Anatole France - "The Red Lily, v1"

Hector Malot - "Conscience, v3"

C. E. Orr - "How to Live a Holy Life"

Carolyn Wells - "Patty's Butterfly Days"

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.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: A Laodicean

T >> Thomas Hardy >> A Laodicean




'Yes--he promised last night.'

She had scarcely done speaking when the prancing of a horse
was heard in the ward below, and in a few minutes a servant
announced Sir William De Stancy.

De Stancy entered saying, 'I have ridden across for ten
minutes, as I said I would do, to know if everything is easy
and straightforward for you. There will be time enough for me
to get back and prepare if I start shortly. Well?'

'I am ruffled,' said Paula, allowing him to take her hand.

'What is it?' said her betrothed.

As Paula did not immediately answer Mrs. Goodman beckoned to
Charlotte, and they left the room together.

'A man has to be given in charge, or a boy, or a demon,' she
replied. 'I was going to do it, but you can do it better than
I. He will run away if we don't mind.'

'But, my dear Paula, who is it?--what has he done?'

'It is Dare--that young man you see out there against the
sky.' She looked from the window sideways towards the new
wing, on the roof of which Dare was walking prominently about,
after having assisted two of the workmen in putting a red
streamer on the tallest scaffold-pole. 'You must send
instantly for Mr. Cunningham Haze!'

'My dearest Paula,' repeated De Stancy faintly, his complexion
changing to that of a man who had died.

'Please send for Mr. Haze at once,' returned Paula, with
graceful firmness. 'I said I would be just to a wronged man
before I was generous to you--and I will. That lad Dare--to
take a practical view of it--has attempted to defraud me of
one hundred pounds sterling, and he shall suffer. I won't
tell you what he has done besides, for though it is worse, it
is less tangible. When he is handcuffed and sent off to jail
I'll proceed with my dressing. Will you ring the bell?'

'Had you not better consider?' began De Stancy.

'Consider!' said Paula, with indignation. 'I have considered.
Will you kindly ring, Sir William, and get Thomas to ride at
once to Mr. Haze? Or must I rise from this chair and do it
myself?'

'You are very hasty and abrupt this morning, I think,' he
faltered.

Paula rose determinedly from the chair. 'Since you won't do
it, I must,' she said.

'No, dearest!--Let me beg you not to!'

'Sir William De Stancy!'

She moved towards the bell-pull; but he stepped before and
intercepted her.

'You must not ring the bell for that purpose,' he said with
husky deliberateness, looking into the depths of her face.

'It wants two hours to the time when you might have a right to
express such a command as that,' she said haughtily.

'I certainly have not the honour to be your husband yet,' he
sadly replied, 'but surely you can listen? There exist
reasons against giving this boy in charge which I could easily
get you to admit by explanation; but I would rather, without
explanation, have you take my word, when I say that by doing
so you are striking a blow against both yourself and me.'

Paula, however, had rung the bell.

'You are jealous of somebody or something perhaps!' she said,
in tones which showed how fatally all this was telling against
the intention of that day. 'I will not be a party to
baseness, if it is to save all my fortune!'

The bell was answered quickly. But De Stancy, though plainly
in great misery, did not give up his point. Meeting the
servant at the door before he could enter the room he said.
'It is nothing; you can go again.'

Paula looked at the unhappy baronet in amazement; then turning
to the servant, who stood with the door in his hand, said,
'Tell Thomas to saddle the chestnut, and--'

'It's all a mistake,' insisted De Stancy. 'Leave the room,
James!'

James looked at his mistress.

'Yes, James, leave the room,' she calmly said, sitting down.
'Now what have you to say?' she asked, when they were again
alone. 'Why must I not issue orders in my own house? Who is
this young criminal, that you value his interests higher than
my honour? I have delayed for one moment sending my messenger
to the chief constable to hear your explanation--only for
that.'

'You will still persevere?'

'Certainly. Who is he?'

'Paula. . . he is my son.'

She remained still as death while one might count ten; then
turned her back upon him. 'I think you had better go away,'
she whispered. 'You need not come again.'

He did not move. 'Paula--do you indeed mean this?' he asked.

'I do.'

De Stancy walked a few paces, then said in a low voice: 'Miss
Power, I knew--I guessed just now, as soon as it began--that
we were going to split on this rock. Well--let it be--it
cannot be helped; destiny is supreme. The boy was to be my
ruin; he is my ruin, and rightly. But before I go grant me
one request. Do not prosecute him. Believe me, I will do
everything I can to get him out of your way. He shall annoy
you no more. . . . Do you promise?'

