that I'm quite alone? Gertrude went up to town this +morning?" + +Winnington gave a low whistle of astonishment. + +"She had to--" said Delia, hurriedly. "It was the office--they couldn't +do without her." + +"I thought she had undertaken to be your chaperon?" + +The girl coloured. + +"Well yes--but of course--the other claim came first." + +"You don't expect me to admit that," said Winnington, with energy. +"Miss Marvell has left you alone?--_alone_?--at a moment's notice--with +your maid desperately ill--and without a word to me, or anybody?" His +eyes sparkled. + +"Don't let's quarrel!" cried Delia, as she stood opposite to him, +putting on her gloves. "_Don't_! Not to-day--not this afternoon! And +we're sure to quarrel if we talk about Gertrude." + +His indignation broke up in laughter. + +"Very well. We won't mention her. Well, but look here--" he +pondered--"You _must_ have somebody. I would propose that Alice +should come and keep you company, but I left her in bed with what +looks like the flu. Ah!--I have it. But--am I really to advise? You +are twenty-one, remember,--nearly twenty-two!" + +The tender sarcasm in his voice brought a flood of colour to her +cheeks. + +"Go on!" she said, and stood quivering. + +"Would you consider asking Lady Tonbridge to come and stay with you? +Nora is away on a visit." + +Delia moved quietly to the writing-table, pulled off her gloves, sat +down to write a note. He watched her, standing behind her; his strained +yet happy look resting on the beautiful dark head. + +She rose, and held out the note, addressed to Lady Tonbridge. He took +the note, and the hand together. The temptation was irresistible. He +raised the hand and kissed it. Both were naturally reminded of the only +previous occasion on which he had done such a thing; and as he dropped +his hold, Delia saw the ugly scar which would always mark his left +wrist. + +"Thank you!"--he said warmly--"That'll be an immense relief to my +mind." + +"You mustn't think she'll convert me," said Delia, quickly. + +"Why, she's a Suffragist!" + +Delia shrugged her shoulders. "_Pour rire_!" + +"Let's leave the horrid subject alone--shall we?" + +Delia assented; and they set out, just as the winter sun of a bright +and brilliant afternoon was beginning to drop towards its setting. + + * * * * * + +When Delia afterwards looked back on those two hours in Mark +Winnington's company, she remembered them as a time enskied and +glorified. First, the mere pleasure of the senses--the orange glow of +the January evening, the pleasant crackling of the frosty ground, the +exhilaration of exercise, and of the keen pungent air; then the beauty +of the village and of the village lanes in the dusk, of the blue smoke +drifting along the hill, of the dim reds and whites of the old houses, +and the occasional gleams of fire and lamp through the small-paned +windows; the gaiety of the children racing home from school, the +dignity of the old labourers, the seemliness of the young. It was good +to be alive--in England--breathing English air. It was good to be young +and strong-limbed, with all one's life before one. + +And next--and greater--there was the pleasure of Winnington beside her, +of his changed manner, of their new comradeship. She felt even a +curious joy in the difference of age between them. Now that by some +queer change, she had ceased to stand on her dignity with him, to hold +him arrogantly at arm's length, there emerged in her a childish +confidence and sweetness, enchanting to the man on whom it played. "May +I?--" "Do you think I might?--" she would say, gently, throwing out +some suggestion or other, as they went in and out of the cottages, and +the humbleness in her dark eyes, as though a queen stooped, began to +turn his head. + +And how beautiful this common human life seemed that evening--after all +the fierce imaginings in which she had lived so long! In the great +towns beyond the hills, women were still starved and sweated,--still +enslaved and degraded. Man no doubt was still the stupid and vicious +tyrant, the Man-Beast that Gertrude Marvell believed him. But here in +this large English village, how the old primal relations stood +out!--sorrow-laden and sin-stained often, yet how touching, how worthy, +in the main, of reverence and tenderness! As they went in and out of +the cottages of her father's estate, the cottages where Winnington was +at home, and she a stranger, all that "other side" of any great +argument began to speak to her--without words. The world of politics +and its machinery, how far away!--instead, the world of human need, and +love, and suffering unveiled itself this winter evening to Delia's +soul, and spoke to her in a new language. And always it was a language +of sex, as between wives and husbands, mothers and sons, sisters and +brothers. No isolation of one sex or the other. No possibility of +thinking of them apart, as foes and rivals, with jarring rights and +claims. These old couples tending each other, clinging together, after +their children had left them, till their own last day should dawn; +these widowed men or women, piteously lost without the old companion, +like the ox left alone in the furrow; these young couples with their +first babies; these dutiful or neglectful sons, these hard or tender +daughters; these mothers young and old, selfish or devoted:--with +Winnington beside her, Delia saw them all anew, heard them all anew. +And Love, in all its kinds, everywhere the governing force, by its +presence or its absence!--Love abused and degraded, or that Love, +whether in the sunken eyes of the old, or on the cheeks of the young, +which is but "a little lower than the angels." + +And what frankly amazed her was Winnington's place in this world of +labouring folk. He had given it ten years of service; not charity, but +simply the service of the good citizen; moved by a secret, impelling +motive, which Delia had yet to learn. And how they rewarded him! She +walked beside a natural ruler, and felt her heart presently big with +the pride of it. + +"But the cripples?" She enquired for them, with a touch of sarcasm. "So +far," she said, "the population Maumsey, appeared to be quiet +exceptionally able-bodied." + +"Goodness!" said Winnington--"I can't shew you more than two or three +cripples to a village. Maumsey only rejoices in two. My county school +will collect from the whole county. And I should never have found out +the half of them, if it hadn't been for Susy Amberley." + +"How did she discover them?" asked Delia, without any sort of +cordiality. + +"We--the County Council--put the enquiry into her hands. I showed +her--a bit. But she's done it admirably. She's a wonderful little +person, Susy. What the old parents will do without her when she goes to +London I can't think." + +"Why is she going?" + +Winnington shrugged his shoulders kindly. + +"Wants a training--wants something more to do. Quite right--if it +makes her happy. You women have all grown so restless nowadays." He +laughed into the rather sombre face beside him. And the face lit +up--amazingly. + +"Because the world's so _marvellous_," said Delia, with her passionate +look. "And there's so little time to explore it in. You men have always +known that. Now we women know it too." + +He pondered the remark--half smiling. + +"Well, you'll see a good deal of it before you've done," he said at +last. "Now come and look at what I've been trying to do for the women +who complained to you." + +And he shewed her how everything had been arranged to please her, at +the cost of infinite trouble, and much expense. The woman with the +eight children had been moved into a spacious new cottage made out of +two old ones; the old granny alone in a house now too big for her, had +been induced to take in a prim little spinster, the daughter of a small +grocer just deceased; and the father of the deficient girl, for whom +Miss Dempsey had made herself responsible, received Winnington with a +lightening of his tired eyes, and taking him out of earshot of Delia, +told him how Bessie "had got through her trouble," and was now earning +money at some simple hand-work under Miss Dempsey's care. + +"I didn't know you were doing all this!" said Delia, remorsefully, as +they walked along the village street. "Why didn't you tell me?" + +"I think I did tell you--once or twice. But you had other things to +think about." + +"I hadn't!" said Delia, with angry energy. "I hadn't, you needn't make +excuses for me!" + +He smiled at her, a little gravely, but said nothing--till they +reached a path leading to an isolated cottage-- + +"Here's a cripple at last!--Susy!--You here?" + +For as the door opened to his knock, a lady rose from a low seat, and +faced them. + +Winnington grasped her by the hand. + +"I thought you were already gone." + +"No--they've put it off again for a week or two--no vacancy yet." + +She shook hands formally with Delia. "I came to have another look at +this boy. Isn't he splendid?" + +She pointed to a grinning child of five sitting on the edge of the +kitchen table, and dangling a pair of heavily ironed legs. The mother +proudly shewed them. He had been three months in the Orthopaedic +Hospital, she told Delia. The legs twisted with rickets had been broken +and set twice, and now he was "doing fine." She set him down, and made +him walk. "I never thought to see him do that!" she said, her wan face +shining. "And it's all his doing--" she pointed to Winnington, "and +Miss Susy's." + +Meanwhile Susy and Winnington were deep in conversation--very +technical much of it--about a host of subjects they seemed to have in +common. + +Delia silent and rather restless, watched them both, the girl's sweet, +already faded, face, and Winnington's expression. When they emerged +from the cottage Susy said shyly to Delia-- + +"Won't you come to tea with me some day next week?" + +"Thank you. I should like to. But my maid is very ill. Else I should be +in London." + +"Oh, I'm very sorry. May I come to you?" + +Delia thanked her coldly. She could have beaten herself for a rude, +ungracious creature; yet for the life of her she could not command +another manner. Susy drew back. She and Winnington began to talk again, +ranging over persons and incidents quite unknown to Delia--the frank +talk, full of matter of comrades in a public service. And again Delia +watched them acutely--jealous--yet not in any ordinary sense. When Susy +turned back towards the Rectory, Delia said abruptly-- + +"She's helped you a great deal?" + +"Susy!" He went off at score, ending with--"What France and I shall do +without her, I don't know. If we could only get more women--_scores +more women_--to do the work! There we sit, perched up aloft on the +Council, and what we want are the women to advise us, and the women's +hands--_to do the little things_--which make just all the difference!" + +She was silent a moment, and then said sorely--"I suppose that means, +that if we did all the work we might do--we needn't bother about the +vote." + +He turned upon with animation-- + +"I vow I wasn't thinking about the vote!" + +"Miss Amberley doesn't seem to bother about it." + +Winnington's voice shewed amusement. + +"I can't imagine Susy a suff. It simply isn't in her." + +"I know plenty of suffragists just as good and useful as she is," said +Delia, bristling. + +Winnington did not immediately reply. They had left the village behind, +and were walking up the Maumsey lane in a gathering darkness, each +electrically conscious of the other. At last he said in a changed +tone-- + +"Have I been saying anything to wound you? I didn't mean it." + +She laughed unsteadily. + +"You never say anything to wound me. I was only--a kind of fretful +porcupine--standing up for my side." + +"And the last thought in my mind to-night was to attack your 'side,'" +he protested. + +Her tremulous sense drank in the gentleness of his voice, the joy of +his strong, enveloping presence, and the sweetness of her own surrender +which had brought him back to her, the thought of it vibrating between +them, unspoken. Until, suddenly, at the door of the Abbey, Winnington +halted and took her by both hands. + +"I must go home. Good-night. Have you got books to amuse you?" + +"Plenty." + +"Poor child!--all alone! But you'll have Lady Tonbridge to-morrow." + +"How do you know? She mayn't come." + +"I'm going there now. I'll make her. You--you won't be doing any more +embroidery to-night?" + +He looked at her slyly. Delia laughed out. + +"There!--when one tries to be feminine, that's how you mock!" + +"'_Mock_!' I admired. Good-night!--I shall be here to-morrow." + +He was gone--into the darkness. + +Delia entered the lonely house, in a bewilderment of feeling. As she +passed Gertrude's deserted sitting-room on her way to the staircase, +she saw that the parlourmaid had lit a useless lamp there. She went in +to put it out. As she did so, a torn paper among the litter on the +floor attracted her notice. She stooped and took it up. + +It seemed to be a fragment of a plan--a plan of a house. It shewed two +series of rooms, divided by a long passage. One of the rooms was marked +"Red Parlour," another, "Hall," and at the end of the passage, there +were some words, clearly in Gertrude Marvell's handwriting-- + +"_Garden door, north_." + +With terror in her heart, Delia brought the fragment to the lamp, and +examined every word and line of it. + +Recollections flashed into her mind, and turned her pale. That what she +held was part of a general plan of the Monk Lawrence ground-floor, she +was certain--dismally certain. And Gertrude had made it. Why? + +Delia tore the paper into shreds and burnt the shreds. Afterwards she +spent an oppressed and miserable night. Her friend reproached her, on +the one side; and Winnington, on the other. + + + + +Chapter XIV + + +Lady Tonbridge was sitting in the window-seat of a little sitting-room +adjoining her bedroom at Maumsey Abbey. That the young mistress of +Maumsey had done her best to make her guest comfortable, that guest +most handsomely acknowledged. Some of the few pretty things which the +house contained had been gathered there. The chintz covered sofa and +chairs, even though the chintz was ugly, had the pleasant country-house +look, which suggests afternoon tea, and chatting friends; a bright +fire, flowers and a lavish strewing of books completed the hospitable +impression. + +Yet Madeleine Tonbridge had by no means come to Maumsey Abbey, at +Winnington's bidding, as to a Land of Cockaigne. She at all events +regarded Delia as a "handful," and was on the watch day by day +for things outrageous. She could not help liking the beautiful +creature--almost loving her! But Delia was still a "Daughter of +Revolt"--apparently unrepentant; that dangerous fanatic, her pretended +chaperon, was still in constant correspondence with her; the papers +teemed with news of militant outrages, north, south, east and west; and +riotous doings were threatened for the meetings of Parliament by +Delia's Society. On all these matters Delia shut her proud lips. Indeed +her new reticence with regard to militant doings and beliefs struck +Lady Tonbridge as more alarming than the young and arrogant defiance +with which on her first arrival she had been wont to throw them at the +world. Madeleine could not rid herself of the impression during these +weeks that Delia had some secret cause of anxiety connected with the +militant propaganda. She was often depressed, and there were moments +when she shewed a nervousness not easily accounted for. She scarcely +ever mentioned Gertrude Marvell; and she never wrote her letters in +public; while those she received, she would carry away to the gun +room--which she had now made her own particular den--before she opened +them. + +At the same time, if Weston recovered from the operation, in three +weeks or so it would be possible for Delia to leave Maumsey; and it was +generally understood that she would then join her friend in London, +just in time for the opening of Parliament. For the moment, it was +plain she was not engaged in any violent doings. But who could answer +for the future? + +And meanwhile, what was Mark Winnington about? It was all very well to +sit there trifling with the pages of the _Quarterly Review_! In her +moments of solitude by night or day, during the five days she had +already spent at Maumsey, Madeleine had never really given her mind to +anything else but the engrossing question. "Is he in love with her--or +is he not?" + +Of course she had foreseen--had feared--the possibility of it, from +that very first moment, almost--when Winnington had written to her +describing the terms of Bob Blanchflower's will, and his own acceptance +of the guardianship. + +Yet why "feared"? Had she not for years desired few things so sincerely +as to see Winnington happily married? As to that old tragedy, with its +romantic effect upon his life, her first acquiescence in that effect, +as something irrevocable, had worn away with time. It now seemed to her +an intolerable thing that Agnes Clay's death should forever stand +between Winnington and love. It was positively anti-social--bad +citizenship--that such a man as Mark Winnington should not produce +sons and daughters for the State, when all the wastrels and cheats in +creation were so active in the business. + +All the same she had but rarely ventured to attack him on the subject, +and the results had not been encouraging. She was certain that he had +entered upon the guardianship of Delia Blanchflower in complete +single-mindedness--confident, disdainfully confident, in his own +immunity; and after that first outburst into which friendship had +betrayed her, she had not dared to return to the subject. But she had +watched him--with the lynx eyes of a best friend; and that best friend, +a woman to whom love affairs were the most interesting things in +existence. In which, of course, she knew she was old-fashioned, and +behind the mass of the sex, now racing toward what she understood was +called the "economic independence of women"--_i.e._ a life without man. + +But in spite of watching, she was much perplexed--as to both the +persons concerned. She had now been nearly a week at Maumsey, in +obedience to Delia's invitation and Winnington's urging. The +opportunity indeed of getting to know Mark's beautiful--and +troublesome--ward, more intimately, was extremely welcome to her +curiosity. Hitherto Gertrude Marvell had served as an effective barrier +between Delia and her neighbours. The neighbours did not want to know +Miss Marvell, and Miss Marvell, Madeleine Tonbridge was certain, had +never intended that the neighbours should rob her of Delia. + +But now Gertrude Marvell had in some strange sudden way vacated her +post; and the fortress lay open to attack and capture, were anyone +strong enough to seize it. Moreover Delia's visitor had not been +twenty-four hours in the house before she had perceived that Delia's +attitude to her guardian was new, and full of suggestion to the shrewd +bystander. Winnington had clearly begun to interest the girl +profoundly--both in himself, and in his relation to her. She now wished +to please him, and was nervously anxious to avoid hurting or offending +him. She was always conscious of his neighbourhood or his mood; she was +eager--though she tried to conceal it--for information about him; and +three nights already had Lady Tonbridge lingered over Delia's bedroom +fire, the girl on the rug at her feet, while the elder woman poured out +her recollections of Mark Winnington, from the days when she and he had +been young together. + +As to that vanished betrothed, Agnes Clay,--the heroine of Winnington's +brief engagement--Delia's thirst for knowledge, in a restless, +suppressed way, had been insatiable. Was she jealous of that poor +ghost, and of all those delicate, domestic qualities with which her +biographer could not but invest her? The daughter of a Dean of +Wanchester--retiring, spiritual, tender,--suggesting a cloistered +atmosphere, and _The Christian Year_--she was still sharp in +Madeleine's recollection, and that lady felt a certain secret and +mischievous zest in drawing her portrait, while Delia, her black brows +drawn together, her full red mouth compressed, sat silent. + +Then--Wilmington as a friend!--upon that theme indeed Madeleine had +used her brightest colours. And to make this passive listener +understand what friendship meant in Wilmington's soul, it had been +necessary for the speaker to tell her own story, as much at least as it +was possible for her to tell, and Delia to hear. A hasty marriage--"my +own fault, my dear, as much as my parents'!"--twelve years of torment +and humiliation at the hands of a bad man, descending rapidly to the +pit, and quite willing to drag his wife and child with him, ending in a +separation largely arranged by Winnington--and then-- + +"We retired, Nora and I, on a decent allowance, my own money really, +only like a fool, I had let it all get into Alfred's hands. We took a +house at Richmond. Nora was fifteen. For two years my husband paid the +money. Then he wrote to say he was tired of doing without his daughter, +and he required her to live with him for six months in the year, as a +condition of continuing the allowance. I refused. We would sooner both +of us have thrown ourselves into the Thames. Alfred blustered and +threatened--but he could do nothing--except cut off the allowance, +which he did, at once. Then Mark Winnington found me the cottage here, +and made everything smooth for us. I wouldn't take any money from him, +though he was abominably ready to give it us! But he got me lessons--he +got me friends. He's made everybody here feel for us, and respect us. +He's managed the little bits of property we've got left--he's watched +over Nora--he's been our earthly Providence--and we both adore him!" + +On which the speaker, with a flickering smile and tear-dashed eyes, had +taken Delia's face in her two slender hands-- + +"And don't be such a fool, dear, as to imagine there's been anything in +it, ever, but the purest friendship and good-heartedness that ever +bound three people together! My greatest joy would be to see him +married--to a woman worthy of him--if there is one! And he I suppose +will find his reward in marrying Nora--to some nice fellow. He begins +to match-make for her already." + +Delia slowly withdrew herself. + +"And he himself doesn't intend to marry?" She asked the question, +clasping her long arms round her knees, as she sat on the floor, her +dark eyes--defiantly steady on her guest's face. + +Lady Tonbridge could hear her own answer. + +"L'homme propose! Let the right woman try!" Whereupon Delia, a +delicious figure, in a slim white dressing-gown, a flood of curly brown +hair falling about her neck and shoulders, had sprung up, and bidden +her guest a hasty good-night. + +One other small incident she recalled. + +_A propos_ of some anxious calculation made by Winnington's sister +Alice Matheson one day in talk with Lady Tonbridge--Delia being +present--as to whether Mark could possibly afford a better motor than +the "ramshackle little horror" he was at present dependent on, Delia +had said abruptly, on the departure of Mrs. Matheson-- + +"But surely the legacy my father left Mr. Winnington would get a new +motor!" + +"But he hasn't taken it, and never will!" Lady Tonbridge had cried, +amazed at the girl's ignorance. + +"Why not?" Delia had demanded, almost fiercely, looking very tall, and +oddly resentful. + +Why not? "Because one doesn't take payment for that sort of thing!" had +been Mark's laughing explanation, and the only explanation that she, +Madeleine, had been able to get out of him. She handed it on--to +Delia's evident discomfort. So, all along, this very annoying--though +attaching--young woman had imagined that Winnington was being +handsomely paid for putting up with her? + + * * * * * + +And Winnington? + +Here again, it was plain there was a change of attitude, though what it +meant Madeleine could not satisfactorily settle with herself. In the +early days of his guardianship he had been ready enough to come to her, +his most intimate woman-friend, and talk about his ward, though always +with that chivalrous delicacy which was his gift among men. Of late he +had been much less ready to talk; a good sign! And now, since Gertrude +Marvell's blessed departure, he was more at Maumsey than he had ever +been before. He seemed indeed to be pitting his own influence against +Miss Marvell's, and in his modest way, yet consciously, to be taking +Delia in hand, and endeavouring to alter her outlook on life; clearing +away, so far as he could, the atmosphere of angry, hearsay propaganda +in which she had spent her recent years, and trying to bring her face +to face with the deeper loves and duties and sorrows which she in her +headstrong youth knew so little about, while they entered so profoundly +into his own upright and humane character. + +Well, but did all this mean _love_?--the desire of the man for the +woman. + +Madeleine Tonbridge pondered it. She recollected a number of little +acts and sayings, throwing light upon his profound feeling for the +girl, his sympathy with her convictions, her difficulties, her wild +revolts against existing abuses and tyrannies. "I learn from her"--he +had said once, in conversation,--"she teaches me many things." +Madeleine could have laughed in his face--but for the passionate +sincerity in his look. + +One thing she perceived--that he was abundantly roused on the subject +of that man Lathrop's acquaintance with his ward. Lathrop's name had +not been mentioned since Lady Tonbridge's arrival, but she received the +impression of a constant vigilance on Winnington's part, and a certain +mystery and unhappiness on Delia's. As to the notion that such a man as +Paul Lathrop could have any attraction for such a girl as Delia +Blanchflower, the idea was simply preposterous,--except on the general +theory that no one is really sane, and every woman "is at heart a +rake." But of course there was the common interest, or what appeared to +be a common interest in this militant society to which Delia was still +so intolerably committed! And an unscrupulous man might easily make +capital out of it. + +At this stage in the rambling reverie which possessed her, Lady +Tonbridge was aware of footsteps on the gravel outside. Winnington? He +had proposed to take Delia for a ride that afternoon, to distract her +mind from Weston's state, and from the operation which was to take +place early the following morning. She drew the curtain aside. + +Paul Lathrop! + +Madeleine felt herself flushing with surprise and indignation. The +visitor was let in immediately. It surely was her duty to go down and +play watchdog. + +She firmly rose. But as she did so, there was a knock at her door, and +Delia hurriedly entered. + +"I--I thought I'd better say--Mr. Lathrop's just come to see me--on +business. I'm so sorry, but you won't mind my coming to say so?" + +Lady Tonbridge raised her eyebrows. + +"You mean--you want to see him alone? All right. I'll come down +presently." + +Delia disappeared. + + * * * * * + +For more than half an hour did that "disreputable creature," as Lady +Tonbridge roundly dubbed him, remain closeted with Delia, in Delia's +drawing-room. Towards the end of the time the visitor overhead was +walking to and fro impatiently, vowing to herself that she was +bound--positively bound to Winnington--to go down and dislodge the man. +But just as she was about to leave her room, she again heard the front +door open and close. She ran to the window just in time to see Lathrop +departing--and Winnington arriving!