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

be too sure! You and I know Miss Marvell. If she means to burn Monk Lawrence, she'll achieve it, whatever the police may do."

The man and the girl walked on in silence. The January afternoons were lengthening a little, and even under the shadow of the wood Lathrop could see with sufficient plainness Delia's pale beauty--strangely worn and dimmed as it seemed to him. His mind revolted. Couldn't the jealous gods spare even this physical perfection? What on earth had been happening to her? He supposed a Christian would call the face "spiritualised." If so, the Christian--in his opinion--would be a human ass.

"I have written several times to Miss Marvell--very strongly," said Delia at last. "I thought you ought to know that. But I have had no reply."

"Why don't you go--instead of writing?"

"It has been impossible. My maid has been so terribly ill."

Lathrop expressed his sympathy. Delia received it with coldness and a slight frown. She hurried on--

"I've written again--but I haven't sent it. Perhaps I oughtn't to have written by post."

"Better not. Shall I be your messenger? Miss Marvell doesn't like me--but that don't matter."

"Oh, no, thank you." The voice was hastily emphatic; so that his vanity winced. "There are several members of the League in the village. I shall send one of them."

He smiled--rather maliciously.

"Are you going to tackle Miss Andrews herself?"

"You're still--quite _certain_--that she's concerned?"

"Quite certain. Since you and I met--a fortnight ago isn't it?--I have seen her several times, in the neighbourhood of the house--after dark. She has no idea, of course, that I have been prowling round."

"What have you seen?--what can she be doing?" asked Delia. "Of course I remember what you told me--the other day."

Lathrop's belief was that a close watch was now being kept on Daunt--on his goings and comings--with a view perhaps to beguiling him away, and then getting into the house.

"But he has lately got a niece to stay with him, and help look after the children, and the house. His sister who is married in London, offered to send her down for six months. He was rather surprised, for he had quite lost sight of his sister; but he tells me it's a great relief to his mind.

"So you talk to him?"

"Certainly. Oh, he knows all about me--but he knows too that I'm on the side of the house! He thinks I'm a queer chap--but he can trust me--in _that_ business. And by the way, Miss Blanchflower, perhaps I ought to let you understand that I'm an artist and a writer, before I'm a Suffragist, and if I come across Miss Marvell--engaged in what you and I have been talking of--I shall behave just like any other member of the public, and act for the police. I don't want to sail--with you--under any false pretences!"

"I know," said Delia, quietly. "You came to warn me--and we are acting together. I understand perfectly. You--you've promised however"--she could not keep her voice quite normal--"that you'd let me know--that you'd give me notice before you took any step."

Lathrop nodded. "If there's time--I promise. But if Daunt or I come upon Miss Marvell--or any of her minions--torch in hand--there would not be time. Though, of course, if I could help her escape, consistently with saving the house--for your sake--I should do so. I am sure you believe that?"

Delia made no audible reply, but he took her silence for consent.

"And now"--he resumed--"I ought to be informed without delay, whether your messenger finds Miss Marvell and how she receives your letter."

"I will let you know at once."

"A telegram brings me here--this same spot. But you won't wire from the village?"

"Oh no, from Latchford."

"Well, then, that's settled. Regard me, please, as your henchman. Well!--have you read any Madame de Noailles?"

He fancied he saw a slight impatient movement.

"Not yet, I'm afraid. I've been living in a sick room."

Again he expressed polite sympathy, while his thoughts repeated--"What waste!--what absurdity!"

"She might distract you--especially in these winter days. Her verse is the very quintessence of summer--of hot gardens and their scents--of roses--and June twilights. It takes one out of this leafless north." He stretched a hand to the landscape.

And suddenly, while his heavy face kindled, he began to recite. His French was immaculate--even to a sensitive and well-trained ear; and his voice, which in speaking was disagreeable, took in reciting deep and beautiful notes, which easily communicated to a listener the thrill, the passion, of sensuous pleasure, which certain poetry produced in himself.

But it communicated no such thrill to Delia. She was only irritably conscious of the uncouthness of his large cadaverous face, and straggling fair hair; of his ragged ulster, his loosened tie, and all the other untidy details of his dress. "And I shall have to go on meeting him!" she thought, with repulsion. "And at the end of this walk (the gate was in sight) I shall have to shake hands with him--and he'll hold my hand."

She loathed the thought of it; but she knew very well that she Was under coercion--for Gertrude's sake. The recollection of Winnington--away in Latchford on county business--smote her sharply. But how could she help it? She must--_must_ keep in touch with this man--who had Gertrude in his power.

While these thoughts were running through her mind, he stopped his recitation abruptly.

"Am I to help you any more--with the jewels?"

Delia started. Lathrop was smiling at her, and she resented the smile. She had forgotten. But there was no help for it. She must have more money. It might be, in the last resort, the means of bargaining with Gertrude. And how could she ask Mark Winnington!

