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

to help in the organisation of the processions to Parliament, to speak at a number of meetings--"

Delia interrupted.

"As soon as Weston is out of danger, I'll go--of course I'll go!--about a month from now, perhaps less. You will have the flat, Gertrude, all the same, and as much money as I can scrape together--after the operation's paid for. I don't matter a tenth part as much as you, you know I don't; I haven't been at all a success at these meetings lately!"

There was a certain young bitterness in the tone.

"Well, of course you know what people will say."

"That I'm shirking--giving in? Well, you can contradict it."

Delia turned from the window beside which she was standing to look at Gertrude. A pale December sunshine shone on the girl's half-seen face, and on the lines of her black dress. A threatening sense of change, mingled with a masterful desire to break down the resistance offered, awoke in Gertrude. But she restrained the dictatorial instinct. Instead, she sat down beside the desk again, and covered her face with her hand.

"If I couldn't contradict it--if I couldn't be sure of you--I might as well kill myself," she said with sudden and volcanic passion, though in a voice scarcely raised above its ordinary note.

Delia came to her impulsively, knelt down and put her arms round her.

"You know you can be sure of me!" she said, reproachfully.

Gertrude held her away from her. Her eyes examined the lovely face so close to her.

"On the contrary! You are being influenced against me."

Delia laughed.

"By whom, please?"

"By the man who has you in his power--under our abominable laws."

"By my guardian?--by Mark Winnington? Really! Gertrude! Considering that I had a fresh quarrel with him only last week--on your account--at Monk Lawrence--"

Gertrude released herself by a sudden movement.

"When were you at Monk Lawrence?"

"Why, that afternoon, when you were in town. I missed my train at Latchford, and took a motor home." There was some consciousness in the girl's look and tone which did not escape her companion. She was evidently aware that her silence on the incident might appear strange to Gertrude. However, she frankly described her adventure, Daunt's surliness, and Winnington's appearance.

"He arrived in the nick of time, and made Daunt let me in. Then, while we were going round, he began to talk about your speech, and wanted to make me say I was sorry for it. And I wouldn't! And then--well, he thought very poorly of me--and we parted--coolly. We've scarcely met since. And that's all."

"What speech?" Gertrude was sitting erect now with queerly bright eyes.

"The speech about Sir Wilfrid--at Latchford."

"What else does he expect?"

"I don't know. But--well, I may as well say, Gertrude--to you, though I wouldn't say it to him--that I--I didn't much admire that speech either!"

Delia was now sitting on the floor with her hands round her knees, looking up. The slight stiffening of her face shewed that it had been an effort to say what she had said.

"So _you_ think that Lang ought to be approached with 'bated breath and whispering humbleness'--just as he is on the point of trampling us and our cause into the dirt?"

"No--certainly not! But why hasn't he as good a right to his opinion as we to ours--without being threatened with personal violence?"

Gertrude drew a long breath of amazement.

"I don't quite see, Delia, why you ever joined the 'Daughters'--or why you stay with them."

"That's not fair!"--protested Delia, the colour flooding in her cheeks. "As for burning stupid villas--that are empty and insured--or boathouses--or piers--or tea-pavilions, to keep the country in mind of us,--that's one thing. But threatening _persons_ with violence--that's--somehow--another thing. And as to villas and piers even--to be quite honest--I sometimes wonder, Gertrude!--I declare, I'm beginning to wonder! And why shouldn't one take up one's policy from time to time and look at it, all round, with a free mind? We haven't been doing particularly well lately."

Gertrude laughed--a dry, embittered sound--as she pushed the _Tocsin_ from her.

"Oh well, of course, if you're going to desert us in the worst of the fight, and to follow your guardian's lead--"

"But I'm not!" cried Delia, springing to her feet. "Try me. Haven't I promised--a hundred things? Didn't I say all you expected me to say at Latchford? And, on the whole"--her voice dragged a little--"the empty houses and the cricket pavilions--still seem to me fair game. It's only--as to the good it does. Of course--if it were Monk Lawrence--"

"Well--if it were Monk Lawrence?"

"I should think that a crime! I told you so before."

"Why?"

Delia looked at her friend with a contracted brow.

"Because--it's a national possession! Lang's only the temporary owner--the trustee. We've no right to destroy what belongs to _England_."

Gertrude laughed again--as she rose from the tea-table.

"Well, as long as women are slaves, I don't see what England matters to them. However, don't trouble yourself. Monk Lawrence is all right. And Mr. Winnington's a charmer--we all know that."

Delia flushed angrily. But Gertrude, having gathered up her papers, quietly departed, leaving her final shaft to work.

