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

of Berliners, men of the commercial and stock-broking class, who, with their wives, had arrived a couple of nights before. The men were strolling and smoking below. They were all fat, red-faced and overbearing. When they went for walks, the man stalked in front along the forest paths, and the woman followed behind, carrying her own jacket. Winnington wondered what it might be like to be the wife of any of them. These _Herren_ at any rate might not be the worse for a little hustling from the "woman movement." He could not, however, say honestly that the wives shewed any consciousness of ill-fortune. They were almost all plump, plumper even than their husbands, expensively dressed and prosperous looking; and the amount of Viennese beer they consumed at the forest restaurants to which their husbands conducted them, seemed to the Englishman portentous.

"Yes, my daughter is old-fashioned," resumed the ex-judge, complacently, after a pause. "And I am grateful to Miss Johnson, who has trained her very well. If she were like some of the girls one sees now! Last year there was a young lady here--_Ach, Gott!_" He raised his shoulders, with a contemptuous mouth.

"Miss Blanchflower?" asked Winnington, turning towards the speaker with sudden interest.

"That I believe was her name. She was mad, of course. _Ach_, they have told you?--of that _Vortrag_ she gave?--and the rest? After ten minutes, I made a sign to my daughter, and we walked out. I would not have had her corrupted with these ideas for the whole world. And such beauty, you understand! That makes it more dangerous. _Ja, ja, Liebchen--ich komme gleich!_"

For there had been a soft call from Euphrosyne, standing on the steps of the hotel, and her fond father hurried away to join her.

At the same moment, the porter emerged, bearing a bundle of letters and newspapers which had just arrived. Eager for his _Times_ Winnington went to meet him, and the man put into his hands what looked like a large post. He carried it off into the shelter of the pines, for the sun was already blazing on the hotel. Two or three letters on county business he ran through first. His own pet project, as County Councillor,--a county school for crippled children, was at last getting on. Foundation stone to be laid in October--good! "But how the deuce can I get hold of some more women to help work it! Scandalous, how few of the right sort there are about! And as for the Asylums Committee, if we really can't legally co-opt women to it, as our clerk says"--he looked again at a letter in his hand--"the law is an ass!--a double-dyed ass. I swear I won't visit those poor things on the women's side again. It's women's work--let them do it. The questions I have to ask are enough to make an old gamp blush. Hallo, what's this?"

He turned over a large blue envelope, and looked at a name stamped across the back. It was the name of a well-known firm of London solicitors. But he had no dealings with them, and could not imagine why they should have written to him.

He opened the letter carelessly, and began to read it,--presently with eager attention, and at last with amazement.

It ran as follows:

"From Messrs. MORTON, MANNERS & LATHOM, Solicitors, Adelphi, London, W. C."

"Dear Sir,--We write on behalf of Lord Frederick Calverly, your co-executor, under Sir Robert Blanchflower's will, to inform you that in Sir Robert's last will and testament--of which we enclose a copy--executed at Meran six weeks before his decease, you are named as one of his two executors, as sole trustee of his property, and sole guardian of Sir Robert's daughter and only child, Miss Delia Blanchflower, until she attains the age of twenty-five. We believe that this will be a complete surprise to you, for although Sir Robert, according to a statement he made during his last illness to his sister, Miss Elizabeth Blanchflower, intended to communicate with you before signing the will, his weakness increased so rapidly, after it was finally drawn up, that he was never able to do so. Indeed the morning after his secretary had written out a clear copy of what he himself had put together, he had a most alarming attack from which he rallied with difficulty. That afternoon he signed the will, and was just able to write you the letter which we also enclose, marked by himself, as you will see. He was never properly conscious afterwards, and he died in Paris last Thursday, and was buried in the Protestant cemetery at Mont Parnasse on the Saturday following. The will which was in our custody was opened in London yesterday, by Lord Frederick Calverly, in Miss Blanchflower's presence. We understand from her that she has already written to you on the subject. Lord Frederick would also have done so, but that he has just gone to Harrogate, in a very poor state of health. He begs us to say that he is of course quite aware that your engagements may not allow you to accept the functions offered you under the will, and that he will be in considerable anxiety until he knows your decision. He hopes that you will at least accept the executorship; and indeed ventures to appeal very strongly on that account to your old friendship for Sir Robert; as he himself sees no prospect of being able to carry out unaided the somewhat heavy responsibilities attaching to the office.

