By half-past ten the next morning Somerset was once more approaching
the precincts of the building which had interested him the night before.
Referring to his map he had learnt that it bore the name of Stancy
Castle or Castle de Stancy; and he had been at once struck with its
familiarity, though he had never understood its position in the county,
believing it further to the west. If report spoke truly there was
some excellent vaulting in the interior, and a change of study from
ecclesiastical to secular Gothic was not unwelcome for a while.
The entrance-gate was open now, and under the archway the outer ward was
visible, a great part of it being laid out as a flower-garden. This was
in process of clearing from weeds and rubbish by a set of gardeners, and
the soil was so encumbered that in rooting out the weeds such few hardy
flowers 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 cut
yesterday, the very tooling of the stone being visible. Close to this
hung a bell-pull formed of a large wooden acorn attached to a vertical
rod. Somerset’s application brought a woman from the porter’s door, who
informed him that the day before having been the weekly show-day for
visitors, 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 at
first there was no help for it but to wait till the next week. But
he had already through his want of effrontery lost a sight of many
interiors, whose exhibition would have been rather a satisfaction to the
inmates than a trouble. It was inconvenient to wait; he knew nobody
in the neighbourhood from whom he could get an introductory letter: he
turned and passed the woman, crossed the ward where the gardeners were
at work, over a second and smaller bridge, and up a flight of stone
stairs, open to the sky, along whose steps sunburnt Tudor soldiers and
other renowned dead men had doubtless many times walked. It led to the
principal door on this side. Thence he could observe the walls of
the lower court in detail, and the old mosses with which they were
padded--mosses that from time immemorial had been burnt brown every
summer, and every winter had grown green again. The arrow-slit and the
electric wire that entered it, like a worm uneasy at being unearthed,
were distinctly visible now. So also was the clock, not, as he had
supposed, a chronometer coeval with the fortress itself, but new and
shining, 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 to
inspect the architecture of the more public portions of the castle. He
pronounced the word ‘architecture’ in the tone of a man who knew and
practised that art; ‘for,’ he said to himself, ‘if she thinks I am a
mere idle tourist, it will not be so well.’
No such uncomfortable consequences ensued. Miss De Stancy had great
pleasure in giving Mr. Somerset full permission to walk through whatever
parts of the building he chose.
He followed the butler into the inner buildings of the fortress, the
ponderous thickness of whose walls made itself felt like a physical
pressure. An internal stone staircase, ranged round four sides of a
square, was next revealed, leading at the top of one flight into a
spacious hall, which seemed to occupy the whole area of the keep. From
this apartment a corridor floored with black oak led to the more modern
wing, where light and air were treated in a less gingerly fashion.
Here passages were broader than in the oldest portion, and upholstery
enlisted in the service of the fine arts hid to a great extent the
coldness of the walls.
Somerset was now left to himself, and roving freely from room to room
he found time to inspect the different objects of interest that abounded
there. Not all the chambers, even of the habitable division, were in use
as dwelling-rooms, though these were still numerous enough for the wants
of an ordinary country family. In a long gallery with a coved ceiling
of arabesques which had once been gilded, hung a series of paintings
representing the past personages of the De Stancy line. It was a
remarkable array--even more so on account of the incredibly neglected
condition of the canvases than for the artistic peculiarities they
exhibited. Many of the frames were dropping apart at their angles, and
some of the canvas was so dingy that the face of the person depicted was
only distinguishable as the moon through mist. For the colour they had
now they might have been painted during an eclipse; while, to judge by
the webs tying them to the wall, the spiders that ran up and down their
backs were such as to make the fair originals shudder in their graves.
He wondered how many of the lofty foreheads and smiling lips of this
pictorial pedigree could be credited as true reflections of their
prototypes. Some were wilfully false, no doubt; many more so by
unavoidable accident and want of skill. Somerset felt that it required a
profounder mind than his to disinter from the lumber of conventionality
the lineaments that really sat in the painter’s presence, and to
discover their history behind the curtain of mere tradition.
The painters of this long collection were those who usually appear in
such places; Holbein, Jansen, and Vandyck; Sir Peter, Sir Geoffrey, Sir
Joshua, and Sir Thomas. Their sitters, too, had mostly been sirs; Sir
William, Sir John, or Sir George De Stancy--some undoubtedly having
a nobility stamped upon them beyond that conferred by their robes and
orders; and others not so fortunate. Their respective ladies hung by
their sides--feeble and watery, or fat and comfortable, as the case
might be; also their fathers and mothers-in-law, their brothers and
remoter relatives; their contemporary reigning princes, and their
intimate friends. Of the De Stancys pure there ran through the
collection a mark by which they might surely have been recognized as
members of one family; this feature being the upper part of the nose.
