‘Good Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but mean,Needs not the painted flourish of your praise,’
was due to the newness of her situation, or to her knowledge that De Stancy had usurped Mild’s part of her lover, he could not guess. De Stancy appeared, and Somerset felt grim as he listened to the gallant captain’s salutation of the Princess, and her response.
De S. Fair Princess, welcome to the court of Navarre.Paula. Fair, I give you back again: and welcome, I havenot yet.
Somerset listened to this and to all that which followed of the same sort, with the reflection that, after all, the Princess never throughout the piece compromised her dignity by showing her love for the King; and that the latter never addressed her in words in which passion got the better of courtesy. Moreover, as Paula had herself observed, they did not marry at the end of the piece, as in Shakespeare’s other comedies. Somewhat calm in this assurance, he waited on while the other couples respectively indulged in their love-making, and banter, including Mrs. Camperton as the sprightly Rosaline. But he was doomed to be surprised out of his humour when the end of the act came on. In abridging the play for the convenience of representation, the favours or gifts from the gentlemen to the ladies were personally presented: and now Somerset saw De Stancy advance with the necklace fetched by Paula from London, and clasp it on her neck.
This seemed to throw a less pleasant light on her hasty journey. To fetch a valuable ornament to lend it to a poorer friend was estimable; but to fetch it that the friend’s brother should have something magnificent to use as a lover’s offering to herself in public, that wore a different complexion. And if the article were recognized by the spectators as the same that Charlotte had worn at the ball, the presentation by De Stancy of what must seem to be an heirloom of his house would be read as symbolizing a union of the families.
De Stancy’s mode of presenting the necklace, though unauthorized by Shakespeare, had the full approval of the company, and set them in good humour to receive Major Camperton as Armado the braggart. Nothing calculated to stimulate jealousy occurred again till the fifth act; and then there arose full cause for it.
The scene was the outside of the Princess’s pavilion. De Stancy, as the King of Navarre, stood with his group of attendants awaiting the Princess, who presently entered from her door. The two began to converse as the play appointed, De Stancy turning to her with this reply—
‘Rebuke me not for that which you provoke;The virtue of your eye must break my oath.’
So far all was well; and Paula opened her lips for the set rejoinder. But before she had spoken De Stancy continued—
‘If I profane with my unworthy hand(Taking her hand)This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this—My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready standTo smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.’
Somerset stared. Surely in this comedy the King never addressed the Princess in such warm words; and yet they were Shakespeare’s, for they were quite familiar to him. A dim suspicion crossed his mind. Mrs. Goodman had brought a copy of Shakespeare with her, which she kept in her lap and never looked at: borrowing it, Somerset turned to ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ and there he saw the words which De Stancy had introduced as gag, to intensify the mild love-making of the other play. Meanwhile De Stancy continued—
‘O then, dear Saint, let lips do what hands do;They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take.Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purg’d!’
Could it be that De Stancy was going to do what came next in the stage direction—kiss her? Before there was time for conjecture on that point the sound of a very sweet and long-drawn osculation spread through the room, followed by loud applause from the people in the cheap seats. De Stancy withdrew from bending over Paula, and she was very red in the face. Nothing seemed clearer than that he had actually done the deed. The applause continuing, Somerset turned his head. Five hundred faces had regarded the act, without a consciousness that it was an interpolation; and four hundred and fifty mouths in those faces were smiling. About one half of them were tender smiles; these came from the women. The other half were at best humorous, and mainly satirical; these came from the men. It was a profanation without parallel, and his face blazed like a coal.
The play was now nearly at an end, and Somerset sat on, feeling what he could not express. More than ever was he assured that there had been collusion between the two artillery officers to bring about this end. That he should have been the unhappy man to design those picturesque dresses in which his rival so audaciously played the lover to his, Somerset’s, mistress, was an added point to the satire. He could hardly go so far as to assume that Paula was a consenting party to this startling interlude; but her otherwise unaccountable wish that his own love should be clandestinely shown lent immense force to a doubt of her sincerity. The ghastly thought that she had merely been keeping him on, like a pet spaniel, to amuse her leisure moments till she should have found appropriate opportunity for an open engagement with some one else, trusting to his sense of chivalry to keep secret their little episode, filled him with a grim heat.
IX.
At the back of the room the applause had been loud at the moment of the kiss, real or counterfeit. The cause was partly owing to an exceptional circumstance which had occurred in that quarter early in the play.
The people had all seated themselves, and the first act had begun, when the tapestry that screened the door was lifted gently and a figure appeared in the opening. The general attention was at this moment absorbed by the newly disclosed stage, and scarcely a soul noticed the stranger. Had any one of the audience turned his head, there would have been sufficient in the countenance to detain his gaze, notwithstanding the counter-attraction forward.
He was obviously a man who had come from afar. There was not a square inch about him that had anything to do with modern English life. His visage, which was of the colour of light porphyry, had little of its original surface left; it was a face which had been the plaything of strange fires or pestilences, that had moulded to whatever shape they chose his originally supple skin, and left it pitted, puckered, and seamed like a dried water-course. But though dire catastrophes or the treacherous airs of remote climates had done their worst upon his exterior, they seemed to have affected him but little within, to judge from a certain robustness which showed itself in his manner of standing.
