As he had promised, De Stancy made use the next day of the coveted
permission that had been brought about by the ingenious Dare. Dare’s
timely suggestion of tendering assistance had the practical result of
relieving the other of all necessity for occupying his time with the
proceeding, further than to bestow a perfunctory superintendence now
and then, to give a colour to his regular presence in the fortress, the
actual work of taking copies being carried on by the younger man.
The weather was frequently wet during these operations, and Paula,
Miss De Stancy, and her brother, were often in the house whole mornings
together. By constant urging and coaxing the latter would induce his
gentle sister, much against her conscience, to leave him opportunities
for speaking to Paula alone. It was mostly before some print or painting
that these conversations occurred, while De Stancy was ostensibly
occupied with its merits, or in giving directions to his photographer
how to proceed. As soon as the dialogue began, the latter would withdraw
out of earshot, leaving Paula to imagine him the most deferential young
artist in the world.
‘You will soon possess duplicates of the whole gallery,’ she said on one
of these occasions, examining some curled sheets which Dare had printed
off from the negatives.
‘No,’ said the soldier. ‘I shall not have patience to go on. I get
ill-humoured and indifferent, and then leave off.’
‘Why ill-humoured?’
‘I scarcely know--more than that I acquire a general sense of my own
family’s want of merit through seeing how meritorious the people are
around me. I see them happy and thriving without any necessity for me at
all; and then I regard these canvas grandfathers and grandmothers, and
ask, “Why was a line so antiquated and out of date prolonged till now?”’
She chid him good-naturedly for such views. ‘They will do you an
injury,’ she declared. ‘Do spare yourself, Captain De Stancy!’
De Stancy shook his head as he turned the painting before him a little
further to the light.
‘But, do you know,’ said Paula, ‘that notion of yours of being a family
out of date is delightful to some people. I talk to Charlotte about
it often. I am never weary of examining those canopied effigies in the
church, and almost wish they were those of my relations.’
‘I will try to see things in the same light for your sake,’ said De
Stancy fervently.
‘Not for my sake; for your own was what I meant, of course,’ she replied
with a repressive air.
Captain De Stancy bowed.
‘What are you going to do with your photographs when you have them?’ she
asked, as if still anxious to obliterate the previous sentimental lapse.
‘I shall put them into a large album, and carry them with me in my
campaigns; and may I ask, now I have an opportunity, that you would
extend your permission to copy a little further, and let me photograph
one other painting that hangs in the castle, to fittingly complete my
set?’
‘Which?’
‘That half-length of a lady which hangs in the morning-room. I remember
seeing it in the Academy last year.’
Paula involuntarily closed herself up. The picture was her own portrait.
‘It does not belong to your series,’ she said somewhat coldly.
De Stancy’s secret thought was, I hope from my soul it will belong some
day! He answered with mildness: ‘There is a sort of connection--you are
my sister’s friend.’
Paula assented.
‘And hence, might not your friend’s brother photograph your picture?’
Paula demurred.
A gentle sigh rose from the bosom of De Stancy. ‘What is to become of
me?’ he said, with a light distressed laugh. ‘I am always inconsiderate
and inclined to ask too much. Forgive me! What was in my mind when I
asked I dare not say.’
‘I quite understand your interest in your family pictures--and all
of it,’ she remarked more gently, willing not to hurt the sensitive
feelings of a man so full of romance.
‘And in that ONE!’ he said, looking devotedly at her. ‘If I had only
been fortunate enough to include it with the rest, my album would indeed
have been a treasure to pore over by the bivouac fire!’
‘O, Captain De Stancy, this is provoking perseverance!’ cried Paula,
laughing half crossly. ‘I expected that after expressing my decision
so plainly the first time I should not have been further urged upon the
subject.’ Saying which she turned and moved decisively away.
It had not been a productive meeting, thus far. ‘One word!’ said De
Stancy, following and almost clasping her hand. ‘I have given offence, I
know: but do let it all fall on my own head--don’t tell my sister of
my misbehaviour! She loves you deeply, and it would wound her to the
heart.’
‘You deserve to be told upon,’ said Paula as she withdrew, with just
enough playfulness to show that her anger was not too serious.
Charlotte looked at Paula uneasily when the latter joined her in the
drawing-room. She wanted to say, ‘What is the matter?’ but guessing that
her brother had something to do with it, forbore to speak at first. She
could not contain her anxiety long. ‘Were you talking with my brother?’
she said.
‘Yes,’ returned Paula, with reservation. However, she soon added, ‘He
not only wants to photograph his ancestors, but MY portrait too. They
are a dreadfully encroaching sex, and perhaps being in the army makes
them worse!’
