"Do you know anything more?"
The voice was Delia's; and the man who had just met her in the shelter of the wooded walk which ran along the crest of the hill above the Maumsey valley, was instantly aware of the agitation of the speaker.
"Nothing—precise. As I told you last week—you needn't be afraid of anything immediate. But my London informants assure me that elaborate preparations are certainly going on for some greatcoupas soon as Parliament meets—against Sir Wilfrid. The police are uneasy, though puzzled. They have warned Daunt, and Sir Wilfrid is guarded."
"Then of course our people won't attempt it! It would be far too dangerous."
"Don't be too sure! You and I know Miss Marvell. If she means to burnMonk 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—quitecertain—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—inthatbusiness. 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 sheWas under coercion—for Gertrude's sake. The recollection ofWinnington—away in Latchford on county business—smote her sharply.But how could she help it? She must—mustkeep in touch with thisman—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 moremoney. It might be, in the last resort, the means of bargaining withGertrude. 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."
"Très 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 justnotto 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 forBlaydes!"
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 havethis"—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 from small incidents and observations on the spot, partly from information supplied him by friends in London—which had sharpened all her own suspicions into certainties, she had never known an hour free from fear. Her letters had remained wholly unanswered. She did not even know where Gertrude was; though it seemed to her that letters addressed to the head office of the League of Revolt must have been forwarded. No! Gertrude was really planning this hateful thing; the destruction of this beautiful and historic house, with all its memories and its treasures, in order to punish a Cabinet Minister for his opposition to Woman Suffrage, and so terrorise others. Moreover it meant the risking of human life—Daunt—his children, complete indifference also to Delia's feelings, Delia's pain.
What was she to do? Betray her friend?—go to Winnington for help? But he was a magistrate. If such a plot were really on foot—and Lathrop was himself convinced that petroleum and explosives were already stored somewhere in the neighbourhood of the house—Winnington could only treat such a thing as a public servant, as a guardian of the law. Any appeal to him to let private interests—evenherinterests—interfere, would, she felt certain, be entirely fruitless. Once go to him, the police must be informed—it would be his clear duty; and if such proofs of the plot existed as Lathrop believed, Gertrude would be arrested, and her accomplices. Including Delia herself?
That possibility, instead of frightening her, gave the girl some momentary comfort. For thatmightperhaps secure Winnington's silence?
But no!—her common sense dismissed the notion. Winnington would discover at once that she had had no connection whatever with the business. Lathrop's evidence alone would be enough. And that being so, her confession would simply hand Gertrude over to Winnington's conscience. And Mark Winnington's conscience was a thing to fear.
And yet the yearning to go to him—like the yearning of an unhappy child—was so strong.
Traitor!—yes,traitor!—double-dyed.
And pausing just outside the village, at a field gate, Delia leant over it, gazing into the lowering sky, and piteously crying to some power beyond—some God, "if any Zeus there be," on whom the heart in its trouble might throw itself.
Her thought ran backwards and forwards over the past months and years. The burning moments of revolt through which she had lived—the meetings of the League with their multitudes of faces, strained, fierce faces, alive, many of them, with hatreds new to English life, new perhaps to civilised history,—and the intermittent gusts of pity and fury which had swept through her own young ignorance as she listened, making a hideous thing of the future and of human fate:—she lived through them all again. Individual personalities recurred to her, the wild looks of delicate, frenzied women, who had lost health, employment, and the love of friends—suffered in body, mind and estate for this "cause" to which she too had vowed herself. Was she alone to desert, to fail—both the cause and her friend, who had taught her everything?
"It's not my will—not mywill—that shrinks"—she moaned to herself."If Ibelieved—if I still believed!"
But why was the fire gone out of the old faiths, the savour from the old hopes? Was she less moved by the sufferings, the toils, the weakness of her sex? She could remember nights of weeping over the wrongs of women, after an impassioned evening with Gertrude. And now—had the heart of flesh become a heart of stone? Was she no longer worthy of the great crusade, the vast upheaval?
She could not tell. She only knew that the glamour of it all was gone—that there were many hours when the Movement lay like lead upon her life. Was it simply that her intelligence had revolted, that she had come to see the folly, the sheer, ludicrous folly of a "physical force" policy which opposed the pin-pricks of women to the strength of men? Or was it something else—something far more compelling—more convincing—more humiliating!
