Books: A Laodicean

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XII.

It was a fine afternoon of late summer, nearly three months
subsequent to the death of Sir William De Stancy and Paula's
engagement to marry his successor in the title. George
Somerset had started on a professional journey that took him
through the charming district which lay around Stancy Castle.
Having resigned his appointment as architect to that important
structure--a resignation which had been accepted by Paula
through her solicitor--he had bidden farewell to the locality
after putting matters in such order that his successor,
whoever he might be, should have no difficulty in obtaining
the particulars necessary to the completion of the work in
hand. Hardly to his surprise this successor was Havill.

Somerset's resignation had been tendered in no hasty mood. On
returning to England, and in due course to the castle,
everything bore in upon his mind the exceeding sorrowfulness--
he would not say humiliation--of continuing to act in his
former capacity for a woman who, from seeming more than a dear
friend, had become less than an acquaintance.

So he resigned; but now, as the train drew on into that once
beloved tract of country, the images which met his eye threw
him back in point of emotion to very near where he had been
before making himself a stranger here. The train entered the
cutting on whose brink he had walked when the carriage
containing Paula and her friends surprised him the previous
summer. He looked out of the window: they were passing the
well-known curve that led up to the tunnel constructed by her
father, into which he had gone when the train came by and
Paula had been alarmed for his life. There was the path they
had both climbed afterwards, involuntarily seizing each
other's hand; the bushes, the grass, the flowers, everything
just the same:

'-----Here was the pleasant place,
And nothing wanting was, save She, alas!'

When they came out of the tunnel at the other end he caught a
glimpse of the distant castle-keep, and the well-remembered
walls beneath it. The experience so far transcended the
intensity of what is called mournful pleasure as to make him
wonder how he could have miscalculated himself to the extent
of supposing that he might pass the spot with controllable
emotion.

On entering Markton station he withdrew into a remote corner
of the carriage, and closed his eyes with a resolve not to
open them till the embittering scenes should be passed by. He
had not long to wait for this event. When again in motion his
eye fell upon the skirt of a lady's dress opposite, the owner
of which had entered and seated herself so softly as not to
attract his attention.

'Ah indeed!' he exclaimed as he looked up to her face. 'I had
not a notion that it was you!' He went over and shook hands
with Charlotte De Stancy.

'I am not going far,' she said; 'only to the next station. We
often run down in summer time. Are you going far?'

'I am going to a building further on; thence to Normandy by
way of Cherbourg, to finish out my holiday.'

Miss De Stancy thought that would be very nice.

'Well, I hope so. But I fear it won't.'

After saying that Somerset asked himself why he should mince
matters with so genuine and sympathetic a girl as Charlotte De
Stancy? She could tell him particulars which he burned to
know. He might never again have an opportunity of knowing
them, since she and he would probably not meet for years to
come, if at all.

'Have the castle works progressed pretty rapidly under the new
architect?' he accordingly asked.

'Yes,' said Charlotte in her haste--then adding that she was
not quite sure if they had progressed so rapidly as before;
blushingly correcting herself at this point and that, in the
tinkering manner of a nervous organization aiming at nicety
where it was not required.

'Well, I should have liked to carry out the undertaking to its
end,' said Somerset. 'But I felt I could not consistently do
so. Miss Power--' (here a lump came into Somerset's throat--
so responsive was he yet to her image)--'seemed to have lost
confidence in me, and--it was best that the connection should
be severed.'

There was a long pause. 'She was very sorry about it,' said
Charlotte gently.

'What made her alter so?--I never can think!'

Charlotte waited again as if to accumulate the necessary force
for honest speaking at the expense of pleasantness. 'It was
the telegram that began it of course,' she answered.

'Telegram?'

She looked up at him in quite a frightened way--little as
there was to be frightened at in a quiet fellow like him in
this sad time of his life--and said, 'Yes: some telegram--I
think--when you were in trouble? Forgive my alluding to it;
but you asked me the question.'

Somerset began reflecting on what messages he had sent Paula,
troublous or otherwise. All he had sent had been sent from
the castle, and were as gentle and mellifluous as sentences
well could be which had neither articles nor pronouns. 'I
don't understand,' he said. 'Will you explain a little more--
as plainly as you like--without minding my feelings?'

'A telegram from Nice, I think?'

