Chapter IV: Book THE FIRST: George Somerset (3)

‘I decline to attend for the present.’

‘And you can give no reason for this?’

There was no reply.

‘Or for your refusal to proceed with the baptism?’

‘I have been christened.’

‘My dear young lady, it is well known that your christening was the work of your aunt, who did it unknown to your parents when she had you in her power, out of pure obstinacy to a church with which she was not in sympathy, taking you surreptitiously, and indefensibly, to the font of the Establishment; so that the rite meant and could mean nothing at all.... But I fear that your new position has brought you into contact with the Paedobaptists, that they have disturbed your old principles, and so induced you to believe in the validity of that trumpery ceremony!’

‘It seems sufficient.’

‘I will demolish the basis of that seeming in three minutes, give me but that time as a listener.’

‘I have no objection.’

‘Very well.... First, then, I will assume that those who have influenced you in the matter have not been able to make any impression upon one so well grounded as yourself in our distinctive doctrine, by the stale old argument drawn from circumcision?’

‘You may assume it.’

‘Good--that clears the ground. And we now come to the New Testament.’

The minister began to turn over the leaves of his little Bible, which it impressed Somerset to observe was bound with a flap, like a pocket book, the black surface of the leather being worn brown at the corners by long usage. He turned on till he came to the beginning of the New Testament, and then commenced his discourse. After explaining his position, the old man ran very ably through the arguments, citing well-known writers on the point in dispute when he required more finished sentences than his own.

The minister’s earnestness and interest in his own case led him unconsciously to include Somerset in his audience as the young man drew nearer; till, instead of fixing his eyes exclusively on the person within the summer-house, the preacher began to direct a good proportion of his discourse upon his new auditor, turning from one listener to the other attentively, without seeming to feel Somerset’s presence as superfluous.

‘And now,’ he said in conclusion, ‘I put it to you, sir, as to her: do you find any flaw in my argument? Is there, madam, a single text which, honestly interpreted, affords the least foothold for the Paedobaptists; in other words, for your opinion on the efficacy of the rite administered to you in your unconscious infancy? I put it to you both as honest and responsible beings.’ He turned again to the young man.

It happened that Somerset had been over this ground long ago. Born, so to speak, a High-Church infant, in his youth he had been of a thoughtful turn, till at one time an idea of his entering the Church had been entertained by his parents. He had formed acquaintance with men of almost every variety of doctrinal practice in this country; and, as the pleadings of each assailed him before he had arrived at an age of sufficient mental stability to resist new impressions, however badly substantiated, he inclined to each denomination as it presented itself, was

‘Everything by starts, and nothing long,’

till he had travelled through a great many beliefs and doctrines without feeling himself much better than when he set out.

A study of fonts and their origin had qualified him in this particular subject. Fully conscious of the inexpediency of contests on minor ritual differences, he yet felt a sudden impulse towards a mild intellectual tournament with the eager old man--purely as an exercise of his wits in the defence of a fair girl.

‘Sir, I accept your challenge to us,’ said Somerset, advancing to the minister’s side.

VII.

At the sound of a new voice the lady in the bower started, as he could see by her outline through the crevices of the wood-work and creepers. The minister looked surprised.

‘You will lend me your Bible, sir, to assist my memory?’ he continued.

The minister held out the Bible with some reluctance, but he allowed Somerset to take it from his hand. The latter, stepping upon a large moss-covered stone which stood near, and laying his hat on a flat beech bough that rose and fell behind him, pointed to the minister to seat himself on the grass. The minister looked at the grass, and looked up again at Somerset, but did not move.

Somerset for the moment was not observing him. His new position had turned out to be exactly opposite the open side of the bower, and now for the first time he beheld the interior. On the seat was the woman who had stood beneath his eyes in the chapel, the ‘Paula’ of Miss De Stancy’s enthusiastic eulogies. She wore a summer hat, beneath which her fair curly hair formed a thicket round her forehead. It would be impossible to describe her as she then appeared. Not sensuous enough for an Aphrodite, and too subdued for a Hebe, she would yet, with the adjunct of doves or nectar, have stood sufficiently well for either of those personages, if presented in a pink morning light, and with mythological scarcity of attire.

Half in surprise she glanced up at him; and lowering her eyes again, as if no surprise were ever let influence her actions for more than a moment, she sat on as before, looking past Somerset’s position at the view down the river, visible for a long distance before her till it was lost under the bending trees.

Somerset turned over the leaves of the minister’s Bible, and began:--

‘In the First Epistle to the Corinthians, the seventh chapter and the fourteenth verse--‘.

Here the young lady raised her eyes in spite of her reserve, but it being, apparently, too much labour to keep them raised, allowed her glance to subside upon her jet necklace, extending it with the thumb of her left hand.

‘Sir!’ said the Baptist excitedly, ‘I know that passage well--it is the last refuge of the Paedobaptists--I foresee your argument. I have met it dozens of times, and it is not worth that snap of the fingers! It is worth no more than the argument from circumcision, or the Suffer-little-children argument.’

‘Then turn to the sixteenth chapter of the Acts, and the thirty-third--’

‘That, too,’ cried the minister, ‘is answered by what I said before! I perceive, sir, that you adopt the method of a special pleader, and not that of an honest inquirer. Is it, or is it not, an answer to my proofs from the eighth chapter of the Acts, the thirty-sixth and thirty-seventh verses; the sixteenth of Mark, sixteenth verse; second of Acts, forty-first verse; the tenth and the forty-seventh verse; or the eighteenth and eighth verse?’

