A Laodicean : A Story of To-day Page 13

  XII.

  Somerset did not forget what he had planned, and when lunch was overhe walked away through the trees. The tunnel was more difficult ofdiscovery than he had anticipated, and it was only after considerablewinding among green lanes, whose deep ruts were like canyons of Coloradoin miniature, that he reached the slope in the distant upland where thetunnel began. A road stretched over its crest, and thence along one sideof the railway-cutting.

  He there unexpectedly saw standing Miss Power's carriage; and on drawingnearer he found it to contain Paula herself, Miss De Stancy, and Mrs.Goodman.

  'How singular!' exclaimed Miss De Stancy gaily.

  'It is most natural,' said Paula instantly. 'In the morning two peoplediscuss a feature in the landscape, and in the afternoon each has adesire to see it from what the other has said of it. Therefore theyaccidentally meet.'

  Now Paula had distinctly heard Somerset declare that he was going towalk there; how then could she say this so coolly? It was with a pangat his heart that he returned to his old thought of her being possiblya finished coquette and dissembler. Whatever she might be, she was not acreature starched very stiffly by Puritanism.

  Somerset looked down on the mouth of the tunnel. The popular commonplacethat science, steam, and travel must always be unromantic and hideous,was not proven at this spot. On either slope of the deep cutting, greenwith long grass, grew drooping young trees of ash, beech, and otherflexible varieties, their foliage almost concealing the actual railwaywhich ran along the bottom, its thin steel rails gleaming like silverthreads in the depths. The vertical front of the tunnel, faced withbrick that had once been red, was now weather-stained, lichened, andmossed over in harmonious rusty-browns, pearly greys, and neutralgreens, at the very base appearing a little blue-black spot like amouse-hole--the tunnel's mouth.

  The carriage was drawn up quite close to the wood railing, and Paula waslooking down at the same time with him; but he made no remark to her.

  Mrs. Goodman broke the silence by saying, 'If it were not a railway weshould call it a lovely dell.'

  Somerset agreed with her, adding that it was so charming that he feltinclined to go down.

  'If you do, perhaps Miss Power will order you up again, as atrespasser,' said Charlotte De Stancy. 'You are one of the largestshareholders in the railway, are you not, Paula?'

  Miss Power did not reply.

  'I suppose as the road is partly yours you might walk all the way toLondon along the rails, if you wished, might you not, dear?' Charlottecontinued.

  Paula smiled, and said, 'No, of course not.'

  Somerset, feeling himself superfluous, raised his hat to his companionsas if he meant not to see them again for a while, and began to descendby some steps cut in the earth; Miss De Stancy asked Mrs. Goodman toaccompany her to a barrow over the top of the tunnel; and they left thecarriage, Paula remaining alone.

  Down Somerset plunged through the long grass, bushes, late summerflowers, moths, and caterpillars, vexed with himself that he had comethere, since Paula was so inscrutable, and humming the notes of somesong he did not know. The tunnel that had seemed so small from thesurface was a vast archway when he reached its mouth, which emitted,as a contrast to the sultry heat on the slopes of the cutting, a coolbreeze, that had travelled a mile underground from the other end. Faraway in the darkness of this silent subterranean corridor he could seethat other end as a mere speck of light.

  When he had conscientiously admired the construction of the massivearchivault, and the majesty of its nude ungarnished walls, he looked upthe slope at the carriage; it was so small to the eye that it mighthave been made for a performance by canaries; Paula's face being stillsmaller, as she leaned back in her seat, idly looking down at him. Thereseemed something roguish in her attitude of criticism, and to be nolonger the subject of her contemplation he entered the tunnel out of hersight.

  In the middle of the speck of light before him appeared a speck ofblack; and then a shrill whistle, dulled by millions of tons of earth,reached his ears from thence. It was what he had been on his guardagainst all the time,--a passing train; and instead of taking thetrouble to come out of the tunnel he stepped into a recess, till thetrain had rattled past and vanished onward round a curve.

  Somerset still remained where he had placed himself, mentally balancingscience against art, the grandeur of this fine piece of constructionagainst that of the castle, and thinking whether Paula's father hadnot, after all, the best of it, when all at once he saw Paula's formconfronting him at the entrance of the tunnel. He instantly went forwardinto the light; to his surprise she was as pale as a lily.

