A Laodicean

Chapter 4

It was the Sunday following the funeral of Mrs. Havill, news

of whose death had been so unexpectedly brought to her husband

at the moment of his exit from Stancy Castle. The minister,

as was his custom, improved the occasion by a couple of

sermons on the uncertainty of life. One was preached in the

morning in the old chapel of Markton; the second at evening

service in the rural chapel near Stancy Castle, built by

Paula's father, which bore to the first somewhat the relation

of an episcopal chapel-of-ease to the mother church.

The unscreened lights blazed through the plate-glass windows

of the smaller building and outshone the steely stars of the

early night, just as they had done when Somerset was attracted

by their glare four months before. The fervid minister's

rhetoric equalled its force on that more romantic occasion:

but Paula was not there. She was not a frequent attendant now

at her father's votive building. The mysterious tank, whose

dark waters had so repelled her at the last moment, was

boarded over: a table stood on its centre, with an open

quarto Bible upon it, behind which Havill, in a new suit of

black, sat in a large chair. Havill held the office of

deacon: and he had mechanically taken the deacon's seat as

usual to-night, in the face of the congregation, and under the

nose of Mr. Woodwell.

Mr. Woodwell was always glad of an opportunity. He was gifted

with a burning natural eloquence, which, though perhaps a

little too freely employed in exciting the 'Wertherism of the

uncultivated,' had in it genuine power. He was a master of

that oratory which no limitation of knowledge can repress, and

which no training can impart. The neighbouring rector could

eclipse Woodwell's scholarship, and the freethinker at the

corner shop in Markton could demolish his logic; but the

Baptist could do in five minutes what neither of these had

done in a lifetime; he could move some of the hardest of men

to tears.

Thus it happened that, when the sermon was fairly under way,

Havill began to feel himself in a trying position. It was not

that he had bestowed much affection upon his deceased wife,

irreproachable woman as she had been; but the suddenness of

her death had shaken his nerves, and Mr. Woodwell's address on

the uncertainty of life involved considerations of conduct on

earth that bore with singular directness upon Havill's

unprincipled manoeuvre for victory in the castle competition.

He wished he had not been so inadvertent as to take his

customary chair in the chapel. People who saw Havill's

agitation did not know that it was most largely owing to his

sense of the fraud which had been practised on the unoffending

Somerset; and when, unable longer to endure the torture of

Woodwell's words, he rose from his place and went into the

chapel vestry, the preacher little thought that remorse for a

contemptibly unfair act, rather than grief for a dead wife,

was the cause of the architect's withdrawal.

When Havill got into the open air his morbid excitement calmed

down, but a sickening self-abhorrence for the proceeding

instigated by Dare did not abate. To appropriate another

man's design was no more nor less than to embezzle his money

or steal his goods. The intense reaction from his conduct of

the past two or three months did not leave him when he reached

his own house and observed where the handbills of the

countermanded sale had been torn down, as the result of the

payment made in advance by Paula of money which should really

have been Somerset's.

The mood went on intensifying when he was in bed. He lay

awake till the clock reached those still, small, ghastly hours

when the vital fires burn at their lowest in the human frame,

and death seizes more of his victims than in any other of the

twenty-four. Havill could bear it no longer; he got a light,

went down into his office and wrote the note subjoined.

'MADAM,--The recent death of my wife necessitates a

considerable change in my professional arrangements and plans

with regard to the future. One of the chief results of the

change is, I regret to state, that I no longer find myself in

a position to carry out the enlargement of the castle which

you had so generously entrusted to my hands.

'I beg leave therefore to resign all further connection with

the same, and to express, if you will allow me, a hope that

the commission may be placed in the hands of the other

competitor. Herewith is returned a cheque for one-half of the

sum so kindly advanced in anticipation of the commission I

should receive; the other half, with which I had cleared off

my immediate embarrassments before perceiving the necessity

for this course, shall be returned to you as soon as some

payments from other clients drop in.--I beg to remain, Madam,

your obedient servant, JAMES HAVILL.'

Havill would not trust himself till the morning to post this

letter. He sealed it up, went out with it into the street,

and walked through the sleeping town to the post-office. At

the mouth of the box he held the letter long. By dropping it,

he was dropping at least two thousand five hundred pounds

which, however obtained, were now securely his. It was a

great deal to let go; and there he stood till another wave of

conscience bore in upon his soul the absolute nature of the

theft, and made him shudder. The footsteps of a solitary

policeman could be heard nearing him along the deserted

street; hesitation ended, and he let the letter go.

