A Laodicean : A Story of To-day Page 5

  IV.

  He descended the stone stairs to a lower story of the castle, in whichwas a crypt-like hall covered by vaulting of exceptional and massiveingenuity:

  'Built ere the art was known, By pointed aisle and shafted stalk The arcades of an alleyed walk To emulate in stone.'

  It happened that the central pillar whereon the vaults rested, reputedto exhibit some of the most hideous grotesques in England upon itscapital, was within a locked door. Somerset was tempted to ask aservant for permission to open it, till he heard that the inner roomwas temporarily used for plate, the key being kept by Miss De Stancy, atwhich he said no more. But afterwards the active housemaid redescendedthe stone steps; she entered the crypt with a bunch of keys in one hand,and in the other a candle, followed by the young lady whom Somerset hadseen on the terrace.

  'I shall be very glad to unlock anything you may want to see. So fewpeople take any real interest in what is here that we do not leave itopen.'

  Somerset expressed his thanks.

  Miss De Stancy, a little to his surprise, had a touch of rusticity inher manner, and that forced absence of reserve which seclusion fromsociety lends to young women more frequently than not. She seemed gladto have something to do; the arrival of Somerset was plainly an eventsufficient to set some little mark upon her day. Deception had beenwritten on the faces of those frowning walls in their implying theinsignificance of Somerset, when he found them tenanted only by thislittle woman whose life was narrower than his own.

  'We have not been here long,' continued Miss De Stancy, 'and that's whyeverything is in such a dilapidated and confused condition.'

  Somerset entered the dark store-closet, thinking less of the ancientpillar revealed by the light of the candle than what a singular remarkthe latter was to come from a member of the family which appeared tohave been there five centuries. He held the candle above his head, andwalked round, and presently Miss De Stancy came back.

  'There is another vault below,' she said, with the severe face of ayoung woman who speaks only because it is absolutely necessary. 'Perhapsyou are not aware of it? It was the dungeon: if you wish to godown there too, the servant will show you the way. It is not at allornamental: rough, unhewn arches and clumsy piers.'

  Somerset thanked her, and would perhaps take advantage of her kindoffer when he had examined the spot where he was, if it were not causinginconvenience.

  'No; I am sure Paula will be glad to know that anybody thinks itinteresting to go down there--which is more than she does herself.'

  Some obvious inquiries were suggested by this, but Somerset said, 'Ihave seen the pictures, and have been much struck by them; partly,' headded, with some hesitation, 'because one or two of them reminded me ofa schoolfellow--I think his name was John Ravensbury?'

  'Yes,' she said, almost eagerly. 'He was my cousin!'

  'So that we are not quite strangers?'

  'But he is dead now.... He was unfortunate: he was mostly spoken ofas "that unlucky boy."... You know, I suppose, Mr. Somerset, why thepaintings are in such a decaying state!--it is owing to the peculiartreatment of the castle during Mr. Wilkins's time. He was blind; so onecan imagine he did not appreciate such things as there are here.'

  'The castle has been shut up, you mean?'

  'O yes, for many years. But it will not be so again. We are going tohave the pictures cleaned, and the frames mended, and the old pieces offurniture put in their proper places. It will be very nice then. Did yousee those in the east closet?'

  'I have only seen those in the gallery.'

  'I will just show you the way to the others, if you would like to seethem?'

  They ascended to the room designated the east closet. The paintingshere, mostly of smaller size, were in a better condition, owing to thefact that they were hung on an inner wall, and had hence been kept freefrom damp. Somerset inquired the names and histories of one or two.

  'I really don't quite know,' Miss De Stancy replied after some thought.'But Paula knows, I am sure. I don't study them much--I don't see theuse of it.' She swung her sunshade, so that it fell open, and turned itup till it fell shut. 'I have never been able to give much attention toancestors,' she added, with her eyes on the parasol.

  'These ARE your ancestors?' he asked, for her position and tone werematters which perplexed him. In spite of the family likeness and otherdetails he could scarcely believe this frank and communicative countrymaiden to be the modern representative of the De Stancys.

  'O yes, they certainly are,' she said, laughing. 'People say I am likethem: I don't know if I am--well, yes, I know I am: I can see that, ofcourse, any day. But they have gone from my family, and perhaps itis just as well that they should have gone.... They are useless,' sheadded, with serene conclusiveness.

  'Ah! they have gone, have they?'

  'Yes, castle and furniture went together: it was long ago--long beforeI was born. It doesn't seem to me as if the place ever belonged to arelative of mine.'

  Somerset corrected his smiling manner to one of solicitude.

  'But you live here, Miss De Stancy?'

  'Yes--a great deal now; though sometimes I go home to sleep.'

  'This is home to you, and not home?'