The face-marks had a meaning, for any one who could read them, beyond the mere suggestion of their origin: they signified that this man had either been the victim of some terrible necessity as regarded the occupation to which he had devoted himself, or that he was a man of dogged obstinacy, from sheer sang froid holding his ground amid malign forces when others would have fled affrighted away.
As nobody noticed him, he dropped the door hangings after a while, walked silently along the matted alley, and sat down in one of the back chairs. His manner of entry was enough to show that the strength of character which he seemed to possess had phlegm for its base and not ardour. One might have said that perhaps the shocks he had passed through had taken all his original warmth out of him. His beaver hat, which he had retained on his head till this moment, he now placed under the seat, where he sat absolutely motionless till the end of the first act, as if he were indulging in a monologue which did not quite reach his lips.
When Paula entered at the beginning of the second act he showed as much excitement as was expressed by a slight movement of the eyes. When she spoke he turned to his next neighbour, and asked him in cold level words which had once been English, but which seemed to have lost the accent of nationality: ‘Is that the young woman who is the possessor of this castle—Power by name?’
His neighbour happened to be the landlord at Sleeping-Green, and he informed the stranger that she was what he supposed.
‘And who is that gentleman whose line of business seems to be to make love to Power?’
‘He’s Captain De Stancy, Sir William De Stancy’s son, who used to own this property.’
‘Baronet or knight?’
‘Baronet—a very old-established family about here.’
The stranger nodded, and the play went on, no further word being spoken till the fourth act was reached, when the stranger again said, without taking his narrow black eyes from the stage: ‘There’s something in that love-making between Stancy and Power that’s not all sham!’
‘Well,’ said the landlord, ‘I have heard different stories about that, and wouldn’t be the man to zay what I couldn’t swear to. The story is that Captain De Stancy, who is as poor as a gallicrow, is in full cry a’ter her, and that his on’y chance lies in his being heir to a title and the wold name. But she has not shown a genuine hanker for anybody yet.’
‘If she finds the money, and this Stancy finds the name and blood, ‘twould be a very neat match between ‘em,—hey?’
‘That’s the argument.’
Nothing more was said again for a long time, but the stranger’s eyes showed more interest in the passes between Paula and De Stancy than they had shown before. At length the crisis came, as described in the last chapter, De Stancy saluting her with that semblance of a kiss which gave such umbrage to Somerset. The stranger’s thin lips lengthened a couple of inches with satisfaction; he put his hand into his pocket, drew out two half-crowns which he handed to the landlord, saying, ‘Just applaud that, will you, and get your comrades to do the same.’
The landlord, though a little surprised, took the money, and began to clap his hands as desired. The example was contagious, and spread all over the room; for the audience, gentle and simple, though they might not have followed the blank verse in all its bearings, could at least appreciate a kiss. It was the unusual acclamation raised by this means which had led Somerset to turn his head.
When the play had ended the stranger was the first to rise, and going downstairs at the head of the crowd he passed out of doors, and was lost to view. Some questions were asked by the landlord as to the stranger’s individuality; but few had seen him; fewer had noticed him, singular as he was; and none knew his name.
While these things had been going on in the quarter allotted to the commonalty, Somerset in front had waited the fall of the curtain with those sick and sorry feelings which should be combated by the aid of philosophy and a good conscience, but which really are only subdued by time and the abrading rush of affairs. He was, however, stoical enough, when it was all over, to accept Mrs. Goodman’s invitation to accompany her to the drawing-room, fully expecting to find there a large company, including Captain De Stancy.
But none of the acting ladies and gentlemen had emerged from their dressing-rooms as yet. Feeling that he did not care to meet any of them that night, he bade farewell to Mrs. Goodman after a few minutes of conversation, and left her. While he was passing along the corridor, at the side of the gallery which had been used as the theatre, Paula crossed it from the latter apartment towards an opposite door. She was still in the dress of the Princess, and the diamond and pearl necklace still hung over her bosom as placed there by Captain De Stancy.
Her eye caught Somerset’s, and she stopped. Probably there was something in his face which told his mind, for she invited him by a smile into the room she was entering.
‘I congratulate you on your performance,’ he said mechanically, when she pushed to the door.
‘Do you really think it was well done?’ She drew near him with a sociable air.
‘It was startlingly done—the part from “Romeo and Juliet” pre-eminently so.’
‘Do you think I knew he was going to introduce it, or do you think I didn’t know?’ she said, with that gentle sauciness which shows itself in the loved one’s manner when she has had a triumphant evening without the lover’s assistance.
‘I think you may have known.’
‘No,’ she averred, decisively shaking her head. ‘It took me as much by surprise as it probably did you. But why should I have told!’
Without answering that question Somerset went on. ‘Then what he did at the end of his gag was of course a surprise also.’
‘He didn’t really do what he seemed to do,’ she serenely answered.
‘Well, I have no right to make observations—your actions are not subject to my surveillance; you float above my plane,’ said the young man with some bitterness. ‘But to speak plainly, surely he—kissed you?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘He only kissed the air in front of me—ever so far off.’
‘Was it six inches off?’
‘No, not six inches.’
‘Nor three.’
‘It was quite one,’ she said with an ingenuous air.
‘I don’t call that very far.’
‘A miss is as good as a mile, says the time-honoured proverb; and it is not for us modern mortals to question its truth.’
