‘I have decided that I cannot see Sir William again: I shall go away,’
said Paula on the evening of the next day, as she lay on her bed in a
flushed and highly-strung condition, though a person who had heard her
words without seeing her face would have assumed perfect equanimity to
be the mood which expressed itself with such quietness. This was the
case with her aunt, who was looking out of the window at some idlers
from Markton walking round the castle with their eyes bent upon its
windows, and she made no haste to reply.
‘Those people have come to see me, as they have a right to do when
a person acts so strangely,’ Paula continued. ‘And hence I am better
away.’
‘Where do you think to go to?’
Paula replied in the tone of one who was actuated entirely by practical
considerations: ‘Out of England certainly. And as Normandy lies nearest,
I think I shall go there. It is a very nice country to ramble in.’
‘Yes, it is a very nice country to ramble in,’ echoed her aunt, in
moderate tones. ‘When do you intend to start?’
‘I should like to cross to-night. You must go with me, aunt; will you
not?’
Mrs. Goodman expostulated against such suddenness. ‘It will redouble
the rumours that are afloat, if, after being supposed ill, you are seen
going off by railway perfectly well.’
‘That’s a contingency which I am quite willing to run the risk of. Well,
it would be rather sudden, as you say, to go to-night. But we’ll go
to-morrow night at latest.’ Under the influence of the decision she
bounded up like an elastic ball and went to the glass, which showed
a light in her eye that had not been there before this resolution to
travel in Normandy had been taken.
The evening and the next morning were passed in writing a final
and kindly note of dismissal to Sir William De Stancy, in making
arrangements for the journey, and in commissioning Havill to take
advantage of their absence by emptying certain rooms of their furniture,
and repairing their dilapidations--a work which, with that in hand,
would complete the section for which he had been engaged. Mr. Wardlaw
had left the castle; so also had Charlotte, by her own wish, her
residence there having been found too oppressive to herself to be
continued for the present. Accompanied by Mrs. Goodman, Milly, and
Clementine, the elderly French maid, who still remained with them, Paula
drove into Markton in the twilight and took the train to Budmouth.
When they got there they found that an unpleasant breeze was blowing out
at sea, though inland it had been calm enough. Mrs. Goodman proposed to
stay at Budmouth till the next day, in hope that there might be smooth
water; but an English seaport inn being a thing that Paula disliked
more than a rough passage, she would not listen to this counsel. Other
impatient reasons, too, might have weighed with her. When night came
their looming miseries began. Paula found that in addition to her own
troubles she had those of three other people to support; but she did not
audibly complain.
‘Paula, Paula,’ said Mrs. Goodman from beneath her load of wretchedness,
‘why did we think of undergoing this?’
A slight gleam of humour crossed Paula’s not particularly blooming face,
as she answered, ‘Ah, why indeed?’
‘What is the real reason, my dear? For God’s sake tell me!’
‘It begins with S.’
‘Well, I would do anything for that young man short of personal
martyrdom; but really when it comes to that--’
‘Don’t criticize me, auntie, and I won’t criticize you.’
‘Well, I am open to criticism just now, I am sure,’ said her aunt, with
a green smile; and speech was again discontinued.
The morning was bright and beautiful, and it could again be seen in
Paula’s looks that she was glad she had come, though, in taking
their rest at Cherbourg, fate consigned them to an hotel breathing an
atmosphere that seemed specially compounded for depressing the spirits
of a young woman; indeed nothing had particularly encouraged her thus
far in her somewhat peculiar scheme of searching out and expressing
sorrow to a gentleman for having believed those who traduced him; and
this coup d’audace to which she had committed herself began to look
somewhat formidable. When in England the plan of following him to
Normandy had suggested itself as the quickest, sweetest, and most honest
way of making amends; but having arrived there she seemed further off
from his sphere of existence than when she had been at Stancy Castle.
Virtually she was, for if he thought of her at all, he probably thought
of her there; if he sought her he would seek her there. However, as he
would probably never do the latter, it was necessary to go on. It had
been her sudden dream before starting, to light accidentally upon him in
some romantic old town of this romantic old province, but she had become
aware that the recorded fortune of lovers in that respect was not to be
trusted too implicitly.
