A Laodicean by Thomas Hardy - Comprehensive Study Guide

Overview and Principal Characters

• George Somerset: A tall, slender young architect of independent tastes and excursive instincts, son of a well-known Royal Academician painter. Having pursued various artistic styles—from French Gothic to Palladian, Renaissance, and Queen Anne—and spent two years writing poetry, he returns to architecture with a focus on native English Gothic.
• Paula Power: A modern, highly educated, and wealthy heiress, daughter of the late John Power, M.P. (a famous Nonconformist railway contractor). She owns Stancy Castle, inherited after her father's sudden death. Though raised in the Baptist faith, her eclectic, intellectual, and artistic tastes cause her to vacillate between modern progress and ancient romanticism.
• Captain William De Stancy (later Sir William De Stancy): A scion of the ancient De Stancy family, aged thirty-eight or thirty-nine, serving in the Royal Horse Artillery. A former man-about-town who had sworn a vow of celibacy and lived frugally after an early romantic tragedy, he becomes passionately enamoured with Paula.
• Sir William De Stancy: Captain De Stancy's father, an impoverished baronet residing at Myrtle Villa in Markton. Once a lavish horse-racer and speculator who lost the family estate to Mr. Wilkins, he now lives contentedly on strict financial frugality.
• Charlotte De Stancy: Sir William's gentle, self-sacrificing daughter and cousin to the late John Ravensbury. She becomes Paula's companion and bosom friend at the castle, while harbouring a secret, unrequited affection for George Somerset.
• William Dare: An enigmatic, unscrupulous youth of uncertain age ($16$ to $26$), a dilettante photographer and draughtsman. He is revealed to be Captain De Stancy's illegitimate son, possessing the word DE STANCY tattooed across his chest.
• Abner Power: Paula's long-lost uncle who spent years abroad. Secretly a former mechanical engineer in Geneva who constructed clockwork explosives for political revolutionaries before surviving a boat explosion that left his face heavily scarred.
• James Havill: A local architect in Markton who originally built the Nonconformist chapel for John Power. A pragmatic former landscape gardener and road contractor who competes with Somerset for the castle restoration.
• Mr. Woodwell: The fervent, austere Baptist minister of the chapel at Sleeping-Green, devoted to John Power's memory and troubled by Paula's spiritual lukewarmness.
• Mrs. Goodman: Paula's aunt and chaperon, a well-meaning widow who had secretly christened Paula in infancy.

Book The First: George Somerset

• Architectural Studies at Sleeping-Green:

  • On an August evening, George Somerset lingers in a graveyard to measure and copy the chevroned doorway of a transitional-style village church tower.
  • He uses a flexible leaden tape pressed into fillets and hollows to transfer exact moulding contours to his drawing-stool setup, which includes a sketching-block, small T-square, and bow-pencil.
  • His background involves shifting architectural enthusiasms: French Gothic, Palladian, Renaissance, and Queen Anne styles (studied via Revett, Stuart, and Chambers), followed by two years of writing verse before his father insisted on a practical career.
  • Pausing at a three-inch ash rail stile, he hears the old west-gallery hymn tune "New Sabbath" echoing from a valley below.

• The Baptist Chapel and the Refused Baptism:

  • Somerset descends the hill to a newly erected red-brick Dissenting chapel with pseudo-classic ornament, blue slate roof, and plate-glass windows. An oblong white stone reads: Erected 187-, AT THE SOLE EXPENSE OF JOHN POWER, ESQ., M.P.
  • Two young men carry pitchers of water from a stream to fill a leaking cistern for an adult immersion baptism.
  • A brougham arrives carrying Paula Power in black-and-white half-mourning, accompanied by a waiting-woman carrying wraps.
  • Inside, Mr. Woodwell reads scriptures beside a tank sunk into the floor. Paula appears at the brink in a flowing white robe, but hesitates, shakes her head, and refuses to undergo the ceremony despite the minister's entreaties regarding her late father's dying request.
  • Mr. Woodwell officially postpones the baptism and preaches a denunciatory sermon from Revelation 3:15-17 on the church of Laodicea ("thou art neither cold nor hot… I will spue thee out of my mouth").
  • Paula leaves in her brougham, retrieving her white Persian cat before driving off.