"I've just fallen in love!—fallen in love!"—the words repeated themselves brazenly, desperately, in her mind:—"and I can't think for myself—judge for myself any longer! It's abominable—but it's true!"
The very thought of Winnington's voice and look made her tremble as she walked. Eternal weakness of the eternal woman! She scorned herself, yet a bewildering joy sang through her senses.
Nevertheless she held it at bay. She had her promised word—her honour—to think of. Gertrude still expected her in London—on the scene of action.
"And I shall go," she said to herself with resolute inconsistency, "I shall go!"
What an angel Mark Winnington had been to her, this last fortnight! She recalled the day of Weston's operation, and all the long days since. The poor gentle creature had suffered terribly; death had been just held off, from hour to hour; and was only now withdrawing. And Delia, sitting by the bed, or stealing with hushed foot about the house, was not only torn by pity for the living sufferer, she was haunted again by all the memories of her father's dying struggle—bitter and miserable days! And with what tenderness, what strength, what infinite delicacy of thought and care, had she been upheld through it all! Her heart melted within her. "There are such men in the world—there are!—and a year ago I should have simply despised anyone who told me so!"
Yet after these weeks of deepening experience, and sacred feeling, in which she had come to love Mark Winnington with all the strength of her young heart, and to realise that she loved him, the first use that she was making of a free hour was to go, unknown to him—for he was away on county business at Wanchester—and meet Paul Lathrop!
"But he would understand," she said to herself, drearily, as she moved on again. "If he knew, he would understand."
* * * * *
Now she must hurry on. She turned into the broad High Street of the village, observed by many people, and half way down, she stopped at a door on which was a brass plate, "Miss Toogood, Dressmaker."
The lame woman greeted her with delight, and there in the back parlour of the little shop she found them gathered,—Kitty Foster, the science-mistress, Miss Jackson, and Miss Toogood,—the three "Daughters," who were now coldly looked on in the village, and found pleasure chiefly in each other's society. Marion Andrews was not there. Delia indeed fancied she had seen her in the dusk, walking in a side lane, that led into the Monk Lawrence road, with another girl, whom Delia did not know.
It was a relief, however, not to find her—for the moment. The faces of the three women in the back parlour, were all strained and nervous; they spoke low, and they gathered round Delia with an eagerness which betrayed their own sense of isolation—of being left leaderless.
"You will be going up soon, won't you?" whispered Miss Toogood, as she stroked the sleeve of Delia's jacket. "TheTocsinsays there'll be great doings next week—the day Parliament meets."
"I've got my orders!"—said Kitty Foster, tossing her red hair mysteriously. "Father won't keep me down here any longer. I've made arrangements to go up to-morrow and lodge with a cousin in Battersea. She's as deep in it as I am."
"And I'm hoping they'll find room for me in the League office," said the science-mistress. "I can't stand this life here much longer. My Governors are always showing me they think us all criminals, and they'll find an excuse for getting rid of me whenever they can. I daren't even put up the 'Daughters' colours in my room now."
Her hollow, anxious eyes, with the fanatical light in them clung to Delia—to the girl's noble head, and the young face flushed with the winter wind.
"But we shall get it this session, shan't we?" said Miss Toogood eagerly, still stroking Delia's fur. "The Government will give in—they must give in."
And she began to talk with hushed enthusiasm of the last month's tale of outrages—houses burnt, windows broken, Downing Street attacked, red pepper thrown over a Minister, ballot-boxes spoiled—
Suddenly it all seemed to Delia so absurd—so pathetic—
"I don't think we shall get the Bill!" she said, sombrely. "We shall be tricked again."
"Dear, dear!" said Miss Toogood, helplessly. "Then we shall have to go on. It's war. We can't stop."
And as she stood there, sadly contemplating the "war," in which, poor soul, she had never yet joined, except by sympathy, a little bill-distributing and a modest subscription, she seemed to carry on her shoulders the whole burden of the "Movement"—herself, the little lame dressmaker, on the one side—and a truculent British Empire on the other.
"We'll make them smart anyway!" cried Kitty Foster. "See if we don't!"
Delia hurriedly opened her business. Would one of them take a letter for her to London—an important letter to Miss Marvell that she didn't want to trust to the post. Whoever took it must go to the League office and find out where Miss Marvell was, and deliver it—personally. She couldn't go herself—till after the doctors' consultation, which was to be held on Monday—if then.
