It was the Sunday following the funeral of Mrs. Havill, news of whose
death had been so unexpectedly brought to her husband at the moment of
his exit from Stancy Castle. The minister, as was his custom, improved
the occasion by a couple of sermons on the uncertainty of life. One
was preached in the morning in the old chapel of Markton; the second at
evening service in the rural chapel near Stancy Castle, built by Paula’s
father, which bore to the first somewhat the relation of an episcopal
chapel-of-ease to the mother church.
The unscreened lights blazed through the plate-glass windows of the
smaller building and outshone the steely stars of the early night, just
as they had done when Somerset was attracted by their glare four months
before. The fervid minister’s rhetoric equalled its force on that more
romantic occasion: but Paula was not there. She was not a frequent
attendant now at her father’s votive building. The mysterious tank,
whose dark waters had so repelled her at the last moment, was boarded
over: a table stood on its centre, with an open quarto Bible upon it,
behind which Havill, in a new suit of black, sat in a large chair.
Havill held the office of deacon: and he had mechanically taken the
deacon’s seat as usual to-night, in the face of the congregation, and
under the nose of Mr. Woodwell.
Mr. Woodwell was always glad of an opportunity. He was gifted with a
burning natural eloquence, which, though perhaps a little too freely
employed in exciting the ‘Wertherism of the uncultivated,’ had in it
genuine power. He was a master of that oratory which no limitation
of knowledge can repress, and which no training can impart. The
neighbouring rector could eclipse Woodwell’s scholarship, and the
freethinker at the corner shop in Markton could demolish his logic; but
the Baptist could do in five minutes what neither of these had done in a
lifetime; he could move some of the hardest of men to tears.
Thus it happened that, when the sermon was fairly under way, Havill
began to feel himself in a trying position. It was not that he had
bestowed much affection upon his deceased wife, irreproachable woman as
she had been; but the suddenness of her death had shaken his nerves,
and Mr. Woodwell’s address on the uncertainty of life involved
considerations of conduct on earth that bore with singular directness
upon Havill’s unprincipled manoeuvre for victory in the castle
competition. He wished he had not been so inadvertent as to take his
customary chair in the chapel. People who saw Havill’s agitation did not
know that it was most largely owing to his sense of the fraud which had
been practised on the unoffending Somerset; and when, unable longer to
endure the torture of Woodwell’s words, he rose from his place and went
into the chapel vestry, the preacher little thought that remorse for
a contemptibly unfair act, rather than grief for a dead wife, was the
cause of the architect’s withdrawal.
When Havill got into the open air his morbid excitement calmed down, but
a sickening self-abhorrence for the proceeding instigated by Dare did
not abate. To appropriate another man’s design was no more nor less than
to embezzle his money or steal his goods. The intense reaction from
his conduct of the past two or three months did not leave him when
he reached his own house and observed where the handbills of the
countermanded sale had been torn down, as the result of the payment made
in advance by Paula of money which should really have been Somerset’s.
The mood went on intensifying when he was in bed. He lay awake till the
clock reached those still, small, ghastly hours when the vital fires
burn at their lowest in the human frame, and death seizes more of his
victims than in any other of the twenty-four. Havill could bear it no
longer; he got a light, went down into his office and wrote the note
subjoined.
‘MADAM,--The recent death of my wife necessitates a considerable change
in my professional arrangements and plans with regard to the future.
One of the chief results of the change is, I regret to state, that I
no longer find myself in a position to carry out the enlargement of the
castle which you had so generously entrusted to my hands.
‘I beg leave therefore to resign all further connection with the same,
and to express, if you will allow me, a hope that the commission may
be placed in the hands of the other competitor. Herewith is returned a
cheque for one-half of the sum so kindly advanced in anticipation of the
commission I should receive; the other half, with which I had cleared
off my immediate embarrassments before perceiving the necessity for this
course, shall be returned to you as soon as some payments from other
clients drop in.--I beg to remain, Madam, your obedient servant, JAMES
HAVILL.’
Havill would not trust himself till the morning to post this letter. He
sealed it up, went out with it into the street, and walked through the
sleeping town to the post-office. At the mouth of the box he held the
letter long. By dropping it, he was dropping at least two thousand five
hundred pounds which, however obtained, were now securely his. It was a
great deal to let go; and there he stood till another wave of conscience
bore in upon his soul the absolute nature of the theft, and made him
shudder. The footsteps of a solitary policeman could be heard nearing
him along the deserted street; hesitation ended, and he let the letter
go.