‘I’ll give him a hint, and tell him to be careful.’
‘Don’t say I have definitely complained of him; it is not worth while
to do that; the matter is too trifling for repetition. Upon the whole,
Charlotte, I would rather you said nothing at all.’
De Stancy’s hobby of photographing his ancestors seemed to become a
perfect mania with him. Almost every morning discovered him in
the larger apartments of the castle, taking down and rehanging the
dilapidated pictures, with the assistance of the indispensable Dare;
his fingers stained black with dust, and his face expressing a busy
attention to the work in hand, though always reserving a look askance
for the presence of Paula.
Though there was something of subterfuge, there was no deep and double
subterfuge in all this. De Stancy took no particular interest in his
ancestral portraits; but he was enamoured of Paula to weakness. Perhaps
the composition of his love would hardly bear looking into, but it was
recklessly frank and not quite mercenary. His photographic scheme was
nothing worse than a lover’s not too scrupulous contrivance. After the
refusal of his request to copy her picture he fumed and fretted at the
prospect of Somerset’s return before any impression had been made on
her heart by himself; he swore at Dare, and asked him hotly why he had
dragged him into such a hopeless dilemma as this.
‘Hopeless? Somerset must still be kept away, so that it is not hopeless.
I will consider how to prolong his stay.’
Thereupon Dare considered.
The time was coming--had indeed come--when it was necessary for Paula to
make up her mind about her architect, if she meant to begin building in
the spring. The two sets of plans, Somerset’s and Havill’s, were hanging
on the walls of the room that had been used by Somerset as his studio,
and were accessible by anybody. Dare took occasion to go and study both
sets, with a view to finding a flaw in Somerset’s which might have been
passed over unnoticed by the committee of architects, owing to their
absence from the actual site. But not a blunder could he find.
He next went to Havill; and here he was met by an amazing state of
affairs. Havill’s creditors, at last suspecting something mythical
in Havill’s assurance that the grand commission was his, had lost all
patience; his house was turned upside-down, and a poster gleamed on the
front wall, stating that the excellent modern household furniture was
to be sold by auction on Friday next. Troubles had apparently come in
battalions, for Dare was informed by a bystander that Havill’s wife was
seriously ill also.
Without staying for a moment to enter his friend’s house, back went
Mr. Dare to the castle, and told Captain De Stancy of the architect’s
desperate circumstances, begging him to convey the news in some way to
Miss Power. De Stancy promised to make representations in the proper
quarter without perceiving that he was doing the best possible deed for
himself thereby.
He told Paula of Havill’s misfortunes in the presence of his sister,
who turned pale. She discerned how this misfortune would bear upon the
undecided competition.
‘Poor man,’ murmured Paula. ‘He was my father’s architect, and somehow
expected, though I did not promise it, the work of rebuilding the
castle.’
Then De Stancy saw Dare’s aim in sending him to Miss Power with the
news; and, seeing it, concurred: Somerset was his rival, and all was
fair. ‘And is he not to have the work of the castle after expecting it?’
he asked.
Paula was lost in reflection. ‘The other architect’s design and Mr.
Havill’s are exactly equal in merit, and we cannot decide how to give it
to either,’ explained Charlotte.
‘That is our difficulty,’ Paula murmured. ‘A bankrupt, and his wife
ill--dear me! I wonder what’s the cause.’
‘He has borrowed on the expectation of having to execute the castle
works, and now he is unable to meet his liabilities.’
‘It is very sad,’ said Paula.
‘Let me suggest a remedy for this dead-lock,’ said De Stancy.
‘Do,’ said Paula.
‘Do the work of building in two halves or sections. Give Havill the
first half, since he is in need; when that is finished the second half
can be given to your London architect. If, as I understand, the plans
are identical, except in ornamental details, there will be no difficulty
about it at all.’
Paula sighed--just a little one; and yet the suggestion seemed to
satisfy her by its reasonableness. She turned sad, wayward, but was
impressed by De Stancy’s manner and words. She appeared indeed to have
a smouldering desire to please him. In the afternoon she said to
Charlotte, ‘I mean to do as your brother says.’
A note was despatched to Havill that very day, and in an hour the
crestfallen architect presented himself at the castle. Paula instantly
gave him audience, commiserated him, and commissioned him to carry out
a first section of the buildings, comprising work to the extent of about
twenty thousand pounds expenditure; and then, with a prematureness quite
amazing among architects’ clients, she handed him over a cheque for five
hundred pounds on account.
When he had gone, Paula’s bearing showed some sign of being disquieted
at what she had done; but she covered her mood under a cloak of saucy
serenity. Perhaps a tender remembrance of a certain thunderstorm in the
foregoing August when she stood with Somerset in the arbour, and did not
own that she loved him, was pressing on her memory and bewildering her.