Miss Jackson at once volunteered. Her face lightened eagerly.
"It's Saturday. I shall be free. And then I shall see for myself—at the office—if they can give me anything to do. When they write, they seem to put me off."
Delia gave her the letter, and stayed talking with them a little. They, it was evident, knew nothing of the anxiety which possessed her. And as to their hopes and expectations—why was it they now seemed to her so foolish and so ignorant? She had shared them all, such a little while before.
And meanwhile they made much of her. They tried to keep her with them in the little stuffy parlour, with its books which had belonged to Miss Toogood's father, and the engraving of Winchester cathedral, and the portrait of Mr. Keble. That "Miss Blanchflower" was with them, seemed to reflect a glory on their little despised coterie. They admired her and listened to her, loath to let her go.
But at last Delia said Good-bye, and stepped out again into the lights of the village street. As she walked rapidly towards Maumsey, and the village houses thinned and fell away, she suddenly noticed a dark figure in front of her. It was Marion Andrews. Delia ran to overtake her.
Marion stopped uncertainly when she heard herself called. Delia, breathless, laid a hand on her arm.
"I wanted to speak to you!"
"Yes!" The girl stood quiet. It was too dark now to see her face.
"I wanted to tell you—that there are suspicions—about Monk Lawrence.You are being watched. I want you to promise to give it up!"
There was no one on the road, above which some frosty stars had begun to come out. Marion Andrews moved on slowly.
"I don't know what you mean, Miss Blanchflower."
"Don't, please, try to deceive me!" cried Delia, with low-voiced urgency. "You have been seen at night—following Daunt about, examining the doors and windows. The person who suspects won't betray us. I've seen to that. But you must give it up—youmust! I have written to Miss Marvell."
Marion Andrews laughed,—a sound of defiance.
"All right. I don't take my orders from any one but her. But you are mistaken, Miss Blanchflower, quite mistaken. Good-night."
And turning quickly to the left, she entered a field path leading to her brother's house, and was immediately out of sight.
Delia went on, smarting and bewildered. How clear it was that she was no longer trusted—no longer in the inner circle—and that Gertrude herself had given the cue! The silent and stubborn Marion Andrews was of a very different type from the three excitable or helpless women gathered in Miss Toogood's parlour. She had ability, passion, and the power to hold her tongue. Her connection with Gertrude Marvell had begun, in London, at the "Daughters" office, as Delia now knew, long before her own appearance at Maumsey. When Gertrude came to the Abbey, she and this strange, determined woman were already well acquainted, though Delia herself had not been aware of it till quite lately. "I have been a child in their hands!—they havenevertrusted me!" Heart and vanity were equally wounded.
As she neared the Maumsey gate, suddenly a sound—a voice—a tall figure in the twilight.
"Ah, there you are!" said Winnington. "Lady Tonbridge sent me to look for you."
"Aren't you back very early?" Delia attempted her usual voice. But the man who joined her at once detected the note of effort, of tired pre-occupation.
"Yes—our business collapsed. Our clerk's too good—leaves us nothing to do. So I've been having a talk with Lady Tonbridge."
Delia was startled; not by the words, but by the manner of them. While she seemed to Winnington to be thinking of something other than the moment—the actual moment, her impression was the precise opposite, as of a sharp, intense consciousness of the moment in him, which presently communicated its own emotion to her.
They walked up the drive together.
"At last I have got a horse for you," said Winnington, after a pause."Shall I bring it to-morrow? Weston is going on so well to-night,France tells me, that he may be able to say 'out of danger' to-morrow.If so, let me take you far afield, into the Forest. We might have ajolly run."
Delia hesitated. It was very good of him. But she was out of practice.She hadn't ridden for a long time.
Winnington laughed aloud. He told—deliberately—a tale of a young lady on a black mare, whom no one else could ride—of a Valkyrie—a Brunhilde—who had exchanged a Tyrolese hotel for a forest lodge, and ranged the wide world alone—
"Oh!"—cried Delia, "where did you hear that?"
He described the talk of the little Swedish lady, and that evening on the heights when he had first heard her name.
"Next day came the lawyers' letter—and yours—both in a bundle.""You'll agree—I did all I could—to put you off!"
"So I understood—at once. You never beat about the bush."