When he awoke in the morning he thought over the circumstances by the
cheerful light of a low eastern sun. The horrors of the situation seemed
much less formidable; yet it cannot be said that he actually regretted
his act. Later on he walked out, with the strange sense of being a man
who, from one having a large professional undertaking in hand, had, by
his own act, suddenly reduced himself to an unoccupied nondescript. From
the upper end of the town he saw in the distance the grand grey towers
of Stancy Castle looming over the leafless trees; he felt stupefied at
what he had done, and said to himself with bitter discontent: ‘Well,
well, what is more contemptible than a half-hearted rogue!’
That morning the post-bag had been brought to Paula and Mrs. Goodman
in the usual way, and Miss Power read the letter. His resignation was a
surprise; the question whether he would or would not repay the money
was passed over; the necessity of installing Somerset after all as sole
architect was an agitation, or emotion, the precise nature of which it
is impossible to accurately define.
However, she went about the house after breakfast with very much the
manner of one who had had a weight removed either from her heart or from
her conscience; moreover, her face was a little flushed when, in passing
by Somerset’s late studio, she saw the plans bearing his motto, and knew
that his and not Havill’s would be the presiding presence in the coming
architectural turmoil. She went on further, and called to Charlotte, who
was now regularly sleeping in the castle, to accompany her, and together
they ascended to the telegraph-room in the donjon tower.
‘Whom are you going to telegraph to?’ said Miss De Stancy when they
stood by the instrument.
‘My architect.’
‘O--Mr. Havill.’
‘Mr. Somerset.’
Miss De Stancy had schooled her emotions on that side cruelly well, and
she asked calmly, ‘What, have you chosen him after all?’
‘There is no choice in it--read that,’ said Paula, handing Havill’s
letter, as if she felt that Providence had stepped in to shape ends that
she was too undecided or unpractised to shape for herself.
‘It is very strange,’ murmured Charlotte; while Paula applied herself to
the machine and despatched the words:--
‘Miss Power, Stancy Castle, to G. Somerset, Esq., F.S.A., F.R.I.B.A.,
Queen Anne’s Chambers, St. James’s.
‘Your design is accepted in its entirety. It will be necessary to begin
soon. I shall wish to see and consult you on the matter about the 10th
instant.’
When the message was fairly gone out of the window Paula seemed still
further to expand. The strange spell cast over her by something or
other--probably the presence of De Stancy, and the weird romanticism of
his manner towards her, which was as if the historic past had touched
her with a yet living hand--in a great measure became dissipated,
leaving her the arch and serene maiden that she had been before.
About this time Captain De Stancy and his Achates were approaching the
castle, and had arrived about fifty paces from the spot at which it
was Dare’s custom to drop behind his companion, in order that their
appearance at the lodge should be that of master and man.
Dare was saying, as he had said before: ‘I can’t help fancying, captain,
that your approach to this castle and its mistress is by a very tedious
system. Your trenches, zigzags, counterscarps, and ravelins may be all
very well, and a very sure system of attack in the long run; but upon my
soul they are almost as slow in maturing as those of Uncle Toby himself.
For my part I should be inclined to try an assault.’
‘Don’t pretend to give advice, Willy, on matters beyond your years.’
‘I only meant it for your good, and your proper advancement in the
world,’ said Dare in wounded tones.
‘Different characters, different systems,’ returned the soldier. ‘This
lady is of a reticent, independent, complicated disposition, and any
sudden proceeding would put her on her mettle. You don’t dream what
my impatience is, my boy. It is a thing transcending your utmost
conceptions! But I proceed slowly; I know better than to do otherwise.
Thank God there is plenty of time. As long as there is no risk of
Somerset’s return my situation is sure.’
‘And professional etiquette will prevent him coming yet. Havill and he
will change like the men in a sentry-box; when Havill walks out, he’ll
walk in, and not a moment before.’
‘That will not be till eighteen months have passed. And as the Jesuit
said, “Time and I against any two.”... Now drop to the rear,’ added
Captain De Stancy authoritatively. And they passed under the walls of
the castle.
The grave fronts and bastions were wrapped in silence; so much so,
that, standing awhile in the inner ward, they could hear through an open
window a faintly clicking sound from within.
‘She’s at the telegraph,’ said Dare, throwing forward his voice softly
to the captain. ‘What can that be for so early? That wire is a nuisance,
to my mind; such constant intercourse with the outer world is bad for
our romance.’
