A Laodicean Part 28

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

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

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

'Doesn't it?' said De Stancy, as he mechanically played out his cards.

'What became of that box of books I sent you with my last cheque?'

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

'Important business--what?'

'The capture of this lady, to be sure.'

De Stancy sighed impatiently. 'I wish you were less calculating, and had more of the impulse natural to your years!'

'Game--by Jove! You have lost again, captain. That makes--let me see--nine pounds fifteen to square us.'

'I owe you that?' said De Stancy, startled. 'It is more than I have in cash. I must write another cheque.'

'Never mind. Make it payable to yourself, and our connection will be quite unsuspected.'

Captain De Stancy did as requested, and rose from his seat. Sir William, though further off, was still in the churchyard.

'How can you hesitate for a moment about this girl?' said Dare, pointing to the bent figure of the old man. 'Think of the satisfaction it would be to him to see his son within the family walls again. It should be a religion with you to compa.s.s such a legitimate end as this.'

'Well, well, I'll think of it,' said the captain, with an impatient laugh. 'You are quite a Mephistopheles, Will--I say it to my sorrow!'

'Would that I were in your place.'

'Would that you were! Fifteen years ago I might have called the chance a magnificent one.'

'But you are a young man still, and you look younger than you are.

n.o.body knows our relationship, and I am not such a fool as to divulge it. Of course, if through me you reclaim this splendid possession, I should leave it to your feelings what you would do for me.'

Sir William had by this time cleared out of the churchyard, and the pair emerged from the vestry and departed. Proceeding towards Markton by the same bypath, they presently came to an eminence covered with bushes of blackthorn, and tufts of yellowing fern. From this point a good view of the woods and glades about Stancy Castle could be obtained. Dare stood still on the top and stretched out his finger; the captain's eye followed the direction, and he saw above the many-hued foliage in the middle distance the towering keep of Paula's castle.

'That's the goal of your ambition, captain--ambition do I say?--most righteous and dutiful endeavour! How the h.o.a.ry shape catches the sunlight--it is the raison d'etre of the landscape, and its possession is coveted by a thousand hearts. Surely it is an hereditary desire of yours? You must make a point of returning to it, and appearing in the map of the future as in that of the past. I delight in this work of encouraging you, and pushing you forward towards your own. You are really very clever, you know, but--I say it with respect--how comes it that you want so much waking up?'

'Because I know the day is not so bright as it seems, my boy. However, you make a little mistake. If I care for anything on earth, I do care for that old fortress of my forefathers. I respect so little among the living that all my reverence is for my own dead. But manoeuvring, even for my own, as you call it, is not in my line. It is distasteful--it is positively hateful to me.'

'Well, well, let it stand thus for the present. But will you refuse me one little request--merely to see her? I'll contrive it so that she may not see you. Don't refuse me, it is the one thing I ask, and I shall think it hard if you deny me.'

'O Will!' said the captain wearily. 'Why will you plead so? No--even though your mind is particularly set upon it, I cannot see her, or bestow a thought upon her, much as I should like to gratify you.'

VI.

When they had parted Dare walked along towards Markton with resolve on his mouth and an unscrupulous light in his prominent black eye. Could any person who had heard the previous conversation have seen him now, he would have found little difficulty in divining that, notwithstanding De Stancy's obduracy, the reinstation of Captain De Stancy in the castle, and the possible legitimation and enrichment of himself, was still the dream of his brain. Even should any legal settlement or offspring intervene to nip the extreme development of his projects, there was abundant opportunity for his glorification. Two conditions were imperative. De Stancy must see Paula before Somerset's return. And it was necessary to have help from Havill, even if it involved letting him know all.

Whether Havill already knew all was a nice question for Mr. Dare's luminous mind. Havill had had opportunities of reading his secret, particularly on the night they occupied the same room. If so, by revealing it to Paula, Havill might utterly blast his project for the marriage. Havill, then, was at all risks to be retained as an ally.

Yet Dare would have preferred a stronger check upon his confederate than was afforded by his own knowledge of that anonymous letter and the compet.i.tion trick. For were the compet.i.tion lost to him, Havill would have no further interest in conciliating Miss Power; would as soon as not let her know the secret of De Stancy's relation to him.

Fortune as usual helped him in his dilemma. Entering Havill's office, Dare found him sitting there; but the drawings had all disappeared from the boards. The architect held an open letter in his hand.

'Well, what news?' said Dare.

'Miss Power has returned to the castle, Somerset is detained in London, and the compet.i.tion is decided,' said Havill, with a glance of quiet dubiousness.

'And you have won it?'

'No. We are bracketed--it's a tie. The judges say there is no choice between the designs--that they are singularly equal and singularly good.

That she would do well to adopt either. Signed So-and-So, Fellows of the Royal Inst.i.tute of British Architects. The result is that she will employ which she personally likes best. It is as if I had spun a sovereign in the air and it had alighted on its edge. The least false movement will make it tails; the least wise movement heads.'

'Singularly equal. Well, we owe that to our nocturnal visit, which must not be known.'

'O Lord, no!' said Havill apprehensively.

Dare felt secure of him at those words. Havill had much at stake; the slightest rumour of his trick in bringing about the compet.i.tion, would be fatal to Havill's reputation.

'The permanent absence of Somerset then is desirable architecturally on your account, matrimonially on mine.'

'Matrimonially? By the way--who was that captain you pointed out to me when the artillery entered the town?'

'Captain De Stancy--son of Sir William De Stancy. He's the husband.

O, you needn't look incredulous: it is practicable; but we won't argue that. In the first place I want him to see her, and to see her in the most love-kindling, pa.s.sion-begetting circ.u.mstances that can be thought of. And he must see her surrept.i.tiously, for he refuses to meet her.'

'Let him see her going to church or chapel?'

Dare shook his head.

'Driving out?'

'Common-place!'

'Walking in the gardens?'

'Ditto.'

'At her toilet?'

'Ah--if it were possible!'

'Which it hardly is. Well, you had better think it over and make inquiries about her habits, and as to when she is in a favourable aspect for observation, as the almanacs say.'

Shortly afterwards Dare took his leave. In the evening he made it his business to sit smoking on the bole of a tree which commanded a view of the upper ward of the castle, and also of the old postern-gate, now enlarged and used as a tradesmen's entrance. It was half-past six o'clock; the dressing-bell rang, and Dare saw a light-footed young woman hasten at the sound across the ward from the servants' quarter. A light appeared in a chamber which he knew to be Paula's dressing-room; and there it remained half-an-hour, a shadow pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing on the blind in the style of head-dress worn by the girl he had previously seen. The dinner-bell sounded and the light went out.