There was a tender laughter in his voice. But she had not the heart to spar with him. He felt rather than saw her drooping. Alarm—anxiety—rushed upon him, mingled in a tempest-driven mind with all that Madeleine Tonbridge, in the Maumsey drawing-room, had just been saying to him. That had been indeed the plain speaking of a friend!—attacking his qualms and scruples up and down, denouncing them even; asking him indignantly, who else could save this child—who else could free her from the sordid entanglement into which her life had slipped—but he? "You—you only, can do it!" The words were still thundering through his blood. Yet he had not meant to listen to his old friend. He had indeed withstood her firmly. But this sad and languid Delia began, again, to put resistance to flight—to tempt—to justify him—driving him into action that his cooler will had just refused.
Suddenly, as they walked under the overshadowing trees of the drive, her ungloved hand hanging beside her, she felt it taken, enclosed in a warm strong clasp. A thrill, a shiver ran through her. But she let it stay. Neither spoke. Only as they neared the front door with the lamp, she softly withdrew her fingers.
There was no one in the drawing-room, which was scented with early hyacinths, and pleasantly aglow with fire-light. Winnington closed the door, and they stood facing each other. Delia wanted to cry out—to prevent him from speaking—but she seemed struck dumb.
He approached her.
"Delia!"
She looked at him still helplessly silent. She had thrown off her hat and furs, and, in her short walking-dress, she looked singularly young and fragile. The change which had tempered the splendid—or insolent—exuberance of her beauty, which Lathrop had perceived, had made it in Winnington's eyes infinitely more appealing, infinitely more seductive. Love and fear, mingled, had "passed into her face," like the sculptor's last subtle touches on the clay.
"Delia!" How all life seemed to have passed into a name! "I'm not sure that I ought to speak! I'm not sure it's fair. It—it seems like taking advantage. If you think so, don't imagine I shall ever press it again. I'm twenty years older than you—I've had my youth. I thought everything was closed for me—but—" He paused a moment—then his voice broke into a low cry—"Dear! what have you done to make me love you so?"
He came nearer. His look spoke the rest.
Delia retreated.
"What have I done?" she said passionately.
"Made your life one long worry!—ever since you saw me. How can you love me?—you oughtn't!—you oughtn't!"
He laughed.
"Every quarrel we had I loved you the better. From our very first talk in this room—"
She cried out, putting up her hands, as though to protect herself against the power that breathed from his face and shining eyes.
"Don't—don't!—I can't bear it."
His expression changed.
"Delia!"
"Oh, I do thank you!" she said, piteously, "I would—if I could. I—I shall never care for any one else—but I can't—I can't."
He was silent a moment, and then said, taking her hands, and putting them to his lips—
"Won't you explain?"
"Yes, I'll try—I ought to. You see"—she looked up in anguish—"I'm not my own—to give—and I—No, no, I couldn't make you happy!"
"You mean—you're—you're too deeply pledged to this Society?"
He had dropped her hands, and stood looking at her, as if he would read her through.
"I must go up to town next week," she said hurriedly. "I must go, and I must do what Gertrude tells me. Perhaps—I can protect—save her. I don't know. I daresay I'm absurd to think so—but I might—and I'm bound. But I'm promised—promised in honour—and I can't—get free. I can't give up Gertrude—and you—you could never bear with her—or accept her. And so—you see—I should just make you miserable!"
He walked away, his hands in his pockets, and came back. Then suddenly he took her by the shoulders.
"You don't imagine I shall acquiesce in this!" he said passionately—"that I shall endure to see you tied and chained by a woman whom I know you have ceased to respect, and I believe you have ceased to love!"
"No!—no!—" she protested.
"I think it is so," he said, steadily. "That is how I read it!"
She gave a sob—quickly repressed. Then she violently mastered herself.
"If it were true—I can't marry you. I won't be treacherous—nor a coward. And I won't ruin your life. Dear Mr. Mark—it's quite, quite impossible. Let's never talk of it again."
And straightening all her slender body, she faced him with that foolish courage, that senseless heroism, which women have so terribly at command.
So far, however from obliging her, he broke into a tempest of discussion bringing to bear upon her all the arguments that love or common sense dictated. If she really cared for him at all, if she even thought it possible she might care, was she going to refuse all help—all advice—from one to whom she had grown so dear?—to whom everything she did was now of such vital, such desperate importance? He pleaded for himself—guessing it to be the more hopeful way.
