A Laodicean : A Story of To-day Read online

  III.

  By half-past ten the next morning Somerset was once more approachingthe precincts of the building which had interested him the night before.Referring to his map he had learnt that it bore the name of StancyCastle or Castle de Stancy; and he had been at once struck with itsfamiliarity, though he had never understood its position in the county,believing it further to the west. If report spoke truly there wassome excellent vaulting in the interior, and a change of study fromecclesiastical to secular Gothic was not unwelcome for a while.

  The entrance-gate was open now, and under the archway the outer ward wasvisible, a great part of it being laid out as a flower-garden. This wasin process of clearing from weeds and rubbish by a set of gardeners, andthe soil was so encumbered that in rooting out the weeds such few hardyflowers as still remained in the beds were mostly brought up with them.The groove wherein the portcullis had run was as fresh as if only cutyesterday, the very tooling of the stone being visible. Close to thishung a bell-pull formed of a large wooden acorn attached to a verticalrod. Somerset's application brought a woman from the porter's door, whoinformed him that the day before having been the weekly show-day forvisitors, it was doubtful if he could be admitted now.

  'Who is at home?' said Somerset.

  'Only Miss de Stancy,' the porteress replied.

  His dread of being considered an intruder was such that he thought atfirst there was no help for it but to wait till the next week. Buthe had already through his want of effrontery lost a sight of manyinteriors, whose exhibition would have been rather a satisfaction to theinmates than a trouble. It was inconvenient to wait; he knew nobodyin the neighbourhood from whom he could get an introductory letter: heturned and passed the woman, crossed the ward where the gardeners wereat work, over a second and smaller bridge, and up a flight of stonestairs, open to the sky, along whose steps sunburnt Tudor soldiers andother renowned dead men had doubtless many times walked. It led to theprincipal door on this side. Thence he could observe the walls ofthe lower court in detail, and the old mosses with which they werepadded--mosses that from time immemorial had been burnt brown everysummer, and every winter had grown green again. The arrow-slit and theelectric wire that entered it, like a worm uneasy at being unearthed,were distinctly visible now. So also was the clock, not, as he hadsupposed, a chronometer coeval with the fortress itself, but new andshining, and bearing the name of a recent maker.

  The door was opened by a bland, intensely shaven man out of livery,who took Somerset's name and politely worded request to be allowed toinspect the architecture of the more public portions of the castle. Hepronounced the word 'architecture' in the tone of a man who knew andpractised that art; 'for,' he said to himself, 'if she thinks I am amere idle tourist, it will not be so well.'

  No such uncomfortable consequences ensued. Miss De Stancy had greatpleasure in giving Mr. Somerset full permission to walk through whateverparts of the building he chose.

  He followed the butler into the inner buildings of the fortress, theponderous thickness of whose walls made itself felt like a physicalpressure. An internal stone staircase, ranged round four sides of asquare, was next revealed, leading at the top of one flight into aspacious hall, which seemed to occupy the whole area of the keep. Fromthis apartment a corridor floored with black oak led to the more modernwing, where light and air were treated in a less gingerly fashion.

  Here passages were broader than in the oldest portion, and upholsteryenlisted in the service of the fine arts hid to a great extent thecoldness of the walls.

  Somerset was now left to himself, and roving freely from room to roomhe found time to inspect the different objects of interest that aboundedthere. Not all the chambers, even of the habitable division, were in useas dwelling-rooms, though these were still numerous enough for the wantsof an ordinary country family. In a long gallery with a coved ceilingof arabesques which had once been gilded, hung a series of paintingsrepresenting the past personages of the De Stancy line. It was aremarkable array--even more so on account of the incredibly neglectedcondition of the canvases than for the artistic peculiarities theyexhibited. Many of the frames were dropping apart at their angles, andsome of the canvas was so dingy that the face of the person depicted wasonly distinguishable as the moon through mist. For the colour they hadnow they might have been painted during an eclipse; while, to judge bythe webs tying them to the wall, the spiders that ran up and down theirbacks were such as to make the fair originals shudder in their graves.

  He wondered how many of the lofty foreheads and smiling lips of thispictorial pedigree could be credited as true reflections of theirprototypes. Some were wilfully false, no doubt; many more so byunavoidable accident and want of skill. Somerset felt that it required aprofounder mind than his to disinter from the lumber of conventionalitythe lineaments that really sat in the painter's presence, and todiscover their history behind the curtain of mere tradition.

  The painters of this long collection were those who usually appear insuch places; Holbein, Jansen, and Vandyck; Sir Peter, Sir Geoffrey, SirJoshua, and Sir Thomas. Their sitters, too, had mostly been sirs; SirWilliam, Sir John, or Sir George De Stancy--some undoubtedly havinga nobility stamped upon them beyond that conferred by their robes andorders; and others not so fortunate. Their respective ladies hung bytheir sides--feeble and watery, or fat and comfortable, as the casemight be; also their fathers and mothers-in-law, their brothers andremoter relatives; their contemporary reigning princes, and theirintimate friends. Of the De Stancys pure there ran through thecollection a mark by which they might surely have been recognized asmembers of one family; this feature being the upper part of the nose.Every one, even if lacking other points in common, had the specialindent at this point in the face--sometimes moderate in degree,sometimes excessive.

