Somerset did not forget what he had planned, and when lunch was over
he walked away through the trees. The tunnel was more difficult of
discovery than he had anticipated, and it was only after considerable
winding among green lanes, whose deep ruts were like canyons of Colorado
in miniature, that he reached the slope in the distant upland where the
tunnel began. A road stretched over its crest, and thence along one side
of the railway-cutting.
He there unexpectedly saw standing Miss Power’s carriage; and on drawing
nearer he found it to contain Paula herself, Miss De Stancy, and Mrs.
Goodman.
‘How singular!’ exclaimed Miss De Stancy gaily.
‘It is most natural,’ said Paula instantly. ‘In the morning two people
discuss a feature in the landscape, and in the afternoon each has a
desire to see it from what the other has said of it. Therefore they
accidentally meet.’
Now Paula had distinctly heard Somerset declare that he was going to
walk there; how then could she say this so coolly? It was with a pang
at his heart that he returned to his old thought of her being possibly
a finished coquette and dissembler. Whatever she might be, she was not a
creature starched very stiffly by Puritanism.
Somerset looked down on the mouth of the tunnel. The popular commonplace
that science, steam, and travel must always be unromantic and hideous,
was not proven at this spot. On either slope of the deep cutting, green
with long grass, grew drooping young trees of ash, beech, and other
flexible varieties, their foliage almost concealing the actual railway
which ran along the bottom, its thin steel rails gleaming like silver
threads in the depths. The vertical front of the tunnel, faced with
brick that had once been red, was now weather-stained, lichened, and
mossed over in harmonious rusty-browns, pearly greys, and neutral
greens, at the very base appearing a little blue-black spot like a
mouse-hole--the tunnel’s mouth.
The carriage was drawn up quite close to the wood railing, and Paula was
looking down at the same time with him; but he made no remark to her.
Mrs. Goodman broke the silence by saying, ‘If it were not a railway we
should call it a lovely dell.’
Somerset agreed with her, adding that it was so charming that he felt
inclined to go down.
‘If you do, perhaps Miss Power will order you up again, as a
trespasser,’ said Charlotte De Stancy. ‘You are one of the largest
shareholders in the railway, are you not, Paula?’
Miss Power did not reply.
‘I suppose as the road is partly yours you might walk all the way to
London along the rails, if you wished, might you not, dear?’ Charlotte
continued.
Paula smiled, and said, ‘No, of course not.’
Somerset, feeling himself superfluous, raised his hat to his companions
as if he meant not to see them again for a while, and began to descend
by some steps cut in the earth; Miss De Stancy asked Mrs. Goodman to
accompany her to a barrow over the top of the tunnel; and they left the
carriage, Paula remaining alone.
Down Somerset plunged through the long grass, bushes, late summer
flowers, moths, and caterpillars, vexed with himself that he had come
there, since Paula was so inscrutable, and humming the notes of some
song he did not know. The tunnel that had seemed so small from the
surface was a vast archway when he reached its mouth, which emitted,
as a contrast to the sultry heat on the slopes of the cutting, a cool
breeze, that had travelled a mile underground from the other end. Far
away in the darkness of this silent subterranean corridor he could see
that other end as a mere speck of light.
When he had conscientiously admired the construction of the massive
archivault, and the majesty of its nude ungarnished walls, he looked up
the slope at the carriage; it was so small to the eye that it might
have been made for a performance by canaries; Paula’s face being still
smaller, as she leaned back in her seat, idly looking down at him. There
seemed something roguish in her attitude of criticism, and to be no
longer the subject of her contemplation he entered the tunnel out of her
sight.
In the middle of the speck of light before him appeared a speck of
black; and then a shrill whistle, dulled by millions of tons of earth,
reached his ears from thence. It was what he had been on his guard
against all the time,--a passing train; and instead of taking the
trouble to come out of the tunnel he stepped into a recess, till the
train had rattled past and vanished onward round a curve.
Somerset still remained where he had placed himself, mentally balancing
science against art, the grandeur of this fine piece of construction
against that of the castle, and thinking whether Paula’s father had
not, after all, the best of it, when all at once he saw Paula’s form
confronting him at the entrance of the tunnel. He instantly went forward
into the light; to his surprise she was as pale as a lily.
‘O, Mr. Somerset!’ she exclaimed. ‘You ought not to frighten me
so--indeed you ought not! The train came out almost as soon as you had
gone in, and as you did not return--an accident was possible!’