‘How can you be so off-hand?’ broke out Somerset. ‘I love you wildly and desperately, Paula, and you know it well!’
‘I have never denied knowing it,’ she said softly.
‘Then why do you, with such knowledge, adopt an air of levity at such a moment as this! You keep me at arm’s-length, and won’t say whether you care for me one bit, or no. I have owned all to you; yet never once have you owned anything to me!’
‘I have owned much. And you do me wrong if you consider that I show levity. But even if I had not owned everything, and you all, it is not altogether such a grievous thing.’
‘You mean to say that it is not grievous, even if a man does love a woman, and suffers all the pain of feeling he loves in vain? Well, I say it is quite the reverse, and I have grounds for knowing.’
‘Now, don’t fume so, George Somerset, but hear me. My not owning all may not have the dreadful meaning you think, and therefore it may not be really such a grievous thing. There are genuine reasons for women’s conduct in these matters as well as for men’s, though it is sometimes supposed to be regulated entirely by caprice. And if I do not give way to every feeling—I mean demonstration—it is because I don’t want to. There now, you know what that implies; and be content.’
‘Very well,’ said Somerset, with repressed sadness, ‘I will not expect you to say more. But you do like me a little, Paula?’
‘Now!’ she said, shaking her head with symptoms of tenderness and looking into his eyes. ‘What have you just promised? Perhaps I like you a little more than a little, which is much too much! Yes,—Shakespeare says so, and he is always right. Do you still doubt me? Ah, I see you do!’
‘Because somebody has stood nearer to you to-night than I.’
‘A fogy like him!—half as old again as either of us! How can you mind him? What shall I do to show you that I do not for a moment let him come between me and you?’
‘It is not for me to suggest what you should do. Though what you should permit ME to do is obvious enough.’
She dropped her voice: ‘You mean, permit you to do really and in earnest what he only seemed to do in the play.’
Somerset signified by a look that such had been his thought.
Paula was silent. ‘No,’ she murmured at last. ‘That cannot be. He did not, nor must you.’
It was said none the less decidedly for being spoken low.
‘You quite resent such a suggestion: you have a right to. I beg your pardon, not for speaking of it, but for thinking it.’
‘I don’t resent it at all, and I am not offended one bit. But I am not the less of opinion that it is possible to be premature in some things; and to do this just now would be premature. I know what you would say—that you would not have asked it, but for that unfortunate improvisation of it in the play. But that I was not responsible for, and therefore owe no reparation to you now.... Listen!’
‘Paula—Paula! Where in the world are you?’ was heard resounding along the corridor in the voice of her aunt. ‘Our friends are all ready to leave, and you will surely bid them good-night!’
‘I must be gone—I won’t ring for you to be shown out—come this way.’
‘But how will you get on in repeating the play tomorrow evening if that interpolation is against your wish?’ he asked, looking her hard in the face.
‘I’ll think it over during the night. Come to-morrow morning to help me settle. But,’ she added, with coy yet genial independence, ‘listen to me. Not a word more about a—what you asked for, mind! I don’t want to go so far, and I will not—not just yet anyhow—I mean perhaps never. You must promise that, or I cannot see you again alone.’
‘It shall be as you request.’
‘Very well. And not a word of this to a soul. My aunt suspects: but she is a good aunt and will say nothing. Now that is clearly understood, I should be glad to consult with you tomorrow early. I will come to you in the studio or Pleasance as soon as I am disengaged.’
She took him to a little chamfered doorway in the corner, which opened into a descending turret; and Somerset went down. When he had unfastened the door at the bottom, and stepped into the lower corridor, she asked, ‘Are you down?’ And on receiving an affirmative reply she closed the top door.
X.
Somerset was in the studio the next morning about ten o’clock superintending the labours of Knowles, Bowles, and Cockton, whom he had again engaged to assist him with the drawings on his appointment to carry out the works. When he had set them going he ascended the staircase of the great tower for some purpose that bore upon the forthcoming repairs of this part. Passing the door of the telegraph-room he heard little sounds from the instrument, which somebody was working. Only two people in the castle, to the best of his knowledge, knew the trick of this; Miss Power, and a page in her service called John. Miss De Stancy could also despatch messages, but she was at Myrtle Villa.
The door was closed, and much as he would have liked to enter, the possibility that Paula was not the performer led him to withhold his steps. He went on to where the uppermost masonry had resisted the mighty hostility of the elements for five hundred years without receiving worse dilapidation than half-a-century produces upon the face of man. But he still wondered who was telegraphing, and whether the message bore on housekeeping, architecture, theatricals, or love.
Could Somerset have seen through the panels of the door in passing, he would have beheld the room occupied by Paula alone.
It was she who sat at the instrument, and the message she was despatching ran as under:—
‘Can you send down a competent actress, who will undertake the part of Princess of France in “Love’s Labour’s Lost” this evening in a temporary theatre here? Dresses already provided suitable to a lady about the middle height. State price.’
The telegram was addressed to a well-known theatrical agent in London.
Off went the message, and Paula retired into the next room, leaving the door open between that and the one she had just quitted. Here she busied herself with writing some letters, till in less than an hour the telegraph instrument showed signs of life, and she hastened back to its side. The reply received from the agent was as follows:—
‘Miss Barbara Bell of the Regent’s Theatre could come. Quite competent. Her terms would be about twenty-five guineas.’
