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New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

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Books: A Laodicean

T >> Thomas Hardy >> A Laodicean




She slightly blushed and said, 'O, this is pleasant, Mr.
Somerset! Let me present my brother to you, Captain De Stancy
of the Royal Horse Artillery.'

Her brother came forward and shook hands heartily with
Somerset; and they all three rambled on together, talking of
the season, the place, the fishing, the shooting, and whatever
else came uppermost in their minds.

Captain De Stancy was a personage who would have been called
interesting by women well out of their teens. He was ripe,
without having declined a digit towards fogeyism. He was
sufficiently old and experienced to suggest a goodly
accumulation of touching amourettes in the chambers of his
memory, and not too old for the possibility of increasing the
store. He was apparently about eight-and-thirty, less tall
than his father had been, but admirably made; and his every
movement exhibited a fine combination of strength and
flexibility of limb. His face was somewhat thin and
thoughtful, its complexion being naturally pale, though
darkened by exposure to a warmer sun than ours. His features
were somewhat striking; his moustache and hair raven black;
and his eyes, denied the attributes of military keenness by
reason of the largeness and darkness of their aspect, acquired
thereby a softness of expression that was in part womanly.
His mouth as far as it could be seen reproduced this
characteristic, which might have been called weakness, or
goodness, according to the mental attitude of the observer.
It was large but well formed, and showed an unimpaired line of
teeth within. His dress at present was a heather-coloured
rural suit, cut close to his figure.

'You knew my cousin, Jack Ravensbury?' he said to Somerset, as
they went on. 'Poor Jack: he was a good fellow.'

'He was a very good fellow.'

'He would have been made a parson if he had lived--it was his
great wish. I, as his senior, and a man of the world as I
thought myself, used to chaff him about it when he was a boy,
and tell him not to be a milksop, but to enter the army. But
I think Jack was right--the parsons have the best of it, I see
now.'

'They would hardly admit that,' said Somerset, laughing. 'Nor
can I.'

'Nor I,' said the captain's sister. 'See how lovely you all
looked with your big guns and uniform when you entered
Markton; and then see how stupid the parsons look by
comparison, when they flock into Markton at a Visitation.'

'Ah, yes,' said De Stancy,

'"Doubtless it is a brilliant masquerade;
But when of the first sight you've had your fill,
It palls--at least it does so upon me,
This paradise of pleasure and ennui."

When one is getting on for forty;

"When we have made our love, and gamed our gaming,
Dressed, voted, shone, and maybe, something more;
With dandies dined, heard senators declaiming;
Seen beauties brought to market by the score,"

and so on, there arises a strong desire for a quiet old-
fashioned country life, in which incessant movement is not a
necessary part of the programme.'

'But you are not forty, Will?' said Charlotte.

'My dear, I was thirty-nine last January.'

'Well, men about here are youths at that age. It was India
used you up so, when you served in the line, was it not? I
wish you had never gone there!'

'So do I,' said De Stancy drily. 'But I ought to grow a youth
again, like the rest, now I am in my native air.'

They came to a narrow brook, not wider than a man's stride,
and Miss De Stancy halted on the edge.

'Why, Lottie, you used to jump it easily enough,' said her
brother. 'But we won't make her do it now.' He took her in
his arms, and lifted her over, giving her a gratuitous ride
for some additional yards, and saying, 'You are not a pound
heavier, Lott, than you were at ten years old. . . . What do
you think of the country here, Mr. Somerset? Are you going to
stay long?'

'I think very well of it,' said Somerset. 'But I leave to-
morrow morning, which makes it necessary that I turn back in a
minute or two from walking with you.'

'That's a disappointment. I had hoped you were going to
finish out the autumn with shooting. There's some, very fair,
to be got here on reasonable terms, I've just heard.'

'But you need not hire any!' spoke up Charlotte. 'Paula would
let you shoot anything, I am sure. She has not been here long
enough to preserve much game, and the poachers had it all in
Mr. Wilkins' time. But what there is you might kill with
pleasure to her.'

'No, thank you,' said De Stancy grimly. 'I prefer to remain a
stranger to Miss Power--Miss Steam-Power, she ought to be
called--and to all her possessions.'

Charlotte was subdued, and did not insist further; while
Somerset, before he could feel himself able to decide on the
mood in which the gallant captain's joke at Paula's expense
should be taken, wondered whether it were a married man or a
bachelor who uttered it.