‘Very well, then. Let me prove the point by other reasoning--by the argument from Apostolic tradition.’ He threw the minister’s book upon the grass, and proceeded with his contention, which comprised a fairly good exposition of the earliest practice of the Church and inferences therefrom. (When he reached this point an interest in his off-hand arguments was revealed by the mobile bosom of Miss Paula Power, though she still occupied herself by drawing out the necklace.) Testimony from Justin Martyr followed; with inferences from Irenaeus in the expression, ‘Omnes enim venit per semetipsum salvare; omnes inquam, qui per eum renascuntur in Deum, INFANTES et parvulos et pueros et juvenes.’ (At the sound of so much seriousness Paula turned her eyes upon the speaker with attention.) He next adduced proof of the signification of ‘renascor’ in the writings of the Fathers, as reasoned by Wall; arguments from Tertullian’s advice to defer the rite; citations from Cyprian, Nazianzen, Chrysostom, and Jerome; and briefly summed up the whole matter.

Somerset looked round for the minister as he concluded. But the old man, after standing face to face with the speaker, had turned his back upon him, and during the latter portions of the attack had moved slowly away. He now looked back; his countenance was full of commiserating reproach as he lifted his hand, twice shook his head, and said, ‘In the Epistle to the Philippians, first chapter and sixteenth verse, it is written that there are some who preach in contention and not sincerely. And in the Second Epistle to Timothy, fourth chapter and fourth verse, attention is drawn to those whose ears refuse the truth, and are turned unto fables. I wish you good afternoon, sir, and that priceless gift, SINCERITY.’

The minister vanished behind the trees; Somerset and Miss Power being left confronting each other alone.

Somerset stepped aside from the stone, hat in hand, at the same moment in which Miss Power rose from her seat. She hesitated for an instant, and said, with a pretty girlish stiffness, sweeping back the skirt of her dress to free her toes in turning: ‘Although you are personally unknown to me, I cannot leave you without expressing my deep sense of your profound scholarship, and my admiration for the thoroughness of your studies in divinity.’

‘Your opinion gives me great pleasure,’ said Somerset, bowing, and fairly blushing. ‘But, believe me, I am no scholar, and no theologian. My knowledge of the subject arises simply from the accident that some few years ago I looked into the question for a special reason. In the study of my profession I was interested in the designing of fonts and baptisteries, and by a natural process I was led to investigate the history of baptism; and some of the arguments I then learnt up still remain with me. That’s the simple explanation of my erudition.’

‘If your sermons at the church only match your address to-day, I shall not wonder at hearing that the parishioners are at last willing to attend.’

It flashed upon Somerset’s mind that she supposed him to be the new curate, of whose arrival he had casually heard, during his sojourn at the inn. Before he could bring himself to correct an error to which, perhaps, more than to anything else, was owing the friendliness of her manner, she went on, as if to escape the embarrassment of silence:--

‘I need hardly say that I at least do not doubt the sincerity of your arguments.’

‘Nevertheless, I was not altogether sincere,’ he answered.

She was silent.

‘Then why should you have delivered such a defence of me?’ she asked with simple curiosity.

Somerset involuntarily looked in her face for his answer.

Paula again teased the necklace. ‘Would you have spoken so eloquently on the other side if I--if occasion had served?’ she inquired shyly.

‘Perhaps I would.’

Another pause, till she said, ‘I, too, was insincere.’

‘You?’

‘I was.’

‘In what way?

‘In letting him, and you, think I had been at all influenced by authority, scriptural or patristic.’

‘May I ask, why, then, did you decline the ceremony the other evening?’

‘Ah, you, too, have heard of it!’ she said quickly.

‘No.’

‘What then?’

‘I saw it.’

She blushed and looked down the river. ‘I cannot give my reasons,’ she said.

‘Of course not,’ said Somerset.

‘I would give a great deal to possess real logical dogmatism.’

‘So would I.’

There was a moment of embarrassment: she wanted to get away, but did not precisely know how. He would have withdrawn had she not said, as if rather oppressed by her conscience, and evidently still thinking him the curate: ‘I cannot but feel that Mr. Woodwell’s heart has been unnecessarily wounded.’

‘The minister’s?’

‘Yes. He is single-mindedness itself. He gives away nearly all he has to the poor. He works among the sick, carrying them necessaries with his own hands. He teaches the ignorant men and lads of the village when he ought to be resting at home, till he is absolutely prostrate from exhaustion, and then he sits up at night writing encouraging letters to those poor people who formerly belonged to his congregation in the village, and have now gone away. He always offends ladies, because he can’t help speaking the truth as he believes it; but he hasn’t offended me!’

Her feelings had risen towards the end, so that she finished quite warmly, and turned aside.

‘I was not in the least aware that he was such a man,’ murmured Somerset, looking wistfully after the minister.... ‘Whatever you may have done, I fear that I have grievously wounded a worthy man’s heart from an idle wish to engage in a useless, unbecoming, dull, last-century argument.’

‘Not dull,’ she murmured, ‘for it interested me.’

Somerset accepted her correction willingly. ‘It was ill-considered of me, however,’ he said; ‘and in his distress he has forgotten his Bible.’ He went and picked up the worn volume from where it lay on the grass.

