XIV.
When she was gone he went on with the drawing, not calling in Dare,who remained in the room adjoining. Presently a servant came and laid apaper on his table, which Miss Power had sent. It was one of the morningnewspapers, and was folded so that his eye fell immediately on a letterheaded 'Restoration or Demolition.'
The letter was professedly written by a dispassionate person solely inthe interests of art. It drew attention to the circumstance that theancient and interesting castle of the De Stancys had unhappily passedinto the hands of an iconoclast by blood, who, without respect for thetradition of the county, or any feeling whatever for history in stone,was about to demolish much, if not all, that was interesting in thatancient pile, and insert in its midst a monstrous travesty of someGreek temple. In the name of all lovers of mediaeval art, conjured thesimple-minded writer, let something be done to save a building which,injured and battered in the Civil Wars, was now to be made a completeruin by the freaks of an irresponsible owner. Her sending him the paperseemed to imply that she required his opinion on the case; and in theafternoon, leaving Dare to measure up a wing according to directions, hewent out in the hope of meeting her, having learnt that she had gone tothe village. On reaching the church he saw her crossing the churchyardpath with her aunt and Miss De Stancy. Somerset entered the enclosure,and as soon as she saw him she came across.
'What is to be done?' she asked.
'You need not be concerned about such a letter as that.'
'I am concerned.'
'I think it dreadful impertinence,' spoke up Charlotte, who had joinedthem. 'Can you think who wrote it, Mr. Somerset?'
Somerset could not.
'Well, what am I to do?' repeated Paula.
'Just as you would have done before.'
'That's what _I_ say,' observed Mrs. Goodman emphatically.
'But I have already altered--I have given up the Greek court.'
'O--you had seen the paper this morning before you looked at mydrawing?'
'I had,' she answered.
Somerset thought it a forcible illustration of her natural reticencethat she should have abandoned the design without telling him thereason; but he was glad she had not done it from mere caprice.
She turned to him and said quietly, 'I wish YOU would answer thatletter.'
'It would be ill-advised,' said Somerset. 'Still, if, afterconsideration, you wish it much, I will. Meanwhile let me impress uponyou again the expediency of calling in Mr. Havill--to whom, as yourfather's architect, expecting this commission, something perhaps isowed--and getting him to furnish an alternative plan to mine, andsubmitting the choice of designs to some members of the Royal Instituteof British Architects. This letter makes it still more advisable thanbefore.'
'Very well,' said Paula reluctantly.
'Let him have all the particulars you have been good enough to explainto me--so that we start fair in the competition.'
She looked negligently on the grass. 'I will tell the building stewardto write them out for him,' she said.
The party separated and entered the church by different doors. Somersetwent to a nook of the building that he had often intended to visit. Itwas called the Stancy aisle; and in it stood the tombs of that family.Somerset examined them: they were unusually rich and numerous, beginningwith cross-legged knights in hauberks of chain-mail, their ladies besidethem in wimple and cover-chief, all more or less coated with the greenmould and dirt of ages: and continuing with others of later date, infine alabaster, gilded and coloured, some of them wearing round theirnecks the Yorkist collar of suns and roses, the livery of Edward theFourth. In scrutinizing the tallest canopy over these he beheld Paulabehind it, as if in contemplation of the same objects.
'You came to the church to sketch these monuments, I suppose, Mr.Somerset?' she asked, as soon as she saw him.
'No. I came to speak to you about the letter.'
She sighed. 'Yes: that letter,' she said. 'I am persecuted! If I hadbeen one of these it would never have been written.' She tapped thealabaster effigy of a recumbent lady with her parasol.
'They are interesting, are they not?' he said. 'She is beautifullypreserved. The gilding is nearly gone, but beyond that she is perfect.'
'She is like Charlotte,' said Paula. And what was much like another sighescaped her lips.
Somerset admitted that there was a resemblance, while Paula drew herforefinger across the marble face of the effigy, and at length tookout her handkerchief, and began wiping the dust from the hollows of thefeatures. He looked on, wondering what her sigh had meant, but guessingthat it had been somehow caused by the sight of these sculpturesin connection with the newspaper writer's denunciation of her as anirresponsible outsider.
The secret was out when in answer to his question, idly put, if shewished she were like one of these, she said, with exceptional vehemencefor one of her demeanour--
'I don't wish I was like one of them: I wish I WAS one of them.'
'What--you wish you were a De Stancy?'
'Yes. It is very dreadful to be denounced as a barbarian. I want to beromantic and historical.'
'Miss De Stancy seems not to value the privilege,' he said, lookinground at another part of the church where Charlotte was innocentlyprattling to Mrs. Goodman, quite heedless of the tombs of herforefathers.
'If I were one,' she continued, 'I should come here when I feel alone inthe world, as I do to-day; and I would defy people, and say, "You cannotspoil what has been!"'
