A few days after the party at Stancy Castle, Dare was walking down the
High Street of Markton, a cigarette between his lips and a silver-topped
cane in his hand. His eye fell upon a brass plate on an opposite door,
bearing the name of Mr. Havill, Architect. He crossed over, and rang the
office bell.
The clerk who admitted him stated that Mr. Havill was in his private
room, and would be disengaged in a short time. While Dare waited the
clerk affixed to the door a piece of paper bearing the words ‘Back at
2,’ and went away to his dinner, leaving Dare in the room alone.
Dare looked at the different drawings on the boards about the room.
They all represented one subject, which, though unfinished as yet, and
bearing no inscription, was recognized by the visitor as the design for
the enlargement and restoration of Stancy Castle. When he had glanced it
over Dare sat down.
The doors between the office and private room were double; but the one
towards the office being only ajar Dare could hear a conversation in
progress within. It presently rose to an altercation, the tenor of which
was obvious. Somebody had come for money.
‘Really I can stand it no longer, Mr. Havill--really I will not!’ said
the creditor excitedly. ‘Now this bill overdue again--what can you
expect? Why, I might have negotiated it; and where would you have been
then? Instead of that, I have locked it up out of consideration for you;
and what do I get for my considerateness? I shall let the law take its
course!’
‘You’ll do me inexpressible harm, and get nothing whatever,’ said
Havill. ‘If you would renew for another three months there would be no
difficulty in the matter.’
‘You have said so before: I will do no such thing.’
There was a silence; whereupon Dare arose without hesitation, and walked
boldly into the private office. Havill was standing at one end, as
gloomy as a thundercloud, and at the other was the unfortunate creditor
with his hat on. Though Dare’s entry surprised them, both parties seemed
relieved.
‘I have called in passing to congratulate you, Mr. Havill,’ said Dare
gaily. ‘Such a commission as has been entrusted to you will make you
famous!’
‘How do you do?--I wish it would make me rich,’ said Havill drily.
‘It will be a lift in that direction, from what I know of the
profession. What is she going to spend?’
‘A hundred thousand.’
‘Your commission as architect, five thousand. Not bad, for making a few
sketches. Consider what other great commissions such a work will lead
to.’
‘What great work is this?’ asked the creditor.
‘Stancy Castle,’ said Dare, since Havill seemed too agape to answer.
‘You have not heard of it, then? Those are the drawings, I presume, in
the next room?’
Havill replied in the affirmative, beginning to perceive the manoeuvre.
‘Perhaps you would like to see them?’ he said to the creditor.
The latter offered no objection, and all three went into the
drawing-office.
‘It will certainly be a magnificent structure,’ said the creditor, after
regarding the elevations through his spectacles. ‘Stancy Castle: I had
no idea of it! and when do you begin to build, Mr. Havill?’ he inquired
in mollified tones.
‘In three months, I think?’ said Dare, looking to Havill.
Havill assented.
‘Five thousand pounds commission,’ murmured the creditor. ‘Paid down, I
suppose?’
Havill nodded.
‘And the works will not linger for lack of money to carry them out, I
imagine,’ said Dare. ‘Two hundred thousand will probably be spent before
the work is finished.’
‘There is not much doubt of it,’ said Havill.
‘You said nothing to me about this?’ whispered the creditor to Havill,
taking him aside, with a look of regret.
‘You would not listen!’
‘It alters the case greatly.’ The creditor retired with Havill to the
door, and after a subdued colloquy in the passage he went away, Havill
returning to the office.
‘What the devil do you mean by hoaxing him like this, when the job is no
more mine than Inigo Jones’s?’
‘Don’t be too curious,’ said Dare, laughing. ‘Rather thank me for
getting rid of him.’
‘But it is all a vision!’ said Havill, ruefully regarding the pencilled
towers of Stancy Castle. ‘If the competition were really the commission
that you have represented it to be there might be something to laugh
at.’
‘It must be made a commission, somehow,’ returned Dare carelessly. ‘I am
come to lend you a little assistance. I must stay in the neighbourhood,
and I have nothing else to do.’
A carriage slowly passed the window, and Havill recognized the Power
liveries. ‘Hullo--she’s coming here!’ he said under his breath, as the
carriage stopped by the kerb. ‘What does she want, I wonder? Dare, does
she know you?’
‘I would just as soon be out of the way.’
‘Then go into the garden.’
Dare went out through the back office as Paula was shown in at the
front. She wore a grey travelling costume, and seemed to be in some
haste.
‘I am on my way to the railway-station,’ she said to Havill. ‘I shall be
absent from home for several weeks, and since you requested it, I have
called to inquire how you are getting on with the design.’
‘Please look it over,’ said Havill, placing a seat for her.
‘No,’ said Paula. ‘I think it would be unfair. I have not looked at
Mr.--the other architect’s plans since he has begun to design seriously,
and I will not look at yours. Are you getting on quite well, and do you
want to know anything more? If so, go to the castle, and get anybody to
assist you. Why would you not make use of the room at your disposal in
the castle, as the other architect has done?’
