There was no part of Paula’s journey in which Somerset did not think of
her. He imagined her in the hotel at Havre, in her brief rest at Paris;
her drive past the Place de la Bastille to the Boulevart Mazas to take
the train for Lyons; her tedious progress through the dark of a winter
night till she crossed the isothermal line which told of the beginning
of a southern atmosphere, and onwards to the ancient blue sea.
Thus, between the hours devoted to architecture, he passed the next
three days. One morning he set himself, by the help of John, to practise
on the telegraph instrument, expecting a message. But though he watched
the machine at every opportunity, or kept some other person on the alert
in its neighbourhood, no message arrived to gratify him till after the
lapse of nearly a fortnight. Then she spoke from her new habitation nine
hundred miles away, in these meagre words:--
‘Are settled at the address given. Can now attend to any inquiry about
the building.’
The pointed implication that she could attend to inquiries about nothing
else, breathed of the veritable Paula so distinctly that he could
forgive its sauciness. His reply was soon despatched:--
‘Will write particulars of our progress. Always the same.’
The last three words formed the sentimental appendage which she had
assured him she could tolerate, and which he hoped she might desire.
He spent the remainder of the day in making a little sketch to show what
had been done in the castle since her departure. This he despatched with
a letter of explanation ending in a paragraph of a different tenor:--
‘I have demonstrated our progress as well as I could; but another
subject has been in my mind, even whilst writing the former. Ask
yourself if you use me well in keeping me a fortnight before you so much
as say that you have arrived? The one thing that reconciled me to your
departure was the thought that I should hear early from you: my idea of
being able to submit to your absence was based entirely upon that.
‘But I have resolved not to be out of humour, and to believe that your
scheme of reserve is not unreasonable; neither do I quarrel with your
injunction to keep silence to all relatives. I do not know anything I
can say to show you more plainly my acquiescence in your wish “not to go
too far” (in short, to keep yourself dear--by dear I mean not cheap--you
have been dear in the other sense a long time, as you know), than by not
urging you to go a single degree further in warmth than you please.’
When this was posted he again turned his attention to her walls and
towers, which indeed were a dumb consolation in many ways for the lack
of herself. There was no nook in the castle to which he had not access
or could not easily obtain access by applying for the keys, and this
propinquity of things belonging to her served to keep her image before
him even more constantly than his memories would have done.
Three days and a half after the despatch of his subdued effusion the
telegraph called to tell him the good news that
‘Your letter and drawing are just received. Thanks for the latter. Will
reply to the former by post this afternoon.’
It was with cheerful patience that he attended to his three draughtsmen
in the studio, or walked about the environs of the fortress during the
fifty hours spent by her presumably tender missive on the road. A light
fleece of snow fell during the second night of waiting, inverting the
position of long-established lights and shades, and lowering to a dingy
grey the approximately white walls of other weathers; he could trace the
postman’s footmarks as he entered over the bridge, knowing them by the
dot of his walking-stick: on entering the expected letter was waiting
upon his table. He looked at its direction with glad curiosity; it was
the first letter he had ever received from her.
‘HOTEL ---, NICE,
Feb. 14.
‘MY DEAR MR. SOMERSET’ (the ‘George,’ then, to which she had so kindly
treated him in her last conversation, was not to be continued in black
and white),--
‘Your letter explaining the progress of the work, aided by the sketch
enclosed, gave me as clear an idea of the advance made since my
departure as I could have gained by being present. I feel every
confidence in you, and am quite sure the restoration is in good hands.
In this opinion both my aunt and my uncle coincide. Please act
entirely on your own judgment in everything, and as soon as you give a
certificate to the builders for the first instalment of their money it
will be promptly sent by my solicitors.
