He led her through the great suite of rooms on the ground-floor, the drawing-room, the Red Parlour, the Chinese room, the Library. They recalled her childish visits to the house with her grandmother, and a score of recollections, touching or absurd, rushed into her mind—but not to her lips. Dumbness had fallen on her;—nothing seemed worth saying, and she hurried through. She was conscious only of a rich confused impression of old seemliness and mellowed beauty,—steeped in fragrant and famous memories, English history, English poetry, English art, breathing from every room and stone of the house. "In the Red Parlour, Sidney wrote part of the 'Arcadia.'—In the room overhead Gabriel Harvey slept.—In the Porch rooms Chatham stayed—his autograph is there.—Fox advised upon all the older portion of the Library"—and so on. She heard Winnington's voice as though through a dream. What did it matter? She felt the house an oppression—as though it accused or threatened her.
As they emerged from the library into a broad passage, Winnington
noticed a garden door at the north end of the passage, and called to
Daunt who was walking behind them. They went to look at it, leaving
Delia in the corridor.
"Not very secure, is it?" said Winnington, pointing to the glazed upper half of the door—"anyone might get in there."
"I've told Sir Wilfrid, Sir, and sent him the measurements. There's to be an iron shutter."
"H'm—that may take time. Why not put up something temporary?—cross-bars of some sort?"
They came back towards Delia, discussing it. Unreasonably, absurdly, she held it an offence that Winnington should discuss it in her presence; her breath grew stormy.
Daunt turned to the right at the foot of a carved staircase, and down a long passage leading to the kitchens, he and Winnington still talking. Suddenly—a short flight of steps, not very visible in a dark place. Winnington descended them, and then turned to look for Delia who was just behind—
"Please take care!—"
But he was too late. Head in air—absorbed in her own passionate mood, Delia never saw the steps, till her foot slipped on the topmost. She would have fallen headlong, had not Winnington caught her. His arms received her, held her, released her. The colour rushed into his face as into hers. "You are not hurt?" he said anxiously. "I ought to have held a light," said Daunt, full of concern. But the little incident had broken the ice. Delia laughed, and straightened her Cavalier hat, which had suffered. She was still rosy as they entered Daunt's kitchen, and the children who had seen her silent and haughty entrance, hardly recognised the creature all life and animation who returned to them.
The car stood waiting in the fore-court. Winnington put her in. As Delia descended the hill alone in the dark, she closed her eyes, that she might the more completely give herself to the conflict of thoughts which possessed her. She was bitterly ashamed and sore, torn between her passionate affection for Gertrude Marvell, and what seemed to her a weak and traitorous wish to stand better with Mark Winnington. Nor could she escape from the memory—the mere physical memory—of those strong arms round her, resent it as she might.