by Thomas Hardy
IX.
It was midnight at Coblenz, and the travellers had retired to rest intheir respective apartments, overlooking the river. Finding that therewas a moon shining, Paula leant out of her window. The tall rock ofEhrenbreitstein on the opposite shore was flooded with light, and abelated steamer was drawing up to the landing-stage, where it presentlydeposited its passengers.
'We should have come by the last boat, so as to have been touched intoromance by the rays of this moon, like those happy people,' said avoice.
She looked towards the spot whence the voice proceeded, which was awindow quite near at hand. De Stancy was smoking outside it, and shebecame aware that the words were addressed to her.
'You left me very abruptly,' he continued.
Paula's instinct of caution impelled her to speak.
'The windows are all open,' she murmured. 'Please be careful.'
'There are no English in this hotel except ourselves. I thank you forwhat you said to-day.'
'Please be careful,' she repeated.
'My dear Miss P----'
'Don't mention names, and don't continue the subject!'
'Life and death perhaps depend upon my renewing it soon!'
She shut the window decisively, possibly wondering if De Stancy haddrunk a glass or two of Steinberg more than was good for him, and sawno more of moonlit Ehrenbreitstein that night, and heard no more of DeStancy. But it was some time before he closed his window, and previousto doing so saw a dark form at an adjoining one on the other side.
It was Mr. Power, also taking the air. 'Well, what luck to-day?' saidPower.
'A decided advance,' said De Stancy.
None of the speakers knew that a little person in the room above heardall this out-of-window talk. Charlotte, though not looking out, had lefther casement open; and what reached her ears set her wondering as to theresult.
It is not necessary to detail in full De Stancy's imperceptible advanceswith Paula during that northward journey--so slowly performed that itseemed as if she must perceive there was a special reason for delayingher return to England. At Cologne one day he conveniently overtook herwhen she was ascending the hotel staircase. Seeing him, she went to thewindow of the entresol landing, which commanded a view of the Rhine,meaning that he should pass by to his room.
'I have been very uneasy,' began the captain, drawing up to her side;'and I am obliged to trouble you sooner than I meant to do.'
Paula turned her eyes upon him with some curiosity as to what was comingof this respectful demeanour. 'Indeed!' she said.
He then informed her that he had been overhauling himself since theylast talked, and had some reason to blame himself for bluntness andgeneral want of euphemism; which, although he had meant nothing by it,must have been very disagreeable to her. But he had always aimed atsincerity, particularly as he had to deal with a lady who despisedhypocrisy and was above flattery. However, he feared he might havecarried his disregard for conventionality too far. But from that timehe would promise that she should find an alteration by which he hopedhe might return the friendship at least of a young lady he honoured morethan any other in the world.
This retrograde movement was evidently unexpected by the honoured younglady herself. After being so long accustomed to rebuke him for hispersistence there was novelty in finding him do the work for her. Theguess might even have been hazarded that there was also disappointment.
Still looking across the river at the bridge of boats which stretched tothe opposite suburb of Deutz: 'You need not blame yourself,' she said,with the mildest conceivable manner, 'I can make allowances. All I wishis that you should remain under no misapprehension.'
'I comprehend,' he said thoughtfully. 'But since, by a perverse fate, Ihave been thrown into your company, you could hardly expect me to feeland act otherwise.'
'Perhaps not.'
'Since I have so much reason to be dissatisfied with myself,' he added,'I cannot refrain from criticizing elsewhere to a slight extent, andthinking I have to do with an ungenerous person.'
'Why ungenerous?'
'In this way; that since you cannot love me, you see no reason at allfor trying to do so in the fact that I so deeply love you; hence I saythat you are rather to be distinguished by your wisdom than by yourhumanity.'
'It comes to this, that if your words are all seriously meant it is muchto be regretted we ever met,' she murmured. 'Now will you go on to whereyou were going, and leave me here?'
Without a remonstrance he went on, saying with dejected whimsicality ashe smiled back upon her, 'You show a wisdom which for so young a lady isperfectly surprising.'
It was resolved to prolong the journey by a circuit through Holland andBelgium; but nothing changed in the attitudes of Paula and Captain DeStancy till one afternoon during their stay at the Hague, when they hadgone for a drive down to Scheveningen by the long straight avenue ofchestnuts and limes, under whose boughs tufts of wild parsley wavedtheir flowers, except where the buitenplaatsen of retired merchantsblazed forth with new paint of every hue. On mounting the dune whichkept out the sea behind the village a brisk breeze greeted their faces,and a fine sand blew up into their eyes. De Stancy screened Paula withhis umbrella as they stood with their backs to the wind, looking downon the red roofs of the village within the sea wall, and pulling at thelong grass which by some means found nourishment in the powdery soil ofthe dune.
When they had discussed the scene he continued, 'It always seems to methat this place reflects the average mood of human life. I mean, if westrike the balance between our best moods and our worst we shall findour average condition to stand at about the same pitch in emotionalcolour as these sandy dunes and this grey scene do in landscape.'
