He despatched the letter, and half-an-hour afterwards felt sure that it
would mortally offend her. But he had now reached a state of temporary
indifference, and could contemplate the loss of such a tantalizing
property with reasonable calm.
In the interim of waiting for a reply he was one day walking to Markton,
when, passing Myrtle Villa, he saw Sir William De Stancy ambling about
his garden-path and examining the crocuses that palisaded its edge. Sir
William saw him and asked him to come in. Somerset was in the mood for
any diversion from his own affairs, and they seated themselves by the
drawing-room fire.
‘I am much alone now,’ said Sir William, ‘and if the weather were not
very mild, so that I can get out into the garden every day, I should
feel it a great deal.’
‘You allude to your daughter’s absence?’
‘And my son’s. Strange to say, I do not miss her so much as I miss him.
She offers to return at any moment; but I do not wish to deprive her of
the advantages of a little foreign travel with her friend. Always, Mr.
Somerset, give your spare time to foreign countries, especially those
which contrast with your own in topography, language, and art. That’s
my advice to all young people of your age. Don’t waste your money on
expensive amusements at home. Practise the strictest economy at home, to
have a margin for going abroad.’
Economy, which Sir William had never practised, but to which, after
exhausting all other practices, he now raised an altar, as the Athenians
did to the unknown God, was a topic likely to prolong itself on the
baronet’s lips, and Somerset contrived to interrupt him by asking--
‘Captain De Stancy, too, has gone? Has the artillery, then, left the
barracks?’
‘No,’ said Sir William. ‘But my son has made use of his leave in running
over to see his sister at Nice.’
The current of quiet meditation in Somerset changed to a busy whirl at
this reply. That Paula should become indifferent to his existence from a
sense of superiority, physical, spiritual, or social, was a sufficiently
ironical thing; but that she should have relinquished him because of the
presence of a rival lent commonplace dreariness to her cruelty.
Sir William, noting nothing, continued in the tone of clever
childishness which characterized him: ‘It is very singular how the
present situation has been led up to by me. Policy, and policy alone,
has been the rule of my conduct for many years past; and when I say that
I have saved my family by it, I believe time will show that I am within
the truth. I hope you don’t let your passions outrun your policy, as so
many young men are apt to do. Better be poor and politic, than rich and
headstrong: that’s the opinion of an old man. However, I was going
to say that it was purely from policy that I allowed a friendship to
develop between my daughter and Miss Power, and now events are proving
the wisdom of my course. Straws show how the wind blows, and there are
little signs that my son Captain De Stancy will return to Stancy Castle
by the fortunate step of marrying its owner. I say nothing to either of
them, and they say nothing to me; but my wisdom lies in doing nothing to
hinder such a consummation, despite inherited prejudices.’
Somerset had quite time enough to rein himself in during the old
gentleman’s locution, and the voice in which he answered was so cold and
reckless that it did not seem his own: ‘But how will they live happily
together when she is a Dissenter, and a Radical, and a New-light, and
a Neo-Greek, and a person of red blood; while Captain De Stancy is the
reverse of them all!’
‘I anticipate no difficulty on that score,’ said the baronet. ‘My son’s
star lies in that direction, and, like the Magi, he is following it
without trifling with his opportunity. You have skill in architecture,
therefore you follow it. My son has skill in gallantry, and now he is
about to exercise it profitably.’
‘May nobody wish him more harm in that exercise than I do!’ said
Somerset fervently.
A stagnant moodiness of several hours which followed his visit to Myrtle
Villa resulted in a resolve to journey over to Paula the very next day.
He now felt perfectly convinced that the inviting of Captain De Stancy
to visit them at Nice was a second stage in the scheme of Paula’s uncle,
the premature announcement of her marriage having been the first. The
roundness and neatness of the whole plan could not fail to recommend
it to the mind which delighted in putting involved things straight,
and such a mind Abner Power’s seemed to be. In fact, the felicity, in
a politic sense, of pairing the captain with the heiress furnished
no little excuse for manoeuvring to bring it about, so long as that
manoeuvring fell short of unfairness, which Mr. Power’s could scarcely
be said to do.
The next day was spent in furnishing the builders with such instructions
as they might require for a coming week or ten days, and in dropping a
short note to Paula; ending as follows:--
‘I am coming to see you. Possibly you will refuse me an interview. Never
mind, I am coming--Yours, G. SOMERSET.’
The morning after that he was up and away. Between him and Paula
stretched nine hundred miles by the line of journey that he found it
necessary to adopt, namely, the way of London, in order to inform his
father of his movements and to make one or two business calls. The
afternoon was passed in attending to these matters, the night in
speeding onward, and by the time that nine o’clock sounded next morning
through the sunless and leaden air of the English Channel coasts, he had
reduced the number of miles on his list by two hundred, and cut off the
sea from the impediments between him and Paula.
On awakening from a fitful sleep in the grey dawn of the morning
following he looked out upon Lyons, quiet enough now, the citizens
unaroused to the daily round of bread-winning, and enveloped in a haze
of fog.
