Part 14 (2/2)
”No!”--cried Madeleine Tonbridge remorsefully. ”I am a wretch. But don't--_don't_!”
This time he smiled at her, though not without vexation.
”Do you forget that I am nearly old enough to be her father?”
”Oh that's nonsense!” she said hastily. ”However--I'm not going to flatter you--or tease you. Forgive me. I put it out of my head. I wonder if there is anybody in the field already?”
”Not that I am aware of.”
”Of course you know this kind of thing spoils a girl's prospects of marriage enormously. Men won't run the risk.”
Winnington laughed.
”And all the time, you're a Suffragist yourself!”
”Yes, indeed I am,” was the stout reply. ”Here am I, with a house and a daughter, a house-parlourmaid, a boot-boy, and rates to pay. Why shouldn't I vote as well as you? But the difference between me and the Fury is that she wants the vote this year--this month--_this minute_--and I don't care whether it comes in my time--or Nora's time--or my grandchildren's time. I say we ought to have it--that it is our right--and you men are dolts not to give it us. But I sit and wait peaceably till you do--till the apple is ripe and drops. And meanwhile these wild women prevent its ripening at all. So long as they rage, there it hangs--out of our reach. So that I'm not only ashamed of them as a woman--but out of all patience with them as a Suffragist! However for heaven's sake don't let's discuss the horrid subject. I'll do all I can for Delia--both for your sake and Bob's--I'll keep my best eye on the Fury--I feel myself of course most abominably responsible for her--and I hope for the best. Who's coming to your tea-party?”
Winnington enumerated. At the name of Susy Amberley, his hostess threw him a sudden look, but said nothing.
”The Andrews'--Captain, Mrs. and Miss--,” Lady Tonbridge exclaimed.
”Why did you ask that horrid woman?”
”We didn't! Alice indiscreetly mentioned that Miss Blanchflower was coming to tea, and she asked herself.”
”She's enough to make any one militant! If I hear her quote 'the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world' once more, I shall have to smite her. The girl's _down-trodden_ I tell you! Well, well--if you gossip too little, I gossip too much. Heavens!--what a light!”
Winnington turned to see the glow of a lovely afternoon fusing all the hill-side in a glory of gold and amethyst, and the windows in the long front of Monk Lawrence taking fire under the last rays of a fast-dropping sun.
”Do you know--I sometimes feel anxious about that house!” said Madeleine Tonbridge, abruptly. ”It's empty--it's famous--it belongs to a member of the Government. What is to prevent the women from attacking it?”
”In the first place, it isn't empty. The Keeper, Daunt, from the South Lodge, has now moved into the house. I know, because Susy Amberley told me. She goes up there to teach one of my cripples--Daunt's second girl.
In the next, the police are on the alert. And last--who on earth would dare to attack Monk Lawrence? The odium of it would be too great. A house bound up with English history and English poetry--No! They are not such fools!”
Lady Tonbridge shook her head.
”Don't be so sure. Anyway you as a magistrate can keep the police up to the mark.”
Winnington departed, and his old friend was left to meditate on his predicament. It was strange to see Mark Winnington, with his traditional, English ways and feelings--carried, as she always felt, to their highest--thus face to face with the new feminist forces--as embodied in Delia Blanchflower. He had resented, clearly resented, the introduction--by her, Madeleine--of the s.e.x element into the problem.
But how difficult to keep it out! ”He will see her constantly--he will have to exercise his will against hers--he will get his way--and then hate himself for conquering--he will disapprove, and yet admire,--will offend her, yet want to please her--a creature all fire, and beauty, and heroisms out of place! And she--could she, could I, could any woman I know, fight Mark Winnington--and not love him all the time? Men are men, and women are women--in spite of all these 'isms,' and 'causes.' I bet--but I don't know what I bet!--” Then her thoughts gradually veered away from Mark to quite another person.
How would Susan Amberley be affected by this new interest in Mark Winnington's life? Madeleine's thoughts recalled a gentle face, a pair of honest eyes, a bearing timid and yet dignified. So she was teaching one of Mark's crippled children? And Mark thought no doubt she would have done the like for anyone else with a charitable hobby? Perhaps she would, for her heart was a fount of pity. All the same, the man--blind bat!--understood nothing. No fault of his perhaps; but Lady Tonbridge felt a woman's angry sympathy with a form of waste so common and so costly.
And now the modest wors.h.i.+pper must see her hero absorbed day by day, and hour by hour, in the doings of a dazzling and magnificent creature like Delia Blanchflower. What food for torment, even in the meekest spirit!
So that the last word the vivacious woman said to herself was a soft ”Poor Susy!” dropped into the heart of a September rose as she stooped to gather it.
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