A Laodicean : A Story of To-day Page 12

  XI.

  The identity of the lady whom he had seen on the tower and afterwardsheard singing was established the next day.

  'I have been thinking,' said Miss Power, on meeting him, 'that you mayrequire a studio on the premises. If so, the room I showed you yesterdayis at your service. If I employ Mr. Havill to compete with you I willoffer him a similar one.'

  Somerset did not decline; and she added, 'In the same room you will findthe handkerchief that was left on the tower.'

  'Ah, I saw that it was gone. Somebody brought it down?'

  'I did,' she shyly remarked, looking up for a second under her shadyhat-brim.

  'I am much obliged to you.'

  'O no. I went up last night to see where the accident happened, andthere I found it. When you came up were you in search of it, or did youwant me?'

  'Then she saw me,' he thought. 'I went for the handkerchief only; I wasnot aware that you were there,' he answered simply. And he involuntarilysighed.

  It was very soft, but she might have heard him, for there was interestin her voice as she continued, 'Did you see me before you went back?'

  'I did not know it was you; I saw that some lady was there, and I wouldnot disturb her. I wondered all the evening if it were you.'

  Paula hastened to explain: 'We understood that you would stay to dinner,and as you did not come in we wondered where you were. That made methink of your accident, and after dinner I went up to the place where ithappened.'

  Somerset almost wished she had not explained so lucidly.

  And now followed the piquant days to which his position as herarchitect, or, at worst, as one of her two architects, naturally led.His anticipations were for once surpassed by the reality. PerhapsSomerset's inherent unfitness for a professional life under ordinarycircumstances was only proved by his great zest for it now. Had he beenin regular practice, with numerous other clients, instead of havingmerely made a start with this one, he would have totally neglected theirbusiness in his exclusive attention to Paula's.

  The idea of a competition between Somerset and Havill had been highlyapproved by Paula's solicitor, but she would not assent to it as yet,seeming quite vexed that Somerset should not have taken the good thegods provided without questioning her justice to Havill. The room shehad offered him was prepared as a studio. Drawing-boards and Whatman'spaper were sent for, and in a few days Somerset began serious labour.His first requirement was a clerk or two, to do the drudgery ofmeasuring and figuring; but for the present he preferred to sketchalone. Sometimes, in measuring the outworks of the castle, he ranagainst Havill strolling about with no apparent object, who bestowed onhim an envious nod, and passed by.

  'I hope you will not make your sketches,' she said, looking in upon himone day, 'and then go away to your studio in London and think of yourother buildings and forget mine. I am in haste to begin, and wish younot to neglect me.'

  'I have no other building to think of,' said Somerset, rising andplacing a chair for her. 'I had not begun practice, as you may know. Ihave nothing else in hand but your castle.'

  'I suppose I ought not to say I am glad of it; but it is an advantageto have an architect all to one's self. The architect whom I at firstthought of told me before I knew you that if I placed the castle in hishands he would undertake no other commission till its completion.'

  'I agree to the same,' said Somerset.

  'I don't wish to bind you. But I hinder you now--do pray go on withoutreference to me. When will there be some drawing for me to see?'

  'I will take care that it shall be soon.'

  He had a metallic tape in his hand, and went out of the room to takesome dimension in the corridor. The assistant for whom he had advertisedhad not arrived, and he attempted to fix the end of the tape by stickinghis penknife through the ring into the wall. Paula looked on at adistance.

  'I will hold it,' she said.

  She went to the required corner and held the end in its place. She hadtaken it the wrong way, and Somerset went over and placed it properly inher fingers, carefully avoiding to touch them. She obediently raisedher hand to the corner again, and stood till he had finished, when sheasked, 'Is that all?'

  'That is all,' said Somerset. 'Thank you.' Without further speech shelooked at his sketch-book, while he marked down the lines just acquired.

  'You said the other day,' she observed, 'that early Gothic work might beknown by the under-cutting, or something to that effect. I have lookedin Rickman and the Oxford Glossary, but I cannot quite understand whatyou meant.'

