Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (368 page)

Dare was breathing profoundly. Instigated as above mentioned, Havill got out of bed and stood beside the sleeper. After a moment’s pause he gently pulled back the unfastened collar of Dare’s nightshirt and saw a word tattooed in distinct characters on his breast. Before there was time for Havill to decipher it Dare moved slightly, as if conscious of disturbance, and Havill hastened back to bed. Dare bestirred himself yet more, whereupon Havill breathed heavily, though keeping an intent glance on the lad through his half-closed eyes to learn if he had been aware of the investigation.

Dare was certainly conscious of something, for he sat up, rubbed his eyes, and gazed around the room; then after a few moments of reflection he drew some article from beneath his pillow. A blue gleam shone from the object as Dare held it in the moonlight, and Havill perceived that it was a small revolver.

A clammy dew broke out upon the face and body of the architect when, stepping out of bed with the weapon in his hand, Dare looked under the bed, behind the curtains, out of the window, and into a closet, as if convinced that something had occurred, but in doubt as to what it was. He then came across to where Havill was lying and still keeping up the appearance of sleep. Watching him awhile and mistrusting the reality of this semblance, Dare brought it to the test by holding the revolver within a few inches of Havill’s forehead.

Havill could stand no more. Crystallized with terror, he said, without however moving more than his lips, in dread of hasty action on the part of Dare: ‘O, good Lord, Dare, Dare, I have done nothing!’

The youth smiled and lowered the pistol. ‘I was only finding out whether it was you or some burglar who had been playing tricks upon me. I find it was you.’

‘Do put away that thing! It is too ghastly to produce in a respectable bedroom. Why do you carry it?’

‘Cosmopolites always do. Now answer my questions. What were you up to?’ and Dare as he spoke played with the pistol again.

Havill had recovered some coolness. ‘You could not use it upon me,’ he said sardonically, watching Dare. ‘It would be risking your neck for too little an object.’

‘I did not think you were shrewd enough to see that,’ replied Dare carelessly, as he returned the revolver to its place. ‘Well, whether you have outwitted me or no, you will keep the secret as long as I choose.’

‘Why?’ said Havill.

‘Because I keep your secret of the letter abusing Miss P., and of the pilfered tracing you carry in your pocket.’

‘It is quite true,’ said Havill.

They went to bed again. Dare was soon asleep; but Havill did not attempt to disturb him again. The elder man slept but fitfully. He was aroused in the morning by a heavy rumbling and jingling along the highway overlooked by the window, the front wall of the house being shaken by the reverberation.

‘There is no rest for me here,’ he said, rising and going to the window, carefully avoiding the neighbourhood of Mr. Dare. When Havill had glanced out he returned to dress himself.

‘What’s that noise?’ said Dare, awakened by the same rumble.

‘It is the Artillery going away.’

‘From where?’

‘Markton barracks.’

‘Hurrah!’ said Dare, jumping up in bed. ‘I have been waiting for that these six weeks.’

Havill did not ask questions as to the meaning of this unexpected remark.

When they were downstairs Dare’s first act was to ring the bell and ask if his Army and Navy Gazette had arrived.

While the servant was gone Havill cleared his throat and said, ‘I am an architect, and I take in the Architect; you are an architect, and you take in the Army and Navy Gazette.’

‘I am not an architect any more than I am a soldier; but I have taken in the Army and Navy Gazette these many weeks.’

When they were at breakfast the paper came in. Dare hastily tore it open and glanced at the pages.

‘I am going to Markton after breakfast!’ he said suddenly, before looking up; ‘we will walk together if you like?’

They walked together as planned, and entered Markton about ten o’clock.

‘I have just to make a call here,’ said Dare, when they were opposite the barrack-entrance on the outskirts of the town, where wheel-tracks and a regular chain of hoof-marks left by the departed batteries were imprinted in the gravel between the open gates. ‘I shall not be a moment.’ Havill stood still while his companion entered and asked the commissary in charge, or somebody representing him, when the new batteries would arrive to take the place of those which had gone away. He was informed that it would be about noon.

‘Now I am at your service,’ said Dare, ‘and will help you to rearrange your design by the new intellectual light we have acquired.’

