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

to the other, Delia's eyes darkly answering. They looked at each other for a little, as though in silent conversation, and then Delia turned again to the landscape outside.

Yes, there was the house, its long, irregular line with the village behind it. She could not restrain a slight exclamation as she caught sight of it, and her friend opposite turned interrogatively.

"What did you say?"

"Nothing--only there's the Abbey. I don't suppose I've seen it since I was twelve."

The other lady put up an eye-glass and looked where Miss Blanchflower pointed; but languidly, as though it were an effort to shake herself free from pre-occupying ideas. She was a woman of about thirty-five, slenderly made, with a sallow, regular face, and good, though short-sighted eyes. The eyes were dark, so was the hair, the features delicate. Under the black shady hat, the hair was very closely and neatly coiled. The high collar of the white blouse, fitting tightly to the slender neck, the coat and skirt of blue serge without ornament of any kind, but well cut, emphasized the thinness, almost emaciation, of the form. Her attitude, dress, and expression conveyed the idea of something amazingly taut and ready--like a ship cleared for action. The body with its clothing seemed to have been simplified as much as possible, so as to become the mere instrument of the will which governed it. No superfluity whatever, whether of flesh on her small bones, or of a single unnecessary button, fold, or trimming on her dress, had Gertrude Marvell ever allowed herself for many years. The general effect was in some way formidable; though why the neat precision of the little lady should convey any notion of this sort, it would not at first sight have been easy to say.

"How old did you say it is?"--she asked, after examining the distant building, which could be now plainly seen from the train across a stretch of green park.

"Oh, the present building is nothing--a pseudo-Gothic monstrosity, built about 1830," laughed Delia; "but there are some old remains and foundations of the abbey. It is a big, rambling old place, and I should think dreadfully in want of doing up. My grandfather was a bit of a miser, and though he was quite rich, he never spent a penny he could help."

"All the better. He left the more for other people to spend." Miss Marvell smiled--a slight, and rather tired smile, which hardly altered the face.

"Yes, if they are allowed to spend it!" said Delia, with a shrug. "Oh well, anyway the house must be done up--painted and papered and that kind of thing. A trustee has got to see that things of that sort are kept in order, I suppose. But it won't have anything to do with me, except that for decency's sake, no doubt, he'll consult me. I shall be allowed to choose the wall-papers I suppose!"

"If you want to," said the other drily.

Delia's brows puckered.

"We shall have to spend some time here, you know, Gertrude! We may as well have something to do."

"Nothing that might entangle us, or take too much of our thoughts," said Miss Marvell, gently, but decidedly.

"I'm afraid I like furnishing," said Delia, not without a shade of defiance.

"And I object--because I know you do. After all--you understand as well as I do that _every day_ now is important. There are not so many of us, Delia! If you're going to do real work, you can't afford to spend your time or thoughts on doing up a shabby house."

There was silence a moment. Then Delia said abruptly--"I wonder when that man will turn up? What a fool he is to take it on!"

"The guardianship? Yes, he hardly knows what he's in for." A touch of grim amusement shewed itself for a moment in Miss Marvell's quiet face.

"Oh, I daresay he knows. Perhaps he relies on what everyone calls his 'influence.' Nasty, sloppy word--nasty sloppy thing! Whenever I'm 'influenced,' I'm degraded!" The young shoulders straightened themselves fiercely.

"I don't know. It has its uses," said the other tranquilly.

Delia laughed radiantly.

"O well--if one can make the kind of weapon of it you do. I don't mean of course that one shouldn't be rationally persuaded. But that's a different thing. 'Influence' makes me think of canting clergymen, and stout pompous women, who don't know what they're talking about, and can't argue--who think they've settled everything by a stale quotation--or an appeal to 'your better self'--or St. Paul. If Mr. Winnington tries it on with 'influence'--we'll have some fun."

Delia returned to her window. The look her companion bent upon her was not visible to her. It was curiously detached--perhaps slightly ironical.

"I'm wondering what part I shall play in the first interview!" said Miss Marvell, after a pause. "I represent the first stone in Mr. Winnington's path. He will of course do his best to put me out of it."

"How can he?" cried Delia ardently. "What can he do? He can't send for the police and turn you out of the house. At least I suppose he could, but he certainly won't. The last thing a gentleman of his sort wants is to make a scandal. Every one says, after all, that he is a nice fellow!"--the tone was unconsciously patronising--"It isn't his fault if he's been placed in this false position. But the great question for me is--how are we going to manage him for the best?"

She leant forward, her chin on her hands, her sparkling eyes fixed on her friend's face.

"The awkward thing is"--mused Miss Marvell--"that there is so little _time_ in which to manage him. If the movement were going on at its old slow pace, one might lie low, try diplomacy, avoid alarming him, and so forth. But we've no time for that. It is a case of blow on blow--action on action--and the publicity is half the battle."

