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John Lothrop Motley - "The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1566"

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T >> Thomas Hardy >> A Laodicean




In the interim of waiting for a reply he was one day walking
to Markton, when, passing Myrtle Villa, he saw Sir William De
Stancy ambling about his garden-path and examining the
crocuses that palisaded its edge. Sir William saw him and
asked him to come in. Somerset was in the mood for any
diversion from his own affairs, and they seated themselves by
the drawing-room fire.

'I am much alone now,' said Sir William, 'and if the weather
were not very mild, so that I can get out into the garden
every day, I should feel it a great deal.'

'You allude to your daughter's absence?'

'And my son's. Strange to say, I do not miss her so much as I
miss him. She offers to return at any moment; but I do not
wish to deprive her of the advantages of a little foreign
travel with her friend. Always, Mr. Somerset, give your spare
time to foreign countries, especially those which contrast
with your own in topography, language, and art. That's my
advice to all young people of your age. Don't waste your
money on expensive amusements at home. Practise the strictest
economy at home, to have a margin for going abroad.'

Economy, which Sir William had never practised, but to which,
after exhausting all other practices, he now raised an altar,
as the Athenians did to the unknown God, was a topic likely to
prolong itself on the baronet's lips, and Somerset contrived
to interrupt him by asking--

'Captain De Stancy, too, has gone? Has the artillery, then,
left the barracks?'

'No,' said Sir William. 'But my son has made use of his leave
in running over to see his sister at Nice.'

The current of quiet meditation in Somerset changed to a busy
whirl at this reply. That Paula should become indifferent to
his existence from a sense of superiority, physical,
spiritual, or social, was a sufficiently ironical thing; but
that she should have relinquished him because of the presence
of a rival lent commonplace dreariness to her cruelty.

Sir William, noting nothing, continued in the tone of clever
childishness which characterized him: 'It is very singular
how the present situation has been led up to by me. Policy,
and policy alone, has been the rule of my conduct for many
years past; and when I say that I have saved my family by it,
I believe time will show that I am within the truth. I hope
you don't let your passions outrun your policy, as so many
young men are apt to do. Better be poor and politic, than
rich and headstrong: that's the opinion of an old man.
However, I was going to say that it was purely from policy
that I allowed a friendship to develop between my daughter and
Miss Power, and now events are proving the wisdom of my
course. Straws show how the wind blows, and there are little
signs that my son Captain De Stancy will return to Stancy
Castle by the fortunate step of marrying its owner. I say
nothing to either of them, and they say nothing to me; but my
wisdom lies in doing nothing to hinder such a consummation,
despite inherited prejudices.'

Somerset had quite time enough to rein himself in during the
old gentleman's locution, and the voice in which he answered
was so cold and reckless that it did not seem his own: 'But
how will they live happily together when she is a Dissenter,
and a Radical, and a New-light, and a Neo-Greek, and a person
of red blood; while Captain De Stancy is the reverse of them
all!'

'I anticipate no difficulty on that score,' said the baronet.
'My son's star lies in that direction, and, like the Magi, he
is following it without trifling with his opportunity. You
have skill in architecture, therefore you follow it. My son
has skill in gallantry, and now he is about to exercise it
profitably.'

'May nobody wish him more harm in that exercise than I do!'
said Somerset fervently.

A stagnant moodiness of several hours which followed his visit
to Myrtle Villa resulted in a resolve to journey over to Paula
the very next day. He now felt perfectly convinced that the
inviting of Captain De Stancy to visit them at Nice was a
second stage in the scheme of Paula's uncle, the premature
announcement of her marriage having been the first. The
roundness and neatness of the whole plan could not fail to
recommend it to the mind which delighted in putting involved
things straight, and such a mind Abner Power's seemed to be.
In fact, the felicity, in a politic sense, of pairing the
captain with the heiress furnished no little excuse for
manoeuvring to bring it about, so long as that manoeuvring
fell short of unfairness, which Mr. Power's could scarcely be
said to do.

The next day was spent in furnishing the builders with such
instructions as they might require for a coming week or ten
days, and in dropping a short note to Paula; ending as
follows:--

'I am coming to see you. Possibly you will refuse me an
interview. Never mind, I am coming--Yours, G.
SOMERSET.'