He had not been able to keep the question of De Stancy's
domestic state out of his head from the first moment of seeing
him. Assuming De Stancy to be a husband, he felt there might
be some excuse for his remark; if unmarried, Somerset liked
the satire still better; in such circumstances there was a
relief in the thought that Captain De Stancy's prejudices
might be infinitely stronger than those of his sister or
father.

'Going to-morrow, did you say, Mr. Somerset?' asked Miss De
Stancy. 'Then will you dine with us to-day? My father is
anxious that you should do so before you go. I am sorry there
will be only our own family present to meet you; but you can
leave as early as you wish.'

Her brother seconded the invitation, and Somerset promised,
though his leisure for that evening was short. He was in
truth somewhat inclined to like De Stancy; for though the
captain had said nothing of any value either on war, commerce,
science, or art, he had seemed attractive to the younger man.
Beyond the natural interest a soldier has for imaginative
minds in the civil walks of life, De Stancy's occasional
manifestations of taedium vitae were too poetically shaped to
be repellent. Gallantry combined in him with a sort of
ascetic self-repression in a way that was curious. He was a
dozen years older than Somerset: his life had been passed in
grooves remote from those of Somerset's own life; and the
latter decided that he would like to meet the artillery
officer again.

Bidding them a temporary farewell, he went away to Markton by
a shorter path than that pursued by the De Stancys, and after
spending the remainder of the afternoon preparing for
departure, he sallied forth just before the dinner-hour
towards the suburban villa.

He had become yet more curious whether a Mrs. De Stancy
existed; if there were one he would probably see her to-night.
He had an irrepressible hope that there might be such a lady.
On entering the drawing-room only the father, son, and
daughter were assembled. Somerset fell into talk with
Charlotte during the few minutes before dinner, and his
thought found its way out.

'There is no Mrs. De Stancy?' he said in an undertone.

'None,' she said; 'my brother is a bachelor.'

The dinner having been fixed at an early hour to suit
Somerset, they had returned to the drawing-room at eight
o'clock. About nine he was aiming to get away.

'You are not off yet?' said the captain.

'There would have been no hurry,' said Somerset, 'had I not
just remembered that I have left one thing undone which I want
to attend to before my departure. I want to see the chief
constable to-night.'

'Cunningham Haze?--he is the very man I too want to see. But
he went out of town this afternoon, and I hardly think you
will see him to-night. His return has been delayed.'

'Then the matter must wait.'

'I have left word at his house asking him to call here if he
gets home before half-past ten; but at any rate I shall see
him to-morrow morning. Can I do anything for you, since you
are leaving early?'

Somerset replied that the business was of no great importance,
and briefly explained the suspected intrusion into his studio;
that he had with him a photograph of the suspected young man.
'If it is a mistake,' added Somerset, 'I should regret putting
my draughtsman's portrait into the hands of the police, since
it might injure his character; indeed, it would be unfair to
him. So I wish to keep the likeness in my own hands, and
merely to show it to Mr. Haze. That's why I prefer not to
send it.'

'My matter with Haze is that the barrack furniture does not
correspond with the inventories. If you like, I'll ask your
question at the same time with pleasure.'

Thereupon Somerset gave Captain De Stancy an unfastened
envelope containing the portrait, asking him to destroy it if
the constable should declare it not to correspond with the
face that met his eye at the window. Soon after, Somerset
took his leave of the household.

He had not been absent ten minutes when other wheels were
heard on the gravel without, and the servant announced Mr.
Cunningham Haze, who had returned earlier than he had
expected, and had called as requested.

They went into the dining-room to discuss their business.
When the barrack matter had been arranged De Stancy said, 'I
have a little commission to execute for my friend Mr.
Somerset. I am to ask you if this portrait of the person he
suspects of unlawfully entering his room is like the man you
saw there?'

The speaker was seated on one side of the dining-table and Mr.
Haze on the other. As he spoke De Stancy pulled the envelope
from his pocket, and half drew out the photograph, which he
had not as yet looked at, to hand it over to the constable.
In the act his eye fell upon the portrait, with its uncertain
expression of age, assured look, and hair worn in a fringe
like a girl's.

Captain De Stancy's face became strained, and he leant back in
his chair, having previously had sufficient power over himself
to close the envelope and return it to his pocket.

'Good heavens, you are ill, Captain De Stancy?' said the chief
constable.

'It was only momentary,' said De Stancy; 'better in a minute--
a glass of water will put me right.'

Mr. Haze got him a glass of water from the sideboard.