"Still, a little management there must be, to begin with!--because I--we--want money, and he holds the purse-strings. Hullo, here's the station!"

She jumped up and looked eagerly out of the window.

"They've sent a fly for us. And there's the station-master on the lookout. How it all comes back to me!"

Her flushed cheek showed a natural excitement. She was coming back as its mistress to a house where she had been happy as a child, which she had not seen for years. Thoughts of her father, as he had been in the old days before any trouble had arisen between them, came rushing through her mind--tender, regretful thoughts--as the train came slowly to a standstill.

But the entire indifference or passivity of her companion restrained her from any further expression. The train stopped, and she descended to the platform of a small country station, alive apparently with traffic and passengers.

"Miss Blanchflower?" said a smiling station-master, whose countenance seemed to be trying to preserve the due mean between welcome to the living and condolence for the dead, as, hat in hand, he approached the newcomers, and guided by her deep mourning addressed himself to Delia.

"Why, Mr. Stebbing, I remember you quite well," said Delia, holding out her hand. "There's my maid--and I hope there's a cart for the luggage. We've got a lot."

A fair-haired man in spectacles, who had also just left the train, turned abruptly and looked hard at the group as he passed them. He hesitated a moment, then passed on, with a curious swinging gait, a long and shabby over-coat floating behind him--to speak to the porter who was collecting tickets at the gate opening on the road beyond.

Meanwhile Delia had been accosted by another gentleman, who had been sitting reading his _Morning Post_ on the sunny platform, as the train drew up. He too had examined the new arrivals with interest, and while Delia was still talking to the station-master, he walked up to her.

"I think you are Miss Blanchflower: But you won't remember me." He lifted his hat, smiling.

Delia looked at him, puzzled.

"Don't you remember that Christmas dance at the Rectory, when you were ten, and I was home from Sandhurst?"

"Perfectly!--and I quarrelled with you because you wouldn't give me champagne, when I'd danced with you, instead of lemonade. You said what was good for big boys wasn't good for little girls--and I called you a bully--"

"You kicked me!--you had the sharpest little toes!"

"Did I?" said Delia composedly. "I was rather good at kicking. So you are Billy Andrews?"

"Right. I'm Captain now, and they've just made me adjutant down here for the Yeomanry. My mother keeps house for me. You're coming here to live? Please let me say how sorry I was to see your sad news." The condolence was a little clumsy but sincere.

"Thank you. I must go and see to the luggage. Let me introduce you to Miss Marvell--Captain Andrews--Miss Marvell."

That lady bowed coldly, as Delia departed. The tall, soldierly man, whose pleasant looks were somewhat spoilt by a slightly underhung mouth, and prominent chin, disguised, however, by a fine moustache, offered assistance with the luggage.

"There is no need, thank you," said Miss Marvell. "Miss Blanchflower and her maid will see to it."

And the Captain noticed that the speaker remained entirely passive while the luggage was being collected and piled into a fly by the porters, directed by Miss Blanchflower and her maid. She stood quietly on the platform, till all was ready, and Delia beckoned to her. In the intervals the soldier tried to make conversation, but with very small success. He dwelt upon some of the changes Miss Blanchflower would find on the estate; how the old head-keeper, who used to make a pet of her, was dead, and the new agent her father had put in was thought to be doing well, how the village had lost markedly in population in the last few years--this emigration to Canada was really getting beyond a joke!--and so forth. Miss Marvell made no replies. But she suddenly asked him a question.

"What's that house over there?"

She pointed to a grey facade on a wooded hill some two miles off.

"That's our show place--Monk Lawrence! We're awfully proud of it--Elizabethan, and that kind of thing. But of course you've heard of Monk Lawrence! It's one of the finest things in England."

"It belongs to Sir Wilfrid Lang?"

"Certainly. Do you know him? He's scarcely been there at all, since he became a Cabinet Minister; and yet he spent a lot of money in repairing it a few years ago. They say it's his wife's health--that it's too damp for her. Anyway it's quite shut up,--except that they let tourists see it once a month."

"Does anybody live in the house?"--

"Oh--a caretaker, of course,--one of the keepers. They let the shooting. Ah! there's Miss Blanchflower calling you."

Miss Marvell--as the gallant Captain afterwards remembered--took a long look at the distant house and then went to join Miss Blanchflower. The Captain accompanied her, and helped her to stow away the remaining bags into the fly, while a small concourse of rustics, sprung from nowhere, stolidly watched the doings of the heiress and her friend. Delia suddenly bent forward to him, as he was about to shut the door, with an animated look--"Can you tell me who that gentleman is who has just walked off towards the village?"--she pointed.

"His name is Lathrop. He lives in a place just the other side of yours. He's got some trout-hatching ponds--will stock anybody's stream for them. Rather