Deleah

“ Every movement of hers was made, every posture taken, with ease and grace. It happened, for Deleah's fortune, to be the day of the small woman; the day when she of inches was pronounced a gawk, and she of five feet and a little—slim of waist, of foot, of hand, of ankle—slid with ease and naturalness into a man's heart.
"Thank you for that," said the Manchester man again, with a kind of hoarse fervour in his voice. "You are always kind. I don't think the angels in heaven are kinder than you."
A statement at which Deleah among the tea-cups laughed light-heartedly. ”

“ Not that flaunting extravagant queen, not Bessie with her plump prettiness, her cheap wiles, her nets that were spread in the sight of man; but Deleah, the dainty, charmingly pretty child. The marriage would be none the less hideously undesirable on the social side, and from the point of view of the family; but it would be infinitely more difficult to stop. Sir Francis, in his widowed estate, with twenty years more of experience on his head, was yet not so old but that he could picture how deeply, how dangerously in love a young man of his brother's age could imagine himself with Deleah Day. ”

“ Deleah, Reggie Forcus would do anything for you. Ask
Reggie Forcus to do this."
"Oh, mama! No!"
"My account is overdrawn at the Bank. I dare not ask for a further amount. What would these few pounds be to him? He spends as much on a dinner for a few men at the Royal."
"I can't ask him. Can't you see I must not?"
"I see what you mean. But oh, Deleah, we seem to have come to the bottom of things. What to us, in the very depths, are all those rules and niceties that happier people observe? You see what my boy says? He is 'in hell.' He says it in so many words. My boy! My Bernard!" ”

“ The small face which had been so clearly pale was suddenly like a scarlet rose. "Just lately a very frequent visitor," she said; and, in spite of her shyness, she lifted her head and looked him straight in the face.
"A young man who is idle can never understand that other people are busy," he said. "I am sure that you are all too much occupied to wish to have my brother always hanging about."
Deleah looked at him in silence. She understood perfectly what he meant. ”

“ In the sitting-room over the shop was no attraction for Charles Gibbon, Deleah's light figure and darling face being absent from it. He could afford a house very well now. Not the grand house of which Deleah had spoken, but one which would suffice to his modest wants. A house with a big garden beyond, where, supposing a lady ever came to live there who was fond of flowers, roses might be grown, honeysuckle, jessamine trained. A garden where a bower could be constructed large enough for two who could eat their strawberries there, in season, or drink a glass of wine there, on a Sunday afternoon. ”

“ Gibbon."
"All yours. Every carpet has been laid down for you, every chair and table bought. Every seed has been sown, every tree planted. For you."
Deleah, speechless for the moment, looked at the man with eyes grown wide with dismay. His was no tragic figure. He wore the light-coloured, large checked suit affected at that period by young men escaping temporarily from the black-frocked livery of shop or office, his hair was brushed smoothly back and shone with brilliantine, his moustache was glossy with the same admired preparation. ”

“ But everything that happens to us is bad," said Deleah, with uncharacteristic despondency.
"Bad?" echoed Bessie. "That depends on how you look at it."
"Bankruptcy? To owe more than we can pay? I should have thought that there was only one way of looking at it."
Bessie swung round to her mother. "You haven't told Deda!" she cried accusingly. "She hasn't told you! Mama is going to marry Mr. Boult, Deleah."
"To marry him!" Deleah cried, as if she might have cried "to murder him!" and sprang from her chair to stand before her mother. "Mama! Mama!" ”

“ I won't!"
"Bernard must go."
"It would come better from a woman," Bernard said.
In the end it was Deleah who went—the little petted, sheltered Deleah, who had never gone before on any errand of more moment than for the matching of Berlin wools, or for the changing of the three-volume novel at the Public Library.
"Deleah can't go—Deleah mustn't!" the prostrate mother on the sofa gasped. She looked like a corpse beneath the cloths soaked in eau-de-cologne-and-water which Bessie had arranged over her brow. "We can't ask Sir Francis. Call Deleah back. Stop her." ”

