Delia Blanchflower Part 24

"Not at all! We must put the Resolution."

"Come Miss!--" said the tall constable behind Winnington--"no use talking! There's a lot of fellows here that mean mischief. You go with this gentleman. He'll look after you."

"Not without my friend!" cried Delia, both hands behind her on the edge of the waggon--erect and defiant. "Gertrude!--" she raised her voice--"What do you wish to do?"

But amid the din, her appeal was not heard.

Gertrude Marvell however could be clearly seen on the other side of the waggon, with Paul Lathrop beside her, listening to the remonstrances and entreaties of Andrews, with a smile as cool, as though she were in the drawing-room of Maumsey Abbey, and the Captain were inviting her to trifle with a cup of tea.

"Take her along, Sir!" said the policeman, with a nod to Winnington.

"It's getting ugly." And as he spoke, a man jumped upon the waggon, a Latchford doctor, an acquaintance of Winnington's, who said something in his ear.

The next moment, a fragment of a bottle, flung from a distance, struck Winnington on the wrist. The blood rushed out, and Delia, suddenly white, looked from it to Winnington's face. The only notice he took of the incident was expressed in the instinctive action of rolling his handkerchief round it. But it stirred him to lay a grasp upon Delia's arm, which she could hardly have resisted. She did not, however, resist. She felt herself lifted down from the waggon, and hurried along, the police keeping back the crowd, into the open door of the hotel. Shouts of a populace half enraged, half amused, pursued her.

"Brutes--Cowards!" she gasped, between her teeth--then to Winnington--"Where are you taking me? I have the car!"

"There's a motor belonging to a doctor ready at once in the yard of the hotel. Better let me take you home in it. Andrews, I a.s.sure you, will look after Miss Marvell!"

They pa.s.sed through the brilliantly-lighted inn, where landlady, chambermaids, and waiters stood grinning in rows to see, and Winnington hurried his charge into the closed motor standing at the inn's back door.

"Take the street behind the hotel, and get out by the back of the town.

Be quick!" said Winnington to the chauffeur.

Booing groups had already begun to gather at the entrance of the yards, and in the side street to which it led. The motor pa.s.sed slowly through them, then quickened its pace, and in what seemed an incredibly short time, they were in country lanes.

Delia leant hack, drawing long breaths of fatigue and excitement. Then she perceived with disgust that her dress was bemired with sc.r.a.ps of dirty refuse, and that some mud was dripping from her hat. She took off the hat, shook it out of the window of the car, but could not bring herself to put it on again. Her hair, loosely magnificent, framed a face that was now all colour and pa.s.sion. She hated herself, she hated the crowd; it seemed to her she hated the man at her side. Suddenly Winnington turned on the electric light--with an exclamation.

"So sorry to be a nuisance--but have you got a spare handkerchief? I'm afraid I shall spoil your dress!"

And Delia saw, to her dismay, that his own handkerchief which he had originally tied round his wound was already soaked, and the blood was dripping from it on to the motor-rug.

"Yes--yes--I have!" And opening her little wrist-bag, she took out of it two spare handkerchiefs, and tied them, with tremulous hands, round the wrist he held out to her,--a wrist brown and spare and powerful, like the rest of him.

"Now--have you got anything you could tie round the arm, above the wound--and then twist the knot?"

She thought.

"My veil!" She slipped it off in a moment, a long motor veil of stout make. He turned towards her, pushing up his coat sleeve as high as it would go, and shewing her where to put the bandage. She helped him to turn back his shirt sleeve, and then wound the veil tightly round the arm, so as to compress the arteries. Her fingers were warm and strong.

He watched them--he felt their touch--with a curious pleasure.

"Now, suppose you take this pencil, and twist it in the knot--you know how? Have you done any First Aid?"

She nodded.

"I know."

She did it well. The tourniquet acted, and the bleeding at once slackened.

"All right!" said Winnington, smiling at her. "Now if I keep it up that ought to do!" She drew down the sleeve, and he put his hand into the motor-strap hanging near him, which supported it. Then he threw his head back a moment against the cushions of the car. The sudden loss of blood on the top of a long fast, had made him feel momentarily faint.

Delia looked at him uneasily--biting her lip.

"Let us go back to Latchford, Mr. Winnington, and find a doctor."

"Oh dear no! I'm only pumped for a moment. It's going off. I'm perfectly fit. When I've taken you home, I shall go in to our Maumsey man, and get tied up."

There was silence. The hedges and fields flew by outside, under the light of the motor, stars overhead, Delia's heart was full of wrath and humiliation.

"Mr. Winnington--"

"Yes!" He sat up, apparently quite revived.

"Mr. Winnington--for Heaven's sake--do give me up!"

He looked at her with amused astonishment.

"Give you up!--How?"

"Give up being my guardian! I really can't stand it. I--I don't mind what happens to myself. But it's too bad that I should be forced to--to make myself such a nuisance to you--or desert all my principles. It's not fair to _me_--that's what I feel--it's not indeed!" she insisted stormily.

He saw her dimly as she spoke--the beautiful oval of the face, the white brow, the general graciousness of line, so feminine, in truth!--so appealing. The darkness hid away all that shewed the "female franzy." Distress of mind--distress for his trumpery wound?--had shaken her, brought her back to youth and childishness? Again he felt a rush of sympathy--of tender concern.

"Do you think you would do any better with a guardian chosen by the Court?" he asked her, smiling, after a moment's pause.

"Of course I should! I shouldn't mind fighting a stranger in the least."

"They would be very unlikely to appoint a stranger. They would probably name Lord Frederick."

"He wouldn't dream of taking it!" she said, startled. "And you know he is the laziest of men."

They both laughed. But her laugh was a sound of agitation, and in the close contact of the motor he was aware of her quick breathing.

"Well, it's true he never answers a letter," said Winnington. "But I suppose he's ill."

"He's been a _malade imaginaire_ all his life, and he isn't going to begin to put himself out for anybody now!" she said, scornfully.

"Your aunt, Miss Blanchflower?"

"I haven't spoken to her for years. She used to live with us when I was eighteen. She tried to boss me, and set father against me. But I got the best of her."

"I am sure you did," said Winnington.

She broke out--

"Oh, I know you think me a perfectly impossible creature whom n.o.body could ever get on with!"

He paused a moment, then said gravely--

"No, I don't think anything of the kind. But I do think that, given what you want, you are going entirely the wrong way to get it."