Paula contended that he ought not to measure everybody by himself.
'I have no other standard,' said De Stancy; 'and if my own is wrong, itis you who have made it so. Have you thought any more of what I said atCologne?'
'I don't quite remember what you did say at Cologne?'
'My dearest life!' Paula's eyes rounding somewhat, he corrected theexclamation. 'My dear Miss Power, I will, without reserve, tell it toyou all over again.'
'Pray spare yourself the effort,' she said drily. 'What has that onefatal step betrayed me into!... Do you seriously mean to say that I amthe cause of your life being coloured like this scene of grass and sand?If so, I have committed a very great fault!'
'It can be nullified by a word.'
'Such a word!'
'It is a very short one.'
'There's a still shorter one more to the purpose. Frankly, I believe yoususpect me to have some latent and unowned inclination for you--that youthink speaking is the only point upon which I am backward.... There now,it is raining; what shall we do? I thought this wind meant rain.'
'Do? Stand on here, as we are standing now.'
'Your sister and my aunt are gone under the wall. I think we will walktowards them.'
'You had made me hope,' he continued (his thoughts apparently far awayfrom the rain and the wind and the possibility of shelter), 'that youmight change your mind, and give to your original promise a liberalmeaning in renewing it. In brief I mean this, that you would allow it tomerge into an engagement. Don't think it presumptuous,' he went on, ashe held the umbrella over her; 'I am sure any man would speak as I do. Adistinct permission to be with you on probation--that was what you gaveme at Carlsruhe: and flinging casuistry on one side, what does thatmean?'
'That I am artistically interested in your family history.' And she wentout from the umbrella to the shelter of the hotel where she found heraunt and friend.
De Stancy could not but feel that his persistence had made someimpression. It was hardly possible that a woman of independent naturewould have tolerated his dangling at her side so long, if his presencewere wholly distasteful to her. That evening when driving back to theHague by a devious route through the dense avenues of the Bosch heconversed with her again; also the next day when standing by the Vijverlooking a
t the swans; and in each case she seemed to have at leastgot over her objection to being seen talking to him, apart from theremainder of the travelling party.
Scenes very similar to those at Scheveningen and on the Rhine wereenacted at later stages of their desultory journey. Mr. Power hadproposed to cross from Rotterdam; but a stiff north-westerly breezeprevailing Paula herself became reluctant to hasten back to StancyCastle. Turning abruptly they made for Brussels.
It was here, while walking homeward from the Park one morning, that heruncle for the first time alluded to the situation of affairs betweenherself and her admirer. The captain had gone up the Rue Royale with hissister and Mrs. Goodman, either to show them the house in which the balltook place on the eve of Quatre Bras or some other site of interest, andthe two Powers were thus left to themselves. To reach their hotel theypassed into a little street sloping steeply down from the Rue Royale tothe Place Ste. Gudule, where, at the moment of nearing the cathedral, awedding party emerged from the porch and crossed in front of uncle andniece.
'I hope,' said the former, in his passionless way, 'we shall see aperformance of this sort between you and Captain De Stancy, not so verylong after our return to England.'
'Why?' asked Paula, following the bride with her eyes.
'It is diplomatically, as I may say, such a highly correct thing--suchan expedient thing--such an obvious thing to all eyes.'
'Not altogether to mine, uncle,' she returned.
''Twould be a thousand pities to let slip such a neat offer of adjustingdifficulties as accident makes you in this. You could marry more tin,that's true; but you don't want it, Paula. You want a name, and historicwhat-do-they-call-it. Now by coming to terms with the captain you'll beLady De Stancy in a few years: and a title which is useless to him, anda fortune and castle which are in some degree useless to you, will makea splendid whole useful to you both.'
'I've thought it over--quite,' she answered. 'And I quite see whatthe advantages are. But how if I don't care one atom for artisticcompleteness and a splendid whole; and do care very much to do what myfancy inclines me to do?'
'Then I should say that, taking a comprehensive view of human natureof all colours, your fancy is about the silliest fancy existing on thisearthly ball.'
Paula laughed indifferently, and her uncle felt that, persistent as washis nature, he was the wrong man to influence her by argument. Paula'sblindness to the advantages of the match, if she were blind, was that ofa woman who wouldn't see, and the best argument was silence.
This was in some measure proved the next morning. When Paula made herappearance Mrs. Goodman said, holding up an envelope: 'Here's a letterfrom Mr. Somerset.'
'Dear me,' said she blandly, though a quick little flush ascended hercheek. 'I had nearly forgotten him!'
The letter on being read contained a request as brief as it wasunexpected. Having prepared all the drawings necessary for therebuilding, Somerset begged leave to resign the superintendence of thework into other hands.
'His letter caps your remarks very aptly,' said Mrs. Goodman, withsecret triumph. 'You are nearly forgetting him, and he is quiteforgetting you.'
'Yes,' said Paula, affecting carelessness. 'Well, I must get somebodyelse, I suppose.'