"It's been a lonely life, Delia, till you came! And now you've filled it. For God's sake, listen to me! Let me protect you, dear—let me advise you—trust yourself to me. Do you imagine I should want to dictate to you—or tyrannise over you? Do you imagine I don't sympathise with your faiths, your ideals—that I don't feel for women—what they suffer—what they endure—in this hard world? Delia, we'd work together!—it mightn't be always in the same way—nor always with the same opinions—but we'd teach—we'd help each other. Your own conscience—your own mind—I see it plainly—have turned against this horrible campaign—and the woman who's led you into it. How she's treated you! Would any friend, any realfriendhave left you alone through this Weston business? And you've given her everything—your house, your money, yourself! It makes memad. I do implore you to break with her—as gently, as generously as you like—butfree yourself! And then!"—he drew a long breath—"what a life we'd make together!" He sat down beside her. Under the strong overhanging brows, his grey eyes still pleaded with her—silently.
But she was just strong enough, alas!—the poor child!—to resist him. She scarcely replied; but her silence held the gate—against his onslaughts. And at last she tottered to her feet.
"Mr. Mark—dear Mr. Mark!—let me go!"
Her voice, her aspect struck him dumb. And before he could rally his forces again, the door shut, and she was gone.
"So I mustn't argue any more?" said Lady Tonbridge, looking at Delia, who was seated by her guest's fire, and wore the weary aspect of one who had already been argued with a good deal.
Madeleine's tone was one of suppressed exasperation. Exasperation rather with the general nature of things than with Delia. It was difficult to be angry with one whose perversity made her so evidently wretched. But as to the "intolerable woman" who had got the girl's conscience—and Winnington's happiness—in her power, Lady Tonbridge's feelings were at a white heat. How to reason with Delia, without handling Gertrude Marvell as she deserved—-there was the difficulty.
In any case, Delia was unshakeable. If Weston were really out of danger—Dr. France was to bring over the Brownmouth specialist on Monday—then that very afternoon, or the next morning, Delia must and would go to London to join Gertrude Marvell. And six days later Parliament would re-assemble under the menace of raids and stone-throwings, to which theTocsinhad been for weeks past summoning "The Daughters of Revolt," throughout the country, in terms of passionate violence. In those proceedings Delia had apparently determined to take her part. As to this Lady Tonbridge had not been able to move her in the least.
The case for Winnington seemed indeed for the moment desperate. After his scene with Delia, he had left the Abbey immediately, and Lady Tonbridge, though certain that something important—and disastrous—had happened, would have known nothing, but for a sudden confession from Delia, as the two ladies sat together in the drawing-room after dinner. Delia had abruptly laid down her book, with which she was clearly only trifling—in order to say—
"I think I had better tell you at once that my guardian asked me to marry him, this afternoon, and I refused."
Since this earthquake shock, Madeleine Tonbridge could imagine nothing more unsatisfactory than the conversations between them which had begun in the drawing-room, and lingered on till, now, at nearly midnight, sheer weariness on both sides had brought them to an end. When Madeleine had at last thrown up argument as hopeless, Delia with a face of carven wax, and so handsome through it all that Lady Tonbridge could have beaten her for sheer vexation, had said a quiet goodnight and departed.
But she wasin love with him, the foolish, obstinate child!—wildly, absorbingly in love with him! The fact was tragically evident, in everything she said, and everything she left unsaid.
The struggle lay then between her loyalty to her friend, the passionate loyalty of woman to woman, so newly and strangely developed by the Suffrage movement, and Winnington's advancing influence,—the influence of a man equipped surely with all the means of victory—character, strength, charm—over the girl's heart and imagination. He must conquer!
And yet Madeleine Tonbridge, staring into the ashes of a dwindling fire, had never persuaded herself—incorrigible optimist that she was—to so little purpose.
Whatwasthere at the back of the girl's mind? Something more than appeared; though what appeared was bad enough. One seemed at times to catch a glimpse of some cloaked and brooding Horror, in the dim background of the girl's consciousness, and overshadowing it. What more likely indeed, with this wild campaign sweeping through the country? She probably knew or suspected things that her moral sense condemned, to which she was nevertheless committed.
"We shall end by proving all that the enemy says of us; we shall give our chance away for a generation!"