Somerset at once perceived that he had been to blame in not thinking of
this.
‘Please do forgive my thoughtlessness in not reflecting how it would
strike you!’ he pleaded. ‘I--I see I have alarmed you.’
Her alarm was, indeed, much greater than he had at first thought: she
trembled so much that she was obliged to sit down, at which he went up
to her full of solicitousness.
‘You ought not to have done it!’ she said. ‘I naturally thought--any
person would--’
Somerset, perhaps wisely, said nothing at this outburst; the cause of
her vexation was, plainly enough, his perception of her discomposure. He
stood looking in another direction, till in a few moments she had risen
to her feet again, quite calm.
‘It would have been dreadful,’ she said with faint gaiety, as the colour
returned to her face; ‘if I had lost my architect, and been obliged to
engage Mr. Havill without an alternative.’
‘I was really in no danger; but of course I ought to have considered,’
he said.
‘I forgive you,’ she returned good-naturedly. ‘I knew there was no
GREAT danger to a person exercising ordinary discretion; but artists and
thinkers like you are indiscreet for a moment sometimes. I am now going
up again. What do you think of the tunnel?’
They were crossing the railway to ascend by the opposite path, Somerset
keeping his eye on the interior of the tunnel for safety, when suddenly
there arose a noise and shriek from the contrary direction behind the
trees. Both knew in a moment what it meant, and each seized the other as
they rushed off the permanent way. The ideas of both had been so centred
on the tunnel as the source of danger, that the probability of a train
from the opposite quarter had been forgotten. It rushed past them,
causing Paula’s dress, hair, and ribbons to flutter violently, and
blowing up the fallen leaves in a shower over their shoulders.
Neither spoke, and they went up several steps, holding each other by the
hand, till, becoming conscious of the fact, she withdrew hers; whereupon
Somerset stopped and looked earnestly at her; but her eyes were averted
towards the tunnel wall.
‘What an escape!’ he said.
‘We were not so very near, I think, were we?’ she asked quickly. ‘If we
were, I think you were--very good to take my hand.’
They reached the top at last, and the new level and open air seemed to
give her a new mind. ‘I don’t see the carriage anywhere,’ she said, in
the common tones of civilization.
He thought it had gone over the crest of the hill; he would accompany
her till they reached it.
‘No--please--I would rather not--I can find it very well.’ Before he
could say more she had inclined her head and smiled and was on her way
alone.
The tunnel-cutting appeared a dreary gulf enough now to the young man,
as he stood leaning over the rails above it, beating the herbage with
his stick. For some minutes he could not criticize or weigh her conduct;
the warmth of her presence still encircled him. He recalled her face as
it had looked out at him from under the white silk puffing of her black
hat, and the speaking power of her eyes at the moment of danger. The
breadth of that clear-complexioned forehead--almost concealed by
the masses of brown hair bundled up around it--signified that if her
disposition were oblique and insincere enough for trifling, coquetting,
or in any way making a fool of him, she had the intellect to do it
cruelly well.
But it was ungenerous to ruminate so suspiciously. A girl not an actress
by profession could hardly turn pale artificially as she had done,
though perhaps mere fright meant nothing, and would have arisen in her
just as readily had he been one of the labourers on her estate.
The reflection that such feeling as she had exhibited could have no
tender meaning returned upon him with masterful force when he thought of
her wealth and the social position into which she had drifted. Somerset,
being of a solitary and studious nature, was not quite competent
to estimate precisely the disqualifying effect, if any, of her
nonconformity, her newness of blood, and other things, among the old
county families established round her; but the toughest prejudices, he
thought, were not likely to be long invulnerable to such cheerful beauty
and brightness of intellect as Paula’s. When she emerged, as she was
plainly about to do, from the seclusion in which she had been living
since her father’s death, she would inevitably win her way among her
neighbours. She would become the local topic. Fortune-hunters would
learn of her existence and draw near in shoals. What chance would there
then be for him?
The points in his favour were indeed few, but they were just enough
to keep a tantalizing hope alive. Modestly leaving out of count his
personal and intellectual qualifications, he thought of his family. It
was an old stock enough, though not a rich one. His great-uncle had
been the well-known Vice-admiral Sir Armstrong Somerset, who served his
country well in the Baltic, the Indies, China, and the Caribbean Sea.
