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Books: A Laodicean

T >> Thomas Hardy >> A Laodicean




'There is nothing I shall value so much as that. It will make
my work at the castle very pleasant to feel that I can consult
you about it without fear of intruding on you against your
wishes.'

'Yes, perhaps it will. But--you do not comprehend me.'

'You have been an enigma always.'

'And you have been provoking; but never so provoking as now.
I wouldn't for the world tell you the whole of my fancies as I
came hither this evening: but I should think your natural
intuition would suggest what they were.'

'It does, Paula. But there are motives of delicacy which
prevent my acting on what is suggested to me.'

'Delicacy is a gift, and you should thank God for it; but in
some cases it is not so precious as we would persuade
ourselves.'

'Not when the woman is rich, and the man is poor?'

'O, George Somerset--be cold, or angry, or anything, but don't
be like this! It is never worth a woman's while to show
regret for her injustice; for all she gets by it is an
accusation of want of delicacy.'

'Indeed I don't accuse you of that--I warmly, tenderly thank
you for your kindness in coming here to see me.'

'Well, perhaps you do. But I am now in I cannot tell what
mood--I will not tell what mood, for it would be confessing
more than I ought. This finding you out is a piece of
weakness that I shall not repeat; and I have only one thing
more to say. I have served you badly, George, I know that;
but it is never too late to mend; and I have come back to you.
However, I shall never run after you again, trust me for that,
for it is not the woman's part. Still, before I go, that
there may be no mistake as to my meaning, and misery entailed
on us for want of a word, I'll add this: that if you want to
marry me, as you once did, you must say so; for I am here to
be asked.'

It would be superfluous to transcribe Somerset's reply, and
the remainder of the scene between the pair. Let it suffice
that half-an-hour afterwards, when the sun had almost gone
down, Paula walked briskly into the hotel, troubled herself
nothing about dinner, but went upstairs to their sitting-room,
where her aunt presently found her upon the couch looking up
at the ceiling through her fingers. They talked on different
subjects for some time till the old lady said 'Mr. Somerset's
cottage is the one covered with flowers up the lane, I hear.'

'Yes,' said Paula.

'How do you know?'

'I've been there. . . . We are going to be married, aunt.'

'Indeed!' replied Mrs. Goodman. 'Well, I thought this might
be the end of it: you were determined on the point; and I am
not much surprised at your news. Your father was very wise
after all in entailing everything so strictly upon your
offspring; for if he had not I should have been driven wild
with the responsibility!'

'And now that the murder is out,' continued Paula, passing
over that view of the case, 'I don't mind telling you that
somehow or other I have got to like George Somerset as
desperately as a woman can care for any man. I thought I
should have died when I saw him dancing, and feared I had lost
him! He seemed ten times nicer than ever then! So silly we
women are, that I wouldn't marry a duke in preference to him.
There, that's my honest feeling, and you must make what you
can of it; my conscience is clear, thank Heaven!'

'Have you fixed the day?'

'No,' continued the young lady, still watching the sleeping
flies on the ceiling. 'It is left unsettled between us, while
I come and ask you if there would be any harm--if it could
conveniently be before we return to England?'

'Paula, this is too precipitate!'

'On the contrary, aunt. In matrimony, as in some other
things, you should be slow to decide, but quick to execute.
Nothing on earth would make me marry another man; I know every
fibre of his character; and he knows a good many fibres of
mine; so as there is nothing more to be learnt, why shouldn't
we marry at once? On one point I am firm: I will never
return to that castle as Miss Power. A nameless dread comes
over me when I think of it--a fear that some uncanny influence
of the dead De Stancys would drive me again from him. O, if
it were to do that,' she murmured, burying her face in her
hands, 'I really think it would be more than I could bear!'

'Very well,' said Mrs. Goodman; 'we will see what can be done.
I will write to Mr. Wardlaw.'



IV.

On a windy afternoon in November, when more than two months
had closed over the incidents previously recorded, a number of
farmers were sitting in a room of the Lord-Quantock-Arms Inn,
Markton, that was used for the weekly ordinary. It was a
long, low apartment, formed by the union of two or three
smaller rooms, with a bow-window looking upon the street, and
at the present moment was pervaded by a blue fog from tobacco-
pipes, and a temperature like that of a kiln. The body of
farmers who still sat on there was greater than usual, owing
to the cold air without, the tables having been cleared of
dinner for some time and their surface stamped with liquid
circles by the feet of the numerous glasses.

