A Laodicean Part 70

'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 G.o.d, 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 woodp.e.c.k.e.rs, 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 princ.i.p.al 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 t.i.tian, and a Giorgione.

On these was laid a large collection of enamelled miniature portraits of the same ill.u.s.trious 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 a.s.surance 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 a.s.sure 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. G.o.d 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 pa.s.s 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.

'Ma'am, Stancy Castle is all afire!' said the waiter breathlessly.

Somerset jumped up, drew aside the curtains, and stepped into the bow-window. Right before him rose a blaze. The window looked upon the street and along the turnpike road to the very hill on which the castle stood, the keep being visible in the daytime above the trees. Here rose the light, which appeared little further off than a stone's throw instead of nearly three miles. Every curl of the smoke and every wave of the flame was distinct, and Somerset fancied he could hear the crackling.

Paula had risen from her seat and joined him in the window, where she heard some people in the street saying that the servants were all safe; after which she gave her mind more fully to the material aspects of the catastrophe.

The whole town was now rushing off to the scene of the conflagration, which, shining straight along the street, showed the burgesses' running figures distinctly upon the illumined road. Paula was quite ready to act upon Somerset's suggestion that they too should hasten to the spot, and a fly was got ready in a few minutes. With lapse of time Paula evinced more anxiety as to the fate of her castle, and when they had driven as near as it was prudent to do, they dismounted, and went on foot into the throng of people which was rapidly gathering from the town and surrounding villages. Among the faces they recognized Mr. Woodwell, Havill the architect, the rector of the parish, the curate, and many others known to them by sight. These, as soon as they saw the young couple, came forward with words of condolence, imagining them to have been burnt out of bed, and vied with each other in offering them a lodging. Somerset explained where they were staying and that they required no accommodation, Paula interrupting with 'O my poor horses, what has become of them?'

'The fire is not near the stables,' said Mr. Woodwell. 'It broke out in the body of the building. The horses, however, are driven into the field.'

'I can a.s.sure you, you need not be alarmed, madam,' said Havill. 'The chief constable is here, and the two town engines, and I am doing all I can. The castle engine unfortunately is out of repair.'

Somerset and Paula then went on to another point of view near the gymnasium, where they could not be seen by the crowd. Three-quarters of a mile off, on their left hand, the powerful irradiation fell upon the brick chapel in which Somerset had first seen the woman who now stood beside him as his wife. It was the only object visible in that direction, the dull hills and trees behind failing to catch the light.