Two on a Tower
meaning to commit flat matrimony wi' somebody or other, and one young
gentleman in particular.'
'But the young man himself?'
'Planned, cut out, and finished for the delight of 'ooman!'
'Yet he must be willing.'
'That would soon come. If they get up this tower ruling plannards
together much longer, their plannards will soon rule them together, in my
way o' thinking. If she've a disposition towards the knot, she can soon
teach him.'
'True, true, and lawfully. What before mid ha' been a wrong desire is
now a holy wish!'
The scales fell from Swithin St. Cleeve's eyes as he heard the words of
his neighbours. How suddenly the truth dawned upon him; how it
bewildered him, till he scarcely knew where he was; how he recalled the
full force of what he had only half apprehended at earlier times,
particularly of that sweet kiss she had impressed on his lips when she
supposed him dying,--these vivid realizations are difficult to tell in
slow verbiage. He could remain there no longer, and with an electrified
heart he retreated up the spiral.
He found Lady Constantine half way to the top, standing by a loop-hole;
and when she spoke he discovered that she was almost in tears. 'Are they
gone?' she asked.
'I fear they will not go yet,' he replied, with a nervous fluctuation of
manner that had never before appeared in his bearing towards her.
'What shall I do?' she asked. 'I ought not to be here; nobody knows that
I am out of the house. Oh, this is a mistake! I must go home somehow.'
'Did you hear what they were saying?'
'No,' said she. 'What is the matter? Surely you are disturbed? What
did they say?'
'It would be the exaggeration of frankness in me to tell you.'
'Is it what a woman ought not to be made acquainted with?'
'It is, in this case. It is so new and so indescribable an idea to
me--that'--he leant against the concave wall, quite tremulous with
strange incipient sentiments.
'What sort of an idea?' she asked gently.
'It is--an awakening. In thinking of the heaven above, I did not
perceive--the--'
'Earth beneath?'
'The better heaven beneath. Pray, dear Lady Constantine, give me your
hand for a moment.'
She seemed startled, and the hand was not given.
'I am so anxious to get home,' she repeated. 'I did not mean to stay
here more than five minutes!'
'I fear I am much to blame for this accident,' he said. 'I ought not to
have intruded here. But don't grieve! I will arrange for your escape,
somehow. Be good enough to follow me down.'
They redescended, and, whispering to Lady Constantine to remain a few
stairs behind, he began to rattle and unlock the door.
The men precipitately removed their bench, and Swithin stepped out, the
light of the summer night being still enough to enable them to
distinguish him.
'Well, Hezekiah, and Samuel, and Nat, how are you?' he said boldly.
'Well, sir, 'tis much as before wi' me,' replied Nat. 'One hour a week
wi' God A'mighty and the rest with the devil, as a chap may say. And
really, now yer poor father's gone, I'd as lief that that Sunday hour
should pass like the rest; for Pa'son Tarkenham do tease a feller's
conscience that much, that church is no hollerday at all to the limbs, as
it was in yer reverent father's time! But we've been waiting here, Mr.
San Cleeve, supposing ye had not come.'
'I have been staying at the top, and fastened the door not to be
disturbed. Now I am sorry to disappoint you, but I have another
engagement this evening, so that it would be inconvenient to admit you.
To-morrow evening, or any evening but this, I will show you the comet and
any stars you like.'
They readily agreed to come the next night, and prepared to depart. But
what with the flagon, and the pipes, and the final observations, getting
away was a matter of time. Meanwhile a cloud, which nobody had noticed,
arose from the north overhead, and large drops of rain began to fall so
rapidly that the conclave entered the hut till it should be over. St.
Cleeve strolled off under the firs.
The next moment there was a rustling through the trees at another point,
and a man and woman appeared. The woman took shelter under a tree, and
the man, bearing wraps and umbrellas, came forward.
'My lady's man and maid,' said Sammy.
'Is her ladyship here?' asked the man.
'No. I reckon her ladyship keeps more kissable company,' replied Nat
Chapman.
'Pack o' stuff!' said Blore.
'Not here? Well, to be sure! We can't find her anywhere in the wide
house! I've been sent to look for her with these overclothes and
umbrella. I've suffered horse-flesh traipsing up and down, and can't
find her nowhere. Lord, Lord, where can she be, and two months' wages
owing to me!'
'Why so anxious, Anthony Green, as I think yer name is shaped? You be
not a married man?' said Hezzy.
''Tis what they call me, neighbours, whether or no.'
'But surely you was a bachelor chap by late, afore her ladyship got rid
of the regular servants and took ye?'
'I were; but that's past!'
'And how came ye to bow yer head to 't, Anthony? 'Tis what you never was
inclined to. You was by no means a doting man in my time.'
'Well, had I been left to my own free choice, 'tis as like as not I
should ha' shunned forming such kindred, being at that time a poor day
man, or weekly, at my highest luck in hiring. But 'tis wearing work to
hold out against the custom of the country, and the woman wanting ye to
stand by her and save her from unborn shame; so, since common usage would
have it, I let myself be carried away by opinion, and took her. Though
she's never once thanked me for covering her confusion, that's true! But,
'tis the way of the lost when safe, and I don't complain. Here she is,
just behind, under the tree, if you'd like to see her?--a very nice
homespun woman to look at, too, for all her few weather-stains. . . .