--on foot and alone. She watched +the two men pass each other in the drive--Winnington's start of haughty +surprise--and Lathrop's smiling and, as she thought, insolent greeting. +It seemed to her that Winnington hesitated--was about to stop and +address the intruder. But he finally passed him by with the slightest +and coldest recognition. Lathrop's fair hair and slouching shoulders +disappeared round a corner of the drive. Winnington hurried to the +front door and entered. + +Lady Tonbridge resolutely threw herself into an arm-chair and took up a +novel. + +"Now let them have it out! I don't interfere." + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile Delia, with a red spot of agitation on either cheek, was +sitting at the old satin-wood bureau in the drawing-room, writing a +cheque. A knock at the door disturbed her. She half rose, to see +Wilmington open and close it. + +A look at his face startled her. She sank back into her chair, in +evident confusion. But her troubled eyes met his appealingly. + +Wilmington's disturbance was plain. + +"I had ventured to think--to hope--" he began, abruptly--"that although +you refused to give me your promise when I asked it, yet that you would +not again--or so soon again--receive Mr. Lathrop--privately." + +Delia rose and came towards him. + +"I told Lady Tonbridge not to come down. Was that very wrong of me?" + +She looked at him, half smiling, half hanging her head. + +"It was unwise--and, I think, unkind!" said Winnington, with energy. + +"Unkind to you?" She lifted her beautiful eyes. There was something +touching in their strained expression, and in her tone. + +"Unkind to yourself, first of all," he said, firmly. "I must repeat +Miss Delia, that this man is not a fit associate for you or any young +girl. You do yourself harm by admitting him--by allowing him to see you +alone--and you hurt your friends." + +Delia paused a moment. + +"Then you don't trust me at all?" she said at last, slowly. + +Winnington melted. How pale she looked! He came forward and took her +hand-- + +"Of course I trust you! But you don't know--you are too young. You +confess you have some business with Mr. Lathrop that you can't tell +me--your guardian; and you have no idea to what misrepresentations you +expose yourself, or with what kind of a man you have to deal!" + +Delia withdrew her hand, and dropped into a chair--her eyes on the +carpet. + +"I meant--" she said, and her tone trembled--"I did mean to have told +you everything to-day." + +"And now--now you can't?" + +She made no reply, and in the silence he watched her closely. What +could account for such an eclipse of all her young vivacity? It was +clear to him that that fellow was entangling her in some monstrous +way--part and parcel no doubt of this militant propaganda--and +calculating on developments. Winnington's blood boiled. But while he +stood uncertain, Delia rose, went to the bureau where she had been +writing, brought thence a cheque, and mutely offered it. + +"What is this?" he asked. + +"The money you lent me." + +And to his astonishment he saw that the cheque was for Ł500, and was +signed "Delia Blanchflower." + +"You will of course explain?" he said, looking at her keenly. Suddenly +Delia's embarrassed smile broke through. + +"It's--it's only that I've been trying to pay my debts!" + +His patience gave way. + +"I'm afraid I must tell you--very plainly--that unless you can account +to me for this cheque, I must entirely refuse to take it!" + +Delia put her hands behind her, like a scolded child. + +"It is my very own," she protested, mildly. "I had some ugly jewels +that my grandmother left me, and I have sold them--that's all." + +Winnington's grey eyes held her. + +"H'm--and--has Mr. Lathrop had anything to do with the sale?" + +"Yes!" She looked up frankly, still smiling. "He has managed it for +me." + +"And it never occurred to you to apply to your guardian in such a +matter? Or to your lawyer?" + +She laughed--with what he admitted was a very natural scorn. "Ask my +guardian to provide me with the means of helping the 'Daughters'--when +he regards us all as criminals? On the contrary, I wanted to relieve +your conscience, Mr. Winnington!" + +"I can't say you have succeeded," he said, grimly, as he began to pace +the drawing-room, with slow steps, his hands in his pockets. + +"Why not? Now--everything you give me--can go to the right things--what +you consider the right things. And what is my own--my very own--I can +use as I please." + +Yet neither tone nor gesture were defiant, as they would have been a +few weeks before. Rather her look was wistful--appealing--as she stood +there, a perplexing, but most charming figure, in her plain black +dress, with its Quakerish collar of white lawn. + +He turned on her impetuously. + +"And Mr. Lathrop has arranged it all for you?" + +"Yes. He said he knew a good deal about jewellers. I gave him some +diamonds. He took them to London, and he has sold them." + +"How do you know he has even treated you honestly!" + +"I am certain he has done it honestly!" she cried indignantly. "There +are the letters--from the jewellers--" And running to the bureau, she +took thence a packet of letters and thrust them into Winnington's +hands. + +He looked them through in silence,--turning to her, as he put them +down. + +"I see. It is of course possible that this firm of jewellers have paid +Mr. Lathrop a heavy commission behind the scenes, of which you know +nothing. But I don't press that. Indeed I will assume exactly the +contrary. I will suppose that Mr. Lathrop has acted without any profit +to himself. If so, in my eyes it only makes the matter worse--for it +establishes a claim on you. Miss Delia!--" his resolute gaze held +her--"I do not take a farthing of this money unless you allow me to +write to Mr. Lathrop, and offer him a reasonable commission for his +services!" + +"No--no! Impossible!" + +She turned away from him, towards the window, biting her lip--in sharp +distress. + +"Then I return you this cheque"--he laid it down beside her. "And I +shall replace the money,--the Ł500--which I ought never to have allowed +you to spend as you have done, out of my own private pocket." + +She stood silent, looking into the garden, her chest heaving. She +thought of what Lady Tonbridge had told her of his modest means--and +those generous hidden uses of them, of which even his most intimate +friends only got an occasional glimpse. Suddenly she went up to him-- + +"Will you--will you promise me to write civilly?" she said, in a +wavering voice. + +"Certainly." + +"You won't offend--insult him?" + +"I will remember that you have allowed him to come into this +drawing-room, and treated him as a guest," said Winnington coldly. "But +why, Miss Delia, are you so careful about this man's feelings? And is +it still impossible that you should meet my wishes--and refuse to see +him again?" + +She shook her head--mutely. + +"You intend--to see him again?" + +"You forget--that we have--business together." + +Winnington paused a moment, then came nearer to the chair on which she +had dropped. + +"This last week--we have been very good friends--haven't we, Miss +Delia?" + +"Call me Delia, please!" + +"Delia, then!--we have come to understand each other much +better--haven't we?" + +She made a drooping sign of assent. + +"_Can't_ I persuade you--to be guided by me--as your father +wished--during these next years of your life? I don't ask you to give +up your convictions--your ideals. We should all be poor creatures +without them! But I do ask you to give up these violent and illegal +methods--this violent and illegal Society--with which you have +become entangled. It will ruin your life, and poison your whole +nature!--unless you can shake yourself free. Work for the Suffrage +as much as you like--but work for it honourably--and lawfully. I ask +you--I beg of you!--to give up these associates--and these methods." + +The tenderness and gravity of his tone touched the girl's quivering +senses almost unbearably. It was like the tenderness of a woman. She +felt a wild impulse to throw herself into his arms, and weep. But +instead she grew very white and still. + +"I can't!"--was all she said, her eyes on the ground. Winnington turned +away. + +Suddenly--a sound of hasty steps in the hall outside--and the door was +opened by a nurse, in uniform. + +"Miss Blanchflower!--can you come?" + +Delia sprang up. She and the nurse disappeared together. + + * * * * * + +Winnington guessed what had happened. Weston who was to face a +frightful operation on the morrow as the only chance of saving her +life, had on the whole gone through the fortnight of preparatory +treatment with wonderful courage. But during the last forty-eight +hours, there had been attacks of crying and excitement, connected with +the making of her will, which she had insisted on doing, being herself +convinced that she would die under the knife. Medically, all such +agitation was disastrous. But the only person who could calm her at +these moments was Delia, whom she loved. And the girl had shewn in +dealing with her a marvellous patience and strength. + +Presently Madeleine Tonbridge came downstairs--with red eyes. She +described the scene of which she had just been a witness in Weston's +room. Delia, she said, choking again at the thought of it, had been +"wonderful." Then she looked enquiringly at Winnington-- + +"You met that man going away?" + +He sat down beside her, unable to disguise his trouble of mind, or to +resist the temptation of her sympathy and their old friendship. + +"I am certain there is some plot afoot--some desperate business--and +they are trying to draw her into it! What can we do?" + +Lady Tonbridge shook her head despondently. What indeed could they do, +with a young lady of full age,--bent on her own way? + +Then she noticed the cheque lying open on the table, and asked what it +meant. + +"Miss Delia wishes to repay me some money I lent her," said Winnington, +after a pause. "As matters stand at present, I prefer to wait. Would +you kindly take charge of the cheque for her? No need to worry her +about it again, to-night." + + * * * * * + +Delia came down at tea-time, pale and quiet, like one from whom virtue +has gone out. By tacit consent Winnington and Lady Tonbridge devoted +themselves to her. It seemed as though in both minds there had arisen +the same thought of her as orphaned and motherless, the same pity, the +same resentment that anything so lovely should be unhappy--as she +clearly was; and not only, so both were convinced, on account of her +poor maid. + +Winnington stayed on into the lamplight, and presently began to read +aloud. The scene became intimate and domestic. Delia very silent, sat +in a deep arm chair, some pretence at needlework on her knee, but in +reality doing nothing but look into the fire, and listen to +Winnington's voice. She had changed while upstairs into a white dress, +and the brilliance of her hair, and wide, absent eyes above the +delicate folds of white, seemed to burn in Winnington's consciousness +as he read. Presently however, Lady Tonbridge looking up, was startled +to see that the girl had imperceptibly fallen asleep. The childish +sadness and sweetness of the face in its utter repose seemed to present +another Delia, with another history. Madeleine hoped that Winnington +had not observed the girl's sleep; and he certainly gave no sign of it. +He went on reading; and presently his companion, noticing the clock, +rose very quietly, and went out to give a letter to the parlour-maid +for post. + +As she entered the room again, however, she saw that Winnington had +laid down his book. His eyes were now on Delia--his lips parted. All +the weather-beaten countenance of the man, its deep lines graven by +strenuous living, glowed as from an inward light--marvellously intense +and pure. Madeleine's pulse leapt. She had her answer to her +speculations of the afternoon. + +Meanwhile through Delia's sleeping mind there swept scenes and images +of fear. She grew restless, and as Lady Tonbridge slipped again into +her chair by the fire, the girl woke suddenly with a long quivering +sigh, a sound of pain, which provoked a quick movement of alarm in +Winnington. + +But she very soon recovered her usual manner; and Winnington said +good-night. He went away carrying his anxieties with him through the +dark, carrying also a tumult of soul that would not be stilled. Whither +was he drifting? Of late he had felt sure of himself again. Her best +friend and guide--it was that he was rapidly becoming--with that, day +by day, he bade himself be content. And now, once more, self-control +was uprooted and tottering. It was the touch of this new softness, this +note of innocent appeal, even of bewildered distress, in her, which was +kindling all his manhood, and breaking down his determination. + +He raged at the thought of Lathrop. As to any danger of a love-affair, +like Lady Tonbridge, he scouted the notion. It would be an insult to +Delia to suppose such a thing. But it was simply intolerable in his +eyes that she should have any dealings with the fellow--that he should +have the audacity to call at her house, to put her under an obligation. + +And he was persuaded there was more than appeared in it; more than +Delia's devices for getting money, wherewith to feed the League of +Revolt. She was clearly anxious, afraid. Some shadow was brooding over +her, some terror that she could not disclose:--of that Winnington was +certain. And this man, whom she had already accepted as her colleague +in a public campaign, was evidently in the secret; might be even the +cause of her fears. + +He began hotly to con the terms of his letter to Lathrop; and then had +to pull himself up, remembering unwillingly what he had promised Delia. + + + + +Chapter XV + + +"Do you know anything more?" + +The voice was Delia's; and the man who had just met her in the shelter +of the wooded walk which ran along the crest of the hill above the +Maumsey valley, was instantly aware of the agitation of the speaker. + +"Nothing--precise. As I told you last week--you needn't be afraid of +anything immediate. But my London informants assure me that elaborate +preparations are certainly going on for some great _coup_ as soon as +Parliament meets--against Sir Wilfrid. The police are uneasy, though +puzzled. They have warned Daunt, and Sir Wilfrid is guarded." + +"Then of course our people won't attempt it! It would be far too +dangerous." + +"Don't be too sure! You and I know Miss Marvell. If she means to burn +Monk Lawrence, she'll achieve it, whatever the police may do." + +The man and the girl walked on in silence. The January afternoons were +lengthening a little, and even under the shadow of the wood Lathrop +could see with sufficient plainness Delia's pale beauty--strangely worn +and dimmed as it seemed to him. His mind revolted. Couldn't the jealous +gods spare even this physical perfection? What on earth had been +happening to her? He supposed a Christian would call the face +"spiritualised." If so, the Christian--in his opinion--would be a human +ass. + +"I have written several times to Miss Marvell--very strongly," said +Delia at last. "I thought you ought to know that. But I have had no +reply." + +"Why don't you go--instead of writing?" + +"It has been impossible. My maid has been so terribly ill." + +Lathrop expressed his sympathy. Delia received it with coldness and a +slight frown. She hurried on-- + +"I've written again--but I haven't sent it. Perhaps I oughtn't to have +written by post." + +"Better not. Shall I be your messenger? Miss Marvell doesn't like +me--but that don't matter." + +"Oh, no, thank you." The voice was hastily emphatic; so that his +vanity winced. "There are several members of the League in the village. +I shall send one of them." + +He smiled--rather maliciously. + +"Are you going to tackle Miss Andrews herself?" + +"You're still--quite _certain_--that she's concerned?" + +"Quite certain. Since you and I met--a fortnight ago isn't it?--I have +seen her several times, in the neighbourhood of the house--after dark. +She has no idea, of course, that I have been prowling round." + +"What have you seen?--what can she be doing?" asked Delia. "Of course I +remember what you told me--the other day." + +Lathrop's belief was that a close watch was now being kept on Daunt--on +his goings and comings--with a view perhaps to beguiling him away, and +then getting into the house. + +"But he has lately got a niece to stay with him, and help look after +the children, and the house. His sister who is married in London, +offered to send her down for six months. He was rather surprised, for +he had quite lost sight of his sister; but he tells me it's a great +relief to his mind. + +"So you talk to him?" + +"Certainly. Oh, he knows all about me--but he knows too that I'm on the +side of the house! He thinks I'm a queer chap--but he can trust me--in +_that_ business. And by the way, Miss Blanchflower, perhaps I ought to +let you understand that I'm an artist and a writer, before I'm a +Suffragist, and if I come across Miss Marvell--engaged in what you and +I have been talking of--I shall behave just like any other member of +the public, and act for the police. I don't want to sail--with +you--under any false pretences!" + +"I know," said Delia, quietly. "You came to warn me--and we are acting +together. I understand perfectly. You--you've promised however"--she +could not keep her voice quite normal--"that you'd let me know--that +you'd give me notice before you took any step." + +Lathrop nodded. "If there's time--I promise. But if Daunt or I come +upon Miss Marvell--or any of her minions--torch in hand--there would +not be time. Though, of course, if I could help her escape, +consistently with saving the house--for your sake--I should do so. I am +sure you believe that?" + +Delia made no audible reply, but he took her silence for consent. + +"And now"--he resumed--"I ought to be informed without delay, whether +your messenger finds Miss Marvell and how she receives your letter." + +"I will let you know at once." + +"A telegram brings me here--this same spot. But you won't wire from the +village?" + +"Oh no, from Latchford." + +"Well, then, that's settled. Regard me, please, as your henchman. +Well!--have you read any Madame de Noailles?" + +He fancied he saw a slight impatient movement. + +"Not yet, I'm afraid. I've been living in a sick room." + +Again he expressed polite sympathy, while his thoughts repeated--"What +waste!--what absurdity!" + +"She might distract you--especially in these winter days. Her verse is +the very quintessence of summer--of hot gardens and their scents--of +roses--and June twilights. It takes one out of this leafless north." He +stretched a hand to the landscape. + +And suddenly, while his heavy face kindled, he began to recite. His +French was immaculate--even to a sensitive and well-trained ear; and +his voice, which in speaking was disagreeable, took in reciting deep +and beautiful notes, which easily communicated to a listener the +thrill, the passion, of sensuous pleasure, which certain poetry +produced in himself. + +But it communicated no such thrill to Delia. She was only irritably +conscious of the uncouthness of his large cadaverous face, and +straggling fair hair; of his ragged ulster, his loosened tie, and all +the other untidy details of his dress. "And I shall have to go on +meeting him!" she thought, with repulsion. "And at the end of this walk +(the gate was in sight) I shall have to shake hands with him--and he'll +hold my hand." + +She loathed the thought of it; but she knew very well that she +Was under coercion--for Gertrude's sake. The recollection of +Winnington--away in Latchford on county business--smote her sharply. +But how could she help it? She must--_must_ keep in touch with this +man--who had Gertrude in his power. + +While these thoughts were running through her mind, he stopped his +recitation abruptly. + +"Am I to help you any more--with the jewels?" + +Delia started. Lathrop was smiling at her, and she resented the smile. +She had forgotten. But there was no help for it. She must have more +money. It might be, in the last resort, the means of bargaining with +Gertrude. And how could she ask Mark Winnington! + +So she hurriedly thanked him, naming a tiara and two pendants, that she +thought must be valuable. + +"All right," said Lathrop, taking out a note-book from his breast +pocket, and looking at certain entries he had made on the occasion of +his visit to Maumsey. "I remember--worth a couple of thousand at least. +When shall I have them?" + +"I will send them registered--to-morrow--from Latchford." + +"_ Trčs bien_! I will do my best. You know Mr. Winnington has offered +me a commission?" His eyes laughed. + +Delia turned upon him. + +"And you ought to accept it, Mr. Lathrop! It would be kinder to all of +us." + +She spoke with spirit and dignity. But he laughed again and shook his +head. + +"My reward, you see, is just _not_ to be paid. My fee is your +presence--in this wood--your little word of thanks--and the hand you +give me--on the bargain!" + +They had reached the gate, and he held out his hand. Delia had flushed +violently, but she yielded her own. He pressed it lingeringly, as she +had foreseen, then released it and opened the gate for her. + +"Good-bye then. A word commands me--when you wish. We keep watch--and +each informs the other--barring accidents. That is, I think, the +bargain." + +She murmured assent, and they parted. Half way back towards his own +cottage, Lathrop paused at a spot where the trees were thin, and the +slopes of the valley below could be clearly seen. He could still make +out her figure nearing the first houses of the village. + +"I think she hates me. Never mind! I command her, and meet me she +must--when I please to summon her. There is some sweetness in that--and +in teasing the stupid fellow who no doubt will own her some day." + +And he thought exultantly of Winnington's letter to him, and his own +insolent reply. It had been a perfectly civil letter--and a perfectly +proper thing for a guardian to do. But--for the moment-- + +"I have the whip hand--and it amuses me to keep it,--Now then for +Blaydes!" + +For there, in the doorway of the cottage, stood the young journalist, +waiting and smoking. He was evidently in good humour. + +"Well? She came?" + +"Of course she came. But it doesn't matter to you." + +"Oh, doesn't it! I suppose she wants you to sell something more for +her?" + +Lathrop did not reply. Concerning Gertrude Marvell, he had not breathed +a word to Blaydes. + +They entered the hut together, and Lathrop rekindled the fire. The two +men sat over it smoking. Blaydes plied his companion with eager +questions, to which Lathrop returned the scantiest answers. At last he +said with a sarcastic look-- + +"I was offered four hundred pounds this afternoon--and refused it." + +"The deuce you did!" cried Blaydes, fiercely. "What about my debt--and +what do you mean?" + +"Ten per cent. commission," said Lathrop, drawing quietly at his cigar. +"Sales up to two thou., a fortnight ago. I shall get the same money--or +more--for the next batch." + +"Well, that's all right! No need to get it out of the lady, if you're +particular. Get it out of the other side. Any fool could manage that." + +"I shall not get a farthing out of the other side. I shall not make a +doit out of the whole transaction!" + +"Then you're a d----d fool," said Blaydes, in a passion. "And a +dishonest fool besides!" + +"Easy, please! What hold should I have on this girl--this splendid +creature--if I were merely to make money out of her? As it is, she's +obliged to me--she treats me like a gentleman. I thought you had +matrimonial ideas." + +"I don't believe you've got the ghost of a chance!" grumbled Blaydes, +his mind smarting under the thought of the lost four hundred pounds, +out of which his debt might have been paid. + +"Nor do I," said Lathrop, coolly. "But I choose to keep on equal terms +with her. You can sell me up when you like." + +He lounged to the window, and threw it open. The January day was +closing, not in any glory of sunset, but with interwoven greys and +pearls, and delicate yellow lights slipping through the clouds. + +"I shall always have _this_"--he said to himself, passionately, as he +drank in the air and the beauty--"whatever happens." + +Recollection brought back to him Delia's proud, virginal youth, and her +springing step as she walked beside him through the wood. His mind +wavered again between triumph and self-disgust. His muddy past returned +upon him, mingled, as always, with that invincible respect for her, and +belief in something high and unstained in the depths of his own nature, +to which his weakened and corrupt will was yet unable to give any +effect. + +"What I have done is not 'me'"--he thought. "At any rate not all +'me.' I am better than it. I suspect Winnington has told her +something--measuring it chastely out. All the same--I shall see her +again." + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile Delia was descending the hill pursued by doubts and terrors. +The day was now darkening fast, and heavy snow-clouds were coming +down over the valley. The wind had dropped, but the heavy air was +bitter-cold and lifeless, as though the earth waited sadly for the +silencing and muffling of the snow. + +And in Delia's heart there was a like dumb expectancy of change. The +old enthusiasms, and ideals and causes, seemed for the moment to lie +veiled and frozen within her. Only two figures emerged sharply in the +landscape of thought--Gertrude--and Winnington. + +Since that day, the day before Weston's operation, when Paul Lathrop +had brought her evidence--collected partly from small incidents and +observations on the spot, partly from information supplied him by +friends in London--which had sharpened all her own suspicions into +certainties, she had never known an hour free from fear. Her letters +had remained wholly unanswered. She did not even know where Gertrude +was; though it seemed to her that letters addressed to the head office +of the League of Revolt must have been forwarded. No! Gertrude was +really planning this hateful thing; the destruction of this beautiful +and historic house, with all its memories and its treasures, in order +to punish a Cabinet Minister for his opposition to Woman Suffrage, +and so terrorise others. Moreover it meant the risking of human +life--Daunt--his children, complete indifference also to Delia's +feelings, Delia's pain. + +What was she to do? Betray her friend?--go to Winnington for help? But +he was a magistrate. If such a plot were really on foot--and Lathrop +was himself convinced that petroleum and explosives were already stored +somewhere in the neighbourhood of the house--Winnington could only +treat such a thing as a public servant, as a guardian of the +law. Any appeal to him to let private interests--even _her_ +interests--interfere, would, she felt certain, be entirely fruitless. +Once go to him, the police must be informed--it would be his clear +duty; and if such proofs of the plot existed as Lathrop believed, +Gertrude would be arrested, and her accomplices. Including Delia +herself? + +That possibility, instead of frightening her, gave the girl some +momentary comfort. For that _might_ perhaps secure Winnington's +silence? + +But no!--her common sense dismissed the notion. Winnington would +discover at once that she had had no connection whatever with the +business. Lathrop's evidence alone would be enough. And that being so, +her confession would simply hand Gertrude over to Winnington's +conscience. And Mark Winnington's conscience was a thing to fear. + +And yet the yearning to go to him--like the yearning of an unhappy +child--was so strong. + +Traitor!--yes, _traitor_!--double-dyed. + +And pausing just outside the village, at a field gate, Delia leant over +it, gazing into the lowering sky, and piteously crying to some power +beyond--some God, "if any Zeus there be," on whom the heart in its +trouble might throw itself. + +Her thought ran backwards and forwards over the past months and years. +The burning moments of revolt through which she had lived--the meetings +of the League with their multitudes of faces, strained, fierce faces, +alive, many of them, with hatreds new to English life, new perhaps to +civilised history,--and the intermittent gusts of pity and fury which +had swept through her own young ignorance as she listened, making a +hideous thing of the future and of human fate:--she lived through them +all again. Individual personalities recurred to her, the wild looks of +delicate, frenzied women, who had lost health, employment, and the love +of friends--suffered in body, mind and estate for this "cause" to which +she too had vowed herself. Was she alone to desert, to fail--both the +cause and her friend, who had taught her everything? + +"It's not my will--not my _will_--that shrinks"--she moaned to herself. +"If I _believed_--if I still believed!" + +But why was the fire gone out of the old faiths, the savour from the +old hopes? Was she less moved by the sufferings, the toils, the +weakness of her sex? She could remember nights of weeping over the +wrongs of women, after an impassioned evening with Gertrude. And +now--had the heart of flesh become a heart of stone? Was she no longer +worthy of the great crusade, the vast upheaval? + +She could not tell. She only knew that the glamour of it all was +gone--that there were many hours when the Movement lay like lead upon +her life. Was it simply that her intelligence had revolted, that she +had come to see the folly, the sheer, ludicrous folly of a "physical +force" policy which opposed the pin-pricks of women to the strength of +men? Or was it something else--something far more compelling--more +convincing--more humiliating! + +"I've just fallen in love!