The speaker entered to arrange his photographic apparatus, of which, in
truth, he was getting weary; and De Stancy smoked on the terrace till
Dare should be ready. While he waited his sister looked out upon him
from an upper casement, having caught sight of him as she came from
Paula in the telegraph-room.
‘Well, Lottie, what news this morning?’ he said gaily.
‘Nothing of importance. We are quite well.’.... She added with
hesitation, ‘There is one piece of news; Mr. Havill--but perhaps you
have heard it in Markton?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Mr. Havill has resigned his appointment as architect to the castle.’
‘What?--who has it, then?’
‘Mr. Somerset.’
‘Appointed?’
‘Yes--by telegraph.’
‘When is he coming?’ said De Stancy in consternation.
‘About the tenth, we think.’
Charlotte was concerned to see her brother’s face, and withdrew from the
window that he might not question her further. De Stancy went into
the hall, and on to the gallery, where Dare was standing as still as a
caryatid.
‘I have heard every word,’ said Dare.
‘Well, what does it mean? Has that fool Havill done it on purpose to
annoy me? What conceivable reason can the man have for throwing up an
appointment he has worked so hard for, at the moment he has got it, and
in the time of his greatest need?’
Dare guessed, for he had seen a little way into Havill’s soul during the
brief period of their confederacy. But he was very far from saying what
he guessed. Yet he unconsciously revealed by other words the nocturnal
shades in his character which had made that confederacy possible.
‘Somerset coming after all!’ he replied. ‘By God! that little
six-barrelled friend of mine, and a good resolution, and he would never
arrive!’
‘What!’ said Captain De Stancy, paling with horror as he gathered the
other’s sinister meaning.
Dare instantly recollected himself. ‘One is tempted to say anything at
such a moment,’ he replied hastily.
‘Since he is to come, let him come, for me,’ continued De Stancy, with
reactionary distinctness, and still gazing gravely into the young man’s
face. ‘The battle shall be fairly fought out. Fair play, even to a
rival--remember that, boy.... Why are you here?--unnaturally concerning
yourself with the passions of a man of my age, as if you were the
parent, and I the son? Would to heaven, Willy, you had done as I wished
you to do, and led the life of a steady, thoughtful young man! Instead
of meddling here, you should now have been in some studio, college, or
professional man’s chambers, engaged in a useful pursuit which
might have made one proud to own you. But you were so precocious
and headstrong; and this is what you have come to: you promise to be
worthless!’
‘I think I shall go to my lodgings to-day instead of staying here over
these pictures,’ said Dare, after a silence during which Captain De
Stancy endeavoured to calm himself. ‘I was going to tell you that
my dinner to-day will unfortunately be one of herbs, for want of
the needful. I have come to my last stiver.--You dine at the mess, I
suppose, captain?’
De Stancy had walked away; but Dare knew that he played a pretty sure
card in that speech. De Stancy’s heart could not withstand the suggested
contrast between a lonely meal of bread-and-cheese and a well-ordered
dinner amid cheerful companions. ‘Here,’ he said, emptying his pocket
and returning to the lad’s side. ‘Take this, and order yourself a good
meal. You keep me as poor as a crow. There shall be more to-morrow.’
The peculiarly bifold nature of Captain De Stancy, as shown in his
conduct at different times, was something rare in life, and perhaps
happily so. That mechanical admixture of black and white qualities
without coalescence, on which the theory of men’s characters was based
by moral analysis before the rise of modern ethical schools, fictitious
as it was in general application, would have almost hit off the truth as
regards Captain De Stancy. Removed to some half-known century, his deeds
would have won a picturesqueness of light and shade that might have made
him a fascinating subject for some gallery of illustrious historical
personages. It was this tendency to moral chequer-work which accounted
for his varied bearings towards Dare.
Dare withdrew to take his departure. When he had gone a few steps,
despondent, he suddenly turned, and ran back with some excitement.
‘Captain--he’s coming on the tenth, don’t they say? Well, four days
before the tenth comes the sixth. Have you forgotten what’s fixed for
the sixth?’
‘I had quite forgotten!’
‘That day will be worth three months of quiet attentions: with luck,
skill, and a bold heart, what mayn’t you do?’
Captain De Stancy’s face softened with satisfaction.
‘There is something in that; the game is not up after all. The sixth--it
had gone clean out of my head, by gad!’