Well, well, where can my lady be? And I the trusty jineral man--'tis
more than my place is worth to lose her! Come forward, Christiana, and
talk nicely to the work-folk.'
While the woman was talking the rain increased so much that they all
retreated further into the hut. St. Cleeve, who had impatiently stood a
little way off, now saw his opportunity, and, putting in his head, said,
'The rain beats in; you had better shut the door. I must ascend and
close up the dome.'
Slamming the door upon them without ceremony he quickly went to Lady
Constantine in the column, and telling her they could now pass the
villagers unseen he gave her his arm. Thus he conducted her across the
front of the hut into the shadows of the firs.
'I will run to the house and harness your little carriage myself,' he
said tenderly. 'I will then take you home in it.'
'No; please don't leave me alone under these dismal trees!' Neither
would she hear of his getting her any wraps; and, opening her little
sunshade to keep the rain out of her face, she walked with him across the
insulating field, after which the trees of the park afforded her a
sufficient shelter to reach home without much damage.
Swithin was too greatly affected by what he had overheard to speak much
to her on the way, and protected her as if she had been a shorn lamb.
After a farewell which had more meaning than sound in it, he hastened
back to Rings-Hill Speer. The work-folk were still in the hut, and, by
dint of friendly converse and a sip at the flagon, had so cheered Mr. and
Mrs. Anthony Green that they neither thought nor cared what had become of
Lady Constantine.
St. Cleeve's sudden sense of new relations with that sweet patroness had
taken away in one half-hour his natural ingenuousness. Henceforth he
could act a part.
'I have made all secure at the top,' he said, putting his head into the
hut. 'I am now going home. When the rain stops, lock this door and
bring the key to my house.'
XIV
The laboured resistance which Lady Constantine's judgment had offered to
her rebellious affection ere she learnt that she was a widow, now passed
into a bashfulness that rendered her almost as unstable of mood as
before. But she was one of that mettle--fervid, cordial, and
spontaneous--who had not the heart to spoil a passion; and her affairs
having gone to rack and ruin by no fault of her own she was left to a
painfully narrowed existence which lent even something of rationality to
her attachment. Thus it was that her tender and unambitious soul found
comfort in her reverses.
As for St. Cleeve, the tardiness of his awakening was the natural result
of inexperience combined with devotion to a hobby. But, like a spring
bud hard in bursting, the delay was compensated by after speed. At once
breathlessly recognizing in this fellow-watcher of the skies a woman who
loved him, in addition to the patroness and friend, he truly translated
the nearly forgotten kiss she had given him in her moment of despair.
Lady Constantine, in being eight or nine years his senior, was an object
even better calculated to nourish a youth's first passion than a girl of
his own age, superiority of experience and ripeness of emotion exercising
the same peculiar fascination over him as over other young men in their
first ventures in this kind.
The alchemy which thus transmuted an abstracted astronomer into an eager
lover--and, must it be said, spoilt a promising young physicist to
produce a common-place inamorato--may be almost described as working its
change in one short night. Next morning he was so fascinated with the
novel sensation that he wanted to rush off at once to Lady Constantine,
and say, 'I love you true!' in the intensest tones of his mental
condition, to register his assertion in her heart before any of those
accidents which 'creep in 'twixt vows, and change decrees of kings,'
should occur to hinder him. But his embarrassment at standing in a new
position towards her would not allow him to present himself at her door
in any such hurry. He waited on, as helplessly as a girl, for a chance
of encountering her.
But though she had tacitly agreed to see him on any reasonable occasion,
Lady Constantine did not put herself in his way. She even kept herself
out of his way. Now that for the first time he had learnt to feel a
strong impatience for their meeting, her shyness for the first time led
her to delay it. But given two people living in one parish, who long
from the depths of their hearts to be in each other's company, what
resolves of modesty, policy, pride, or apprehension will keep them for
any length of time apart?
One afternoon he was watching the sun from his tower, half echoing the
Greek astronomer's wish that he might be set close to that luminary for
the wonder of beholding it in all its glory, under the slight penalty of
being consumed the next instant. He glanced over the high-road between
the field and the park (which sublunary features now too often distracted
his attention from his telescope), and saw her passing along that way.
She was seated in the donkey-carriage that had now taken the place of her
landau, the white animal looking no larger than a cat at that distance.
The buttoned boy, who represented both coachman and footman, walked
alongside the animal's head at a solemn pace; the dog stalked at the
distance of a yard behind the vehicle, without indulging in a single
gambol; and the whole turn-out resembled in dignity a dwarfed state
procession.
Here was an opportunity but for two obstructions: the boy, who might be
curious; and the dog, who might bark and attract the attention of any
labourers or servants near. Yet the risk was to be run, and, knowing
that she would soon turn up a certain shady lane at right angles to the
road she had followed, he ran hastily down the staircase, crossed the