Somerset’s search for her in the south was now inversely imitated.
By diligent inquiry in Cherbourg during the gloom of evening, in the
disguise of a hooded cloak, she learnt out the place of his stay while
there, and that he had gone thence to Lisieux. What she knew of the
architectural character of Lisieux half guaranteed the truth of the
information. Without telling her aunt of this discovery she announced
to that lady that it was her great wish to go on and see the beauties of
Lisieux.
But though her aunt was simple, there were bounds to her simplicity.
‘Paula,’ she said, with an undeceivable air, ‘I don’t think you should
run after a young man like this. Suppose he shouldn’t care for you by
this time.’
It was no occasion for further affectation. ‘I am SURE he will,’
answered her niece flatly. ‘I have not the least fear about it--nor
would you, if you knew how he is. He will forgive me anything.’
‘Well, pray don’t show yourself forward. Some people are apt to fly into
extremes.’
Paula blushed a trifle, and reflected, and made no answer. However, her
purpose seemed not to be permanently affected, for the next morning
she was up betimes and preparing to depart; and they proceeded almost
without stopping to the architectural curiosity-town which had so
quickly interested her. Nevertheless her ardent manner of yesterday
underwent a considerable change, as if she had a fear that, as her aunt
suggested, in her endeavour to make amends for cruel injustice, she was
allowing herself to be carried too far.
On nearing the place she said, ‘Aunt, I think you had better call upon
him; and you need not tell him we have come on purpose. Let him think,
if he will, that we heard he was here, and would not leave without
seeing him. You can also tell him that I am anxious to clear up a
misunderstanding, and ask him to call at our hotel.’
But as she looked over the dreary suburban erections which lined the
road from the railway to the old quarter of the town, it occurred to her
that Somerset would at that time of day be engaged in one or other of
the mediaeval buildings thereabout, and that it would be a much neater
thing to meet him as if by chance in one of these edifices than to call
upon him anywhere. Instead of putting up at any hotel, they left the
maids and baggage at the station; and hiring a carriage, Paula told the
coachman to drive them to such likely places as she could think of.
‘He’ll never forgive you,’ said her aunt, as they rumbled into the town.
‘Won’t he?’ said Paula, with soft faith. ‘I’ll see about that.’
‘What are you going to do when you find him? Tell him point-blank that
you are in love with him?’
‘Act in such a manner that he may tell me he is in love with me.’
They first visited a large church at the upper end of a square that
sloped its gravelled surface to the western shine, and was pricked out
with little avenues of young pollard limes. The church within was one to
make any Gothic architect take lodgings in its vicinity for a fortnight,
though it was just now crowded with a forest of scaffolding for repairs
in progress. Mrs. Goodman sat down outside, and Paula, entering, took a
walk in the form of a horse-shoe; that is, up the south aisle, round the
apse, and down the north side; but no figure of a melancholy young
man sketching met her eye anywhere. The sun that blazed in at the west
doorway smote her face as she emerged from beneath it and revealed real
sadness there.
‘This is not all the old architecture of the town by far,’ she said to
her aunt with an air of confidence. ‘Coachman, drive to St. Jacques’.’
He was not at St. Jacques’. Looking from the west end of that building
the girl observed the end of a steep narrow street of antique character,
which seemed a likely haunt. Beckoning to her aunt to follow in the fly
Paula walked down the street.
She was transported to the Middle Ages. It contained the shops of
tinkers, braziers, bellows-menders, hollow-turners, and other quaintest
trades, their fronts open to the street beneath stories of timber
overhanging so far on each side that a slit of sky was left at the top
for the light to descend, and no more. A blue misty obscurity pervaded
the atmosphere, into which the sun thrust oblique staves of light. It
was a street for a mediaevalist to revel in, toss up his hat and shout
hurrah in, send for his luggage, come and live in, die and be buried in.
