Delia Blanchflower by Mrs. Humphry Ward (good beach reads TXT) 📕

to throw off the shadow of something ignoble it had worn in Gertrude's presence. For Delia, looking at him, was attracted by him. The shabby clothes made no impression upon her, but the blue eyes did. And the childishness which still survived in her, beneath all her intellectualisms, came impulsively to the surface.

"Mr. Lathrop, do you--do you know anything about jewelry?"

"Jewelry? Nothing!--except that I have dabbled in pretty things of that sort as I have dabbled in most things. I once did some designing for a man who set up--in Bond Street--to imitate Lalique. Why do you ask? I suppose you have heaps of jewels?" "Too many. I want to sell some jewels."

"Sell?--But--" he looked at her in astonishment.

She reddened still more deeply; but spoke with a frank charm.

"You thought I was rich? Well, of course I ought to be. My father was rich. But at present I have nothing of my own--nothing! It is all in trust--and I can't get at it. But I _must_ have some money! Wait here a moment!"

She ran out of the room. When she came back she was carrying a miscellaneous armful of jewellers' cases. She threw them down on the sofa.

"They are all hideous--but I am sure they're worth a great deal of money."

And she opened them with hasty fingers before his astonished eyes. In his restless existence he had accumulated various odd veins of knowledge, and he knew something of the jewelry trade of London. He had not only drawn designs, he had speculated--unluckily--in "De Beers." For a short time Diamonds had been an obsession with him, then Burmah rubies. He had made money out of neither; it was not in his horoscope to make money out of anything. However there was the result--a certain amount of desultory information.

He took up one piece after another, presently drawing a magnifying glass out of his pocket to examine them the better.

"Well, if you want money--" he said at last, putting down a _riviere_ which had belonged to Delia's mother--"That alone will give you some thousands!"

Delia's eyes danced with satisfaction--then darkened.

"That was Mamma's. Papa bought it at Constantinople--from an old Turkish Governor--who had robbed a province--spent the loot in Paris on his wives--and then had to disgorge half his fortune--to the Sultan--who got wind of it. Papa bought it at a great bargain, and was awfully proud of it. But after Mamma died, he sent it to the Bank, and never thought of it again. I couldn't wear it, of course--I was too young."

"How much money do you want?"

"Oh, a few thousands," said Delia, vaguely. "Five hundred pounds, first of all."

"And who will sell them for you?"

She frowned in perplexity.

"I--I don't know."

"You don't wish to ask Mr. Winnington?"

"Certainly not! They have nothing to do with him. They are my own personal property," she added proudly.

"Still he might object--Ought you not to ask him?"

"I shall not tell him!" She straightened her shoulders. "He has far too much bother on my account already."

"Of course, if I could do anything for you--I should be delighted. But I don't know why you should trust me. You don't know anything about me!" He laughed uncomfortably.

Delia laughed too--in some confusion. It seemed to him she suddenly realised she had done something unusual.

"It is very kind of you to suggest it--" she said, hesitating.

"Not at all. It would amuse me. I have some threads I can pick up still--in Bond Street. Let me advise you to concentrate on that _riviere_. If you really feel inclined to trust me, I will take it to a man I know; he will show it to--" he named a famous firm. "In a few days--well, give me a week--and I undertake to bring you proposals. If you accept them, I will collect the money for you at once--or I will return you the necklace, if you don't."

Delia clasped her hands.

"A week! You think it might all be finished in a week?"

"Certainly--thereabouts. These things--" he touched the diamonds--"are practically money."

Delia sat ruminating, with a bright excited face. Then a serious expression returned. She looked up.

"Mr. Lathrop, this ought to be a matter of business between us--if you do me so great a service?"

"You mean I ought to take a commission?" he said, calmly. "I shall do nothing of the kind."

"It is more than I ought to accept!" she cried. "Let your kindness--include what I wish."

He shook his fair hair impatiently.

"Why should you take away all my pleasure in the little adventure?"

She looked embarrassed. He went on--

"Besides we are comrades--we have stood together in the fight. I expect this is for the Cause! If so I ought to be angry that you even suggested it!"

"Don't be angry!" she said gravely. "I meant nothing unkind. Well, I thank you very much--and there are the diamonds."

She gave him the case, with a quiet deliberate movement, as if to emphasize her trust in him. The simplicity with which it was done pricked him uncomfortably. "I'm no thief!--" he thought angrily. "She's safe enough with me. All the same, if she knew--she wouldn't speak to me--she wouldn't admit me into her house. She doesn't know--and I am a cad!"

"You can't the least understand what it means to be allowed to do you a service!" he said, with emotion.

But the tone evidently displeased her. She once more formally thanked him; then sprang up and began to put the cases on the sofa together. As she did so, steps on the gravel outside were heard through the low casement window. Delia turned with a start, and saw Mark Winnington approaching the front door.