  'I live here with Paula--my friend: I have not been here long, neitherhas she. For the first six months after her father's death she did notcome here at all.'

  They walked on, gazing at the walls, till the young man said: 'I fearI may be making some mistake: but I am sure you will pardon myinquisitiveness this once. WHO is Paula?'

  'Ah, you don't know! Of course you don't--local changes don't get talkedof far away. She is the owner of this castle and estate. My father soldit when he was quite a young man, years before I was born, and not longafter his father's death. It was purchased by a man named Wilkins, arich man who became blind soon after he had bought it, and never livedhere; so it was left uncared for.'

  She went out upon the terrace; and without exactly knowing why, Somersetfollowed.

  'Your friend--'

  'Has only come here quite recently. She is away from home to-day.... Itwas very sad,' murmured the young girl thoughtfully. 'No sooner hadMr. Power bought it of the representatives of Mr. Wilkins--almostimmediately indeed--than he died from a chill caught after a warm bath.On account of that she did not take possession for several months; andeven now she has only had a few rooms prepared as a temporary residencetill she can think what to do. Poor thing, it is sad to be left alone!'

  Somerset heedfully remarked that he thought he recognized that namePower, as one he had seen lately, somewhere or other.

  'Perhaps you have been hearing of her father. Do you know what he was?'

  Somerset did not.

  She looked across the distant country, where undulations of dark-greenfoliage formed a prospect extending for miles. And as she watched, andSomerset's eyes, led by hers, watched also, a white streak of steam,thin as a cotton thread, could be discerned ploughing that greenexpanse. 'Her father made THAT,' Miss De Stancy said, directing herfinger towards the object.

  'That what?'

  'That railway. He was Mr. John Power, the great railway contractor. Andit was through making the railway that he discovered this castle--therailway was diverted a little on its account.'

  'A clash between ancient and modern.'

  'Yes, but he took an interest in the locality long before he purchasedthe estate. And he built the people a chapel on a bit of freehold hebought for them. He was a great Nonconformist, a staunch Baptist up tothe day of his death--a much stauncher one,' she said significantly,'than his daughter is.'

  'Ah, I begin to spot her!'

  'You have heard about the baptism?'

  'I know something of it.'

  'Her conduct has given mortal offence to the scattered people of thedenomination that her father was at such pains to unite into a body.'

  Somerset could guess the remainder, and in thinking over thecircumstances did not state what he had seen. She ad
ded, as ifdisappointed at his want of curiosity--

  'She would not submit to the rite when it came to the point. The waterlooked so cold and dark and fearful, she said, that she could not do itto save her life.'

  'Surely she should have known her mind before she had gone so far?'Somerset's words had a condemnatory form, but perhaps his actual feelingwas that if Miss Power had known her own mind, she would have notinterested him half so much.

  'Paula's own mind had nothing to do with it!' said Miss De Stancy,warming up to staunch partizanship in a moment. 'It was all undertakenby her from a mistaken sense of duty. It was her father's dying wishthat she should make public profession of her--what do you call it--ofthe denomination she belonged to, as soon as she felt herself fit todo it: so when he was dead she tried and tried, and didn't get any morefit; and at last she screwed herself up to the pitch, and thought shemust undergo the ceremony out of pure reverence for his memory. It wasvery short-sighted of her father to put her in such a position: becauseshe is now very sad, as she feels she can never try again after such asermon as was delivered against her.'

  Somerset presumed that Miss Power need not have heard this Knox orBossuet of hers if she had chosen to go away?

  'She did not hear it in the face of the congregation; but from thevestry. She told me some of it when she reached home. Would you believeit, the man who preached so bitterly is a tenant of hers? I said,"Surely you will turn him out of his house?"--But she answered, in hercalm, deep, nice way, that she supposed he had a perfect right to preachagainst her, that she could not in justice molest him at all. I wouldn'tlet him stay if the house were mine. But she has often before allowedhim to scold her from the pulpit in a smaller way--once it was about anexpensive dress she had worn--not mentioning her by name, you know; butall the people are quite aware that it is meant for her, because onlyone person of her wealth or position belongs to the Baptist body in thiscounty.'

  Somerset was looking at the homely affectionate face of the littlespeaker. 'You are her good friend, I am sure,' he remarked.

  She looked into the distant air with tacit admission of the impeachment.'So would you be if you knew her,' she said; and a blush slowly roseto her cheek, as if the person spoken of had been a lover rather than afriend.

  'But you are not a Baptist any more than I?' continued Somerset.

  'O no. And I never knew one till I knew Paula. I think they are verynice; though I sometimes wish Paula was not one, but the religion ofreasonable persons.'

  They walked on, and came opposite to where the telegraph emerged fromthe trees, leapt over the parapet, and up through the loophole into theinterior.

