Delia Blanchflower Part 40

Delia tore the paper into shreds and burnt the shreds. Afterwards she spent an oppressed and miserable night. Her friend reproached her, on the one side; and Winnington, on the other.

Chapter XIV

Lady Tonbridge was sitting in the window-seat of a little sitting-room adjoining her bedroom at Maumsey Abbey. That the young mistress of Maumsey had done her best to make her guest comfortable, that guest most handsomely acknowledged. Some of the few pretty things which the house contained had been gathered there. The chintz covered sofa and chairs, even though the chintz was ugly, had the pleasant country-house look, which suggests afternoon tea, and chatting friends; a bright fire, flowers and a lavish strewing of books completed the hospitable impression.

Yet Madeleine Tonbridge had by no means come to Maumsey Abbey, at Winnington's bidding, as to a Land of c.o.c.kaigne. She at all events regarded Delia as a "handful," and was on the watch day by day for things outrageous. She could not help liking the beautiful creature--almost loving her! But Delia was still a "Daughter of Revolt"--apparently unrepentant; that dangerous fanatic, her pretended chaperon, was still in constant correspondence with her; the papers teemed with news of militant outrages, north, south, east and west; and riotous doings were threatened for the meetings of Parliament by Delia's Society. On all these matters Delia shut her proud lips. Indeed her new reticence with regard to militant doings and beliefs struck Lady Tonbridge as more alarming than the young and arrogant defiance with which on her first arrival she had been wont to throw them at the world. Madeleine could not rid herself of the impression during these weeks that Delia had some secret cause of anxiety connected with the militant propaganda. She was often depressed, and there were moments when she shewed a nervousness not easily accounted for. She scarcely ever mentioned Gertrude Marvell; and she never wrote her letters in public; while those she received, she would carry away to the gun room--which she had now made her own particular den--before she opened them.

At the same time, if Weston recovered from the operation, in three weeks or so it would be possible for Delia to leave Maumsey; and it was generally understood that she would then join her friend in London, just in time for the opening of Parliament. For the moment, it was plain she was not engaged in any violent doings. But who could answer for the future?

And meanwhile, what was Mark Winnington about? It was all very well to sit there trifling with the pages of the _Quarterly Review_! In her moments of solitude by night or day, during the five days she had already spent at Maumsey, Madeleine had never really given her mind to anything else but the engrossing question. "Is he in love with her--or is he not?"

Of course she had foreseen--had feared--the possibility of it, from that very first moment, almost--when Winnington had written to her describing the terms of Bob Blanchflower's will, and his own acceptance of the guardianship.

Yet why "feared"? Had she not for years desired few things so sincerely as to see Winnington happily married? As to that old tragedy, with its romantic effect upon his life, her first acquiescence in that effect, as something irrevocable, had worn away with time. It now seemed to her an intolerable thing that Agnes Clay's death should forever stand between Winnington and love. It was positively anti-social--bad citizenship--that such a man as Mark Winnington should not produce sons and daughters for the State, when all the wastrels and cheats in creation were so active in the business.

All the same she had but rarely ventured to attack him on the subject, and the results had not been encouraging. She was certain that he had entered upon the guardianship of Delia Blanchflower in complete single-mindedness--confident, disdainfully confident, in his own immunity; and after that first outburst into which friendship had betrayed her, she had not dared to return to the subject. But she had watched him--with the lynx eyes of a best friend; and that best friend, a woman to whom love affairs were the most interesting things in existence. In which, of course, she knew she was old-fashioned, and behind the ma.s.s of the s.e.x, now racing toward what she understood was called the "economic independence of women"--_i.e._ a life without man.

But in spite of watching, she was much perplexed--as to both the persons concerned. She had now been nearly a week at Maumsey, in obedience to Delia's invitation and Winnington's urging. The opportunity indeed of getting to know Mark's beautiful--and troublesome--ward, more intimately, was extremely welcome to her curiosity. Hitherto Gertrude Marvell had served as an effective barrier between Delia and her neighbours. The neighbours did not want to know Miss Marvell, and Miss Marvell, Madeleine Tonbridge was certain, had never intended that the neighbours should rob her of Delia.