--_fallen in love!_"--the words repeated +themselves brazenly, desperately, in her mind:--"and I can't think for +myself--judge for myself any longer! It's abominable--but it's true!" + +The very thought of Winnington's voice and look made her tremble as she +walked. Eternal weakness of the eternal woman! She scorned herself, yet +a bewildering joy sang through her senses. + +Nevertheless she held it at bay. She had her promised word--her +honour--to think of. Gertrude still expected her in London--on the +scene of action. + +"And I shall go," she said to herself with resolute inconsistency, "_I +shall go_!" + +What an angel Mark Winnington had been to her, this last fortnight! She +recalled the day of Weston's operation, and all the long days since. +The poor gentle creature had suffered terribly; death had been just +held off, from hour to hour; and was only now withdrawing. And Delia, +sitting by the bed, or stealing with hushed foot about the house, was +not only torn by pity for the living sufferer, she was haunted again by +all the memories of her father's dying struggle--bitter and miserable +days! And with what tenderness, what strength, what infinite delicacy +of thought and care, had she been upheld through it all! Her heart +melted within her. "There are such men in the world--there are!--and a +year ago I should have simply despised anyone who told me so!" + +Yet after these weeks of deepening experience, and sacred feeling, in +which she had come to love Mark Winnington with all the strength of her +young heart, and to realise that she loved him, the first use that she +was making of a free hour was to go, unknown to him--for he was away +on county business at Wanchester--and meet Paul Lathrop! + +"But he would understand," she said to herself, drearily, as she moved +on again. "If he knew, he would understand." + + * * * * * + +Now she must hurry on. She turned into the broad High Street of the +village, observed by many people, and half way down, she stopped at a +door on which was a brass plate, "Miss Toogood, Dressmaker." + +The lame woman greeted her with delight, and there in the back parlour +of the little shop she found them gathered,--Kitty Foster, the +science-mistress, Miss Jackson, and Miss Toogood,--the three +"Daughters," who were now coldly looked on in the village, and found +pleasure chiefly in each other's society. Marion Andrews was not there. +Delia indeed fancied she had seen her in the dusk, walking in a side +lane, that led into the Monk Lawrence road, with another girl, whom +Delia did not know. + +It was a relief, however, not to find her--for the moment. The faces of +the three women in the back parlour, were all strained and nervous; +they spoke low, and they gathered round Delia with an eagerness which +betrayed their own sense of isolation--of being left leaderless. + +"You will be going up soon, won't you?" whispered Miss Toogood, as she +stroked the sleeve of Delia's jacket. "The _Tocsin_ says there'll be +great doings next week--the day Parliament meets." + +"I've got my orders!"--said Kitty Foster, tossing her red hair +mysteriously. "Father won't keep me down here any longer. I've made +arrangements to go up to-morrow and lodge with a cousin in Battersea. +She's as deep in it as I am." + +"And I'm hoping they'll find room for me in the League office," said +the science-mistress. "I can't stand this life here much longer. My +Governors are always showing me they think us all criminals, and +they'll find an excuse for getting rid of me whenever they can. I +daren't even put up the 'Daughters' colours in my room now." + +Her hollow, anxious eyes, with the fanatical light in them clung to +Delia--to the girl's noble head, and the young face flushed with the +winter wind. + +"But we shall get it this session, shan't we?" said Miss Toogood +eagerly, still stroking Delia's fur. "The Government will give in--they +must give in." + +And she began to talk with hushed enthusiasm of the last month's tale +of outrages--houses burnt, windows broken, Downing Street attacked, red +pepper thrown over a Minister, ballot-boxes spoiled-- + +Suddenly it all seemed to Delia so absurd--so pathetic-- + +"I don't think we shall get the Bill!" she said, sombrely. "We shall be +tricked again." + +"Dear, dear!" said Miss Toogood, helplessly. "Then we shall have to go +on. It's war. We can't stop." + +And as she stood there, sadly contemplating the "war," in which, +poor soul, she had never yet joined, except by sympathy, a little +bill-distributing and a modest subscription, she seemed to carry on her +shoulders the whole burden of the "Movement"--herself, the little lame +dressmaker, on the one side--and a truculent British Empire on the +other. + +"We'll make them smart anyway!" cried Kitty Foster. "See if we don't!" + +Delia hurriedly opened her business. Would one of them take a letter +for her to London--an important letter to Miss Marvell that she didn't +want to trust to the post. Whoever took it must go to the League office +and find out where Miss Marvell was, and deliver it--personally. She +couldn't go herself--till after the doctors' consultation, which was to +be held on Monday--if then. + +Miss Jackson at once volunteered. Her face lightened eagerly. + +"It's Saturday. I shall be free. And then I shall see for myself--at +the office--if they can give me anything to do. When they write, they +seem to put me off." + +Delia gave her the letter, and stayed talking with them a little. They, +it was evident, knew nothing of the anxiety which possessed her. And as +to their hopes and expectations--why was it they now seemed to her so +foolish and so ignorant? She had shared them all, such a little while +before. + +And meanwhile they made much of her. They tried to keep her with them +in the little stuffy parlour, with its books which had belonged to Miss +Toogood's father, and the engraving of Winchester cathedral, and the +portrait of Mr. Keble. That "Miss Blanchflower" was with them, seemed +to reflect a glory on their little despised coterie. They admired her +and listened to her, loath to let her go. + +But at last Delia said Good-bye, and stepped out again into the lights +of the village street. As she walked rapidly towards Maumsey, and the +village houses thinned and fell away, she suddenly noticed a dark +figure in front of her. It was Marion Andrews. Delia ran to overtake +her. + +Marion stopped uncertainly when she heard herself called. Delia, +breathless, laid a hand on her arm. + +"I wanted to speak to you!" + +"Yes!" The girl stood quiet. It was too dark now to see her face. + +"I wanted to tell you--that there are suspicions--about Monk Lawrence. +You are being watched. I want you to promise to give it up!" + +There was no one on the road, above which some frosty stars had begun +to come out. Marion Andrews moved on slowly. + +"I don't know what you mean, Miss Blanchflower." + +"Don't, please, try to deceive me!" cried Delia, with low-voiced +urgency. "You have been seen at night--following Daunt about, +examining the doors and windows. The person who suspects won't +betray us. I've seen to that. But you must give it up--you _must_! I +have written to Miss Marvell." + +Marion Andrews laughed,--a sound of defiance. + +"All right. I don't take my orders from any one but her. But you are +mistaken, Miss Blanchflower, quite mistaken. Good-night." + +And turning quickly to the left, she entered a field path leading to +her brother's house, and was immediately out of sight. + +Delia went on, smarting and bewildered. How clear it was that she was +no longer trusted--no longer in the inner circle--and that Gertrude +herself had given the cue! The silent and stubborn Marion Andrews was +of a very different type from the three excitable or helpless women +gathered in Miss Toogood's parlour. She had ability, passion, and the +power to hold her tongue. Her connection with Gertrude Marvell had +begun, in London, at the "Daughters" office, as Delia now knew, long +before her own appearance at Maumsey. When Gertrude came to the Abbey, +she and this strange, determined woman were already well acquainted, +though Delia herself had not been aware of it till quite lately. "I +have been a child in their hands!--they have _never_ trusted me!" Heart +and vanity were equally wounded. + +As she neared the Maumsey gate, suddenly a sound--a voice--a tall +figure in the twilight. + +"Ah, there you are!" said Winnington. "Lady Tonbridge sent me to look +for you." + +"Aren't you back very early?" Delia attempted her usual voice. But +the man who joined her at once detected the note of effort, of tired +pre-occupation. + +"Yes--our business collapsed. Our clerk's too good--leaves us nothing +to do. So I've been having a talk with Lady Tonbridge." + +Delia was startled; not by the words, but by the manner of them. While +she seemed to Winnington to be thinking of something other than the +moment--the actual moment, her impression was the precise opposite, as +of a sharp, intense consciousness of the moment in him, which presently +communicated its own emotion to her. + +They walked up the drive together. + +"At last I have got a horse for you," said Winnington, after a pause. +"Shall I bring it to-morrow? Weston is going on so well to-night, +France tells me, that he may be able to say 'out of danger' to-morrow. +If so, let me take you far afield, into the Forest. We might have a +jolly run." + +Delia hesitated. It was very good of him. But she was out of practice. +She hadn't ridden for a long time. + +Winnington laughed aloud. He told--deliberately--a tale of a young +lady on a black mare, whom no one else could ride--of a Valkyrie--a +Brunhilde--who had exchanged a Tyrolese hotel for a forest lodge, and +ranged the wide world alone-- + +"Oh!"--cried Delia, "where did you hear that?" + +He described the talk of the little Swedish lady, and that evening on +the heights when he had first heard her name. + +"Next day came the lawyers' letter--and yours--both in a bundle." +"You'll agree--I did all I could--to put you off!" + +"So I understood--at once. You never beat about the bush." + +There was a tender laughter in his voice. But she had not the +heart to spar with him. He felt rather than saw her drooping. +Alarm--anxiety--rushed upon him, mingled in a tempest-driven mind with +all that Madeleine Tonbridge, in the Maumsey drawing-room, had just +been saying to him. That had been indeed the plain speaking of a +friend!--attacking his qualms and scruples up and down, denouncing them +even; asking him indignantly, who else could save this child--who else +could free her from the sordid entanglement into which her life had +slipped--but he? "You--you only, can do it!" The words were still +thundering through his blood. Yet he had not meant to listen to his old +friend. He had indeed withstood her firmly. But this sad and languid +Delia began, again, to put resistance to flight--to tempt--to justify +him--driving him into action that his cooler will had just refused. + +Suddenly, as they walked under the overshadowing trees of the drive, +her ungloved hand hanging beside her, she felt it taken, enclosed in a +warm strong clasp. A thrill, a shiver ran through her. But she let it +stay. Neither spoke. Only as they neared the front door with the lamp, +she softly withdrew her fingers. + +There was no one in the drawing-room, which was scented with early +hyacinths, and pleasantly aglow with fire-light. Winnington closed the +door, and they stood facing each other. Delia wanted to cry out--to +prevent him from speaking--but she seemed struck dumb. + +He approached her. + +"Delia!" + +She looked at him still helplessly silent. She had thrown off her hat +and furs, and, in her short walking-dress, she looked singularly +young and fragile. The change which had tempered the splendid--or +insolent--exuberance of her beauty, which Lathrop had perceived, had +made it in Winnington's eyes infinitely more appealing, infinitely more +seductive. Love and fear, mingled, had "passed into her face," like the +sculptor's last subtle touches on the clay. + +"Delia!" How all life seemed to have passed into a name! "I'm not sure +that I ought to speak! I'm not sure it's fair. It--it seems like taking +advantage. If you think so, don't imagine I shall ever press it again. +I'm twenty years older than you--I've had my youth. I thought +everything was closed for me--but--" He paused a moment--then his voice +broke into a low cry--"Dear! what have you done to make me love you +so?" + +He came nearer. His look spoke the rest. + +Delia retreated. + +"What have I done?" she said passionately. + +"Made your life one long worry!--ever since you saw me. How can you +love me?--you oughtn't!--you oughtn't!" + +He laughed. + +"Every quarrel we had I loved you the better. From our very first talk +in this room--" + +She cried out, putting up her hands, as though to protect herself +against the power that breathed from his face and shining eyes. + +"Don't--don't!--I can't bear it." + +His expression changed. + +"Delia!" + +"Oh, I do thank you!" she said, piteously, "I would--if I could. I--I +shall never care for any one else--but I can't--I can't." + +He was silent a moment, and then said, taking her hands, and putting +them to his lips-- + +"Won't you explain?" + +"Yes, I'll try--I ought to. You see"--she looked up in anguish--"I'm +not my own--to give--and I--No, no, I couldn't make you happy!" + +"You mean--you're--you're too deeply pledged to this Society?" + +He had dropped her hands, and stood looking at her, as if he would read +her through. + +"I must go up to town next week," she said hurriedly. "I must go, and I +must do what Gertrude tells me. Perhaps--I can protect--save her. I +don't know. I daresay I'm absurd to think so--but I might--and I'm +bound. But I'm promised--promised in honour--and I can't--get free. I +can't give up Gertrude--and you--you could never bear with her--or +accept her. And so--you see--I should just make you miserable!" + +He walked away, his hands in his pockets, and came back. Then suddenly +he took her by the shoulders. + +"You don't imagine I shall acquiesce in this!" he said +passionately--"that I shall endure to see you tied and chained by a +woman whom I know you have ceased to respect, and I believe you have +ceased to love!" + +"No!--no!--" she protested. + +"I think it is so," he said, steadily. "That is how I read it!" + +She gave a sob--quickly repressed. Then she violently mastered herself. + +"If it were true--I can't marry you. I won't be treacherous--nor a +coward. And I won't ruin your life. Dear Mr. Mark--it's quite, quite +impossible. Let's never talk of it again." + +And straightening all her slender body, she faced him with that foolish +courage, that senseless heroism, which women have so terribly at +command. + +So far, however from obliging her, he broke into a tempest of +discussion bringing to bear upon her all the arguments that love or +common sense dictated. If she really cared for him at all, if she even +thought it possible she might care, was she going to refuse all +help--all advice--from one to whom she had grown so dear?--to whom +everything she did was now of such vital, such desperate importance? He +pleaded for himself--guessing it to be the more hopeful way. + +"It's been a lonely life, Delia, till you came! And now you've filled +it. For God's sake, listen to me! Let me protect you, dear--let me +advise you--trust yourself to me. Do you imagine I should want to +dictate to you--or tyrannise over you? Do you imagine I don't +sympathise with your faiths, your ideals--that I don't feel for +women--what they suffer--what they endure--in this hard world? Delia, +we'd work together!--it mightn't be always in the same way--nor always +with the same opinions--but we'd teach--we'd help each other. Your own +conscience--your own mind--I see it plainly--have turned against this +horrible campaign--and the woman who's led you into it. How she's +treated you! Would any friend, any real _friend_ have left you alone +through this Weston business? And you've given her everything--your +house, your money, yourself! It makes me _mad_. I do implore you to +break with her--as gently, as generously as you like--but _free +yourself_! And then!"--he drew a long breath--"what a life we'd make +together!" He sat down beside her. Under the strong overhanging brows, +his grey eyes still pleaded with her--silently. + +But she was just strong enough, alas!--the poor child!--to resist him. +She scarcely replied; but her silence held the gate--against his +onslaughts. And at last she tottered to her feet. + +"Mr. Mark--dear Mr. Mark!--let me go!" + +Her voice, her aspect struck him dumb. And before he could rally his +forces again, the door shut, and she was gone. + + + + +Chapter XVI + + +"So I mustn't argue any more?" said Lady Tonbridge, looking at Delia, +who was seated by her guest's fire, and wore the weary aspect of one +who had already been argued with a good deal. + +Madeleine's tone was one of suppressed exasperation. Exasperation +rather with the general nature of things than with Delia. It was +difficult to be angry with one whose perversity made her so evidently +wretched. But as to the "intolerable woman" who had got the girl's +conscience--and Winnington's happiness--in her power, Lady Tonbridge's +feelings were at a white heat. How to reason with Delia, without +handling Gertrude Marvell as she deserved---there was the difficulty. + +In any case, Delia was unshakeable. If Weston were really out of +danger--Dr. France was to bring over the Brownmouth specialist on +Monday--then that very afternoon, or the next morning, Delia must +and would go to London to join Gertrude Marvell. And six days +later Parliament would re-assemble under the menace of raids and +stone-throwings, to which the _Tocsin_ had been for weeks past +summoning "The Daughters of Revolt," throughout the country, in terms +of passionate violence. In those proceedings Delia had apparently +determined to take her part. As to this Lady Tonbridge had not been +able to move her in the least. + +The case for Winnington seemed indeed for the moment desperate. After +his scene with Delia, he had left the Abbey immediately, and +Lady Tonbridge, though certain that something important--and +disastrous--had happened, would have known nothing, but for a sudden +confession from Delia, as the two ladies sat together in the +drawing-room after dinner. Delia had abruptly laid down her book, with +which she was clearly only trifling--in order to say-- + +"I think I had better tell you at once that my guardian asked me to +marry him, this afternoon, and I refused." + +Since this earthquake shock, Madeleine Tonbridge could imagine nothing +more unsatisfactory than the conversations between them which had begun +in the drawing-room, and lingered on till, now, at nearly midnight, +sheer weariness on both sides had brought them to an end. When +Madeleine had at last thrown up argument as hopeless, Delia with a face +of carven wax, and so handsome through it all that Lady Tonbridge could +have beaten her for sheer vexation, had said a quiet goodnight and +departed. + +But she was _in love with him_, the foolish, obstinate child!--wildly, +absorbingly in love with him! The fact was tragically evident, in +everything she said, and everything she left unsaid. + +The struggle lay then between her loyalty to her friend, the passionate +loyalty of woman to woman, so newly and strangely developed by the +Suffrage movement, and Winnington's advancing influence,--the influence +of a man equipped surely with all the means of victory--character, +strength, charm--over the girl's heart and imagination. He must +conquer! + +And yet Madeleine Tonbridge, staring into the ashes of a dwindling +fire, had never persuaded herself--incorrigible optimist that she +was--to so little purpose. + +What _was_ there at the back of the girl's mind? Something more than +appeared; though what appeared was bad enough. One seemed at times to +catch a glimpse of some cloaked and brooding Horror, in the dim +background of the girl's consciousness, and overshadowing it. What more +likely indeed, with this wild campaign sweeping through the country? +She probably knew or suspected things that her moral sense condemned, +to which she was nevertheless committed. + +"We shall end by proving all that the enemy says of us; we shall give +our chance away for a generation!" + +"Do for Heaven's sake keep the young lady at home!" + +The speaker was Dr. France. After seeing his patient, dismissing the +specialist, and spending half an hour _tęte-ŕ-tęte_ with Delia, he came +down to see Lady Tonbridge in a state that in any one else would have +been a state of agitation. In him all that appeared was a certain +hawkish glitter in the eye, and a tendency to pull and pinch a scarcely +existing moustache. But Madeleine, who knew him well, understood that +he was just as much at feud with the radical absurdity of things as she +was. + +"No one can keep her at home. Delia is of age," she said, rising to +meet him, with a face as serious as his own. + +"If she gets into prison, and hunger-strikes, she'll injure herself! +She's extraordinarily run down with this business of Weston's. I don't +believe she could stand the sheer excitement of what she proposes to +do." + +"She's told you?" + +"Quite enough. If she once goes up to town--if she once gets into that +woman's clutches, no one can tell what will happen. Oh, you women--you +women!" And the doctor walked tigerishly up and down the room. "That +some of the cleverest and wisest of you can stoop to dabbling in a +business like this! Upon my word it's an eye-opener!--it pulls one up. +And you think you can drive men by such antics! The more you smash and +burn, the more firmly goes down the male foot--yes, and the female +too!" + +And the doctor, with a glare, and a male foot as firm as he could make +it, came to a stop beside Lady Tonbridge--who looked at him coolly. + +"Excellent!--but no concern of mine. I'm not a militant. I want the +vote just as much as Delia does!" said Lady Tonbridge, firmly. "Don't +forget that." + +"No, you don't--you don't! Excuse me. You are a reasonable woman." + +"Half the reasonable women in England want the vote. Why shouldn't I +have a vote--as well as you?" + +"Because, my dear lady--" the doctor smote the table with his hand for +emphasis--"because the parliamentary vote means the government _of men +by men_--without which we go to pieces. And you propose now to make it +include the government of men by women--which is absurd!--and if you +try it, will only break up the only real government that exists, or can +exist!" + +"Oh!--'physical force,'" said Madeleine, contemptuously, with her nose +in the air. + +"Well--did I--did you--make the physical difference between men and +women? Can we unmake it?" "We are governed by discussion--not by +force." + +"Are we? Look at South Africa--look at Ulster--look at the labour +troubles that have been, and are to be. And then you women come along +with your claim to the vote! What are you doing but breaking up all the +social values--weakening all the foundations of the social edifice! +Woe!--to you women especially--when you teach men to despise the +vote--when men come to know that behind the paper currency of a vote +which may be a man's or a woman's, there is nothing but an opinion--bad +or good! At present, I tell you, the great conventions of democracy +hold because there is reality of bone and muscle behind them! Break +down that reality--and sooner or later we come back to force +again--through bloodshed and anarchy!" + +"Inevitable--all the same!" cried Madeleine. "Why did you ever let us +taste education?--if you are to deny us for ever political equality?" + +"Use your education, my dear Madam!" said the doctor, indignantly. "Are +there not many roads to political equality?--many forms of government +within government, that may be tried, before you insist on ruining us +by doing men's work in the men's way? Hasn't it taken more than a +hundred years to settle that Irish question, which began with the +Union? Is it a hundred years since it was a hanging matter to steal a +handkerchief off a hedge? Can't you give us a hundred years for the +Woman Question? Sixty years only, since the higher education of women +began! Isn't the science of government developing every day? Women have +got, you say, to be fitted into government--I agree! I _agree_! But +_don't rush it_! Claim everything--what you like!--except only that +sovereign vote, which controls, and must control, the male force of an +Empire!" + +"Jove's thunder!" scoffed Lady Tonbridge. "Well--my dear old +friend!--you and I shan't agree--you know that. Now what can I do for +Delia?" + +"Nothing," said France gloomily. "Unless some one goes up to watch over +her." + +"Her guardian will go," said Madeleine quietly, after a pause. + +They eyed each other. + +"You're sure?" said France. + +"Quite sure--though I've not said a word to him--nor he to me." + +"All right then--she's worth it! By George, she's got the makings +of something splendid in her. I tell you she's had as much to do +as any of us with saving the life of that woman upstairs. +Courage?--tenderness?--'not arf.'" + +The slangy term shewed the speaker's desire to get rid of his own +feelings. He had, at any rate, soon smothered them, and he and Lady +Tonbridge, their chairs drawn close, fell into a very confidential +discussion. France was one of those country doctors, not rare +fortunately in England, in whom a whole neighbourhood confides, whom +a whole neighbourhood loves; all the more if a man betrays a fair +allowance of those gnarls and twists of character, of strong +prejudices, and harmless manias, which enable the common herd to +take him to their bosoms. Dr. France was a stamp-collector, a +player--indifferent--on the cornet, a rabid Tory, and a person who +could never be trusted to deal faithfully and on C.O.S. principles with +tramps and "undesirables." Such things temper the majesty of virtue, +and make even the good human. + +He had known and prescribed for Winnington since he was a boy in +knickers; he was particularly attached to Lady Tonbridge. What he and +Madeleine talked about is not of great importance to this narrative; +but it is certain that France left the house in much concern for a man +he loved, and a girl who, in the teeth of his hottest beliefs, had +managed to touch his feelings. + +Delia spent the day in packing. Winnington made no sign. In the +afternoon,--it was a wet Saturday afternoon--Lady Tonbridge sitting in +the drawing-room, saw the science mistress of the Dame Perrott School +coming up the drive. Madeleine knew her as a "Daughter," and could not +help scowling at her--unseen. + +She was at once admitted however, and spent a short time with Delia in +the Library. + +And when Miss Jackson closed the Library door behind her on her way out +of the house, Delia broke the seal of a letter which had been given +into her hands:-- + +"I am very sorry, my dear Delia, you should have taken these silly +reports so much to heart. You had better dismiss them from your mind. I +have given no such orders as you suppose--nor has the Central Office. +The plan you found referred to something quite different--I really +can't remember what. I can't of course be responsible for all the +'Daughters' in England, but I have much more important business to +think of just now than the nonsense Mr. Lathrop seems to have been +stuffing you with. As to W-----L-----, it would only be worth while to +strike at him, if our affairs _go wrong_--through him. At present, I am +extraordinary hopeful. We are winning every day. People see that we are +in earnest, and mean to succeed--at whatever cost. + +"I am glad you are coming up on Monday. You will find the flat anything +but a comfortable or restful place,--but that you will be prepared +for. Our people are amazing!