  'That looks strange in such a building,' said her companion.

  'Miss Power had it put up to know the latest news from town. It costssix pounds a mile. She can work it herself, beautifully: and so canI, but not so well. It was a great delight to learn. Miss Power wasso interested at first that she was sending messages from morning tillnight. And did you hear the new clock?'

  'Is it a new one?--Yes, I heard it.'

  'The old one was quite worn out; so Paula has put it in the cellar, andhad this new one made, though it still strikes on the old bell. It tellsthe seconds, but the old one, which my very great grandfather erected inthe eighteenth century, only told the hours. Paula says that time,being so much more valuable now, must of course be cut up into smallerpieces.'

  'She does not appear to be much impressed by the spirit of this ancientpile.'

  Miss De Stancy shook her head too slightly to express absolute negation.

  'Do you wish to come through this door?' she asked. 'There is a singularchimney-piece in the kitchen, which is considered a unique example ofits kind, though I myself don't know enough about it to have an opinionon the subject.'

  When they had looked at the corbelled chimney-piece they returned to thehall, where his eye was caught anew by a large map that he had connedfor some time when alone, without being able to divine the localityrepresented. It was called 'General Plan of the Town,' and showedstreets and open spaces corresponding with nothing he had seen in thecounty.

  'Is that town here?' he asked.

  'It is not anywhere but in Paula's brain; she has laid it out from herown design. The site is supposed to be near our railway station, justacross there, where the land belongs to her. She is going to grant cheapbuilding leases, and develop the manufacture of pottery.'

  'Pottery--how very practical she must be!'

  'O no! no!' replied Miss De Stancy, in tones showing how supremelyignorant he must be of Miss Power's nature if he characterized her inthose terms. 'It is GREEK pottery she means--Hellenic pottery she tellsme to call it, only I forget. There is beautiful clay at the place,her father told her: he found it in making the railway tunnel. She hasvisited the British Museum, continental museums, and Greece, and Spain:and hopes to imitate the old fictile work in time, especially the Greekof the best period, four hundred years after Christ, or before Christ--Iforget which it was Paula said.... O no, she is not practical in thesense you mean, at all.'

  'A mixed young lady, rather.'

  Miss De Stancy appeared unable to settle whether this new definition ofher dear friend should be accepted as kindly, or disallowed as decidedlysarcastic. 'You would like her if you knew her,' she insisted, in halftones of pique; after which she walked on a few steps.

  'I think very highly of her,' said Somerset.

  'And I! And yet at one time I could never have believed that I shouldhave been her friend. One is prejudiced at first against people who arereported to have such differences in feeling, associations, and habit,as she seemed to have from mine. But it has not stood in the least inthe way of our liking each other. I believe the difference makes us themore united.'

  'It says a great deal for the liberality of both,' answered Somersetwarmly. 'Heaven send us more of the same sort of people! They are nottoo numerous at present.'

  As this remark called for no reply from Miss De Stancy, she tookadvantage of an opportunity to leave him alone, first repeating herpermission to him to wander where he would. He walked about for sometime, sketch-book in hand, but was conscious that his interest did notlie much in the architecture. In passing along the corridor of anupper floor he observed an open door, through which was visible a roomcontaining one of the finest Renaissance cabinets he had ever seen. Itwas impossible, on close examination, to do justice to it in a hastysketch; it would be necessary to measure every line if he would bringaway anything of utility to him as a designer. Deciding to reserve thisgem for another opportunity he cast his eyes round the room and blusheda little. Without knowing it he had intruded into the absent MissPaula's own particular set of chambers, including a boudoir and sleepingapartment. On the tables of the sitting-room were most of the popularpapers and periodicals that he knew, not only English, but from Paris,Italy, and America. Satirical prints, though they did not undulypreponderate, were not wanting. Besides these there were books from aLondon circulating library, paper-covered light literature in French andchoice Italian, and the latest monthly reviews; while between the twowindows stood the telegraph apparatus whose wire had been the means ofbringing him hither.

  These things, ensconced amid so much of the old and hoary, were as ifa stray hour from the nineteenth century had wandered like a butterflyinto the thirteenth, and lost itself there.

  The door between this ante-chamber and the sleeping-room stood open.Without venturing to cross the threshold, for he felt that he would beabusing hospitality to go so far, Somerset looked in for a moment. Itwas a pretty place, and seemed to have been hastily fitted up. In acorner, overhung by a blue and white canopy of silk, was a little cot,hardly large enough to impress the character of bedroom upon the oldplace. Upon a counterpane lay a parasol and a silk neckerchief. On theother side of the room was a tall mirror of startling newness, drapedlike the bedstead, in blue and white. Thrown at random upon the floorwas a pair of satin slippers that would have fitted Cinderella. Adressing-gown lay across
a settee; and opposite, upon a small easy-chairin the same blue and white livery, were a Bible, the Baptist Magazine,Wardlaw on Infant Baptism, Walford's County Families, and the CourtJournal. On and over the mantelpiece were nicknacks of variousdescriptions, and photographic portraits of the artistic, scientific,and literary celebrities of the day.

