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

in the fire-lit drawing-room, when the curtains were drawn, Delia suddenly brought a stool close to Lady Tonbridge's side, and, sitting at her feet, held up appealing arms. Madeleine, with a rush of motherliness, gathered her close; and the beautiful head lay, very quiet, on her breast. But when she would have entreated, or argued, again, Delia implored her--"Don't--don't talk!--it's no good. Just let me stay."

Late that night, all being ready for departure, Delia went in to say good-night, and good-bye to Weston.

"You'll be downstairs and as strong as a horse, when I come back," she said gaily, stroking the patient's emaciated fingers.

Weston shook her head.

"I don't think I shall ever be good for much, Miss Delia. But"--and her voice suddenly broke--"I believe I'd go through it all again--just to know--what--you could be--to a poor thing--like me."

"Weston!--" said Delia, softly--"if you talk like that--and if you dare to cry, Nurse will turn me out. You're going to get quite well, but whether you're well or ill, here you stay, Miss Rosina Weston!--and I'm going to look after you. Polly hasn't packed my things half badly." Polly was the under-housemaid, whom Delia was taking to town. "She wouldn't be worth her salt, if she hadn't," said Weston tartly. "But she can't do your hair, Miss--and it's no good saying she can."

"Then I'll do it myself. I'll make some sort of a glorious mess of it, and set the fashion."

But her thought said--"If I go to prison, they'll cut it off. Poor Weston!"

Weston moved uneasily--

"Miss Delia?"

"Yes."

"Don't you go getting yourself into trouble. Now don't you!" And with tears in her eyes, the ghostly creature pressed the girl's hand to her lips. Delia stooped and kissed her. But she made no reply. Instead she began to talk of the new bed-rest which had just been provided for Weston, and on which the patient professed herself wonderfully comfortable.

"It's better than the one we had at Meran--for papa." Her voice dropped. She sat at the foot of Weston's bed looking absently into some scene of the past.

"Nothing ever gave him ease--your poor Papa!" said Weston, pitifully. "He did suffer! But don't you go thinking about it this time of night, Miss Delia, or you won't sleep."

Delia said goodnight, and went away. But she did think of her father--with a curious intensity. And when she fell fitfully asleep, she dreamt that she saw him standing beside her in some open foreign place, and that he looked at her in silence, steadily and coldly. And she stretched out her hands, in a rush of grief--"Kiss me, father! I was unkind--horribly--horribly unkind!"

With the pain of it, she woke suddenly and the visualising sense seemed still to perceive in the darkness the white head and soldierly form. She half rose, gasping. Then, as though a photographic shutter were let down, the image passed from the brain, and she lay with heaving breast, trying to find her way back into what we call reality. But it was a reality even more wretched than those recollections to which her dream had recalled her. For it was held and possessed by Winnington, and now by the threatening vision of Monk Lawrence, spectral amid the red ruin of fire. She had stopped the motor that day at the foot of the hill on which the house stood, and using Winnington's name, had made a call on the cripple child. Daunt had received her with a somewhat gruff civility, and was not communicative about the house and its defence. But she gathered--without herself broaching the subject--that he was scornfully confident of his power to protect it against "them creeping women," and she had come home comforted. The cripple child had clung to her silently; and on coming away, Delia had felt a small wet kiss upon her hand. A touching creature!--with her wide blue eyes, and delicate drawn face. It was feared that another abscess might be developing in the little hip, where for a time disease had been quiescent.

* * * * *

On Monday morning the doctors came early. They gave a favourable verdict, and Delia at once decided on an afternoon train.

All the morning, Lady Tonbridge hovered round her, loth to take her own departure, and trying every now and then to re-open the subject of London, to make the girl promise to send for her--to consult Winnington, if any trouble arose.

But Delia would not allow any discussion. "I shall be with Gertrude--she'll tell me what to do," was all she would say.

Lady Tonbridge was dropped at her own door by Delia, on her way to the station. Nora was there to welcome her, but not all their joy in recovering each other, could repair Madeleine's cheerfulness. She stood, looking after the retreating car with such a face that Nora exclaimed--

"Mother, what _is_ the matter!"

"I'm watching the tumbril out of sight," said Lady Tonbridge incoherently. "Shall we ever see her again?"

That, however, was someone else's affair.

Delia took her own and her housemaid's tickets for London, saw her companion established, and then, preferring to be alone, stepped into an empty carriage herself. She had hardly disposed her various packages, and the train was within two minutes of starting, when a tall man came quickly along the platform, inspecting the carriages as he passed. Delia did not see him till he was actually at her window. In another moment he had opened and closed the door, and had thrown down his newspapers and overcoat on the seat. The train was just starting, and Delia, crimson, found herself mechanically shaking hands with Mark Winnington.

