A Laodicean

Chapter 4-1

Chapter 4

He descended the stone stairs to a lower story of the castle, in which was a crypt-like hall covered by vaulting of exceptional and massive ingenuity:

‘Built ere the art was known,

By pointed aisle and shafted stalk

The arcades of an alleyed walk

To emulate in stone.’

It happened that the central pillar whereon the vaults rested, reputed to exhibit some of the most hideous grotesques in England upon its capital, was within a locked door. Somerset was tempted to ask a servant for permission to open it, till he heard that the inner room was temporarily used for plate, the key being kept by Miss De Stancy, at which he said no more. But afterwards the active housemaid redescended the stone steps; she entered the crypt with a bunch of keys in one hand, and in the other a candle, followed by the young lady whom Somerset had seen on the terrace.

‘I shall be very glad to unlock anything you may want to see. So few people take any real interest in what is here that we do not leave it open.’

Somerset expressed his thanks.

Miss De Stancy, a little to his surprise, had a touch of rusticity in her manner, and that forced absence of reserve which seclusion from society lends to young women more frequently than not. She seemed glad to have something to do; the arrival of Somerset was plainly an event sufficient to set some little mark upon her day. Deception had been written on the faces of those frowning walls in their implying the insignificance of Somerset, when he found them tenanted only by this little woman whose life was narrower than his own.

‘We have not been here long,’ continued Miss De Stancy, ‘and that’s why everything is in such a dilapidated and confused condition.’

Somerset entered the dark store-closet, thinking less of the ancient pillar revealed by the light of the candle than what a singular remark the latter was to come from a member of the family which appeared to have been there five centuries. He held the candle above his head, and walked round, and presently Miss De Stancy came back.

‘There is another vault below,’ she said, with the severe face of a young woman who speaks only because it is absolutely necessary. ‘Perhaps you are not aware of it? It was the dungeon: if you wish to go down there too, the servant will show you the way. It is not at all ornamental: rough, unhewn arches and clumsy piers.’

Somerset thanked her, and would perhaps take advantage of her kind offer when he had examined the spot where he was, if it were not causing inconvenience.

‘No; I am sure Paula will be glad to know that anybody thinks it interesting to go down there—which is more than she does herself.’

Some obvious inquiries were suggested by this, but Somerset said, ‘I have seen the pictures, and have been much struck by them; partly,’ he added, with some hesitation, ‘because one or two of them reminded me of a schoolfellow—I think his name was John Ravensbury?’

‘Yes,’ she said, almost eagerly. ‘He was my cousin!’

‘So that we are not quite strangers?’

‘But he is dead now.... He was unfortunate: he was mostly spoken of as “that unlucky boy.”... You know, I suppose, Mr. Somerset, why the paintings are in such a decaying state!—it is owing to the peculiar treatment of the castle during Mr. Wilkins’s time. He was blind; so one can imagine he did not appreciate such things as there are here.’

‘The castle has been shut up, you mean?’

‘O yes, for many years. But it will not be so again. We are going to have the pictures cleaned, and the frames mended, and the old pieces of furniture put in their proper places. It will be very nice then. Did you see those in the east closet?’

‘I have only seen those in the gallery.’

‘I will just show you the way to the others, if you would like to see them?’

They ascended to the room designated the east closet. The paintings here, mostly of smaller size, were in a better condition, owing to the fact that they were hung on an inner wall, and had hence been kept free from damp. Somerset inquired the names and histories of one or two.

‘I really don’t quite know,’ Miss De Stancy replied after some thought. ‘But Paula knows, I am sure. I don’t study them much—I don’t see the use of it.’ She swung her sunshade, so that it fell open, and turned it up till it fell shut. ‘I have never been able to give much attention to ancestors,’ she added, with her eyes on the parasol.

‘These ARE your ancestors?’ he asked, for her position and tone were matters which perplexed him. In spite of the family likeness and other details he could scarcely believe this frank and communicative country maiden to be the modern representative of the De Stancys.

‘O yes, they certainly are,’ she said, laughing. ‘People say I am like them: I don’t know if I am—well, yes, I know I am: I can see that, of course, any day. But they have gone from my family, and perhaps it is just as well that they should have gone.... They are useless,’ she added, with serene conclusiveness.

‘Ah! they have gone, have they?’

‘Yes, castle and furniture went together: it was long ago—long before I was born. It doesn’t seem to me as if the place ever belonged to a relative of mine.’

Somerset corrected his smiling manner to one of solicitude.

‘But you live here, Miss De Stancy?’

‘Yes—a great deal now; though sometimes I go home to sleep.’

‘This is home to you, and not home?’

‘I live here with Paula—my friend: I have not been here long, neither has she. For the first six months after her father’s death she did not come here at all.’

They walked on, gazing at the walls, till the young man said: ‘I fear I may be making some mistake: but I am sure you will pardon my inquisitiveness this once. WHO is Paula?’

