A Laodicean

Chapter 1

DE STANCY.

Captain De Stancy was a changed man. A hitherto well-

repressed energy was giving him motion towards long-shunned

consequences. His features were, indeed, the same as before;

though, had a physiognomist chosen to study them with the

closeness of an astronomer scanning the universe, he would

doubtless have discerned abundant novelty.

In recent years De Stancy had been an easy, melancholy,

unaspiring officer, enervated and depressed by a parental

affection quite beyond his control for the graceless lad Dare-

-the obtrusive memento of a shadowy period in De Stancy's

youth, who threatened to be the curse of his old age.

Throughout a long space he had persevered in his system of

rigidly incarcerating within himself all instincts towards the

opposite s*x, with a resolution that would not have disgraced

a much stronger man. By this habit, maintained with fair

success, a chamber of his nature had been preserved intact

during many later years, like the one solitary sealed-up cell

occasionally retained by bees in a lobe of drained honey-comb.

And thus, though he had irretrievably exhausted the relish of

society, of ambition, of action, and of his profession, the

love-force that he had kept immured alive was still a

reproducible thing.

The sight of Paula in her graceful performance, which the

judicious Dare had so carefully planned, led up to and

heightened by subtle accessories, operated on De Stancy's

surprised soul with a promptness almost magical.

On the evening of the self-same day, having dined as usual, he

retired to his rooms, where he found a hamper of wine awaiting

him. It had been anonymously sent, and the account was paid.

He smiled grimly, but no longer with heaviness. In this he

instantly recognized the handiwork of Dare, who, having at

last broken down the barrier which De Stancy had erected round

his heart for so many years, acted like a skilled strategist,

and took swift measures to follow up the advantage so tardily

gained.

Captain De Stancy knew himself conquered: he knew he should

yield to Paula--had indeed yielded; but there was now, in his

solitude, an hour or two of reaction. He did not drink from

the bottles sent. He went early to bed, and lay tossing

thereon till far into the night, thinking over the collapse.

His teetotalism had, with the lapse of years, unconsciously

become the outward and visible sign to himself of his secret

vows; and a return to its opposite, however mildly done,

signified with ceremonious distinctness the formal acceptance

of delectations long forsworn.

But the exceeding freshness of his feeling for Paula, which by

reason of its long arrest was that of a man far under thirty,

and was a wonder to himself every instant, would not long

brook weighing in balances. He wished suddenly to commit

himself; to remove the question of retreat out of the region

of debate. The clock struck two: and the wish became

determination. He arose, and wrapping himself in his

dressing-gown went to the next room, where he took from a

shelf in the pantry several large bottles, which he carried to

the window, till they stood on the sill a goodly row. There

had been sufficient light in the room for him to do this

without a candle. Now he softly opened the sash, and the

radiance of a gibbous moon riding in the opposite sky flooded

the apartment. It fell on the labels of the captain's

bottles, revealing their contents to be simple aerated waters

for drinking.

De Stancy looked out and listened. The guns that stood drawn

up within the yard glistened in the moonlight reaching them

from over the barrack-wall: there was an occasional stamp of

horses in the stables; also a measured tread of sentinels--one

or more at the gates, one at the hospital, one between the

wings, two at the magazine, and others further off. Recurring

to his intention he drew the corks of the mineral waters, and

inverting each bottle one by one over the window-sill, heard

its contents dribble in a small stream on to the gravel below.

He then opened the hamper which Dare had sent. Uncorking one

of the bottles he murmured, 'To Paula!' and drank a glass of

the ruby liquor.

'A man again after eighteen years,' he said, shutting the sash

and returning to his bedroom.

The first overt result of his kindled interest in Miss Power

was his saying to his sister the day after the surreptitious

sight of Paula: 'I am sorry, Charlotte, for a word or two I

said the other day.'

'Well?'

'I was rather disrespectful to your friend Miss Power.'

'I don't think so--were you?'

'Yes. When we were walking in the wood, I made a stupid joke

about her. . . . What does she know about me--do you ever

speak of me to her?'

'Only in general terms.'

'What general terms?'

'You know well enough, William; of your idiosyncrasies and so

on--that you are a bit of a woman-hater, or at least a

confirmed bachelor, and have but little respect for your own

family.'

