Mrs. Humphry Ward

“ But what are you going to do!—Spend your time at Maple's and Waring—matching chintzes and curtains?—when you've promised—you've promised! Gertrude's right. There are all sorts of disgusting cowardices and weaknesses in you! Oh! yes, you'd like to go fiddling and fussing down here—playing the heiress—patronising the poor people—putting yourself into beautiful clothes—and getting heaps of money out of Mr. Winnington to spend. It's in you—it's just in you—to throw everything over—to forget everything you've felt, and everything you've vowed—and just wallow in luxury and selfishness and snobbery! ”

“ Children, as they come, will sometime re-kindle the natural joy in a face so lovely. And till that time arrives Winnington's tenderness will be the master-light of all her day. But there are sounds once heard that live for ever in the mind. And in Delia's there will reverberate till death that wail of a fierce and childless woman—that last cry of nature in one who had defied nature—of womanhood in one who had renounced the ways of womanhood: "the child—the child!"
Not long after the destruction of Monk Lawrence and the marriage of Delia, Paul Lathrop left the Maumsey neighbourhood. ”

“ Women were at last coming to their own; forcing men to acknowledge them as equals and comrades; and able to win victory, not by the old whining and wheedling, but by their own strength. The intoxication of it filled the girl's days and nights. She thought endlessly of processions and raids, of street-preaching, or Hyde Park meetings. Gertrude went to prison for a few days as the result of a raid on Downing Street. Delia, in one dull hotel after another, wearily following her father from "cure" to "cure," dreamed hungrily and enviously of Gertrude's more heroic fate. ”

“ 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" attitude, 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. ”

“ Then, as every eye hung upon the work of the firemen and the play of the water, into the still empty space of the Loggia, and illumined by the glare of the flames, there emerged with quiet step, the figure of a woman. She came forward: she stood with crossed arms looking at the crowd. And at the same moment, behind her, there appeared the form of a child, a little fair-haired girl, hobbling on a crutch, in desperate haste, and wailing—"Father!"
Delia saw them, and with one wild movement she was through the cordon of police, and running for the house. ”

“ Winnington looked at her with reverence. He knew all about her; so did many of the dwellers in the Maumsey neighbourhood. She had lived for half-a-century in the same little house in one of the back-streets of Latchford, a town of some ten thousand inhabitants. Through all that time her life had been given to what is called "rescue work"—though she herself rarely called it by that name. She loved those whom no one else would love—the meanest and feeblest of the outcast race. Every night her door stood on the latch, and as the years passed, thousands knew it. ”

“ The change which had tempered the splendid—or insolent—exuberance of her beauty, which Lathrop had perceived, had made it in Winnington's eyes infinitely more appealing, infinitely more seductive. Love and fear, mingled, had "passed into her face," like the sculptor's last subtle touches on the clay.
"Delia!" How all life seemed to have passed into a name! "I'm not sure that I ought to speak! I'm not sure it's fair. It—it seems like taking advantage. ”

“ Winnington turned to see a tall girl, carrying an armful of newspapers. She had flaming red hair, and she wore a black and orange scarf, with a cap of the same colours. "Foster's daughter," he thought, wondering. "What happens to them all!" For he had known Kitty Foster from her school days, and had never thought of her except as a silly simpering flirt, bent on the pursuit of man. And now he beheld a maenad, a fury.
Suddenly another woman's voice cut across the others—
"Aren't you ashamed of those colours! Go home—and take them off. Go home and behave like a decent creature!" ”

“ For high on that wooded slope, a blaze was spreading to the skies—a blaze that grew with every second—illuminating with its flare the woods around it, the chimneys of the old house, the quiet stretches of the hill.
"Monk Lawrence is afire, Muster Winnington!" panted one of Winnington's own labourers who had outstripped the rest. "They're asking for you to come! They've telephoned to Latchford for the engines, and to Brownmouth and Wanchester too. They say it's burning like tow—there must be petrol in it, or summat. It's the women they say!—spite of Mr. Daunt and the perlice!" ”

“ She must clear herself! And thought, leaping beacon-like from point to point told her, at last, that for Gertrude too, she had chosen wrongly. Thank Heaven, there was still time! What could a girl do, all alone—groping in such a darkness? Better after all lay the case before Mark's judgment, Mark's tenderness, and trust him with it all. Trust her own power too—see what a girl could do with the man who loved her!
The car stopped at the Abbey door, and Winnington, still absolutely silent, helped her to alight. ”

“ A convinced opponent of "feminism" in all its forms, he had thought of Delia hitherto as merely a wrong-headed, foolish girl, and could hardly bring himself to be civil at all to her chaperon, who in his eyes belonged to a criminal society, and was almost certainly at that very moment engaged in criminal practices. But Delia, absorbed in the distresses of someone she cared for, all heart and eager sympathy, her loveliness lending that charm to all she said and looked which plainer women must so frequently do without was a very mollifying and ingratiating spectacle. ”