But now Gertrude Marvell had in some strange sudden way vacated her post; and the fortress lay open to attack and capture, were anyone strong enough to seize it. Moreover Delia's visitor had not been twenty-four hours in the house before she had perceived that Delia's att.i.tude to her guardian was new, and full of suggestion to the shrewd bystander. Winnington had clearly begun to interest the girl profoundly--both in himself, and in his relation to her. She now wished to please him, and was nervously anxious to avoid hurting or offending him. She was always conscious of his neighbourhood or his mood; she was eager--though she tried to conceal it--for information about him; and three nights already had Lady Tonbridge lingered over Delia's bedroom fire, the girl on the rug at her feet, while the elder woman poured out her recollections of Mark Winnington, from the days when she and he had been young together.

As to that vanished betrothed, Agnes Clay,--the heroine of Winnington's brief engagement--Delia's thirst for knowledge, in a restless, suppressed way, had been insatiable. Was she jealous of that poor ghost, and of all those delicate, domestic qualities with which her biographer could not but invest her? The daughter of a Dean of Wanchester--retiring, spiritual, tender,--suggesting a cloistered atmosphere, and _The Christian Year_--she was still sharp in Madeleine's recollection, and that lady felt a certain secret and mischievous zest in drawing her portrait, while Delia, her black brows drawn together, her full red mouth compressed, sat silent.

Then--Wilmington as a friend!--upon that theme indeed Madeleine had used her brightest colours. And to make this pa.s.sive listener understand what friendship meant in Wilmington's soul, it had been necessary for the speaker to tell her own story, as much at least as it was possible for her to tell, and Delia to hear. A hasty marriage--"my own fault, my dear, as much as my parents'!"--twelve years of torment and humiliation at the hands of a bad man, descending rapidly to the pit, and quite willing to drag his wife and child with him, ending in a separation largely arranged by Winnington--and then--

"We retired, Nora and I, on a decent allowance, my own money really, only like a fool, I had let it all get into Alfred's hands. We took a house at Richmond. Nora was fifteen. For two years my husband paid the money. Then he wrote to say he was tired of doing without his daughter, and he required her to live with him for six months in the year, as a condition of continuing the allowance. I refused. We would sooner both of us have thrown ourselves into the Thames. Alfred bl.u.s.tered and threatened--but he could do nothing--except cut off the allowance, which he did, at once. Then Mark Winnington found me the cottage here, and made everything smooth for us. I wouldn't take any money from him, though he was abominably ready to give it us! But he got me lessons--he got me friends. He's made everybody here feel for us, and respect us.

He's managed the little bits of property we've got left--he's watched over Nora--he's been our earthly Providence--and we both adore him!"

On which the speaker, with a flickering smile and tear-dashed eyes, had taken Delia's face in her two slender hands--

"And don't be such a fool, dear, as to imagine there's been anything in it, ever, but the purest friendship and good-heartedness that ever bound three people together! My greatest joy would be to see him married--to a woman worthy of him--if there is one! And he I suppose will find his reward in marrying Nora--to some nice fellow. He begins to match-make for her already."

Delia slowly withdrew herself.

"And he himself doesn't intend to marry?" She asked the question, clasping her long arms round her knees, as she sat on the floor, her dark eyes--defiantly steady on her guest's face.

Lady Tonbridge could hear her own answer.

"L'homme propose! Let the right woman try!" Whereupon Delia, a delicious figure, in a slim white dressing-gown, a flood of curly brown hair falling about her neck and shoulders, had sprung up, and bidden her guest a hasty good-night.

One other small incident she recalled.

_A propos_ of some anxious calculation made by Winnington's sister Alice Matheson one day in talk with Lady Tonbridge--Delia being present--as to whether Mark could possibly afford a better motor than the "ramshackle little horror" he was at present dependent on, Delia had said abruptly, on the departure of Mrs. Matheson--

"But surely the legacy my father left Mr. Winnington would get a new motor!"

"But he hasn't taken it, and never will!" Lady Tonbridge had cried, amazed at the girl's ignorance.

"Why not?" Delia had demanded, almost fiercely, looking very tall, and oddly resentful.