  It was only too probable to her lover, from the way in which sheturned to him, that she HAD looked in Rickman and the Glossary, and wasthinking of nothing in the world but of the subject of her inquiry.

  'I can show you, by actual example, if you will come to the chapel?' hereturned hesitatingly.

  'Don't go on purpose to show me--when you are there on your own accountI will come in.'

  'I shall be there in half-an-hour.'

  'Very well,' said Paula. She looked out of a window, and, seeing Miss DeStancy on the terrace, left him.

  Somerset stood thinking of what he had said. He had no occasion whateverto go into the chapel of the castle that day. He had been tempted by herwords to say he would be there, and 'half-an-hour' had come to his lipsalmost without his knowledge. This community of interest--if it were notanything more tender--was growing serious. What had passed between themamounted to an appointment; they were going to meet in the most solitarychamber of the whole solitary pile. Could it be that Paula had wellconsidered this in replying with her friendly 'Very well?' Probably not.

  Somerset proceeded to the chapel and waited. With the progress of theseconds towards the half-hour he began to discover that a dangerousadmiration for this girl had risen within him. Yet so imaginative washis passion that he hardly knew a single feature of her countenance wellenough to remember it in her absence. The meditative judgment of thingsand men which had been his habit up to the moment of seeing her inthe Baptist chapel seemed to have left him--nothing remained but adistracting wish to be always near her, and it was quite with dismaythat he recognized what immense importance he was attaching to thequestion whether she would keep the trifling engagement or not.

  The chapel of Stancy Castle was a silent place, heaped up in cornerswith a lumber of old panels, framework, and broken coloured glass. Hereno clock could be heard beating out the hours of the day--here novoice of priest or deacon had for generations uttered the dailyservice denoting how the year rolls on. The stagnation of the spot wassufficient to draw Somerset's mind for a moment from the subject whichabsorbed it, and he thought, 'So, too, will time triumph over all thisfervour within me.'

  Lifting his eyes from the floor on which his foot had been tappingnervously, he saw Paula standing at the other end. It was not sopleasant when he also saw that Mrs. Goodman accompanied her. The latterlady, however, obligingly remained where she was resting, while Paulacame forward, and, as usual, paused without speaking.

  'It is in this little arcade that the example occurs,' said Somerset.

  'O yes,' she answered, turning to look at it.

  'Early piers, capitals, and mouldings, generally alternated with deephollows, so as to form strong shadows. Now look under the abacus of thiscapital; you will find the stone hollowed out wonderfully; and also inthis arch-mould. It is often difficult to understand how it could bedone without cracking off the stone. The difference between this andlate work can be felt by the hand even better than it can be seen.' Hesuited the action to the word and placed his hand in the hollow.

  She listened attentively, then stretched up her own hand to test thecutting as he had done; she was not quite tall enough; she would stepupon this piece of wood. Having done so she tried again, and succeededin putting her finger on the spot. No; she could not understand itthrough her glove even now. She pulled off her glove, and, her handresting in the stone channel, her eyes became abstracted in the effortof realization, the ideas derived through her hand pa
ssing into herface.

  'No, I am not sure now,' she said.

  Somerset placed his own hand in the cavity. Now their two hands wereclose together again. They had been close together half-an-hour earlier,and he had sedulously avoided touching hers. He dared not let such anaccident happen now. And yet--surely she saw the situation! Was theinscrutable seriousness with which she applied herself to his lessona mockery? There was such a bottomless depth in her eyes that it wasimpossible to guess truly. Let it be that destiny alone had ruled thattheir hands should be together a second time.

  All rumination was cut short by an impulse. He seized her forefingerbetween his own finger and thumb, and drew it along the hollow, saying,'That is the curve I mean.'

  Somerset's hand was hot and trembling; Paula's, on the contrary, wascool and soft as an infant's.

  'Now the arch-mould,' continued he. 'There--the depth of that cavity istremendous, and it is not geometrical, as in later work.' He drew herunresisting fingers from the capital to the arch, and laid them in thelittle trench as before.

  She allowed them to rest quietly there till he relinquished them. 'Thankyou,' she then said, withdrawing her hand, brushing the dust from herfinger-tips, and putting on her glove.