The morning after that he was up and away. Between him and
Paula stretched nine hundred miles by the line of journey that
he found it necessary to adopt, namely, the way of London, in
order to inform his father of his movements and to make one or
two business calls. The afternoon was passed in attending to
these matters, the night in speeding onward, and by the time
that nine o'clock sounded next morning through the sunless and
leaden air of the English Channel coasts, he had reduced the
number of miles on his list by two hundred, and cut off the
sea from the impediments between him and Paula.

On awakening from a fitful sleep in the grey dawn of the
morning following he looked out upon Lyons, quiet enough now,
the citizens unaroused to the daily round of bread-winning,
and enveloped in a haze of fog.

Six hundred and fifty miles of his journey had been got over;
there still intervened two hundred and fifty between him and
the end of suspense. When he thought of that he was
disinclined to pause; and pressed on by the same train, which
set him down at Marseilles at mid-day.

Here he considered. By going on to Nice that afternoon he
would arrive at too late an hour to call upon her the same
evening: it would therefore be advisable to sleep in
Marseilles and proceed the next morning to his journey's end,
so as to meet her in a brighter condition than he could boast
of to-day. This he accordingly did, and leaving Marseilles
the next morning about eight, found himself at Nice early in
the afternoon.

Now that he was actually at the centre of his gravitation he
seemed even further away from a feasible meeting with her than
in England. While afar off, his presence at Nice had appeared
to be the one thing needful for the solution of his trouble,
but the very house fronts seemed now to ask him what right he
had there. Unluckily, in writing from England, he had not
allowed her time to reply before his departure, so that he did
not know what difficulties might lie in the way of her seeing
him privately. Before deciding what to do, he walked down the
Avenue de la Gare to the promenade between the shore and the
Jardin Public, and sat down to think.

The hotel which she had given him as her address looked right
out upon him and the sea beyond, and he rested there with the
pleasing hope that her eyes might glance from a window and
discover his form. Everything in the scene was sunny and gay.
Behind him in the gardens a band was playing; before him was
the sea, the Great sea, the historical and original
Mediterranean; the sea of innumerable characters in history
and legend that arranged themselves before him in a long
frieze of memories so diverse as to include both AEneas and
St. Paul.

Northern eyes are not prepared on a sudden for the impact of
such images of warmth and colour as meet them southward, or
for the vigorous light that falls from the sky of this
favoured shore. In any other circumstances the transparency
and serenity of the air, the perfume of the sea, the radiant
houses, the palms and flowers, would have acted upon Somerset
as an enchantment, and wrapped him in a reverie; but at
present he only saw and felt these things as through a thick
glass which kept out half their atmosphere.

At last he made up his mind. He would take up his quarters at
her hotel, and catch echoes of her and her people, to learn
somehow if their attitude towards him as a lover were actually
hostile, before formally encountering them. Under this
crystalline light, full of gaieties, sentiment, languor,
seductiveness, and ready-made romance, the memory of a
solitary unimportant man in the lugubrious North might have
faded from her mind. He was only her hired designer. He was
an artist; but he had been engaged by her, and was not a
volunteer; and she did not as yet know that he meant to accept
no return for his labours but the pleasure of presenting them
to her as a love-offering.

So off he went at once towards the imposing building whither
his letters had preceded him. Owing to a press of visitors
there was a moment's delay before he could be attended to at
the bureau, and he turned to the large staircase that
confronted him, momentarily hoping that her figure might
descend. Her skirts must indeed have brushed the carpeting of
those steps scores of times. He engaged his room, ordered his
luggage to be sent for, and finally inquired for the party he
sought.

'They left Nice yesterday, monsieur,' replied madame.

Was she quite sure, Somerset asked her?

Yes, she was quite sure. Two of the hotel carriages had
driven them to the station.

Did she know where they had gone to?

This and other inquiries resulted in the information that they
had gone to the hotel at Monte Carlo; that how long they were
going to stay there, and whether they were coming back again,
was not known. His final question whether Miss Power had
received a letter from England which must have arrived the day
previous was answered in the affirmative.

Somerset's first and sudden resolve was to follow on after
them to the hotel named; but he finally decided to make his
immediate visit to Monte Carlo only a cautious reconnoitre,
returning to Nice to sleep.

