A Laodicean

Chapter 5

The next morning Somerset was again at the castle. He passed

some interval on the walls before encountering Miss De Stancy,

whom at last he observed going towards a pony-carriage that

waited near the door.

A smile gained strength upon her face at his approach, and she

was the first to speak. 'I am sorry Miss Power has not

returned,' she said, and accounted for that lady's absence by

her distress at the event of two evenings earlier.

'But I have driven over to my father's--Sir William De

Stancy's--house this morning,' she went on. 'And on

mentioning your name to him, I found he knew it quite well.

You will, will you not, forgive my ignorance in having no

better knowledge of the elder Mr. Somerset's works than a dim

sense of his fame as a painter? But I was going to say that

my father would much like to include you in his personal

acquaintance, and wishes me to ask if you will give him the

pleasure of lunching with him to-day. My cousin John, whom

you once knew, was a great favourite of his, and used to speak

of you sometimes. It will be so kind if you can come. My

father is an old man, out of society, and he would be glad to

hear the news of town.'

Somerset said he was glad to find himself among friends where

he had only expected strangers; and promised to come that day,

if she would tell him the way.

That she could easily do. The short way was across that glade

he saw there--then over the stile into the wood, following the

path till it came out upon the turnpike-road. He would then

be almost close to the house. The distance was about two

miles and a half. But if he thought it too far for a walk,

she would drive on to the town, where she had been going when

he came, and instead of returning straight to her father's

would come back and pick him up.

It was not at all necessary, he thought. He was a walker, and

could find the path.

At this moment a servant came to tell Miss De Stancy that the

telegraph was calling her.

'Ah--it is lucky that I was not gone again!' she exclaimed.

'John seldom reads it right if I am away.'

It now seemed quite in the ordinary course that, as a friend

of her father's, he should accompany her to the instrument.

So up they went together, and immediately on reaching it she

applied her ear to the instrument, and began to gather the

message. Somerset fancied himself like a person overlooking

another's letter, and moved aside.

'It is no secret,' she said, smiling. '"Paula to Charlotte,"

it begins.'

'That's very pretty.'

'O--and it is about--you,' murmured Miss De Stancy.

'Me?' The architect blushed a little.

She made no answer, and the machine went on with its story.

There was something curious in watching this utterance about

himself, under his very nose, in language unintelligible to

him. He conjectured whether it were inquiry, praise, or

blame, with a sense that it might reasonably be the latter, as

the result of his surreptitious look into that blue bedroom,

possibly observed and reported by some servant of the house.

'"Direct that every facility be given to Mr. Somerset to visit

any part of the castle he may wish to see. On my return I

shall be glad to welcome him as the acquaintance of your

relatives. I have two of his father's pictures."'

'Dear me, the plot thickens,' he said, as Miss De Stancy

announced the words. 'How could she know about me?'

'I sent a message to her this morning when I saw you crossing

the park on your way here--telling her that Mr. Somerset, son

of the Academician, was making sketches of the castle, and

that my father knew something of you. That's her answer.'

'Where are the pictures by my father that she has purchased?'

'O, not here--at least, not unpacked.'

Miss de Stancy then left him to proceed on her journey to

Markton (so the nearest little town was called), informing him

that she would be at her father's house to receive him at two

o'clock. Just about one he closed his sketch-book, and set

out in the direction she had indicated. At the entrance to

the wood a man was at work pulling down a rotten gate that

bore on its battered lock the initials 'W. De S.' and erecting

a new one whose ironmongery exhibited the letters 'P. P.'

The warmth of the summer noon did not inconveniently penetrate

the dense masses of foliage which now began to overhang the

path, except in spots where a ruthless timber-felling had

taken place in previous years for the purpose of sale. It was

that particular half-hour of the day in which the birds of the

forest prefer walking to flying; and there being no wind, the

hopping of the smallest songster over the dead leaves reached

his ear from behind the undergrowth. The track had originally

been a well-kept winding drive, but a deep carpet of moss and

leaves overlaid it now, though the general outline still

remained to show that its curves had been set out with as much

care as those of a lawn walk, and the gradient made easy for

carriages where the natural slopes were great. Felled trunks

occasionally lay across it, and alongside were the hollow and

fungous boles of trees sawn down in long past years.

After a walk of three-quarters of an hour he came to another

gate, where the letters 'P. P.' again supplanted the

historical 'W. De S.' Climbing over this, he found himself on

a highway which presently dipped down towards the town of

Markton, a place he had never yet seen. It appeared in the

distance as a quiet little borough of a few thousand

inhabitants; and, without the town boundary on the side he was

approaching, stood half-a-dozen genteel and modern houses, of

the detached kind usually found in such suburbs. On inquiry,

Sir William De Stancy's residence was indicated as one of

these.