'I do,' she said. 'Now please leave me.'

'Once more--am I to understand that no marriage is to take
place to-day between you and me?'

'You are.'

Sir William De Stancy left the room. It was noticeable
throughout the interview that his manner had not been the
manner of a man altogether taken by surprise. During the few
preceding days his mood had been that of the gambler seasoned
in ill-luck, who adopts pessimist surmises as a safe
background to his most sanguine hopes.

She remained alone for some time. Then she rang, and
requested that Mr. Wardlaw, her father's solicitor and friend,
would come up to her. A messenger was despatched, not to Mr.
Cunningham Haze, but to the parson of the parish, who in his
turn sent to the clerk and clerk's wife, then busy in the
church. On receipt of the intelligence the two latter
functionaries proceeded to roll up the carpet which had been
laid from the door to the gate, put away the kneeling-
cushions, locked the doors, and went off to inquire the reason
of so strange a countermand. It was soon proclaimed in
Markton that the marriage had been postponed for a fortnight
in consequence of the bride's sudden indisposition: and less
public emotion was felt than the case might have drawn forth,
from the ignorance of the majority of the populace that a
wedding had been going to take place at all.

Meanwhile Miss De Stancy had been closeted with Paula for more
than an hour. It was a difficult meeting, and a severe test
to any friendship but that of the most sterling sort. In the
turmoil of her distraction Charlotte had the consolation of
knowing that if her act of justice to Somerset at such a
moment were the act of a simpleton, it was the only course
open to honesty. But Paula's cheerful serenity in some
measure laid her own troubles to rest, till they were
reawakened by a rumour--which got wind some weeks later, and
quite drowned all other surprises--of the true relation
between the vanished clerk of works, Mr. Dare, and the fallen
family of De Stancy.




BOOK THE SIXTH. PAULA.


I.

'I have decided that I cannot see Sir William again: I shall
go away,' said Paula on the evening of the next day, as she
lay on her bed in a flushed and highly-strung condition,
though a person who had heard her words without seeing her
face would have assumed perfect equanimity to be the mood
which expressed itself with such quietness. This was the case
with her aunt, who was looking out of the window at some
idlers from Markton walking round the castle with their eyes
bent upon its windows, and she made no haste to reply.

'Those people have come to see me, as they have a right to do
when a person acts so strangely,' Paula continued. 'And hence
I am better away.'

'Where do you think to go to?'

Paula replied in the tone of one who was actuated entirely by
practical considerations: 'Out of England certainly. And as
Normandy lies nearest, I think I shall go there. It is a very
nice country to ramble in.'

'Yes, it is a very nice country to ramble in,' echoed her
aunt, in moderate tones. 'When do you intend to start?'

'I should like to cross to-night. You must go with me, aunt;
will you not?'

Mrs. Goodman expostulated against such suddenness. 'It will
redouble the rumours that are afloat, if, after being supposed
ill, you are seen going off by railway perfectly well.'

'That's a contingency which I am quite willing to run the risk
of. Well, it would be rather sudden, as you say, to go to-
night. But we'll go to-morrow night at latest.' Under the
influence of the decision she bounded up like an elastic ball
and went to the glass, which showed a light in her eye that
had not been there before this resolution to travel in
Normandy had been taken.

The evening and the next morning were passed in writing a
final and kindly note of dismissal to Sir William De Stancy,
in making arrangements for the journey, and in commissioning
Havill to take advantage of their absence by emptying certain
rooms of their furniture, and repairing their dilapidations--a
work which, with that in hand, would complete the section for
which he had been engaged. Mr. Wardlaw had left the castle;
so also had Charlotte, by her own wish, her residence there
having been found too oppressive to herself to be continued
for the present. Accompanied by Mrs. Goodman, Milly, and
Clementine, the elderly French maid, who still remained with
them, Paula drove into Markton in the twilight and took the
train to Budmouth.

When they got there they found that an unpleasant breeze was
blowing out at sea, though inland it had been calm enough.
Mrs. Goodman proposed to stay at Budmouth till the next day,
in hope that there might be smooth water; but an English
seaport inn being a thing that Paula disliked more than a
rough passage, she would not listen to this counsel. Other
impatient reasons, too, might have weighed with her. When
night came their looming miseries began. Paula found that in
addition to her own troubles she had those of three other
people to support; but she did not audibly complain.

