Delia Blanchflower — Chapter 10

Chapter X

Two men sat smoking and talking with Paul Lathrop in the hook-littered sitting-room of his cottage.

One was a young journalist, Roger Blaydes, whose thin, close-shaven face wore the knowing fool's look of one to whom the world's his oyster, and all the bricks for opening it familiar.

The other was a god-like creature, a poet by profession, with long lantern-jaws, grey eyes deeply set, and a mass of curly black hair, from which the face with its pallor and its distinction, shone dimly out like the portrait of a Cinquecento.

Lathrop, in a kind of dressing-gown, as clumsily cut as the form it wrapped, his reddish hair and large head catching the firelight, had the look of one lazily at bay, as wrapped in a cloud of smoke, he twined from one speaker to the other.

"So you were at another of these meetings last night?"

said Blaydes, with a mouth half smiling, half contemptuous.

"Yes.

A disgusting failure!

They didn't even take the trouble to pelt us."

The poet--Merian by name--moved angrily on his chair.

Blaydes threw a sly look at him, as he knocked the ash from his cigarette.

"And what the deuce do you expect to get by it all?"

Paul Lathrop paused a moment--and at last said with a lift of the eyebrows:-- "Well!

--I have no illusions!"

Merian broke out indignantly-- "I say, Lathrop--why should you try and play up to that cynic there?

As if he ever had an illusion about anything!"

"Well, but one may have faith without illusions," protested Blaydes, with hard good temper.

"I doubt whether Lathrop has an ounce of either!"

Lathrop reached out for a match.

"What's the good of 'faith'--and what does anyone mean by it?

Sympathies--and animosities: they're enough for me."

"And you really are in sympathy with these women?"

said the other.

The tone was incredulous.

Merian brought his hand violently down on the table.

"Don't you talk about them, Blaydes!

I tell you, they're out of your ken."

"I daresay," said Blaydes, composedly.

"I was only trying to get at what Lathrop means by going into the business."

Paul Lathrop sat up.

"I'm in sympathy with anything that harasses, and bothers and stings the governing classes of this country!"

he said, with an oratorical wave of his cigarette.

"What fools they are!

In this particular business the Government is an ass, the public is an ass, the women, if you like, are asses.

So long as they don't destroy works of art that appeal to me, I prefer to bray with them than with their enemies."

Merian rose impatiently--a slim, dark-browed St. George towering over the other two.

"After that, I'd rather hear them attacked by Blaydes, than defended by you, Lathrop!"

he said with energy, as he buttoned up his coat.

Lathrop threw him a cool glance.

"So for you, they're all heroines--and saints?"

"Never mind what they are.

I stand by them!

I'm ready to give them what they ask."

"Ready to hand the Empire over to them--to smash like the windows in Piccadilly?"

said Blaydes.

"Hang the Empire!

--what does the Empire matter!

Give the people in these islands what they _want_ before you begin to talk about the Empire.

Well, good-bye, I must be off!"

He nodded to the other two, and opened the door of the Hermitage which led directly into the outer air.

On the threshold he turned and looked back, irresolutely, as though in compunction for his loss of temper.

Framed in the doorway against a background of sunset sky, his dark head and sparely-noble features were of a singular though melancholy beauty.

It was evident that he was full of speech, of which he could not in the end unburden himself.

The door closed behind him, and he was gone.

"Poor devil!"

said Blaydes, tipping the end of his cigarette into the fire-"he's in love with a girl who's been in prison three times.

He thinks she'll kill herself--and he can't influence her at all.

He takes it hard.

Well, now look here"--the young man's expression changed and stiffened--"I understand that you too are seeing a good deal of one of these wild women--and that she's both rich--and a beauty?"

He looked up, with a laugh.

Lathrop's aspect was undisturbed.

"Nothing to do with it!

--though your silly little mind will no doubt go on thinking so."

The other laughed again--with a more emphatic mockery.

Lathrop reddened--then said quietly-- "Well, I admit that was a lie.

Yes, she is handsome--and if she were to stick to it--sacrifice all her life to it--in time she might make a horrible success of this thing.

Will she stick to it?"

"Are you in love with her, Paul?"

"Of course!

I am in love with all pretty women--especially when I daren't shew it."

"You daren't shew it?"

"The smallest advance on my part, in this quarter, brings me a rap on the knuckles.

I try to pitch what I have to say in the most impersonal and romantic terms.

No good at all!

But all egg-dancing is amusing, so I dance--and accept all the drudgery she and Alecto give me to do."

"Alecto?

Miss Marvell?"

"Naturally."

"These meetings must be pretty boring."