"Don't say anything _please_!" she said urgently. "This has nothing to do with my guardian."

And opening the door of a lacquer cabinet, she hurriedly packed the jewelry inside with all the speed she could. Her flushed cheek shewed her humiliated by the action.

* * * * *

Winnington stood in the doorway, silent and waiting. After a hasty greeting to the new-comer, Delia was nervously bidding Lathrop good-bye.

"In a week!" he said, under his breath, as she gave him her hand.

"A week!" she repeated, evidently impatient for him to be gone. He exchanged a curt bow with Winnington, and the door closed on him.

There was a short silence. Winnington remained standing, hat in hand. He was in riding dress--a commanding figure, his lean face reddened, and the waves of his grizzled hair slightly loosened, by a buffeting wind. Delia, stealing a glance at him, divined a coming remonstrance, and awaited it with a strange mixture of fear and pleasure. They had not met for ten days; and she stammered out some New Year's wishes. She hoped that he and Mrs. Matheson had enjoyed their visit.

But without any reply to her politeness, he said abruptly--

"Were you arranging some business with Mr. Lathrop?"

She supposed he was thinking of the militant Campaign.

"Yes," she said, eagerly. "Yes, I was arranging some business."

Winnington's eyes examined her.

"Miss Delia, what do you know about that man?--except that story--which I understand Miss Marvell told you."

"Nothing--nothing at all! Except--except that he speaks at our meetings, and generally gets us into hot water. He has a lot of interesting books--and drawings--in his cottage; and he has lent me Madame de Noailles' poems. Won't you sit down? I hope you and Mrs. Matheson have had a good time? We have been to church--at least I have--and given away lots of coals and plum-puddings--at least I have. Gertrude thought me a fool. We have had the choir up to sing carols in the servants' hall, and given them a sovereign--at least I did. And I don't want any more Christmas--for a long, long, time!"

And with that, she dropped into a chair opposite Winnington, who sat now twirling his hat and studying the ground.

"I agree with you," he said drily when she paused. "I felt when I was away that I had better be here. And I feel it now doubly."

"Because?"

"Because--if my absence has led to your developing any further acquaintance with the gentleman who has just left the room, when I might have prevented it, I regret it deeply."

Delia's cheeks had gone crimson again.

"You knew perfectly well Mr. Winnington, that we had made acquaintance with Mr. Lathrop! We never concealed it!"

"I knew, of course, that you were both members of the League, and that you had spoken at meetings together. I regretted it--exceedingly--and I asked you--in vain--to put an end to it. But when I find him paying a morning call here--and lending you books--that is a very different matter!"

Delia broke out--

"You really are _too_ Early-Victorian, Mr. Winnington!--and I can't help being rude. Do you suppose you can ever turn me into a bread-and-butter miss? I have looked after myself for years--you don't understand!" She faced him indignantly.

Winnington laughed.

"All right--so long as the Early Victorians may have their say. And my say about Mr. Lathrop is--again that he is not a fit companion for you, or any young girl,--that he is a man of blemished character--both in morals and business. Ask anybody in this neighbourhood!"

He had spoken with firm emphasis, his eyes sparkling.

"Everybody in the neighbourhood believes anything bad, about him--and us!" cried Delia.

"Don't, for Heaven's sake, couple yourself, and the man--together!" said Winnington, flushing with anger. "I know nothing about him, when you first arrived here. Mr. Lathrop didn't matter twopence to me before. Now he does matter."

"Why?" Delia's eyes were held to his, fascinated.

"Simply because I care--I care a great deal--what happens to you," he said quietly, after a pause. "Naturally, I must care."

Delia looked away, and began twisting her black sash into knots.

"Bankruptcy--is not exactly a crime."

"Oh, so you knew that farther fact about him? But of course--it is the rest that matters. Since we spoke of this before, I have seen the judge who tried the case in which this man figured. I hate speaking of it in your presence, but you force me. He told me it was one of the worst he had ever known--a case for which there was no defence or excuse whatever."

"Why must I believe it?" cried Delia impetuously. "It's a man's judgment! The woman may have been--Gertrude says she was--horribly unhappy and ill-treated. Yet nothing could be proved--enough to free her. Wait till we have women judges--and women lawyers--then you'll see!"

He laughed indignantly--though not at all inclined to laugh. And what seemed to him her stubborn perversity drove him to despair.

"In this case, if there had been a woman judge, I am inclined to think it would have been a good deal worse for the people concerned. At least I hope so. Don't try to make me believe, Miss Delia, that women are going to forgive treachery and wickedness more easily than men!"

"Oh, 'treachery!'--" she murmured, protesting. His look both intimidated and drew her. Winnington came nearer to her, and suddenly he laid his hand on both of hers. Looking up she was conscious of a look that was