Without a moment’s pause Paula returned for answer:—
‘The terms are quite satisfactory.’
Presently she heard the instrument again, and emerging from the next room in which she had passed the intervening time as before, she read:—
‘Miss Barbara Bell’s terms were accidentally understated. They would be forty guineas, in consequence of the distance. Am waiting at the office for a reply.’
Paula set to work as before and replied:—
‘Quite satisfactory; only let her come at once.’
She did not leave the room this time, but went to an arrow-slit hard by and gazed out at the trees till the instrument began to speak again. Returning to it with a leisurely manner, implying a full persuasion that the matter was settled, she was somewhat surprised to learn that,
‘Miss Bell, in stating her terms, understands that she will not be required to leave London till the middle of the afternoon. If it is necessary for her to leave at once, ten guineas extra would be indispensable, on account of the great inconvenience of such a short notice.’
Paula seemed a little vexed, but not much concerned she sent back with a readiness scarcely politic in the circumstances:—
‘She must start at once. Price agreed to.’
Her impatience for the answer was mixed with curiosity as to whether it was due to the agent or to Miss Barbara Bell that the prices had grown like Jack’s Bean-stalk in the negotiation. Another telegram duly came:—
‘Travelling expenses are expected to be paid.’
With decided impatience she dashed off:—
‘Of course; but nothing more will be agreed to.’
Then, and only then, came the desired reply:—
‘Miss Bell starts by the twelve o’clock train.’
This business being finished, Paula left the chamber and descended into the inclosure called the Pleasance, a spot grassed down like a lawn. Here stood Somerset, who, having come down from the tower, was looking on while a man searched for old foundations under the sod with a crowbar. He was glad to see her at last, and noticed that she looked serene and relieved; but could not for the moment divine the cause. Paula came nearer, returned his salutation, and regarded the man’s operations in silence awhile till his work led him to a distance from them.
‘Do you still wish to consult me?’ asked Somerset.
‘About the building perhaps,’ said she. ‘Not about the play.’
‘But you said so?’
‘Yes; but it will be unnecessary.’
Somerset thought this meant skittishness, and merely bowed.
‘You mistake me as usual,’ she said, in a low tone. ‘I am not going to consult you on that matter, because I have done all you could have asked for without consulting you. I take no part in the play to-night.’
‘Forgive my momentary doubt!’
‘Somebody else will play for me—an actress from London. But on no account must the substitution be known beforehand or the performance to-night will never come off: and that I should much regret.’
‘Captain De Stancy will not play his part if he knows you will not play yours—that’s what you mean?’
‘You may suppose it is,’ she said, smiling. ‘And to guard against this you must help me to keep the secret by being my confederate.’
To be Paula’s confederate; to-day, indeed, time had brought him something worth waiting for. ‘In anything!’ cried Somerset.
‘Only in this!’ said she, with soft severity. ‘And you know what you have promised, George! And you remember there is to be no—what we talked about! Now will you go in the one-horse brougham to Markton Station this afternoon, and meet the four o’clock train? Inquire for a lady for Stancy Castle—a Miss Bell; see her safely into the carriage, and send her straight on here. I am particularly anxious that she should not enter the town, for I think she once came to Markton in a starring company, and she might be recognized, and my plan be defeated.’
Thus she instructed her lover and devoted friend; and when he could stay no longer he left her in the garden to return to his studio. As Somerset went in by the garden door he met a strange-looking personage coming out by the same passage—a stranger, with the manner of a Dutchman, the face of a smelter, and the clothes of an inhabitant of Guiana. The stranger, whom we have already seen sitting at the back of the theatre the night before, looked hard from Somerset to Paula, and from Paula again to Somerset, as he stepped out. Somerset had an unpleasant conviction that this queer gentleman had been standing for some time in the doorway unnoticed, quizzing him and his mistress as they talked together. If so he might have learnt a secret.
When he arrived upstairs, Somerset went to a window commanding a view of the garden. Paula still stood in her place, and the stranger was earnestly conversing with her. Soon they passed round the corner and disappeared.
It was now time for him to see about starting for Markton, an intelligible zest for circumventing the ardent and coercive captain of artillery saving him from any unnecessary delay in the journey. He was at the station ten minutes before the train was due; and when it drew up to the platform the first person to jump out was Captain De Stancy in sportsman’s attire and with a gun in his hand. Somerset nodded, and De Stancy spoke, informing the architect that he had been ten miles up the line shooting waterfowl. ‘That’s Miss Power’s carriage, I think,’ he added.
‘Yes,’ said Somerset carelessly. ‘She expects a friend, I believe. We shall see you at the castle again to-night?’
De Stancy assured him that they would, and the two men parted, Captain De Stancy, when he had glanced to see that the carriage was empty, going on to where a porter stood with a couple of spaniels.
Somerset now looked again to the train. While his back had been turned to converse with the captain, a lady of five-and-thirty had alighted from the identical compartment occupied by De Stancy. She made an inquiry about getting to Stancy Castle, upon which Somerset, who had not till now observed her, went forward, and introducing himself assisted her to the carriage and saw her safely off.