'I never sent one.'

'O! The one I meant was about money.'

Somerset shook his head. 'No,' he murmured, with the
composure of a man who, knowing he had done nothing of the
sort himself, was blinded by his own honesty to the
possibility that another might have done it for him. 'That
must be some other affair with which I had nothing to do. O
no, it was nothing like that; the reason for her change of
manner was quite different!'

So timid was Charlotte in Somerset's presence, that her
timidity at this juncture amounted to blameworthiness. The
distressing scene which must have followed a clearing up there
and then of any possible misunderstanding, terrified her
imagination; and quite confounded by contradictions that she
could not reconcile, she held her tongue, and nervously looked
out of the window.

'I have heard that Miss Power is soon to be married,'
continued Somerset.

'Yes,' Charlotte murmured. 'It is sooner than it ought to be
by rights, considering how recently my dear father died; but
there are reasons in connection with my brother's position
against putting it off: and it is to be absolutely simple and
private.'

There was another interval. 'May I ask when it is to be?' he
said.

'Almost at once--this week.'

Somerset started back as if some stone had hit his face.

Still there was nothing wonderful in such promptitude:
engagements broken in upon by the death of a near relative of
one of the parties had been often carried out in a subdued
form with no longer delay.

Charlotte's station was now at hand. She bade him farewell;
and he rattled on to the building he had come to inspect, and
next to Budmouth, whence he intended to cross the Channel by
steamboat that night.

He hardly knew how the evening passed away. He had taken up
his quarters at an inn near the quay, and as the night drew on
he stood gazing from the coffee-room window at the steamer
outside, which nearly thrust its spars through the bedroom
casements, and at the goods that were being tumbled on board
as only shippers can tumble them. All the goods were laden, a
lamp was put on each side the gangway, the engines broke into
a crackling roar, and people began to enter. They were only
waiting for the last train: then they would be off. Still
Somerset did not move; he was thinking of that curious half-
told story of Charlotte's, about a telegram to Paula for money
from Nice. Not once till within the last half-hour had it
recurred to his mind that he had met Dare both at Nice and at
Monte Carlo; that at the latter place he had been absolutely
out of money and wished to borrow, showing considerable
sinister feeling when Somerset declined to lend: that on one
or two previous occasions he had reasons for doubting Dare's
probity; and that in spite of the young man's impoverishment
at Monte Carlo he had, a few days later, beheld him in shining
raiment at Carlsruhe. Somerset, though misty in his
conjectures, was seized with a growing conviction that there
was something in Miss De Stancy's allusion to the telegram
which ought to be explained.

He felt an insurmountable objection to cross the water that
night, or till he had been able to see Charlotte again, and
learn more of her meaning. He countermanded the order to put
his luggage on board, watched the steamer out of the harbour,
and went to bed. He might as well have gone to battle, for
any rest that he got. On rising the next morning he felt
rather blank, though none the less convinced that a matter
required investigation. He left Budmouth by a morning train,
and about eleven o'clock found himself in Markton.

The momentum of a practical inquiry took him through that
ancient borough without leaving him much leisure for those
reveries which had yesterday lent an unutterable sadness to
every object there. It was just before noon that he started
for the castle, intending to arrive at a time of the morning
when, as he knew from experience, he could speak to Charlotte
without difficulty. The rising ground soon revealed the old
towers to him, and, jutting out behind them, the scaffoldings
for the new wing.

While halting here on the knoll in some doubt about his
movements he beheld a man coming along the road, and was soon
confronted by his former competitor, Havill. The first
instinct of each was to pass with a nod, but a second instinct
for intercourse was sufficient to bring them to a halt. After
a few superficial words had been spoken Somerset said, 'You
have succeeded me.'

'I have,' said Havill; 'but little to my advantage. I have
just heard that my commission is to extend no further than
roofing in the wing that you began, and had I known that
before, I would have seen the castle fall flat as Jericho
before I would have accepted the superintendence. But I know
who I have to thank for that--De Stancy.'

Somerset still looked towards the distant battlements. On the
scaffolding, among the white-jacketed workmen, he could
discern one figure in a dark suit.

'You have a clerk of the works, I see,' he observed.

'Nominally I have, but practically I haven't.'

'Then why do you keep him?'