When he awoke in the morning he thought over the circumstances

by the cheerful light of a low eastern sun. The horrors of

the situation seemed much less formidable; yet it cannot be

said that he actually regretted his act. Later on he walked

out, with the strange sense of being a man who, from one

having a large professional undertaking in hand, had, by his

own act, suddenly reduced himself to an unoccupied

nondescript. From the upper end of the town he saw in the

distance the grand grey towers of Stancy Castle looming over

the leafless trees; he felt stupefied at what he had done, and

said to himself with bitter discontent: 'Well, well, what is

more contemptible than a half-hearted rogue!'

That morning the post-bag had been brought to Paula and Mrs.

Goodman in the usual way, and Miss Power read the letter. His

resignation was a surprise; the question whether he would or

would not repay the money was passed over; the necessity of

installing Somerset after all as sole architect was an

agitation, or emotion, the precise nature of which it is

impossible to accurately define.

However, she went about the house after breakfast with very

much the manner of one who had had a weight removed either

from her heart or from her conscience; moreover, her face was

a little flushed when, in passing by Somerset's late studio,

she saw the plans bearing his motto, and knew that his and not

Havill's would be the presiding presence in the coming

architectural turmoil. She went on further, and called to

Charlotte, who was now regularly sleeping in the castle, to

accompany her, and together they ascended to the telegraph-

room in the donjon tower.

'Whom are you going to telegraph to?' said Miss De Stancy when

they stood by the instrument.

'My architect.'

'O--Mr. Havill.'

'Mr. Somerset.'

Miss De Stancy had schooled her emotions on that side cruelly

well, and she asked calmly, 'What, have you chosen him after

all?'

'There is no choice in it--read that,' said Paula, handing

Havill's letter, as if she felt that Providence had stepped in

to shape ends that she was too undecided or unpractised to

shape for herself.

'It is very strange,' murmured Charlotte; while Paula applied

herself to the machine and despatched the words:--

'Miss Power, Stancy Castle, to G. Somerset, Esq., F.S.A.,

F.R.I.B.A., Queen Anne's Chambers, St. James's.

'Your design is accepted in its entirety. It will be

necessary to begin soon. I shall wish to see and consult you

on the matter about the 10th instant.'

When the message was fairly gone out of the window Paula

seemed still further to expand. The strange spell cast over

her by something or other--probably the presence of De Stancy,

and the weird romanticism of his manner towards her, which was

as if the historic past had touched her with a yet living

hand--in a great measure became dissipated, leaving her the

arch and serene maiden that she had been before.

About this time Captain De Stancy and his Achates were

approaching the castle, and had arrived about fifty paces from

the spot at which it was Dare's custom to drop behind his

companion, in order that their appearance at the lodge should

be that of master and man.

Dare was saying, as he had said before: 'I can't help

fancying, captain, that your approach to this castle and its

mistress is by a very tedious system. Your trenches, zigzags,

counterscarps, and ravelins may be all very well, and a very

sure system of attack in the long run; but upon my soul they

are almost as slow in maturing as those of Uncle Toby himself.

For my part I should be inclined to try an assault.'

'Don't pretend to give advice, Willy, on matters beyond your

years.'

'I only meant it for your good, and your proper advancement in

the world,' said Dare in wounded tones.

'Different characters, different systems,' returned the

soldier. 'This lady is of a reticent, independent,

complicated disposition, and any sudden proceeding would put

her on her mettle. You don't dream what my impatience is, my

boy. It is a thing transcending your utmost conceptions! But

I proceed slowly; I know better than to do otherwise. Thank

God there is plenty of time. As long as there is no risk of

Somerset's return my situation is sure.'

'And professional etiquette will prevent him coming yet.

Havill and he will change like the men in a sentry-box; when

Havill walks out, he'll walk in, and not a moment before.'

'That will not be till eighteen months have passed. And as

the Jesuit said, "Time and I against any two." . . . Now drop

to the rear,' added Captain De Stancy authoritatively. And

they passed under the walls of the castle.

The grave fronts and bastions were wrapped in silence; so much

so, that, standing awhile in the inner ward, they could hear

through an open window a faintly clicking sound from within.

'She's at the telegraph,' said Dare, throwing forward his

voice softly to the captain. 'What can that be for so early?