"You will see that a sum of L4000 is left to yourself under the will."

We remain, dear Sir,

Your obedient servants,

MORTON, MANNERS & LATHOM. "(Solicitors.)"

"MARK WINNINGTON, Esq., J. P. Bridge End, Maumsey, Hants."

A bulky document on blue paper, and also a letter had dropped to the ground. Winnington stooped for the letter, and turned it over in stupification. It was addressed in a faltering hand, and marked, "To be forwarded after my death." He hastily broke the seal.

"MY DEAR MARK WINNIXGTON,--I know well what I am laying upon you. I have no right to do it. But I remember certain days in the past, and I believe if you are still the same man you were then, you will do what I ask. My daughter ought to be a fine woman. At present she seems to me entirely and completely out of her mind. She has been captured by the extreme suffrage movement, and by one of the most mischievous women in it; and I have no influence with her whatever. I live in terror of what she may do; of what they may lead her to do. To attempt to reason with her is useless; and for a long time my health has been such that I have avoided conflict with her as much as possible. But things have now come to such a pass that something must be done, and I have tried in these last weeks, ill as I am, to face the future. I want if I can to save Delia from wasting herself, and the money and estates I should naturally leave her, upon this mad campaign. I want, even against her will, to give her someone to advise and help her. I feel bitterly that I have done neither. The tropics ruined me physically, and I seem to have gone to pieces altogether the last few years. But I love my child, and I can't leave her without a real friend or support in the world. I have no near relations, except my sister Elizabeth, and she and Delia are always at feud. Freddie Calverly my cousin, is a good fellow in his way, though too fussy about his health. He has a fair knowledge of business, and he would have been hurt if I had not made him executor. So I have appointed him, and have of course left him a little money. But he could no more tackle Delia than fly. In the knock-about life we have led since I left the Colonial Service, I seem to have shed all my old friends. I can think of no one who could or would help me in this strait but you--and you know why. God bless you for what you once did for me. There was never any other cloud between my poor wife and me. She turned to me after that trouble, and we were happy till the end. "I have heard too something of you from Maumsey people, since I inherited Maumsey, though I have never been able to go there. I know what your neighbours think of you. And now Delia is going to be your neighbour. So, drawing a bow at a venture, as a dying man must, I have made you Delia's guardian and trustee, with absolute power over her property and income till she is twenty-five. When she attains that age--she is now nearly twenty-two--if she marries a man approved by you, or if you are satisfied that her connection with militant suffragism has ceased, the property is to be handed over to her in full possession, and the trust will come to an end. If on the contrary, she continues in her present opinion and course of action, I have left directions that the trust is to be maintained for Delia's life-time, under certain conditions as to her maintenance, which you will find in the will. If you yourself are not willing to administer the trust, either now or later, the property will devolve to the Public Trustee, for whom full instructions are left. And at Delia's death it will be divided among her heirs, if she has any, and various public objects.

"I cannot go further into details. My strength is almost out. But this one thing may I beg?--if you become my child's guardian, get the right person to live with her. I regard that as all-important. She must have a chaperon, and she will try to set up one of the violent women who have divided her from me. Especially am I in dread of a lady, an English lady, a Miss Marvell, whom I engaged two years ago to stay with us for the winter and read history with Delia. She is very able and a very dangerous woman, prepared I believe, to go to any length on behalf of her 'cause.' At any rate she filled Delia's head with the wildest suffragist notions, and since then my poor child thinks of nothing else. Even since I have been so ill--this last few weeks--I know she has been in communication with this woman. She sympathises with all the horrible things they do, and I am certain she gives all the money she can to their funds. Delia is a splendid creature, but she is vain and excitable and they court her. I feel that they might tempt her into any madness.

"Goodbye. I made the doctor give me strychnine and morphia enough to carry me through this effort. I expect it will be the last. Help me, and my girl--if you can--for old sake's sake. Goodbye."

Your grateful old friend,

"ROBERT BLANCHFLOWER."

"Good heavens!" was all Winnington could find to say, as he put down the letter.

Then, becoming aware, as the verandah filled after breakfast, that he was in a very public place, he hastily rose,