It was almost new, of streaked brick, having a central door,

and a small bay window on each side to light the two front

parlours. A little lawn spread its green surface in front,

divided from the road by iron railings, the low line of shrubs

immediately within them being coated with pallid dust from the

highway. On the neat piers of the neat entrance gate were

chiselled the words 'Myrtle Villa.' Genuine roadside

respectability sat smiling on every brick of the eligible

dwelling.

Perhaps that which impressed Somerset more than the mushroom

modernism of Sir William De Stancy's house was the air of

healthful cheerfulness which pervaded it. He was shown in by

a neat maidservant in black gown and white apron, a canary

singing a welcome from a cage in the shadow of the window, the

voices of crowing c***s coming over the chimneys from

somewhere behind, and the sun and air riddling the house

everywhere.

A dwelling of those well-known and popular dimensions which

allow the proceedings in the kitchen to be distinctly heard in

the parlours, it was so planned that a raking view might be

obtained through it from the front door to the end of the back

garden. The drawing-room furniture was comfortable, in the

walnut-and-green-rep style of some years ago. Somerset had

expected to find his friends living in an old house with

remnants of their own antique furniture, and he hardly knew

whether he ought to meet them with a smile or a gaze of

condolence. His doubt was terminated, however, by the

cheerful and tripping entry of Miss De Stancy, who had

returned from her drive to Markton; and in a few more moments

Sir William came in from the garden.

He was an old man of tall and spare build, with a considerable

stoop, his glasses dangling against his waistcoat-buttons, and

the front corners of his coat-tails hanging lower than the

hinderparts, so that they swayed right and left as he walked.

He nervously apologized to his visitor for having kept him

waiting.

'I am so glad to see you,' he said, with a mild benevolence of

tone, as he retained Somerset's hand for a moment or two;

'partly for your father's sake, whom I met more than once in

my younger days, before he became so well-known; and also

because I learn that you were a friend of my poor nephew John

Ravensbury.' He looked over his shoulder to see if his

daughter were within hearing, and, with the impulse of the

solitary to make a confidence, continued in a low tone: 'She,

poor girl, was to have married John: his death was a sad blow

to her and to all of us.--Pray take a seat, Mr. Somerset.'

The reverses of fortune which had brought Sir William De

Stancy to this comfortable cottage awakened in Somerset a

warmer emotion than curiosity, and he sat down with a heart as

responsive to each speech uttered as if it had seriously

concerned himself, while his host gave some words of

information to his daughter on the trifling events that had

marked the morning just passed; such as that the cow had got

out of the paddock into Miss Power's field, that the smith who

had promised to come and look at the kitchen range had not

arrived, that two wasps' nests had been discovered in the

garden bank, and that Nick Jones's baby had fallen downstairs.

Sir William had large cavernous arches to his eye-sockets,

reminding the beholder of the vaults in the castle he once had

owned. His hands were long and almost fleshless, each knuckle

showing like a bamboo-joint from beneath his coat-sleeves,

which were small at the elbow and large at the wrist. All the

colour had gone from his beard and locks, except in the case

of a few isolated hairs of the former, which retained dashes

of their original shade at sudden points in their length,

revealing that all had once been raven black.

But to study a man to his face for long is a species of ill-

nature which requires a colder temperament, or at least an

older heart, than the architect's was at that time. Incurious

unobservance is the true attitude of cordiality, and Somerset

blamed himself for having fallen into an act of inspection

even briefly. He would wait for his host's conversation,

which would doubtless be of the essence of historical romance.

'The favourable Bank-returns have made the money-market much

easier to-day, as I learn?' said Sir William.

'O, have they?' said Somerset. 'Yes, I suppose they have.'

'And something is meant by this unusual quietness in Foreign

stocks since the late remarkable fluctuations,' insisted the

old man. 'Is the current of speculation quite arrested, or is

it but a temporary lull?'

Somerset said he was afraid he could not give an opinion, and

entered very lamely into the subject; but Sir William seemed

to find sufficient interest in his own thoughts to do away

with the necessity of acquiring fresh impressions from other

people's replies; for often after putting a question he looked

on the floor, as if the subject were at an end. Lunch was now

ready, and when they were in the dining-room Miss De Stancy,

to introduce a topic of more general interest, asked Somerset

if he had noticed the myrtle on the lawn?

