When they had parted Dare walked along towards Markton with resolve on
his mouth and an unscrupulous light in his prominent black eye. Could
any person who had heard the previous conversation have seen him now, he
would have found little difficulty in divining that, notwithstanding De
Stancy’s obduracy, the reinstation of Captain De Stancy in the castle,
and the possible legitimation and enrichment of himself, was still
the dream of his brain. Even should any legal settlement or offspring
intervene to nip the extreme development of his projects, there
was abundant opportunity for his glorification. Two conditions were
imperative. De Stancy must see Paula before Somerset’s return. And it
was necessary to have help from Havill, even if it involved letting him
know all.
Whether Havill already knew all was a nice question for Mr. Dare’s
luminous mind. Havill had had opportunities of reading his secret,
particularly on the night they occupied the same room. If so, by
revealing it to Paula, Havill might utterly blast his project for the
marriage. Havill, then, was at all risks to be retained as an ally.
Yet Dare would have preferred a stronger check upon his confederate
than was afforded by his own knowledge of that anonymous letter and the
competition trick. For were the competition lost to him, Havill would
have no further interest in conciliating Miss Power; would as soon as
not let her know the secret of De Stancy’s relation to him.
Fortune as usual helped him in his dilemma. Entering Havill’s office,
Dare found him sitting there; but the drawings had all disappeared from
the boards. The architect held an open letter in his hand.
‘Well, what news?’ said Dare.
‘Miss Power has returned to the castle, Somerset is detained in London,
and the competition is decided,’ said Havill, with a glance of quiet
dubiousness.
‘And you have won it?’
‘No. We are bracketed--it’s a tie. The judges say there is no choice
between the designs--that they are singularly equal and singularly good.
That she would do well to adopt either. Signed So-and-So, Fellows of
the Royal Institute of British Architects. The result is that she
will employ which she personally likes best. It is as if I had spun a
sovereign in the air and it had alighted on its edge. The least false
movement will make it tails; the least wise movement heads.’
‘Singularly equal. Well, we owe that to our nocturnal visit, which must
not be known.’
‘O Lord, no!’ said Havill apprehensively.
Dare felt secure of him at those words. Havill had much at stake; the
slightest rumour of his trick in bringing about the competition, would
be fatal to Havill’s reputation.
‘The permanent absence of Somerset then is desirable architecturally on
your account, matrimonially on mine.’
‘Matrimonially? By the way--who was that captain you pointed out to me
when the artillery entered the town?’
‘Captain De Stancy--son of Sir William De Stancy. He’s the husband.
O, you needn’t look incredulous: it is practicable; but we won’t argue
that. In the first place I want him to see her, and to see her in the
most love-kindling, passion-begetting circumstances that can be thought
of. And he must see her surreptitiously, for he refuses to meet her.’
‘Let him see her going to church or chapel?’
Dare shook his head.
‘Driving out?’
‘Common-place!’
‘Walking in the gardens?’
‘Ditto.’
‘At her toilet?’
‘Ah--if it were possible!’
‘Which it hardly is. Well, you had better think it over and make
inquiries about her habits, and as to when she is in a favourable aspect
for observation, as the almanacs say.’
Shortly afterwards Dare took his leave. In the evening he made it his
business to sit smoking on the bole of a tree which commanded a view
of the upper ward of the castle, and also of the old postern-gate,
now enlarged and used as a tradesmen’s entrance. It was half-past six
o’clock; the dressing-bell rang, and Dare saw a light-footed young woman
hasten at the sound across the ward from the servants’ quarter. A light
appeared in a chamber which he knew to be Paula’s dressing-room; and
there it remained half-an-hour, a shadow passing and repassing on the
blind in the style of head-dress worn by the girl he had previously
seen. The dinner-bell sounded and the light went out.
