Chapter VIII: Book THE SECOND: Dare and Havill (2)

Her brother seconded the invitation, and Somerset promised, though his leisure for that evening was short. He was in truth somewhat inclined to like De Stancy; for though the captain had said nothing of any value either on war, commerce, science, or art, he had seemed attractive to the younger man. Beyond the natural interest a soldier has for imaginative minds in the civil walks of life, De Stancy’s occasional manifestations of taedium vitae were too poetically shaped to be repellent. Gallantry combined in him with a sort of ascetic self-repression in a way that was curious. He was a dozen years older than Somerset: his life had been passed in grooves remote from those of Somerset’s own life; and the latter decided that he would like to meet the artillery officer again.

Bidding them a temporary farewell, he went away to Markton by a shorter path than that pursued by the De Stancys, and after spending the remainder of the afternoon preparing for departure, he sallied forth just before the dinner-hour towards the suburban villa.

He had become yet more curious whether a Mrs. De Stancy existed; if there were one he would probably see her to-night. He had an irrepressible hope that there might be such a lady. On entering the drawing-room only the father, son, and daughter were assembled. Somerset fell into talk with Charlotte during the few minutes before dinner, and his thought found its way out.

‘There is no Mrs. De Stancy?’ he said in an undertone.

‘None,’ she said; ‘my brother is a bachelor.’

The dinner having been fixed at an early hour to suit Somerset, they had returned to the drawing-room at eight o’clock. About nine he was aiming to get away.

‘You are not off yet?’ said the captain.

‘There would have been no hurry,’ said Somerset, ‘had I not just remembered that I have left one thing undone which I want to attend to before my departure. I want to see the chief constable to-night.’

‘Cunningham Haze?--he is the very man I too want to see. But he went out of town this afternoon, and I hardly think you will see him to-night. His return has been delayed.’

‘Then the matter must wait.’

‘I have left word at his house asking him to call here if he gets home before half-past ten; but at any rate I shall see him to-morrow morning. Can I do anything for you, since you are leaving early?’

Somerset replied that the business was of no great importance, and briefly explained the suspected intrusion into his studio; that he had with him a photograph of the suspected young man. ‘If it is a mistake,’ added Somerset, ‘I should regret putting my draughtsman’s portrait into the hands of the police, since it might injure his character; indeed, it would be unfair to him. So I wish to keep the likeness in my own hands, and merely to show it to Mr. Haze. That’s why I prefer not to send it.’

‘My matter with Haze is that the barrack furniture does not correspond with the inventories. If you like, I’ll ask your question at the same time with pleasure.’

Thereupon Somerset gave Captain De Stancy an unfastened envelope containing the portrait, asking him to destroy it if the constable should declare it not to correspond with the face that met his eye at the window. Soon after, Somerset took his leave of the household.

He had not been absent ten minutes when other wheels were heard on the gravel without, and the servant announced Mr. Cunningham Haze, who had returned earlier than he had expected, and had called as requested.

They went into the dining-room to discuss their business. When the barrack matter had been arranged De Stancy said, ‘I have a little commission to execute for my friend Mr. Somerset. I am to ask you if this portrait of the person he suspects of unlawfully entering his room is like the man you saw there?’

The speaker was seated on one side of the dining-table and Mr. Haze on the other. As he spoke De Stancy pulled the envelope from his pocket, and half drew out the photograph, which he had not as yet looked at, to hand it over to the constable. In the act his eye fell upon the portrait, with its uncertain expression of age, assured look, and hair worn in a fringe like a girl’s.

Captain De Stancy’s face became strained, and he leant back in his chair, having previously had sufficient power over himself to close the envelope and return it to his pocket.

‘Good heavens, you are ill, Captain De Stancy?’ said the chief constable.

‘It was only momentary,’ said De Stancy; ‘better in a minute--a glass of water will put me right.’

Mr. Haze got him a glass of water from the sideboard.

‘These spasms occasionally overtake me,’ said De Stancy when he had drunk. ‘I am already better. What were we saying? O, this affair of Mr. Somerset’s. I find that this envelope is not the right one.’ He ostensibly searched his pocket again. ‘I must have mislaid it,’ he continued, rising. ‘I’ll be with you again in a moment.’