They entered Havill’s office and set to work. When contrasted with the tracing from Somerset’s plan, Havill’s design, which was not far advanced, revealed all its weaknesses to him. After seeing Somerset’s scheme the bands of Havill’s imagination were loosened: he laid his own previous efforts aside, got fresh sheets of drawing-paper and drew with vigour.

‘I may as well stay and help you,’ said Dare. ‘I have nothing to do till twelve o’clock; and not much then.’

So there he remained. At a quarter to twelve children and idlers began to gather against the railings of Havill’s house. A few minutes past twelve the noise of an arriving host was heard at the entrance to the town. Thereupon Dare and Havill went to the window.

The X and Y Batteries of the Z Brigade, Royal Horse Artillery, were entering Markton, each headed by the major with his bugler behind him. In a moment they came abreast and passed, every man in his place; that is to say:

Six shining horses, in pairs, harnessed by rope-traces white as milk, with a driver on each near horse: two gunners on the lead-coloured stout-wheeled limber, their carcases jolted to a jelly for lack of springs: two gunners on the lead-coloured stout-wheeled gun-carriage, in the same personal condition: the nine-pounder gun, dipping its heavy head to earth, as if ashamed of its office in these enlightened times: the complement of jingling and prancing troopers, riding at the wheels and elsewhere: six shining horses with their drivers, and traces white as milk, as before: two more gallant jolted men, on another jolting limber, and more stout wheels and lead-coloured paint: two more jolted men on another drooping gun: more jingling troopers on horseback: again six shining draught-horses, traces, drivers, gun, gunners, lead paint, stout wheels and troopers as before.

So each detachment lumbered slowly by, all eyes martially forward, except when wandering in quest of female beauty.

‘He’s a fine fellow, is he not?’ said Dare, denoting by a nod a mounted officer, with a sallow, yet handsome face, and black moustache, who came up on a bay gelding with the men of his battery.

‘What is he?’ said Havill.

‘A captain who lacks advancement.’

‘Do you know him?’

‘I know him?’

‘Yes; do you?’

Dare made no reply; and they watched the captain as he rode past with his drawn sword in his hand, the sun making a little sun upon its blade, and upon his brilliantly polished long boots and bright spurs; also warming his gold cross-belt and braidings, white gloves, busby with its red bag, and tall white plume.

Havill seemed to be too indifferent to press his questioning; and when all the soldiers had passed by, Dare observed to his companion that he should leave him for a short time, but would return in the afternoon or next day.

After this he walked up the street in the rear of the artillery, following them to the barracks. On reaching the gates he found a crowd of people gathered outside, looking with admiration at the guns and gunners drawn up within the enclosure. When the soldiers were dismissed to their quarters the sightseers dispersed, and Dare went through the gates to the barrack-yard.

The guns were standing on the green; the soldiers and horses were scattered about, and the handsome captain whom Dare had pointed out to Havill was inspecting the buildings in the company of the quartermaster. Dare made a mental note of these things, and, apparently changing a previous intention, went out from the barracks and returned to the town.

CHAPTER IV.

To return for a while to George Somerset. The sun of his later existence having vanished from that young man’s horizon, he confined himself closely to the studio, superintending the exertions of his draughtsmen Bowles, Knowles, and Cockton, who were now in the full swing of working out Somerset’s creations from the sketches he had previously prepared.

He had so far got the start of Havill in the competition that, by the help of these three gentlemen, his design was soon finished. But he gained no unfair advantage on this account, an additional month being allowed to Havill to compensate for his later information.

Before scaling up his drawings Somerset wished to spend a short time in London, and dismissing his assistants till further notice, he locked up the rooms which had been appropriated as office and studio and prepared for the journey.

It was afternoon. Somerset walked from the castle in the direction of the wood to reach Markton by a detour. He had not proceeded far when there approached his path a man riding a bay horse with a square-cut tail. The equestrian wore a grizzled beard, and looked at Somerset with a piercing eye as he noiselessly ambled nearer over the soft sod of the park. He proved to be Mr. Cunningham Haze, chief constable of the district, who had become slightly known to Somerset during his sojourn here.