‘You can easily win him to forgive you, by just following, and returning the book to him,’ she observed.

‘I will,’ said the young man impulsively. And, bowing to her, he hastened along the river brink after the minister. He at length saw his friend before him, leaning over the gate which led from the private path into a lane, his cheek resting on the palm of his hand with every outward sign of abstraction. He was not conscious of Somerset’s presence till the latter touched him on the shoulder.

Never was a reconciliation effected more readily. When Somerset said that, fearing his motives might be misconstrued, he had followed to assure the minister of his goodwill and esteem, Mr. Woodwell held out his hand, and proved his friendliness in return by preparing to have the controversy on their religious differences over again from the beginning, with exhaustive detail. Somerset evaded this with alacrity, and once having won his companion to other subjects he found that the austere man had a smile as pleasant as an infant’s on the rare moments when he indulged in it; moreover, that he was warmly attached to Miss Power.

‘Though she gives me more trouble than all the rest of the Baptist church in this district,’ he said, ‘I love her as my own daughter. But I am sadly exercised to know what she is at heart. Heaven supply me with fortitude to contest her wild opinions, and intractability! But she has sweet virtues, and her conduct at times can be most endearing.’

‘I believe it!’ said Somerset, with more fervour than mere politeness required.

‘Sometimes I think those Stancy towers and lands will be a curse to her. The spirit of old papistical times still lingers in the nooks of those silent walls, like a bad odour in a still atmosphere, dulling the iconoclastic emotions of the true Puritan. It would be a pity indeed if she were to be tainted by the very situation that her father’s indomitable energy created for her.’

‘Do not be concerned about her,’ said Somerset gently. ‘She’s not a Paedobaptist at heart, although she seems so.’

Mr. Woodwell placed his finger on Somerset’s arm, saying, ‘If she’s not a Paedobaptist, or Episcopalian; if she is not vulnerable to the mediaeval influences of her mansion, lands, and new acquaintance, it is because she’s been vulnerable to what is worse: to doctrines beside which the errors of Paaedobaptists, Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, are but as air.’

‘How? You astonish me.’

‘Have you heard in your metropolitan experience of a curious body of New Lights, as they think themselves?’ The minister whispered a name to his listener, as if he were fearful of being overheard.

‘O no,’ said Somerset, shaking his head, and smiling at the minister’s horror. ‘She’s not that; at least, I think not.. .. She’s a woman; nothing more. Don’t fear for her; all will be well.’

The poor old man sighed. ‘I love her as my own. I will say no more.’

Somerset was now in haste to go back to the lady, to ease her apparent anxiety as to the result of his mission, and also because time seemed heavy in the loss of her discreet voice and soft, buoyant look. Every moment of delay began to be as two. But the minister was too earnest in his converse to see his companion’s haste, and it was not till perception was forced upon him by the actual retreat of Somerset that he remembered time to be a limited commodity. He then expressed his wish to see Somerset at his house to tea any afternoon he could spare, and receiving the other’s promise to call as soon as he could, allowed the younger man to set out for the summer-house, which he did at a smart pace. When he reached it he looked around, and found she was gone.

Somerset was immediately struck by his own lack of social dexterity. Why did he act so readily on the whimsical suggestion of another person, and follow the minister, when he might have said that he would call on Mr. Woodwell to-morrow, and, making himself known to Miss Power as the visiting architect of whom she had heard from Miss De Stancy, have had the pleasure of attending her to the castle? ‘That’s what any other man would have had wit enough to do!’ he said.

There then arose the question whether her despatching him after the minister was such an admirable act of good-nature to a good man as it had at first seemed to be. Perhaps it was simply a manoeuvre for getting rid of himself; and he remembered his doubt whether a certain light in her eyes when she inquired concerning his sincerity were innocent earnestness or the reverse. As the possibility of levity crossed his brain, his face warmed; it pained him to think that a woman so interesting could condescend to a trick of even so mild a complexion as that. He wanted to think her the soul of all that was tender, and noble, and kind. The pleasure of setting himself to win a minister’s goodwill was a little tarnished now.

VIII.

That evening Somerset was so preoccupied with these things that he left all his sketching implements out-of-doors in the castle grounds. The next morning he hastened thither to secure them from being stolen or spoiled. Meanwhile he was hoping to have an opportunity of rectifying Paula’s mistake about his personality, which, having served a very good purpose in introducing them to a mutual conversation, might possibly be made just as agreeable as a thing to be explained away.

He fetched his drawing instruments, rods, sketching-blocks and other articles from the field where they had lain, and was passing under the walls with them in his hands, when there emerged from the outer archway an open landau, drawn by a pair of black horses of fine action and obviously strong pedigree, in which Paula was seated, under the shade of a white parasol with black and white ribbons fluttering on the summit. The morning sun sparkled on the equipage, its newness being made all the more noticeable by the ragged old arch behind.

She bowed to Somerset in a way which might have been meant to express that she had discovered her mistake; but there was no embarrassment in her manner, and the carriage bore her away without her making any sign for checking it. He had not been walking towards the castle entrance, and she could not be supposed to know that it was his intention to enter that day.

She had looked such a bud of youth and promise that his disappointment at her departure showed itself in his face as he observed her. However, he went on his way, entered a turret, ascended to the leads of the great tower, and stepped out.

