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

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Gertrude had gone away to her own sitting-room and Delia was left alone. She hung over the fire, in an excited reverie, her pulses rushing; and presently she took a letter from the handbag on her wrist, and read it for the second time by the light of the blaze she had kindled in the grate.

* * * * *

"I will be at the Rose and Crown at least half an hour before the meeting. We have got a capital waggon for you to speak from, and chosen the place where it is to stand. I am afraid we may have some rough customers to deal with. But the police have been strongly warned--that I have found out--though I don't know by whom--and there will be plenty of them. My one regret is that I cannot be in the crowd, so as both to see and hear you. I must of course stick to the waggon. What a day for us all down here!--for our little down-trodden band! You come to us as our Joan of Arc, leading us on a holy war. You shame us into action, and to fight with you is itself victory. When I think of how you looked and how you talked the other night! Do you know that you have a face 'to launch a thousand ships?' No, I am convinced you never think of it--you never take your own beauty into consideration. And you won't imagine that I am talking in this way from any of the usual motives. Your personal charm, if I may say so, is merely an item in our balance sheet; your money--I understand you have money--is another. You bring your beauty and your money in your hand, and throw them into the great conflagration of the Cause--just as the women did in Savonarola's day. You fling them away--if need be--for an idea. And because of it, all the lovers of ideas, and all the dreamers of great dreams will be your slaves and servants. Understand!--you are going to be loved and followed, as no ordinary woman, even with your beauty, is ever loved and followed. Your footsteps may be on the rocks and flints--I promise you no easy, nor royal road. There may be blood on the path! But a cloud of witnesses will be all about you--some living and some dead; you will be carried in the hearts of innumerable men and women--women above all; and if you stand firm, if your soul rises to the height of your call, you will be worshipped, as the saints were worshipped.

"Only let nothing bar your path. Winnington is a good fellow, but a thickheaded Philistine all the same. You spoke to me about him with compunction. Have no compunctions. Go straight forward. Women have got to shew themselves ruthless, and hard, and cunning, like men--if they are to fight men."

"Yours faithfully, PAUL LATHROP."

Delia's thoughts danced and flamed, like the pile of blazing wood before her. What a singular being was this Paul Lathrop! He had paid them four or five visits already; and they had taken tea with him once in his queer hermitage under the southern slope of the Monk Lawrence hill--a one-storey thatched cottage, mostly built by Lathrop himself with the help of two labourers, standing amid a network of ponds, stocked with trout in all stages. Inside, the roughly-plastered walls were lined with books--chiefly modern poets, with French and Russian novels, and with unframed sketches by some of the ultra clever fellows, who often, it seemed, would come down to spend Sunday with Lathrop, and talk and smoke till dawn put out the lights.

She found him interesting--certainly interesting. His outer man--heavy mouth and lantern cheeks--dreamy blue eyes, and fair hair--together with the clumsy power in his form and gait, were not without a certain curious attraction. And his story--as Gertrude Marvell told it--would be forgiven by the romantic. All the same his letter had offended Delia greatly. She had given him no encouragement to write in such a tone--so fervid, so emotional, so intimate; and she would shew him--plainly--that it offended her.

Nevertheless the phrases of the letter ran in her mind; until her discomfort and resentment were lost in something else.

She could not quiet her conscience about that cheque! Not indeed as to giving it to the "Daughters." She would have given everything she possessed to them, keeping the merest pittance for herself, if fate and domestic tyranny had allowed. No!--but it hurt her--unreasonably, foolishly hurt her--that she must prepare herself again to face the look of troubled amazement in Mark Winnington's eyes, without being able to justify herself to herself, so convincingly as she would have liked to do.

"I am simply giving my own money to a cause I adore!" said one voice in the mind.

"It is not legally yours--it is legally his," said another. "You should have warned him. You have got hold of it under false pretences."

"Quibbles! It _is_ mine--equitably," replied the first. "He and I are at war. And I _have_ warned him."

"At war?" Her tiresome conscience kicked again. Why, not a day had passed since her settlement at Maumsey, without some proof, small or great, of Winnington's consideration and care for her. She knew--guiltily knew, that he was overwhelmed by the business of the executorship and the estate, and had been forced to put aside some of his own favourite occupations to attend to it.

"Well!--my father made it worth his while!"