'These spasms occasionally overtake me,' said De Stancy when
he had drunk. 'I am already better. What were we saying? O,
this affair of Mr. Somerset's. I find that this envelope is
not the right one.' He ostensibly searched his pocket again.
'I must have mislaid it,' he continued, rising. 'I'll be with
you again in a moment.'

De Stancy went into the room adjoining, opened an album of
portraits that lay on the table, and selected one of a young
man quite unknown to him, whose age was somewhat akin to
Dare's, but who in no other attribute resembled him.

De Stancy placed this picture in the original envelope, and
returned with it to the chief constable, saying he had found
it at last.

'Thank you, thank you,' said Cunningham Haze, looking it over.
'Ah--I perceive it is not what I expected to see. Mr.
Somerset was mistaken.'

When the chief constable had left the house, Captain De Stancy
shut the door and drew out the original photograph. As he
looked at the transcript of Dare's features he was moved by a
painful agitation, till recalling himself to the present, he
carefully put the portrait into the fire.

During the following days Captain De Stancy's manner on the
roads, in the streets, and at barracks, was that of Crusoe
after seeing the print of a man's foot on the sand.



V.

Anybody who had closely considered Dare at this time would
have discovered that, shortly after the arrival of the Royal
Horse Artillery at Markton Barracks, he gave up his room at
the inn at Sleeping-Green and took permanent lodgings over a
broker's shop in the town above-mentioned. The peculiarity of
the rooms was that they commanded a view lengthwise of the
barrack lane along which any soldier, in the natural course of
things, would pass either to enter the town, to call at Myrtle
Villa, or to go to Stancy Castle.

Dare seemed to act as if there were plenty of time for his
business. Some few days had slipped by when, perceiving
Captain De Stancy walk past his window and into the town, Dare
took his hat and cane, and followed in the same direction.
When he was about fifty yards short of Myrtle Villa on the
other side of the town he saw De Stancy enter its gate.

Dare mounted a stile beside the highway and patiently waited.
In about twenty minutes De Stancy came out again and turned
back in the direction of the town, till Dare was revealed to
him on his left hand. When De Stancy recognized the youth he
was visibly agitated, though apparently not surprised.
Standing still a moment he dropped his glance upon the ground,
and then came forward to Dare, who having alighted from the
stile stood before the captain with a smile.

'My dear lad!' said De Stancy, much moved by recollections.
He held Dare's hand for a moment in both his own, and turned
askance.

'You are not astonished,' said Dare, still retaining his
smile, as if to his mind there were something comic in the
situation.

'I knew you were somewhere near. Where do you come from?'

'From going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down
in it, as Satan said to his Maker.--Southampton last, in
common speech.'

'Have you come here to see me?'

'Entirely. I divined that your next quarters would be
Markton, the previous batteries that were at your station
having come on here. I have wanted to see you badly.'

'You have?'

'I am rather out of cash. I have been knocking about a good
deal since you last heard from me.'

'I will do what I can again.'

'Thanks, captain.'

'But, Willy, I am afraid it will not be much at present. You
know I am as poor as a mouse.'

'But such as it is, could you write a cheque for it now?'

'I will send it to you from the barracks.'

'I have a better plan. By getting over this stile we could go
round at the back of the villas to Sleeping-Green Church.
There is always a pen-and-ink in the vestry, and we can have a
nice talk on the way. It would be unwise for me to appear at
the barracks just now.'

'That's true.'

De Stancy sighed, and they were about to walk across the
fields together. 'No,' said Dare, suddenly stopping: my
plans make it imperative that we should not run the risk of
being seen in each other's company for long. Walk on, and I
will follow. You can stroll into the churchyard, and move
about as if you were ruminating on the epitaphs. There are
some with excellent morals. I'll enter by the other gate, and
we can meet easily in the vestry-room.'

De Stancy looked gloomy, and was on the point of acquiescing
when he turned back and said, 'Why should your photograph be
shown to the chief constable?'

'By whom?'

'Somerset the architect. He suspects your having broken into
his office or something of the sort.' De Stancy briefly
related what Somerset had explained to him at the dinner-
table.

'It was merely diamond cut diamond between us, on an
architectural matter,' murmured Dare. 'Ho! and he suspects;
and that's his remedy!'

'I hope this is nothing serious?' asked De Stancy gravely.

'I peeped at his drawing--that's all. But since he chooses to
make that use of my photograph, which I gave him in
friendship, I'll make use of his in a way he little dreams of.
Well now, let's on.'

