Delia Blanchflower

M >> Mrs. Humphry Ward >> Delia Blanchflower

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"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."

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