Delia Blanchflower

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

At the same time, if Weston recovered from the operation, in three weeks or so it would be possible for Delia to leave Maumsey; and it was generally understood that she would then join her friend in London, just in time for the opening of Parliament. For the moment, it was plain she was not engaged in any violent doings. But who could answer for the future?

And meanwhile, what was Mark Winnington about? It was all very well to sit there trifling with the pages of the Quarterly Review! In her moments of solitude by night or day, during the five days she had already spent at Maumsey, Madeleine had never really given her mind to anything else but the engrossing question. "Is he in love with her—or is he not?"

Of course she had foreseen—had feared—the possibility of it, from that very first moment, almost—when Winnington had written to her describing the terms of Bob Blanchflower's will, and his own acceptance of the guardianship.

Yet why "feared"? Had she not for years desired few things so sincerely as to see Winnington happily married? As to that old tragedy, with its romantic effect upon his life, her first acquiescence in that effect, as something irrevocable, had worn away with time. It now seemed to her an intolerable thing that Agnes Clay's death should forever stand between Winnington and love. It was positively anti-social—bad citizenship—that such a man as Mark Winnington should not produce sons and daughters for the State, when all the wastrels and cheats in creation were so active in the business.

All the same she had but rarely ventured to attack him on the subject, and the results had not been encouraging. She was certain that he had entered upon the guardianship of Delia Blanchflower in complete single-mindedness—confident, disdainfully confident, in his own immunity; and after that first outburst into which friendship had betrayed her, she had not dared to return to the subject. But she had watched him—with the lynx eyes of a best friend; and that best friend, a woman to whom love affairs were the most interesting things in existence. In which, of course, she knew she was old-fashioned, and behind the mass of the sex, now racing toward what she understood was called the "economic independence of women"—i.e. a life without man.

But in spite of watching, she was much perplexed—as to both the persons concerned. She had now been nearly a week at Maumsey, in obedience to Delia's invitation and Winnington's urging. The opportunity indeed of getting to know Mark's beautiful—and troublesome—ward, more intimately, was extremely welcome to her curiosity. Hitherto Gertrude Marvell had served as an effective barrier between Delia and her neighbours. The neighbours did not want to know Miss Marvell, and Miss Marvell, Madeleine Tonbridge was certain, had never intended that the neighbours should rob her of Delia.

But now Gertrude Marvell had in some strange sudden way vacated her post; and the fortress lay open to attack and capture, were anyone strong enough to seize it. Moreover Delia's visitor had not been twenty-four hours in the house before she had perceived that Delia's attitude to her guardian was new, and full of suggestion to the shrewd bystander. Winnington had clearly begun to interest the girl profoundly—both in himself, and in his relation to her. She now wished to please him, and was nervously anxious to avoid hurting or offending him. She was always conscious of his neighbourhood or his mood; she was eager—though she tried to conceal it—for information about him; and three nights already had Lady Tonbridge lingered over Delia's bedroom fire, the girl on the rug at her feet, while the elder woman poured out her recollections of Mark Winnington, from the days when she and he had been young together.

As to that vanished betrothed, Agnes Clay,—the heroine of Winnington's brief engagement—Delia's thirst for knowledge, in a restless, suppressed way, had been insatiable. Was she jealous of that poor ghost, and of all those delicate, domestic qualities with which her biographer could not but invest her? The daughter of a Dean of Wanchester—retiring, spiritual, tender,—suggesting a cloistered atmosphere, and The Christian Year—she was still sharp in Madeleine's recollection, and that lady felt a certain secret and mischievous zest in drawing her portrait, while Delia, her black brows drawn together, her full red mouth compressed, sat silent.

Then—Wilmington as a friend!—upon that theme indeed Madeleine had used her brightest colours. And to make this passive listener understand what friendship meant in Wilmington's soul, it had been necessary for the speaker to tell her own story, as much at least as it was possible for her to tell, and Delia to hear. A hasty marriage—"my own fault, my dear, as much as my parents'!"—twelve years of torment and humiliation at the hands of a bad man, descending rapidly to the pit, and quite willing to drag his wife and child with him, ending in a separation largely arranged by Winnington—and then—

"We retired, Nora and I, on a decent allowance, my own money really, only like a fool, I had let it all get into Alfred's hands. We took a house at Richmond. Nora was fifteen. For two years my husband paid the money. Then he wrote to say he was tired of doing without his daughter, and he required her to live with him for six months in the year, as a condition of continuing the allowance. I refused. We would sooner both of us have thrown ourselves into the Thames. Alfred blustered and threatened—but he could do nothing—except cut off the allowance, which he did, at once. Then Mark Winnington found me the cottage here, and made everything smooth for us. I wouldn't take any money from him, though he was abominably ready to give it us! But he got me lessons—he got me friends. He's made everybody here feel for us, and respect us. He's managed the little bits of property we've got left—he's watched over Nora—he's been our earthly Providence—and we both adore him!"