A quarter of an hour later they met in the vestry of the
church at Sleeping-Green.

'I have only just transferred my account to the bank here,'
said De Stancy, as he took out his cheque-book, 'and it will
be more convenient to me at present to draw but a small sum.
I will make up the balance afterwards.'

When he had written it Dare glanced over the paper and said
ruefully, 'It is small, dad. Well, there is all the more
reason why I should broach my scheme, with a view to making
such documents larger in the future.'

'I shall be glad to hear of any such scheme,' answered De
Stancy, with a languid attempt at jocularity.

'Then here it is. The plan I have arranged for you is of the
nature of a marriage.'

'You are very kind!' said De Stancy, agape.

'The lady's name is Miss Paula Power, who, as you may have
heard since your arrival, is in absolute possession of her
father's property and estates, including Stancy Castle. As
soon as I heard of her I saw what a marvellous match it would
be for you, and your family; it would make a man of you, in
short, and I have set my mind upon your putting no objection
in the way of its accomplishment.'

'But, Willy, it seems to me that, of us two, it is you who
exercise paternal authority?'

'True, it is for your good. Let me do it.'

'Well, one must be indulgent under the circumstances, I
suppose. . . . But,' added De Stancy simply, 'Willy, I--don't
want to marry, you know. I have lately thought that some day
we may be able to live together, you and I: go off to America
or New Zealand, where we are not known, and there lead a
quiet, pastoral life, defying social rules and troublesome
observances.'

'I can't hear of it, captain,' replied Dare reprovingly. 'I
am what events have made me, and having fixed my mind upon
getting you settled in life by this marriage, I have put
things in train for it at an immense trouble to myself. If
you had thought over it o' nights as much as I have, you would
not say nay.'

'But I ought to have married your mother if anybody. And as I
have not married her, the least I can do in respect to her is
to marry no other woman.'

'You have some sort of duty to me, have you not, Captain De
Stancy?'

'Yes, Willy, I admit that I have,' the elder replied
reflectively. 'And I don't think I have failed in it thus
far?'

'This will be the crowning proof. Paternal affection, family
pride, the noble instincts to reinstate yourself in the castle
of your ancestors, all demand the step. And when you have
seen the lady! She has the figure and motions of a sylph, the
face of an angel, the eye of love itself. What a sight she is
crossing the lawn on a sunny afternoon, or gliding airily
along the corridors of the old place the De Stancys knew so
well! Her lips are the softest, reddest, most distracting
things you ever saw. Her hair is as soft as silk, and of the
rarest, tenderest brown.'

The captain moved uneasily. 'Don't take the trouble to say
more, Willy,' he observed. 'You know how I am. My cursed
susceptibility to these matters has already wasted years of my
life, and I don't want to make myself a fool about her too.'

'You must see her.'

'No, don't let me see her,' De Stancy expostulated. 'If she
is only half so good-looking as you say, she will drag me at
her heels like a blind Samson. You are a mere youth as yet,
but I may tell you that the misfortune of never having been my
own master where a beautiful face was concerned obliges me to
be cautious if I would preserve my peace of mind.'

'Well, to my mind, Captain De Stancy, your objections seem
trivial. Are those all?'

'They are all I care to mention just now to you.'

'Captain! can there be secrets between us?'

De Stancy paused and looked at the lad as if his heart wished
to confess what his judgment feared to tell. 'There should
not be--on this point,' he murmured.

'Then tell me--why do you so much object to her?'

'I once vowed a vow.'

'A vow!' said Dare, rather disconcerted.

'A vow of infinite solemnity. I must tell you from the
beginning; perhaps you are old enough to hear it now, though
you have been too young before. Your mother's life ended in
much sorrow, and it was occasioned entirely by me. In my
regret for the wrong done her I swore to her that though she
had not been my wife, no other woman should stand in that
relationship to me; and this to her was a sort of comfort.
When she was dead my knowledge of my own plaguy
impressionableness, which seemed to be ineradicable--as it
seems still--led me to think what safeguards I could set over
myself with a view to keeping my promise to live a life of
celibacy; and among other things I determined to forswear the
society, and if possible the sight, of women young and
attractive, as far as I had the power to do.'

'It is not so easy to avoid the sight of a beautiful woman if
she crosses your path, I should think?'

'It is not easy; but it is possible.'

'How?'

'By directing your attention another way.'

'But do you mean to say, captain, that you can be in a room
with a pretty woman who speaks to you, and not look at her?'

