A Laodicean Part 60

Paula explained that it was put in his room, that he might see it the moment he came in.

'It matters very little,' he replied, 'since I shall see it now.

Good-night, dearest: good-night!' he added tenderly.

She gravely shook her head. 'It is not for you to express yourself like that,' she answered. 'Good-night, Captain De Stancy.'

He went up the stairs to the second floor, and Paula returned to the sitting-room. Having left a light burning De Stancy proceeded to look for the telegram, and found it on the carpet, where it had been swept from the table. When he had opened the sheet a sudden solemnity overspread his face. He sat down, rested his elbow on the table, and his forehead on his hands.

Captain De Stancy did not remain thus long. Rising he went softly downstairs. The grey morning had by this time crept into the hotel, rendering a light no longer necessary. The old clock on the landing was within a few minutes of four, and the birds were hopping up and down their cages, and whetting their bills. He tapped at the sitting-room, and she came instantly.

'But I told you it was not necessary--' she began.

'Yes, but the telegram,' he said hurriedly. 'I wanted to let you know first that--it is very serious. Paula--my father is dead! He died suddenly yesterday, and I must go at once... . About Charlotte--and how to let her know--'

'She must not be told yet,' said Paula.... 'Sir William dead!'

'You think we had better not tell her just yet?' said De Stancy anxiously. 'That's what I want to consult you about, if you--don't mind my intruding.'

'Certainly I don't,' she said.

They continued the discussion for some time; and it was decided that Charlotte should not be informed of what had happened till the doctor had been consulted, Paula promising to account for her brother's departure.

De Stancy then prepared to leave for England by the first morning train, and roused the night-porter, which functionary, having packed off Abner Power, was discovered asleep on the sofa of the landlord's parlour. At half-past five Paula, who in the interim had been pensively sitting with her hand to her chin, quite forgetting that she had meant to go to bed, heard wheels without, and looked from the window. A fly had been brought round, and one of the hotel servants was in the act of putting up a portmanteau with De Stancy's initials upon it. A minute afterwards the captain came to her door.

'I thought you had not gone to bed, after all.'

'I was anxious to see you off,' said she, 'since neither of the others is awake; and you wished me not to rouse them.'

'Quite right, you are very good;' and lowering his voice: 'Paula, it is a sad and solemn time with me. Will you grant me one word--not on our last sad subject, but on the previous one--before I part with you to go and bury my father?'

'Certainly,' she said, in gentle accents.

'Then have you thought over my position? Will you at last have pity upon my loneliness by becoming my wife?'

Paula sighed deeply; and said, 'Yes.'

'Your hand upon it.'

She gave him her hand: he held it a few moments, then raised it to his lips, and was gone.

When Mrs. Goodman rose she was informed of Sir William's death, and of his son's departure.

'Then the captain is now Sir William De Stancy!' she exclaimed. 'Really, Paula, since you would be Lady De Stancy by marrying him, I almost think--'

'Hush, aunt!'

'Well; what are you writing there?'

'Only entering in my diary that I accepted him this morning for pity's sake, in spite of Uncle Abner. They'll say it was for the t.i.tle, but knowing it was not I don't care.'

XI.

On the evening of the fourth day after the parting between Paula and De Stancy at Amiens, when it was quite dark in the Markton highway, except in so far as the shades were broken by the faint lights from the adjacent town, a young man knocked softly at the door of Myrtle Villa, and asked if Captain De Stancy had arrived from abroad. He was answered in the affirmative, and in a few moments the captain himself came from an adjoining room.

Seeing that his visitor was Dare, from whom, as will be remembered, he had parted at Carlsruhe in no very satisfied mood, De Stancy did not ask him into the house, but putting on his hat went out with the youth into the public road. Here they conversed as they walked up and down, Dare beginning by alluding to the death of Sir William, the suddenness of which he feared would delay Captain De Stancy's overtures for the hand of Miss Power.

'No,' said De Stancy moodily. 'On the contrary, it has precipitated matters.'

'She has accepted you, captain?'

'We are engaged to be married.'

'Well done. I congratulate you.' The speaker was about to proceed to further triumphant notes on the intelligence, when casting his eye upon the upper windows of the neighbouring villa, he appeared to reflect on what was within them, and checking himself, 'When is the funeral to be?'

'To-morrow,' De Stancy replied. 'It would be advisable for you not to come near me during the day.'

'I will not. I will be a mere spectator. The old vault of our ancestors will be opened, I presume, captain?'

'It is opened.'

'I must see it--and ruminate on what we once were: it is a thing I like doing. The ghosts of our dead--Ah, what was that?'

'I heard nothing.'

'I thought I heard a footstep behind us.'

They stood still; but the road appeared to be quite deserted, and likely to continue so for the remainder of that evening. They walked on again, speaking in somewhat lower tones than before.

'Will the late Sir William's death delay the wedding much?' asked the younger man curiously.

De Stancy languidly answered that he did not see why it should do so. Some little time would of course intervene, but, since there were several reasons for despatch, he should urge Miss Power and her relatives to consent to a virtually private wedding which might take place at a very early date; and he thought there would be a general consent on that point.

'There are indeed reasons for despatch. Your t.i.tle, Sir William, is a new safeguard over her heart, certainly; but there is many a slip, and you must not lose her now.'

'I don't mean to lose her!' said De Stancy. 'She is too good to be lost.

And yet--since she gave her promise I have felt more than once that I would not engage in such a struggle again. It was not a thing of my beginning, though I was easily enough inflamed to follow. But I will not lose her now.--For G.o.d's sake, keep that secret you have so foolishly p.r.i.c.ked on your breast. It fills me with remorse to think what she with her scrupulous notions will feel, should she ever know of you and your history, and your relation to me!'

Dare made no reply till after a silence, when he said, 'Of course mum's the word till the wedding is over.'

'And afterwards--promise that for her sake?'

'And probably afterwards.'

Sir William De Stancy drew a dejected breath at the tone of the answer.

They conversed but a little while longer, the captain hinting to Dare that it was time for them to part; not, however, before he had uttered a hope that the young man would turn over a new leaf and engage in some regular pursuit. Promising to call upon him at his lodgings De Stancy went indoors, and Dare briskly retraced his steps to Markton.

When his footfall had died away, and the door of the house opposite had been closed, another man appeared upon the scene. He came gently out of the hedge opposite Myrtle Villa, which he paused to regard for a moment.