Accordingly, after an early dinner, he again set forth through
the broad Avenue de la Gare, and an hour on the coast railway
brought him to the beautiful and sinister little spot to which
the Power and De Stancy party had strayed in common with the
rest of the frivolous throng.

He assumed that their visit thither would be chiefly one of
curiosity, and therefore not prolonged. This proved to be the
case in even greater measure than he had anticipated. On
inquiry at the hotel he learnt that they had stayed only one
night, leaving a short time before his arrival, though it was
believed that some of the party were still in the town.

In a state of indecision Somerset strolled into the gardens of
the Casino, and looked out upon the sea. There it still lay,
calm yet lively; of an unmixed blue, yet variegated; hushed,
but articulate even to melodiousness. Everything about and
around this coast appeared indeed jaunty, tuneful, and at
ease, reciprocating with heartiness the rays of the splendid
sun; everything, except himself. The palms and flowers on the
terraces before him were undisturbed by a single cold breath.
The marble work of parapets and steps was unsplintered by
frosts. The whole was like a conservatory with the sky for
its dome.

For want of other occupation he went round towards the public
entrance to the Casino, and ascended the great staircase into
the pillared hall. It was possible, after all, that upon
leaving the hotel and sending on their luggage they had taken
another turn through the rooms, to follow by a later train.
With more than curiosity he scanned first the reading-rooms,
only however to see not a face that he knew. He then crossed
the vestibule to the gaming-tables.



IV.

Here he was confronted by a heated phantasmagoria of splendour
and a high pressure of suspense that seemed to make the air
quiver. A low whisper of conversation prevailed, which might
probably have been not wrongly defined as the lowest note of
social harmony.

The people gathered at this negative pole of industry had come
from all civilized countries; their tongues were familiar with
many forms of utterance, that of each racial group or type
being unintelligible in its subtler variations, if not
entirely, to the rest. But the language of meum and tuum they
collectively comprehended without translation. In a half-
charmed spell-bound state they had congregated in knots,
standing, or sitting in hollow circles round the notorious
oval tables marked with figures and lines. The eyes of all
these sets of people were watching the Roulette. Somerset
went from table to table, looking among the loungers rather
than among the regular players, for faces, or at least for one
face, which did not meet his gaze.

The suggestive charm which the centuries-old impersonality
Gaming, rather than games and gamesters, had for Somerset, led
him to loiter on even when his hope of meeting any of the
Power and De Stancy party had vanished. As a non-participant
in its profits and losses, fevers and frenzies, it had that
stage effect upon his imagination which is usually exercised
over those who behold Chance presented to them with
spectacular piquancy without advancing far enough in its
acquaintance to suffer from its ghastly reprisals and impish
tricks. He beheld a hundred diametrically opposed wishes
issuing from the murky intelligences around a table, and
spreading down across each other upon the figured diagram in
their midst, each to its own number. It was a network of
hopes; which at the announcement, 'Sept, Rouge, Impair, et
Manque,' disappeared like magic gossamer, to be replaced in a
moment by new. That all the people there, including himself,
could be interested in what to the eye of perfect reason was a
somewhat monotonous thing--the property of numbers to recur at
certain longer or shorter intervals in a machine containing
them--in other words, the blind groping after fractions of a
result the whole of which was well known--was one testimony
among many of the powerlessness of logic when confronted with
imagination.

At this juncture our lounger discerned at one of the tables
about the last person in the world he could have wished to
encounter there. It was Dare, whom he had supposed to be a
thousand miles off, hanging about the purlieus of Markton.

Dare was seated beside a table in an attitude of application
which seemed to imply that he had come early and engaged in
this pursuit in a systematic manner. Somerset had never
witnessed Dare and De Stancy together, neither had he heard of
any engagement of Dare by the travelling party as artist,
courier, or otherwise; and yet it crossed his mind that Dare
might have had something to do with them, or at least have
seen them. This possibility was enough to overmaster
Somerset's reluctance to speak to the young man, and he did so
as soon as an opportunity occurred.

Dare's face was as rigid and dry as if it had been encrusted
with plaster, and he was like one turned into a computing
machine which no longer had the power of feeling. He
recognized Somerset as indifferently as if he had met him in
the ward of Stancy Castle, and replying to his remarks by a
word or two, concentrated on the game anew.

'Are you here alone?' said Somerset presently.

