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

from small incidents and observations on the spot, partly from information supplied him by friends in London--which had sharpened all her own suspicions into certainties, she had never known an hour free from fear. Her letters had remained wholly unanswered. She did not even know where Gertrude was; though it seemed to her that letters addressed to the head office of the League of Revolt must have been forwarded. No! Gertrude was really planning this hateful thing; the destruction of this beautiful and historic house, with all its memories and its treasures, in order to punish a Cabinet Minister for his opposition to Woman Suffrage, and so terrorise others. Moreover it meant the risking of human life--Daunt--his children, complete indifference also to Delia's feelings, Delia's pain.

What was she to do? Betray her friend?--go to Winnington for help? But he was a magistrate. If such a plot were really on foot--and Lathrop was himself convinced that petroleum and explosives were already stored somewhere in the neighbourhood of the house--Winnington could only treat such a thing as a public servant, as a guardian of the law. Any appeal to him to let private interests--even _her_ interests--interfere, would, she felt certain, be entirely fruitless. Once go to him, the police must be informed--it would be his clear duty; and if such proofs of the plot existed as Lathrop believed, Gertrude would be arrested, and her accomplices. Including Delia herself?

That possibility, instead of frightening her, gave the girl some momentary comfort. For that _might_ perhaps secure Winnington's silence?

But no!--her common sense dismissed the notion. Winnington would discover at once that she had had no connection whatever with the business. Lathrop's evidence alone would be enough. And that being so, her confession would simply hand Gertrude over to Winnington's conscience. And Mark Winnington's conscience was a thing to fear.

And yet the yearning to go to him--like the yearning of an unhappy child--was so strong.

Traitor!--yes, _traitor_!--double-dyed.

And pausing just outside the village, at a field gate, Delia leant over it, gazing into the lowering sky, and piteously crying to some power beyond--some God, "if any Zeus there be," on whom the heart in its trouble might throw itself.

Her thought ran backwards and forwards over the past months and years. The burning moments of revolt through which she had lived--the meetings of the League with their multitudes of faces, strained, fierce faces, alive, many of them, with hatreds new to English life, new perhaps to civilised history,--and the intermittent gusts of pity and fury which had swept through her own young ignorance as she listened, making a hideous thing of the future and of human fate:--she lived through them all again. Individual personalities recurred to her, the wild looks of delicate, frenzied women, who had lost health, employment, and the love of friends--suffered in body, mind and estate for this "cause" to which she too had vowed herself. Was she alone to desert, to fail--both the cause and her friend, who had taught her everything?

"It's not my will--not my _will_--that shrinks"--she moaned to herself. "If I _believed_--if I still believed!"

But why was the fire gone out of the old faiths, the savour from the old hopes? Was she less moved by the sufferings, the toils, the weakness of her sex? She could remember nights of weeping over the wrongs of women, after an impassioned evening with Gertrude. And now--had the heart of flesh become a heart of stone? Was she no longer worthy of the great crusade, the vast upheaval?

She could not tell. She only knew that the glamour of it all was gone--that there were many hours when the Movement lay like lead upon her life. Was it simply that her intelligence had revolted, that she had come to see the folly, the sheer, ludicrous folly of a "physical force" policy which opposed the pin-pricks of women to the strength of men? Or was it something else--something far more compelling--more convincing--more humiliating!

"I've just fallen in love!--_fallen in love!_"--the words repeated themselves brazenly, desperately, in her mind:--"and I can't think for myself--judge for myself any longer! It's abominable--but it's true!"

The very thought of Winnington's voice and look made her tremble as she walked. Eternal weakness of the eternal woman! She scorned herself, yet a bewildering joy sang through her senses.

Nevertheless she held it at bay. She had her promised word--her honour--to think of. Gertrude still expected her in London--on the scene of action.

"And I shall go," she said to herself with resolute inconsistency, "_I shall go_!"

What an angel Mark Winnington had been to her, this last fortnight! She recalled the day of Weston's operation, and all the long days since. The poor gentle creature had suffered terribly; death had been just held off, from hour to hour; and was only now withdrawing. And Delia, sitting by the bed, or stealing with hushed foot about the house, was not only torn by pity for the living sufferer, she was haunted again by all the memories of her father's dying struggle--bitter and miserable days! And with what tenderness, what strength, what infinite delicacy of thought and care, had she been upheld through it all! Her heart melted within her. "There are such men in the world--there are!--and a year ago I should have simply despised anyone who told me so!"

Yet after these weeks of deepening experience, and sacred feeling, in which she had come to love Mark Winnington with all the strength of her young heart, and to realise that she loved him, the first use that she was making of a free hour was to go, unknown to him--for he was away on county business at Wanchester--and meet Paul Lathrop!

"But he would understand," she said to herself, drearily, as she moved on again. "If he knew, he would understand."