--and we shall get into the House on +Thursday, or know the reason why. + +"For the money you sent, and the money you promise--best thanks. +Everybody is giving. It is the spirit of the Crusader, 'Dieu le +veult!'" + + "Your affectionate + G. M." + + +Delia read and re-read it. It was the first time Gertrude had +deliberately tried to deceive her, and the girl's heart was sore. +Even now, she was not to be trusted--"now that I am risking +everything--_everything_!" And with the letter in her lap, she sat and +thought of Winnington's face, as he had turned to look at her, before +leaving the drawing-room the night before. + + * * * * * + +The day passed drearily. The hills and trees were wrapped in a damp +fog, and though the days were lengthening fast, the evening closed like +November. Madeleine thought with joy of getting back to her tiny house +and her Nora. Nora, who was not yet out, seemed to have been enjoying a +huge success in the large cousinly party with whom she had been +spending the Christmas holidays. "But it's an odd place, Mummy. In the +morning we 'rag'; and the rest of the day we talk religion. Everybody +is either Buddhist or 'Bahai'--if that's the right way to spell it. It +sounds odd, but it seems to be a very good way of getting on with young +men." + +Heavens! What did it matter how you played the old game, or with what +counters, so long as it was played? + +And as Lady Tonbridge watched the figure of Delia gliding through the +house, wrapped in an estranging silence, things ancient and traditonal +returned upon her in flood, and nothing in the world seemed worth +having but young love and happy marriage!--if you could get them! +She--and her heart knew its bitterness--had made the great throw and +lost. + + * * * * * + +Sunday passed in the same isolation. But on Sunday afternoon Delia took +the motor out alone, and gave no reason either before or after. + +"If she's gone out to meet that man, it's a scandal!" thought Madeleine +wrathfully, and could hardly bring herself to be civil when the girl +returned--pale, wearied, and quite uncommunicative. But she was very +touching in a mute, dignified way, all the evening, and Madeleine +relented fast. And, as they sat in the fire-lit drawing-room, when the +curtains were drawn, Delia suddenly brought a stool close to Lady +Tonbridge's side, and, sitting at her feet, held up appealing arms. +Madeleine, with a rush of motherliness, gathered her close; and the +beautiful head lay, very quiet, on her breast. But when she would have +entreated, or argued, again, Delia implored her--"Don't--don't +talk!--it's no good. Just let me stay." + +Late that night, all being ready for departure, Delia went in to say +good-night, and good-bye to Weston. + +"You'll be downstairs and as strong as a horse, when I come back," she +said gaily, stroking the patient's emaciated fingers. + +Weston shook her head. + +"I don't think I shall ever be good for much, Miss Delia. But"--and her +voice suddenly broke--"I believe I'd go through it all again--just to +know--what--you could be--to a poor thing--like me." + +"Weston!--" said Delia, softly--"if you talk like that--and if you dare +to cry, Nurse will turn me out. You're going to get quite well, but +whether you're well or ill, here you stay, Miss Rosina Weston!--and I'm +going to look after you. Polly hasn't packed my things half badly." +Polly was the under-housemaid, whom Delia was taking to town. "She +wouldn't be worth her salt, if she hadn't," said Weston tartly. "But +she can't do your hair, Miss--and it's no good saying she can." + +"Then I'll do it myself. I'll make some sort of a glorious mess of it, +and set the fashion." + +But her thought said--"If I go to prison, they'll cut it off. Poor +Weston!" + +Weston moved uneasily-- + +"Miss Delia?" + +"Yes." + +"Don't you go getting yourself into trouble. Now don't you!" And with +tears in her eyes, the ghostly creature pressed the girl's hand to her +lips. Delia stooped and kissed her. But she made no reply. Instead she +began to talk of the new bed-rest which had just been provided for +Weston, and on which the patient professed herself wonderfully +comfortable. + +"It's better than the one we had at Meran--for papa." Her voice +dropped. She sat at the foot of Weston's bed looking absently into some +scene of the past. + +"Nothing ever gave him ease--your poor Papa!" said Weston, pitifully. +"He did suffer! But don't you go thinking about it this time of night, +Miss Delia, or you won't sleep." + +Delia said goodnight, and went away. But she did think of her +father--with a curious intensity. And when she fell fitfully asleep, +she dreamt that she saw him standing beside her in some open foreign +place, and that he looked at her in silence, steadily and coldly. And +she stretched out her hands, in a rush of grief--"Kiss me, father! I +was unkind--horribly--horribly unkind!" + +With the pain of it, she woke suddenly and the visualising sense seemed +still to perceive in the darkness the white head and soldierly form. +She half rose, gasping. Then, as though a photographic shutter were let +down, the image passed from the brain, and she lay with heaving breast, +trying to find her way back into what we call reality. But it was a +reality even more wretched than those recollections to which her dream +had recalled her. For it was held and possessed by Winnington, and now +by the threatening vision of Monk Lawrence, spectral amid the red ruin +of fire. She had stopped the motor that day at the foot of the hill on +which the house stood, and using Winnington's name, had made a call on +the cripple child. Daunt had received her with a somewhat gruff +civility, and was not communicative about the house and its defence. +But she gathered--without herself broaching the subject--that he was +scornfully confident of his power to protect it against "them creeping +women," and she had come home comforted. The cripple child had clung to +her silently; and on coming away, Delia had felt a small wet kiss upon +her hand. A touching creature!--with her wide blue eyes, and delicate +drawn face. It was feared that another abscess might be developing in +the little hip, where for a time disease had been quiescent. + + * * * * * + +On Monday morning the doctors came early. They gave a favourable +verdict, and Delia at once decided on an afternoon train. + +All the morning, Lady Tonbridge hovered round her, loth to take her own +departure, and trying every now and then to re-open the subject of +London, to make the girl promise to send for her--to consult +Winnington, if any trouble arose. + +But Delia would not allow any discussion. "I shall be with +Gertrude--she'll tell me what to do," was all she would say. + +Lady Tonbridge was dropped at her own door by Delia, on her way to the +station. Nora was there to welcome her, but not all their joy in +recovering each other, could repair Madeleine's cheerfulness. She +stood, looking after the retreating car with such a face that Nora +exclaimed-- + +"Mother, what _is_ the matter!" + +"I'm watching the tumbril out of sight," said Lady Tonbridge +incoherently. "Shall we ever see her again?" + +That, however, was someone else's affair. + +Delia took her own and her housemaid's tickets for London, saw her +companion established, and then, preferring to be alone, stepped into +an empty carriage herself. She had hardly disposed her various +packages, and the train was within two minutes of starting, when a tall +man came quickly along the platform, inspecting the carriages as he +passed. Delia did not see him till he was actually at her window. In +another moment he had opened and closed the door, and had thrown down +his newspapers and overcoat on the seat. The train was just starting, +and Delia, crimson, found herself mechanically shaking hands with Mark +Winnington. + +"You're going up to town?" She stammered it. "I didn't know--" + +"I shall be in town for a few days. Are you quite comfortable? A +footwarmer?" + +For the day was cold and frosty, with a bitter east wind. + +"I'm quite warm, thank you." + +The train ran out of the station, and they were soon in the open +country. Delia leant back in her seat, silent, conscious of her own +hurrying pulses, but determined to control them. She would have liked +to be indignant--to protest that she was being persecuted and coerced. +But the recollection of their last meeting, and the sheer, +inconvenient, shameful, joy of his presence there, opposite, +interposed. + +Winnington himself was quite cool; there were no signs whatever of any +intention to renew their Friday's conversation. His manner and tone +were just as usual. Some business at the Home Office, connected with +his County Council work, called him to town. He should be staying at +his Club in St. James's St. Alice Matheson also would be in town. + +"Shall we join for a theatre, one night?" he asked her. + +She felt suddenly angered. Was she never to be believed, never to be +taken seriously? + +"To-morrow, Mr. Mark, is the meeting of Parliament." + +"That I am aware of." + +"The day after, I shall probably be in prison!" + +She fronted him bravely, though, as he saw, with an effort. He paused a +moment, but showed no astonishment. + +"I hope not. I think not," he said, quietly. + +Delia took up the evening paper she had just bought at the station, +opened it, and looked at the middle page. + +"There are our plans," she said, defiantly, handing it to him. + +"Thank you. I have already seen it." + +But he again read through attentively the paragraph to which she +pointed him. It was headed "Militant Plans for To-morrow." A +procession of five hundred women was to march on the Houses of +Parliament, at the moment of the King's Speech. "We insist"--said the +Manifesto issued from the offices of the League of Revolt--"upon our +right of access to the King, or failing His Majesty, to the Prime +Minister. We mean business and we shall be armed." + +Winnington pointed to the word "armed." + +"With stones--I presume?" + +"Well, not revolvers, I hope!" said Delia. "I should certainly shoot +myself." + +Tension broke up in slightly hysterical laughter. She was already in +better spirits. There was something exciting--exhilarating even--in +the duel between herself and Winnington, which was implied in the +conversation. His journey up to town, the look in his grey eyes +meant--"I shall prevent you from doing what you are intending to do." +But he could not prevent it. If he was the breakwater, she was the +storm-wave, driven by the gale--by the wind from afar, of which she +felt herself the sport, and sometimes the victim--without its changing +her purpose in the least. + +"Only I shall not refuse food!" she thought. "I shall spare him that. I +shall serve my sentence. It won't be long." + +But afterwards? Would she then be free? Free to follow Gertrude or not, +according to her judgment? Would she have "purged" her promise--paid +her shot--recovered the governance of herself? + +Her thoughts discussed the future, when, all in a moment, Winnington, +watching her from behind his _Times_, saw a pale startled look. It +seemed to be caused by something in the landscape. He turned his eyes +to the window and saw that they were passing an old manor house, with a +gabled front, standing above the line, among trees. What could that +have had to do with the sudden contraction of the beautiful brow, the +sudden look of terror--or distress? The house had a certain resemblance +to Monk Lawrence. Had it reminded her of that speech in the Latchford +marketplace from which he was certain she had recoiled, no less than +he? + +"You'll let me take you to the flat? I've been over it once, but I +should like to see it's in order." + +She hesitated, but how could she refuse? He put her into a taxi, having +already dispatched her maid with the luggage in another, and they +started. + +"I expect you'll find a lot of queer people there!" she said, trying to +laugh. "At least you'll think them queer." + +"I shall like to see the people you are working with," he said, +gravely. + +Half way to Westminster, he turned to her. + +"Miss Delia!--it's my plain duty to tell you--again--and to keep on +telling you, even though it makes you angry, and even though I have no +power to stop you, that in taking part in these doings to-morrow, you +are doing a wrong thing, a grievously wrong thing! If I were only an +ordinary friend, I should try to dissuade you with all my might. But I +represent your father--and you know what he would have felt." + +He saw her lips tremble. But she spoke calmly, "Yes,--I know. But it +can't be helped. We can't agree, Mr. Mark, and it's no good my trying +to explain, any more--just yet!--" she added, in a lower tone. + +"'Just yet'? What do you mean by that?" + +"I mean that some time,--perhaps sometime soon--I shall be ready to +argue the whole thing with you--what's right and what's wrong. Now I +can't argue--I'm not free to. Don't you see--'Ours not to make +reply,--ours but to do, or die.'" Her smile flashed out. "There's not +going to be any dying about it however--you know that as well as I do." +Then with a touch of mockery she bent towards him. "You won't persuade +me, Mr. Mark, that you take us very seriously! But I'm not angry at +that--I'm not angry--at anything!" + +And her face, as he scanned it, melted--changed--became all soft +sadness, and deprecating appeal. Never had she seemed to him so +fascinating. Never had he felt himself so powerless. He thought, +despairingly--"If I had her to myself, I could take her in my arms, +and make her give way!" + +But here were the first signs of arrival--a narrow Westminster +street--a towering group of flats. The taxi stopped, and Winnington +jumped out. + + + + +Chapter XVII + + +Delia's luggage was brought in by the hall porter, and she and +Winnington stood waiting for the lift. Meanwhile Winnington happened to +notice, through the open door of the mansions, a couple of policemen +standing just outside, on the pavement, and two others on the further +side of the street. It seemed to him they were keeping the house which +Delia and he had just entered under observation. + +The lift descended. There were in it four women, all talking eagerly in +subdued tones. One was grey-haired, the others were quite young girls. +The strained, excited look on all their faces struck Winnington sharply +as they emerged from the lift. One of the girls looked curiously at +Delia and her tall companion. The grey-haired lady's attention was +caught by the policeman outside. She gave a little chuckle. + +"We shall have plenty to do with those gentry to-morrow!" she said to +the girl beside her, drawing her cloak round her so that it displayed a +black and orange badge. + +Delia approached her. + +"Is Miss Marvell here?" + +They all stopped and eyed her. + +"Yes, she's upstairs. She's just come back from the Central. But she's +very busy," said the elder lady. "She won't see you without an +appointment." + +One of the girls suddenly looked at Delia, and whispered to the +speaker. + +"Oh, I see!" said that lady, vaguely. "Are you Miss Blanchflower?" + +"Yes." + +"I beg your pardon. Miss Marvell's expecting you of course. Do make her +rest a bit if you can. She's simply _splendid_! She's going to be one +of our great leaders. I'm glad you won't miss it after all. You've been +delayed, haven't you?--by somebody's illness. Well, it's going +magnificently! We shall make Parliament listen--at last. Though they'll +protect themselves no doubt with any number of police--cowards!" + +The eyes of the speaker, as her face came into the light of the hall +lamp, sparkled maliciously. She seemed to direct her words especially +to Winnington, who stood impassive. Delia turned to the lift, and they +ascended. + +They were admitted, after much ringing. A bewildered maid looked at +Delia, and the luggage behind her, as though she had never heard of her +before. And the whole flat in the background seemed alive with voices +and bustle. Winnington lost patience. + +"Tell this man, please, where to take Miss Blanchflower's luggage at +once. And where is the drawing-room?" + +"Are you going to stay, Miss?" said the girl. "There's only the small +bedroom vacant." + +Delia burst out laughing--especially at the sight of Winnington's irate +countenance. + +"All right. It'll do quite well. Now tell me where Miss Marvell is." + +"I mustn't interrupt her, Miss." + +"This is my flat," said Delia, good-humouredly--"so I think you must. +And please shew Mr. Winnington the drawing-room." + +The girl, with an astonished face, opened a door for Winnington, into a +room filled with people, and then--unwillingly--led Delia along the +passage. + +Winnington looked round him in bewilderment. He had entered, it seemed, +upon a busy hive of women. The room was full, and everybody in it +seemed to be working at high pressure. A young lady at a central table +was writing telegrams as fast as possible, and handing them to a +telegraph clerk who was waiting. Two typewriters were busy in the +further corners. A woman, with a sharply clever face, was writing near +by, holding her pad on her knee, while a printer's boy, cap in hand, +was sitting by her waiting for her "copy." Two other women were undoing +and sorting rolls of posters. Winnington caught the head-lines--"Women +of England, strike for your liberties!" "Remember our martyrs in +prison!"--"Destroy property--and save lives!" "If violence won freedom +for men, why not for women!" And in the distance of the room were +groups in eager discussion. A few had maps in their hands, and others +note-books, in which they took down the arrangements made. So far as +their talk reached Winnington's ears, it seemed to relate to the +converging routes of processions making for Parliament Square. + +"How do you do, Mr. Winnington," said a laughing voice, as a +daintily-dressed woman, with fair fluffy hair came towards him. + +He recognised the sister of a well-known member of Parliament, a lady +who had already been imprisoned twice for window-breaking in Downing +Street. + +"Who would have thought to see you here!" she said, gaily, as they +shook hands. + +"Surprising--I admit! I came to see Miss Blanchflower settled in her +flat. But I seem to have stumbled into an office." + +"The Central Office simply couldn't hold the work. We were all in each +other's way. So yesterday, by Miss Marvell's instructions, some of us +migrated here. We are only two streets from the central." + +"Excellent!" said Winnington. "But it might perhaps have been well to +inform Miss Blanchflower." + +The flushed babyish face under the fashionable hat looked at him +askance. Lady Fanny's tone changed--took a sharpened edge. + +"Miss Blanchflower--you may be quite sure--will be as ready as anyone +else to make sacrifices for the cause. But we don't expect _you_ to +understand that!" + +"Nobody can doubt your zeal, Lady Fanny." + +"Only my discretion? Oh, I've long left that to take care of itself. +What are you here for?" + +"To look after my ward." + +Lady Fanny eyed him again. + +"Of course! I had forgotten. Well, she'll be all right." + +"What are you really preparing to do to-morrow?" + +"Force our way into the House of Commons!" + +"Which means--get into an ugly scrimmage with the police, and put your +cause back another few years?" + +"Ah! I can't talk to you, if you talk like that! There isn't time," she +threw back, with laughing affectation, and nodding to him, she +fluttered off to a distant table where a group of girls were busy +making black and orange badges. But her encounter with him seemed to +have affected the hive. Its buzz sank, almost ceased. + +Winnington indeed suddenly discovered that all eyes were fixed upon +him--that he was being closely and angrily observed. He was conscious, +quickly and strangely conscious, of an atmosphere of passionate +hostility, as though a pulse of madness ran through the twenty or +thirty women present. Meredithian lines flashed into memory-- + + "Thousand eyeballs under hoods + Have you by the hair--" + +and a shock of inward laughter mingled in his mind with irritation for +Delia--who was to have no place apparently in her own flat for either +rest or food--and the natural wish of a courteous man not to give +offense. At the same moment, he perceived on one of the tables a heap +of new and bright objects; and saw at once that they were light +hammers, fresh from the ironmongers. Near them lay a pile of stones, +and two women were busily casing the stones in a printed leaflet. But +he had no sooner become aware of these things than several persons in +the room moved so as to stand between him and them. + +He went back into the passage, closing the door behind him. + +The little parlour-maid came hurriedly from the back regions carrying a +tray on which was tea and bread and butter. + +"Are you taking that to Miss Blanchflower?" + +"Yes, Sir." + +"Shew me the way, please." + +Winnington followed her, and she, after a scared look, did not attempt +to stop him. + +She paused outside a door, and instantly made way for him. He knocked, +and at the "Come in" he entered, the maid slipping in after him with +the tea. + +Two persons rose startled from their seats--Delia and Gertrude Marvell. +He had chanced upon the dining-room, which no less than the +drawing-room had been transformed into an office and a store-room. +Masses of militant literature, copies of the _Tocsin_, books and +Stationery covered the tables, while, on the wall opposite the door, a +large scale map of the streets in the neighbourhood of the Houses of +Parliament had been hung over a picture. + +It seemed to him that Delia looked ill and agitated. He walked up to +her companion, and spoke with vivacity-- + +"Miss Marvell!--I protest altogether against your proceedings in this +house! I protest against Miss Blanchflower's being drawn into what is +clearly intended to be an organised riot, which may end in physical +injury, even in loss of life--which will certainly entail imprisonment +on the ringleaders. If you have any affection for Delia you will advise +her to let me take her to my sister, who is in town to-night, at +Smith's Hotel, and will of course most gladly look after her." + +Gertrude, who seemed to him somehow to have dwindled and withered into +an elderly woman since he had last seen her, looked him over from head +to foot with a touch of smiling insolence, and then turned quietly to +Delia. + +"Will you go, Delia?" + +"No!" said Delia, throwing back her beautiful head. "No! This is my +place, Mr. Mark. I'm very sorry--but you must leave me here. Give my +love to Mrs. Matheson." + +"Delia!" He turned to her imploringly. But the softness she had shewn +on the journey had died out of her face. She stood resolved, and some +cold dividing force seemed to have rolled between them. + +"I don't see what you can do, Mr. Winnington," said Gertrude, still +smiling. "I have pointed that out to you before. As a matter of fact +Delia will not even be living here on money provided by you at all. She +has other resources. You have no hold on her--no power--that I can see. +And she wishes to stay with me. I think we must bid you good night. We +are very busy." + +He stood a moment, looking keenly from one to the other, at Gertrude's +triumphant eyes blazing from her emaciated face, at Delia's exalted, +tragic air. Then, with a bow, and in silence, he left the room, and the +house. + + * * * * * + +It was quite dark when he emerged on Milbank Street. All the +neighbourhood of the Houses of Parliament and the Abbey seemed to be +alive with business and traffic. But Palace Yard was still empty save +for a few passing figures, and there was no light on the Clock Tower. A +placard on the railings of the Square caught his notice--"Threatened +Raid on the House of Commons. Police precautions." At the same moment +he was conscious that a policeman standing at the corner of the House +of Commons had touched his hat to him, grinning broadly. Winnington +recognised a Maumsey man, whom he had befriended in various ways, who +owed his place indeed in the Metropolitan force to Winnington's good +word. + +"Hullo, Hewson--how are you? Flourishing?" + +The man's face beamed again. He was thinking of a cricket match the +year before under Winnington's captaincy. Like every member of the +eleven, he would have faced "death and damnation" for the captain. + +They walked along the man's beat together. A thought struck Winnington. + +"You seem likely to have some disturbance here tomorrow?" he said, as +they neared Westminster Bridge. + +"It's the ladies, Sir. They do give a lot of trouble!" Winnington +laughed--paused--then looked straight at the fine young man who was +evidently so glad to see him. + +"Look here, Hewson--I'll tell you something--keep it to yourself! +There'll be a lady in that procession to-morrow whom I don't want +knocked about. I shall be here. Is there anything you can do to help +me? I shall try and get her out of the crowd. Of course I shall have a +motor here." + +Hewson looked puzzled, but eager. He described where he was likely to +be stationed, and where Winnington would probably find him. If Mr. +Winnington would allow him, he would tip a wink to a couple of mates, +who could be trusted--and if he could do anything to help, why, he +would be "rare pleased" to do it. + +"But I'm afraid it'll be a bad row, Sir. There's a lot of men +coming--from Whitechapel--they say." + +Winnington nodded and walked on. He went to his club, and dined there, +refusing a friend's invitation to go and dine with him at home. And +after dinner, as the best means of solitude, he went out again into +the crowded streets, walking aimlessly. The thought of Delia +arrested--refused bail--in a police cell--or in prison--tormented him. +All the traditional, fastidious instincts of his class and type were +strong in him. He loathed the notion of any hand laid upon her, of any +rough contact between her clean youth, and the brutalities of a London +crowd. His blood rushed at the thought of it. The mere idea of any +insult offered her made him murderous. + +He turned down Whitehall, and at a corner near Dover House he presently +perceived a small crowd which was being addressed by a woman. She had +brought a stool with her, and was standing on it. A thin slip of a +girl, with a childish, open face and shrill voice. He went up to listen +to her, and stood amazed at the ignorant passion, the reckless violence +of what she was saying. It seemed indeed to have but little effect upon +her hearers. Men joined the crowd for a few minutes, listened with +upturned impassive faces, and went their way. A few lads attempted +horse-play, but stopped as a policeman approached; and some women +carrying bundles propped them against a railing near, and waited, +lifting tired eyes, and occasionally making comments to each other. +Presently, it appeared to Winnington that the speaker was no more +affected by her own statements--appalling as some of them were--than +her hearers. She appeared to be speaking from a book--to have just +learnt a lesson. She was then a paid speaker? And yet he thought not. +Every now and then phrases stood out--fiercely sincere--about the low +wages of women, their exclusion from the skilled trades, the marriage +laws, the exploiting and "selling" of women, and the like. And always, +in the background of the girl's picture, the hungry and sensual +appetites of men, lying in wait for the economic and physical weakness +of the woman. + +He waited until she had finished. Then he helped her down from her +perch, and made a way for her through the crowd. She looked at him in +astonishment. "Thank you, Sir,--don't trouble! Last night I was pelted +with filth. Are you one of us?" + +He shook his head, smiling. + +"I didn't agree with you. I advise you to look up some of those things +you said. But you speak very well. Good-night." + +She looked at him angrily, gathered up her skirt with a rattle, in a +small hand, and disappeared. + +He presently turned back towards Buckingham Gate, and in a narrow +Westminster street, as he passed the side of a high factory building, +suddenly there emerged from a door-way a number of women and girls, who +had evidently been working over-time. Some of them broke at once into +loud talk and laughter, as though in reaction from the confinement and +tension of their work, some--quite silent--turned their tired faces to +him as they passed him; and some looked boldly, provocatively at the +handsome man, who on his side was clearly observing them. They were of +all types, but the majority of the quite young girls were pale and +stunted, shewing the effect of long hours, and poor food. The coarse or +vicious faces were few; many indeed were marked by a modest or patient +gentleness. The thin line of hurrying forms disappeared into darkness +and distance, some one way, some another; and Winnington was left to +feel that in what he had seen--this everyday incident of a London +street--he had been aptly reminded of what a man who has his occupation +and dwelling amid rural scenes and occupations too readily +forgets--that toiling host of women, married and unmarried, which +modern industry is every day using, or devouring, or wasting. The +stream of lives rushes day by day through the industrial rapids; some +of it passing on to quiet and fruitful channels beyond the roar, and +some lost and churned for ever in the main tumult of the river. + +This new claim upon women, on the part of society, in addition to the +old claims of home and motherhood--this vast industrial claim--must it +not change and modify everything in time?