'I wish you had not told her that,' said De Stancy with

dissatisfaction.

'But I thought you always liked women to know your

principles!' said Charlotte, in injured tones; 'and would

particularly like her to know them, living so near.'

'Yes, yes,' replied her brother hastily. 'Well, I ought to

see her, just to show her that I am not quite a brute.'

'That would be very nice!' she answered, putting her hands

together in agreeable astonishment. 'It is just what I have

wished, though I did not dream of suggesting it after what I

have heard you say. I am going to stay with her again to-

morrow, and I will let her know about this.'

'Don't tell her anything plainly, for heaven's sake. I really

want to see the interior of the castle; I have never entered

its walls since my babyhood.' He raised his eyes as he spoke

to where the walls in question showed their ashlar faces over

the trees.

'You might have gone over it at any time.'

'O yes. It is only recently that I have thought much of the

place: I feel now that I should like to examine the old

building thoroughly, since it was for so many generations

associated with our fortunes, especially as most of the old

furniture is still there. My sedulous avoidance hitherto of

all relating to our family vicissitudes has been, I own,

stupid conduct for an intelligent being; but impossible grapes

are always sour, and I have unconsciously adopted Radical

notions to obliterate disappointed hereditary instincts. But

these have a trick of re-establishing themselves as one gets

older, and the castle and what it contains have a keen

interest for me now.'

'It contains Paula.'

De Stancy's pulse, which had been beating languidly for many

years, beat double at the sound of that name.

'I meant furniture and pictures for the moment,' he said; 'but

I don't mind extending the meaning to her, if you wish it.'

'She is the rarest thing there.'

'So you have said before.'

'The castle and our family history have as much romantic

interest for her as they have for you,' Charlotte went on.

'She delights in visiting our tombs and effigies and ponders

over them for hours.'

'Indeed!' said De Stancy, allowing his surprise to hide the

satisfaction which accompanied it. 'That should make us

friendly. . . . Does she see many people?'

'Not many as yet. And she cannot have many staying there

during the alterations.'

'Ah! yes--the alterations. Didn't you say that she has had a

London architect stopping there on that account? What was he-

-old or young?'

'He is a young man: he has been to our house. Don't you

remember you met him there?'

'What was his name?'

'Mr. Somerset.'

'O, that man! Yes, yes, I remember. . . . Hullo, Lottie!'

'What?'

'Your face is as red as a peony. Now I know a secret!'

Charlotte vainly endeavoured to hide her confusion. 'Very

well--not a word! I won't say more,' continued De Stancy

good-humouredly, 'except that he seems to be a very nice

fellow.'

De Stancy had turned the dialogue on to this little well-

preserved secret of his sister's with sufficient outward

lightness; but it had been done in instinctive concealment of

the disquieting start with which he had recognized that

Somerset, Dare's enemy, whom he had intercepted in placing

Dare's portrait into the hands of the chief constable, was a

man beloved by his sister Charlotte. This novel circumstance

might lead to a curious complication. But he was to hear

more.

'He may be very nice,' replied Charlotte, with an effort,

after this silence. 'But he is nothing to me, more than a

very good friend.'

'There's no engagement, or thought of one between you?'

'Certainly there's not!' said Charlotte, with brave emphasis.

'It is more likely to be between Paula and him than me and

him.'

De Stancy's bare military ears and closely cropped poll

flushed hot. 'Miss Power and him?'

'I don't mean to say there is, because Paula denies it; but I

mean that he loves Paula. That I do know.'

De Stancy was dumb. This item of news which Dare had kept

from him, not knowing how far De Stancy's sense of honour

might extend, was decidedly grave. Indeed, he was so greatly

impressed with the fact, that he could not help saying as much

aloud: 'This is very serious!'

'Why!' she murmured tremblingly, for the first leaking out of

her tender and sworn secret had disabled her quite.

'Because I love Paula too.'

'What do you say, William, you?--a woman you have never seen?'

'I have seen her--by accident. And now, my dear little sis,

you will be my close ally, won't you? as I will be yours, as

brother and sister should be.' He placed his arm coaxingly

round Charlotte's shoulder.

'O, William, how can I?' at last she stammered.