“ Gertrude drew a long breath of amazement.
"I don't quite see, Delia, why you ever joined the 'Daughters'—or why you stay with them."
"That's not fair!"—protested Delia, the colour flooding in her cheeks. "As for burning stupid villas—that are empty and insured—or boathouses—or piers—or tea-pavilions, to keep the country in mind of us,—that's one thing. But threatening persons with violence—that's—somehow—another thing. And as to villas and piers even—to be quite honest—I sometimes wonder, Gertrude!—I declare, I'm beginning to wonder! ”

“ Peace brooding on memory seemed to breathe from its rounded oriels, its mossy roof, its legend in stone letters running round the eaves, the carved trophies and arabesques which framed the stately doorway, the sleepy fountain with its cupids, in the courtyard, the graceful loggia on the northern side. It stood, aloof and self-contained, amid the lightnings and arrows of the departing sun.
"No—they'd never dare to touch that!" said Lathrop as he led the way to the path skirting the house. "And if I caught Miss Marvell at it, I'm not sure I shouldn't hand her over myself!" ”

“ Madeleine hoped that Winnington had not observed the girl's sleep; and he certainly gave no sign of it. He went on reading; and presently his companion, noticing the clock, rose very quietly, and went out to give a letter to the parlour-maid for post.
As she entered the room again, however, she saw that Winnington had laid down his book. His eyes were now on Delia—his lips parted. All the weather-beaten countenance of the man, its deep lines graven by strenuous living, glowed as from an inward light—marvellously intense and pure. Madeleine's pulse leapt. ”

“ And in this element Delia's spirit lived for this brief hour of her youth. Led by the perpetual influence of the older mind and imagination at her side, she was overshadowed with the sense of women's wrongs, haunted by their grievances, burnt up by a flame of revolt against fate, against society, above all, against men, conceived as the age-long and irrational barrier in the path of women. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Winnington caught a glimpse of her face—pale and excited—as she retreated from the front of the waggon in order to make room for her co-speaker.
Gertrude Marvell, as Winnington soon saw, was far more skilled in street oratory than her pupil. By sheer audacity she caught her audience at once, and very soon, mingling defiance with sarcasm, she had turned the news of the burnt pier into a Suffragist parable. What was that blaze in the night, lighting up earth and sea, but an emblem of women's revolt flaming up in the face of dark injustice and oppression? Let them rage! The women mocked. ”

“ Delia went back to her own sitting-room, but was too excited, too tremulous indeed, to settle to her letters. She had never yet found herself in direct collision with Gertrude, impetuous as her own temper was. Their friendship had now lasted nearly three years. She looked back to their West Indian acquaintance, that first year of adoration, of long-continued emotion,—mind and heart growing and blossoming together. Gertrude, during that year, had not only aroused her pupil's intelligence; she had taught a motherless girl what the love of women may be for each other. ”

“ His eyes smiled, but Delia was perfectly conscious that the eager cordiality, the touch of something like tenderness, which had entered into his earlier manner, had disappeared. She realised, and with a moment's soreness, that she had offended his sense of right—of what a daughter's feeling should be towards a dead father, at any rate, in the first hours of bereavement, when the recollections of death and suffering are still fresh.
"I can't help it," she thought stubbornly. "It's all part of the price one pays." ”

“ But if we make a bonfire of a pier, or an empty house, by way of drawing attention to your proceedings, then, you see red. Well, here we are!—do what you like—torture, imprison us!—you are only longing, I know—some of you—to pull us down now and trample on us, so that you may show us how much stronger men are than women! All right!—but where one woman falls, another will spring up. And meanwhile the candle we are lighting will go on burning till you give us the vote. Nothing simpler—nothing easier. Give us the vote!—and send your canting Governments, Liberal, or Tory, packing, till we get it. ”

“ 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?" ”

“ These old couples tending each other, clinging together, after their children had left them, till their own last day should dawn; these widowed men or women, piteously lost without the old companion, like the ox left alone in the furrow; these young couples with their first babies; these dutiful or neglectful sons, these hard or tender daughters; these mothers young and old, selfish or devoted:—with Winnington beside her, Delia saw them all anew, heard them all anew. ”

“ But it was her grandmother who had been supreme in that room. A woman of clear sense and high character; narrow and prejudiced in many respects, but sorely missed by many when her turn came to die; a Christian in more than name; sincerely devoted to her teasing little granddaughter. A woman who had ordered her household justly and kindly; a personality not soon forgotten.
"There is something of her in me still," thought Delia—"at least, I hope there is. And where—is the rest of me going?"
"I think I'll take off my things, dear," said Gertrude Marvell, breaking in on the girl's reverie. ”

“ A flash of some quick feeling passed through Winnington's eyes.
"Why should you? Leave us older folk, dear Miss Delia, to deal with these sorrowful things."
Indignation blazed up in her.
"It is for women to help women," she said, passionately. "It is no good treating us who are grown up—even if we are young—like children any more. We intend to know—that we may protect—and save."
"I assure you," said Winnington gravely, "that this poor girl shall have every care—every kindness. ”