His grandfather had been a notable metaphysician. His father, the Royal
Academician, was popular. But perhaps this was not the sort of reasoning
likely to occupy the mind of a young woman; the personal aspect of the
situation was in such circumstances of far more import. He had come as a
wandering stranger--that possibly lent some interest to him in her eyes.
He was installed in an office which would necessitate free communion
with her for some time to come; that was another advantage, and would be
a still greater one if she showed, as Paula seemed disposed to do,
such artistic sympathy with his work as to follow up with interest the
details of its progress.
The carriage did not reappear, and he went on towards Markton,
disinclined to return again that day to the studio which had been
prepared for him at the castle. He heard feet brushing the grass behind
him, and, looking round, saw the Baptist minister.
‘I have just come from the village,’ said Mr. Woodwell, who looked worn
and weary, his boots being covered with dust; ‘and I have learnt that
which confirms my fears for her.’
‘For Miss Power?’
‘Most assuredly.’
‘What danger is there?’ said Somerset.
‘The temptations of her position have become too much for her! She is
going out of mourning next week, and will give a large dinner-party on
the occasion; for though the invitations are partly in the name of
her relative Mrs. Goodman, they must come from her. The guests are
to include people of old cavalier families who would have treated her
grandfather, sir, and even her father, with scorn for their religion
and connections; also the parson and curate--yes, actually people who
believe in the Apostolic Succession; and what’s more, they’re coming.
My opinion is, that it has all arisen from her friendship with Miss De
Stancy.’
‘Well,’ cried Somerset warmly, ‘this only shows liberality of feeling on
both sides! I suppose she has invited you as well?’
‘She has not invited me!... Mr. Somerset, not withstanding your
erroneous opinions on important matters, I speak to you as a friend, and
I tell you that she has never in her secret heart forgiven that sermon
of mine, in which I likened her to the church at Laodicea. I admit
the words were harsh, but I was doing my duty, and if the case arose
to-morrow I would do it again. Her displeasure is a deep grief to me;
but I serve One greater than she.... You, of course, are invited to this
dinner?’
‘I have heard nothing of it,’ murmured the young man.
Their paths diverged; and when Somerset reached the hotel he was
informed that somebody was waiting to see him.
‘Man or woman?’ he asked.
The landlady, who always liked to reply in person to Somerset’s
inquiries, apparently thinking him, by virtue of his drawing implements
and liberality of payment, a possible lord of Burleigh, came forward and
said it was certainly not a woman, but whether man or boy she could not
say. ‘His name is Mr. Dare,’ she added.
‘O--that youth,’ he said.
Somerset went upstairs, along the passage, down two steps, round the
angle, and so on to the rooms reserved for him in this rambling edifice
of stage-coach memories, where he found Dare waiting. Dare came forward,
pulling out the cutting of an advertisement.
‘Mr. Somerset, this is yours, I believe, from the Architectural World?’
Somerset said that he had inserted it.
‘I think I should suit your purpose as assistant very well.’
‘Are you an architect’s draughtsman?’
‘Not specially. I have some knowledge of the same, and want to increase
it.’
‘I thought you were a photographer.’
‘Also of photography,’ said Dare with a bow. ‘Though but an amateur in
that art I can challenge comparison with Regent Street or Broadway.’
Somerset looked upon his table. Two letters only, addressed in initials,
were lying there as answers to his advertisement. He asked Dare to
wait, and looked them over. Neither was satisfactory. On this account he
overcame his slight feeling against Mr. Dare, and put a question to
test that gentleman’s capacities. ‘How would you measure the front of a
building, including windows, doors, mouldings, and every other feature,
for a ground plan, so as to combine the greatest accuracy with the
greatest despatch?’
‘In running dimensions,’ said Dare.
As this was the particular kind of work he wanted done, Somerset thought
the answer promising. Coming to terms with Dare, he requested the
would-be student of architecture to wait at the castle the next day, and
dismissed him.
A quarter of an hour later, when Dare was taking a walk in the country,
he drew from his pocket eight other letters addressed to Somerset in
initials, which, to judge by their style and stationery, were from men
far superior to those two whose communications alone Somerset had seen.
Dare looked them over for a few seconds as he strolled on, then tore
them into minute fragments, and, burying them under the leaves in the
ditch, went on his way again.