  While looking at the pictures--which, though not in his regular line ofstudy, interested Somerset more than the architecture, because of theirsingular dilapidation, it occurred to his mind that he had in his youthbeen schoolfellow for a very short time with a pleasant boy bearing asurname attached to one of the paintings--the name of Ravensbury. Theboy had vanished he knew not how--he thought he had been removed fromschool suddenly on account of ill health. But the recollection wasvague, and Somerset moved on to the rooms above and below. In additionto the architectural details of which he had as yet obtained butglimpses, there was a great collection of old movables and otherdomestic art-work--all more than a century old, and mostly lying aslumber. There were suites of tapestry hangings, common and fine; greenand scarlet leather-work, on which the gilding was still but littleinjured; venerable damask curtains; quilted silk table-covers,ebony cabinets, worked satin window-cushions, carved bedsteads, andembroidered bed-furniture which had apparently screened no sleeper forthese many years. Downstairs there was also an interesting collection ofarmour, together with several huge trunks and coffers. A great manyof them had been recently taken out and cleaned, as if a long dormantinterest in them were suddenly revived. Doubtless they were those whichhad been used by the living originals of the phantoms that looked downfrom the frames.

  This excellent hoard of suggestive designs for wood-work, metal-work,and work of other sorts, induced Somerset to divert his studies fromthe ecclesiastical direction, to acquire some new ideas from the objectshere for domestic application. Yet for the present he was inclinedto keep his sketch-book closed and his ivory rule folded, and devotehimself to a general survey. Emerging from the ground-floor by a smalldoorway, he found himself on a terrace to the north-east, and on theother side than that by which he had entered. It was bounded by aparapet breast high, over which a view of the distant country met theeye, stretching from the foot of the slope to a distance of many miles.Somerset went and leaned over, and looked down upon the tops of thebushes beneath. The prospect included the village he had passed throughon the previous day: and amidst the green lights and shades of themeadows he could discern the red brick chapel whose recalcitrant inmatehad so engrossed him.

  Before h
is attention had long strayed over the incident whichromanticized that utilitarian structure, he became aware that he was notthe only person who was looking from the terrace towards that point ofthe compass. At the right-hand corner, in a niche of the curtain-wall,reclined a girlish shape; and asleep on the bench over which she leanedwas a white cat--the identical Persian as it seemed--that had been takeninto the carriage at the chapel-door.

  Somerset began to muse on the probability or otherwise of thebacksliding Baptist and this young lady resulting in one and the sameperson; and almost without knowing it he found himself deeply hoping forsuch a unity. The object of his inspection was idly leaning, andthis somewhat disguised her figure. It might have been tall or short,curvilinear or angular. She carried a light sunshade which she fitfullytwirled until, thrusting it back over her shoulder, her head wasrevealed sufficiently to show that she wore no hat or bonnet. This tokenof her being an inmate of the castle, and not a visitor, rather dampedhis expectations: but he persisted in believing her look towards thechapel must have a meaning in it, till she suddenly stood erect, andrevealed herself as short in stature--almost dumpy--at the same timegiving him a distinct view of her profile. She was not at all like theheroine of the chapel. He saw the dinted nose of the De Stancys outlinedwith Holbein shadowlessness against the blue-green of the distant wood.It was not the De Stancy face with all its original specialities: itwas, so to speak, a defective reprint of that face: for the nose triedhard to turn up and deal utter confusion to the family shape.

  As for the rest of the countenance, Somerset was obliged to own that itwas not beautiful: Nature had done there many things that she ought notto have done, and left undone much that she should have executed. Itwould have been decidedly plain but for a precious quality which noperfection of chiselling can give when the temperament denies it, andwhich no facial irregularity can take away--a tender affectionatenesswhich might almost be called yearning; such as is often seen in thewomen of Correggio when they are painted in profile. But the plainfeatures of Miss De Stancy--who she undoubtedly was--were ratherseverely handled by Somerset's judgment owing to his impression of theprevious night. A beauty of a sort would have been lent by the flexuouscontours of the mobile parts but for that unfortunate condition the poorgirl was burdened with, of having to hand on a traditional feature withwhich she did not find herself otherwise in harmony.

  She glanced at him for a moment, and showed by an imperceptible movementthat he had made his presence felt. Not to embarrass her Somersethastened to withdraw, at the same time that she passed round to theother part of the terrace, followed by the cat, in whom Somerset couldimagine a certain denominational cast of countenance, notwithstandingher company. But as white cats are much alike each other at a distance,it was reasonable to suppose this creature was not the same one as thatpossessed by the beauty.