But her cheek reddened, with a kind of shame, as the thought passed through her mind. Even in this short time and because of the daily contact which their business relations required, she was beginning to know Winnington, to realise something of his life and character. And as for the love borne him in the neighbourhood--it was really preposterous--bad for any man! Delia pitied herself, not only because she was Winnington's ward against her will, but because of the silent force of public opinion that upheld him, and must necessarily condemn her.

So he had once been engaged? Lady Tonbridge had told her so. To a gentle, saintly person of course!--a person to suit him. Delia could not help a movement of half petulant curiosity--and then an involuntary thrill. Many women since had been in love with him. Lady Tonbridge had said as much. And he--with no one! But he had a great many women friends? No doubt!--with that manner, and that charm. Delia resented the women friends. She would have been quite ready indeed to enrol herself among them--to worship with the rest--from afar; were it not for ideas, and principles, and honesty of soul! As it was, she despised the worship of which she was told, as something blind and overdone. It was not the greatest men--not the best men--who were so easily and universally beloved.

What did he really think of her? Did he ever guess that there was something else in her than this obstinacy, this troublesomeness with which she was forced to meet him? She was sorry for herself, much more than for him; because she must so chill and mislead a man who _ought_ to understand her.

Looking up she saw a dim reflection of her own beauty in the glass above the mantelpiece. "No, I am _not_ either a minx, or a wild-cat!"--she thought, as though she were angrily arguing with someone. "I could be as attractive, as 'feminine,' as silly as anyone else, if I chose! I could have lovers--of course--just like other girls--if it weren't"--

For what? At that moment she hardly knew. And why were her eyes filling with tears? She dashed them indignantly away.

But for the first time, this cause, this public cause to which she was pledged presented itself to her as a sacrifice to be offered, a noble burden to be borne, rather than as something which expressed the natural and spontaneous impulse of her life.

Which meant that, already, since her recapture by this English world, since what was hearsay had begun to be experience, the value of things had slightly and imperceptibly changed.

* * * * *

The days ran on. One evening, just before the first of the "Daughters'" meetings, which was to be held at Latchford, Winnington appeared in Lady Tonbridge's drawing-room to ask for a cup of tea on his way to a public dinner in Wanchester.

He seemed pre-occupied and worried; and she fed him before questioning him. But at last she said--

"You couldn't prevail on her to give up any of these performances?"

"Miss Delia? Not one. But it's only the Latchford one that matters. Have you been talking to her?"

He looked at her a little plaintively, as though he _could_ have reminded her that she had promised him a friend's assistance.

"Of course! But I might as well talk to this table. She won't really make friends--nor will Miss Marvell allow her. It's the same, I find, with everyone else. However, I'm bound to say, the neighbourhood is just now in the mood that it doesn't much want to make friends!"

"I know," said Winnington, with a sigh--relapsing into silence.

"Is she taking an interest in the property--the cottages?"

He shook his head.

"I'm sure she meant to. But it seems to be all dropped."

"Provoking!" said Madeleine, drily--"considering how you've been slaving to please her--"

Winnington interrupted--not without annoyance--

"How can she think of anything else when she's once deep in this campaign? One must blame the people who led her into it!"

"Oh! I don't know!" said Lady Tonbridge, protesting. "She's a very clever young woman, with a strong will of her own."

"Captured just at the impressionable moment!" cried Winnington--"when a girl will do anything--believe anything--for the person she loves!"

"Well the prescription should be easy--at her age. Change the person! But then comes the question: Is _she_ loveable? Speak the truth, Mr. Guardian!"

Winnington began a rather eager assent. Watch her with the servants, the gardeners, the animals! Then you perceived what should be the girl's natural charm and sweetness--

"'Hm. Does she show any of it to you?"

Winnington laughed.

"You forget--I am always there as the obstacle in the path. But if it weren't for the sinister influence--in the background."

And again he went off at score--describing various small incidents that had touched or pleased him, as throwing light upon what he vowed was the real Delia.

Madeleine listened, watching him attentively the while. When he took his leave and she was alone, she sat thinking for some time, and then going to a cupboard in her writing-table, which held her diaries of past years, she rummaged till she found one bearing a date fifteen years old. She turned up the entry for the sixteenth of May:

"She died last night. This morning, at early service, Mark was there. We walked home together. I doubt whether he will ever marry--now. He is not one of those men who are hurried by the mere emotion and unbearableness of