Part 18 (1/2)
”I wasn't drawn to her. But she took no account of us,” said the Rector, with his usual despondent candour. In truth he was not thinking about Miss Blanchflower, but only about the possible departure of his daughter, Susy.
”I thought her beautiful!--but I'm sorry for Mr. Winnington!” exclaimed Susy, a red spot of excitement or indignation in each delicate cheek.
”Mrs. Matheson told me they will only do exactly what they wish--that they won't take her brother's advice. Very wrong, very wrong.” The Rector shook his grey head. ”Young women were different in my youth.”
Mrs. Amberley sighed, and Susy biting her lip, knew that her own conduct was perhaps more in question than Miss Blanchflower's.
They reached home in silence. Susy went to light her father's candles in his modest book-littered study. Then she put her mother on the sofa in the drawing-room, rubbed Mrs. Amberley's cold hands and feet, and blew up the fire.
Suddenly her mother threw an arm round her neck.
”Oh, Susy, must you go?”
Susy kissed her.
”I should come back”--she said after a moment in a low troubled voice.
”Let me get this training, and then if you want me, darling, I'll come back.”
”Can't you be happy with us, Susy?”
”I want to _know_ something--and _do_ something,” said Susy, with intensity--evading the question. ”It's such a big world, mother! I'll be better worth having afterwards.”
Mrs. Amberley said nothing. But a little later she went into her husband's study.
”Frank--I think we'll have to let her,” she said piteously.
The Rector looked up a.s.sentingly, and put his hand in his wife's.
”It's strange how different it all seems nowadays,” said Mrs. Amberley, in her low quavering voice. ”If I'd wanted to do what Susy wants, my mother would have called me a wicked girl to leave all my duties--and I shouldn't have dared. But we can't take it like that, Frank, somehow.”
”No,” said the Rector slowly. ”In the old days it used to be only _duties_ for the young--now it's rights too. It's G.o.d's will.”
”Susy loves us, Frank. She's a good girl.”
”She's a good girl--and she shall do what she thinks proper,” said the Rector, rising heavily.
So they gave their consent, and Susy wrote her application to Guy's hospital. Then they all three lay awake a good deal of the night,--almost till the autumn robin began to sing in the little rectory garden.
As for Susy, in the restless intervals of restless sleep, she was always back in the Bridge End drawing-room watching Delia Blanchflower come in, with Mark Winnington behind. How glorious she looked! And every day he would be seeing her, every day he would be thinking about her--just because she was sure to give him so much trouble.
”And what right have _you_ to complain?” she asked herself, trampling on her own pain. Had he ever said a word of love to her, ever shewn himself anything else than the kind and sympathetic friend--sometimes the inspiring teacher in the causes he had at heart? Never! And yet--insensibly--his smile, his word of praise or thanks, the touch of his firm warm hand, the sound of his voice, the look in his eyes--it was for them she had now learned to live. Yes!--and because she could no longer trust herself, she must go. She would not fail or hara.s.s him; she was his friend. She would go away and scrub hospital floors, and polish hospital taps. That would tame the anguish in her, and some day she would be strong again--and come back--to those beloved ones who had given her up--so tenderly.
Chapter VIII
The whole of Maumsey and its neighbourhood had indeed been thrown into excitement by certain placards on the walls announcing three public meetings to be held--a fortnight later--by the ”Daughters of Revolt”--at Latchford, Brownmouth, and Frimpton. Latchford was but fifteen miles from Maumsey, and frequent trains ran between them.
Brownmouth and Frimpton, also, were within easy distance by rail, and the Maumseyites were accustomed to shop at either. So that a wide country-side felt itself challenged--invaded; at a moment when a series of startling outrages--destruction of some of the nation's n.o.blest pictures, in the National Gallery and elsewhere, defacement of churches, personal attacks on Ministers--by the members of various militant societies, especially ”The League of Revolt,” had converted an already incensed public opinion into something none the less ugly, none the less alarming, because it had as yet found no organised expression.
The police were kept hard at work protecting open-air meetings on the Brownmouth and Frimpton beaches, from an angry populace who desired to break them up; every unknown woman who approached a village or strolled into a village church, was immediately noticed, immediately reported on, by hungry eyes and tongues alert for catastrophe; and every empty house had become an anxiety to its owners.