Somerset had noticed it, and thought he had never seen such a

full-blown one in the open air before. His eyes were,

however, resting at the moment on the only objects at all out

of the common that the dining-room contained. One was a

singular glass case over the fireplace, within which were some

large mediaeval door-keys, black with rust and age; and the

others were two full-length oil portraits in the costume of

the end of the last century--so out of all proportion to the

size of the room they occupied that they almost reached to the

floor.

'Those originally belonged to the castle yonder,' said Miss De

Stancy, or Charlotte, as her father called her, noticing

Somerset's glance at the keys. 'They used to unlock the

principal entrance-doors, which were knocked to pieces in the

civil wars. New doors were placed afterwards, but the old

keys were never given up, and have been preserved by us ever

since.'

'They are quite useless--mere lumber--particularly to me,'

said Sir William.

'And those huge paintings were a present from Paula,' she

continued. 'They are portraits of my great-grandfather and

mother. Paula would give all the old family pictures back to

me if we had room for them; but they would fill the house to

the ceilings.'

Sir William was impatient of the subject. 'What is the

utility of such accumulations?' he asked. 'Their originals

are but clay now--mere forgotten dust, not worthy a moment's

inquiry or reflection at this distance of time. Nothing can

retain the spirit, and why should we preserve the shadow of

the form?--London has been very full this year, sir, I have

been told?'

'It has,' said Somerset, and he asked if they had been up that

season. It was plain that the matter with which Sir William

De Stancy least cared to occupy himself before visitors was

the history of his own family, in which he was followed with

more simplicity by his daughter Charlotte.

'No,' said the baronet. 'One might be led to think there is a

fatality which prevents it. We make arrangements to go to

town almost every year, to meet some old friend who combines

the rare conditions of being in London with being mindful of

me; but he has always died or gone elsewhere before the event

has taken place. . . . But with a disposition to be happy, it

is neither this place nor the other that can render us the

reverse. In short each man's happiness depends upon himself,

and his ability for doing with little.' He turned more

particularly to Somerset, and added with an impressive smile:

'I hope you cultivate the art of doing with little?'

Somerset said that he certainly did cultivate that art, partly

because he was obliged to.

'Ah--you don't mean to the extent that I mean. The world has

not yet learned the riches of frugality, says, I think,

Cicero, somewhere; and nobody can testify to the truth of that

remark better than I. If a man knows how to spend less than

his income, however small that may be, why--he has the

philosopher's stone.' And Sir William looked in Somerset's

face with frugality written in every pore of his own, as much

as to say, 'And here you see one who has been a living

instance of those principles from his youth up.'

Somerset soon found that whatever turn the conversation took,

Sir William invariably reverted to this topic of frugality.

When luncheon was over he asked his visitor to walk with him

into the garden, and no sooner were they alone than he

continued: 'Well, Mr. Somerset, you are down here sketching

architecture for professional purposes. Nothing can be

better: you are a young man, and your art is one in which

there are innumerable chances.'

'I had begun to think they were rather few,' said Somerset.

'No, they are numerous enough: the difficulty is to find out

where they lie. It is better to know where your luck lies than

where your talent lies: that's an old man's opinion.'

'I'll remember it,' said Somerset.

'And now give me some account of your new clubs, new hotels,

and new men. . . . What I was going to add, on the subject of

finding out where your luck lies, is that nobody is so

unfortunate as not to have a lucky star in some direction or

other. Perhaps yours is at the antipodes; if so, go there.

All I say is, discover your lucky star.'

'I am looking for it.'

'You may be able to do two things; one well, the other but

indifferently, and yet you may have more luck in the latter.

Then stick to that one, and never mind what you can do best.

Your star lies there.'

'There I am not quite at one with you, Sir William.'

'You should be. Not that I mean to say that luck lies in any

one place long, or at any one person's door. Fortune likes

new faces, and your wisdom lies in bringing your acquisitions

into safety while her favour lasts. To do that you must make

friends in her time of smiles--make friends with people,

wherever you find them. My daughter has unconsciously

followed that maxim. She has struck up a warm friendship with

our neighbour, Miss Power, at the castle. We are

diametrically different from her in associations, traditions,

ideas, religion--she comes of a violent dissenting family

among other things--but I say to Charlotte what I say to you:

win affection and regard wherever you can, and accommodate

yourself to the times. I put nothing in the way of their

intimacy, and wisely so, for by this so many pleasant hours

are added to the sum total vouchsafed to humanity.'