De Stancy went into the room adjoining, opened an album of portraits that lay on the table, and selected one of a young man quite unknown to him, whose age was somewhat akin to Dare’s, but who in no other attribute resembled him.

De Stancy placed this picture in the original envelope, and returned with it to the chief constable, saying he had found it at last.

‘Thank you, thank you,’ said Cunningham Haze, looking it over. ‘Ah--I perceive it is not what I expected to see. Mr. Somerset was mistaken.’

When the chief constable had left the house, Captain De Stancy shut the door and drew out the original photograph. As he looked at the transcript of Dare’s features he was moved by a painful agitation, till recalling himself to the present, he carefully put the portrait into the fire.

During the following days Captain De Stancy’s manner on the roads, in the streets, and at barracks, was that of Crusoe after seeing the print of a man’s foot on the sand.

V.

Anybody who had closely considered Dare at this time would have discovered that, shortly after the arrival of the Royal Horse Artillery at Markton Barracks, he gave up his room at the inn at Sleeping-Green and took permanent lodgings over a broker’s shop in the town above-mentioned. The peculiarity of the rooms was that they commanded a view lengthwise of the barrack lane along which any soldier, in the natural course of things, would pass either to enter the town, to call at Myrtle Villa, or to go to Stancy Castle.

Dare seemed to act as if there were plenty of time for his business. Some few days had slipped by when, perceiving Captain De Stancy walk past his window and into the town, Dare took his hat and cane, and followed in the same direction. When he was about fifty yards short of Myrtle Villa on the other side of the town he saw De Stancy enter its gate.

Dare mounted a stile beside the highway and patiently waited. In about twenty minutes De Stancy came out again and turned back in the direction of the town, till Dare was revealed to him on his left hand. When De Stancy recognized the youth he was visibly agitated, though apparently not surprised. Standing still a moment he dropped his glance upon the ground, and then came forward to Dare, who having alighted from the stile stood before the captain with a smile.

‘My dear lad!’ said De Stancy, much moved by recollections. He held Dare’s hand for a moment in both his own, and turned askance.

‘You are not astonished,’ said Dare, still retaining his smile, as if to his mind there were something comic in the situation.

‘I knew you were somewhere near. Where do you come from?’

‘From going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it, as Satan said to his Maker.--Southampton last, in common speech.’

‘Have you come here to see me?’

‘Entirely. I divined that your next quarters would be Markton, the previous batteries that were at your station having come on here. I have wanted to see you badly.’

‘You have?’

‘I am rather out of cash. I have been knocking about a good deal since you last heard from me.’

‘I will do what I can again.’

‘Thanks, captain.’

‘But, Willy, I am afraid it will not be much at present. You know I am as poor as a mouse.’

‘But such as it is, could you write a cheque for it now?’

‘I will send it to you from the barracks.’

‘I have a better plan. By getting over this stile we could go round at the back of the villas to Sleeping-Green Church. There is always a pen-and-ink in the vestry, and we can have a nice talk on the way. It would be unwise for me to appear at the barracks just now.’

‘That’s true.’

De Stancy sighed, and they were about to walk across the fields together. ‘No,’ said Dare, suddenly stopping: my plans make it imperative that we should not run the risk of being seen in each other’s company for long. Walk on, and I will follow. You can stroll into the churchyard, and move about as if you were ruminating on the epitaphs. There are some with excellent morals. I’ll enter by the other gate, and we can meet easily in the vestry-room.’

De Stancy looked gloomy, and was on the point of acquiescing when he turned back and said, ‘Why should your photograph be shown to the chief constable?’

‘By whom?’

‘Somerset the architect. He suspects your having broken into his office or something of the sort.’ De Stancy briefly related what Somerset had explained to him at the dinner-table.

‘It was merely diamond cut diamond between us, on an architectural matter,’ murmured Dare. ‘Ho! and he suspects; and that’s his remedy!’

‘I hope this is nothing serious?’ asked De Stancy gravely.

‘I peeped at his drawing--that’s all. But since he chooses to make that use of my photograph, which I gave him in friendship, I’ll make use of his in a way he little dreams of. Well now, let’s on.’

A quarter of an hour later they met in the vestry of the church at Sleeping-Green.

‘I have only just transferred my account to the bank here,’ said De Stancy, as he took out his cheque-book, ‘and it will be more convenient to me at present to draw but a small sum. I will make up the balance afterwards.’