That wire is a nuisance, to my mind; such constant intercourse

with the outer world is bad for our romance.'

The speaker entered to arrange his photographic apparatus, of

which, in truth, he was getting weary; and De Stancy smoked on

the terrace till Dare should be ready. While he waited his

sister looked out upon him from an upper casement, having

caught sight of him as she came from Paula in the telegraph-

room.

'Well, Lottie, what news this morning?' he said gaily.

'Nothing of importance. We are quite well.' . . . . She added

with hesitation, 'There is one piece of news; Mr. Havill--but

perhaps you have heard it in Markton?'

'Nothing.'

'Mr. Havill has resigned his appointment as architect to the

castle.'

'What?--who has it, then?'

'Mr. Somerset.'

'Appointed?'

'Yes--by telegraph.'

'When is he coming?' said De Stancy in consternation.

'About the tenth, we think.'

Charlotte was concerned to see her brother's face, and

withdrew from the window that he might not question her

further. De Stancy went into the hall, and on to the gallery,

where Dare was standing as still as a caryatid.

'I have heard every word,' said Dare.

'Well, what does it mean? Has that fool Havill done it on

purpose to annoy me? What conceivable reason can the man have

for throwing up an appointment he has worked so hard for, at

the moment he has got it, and in the time of his greatest

need?'

Dare guessed, for he had seen a little way into Havill's soul

during the brief period of their confederacy. But he was very

far from saying what he guessed. Yet he unconsciously

revealed by other words the nocturnal shades in his character

which had made that confederacy possible.

'Somerset coming after all!' he replied. 'By God! that little

six-barrelled friend of mine, and a good resolution, and he

would never arrive!'

'What!' said Captain De Stancy, paling with horror as he

gathered the other's sinister meaning.

Dare instantly recollected himself. 'One is tempted to say

anything at such a moment,' he replied hastily.

'Since he is to come, let him come, for me,' continued De

Stancy, with reactionary distinctness, and still gazing

gravely into the young man's face. 'The battle shall be

fairly fought out. Fair play, even to a rival--remember that,

boy. . . . Why are you here?--unnaturally concerning yourself

with the passions of a man of my age, as if you were the

parent, and I the son? Would to heaven, Willy, you had done

as I wished you to do, and led the life of a steady,

thoughtful young man! Instead of meddling here, you should

now have been in some studio, college, or professional man's

chambers, engaged in a useful pursuit which might have made

one proud to own you. But you were so precocious and

headstrong; and this is what you have come to: you promise to

be worthless!'

'I think I shall go to my lodgings to-day instead of staying

here over these pictures,' said Dare, after a silence during

which Captain De Stancy endeavoured to calm himself. 'I was

going to tell you that my dinner to-day will unfortunately be

one of herbs, for want of the needful. I have come to my last

stiver.--You dine at the mess, I suppose, captain?'

De Stancy had walked away; but Dare knew that he played a

pretty sure card in that speech. De Stancy's heart could not

withstand the suggested contrast between a lonely meal of

bread-and-cheese and a well-ordered dinner amid cheerful

companions. 'Here,' he said, emptying his pocket and

returning to the lad's side. 'Take this, and order yourself a

good meal. You keep me as poor as a crow. There shall be

more to-morrow.'

The peculiarly bifold nature of Captain De Stancy, as shown in

his conduct at different times, was something rare in life,

and perhaps happily so. That mechanical admixture of black

and white qualities without coalescence, on which the theory

of men's characters was based by moral analysis before the

rise of modern ethical schools, fictitious as it was in

general application, would have almost hit off the truth as

regards Captain De Stancy. Removed to some half-known

century, his deeds would have won a picturesqueness of light

and shade that might have made him a fascinating subject for

some gallery of illustrious historical personages. It was

this tendency to moral chequer-work which accounted for his

varied bearings towards Dare.

Dare withdrew to take his departure. When he had gone a few

steps, despondent, he suddenly turned, and ran back with some

excitement.

'Captain--he's coming on the tenth, don't they say? Well,

four days before the tenth comes the sixth. Have you

forgotten what's fixed for the sixth?'

'I had quite forgotten!'

'That day will be worth three months of quiet attentions:

with luck, skill, and a bold heart, what mayn't you do?'

Captain De Stancy's face softened with satisfaction.

'There is something in that; the game is not up after all.

The sixth--it had gone clean out of my head, by gad!'