“ Deleah as she walked homeward that afternoon (for she had overstayed her allotted time in Bridge Street, and the carriage which was to have picked her up at a certain point had gone on without her) determined that she must leave Cashelthorpe. The words sounded in her own ears as if she were sentencing herself to leave heaven.
Her mother could not be allowed to marry George Boult; she could not remain in the shop. How were she and Bessie to live? With the vanity of youth, which always sees itself in the foreground, Deleah thought she perceived that it was she who must get a living for them all. ”

“ What's the good of anything else? Have we finished clearing away the tea-things, Miss Deleah? Anything more that I can help you with?"
She shook her head, looking at him with eyes which implored him not to be bitter or unhappy. And as she looked, seeing the familiar red face and squat strong figure of him in a new light an idea struck her.
"Mr. Gibbon," she said, "it was you who sent the concert tickets, and all the flowers and fruit, and the canary in its lovely cage. It was you—you!"
"No, no! Mr. Boult, of course, Miss Deleah. You found out who it was, long ago. Kind, generous Mr. Boult!" ”

“ Deleah said. "Poor mama has made one or two bad debts lately. And so many people, who pay in the end, are so very slow to do so." Deleah shook her head slowly and sorrowfully over these sluggards. "Also, I am occupied, of course, all day long."
"May I know in what way?"
"I teach," Deleah said, and lifted her head with a kind of pride in the avowal which was very pretty. "I am second English governess at Miss Chaplin's school for young ladies. I earn enough there to buy my own clothes and Franky's." ”

“ Deleah was careful at all times to show little special politeness to their boarder. She had it on her mind that he lived among them, lonely and apart, and often anxiously she pondered in her own mind the question did poor Mr. Gibbon get his money's worth?
"Deleah always chops the candied peel herself," Bessie explained. "She eats it, and feeds Franky on it. Mama, I should think Deda will soon take all the profit off your mincemeat if she eats the citron peel." ”

“ You don't wish Deda to make herself conspicuous, I suppose?"
"Who says I make myself conspicuous?" an ireful Deleah demands. "Who has been saying anything about me?"
"I," the Manchester man hurriedly admits. "I did not say you were conspicuous, Miss Deleah. I only said I had seen you sitting there with your book—among the flowers."
"She is not to sit there again, mama. Will you please say so? Deda, you are not to sit in the window again. We can't help living above a grocer's shop, but we need not make a display of ourselves."
"If it offends Mr. Gibbon he does not need to look at the window. ”

“ Deleah was frightened at, and ashamed of, these irregular demonstrations.
"He is a commonplace, uninteresting looking man—but for something there in his eyes. I don't know if you have noticed what I mean, Deleah?—Yet he will make a safe husband, with no thought in his head but for Bessie; and I suppose we must make up our minds to the sacrifice."
CHAPTER XVII What Is It Now?
"Any message for your son, ma'am?" Mr. Gibbon inquired one night at supper-time of the widow, and announced that business called him to Ingleby on the next morning. ”

“ For a year and a half he had lived in the dingy house above the shop in Bridge Street. He had for eighteen months enjoyed that propinquity, that familiar intercourse, which is all that is necessary to make many an ugly woman beautiful in the eyes of the man in enjoyment of her society. It is small wonder then, if the poor Manchester man exaggerated in his own mind those unusual charms which Deleah incontestably possessed. ”

“ People die, but the world has to go on, Deleah. If the child had lived it would have been different; but it seems to me a pity there should be no one to come after Francis, to bear his name, and inherit his fortune. Of course there is Reggie ”

“ There is not the shadow of a chance it is not true. A police officer brought me a message from him from the station-house last night."
She let go his arms, and sank into her chair again; and Franky, who could find no comfort in Deleah's embrace, left her, and still screaming his terrified "Papa! papa! papa!" flew to hang upon his mother's neck.
Deleah crept round to Bernard. "Oh, Bernard, what can we do?" she said. ”

“ Franky cried, jumping in his chair.
"Make haste, Deda."
"We're simply dying to know what he's sent you. How slow you are!" Bessie scolded.
Reluctantly Deleah broke the envelope and drew forth two tickets for the evening's concert.
"The ten-shilling places!" Bessie cried. "We'll go, Deleah. We'll go!"
Deleah looked with a little distrust at the tickets lying beside her plate. "It's all very well, but I should so much prefer presents without all this mystery about them. Months ago I would have thanked Mr. Boult if you and mama would have allowed me. I am sure it would have been better. ”

