A Laodicean : A Story of To-day Read online

  V.

  The next morning Somerset was again at the castle. He passed someinterval on the walls before encountering Miss De Stancy, whom at lasthe observed going towards a pony-carriage that waited near the door.

  A smile gained strength upon her face at his approach, and she was thefirst to speak. 'I am sorry Miss Power has not returned,' she said, andaccounted for that lady's absence by her distress at the event of twoevenings earlier.

  'But I have driven over to my father's--Sir William De Stancy's--housethis morning,' she went on. 'And on mentioning your name to him, I foundhe knew it quite well. You will, will you not, forgive my ignorance inhaving no better knowledge of the elder Mr. Somerset's works than a dimsense of his fame as a painter? But I was going to say that my fatherwould much like to include you in his personal acquaintance, and wishesme to ask if you will give him the pleasure of lunching with him to-day.My cousin John, whom you once knew, was a great favourite of his, andused to speak of you sometimes. It will be so kind if you can come. Myfather is an old man, out of society, and he would be glad to hear thenews of town.'

  Somerset said he was glad to find himself among friends where he hadonly expected strangers; and promised to come that day, if she wouldtell him the way.

  That she could easily do. The short way was across that glade he sawthere--then over the stile into the wood, following the path till itcame out upon the turnpike-road. He would then be almost close to thehouse. The distance was about two miles and a half. But if he thought ittoo far for a walk, she would drive on to the town, where she had beengoing when he came, and instead of returning straight to her father'swould come back and pick him up.

  It was not at all necessary, he thought. He was a walker, and could findthe path.

  At this moment a servant came to tell Miss De Stancy that the telegraphwas calling her.

  'Ah--it is lucky that I was not gone again!' she exclaimed. 'John seldomreads it right if I am away.'

  It now seemed quite in the ordinary course that, as a friend of herfather's, he should accompany her to the instrument. So up they wenttogether, and immediately on reaching it she applied her ear to theinstrument, and began to gather the message. Somerset fancied himselflike a person overlooking another's letter, and moved aside.

  'It is no secret,' she said, smiling. '"Paula to Charlotte," it begins.'

  'That's very pretty.'

  'O--and it is about--you,' murmured Miss De Stancy.

  'Me?' The architect blushed a little.

  She made no answer, and the machine went on with its story. There wassomething curious in watching this utterance about himself, under hisvery nose, in language unintelligible to him. He conjectured whether itwere inquiry, praise, or blame, with a sense that it might reasonablybe the latter, as the result of his surreptitious look into that bluebedroom, possibly observed and reported by some servant of the house.

  '"Direct that every facility be given to Mr. Somerset to visit anypart of the castle he may wish to see. On my return I shall be glad towelcome him as the acquaintance of your relatives. I have two of hisfather's pictures."'

  'Dear me, the plot thickens,' he said, as Miss De Stancy announced thewords. 'How could she know about me?'

  'I sent a message to her this morning when I saw you crossing the parkon your way here--telling her that Mr. Somerset, son of the Academician,was making sketches of the castle, and that my father knew something ofyou. That's her answer.'

  'Where are the pictures by my father that she has purchased?'

  'O, not here--at least, not unpacked.'

  Miss de Stancy then left him to proceed on her journey to Markton (sothe nearest little town was called), informing him that she would beat her father's house to receive him at two o'clock. Just about one heclosed his sketch-book, and set out in the direction she had indicated.At the entrance to the wood a man was at work pulling down a rotten gatethat bore on its battered lock the initials 'W. De S.' and erecting anew one whose ironmongery exhibited the letters 'P. P.'

  The warmth of the summer noon did not inconveniently penetrate the densemasses of foliage which now began to overhang the path, except in spotswhere a ruthless timber-felling had taken place in previous years forthe purpose of sale. It was that particular half-hour of the day inwhich the birds of the forest prefer walking to flying; and there beingno wind, the hopping of the smallest songster over the dead leavesreached his ear from behind the undergrowth. The track had originallybeen a well-kept winding drive, but a deep carpet of moss and leavesoverlaid it now, though the general outline still remained to show thatits curves had been set out with as much care as those of a lawn walk,and the gradient made easy for carriages where the natural slopes weregreat. Felled trunks occasionally lay across it, and alongside were thehollow and fungous boles of trees sawn down in long past years.

