Two on a Tower
'Confirmation was a sight different at that time,' mused Biles. 'The
Bishops didn't lay it on so strong then as they do now. Now-a-days, yer
Bishop gies both hands to every Jack-rag and Tom-straw that drops the
knee afore him; but 'twas six chaps to one blessing when we was boys. The
Bishop o' that time would stretch out his palms and run his fingers over
our row of crowns as off-hand as a bank gentleman telling money. The
great lords of the Church in them days wasn't particular to a soul or two
more or less; and, for my part, I think living was easier for 't.'
'The new Bishop, I hear, is a bachelor-man; or a widow gentleman is it?'
asked Mrs. Martin.
'Bachelor, I believe, ma'am. Mr. San Cleeve, making so bold, you've
never faced him yet, I think?'
Mrs. Martin shook her head.
'No; it was a piece of neglect. I hardly know how it happened,' she
said.
'I am going to, this time,' said Swithin, and turned the chat to other
matters.
XXIII
Swithin could not sleep that night for thinking of his Viviette. Nothing
told so significantly of the conduct of her first husband towards the
poor lady as the abiding dread of him which was revealed in her by any
sudden revival of his image or memory. But for that consideration her
almost childlike terror at Swithin's inadvertent disguise would have been
ludicrous.
He waited anxiously through several following days for an opportunity of
seeing her, but none was afforded. Her brother's presence in the house
sufficiently accounted for this. At length he ventured to write a note,
requesting her to signal to him in a way she had done once or twice
before,--by pulling down a blind in a particular window of the house, one
of the few visible from the top of the Rings-Hill column; this to be done
on any evening when she could see him after dinner on the terrace.
When he had levelled the glass at that window for five successive nights
he beheld the blind in the position suggested. Three hours later, quite
in the dusk, he repaired to the place of appointment.
'My brother is away this evening,' she explained, 'and that's why I can
come out. He is only gone for a few hours, nor is he likely to go for
longer just yet. He keeps himself a good deal in my company, which has
made it unsafe for me to venture near you.'
'Has he any suspicion?'
'None, apparently. But he rather depresses me.'
'How, Viviette?' Swithin feared, from her manner, that this was
something serious.
'I would rather not tell.'
'But--Well, never mind.'
'Yes, Swithin, I will tell you. There should be no secrets between us.
He urges upon me the necessity of marrying, day after day.'
'For money and position, of course.'
'Yes. But I take no notice. I let him go on.'
'Really, this is sad!' said the young man. 'I must work harder than
ever, or you will never be able to own me.'
'O yes, in good time!' she cheeringly replied.
'I shall be very glad to have you always near me. I felt the gloom of
our position keenly when I was obliged to disappear that night, without
assuring you it was only I who stood there. Why were you so frightened
at those old clothes I borrowed?'
'Don't ask,--don't ask!' she said, burying her face on his shoulder. 'I
don't want to speak of that. There was something so ghastly and so
uncanny in your putting on such garments that I wish you had been more
thoughtful, and had left them alone.'
He assured her that he did not stop to consider whose they were. 'By the
way, they must be sent back,' he said.
'No; I never wish to see them again! I cannot help feeling that your
putting them on was ominous.'
'Nothing is ominous in serene philosophy,' he said, kissing her. 'Things
are either causes, or they are not causes. When can you see me again?'
In such wise the hour passed away. The evening was typical of others
which followed it at irregular intervals through the winter. And during
the intenser months of the season frequent falls of snow lengthened, even
more than other difficulties had done, the periods of isolation between
the pair. Swithin adhered with all the more strictness to the letter of
his promise not to intrude into the house, from his sense of her
powerlessness to compel him to keep out should he choose to rebel. A
student of the greatest forces in nature, he had, like many others of his
sort, no personal force to speak of in a social point of view, mainly
because he took no interest in human ranks and formulas; and hence he was
as docile as a child in her hands wherever matters of that kind were
concerned.
Her brother wintered at Welland; but whether because his experience of
tropic climes had unfitted him for the brumal rigours of Britain, or for
some other reason, he seldom showed himself out of doors, and Swithin
caught but passing glimpses of him. Now and then Viviette's impulsive
affection would overcome her sense of risk, and she would press Swithin
to call on her at all costs. This he would by no means do. It was
obvious to his more logical mind that the secrecy to which they had bound
themselves must be kept in its fulness, or might as well be abandoned
altogether.
He was now sadly exercised on the subject of his uncle's will. There had
as yet been no pressing reasons for a full and candid reply to the
solicitor who had communicated with him, owing to the fact that the
payments were not to begin till Swithin was one-and-twenty; but time was
going on, and something definite would have to be done soon. To own to
his marriage and consequent disqualification for the bequest was easy in
itself; but it involved telling at least one man what both Viviette and
himself had great reluctance in telling anybody. Moreover he wished
Viviette to know nothing of his loss in making her his wife. All he
could think of doing for the present was to write a postponing letter to
his uncle's lawyer, and wait events.