From this elevated position he could still see the carriage and the white surface of Paula’s parasol in the glowing sun. While he watched the landau stopped, and in a few moments the horses were turned, the wheels and the panels flashed, and the carriage came bowling along towards the castle again.

Somerset descended the stone stairs. Before he had quite got to the bottom he saw Miss De Stancy standing in the outer hall.

‘When did you come, Mr. Somerset?’ she gaily said, looking up surprised. ‘How industrious you are to be at work so regularly every day! We didn’t think you would be here to-day: Paula has gone to a vegetable show at Markton, and I am going to join her there soon.’

‘O! gone to a vegetable show. But I think she has altered her--’

At this moment the noise of the carriage was heard in the ward, and after a few seconds Miss Power came in--Somerset being invisible from the door where she stood.

‘O Paula, what has brought you back?’ said Miss De Stancy.

‘I have forgotten something.’

‘Mr. Somerset is here. Will you not speak to him?’

Somerset came forward, and Miss De Stancy presented him to her friend. Mr. Somerset acknowledged the pleasure by a respectful inclination of his person, and said some words about the meeting yesterday.

‘Yes,’ said Miss Power, with a serene deliberateness quite noteworthy in a girl of her age; ‘I have seen it all since. I was mistaken about you, was I not? Mr. Somerset, I am glad to welcome you here, both as a friend of Miss De Stancy’s family, and as the son of your father--which is indeed quite a sufficient introduction anywhere.’

‘You have two pictures painted by Mr. Somerset’s father, have you not? I have already told him about them,’ said Miss De Stancy. ‘Perhaps Mr. Somerset would like to see them if they are unpacked?’

As Somerset had from his infancy suffered from a plethora of those productions, excellent as they were, he did not reply quite so eagerly as Miss De Stancy seemed to expect to her kind suggestion, and Paula remarked to him, ‘You will stay to lunch? Do order it at your own time, if our hour should not be convenient.’

Her voice was a voice of low note, in quality that of a flute at the grave end of its gamut. If she sang, she was a pure contralto unmistakably.

‘I am making use of the permission you have been good enough to grant me--of sketching what is valuable within these walls.’

‘Yes, of course, I am willing for anybody to come. People hold these places in trust for the nation, in one sense. You lift your hands, Charlotte; I see I have not convinced you on that point yet.’

Miss De Stancy laughed, and said something to no purpose.

Somehow Miss Power seemed not only more woman than Miss De Stancy, but more woman than Somerset was man; and yet in years she was inferior to both. Though becomingly girlish and modest, she appeared to possess a good deal of composure, which was well expressed by the shaded light of her eyes.

‘You have then met Mr. Somerset before?’ said Charlotte.

‘He was kind enough to deliver an address in my defence yesterday. I suppose I seemed quite unable to defend myself.’

‘O no!’ said he. When a few more words had passed she turned to Miss De Stancy and spoke of some domestic matter, upon which Somerset withdrew, Paula accompanying his exit with a remark that she hoped to see him again a little later in the day.

Somerset retired to the chambers of antique lumber, keeping an eye upon the windows to see if she re-entered the carriage and resumed her journey to Markton. But when the horses had been standing a long time the carriage was driven round to the stables. Then she was not going to the vegetable show. That was rather curious, seeing that she had only come back for something forgotten.

These queries and thoughts occupied the mind of Somerset until the bell was rung for luncheon. Owing to the very dusty condition in which he found himself after his morning’s labours among the old carvings he was rather late in getting downstairs, and seeing that the rest had gone in he went straight to the dining-hall.

The population of the castle had increased in his absence. There were assembled Paula and her friend Charlotte; a bearded man some years older than himself, with a cold grey eye, who was cursorily introduced to him in sitting down as Mr. Havill, an architect of Markton; also an elderly lady of dignified aspect, in a black satin dress, of which she apparently had a very high opinion. This lady, who seemed to be a mere dummy in the establishment, was, as he now learnt, Mrs. Goodman by name, a widow of a recently deceased gentleman, and aunt to Paula--the identical aunt who had smuggled Paula into a church in her helpless infancy, and had her christened without her parents’ knowledge. Having been left in narrow circumstances by her husband, she was at present living with Miss Power as chaperon and adviser on practical matters--in a word, as ballast to the management. Beyond her Somerset discerned his new acquaintance Mr. Woodwell, who on sight of Somerset was for hastening up to him and performing a laboured shaking of hands in earnest recognition.

Paula had just come in from the garden, and was carelessly laying down her large shady hat as he entered. Her dress, a figured material in black and white, was short, allowing her feet to appear. There was something in her look, and in the style of her corsage, which reminded him of several of the bygone beauties in the gallery. The thought for a moment crossed his mind that she might have been imitating one of them.

‘Fine old screen, sir!’ said Mr. Havill, in a long-drawn voice across the table when they were seated, pointing in the direction of the traceried oak division between the dining-hall and a vestibule at the end. ‘As good a piece of fourteenth-century work as you shall see in this part of the country.’

‘You mean fifteenth century, of course?’ said Somerset.

Havill was silent. ‘You are one of the profession, perhaps?’ asked the latter, after a while.

‘You mean that I am an architect?’ said Somerset. ‘Yes.’

‘Ah--one of my own honoured vocation.’ Havill’s face had been not unpleasant until this moment, when he smiled; whereupon there instantly gleamed over him a phase of meanness, remaining until the smile died away.

