Delia Blanchflower

M >> Mrs. Humphry Ward >> Delia Blanchflower

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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.

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