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 assent, and followed him into the dim passages 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 circumstances. 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.
Daunt apologised.
"The gardener'll be here directly, Sir. He knows how to manage it better than I."
And in spite of protests from the two visitors he ran off again to see what could he done to better the light. Delia turned impetuously on her companion.