De Stancy had by this time disappeared, and Somerset walked on to his rooms at the Lord-Quantock-Arms, where he remained till he had dined, picturing the discomfiture of his alert rival when there should enter to him as Princess, not Paula Power, but Miss Bell of the Regent’s Theatre, London. Thus the hour passed, till he found that if he meant to see the issue of the plot it was time to be off.
On arriving at the castle, Somerset entered by the public door from the hall as before, a natural delicacy leading him to feel that though he might be welcomed as an ally at the stage-door—in other words, the door from the corridor—it was advisable not to take too ready an advantage of a privilege which, in the existing secrecy of his understanding with Paula, might lead to an overthrow of her plans on that point.
Not intending to sit out the whole performance, Somerset contented himself with standing in a window recess near the proscenium, whence he could observe both the stage and the front rows of spectators. He was quite uncertain whether Paula would appear among the audience to-night, and resolved to wait events. Just before the rise of the curtain the young lady in question entered and sat down. When the scenery was disclosed and the King of Navarre appeared, what was Somerset’s surprise to find that, though the part was the part taken by De Stancy on the previous night, the voice was that of Mr. Mild; to him, at the appointed season, entered the Princess, namely, Miss Barbara Bell.
Before Somerset had recovered from his crestfallen sensation at De Stancy’s elusiveness, that officer himself emerged in evening dress from behind a curtain forming a wing to the proscenium, and Somerset remarked that the minor part originally allotted to him was filled by the subaltern who had enacted it the night before. De Stancy glanced across, whether by accident or otherwise Somerset could not determine, and his glance seemed to say he quite recognized there had been a trial of wits between them, and that, thanks to his chance meeting with Miss Bell in the train, his had proved the stronger.
The house being less crowded to-night there were one or two vacant chairs in the best part. De Stancy, advancing from where he had stood for a few moments, seated himself comfortably beside Miss Power.
On the other side of her he now perceived the same queer elderly foreigner (as he appeared) who had come to her in the garden that morning. Somerset was surprised to perceive also that Paula with very little hesitation introduced him and De Stancy to each other. A conversation ensued between the three, none the less animated for being carried on in a whisper, in which Paula seemed on strangely intimate terms with the stranger, and the stranger to show feelings of great friendship for De Stancy, considering that they must be new acquaintances.
The play proceeded, and Somerset still lingered in his corner. He could not help fancying that De Stancy’s ingenious relinquishment of his part, and its obvious reason, was winning Paula’s admiration. His conduct was homage carried to unscrupulous and inconvenient lengths, a sort of thing which a woman may chide, but which she can never resent. Who could do otherwise than talk kindly to a man, incline a little to him, and condone his fault, when the sole motive of so audacious an exercise of his wits was to escape acting with any other heroine than herself.
His conjectures were brought to a pause by the ending of the comedy, and the opportunity afforded him of joining the group in front. The mass of people were soon gone, and the knot of friends assembled around Paula were discussing the merits and faults of the two days’ performance.
‘My uncle, Mr. Abner Power,’ said Paula suddenly to Somerset, as he came near, presenting the stranger to the astonished young man. ‘I could not see you before the performance, as I should have liked to do. The return of my uncle is so extraordinary that it ought to be told in a less hurried way than this. He has been supposed dead by all of us for nearly ten years—ever since the time we last heard from him.’
‘For which I am to blame,’ said Mr. Power, nodding to Paula’s architect. ‘Yet not I, but accident and a sluggish temperament. There are times, Mr Somerset, when the human creature feels no interest in his kind, and assumes that his kind feels no interest in him. The feeling is not active enough to make him fly from their presence; but sufficient to keep him silent if he happens to be away. I may not have described it precisely; but this I know, that after my long illness, and the fancied neglect of my letters—’
‘For which my father was not to blame, since he did not receive them,’ said Paula.
‘For which nobody was to blame—after that, I say, I wrote no more.’
‘You have much pleasure in returning at last, no doubt,’ said Somerset.
‘Sir, as I remained away without particular pain, so I return without particular joy. I speak the truth, and no compliments. I may add that there is one exception to this absence of feeling from my heart, namely, that I do derive great satisfaction from seeing how mightily this young woman has grown and prevailed.’
This address, though delivered nominally to Somerset, was listened to by Paula, Mrs. Goodman, and De Stancy also. After uttering it, the speaker turned away, and continued his previous conversation with Captain De Stancy. From this time till the group parted he never again spoke directly to Somerset, paying him barely so much attention as he might have expected as Paula’s architect, and certainly less than he might have supposed his due as her accepted lover.
The result of the appearance, as from the tomb, of this wintry man was that the evening ended in a frigid and formal way which gave little satisfaction to the sensitive Somerset, who was abstracted and constrained by reason of thoughts on how this resuscitation of the uncle would affect his relation with Paula. It was possibly also the thought of two at least of the others. There had, in truth, scarcely yet been time enough to adumbrate the possibilities opened up by this gentleman’s return.
The only private word exchanged by Somerset with any one that night was with Mrs. Goodman, in whom he always recognized a friend to his cause, though the fluidity of her character rendered her but a feeble one at the best of times. She informed him that Mr. Power had no sort of legal control over Paula, or direction in her estates; but Somerset could not doubt that a near and only blood relation, even had he possessed but half the static force of character that made itself apparent in Mr. Power, might exercise considerable moral influence over the girl if he chose. And in view of Mr. Power’s marked preference for De Stancy, Somerset had many misgivings as to its operating in a direction favourable to himself.