‘One word, Mr. Somerset,’ said the Chief, after they had exchanged nods of recognition, reining his horse as he spoke.

Somerset stopped.

‘You have a studio at the castle in which you are preparing drawings?’

‘I have.’

‘Have you a clerk?’

‘I had three till yesterday, when I paid them off.’

‘Would they have any right to enter the studio late at night?’

‘There would have been nothing wrong in their doing so. Either of them might have gone back at any time for something forgotten. They lived quite near the castle.’

‘Ah, then all is explained. I was riding past over the grass on the night of last Thursday, and I saw two persons in your studio with a light. It must have been about half-past nine o’clock. One of them came forward and pulled down the blind so that the light fell upon his face. But I only saw it for a short time.’

‘If it were Knowles or Cockton he would have had a beard.’

‘He had no beard.’

‘Then it must have been Bowles. A young man?’

‘Quite young. His companion in the background seemed older.’

‘They are all about the same age really. By the way — it couldn’t have been Dare — and Havill, surely! Would you recognize them again?’

‘The young one possibly. The other not at all, for he remained in the shade.’

Somerset endeavoured to discern in a description by the chief constable the features of Mr. Bowles: but it seemed to approximate more closely to Dare in spite of himself. ‘I’ll make a sketch of the only one who had no business there, and show it to you,’ he presently said. ‘I should like this cleared up.’

Mr. Cunningham Haze said he was going to Toneborough that afternoon, but would return in the evening before Somerset’s departure. With this they parted. A possible motive for Dare’s presence in the rooms had instantly presented itself to Somerset’s mind, for he had seen Dare enter Havill’s office more than once, as if he were at work there.

He accordingly sat on the next stile, and taking out his pocket-book began a pencil sketch of Dare’s head, to show to Mr. Haze in the evening; for if Dare had indeed found admission with Havill, or as his agent, the design was lost.

But he could not make a drawing that was a satisfactory likeness. Then he luckily remembered that Dare, in the intense warmth of admiration he had affected for Somerset on the first day or two of their acquaintance, had begged for his photograph, and in return for it had left one of himself on the mantelpiece, taken as he said by his own process. Somerset resolved to show this production to Mr. Haze, as being more to the purpose than a sketch, and instead of finishing the latter, proceeded on his way.

He entered the old overgrown drive which wound indirectly through the wood to Markton. The road, having been laid out for idling rather than for progress, bent sharply hither and thither among the fissured trunks and layers of horny leaves which lay there all the year round, interspersed with cushions of vivid green moss that formed oases in the rust-red expanse.

Reaching a point where the road made one of its bends between two large beeches, a man and woman revealed themselves at a few yards’ distance, walking slowly towards him. In the short and quaint lady he recognized Charlotte De Stancy, whom he remembered not to have seen for several days.

She slightly blushed and said, ‘O, this is pleasant, Mr. Somerset! Let me present my brother to you, Captain De Stancy of the Royal Horse Artillery.’

Her brother came forward and shook hands heartily with Somerset; and they all three rambled on together, talking of the season, the place, the fishing, the shooting, and whatever else came uppermost in their minds.

Captain De Stancy was a personage who would have been called interesting by women well out of their teens. He was ripe, without having declined a digit towards fogeyism. He was sufficiently old and experienced to suggest a goodly accumulation of touching amourettes in the chambers of his memory, and not too old for the possibility of increasing the store. He was apparently about eight-and-thirty, less tall than his father had been, but admirably made; and his every movement exhibited a fine combination of strength and flexibility of limb. His face was somewhat thin and thoughtful, its complexion being naturally pale, though darkened by exposure to a warmer sun than ours. His features were somewhat striking; his moustache and hair raven black; and his eyes, denied the attributes of military keenness by reason of the largeness and darkness of their aspect, acquired thereby a softness of expression that was in part womanly. His mouth as far as it could be seen reproduced this characteristic, which might have been called weakness, or goodness, according to the mental attitude of the observer. It was large but well formed, and showed an unimpaired line of teeth within. His dress at present was a heather-coloured rural suit, cut close to his figure.