"Do for Heaven's sake keep the young lady at home!"
The speaker was Dr. France. After seeing his patient, dismissing the specialist, and spending half an hourtête-à-têtewith Delia, he came down to see Lady Tonbridge in a state that in any one else would have been a state of agitation. In him all that appeared was a certain hawkish glitter in the eye, and a tendency to pull and pinch a scarcely existing moustache. But Madeleine, who knew him well, understood that he was just as much at feud with the radical absurdity of things as she was.
"No one can keep her at home. Delia is of age," she said, rising to meet him, with a face as serious as his own.
"If she gets into prison, and hunger-strikes, she'll injure herself! She's extraordinarily run down with this business of Weston's. I don't believe she could stand the sheer excitement of what she proposes to do."
"She's told you?"
"Quite enough. If she once goes up to town—if she once gets into that woman's clutches, no one can tell what will happen. Oh, you women—you women!" And the doctor walked tigerishly up and down the room. "That some of the cleverest and wisest of you can stoop to dabbling in a business like this! Upon my word it's an eye-opener!—it pulls one up. And you think you can drive men by such antics! The more you smash and burn, the more firmly goes down the male foot—yes, and the female too!"
And the doctor, with a glare, and a male foot as firm as he could make it, came to a stop beside Lady Tonbridge—who looked at him coolly.
"Excellent!—but no concern of mine. I'm not a militant. I want the vote just as much as Delia does!" said Lady Tonbridge, firmly. "Don't forget that."
"No, you don't—you don't! Excuse me. You are a reasonable woman."
"Half the reasonable women in England want the vote. Why shouldn't I have a vote—as well as you?"
"Because, my dear lady—" the doctor smote the table with his hand for emphasis—"because the parliamentary vote means the governmentof men by men—without which we go to pieces. And you propose now to make it include the government of men by women—which is absurd!—and if you try it, will only break up the only real government that exists, or can exist!"
"Oh!—'physical force,'" said Madeleine, contemptuously, with her nose in the air.
"Well—did I—did you—make the physical difference between men and women? Can we unmake it?" "We are governed by discussion—not by force."
"Are we? Look at South Africa—look at Ulster—look at the labour troubles that have been, and are to be. And then you women come along with your claim to the vote! What are you doing but breaking up all the social values—weakening all the foundations of the social edifice! Woe!—to you women especially—when you teach men to despise the vote—when men come to know that behind the paper currency of a vote which may be a man's or a woman's, there is nothing but an opinion—bad or good! At present, I tell you, the great conventions of democracy hold because there is reality of bone and muscle behind them! Break down that reality—and sooner or later we come back to force again—through bloodshed and anarchy!"
"Inevitable—all the same!" cried Madeleine. "Why did you ever let us taste education?—if you are to deny us for ever political equality?"
"Use your education, my dear Madam!" said the doctor, indignantly. "Are there not many roads to political equality?—many forms of government within government, that may be tried, before you insist on ruining us by doing men's work in the men's way? Hasn't it taken more than a hundred years to settle that Irish question, which began with the Union? Is it a hundred years since it was a hanging matter to steal a handkerchief off a hedge? Can't you give us a hundred years for the Woman Question? Sixty years only, since the higher education of women began! Isn't the science of government developing every day? Women have got, you say, to be fitted into government—I agree! Iagree! Butdon't rush it! Claim everything—what you like!—except only that sovereign vote, which controls, and must control, the male force of an Empire!"
"Jove's thunder!" scoffed Lady Tonbridge. "Well—my dear old friend!—you and I shan't agree—you know that. Now what can I do for Delia?"
"Nothing," said France gloomily. "Unless some one goes up to watch over her."
"Her guardian will go," said Madeleine quietly, after a pause.
They eyed each other.
"You're sure?" said France.
"Quite sure—though I've not said a word to him—nor he to me."
"All right then—she's worth it! By George, she's got the makings of something splendid in her. I tell you she's had as much to do as any of us with saving the life of that woman upstairs. Courage?—tenderness?—'not arf.'"