'I do: though mere looking has less to do with it than mental
attentiveness--allowing your thoughts to flow out in her
direction--to comprehend her image.'

'But it would be considered very impolite not to look at the
woman or comprehend her image?'

'It would, and is. I am considered the most impolite officer
in the service. I have been nicknamed the man with the
averted eyes--the man with the detestable habit--the man who
greets you with his shoulder, and so on. Ninety-and-nine fair
women at the present moment hate me like poison and death for
having persistently refused to plumb the depths of their
offered eyes.'

'How can you do it, who are by nature courteous?'

'I cannot always--I break down sometimes. But, upon the
whole, recollection holds me to it: dread of a lapse.
Nothing is so potent as fear well maintained.'

De Stancy narrated these details in a grave meditative tone
with his eyes on the wall, as if he were scarcely conscious of
a listener.

'But haven't you reckless moments, captain?--when you have
taken a little more wine than usual, for instance?'

'I don't take wine.'

'O, you are a teetotaller?'

'Not a pledged one--but I don't touch alcohol unless I get
wet, or anything of that sort.'

'Don't you sometimes forget this vow of yours to my mother?'

'No, I wear a reminder.'

'What is that like?'

De Stancy held up his left hand, on the third finger of which
appeared an iron ring.

Dare surveyed it, saying, 'Yes, I have seen that before,
though I never knew why you wore it. Well, I wear a reminder
also, but of a different sort.'

He threw open his shirt-front, and revealed tattooed on his
breast the letters DE STANCY; the same marks which Havill had
seen in the bedroom by the light of the moon.

The captain rather winced at the sight. 'Well, well,' he said
hastily, 'that's enough. . . . Now, at any rate, you
understand my objection to know Miss Power.'

'But, captain,' said the lad coaxingly, as he fastened his
shirt; 'you forget me and the good you may do me by marrying?
Surely that's a sufficient reason for a change of sentiment.
This inexperienced sweet creature owns the castle and estate
which bears your name, even to the furniture and pictures.
She is the possessor of at least forty thousand a year--how
much more I cannot say--while, buried here in Outer Wessex,
she lives at the rate of twelve hundred in her simplicity.'

'It is very good of you to set this before me. But I prefer
to go on as I am going.'

'Well, I won't bore you any more with her to-day. A monk in
regimentals!--'tis strange.' Dare arose and was about to open
the door, when, looking through the window, Captain De Stancy
said, 'Stop.' He had perceived his father, Sir William De
Stancy, walking among the tombstones without.

'Yes, indeed,' said Dare, turning the key in the door. 'It
would look strange if he were to find us here.'

As the old man seemed indisposed to leave the churchyard just
yet they sat down again.

'What a capital card-table this green cloth would make,' said
Dare, as they waited. 'You play, captain, I suppose?'

'Very seldom.'

'The same with me. But as I enjoy a hand of cards with a
friend, I don't go unprovided.' Saying which, Dare drew a
pack from the tail of his coat. 'Shall we while away this
leisure with the witching things?'

'Really, I'd rather not.'

'But,' coaxed the young man, 'I am in the humour for it; so
don't be unkind!'

'But, Willy, why do you care for these things? Cards are
harmless enough in their way; but I don't like to see you
carrying them in your pocket. It isn't good for you.'

'It was by the merest chance I had them. Now come, just one
hand, since we are prisoners. I want to show you how nicely I
can play. I won't corrupt you!'

'Of course not,' said De Stancy, as if ashamed of what his
objection implied. 'You are not corrupt enough yourself to do
that, I should hope.'

The cards were dealt and they began to play--Captain De Stancy
abstractedly, and with his eyes mostly straying out of the
window upon the large yew, whose boughs as they moved were
distorted by the old green window-panes.

'It is better than doing nothing,' said Dare cheerfully, as
the game went on. 'I hope you don't dislike it?'

'Not if it pleases you,' said De Stancy listlessly.

'And the consecration of this place does not extend further
than the aisle wall.'

'Doesn't it?' said De Stancy, as he mechanically played out
his cards. 'What became of that box of books I sent you with
my last cheque?'

'Well, as I hadn't time to read them, and as I knew you would
not like them to be wasted, I sold them to a bloke who peruses
them from morning till night. Ah, now you have lost a fiver
altogether--how queer! We'll double the stakes. So, as I was
saying, just at the time the books came I got an inkling of
this important business, and literature went to the wall.'