Delia Blanchflower

M >> Mrs. Humphry Ward >> Delia Blanchflower

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They hastened up the Monk Lawrence drive. The house stood still and
peaceful in the February afternoon. The rooks from the rookery behind
were swirling about and over the roofs, filling the air with monotonous
sound which only emphasized the silence below. A sheet of snowdrops lay
white in the courtyard, where a child's go-cart upset, held the very
middle of the stately approach to the house.

Delia went to the front door, and rang the bell--repeatedly. Not a
sound, except the dim echoes of the bell itself from some region far
inside.

"No good!" said Lathrop. "Now come to the back." They went round to the
low addition at the back of the house, where Daunt and his family had
now lived for many months. Here also there was nobody. The door was
locked. The blinds were drawn down. Impossible to see into the rooms,
and neither calling nor knocking produced any response.

Lathrop stood thinking.

"Absolutely against orders! I know--for Daunt himself told me--that he
had promised Lang never to leave the house without putting some deputy
he could trust in charge. He has gone and left no deputy--or the deputy
he did leave has deserted."

"What's the nearest house--or cottage?"

"The Gardeners' cottages, beyond the kitchen garden. Only one of them
occupied now, I believe. Daunt used to live there before he moved into
the house. Let's go there!"

They ran on. The walled kitchen garden was locked, but they found a way
round it to where three creeper-grown cottages stood in a pleasant
lonely space girdled by beech-woods. One only was inhabited, but from
that the smoke was going up, and a babble of children's voices emerged.

Lathrop knocked. There was a sudden sound, and then a silence within.
In a minute however the door was opened, and a strapping black-eyed
young woman stood on the threshold looking both sulky and astonished.

"Are you Daunt's niece?" said Lathrop.

"I am, Sir. What do you want with him?"

"Why isn't he at Monk Lawrence?" asked Lathrop roughly. "He told me
himself he was not to leave the house unguarded."

"Well, Sir, I don't know I'm sure what business it is of yours!" said
the woman, flushing with anger. "He got bad news of his son, whose ship
arrived at Portsmouth yesterday, and the young man said to be dying, on
board. So he went off this afternoon. I've only left it for ten minutes
and I'm going back directly. Mrs. Cresson here had asked the children
to tea, and I brought them over. And I'll thank you, Sir, not to go
spying on honest people!"

And she would have slammed the door in his face, but that Delia came
forward.

"We had no intention of spying upon you, Miss Daunt--indeed we hadn't.
But I am Miss Blanchflower, who came here before Christmas, with Mr.
Winnington, and I should have been glad to see Mr. Daunt and the
children. Lily!--don't you remember me?"--and she smiled at the
crippled child--a delicate blue-eyed creature--whom she saw in the
background.

But the child, who seemed to have been crying violently, did not come
forward. And the other two, who had their fingers in their mouths, were
equally silent and shrinking. In the distance an old woman sat
motionless in her chair by the fire, taking no notice apparently of
what was going on.

The young woman appeared for a moment confused or excited.

"Well, I'm sorry, Miss, but my Uncle won't be back till after dark. And
I wouldn't advise you to come in, Miss,"--she hurriedly drew the door
close behind her--"the doctor thinks two of the children have got
whooping-cough--and I didn't send them to school today."

"Well, just understand, Miss Daunt, if that's your name," said Lathrop,
with emphasis--"that till you return to the house, we shall stay there.
We shall walk up and down there, till you come back. You know well
enough there are people about, who would gladly do an injury to the
house, and that it's not safe to leave it. Monk Lawrence is not Sir
Wilfrid Lang's property only. It belongs to the whole nation, and there
are plenty of people that'll know the reason why, if any harm comes to
it."

"Oh, very well. Have it your own way, Sir! I'll come--I'll come--fast
enough," and the speaker, with a curious half-mocking look at Lathrop,
flounced back into the cottage, and shut the door. They waited. There
were sounds of lowered voices, and crying children. Then Miss Daunt
emerged defiantly, and they all three walked back to Monk Lawrence.

The keeper's niece unlocked the door leading to Daunt's rooms. But she
stood sulkily in the entry.

"Now I hope you're satisfied, Sir. I don't know, I'm sure, why you
should come meddling in other people's affairs. And I daresay you'll
say something against me to my uncle!"

"Well, anyway, you keep watch!" was the stern reply. "I take my rounds
often this way, as your Uncle knows. I daresay I shall be by here again
tonight. Can the children find their way home alone?"