'Quite alone.' There was a silence, till Dare added, 'But I
have seen some friends of yours.' He again became absorbed in
the events of the table. Somerset retreated a few steps, and
pondered the question whether Dare could know where they had
gone. He disliked to be beholden to Dare for information, but
he would give a great deal to know. While pausing he watched
Dare's play. He staked only five-franc pieces, but it was
done with an assiduity worthy of larger coin. At every half-
minute or so he placed his money on a certain spot, and as
regularly had the mortification of seeing it swept away by the
croupier's rake. After a while he varied his procedure. He
risked his money, which from the look of his face seemed
rather to have dwindled than increased, less recklessly
against long odds than before. Leaving off backing numbers en
plein, he laid his venture a cheval; then tried it upon the
dozens; then upon two numbers; then upon a square; and,
apparently getting nearer and nearer defeat, at last upon the
simple chances of even or odd, over or under, red or black.
Yet with a few fluctuations in his favour fortune bore
steadily against him, till he could breast her blows no
longer. He rose from the table and came towards Somerset, and
they both moved on together into the entrance-hall.

Dare was at that moment the victim of an overpowering mania
for more money. His presence in the South of Europe had its
origin, as may be guessed, in Captain De Stancy's journey in
the same direction, whom he had followed, and troubled with
persistent request for more funds, carefully keeping out of
sight of Paula and the rest. His dream of involving Paula in
the De Stancy pedigree knew no abatement. But Somerset had
lighted upon him at an instant when that idea, though not
displaced, was overwhelmed by a rage for play. In hope of
being able to continue it by Somerset's aid he was prepared to
do almost anything to please the architect.

'You asked me,' said Dare, stroking his impassive brow, 'if I
had seen anything of the Powers. I have seen them; and if I
can be of any use to you in giving information about them I
shall only be too glad.'

'What information can you give?'

'I can tell you where they are gone to.'

'Where?'

'To the Grand Hotel, Genoa. They went on there this
afternoon.'

'Whom do you refer to by they?'

'Mrs. Goodman, Mr. Power, Miss Power, Miss De Stancy, and the
worthy captain. He leaves them tomorrow: he comes back here
for a day on his way to England.'

Somerset was silent. Dare continued: 'Now I have done you a
favour, will you do me one in return?'

Somerset looked towards the gaming-rooms, and said dubiously,
'Well?'

'Lend me two hundred francs.'

'Yes,' said Somerset; 'but on one condition: that I don't
give them to you till you are inside the hotel you are staying
at.'

'That can't be; it's at Nice.'

'Well I am going back to Nice, and I'll lend you the money the
instant we get there.'

'But I want it here, now, instantly!' cried Dare; and for the
first time there was a wiry unreasonableness in his voice that
fortified his companion more firmly than ever in his
determination to lend the young man no money whilst he
remained inside that building.

'You want it to throw it away. I don't approve of it; so come
with me.'

'But,' said Dare, 'I arrived here with a hundred napoleons and
more, expressly to work out my theory of chances and
recurrences, which is sound; I have studied it hundreds of
times by the help of this.' He partially drew from his pocket
the little volume that we have before seen in his hands. 'If
I only persevere in my system, the certainty that I must win
is almost mathematical. I have staked and lost two hundred
and thirty-three times. Allowing out of that one chance in
every thirty-six, which is the average of zero being marked,
and two hundred and four times for the backers of the other
numbers, I have the mathematical expectation of six times at
least, which would nearly recoup me. And shall I, then,
sacrifice that vast foundation of waste chances that I have
laid down, and paid for, merely for want of a little ready
money?'

'You might persevere for a twelvemonth, and still not get the
better of your reverses. Time tells in favour of the bank.
Just imagine for the sake of argument that all the people who
have ever placed a stake upon a certain number to be one
person playing continuously. Has that imaginary person won?
The existence of the bank is a sufficient answer.'

'But a particular player has the option of leaving off at any
point favourable to himself, which the bank has not; and
there's my opportunity.'

'Which from your mood you will be sure not to take advantage
of.'

'I shall go on playing,' said Dare doggedly.

'Not with my money.'

'Very well; we won't part as enemies,' replied Dare, with the
flawless politeness of a man whose speech has no longer any
kinship with his feelings. 'Shall we share a bottle of wine?
You will not? Well, I hope your luck with your lady will be
more magnificent than mine has been here; but--mind Captain De
Stancy! he's a fearful wildfowl for you.'