When he had written it Dare glanced over the paper and said ruefully, ‘It is small, dad. Well, there is all the more reason why I should broach my scheme, with a view to making such documents larger in the future.’

‘I shall be glad to hear of any such scheme,’ answered De Stancy, with a languid attempt at jocularity.

‘Then here it is. The plan I have arranged for you is of the nature of a marriage.’

‘You are very kind!’ said De Stancy, agape.

‘The lady’s name is Miss Paula Power, who, as you may have heard since your arrival, is in absolute possession of her father’s property and estates, including Stancy Castle. As soon as I heard of her I saw what a marvellous match it would be for you, and your family; it would make a man of you, in short, and I have set my mind upon your putting no objection in the way of its accomplishment.’

‘But, Willy, it seems to me that, of us two, it is you who exercise paternal authority?’

‘True, it is for your good. Let me do it.’

‘Well, one must be indulgent under the circumstances, I suppose.... But,’ added De Stancy simply, ‘Willy, I--don’t want to marry, you know. I have lately thought that some day we may be able to live together, you and I: go off to America or New Zealand, where we are not known, and there lead a quiet, pastoral life, defying social rules and troublesome observances.’

‘I can’t hear of it, captain,’ replied Dare reprovingly. ‘I am what events have made me, and having fixed my mind upon getting you settled in life by this marriage, I have put things in train for it at an immense trouble to myself. If you had thought over it o’ nights as much as I have, you would not say nay.’

‘But I ought to have married your mother if anybody. And as I have not married her, the least I can do in respect to her is to marry no other woman.’

‘You have some sort of duty to me, have you not, Captain De Stancy?’

‘Yes, Willy, I admit that I have,’ the elder replied reflectively. ‘And I don’t think I have failed in it thus far?’

‘This will be the crowning proof. Paternal affection, family pride, the noble instincts to reinstate yourself in the castle of your ancestors, all demand the step. And when you have seen the lady! She has the figure and motions of a sylph, the face of an angel, the eye of love itself. What a sight she is crossing the lawn on a sunny afternoon, or gliding airily along the corridors of the old place the De Stancys knew so well! Her lips are the softest, reddest, most distracting things you ever saw. Her hair is as soft as silk, and of the rarest, tenderest brown.’

The captain moved uneasily. ‘Don’t take the trouble to say more, Willy,’ he observed. ‘You know how I am. My cursed susceptibility to these matters has already wasted years of my life, and I don’t want to make myself a fool about her too.’

‘You must see her.’

‘No, don’t let me see her,’ De Stancy expostulated. ‘If she is only half so good-looking as you say, she will drag me at her heels like a blind Samson. You are a mere youth as yet, but I may tell you that the misfortune of never having been my own master where a beautiful face was concerned obliges me to be cautious if I would preserve my peace of mind.’

‘Well, to my mind, Captain De Stancy, your objections seem trivial. Are those all?’

‘They are all I care to mention just now to you.’

‘Captain! can there be secrets between us?’

De Stancy paused and looked at the lad as if his heart wished to confess what his judgment feared to tell. ‘There should not be--on this point,’ he murmured.

‘Then tell me--why do you so much object to her?’

‘I once vowed a vow.’

‘A vow!’ said Dare, rather disconcerted.

‘A vow of infinite solemnity. I must tell you from the beginning; perhaps you are old enough to hear it now, though you have been too young before. Your mother’s life ended in much sorrow, and it was occasioned entirely by me. In my regret for the wrong done her I swore to her that though she had not been my wife, no other woman should stand in that relationship to me; and this to her was a sort of comfort. When she was dead my knowledge of my own plaguy impressionableness, which seemed to be ineradicable--as it seems still--led me to think what safeguards I could set over myself with a view to keeping my promise to live a life of celibacy; and among other things I determined to forswear the society, and if possible the sight, of women young and attractive, as far as I had the power to do.’

‘It is not so easy to avoid the sight of a beautiful woman if she crosses your path, I should think?’

‘It is not easy; but it is possible.’

‘How?’

‘By directing your attention another way.’

‘But do you mean to say, captain, that you can be in a room with a pretty woman who speaks to you, and not look at her?’

‘I do: though mere looking has less to do with it than mental attentiveness--allowing your thoughts to flow out in her direction--to comprehend her image.’