Havill continued, with slow watchfulness:--

‘What enormous sacrileges are committed by the builders every day, I observe! I was driving yesterday to Toneborough where I am erecting a town-hall, and passing through a village on my way I saw the workmen pulling down a chancel-wall in which they found imbedded a unique specimen of Perpendicular work--a capital from some old arcade--the mouldings wonderfully undercut. They were smashing it up as filling-in for the new wall.’

‘It must have been unique,’ said Somerset, in the too-readily controversial tone of the educated young man who has yet to learn diplomacy. ‘I have never seen much undercutting in Perpendicular stone-work; nor anybody else, I think.’

‘O yes--lots of it!’ said Mr. Havill, nettled.

Paula looked from one to the other. ‘Which am I to take as guide?’ she asked. ‘Are Perpendicular capitals undercut, as you call it, Mr. Havill, or no?’

‘It depends upon circumstances,’ said Mr. Havill.

But Somerset had answered at the same time: ‘There is seldom or never any marked undercutting in moulded work later than the middle of the fourteenth century.’

Havill looked keenly at Somerset for a time: then he turned to Paula: ‘As regards that fine Saxon vaulting you did me the honour to consult me about the other day, I should advise taking out some of the old stones and reinstating new ones exactly like them.’

‘But the new ones won’t be Saxon,’ said Paula. ‘And then in time to come, when I have passed away, and those stones have become stained like the rest, people will be deceived. I should prefer an honest patch to any such make-believe of Saxon relics.’

As she concluded she let her eyes rest on Somerset for a moment, as if to ask him to side with her. Much as he liked talking to Paula, he would have preferred not to enter into this discussion with another professional man, even though that man were a spurious article; but he was led on to enthusiasm by a sudden pang of regret at finding that the masterly workmanship in this fine castle was likely to be tinkered and spoilt by such a man as Havill.

‘You will deceive nobody into believing that anything is Saxon here,’ he said warmly. ‘There is not a square inch of Saxon work, as it is called, in the whole castle.’

Paula, in doubt, looked to Mr. Havill.

‘O yes, sir; you are quite mistaken,’ said that gentleman slowly. ‘Every stone of those lower vaults was reared in Saxon times.’

‘I can assure you,’ said Somerset deferentially, but firmly, ‘that there is not an arch or wall in this castle of a date anterior to the year 1100; no one whose attention has ever been given to the study of architectural details of that age can be of a different opinion.’

‘I have studied architecture, and I am of a different opinion. I have the best reason in the world for the difference, for I have history herself on my side. What will you say when I tell you that it is a recorded fact that this was used as a castle by the Romans, and that it is mentioned in Domesday as a building of long standing?’

‘I shall say that has nothing to do with it,’ replied the young man. ‘I don’t deny that there may have been a castle here in the time of the Romans: what I say is, that none of the architecture we now see was standing at that date.’

There was a silence of a minute, disturbed only by a murmured dialogue between Mrs. Goodman and the minister, during which Paula was looking thoughtfully on the table as if framing a question.

‘Can it be,’ she said to Somerset, ‘that such certainty has been reached in the study of architectural dates? Now, would you really risk anything on your belief? Would you agree to be shut up in the vaults and fed upon bread and water for a week if I could prove you wrong?’

‘Willingly,’ said Somerset. ‘The date of those towers and arches is matter of absolute certainty from the details. That they should have been built before the Conquest is as unlikely as, say, that the rustiest old gun with a percussion lock should be older than the date of Waterloo.’

‘How I wish I knew something precise of an art which makes one so independent of written history!’

Mr. Havill had lapsed into a mannerly silence that was only sullenness disguised. Paula turned her conversation to Miss De Stancy, who had simply looked from one to the other during the discussion, though she might have been supposed to have a prescriptive right to a few remarks on the matter. A commonplace talk ensued, till Havill, who had not joined in it, privately began at Somerset again with a mixed manner of cordiality, contempt, and misgiving.

‘You have a practice, I suppose, sir?’

‘I am not in practice just yet.’

‘Just beginning?’

‘I am about to begin.’

‘In London, or near here?’

‘In London probably.’

‘H’m.... I am practising in Markton.’

‘Indeed. Have you been at it long?’

‘Not particularly. I designed the chapel built by this lady’s late father; it was my first undertaking--I owe my start, in fact, to Mr. Power. Ever build a chapel?’

‘Never. I have sketched a good many churches.’

‘Ah--there we differ. I didn’t do much sketching in my youth, nor have I time for it now. Sketching and building are two different things, to my mind. I was not brought up to the profession--got into it through sheer love of it. I began as a landscape gardener, then I became a builder, then I was a road contractor. Every architect might do worse than have some such experience. But nowadays ‘tis the men who can draw pretty pictures who get recommended, not the practical men. Young prigs win Institute medals for a pretty design or two which, if anybody tried to build them, would fall down like a house of cards; then they get travelling studentships and what not, and then they start as architects of some new school or other, and think they are the masters of us experienced ones.’

While Somerset was reflecting how far this statement was true, he heard the voice of Paula inquiring, ‘Who can he be?’

Her eyes were bent on the window. Looking out, Somerset saw in the mead beyond the dry ditch, Dare, with his photographic apparatus.

‘He is the young gentleman who called about taking views of the castle,’ said Charlotte.