In asking the question her face was towards the window, and suddenly her
cheeks became a rosy red. She instantly looked another way.
‘Having my own office so near, it was not necessary, thank you,’ replied
Havill, as, noting her countenance, he allowed his glance to stray into
the street. Somerset was walking past on the opposite side.
‘The time is--the time fixed for sending in the drawings is the first
of November, I believe,’ she said confusedly; ‘and the decision will be
come to by three gentlemen who are prominent members of the Institute of
Architects.’
Havill then accompanied her to the carriage, and she drove away.
Havill went to the back window to tell Dare that he need not stay in the
garden; but the garden was empty. The architect remained alone in his
office for some time; at the end of a quarter of an hour, when the
scream of a railway whistle had echoed down the still street, he beheld
Somerset repassing the window in a direction from the railway, with
somewhat of a sad gait. In another minute Dare entered, humming the
latest air of Offenbach.
‘’Tis a mere piece of duplicity!’ said Havill.
‘What is?’
‘Her pretending indifference as to which of us comes out successful in
the competition, when she colours carmine the moment Somerset passes
by.’ He described Paula’s visit, and the incident.
‘It may not mean Cupid’s Entire XXX after all,’ said Dare judicially.
‘The mere suspicion that a certain man loves her would make a girl blush
at his unexpected appearance. Well, she’s gone from him for a time; the
better for you.’
‘He has been privileged to see her off at any rate.’
‘Not privileged.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I went out of your garden by the back gate, and followed her carriage
to the railway. He simply went to the first bridge outside the station,
and waited. When she was in the train, it moved forward; he was all
expectation, and drew out his handkerchief ready to wave, while she
looked out of the window towards the bridge. The train backed before
it reached the bridge, to attach the box containing her horses, and the
carriage-truck. Then it started for good, and when it reached the bridge
she looked out again, he waving his handkerchief to her.’
‘And she waving hers back?’
‘No, she didn’t.’
‘Ah!’
‘She looked at him--nothing more. I wouldn’t give much for his chance.’
After a while Dare added musingly: ‘You are a mathematician: did you
ever investigate the doctrine of expectations?’
‘Never.’
Dare drew from his pocket his ‘Book of Chances,’ a volume as well
thumbed as the minister’s Bible. ‘This is a treatise on the subject,’ he
said. ‘I will teach it to you some day.’
The same evening Havill asked Dare to dine with him. He was just at
this time living en garcon, his wife and children being away on a visit.
After dinner they sat on till their faces were rather flushed. The talk
turned, as before, on the castle-competition.
‘To know his design is to win,’ said Dare. ‘And to win is to send him
back to London where he came from.’
Havill inquired if Dare had seen any sketch of the design while with
Somerset?
‘Not a line. I was concerned only with the old building.’
‘Not to know it is to lose, undoubtedly,’ murmured Havill.
‘Suppose we go for a walk that way, instead of consulting here?’
They went down the town, and along the highway. When they reached the
entrance to the park a man driving a basket-carriage came out from the
gate and passed them by in the gloom.
‘That was he,’ said Dare. ‘He sometimes drives over from the hotel, and
sometimes walks. He has been working late this evening.’
Strolling on under the trees they met three masculine figures, laughing
and talking loudly.
‘Those are the three first-class London draughtsmen, Bowles, Knowles,
and Cockton, whom he has engaged to assist him, regardless of expense,’
continued Dare.
‘O Lord!’ groaned Havill. ‘There’s no chance for me.’
The castle now arose before them, endowed by the rayless shade with a
more massive majesty than either sunlight or moonlight could impart; and
Havill sighed again as he thought of what he was losing by Somerset’s
rivalry. ‘Well, what was the use of coming here?’ he asked.
‘I thought it might suggest something--some way of seeing the design.
The servants would let us into his room, I dare say.’
‘I don’t care to ask. Let us walk through the wards, and then homeward.’
They sauntered on smoking, Dare leading the way through the gate-house
into a corridor which was not inclosed, a lamp hanging at the further
end.
‘We are getting into the inhabited part, I think,’ said Havill.
Dare, however, had gone on, and knowing the tortuous passages from his
few days’ experience in measuring them with Somerset, he came to the
butler’s pantry. Dare knocked, and nobody answering he entered, took
down a key which hung behind the door, and rejoined Havill. ‘It is
all right,’ he said. ‘The cat’s away; and the mice are at play in
consequence.’
Proceeding up a stone staircase he unlocked the door of a room in the
dark, struck a light inside, and returning to the door called in a
whisper to Havill, who had remained behind. ‘This is Mr. Somerset’s
studio,’ he said.
‘How did you get permission?’ inquired Havill, not knowing that Dare had
seen no one.
‘Anyhow,’ said Dare carelessly. ‘We can examine the plans at leisure;
for if the placid Mrs. Goodman, who is the only one at home, sees the
light, she will only think it is Somerset still at work.’
