Delia suddenly looked up in her questioner"s face. Her gravity broke up in a broad smile.
"Because there"s so much else to do."
"What else?"
The look of excited defiance in the girl"s eyes sharpened.
"Do you really want to know?"
"Certainly. The Suffrage and that kind of thing?" said Madeleine Tonbridge lightly.
"The Suffrage and that kind of thing!" repeated Delia, still smiling.
Captain Andrews who was standing near, and whose martial mind was all in confusion, owing to Miss Blanchflower"s beauty, put in an eager word.
"I never can understand, Miss Blanchflower, why you ladies want the vote! Why, you can twist us round your little fingers!"
Delia turned upon him.
"But I don"t want to twist you round my little finger!" she said, with energy. "It wouldn"t give me the smallest pleasure."
"I thought you wanted to manage us," said the Captain, unable to take his eyes from her. "But you do manage us already!"
Delia"s glance showed her uncertain whether the foe was worth her steel.
"We want to manage ourselves," she said at last, smiling indifferently.
"We say you do it badly."
The Captain attempted to spar with her a little longer. Winnington meanwhile stood, a silent listener, amid the group round the tea-table.
He--and Dr. France--were both acutely conscious of the realities behind this empty talk; of the facts recorded in the day"s newspapers; and of the connection between the quiet lady in grey who had come in with Delia Blanchflower, and the campaign of public violence, which was now in good earnest alarming and exasperating the country.
Where was the quiet lady in grey? Winnington was thinking too much about his ward to keep a constant eye upon her. But Dr. France observed her closely, and he presently saw what puzzled him anew. After a conversation, exceedingly bland, though rather monosyllabic, on Miss Marvell"s part, with the puzzled and inarticulate Rector, Delia"s chaperon had gently and imperceptibly moved away from the tea-table.
That she had been very coldly received by the company in general was no doubt evident to her. She was now sitting beside that strange girl Marion Andrews--to whom, as the Doctor had seen, she had been introduced--apparently--by the Rector. And as Dr. France caught sight of her, she and Marion Andrews rose and walked to a window opening on the garden, apparently to look at the blaze of autumn flowers outside.
But it was the demeanour of the girl which again drew the doctor"s attention. Marion Andrews, who never talked, was talking fast and earnestly to this complete stranger, her normally sallow face one glow.
It was borne in afresh upon Dr. France that the two were already acquainted; and he continued to watch them as closely as politeness allowed.
"Will you come and look at the house?" said Winnington to his ward.
"Not that we have anything to shew--except a few portraits and old engravings that might interest you. But it"s rather a dear old place, and we"re very fond of it."
Delia went with him in silence. He opened the oval panelled dining-room, and shewed her the portraits of his father, the venerable head of an Oxford college, in the scarlet robes of a D.D., and others representing his forebears on both sides--quiet folk, painted by decent but not important painters. Delia looked at them and hardly spoke. Then they went into Mrs. Matheson"s room, which was bright with pretty chintzes, books and water-colours, and had a bow-window looking on the garden. Still Delia said nothing, beyond an absent Yes or No, or a perfunctory word of praise. Winnington became very soon conscious of some strong tension in her, which was threatening to break down; a tension evidently of displeasure and resentment. He guessed what the subject of it might be, but as he was most unwilling to discuss it with her, if his guess were correct, he tried to soothe and evade her by such pleasant talk as the different rooms suggested. The house through which he led her was the home, evidently, of a man full of enthusiasms and affections, caring intensely for many things, for his old school, of which there were many drawings and photographs in the hall and pa.s.sages, for the two great games in which he himself excelled; for poetry and literature--the house overflowed everywhere with books; for his County Council work, and all the projects connected with it; for his family and his intimate friends.
"Who is that?" asked Delia, pointing to a charcoal drawing in Mrs.
Matheson"s sitting-room, of a n.o.ble-faced woman of thirty, in a delicate evening dress of black and white.
"That is my mother. She died the year after it was taken."
Delia looked at it in silence a moment. There was something in its dignity, its restfulness, its touch of austerity which challenged her.
She said abruptly--"I want to speak to you please, Mr. Winnington. May we shut the door?"
Winnington shut the door of his sister"s room, and returned to his guest. Delia had turned very white.
"I hear Mr. Winnington you have reversed an order I wrote to our agent about one of the cottages. May I know your reasons?"
"I was very sorry to do so," said Winnington gently; "but I felt sure you did not understand the real circ.u.mstances, and I could not come and discuss them with you."
Delia stood stormily erect, and the level light of the October afternoon streaming in through a west window magnified her height, and her prophetess air.
"I can"t help shocking you, Mr. Winnington. I don"t accept what you say. I don"t believe that covering up horrible things makes them less horrible. I want to stand by that girl. It is cruel to separate her from her old father!"
Winnington looked at her in distress and embarra.s.sment.
"The story is not what you think it," he said earnestly. "But it is really not fit for your ears. I have given great thought and much time to it, yesterday and to-day. The girl--who is mentally deficient--will be sent to a home and cared for. The father sees now that it is the best. Please trust it to me."
"Why mayn"t I know the facts!" persisted Delia, paler than before.
A flash of some quick feeling pa.s.sed through Winnington"s eyes.
"Why should you? Leave us older folk, dear Miss Delia, to deal with these sorrowful things."
Indignation blazed up in her.
"It is for women to help women," she said, pa.s.sionately. "It is no good treating us who are grown up--even if we are young--like children any more. We intend to _know_--that we may protect--and save."
"I a.s.sure you," said Winnington gravely, "that this poor girl shall have every care--every kindness. So there is really no need for you to know. Please spare yourself--and me!"
He had come to stand by her, looking down upon her. She lifted her eyes to his unwillingly, and as she caught his smile she was invaded by a sudden consciousness of his strong magnetic presence. The power in the grey eyes, and in the brow over-hanging them, the kind sincerity mingled with the power, and the friendliness that breathed from his whole att.i.tude and expression, disarmed her. She felt herself for a moment--and for the first time--young and ignorant,--and that Winnington was ready to be in the true and not merely in the legal sense, her "guardian," if she would only let him.
But the moment of weakening was soon over. Her mind chafed and twisted.
Why had he undertaken it--a complete stranger to her! It was most embarra.s.sing--detestable--for them both!
And there suddenly darted through her memory the recollection of a certain item in her father"s will. Under it Mr. Winnington received a sum of 4,000 out of her father"s estate, "in consideration of our old friendship, and of the trouble I am asking him to undertake in connection with my estates,"--or words to that effect.
Somehow, she had never yet paid much attention to that clause in the will. It occurred in a list of a good many other legacies, and had been pa.s.sed over by the lawyers in explaining the will to her, as something entirely in the natural course of things. But the poisonous thought suggested itself--"It was that which bribed him!--he would have given it up, but for that!" He might not want it for himself--very possibly!--but for his charities, his Cripple School and the rest. Her face stiffened.
"If you have arranged with her father, of course I can"t interfere,"
she said coldly. "But don"t imagine, please, Mr. Winnington, for one moment, that I accept your view of the things I "needn"t know." If I am to do my duty to the people on this estate--"
"I thought you weren"t going to live on the estate?" he said, lifting his eyebrows.
"Not at once--not this winter." She was annoyed to feel herself stammering. "But of course I have a responsibility--"
The kindly laugh in his grey eyes faded.
"Yes--I quite admit that,--a great responsibility," he said slowly. "Do you mind if I mention another subject?"