XI.
Somerset was deeply engaged with his draughtsmen and builders during the three following days, and scarcely entered the occupied wing of the castle.
At his suggestion Paula had agreed to have the works executed as such operations were carried out in old times, before the advent of contractors. Each trade required in the building was to be represented by a master-tradesman of that denomination, who should stand responsible for his own section of labour, and for no other, Somerset himself as chief technicist working out his designs on the spot. By this means the thoroughness of the workmanship would be greatly increased in comparison with the modern arrangement, whereby a nominal builder, seldom present, who can certainly know no more than one trade intimately and well, and who often does not know that, undertakes the whole.
But notwithstanding its manifest advantages to the proprietor, the plan added largely to the responsibilities of the architect, who, with his master-mason, master-carpenter, master-plumber, and what not, had scarcely a moment to call his own. Still, the method being upon the face of it the true one, Somerset supervised with a will.
But there seemed to float across the court to him from the inhabited wing an intimation that things were not as they had been before; that an influence adverse to himself was at work behind the ashlared face of inner wall which confronted him. Perhaps this was because he never saw Paula at the windows, or heard her footfall in that half of the building given over to himself and his myrmidons. There was really no reason other than a sentimental one why he should see her. The uninhabited part of the castle was almost an independent structure, and it was quite natural to exist for weeks in this wing without coming in contact with residents in the other.
A more pronounced cause than vague surmise was destined to perturb him, and this in an unexpected manner. It happened one morning that he glanced through a local paper while waiting at the Lord-Quantock-Arms for the pony-carriage to be brought round in which he often drove to the castle. The paper was two days old, but to his unutterable amazement he read therein a paragraph which ran as follows:—
‘We are informed that a marriage is likely to be arranged between Captain De Stancy, of the Royal Horse Artillery, only surviving son of Sir William De Stancy, Baronet, and Paula, only daughter of the late John Power, Esq., M.P., of Stancy Castle.’
Somerset dropped the paper, and stared out of the window. Fortunately for his emotions, the horse and carriage were at this moment brought to the door, so that nothing hindered Somerset in driving off to the spot at which he would be soonest likely to learn what truth or otherwise there was in the newspaper report. From the first he doubted it: and yet how should it have got there? Such strange rumours, like paradoxical maxims, generally include a portion of truth. Five days had elapsed since he last spoke to Paula.
Reaching the castle he entered his own quarters as usual, and after setting the draughtsmen to work walked up and down pondering how he might best see her without making the paragraph the ground of his request for an interview; for if it were a fabrication, such a reason would wound her pride in her own honour towards him, and if it were partly true, he would certainly do better in leaving her alone than in reproaching her. It would simply amount to a proof that Paula was an arrant coquette.
In his meditation he stood still, closely scanning one of the jamb-stones of a doorless entrance, as if to discover where the old hinge-hook had entered the stonework. He heard a footstep behind him, and looking round saw Paula standing by. She held a newspaper in her hand. The spot was one quite hemmed in from observation, a fact of which she seemed to be quite aware.
‘I have something to tell you,’ she said; ‘something important. But you are so occupied with that old stone that I am obliged to wait.’
‘It is not true surely!’ he said, looking at the paper.
‘No, look here,’ she said, holding up the sheet. It was not what he had supposed, but a new one—the local rival to that which had contained the announcement, and was still damp from the press. She pointed, and he read—
‘We are authorized to state that there is no foundation whatever for the assertion of our contemporary that a marriage is likely to be arranged between Captain De Stancy and Miss Power of Stancy Castle.’
Somerset pressed her hand. ‘It disturbed me,’ he said, ‘though I did not believe it.’
‘It astonished me, as much as it disturbed you; and I sent this contradiction at once.’
‘How could it have got there?’
She shook her head.
‘You have not the least knowledge?’
‘Not the least. I wish I had.’
‘It was not from any friends of De Stancy’s? or himself?’
‘It was not. His sister has ascertained beyond doubt that he knew nothing of it. Well, now, don’t say any more to me about the matter.’
‘I’ll find out how it got into the paper.’
‘Not now—any future time will do. I have something else to tell you.’
‘I hope the news is as good as the last,’ he said, looking into her face with anxiety; for though that face was blooming, it seemed full of a doubt as to how her next information would be taken.
‘O yes; it is good, because everybody says so. We are going to take a delightful journey. My new-created uncle, as he seems, and I, and my aunt, and perhaps Charlotte, if she is well enough, are going to Nice, and other places about there.’
‘To Nice!’ said Somerset, rather blankly. ‘And I must stay here?’
‘Why, of course you must, considering what you have undertaken!’ she said, looking with saucy composure into his eyes. ‘My uncle’s reason for proposing the journey just now is, that he thinks the alterations will make residence here dusty and disagreeable during the spring. The opportunity of going with him is too good a one for us to lose, as I have never been there.’
‘I wish I was going to be one of the party!... What do YOU wish about it?’
She shook her head impenetrably. ‘A woman may wish some things she does not care to tell!’
‘Are you really glad you are going, dearest?—as I MUST call you just once,’ said the young man, gazing earnestly into her face, which struck him as looking far too rosy and radiant to be consistent with ever so little regret at leaving him behind.