"Well, they're not idiots, Sir! Good-night to you. I've got to get
supper." And brusquely shutting the door in their faces, she went
inside. They perceived immediately afterwards that she had lit a light
in the kitchen.

"Well, so far, all right," said Lathrop, as he and Delia withdrew. "But
the whole thing's rather--queer. You know that old woman, Mrs.
Cresson, is not all there, and quite helpless?"

He pondered it as they walked back through the wood, his eyes on the
ground. Delia shared his undefined anxiety. She suggested that he
should go back to the house in an hour or so, to see if Daunt had
returned, and complain of his niece's breach of rules. Lathrop agreed.

"How do we know who or what that girl is?"--he said slowly--"that she
mayn't have been got hold of?"

The same terror grew in Delia. She walked on beside him absorbed in
speculation and discussion, till, without noticing, she had reached the
farther gate of the wood-walk. Outside the gate, ran the Wanchester
road, climbing the down, amid the woods. To reach the field path
leading to the Abbey, Delia must cross it.

She and Lathrop emerged from the wood still talking in low voices, and
stood beside the gate. A small car, with one man driving it, was
descending the long hill. But Delia had her back to it.

It came nearer. She turned, and saw Winnington approaching her--saw the
look on his face. For a moment she wavered. Then with a bow and a hasty
"Good Evening," she left Lathrop, and stepped into the road, holding up
her hand to stop the car.

"How lucky!" she said, clearly, and gaily,--"just as it's going to
rain! Will you take me home?"

Winnington, without a word, made room for her beside him. The two men
exchanged a slight greeting--and the car passed.

Lathrop walked quickly back in the direction of Monk Lawrence. His
vanity was hugely pleased.

"By George!--that was one to me! It's quite evident she hasn't taken
him into her confidence--doesn't want magistrates interfering--no
doubt. And meanwhile she appeals to _me_--she depends on _me_. Whatever
happens--she'll have to be grateful to me. That fellow with his
wry face can't stop it. What a vision she made just now under the
wood--'belle dame sans merci!'--hating my company--and yet compelled
to it. It would make a sonnet I think--I'll try it tonight."

* * * * *

Meanwhile in the dark corridors of Monk Lawrence a woman groping, met
another woman. The two dim figures exchanged some whispered words. Then
one of them returned to the back regions.

Lathrop, passing by, noticed smoke rising from the Daunts' chimney, and
was reassured. But in an hour or so he would return to look for Daunt
himself.

He had no sooner descended the hill to his own cottage, in the fast
gathering dusk, than Eliza Daunt emerged. She left the light burning in
the keeper's kitchen, and some cold supper on the table. Then with a
laugh which was half a sob of excitement she ran down the path leading
to the garden cottages.

She was met by a clamour of rebellious children, as she opened Mrs.
Cresson's door. "Where's Daddy, Liza?--where's Daddy! Why can't we go
home! We want our Daddy!"

"Hold your noise!" said Eliza roughly--"or it'll be the worse for
you--Daddy won't be home for a couple of hours yet, and I promised Fred
Cresson, I'd get Mrs. Cresson's tea for her. Lily, stop crying--and
get the tray!"

The crippled child, red-eyed, unwillingly obeyed. Neither she nor her
sisters could understand why they had been brought over to tea with
Mrs. Cresson of whose queer half-imbecile ways they were all terrified.
Their father had gone off in a great hurry--because of the telegram
which had come. And Fred had bicycled down to Latchford to see somebody
about a gardener's place. And now there was no one left but Liza and
Mrs. Cresson--of whom, for different reasons, the three little girls
were equally afraid. And Lily's heart especially was sore for her
father. She knew very well they were all doing what was forbidden. But
she dared not complain. They had found Cousin 'Liza a hard woman.

After Eliza Daunt had left Daunt's kitchen, for the space of half an
hour, a deep and brooding quiet settled on Monk Lawrence. The old house
held that in its womb, which must soon crash to light; but for this
last brief space, all was peace. The twilight of a clear February
evening mellowed the grey walls, and the moss-grown roofs; the house
spoke its last message--its murmured story, as the long yoke-fellow of
human life--to the tranquil air; and the pigeons crooned about it,
little knowing.

Presently from the same door which had seen Eliza Daunt depart, a woman
cautiously emerged. She was in dark clothes, closely veiled. With
noiseless step, she passed round the back of the house, pausing a
moment to look at the side door on the north side which had been lately
strengthened by Sir Wilfrid's orders. Then she gained the shelter of
the close-grown shrubbery, and turning round she stood a few seconds
motionless, gazing at the house. In spite of her quiet movements, she
was trembling from head to foot--with excitement, not fear.