'Paula, Paula,' said Mrs. Goodman from beneath her load of
wretchedness, 'why did we think of undergoing this?'

A slight gleam of humour crossed Paula's not particularly
blooming face, as she answered, 'Ah, why indeed?'

'What is the real reason, my dear? For God's sake tell me!'

'It begins with S.'

'Well, I would do anything for that young man short of
personal martyrdom; but really when it comes to that--'

'Don't criticize me, auntie, and I won't criticize you.'

'Well, I am open to criticism just now, I am sure,' said her
aunt, with a green smile; and speech was again discontinued.

The morning was bright and beautiful, and it could again be
seen in Paula's looks that she was glad she had come, though,
in taking their rest at Cherbourg, fate consigned them to an
hotel breathing an atmosphere that seemed specially compounded
for depressing the spirits of a young woman; indeed nothing
had particularly encouraged her thus far in her somewhat
peculiar scheme of searching out and expressing sorrow to a
gentleman for having believed those who traduced him; and this
coup d'audace to which she had committed herself began to look
somewhat formidable. When in England the plan of following
him to Normandy had suggested itself as the quickest,
sweetest, and most honest way of making amends; but having
arrived there she seemed further off from his sphere of
existence than when she had been at Stancy Castle. Virtually
she was, for if he thought of her at all, he probably thought
of her there; if he sought her he would seek her there.
However, as he would probably never do the latter, it was
necessary to go on. It had been her sudden dream before
starting, to light accidentally upon him in some romantic old
town of this romantic old province, but she had become aware
that the recorded fortune of lovers in that respect was not to
be trusted too implicitly.

Somerset's search for her in the south was now inversely
imitated. By diligent inquiry in Cherbourg during the gloom
of evening, in the disguise of a hooded cloak, she learnt out
the place of his stay while there, and that he had gone thence
to Lisieux. What she knew of the architectural character of
Lisieux half guaranteed the truth of the information. Without
telling her aunt of this discovery she announced to that lady
that it was her great wish to go on and see the beauties of
Lisieux.

But though her aunt was simple, there were bounds to her
simplicity. 'Paula,' she said, with an undeceivable air, 'I
don't think you should run after a young man like this.
Suppose he shouldn't care for you by this time.'

It was no occasion for further affectation. 'I am SURE he
will,' answered her niece flatly. 'I have not the least fear
about it--nor would you, if you knew how he is. He will
forgive me anything.'

'Well, pray don't show yourself forward. Some people are apt
to fly into extremes.'

Paula blushed a trifle, and reflected, and made no answer.
However, her purpose seemed not to be permanently affected,
for the next morning she was up betimes and preparing to
depart; and they proceeded almost without stopping to the
architectural curiosity-town which had so quickly interested
her. Nevertheless her ardent manner of yesterday underwent a
considerable change, as if she had a fear that, as her aunt
suggested, in her endeavour to make amends for cruel
injustice, she was allowing herself to be carried too far.

On nearing the place she said, 'Aunt, I think you had better
call upon him; and you need not tell him we have come on
purpose. Let him think, if he will, that we heard he was
here, and would not leave without seeing him. You can also
tell him that I am anxious to clear up a misunderstanding, and
ask him to call at our hotel.'

But as she looked over the dreary suburban erections which
lined the road from the railway to the old quarter of the
town, it occurred to her that Somerset would at that time of
day be engaged in one or other of the mediaeval buildings
thereabout, and that it would be a much neater thing to meet
him as if by chance in one of these edifices than to call upon
him anywhere. Instead of putting up at any hotel, they left
the maids and baggage at the station; and hiring a carriage,
Paula told the coachman to drive them to such likely places as
she could think of.

'He'll never forgive you,' said her aunt, as they rumbled into
the town.

'Won't he?' said Paula, with soft faith. 'I'll see about
that.'

'What are you going to do when you find him? Tell him point-
blank that you are in love with him?'

'Act in such a manner that he may tell me he is in love with
me.'

They first visited a large church at the upper end of a square
that sloped its gravelled surface to the western shine, and
was pricked out with little avenues of young pollard limes.
The church within was one to make any Gothic architect take
lodgings in its vicinity for a fortnight, though it was just
now crowded with a forest of scaffolding for repairs in
progress. Mrs. Goodman sat down outside, and Paula, entering,
took a walk in the form of a horse-shoe; that is, up the south
aisle, round the apse, and down the north side; but no figure
of a melancholy young man sketching met her eye anywhere. The
sun that blazed in at the west doorway smote her face as she
emerged from beneath it and revealed real sadness there.

