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

her head perplexed. "But you promithed," she lisped, very softly.

Winnington laughed. The child's hand had transferred itself to his, and nestled there.

"What school does she mean?" asked Delia.

At the sound of her voice Winnington turned to her for the first time. It was as though till then he had avoided looking at her, lest the hidden thought in each mind should be too plain to the other. He had found her--Sir Robert Blanchflower's daughter--on the point of being curtly refused admission to the house where her father had been a familiar inmate, and where she herself had gone in and out as a child. And he knew why; she knew why; Daunt knew why. She was a person under suspicion, a person on whom the community was keeping watch.

Nevertheless, Winnington entirely believed what he had overheard her say to the keeper. It was no doubt quite true that she had turned aside to see Monk Lawrence on a sudden impulse of sentiment or memory. Odd that it should be so!--but like her. That _she_ could have any designs on the beautiful old place was indeed incredible; and it was equally incredible that she would aid or abet them in anyone else. And yet--there was that monstrous speech at Latchford, made in her hearing, by her friend and co-militant, the woman who shared her life! Was it any wonder that Daunt bristled at the sight of her?

He had, however, to answer her question.

"My county school," he explained. "The school for invalid children--'physical defectives'--that we are going to open next summer. I came to tell Daunt there'd be a place for this child. She's an old friend of mine." He smiled down upon the nestling creature--"Has Miss Amberley been to see you lately, Lily?"

At this moment Daunt returned to the kitchen, with the news that the house was ready. "The light's not quite what it ought to be, Sir, but I daresay you'll be able to see a good deal. Miss Amberley, Sir, she's taught Lily fine. I'm sure we're very much obliged to her--and to you for asking her."

"I don't know what the sick children here will do without her, Daunt. She's going away--wants to be a nurse."

"Well, I'm very sorry, Sir. She'll be badly missed."

"That she will. Shall we go in?" Winnington turned to Delia, who nodded assent, and followed him into the dim passages beyond the brightly-lighted kitchen. The children, looking after them, saw the beautiful lady disappearing, and felt vaguely awed by her height, her stiff carriage and her proud looks.

Delia, indeed, was again--and as usual--in revolt, against herself and circumstances. Why had she been such a fool as to come to Monk Lawrence at all, and then to submit to seeing it--on sufferance!--in Winnington's custody? And how he must be contrasting her with Susy Amberley!--the soft sister of charity, plying her womanly tasks, in the manner of all good women, since the world began! She saw herself as the anarchist prowling outside, tracked, spied on, held at arm's length by all decent citizens, all lovers of ancient beauty, and moral tradition; while, within, women like Susy Amberley sat Madonna-like, with the children at their knee. "Well, we stand for the children too--the children of the future!" she said to herself defiantly.

"This is the old hall--and the gallery that was put up in honour of Elizabeth's visit here in 1570--" she heard Winnington saying--"One of the finest things of its kind. But you can hardly see it."

The electric light indeed was of the feeblest. A dim line of it ran round the carved ceiling, and glimmered in the central chandelier. But the mingled illumination of sunset and moonrise from outside contended with it on more than equal terms; and everything in the hall, tapestries, armour, and old oak, the gallery above, the dais with its carved chairs below, had the dim mystery of a stage set ready for the play, before the lights are on.

Daunt apologised.

"The gardener'll be here directly, Sir. He knows how to manage it better than I."

And in spite of protests from the two visitors he ran off again to see what could he done to better the light. Delia turned impetuously on her companion.

"I know you think I have no business to be here!"

Winnington paused a moment, then said--

"I was rather astonished to see you here, certainly."

"Because of what we said at Latchford the other day?"

"_You_ didn't say it!"

"But I agreed with it--I agreed with every word of it!"

"Then indeed I _am_ astonished that you should wish to see Sir Wilfrid Lang's house!" he said, with energy.

"My recollections of it have nothing to do with Sir Wilfrid. I never saw him that I know of."

"All the same, it belongs to him."

"No!--to history--to the nation!"

"Then let the nation guard it--and every individual in the nation! But do you think Miss Marvell would take much pains to protect it?"

"Gertrude said nothing about the house." "No; but if I had been one of the excitable women you command, my one desire after that speech would have been to do some desperate damage to Sir Wilfrid, or his property. If anything does happen, I am afraid everyone in the neighbourhood will regard her as responsible."

Delia moved impatiently. "Can't we say what we think of Sir Wilfrid--because he happens to possess a beautiful house?"

"If you care for Monk Lawrence, you do so,--with this campaign on foot--only at great risk. Confess, Miss Delia!--that you were sorry for that speech!"

He turned upon her with animation.

She spoke as though under pressure, her head thrown back, her face ivory within the black frame of the veil.