"It's beautiful," she was saying to herself--"and precious--and I've
destroyed it." Then--with a fierce leap in the blood--"_Beauty_! And
what about the beauty that men destroy? Let them _pay_!"

But as she stood there a sudden disabling storm of
thought--misgiving--argument--swept through her brain. She seemed to
hear on all sides voices in the air--the voices of friends and foes, of
applause and execration--Delia's voice among them! And at the mere
imagination of it, a shiver of anger ran through her. She thought of
Delia now, only as of one who had deserted and disobeyed.

But with the illusion of the ear, there came also an illusion of
vision. The months of her recent life rose before her, in one hurrying
spectacle of scenes and faces, and the spectacle aroused in her but one
idea--one sickening impression--of crushing and superhuman effort. What
labour!--what toil! She shuddered under it. Then, suddenly, her mind
ran back to the early years before, beyond, the days of "war"--sordid,
unceasing war--when there had been time to love, to weep, to pity, to
enjoy; before wrath breeding wrath, and violence begetting violence,
had driven out the Spirits of Tenderness and Hope. She seemed to see,
to feel them--the sad Exiles!--fleeing along desert ways; and her
bitter heart cried out to them--for the only--the last time. For in the
great names of Love and Justice, she had let Hate loose within her, and
like the lion-cub nurtured in the house, it had grown to be the soul's
master and gaoler; a "doom" holding the citadels of life, and working
itself out to the appointed end.

But the tumult in which she stood began to unnerve her. By a last
exercise of will she was able to pull herself together.

Rapidly, as one well used to them, she made her way through the
shrubbery paths; round the walled garden, and behind the gardeners'
cottages. She heard the children in Mrs. Cresson's cottage as she
passed, Lily still fretfully crying, and the old woman's voice
scolding. Poor children!--they would be horribly frightened--but
nothing worse.

The thick overgrown wood of fir and beech behind the cottages received
her, swallowed up the slight insignificant form. In the wood there was
still light enough to let her grope her way along the path, till at the
end, against an opening to the sky, she saw the outlines of a keeper's
hut. Then she knew that she was worn out, and must rest. She pushed the
door ajar, and sat crouching on the threshold, while the schemes and
plottings of the preceding weeks ran disjointedly through memory.

Marion was safe by now--she had had an hour's start. And Eliza too had
gone. Nothing could be better than the arrangements made for those two.

But she herself was not going--not yet. Her limbs failed her; and
beyond the sheltering woods, she seemed to become electrically aware of
hostile persons, of nets drawn round her, cutting off escape. As to
that, she felt the most supreme indifference to what might happen to
her. The indifference, indeed, passed presently into a strange and
stinging temptation to go back--back to the dark house--to see with
her own eyes what her hands had done. She resisted it with
difficulty.... Suddenly, a sound from the distance--beyond the
cottages--as of a slight explosion. She started, and throwing back her
veil, she sat motionless in the doorway of the hut, her face making a
dim white patch upon the darkness.

Chapter XX

"Take me home!--take me home quick! I want to talk to you. Not
now--not here!"

The car flew along. Mark barely looked at Delia. His face was set and
pale. As for her, while they ran through the village and along the
country road between it and Maumsey, her mind had time to adjust itself
to that flashing resolution which had broken down a hundred scruples
and swept away a hundred fears, in that moment on the hill when she had
met his eyes, and the look in them. What must he think of her? An
assignation with that man, on the very first afternoon when his tender
watchfulness left her for an hour! No, it could not be borne that he
should read her so! She must clear herself! And thought, leaping
beacon-like from point to point told her, at last, that for Gertrude
too, she had chosen wrongly. Thank Heaven, there was still time! What
could a girl do, all alone--groping in such a darkness? Better after
all lay the case before Mark's judgment, Mark's tenderness, and trust
him with it all. Trust her own power too--see what a girl could do with
the man who loved her!

The car stopped at the Abbey door, and Winnington, still absolutely
silent, helped her to alight. She led the way, past the drawing-room
where Lady Tonbridge sat rather anxiously expecting her, to that bare
room on the ground floor, the little gun-room, which Gertrude Marvell
had made her office, and where many signs of her occupation still
remained--a calendar on the wall marking the "glorious" dates of the
League--a flashlight photograph of the first raid on Parliament some
years before--a faded badge, and scattered piles of newspapers. A
couple of deal tables and two chairs were all the furniture the room
contained, in addition to the cupboards, painted in stone-colour, which
covered the walls.