She had never supposed such a street to exist outside the imaginations
of antiquarians. Smells direct from the sixteenth century hung in the
air in all their original integrity and without a modern taint. The
faces of the people in the doorways seemed those of individuals who
habitually gazed on the great Francis, and spoke of Henry the Eighth as
the king across the sea.
She inquired of a coppersmith if an English artist had been seen here
lately. With a suddenness that almost discomfited her he announced
that such a man had been seen, sketching a house just below--the ‘Vieux
Manoir de Francois premier.’ Just turning to see that her aunt was
following in the fly, Paula advanced to the house. The wood framework of
the lower story was black and varnished; the upper story was brown and
not varnished; carved figures of dragons, griffins, satyrs, and mermaids
swarmed over the front; an ape stealing apples was the subject of this
cantilever, a man undressing of that. These figures were cloaked with
little cobwebs which waved in the breeze, so that each figure seemed
alive.
She examined the woodwork closely; here and there she discerned
pencil-marks which had no doubt been jotted thereon by Somerset as
points of admeasurement, in the way she had seen him mark them at the
castle. Some fragments of paper lay below: there were pencilled lines on
them, and they bore a strong resemblance to a spoilt leaf of Somerset’s
sketch-book. Paula glanced up, and from a window above protruded an old
woman’s head, which, with the exception of the white handkerchief tied
round it, was so nearly of the colour of the carvings that she might
easily have passed as of a piece with them. The aged woman continued
motionless, the remains of her eyes being bent upon Paula, who asked her
in Englishwoman’s French where the sketcher had gone. Without replying,
the crone produced a hand and extended finger from her side, and pointed
towards the lower end of the street.
Paula went on, the carriage following with difficulty, on account of
the obstructions in the thoroughfare. At bottom, the street abutted on
a wide one with customary modern life flowing through it; and as she
looked, Somerset crossed her front along this street, hurrying as if for
a wager.
By the time that Paula had reached the bottom Somerset was a long way
to the left, and she recognized to her dismay that the busy transverse
street was one which led to the railway. She quickened her pace to a
run; he did not see her; he even walked faster. She looked behind for
the carriage. The driver in emerging from the sixteenth-century street
to the nineteenth had apparently turned to the right, instead of to the
left as she had done, so that her aunt had lost sight of her. However,
she dare not mind it, if Somerset would but look back! He partly turned,
but not far enough, and it was only to hail a passing omnibus upon which
she discerned his luggage. Somerset jumped in, the omnibus drove on, and
diminished up the long road. Paula stood hopelessly still, and in a few
minutes puffs of steam showed her that the train had gone.
She turned and waited, the two or three children who had gathered
round her looking up sympathizingly in her face. Her aunt, having now
discovered the direction of her flight, drove up and beckoned to her.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Mrs. Goodman in alarm.
‘Why?’
‘That you should run like that, and look so woebegone.’
‘Nothing: only I have decided not to stay in this town.’
‘What! he is gone, I suppose?’
‘Yes!’ exclaimed Paula, with tears of vexation in her eyes. ‘It isn’t
every man who gets a woman of my position to run after him on foot, and
alone, and he ought to have looked round! Drive to the station; I want
to make an inquiry.’
On reaching the station she asked the booking-clerk some questions, and
returned to her aunt with a cheerful countenance. ‘Mr. Somerset has only
gone to Caen,’ she said. ‘He is the only Englishman who went by this
train, so there is no mistake. There is no other train for two hours. We
will go on then--shall we?’
‘I am indifferent,’ said Mrs. Goodman. ‘But, Paula, do you think this
quite right? Perhaps he is not so anxious for your forgiveness as you
think. Perhaps he saw you, and wouldn’t stay.’
A momentary dismay crossed her face, but it passed, and she answered,
‘Aunt, that’s nonsense. I know him well enough, and can assure you that
if he had only known I was running after him, he would have looked round
sharply enough, and would have given his little finger rather than have
missed me! I don’t make myself so silly as to run after a gentleman
without good grounds, for I know well that it is an undignified thing to
do. Indeed, I could never have thought of doing it, if I had not been so
miserably in the wrong!’