Six hundred and fifty miles of his journey had been got over; there
still intervened two hundred and fifty between him and the end of
suspense. When he thought of that he was disinclined to pause; and
pressed on by the same train, which set him down at Marseilles at
mid-day.
Here he considered. By going on to Nice that afternoon he would
arrive at too late an hour to call upon her the same evening: it would
therefore be advisable to sleep in Marseilles and proceed the next
morning to his journey’s end, so as to meet her in a brighter condition
than he could boast of to-day. This he accordingly did, and leaving
Marseilles the next morning about eight, found himself at Nice early in
the afternoon.
Now that he was actually at the centre of his gravitation he seemed even
further away from a feasible meeting with her than in England. While
afar off, his presence at Nice had appeared to be the one thing needful
for the solution of his trouble, but the very house fronts seemed now to
ask him what right he had there. Unluckily, in writing from England, he
had not allowed her time to reply before his departure, so that he
did not know what difficulties might lie in the way of her seeing him
privately. Before deciding what to do, he walked down the Avenue de la
Gare to the promenade between the shore and the Jardin Public, and sat
down to think.
The hotel which she had given him as her address looked right out upon
him and the sea beyond, and he rested there with the pleasing hope that
her eyes might glance from a window and discover his form. Everything
in the scene was sunny and gay. Behind him in the gardens a band was
playing; before him was the sea, the Great sea, the historical and
original Mediterranean; the sea of innumerable characters in history and
legend that arranged themselves before him in a long frieze of memories
so diverse as to include both AEneas and St. Paul.
Northern eyes are not prepared on a sudden for the impact of such images
of warmth and colour as meet them southward, or for the vigorous
light that falls from the sky of this favoured shore. In any other
circumstances the transparency and serenity of the air, the perfume of
the sea, the radiant houses, the palms and flowers, would have acted
upon Somerset as an enchantment, and wrapped him in a reverie; but at
present he only saw and felt these things as through a thick glass which
kept out half their atmosphere.
At last he made up his mind. He would take up his quarters at her
hotel, and catch echoes of her and her people, to learn somehow if their
attitude towards him as a lover were actually hostile, before formally
encountering them. Under this crystalline light, full of gaieties,
sentiment, languor, seductiveness, and ready-made romance, the memory of
a solitary unimportant man in the lugubrious North might have faded from
her mind. He was only her hired designer. He was an artist; but he had
been engaged by her, and was not a volunteer; and she did not as yet
know that he meant to accept no return for his labours but the pleasure
of presenting them to her as a love-offering.
So off he went at once towards the imposing building whither his letters
had preceded him. Owing to a press of visitors there was a moment’s
delay before he could be attended to at the bureau, and he turned to the
large staircase that confronted him, momentarily hoping that her figure
might descend. Her skirts must indeed have brushed the carpeting of
those steps scores of times. He engaged his room, ordered his luggage to
be sent for, and finally inquired for the party he sought.
‘They left Nice yesterday, monsieur,’ replied madame.
Was she quite sure, Somerset asked her?
Yes, she was quite sure. Two of the hotel carriages had driven them to
the station.
Did she know where they had gone to?
This and other inquiries resulted in the information that they had
gone to the hotel at Monte Carlo; that how long they were going to stay
there, and whether they were coming back again, was not known. His final
question whether Miss Power had received a letter from England which
must have arrived the day previous was answered in the affirmative.
Somerset’s first and sudden resolve was to follow on after them to the
hotel named; but he finally decided to make his immediate visit to Monte
Carlo only a cautious reconnoitre, returning to Nice to sleep.
Accordingly, after an early dinner, he again set forth through the broad
Avenue de la Gare, and an hour on the coast railway brought him to the
beautiful and sinister little spot to which the Power and De Stancy
party had strayed in common with the rest of the frivolous throng.
He assumed that their visit thither would be chiefly one of curiosity,
and therefore not prolonged. This proved to be the case in even greater
measure than he had anticipated. On inquiry at the hotel he learnt that
they had stayed only one night, leaving a short time before his arrival,
though it was believed that some of the party were still in the town.
In a state of indecision Somerset strolled into the gardens of the
Casino, and looked out upon the sea. There it still lay, calm yet
lively; of an unmixed blue, yet variegated; hushed, but articulate even
to melodiousness. Everything about and around this coast appeared indeed
jaunty, tuneful, and at ease, reciprocating with heartiness the rays of
the splendid sun; everything, except himself. The palms and flowers on
the terraces before him were undisturbed by a single cold breath. The
marble work of parapets and steps was unsplintered by frosts. The whole
was like a conservatory with the sky for its dome.
For want of other occupation he went round towards the public entrance
to the Casino, and ascended the great staircase into the pillared hall.
It was possible, after all, that upon leaving the hotel and sending on
their luggage they had taken another turn through the rooms, to
follow by a later train. With more than curiosity he scanned first the
reading-rooms, only however to see not a face that he knew. He then
crossed the vestibule to the gaming-tables.