• Discovery of Stancy Castle:

  • Following a single humming telegraph wire mounted on ungrassed posts across a wild park down, Somerset arrives at the walls and towers of Stancy Castle (Castle de Stancy).
  • The telegraph wire leaps across the dry moat and girdling wall, vanishing through an arrow-slit into the ancient keep.
  • Returning at $10:30\text{ AM}$ the following morning, Somerset enters the outer ward, where gardeners are clearing flower beds, and notices a portcullis groove and an acorn bell-pull.
  • The porteress notes that only Miss Charlotte De Stancy is at home. Somerset is admitted by an intensely shaven butler and explores the coved-ceiling gallery containing heavily decayed De Stancy family portraits by Holbein, Jansen, Vandyck, Lely, Kneller, Reynolds, and Lawrence—all bearing a characteristic indent at the bridge of the nose.
  • On the north-east terrace, Somerset meets Charlotte De Stancy, who explains that her father sold the estate years ago to a blind wealthy man named Mr. Wilkins, from whom it was purchased by the late railway contractor Mr. John Power.
  • Charlotte explains that Paula Power is the current owner, having recently installed a telegraph wire costing $£6$ per mile and a modern second-telling clock in the keep cellar.
  • Somerset accidentally wanders into Paula's private suite, observing popular English, French, and Italian periodicals, a blue-and-white draped bed, Cinderella-sized satin slippers, and books including the Baptist Magazine, Wardlaw on Infant Baptism, Walford's County Families, and the Court Journal.

• Luncheon at Myrtle Villa:

  • Charlotte invites Somerset to lunch with her father, Sir William De Stancy, at Myrtle Villa—a neat, suburban streaked-brick dwelling in Markton.
  • Sir William, a stooped old man with cavernous eye-sockets, preaches maxims on frugality ("If a man knows how to spend less than his income… he has the philosopher's stone"). Glass cases over the fireplace display ancient iron castle keys, alongside large portraits of his ancestors.
  • At the roadside inn, the landlord reveals Sir William's past as a high-living horse-racer $40$ years prior who owned $30$ race-horses, $17$ coach-horses, and four-horse carriages with outriders, losing his fortune in racing, a failed watering-place, and an unproductive silver mine before Mr. Wilkins bought the castle and contents over a dinner table.

• Arrival of William Dare and Architectural Debates:

  • A telegraph message from Paula instructs that Somerset be given full access to the castle. Soon after, William Dare arrives presenting a card. He is an enigmatic youth with a valance hair fringe, wearing a questionable diamond ring, claiming to be a photographic amateur who has lived in India, Malta, Gibraltar, the Ionian Islands, and Canada.
  • Somerset encounters Mr. Woodwell in a shrubbery summer-house debating infant baptism with Paula. Somerset enters the discussion, citing early Church fathers (Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian, Nazianzen, Chrysostom, Jerome) and Apostolic tradition to defend pedobaptism.
  • Paula mistakes Somerset for the new local curate. Later, Somerset clarifies his identity as an architect.
  • At a castle luncheon attended by Paula, Charlotte, Mrs. Goodman, Mr. Woodwell, and local Markton architect James Havill, a debate arises regarding the castle's architecture. Havill incorrectly claims the vaulting is Saxon and that Perpendicular work features undercutting; Somerset proves that no architectural features predating $1100$ exist in the castle and that early Gothic undercutting is absent in later Perpendicular styles.

• The Restoration Project and Competition:

  • Exploring the keep tower, Somerset steps into an unfloored turret well where stone stairs were removed and becomes trapped for two hours. He observes a spider web with $15$ threads and carved names "De Stancy" and "W. Dare" before being rescued with a ladder by a footman.
  • Paula consults Somerset in her library regarding restoring the castle, offering an expenditure budget of $£100,000$ spread over two to three years.
  • To be fair to James Havill (her father's former architect), Somerset generously proposes an architectural design competition between Havill and himself, to be adjudicated by a committee of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).
  • Paula abandons her initial scheme for a Greek peristyle court after Somerset points out its stylistic anachronism within a medieval fortress.
  • During a stroll near the railway cutting, a train suddenly approaches while Somerset is examining the tunnel mouth built by John Power; Paula turns pale with terror for his safety. As they step off the track, a second train rushes past, blowing fallen leaves over them as they hold hands.
  • Somerset dismisses William Dare from his temporary employment as an assistant after Dare plots only three dimensions in two days; Dare secretly intercepts and destroys eight competing job applications sent to Somerset.
  • At a castle garden party on the $19 ext{th}$, Somerset dances with Paula in a lighted marquee during a thunderstorm. Retreating to a wooden tea-house, Somerset declares his love; Paula admits she likes him to love her, but refuses a kiss.