--depress old values, create +new? "The vote!--give us the vote! and all will be well. More wages, +more food, more joy, more share in this glorious world!--that's what +the vote means--give us the vote!" Such, in effect, had been the cry +of that half-mad speaker in Whitehall, herself marked and injured by +the economic struggle. + +The appeal echoed in Winnington's heart. And Delia seemed to be at his +side, raising her eager eyes to his, pressing him for admission. Had +he, indeed, thought enough of these things?--taken enough to heart this +new and fierce struggle of women with life and circumstance, that is +really involved in the industrial organisation of the modern world? + +He passed on--up Buckingham Gate, towards the Palace. Turning to the +left, he was soon aware of two contrasted things:--an evening party +going on at a well-known Embassy, cars driving up and putting down +figures in flashing dresses, and gold-encrusted uniforms, emerging, and +disappearing within its open doors--and only twenty yards away, a group +of women huddled together in the cold, outside a closed fish-shop, +waiting to buy for a few pence the broken or spoiled fish of the day. +But a little further on he suddenly plunged into a crowd coming down +Grosvenor Place. He stopped to watch it, and saw that it accompanied a +long procession of men tramping back from Hyde Park. A banner held by +the leaders bore the words--"Unemployed and starving! Give us work or +bread." And Winnington remembered there was a docker's strike going on +in Limehouse, passionately backed and defended by the whole body of the +local clergy. + +His eyes examined the faces and forms in the procession. Young and old, +sickly and robust, they passed him by, all of them marked and branded +by their tyrant, Labour; rolled like the women amid the rocks and +whirlpools of the industrial stream; marred and worn like them, only +more deeply, more tragically. The hollow eyes accused him as they +passed--him, with his ease of honoured life. "What have you made of us, +your brethren?--you who have had the lead and the start!--you who have +had till now the fashioning of this world in which we suffer! What is +wrong with the world? We know no more than you. But it is your business +to know! For God's sake, you who have intelligence and education, and +time to use them, think for us!--think with us!--find a way out! More +wages--more food--more leisure--more joy!--By G--d! we'll have them, +or bring down your world and ours in one ruin together!" + +And then far back, from the middle of the last century, there came to +Winnington's listening mind the cry of the founders of English +democracy. "The vote!--give us the vote!--and bring in the reign of +plenty and of peace." And the vote was given. Sixty years--and still +this gaunt procession!--and all through Industrial England, the same +unrest, the same bitterness! + +The vote? What is it actually going to mean, in struggle for life and +happiness that lies before every modern Community? How many other +methods and forces have already emerged, and must yet emerge, beside +it! The men know it. And meanwhile, the women--a section of women--have +seized with the old faith, on the confident cries of sixty years +ago?--with the same disillusion waiting in the path? + +He passed on, drawn again down Constitution Hill, and the Mall, back to +the Houses of Parliament and the River.... The night was clear and +frosty. He paused on Westminster Bridge, and leant over the parapet, +feasting his eyes on that incomparable scene which age cannot wither +nor custom stale for the heart of an Englishman. The long front of the +Houses of Parliament rose darkly over the faintly moonlit river; the +wharves and houses beyond, a medley of strong or delicate line, of +black shadow and pale lights, ran far into a vaporous distance powdered +with lamps. On the other side St. Thomas's Hospital, and an answering +chain of lamps, far-flung towards Battersea. Between, the river, +heaving under a full tide, with the dim barges and tugs passing up and +down. "The Mississippi, Sir, is dirty water--the St. Lawrence is cold, +dirty water--but the Thames, Sir, is liquid 'istory!" That famous _mot_ +of a Labour Minister delighted Mark's dreaming sense. The river indeed +as it flowed by, between buildings new and old, seemed to be bearing +the nation on its breast, to symbolise the ever-renewed life of a great +people. What tasks that life had seen!--what vaster issues it had still +to see!-- + +And in that dark building, like a coiled and secret spring ready to act +when touched, the Idea which ruled that life, as all life, in the end, +is ruled. On the morrow, a few hundred men would flock to that +building, as the representatives and servants of the Idea--of that +England which lives "while we believe." + +And the vote behind them?--the political act which chose and sent them +there? Its social power, and all its ordinary associations, noble or +ignoble, seemed suddenly to vanish, for Winnington, engulfed in +something infinitely greater, something vital and primitive, on which +all else depended. + +He hung, absorbed, over the sliding water, giving the rein to reverie. +He seemed to see the English Spirit, hovering, proudly watchful, above +that high roof beside the dark water-way, looking out to sea, and +across the world. What indomitable force, what ichor gleaming fire, +through the dark veins of that weary Titan, sustained him there?--amid +the clash of alien antagonisms, and the mysterious currents of things? +What but the lavished blood and brain of England's sons?--that rude +primal power that men alone can bring to their country? + +Let others solve their own problems! But can women share the male tasks +that make and keep _us_ a Nation, amid a jarring and environing host of +Nations?--an Empire, with the guardianship of half the world on its +shoulders? And if not, how can men rightly share with women the act +which controls those tasks, and chooses the men to execute them? + +And yet!--all his knowledge of human life, all his tenderness for human +suffering, rushed in to protest that the great question was only half +answered, when it was answered so. He seemed to see the Spirit of +England, Janus-like, two-faced, with one aspect looking out to sea, the +other, brooding over the great city at its feet, and turned inland +towards the green country and studded towns beyond. And as to that +other, that home-face of England, his dreaming sense scarcely knew +whether it was man or woman. There was in it male power, but also +virgin strength, and mother love. Men and women might turn to it +equally--for help. + +No need for women in the home tasks--the national house-keeping of this +our England? He laughed--like France--at the mere suggestion of the +doubt. Why, that teeming England, north and south, was crying out for +the work of women, the help of women! Who knew it better than he? But +call in thought!--call in intelligence! Find out the best way to fit +the work to the organism, the organism to the work. What soil so rich +as England in the seed of political ideas? What nation could so easily +as we evolve new forms out of the old to fit new needs? + +But what need for patience in the process--for tolerance--for clear +thinking! And while England ponders, bewildered by the very weight of +her own load, and its responsibilities, comes, suddenly, this train of +Maenads rushing through the land, shrieking and destroying. + +He groaned in spirit, as he thought of Delia's look that day--of the +tragic-comic crowd around her. Again his thoughts flew hither and +thither, seeking to excuse, to understand her, and always, as it +seemed, with her dear voice in his ears--trembling--rushing--with the +passionate note he knew. + +"Mr. Winnington!" + +He looked up. An elderly woman, plain-featured, ill-dressed, stood +beside him, her kind eyes blinking under the lamp overhead. He +recognised Miss Dempsey, and grasped her by the hand. + +"My dear lady, where have you sprung from?" + +She hesitated, and then said, supporting herself on the parapet of the +bridge, as though thankful for the momentary rest. + +"I had to go in search of someone." + +He knew very well what she meant. + +"You've found her?" + +"Yes." + +"Can anyone help?" + +"No. The poor thing's safe--with good people who understand." + +He asked no more about her errand. He knew very well that day after +day, and week after week, her tired feet carried her on the same +endless quest--seeking "that which was lost." But the stress of thought +in his own mind found expression in a question which surprised her. + +"Would the vote help you? Is that why you want it?" + +She smiled. + +"Oh, no! Oh, dear no!" she said, with emphasis; after a moment, adding +in a lower tone, scarcely addressed to her companion--"'_It cost +more--to redeem their souls_!'" And again--"Dear Mr. Mark, men are what +their mothers make them!--that is the bottom truth. And when women are +what God intended them to be, they will have killed the ape and the +tiger in men. But law can't do it. Only the Spirit." Her face shone a +little. Then, in her ordinary voice--"Oh, no--I want the vote for quite +other reasons. It is our right--and it is monstrous we shouldn't have +it!" Her cheeks flushed. + +He turned his friendly smile upon her, without attempting to argue. +They walked back over the bridge together. + + * * * * * + +The following day rose in wind and shower. But the February rain +cleared away towards noon, and the high scudding clouds, with bright +spaces between, suddenly began to prophesy Spring. From Hyde Park, down +the Mall, and along Whitehall, the troops gathered and the usual crowd +sprang up in their rear, pressing towards Parliament Square, or lining +the route. Winnington had sent a note early to Delia by messenger; but +he expected no reply, and got none. All he could do was to hide a motor +in Dean's Yard, to hold a conference or two with the friendly bobby in +Parliament Square, and then to wander about the streets looking +restlessly at the show. It duly passed him by, the Cinderella-coach, +with the King and Queen of fairy-tale, the splendid Embassy carriages, +the Generals on their gleaming horses, the Guards, in their red +cloaks--and all the rest. The Royalties disappeared up the carpeted +stairs into the House of Lords, and after half an hour, while the bells +of St. Margaret's filled all the air with tumult, came out, again; and +again the ermined Queen, and the glistening King passed bowing along +the crowd. Winnington caught hold of a Hampshire member in the crowd. + +"When does the House meet?" + +"Everything adjourned till four. They'll move the Address about five. +But everyone expects a row." + +Nothing for it but to wait and stroll, to spend half an hour in the +Abbey, and take a turn along the Embankment.... And gradually, +steadily the Square filled up, no one knew how. The soldiers +disappeared, but policemen quietly took their places. All the entrances +to the House of Commons were carefully guarded, groups as they gathered +were dispersed, and the approaches to the House, in Old and New Palace +Yards, were rigorously kept free. But still the crowd in Parliament +Square grew and thickened. Girls, with smiling excited faces, still +moved to and fro in it, selling the _Tocsin_. Everybody waited +expectant. + +Then the chimes of the Abbey struck four. And as they died away, from a +Westminster street, from Whitehall, and from Milbank, there arose a +simultaneous stir and shouting. And presently, from each quarter +appeared processions of women, carrying black and orange banners making +their way slowly through the throng. The crowd cheered and booed them +as they passed, swaying to this side and that. And as each procession +neared the outer line of police, it was firmly but courteously stopped, +and the leaders of it must needs parley with the mounted constables who +sat ready to meet them. + +Winnington, jumping on the motor which he had placed opposite St. +Margaret's, drew out some field-glasses, and scanned the advancing +lines of women. The detachment coming from Whitehall seemed to be +headed by the chiefs of the whole organisation, to judge from the +glistening banner which floated above its foremost group. Winnington +examined it closely. Gertrude Marvell was not there, nor Delia. Then he +turned westwards. Ah, now he saw her! That surely was she!--in the +front ranks of the lines coming from Milbank. For a moment, he saw the +whole scene in orderly and picturesque array, the cordons of police, +the mounted constables, the banners of the processions, the swaying +crowds, Westminster Hall, the clock tower, with its light:--the next, +everything was tossed in wild confusion. Some savage impelling movement +in the crowd behind had broken the lines of police. The women were +through! He could see the scurrying forms running across the open +spaces, pursued, grappled with. + +He threw himself into the crowd, which had rapidly hemmed him in, +buffeting it from side to side like a swimmer into troubled waters. His +height, his strength, served him well, and by the time he had reached +the southern corner of St. Margaret's, a friendly hand gripped him. + +"Do you see her, Sir?" + +"Near the front!--coming from Milbank." + +"All right! Follow me, Sir. This way!" + +And with Hewson, and apparently two other police, Winnington battled +his way towards the tumult in front of St. Stephen's entrance. The +mounted police were pressing the crowd back with their horses, and as +Winnington emerged into clear ground, he saw a melee of women and +police,--some women on the ground, some held between police on either +side, and one group still intact. In it he recognised Gertrude Marvell. +He saw her deliberately strike a constable in the face. Then he lost +sight of her. All he saw were the steps of St. Stephen's entrance +behind, crowded with Members of Parliament. Suddenly another woman +fell, a grey-haired woman, and almost immediately a girl who was +struggling with two policemen, disengaged herself and ran to help. She +bent over the woman, and lifted her up. The police at once made way for +them, but another wild rush from behind seemed to part them--sweep +them from view-- + +"Now, Sir!" said Hewson, on tiptoe--"Hold on! They've got the old lady +safe. I think the young one's hurt." + +They pressed their way through. Winnington caught sight of Delia again, +deadly white, supported by a policeman on one side, and a gentleman on +the other. Andrews!--by George! Winnington cursed his own ill-luck in +not having been the first to reach her; but the gallant Captain was an +ally worth having, all the same. + +Mark was at her side. She lifted a face, all pain and bitter +indignation. "Cowards--Cowards!--to treat an old woman so!--Let me +go--let me go back! I must find her!" + +"She's all safe, Miss--she's all safe--you go home," said a friendly +policeman. "These gentlemen will look after you! Stand back there!" And +he tried to open a passage for them. + +Winnington touched her arm. But an involuntary moan startled him. +"She's hurt her arm"--said Andrews in his ear--"twisted it somehow. Go +to the other side of her--put your arm round her, and I'll clear the +way." + +Delia struggled--"No--no!--let me go!" + +But she was powerless. Winnington nearly carried her through the crowd, +while her faintness increased. By the time they reached the motor, she +was barely conscious. The two men lifted her in. Andrews stood looking +at her a moment, as she sank back with Winnington beside her, his ruddy +countenance expressing perhaps the most acute emotion of which its +possessor had ever yet been capable. + +"Good-night. You'll take her home," he said gruffly, and lifted his +hat. But the next moment he ran back to say--"I'll go back and find out +what's happened. She'll want to know. Where are you taking her?" + +"Smith's Hotel," said Winnington--"to my sister." And he gave the order +to the chauffeur. + +They set out. Mark passed his arm round her again, to support her, and +she drooped unconsciously upon his shoulder. A fierce joy--mingled with +his wrath and disgust. This must be--this should be the _end_! Was such +a form made for sordid violence and strife? Her life just breathed +against his--he could have borne her so for ever. + +But as soon as they had revived her, and she opened her eyes in Mrs. +Matheson's sitting-room at the hotel, she burst into a cry of misery. + +"Where's Gertrude!--let me go to her! Where am I?" + +As they wrestled with and soothed her, a servant knocked. + +"A gentleman to see you, Sir, downstairs." + +Winnington descended, and found Andrews--breathless with news. + +Eighty women arrested--Miss Marvell among the ringleaders, for all of +whom bail has been refused? While the riot had been going on in +Parliament Square, another detachment of women had passed along +Whitehall, smashing windows as they went. And at the same moment, a +number of shop-windows had been broken in Piccadilly. The Prime +Minister had been questioned in the Commons, and Sir Wilfrid Lang had +denounced the "Daughters'" organisation, and the mad campaign of +violence to which they were committed, in an indignant speech much +cheered by the House. + + * * * * * + +The days that followed were days of nightmare both for Delia and those +who watched over her. + +Gertrude Marvell and ten others went to prison, without the option of a +fine. About forty of the rank and file who refused to pay their fines, +or give surety for good behaviour, accompanied their leaders into +duress. The country rang with the scandal of what had happened, and +with angry debate as to how to stop the scandal in the future. The +Daughters issued defiant broadsheets, and filled the _Tocsin_ with +brave words. And the Constitutionalists who had pinned their hopes on +the Suffrage Bill before the House, wrung their hands, and wailed to +heaven and earth to keep these mad women in order. + +Delia sat waiting--waiting--all these intolerable hours. She scarcely +spoke to Winnington, except to ask him for news, or to thank him, when +every evening, owing to a personal knowledge of the Home Secretary, he +was able to bring her the very latest news of what was happening in +prison. Gertrude had refused food; forcible feeding would very soon +have to be abandoned; and her release, on the ground of danger to life, +might have to be granted. But in view of the hot indignation of the +public, the Government were not going to release any of the prisoners +before they absolutely must. + +Delia herself was maimed and powerless. How the wrenching of her arm +had come about--whether in the struggle with the two constables who had +separated her from Gertrude, or in the attempt to raise her companion +from the ground--she could not now remember. But a muscle had been +badly torn; she wore a sling and suffered constant and often severe +pain. Neither Alice Matheson, nor Lady Tonbridge--who had rushed up to +town--ever heard her complain, except involuntarily, of this pain. +Madeleine indeed believed that there was some atoning satisfaction in +it, for Delia's wounded spirit. If she was not with Gertrude in prison, +at least she too was suffering--if only a fraction of what Gertrude was +enduring. + +The arm however was not the most serious matter. As France had long +since perceived, she had been overstrained in nursing Weston, and the +events since she left Maumsey had naturally increased the mischief. She +had become sleepless and neurasthenic. And Winnington watched day by +day the eclipse of her radiant youth, with a dumb wrath almost as Pagan +as that which a similar impression had roused in Lathrop. + +The nights were her worst time. She lived then, in prison, with +Gertrude, vividly recalling all that she had ever heard from the +Daughters who had endured it, of the miseries and indignities of prison +life. But she also lived again through the events which had preceded +and followed the riot; her quick intelligence pondered the comments of +the newspapers, the attitude of the public, the measured words and +looks of these friends who surrounded her. And there were many times +when sitting up in bed alone, suffering and sleepless, she asked +herself bitterly--"were we just fools!--just fools?" + +But whatever the mind replied, the heart and its loyalty stood firm. +She was no more free now than before--that was the horrible part of it! +It was this which divided her from Winnington. The thought of how he +had carried her off from the ugly or ridiculous scenes which the +newspapers described--scenes of which she had scarcely any personal +memory, alternately thrilled and shamed her. But the aching expectation +of Gertrude's return--the doubt in what temper of mind and what plight +of body she would return--dominated everything else. + +At last came the expected message. "In consequence of a report from the +prison doctors and his own medical advisers, the Home Secretary has +ordered the immediate release of Miss Gertrude Marvell." Winnington was +privately notified of the time of release, information which was +refused to what remained of the Daughters' organisation, lest there +should be further disturbance. He took a motor to the prison gate, and +put a terribly enfeebled woman and her nurse into it. Gertrude did not +even recognise him, and he followed the motor to the Westminster flat, +distracted by the gloomiest forebodings. + +Delia was already at the flat to receive her friend, having +quietly--but passionately--insisted, against all the entreaties of Mrs. +Matheson and Lady Tonbridge. Winnington helped the nurse and the porter +to carry Gertrude Marvell upstairs. They laid her on the bed, and the +doctor who had been summoned took her in charge. As he was leaving the +room, Winnington turned back--to look at his enemy. How far more +formidable to him in her weakness than in her strength! The keen eyes +were closed, the thin mouth relaxed and bloodless shewing the teeth, +the hands mere skin and bone. She lay helpless and only half-conscious +on her pillows, with nurse and doctor hovering round her, and Delia +kneeling beside her. Yet, as he closed the door, Winnington realised +her power through every vein! It rested entirely with her whether or no +she would destroy Delia, as she must in the end destroy herself. + +He waited in the drawing-room for Delia. She came at last, with a cold +and alien face. "Don't come again, please! Leave us to ourselves. I +shall have doctors--and nurses. We'll let you know." + +He took her hands tenderly. But she drew them away--shivering a little. + +"You don't know--you can't know--what it means to me--to _us_--to see +what she has suffered. There must be no one here but those--who +sympathise--who won't reproach--" Her voice failed her. + +There was nothing for it but to go. + + + + +Chapter XVIII + + +Great is the power of martyrdom!--of the false no less than the +true--and whether the mind consent or no. + +During the first week of Gertrude Marvell's recovery--or partial +recovery--from her prison ordeal, both Winnington and Delia realised +the truth of this commonplace to the full. Winnington was excluded from +the flat. Delia, imprisoned within it, was dragged, day by day, through +deep waters of emotion and pity. She envied the heroism of her friend +and leader; despised herself for not having been able to share it; and +could not do enough to soothe the nervous suffering which Gertrude's +struggle with law and order had left behind it. + +But with the beginning of the second week some strange facts emerged. +Gertrude was then sufficiently convalescent to be moved into the +drawing-room, to see a few visitors, and to exchange experiences. All +who came belonged to the League, and had been concerned in the +Parliamentary raid. Most of them had been a few days or a week in +prison. Two had been hunger-strikers. And as they gathered round +Gertrude in half-articulate worship, Delia, passing from one revealing +moment to another, suddenly felt herself superfluous--thrust away! She +could not join in their talk except perfunctorily; the violence of it +often left her cold and weary; and she soon recognised half in +laughter, half bitterly, that, as one who had been carried out of the +fray, like a naughty child, by her guardian, she stood in the opinion +of Gertrude's visitors, on a level altogether inferior to that of +persons who had "fought it out." + +This, however, would not have troubled her--she was so entirely of the +same opinion herself. But what began to wound her to the quick was +Gertrude's own attitude towards her. She had been accustomed for so +long to be Gertrude's most intimate friend, to be recognised and envied +as such, that to be made to feel day by day how small a hold--for some +mysterious reason--she now retained on that fierce spirit, was galling +indeed. Meanwhile she had placed all the money realised by the sale of +her jewels,--more than three thousand pounds--in Gertrude's hands for +League purposes; her house was practically Gertrude's, and had Gertrude +willed, her time and her thoughts would have been Gertrude's also. She +would not let herself even think of Winnington. One glance at the +emaciated face and frame beside her was enough to recall her from what +had otherwise been a heavenly wandering. + +But she was naturally quick and shrewd, and she soon made herself face +the fact that she was supplanted. Supplanted by many--but especially by +one. Marion Andrews had not been in the raid--Delia often uneasily +pondered the why and wherefore. She came up to town a week after it, +and was then constantly in Gertrude's room. Between Delia, and this +iron-faced, dark-browed woman, with her clumsy dress and brusque ways, +there was but little conversation. Delia never forgot their last +meeting at Maumsey; she was often filled with dire forebodings and +suspicions; and as the relation between Gertrude and Miss Andrews +became closer, they grew and multiplied. + +At last one morning Gertrude turned her back on invalid ways. She got +up at her usual time; she dismissed her nurse; and in the middle of the +morning she came in upon Delia, who, in the desultory temper born of +physical strain, was alternately trying to read Marshall's "Economics +of Industry," and writing to Lady Tonbridge about anything and +everything, except the topics that really occupied her mind. + +Delia sprang up to get her a shawl, to settle her on the sofa. But +Gertrude said impatiently-- + +"Please don't fuss. I want to be treated now as though I were well--I +soon shall be. And anyway I am tired of illness." And she took a plain +chair, as though to emphasize what she had said. + +"I came to talk to you about plans. You're not busy!" + +"Busy!" The scornful tone was a trifle bitter also, as Gertrude +perceived. Delia put aside her book, and her writing-board, and +descended to her favourite place on the hearth rug. The two friends +surveyed each other. + +"Gertrude, it's absurd to talk as though you were well!" cried Delia. +"You look a perfect wreck!" + +But there was more in what she saw--in what she felt--than physical +wreck. There was a moral and spiritual change, subtler than any +physical injury, and probably more permanent. Gertrude Marvell had +never possessed any "charm," in the sense in which other leaders of the +militant movement possessed it. A clear and narrowly logical brain, the +diamond sharpness of an astonishing will, and certain passions of hate, +rather than passions of love, had made the strength of her personality, +and given her an increasing ascendancy. But these qualities had been +mated with a slender physique--trim, balanced, composed--suggesting a +fastidious taste, and nerves perfectly under control; a physique which +had given special accent and emphasis to her rare outbreaks of spoken +violence. Refinement, seemliness, "ladylikeness,"--even Sir Robert +Blanchflower in his sorest moments would scarcely have denied her +these. + +In a measure they were there still, but coupled with pathetic signs of +some disintegrating and poisonous influence. The face which once, in +its pallid austerity, had not been without beauty, had now coarsened, +even in emaciation. The features stood out disproportionately; the hair +had receded from the temples; something ugly and feverish had been, as +it were, laid bare. And composure had been long undermined. The nurse +who had just left had been glad to go. + +Gertrude received Delia's remark with impatience. + +"Do please let my looks alone! As if you could boast!" The speaker's +smile softened as she looked at the girl's still bandaged arm, and pale +cheeks. "That in fact is what I wanted to say, Delia. You ought to be +going home. You want the country and the garden. And I, it seems--so +this tiresome Doctor says--ought to have a fortnight's sea." + +"Oh--" said Delia, with a sudden flush. "So you think we ought to give +up the flat? Why can't I come with you to the sea?" + +"I thought you had begun to do various things--cripples--and +cottages--and schools--for Mr. Winnington," said Gertrude, drily. + +"I wanted to--but Weston's illness stopped it--and then I came here." + +"Well, you 'wanted to.' And why shouldn't you?" + +There was a silence. Then Delia looked up--very pale now--her head +thrown back. + +"So you mean you wish to get rid of me, Gertrude!" + +"Nothing of the sort. I want you to do--what you clearly wish to do." + +"When have I ever shown you that I wished to desert you--or--the +League?" + +"Perhaps I read you better than you do yourself," said +Gertrude, slightly reddening too. "Of course you have been +goodness--generosity--itself. But--this cause wants more than +gifts--more than money-it wants a woman's _self_!" + +"Well?" Delia waited. + +Gertrude moved impatiently. + +"Why should we play the hypocrite with each other!" she said at last. +"You won't deny that what Mr. Winnington thinks--what Mr. Winnington +feels--is infinitely more important to you now than what anybody else +in the world thinks or feels?" + +"Which I shewed by coming up here against his express wishes?