‘But it would be considered very impolite not to look at the woman or comprehend her image?’

‘It would, and is. I am considered the most impolite officer in the service. I have been nicknamed the man with the averted eyes--the man with the detestable habit--the man who greets you with his shoulder, and so on. Ninety-and-nine fair women at the present moment hate me like poison and death for having persistently refused to plumb the depths of their offered eyes.’

‘How can you do it, who are by nature courteous?’

‘I cannot always--I break down sometimes. But, upon the whole, recollection holds me to it: dread of a lapse. Nothing is so potent as fear well maintained.’

De Stancy narrated these details in a grave meditative tone with his eyes on the wall, as if he were scarcely conscious of a listener.

‘But haven’t you reckless moments, captain?--when you have taken a little more wine than usual, for instance?’

‘I don’t take wine.’

‘O, you are a teetotaller?’

‘Not a pledged one--but I don’t touch alcohol unless I get wet, or anything of that sort.’

‘Don’t you sometimes forget this vow of yours to my mother?’

‘No, I wear a reminder.’

‘What is that like?’

De Stancy held up his left hand, on the third finger of which appeared an iron ring.

Dare surveyed it, saying, ‘Yes, I have seen that before, though I never knew why you wore it. Well, I wear a reminder also, but of a different sort.’

He threw open his shirt-front, and revealed tattooed on his breast the letters DE STANCY; the same marks which Havill had seen in the bedroom by the light of the moon.

The captain rather winced at the sight. ‘Well, well,’ he said hastily, ‘that’s enough.... Now, at any rate, you understand my objection to know Miss Power.’

‘But, captain,’ said the lad coaxingly, as he fastened his shirt; ‘you forget me and the good you may do me by marrying? Surely that’s a sufficient reason for a change of sentiment. This inexperienced sweet creature owns the castle and estate which bears your name, even to the furniture and pictures. She is the possessor of at least forty thousand a year--how much more I cannot say--while, buried here in Outer Wessex, she lives at the rate of twelve hundred in her simplicity.’

‘It is very good of you to set this before me. But I prefer to go on as I am going.’

‘Well, I won’t bore you any more with her to-day. A monk in regimentals!--‘tis strange.’ Dare arose and was about to open the door, when, looking through the window, Captain De Stancy said, ‘Stop.’ He had perceived his father, Sir William De Stancy, walking among the tombstones without.

‘Yes, indeed,’ said Dare, turning the key in the door. ‘It would look strange if he were to find us here.’

As the old man seemed indisposed to leave the churchyard just yet they sat down again.

‘What a capital card-table this green cloth would make,’ said Dare, as they waited. ‘You play, captain, I suppose?’

‘Very seldom.’

‘The same with me. But as I enjoy a hand of cards with a friend, I don’t go unprovided.’ Saying which, Dare drew a pack from the tail of his coat. ‘Shall we while away this leisure with the witching things?’

‘Really, I’d rather not.’

‘But,’ coaxed the young man, ‘I am in the humour for it; so don’t be unkind!’

‘But, Willy, why do you care for these things? Cards are harmless enough in their way; but I don’t like to see you carrying them in your pocket. It isn’t good for you.’

‘It was by the merest chance I had them. Now come, just one hand, since we are prisoners. I want to show you how nicely I can play. I won’t corrupt you!’

‘Of course not,’ said De Stancy, as if ashamed of what his objection implied. ‘You are not corrupt enough yourself to do that, I should hope.’

The cards were dealt and they began to play--Captain De Stancy abstractedly, and with his eyes mostly straying out of the window upon the large yew, whose boughs as they moved were distorted by the old green window-panes.

‘It is better than doing nothing,’ said Dare cheerfully, as the game went on. ‘I hope you don’t dislike it?’

‘Not if it pleases you,’ said De Stancy listlessly.

‘And the consecration of this place does not extend further than the aisle wall.’

‘Doesn’t it?’ said De Stancy, as he mechanically played out his cards. ‘What became of that box of books I sent you with my last cheque?’

‘Well, as I hadn’t time to read them, and as I knew you would not like them to be wasted, I sold them to a bloke who peruses them from morning till night. Ah, now you have lost a fiver altogether--how queer! We’ll double the stakes. So, as I was saying, just at the time the books came I got an inkling of this important business, and literature went to the wall.’