‘O yes--I remember; it is quite right. He met me in the village and asked me to suggest him some views. I thought him a respectable young fellow.’

‘I think he is a Canadian,’ said Somerset.

‘No,’ said Paula, ‘he is from the East--at least he implied so to me.’

‘There is Italian blood in him,’ said Charlotte brightly. ‘For he spoke to me with an Italian accent. But I can’t think whether he is a boy or a man.’

‘It is to be earnestly hoped that the gentleman does not prevaricate,’ said the minister, for the first time attracted by the subject. ‘I accidentally met him in the lane, and he said something to me about having lived in Malta. I think it was Malta, or Gibraltar--even if he did not say that he was born there.’

‘His manners are no credit to his nationality,’ observed Mrs. Goodman, also speaking publicly for the first time. ‘He asked me this morning to send him out a pail of water for his process, and before I had turned away he began whistling. I don’t like whistlers.’

‘Then it appears,’ said Somerset, ‘that he is a being of no age, no nationality, and no behaviour.’

‘A complete negative,’ added Havill, brightening into a civil sneer. ‘That is, he would be, if he were not a maker of negatives well known in Markton.’

‘Not well known, Mr. Havill,’ answered Mrs. Goodman firmly. ‘For I lived in Markton for thirty years ending three months ago, and he was never heard of in my time.’

‘He is something like you, Charlotte,’ said Paula, smiling playfully on her companion.

All the men looked at Charlotte, on whose face a delicate nervous blush thereupon made its appearance.

‘’Pon my word there is a likeness, now I think of it,’ said Havill.

Paula bent down to Charlotte and whispered: ‘Forgive my rudeness, dear. He is not a nice enough person to be like you. He is really more like one or other of the old pictures about the house. I forget which, and really it does not matter.’

‘People’s features fall naturally into groups and classes,’ remarked Somerset. ‘To an observant person they often repeat themselves; though to a careless eye they seem infinite in their differences.’

The conversation flagged, and they idly observed the figure of the cosmopolite Dare as he walked round his instrument in the mead and busied himself with an arrangement of curtains and lenses, occasionally withdrawing a few steps, and looking contemplatively at the towers and walls.

IX.

Somerset returned to the top of the great tower with a vague consciousness that he was going to do something up there--perhaps sketch a general plan of the structure. But he began to discern that this Stancy-Castle episode in his studies of Gothic architecture might be less useful than ornamental to him as a professional man, though it was too agreeable to be abandoned. Finding after a while that his drawing progressed but slowly, by reason of infinite joyful thoughts more allied to his nature than to his art, he relinquished rule and compass, and entered one of the two turrets opening on the roof. It was not the staircase by which he had ascended, and he proceeded to explore its lower part. Entering from the blaze of light without, and imagining the stairs to descend as usual, he became aware after a few steps that there was suddenly nothing to tread on, and found himself precipitated downwards to a distance of several feet.

Arrived at the bottom, he was conscious of the happy fact that he had not seriously hurt himself, though his leg was twisted awkwardly. Next he perceived that the stone steps had been removed from the turret, so that he had dropped into it as into a dry well; that, owing to its being walled up below, there was no door of exit on either side of him; that he was, in short, a prisoner.

Placing himself in a more comfortable position he calmly considered the best means of getting out, or of making his condition known. For a moment he tried to drag himself up by his arm, but it was a hopeless attempt, the height to the first step being far too great.

He next looked round at a lower level. Not far from his left elbow, in the concave of the outer wall, was a slit for the admission of light, and he perceived at once that through this slit alone lay his chance of communicating with the outer world. At first it seemed as if it were to be done by shouting, but when he learnt what little effect was produced by his voice in the midst of such a mass of masonry, his heart failed him for a moment. Yet, as either Paula or Miss De Stancy would probably guess his visit to the top of the tower, there was no cause for terror, if some for alarm.

He put his handkerchief through the window-slit, so that it fluttered outside, and, fixing it in its place by a large stone drawn from the loose ones around him, awaited succour as best he could. To begin this course of procedure was easy, but to abide in patience till it should produce fruit was an irksome task. As nearly as he could guess--for his watch had been stopped by the fall--it was now about four o’clock, and it would be scarcely possible for evening to approach without some eye or other noticing the white signal. So Somerset waited, his eyes lingering on the little world of objects around him, till they all became quite familiar. Spiders’-webs in plenty were there, and one in particular just before him was in full use as a snare, stretching across the arch of the window, with radiating threads as its ribs. Somerset had plenty of time, and he counted their number--fifteen. He remained so silent that the owner of this elaborate structure soon forgot the disturbance which had resulted in the breaking of his diagonal ties, and crept out from the corner to mend them. In watching the process, Somerset noticed that on the stonework behind the web sundry names and initials had been cut by explorers in years gone by. Among these antique inscriptions he observed two bright and clean ones, consisting of the words ‘De Stancy’ and ‘W. Dare,’ crossing each other at right angles. From the state of the stone they could not have been cut more than a month before this date, and, musing on the circumstance, Somerset passed the time until the sun reached the slit in that side of the tower, where, beginning by throwing in a streak of fire as narrow as a corn-stalk, it enlarged its width till the dusty nook was flooded with cheerful light. It disclosed something lying in the corner, which on examination proved to be a dry bone. Whether it was human, or had come from the castle larder in bygone times, he could not tell. One bone was not a whole skeleton, but it made him think of Ginevra of Modena, the heroine of the Mistletoe Bough, and other cribbed and confined wretches, who had fallen into such traps and been discovered after a cycle of years.