Besides the farmers there were present several professional
men of the town, who found it desirable to dine here on
market-days for the opportunity it afforded them of increasing
their practice among the agriculturists, many of whom were men
of large balances, even luxurious livers, who drove to market
in elegant phaetons drawn by horses of supreme blood, bone,
and action, in a style never anticipated by their fathers when
jogging thither in light carts, or afoot with a butter basket
on each arm.

The buzz of groggy conversation was suddenly impinged on by
the notes of a peal of bells from the tower hard by. Almost
at the same instant the door of the room opened, and there
entered the landlord of the little inn at Sleeping-Green.
Drawing his supply of cordials from this superior house, to
which he was subject, he came here at stated times like a
prebendary to the cathedral of his diocesan, afterwards
retailing to his own humbler audience the sentiments which he
had learnt of this. But curiosity being awakened by the
church bells the usual position was for the moment reversed,
and one of the farmers, saluting him by name, asked him the
reason of their striking up at that time of day.

'My mis'ess out yonder,' replied the rural landlord, nodding
sideways, 'is coming home with her fancy-man. They have been
a-gaying together this turk of a while in foreign parts--Here,
maid!--what with the wind, and standing about, my blood's as
low as water--bring us a thimbleful of that that isn't gin and
not far from it.'

'It is true, then, that she's become Mrs. Somerset?'
indifferently asked a farmer in broadcloth, tenant of an
estate in quite another direction than hers, as he
contemplated the grain of the table immediately surrounding
the foot of his glass.

'True--of course it is,' said Havill, who was also present, in
the tone of one who, though sitting in this rubicund company,
was not of it. 'I could have told you the truth of it any day
these last five weeks.'

Among those who had lent an ear was Dairyman Jinks, an old
gnarled character who wore a white fustian coat and yellow
leggings; the only man in the room who never dressed up in
dark clothes for marketing. He now asked, 'Married abroad,
was they? And how long will a wedding abroad stand good for
in this country?'

'As long as a wedding at home.'

'Will it? Faith; I didn't know: how should I? I thought it
might be some new plan o' folks for leasing women now they be
so plentiful, so as to get rid o' 'em when the men be tired o'
'em, and hev spent all their money.'

'He won't be able to spend her money,' said the landlord of
Sleeping-Green. ''Tis her very own person's--settled upon the
hairs of her head for ever.'

'O nation! Then if I were the man I shouldn't care for such a
one-eyed benefit as that,' said Dairyman Jinks, turning away
to listen to the talk on his other hand.

'Is that true?' asked the gentleman-farmer in broadcloth.

'It is sufficiently near the truth,' said Havill. 'There is
nothing at all unusual in the arrangement; it was only settled
so to prevent any schemer making a beggar of her. If Somerset
and she have any children, which probably they will, it will
be theirs; and what can a man want more? Besides, there is a
large portion of property left to her personal use--quite as
much as they can want. Oddly enough, the curiosities and
pictures of the castle which belonged to the De Stancys are
not restricted from sale; they are hers to do what she likes
with. Old Power didn't care for articles that reminded him so
much of his predecessors.'

'Hey?' said Dairyman Jinks, turning back again, having decided
that the conversation on his right hand was, after all, the
more interesting. 'Well--why can't 'em hire a travelling chap
to touch up the picters into her own gaffers and gammers?
Then they'd be worth sommat to her.'

'Ah, here they are? I thought so,' said Havill, who had been
standing up at the window for the last few moments. 'The
ringers were told to begin as soon as the train signalled.'

As he spoke a carriage drew up to the hotel-door, followed by
another with the maid and luggage. The inmates crowded to the
bow-window, except Dairyman Jinks, who had become absorbed in
his own reflections.

'What be they stopping here for?' asked one of the previous
speakers.

'They are going to stay here to-night,' said Havill. 'They
have come quite unexpectedly, and the castle is in such a
state of turmoil that there is not a single carpet down, or
room for them to use. We shall get two or three in order by
next week.'

'Two little people like them will be lost in the chammers of
that wandering place!' satirized Dairyman Jinks. 'They will
be bound to have a randy every fortnight to keep the moth out
of the furniture!'

