Delia Blanchflower Part 39

"Because the world's so _marvellous_," said Delia, with her pa.s.sionate look. "And there's so little time to explore it in. You men have always known that. Now we women know it too."

He pondered the remark--half smiling.

"Well, you'll see a good deal of it before you've done," he said at last. "Now come and look at what I've been trying to do for the women who complained to you."

And he shewed her how everything had been arranged to please her, at the cost of infinite trouble, and much expense. The woman with the eight children had been moved into a s.p.a.cious new cottage made out of two old ones; the old granny alone in a house now too big for her, had been induced to take in a prim little spinster, the daughter of a small grocer just deceased; and the father of the deficient girl, for whom Miss Dempsey had made herself responsible, received Winnington with a lightening of his tired eyes, and taking him out of earshot of Delia, told him how Bessie "had got through her trouble," and was now earning money at some simple hand-work under Miss Dempsey's care.

"I didn't know you were doing all this!" said Delia, remorsefully, as they walked along the village street. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I think I did tell you--once or twice. But you had other things to think about."

"I hadn't!" said Delia, with angry energy. "I hadn't, you needn't make excuses for me!"

He smiled at her, a little gravely, but said nothing--till they reached a path leading to an isolated cottage--

"Here's a cripple at last!--Susy!--You here?"

For as the door opened to his knock, a lady rose from a low seat, and faced them.

Winnington grasped her by the hand.

"I thought you were already gone."

"No--they've put it off again for a week or two--no vacancy yet."

She shook hands formally with Delia. "I came to have another look at this boy. Isn't he splendid?"

She pointed to a grinning child of five sitting on the edge of the kitchen table, and dangling a pair of heavily ironed legs. The mother proudly shewed them. He had been three months in the Orthopaedic Hospital, she told Delia. The legs twisted with rickets had been broken and set twice, and now he was "doing fine." She set him down, and made him walk. "I never thought to see him do that!" she said, her wan face s.h.i.+ning. "And it's all his doing--" she pointed to Winnington, "and Miss Susy's."

Meanwhile Susy and Winnington were deep in conversation--very technical much of it--about a host of subjects they seemed to have in common.

Delia silent and rather restless, watched them both, the girl's sweet, already faded, face, and Winnington's expression. When they emerged from the cottage Susy said shyly to Delia--

"Won't you come to tea with me some day next week?"

"Thank you. I should like to. But my maid is very ill. Else I should be in London."

"Oh, I'm very sorry. May I come to you?"

Delia thanked her coldly. She could have beaten herself for a rude, ungracious creature; yet for the life of her she could not command another manner. Susy drew back. She and Winnington began to talk again, ranging over persons and incidents quite unknown to Delia--the frank talk, full of matter of comrades in a public service. And again Delia watched them acutely--jealous--yet not in any ordinary sense. When Susy turned back towards the Rectory, Delia said abruptly--

"She's helped you a great deal?"

"Susy!" He went off at score, ending with--"What France and I shall do without her, I don't know. If we could only get more women--_scores more women_--to do the work! There we sit, perched up aloft on the Council, and what we want are the women to advise us, and the women's hands--_to do the little things_--which make just all the difference!"

She was silent a moment, and then said sorely--"I suppose that means, that if we did all the work we might do--we needn't bother about the vote."

He turned upon with animation--

"I vow I wasn't thinking about the vote!"

"Miss Amberley doesn't seem to bother about it."

Winnington's voice shewed amus.e.m.e.nt.

"I can't imagine Susy a suff. It simply isn't in her."

"I know plenty of suffragists just as good and useful as she is," said Delia, bristling.

Winnington did not immediately reply. They had left the village behind, and were walking up the Maumsey lane in a gathering darkness, each electrically conscious of the other. At last he said in a changed tone--

"Have I been saying anything to wound you? I didn't mean it."

She laughed unsteadily.

"You never say anything to wound me. I was only--a kind of fretful porcupine--standing up for my side."

"And the last thought in my mind to-night was to attack your 'side,'"

he protested.

Her tremulous sense drank in the gentleness of his voice, the joy of his strong, enveloping presence, and the sweetness of her own surrender which had brought him back to her, the thought of it vibrating between them, unspoken. Until, suddenly, at the door of the Abbey, Winnington halted and took her by both hands.

"I must go home. Good-night. Have you got books to amuse you?"

"Plenty."

"Poor child!--all alone! But you'll have Lady Tonbridge to-morrow."

"How do you know? She mayn't come."

"I'm going there now. I'll make her. You--you won't be doing any more embroidery to-night?"

He looked at her slyly. Delia laughed out.

"There!--when one tries to be feminine, that's how you mock!"

"'_Mock_!' I admired. Good-night!--I shall be here to-morrow."

He was gone--into the darkness.

Delia entered the lonely house, in a bewilderment of feeling. As she pa.s.sed Gertrude's deserted sitting-room on her way to the staircase, she saw that the parlourmaid had lit a useless lamp there. She went in to put it out. As she did so, a torn paper among the litter on the floor attracted her notice. She stooped and took it up.

It seemed to be a fragment of a plan--a plan of a house. It shewed two series of rooms, divided by a long pa.s.sage. One of the rooms was marked "Red Parlour," another, "Hall," and at the end of the pa.s.sage, there were some words, clearly in Gertrude Marvell's handwriting--

"_Garden door, north_."

With terror in her heart, Delia brought the fragment to the lamp, and examined every word and line of it.

Recollections flashed into her mind, and turned her pale. That what she held was part of a general plan of the Monk Lawrence ground-floor, she was certain--dismally certain. And Gertrude had made it. Why?