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

grief, into a fresh emotion of love. But what a lover--what a husband lost!"

She closed the book, and stood with it in her hand--pondering.

* * * * *

As he left her house, and turned towards the station Winnington passed a lady to whom he bowed, recognising her as Miss Andrews.

"Hope you've got an umbrella!" he said to her cheerily, as he passed. "The rain's coming!"

She smiled, pleased like all the world to be addressed with that Winningtonian manner which somehow implied that the person addressed was, for the moment at any rate, his chiefest concern. Immediately after meeting him she turned from the village street, and began to mount a lane leading to the slope on which Monk Lawrence stood. Her expression as she walked along, sometimes with moving lips, had grown animated and sarcastic. Here were two men, a dead father and a live guardian, trying to coerce one simple girl--and apparently not making much of a job of it. She gloried in what she had been told or perceived of Delia Blanchflower's wilfulness, which seemed to her mother and her brother the Captain so monstrous. Only--could one entirely trust anybody like Delia Blanchflower--so prosperous--and so good-looking?

Miss Andrews mounted the hill, passed through a wood that ran along its crest, and took a footpath, leading past the edge of a railway cutting, from which the wonderful old house could be plainly seen. She paused several times to look at it, wrapped in a kind of day-dream, which gave a growing sombreness to her harsh and melancholy features. Beyond the footpath a swing gate opened into a private path leading to the house.

She opened the gate, and walked a little way up the path, in the fast gathering darkness. But she was suddenly arrested by the appearance of a figure in the far distance, black against the pale greys of the house. It was a policeman on his beat--she caught one of the gleams of a lantern.

Instantly she turned back, groped her way again through the wood, and into a side road leading to her brother's house.

She found her mother lying on the sofa in the drawing-room, the remains of a rather luxurious tea beside her--her outdoor clothes lying untidily about the room.

"Where have you been?" said Mrs. Andrews, fretfully--"there were several letters I wanted written before post."

"I wanted a little air. That linen business took me all the morning."

For it was the rule in the Andrews' household that the house linen should be gone through every six months with a view to repairs and renewals. It was a tedious business. Mrs. Andrews' nerves did not allow her to undertake it. It fell therefore, and had always fallen to the only daughter, who was not made for housewifery tasks, and detested the half-yearly linen day accordingly.

Her tone displeased her mother.

"There you are--grumbling again, Marion! What else have you to do, I should like to know, than your home duties?"

Marion made no reply. What was the use of replying? But her black eyes, as she helped herself wearily to some very cold tea, took note of her mother's attitude. It was only the week before that Dr. France had expressed himself rather pointedly to the effect that more exercise and some fresh interests in life "would be good for Mrs. Andrews."

Mrs. Andrews returned to the ladies' paper she was reading. The fashion plates for the week were unusually attractive. Marion observed her unseen.

Suddenly the daughter said:--

"I must ask you for that five pounds, mother. Bill promised it me. My underclothing is literally in rags. I've done my best, and it's past mending. And I must have another decent dress."

"There you are,--clamouring for money again"--said her mother, bouncing up on the sofa--"when you know how hard-pressed Bill is. He's got another instalment to pay for the motor the end of this week."

"Yes--the motor you made him get!"--said Marion, as though the words burst from her.

"And why shouldn't he, pray! The money's his--and mine. It was high time we got rid of that rattletrap. It jolted me to pieces."

"You said a little while ago it would do very well for another year. Anyway, Bill promised me something for clothes this month--and he also said that he'd pay my school of art fees, at Wanchester, and give me a third season ticket. Is that all done with too?"

The girl sat erect, her face with its sparkling eyes expressing mingled humiliation and bitterness.

"Oh, well really, I can't stand these constant disputes!" said Mrs. Andrews, rising angrily from the sofa. "You'd better go to your brother. If he likes to waste his money, he can of course. But I've got none to spare." She paused at the door--"As for your underclothing, I daresay I could find you something of mine you could make do for a bit. Now do be sensible!--and don't make a scene with Bill!"

She closed the door. Marion walked to the side window of the drawing-room, and stood looking at the wooded slope of the hill, with Monk Lawrence in the distance.

Her heart burned within her. She was thirty-four. She had never had any money of her own--she had never been allowed any education that would fit her to earn. She was absolutely dependent on her mother and brother. Bill was kind enough, though careless, and often selfish. But her mother rubbed her dependence into her at every turn--"And yet I earn my clothes and my keep--every penny of them!" she thought, fiercely.

