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

quiet goodnight and departed.

But she was _in love with him_, the foolish, obstinate child!--wildly, absorbingly in love with him! The fact was tragically evident, in everything she said, and everything she left unsaid.

The struggle lay then between her loyalty to her friend, the passionate loyalty of woman to woman, so newly and strangely developed by the Suffrage movement, and Winnington's advancing influence,--the influence of a man equipped surely with all the means of victory--character, strength, charm--over the girl's heart and imagination. He must conquer!

And yet Madeleine Tonbridge, staring into the ashes of a dwindling fire, had never persuaded herself--incorrigible optimist that she was--to so little purpose.

What _was_ there at the back of the girl's mind? Something more than appeared; though what appeared was bad enough. One seemed at times to catch a glimpse of some cloaked and brooding Horror, in the dim background of the girl's consciousness, and overshadowing it. What more likely indeed, with this wild campaign sweeping through the country? She probably knew or suspected things that her moral sense condemned, to which she was nevertheless committed.

"We shall end by proving all that the enemy says of us; we shall give our chance away for a generation!"

"Do for Heaven's sake keep the young lady at home!"

The speaker was Dr. France. After seeing his patient, dismissing the specialist, and spending half an hour _tete-a-tete_ with Delia, he came down to see Lady Tonbridge in a state that in any one else would have been a state of agitation. In him all that appeared was a certain hawkish glitter in the eye, and a tendency to pull and pinch a scarcely existing moustache. But Madeleine, who knew him well, understood that he was just as much at feud with the radical absurdity of things as she was.

"No one can keep her at home. Delia is of age," she said, rising to meet him, with a face as serious as his own.

"If she gets into prison, and hunger-strikes, she'll injure herself! She's extraordinarily run down with this business of Weston's. I don't believe she could stand the sheer excitement of what she proposes to do."

"She's told you?"

"Quite enough. If she once goes up to town--if she once gets into that woman's clutches, no one can tell what will happen. Oh, you women--you women!" And the doctor walked tigerishly up and down the room. "That some of the cleverest and wisest of you can stoop to dabbling in a business like this! Upon my word it's an eye-opener!--it pulls one up. And you think you can drive men by such antics! The more you smash and burn, the more firmly goes down the male foot--yes, and the female too!"

And the doctor, with a glare, and a male foot as firm as he could make it, came to a stop beside Lady Tonbridge--who looked at him coolly.

"Excellent!--but no concern of mine. I'm not a militant. I want the vote just as much as Delia does!" said Lady Tonbridge, firmly. "Don't forget that."

"No, you don't--you don't! Excuse me. You are a reasonable woman."

"Half the reasonable women in England want the vote. Why shouldn't I have a vote--as well as you?"

"Because, my dear lady--" the doctor smote the table with his hand for emphasis--"because the parliamentary vote means the government _of men by men_--without which we go to pieces. And you propose now to make it include the government of men by women--which is absurd!--and if you try it, will only break up the only real government that exists, or can exist!"

"Oh!--'physical force,'" said Madeleine, contemptuously, with her nose in the air.

"Well--did I--did you--make the physical difference between men and women? Can we unmake it?" "We are governed by discussion--not by force."

"Are we? Look at South Africa--look at Ulster--look at the labour troubles that have been, and are to be. And then you women come along with your claim to the vote! What are you doing but breaking up all the social values--weakening all the foundations of the social edifice! Woe!--to you women especially--when you teach men to despise the vote--when men come to know that behind the paper currency of a vote which may be a man's or a woman's, there is nothing but an opinion--bad or good! At present, I tell you, the great conventions of democracy hold because there is reality of bone and muscle behind them! Break down that reality--and sooner or later we come back to force again--through bloodshed and anarchy!"

"Inevitable--all the same!" cried Madeleine. "Why did you ever let us taste education?--if you are to deny us for ever political equality?"

"Use your education, my dear Madam!" said the doctor, indignantly. "Are there not many roads to political equality?--many forms of government within government, that may be tried, before you insist on ruining us by doing men's work in the men's way? Hasn't it taken more than a hundred years to settle that Irish question, which began with the Union? Is it a hundred years since it was a hanging matter to steal a handkerchief off a hedge? Can't you give us a hundred years for the Woman Question? Sixty years only, since the higher education of women began! Isn't the science of government developing every day? Women have got, you say, to be fitted into government--I agree! I _agree_! But _don't rush it_! Claim everything--what you like!--except only that sovereign vote, which controls, and must control, the male force of an Empire!"