--and +joining in the raid, after he had said all that a man could say against +it, both to you and to me?" + +"Oh, I admit you did your best--you did your best," said Gertrude +sombrely. "But I know you, Delia!--I know you! Your heart's not in +it--any more." + +Delia rose, and began slowly to pace the room. There was a wonderful +virginal dignity--a suppressed passion--in her attitude, as though she +wrestled with inward wound. But she said nothing, except to ask--as she +paused in front of Gertrude-- + +"Where are you going--and who is going with you?" + +"I shall go to the sea, somewhere--perhaps to the Isle of Wight. I +daresay Marion Andrews will come with me. She wants to escape her +mother for a time." + +"Marion Andrews?" repeated Delia thoughtfully. Then, after a +moment--"So you're not coming down to Maumsey any more?" + +"Ask yourself what there is for me to do there, my dear child! Frankly, +I should find the society of Mr. Winnington and Lady Tonbridge rather +difficult! And as for their feelings about me!" + +"Do you remember--you promised to live with me for a year?" + +"Under mental reservation," said Gertrude, quietly. "You know very +well, I didn't accept it as an ordinary post." + +"And now there's nothing more to be got out of me? Oh, I didn't mean +anything cruel!" added the girl hastily. "I know you must put the cause +first." + +"And you see where the cause is," said Gertrude grimly. "In ten days +from now Sir Wilfrid Lang will have crushed the bill." + +"And everybody seems to be clamouring that we've given them the +excuse!" + +Fierce colour overspread Gertrude's thin temples and cheeks. + +"They'll take it, anyway; and we've got to do all we can--meetings, +processions, way-laying Ministers--the usual things--and any new +torment we can devise." + +"But I thought you were going to Southsea!" + +"Afterwards--afterwards!" said Gertrude, with visible temper. "I shall +run down to Brighton tomorrow, and come back fresh on Monday." + +"To this flat?" + +"Oh no--I've found a lodging." + +Delia turned away--her breath fluttering. + +"So we part to-morrow!" Then suddenly she faced round on Gertrude. "But +I don't go, Gertrude--till I have your promise!" + +"What promise?" + +"To let--Monk Lawrence _alone_!" said the girl with sudden intensity, +and laying her uninjured hand on a table near, she stooped and looked +Gertrude in the eyes. + +Gertrude broke into a laugh. + +"You little goose! Do you think I look the kind of person for nocturnal +adventures?--a cripple--on a stick? Yes, I know you have been talking +to Marion Andrews. She told me." + +"I warned _you_," said Delia, with determination--"which was more to +the point. Everything Mr. Lathrop told me, I handed on to you." + +There was an instant's silence. Then Gertrude laid a skeleton hand upon +the girl's hand--gripping it painfully. + +"And do you suppose--that anything Mr. Lathrop could say, or you +could say, could prevent my carrying out plans that seemed to me +necessary--in this war!" + +Delia gasped. + +"Gertrude!--you mean to do it!" + +Gertrude released her--almost threw her hand away. + +"I have told you why you are a fool to think so. But if you do think +so, go and tell Mr. Winnington! Tell him everything!--make him enquire. +I shall be in town--ready for the warrant." + +The two faced each other. + +"And now," said Gertrude--"though I am convalescent--we have had +enough of this." She rose tottering--and felt for her stick. Delia +gave it her. + +"Gertrude!" It was a bitter cry of crushed affection and wounded trust. +It arrested Gertrude for a moment on her way to the door. She turned in +indecision--then shook her head--muttered something inarticulate, and +went. + + * * * * * + +That afternoon Delia sent a telegram to Lady Tonbridge who had returned +to Maumsey--"Can you and Nora come and stay with me for three months. I +shall be quite alone." She also despatched a note to Winnington's club, +simply to say that she was going home tomorrow. She had no recent news +of Winnington's whereabouts, but something told her that he was still +in town--still near her. + +Then she turned with energy to practical affairs--arrangements for +giving up the flat, dismissing some servants, despatching others to +Maumsey. She had something of a gift for housekeeping, and on this +evening of all others she blessed its tasks. When they met at dinner, +Gertrude was perfectly placid and amiable. She went to bed early, and +Delia spent the hours after dinner in packing, with her maid. In the +middle of it came a line from Winnington--"Good news indeed! I go down +to Maumsey early, to see that the Abbey is ready for you. Don't bother +about the flat. I have spoken to the Agents. They will do everything. +_Au revoir!"_ + +The commonplace words somehow broke down her self-control. She sent +away her maid, put out the glaring electric light, and sat crouched +over the fire, in the darkness, thinking her heart out. Once she sprang +up suddenly, her hands at her breast--"Oh Mark, Mark--I'm coming back +to you, Mark,--I'm coming back--I'm _free!_"--in an ecstasy. + +But only to feel herself the next moment, quenched--coerced--her +happiness dashed from her. If she gave herself to Mark, her knowledge, +her suspicions, her practical certainty must go with the gift. She +could not keep from him her growing belief that Monk Lawrence was +vitally threatened, and that Gertrude, in spite of audacious denials, +was still madly bent upon the plot. And to tell him would mean instant +action on his part: arrest--prison--perhaps death--for this woman she +had adored, whom she still loved with a sore, disillusioned tenderness. +She could not tell him!--and therefore she could not engage herself to +him. Had Gertrude realised that?--counted upon it? + +No. She must work in other ways--through Mr. Lathrop--through various +members of the "Daughters" Executive who were personally known to her. +Gertrude must be restrained--somehow--by those who still had influence +with her. + +The loneliness of that hour sank deep into Delia's soul. Never had she +felt herself so motherless, so forlorn. Her passion for this elder +woman during three years of fast-developing youth had divided her from +all her natural friends. As for her relations, her father's sister, +Elizabeth Blanchflower, a selfish, eccentric old maid, had just +acknowledged her existence in two chilly notes since she returned to +England; while Lord Frederick, Winnington's co-executor, had in the +same period written her one letter of half-scolding, half-patronising +advice, and sent a present of game to Maumsey. Since then she +understood he had been pursuing his enemy the gout from "cure" to +"cure," and "Mr. Mark" certainly had done all the executor's work that +had not been mere formality. + +She had no friends, no one who cared for her!--except Winnington--her +chilled heart glowed to the name!--Lady Tonbridge, and poor Weston. +Among the Daughters she had acquaintances, but no intimates. Gertrude +had absorbed her; she had lived for Gertrude and Gertrude's ideas. + +And now she was despised--cast out. She tried to revive in herself the +old crusading flame--the hot unquestioning belief in Women's Rights +and Women's Wrongs--the angry contempt for men as a race of coarse and +hypocritical oppressors, which Gertrude had taught her. In vain. She +sat there, with these altruistic loves and hates--premature, artificial +things!--drooping away; conscious only, nakedly conscious, of the +thirst for individual happiness, personal joy--ashamed of it too, in +her bewildered youth!--not knowing that she was thereby best serving +her sex and her race in the fore-ordained ways of destiny. And the +wickedness of men? But to have watched a good man, day by day, had +changed all the values of the human scene. Her time would come +again--with fuller knowledge--for bitter loathing of the tyrannies of +sex and lust. But this, in the natural order, was her hour for +hope--for faith. As the night grew deeper, the tides of both rose and +rose within her--washing her at last from the shores of Desolation. She +was going home. Winnington would be there--her friend. Somehow, she +would save Gertrude. Somehow--surely--she would find herself in Mark's +arms again. She went to sleep with a face all tears, but whether for +joy or sorrow, she could hardly have told. + +Next morning Marion arrived early, and carried Gertrude off to +Victoria, en route for Brighton. Gertrude and Delia kissed each other, +and said Good-bye, without visible emotion. + +"Of course I shall come down to plague you in the summer," said +Gertrude, and Delia laughed assent--with Miss Andrews standing by. The +girl went through a spasm of solitary weeping when Gertrude was finally +gone; but she soon mastered it, and an hour later she herself was in +the train. + +Oh, the freshness of the February day--of the spring breathing +everywhere!--of the pairing birds and the springing wheat--and the +bright patches of crocuses and snowdrop in the gardens along the line. +A rush of pleasure in the mere return to the country and her home, in +the mere welling back of health, the escape from daily friction, and +ugly, violent thoughts, overflowed all her young senses. She was a +child on a holiday. The nightmare of the Raid--of those groups of +fighting, dishevelled women, ignominiously overpowered, of the grinning +crowd, the agonising pain of her arm, and the policeman's rough grip +upon it--began to vanish "in black from the skies." + +Until--the train ran into the long cutting half way between Latchford +and Maumsey, above which climbed the steep woods of Monk Lawrence. +Delia knew it well. And she had no sooner recognised it than her gaiety +fell--headlong--like a shot bird. She waited in a kind of terror for +the moment when the train should leave the cutting, and the house come +into view, on its broad terrace carved out of the hill. Yes, there it +was, far away, the incomparable front, with its beautiful +irregularities, and its equally beautiful symmetries, with its oriel +windows flashing in the sun, the golden grey of its stone work, the +delicate tracery on its tall twisted chimneys, and the dim purples of +its spreading roofs. It lay so gently in the bosom of the woods which +clasped it round--as though they said--"See how we have guarded and +kept it through the centuries for you, the children of to-day." + +The train sped on, and looking back Delia could just make out a whitish +patch on the lower edge of the woods. That was Mr. Lathrop's cottage. +It seemed to her vaguely that she had seen his face in the front rank +of the crowd in Parliament Square; but she had heard nothing of him, or +from him since their last talk. She had indeed written him a short +veiled note as she had promised to do, after Gertrude's first denials, +repeating them--though she herself disbelieved them--and there had been +no reply. Was he at home? Had he perhaps discovered anything more? + +When she alighted at Maumsey, with her hand in Winnington's, the fresh +colour in her cheeks had disappeared again, and he was dismayed anew at +her appearance, though he kept it to himself. But when she was once +more in the familiar drawing-room, sitting in her grandmother's chair, +obliged to rest while Lady Tonbridge poured out tea--Nora was improving +her French in Paris--and Winnington, with his hands in his pockets, +talked gossip and gardening, without a word of anything that had +happened since they three had last met in that room; when Weston, +ghostly but convalescent, came in to show herself; when Delia's black +spitz careered all over his recovered mistress, and even the cats came +to rub themselves against her skirts, it was impossible not to feel for +the moment, tremulously happy, and strangely delivered--in this house +whence Gertrude Marvell had departed. + +How vivid was the impression of this latter fact on the other two may +be imagined. When Delia had gone upstairs to chat with Weston, Lady +Tonbridge looked at Winnington-- + +"To what do we owe this crowning mercy? Who dislodged her?" +Winnington's glance was thoughtful. + +"I guess it has been her own doing entirely. But I know nothing." + +"Hm.--Well, if I may advise, dear Mr. Mark, ask no questions. And"--his +old friend put a hand on his arm--"May I go on?" A smile, not very gay, +permitted her. + +"Let her be!" she said softly, with a world of sympathy in her clear +brown eyes. "She's suffered--and she's on edge." He laid his hand on +hers, but said nothing. + + * * * * * + +The days passed by. Winnington did as he had been told; and Madeleine +Tonbridge seemed to see that Delia was dumbly grateful to him. +Meanwhile in the eyes of her two friends she made little or no advance +towards recapturing her former health and strength. The truth, of +course, was that she was consumed by devouring and helpless anxiety. +She wrote to Lathrop, posting the letter at a distant village; and +received no answer. Then she ascertained that he was not at the +cottage, and a casual line in the _Tocsin_ informed her that he had +been in town taking part in the foundation of an "outspoken" +newspaper--outspoken on "the fundamental questions of sex, liberty, and +morals involved in the suffrage movement." + +But a letter addressed "To be forwarded" to the _Tocsin_ office +produced no more result than her first. Meanwhile she had written +imploringly to various prominent members of the organisation in London +pointing out the effect on public opinion that must be produced all +through Southern England by any attack on Monk Lawrence. She received +two cold and cautious replies. It seemed to her that the writers of +them were even more in the dark than she. + +The days ran on. The newspapers were full of the coming Woman Suffrage +Bill, and its certain defeat in the Commons. Sir Wilfrid Lang was +leading the forces hostile to the Suffrage, and making speech after +speech in the country to cheering audiences, denouncing the Bill, and +the mad women who had tried to promote it by a campaign of outrage, "as +ridiculous as it was criminal." He was to move the rejection of it on +the second reading, and was reported to be triumphantly confident of +the result. + +Winnington meanwhile became more and more conscious of an abnormal +state of nerve and brain in this pale Delia, the shadow of her proper +self, and as the hours went on, he was presently for throwing all +Madeleine's counsels aside, and somehow breaking through the girl's +silence, in the hope of getting at--and healing--the cause of it. He +guessed of course at a hundred things to account for it--at a final +breach between her and Gertrude--at the disappointment of cherished +hopes and illusions--at a profound travail of mind, partly moral, +partly intellectual, going back over the past, and bewildered as to the +future. But at the first sign of a change of action, of any attempt to +probe her, on his part, she was off--in flight; throwing back at him +often a look at once so full of pain and so resolute that he dared not +pursue her. She possessed at all times a great personal dignity, and it +held him at bay. + +He himself--unconsciously--enabled her to hold him at bay. Naturally, +he connected some of the haunting anxiety he perceived with Monk +Lawrence, and with Gertrude Marvell's outrageous speech in Latchford +market-place. But he himself, on the other hand, was not greatly +concerned for Monk Lawrence. Not only he---the whole neighbourhood was +on the alert, in defence of the famous treasure-house. The outside of +the building and the gardens were patrolled at night by two detectives; +and according to Daunt's own emphatic assurance to Winnington, the +house was never left without either the Keeper himself or his niece in +it, to mount guard. They had set up a dog, with a bark which was alone +worth a policeman. And finally, Sir Wilfrid himself had been down to +see the precautions taken, had especially ordered the strengthening of +the side door, and the provision of iron bars for all the ground floor +windows. As to the niece, Eliza Daunt, she had not made herself popular +with the neighbours or in the village; but she seemed an efficient and +managing woman, and that she "kept herself to herself" was far best for +the safety of Monk Lawrence. + +Whenever during these days Winnington's business took him in the +Latchford direction, so that going or coming he passed Monk Lawrence, +he would walk up to the Abbey in the evening, and in the course of the +gossip of the day, all the reassuring news he had to give would be sure +to drop out; while Delia sat listening, her eyes fixed on him. And +then, for a time, the shadow almost lifted, and she would be her young +and natural self. + +In this way, without knowing it, he helped her to keep her secret, and, +intermittently, to fight down her fears. + +On one of these afternoons, in the February twilight, he had been +talking to both the ladies, describing _inter alia_ a brief call at +Monk Lawrence and a chat with Daunt, when Madeleine Tonbridge went away +to change her walking dress, and he and Delia were left alone. +Winnington was standing in the favourite male attitude--his hands in +his pockets, and his back to the fire; Delia was on a sofa near. The +firelight flickered on the black and white of her dress, and on the +face which in losing something of its dark bloom had gained infinitely +in other magic for the eyes of the man looking down upon her. + +Suddenly she said-- + +"Do you remember when you wanted me to say--I was sorry for Gertrude's +speech--and I wouldn't?" + +He started. + +"Perfectly." + +"Well, I am sorry now. I see--I know--it has been all a mistake." + +She lifted her eyes to his, very quietly--but the hands on her lap +shook. + +His passionate impulse was to throw himself at her feet, and silence +any further humbleness with kisses. But he controlled himself. + +"You mean--that violence--has been a mistake?" + +"Yes--just that. Oh, of course!"--she flushed again--"I am just as much +for _women_--I am just as rebellious against their wrongs--as I ever +was. I shall be a Suffragist always. But I see now--what we've stirred +up in England. I see now--that we can't win that way--and that we +oughtn't to win that way." + +He was silent a moment, and then said in a rather muffled voice-- + +"I don't know who else would have confessed it--so bravely!" His +emotion seemed to quiet her. She smiled radiantly. + +"Does it make you feel triumphant?" + +"Not in the least!" + +She held out both hands, and he grasped them, smiling +back--understanding that she wished him to take it lightly. + +Her eyes indeed now were full of gaiety--light swimming on depths. + +"You won't be always saying 'I told you so?'" + +"Is it my way?" + +"No. But perhaps it's cunning on your part. You know it pays better to +be generous." + +They both laughed, and she drew her hands away. In another minute, she +had asked him to go on with some reading aloud while she worked. He +took up the book. The blood raced in his veins. "Soon, soon!"--he said +to himself, only to be checked by the divining instinct which +added--"but not yet!" + + * * * * * + +Only a few more days now, to the Commons debate. Every morning the +newspapers contained a crop of "militant" news of the kind foreshadowed +by Gertrude Marvell--meetings disturbed, private parties raided, +Ministers waylaid, windows smashed, and the like, though in none of the +reports did Gertrude's own name appear. Only two days before the +debate, a glorious Reynolds in the National Gallery was all but +hopelessly defaced by a girl of eighteen. Feeling throughout the +country surged at a white-heat. Delia said little or nothing, but the +hollows under her eyes grew steadily darker, and her cheeks whiter. Nor +could Winnington, for all his increasing anxiety, devote himself to +soothing or distracting her. An ugly strike in the Latchford +brickfields against nonunion labour was giving the magistrates of +the country a good deal of anxiety. Some bad outrages had already +occurred, and Winnington was endeavouring to get a Board of Trade +arbitration,--all of which meant his being a good deal away from home. + +Meanwhile Delia was making a new friend. Easily and simply, though no +one knew exactly how, Susy Amberley had found her way to the heart of +the young woman so much talked about and so widely condemned by the +county. Her own departure for London had been once more delayed by the +illness of her mother. But the worst of her own struggle was over now; +and no one had guessed it. She was a little older, though it was hardly +perceptible to any eye but her mother's; a little graver; in some ways +sweeter, in others perhaps a trifle harder, like the dipped sword. Her +dress had become less of a care to her; she minded the fashions less +than her mother. And there had opened before her more and more +alluringly that world of social service, which is to so many beautiful +souls outside Catholicism the equivalent of the vowed and dedicated +life. + +But just as of old, she guessed Mark Winnington's thoughts, and by some +instinct divined his troubles. He loved Delia Blanchflower; that she +knew by a hundred signs; and there were rough places in his road,--that +too she knew. They were clearly not engaged; but their relation was +clearly, also, one of no ordinary friendship. Delia's dependence on +him, her new gentleness and docility were full of meaning--for Susy. As +to the causes of Delia's depression, why, she had lost her friend, or +at any rate, to judge from the fact that Delia was at Maumsey, while +Miss Marvell remained, so report said, in London--had ceased to agree +or act with her. Susy divined and felt for the possible tragedy +involved. Delia indeed never spoke of the militant propaganda; but she +often produced on Susy a strange impression as of someone +listening--through darkness. + +The net result of all these guessings was that the tender Susy fell +suddenly in love with Delia--first for Mark's sake, then for her own; +and became in a few days of frequent meetings, Delia's small worshipper +and ministering spirit. Delia surrendered, wondering; and it was soon +very evident that, on her side, the splendid creature, in her +unrevealed distress, pined after all to be loved, and by her own sex. +She told Susy no secrets, either as to Winnington, or Gertrude; but +very soon, just as Susy was certain about her, so she--very pitifully +and tenderly--became certain about Susy. Susy loved--or had once +loved--Winnington. And Delia knew very well, whom Winnington loved. The +double knowledge softened all her pride--all her incipient jealousy +away. She took Susy into her heart, though not wholly into her +confidence; and soon the two began to walk the lonely country roads +together hand in hand. Susy's natural tasks took her often among the +poor. But Delia would not go with her. She shrank during these days, +with a sick distaste from the human world around her,--its possible +claims upon her. Her mind was pre-engaged; and she would not pretend +what she could not feel. + +This applied especially to the folk on her father's estate. As to the +neighbours of her own class, they apparently shrank from her. She was +left coldly alone. No one called, but Susy, France and his wife, and +Captain Andrews. Mrs. Andrews indeed was loud in her denunciation of +Delia and all her crew. Her daughter Marion had abominably deserted +all her family duties, without any notice to her family, and was +now--according to a note left behind--brazenly living in town with +some one or other of the "criminals" to whom Miss Blanchflower of +course, had introduced her. But as she had given no address she was +safe from pursuit. Mrs. Andrews' life had never been so uncomfortable. +She had to maid herself, and do her own housekeeping, and the thing was +Scandalous and intolerable. She filled the local air with wailing and +abuse. + +But her son, the gallant Captain, would not allow any abuse of Delia +Blanchflower in his presence. He had begun, indeed, immediately after +Delia's return, to haunt the Abbey so persistently that Madeleine +Tonbridge had to make an opportunity for a few quiet words in his ear, +after which he disappeared disconsolate. + +But he was a good fellow at heart, and the impression Delia had made +upon him, together with some plain speaking on the subject from Lady +Tonbridge, in the course of a chance meeting in the village, roused a +remorseful discomfort in him about his sister. He tried honestly to +find out where she was, but quite in vain. Then he turned upon his +Mother, and told her bluntly she was herself to blame for her +daughter's flight. "Between us, we've led her a dog's life, Mother, +there, that's the truth! All the same, I'm damned sorry she's taken up +with this business." + +However, it mattered nothing to anybody whether the Captain was "damned +sorry" or not. The hours were almost numbered. The Sunday before the +Tuesday fixed for the Second Reading came and went. It was a foggy +February day, in which the hills faded from sight, and all the world +went grey. Winnington spent the afternoon at Maumsey. But neither he +nor Madeleine seemed to be able to rouse Delia during that day from a +kind of waking dream--which he interpreted as a brooding sense of some +catastrophe to come. + +He was certain that her mind was fixed on the division ahead--the +scene in the House of Commons--and on the terror of what the +"Daughters"--Gertrude perhaps in the van--might be planning and +plotting in revenge for it. His own feeling was one of vast relief that +the strain would be so soon over, and his own tongue loosed. Monk +Lawrence was safe enough! And as for any other attempt at vengeance, he +dismissed the notion with impatient scorn. + +But meanwhile he said not a word that could have jarred on any +conviction or grief of Delia's. Sometimes indeed they touched the great +subject itself--the "movement" in its broad and arguable aspects; +though it seemed to him that Delia could not bear it for long. Mind and +heart were too sore; and her weary reasonableness made him long for the +prophetic furies of the autumn. But always she felt herself enwrapped +by a tenderness, a chivalry that never failed. Only between her and +it--between her and him--as she lay awake through broken nights, some +barrier rose--dark and impassable. She knew it for the barrier of her +own unconquered fear. + + + + +Chapter XIX + + +On this same Sunday night before the date fixed for the Suffrage +debate, a slender woman, in a veil and a waterproof, opened the gate of +a small house in the Brixton Road. It was about nine o'clock in the +evening. The pavements were wet with rain, and a gusty wind was +shrieking through the smutty almond and alder trees along the road +which had ventured to put out their poor blossoms and leaves in the +teeth of this February gale. + +The woman stood and looked at the house after shutting the gate, as +though uncertain whether she had found what she was looking for. But +the number 453, on the dingy door, could be still made out by the light +of the street opposite, and she mounted the steps. + +A slatternly maid opened the door, and on being asked whether Mrs. +Marvell was at home, pointed curtly to a dimly lighted staircase, and +disappeared. + +Gertrude Marvell groped her way upstairs. The house smelt repulsively +of stale food, and gas mingled, and the wailing wind from outside +seemed to pursue the visitor with its voice as she mounted. On the +second floor landing, she knocked at the door of the front room. + +After an interval, some shuffling steps came to the door, and it was +cautiously opened. + +"What's your business, please?" + +"It's me--Gertrude. Are you alone?" + +A sound of astonishment. The door was opened, and a woman appeared. Her +untidy, brown hair, touched with grey, fell back from a handsome +peevish face of an aquiline type. A delicate mouth, relaxed and +bloodless, seemed to make a fretful appeal to the spectator, and the +dark circles under the eyes shewed violet on a smooth and pallid skin. +She was dressed in a faded tea-gown much betrimmed, covered up with a +dingy white shawl. + +"Well, Gertrude--so you've come--at last!"