“ As Gertrude says, we women want everything we can get! We must know the things that men know—that we may beat them at their own game. Why should every Balliol boy—years younger than me—have been taught his classics and mathematics,—and have everything brought to him—made easy for him—history, political economy, logic, philosophy, laid at his lordship's feet, if he will just please to learn!—while I, who have just as good a brain as he, have had to pick up a few scraps by the way, just because nobody who had charge of me ever thought it worth while to teach, a girl. ”

“ Do you imagine I don't sympathise with your faiths, your ideals—that I don't feel for women—what they suffer—what they endure—in this hard world? Delia, we'd work together!—it mightn't be always in the same way—nor always with the same opinions—but we'd teach—we'd help each other. Your own conscience—your own mind—I see it plainly—have turned against this horrible campaign—and the woman who's led you into it. How she's treated you! Would any friend, any real friend have left you alone through this Weston business? ”

“ Miss Jackson, the science-mistress, went to Vancouver, married the owner of a lumber camp, and so tamed her soul. Miss Toogood lived on, rarely employed, and seldom going outside the tiny back parlour, with its pictures of Winchester and Mr. Keble. But Lady Tonbridge and Delia do their best to lighten the mild melancholy which grows upon her with age; and a little red-haired niece who came to live with her, keeps her old aunt's nerves alive and alert by various harmless vices—among them an incorrigible interest in the Maumsey and Latchford youth. ”

“ Gertrude Marvell came in, and as she gave him an absent greeting, he was vaguely struck by some change in her aspect, as Delia had long been. She had always seemed to him a cold half-human being, in all ordinary matters. But now she was paler, thinner, more remote than ever. "Nerves strained—probably sleepless—" he said to himself. "It's the pace they will live at—it kills them all." ”

“ The main staircase had been steeped in petrol—and sacks full of shavings had been stored in the panelled spaces underneath it. Fire-lighters heaped together had been found in the Red Parlour—to be dragged out by the firemen—but again too late!—for the fire was already gnawing at the room, like a wild prowling beast. A back staircase too had been kindled with paraffin—the smell of it was everywhere. And thus urged, a very demon of fire seemed to have seized on the beautiful place. There was a will and a passion of destruction in the flames that nothing could withstand. ”

“ He will see her constantly—he will have to exercise his will against hers—he will get his way—and then hate himself for conquering—he will disapprove, and yet admire,—will offend her, yet want to please her—a creature all fire, and beauty, and heroisms out of place! And she—could she, could I, could any woman I know, fight Mark Winnington—and not love him all the time? ”

“ The tide of callers which had set in towards Maumsey Abbey ceased to flow; neighbours who had been already introduced to her, old friends of her grandparents, passed Delia on the road with either the stiffest of bows or no notice at all. The labourers stared at her, and their wives, those deepest well-heads of Conservatism in the country, were loud in reprobation. Their astonishment that "them as calls theirselves ladies" should be found burning and breaking, was always, in Winnington's ears, a touching thing, and a humbling. ”

“ One seemed at times to catch a glimpse of some cloaked and brooding Horror, in the dim background of the girl's consciousness, and overshadowing it. What more likely indeed, with this wild campaign sweeping through the country? She probably knew or suspected things that her moral sense condemned, to which she was nevertheless committed.
"We shall end by proving all that the enemy says of us; we shall give our chance away for a generation!"
"Do for Heaven's sake keep the young lady at home!" ”

“ But her little figure was so alert and trim, her grey linen dress and its appointments so dainty, and the apple-red in her small cheeks so bright, that one might have conceived her as just fresh from a maid's hands, and stepping out to amuse herself, instead of as just returning from a tedious afternoon's work, by which she had earned the large sum of five shillings. A woman of forty-five, she looked her age, and she had never possessed any positive beauty, unless it were the beauty of delicate and harmonious proportion. ”

“ Delia leant hack, drawing long breaths of fatigue and excitement. Then she perceived with disgust that her dress was bemired with scraps of dirty refuse, and that some mud was dripping from her hat. She took off the hat, shook it out of the window of the car, but could not bring herself to put it on again. Her hair, loosely magnificent, framed a face that was now all colour and passion. She hated herself, she hated the crowd; it seemed to her she hated the man at her side. Suddenly Winnington turned on the electric light—with an exclamation. ”

“ Some of us must know. The black ox has trodden on us. A woman of thirty must look at it all. But a girl of twenty! Doesn't she see that she helps the world more by not knowing!—that her mere unconsciousness is our gain—our refreshment."
The face of the man sitting opposite her, reflected her own feeling.
"You and I always agree," he said warmly. "I wish you'd make friends with her."
"Who? Miss Blanchflower? What could she make out of an old stager like me!" Miss Dempsey's face broke into amusement at the notion. "And I don't know that I could keep my temper with a militant. ”

“ The burning moments of revolt through which she had lived—the meetings of the League with their multitudes of faces, strained, fierce faces, alive, many of them, with hatreds new to English life, new perhaps to civilised history,—and the intermittent gusts of pity and fury which had swept through her own young ignorance as she listened, making a hideous thing of the future and of human fate:—she lived through them all again. ”