Steadily the sunset faded. An attacking host of cloud rushed upon it from the sea, and quenched it. The lights in the windows of Monk Lawrence went out. Dusk fell upon the house and all its approaches.
Suddenly, two figures--figures of women--emerged in the twilight from the thick plantation, which protected the house on the north. They reached the flagged path with noiseless feet, and then pausing, they began what an intelligent spectator would have soon seen to be a careful reconnoitering of the whole northern side of the house. They seemed to examine the windows, a garden door, the recesses in the walls, the old lead piping, the creepers and shrubs. Then one of them, keeping close to the house wall, which was in deep shadow, went quickly round to the back. The other awaited her. In the distance rose at intervals a dog"s uneasy bark.
In a very few minutes the woman who had gone round the house returned and the two, slipping back into the dense belt of wood from which they had come, were instantly swallowed up by it. Their appearance and their movements throughout had been as phantom-like and silent as the shadows which were now engulfing the house. Anyone who had seen them come and go might almost have doubted his own eyes.
Daunt the Keeper returned leisurely to his quarters in some back premises of Monk Lawrence, at the southeastern corner of the house. But he had but just opened his own door when he again heard the sound of footsteps in the fore-court.
"Well, what"s come to the folk to-night"--he muttered, with some ill-humour, as he turned back towards the front.
A woman!--standing with her back to the house, in the middle of the forecourt as though the place belonged to her, and gazing at the piled clouds of the west, still haunted by the splendour just past away.
A veritable Masque of Women, all of the Maenad sort, had by now begun to riot through Daunt"s brain by night and day. He raised his voice sharply--
"What"s your business here, Ma"am? There is no public road past this house."
The lady turned, and came towards him.
"Don"t you know who I am, Mr. Daunt? But I remember you when I was a child."
Daunt peered through the dusk.
"You have the advantage of me, Madam," he said, stiffly. "Kindly give me your name."
"Miss Blanchflower--from Maumsey Abbey!" said a young, conscious voice.
"I used to come here with my grandmother, Lady Blanchflower. I have been intending to come and pay you a visit for a long time--to have a look at the old house again. And just now I was pa.s.sing the foot of your hill in a motor; something went wrong with the car, and while they were mending it, I ran up. But it"s getting dark so quick, one can hardly see anything!"
Daunt"s att.i.tude showed no relaxation. Indeed, quick recollections a.s.sailed him of certain reports in the local papers, now some ten days old. Miss Blanchflower indeed! She was a brazen one--after all done and said.
"Pleased to see you, Miss, if you"ll kindly get an order from Sir Wilfrid. But I have strict instructions from Sir Wilfrid not to admit anyone--not anyone whatsoever--to the gardens or the house, without his order."
"I should have thought, Mr. Daunt, that only applied to strangers." The tones shewed annoyance. "My father, Sir Robert Blanchflower, was an old friend of Sir Wilfrid"s."
"Can"t help it, Miss," said Daunt, not without the secret zest of the Radical putting down his "betters." "There are queer people about. I can"t let no one in without an order."
As he spoke, a gate slammed on his left, and Daunt, with the feeling of one beset, turned in wrath to see who might be this new intruder. Since the house had been closed to visitors, and a notice to the effect had been posted in the village, scarcely a soul had penetrated through its enclosing woods, except Miss Amberley, who came to teach Daunts crippled child. And now in one evening here were three a.s.saults upon its privacy!
But as to the third he was soon rea.s.sured.
"Hullo, Daunt, is that you? Did I hear you telling Miss Blanchflower you can"t let her in? But you know her of course?" said a man"s easy voice.
Delia started. The next moment her hand was in her guardian"s, and she realised that he had heard the conversation between herself and Daunt, realised also that she had committed a folly not easily to be explained, either to Winnington or herself, in obeying the impulse which--half memory, half vague anxiety,--had led her to pay this sudden visit to the house. Gertrude Marvell had left Maumsey that morning, saying she should be in London for the day. Had Gertrude been with her, Delia would have let Monk Lawrence go by. For in Gertrude"s company it had become an instinct with her--an instinct she scarcely confessed to herself--to avoid all reference to the house.
At sight of Winnington, however, who was clearly a privileged person in his eyes, Daunt instantly changed his tone.
"Good evening, Sir. Perhaps you"ll explain to this young lady? We"ve got to keep a sharp lookout--you know that, Sir."
"Certainly, Daunt, certainly. I am sure Miss Blanchflower understands.