‘Important business--what?’

‘The capture of this lady, to be sure.’

De Stancy sighed impatiently. ‘I wish you were less calculating, and had more of the impulse natural to your years!’

‘Game--by Jove! You have lost again, captain. That makes--let me see--nine pounds fifteen to square us.’

‘I owe you that?’ said De Stancy, startled. ‘It is more than I have in cash. I must write another cheque.’

‘Never mind. Make it payable to yourself, and our connection will be quite unsuspected.’

Captain De Stancy did as requested, and rose from his seat. Sir William, though further off, was still in the churchyard.

‘How can you hesitate for a moment about this girl?’ said Dare, pointing to the bent figure of the old man. ‘Think of the satisfaction it would be to him to see his son within the family walls again. It should be a religion with you to compass such a legitimate end as this.’

‘Well, well, I’ll think of it,’ said the captain, with an impatient laugh. ‘You are quite a Mephistopheles, Will--I say it to my sorrow!’

‘Would that I were in your place.’

‘Would that you were! Fifteen years ago I might have called the chance a magnificent one.’

‘But you are a young man still, and you look younger than you are. Nobody knows our relationship, and I am not such a fool as to divulge it. Of course, if through me you reclaim this splendid possession, I should leave it to your feelings what you would do for me.’

Sir William had by this time cleared out of the churchyard, and the pair emerged from the vestry and departed. Proceeding towards Markton by the same bypath, they presently came to an eminence covered with bushes of blackthorn, and tufts of yellowing fern. From this point a good view of the woods and glades about Stancy Castle could be obtained. Dare stood still on the top and stretched out his finger; the captain’s eye followed the direction, and he saw above the many-hued foliage in the middle distance the towering keep of Paula’s castle.

‘That’s the goal of your ambition, captain--ambition do I say?--most righteous and dutiful endeavour! How the hoary shape catches the sunlight--it is the raison d’etre of the landscape, and its possession is coveted by a thousand hearts. Surely it is an hereditary desire of yours? You must make a point of returning to it, and appearing in the map of the future as in that of the past. I delight in this work of encouraging you, and pushing you forward towards your own. You are really very clever, you know, but--I say it with respect--how comes it that you want so much waking up?’

‘Because I know the day is not so bright as it seems, my boy. However, you make a little mistake. If I care for anything on earth, I do care for that old fortress of my forefathers. I respect so little among the living that all my reverence is for my own dead. But manoeuvring, even for my own, as you call it, is not in my line. It is distasteful--it is positively hateful to me.’

‘Well, well, let it stand thus for the present. But will you refuse me one little request--merely to see her? I’ll contrive it so that she may not see you. Don’t refuse me, it is the one thing I ask, and I shall think it hard if you deny me.’

‘O Will!’ said the captain wearily. ‘Why will you plead so? No--even though your mind is particularly set upon it, I cannot see her, or bestow a thought upon her, much as I should like to gratify you.’

VI.

When they had parted Dare walked along towards Markton with resolve on his mouth and an unscrupulous light in his prominent black eye. Could any person who had heard the previous conversation have seen him now, he would have found little difficulty in divining that, notwithstanding De Stancy’s obduracy, the reinstation of Captain De Stancy in the castle, and the possible legitimation and enrichment of himself, was still the dream of his brain. Even should any legal settlement or offspring intervene to nip the extreme development of his projects, there was abundant opportunity for his glorification. Two conditions were imperative. De Stancy must see Paula before Somerset’s return. And it was necessary to have help from Havill, even if it involved letting him know all.

Whether Havill already knew all was a nice question for Mr. Dare’s luminous mind. Havill had had opportunities of reading his secret, particularly on the night they occupied the same room. If so, by revealing it to Paula, Havill might utterly blast his project for the marriage. Havill, then, was at all risks to be retained as an ally.

Yet Dare would have preferred a stronger check upon his confederate than was afforded by his own knowledge of that anonymous letter and the competition trick. For were the competition lost to him, Havill would have no further interest in conciliating Miss Power; would as soon as not let her know the secret of De Stancy’s relation to him.

Fortune as usual helped him in his dilemma. Entering Havill’s office, Dare found him sitting there; but the drawings had all disappeared from the boards. The architect held an open letter in his hand.