As yet it was scarcely dark out of doors, and in a few minutes Dare had
the satisfaction of seeing the same woman cross the ward and emerge
upon the slope without. This time she was bonneted, and carried a little
basket in her hand. A nearer view showed her to be, as he had expected,
Milly Birch, Paula’s maid, who had friends living in Markton, whom she
was in the habit of visiting almost every evening during the three
hours of leisure which intervened between Paula’s retirement from the
dressing-room and return thither at ten o’clock. When the young woman
had descended the road and passed into the large drive, Dare rose and
followed her.
‘O, it is you, Miss Birch,’ said Dare, on overtaking her. ‘I am glad to
have the pleasure of walking by your side.’
‘Yes, sir. O it’s Mr. Dare. We don’t see you at the castle now, sir.’
‘No. And do you get a walk like this every evening when the others are
at their busiest?’
‘Almost every evening; that’s the one return to the poor lady’s maid for
losing her leisure when the others get it--in the absence of the family
from home.’
‘Is Miss Power a hard mistress?’
‘No.’
‘Rather fanciful than hard, I presume?’
‘Just so, sir.’
‘And she likes to appear to advantage, no doubt.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Milly, laughing. ‘We all do.’
‘When does she appear to the best advantage? When riding, or driving, or
reading her book?’
‘Not altogether then, if you mean the very best.’
‘Perhaps it is when she sits looking in the glass at herself, and you
let down her hair.’
‘Not particularly, to my mind.’
‘When does she to your mind? When dressed for a dinner-party or ball?’
‘She’s middling, then. But there is one time when she looks nicer and
cleverer than at any. It is when she is in the gymnasium.’
‘O--gymnasium?’
‘Because when she is there she wears such a pretty boy’s costume, and is
so charming in her movements, that you think she is a lovely young youth
and not a girl at all.’
‘When does she go to this gymnasium?’
‘Not so much as she used to. Only on wet mornings now, when she can’t
get out for walks or drives. But she used to do it every day.’
‘I should like to see her there.’
‘Why, sir?’
‘I am a poor artist, and can’t afford models. To see her attitudes would
be of great assistance to me in the art I love so well.’
Milly shook her head. ‘She’s very strict about the door being locked. If
I were to leave it open she would dismiss me, as I should deserve.’
‘But consider, dear Miss Birch, the advantage to a poor artist the sight
of her would be: if you could hold the door ajar it would be worth five
pounds to me, and a good deal to you.’
‘No,’ said the incorruptible Milly, shaking her head. ‘Besides, I don’t
always go there with her. O no, I couldn’t!’
Milly remained so firm at this point that Dare said no more.
When he had left her he returned to the castle grounds, and though there
was not much light he had no difficulty in discovering the gymnasium,
the outside of which he had observed before, without thinking to inquire
its purpose. Like the erections in other parts of the shrubberies it was
constructed of wood, the interstices between the framing being filled up
with short billets of fir nailed diagonally. Dare, even when without a
settled plan in his head, could arrange for probabilities; and wrenching
out one of the billets he looked inside. It seemed to be a simple oblong
apartment, fitted up with ropes, with a little dressing-closet at one
end, and lighted by a skylight or lantern in the roof. Dare replaced the
wood and went on his way.
Havill was smoking on his doorstep when Dare passed up the street. He
held up his hand.
‘Since you have been gone,’ said the architect, ‘I’ve hit upon something
that may help you in exhibiting your lady to your gentleman. In the
summer I had orders to design a gymnasium for her, which I did; and they
say she is very clever on the ropes and bars. Now--’
‘I’ve discovered it. I shall contrive for him to see her there on the
first wet morning, which is when she practises. What made her think of
it?’
‘As you may have heard, she holds advanced views on social and other
matters; and in those on the higher education of women she is very
strong, talking a good deal about the physical training of the Greeks,
whom she adores, or did. Every philosopher and man of science who
ventilates his theories in the monthly reviews has a devout listener in
her; and this subject of the physical development of her sex has had its
turn with other things in her mind. So she had the place built on her
very first arrival, according to the latest lights on athletics, and in
imitation of those at the new colleges for women.’
‘How deuced clever of the girl! She means to live to be a hundred!’