Chapter VII
A small expectant party were gathered for afternoon tea in the book-lined sitting-room--the house possessed no proper drawing-room--of Bridge End. Mrs. Matheson indeed, Mark"s widowed sister, would have resented it had anyone used the word "party" in its social sense. Miss Blanchflower"s father had been dead scarcely a month; and Mrs. Matheson in her quiet way, held strongly by all the decencies of life. It was merely a small gathering of some of the oldest friends and neighbours of Miss Blanchflower"s family--those who had stood nearest to her grandparents--to welcome the orphan girl among them. Lady Tonbridge--of whom it was commonly believed, though no one exactly knew why, that Bob Blanchflower, as a youth had been in love with her, before ever he met his Greek wife; Dr. France, who had attended both the old people till their deaths, and had been much beloved by them; his wife; the Rector, Mrs. Amberley, and Susy:--Mrs. Matheson had not intended to ask anyone else. But the Andrews" had asked themselves, and she had not had the moral courage to tell them that the occasion was not for them. She was always getting Mark into difficulties, she penitently reflected, by her inability to say No, at the right time, and with the proper force, Mark could always say it, and stick to it smiling--without giving offence.
Mrs. Matheson was at the tea-table. She was tall and thin, with something of her brother"s good looks, but none of his over-flowing vitality. Her iron-grey hair was rolled back from her forehead; she wore a black dress with a high collar of white lawn, and long white cuffs. Little Mrs. Amberley, the Rector"s wife, sitting beside her, envied her hostess her figure, and her long slender neck. She herself had long since parted with any semblance of a waist, and the boned collars of the day were a perpetual torment to one whose neck, from the dressmaker"s point of view, scarcely existed. But Mrs. Amberley endured them, because they were the fashion; and to be moderately in the fashion meant simply keeping up to the mark--not falling behind. It was like going to church--an acceptance of that "general will," which according to the philosophers, is the guardian of all religion and all morality.
The Rector too, who was now handing the tea-cake, believed in fashion--ecclesiastical fashion. Like his wife, he was gentle and ineffective. His clerical dress expressed a moderate Anglicanism, and his opinions were those of his cla.s.s and neighbourhood, put for him day by day in his favourite newspaper, with a cogency at which he marvelled. Yet he was no more a hypocrite than his wife, and below his common-places both of manner and thought there lay warm feelings and a quick conscience. He was just now much troubled about his daughter Susy. The night before she had told her mother and him that she wished to go to London, to train for nursing. It had been an upheaval in their quiet household. Why should she dream of such a thing? How could they ever get on without her? Who would copy out his sermons, or help with the schools? And her mother--so dependent on her only daughter! The Rector"s mind was much disturbed, and he was accordingly more absent and more ineffective than usual.
Susy herself, in a white frock, with touches of blue at her waist, and in her shady hat, was moving about with cups of tea, taking that place of Mrs. Matthews"s lieutenant, which was always tacitly given her by Winnington and his sister on festal occasions at Bridge End. As she pa.s.sed Winnington, who had been captured by Mrs. Andrews, he turned with alacrity--
"My dear Miss Susy! What are you doing? Give me that cup!"
"No--please! I like doing it!" And she pa.s.sed on, smiling, towards Lady Tonbridge, whose sharp eyes had seen the trivial contact between Winnington and the girl. How the mere sound of his voice had changed the aspect of the young face! Poor child--poor child!
"How well you look Susy! Such a pretty dress!" said Madeleine tenderly in the girl"s ear.
Susy flushed.
"You really think so? Mother gave it me for a birthday present." She looked up with her soft, brown eyes, which always seemed to have in them, even when they smiled, a look of pleading--as of someone at a disadvantage. At the same moment Winnington pa.s.sed her.
"_Could_ you go and talk to Miss Andrews?" he said, over his shoulder, so that only she heard.
Susy went obediently across the room to where a silent, dark-haired girl sat by herself, quite apart from the rest of the circle. Marion Andrews was plain, with large features and thick wiry hair. Maumsey society in general declared her "impossible." She rarely talked; she seemed to have no tastes; and the world believed her both stupid and disagreeable. And by contrast with the effusive amiabilities of her mother, she could appear nothing else. Mrs. Andrews indeed had a way of using her daughter as a foil to her own qualities, which must have paralysed the most self-confident, and Marion had never possessed any belief in herself at all.
As Susy Amberley timidly approached her, and began to make conversation, she looked up coldly, and hardly answered. Meanwhile Mrs.
Andrews was pouring out a flood of talk under which the uncomfortable Winnington--for it always fell to him as host to entertain her--sat practising endurance. She was a selfish, egotistical woman, with a vast command of sloppy phrases, which did duty for all that real feeling or sympathy of which she possessed uncommonly little. On this occasion she was elaborately dressed,--overdressed--in a black satin gown, which seemed to Winnington, an ugly miracle of tr.i.m.m.i.n.g and tortured "bits."
Her large hat was thick with nodding plumes, and beside her spotless white gloves and showy lace scarf, her daughter"s slovenly coat and skirt, of the cheapest ready-made kind, her soiled gloves, and clumsy shoes, struck even a man uncomfortably. That poor girl seemed to grow plainer and more silent every year.
He was just shaking himself free from the mother, when Dr. and Mrs.
France were announced. The doctor came in with a furrowed brow, and a preoccupied look. After greeting Mrs. Matheson, and the other guests, he caught a glance of enquiry from Winnington and went up to him.
