On a windy afternoon in November, when more than two months had closed
over the incidents previously recorded, a number of farmers were sitting
in a room of the Lord-Quantock-Arms Inn, Markton, that was used for the
weekly ordinary. It was a long, low apartment, formed by the union of
two or three smaller rooms, with a bow-window looking upon the street,
and at the present moment was pervaded by a blue fog from tobacco-pipes,
and a temperature like that of a kiln. The body of farmers who still
sat on there was greater than usual, owing to the cold air without, the
tables having been cleared of dinner for some time and their surface
stamped with liquid circles by the feet of the numerous glasses.
Besides the farmers there were present several professional men of
the town, who found it desirable to dine here on market-days for the
opportunity it afforded them of increasing their practice among the
agriculturists, many of whom were men of large balances, even luxurious
livers, who drove to market in elegant phaetons drawn by horses of
supreme blood, bone, and action, in a style never anticipated by their
fathers when jogging thither in light carts, or afoot with a butter
basket on each arm.
The buzz of groggy conversation was suddenly impinged on by the notes of
a peal of bells from the tower hard by. Almost at the same instant the
door of the room opened, and there entered the landlord of the little
inn at Sleeping-Green. Drawing his supply of cordials from this superior
house, to which he was subject, he came here at stated times like a
prebendary to the cathedral of his diocesan, afterwards retailing to
his own humbler audience the sentiments which he had learnt of this. But
curiosity being awakened by the church bells the usual position was for
the moment reversed, and one of the farmers, saluting him by name, asked
him the reason of their striking up at that time of day.
‘My mis’ess out yonder,’ replied the rural landlord, nodding sideways,
‘is coming home with her fancy-man. They have been a-gaying together
this turk of a while in foreign parts--Here, maid!--what with the wind,
and standing about, my blood’s as low as water--bring us a thimbleful of
that that isn’t gin and not far from it.’
‘It is true, then, that she’s become Mrs. Somerset?’ indifferently asked
a farmer in broadcloth, tenant of an estate in quite another direction
than hers, as he contemplated the grain of the table immediately
surrounding the foot of his glass.
‘True--of course it is,’ said Havill, who was also present, in the tone
of one who, though sitting in this rubicund company, was not of it. ‘I
could have told you the truth of it any day these last five weeks.’
Among those who had lent an ear was Dairyman Jinks, an old gnarled
character who wore a white fustian coat and yellow leggings; the only
man in the room who never dressed up in dark clothes for marketing. He
now asked, ‘Married abroad, was they? And how long will a wedding abroad
stand good for in this country?’
‘As long as a wedding at home.’
‘Will it? Faith; I didn’t know: how should I? I thought it might be some
new plan o’ folks for leasing women now they be so plentiful, so as to
get rid o’ ‘em when the men be tired o’ ‘em, and hev spent all their
money.’
‘He won’t be able to spend her money,’ said the landlord of
Sleeping-Green. ‘’Tis her very own person’s--settled upon the hairs of
her head for ever.’
‘O nation! Then if I were the man I shouldn’t care for such a one-eyed
benefit as that,’ said Dairyman Jinks, turning away to listen to the
talk on his other hand.
‘Is that true?’ asked the gentleman-farmer in broadcloth.
‘It is sufficiently near the truth,’ said Havill. ‘There is nothing at
all unusual in the arrangement; it was only settled so to prevent any
schemer making a beggar of her. If Somerset and she have any children,
which probably they will, it will be theirs; and what can a man want
more? Besides, there is a large portion of property left to her personal
use--quite as much as they can want. Oddly enough, the curiosities
and pictures of the castle which belonged to the De Stancys are not
restricted from sale; they are hers to do what she likes with. Old Power
didn’t care for articles that reminded him so much of his predecessors.’
‘Hey?’ said Dairyman Jinks, turning back again, having decided that the
conversation on his right hand was, after all, the more interesting.
‘Well--why can’t ‘em hire a travelling chap to touch up the picters into
her own gaffers and gammers? Then they’d be worth sommat to her.’
‘Ah, here they are? I thought so,’ said Havill, who had been standing up
at the window for the last few moments. ‘The ringers were told to begin
as soon as the train signalled.’
As he spoke a carriage drew up to the hotel-door, followed by another
with the maid and luggage. The inmates crowded to the bow-window, except
Dairyman Jinks, who had become absorbed in his own reflections.
‘What be they stopping here for?’ asked one of the previous speakers.
‘They are going to stay here to-night,’ said Havill. ‘They have come
quite unexpectedly, and the castle is in such a state of turmoil that
there is not a single carpet down, or room for them to use. We shall get
two or three in order by next week.’
‘Two little people like them will be lost in the chammers of that
wandering place!’ satirized Dairyman Jinks. ‘They will be bound to have
a randy every fortnight to keep the moth out of the furniture!’
By this time Somerset was handing out the wife of his bosom, and
Dairyman Jinks went on: ‘That’s no more Miss Power that was, than my
niece’s daughter Kezia is Miss Power--in short it is a different woman
altogether!’