By this time Somerset was handing out the wife of his bosom,
and Dairyman Jinks went on: 'That's no more Miss Power that
was, than my niece's daughter Kezia is Miss Power--in short it
is a different woman altogether!'

'There is no mistake about the woman,' said the landlord; 'it
is her fur clothes that make her look so like a caterpillar on
end. Well, she is not a bad bargain! As for Captain De
Stancy, he'll fret his gizzard green.'

'He's the man she ought to ha' married,' declared the farmer
in broadcloth. 'As the world goes she ought to have been Lady
De Stancy. She gave up her chapel-going, and you might have
thought she would have given up her first young man: but she
stuck to him, though by all accounts he would soon have been
interested in another party.'

''Tis woman's nature to be false except to a man, and man's
nature to be true except to a woman,' said the landlord of
Sleeping-Green. 'However, all's well that ends well, and I
have something else to think of than new-married couples;'
saying which the speaker moved off, and the others returned to
their seats, the young pair who had been their theme vanishing
through the hotel into some private paradise to rest and dine.

By this time their arrival had become known, and a crowd soon
gathered outside, acquiring audacity with continuance there.
Raising a hurrah, the group would not leave till Somerset had
showed himself on the balcony above; and then declined to go
away till Paula also had appeared; when, remarking that her
husband seemed a quiet young man enough, and would make a very
good borough member when their present one misbehaved himself,
the assemblage good-humouredly dispersed.



Among those whose ears had been reached by the hurrahs of
these idlers was a man in silence and solitude, far out of the
town. He was leaning over a gate that divided two meads in a
watery level between Stancy Castle and Markton. He turned his
head for a few seconds, then continued his contemplative gaze
towards the towers of the castle, visible over the trees as
far as was possible in the leaden gloom of the November eve.
The military form of the solitary lounger was recognizable as
that of Sir William De Stancy, notwithstanding the failing
light and his attitude of so resting his elbows on the gate
that his hands enclosed the greater part of his face.

The scene was inexpressibly cheerless. No other human
creature was apparent, and the only sounds audible above the
wind were those of the trickling streams which distributed the
water over the meadow. A heron had been standing in one of
these rivulets about twenty yards from the officer, and they
vied with each other in stillness till the bird suddenly rose
and flew off to the plantation in which it was his custom to
pass the night with others of his tribe. De Stancy saw the
heron rise, and seemed to imagine the creature's departure
without a supper to be owing to the increasing darkness; but
in another minute he became conscious that the heron had been
disturbed by sounds too distant to reach his own ears at the
time. They were nearer now, and there came along under the
hedge a young man known to De Stancy exceedingly well.

'Ah,' he said listlessly, 'you have ventured back.'

'Yes, captain. Why do you walk out here?'

'The bells began ringing because she and he were expected, and
my thoughts naturally dragged me this way. Thank Heaven the
battery leaves Markton in a few days, and then the precious
place will know me no more!'

'I have heard of it.' Turning to where the dim lines of the
castle rose he continued: 'Well, there it stands.'

'And I am not in it.'

'They are not in it yet either.'

'They soon will be.'

'Well--what tune is that you were humming, captain?'

'ALL IS LOST NOW,' replied the captain grimly.

'O no; you have got me, and I am a treasure to any man. I
have another match in my eye for you, and shall get you well
settled yet, if you keep yourself respectable. So thank God,
and take courage!'

'Ah, Will--you are a flippant young fool--wise in your own
conceit; I say it to my sorrow! 'Twas your dishonesty spoilt
all. That lady would have been my wife by fair dealing--time
was all I required. But base attacks on a man's character
never deserve to win, and if I had once been certain that you
had made them, my course would have been very different, both
towards you and others. But why should I talk to you about
this? If I cared an atom what becomes of you I would take you
in hand severely enough; not caring, I leave you alone, to go
to the devil your own way.'

'Thank you kindly, captain. Well, since you have spoken
plainly, I will do the same. We De Stancys are a worn-out old
party--that's the long and the short of it. We represent
conditions of life that have had their day--especially me.
Our one remaining chance was an alliance with new aristocrats;
and we have failed. We are past and done for. Our line has
had five hundred years of glory, and we ought to be content.
Enfin les renards se trouvent chez le pelletier.'

