A Laodicean : A Story of To-day

  I.

  Captain De Stancy was a changed man. A hitherto well-repressed energywas giving him motion towards long-shunned consequences. His featureswere, indeed, the same as before; though, had a physiognomist chosen tostudy them with the closeness of an astronomer scanning the universe, hewould doubtless have discerned abundant novelty.

  In recent years De Stancy had been an easy, melancholy, unaspiringofficer, enervated and depressed by a parental affection quite beyondhis control for the graceless lad Dare--the obtrusive memento of ashadowy period in De Stancy's youth, who threatened to be the curse ofhis old age. Throughout a long space he had persevered in his system ofrigidly incarcerating within himself all instincts towards the oppositesex, with a resolution that would not have disgraced a much strongerman. By this habit, maintained with fair success, a chamber of hisnature had been preserved intact during many later years, like theone solitary sealed-up cell occasionally retained by bees in a lobe ofdrained honey-comb. And thus, though he had irretrievably exhausted therelish of society, of ambition, of action, and of his profession, thelove-force that he had kept immured alive was still a reproduciblething.

  The sight of Paula in her graceful performance, which the judiciousDare had so carefully planned, led up to and heightened by subtleaccessories, operated on De Stancy's surprised soul with a promptnessalmost magical.

  On the evening of the self-same day, having dined as usual, he retiredto his rooms, where he found a hamper of wine awaiting him. It had beenanonymously sent, and the account was paid. He smiled grimly, but nolonger with heaviness. In this he instantly recognized the handiwork ofDare, who, having at last broken down the barrier which De Stancyhad erected round his heart for so many years, acted like a skilledstrategist, and took swift measures to follow up the advantage sotardily gained.

  Captain De Stancy knew himself conquered: he knew he should yield toPaula--had indeed yielded; but there was now, in his solitude, an houror two of reaction. He did not drink from the bottles sent. He wentearly to bed, and lay tossing thereon till far into the night, thinkingover the collapse. His teetotalism had, with the lapse of years,unconsciously become the outward and visible sign to himself ofhis secret vows; and a return to its opposite, however mildly done,signified with ceremonious distinctness the formal acceptance ofdelectations long forsworn.

  But the exceeding freshness of his feeling for Paula, which by reason ofits long arrest was that of a man far under thirty, and was a wonderto himself every instant, would not long brook weighing in balances. Hewished suddenly to commit himself; to remove the question of retreatout of the region of debate. The clock struck two: and the wish becamedetermination. He arose, and wrapping himself in his dressing-gown wentto the next room, where he took from a shelf in the pantry several largebottles, which he carried to the window, till they stood on the sill agoodly row. There had been sufficient light in the room for him to dothis without a candle. Now he softly opened the sash, and the radianceof a gibbous moon riding in the opposite sky flooded the apartment. Itfell on the labels of the captain's bottles, revealing their contents tobe simple aerated waters for drinking.

  De Stancy looked out and listened. The guns that stood drawn upwithin the yard glistened in the moonlight reaching them from over thebarrack-wall: there was an occasional stamp of horses in the stables;also a measured tread of sentinels--one or more at the gates, one at thehospital, one between the wings, two at the magazine, and others furtheroff. Recurring to his intention he drew the corks of the mineral waters,and inverting each bottle one by one over the window-sill, heard itscontents dribble in a small stream on to the gravel below.

  He then opened the hamper which Dare had sent. Uncorking one of thebottles he murmured, 'To Paula!' and drank a glass of the ruby liquor.

  'A man again after eighteen years,' he said, shutting the sash andreturning to his bedroom.

  The first overt result of his kindled interest in Miss Power was hissaying to his sister the day after the surreptitious sight of Paula: 'Iam sorry, Charlotte, for a word or two I said the other day.'

  'Well?'

  'I was rather disrespectful to your friend Miss Power.'

  'I don't think so--were you?'

  'Yes. When we were walking in the wood, I made a stupid joke abouther.... What does she know about me--do you ever speak of me to her?'

  'Only in general terms.'

  'What general terms?'

  'You know well enough, William; of your idiosyncrasies and so on--thatyou are a bit of a woman-hater, or at least a confirmed bachelor, andhave but little respect for your own family.'