* * * * *

Now she must hurry on. She turned into the broad High Street of the village, observed by many people, and half way down, she stopped at a door on which was a brass plate, "Miss Toogood, Dressmaker."

The lame woman greeted her with delight, and there in the back parlour of the little shop she found them gathered,--Kitty Foster, the science-mistress, Miss Jackson, and Miss Toogood,--the three "Daughters," who were now coldly looked on in the village, and found pleasure chiefly in each other's society. Marion Andrews was not there. Delia indeed fancied she had seen her in the dusk, walking in a side lane, that led into the Monk Lawrence road, with another girl, whom Delia did not know.

It was a relief, however, not to find her--for the moment. The faces of the three women in the back parlour, were all strained and nervous; they spoke low, and they gathered round Delia with an eagerness which betrayed their own sense of isolation--of being left leaderless.

"You will be going up soon, won't you?" whispered Miss Toogood, as she stroked the sleeve of Delia's jacket. "The _Tocsin_ says there'll be great doings next week--the day Parliament meets."

"I've got my orders!"--said Kitty Foster, tossing her red hair mysteriously. "Father won't keep me down here any longer. I've made arrangements to go up to-morrow and lodge with a cousin in Battersea. She's as deep in it as I am." "And I'm hoping they'll find room for me in the League office," said the science-mistress. "I can't stand this life here much longer. My Governors are always showing me they think us all criminals, and they'll find an excuse for getting rid of me whenever they can. I daren't even put up the 'Daughters' colours in my room now."

Her hollow, anxious eyes, with the fanatical light in them clung to Delia--to the girl's noble head, and the young face flushed with the winter wind.

"But we shall get it this session, shan't we?" said Miss Toogood eagerly, still stroking Delia's fur. "The Government will give in--they must give in."

And she began to talk with hushed enthusiasm of the last month's tale of outrages--houses burnt, windows broken, Downing Street attacked, red pepper thrown over a Minister, ballot-boxes spoiled--

Suddenly it all seemed to Delia so absurd--so pathetic--

"I don't think we shall get the Bill!" she said, sombrely. "We shall be tricked again."

"Dear, dear!" said Miss Toogood, helplessly. "Then we shall have to go on. It's war. We can't stop."

And as she stood there, sadly contemplating the "war," in which, poor soul, she had never yet joined, except by sympathy, a little bill-distributing and a modest subscription, she seemed to carry on her shoulders the whole burden of the "Movement"--herself, the little lame dressmaker, on the one side--and a truculent British Empire on the other.

"We'll make them smart anyway!" cried Kitty Foster. "See if we don't!" Delia hurriedly opened her business. Would one of them take a letter for her to London--an important letter to Miss Marvell that she didn't want to trust to the post. Whoever took it must go to the League office and find out where Miss Marvell was, and deliver it--personally. She couldn't go herself--till after the doctors' consultation, which was to be held on Monday--if then.

Miss Jackson at once volunteered. Her face lightened eagerly.

"It's Saturday. I shall be free. And then I shall see for myself--at the office--if they can give me anything to do. When they write, they seem to put me off."

Delia gave her the letter, and stayed talking with them a little. They, it was evident, knew nothing of the anxiety which possessed her. And as to their hopes and expectations--why was it they now seemed to her so foolish and so ignorant? She had shared them all, such a little while before.

And meanwhile they made much of her. They tried to keep her with them in the little stuffy parlour, with its books which had belonged to Miss Toogood's father, and the engraving of Winchester cathedral, and the portrait of Mr. Keble. That "Miss Blanchflower" was with them, seemed to reflect a glory on their little despised coterie. They admired her and listened to her, loath to let her go.

But at last Delia said Good-bye, and stepped out again into the lights of the village street. As she walked rapidly towards Maumsey, and the village houses thinned and fell away, she suddenly noticed a dark figure in front of her. It was Marion Andrews. Delia ran to overtake her.

Marion stopped uncertainly when she heard herself called. Delia, breathless, laid a hand on her arm.

"I wanted to speak to you!"

"Yes!" The girl stood quiet. It was too dark now to see her face.

"I wanted to tell you--that there are suspicions--about Monk Lawrence. You are being watched. I want you to promise to give it up!"

There was no one on the road, above which some frosty stars had begun to come out. Marion Andrews moved on slowly.

"I don't know what you mean, Miss Blanchflower."

"Don't, please, try to deceive me!" cried Delia, with low-voiced urgency. "You have been seen at night--following Daunt about, examining the doors and windows. The person who suspects won't betray us. I've seen to that. But you must give it up--you _must_! I have written to Miss Marvell."

Marion Andrews laughed,--a sound of defiance.

"All right. I don't take my orders from any one but her. But you are mistaken, Miss Blanchflower, quite mistaken. Good-night."

And turning quickly to the left, she entered a