So she hurriedly thanked him, naming a tiara and two pendants, that she thought must be valuable.

"All right," said Lathrop, taking out a note-book from his breast pocket, and looking at certain entries he had made on the occasion of his visit to Maumsey. "I remember--worth a couple of thousand at least. When shall I have them?"

"I will send them registered--to-morrow--from Latchford."

"_ Tres bien_! I will do my best. You know Mr. Winnington has offered me a commission?" His eyes laughed.

Delia turned upon him.

"And you ought to accept it, Mr. Lathrop! It would be kinder to all of us."

She spoke with spirit and dignity. But he laughed again and shook his head.

"My reward, you see, is just _not_ to be paid. My fee is your presence--in this wood--your little word of thanks--and the hand you give me--on the bargain!"

They had reached the gate, and he held out his hand. Delia had flushed violently, but she yielded her own. He pressed it lingeringly, as she had foreseen, then released it and opened the gate for her.

"Good-bye then. A word commands me--when you wish. We keep watch--and each informs the other--barring accidents. That is, I think, the bargain."

She murmured assent, and they parted. Half way back towards his own cottage, Lathrop paused at a spot where the trees were thin, and the slopes of the valley below could be clearly seen. He could still make out her figure nearing the first houses of the village.

"I think she hates me. Never mind! I command her, and meet me she must--when I please to summon her. There is some sweetness in that--and in teasing the stupid fellow who no doubt will own her some day."

And he thought exultantly of Winnington's letter to him, and his own insolent reply. It had been a perfectly civil letter--and a perfectly proper thing for a guardian to do. But--for the moment--

"I have the whip hand--and it amuses me to keep it,--Now then for Blaydes!"

For there, in the doorway of the cottage, stood the young journalist, waiting and smoking. He was evidently in good humour.

"Well? She came?"

"Of course she came. But it doesn't matter to you."

"Oh, doesn't it! I suppose she wants you to sell something more for her?"

Lathrop did not reply. Concerning Gertrude Marvell, he had not breathed a word to Blaydes.

They entered the hut together, and Lathrop rekindled the fire. The two men sat over it smoking. Blaydes plied his companion with eager questions, to which Lathrop returned the scantiest answers. At last he said with a sarcastic look--

"I was offered four hundred pounds this afternoon--and refused it."

"The deuce you did!" cried Blaydes, fiercely. "What about my debt--and what do you mean?"

"Ten per cent. commission," said Lathrop, drawing quietly at his cigar. "Sales up to two thou., a fortnight ago. I shall get the same money--or more--for the next batch."

"Well, that's all right! No need to get it out of the lady, if you're particular. Get it out of the other side. Any fool could manage that."

"I shall not get a farthing out of the other side. I shall not make a doit out of the whole transaction!"

"Then you're a d----d fool," said Blaydes, in a passion. "And a dishonest fool besides!"

"Easy, please! What hold should I have on this girl--this splendid creature--if I were merely to make money out of her? As it is, she's obliged to me--she treats me like a gentleman. I thought you had matrimonial ideas."

"I don't believe you've got the ghost of a chance!" grumbled Blaydes, his mind smarting under the thought of the lost four hundred pounds, out of which his debt might have been paid.

"Nor do I," said Lathrop, coolly. "But I choose to keep on equal terms with her. You can sell me up when you like."

He lounged to the window, and threw it open. The January day was closing, not in any glory of sunset, but with interwoven greys and pearls, and delicate yellow lights slipping through the clouds.

"I shall always have _this_"--he said to himself, passionately, as he drank in the air and the beauty--"whatever happens."

Recollection brought back to him Delia's proud, virginal youth, and her springing step as she walked beside him through the wood. His mind wavered again between triumph and self-disgust. His muddy past returned upon him, mingled, as always, with that invincible respect for her, and belief in something high and unstained in the depths of his own nature, to which his weakened and corrupt will was yet unable to give any effect.

"What I have done is not 'me'"--he thought. "At any rate not all 'me.' I am better than it. I suspect Winnington has told her something--measuring it chastely out. All the same--I shall see her again."

* * * * *

Meanwhile Delia was descending the hill pursued by doubts and terrors. The day was now darkening fast, and heavy snow-clouds were coming down over the valley. The wind had dropped, but the heavy air was bitter-cold and lifeless, as though the earth waited sadly for the silencing and muffling of the snow.

And in Delia's heart there was a like dumb expectancy of change. The old enthusiasms, and ideals and causes, seemed for the moment to lie veiled and frozen within her. Only two figures emerged sharply in the landscape of thought--Gertrude--and Winnington.

Since that day, the day before Weston's operation, when Paul Lathrop had brought her evidence--collected partly