‘Well, what news?’ said Dare.

‘Miss Power has returned to the castle, Somerset is detained in London, and the competition is decided,’ said Havill, with a glance of quiet dubiousness.

‘And you have won it?’

‘No. We are bracketed--it’s a tie. The judges say there is no choice between the designs--that they are singularly equal and singularly good. That she would do well to adopt either. Signed So-and-So, Fellows of the Royal Institute of British Architects. The result is that she will employ which she personally likes best. It is as if I had spun a sovereign in the air and it had alighted on its edge. The least false movement will make it tails; the least wise movement heads.’

‘Singularly equal. Well, we owe that to our nocturnal visit, which must not be known.’

‘O Lord, no!’ said Havill apprehensively.

Dare felt secure of him at those words. Havill had much at stake; the slightest rumour of his trick in bringing about the competition, would be fatal to Havill’s reputation.

‘The permanent absence of Somerset then is desirable architecturally on your account, matrimonially on mine.’

‘Matrimonially? By the way--who was that captain you pointed out to me when the artillery entered the town?’

‘Captain De Stancy--son of Sir William De Stancy. He’s the husband. O, you needn’t look incredulous: it is practicable; but we won’t argue that. In the first place I want him to see her, and to see her in the most love-kindling, passion-begetting circumstances that can be thought of. And he must see her surreptitiously, for he refuses to meet her.’

‘Let him see her going to church or chapel?’

Dare shook his head.

‘Driving out?’

‘Common-place!’

‘Walking in the gardens?’

‘Ditto.’

‘At her toilet?’

‘Ah--if it were possible!’

‘Which it hardly is. Well, you had better think it over and make inquiries about her habits, and as to when she is in a favourable aspect for observation, as the almanacs say.’

Shortly afterwards Dare took his leave. In the evening he made it his business to sit smoking on the bole of a tree which commanded a view of the upper ward of the castle, and also of the old postern-gate, now enlarged and used as a tradesmen’s entrance. It was half-past six o’clock; the dressing-bell rang, and Dare saw a light-footed young woman hasten at the sound across the ward from the servants’ quarter. A light appeared in a chamber which he knew to be Paula’s dressing-room; and there it remained half-an-hour, a shadow passing and repassing on the blind in the style of head-dress worn by the girl he had previously seen. The dinner-bell sounded and the light went out.

As yet it was scarcely dark out of doors, and in a few minutes Dare had the satisfaction of seeing the same woman cross the ward and emerge upon the slope without. This time she was bonneted, and carried a little basket in her hand. A nearer view showed her to be, as he had expected, Milly Birch, Paula’s maid, who had friends living in Markton, whom she was in the habit of visiting almost every evening during the three hours of leisure which intervened between Paula’s retirement from the dressing-room and return thither at ten o’clock. When the young woman had descended the road and passed into the large drive, Dare rose and followed her.

‘O, it is you, Miss Birch,’ said Dare, on overtaking her. ‘I am glad to have the pleasure of walking by your side.’

‘Yes, sir. O it’s Mr. Dare. We don’t see you at the castle now, sir.’

‘No. And do you get a walk like this every evening when the others are at their busiest?’

‘Almost every evening; that’s the one return to the poor lady’s maid for losing her leisure when the others get it--in the absence of the family from home.’

‘Is Miss Power a hard mistress?’

‘No.’

‘Rather fanciful than hard, I presume?’

‘Just so, sir.’

‘And she likes to appear to advantage, no doubt.’

‘I suppose so,’ said Milly, laughing. ‘We all do.’

‘When does she appear to the best advantage? When riding, or driving, or reading her book?’

‘Not altogether then, if you mean the very best.’

‘Perhaps it is when she sits looking in the glass at herself, and you let down her hair.’

‘Not particularly, to my mind.’

‘When does she to your mind? When dressed for a dinner-party or ball?’

‘She’s middling, then. But there is one time when she looks nicer and cleverer than at any. It is when she is in the gymnasium.’

‘O--gymnasium?’

‘Because when she is there she wears such a pretty boy’s costume, and is so charming in her movements, that you think she is a lovely young youth and not a girl at all.’

‘When does she go to this gymnasium?’

‘Not so much as she used to. Only on wet mornings now, when she can’t get out for walks or drives. But she used to do it every day.’