  A dressing-room lay beyond; but, becoming conscious that his studyof ancient architecture would hardly bear stretching further in thatdirection, Mr. Somerset retreated to the outside, obliviously passing bythe gem of Renaissance that had led him in.

  'She affects blue,' he was thinking. 'Then she is fair.'

  On looking up, some time later, at the new clock that told the seconds,he found that the hours at his disposal for work had flown without hishaving transferred a single feature of the building or furniture to hissketch-book. Before leaving he sent in for permission to come again, andthen walked across the fields to the inn at Sleeping-Green, reflectingless upon Miss De Stancy (so little force of presence had she possessed)than upon the modern flower in a mediaeval flower-pot whom Miss DeStancy's information had brought before him, and upon the incongruitiesthat were daily shaping themselves in the world under the great modernfluctuations of classes and creeds.

  Somerset was still full of the subject when he arrived at the end ofhis walk, and he fancied that some loungers at the bar of the inn werediscussing the heroine of the chapel-scene just at the moment of hisentry. On this account, when the landlord came to clear away the dinner,Somerset was led to inquire of him, by way of opening a conversation, ifthere were many Baptists in the neighbourhood.

  The landlord (who was a serious man on the surface, though heoccasionally smiled beneath) replied that there were a great many--farmore than the average in country parishes. 'Even here, in my house,now,' he added, 'when volks get a drop of drink into 'em, and theirfeelings rise to a zong, some man will strike up a hymn by preference.But I find no fault with that; for though 'tis hardly human nature to beso calculating in yer cups, a feller may as well sing to gain somethingas sing to waste.'

  'How do you account for there being so many?'

  'Well, you zee, sir, some says one thing, and some another; I think theydoes it to save the expense of a Christian burial for ther children. Nowthere's a poor family out in Long Lane--the husband used to smite forJimmy More the blacksmith till 'a hurt his arm--they'd have no less thaneleven children if they'd not been lucky t'other way, and buried fivewhen they were three or four months old. Now every one of them childrenwas given to the sexton in a little box that any journeyman could nailtogether in a quarter of an hour, and he buried 'em at night for ashilling a head; whereas 'twould have cost a couple of pounds each ifthey'd been christened at church.... Of course there's the new ladyat the castle, she's a chapel member, and that may make a littledifference; but she's not been here long enough to show whether 'twillbe worth while to join 'em for the profit o't or whether 'twill not. Nodoubt if it turns out that she's of a sort to relieve volks in trouble,more will join her set than belongs to it already. "Any port in astorm," of course, as the saying is.'

  'As for yourself, you are a Churchman at present, I presume?'

  'Yes; not but I was a Methodist once--ay, for a length of time. 'Twasowing to my taking a house next door to a chapel; so that what withhearing the organ bizz like a bee through the wall, and what withfinding it saved umbrellas on wet Zundays, I went over to that faith fortwo years--though I believe I dropped money by it--I wouldn't be the manto say so if I hadn't. Howsomever, when I moved into this house I turnedback again to my old religion. Faith, I don't zee much difference: beyou one, or be you t'other, you've got to get your living.'

  'The De Stancys, of course, have not much influence here now, for that,or any other thing?'

  'O no, no; not any at all. They be very low upon ground, and alwayswill be now, I suppose. It was thoughted worthy of being recorded inhistory--you've read it, sir, no doubt?'

  'Not a word.'

  'O, then, you shall. I've got the history zomewhere. 'Twas gay mannersthat did it. The only bit of luck they have had of late years isMiss Power's taking to little Miss De Stancy, and making her hercompany-keeper. I hope 'twill continue.'

  That the two daughters of these antipodean families should be suchintimate friends was a situation which pleased Somerset as much as itdid the landlord. It was an engaging instance of that human progresson which he had expended many charming dreams in the years when poetry,theology, and the reorganization of society had seemed matters of moreimportance to him than a profession which should help him to a big houseand income, a fair Deiopeia, and a lovely progeny. When he was alone hepoured out a glass of wine, and silently drank the healths of the twogenerous-minded young women who, in this lonely district, had foundsweet communion a necessity of life, and by pure and instinctive goodsense had broken down a barrier which men thrice their age and reputewould probably have felt it imperative to maintain. But perhaps this waspremature: the omnipotent Miss Power's character--practical or ideal,politic or impulsive--he as yet knew nothing of; and giving overreasoning from insufficient data he lapsed into mere conjecture.