‘Miss Bell starts by the twelve o’clock train.’
This business being finished, Paula left the chamber and descended into
the inclosure called the Pleasance, a spot grassed down like a lawn.
Here stood Somerset, who, having come down from the tower, was looking
on while a man searched for old foundations under the sod with a
crowbar. He was glad to see her at last, and noticed that she looked
serene and relieved; but could not for the moment divine the cause.
Paula came nearer, returned his salutation, and regarded the man’s
operations in silence awhile till his work led him to a distance from
them.
‘Do you still wish to consult me?’ asked Somerset.
‘About the building perhaps,’ said she. ‘Not about the play.’
‘But you said so?’
‘Yes; but it will be unnecessary.’
Somerset thought this meant skittishness, and merely bowed.
‘You mistake me as usual,’ she said, in a low tone. ‘I am not going to
consult you on that matter, because I have done all you could have asked
for without consulting you. I take no part in the play to-night.’
‘Forgive my momentary doubt!’
‘Somebody else will play for me--an actress from London. But on no
account must the substitution be known beforehand or the performance
to-night will never come off: and that I should much regret.’
‘Captain De Stancy will not play his part if he knows you will not play
yours--that’s what you mean?’
‘You may suppose it is,’ she said, smiling. ‘And to guard against this
you must help me to keep the secret by being my confederate.’
To be Paula’s confederate; to-day, indeed, time had brought him
something worth waiting for. ‘In anything!’ cried Somerset.
‘Only in this!’ said she, with soft severity. ‘And you know what you
have promised, George! And you remember there is to be no--what we
talked about! Now will you go in the one-horse brougham to Markton
Station this afternoon, and meet the four o’clock train? Inquire for a
lady for Stancy Castle--a Miss Bell; see her safely into the carriage,
and send her straight on here. I am particularly anxious that she should
not enter the town, for I think she once came to Markton in a starring
company, and she might be recognized, and my plan be defeated.’
Thus she instructed her lover and devoted friend; and when he could stay
no longer he left her in the garden to return to his studio. As Somerset
went in by the garden door he met a strange-looking personage coming out
by the same passage--a stranger, with the manner of a Dutchman, the face
of a smelter, and the clothes of an inhabitant of Guiana. The stranger,
whom we have already seen sitting at the back of the theatre the night
before, looked hard from Somerset to Paula, and from Paula again to
Somerset, as he stepped out. Somerset had an unpleasant conviction that
this queer gentleman had been standing for some time in the doorway
unnoticed, quizzing him and his mistress as they talked together. If so
he might have learnt a secret.
When he arrived upstairs, Somerset went to a window commanding a view
of the garden. Paula still stood in her place, and the stranger was
earnestly conversing with her. Soon they passed round the corner and
disappeared.
It was now time for him to see about starting for Markton, an
intelligible zest for circumventing the ardent and coercive captain of
artillery saving him from any unnecessary delay in the journey. He was
at the station ten minutes before the train was due; and when it drew
up to the platform the first person to jump out was Captain De Stancy in
sportsman’s attire and with a gun in his hand. Somerset nodded, and De
Stancy spoke, informing the architect that he had been ten miles up the
line shooting waterfowl. ‘That’s Miss Power’s carriage, I think,’ he
added.
‘Yes,’ said Somerset carelessly. ‘She expects a friend, I believe. We
shall see you at the castle again to-night?’
De Stancy assured him that they would, and the two men parted, Captain
De Stancy, when he had glanced to see that the carriage was empty, going
on to where a porter stood with a couple of spaniels.
Somerset now looked again to the train. While his back had been turned
to converse with the captain, a lady of five-and-thirty had alighted
from the identical compartment occupied by De Stancy. She made an
inquiry about getting to Stancy Castle, upon which Somerset, who had not
till now observed her, went forward, and introducing himself assisted
her to the carriage and saw her safely off.
De Stancy had by this time disappeared, and Somerset walked on to his
rooms at the Lord-Quantock-Arms, where he remained till he had dined,
picturing the discomfiture of his alert rival when there should enter to
him as Princess, not Paula Power, but Miss Bell of the Regent’s Theatre,
London. Thus the hour passed, till he found that if he meant to see the
issue of the plot it was time to be off.
On arriving at the castle, Somerset entered by the public door from the
hall as before, a natural delicacy leading him to feel that though he
might be welcomed as an ally at the stage-door--in other words, the door
from the corridor--it was advisable not to take too ready an advantage
of a privilege which, in the existing secrecy of his understanding with
Paula, might lead to an overthrow of her plans on that point.