They walked on till they reached the old black pew attached to thecastle--a vast square enclosure of oak panelling occupying half theaisle, and surmounted with a little balustrade above the framework.Within, the baize lining that had once been green, now faded to thecolour of a common in August, was torn, kicked and scraped to rags bythe feet and hands of the ploughboys who had appropriated the pew astheir own special place of worship since it had ceased to be used by anyresident at the castle, because its height afforded convenient shelterfor playing at marbles and pricking with pins.
Charlotte and Mrs. Goodman had by this time left the building, and couldbe seen looking at the headstones outside.
'If you were a De Stancy,' said Somerset, who had pondered more deeplyupon that new wish of hers than he had seemed to do, 'you would be achurchwoman, and sit here.'
'And I should have the pew done up,' she said readily, as she restedher pretty chin on the top rail and looked at the interior, her cheekspressed into deep dimples. Her quick reply told him that the idea was nonew one with her, and he thought of poor Mr. Woodwell's shrewd prophecyas he perceived that her days as a separatist were numbered.
'Well, why can't you have it done up, and sit here?' he said warily.
Paula shook her head.
'You are not at enmity with Anglicanism, I am sure?'
'I want not to be. I want to be--what--'
'What the De Stancys were, and are,' he said insidiously; and hersilenced bearing told him that he had hit the nail.
It was a strange idea to get possession of such a nature as hers, andfor a minute he felt himself on the side of the minister. So strong wasSomerset's feeling of wishing her to show the quality of fidelity topaternal dogma and party, that he could not help adding--
'But have you forgotten that other nobility--the nobility of talent andenterprise?'
'No. But I wish I had a well-known line of ancestors.'
'You have. Archimedes, Newcomen, Watt, Telford, Stephenson, thoseare your father's direct ancestors. Have you forgotten them? Have youforgotten your father, and the railways he made over half Europe, andhis great energy and skill, and all connected with him as if he hadnever lived?'
She did not answer for some time. 'No, I have not forgotten it,' shesaid, still looking into the pew. 'But, I have a predilection d'artistefor ancestors of the other sort, like the De Stancys.'
Her hand was resting on the low pew next the high one of the De Stancys.Somerset looked at the hand, or rather at the glove which covered it,then at h
er averted cheek, then beyond it into the pew, then at her handagain, until by an indescribable consciousness that he was not going toofar he laid his own upon it.
'No, no,' said Paula quickly, withdrawing her hand. But there wasnothing resentful or haughty in her tone--nothing, in short, which makesa man in such circumstances feel that he has done a particularly foolishaction.
The flower on her bosom rose and fell somewhat more than usual as sheadded, 'I am going away now--I will leave you here.' Without waiting fora reply she adroitly swept back her skirts to free her feet and went outof the church blushing.
Somerset took her hint and did not follow; and when he knew that she hadrejoined her friends, and heard the carriage roll away, he made towardsthe opposite door. Pausing to glance once more at the alabaster effigiesbefore leaving them to their silence and neglect, he beheld Dare bendingover them, to all appearance intently occupied.
He must have been in the church some time--certainly during the tenderepisode between Somerset and Paula, and could not have failed toperceive it. Somerset blushed: it was unpleasant that Dare should haveseen the interior of his heart so plainly. He went across and said, 'Ithink I left you to finish the drawing of the north wing, Mr. Dare?'
'Three hours ago, sir,' said Dare. 'Having finished that, I came to lookat the church--fine building--fine monuments--two interesting peoplelooking at them.'
'What?'
'I stand corrected. Pensa molto, parla poco, as the Italians have it.'
'Well, now, Mr. Dare, suppose you get back to the castle?'
'Which history dubs Castle Stancy.... Certainly.'
'How do you get on with the measuring?'
Dare sighed whimsically. 'Badly in the morning, when I have been temptedto indulge overnight, and worse in the afternoon, when I have beentempted in the morning!'
Somerset looked at the youth, and said, 'I fear I shall have to dispensewith your services, Dare, for I think you have been tempted to-day.'
'On my honour no. My manner is a little against me, Mr. Somerset. Butyou need not fear for my ability to do your work. I am a young manwasted, and am thought of slight account: it is the true men who getsnubbed, while traitors are allowed to thrive!'
'Hang sentiment, Dare, and off with you!' A little ruffled, Somerset hadturned his back upon the interesting speaker, so that he did not observethe sly twist Dare threw into his right eye as he spoke. The latter wentoff in one direction and Somerset in the other, pursuing his pensive waytowards Markton with thoughts not difficult to divine.
From one point in her nature he went to another, till he again recurredto her romantic interest in the De Stancy family. To wish she was oneof them: how very inconsistent of her. That she really did wish it wasunquestionable.