Book The Second: Dare and Havill

• Conspiracy and Blackmail:

  • William Dare reads Moivre's Doctrine of Chances in the studio. On the lawn, he finds Havill's lost pocket-book containing the interlined original draft of the anonymous newspaper letter attacking Paula as an iconoclast.
  • Dare blackmails Havill into an alliance aimed at securing Paula's hand and castle for another candidate while eliminating Somerset.
  • Visiting Havill's office in Markton High Street, Dare tricks a pressing creditor by falsely claiming Havill has secured the $£100,000$ Stancy Castle commission with a $£5,000$ architect's fee.
  • At night, Dare and Havill enter the castle studio while the butler is away and secretly trace Somerset's finished ground-plan restoration designs.
  • Stranded by a rainstorm at the Sleeping-Green inn, they drink port and share a double-bedded room.

• The Revelation of Dare's Parentage:

  • At $2:30 ext{ AM}$, Havill pulls back sleeping Dare's shirt collar and sees a word tattooed across his chest. Dare awakens, draws a small revolver, and holds it to Havill's forehead before lowering it.
  • The X and Y Batteries of the Z Brigade, Royal Horse Artillery, march into Markton. Dare points out Captain William De Stancy riding a bay gelding.
  • Somerset gives Chief Constable Cunningham Haze a photograph of Dare to identify a late-night intruder seen in his studio. Captain De Stancy sees the photo, turns pale, secretly swaps it with a random portrait from an album, and burns Dare's original photograph in the fire.
  • Captain De Stancy meets Dare near Myrtle Villa. They walk to Sleeping-Green Church vestry, where De Stancy writes a small cheque and Dare proposes a marriage scheme between De Stancy and Paula Power.
  • Captain De Stancy resists, citing a vow of celibacy made to Dare's deceased mother (symbolized by an iron ring on his finger) and a desire to live a quiet pastoral life in America or New Zealand. Dare unbuttons his shirt, revealing the tattooed letters DE STANCY, proving he is Captain De Stancy's illegitimate son.

• The Gymnasium Peep-Hole:

  • The competition results in a tie: the RIBA judges pronounce Somerset's and Havill's designs equal in merit, leaving the final choice to Paula.
  • Dare learns from Paula's maid, Milly Birch, that Paula uses an isolated wooden shrubbery gymnasium on wet mornings.
  • Dare removes a wooden fir billet from the gymnasium wall. On a rainy morning, after giving Captain De Stancy a flask of brandy-laced wine ("blushful Hippocrene"), Dare entices De Stancy to look through the aperture.
  • De Stancy beholds Paula in a pink flannel doublet and hose performing aerial exercises on ropes and swinging in a green silk hammock; sunlight through the lantern illuminates her, shattering De Stancy's vows of celibacy.

Book The Third: De Stancy

• De Stancy's Campaign:

  • Captain De Stancy abandons his teetotalism, uncorking wine sent anonymously by Dare and pouring his mineral water bottles out the window at $2 ext{ AM}$.
  • Charlotte reveals to De Stancy that Somerset loves Paula, and that she herself secretly loves Somerset.
  • De Stancy studies family history and portraits, noting a facial resemblance (including a mole on the cheek) to an ancestor, Edward De Stancy.
  • Visiting the castle gallery with Paula, De Stancy poses inside a suit of mail and recites Edward De Stancy's blood-written poem ("From one that dyeth in his discontent…"). Dare arrives offering his patent photographic process to copy family portraits.
  • Learning that Havill faces bankruptcy and the death of his wife, De Stancy informs Paula, who decides to divide the castle restoration work into two sections: awarding the first $£20,000$ section to Havill with an immediate $£500$ advance cheque.

• Havill's Remorse and Resignation:

  • Attending evening service at the castle chapel, Havill is overcome with guilt during Mr. Woodwell's sermon on mortality. At late night, he writes a letter resigning the castle commission and returning $£250$ of the advance.
  • Paula receives Havill's resignation and immediately telegraphs Somerset in London: Your design is accepted in its entirety. It will be necessary to begin soon. I shall wish to see and consult you on the matter about the 10th instant.

