Chapter V
As Winnington advanced with outstretched hand to greet her, Delia was conscious of a striking physical presence, and of an eye fixed upon her at once kind and penetrating.
"How are you? You"ve been through a terrible time! Are you at all rested? I"m afraid it has been a long, long strain."
He held her hand in both his, asking gentle questions about her father"s illness, interrogating her looks the while with a frank concern and sympathy.
Delia was taken by surprise. For the first time that day she was reminded of what was really, the truth. She _was_ tired--morally and physically. But Gertrude Marvell never recognised anything of the kind; and in her presence Delia rarely confessed any such weakness even to herself.
As it was, her eyes and mouth wavered a little under Winnington"s look.
"Thank you," she said quietly. "I shall soon be rested."
They sat down. Delia was conscious--unwillingly conscious, of a nervous agitation she did her best to check. For Winnington also it was clearly an awkward moment. He began at once to talk of his old recollections of her parents, of her mother"s beauty, of her father"s reputation as the most dashing soldier on the North-West frontier, in the days when they first met in India.
"But his health was even then very poor. I suppose it was that made him leave the army?"
"Yes--and then Parliament," said Delia. "He was ordered a warm climate for the winter. But he could never have lived without working. His Governorship just suited him."
She spoke with charming softness, beguiled from her insensibly by Winnington"s own manner. At the back of Winnington"s mind, as they talked, ran perpetual e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns--e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of the natural man in the presence of so much beauty. But his conversation with her flowed the while with an even gentleness which never for a moment affected intimacy, and was touched here and there with a note of deference, even of ceremony, which disarmed his companion.
"I never came across your father down here--oddly enough," he said presently. "He had left Sandhurst before I went to Eton; and then there was Oxford, and then the bar. My little place belonged then to a cousin, and I had hardly ever seen it. But of course I knew, your grandmother--everybody did. She was a great centre--a great figure. She has left her mark here. Don"t you find it so?"
"Yes. Everybody seems to remember her."
But, in a moment, the girl before him had changed and stiffened. It seemed to Winnington, as to Mrs. France, that she pulled herself up, reacting against something that threatened her. The expression in her eyes put something between them. "Perhaps you know"--she said--"that my grandmother didn"t always get on with my mother?"
He wondered why she had reminded him of that old family jar, which gossip had spread abroad. Did it really rankle in her mind? Odd, that it should!
"Was that so?" he laughed. "Oh, Lady Blanchflower had her veins of unreason. One had to know where to have her."
"She took Greeks for barbarians--my father used to say," said Delia, a little grimly. "But she was very good to me--and so I was fond of her."
"And she of you. But there are still tales going about--do you mind?--of the dances you led her. It took weeks and months, they say, before you and she arrived at an armed truce--after a most appalling state of war! There"s an old gardener here--retired now--who remembers you quite well. He told me yesterday that you used to be very friendly with him, and you said to him once--"I like Granny!--she"s the master of me!""
The laughter in Winnington"s eyes again kindled hers.
"I was a handful--I know." There was a pause. Then she added--"And I"m afraid--I"ve gone on being a handful!" Gesture and tone showed that she spoke deliberately.
"Most people of spirit are--till they come to handle themselves," he replied, also with a slight change of tone.
"But that"s just what women are never allowed to do, Mr. Winnington!"
She turned suddenly red, and fronted him. "There"s always some man, who claims to manage them and their affairs. We"re always in leading-strings--n.o.body ever admits we"re grown up. Why can"t we be allowed like men--to stumble along our own way? If we make mistakes, let"s _pay_ for them! But let us at some time in our lives--at least--feel ourselves free beings!"
There was no mistaking the purport of these words. They referred clearly to her father"s will, and her own position. After a moment"s thought, Winnington bent forward.
"I think I understand what you mean," he said gravely. "And I sympathise with it more than you imagine."
Delia looked up impetuously--
"Then why, Mr. Winnington, did you consent to be my guardian?"
"Because--quite honestly--because I thought I could be of more use to you perhaps than the Court of Chancery; and because your father"s letter to me was one very difficult to put aside."
"How could anyone in my father"s state of health really judge reasonably!" cried Delia. "I daresay it sounds shocking to you, Mr.
