Delia Blanchflower

M >> Mrs. Humphry Ward >> Delia Blanchflower

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25

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?

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25