  After a walk of three-quarters of an hour he came to another gate, wherethe letters 'P. P.' again supplanted the historical 'W. De S.' Climbingover this, he found himself on a highway which presently dipped downtowards the town of Markton, a place he had never yet seen. It appearedin the distance as a quiet little borough of a few thousand inhabitants;and, without the town boundary on the side he was approaching, stoodhalf-a-dozen genteel and modern houses, of the detached kind usuallyfound in such suburbs. On inquiry, Sir William De Stancy's residence wasindicated as one of these.

  It was almost new, of streaked brick, having a central door, and a smallbay window on each side to light the two front parlours. A littlelawn spread its green surface in front, divided from the road by ironrailings, the low line of shrubs immediately within them being coatedwith pallid dust from the highway. On the neat piers of the neatentrance gate were chiselled the words 'Myrtle Villa.' Genuine roadsiderespectability sat smiling on every brick of the eligible dwelling.

  Perhaps that which impressed Somerset more than the mushroom modernismof Sir William De Stancy's house was the air of healthful cheerfulnesswhich pervaded it. He was shown in by a neat maidservant in black gownand white apron, a canary singing a welcome from a cage in the shadowof the window, the voices of crowing cocks coming over the chimneys fromsomewhere behind, and the sun and air riddling the house everywhere.

  A dwelling of those well-known and popular dimensions which allow theproceedings in the kitchen to be distinctly heard in the parlours, itwas so planned that a raking view might be obtained through it from thefront door to the end of the back garden. The drawing-room furniturewas comfortable, in the walnut-and-green-rep style of some years ago.Somerset had expected to find his friends living in an old house withremnants of their own antique furniture, and he hardly knew whether heought to meet them with a smile or a gaze of condolence. His doubtwas terminated, however, by the cheerful and tripping entry of Miss DeStancy, who had returned from her drive to Markton; and in a few moremoments Sir William came in from the garden.

  He was an old man of tall and spare build, with a considerable stoop,his glasses dangling against his waistcoat-buttons, and the frontcorners of his coat-tails hanging lower than the hinderparts, so thatthey swayed right and left as he walked. He nervously apologized to hisvisitor for having kept him waiting.

  'I am so glad to see you,' he said, with a mild benevolence of tone,as he retained Somerset's hand for a moment or two; 'partly for yourfather's sake, whom I met more than once in my younger days, before hebecame so well-known; and also because I learn that you were a friend ofmy poor nephew John Ravensbury.' He looked over his shoulder to see ifhis daughter were within hearing, and, with the impulse of the solitaryto make a confidence, continued in a low tone: 'She, poor girl, wasto have married John: his death was a sad blow to her and to all ofus.--Pray take a seat, Mr. Somerset.'

  The reverses of fortune which had brought Sir William De Stancy tothis comfortable cottage awakened in Somerset a warmer emotion thancuriosity, and he sat down with a heart as responsive to each speechuttered as if it had seriously concerned himself, while his host gavesome words of information to his daughter on
the trifling events thathad marked the morning just passed; such as that the cow had got out ofthe paddock into Miss Power's field, that the smith who had promisedto come and look at the kitchen range had not arrived, that two wasps'nests had been discovered in the garden bank, and that Nick Jones's babyhad fallen downstairs. Sir William had large cavernous arches to hiseye-sockets, reminding the beholder of the vaults in the castle heonce had owned. His hands were long and almost fleshless, each knuckleshowing like a bamboo-joint from beneath his coat-sleeves, which weresmall at the elbow and large at the wrist. All the colour had gone fromhis beard and locks, except in the case of a few isolated hairs of theformer, which retained dashes of their original shade at sudden pointsin their length, revealing that all had once been raven black.

  But to study a man to his face for long is a species of ill-nature whichrequires a colder temperament, or at least an older heart, than thearchitect's was at that time. Incurious unobservance is the trueattitude of cordiality, and Somerset blamed himself for having falleninto an act of inspection even briefly. He would wait for his host'sconversation, which would doubtless be of the essence of historicalromance.

  'The favourable Bank-returns have made the money-market much easierto-day, as I learn?' said Sir William.

  'O, have they?' said Somerset. 'Yes, I suppose they have.'

  'And something is meant by this unusual quietness in Foreign stockssince the late remarkable fluctuations,' insisted the old man. 'Is thecurrent of speculation quite arrested, or is it but a temporary lull?'

  Somerset said he was afraid he could not give an opinion, and enteredvery lamely into the subject; but Sir William seemed to find sufficientinterest in his own thoughts to do away with the necessity of acquiringfresh impressions from other people's replies; for often after putting aquestion he looked on the floor, as if the subject were at an end. Lunchwas now ready, and when they were in the dining-room Miss De Stancy,to introduce a topic of more general interest, asked Somerset if he hadnoticed the myrtle on the lawn?

