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

of her? An assignation with that man, on the very first afternoon when his tender watchfulness left her for an hour! No, it could not be borne that he should read her so! She must clear herself! And thought, leaping beacon-like from point to point told her, at last, that for Gertrude too, she had chosen wrongly. Thank Heaven, there was still time! What could a girl do, all alone--groping in such a darkness? Better after all lay the case before Mark's judgment, Mark's tenderness, and trust him with it all. Trust her own power too--see what a girl could do with the man who loved her!

The car stopped at the Abbey door, and Winnington, still absolutely silent, helped her to alight. She led the way, past the drawing-room where Lady Tonbridge sat rather anxiously expecting her, to that bare room on the ground floor, the little gun-room, which Gertrude Marvell had made her office, and where many signs of her occupation still remained--a calendar on the wall marking the "glorious" dates of the League--a flashlight photograph of the first raid on Parliament some years before--a faded badge, and scattered piles of newspapers. A couple of deal tables and two chairs were all the furniture the room contained, in addition to the cupboards, painted in stone-colour, which covered the walls.

Delia closed the door, and threw off her furs. Then, with a gesture of complete abandonment, she went up to Winnington, holding out her hands--

"Oh, Mark, Mark, I want you to help me!"

He took her hands, but without pressing them. His face, frowning and flushed, with a little quivering of the nostrils, began to terrify her--

"Oh, Mark,--dear Mr. Mark--I went to see Mr. Lathrop--because--because I was in great trouble--and I thought he could help me."

He dropped the hands.

"You went to _him_--instead of to me? How long have you been with him? Did you write to him to arrange it?"

"No, no--we met by accident. Mark, it's not myself--it's a fear I have--a dreadful, dreadful fear!"

She came close to him, piteously, just murmuring--

"It's Monk Lawrence!--and Gertrude!"

He started, and looked at her keenly--

"You know something I don't know?"

"Oh yes, I do, I do!" she said, wringing her hands. "I ought to have told you long ago. But I've been afraid of what you might do--I've been afraid for Gertrude. Can't you see, Mark? I've been trying to make Mr. Lathrop keep watch--enquire--so that they wouldn't dare. I've told Gertrude that I know--I've written to people--I've done all I could. And this afternoon I felt I must go there and see for myself, what precautions had been taken--and I met Mr. Lathrop--"

She gave a rapid account of their visit to the house,--of its complete desertion--of the strange behaviour of the niece--and of the growing alarm in her own mind.

"There's something--there's some plot. Perhaps that woman's in it. Perhaps Gertrude's got hold of her--or Miss Andrews. Anyway, if that house can be left quite alone--ever--they'll get at it--that I'm sure of. Why did she take the children away? Wasn't that strange?"

Then she put her hands on the heart that fluttered so--and tried to smile--

"But of course till the Bill's thrown out, there can be no danger, can there? There _can't_ be any!" she repeated, as though appealing to him to reassure her.

"I don't understand yet," he said gravely. "Why do you suspect Miss Marvell, or a plot at all? There was no such idea in your mind when we went over the house together?"

"No, none!--or at least not seriously--there was nothing, really, to go on"--she assured him eagerly. "But just after--you remember Mr. Lathrop's coming--that day--?--when you scolded me?"

He could not help smiling a little--rather bitterly.

"I remember you said you couldn't explain. Of course I thought it was something connected with Miss Marvell, or your Society--but--"

"I'm going to explain"--she said, trying hard for composure. "I'm going to tell it all in order."

And sitting down, her head resting on her hand, with Winnington standing before her, she told the whole story of the preceding weeks--the alternations of fear and relief--Lathrop's suspicions--Gertrude's denials--the last interview between them.

As for the man looking down upon her beautiful bowed head, his heart melted within him as he listened. The sting remained that she should have asked anyone else than he to help her--above all that she should have humbled herself to ask it of such a man as Lathrop. Anxiety remained, for Monk Lawrence itself, and still more for what might be said of her complicity. But all that was further implied in her confession, her drooping sweetness, her passionate appeal to him--the beauty of her true character, its innocence, its faith, its loyalty--began to flood him with a feeling that presently burst its bounds.

She wound up with most touching entreaties to him, to save and shield her friend--to go himself to Gertrude and warn her--to go to the police--without disclosing names, of course--and insist that the house should be constantly patrolled.

He scarcely heard a word of this. When she paused--there was silence a moment. Then she heard her name--very low--

"Delia!"

She looked up, and with a long breath she rose, as though drawn invisibly. He held out his arms, and she threw hers round his neck, hiding her face against the life that beat for her.

"Oh, forgive me!"--she murmured, after a little, childishly pressing her lips to his--"forgive me--for everything!"

The tears were in his eyes.

"You've gone through all this!--alone!" he said to her, as he bent over her. "But never again, Delia--never again!"

