Two on a Tower
New. But was there a line of conduct which transcended mere
self-preservation? and would it not be an excellent thing to put it in
practice now?
That she had wronged St. Cleeve by marrying him--that she would wrong him
infinitely more by completing the marriage--there was, in her opinion, no
doubt. She in her experience had sought out him in his inexperience, and
had led him like a child. She remembered--as if it had been her fault,
though it was in fact only her misfortune--that she had been the one to
go for the license and take up residence in the parish in which they were
wedded. He was now just one-and-twenty. Without her, he had all the
world before him, six hundred a year, and leave to cut as straight a road
to fame as he should choose: with her, this story was negatived.
No money from his uncle; no power of advancement; but a bondage with a
woman whose disparity of years, though immaterial just now, would operate
in the future as a wet blanket upon his social ambitions; and that
content with life as it was which she had noticed more than once in him
latterly, a content imperilling his scientific spirit by abstracting his
zeal for progress.
It was impossible, in short, to blind herself to the inference that
marriage with her had not benefited him. Matters might improve in the
future; but to take upon herself the whole liability of Swithin's life,
as she would do by depriving him of the help his uncle had offered, was a
fearful responsibility. How could she, an unendowed woman, replace such
assistance? His recent visit to Greenwich, which had momentarily revived
that zest for his pursuit that was now less constant than heretofore,
should by rights be supplemented by other such expeditions. It would be
true benevolence not to deprive him of means to continue them, so as to
keep his ardour alive, regardless of the cost to herself.
It could be done. By the extraordinary favour of a unique accident she
had now an opportunity of redeeming Swithin's seriously compromised
future, and restoring him to a state no worse than his first. His
annuity could be enjoyed by him, his travels undertaken, his studies
pursued, his high vocation initiated, by one little sacrifice--that of
herself. She only had to refuse to legalize their marriage, to part from
him for ever, and all would be well with him thenceforward. The pain to
him would after all be but slight, whatever it might be to his wretched
Viviette.
The ineptness of retaining him at her side lay not only in the fact
itself of injury to him, but in the likelihood of his living to see it as
such, and reproaching her for selfishness in not letting him go in this
unprecedented opportunity for correcting a move proved to be false. He
wished to examine the southern heavens--perhaps his uncle's letter was
the father of the wish--and there was no telling what good might not
result to mankind at large from his exploits there. Why should she, to
save her narrow honour, waste the wide promise of his ability?
That in immolating herself by refusing him, and leaving him free to work
wonders for the good of his fellow-creatures, she would in all
probability add to the sum of human felicity, consoled her by its breadth
as an idea even while it tortured her by making herself the scapegoat or
single unit on whom the evil would fall. Ought a possibly large number,
Swithin included, to remain unbenefited because the one individual to
whom his release would be an injury chanced to be herself? Love between
man and woman, which in Homer, Moses, and other early exhibitors of life,
is mere desire, had for centuries past so far broadened as to include
sympathy and friendship; surely it should in this advanced stage of the
world include benevolence also. If so, it was her duty to set her young
man free.
Thus she laboured, with a generosity more worthy even than its object, to
sink her love for her own decorum in devotion to the world in general,
and to Swithin in particular. To counsel her activities by her
understanding, rather than by her emotions as usual, was hard work for a
tender woman; but she strove hard, and made advance. The self-centred
attitude natural to one in her situation was becoming displaced by the
sympathetic attitude, which, though it had to be artificially fostered at
first, gave her, by degrees, a certain sweet sense that she was rising
above self-love. That maternal element which had from time to time
evinced itself in her affection for the youth, and was imparted by her
superior ripeness in experience and years, appeared now again, as she
drew nearer the resolve not to secure propriety in her own social
condition at the expense of this youth's earthly utility.
Unexpectedly grand fruits are sometimes forced forth by harsh pruning.
The illiberal letter of Swithin's uncle was suggesting to Lady
Constantine an altruism whose thoroughness would probably have amazed
that queer old gentleman into a withdrawal of the conditions that had
induced it. To love St. Cleeve so far better than herself as this was to
surpass the love of women as conventionally understood, and as mostly
existing.
Before, however, clinching her decision by any definite step she worried
her little brain by devising every kind of ingenious scheme, in the hope
of lighting on one that might show her how that decision could be avoided
with the same good result. But to secure for him the advantages offered,
and to retain him likewise; reflection only showed it to be impossible.
Yet to let him go _for ever_ was more than she could endure, and at
length she jumped at an idea which promised some sort of improvement on
that design. She would propose that reunion should not be entirely
abandoned, but simply postponed--namely, till after his twenty-fifth
birthday--when he might be her husband without, at any rate, the loss to
him of the income. By this time he would approximate to a man's full
judgment, and that painful aspect of her as one who had deluded his raw
immaturity would have passed for ever.