"Especially because I can't keep my temper.

I lose it in the vulgarest way--and say the most idiotic things."

There was a pause of silence.

The eyes of the journalist wandered round the room, coming back to Lathrop at last with renewed curiosity.

"How are your affairs, Paul?"

"Couldn't be worse.

Everything here would have been seized long ago, if there had been anything to seize.

But you can't distrain on trout--dear slithery things.

And as the ponds afford my only means of sustenance, and do occasionally bring in something, my creditors have to leave me the house and a few beds and chairs so that I may look after them."

"Why don't you write another book?"

"Because at present I have nothing to say.

And on that point I happen to have a conscience--some rays of probity, left."

He got up as he spoke, and went across the room, to a covered basket beside the fire.

"Mimi!"

he said caressingly--"poor Mimi!"

He raised a piece of flannel, and a Persian kitten lying in the basket--a sick kitten--lifted its head languidly.

"_Tu m'aimes_, Mimi?"

The kitten looked at him with veiled eyes, already masked with death.

Lathrop stooped for a saucer of warm milk standing by the fire.

The kitten refused it, but when he dipped his fingers in the milk, it made a momentary effort to lick them, then subsiding, sank to sleep again.

"Poor little beast!"

said Blaydes--"what's the matter?"

"Some poison--I don't know what.

It'll die tonight."

"Then you'll be all alone?"

"I'm never alone," said Lathrop, with decision.

And rising he went to the door of the cottage--which opened straight on the hill-side, and set it open.

It was four o'clock on a November day.

The autumn was late, and of a marvellous beauty.

The month was a third gone and still there were trees here and there, isolated trees, intensely green as though they defied decay.

The elder trees, the first to leaf under the Spring, were now the last to wither.

The elms in twenty-four hours had turned a pale gold atop, while all below was still round and green.

But the beeches were nearly gone; all that remained of them was a thin pattern of separate leaves, pale gold and faintly sparkling against the afternoon sky.

Such a sky!

Bands of delicate pinks, lilacs and blues scratched across an inner-heaven of light, and in the mid-heaven a blazing furnace, blood-red, wherein the sun had just plunged headlong to its death.

And under the sky, an English scene of field and woodland, fading into an all-environing forest, still richly clothed.

While in the foreground and middle distance, some trees already stripped and bare, winter's first spoil, stood sharply black against the scarlet of the sunset.

And fusing the whole scene, hazes of blue, amethyst or purple, beyond a Turner's brush, "What beauty!

--my God!"

Blaydes came to stand beside the speaker, glancing at him with eyes half curious, half mocking.

"You get so much pleasure out of it?"

For answer, Lathrop murmured a few words as though to himself, a sudden lightening in his sleepy eyes-- L'univers--si liquide, si pur!

-- Une belle eau qu'on voudrait boire.

"I don't understand French"--said Blaydes, with a shrug--"not French verse, anyway."

"That's a pity," was the dry reply--"because you can't read Madame de Noailles.

Ah!

--there are Lang's pheasants calling!

--his tenants I suppose--for he's left the shooting."

He pointed to a mass of wood on his left hand from which the sound came.

"They say he's never here?"

"Two or three times a year,--just on business.

His wife--a little painted doll--hates the place, and they've built a villa at Beaulieu."

"Rather risky leaving a big house empty in these days--with your wild women about!"

Lathrop looked round.

"Good heavens!

--who would ever dream of touching Monk Lawrence!

I bet even Gertrude Marvell hasn't nerve enough for that.

Look here!

--have you ever seen it?"

"Never."

"Come along then.

There's just time--while this light lasts."

They snatched their caps, and were presently mounting the path which led ultimately through the woods of Monk Lawrence to the western front.

Blaydes frowned as he walked.

He was a young man of a very practical turn of mind, who in spite of an office-boy's training possessed an irrelevant taste for literature which had made him an admirer of Lathrop's two published volumes.

For some time past he had been Lathrop's chancellor of the exchequer--self-appointed, and had done his best to keep his friend out of the workhouse.

From the tone of Paul's recent letters he had become aware of two things--first, that Lathrop was in sight of his last five pound note, and did not see his way to either earning or borrowing another; and secondly, that a handsome girl had appeared on the scene, providentially mad with the same kind of madness as had recently seized on Lathrop, belonging to the same anarchial association, and engaged in the same silly defiance of society; likely therefore to be thrown a good deal in his company; and last, but most important, possessed of a fortune which she would no doubt allow the "Daughters of Revolt" to squander--unless Paul cut in.

The situation had begun to seem to him interesting, and having already lent Lathrop more money than he could afford, he had come down to enquire about it.