--she said, after a moment, +in a tone of resentment. + +"If you can put me up for the night--I can stay. I've brought no +luggage." + +"That doesn't matter. There's a stretcher bed. Come in." Gertrude +Marvell entered, and her mother closed the door. + +"Well, mother--how are you?" + +The daughter offered her cheek, which the elder woman kissed. Then Mrs. +Marvell said bitterly-- + +"Well, I don't suppose, Gertrude, it much matters to you how I am." + +Gertrude took off her wet waterproof, and hat, and sitting down by the +fire, looked round her mother's bed-sitting-room. There was a tray on +the table with the remains of a meal. There were also a large number of +women's hats, some trimmed, some untrimmed, some in process of +trimming, lying about the room, on the different articles of furniture. +There was a tiny dog in a basket, which barked shrilly and feebly as +Gertrude approached the fire, and there were various cheap illustrated +papers and a couple of sixpenny novels to be seen emerging from the +litter here and there. For the rest, the furniture was of a squalid +lodging-house type. On the chimney-piece however was a bunch of +daffodils, the only fresh and pleasing object in the room. + +To Gertrude it was as though she had seen it all before. Behind the +room, there stretched a succession of its ghostly fellows--the rooms of +her childhood. In those rooms she could remember her mother as a young +and comely woman, but always with the same slovenly dress, and the same +untidy--though then abundant and beautiful--hair. And as she half shut +her eyes she seemed also to see her younger sister coming in and +out--malicious, secretive--with her small turn-up nose, pouting lips, +and under-hung chin. + +She made no reply to her mother's complaining remark. But while she +held her cold hands to the blaze that Mrs. Marvell stirred up, her eyes +took careful note of her mother's aspect. "Much as usual," was her +inward comment. "Whatever happens, she'll outlive me." + +"You've been going on with the millinery?" She pointed to the hats. "I +hope you've been making it pay." + +"It provides me with a few shillings now and then," said Mrs. Marvell, +sitting heavily down on the other side of the fire--"which Winnie +generally gets out of me!" she said sharply. "I am a miserable pauper +now, as I always have been." + +Gertrude's look was unmoved. Her mother had, she knew, all that her +father had left behind him--no great sum, but enough for a solitary +woman to live on. + +"Well, anyway, you must be glad of it as an occupation. I wish I could +help you. But I haven't really a farthing of my own, beyond the +interest on my Ł1000. I handle a great deal of money, but it all goes +to the League, and I never let them pay me more than my bare expenses. +Now then, tell me all about everybody!" And she lay back in the +dilapidated basket-chair that had been offered her, and prepared +herself to listen. + +The family chronicle was done. It was as depressing as usual, and +Gertrude made but little comment upon it. When it was finished, Mrs. +Marvell rose, and put the kettle on the fire, and got out a couple of +fresh cups and saucers from a cupboard. As she did so, she looked round +at her visitor. + +"And you're as deep in that militant business as ever." + +Gertrude made a negligent sign of assent. + +"Well, you'll never get any good of it." The mother's pale cheek +flushed. It excited her to have this chance of speaking her mind to her +clever and notorious daughter, whom in many ways she secretly envied, +while heartily disapproving her acts and opinions. + +Gertrude shrugged her shoulders. + +"What's the good of arguing?" + +"Well, it's true"--said the mother, persisting. "Every new thing you +do, turns more people against you. Winnie's a Suffragist--but she says +you've spoilt all their game!" + +Gertrude's eyes shone; she despised her mother's opinion, and her +sister's still more, and yet once again in their neighbourhood, once +again in the old environment, she could not help treating them in the +old defiant brow-beating way. + +"And you think, I suppose, that Winnie knows a good deal about it?" + +"Well, she knows what everybody's saying--in the trams--and the trains +everywhere. Hundreds of them that used to be for you have turned over." + +"Let them!" + +The contemptuous tone irritated Mrs. Marvell. But at the same time she +could not help admiring her eldest daughter, as she sat there in the +fire-light, her quiet well-cut dress, her delicate hands and feet. It +was true indeed, she was a scarce-crow for thinness, and looked years +older--"somehow gone to pieces"--thought the mother, vaguely, and with +a queer, sudden pang. + +"And you're going on with it?" + +"What? Militancy? Of course we are--more than ever!" + +"Why, the men laugh at you, Gertrude!" + +"They won't laugh--by the time we've done," said Gertrude, with +apparent indifference. Her mother had not sufficient subtlety of +perception to see that the indifference was now assumed, to hide the +quiver of nerves, irreparably injured by excitement and overstrain. + +"Well, all I know is, it's against nature to suppose that women can +fight men." Mrs. Marvell's remarks were rather like the emergence of +scattered spars from a choppy sea. + +"We shall fight them," said Gertrude, sourly--"And what's more, we +shall beat them." + +"All the same we've got to live with them!" cried her mother, suddenly +flushing, as old memories swept across her. + +"Yes,--on our terms--not theirs!" + +"I do believe, Gertrude, you hate the very sight of a man!" Gertrude +smiled again; then suddenly shivered, as though the cold wind outside +had swept through the room. + +"And so would you--if you knew what I do!" + +"Well I do know a good bit!" protested Mrs. Marvell. "And I'm a married +woman,--worse luck! and you're not. But you'll never see it any other +way than your own, Gertie. You got a kink in you when you were quite +a girl. Last week I was talking about you to a woman I know--and I +said--'It's the girls ruined by the bad men that make Gertrude so +mad'--and she said--'She don't ever think of the boys that are ruined +by the bad women!--Has she ever had a son--not she!' And she just cried +and cried. I suppose she was thinking of something." + +Gertrude rose. + +"Look here, mother. Can I go to bed? I'm awfully tired." + +"Wait a bit. I'll make the bed." + +Gertrude sat down by the fire again. Her exhaustion was evident, and +she made no attempt to help her mother. Mrs. Marvell let down the +chair-bed, drew it near the fire, and found some bed-clothes. Then she +produced night-things of her own, and helped Gertrude undress. When her +daughter was in bed, she made some tea, and dry toast, and Gertrude let +them be forced on her. When she had finished, the mother suddenly +stooped and kissed her. + +"Where are you going to now, Gertrude? Are you staying on with that +lady in Hamptonshire?" + +"Can't tell you my plans just yet," said Gertrude sleepily--"but you'll +know next week." + +The lights were put out. Both women tried to sleep, and Gertrude was +soon heavily asleep. + +But as soon as it was light, Mrs. Marvell heard her moving, the splash +of water, and the lighting of the fire. Presently Gertrude came to her +side fully dressed-- + +"There, mother, I've made _you_ a cup of tea! And now in a few minutes +I shall be off." + +Mrs. Marvell sat up and drank the tea. + +"I didn't think you'd go in such a hurry," she said, fretfully. + +"I must. My day's so full. Well, now look here, Mother, I want you to +know if anything were to happen to me, my thousand pounds would come to +you first, and then to Winnie and her children. And it's my wish, that +neither my brother nor Henry shall touch a farthing of it. I've made a +will, and that's the address of my solicitors, who're keeping it." She +handed her mother an envelope. + +Mrs. Marvell put down her tea, and put her handkerchief to her eyes. + +"I believe you're up to something dreadful, Gertrude,--which you won't +tell me." + +"Nonsense," said Gertrude, not however unkindly. "But we mayn't see +each other for a good while. There!--I'll open the windows--that'll +make you feel more cheerful." And she drew up the blinds to the dull +February day, and opened a window. + +"I'll telephone to Winnie as I go past the Post Office to come and +spend the day with you--and I'll send up the servant to do your room. +Now don't fret." + +"I'm a lonely old woman, Gertrude:--and I wish I was dead." + +Gertrude frowned. + +"You should try and read something, Mother--better than these trashy +novels. When I've time, I'll send you a parcel of books--I've got a +good many. And don't you let your work go--it's good for you. Now +good-bye." + +The two women kissed--Mrs. Marvell embracing her daughter with a sudden +fierceness of emotion to which Gertrude submitted, almost for the first +time in her life. Then her mother pushed her away. + +"Good-bye, Gertrude--you'd better go!" + +Gertrude went out noiselessly, closing the door behind her with a +lingering movement, unlike her. In the tiny hall below, she found the +"general" at work, and sent her up to Mrs. Marvell. Then she went out +into the grey February morning, and the little girl of the landlady +standing on the steps saw her enter one of the eastward-bound trams. + +Monday afternoon came. Winnington had been called away to Wanchester by +urgent County business; against his will, for there had been some bad +rioting the day before at Latchford, and he would rather have gone to +help his brother magistrates. But there was no help for it. Lady +Tonbridge was at the little Georgian house, shutting it up for six +months. Delia was left alone in the Abbey, consumed with a restless +excitement she had done her best to hide from her companions. She +suddenly made up her mind that she would go and see for herself, and by +herself, what was happening at Monk Lawrence. She set out unobserved +and on foot, and had soon climbed the hill and reached the wood walk +along its crest where she had once met Lathrop. Half way through, +she came on two persons whom she at once recognised as the +science-mistress, Miss Jackson, and Miss Toogood. They were waiting +slowly, and, as it seemed to Delia, sadly; the little dressmaker +limping painfully, with her head thrown back and a face of fixed and +tragic distress. + +When they saw Delia, they stopped in agitation. + +"Oh, Miss Blanchflower!--" + +Delia who knew that Miss Jackson had been in town hoping for work at +the Central Office of the League of Revolt, divined at once that she +had been disappointed. + +"They couldn't find you anything?" + +The teacher shook her head. + +"And the Governors have given me a month's salary here in lieu of +notice. I've left the school, Miss Blanchflower! I was in the Square +you know, that day--and at the Police Court afterwards. That was what +did it. And I have my old mother to keep." + +A pair of haggard eyes met Delia's. + +"Oh, but I'll help!" cried Delia.--"You must let me help!--won't you?" + +"Thank you--but I've got a few savings," said the teacher quietly. "It +isn't that so much. It's--well, Miss Toogood feels it too. She was in +town--she saw everything. And she knows what I mean. We're +disheartened--that's what it is!" + +"With the movement?" said Delia, after a moment. + +"It seemed so splendid when we talked of it down here--and--it +_was_--so horrible!" Her voice dropped. + +"So horrible!" echoed Miss Toogood drearily. "It wasn't what we meant, +somehow. And yet we'd read about it. But to see those young women +beating men's faces--well, it did for me!" + +"The police were rough too!" cried Miss Jackson. "But you couldn't +wonder at it, Miss Blanchflower, could you?" + +Delia looked into the speaker's frank, troubled face. "You and I felt +the same," she said in a choked voice. "It was ugly--and it was +absurd." + +She walked back with them a little way, comforting them, as best she +could. And her sympathy, her sweetness did--strangely--comfort them. +When she left them, they walked on, talking tenderly of her, counting +on _her_ good fortune, if there was none for them. + +At the end of the walk, towards Monk Lawrence, another figure emerged +from the distance. Delia started, then gathered all her wits; for it +was Lathrop. + +He hurried towards her, breathless, cutting all preliminaries-- + +"I was coming to find you. I arrived this morning. There is something +wrong! I have just been to the house, and there is no one there." + +"What do you mean?" + +"No one. I went to Daunt's rooms. Everything locked. The house +absolutely dark--everywhere. And I know that he has had the strictest +orders!" + +Without a word, she began to run, and he beside her. When she +slackened, he told her that while in London he had made the most +skilful enquiries he could devise as to the plot he believed to be on +foot. But--like Delia's own--they had been quite fruitless. Those +persons who had shared suspicion with him in December were now +convinced that the thing was dropped. All that he had ascertained was +that Miss Marvell was in town, apparently recovered, and Miss Andrews +with her. + +"Well--and were you pleased with your raid?" he asked her, half +mockingly, as he opened the gate of Monk Lawrence for her. + +She resented the question, and the tone of it, remembering his first +grandiloquent letter to her. + +"_You_ ought to be," she said, drily. "It was the kind of thing you +recommended." + +"In that letter I wrote you! I ought to have apologised to you for that +letter long ago. I am afraid it was an exercise. Oh, I felt it, I +suppose, when I wrote it." + +There was a touch of something insolent in his voice. + +She made no reply. If it had not been for the necessity which yoked +them, she would not have spent another minute in his company, so +repellent to her had he become--both in the inner and the outer man. +She tried only to think of him as an ally in a desperate campaign. + +They hastened up the Monk Lawrence drive. The house stood still and +peaceful in the February afternoon. The rooks from the rookery behind +were swirling about and over the roofs, filling the air with monotonous +sound which only emphasized the silence below. A sheet of snowdrops lay +white in the courtyard, where a child's go-cart upset, held the very +middle of the stately approach to the house. + +Delia went to the front door, and rang the bell--repeatedly. Not a +sound, except the dim echoes of the bell itself from some region far +inside. + +"No good!" said Lathrop. "Now come to the back." They went round to the +low addition at the back of the house, where Daunt and his family had +now lived for many months. Here also there was nobody. The door was +locked. The blinds were drawn down. Impossible to see into the rooms, +and neither calling nor knocking produced any response. + +Lathrop stood thinking. + +"Absolutely against orders! I know--for Daunt himself told me--that he +had promised Lang never to leave the house without putting some deputy +he could trust in charge. He has gone and left no deputy--or the deputy +he did leave has deserted." + +"What's the nearest house--or cottage?" + +"The Gardeners' cottages, beyond the kitchen garden. Only one of them +occupied now, I believe. Daunt used to live there before he moved into +the house. Let's go there!" + +They ran on. The walled kitchen garden was locked, but they found a way +round it to where three creeper-grown cottages stood in a pleasant +lonely space girdled by beech-woods. One only was inhabited, but from +that the smoke was going up, and a babble of children's voices emerged. + +Lathrop knocked. There was a sudden sound, and then a silence within. +In a minute however the door was opened, and a strapping black-eyed +young woman stood on the threshold looking both sulky and astonished. + +"Are you Daunt's niece?" said Lathrop. + +"I am, Sir. What do you want with him?" + +"Why isn't he at Monk Lawrence?" asked Lathrop roughly. "He told me +himself he was not to leave the house unguarded." + +"Well, Sir, I don't know I'm sure what business it is of yours!" said +the woman, flushing with anger. "He got bad news of his son, whose ship +arrived at Portsmouth yesterday, and the young man said to be dying, on +board. So he went off this afternoon. I've only left it for ten minutes +and I'm going back directly. Mrs. Cresson here had asked the children +to tea, and I brought them over. And I'll thank you, Sir, not to go +spying on honest people!" + +And she would have slammed the door in his face, but that Delia came +forward. + +"We had no intention of spying upon you, Miss Daunt--indeed we hadn't. +But I am Miss Blanchflower, who came here before Christmas, with Mr. +Winnington, and I should have been glad to see Mr. Daunt and the +children. Lily!--don't you remember me?"--and she smiled at the +crippled child--a delicate blue-eyed creature--whom she saw in the +background. + +But the child, who seemed to have been crying violently, did not come +forward. And the other two, who had their fingers in their mouths, were +equally silent and shrinking. In the distance an old woman sat +motionless in her chair by the fire, taking no notice apparently of +what was going on. + +The young woman appeared for a moment confused or excited. + +"Well, I'm sorry, Miss, but my Uncle won't be back till after dark. And +I wouldn't advise you to come in, Miss,"--she hurriedly drew the door +close behind her--"the doctor thinks two of the children have got +whooping-cough--and I didn't send them to school today." + +"Well, just understand, Miss Daunt, if that's your name," said Lathrop, +with emphasis--"that till you return to the house, we shall stay there. +We shall walk up and down there, till you come back. You know well +enough there are people about, who would gladly do an injury to the +house, and that it's not safe to leave it. Monk Lawrence is not Sir +Wilfrid Lang's property only. It belongs to the whole nation, and there +are plenty of people that'll know the reason why, if any harm comes to +it." + +"Oh, very well. Have it your own way, Sir! I'll come--I'll come--fast +enough," and the speaker, with a curious half-mocking look at Lathrop, +flounced back into the cottage, and shut the door. They waited. There +were sounds of lowered voices, and crying children. Then Miss Daunt +emerged defiantly, and they all three walked back to Monk Lawrence. + +The keeper's niece unlocked the door leading to Daunt's rooms. But she +stood sulkily in the entry. + +"Now I hope you're satisfied, Sir. I don't know, I'm sure, why you +should come meddling in other people's affairs. And I daresay you'll +say something against me to my uncle!" + +"Well, anyway, you keep watch!" was the stern reply. "I take my rounds +often this way, as your Uncle knows. I daresay I shall be by here again +tonight. Can the children find their way home alone?" + +"Well, they're not idiots, Sir! Good-night to you. I've got to get +supper." And brusquely shutting the door in their faces, she went +inside. They perceived immediately afterwards that she had lit a light +in the kitchen. + +"Well, so far, all right," said Lathrop, as he and Delia withdrew. "But +the whole thing's rather--queer. You know that old woman, Mrs. +Cresson, is not all there, and quite helpless?" + +He pondered it as they walked back through the wood, his eyes on the +ground. Delia shared his undefined anxiety. She suggested that he +should go back to the house in an hour or so, to see if Daunt had +returned, and complain of his niece's breach of rules. Lathrop agreed. + +"How do we know who or what that girl is?"--he said slowly--"that she +mayn't have been got hold of?" + +The same terror grew in Delia. She walked on beside him absorbed in +speculation and discussion, till, without noticing, she had reached the +farther gate of the wood-walk. Outside the gate, ran the Wanchester +road, climbing the down, amid the woods. To reach the field path +leading to the Abbey, Delia must cross it. + +She and Lathrop emerged from the wood still talking in low voices, and +stood beside the gate. A small car, with one man driving it, was +descending the long hill. But Delia had her back to it. + +It came nearer. She turned, and saw Winnington approaching her--saw the +look on his face. For a moment she wavered. Then with a bow and a hasty +"Good Evening," she left Lathrop, and stepped into the road, holding up +her hand to stop the car. + +"How lucky!" she said, clearly, and gaily,--"just as it's going to +rain! Will you take me home?" + +Winnington, without a word, made room for her beside him. The two men +exchanged a slight greeting--and the car passed. + +Lathrop walked quickly back in the direction of Monk Lawrence. His +vanity was hugely pleased. + +"By George!--that was one to me! It's quite evident she hasn't taken +him into her confidence--doesn't want magistrates interfering--no +doubt. And meanwhile she appeals to _me_--she depends on _me_. Whatever +happens--she'll have to be grateful to me. That fellow with his +wry face can't stop it. What a vision she made just now under the +wood--'belle dame sans merci!'--hating my company--and yet compelled +to it. It would make a sonnet I think--I'll try it tonight." + + * * * * * + +Meanwhile in the dark corridors of Monk Lawrence a woman groping, met +another woman. The two dim figures exchanged some whispered words. Then +one of them returned to the back regions. + +Lathrop, passing by, noticed smoke rising from the Daunts' chimney, and +was reassured. But in an hour or so he would return to look for Daunt +himself. + +He had no sooner descended the hill to his own cottage, in the fast +gathering dusk, than Eliza Daunt emerged. She left the light burning in +the keeper's kitchen, and some cold supper on the table. Then with a +laugh which was half a sob of excitement she ran down the path leading +to the garden cottages. + +She was met by a clamour of rebellious children, as she opened Mrs. +Cresson's door. "Where's Daddy, Liza?--where's Daddy! Why can't we go +home! We want our Daddy!" + +"Hold your noise!" said Eliza roughly--"or it'll be the worse for +you--Daddy won't be home for a couple of hours yet, and I promised Fred +Cresson, I'd get Mrs. Cresson's tea for her. Lily, stop crying--and +get the tray!" + +The crippled child, red-eyed, unwillingly obeyed. Neither she nor her +sisters could understand why they had been brought over to tea with +Mrs. Cresson of whose queer half-imbecile ways they were all terrified. +Their father had gone off in a great hurry--because of the telegram +which had come. And Fred had bicycled down to Latchford to see somebody +about a gardener's place. And now there was no one left but Liza and +Mrs. Cresson--of whom, for different reasons, the three little girls +were equally afraid. And Lily's heart especially was sore for her +father. She knew very well they were all doing what was forbidden. But +she dared not complain. They had found Cousin 'Liza a hard woman. + +After Eliza Daunt had left Daunt's kitchen, for the space of half an +hour, a deep and brooding quiet settled on Monk Lawrence. The old house +held that in its womb, which must soon crash to light; but for this +last brief space, all was peace. The twilight of a clear February +evening mellowed the grey walls, and the moss-grown roofs; the house +spoke its last message--its murmured story, as the long yoke-fellow of +human life--to the tranquil air; and the pigeons crooned about it, +little knowing. + +Presently from the same door which had seen Eliza Daunt depart, a woman +cautiously emerged. She was in dark clothes, closely veiled. With +noiseless step, she passed round the back of the house, pausing a +moment to look at the side door on the north side which had been lately +strengthened by Sir Wilfrid's orders. Then she gained the shelter of +the close-grown shrubbery, and turning round she stood a few seconds +motionless, gazing at the house. In spite of her quiet movements, she +was trembling from head to foot--with excitement, not fear. + +"It's beautiful," she was saying to herself--"and precious--and I've +destroyed it." Then--with a fierce leap in the blood--"_Beauty_! And +what about the beauty that men destroy? Let them _pay_!" + +But as she stood there a sudden disabling storm of +thought--misgiving--argument--swept through her brain. She seemed to +hear on all sides voices in the air--the voices of friends and foes, of +applause and execration--Delia's voice among them! And at the mere +imagination of it, a shiver of anger ran through her. She thought of +Delia now, only as of one who had deserted and disobeyed. + +But with the illusion of the ear, there came also an illusion of +vision. The months of her recent life rose before her, in one hurrying +spectacle of scenes and faces, and the spectacle aroused in her but one +idea--one sickening impression--of crushing and superhuman effort. What +labour!--what toil! She shuddered under it. Then, suddenly, her mind +ran back to the early years before, beyond, the days of "war"--sordid, +unceasing war--when there had been time to love, to weep, to pity, to +enjoy; before wrath breeding wrath, and violence begetting violence, +had driven out the Spirits of Tenderness and Hope. She seemed to see, +to feel them--the sad Exiles!