‘I should like to see her there.’

‘Why, sir?’

‘I am a poor artist, and can’t afford models. To see her attitudes would be of great assistance to me in the art I love so well.’

Milly shook her head. ‘She’s very strict about the door being locked. If I were to leave it open she would dismiss me, as I should deserve.’

‘But consider, dear Miss Birch, the advantage to a poor artist the sight of her would be: if you could hold the door ajar it would be worth five pounds to me, and a good deal to you.’

‘No,’ said the incorruptible Milly, shaking her head. ‘Besides, I don’t always go there with her. O no, I couldn’t!’

Milly remained so firm at this point that Dare said no more.

When he had left her he returned to the castle grounds, and though there was not much light he had no difficulty in discovering the gymnasium, the outside of which he had observed before, without thinking to inquire its purpose. Like the erections in other parts of the shrubberies it was constructed of wood, the interstices between the framing being filled up with short billets of fir nailed diagonally. Dare, even when without a settled plan in his head, could arrange for probabilities; and wrenching out one of the billets he looked inside. It seemed to be a simple oblong apartment, fitted up with ropes, with a little dressing-closet at one end, and lighted by a skylight or lantern in the roof. Dare replaced the wood and went on his way.

Havill was smoking on his doorstep when Dare passed up the street. He held up his hand.

‘Since you have been gone,’ said the architect, ‘I’ve hit upon something that may help you in exhibiting your lady to your gentleman. In the summer I had orders to design a gymnasium for her, which I did; and they say she is very clever on the ropes and bars. Now--’

‘I’ve discovered it. I shall contrive for him to see her there on the first wet morning, which is when she practises. What made her think of it?’

‘As you may have heard, she holds advanced views on social and other matters; and in those on the higher education of women she is very strong, talking a good deal about the physical training of the Greeks, whom she adores, or did. Every philosopher and man of science who ventilates his theories in the monthly reviews has a devout listener in her; and this subject of the physical development of her sex has had its turn with other things in her mind. So she had the place built on her very first arrival, according to the latest lights on athletics, and in imitation of those at the new colleges for women.’

‘How deuced clever of the girl! She means to live to be a hundred!’

VII.

The wet day arrived with all the promptness that might have been expected of it in this land of rains and mists. The alder bushes behind the gymnasium dripped monotonously leaf upon leaf, added to this being the purl of the shallow stream a little way off, producing a sense of satiety in watery sounds. Though there was drizzle in the open meads, the rain here in the thicket was comparatively slight, and two men with fishing tackle who stood beneath one of the larger bushes found its boughs a sufficient shelter.

‘We may as well walk home again as study nature here, Willy,’ said the taller and elder of the twain. ‘I feared it would continue when we started. The magnificent sport you speak of must rest for to-day.’

The other looked at his watch, but made no particular reply.

‘Come, let us move on. I don’t like intruding into other people’s grounds like this,’ De Stancy continued.

‘We are not intruding. Anybody walks outside this fence.’ He indicated an iron railing newly tarred, dividing the wilder underwood amid which they stood from the inner and well-kept parts of the shrubbery, and against which the back of the gymnasium was built.

Light footsteps upon a gravel walk could be heard on the other side of the fence, and a trio of cloaked and umbrella-screened figures were for a moment discernible. They vanished behind the gymnasium; and again nothing resounded but the river murmurs and the clock-like drippings of the leafage.

‘Hush!’ said Dare.

‘No pranks, my boy,’ said De Stancy suspiciously. ‘You should be above them.’

‘And you should trust to my good sense, captain,’ Dare remonstrated. ‘I have not indulged in a prank since the sixth year of my pilgrimage. I have found them too damaging to my interests. Well, it is not too dry here, and damp injures your health, you say. Have a pull for safety’s sake.’ He presented a flask to De Stancy.

The artillery officer looked down at his nether garments.

‘I don’t break my rule without good reason,’ he observed.

‘I am afraid that reason exists at present.’

‘I am afraid it does. What have you got?’

‘Only a little wine.’

‘What wine?’

‘Do try it. I call it “the blushful Hippocrene,” that the poet describes as

“Tasting of Flora and the country green;
Dance, and Provencal song, and sun-burnt mirth.”’

De Stancy took the flask, and drank a little.