The slangy term shewed the speaker's desire to get rid of his own feelings. He had, at any rate, soon smothered them, and he and Lady Tonbridge, their chairs drawn close, fell into a very confidential discussion. France was one of those country doctors, not rare fortunately in England, in whom a whole neighbourhood confides, whom a whole neighbourhood loves; all the more if a man betrays a fair allowance of those gnarls and twists of character, of strong prejudices, and harmless manias, which enable the common herd to take him to their bosoms. Dr. France was a stamp-collector, a player—indifferent—on the cornet, a rabid Tory, and a person who could never be trusted to deal faithfully and on C.O.S. principles with tramps and "undesirables." Such things temper the majesty of virtue, and make even the good human.
He had known and prescribed for Winnington since he was a boy in knickers; he was particularly attached to Lady Tonbridge. What he and Madeleine talked about is not of great importance to this narrative; but it is certain that France left the house in much concern for a man he loved, and a girl who, in the teeth of his hottest beliefs, had managed to touch his feelings.
Delia spent the day in packing. Winnington made no sign. In the afternoon,—it was a wet Saturday afternoon—Lady Tonbridge sitting in the drawing-room, saw the science mistress of the Dame Perrott School coming up the drive. Madeleine knew her as a "Daughter," and could not help scowling at her—unseen.
She was at once admitted however, and spent a short time with Delia in the Library.
And when Miss Jackson closed the Library door behind her on her way out of the house, Delia broke the seal of a letter which had been given into her hands:—
"I am very sorry, my dear Delia, you should have taken these silly reports so much to heart. You had better dismiss them from your mind. I have given no such orders as you suppose—nor has the Central Office. The plan you found referred to something quite different—I really can't remember what. I can't of course be responsible for all the 'Daughters' in England, but I have much more important business to think of just now than the nonsense Mr. Lathrop seems to have been stuffing you with. As to W——-L——-, it would only be worth while to strike at him, if our affairsgo wrong—through him. At present, I am extraordinary hopeful. We are winning every day. People see that we are in earnest, and mean to succeed—at whatever cost.
"I am glad you are coming up on Monday. You will find the flat anything but a comfortable or restful place,—but that you will be prepared for. Our people are amazing!—and we shall get into the House on Thursday, or know the reason why.
"For the money you sent, and the money you promise—best thanks. Everybody is giving. It is the spirit of the Crusader, 'Dieu le veult!'"
"Your affectionateG. M."
Delia read and re-read it. It was the first time Gertrude had deliberately tried to deceive her, and the girl's heart was sore. Even now, she was not to be trusted—"now that I am risking everything—everything!" And with the letter in her lap, she sat and thought of Winnington's face, as he had turned to look at her, before leaving the drawing-room the night before.
* * * * *
The day passed drearily. The hills and trees were wrapped in a damp fog, and though the days were lengthening fast, the evening closed like November. Madeleine thought with joy of getting back to her tiny house and her Nora. Nora, who was not yet out, seemed to have been enjoying a huge success in the large cousinly party with whom she had been spending the Christmas holidays. "But it's an odd place, Mummy. In the morning we 'rag'; and the rest of the day we talk religion. Everybody is either Buddhist or 'Bahai'—if that's the right way to spell it. It sounds odd, but it seems to be a very good way of getting on with young men."
Heavens! What did it matter how you played the old game, or with what counters, so long as it was played?
And as Lady Tonbridge watched the figure of Delia gliding through the house, wrapped in an estranging silence, things ancient and traditonal returned upon her in flood, and nothing in the world seemed worth having but young love and happy marriage!—if you could get them! She—and her heart knew its bitterness—had made the great throw and lost.
* * * * *
Sunday passed in the same isolation. But on Sunday afternoon Delia took the motor out alone, and gave no reason either before or after.
"If she's gone out to meet that man, it's a scandal!" thought Madeleine wrathfully, and could hardly bring herself to be civil when the girl returned—pale, wearied, and quite uncommunicative. But she was very touching in a mute, dignified way, all the evening, and Madeleine relented fast. And, as they sat 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. PoorWeston!"
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 owndeparture, and trying every now and then to re-open the subject ofLondon, to make the girl promise to send for her—to consultWinnington, if any trouble arose.
But Delia would not allow any discussion. "I shall be withGertrude—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, whatisthe 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 hisTimes, 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 appeal. Never had she seemed to him so fascinating. Never had he felt himself so powerless. He thought, despairingly—"If I had her to myself, I could take her in my arms, and make her give way!"
But here were the first signs of arrival—a narrow Westminster street—a towering group of flats. The taxi stopped, and Winnington jumped out.