A quick arrested expression in her two sapphirine eyes, accompanied by
a little, a very little, blush which loitered long, was all the
outward disturbance that the sight of her lover caused. The habit of
self-repression at any new emotional impact was instinctive with her
always. Somerset could not say more than a word; he looked his intense
solicitude, and Paula spoke.
She declared that this was an unexpected pleasure. Had he arranged
to come on the tenth as she wished? How strange that they should meet
thus!--and yet not strange--the world was so small.
Somerset said that he was coming on the very day she mentioned--that the
appointment gave him infinite gratification, which was quite within the
truth.
‘Come into this shop with me,’ said Paula, with good-humoured
authoritativeness.
They entered the shop and talked on while she made a small purchase. But
not a word did Paula say of her sudden errand to town.
‘I am having an exciting morning,’ she said. ‘I am going from here to
catch the one-o’clock train to Markton.’
‘It is important that you get there this afternoon, I suppose?’
‘Yes. You know why?’
‘Not at all.’
‘The Hunt Ball. It was fixed for the sixth, and this is the sixth. I
thought they might have asked you.’
‘No,’ said Somerset, a trifle gloomily. ‘No, I am not asked. But it is a
great task for you--a long journey and a ball all in one day.’
‘Yes: Charlotte said that. But I don’t mind it.’
‘You are glad you are going. Are you glad?’ he said softly.
Her air confessed more than her words. ‘I am not so very glad that I am
going to the Hunt Ball,’ she replied confidentially.
‘Thanks for that,’ said he.
She lifted her eyes to his for a moment. Her manner had suddenly become
so nearly the counterpart of that in the tea-house that to suspect any
deterioration of affection in her was no longer generous. It was only as
if a thin layer of recent events had overlaid her memories of him, until
his presence swept them away.
Somerset looked up, and finding the shopman to be still some way off,
he added, ‘When will you assure me of something in return for what I
assured you that evening in the rain?’
‘Not before you have built the castle. My aunt does not know about it
yet, nor anybody.’
‘I ought to tell her.’
‘No, not yet. I don’t wish it.’
‘Then everything stands as usual?’
She lightly nodded.
‘That is, I may love you: but you still will not say you love me.’
She nodded again, and directing his attention to the advancing shopman,
said, ‘Please not a word more.’
Soon after this, they left the jeweller’s, and parted, Paula driving
straight off to the station and Somerset going on his way uncertainly
happy. His re-impression after a few minutes was that a special journey
to town to fetch that magnificent necklace which she had not once
mentioned to him, but which was plainly to be the medium of some proud
purpose with her this evening, was hardly in harmony with her assertions
of indifference to the attractions of the Hunt Ball.
He got into a cab and drove to his club, where he lunched, and mopingly
spent a great part of the afternoon in making calculations for the
foundations of the castle works. Later in the afternoon he returned to
his chambers, wishing that he could annihilate the three days remaining
before the tenth, particularly this coming evening. On his table was a
letter in a strange writing, and indifferently turning it over he found
from the superscription that it had been addressed to him days before at
the Lord-Quantock-Arms Hotel, Markton, where it had lain ever since, the
landlord probably expecting him to return. Opening the missive, he found
to his surprise that it was, after all, an invitation to the Hunt Ball.
‘Too late!’ said Somerset. ‘To think I should be served this trick a
second time!’
After a moment’s pause, however, he looked to see the time of day. It
was five minutes past five--just about the hour when Paula would be
driving from Markton Station to Stancy Castle to rest and prepare
herself for her evening triumph. There was a train at six o’clock, timed
to reach Markton between eleven and twelve, which by great exertion he
might save even now, if it were worth while to undertake such a scramble
for the pleasure of dropping in to the ball at a late hour. A moment’s
vision of Paula moving to swift tunes on the arm of a person or persons
unknown was enough to impart the impetus required. He jumped up, flung
his dress clothes into a portmanteau, sent down to call a cab, and in a
few minutes was rattling off to the railway which had borne Paula away
from London just five hours earlier.
Once in the train, he began to consider where and how he could
most conveniently dress for the dance. The train would certainly
be half-an-hour late; half-an-hour would be spent in getting to the
town-hall, and that was the utmost delay tolerable if he would secure
the hand of Paula for one spin, or be more than a mere dummy behind
the earlier arrivals. He looked for an empty compartment at the next
stoppage, and finding the one next his own unoccupied, he entered it and
changed his raiment for that in his portmanteau during the ensuing run
of twenty miles.
Thus prepared he awaited the Markton platform, which was reached as
the clock struck twelve. Somerset called a fly and drove at once to the
town-hall.
The borough natives had ascended to their upper floors, and were putting
out their candles one by one as he passed along the streets; but
the lively strains that proceeded from the central edifice revealed
distinctly enough what was going on among the temporary visitors from
the neighbouring manors. The doors were opened for him, and entering
the vestibule lined with flags, flowers, evergreens, and escutcheons, he
stood looking into the furnace of gaiety beyond.
It was some time before he could gather his impressions of the scene,
so perplexing were the lights, the motions, the toilets, the full-dress
uniforms of officers and the harmonies of sound. Yet light, sound, and
movement were not so much the essence of that giddy scene as an intense
aim at obliviousness in the beings composing it. For two or three hours
at least those whirling young people meant not to know that they were
mortal. The room was beating like a heart, and the pulse was regulated
by the trembling strings of the most popular quadrille band in Wessex.