  'O, Mr. Somerset!' she exclaimed. 'You ought not to frighten meso--indeed you ought not! The train came out almost as soon as you hadgone in, and as you did not return--an accident was possible!'

  Somerset at once perceived that he had been to blame in not thinking ofthis.

  'Please do forgive my thoughtlessness in not reflecting how it wouldstrike you!' he pleaded. 'I--I see I have alarmed you.'

  Her alarm was, indeed, much greater than he had at first thought: shetrembled so much that she was obliged to sit down, at which he went upto her full of solicitousness.

  'You ought not to have done it!' she said. 'I naturally thought--anyperson would--'

  Somerset, perhaps wisely, said nothing at this outburst; the cause ofher vexation was, plainly enough, his perception of her discomposure. Hestood looking in another direction, till in a few moments she had risento her feet again, quite calm.

  'It would have been dreadful,' she said with faint gaiety, as the colourreturned to her face; 'if I had lost my architect, and been obliged toengage Mr. Havill without an alternative.'

  'I was really in no danger; but of course I ought to have considered,'he said.

  'I forgive you,' she returned good-naturedly. 'I knew there was noGREAT danger to a person exercising ordinary discretion; but artists andthinkers like you are indiscreet for a moment sometimes. I am now goingup again. What do you think of the tunnel?'

  They were crossing the railway to ascend by the opposite path, Somersetkeeping his eye on the interior of the tunnel for safety, when suddenlythere arose a noise and shriek from the contrary direction behind thetrees. Both knew in a moment what it meant, and each seized the other asthey rushed off the permanent way. The ideas of both had been so centredon the tunnel as the source of danger, that the probability of a trainfrom the opposite quarter had been forgotten. It rushed past them,causing Paula's dress, hair, and ribbons to flutter violently, andblowing up the fallen leaves in a shower over their shoulders.

  Neither spoke, and they went up several steps, holding each other by thehand, till, becoming conscious of the fact, she withdrew hers; whereuponSomerset stopped and looked earnestly at her; but her eyes were avertedtowards the tunnel wall.

  'What an escape!' he said.

  'We were not so very near, I think, were we?' she asked quickly. 'If wewere, I think you were--very good to take my hand.'

  They reached the top at last, and the new level and open air seemed togive her a new mind. 'I don't see the carriage anywhere,' she said, inthe common tones of civilization.

  He thought it had gone over the crest of the hill; he would accompanyher till they reached it.

  'No--please--I would rather not--I can find it very well.' Before hecould say more she had inclined her head and smiled and was on her wayalone.

  The tunnel-cutting appeared a dreary gulf enough now to the young man,as he stood leaning over the rails above it, beating the herbage withhis stick. For some minutes he could not criticize or weigh her conduct;the warmth of her presence still encircled him. He recalled her face asit had looked out at him from under the white silk puffing of her blackhat, and the speaking power of her eyes at the moment of danger. Thebreadth of that clear-complexioned forehead--almost concealed bythe masses of brown hair bundled up around it--signified that if herdisposition were oblique and insincere enough for trifling, coquetting,or in any way making a fool
of him, she had the intellect to do itcruelly well.

  But it was ungenerous to ruminate so suspiciously. A girl not an actressby profession could hardly turn pale artificially as she had done,though perhaps mere fright meant nothing, and would have arisen in herjust as readily had he been one of the labourers on her estate.

  The reflection that such feeling as she had exhibited could have notender meaning returned upon him with masterful force when he thought ofher wealth and the social position into which she had drifted. Somerset,being of a solitary and studious nature, was not quite competentto estimate precisely the disqualifying effect, if any, of hernonconformity, her newness of blood, and other things, among the oldcounty families established round her; but the toughest prejudices, hethought, were not likely to be long invulnerable to such cheerful beautyand brightness of intellect as Paula's. When she emerged, as she wasplainly about to do, from the seclusion in which she had been livingsince her father's death, she would inevitably win her way among herneighbours. She would become the local topic. Fortune-hunters wouldlearn of her existence and draw near in shoals. What chance would therethen be for him?

