When he awoke the next morning at the Lord-Quantock-Arms Hotel Somerset
felt quite morbid on recalling the intelligence he had received from
Mrs. Camperton. But as the day for serious practical consultation about
the castle works, to which Paula had playfully alluded, was now close at
hand, he determined to banish sentimental reflections on the frailties
that were besieging her nature, by active preparation for his
professional undertaking. To be her high-priest in art, to elaborate a
structure whose cunning workmanship would be meeting her eye every day
till the end of her natural life, and saying to her, ‘He invented it,’
with all the eloquence of an inanimate thing long regarded--this was no
mean satisfaction, come what else would.
He returned to town the next day to set matters there in such trim that
no inconvenience should result from his prolonged absence at the castle;
for having no other commission he determined (with an eye rather to
heart-interests than to increasing his professional practice) to make,
as before, the castle itself his office, studio, and chief abiding-place
till the works were fairly in progress.
On the tenth he reappeared at Markton. Passing through the town, on the
road to Stancy Castle, his eyes were again arrested by the notice-board
which had conveyed such startling information to him on the night of the
ball. The small bills now appeared thereon; but when he anxiously looked
them over to learn how the parts were to be allotted, he found
that intelligence still withheld. Yet they told enough; the list of
lady-players was given, and Miss Power’s name was one.
That a young lady who, six months ago, would scarcely join for
conscientious reasons in a simple dance on her own lawn, should now be
willing to exhibit herself on a public stage, simulating love-passages
with a stranger, argued a rate of development which under any
circumstances would have surprised him, but which, with the particular
addition, as leading colleague, of Captain De Stancy, inflamed him
almost to anger. What clandestine arrangements had been going on in his
absence to produce such a full-blown intention it were futile to guess.
Paula’s course was a race rather than a march, and each successive heat
was startling in its eclipse of that which went before.
Somerset was, however, introspective enough to know that his morals
would have taken no such virtuous alarm had he been the chief male
player instead of Captain De Stancy.
He passed under the castle-arch and entered. There seemed a little turn
in the tide of affairs when it was announced to him that Miss Power
expected him, and was alone.
The well-known ante-chambers through which he walked, filled with
twilight, draughts, and thin echoes that seemed to reverberate from two
hundred years ago, did not delay his eye as they had done when he had
been ignorant that his destiny lay beyond; and he followed on through
all this ancientness to where the modern Paula sat to receive him.
He forgot everything in the pleasure of being alone in a room with her.
She met his eye with that in her own which cheered him. It was a light
expressing that something was understood between them. She said quietly
in two or three words that she had expected him in the forenoon.
Somerset explained that he had come only that morning from London.
After a little more talk, in which she said that her aunt would join
them in a few minutes, and Miss De Stancy was still indisposed at her
father’s house, she rang for tea and sat down beside a little table.
‘Shall we proceed to business at once?’ she asked him.
‘I suppose so.’
‘First then, when will the working drawings be ready, which I think you
said must be made out before the work could begin?’
While Somerset informed her on this and other matters, Mrs. Goodman
entered and joined in the discussion, after which they found it would be
necessary to adjourn to the room where the plans were hanging. On their
walk thither Paula asked if he stayed late at the ball.
‘I left soon after you.’
‘That was very early, seeing how late you arrived.’
‘Yes.... I did not dance.’
‘What did you do then?’
‘I moped, and walked to the door; and saw an announcement.’
‘I know--the play that is to be performed.’
‘In which you are to be the Princess.’
‘That’s not settled,--I have not agreed yet. I shall not play the
Princess of France unless Mr. Mild plays the King of Navarre.’
This sounded rather well. The Princess was the lady beloved by the
King; and Mr. Mild, the young lieutenant of artillery, was a diffident,
inexperienced, rather plain-looking fellow, whose sole interest in
theatricals lay in the consideration of his costume and the sound of
his own voice in the ears of the audience. With such an unobjectionable
person to enact the part of lover, the prominent character of leading
young lady or heroine, which Paula was to personate, was really the most
satisfactory in the whole list for her. For although she was to be wooed
hard, there was just as much love-making among the remaining personages;
while, as Somerset had understood the play, there could occur no
flingings of her person upon her lover’s neck, or agonized downfalls
upon the stage, in her whole performance, as there were in the parts
chosen by Mrs. Camperton, the major’s wife, and some of the other
ladies.
‘Why do you play at all!’ he murmured.
‘What a question! How could I refuse for such an excellent purpose? They
say that my taking a part will be worth a hundred pounds to the
charity. My father always supported the hospital, which is quite
undenominational; and he said I was to do the same.’
‘Do you think the peculiar means you have adopted for supporting it
entered into his view?’ inquired Somerset, regarding her with critical
dryness. ‘For my part I don’t.’
‘It is an interesting way,’ she returned persuasively, though apparently
in a state of mental equipoise on the point raised by his question. ‘And
I shall not play the Princess, as I said, to any other than that quiet
young man. Now I assure you of this, so don’t be angry and absurd!
Besides, the King doesn’t marry me at the end of the play, as in
Shakespeare’s other comedies. And if Miss De Stancy continues seriously
unwell I shall not play at all.’
The young man pressed her hand, but she gently slipped it away.
‘Are we not engaged, Paula!’ he asked. She evasively shook her head.
‘Come--yes we are! Shall we tell your aunt?’ he continued. Unluckily
at that moment Mrs. Goodman, who had followed them to the studio at a
slower pace, appeared round the doorway.
‘No,--to the last,’ replied Paula hastily. Then her aunt entered, and
the conversation was no longer personal.
Somerset took his departure in a serener mood though not completely
assured.