‘As for yourself, you are a Churchman at present, I presume?’
‘Yes; not but I was a Methodist once—ay, for a length of time. ’Twas owing to my taking a house next door to a chapel; so that what with hearing the organ bizz like a bee through the wall, and what with finding it saved umbrellas on wet Zundays, I went over to that faith for two years—though I believe I dropped money by it—I wouldn’t be the man to say so if I hadn’t. Howsomever, when I moved into this house I turned back again to my old religion. Faith, I don’t zee much difference: be you one, or be you t’other, you’ve got to get your living.’
‘The De Stancys, of course, have not much influence here now, for that, or any other thing?’
‘O no, no; not any at all. They be very low upon ground, and always will be now, I suppose. It was thoughted worthy of being recorded in history—you’ve read it, sir, no doubt?’
‘Not a word.’
‘O, then, you shall. I’ve got the history zomewhere. ’Twas gay manners that did it. The only bit of luck they have had of late years is Miss Power’s taking to little Miss De Stancy, and making her her company-keeper. I hope ’twill continue.’
That the two daughters of these antipodean families should be such intimate friends was a situation which pleased Somerset as much as it did the landlord. It was an engaging instance of that human progress on which he had expended many charming dreams in the years when poetry, theology, and the reorganization of society had seemed matters of more importance to him than a profession which should help him to a big house and income, a fair Deiopeia, and a lovely progeny. When he was alone he poured out a glass of wine, and silently drank the healths of the two generous-minded young women who, in this lonely district, had found sweet communion a necessity of life, and by pure and instinctive good sense had broken down a barrier which men thrice their age and repute would probably have felt it imperative to maintain. But perhaps this was premature: the omnipotent Miss Power’s character—practical or ideal, politic or impulsive—he as yet knew nothing of; and giving over reasoning from insufficient data he lapsed into mere conjecture.
V.
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