Complete Works of Thomas Hardy (Illustrated) (370 page)

‘I shall be glad to hear of any such scheme,’ answered De Stancy, with a languid attempt at jocularity.

‘Then here it is. The plan I have arranged for you is of the nature of a marriage.’

‘You are very kind!’ said De Stancy, agape.

‘The lady’s name is Miss Paula Power, who, as you may have heard since your arrival, is in absolute possession of her father’s property and estates, including Stancy Castle. As soon as I heard of her I saw what a marvellous match it would be for you, and your family; it would make a man of you, in short, and I have set my mind upon your putting no objection in the way of its accomplishment.’

‘But, Willy, it seems to me that, of us two, it is you who exercise paternal authority?’

‘True, it is for your good. Let me do it.’

‘Well, one must be indulgent under the circumstances, I suppose.... But,’ added De Stancy simply, ‘Willy, I — don’t want to marry, you know. I have lately thought that some day we may be able to live together, you and I: go off to America or New Zealand, where we are not known, and there lead a quiet, pastoral life, defying social rules and troublesome observances.’

‘I can’t hear of it, captain,’ replied Dare reprovingly. ‘I am what events have made me, and having fixed my mind upon getting you settled in life by this marriage, I have put things in train for it at an immense trouble to myself. If you had thought over it o’ nights as much as I have, you would not say nay.’

‘But I ought to have married your mother if anybody. And as I have not married her, the least I can do in respect to her is to marry no other woman.’

‘You have some sort of duty to me, have you not, Captain De Stancy?’

‘Yes, Willy, I admit that I have,’ the elder replied reflectively. ‘And I don’t think I have failed in it thus far?’

‘This will be the crowning proof. Paternal affection, family pride, the noble instincts to reinstate yourself in the castle of your ancestors, all demand the step. And when you have seen the lady! She has the figure and motions of a sylph, the face of an angel, the eye of love itself. What a sight she is crossing the lawn on a sunny afternoon, or gliding airily along the corridors of the old place the De Stancys knew so well! Her lips are the softest, reddest, most distracting things you ever saw. Her hair is as soft as silk, and of the rarest, tenderest brown.’

The captain moved uneasily. ‘Don’t take the trouble to say more, Willy,’ he observed. ‘You know how I am. My cursed susceptibility to these matters has already wasted years of my life, and I don’t want to make myself a fool about her too.’

‘You must see her.’

‘No, don’t let me see her,’ De Stancy expostulated. ‘If she is only half so good-looking as you say, she will drag me at her heels like a blind Samson. You are a mere youth as yet, but I may tell you that the misfortune of never having been my own master where a beautiful face was concerned obliges me to be cautious if I would preserve my peace of mind.’

‘Well, to my mind, Captain De Stancy, your objections seem trivial. Are those all?’

‘They are all I care to mention just now to you.’

‘Captain! can there be secrets between us?’

De Stancy paused and looked at the lad as if his heart wished to confess what his judgment feared to tell. ‘There should not be — on this point,’ he murmured.

‘Then tell me — why do you so much object to her?’

‘I once vowed a vow.’

‘A vow!’ said Dare, rather disconcerted.

‘A vow of infinite solemnity. I must tell you from the beginning; perhaps you are old enough to hear it now, though you have been too young before. Your mother’s life ended in much sorrow, and it was occasioned entirely by me. In my regret for the wrong done her I swore to her that though she had not been my wife, no other woman should stand in that relationship to me; and this to her was a sort of comfort. When she was dead my knowledge of my own plaguy impressionableness, which seemed to be ineradicable — as it seems still — led me to think what safeguards I could set over myself with a view to keeping my promise to live a life of celibacy; and among other things I determined to forswear the society, and if possible the sight, of women young and attractive, as far as I had the power to do.’

‘It is not so easy to avoid the sight of a beautiful woman if she crosses your path, I should think?’

‘It is not easy; but it is possible.’

‘How?’

‘By directing your attention another way.’

‘But do you mean to say, captain, that you can be in a room with a pretty woman who speaks to you, and not look at her?’

‘I do: though mere looking has less to do with it than mental attentiveness — allowing your thoughts to flow out in her direction — to comprehend her image.’