  Somerset had noticed it, and thought he had never seen such a full-blownone in the open air before. His eyes were, however, resting at themoment on the only objects at all out of the common that the dining-roomcontained. One was a singular glass case over the fireplace, withinwhich were some large mediaeval door-keys, black with rust and age; andthe others were two full-length oil portraits in the costume of the endof the last century--so out of all proportion to the size of the roomthey occupied that they almost reached to the floor.

  'Those originally belonged to the castle yonder,' said Miss De Stancy,or Charlotte, as her father called her, noticing Somerset's glance atthe keys. 'They used to unlock the principal entrance-doors, which wereknocked to pieces in the civil wars. New doors were placed afterwards,but the old keys were never given up, and have been preserved by us eversince.'

  'They are quite useless--mere lumber--particularly to me,' said SirWilliam.

  'And those huge paintings were a present from Paula,' she continued.'They are portraits of my great-grandfather and mother. Paula would giveall the old family pictures back to me if we had room for them; but theywould fill the house to the ceilings.'

  Sir William was impatient of the subject. 'What is the utility ofsuch accumulations?' he asked. 'Their originals are but clay now--mereforgotten dust, not worthy a moment's inquiry or reflection at thisdistance of time. Nothing can retain the spirit, and why should wepreserve the shadow of the form?--London has been very full this year,sir, I have been told?'

  'It has,' said Somerset, and he asked if they had been up that season.It was plain that the matter with which Sir William De Stancy leastcared to occupy himself before visitors was the history of his ownfamily, in which he was followed with more simplicity by his daughterCharlotte.

  'No,' said the baronet. 'One might be led to think there is a fatalitywhich prevents it. We make arrangements to go to town almost every year,to meet some old friend who combines the rare conditions of beingin London with being mindful of me; but he has always died or goneelsewhere before the event has taken place.... But with a disposition tobe happy, it is neither this place nor the other that can render us thereverse. In short each man's happiness depends upon himself, and hisability for doing with little.' He turned more particularly to Somerset,and added with an impressive smile: 'I hope you cultivate the art ofdoing with little?'

  Somerset said that he certainly did cultivate that art, partly becausehe was obliged to.

  'Ah--you don't mean to the extent that I mean. The world has not yetlearned the riches of frugality, says, I think, Cicero, somewhere; andnobody can testify to the truth of that remark better than I. If a manknows how to spend less than his income, however small that maybe, why--he has the philosopher's stone.' And Sir William looked inSomerset's face with frugality written in every pore of his own, as muchas to say, 'And here you see one who has been a living instance of thoseprinciples from his youth up.'

  Somerset soon found that whatever turn the conversation took, SirWilliam invariably reverted to this topic of frugality. When luncheonwas over he asked his visitor to walk with him into the garden, and nosooner were they alone than he continued: 'Well, Mr. Somerset, you aredown here sketching architecture for professional purposes. Nothing canbe better: you are a young man, and your art is one in which there areinnumerable chances.'

  'I had begun to think they were rather few,' said Somerset.

  'No, they are numerous enough: the difficulty is to find out where theylie. It is better to know where your luck lies than where your talentlies: that's an old man's opinion.'

  'I'll remember it,' said Somerset.

  'And now give me some account of your new clubs, new hotels, and newmen.... What I was going to add, on the subject of finding out whereyour luck lies, is that nobody is so unfortunate as not to have a luckystar in some direction or other. Perhaps yours is at the antipodes; ifso, go there. All I say is, discover your lucky star.'

  'I am looking for it.'

  'You may be able to do two things; one well, the other butindifferently, and yet you may have more luck in the latter. Then stickto that one, and never mind what you can do best. Your star lies there.'

  'There I am not quite at one with you, Sir William.'

  'You should be. Not that I mean to say that luck lies in any one placelong, or at any one person's door. Fortune likes new faces, and yourwisdom lies in bringing your acquisitions into safety while her favourlasts. To do that you must make friends in her time of smiles--makefriends with people, wherever you find them. My daughter hasunconsciously followed that maxim. She has struck up a warm friendshipwith our neighbour, Miss Power, at the castle. We are diametricallydifferent from her in associations, traditions, ideas, religion--shecomes of a violent dissenting family among other things--but I say toCharlotte what I say to you: win affection and regard wherever you can,and accommodate yourself to the times. I put nothing in the way of theirintimacy, and wisely so, for by this so many pleasant hours are added tothe sum total vouchsafed to humanity.'