'This is not all the old architecture of the town by far,' she
said to her aunt with an air of confidence. 'Coachman, drive
to St. Jacques'.'

He was not at St. Jacques'. Looking from the west end of that
building the girl observed the end of a steep narrow street of
antique character, which seemed a likely haunt. Beckoning to
her aunt to follow in the fly Paula walked down the street.

She was transported to the Middle Ages. It contained the
shops of tinkers, braziers, bellows-menders, hollow-turners,
and other quaintest trades, their fronts open to the street
beneath stories of timber overhanging so far on each side that
a slit of sky was left at the top for the light to descend,
and no more. A blue misty obscurity pervaded the atmosphere,
into which the sun thrust oblique staves of light. It was a
street for a mediaevalist to revel in, toss up his hat and
shout hurrah in, send for his luggage, come and live in, die
and be buried in. She had never supposed such a street to
exist outside the imaginations of antiquarians. Smells direct
from the sixteenth century hung in the air in all their
original integrity and without a modern taint. The faces of
the people in the doorways seemed those of individuals who
habitually gazed on the great Francis, and spoke of Henry the
Eighth as the king across the sea.

She inquired of a coppersmith if an English artist had been
seen here lately. With a suddenness that almost discomfited
her he announced that such a man had been seen, sketching a
house just below--the 'Vieux Manoir de Francois premier.'
Just turning to see that her aunt was following in the fly,
Paula advanced to the house. The wood framework of the lower
story was black and varnished; the upper story was brown and
not varnished; carved figures of dragons, griffins, satyrs,
and mermaids swarmed over the front; an ape stealing apples
was the subject of this cantilever, a man undressing of that.
These figures were cloaked with little cobwebs which waved in
the breeze, so that each figure seemed alive.

She examined the woodwork closely; here and there she
discerned pencil-marks which had no doubt been jotted thereon
by Somerset as points of admeasurement, in the way she had
seen him mark them at the castle. Some fragments of paper lay
below: there were pencilled lines on them, and they bore a
strong resemblance to a spoilt leaf of Somerset's sketch-book.
Paula glanced up, and from a window above protruded an old
woman's head, which, with the exception of the white
handkerchief tied round it, was so nearly of the colour of the
carvings that she might easily have passed as of a piece with
them. The aged woman continued motionless, the remains of her
eyes being bent upon Paula, who asked her in Englishwoman's
French where the sketcher had gone. Without replying, the
crone produced a hand and extended finger from her side, and
pointed towards the lower end of the street.

Paula went on, the carriage following with difficulty, on
account of the obstructions in the thoroughfare. At bottom,
the street abutted on a wide one with customary modern life
flowing through it; and as she looked, Somerset crossed her
front along this street, hurrying as if for a wager.

By the time that Paula had reached the bottom Somerset was a
long way to the left, and she recognized to her dismay that
the busy transverse street was one which led to the railway.
She quickened her pace to a run; he did not see her; he even
walked faster. She looked behind for the carriage. The
driver in emerging from the sixteenth-century street to the
nineteenth had apparently turned to the right, instead of to
the left as she had done, so that her aunt had lost sight of
her. However, she dare not mind it, if Somerset would but
look back! He partly turned, but not far enough, and it was
only to hail a passing omnibus upon which she discerned his
luggage. Somerset jumped in, the omnibus drove on, and
diminished up the long road. Paula stood hopelessly still,
and in a few minutes puffs of steam showed her that the train
had gone.

She turned and waited, the two or three children who had
gathered round her looking up sympathizingly in her face. Her
aunt, having now discovered the direction of her flight, drove
up and beckoned to her.

'What's the matter?' asked Mrs. Goodman in alarm.

'Why?'

'That you should run like that, and look so woebegone.'

'Nothing: only I have decided not to stay in this town.'

'What! he is gone, I suppose?'

'Yes!' exclaimed Paula, with tears of vexation in her eyes.
'It isn't every man who gets a woman of my position to run
after him on foot, and alone, and he ought to have looked
round! Drive to the station; I want to make an inquiry.'

On reaching the station she asked the booking-clerk some
questions, and returned to her aunt with a cheerful
countenance. 'Mr. Somerset has only gone to Caen,' she said.
'He is the only Englishman who went by this train, so there is
no mistake. There is no other train for two hours. We will
go on then--shall we?'

