Delia Blanchflower by Mrs. Humphry Ward (top 10 most read books in the world TXT) 📖

height, and her prophetess air.

"I can't help shocking you, Mr. Winnington. I don't accept what you say. I don't believe that covering up horrible things makes them less horrible. I want to stand by that girl. It is cruel to separate her from her old father!"

Winnington looked at her in distress and embarrassment.

"The story is not what you think it," he said earnestly. "But it is really not fit for your ears. I have given great thought and much time to it, yesterday and to-day. The girl--who is mentally deficient--will be sent to a home and cared for. The father sees now that it is the best. Please trust it to me."

"Why mayn't I know the facts!" persisted Delia, paler than before.

A flash of some quick feeling passed through Winnington's eyes.

"Why should you? Leave us older folk, dear Miss Delia, to deal with these sorrowful things."

Indignation blazed up in her.

"It is for women to help women," she said, passionately. "It is no good treating us who are grown up--even if we are young--like children any more. We intend to _know_--that we may protect--and save."

"I assure you," said Winnington gravely, "that this poor girl shall have every care--every kindness. So there is really no need for you to know. Please spare yourself--and me!"

He had come to stand by her, looking down upon her. She lifted her eyes to his unwillingly, and as she caught his smile she was invaded by a sudden consciousness of his strong magnetic presence. The power in the grey eyes, and in the brow over-hanging them, the kind sincerity mingled with the power, and the friendliness that breathed from his whole attitude and expression, disarmed her. She felt herself for a moment--and for the first time--young and ignorant,--and that Winnington was ready to be in the true and not merely in the legal sense, her "guardian," if she would only let him.

But the moment of weakening was soon over. Her mind chafed and twisted. Why had he undertaken it--a complete stranger to her! It was most embarrassing--detestable--for them both!

And there suddenly darted through her memory the recollection of a certain item in her father's will. Under it Mr. Winnington received a sum of L4,000 out of her father's estate, "in consideration of our old friendship, and of the trouble I am asking him to undertake in connection with my estates,"--or words to that effect.

Somehow, she had never yet paid much attention to that clause in the will. It occurred in a list of a good many other legacies, and had been passed over by the lawyers in explaining the will to her, as something entirely in the natural course of things. But the poisonous thought suggested itself--"It was that which bribed him!--he would have given it up, but for that!" He might not want it for himself--very possibly!--but for his charities, his Cripple School and the rest. Her face stiffened.

"If you have arranged with her father, of course I can't interfere," she said coldly. "But don't imagine, please, Mr. Winnington, for one moment, that I accept your view of the things I 'needn't know.' If I am to do my duty to the people on this estate--"

"I thought you weren't going to live on the estate?" he said, lifting his eyebrows.

"Not at once--not this winter." She was annoyed to feel herself stammering. "But of course I have a responsibility--"

The kindly laugh in his grey eyes faded.

"Yes--I quite admit that,--a great responsibility," he said slowly. "Do you mind if I mention another subject?"

"The meetings?" she said, quickly. "You mean that?"

"Yes--the meetings. I have just seen the placard in the village."

"Well?" Her loveliness in defiance dazzled him, but he held on stoutly.

"You said nothing to me about these meetings the other day."

"You never asked me!"

He paused a moment.

"No--but was it quite--quite fair to me--to let me suppose that the drawing-room meeting at Maumsey, which you kindly gave up, was the only meeting you had in view?"

He saw her breath fluttering.

"I don't know what you supposed, Mr. Winnington! I said nothing."

"No. But you let me draw an inference--a mistaken inference. However--let that be. Can I not persuade you--now--to give up the Latchford meeting, and any others of the same kind you may have ahead?"

She flamed at him.

"I refuse to give them up!" she said, setting her teeth. "I have as much right to my views as you, Mr. Winnington! I am of full age, and I intend to work for them."

"Setting fire to houses--which is what your society is advocating--and doing--hardly counts as 'views,'" he said, with sudden sternness. "Risking the lives, or spoiling the property of one's fellow countrymen, is not the same thing as political argument."

"It's _our_ argument--" she said passionately.--"The men who are denying us the vote understand nothing else!"

The slightest humorous quiver in Winnington's strong mouth enraged her still further. But he spoke with most courteous gravity.

"Then I can't persuade you to give up these meetings? I should of course make no objection whatever, if these were ordinary Suffrage meetings. But the Society you are going to represent and collect money for is a Society that exists _to break the law_. And its members have--just lately--come conspicuously into collision with the law. Your father would have protested, and I am bound to protest--in his name."

"I cannot give them up."

He was silent a moment.

"If that is so"--he said at last--"I must do my best to protect you."