‘There is no mistake about the woman,’ said the landlord; ‘it is her fur
clothes that make her look so like a caterpillar on end. Well, she is
not a bad bargain! As for Captain De Stancy, he’ll fret his gizzard
green.’
‘He’s the man she ought to ha’ married,’ declared the farmer in
broadcloth. ‘As the world goes she ought to have been Lady De Stancy.
She gave up her chapel-going, and you might have thought she would
have given up her first young man: but she stuck to him, though by all
accounts he would soon have been interested in another party.’
‘’Tis woman’s nature to be false except to a man, and man’s nature to be
true except to a woman,’ said the landlord of Sleeping-Green. ‘However,
all’s well that ends well, and I have something else to think of than
new-married couples;’ saying which the speaker moved off, and the
others returned to their seats, the young pair who had been their theme
vanishing through the hotel into some private paradise to rest and dine.
By this time their arrival had become known, and a crowd soon gathered
outside, acquiring audacity with continuance there. Raising a hurrah,
the group would not leave till Somerset had showed himself on the
balcony above; and then declined to go away till Paula also had
appeared; when, remarking that her husband seemed a quiet young man
enough, and would make a very good borough member when their present one
misbehaved himself, the assemblage good-humouredly dispersed.
Among those whose ears had been reached by the hurrahs of these idlers
was a man in silence and solitude, far out of the town. He was leaning
over a gate that divided two meads in a watery level between Stancy
Castle and Markton. He turned his head for a few seconds, then continued
his contemplative gaze towards the towers of the castle, visible over
the trees as far as was possible in the leaden gloom of the November
eve. The military form of the solitary lounger was recognizable as that
of Sir William De Stancy, notwithstanding the failing light and his
attitude of so resting his elbows on the gate that his hands enclosed
the greater part of his face.
The scene was inexpressibly cheerless. No other human creature was
apparent, and the only sounds audible above the wind were those of the
trickling streams which distributed the water over the meadow. A heron
had been standing in one of these rivulets about twenty yards from
the officer, and they vied with each other in stillness till the bird
suddenly rose and flew off to the plantation in which it was his custom
to pass the night with others of his tribe. De Stancy saw the heron
rise, and seemed to imagine the creature’s departure without a supper
to be owing to the increasing darkness; but in another minute he became
conscious that the heron had been disturbed by sounds too distant to
reach his own ears at the time. They were nearer now, and there came
along under the hedge a young man known to De Stancy exceedingly well.
‘Ah,’ he said listlessly, ‘you have ventured back.’
‘Yes, captain. Why do you walk out here?’
‘The bells began ringing because she and he were expected, and my
thoughts naturally dragged me this way. Thank Heaven the battery leaves
Markton in a few days, and then the precious place will know me no
more!’
‘I have heard of it.’ Turning to where the dim lines of the castle rose
he continued: ‘Well, there it stands.’
‘And I am not in it.’
‘They are not in it yet either.’
‘They soon will be.’
‘Well--what tune is that you were humming, captain?’
‘ALL IS LOST NOW,’ replied the captain grimly.
‘O no; you have got me, and I am a treasure to any man. I have another
match in my eye for you, and shall get you well settled yet, if you keep
yourself respectable. So thank God, and take courage!’
‘Ah, Will--you are a flippant young fool--wise in your own conceit; I
say it to my sorrow! ‘Twas your dishonesty spoilt all. That lady would
have been my wife by fair dealing--time was all I required. But base
attacks on a man’s character never deserve to win, and if I had once
been certain that you had made them, my course would have been very
different, both towards you and others. But why should I talk to you
about this? If I cared an atom what becomes of you I would take you in
hand severely enough; not caring, I leave you alone, to go to the devil
your own way.’
‘Thank you kindly, captain. Well, since you have spoken plainly, I will
do the same. We De Stancys are a worn-out old party--that’s the long
and the short of it. We represent conditions of life that have had their
day--especially me. Our one remaining chance was an alliance with new
aristocrats; and we have failed. We are past and done for. Our line has
had five hundred years of glory, and we ought to be content. Enfin les
renards se trouvent chez le pelletier.’
‘Speak for yourself, young Consequence, and leave the destinies of old
families to respectable philosophers. This fiasco is the direct result
of evil conduct, and of nothing else at all. I have managed badly; I
countenanced you too far. When I saw your impish tendencies I should
have forsworn the alliance.’
‘Don’t sting me, captain. What I have told you is true. As for my
conduct, cat will after kind, you know. You should have held your tongue
on the wedding morning, and have let me take my chance.’
‘Is that all I get for saving you from jail? Gad--I alone am the
sufferer, and feel I am alone the fool!... Come, off with you--I never
want to see you any more.’
‘Part we will, then--till we meet again. It will be a light night
hereabouts, I think, this evening.’
‘A very dark one for me.’
‘Nevertheless, I think it will be a light night. Au revoir!’
Dare went his way, and after a while De Stancy went his. Both were soon
lost in the shades.