"Jove's thunder!" scoffed Lady Tonbridge. "Well--my dear old friend!--you and I shan't agree--you know that. Now what can I do for Delia?"

"Nothing," said France gloomily. "Unless some one goes up to watch over her."

"Her guardian will go," said Madeleine quietly, after a pause.

They eyed each other.

"You're sure?" said France.

"Quite sure--though I've not said a word to him--nor he to me."

"All right then--she's worth it! By George, she's got the makings of something splendid in her. I tell you she's had as much to do as any of us with saving the life of that woman upstairs. Courage?--tenderness?--'not arf.'"

The slangy term shewed the speaker's desire to get rid of his own feelings. He had, at any rate, soon smothered them, and he and Lady Tonbridge, their chairs drawn close, fell into a very confidential discussion. France was one of those country doctors, not rare fortunately in England, in whom a whole neighbourhood confides, whom a whole neighbourhood loves; all the more if a man betrays a fair allowance of those gnarls and twists of character, of strong prejudices, and harmless manias, which enable the common herd to take him to their bosoms. Dr. France was a stamp-collector, a player--indifferent--on the cornet, a rabid Tory, and a person who could never be trusted to deal faithfully and on C.O.S. principles with tramps and "undesirables." Such things temper the majesty of virtue, and make even the good human.

He had known and prescribed for Winnington since he was a boy in knickers; he was particularly attached to Lady Tonbridge. What he and Madeleine talked about is not of great importance to this narrative; but it is certain that France left the house in much concern for a man he loved, and a girl who, in the teeth of his hottest beliefs, had managed to touch his feelings.

Delia spent the day in packing. Winnington made no sign. In the afternoon,--it was a wet Saturday afternoon--Lady Tonbridge sitting in the drawing-room, saw the science mistress of the Dame Perrott School coming up the drive. Madeleine knew her as a "Daughter," and could not help scowling at her--unseen.

She was at once admitted however, and spent a short time with Delia in the Library.

And when Miss Jackson closed the Library door behind her on her way out of the house, Delia broke the seal of a letter which had been given into her hands:--

"I am very sorry, my dear Delia, you should have taken these silly reports so much to heart. You had better dismiss them from your mind. I have given no such orders as you suppose--nor has the Central Office. The plan you found referred to something quite different--I really can't remember what. I can't of course be responsible for all the 'Daughters' in England, but I have much more important business to think of just now than the nonsense Mr. Lathrop seems to have been stuffing you with. As to W-----L-----, it would only be worth while to strike at him, if our affairs _go wrong_--through him. At present, I am extraordinary hopeful. We are winning every day. People see that we are in earnest, and mean to succeed--at whatever cost.

"I am glad you are coming up on Monday. You will find the flat anything but a comfortable or restful place,--but that you will be prepared for. Our people are amazing!--and we shall get into the House on Thursday, or know the reason why.

"For the money you sent, and the money you promise--best thanks. Everybody is giving. It is the spirit of the Crusader, 'Dieu le veult!'"

"Your affectionate G. M."

Delia read and re-read it. It was the first time Gertrude had deliberately tried to deceive her, and the girl's heart was sore. Even now, she was not to be trusted--"now that I am risking everything--_everything_!" And with the letter in her lap, she sat and thought of Winnington's face, as he had turned to look at her, before leaving the drawing-room the night before.

* * * * *

The day passed drearily. The hills and trees were wrapped in a damp fog, and though the days were lengthening fast, the evening closed like November. Madeleine thought with joy of getting back to her tiny house and her Nora. Nora, who was not yet out, seemed to have been enjoying a huge success in the large cousinly party with whom she had been spending the Christmas holidays. "But it's an odd place, Mummy. In the morning we 'rag'; and the rest of the day we talk religion. Everybody is either Buddhist or 'Bahai'--if that's the right way to spell it. It sounds odd, but it seems to be a very good way of getting on with young men."

Heavens! What did it matter how you played the old game, or with what counters, so long as it was played?

And as Lady Tonbridge watched the figure of Delia gliding through the house, wrapped in an estranging silence, things ancient and traditonal returned upon her in flood, and nothing in the world seemed worth having but young love and happy marriage!--if you could get them! She--and her heart knew its bitterness--had made the great throw and lost.

* * * * *

Sunday passed in the same isolation. But on Sunday afternoon Delia took the motor out alone, and gave no reason either before or after. "If she's gone out to meet that man, it's a scandal!" thought Madeleine wrathfully, and could hardly bring herself to be civil when the girl returned--pale, wearied, and quite uncommunicative. But she was very touching in a mute, dignified way, all the evening, and Madeleine relented fast. And, as they sat