“ He's been dead nearly two years. Are we never to show our noses among other people again? You do carry things to extremes, Deda!"
Deleah accepted the reproach meekly, having nothing to say—nothing, that is, which Bessie would understand.
Then the boarder came in, for it was early closing afternoon, and took his place by the side of Franky.
"Some more mysterious presents," Bessie said, smiling upon him. "Very useful ones, this time, and just what I should have wished for."
"Tickets for the concert," Deleah explained, pushing them across to him. "Ten-shilling ones. Poor Mr. Boult hates music. ”

“ You remember what Reggie was in those days, mama, and how he wanted encouragement—"
"My dear, Deleah has far too much self-respect—"
"There you go! Always Deleah. I suppose if Deleah took up a dinner-knife and stabbed me to the heart you would make excuses for her!"
"Oh, Bessie, do not be unjust."
"It is you that are unjust. It is you that have spoilt Deleah, with petting and praising and telling her how pretty she is—"
"My dear Bessie!"
"You don't say it in so many words, but you are always looking it at her. You are, mama! I see you doing it. ”

“ Deleah said.
"Are we to sit down tamely under such rudeness, then?" Bessie asked at large. "You never assert yourself, Deda—you and mama. That's why people dare to treat you so. Sir Francis would not have sent for me like a servant, to give me his orders. What did you do, Deda? Stood there meekly, like an idiot, to listen, I suppose?"
"Miss Deleah did what was right. Least said soonest mended," the boarder declared. He had never openly stood as Deleah's champion before.
"I'm on Deda's side too," Franky said. "Deda's got the most on her side. ”

“ Deleah divined the sore feeling in his mind and hastened to bring the balm: "Reggie Forcus might have millions where he will have thousands—and the more he had the less likely would he be to affect any of us. He has been here this afternoon, and if he remembers he may come again. But that is simply the whim of an idle young man who at the moment can think of nothing more amusing to do."
"I thought he seemed to take a good deal of interest. I caught him looking—"
"At Bessie? He likes her, of course, and there was once a great friendship. ”

“ Deleah said. "The girls are always talking about who their fathers are, and looking down on each other. Not but what there were some upon whose fathers I also looked down. The Clarks—the wholesale shoe-makers—you could hardly call them professional, could you? But now—oh, what nonsense it all seems now!"
The education of Franky had been carried on hitherto by Bessie. In a lamentably desultory fashion it is true; but now that, for economy's sake, they had restricted themselves to a fire in only one sitting-room the poor child's tuition had to be abandoned. ”

“ Gibbon! You must be pleased!"
He looked at her, and laughed hopelessly. "You don't understand these things, Miss Deleah. You don't realise that what I have done means much."
"Oh, but I do, Mr. Gibbon! I have always thought that you must be a quite wonderful business man; so quiet, so regular, thinking of nothing but your work." ”

“ Day, who did not grumble, but who nevertheless knew herself to be a martyr, would rise from her delicious rest in her chair over the fire, accompanied by Deleah to hold the candle, would descend to the cellar to cut the cheese—both the women were terrified of the cellar, the unilluminated caves and corners, the beetles, the rats. ”

“ She who had wept so often in this latest sorrow could shed no tears.
Deleah cried, wetting the pillow nightly with her tears. When talking of matters quite unconnected with the lost child the tears would come welling up, drowning the beautiful hazel eyes; would tremble, as she tried to go on talking, on the thick black lashes; would roll, she pretending not to notice, down her cheeks.
Bessie cried—howled, even, lying with her face buried in the sofa cushion, calling in a smothered voice upon Franky's name. ”

“ Then she turned from him to her mother.
"Why do you think it impossible, mama? Because Mr. Boult can't say agreeable things is no reason he cannot do them. Don't you know that there are poor shut-up souls who want to be nice, who long to be loved—who have to speak in the dumb language because they can't articulate?"
"Miss Deleah is right. That is so. That is so!" Mr. Gibbon eagerly affirmed.
"Well, then, Mr. Boult isn't blessed with a tongue to say smooth things; but the bird in the cage, the basket of sweets, the rose-pink azalea—they are his kind and polite speeches." ”