He himself possessed an income of three hundred a year, plus two thousand pounds left him by an uncle.

Except for the single weakness which had induced him to lend Lathrop a couple of hundred pounds, his principles with regard to money were frankly piratical.

Get what you can--and how you can.

Clearly it was Lathrop's game to take advantage of this queer friendship with a militant who happened to be both rich and young, which his dabbling in their "nonsense" had brought about.

Why shouldn't he achieve it?

Lathrop was as clever as sin; and there was the past history of the man, to shew that he could attract women.

He gripped his friend's arm as they passed into the shadow of the wood.

Lathrop looked at him with surprise-- "Look here, Paul"--said the younger man in a determined voice--"You've got to pull this thing off."

"What thing?"

"You can marry this girl if you put your mind to it.

You tell me you're going about the country with her speaking at meetings--that you're one of her helpers and advisers.

That is--you've got an A1 chance with her.

If you don't use it, you're a blithering idiot."

Paul threw back his head and laughed.

"And what about other people?

What about her guardian, for instance--who is the sole trustee of the property--who has a thousand chances with her to my one--and holds, I venture to say--if he knows anything about me--the strongest views on the subject of _my_ moral character?"

"Who is her guardian?"

"Mark Wilmington.

Does that convey anything to you?"

Blaydes whistled.

"Great Scott!"

"Yes.

Precisely 'Great Scott!'

" said Lathrop, mocking.

"I may add that everybody here has their own romance on the subject.

They are convinced that Winnington will soon cure her of her preposterous notions, and restore her, tamed, to a normal existence."

Blaydes meditated,--his aspect showing a man checked.

"I saw Winnington playing in a county match last August," he said--with his eyes on the ground--"I declare no one looked at anybody else.

I

suppose he's forty; but the old stagers tell you that he's just as much of an Apollo now as he was in his most famous days--twenty years ago."

"Don't exaggerate.

He _is_ forty, and I'm thirty--which is one to me.

I only meant to suggest to you a _reasonable_ view of the chances."

"Look here--_is_ she as handsome as people say?"

"Blaydes!

--this is the last time I shall allow you to talk about her--you get on my nerves.

Handsome?

I don't know."

He walked on, muttering to himself and twitching at the trees on either hand.

"I am simply putting what is your duty to yourself--and your creditors," said Blaydes, sulkily--"You must know your affairs are in a pretty desperate state."

"And a girl like that is to be sacrificed--to my creditors!

Good Lord!"

"Oh, well, if you regard yourself as such an undesirable, naturally, I've nothing to say.

Of course I know--there's that case against you.

But it's a good while ago; and I declare women don't look at those things as they used to do.

Why don't you play the man of letters business?

You know very well, Paul, you could earn a lot of money if you chose.

But you're such a lazy dog!"

"Let me alone!"

said Lathrop, rather fiercely.

"The fact that you've lent me a couple of hundred really doesn't give you the right to talk to me like this."

"I won't lend you a farthing more unless you promise me to take this thing seriously," said Blaydes, doggedly.

Lathrop burst into a nervous shout of laughter.

"I say, do shut up!

I assure you, you can't bully me.

Now then--here's the house!"

And as he spoke they emerged from the green oblong, bordered by low yew edges, from which as from a flat and spacious shelf carved out of the hill, Monk Lawrence surveyed the slopes below it, the clustered village, the middle distance with its embroidery of fields and trees, with the vaporous stretches of the forest beyond, and in the far distance, a shining line of sea.

"My word!

--that is a house!"

cried Blaydes, stopping to survey it and get his townsman's breath, after the steep pitch of hill.

"Not bad?"

"Is it shown?"

"Used to be.

It has been shut lately for fear of the militants."

"But they keep somebody in it?"

"Yes--in some room at the back.

A keeper, and his three children.

The wife's dead.

Shall I go and see if he'll let us in?

But he won't. He'll have seen my name at that meeting, in the Latchford paper."

"No, no. I shall miss my train.

Let's walk round.

Why, you'd think it was on fire already!"

said Blaydes, with a start, gazing at the house.

For the marvellous evening now marching from the western forest, was dyeing the whole earth in crimson, and the sun just emerging from one bank of cloud, before dropping into the bank below, was flinging a fierce glare upon the wide grey front of Monk Lawrence.

Every window blazed, and some fine oaks still thick with red leaf, which flanked the house on the north, flamed in concert.

The air was suffused with red;

every minor tone, blue or brown, green or purple, shewed through it, as through a veil.

And yet how quietly the house rose, in the heart of the flame!

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!"