'He's a harmless inoffensive soldier, as far as I know. If he
is not--let him be what he may for me.'

'And do his worst to cut you out, I suppose?'

'Ay--if you will.' Somerset, much against his judgment, was
being stimulated by these pricks into words of irritation.
'Captain De Stancy might, I think, be better employed than in
dangling at the heels of a lady who can well dispense with his
company. And you might be better employed than in wasting
your wages here.'

'Wages--a fit word for my money. May I ask you at what stage
in the appearance of a man whose way of existence is unknown,
his money ceases to be called wages and begins to be called
means?'

Somerset turned and left him without replying, Dare following
his receding figure with a look of ripe resentment, not less
likely to vent itself in mischief from the want of moral
ballast in him who emitted it. He then fixed a nettled and
unsatisfied gaze upon the gaming-rooms, and in another minute
or two left the Casino also.

Dare and Somerset met no more that day. The latter returned
to Nice by the evening train and went straight to the hotel.
He now thanked his fortune that he had not precipitately given
up his room there, for a telegram from Paula awaited him. His
hand almost trembled as he opened it, to read the following
few short words, dated from the Grand Hotel, Genoa:--

'Letter received. Am glad to hear of your journey. We are
not returning to Nice, but stay here a week. I direct this at
a venture.'

This tantalizing message--the first breaking of her recent
silence--was saucy, almost cruel, in its dry frigidity. It
led him to give up his idea of following at once to Genoa.
That was what she obviously expected him to do, and it was
possible that his non-arrival might draw a letter or message
from her of a sweeter composition than this. That would at
least be the effect of his tardiness if she cared in the least
for him; if she did not he could bear the worst. The argument
was good enough as far as it went, but, like many more, failed
from the narrowness of its premises, the contingent
intervention of Dare being entirely undreamt of. It was
altogether a fatal miscalculation, which cost him dear.

Passing by the telegraph-office in the Rue Pont-Neuf at an
early hour the next morning he saw Dare coming out from the
door. It was Somerset's momentary impulse to thank Dare for
the information given as to Paula's whereabouts, information
which had now proved true. But Dare did not seem to
appreciate his friendliness, and after a few words of studied
civility the young man moved on.

And well he might. Five minutes before that time he had
thrown open a gulf of treachery between himself and the
architect which nothing in life could ever close. Before
leaving the telegraph-office Dare had despatched the following
message to Paula direct, as a set-off against what he called
Somerset's ingratitude for valuable information, though it was
really the fruit of many passions, motives, and desires:--

'G. Somerset, Nice, to Miss Power, Grand Hotel, Genoa.

'Have lost all at Monte Carlo. Have learnt that Captain D. S.
returns here to-morrow. Please send me one hundred pounds by
him, and save me from disgrace. Will await him at eleven
o'clock and four, on the Pont-Neuf.'



V.

Five hours after the despatch of that telegram Captain De
Stancy was rattling along the coast railway of the Riviera
from Genoa to Nice. He was returning to England by way of
Marseilles; but before turning northwards he had engaged to
perform on Miss Power's account a peculiar and somewhat
disagreeable duty. This was to place in Somerset's hands a
hundred and twenty-five napoleons which had been demanded from
her by a message in Somerset's name. The money was in his
pocket--all in gold, in a canvas bag, tied up by Paula's own
hands, which he had observed to tremble as she tied it.

As he leaned in the corner of the carriage he was thinking
over the events of the morning which had culminated in that
liberal response. At ten o'clock, before he had gone out from
the hotel where he had taken up his quarters, which was not
the same as the one patronized by Paula and her friends, he
had been summoned to her presence in a manner so unexpected as
to imply that something serious was in question. On entering
her room he had been struck by the absence of that saucy
independence usually apparent in her bearing towards him,
notwithstanding the persistency with which he had hovered near
her for the previous month, and gradually, by the position of
his sister, and the favour of Paula's uncle in intercepting
one of Somerset's letters and several of his telegrams,
established himself as an intimate member of the travelling
party. His entry, however, this time as always, had had the
effect of a tonic, and it was quite with her customary self-
possession that she had told him of the object of her message.