The sun’s rays had travelled some way round the interior when Somerset’s waiting ears were at last attracted by footsteps above, each tread being brought down by the hollow turret with great fidelity. He hoped that with these sounds would arise that of a soft voice he had begun to like well. Indeed, during the solitary hour or two of his waiting here he had pictured Paula straying alone on the terrace of the castle, looking up, noting his signal, and ascending to deliver him from his painful position by her own exertions. It seemed that at length his dream had been verified. The footsteps approached the opening of the turret; and, attracted by the call which Somerset now raised, began to descend towards him. In a moment, not Paula’s face, but that of a dreary footman of her household, looked into the hole.

Somerset mastered his disappointment, and the man speedily fetched a ladder, by which means the prisoner of two hours ascended to the roof in safety. During the process he ventured to ask for the ladies of the house, and learnt that they had gone out for a drive together.

Before he left the castle, however, they had returned, a circumstance unexpectedly made known to him by his receiving a message from Miss Power, to the effect that she would be glad to see him at his convenience. Wondering what it could possibly mean, he followed the messenger to her room--a small modern library in the Jacobean wing of the house, adjoining that in which the telegraph stood. She was alone, sitting behind a table littered with letters and sketches, and looking fresh from her drive. Perhaps it was because he had been shut up in that dismal dungeon all the afternoon that he felt something in her presence which at the same time charmed and refreshed him.

She signified that he was to sit down; but finding that he was going to place himself on a straight-backed chair some distance off she said, ‘Will you sit nearer to me?’ and then, as if rather oppressed by her dignity, she left her own chair of business and seated herself at ease on an ottoman which was among the diversified furniture of the apartment.

‘I want to consult you professionally,’ she went on. ‘I have been much impressed by your great knowledge of castellated architecture. Will you sit in that leather chair at the table, as you may have to take notes?’

The young man assented, expressed his gratification, and went to the chair she designated.

‘But, Mr. Somerset,’ she continued, from the ottoman--the width of the table only dividing them--‘I first should just like to know, and I trust you will excuse my inquiry, if you are an architect in practice, or only as yet studying for the profession?’

‘I am just going to practise. I open my office on the first of January next,’ he answered.

‘You would not mind having me as a client--your first client?’ She looked curiously from her sideway face across the table as she said this.

‘Can you ask it!’ said Somerset warmly. ‘What are you going to build?’

‘I am going to restore the castle.’

‘What, all of it?’ said Somerset, astonished at the audacity of such an undertaking.

‘Not the parts that are absolutely ruinous: the walls battered by the Parliament artillery had better remain as they are, I suppose. But we have begun wrong; it is I who should ask you, not you me.... I fear,’ she went on, in that low note which was somewhat difficult to catch at a distance, ‘I fear what the antiquarians will say if I am not very careful. They come here a great deal in summer and if I were to do the work wrong they would put my name in the papers as a dreadful person. But I must live here, as I have no other house, except the one in London, and hence I must make the place habitable. I do hope I can trust to your judgment?’

‘I hope so,’ he said, with diffidence, for, far from having much professional confidence, he often mistrusted himself. ‘I am a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and a Member of the Institute of British Architects--not a Fellow of that body yet, though I soon shall be.’

‘Then I am sure you must be trustworthy,’ she said, with enthusiasm. ‘Well, what am I to do?--How do we begin?’

Somerset began to feel more professional, what with the business chair and the table, and the writing-paper, notwithstanding that these articles, and the room they were in, were hers instead of his; and an evenness of manner which he had momentarily lost returned to him. ‘The very first step,’ he said, ‘is to decide upon the outlay--what is it to cost?’

He faltered a little, for it seemed to disturb the softness of their relationship to talk thus of hard cash. But her sympathy with his feeling was apparently not great, and she said, ‘The expenditure shall be what you advise.’

‘What a heavenly client!’ he thought. ‘But you must just give some idea,’ he said gently. ‘For the fact is, any sum almost may be spent on such a building: five thousand, ten thousand, twenty thousand, fifty thousand, a hundred thousand.’

‘I want it done well; so suppose we say a hundred thousand? My father’s solicitor--my solicitor now--says I may go to a hundred thousand without extravagance, if the expenditure is scattered over two or three years.’

Somerset looked round for a pen. With quickness of insight she knew what he wanted, and signified where one could be found. He wrote down in large figures--

100,000.

It was more than he had expected; and for a young man just beginning practice, the opportunity of playing with another person’s money to that extent would afford an exceptionally handsome opening, not so much from the commission it represented, as from the attention that would be bestowed by the art-world on such an undertaking.

Paula had sunk into a reverie. ‘I was intending to intrust the work to Mr. Havill, a local architect,’ she said. ‘But I gathered from his conversation with you to-day that his ignorance of styles might compromise me very seriously. In short, though my father employed him in one or two little matters, it would not be right--even a morally culpable thing--to place such an historically valuable building in his hands.’

‘Has Mr. Havill ever been led to expect the commission?’ he asked.

‘He may have guessed that he would have it. I have spoken of my intention to him more than once.’