Not intending to sit out the whole performance, Somerset contented
himself with standing in a window recess near the proscenium, whence he
could observe both the stage and the front rows of spectators. He was
quite uncertain whether Paula would appear among the audience to-night,
and resolved to wait events. Just before the rise of the curtain the
young lady in question entered and sat down. When the scenery was
disclosed and the King of Navarre appeared, what was Somerset’s surprise
to find that, though the part was the part taken by De Stancy on the
previous night, the voice was that of Mr. Mild; to him, at the appointed
season, entered the Princess, namely, Miss Barbara Bell.
Before Somerset had recovered from his crestfallen sensation at De
Stancy’s elusiveness, that officer himself emerged in evening dress from
behind a curtain forming a wing to the proscenium, and Somerset remarked
that the minor part originally allotted to him was filled by the
subaltern who had enacted it the night before. De Stancy glanced across,
whether by accident or otherwise Somerset could not determine, and his
glance seemed to say he quite recognized there had been a trial of wits
between them, and that, thanks to his chance meeting with Miss Bell in
the train, his had proved the stronger.
The house being less crowded to-night there were one or two vacant
chairs in the best part. De Stancy, advancing from where he had stood
for a few moments, seated himself comfortably beside Miss Power.
On the other side of her he now perceived the same queer elderly
foreigner (as he appeared) who had come to her in the garden that
morning. Somerset was surprised to perceive also that Paula with
very little hesitation introduced him and De Stancy to each other. A
conversation ensued between the three, none the less animated for being
carried on in a whisper, in which Paula seemed on strangely intimate
terms with the stranger, and the stranger to show feelings of
great friendship for De Stancy, considering that they must be new
acquaintances.
The play proceeded, and Somerset still lingered in his corner. He could
not help fancying that De Stancy’s ingenious relinquishment of his part,
and its obvious reason, was winning Paula’s admiration. His conduct was
homage carried to unscrupulous and inconvenient lengths, a sort of thing
which a woman may chide, but which she can never resent. Who could
do otherwise than talk kindly to a man, incline a little to him, and
condone his fault, when the sole motive of so audacious an exercise of
his wits was to escape acting with any other heroine than herself.
His conjectures were brought to a pause by the ending of the comedy, and
the opportunity afforded him of joining the group in front. The mass of
people were soon gone, and the knot of friends assembled around Paula
were discussing the merits and faults of the two days’ performance.
‘My uncle, Mr. Abner Power,’ said Paula suddenly to Somerset, as he came
near, presenting the stranger to the astonished young man. ‘I could not
see you before the performance, as I should have liked to do. The return
of my uncle is so extraordinary that it ought to be told in a less
hurried way than this. He has been supposed dead by all of us for nearly
ten years--ever since the time we last heard from him.’
‘For which I am to blame,’ said Mr. Power, nodding to Paula’s architect.
‘Yet not I, but accident and a sluggish temperament. There are times,
Mr Somerset, when the human creature feels no interest in his kind,
and assumes that his kind feels no interest in him. The feeling is not
active enough to make him fly from their presence; but sufficient to
keep him silent if he happens to be away. I may not have described it
precisely; but this I know, that after my long illness, and the fancied
neglect of my letters--’
‘For which my father was not to blame, since he did not receive them,’
said Paula.
‘For which nobody was to blame--after that, I say, I wrote no more.’
‘You have much pleasure in returning at last, no doubt,’ said Somerset.
‘Sir, as I remained away without particular pain, so I return without
particular joy. I speak the truth, and no compliments. I may add that
there is one exception to this absence of feeling from my heart, namely,
that I do derive great satisfaction from seeing how mightily this young
woman has grown and prevailed.’
This address, though delivered nominally to Somerset, was listened to by
Paula, Mrs. Goodman, and De Stancy also. After uttering it, the speaker
turned away, and continued his previous conversation with Captain
De Stancy. From this time till the group parted he never again spoke
directly to Somerset, paying him barely so much attention as he might
have expected as Paula’s architect, and certainly less than he might
have supposed his due as her accepted lover.
The result of the appearance, as from the tomb, of this wintry man was
that the evening ended in a frigid and formal way which gave little
satisfaction to the sensitive Somerset, who was abstracted and
constrained by reason of thoughts on how this resuscitation of the uncle
would affect his relation with Paula. It was possibly also the thought
of two at least of the others. There had, in truth, scarcely yet been
time enough to adumbrate the possibilities opened up by this gentleman’s
return.
The only private word exchanged by Somerset with any one that night was
with Mrs. Goodman, in whom he always recognized a friend to his cause,
though the fluidity of her character rendered her but a feeble one at
the best of times. She informed him that Mr. Power had no sort of legal
control over Paula, or direction in her estates; but Somerset could not
doubt that a near and only blood relation, even had he possessed but
half the static force of character that made itself apparent in Mr.
Power, might exercise considerable moral influence over the girl if
he chose. And in view of Mr. Power’s marked preference for De Stancy,
Somerset had many misgivings as to its operating in a direction
favourable to himself.