'I am indifferent,' said Mrs. Goodman. 'But, Paula, do you
think this quite right? Perhaps he is not so anxious for your
forgiveness as you think. Perhaps he saw you, and wouldn't
stay.'

A momentary dismay crossed her face, but it passed, and she
answered, 'Aunt, that's nonsense. I know him well enough, and
can assure you that if he had only known I was running after
him, he would have looked round sharply enough, and would have
given his little finger rather than have missed me! I don't
make myself so silly as to run after a gentleman without good
grounds, for I know well that it is an undignified thing to
do. Indeed, I could never have thought of doing it, if I had
not been so miserably in the wrong!'



II.

That evening when the sun was dropping out of sight they
started for the city of Somerset's pilgrimage. Paula seated
herself with her face toward the western sky, watching from
her window the broad red horizon, across which moved thin
poplars lopped to human shapes, like the walking forms in
Nebuchadnezzar's furnace. It was dark when the travellers
drove into Caen.

She still persisted in her wish to casually encounter Somerset
in some aisle, lady-chapel, or crypt to which he might have
betaken himself to copy and learn the secret of the great
artists who had erected those nooks. Mrs. Goodman was for
discovering his inn, and calling upon him in a straightforward
way; but Paula seemed afraid of it, and they went out in the
morning on foot. First they searched the church of St.
Sauveur; he was not there; next the church of St. Jean; then
the church of St. Pierre; but he did not reveal himself, nor
had any verger seen or heard of such a man. Outside the
latter church was a public flower-garden, and she sat down to
consider beside a round pool in which water-lilies grew and
gold-fish swam, near beds of fiery geraniums, dahlias, and
verbenas just past their bloom. Her enterprise had not been
justified by its results so far; but meditation still urged
her to listen to the little voice within and push on. She
accordingly rejoined her aunt, and they drove up the hill to
the Abbaye aux Dames, the day by this time having grown hot
and oppressive.

The church seemed absolutely empty, the void being emphasized
by its grateful coolness. But on going towards the east end
they perceived a bald gentleman close to the screen, looking
to the right and to the left as if much perplexed. Paula
merely glanced over him, his back being toward her, and
turning to her aunt said softly, 'I wonder how we get into the
choir?'

'That's just what I am wondering,' said the old gentleman,
abruptly facing round, and Paula discovered that the
countenance was not unfamiliar to her eye. Since knowing
Somerset she had added to her gallery of celebrities a
photograph of his father, the Academician, and he it was now
who confronted her.

For the moment embarrassment, due to complicated feelings,
brought a slight blush to her cheek, but being well aware that
he did not know her, she answered, coolly enough, 'I suppose
we must ask some one.'

'And we certainly would if there were any one to ask,' he
said, still looking eastward, and not much at her. 'I have
been here a long time, but nobody comes. Not that I want to
get in on my own account; for though it is thirty years since
I last set foot in this place, I remember it as if it were but
yesterday.'

'Indeed. I have never been here before,' said Paula.

'Naturally. But I am looking for a young man who is making
sketches in some of these buildings, and it is as likely as
not that he is in the crypt under this choir, for it is just
such out-of-the-way nooks that he prefers. It is very
provoking that he should not have told me more distinctly in
his letter where to find him.'

Mrs. Goodman, who had gone to make inquiries, now came back,
and informed them that she had learnt that it was necessary to
pass through the Hotel-Dieu to the choir, to do which they
must go outside. Thereupon they walked on together, and Mr.
Somerset, quite ignoring his troubles, made remarks upon the
beauty of the architecture; and in absence of mind, by reason
either of the subject, or of his listener, retained his hat in
his hand after emerging from the church, while they walked all
the way across the Place and into the Hospital gardens.

'A very civil man,' said Mrs. Goodman to Paula privately.

'Yes,' said Paula, who had not told her aunt that she
recognized him.

One of the Sisters now preceded them towards the choir and
crypt, Mr. Somerset asking her if a young Englishman was or
had been sketching there. On receiving a reply in the
negative, Paula nearly betrayed herself by turning, as if her
business there, too, ended with the information. However, she
went on again, and made a pretence of looking round, Mr.
Somerset also staying in a spirit of friendly attention to his
countrywomen. They did not part from him till they had come
out from the crypt, and again reached the west front, on their
way to which he additionally explained that it was his son he
was looking for, who had arranged to meet him here, but had
mentioned no inn at which he might be expected.