She was the first to release herself--putting tears away.

"Now then--what can we do?"

He resumed at once his ordinary manner and voice.

"We can do a great deal. I have the car here. I shall go straight back to Monk Lawrence, and see Daunt to-night. That woman's behaviour must be reported--and explained. An hour--an hour and a half?--since you were there?"--he took out his watch--"He's probably home by now--it's quite dark--he'd scarcely risk being away after dark. Dearest, go and rest!--I shall come back later--after dinner. Put it out of your mind."

She went towards the hall with him hand in hand. Suddenly there was a confused sound of shouting outside. Lady Tonbridge opened the drawing-room door with a scared face--

"What is it? There are people running up the drive. They're shouting something!"

Winnington rushed to the front door, Delia with him. With his first glance at the hill-side, he understood the meaning of the cries--of the crowd approaching.

"My God!--_too late_!"

For high on that wooded slope, a blaze was spreading to the skies--a blaze that grew with every second--illuminating with its flare the woods around it, the chimneys of the old house, the quiet stretches of the hill.

"Monk Lawrence is afire, Muster Winnington!" panted one of Winnington's own labourers who had outstripped the rest. "They're asking for you to come! They've telephoned to Latchford for the engines, and to Brownmouth and Wanchester too. They say it's burning like tow--there must be petrol in it, or summat. It's the women they say!--spite of Mr. Daunt and the perlice!"

Then he noticed Delia standing beside Winnington on the steps, and held his tongue, scowling.

Winnington's car was still standing at the steps. He set it going in a moment.

"My cloak!" said Delia, looking round her--"And tell them to bring the car!"

"Delia, you're not going?" cried Madeleine, throwing a restraining arm about her.

"But of course I am!" said the girl amazed. "Not with him--because I should be in his way."

Various persons ran to do her bidding. Winnington already in his place, with a labourer beside him, and two more in the seat behind him, beckoned to her.

"Why should you come, dearest! It will only break your heart. We'll do all that can be done, and I'll send back messages."

She shook her head.

"I shall come! But don't think of me. I won't run any risks."

There was no time to argue with her. The little car sped away, and with it the miscellaneous crowd who had rushed to find Winnington, as the natural head of the Maumsey community, and the only magistrate within reach.

Delia and Madeleine were left standing on the steps, amid a group of frightened and chattering servants--gazing in despairing rage at the ever-spreading horror on the slope of the down, at the sudden leaps of flame, the vast showers of sparks drifting over the woods, the red glare on the low hanging clouds. The garnered beauty of four centuries, one of England's noblest heirlooms, was going down in ruin, at the bidding of a handful of women, hurling themselves in disappointed fury on a community that would not give them their way.

Sharp-toothed remorse had hold on Delia. If she had only gone to Wilmington earlier! "My fault!--my fault!"

When the car came quickly round, she and Lady Tonbridge got into it. As they rushed through the roads, lit on their way by that blaze in the heart of the hills, of which the roaring began to reach their ears, Delia sat speechless, and death-like, reconstructing the past days and hours. Not yet two hours since she had left the house--left it untouched. At that very moment, Gertrude or Gertrude's agents must have been within it. The whole thing had been a plot--the children taken away--the house left deserted. Very likely Daunt's summons to his dying son had been also part of it. And as to the niece--what more probable than that Gertrude had laid hands on her months before, guided perhaps by the local knowledge of Marion Andrews,--and had placed her as spy and agent in the doomed house till the time should be ripe? The blind and fanatical devotions which Gertrude was able to excite when she set herself to it, was only too well known to Delia.

Where was Gertrude herself? For Delia was certain that she had not merely done this act by deputy.

In the village, every person who had not gone rushing up the hill was standing at the doors, pale and terror-stricken, watching the glare overhead. The blinds of Miss Toogood's little house were drawn close. And as Delia passed, angry looks and mutterings pursued her.

The car mounted the hill. Suddenly a huge noise and hooting behind them. They drew into the hedge, to let the Latchford fire-engine thunder past, a fine new motor engine, just purchased and equipped.

"There'll be three or four more directly, Miss"--shouted one of her own garden lads, mounting on the step of the car. "But they say there's no hope. It was fired in three places, and there was petrol used."

At the gate, the police--looking askance especially at Miss Blanchflower--would have turned them back. But Delia asked for Winnington, and they were at last admitted into the circle outside the courtyard, where beyond reach of the sparks, and falling fragments, the crowd of spectators was gathered. People made way for her, but Lady Tonbridge noticed that nobody spoke to her, though as soon as she appeared all the angry or excited attention that the crowd could spare from the fire was given to her. Delia was not aware of it. She stood a little in front of the crowd, with her veil thrown back, her hands clasped in front of her, an image of rapt despair. Her face, like all the faces in the crowd, was made lurid--fantastic--by the glare of the flames; and every now and then, as though unconsciously,