‘I take great interest in foreign trips, especially to the shores of the Mediterranean: and everybody makes a point of getting away when the house is turned out of the window.’
‘But you do feel a little sadness, such as I should feel if our positions were reversed?’
‘I think you ought not to have asked that so incredulously,’ she murmured. ‘We can be near each other in spirit, when our bodies are far apart, can we not?’ Her tone grew softer and she drew a little closer to his side with a slightly nestling motion, as she went on, ‘May I be sure that you will not think unkindly of me when I am absent from your sight, and not begrudge me any little pleasure because you are not there to share it with me?’
‘May you! Can you ask it?... As for me, I shall have no pleasure to be begrudged or otherwise. The only pleasure I have is, as you well know, in you. When you are with me, I am happy: when you are away, I take no pleasure in anything.’
‘I don’t deserve it. I have no right to disturb you so,’ she said, very gently. ‘But I have given you some pleasure, have I not? A little more pleasure than pain, perhaps?’
‘You have, and yet.... But I don’t accuse you, dearest. Yes, you have given me pleasure. One truly pleasant time was when we stood together in the summer-house on the evening of the garden-party, and you said you liked me to love you.’
‘Yes, it was a pleasant time,’ she returned thoughtfully. ‘How the rain came down, and formed a gauze between us and the dancers, did it not; and how afraid we were—at least I was—lest anybody should discover us there, and how quickly I ran in after the rain was over!’
‘Yes’, said Somerset, ‘I remember it. But no harm came of it to you.... And perhaps no good will come of it to me.’
‘Do not be premature in your conclusions, sir,’ she said archly. ‘If you really do feel for me only half what you say, we shall—you will make good come of it—in some way or other.’
‘Dear Paula—now I believe you, and can bear anything.’
‘Then we will say no more; because, as you recollect, we agreed not to go too far. No expostulations, for we are going to be practical young people; besides, I won’t listen if you utter them. I simply echo your words, and say I, too, believe you. Now I must go. Have faith in me, and don’t magnify trifles light as air.’
‘I THINK I understand you. And if I do, it will make a great difference in my conduct. You will have no cause to complain.’
‘Then you must not understand me so much as to make much difference; for your conduct as my architect is perfect. But I must not linger longer, though I wished you to know this news from my very own lips.’
‘Bless you for it! When do you leave?’
‘The day after to-morrow.’
‘So early? Does your uncle guess anything? Do you wish him to be told just yet?’
‘Yes, to the first; no, to the second.’
‘I may write to you?’
‘On business, yes. It will be necessary.’
‘How can you speak so at a time of parting?’
‘Now, George—you see I say George, and not Mr. Somerset, and you may draw your own inference—don’t be so morbid in your reproaches! I have informed you that you may write, or still better, telegraph, since the wire is so handy—on business. Well, of course, it is for you to judge whether you will add postscripts of another sort. There, you make me say more than a woman ought, because you are so obtuse and literal. Good afternoon—good-bye! This will be my address.’
She handed him a slip of paper, and flitted away.
Though he saw her again after this, it was during the bustle of preparation, when there was always a third person present, usually in the shape of that breathing refrigerator, her uncle. Hence the few words that passed between them were of the most formal description, and chiefly concerned the restoration of the castle, and a church at Nice designed by him, which he wanted her to inspect.
They were to leave by an early afternoon train, and Somerset was invited to lunch on that day. The morning was occupied by a long business consultation in the studio with Mr. Power and Mrs. Goodman on what rooms were to be left locked up, what left in charge of the servants, and what thrown open to the builders and workmen under the surveillance of Somerset. At present the work consisted mostly of repairs to existing rooms, so as to render those habitable which had long been used only as stores for lumber. Paula did not appear during this discussion; but when they were all seated in the dining-hall she came in dressed for the journey, and, to outward appearance, with blithe anticipation at its prospect blooming from every feature. Next to her came Charlotte De Stancy, still with some of the pallor of an invalid, but wonderfully brightened up, as Somerset thought, by the prospect of a visit to a delightful shore. It might have been this; and it might have been that Somerset’s presence had a share in the change.
It was in the hall, when they were in the bustle of leave-taking, that there occurred the only opportunity for the two or three private words with Paula to which his star treated him on that last day. His took the hasty form of, ‘You will write soon?’
‘Telegraphing will be quicker,’ she answered in the same low tone; and whispering ‘Be true to me!’ turned away.
How unreasonable he was! In addition to those words, warm as they were, he would have preferred a little paleness of cheek, or trembling of lip, instead of the bloom and the beauty which sat upon her undisturbed maidenhood, to tell him that in some slight way she suffered at his loss.
Immediately after this they went to the carriages waiting at the door. Somerset, who had in a measure taken charge of the castle, accompanied them and saw them off, much as if they were his visitors. She stepped in, a general adieu was spoken, and she was gone.