"Aren't we trespassing?"

said Blaydes, as their footsteps rang on the broad flagged path which led from the front court to the terrace at the back of the house.

"Certainly.

Ah, the dog's heard us."

And before they had gone more than a few steps further, a burly man appeared at the further corner of the house, holding a muzzled dog--a mastiff--on a leash.

"What might you be wanting, gentlemen?"

he said gruffly.

"Why, you know me, Daunt.

I brought a friend up to look at your wonderful place.

We can walk through, can't we?"

"Well, as you're here, Sir, I'll let you out by the lower gate.

But this is private ground, Sir, and Sir Wilfrid's orders are strict,--not to let anybody through that hasn't either business with the house or an order from himself."

"All right.

Let's have a look at the back and the terrace, and then we'll be off; Sir Wilfrid coming here?"

"Not that I know of, Sir," said the keeper shortly, striding on before the two men, and quieting his dog, who was growling at their heels.

As he spoke he led the way down a stately flight of stone steps by which the famous eastern terrace at the back of the house was reached.

The three men and the dog disappeared from view.

Steadily the sunset faded.

An attacking host of cloud rushed upon it from the sea, and quenched it.

The lights in the windows of Monk Lawrence went out.

Dusk fell upon the house and all its approaches.

Suddenly, two figures--figures of women--emerged in the twilight from the thick plantation, which protected the house on the north.

They reached the flagged path with noiseless feet, and then pausing, they began what an intelligent spectator would have soon seen to be a careful reconnoitering of the whole northern side of the house.

They seemed to examine the windows, a garden door, the recesses in the walls, the old lead piping, the creepers and shrubs.

Then one of them, keeping close to the house wall, which was in deep shadow, went quickly round to the back.

The other awaited her.

In the distance rose at intervals a dog's uneasy bark.

In a very few minutes the woman who had gone round the house returned and the two, slipping back into the dense belt of wood from which they had come, were instantly swallowed up by it.

Their appearance and their movements throughout had been as phantom-like and silent as the shadows which were now engulfing the house.

Anyone who had seen them come and go might almost have doubted his own eyes.

* * * * * Daunt the Keeper returned leisurely to his quarters in some back premises of Monk Lawrence, at the southeastern corner of the house.

But he had but just opened his own door when he again heard the sound of footsteps in the fore-court.

"Well, what's come to the folk to-night"--he muttered, with some ill-humour, as he turned back towards the front.

A woman!

--standing with her back to the house, in the middle of the forecourt as though the place belonged to her, and gazing at the piled clouds of the west, still haunted by the splendour just past away.

A veritable Masque of Women, all of the Maenad sort, had by now begun to riot through Daunt's brain by night and day.

He raised his voice sharply-- "What's your business here, Ma'am?

There is no public road past this house."

The lady turned, and came towards him.

"Don't you know who I am, Mr. Daunt?

But I remember you when I was a child."

Daunt peered through the dusk.

"You have the advantage of me, Madam," he said, stiffly.

"Kindly give me your name."

"Miss Blanchflower--from Maumsey Abbey!"

said a young, conscious voice.

"I used to come here with my grandmother, Lady Blanchflower.

I have been intending to come and pay you a visit for a long time--to have a look at the old house again.

And just now I was passing the foot of your hill in a motor; something went wrong with the car, and while they were mending it, I ran up.

But it's getting dark so quick, one can hardly see anything!"

Daunt's attitude showed no relaxation.

Indeed, quick recollections assailed him of certain reports in the local papers, now some ten days old.

Miss Blanchflower indeed!

She was a brazen one--after all done and said.

"Pleased to see you, Miss, if you'll kindly get an order from Sir Wilfrid.

But I have strict instructions from Sir Wilfrid not to admit anyone--not anyone whatsoever--to the gardens or the house, without his order."

"I should have thought, Mr. Daunt, that only applied to strangers."

The tones shewed annoyance.

"My father, Sir Robert Blanchflower, was an old friend of Sir Wilfrid's." "Can't help it, Miss," said Daunt, not without the secret zest of the Radical putting down his "betters."

"There are queer people about.

I

can't let no one in without an order."

As he spoke, a gate slammed on his left, and Daunt, with the feeling of one beset, turned in wrath to see who might be this new intruder.

Since the house had been closed to visitors, and a notice to the effect had been posted in the village, scarcely a soul had penetrated through its enclosing woods, except Miss Amberley, who came to teach Daunts crippled child.

And now in one evening here were three assaults upon its privacy!

But as to the third he was soon reassured.

"Hullo, Daunt, is that you?

Did I hear you telling Miss Blanchflower you can't let her in?