"The evening paper is full of the most shocking news!" he said, with evident agitation. "There has been an attempt on Hampton Court--and two girls who were caught breaking windows in Piccadilly have been badly hurt by the crowd. A bomb too has been found in the entrance of one of the tube stations. It was discovered in time, or the results might have been frightful."
"Good Heavens--those women again!" cried Mrs. Andrews, lifting hands and eyes.
No one else spoke. But in everyone"s mind the same thought emerged. At any moment the door might open, and Delia Blanchflower and her chaperon might come in.
The doctor drew Winnington aside into a bow-window.
"Did you know that the lady living with Miss Blanchflower was a member of this League of Revolt?"
"Yes. You mean they are implicated in these things?"
"Certainly! I am told Miss Marvell was once an official--probably is still. My dear Winnington--you can"t possibly allow it!" He spoke with the freedom of an intimate friend.
"How can I stop it," said Winnington, frowning. "My ward is of age. If Miss Marvell does anything overt--But she has promised to do nothing violent down here--they both have."
The doctor, an impetuous Ulsterman with white hair, and black eyes, shrugged his shoulders impatiently. "When women once take to this kind of thing"--he was interrupted by Mrs. Andrews" heavy voice rising above the rather nervous and disjointed conversation of the other guests--"If women only knew where their real power lies, Mrs. Matheson!
Why, "the hand that rocks the cradle"--"
A sudden crash was heard.
"Oh, dear"--cried Lady Tonbridge, who had upset a small table with a plate of cakes on it across the tail of Mrs. Andrews" dress--"how stupid I am!"
"My gown!--my gown!" cried Mrs. Andrews in an anguish, groping for the cakes.
In the midst of the confusion the drawing-room door had opened, and there on the threshold stood Delia Blanchflower, with a slightly-built lady behind her.
Winnington turned with a start and went forward to greet them. Dr.
France left behind in the bow-window observed their entry with a mingling of curiosity and repulsion. It seemed to him that their entry was that of persons into a hostile camp,--the senses all alert against attack. Delia was of course in black, her face sombrely brilliant in its dark setting of a plain felt hat, like the hat of a Cavalier without its feathers. "She knows perfectly well we have been talking about her!" thought Dr. France,--"that we have seen the newspapers. She comes in ready for battle--perhaps thirsty for it! She is excited--while the woman behind her is perfectly cool. The two types!--the enthusiast--and the fanatic. But, by Jove, the girl is handsome!"
Through the sudden silence created by their entry, Delia made her way to Mrs. Matheson. Holding her head very high, she introduced "My chaperon--Miss Marvell." And Winnington"s sister nervously shook hands with the quietly smiling lady who followed in Miss Blanchflower"s wake.
Then while Delia sat down beside the hostess, and Winnington busied himself in supplying her with tea, her companion fell to the Rector"s care.
The Rector, like Winnington, was not a gossip, partly out of scruples, but mainly perhaps because of a certain deficient vitality, and he had but disjointed ideas on the subject of the two ladies who had now settled at the Abbey. He understood, however, that Delia, whom he remembered as a child, was a "Suffragette," and that Mr. Winnington, Delia"s guardian, disapproved of the lady she had brought with her, why, he could not recollect. This vague sense of something "naughty"
and abnormal gave a certain tremor to his manner as he stood beside Gertrude Marvell, shifting from one foot to the other, and nervously plying her with tea-cake.
Miss Marvell"s dark eyes meanwhile glanced round the room, taking in everybody. They paused a moment on the figure of the doctor, erect and spare in a closely-b.u.t.toned coat, on his spectacled face, and conspicuous brow, under waves of nearly white hair; then pa.s.sed on. Dr.
France watched her, following the examining eyes with his own. He saw them change, with a look--the slightest pa.s.sing look--of recognition, and at the same moment he was aware of Marion Andrews, sitting in the light of a side window. What had happened to the girl? He saw her dark face, for one instant, exultant, transformed; like some forest hollow into which a sunbeam strikes. The next, she was stooping over a copy of "Punch" which lay on the table beside her. A rush of speculation ran through the doctor"s mind.
"And you are settled at Maumsey?" Mrs. Matheson was saying to Delia; aware as soon as the question was uttered that it was a foolish one.
"Oh no, not settled. We shall be there a couple of months."
"The house will want some doing up, Mark thinks."
"I don"t think so. Not much anyway. It does very well."
There was an entire absence of girlish softness or shyness in the speaker"s manner, though it was both courteous and easy. The voice--musically deep--and the splendid black eyes, that looked so steadily at her, intimidated Mark Winnington"s gentle sister.
Mrs. Andrews, whose dress, after Susy"s ministration, had been declared out of danger, bent across the tea-table, all smiles and benevolence again, the plumes in her black hat nodding--
"It"s like old times to have the Abbey open again, Miss Blanchflower!
Every week we used to go to your dear grandmother, for her Tuesday work-party. I"m afraid you"ll hardly revive _that_!"
Delia brought a rather intimidating brow to bear upon the speaker.
"I"m afraid not."
Lady Tonbridge, who had already greeted Delia as a woman naturally greets the daughter of an old friend, came up as Delia spoke to ask for a second cup of tea, and laid her hand on the girl"s shoulder.
"Very sorry to miss you yesterday. I won"t insult you by saying you"ve grown. How about the singing? You used to sing I remember when I stayed with you."
"Yes--but I"ve given it up. I took lessons at Munich last spring. But I can"t work at it enough. And if one can"t work, it"s no good."
"Why can"t you work at it?"