--fleeing along desert ways; and her +bitter heart cried out to them--for the only--the last time. For in the +great names of Love and Justice, she had let Hate loose within her, and +like the lion-cub nurtured in the house, it had grown to be the soul's +master and gaoler; a "doom" holding the citadels of life, and working +itself out to the appointed end. + +But the tumult in which she stood began to unnerve her. By a last +exercise of will she was able to pull herself together. + +Rapidly, as one well used to them, she made her way through the +shrubbery paths; round the walled garden, and behind the gardeners' +cottages. She heard the children in Mrs. Cresson's cottage as she +passed, Lily still fretfully crying, and the old woman's voice +scolding. Poor children!--they would be horribly frightened--but +nothing worse. + +The thick overgrown wood of fir and beech behind the cottages received +her, swallowed up the slight insignificant form. In the wood there was +still light enough to let her grope her way along the path, till at the +end, against an opening to the sky, she saw the outlines of a keeper's +hut. Then she knew that she was worn out, and must rest. She pushed the +door ajar, and sat crouching on the threshold, while the schemes and +plottings of the preceding weeks ran disjointedly through memory. + +Marion was safe by now--she had had an hour's start. And Eliza too had +gone. Nothing could be better than the arrangements made for those two. + +But she herself was not going--not yet. Her limbs failed her; and +beyond the sheltering woods, she seemed to become electrically aware of +hostile persons, of nets drawn round her, cutting off escape. As to +that, she felt the most supreme indifference to what might happen to +her. The indifference, indeed, passed presently into a strange and +stinging temptation to go back--back to the dark house--to see with +her own eyes what her hands had done. She resisted it with +difficulty.... Suddenly, a sound from the distance--beyond the +cottages--as of a slight explosion. She started, and throwing back her +veil, she sat motionless in the doorway of the hut, her face making a +dim white patch upon the darkness. + + + + +Chapter XX + + +"Take me home!--take me home quick! I want to talk to you. Not +now--not here!" + +The car flew along. Mark barely looked at Delia. His face was set and +pale. As for her, while they ran through the village and along the +country road between it and Maumsey, her mind had time to adjust itself +to that flashing resolution which had broken down a hundred scruples +and swept away a hundred fears, in that moment on the hill when she had +met his eyes, and the look in them. What must he think of her? An +assignation with that man, on the very first afternoon when his tender +watchfulness left her for an hour! No, it could not be borne that he +should read her so! She must clear herself! And thought, leaping +beacon-like from point to point told her, at last, that for Gertrude +too, she had chosen wrongly. Thank Heaven, there was still time! What +could a girl do, all alone--groping in such a darkness? Better after +all lay the case before Mark's judgment, Mark's tenderness, and trust +him with it all. Trust her own power too--see what a girl could do with +the man who loved her! + +The car stopped at the Abbey door, and Winnington, still absolutely +silent, helped her to alight. She led the way, past the drawing-room +where Lady Tonbridge sat rather anxiously expecting her, to that bare +room on the ground floor, the little gun-room, which Gertrude Marvell +had made her office, and where many signs of her occupation still +remained--a calendar on the wall marking the "glorious" dates of the +League--a flashlight photograph of the first raid on Parliament some +years before--a faded badge, and scattered piles of newspapers. A +couple of deal tables and two chairs were all the furniture the room +contained, in addition to the cupboards, painted in stone-colour, which +covered the walls. + +Delia closed the door, and threw off her furs. Then, with a gesture of +complete abandonment, she went up to Winnington, holding out her +hands-- + +"Oh, Mark, Mark, I want you to help me!" + +He took her hands, but without pressing them. His face, frowning and +flushed, with a little quivering of the nostrils, began to terrify +her-- + +"Oh, Mark,--dear Mr. Mark--I went to see Mr. Lathrop--because--because +I was in great trouble--and I thought he could help me." + +He dropped the hands. + +"You went to _him_--instead of to me? How long have you been with him? +Did you write to him to arrange it?" + +"No, no--we met by accident. Mark, it's not myself--it's a fear I +have--a dreadful, dreadful fear!" + +She came close to him, piteously, just murmuring-- + +"It's Monk Lawrence!--and Gertrude!" + +He started, and looked at her keenly-- + +"You know something I don't know?" + +"Oh yes, I do, I do!" she said, wringing her hands. "I ought to have +told you long ago. But I've been afraid of what you might do--I've been +afraid for Gertrude. Can't you see, Mark? I've been trying to make Mr. +Lathrop keep watch--enquire--so that they wouldn't dare. I've told +Gertrude that I know--I've written to people--I've done all I could. +And this afternoon I felt I must go there and see for myself, what +precautions had been taken--and I met Mr. Lathrop--" + +She gave a rapid account of their visit to the house,--of its complete +desertion--of the strange behaviour of the niece--and of the growing +alarm in her own mind. + +"There's something--there's some plot. Perhaps that woman's in it. +Perhaps Gertrude's got hold of her--or Miss Andrews. Anyway, if that +house can be left quite alone--ever--they'll get at it--that I'm sure +of. Why did she take the children away? Wasn't that strange?" + +Then she put her hands on the heart that fluttered so--and tried to +smile-- + +"But of course till the Bill's thrown out, there can be no danger, can +there? There _can't_ be any!" she repeated, as though appealing to him +to reassure her. + +"I don't understand yet," he said gravely. "Why do you suspect Miss +Marvell, or a plot at all? There was no such idea in your mind when we +went over the house together?" + +"No, none!--or at least not seriously--there was nothing, really, to go +on"--she assured him eagerly. "But just after--you remember Mr. +Lathrop's coming--that day--?--when you scolded me?" + +He could not help smiling a little--rather bitterly. + +"I remember you said you couldn't explain. Of course I thought it was +something connected with Miss Marvell, or your Society--but--" + +"I'm going to explain"--she said, trying hard for composure. "I'm going +to tell it all in order." + +And sitting down, her head resting on her hand, with Winnington +standing before her, she told the whole story of the preceding +weeks--the alternations of fear and relief--Lathrop's +suspicions--Gertrude's denials--the last interview between them. + +As for the man looking down upon her beautiful bowed head, his heart +melted within him as he listened. The sting remained that she should +have asked anyone else than he to help her--above all that she should +have humbled herself to ask it of such a man as Lathrop. Anxiety +remained, for Monk Lawrence itself, and still more for what might be +said of her complicity. But all that was further implied in her +confession, her drooping sweetness, her passionate appeal to him--the +beauty of her true character, its innocence, its faith, its +loyalty--began to flood him with a feeling that presently burst its +bounds. + +She wound up with most touching entreaties to him, to save and shield +her friend--to go himself to Gertrude and warn her--to go to the +police--without disclosing names, of course--and insist that the house +should be constantly patrolled. + +He scarcely heard a word of this. When she paused--there was silence a +moment. Then she heard her name--very low-- + +"Delia!" + +She looked up, and with a long breath she rose, as though drawn +invisibly. He held out his arms, and she threw hers round his neck, +hiding her face against the life that beat for her. + +"Oh, forgive me!"--she murmured, after a little, childishly pressing +her lips to his--"forgive me--for everything!" + +The tears were in his eyes. + +"You've gone through all this!--alone!" he said to her, as he bent over +her. "But never again, Delia--never again!" + +She was the first to release herself--putting tears away. + +"Now then--what can we do?" + +He resumed at once his ordinary manner and voice. + +"We can do a great deal. I have the car here. I shall go straight back +to Monk Lawrence, and see Daunt to-night. That woman's behaviour must +be reported--and explained. An hour--an hour and a half?--since you +were there?"--he took out his watch--"He's probably home by now--it's +quite dark--he'd scarcely risk being away after dark. Dearest, go and +rest!--I shall come back later--after dinner. Put it out of your mind." + +She went towards the hall with him hand in hand. Suddenly there was a +confused sound of shouting outside. Lady Tonbridge opened the +drawing-room door with a scared face-- + +"What is it? There are people running up the drive. They're shouting +something!" + +Winnington rushed to the front door, Delia with him. With his first +glance at the hill-side, he understood the meaning of the cries--of the +crowd approaching. + +"My God!--_too late_!" + +For high on that wooded slope, a blaze was spreading to the skies--a +blaze that grew with every second--illuminating with its flare the +woods around it, the chimneys of the old house, the quiet stretches of +the hill. + +"Monk Lawrence is afire, Muster Winnington!" panted one of Winnington's +own labourers who had outstripped the rest. "They're asking for you to +come! They've telephoned to Latchford for the engines, and to +Brownmouth and Wanchester too. They say it's burning like tow--there +must be petrol in it, or summat. It's the women they say!--spite of Mr. +Daunt and the perlice!" + +Then he noticed Delia standing beside Winnington on the steps, and held +his tongue, scowling. + +Winnington's car was still standing at the steps. He set it going in a +moment. + +"My cloak!" said Delia, looking round her--"And tell them to bring the +car!" + +"Delia, you're not going?" cried Madeleine, throwing a restraining arm +about her. + +"But of course I am!" said the girl amazed. "Not with him--because I +should be in his way." + +Various persons ran to do her bidding. Winnington already in his place, +with a labourer beside him, and two more in the seat behind him, +beckoned to her. + +"Why should you come, dearest! It will only break your heart. We'll do +all that can be done, and I'll send back messages." + +She shook her head. + +"I shall come! But don't think of me. I won't run any risks." + +There was no time to argue with her. The little car sped away, and with +it the miscellaneous crowd who had rushed to find Winnington, as the +natural head of the Maumsey community, and the only magistrate within +reach. + +Delia and Madeleine were left standing on the steps, amid a group of +frightened and chattering servants--gazing in despairing rage at the +ever-spreading horror on the slope of the down, at the sudden leaps of +flame, the vast showers of sparks drifting over the woods, the red +glare on the low hanging clouds. The garnered beauty of four centuries, +one of England's noblest heirlooms, was going down in ruin, at the +bidding of a handful of women, hurling themselves in disappointed fury +on a community that would not give them their way. + +Sharp-toothed remorse had hold on Delia. If she had only gone to +Wilmington earlier! "My fault!--my fault!" + +When the car came quickly round, she and Lady Tonbridge got into it. As +they rushed through the roads, lit on their way by that blaze in the +heart of the hills, of which the roaring began to reach their ears, +Delia sat speechless, and death-like, reconstructing the past days and +hours. Not yet two hours since she had left the house--left it +untouched. At that very moment, Gertrude or Gertrude's agents must have +been within it. The whole thing had been a plot--the children taken +away--the house left deserted. Very likely Daunt's summons to his dying +son had been also part of it. And as to the niece--what more probable +than that Gertrude had laid hands on her months before, guided perhaps +by the local knowledge of Marion Andrews,--and had placed her as spy +and agent in the doomed house till the time should be ripe? The blind +and fanatical devotions which Gertrude was able to excite when she set +herself to it, was only too well known to Delia. + +Where was Gertrude herself? For Delia was certain that she had not +merely done this act by deputy. + +In the village, every person who had not gone rushing up the hill was +standing at the doors, pale and terror-stricken, watching the glare +overhead. The blinds of Miss Toogood's little house were drawn close. +And as Delia passed, angry looks and mutterings pursued her. + +The car mounted the hill. Suddenly a huge noise and hooting behind +them. They drew into the hedge, to let the Latchford fire-engine +thunder past, a fine new motor engine, just purchased and equipped. + +"There'll be three or four more directly, Miss"--shouted one of her +own garden lads, mounting on the step of the car. "But they say there's +no hope. It was fired in three places, and there was petrol used." + +At the gate, the police--looking askance especially at Miss +Blanchflower--would have turned them back. But Delia asked for +Winnington, and they were at last admitted into the circle outside the +courtyard, where beyond reach of the sparks, and falling fragments, the +crowd of spectators was gathered. People made way for her, but Lady +Tonbridge noticed that nobody spoke to her, though as soon as she +appeared all the angry or excited attention that the crowd could spare +from the fire was given to her. Delia was not aware of it. She stood a +little in front of the crowd, with her veil thrown back, her hands +clasped in front of her, an image of rapt despair. Her face, like all +the faces in the crowd, was made lurid--fantastic--by the glare of the +flames; and every now and then, as though unconsciously, she brushed +away the mist of tears from her eyes. + +"Aye she's sorry now!"--said a stout farmer, bitterly, to his +neighbour--"now that she's led them as is even younger than herself +into trouble. My girl's in prison all along of her--and that woman as +they do say is at the bottom of this business." + +The speaker was Kitty Foster's father. Kitty had just been sentenced to +six months' imprisonment for the burning of a cricket pavilion in the +Midlands, and her relations were sitting in shame and grief for her. + +"Whoever 'tis as did it 'ull have a job to get away"--said the man he +addressed. "They've got a lot o' police out. Where's 'Liza Daunt, I +say? They're searching for her everywhere. Daunt's just come upon the +engine from Latchford--saw the fire from the train. He says he's been +tricked--a put-up job he says. There wasn't nothing wrong with his son, +he says, when he got to Portsmouth. If they do catch 'em, the police +will have to guard 'em safe. It won't do to let the crowd get at 'em. +They're fair mad. Oh, Lord!--it's caught another roof!" + +And a groan rose from the fast-thickening multitude, as another wall +fell amid a shower of sparks and ashes, and the flames, licking up and +up, caught the high-pitched roof of the great hall, and ran along the +stone letters of the parapet, which spelt out the motto--"Except the +Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it." The fantastic +letters themselves, which had been lifted to their places before the +death of Shakespeare, seemed to dance in the flame like living and +tormented things. + +Meanwhile in the courtyard, and on the side lawns, scores of persons +were busy removing furniture, pictures and tapestries. Winnington was +leading and organising the rescue parties, now inside, now outside the +house. And near him, under his orders, worked Paul Lathrop, in his +shirt sleeves, superhumanly active, and superhumanly strong--grinding +his teeth with rage sometimes, as the fire defeated one effort after +another to check it. Daunt, also was there, pouring out incoherent +confidences to the police, and distracted by the growing certainty that +his niece had been one of the chief authors of the plot. His children +naturally had been his first thought. But the Rector, who had just been +round to enquire for them at Mrs. Cresson's cottage, came back +breathless, shouting "all safe!"--and Daunt rushed off to help the +firemen; while Amberley reported to Susy the pitiable misery of Lily, +the little cripple, who had been shrieking for her father in wild +outbursts of crying, refusing to believe that he was not in the fire. +Susy, who loved the child, would have gladly gone to find her, and take +her home to the Rectory for the night. But, impossible to leave her +post at Delia's side, and this blazing spectacle that held the +darkness! Two village women, said the Rector, were in charge of the +children. + +"No chance!" said Lathrop, bitterly, pausing for a moment beside +Winnington, while they both took breath--the sweat pouring from their +smoke-blackened faces. + +"If one could get to the top of that window with the big hose--one +could reach the roof better"--panted Winnington, pointing to the still +intact double oriel which ran up through two stories of the building, +to the east of the doorway. + +"I see!" Lathrop dashed away. And in a few seconds he and a fireman +could be seen climbing from a ladder upon a ledge, a carved +string-course, which connected the eastern and western oriels above the +main doorway. They crawled along the ledge like flies, clinging to +every projection, every stem of ivy, the fireman dragging the hose. + +The crowd watched, all eyes. Winnington, after a rapid look or two, +turned away with the thought--"That fellow's done some rock-climbing in +his day!" + +But against such a doom as had now gripped Monk Lawrence, nothing +availed. Lathrop and his companion had barely scaled the parapet of the +window when a huge central crash sent its resounding din circling round +the leafless woods, and the two climbing figures disappeared from view +amid a fresh rush of smoke and flame. + +The great western chimney-stack had fallen. When the cloud of smoke +drifted away, a gaping cavity of fire was seen just behind the two men; +it could only be a matter of minutes before the wall and roof +immediately behind them came down upon them. The firemen shouted to +them from below. A long ladder was brought and run up to within twenty +feet of them. Lathrop climbed down to it over the scorched face of the +oriel, his life in jeopardy at every step. Then steadying himself on +the ladder,--and grasping a projection in the wall, he called to the +man above, to drop upon his shoulders. It was done, by a miracle--and +both holding on, the man above by the projections of the wall and +Lathrop by the ladder, descended, till the two were within reach of +safety. + +A thin roar of cheers rose from the environing throng, scarcely audible +amid the greater roar of the flames. Lathrop, wearied, depressed, with +bleeding hands, came back to Winnington's side. Winnington looked +round. For the first time Lathrop saw through Mark's grey eyes the +generous heart within--unveiled. + +"Splendid! Are you hurt?" + +"Only scorched and scratched. Give me another job!" + +"Come along then." + +And thenceforward the two worked side by side, like brothers, in the +desperate attempt to save at least the Great Hall, and the beautiful +rooms adjoining; the Porch Room, with its Chatham memorials; the +library too, with its stores of seventeenth-century books, its busts, +and its portraits. But the flames rushed on and on, with a fiendish and +astounding rapidity. Fragments of news ran back to the onlookers. The +main staircase had been steeped in petrol--and sacks full of shavings +had been stored in the panelled spaces underneath it. Fire-lighters +heaped together had been found in the Red Parlour--to be dragged out by +the firemen--but again too late!--for the fire was already gnawing at +the room, like a wild prowling beast. A back staircase too had been +kindled with paraffin--the smell of it was everywhere. And thus urged, +a very demon of fire seemed to have seized on the beautiful place. +There was a will and a passion of destruction in the flames that +nothing could withstand. As the diamond-paned windows fell into +nothing-ness, the rooms behind shewed for a brief space; carved roofs, +stately fireplaces, gleaming for a last moment, before Time knew them +no more, and all that remained of them was the last vision of their +antique beauty, stamped on the aching memories of those who watched. + +"Why did you let her come!" said France vehemently in Lady Tonbridge's +ear, with his eyes on Delia. "It's enough to kill her. She must know +who's done it!" + +Lady Tonbridge shook her head despairingly, and both gazed, without +daring to speak to her, on the girl beside them. Madeleine had taken +one cold hand. France was torn with pity for her--but what comfort was +there to give! Her tears had dried. But there was something now in her +uncontrollable restlessness as she moved ghost-like along the front of +the spectators, pressing as near to the house as the police would +permit, scanning every patch of light or shadow, which suggested to +those who followed her, possession by some torturing fear--some terror +of worse still to come. + +Meanwhile the police were thinking not only of the house, but still +more of its destroyers. They had a large number of men on the spot, and +a quick-witted inspector in charge. It was evident from many traces +that the incendiaries had only left the place a very short time before +the outbreak of the fire; they could not be far away. Scouts were flung +out on all the roads; search parties were in all the woods; every +railway station had been warned. + +On the northern side, the famous Loggia, built by an Italianate owner +of the house, in the first half of the sixteenth century--a series of +open arches, with twisted marble pillars--ran along the house from +front to rear. It was approached on the south by a beautiful staircase, +of which the terra-cotta balustrading had been copied from a famous +villa on Como, and a similar staircase gave access to it from the +garden to the north. The fight for the Great Hall which the Loggia +adjoined, was being followed with agonised anxiety by the crowds. The +Red Parlour, with all its carvings and mouldings had gone, the porch +room was a furnace of fire, with black spars and beams hanging in +ragged ruin across it. The Great Hall seemed already tottering, and in +its fall, the Loggia too must go. + +Then, as every eye hung upon the work of the firemen and the play of +the water, into the still empty space of the Loggia, and illumined by +the glare of the flames, there emerged with quiet step, the figure of a +woman. She came forward: she stood with crossed arms looking at the +crowd. And at the same moment, behind her, there appeared the form of a +child, a little fair-haired girl, hobbling on a crutch, in desperate +haste, and wailing--"Father!" + +Delia saw them, and with one wild movement she was through the cordon +of police, and running for the house. + +Winnington, at the head of his salvage corps, perceived her, and ran +too. + +"Delia!--go back!--go back!" + +"Gertrude!" she said, gasping--and pointed to the Loggia. And he had +hardly looked where all the world was looking, when a part of the roof +of the Hall at the back, fell suddenly outwards and northwards, in a +blaze of flame. Charred rafters stood out, hanging in mid air, and the +flames leapt on triumphant. At the same moment, evidently startled by +some sound behind her, the woman turned, and saw what the crowd +saw--the child, limping on its crutch, coming towards her, calling +incoherently. + +Her own cry rang out, as she ran towards the cripple, waving her back. +And as she did so, came another thundering fall, another upward rush of +flame, as a fresh portion of the roof fell eastwards, covering the +Loggia and blotting out the figures of both woman and child. + +With difficulty the police kept back the mad rush of the crowd. The +firemen swarmed to the spot. + +But the child was buried deep under flaming ruin, where her father, +Daunt, who had rushed to save her, was only restrained by main force +from plunging after her, to his death. The woman they brought +out--alive. France, Delia and Winnington were beside her. + +"Stand back!" shouted the mild old Rector--transformed into a +prophet-figure, his white hair streaming--as the multitude swayed +against the cordon of police. "Stand back! all of you--and pray--for +this woman!" + +In a dead silence, men, shivering, took off their hats, and women +sobbed. + +"Gertrude!" Delia called, in her anguish, as she knelt beside the +charred frame, over which France who was kneeling on the other side had +thrown his coat. + +The dark eyes opened in the blackened face, the scorched lips unlocked. +A shudder ran through the dying frame. + +"The child!--the child!" + +And with that cry to heaven,--that protesting cry of an amazed and +conquered soul--Gertrude Marvell passed away. + + * * * * * + +Thus ended the First Act of Delia's life. When three weeks later, after +a marriage at which no one was present except the persons to be +married, Lady Tonbridge, and Dr. France, Winnington took his wife far +from these scenes to lands of summer and of rest, he carried with him a +Delia ineffaceably marked by this tragedy of her youth. Children, as +they come, will sometime re-kindle the natural joy in a face so lovely. +And till that time arrives Winnington's tenderness will be the +master-light of all her day. But there are sounds once heard that live +for ever in the mind. And in Delia's there will reverberate till death +that wail of a fierce and childless woman--that last cry of nature in +one who had defied nature--of womanhood in one who had renounced the +ways of womanhood: "_the child--the child_!" + +Not long after the destruction of Monk Lawrence and the marriage of +Delia, Paul Lathrop left the Maumsey neighbourhood. His debts had been +paid by some unknown friend or friends, and he fell back into London +literary life, where he maintained a precarious but--to himself--not +unpleasant existence. + +Miss Jackson, the science-mistress, went to Vancouver, married the +owner of a lumber camp, and so tamed her soul. Miss Toogood lived on, +rarely employed, and seldom going outside the tiny back parlour, with +its pictures of Winchester and Mr. Keble. But Lady Tonbridge and Delia +do their best to lighten the mild melancholy which grows upon her with +age; and a little red-haired niece who came to live with her, keeps her +old aunt's nerves alive and alert by various harmless vices--among them +an incorrigible interest in the Maumsey and Latchford youth. Marion +Andrews and Eliza Daunt disappeared together. They were not captured on +that terrible night when Gertrude Marvell, convinced that she could not +escape, and perhaps not much caring to escape, came back to look on the +ruin she had so long and carefully prepared, and perished in the heart +of it--not alone. + +But such desperate happenings as the destruction of Monk Lawrence, to +whatever particular calamities they may lead, are but a backward ripple +on the vast and ceaseless tide of human efforts towards a new and +nobler order. Delia must still wrestle all her life with the meaning of +that imperious call to women which this century has sounded; and of +those further stages, upwards and onwards, to which the human spirit, +in Man or Woman, is perennially urged by the revealing forces that +breathe through human destiny. Two days after the death of Gertrude +Marvell, the immediate cause on which she and her fellows had wrought +such havoc, went down in Parliament to long and bitter eclipse. But the +end is not yet. And for that riddle of the Sphinx to which Gertrude and +her fellows gave the answer of a futile violence, generations more +patient and more wise, will yet find the fitting key. + + THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Delia Blanchflower, by Mrs. Humphry Ward + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DELIA BLANCHFLOWER *** + +This file should be named 8dlbl10.txt or 8dlbl10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8dlbl11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8dlbl10a.txt + +Produced by Andrew Templeton, Juliet Sutherland, Charlie Kirschner +and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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