Winnington, but I can"t help putting it to myself like this--Papa was always able to contrive his own life as he chose. In his Governorship he was a small king. He tried a good many experiments. Everybody deferred to him. Everybody was glad to help him. Then when his money came and the estate, n.o.body fettered him with conditions; n.o.body interfered with him. Grandpapa and he didn"t agree in a lot of things.
Papa was a Liberal; and Grandpapa was an awfully hot Conservative. But Grandpapa didn"t appoint a trustee, or tie up the estates--or anything of that kind. It is simply and solely because I am a woman that these things are done! I am not to be allowed _my_ opinions, in _my_ life, though Papa was quite free to work for his in his life! This is the kind of thing we call tyranny,--this is the kind of thing that"s driving women into revolt!"
Delia had risen. She stood in what Gertrude Marvell would have called her "pythian" att.i.tude, hands behind her, her head thrown back, delivering her prophetic soul. Winnington, as he surveyed her, was equally conscious of her beauty and her absurdity. But he kept cool, or rather the natural faculty which had given him so much authority and success in life rose with a kind of zest to its new and unaccustomed task.
"May I perhaps suggest--that your father was fifty-two when he succeeded to this estate--and that you are twenty-one?"
"Nearly twenty-two," she interrupted, hastily.
"Nearly twenty-two," repeated Winnington. "And I a.s.sure you, that what with "People"s Budgets," and prowling Chancellors, and all the new turns of the screw that the Treasury is for ever putting on, inheriting an estate nowadays is no simple matter. Your father thought of that. He wished to provide someone to help you."
"I could have found lawyers to help me."
"Of course you could. But my experience is that solicitors are good servants but bad masters. It wants a good deal of practical knowledge to direct them, so that you get what you want. I have gone a little way into the business of the estate this morning with Mr. Masham, and in town, with the Morton Manners people. I see already some complications which will take me a deal of time and thought to straighten out. And I am a lawyer, and if you will let me say so, just double your age."
He smiled at her, but Delia"s countenance did not relax. Her mouth was scornful.
"I daresay that"s quite true, Mr. Winnington. But of course you know it was _not_ on that account--or at any rate not chiefly on that account, that my father left things as he did. He wished"--she spoke clearly and slowly--"simply to prevent my helping the Suffrage movement in the way I think best."
Winnington too had risen, and was standing with one hand on the mantelpiece. His brow was slightly furrowed, not frowning exactly, but rather with the expression of one trying to bring his mind into as close touch as possible with another mind.
"I must of course agree with you. That is evidently one of the objects of the will, though by no means--I think--the only one. And as to that, should you not ask yourself--had not your father a right, even a duty, to look after the disposal of his money as he thought best? Surely it was his responsibility--especially as he was old, and you were young."
Delia had begun to feel impatient--to resent the very mildness of his tone. She felt, as though she were an insubordinate child, being gently reasoned with.
"No, I don"t admit it!" she said pa.s.sionately. "It was tampering with the right of the next generation!"
"Might you not say the same of the whole--or almost the whole of our system of inheritance?" he argued. "I should put it--that the old are always trying to preserve and protect something they know is more precious to them than it can be to the young--something as to which, with the experience of life behind them, they believe they are wiser than the young. _Ought_ the young to resent it?"
"Yes," persisted Delia. "_Yes_! They should be left to make their own experiments."
"They have _life_ wherewith to make them! But the dead--" He paused.
But Delia felt and quivered under the unspoken appeal; and also under the quick touch of something more personal--more intimate--in his manner, expressing, it seemed, some deep feeling of his own. He, in turn, perceived that she had grown very pale; he guessed even that she was suddenly not very far from tears. He seemed to realise the weeks, perhaps months, of conflict through which the girl had just pa.s.sed. He was sincerely sorry for her--sincerely drawn to her.
Delia broke the silence.
"It is no good I think discussing this any more--is it? There"s the will, and the question is"--she faced him boldly--"how are you and I going to get on, Mr. Winnington?"
Winnington"s seriousness broke up. He threw her a smiling look, and with his hands in his pockets began to pace the room reflectively.
"I really believe we can pull it off, if we look at it coolly," he said at last, pausing in front of her. "I am no bigot on the Suffrage question--frankly I have not yet made up my mind upon it. All that I am clear about--as your father was clear--is that outrage and violence are _wrong_--in any cause. I cannot believe that we shan"t agree there!"
He looked at her keenly. Delia was silent. Her face betrayed nothing, though her eyes met his steadily.