Delia Blanchflower

M >> Mrs. Humphry Ward >> Delia Blanchflower

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"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.

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