‘But it would be considered very impolite not to look at the woman or comprehend her image?’

‘It would, and is. I am considered the most impolite officer in the service. I have been nicknamed the man with the averted eyes — the man with the detestable habit — the man who greets you with his shoulder, and so on. Ninety-and-nine fair women at the present moment hate me like poison and death for having persistently refused to plumb the depths of their offered eyes.’

‘How can you do it, who are by nature courteous?’

‘I cannot always — I break down sometimes. But, upon the whole, recollection holds me to it: dread of a lapse. Nothing is so potent as fear well maintained.’

De Stancy narrated these details in a grave meditative tone with his eyes on the wall, as if he were scarcely conscious of a listener.

‘But haven’t you reckless moments, captain? — when you have taken a little more wine than usual, for instance?’

‘I don’t take wine.’

‘O, you are a teetotaller?’

‘Not a pledged one — but I don’t touch alcohol unless I get wet, or anything of that sort.’

‘Don’t you sometimes forget this vow of yours to my mother?’

‘No, I wear a reminder.’

‘What is that like?’

De Stancy held up his left hand, on the third finger of which appeared an iron ring.

Dare surveyed it, saying, ‘Yes, I have seen that before, though I never knew why you wore it. Well, I wear a reminder also, but of a different sort.’

He threw open his shirt-front, and revealed tattooed on his breast the letters DE STANCY; the same marks which Havill had seen in the bedroom by the light of the moon.

The captain rather winced at the sight. ‘Well, well,’ he said hastily, ‘that’s enough.... Now, at any rate, you understand my objection to know Miss Power.’

‘But, captain,’ said the lad coaxingly, as he fastened his shirt; ‘you forget me and the good you may do me by marrying? Surely that’s a sufficient reason for a change of sentiment. This inexperienced sweet creature owns the castle and estate which bears your name, even to the furniture and pictures. She is the possessor of at least forty thousand a year — how much more I cannot say — while, buried here in Outer Wessex, she lives at the rate of twelve hundred in her simplicity.’

‘It is very good of you to set this before me. But I prefer to go on as I am going.’

‘Well, I won’t bore you any more with her to-day. A monk in regimentals! — ’tis strange.’ Dare arose and was about to open the door, when, looking through the window, Captain De Stancy said, ‘Stop.’ He had perceived his father, Sir William De Stancy, walking among the tombstones without.

‘Yes, indeed,’ said Dare, turning the key in the door. ‘It would look strange if he were to find us here.’

As the old man seemed indisposed to leave the churchyard just yet they sat down again.

‘What a capital card-table this green cloth would make,’ said Dare, as they waited. ‘You play, captain, I suppose?’

‘Very seldom.’

‘The same with me. But as I enjoy a hand of cards with a friend, I don’t go unprovided.’ Saying which, Dare drew a pack from the tail of his coat. ‘Shall we while away this leisure with the witching things?’

‘Really, I’d rather not.’

‘But,’ coaxed the young man, ‘I am in the humour for it; so don’t be unkind!’

‘But, Willy, why do you care for these things? Cards are harmless enough in their way; but I don’t like to see you carrying them in your pocket. It isn’t good for you.’

‘It was by the merest chance I had them. Now come, just one hand, since we are prisoners. I want to show you how nicely I can play. I won’t corrupt you!’

‘Of course not,’ said De Stancy, as if ashamed of what his objection implied. ‘You are not corrupt enough yourself to do that, I should hope.’

The cards were dealt and they began to play — Captain De Stancy abstractedly, and with his eyes mostly straying out of the window upon the large yew, whose boughs as they moved were distorted by the old green window-panes.

‘It is better than doing nothing,’ said Dare cheerfully, as the game went on. ‘I hope you don’t dislike it?’

‘Not if it pleases you,’ said De Stancy listlessly.

‘And the consecration of this place does not extend further than the aisle wall.’

‘Doesn’t it?’ said De Stancy, as he mechanically played out his cards. ‘What became of that box of books I sent you with my last cheque?’

‘Well, as I hadn’t time to read them, and as I knew you would not like them to be wasted, I sold them to a bloke who peruses them from morning till night. Ah, now you have lost a fiver altogether — how queer! We’ll double the stakes. So, as I was saying, just at the time the books came I got an inkling of this important business, and literature went to the wall.’