While the carriages rolled away, he ascended to the top of the tower, where he saw them lessen to spots on the road, and turn the corner out of sight. The chances of a rival seemed to grow in proportion as Paula receded from his side; but he could not have answered why. He had bidden her and her relatives adieu on her own doorstep, like a privileged friend of the family, while De Stancy had scarcely seen her since the play-night. That the silence into which the captain appeared to have sunk was the placidity of conscious power, was scarcely probable; yet that adventitious aids existed for De Stancy he could not deny. The link formed by Charlotte between De Stancy and Paula, much as he liked the ingenuous girl, was one that he could have wished away. It constituted a bridge of access to Paula’s inner life and feelings which nothing could rival; except that one fact which, as he firmly believed, did actually rival it, giving him faith and hope; his own primary occupation of Paula’s heart. Moreover, Mrs. Goodman would be an influence favourable to himself and his cause during the journey; though, to be sure, to set against her there was the phlegmatic and obstinate Abner Power, in whom, apprised by those subtle media of intelligence which lovers possess, he fancied he saw no friend.
Somerset remained but a short time at the castle that day. The light of its chambers had fled, the gross grandeur of the dictatorial towers oppressed him, and the studio was hateful. He remembered a promise made long ago to Mr. Woodwell of calling upon him some afternoon; and a visit which had not much attractiveness in it at other times recommended itself now, through being the one possible way open to him of hearing Paula named and her doings talked of. Hence in walking back to Markton, instead of going up the High Street, he turned aside into the unfrequented footway that led to the minister’s cottage.
Mr. Woodwell was not indoors at the moment of his call, and Somerset lingered at the doorway, and cast his eyes around. It was a house which typified the drearier tenets of its occupier with great exactness. It stood upon its spot of earth without any natural union with it: no mosses disguised the stiff straight line where wall met earth; not a creeper softened the aspect of the bare front. The garden walk was strewn with loose clinkers from the neighbouring foundry, which rolled under the pedestrian’s foot and jolted his soul out of him before he reached the porchless door. But all was clean, and clear, and dry.
Whether Mr. Woodwell was personally responsible for this condition of things there was not time to closely consider, for Somerset perceived the minister coming up the walk towards him. Mr. Woodwell welcomed him heartily; and yet with the mien of a man whose mind has scarcely dismissed some scene which has preceded the one that confronts him. What that scene was soon transpired.
‘I have had a busy afternoon,’ said the minister, as they walked indoors; ‘or rather an exciting afternoon. Your client at Stancy Castle, whose uncle, as I imagine you know, has so unexpectedly returned, has left with him to-day for the south of France; and I wished to ask her before her departure some questions as to how a charity organized by her father was to be administered in her absence. But I have been very unfortunate. She could not find time to see me at her own house, and I awaited her at the station, all to no purpose, owing to the presence of her friends. Well, well, I must see if a letter will find her.’
Somerset asked if anybody of the neighbourhood was there to see them off.
‘Yes, that was the trouble of it. Captain De Stancy was there, and quite monopolized her. I don’t know what ‘tis coming to, and perhaps I have no business to inquire, since she is scarcely a member of our church now. Who could have anticipated the daughter of my old friend John Power developing into the ordinary gay woman of the world as she has done? Who could have expected her to associate with people who show contempt for their Maker’s intentions by flippantly assuming other characters than those in which He created them?’
‘You mistake her,’ murmured Somerset, in a voice which he vainly endeavoured to attune to philosophy. ‘Miss Power has some very rare and beautiful qualities in her nature, though I confess I tremble—fear lest the De Stancy influence should be too strong.’
‘Sir, it is already! Do you remember my telling you that I thought the force of her surroundings would obscure the pure daylight of her spirit, as a monkish window of coloured images attenuates the rays of God’s sun? I do not wish to indulge in rash surmises, but her oscillation from her family creed of Calvinistic truth towards the traditions of the De Stancys has been so decided, though so gradual, that—well, I may be wrong.’
‘That what?’ said the young man sharply.
‘I sometimes think she will take to her as husband the present representative of that impoverished line—Captain De Stancy—which she may easily do, if she chooses, as his behaviour to-day showed.’
‘He was probably there on account of his sister,’ said Somerset, trying to escape the mental picture of farewell gallantries bestowed on Paula.
‘It was hinted at in the papers the other day.’
‘And it was flatly contradicted.’
‘Yes. Well, we shall see in the Lord’s good time; I can do no more for her. And now, Mr. Somerset, pray take a cup of tea.’
The revelations of the minister depressed Somerset a little, and he did not stay long. As he went to the door Woodwell said, ‘There is a worthy man—the deacon of our chapel, Mr. Havill—who would like to be friendly with you. Poor man, since the death of his wife he seems to have something on his mind—some trouble which my words will not reach. If ever you are passing his door, please give him a look in. He fears that calling on you might be an intrusion.’
Somerset did not clearly promise, and went his way. The minister’s allusion to the announcement of the marriage reminded Somerset that she had expressed a wish to know how the paragraph came to be inserted. The wish had been carelessly spoken; but he went to the newspaper office to make inquiries on the point.
The reply was unexpected. The reporter informed his questioner that in returning from the theatricals, at which he was present, he shared a fly with a gentleman who assured him that such an alliance was certain, so obviously did it recommend itself to all concerned, as a means of strengthening both families. The gentleman’s knowledge of the Powers was so precise that the reporter did not hesitate to accept his assertion. He was a man who had seen a great deal of the world, and his face was noticeable for the seams and scars on it.
Somerset recognized Paula’s uncle in the portrait.
Hostilities, then, were beginning. The paragraph had been meant as the first slap. Taking her abroad was the second.