  It was quite late in the afternoon when Somerset took his leave. MissDe Stancy did not return to the castle that night, and he walked throughthe wood as he had come, feeling that he had been talking with a manof simple nature, who flattered his own understanding by devisingMachiavellian theories after the event, to account for any spontaneousaction of himself or his daughter, which might otherwise seem eccentricor irregular.

  Before Somerset reached the inn he was overtaken by a slight shower, andon entering the house he walked into the general room, where there was afire, and stood with one foot on the fender. The landlord was talking tosome guest who sat behind a screen; and, probably because Somersethad been seen passing the window, and was known to be sketching at thecastle, the conversation turned on Sir William De Stancy.

  'I have often noticed,' observed the landlord, 'that volks who have cometo grief, and quite failed, have the rules how to succeed in life moreat their vingers' ends than volks who have succeeded. I as
sure you thatSir William, so full as he is of wise maxims, never acted upon a wisemaxim in his life, until he had lost everything, and it didn't matterwhether he was wise or no. You know what he was in his young days, ofcourse?'

  'No, I don't,' said the invisible stranger.

  'O, I thought everybody knew poor Sir William's history. He was thestar, as I may zay, of good company forty years ago. I remember him inthe height of his jinks, as I used to zee him when I was a very littleboy, and think how great and wonderful he was. I can seem to zee nowthe exact style of his clothes; white hat, white trousers, white silkhandkerchief; and his jonnick face, as white as his clothes with keepinglate hours. There was nothing black about him but his hair and hiseyes--he wore no beard at that time--and they were black as slooes. Thelike of his coming on the race-course was never seen there afore norsince. He drove his ikkipage hisself; and it was always hauled by fourbeautiful white horses, and two outriders rode in harness bridles. Therewas a groom behind him, and another at the rubbing-post, all in liveryas glorious as New Jerusalem. What a 'stablishment he kept up at thattime! I can mind him, sir, with thirty race-horses in training atonce, seventeen coach-horses, twelve hunters at his box t'other side ofLondon, four chargers at Budmouth, and ever so many hacks.'

  'And he lost all by his racing speculations?' the stranger observed;and Somerset fancied that the voice had in it something more than thelanguid carelessness of a casual sojourner.

  'Partly by that, partly in other ways. He spent a mint o' money ina wild project of founding a watering-place; and sunk thousands in auseless silver mine; so 'twas no wonder that the castle named after himvell into other hands.... The way it was done was curious. Mr. Wilkins,who was the first owner after it went from Sir William, actually satdown as a guest at his table, and got up as the owner. He took off, ata round sum, everything saleable, furniture, plate, pictures, even themilk and butter in the dairy. That's how the pictures and furniturecome to be in the castle still; wormeaten rubbish zome o' it, and hardlyworth moving.'

  'And off went the baronet to Myrtle Villa?'

  'O no! he went away for many years. 'Tis quite lately, since hisillness, that he came to that little place, in zight of the stone wallsthat were the pride of his forefathers.'

  'From what I hear, he has not the manner of a broken-hearted man?'

  'Not at all. Since that illness he has been happy, as you see him: nopride, quite calm and mild; at new moon quite childish. 'Tis that makeshim able to live there; before he was so ill he couldn't bear a zight ofthe place, but since then he is happy nowhere else, and never leavesthe parish further than to drive once a week to Markton. His head won'tstand society nowadays, and he lives quite lonely as you zee, onlyzeeing his daughter, or his son whenever he comes home, which is notoften. They say that if his brain hadn't softened a little he would ha'died--'twas that saved his life.'

  'What's this I hear about his daughter? Is she really hired companion tothe new owner?'

  'Now that's a curious thing again, these two girls being so fond of oneanother; one of 'em a dissenter, and all that, and t'other a De Stancy.O no, not hired exactly, but she mostly lives with Miss Power, and goesabout with her, and I dare say Miss Power makes it wo'th her while.One can't move a step without the other following; though judging byordinary volks you'd think 'twould be a cat-and-dog friendship rather.'

  'But 'tis not?'

  ''Tis not; they be more like lovers than maid and maid. Miss Power islooked up to by little De Stancy as if she were a god-a'mighty, and MissPower lets her love her to her heart's content. But whether Miss Powerloves back again I can't zay, for she's as deep as the North Star.'

  The landlord here left the stranger to go to some other part of thehouse, and Somerset drew near to the glass partition to gain a glimpseof a man whose interest in the neighbourhood seemed to have arisen sosimultaneously with his own. But the inner room was empty: the man hadapparently departed by another door.