  The points in his favour were indeed few, but they were just enoughto keep a tantalizing hope alive. Modestly leaving out of count hispersonal and intellectual qualifications, he thought of his family. Itwas an old stock enough, though not a rich one. His great-uncle hadbeen the well-known Vice-admiral Sir Armstrong Somerset, who served hiscountry well in the Baltic, the Indies, China, and the Caribbean Sea.His grandfather had been a notable metaphysician. His father, the RoyalAcademician, was popular. But perhaps this was not the sort of reasoninglikely to occupy the mind of a young woman; the personal aspect of thesituation was in such circumstances of far more import. He had come as awandering stranger--that possibly lent some interest to him in her eyes.He was installed in an office which would necessitate free communionwith her for some time to come; that was another advantage, and would bea still greater one if she showed, as Paula seemed disposed to do,such artistic sympathy with his work as to follow up with interest thedetails of its progress.

  The carriage did not reappear, and he went on towards Markton,disinclined to return again that day to the studio which had beenprepared for him at the castle. He heard feet brushing the grass behindhim, and, looking round, saw the Baptist minister.

  'I have just come from the village,' said Mr. Woodwell, who looked wornand weary, his boots being covered with dust; 'and I have learnt thatwhich confirms my fears for her.'

  'For Miss Power?'

  'Most assuredly.'

  'What danger is there?' said Somerset.

  'The temptations of her position have become too much for her! She isgoing out of mourning next week, and will give a large dinner-party onthe occasion; for though the invitations are partly in the name ofher relative Mrs. Goodman, they must come from her. The guests areto include people of old cavalier families who would have treated hergrandfather, sir, and even her father, with scorn for their religionand connections; also the parson and curate--yes, actually people whobelieve in the Apostolic Succession; and what's more, they're coming.My opinion is, that it has all arisen from her friendship with Miss DeStancy.'

  'Well,' cried Somerset warmly, 'this only shows liberality of feeling onboth sides! I suppose she has invited you as well?'

  'She has not invited me!... Mr. Somerset, not withstanding yourerroneous opinions on important matters, I speak to you as a friend, andI tell you that she has never in her secret heart forgiven that sermonof mine, in which I likened her to the church at Laodicea. I admitthe words were harsh, but I was doing my duty, and if the case aroseto-morrow I would do it again. Her displeasure is a deep grief to me;but I serve One greater than she.... You, of course, are invited to thisdinner?'

  'I have heard nothing of it,' murmured the young man.

  Their paths diverged; and when Somerset reached the hotel he wasinformed that somebody was waiting to see him.

  'Man or woman?' he asked.

  The landlady, who always liked to reply in person to Somerset'sinquiries, apparently thinking him, by virtue of his drawing implementsand liberality of payment, a possible lord of Burleigh, came forward andsaid it was certainly not a woman, but whether man or boy she could notsay. 'His name is Mr. Dare,' she added.

  'O--that youth,' he said.

  Somerset went upstairs, along the passage, down two steps, round theangle, and so on to the rooms reserved for him in this rambling edificeof stage-coach memories, where he found Dare waiting. Dare came forward,pulling out the cutting of an advertisement.

  'Mr. Somerset, this is yours, I believe, from the Architectural World?'

  Somerset said that he had inserted it.

  'I think I should suit your purpose as assistant very well.'

  'Are you an architect's draughtsman?'

  'Not specially. I have some knowledge of the same, and want to increaseit.'

  'I thought you were a photographer.'

  'Also of photography,' said Dare with a bow. 'Though but an amateur inthat art I can challenge comparison with Regent Street or Broadway.'

  Somerset looked upon his table. Two letters only, addressed in initials,were lying there as answers to his advertisement. He asked Dare towait, and looked them over. Neither was satisfactory. On this account heovercame his slight feeling against Mr. Dare, and put a question totest that gentleman's capacities. 'How would you measure the front of abuilding, including windows, doors, mouldings, and every other feature,for a ground plan, so as to combine the greatest accuracy with thegreatest despatch?'

  'In running dimensions,' said Dare.

  As this was the particular kind of work he wanted done, Somerset thoughtthe answer promising. Coming to terms with Dare, he requested thewould-be student of architecture to wait at the castle the next day, anddismissed him.

  A quarter of an hour later, when Dare was taking a walk in the country,he drew from his pocket eight other letters addressed to Somerset ininitials, which, to judge by their style and stationery, were from menfar superior to those two whose communications alone Somerset had seen.Dare looked them over for a few seconds as he strolled on, then torethem into minute fragments, and, burying them under the leaves in theditch, went on his way again.