Part 54 (1/2)
Winnington meanwhile became more and more conscious of an abnormal state of nerve and brain in this pale Delia, the shadow of her proper self, and as the hours went on, he was presently for throwing all Madeleine's counsels aside, and somehow breaking through the girl's silence, in the hope of getting at--and healing--the cause of it. He guessed of course at a hundred things to account for it--at a final breach between her and Gertrude--at the disappointment of cherished hopes and illusions--at a profound travail of mind, partly moral, partly intellectual, going back over the past, and bewildered as to the future. But at the first sign of a change of action, of any attempt to probe her, on his part, she was off--in flight; throwing back at him often a look at once so full of pain and so resolute that he dared not pursue her. She possessed at all times a great personal dignity, and it held him at bay.
He himself--unconsciously--enabled her to hold him at bay. Naturally, he connected some of the haunting anxiety he perceived with Monk Lawrence, and with Gertrude Marvell's outrageous speech in Latchford market-place. But he himself, on the other hand, was not greatly concerned for Monk Lawrence. Not only he---the whole neighbourhood was on the alert, in defence of the famous treasure-house. The outside of the building and the gardens were patrolled at night by two detectives; and according to Daunt's own emphatic a.s.surance to Winnington, the house was never left without either the Keeper himself or his niece in it, to mount guard. They had set up a dog, with a bark which was alone worth a policeman. And finally, Sir Wilfrid himself had been down to see the precautions taken, had especially ordered the strengthening of the side door, and the provision of iron bars for all the ground floor windows. As to the niece, Eliza Daunt, she had not made herself popular with the neighbours or in the village; but she seemed an efficient and managing woman, and that she ”kept herself to herself” was far best for the safety of Monk Lawrence.
Whenever during these days Winnington's business took him in the Latchford direction, so that going or coming he pa.s.sed Monk Lawrence, he would walk up to the Abbey in the evening, and in the course of the gossip of the day, all the rea.s.suring news he had to give would be sure to drop out; while Delia sat listening, her eyes fixed on him. And then, for a time, the shadow almost lifted, and she would be her young and natural self.
In this way, without knowing it, he helped her to keep her secret, and, intermittently, to fight down her fears.
On one of these afternoons, in the February twilight, he had been talking to both the ladies, describing _inter alia_ a brief call at Monk Lawrence and a chat with Daunt, when Madeleine Tonbridge went away to change her walking dress, and he and Delia were left alone.
Winnington was standing in the favourite male att.i.tude--his hands in his pockets, and his back to the fire; Delia was on a sofa near. The firelight flickered on the black and white of her dress, and on the face which in losing something of its dark bloom had gained infinitely in other magic for the eyes of the man looking down upon her.
Suddenly she said--
”Do you remember when you wanted me to say--I was sorry for Gertrude's speech--and I wouldn't?”
He started.
”Perfectly.”
”Well, I am sorry now. I see--I know--it has been all a mistake.”
She lifted her eyes to his, very quietly--but the hands on her lap shook.
His pa.s.sionate impulse was to throw himself at her feet, and silence any further humbleness with kisses. But he controlled himself.
”You mean--that violence--has been a mistake?”
”Yes--just that. Oh, of course!”--she flushed again--”I am just as much for _women_--I am just as rebellious against their wrongs--as I ever was. I shall be a Suffragist always. But I see now--what we've stirred up in England. I see now--that we can't win that way--and that we oughtn't to win that way.”
He was silent a moment, and then said in a rather m.u.f.fled voice--
”I don't know who else would have confessed it--so bravely!” His emotion seemed to quiet her. She smiled radiantly.
”Does it make you feel triumphant?”
”Not in the least!”
She held out both hands, and he grasped them, smiling back--understanding that she wished him to take it lightly.
Her eyes indeed now were full of gaiety--light swimming on depths.
”You won't be always saying 'I told you so?'”
”Is it my way?”
”No. But perhaps it's cunning on your part. You know it pays better to be generous.”
They both laughed, and she drew her hands away. In another minute, she had asked him to go on with some reading aloud while she worked. He took up the book. The blood raced in his veins. ”Soon, soon!”--he said to himself, only to be checked by the divining instinct which added--”but not yet!”
Only a few more days now, to the Commons debate. Every morning the newspapers contained a crop of ”militant” news of the kind foreshadowed by Gertrude Marvell--meetings disturbed, private parties raided, Ministers waylaid, windows smashed, and the like, though in none of the reports did Gertrude's own name appear. Only two days before the debate, a glorious Reynolds in the National Gallery was all but hopelessly defaced by a girl of eighteen. Feeling throughout the country surged at a white-heat. Delia said little or nothing, but the hollows under her eyes grew steadily darker, and her cheeks whiter. Nor could Winnington, for all his increasing anxiety, devote himself to soothing or distracting her. An ugly strike in the Latchford brickfields against nonunion labour was giving the magistrates of the country a good deal of anxiety. Some bad outrages had already occurred, and Winnington was endeavouring to get a Board of Trade arbitration,--all of which meant his being a good deal away from home.