Why not? "Because one doesn't take payment for that sort of thing!" had been Mark's laughing explanation, and the only explanation that she, Madeleine, had been able to get out of him. She handed it on--to Delia's evident discomfort. So, all along, this very annoying--though attaching--young woman had imagined that Winnington was being handsomely paid for putting up with her?

And Winnington?

Here again, it was plain there was a change of att.i.tude, though what it meant Madeleine could not satisfactorily settle with herself. In the early days of his guardianship he had been ready enough to come to her, his most intimate woman-friend, and talk about his ward, though always with that chivalrous delicacy which was his gift among men. Of late he had been much less ready to talk; a good sign! And now, since Gertrude Marvell's blessed departure, he was more at Maumsey than he had ever been before. He seemed indeed to be pitting his own influence against Miss Marvell's, and in his modest way, yet consciously, to be taking Delia in hand, and endeavouring to alter her outlook on life; clearing away, so far as he could, the atmosphere of angry, hearsay propaganda in which she had spent her recent years, and trying to bring her face to face with the deeper loves and duties and sorrows which she in her headstrong youth knew so little about, while they entered so profoundly into his own upright and humane character.

Well, but did all this mean _love_?--the desire of the man for the woman.

Madeleine Tonbridge pondered it. She recollected a number of little acts and sayings, throwing light upon his profound feeling for the girl, his sympathy with her convictions, her difficulties, her wild revolts against existing abuses and tyrannies. "I learn from her"--he had said once, in conversation,--"she teaches me many things."

Madeleine could have laughed in his face--but for the pa.s.sionate sincerity in his look.

One thing she perceived--that he was abundantly roused on the subject of that man Lathrop's acquaintance with his ward. Lathrop's name had not been mentioned since Lady Tonbridge's arrival, but she received the impression of a constant vigilance on Winnington's part, and a certain mystery and unhappiness on Delia's. As to the notion that such a man as Paul Lathrop could have any attraction for such a girl as Delia Blanchflower, the idea was simply preposterous,--except on the general theory that no one is really sane, and every woman "is at heart a rake." But of course there was the common interest, or what appeared to be a common interest in this militant society to which Delia was still so intolerably committed! And an unscrupulous man might easily make capital out of it.

At this stage in the rambling reverie which possessed her, Lady Tonbridge was aware of footsteps on the gravel outside. Winnington? He had proposed to take Delia for a ride that afternoon, to distract her mind from Weston's state, and from the operation which was to take place early the following morning. She drew the curtain aside.

Paul Lathrop!

Madeleine felt herself flushing with surprise and indignation. The visitor was let in immediately. It surely was her duty to go down and play watchdog.

She firmly rose. But as she did so, there was a knock at her door, and Delia hurriedly entered.

"I--I thought I'd better say--Mr. Lathrop's just come to see me--on business. I'm so sorry, but you won't mind my coming to say so?"

Lady Tonbridge raised her eyebrows.

"You mean--you want to see him alone? All right. I'll come down presently."

Delia disappeared.

For more than half an hour did that "disreputable creature," as Lady Tonbridge roundly dubbed him, remain closeted with Delia, in Delia's drawing-room. Towards the end of the time the visitor overhead was walking to and fro impatiently, vowing to herself that she was bound--positively bound to Winnington--to go down and dislodge the man.

But just as she was about to leave her room, she again heard the front door open and close. She ran to the window just in time to see Lathrop departing--and Winnington arriving!--on foot and alone. She watched the two men pa.s.s each other in the drive--Winnington's start of haughty surprise--and Lathrop's smiling and, as she thought, insolent greeting.

It seemed to her that Winnington hesitated--was about to stop and address the intruder. But he finally pa.s.sed him by with the slightest and coldest recognition. Lathrop's fair hair and slouching shoulders disappeared round a corner of the drive. Winnington hurried to the front door and entered.

Lady Tonbridge resolutely threw herself into an arm-chair and took up a novel.

"Now let them have it out! I don't interfere."

Meanwhile Delia, with a red spot of agitation on either cheek, was sitting at the old satin-wood bureau in the drawing-room, writing a cheque. A knock at the door disturbed her. She half rose, to see Wilmington open and close it.