‘It warms, does it not?’ said Dare.

‘Too much,’ said De Stancy with misgiving. ‘I have been taken unawares. Why, it is three parts brandy, to my taste, you scamp!’

Dare put away the wine. ‘Now you are to see something,’ he said.

‘Something--what is it?’ Captain De Stancy regarded him with a puzzled look.

‘It is quite a curiosity, and really worth seeing. Now just look in here.’

The speaker advanced to the back of the building, and withdrew the wood billet from the wall.

‘Will, I believe you are up to some trick,’ said De Stancy, not, however, suspecting the actual truth in these unsuggestive circumstances, and with a comfortable resignation, produced by the potent liquor, which would have been comical to an outsider, but which, to one who had known the history and relationship of the two speakers, would have worn a sadder significance. ‘I am too big a fool about you to keep you down as I ought; that’s the fault of me, worse luck.’

He pressed the youth’s hand with a smile, went forward, and looked through the hole into the interior of the gymnasium. Dare withdrew to some little distance, and watched Captain De Stancy’s face, which presently began to assume an expression of interest.

What was the captain seeing? A sort of optical poem.

Paula, in a pink flannel costume, was bending, wheeling and undulating in the air like a gold-fish in its globe, sometimes ascending by her arms nearly to the lantern, then lowering herself till she swung level with the floor. Her aunt Mrs. Goodman, and Charlotte De Stancy, were sitting on camp-stools at one end, watching her gyrations, Paula occasionally addressing them with such an expression as--‘Now, Aunt, look at me--and you, Charlotte--is not that shocking to your weak nerves,’ when some adroit feat would be repeated, which, however, seemed to give much more pleasure to Paula herself in performing it than to Mrs. Goodman in looking on, the latter sometimes saying, ‘O, it is terrific--do not run such a risk again!’

It would have demanded the poetic passion of some joyous Elizabethan lyrist like Lodge, Nash, or Constable, to fitly phrase Paula’s presentation of herself at this moment of absolute abandonment to every muscular whim that could take possession of such a supple form. The white manilla ropes clung about the performer like snakes as she took her exercise, and the colour in her face deepened as she went on. Captain De Stancy felt that, much as he had seen in early life of beauty in woman, he had never seen beauty of such a real and living sort as this. A recollection of his vow, together with a sense that to gaze on the festival of this Bona Dea was, though so innocent and pretty a sight, hardly fair or gentlemanly, would have compelled him to withdraw his eyes, had not the sportive fascination of her appearance glued them there in spite of all. And as if to complete the picture of Grace personified and add the one thing wanting to the charm which bound him, the clouds, till that time thick in the sky, broke away from the upper heaven, and allowed the noonday sun to pour down through the lantern upon her, irradiating her with a warm light that was incarnadined by her pink doublet and hose, and reflected in upon her face. She only required a cloud to rest on instead of the green silk net which actually supported her reclining figure for the moment, to be quite Olympian; save indeed that in place of haughty effrontery there sat on her countenance only the healthful sprightliness of an English girl.

Dare had withdrawn to a point at which another path crossed the path occupied by De Stancy. Looking in a side direction, he saw Havill idling slowly up to him over the silent grass. Havill’s knowledge of the appointment had brought him out to see what would come of it. When he neared Dare, but was still partially hidden by the boughs from the third of the party, the former simply pointed to De Stancy upon which Havill stood and peeped at him. ‘Is she within there?’ he inquired.

Dare nodded, and whispered, ‘You need not have asked, if you had examined his face.’

‘That’s true.’

‘A fermentation is beginning in him,’ said Dare, half pitifully; ‘a purely chemical process; and when it is complete he will probably be clear, and fiery, and sparkling, and quite another man than the good, weak, easy fellow that he was.’

To precisely describe Captain De Stancy’s admiration was impossible. A sun seemed to rise in his face. By watching him they could almost see the aspect of her within the wall, so accurately were her changing phases reflected in him. He seemed to forget that he was not alone.

‘And is this,’ he murmured, in the manner of one only half apprehending himself, ‘and is this the end of my vow?’

Paula was saying at this moment, ‘Ariel sleeps in this posture, does he not, Auntie?’ Suiting the action to the word she flung out her arms behind her head as she lay in the green silk hammock, idly closed her pink eyelids, and swung herself to and fro.