  Her imperception of his feeling was the very sublimity of maideninnocence if it were real; if not, well, the coquetry was no great sin.

  'Mr. Somerset, will you allow me to have the Greek court I mentioned?'she asked tentatively, after a long break in their discourse, asshe scanned the green stones along the base of the arcade, with aconjectural countenance as to his reply.

  'Will your own feeling for the genius of the place allow you?'

  'I am not a mediaevalist: I am an eclectic.'

  'You don't dislike your own house on that account.'

  'I did at first--I don't so much now.... I should love it, and adoreevery stone, and think feudalism the only true romance of life, if--'

  'What?'

  'If I were a De Stancy, and the castle the long home of my forefathers.'

  Somerset was a little surprised at the avowal: the minister's words onthe effects of her new environment recurred to his mind. 'Miss De Stancydoesn't think so,' he said. 'She cares nothing about those things.'

  Paula now turned to him: hitherto her remarks had been sparingly spoken,her eyes being directed elsewhere: 'Yes, that is very strange, is itnot?' she said. 'But it is owing to the joyous freshness of her naturewhich precludes her from dwelling on the past--indeed, the past isno more to her than it is to a sparrow or robin. She is scarcely aninstance of the wearing out of old families, for a younger mentalconstitution than hers I never knew.'

  'Unless that very simplicity represents the second childhood of herline, rather than her own exclusive character.'

  Paula shook her head. 'In spite of the Greek court, she is more Greekthan I.'

  'You represent science rather than art, perhaps.'

  'How?' she asked, glancing up under her hat.

  'I mean,' replied Somerset, 'that you represent the march of mind--thesteamship, and the railway, and the thoughts that shake mankind.'

  She weighed his words, and said: 'Ah, yes: you allude to my father. Myfather was a great man; but I am more and more forgetting his greatness:that kind of greatness is what a woman can never truly enter into. I amless and less his daughter every day that goes by.'

  She walked away a few steps to rejoin the excellent Mrs. Goodman, who,as Somerset still perceived, was waiting for Paula at the discreetestof distances in the shadows at the farther end of the building. SurelyPaula's voice had faltered, and she had turned to hide a tear?

  She came back again. 'Did you know that my father made half the railwaysin Europe, including that one over there?' she said, waving her littlegloved hand in the direction whence low rumbles were occasionally heardduring the day.

  'Yes.'

  'How did you know?'

  'Miss De Stancy told me a little; and I then found his name and doingswere quite familiar to me.'

  Curiously enough, with his words there came through the broken windowsthe murmur of a train in the distance, sounding clearer and more clear.It was nothing to listen to, yet they both listened; till the increasingnoise suddenly broke off into dead silence.

  'It has gone into the tunnel,' said Paula. 'Have you seen the tunnel myfather made? the curves are said to be a triumph of science. There isnothing else like it in this part of England.'

  'There is not: I have heard so. But I have not seen it.'

  'Do you think it a thing more to be proud of that one's father shouldhave made a great tunnel and railway like that, than that one's remoteancestor should have built a great castle like this?'

  What could Somerset say? It would have required a casuist to decidewhether his answer should depend upon his conviction, or upon the familyties of such a questioner. 'From a modern point of view, railways are,no doubt, things more to be proud of than castles,' he said; 'thoughperhaps I myself, from mere association, should decide in favour of theancestor who built the castle.' The serious anxiety to be truthful thatSomerset threw into his observation, was more than the circumstancerequired. 'To design great engineering works,' he added musingly, andwithout the least eye to the disparagement of her parent, 'requiresno doubt a leading mind. But to execute them, as he did, requires, ofcourse, only a following mind.'

  His reply had not altogether pleased her; and there was a distinctreproach conveyed by her slight movement towards Mrs. Goodman. He sawit, and was grieved that he should have spoken so. 'I am going to walkover and inspect that famous tunnel of your father's,' he added gently.'It will be a pleasant study for this afternoon.'

  She went away. 'I am no man of the world,' he thought. 'I ought to havepraised that father of hers straight off. I shall not win her respect;much less her love!'