Every one, even if lacking other points in common, had the special
indent at this point in the face--sometimes moderate in degree,
sometimes excessive.
While looking at the pictures--which, though not in his regular line of
study, interested Somerset more than the architecture, because of their
singular dilapidation, it occurred to his mind that he had in his youth
been schoolfellow for a very short time with a pleasant boy bearing a
surname attached to one of the paintings--the name of Ravensbury. The
boy had vanished he knew not how--he thought he had been removed from
school suddenly on account of ill health. But the recollection was
vague, and Somerset moved on to the rooms above and below. In addition
to the architectural details of which he had as yet obtained but
glimpses, there was a great collection of old movables and other
domestic art-work--all more than a century old, and mostly lying as
lumber. There were suites of tapestry hangings, common and fine; green
and scarlet leather-work, on which the gilding was still but little
injured; venerable damask curtains; quilted silk table-covers,
ebony cabinets, worked satin window-cushions, carved bedsteads, and
embroidered bed-furniture which had apparently screened no sleeper for
these many years. Downstairs there was also an interesting collection of
armour, together with several huge trunks and coffers. A great many
of them had been recently taken out and cleaned, as if a long dormant
interest in them were suddenly revived. Doubtless they were those which
had been used by the living originals of the phantoms that looked down
from the frames.
This excellent hoard of suggestive designs for wood-work, metal-work,
and work of other sorts, induced Somerset to divert his studies from
the ecclesiastical direction, to acquire some new ideas from the objects
here for domestic application. Yet for the present he was inclined
to keep his sketch-book closed and his ivory rule folded, and devote
himself to a general survey. Emerging from the ground-floor by a small
doorway, he found himself on a terrace to the north-east, and on the
other side than that by which he had entered. It was bounded by a
parapet breast high, over which a view of the distant country met the
eye, 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 the
bushes beneath. The prospect included the village he had passed through
on the previous day: and amidst the green lights and shades of the
meadows he could discern the red brick chapel whose recalcitrant inmate
had so engrossed him.
Before his attention had long strayed over the incident which
romanticized that utilitarian structure, he became aware that he was not
the only person who was looking from the terrace towards that point of
the 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 leaned
was a white cat--the identical Persian as it seemed--that had been taken
into the carriage at the chapel-door.
Somerset began to muse on the probability or otherwise of the
backsliding Baptist and this young lady resulting in one and the same
person; and almost without knowing it he found himself deeply hoping for
such a unity. The object of his inspection was idly leaning, and
this somewhat disguised her figure. It might have been tall or short,
curvilinear or angular. She carried a light sunshade which she fitfully
twirled until, thrusting it back over her shoulder, her head was
revealed sufficiently to show that she wore no hat or bonnet. This token
of her being an inmate of the castle, and not a visitor, rather damped
his expectations: but he persisted in believing her look towards the
chapel must have a meaning in it, till she suddenly stood erect, and
revealed herself as short in stature--almost dumpy--at the same time
giving him a distinct view of her profile. She was not at all like the
heroine of the chapel. He saw the dinted nose of the De Stancys outlined
with Holbein shadowlessness against the blue-green of the distant wood.
It was not the De Stancy face with all its original specialities: it
was, so to speak, a defective reprint of that face: for the nose tried
hard to turn up and deal utter confusion to the family shape.
As for the rest of the countenance, Somerset was obliged to own that it
was not beautiful: Nature had done there many things that she ought not
to have done, and left undone much that she should have executed. It
would have been decidedly plain but for a precious quality which no
perfection of chiselling can give when the temperament denies it, and
which no facial irregularity can take away--a tender affectionateness
which might almost be called yearning; such as is often seen in the
women of Correggio when they are painted in profile. But the plain
features of Miss De Stancy--who she undoubtedly was--were rather
severely handled by Somerset’s judgment owing to his impression of the
previous night. A beauty of a sort would have been lent by the flexuous
contours of the mobile parts but for that unfortunate condition the poor
girl was burdened with, of having to hand on a traditional feature with
which she did not find herself otherwise in harmony.
She glanced at him for a moment, and showed by an imperceptible movement
that he had made his presence felt. Not to embarrass her Somerset
hastened to withdraw, at the same time that she passed round to the
other part of the terrace, followed by the cat, in whom Somerset could
imagine a certain denominational cast of countenance, notwithstanding
her 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 that
possessed by the beauty.