Dare uncovered the drawings, and young Somerset’s brain-work for the
last six weeks lay under their eyes. To Dare, who was too cursory
to trouble himself by entering into such details, it had very little
meaning; but the design shone into Havill’s head like a light into a
dark place. It was original; and it was fascinating. Its originality lay
partly in the circumstance that Somerset had not attempted to adapt an
old building to the wants of the new civilization. He had placed his new
erection beside it as a slightly attached structure, harmonizing with
the old; heightening and beautifying, rather than subduing it. His work
formed a palace, with a ruinous castle annexed as a curiosity. To
Havill the conception had more charm than it could have to the most
appreciative outsider; for when a mediocre and jealous mind that has
been cudgelling itself over a problem capable of many solutions, lights
on the solution of a rival, all possibilities in that kind seem to merge
in the one beheld.
Dare was struck by the arrested expression of the architect’s face. ‘Is
it rather good?’ he asked.
‘Yes, rather,’ said Havill, subduing himself.
‘More than rather?’
‘Yes, the clever devil!’ exclaimed Havill, unable to depreciate longer.
‘How?’
‘The riddle that has worried me three weeks he has solved in a way which
is simplicity itself. He has got it, and I am undone!’
‘Nonsense, don’t give way. Let’s make a tracing.’
‘The ground-plan will be sufficient,’ said Havill, his courage reviving.
‘The idea is so simple, that if once seen it is not easily forgotten.’
A rough tracing of Somerset’s design was quickly made, and blowing out
the candle with a wave of his hand, the younger gentleman locked the
door, and they went downstairs again.
‘I should never have thought of it,’ said Havill, as they walked
homeward.
‘One man has need of another every ten years: Ogni dieci anni un uomo ha
bisogno dell’ altro, as they say in Italy. You’ll help me for this turn
if I have need of you?’
‘I shall never have the power.’
‘O yes, you will. A man who can contrive to get admitted to a
competition by writing a letter abusing another man, has any amount of
power. The stroke was a good one.’
Havill was silent till he said, ‘I think these gusts mean that we are to
have a storm of rain.’
Dare looked up. The sky was overcast, the trees shivered, and a drop or
two began to strike into the walkers’ coats from the east. They were not
far from the inn at Sleeping-Green, where Dare had lodgings, occupying
the rooms which had been used by Somerset till he gave them up for more
commodious chambers at Markton; and they decided to turn in there till
the rain should be over.
Having possessed himself of Somerset’s brains Havill was inclined to be
jovial, and ordered the best in wines that the house afforded. Before
starting from home they had drunk as much as was good for them; so
that their potations here soon began to have a marked effect upon their
tongues. The rain beat upon the windows with a dull dogged pertinacity
which seemed to signify boundless reserves of the same and long
continuance. The wind rose, the sign creaked, and the candles waved. The
weather had, in truth, broken up for the season, and this was the first
night of the change.
‘Well, here we are,’ said Havill, as he poured out another glass of the
brandied liquor called old port at Sleeping-Green; ‘and it seems that
here we are to remain for the present.’
‘I am at home anywhere!’ cried the lad, whose brow was hot and eye wild.
Havill, who had not drunk enough to affect his reasoning, held up his
glass to the light and said, ‘I never can quite make out what you are,
or what your age is. Are you sixteen, one-and-twenty, or twenty-seven?
And are you an Englishman, Frenchman, Indian, American, or what? You
seem not to have taken your degrees in these parts.’
‘That’s a secret, my friend,’ said Dare. ‘I am a citizen of the world.
I owe no country patriotism, and no king or queen obedience. A man whose
country has no boundary is your only true gentleman.’
‘Well, where were you born--somewhere, I suppose?’
‘It would be a fact worth the telling. The secret of my birth lies
here.’ And Dare slapped his breast with his right hand.
‘Literally, just under your shirt-front; or figuratively, in your
heart?’ asked Havill.
‘Literally there. It is necessary that it should be recorded, for one’s
own memory is a treacherous book of reference, should verification be
required at a time of delirium, disease, or death.’
Havill asked no further what he meant, and went to the door. Finding
that the rain still continued he returned to Dare, who was by this time
sinking down in a one-sided attitude, as if hung up by the shoulder.
Informing his companion that he was but little inclined to move far
in such a tempestuous night, he decided to remain in the inn till next
morning. On calling in the landlord, however, they learnt that the house
was full of farmers on their way home from a large sheep-fair in the
neighbourhood, and that several of these, having decided to stay on
account of the same tempestuous weather, had already engaged the spare
beds. If Mr. Dare would give up his room, and share a double-bedded room
with Mr. Havill, the thing could be done, but not otherwise.
To this the two companions agreed, and presently went upstairs with as
gentlemanly a walk and vertical a candle as they could exhibit under the
circumstances.
The other inmates of the inn soon retired to rest, and the storm raged
on unheeded by all local humanity.