"I don't want any protection!"

"I am a magistrate, as well as your guardian. You must allow me to judge. There is a very bitter feeling abroad, after these--outrages--of the last few days. The village where you are going to speak has some rowdy elements--drawn from the brickfields near it. You will certainly want protection. I shall see that you get it."

He spoke with decision. Delia bit her lip.

"We prefer to risk our lives," she said at last. "I mean--there isn't any risk!--but if there were--our lives are nothing in comparison with the cause!"

"You won't expect your friends to agree with you," he said drily; then, still holding her with an even keener look, he added--

"And there is another point in connection with these meetings which distresses me. I see that you are speaking on the same platform--with Mr. Paul Lathrop--"

"And why not?"--she flashed, the colour rushing to her cheeks.

He paused, walked away with his hands in his pockets, and came back again.

"I have been making some enquiries about him. He is not a man with whom you ought to associate--either in public, or in private."

She gave a sound--half scorn--half indignation which startled him.

"You mean--because of the divorce case?"

He looked at her amazed.

"That is what I meant. But--I certainly do not wish to discuss it with you. Will you not take it from me that Mr. Lathrop is not--cannot be--a man whom as a young unmarried woman you ought to receive in your house--or with whom you should be seen in public."

"No, indeed I won't take it from you!" she said passionately. "Miss Marvell knows--Miss Marvell told me. He ran away with some one he loved. Her husband was _vile_! But she couldn't get any help--because of the law--the abominable law--which punishes women--and lets men go free. So they went away together, and after a little she died. Alter your law, Mr. Winnington!--make it equal for men and women--and then we'll talk."

As she spoke--childishly, defiant--Winnington's mind was filled with a confusion of clashing thoughts--the ideals of his own first youth which made such a speech in the mouth of a girl of twenty-one almost intolerable to him--and the moral conditions--slowly gained--of his maturity. He agreed with what she said. And yet it was shocking to him to hear her say it.

"I don't quarrel with you as to that," he said, gravely, after a moment. "Though I confess that in my belief you are too young to have any real opinion about it. But there was much in the case which concerned Mr. Lathrop, of which you _can_ have no idea. I repeat--he is not a fit companion for you--and you do yourself harm by appearing with him--in public or private."

"Miss Marvell approves"--said Delia obstinately.

Winnington's look grew sterner.

"I appeal again to your father's memory," he said with energy.

He perceived her quickened breath, but she made no no reply.

He walked away from her, and stood looking out of the window for a little. When he came back to her, it was with a change of manner and subject.

"I should like you to understand that I have been doing all I _could_ to carry out your wishes with regard to the cottages."

He drew a paper out of his pocket, on which he had made some notes representing his talk that morning with the agent of the Maumsey estates. But in her suppressed excitement she hardly listened to him.

"It isn't exactly _business_, what we've done," he said at last, as he put up the papers; "but we wanted you to have your way--about the old woman--and the family of children." He smiled at her. "And the estate can afford it."

Delia thanked him ungraciously. She felt like a child who is offered sixpence for being good at the dentist's. It was his whole position towards her--his whole control and authority--that she resented. And to be forced to be grateful to him at the same time, compelled to recognise the anxious pains he had taken to please her in nine-tenths of the things she wanted, was really odious: she could only chafe under it.

He took her back to the drawing-room. Delia walked before him in silence. She was passionately angry; and yet beneath the stormy currents of the upper mind, there were other feelings, intermittently active. It was impossible to hate him!--impossible to help liking him. His frankness and courtesy, his delicacy of feeling and touch forced themselves on her notice. "I daresay!"--she said; "--but that's the worst of it. If Papa hadn't done this fatal, _foolish_ thing, of course we should have made friends!"

* * * * *

The Amberleys walked home together when the party dispersed. Mrs. Amberley opened the discussion on the newcomers.

"She is certainly handsome, but rather bold-looking. Didn't you think so, father?"

"I wasn't drawn to her. But she took no account of us," said the Rector, with his usual despondent candour. In truth he was not thinking about Miss Blanchflower, but only about the possible departure of his daughter, Susy.

"I thought her beautiful!--but I'm sorry for Mr. Winnington!" exclaimed Susy, a red spot of excitement or indignation in each delicate cheek.

"Mrs. Matheson told me they will only do exactly what they wish--that they won't take her brother's advice. Very wrong, very wrong." The Rector shook his grey head. "Young women were different in my youth."

Mrs. Amberley sighed, and Susy biting her lip, knew that her own conduct was perhaps more in question than Miss Blanchflower's.

They reached home in silence. Susy went to light her father's candles in his modest book-littered study. Then she put her mother on the sofa in the