• The Theatricals and the Interpolated Kiss:

  • Somerset receives the telegram in his London chambers. His father asks him to sketch costumes for a charity performance of Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost organized by Mrs. Camperton.
  • Retrieving a family pedigree from an iron chest at his bank, Somerset encounters Paula depositing her multi-strand diamond and pearl necklace in her dress pocket.
  • Somerset travels to Markton for the Hunt Ball on the $6 ext{th}$, where he finds Charlotte De Stancy wearing Paula's diamond necklace—a gift lent by Paula so Charlotte would not appear at a disadvantage.
  • On the night of the play at Stancy Castle, Lieutenant Mild breaks down, and Captain De Stancy assumes the leading lover's role of the King of Navarre opposite Paula's Princess of France, wearing the picturesque costume designed by Somerset.
  • During Act 5, De Stancy interpolates lines from Romeo and Juliet ("If I profane with my unworthy hand…") and bestows a long, public kiss upon Paula on stage.
  • Confronted by Somerset in the corridor, Paula insists the kiss was a mere stage illusion ("one inch off"). When Somerset presses for commitment, she forbids physical intimacy as premature.
  • Paula secretly telegraphs a London agent, hiring professional actress Miss Barbara Bell of the Regent's Theatre for $50\text{ guineas}$ to replace her as the Princess for the second night's performance.
  • At the second performance, Paula introduces her long-lost uncle, Abner Power, who has returned after nearly ten years. Abner Power shows an immediate preference for De Stancy and supplies a false marriage announcement between Paula and De Stancy to the local newspaper.

Book The Fourth: Somerset, Dare, and De Stancy

• The Forged Telegram and Monaco Plot:
  • Paula, Abner Power, Mrs. Goodman, and Charlotte travel to Nice. Paula insists that Somerset correspond with her solely via separate business sheets and telegrams to prevent her uncle's interference.
  • Receiving no replies to his messages in April, Somerset travels $900$ miles across France to Nice, only to learn the party has moved to Monte Carlo.
  • At the Monte Carlo Casino, Somerset encounters Dare losing heavily at roulette. Dare asks to borrow $200\text{ francs}$; Somerset refuses unless delivered at a hotel.
  • Dare despatches a fraudulent telegram in Somerset's name to Paula at Genoa: G. Somerset, Nice, to Miss Power, Grand Hotel, Genoa. Have lost all at Monte Carlo. Have learnt that Captain D. S. returns here to-morrow. Please send me one hundred pounds by him, and save me from disgrace. Will await him at eleven o'clock and four, on the Pont-Neuf.
  • Distressed by Somerset's apparent moral collapse, Paula hands Captain De Stancy $125\text{ napoleons}$ ($£100$ in gold) tied in a canvas bag to deliver to Somerset on the Pont-Neuf in Nice.
  • De Stancy meets Dare at the bridge. Dare attempts to claim the bag, but De Stancy refuses and gives Dare a personal $£10$ loan instead. Learning at the post-office that Somerset left a forwarding address for San Remo, De Stancy retains the bag and informs Paula that Somerset failed to appear.
  • Receiving a brief telegram from Paula in San Remo, Somerset mistakenly delays traveling to Genoa, deepening the misunderstanding.

Book The Fifth: De Stancy and Paula

• The Continental Pursuit and De Stancy's Proposal:

  • At the Kleber Platz hotel in Strassburg, Paula observes storks flying across dormered roofs toward the cathedral spire. De Stancy returns the intact $£100$ gold bag, explaining that Somerset failed to meet him on the Pont-Neuf and had gone to San Remo.
  • The party travels through Baden-Baden, the Black Forest (Lichtenthal road, Murg valley), Carlsruhe, Heidelberg, Mainz, Coblenz, Scheveningen, The Hague, and Brussels.
  • At Carlsruhe, Somerset arrives seeking Paula. Dare accidentally drops a doctored trick photograph from his silk handkerchief showing Somerset in a state of wild intoxication.
  • Horrified by the photograph, Paula treats Somerset with severe frigidity when he enters her hotel room on business. Somerset bids her farewell and leaves for Heidelberg.
  • Overhearing Paula declare to Mrs. Goodman that she prefers Captain De Stancy, De Stancy immediately proposes; Paula accepts him strictly "As a lover on probation—no more."
  • At Heidelberg, Paula admits to De Stancy that she accepted his probation out of temporary pique. During an ascent of the Konigsstuhl tower, De Stancy renews his court.