The plan somewhat appeased her disquieted honour. To let a marriage sink
into abeyance for four or five years was not to nullify it; and though
she would leave it to him to move its substantiation at the end of that
time, without present stipulations, she had not much doubt upon the
issue.
The clock struck five. This silent mental debate had occupied her whole
afternoon. Perhaps it would not have ended now but for an unexpected
incident--the entry of her brother Louis. He came into the room where
she was sitting, or rather writhing, and after a few words to explain how
he had got there and about the mistake in the date of Sir Blount's death,
he walked up close to her. His next remarks were apologetic in form, but
in essence they were bitterness itself.
'Viviette,' he said, 'I am sorry for my hasty words to you when I last
left this house. I readily withdraw them. My suspicions took a wrong
direction. I think now that I know the truth. You have been even madder
than I supposed!'
'In what way?' she asked distantly.
'I lately thought that unhappy young man was only your too-favoured
lover.'
'You thought wrong: he is not.'
'He is not--I believe you--for he is more. I now am persuaded that he is
your lawful husband. Can you deny it!'
'I can.'
'On your sacred word!'
'On my sacred word he is not that either.'
'Thank heaven for that assurance!' said Louis, exhaling a breath of
relief. 'I was not so positive as I pretended to be--but I wanted to
know the truth of this mystery. Since you are not fettered to him in
that way I care nothing.'
Louis turned away; and that afforded her an opportunity for leaving the
room. Those few words were the last grains that had turned the balance,
and settled her doom.
She would let Swithin go. All the voices in her world seemed to clamour
for that consummation. The morning's mortification, the afternoon's
benevolence, and the evening's instincts of evasion had joined to carry
the point.
Accordingly she sat down, and wrote to Swithin a summary of the thoughts
above detailed.
'We shall separate,' she concluded. 'You to obey your uncle's orders and
explore the southern skies; I to wait as one who can implicitly trust
you. Do not see me again till the years have expired. You will find me
still the same. I am your wife through all time; the letter of the law
is not needed to reassert it at present; while the absence of the letter
secures your fortune.'
Nothing can express what it cost Lady Constantine to marshal her
arguments; but she did it, and vanquished self-comfort by a sense of the
general expediency. It may unhesitatingly be affirmed that the only
ignoble reason which might have dictated such a step was non-existent;
that is to say, a serious decline in her affection. Tenderly she had
loved the youth at first, and tenderly she loved him now, as time and her
after-conduct proved.
Women the most delicate get used to strange moral situations. Eve
probably regained her normal sweet composure about a week after the Fall.
On first learning of her anomalous position Lady Constantine had blushed
hot, and her pure instincts had prompted her to legalize her marriage
without a moment's delay. Heaven and earth were to be moved at once to
effect it. Day after day had passed; her union had remained unsecured,
and the idea of its nullity had gradually ceased to be strange to her;
till it became of little account beside her bold resolve for the young
man's sake.
XXXVI
The immediate effect upon St. Cleeve of the receipt of her well-reasoned
argument for retrocession was, naturally, a bitter attack upon himself
for having been guilty of such cruel carelessness as to leave in her way
the lawyer's letter that had first made her aware of his uncle's
provision for him. Immature as he was, he could realize Viviette's
position sufficiently well to perceive what the poor lady must suffer at
having suddenly thrust upon her the responsibility of repairing her own
situation as a wife by ruining his as a legatee. True, it was by the
purest inadvertence that his pending sacrifice of means had been
discovered; but he should have taken special pains to render such a
mishap impossible. If on the first occasion, when a revelation might
have been made with impunity, he would not put it in the power of her
good nature to relieve his position by refusing him, he should have shown
double care not to do so now, when she could not exercise that
benevolence without the loss of honour.
With a young man's inattention to issues he had not considered how sharp
her feelings as a woman must be in this contingency. It had seemed the
easiest thing in the world to remedy the defect in their marriage, and
therefore nothing to be anxious about. And in his innocence of any
thought of appropriating the bequest by taking advantage of the loophole
in his matrimonial bond, he undervalued the importance of concealing the
existence of that bequest.
The looming fear of unhappiness between them revived in Swithin the warm
emotions of their earlier acquaintance. Almost before the sun had set he
hastened to Welland House in search of her. The air was disturbed by
stiff summer blasts, productive of windfalls and premature descents of
leafage. It was an hour when unripe apples shower down in orchards, and
unbrowned chestnuts descend in their husks upon the park glades. There
was no help for it this afternoon but to call upon her in a direct
manner, regardless of suspicions. He was thunderstruck when, while
waiting in the full expectation of being admitted to her presence, the
answer brought back to him was that she was unable to see him.