‘Important business — what?’

‘The capture of this lady, to be sure.’

De Stancy sighed impatiently. ‘I wish you were less calculating, and had more of the impulse natural to your years!’

‘Game — by Jove! You have lost again, captain. That makes — let me see — nine pounds fifteen to square us.’

‘I owe you that?’ said De Stancy, startled. ‘It is more than I have in cash. I must write another cheque.’

‘Never mind. Make it payable to yourself, and our connection will be quite unsuspected.’

Captain De Stancy did as requested, and rose from his seat. Sir William, though further off, was still in the churchyard.

‘How can you hesitate for a moment about this girl?’ said Dare, pointing to the bent figure of the old man. ‘Think of the satisfaction it would be to him to see his son within the family walls again. It should be a religion with you to compass such a legitimate end as this.’

‘Well, well, I’ll think of it,’ said the captain, with an impatient laugh. ‘You are quite a Mephistopheles, Will — I say it to my sorrow!’

‘Would that I were in your place.’

‘Would that you were! Fifteen years ago I might have called the chance a magnificent one.’

‘But you are a young man still, and you look younger than you are. Nobody knows our relationship, and I am not such a fool as to divulge it. Of course, if through me you reclaim this splendid possession, I should leave it to your feelings what you would do for me.’

Sir William had by this time cleared out of the churchyard, and the pair emerged from the vestry and departed. Proceeding towards Markton by the same bypath, they presently came to an eminence covered with bushes of blackthorn, and tufts of yellowing fern. From this point a good view of the woods and glades about Stancy Castle could be obtained. Dare stood still on the top and stretched out his finger; the captain’s eye followed the direction, and he saw above the many-hued foliage in the middle distance the towering keep of Paula’s castle.

‘That’s the goal of your ambition, captain — ambition do I say? — most righteous and dutiful endeavour! How the hoary shape catches the sunlight — it is the raison d’etre of the landscape, and its possession is coveted by a thousand hearts. Surely it is an hereditary desire of yours? You must make a point of returning to it, and appearing in the map of the future as in that of the past. I delight in this work of encouraging you, and pushing you forward towards your own. You are really very clever, you know, but — I say it with respect — how comes it that you want so much waking up?’

‘Because I know the day is not so bright as it seems, my boy. However, you make a little mistake. If I care for anything on earth, I do care for that old fortress of my forefathers. I respect so little among the living that all my reverence is for my own dead. But manoeuvring, even for my own, as you call it, is not in my line. It is distasteful — it is positively hateful to me.’

‘Well, well, let it stand thus for the present. But will you refuse me one little request — merely to see her? I’ll contrive it so that she may not see you. Don’t refuse me, it is the one thing I ask, and I shall think it hard if you deny me.’

‘O Will!’ said the captain wearily. ‘Why will you plead so? No — even though your mind is particularly set upon it, I cannot see her, or bestow a thought upon her, much as I should like to gratify you.’

CHAPTER VI.

When they had parted Dare walked along towards Markton with resolve on his mouth and an unscrupulous light in his prominent black eye. Could any person who had heard the previous conversation have seen him now, he would have found little difficulty in divining that, notwithstanding De Stancy’s obduracy, the reinstation of Captain De Stancy in the castle, and the possible legitimation and enrichment of himself, was still the dream of his brain. Even should any legal settlement or offspring intervene to nip the extreme development of his projects, there was abundant opportunity for his glorification. Two conditions were imperative. De Stancy must see Paula before Somerset’s return. And it was necessary to have help from Havill, even if it involved letting him know all.

Whether Havill already knew all was a nice question for Mr. Dare’s luminous mind. Havill had had opportunities of reading his secret, particularly on the night they occupied the same room. If so, by revealing it to Paula, Havill might utterly blast his project for the marriage. Havill, then, was at all risks to be retained as an ally.

Yet Dare would have preferred a stronger check upon his confederate than was afforded by his own knowledge of that anonymous letter and the competition trick. For were the competition lost to him, Havill would have no further interest in conciliating Miss Power; would as soon as not let her know the secret of De Stancy’s relation to him.