Delia went back to her own sitting-room, but was too excited, too tremulous indeed, to settle to her letters. She had never yet found herself in direct collision with Gertrude, impetuous as her own temper was. Their friendship had now lasted nearly three years. She looked back to their West Indian acquaintance, that first year of adoration, of long-continued emotion,--mind and heart growing and blossoming together. Gertrude, during that year, had not only aroused her pupil's intelligence; she had taught a motherless girl what the love of women may be for each other. To make Gertrude happy, to be approved by her, to watch her, to sit at her feet--the girl of nineteen had asked nothing more. Gertrude's accomplishments, her coolness, her self-reliance, the delicate precision of her small features and frame, the grace of her quiet movements, her cold sincerity, the unyielding scorns, the passionate loves and hates that were gradually to be discovered below the even dryness of her manner,--by these Delia had been captured; by these indeed, she was still held. Gertrude was to her everything that she herself was not. And when her father had insisted on separating her from her friend, her wild resentment, and her girlish longing for the forbidden had only increased Gertrude's charm tenfold.

The eighteen months of their separation, too, had coincided with the rise of that violent episode in the feminist movement which was represented by the founding and organisation of the "Daughters" society. Gertrude though not one of the first contrivers and instigators of it, had been among the earliest of its converts. Its initial successes had been the subject of all her letters to Delia; Delia had walked on air to read them. At last the world was moving, was rushing--and it seemed that Gertrude was in the van. Women were at last coming to their own; forcing men to acknowledge them as equals and comrades; and able to win victory, not by the old whining and wheedling, but by their own strength. The intoxication of it filled the girl's days and nights. She thought endlessly of processions and raids, of street-preaching, or Hyde Park meetings. Gertrude went to prison for a few days as the result of a raid on Downing Street. Delia, in one dull hotel after another, wearily following her father from "cure" to "cure," dreamed hungrily and enviously of Gertrude's more heroic fate. Everything in those days was haloed for her--the Movement, its first violent acts, what Gertrude did, and what Gertrude thought--she saw it all transfigured and aflame.

And now, since her father's death, they had been four months together--she and her friend--in the closest intimacy, sharing--or so Delia supposed--every thought and every prospect. Delia for the greater part of that time _had_ been all glad submission and unquestioning response. It was quite natural--absolutely right--that Gertrude should command her house, her money, her daily life. She only waited for Gertrude's orders; it would be her pride to carry them out. Until--

What had happened? The girl, standing motionless beside her window, confessed to herself, as she had not been willing to confess to Gertrude, that something _had_ happened--some change of climate and temperature in her own life.

In the first place, the Movement was not prospering. Why deny it? Who could deny it? Its first successes were long past; its uses as advertisement were exhausted; the old violences and audacities, as they were repeated, fell dead. The cause of Woman Suffrage had certainly not advanced. Check after check had been inflicted on it. The number of its supporters in the House of Commons had gone down and down. By-elections were only adding constantly to the number of its opponents.

"Well, what then?"--said the stalwarts of the party--"More outrages, more arson, more violence! We _must_ win at last!" And, meanwhile, blowing through England like a steadily increasing gale, could be felt the force of public anger, public condemnation.

Delia since her return to England had felt the chill of it, for the first time, on her own nerves and conscience. For the first time she had winced--morally--even while she mocked at her own shrinking.

Was that Gertrude pacing outside? The day was dark and stormy. But Gertrude, who rarely took a walk for pleasure, scarcely ever missed the exercise which was necessary to keep her in health. Her slight figure, wrapped in a fur cape, paced a sheltered walk. Her shoulders were bent, her eyes on the ground. Suddenly it struck Delia that she had begun to stoop, that she looked older and thinner than usual.

"She is killing herself!"--thought the girl in a sudden anguish--"killing herself with work and anxiety. And yet she always says she is so strong. What can I do? There is nobody that matters to her--nobody!--but me!"

And she recalled all she knew--it was very little--of Gertrude's personal history. She had been unhappy at home. Her mother, a widow, had never been able to get on with her elder daughter, while petting and spoiling her only son and her younger girl, who was ten years Gertrude's junior. Gertrude had been left a small sum of money by a woman friend, and had spent it in going to a west-country university and taking honours in history. She never spoke now of either her mother or her sister. Her sister was married, but Gertrude held no communication with her or her children. Delia had always felt it impossible to ask questions about her, and believed, with a thrilled sense of mystery, that some tragic incident or experience had separated the two sisters. Her brother also, it seemed, was as dead to her. But on all such personal matters Gertrude's silence was insuperable, and Delia knew no more of them than on the first day of their meeting.

Indomitable figure! Worn with effort and struggle--worn above all with _hating_. Delia looked at it with a sob in her throat. Surely, surely, the great passion, the great uplifting faith they had felt in common, was vital, was true! Only, somehow, after the large dreams and hopes of the early days, to come down to this perpetual campaign of petty law-breaking, and futile outrage, to these odious meetings and shrieking newspapers, was to be--well, discouraged!--heart-wearied.

"Only, she is not wearied, or discouraged!" thought Delia, despairingly. "And why am I?"

Was it hatefully true--after all--that she was being influenced--drawn away?

The girl flushed, breathing quick. She must master