But you"ll let _me_ shew her the house, I imagine?"
"Why, of course, Sir! There"s nothing you can"t do here. Give me a few minutes--I"ll turn on some lights. Perhaps the young lady will walk in?" He pointed to his own rooms. "So you still keep the electric light going?"
"By Sir Wilfrid"s wish, Sir,--so as if anything did happen these winter nights, we mightn"t be left in darkness. The engine works a bit now and then."
He led the way towards his quarters. The door into his kitchen stood open, and in the glow of fire and lamp stood his three children, who had been eagerly listening to the conversation outside. One of them, a little girl, was leaning on a crutch. She looked up happily as Winnington entered.
"Well, Lily--" he pinched her cheek--"I"ve got something to tell Father about you. Say "how do you do" to this lady." The child put her hand in Delia"s, looking all the while ardently at Winnington.
"Am I going to be in your school, Sir?"
"If you"re good. But you"ll have to be dreadfully good!"
"I am good," said Lily, confidently. "I want to be in your school, please Sir."
"But such a lot of other little girls want to come too! Must I leave them out?"
Lily shook her head perplexed. "But you promithed," she lisped, very softly.
Winnington laughed. The child"s hand had transferred itself to his, and nestled there.
"What school does she mean?" asked Delia.
At the sound of her voice Winnington turned to her for the first time.
It was as though till then he had avoided looking at her, lest the hidden thought in each mind should be too plain to the other. He had found her--Sir Robert Blanchflower"s daughter--on the point of being curtly refused admission to the house where her father had been a familiar inmate, and where she herself had gone in and out as a child.
And he knew why; she knew why; Daunt knew why. She was a person under suspicion, a person on whom the community was keeping watch.
Nevertheless, Winnington entirely believed what he had overheard her say to the keeper. It was no doubt quite true that she had turned aside to see Monk Lawrence on a sudden impulse of sentiment or memory. Odd that it should be so!--but like her. That _she_ could have any designs on the beautiful old place was indeed incredible; and it was equally incredible that she would aid or abet them in anyone else. And yet--there was that monstrous speech at Latchford, made in her hearing, by her friend and co-militant, the woman who shared her life! Was it any wonder that Daunt bristled at the sight of her?
He had, however, to answer her question.
"My county school," he explained. "The school for invalid children--"physical defectives"--that we are going to open next summer.
I came to tell Daunt there"d be a place for this child. She"s an old friend of mine." He smiled down upon the nestling creature--"Has Miss Amberley been to see you lately, Lily?"
At this moment Daunt returned to the kitchen, with the news that the house was ready. "The light"s not quite what it ought to be, Sir, but I daresay you"ll be able to see a good deal. Miss Amberley, Sir, she"s taught Lily fine. I"m sure we"re very much obliged to her--and to you for asking her."
"I don"t know what the sick children here will do without her, Daunt.
She"s going away--wants to be a nurse."
"Well, I"m very sorry, Sir. She"ll be badly missed."
"That she will. Shall we go in?" Winnington turned to Delia, who nodded a.s.sent, and followed him into the dim pa.s.sages beyond the brightly-lighted kitchen. The children, looking after them, saw the beautiful lady disappearing, and felt vaguely awed by her height, her stiff carriage and her proud looks.
Delia, indeed, was again--and as usual--in revolt, against herself and circ.u.mstances. Why had she been such a fool as to come to Monk Lawrence at all, and then to submit to seeing it--on sufferance!--in Winnington"s custody? And how he must be contrasting her with Susy Amberley!--the soft sister of charity, plying her womanly tasks, in the manner of all good women, since the world began! She saw herself as the anarchist prowling outside, tracked, spied on, held at arm"s length by all decent citizens, all lovers of ancient beauty, and moral tradition; while, within, women like Susy Amberley sat Madonna-like, with the children at their knee. "Well, we stand for the children too--the children of the future!" she said to herself defiantly.
"This is the old hall--and the gallery that was put up in honour of Elizabeth"s visit here in 1570--" she heard Winnington saying--"One of the finest things of its kind. But you can hardly see it."
The electric light indeed was of the feeblest. A dim line of it ran round the carved ceiling, and glimmered in the central chandelier. But the mingled illumination of sunset and moonrise from outside contended with it on more than equal terms; and everything in the hall, tapestries, armour, and old oak, the gallery above, the dais with its carved chairs below, had the dim mystery of a stage set ready for the play, before the lights are on.