Somerset thought over his conversation with Havill. Well, he did not like Havill personally; and he had strong reasons for suspecting that in the matter of architecture Havill was a quack. But was it quite generous to step in thus, and take away what would be a golden opportunity to such a man of making both ends meet comfortably for some years to come, without giving him at least one chance? He reflected a little longer, and then spoke out his feeling.

‘I venture to propose a slightly modified arrangement,’ he said. ‘Instead of committing the whole undertaking to my hands without better proof of my ability to carry it out than you have at present, let there be a competition between Mr. Havill and myself--let our rival plans for the restoration and enlargement be submitted to a committee of the Royal Institute of British Architects--and let the choice rest with them, subject of course to your approval.’

‘It is indeed generous of you to suggest it.’ She looked thoughtfully at him; he appeared to strike her in a new light. ‘You really recommend it?’ The fairness which had prompted his words seemed to incline her still more than before to resign herself entirely to him in the matter.

‘I do,’ said Somerset deliberately.

‘I will think of it, since you wish it. And now, what general idea have you of the plan to adopt? I do not positively agree to your suggestion as yet, so I may perhaps ask the question.’

Somerset, being by this time familiar with the general plan of the castle, took out his pencil and made a rough sketch. While he was doing it she rose, and coming to the back of his chair, bent over him in silence.

‘Ah, I begin to see your conception,’ she murmured; and the breath of her words fanned his ear. He finished the sketch, and held it up to her, saying--

‘I would suggest that you walk over the building with Mr. Havill and myself, and detail your ideas to us on each portion.’

‘Is it necessary?’

‘Clients mostly do it.’

‘I will, then. But it is too late for me this evening. Please meet me to-morrow at ten.’

X.

At ten o’clock they met in the same room, Paula appearing in a straw hat having a bent-up brim lined with plaited silk, so that it surrounded her forehead like a nimbus; and Somerset armed with sketch-book, measuring-rod, and other apparatus of his craft.

‘And Mr. Havill?’ said the young man.

‘I have not decided to employ him: if I do he shall go round with me independently of you,’ she replied rather brusquely.

Somerset was by no means sorry to hear this. His duty to Havill was done.

‘And now,’ she said, as they walked on together through the passages, ‘I must tell you that I am not a mediaevalist myself; and perhaps that’s a pity.’

‘What are you?’

‘I am Greek--that’s why I don’t wish to influence your design.’

Somerset, as they proceeded, pointed out where roofs had been and should be again, where gables had been pulled down, and where floors had vanished, showing her how to reconstruct their details from marks in the walls, much as a comparative anatomist reconstructs an antediluvian from fragmentary bones and teeth. She appeared to be interested, listened attentively, but said little in reply. They were ultimately in a long narrow passage, indifferently lighted, when Somerset, treading on a loose stone, felt a twinge of weakness in one knee, and knew in a moment that it was the result of the twist given by his yesterday’s fall. He paused, leaning against the wall.

‘What is it?’ said Paula, with a sudden timidity in her voice.

‘I slipped down yesterday,’ he said. ‘It will be right in a moment.’

‘I--can I help you?’ said Paula. But she did not come near him; indeed, she withdrew a little. She looked up the passage, and down the passage, and became conscious that it was long and gloomy, and that nobody was near. A curious coy uneasiness seemed to take possession of her. Whether she thought, for the first time, that she had made a mistake--that to wander about the castle alone with him was compromising, or whether it was the mere shy instinct of maidenhood, nobody knows; but she said suddenly, ‘I will get something for you, and return in a few minutes.’

‘Pray don’t--it has quite passed!’ he said, stepping out again.

But Paula had vanished. When she came back it was in the rear of Charlotte De Stancy. Miss De Stancy had a tumbler in one hand, half full of wine, which she offered him; Paula remaining in the background.

He took the glass, and, to satisfy his companions, drank a mouthful or two, though there was really nothing whatever the matter with him beyond the slight ache above mentioned. Charlotte was going to retire, but Paula said, quite anxiously, ‘You will stay with me, Charlotte, won’t you? Surely you are interested in what I am doing?’

‘What is it?’ said Miss De Stancy.

‘Planning how to mend and enlarge the castle. Tell Mr. Somerset what I want done in the quadrangle--you know quite well--and I will walk on.’

She walked on; but instead of talking on the subject as directed, Charlotte and Somerset followed chatting on indifferent matters. They came to an inner court and found Paula standing there.

She met Miss De Stancy with a smile. ‘Did you explain?’ she asked.

‘I have not explained yet.’ Paula seated herself on a stone bench, and Charlotte went on: ‘Miss Power thought of making a Greek court of this. But she will not tell you so herself, because it seems such dreadful anachronism.

‘I said I would not tell any architect myself,’ interposed Paula correctingly. ‘I did not then know that he would be Mr. Somerset.’

‘It is rather startling,’ said Somerset.

‘A Greek colonnade all round, you said, Paula,’ continued her less reticent companion. ‘A peristyle you called it--you saw it in a book, don’t you remember?--and then you were going to have a fountain in the middle, and statues like those in the British Museum.’

‘I did say so,’ remarked Paula, pulling the leaves from a young sycamore-tree that had sprung up between the joints of the paving.

From the spot where they sat they could see over the roofs the upper part of the great tower wherein Somerset had met with his misadventure. The tower stood boldly up in the sun, and from one of the slits in the corner something white waved in the breeze.

‘What can that be?’ said Charlotte. ‘Is it the fluff of owls, or a handkerchief?’