A Laodicean Part 59

'Do you hear? You must not accept him,' repeated her uncle, 'till I have been to England and examined into matters. I start in an hour's time--by the ten-minutes-past-two train.'

'This is something very new!'

'Yes--'tis new,' he murmured, relapsing into his Dutch manner. 'You must not accept him till something is made clear to me--something about a queer relationship. I have come from Paris to say so.'

'Uncle, I don't understand this. I am my own mistress in all matters, and though I don't mind telling you I have by no means resolved to accept him, the question of her marriage is especially a woman's own affair.'

Her uncle stood irresolute for a moment, as if his convictions were more than his proofs. 'I say no more at present,' he murmured. 'Can I do anything for you about a new architect?'

'Appoint Havill.'

'Very well. Good night.' And then he left her. In a short time she heard him go down and out of the house to cross to England by the morning steamboat.

With a little shrug, as if she resented his interference in so delicate a point, she settled herself down anew to her book.

One, two, three hours pa.s.sed, when Charlotte awoke, but soon slumbered sweetly again. Milly had stayed up for some time lest her mistress should require anything; but the girl being sleepy Paula sent her to bed.

It was a lovely night of early summer, and drawing aside the window curtains she looked out upon the flowers and trees of the Place, now quite visible, for it was nearly three o'clock, and the morning light was growing strong. She turned her face upwards. Except in the case of one bedroom all the windows on that side of the hotel were in darkness.

The room being rather close she left the cas.e.m.e.nt ajar, and opening the door walked out upon the staircase landing. A number of caged canaries were kept here, and she observed in the dim light of the landing lamp how snugly their heads were all tucked in. On returning to the sitting-room again she could hear that Charlotte was still slumbering, and this encouraging circ.u.mstance disposed her to go to bed herself.

Before, however, she had made a move a gentle tap came to the door.

Paula opened it. There, in the faint light by the sleeping canaries, stood Charlotte's brother.

'How is she now?' he whispered.

'Sleeping soundly,' said Paula.

'That's a blessing. I have not been to bed. I came in late, and have now come down to know if I had not better take your place?'

'n.o.body is required, I think. But you can judge for yourself.'

Up to this point they had conversed in the doorway of the sitting-room, which De Stancy now entered, crossing it to Charlotte's apartment. He came out from the latter at a pensive pace.

'She is doing well,' he said gently. 'You have been very good to her.

Was the chair I saw by her bed the one you have been sitting in all night?'

'I sometimes sat there; sometimes here.'

'I wish I could have sat beside you, and held your hand--I speak frankly.'

'To excess.'

'And why not? I do not wish to hide from you any corner of my breast, futile as candour may be. Just Heaven! for what reason is it ordered that courtship, in which soldiers are usually so successful, should be a failure with me?'

'Your lack of foresight chiefly in indulging feelings that were not encouraged. That, and my uncle's indiscreet permission to you to travel with us, have precipitated our relations in a way that I could neither foresee nor avoid, though of late I have had apprehensions that it might come to this. You vex and disturb me by such words of regret.'

'Not more than you vex and disturb me. But you cannot hate the man who loves you so devotedly?'

'I have said before I don't hate you. I repeat that I am interested in your family and its a.s.sociations because of its complete contrast with my own.' She might have added, 'And I am additionally interested just now because my uncle has forbidden me to be.'

'But you don't care enough for me personally to save my happiness.'

Paula hesitated; from the moment De Stancy confronted her she had felt that this nocturnal conversation was to be a grave business. The cathedral clock struck three. 'I have thought once or twice,' she said with a naivete unusual in her, 'that if I could be sure of giving peace and joy to your mind by becoming your wife, I ought to endeavour to do so and make the best of it--merely as a charity. But I believe that feeling is a mistake: your discontent is const.i.tutional, and would go on just the same whether I accepted you or no. My refusal of you is purely an imaginary grievance.'

'Not if I think otherwise.'

'O no,' she murmured, with a sense that the place was very lonely and silent. 'If you think it otherwise, I suppose it is otherwise.'

'My darling; my Paula!' he said, seizing her hand. 'Do promise me something. You must indeed!'

'Captain De Stancy!' she said, trembling and turning away. 'Captain De Stancy!' She tried to withdraw her fingers, then faced him, exclaiming in a firm voice a third time, 'Captain De Stancy! let go my hand; for I tell you I will not marry you!'

'Good G.o.d!' he cried, dropping her hand. 'What have I driven you to say in your anger! Retract it--O, retract it!'

'Don't urge me further, as you value my good opinion!'

'To lose you now, is to lose you for ever. Come, please answer!'

'I won't be compelled!' she interrupted with vehemence. 'I am resolved not to be yours--not to give you an answer to-night! Never, never will I be reasoned out of my intention; and I say I won't answer you to-night!

I should never have let you be so much with me but for pity of you; and now it is come to this!'

She had sunk into a chair, and now leaned upon her hand, and buried her face in her handkerchief. He had never caused her any such agitation as this before.

'You stab me with your words,' continued De Stancy. 'The experience I have had with you is without parallel, Paula. It seems like a distracting dream.'

'I won't be hurried by anybody!'

'That may mean anything,' he said, with a perplexed, pa.s.sionate air.

'Well, mine is a fallen family, and we must abide caprices. Would to Heaven it were extinguished!'

'What was extinguished?' she murmured.

'The De Stancys. Here am I, a homeless wanderer, living on my pay; in the next room lies she, my sister, a poor little fragile feverish invalid with no social position--and hardly a friend. We two represent the De Stancy line; and I wish we were behind the iron door of our old vault at Sleeping-Green. It can be seen by looking at us and our circ.u.mstances that we cry for the earth and oblivion!'

'Captain De Stancy, it is not like that, I a.s.sure you,' sympathized Paula with damp eyelashes. 'I love Charlotte too dearly for you to talk like that, indeed. I don't want to marry you exactly: and yet I cannot bring myself to say I permanently reject you, because I remember you are Charlotte's brother, and do not wish to be the cause of any morbid feelings in you which would ruin your future prospects.'

'My dear life, what is it you doubt in me? Your earnestness not to do me harm makes it all the harder for me to think of never being more than a friend.'

'Well, I have not positively refused!' she exclaimed, in mixed tones of pity and distress. 'Let me think it over a little while. It is not generous to urge so strongly before I can collect my thoughts, and at this midnight time!'

'Darling, forgive it!--There, I'll say no more.'

He then offered to sit up in her place for the remainder of the night; but Paula declined, a.s.suring him that she meant to stay only another half-hour, after which n.o.body would be necessary.

He had already crossed the landing to ascend to his room, when she stepped after him, and asked if he had received his telegram.

'No,' said De Stancy. 'Nor have I heard of one.'