  'I wish you had not told her that,' said De Stancy with dissatisfaction.

  'But I thought you always liked women to know your principles!' saidCharlotte, in injured tones; 'and would particularly like her to knowthem, living so near.'

  'Yes, yes,' replied her brother hastily. 'Well, I ought to see her, justto show her that I am not quite a brute.'

  'That would be very nice!' she answered, putting her hands together inagreeable astonishment. 'It is just what I have wished, though I did notdream of suggesting it after what I have heard you say. I am going tostay with her again to-morrow, and I will let her know about this.'

  'Don't tell her anything plainly, for heaven's sake. I really want tosee the interior of the castle; I have never entered its walls since mybabyhood.' He raised his eyes as he spoke to where the walls in questionshowed their ashlar faces over the trees.

  'You might have gone over it at any time.'

  'O yes. It is only recently that I have thought much of the place: Ifeel now that I should like to examine the old building thoroughly,since it was for so many generations associated with our fortunes,especially as most of the old furniture is still there. My sedulousavoidance hitherto of all relating to our family vicissitudes has been,I own, stupid conduct for an intelligent being; but impossible grapesare always sour, and I have unconsciously adopted Radical notions toobliterate disappointed hereditary instincts. But these have a trick ofre-establishing themselves as one gets older, and the castle and what itcontains have a keen interest for me now.'

  'It contains Paula.'

  De Stancy's pulse, which had been beating languidly for many years, beatdouble at the sound of that name.

  'I meant furniture and pictures for the moment,' he said; 'but I don'tmind extending the meaning to her, if you wish it.'

  'She is the rarest thing there.'

  'So you have said before.'

  'The castle and our family history have as much romantic interest forher as they have for you,' Charlotte went on. 'She delights in visitingour tombs and effigies and ponders over them for hours.'

  'Indeed!' said De Stancy, allowing his surprise to hide the satisfactionwhich accompanied it. 'That should make us friendly.... Does she seemany people?'

  'Not many as yet. And she cannot have many staying there during thealterations.'

  'Ah! yes--the alterations. Didn't you say that she has had a Londonarchitect stopping there on that account? What was he--old or young?'

  'He is a young man: he has been to our house. Don't you remember you methim there?'

  'What was his name?'

  'Mr. Somerset.'

  'O, that man! Yes, yes, I remember.... Hullo, Lottie!'

  'What?'

  'Your face is as red as a peony. Now I know a secret!' Charlotte vainlyendeavoured to hide her confusion. 'Very well--not a word! I won't saymore,' continued De Stancy good-humouredly, 'except that he seems to bea very nice fellow.'

  De Stancy had turned the dialogue on to this little well-preservedsecret of his sister's with sufficient outward lightness; but it hadbeen done in instinctive concealment of the disquieting start with whichhe had recognized that Somerset, Dare's enemy, whom he had interceptedin placing Dare's portrait into the hands of the chief constable, was aman beloved by his sister Charlotte. This novel circumstance might leadto a curious complication. But he was to hear more.

  'He may be very nice,' replied
Charlotte, with an effort, after thissilence. 'But he is nothing to me, more than a very good friend.'

  'There's no engagement, or thought of one between you?'

  'Certainly there's not!' said Charlotte, with brave emphasis. 'It ismore likely to be between Paula and him than me and him.'

  De Stancy's bare military ears and closely cropped poll flushed hot.'Miss Power and him?'

  'I don't mean to say there is, because Paula denies it; but I mean thathe loves Paula. That I do know.'

  De Stancy was dumb. This item of news which Dare had kept from him, notknowing how far De Stancy's sense of honour might extend, was decidedlygrave. Indeed, he was so greatly impressed with the fact, that he couldnot help saying as much aloud: 'This is very serious!'

  'Why!' she murmured tremblingly, for the first leaking out of her tenderand sworn secret had disabled her quite.

  'Because I love Paula too.'

  'What do you say, William, you?--a woman you have never seen?'

  'I have seen her--by accident. And now, my dear little sis, you willbe my close ally, won't you? as I will be yours, as brother and sistershould be.' He placed his arm coaxingly round Charlotte's shoulder.

  'O, William, how can I?' at last she stammered.