Delia closed the door, and threw off her furs. Then, with a gesture of
complete abandonment, she went up to Winnington, holding out her
hands--

"Oh, Mark, Mark, I want you to help me!"

He took her hands, but without pressing them. His face, frowning and
flushed, with a little quivering of the nostrils, began to terrify
her--

"Oh, Mark,--dear Mr. Mark--I went to see Mr. Lathrop--because--because
I was in great trouble--and I thought he could help me."

He dropped the hands.

"You went to _him_--instead of to me? How long have you been with him?
Did you write to him to arrange it?"

"No, no--we met by accident. Mark, it's not myself--it's a fear I
have--a dreadful, dreadful fear!"

She came close to him, piteously, just murmuring--

"It's Monk Lawrence!--and Gertrude!"

He started, and looked at her keenly--

"You know something I don't know?"

"Oh yes, I do, I do!" she said, wringing her hands. "I ought to have
told you long ago. But I've been afraid of what you might do--I've been
afraid for Gertrude. Can't you see, Mark? I've been trying to make Mr.
Lathrop keep watch--enquire--so that they wouldn't dare. I've told
Gertrude that I know--I've written to people--I've done all I could.
And this afternoon I felt I must go there and see for myself, what
precautions had been taken--and I met Mr. Lathrop--"

She gave a rapid account of their visit to the house,--of its complete
desertion--of the strange behaviour of the niece--and of the growing
alarm in her own mind.

"There's something--there's some plot. Perhaps that woman's in it.
Perhaps Gertrude's got hold of her--or Miss Andrews. Anyway, if that
house can be left quite alone--ever--they'll get at it--that I'm sure
of. Why did she take the children away? Wasn't that strange?"

Then she put her hands on the heart that fluttered so--and tried to
smile--

"But of course till the Bill's thrown out, there can be no danger, can
there? There _can't_ be any!" she repeated, as though appealing to him
to reassure her.

"I don't understand yet," he said gravely. "Why do you suspect Miss
Marvell, or a plot at all? There was no such idea in your mind when we
went over the house together?"

"No, none!--or at least not seriously--there was nothing, really, to go
on"--she assured him eagerly. "But just after--you remember Mr.
Lathrop's coming--that day--?--when you scolded me?"

He could not help smiling a little--rather bitterly.

"I remember you said you couldn't explain. Of course I thought it was
something connected with Miss Marvell, or your Society--but--"

"I'm going to explain"--she said, trying hard for composure. "I'm going
to tell it all in order."

And sitting down, her head resting on her hand, with Winnington
standing before her, she told the whole story of the preceding
weeks--the alternations of fear and relief--Lathrop's
suspicions--Gertrude's denials--the last interview between them.

As for the man looking down upon her beautiful bowed head, his heart
melted within him as he listened. The sting remained that she should
have asked anyone else than he to help her--above all that she should
have humbled herself to ask it of such a man as Lathrop. Anxiety
remained, for Monk Lawrence itself, and still more for what might be
said of her complicity. But all that was further implied in her
confession, her drooping sweetness, her passionate appeal to him--the
beauty of her true character, its innocence, its faith, its
loyalty--began to flood him with a feeling that presently burst its
bounds.

She wound up with most touching entreaties to him, to save and shield
her friend--to go himself to Gertrude and warn her--to go to the
police--without disclosing names, of course--and insist that the house
should be constantly patrolled.

He scarcely heard a word of this. When she paused--there was silence a
moment. Then she heard her name--very low--

"Delia!"

She looked up, and with a long breath she rose, as though drawn
invisibly. He held out his arms, and she threw hers round his neck,
hiding her face against the life that beat for her.

"Oh, forgive me!"--she murmured, after a little, childishly pressing
her lips to his--"forgive me--for everything!"

The tears were in his eyes.

"You've gone through all this!--alone!" he said to her, as he bent over
her. "But never again, Delia--never again!"

She was the first to release herself--putting tears away.

"Now then--what can we do?"

He resumed at once his ordinary manner and voice.

"We can do a great deal. I have the car here. I shall go straight back
to Monk Lawrence, and see Daunt to-night. That woman's behaviour must
be reported--and explained. An hour--an hour and a half?--since you
were there?"--he took out his watch--"He's probably home by now--it's
quite dark--he'd scarcely risk being away after dark. Dearest, go and
rest!--I shall come back later--after dinner. Put it out of your mind."