'Why, how can't you, I should say? We are both in the same

ship. I love Paula, you love Mr. Somerset; it behoves both of

us to see that this flirtation of theirs ends in nothing.'

'I don't like you to put it like that--that I love him--it

frightens me,' murmured the girl, visibly agitated. 'I don't

want to divide him from Paula; I couldn't, I wouldn't do

anything to separate them. Believe me, Will, I could not! I

am sorry you love there also, though I should be glad if it

happened in the natural order of events that she should come

round to you. But I cannot do anything to part them and make

Mr. Somerset suffer. It would be TOO wrong and blamable.'

'Now, you silly Charlotte, that's just how you women fly off

at a tangent. I mean nothing dishonourable in the least.

Have I ever prompted you to do anything dishonourable? Fair

fighting allies was all I thought of.'

Miss De Stancy breathed more freely. 'Yes, we will be that,

of course; we are always that, William. But I hope I can be

your ally, and be quite neutral; I would so much rather.'

'Well, I suppose it will not be a breach of your precious

neutrality if you get me invited to see the castle?'

'O no!' she said brightly; 'I don't mind doing such a thing as

that. Why not come with me tomorrow? I will say I am going

to bring you. There will be no trouble at all.'

De Stancy readily agreed. The effect upon him of the

information now acquired was to intensify his ardour tenfold,

the stimulus being due to a perception that Somerset, with a

little more knowledge, would hold a card which could be played

with disastrous effect against himself--his relationship to

Dare. Its disclosure to a lady of such Puritan antecedents as

Paula's, would probably mean her immediate severance from

himself as an unclean thing.

'Is Miss Power a severe pietist, or precisian; or is she a

compromising lady?' he asked abruptly.

'She is severe and uncompromising--if you mean in her

judgments on morals,' said Charlotte, not quite hearing. The

remark was peculiarly apposite, and De Stancy was silent.

He spent some following hours in a close study of the castle

history, which till now had unutterably bored him. More

particularly did he dwell over documents and notes which

referred to the pedigree of his own family. He wrote out the

names of all--and they were many--who had been born within

those domineering walls since their first erection; of those

among them who had been brought thither by marriage with the

owner, and of stranger knights and gentlemen who had entered

the castle by marriage with its mistress. He refreshed his

memory on the strange loves and hates that had arisen in the

course of the family history; on memorable attacks, and the

dates of the same, the most memorable among them being the

occasion on which the party represented by Paula battered down

the castle walls that she was now about to mend, and, as he

hoped, return in their original intact shape to the family

dispossessed, by marriage with himself, its living

representative.

In Sir William's villa were small engravings after many of the

portraits in the castle galleries, some of them hanging in the

dining-room in plain oak and maple frames, and others

preserved in portfolios. De Stancy spent much of his time

over these, and in getting up the romances of their originals'

lives from memoirs and other records, all which stories were

as great novelties to him as they could possibly be to any

stranger. Most interesting to him was the life of an Edward

De Stancy, who had lived just before the Civil Wars, and to

whom Captain De Stancy bore a very traceable likeness. This

ancestor had a mole on his cheek, black and distinct as a fly

in cream; and as in the case of the first Lord Amherst's wart,

and Bennet Earl of Arlington's nose-scar, the painter had

faithfully reproduced the defect on canvas. It so happened

that the captain had a mole, though not exactly on the same

spot of his face; and this made the resemblance still greater.

He took infinite trouble with his dress that day, showing an

amount of anxiety on the matter which for him was quite

abnormal. At last, when fully equipped, he set out with his

sister to make the call proposed. Charlotte was rather

unhappy at sight of her brother's earnest attempt to make an

impression on Paula; but she could say nothing against it, and

they proceeded on their way.

It was the darkest of November weather, when the days are so

short that morning seems to join with evening without the

intervention of noon. The sky was lined with low cloud,

within whose dense substance tempests were slowly fermenting

for the coming days. Even now a windy turbulence troubled the

half-naked boughs, and a lonely leaf would occasionally spin

downwards to rejoin on the grass the scathed multitude of its

comrades which had preceded it in its fall. The river by the

pavilion, in the summer so clear and purling, now slid onwards

brown and thick and silent, and enlarged to double size.