‘You bid me ask myself if I have used you well in not sending
intelligence of myself till a fortnight after I had left you. Now,
George, don’t be unreasonable! Let me remind you that, as a certain
apostle said, there are a thousand things lawful which are not
expedient. I say this, not from pride in my own conduct, but to offer
you a very fair explanation of it. Your resolve not to be out of humour
with me suggests that you have been sorely tempted that way, else why
should such a resolve have been necessary?
‘If you only knew what passes in my mind sometimes you would perhaps
not be so ready to blame. Shall I tell you? No. For, if it is a great
emotion, it may afford you a cruel satisfaction at finding I suffer
through separation; and if it be a growing indifference to you, it will
be inflicting gratuitous unhappiness upon you to say so, if you care for
me; as I SOMETIMES think you may do A LITTLE.’
[‘O, Paula!’ said Somerset.)
‘Please which way would you have it? But it is better that you
should guess at what I feel than that you should distinctly know it.
Notwithstanding this assertion you will, I know, adhere to your first
prepossession in favour of prompt confessions. In spite of that, I fear
that upon trial such promptness would not produce that happiness which
your fancy leads you to expect. Your heart would weary in time, and when
once that happens, good-bye to the emotion you have told me of. Imagine
such a case clearly, and you will perceive the probability of what I
say. At the same time I admit that a woman who is ONLY a creature of
evasions and disguises is very disagreeable.
‘Do not write VERY frequently, and never write at all unless you have
some real information about the castle works to communicate. I will
explain to you on another occasion why I make this request. You will
possibly set it down as additional evidence of my cold-heartedness.
If so you must. Would you also mind writing the business letter on
an independent sheet, with a proper beginning and ending? Whether you
inclose another sheet is of course optional.--Sincerely yours, PAULA
POWER.’
Somerset had a suspicion that her order to him not to neglect the
business letter was to escape any invidious remarks from her uncle. He
wished she would be more explicit, so that he might know exactly how
matters stood with them, and whether Abner Power had ever ventured to
express disapproval of him as her lover.
But not knowing, he waited anxiously for a new architectural event on
which he might legitimately send her another line. This occurred about
a week later, when the men engaged in digging foundations discovered
remains of old ones which warranted a modification of the original plan.
He accordingly sent off his professional advice on the point, requesting
her assent or otherwise to the amendment, winding up the inquiry with
‘Yours faithfully.’ On another sheet he wrote:--‘Do you suffer from any
unpleasantness in the manner of others on account of me? If so, inform
me, Paula. I cannot otherwise interpret your request for the separate
sheets. While on this point I will tell you what I have learnt relative
to the authorship of that false paragraph about your engagement. It
was communicated to the paper by your uncle. Was the wish father to the
thought, or could he have been misled, as many were, by appearances at
the theatricals?
‘If I am not to write to you without a professional reason, surely
you can write to me without such an excuse? When you write tell me of
yourself. There is nothing I so much wish to hear of. Write a great deal
about your daily doings, for my mind’s eye keeps those sweet operations
more distinctly before me than my bodily sight does my own.
‘You say nothing of having been to look at the chapel-of-ease I told
you of, the plans of which I made when an architect’s pupil, working in
metres instead of feet and inches, to my immense perplexity, that the
drawings might be understood by the foreign workmen. Go there and tell
me what you think of its design. I can assure you that every curve
thereof is my own.
‘How I wish you would invite me to run over and see you, if only for
a day or two, for my heart runs after you in a most distracted manner.
Dearest, you entirely fill my life! But I forget; we have resolved
not to go VERY FAR. But the fact is I am half afraid lest, with such
reticence, you should not remember how very much I am yours, and with
what a dogged constancy I shall always remember you. Paula, sometimes I
have horrible misgivings that something will divide us, especially if
we do not make a more distinct show of our true relationship. True do I
say? I mean the relationship which I think exists between us, but which
you do not affirm too clearly.--Yours always.’
Away southward like the swallow went the tender lines. He wondered if
she would notice his hint of being ready to pay her a flying visit, if
permitted to do so. His fancy dwelt on that further side of France,
the very contours of whose shore were now lines of beauty for him.