But at last his eyes grew settled enough to look critically around.
The room was crowded--too crowded. Every variety of fair one, beauties
primary, secondary, and tertiary, appeared among the personages
composing the throng. There were suns and moons; also pale planets of
little account. Broadly speaking, these daughters of the county
fell into two classes: one the pink-faced unsophisticated girls from
neighbouring rectories and small country-houses, who knew not town
except for an occasional fortnight, and who spent their time from Easter
to Lammas Day much as they spent it during the remaining nine months of
the year: the other class were the children of the wealthy landowners
who migrated each season to the town-house; these were pale and
collected, showed less enjoyment in their countenances, and wore in
general an approximation to the languid manners of the capital.
A quadrille was in progress, and Somerset scanned each set. His mind had
run so long upon the necklace, that his glance involuntarily sought out
that gleaming object rather than the personality of its wearer. At the
top of the room there he beheld it; but it was on the neck of Charlotte
De Stancy.
The whole lucid explanation broke across his understanding in a second.
His dear Paula had fetched the necklace that Charlotte should not appear
to disadvantage among the county people by reason of her poverty. It was
generously done--a disinterested act of sisterly kindness; theirs was
the friendship of Hermia and Helena. Before he had got further than
to realize this, there wheeled round amongst the dancers a lady whose
tournure he recognized well. She was Paula; and to the young man’s
vision a superlative something distinguished her from all the rest. This
was not dress or ornament, for she had hardly a gem upon her, her
attire being a model of effective simplicity. Her partner was Captain De
Stancy.
The discovery of this latter fact slightly obscured his appreciation of
what he had discovered just before. It was with rather a lowering brow
that he asked himself whether Paula’s predilection d’artiste, as she
called it, for the De Stancy line might not lead to a predilection of
a different sort for its last representative which would be not at all
satisfactory.
The architect remained in the background till the dance drew to a
conclusion, and then he went forward. The circumstance of having met him
by accident once already that day seemed to quench any surprise in Miss
Power’s bosom at seeing him now. There was nothing in her parting
from Captain De Stancy, when he led her to a seat, calculated to make
Somerset uneasy after his long absence. Though, for that matter, this
proved nothing; for, like all wise maidens, Paula never ventured on the
game of the eyes with a lover in public; well knowing that every moment
of such indulgence overnight might mean an hour’s sneer at her expense
by the indulged gentleman next day, when weighing womankind by the aid
of a cold morning light and a bad headache.
While Somerset was explaining to Paula and her aunt the reason of his
sudden appearance, their attention was drawn to a seat a short way off
by a fluttering of ladies round the spot. In a moment it was whispered
that somebody had fallen ill, and in another that the sufferer was Miss
De Stancy. Paula, Mrs. Goodman, and Somerset at once joined the group of
friends who were assisting her. Neither of them imagined for an instant
that the unexpected advent of Somerset on the scene had anything to do
with the poor girl’s indisposition.
She was assisted out of the room, and her brother, who now came up,
prepared to take her home, Somerset exchanging a few civil words with
him, which the hurry of the moment prevented them from continuing;
though on taking his leave with Charlotte, who was now better, De Stancy
informed Somerset in answer to a cursory inquiry, that he hoped to be
back again at the ball in half-an-hour.
When they were gone Somerset, feeling that now another dog might have
his day, sounded Paula on the delightful question of a dance.
Paula replied in the negative.
‘How is that?’ asked Somerset with reproachful disappointment.
‘I cannot dance again,’ she said in a somewhat depressed tone; ‘I must
be released from every engagement to do so, on account of Charlotte’s
illness. I should have gone home with her if I had not been particularly
requested to stay a little longer, since it is as yet so early, and
Charlotte’s illness is not very serious.’
If Charlotte’s illness was not very serious, Somerset thought, Paula
might have stretched a point; but not wishing to hinder her in showing
respect to a friend so well liked by himself, he did not ask it. De
Stancy had promised to be back again in half-an-hour, and Paula had
heard the promise. But at the end of twenty minutes, still seeming
indifferent to what was going on around her, she said she would stay no
longer, and reminding Somerset that they were soon to meet and talk over
the rebuilding, drove off with her aunt to Stancy Castle.
Somerset stood looking after the retreating carriage till it was
enveloped in shades that the lamps could not disperse. The ball-room
was now virtually empty for him, and feeling no great anxiety to return
thither he stood on the steps for some minutes longer, looking into
the calm mild night, and at the dark houses behind whose blinds lay the
burghers with their eyes sealed up in sleep. He could not but think that
it was rather too bad of Paula to spoil his evening for a sentimental
devotion to Charlotte which could do the latter no appreciable good; and
he would have felt seriously hurt at her move if it had not been equally
severe upon Captain De Stancy, who was doubtless hastening back, full of
a belief that she would still be found there.
The star of gas-jets over the entrance threw its light upon the walls
on the opposite side of the street, where there were notice-boards of
forthcoming events. In glancing over these for the fifth time, his eye
was attracted by the first words of a placard in blue letters, of a size
larger than the rest, and moving onward a few steps he read:--