"I--I shouldn't have made it."

"That's not enough. I want to hear you say you regret it!"

The light suddenly increased, and she saw him looking at her, his eyes bright and urgent, his attitude that of the strong yet mild judge, whose own moral life watches keenly for any sign of grace in the accused before him. She realised for an angry moment what his feeling must be--how deep and invincible, towards these "outrages" which she and Gertrude Marvell regarded by now as so natural and habitual--outrages that were calmly planned and organised, as she knew well, at the head offices of their society, by Gertrude Marvell among others, and acquiesced in--approved--by hundreds of persons like herself, who either shrank from taking a direct part in them, or had no opportunity of doing so. "But I shall soon make opportunities!--" she thought, passionately; "I'm not going to be a shirker!" Aloud she said in her stiffest manner--"I stand by my friends, Mr. Winnington, especially when they are ten times better and nobler than I!"

His expression changed. He turned, like any courteous stranger, to playing the part of showman of the house. Once more a veil had fallen between them.

He led her through the great suite of rooms on the ground-floor, the drawing-room, the Red Parlour, the Chinese room, the Library. They recalled her childish visits to the house with her grandmother, and a score of recollections, touching or absurd, rushed into her mind--but not to her lips. Dumbness had fallen on her;--nothing seemed worth saying, and she hurried through. She was conscious only of a rich confused impression of old seemliness and mellowed beauty,--steeped in fragrant and famous memories, English history, English poetry, English art, breathing from every room and stone of the house. "In the Red Parlour, Sidney wrote part of the 'Arcadia.'--In the room overhead Gabriel Harvey slept.--In the Porch rooms Chatham stayed--his autograph is there.--Fox advised upon all the older portion of the Library"--and so on. She heard Winnington's voice as though through a dream. What did it matter? She felt the house an oppression--as though it accused or threatened her.

As they emerged from the library into a broad passage, Winnington noticed a garden door at the north end of the passage, and called to Daunt who was walking behind them. They went to look at it, leaving Delia in the corridor.

"Not very secure, is it?" said Winnington, pointing to the glazed upper half of the door--"anyone might get in there."

"I've told Sir Wilfrid, Sir, and sent him the measurements. There's to be an iron shutter."

"H'm--that may take time. Why not put up something temporary?--cross-bars of some sort?"

They came back towards Delia, discussing it. Unreasonably, absurdly, she held it an offence that Winnington should discuss it in her presence; her breath grew stormy.

Daunt turned to the right at the foot of a carved staircase, and down a long passage leading to the kitchens, he and Winnington still talking. Suddenly--a short flight of steps, not very visible in a dark place. Winnington descended them, and then turned to look for Delia who was just behind--

"Please take care!--"

But he was too late. Head in air--absorbed in her own passionate mood, Delia never saw the steps, till her foot slipped on the topmost. She would have fallen headlong, had not Winnington caught her. His arms received her, held her, released her. The colour rushed into his face as into hers. "You are not hurt?" he said anxiously. "I ought to have held a light," said Daunt, full of concern. But the little incident had broken the ice. Delia laughed, and straightened her Cavalier hat, which had suffered. She was still rosy as they entered Daunt's kitchen, and the children who had seen her silent and haughty entrance, hardly recognised the creature all life and animation who returned to them.

The car stood waiting in the fore-court. Winnington put her in. As Delia descended the hill alone in the dark, she closed her eyes, that she might the more completely give herself to the conflict of thoughts which possessed her. She was bitterly ashamed and sore, torn between her passionate affection for Gertrude Marvell, and what seemed to her a weak and traitorous wish to stand better with Mark Winnington. Nor could she escape from the memory--the mere physical memory--of those strong arms round her, resent it as she might.

* * * * *

As for Winnington, when he reached home in the moonlight, instead of going in to join his sister at tea, he paced a garden path till night had fallen. What was this strong insurgent feeling he could neither reason with nor silence? It seemed to have stolen upon him, amid a host of other thoughts and pre-occupations, secretly and insidiously, till there it stood--full-grown--his new phantom self--challenging the old, the normal self, face to face.

Trouble, self-scorn overwhelmed him. Recalling all his promises to himself, all his assurances to Lady Tonbridge, he stood convicted, as the sentry who has shut his eyes and let the invader pass. Monstrous!--that in his position, with this difference of age between them, he should have allowed such ideas to grow and gather head. Beautiful wayward creature!--all the more beguiling, because of the Difficulties that bristled round her. His common sense, his judgment were under no illusions at all about Delia Blanchflower. And yet--

This then was _passion_!--which must be held down and reasoned down. He would reason it down. She must and should marry a man of her own generation--youth with youth. And, moreover, to give way to these wild desires would be simply to alienate her, to destroy all his own power