'Speak for yourself, young Consequence, and leave the
destinies of old families to respectable philosophers. This
fiasco is the direct result of evil conduct, and of nothing
else at all. I have managed badly; I countenanced you too
far. When I saw your impish tendencies I should have forsworn
the alliance.'

'Don't sting me, captain. What I have told you is true. As
for my conduct, cat will after kind, you know. You should
have held your tongue on the wedding morning, and have let me
take my chance.'

'Is that all I get for saving you from jail? Gad--I alone am
the sufferer, and feel I am alone the fool!. . . Come, off
with you--I never want to see you any more.'

'Part we will, then--till we meet again. It will be a light
night hereabouts, I think, this evening.'

'A very dark one for me.'

'Nevertheless, I think it will be a light night. Au revoir!'

Dare went his way, and after a while De Stancy went his. Both
were soon lost in the shades.



V.

The castle to-night was as gloomy as the meads. As Havill had
explained, the habitable rooms were just now undergoing a
scour, and the main block of buildings was empty even of the
few servants who had been retained, they having for comfort's
sake taken up their quarters in the detached rooms adjoining
the entrance archway. Hence not a single light shone from the
lonely windows, at which ivy leaves tapped like woodpeckers,
moved by gusts that were numerous and contrary rather than
violent. Within the walls all was silence, chaos, and
obscurity, till towards eleven o'clock, when the thick
immovable cloud that had dulled the daytime broke into a
scudding fleece, through which the moon forded her way as a
nebulous spot of watery white, sending light enough, though of
a rayless kind, into the castle chambers to show the confusion
that reigned there.

At this time an eye might have noticed a figure flitting in
and about those draughty apartments, and making no more noise
in so doing than a puff of wind. Its motion hither and
thither was rapid, but methodical, its bearing absorbed, yet
cautious. Though it ran more or less through all the
principal rooms, the chief scene of its operations was the
Long Gallery overlooking the Pleasance, which was covered by
an ornamental wood-and-plaster roof, and contained a whole
throng of family portraits, besides heavy old cabinets and the
like. The portraits which were of value as works of art were
smaller than these, and hung in adjoining rooms.

The manifest occupation of the figure was that of removing
these small and valuable pictures from other chambers to the
gallery in which the rest were hung, and piling them in a heap
in the midst. Included in the group were nine by Sir Peter
Lely, five by Vandyck, four by Cornelius Jansen, one by
Salvator Rosa (remarkable as being among the few English
portraits ever painted by that master), many by Kneller, and
two by Romney. Apparently by accident, the light being
insufficient to distinguish them from portraits, the figure
also brought a Raffaelle Virgin-and-Child, a magnificent
Tintoretto, a Titian, and a Giorgione.

On these was laid a large collection of enamelled miniature
portraits of the same illustrious line; afterwards tapestries
and cushions embroidered with the initials 'De S.'; and next
the cradle presented by Charles the First to the contemporary
De Stancy mother, till at length there arose in the middle of
the floor a huge heap containing most of what had been
personal and peculiar to members of the De Stancy family as
distinct from general furniture.

Then the figure went from door to door, and threw open each
that was unfastened. It next proceeded to a room on the
ground floor, at present fitted up as a carpenter's shop, and
knee-deep in shavings. An armful of these was added to the
pile of objects in the gallery; a window at each end of the
gallery was opened, causing a brisk draught along the walls;
and then the activity of the figure ceased, and it was seen no
more.

Five minutes afterwards a light shone upon the lawn from the
windows of the Long Gallery, which glowed with more brilliancy
than it had known in the meridian of its Caroline splendours.
Thereupon the framed gentleman in the lace collar seemed to
open his eyes more widely; he with the flowing locks and turn-
up mustachios to part his lips; he in the armour, who was so
much like Captain De Stancy, to shake the plates of his mail
with suppressed laughter; the lady with the three-stringed
pearl necklace, and vast expanse of neck, to nod with
satisfaction and triumphantly signify to her adjoining husband
that this was a meet and glorious end.

The flame increased, and blown upon by the wind roared round
the pictures, the tapestries, and the cradle, up to the
plaster ceiling and through it into the forest of oak timbers
above.