"You're going up to town?" She stammered it. "I didn't know--"

"I shall be in town for a few days. Are you quite comfortable? A footwarmer?"

For the day was cold and frosty, with a bitter east wind.

"I'm quite warm, thank you."

The train ran out of the station, and they were soon in the open country. Delia leant back in her seat, silent, conscious of her own hurrying pulses, but determined to control them. She would have liked to be indignant--to protest that she was being persecuted and coerced. But the recollection of their last meeting, and the sheer, inconvenient, shameful, joy of his presence there, opposite, interposed.

Winnington himself was quite cool; there were no signs whatever of any intention to renew their Friday's conversation. His manner and tone were just as usual. Some business at the Home Office, connected with his County Council work, called him to town. He should be staying at his Club in St. James's St. Alice Matheson also would be in town.

"Shall we join for a theatre, one night?" he asked her.

She felt suddenly angered. Was she never to be believed, never to be taken seriously?

"To-morrow, Mr. Mark, is the meeting of Parliament."

"That I am aware of."

"The day after, I shall probably be in prison!"

She fronted him bravely, though, as he saw, with an effort. He paused a moment, but showed no astonishment.

"I hope not. I think not," he said, quietly.

Delia took up the evening paper she had just bought at the station, opened it, and looked at the middle page.

"There are our plans," she said, defiantly, handing it to him.

"Thank you. I have already seen it."

But he again read through attentively the paragraph to which she pointed him. It was headed "Militant Plans for To-morrow." A procession of five hundred women was to march on the Houses of Parliament, at the moment of the King's Speech. "We insist"--said the Manifesto issued from the offices of the League of Revolt--"upon our right of access to the King, or failing His Majesty, to the Prime Minister. We mean business and we shall be armed."

Winnington pointed to the word "armed."

"With stones--I presume?"

"Well, not revolvers, I hope!" said Delia. "I should certainly shoot myself."

Tension broke up in slightly hysterical laughter. She was already in better spirits. There was something exciting--exhilarating even--in the duel between herself and Winnington, which was implied in the conversation. His journey up to town, the look in his grey eyes meant--"I shall prevent you from doing what you are intending to do." But he could not prevent it. If he was the breakwater, she was the storm-wave, driven by the gale--by the wind from afar, of which she felt herself the sport, and sometimes the victim--without its changing her purpose in the least.

"Only I shall not refuse food!" she thought. "I shall spare him that. I shall serve my sentence. It won't be long."

But afterwards? Would she then be free? Free to follow Gertrude or not, according to her judgment? Would she have "purged" her promise--paid her shot--recovered the governance of herself?

Her thoughts discussed the future, when, all in a moment, Winnington, watching her from behind his _Times_, saw a pale startled look. It seemed to be caused by something in the landscape. He turned his eyes to the window and saw that they were passing an old manor house, with a gabled front, standing above the line, among trees. What could that have had to do with the sudden contraction of the beautiful brow, the sudden look of terror--or distress? The house had a certain resemblance to Monk Lawrence. Had it reminded her of that speech in the Latchford marketplace from which he was certain she had recoiled, no less than he?

"You'll let me take you to the flat? I've been over it once, but I should like to see it's in order."

She hesitated, but how could she refuse? He put her into a taxi, having already dispatched her maid with the luggage in another, and they started.

"I expect you'll find a lot of queer people there!" she said, trying to laugh. "At least you'll think them queer."

"I shall like to see the people you are working with," he said, gravely.

Half way to Westminster, he turned to her.

"Miss Delia!--it's my plain duty to tell you--again--and to keep on telling you, even though it makes you angry, and even though I have no power to stop you, that in taking part in these doings to-morrow, you are doing a wrong thing, a grievously wrong thing! If I were only an ordinary friend, I should try to dissuade you with all my might. But I represent your father--and you know what he would have felt."

He saw her lips tremble. But she spoke calmly, "Yes,--I know. But it can't be helped. We can't agree, Mr. Mark, and it's no good my trying to explain, any more--just yet!--" she added, in a lower tone.

"'Just yet'? What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that some time,--perhaps sometime soon--I shall be ready to argue the whole thing with you--what's right and what's wrong. Now I can't argue--I'm not free to. Don't you see--'Ours not to make reply,--ours but to do, or die.'" Her smile flashed out. "There's not going to be any dying about it however--you know that as well as I do." Then with a touch of mockery she bent towards him. "You won't persuade me, Mr. Mark, that you take us very seriously! But I'm not angry at that--I'm not angry--at anything!"

And her face, as he scanned it, melted--changed--became all soft sadness, and deprecating