'I can't help myself. He is Mr. Dare; and having been
recommended by a higher power than I, there he must stay in
spite of me.'

'Who recommended him?'

'The same--De Stancy.'

'It is very odd,' murmured Somerset, 'but that young man is
the object of my visit.'

'You had better leave him alone,' said Havill drily.

Somerset asked why.

'Since I call no man master over that way I will inform you.'
Havill then related in splenetic tones, to which Somerset did
not care to listen till the story began to advance itself, how
he had passed the night with Dare at the inn, and the
incidents of that night, relating how he had seen some letters
on the young man's breast which long had puzzled him. 'They
were an E, a T, an N, and a C. I thought over them long, till
it eventually occurred to me that the word when filled out was
"De Stancy," and that kinship explains the offensive and
defensive alliance between them.'

'But, good heavens, man!' said Somerset, more and more
disturbed. 'Does she know of it?'

'You may depend she does not yet; but she will soon enough.
Hark--there it is!' The notes of the castle clock were heard
striking noon. 'Then it is all over.'

'What?--not their marriage!'

'Yes. Didn't you know it was the wedding day? They were to
be at the church at half-past eleven. I should have waited to
see her go, but it was no sight to hinder business for, as she
was only going to drive over in her brougham with Miss De
Stancy.'

'My errand has failed!' said Somerset, turning on his heel.
'I'll walk back to the town with you.'

However he did not walk far with Havill; society was too much
at that moment. As soon as opportunity offered he branched
from the road by a path, and avoiding the town went by railway
to Budmouth, whence he resumed, by the night steamer, his
journey to Normandy

XIII.

To return to Charlotte De Stancy. When the train had borne
Somerset from her side, and she had regained her self-
possession, she became conscious of the true proportions of
the fact he had asserted. And, further, if the telegram had
not been his, why should the photographic distortion be
trusted as a phase of his existence? But after a while it
seemed so improbable to her that God's sun should bear false
witness, that instead of doubting both evidences she was
inclined to readmit the first. Still, upon the whole, she
could not question for long the honesty of Somerset's denial
and if that message had indeed been sent by him, it must have
been done while he was in another such an unhappy state as
that exemplified by the portrait. The supposition reconciled
all differences; and yet she could not but fight against it
with all the strength of a generous affection.

All the afternoon her poor little head was busy on this
perturbing question, till she inquired of herself whether
after all it might not be possible for photographs to
represent people as they had never been. Before rejecting the
hypothesis she determined to have the word of a professor on
the point, which would be better than all her surmises.
Returning to Markton early, she told the coachman whom Paula
had sent, to drive her to the shop of Mr. Ray, an obscure
photographic artist in that town, instead of straight home.

Ray's establishment consisted of two divisions, the
respectable and the shabby. If, on entering the door, the
visitor turned to the left, he found himself in a magazine of
old clothes, old furniture, china, umbrellas, guns, fishing-
rods, dirty fiddles, and split flutes. Entering the right-
hand room, which had originally been that of an independent
house, he was in an ordinary photographer's and print-
collector's depository, to which a certain artistic solidity
was imparted by a few oil paintings in the background.
Charlotte made for the latter department, and when she was
inside Mr. Ray appeared in person from the lumber-shop
adjoining, which, despite its manginess, contributed by far
the greater share to his income.

Charlotte put her question simply enough. The man did not
answer her directly, but soon found that she meant no harm to
him. He told her that such misrepresentations were quite
possible, and that they embodied a form of humour which was
getting more and more into vogue among certain facetious
persons of society.

Charlotte was coming away when she asked, as on second
thoughts, if he had any specimens of such work to show her.

'None of my own preparation,' said Mr. Ray, with unimpeachable
probity of tone. 'I consider them libellous myself. Still, I
have one or two samples by me, which I keep merely as
curiosities.--There's one,' he said, throwing out a portrait
card from a drawer. 'That represents the German Emperor in a
violent passion: this one shows the Prime Minister out of his
mind; this the Pope of Rome the worse for liquor.'

She inquired if he had any local specimens.

'Yes,' he said, 'but I prefer not to exhibit them unless you
really ask for a particular one that you mean to buy.'

'I don't want any.'

