Part 33 (1/2)

At that moment, an idea occurred to her. Her face, responsive as a wave to the wind, relaxed. Its sullenness disappeared in sudden brightness--in something like triumph. She raised her eyes. Their tremulous, half whimsical look set Winnington wondering what she could be going to say next.

”You seem to have beaten me,” she said, with a little nod--”or you think you have.”

”I have no thoughts that you mightn't know,” was the quiet reply.

”You want me to promise not to do it again?”

”If you mean to keep it.”

As he stood by the fire, looking down upon her rather sternly--she yet perceived in his grey eyes, something of that expression she had seen there at their first meeting--as though the heart of a good man tried to speak to her. The same expression--and yet different; with something added and interfused, which moved her strangely.

”Odd as it may seem, I will keep it!” she said. ”Yet without giving up any earlier purpose, or promise, whatever.” Each word was emphasized.

His face changed.

”I won't worry _you_ in any such way again,” she added hastily and proudly.

Some other words were on her lips, but she checked them. She held out her hand for the cheque, and the smile with which she accepted it, after her preceding pa.s.sion, puzzled him.

She locked up the cheque in a drawer of her writing-table. Winnington's horse pa.s.sed the window, and he rose to go. She accompanied him to the hall door and waved a light farewell. Winnington's response was ceremonious. A sure instinct told him to shew no further softness. His dilemma was getting worse and worse, and Lady Tonbridge had been no use to him whatever.

Chapter XII

One of the first days of the New year rose clear and frosty. When the young housemaid who had temporarily replaced Weston as Delia's maid drew back her curtains at half-past seven, Delia caught a vision of an opaline sky with a sinking moon and fading stars. A strewing of snow lay on the ground, and the bare black trees rose, vividly separate, on the white stretches of gra.s.s. Her window looked to the north along the bases of the low range of hills which shut in the valley and the village. A patch of paler colour on the purple slope of the hills marked the long front of Monk Lawrence.

As she sleepily roused herself, she saw her bed littered with dark objects--two leather boxes of some size, and a number of miscellaneous cases--and when the maid had left the room, she lay still, looking at them. They were the signs and symbols of an enquiry she had lately been conducting into her possessions, which seemed to her to have yielded very satisfactory results. They represented in the main the contents of a certain cupboard in the wall of her bedroom where Lady Blanchflower had always kept her jewels, and where, in consequence, Weston had so far locked away all that Delia possessed. Here were all her own girlish ornaments--costly things which her father had given her at intervals during the three or four years since her coming out; here were her Mother's jewels, which Sir Robert had sent to his bankers after his wife's death, and had never seen again during his lifetime; and here were also a number of family jewels which had belonged to Delia's grandmother, and had remained, after Lady Blanchflower's death, in the custody of the family lawyers, till Delia, to whom they had been left by will, had appeared to claim them.

Delia had always known that she possessed a quant.i.ty of valuable things, and had hitherto felt but small interest in them. Gertrude's influence, and her own idealism had bred in her contempt for gauds. It was the worst of breeding to wear anything for its mere money value; and nothing whatever should be worn that wasn't in itself beautiful.

Lady Blanchflower's taste had been, in Delia's eyes, abominable; and her diamonds,--tiaras, pendants and the rest--had absolutely nothing to recommend them but their sheer brute cost. After a few glances at them, the girl had shut them up and forgotten them.

But they _were_ diamonds, and they must be worth some thousands.

It was this idea which had flashed upon her during her last talk with Winnington, and she had been brooding over it, and pondering it ever since. Winnington himself was away. He and his sister had been spending Christmas with some cousins in the midlands. Meanwhile Delia recognised that his relation to her had been somewhat strained. His letters to her on various points of business had been more formal than usual; and though he had sent her a pocket Keats for a Christmas present, it had arrived accompanied merely by his ”kind regards” and she had felt unreasonably aggrieved, and much inclined to send it back. His cheque meanwhile for 500 had gone into Delia's bank. No help for it--considering all the Christmas bills which had been pouring in! But she panted for the time when she could return it.

As for his threat of permanently refunding the money out of his own pocket, she remembered it with soreness of spirit. Too bad!

Well, there they lay, on the counterpane all round her--the means of checkmating her guardian. For while she was rummaging in the wall-safe, the night before, suddenly the fire had gone down, and the room had sunk to freezing point. Delia, brought up in warm climates, had jumped s.h.i.+vering into bed, and there, heaped round with the contents of the cupboard, had examined a few more cases, till sleep and cold overpowered her.

In the grey morning light she opened some of the cases again. Vulgar and ugly, if you like--but undeniably, absurdly worth money! Her dark eyes caught the sparkle of the jewels running through her fingers.

These tasteless things--mercifully--were her own--her very own.

Winnington had nothing to say to them! She could wear them--or give them--or sell them, as she pleased.

She was alternately exultant, and strangely full of a fluttering anxiety. The thought of returning Winnington's cheque was sweet to her.

But her disputes with him had begun to cost her more than she had ever imagined they could or would. And the particular way out, which, a few weeks before, she had so impatiently desired--that he should resign the guardians.h.i.+p, and leave her to battle with the Court of Chancery as best she could--was no longer so attractive to her. To be cherished and cared for by Mark Winnington--no woman yet, but had found it delightful. Insensibly Delia had grown accustomed to it--to his comings and goings, his business-ways, abrupt sometimes, even peremptory, but informed always by a kindness, a selflessness that amazed her.

Everyone wanted his help or advice, and he must refuse now--as he had never refused before--because his time and thoughts were so much taken up with his ward's affairs. Delia knew that she was envied; and knew also that the neighbours thought her an ungrateful, unmanageable hoyden, totally unworthy of such devotion.