The one comfort of this dreary winter-time was his perception of a
returning ability to work with the regularity and much of the spirit of
earlier days.
* * * * *
One bright night in April there was an eclipse of the moon, and Mr.
Torkingham, by arrangement, brought to the observatory several labouring
men and boys, to whom he had promised a sight of the phenomenon through
the telescope. The coming confirmation, fixed for May, was again talked
of; and St. Cleeve learnt from the parson that the Bishop had arranged to
stay the night at the vicarage, and was to be invited to a grand luncheon
at Welland House immediately after the ordinance.
This seemed like a going back into life again as regarded the mistress of
that house; and St. Cleeve was a little surprised that, in his
communications with Viviette, she had mentioned no such probability. The
next day he walked round the mansion, wondering how in its present state
any entertainment could be given therein.
He found that the shutters had been opened, which had restored an
unexpected liveliness to the aspect of the windows. Two men were putting
a chimney-pot on one of the chimney-stacks, and two more were scraping
green mould from the front wall. He made no inquiries on that occasion.
Three days later he strolled thitherward again. Now a great cleaning of
window-panes was going on, Hezzy Biles and Sammy Blore being the
operators, for which purpose their services must have been borrowed from
the neighbouring farmer. Hezzy dashed water at the glass with a force
that threatened to break it in, the broad face of Sammy being discernible
inside, smiling at the onset. In addition to these, Anthony Green and
another were weeding the gravel walks, and putting fresh plants into the
flower-beds. Neither of these reasonable operations was a great
undertaking, singly looked at; but the life Viviette had latterly led and
the mood in which she had hitherto regarded the premises, rendered it
somewhat significant. Swithin, however, was rather curious than
concerned at the proceedings, and returned to his tower with feelings of
interest not entirely confined to the worlds overhead.
Lady Constantine may or may not have seen him from the house; but the
same evening, which was fine and dry, while he was occupying himself in
the observatory with cleaning the eye-pieces of the equatorial, skull-cap
on head, observing-jacket on, and in other ways primed for sweeping, the
customary stealthy step on the winding staircase brought her form in due
course into the rays of the bull's-eye lantern. The meeting was all the
more pleasant to him from being unexpected, and he at once lit up a
larger lamp in honour of the occasion.
'It is but a hasty visit,' she said when, after putting up her mouth to
be kissed, she had seated herself in the low chair used for observations,
panting a little with the labour of ascent. 'But I hope to be able to
come more freely soon. My brother is still living on with me. Yes, he
is going to stay until the confirmation is over. After the confirmation
he will certainly leave. So good it is of you, dear, to please me by
agreeing to the ceremony. The Bishop, you know, is going to lunch with
us. It is a wonder he has promised to come, for he is a man averse to
society, and mostly keeps entirely with the clergy on these confirmation
tours, or circuits, or whatever they call them. But Mr. Torkingham's
house is so very small, and mine is so close at hand, that this
arrangement to relieve him of the fuss of one meal, at least, naturally
suggested itself; and the Bishop has fallen in with it very readily. How
are you getting on with your observations? Have you not wanted me
dreadfully, to write down notes?'
'Well, I have been obliged to do without you, whether or no. See
here,--how much I have done.' And he showed her a book ruled in columns,
headed 'Object,' 'Right Ascension,' 'Declination,' 'Features,' 'Remarks,'
and so on.
She looked over this and other things, but her mind speedily winged its
way back to the confirmation. 'It is so new to me,' she said, 'to have
persons coming to the house, that I feel rather anxious. I hope the
luncheon will be a success.'
'You know the Bishop?' said Swithin.
'I have not seen him for many years. I knew him when I was quite a girl,
and he held the little living of Puddle-sub-Mixen, near us; but after
that time, and ever since I have lived here, I have seen nothing of him.
There has been no confirmation in this village, they say, for twenty
years. The other bishop used to make the young men and women go to
Warborne; he wouldn't take the trouble to come to such an out-of-the-way
parish as ours.'
'This cleaning and preparation that I observe going on must be rather a
tax upon you?'
'My brother Louis sees to it, and, what is more, bears the expense.'
'Your brother?' said Swithin, with surprise.
'Well, he insisted on doing so,' she replied, in a hesitating, despondent
tone. 'He has been active in the whole matter, and was the first to
suggest the invitation. I should not have thought of it.'
'Well, I will hold aloof till it is all over.'
'Thanks, dearest, for your considerateness. I wish it was not still
advisable! But I shall see you on the day, and watch my own philosopher
all through the service from the corner of my pew! . . . I hope you are
well prepared for the rite, Swithin?' she added, turning tenderly to him.
'It would perhaps be advisable for you to give up this astronomy till the
confirmation is over, in order to devote your attention exclusively to
that more serious matter.'
'More serious! Well, I will do the best I can. I am sorry to see that
you are less interested in astronomy than you used to be, Viviette.'
'No; it is only that these preparations for the Bishop unsettle my mind