'O, I beg pardon, miss. Well, I shouldn't myself own such
things were produced, if there had not been a young man here
at one time who was very ingenious in these matters--a Mr.
Dare. He was quite a gent, and only did it as an amusement,
and not for the sake of getting a living.'

Charlotte had no wish to hear more. On her way home she burst
into tears: the entanglement was altogether too much for her
to tear asunder, even had not her own instincts been urging
her two ways, as they were.

To immediately right Somerset's wrong was her impetuous desire
as an honest woman who loved him; but such rectification would
be the jeopardizing of all else that gratified her--the
marriage of her brother with her dearest friend--now on the
very point of accomplishment. It was a marriage which seemed
to promise happiness, or at least comfort, if the old flutter
that had transiently disturbed Paula's bosom could be kept
from reviving, to which end it became imperative to hide from
her the discovery of injustice to Somerset. It involved the
advantage of leaving Somerset free; and though her own tender
interest in him had been too well schooled by habitual self-
denial to run ahead on vain personal hopes, there was nothing
more than human in her feeling pleasure in prolonging
Somerset's singleness. Paula might even be allowed to
discover his wrongs when her marriage had put him out of her
power. But to let her discover his ill-treatment now might
upset the impending union of the families, and wring her own
heart with the sight of Somerset married in her brother's
place.

Why Dare, or any other person, should have set himself to
advance her brother's cause by such unscrupulous blackening of
Somerset's character was more than her sagacity could fathom.
Her brother was, as far as she could see, the only man who
could directly profit by the machination, and was therefore
the natural one to suspect of having set it going. But she
would not be so disloyal as to entertain the thought long; and
who or what had instigated Dare, who was undoubtedly the
proximate cause of the mischief, remained to her an
inscrutable mystery.

The contention of interests and desires with honour in her
heart shook Charlotte all that night; but good principle
prevailed. The wedding was to be solemnized the very next
morning, though for before-mentioned reasons this was hardly
known outside the two houses interested; and there were no
visible preparations either at villa or castle. De Stancy and
his groomsman--a brother officer--slept at the former
residence.

De Stancy was a sorry specimen of a bridegroom when he met his
sister in the morning. Thick-coming fancies, for which there
was more than good reason, had disturbed him only too
successfully, and he was as full of apprehension as one who
has a league with Mephistopheles. Charlotte told him nothing
of what made her likewise so wan and anxious, but drove off to
the castle, as had been planned, about nine o'clock, leaving
her brother and his friend at the breakfast-table.

That clearing Somerset's reputation from the stain which had
been thrown on it would cause a sufficient reaction in Paula's
mind to dislocate present arrangements she did not so
seriously anticipate, now that morning had a little calmed
her. Since the rupture with her former architect Paula had
sedulously kept her own counsel, but Charlotte assumed from
the ease with which she seemed to do it that her feelings
towards him had never been inconveniently warm; and she hoped
that Paula would learn of Somerset's purity with merely the
generous pleasure of a friend, coupled with a friend's
indignation against his traducer.

Still, the possibility existed of stronger emotions, and it
was only too evident to poor Charlotte that, knowing this, she
had still less excuse for delaying the intelligence till the
strongest emotion would be purposeless.

On approaching the castle the first object that caught her eye
was Dare, standing beside Havill on the scaffolding of the new
wing. He was looking down upon the drive and court, as if in
anticipation of the event. His contiguity flurried her, and
instead of going straight to Paula she sought out Mrs.
Goodman.

'You are come early; that's right!' said the latter. 'You
might as well have slept here last night. We have only Mr.
Wardlaw, the London lawyer you have heard of, in the house.
Your brother's solicitor was here yesterday; but he returned
to Markton for the night. We miss Mr. Power so much--it is so
unfortunate that he should have been obliged to go abroad, and
leave us unprotected women with so much responsibility.'

'Yes, I know,' said Charlotte quickly, having a shy distaste
for the details of what troubled her so much in the gross.

'Paula has inquired for you.'

'What is she doing?'

'She is in her room: she has not begun to dress yet. Will
you go to her?'

Charlotte assented. 'I have to tell her something,' she said,
'which will make no difference, but which I should like her to
know this morning--at once. I have discovered that we have
been entirely mistaken about Mr. Somerset.' She nerved
herself to relate succinctly what had come to her knowledge
the day before.