He prowled in the library, and found interest in the mustiest facts
relating to that place, learning with aesthetic pleasure that the number
of its population was fifty thousand, that the mean temperature of its
atmosphere was 60 degrees Fahrenheit, and that the peculiarities of a
mistral were far from agreeable.
He waited overlong for her reply; but it ultimately came. After the
usual business preliminary, she said:--
‘As requested, I have visited the little church you designed. It gave me
great pleasure to stand before a building whose outline and details had
come from the brain of such a valued friend and adviser.’
[‘Valued friend and adviser,’ repeated Somerset critically.)
‘I like the style much, especially that of the windows--Early English
are they not? I am going to attend service there next Sunday, BECAUSE
YOU WERE THE ARCHITECT, AND FOR NO GODLY REASON AT ALL. Does that
content you? Fie for your despondency! Remember M. Aurelius: “This is
the chief thing: Be not perturbed; for all things are of the nature
of the Universal.” Indeed I am a little surprised at your having
forebodings, after my assurance to you before I left. I have none. My
opinion is that, to be happy, it is best to think that, as we are the
product of events, events will continue to produce that which is in
harmony with us.... You are too faint-hearted, and that’s the truth of
it. I advise you not to abandon yourself to idolatry too readily; you
know what I mean. It fills me with remorse when I think how very far
below such a position my actual worth removes me.
‘I should like to receive another letter from you as soon as you have
got over the misgiving you speak of, but don’t write too soon. I wish I
could write anything to raise your spirits, but you may be so perverse
that if, in order to do this, I tell you of the races, routs, scenery,
gaieties, and gambling going on in this place and neighbourhood (into
which of course I cannot help being a little drawn), you may declare
that my words make you worse than ever. Don’t pass the line I have set
down in the way you were tempted to do in your last; and not too many
Dearests--at least as yet. This is not a time for effusion. You have my
very warm affection, and that’s enough for the present.’
As a love-letter this missive was tantalizing enough, but since its form
was simply a continuation of what she had practised before she left,
it produced no undue misgiving in him. Far more was he impressed by her
omitting to answer the two important questions he had put to her. First,
concerning her uncle’s attitude towards them, and his conduct in giving
such strange information to the reporter. Second, on his, Somerset’s,
paying her a flying visit some time during the spring. Since she had
requested it, he made no haste in his reply. When penned, it ran in
the words subjoined, which, in common with every line of their
correspondence, acquired from the strangeness of subsequent
circumstances an interest and a force that perhaps they did not
intrinsically possess.
‘People cannot’ (he wrote) ‘be for ever in good spirits on this gloomy
side of the Channel, even though you seem to be so on yours. However,
that I can abstain from letting you know whether my spirits are good or
otherwise, I will prove in our future correspondence. I admire you more
and more, both for the warm feeling towards me which I firmly believe
you have, and for your ability to maintain side by side with it so much
dignity and resolution with regard to foolish sentiment. Sometimes I
think I could have put up with a little more weakness if it had brought
with it a little more tenderness, but I dismiss all that when I mentally
survey your other qualities. I have thought of fifty things to say to
you of the TOO FAR sort, not one of any other; so that your prohibition
is very unfortunate, for by it I am doomed to say things that do not
rise spontaneously to my lips. You say that our shut-up feelings are not
to be mentioned yet. How long is the yet to last?
‘But, to speak more solemnly, matters grow very serious with us,
Paula--at least with me: and there are times when this restraint is
really unbearable. It is possible to put up with reserve when the
reserved being is by one’s side, for the eyes may reveal what the lips
do not. But when she is absent, what was piquancy becomes harshness,
tender railleries become cruel sarcasm, and tacit understandings
misunderstandings. However that may be, you shall never be able to
reproach me for touchiness. I still esteem you as a friend; I admire you
and love you as a woman. This I shall always do, however unconfiding you
prove.’