She went towards the hall with him hand in hand. Suddenly there was a
confused sound of shouting outside. Lady Tonbridge opened the
drawing-room door with a scared face--

"What is it? There are people running up the drive. They're shouting
something!"

Winnington rushed to the front door, Delia with him. With his first
glance at the hill-side, he understood the meaning of the cries--of the
crowd approaching.

"My God!--_too late_!"

For high on that wooded slope, a blaze was spreading to the skies--a
blaze that grew with every second--illuminating with its flare the
woods around it, the chimneys of the old house, the quiet stretches of
the hill.

"Monk Lawrence is afire, Muster Winnington!" panted one of Winnington's
own labourers who had outstripped the rest. "They're asking for you to
come! They've telephoned to Latchford for the engines, and to
Brownmouth and Wanchester too. They say it's burning like tow--there
must be petrol in it, or summat. It's the women they say!--spite of Mr.
Daunt and the perlice!"

Then he noticed Delia standing beside Winnington on the steps, and held
his tongue, scowling.

Winnington's car was still standing at the steps. He set it going in a
moment.

"My cloak!" said Delia, looking round her--"And tell them to bring the
car!"

"Delia, you're not going?" cried Madeleine, throwing a restraining arm
about her.

"But of course I am!" said the girl amazed. "Not with him--because I
should be in his way."

Various persons ran to do her bidding. Winnington already in his place,
with a labourer beside him, and two more in the seat behind him,
beckoned to her.

"Why should you come, dearest! It will only break your heart. We'll do
all that can be done, and I'll send back messages."

She shook her head.

"I shall come! But don't think of me. I won't run any risks."

There was no time to argue with her. The little car sped away, and with
it the miscellaneous crowd who had rushed to find Winnington, as the
natural head of the Maumsey community, and the only magistrate within
reach.

Delia and Madeleine were left standing on the steps, amid a group of
frightened and chattering servants--gazing in despairing rage at the
ever-spreading horror on the slope of the down, at the sudden leaps of
flame, the vast showers of sparks drifting over the woods, the red
glare on the low hanging clouds. The garnered beauty of four centuries,
one of England's noblest heirlooms, was going down in ruin, at the
bidding of a handful of women, hurling themselves in disappointed fury
on a community that would not give them their way.

Sharp-toothed remorse had hold on Delia. If she had only gone to
Wilmington earlier! "My fault!--my fault!"

When the car came quickly round, she and Lady Tonbridge got into it. As
they rushed through the roads, lit on their way by that blaze in the
heart of the hills, of which the roaring began to reach their ears,
Delia sat speechless, and death-like, reconstructing the past days and
hours. Not yet two hours since she had left the house--left it
untouched. At that very moment, Gertrude or Gertrude's agents must have
been within it. The whole thing had been a plot--the children taken
away--the house left deserted. Very likely Daunt's summons to his dying
son had been also part of it. And as to the niece--what more probable
than that Gertrude had laid hands on her months before, guided perhaps
by the local knowledge of Marion Andrews,--and had placed her as spy
and agent in the doomed house till the time should be ripe? The blind
and fanatical devotions which Gertrude was able to excite when she set
herself to it, was only too well known to Delia.

Where was Gertrude herself? For Delia was certain that she had not
merely done this act by deputy.

In the village, every person who had not gone rushing up the hill was
standing at the doors, pale and terror-stricken, watching the glare
overhead. The blinds of Miss Toogood's little house were drawn close.
And as Delia passed, angry looks and mutterings pursued her.

The car mounted the hill. Suddenly a huge noise and hooting behind
them. They drew into the hedge, to let the Latchford fire-engine
thunder past, a fine new motor engine, just purchased and equipped.

"There'll be three or four more directly, Miss"--shouted one of her
own garden lads, mounting on the step of the car. "But they say there's
no hope. It was fired in three places, and there was petrol used."

At the gate, the police--looking askance especially at Miss
Blanchflower--would have turned them back. But Delia asked for
Winnington, and they were at last admitted into the circle outside the
courtyard, where beyond reach of the sparks, and falling fragments, the
crowd of spectators was gathered. People made way for her, but Lady
Tonbridge noticed that nobody spoke to her, though as soon as she
appeared all the angry or excited attention that the crowd could spare
from the fire was given to her. Delia was not aware of it. She stood a
little in front of the crowd, with her veil thrown back, her hands
clasped in front of her, an image of rapt despair. Her face, like all
the faces in the crowd, was made lurid--fantastic--by the glare of the
flames; and every now and then, as though unconsciously, she brushed
away the mist of tears from her eyes.

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