‘Ah, you don’t know! Of course you don’t—local changes don’t get talked of far away. She is the owner of this castle and estate. My father sold it when he was quite a young man, years before I was born, and not long after his father’s death. It was purchased by a man named Wilkins, a rich man who became blind soon after he had bought it, and never lived here; so it was left uncared for.’

She went out upon the terrace; and without exactly knowing why, Somerset followed.

‘Your friend—’

‘Has only come here quite recently. She is away from home to-day.... It was very sad,’ murmured the young girl thoughtfully. ‘No sooner had Mr. Power bought it of the representatives of Mr. Wilkins—almost immediately indeed—than he died from a chill caught after a warm bath. On account of that she did not take possession for several months; and even now she has only had a few rooms prepared as a temporary residence till she can think what to do. Poor thing, it is sad to be left alone!’

Somerset heedfully remarked that he thought he recognized that name Power, as one he had seen lately, somewhere or other.

‘Perhaps you have been hearing of her father. Do you know what he was?’

Somerset did not.

She looked across the distant country, where undulations of dark-green foliage formed a prospect extending for miles. And as she watched, and Somerset’s eyes, led by hers, watched also, a white streak of steam, thin as a cotton thread, could be discerned ploughing that green expanse. ‘Her father made THAT,’ Miss De Stancy said, directing her finger towards the object.

‘That what?’

‘That railway. He was Mr. John Power, the great railway contractor. And it was through making the railway that he discovered this castle—the railway was diverted a little on its account.’

‘A clash between ancient and modern.’

‘Yes, but he took an interest in the locality long before he purchased the estate. And he built the people a chapel on a bit of freehold he bought for them. He was a great Nonconformist, a staunch Baptist up to the day of his death—a much stauncher one,’ she said significantly, ‘than his daughter is.’

‘Ah, I begin to spot her!’

‘You have heard about the baptism?’

‘I know something of it.’

‘Her conduct has given mortal offence to the scattered people of the denomination that her father was at such pains to unite into a body.’

Somerset could guess the remainder, and in thinking over the circumstances did not state what he had seen. She added, as if disappointed at his want of curiosity—

‘She would not submit to the rite when it came to the point. The water looked so cold and dark and fearful, she said, that she could not do it to save her life.’

‘Surely she should have known her mind before she had gone so far?’ Somerset’s words had a condemnatory form, but perhaps his actual feeling was that if Miss Power had known her own mind, she would have not interested him half so much.

‘Paula’s own mind had nothing to do with it!’ said Miss De Stancy, warming up to staunch partizanship in a moment. ‘It was all undertaken by her from a mistaken sense of duty. It was her father’s dying wish that she should make public profession of her—what do you call it—of the denomination she belonged to, as soon as she felt herself fit to do it: so when he was dead she tried and tried, and didn’t get any more fit; and at last she screwed herself up to the pitch, and thought she must undergo the ceremony out of pure reverence for his memory. It was very short-sighted of her father to put her in such a position: because she is now very sad, as she feels she can never try again after such a sermon as was delivered against her.’

Somerset presumed that Miss Power need not have heard this Knox or Bossuet of hers if she had chosen to go away?

‘She did not hear it in the face of the congregation; but from the vestry. She told me some of it when she reached home. Would you believe it, the man who preached so bitterly is a tenant of hers? I said, “Surely you will turn him out of his house?”—But she answered, in her calm, deep, nice way, that she supposed he had a perfect right to preach against her, that she could not in justice molest him at all. I wouldn’t let him stay if the house were mine. But she has often before allowed him to scold her from the pulpit in a smaller way—once it was about an expensive dress she had worn—not mentioning her by name, you know; but all the people are quite aware that it is meant for her, because only one person of her wealth or position belongs to the Baptist body in this county.’

Somerset was looking at the homely affectionate face of the little speaker. ‘You are her good friend, I am sure,’ he remarked.

She looked into the distant air with tacit admission of the impeachment. ‘So would you be if you knew her,’ she said; and a blush slowly rose to her cheek, as if the person spoken of had been a lover rather than a friend.

‘But you are not a Baptist any more than I?’ continued Somerset.

‘O no. And I never knew one till I knew Paula. I think they are very nice; though I sometimes wish Paula was not one, but the religion of reasonable persons.’

They walked on, and came opposite to where the telegraph emerged from the trees, leapt over the parapet, and up through the loophole into the interior.

‘That looks strange in such a building,’ said her companion.

‘Miss Power had it put up to know the latest news from town. It costs six pounds a mile. She can work it herself, beautifully: and so can I, but not so well. It was a great delight to learn. Miss Power was so interested at first that she was sending messages from morning till night. And did you hear the new clock?’

‘Is it a new one?—Yes, I heard it.’

‘The old one was quite worn out; so Paula has put it in the cellar, and had this new one made, though it still strikes on the old bell. It tells the seconds, but the old one, which my very great grandfather erected in the eighteenth century, only told the hours. Paula says that time, being so much more valuable now, must of course be cut up into smaller pieces.’