A year before this date she had been staying in London with a cousin who sometimes took pity on her and gave her a change of scene. They had gone together for curiosity's sake to a "militant" meeting in London. A lady, slight in figure, with dark eyes and hair, had spoken on the "economic independence of women"--as the only path to the woman's goal of "equal rights" with men. She had spoken with passion, and Marion's sore heart had leapt to answer her.

That lady was Gertrude Marvell. Marion had written to her, and there had been a brief acquaintance, enough to kindle the long-repressed will and passion of the girl's stormy nature. She had returned home, to read, in secret, everything that she could find on the militant movement. The sheer violence of it appealed to her like water to the thirsty. War, war!--on a rotten state of society, and the economic slavery of women!

And now her first awakener, her appointed leader, her idol had appeared in this dead country-side, with orders to give, and tasks to impose. And she should be obeyed--to the letter!

The girl's heavy eyes kindled to a mad intensity, as she stood looking at the hill-side, now almost dark, except for that distant light, which she knew as the electric lamp still lit at sunset, even in Sir Wilfrid's absence, over the stately doorway of Monk Lawrence.

But she was not going to the Latchford meeting. "Don't give yourself away. Don't be seen with the others. Keep out of notice. There are more important things for you to do--presently. Wait!"

The words echoed in her ears. She waited; exulting in the thought that no one, not even Miss Blanchflower, knew as much as she; and that neither her mother nor her brother had as yet any idea of her connection with the "Daughters." Her "silly suffrage opinions" were laughed at by them both--good-humouredly, by Bill. Of the rest, they knew nothing.


Chapter IX

"Mark! you've done the day's work of two people already!" cried Mrs. Matheson in a tone of distress. "You don't mean to say you're going in to Latchford again?--and without waiting for some food?"

She stood under the porch of Bridge End remonstrating with her brother.

"Can't be helped, dear!" said Winnington, as he filled his pipe--"I'm certain there'll be a row to-night, and I must catch this train!"

"What, that horrid meeting! Delia Blanchflower lets you slave and slave for her, and never takes the smallest notice of your wishes or your advice! She ought to be ashamed!"

The sister's mild tone trembled with indignation.

"She isn't!" laughed Winnington. "I never knew anyone less so. But we can't have her ill treated. Expect me back when you see me!"

And kissing his hand to his sister, he went out into a dark and blustering evening. Something had just gone wrong with the little motor car he generally drove himself, and there was nothing for it but to walk the mile and a half to the railway station.

He had spent the whole day in County Council business at Wanchester, was tired out, and had now been obliged to leave home again without waiting even for a belated cup of tea. But there was no help for it. He had only just time to catch the Latchford train.

As he almost ran to the station he was not conscious however of any of these small discomforts; his mind was full of Delia. He did not encourage anyone but Madeleine Tonbridge to talk to him about his ward; but he was already quite aware, before his old friend laid stress on it, of the hostile feeling towards Delia and her chaperon that was beginning to show itself in the neighbourhood. He knew that she was already pronounced heartless, odious, unprincipled, consumed with a love of notoriety, and ready for any violence, at the bidding of a woman who was probably responsible at that very moment--as a prominent organiser in the employ of the society contriving them--for some of the worst of the militant outrages. His condemnation of Delia's actions was sharp and unhesitating; his opinion of Miss Marvell not a whit milder than that of his neighbours. Yet he had begun, as we have seen, to discover in himself a willingness, indeed an eagerness to excuse and pity the girl, which was wholly lacking in the case of the older woman. Under the influence, indeed, of his own responsive temperament, Winnington was rapidly drifting into a state of feeling where his perception of Delia's folly and unreason was almost immediately checked by some enchanting memory of her beauty, or of those rare moments in their brief acquaintance, when the horrid shadow of the "Movement" had been temporarily lifted, and he had seen her, as in his indulgent belief she truly was--or was meant to be. She flouted and crossed him perpetually; and he was beginning to discover that he only thought of her the more, and that the few occasions when he had been able to force a smile out of her,--a sudden softness in her black eyes, gone in a moment!--were constantly pleading for her in his mind. All part no doubt of his native and extreme susceptibility to the female race--the female race in general. For he could see himself, and laugh at himself, _ab extra_, better than most men.

At the station he came across Captain Andrews, and soon discovered from that artless warrior that he also was bound for Latchford, with a view to watching over Delia Blanchflower.

"Can't have a lot of hooligans attacking a good-looking girl like that--whatever nonsense she talks!" murmured the Captain, twisting his sandy moustache; "so I thought I'd better come along and see fair play. Of course I knew you'd be there."

The train was crowded. Winnington, separated from the Captain, plunged into a dimly-lighted