It was quite late in the afternoon when Somerset took his

leave. Miss De Stancy did not return to the castle that

night, and he walked through the wood as he had come, feeling

that he had been talking with a man of simple nature, who

flattered his own understanding by devising Machiavellian

theories after the event, to account for any spontaneous

action of himself or his daughter, which might otherwise seem

eccentric or irregular.

Before Somerset reached the inn he was overtaken by a slight

shower, and on entering the house he walked into the general

room, where there was a fire, and stood with one foot on the

fender. The landlord was talking to some guest who sat behind

a screen; and, probably because Somerset had been seen passing

the window, and was known to be sketching at the castle, the

conversation turned on Sir William De Stancy.

'I have often noticed,' observed the landlord, 'that volks who

have come to grief, and quite failed, have the rules how to

succeed in life more at their vingers' ends than volks who

have succeeded. I assure you that Sir William, so full as he

is of wise maxims, never acted upon a wise maxim in his life,

until he had lost everything, and it didn't matter whether he

was wise or no. You know what he was in his young days, of

course?'

'No, I don't,' said the invisible stranger.

'O, I thought everybody knew poor Sir William's history. He

was the star, as I may zay, of good company forty years ago.

I remember him in the height of his jinks, as I used to zee

him when I was a very little boy, and think how great and

wonderful he was. I can seem to zee now the exact style of

his clothes; white hat, white trousers, white silk

handkerchief; and his jonnick face, as white as his clothes

with keeping late hours. There was nothing black about him but

his hair and his eyes--he wore no beard at that time--and they

were black as slooes. The like of his coming on the race-

course was never seen there afore nor since. He drove his

ikkipage hisself; and it was always hauled by four beautiful

white horses, and two outriders rode in harness bridles.

There was a groom behind him, and another at the rubbing-post,

all in livery as glorious as New Jerusalem. What a

'stablishment he kept up at that time! I can mind him, sir,

with thirty race-horses in training at once, seventeen coach-

horses, twelve hunters at his box t'other side of London, four

chargers at Budmouth, and ever so many hacks.'

'And he lost all by his racing speculations?' the stranger

observed; and Somerset fancied that the voice had in it

something more than the languid carelessness of a casual

sojourner.

'Partly by that, partly in other ways. He spent a mint o'

money in a wild project of founding a watering-place; and sunk

thousands in a useless silver mine; so 'twas no wonder that

the castle named after him vell into other hands. . . . The

way it was done was curious. Mr. Wilkins, who was the first

owner after it went from Sir William, actually sat down as a

guest at his table, and got up as the owner. He took off, at

a round sum, everything saleable, furniture, plate, pictures,

even the milk and butter in the dairy. That's how the

pictures and furniture come to be in the castle still;

wormeaten rubbish zome o' it, and hardly worth moving.'

'And off went the baronet to Myrtle Villa?'

'O no! he went away for many years. 'Tis quite lately, since

his illness, that he came to that little place, in zight of

the stone walls that were the pride of his forefathers.'

'From what I hear, he has not the manner of a broken-hearted

man?'

'Not at all. Since that illness he has been happy, as you see

him: no pride, quite calm and mild; at new moon quite

childish. 'Tis that makes him able to live there; before he

was so ill he couldn't bear a zight of the place, but since

then he is happy nowhere else, and never leaves the parish

further than to drive once a week to Markton. His head won't

stand society nowadays, and he lives quite lonely as you zee,

only zeeing his daughter, or his son whenever he comes home,

which is not often. They say that if his brain hadn't

softened a little he would ha' died--'twas that saved his

life.'

'What's this I hear about his daughter? Is she really hired

companion to the new owner?'

'Now that's a curious thing again, these two girls being so

fond of one another; one of 'em a dissenter, and all that, and

t'other a De Stancy. O no, not hired exactly, but she mostly

lives with Miss Power, and goes about with her, and I dare say

Miss Power makes it wo'th her while. One can't move a step

without the other following; though judging by ordinary volks

you'd think 'twould be a cat-and-dog friendship rather.'

'But 'tis not?'

''Tis not; they be more like lovers than maid and maid. Miss

Power is looked up to by little De Stancy as if she were a

god-a'mighty, and Miss Power lets her love her to her heart's

content. But whether Miss Power loves back again I can't zay,

for she's as deep as the North Star.'

The landlord here left the stranger to go to some other part

of the house, and Somerset drew near to the glass partition to

gain a glimpse of a man whose interest in the neighbourhood

seemed to have arisen so simultaneously with his own. But the

inner room was empty: the man had apparently departed by

another door.