• The Clash of Secrets at Amiens:

  • At Amiens, Charlotte falls ill. Abner Power returns from Paris at midnight and warns Paula not to accept De Stancy until he investigates a questionable relationship.
  • At $3:30 ext{ AM}$, De Stancy presses Paula in her sitting-room; she forcefully rejects him ("I will not marry you!").
  • De Stancy receives a telegram announcing his father's sudden death. Before he departs for the funeral, Paula, moved by pity and sorrow, agrees to marry him, recording in her diary: accepted him this morning for pity's sake, in spite of Uncle Abner.
  • In Sleeping-Green churchyard, following Sir William's burial in the family vault, Abner Power confronts Dare in the vestry, threatening him with imprisonment unless he moves to Peru.
  • Dare counter-blackmails Abner Power by revealing Power's hidden past: Power was a mechanical engineer in Geneva who designed clockwork explosive devices for political nihilists, suffering severe facial scarring when a bomb exploded while he was dumping his inventory into a lake.
  • Both men draw revolvers on the vestry table ("two steel noses") and agree to a mutual truce ("cry quits"). Power departs for Peru, leaving Paula to her choices.

Book The Sixth: Paula

• Unravelling the Conspiracy:

  • Two months later, in November, Somerset travels through Wessex and meets Charlotte De Stancy on a train near Stancy Castle. Somerset flatly denies ever sending a telegram for money from Nice.
  • Charlotte reveals that Paula and Captain De Stancy's wedding is scheduled for that very day at $11:30 ext{ AM}$.
  • In Markton, Havill informs Somerset that Dare is Captain De Stancy's illegitimate son, having seen DE STANCY tattooed on his chest. Believing the marriage complete, Somerset departs on the night boat to Normandy.
  • Charlotte visits Mr. Ray's photographic shop in Markton, where Ray demonstrates trick photography and identifies Dare as the producer of local manipulated portraits. Realizing Somerset's innocence, Charlotte rushes to Stancy Castle and reveals the truth to Paula.
  • Paula confronts Captain De Stancy, demanding that Dare be arrested for fraud and libel. De Stancy confesses: "Paula… he is my son." Paula immediately cancels the wedding and dismisses De Stancy forever.

• The Normandy Search and Reconciliation:

  • Paula, Mrs. Goodman, and her maids (Milly and Clementine) cross to Normandy to locate Somerset and apologize.
  • At Lisieux, Paula searches the old timber-framed street (Vieux Manoir de Francois premier), but misses Somerset as he boards a train to Caen.
  • At Caen, Paula meets Somerset's father at the Abbaye aux Dames. Draughtsman Cockton informs her that Somerset went to Etretat ("sick and tired of holy places").
  • At Etretat, Paula sees Somerset dancing at the Casino with a young American lady. The next day, finding him ill in a nasturtium-covered cottage, Paula enters his room and confesses her love and regret: "if you want to marry me, as you once did, you must say so; for I am here to be asked."
  • Somerset and Paula are joyfully reconciled and married abroad.

• The Destruction of Stancy Castle:

  • In late November, farmers, Havill, and Dairyman Jinks gather at the Lord-Quantock-Arms in Markton, discussing Paula and Somerset's marriage and return.
  • Outside the castle gates, Sir William De Stancy (the captain) formally severs ties with Dare ("'Twas your dishonesty spoilt all… I never want to see you any more").
  • At night, Dare sneaks into the castle's Long Gallery. He gathers all valuable De Stancy family portraits (works by Lely, Vandyck, Jansen, Salvator Rosa, Kneller, Romney, Titian, Giorgione, and Raphael), miniature enamels, Charles I's cradle, tapestries, and wood shavings into a central heap.
  • Dare opens the gallery windows to create a draught and sets Stancy Castle on fire.
  • From their window at the Lord-Quantock-Arms, Somerset and Paula observe the castle ablaze. The keep tower clock strikes one and stops as internal structures collapse.
  • Rather than rebuilding the medieval fortress, Somerset and Paula resolve to leave the burnt stone walls as an ivy-covered ruin and construct a new, modern eclectic mansion beside it.