She had not seen quite clearly, in adopting De Stancy’s suggestion, that
Somerset would now have no professional reason for being at the castle
for the next twelve months.
But the captain had, and when Havill entered the castle he rejoiced with
great joy. Dare, too, rejoiced in his cold way, and went on with his
photography, saying, ‘The game progresses, captain.’
‘Game? Call it Divine Comedy, rather!’ said the soldier exultingly.
‘He is practically banished for a year or more. What can’t you do in a
year, captain!’
Havill, in the meantime, having respectfully withdrawn from the presence
of Paula, passed by Dare and De Stancy in the gallery as he had done
in entering. He spoke a few words to Dare, who congratulated him. While
they were talking somebody was heard in the hall, inquiring hastily for
Mr. Havill.
‘What shall I tell him?’ demanded the porter.
‘His wife is dead,’ said the messenger.
Havill overheard the words, and hastened away.
‘An unlucky man!’ said Dare.
‘That, happily for us, will not affect his installation here,’ said De
Stancy. ‘Now hold your tongue and keep at a distance. She may come this
way.’
Surely enough in a few minutes she came. De Stancy, to make
conversation, told her of the new misfortune which had just befallen Mr.
Havill.
Paula was very sorry to hear it, and remarked that it gave her great
satisfaction to have appointed him as architect of the first wing before
he learnt the bad news. ‘I owe you best thanks, Captain De Stancy, for
showing me such an expedient.’
‘Do I really deserve thanks?’ asked De Stancy. ‘I wish I deserved a
reward; but I must bear in mind the fable of the priest and the jester.’
‘I never heard it.’
‘The jester implored the priest for alms, but the smallest sum was
refused, though the holy man readily agreed to give him his blessing.
Query, its value?’
‘How does it apply?’
‘You give me unlimited thanks, but deny me the tiniest substantial
trifle I desire.’
‘What persistence!’ exclaimed Paula, colouring. ‘Very well, if you
WILL photograph my picture you must. It is really not worthy further
pleading. Take it when you like.’
When Paula was alone she seemed vexed with herself for having given
way; and rising from her seat she went quietly to the door of the
room containing the picture, intending to lock it up till further
consideration, whatever he might think of her. But on casting her eyes
round the apartment the painting was gone. The captain, wisely taking
the current when it served, already had it in the gallery, where he
was to be seen bending attentively over it, arranging the lights and
directing Dare with the instruments. On leaving he thanked her, and said
that he had obtained a splendid copy. Would she look at it?
Paula was severe and icy. ‘Thank you--I don’t wish to see it,’ she said.
De Stancy bowed and departed in a glow of triumph; satisfied,
notwithstanding her frigidity, that he had compassed his immediate aim,
which was that she might not be able to dismiss from her thoughts him
and his persevering desire for the shadow of her face during the next
four-and-twenty-hours. And his confidence was well founded: she could
not.
‘I fear this Divine Comedy will be slow business for us, captain,’ said
Dare, who had heard her cold words.
‘O no!’ said De Stancy, flushing a little: he had not been perceiving
that the lad had the measure of his mind so entirely as to gauge his
position at any moment. But he would show no shamefacedness. ‘Even if it
is, my boy,’ he answered, ‘there’s plenty of time before the other can
come.’
At that hour and minute of De Stancy’s remark ‘the other,’ to look
at him, seemed indeed securely shelved. He was sitting lonely in his
chambers far away, wondering why she did not write, and yet hoping
to hear--wondering if it had all been but a short-lived strain of
tenderness. He knew as well as if it had been stated in words that her
serious acceptance of him as a suitor would be her acceptance of him as
an architect--that her schemes in love would be expressed in terms of
art; and conversely that her refusal of him as a lover would be neatly
effected by her choosing Havill’s plans for the castle, and returning
his own with thanks. The position was so clear: he was so well walled in
by circumstances that he was absolutely helpless.
To wait for the line that would not come--the letter saying that, as
she had desired, his was the design that pleased her--was still the only
thing to do. The (to Somerset) surprising accident that the committee of
architects should have pronounced the designs absolutely equal in point
of merit, and thus have caused the final choice to revert after all to
Paula, had been a joyous thing to him when he first heard of it, full
of confidence in her favour. But the fact of her having again become
the arbitrator, though it had made acceptance of his plans all the more
probable, made refusal of them, should it happen, all the more crushing.
He could have conceived himself favoured by Paula as her lover, even had
the committee decided in favour of Havill as her architect. But not to
be chosen as architect now was to be rejected in both kinds.