Mrs. Goodman was much impressed. She had never clearly heard
before what circumstances had attended the resignation of
Paula's architect. 'We had better not tell her till the
wedding is over,' she presently said; 'it would only disturb
her, and do no good.'

'But will it be right?' asked Miss De Stancy.

'Yes, it will be right if we tell her afterwards. O yes--it
must be right,' she repeated in a tone which showed that her
opinion was unstable enough to require a little fortification
by the voice. 'She loves your brother; she must, since she is
going to marry him; and it can make little difference whether
we rehabilitate the character of a friend now, or some few
hours hence. The author of those wicked tricks on Mr.
Somerset ought not to go a moment unpunished.'

'That's what I think; and what right have we to hold our
tongues even for a few hours?'

Charlotte found that by telling Mrs. Goodman she had simply
made two irresolute people out of one, and as Paula was now
inquiring for her, she went upstairs without having come to
any decision.

XIV.

Paula was in her boudoir, writing down some notes previous to
beginning her wedding toilet, which was designed to harmonize
with the simplicity that characterized the other arrangements.
She owned that it was depriving the neighbourhood of a pageant
which it had a right to expect of her; but the circumstance
was inexorable.

Mrs. Goodman entered Paula's room immediately behind
Charlotte. Perhaps the only difference between the Paula of
to-day and the Paula of last year was an accession of
thoughtfulness, natural to the circumstances in any case, and
more particularly when, as now, the bride's isolation made
self-dependence a necessity. She was sitting in a light
dressing-gown, and her face, which was rather pale, flushed at
the entrance of Charlotte and her aunt.

'I knew you were come,' she said, when Charlotte stooped and
kissed her. 'I heard you. I have done nothing this morning,
and feel dreadfully unsettled. Is all well?'

The question was put without thought, but its aptness seemed
almost to imply an intuitive knowledge of their previous
conversation. 'Yes,' said Charlotte tardily.

'Well, now, Clementine shall dress you, and I can do with
Milly,' continued Paula. 'Come along. Well, aunt--what's the
matter?--and you, Charlotte? You look harassed.'

'I have not slept well,' said Charlotte.

'And have not you slept well either, aunt? You said nothing
about it at breakfast.'

'O, it is nothing,' said Mrs. Goodman quickly. 'I have been
disturbed by learning of somebody's villainy. I am going to
tell you all some time to-day, but it is not important enough
to disturb you with now.'

'No mystery!' argued Paula. 'Come! it is not fair.'

'I don't think it is quite fair,' said Miss De Stancy, looking
from one to the other in some distress. 'Mrs. Goodman--I must
tell her! Paula, Mr. Som--'

'He's dead!' cried Paula, sinking into a chair and turning as
pale as marble. 'Is he dead?--tell me!' she whispered.

'No, no--he's not dead--he is very well, and gone to Normandy
for a holiday!'

'O--I am glad to hear it,' answered Paula, with a sudden cool
mannerliness.

'He has been misrepresented,' said Mrs. Goodman. 'That's
all.'

'Well?' said Paula, with her eyes bent on the floor.

'I have been feeling that I ought to tell you clearly, dear
Paula,' declared her friend. 'It is absolutely false about
his telegraphing to you for money--it is absolutely false that
his character is such as that dreadful picture represented it.
There--that's the substance of it, and I can tell you
particulars at any time.'

But Paula would not be told at any time. A dreadful sorrow
sat in her face; she insisted upon learning everything about
the matter there and then, and there was no withstanding her.

When it was all explained she said in a low tone: 'It is that
pernicious, evil man Dare--yet why is it he?--what can he have
meant by it! Justice before generosity, even on one's
wedding-day. Before I become any man's wife this morning I'll
see that wretch in jail! The affair must be sifted. . . . O,
it was a wicked thing to serve anybody so!--I'll send for
Cunningham Haze this moment--the culprit is even now on the
premises, I believe--acting as clerk of the works!' The
usually well-balanced Paula was excited, and scarcely knowing
what she did went to the bell-pull.

'Don't act hastily, Paula,' said her aunt. 'Had you not
better consult Sir William? He will act for you in this.'

'Yes--He is coming round in a few minutes,' said Charlotte,
jumping at this happy thought of Mrs. Goodman's. 'He's going
to run across to see how you are getting on. He will be here
by ten.'

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