  'Why, how can't you, I should say? We are both in the same ship. I lovePaula, you love Mr. Somerset; it behoves both of us to see that thisflirtation of theirs ends in nothing.'

  'I don't like you to put it like that--that I love him--it frightensme,' murmured the girl, visibly agitated. 'I don't want to divide himfrom Paula; I couldn't, I wouldn't do anything to separate them. Believeme, Will, I could not! I am sorry you love there also, though I shouldbe glad if it happened in the natural order of events that she shouldcome round to you. But I cannot do anything to part them and make Mr.Somerset suffer. It would be TOO wrong and blamable.'

  'Now, you silly Charlotte, that's just how you women fly off at atangent. I mean nothing dishonourable in the least. Have I ever promptedyou to do anything dishonourable? Fair fighting allies was all I thoughtof.'

  Miss De Stancy breathed more freely. 'Yes, we will be that, of course;we are always that, William. But I hope I can be your ally, and be quiteneutral; I would so much rather.'

  'Well, I suppose it will not be a breach of your precious neutrality ifyou get me invited to see the castle?'

  'O no!' she said brightly; 'I don't mind doing such a thing as that.Why not come with me tomorrow? I will say I am going to bring you. Therewill be no trouble at all.'

  De Stancy readily agreed. The effect upon him of the information nowacquired was to intensify his ardour tenfold, the stimulus being due toa perception that Somerset, with a little more knowledge, would hold acard which could be played with disastrous effect against himself--hisrelationship to Dare. Its disclosure to a lady of such Puritanantecedents as Paula's, would probably mean her immediate severance fromhimself as an unclean thing.

  'Is Miss Power a severe pietist, or precisian; or is she a compromisinglady?' he asked abruptly.

  'She is severe and uncompromising--if you mean in her judgments onmorals,' said Charlotte, not quite hearing. The remark was peculiarlyapposite, and De Stancy was silent.

  He spent some following hours in a close study of the castle history,which till now had unutterably bored him. More particularly did hedwell over documents and notes which referred to the pedigree of his ownfamily. He wrote out the names of all--and they were many--who had beenborn within those domineering walls since their first erection; of thoseamong them who had been brought thither by marriage with the owner, andof stranger knights and gentlemen who had entered the castle by marriagewith its mistress. He refreshed his memory on the strange loves andhates that had arisen in the course of the family history; on memorableattacks, and the dates of the same, the most memorable among them beingthe occasion on which the party represented by Paula battered down thecastle walls that she was now about to mend, and, as he hoped, return intheir original intact shape to the family dispossessed, by marriage withhimself, its living representative.

  In Sir William's villa were small engravings after many of the portraitsin the castle galleries, some of them hanging in the dining-room inplain oak and maple frames, and others preserved in portfolios. DeStancy spent much of his time over these, and in getting up the romancesof their originals' lives from memoirs and other records, all whichstories were as great novelties to him as they could possibly be to anystranger. Most interesting to him was the life of an Edward De Stancy,who had lived just before the Civil Wars, and to whom Captain De Stancybore a very traceable likeness. This ancestor had a mole on his cheek,black and distinct as a fly in cream; and as in the case of the firstLord Amherst's wart, and Bennet Earl of Arlington's nose-scar, thepainter had faithfully reproduced the defect on canvas. It so happenedthat the captain had a mole, though not exactly on the same spot of hisface; and this made the resemblance still greater.

  He took infinite trouble with his dress that day, showing an amount ofanxiety on the matter which for him was quite abnormal. At last, whenfully equipped, he set out with his sister to make the call proposed.Charlotte was rather unhappy at sight of her brother's earnest attemptto make an impression on Paula; but she could say nothing against it,and they proceeded on their way.

  It was the darkest of November weather, when the days are so short thatmorning seems to join with evening without the intervention of noon. Thesky was lined with low cloud, within whose dense substance tempestswere slowly fermenting for the coming days. Even now a windy turbulencetroubled the half-naked boughs, and a lonely leaf would occasionallyspin downwards to rejoin on the grass the scathed multitude of itscomrades which had preceded it in its fall. The river by the pavilion,in the summer so clear and purling, now slid onwards brown and thick andsilent, and enlarged to double size.