The best sitting-room at the Lord-Quantock-Arms in Markton was
as cosy this evening as a room can be that lacks the minuter
furniture on which cosiness so largely depends. By the fire
sat Paula and Somerset, the former with a shawl round her
shoulders to keep off the draught which, despite the curtains,
forced its way in on this gusty night through the windows
opening upon the balcony. Paula held a letter in her hand,
the contents of which formed the subject of their
conversation. Happy as she was in her general situation,
there was for the nonce a tear in her eye.


'MY EVER DEAR PAULA (ran the letter),--Your last letter has
just reached me, and I have followed your account of your
travels and intentions with more interest than I can tell.
You, who know me, need no assurance of this. At the present
moment, however, I am in the whirl of a change that has
resulted from a resolution taken some time ago, but concealed
from almost everybody till now. Why? Well, I will own--from
cowardice--fear lest I should be reasoned out of my plan. I
am going to steal from the world, Paula, from the social
world, for whose gaieties and ambitions I never had much
liking, and whose circles I have not the ability to grace. My
home, and resting-place till the great rest comes, is with the
Protestant Sisterhood at -----. Whatever shortcomings may be
found in such a community, I believe that I shall be happier
there than in any other place.

'Whatever you may think of my judgment in taking this step, I
can assure you that I have not done it without consideration.
My reasons are good, and my determination is unalterable.
But, my own very best friend, and more than sister, don't
think that I mean to leave my love and friendship for you
behind me. No, Paula, you will ALWAYS be with me, and I
believe that if an increase in what I already feel for you be
possible, it will be furthered by the retirement and
meditation I shall enjoy in my secluded home. My heart is
very full, dear--too full to write more. God bless you, and
your husband. You must come and see me there; I have not so
many friends that I can afford to lose you who have been so
kind. I write this with the fellow-pen to yours, that you
gave me when we went to Budmouth together. Good-bye!--Ever
your own sister, CHARLOTTE.'


Paula had first read this through silently, and now in reading
it a second time aloud to Somerset her voice faltered, and she
wept outright. 'I had been expecting her to live with us
always,' she said through her tears, 'and to think she should
have decided to do this!'

'It is a pity certainly,' said Somerset gently. 'She was
genuine, if anybody ever was; and simple as she was true.'

'I am the more sorry,' Paula presently resumed, 'because of a
little plan I had been thinking of with regard to her. You
know that the pictures and curiosities of the castle are not
included in the things I cannot touch, or impeach, or whatever
it is. They are our own to do what we like with. My father
felt in devising the estate that, however interesting to the
De Stancys those objects might be, they did not concern us--
were indeed rather in the way, having been come by so
strangely, through Mr. Wilkins, though too valuable to be
treated lightly. Now I was going to suggest that we would not
sell them--indeed I could not bear to do such a thing with
what had belonged to Charlotte's forefathers--but to hand them
over to her as a gift, either to keep for herself, or to pass
on to her brother, as she should choose. Now I fear there is
no hope of it: and yet I shall never like to see them in the
house.'

'It can be done still, I should think. She can accept them
for her brother when he settles, without absolutely taking
them into her own possession.'

'It would be a kind of generosity which hardly amounts to more
than justice (although they were purchased) from a recusant
usurper to a dear friend--not that I am a usurper exactly;
well, from a representative of the new aristocracy of
internationality to a representative of the old aristocracy of
exclusiveness.'

'What do you call yourself, Paula, since you are not of your
father's creed?'

'I suppose I am what poor Mr. Woodwell said--by the way, we
must call and see him--something or other that's in
Revelation, neither cold nor hot. But of course that's a sub-
species--I may be a lukewarm anything. What I really am, as
far as I know, is one of that body to whom lukewarmth is not
an accident but a provisional necessity, till they see a
little more clearly.' She had crossed over to his side, and
pulling his head towards her whispered a name in his ear.

'Why, Mr. Woodwell said you were that too! You carry your
beliefs very comfortably. I shall be glad when enthusiasm is
come again.'

'I am going to revise and correct my beliefs one of these days
when I have thought a little further.' She suddenly breathed
a sigh and added, 'How transitory our best emotions are! In
talking of myself I am heartlessly forgetting Charlotte, and
becoming happy again. I won't be happy to-night for her
sake!'

A few minutes after this their attention was attracted by a
noise of footsteps running along the street; then a heavy
tramp of horses, and lumbering of wheels. Other feet were
heard scampering at intervals, and soon somebody ascended the
staircase and approached their door. The head waiter
appeared.